It’s sunrise in this flat, white-dusted desert, and the car we’re getting a lift with from Burning Man to Reno is stuck in a queue. We’ve been advised it’ll take 30 min. to get out, much better than the 3 hours it took to get through the entry point a week ago.
I love the desert. Eight years in the Valley of the Sun – Tucson, Arizona – has made a positive, indelible imprint on me.
Last night was cold as it can get in the desert, with brisk gusts of wind kicking up dust.
The “Temple burn” went off around ten o’clock, and was an even fiercer fire than the one at “The Man” site.
What’s the temple? A beautiful, architecturally strange structure, where people can go to be quiet and reflective. A refuge from the storm of music, dancing, singing, shouting, laughing, coloured lights of the main Burning Man area.
The temple burned in silence as the crowd was more subdued and reverential than the night before.
As well as the structure burning, so did the messages written on the walls from people bidding farewells to dead loved ones, sending healing thoughts to the sick, or just leaving behind outworn, unnecessary parts of the persona.
What I’m hopefully leaving in the ashes of the temple and The Man is the absolute need to strategies and organize every aspect of my life. It didn’t work at the Burning Man festival and I suspect it squeezes the life out of many other situations.