Blog (Irregular Reports From the Front)

(Poor Parentheticals, abandoned for so long. What little public updating I do these days seems to only take place on Facebook. But Facebook is mostly a short-form place, and I have a LOT to say about this year’s trip to Burning Man, so I’ll put it here.)

Burning Man! It has come and gone, and though the lead up to the week in Black Rock City felt like it went on and on and consumed much of my available time and energy for July and August (see below), the week itself seemed to come and go in a flash. I’ve been back from the desert for nearly three weeks now, and am just now finally able to sit down and start writing up the experiences I had there. Why the delay? Well, it’s partly due to the traditional re-entry fatigue and accompanying post-playa blues, and partly due to the surging return of all the postponed life distractions that have pulled at me me since I’ve been back, but it is also partly due to my own need for some processing time. I’m still in the midst of that processing, I think, but I’m finally able to start setting down at least a few things now. For those readers who are impatient with the full, overly detailed and admittedly solipsistic story, please feel free to just skim and look at the pictures (or you can click through to the full set on Flickr, here), or you can skip to the end to see my summary of this year’s takeaways. And if you’re unfamiliar with Burning Man in general, you might want to go look at my posts from my first year in 2011, in which I explain some things (or you could just go look at the official Burning Man website).

Before I jump into the details and stories of this year’s burn, however, I feel like a prologue (oh yeah, I’m gonna go there: into the dreaded prologue!) is necessary. Because in many ways, this year’s burn and its accompanying epiphanies and lessons started well before the actual week in the desert. (If prologues give you the heebie jeebies, though, or this particular part of the story doesn’t interest you and you just want to skip to the stories of fun times in the dust, click here to go to Part 1.) You see, this year, Josh and I got involved (and then we got heavily involved, and then we became project leaders) in co-creating a significant project for Sacred Spaces Village (the camp I’ve been with for the previous two years at Burning Man): the showers. Yes, the showers, or as it then became called, the “shower experience”, which ultimately morphed into a giant project called the “Temple of Renewal”.

Let me set up some context here. Last year at Sacred Spaces Village (SSV), there had been two showers, contained within the same small wooden private enclosure as our two (unfortunately often stinky and over-full) porta-potties. The showers last year were cobbled together from raw lumber and canvas curtains on top of a couple of shower pans, with hooks and ropes above to hang solar shower bags (which we all were supposed to bring) and a greywater bucket underneath each one to catch the run off, which campers then had to take out and bring over to empty into the camp’s larger greywater cube after their showers. It was adequate but very utilitarian and got pretty grubby and gross over the course of the week. Josh and I and some other Yaboogie pod-mates of ours had been part of a conversation about the showers last year which started with us complaining and wanting to make suggestions about how the showers could be improved, and ended with one of the camp leaders saying to us “great, so why don’t you be in charge of the showers next year?” And (perhaps foolishly or over-enthusiastically, in hindsight) we’d agreed.

We conveniently forgot about having agreed to this project until around May, but once we were reminded, we started to organize and recruit team members and started having conference calls to figure out our vision for the project. Our little team (which was mostly me, Josh and my burner buddy Eileen) started out with the assumption that we would be responsible for figuring out what the improved shower experience would be, including what pieces should be built/acquired and how the whole thing should be decorated, and for then giving directions to the build team, who would be able to physically build what we had envisioned. We also assumed that the camp’s build lead, who was part of our team, would be providing direction on how to turn our vision of the experience into an actual buildable plan, since none of us had any experience with construction or plumbing. We expected to put in a good amount of time in helping to get specific about the experience and the particular pieces of the project, and we were prepared to help build and decorate specific pieces ahead of time, but we assumed that since the showers themselves and the structure which enclosed them would all be actually assembled by the build team on playa, they’d tell us what was possible and what was not and what we’d need in order to do the construction.

Do you know that saying about assumptions? That they make an ASS out of U and ME? Yeah. We were wrong.

Our small team worked on the vision of what the shower experience was going to be throughout May and June. And what a glorious vision we came up with! True to the spirit of a camp called “Sacred Spaces”, we wanted the shower experience to be not only practical, but sacred. So we asked ourselves, what would the showers look like if they were treated like a sacred space, like a temple? Thus the “Temple of Renewal” was born. Our goal was “to provide an opportunity for loving self-care in a setting that is beautiful, refreshing and mindful.” We went through several incarnations, but finally settled on this vision for the Temple of Renewal: we started with a 30’ dome (which would later be downgraded to 24’) in the center of which would be our shower enclosure, a 10' tall, 8' wide wooden building that enclosed 4 shower stalls laid out in a 2x2 square. At the entrance to the dome we would have a transitional “vestibule”  space with cubbies and benches so visitors could remove and leave their shoes and other dusty gear and do some “pre-cleansing” with vinegar wipes as needed to ready themselves for their sacred renewal experience. Once through the vestibule, visitors would encounter the front of the shower enclosure, which would be decorated with art and an altar. Visitors would have the opportunity to stop at the altar and set an intention for what they would like to wash away and the way(s) in which they wanted to be renewed during their visit. On the altar would be a jar full of tiny cards with blessings/questions/intention suggestions--visitors could pick one to use as a focus during their visit. Then visitors would move around either side of the altar in order to access the shower stalls via stairs on either side of the enclosure (the showers had to be raised on a platform because of the need for gravity’s assistance in letting greywater drain out and away). The sides of the dome would have benches to sit on while waiting for a shower to become available or while just enjoying the space. Visitors would bring their own shower bags and hook them to a rope/pulley system that hung above each shower, and there would be a caddy in each shower for toiletries and hooks outside for clothes and towels. Greywater would drain away through the magic of gravity into a communal greywater barrel, which a sump pump would then automatically pump out into our camp’s greywater cube. Inspirational signs would hang in and around the shower area, and rope lighting hanging around the dome and floor would keep the space lit at night. The back of the enclosure would be our "vanity" area for dressing and primping. On the wall we would have two full-length mirrors, plus a few small shelves, and benches to sit on while getting dressed or putting on lotion or makeup. A variety of lovely lotions and potions (body/face lotion, essential oil sprays and perfumes, etc) would be stocked on the shelves to be used by all visitors whether or not they have showered--it would be a great space for a quick refresh or for putting on makeup and checking out one’s awesome outfit in the mirror before going out for the evening.

Sounds pretty awesome, right? We thought so. I was really excited about being in charge of décor for this project...I made a concept board on Pinterest with the dual themes of sea-glass and Atlantis as inspiration, and put together a whole list of décor projects from small (create shower signs) to large (make and decorate furniture). I personally took on a couple big art pieces: the 8’x8’ altar hanging, and a “seaglass guardian” sculpture made from recycled bottles that would stand in the vestibule. It was going to be beautiful, it was going to be sacred, it was going to be something really special, just for our fellow villagers.

Aaaand then sometime in June we realized that our assumptions of who was going to actually physically create this beautiful vision of ours were not correct. (Remember that thing about assumptions making an ass out of u and me?) Sure, the build team would assemble whatever we came up with once it got to the playa, but it became clear that our build lead wasn’t going to come up with any sort of architectural plan ahead of time, nor was anyone else going to figure out the building materials list so that all the ingredients (lumber, bolts, paint, etc) could be purchased ahead of time. We realized right around the beginning of July that if anyone was going to make this vision actually happen, it would have to be us. No one else was giving us guidance or direction, and no one else was going to do the ahead-of-time work necessary to actually make the showers themselves. We would have to “go big or go home”.

