Making Experience Art
Making Experience Art: : LL’s Afterburn Report 2007
I didn’t have any drastic, life-changing breakthroughs at Burning Man this year. No lightning flashes or worlds bursting forth, no opening of some entirely new realm of knowing or feeling or sight. No paths previously unknown revealing themselves, no drastic change of course. No, none of that really, save for realizing a necessary piece of the puzzle the night of the Temple burn. But I’ll get to that later. This is not to say that I didn’t have revelatory and ecstatic moments, but they were more of the sort that widened my understanding of what was already known and felt, something akin to ripening, deepening, and expansion. I see this as an auspicious sign, an indication that I’m right where I need to be. Breakthroughs are good to pierce through stagnation, to bring you back to the path, to reveal a crucial piece that is missing, to open up something that is closed inside of you. Mastery, contrarily, is achieved in the periods of plateau, those longer periods where the breakthroughs are integrated into your being by engaging in careful, consistent work and through earnest dedication to The Great Work that supports and sustains you. This year, for me, was about integrating a series of little breakthroughs; it was about experiencing the fullness and satisfaction of doing good, hard work on the path that I have been paving for myself for quite some time. And that fullness and satisfaction had everything to do with bringing my art installation, the Greenhouse Project, to the playa.
Photo: The sunrise greets us to the playa.
Shanta and I rolled into Black Rock City driving the behemoth Austin community truck just as the sun was threatening to peak over the mountains to the east. Friday morning. It was chilly, that crisp, anticipatory coldness of twilight. I was excited to be there just in time for the sunrise, my favorite time on the playa. After one of the gate crew gracefully climbed the walls of the truck all the way to the front without stepping on any of our things in her search for stowaways, she dropped her keys. That’s right, she dropped her keys in a 24’ truck loaded from floor to ceiling with all sorts of stuff. So she did what any of us in her situation would have done. She dove head first into the pile as the rest of us stood around and alternated between laughing our asses off, playfully heckling her efforts, and trying to modify things at hand that could be used as a hook to fetch the keys. I think it was the placement flag that was ultimately successful as the key-fetching device. Thirty minutes later… crisis averted and bellies aching from laughter. Oh, and “Welcome home!”
Being on the playa early was really unbelievable. Everyone I introduced myself to, “I’m Laura Lea from Austin, Texas,” would respond with, “Oh, do you know [so and so]?” And, as a matter of fact, I did. The sense of community was beautiful, witnessing each other work our asses off those next few days, and throughout the event, created in me a strong sense of belonging to something way more potent and powerful than I’ve ever felt. That hard work and sense of community fed me. It very much felt like a significant piece of The Great Work.
By Sunday morning, in spite of Saturday’s near white out conditions all damn day, the community truck had been unloaded, I had put in some significant work setting up the Red Nose District – the tremendous circus theme camp on the Esplanade where I was camped, I had my art placement figured out, and my crew members for the Greenhouse Project were off duty from their various other obligations. So Casey, Gallows, Shanta, and I hit the open playa early in the morning to setup up the Greenhouse. We made good time setting up the frame, but by the time we got to the panels, it was quite windy. Instead of fighting the wind, we broke for lunch. By the time we reconvened, the weather was more cooperative.
I have to say that the opportunity to work with those three guys was a blessing. I was very fortunate to have them as volunteers for my on-playa setup and support crew. All of them were totally reliable, hard working, highly skilled, enthusiastic problem solvers, and a lot of fun to have around. They put a lot of time and energy into my project in addition to their other projects on the playa with the massive solar array and Burners Without Borders. Their efforts with those other projects directly serve extended communities beyond the actual event. The solar array is being donated to the communities of Gerlach and Lovelock, towns close to Black Rock Desert, in order to power a hospital, a school, and other public buildings. These are communities that are currently debating the extension of coal-mining operations that would be detrimental to the environmentally sensitive area. The hope is that the solar array will mitigate the need to exploit non-renewable and environmentally damaging energy sources. Similarly, Burners Without Borders served many communities in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. They collected usable lumber and supplies to take back to the communities most affected by that natural disaster and established strong grassroots networks for their humanitarian aid. Their projects have now expanded beyond the areas affected by Katrina and have come to be a model for creative solutions to various environmental and humanitarian problems. In addition, Burning Man’s 2007 theme, The Green Man, provoked a lot of serious discussion and commentary amongst the participants and artists, many of whom sought out sustainable resources and materials from which to make art that was largely focused on or suggestive of environmental issues.
Photos: (right) The Greenhouse Project setup crew and on-playa support team. From left to right: Shanta, Casey, Gallows.
Despite being physically and mentally exhausted from the day’s work, I went back out to the Greenhouse Sunday night after dinner to work inside on the lights and the altars. Before I even had my lights on, I started getting visitors, typically one lone wanderer at a time. I didn’t get much work done beyond basic light setup because I kept getting willingly pulled into great conversation and connections with curious strangers. The first person who approached me was a handsome young man from Tucson. He said he was wandering around the playa and felt drawn to that particular spot (which is something I kept hearing over and over throughout the week). He inquired about the project and wanted to get an idea about the concept behind it.
