"I think the B-O-b (yah, you know him) would surprise and astound with his mad flip-fleece-and-flyin' skillz.  Live Prez (as he's called) still retains the soul of the black man, despite his oratorial diction.  Jonny Stew, on the other hand, is funny. But he aint no rapper. Freestyle, hairstyle... any style. Don't get me wrong, I'd totally do him. But he aint no rapper."

Ablaze

IMAGINE THE FACE OF YOUR BEST FRIEND glowing in torchlight and bathed in the arc of a tongue of flame at the edge of a wide, bleak plain of fine, chalky dust next to a 30 foot dome built to inhabit this alien landscape, and you are under the spell of the throbbing and driving beats of a master musical storyteller, amongst a throng of bouncing, swirling, writhing, spinning, weaving, whirling bodies, bound by the light of a full moon, peaked against a sky wrapped beyond the horizon, timeless in essence and timely only in that the music must go somewhere, and so it goes onward. 

* * * * *

Imagine meeting someone at a fireside campground and sharing stories of everything and nothing, casual and personal, perfunctory and profane―sharing a hug that lasts as long as you will it, a trade of a rock and a chunk of wood, a scrawled Sharpie denoting how you will see each other if the time comes and if the world allows; and then a lapse back into yourself as you have loved in that moment, and lived it to its hilt, and now you have regained yourself and your center once again, and your expectations of next have washed back into the dusty waters to be distilled and mined as treasure when the magic boils through once again.

* * * * *

Imagine watching and finding yourself part of intimate portraits of profound emotion, beauty, and intention, not once, nor twice, but countlessly as you surrender yourself to the land and its magic, to the people that live there with you, to the home you never knew you'd always had. 

* * * * *

Singularly designed to allow every opportunity possible. In that it promotes radical self reliance and expression, it puts us each in a place where we are no longer expecting or hoping or needing to rely on anyone else, but are blessed with the luxury of being able to open up and rely upon anyone for anything with any hope, precisely because we no longer feel trapped.  

* * * * *

Imagine huddling in the light of the full moon at the base of a pedestal upon which sits the controls for a giant Rubik's cube in the desert. The wind blows steadily and does not warm you, but compels you closer and closer to your best friend, and the fur that wraps her slender form. As you wait quietly in the darkness, as your senses quicken, hone, and sparkle from external assistance, as you contemplate the shared catharsis of burning a monument in collective self-intention, as your skin tingles while the 14 foot tall cube hydraulically whirs dramatically― a glowing jacket of red and blue and a sparkling bear hat emerge from the bright black. Just a preamble, minutes later the crowing cry of "Hippos!" interrupts the bluster of the wind, and eight sparkling figures emerge into the light to find their way home.  Thus the night continues, thus the night begins, thus the night ends.  As a family, starting in hope with intention and faith, and wandering as cats drinking in their own nip, dancing with their own tails, scratching each other chins, follow each other's laser light pointers unto the dawning of the new day's sun in each other's arms. 

* * * * *

Imagine awakening to unexpected foods and nourishment; nights spent away and days spent charging the soul with intention in the center under the roof of a center to your family's collective love, feeling safe and sheltered under a pink blanket, held by a series of dancing, multicolored seahorses. Imagine this has nothing to do with drugs, and everything to do with family.   

* * * * *

Imagine sitting down somewhere, anywhere, and saying hello. And talking.  And talking. And learning the essence of a person just by opening your eyes wide enough. Sharing bits and pieces and knowing that there is more in a minute and a heartbeat and an hour than many have found over years. And realizing then that this slice of the stars and the heart is just the beginning of the truest adventure in the world outside, and that you have been lucky enough to find this person without their layers and trappings, clothed only in their finest liveries and intentions. 

* * * * *

"Be my friend."

* * * * *

Imagine wearing shorter and shorter skirts, until they are so barely there that they jingle out of sheer excitement.

* * * * *

Imagine awakening to the nearly full moon, to a city in the dust, to the lights and the slowly plodding mutant vehicles dressed up in drag and dragon and live with colors. Taking off your shirt.  Inheriting a fur coat. Following your new family on their chemically enhanced adventures, dictated by no more than points on the horizon, bright lights, popcorn smells, and bouncing beats. Learning the most important lesson of your life, ironically in this place of fantasy. "Intention without expectation." Trust the beauty you find but couldn't have imagined, abandon what you have and what you do as things you ultimately cannot control. The night falters, spirits go to sleep; you are still awake. Reload with a camera. Find beautiful art, marvel in the majesty of stark nothing complemented with intricate soulful craft.  Capture moments and memories. The first sunrise. The stillness of a world shifting gears. Ride a birthday cake blaring oldies into the empty, dancing into the blazing morning.  

* * * * *

Imagine your best friend, a person of unshakeable humanity and endearing consideration, and imagine she's also a vision in fringe, a coveted treasure, and an associative extension of your own pride. And then tie together the strings of a thousand different destinies to provide the woven fabric upon which your night will be created, and include donated lap dances, unexpected visitors, simultaneous breakdowns, spontaneous poledancing, treks back and forth across the land, dancing as one and as two and as one again, lubrication to roll the show, spectators to watch the show, unforeseen encounters with blood and true family, rides atop a birthday cake, music to the brims of ears, and the long, slow awakening to a new day in unencumbered remembrance and solemn joy, and holding hands across the awakening desert to a sleep spent next to the one next best in your life. Then imagine the hangover, and imagine not caring and wishing for it all over again. 

* * * * *

Imagine you are hugging, for the umpteenth time, with as much love and warmth and worth as the first. You are close like the intertwined fingers of holding hands, and your meeting was predicated by nothing but hello, and shall we walk across the desert? Dancing. A temple shared in forgiveness and remembrance. Firelit vistas. Conversations on a foldable camp bench with a cot mattress, in the belly of a butterfly bus. Whiskey shots. Laughing in a pile. Trust. Love. Cosmic coincidences. I wish we'd found a real couch, but I'm just so glad we found each other. 

* * * * *

Imagine that you're driving home from what is one of the most amazing experiences of your life, and that it is there that you have learned to let go of expectation, and to embrace intention and marvel at the results. You are in a car named Priscilla, as would be the queen of the desert, and while royalty on the dust, she finds herself less than divine on the long road home. One new Transmission later, and you are helped out on the side of the road by girl also going home from this wondrous event, she has stopped for you and it is not a mistake that her name is Grace. Thank you for saving us. ---- One year later, the same queen has the same problem at the side of the same sort of road, and you realize that her majesty just can't handle the pressures of the palace. ONE YEAR later, the SAME girl drives up out of the dust to find you stranded, and saves you yet again. We never see her afterward, we thank her profusely all the same. One day ago, you're driving home in a much more practical wheeled coach, and at the Cedarville Safeway parking lot, at 11:27pm, for the next and last time, you see Grace again. It's only on the way home, it's only so that she can bestow upon you her namesake, and it's only once a year, at this special time, after this special week, for this sort of specialty. 

* * * * *

Okay, imagine your best moments. I think we've talked about some good ones―perhaps you've seen a few of them―now imagine those, except take away all the trappings, all of the baggage, all of the other crap that always gets in the way of things, because of societal norm, or complication, obligation, or expectation, and find that to be the basis for each of these moments at Burning Man, and find yourself swimming in a sea of these moments with other people also putting out their intention to share these moments and you will find yourself...home.