Burning Man 2023: Images from Animalia in the Mud on the Playa in Black Rock City

Burning Man 2023: Man Base Friday morning before the rain

I’m still dreaming of being stuck on playa in Black Rock City. Not because of the mud, but because of the delayed strike and cleanup due to the wet playa, and because of the generator smell. I keep finding rebar in my dreams, and I can’t get camp resources to friends who are bringing it home for me. The struggle to get home with a damaged van left me discombobulated, too, not sure where I was, and wondering which camp I was in when I was in a motel in Bishop, and then home in my own bed. I wake worried what day it is, and about being prepared to teach today, the first day of the fall semester for my late start, hybrid college classes.

I actually have a lot to say about Burning Man 2023, my 21st Burn in 31 years. But now is not the time: I still don’t have the bandwidth while figuring out how to fix my van, shop for a car, and with the new school year pressing in.

I have seen a lot of changes in Burning Man: I was one of the 600 people who attended the event back in 1992 after it got kicked off Baker Beach in San Francisco to the Black Rock Desert in 1990. (Scroll down to links to my reflections on the early days of Burning Man that I wrote for my Depth Psychology Masters). This year some 80,000 people participated in the event.

Art Predator on her scaffolding in camp during a break from the rain; photo of Gwendolyn Alley by Valerie Mallory

The wild weather at Burning Man “Animalia” hit the news in a big way, and while it was a very muddy event, it wasn’t anything to worry too much about as we Burners expect to prepare for extreme conditions, to provide our own food, shelter, and water for our time in the desert, to be ready to take care of our neighbors, and to share resources.  With a theme like Animalia, we should expect opportunities to get unusually close to the wild nature at our core. While the theme of the art piece was “Playful Again” animals play hard, often they bite when playing, and they continue on no matter the weather.

Of course, with the roads closed due to mud, if folks needed to leave to catch flights like Diplo and Chris Rock and others, they had to walk about six miles through the muck to the pavement which you can learn more about here. That’s no easy task I know from experience as I had to leave my bike behind and walk in the rain on Friday and wasn’t able to walk back to get my bike until Sunday. 

The Dusty Mule Saloon 2023

I’ve been on playa when it has rained before several times and experienced the moon boot walk. In fact it rained quite a bit in 1988, 1999, 2000, and in 2014 when people were stuck in line to get in, some for 24 hours. So rain on playa isn’t anything new, but it is different in a city that’s grown to 80,ooo people than one that has only 30,000. Just like during any storm, you continue on as best you can. It was harder preparing for Burning Man during a hurricane and with earthquakes thrown in.

One of our neighbor’s at the Dusty Mule camp had a birthday and so it was a soggy but fun party all day next door with dance music and cocktails.

Art Predator’s VW Van and lake front camp  during the double rainbow at Burning Man 2023

The rainy weather was little more than an inconvenience, and many of us preferred this weather over last year’s miserable record breaking heat and dust storms.

But yes it was a muddy mess, and most of us followed the call to shelter in place– or to shelter in place with neighbors… On Friday afternoon in the pouring rain, I made it to the French Quarter at 420 and Esplanade on my journey from the Playground’s Purple Party at 2 and Chupacabra. Gratefully they revived me with steamy dim sum, gyozas, and hot tea as well as the loan of a fleece jacket since I had left my rain jacket earlier at the Sunset Lounge at 845 and Frogbat.

Playful Again camp

That loan of a jacket led to new friendships and to getting my scaffolding, pentayurt, and other camp resources off playa. I will always be grateful to Ryan, his cousin Riley, and their friend Chris for bringing my stuff back to Ventura, and to Kathy for helping them with offloading the truck and with cleaning it up so they could return the rental and get their deposit back.

Burning “Mud” Man 2023

Above is the view from our intersection of 430 and Chupacabra toward the Man and the French Quarter once we felt safe to move about again.

I was at Burning Man once again to support artist Valerie Mallory, and her art installation, “Playful Again”:

Valerie Mallory with one of her sculptures during build week

Even with the rain delay during Build Week, this was the earliest I’d ever been to Burning Man, and I appreciated watching the City grow and to see Valerie’s installation come to life– and then to strike it, including being the final person to MOOP it. I really needed tweezers to get the splinters of paint stuck to the clay playa. 

paintings by Valerie Mallory inside Playful Again

So now most of us are back home, one way or another, and we have a fresh start, a renewal.

As a college writing teacher, I like to begin each semester with a best selling book by Dr Seuss, Oh the Places You’ll Go! (1990). While recognizably a book by Dr Seuss from the writing and illustrative style, it’s  different also: it’s written in second person and in future tense. 

You may know this Dr Seuss book– but do you know the Burning Man version of it?

As you watch the video, consider where are the places you’ll go? Take a few minutes to freewrite from the heart– don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, or grammar, just spill some words onto the page. 

After thinking about where we want to go, let’s consider HOME– where we came from, and  where we feel at home. Where are we adventuring off FROM? And where do we return? What is home? And how can we feel at home no matter where we are? 

Many people who go to Burning Man, no matter where they live in the default world, consider Black Rock City their home, and that’s the theme of the next video:

This final video, also put together by Stefan Spins who did “Home,”  asks: “What does it mean to you to be on fire?” What fires you up?

The lyrics of the song raises questions about comfort. What have we been learning? And learning from?  

Where will you go and what will you do with your one wild and precious life? If you were in a college writing class, what would you like your teacher to know about you? If your parents are still in your life, what would you like them to know that you’re afraid to tell them? 

I invite you to take the words of this video to heart and dance with me in the new year. 

Because I want “the whole damn world” to come dance with me. Let’s take our time on this planet and do something special with it. Let’s be  “Playful Again!”

Learn more about Burning Man and the 10 Principles that guide citizens here by checking out this Coloring Book!.

Read more about the early days of Burning Man from a depth psychological and an ecopsychological POV:

Part 1: Burning Man 1992-02–The Shadow Grows: Journey Into Community Soul Making

 Part 2: how to integrate the shadow

Part 3: using the 10 Principles to create a new economy

Temple 2023 Burn

Find more of my Burning Man 2023 photos and stories on my Art_Predator Instagram account.  More to come!

Subscribe to Art Predator here to get emailed the latest posts about Burning Man, festivals, music, art, writing, and more.

Thank you for stopping by and reading.

Mud Men at Mud Man