I gave him a brief rundown about how this Greenhouse was not growing plants but, instead, was growing dreams and meaningful engagement with the world. I told him how there will be altars inside that will have signs that say things like: “Dreams are Seeds… what do you want to grow?” “Roots… How can you nurture new growth?” “Fruits…What shape will your dream take?” “Compost…What do you need to let go of to make room for your dreams?” And I told him the center altar will be dedicated to Love, from which all things emerge and unto which they will return. I explained that the installation is powered 100% by solar energy and just about all of the materials are found objects, recyclable, compostable, re-appropriated, donated, or otherwise sustainable. And I told him that what I really want people to take away from the work is a deeper understanding of themselves. I explained that when people act out of a place of center, balance, and wholeness, they have an instinctive sense of the right and the good, and all they do becomes that. And how in that space we can still account for the struggles and hatred and turmoil in the world because we see that those are just one expression of the infinite forms it can take, and how all those things arise from fragmentation. And I explained that by engaging in the beautiful, we must attune to the sadness also, because it is there, in sadness, that beauty resides. And, really, our only work is the Work we do on ourselves to be fully engaged, integrated, authentic human beings. And from that sense of Self, we come to care, by extension, for the wellbeing of our human communities, other creatures, natural resources, and the planet. And I explained that my art was just my attempt to waken people up to that, to recognize and reflect those who are already awake, and to expand our collective capacity to experience that understanding, to put it in action. He just stood there with his eyes wide open and with an even wider smile and said in the softest, most genuine way, “You are so beautiful.” He proceeded to recite a lovely, relevant poem and then gave me a beautiful necklace that he made that had a Buddha sitting on a lotus. And he was just the first. Ray, from the Temple crew, came by and we had a nice long chat about the smaller, intimate spaces on the playa and how there are actually very few, and it is those spaces he prefers. He came back shortly after our chat to pull me outside to see how the city was all lit up for the first time. I had several other visitors that night, most of whom came back on other nights to visit again. It was beautiful and affirming of all the reasons why I wanted to bring art to the playa. By the time I called it a night, I was completely exhausted and totally satisfied.
Since I still had all my tools and unpacked art in the Greenhouse, I put a piece of rebar in the door so it could not easily be opened. I thought that by making it moderately difficult to enter, that the space would be respected and left alone. The next morning, Shanta was the first on site and discovered that the door had been forced open, bending the doorframe and setting it off its track. No major damage was done other than making the door sticky to open, but I mention it because it was the first moment when I felt like the space had been somehow disrespected and violated. The juxtaposition of the overwhelmingly beautiful connections and life-affirming moments that were experienced in that space with the numerous acts of disrespect to the art, including theft and vandalism, was to be a nearly constant theme throughout the week. The conflict between those two extremes – and my emotional responses to each – was to shape my experience of the event and my concept of what it means to bring art to such a place where traditional boundaries blur or disappear altogether and where radical acts of expression – and the occasionally unthinking and disconnected forms those acts can take – reign supreme.
Photo: Inside the Greenhouse after Monday’s long day of setup.
Monday was a fantastic day. With Shanta’s help, I set up the altars inside the Greenhouse and found myself way ahead of my timetable. I felt so incredibly satisfied by the work we did that day. It was hot as hell inside the Greenhouse, but I plugged away at what needed to be done. Even in the heat and sun, I savored those moments of hard work, of creating a space that would shape people’s experience, of visually delineating that which is sacred. The altars turned out to be even more beautiful than I ever imagined.
Monday night was the lunar eclipse, and I spent most of the night at or near the Greenhouse out in the deep playa. I wanted to do some magic to draw the right people there throughout the week and to protect it from the wrong people. I was standing outside with Shanta, conjuring up some blue Feri fire, and sending out a beacon to draw those who would benefit from experiencing the space and making a cloud to shroud it from those who could not understand. The magic was unbelievably powerful. I could feel it and see it and taste it. I had just finished sending out a big, potent ball of energy and then grounded the rest into the earth just as a beautiful, fey woman walked up and gave me something. She said, “This is for you,” as she looked me straight in the eyes with that otherworldly knowing and then walked off, disappearing into the night. Shanta was facing directly towards her, yet he did not see her. I looked at the thing she placed in my hands. It was an egg-shaped percussion shaker that she had painted with the most beautiful, intricate green and black design. I marveled at its beauty and the moment that it symbolized for me. It was the seed, the potentiality, and the fruit, the gift of the present. It was the fullness of that moment and the dream that others would be also. It was the illusive magic of magnetism, clarity, and insight. It was the anchor to the spell. I hid it inside the Greenhouse on the altar for Love, in the Buddha’s lap under her robes. Every time I went inside from that point onward, I felt the egg underneath the fabric. A anchor. A reminder.
