Arrival at Black Rock City
The pink and purple sun rays of dusk shining on the water of Pyramid Lake at dusk was an inspiration. The Burning Man information we received told us that to go to the lake required a permit from the native people who own the land. We didn't have one, so we traveled on until around 10:00 o'clock when we made it to the Burning Man encampment. As we entered the road towards the Burning Man entrance gates, I started to relax about being there.
Signs on the road that lead to the city were about Dust….. Everywhere the Dust….In the Beginning was Dust… It was poetry! Adam was made out of the Dust. It was Eve who was made out of marsh juice during the Pleistocene epoch, way before Adam ever arrived on the playa. During that eon, the playa was called Lake Lahontoan, where mammoths and saber-toothed tigers once roamed. When the lake dried up, it left terraces on the granite mountains surrounding the playa. Silt from the granite leached into the lake bed. When it decomposed, it formed bentonite clay.
Maybe I had come to the right place after all! When we got to the gate, we were told where we could camp, the rules of the porta potties, and then the gatekeeper wished us a “good burn” and “welcome home.” When he told me “welcome home,” it struck a cord within me. What did he mean “welcome home?” I had been searching for home all of my adult life, written a dissertation about the icon of the house, and still I felt psychologically homeless. So how could he say that to me? The event only lasted a week; everyone had to bring in their own food, water, and shelter. So, how could this mobile city be “home?" Was this indeed the city of love my heart longed to be a part of?
Since it was dark, we drove along the road pulling off, who knows where, to park and set up a camp site. As soon as I stepped out of the car, I was horrified with the noise coming from one of the camps. “Where am I,” I thought, looking around at all of the weird lights coming out of the camps, and heard the noise from the generators that was lighting them. Had I come to an amusement park? Here I was in the middle of the barren desert, and I couldn't even hear myself think! We had started getting setting up the tents for the night when several of our neighbors came and introduced themselves to us.
They said that their camp was named the Temple of the Erotic Goddess. One of them was dressed in a glittering Goddess outfit. Her partner was dressed in an MD's outfit. They were very friendly, said that they were from the Bay area, and had been to Burning Man many times before. They also welcomed me home.
“Home?” I asked. “Could this be home? I had been searching for home for 45 years. Could I have finally found it in this dusty desert?" She asked me what I had been looking for. I answered, “A place where sustainable love relationships can grow as well as a society which is built on sustainable agriculture and architecture. An ecocity of solar energy, free communication, and love between the sexes, a place where there is no such thing as war taxes, global imperialism, economic slavery, environmental pollution, racism, sexism, classism, a world where the free spirit is valued ,and the authentic self is nurtured." The doctor answered, “Then, you haven't found home. Burning Man is not sustainable, but you will find a lot of free spirits here. The principle behind the event is radical free creativity.” Yes, that was quite obvious, I said, as we shouted over the noise of the generaters. When I complained about the noise, they told me that other people at Burning Man felt the same way I did, and that in the morning we could move our camp to Hushville which was only a block away.
After setting up our tents, Len and I took a walk exploring the night life. Not knowing where we were going, we ended up drawn to a place where people were dancing and twirling lit batons-- fire dancers they are call. I witnessed a beautiful woman dressed in a cave woman type dress twirling the baton, dancing with the lit fire as if it was expressing the beauty deep within her heart. How exciting the dance was!
Len wanted to explore more than I did, or maybe I just wanted to be alone for a while, so we parted ways. Not wanting to get lost, I headed back towards our tents. Once I got my bearings, I ventured out onto another clearly defined street. One camp was lit by candle light shining through mental cans that had been cut in curvy psychedelic patterns. The soft light shining through the cans formed various patterns and created a trance-like quality. At the entrance to the camp was a sign cut in metal that read “Enlightenment.” I wanted to approach the camp, through I didn't know the person whose camp it was. But how much I wanted to meet people who are seeking enlightenment! The signature of my email file was “Global Enlightenment is possible,” so my curiosity was very much aroused. I passed the camp, not taking the initiative to find out who lived there. Heading back to my tent, I longed to be with a person who I could talk to about life and the big questions. But no, I was alone in the most unique city on Earth.
In the morning, we moved from the Temple of the Erotic Love to Hushville. There was no escaping the noise of the generators at night, but at least at Hushville a generator would not be right beside you!
Some people really come prepared for comfortable camping at Burning Man. The camp sites ranged from very low tech to very high tech with expensive equipment. Some folks even brought in moving vans to carry all the things that they needed for their artworks. Some were camping out with groups of friends, others in couples and still others, but not many, alone. Len and I were among the more impoverished ones since our tent would blow down when the winds started blowing the dust all around. If it had not been for our kind neighbors who helped us put stakes in our tent, we would have gone a week in the desert without shade.
After moving our tents, it was time that I ventured out to see what Black Rock City was all about in the daylight hours. Trying not to feel lost in the city of 20,000 people, I decided that I should find out where the Black Rock Gazette was and check in with the editor. I had a story that I had started that morning about being welcomed at the gate with “Welcome Home?” The question I wanted to raise in my story was, is this home? If not, then where is home? Is Black Rock City the creation of a new kind of global culture that transcends the nation-state systems of the past? How was this different than post-modern cities? How was it the same? What would have to happen to make Black Rock City sustainable? Would this be a design revolution from Black Rock City to Black Rock Arcology?
Making my way towards the center of the encampment, I finally found my way to the Black Rock Gazette air-conditioned RV, rooms of computers that reporters could use. But before I could use a machine, I had to get the editor's permission to go ahead with my story. I was a little nervous waiting for the editor, Mitchell Martin, to appear because I didn't want to go to through having my idea rejected. I had been rejected so much in my life that I had become hypersensitive to it, to the point that it was threatening to destroy my self esteem.
Yes, I knew life was about rejection, pain, and suffering, but when one good idea after another was rejected, (not to mention sexual rejection,) it was just too much. Where would I find the place where I was included, accepted, and respected for the knowledge I possess? After all, I read that Burning Man was radically inclusive. That place of inclusion was where my home was. The Gazette editor had already not supported my story on the idea of moving Burning Man to the Nevada Test Site which I thought had significance, not only for the people at Burning Man, but for the whole world, so I was hoping that he would see the merit in me writing a story about home.
When we met, I told Martin my story idea. He said that the “gate edition” of the paper also said “Welcome Home,” so he thought it was a good idea for a story! Wonderful I thought to myself; by writing about home, perhaps I could create more of an audience for my ideas! I went into the RV, found an empty computer, and began to write.
I typed my story into the computer, but I wasn't satisfied with what I was writing. I felt I needed to know more about the city before I could talk about whether or not I had found home. Yes, it certainly wasn't physically sustainable, and therefore, the city had no long-term future, but was it a place to nourish my spirit? I wasn't sure that being a newspaper journalist was my calling at Black Rock City. The written medium and newspaper space restrictions limited my expression. I wondered if writing for the paper was the best way to express my Burning Man persona as an anti-nuke Queen. I knew I had a mass media-message, but I'd had no luck reaching a mass audience. My luck with getting a voice in the mass media had been so difficult in a world of CNN consciousness.
Speaking in a different voice seemed to cause me to experience censorship. Contemplating what I should do while sitting at the computer, the electricity went off. They said it might take an hour or two before it came back on. So ,I said goodbye to the other writers and told them I would be back to finish my story. Then off I went to explore the city, to find out if I had really found home. If they were only using solar energy, then they would not be having this problem.
