photo by Portaplaya

Since the year 2000, there has been a Temple at Burning Man, and when we talk about the Temple, most people think of what started that year with David Best and Jack Haye, and became a long line of temples that have graced the playa. The Temple has evolved from what became a memorial to their friend into an “emotional nexus” of our community, where thousands make pilgrimage each year to remember those they have lost, to celebrate and affirm life, to heal and to forgive.

In 2012 I was fortunate to meet many of the people who are involved with building the Temple each year and to research what I came to believe are some of the essentials of understanding what the Temple at Burning Man has become. It is a place where our community goes to unburden itself and it is a representation of our maturity as a community as well as a natural manifestation of something sacred in the City of Black Rock.

photo by Portaplaya

Proposing to be the one who builds the Temple at Burning Man is serious stuff involving quite a bit of work within an existing structure of volunteers and other Temple minded folks to create something for the community.  One question that was raised over and over again as I spoke with people who have done this before was that you should not ask yourself  “WHAT am I doing this for?” but rather “WHO am I doing this for?”

For many Burners, the Temple is a vital place where those who build it possess a solemnity and a respect for that process. It is also a place for those who attend the event to use for grieving or celebration of life in an environment that is in contrast to a lot of the rollicking and outrageous things happening elsewhere on the playa that week in late summer.

photo by d’andre

Walking around the Temple at the middle of the week, I personally get overwhelmed by the amount of emotion that is focused like a beam in there. It is as if, from its inception each year, to all the planning and all the hands that build it, then when the event begins and it becomes “the largest collaborative art project” on the playa; that the energy of so many caring people turns whatever sublime Temple structure is built that year into something far greater than any art project.

Stopping to read the remembrances of so many loved friends, family and pets who have passed on, seeing the pictures of so many of them, pausing at the altars and shrines where people have lovingly placed tokens of their lost one’s lives, well, that can really get you right in your plexus where you feel that big sorrowful empathy wave. The Temple is a profound space where some of us who have lost loved ones can let them know that they are still loved and missed, but that it is all ok, they can pass and we can move on.

I’m a large, somewhat dim and oafish fellow, and I can only stay in there for so long before I have to walk away from it out onto the blankness of the playa with the Temple behind me, and breathe deeply so as to not betray the tough guy façade I live behind.

It is a heavy place.  If you’ve been there, you know what I mean.

photo by Steven Fritz

Regardless of who builds the Temple, it is always something spectacular and special. There are bona fides and expertise that are a prerequisite to building the Temple at Burning Man and I was privy to finding out what some of those were this year.

I’ve written an article about what I discovered after being on playa (and attending the Temple construction before leaving for Black Rock City) for the building of this year’s Temple of Juno. I was able to research and read some of the intellectuals who’ve written about the concept of the Temple, including Lee Gilmore, Sarah Pike and Larry Harvey; and I had the pleasure of speaking with some of the folks involved with building Temples through the years including David Best, Jessica Hobbs and Jack Haye. The article is on the Burning Man website and is titled, Spirituality and Community: The Process and Intention of bringing a Temple to Black Rock City.

Burning Man would like to have a conversation that explores what you feel about the Temple and to get your insights on it since it is really your Temple. Please read the article as it is meant as a starting point to stimulate discussion. Our community loves discussions and the Temple is something many of us have very strong feelings about. Feel free to read the article and post your thoughts here.

Tales From The Playa are dreams and memories of events that took place at Burning Man, as told by its participants.

Coyote is Black Rock City Superintendent and an original member of the Department of Public Works. Photo by Vertumnus; click to enlarge.

Here’s an urban myth — don’t care if it’s true or not.

Story goes that a construction worker had been given his last warning about drinking on the job. Being a hardcore alkie, he solved his problem by soaking his socks in vodka and wearing them inside his work boots all day, getting drunk anyway!

I say again — don’t care if it’s true or not, I just really want to believe it. I’m sayin let’s go “MythBusters” on this one. We have the technology.

For several years, DPW Playa Restoration has been stockpiling a cellar of rotgut vodka that not even we will drink. (Have you ever tasted “Vodka of the Gods?!) All we need now is a Sunday off, some volunteers from the audience (would DPW have some takers?), and socks.

(If it works, this could be a start of a new DPW tradition … “Vodka Sock Sunday?”).

Read more »

Temple and Dust

This year I was fortunate enough to spend time with some of the Temple Crew and I was privy to the energy, values and belief they put into building the Temple of Juno. I found that talking about the Temple soon becomes a discussion about something ethereal, something bigger than an art project and rather something that is a significant locus not only in Black Rock City but also within each of the people who are working on constructing it, including those who fill it up once the structure is finished. The Temple is something vital and real to our community. It is a sacred place amidst the dust.

