:TESTO:Wow.

This weekend took me (by foot and boat and train and bus and car) to the southeastern regional Burn, called "Transformus", outside of Asheville, NC (near Black Mountain), in the company of my sister, her fiancee, and his son. Burning Man is the famous "national" burn that started it all, and "burners" across the country have started more local events to thicken the culture.

In short, I camped in community with 1200 burners, hippies, ravers, partiers, healers, junkies, nudists, radicals, witches, gnomes, vikings, pirates, bellydancers, fireeaters, and humans (more than one label may apply) for three days in the woods. We shared food and drink and drug and dance and song and swimming and gifts and bodypaint and footrubs, with honesty and acceptance, in an atmosphere of festival.

The days before the Burn were important, establishing comfort and safety and community among the places and people of Transformus, building to a spectacular whole on Saturday night.

On the night of the burn, we gathered round a 40-foot bamboo man (formerly called the "Bamboozler," but a wind-induced fall caused him to be re-raised in a sitting position, and was freshly dubbed the "Bambuddha") for a wild night-long party, beginning at dark-thirty with firedancers and pulsing drums and electronic music, the pitch of the event rising until sometime before midnight when the man was set on fire. Rain came and went throughout the night, so the Bambuddha's struggle was epic and prolonged, making the themes of transformation and release extra-potent with the cycle of subdued flame and merry flare-up.

I, in my sarong and painted with woad, danced and sang with the fire and the crowd, flirted with dryads, danced with  drummers, met eyes with devils and warriors, even pushers and spectators. I stayed with the fire until it was but a roaring bonfire some 6 feet high, then wandered off into the night, to dance at the bar (the whole weekend operated on a gift economy, without barter or expectation of return - the bar was no exception, and was thus a popular spot), and under the black lights of the rave in the woods, and enjoyed a spot of tea in a yurt.

At the beginning of this night, I had been introduced to the staggering genus of Psilocybe, and thereafter found myself thinking very clearly - in a quieter place (had I begun in the yurt, say), I expect that the muse would have sung a far more personal tune behind my eyes, but as it was I felt myself to be making decisions (lower-case 'd') very quickly and without inhibition, making quick connections with people and with the mood of the evening - with a few outstanding observations of wrong-ness, I felt every thing and person to be perfectly right in their present state and action, everybody was exactly who they were and chose to be. (This was particularly noticeable in the case of the "forest people", those in ren-fair garb with goaty horns and sometimes beards — despite my ever-present awareness of these as costumed folk, I found myself checking more than once for cloven hooves)

Making decisions for myself without the hesitation of doubt is something I've been working on, and it was pleasant to find that quality distilled - nothing dark or overwhelmingly Other visited me that night, which in the latter case is somewhat disappointing — the fleeting glimpses I gained of such (in brief moments of closed eyes) have left me tantalized.

The muse left me some time before I left the fire, and I continued to work with the wisdom it provided throughout the night - an important thing to do, I decided, to make such things a part of my life wholly under my own steam.

And so it was, and so I sit, back in Baltimore, my sunburned chest and shoulders just beginning to peel around the pale shadow of my Saturday woad, moving back into a world of course-training, commutes, and video games. I reckon I was transformed, a bit. My job now is to make it stick, and to seek transformation — both in ritual and festival, and in every moment of my everyday life.

! :ENDTESTO: