Burning man 2007: the Green Man: 1/2 FRIDAY + 1/2 SATURDAY

Radical self reliance, radical self expression… i repeated these words as I curved beautiful patterns in the sand; I was at play, joyful and carefree – I look around and its just amazing everywhere, everything is just shinning with pure beauty.

I consider choices, opportunities, responsibility.

Radical self reliance, radical self expression… i repeated these words as I curved beautiful patterns in the sand; I was at play, joyful and carefree – I look around and its just amazing everywhere, everything is just shinning with pure beauty.

I consider choices, opportunities, responsibility.

These two edicts of burning man, to be both radically self reliant and yet radically self expressive rang home. Being self reliant means taking care of yourself, but also assuming responsibility for your actions. Self sufficiency at the deepest level; not just in terms of nourishment and home, but also emotional. Anyone who can be radically self reliant is by definition able to support and aid others at will with care and detached deep reaching compassion.

Radical self expression… when I do exactly what I feel needs to be done; when I express my thoughts and feelings most clearly. Radical self expression means so many things, it means taking a stand when there is something to stand tall for; it means being yourself; which implies being different, by being who you truly are.

I got the image here now of a silver thread. That in every moment of our lives we are faced with choices – and how in every moment there is an impulse – inspiration – a voice that guides us along choices that imply a silver thread among the plethora of available choices. Intuition told me that this ‘correctness of choice’ is a guide that does not operate into the future; only in the present. In the present from moment to moment; if we have faith and trust, everything will always fall into place. Being able to take each moment and grasping it for what it means is a challenge which battles directly the source of all fears. It’s like a jump; a carefree hop into the unknown as we continually seek growth in every instant.

This is not a state which can normally be held for very long; more traditionally growth comes in phases; often after periods of tension-construction as a series of situations challenge our beliefs to alterations.

Imagination is something which I mentioned in a few blog reports before Burning man; and I’d like to touch on that a bit more because it really is the key to so many things. You can’t create something, you can’t experience something, unless you imagine it. Imagination is not only the act of creation – and creation IS art – it is also a means for travel. Creation implies change – destruction – creation – and change is always growth; because in my mind, we always become more than we were; time passes, we learn, we grow – we never shrink [at least, not unless you eat the alice cake]. So the more imagination is cherished as an essential and vital component in everyone / your life; the more open you are to new ideas, new opportunities, breaking previous cycles, growth, healing, mystical experiences, new business ventures, love… you name it. Of course imagination is certainly not the -only- key. Life is a knit system – and as soon as you understand something; it weaves into another level with other elements of life and new understandings, expands and reaches new limits to breach – its an ever expanding, ever redefining process…

When I said in my previous post that I felt like I was a wizard, a king and an insect. I felt at the same time that humility of being small-insignificant-sebastian and yet that infinite grace and power within me as all of the worlds delights were laid before me, as a loving, for no other purpose than for my pleasure and satisfaction. In the mode I was operating in, in this night, I felt like I was more a grand preying mantis incarnation – a being who lived on an even higher plane that Raz did – and in this realm raz was also but a fragment of this higher plane, sebastian an even smaller component – and yet in this moment of space-time; sebastian and the insect-king of which i also am; united. it was a different kind of channeling, this entity was at complete peace with everything – reclusive, more of an observer, taking life in stride, enjoying the growth processes and the fruits of the labor of others… not in a malicious way, but rather from a perspective of overseer, director, the unwound-calm-gracious-content-sultan.

But now we have regressed, so let’s continue…

I see dazzling pheonix bird costumes where a man has large 3 or 4 meter wide wings of steel where at the end of each feather tip is a constant output of ignited propane gas… he breaths flames in an s shape from his mouth – he looks amazing, I have another body orgasm.

I look up at the sly and I see hundreds of shooting stars a minute… I look again to make sure I am not hallucinating, I know there were meteor showers recently, its 4 or 5am, this could very well be another one; its fucking amazing. Lasers shoot past the meteor shower in waving arches.

A woman stands on a high pedestal no larger than a stool at least 5 meters from the ground and spins extremely long firework-flaming pois that create double helix arches int he sky; lasers crop her form in green, the stars are dazzling, a shooting star falls, another body orgasm.

