Comments on: Burning Man doesn’t do “ritual” – and probably never will

By: Doug Wakefield

Doug Wakefield — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 04:10:35 +0000

As a newbie travelling from Australia this year, I am checking some of the postings at random. This discussion re ‘ritual’ caught my eye. Several years ago, my wife of 26 years died after a long battle with cancer. The week after she was cremated, I brought home the ashes from the funeral parlour and sat them on the piano, and then went outside to sit in the sun to read my newspaper and have a cuppa. As I sat there, I thought, “Cathy used to sit and read beside me here in the moring sun…” so I went back inside and grabbed the ashes, and sat them in her favourite spot, and went on with my reading and drinking. It felt ‘just right’… and then it also struck me: “Religions – from which most ‘rituals’ spring – are for people with no imagination.” MAKE YOUR OWN RITUALS!!! (I should also empahise that many people have ‘bucket lists’… my equivalent is what I call my “fuckit! list”… if I can do it, why not!!! (BTW: I hope to be with Golden Cafe camp – look me up!) Enjoy your next breath!!! Doug x

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By: Burning Blog » Blog Archive » Who the hell are “Burners,” anyway?

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 22:52:57 +0000

[...] to be a part of this.”It’s also commonly understood … though not often talked about … that most of us interpret the 10 Principles differently. Some of us (I’ll raise my hand) believe that “Radical Inclusion” means “everybody can [...]

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By: Moze

Moze — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 05:54:19 +0000

Mr. Magister here you go, my response http://blog.burningman.com/culture-art-music/initiations-and-salutations/ Please let me know what you think.

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By: fratboy69

fratboy69 — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 01:58:21 +0000

eclair says:

“What do you think ritual *is*? The things we do might be the same (watching the man burn, standing at a friend’s casket, sending out birth announcements, blowing out our birthday candles), but the way we do them and the way we feel while we’re doing them is different for everyone, sometimes for the same person doing them different times. That seems to me to be part of any modern-day ritual. ”

While I completely understand the sentiment here, I think that this statement expresses the essential misunderstanding that motivates the objections on this thread. There is a false dichotomy here that suggests the only two elements of ritual are a) the repetitive act and b) the way we feel about that act. This leaves out something important that Caveat is talking about.

A ritual that we consciously engineer is not a ritual. Sure, in a trivial anthropological sense, all rituals are man-made. But, what we forget, us moderns, is that rituals gained there power not from us as their conscious architects, but from Mystery. Mystery is what allows us to simultaneously engineer powerful rituals, yet all the while submitting to that power because we don’t consciously connect that ritual with OUR wishes, OUR personal desires.

Mystery allows for an external force to develop and to take over the heavy lifting of imbuing our experience of ritual with meaning. And not simply subjective meaning. Something infinitely stronger than that. Objective meaning. The kind of meaning that can’t be subverted by switching the channel and selecting another option for how to parse our experience. With mystery (and the power that Mystery makes possible, Authority) we can participate in rituals that subject us to a Logos which is completely out of our control. Those are the conditions under which true rituals are possible. Without them, we can mimic the movements, share in a kind of atavistic appropriation of ritual that is geared towards our Modern subjectivist minds. But ultimately it will always by us, in a room with ourselves, making shadow puppets with no paper screen.

Hands visible, magic minimal.

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By: eclair

eclair — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 21:51:48 +0000

What do you think ritual *is*? The things we do might be the same (watching the man burn, standing at a friend’s casket, sending out birth announcements, blowing out our birthday candles), but the way we do them and the way we feel while we’re doing them is different for everyone, sometimes for the same person doing them different times. That seems to me to be part of any modern-day ritual.

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By: simon of the playa

simon of the playa — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 20:14:22 +0000

the best thing about doing blow off a hookers ass is the ritual involved beforehand.

just sayin’.

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By: willowbl00

willowbl00 — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 19:58:40 +0000

Can’t the ritual be that of consent and joy?

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By: Stilty

Stilty — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 00:44:56 +0000

I personally feel that burning man is a perfect environment for ritual and ceremony. Being loosely based on the older traditions and modernized to adapt with culture, it straddles the line between tradition and evolution. The hedonistic undertone can be a distraction, a part of the ritual or something to push against for discipline. Involving ceremony and ritual in my burn last year really made the experience much better and put me where I needed to be, restored my faith in humanity and challenged me to push my limits.
If you can”t find the ritual there, try stilting for 11 hours (till bleeding) then walking across the embers of the temple (on stilts) after it has fallen and become a more intimate environment. Or find the equal in your medium since I don’t recommend it if you aren’t an expert stilt artist. My point: Burning Man can be as loose or serious, religious or agnostic, fun or miserable as you make it. I enjoy that flexibility.
In my experience the best rituals come out of a spark but based on traditional discipline. Last year I attended a ceremony that the organizer didn’t attend, so we all had to lead. We took turns, shared styles and everyone seemed to take something different and give something to it. A beautiful experience, I was so inspired I woke up the next morning and went to the airport the see Black Rock City from the sky for the first time. I highly recommend it if you haven’t seen it…
Blessed Be
∞Ω∞

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By: g

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 03:27:23 +0000

Hey! I just got invited to a wedding at the temple on saturday, how about that?

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By: Dustin

Dustin — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 20:47:06 +0000

Like Lemur said, this post is topically all over the place, so in that spirit, some thoughts:

I embrace chaos more than plans and ritual at burns because the beauty chaos creates almost always exceeds anything we could come up with “by plan”. The amazing artistic synergies that come from everyone coming and sharing their individual passions each year easily surpasses whatever nutty theme Larry thought up (but I suppose he has to have something to do). I avoid reading too much about the art ahead of time so my first impression isn’t “oh, I read about that”. I try to have as few scheduled events as possible. Fuck the DJ schedule. Wake up. Grab your shit. Start walking. Don’t need a ritual for that. Or maybe that is MY ritual? hmmm…

The Man burning used to feel like more of a ritual to me – it feels more like a performance nowadays. The conclave is definitely not a ritual or celebration anymore – it’s more like a fire-spinning circle jerk. I suppose the primal emotional connection to something that is purged and burned up has shifted to the Temple.

I’m sure some hippies will stop by and explain how rituals are meant to ground us and remind us of basic connections and truths — and there’s certainly lots of that going on, but on a individual or small group level. I see more rituals at burningman than anywhere else in my life: Weddings, sunrise yoga, english tea, cocktail hours, cathartic interactive art, intentions… heck – group meals — all count as rituals in my book.

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