First Coating of Dust
This entry is part of a series captured at Burning Man 2023. 1. “Morning Before Playa”. 2. First Coating of Dust. 3. Decompression of Ritual Time. 4. What are you burning?
Wednesday, August 30, 2023
Center Camp
Posted up on a bench in the city’s living room with iced chai tea from a small camp across the way.
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What’s here now?
Flags of volunteer nations flapping in a warm breeze. The slow droning of a talk on consciousness in a middle-eastern accent. My body tired, happy, dried strung excited. Self-consciousness level lowering. Loosening.
homing.
homing.
Too much to compact. Sensory extravaganza. Experience and the expansion of what’s possible.
Last night we rode our bikes through a dust storm in a pack. Improbable and glorious art pieces resolving themselves through the whiteout. Neon and silhouetted. Reality slipped and slid, morphing into otherworldliness. The miserable glee!
We stumbled upon the Chapel of Babel and it sent me. I didn’t know you could make something like this. Cathedral architecture and symbol drenched with meaning. Disorienting, horror and awe. It demanded, “LOOK LOOK”
We shuffled in a line in the outer ring of the chapel. Crowded in by symbol and the feeling the shuffle would never end. Samsara. Can’t get off the ride. Corner after corner. Imbued with ungraspable meaning. I stumbled out into the desert air and marveled at the piece with a group of Israelis.
We agreed, “Can’t wait to see this one burn.”
You can do so much more with the play of sensory awareness.
What are you feeling?
With and alone and full of the desire to connect. Slow ride in garb of white flowing. Pull of the city toward something. Open. Open.
The fear of connection and the nausea of transformation. Up to it. Long hugs. Allowance of abundance. Long limbs and flesh and the parade of ritual. Such culture!
What’s here now?
A man walks by with a shirt that proclaims, “WE”.
A stage nearby with a host offering a hot mic to any who need it, “Say whatever you wish! Share your greatest fear. Say something you’ve never thought.”
My body feeling a purging. Dazzled by gorgeous. Desire, eros. Onewith. Anxious. Slowing. Letting gone.
Reminders of a former home:
At night this place feels like an artful Vegas. Though, with organic currents of interest rather than manufactured funnels into vice. Constrained explosions of creativity.
The heat,
the dry,
the open land,
the LED glow of drawn attention.
Spontaneous words?
Nude in front of who matters
The fear blockers slowly unclenching
Oh, there you are
Give away that which is no longer yours to hold
Back into the ground
Back into heaven
Release,
Love!
Now what?
The USS Nevada art car cruises by like a desert yacht. I gather myself and follow it out into the city. Sensed up on senselessness. Where does the play lead next?
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In the next entry: answered prompts from a dusty writing workshop hosted by Jonbo…