> the big pagan festival is mostly an excuse to take your clothes off, do lots of drugs, and have druggy sex with strangers.

I couldn’t agree with you more. I mean, look here: from the Edmonton Journal

(http://www.canada.com/edmonton/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=c56706ce-332f-4f9c-b61c-24cd278e65c4)

quoting: BLACK ROCK CITY, Nevada -

It’s clear why spiritual movements begin in deserts. The landscape and climate nurture them…

To find it, you have to walk a bit farther, to the north end of the playa, where David Best’s majestic birchwood temple stands. At the east entrance of the massive structure, the beginning of a long boardwalk leading to a bridge and a series of altars, a burner has scrawled, “God is here, spread the word.”

This is the first of thousands of messages, written to lost fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, grandparents and friends. For the past several years, Best’s contribution to Burning Man has been a monument to the dead that goes up in flames Sunday night, a more sombre and reflective event than Saturday’s mass catharsis.

At any one time this week, hundreds of people passed each other in silence or near silence as they walked through the temple, many of them weeping. The messages of love written on the wood and the photographs pasted to the altars are heartbreaking.

Best is nearly always at the temple and burners know him. They follow him around, hug him and kiss him.

They cry and tell him stories about children or parents they’ve lost, and what his temple means to them. Mostly they just thank him.

“In this environment, people lose their barriers,” Best said during a break in the last phase of construction. As always, a large crowd of burners gathered to hear him speak. He wore jeans and a white cowboy shirt, and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve.

“Every new dust storm breaks you down just a little bit more. A man came up to me after last year’s temple burn and he said, ‘How can it be that I can’t cry in church yet I can cry here?’ Well, you’re battered. You’re battered by this place, and that opens you up.”

The largest work on the playa is called The Temple of Stars, fitting with this year’s theme, Vault of Heaven. But Best thinks of it as the Temple of Forgiveness.

“When I light the temple I walk around the perimeter to tell people it’s not their fault,” he said.

“I feel really embarrassed to have to do it, and most people don’t know why I’m going around telling them it’s not their fault. But I do it because I know there’s a handful of people out there who blame themselves.”

Me again: Snackfish is right. I didn’t participate in an amazing artistic, open, caring community. Wasn’t open to hearing anyone’s story and sharing mine. I did a lot of drugs and took my clothes off.

I didn’t find any healing in the messages I left for the loved ones i’ve lost or never known and can never tell them how much their love has meant to me. Complete strangers didn’t sit down with me as i wept and listen and offer their love and support. They (and me) were all too busy taking drugs and taking our clothes off.

It’s like claiming Italy’s just an excuse to drink great wine and eat great food.

Rant over, with love.

miguel

Posted from United States

Our good friend Jennifer Bildersee went this year and blogged about it:

http://www.tortuga28.blogspot.com

Posted from Australia