How everyone is missing the point about Burning Man

Greetings from our dusty, muddy trailer, recently returned from Burning Man (aka Swamp Man 2023!)

Everyone is asking “was it as bad as the news said?” so I wanted to share our direct experience — and how Burning Man has inspired Green Coco over the years.

At sunrise on Monday morning we drove our 4×4 pickup to the city gates to leave Black Rock City. We dodged some stuck vehicles and patches of thick mud. The gates were officially “opening” later that day, starting the monstrous Exodus that were captured in some amazing shots. I’m happy to report we left at dawn and only waited for an easy hour and a half in the cool morning air.

Until 3pm on the previous Friday, it was business as usual in this temporary and harsh wonderland. Sunny, dusty conditions were the canvas for raw, mind-blowing creativity anywhere you cared to look. Like stepping into Alice in Wonderland meets Mad Max meets Ibiza. The wild explosion of art and music was everywhere: art cars shaking with tunes, art sculptures rising mid-desert, art covering every person’s body, art infusing every free cup of coffee and free grilled cheese. Free and absurdly fun art enveloping your life for a week.

I’m honestly not that surprised by all the bad-mouthing in the media about Burning Man. The scale of the event makes it vulnerable to all types of critique. But they are completely missing the point.

Yes, it’s true there are billionaires and tech bros funding self-aggrandizing productions; there are all kinds of late night parties fueled by drug intake; there are gigantic challenges with managing trash and porta potties especially when it rains and everything turns to mud and service vehicles can no longer operate. There is hypocrisy and cynicism. Yes, and.

Keep in mind the scale of this thing. With 70,000 people there will be unavoidable distortion and deviation from core principles. Here’s where the rubber meets the road: this event has had a tremendously positive impact on a lot of people. The essence of this phenomenon is alive and well.

So let’s talk real impact — what’s been the effect of the Burning Man experience on Green Coco?

Back in 2014, we were brainstorming the idea of Green Coconut Run… with some shyness, some trepidation. Hesitation corroded our minds: “I wonder if it’s really going to work out.” After going to Burning Man that year, there was no more hesitation. After seeing what people could do in the desert with creativity and collective action, our only thought was “Oh heck yeah, we are doing this.” Our sense of uncertainty simply evaporated. We sailed south within 7 months.

*Aldebaran in Raiatea, French Polynesia, 2017, three years after our first Burn.*

Riding in the car with us during that 2014 Burn were our friends Ryan (who ended up being a core crew for 6 months in our initial run from California to Costa Rica) and Sarah (who played a huge creative role and also sailed all over French Poly with us). One reason this event is so transformative is because it unravels the limits of creativity.

Near Cabo San Lucas, 2015. Eric (left) who ran Kiss Camp this year; and Ryan (right) core crew on first year of Green Coco

For the impact on participants at large, let’s not forget why this thing is called “Burning Man”. Why do people call it “The Burn”? What is burning exactly? Is it just a bunch of wooden sculptures in order to fulfill our fetish for pyrotechnics and fuel the bacchanal of drug users, as the reporters love to say? Maybe for a few people, sure.

For me, the Burn is a reset through art and fire: a reset of our emotional and psychological constraints. It’s a very intentional reboot from the patterns in our psyche that no longer serve us. It is creativity in the rawest form. It is re-invention and re-invigoration packaged into a community-created, week long event. Can you do this elsewhere? For sure. Take a retreat, change things up. The Burn is just an accelerator.

The fireball engulfing the sculptures mid-desert is only the final cathartic act. Do you know how emotion gets stuck in our bodies, and keeps us stuck to unhelpful patterns? The fire helps us incinerate and release all that crap.

In 2014, the gigantic sculpture of “Embrace” featuring two lovers sprouted 3 stories from the desert; it provided a canvas for anyone to write down (literally, on the wood itself) and release any relationship heaviness or traumas, and burn it away during an unforgettable sunrise.

Since 2000, the gloriously intricate “Temple” has been a space for anyone to capture their sorrow and grief for loss of loved ones. They burn it away in a tear-jerking send-off that is so otherwise silent you can only hear the sobs and crackling of the massive bonfire.

The “Man” itself is a symbol of the heavy hand of society that constrains us. You know the expression: “I’m working for the Man”. As a symbol for both societal institutions and our own personal stuckedness, the Man is that entity that prevents us from realizing our fullest potential. To burn the Man is to burn our constraints, the limitations that prevent us from reaching our potential.

