Silk Purse With Frankincense

Black Rock City, 2000-2019

There is a similarity between Israel, Cuba, and Burning Man: If you haven’t been, you really can’t weigh in on a debate about the place. But maybe that’s true of anywhere.

My first visit to Burning Man was in 2000. I was assigned to shoot video for The Adventure Zone, a short-lived online network. Few trips had terrified me more. I’m talking about nightmares and panic attacks, a week prior to my departure. The prospect of the desert heat, alkaline dust, naked mobs, and pounding EDM all added up to a perfect storm of “no thank you” for me. But I’d said yes. As usual.

I arrived ill-prepared, my Honda Civic packed with a pup tent, water, snacks, a beat-up bike, more water, and little else. After staking my tent into the hard strata of the ancient playa, I mounted my bike and rode off to get a feel for Black Rock City: the sudden metropolis that annually erupts, like Martian fungus, on the otherwise lifeless plain.

The grid of the City follows the pattern of a clock, and at the corner of 7:30 and Sex Drive I saw an inviting prospect: A serene-looking woman with flowing gray hair had set up a padded massage table, shaded by a pink canopy. I parked my bike, lay on my back, and allowed her to tune my chakras with a set of seven Tibetan singing bowls. Each vibrated with a pure, resonant frequency. The woman placed them in turn on my forehead, throat, solar plexus, and groin, and instructed me to breathe deeply.

This might have been a spell of utter relaxation, if not for the shrieks, screams, and moans coming from the adjoining camp—where a tattooed vixen in a fishnet bustier was shoving volunteer victims onto a rack, shackling their wrists and ankles with fur-lined handcuffs, and spanking them mercilessly with a ping pong paddle.

“I have to say,” I told my masseuse, after the final bowl’s vibration faded into silence, “that you ended up with a pretty noisy neighbor.”

“Isn’t it great?” she replied. “That’s my daughter!”

Gifting is one of the “Ten Principles” created by Burning Man’s co-founder, the late Larry Harvey, to define the ethos of the event—which is now celebrated worldwide. In August 2019, I returned from my 13th journey to Black Rock City. The gift I offered the burners with whom I forged a connection was the same one I’d given my sound masseuse in 2000: a silk pouch from Nepal, filled with crystals of Omani frankincense. As for me, the gift I’ve received has been profound: What I once dreaded so desperately is now a delight. So smell these crystals. Pack your tent. Bring plenty of water. Fear not.