[Burning Man] yet more...
Sep. 11th, 2007 11:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidThursday was the day I walked most, going out into the deep playa twice. In the morning, I'd woken up early, when it was surprisingly cold (much more so than when I'd gone to sleep), and decided I wanted to see the sun rise over the cliffs beyond the playa. So I put on my jacket over other layers, grabbed my pack (read: water), and headed out.
There was lots of art I hadn't seen yet, so I headed towards something unfamiliar and let that guide me. I was keeping an eye on where I walked, and happened to find some feather moop (matter out of place; definitely discouraged at a pack-in, pack-out event). I picked it up, knowing I'd have to carry it around until I got back to camp... and the next installment I saw was the Moopfruit Forest. I don't remember what it was made of, but it was very reminiscent of low-hanging trees, and had small draw-string bags hanging from some of the branches, bags for collecting moop in. Totally serendipitous. I got one with Miss Piggy on it :-). After that, it felt intended that I pay more attention to moop out on the playa, saving someone else the effort to find it later when I just happened upon it now. I was rewarded again: I found a cool necklace someone had lost, with a ceramic Burning Man medallion on it. Sweet.
I kept finding more stuff, the rest of it not nearly so interesting, as I meandered on. It was already light, and the sun had started to make an appearance. It was getting warm, and I thought about turning back, but there were interesting things still to see. And as it turned out, something I needed to do: a man saw me picking up moop, and came up to say hi, because he'd been doing the same thing. Except that he'd had a harder morning than I: it was his first Burning Man clean, and he'd just found a bunch of drugs, which he'd passed on to people who'd use them, rather than use them himself. It had obviously been hard for him, to be tested in such a way, and I think I was there to tell him how impressive his strength was, to support him in his sobriety, helping him through the intensity of the moment. So I did. And knew that I wasn't a tourist, at least not then. I hope the rest of his Burn was easier for him.
I continued out to the flying monkeys tempted by the snake's apple, and was given another necklace by a guy from South Dakota; he thought he was one of only two people there from the state (and he drove in with the other one).
By this time it was rather warm, but it would've been more annoying to carry my (not ideal for Burning Man) jacket, so I kept it on, and started home. I was still picking up moop, but I stopped going out of my way when I realized I'd finished my water and there was still quite a ways to go. I didn't dehydrate before getting back to the Peeps, but I was rather thirsty.
That night, I went with Powerfrau, Electrictruffle, and Peanut to meet the Swarm by the Crude Awakening structure (a huge derrick with huge figures worshipping it, which was destined to go up in enormous flames). We never ran into them, and ended up meandering our way back instead. Truffles were distributed, of course. We saw some wonderfully choreographed firespinners (I hope I can get copies of the photos Peanut took), then had enough standing around and headed onward, avoiding cars and bikes and other lit up people all going along whichever direction pleased them most.
Earlier, I'd seen what looked like some thin archways that formed a sort of circular gazebo (gaZEEEEbo!). It didn't look like much then, but this night it had transformed, all the arches burning, and music playing. The best part, though, was when a group of people all dressed the same (sort of Roman centurions but hats as if made from newspaper) came marching up, holding their sticks with marshmallows aloft to toast them in the upper flames. Totally excellent. We talked with them after, and it turned out they'd been going around doing this wherever they found flame; at least one poi spinner had paused his performance for their toasting :-).
And onward again, vaguely in the direction of home. The next stop was for something I hadn't gotten the full effect of before. Imagine a central stalk, about person height, covered in lightbulbs, with partial planes of lighbulbs radiating out from that. Someone had programmed impressively, because there were all different colors and patterns happening. From far away, it just looked like the colors were changing, but closer in, it became much more mesmerizing, lights sweeping around in all different patterns and colors. I could've stayed for hours if I'd been in the right mood for it (and I wonder what it would've been like under the influence of psychadelics).