I’m not an expert at these kinds of things, but from what I’ve encountered, the Temple Crew is a group who feels deeply about what they build. Many have been touched by grief. They are all unified in their sense of purpose, even if they all bring different points of view and motivations to the creation of the Temple.

Temple Crew in the Dust

I hung around the work site, then at their camp and they were a hard working bunch, but they always had time to talk to me when I asked about what they were doing. That seems to be a running theme among the crew.

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Center Camp Cafe’

Monday night they began tearing down the Center Camp Café. I was walking back from dinner where entire camps were disappearing with great expediency, leaving gaping holes in the once urbanized wall of themecamps that were there only one day before. Gone were the Home Brew camp, the Beacon and Eggs bar. As I passed the Café I saw two of the last stragglers; a tall naked man stood with his back to me next to his female companion who wore a flowing paisley robe, both staring wistfully into the Café that had become a deconstruction zone. I could tell they only wanted just one more Tai Chi or Chai Tea but the Café is closed for business.

Read more »

Tales From The Playa are dreams and memories of events that took place at Burning Man, as told by its participants.

The Temple of Juno burned last night, raining embers of shimmering fire on the crowd that had gathered to solemnly bring Burning Man 2012 to a close.

It may have been the most beautiful night of the whole week  – perfectly still, comfortably warm and lit by a near-full moon. During the daytime, an exodus had begun from Black Rock City, and the population had shrunk to maybe half the 52,000 participants who were here at the peak of the event. The refugees kicked up plenty of dust on their way out, but it hung low in the air, like tule fog in the Central Valley on a chilly winter night.

One more big burn, and then the work to restore the Black Rock Desert to its natural state would begin. This would be the first time in five years that a David Best temple would burn on the playa. After he built the temples of Mind, Tears, Joy, Honor and Stars from 2000 to 2004, Best retuned  in 2007 to build the Temple of Forgiveness. And then he left it to others to carry on the tradition. “I hoped that other people (on his crew) would step up, but it didn’t happen,” Best said yesterday.

During last year’s event, Best was getting his bike worked on at the DPW’s bicycle camp when a young, heavily tattooed woman approached him to say thank you for all   he had brought to Burning Man. It was a turning point.  “It touched me deeply,” Best said. “When someone thanks me, you have no idea what that means to me.” And that simple act of gratitude planted a seed.

Best’s crew had been asking him why they couldn’t do it again, get back out there and build another Temple. And  then, when his wife, Maggie, said that if he wanted to build another Temple, she would help him,  the decision was made. “She’s over there now,” Best said, waving his arm in the direction of the camp’s kitchen, “feeding 120 people a day.”

And so Best and his crew worked for months off the playa and for many weeks on it to erect the Temple of Juno. It was a beautifully detailed, Asian-influenced structure, instantly recognizable as a Best creation. And on this perfect night, it would go up in flames, and the drifting smoke would lift the sorrows of many thousands of people who use the burning of the Temple as a release from their pain.

Friends of Dr. Gooey brought Champagne and other things to honor her memory.

During the week, the Temple is heavily decorated with inscriptions and pictures and trinkets – mementoes  of those who have passed away, placed there by people seeking to honor their memory. But the Temple is not simply a collective funeral pyre; Best sees it as part of a healing process, a first step toward moving beyond the pain from loss and grief.

“The dream I had was that the community would heal itself,” Best said. Read more »

Tales From The Playa are dreams and memories of events that took place at Burning Man, as told by its participants.

There was fire all over the playa last night as the city began its process of self-immolation, and all through the night giant bonfires raged.

It was a different kind of  burn night as there were not one, not two, but three big burns. The grandaddy of them all on this Rose Bowl burn night was, of course, the  burning of the Man.

The wind that had been blowing steadily for most of a couple of days had gone still by  the time Crimson Rose lit her torch from the cauldron at the top of the keyhole in  Center Camp. It had turned into a beautiful playa night, and there wasn’t a hint of dust blowing as Crimson and the procession made its way to the Man. Then they circled around the fire ring, distributing fire to the conclaves waiting to perform.  To keep with the football theme just for a moment, you could call the fire-dancing crews  the cheerleaders of Burning Man – Burn Team Burn!

With the conclaves all set in place, a crew pulled on the lines that raised the Man’s arms in the air, and the festivities were underway. There was drumming and dancing and thousands of people with shining eyes watching. All around the Man, hundreds and hundreds of fire performers did the routines they’d been working on for months.

Soon enough the time came for the dancing to end and the burning to begin.

The fireworks show began with sparkles and crackles,  and silver cascades of fire  poured down from the second level of the pavilion. Soon the Man had a streak of flame running up his leg, and the base became more and more consumed with fire. When the big booms came and the base exploded in flames, the people in the  inner circle had to scramble back to escape the heat. It was that intense.