Across from the newspaper RV encampment, I followed the flow of people into the café area. There were banners and creative wooded carvings decorating the large central tent. Some people were lounging around on couches and soft chairs. Other people were sitting or laying in the floor which had soft carpets on them. How creative everyone was dressed, if they were dressed at all! There was a lot of nudity, but there was a lot of half nudity with women bearing their breast, or with see-through clothes revealing sex organs. The entire scene was delightful to the eye as I saw the eroticization of culture in living form. People were living out their fantasies in the flesh, at least this was my first impression of the Café scene.
Scoping out the café, I saw several stages on opposite sides of the tent. On one of the stages, a man was playing ambiance music which was very appealing and calming to my soul. I wondered how one gets to perform there because the performance spirit was bubbling up in my blood. I wanted to be able to talk about the NST, and the problem of love in mainstream culture.
Looking into my inquiry, I found a man in a booth who was the director of the music stage. I asked him if I could do some spontaneous poetry, but he said that I would have to talk with the other stage organizer who has doing the poetry stage. The stage had some open mike spots where I would more than likely be able to perform. “Hey!” I thought to myself, “Maybe I have found a place to be heard! Maybe this is a city that supports arts, poetry, music, radical politics, and love!” I was becoming more excited about Black Rock City by the moment. What the possibility of free speech does to me!
Looking through the Burning Man material that I received at the gate, I read that the poetry stage didn't start for several more hours. So, I sat in the Café people watching, wishing that I had my camera with me to document the amazing costumes. How different all of us were, such uniqueness in body types and shapes. I loved it, all the beautiful people who were displaying their genitals without guilt or shame. I wished that I had had time to really develop sensual costumes before I came to Burning Man. But, before coming, it was hard to visualize what a scene it was, and how out of place I would be in just normal hippie clothes that I brought with me.
I got into several conversations while waiting for the stage to open up. One was with a man who had flown in from Washington, DC. He worked as a poll taker. He went around to different places in the US asking questions to average Americans about issues. I think we were sort of checking each other out by the kind of questions we were asking each other. I noticed that when I talked to a man, I start to fantasies about how we could build a life together. I know it is just ridiculous since it is only fantasizing, and maybe the guys are in no way thinking about me in the same way. But I was aware that I was doing this when I meet men. It seemed like with almost every man I met what he did and what I did in life, didn't match up. There was something that wasn't right, and I knew right away that our paths in life didn't cross except very briefly for a conversation or two. The whole sex things had become such a struggle that maybe it was best if I just didn't think about it much and not had any expectations. I wondered at this most erotic and exotic place, should I repress thoughts I have about love, sex and relationships?
I couldn't bear to even visualize what my ideal mate would be like any longer because after so many years, and so much travel to places where I thought that he might be, and not finding him, I was exhausted from the search. I must go on with my mission as anti-nuclear Queen, and to hell with love! I really didn't mean that because I was wise enough to know that the real power is love. I was driven by love. I knew it was the only power great enough to overcome the demonic invisible energy of the nuclear weapons industry.
After several hours, a man in a see-through skirt and t-shirt came to the stage with a microphone, and began setting up. I introduced myself to him, and he said that his name was Poetry Dave. He was the organizer of the poetry stage. I asked him if there would be a chance for me to speak during the open sessions, and he assigned me a slot to perform on several days! It was so easy, and I was so happy that I was given an opportunity to express myself! Now, I hoped and prayed that I had something worthy of expressing, and that the words would flow through me like water from a Hawaiian waterfall. I prepared a poetic rhythm on the nuke and Lovolution issue, and when my time came, I would turn into a prophetess on solar energy.
I have always hoped that my poetics would attract the right people in my life. When I started to receive the poetic inspiration twenty years ago, part of the reason for my writing was to attract my soul mate. I felt that to attract the right mate out of the billions of men on the planet, then I needed a place to express my gifts. My message at this performance was that if Burning Man is to evolve the world by being a vision of a global culture, then we must get off the nukes and fossil fuels, and go solar. The flow of the poem was more poetic than what I just described, but since there was no recording devices present, I cannot tell you how the poem exactly went.
After I left the stage, several men came up to me wanting to make contact, giving me their cards, and wanting to talk. The last person I talked with introduced himself to me and said that he thought he had met me before. I asked, “Did you live in Amherst, Massachusetts?” He said his name was Joe Hammer. He worked for Green Peace in the Amherst area and that he recalled meeting me at my house when he canvassed my neighborhood. He said that he was holding a solar powered radio show for 2-4 pm everyday during Burning Man and that he would like to interview me on his show. He said the radio station was in the Alternative Energy Zone camp which turned out to be next door to where I was staying in Hushville. What a wonderful opportunity to get my message out about nukes in Nevada on an alternative solar energy radio show. Now, how cool was that! So I agreed that I would visit the station one day during the event. After our conversation, he went his way, and I went on my way back to my camp to check-in with Len, and to cook dinner on our propane camp stove.
I didn't feel like venturing out that night, so I watched the moon rise and the dusk colors glow on the peaks of the Black Rock Mountains. I got into my tent and listened to all the techno music coming from different directions of camp thinking about love and eutopia. There was one tune that someone kept on playing over and over again. I wondered if I was being brainwashed by it. All I could hear was that techno beat as if it was taking over my thoughts and covering up my pain I was feeling about being alone in the most erotic/exotic city on Earth.
Midweek at Black Rock City
The next morning at daybreak while listening to the drummers call in the morning light, I wrote in my journal, “I have to realize that for some while now I have not been living with the inspiration of being with my Beloved. The lack of him in my life makes tears form in my eyes. All this searching for home I feel is connected to him. Why have I had to live so homeless? Why have I followed my head and my moral conscious to try to discover my heart? Why did it lead me to Burning Man? Is this but another dead end? I've started to wonder if I am so stupid and repressed that I cannot connect with anyone in an authentic sacred sexual way. It is hard for me to feel I am beautiful when I feel such a lack of true love in my life. Can there be beauty without the other? I am so confused. I don't know when to let someone into my life. Maybe since I have been single for a decade, I am incapable of bonding with another. All my art, poetry, essays, dissertation, ideology of true love-- every creative thing I have done seemed to not be able to attract him, so what damned good is my art? I realize that Thantaoes is trying to take over my soul because of this inability of me to express my eternal love.”
Trying to get beyond my heartache—a heartache that seemed to be chronic and there was no cure for it—I looked through the “What Where When” schedule pamphlet of events. I circled things that were interesting to me and events that I thought might gave me insights into healing the anguish ever present in my soul.
One of the daily events on the playa were, “Discover a New Soulmate.” Its description read, “The Costco Soulmate Trading Outlet celebrates its 4th year in BRC's Center Camp. We have one mission; to help our members find top quality soulmates. The Black Rock City location offers quality name brand and private-label soulmates at substantially lower prices than can be found though conventional wholesale sources. Membership application is available. To qualify, bring a “soulmate-compatible” friend to trade.” Well, I thought to myself, since I don't have a soulmate to trade, I guess I don't qualify!
Maybe I should go to the sunrise Yoga instead. I learned that if I do yoga I can control my anguish better and it was a way that I could do self-massage. One of the worse things about being single for a decade was that I rarely got massages. Yoga helps solve this problem. There was morning Yoga at HeeBeeGeeBee Healers camp on Enlightenment Street, so I thought I should try to find their camp, and do some yoga. Maybe life would seem better then. Enlightenment Street was the street near my tent, so it would be an easy walk there.