So Josh, renaissance maker man that he is at heart, jumped in to the breach and created detailed architectural plans for a shower structure that would be safe, re-usable, and easy to assemble on playa from pre-built modular pieces. We ran the plans by our team and one of our camp leads and got general approval on them. Then Josh figured out how much and what kind of lumber we would need to make it all happen, called up the lumber company and ordered it all delivered to our house. Then, after that pile of lumber arrived in our driveway, he began to measure and cut and build. And I began to paint, and to manage and help create all the other décor projects that we’d decided to include. Eileen took on the creation and collection of our altar décor. Some of our Yaboogie pod peeps and a few other SSV friends came by on weekends to help with building and painting. Even our down-the-street neighbors (whom we now know are veteran burners) came by one day to help out! (Overall, one of the big benefits of working on this project was that it allowed us to meet some amazing people, and get to know each other better in that special way that only comes through working hard together on a big vision.) We were pressed for time, stressed about costs and feeling dangerously ignorant about building, but we persevered. Josh and I hunkered down and blew off most everything else in our lives and worked our butts off for about a month, right up until that day in mid-August, about a week and a half before the burn started, when the camp’s truck came and we had to load all the pieces of our Temple of Renewal onto it. (And what a relief that day was!)

I won’t lie, it was a tough project to do, mostly because of the knowledge and experience deficit we started with and the time crunch we found ourselves in. We were noodged by camp leaders, but not really supported in any practical way beyond scattershot advice, signal bumping on calls for help at work parties, and the occasional “you guys are doing a great job” pat on the back. All that was good, but what we really needed was someone regularly checking in on us and helping us to coordinate our efforts with the rest of what was going to be built at camp, someone knowledgeable and experienced who could guide us as to best practices and be clear with us about what our resources and budget were and help us work with what we had access to. Once we realized that we weren’t going to get that kind of support or guidance, and accepted that we were going to have to do everything ourselves (and that whatever we did would be good enough), we were able to harness our own “get sh*t done” superpowers and do what it took to finish the project. And finish it we did, not perfectly, not completely, but in a way that was remarkably close to our original vision and which turned out to be pretty damn successful all the way around.

This project taught me many lessons, just as the experience of Burning Man itself tends to do. I learned a lot about organizational dynamics, and about how to navigate (or not) a chaotic system. I learned that existing relationships are the most reliable source of help (and how important it is to build/strengthen relationships beforehand so that when you need to call on people for help, they’ll come). But I also learned that when you are open to it, sometimes help comes from unexpected places, from outside those carefully cultivated previous relationships, and that kind of help is an amazing gift that can then hopefully be turned into a mutually satisfying relationship (which might even lead to more help in the future!) I learned how to lead (and cheerlead) a project, and an ever-shifting team (pro tip: humor and enthusiasm get you pretty far). I got better at telling the difference between people with a can-do, get-sh*t-done ethic and those with good intentions, and I got to practice how to properly value/appreciate/distribute the former and how to encourage the conversion of the latter into active participants. I learned about how to pace work, and when to push and when not to. I certainly discovered more about my own capacities (and Josh’s)...and I was pleased with what I found.

After all the pieces of the shower were loaded on the truck (the altar décor and other fragile decorations were going up separately), we had about four days to get our own supplies and gear ready to pack up to go with Josh—he was going up a week early to do build for the whole SSV camp (I would be driving up separately with my BFF Anjanette and arriving on the Monday when the event started). So we scurried around and finished making our hexayurt and bought supplies and fixed up bikes and pulled out camping gear and costumes. Then on Monday of the week before the burn we loaded 99% of all that into our minivan and sent Josh on his way. He spent the next week dealing with crazy windy thunderstorms and a difficult build, but that’s his story to tell. I was worried about him but he was able to text me every once in awhile so I knew he was ok and hanging in there. Meanwhile, I spent the next week finishing up art projects (the altar hanging for the Temple of Renewal, 300+ freak flags for my Fly Your Freak Flag High workshops, a Temple Guardian staff, and a costume piece made from leftover bits of the altar hanging), packing the rest of my own gear and clothing, and dealing with the first week of school for our kids.

Finally, the day of departure came...and I’ll start that story in Part 1.

[Cargo Cult full set of pictures on Flickr]

It’s that day again: my birthday, which is also my cancer diagnosis anniversary. (My 21^st anniversary, for those of you who care to follow along.) After last year’s big 20^th anniversary, this one feels quieter (though no less celebratory). But still, I’m glad it’s here, this anniversary. It’s a terrific birthday gift: every year on this day I get a reminder to examine my “origin story” of how I became who I am today, by reflecting on this important episode of my life. I get the opportunity, again, to reaffirm the lessons I learned and sometimes even to learn something new, or at least to spice up the core epiphanies with some interesting new flavor combos. I am incredibly grateful to still be here, another year later, enjoying this gift.

21 years out, I find that the whole cancer story is starting to take on the feel and the characteristics of legend or myth. By that I mean that most of the specific, gritty, sensory details have faded away, except for a decorative few (the discombulation of waking up from general anesthetic with a tube in my nose; the indignity of lying on the bed of a radiation machine while someone manipulates my body; the tattoos and sharpie marks on my skin that indicated the boundaries of my radiation fields; the cool, steely fingers of the radiation oncologist when she examined me...I could go on but I won’t.) But as with any good legend, the skeleton of the story is preserved: the bones of what happened when, of what the results were, and what the moral(s) of the story were. Each year I study the story skeleton like an anthropologist studying a fossil, reporting (at least to myself) on the way that this bone attached to that one, theorizing how a tug on that bone led to a corresponding motion over there, and how the whole organism evolved into the next stage. 

With everything stripped down to the essential bones, it’s easier to see the lessons. Here are some things that cancer taught me that I’ve been thinking about today (I’m sure there are more; this is just today’s/this year’s musings):

• Cancer or any other serious illness can actually be a gift (it was to me). As I often said during the experience, it’s certainly not a preferred path to enlightenment, nor one I would wish on anyone else, but it is one--and it helped crack me open and let the light in at a precociously early age.
• Life is uncertain. Just when you think you’re in a groove, something will disrupt your groove. Learning to dance with disruption at least lets the rest of the groove continue.
• Priorities really do become clearer when you realize that you may not have as long to stay on this earth as you thought you would. That clarity can be re-invoked at any time.
• It is very easy to take one’s miraculous body and continued good health for granted. Appreciate what you have while you have it, but grieving for what’s gone is appropriate (and helpful) too, as long as it doesn’t prevent you from moving on.
• Illness is at its core a private experience. Others can empathize and support, but what is happening to your body is yours alone. Your reactions to or feelings about what is happening to your body are also yours alone.
• Optimism and humor may or may not be curative in and of themselves, but they certainly make the whole experience more bearable (for both self and others).
• It is important to insist on being treated with dignity and being connected with on a human level even when embroiled in the midst of routine, repetitive, institutionalized tasks.
• Always bring your own bathrobe to medical appointments. It’s wayyyyy more comfortable and dignified than the paper disposables or ill-fitting cloth ones. And there’s no reason not to.
• I am pretty darn brave in the face of personal threat, both physical and psychological. Recalling that bravery has helped me respond similarly in other, less dire situations.
• Allowing others to help you is a gift you can give that gives back to you.
• You are not only your illness, but illness is an excellent opportunity for identity work nonetheless, because it really does cause you to examine everything you currently think is part of you.
• I’m ok with dying. Really I am. I certainly hope I can put it off as long as possible, because I have a lot of things I want to do and enjoy still, but I’m not afraid of it anymore.
• Serious illness scares people. They don’t know how to respond to the person who is ill, especially over time or after the initial episodes have passed. Having compassion for other people’s fear makes dealing with their sometimes insensitive or rude reactions much easier. But still: you don’t have to deal with anyone else’s reactions if you don’t want to.
• Sometimes you just have to (literally or metaphorically) lie there and breathe. Nothing else is expected of you; nothing else is needed. Movement will resume in good time.

