Esplanade, hour to sundown

I was in Santa Cruz on the cliffs above the ocean when I saw a bumper sticker on a wood-paneled Subaru:

Surfing sucks; don’t try it 🤙

Atop this well-travelled vehicle were four racked, wet surfboards, and surrounding the Subie were four smiling people, stripping out of their wetsuits during a gorgeous Pacific Coast sunset. I wondered, do they really believe that? Are they trying to scare off the newbies to keep their hobby secret and safe? No looky-loo tourists out here, no sir, these are our waves to ride, and you can jog right back to your tech job in The City, buddy.

Burning Man has a similar aesthetic. There’s a section of people here who insist that it sucks and that it, quote, “was better next year.”

But they’ll still launch into stories of the abysmal gate traffic, the lost tickets, the horrible last minute panic on the day before departure... on and on about the shit they had to go through to get out here. They’ll moan about the foul weather—if it’s not too hot it’s too muddy—and they’ll tell you how fucked up they got in the blinding white-out dust storms. They’ll gesticulate wildly while they tell you about grievous injuries sustained in camp constructions, campmates lost or stranded in the most surreal places, and how their entire camp drowned in the freak thunderstorms and the muck and grime of this place. They’ll spin you a tale about an entire camp's collective emotional meltdown, of their drug binges gone wrong, and the general shit sandwich that this place seems to serve up in a new flavor each and every year.

But I haven’t met a burner who will tell you that you shouldn’t make this pilgrimage out to this desert city. They might tell you about The Way It Used To Be with a smirk, knowing that day will never come again. With a gentle allusion to future years, they’ll promise the shit sandwich next year will taste even more delicious. And they’re not afraid to let you know that they’ve been coming each and every year for the past 3-to-20 years.

. . .

I was in a speakeasy in Reno when I met someone very obviously from Black Rock City. He embodied the “burner” ethos and it was obvious at a glance—he wore his faded Department of Public Works (DPW) hoodie with pride, wrinkled like he just woke up from a nap in it. I could hear his voice booming over the rest of his group, and this boisterous gravity was plenty to turn my head and draw me in.

I leaned too far out of my barstool trying to get closer to this conversation. This grizzly bearded DPW guy paused long enough to give me a look, and I gave him the secret passphrase: “You talkin’ about Burning Man?”

He told me his playa name—‘Swarm’—and pulled me in for a playa hug—not too dissimilar from a default-world hug. He seemed like the kind of guy who truly embraced the rough-and-tumble Burn crew aesthetic. The DPW icon wasn’t a logo on a piece of clothing, it was his battle standard and family crest. An icon and an identity, a costume and a role to play. He had a manic spark in his eye—so full of life and wonder but holy hell has he seen some shit. It’s the look of someone who’s fully chomped down on the bit, not just wearing the mask but embracing the mask and fully aware of it. As I observed this, I wasn’t quite sure what’s really authentic and what’s just in-character—but either way it doesn’t matter. In Swarm’s case it was all embodied deeply and expressed in a very real and animated way, perhaps a genuine step toward integrating the persona with the true self.

So here I was in this default-world kava bar wearing my default-world clothes talking to a real-life burner, caught flat-footed in my awe of him. I ended up absorbed into Swarm’s group, listening to the tales of Swarm’s antics on playa—stories mostly comprised of clever pranks played on Rangers that I dare not re-tell—after a few fat mugs of kava and a couple passes on the marijuana vape, I pressed him with a very serious journalistic question. “What are you doing out there, man?”

Swarm scoffed. “I like to rattle people’s cages until they realize they’re living inside one.”

Box Camp, early evening

Another evening began in this desert metropolis as the sun sank heavily into the drab grey teeth of the mountains to the west. A chorus of howls erupted from a group in the distance as the last remaining light fanned across the basin, folks relishing this moment to tune in with their inner wolf spirits.

I took a walk through the Box Camp camp proper, and it’s feeling the way I’m feeling: dreadfully empty. Another refrain on the meditation: “Where do I belong?” I wondered about the dynamic in this camp, and I wondered if I’m in the right place. My mood today was especially turbulent in the dizzying chaos of this hectic new environment.
I had times where I felt the energy drain from a group when I spoke up. I struggled to connect to a few camp-mates, and the aftermath left me feeling low. My mind was trapped in a cold well of emotion, and here, at the bottom of this bone-dry lake bed, it felt like drowning.