Arriving at the healing center, the yoga was very calming, but it began to be a little bit strenuous for me. So, I put my hat back on and decided to check out more of what was happening on Enlightenment Street. Unlike American suburbia, the city design of Black Rock City was planned for the best way a mobile city can function as a monumental city. The focus of the city, designed by architect Rod Garrett, was a semi-circle cut into a grid which were named 2:00 o'clock, 2:30 o'clock, 3:00 o'clock etc. So. when you told your address to someone you would say the street name and the time.
Streets names took off on the theme of Burning Man 2001 which was the “Ages of Man.” So, streets were named, The Infant, the Child, the Lover, the Soldier, the Enlightenment, the Justice, the Pantaloon, and Oblivion. There was order to the chaos in a mobile city where people camped with their cars beside them, unless they were in a walk-in camp which didn't allowed motor vehicles. But most people used their cars or campers to help protect them from the sun.
Black Rock City was a horizontal city, the kind of city Paolo Soleri has been criticizing for decades as being the problem with civilization. As more as more people become citizens of Black Rock City, the city becomes urban sprawl. The best real estate were spaces near Center Camp and spaces following the Esplanade. It was rumored that some of the big camps and stages along the Esplanade like the Emerald City cost 100,000 dollars to set up. Even though Burning Man doesn't allow commercialization, and all that is charged is the two hundred dollar entrance fee, nevertheless, big money was present at the event. Like all the other post-modern cities around the world, sprawl created a space of the have and have nots. I wondered if this space of the have and have nots would happen in an arcology, or would everyone be equal distance to the center? With maglev trains running through the nervous system of an arcology, then distance would not matter as much when the local becomes the global, and the global the local. Time/space changes when we start to think like a planetary organism where the part and the whole are the same thing. Black Rock City had not developed such thinking yet. Yes, I felt that the designed was more enlightened and artistic than any other tent city I had been too, but the fact was it wasn't sustainable and the political consciousness needed to make it that way was lacking, or either, I was ignorant of it.
I was soul searching as I walked towards 10.00. Where did I belong in the city? Was I one of these individuals who never can connect with a group? How much I wanted to co-create with other likeminded souls, but where do I go to find them? And who was I anyway? As an anti-nuke Queen, I was beginning to feel more like Cassandra, the woman whose prophesies never get listened to than a self-actualize individual. Even though I had read on the Burning Man web site that Black Rock City had the lowest crime rate of any city in the USA , and that most of the work was done by volunteer labor, I still felt a gut feeling of alienation of not being in my place within the city. I wanted to help create religion, but how does one become a prophetess that people take notice of? Or were these off-base fantasies?
How could I get Larry Harvey in touch with my idea of moving Burning Man next to the Test site for next year's burn as a major collective artistic statement against the war machine? Where was Harvey, and the other people who ran the big show of city-making anyway? Would he be open to hearing my ideas? As director of the event and artist of the Burning Man temple, what role is he playing anyway, king, priest, god or all three-in-one like the Holy Ghost? Or since I am not a famous woman, was it ridiculous of me to think that he would give me a little bit of his time? Would he be interested in what I had to say, or was Burning Man a spirituality like in monotheistic world religions where one man rules? Was Burning Man patriarchy with a new face disguise as an anarchical liberated environment? Why did I care to even meet Harvey ? Or was I really an alpha-ovum shamaness, high priestess, prophetess of Gaia who needed to be engaged with the Burning Man himself? The event raised more questions than answered.
While looking for answers, and intellectual stimulation, at the end of Enlightenment Street was a white tent with a sign outside that said, “Singularity Watch.” On a bulletin board outside the tent, there was an invitation to join them in a future studies discussion every afternoon. They would be talking about different topics surrounding the idea of the transhuman being, the evolution of “man” as he evolves more into a machine, and hopefully, into a more spiritual being. Not only would they be talking about advancements in science, but as we become transhumans through such things as cloning and genetic engineering, they would be raising the ethical and social issues that are involved in these radical changes. Burning Man seemed like a great place for such futurist thinking since at Burning Man people were in that border line space between transhuman and aliens. It was a new global culture in the making unlike anything that had been built in the past. Technology was very much a part of the Burning Man experience. But unlike hard science, this technology was being used to create art, and more heart-centered realities.
I could hardly wait until the afternoon for the discussion time because maybe there I would find stimulating conversation and a place to meet like-minded individuals who were concerned with the future of the human species. Maybe it would be a place to make sense out of the culture that was forming around us, and what we could do to save the mainstream culture from a technology that had gone mad. The future studies meeting was at the same time that Joe Hammer had told me to come to the radio show. So, I had to make up my mind which was more important to me, to go to the discussion, or to the radio show. I decided that I needed the interpersonal communication of the discussion group more than I needed to be interviewed.
Walking along the Promenade
Len was at our camp at lunch time, and our tarp had not held up in the wind. Now, we had no shade. We decided to take a walk through the promenade, the street leading to the Burning Man statue which sat on top of the “ Temple of Wisdom.” We passed all sorts of sculptures on the way there. There was a huge metal heart that I could imagine being lit up, with fire coming out of the main artery at night. Another enjoyable work was an interactive piece called “Tossed the Cross” in which you threw crosses in a trash can. It was fun and simple in its anti-Christian message. Then there was a large metal musical instrument with around 30 people playing it, and which could be heard all over the promenade. Next we visited the “Temple of Wisdom ” that was the base foundation of the Burning Man statue.
At the Temple of Wisdom, I started to see what was going on. There was a female gatekeeper at the door. She said that you could only go into the temple to get wisdom if you had your passport completed. To get a passport, you went to the post office at Center Camp and barterer something with the officials. Then, the game was to go around to the different main sculptures on the Promenade, and get official stamps. When you had all the stamps, you were then permitted to enter the temple and to get the secret message. Finding this out, I had to ask myself, is Burning Man but the beginning of another patriarchal religion where the High Priest, and those with the right credentials get permitted into the secret places to get the secret knowledge? I asked the guard what the secret knowledge was, and if it could help me find true love, but she said it was a secret. I had to have the stamps to find out.
Was Larry Harvey the only High Priest of the Temple? Or was there also a High Priestess? She did not know. She said she was only a guard. I recalled an interview with Larry Harvey I read on the Internet. In that interview Harvey said when he was asked about the Burning Man religion, “Essentially what happens to religions is that a priestly class intrudes in the process and stations itself between the believers and the immediate, overwhelming the unfathomable, the irrational the transcendental experience that inspired the religion in the first place. They become the keepers of the mystery. They place themselves between the communicants of the religion, and the immediate experience. And then they dictate the terms on which you can have contact with this wonderful mystery. We don't dictate those terms.” I was confused. The Temple of Wisdom under the Burning Man statue was all about dictating terms!
Walking on the Promenade another night, I made my way into a maze and became lost. It was symbolic of my life's journey and my search for home--dead ends and miserable love affairs, unemployment, utter isolation, and alienation in the post-modern world. Finally, being frustrated with not being able to find my way out of the maze, I followed some people who seemed to know where they were going, and finally reached the top. Once on the top, I looked down at the maze at other people who were coming up against dead ends. There were two ways down, one was going back through the maze, and the other was to jump about six feet to a fireman's pole and swing down the pole to the ground. Several women in line in front of me said that they were too afraid to jump. For short women, the jump was a long way. When I saw their fear, I was determined to do it. I might not have been able to find my way through the maze, but I could damn well make my way down that pole.
The next artwork I came across was a tree sculpture made of cow bones. I wanted to weep thinking about the fate of cows and other animals enslaved for human consumption. The tree of bones symbolized to me the connection between the way we treat animals and the way we treat forests. Both of them are going through a holocaust whether it's through clear cutting or through slaughter houses.
