“It is true. This is the year. I have listened to my Lover’s call to be by His side. I have followed the sound of His voice to meet Him this year in the desert…to join Him in frolicking in a sea of fine Playa dust. I lovingly surrender to His claim, to trek my way to His abode, waiting – anticipating, awaiting His arrival to my tent. I am ready to be lovingly ravished by the Light of Love’s pure delight. To be lovingly ripped open to the bliss of Love Light in the night shinning forth for all to see, for all to feel, for all to KNOW.”
* * * * * *
Back in February I wrote this other post about Burning Man and the call I was feeling to join in this odd desert festival. Some said it was erotica…for me it felt a bit more like the Song of Solomon’s coming from one of my rare poetic moments.
A few years ago, I know what I would have thought about someone like myself going to this event. I would have thought they had gone off the deep end, gone bonkers…willing to play with fire and evil and all that Sodom and Gomorrah had to offer. And I would have thought that they had “lost their salvation.”
It is with these old thoughts of mine that I have to be COMPLETELY TRANSPARENT: I have hesitated putting anything up about my trip out to the desert. Sure I shared this other post publicly a while back and I have hinted to those that would know on my own FB page that I was looking for a ticket and contemplating different camps. I have actually been hesitating in allowing even my ex’s parents to see my decorated bike when I drop off my kids to them on my way out of town…wondering how inconvenient it would be to go get my bike after which involve more travel time. “And heaven forbid any one at my kid’s Christian school find out,” I have thought, afraid of what I might have to confront or lose or worse yet how it might impact my children.
I see now all of this was my way of attempting to peep out of the closet I have lived in my life without fully committing to saying, “YES, I am going to the desert and I know what you must think of me now,” to those in my old life.
Yet, this is NOT who I am anymore.
I am not here to make other’s feel comfortable by shying away from making decisions that would make them feel uncomfortable in their own skin.
I am not here to play under the “safe” umbrella of what is a Christian and what is not.
I am not here to make excuses for who I am, nor to downplay my desires or my soul’s longing to explore this world.
Most of all I am not into hiding myself any longer.
I am here to be myself – to explore, to be curious and to wonder about the human experience. (And I have a feeling in being myself ~ that might make others uncomfortable. Oh well…maybe it will make them uncomfortable enough to start figuring out who they really are.)
I am here to challenge the status quo, the nice neat boxes of labels and beliefs such as “Christian”, of “acceptable”, of “right and wrong.”
I am here to turn the world on through the power of the Sacred Erotic that brings Love that has no bounds, no limits and no restrictions on how it wishes to manifest in this world.
It is with these thoughts and more that I am venturing into an inhospitable environment to explore with some 75,000 other Souls – a bit out there I know!
More than one Burner – as people are called that attend this event 1x or 20xs – has shared with me that this event is whatever I want to make out of it. Sure, yes there are drugs and drinks and 50 Shades of Gray type of sex; there are people walking around naked and with all sorts of costumes on…yet this is not the ONLY side of Burning Man there is.
From what I have seen and heard, Burning Man offers:
* ART of all kinds to drink in, to explore and to become part of.
* Freedom to explore a new form of community free of modern day ideas and notions.
* A gathering place for people from ALL over the world, from all walks of life and all ages…coming to live in a place where there are no societal boundaries of what is and isn’t acceptable…a place to wear the attitude of a child in free exploration of who they are, with costumes and all!
* Classes and workshops of all kinds to help facilitate healing, especially around our idea of sex and sexuality…around our bodies and our all too often cultural body shame we inherit.
* My camp alone – Naked Heart – is a camp dedicated to helping women find their real “NO“ for themselves so that they can find their real “Hell Yes!” as a result of it – and all in the presence of men. The camp is also an experiment in “What is Matriarchy?” which IS NOT simply taking men out of leadership and putting women on top.
* It is a place to experiment with what gifts a person has to offer the world without the idea of money or commercialism attached to it. For me, I am brining my energy of passion, love and healing I offer through showing up as me and through my dance.
Yet, I think more than anything, more than any other reason I am going this year to Burning Man is
Because I deeply desire to see and experience more of who I truly am.
To push myself beyond my own comfort zones, to break free of my own ideas of who I have thought I was just 2 short years ago when I stepped through the secret hidden door of Mysticism I found through the Christian world.
To take myself into the depths of darkness yet again, but this time in the company of others –
in order to see what else in me is ready to die off
IN ORDER to make room for the REAL Me,
the Erotic stirring Priestess of Love that I AM.
It seems that I needed to write this post for me…to answer my own inner critic voices that I used to own – to say to them that the idea I have gone off the deep end, become “sinful” and rejected all that I have been taught is bogus.
Quite the contrary….
I am going into the desert much as Jesus did ~
as a time of Sacred connection to Source, to God, to the Divine that IS WITHIN
that I have found these last years.
To “test” what I AM is made out of and to come back
not just intellectually knowing who I am ~
but experientially EXPERIENCING
that who I AM.