At this point early in the Burn week, there was a compulsion for me to simply leave and go back home. I couldn’t shake the feeling: I am not wanted here. Just another Fucking New Guy, another Burning Man burn-out, too square to fit into this weird hole.

But, the city is still in expansion mode and I know there are an immense amount of fully immersive things to do. But I wonder, now, at Box Camp, I’m not with my people. Here in this desert, I feel depleted. It feels like forever since I’ve spooned or cuddled with someone. I miss saying I love you. I miss physical contact with other human beings. Nothing seems easy in getting older, and maintaining friendships with even the most reliable people is nothing less than a hilarious scheduling disaster. It’s been a fully adult challenge to find people to really get to know, and even now, at the most free-spirited place on Earth, I’m struggling.

I forced myself to shake off these negative feelings and stormed out to my car, rummaged through the trunk to grab my towels, a little vinegar spray bottle—extremely useful acid to cut the alkalinity of the playa—and lemon-scented foot lotion. 

I scooped up these items and charged into the Lamp Lounge, determined to take up space. The buzz of the Lounge’s staff-only happy hour had come and gone, so the place was deserted. Perfect. I scattered my foot rub supplies across a coffee table, reclined into one of the dusty couches, and waited for my first volunteer.

. . .

The first friendly face to sit across from me told me his name was ‘Kid’. Out here in Box Camp he goes by Kid, anyway, and lots of other things, too. He had been volunteering with the Box Office and a few other Org camps over the years to score that vaunted gift ticket, and he had the effortless air of somebody genuinely cool and tuned-in to this whole burny thing that I was experiencing for the first time.

“You want a foot-rub?” I asked him.

“I sure as shit do,” he said, kicking off his sandals and resting his heels directly on the dusty coffee table.

I started with a vinegar rinse to cut through the caked-on playa and gave him the best 15-minute reflexology massage I could manage. In that short span of time, a few more people started to wander into the Lounge. Lively yet dusty, tired yet happy. A couple of folks started seriously tending bar and slinging some delicious handmade cocktails. Somebody got their portable Bluetooth speaker to play some tunes. A couple more people piled into a bank of couches to paint their nails with neon polish. Even more folks plopped themselves down right next to Kid and me to chat and make merry.

I felt a refreshing, loving wave of energy splash across us while I did my little masseur act. I was shocked—how effortless this energy arrived! After I finished up with Kid, he hadn’t even put his fresh and shiny feet back into his filthy playa sandals before the next person brightly beamed me a question. “Can you do me next?” A little line for my service had formed, and I was overjoyed and felt welcomed and appreciated.

I rubbed all the feets that were presented to me, the owners of each expressing genuine gratitude. It felt amazingly good to provide something, even if the result of my labor immediately returned to the dust of the playa. To feel the meat and muscle of these humble bodies while working to relieve the tension that they stored was pure bliss for me, and the whole Lounge was talkative and happy. My heart tuned into the frequency here, and I could now feel it lit and vibrant with a pale orange warmth. I compared it to before—empty—when it felt cold, blue, and still, like mist in a graveyard.

A thick white wall of dust swept through the whole tent village that night, reducing line of sight to just one step ahead of you. The winds remained steady and these adverse conditions brought more people to flood into the Lounge, seeking refuge in this shared and sheltered gathering space. This late in the evening, my hands cramped from a solid night of masseuse work, so I packed up my supplies and bid everyone a fond farewell. As I slipped out the Lounge’s back flap, into the pitch darkness of night, I heard the sounds of a proper happy hour—music and boisterous voices—inundating the Lamp Lounge.

Sub-urban Black Rock City, after midnight

Gleefully lost while cruising down the side streets of Black Rock City on a bike, I rolled by a camp brightly lit with LED rope, all laid out in the dust. “The Labyrinth of Dionysus,” an illuminated hand-painted sign said. I stomped down on the pedals and lurched the bike to a halt. The spiraling pattern and pulsating neon rope captured my attention from a distance, while everything else in camp seemed eerily quiet, as if it were completely insulated from the ceaseless rave going on around it.

I parked the bike and shuffled closer, drawn to it like a glowing landing pad. The labyrinth itself—in the shape of a classic Cretan labyrinth—was laid out cleanly with glowing rope. 

The rest of the theme camp was open to face the street, arranged to be as inviting as possible. I took my time to pace around the camp and marvel in awe at incredible detail and effort that was put into it. A writing desk covered in leafy grape vines. Waxy, dripping candles stuffed into wine bottles. And the pièce de résistance, a treasure chest packed full of handwritten notes—hopes, wishes, dreams, and offerings to the deity Dionysus.

