Lessons From Our Annual Pilgrimage to Burning Man
The 4:00 morning air makes our cheeks bristle like freshly plucked autumn plumbs as we pedal our peacock bikes across the Playa. It is rare that my wife Tawnya and I are up at this time of day. Aside from occasional bouts of insomnia or an international flight — there’s just no good reason.
We stand on one pedal to reduce our speed and veer toward the surreal sight of a giant pirate ship floating across our path. Our heads bob in rhythm to the oomph! oomph! oomph! which gets louder, crescendos and then fades into the pre-twilight darkness along with a few dozen people on bicycles trailing the desert vessel like suckerfish in the wake of a whale.
The ostensible energy of distant parties emanates from every direction all at once. And as far as my one contact allows me to see, there is a seemingly infinite pageant of LED lights… sky bound lasers… and pulses of fire.
There is nowhere on the planet that compares to the experience of Burning Man between sundown and sunrise.
If Burning Man at night is a fire and laser show on the surface of the moon, during the day it takes on the vibe of an apocalyptic adult playground with an open bar. People ride around the hot and dusty Playa lounging on “art cars” the size of giant semi-trucks or by pedaling their bicycles. Most people are wearing dystopian goggles and bandanas more out of necessity than fashion — to protect themselves from the dust storms that roll-in on a regular basis.
A Temporary City in the Nevada Desert
Burning Man is a temporary city in the Black Rock Desert with a population of more than 80,000 people from around the world who gather for one week during the summer to celebrate humanity. It’s not a music festival. It’s not an art exhibition. And it sure as hell isn’t a convention. It’s a community of people who desire an experience that transcends the predictability of day-to-day life. And by all means (just like Nebraska :-) it’s NOT for everyone. It is held in one of the harshest, most brutal environments on the planet where nothing grows and nothing lives. Burners don’t get much sleep. They sweat. They find dust in curious places. They don’t shower. They struggle at times. Yet for many of them, it is the first time in their lives when they feel 100% unshackled.
Tawnya and I attended Burning Man for the first time in 2016. It was intended to be a “bucket list” trip that we would check off our list. Seven years later, we haven’t missed a “Burn” (there was no event in 2020 or 2021 due to COVID). We go back every year because we found our community on the Playa.
A Community Rooted in Ten Principles.
Larry Harvey, the co-founder of Burning Man, published the Ten Principles in 2004 saying “they were crafted not as a dictate of how people should be and act, but as a reflection of the community’s ethos and culture as it had organically developed since the event’s inception.”
The Ten Principles include radical inclusion, gifting, decommodification, radical self-reliance, radical self-expression, communal effort, civic responsibility, leaving no trace, participation, and immediacy. All of them resonate with us on many levels.
Radical Inclusion
Anyone may be a part of Burning Man. We welcome and respect the stranger. No prerequisites exist for participation in our community. — Larry Harvey
When we arrived at the gate for the very first time, we were greeted with “welcome home, we’ve been waiting for you.” Tawnya and I stepped out of the RV and both of us received (with our consent) the longest hug we’d ever experienced… long enough to feel awkward for several seconds before the oxytocin finally released and flooded our systems.
The outpouring of love from total strangers is something so many of us desire, but rarely experience. Conversations at Burning Man are intentional and meaningful. Questions from others are never about “what you do”, but rather “who are you?”
Gifting
Burning Man is devoted to acts of gift giving. The value of a gift is unconditional. Gifting does not contemplate a return or an exchange for something of equal value. — Larry Harvey
The only thing you can buy at Burning Man is ice. Everything else, you must bring with you. We’ve received hundreds of cherished gifts over the years — from hugs, to beautiful hand-crafted necklaces to a snow cone in the deep Playa on a 100 degree day. Tawnya and I have made a practice of gifting hand-made, beaded “love” bracelets made by the women of a small Maasai village in Africa. To be clear — there is no bartering on the Playa — only the practice of giving.
Decommodification
In order to preserve the spirit of gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising. We stand ready to protect our culture from such exploitation. We resist the substitution of consumption for participatory experience. — Larry Harvey
Burning Man is noticeably void of company logos and the “swag” that we’ve seen at nearly every other event we’ve attended.
Radical Self-Reliance
Burning Man encourages the individual to discover, exercise and rely on their inner resources. — Larry Harvey
Every participant is expected to bring everything they need to survive the week. Food, drinks, lights, first aid supplies, etc… That said, there’s a saying at Burning Man that “the Playa provides” and we’ve seen that principle play out over and over again.
Radical Self-expression
Radical self-expression arises from the unique gifts of the individual. No one other than the individual or a collaborating group can determine its content. It is offered as a gift to others. In this spirit, the giver should respect the rights and liberties of the recipient. — Larry Harvey
Self-expression at Burning Man might best be understood by learning about the yin and yang of Burning Man traditions: the Man and the Temple.
The Man is a gigantic wooden structure that gives the event its name. The first effigy of “the man” — representing oppressing authority — was built and burned in 1986 on San Francisco’s Baker Beach as a way for locals to release mounting tension. Today, the Man is erected in the center of the Playa outside of Black Rock City where the participants camp.
The Temple is a magnificent structure built by volunteers that serves as the non-denominational soul of Burning Man. People go there to pray, rest, reflect, reminisce, and remember. They leave letters or ashes or old clothing to pay homage to loved ones. They also leave their addictions… release their trauma… forgive those who have hurt them… and generally shed whatever weight they might be carrying. It is a place of rebirth. Without a doubt, it is the most spiritual place that Tawnya and I have ever experienced.
