Saturday is the big day at Burning Man, the day that everything else is leading up to: it’s the night they burn the Man and the city pulls out all the stops for the big party night. But we started that day out slowly, just hanging around the shade structure of our Yaboogie pod and chilling with our pod-mates and other visitors. It felt like a great group of friends had coalesced around Yaboogie, and even with all the other memorable shiny happy stuff that I encountered on the playa, I have to say hanging out in camp will always be one of the overall highlights of this burn for me. I really enjoyed the “front porch” feel that our little camp had manifested, where people flowed in and out of our common area. We’d sit there chatting, and people would come by and visit, for long whiles or little whiles, but always they brought something good to the visit. We grew to expect certain people to come by (the Yaboogie “regulars”, those who, even though their tents weren’t right next to ours, wouldn’t pass us by without a visit). 

At one point Siri (aka Comfort Zone) brought by a pineapple filled with frozen alcoholic fruit smoothie, which everyone got to try. The men with mustaches looked funny with leftover smoothie on their faces, so I started taking pictures of everyone in the pod drinking from the pineapple. It was silly at the time, but that series of pictures is one I treasure now, because it reminds me of our pod. I didn’t get a picture of everyone, sadly, but at least I got some.

After lunch, I eventually motivated to do something about the roughly 300 extra freak flags that I had brought with me and not given out yet. It was pretty much the last day of Burning Man, so if I was going to do something about it, it would have to be today. I had originally wanted to bring a bunch of flags and sharpies to Center Camp and recreate last year’s “pop-up” art experience, but I was just too lazy to figure out how to get so many flags all the way over there. So I decided to just go out to the front of SSV and hand out flags to the people who came by. Anjanette said she’d join me, so I had a co-gifter.

I grabbed a couple armfuls of flags from the box for us and first we wandered around camp and gave out flags to all the SSV’ers and other random folks we could find, but then we moved out front. There was a regular flow of people in and out of the front doorway of SSV, so it was easy to approach people and smile and hand them a flag and say “hey, beautiful person, would you like a freak flag?” People would stop and look at me quizzically and I’d show them one of the flags and 90% of the time, they’d light up and say “oh! Sure!” or something similar (a few rejected the gift, but that was fine—sometimes you are not the right person in the right place for a gift). Then I would either hand them one or tell them they could pick one from the pile I was holding (“because each one is different, just like us”). At the same time I’d admonish them “but if you take one you have to promise to fly it. Flags get sad if you don’t fly them,” which people usually laughed at and agreed to. Some people really enjoyed picking just the right flag for themselves, and some people enjoyed the mystery of picking one from the pile (which often turned out to be perfect for them in some way).

We blew through the initial armfuls of flags really quickly, and I went back for more a few times while Anjanette stayed out front giving the flags away. She told me that at one point someone even came by saying “my campmate came back with a flag and I thought it was so cool I asked her where she’d gotten it and came back to get one myself”. I saw people dancing with them, affixing them to their bikes, sticking them in their backpacks, and generally enjoying them. I got reactions that ranged from “no thanks, I have too much to carry around already” to mild enthusiasm to “heck yeah I want a freak flag, and can I have another to bring back for my buddy?” My favorites were the people who thanked me effusively and/or gave me hugs and told me how great the flags were and how much they liked the idea of what I was doing. It was a really delightful feeling to give away something that people responded so positively to. I hope that I was able to make at least a few special “playa moments” for people with my random act of gifting!

We could have given away all the flags then and there, but didn’t—I decided to save some to give away at the actual burn, because I thought that might be fun. (I never did get to do that, but it turned out to be for the best anyway.) After we were done with that I think we biked out to change batteries at the flags (I don’t remember anything in particular from this trip so it must have been a fairly straightforward there and back one) and then came back for an early dinner at SSV. After dinner we all got dressed in our awesomest party outfits, and got ready to go burn that man.

Our core Yaboogie folks—me (Supernova), Josh (Mystic), Anjanette (Oceienne), Eileen (Isis), Mark (Mysterious Bear), Cory (Golden Heart), Patrick (Noble Heart), Alessandro (Navigator), Gregory (Cleric), Siri (Comfort Zone) and Naomi (YumYum)—all went out to the burn together, but we also picked up a few ancillary members that evening (James, Tree and Cougar), and they were a lovely addition to our gang. How to describe the energy and the excitement that permeated the city this evening? It’s hard. But let me see if I can give at least a little flavor.