Between the maze and the Mausoleum, there was a double bed with a canopy on it. There was a sign between the two front bed posts that read, “The Question is not when we will die, but how we will live.” And on the other side of the sign it read, “No one can confidently say that they will be living tomorrow.” There were pillows on the bed and a white quilt. Beside the bed was a table with a container with sleeping pills in it and a clock was ticking away. Inside the drawer of the table beside it were a number of books on death, dying, and reincarnation.
I wanted to read some of the books and sit on the bed and contemplate life, so I told Len that I was going to be there a while and for him to explore the rest of the Promenade without me. I sat on the bed and begin reading the books. One was by Stanley Keleman, Living Your Dying. A passage which caught my eye was, “Living your dying is to live your life, trusting your experience. Being somebody is different from being nobody.” Maybe I was still in the nobody phase, I thought as I became bluer and bluer. Maybe to be somebody requires an other to take notice of you. I read through another book and found a quote by Wilhelm Reich, “There may be a link between dying and orgasm, dying and sexuality may be deeply related to our dying.”
Tears started streaming down my checks as I realized that without love, I have never really lived. I was the dust, lifetime after lifetime; I was the dust. The wind started picking up and the dust made it difficult to see the other sculptures on the Promenade. In this double bed in the middle of a dust storm, it was like I was in a bed that was in a vortex of time, as I passed all my ancient lovers during the Ages of Man, never able to discover the alchemical union that would bring about a true love and world peace into my life. The tears became gushes as I began to weep loudly, not just for the lack of tenderness and affection in my own dusty life, but for the Earth and what people have done hurt her.
I knew that this bed was where Gaia wanted that love ritual with Bruce to take place. It would have been perfect! But what did I know about love? After years of research, nothing! I only knew heartache, and because of this heartache, love had become more associated with pain than with pleasure. It was too bad I missed the session at the Zen Pride Sanctuary on getting married to oneself, I thought. I recalled the description of the workshop, “None of us is ever likely to find our perfect partner until we master the art of loving ourselves. A self-wedding ritual could be the transformation magic that would induce the arrival of a new consort, or bring renaissance of an existing intimate relationship.” So, then, was my problem that I didn't love myself?
A couple walked up to the bed. Seeing that I was distressed, they asked me what was wrong. I told them that I felt that the bed was the most profound of the conceptual artworks on the playa because it was about the mystery of sex and love. It, more than any other artworks, expressed the puzzle that we as a species needed to figure out in order to survive. But in this lifetime I was lost when it came to figuring out the mystery of love. How important was sex in creating the social change that our species needed to make in order to evolve? On a personal level, without liberated sexuality in my life, I knew I was at an evolutionary dead end.
I asked the couple how they had met each other, because they looked happy together. They said that they met at the Forum, a group therapy club that helped one work on self-esteem to fulfill one's dreams. She was coming out of a long-term marriage and had three children to support, and had been convinced that no one would ever love her. She said the Forum made her give up such negative feelings and realize that she was a beautiful woman (which she was). It helped her put all her past negative experiences with men behind her to start anew. She advised me to go to the Mausoleum and write down on wood all the past love affairs that had gone wrong in my life. When it burned the last night of Burning Man, I would be renewed and I would be able to find love. She was like an oracle for me. They said goodbye, and I got up from the bed. It was time to move on to the Mausoleum.
The Mausoleum was a Thailand Buddhist temple-type structure that was beautifully carved out of wood built to be burned. It had a somber tone to it. People were mourning, crying, meditating, writing, sitting, and staring. Inside the temple was a feeling of sadness and remorse. I found a pencil and begin to write all the people I felt pain over. Michael Gosney, Ron Anastasia, Paolo Soleri, Art Allsworth, Mary and Tomiaki…. These were people at the Arcosanti project who completely misunderstood what I was saying, and who had demonized me for my attempt to combine my ecofeminist belief system with Soleri's concept of arcology.
Then I wrote the names of old boyfriends… Adam in Hawaii , Geerjan in South Africa, Ozguc in Turkey, Don in Las Vegas, Jon in Korea, Martin in Germany , Charles in Boston. I wrote on another piece of wood the names of Dorion Sagan and Lynn Margulis in Amherst, MA., who inspired me to write my dissertation on Gaia, but who totally rejected my thesis on planetary reproduction. Finally, I wrote the name of Cameron, who had refused to allow me access to his Green Party computer server. I put these names on a piece of wood and stuck it in a box that would burn together with the sorrow of all the other names other people had written down.
Lessons at the Temple of Ishtar
Walking back to the city, I went to go to the Divine Dialogues on Sacred Sexuality at the Temple of Ishtar. The description in the pamphlet read, “What is sacred sexuality? How do you practice it in your daily life? Is it easy or difficult to learn? Join us for informal discussion and light exercise.” Yes, that is what I needed most of all, I thought to myself, a dialogue on the meaning of life because I certainly was not able to figure it out by myself.
The Temple of Ishtar was an impressive site. It was a large open tent structure with carpets on the floor. A banner hanging at the stage, said, “All acts of love and pleasure are her rituals.” They ask everyone who came into the tent to remove their shoes out of respect for the Goddess. When the dialogue started, we were asked to form a circle. There were people of all ages who came, and a lot of the women were bare-breasted.
Francesco Gentille of San Francisco and one of her boyfriends who was the one who built the temple for her, were the leaders of the dialogue. They started out by showing us how to kiss. They embraced and gave each other a very long, deep kiss. When they finished, they explained to us about the art of kissing, the role pheromones play in it and how during a kiss the two start sharing breath together. Petting someone releases psycho chemicals; even thinking about someone can cause the release of chemicals. To enhance kissing, they practice eye gazing, while saying verbally what they mean to each other. They said that rituals of positive affirmation are very important to sacred sexuality.
There should not be sex until the couple feels admiration for each other and the sacredness of the moment. In infatuation, there is the “crash and burn effect,” when the couple moves too fast and don't get to know each other well enough before having sex. To bring about an atmosphere of sacred sexuality, music, candle light, incense, breath and bathing can induce the mood to share intimacy. Francesca's boyfriend advised us to slow down, focus and pay attention to what is happening between the two. Consciousness leads to fulfilling sex.
When the time for questions came, a lot of questions were about their polyamorous relationship. They both had other lovers. They invited us to attend the Poly High Tea at 4:30 pm next door at the Poly Paradise tent. Over tea and cookies there would be a lively discussion about responsible non-monogamy. It had taken me years to even entertain the thought of moving from monogamy to thinking that polyamory might work for some people. After going to a workshop on polyamory at the Twin Oaks community and hearing how it could work at the ZEGG community in Germany, I had become much more open to the idea.
At Twin Oaks, C.T. Butler, the man who co-founded Food not Bombs, gave the workshop. He said that there were four pillars of poly-intimacy: radical honesty/ nonviolence/compassion/cooperation; 100% personal responsibility for emotions, behavior, and intentionality. The major skills needed are nonviolent conflict resolution skills, consensus decision making skills; mediation/facilitation skills; listening skills; cooperative play skills and evaluation skills. Weren't these the same skills needed in a successful monogamous relationship?
Since monogamy had not worked for me, why not experiment with something new? But I felt like one woman who said, “I cannot even have one good relationship with the opposite sex, much less two!” Yes, there seemed to be a number of women who like me found it impossible to find one sacred sexual relationship. All I really wanted to find was a tantra partner so that I could begin to practice revolutionary love!
