Burning man 2007: the Green Man: TUESDAY

Tuesday, Burningman 2007.

Tuesday morning I woke up early and tried to find different camps from different people. I couldn’t find either of the permaculture camps, but we did manage to register ourselves in the computer directory and determine where the ice was stored.

One group I did manage to find is the Virus camp; where Mark the author of books on the Chakra’s was to be found.

Tuesday, Burningman 2007.

Tuesday morning I woke up early and tried to find different camps from different people. I couldn’t find either of the permaculture camps, but we did manage to register ourselves in the computer directory and determine where the ice was stored.

One group I did manage to find is the Virus camp; where Mark the author of books on the Chakra’s was to be found.

I had a nice series of conversations with him in the morning and a little breakfast. One lady with his group had some tarot cards and they offered me to make a drawing for myself.

Now up until this point I had noticed that between Bibi and myself things were not going as smoothly anymore as I would have liked them to go. I was feeling bitterness towards her, and periodically jealousy or other feelings that I know are not me, nor did I want to feel these things, so it confused me… in the weeks leading up to BM I had managed to resolve all my feelings regarding her before – so it was surprising that there was still a seed here that was troubling me. What it was exactly I was still unable to verbalize.

I drew the following cards, in my own self chosen sequence / meaning:

1: Home: I drew a card related to home because I felt quite lost and homeless in many ways. Roaming as I have been, wanting to settle roots, but unsure where. The card I got was the 10 of Cups.

This card blew me away, for on it is a rainbow, with 10 cups in it, a couple holding arms together, two children dancing, a dog and a home on the hills. I don’t think there is any card in the deck that radiates more strongly the meaning of ‘home’ than this card does.

To me this card immediately was telling me that ‘i am home’ or that ‘i am safe’ – both because I am at burning man [the slogan everyone loves to tell each other when they arrive is: “welcome home”] – and because my home is safely tucked within me. There is no need to ‘look’ for a home. A comfort card; or rather a card that implies ease in the quest for feeling at home.

The second card I drew was for relationships, or in this case, me and Bibi. I drew the Queen of Pentacles. Within the card is a goat, symbol of capricorn [Bibi is a Capricorn]. She holds her pentacle as she ponders worth and value. To me a sense of worth, both of her – and of my own self worth is currently being triggered in my relationship with Bibi. But this sense of self-worth would only become more clear by Friday night / Saturday morning.

The third card I drew for career, the card was ‘the lovers’. This was also a strong card; and I think this card represents the marriage that I am busy with achieving between my passions and my income[s] of wealth. Until now I have lived, like many, a double life. Where half of my time is spent earning money, and the other half is spent using the money I earned to feed interests I believe in. I’d like to change this, even if it means loosing some of my current passions so that the work I do, is work I believe in. This card was reassuring that I am on the right path to achieving this marriage of ideal and pragmatical.

The fourth card I drew was for my mother. Or rather; my relation and position as presented between myself and my mother. The card I drew was the one with the floating cups and a man in black who contemplated all of their various contents. The 7 of Cups.

This card mirrored exactly my feeling of the situation; but did not offer any immediate insight as to what I should do. Quite simply the card depicts a vast array of choices. The man in black, who is both presenting and selecting his choice seems to be the reprensetation of the difficulty that the choice implies [and also that any choice that is made implies loss or pain on some level]. The fact that I have a huge amount of choice before me is obvious; this card echoes this. The main comfort I felt from this card was that all choices were equal somehow. For a plethora of valid choices implies that all choices are equal, none worse than others, so in that sense I feel free to make a choice without a moral implosion. Making a choice right now in my life has been daunting – so I have been delaying the situation for some time. This point of reflex-orientation is nearly upon me now though, this much is clear. A new direction will be formed shortly in my life.

My fourth card was for my ’emotions’ combined with ‘what [this] BM will represent’. Partially recommended by my friend who was helping me to draw and interpret my cards. The card I drew was the ‘Page of Swords’. She saw this card to represent an ease at which I would cut through things; I saw it as a transition as i moved forward in one way – without thinking perhaps enough – and cutting away at some other direction in the process.

The 5th and last card I was not planning to draw, but she recommended I draw a final conclusion card, so I did. This card was the Queen of Cups. It shows a woman who is intensely staring at a cup in her hands with sharply piercing eyes. Beneath her is water that is flowing up; it feels like a disaster. I got the impression that even though there is a problem around her, she is focussed on her cup. Perhaps because she believes it holds the answers to what to do, or why things have unfolded the way they have. I felt a bit of naivety here, but also a strong mind that was deeply inquisitive.

One interpretation of the card I have read says: Here we meet the feminine beauty, she embodies the hypnotic power of the feminine and is a catalyst for the emergence of deep feelings, which are bottomless. The image of unconscious, of intense passion and fate. As a mystery herself, motivated by her own secret purposes, introverted and magical loves she wholeheartedly or hates. She is both virginal and harlot, a calculator and a victim. A mature woman, caring and loving, has experienced an eventful and emotional life and is consequently sympathetic to the problems of others. She is capable of activating the depths in others and calls action and conflict without doing anything at all.

Once I had copied down the last card, I popped into a lecture on Aura reading.

The Aura reading class was interesting, but I did not manage to get far in it except to relax. The techniques themselves sounded very similar to techniques which I have done before [sub]consciously – and curiously would reappear later in the week as tools for my own explorations on Friday.

Mid way in the class, I left though because I had obligations I felt I needed to hold concerning our ice situation back at the camp. As it turned out though, the ice situation had been covered. So instead I focussed on fixing my tail so that it would be ready for the evening.

