Describing the Burning Man experience is as hard as describing a sunset to a blind person. You can spend a day talking about love and acceptance, or how you are surrounded by a world of beauty and art, and love and approval. You may say that serendipity surrounds your with unique experiences and fantastic moments materializing just for you and just for that moment. The uniqueness of each instant makes every minute unforgettable, and going on an adventure is as easy as just taking one step in any random direction. The burning man experience is not to be described, but to be experienced.
My burning man experience starts usually 4 days before the festival officially opens. I usually get an early arrival pass to help build my (large) camp, Kostume Kult.
Kostume Kult is divided into smaller sections, or âPodsâ each pod is like is own little state witing the Kostume Kult union. Each pod has a leader and an average of 20 people total. Each pod builds a shade structure or habitat under all of our tents will go.
I am the founder and lead of Pirate Pod. Therefore, my playa name is Captain Link or just Captain. For the first two days, the few of us from my pod who show up to build week, would build our home for the next 10 days.
The first day is especially stressful as we have to have some part of the structure up before the day ends, to provide some shelter to our tents from the morning sun and night winds.
My bestie Matt volunteers us to help to make breakfast for the camp on build week, and we both were up every day at 6:30 am to make breakfast for 50+ people. Not a bad as it sounds, being in Easter Standard Time on Pacific Standard Time gave us a 3-hour buffer to get ready. Waking up at 6:00 am felt like waking up at 9:00 am
By the third day, our pod was built and we were reassigned to build other parts of the camp.
 We spend the rest of the week building our camp. This year we featured a replica of the Brooklyn Bridge, a replica of a subway car, the Chrysler building, and the empire state building. We also had a geodesic dome or âBoobâ dome as we call it.
Placing the covering on the dome was fun as I got to climb up high.
By Sunday, the day that the burn starts officially, our camp was ready to receive happy burners wanting a costume.
I am an MC. Master of Ceremonies. I even wrote the MC guide that Kostume Kult started using this year to educate new MCs.
Burning man is an ever changing experience. Nothing is the same. Nobody gets jaded or bored of coming to the burn. I meet people who have being coming to the burn for 20+ year and they love it every time.
This year I meet fantastic people, and I dare to adventure on my own more often.
On one of my solo adventures, I meet Data, a very handsome guy from Sacramento who had a car! He bought a modified 1977 Cadillac Limousine without the top, he painted with cool designs and called it the Disco Steed. The night we meet we drove around playa from sound camp to sound camp, inviting people to jump in the car with us, and finally driving to deep playa, far from the lights just to cuddle in the back seat and look at the starriest sky I have ever whiteness.
On Thursday a group of us took a tab of LSC and went out walking in the middle of a dust storm. That was an amazing afternoon. Walking in the middle of a dust storm, with no visibility, and see fantastic art installations materialize in front of us is mesmerizing.
The largest art installation ever, the Catacomb of Veils rise from the desert, mimicking the Giza pyramids. The view from the top, in the middle of the storm, was amazing
As most of the art in Burning Man, Catacomb of Veils was meant to be burn. The burn was scheduled at sunrise. Watching this large piece go down in flames as the sun raised in the horizon, was a unique experience.
The next two days I did a lot of fun stuff, and I had no way of documenting it. It was liberating. I MC, I meet cute boys, I walked around going from camp to camp, I did a lot of pickle backs, I bonded with my pirates. Two days later my phone was returned (I had my name and camp address in the back of the phone)
Having my phone returned was nice, but what I found in the pictures was priceless. The people who returned my phone took some selfies!
Friday afternoon we had a wedding. My dear pirate friends Daniel and Clair wanted to have a playa wedding, and me, as the Captain of our pod, was asked to officiate the ceremony.Â
I spent a good part of the week memorizing the Hebrew blessing for the wine, as my two pirates were Jewish. At the end, we used a can of beer; having the sound of an opening can of beer blasting through the camp speakers right after the Hebrew prayers was fun.Â
We had a mix of a Jewish wedding and a playa wedding. They say they own bows and we were all in tears. Daniel and Clair are Scifi fans, so their bows included a lot of Star Trek and Dr. Who references:Â
Claire:Â â....You are the Captain of my starshipâ
Daniel:Â â...It might only take one to time travel, but it takes two to time travel happily ever after.â
We added our own little burner part to the wedding at the end:
Captain:Â âFrom dust, we came, and dust we will become. And as burner, dust surround us and protects us as we become part of itâ
Then each of them touched the ground and picking up some dust, Â drew a heart on each other's forehead while saying:Â âForever yours in dustâ
At the end, I blessed the can of beer again, and Claire stepped on it to the sound of Mazeltov!Â
On Friday night I meet Tyler. Handsome, sweet and affectionate Tyler. I wish we have met earlier in the week. For the next day and two night, we played BFs. We explore the playa together, we sleep together both nights, and we cuddle so much. I have found my playa BF 2 days before the festival ended. He is now back in San Francisco, and I have an open invitation to come over and visit. I shall take it.Â
As a whole, burning man will always be a unique experience, reserved for the bold, the eccentrics, the lovers, the adventurers, the brave, the artists, the builders, the leaders, the pirates, the visionaries and the dreamers.
We shall patiently wait one more year before we can go back home.
theartofmadeline
blakekathryn
areudirty