I was just looking back over last year’s blog posts about the year behind and the resolutions for the year ahead, and I see that I said that my major intention for 2012 was to practice (and to create and maintain practices). I think I totally did live that intention, and I want to continue it into 2013. But the specific intention I want to set for this coming year is Stretch. In the coming year, I want to keep reminding (and convincing) myself to stretch: beyond the expected, beyond my comfort zone, beyond what I know or have known, even if just the tiniest amount. I do and I have done a lot, but if I stretch, I will find out whether or not I can do more, in a healthy challenge sort of way.

The key thing to remember about Stretch (hey self, I’m talking to you), is that by its very nature, Stretch is an elastic concept. It requires me staying flexible enough to push just a little farther whenever something new or different starts to make me feel scared or uncertain. I don’t have to go too far; just far enough to feel the stretch. And the deeper and more often I stretch, the farther I’ll be able to go the next time. (So in a way this fits very nicely into last year’s resolution to Practice.) 

All right, I have declared my intention; we shall see how it plays out over this next year. With all this practice and all this stretching, I should be winning a gold medal in the Happiness marathon by 2014!

Once again I’m here at the end of the year trying to take stock of the previous year and set intentions for the year to come. Before I look ahead, though, I want to take stock of the year behind, and record a few things for posterity.

So how’d 2012 go? Well, yesterday I went for a long walk on the beautiful winter beach with my Mom (we’re out here for our annual family beach vacation). We sat on a log and looked at the gorgeous ocean and talked about life and the year we were closing out. Mom told me that from her perspective, it looked like I had a really good 2012, and accomplished a lot of things I wanted to. And you know what? That’s true. Most notably, of course, my book was finally published (after much work on it during 2012), but also: I took the Fly Your Freak Flag High (FYFFH) flag-making project to Maker Faire and the Academy of Sciences, and to Burning Man and SF Decompression, and I learned a lot and did a lot more with it this year. I hope to do even more in 2013, of course. I made my first large-scale art installation (the FYFFH flags at Burning Man) in 2012 too, and that was fun. I would love to do that again. On a smaller note, Josh and I also had a joint New Year’s resolution to make 2012 the “year of live performances”, which we totally did do. We went to concerts, plays, art shows, festivals and parties, and saw and heard lots of amazing stuff.

My stated intention in 2012 was “Practice”, and I feel like I really did step up to the advanced stage of intentional life design by committing to and honoring several different kinds of practice (writing practice, creative practice, happiness practice, communication practice, etc). I set myself challenges, and rose to them. I tried new things, and succeeded. But also, in several important ways, 2012 was the Year of Manifestation. I manifested both my Author and Artist identities in clear and unambiguous ways, and felt warmly received.

And now, for posterity, a quick general summary of the highlights of 2012:

In general:

There were no major health problems, tragedies or physical changes in the world of our immediate family. I’m very grateful for this.

I spent a lot of my year writing and making art, and it felt AWESOME. More, please.

I continued my work with our synagogue’s Chevra Kadisha (burial society), which was really satisfying.

I read lots of books (but not nearly enough), and continued to enjoy having book group discussions with my ongoing book group.

Josh made the hard decision to quit the Boy Scouts (and pull our boys out too), based on the BSA’s intolerance for homosexuality and atheism amongst its members. It was a “live your values” decision, but it was a hard one for him because the Boy Scouts meant a great deal to him.

Eli started middle school. It’s been a big adjustment, both for him and for our family. We are staring down the barrel of teenager-dom, and none of us is quite ready. (But then again, is one ever, either as parent or child?)

Isaac started playing ukulele (awesome video coming soon on YouTube), and really started enjoying reading (finally!)

Both boys developed quite an obsession with Magic: The Gathering cards, and not surprisingly have developed into pretty competent RPG players.

In specific:

January 2012 was my 43^rd birthday, and also marked the 20^th anniversary of my remission from cancer. I wrote about that here.

In February, Eli turned 11 and we went to DunDraCon again as a family. The boys are getting to be quite the professional Pathfinder Society gamers!

In March, Isaac turned 7 and we took a weeklong family trip with my brother’s family and my parents to New Orleans. We saw parades, toured the bayous and saw gators, ate beignets, and listened to jazz. It was a great trip! I also went to FOGcon again, and started a Kickstarter campaign to fund taking FYFFH to Maker Faire and Burning Man.

Surprisingly, April was pretty quiet (except for Passover).

In May I took FYFFH to the Maker Faire, and had a really positive experience (despite coming down with strep throat on the last day). We also went to KublaCon. 

In June we went to visit my brother’s family in Chico, and I was introduced to the joy of putting sparkly tinsel in my hair (I’ve had it redone several times since and will likely keep doing it as long as I still find it fun to be sparkly-haired.) We went to the Pirate Festival and the Marin Art Festival (where Mom had a booth) and Josh and I quietly celebrated our 17^th  wedding anniversary. I worked a lot on edits for my novel, which had to be turned in by the beginning of July.

In July Josh went to PaizoCon, and we visited with my great grandma. Most excitingly, we took a long 2-week vacation with family to Maui. I worked some more on novel edits and cover design.

In August, Josh went off to another conference, and to GenCon, and Eli started 6^th grade (and we all had to get used to middle school). Then starting on the day of Josh's 40^th birthday we went to Burning Man, where the requisite mind-expanding and life-changing experiences were had.

In September we recovered from Burning Man (and kept trying to get used to middle school), spent some time with Josh’s sister and family, and celebrated the High Holidays. I started another Kickstarter campaign to help fund a promotional printing of my novel for the World Fantasy Convention. I helped Mom set up and break down her Mill Valley Fall Arts festival booth, and we threw a giant belated 40^th birthday party for Josh and two other friends.

In October we had a good time hanging with a houseguest (a friend from Burning Man), went to a couple different Burning Man Decompression events (including the big SF Decom where I displayed my FYFFH flag sculpture again), and for the first time since having kids, I skipped Halloween to go off to the World Fantasy Convention and manifest my author-with-a-debut-novel self.

In November, after World Fantasy, I started an adult b’nai mitzvah class (because I’d always told Eli that I’d get my bat mitzvah when he got his, and his is scheduled for early 2014). We celebrated Thanksgiving (which I recently wrote about over here in a guest blog entry), and I threw myself a fabulous book launch party. (Pictures from that can be found here.)

Then in December we threw our Black Turkey Party (the 16^th annual!), celebrated Hanukkah with latkes and presents, participated in all the other rituals and errands of the season, celebrated Christmas with Josh’s parents and then extended family, and came out to Stinson with my brothers’ family and parents for our annual beach trip.

And now here we are at the very end of the year, and I am pleased and grateful to have had such a positive year. Here’s to a new year full of excitement, joy, contentment, challenges, and deepening relationships with friends and family. May everyone receive everything they need, and most of what they want.

Happy New Year, all!

