Drummers from the Venice Beach drum circle prepare to drum for the burning of the man
Burning Man- some crazy place where people do a lot of drugs, and “find themselves” in the name of art. This is the popular myth we live, of the default world, of making judgements before experiences, of making it to work on time instead of making friends, of making money over making joy. How can you explain, when you felt more at home around people that you’ve never met in your life- more so than any of your family or friends? Enjoy giant dust storms in your face, heat melting you into the landscape, finding shelter with people that you don’t even know, but now you do, and it feels as though for years, many years. When you walk into the temple, and see the love which people invest in others; the impermanence of those lives, yet the legacy which continues to live on through everyone that they’ve met, everything they’ve touched, every place they’ve been- every thought they’ve put forth, every moment that their spirit has touched and left.
It’s a great blanket, a blanket which is suffocating, yet comforting, comfort levels taken off, the blanket is ripped and yet in this new freedom- we’ve always been here, we’ve always been made to feel this. The synchronicity- people have corresponding birthdays, are from the same small strange towns, have been in that one liquor store in Bangkok at the same time buying LM seefa (blue) cigarettes; small pieces in the interlocking work of a much larger, interwoven puzzle which continues to turn despite our desire for it to stop and continue, simultaneously. A frozen stop, despite how much we trust in it if we know this secret, yet it is always there- it always has been, what did it take for us to see through the veil which was in front of us- allowing small particles in, yet we continue to pretend it doesn’t seep in, blowing through, fast until our eyes are stuck, eyelashes, by the small glass-like pieces, until we can’t open them at all, subject to the sandman’s spell of sleep.
The man’s burning
But this isn’t enlightened sleep- no dreams and subconscious- this is the new sleep, of lazy indifference, which captures us in when we go to our 9-5 job, when we hate to wake up early to say goodbye to our children and loved ones, this is all of the time that we spend for others- in which almost nothing is gained for ourselves- maybe some money, but the soul, the light, has been long gone. Gone, it is, in the jar of firefly hearts and wings, which, trapped, can only blink occasionally, and pray for the best thing to happen to them as possible- whatever that is, exactly, no one is quite sure.
But, yes- I’m not the sure how else to explain how I felt, to be drumming at my first Burning Man, for the fire poi dancers, while people wait years to be accepted for this, I by mistake or divine intervention found myself here, a small knowing someone who knows someone- I can’t explain the gratitude and attitude which I now see in everything abd everyone- a network of energy that is on the same spatial mission as everyone waiting and wanting to make this connection.
Beautiful humans, Nehara and PJ
