This Song Has No Title

It was Wednesday night on the playa. Luke had just given a nearby camp a couple of martinis, so they grabbed the clippers and gave him a really adorable mohawk. We found Savannah and headed to Center Camp to catch up with our campmates. There were soft, colored lights all over the pavilion, and some didgeridoo, percussion and glottal throat singing were coming from one of the stages. The center rug under the open sky was painted like a labyrinth, and there were contact dancers performing on it.

When the dancers had finished, Luke took my hand and led me to the center of the labyrinth, under the stars, and got down on one knee. He took a box out of his pocket, and I can just remember being absolutely astounded that he had a ring since we hadn’t had anything planned and all of our money had gone toward the trip down there. I said yes, he put his mother’s beautiful yellow sapphire ring on my finger, we kissed, and all of the people in the pavilion applauded and cheered.

Right then, the Extra Action Marching Brigade, in burgundy and black sequined uniforms, stormed the pavilion playing a lively march, with baton twirlers cartwheeling across the floor, and swept the crowd off their feet in celebration of something they didn’t even know was happening.

That’s the great thing about Burning Man – the most unplanned things are the most amazing things, and you just can’t replicate them in the real world.

We wandered out to the Man after that. There were Oracle-people in the alcoves on the ground level, offering absurd and wonderful advice to all passers-by. We approached one beautiful lady in her alcove, who greeted us with the sweetest smile, and I asked if she had advice for a couple who just got engaged.

She thought for a very long time, and finally she spoke:

All day long I tell people to seek out temptation in order to define their realities. But by choosing this unity, you have chosen to define a new reality and therefore you have no more need for temptation.

And we thanked her, and folded our hands and bowed to her, and left with a wonderful feeling in our hearts.

We went to the beach this weekend – close friends on our last campout of the year. And we found a message in a bottle on the beach! We dug out hammocks of sand and sat around the fire, doing our best to empty our own bottles of wine, and we read from the scroll of paper:

Beach #2 LA PUSH, WA
9/1/2003

Good wine, good friends, and all had a good time.

Advice:

1. Be careful with expensive camping lighters, because when they get sand in them, they become expensive garbage.
2. Duraflame logs are a great way to get your fire started, but they are heavy, and a pain to carry.
3. Pack light.

Wish: That all of us that came here will take away beautiful memories, and find happiness in each one of our lives, and that one day we might come celebrate life again.

UN BESO

Glad that at that moment we were sitting in the sand around a campfire, listening to the surf, celebrating life with good wine and good friends!

It’s amazing to set up a tent and live just 20 yards from the tide and the wide, wide ocean… There are lullabyes in the waves.