(Hmm, what kind of excuse can I start a blog post with this time? Let’s see, how about the time-honored “I’ve been busy?” Or the classic “I’ve been distracted by other events and creative projects?” Or perhaps the generally pathetic “I’ve been juggling too many things?” Yeah, all true, but why haven’t I blogged? Ummm...okay, I got nothin’. I will just have to remain parenthetically unrepentant and soldier on, as always.)

So yeah, it’s been awhile since I said anything here on Parentheticals. Re-entry from Burning Man took me most of September, and then there was a child starting middle school to get used to, Jewish High Holidays to celebrate, a “big number” birthday party for the husband to plan and execute, a house guest to hang out with, a Kickstarter campaign to create and market, a big Fly Your Freak Flag High event to prep and staff, Halloween to get ready for, and final edits to do on my book. This on top of all the “normal” life admin and parenting stuff that inevitably comes up. I’m exhausted just remembering it.

What I want to set down for the record though, is my experience earlier this month at the World Fantasy Convention in Toronto. It was not only awesome in a general way, it was also a major manifested moment in my “becoming an author” trajectory. Let me explain, by way of a brief detour through my recent history with going to science fiction and fantasy cons.

2007 was when I began to revive my writerly identity, and the marker of that was applying to and attending the week-long Viable Paradise (VP) workshop for speculative fiction writers. After re-acquainting myself there with how awesome that SFF writer tribe was, I finally started going to science fiction and fantasy cons again (I’d been to fan cons as a geeky teenager—but that’s a whole other subject). I attended as a fan, sure, but the big shift was that I was now also attending as an aspiring author. My first con was the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) in Denver, CO, in 2008. I went with a bunch of friends I met at VP, and had a terrific time geeking out, meeting people, participating in a writer’s workshop, and generally owning my “rookie writer” self. I got to watch and support my friend and VP roomie Kim (who had just published a story in an anthology by Hadley Rille Books) as she did an author reading, signed books and attended her publisher’s party—in other words, as she acted like a Real Live Author. It looked really fun to be a Real Live Author, and I wanted to do it too. I just had to finish that novel...or something...

 In 2009 I got my chance to join Kim as a Hadley Rille author when she got me invited to submit to a project she was working on with Hadley Rille—a collection of fantasy stories relating to the Renaissance Faire. During a writer’s retreat that spring in Stinson Beach, CA, Kim and I both wrote our stories and sent them off to Hadley Rille. When mine was accepted and I got a copy of the Renaissance Festival Tales anthology to hold in my hand, I finally felt like I had something to show that I was becoming, however slowly and in however small a way, a Real Live Author.That year, I went to Worldcon again (in Montreal, Quebec), where we celebrated the launch of Kim’s first novel with Hadley Rille, and I got to practice being a Real Live Author (albeit in a small way) myself, by doing a reading, being on panels, signing books at the Hadley Rille table and having a meeting with “my publisher” where I got to pitch him my as-yet-still-unfinished novel. It felt great, but it also felt small, and I felt a bit despairing when I looked at how many other writerly things my friends and VP classmates had accomplished (novels finished; novels published; stories sold; contests won) in the time I’d known them. But I soldiered on, because at least I had *something*. Later in 2009 I went to the World Fantasy Convention for the first time, in San Jose, CA. I had a great time, and did a reading, and felt generally authorial because I had something to talk about and show off, even if it was little. Plus, I will always fondly remember that particular con because while I was there, on the last day of the con, I typed the words “THE END” on the first draft of my novel manuscript (approximately 6 years after I’d started it, in case anyone is keeping track at home).

During 2010 I oh-so-slowly revised that novel, but didn’t do much other writerly stuff. I didn’t go to Worldcon because it was overseas, and by the time I went to the next con, the World Fantasy Con in Columbus, OH at the end of 2010, I still wasn’t quite done with my revisions. I didn’t have much to show for my year—no new publications, no polished and finished novel draft, no new project started. I had a great time and met lots of new friends, but overall I felt kind of static and that felt kind of embarrassing, or at least unsatisfying. One thing it did do though was to give me a kick in the butt to finish up my revisions, so shortly after the con I sent the novel manuscript to Hadley Rille and then turned my attention to writing query letters and lackadaisically querying agents.

Not a whole lot more writing happened in 2011. I did outline and start a new novel, and got a few chapters into it, but was having a hard time pushing forward with it. I went to a new con, FOGcon (Friends Of Genre Con), in the Bay Area, and that helped push me a little bit, but I still had nothing really to market or new credentials to show off. I went to the Worldcon again, in Reno this time, and though I did a reading, and it was fun hanging out with friends and geeking out, I still felt static and like I was increasingly falling behind my friends as their books came out and they ran around promoting them. Then finally, right before the 2011 World Fantasy Convention in San Diego, CA, I got an email accepting my novel for publication with Hadley Rille. I went to WFC with my head high and a lot of excitement—I had something to say for myself, finally. It felt great to be congratulated by peers and teachers—though I still had no tangible thing to show, because the book was scheduled to publish at the beginning of 2013. After that con, I put aside the new novel, and started writing the sequel to Ice, since I knew there was a good chance I’d be able to publish it with Hadley Rille too if I could get it done in a reasonable amount of time.

In 2012 I went to FOGcon again, which was fun, of course, but I still had no new thing to talk about or show since the previous con. But then! Sometime in May or so, a hole opened up in the publisher’s schedule and the publication of my novel got moved up to November 2012 (which would hopefully be just in time to have advance copies ready for World Fantasy). If I could get all the edits done by July, it would work. So after what felt like endless rounds of editing and cover design and other logistics, everything got turned in and the waiting began. I missed Worldcon 2012 in Chicago because it collided with Burning Man (and probably always will, now), but once I got back I decided to try to run a Kickstarter campaign to fund the printing of a special advance run of 100 books to give away in the book bags at the 2012 World Fantasy Con in Toronto. That all worked out reasonably well (though it was a close thing and the ARCs wound up being printed from uncorrected proofs), and so finally, there I was at a con with an actual book in my hand that had my name on the cover.

So this finally brings me to my major manifesting moment that I foreshadowed way up there in the beginning of this blog post. At *this* World Fantasy Con, I finally felt like an actual professional author. The proof was right there: my book, my actual brick of printed paper with its own ISBN number and my name on the cover, the physical manifestation of years worth of dreams and work and anticipation, right there in other people’s hands. I got to read from it (twice!), give away copies, and autograph copies of it for both friends and strangers. I felt like I finally had caught up, now that I had something “real” to show. Not only did other people treat me as a Real Live Author now, but I was finally able to believe in myself that way. It was an incredibly potent mood elevator, let me tell you. Whenever I ran into someone who asked me “how’s it going?” or “how are you?”, I was able to truthfully and with no hesitation answer “excellent!” I had a terrific con overall. I hung out with old friends and made new ones, I talked to people about future projects, I floated through parties and other events with ease and enjoyment. I felt like I belonged.

Interestingly, the feeling of being a Real Live Professional Author has continued ever since I’ve been back. I came home determined (yet again) to increase my word production and therefore to make more regular, sacrosanct time for my writing in order to achieve that goal. Though I had a bit of re-entry burn right after I got home from Toronto, for the last couple of weeks I’ve been really jamming along on writing for hours every day, while taking time to do marketing/PR stuff as well. I think I’m beginning to get a sense of what the rhythm of life is like when one is a full-time writer, and I like it. (I can tell I like it because I’m getting to the point where I get irritable when I have to go do other things, even things I usually enjoy.) I’m eagerly looking forward to the next phase of launching a book, which is when the people who already have it actually read it and (hopefully) write me reviews, and I also get to keep introducing it to new people. I’m also looking forward to pushing through and finishing the sequel novel, sometime over the next six months or so (which sounds blisteringly fast after having spent so many years writing the first one, but I think I can do it if I can maintain my “I am a professional author” mantra). Now that I know how satisfying it really is to have achieved a large, long-term goal, I’m hooked. I’m ready to manifest the next one!

