Burning Man 2009

People keep asking me what Burning Man is. My answer to that is: Whatever you want it to be.

50,000 people journey towards Reno every September.... to celebrate the Burning Man Festival. Held in-the-middle-of-nowhere desert - an entire city is created. Difficult festival to explain - because it not so much a festival but a CITY! Black Rock City has it's own police, post office, waffle house, music venues, tea houses, yoga centers, clubs, magic shows, a circus, even a Ballet show from NYC. Fire dancers, hoola girls, vampire strippers!..... Everything is Free. No currency. Kindness and bartering. An eclectic crowd. Residents come from all over the world - I have held conversations with scientists from NASA, teachers from the inner city Bronx, a 20 year old kid sailing the world in his sailboat, stealing food from wedding parties and surviving off adventure....

Every minute at Burning Man - something fantastic is being created and experienced. Want to know what I am talking about? Check out the Burning Man website - read through their Theme Camps - experience the photography - you will (kinda sorta) understand what I am talking about.....

Where else can you find a REAL diner with stainless steel counters, with coffee and grilled cheese sandwiches, and a pretty lady in a hair net..... 3 miles in the middle of no where at 5am in the desert?

Where else can you get lost in the desert and find a pay phone and talk to God?

Where else can you ride a bike in your underwear, covered in Camel Fur, wearing Swim Goggles, with two fingers up your ass? And when you get off that bike - someone with a Hippo suit will want to give you a hug?

Burning Man creates a culture that should exist in every day life.... Neighbors are golden! Judgment is rarely passed. Respect for the weird and the outrageous! Breaking out of the box. Art and hugs. Everything is so weird and so strange and new and beautiful - it is hard to keep up with the city as it grows.... Matthew and I spend a lot of time at the HeebieGeebie camp, a healing camp, a meditation camp full of soft spoken spiritual types - I strive for the way that I feel at Burning man. Want to bottle it up and encompass it in my everyday life.... I find myself there, I get lost, I get scared, I meet new people, I ride my bike till I cannot breathe, I roll in the dust, I hug strangers, then the sand storm comes and dusts up my glasses.... Fucking Burning Man. So grateful it exists. So so so grateful that this will be my third year attending.

As I type this, thousands of hard working volunteers are out in the desert - staking out well organized roads, setting up the perimeter, building camps, creating a trash fence, preparing for the rest of the family to show up.... next year... I want to go in early. I want to see the city rise out of the lake-bed and into city.....

Oh Sunday cannot come quickly enough..... 2,500 miles stand between me and that glorious moondance across the desert. Bring it!