Pre Gate Open @ Burning Man

One of the wonderful things about early arrival and staying late at Burning Man – is that you get to experience a more complete evolution of this temporary city.  Each day at Burning Man has a different energy as the population rises and falls.

Prior to gate open, you know that everyone around you at Black Rock City has spent time building the city in anticipation of gate open. Whether it be on art projects, setting up theme camps, building center camp, working gate & perimeter or building the infrastructure. We’re all city builders.  You arrive to your camp and you have open space around you – camps several blocks over seem just a quick stroll away. Our days and nights are spent building with occasional parties to share stories of the projects we’re involved on.

And then just before 12:01a on Monday morning, we gather at the edge of the city and look at the massive line of headlights leading in from Gerlach. The party rumbles as we wait for the flood gates to open. The anticipation builds with each minute, for not much longer will we be exclusive residents of the city, it becomes open to all. All night long the virgin bell tolls as each new citizen of Black Rock City is initiated. It’s beautiful music to the ears. We retreat to our theme camps, and await greeting our first arrivals and help them get settled in.  This can take all night long.

Early in the week the population is about half of what it will peak at. The residents of Black Rock City at this point are not here just for a party. They’re here to be part of building something up too. They assist with completing the build projects the early arrival crews started on. They help open the interactive theme camps. With each hour, the landscape of the city shifts and changes. Your block becomes more a part of your immediate world, and structures you saw only hours ago are no longer visible. Camps that yesterday were a quick stroll now seem distant and remote. The streets become more chaotic with bicycles, pedestrians, art cars and new arrivals trying to find their spot.

By Thursday and Friday evening, the majority of the population is through the gates. Theme camps are roaring with activity, music, dancing, mingling, water misting and more. Most art projects are open and interactive. The nightscape of lights on the open playa is full on.

Folks who arrive for the final weekend arrive to chaos and full on energy. They don’t ramp up with it like the rest of us, they just plop themselves right in.  Most build projects at this point are done, so late week arrivals don’t have the opportunity to bond and connect with their fellow citizens in this way. They must engage their social skills to come up to speed on connections that have been ramping up with the start of the city.  Some thrive on this, others might feel overwhelmed and a bit like an outsider to a community already built.

Over the next three nights the major burns happen – usually a massive art project on Friday evening that helps build up the energy for the weekend.   Much of the population only stays for the carnival like celebration of the Man burning on Saturday evening, for that is what is seemed to be the culmination of an event called ‘Burning Man’. But for those who stick out the heat, wind and dust another day – they will be treated to the tremendous emotional release of the Temple Burn on a somber Sunday night.

And then Monday morning, the city scape looks much like pre-gate opening – expansive open lands and only those staying who intend to help with the break down of the city.

I didn’t get it until yesterday.

In our camp of traveling nomads, we have a very high percentage of virgins. And a handful of them existing dear friends that we led out to the event with us this year.  Spending time with them and seeing their eyes widen with every day, seeing their souls expand and their spirits sore – has been my most rewarding experience thus far of my Burning Man experience. The art is great, but seeing people’s lives transform before your eyes is where the real magic is.

For example, a fellow technomad arrived early on in the event. For the first few days he wandered around in shorts, logo t-shirts and cheap sunglasses.  Yesterday he was adorned in a red sparkly shirt and a mohawk, thanking us for helping him break his own shells.

A group of six who joined us arrived Monday in street clothes. Yesterday we dressed them in more appropriate clothing and sent them out on a mission to explore the city during a mild dust storm.  They all came back to camp with grins and white playa hair.  When they come back and don’t immediately start dusting their shoes off, I’ll know they’ve fully arrived.

With each art car that passes our camp, it’s amazing to watch their expressions. Look. Blink. ‘Is that a…’.  Stutter.  ‘Jellyfish’?    Yes, I’ll reply. And it’s also a mobile bar.

Last night I took them all on an expedition to the Cubatron – possibly my all time favorite art on the playa.  I fondly remembered my first hours on the playa as I immersed myself in its geeky engaging artness.  I watched my virgin’s minds be blown wide open.   Life will never be the same for any of them.

And it’s only Wednesday at sunrise.

This will be my 3rd Burning Man, and Chris’s 9th. Each time I have been to Burning Man, it has been a true temporary location to park my home. When people greet me with ‘Welcome Home!’ – it means something slightly different for me.  This year will be no different.

Except that we will be joined up with dozens of other like minded nomadic spirits.  We started Camp Nomadia last year, with the intentions of meeting and camping with others who are not just visiting the playa, but bringing their home there too.  Last year was a small camp.

This year, despite the challenge of being amongst the 20% of theme camps not placed due to the shrunk size of the city, our population has grown significantly and we’ve had to add an Annex. This time around, Camp Nomadia is primarily folks living a life of full time travel – or darn near it. I suppose it makes sense that not having an address is a natural beacon for nomads and vagabonds.

This year we’ll again be hosting a series of ‘Nomadic Happy Hours’ as well as a workshop on how to become technomadic. Click for our full schedule of events. If you’re attending Burning Man this year, stop on by at 6:00 & DNA and say hi!

While going to Burning Man is mostly like any other day for us – a new temporary location, new people, new experiences, living off grid, radical self reliance, leaving no trace – there is something different about it. It is the only event that is an anchor in our calendar.  I consider it my marinade for the year. The journey I soak up in one week at Burning Man has lasting seasoning throughout the year.

The journey doesn’t stop at the gate, it is meant to be shared with the world.  And the world I have experienced is meant to be shared with Burning Man.

Last year we came back from the ‘American Dream’ themed Burning Man inspired to volunteer on the Obama Campaign. We ended up in rural Nevada running a field office in Fallon. This morning we appropriately start our final leg to the playa from Fallon. Our host family from the campaign will take care of Kiki for us, while this year’s inspiration finds us.

With early arrival passes in hand, we’ll spend the weekend helping set up Pandora’s Fix-It Shoppe @ 6:00 & DNA (directly behind Center Camp), the camp that invited us in to place our main Camp Nomadia. We will be scouting out an ideal location nearby for our Camp Nomadia Annex for when the rest of our camp arrives at gate open on Monday morning.

See you on the dusty side!