Desert Adventures Part 2: Midburn

I’ve never been to Burning Man in Nevada, but have really wanted to the last few years, so I was very excited when a chance to go to Midburn, Israel’s Burning Man, came my way. I was at the Rainbow Gathering when a girl told me about Midburn. It was already sold out, but she had just signed up to volunteer at the event, and she told me how I could also sign up to volunteer and receive a free ticket to an otherwise sold out event as a gift of gratitude for my work. So I went on the website and looked through the possible volunteering options (setup, take down, medical, gate, production, etc.) and decided that setup would be the best for me. I like building things and I thought it would be fun to get to know the rest of the setup crew (“mapatz” in Hebrew) before the event. A couple days later I got an email confirmation that I could come, and a few weeks later I found myself on an adventure out to the middle of the desert.

            Midburn, as I’m sure is the same with Burning Man, is one of those things that is impossible to conceptualize until you’ve actually been there. You can hear every detailed description and recount of the event in the world and it still won’t be possible to actually understand until you go experience it for yourself. So, even after reading this, keep in mind that you need to go to Burning Man because the picture you will paint in your mind before you go will certainly be nowhere near complete.

            Midburn is an event unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. It’s not a festival, it’s not a party, it’s not a desert campout, it belongs in its own category. There is no lineup, there are no headliners, nobody gets paid. There is no money inside the event, so it is impossible to buy anything. The only exchange of goods is through gifts. If you want something that you don’t have, the only ways to acquire it are either as a gift or to create it, and you’re very likely to receive a gift if you promote the spirit of gifting yourself. The people who attend shape the event, organize the activities, design and build the art projects, and do absolutely whatever they want. Before the event, many people organized themselves into theme camps so that they could collectively cover all of the necessities (food, water, shade), and organize activities for the rest of the event attendees. Each camp had a theme, and each camp did something for everyone else. Themes ranged from an Unbirthday Camp which gave out free drinks to anybody who wasn’t celebrating their birthday, a Karaoke camp, a Circus camp where circus workshops were held and a high swing was open for anyone to test their skills, a Sweet Potato Soup camp which served sweet potato soup to whoever wanted it, a Yoga camp with several workshops each day, a Coffee and Cookies camp which was a great hangout spot in the morning and served coffee and cookies, among some other random surprises, throughout the day, a Hammock camp which was a great spot for a midday (or nighttime) nap, a Free Love camp which held workshops like naked meditation and sex-themed activities, and many, many others. These camps functioned day and night, and there was never a single moment where nothing was happening. A schedule of activities was published, but the times were all rough estimates, as nobody actually knew what time it was at any point during the event. For the week, the concept of time seemed to disappear from existence.

            The art projects were also mind-blowingly awesome. The two biggest art pieces were the temple and the effigy. The temple was a giant wooden structure, built by hand over the course of several months, with two levels that people could walk on, and the effigy was a giant representation of a man and woman towering 100ft into the air. These were surrounded by dozens of other interactive art pieces, including an audiovisual display of 1m² chemical tanks filled with flashing neon lights that danced with the music, a giant jungle gym-like structure containing several layers of hammocks, a larger-than-life-sized whale with a pool inside it, a giant Chinese-style dragon, a Baobab tree sculpture which sprayed water on anybody underneath its branches, a 3-way ping pong table, a self-propelled carousel surrounded by lights which appeared to be moving images when spinning, a giant phoenix that lit up at night and was reborn from its ashes after it was burned on the last night. The temple and effigy were both burned at the end of the event, as were many of the other art pieces, as a symbol of the fully-functioning city that popped up and then disappeared back into the desert after a week, leaving the landscape exactly (well, as close as possible) how it was before.