Imagine thousands of people all dressed up and lit up with their various blinkies and glowies. All of us are pouring out of the city streets from every direction onto the huge open space of the playa, converging in neon arterial lines that move inexorably towards one central destination: the Man on his giant base. As we approach, we feel caught up in and an integral part of this larger civic body: together we are the oxygenated, excited blood rushing towards the heart of this city. Drawn inexorably, albeit willingly, by a common purpose: to BURN. We will burn away the old, the painful, the constricting, the false. We will send fear, disguises, lies and disapproval up in flames until there is nothing left and we are free to begin again.

Now, imagine a GIANT crowd of thousands and thousands of people, surrounding the Man on all sides. This is a crowd who is impossible to categorize, except that every person is in the midst of expressing themselves as truly as they can. The Man is still brightly lit up with neon, and people aim lasers and other lights at him and his base. There is a safety ring of empty space around the Man, enforced by Black Rock Rangers and other people who have volunteered to guard the space (because we want to prevent any tragedy with the moth-to-flame effect that all this excitement can generate in some people). Around that ring there are layers of people sitting and standing interspersed with clumps of parked bikes, and farther back a ring of art cars pumping out music and offering a higher view for those on board. Our group has brought a couple of blankets and finds a sitting spot, then sits together facing the Man. It is satisfying and good to be surrounded by my peeps, but I feel like everyone around me is family at this point, and I am excited to share this moment with everyone.

The fire dancing has started—all around the Man, in the empty space, groups and individuals whose art is fire dancing and fire performance are doing their thing. In front of us is a costumed group with amazing Egyptian-themed fire props on poles—a giant flaming ankh, an Eye of Horus, other things. General chaos and noise is all around us: music and chatter and whoops and hollers as nearly an entire city of 50,000 people gather and watch fire dancers and wait for the big moment when the first fireworks go off. Yet everyone is in a great mood—there’s no violence or anger, very little testosterone. Everyone is aware that we are about to share something very special and spectacular, and that giving our reaction means we too are participating in the event (not just watching the big fire).

And then the Man raises his arms. (Someone has coordinated this effect, and no doubt people are in there somewhere pulling the cables to make this happen, but watching the effigy move in this way is both startling and thrilling.) The crowd cheers and roars.

Then, finally, the first explosion, and there are even bigger roars and cheers. First to go up are the fireworks that have been packed into the Man’s base, amazing, huge, bright streams and blooms of colored light. They go on and on. They are more impressive than anything on the 4^th of July or at Disneyland. They are, to borrow a phrase from the kids, EPIC. Meanwhile the flames grow and then there are billowing clouds of fire and ash and the Man’s lights go out as he and his base are consumed by the fire and the whole thing is the biggest, most amazing display of the power of heat and flame that you have ever seen, starkly and gorgeously outlined against the dark sky blazing with stars in the clear desert air. The rising full moon turns orange from the ash-loaded air.

We watch him burn, all of us, and cheer when he finally falls off his base into the flames below. Soon only part of the wall is left standing, the rest fallen into huge piles of glowing coals. It is time to go celebrate. We move with the rest of the crowd into the party that overtakes the entire city—it is time to dance and to wander and enjoy the spectacle, which is at its brightest and most vibrant tonight.

We leave the Man, and head back towards our side of town. On the way we stop to watch Burn Wall Street burn—we have missed the beginning, and we are not close enough to really experience the cathartic release of anger and fear and sorrow that the burning of this art piece must have brought forth, but we are perfectly satisfied to bask in its heat and glow for a few minutes in solidarity. Eventually we find ourselves back at the giant dance palace of Opulent Temple, along with thousands of others. The music is loud, the flames projecting from the stage roar and wiggle, the blue and green lasers dance in syncopated patterns above our heads. We climb up on a platform near the back of the main dance floor, and lose ourselves in ecstatic dancing. As if things aren’t surreal and wonderful enough, at one point a giant, glowing green squid puppet is brought onto the dance floor by a group of people operating its body and tentacles. We look at each other in delight—where else can you see this, do this? It’s zany and it’s amazing and it’s ours.

Eventually, finally, we tire. We stumble back to camp, glutted on all the sound and fury, the love and weirdness. The Man has burned, we have burned, and we will emerge from this evening, this week, as our new, fertile, purified selves.

[To Be Concluded in Part 7...]

[To see more or full sized pictures, click here for the full set on Flickr]