I was intrigued with what they were discussing at the Temple of Ishtar, so the following day I went back for a discussion with the Mark Group. Its description read, “This is an interactive opportunity to meet, greet and connect with women and men.”
During the session the leaders, a man and two of his lovers, led us in get-to-know exercises. One I enjoyed very much was called the “Hot Seat.” You volunteered to be on the Hot Seat, and everyone focused all their attention on you and asked you a question. You were allowed to answer a question until the person who asked it said “thank you.” I mustered up the courage to be on the Hot Seat after several other people had done it. Someone asked me how many orgasms I had in a week. I told them it was difficult to me to experience an orgasm without a partner unless, of course, I masturbated. But that was not the same experience as doing it with another. Then, I was asked about my peak sexual experience. I really didn't know what to say, since I felt that I had not experienced such a peak experience when the mind, body, and soul touched the other. I even questioned if I had ever had sacred sexuality.
The only person I felt compelled to ask a question to while he was on the Hot Seat was a white nude male who told us that he was a lawyer. So I asked him if he thought there was justice in America. He answered the way one would expect of a lawyer to do. He said that overall the system works. Then when I was on the Hot Seat, he asked me if I ever felt joy. I answered, “Only when I am rebelling against the legal establishment in order to create global justice. There is no greater joy than to resist injustice!” After that answer, he thanked me which ended my time on the Hot Seat. I left the Temple of Ishtar feeling like more of a sexual failure than before I arrived. Why did I always confront the alpha male types? What was wrong with me? Did I want to be unpopular and unloved the rest of my life because in our culture questioning authority is the most unsexy thing to a woman can do!
It was not until Thursday, after attending several of the transhuman discussion groups on previous days that I decided not to attend the discussion group and go to the radio show instead. As anti-nuclear Queen, I had a public obligation to act on behalf of public health and safety, and to alert people to the dangers of radioactive poisoning. So, it was the love of humanity that took me to that radio show, not because I was looking for love. Well, honestly, that is only partly true. After several discussions at the transhuman discussion group, I didn't see anyone who wanted to have a more intimate conversation with me about the future of humanity. So, I wanted to spend time elsewhere in hopes of discovering such a conversation.
KAEZ Radio Station
When I got to the station, Joe was running the station and another man was doing the interviewing. So, I waited outside for my time at the mike. When I got to the mike, the interviewer got me all fired up with the memory of what happened to me the night before. The story went like this: Len and I decided that we would go out on the town together. So, I followed him to the “House of Indulgence.” The description in the pamphlet read, “Baring of Souls. 2nd Annual House of Indulgence Baring of Souls Exotic and Erotic Dance Fiesta! Devils and angels invite you to shake our moneymakers for some of our special Indulgences. The House of Indulgence will be erecting its ceremonial pole so that you can perform our dance of the seven veils, your most erotic strut, or anything in between.”
When we arrived, an experienced exotic dancer was doing very creative and provocative movements around the pole. I had seen such dancing before in Baltimore in the red light district. But this woman was better than any of the dancers I saw in Baltimore. Many of them in Baltimore were heroin addicts. When the pole dance was over, the MC, who was dressed like an angle, said that he was in the privileged position being the MC of being able to lick the pole which he proceed to do. The dancer had done all sorts of spits and other gymnastics moves on the pole while nude wearing high heels. There were other dancers after her, but none of them as talented a pole dancer as she was.
Then a man in a devil custom got up, and had a few things to say about hell. He asked if anyone else out wanted to bare her soul. He said that you could do anything you wanted, and you didn't have to dance. He just wanted the naked truth.
With those words, I began feeling excited that maybe I was called to bring forth the anti-nuclear Queen to bare her soul. I wondered, though, if Len would be embarrassed that he was with me because I knew before I got on the stage that the Devil and God would not like the truth that I was going to bare. I thought, “I am a single woman because I want to act as an independent soul with a voice and mind of her own. I shouldn't let embarrassing Len stop me from doing my thing.” But I realized that a lot of men who I have known, don't want much to do with me after I do something controversial in public.
I moved away from where I was sitting with Len and asked the Devil for the microphone. I got on stage and asked the audience if they knew what the floor of hell was made out of. No one said a word. I said, “It is made of the radioactive waste that will be shipped into Nevada to Yucca Mountain from all over the United States. And do you know what the Devil is up to at the Nevada Test Site at Mercury, Nevada? He and God are building mini nuclear weapons for a war in the Middle East! Who has never heard of a mini nuke? Isn't that an oxymoron?”
God and the Devil got on stage. God proceeded to try to rip the microphone out of my hand. But I kept a firm grip on it crying, “Freedom of Speech! I cannot bare my soul without freedom of speech!” The women in the audience started screaming at me, “Take off your clothes! Take off your clothes! Bare your soul! Take off your clothes! Show us your tits!” I replied projecting my voice without a microphone, “My soul is deeper than flesh and bones. My soul can only be revealed when I am speaking for the future of humanity. If Burning Man is a place to practice “radical free creativity” then allow me to finish my performance in peace!” Then I was pushed off stage by several big men.
After telling the story, the radio interviewer said that I was obviously a very angry woman, and that I should calm down. Burning Man wasn't a perfect place, but it was the best place the human race had to create a better future.
I responded asking the interviewer if he thought the culture at Burning Man had a more evolved consciousness than the mainstream world. I told another tale of when I was hanging out at the Coliseum earlier in the week; I was run down by several guys with futuristic looking laser guns. They were running through the crowd crashing into people as they were chasing each other. Was Burning Man a non-violent culture, or really was it a part of the mainstream culture? After all, it was Burning Man. Why not Burning Woman or Burning Humanity? Isn't that really what we are faced with, Burning Humanity? Should Burning Humanity be represented by two figures, one female and the other male since it takes two parts of the whole for the species to exist?
The interviewer answered that Larry Harvey says that it is a Burning Person. There is no gender attached to the effigy. The effigy is androgynous, but it just sounded more poetic to have Burning Man. He said it was more primal than using Burning woman. I thought, “Is it really more primal and poetic to use man instead of woman? Aren't women the more primal of the two? Weren't we all born from Eve, not Adam?” Who was he trying to fool?
Joe, who was doing the technological production of the show, did not say much. When he attempted to speak, I could tell he was having difficulty getting words out of his mouth. So, I asked him if he was on LSD because he was acting as if he was in that state of mind. He said that last night he was on acid. He had in fact taken 17 hits of the stuff as well as a hit of DMT. After ingesting the stuff, he went up to the Café, read a sign that told him to take off his clothes which he did, and then he just lied on the floor tripping his mind out receiving one message that he would meet a woman who would greatly influence his life, someone very suited to work with him…a soulmate.
He asked if he could talk with me after the radio show. He wanted to introduce me to the mayor of the Alternative Energy Zone camp and his wife who he respected as a feminist thinker. I walked over with him to the Camp met Roger and Anna. Joe said that he wanted to talk with me more, but he then disappeared. I looked for him around the station for a little while, but he was no where to be seen. So, I thought that maybe he was an acid freak, a pot head who has lost his short term memory. I should forget about getting to know him better.
Alone in the City
I went back to my camp getting ready to go out with Len for another evening. Black Rock City is a 24 hour city. Drummers are drumming as dawn breaks, and drummers are drumming as dusk turns to night. The city at night is even more spectacular than the events in the daytime because fire lights up the dark, and things that go on in the dark cannot happen during daylight hours.