Sunday morning we drag ourselves out of bed and into awareness, slowly. There is a Camp Meeting at SSV before we begin the work of striking the camp (and packing up our own separate areas). We assembled in a big circle in the main courtyard, and spent some time listening to strike logistics, and some time on telling each other stories of our burn and giving appreciation to each other on the amazing sacred spaces we co-created for the playa. This was the first time I’d been in the same place as so many SSV’ers, and we were a pretty excellent bunch. (I regret not having spent more time with more people, but that’s the way it goes, sadly.) Finally all the volunteers for all the different strike activities trickled off to their duties (I spent the next couple hours sorting, dusting off and bagging pillows and cushions).

Eventually I straggled back to our Yaboogie pod, where Josh had been a busy bee breaking down and packing up our tent and other stuff. We spent all afternoon getting things packed up, until hardly anything was left. We “mooped” our area and some of the common areas (in other words, we went through and picked up every little piece of wood, every sequin, every carpet fiber, everything we could see on the ground that is not playa dust). Then Josh and I took the car and drove out to my flags on the playa, where we spent an hour or so taking them apart and packing them into the car. I was sad to take the flags down, but grateful that it had been a good run. We came back and finished up our packing along with everyone else. We exchanged contact info, signed each others’ memory books, and I had everyone sign the Yaboogie freak flag that hung from our shade structure all week. We took a break for our last meal together in the dining hall, which was also stripped down. The big structures were still standing, but the camp looked strange and bereft. All the landmarks were gone, and it was hard to navigate (just like the playa was hard to navigate without the Man and the other large art pieces we’d grown used to using as landmarks).

We put on our last bits of blinky and then those of us still left went off to see the Temple burn. We sat in a section of people who shushed the occasional hoot and holler (at one point the “shhhhhh’s” moving over the crowd sounded like ocean waves). At one point someone started chanting “ommmmmm” and the chant was picked up by hundreds of people, then died away. This was a much quieter, more solemn experience overall; when the Temple finally began to burn, it started quietly in the courtyard, no fireworks, just flames. Clouds of ash sprinkled with glowing bits billowed off into the dark sky, taking everyone’s prayers, memories, and grieving off into the night towards the still full moon.

The central structure caught fire, but since it was so light with all the intricate cutouts, it remained standing for a long time as flames consumed it, and glowed against the darkness like a fiery sketch. We watched it for a long while, then finally rose, and stretched, found our friends, and prepared ourselves for leaving.

We arranged with friends to head out as a caravan, so that we could be in the Exodus line together. We all hung rings of glowsticks from our rearview mirrors so we could spot each other. Then finally when everyone was ready and assembled, hugs were exchanged and we got in our cars and drove away, only to spend the next 6 hours stuck in the Exodus line in whiteout conditions. It was grueling and tiring and we didn’t get out of our cars to hang out with anyone—we were too burnt. Finally, around 4:30am, we made it out of Black Rock City and onto the road, and began the long trip back home.

Josh and I were both exhausted, and had to pull over a couple of times to rest. We stopped in Reno for gas and breakfast at the Black Bear Diner, and changed into our clean clothes. We saw lots of other burners on the road and in the diner (where others informed me that they left in the early morning and spent less than an hour in the Exodus lines...dang it!) We texted our friends and family to let them know we were out and on our way. The road home seemed to take forever—there was Labor Day traffic in the Sacramento area, plus we stopped to switch drivers or grab some sleep. We finally made it home around 3pm, approximately 17 hours after we left BRC. Our children were glad to see us, and we were glad to see them. Everything seemed totally unreal and strange, but we pushed through and unloaded the car and dumped everything in the back yard. We ordered takeout for dinner, put our kids to bed, and promptly fell asleep ourselves. The journey had ended.

Now that I’ve finally finished these recollections, it’s almost 3 weeks later and things are definitely starting to fade, leaving behind them a sense of nostalgic yearning for a return to the intensity of emotion and spectacle. Re-entry has been hard and isn’t over yet (as the piles of stuff still left in our back yard will attest).

But there were many lessons and reflections gained along the way, and I will set them down briefly here for posterity:

• You get out of Burning Man what you bring to it (or what you're open to).
• There's always a lesson or a treat right where you're at. Look for it and you will find it.
• Creating and nurturing new relationships is something Josh and I are really good at.
• Don't be afraid of the dust (or the rain). Once you release to it, it has gifts for you.
• Resting is ok. You can't do it all. Be grateful for what you do get to do rather than regretful about what you didn’t get to do.
• Welcoming and acknowledgement are incredibly powerful tools for creating relationship and community.
• Accepting people just as they are, without reservation, but with the assumption that each new person is a delightful and positive jewel, leads to some amazingly beautiful friendships.
• Self-expression, genuinely given, is gratefully received.
• Gifting feels great and can be really powerful. Especially when you realize that receiving another’s gift becomes a gift in itself.
• Josh and I are best when we are adventuring together, and sharing with each other what we find.
• Don't drive through the night. It's not worth it.
• Next year bring more blinky stuff (for us and for art)
• I really want to read more of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s writing (and listen to more of his speeches). There is so much wisdom, poetry and inspiration there, and I could use some more of that.

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

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]

Friday morning after our sunrise Temple visit, I managed to grab a few hours of sleep before our tent got too hot. I had to get up anyway to go do my final SSV Temple Guardian shift with Anjanette. I was tired, but not unhappy—in fact I felt pretty relaxed and mellow, which was just the right space to be in for serving as a Temple Guardian. This time Anjanette was the greeter, and I was the one who “held the space”. In addition to my cool crystal Guardian staff, this time I also had a big beautiful hand-tied sage bundle that the previous Guardian gave me, which I used to smudge the whole interior space and all the doorways, as well as various guests who asked me for it. Most of the shift I stood in the middle of the interior courtyard space with my hands on the staff and my feet rooted firmly on the earth, swaying back and forth to the music a little. I felt very solemn and present and powerful. Several times random people came up to me and thanked me for holding the sacred space, which was really gratifying. At one point a shaman who was leading a workshop in our Nigredo dome (temple of primordial forces and transformation) came out and asked me to make sure to be aware of keeping things held in light because they were doing a workshop on Dark Deities and she wanted to make sure that no one would sabotage it. I wasn’t entirely sure what she meant or how to respond, but I just kept trying to project love and light and protection out around me and towards everyone who entered. Towards the end of my shift, SSV played an audio presentation built around a previously unpublished speech by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., from his early days. It really touched me, even though now I can’t clearly remember any of the specifics. It definitely reminded me yet again though that I want to read more of King’s writings, listen to more of his speeches and study what he had to say more deeply. He was an incredible man.

