Burning Man - the Way to Go?
abracad, · Categories: spiritualityBurning Man is an eight-day annual event that takes place in Black Rock City, a temporary city on the playa of the Black Rock Desert in the U.S. state of Nevada, 90 miles (150 km) north-northeast of Reno, ending on the American Labor Day holiday in September.
The event began in 1986 with the burning of an effigy on Baker Beach San Francisco watched by about 20 people. 2007 Burning Man attracted over 47,000 participants. The event is described by organizers as an experiment in community, radical self-expression, and radical self-reliance and takes its name from the ritual burning of a large wooden effigy on Saturday evening.
The Burning Man event is governed by 10 principles:
- Radical inclusion - Anyone is welcomed and there are no prerequisites to be part of Burning Man.
- Gifting - Instead of cash, event participants are encouraged to rely on a gift economy, in which gifts are exchanged unconditionally.
- Decommodification - With a few exceptions, no cash transactions are permitted at the event.
- Radical self-reliance - Participants are expected to be responsible for their own subsistence, nothing is provided by the organizers (except portable toilets).
- Radical self-expression - Participants are encouraged to express themselves in a number of ways through various art forms and projects. The event is clothing-optional and public nudity is common, though not practiced by the majority.
- Communal Effort - Participants are encouraged to work with and help fellow participants.
- Civic Responsibility - Participants are encouraged and assume responsibility to be part of a civil society in which federal, state and local laws are obeyed and communicate this to other participants.
- Leaving No Trace - Participants strive to leave the area around them in better condition than before their arrival to ensure their participation does not have a long term impact on the environment.
- Participation - "Attendees" are encouraged to participate.
- Immediacy - Participants are asked to become part of the event, to experience what is around them and society and to explore their inner selves and their relation to the event.
There's no doubting the successes of capitalism, it's given us computers, cell phones, ipods, and much much more. But it also carries the problems of inequality, crime, and widespread mental illness (in the form of stress, depression and anxiety) and feelings of unfulfillment.
We each originate from the oneness of Spirit, temporarily masquerading as discrete individuals. But just might the purpose of our incarnation be a return journey to unity with the source and our fellow beings?
2,000 years ago Lord Jesus said, "love your neighbor as thyself", and, "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven." Alas, despite Christianity supposedly being the world's biggest religion its principles have never been widely adopted by human society.
Just over a century ago Marx said "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Following the collapse of communism in the USSR and Eastern Europe, Marx's views have now been largely discredited; though it could be argued those states didn't implement true Marxism.
Might it just be that Jesus, Marx and many other Spiritual teachers have a point? And isn't Burning Man a very small step towards heeding that point?
Capitalism isn't going to collapse any time soon, nor is individualism going to make way for communalism. But in the course of time, maybe even centuries or millennia, this is the most likely direction of our collective evolution.
2008 Burning Man will take place from Aug 25 - Sep 1, for more information see http://www.burningman.com/
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Burning Man".
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