It was better this year! - BRC 2024
It’s been barely a week since I exited the dusty gates, and my days and nights are still filled with playa dreams. It’s hard to put into words what we lived out there. After 8 BRCs (and close to 30 burns including Regionals) this was to be my last BRC for a while. Not the first time I’d tried to break up with the city… But then the playa took me into its arms like an old lover and held me close, reminding me why I could never quite let it go.
After 2 difficult weather years - which some say was good for our culture - on the heels of a further 2-year pandemic hiatus, the playa blessed us with near perfect conditions. Long warm days, blue skies and hardly a speck of dust. Candy floss sunsets and flaming sunrises. Still and cool neon-powered nights.
It felt like we were finally back, the energy at an all-time high. Smiles at every stop and a shared sense that we were living our “best burn ever” gave free reign to unforgettable moments. In this space time warped, stopped, accelerated — and as the week ended, the playa gave us its greatest lesson.
It is a rare thing to simultaneously get the Burn you want and the Burn you need.
You win playa, I’ll be seeing you next year.
Playa view from my camp Burners Without Borders (BWB) photo by Wild Wes
It is hard to pinpoint a single moment that made all the difference. It’s a visceral feeling that takes hold, like the excitement of pushing the curtains open to a white Christmas. As I landed in my favourite city, it felt like I had never left. Out here, magic is everywhere. In the small playful art that lines the streets, to the majestic sculptures that stand tall in its heartland. In its centre, the Man was a vision of elegance, standing high on an undulating platform of connecting stairs fanning outwards like waves in the dust.
Looking back, all the memories collide. Long cycles with nowhere in particular to go, fuelled by child-like curiosity. Parking up and marvelling at art that was delightful in its playfulness. A giant cone, a 70s lounge set-up at the edge of the playa, a lime green double headed horse covered in googly eyes. A canvas of lightbulbs for grown-up kids to make silly shapes on.
“Library of Light” by Quentin Carl Helgren
Or finding art that was as unexpected as it was sublime. In the back streets I pushed past the doors of a truck emblazoned with “United Time Travel” to reveal infinity mirrors, reflecting a myriad of starry lights. In this magical Narnia-like space, water dripped from the ceiling that could be accelerated or slowed down at the turn of a button. This created an optical illusion that allowed us to control our most precious commodity — time.
Side by side with the playful, the playa also held moving messages from a world in turmoil. Out here, there are no plaques explaining the pieces; one must feel their weight. A sprawling sign made from bullet-ridden street signs spelling out “I’m Fine” from the Ukrainian war zone . An all-too-common answer hiding stories of survival and resilience. A touching sunrise homage to those fallen at the Nova Festival, led by the DJ who was playing when the music stopped on October 7th. A sunset Kirtan at the Temple, remembering those fallen in Gaza. Pain and prayers co-existing in a shared space is a rare thing in our divided world, where social media polarisation drives us ever further apart.
“I’m Fine” by Ukrainian artists Oleksiy Sai, DJ Anatoly Tapolsky, and Vitaliy Deynega
As the week accelerates days bleed into each other, feeling like a whole month of experiences, yet gone in the blink of an eye. I didn’t make it to a single workshop, or plan to see a particular artist from the (controversially released) line-ups. And yet it felt like the experience had been tailored made for me. Like I was in a scene from the Truman Show, every firework going off as if on cue, providing the perfect backdrop.
There are too many moments to recount. Stumbling upon a re-enactment of The Rocky Horror Picture Show I hadn’t expected to find, running into long-lost friends, meeting a kindred spirit and finding out we shared a birthday, a zoo riding past the day I was wearing a zebra outfit, or simply being handed a toasty while talking about cheese. There were no particularly deep conversations or epiphanies, but all the lightness made me giddy.
And in these troubled times, we need more lightness.
"Heavy Petting Zoo" Art Car
The night of the Man Burn, I came in hot from a magical day, high off belly laughs with dear friends. As the first sparks flew and the fire took hold, a low roar rose from all the humans around me. Beyond the spectacle, I turned around, seeing the faces and expressions of those huddled close to see the pillar of our city burn. The hairs on my neck rose as I thought how we were about to collectively witness something unforgettable, in this moment in time, in the peak of our lives. And what a rare thing that is.
Suddenly, the Man lit up with coloured flares in quick succession, blue, yellow, red, green, sharp and blinding, before exploding into a fantastical Oppenheimer-esque mushroom cloud. Loud cheers and howls poured out of a thousand chests, released as thick and hot as the fire. Tears of joy streamed down my face.
Boom! The Man Burns!!
In our busy lives, we don’t take time to realise how fortunate we are. But sometimes, we press pause long enough to take it all in, and its beauty overwhelms us. I tried to hold the vision in my sight for as long as I could before we all dispersed into a night of mayhem and wonder. The Man gone, but the city so very alive.
The next day I cycled to see the “Temple of Together” burn. Riding up to it, I did not feel the heart wrenching pull of other years. That soul searching and inner turmoil from unprocessed grief. I felt at peace. And in this moment, I realised I had finally let a lost family member, who’s memory I had carried like baggage for so many years, go. There were no dragons to be slain this year, because I had already faced them.
The "Temple of Together" by Caroline Ghosn
The Temple ignited like a tinderbox, turning into a scorched hellscape within minutes. Seemingly immune to the flames were the two hands pressed together in prayer that had graced its entrance, now glowing fiercely, refusing to be undone. Out of nowhere, a heavy dust storm rose up and engulfed us all, the Temple disappearing with it. My eyes stung as dust filled them like dry tears. The storm covered us from head to toe, ash merging with dust, backlit by the eerie orange glow of the smouldering fire, as we became part of the scene.
There was no time to watch the Temple’s gradual fall and the messages lining its walls rise to the heavens like other years. The burn was quick, urgent, reminding us that time is fleeting. The Temple of Together’s final act was breaking down the separation between the living and the departed, as if embodying the Genesis: “for dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”
The next day, the dust rose again, browning out the sky for hours and blurring the edges of reality. We exited the gates blind and dusted ash grey, unable to say a proper goodbye.
On the road, I reflected on what I had experienced, and the sign I had seen in the temple earlier in the week: “On average we get 80 summers… if we’re lucky. Don’t put off the trip. Stop waiting for life to begin.”
The playa had given us the sweetest year and, by living every moment to the fullest, we left with its greatest lesson.
Stop waiting for life to begin! Temple offering