After our Guardian shifts were finally over, Anjanette and I went back to our Yaboogie pod to change and chill out a bit, then eventually decided that we would go out into the city again, with the eventual goal of visiting my flags and changing the batteries. When we set out it was getting dust-stormy again, so rather than set out across the playa we decided to bike through the city. The dust conditions combined with my general lack of sleep was making me a little grumpy, but then we serendipitously came upon a camp serving shave ice and once I had some of that, my mood improved tremendously. There is very little better than having unexpected sweet cold treats in the middle of a dusty hot place! Anyway after fortifying ourselves with shave ice we continued on through the city. The dust got worse and worse, until by the time we got to my flags, it was nearly a white out. But we were no strangers to whiteout conditions at this point, so we just kept going like the blasé burners we had become. This led to one of my favorite whiteout memories: as we were struggling with the batteries, we heard the BMIR radio station camp across the Esplanade from where we were start to play “Dust In the Wind”. We sang and danced as we changed those batteries, and it was awesome.

After that we headed over to look for Angela and Liam, who were staying in a camp called “Dye With Dignity” that was part of the infamous Barbie Death Camp (I have to say I did not like the whole concentration camp aesthetic of Barbie Death Camp). She wasn’t there, so we headed over a different camp to see if we could find Chris, a friend of Anjanette’s. She wasn’t there either, so we gave up and biked back through the city towards SSV. On the way we saw lots of fun camps and a really neat art installation of hundreds of thin strips of ribbon suspended from archways of PVC pipe that you could ride your bike through (it felt like a carwash). We stopped to have “ice cold lemonade” (with vodka shots). We probably did other stuff too but whatever it was is now lost in the mists of memory. I do remember that I was getting pretty sore (especially in my delicate lady parts) from riding my bike over bumpy dusty roads, and I was glad when we made it back for dinner. There was a beautiful sunset that night with leftover rainclouds and dust in the air.

After dinner (which we had started just bringing back to our own camp chairs since sitting at the dining hall was grubbier and less comfortable) it was still dusty and windy enough that they cancelled the big art piece burn that was scheduled for that evening (Burn Wall Street was supposed to explode and burn at 9pm, but they moved it to the following night). Even so, a group of us (Josh, me, Eileen, Mark, and Anjanette) decided to go out to the Esplanade for a bit. A friend of ours (Trey, aka DJ Laetor) was spinning that night at his camp, Want It!, but not until 10:30 or so. We made plans to meet other friends there, but since it was still early we wandered around the Esplanade for a bit. It was still pretty dusty so Eileen decided to go back to SSV, but we walked for a ways looking around. We did come upon the most amazing enormous blue robot spidery spaceship tank thing (you couldn’t really call it an art car, because it wasn’t wheeled--it walked under its own power with giant thumpy robot steps. It also had a giant spoked, rimless wheel at the end of a huge robotic arm that protruded from its underside and which it planted firmly into the ground and used to lever itself around (that’s how it turned). And as if all that wasn’t cool enough, it also had two big flame cannons mounted to its back (which made it look even more like a sci-fi tank), but sadly we didn’t get to see those in action. I was amazed that a) anyone had been able to build something so huge and heavy with such beautiful aesthetics, and b) that they’d been able to transport it out to the playa and make it work.

We made our way back to Want It! and lounged around a bit until our friend Trey finally started his set. We met up with Ian and Angelique there, but I don’t think anyone else made it out there that we knew. Trey’s set was smokin’ and we joyfully got our groove on in the dusty inside dance area (which was at least a little less dusty than the outside dance area). I finally got to play with my Toroflux, and I had a great time dancing with it. I finally got enough practice with it so that I could figure out a few things about how to make it work more fluidly while dancing. Trey’s set ended around midnight or so, and Ian and Angelique and Mark all left. Josh and I went to talk to Trey and see if we could hang out for a bit. But once the adrenaline of dancing had worn off I realized that I was honestly too beat for another all-night adventure, so I decided that I would head back home to SSV while Josh went out with Trey and his buddies. (There was supposedly a big “Blue Moon” party happening at SSV anyway, which I’d wanted to check out, and I figured that if I got a second wind there would be plenty of opportunity for fun at home.)

By the time I got back to SSV there was indeed a party going on, but it wasn’t tempting enough to keep me from heading back to our Yaboogie camp and crashing out. (A girl can only party ‘til the wee hours for so many nights.)

[To Be Continued in Part 6...]

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

I was scheduled to give a public freak-flag-making workshop at SSV bright and early Thursday morning, so I hauled myself out of blearily out of bed around 8:30am and got myself dressed and fed. Josh helped me schlep the big heavy box of 300 flag blanks I'd brought for the workshop over to the main SSV hall, where the workshop was supposed to be, but then he took off to go do something else. Mark and Angelique showed up for the workshop though and helped me recruit people to come make flags. We wound up with probably 20 or so people sitting down together to make flags (with a few more trickling in during the next hour or so). I did a quick intro about the project and how it started, and got people to pair off to talk about their freaky bits with one another, and then we sat around and made flags for awhile. I took pictures of people with their flags when they were done, but by the time we reached the point where we had to vacate our space, no one seemed especially motivated to do a freak flag parade, and I was pretty dang tired still, so once again, we scrapped the idea of a parade in favor of just doing what felt right in the moment. People who made flags seemed really pleased with them, though, and I felt good about the whole thing overall. I was even given a couple of really awesome necklace gifts by people who'd made flags, which was fun.

During the workshop, our friend Angela came by with her baby Liam, so after the workshop petered out, I went back to our Yaboogie camp and hung out with them for a little bit. It was great to see them in this new context, and Liam was probably the cutest little baby burner ever, totally at one with the dust and having his own awesome fun time in the eternal dusty present. After they left, Josh and I took our first official full shower (I'd washed my hair the day before, but not taken a full shower, because taking a shower out on the playa is a whole production number involving crouching under a solar shower bag in a dusty enclosed shower space and then trying to stay clean for more than ten seconds before the wind blows you full of dust again). It felt wonderful, even though literally minutes later there was a dust storm and I was full of dust again. Oh well. 

I had an SSV Temple Guardian shift right before dinner, which was supposed to be with Anjanette but she wasn't feeling well that day so she passed her shift off to Eileen. I was the outer guardian and Eileen was the inner guardian; I welcomed people to Sacred Spaces Village and answered questions while Eileen held space and watched over the inside Temples of Alchemy and other public spaces. We were asked to dress all in white, and we got to hold beautiful guardian staffs which had been decorated with beads, feathers and semi-precious stones and topped with crystals. I brought some incense sticks too, which I lit and waved around as people entered. It was a little goofy at first and felt a little like playacting, but overall I really enjoyed the welcoming role. I made sure to meet people's eyes and hold their gaze for a moment while I said "welcome", and most people just lit up with huge smiles when I acknowledged them in that way. I said "goodbye" or "farewell" to people as they left, too. It was a really fun and fulfilling couple of hours during which I really proved yet again for myself the incredible power that welcoming and acknowledgement hold in social dynamics. We all just want to be seen and appreciated--the wonderful thing is that it doesn't take much. The power of welcoming and acknowledgement is something I have always tried to keep aware of in "real" life, and I certainly will continue to do so, but this was a great little "booster shot" reminder to keep doing it and a challenge to try doing it a little more deeply. I was a little sad when someone else came to take over for me as Temple Guardian.