Later that night, as the moon was beginning to eclipse, I was doing tai chi with Shanta at the Greenhouse. The moon was nearing full eclipse, and as I was just beginning to go through the long form on my own, he said, “The Man is on fire!” “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!” “Seriously, the Man is on fire!” So we hopped on our bikes and rode over to watch the Man burn and then be put out. It was great. I alternated between yelling “Save the Man!” and “Let him burn!” No one knew what to think. It was beautiful. That is not to say that I condone anyone in anyway desecrating other people’s things, but there was something at least a little poetic about that moment.
It was an act of irreverent rebellion, taking the most central idol of Burning Man and re-appropriating it in a convention-defying act against that very thing upon which so many people imagine a culture to turn. And in that burning, there was something reclaimed by everyone, namely that unmistakable sense of the spontaneous wonder and excitement of encountering that which is unexpected, out of the ordinary, displaced so long enough as to provoke earnest consideration and thought. It is in those very moments in life that we come to understand the fullness and richness of living, of opening our eyes to seeing the unexpected in the ordinary, and thereby we come to live more integrated, authentic, and meaningful lives. The art gains its significance and relevancy in this way, here, in its place on the fringe. Once it gains centralness in the culture, it will inevitably lose much of its significance until it is re-encountered, once again, as the unexpected.
Photo: The setting full moon hangs just above the Greenhouse after Monday’s lunar eclipse.
That entire night was pure magic. As the moon was coming out of eclipse, I stood out in open playa soaking in the radiance. Shanta said, “It’s a beautiful sight, isn’t it?” I was standing there with my eyes closed and my face raised up toward the sky. My hands were open, facing the moonlight. I took a deep breath, and I responded, “Yes, indeed it is, and I don’t even need eyes to see it.”
I left a blank book in the Greenhouse for people to write in. I would stop by the installation pretty much anytime I was on my way anywhere else, just to check on things. I would sit and read the things people had written. The visits quickly took on their own rhythm. The process of regularly going out there and discovering new messages came to mark the passage of time for me. It all started with messages like this:
“This is a beautiful thing in a beautiful place from beautiful souls. Thank you, with love.”
“Namaste. The beauty overwhelms me!”
“Thank you. My heart is overflowing right now.”
“The last sliver of the moon was experienced in your embrace. Peace & Respect.”
“This is my first time. As I was told, I find the things I seek, intentional and in thought. I haven’t changed. I am still lonely in masses of people and while I do know I am not the only one like that it still feels that way, tonight and until Sunday I hope to let that go. Thank you for this space. It is magical. ”
“You are Beautiful!”
“Thanks! You’re part of the solution!”
“Thank you for this blessed moment.”
“Oh precious Love, so Good!!! I pray that I may be able to love myself.”
And then I started getting longer messages and responses to some of the things I had written, some of which brought me to tears.
“My womb was stirring the night I approached this desert, and I ached because it reminded me of the man-child I parted with before my journey, and that now is not the time. But here, in my infinite manifestations – laced, of course, with weariness and strange moments of loneliness, I have found that I am pregnant, not with a new life being, but my own life being – renewed. For the earth asks nothing of me but respect, and I grow into the creative self – the child I’ve forgotten. And here, I understand my loves, and here, I love my son more fully, and here I forgive my man-child soul-life-partner who infuriates me & loves me and here, I have remembered and fallen in love with myself.”
“If I could tell you everything I would tell you how I’ve never been loved properly, no one to say, ‘it’s okay to not be okay, & by the way, I’m not going anywhere. You, I love, you, I will hold until you can see your own beauty.’ ~LL” “It is ok. You are loved. ~JC”
“Please offer me the strength to release the pain lingering within in a healthy manner. Let the nightmares cease & the fear of men to turn to love. Please allow the memories of my assault flow away from my life. Thank you for the love you have given me, and the respectful treatment I now receive. I hope in time the pain will exchange with love & my dreams will become beautiful forever.”
Everyday I would smudge the space with a piece of Palo Santo wood from Ecuador that my friend Anya had given me. That smell came to be the smell of Burning Man for me. I often times would stand near the Greenhouse to watch how people responded to the space. One night, a couple of guys rode up on their bikes. One of them went inside while the other waited outside. The one was in there for quite a while, and the one waiting started to get impatient. As the guy came out of the Greenhouse, he could sense the annoyance of his friend and said, with something resembling the fierce protection a mother has for her child, “There is Love here. It is full.” And then they rode off.
Offerings started appearing on the altars. People were leaving rocks, necklaces, postcards, personal items, dried herbs, small art pieces, prayer flags, bells, and a variety of other things. Messages kept appearing abundantly in the book. I took great pleasure in the anticipation of their discovery. Each time I found new offerings on the altars and opened the book to find new messages, it was like excavating the only evidence that remained of the moments experienced in that space. All that was left. The residue.