The burn was beautiful and ferocious. The upper layer of the Man base fell in on the lower part, and then that whole structure burned for a good half hour more before the final upright lumber fell in on itself. Then the el-wire crowd and the blinkies and the thrill-seekers pushed toward the circle of embers. The crowd started circling around the fire in a tribal dance, waiting for the chance to race across the embers.

We didn’t wait to see who would be first to cross the flames. There were many burns to attend on this night, and the next one up was the EGO project of Laura Kimpton and Mike Garlington.

Laura Kimpton and Mike Garlington at the EGO burn

Photo Mike and his crew had spent most of the year making plaster casts of religious iconography, sports trophies, and other enigmatic detritus, then spray-painting them and attaching them to the giant EGO letters. Mike’s beau Meg said he’d been up at 4:30 most every morning to get going. “He gets such energy from the art,” she said. Read more »

Man Burn

As you’ve no doubt heard, there were a couple Burns out here last night. We had a strong showing by our valiant Man who held on as long as he could before slipping in a mass of fire and embers below to howls primeval. His pavilion lasted much longer than he and it was probably the most substantial structure I’ve ever seen the Man stand upon since he’s been on top of them. It was a fitting and beautiful tribute to the man who designed it, Rod Garrett.

Tonight the Temple burns and all of the emotion we’ve put in there this week will wash up in a cathartic column of fire, sparks and ash that will send those notes of love and loss and of grief and forgiveness swirling into the night sky. Dust tornadoes will form and dance around us as if they are our loved ones lost, caressing us in the firelight’s glow, saying do not worry, everything is as perennial as the seasons, or the plants that return each spring or the love that brings us all together eventually.

Princess with her Sparkle Pony

Princess Blahblahblah came by the ARTery with her pony that she’s been bringing out here for years. She’s with Kentucky Fried Camp and someone stole the pony a day or so ago and the camp was predictably bummed until yesterday when the pony mysteriously re-appeared and had been Sparkle Ponied, with new faux fur on her mane and sides, hearts and sparkles glued all over her. A Polaroid was left; a picture of the Pony with another smaller pony out near the Temple at sunrise, with a note that read “Thank you for dancing with me all night.”

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Tales From The Playa are dreams and memories of events that took place at Burning Man, as told by its participants.

Altheus gave us the view from on high once again.

To coin a phrase, boy does time fly when you’re having a good time.

While the rest of the city was out enjoying themselves on the last night that the Man would be standing, crews began getting him ready for the big burn.

You might think that setting the Man afire is nothing more complex than simply setting a torch to the guy, but you’d be wrong. There are a lot of preparations, and they began Friday night in a blowing windstorm that just wouldn’t quit. First the Otic Oasis crew got to work taking down the Pistil , the climbable sculpture in the center of the Man base. We had talked to Gregg Fleishman earlier in the day, and we discovered that he began making sculptures like the Pistil and the Otic Oasis as play structures for the grammar school that his parents founded in Culver City. “It’s not really much different,” he was saying of the Oasis. In case you were curious, it might comfort you to know that the Pistil had been load-tested to withstand 25,000 pounds, so figuring an average weight of  about 160 pounds per person, the crew knew that as many as 150 people could be on it at one time without exceeding load. And really, there was no way that 150 people could FIT on it at one time, so things were exceedingly safe.

There was also a  special reinforcing plate at the base of the panels at the top of the work that made them both flexible and strong – “It’s the flexibility that’s important,” Gregg said, “because that relieves stress.”

Even as the Otic crew was taking apart the Pistil, other crews were taking down the truly wonderful lighting from the inside of the base. One member of the Man crew told us that it was the first time that Crimson Rose said that she didn’t want to see the base burn. “This should be installed somewhere in Reno,” Brian said Crimson told him. “She’s never said anything like that before.”

Still, the work to get the Man ready to burn went on. After the lighting was taken out, other crews would be installing explosives and accelerants, the better for a big show. Joe the Builder always want to make sure that the Man burns in good time, and we think it’s one of his special pleasures to make sure the fires rage.

The Otic Oasis crew went to work disassembling the Pistil.

Altheus took us up 120 feet in a lift  while the work was going on, the better to get a good view of the Man and the scene in general. As we said, the wind was really blowing, and as we looked down,  the sand blowing across the desert floor below us looked like water. It became easy to imagine this whole Black Rock Desert under 500 feet of water, as it was a couple of hundred thousand years ago.

It struck us again too, as we watched all the people working on the Man, how short a time it is that everything made here stays pretty. It seems like the Man and the base were finished only days ago, and yet here it was, closed to visitors,  never to be seen again in the same way.

This beautiful city is temporal, and the time of its shining is infinitesimally brief. Read more »