But not too sad, because we had another fun night planned! This was the night the regional sculptures would be burned, and our first opportunity to get a taste of some big fires. So a bunch of us (Josh, me, Eileen, Mark and Cory) got all dressed up and ready to go out on the nighttime playa on foot (at this point Josh’s bike had lost a pedal and was unridable). By the time we got out there, finally, most of the fires had already started and were down to relatively smaller piles of glowing coals, so we switched our plan and decided to try to find some art cars to ride around. There were a bunch of art cars that had stopped in a clump at one side of the burning sculptures. We hopped on one that seemed open—a relatively small one that you had to climb up to get to the canopied dance area up top. We danced and hung out and looked around for a bit but the car seemed to be sticking around its spot for awhile, so eventually we got off it and sought out another car that might be moving on sooner. We found one that looked kind of like a graffiti’d city wall, which again we had to climb up a ladder to get on top of. It was crowded with a bunch of Russian revelers but we squeezed ourselves in and after a bit the car did in fact take off. We rode it for a little while until it stopped near Opulent Temple, which was one of the giant sound camps not far from Sacred Spaces Village with huge speakers and giant flaming decorations and lasers and lots of people. No idea which DJ was spinning that night but it was loud and thumpy and sounded really fun so we hopped down and got sucked in to its vortex to gawk and dance for a bit.

Eventually we found another art car to ride: a giant yacht. And I do mean giant. Yacht. Someone had literally taken a decommissioned boat and plopped it down on top of a cement mixer or some other giant truck-like thing, lit it up pretty and given it a big ol’ sound system, and now this huge two-story mobile party was sailing around the desert as though it were still the lakebed it once was. We found ourselves a comfy spot near the railing so that we could look out at everything going on, and spent some time enjoying the craziness passing by (including another visit from our friend the giant flaming octopus). Josh and Mark and I had fun spinning our light up poi (hopefully it looked cool to the people on the ground who were looking up at the boat), while Cory took my Toroflux and showed it to people on the boat. We rode the boat around for a while until the wee hours of the morning, and eventually it got back to our side of the playa, at which point we disembarked. Mark and Cory wanted to continue adventuring on the playa but Josh and Eileen and I went back to SSV.

When we got back to SSV, we decided to take a moment to investigate and appreciate and perhaps even chill out in one of the domed side temples before heading back to our Yaboogie spot. We randomly chose the Citrinas Temple, which was the gold/yellow temple of union. As we entered, I saw a man sitting at looking at one of the many gorgeous paintings that were hung around the walls of the dome, with a woman sitting beside him. I recognized them as people I’d interacted with briefly earlier that day when I’d been doing my Temple Guardian shift. They were an older, grey-haired couple with awesome mad-hatteresque costumes and Russian accents. The man acknowledged me and I sat down to talk to him. His name was Leon, and he told me how pleased he was to be in this space at this moment with this painting, because the painting he was contemplating was called “distillation” and he’d just been spending his whole last semester of alchemy school (!) studying distillation. I was intrigued and started asking him about alchemy school and what he was learning there and he started telling me about his specialty, which was making absinthe. Did I want to try some? At first I was hesitant because I’ve never really liked absinthe, but Leon began describing how what he did was different than any sort of commercial absinthe I might have encountered, and how one would interact with his special alchemical potion, and I was intrigued. I also knew that Josh, with his own background in mystical study (not to mention appreciation of all things handmade and homebrewed) would totally get a kick out of this experience, so I stopped Leon and got Josh to come over, and then asked Leon to tell Josh what he’d told me. Josh was all gung ho to try the absinthe, so Leon gave him a little vial and a straw and we all watched Josh appreciate the brew for a bit. Then I tried some too and I have to say—it was amazing. There were so many flavors and sensations waiting to be experienced if one just paid attention properly and respected the intake process rather than just taking a swig. Right then and there I totally revised any sort of prejudice I’d previously held about absinthe—it’s like saying you don’t like beer after only ever having tried Coors Light.

Josh and Leon got into more detailed conversation about how the absinthe was made and the larger alchemical lessons Leon was working on, and Leon then brought out his “special” brew for Josh to try (he said “this is the one *I* drink” so of course Josh was totally intrigued). Josh loved it and they talked and talked, with Leon recommending all sorts of reading for Josh, and they totally bonded, mystic to alchemist. (I have to say I found it seriously amusing that we’d met an actual alchemist, who was so similar to the archetype of the Alchemist character class in the Pathfinder game we play--at one point Josh and I totally geeked out on that idea.) It was so beautiful to watch them connect. Leon’s wife, Rita (I think that was her name), fell asleep on the cushions behind Leon, and Eileen dozed off on her own pile of cushions, and I just sat and appreciated the space and the conversation (which I occasionally participated in here and there). I stayed aware of the people going in and out of the temple dome, feeling somewhat protective of the space and wanting to make sure that it stayed positive. At one point it actually started to rain (it had been cloudy earlier that day, so it wasn’t a complete surprise), but we were protected in our snug little dome and although I was a little anxious about what would happen if it rained a lot and things got muddy, it turned out that it was just a brief, light, dust-damping, fresh-smelling gift. (Leon the alchemist looked at the rain and said something about how he and his wife, who both had asthma, had been hoping it would rain and damp the dust down, and intimated that he’d helped it happen with some sort of mystical encouragement. Make of that what you will.)

Shortly thereafter, a young man came into the dome who was clearly troubled and having some sort of bad trip or psychotic episode or something. He was mumbling to himself and trembling and crouching and grabbing cushions to his chest as though he were scared of something. Josh and another guy who was in the temple started trying to talk to him and find out what was wrong. The guy said he was tripping and hadn’t slept in 4 days (!) and was afraid that police were going to arrest him or something weird like that (it was hard to follow). Josh and the other Good Samaritan tried to talk him down and get him to rest and maybe sleep there in the temple, but he kept freaking out and eventually scooted out of the dome. That sort of broke up the vibe, so to speak, so we bid farewell to the alchemist and his wife. They left and we went to go look for someone who could maybe find a Black Rock Ranger or someone else who could help the poor guy. We got someone to go for a Ranger, and then realized that sheesh, it was almost 5 in the morning, maybe it was time to go back to camp and go to bed.

But then Eileen had the idea that since it was so late it was early, we might as well stay up a little longer and go see the sunrise at the Temple. Josh declined but I said yes so she and I went back to camp to get some water and food and our bikes, and we headed out to the deep playa to the Temple.

Burning Man has a Temple every year, and they always look different, though they are always incredibly gorgeous and awe-inspiring structures. The Burning Man community treats the Temple as a sacred space for remembering lost loved ones, releasing grief and trauma, and focusing on spiritual growth—it’s a really powerful place that just gets more and more powerful over the week as people visit it and add their own energy and prayers and memorials and bits of things they want to burn away. I had particularly loved the Temple last year, so I was eager to go see it this year, despite being totally punchy and discombobulated from an exciting evening and lack of sleep.

We got there just as the sky began to lighten, and went inside. The Temple this year was called the Temple of Juno (named after the Roman goddess of fertility), but it had a sort of Asian design flavor—it was surrounded by a courtyard with smaller sculptures at each corner, and the whole thing enclosed by a filigreed fence connecting four beautiful open gateways, one in each wall, which one could enter through into the courtyard. It was really, really, spectacularly beautiful, and made even more poignantly lovely by the various writings, pictures, and other memorials people had left behind. Even at sunrise (or maybe especially, I’m sure it was a popular time) it was crowded with people, and the mood was hushed and respectful. When we went inside, though, I found that in the mental/emotional space I was in right then, I was uncomfortably overwhelmed by all the grief and loss energy built up there in the main room, so I didn’t want to stay inside. I told myself I’d go back again another time for a “proper” Temple visit and appreciation, but I’m sorry to say I never did. (Ah well, no regrets, everything happens the way it happens for a reason.) We wound up sitting at the base of one of the courtyard sculptures, where we had a perfect view of the beautiful full moon setting to one side and the pinking sky on the other. As the sunrise grew stronger, we moved out of the Temple’s courtyard onto the open playa, facing the rising sun. There were a lot of people all facing the same direction, all watching the same thing, and it felt really warm and communal, even though we didn’t talk to anyone else. I took a bunch of pictures but had no good way of really capturing the grandeur and gorgeousness of the experience—you’ll just have to trust me, it was awesome.

