Burning Man 2022

Burning man 2022 was one of the hardest burns I have ever experienced. It was filled with all day dust storms and heavy winds. This year was the first year I had gotten early entry due to some volunteering on opening day I had volunteered for. There is so many things I would love to share through this post but I will only share some of my highlights. For you who have been to the burn know that its hard to truly describe the experience.

As I arrived at gate on Friday around 8pm, I joined the longest line I have had. It took me til 3:30am to get to my camp. I unloaded the trailer and took a nap in the trailer til the sun and heat woke me up. Once up, I began to build camp with the help of Amber, one of my campmates who also had early entry. Once we got done setting our shade structures and building camp, the first white out rolled in. The visibility was no more than 10 feet. Everything was playafied within minutes of finishing. I began to journey on playa to find some dear friends. First person I can across was Scott from work who just so happened to be our neighbor. I ran into so many friends along the way. It was interesting to be on playa before opening and see how much was built before everyone began to arrive through the week. That first night I went out with my Palm Springs Burner friends. We visited the man first, where we saw the first drone show of the burn. It's truly amazing to see what these drones were capable of. One of my favorite pieces of art "Paraluna" was not far so we pedaled over and laid under it for a while. This was an early night.

The next day I got up and had my first volunteering shift with Arctica, this is the only place where sales take place on the playa. Selling ice was quite the party. After shift I set out to find a camp that I had no idea the name of, I was simply looking for a guy named Owl. Burning man 2018, I had met Owl who was a firefighter from Oregon. I told him then I was testing with cities in Phoenix and was thinking of giving up on the hiring process. He did a tarot card reading and told me that I needed to try one more time. Sure enough I got hired on the next test. I finally found camp Gypsy Nebula and connected with his campmates who informed me he wasn't burning this year. Karli and I rode around the rest of the day checking out all the art.

My first ESD shift was amazing. ESD is the Emergency Services Department where I got to do my daily work skills at burning man. My partner for the day was an amazing human being who does medical things at Walter Reed and helps with neuro research at John Hopkins. We had a great conversation all day about everything from the universe to our personal lives. That night was our first camp outing. We all rode into deep playa and explored. One of my favorite pieces was the Forest of Dreams. A huge area with portals you had to walk through to be transported to a field full of 5ft tall fiber optics everywhere playing the most calming music. The atmosphere was grounding and became one of our go to places to take breaks when we got overwhelmed with the stimulation on playa. We also got to experience the sonic sphere. This was a net suspended about 40 feet off the ground in a massive metal frame with 360 sound. Absolutely mind blowing. We continued into the night and headed back around 4am to resupply. I decided this was going to be one of my sunrise days so I headed back to deep playa. I chased down robot heart and danced as the sun rose over the desert floor. This was a very emotional sunrise for me as I saw a couple who were dancing and it struck me hard. After the sunrise I started pedaling back towards camp where I stumbled on a beautiful morning wedding at Paradisium. I was very emotional and headed to the temple after that to do some journaling and releasing. Once I finally got back to camp it was time to lose my clothes and get to the Naked Pub Crawl. This is one of my favorite events every year. The rest of the day was kind of a blur but I know it was an early night as I had been on the go with no sleep for close to 40 hours.

The following morning we were up in front of camp and this guy was riding his bike by. I yelled to stop him, his name is Fractal Tom. He took me up in his Cessna in 2017 for an airplane ride above playa. The serendipity on playa is unreal. There is no coincidence of running into people you know and making connections with others. This year I got to see the Caldron for the first time. This is a metal art piece that holds a small fire all week and is then used to light the man. Fun fact is they use the sun to start the fire at the beginning of the event and keep feeding it wood throughout the event to keep it going. This day I had another ESD shift for a burn which got cancelled do to weather. I headed to camp and we all went to see Above and Beyond at Opulent Temple. We danced ourselves away all through the night.

There is lots more in between but I am going to jump ahead to burn night. Before heading to the Man Burn, we got together as a camp and married two of our friends. I officiated the wedding for Gabe and Ricky. Although it was not a legal marriage, it was a lot of fun to gather random burners to sit in and celebrate love with us. As we parked our bikes and made our way to the perimeter of the burn, there was fire spinners beginning their show. Before the man burns the fire conclave spins fire while all the art cars begin to create a massive circle surrounding the man. 80,000 people raging into the night surrounded my more lasers and bass than you could ever think is possible makes for a wild time. The man raises his arms and is set ablaze. The fireworks first, then the explosions, followed by fire whirls taking off in the wind as the heat blasts the crowd. After the man burned we headed to a roller disco. We put some skates on and were roller skating in the middle of the desert on a hardwood floor. My campmates and I continued our journey deep into playa where we found the drone landing zone and caught another show with Robot Heart leading the sounds for the drones.

The last day is always hard. Seeing everyone begin to strike camp and pack away the city until the next burn. We broke down our camp and everyone went there own ways to say their goodbyes and connect with people one last time before leaving playa. We all met back at camp and made our way to the temple burn. The temple is a truly magical place filled with so much energy. The temple burn is much different than the man. Everyone sits quietly during the temple burn. This is a time to grieve, let go of things that no longer serve you and connect with the divine. We made our way back to camp for the last night on playa. This was an early night as well. The following day we started exodus around 4am. It took us 8 hours to get off playa.

There is so many stories and memories to share, but to little time to tell them all. Burning Man has been such a huge part of my life and I hope to continue burning for the foreseeable future, whether it be Regionals or the big one!

Here's a quote I read that resonated with this burn,

"Its time to truly live in a way that may frighten you, make you feel disconnected, make you question everything, offer unexpected answers, fundamentally change the way you think about your time here on earth. Its about finding personal change through radical self reliance and personal expression."