A woman dances in front of my face with her ass, she is moving with such sexual grace, I’m both calm and collected and yet terribly turned on by this… this is but one of many such moments.

A steel tree with horn trumpets of steam; they play a dazzling melody of puffs and tuuts. I wear my dino head on and enter a dance area; a girl stops me to ask what it is; i explain its a dino head; she asks what the red bit at the front is, I tell her its a tongue so that I can lick the foreheads of others… i then proceed to demonstrate as I use my raz-head to lick her forehead! Awww this was so sweet to watch, it felt special.

Inside this location it was buzzing with people all dancing body-to-body. I couldn’t believe how strong of an aphrodisiac this trip was; i’ve never experienced something like this before… the women were just so stunning and sexy everywhere I looked this night, I was hot, and so incredibly horny – it was a really strange mix to feel simultaneously virtuous, mystical, saint-like and yet physical, powerful, masculine, sexual… but somehow the two fit together perfectly… it probably helped that I didn’t need anyone to reach orgasm all night!

Reaching this physical sensation felt similar to dancing on an edge; here is the best description I can give… I would move my body, doing what ever it was I was doing, along what felt like a hidden edge between planes; I like to think of it as dimensional-surfing. This may involve cycling extreemly slow on my bike, to the point where I should fall but remain balanced with all my fingers and toes perfectly balanced – it could involve stroking with my fingers, or simply balancing my bike with my pinkies and my toe tips – its like dancing; dancing with the moment; flowing withwhat ever motion feels natural to shift into – its similar to when I get a really strong moment of artistic-channeling – you draw but you don’t think anymore; you just do what what needs to be done, wants to be done. This was the same feeling now; only applied to motion; perhaps this is what a truly in tune dancer feels when they are in communion with their body. This is what I felt; and it lasted for quite some days and hasn’t really left me entirely since.

Oh another thing which happened on this night was I tested myself. Dave and a few other people challenged my idea of being straight. There are soooo many bisexual people in the bayarea/California; its ridiculous. While I was meditating in this one camp for a few minutes [I needed a pause to sit down for a bit] this one guy came up to me, and said in the most serious mater-of-fact way the following:

“would you be interested in body contact, touching, massaging? No fluids or fluid exchanges.”

I was like “wo, let me repeat that to myself? what does that mean…?” so I did, and it sounded safe so I then I said “ok”…

This was quite and interesting experience, it was more like a massage than anything, though there was also some cuddling involved [his hand over my heart while my back is on his chest, for example] – there was nothing sexual here at all, actually – and it felt really devoid of anything even slightly sexual. Ok, so I know normally that I am straight; but this was in a way a kind of a test for me, to see if the only reason I am straight is because i tell myself i should be… but it was pretty clear to me that there is absolutely zero sexual attraction or energy between me and men. How some guys can be bi; i’ll never understand, but then again, they probably can’t understand why I am straight [as they tell me they can’t]. The cuddling was nice, I felt renergized from it, thankful, I have no idea if he was disappointed or content from the exchange… I hoped he was. I went my merry way… another experience that Burning Man offers that I had never felt ready to try until this night.

I end up in this dome where there is a party going on, I get stuck here for a while cause there is a really funny guy who is pretending / acting out trying to seduce various women there in the lounging area. He offers me some swigs of his strong alcohol, I have no idea anymore what it was; it ripped warmth down my stomach and felt great.

There was a black woman sitting in the same area and we got talking together, she said she was very tense – so I offered to massage her shoulders. We got talking for a while, and then she invited me back to her camp. She played for me this really cool music from a band called “coco rose” or “coco rosy” [i have to check them out once I get a chance] and at that point I didn’t feel right being there anymore with her; as for some reason my heart was not in it; and if your heart is not there, you need to listen to it. So I made my way back to the dome tent where I’d met her [my bike was still there] and collected it.

At this point the sun was coming up and a huge blue hot air baloon was landing 10 meters from me; a string of small balloons whipped in the wind behind it, the mountains were a luscious peach blue. Beautiful, agaion! Amazing. Number of times I said to myself “fucking amazing” and “wow” and “that’s so beautiful” were numbering now in the order of hundreds…

I circled out on the playa a bit on my own, went to the cathedral that was out on the playa and read what some of the people had written, I read “you were a star in the heavens last night” and began to cry a little.

