I'm going to attempt to express my story here...when my foot stepped off the RV, onto the cracked playa 2 weeks ago, it seemed everything was wrong with me,at least in my spouse's heart. I talked too much, I nagged , I wasn't focused, i had too much energy... Big B was exploring his own head space,somewhat overwhelmed by the art car, trailer, mechanical, RV, issues, bringing our son, our kids leaving next year, our own rite of passage, emotions, and he decided that he wouldn't talk to me,a passive -aggressive move I'm familiar with,.. I seemed to be a major, constant, irritant to him , for his own personal reasons and whatever shit he had brought with him to the playa...I wanted to get through it , work it out.
At one point,in our first 4 days there, as we worked building the city, before the burn started,before the city "opened' for business, I decided that the burn would be a lot better if B and I could communicate, seemed like if he would talk to me,we'd have a lot more fun too.conversely, perhaps he was just going deaf, like me...maybe he was losing his hearing, , I had just gotten hearing aids and knew that eyes, ears, strength, and flexibility seem to be lost rather quickly as your form deteriorates.
B was going out for the first test run of the art car , and asked Marley if he wanted to go out on the playa. "What about me?" "Am I invited too?" I asked, hurt,of course,... I mean, I didnt want to be hurt by this, but it was programmed in me ...I sat down (actually slumped) in a lawn chair,crying earnestly, and told him that the burn was gonna suck if we didnt talk right now about what was going on., that we were creating our burn together right at this moment. He said it was because I wasn't in the moment, hmmmm,..we all know that you cant blame others for passive/aggressive behavior. We had danced this old dance so many times, me being the source of his irritation, him responding by shutting down to me and opening up to everyone else, a form of punishing me for being myself,... a cruel irony I was used to( ahhh,...awareness can be difficult in the darkness of old behavioral patterns) So, after a wee bit of me, standing strong and insistent on integrating our shared experiences, insistent for a connection with my best buddy in life, telling him how I wanted to be loved ,not scorned, ...he softened, and we connected. Meanwhile, back In camp, I was doing some motherly/shaman/medical work for our camp, providing a small clinic to my camp mates.
Sometime, towards the middle of the Burn, the camp leaders approached me as I was headed to the burn pit to burn some compost, I saw them coming towards me, I felt that I was doing something wrong, and when they spoke, I felt, at first, as if they were going to reprimand me for SOMETHING I HAD DONE WRONG!. instead, they wanted to give me a beautiful piece of swag and then proceeded to say the most wonderful sweet things.WTF,!!! there it was AGAIN! whats wrong with me? The sick feeling that lives in my solar plexus and gut. That has set up shop there for as long as I can remember ,.....totally activated .
Ok, so the burn began with a strong sense of everything that was wrong with me.Even moments of praise and gratitude from my camp mates were activated by the strong sense.
As the week progressed, I felt the service of what I bring to the playa unfold and blossom. Im there to provide solace, strength, nurturing , compassion, inspiration, and comfort.I fell deeply into my work. It was fairly heavy at times interspersed with complete liberation . Yet, all week, I wanted to laugh, long and hard and break open from the heaviness. I verbalized it to my friends.By the end of the burn, at the Temple fire, I stood where I like to stand, as close as I can to the edge of the fire ,surrounded by it, and then, my motto,... I step ONE STEP closer. Next, I stay as long as I can (til i'm burning) and then I STAY LONGER.
Inside of me, as I was burning in the fire, I felt a vague familiar rise of kundalini stirring in my spine and my gut. I asked for tears to well up, I asked to cry,and so I did, a little..., next day, I drove home, we cleaned the RV, everything was put back in place...Oh yes, an important note( maybe not), a few days before the temple burn ,I had written "whats wrong with me?"on the Temple wall( remember, my first moments at the burn were all about feeling that something was wrong with me, all these childhood emotions flared up in my abdomen like when I was a kid)...so, i was going to burn those feelings, I had decided that nothing was wrong with me, that Everything was RIGHT WITH ME.
I told b about this, that I had allowed him, in those first days on the playa,to make me feel as if there was something wrong with me when actually, there wasn't anything wrong with me.and also, that I had burned this feelings in the fire.