This time, it really was homeward bound, which turned out to be a good thing. I checked my pedometer (brought partly to have some idea of how much I was walking, and partly to have a chronometer with me), and I'd walked more than 33K steps. No wonder I was tired!
There was lots of art I hadn't seen yet, so I headed towards something unfamiliar and let that guide me. I was keeping an eye on where I walked, and happened to find some feather moop (matter out of place; definitely discouraged at a pack-in, pack-out event). I picked it up, knowing I'd have to carry it around until I got back to camp... and the next installment I saw was the Moopfruit Forest. I don't remember what it was made of, but it was very reminiscent of low-hanging trees, and had small draw-string bags hanging from some of the branches, bags for collecting moop in. Totally serendipitous. I got one with Miss Piggy on it :-). After that, it felt intended that I pay more attention to moop out on the playa, saving someone else the effort to find it later when I just happened upon it now. I was rewarded again: I found a cool necklace someone had lost, with a ceramic Burning Man medallion on it. Sweet.
I kept finding more stuff, the rest of it not nearly so interesting, as I meandered on. It was already light, and the sun had started to make an appearance. It was getting warm, and I thought about turning back, but there were interesting things still to see. And as it turned out, something I needed to do: a man saw me picking up moop, and came up to say hi, because he'd been doing the same thing. Except that he'd had a harder morning than I: it was his first Burning Man clean, and he'd just found a bunch of drugs, which he'd passed on to people who'd use them, rather than use them himself. It had obviously been hard for him, to be tested in such a way, and I think I was there to tell him how impressive his strength was, to support him in his sobriety, helping him through the intensity of the moment. So I did. And knew that I wasn't a tourist, at least not then. I hope the rest of his Burn was easier for him.
I continued out to the flying monkeys tempted by the snake's apple, and was given another necklace by a guy from South Dakota; he thought he was one of only two people there from the state (and he drove in with the other one).
By this time it was rather warm, but it would've been more annoying to carry my (not ideal for Burning Man) jacket, so I kept it on, and started home. I was still picking up moop, but I stopped going out of my way when I realized I'd finished my water and there was still quite a ways to go. I didn't dehydrate before getting back to the Peeps, but I was rather thirsty.
That night, I went with Powerfrau, Electrictruffle, and Peanut to meet the Swarm by the Crude Awakening structure (a huge derrick with huge figures worshipping it, which was destined to go up in enormous flames). We never ran into them, and ended up meandering our way back instead. Truffles were distributed, of course. We saw some wonderfully choreographed firespinners (I hope I can get copies of the photos Peanut took), then had enough standing around and headed onward, avoiding cars and bikes and other lit up people all going along whichever direction pleased them most.
Earlier, I'd seen what looked like some thin archways that formed a sort of circular gazebo (gaZEEEEbo!). It didn't look like much then, but this night it had transformed, all the arches burning, and music playing. The best part, though, was when a group of people all dressed the same (sort of Roman centurions but hats as if made from newspaper) came marching up, holding their sticks with marshmallows aloft to toast them in the upper flames. Totally excellent. We talked with them after, and it turned out they'd been going around doing this wherever they found flame; at least one poi spinner had paused his performance for their toasting :-).
And onward again, vaguely in the direction of home. The next stop was for something I hadn't gotten the full effect of before. Imagine a central stalk, about person height, covered in lightbulbs, with partial planes of lighbulbs radiating out from that. Someone had programmed impressively, because there were all different colors and patterns happening. From far away, it just looked like the colors were changing, but closer in, it became much more mesmerizing, lights sweeping around in all different patterns and colors. I could've stayed for hours if I'd been in the right mood for it (and I wonder what it would've been like under the influence of psychadelics).
This time, it really was homeward bound, which turned out to be a good thing. I checked my pedometer (brought partly to have some idea of how much I was walking, and partly to have a chronometer with me), and I'd walked more than 33K steps. No wonder I was tired!