Burn night! Woke up fairly refreshed after being lame the night before. I decided to join a few campmates and meander towards the Arizonians whose gift to the playa was sharing their naturopathic craft. It was set up like a proper little clinic, except in the desert, with parachutes for structures, with a waiting room even. And not just any waiting room, it had fresh coconuts with tops chopped off and a generous addition of Amaretto. That combined with great company made for a pleasurable waiting experience. When my turn rolled around, I was treated with some chiro, massage and accupuncture. I think I had over 20 (sterile!) needles sticking out of me from various points, head to toe. A girl came in with a wicked gash that possibly should’ve had stitches long before and they tried to clean her up as best they could (she had previously been to the medical tent but her drunken wanderings had gotten it pretty filthy and it was showing early signs of infection). She looked at me in shock at all the needles and wondered at my calmness in my situation. I tried to tell her I felt fantastic but she was too creeped out. She left after being freshly bandanged and came back not 5 minutes later because as she was leaving she fell off her bike and got cut up again. Forunately I think she was still drunk from the night before and didn’t seem to feel pain from her gashes and kept thinking I must be the one hurting.
The needles came out and I was all refreshed, blissed out, and full of vim and vinegar and the day continued. Can’t remember much, I likely wandered over to Entheon Village to look for Sol again and maybe took a nap or something, I just remember feeling great and a little floaty.
I got dressed for burn night as I had to be at the man before dark for Conclave in order to find the rest of my crew that was coming from various camps all over the playa. As usual, I was one of the first ones there, mostly because I was the only one coming from my camp so there was no cat herding involved. A dust storm kicked up and it was kinda chilly so we all sat together in a circle and played games (helps having people in the crew who work with small children so there’s no shortage of goofy things to do) As the sky got darker, a few people were feeling the stress of performance and it got kinda ugly which was unfortunate. It was to the point that many of us hoped the dust storm wouldn’t stop and the performance would just be cancelled like the previous year, which is a sucky thing to feel when everyone had worked hard for much of the year and had been really excited for this opportunity. This is what can happen when the days are hot, the dust is blowing, dehydration is rampant and people have been partying all week. Thankfully, when the dust died down, so did most of the tension and the drummers started drumming and the people started coming from all over the playa and we lit up! It was so awesome, the choreography changed on the fly to fill up the space we were working with and everyone did fantastic. After the main choreography it was play time, we went Quadro Flamenco style which is a half circle facing the crowd with people taking turns showing off in the center. There was some confusion as to how long we had and were given the finish up call so I took off the fingers (which are a pain to put on and take off) then we got the call to keep going for what turned out to be at least another 15-20 minutes so there was a scramble to keep people fueled and lit to keep going. I definitely wished I had kept my fingers on, I know I’m not very good but I also know the more rounds I do, the more confident I get, and my performance gets better, but I guess it was ok for a first timer and blended with the insane talent of my companions, I think it was a great debut for the first ever inner circle performance by the newly banded, first ever Albertan fire conclave. (Our audition video, I couldn’t there for the demo)
It was pretty amazing to have come full circle from my first year. I remember being in complete awe of the fire performers, I had never seen anything like it and never knew such a thing was even possible. And then, my fifth year, I was one of the people contributing to a performance that maybe other first time burners were thinking the same thing about. We huddled up INSIDE the inner ring after the fuel and tools had been put away and looked up to see about a dozen flames lighting up the sky attached to invisible people jumping out of an invisible plane as they parachuted down in formation with some kind of Mad Max inspired jetpacks. Next thing we know there’s this HUGE explosion. Then the man starts burning and it looks like he’s going to go before the structure does and his arm falls off and the fire guys are running around throwing flares in trying to get the structure going and some guy decides to entertain everyone by running into the inner circle buck naked and laughing and the fire guys start chasing him and then finally it all starts burning and the man is still up and it gets so hot we have to move further back and then the structure is mostly gone and the man is still standing! And people start to wander back to porta potties and whatnot thinking he’ll never fall and he’s still going and finally, FINALLY he falls and everyone is screaming and it’s awesome and probably the longest yet most intense and amazing burn I’ve seen yet!
Exhausted from the adrenaline surges throughout the night and a little burnt out (pun intended) I meander slowly back to camp checking things out along the way and sharing smiles with strangers. I take the long way and come across a girl whose mate seems to be trying to hold her back and she tears away and runs over to me to give me a hug and then thanks me for hugging her back properly. It’s the best feeling wandering amongst tens of thousands of happy people enjoying themselves with fire and light and sound coming from every direction.