Upon return from Black rock city, I was WIPED out! I couldn't move , I wanted to sleep, my body ached, my head seemed dull, slight dizziness, extreme fatigue...burned out literally. Within 2 days of being back here, I actually heard myself ask out loud, "Whats wrong with me?" Fuck! I thought, I burned that! DAMMIT!,Now, it was a physical "whats wrong with me?" SHIT, i couldnt escape myself!
So, drained and weary,we drove up to Joshua Tree to the Bhakti yoga festival. Having done this event for 3 years, I know how powerful it is, but coming on the heels of Burning Man, seemed a little excessive, yet, we wouldn't miss it and headed up there.
We arrived in the clean-ish, still dusty, RV at JT.
Kirtan was going off, 24/7, delicious conscious foods, raw, fresh, light, love, devotion everywhere,...and SOOOO... many people who had just returned from the burn!
Lydia, who was vending her amazing foods, had just come from cooking for 2 camps , Caraucci-with her fashion, the Other deepak-singing 35 shows at Black rock, now onstage for more,and,on and on, all these amazing people, who had hauled their shit to the playa, and then come right out to the festival to work,....for me though, It felt like a release from service. I was there to restore,breathe, and listen to the music of love.
Saturday morning, I happened upon a folk rock singer ,named Ena Vie, singing at second stage, I loved her deep, soulful voice, reminiscent of my good friend, Shawn bisi. She had a powerful ,mature musical array .
And then, it happened, during her set. I felt the same tears that would not form as I stood close to the burning fire at the Temple,,I felt them bubbling up, boiling , churning out of me, heaving, sobbing for the longest moment, it kept flowing, something had opened up, spilling my 'whats wrong with me' all over the festival floor. And then, the magic of the universe occurred, in that moment,I was standing again in front of the fire at the TEMPLE!!this was no memory, I was there, i was burning and crying and releasing all this shit into the fire,even though I was sitting at mid morning on another desert floor at a kirtan concert.I was in both places at once. I was aware of everything, the people around me, probably wondering what was going on with me,happy for me to be feeling deeply... where was brian I wondered? It was as if I was in an empty, cavernous hall with soaring ceilings, and rooms with open doors coming from all directions,...my thoughts were coming from the open doorways,..one thought i had was a conversation with the woman I had met the day earlier who had shared her divine transformative experience with me, where she had cried for 3 hours, during a fairly typical daily routine ....was I doing this crying because of her?Had she planted the seed the day before? I was everywhere at once, and I knew it was a BIG event. And then, I realized that this GRAND event was want I had been desirous of for a while since my last BIG event. Now, that I know these crazy blissful moments are available, I have missed having them and I wanted one! This was the big event that I had desired at the Temple Burn, even though I had told myself NOT TO HAVE EXPECTATIONS, I had lied to myself. I DID have an expectation,dammit... I wanted to feel a divine orgasm again, I wanted to feel these big, blissful moments more. And here I was ,in the middle of ONE! And, appreciating it, and thankful for it, and acknowledging all the tangential thoughts that were associated with it.It was the interlocking puzzle pieces coming together to form a picture (note: on the playa, there was a giant interlocking puzzle that I stumbled upon and thought at the time"Hey, I THINK OF LIFE as an interlocking puzzle, I am going to stop and experience this art work.!!"
OK, that's it, I thought I had wanted to laugh at Burning Man, I guess I really wanted to cry, and it didnt happen at the burn,it happened at the bhakti, BUT, I WAS transported BACK to the burn( OR,IT was transported to the NOW) ,I was able to combine and experience 2 instances in time,then and now, at the same time and in the same space. so, Im left wondering,with a deep question that perhaps one of you can answer, ... if I can experience the THEN (the past-standing in front of this recent Temple fire) at the same time as the now( crying in JT at a festival), and time and space have been obliterated...how can I commingle the future with the now and bring the 2 together into this moment?
So, what did I learn, what did I experience? ...Im left wondering so many things, will I have more of these profound experiences?(yes!), ...how far can we go into profound? how big are we ? Whats available to me?....and most importantly, since all these crazy ass puzzle pieces came together, big b, the camp leaders, the woman telling her story about crying for 3 hours, Ena Vies magical music, Temple fires, ....time space.....I can state that nothing is wrong with me, and will now ask myself,when confronted with these old feelings, WHATS RIGHT WITH ME?
in love
dr deb
ps, your story from the playa? please share, make it long and include the details!