            I came a week before the event to help set all of this up. As part of Mapatz, my job was to ensure that all of the fence was in place around the perimeter, to put up all of the main tents and shade structures, to use GPS to mark all of the streets on the Playa so that the camps would know where to set up and the artists would know where to place their projects, and to make sure that everything was up to police standards and in the proper place to create a smoothly-functioning city. Mapatz was a great team of amazing people, and though we set off to a pretty slow and inefficient (but fun) start, by the end of the week we were working together well and got everything done in time. Our slow start was compounded by the police, who didn’t understand Midburn and thought it was just a bunch of naked hippies doing drugs in the desert (for those who think this, think again, it’s soooooo much more). The police refused to sign a permit for us to use the land, which forced us to stop construction for a few days while an amazing lawyer volunteered his time to appeal this decision and take the case to a higher court, where he eventually won and the police were overruled. This is part of what made Midburn so amazing—there were so many incredibly talented people who volunteered their skills with no expectation of compensation: lawyers, doctors, construction workers, urban planners, sound and light engineers, artists, all of whom would have been paid at any other festival or event, but did it for free at Midburn out of love for the community.

            Mapatz gave me an amazing sense of accomplishment. When the camps finally came to set up and the city became populated and began to function, I felt like it was truly my home. I forgot about what life was like outside of Midburn, forgot what it was like to rely on money for my well-being, and lived in the moment using the 10 principles to guide me. Both individually and collectively, people function according to the 10 principles of Burning Man. These are:

1. Radical Inclusion
Anyone may be a part of Burning Man. We welcome and respect the stranger. No prerequisites exist for participation in our community.

2. Gifting
Burning Man is devoted to acts of gift giving. The value of a gift is unconditional. Gifting does not contemplate a return or an exchange for something of equal value.

3. Decommodification
In order to preserve the spirit of gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising. We stand ready to protect our culture from such exploitation. We resist the substitution of consumption for participatory experience.

4. Radical Self-reliance
Burning Man encourages the individual to discover, exercise and rely on his or her inner resources.

5. Radical Self-expression
Radical self-expression arises from the unique gifts of the individual. No one other than the individual or a collaborating group can determine its content. It is offered as a gift to others. In this spirit, the giver should respect the rights and liberties of the recipient.

6. Communal Effort
Our community values creative cooperation and collaboration. We strive to produce, promote and protect social networks, public spaces, works of art, and methods of communication that support such interaction.

7. Civic Responsibility
We value civil society. Community members who organize events should assume responsibility for public welfare and endeavor to communicate civic responsibilities to participants. They must also assume responsibility for conducting events in accordance with local, state and federal laws.

8. Leaving No Trace
Our community respects the environment. We are committed to leaving no physical trace of our activities wherever we gather. We clean up after ourselves and endeavor, whenever possible, to leave such places in a better state than when we found them.

9. Participation
Our community is committed to a radically participatory ethic. We believe that transformative change, whether in the individual or in society, can occur only through the medium of deeply personal participation. We achieve being through doing. Everyone is invited to work. Everyone is invited to play. We make the world real through actions that open the heart.

10. Immediacy
Immediate experience is, in many ways, the most important touchstone of value in our culture. We seek to overcome barriers that stand between us and a recognition of our inner selves, the reality of those around us, participation in society, and contact with a natural world exceeding human powers. No idea can substitute for this experience.

            The magic of the place is that if you want anything, you have the power to make it happen. Whereas in many other facets of life you would be restricted by time, money, availability of what you want, social pressures, etc., at Midburn none of these boundaries exist. If you want to play music, you get up on stage and play music. If you don’t know how to play music, you can try, and nobody will judge you, or you can ask somebody for advice and they will do their best to help you learn. If you want to dress up as a lion, you go to the costume camp, find suitable clothing, and ask someone to paint lion whiskers and a mane on your face. If you want to dance to psytrance under a giant wooden tree that sprays water at you, you go to the Baobab tree. If you want to float in a clothing-optional pool in the desert while someone leads you in floating meditation, you go to the Leviathan whale sculpture. If you want to eat pancakes, you go to the pancake camp and ask them to make you a plate. If you want to sit in a solemn place and gather your thoughts, you can find a spot within the intricate woodwork of the temple. If you want to see colors that will blow your mind into another dimension, you ride the carousel with the trippy lights around it. If you want to have a relaxing, spiritual day, you can. Or if you want to have a crazy party night, you can also do that. Literally anything you wish for, you can find on the Playa.  This is the magic of Midburn. And this is why I will continue to return year after year.