I traced my finger over a few of them to savor where they might have come from and what they asked for. This shrine to the Greek god of Wine and Madness was certainly not what I expected to discover at 1 AM in the middle of this moonscape desert.

Around me, the night thrummed with sonic chaos—synths, sirens, airhorns, and the dissonant pulse of disparate EDM sound-camps clashing with each other. Inside the soft boundary of this lit labyrinth, however, that eerie stillness prevailed. I wanted to press into that feeling further, so I took my first step into the labyrinth, letting the soft dust cradle the soles of my bare feet.

. . .

The first step in walking any labyrinth is to purge. Clear the mind of clutter. Empty the mental inbox. Wipe the brain’s whiteboard. This is The Emptying—ridding yourself of lists, lies, and inner monologues. Release any impulse to “figure it out.” You’re not here to figure or even to think. Get rid of everything. The next step to take is your next step.

The path of the labyrinth bends and turns, but it neither splits nor merges. The labyrinth is not a maze—it is a ribbon. You cannot get lost. You can only get closer. This is The Illumination. You might even encounter others during your time walking the labyrinth; some folk are coming in, some are going out. Nod. Smile. Or do nothing—your pace and presence is yours to set. Slow down if you feel rushed. Speed up if you feel sleepy. Your rhythm finds you, and you’ll find yourself at the center in due time. The center which holds no prize. No treasure chest. No minotaur. No guru. There is only you that has made it that far. This is The Union. Immerse yourself in that moment; you’ve arrived. Let the world around you roar as you soak in stillness. You can leave anytime, exactly the same way you came in.

. . .

After my long moment alone at the center of this surreal discovery, I made my way back out from the center, hands folded and head bowed, feeling good about having found this weird and sacred little corner in a hyper-stimulated wasteland. I wandered back over into the shrine to take a spot at the writing desk, and I contemplated a suitable evocation to the god of revelry and intoxication.

And that’s when I heard the sudden clatter of a bike falling over behind me, and the youthful noise of four obviously drunk partygoers. They stopped at the mouth of the maze with the same zeal I did, slamming on their brakes, but they approached the camp with far less reverence. They charged into the space, loose and wild, laughing and mocking the LED path and roped barriers. One of them—the one in the glow-in-the-dark tutu—announced his intention to "find the minotaur and slap its ass" as he briskly jogged the course, beer in hand. Another screamed “SHORTCUT!” and darted straight for the middle, only to catch her toe on a section of LED rope and go chin-first into the dust. She then, in a brilliant move to save face, Army-crawled stoically the rest of the way while her friends laughed wildly and cheered her on.

Once they all met in the center, they group-hugged and celebrated for no more than six seconds. They raced back to their crashed tangle of bikes, scooped them up, and bolted off into the night to find the next attraction. I watched all this play out while sitting in absolute stunned stillness.

Bewildered from what I had just seen, I said, out loud and to exactly no one, “well, that’s one way to solve it.”

For the entire time I was in earshot of them, they never stopped having fun. And deep down, I knew no judgement, I knew the truth: everyone must walk their own labyrinth in their own way. Some seek deeper meaning, others are content to race through it on their way to see something else. I turned my attention back to the writer’s desk, scribbled down my message to the god of partying, and folded it into the treasure chest.

Lower playa, sundown

I was mounted on my bike, a salmon pink beach cruiser on loan from camp, when the sun broke through the horizon of the mountains—and the people of the playa made their ceremonial howls.

Each and every evening I’ve heard their call and failed to join them; this sad little lone wolf didn’t have the moxie to make a sound.

Not tonight, though. I belted out a baritone howl and held it as long as my breath would allow. When I finished, I heard the chant continue to the east—my rebroadcasting carried it further across the playa. It felt good to be noticed, even if it was while howling anonymously at the almighty glowing sphere in the sky.

The mushrooms I had taken earlier were starting to kick in, and with the light just beginning to fade, I decided to push out of this lonely lower playa and into the radial city. I took the long ride down L Street—the outermost radial arterial—on my way back to camp.

I hit the washboard playa road at its first intersection, 10:00 & L, and I found myself underneath the looming fuselage of a Boeing 747. It seemed like a private party was raging here, complete with buff doormen in pilot’s caps, near-naked stewardesses, and velvet red ropes. From a distance of no less than 200 feet, I could tell I did not want to be part of this scene. I rode slowly by the line forming at the bottom of the boarding stairs for the luxury jumbo jet—this is not the place for me tonight. I pumped my bike’s pedals past the private party and wheeled myself off the Esplanade and into the shimmering and sparse lower playa.

