It is not easy for Burners to return to the Default World. Everything that’s been to the Black Rock Desert has a healthy patina of dust. Everything has been transformed. It is a new year. It is hard to “clean up.” Not everything can get vacuumed up or wiped clean with vinegar or club soda.
On Wednesday Sept. 8, we had a New Moon in Virgo. This also means that the most popular Hindu deity, Ganesha, has a birthday on the fourth day of the new moon, which this year is Saturday Sept. 11.
Next year, it will be during Burning Man again on Thursday.
What does it mean to have a new moon in Virgo? What else is up astrologically?
LOTS!! Lots of ENERGY! Especially for Burners transitioning into life back into the default world!
According to Astrology.com, new moons in general are about “the cosmic balance of the male and female energies, the Yin and the Yang — both in our individual selves and in the universe.” Because duty drives industrial, methodical, and efficient Virgo, “This New Moon is about balance — the balance between what we want to do and what we need to do — service to others versus service to self — spirituality versus practicality.”
“This is also a Super New Moon, which occurs when the Moon is at its closet approach to the Earth. Super Moons generate greater gravitational and electromagnetic pulls on the Earth’s oceans and tectonic plates as well as on our psyches. After all, the human body is about 60% water in adult males and 55% in adult females!”
In general, this New Moon in Virgo is full of energy: “Not only do we have the Sun and Moon holding hands in Virgo, we also have Mars and Venus in close conjunction with each other in Libra. Mercury, ruler of Virgo is retrograde. Later, in the day, Venus moves out of Venus into seductive and passionate Scorpio.”
“The energies of the cosmos want us to analyze elements of our present behavior that may be out of balance and set them right. This New Moon helps us recognize truths about ourselves and wants us to focus on our particular path this lifetime.”
This is a perfect forecast for all those Burners coming back from the Playa seeking to balance the truths they’ve learned about who they really are with who they have become by habit because in general, September astrologically gets us back on track to be who we really are.
Venus stays in intensely sexy, seductive Scorpio through November 7, which is also great fun for Burners heading to Decompression Parties but Astrology.com warns, “Beware — feelings may run deep, and strong passions may flare up during this period.”
Jupiter moves back into Pisces on September 9, and stays there until January 23 2011. For Burners who had a spiritual awakening, or found the Temple stirring deep feelings, Jupiter here brings “a spiritual note into our lives, since this transit has a charitable heart, deep compassion and a sense of the importance of inner peace.” Why? Because Read more…
Big News!!! Style Network Selects Art Predator!
Here at Art Predator we have some very exciting news–the Style Network called back today! Learn all about it over at The Write Alley.
via The Write Alley
Burning Man 2010 from Above: Black Rock City Images from Google Earth
When you’re down on the Black Rock Desert, in the thick of Black Rock City amongst the profusion of bicycles, people, art, and artcars, trying to get about or find someone or find a campsite, or even of you’re out deep into the playa experiencing some of the far off art pieces or bars or just out for a run or a bike ride, it is hard to comprehend how massive the Burning Man Festival is.
On the one hand, the Burning Man Festival is huge. On the other, it is intimate, very intimate, and thronging with people, 50,000 or more people, and the mountains surround and tower over the desert.
It is so intimate that you do get to know your neighbors as you stand in line in the morning to us the portajohns and to share cocktails in the evening and to advise on everything from costuming and to shade rigging.
The good people at Google Earth help us see the human footprint at Burning Man if not our individual footprints, on the desert.
In the image above and left, you can see most of the city, where people camp and live and sleep during the Black Rock Arts Festiv
al in tents and RVs and lean-tos, in anything you can imagine and much that you can’t.
You can see the concentric rings of streets, this year, following the Esplanade, they were named after cities, even though most people simply refer to their address by the letter and the “time”: the Man is the center of the clock, center camp is at 6 and the Temple is at 12.
Center camp is easy to see if you know where to look: it’s the darkest spot in the image, with a ring road circling it. That’s where people often congregate for music and coffee and yoga and more. It’s a great place to laze on a sunny afternoon or to take refuge from the cold dark night.
And in another case, an example of a human “peace print.”