While it is true that I had had a number of amazing experiences during this night, the one thing I was incapable of was engaging others in conversations – my mental state did not really accommodate that, I was more draconian.

After a few moments on the playa, the sun was coming up fast, people we disappearing back to camp, I cycled along looking for my friends at virus camp, can’t find them [i had trouble finding most people i knew at their camps all week; it remained a fairly solitary week for me in all manners of senses] – I passed by dave, also not home and then as I was about to leave his camp, someone said to me “hey whats that thing in your bag?”

So I stopped.

And here I found a new family.

Shawn, Julie, Jerry, Tom and another man who’s name escapes me. They made me breakfast, fed me coffee, we exchanged laughs, stories, Julie did the hoola hoop, these people were wonderful!! I really felt a strong connection with them, I felt lots of love – I instantly felt like I want to camp with them next year! I hope this will be possible…

As I am leaving there camp, Tom stops me to draw a card from his deck of healing cards. Apparently I am the first person the entire event who he has asked to pick one. He says to me: “please pick a card for healing”; the cards look in bad shape, many of them are torn and crumpled… so I say without thinking: “well, if this is a card for healing, then I think you should pick out the most damaged card you have in that deck and hand it to me, because that is the card that requires the mot healing” – he looks through the cards “well lets see, hmmm, oh this card is in bad shaped; its ripped all on one side…” he hands it to me, I turn it over…

it’s “the Spider”

Curious, I don’t know what to make of it. He says, no wait, you have to read what it means in this book…

I paraphrase now as best as I can:

“The Spider is the creature of the forest which first worked in symbols. The spider is the inventor of language as other creatures deciphered its web and found meaning in its symbolism. The Spider catches those creatures in its web that need redirection. The spider is an orchestrator who captures life in its web to consume it so that a new direction for the life can be found.”

“Those who are caught in the web of the spider are often caught at the edge of the web, right before they are about to fall into the unknown. But the spider has caught you before you were just about to miss the value of all of your efforts. Rejoice! The spider is here now to let you reap the rewards of all the arduous effort you have recently been planting”

“Those caught in the web of the spider will find solace as they redirect into a new path in life. It is a time to create, create, create! Great benefit can come to those who take the time to write down their recent experiences as the symbols left in time will help to redirect them – form your webstrings”

“This a time of repose, enjoy as you now move forward with new wings”

So you see… now you know why I have chosen to detail my burning man experience so precisely… I hope that my lengthy descriptions of thought and experiences will also bring you something in return.

This card really struck me, the description felt so accurate and fitting… I felt much love in my heart.

[note: a few days after the festival a friend had lent me a car for a week – a VERY fancy sports car, a toyota MR2 SPYDER! How magically-coincidental that the car is called a spyder as well! It took very good care of me all this time since BM…]

I went back to camp, eventually, and tried to sleep for a few hours. I slept for about 2 or so. I met Bibi, she was eager to continue our talk – as the day before I’d expressed my discontentment with her behavior; but didn’t finish the discussion.

At this point I felt like wrapping things up, but I wasn’t sure how. I settled the air and expressed that I wasn’t interested in anything but friendship [not that I feel that this was in question for her], and wished her the best – I’m not sure what she really felt or thought about this – the whole situation with her was reaching an impasse, and it feels/felt like there was little I could do. In a way I felt similar to how it was during the break ups with other girl friends when there is something that the girl does which I don’t approve of; she thinks her behavior is acceptable and then there is an impasse that forms… if you don’t accept something, but the other person doesn’t even agree that your feelings are justified… how can you resolve that? I’m not sure anyone can.
..
My sleep was brief, probably no more than 2 hours. But it was already the afternoon by the time I finally was resting; and its already time to get ready for Saturday night [you see, Friday and Saturday kind of blend together]

Saturday night is when the burn of the man occurs… was I ready for the night? How could anything top what had just occured on Saturday?

One more full day to go before the wrap-down…
😉