Silence and Dust
The moments that matter are the stories with friends who bring our shared chapters into their book of life. In the right story, a stranger becomes a confidant, an acquaintance becomes a friend for life. At Burning Man, the temple welcomes a self selecting cast of characters, with dust and comfort zones as porous walls to a treasure hidden in plain sight. The temple helps us find meaning in anonymity, if certain conditions are met.
I stumbled through a fog of what seemed like ash floating in the air. People and objects faded out of vision. The passage of seconds slowed and so did my sense of reality, up vs down, cause vs effect. No frame of reference, just gray and eerie, silence and dust.
The temple appeared suddenly, directly ahead, as if the storm held it’s fury, just for me. I hid inside the its walls, my mind still unclear on where, or really when I was.
This building veils people’s stories behind a wooden canvas with only ink as a guide. No looks, race, or income distorts our sense of connection. We are just people, tracing our fingers over a letter that someone scribbled with a sharpie, baring their soul, just yesterday. They may not tell you if you asked, but they tell these walls, knowing that they will share with the playa.
I wandered around, reading the inscriptions, navigating around others, hearing someone cry. rI read dozens of people’s confessionals. They touched me because I’ve walked in their shoes and share their genes.
Humans are infinitely unique as individuals but behave in a Gaussian at scale. Thus our seemingly personal circumstances can be highly relatable as one zooms out across to the collective.
I teared up over anguish of a stranger, only to smile by the jaunty resilience of another, seeing myself in both. We live with personal shadows, like tattoos that fade over time. The open secret is that shadows come from a darkness, but you don’t have to fight them alone. America’s rugged individualism sometimes forgets that we stand on the shoulders of the past generations and grew up in tribes.
The temple creates an in-crowd for all who wish to enter. Giving a safe space to the most gut wrenching of inner dialogues (those are often hardest, as nobody can stop you from lying to yourself.).
Paradoxically, the dirty laundry is out in the open. This public, collective vulnerability gives such a release that my anxiety is gone the moment I stepped through the door.
It’s ok to be naked (in more ways than one). People are not ashamed to cry.. Each sentence, seemingly burned into the wood is an uncomfortable secret, finally shared to, the pressure finally released.
The note wasn’t written by your friend, but it could have been. She rode a bike to the temple yesterday, clutching a marker in her hand. Another one, years ago, walked me here, leaving me in peace, to find my way.
Our life narrative grows through a charged, shared connection, many levels deeper than your average dinner chat. My story also changed, time stopped. The next page of my adventure was blank. I didn’t have to look back at the previous chapters. Those would soon burn.
I felt chills rush through my body as a hymn played somewhere outside. A cooling wind swept through the hot, dusty halls. The sun peeked through the grey milky sky and rays bounced off the golden planks of this building-for-a-moment-in-time. The thicker the grey the brighter the glitter of light.
Monday, the marker stories will have burned and the flames will spread across the globe with the human fire flies who carry them home.
People get busy. They get tired. Life plays tricks on us. Remember this place. Remember the light.
The storm passed and I walked out to bathe in the warm light of the playa. I wandered aimlessly, but with a renewed purpose. The now silver light bounced off the artworks I saw nearby.
I found a heart piece that glowed in the sun. I experienced a suspension of disbelief followed by a very brief suspension of gravity. I was airborne.