That evening one of the big events was happening. Dr. Megavolts dressed in a suit that looked like a deep sea driver's outfit, but his suit was protecting him when he played with the electricity coming out of some thing. I cannot really explain to you what he does; only that it looks like he is wrestling with lightening bolts. It reminded me of a big glass ball with electricity cracking inside it that I saw at the Science Museum in Boston. In back of Dr. Megavolt was a large geodesic dome where people played gladiator games with spectators around the large arena. On this night, it felt that Burning Man was more like being in the eternal city, Rome. There was the Coliseum, the Chapel, and the Mausoleum. At was the Aztec pyramid, men dressed in priest outfits were performing human sacrifice on a female, of course!
Was I the only one who perceived the patriarchal nature of Burning Man? Getting lost from Len while watching Dr. Megavolt's thing, I wandered through the town wanting to dance somewhere…. But then the problem of who to dance with was sure to come up.
Walking along the Esplanade, I came across another large geodesic dome. A man outside of it said that in a few minutes there would be music, and the best porno images in town would be projected onto the large screens on the sides of the walls. I had had enough of Black Rock City for the night. Maybe finding someone to love was an impossible task in such a temporary city where quick sex was the norm.
Before heading to my tent, I took a stroll through the Café to do people watching. The one couple that caught my eye was an older fellow who had a cock ring through his penis. He was being led on a leash by a young woman dressed in black leather dominatrix outfit. I wondered if I would like to be pulling a man on a leash. There were plenty of workshops that could teach me the tricks of the trade such as at the Temple of Atonement University. The description of the Dominatrix Training read, “Eva Destruction shows how to be a dominatrix. Learn the secrets of control, intimidation and discipline from one of the Temples ' best.” Fantasizing wiping, tying a man up and taping up his mouth so that he could say a word, controlling a man to do everything I wanted was appealing to me for a minute or two.
I reflected on a time with a lover named Sam who I put in a chair, tied him up, and put a gagged up his mouth. Then I proceeded to read him a chapter of my dissertation which he thought was torture! Releasing him I realized that even with such discipline, he still didn't learn a thing from my reading. So control and domination really couldn't bring about interest in my intellectual work, or love for my soul. But, how much Sam loved to fuck me in the ass, get me in the shower, and do “water sports”. Yes, he got great pleasure pissing on me, but learning about me on an intellectually and spiritual bases was torture to him. Now, looking back on it with wiser eyes, how could I have allowed any man to treat me with such disrespect?
So I headed back to the tent. Coming back, I found that I had left the tent door partly opened, and the sand storm during the day had covered the bottom of my tent with dusk. I was now sleeping in dust. Was there any meaning to the dust? Without love, all I am is dust, dust that cannot dance or sing or love. Then I got a horrible idea. Could the dust be radioactive? After all, we were not that far from the Nevada Test Site? With that thought, I fell asleep.
The next morning I woke up to the sounds of the drummers. It was another windy dust storm day. I waited in my tent for the wind to die down working on a poem I had been thinking about for several days. I was preparing to read it at my poetry spot on Saturday and today was Friday. One loses track of conventional time around Black Rock City.
Len had had a hard night because since he came to Burning Man he had been nude. He refused to even wear shoes. I advised him to do so, but, heck, I am a nobody doctor of future studies, so why would he listen to me? Now, he had cracks in his feet and it was difficult for him to walk without pain.
I was ready for a walk. Today I thought I would take a different route, and see what is at the edge of the city because I felt on the edge of life. I walked down 7:00 until I got to Oblivion. Yes, that is where I felt I belonged, on Oblivion Street. How beautiful it was to be at the edge of the city, and look out at the Black Rock Desert without people and all their things. There were signs asking people not to ride vehicles on the desert, but it didn't matter. People did it anyway. While walking on Oblivion, an art car that looked like Noah's art went flying off the street into the desert. I wondered what possess people to just disobey the rules? Why couldn't they leave some sacred space for the desert creatures? But remember I was on Oblivion Street!
Then it occurred me passing all the streets to make my way to Oblivion that if this had been gender neutral, then we would not only have a Soldier Street, but a Mother Street. I wasn't going to be fooled anymore thinking that Burning Man was gender neutral. It was man, not woman who was the center of worship. In a woman's centered culture, the last street would not be Oblivion, but Awareness, obtainment of the Golden Age of World Love. In the Ages of Woman, the monumental sculptures would not have been the coliseum and the pyramid, but a monument representing the ancient stones at such places like Stonehenge and Avebury. There would be a monument to the Delphi Oracle at the time when the Gaia, Goddess of the Earth, ruled over her. The only sculpture I saw representing the Neolithic Age was while in the Café someone exhibited a model of Stonehenge made out of Twinkies.
Walking towards 10:00 o'clock at the end of the street, there were a number of dance stages. Even though it was early morning, the techno music was playing and people were dancing. No one was dancing as couples, but more as existentialists who were all dreaming in their own separate worlds, as if there was a glass bubble over every person, so that they could not touch the heart of the other. Was this collective conscious, or ego conscious? When the dust started blowing, and a white-out occurred, the dance went on. I tried to make myself dance to the techno beat and become involved with the existentialist trance, but my feet wouldn't move. I wanted to find a partner. I had danced too much that solitary dance that leaves me talking to myself. And I was sick of my internal dialogue. I needed, desperately needed, connection and the communication of touch with my twin flame.
I sat down in front of signs about the joys of dancing from famous philosophers throughout the ages. Maybe I wasn't really alive, I thought to myself as the boundaries between death and life broke down. After an hour, the dust storm calmed down. Realizing that my canteen was low on water, I headed back to my camp walking back on Enlightenment Street.
The only human contact I had during my walk was with a man on a bike who stopped to hand me two cards. They had environmental messages on them. One said, “Plant trees save earth. Grow forests outward using native seed. The valley has unique genes. Do not mix. Gather local seed: Ask your elders. Restore watersheds, roadless areas. When students globally realize the power of the Internet, we can clean air safe food pure water void corporate media/censorship Generate alternative lifestyles. Thank you for not breeding. De-centralize money, and politics. Trade/barter/potluck. Simplicity saves Earth. No successful species ever used money.” Someone was handing me a message. How much I liked the message because now I know not everyone here thought of Burning Man as a hedonistic disco techno party.
When I passed the Enlightenment Camp, I took a closer look that the symbols whoever it was that lived there had created. There was a Pentacle, a word I did not know “Hallucigenia,” and a sign that had three figures cut out of the metal. Then, I slowly walked on. Awaking me from my somber contemplation was Joe, the man from the radio station. I asked him what he was up to. He answered that he had been looking for me. “What?” I said. “I started looking for you last night. I went to the Café hoping to find you there. What did you do last night?” I answered, “I went to sleep early after writing in my journal.” What I wrote was as follows, but I don't share this with him.
On this journey to find myself walking through the streets of Black Rock City wondering who I am, where I belong, what job am I here to do, I feel deeply afraid of rejection and becoming a failure more than I already am. I wonder if one can be a total failure. It feels that I have failed on the love and work level. I haven't killed anyone that I know of, but I really feel that I have hurt people. Failure hurts people because everyone wants people to succeed. The universe births us into existence in order to succeed.
Later I wrote , I'm feeling alone and low after another day of Burning man. The moon is rising over the Black Rock Mountains. It is almost a full moon. The dusk sky is so romantic. Everything is so romantic in the best sense of the word, except for my life. Today I didn't cry at the mausoleum, but at the bed. Love and death are connected. I wonder why my life has been so deprived of love. Maybe I am clearing up karma from a distant time which is why I have not received the love spirit in this existence. If only I could find someone to dance with.
