About a fire-three letters

June 23, 2009

I got my Who/What/When guide and on Page 3, the most gorgeous Asian woman is photo’ed against the desert sky. She struck me, and I looked closely at this photo several times. Being a detail oriented person, you could say I memorized her face.

Fast forward- The week at Burning Man was ground tilting, amazing; a breathless spinning conclave of wonder, fantastic orgasmico, sensual and visual gratitude. The only thing I can say to describe is that it is Oz.but…

Sunday was a long day of breaking camp, not eating, stress, grumpy attitudes, fast losing light, and a frantic, frantic feeling that I HAVE to get to that burn.

I didn’t have the following:

*A best friend to guide me,

*a structure to call home, as it had just left with said BF,

*a decisive feeling as to whether or not I should burn my recently deceased fathers letters, poems, and other original art made by me about my VERY EQUAL love/hate feelings for him,

*food

*lights for being out in the desert

*a calm, well sense of being

So I arrived near the Temple Burn and started to plunge myself in the crowd nearest to where the Big Blaze was going to go up. Pause and Mention-I have big problems with being in crowds. (Every time I intellectualize it, I get in a really big crowd and start hyperventilating and freaking out. No exception here. Immediate freak out. )

I fight my way back out, and am calming my breathing a bit, chanting “It’s ok. You are not alone..It’s ok…you don’t have to do this…it’s ok…just take it easy…” You can see how fragile I am feeling at this point?

So I ask a random woman for a hug, and that helps. I station myself a ways back from the burn, but still with a good view, and that helps. A veteran burner tells me that there will be plenty of time and ____space____ for me to go up afterwards, and that helps immensely. So I wait. And I watch. And it’s fantastic. And weird, cuz it’s so quiet, but still wonderful. I wait and wait for people to bleed away after the initial collapse. I wait as long as I can stand, consider I am hardly standing from anxiety and weakness.

I surge up, and there isn’t too many people pressed up to the big fire, maybe 10 rows. I start to politely edge myself through, and having to get more and more aggressive to get close to the fire. The last 3 rows of those that were the closest really didn’t want to move, and I started to get that panicky feeling again. I broke through, and the wave of heat that met me was unbearable. I couldn’t possibly see, much less stand on the edge and have a nice, prayerful release of these items I’d been clutching at my heart for the last 2 hours. I threw the package unceremoniously on the fire, and plunged back into the unforgiving crowd.

One girl saw the not-breathing-freaking-out problem, and shouted, “Get out of the way!”, so I could get free, as I couldn’t talk for crying so hard. After pushing my way out, huge howling racking sobs started to come from my mouth. I had no idea what was happening. I couldn’t see, I couldn’t move. I can hardly write it right NOW, for the intensity that situation involved. I stopped and cradled my face. I didn’t know how long it was going to take, or how much pain was inside me. But two shadows came to me and blocked out some of the noise and light. It was dark. It was quieter. There was breathing on the sides of me that encouraged my breathing in, and out.

In and out. Like the first breath ever taken after death, or a cold plunge into water. I held onto the shadows, not ready to raise my head up, much less high. Finally, that awful sense left, of being stretched out too far, too thin, that sense of no identity, of lost self. I calmed. I raised my face to look up, because as it turns out, the shadows were human, and uncommonly tall.

“Hey! I know you!”, I said, laughing and full of wonder. For there was my Asian Beauty! Talk about an abrupt change! I stared, and was dumbfounded and embarrassed. Why couldn’t I say thank you? Or thank god? Or hold me? Or take me home? All words seemed to threaten to reduce me to sobs again, because now that I had come out of that terrible fire, I had a gratitude that spanned my heart. I remember that the guy had no hair, a wonderful smile, tears SOAKING his face.

I couldn’t hold on to them, so broke away, in order to try and bring some sense back to the fragile world I was still teetered on. But never, ever, ever in my life, could I forget your face, NightbloomingTigress. God help me if I were to even try. So this is to thank you for helping a girl in a moment of profound collapse. And that guy, who I will assume at this point is someone you know. Please say the same to him, if you can.