“May you be blessed with forgetting. May you be blessed to forget your entire existence. And all that you know. May you forget even your name. And allow the soul to shine true and create a totally new you. Again and again and again.”
“And tonite i found a godseed in my garden of awareness it grew to unfold its petals to eternity in full liberated expression of itself at one with all that is beyond me beyond you in the we of community.”
“Speak to me please, I’m not strong or brave, but I can shun Narcissus, Cissus, Us. Oh! But there is no us I know, & soon the dusk hours are coming, there will be nothing but a thick blanket with a few worn holes to let in tattered shards of morning, of mourning. Oh! But I won’t mourn, I am one, but I am not alone. A perfect vessel for Echo.”
“Love taps at the door of the heart – love becomes its course to be followed. Rivers diverge, converge, emerge from a thousand clouds made raindrops made running waters – the sound of your heart moving gently along the banks of your soul…”
“It is so nice to know the Goddess has such warriors.”
“Know the beauty of your dreams. Perhaps the message shall reach your ear. If it does, well, go on, you have nothing to lose. Truly you are a God at heart, a star both in soul and in body – you will live on, past the grandest horizon your mind could ever see, this life a gorgeous memory of color, sound, flesh and bone.”
“Que vives con paciencia y amor para todos… somos reflexiones… cara a cara.”
(That you live with patience and love for all… we are reflections… face to face.)
One night, I strolled up to the Greenhouse to find a pair of boots sitting right outside the threshold. The space was overflowing with energy. I thought, “Wow, someone felt so much reverence for the space that they actually took off their shoes.” I was blown away, and as I peered in, I saw a beautiful Australian man sitting there having a very profound moment. When he stepped out and put on his shoes, he was clearly very moved. When he discovered that I was the artist, he bubbled over with joy and gratitude. He told me he had been looking for some other art piece and that he was magnetically drawn to the space of the Greenhouse. While he was inside, something resonated within him so deeply that he felt truly recognized for the first time. And so he sat there and soaked it in and had a really powerful experience, a turning point. He wanted to go back inside with me, so he took off his shoes again and insisted I do the same. He showed me what he wrote in the book: “Gratitude to you, Dear Self, for recognizing who I really Am.” And those words resonated within me, deeply. Recognition. It is such a powerful thing. Hegel says, “They recognize themselves as mutually recognizing one another.” The only way to recognize yourself is through another. And I felt that in that precise moment. Mutual recognition. I experienced it viscerally and looked up at this man’s face. Then I hugged him and felt his heart, open, next to mine, and it was so beautiful. Every bit of that moment was just beautiful way beyond words. I didn’t catch his name. Starts with an S.
I began to notice that things were disappearing from the Greenhouse. Offerings came and then vanished. Gifts people had personally given me disappeared, too. I had mentally prepared myself for such a thing to happen, but that did not make me immune to the sense of loss I felt. I sat with that feeling for a while and tried to come to terms with it.
One particular night, I was feeling far away from the fast and loud and close to the sad and lonely. Enough people had shown up at that point in the event to make it sufficiently difficult to find familiar faces except through synchronicity alone. So after wandering around a bit I went to go talk to God on the payphone. I was telling God how I was sad, beautifully sad, because I was hyper-aware of the transitoriness of it all. And I talked about how I was tapped into that deep undercurrent of sadness and loss, particularly after reading something someone wrote in the book at the Greenhouse that focused my attention on that quiet devastation. And I talked about how there were now so many people and how I wanted to connect more deeply but instead just found myself wandering, feeling alone, apart. And I told Him how beautiful it had been bringing art to the playa, but there had been some emotionally challenging moments, and that the whole event was like a sand mandala to be swept up with nothing to show for it. And I told Him how I was very much in the sadness of that and wanted to see familiar faces. And then a whole big group of Austin folks walked by, and God told me to put one of them on the phone. I guess He told Delia to give me a great big group hug, and somehow that was the alchemy I needed at that moment because it lifted some of the weight from my heart. A moment of relief. But my heart was still heavy.
Earlier that night, when I went out on my rounds, I stopped at the Greenhouse and found the following passage in the book: “I can’t tell you how strong my urge to smash this whole house is. I don’t mean to be a hater. I just can’t accept the ‘sowing & reaping’ the ‘from love all things do emerge.’ What about war? And racism? And children who are violated? All these are a part of humanity and your purple eyes stare me down and try to convince me that on the other side of all the hatred & fear that fuels our wars there is a deep love just waiting to emerge. Fuck that. There is no God. We are all alone & everything we do is meaningless and futile. I don’t want to believe that, which is why I feel so strongly the urge to break everything in here – the tiny offerings in glass vials, the flowers and lights, to smoke the cigarette, spit on the purple face. It is strong and true, but it can’t be true. It just can’t be true. If we find ourselves here, how does that ease the suffering of humanity, who is flawed and bound to be unpredictably predictable in her carrying out violence? I doubt this process is making sense to anyone reading it, as you are missing 28 years of context and you don’t realize what it means for me to want with such intensity to stomp out just one blue globe, to desecrate just one thing in this house. But I won’t. Because I know that I am a child & have much to learn, and maybe you’ve already approached this crisis and surpassed it – transcended it. And I hope that for you. And I hope that for me too.”