Burning Man 2010 Art, 3:15 Experiment Poetry, 2011 “Rites of Passage”
Poetry from the 3:15 Experiment 2010
Sunday August 29, 2010 3:15am (home)
It passes, time does.
A day. A week. A month.
We get through time.
We get by.
We go to bed in fog.
And wake to sun.
We go to bed with stars.
We wake to a damp world.
We go to church or brunch
swimming lessons and bike rides
The cat gets fed
the plants watered
the bills paid.
Alarms go off.
And words get scribbled.
Dirty clothes & dishes pile up
eventually get washed.
Eventually August is over.
Soon it is September.
How fast can you count to 31?
We let time slip away.
We fill the hours.
We survive.
We live.
We go to bed
and most of us wake up again
the next morning.
We have the same 24 hours.
It is up to us what
we do with it. But
it passes, time does.
The 201o Art theme for Burning Man was Metropolis; in 2011 it will “Rites of Passage” (learn more here). I chose this 3:15 Experiment poem to post today because it connects with next year’s Burning Man theme and I chose 2010 Burning Man photos from Shane Butler to go along with it. Thanks Shane!
Burning Man traditionally ends on Labor Day Monday; in 2011 Labor Day lands on Monday Sept. 5. Burning Man typically opens its gates the previous Sunday, during 2011’s 3:15 Experiment which runs every night during the month of August at 3:15am.
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Burning Man: Rites of Passage Theme 2011
As this year’s Temple burns, and my tears flow, I am, appropriately enough, putting the finishing touches on this post about the 2011 theme “Rites of Passage.”
Of course I am watching the Temple burn on the Ustream Channel (not in person) and listening to BMIR. Moments earlier, as my 6 year old son and I watched together, we talked about my mom, and what we miss, and how much we wish we were there right now at the Temple burn…(I love my son so much! he shared such a special bond with my mom…going to the library together, reading books…she would give him “spice” candies aka Tic Tacs. He told me tonight while we watched the Temple Burn that he has a few from the last container she gave him and that he’s saving them to have for when he really misses her…)
Last year at Burning Man, it didn’t take long for the rumor to spread that the 2010 theme for Burning Man would be “Metropolis.” There was a lot of griping amongst the ranks along the lines of “but that’s what I’m escaping!”
What we are doing at Burning Man, I would argue, is creating a new kind of Metropolis, and focusing on that provided an opportunity to explore not only the theme of the city but what it means to be a city. Black Rock City is a new kind of Metropolis. I thought the theme was exciting and I would have loved to have been out there to see how it was expressed. Instead, I’ll patiently wait to see the images and pass them on in blog posts here along with any stories I catch. (Subscribe! By email or RSS feed and keep up with what’s up!)
“Rites of Passage” for 2011’s Burning Man theme seems a natural progression. What makes a city more than a collection of people and buildings in one place? Rituals: rites of passage.
Each year, the new theme is announced after the Man burns to give people a chance to talk together while on the Playa, to be inspired and to conspire about the theme. Burner friends are already starting discussions on facebook about art projects related to the theme. Information and a key image or two goes up on the front page of the Burning Man website soon after the Man burns. Here’s a few excerpts from the Art Theme page: Read more…
And though you may close this book forever and never read another word, wordless the world will come to you and reveal itself to you and there is no other proof that you exist but this, that you are beloved of the earth and the creatures around you, insects and stars are quietly… from “Listen” by Paul Squires
As I mentioned in my previous post, while some people think all Burning Man is about is the Burning of the Man (plus drugs and music and naked people), the Man will Burn without you.
Burning Man is not a spectator sport, but a participatory one–and it is much more about making and being part of art than it is drugs, music and nakedness. Watching the Man burn on Saturday night is not at all what Burning Man is about.
This is so important I’ll say it again: Burning Man is NOT a spectator sport; Burning Man is a participatory experiment in intentional, communal, artistic living.
For me, an important element is the inspiring and experiential artwork and living in a such an imaginative world. It’s not just about watching the Man burn but crying at the Temple and powering a zoetrope like the one in the header, and climbing towers like this year Minaret as photographed by Jennifer V Baum.
I also love love love living in a City where everyone gets around by bicycle, artcar or foot! You see and experience and can participate spontaneously in so much more this way than in a car!