Burning Man runs for 8 days — from a Saturday to a Sunday and the Man burns on the last Saturday night. Each year, all of the art cars and participants in Black Rock City form a mile wide circle around the structure and celebrate as it burns to the ground. It is one of the biggest parties in the world with a seemingly infinite array of music, lights and lasers and the energy is palpable.
Then, on Sunday night (the last night for most participants) Burners form a circle around the Temple and look on with silent reverence as it burns. Imagine 80,000 people being so quiet that you can hear someone crying a few hundred feet away. There is a stark dichotomy between Saturday and Sunday nights.
I see the Man and the Temple as symbols of mankind’s sovereignty over ourselves: one reflecting our spirit and the other our soul.
Communal Effort
Our community values creative cooperation and collaboration. We strive to produce, promote and protect social networks, public spaces, works of art, and methods of communication that support such interaction. —Larry Harvey
The majority of Burning Man participants stay in organized camps — hundreds of diverse communities that each offers its own flavor, theme or experience. For example, one camp features a roller disco complete with lava lamps, Bee Gee’s tunes and loaner skates and another hosts a Mad-Max style “thunderdome” where two people put on a harness and are hoisted from the rafters to battle it out with foam swords while dozens of onlookers cheer them on while banging their steel cups on the metal cage.
Tawnya and I revel in the opportunity to free-camp every year so we can be part of creating our own unique neighborhood. On Thursday night, we host a decadent meal that feeds everyone around us — usually around 20 people. The experience of an elaborate feast on the harsh desert surface that features wine, candles, China and tablecloths, while basking in soft white lights and listening to beautiful music is always an unexpected and delightful surprise.
Civic Responsibility
We value civil society. Community members who organize events should assume responsibility for public welfare and endeavor to communicate civic responsibilities to participants. They must also assume responsibility for conducting events in accordance with local, state and federal laws. — Larry Harvey
In spite of what you may have heard, Burning Man is not the wild west. Black Rock Rangers and local law enforcement are on site to keep people in line.
Leaving No Trace
Our community respects the environment. We are committed to leaving no physical trace of our activities wherever we gather. We clean up after ourselves and endeavor, whenever possible, to leave such places in a better state than when we found them. — Larry Harvey
Burning Man is the largest Leave No Trace (LNT) event in the world. A few months before the event opens its gates, the first volunteers begin to arrive to plot out the streets of Black Rock City and prep the Playa for installation of the massive art exhibits. Just a few months later, the last volunteers drive off the Playa ensuring that every single scrap of matter has been removed. It’s an ambitious undertaking and every participant plays their part.
Participation
Our community is committed to a radically participatory ethic. We believe that transformative change, whether in the individual or in society, can occur only through the medium of deeply personal participation. We achieve being through doing. Everyone is invited to work. Everyone is invited to play. We make the world real through actions that open the heart. — Larry Harvey
During our last Burn, a nearby camp had a “truth or dare” spinning wheel that we veered past the entire week. This year, Tawnya and I made a commitment that there would be “no wheel left un-spun.” To us, that meant that, so long as we had the time and were able, we would participate in everything that beckoned us.
Our experiences from this past year — with artists and creators on the Playa, fellow Burners and even the Black Rock Rangers touched our hearts and elevated our experience by bringing us even further out of our comfort zones.
Immediacy
Immediate experience is, in many ways, the most important touchstone of value in our culture. We seek to overcome barriers that stand between us and a recognition of our inner selves, the reality of those around us, participation in society, and contact with a natural world exceeding human powers. No idea can substitute for this experience.— Larry Harvey
Tawnya and I are the best versions of ourselves at Burning Man in large part because there is no cell signal and no internet connection on the Playa. Being anything but present isn’t an option. By riding the wave of random encounters and being open to changing plans at any moment, we’ve had some of the most interesting experiences of our lives.
Burning Man has taught us to be disciplined, but not rigid. We’ve recognized over the years that our 8 days on the Playa go fast and we want to get as much out of every moment as possible. So every time we venture out of our camp, we do so with intention, but always leave room to change course. Some of our favorite experiences have come when we’re pedaling a few hundred feet from our RV to find a porta-potty only to return 4 hours later with a story we’ll end up re-telling for years to come.
Our Faith in Humanity Restored
Every time Tawnya and I return to Burning Man, we come home with our faith in humanity restored. We develop deeper adoration for each other and the life that we’re creating together. And most importantly, we push at the seams of our own consciousness and make incremental progress on the work that we’re doing on (and for) ourselves to surrender to the present moment.
The 10 Principles of Burning Man apply to every aspect of our lives. They are integrated into the way we tend to each other, the people in our lives and even in the way we run our companies.
Knowing that it is possible to bring together 80,000 people from every walk of life in the middle of the harsh desert and create an environment of exploration, inclusion, acceptance, kindness, compassion, and gratitude — gives me hope for the future of our planet.
It doesn’t matter if you’re an extrovert or an introvert, loquacious or taciturn, allosexual or asexual, adventurous or cautious — you’ll find your people at Burning Man. That’s the true miracle of the place — that each of us can create our own experience — and unshackle ourselves from whatever shit is holding us back.
And if you ever find yourself on the Playa, I hope our paths will cross. I have a 20 second hug waiting for you.
Jay Wilkinson is the founder of Firespring and Cofounder of the Do More Good Movement. His life’s mission is to cultivate his own consciousness and be a catalyst for others to do the same. He’s got a lot of work to do.
