surreal-ism
Last night I attended my first Burning Man related event here in Toronto – Devolution. The Burner community is unlike any other that I’ve come across and I want to stress on the word “community” here. The Burners celebrate, share, protect, and support each other in an open-minded and accepting way. That’s truly something to behold. I’m fortunate enough to live with two members of the Toronto BM community (they call themselves “BurnT”) and they’re absolutely incredible and loving people.
So I was meant to run a workshop on compassion last night at the event and I had my laptop ready, rushed to put together a quick powerpoint slideshow ten minutes before go time and when it was time for workshops everybody went everywhere else except to mine! I wasn’t surprised though. The setting wasn’t right for my kind of workshop and there was no pre-registration so I didn’t think people in party mode would want to sit down for an hour and talk about compassion. I was actually talking to a friend and observed to see if anybody would show up for my workshop. Nobody did so at 9:30pm I powered off the borrowed projector, put my bag with laptop away and decided walk around aimlessly soaking up the vibe instead.
The rest of the night was literally a spin.
First I got “playa-fied’ i.e. I went to the playafication station and the lovely lady there found a nice long outfit for me. I’m really not sure how to describe it other than it was a one piece with a hood, long and furry-like (some guy even rubbed his head against it at one point which I thought was funny), went all the way down to my feet and made me look like an ancient Chinese monk or something. I added a Jewish wig but that didn’t last too long before it started to squeeze in on my head and I had to put it down. Whatever the case the costume worked well and I was ready to work the rooms.
Each room was decorated in different ways and I found myself moving between the chill out lounge (live DJ, comfy couches and cushions, red lights, gratitude rocks and a massage area), the center room (with a stage where people were performing all night, and an indoor see-saw which I didn’t get a chance to play on), and the back car park (we had a fencing lesson and the fire performers were there later in the evening).
I kept floating past the potluck table full of yummy food and I couldn’t help but stuff myself up with veggie samosas and then various cakes and sweets (bad idea!).
There was so much going on it was hard not to feel sensory overload. At one point I was feeling extremely light headed and I didn’t know whether the single Bacardi and coke that I had bought was super-strong or if something else was going on. One of my roomies suggested today that I may have experienced contact high. Well I know that I hadn’t taken any substances knowingly in addition to the Bacardi so that was a possibility. I did feel some concern last night that I may pass out or a seizure might be triggered. I was even feeling slight claustrophobia when the security guys wouldn’t let anybody out to watch the fire show at one point. I just felt like I needed air and to relax.
The surreal part of the entire experience came during that time of lightheaded-ness. I remember seeing things in slow motion and then sometimes feeling like i was seeing things happen before they were happening. There were moments when I would try to focus on something, like on my roomie as she was performing her fire show, but my mind or consciousness would disappear or I would fall into trance, and then return a second later. I stuck around long enough to see the whole fire show but then I knew I had to get home and sleep. I somehow managed to walk to the bus stop, catch the bus home, and crawl into bed around 2am.
My one wish following the event was that I really felt that I could have been more social because I felt like I was invisible most of the night, like I was there but not there. I said hi to people but I didn’t have any real conversations with anyone and really get to know them. I didn’t feel so much part of the community and I guess right now I’m not sure how involved I want to be. I know some really great people already, who also happen to be part of the CouchSurfing community here, but I feel like I still need to find my place within the Burner community and right now that’s not a priority for me. My primary focus right now is doing exceptionally well at my new job.
So overall I did enjoy my first BurnT event in Toronto. The fire show really was something spectacular. Here’s a video that I took of my roomie showing her stuff:
To learn more about BurnT and upcoming events refer to Burnon.ca.
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