What all this freedom means is you can do whatever you want, when you decide you want to do it and live in the moment, completely in the present. There are no schedules, no commitments, the only driver is what you want to do. One day, I wanted to go find a guy who lives in our subdivision who I had met online at a BM chat room. I left by myself in the morning, found him, hung out with him (Alan) and his friends, rode to center camp with him, rode to our camp, and after we discovered nobody was home, rode out to the playa, and eventually through an intense dust storm. We just took each moment as it came and had a wonderful adventure. The dust storm we rode through was amazing! It was Alan's idea. We were holed up at an oasis camp at the farthest reaches of the BM playa and he said, "I would really like to experience riding through the dust storm, do you want to come with?" And I said sure. I am so happy I did. The dust storm was so intense and the winds were extremely powerful. The entire time we were riding I could hardly see more than 10 feet in front of my face. In fact, Alan's goggles were clouded up and I had to guide him through with the sound of my voice. The winds were so intense I used my hat as a sail and rolled along at probably 10 miles per hour! What a wonderful moment, a wonderful memory.
So, even though I set off alone to do what "I" wanted to do, the adventure was made even more special because I decided to share it with Alan. We cocreated the day together. Just because the playa encourages you to live in the moment and do what you want to do, doesn't mean it has to be totally "I" focused. Many of "my" great moments came when I collaborated with others and even let others lead the days adventures. What was so powerful about the space created at BM is how living in the moment makes it easier to have a positive experience with others. Beth and I both felt we got along as well at BM as we ever get along. We were both relaxed and confident, open to the experience, open to the moment and what it would bring.
There are so many wonderful moments - I list them here so I can remember them, if you want to know more about any of the adventures, feel free to ask! You may want to first scan the pictures linked in my previous post to get a feel for the visual aspect of the event.
- Our first day, donning our fun clothes, riding across the playa and finding the giant swing set. Some random guy gave Beth pushes on the swing just to be nice. I gave underdogs to several people as well.
- Our first night on the night time playa, being amazed by all the lights, all the music and people. Dancing to some random awesome DJ at one of the dozens of playa clubs, along with 100's of other dancers.
- One night of dancing we ended up in this great, giant dome tent, dancing to Bassnectar, a dj we had seen in Phoenix, and it was the best, best music.
- Another night, while this made Beth kind of ill, we saw an almost medieval performance with opera singers, torch bearers and (this is the part that made Beth feel yucky) a tattooed, pierced performer who was lifted high in the air by the piercings along his back. To me, it was so spiritual, so moving. He was flying, suspended in air by his piercings, and you could tell by the look on his face, by his beauty, he was in another place. Yet, he was there with us, sharing with us his transcendence.
- The night of the burn I danced and danced and danced along side of the fungineers' pirate art car as they created the most amazing music I have ever heard. The music moved through me, moved me, I was in the moment, dancing, moving, having fun, smiling, completely confident, just feeling the music, moving and dancing.
- When the oil derrick, on the night of the burn, exploded into a giant mushroom cloud of flame (check out you tube) after the most amazing fire works show I have ever seen!
- The first day when Beth, KC and I rode our bikes to get ice and stopped at several bars, all giving away drinks, it's a gift economy. We met lots of nice people and started our journey into the moment.
- Beth and I several times just went for little rides around the playa, including the day when i pulled her along in the cart. One such trip we ended up at a four story scaffolding house. We climbed to the top, relaxed and enjoyed the views before climbing back down to continue our stroll through the camp. The whole thing was a great together experience for Beth and I.
- When Greg and I climbed to the top of the RV and watched the double rainbow.
- When Greg, Lisa, Beth, KC and I chilled out in the RV during one of the afternoon dust storms and just chatted. It was just, well, nice. Happy. Relaxed.
The amazing thing about BM is how these are just a sampling of all the great experiences and moments. Each time I tell someone about BM I remember something new and it is always positive, always brings a smile to my face.
