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Effigy burning 13, originally uploaded by gina.banina.

This weekend was the Gateway Burn. I required a break from negativity and knew the burn would be that for me. I needed this burn, sought sanctuary from busyness, exhaustion, and stress. The Gateway Burn gave me asylum from a world gone mad and I am grateful for it.

We camped in lush forestry, caretaker of this land given us. I spent three extraordinary days surrounded by really good people, participating in an extraordinary alternate reality centered on acceptance, participation, self-reliance, and kindness. My faith in humanity is renewed when I attend a burn (and, in contrast, squashed when I return to this so-called “real world”).

There, at a burn, all makes sense again. And now, having left the land and said goodbye for the moment to my burner friends, I am a little sad, wishing only for it to having lasted a little longer and missing my incredible burner friends. There are opportunities still to reconnect with these really decent and interesting people, thankfully, and I will cherish these times.

I am blessed to have found these people, this community.

Tags: Burn, Burning Man, Effigy, Gateway Burn

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 16th, 2009 at 2:40 am and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.