Does Nature meet Religion(or Spirituality) at Burning Man?

[Phoenix9S]

All-

I am taking a graduate seminar on Nature and Religion. Am working toward a project dealing with the ways that nature and religion (or spirituality) intersect in modern culture and would like to use BM as a setting in which to explore this topic. Not having attended BM yet (see ya next year), I hope to paint an unbiased picture. Of course, I guess I am screwed if your feedback indicates there's no intersection of nature and religion, but my suspicion is that you'll tell me otherwise. :)

Note- I am not operating on a definition of the word "religion" that is limited to churches, etc. etc. If you had spiritual experiences, deeply meaningful experiences or the like, I am equally interested in those. If you want more info. on what I am up to, just let me know. I'm happy to share.

All thoughts about the questions below are welcomed and appreciated. If you don't want to share experiences outright, you may just answer the poll. :) Feel free to delve into more specifics than what's covered below- I am starting broad. Please post or PM me- your preference.

Thank you!!!

-Fi

Have you had a spiritual or religious experience at BM? If so, please describe it in as much detail as possible.

Do you feel like the setting in nature contributed to this experience? If yes, in what way did nature play a role in your experience? What part of nature?

[Badger]

Oh gawd, more requests for doing someone's homework.

Seriously, is there a school in the country left that wouldn't smack a post-grad for trying to pull this off this kind of 'field poll' shite and pass it off as a project?

Why not flip your question around and write a tome on how the desert fathers confronted nature with their religion instead of assuming that BM is anything about religion other than to a few folks who need to assign a deeper meaning to a camping trip in the desert.

[Phoenix9S]

Thank you for your input Badger! Looks like I really didn't make myself clear.

Some thoughts-

It might be helpful to try to be more aware of what assumptions you make when contributing to a discussion. I say this not to be condescending, but rather because I am unsure of whether you realized what assumptions you were making when you responded to me.

I would like to address what you said, though. I have done my best to understand your points, but I am aware that I may have misunderstood you somehow. If so, my apologies. Also- I regret having to adopt such a formal tone- it isn't really indicative of my personality or how I typically communicate- but I felt like it was needed in this case to ensure that my points and position were clear.

It seemed like you were bothered or concerned by my request because you perceived it to be an attempt to have someone else do my "homework" for me. That happens to not be correct. I take academic integrity seriously and would never attempt to have someone else do my work. Any responses that I gather will only be a starting point for exploring this topic. I will have plenty of other research to do. If you want full details, let me know- I am happy to share.

You also seemed to feel that this project might be lacking in faculty approval. Again, I promise that my project has full approval from the graduate faculty associated with my class and with my graduate program. You also seemed to imply that I ought to be smacked for what you perceived as some kind of "shite" that I was trying to pull. This is very offensive to me. I can say with some certainly that I said nothing in my post to offend anyone, yourself included. If you don't like me, my topic or my post, please just don't read it. Speaking about physical violence directed towards me is, I think, pretty inappropriate and un-called-for. If this was said in jest, my apologies- I didn't get that joke.

I do not assume that Burning Man "is anything about religion other than to a few folks who need to assign a deeper meaning to a camping trip in the desert." In fact, I specifically allowed for that possibility when I said that I might be screwed if respondents said there was not intersection... etc. I did say that I had a suspicion otherwise, but I am aware my suspicion may be wrong. Perhaps other people on the e-playa will have different opinions on the topic than yours (which I assume to be given by your statement that described Burning Man as "a camping trip in the desert"). (If this does not accurately represent your feelings on the topic (nature & religion at BM), I'd be interested to hear more.)

Finally, you seemed to think that the poll and request for experiences constituted the entire scope of my project. That also is not the case. I am still a little fuzzy on exactly where I will go with this. Part of tat is intentional. I wanted to get some responses, look for commonalitites (if any) and see what might merit further exploration. In any case, though, the poll and responses will not comprise the whole of my project.

Now- for whatever I said- or perhaps did not say- that gave you such a poor impression of me (for it seems to me that a poor impression was made), I am sorry. I hope in this post I have cleared up my intentions a bit. If you have any other questions, please let me know.

Cheers,

Fi

[bravetiger]

I somehow doubt that the majority of burning man attendees see the connection of spirituality and nature, but that doesn't say that spirituality is not present or not important. I think that the burning man puts people in the elements and back to nature. Burners are asked to be self reliant and also not to leave a trace. I think that even though spirituality may not be at the forefront of main reason for burning man. I do think there is an underlying importance and people learn to respect nature out on the playa. Most people will tell you that bm is different for everyone and that is definately true. I do feel that there is a deep respect for nature throughout though. Who knows if the random guy picking up moop realized that they are healing giaya and themselves since there is a connection, but there is still an underlying respect for nature.... the survival guides emphasize the importance of our surroundings.

This past year was my first year at the bm, so take what I wrote with a grain of salt. What I can tell you for certain. The playa is definately a powerrful place. The energy of the place I had a spiritual awakening with the help of strangers who also know the power of nature. I feel the power of the place combined with the combined postive energy of the attendees make that place electric. Perhaps some do not see the connection to nature... but people in general seem to have lost sight of that.

[Rev. Terry Simon Scott]

Interesting project you've got going and I wish you will on it. You cannot seperate Spirit from Nature, everything is both spiritual and material at the same moment.
This was my first Burn as well and as a life long Pagan (57) I thought my view of the universe was big. I had it blown open at the Burn. I discovered cyper and techno-pagans connecting with Fire on a hugh scale. The gathering of humans around fire alterned by various substances dancing to music and drums is ancient and hard wired into us. Being at the Burn carries us both forward into ideas of a brave new world, but back into prehistory as well.
Peace and blessings
Rev. T.