I don’t have the words to explain the feeling in my body after I read that. I understood precisely what that person was writing about. I’ve confronted that crisis. That complete and utter devastation. My heart ached with it. And so I sat down and wrote back. “I understand that piece, & tonight I want to destroy something too. I am sad and lonely amongst thousands. All of them amplify the loneliness. And I want to destroy something too. Kali. Shiva. Sword of Manjushri. Cut away the suffering & ignorance. It is an illusion that we are separate. It’s not all beautiful. Love gave birth to sadness too. They are twins. The push & pull. The yes & no. We can do nothing other than more fully become ourselves. There is no other work than that Great Work. Beyond Love, there is Nothing. And you’re right, one day it will all be !&@?#$*&! ~LL” My response to that crisis is always instinctively to turn inward, to do the Work of Self. There is no other way to go in response to that but inward, to expand my capacity to hold that tension, that utter devastation whose mark is all over this world.
Later that night, I was still really needing connection, so I went out to the Greenhouse to see if I could call it to me there. I sat down inside, closed my eyes, and conjured up that sense of connection that I was desiring. I took a deep breath, focused that feeling into my heart, and then sent it out, drawing to me the perfect people I needed to fulfill that need. About seven or thirteen minutes later, two incredibly handsome men strolled up. Enter: Hitch and EnthusiAdam. I stepped outside to let them into the Greenhouse, and then they came back out a few minutes later and asked me how I was doing. I told them I was having a little bit of a sad and lonely night and that I had had a tragic lack of hugs that day so I had come out to my installation to see if I could find what I was looking for here. They said, “This is your art?!” and overflowed with praise for the installation. They gave me hugs and kisses and loving adoration and told me how beautiful I am and how much I deserve to be loved and admired and how really wonderful my art is. They filled me up with exactly the things I was looking for. Love and adoration and validation and beautiful smiling faces so so so full of light. Genuine heart connection. They told me they had been headed a completely different direction, but the Greenhouse grabbed their attention from way far away and called them there. So they came right over. Imagine that.
It turns out they were throwing an Adoration party on Friday and told me to stop by. The party was all about adoring women, giving foot rubs, massages, lap dances, reiki, spankings, acroyoga, story telling, whatever they want. The men and women volunteers were there to cater to the women in every way, and they claimed it was the second largest volunteer event on the playa. Second to the fire conclave. And the men who volunteered went through a screening process, had to have a woman write a letter of recommendation for them and all that. There would be security standing at the entrances to make sure no unauthorized males entered. Double entendre fully intended there. It sounded interesting, so I made a mental note of it.
One of those days early in the week we had an apocalyptic white out. It was one of several terrible dust storms that I endured in my nearly two weeks on the playa, but it was the first for the Greenhouse. I wasn’t completely sure how it would hold up in the heavy winds. Other people’s things were falling apart everywhere, and I was a little concerned. It turns out the Greenhouse is built pretty damn well. A couple of the windows popped out in the corners, which was a good thing because it reduced the wind resistance of the structure and thus, made it more stable as a whole. The poster I had made that was hanging at the entrance ripped apart and blew away. I hope someone found it and took it home. Other than that, no harm was suffered.
Photo: The Greenhouse Project before its first dust storm, with David Best’s Temple of Forgiveness and Shrine’s Tasseograph (far left) on the horizon.
Day after day, messages continued to appear in the book. Discovering them became a ritual, a blessing, a gift. I felt called to respond to some of them.
“I saw it in the clouds and then my sweet, sweet dreamer called me to tell me that she saw it as well – in a dream. She sent me a band-aid.”
“Saturate this time and place.” “Make it full. ~LL” “So it is.”
“I have come here again to be reminded of that which I know I will forget again to discover and rediscover the child within.”
“Love so full spilling over. Love is green.” “Indeed it is. ~LL”
“Shelter from the storm.”
“Thank you for the safest space on the playa.”
“La maison du bonheur, Merci a la maison verte.”
(The house of happiness, Thank you for the greenhouse.)
