Was I a "Burner?" It was an important question to me. Even though I had been to the Burning Man festival before, there were people who had attended many more times than me. They were Burners. They had the right to call themselves Burners. I had only attended twice... did I have the street cred to call myself a Burner? I thought of a World War II movie... It was the one where the troops are getting ready to land on a beach. One of the recruits is nervous, and the sargent says something like, "Hey, the moment you step on that beach, you'll be a veteran!" I though of that and decided, Yeah, I'm a Burner.

The art theme for 2005 was "Psyche: The Conscious, the Subconscious and the Unconscious," and they looked for artwork that explored various aspects of psychology: "self-expression, self-reflection and the unconscious power of dreams." Radical self-expression was what Burning Man was all about. The very nature of the festival pushes everything to the extreme, which just makes it harder to explain to non-burners. Ultimately, a person has to experience it to fully understand it. --Kinda like... life.

 

My road to Burning Man and back: 3,922 miles in 13 days.
 
 
 
Beginnings -- Day 1 -- Day 2 -- Day 3 -- Day 4 -- Day 5 -- Day 6 -- Day 7 -- Day 8 -- Day 9
 Day 10 -- Day 11 -- Day 12 -- Day 13 -- Endings
 
Links: 
 
All original content (c)opyright 2005 by Tim Frayser 
Comments: tapestry01@yahoo.com