Thank you again. Thank you ridiculously. Thank you absurdly.

With Love, As Always,

Promise

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Letter #2

Hello lovely,

So yes, Burning Man this year was extra-extra profound for me. My grandfather passed away a couple of weeks before BM. He was 100 years old and very dear to my heart. My cousin & I performed a funeral ceremony for him at the temple this year and left a small memorial, some oranges and incense there as well. Needless to say, the night of the temple burn was incredibly intense for me (and Applebomb as well, who had met my grandfather and came to his funeral with me).

As we watched the temple burn, people began to call out to their loved ones: “I love you Mark!” “I love you Ann!” “I love you grandpa!” their calls lifting, spiraling & swirling with the ashes up into the night sky until I could no longer discern them from the stars above. I tried several times to call out to my grandfather but something held me back each time. At last my tongue freed itself, “I love you Yeh Yeh!” I gasped. As soon as the words left my mouth, I watched with tears burning in my eyes, chest heaving with sobs, as the main structure of the temple seemed to release itself and crumble down into firey timbers & embers.

My friend Santiago sitting next to me, squeezed my hand and said, “I think he heard you…”

Seeing you later that evening after the burn was truly an incredible experience. I can’t remember the last time I’d ever seen anyone sobbing like that before – as if your soul was welling up, limitless and threatening to suffocate you. I don’t think I will ever forget the image of you, Promise, standing alone, illuminated orange in the dancing firelight, haloed by half shadows & darkness, your sobs, your face twisted with grief, Applebomb & my arms enfolding you, wrapping you up into an embrace, our own tears an echo, a mirror of those pouring down your face, your explanation of your father “he was such a bastard!” – what a fulmination of emotion you were, it was searing, flaming, scorching out of every part of your being in that burning moment, screaming out into the universe.

It was so achingly beautifully human and so overwhelmingly cinematic – I will never forget it, Promise, you were a supernova. And then when I received your email, what an epilogue. The finest coda to what may in fact be my greatest burning man moment ever. And so I thank you, Promise.

I think you’ve given me just as much as you think I have given you. Keep your courage close! Love, NightbloomingTigress

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Letter #3

Achingly feminine and luscious NightbloomingTigress (and Applebomb, who has the most excellent of taste),

Thank you for giving me a small glimpse into the soul that was being expressed all around that special and unforgettable evening. It seems to be that we have both tapped lightly on the doorway of Death and felt the awesome and galactic power in the wood that makes up the frame of that passageway.

My mother and I have discussed her perspective on Death, and it is so comforting, that I want to share it with you. I am not offering this as truth, but as something to muse on in the times when you are also reflecting on your grandfather. She explained to me that the spirit world and the physical world are connected by a hallway, which also acts as a birthing channel.

When we are in spirit form, our ‘family’ there, mourns our passing into the physical world, and misses us a great deal, and prays for us, and our safe passage. And we of course, do the same thing here, since the spirit world is so unfamiliar to most of us. That hallway, is a critical and special place. And it is a vital one between our worlds.

I sometimes get a sense that I have separated from others, a deeper family, and when I meditate on it, I always get sad and start crying. I feel a deep sense of pulled asunder, and can’t do a single thing about it. It’s not a human feeling, at least, I don’t think so. It feels…vaster than that.

Anyway. Thank you for sharing your story with me. I will pray for Yeh Yeh, and for you. Thank the heavens that we were brought together, because already, it’s been so good.

With Love,

As Always, Promise

Photo credits-

Of NightbloomingTigress-David Huang

http://www.loupiote.com/burningman/photos_m/52108237-temples-dreams-mark-grieve-crew-burning-man.jpg

http://www.zzyzxoutcomes.com/i//Grief_Tattoo_1.jpg

http://fc01.deviantart.com/fs38/f/2008/336/a/8/Firey_Mint___Full_by_Zwopper.png

http://www.chinasnippets.com/images/bund-sightseeing-tunnel.jpg

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