During the event, you can be anything you want to be — a pink fairy, a flying turtle, fully naked, or a just a regular dude in a sweatshirt giving away hotdogs — as long as you act responsibly and respectfully. Under these basic terms, unconditional acceptance is practiced by all. Think about how liberating this is for people with deeply fixed, or even toxic identities: everyone, from veterans with trauma, and yes, even to billionaires seeking liberation from their stuck patterns that no longer serve them. Through unconditional acceptance and a flow-inducing environment, Burning Man gives everyone a space to feel newness and freshness in their identity, to start sensing more of their fullest potential. For me, that’s what Burning Man is all about.

Our fullest potential is simply the very best version of ourselves. How do we experience this? Through another one of the core principles, radical self-expression. This manifests in a myriad of ways. The abundance of art, the crazy outfits, the bone-thumping music, all this helps to shake away the cobwebs, the stiff, unhelpful aspects of our identity. Getting into a state of flow allows us to be whatever we fancy in that moment. With unconditional acceptance, we relax ingrained patterns that no longer serve us. We get to play with completely new ideas; to play with new identities; to play with heart and soul; to feel briefly what it’s like to be who we aspire to be.

What about the mechanics that make society possible? Society and community aren’t dismissed as bad. This isn’t anarchist, libertarian knee jerk reactivity. On the contrary, the Burning Man organization tries to exemplify a supportive community, through its faults and all. They are trying. The result is a mish-mash of success, yet it is undeniably beautiful — just walk around the streets and wander into nearly any camp, where you’ll see people giving away so much, from free delicious meals, free foam showers, free bodywork, or a free lounge to relax with coffee. The power of this open giving can’t be over-stated.

I’ll be the first to admit: gifting and service take effort. Outsiders may say that it is self-serving. It’s not. There’s a million other things people would rather be doing at Burning Man, if they aimed to be self-serving.

Example: This year Sabrina and I participated in the Heart Collective camp and we gave away healing sessions like massage therapy; healthy elixir drinks and tea; and the Skyting art car roaming the playa. It took massive energy to create the spaces, fund them, and voluntarily staff them, with the goal of purely giving to the community without any goal of something in return. Everyone chipped in to make it happen. The camp leadership devoted huge amounts of time to realize this vision.

Here is the ultimate gift that a week of gifting brings: re-framing of our minds. We start to think: how we can give more, instead of how we can get more… how we can create, instead of how we take. Now I know what it takes to be part of such a culture of service.

This year’s rain event catalyzed a new type of transformation. The water element was strong! The medicine of the water element is adaptability and flow. If unheeded, it overwhelms everything: fire, earth, air. The burn was postponed; the flat ground turned to impassable, sticky mess; and the breeze turned downright cold.

How did this actually affect us? Not significantly different than any camping trip with some bad weather, but on a massive scale. 70,000 people with different camp comforts and different schedules. Porta potties became a disaster, many tents got soaked. As if dealing with weather is really that unexpected these days! Nobody was “stranded” and “trapped”. Although City officials asked everyone to stay off the streets, and kept the gates officially closed, nobody was prevented from departing.

The rain changed the dynamics of the event. Just after the rain began, our friends Klaus and Angie and 2 year old were in our camp. They were prudent to hunker down in our trailer and avoid tromping on a slippery playa with an infant. That night, we had a family slumber party on our trailer that was super memorable! The rain gave us a chance to slow down and enjoy each other’s company (admittedly, others with tents were up all night hustling to keep flooding at bay. It was nasty, exhausting work).

The water forced a collective slow down. With extraordinarily sticky mud, no bikes and art cars moved. Everyone walked. Without a million other sparkly lights vying for their attention, we had deeper conversations. People took care of each other. On the spur of the moment, we created 3 days of events in our camp, to encourage people from tromping on the playa. The city asked us to limit our movement; and civic responsibility is one of the principles of this experience.

By far, the biggest bummer is the trash left behind. The mud turned into cement and gobbled up tons of stuff (from shoes to mats to vehicles) This is a disaster for Burners, who take a lot of pride in cleaning up under the “leave no trace” principle, meticulously picking up every little scrap that’s left behind. But these were exceptional circumstances. The negative situation was compounded by all the people that come to Burning Man just to party (a minority, I believe) and assuredly didn’t take good care of stuff as the majority of participants do.

In a way, the rain is washing away some of the nonsense that has built up over the years. All the people who come to Burning Man thinking it’s a big party will think twice about coming back next year… cause the elements are brutal out there. Of course Burning Man is now becoming “uncool”. Good! The rain forced people back to the roots, back to the essence of community, back to core principles. To remember what this is all about — about being transformed, reset, re-powered — and keep living that way when we go home.