“In the innermost part of me, in the spacious, silent part of me, breathing into love.” “And into Love you shall Be. ~LL”
“All small things are beautiful.” “It has more to do with how you see than with what you are looking at. ~LL”
Friday was a full day. I had to get up early to film an interview with Patrick Morell, a French documentary filmmaker who was working on his second documentary on Burning Man. He filmed one last year about the event as a whole, and this year, he came back to focus on the art. He had already interviewed an impressive list of the who’s who in the Burning Man art world, and I felt a little unworthy of his attention. I kept hearing all these things about how amazing of a filmmaker he is, how he is the real deal, travels all over the world doing documentaries, how the film he made at Burning Man last year was one of the best ever done. So I figured it was worthwhile for me to follow the opportunity through to its logical conclusion, and I hoped that Patrick would find it worthwhile for him, too. It seems he actually took a liking to my work and me, and I ended up seeing him quite a bit the rest of the week, forging a good friendship.
Photo: Friday’s wondrous double rainbow.
That afternoon, I went to the Adoration party, and I was adored to the brink of overflowing. I had reiki done by a very wise woman and felt light as a feather afterwards. We focused on the feelings that were coming up around things being taken from the Greenhouse. I wanted to be okay with that energy flow, out of my control. I knew it would happen, I wanted to let go of that sense of loss I was feeling in my body. Release, re-attune. It worked. While I was there, it rained, and shortly after the storm I had to head off to an appointment with another filmmaker named Sean Kaminsky. He was shooting a series of documentary vignettes that explore the intersection of art and green activism for the Sundance Channel’s Green programming block. As I was riding out to the Greenhouse, the most spectacular double rainbow appeared over the horizon. It was magnificent, arching perfectly over our crazy little city, each end touching down out in deep playa. I was giddy, full, open, and in awe at the splendor and beauty of the moment. Just as the rainbow was fading, Sean and his partner rode up on their bikes to film the interview. I believe both Patrick’s and Sean’s interviews went well that day. In retrospect, there are things I wish I had talked about, especially for Patrick’s film where I had the opportunity to go way more in depth about my Project. It is still entirely possible I’ll end up on the cutting room floor for either of those film projects. Even though I don’t even have a TV, I certainly hope that is not the case.
Saturday was by far my roughest day. It started when I went out to the Greenhouse in the morning to find the Buddha’s head knocked down, the Greenhouse tagged with spray paint, and most of the offerings gone. I couldn’t find the beautiful shaker egg that the fey woman gifted me on Monday, the symbol of an incredibly powerful moment. It had been hidden which means someone rifled through things enough to uncover it. Someone took the prayer beads and necklaces that were around the Buddha’s neck, presumably that’s how the head fell off. Someone tagged his or her initials on the outside of the Greenhouse with spray paint. Shanta had left the ashes of one of his friends who died, and those were gone too. Every single jar of my handmade incense was gone. One of Casey Burke’s beautiful pieces of art, one of her five-part series, was gone. Ironically, the rather used copy of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics someone had left the day before was still there. As was a particularly poignant Polaroid that said “My relationship with my mother challenges me.” As was a pile of empty beer bottles and cigarette butts. I picked up the trash, put the head back on the Buddha, rearranged things to some semblance of order, and then went to Burners Without Boarders where I found Shanta and had a good long talk to try to come to terms with the tremendous sense of loss and violation I felt.
Photo: Self-portrait with rainbow and the Greenhouse
All the talk about the transitoriness of the event and of life, the Buddhist idea of non-attachment and suffering, the acknowledgement that some people just don’t get it and may not ever, knowing that theft would likely happen and mentally preparing myself for it long before the event, – none of that appeased the feeling in my gut that comes when someone has totally violated a boundary.
You see, when someone makes a piece of art, if it’s any good, it is intimately tied to their innermost expression of Self, of who they are and who they want to become, and every piece of the art is invested in the discovery and evocation of that. Every facet of the art is a complex conglomeration of thoughts, experiences, memories, feelings; every object is imbued with meaning and intention toward that end. And when you bring all of that into a community to offer it to others, you put a whole hell of a lot on the line. And when other people contribute any amount of themselves to that cause, then they’ve got something at stake, too. The act of people taking those things from the Greenhouse dispersed the energy that was being consciously cultivated in that space, the deep, powerful Work of Self that was being undergone there. And so I felt like I had been hit in the gut with a bowling ball, and no amount of talk on non-attachment would help. The thing that devastated me most was knowing that anyone who would do such a thing was living in a place of disconnection, scarcity, depravity, and poverty of spirit. And no matter how hard I tried, I could not separate myself from the tragedy of that.
I went back to the Greenhouse later that afternoon, still trying to come to terms with my emotional response to the experience. It was then that I discovered a single, new offering. A playing card. Seven of Hearts. Someone had written on it, “Be one for whom nothing is lost.” Those words pierced straight through my devastation, and I burst out into tears right there. I looked up at the sky through the dusty Greenhouse windows and just cried. And then, the most remarkable thing. Gratitude overcame me in a giant wave, and in that instant, I could see the beauty again. I turned my face down, as if in prayer, and let my tears fall to the ground. An offering. A sacrifice.
And there were yet more messages in the book.
“Please forgive us for being so small that we cannot see beyond the pain of our lives. We are only human.”