A friend of mine joined me out there one year (2000, I think). He rode up to my camp on a bike wearing shorts and a t-shirt and laughed at me as I struggled with the awning on my VW van; he was camped in his giant RV and he towed his Jeep so he could drive out on the playa and take photographs. Burning Man was more just a place to camp with a party going on and some artwork and naked women to photograph.
When he said he was going to leave, that he’d been there, seen that, and didn’t need to do the Burn, I told him to go ahead and go: he wasn’t going to get anything more out of it unless he let go of spectating and tried participating.
A few hours later, a guy in a great short black cocktail dress Read more…
The Man Will Burn Without You: 2011 Theme Announced–Rites of Passage
Last night the Man burned without me.
Back in 1997, I remember being out on the playa and being exhorted that “the Man will Burn without you” by someone from Porn Arena using a megaphone. It’s almost a meme out there now. But it’s true: the Man will burn with out YOU. This claim points out and reminds us that “Burning Man” isn’t really about the Man burning at all, but about a radical experiment in intentional community. The Man is just an excuse.
Last night, as some 50,000 revelers prepared for the Burn, we sat on the couch, freshly showered following a nic
e dinner of grilled pork chops, fresh picked squash, rosemary potatoes, green salad and home grown tomato. In our dust free house, we drank cold AUS chardonnay as we watched the festivities online at Ustream–20 minutes or so of fire dancing and fireworks followed by about 10 minutes of the Man burning then falling. We tried listening to BMIR but no luck, probably something on our end.
At one point, there were over 8,000 viewers watching it with us on Ustream.
(Live Feeds Direct From Burning Man Enjoy a live webcast from Black Rock City 2010. And listen in to the live audio stream from BMIR 94.5, broadcasting from Center Camp.)
It looked like a good Burn–not too much wind until the heat from the fire kicked it up. Last year, the wind howled all afternoon and into the evening. Seven adults and one child and one teen huddled in our van as it rocked in the gale, escaping the worst of it, even as it filtered in through the van’s pop
-up. We drank a rhone blend from Twisted Oak and a wild yeast syrah from Vino V and others; the shot of the dust on the bottles gives you a clue about the environment out there! Finally, BMIR announced that the Man would Burn and it was time to head out to the playa.
After the Man burns, the next year’s art theme is announced. We checked the Burning Man website and twitter but hadn’t heard by the time we went to bed about 11pm.
This morning I learned the theme for Burning Man 2011 is “Rites of Passage.” We’re going, at least we’re planning to right now. We’ve got a few rites to attend to: if we can convince some of our close Burner friends to join us, we’re going to get remarried out there next year. And I have some business to attend to in the Temple.
Note: )'( photo credit to Burning Mom Jennifer V Baum aka Absinthia, who celebrated a MAJOR birthday out on the playa this year before the gates opened.
Burning Man 2010 at Home: All The Freaky People ArtRide Report & photos!
Since I knew we weren’t going to make it to Burning Man 2010, we brought a little bit of the Burn home to Ventura by way of a “All The Freaky People Make the Beauty in the World” ArtRide.
And thanks to Daniel Boggs and his small pink camera, I have plenty of fun photos of all the Freaky people on Friday’s ArtRide to share with you!
We met up at the Artists Union Gallery where there was live music in addition to artwork, then we rode along the ocean front promenade to Main, and up Main for a quick visit at the newly remodeled Museum, then up Main again to Chestnut where we circled back on Santa Clara to find that the photo studio we were going to see was CLOSED once again!
We zipped up Santa Clara to Kalorama where we couldn’t find Kevin Eckart-Smith’s gallery, so we went to 255 Laurel which was celebrating the annual Inkspots show an where people packed the place! From Laurel, we rode across town, taking Main (legally!) and then Ventura Avenue, passing up visit to WAV and Bell Arts to go see Chad Sorg at 643 Project Space.
Read more…
FINALLY! Here are so
me of my favorite shots from last month’s ArtRide “Western Nghts & Carnival Lights” that I took with my handy iPhone. Daniel took a lot more and when I get a chance, I’ll post some!
