Burning Man 2023

This year the Man was surrounded by a beehive design. And I went to a beekeeping seminar at Earth Guardians.

Due to the muddy conditions on the playa the Man burn got postponed until Monday night. The fireworks were AMAZING this year, more than usual I thought although the fireworks at Burning Man are always spectacular.....I get all the fireworks viewing I need here.

This year's Temple was Temple of the Heart. "Temple of the Heart is designed to look like an upside-down desert flower with a stem reaching up into the sky, serving as both a beacon as well as a sundial. It creates a feeling of being near a heart, wrapped in love for those who seek solace and respite. At night it will glow with soft, warm, welcoming light."
From journal.burningman.org
The temple burned Tuesday night.

There were several of these supercute sketches with nice messages hanging inside the Temple. Like this one. "What do you want to be when you grow up? Kind, said the boy." 

And this one.  "What do we do when our hearts hurt? asked the boy. We wrap them with friendship, tears and time till they wake hopeful and happy again.

During my first Burning Man in 2013 I told myself that I would try to go for ten years in a row. And I did. Well......in 2020 I went to Baker Beach in San Francisco and yes Burning Man was happening there for one night and then got shut down by the mayor of the city due to COVID regulations (whatever....). I have been to Black Rock City ten times now.
What is is about Burning Man that is so special? People from all over come together to build and create a city on a dry lake bed and fill it with amazing art, music, workshops, happiness and so much else. Everybody gets along. The Default World is happening somewhere on the outside but we have Black Rock City for those days.
As most of us know the world is NOT (always) a happy place, in fact reality is rather grim. There is a lot of suffering and sadness, we are surrounded by heniuos acts. Almost every time that I read the news I get sad and sometimes I just shut my laptop down because I can't take more in. I can't even imagine the reality for the people that are faced with war, destruction, hunger, terror......and all the animals that are mistreated and suffer everyday.
But at Burning Man we have that special place. I am very well aware of the critisism Burning Man has received, from the environmental footprint aspect to the people that have been going longer than me and don't like how things have developed. And yes.....I do see some of that and I agree with some of the issues as well. BUT Burning Man STILL truly is a MAGICAL place.
And this my friends is the last blog entry about Burning Man 2023 Animalia. I have all my Burning Man entries saved in the blog archives if you want to see what I have been up to at Black Rock City since 2013.

To all the Barbie collectors - here is your favorite Barbie of them all, the Black Rock City Barbie. This time the 2023 Mud Edition.

I had a different outfit in mind for my yearly Burning Man Barbie pics but due to the muddy conditions I guess I am glad I got any pics at all. We took most of the pictures on the same day, therefore I am wearing the same stuff in many of them. 
I have not been able to find the pink Playa Barbie booth for years now that used to be out on the playa. I don't know if the guy that made it (for his wife Barbie he told me once) still goes to Burning Man. Meh.....I really liked that Barbie booth.

 

The weather at Burning Man was amazing the first five days I was there......and then it rained and Black Rock City turned muddy. And when it rains on that fine dry lake bed sand things change. I have been going to Burning Man since 2013 and have not experienced a muddy playa until this year. That mud is thick, sticky and stubborn. I had to pry it off my flip flops with a sharp plastic stick. I made shoes from plastic bags and schlepped around in those, until the plastic ripped and I continued barefoot. Forget about biking in that mud. You live, experience and learn I guess.

It rained from Friday erly afternoon until.......Sunday afternoon if I recall it right. Things kind of shut down for a bit. In the Default World (the world outside Black Rock City) rumors swirled around that people at Burning Man were stuck in the mud, starving, started to eat each other, that there was an Ebola outbreak, that FEMA was going to have to intervene......I do not even know all the crazy stories. All I know is that us Burners were fine. We had food and water and everything we needed. Most, if not all of those rumors were just that, stories with no truth to it. I have noticed throughout the years that people who never even been to Burning Man just love bashing Burning Man. Like WTF? Get a life you miserable narrowminded judgemental morons.
Anyhow......I did not do much for two days besides eat and walk around in the mud. The Man burn and the Temple burn were postponed for a few days. I wanted to see more art, do more and go dancing all night long until sunrise but that did not happen. 
Right before it rained on Friday afternoon, me and Ann did the magic foam wash, I love that place. The people that make that happen do an incredible job. While we were waiting for our turn to foam the weather turned gray and windy and it started to rain. We found a beautiful place to get shelter from the wind and rain and had some tea. Once again the Playa provided, it is a magical place after all. Then we foamed and when we biked back to camp it started raining harder.

And then there was a double rainbow.......and everybody went WOW!

Hello from muddy Black Rock City.

So I did hear that you could not come in to Black Rock City once it started raining and yes they did deny people entry. I also heard that you could not leave and that was not true. You cannot deny people to leave, there was no martial law in effect and yes some people did decide to leave. And I do have to say that I observed some behaviors I did not like from some people. Random people got angry at the people leaving. Not OK in my book. Maybe people had to leave because they had a flight to catch. A pet to pick up. An emergency. Anything. A guy got stuck right behind our camper trailer and me and Ann helped him get his van unstuck so he could leave. Never once did it occur to me to lecture him about leaving. He in fact had a plane to get on to Germany. He drove a two wheel drive van out of Black Rock City to Gerlach in two and a half hours and managed to get on that flight. Good for him! Yes some people that tried leaving got stuck. And from what I heard people helped each other, the way it should be. But some of the reactions from some indignant Burners towards their fellow Burners for choosing to leave were just not right.
Monday during the day me and Ann helped with taking down Center Camp and got to have dinner in the Burning Man comissary afterwards. That was amazing! What a great experience. I watched the Man burn Monday night. We left Black Rock City Tuesday morning. Drove out slowly and Exodus took 3 1/2 hours. Not bad at all! In fact I think it took me seven hours to get out last year during normal conditions. Had we not had a camper trailer to return we would had stayed until Thursday evening.
Some random Burning Man stuff.

Truth.

Something burning, lasers and the moon.

I hope to be back next year......! 💜