“Those who don’t want to change… let them sleep.”
“To see true beauty with closed eyes is divine beyond your senses.”
“May the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of way to kneel and kiss the ground. ~Rumi”
“Mediocridad sin uso soy nada. Aqui dejo mi dolor del adios. Aqui dejo el ardor por ti en forma mental, physical, y emocional. Aqui te dejo Ruby y recojo [the writer’s name]”
(Mediocrity without use, I am nothing. Here I leave my pain of goodbye. Here I leave the fire for you in mental, physical, and emotional forms. Here, I leave you, Ruby, and I gather [Me].)
“I got to hear raindrops on the roof.”
“Along this path I walk determined to know my way… yet time & time again I realize I am not driving this bus & while I may feel the ride is out of control at times, I have gathered many seeds along the way… I nurture them, hoping to cross paths with one who holds a fertile ground in their heart to nurture these seeds. I hold a seed within, & I must remember to let my light shine… for if I hesitate to do this… I hesitate and stunt my own growth. Thank you for reminding us in this sacred space.”
“At the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started from and know it for the first time. T.S. Elliot”
“The voyage of discovery does not consist of new landscapes but in having new eyes. ~Zen Proverb”
“Blessings and tidings oh ye who walk this earth. A quiet wind shall follow – in its breath the sound of your own heart upon the hurling winds of the afterlife – your secret star shall be born and all that is good & true & holy will shine. Humble, Magnificent, Divine.”
That night the Man burned, for the second time. I wasn’t planning on photographing it, but I started having that nagging feeling I should. So I rode back to camp at the speed of light to get my camera and tripod, and then I went out to watch the burn from the Greenhouse. Something had shifted inside me earlier in the night, and I was able to let go of the feelings I had been overcome with that day – enough to enjoy my night and not feel burdened by what could happen to my art. I knew Saturday night would be crazier than Friday, so I packed up a few of the remaining things I felt connected to inside the Greenhouse. The book, the Palo Santo, and a few other gifts people had given me. After the Man burned, I left the Greenhouse alone for the rest of the night and went off into the darkness to see what kind of compelling things I could find.
Photos: (top) The Greenhouse Project with the burning Man.
(bottom) The Greenhouse Project with David Best’s Temple of Forgiveness the night before it burns.
It was Sunday that I found the missing piece. Forgiveness. Of course, it was there hovering in the background all along. I spent a lot of time at the Temple that day. I left several offerings, wrote a bunch of things on the intricately cut walls, cried, and watched and listened as others mourned there. The energy in that space was overwhelming. David Best saw me there, letting go of all that. He singled me out amongst hundreds of others. He came over to me, looked me in the eyes, and took my hand in his for just a moment. No words. Just that look and the touch of our hands. A moment of recognition. That was all I needed, indeed all I could handle, at that moment. A burden was lifting. And more tears.
Photo: Forgiveness is the missing piece. It was there all along. (below) Sunday at the temple.
I went back to the Temple that evening to see Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping. The service was solemn, a lot of talk about forgiveness. People were still crying. I can’t really remember anything Reverend Billy said, but I do remember that his words were exactly what I needed to hear. I remember it feeling like a cleansing, like being smudged with sage and eagle feathers, like all the sadness and devastation I was feeling was understood, like I was being embraced. And I sat there and soaked it all in.
The Temple burned that night, and with it, much of the conflict I had been experiencing. The intricacy and care taken in cutting all the wood used to make the Temple – just, in the end, to be burned – somehow helped me place my experience into a much larger context. Somehow, by connecting with that greater accumulative sense of loss that people brought to the Temple all week, mine was assuaged. My art was never intended to be burned, and yet there was something about it that demanded to be released, as if in flames. Everything that came and went all week was part of a larger movement of energy taking place, something way bigger than my art or me. I can only hope that the people who took things from the Greenhouse will one day look at those objects and be struck by their meaning, their significance, and be brought to their knees in reverence. Much like I was that night.
That night was so good for me. I still held space for the sadness I had been feeling. I was able to also open myself to feel all the beauty and love I had received throughout the week. As the sun was beginning to rise, I bid farewell to my friends and walked across the playa by myself. I went to the Temple remains and found a deep peace there amongst the ashes. Something in me had been released as it burned. I uncovered a part of the structure as I was standing there in the ashes. I believe it’s some kind of anchoring device, and it had the most beautiful patina from the fire. I picked it up, examined it, and thought that it would make a perfect foundation for my next found object sculpture. And I decided I would use whatever offerings were left from the Greenhouse as part of that piece of art.
Photos: (above) David Best’s Temple of Forgiveness burns. (right) Self-portrait with the Greenhouse after the Temple burn.