We started at the promenade where 
we took photos and then more photos at the Ventura River and the sea. We cruised Main and Ventura Avenue; ArtRide stops included Bell Arts Factory and the WAV and more before we stopped for chow at Anacapa Brewery where Danny generously discounted our beer and food. Then we rode down to the Fairgrounds and the ocean to watch the fireworks! What a great night!
And here it is, time for another “All the Freaky People” will join the First Friday ArtRide Sept 3!
Michael Franti sings “All the Freaky People Make the Beauty in the World”…and, along with Burning Man, inspired the theme for the September 3 First Friday ArtRide around downtown Ventura. F
or all those freaks missing Burning Man, and for all those wannabe Burners, this ArtRide is for you!
Dress in your playa best or in your most fun, most outrageous clothing (think Mardi Gras then kick it up a notch!) and join the San Buenaventura Bicycle and Social Club for a free ArtRide around town with an after party at Art City featuring beer from Anacapa, wine from Frei Brothers, and music by DJ Jeremy Walker.
Donations requested for beverages and food will go to arts, bicycle, and climate advocacy groups; please bring your own mug.
The ArtRide is family friendly; children under 18 must wear a helmet and children under 8 must ride with a parent in a seat, trailer or trailabike.
Meet at 5:30pm at the Ventura Beach Promenade near the fountain and the Artists Union Gallery, 33
0 S. California St.
Ride at 6pm along the Promenade to Main Street to various art galleries, exhibits and studios. We’ll start over on Laurel/Front, then back on Main to CA & Santa Clara, then up Ventura Avenue to WAV, Bell Arts & 643 Project Space, then over to Art City with a stop at Stoneworks for those so inclined.
Follow the ArtRide to the afterparty at Art City 197 Dubbers Ventura. A special thanks to Frei Brothers and Anacapa Brewery for their after party beverage donations.
Scroll down to see the flyer in a previous post!
UPDATE August 24, 2011: here’s a post about 2011 Ganesh Chaturthi 2011
Saturday, Sept. 11 in 2010 marks the date of the end of the 10 day Hindu festival Ganesh Chaturthi celebrating the birthday of Lord Ganesh. During the Hindu festival of Ganesha, the elephant-headed son of Shiva and Parvati is believed to bestow his presence on earth for all his devotees. His birthday is celebrated on a slightly different day each year as it coincides with the phase of the moon. Here’s more from Wikipedia on Ganesh Chaturthi; I found the photo below there.
Lord Ganesha is widely worshiped as the god of wisdom, prosperity and good fortune. While I am not a practicing Hindu, I still celebrate Lord Ganesh, Remover of Obstacles and Patron Saint for Writers and Artists, and I wrote several 3:15 Experiment Poems about Him in 2009 August 5, 2009 “It’s Lord Ganesh,” August 11, 2009 “Celebrating Lord Ganesh’s Birthday,” and August 20, 2009: “Lord Ganesh Returns.”
Last year for Burning Man, I asked Rajan of Rajan Draws to do a Ganesh on a bicycle for me: his whole blog is dedicated to his drawings of Ganesh. He sent me these two drawings right away and we turned the top drawing into stickers and tie-dyed bandanas. As Ganesh Chaturthi last year was on the First Friday of the month and during Burning Man, we led a bike ride with beautiful banners with Ganesh on them, and we gave out the banners and bandanas. We told hundreds of people about Ganesh and asked them to celebrate his birthday with us.
This year, we’re not at Burning Man
, but as it is the First Friday in September, we’re going on an ArtRide tomorrow! We meet at 5:30pm at the Artists Union Gallery, 330. So. California St, Ventura at the Beach Promenade and we ride at 6pm. Since we haven’t decided on the theme for October, I’m going to make flyers with Ganesh on them, and I’m going to try to get the banner rigged for my bike.
Part of the celebration for Ganesh is making or buying a figure of Ganesh, praying to Him, and then setting him to sail to Mt Kailash. Last year, a gathering of us made small clay figures of Ganesh. I took mine to Burning Man, but instead of immersing him in water at the end of the 10 days, I brought him home; he’s been traveling with me in my car this year. He’s now in the house again. On Saturday Sept 11, I will take him to the sea.
art predator 