Joe asked me to come over to his camp site because he had something to give me. I joined him as he walked his bike beside me to the camp site with the Enlightenment sign on it. “You live here?” I asked. “I have admired this site, the art work, the candlelight. The first night I arrived I saw this camp and wanted to walk in! How wonderful that it is your camp.” We sat outside the camper underneath a large tarp.
“Just a minute while I get you the gift.” he said. He came back with a pair of Burning Man earrings he said that he bought last year at the Empire general store. On a piece of deer bone was drawn a Burning Man symbol. “Would you wear this?” he asked as he handed me the earring. There was something very romantic about the gift as I put one in my ear and he put one in his ear. Then he asked me to come inside his camper because he wanted me to see the effigy of the Burning Man that he was planning on burning that afternoon. He said that he had invited a number of people to his camp before the big Burning Man burn that evening. I told him that I would be glad to join him. We entered the camper and he told me that he got the vision to do this personal burn of a man made out of dollar bills and a cigar when he was tripping on LSD. I was impressed that he was going to burn money in a protest that he said was against the patriarchy. But burning a hundred dollar bill? He must have had money to burn.
Sexual energy almost happened immediately between us. I was oozing with feelings of wanting to be touched. Before any touching happened, he told me that from the moment he saw me in Amherst, Massachusetts he was attracted to me. But he had to tell me now that he was in a monogamous relationship with a woman whom he had been with for four years. She wasn't at Burning Man because she couldn't stand the heat of the desert. He promised her that he would be faithful to her while he was at the event. OK. I said. “Thanks for telling me,” I said as I walked out of the camper and sat in the chair on the porch. We smoked a bowl of pot. Then, he asked me if I would like to walk along the Promenade with him since he had not taken the time yet to examine the sculptures. I agreed to go. We put on our hats, filled up our canteens, and walked in the hot sun to the monumental artworks.
We stopped at a number of the monuments until we got to the bed. Then, he laid down on the bed and asked me to join him and that he would give me a back rub. I asked him if he had ever done a double back rub when the two people are giving each other a back rub at the same time. He said that he had not done that before, and wanted to learn how to do it. So, we got face to face sitting on the bed and then started to massage each other so that we can feel a simultaneous joy of being release from the stress trapped up in our bodies. Then he kissed me. I was sort of surprised since I thought he was monogamous, and he was only giving me an innocent backrub.
It was a very good kiss, not the kind one wants to pull away from. His smells were delightful and delicious to the month. It was hard to stop kissing once we started. But I know that even though his touches and kisses felt wonderful even to the point of feeling sacred pleasure, I should pull away because he could be a real con artist and maybe he just wanted a piece of ass during the festival, the way Bruce had wanted it. Maybe he was one of these men who couldn't be without a woman even for a week.
Why did I always have to feel suspicious of the underlying causes of male attraction? Why did I think it was just another lie? Why was I skeptical of my dream of finding true love on this magic carpet bed, flying throughout the Ages of Man, would not have led me to a man of my dreams, a soul so right for me that we shared the same self knowledge? Even though it seemed as if he liked me and we had a body connection, how did I know we have a spiritual connection? Time could only tell that. It was time for me to go to the Café to give my poetry reading, and it was time for him to do his solar powered radio show. So, we got off the bed, and holding hands walked along the Promenade in heighten awareness of the other.
Life had changed. The love force burned hot in my cells. I wanted to dance with him. I wanted to kiss him. My mind was on fire thinking that on that bed I discoverer the meaning of dust. Were my dreams of epic love making coming true? Or, should I hold back? Oh Goddess, I thought to myself as we parted ways, how much I want to love him!
When it became my turn came to read my poem on the poetry stage I read the following:
Burning Man 2001
Burn the Man
for how he has treated the Earth for five thousand years of
patriarchal rule.
Burn the Man
for his inability to love woman to the depth of her eternal soul.
Burn the Man
for the lies he tells a woman in order to “love her and leave her”
pregnant without a supportive home.
Burn the Man
for having burned millions of women for being “witches”
during the “Burning Times.”
Burn the Man
who emprisoned peace activists for crossing over
that line at the Nevada Test Site.
Burn the Man
who stole the Americas from the Native Americas.
Burn the Man
who continues to cause genocide to the indigenous people
by mining uranium on their sacred land.
Burn the Man
who cannot make the connection between our epidemic cases of
cancer and the use of nuclear power.
Burn the Man
who developed depleted uranium weapons which were used
in the Gulf war causing birth defects in people who were exposed.
Burn the Man
who sprays our food with pesticides, manufactures “terminated
seeds,” irradiates herbs, spices and meat,allowing people to starve to
death rather than making organic foods free.
Burn the Man
who does not feel compassion for six billion animals
each year who are killed in slaughter houses.
Burn the Man
who thinks big money will give him and his family
liberty, social status. and political power.
Burn the Man
who set up a “democratic” government, but could care less
about the health and real education of the people of the planet.
Burn the Man
for burning fossil fuels causing the Greenhouse effect,
and changing the planetary climate which is bleaching coral reefs.
Burn the Man
For dumping everything from human shit,
coke cans and radioactive waste into the seas.
Burn the Man
For building nuclear powered submarines.
Burn the Man
For creating an economy where people have to prostitute
their talents and creative gifts to The Global Corporate State .
Burn the Man
who uses psychology to manipulate and brainwash people
rather than to emancipate their minds over TV.
Burn the Man
Who ruined mass media by pacifying the public
with dumb commercial shows.
Burn the Man
For placing profits before people and mathematics above art.
Burn the Man
who thinks science is the superior knowledge
and love only chemical reactions in the brain.
Burn the Man
who acts as if the mystery of erotic love is a
utopian fantasy and sees it not as a healing way.
Burn the Man
for not working with a woman in co-creation in the
design a new world.
Burn the man
for isolating us in nuclear family houses rather than
creatingarcologies that are designed with nature to be sustainable
for generations to come.
Burn the man
who censors a woman's voice when she speaks the naked truth.
Burn the Man
for setting up patriarchal religions that have no concept
of the recycling of matter and transmigration of souls.
Burn the Man
who cannot see the interconnection of all life in the Multi-verse.
Burn the Man
who thinks he can overcome death by cloning himself.
Burn the Man
Who covers up the archeological evidence that at one time there
was a peaceful matriarchal culture that had no need for war.
Burn the Man
who stops woman's power from transforming the blue-green orb.
Oh Great Gaia,
This man must burn,
burn so that life on Earth is liberated
from the tyranny of the man's world!
Help me Gaia, help me light the match
to burn down the civilization that man created without
being guided by the union of Eros and Aphrodite!
Let all that cruelty, inhumanity and the suffering that
we have experienced under man's rule go up in smoke
so that air, wind, soil and water can purify itself once again.
Give me the strength to light the match to obliterate the
consciousnessthat has lead us on the road to star wars and
environmental collapse. Rubbing two stones together, the stark lights
the fire. Burning Man, the flames engulfing you is my sacred love of
life! I watch you burn so that from your ashes an Age of Woman can
Dawn.
After my reading, I wondered if anyone had listened to what I had to say. I saw a few women in the audiences who looked like they were awake when I was reading it, but most people seemed oblivious. It did not matter though, because I had someone who wanted to be with me today! I had a date for the Big Burning Man event. How high I was as I went to my camp to get ready for the big event.
