Sunday morning we stumbled out of bed and slowly, groggily started trying to get our individual and collective s**t together to pack up and strike the camp. There was a morning all-camp meeting where everyone got strike explained and volunteer roles assigned. Yaboogie peeps were in charge of striking the shower, which we did immediately after the meeting for a few grueling hours until it was done. At least we had lots of help, which certainly did make it easier and friendlier. It was a little sad how quickly everything came apart into ordinary piles and bags and boxes, and there was a bunch of “where did this come from” kind of moop, but overall I think we did a pretty good job consolidating everything.
After that we spent the rest of the afternoon alternately sitting around in a stupor and trying to pack up all of our personal stuff, because we were planning on leaving before sunrise the next morning—we knew that Exodus would be grueling and take forever, so we wanted to get started as soon as possible. We were tired and grubby but generally happy.
At dinner there was another big camp meeting, full of logistics and planning, and eventually we stopped and a group of us (Josh, me, Anjanette, Evan, Mary, Mitch, and maybe a few others) met up to go see the Temple burn. We got there kind of late (they were burning the Temple earlier this year, in an effort to help with Exodus), so we didn’t get very close to it, and as a result, we didn’t quite have the one-with-the-crowd feeling. But we did have our own little group again, and it was sad and beautiful and full of release and longing all the same. We talked a bit about what we would want to burn away (I never did get the chance this year to write on the Temple or leave anything there to be actually burned away, which I regret), and I decided that what I wanted to burn away was constriction, aka feelings of smallness. After all, we supernovas are supposed to expand and get bigger, right? :)
When the burn was over we trudged back to SSV and finished packing up as much as we could, and started saying our goodbyes to to friends and campmates. We went to bed in our stripped down yurt at around 10:30, because we knew we’d have to get up early in the morning to finish loading and head out. We’d heard rumors that another rainstorm was due on Monday morning, and we were anxious to make sure we got out of the city before that. We were really nervous about making it out before the rains came—we really didn’t want to get stuck in BRC, because we had kids and babysitters to get home to with no way of communicating that we’d be late (even though of course we’d made contingency plans). But we knew we needed some sleep before we could face that long, grueling Exodus and day of travel.