Another thing I loved about BM is how it encourages self expression in your attire. While some choose to go naked as their form of self expression, and heck why not, we chose to prepare and wear fun clothes we would never wear in the "default world" (default world is what Burners call the normal world, as in, you are here by default, you were born into it, not what you might choose if you had the choice from the very beginning). Anyway, what I thought was cool was how, while we just brought random crazy clothes, each of us combined our outfits in ways that expressed our personalities and intrinsic styles. I wore a couple of skirts throughout the week because they were comfortable and stylish. I loved the Asian-style hat I brought and never wore the fuzzy purple hat or cowboy hat. The last evening Beth was decked out in great pink tights and turned her gold flouncy pants into arm warmers. She had her hair pulled back into double pony tails and her goggles strapped on top of her head. It was just so her. It made me think about what you/i/one might wear if you could wear anything you wanted on a regular basis. How self expressive could you/would you be? I loved wearing the skirts, they were stylish and comfortable. In fact I have been lounging around in my brown suede skirt all evening. And, why not? Who says guys should wear X kinds of clothes and Y kinds of colors? Like I said, whatever experience you want.
I have mentioned the confidence thing a couple of times and I want to touch on that. For me, I feel insecure if I feel someone is judging me negatively and I pick up on that judgement on how I perceive them to be treating me. Treat me nice, I think you are judging me nicely and vise versa. Well, at BM, I quickly realized that people are just doing there own thing at it has very little to do with me. If someone is quiet or not interested in engaging me, it has much more, heck almost everything, to do with them and very little to do with me. It just means I am not part of their experience at the moment. And you know what, fine with me. I can go have my own experience. I didn't need them to have a great experience and there are plenty of others who want to have a fun experience with me. So, why worry about what other people think about me, who cares what I wear, or what I decide to do, as long as it makes me and the people I am close with happy. And, I just want the people I am close with to be happy and have what ever experience they want and I am sure they want the same for me. And the great thing about going with Beth, Greg, Lisa and KC, is many of those experiences, we wanted to have them together. Not that we were dependent on the other person to have those experiences, but we enjoyed having the experiences in communion. So, let's see, I can have whatever experience I want, people aren't judging me, and if they are I can just walk away and go hang out with people who want to share their experiences with me and be nice to me and be happy and in communion with me, and even, worst case, I can't find any of those people, I can go have plenty of fun by myself - sounds like a pretty good recipe for confidence to me! Beth and I both commented on Tuesday night after returning to work, how we felt confident, relaxed and self assured in our interactions that day. Pretty cool stuff.
The other amazing thing about BM is the creation of the city. Specifically I was impressed with the city being designed as a circle. I thought how amazing it would be if planners had decided to design greater phoenix as a circle, with downtown at the center. Curved streets seem to encourage a relaxed traffic pace and more bicycle use, as well as more exposure to one's neighbors. Also, imagine a circular city, with curved streets emanating from the center, intersected by straight streets which travel from the center out to the outer edges of the city. It would be great for public transportation and even expressways. It would be such a wonderful way to design a city...it's hard for me to describe, but I can see how great it would be in my mind's eye. Again, if you want to discuss this more, let me know =)
All these descriptions of things and I haven't even touched on the great people. Beth, my soulmate and partner. There is no one else I would rather hang out with. One of the things we discussed is how people have rhythms and usually people partner with someone who shares their rhythm and how lucky Beth and I are to have found such great matches for our personal rhythms. We may not always see things the same way, but we roll well together.
Greg, he is so fun, so naturally in the moment. Several times he said, "Aaron, let's go dancing" and off we would go for a little afternoon dance, and he always had a smile on his face. So happy go lucky, so free.
Lisa, our base rock-steady, the facilitator of our moments. She coordinated so much of the trip so that when, in the moment we might be hungry, or might need batteries for our glow wire, it was there, and our moment could happen just the way we wanted. Throughout the week she had a soft beauty I had not seen in her before.
KC, Beth's cousin, a last minute, and wonderfully welcome arrival to our troupe. Fresh from three months of a vagabonds existence in Alaska, he allowed us to ply him with questions of what he found, on the road, and in himself - he inspired our deeper levels of conversation. A seeker, he was with us sometimes in form and sometimes in spirit, but always with an air of readiness for a return to his life on the road. Seek on Kevin Christopher, seek on.
Beauty, living in the moment, confidence, fun, love, companionship.
You can have whatever experience you want. And not just on the playa.
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