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BURNING_PHILOSPHY

                                              September 10, 2006

I don't put a lot of energy into
thinking about the meaning of the
Ritual itself: the burning of a
gigantic, nominally male, effigy
out in the desert -- I tend to           I like Kevin Kelley's insight
assume it doesn't really have much       on this: Burning Man has all
meaning.                                 the trappings of a religious
                                         ritual, without a religion to
                                         go with it.


I've heard a number of people
expound on "What the Man Means
to Me", though:

   (1) Mardi Grai/Lent: the burning
   of the man is the embrace of the
   party-party spirt, followed by
   it's destruction; then a return              A quip I'm always looking
   to a more serious existence.                 for an occasion to use:

   (2) Radical self-destruction.                  Burning Man is about
   The Man embodies everything about              radical self-deception.
   yourself that you need to destroy
   in order to move forward.




                 I once heard David Best give a
                 talk at Burning Man at one of
                 the "Temples" he designed.  He
                 spoke about the the see-sawing
                 reputations of artists:

                    first you're unknown,
                    then you're inexperienced,
                    then you're promising,
                    then you're too commercial,
                    then you're a genius,
                    then you're overrated,
                    then you're an idiot...

                    He concluded:

                    "That's not going to
                    happen with this.
                    Because we're going
                    to burn it."



                    The flame lives
                    only in the moment.







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