This side of the city felt quite a bit different from anywhere I’ve been on playa so far, because, as it is painfully obvious, there were a shit-load of huge RVs parked row after row after row. Some faced the street and had open “patio” areas, but many more did not. They were effectively reinforced barricades, shutting off access to the streets they’re adjacent to—there were no common areas, no decorated theme camps, not even a note of dance music emanated from these half-million dollar monstrosities.

I gleefully wheeled my bike down L Street with the open playa on my right, and the rows of RVs—with the warmth and charm of a parking lot—on my left.

I’m signaled at a distance by a tall, slender woman. She was standing among a group of people with their heads turned to the sky, all watching one person fly a kite in the late afternoon breeze. She caught my eye with a huge over-the-head wave, her wardrobe a simple and subdued maroon t-shirt with denim shorts.

I found a place to park and stopped the bike, planting one foot on the lakebed to let the bike lean. She saw that her waving worked, and with great enthusiasm, she ran to greet me at the side of the road. While she was still quite a ways away, I could make out the deep, dark circles under her eyes.

She got to within arm’s length, we made eye contact, and we exchanged a greeting. I do not know why she flagged me down—perhaps she mistook me for someone else, perhaps she was on drugs. Perhaps I was on drugs.

However, she was friendly and not shy at all, so she launched directly into her first question for me: “Where are you from?”

I had been getting this question all week from everyone I met and I never had a good answer for it. I would always try to clumsily describe that I wasn’t from anywhere—that the series of places I’ve traveled to and lived don’t define me, and that I prefer not to be from anywhere because every place paints a certain expectation of who you might be. I hated the feeling of being trapped by these labels of place, and I had not yet found a way to eloquently answer this question. But tonight I was fully in-character.

“I’m from here. Black Rock City.” 

I say it nonchalantly and smile with an extra flash of fang.

I could tell she didn’t quite buy it at first blush, but when she glanced down to survey my wardrobe and saw my fuzzy faux wolf-fur mankini and day-glow green fanny pack, she shrugged, accepting my answer.

Without an argument, she quickly fired off her next question: “What do you do for money?”

I paused. I was on the side of the city where a disproportionate amount of wealth resides. Rows and rows of luxury RVs with full kitchens and king beds and heated showers fill out this side of the city—a decadent display of affluence.

Alternatively, I hadn't spent (or earned!) a dime the whole time I’ve been here. I’d actually forgotten about money. For so long—if not my entire adult life—I’ve been desperately trapped in the rut of needing money just so that I could spend it. Locked in the churn of working and spending, chasing a dream I didn’t have myself, aiming for some big theoretical retirement goal or the purchase of property.

This whole rotten fantasy—This American Dream: engineered during an industrial boom, swallowed wholesale by an entire generation and passed down to the next like the fucking gospel. The whole thing frames suffering now as the down payment for contentment later. But what if that contentment never arrives? The dream is laboring to enjoy the comfort of a privileged life. The reality is that you never get to enjoy the hoarded “treasure” because you’re too busy trying not to get crushed in the consumptive engine of capitalism.

I took a full second to look her in the eye before answering. “Why does a wolf need money?” She stared back at me, blank faced. I lingered for a moment, expecting her, this brash persona, to shoot me back a coy answer. Even something as simple and snide as “to buy things” would have launched me into a high-quality tirade about how capitalism is a snake that eats itself, but instead, I got no response from her. I wanted to get into an argument about how money is a complete illusion, or that we spend too much time grinding away at jobs we hate to buy convenient plastic crap to desperately scratch some unsatisfied itch in a void-filled life.

Instead, she, leaning back on her heels, said nothing. I waited for long seconds, our eyes fixed on each other. Silence. I hoped she was high, and my stupid off-hand comment about money sent her spinning into some mental abyss. I really hoped her inner voice shouted at her, “oh shit, this wolf dude is right! Money is a tool for control!!”

Leaving her stunned and as stiff as a statue, I shrugged and playfully rolled away on my salmon pink beach cruiser, making sure to exaggerate my furry ass.

A half-block away, I turned to look over my shoulder. She was still stick-straight, gazing long past me and into the purple majesty of the nearest mountain range on the Lower Playa.