Essay: Enlightenment at Burning Man

- Julian Raxworthy is a registered landscape architect in Australia, and co-author of the book “Sunburnt: Landscape Architecture in Australia”. He is a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland and his research concerns change, landscape architecture, and gardening. He has taught and lectured at various universities worldwide.
  www.julianraxworthy.org
Enlightenment at Burning Man

A pilgrimage of participation

Text by Julian Raxworthy

The Burning Man burns at the culmination of the week-long festival in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada. (Photo: Christopher Michel)
»BURNING MAN IS THOUGHT OF AS A FESTIVAL, BUT IN SOME WAYS IT’S MORE LIKE A PARKING LOT.«
The Burning Man festival transforms the Black Rock Desert in Nevada from a lifeless lime basin to a temporary city each August, and after its three-week lifespan leaves no trace of its existence. It has been doing this for 20 years, growing from a ritual in which a few friends burned an effigy on a beach in San Francisco to mourn their break-ups with their girlfriends to a temporary urban settlement of 50,000 people with its own airstrip. The man to be burned now stands 50 meters high, standing in the center of a semi-circular grid. Rather than an event, Burning Man is really an infrastructure for a phenomenon, the organizers providing a system into which the participants, often coming from all over the world, plug in activity, building, offerings, and most of all, participation. Without commerce, without even running water (but, yes, with portable toilets), Burning Man prides itself in its radical self-sufficiency. As a site of pilgrimage it demonstrates that going somewhere for something may not involve just a location but an entire way of being – bringing a “sense of place” to the place.

The idea of being a pilgrim is tied to preparation. It’s not enough just to turn up - one is expected to be ready. For a trek, it's fitness, for a religious mission, perhaps prayer, but for Burning Man it’s contingency. Burning Man is at Black Rock because there is nothing alive there to be destroyed and no people to annoy. There is literally nothing there apart from the alkaline dust that is picked up by harsh storms and that penetrates all orifices in tents and bodies. Together with punishing heat reflected off the ground, preparation involves buying everything for shelter, food, and partying. Over time, this process has turned from one of survival to exuberance; themed camps build elaborate structures for shelter and visitors. We met a friend-of-a-friend at a party who knew someone who knew about a camp. Our dome had a bar and a stereo, and the camp had its own shower. Preparation for pilgrimage can be research and networking – or it can be Walmart.

The Temple of Transition, where revelers went to cleanse themselves of the past. (Photo: Perfecto Insecto, 2011)
»Nothing happens at Burning Man except you, times 50,000.«
The pilgrimage is a convergence of journey, place, and event. Burning Man is thought of as a festival, but in some ways it's more like a parking lot. Its semi-circular grid is organized alphabetically by city names, which are arranged in rings, marked by clock numbers around their circumference. The first city is called Esplanade, then Amsterdam, Baghdad, and on and on. Each camp has its own peculiarities and specialties. Apart from porta-potties, this is the only structure provided – the visitor must bring the rest. At the center of the semi-circle is an open area called the Playa, where people drive around in art cars at night and stage parties, happenings. In the middle is the Man, who is burned on the second-to-last night, and behind it is the temple, a structure where people place things they want to grieve, leave, and move beyond, like notes to departed love ones. We all hope to leave the pilgrimage a different person.

Pilgrimages are supposed to involve some form of enlightenment, and enlightenment can be quick, unexpected but profound, its significance outweighing its duration. Nothing happens at Burning Man except you, times 50,000. Nothing is expected of anyone, but everyone wants something to happen – otherwise the event would be a bummer. So, despite numerous tourists, most cross a line and eventually join in. The spirit of participation is high, and it’s contagious. Many adopt a persona, some people a new persona each day. Like enlightenment, the moment of participation feels amazing when it happens, and we’re disappointed when it’s over – until we come again the next year.

The constantly shifting pattern of people celebrating belies the highly regularized structure of the temporary settlement. (Photos: Christopher Michel; Geo Eye/Satellite photo)