Eventually we were done with standing and watching the sunrise, and began to bike back to SSV, although I kept stopping to take pictures of the sunrise, which kept getting more and more vividly colorful, and some of the art we passed by, which was so gorgeous in the morning light. I have to say, it was great fun to be a night-owl on the blinky-blinky playa, but I do regret missing most of the mornings this year at Burning Man. I love mornings and morning time in general, and in the desert mornings are cool and wonderful and the light is amazing, but the way things went all week I sadly wound up sleeping through or blearing around camp during pretty much all of the morning times. So I treasure the memory of this one morning especially.

[To Be Continued in Part 5...]

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

Wednesday morning we actually slept in somewhat, and eventually got ourselves up and had lunch at our dining hall. Josh went out to explore with Mark, while I hung around in camp. Eventually I decided to go out and meet up with Anjanette at Pink Heart, where she was volunteering to serve vegan chocolate ice cream. Josh and Mark came back because Josh had a work shift as a Temple Guardian, so Mark joined me and we biked over to Pink Heart. We had ourselves some ice cream (which makes me happy any time but was especially awesome to have in the middle of the dusty desert) and I got to meet Halcyon (the founder of Pink Heart and someone whose videos about Burning Man and his own Hug Nation project I'd enjoyed for months before getting to the playa) and give him a thank you hug for being so inspirational to me and for supporting my FYFFH Kickstarter project. Then Mark and Anjanette and I seized the opportunity to swing on the big Pink Heart swing we'd seen on our first trip to the Esplanade, and while we did so another dust storm kicked up, but we really didn't care. It was fun swinging in the dust. We took turns pushing each other and swinging, and taking pictures.

Then, despite the dust coming and going, we decided to keep going to go see another of the giant art projects that wasn't far away from where we were: Burn Wall Street. This was an incredibly powerful art piece, inspired by the past year's Occupy Wall Street movement. It consisted of 5 enormous (several stories tall in some cases) buildings that looked vaguely like banks and government buildings from the outside, but were hollow on the inside. The buildings were labeled things like "Bank of UnAmerica" and "Goldman Sucks". Inside, some of the buildings were painted with amazing murals, and some were left blank so that participants could nail up foreclosure notices, repossession notices, etc or write their own stories of their encounters with banks and other institutions directly on the wooden walls. There was one building in the middle with a balcony with giant greek columns backed by a huge American flag that you could climb up into/onto, which we did. There was also a tribalized version of a "trading bell" behind the flag that you could ring with a big hooked hammer.

As we wandered into one of the final buildings, we came upon a body paint artist who was painting a beautiful female angel with spread wings on a man's bare back, and stood around waiting to see if we could get some body paint too, but after standing around for awhile the dust kicked up again and we gave up on waiting for the painter and just sat around in a corner of one of the buildings waiting for it to clear. The dust blowing through the open building windows into the room where we were sitting had a beautiful, ethereal quality to it, because the dust glittered in the sunlight as it poured into the room. We chatted with a veteran burner who entertained us with stories of her various serendipitous up-and-down love affairs from previous burns, and then when the dust finally cleared we bid her adieu and set off back to SSV, because there was another kitchen shift coming up for Mark and Anjanette. Mark was actually taking my kitchen shift, so I could turn around and go to the Artists' Party at the Artery.

When we got back to camp I hooked up with Eileen, who wanted to come to the "Artery Partery" with me while everyone else went off to do their kitchen shift. I made a loose plan with Josh to meet him (and whoever else wanted to come) out at the Man after we were done, and then Eileen and I took off. We rode our bikes out to the Artery (which we found somewhat more easily this time) and spent a couple of hours mingling with other folks who had brought art installations to Burning Man. There was booze and snacks and they gave us all "official" stickers that said "I Brought My Art to Burning Man and All I Got Was This Lousy Sticker". I had a great time chatting with other artists and learning about their projects, and telling them about mine. I met a really cool guy named Wax who turned out to have a lot of random stuff in common with me and we talked for close to an hour. By then it was getting late and I wanted to go put the new batteries in my flags, which Eileen did with me, and then we parted ways--she went back to SSV and I headed out to the Man to hopefully meet up with Josh. It was later than I'd thought it was going to be, but I was hoping that Josh would still be there.

I looked around the Man base, but didn't see anyone I knew, so I parked myself in a side alcove and waited for awhile, enjoying the full moon peeking through the open windows and watching the endless parade of interesting people going by. Eventually I spotted Anjanette walking around, and she joined me, but although we waited for another hour or so, we never did see Josh or anyone else. We did, however, have some good conversation and we saw someone who had made themselves an amazing puppet suit of the Man wandering around outside the building and bending down to give people hugs. I wrote on one of the banisters some advice to myself (and others) that I wanted to burn into being:

STOP MAKING EXCUSES.
BE WHO YOU ARE.
YOU ARE AMAZING,
JUST AS YOU ARE.
SHINE.
BURN.
BE.

Eventually we got tired of waiting and decided to give up and go out and look at some of the large "regional" art pieces (sculpture installations put together by regional Burning Man groups, including our very own North Bay Regional). As often happens at Burning Man, though, we got a bit distracted from our original goal by other shiny, flaming things, and we never did get to see the regional pieces, but we saw plenty of other cool stuff. It's really hard to explain most of the art pieces, so I'll just let a few pictures speak their thousand words for me.

One memory of note, though, was when we were playing around with one of the art pieces, which had an intricate central cone tower in which you could hear random noises being projected by participants outside in little wooden basket cages, who were talking into tin cans attached to wires that ran to the central cone tower. We were trying out the tin cans in various cages when we became aware of a group of people in another one of the cages rocking the cage and pushing on it so hard that it was starting to crack and break. Immediately we and a bunch of other participants started yelling “hey, stop, you’re breaking the art!” and similar sentiments until the behavior stopped. It was instantaneous community policing. Sadly, it looked like these were not the only people who had (intentionally or not) damaged the cages, because many of them looked like they had broken slats. It made us sad. I hope the artist learned something about anticipating for and engineering around the carelessness of (some) Burning Man participants.

Eventually we found ourselves passing by the infamous flaming octopus art car (El Pulpo Mecanico), which we'd seen at a distance on previous evenings, but now it was stopped in one place doing a whole crazy mobile dance party, with huge rhythmic gouts of flame accompanying the music. It drew us in like moths; we stopped and danced there for awhile, which was really fun. At one point I turned to Anjanette and said "for the record, I just want to state that we are currently here in the middle of a blasted desert with hundreds of other people, dancing our asses off to a giant, flaming octopus. How often do you get to say that?" and we laughed and loved it in all its surreal and awesome absurdity. We finally rolled back in to camp sometime around 2 or so in the morning, and Josh wasn't there, though he'd left me a little note saying he'd tried to hook up with me and missed me, but had gone out again. So I went to bed, wafted off to sleep by the sounds of the ever-present thumping bass coming from the neighboring sound camps and prowling art cars.

[To Be Continued in Part 4...]

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