A Burningman experience WITHOUT the actual experience....

LeetleD · Post by **LeetleD** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 9:24 pm

I did not actually attend Burning Man this year, but wanted to share with all of the burners what an impact you each bring back home with you!!!
I have friends and close family that attended the Burn this year, and what they shared with me has been incredable....When my friends left for the burn, they each had some sort of issue or "baggage" that they took with them. When they returned however, they shared with me stories of the incredible people who helped to take that "baggage" off their shoulders. People who were completely unjudgmental and considerate towards their feelings and situations. I was amazed.... The only stories i've been introduced to about burning man was just the "Freaks running around naked, having sex, doing drugs, and being a menace to society". The experiences my friends have shared with me actually had an immediate impact on me and have showed me a picture of Burning Man that excited me. My friends upon coming home, now carry a new atttitude. They are excited about life and people. They brought back a piece of burning man with them. Being around them influences me to act a little different about life. Not take things SO seriously, enjoy time - just really enjoy it.
I hope to attend Burning Man next year and look forward to the experiences this year will bring. Just a thanks to all the burners. You are truly amazing!

-LeetleD

domitron · Post by **domitron** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 6:46 pm

Your first Burning Man will change your life just like it did mine three years ago. It has little to do with drugs, having sex, or being naked (although respectable activities in their own right) and a lot more to do with giving of one’s self for the shear joy it brings. Burning Man gives me hope that people, if given the right setting, are actually very trusting and giving in general. Some people instinctively know that the beauty of smiles outweigh the gleam of a shinny new widget, yet in a world where we are practically brainwashed to believe otherwise through countless hours of marketing programming, it’s therapeutic to escape for a moment to a place like Burning Man to get things straight in our heads again. And each year more and more people at Burning Man are getting it, like that artist this year that spent over a quarter million dollars of his own money just to make a really cool wooden cavern he called Uchronia where hundreds danced in the mystic green cavern on the playa or the hundreds of other artists who spent their own money and gave of their time just to make something beautiful to enchant our days and nights at Burning Man. We are told that success cannot be measured in dollars by our spiritual leaders time and again yet often fail to act in accordance to that truth. Burning Man is a testament that there is a greater joy in giving than that of a life of hording. What’s more Burning Man is living proof that each of us has the capacity and will deep in our soul to give to our fellow man, even if he or she is a total stranger. I believe Burning Man is the most spiritually uplifting event of my entire year, and I know many others who feel the same.

spectabillis · Post by **spectabillis** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 7:23 pm

a burningman experience without the actual experience... sounds a lot like masterbating to bad porn.

Davoid · Post by **Davoid** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 12:40 am

When I was driving south on 447 Monday afternoon, I was fighting some fatigue and the usual mix of post-burn emotions. All the pulled over/crapped-out RVs had me worried, all the trash bags and other roadside shit had me paranoid and second-guessing my well-secured load. Awake enough to drive safely, drained of enough ego to be having crazy thoughts and perceptions dancing across my mind and vision of their own free will.

Suddenly, the trail of cars ahead of and behind us- still all burners at that early juncture- became sort of connected by a hazy energy. We were a force together, though we'd soon be splitting off in our respective directions, towards our respective destinations. We weren't just ordinary people anymore, we were glowing seeds. Seeds headed to points around the globe, soon to be planting ourselves and everything we'd learned during that week in the desert. Some of those plants will wither, some will be cut down, but others will surely thrive.

This whole thought process didn't take very long to transpire, but it was both comforting and powerful, and hasn't quite faded.

Come, LeetleD. Be a seed for yourself now, be a seed for the world this time next year. And hey, whaddaya know, 2007 is The Green Man.