Comments on: The Temple: Sacred Heart of Black Rock City

By: kaylah

kaylah — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 23:59:00 +0000

joriverdog, 3 words, too much acid.

By: joriverdog

joriverdog — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 16:52:04 +0000

I can not say just how this is related…but here’s a true story that to this day beguiles me….it was 2003 burn. I had just left the man’s burn and was riding my bike back to my camp when for some reason I stopped to look at a huge dome structure…a person was at the door and waved for me to come in…so…I did! I went in there realizing that there was some vortex of power there…inside there was a circle of couches on the outerside of inside the dome…between the walls and the couches were probable more than 50 people in a circle….I spoke briefly asking them to send the young female artist’s soul onward..I hear a voice behind me say ”we can do that”…then when I first came in I noticed an object…probably a human? under a black shawl. When finished the asking..i stepped closer to the object…when I got about 3 feet away the being lifted the shawl and there was the most grosteque human figure I have ever and ever will see…black as night and disfigured and twisted…he said to me..you have come to close…I knew I was in deep shit…i stepped closer and it said I have something to tell you..I went closer and said what is it…i can take it…he said you won’t like it…I said i can take it what is it? he said I am death! I believed him and told him that was okay but I was not ready and then told him why and what I have to do in this life yet…he said you can have that….as I left none of the people in the circle would look at me..they could not hear what was said between death and myself…I left and when outside called on Gabriel my angel protector (another story)…anyway the next day we could not find the dome…This is a facutal and true story…

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By: Burning Man Day 7: The Temple Burns | MOREimages – Andrzej Liguz

Burning Man Day 7: The Temple Burns | MOREimages – Andrzej Liguz — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 21:39:13 +0000

[...] Now the Temple is something truly special. Some would say Magical. Certainly Spiritual. The Sacred Heart of Black Rock City, the Temple first appeared at Burning Man in 2000 when it was built by San Francisco artist David Best as a Memorial for a close friend who had died. Burning Man started funding the Temple the following year and it has since turned into an incredible expression of grief and celebration of life. Thousands of people now write on it every year. If you have lost somebody or feel the need to let go of something in your life, you can write on the Temple and on the very last day of Burning Man, the Temple is burnt. http://blog.burningman.com/spirituality/the-temples/ [...]

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By: Indi

Indi — Fri, 28 May 2010 22:42:20 +0000

J, Michelle, dear heart – you can not take responsibility for opening a door to possibility. One, your friend, may cross a threshold and not be prepared for entering the room. You offered in good consciousness, hope, the joy of sharing and your friend interpreted the following events in his way. Yes, we can love and care for one who transgresses – but we don’t have to condone the action. Has your friend requested that you place an offering in his name at the temple? Have you asked him if this would be something he’d want?
You are suffering too – whatever your creative process, be it visual artwork, the written word or musical expression – design your own offering to the process of the temple. Healing will come with time.

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By: Reverend Billy Talen

Reverend Billy Talen — Wed, 26 May 2010 13:30:43 +0000

Thank you Ms. Gilmore for your fair and clear march through difficult territory. It is fascinating to have an “axis mundi” that grew organically out of the reverenced chaos of the burn and the whole week of theme camps and bunnies and bodies and ego-loss and dehydration and the whole swirl of the playa.. We all have that grief but it took until 2001 to have that axis for it – maybe because grief is hi-jacked so thoroughly by organized religion. It is an amazing counter-monument, given the big old religions’ hold on traditional culture, to have our response to death improvised and then burned each year. I wish the Flaming Lotus Girls and the Shipyard good building!

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By: J.michelle

J.michelle — Tue, 25 May 2010 19:51:19 +0000

This year is my third year in a row at BM. i brought friends last year,I thought that one friend would really grow from the experience.Due to the fact that he had never done anything like this in his life…Well the worse outcome anyone could imagine happened.While we were at BM our house got robbed they took his only true love…his guitar.Several months later he found the guys who did it.He ended up stabbing one to death and critically injuring the other.I never could have thought that this 19 year old kid could do something so grusome.Especially after seeing true beauty and happiness at BM.Now he faces a life in prison with the only good memory in his mind is BM.I thought i was doing a great thing by opening the eyes of a kid who had nothing good in his life.Now I feel like I love a murderer…how can this be?I didnt’ think anyone could get worse off after BM.I thought BM is a growing experience.Should I put something in the temple for him?I want to because i love him like a brother.I know he didn’t mean to kill that kid.I know he didn’t want to throw his life away.Please help me decide.

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By: Andy Bruch

Andy Bruch — Thu, 20 May 2010 20:46:30 +0000

In 2001, the last time I went to BM, the Temple of Tears was the highlight of the week for me. I randomly met a woman I later fell in love with while comforting her mourning her fathers death. You could just feel the energy.

After the Temple was burned down to a pile of very hot coals, I ended up pulling a guy out of the fire that had tripped and fallen face first in to the coals and couldnt get up. Something snapped in my head and I just ran in there and grabbed the guy and carried him out. About 10 people swarmed us and doused the guy with water after I got him out. It was one of the craziest nights of my life, and I still remember so many little moments so clearly.

Man, I love that Temple…

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By: BrotherMichael

BrotherMichael — Thu, 20 May 2010 14:32:27 +0000

Love and Grief neither multiply nor divide.
They exist.
We realize them, or we do not.

It is our mind that believes things are multiplied or divided.
The universe has no such concepts.

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By: Mitchell

Mitchell — Thu, 20 May 2010 00:55:38 +0000

Love does not divide, it multiplies.

Grief does not multiply, it divides.

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By: Laurel Karsch

Laurel Karsch — Thu, 20 May 2010 00:17:53 +0000

The temple of Tears was truly that. I walked into the space and was immediately full of my grief and everyone else’s at the same time. The tears did not stop as I wrote on the pieces of wood supplied by the building crew. It was overwhelming for me in such a pure way. I have never experienced anything like it before. My awareness is: we are all suffering together about something all the time and we do and can release our grief at the Burning Man temples.

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