I watched as people sifted through the ashes for things that remained after the burn. Throughout the week, people had left all sorts of offerings there. Things they wanted to release. Things that were deeply personal and sacred to them. It felt right to me to only take a piece of the structure and not any individual offerings. There were many more anchors like the one I picked up, all of them beautifully marked by the fire, and it occurred to me that I could take several and make a whole series of sculptures out of them. But it somehow seemed more appropriate that I take just that one. I didn’t need any more. In fact, having more would have diluted the meaning of the whole experience and journey that it took for me to arrive at that moment, in that place, with that understanding and sense of peace. I had come a long way and experienced what seemed like the entire gamut of emotions humans are capable of feeling. I arrived there full, my capacity expanded, my eyes more clear. All I ever dreamt of when I set out on this journey was to more fully come to know myself, to inspire others to do the same, and to walk away with a greater sense and understanding of the Work that needs to be undergone, both individually and communally. The journey to that place was more extraordinary than I ever could have imagined.
Photos: (above) The waning half-moon rises over the Greenhouse after the Temple burn. (below) The Buddha watches the moonrise one last time.
My thoughts drifted to the poem I wrote for the Greenhouse, and I silently recited the words in my head, realizing they had taken on a whole new layer of meaning for me:
“In your hand, hold the seed, and into it, breathe your dream.
As you plant it in the dirt, you give it life on this earth.
Nurture the root, tender new growth, impress upon it all you hope.
Give it water and sun shining bright, give it Love and give it Light.
The fruit sustains you, here and now, the harvest from the ground you plow.
For those who follow, leave an offering, your contribution to our community.
Compost the dream whose time has passed, and remember, forever, nothing lasts.
By letting go, you are transformed, after death, new life is born.
From Love, all things do emerge, and unto Love, they will return.
Follow faithfully the movement of you heart,
And may you be so blessed to know yourself in all your parts.”
The sun was up, the Temple ashes were still smoking, and the sky was fading from pink and orange to blue. I closed my eyes and faced the sun, breathing it all in. What an incredible journey it had been. My capacity to hold such an extreme range of thoughts and feelings was pushed and expanded to the very edge. Every moment was marked with that expansion. There was the sheer amount of meaningful connections made, the deep sense of community, the incredible response to my art that I had received from an overwhelming amount of people, the deeply satisfying work. And then there was the sense of loss, violation, sadness, devastation, that tragedy that continues to touch this world because of fragmentation and disconnection. And there was the necessary return to forgiveness. Every piece of the entire experience was relevant and valuable for me, part of The Great Work.
Nothing was lost. Not a thing.
As I was walking back to camp with that piece of the Temple in my hand, the anchor, my thoughts turned to the theme for next year’s Burning Man. The American Dream. And it came to me, the idea for the installation I’m going to create. And I decided that next year, it’s going to burn. It has to burn. That moment was marked by the indisputable feeling of victory. I laughed. I spun around in the dust and laughed.
My heart was open, and it was a new day. And the light shone in both places.
Dreams are seeds… What do you want to grow?
Acknowledgements: It Takes Community
The Greenhouse Project could not have happened without the unbelievable amount of support and encouragement I received from many wonderful people I am so very blessed to know. Every moment of the experience was full way beyond my wildest imagination. Unending gratitude is due the Austin Burn community, the entire Enchanted Forest family, Albert Deloach, Tyler Hanson, the Do Lab, Austin Green Art, Organik Media, Golden Rabbit Films, Shanta Stevens, Casey Schmidt, David Gallows, Sean Kaminsky, Patrick Morell, Casey Burke, LadyBee, Paul & Mykal, Bill Koons, Dr. Craig Hanks, Guy Forsyth, Le Easter, Debbie & Justin & Jake Vaughn, Liu Ching Yang, Kristen L, Marc Lionetti, Suzanne McAnna, Elizabeth Rogers, Jodi Smith, Helen Lea, Jim Flash, Clovis, Moldover, Anya, Marlo Ashley, Katherine S, Cedar Stevens, Jonathan Tel, Thorn Coyle, Dr. Audrey McKinney, Dr. Ted George, David Best, Reverend Billy, Shrine, Orpheo McCord, Trine, Grady Cousins, the Austin community truck crew, Red Nose District, Damn Fuckin Texans, Kingdom of Slack, Ecstatic Hugs/HBGB, RedCamp, all the folks at Active Life Chiropractic, Apple, Goorin Brothers, Fire Dog Designs, Texas A&M Philosophy Dept., and, most of all, the plant and animal spirits I care for at home who continue to teach me how to live authentically, Amallah, Skipper, Sushi & Snowpea, and all the birds and squirrels and green in Austin, Texas. Thank you all for showing me the Love & Light.
Laura Lea
© Laura Lea Nalle 2007 All rights reserved.
All photos and writing by Laura Lea Nalle unless otherwise indicated.
Epilogue: The Sundance Channel aired a feature on The Greenhoust Project that was in regular rotation on the channel throughout 2008. You can watch that here:
Laura Lea Nalle and the Greenhouse Project from Laura Lea Nalle on Vimeo.