Fixing my tail took a very long time, I had sowing to do, soldering and stuffing. Things I wish I had completed waaaay before the festival – next year I am going to make sure that I only bring things to BM that are done, as you already need a lot of time to organize and operate your camp without extra chores that you could have resolved before arrival. [although next year there are other things I wan to do now as well like offer various services, lectures etc.]

Once my tail was done, I headed for the international camp. I had been told that the people from NZ were planning on having a zombie dress-up party and gathering here this evening.

It was great seeing people from NZ, and it gave me back that sense of nostalgia and missing feeling as I heard people speak about NZ as if I still lived there myself.

The group wasn’t ready to go out just yet; people were still getting dressed up and gathering, so I decided to go for a little wander.

Within a very short distance of their camp I landed in a small chill-out zone around the corner as one lady said hello and pulled me in for a chat. There was one beautiful woman, tall, slender with black hair filled with red jets of color who was talking to another man. As she turned to leave, someone in the camp told her ‘happy birth day!’ so, i got up and rushed after her and also wisher her a happy birthday as well – she thanked me and asked me if I would accompany her back to her camp across the road for a drink.

Kim is a self employed toy painter in LA who has her own luxurious place in the hills. She fed me various drinks, painted my nails red and offered me some birthday [space] cake. I though Kim was really beautiful, so I was quite happy in her company – but shy to make any immediate move.

After a while two of her other friends arrived and also partook in the drinking and the ringing of the bell outside. Kim got her stuff ready to play the bass, she’s a singer song writer, and we went out to the street where she put her bass guitar out on the middle of the road and started to play. Her music was nice, and I was definetly into her.

After this point though; things started to go on a twist. We got back to her camp area, more drinks were made, and her friends started to get their costumes ready. Paul pulled out a pair of beautifully crafted light sabers so we turned them on and began to duel!

Kim did some hoola hoop outside, and I found and took care of a lost beetle.

I was ringing the bell to the music when suddenly out of no-where this young 20 year old metro-sexual-raver kid. Ultra sweet but o-so-glowing-niave came out of now where and entered our camp. I gave him his playa name: “le belle” [as in ‘the beautiful an d also as in ‘the bell'” since he was drawn and fascinated by it so intensely], since he said he was in need of one.

Paul and I had had a really fun time the last hour exchanging highly charged witty comments. I was in one of those moods where I could twist any statement into an assumption for you; so as to unveil your deeper thoughts.

Le belle was really into Kim; and at first her attention was divided. But within a very short amount of time, Kim was accepting and reciprocating this young lads advanced [which I thought were quite flat and brute, but endearing].

So here we are, walking outside at another camp when Le Belle and Kim are all over each other, kissing – which I found really surprising but mainly disappointing, and then Paul turns to me and says in the most serious tone possible: “may I hold your noggin”? – I was in shock! This was all going completely the opposite direction I had intended! The hot girl I was into had been claimed by a totally naive 20 year old; and some witty and nice, but oh so not my type [and hello, a GUY!] was suddenly all over me! I thought the situation was hilarious, and I was really laughing at it for quite some time.

This was really the end of the situation for me, I couldn’t hack it any longer without it just being an unnecessary ego-debooster; so I said my goodbyes to them all, and headed off on my way back to camp to suit up in my now finally ready dino suit.
🙂

Kim had said to me when I first met her that she was still heart broken from a man who was a Leo [I’m also a Leo] – I think she wanted something easy and simple; and perhaps I was too real for her. I was interested in her, and that interest had the potential to become more than just a few easy kisses or grinds for a night; and I think she sensed that – and she got scared.

I’m really getting to the point now where I’m learning to never compromise [myself] – though in the process of learning to not compromise, continual tests continue to occur as the extents are measured.

When I got back Jake and Ole were at camp, two friends-of-friends who were camped with us. I asked them if they wanted to join me, and I suited up. I went riding with my tail now also lit into the playa and saw some nice artwork. There was a really amazing spinning strobe steel caroselle structure that was powered by bicycles that showed a monkey swinging between vines as a snake descended towards him. Held inside the mouth of the snake was an apple. The cool thing was the monkey ate not only the apple, the but snake was also swallowed with it.

Then we went to a mountain of white light with stars moving along its surface. We queued up for about 30 minutes and went inside. Here there were various stations with several concentric circles of light, each morphing into a different color and spinning at a different rate. Above each color station was a microphone in the shape of an orchid flower. I tried all kinds of things to interact with it, speaking into the microphone, rubbing the petals, touching the screen – the sounds it emanated were real but I could not grasp how they were being related to the interaction. The imaginative image of the situation was stimulating to say the least.

In the center chamber was receptacle stations, with a central scoop display that captured more of the beams. All of this really felt like a scene from my comic book: “The life of Raz”.

For the dino outfit I was wearing was not just any dinosaur; I was wearing the outfit of Raz, a comic book character that I used to draw when I was 18. Raz is a humanoid-dino who lives in space. He travels around the universe discovering and cataloging various alternative realities. A renegade, armed with his own fleet and his own mission, Raz operates alone with a twisted sense of morals and a powerful intellect.

After the mountain chamber Ole and Jacob decided to stay around outside and dance for a while – I took my exit and ventured across the playa. As I did I began to channel Raz as I got more and more character. I started to talk with Raz and I had a really amazing conversation with him. I understand now more fully which aspect of my self this character is, and should I ever chose to continue my comic book, the depth of the character and position within time and space is now vastly constructed.

From this point onwards I went to some night clubs and bars to try and socialize, but somehow I was not really in a social mood. I found it very difficult to talk to others [a difficultly that persisted off-and-on throughout the festival], though some took the initiative to talk to me [heck, I was in full blown magno-dino outfit!] – people loved my costume on this night, I had a lot of fun – and then at some point tiredness took me and Raz and I went to sleep back at our tent.