Pyramid Lake
After almost a week of not taking a bath, I must have looked a mess. I was beginning to think that the more pleasure one has, the dirtier one gets. Neighbors at Burning Man are extremely friendly. Unlike in American suburbia where people generally don't know their neighbors, and run the other way when they see them coming, building major fences to block out the fact that they even have neighbors, at Burning Man having neighbors is good. It is a source of love and sharing. And most people have good considerate, wild, fun-loving neighbors.
Making my way back to Hushville after a sweaty day, several neighbors who I had not seen before signaled for me to come over to their camp, and asked me where I was going. We started talking the U.S. government making Nevada a nuclear waste dump and other small talk. Then Thomas, one of the guys asked me if I could like a stick-on taboos. He showed me the ones he had left for me to choose from. I wanted Medusa, the Snake Goddess, whose sight turned men into stone.
But Medusa didn't want me. She refused to stick. We decided that in order for it to stick maybe it needed a clean area. Thomas asked me if I would like a shower. He had gotten water at Pyramid Lake and he would be glad to pour it over me. So we went around to the back of his truck. I took off my dress and we said a ritual about sacred water cleaning the world when I really wondered if the water from Pyramid Lake was radioactive. Of course there was no way to know since we didn't have a Geiger counter. The water felt like drops of paradise falling over me and I shouted for joy. After the bath, he proceeded to stick a mermaid taboo on me. Well, I thought, that taboo was less threatening to the opposite sex.
The Man Burns
After getting redressed, dusk was beginning to light up the heavens with rays of bluish, purplish, orange colors as I felt awe-inspired with the beauty of it all, the natural surrounding, this incredible city and the man who had kissed me on that magic carpet death bed. When I arrived to Joe's Enlightenment Camp, he was hoping other people whom he had invited to witness his own personal burn would show up. But when no one came except me, he popped open a bottle of champagne and we toasted to our future. Then, he brought out his dollar bill Burning Man. He said a few words about building a free world beyond the patriarchy, and the tyranny of money. Wow, I thought, was I with a feminist? Who was this guy? As he set the dollar man on fire, I read my Burning Man poem. It was a perfect fit! I experienced more meaning reading the poem to him than I did when I read it in public at the Café.
We were interrupted once when a couple came up to the Enlightenment camp, and asked him if he had anymore of the THC drink that he had given out the other night. He gave him a shot, and off the couple went. After finishing our glasses of champagne, Joie gave me several of his CDs of his guitar music. He said that what was his was mine. Oh Goddess, he was acting like I was his long lost true love! As darkness fell, it was time for us to walk to the Burning Man.
Hand and hand we walked closer to the burn site. By this time, the city was all lit up by creative neon lights on moving vehicles. One I remember was a neon moving giant lobster. Joe's hand felt so right in my hand. I have held hands with men who our hands were not a comfortable match. Either his arm was too tall, or too short, or it just didn't give that much pleasure to walk side by side holding each other's hand. But with Hallucigenia, it was good, a really good feeling. It was calming to me to be holding his hand. He commented that he too was feeling very natural with me as if he had known each other for thousands of years. What had happened to us? Were we walking in dream city, and this love dream of the Earth is coming true?
We made our way to the Plastic Chapel—a chapel on the playa made of recycled plastic bottles. The event conducted by Rob Brezsny was called “Commit to Yourself and Marry the Man. ” When we arrived we immediately began to participate in the ceremony, dancing cheek to cheek, his beard such a delightful feeling of the opposite sex in real time dancing with me. I was in ecstasy as we repeated the vows Rob was calling out for us to repeat, committing ourselves to love, trust, and never to betray the other. This is the most natural marriage one could ever have I thought. I didn't know if I had wed myself to myself, or to the other, or to the Burning Man. Which was it?
After getting married, we didn't want to stop dancing in our circles, back and forth glued by our holy burning love for each other. Our peak experience was moving us closer to self-actualization. He whispered to me how he was so grateful to the Universe that he had finally found me. We were no longer lost from the other. He never wanted to be lost from me again. Burning Man had changed his life, and brought the greatest gift into his life, our love.
He told me over and over again how much he loved me. He said it was his new mantra that he couldn't stop repeating, I Love you! I love you! I love you, squeezing me with hugs and superb kisses. I had never been loved this intensely before. But maybe it was going to be a crash-and-burn sort of love. I wondered with a skeptical voice if when he found out more about me, he would regret what had just happened. But it didn't matter. We married each other on this night, and it felt GREAT!
We danced around and around cheek-to-cheek hugging closer and closer until it felt that we were one spirit. For the first time in ages, I no longer felt loneliness. I felt the love of the Universe had taken care of me. It had not forgotten me, but led me into the arms of this wonderful human being! We were not tall enough to see the fire dancers come onto the playa from inside the Burning Man temple. Finally after around an hour or so, someone lit the match to set the Temple of Wisdom on fire.
As it was turning into giant flames, fireworks shot out of the Burning Man's head. Flame throwers were also used to light the Burning Man. It became very hot as the flames got bigger and bigger as if it was an explosion. I thought of Dresden, Germany where the US bombed during the Second World War. The fire became so hot that it caught the atmosphere on fire. I thought about the napalm used in Vietnam War, the Viennese children running down the street with flames on their backs. And then, I thought of the place down the highway towards Arizona where they continue to test nuclear weapons. When the bomb was first experimented with at the Nevada Test Site, Native Americans not knowing the danger of watching the mushroom clouds rise from the desert floor took picnics to watch it when one was scheduled to be tested. Now, in front of us, the flames were so intense that smoke tornados were flying from the burning Burning Man.
Could Burning the Man and the Temple of Wisdom underneath him be an art of war and sacrifice? Didn't I recall in an Internet interview with Larry Harvey that he calls the burning of the man a sacrifice? Isn't that what they do in patriarchal religions and war? If the Burning Man religion is not a spirituality of world peace, then what is it? I wasn't sure, but at that moment being in Joe's arms, being a source of his dearest affection, being in a war zones seemed light years away.
After the man burned, he asked me if I would like to see the city. So, holding each other by the waist, we walked along the Esplanade until we went in a nightclub encampment that was filled with black lights and decorative artworks. There were carpets and places in corners where couples could go and make out. And that is what we proceeded to do. It was so much fun kissing each other and getting closer and closer to each other genitals that it was the right place to be. How wonderful it was to express public love! After a while we got up, danced a little, and then moved on throughout the city until we came to a giant mushroom tree house. People were walking up and down the stairs so that they could sit on the platform on the top of the mushroom. He asked me if I would like to ascend to the top, and I agreed to go. On the top, we got a great view of the dance door. Everyone seemed to be in a joyful mood dancing and tripping, hugging and kissing….. What a delight to the mind and soul to feel love at a love festival!
After a while we decided that it was time to go back to his camp and for me to spend the night with him. Arriving back, we finished up the champagne by toasting to a new beginning, and then we made our way into his bed. I wasn't ready for intercourse, and neither was he, even though he told me how much he wanted me… how beautiful I was in his eyes. After feeling so ugly and loveless the other night, it was like I was going through a total transformation, and through his love I was becoming a magnificent monarch butterfly. Being rapped in his arms, his legs weaved in between my legs, I thought of a poem I had written in the 1970's. Would he be a man who could finally accept my poetic gifts?
In Between Our Legs
In between his harmonious legs
Are two planets called scrotum sacks.
His penis is a universe of stars.
And when he shoots semen into my soul,
a burst of energy greater than the sun
releases the power of universal love.
In between my tranquil legs
is a world without nuclear war.
His mind is between my legs,
and in my soul is a freedom song of
the joy of being whole with another one.