Diane: There is an event calendar for the festival that you get, when you enter. It is called “What Where When” and it proclaims today to be a day of rest. The booklet is enertaining fare, even if you don’t attend any of the workshops, explorations, events, etc. Here is a column of daily events from page 5 (unedited)
MONKEY HEALING
Monday-Saturday 4:00pm-6:00pm
Come join your fellow monkeys at the Puzzle for some rejuvination. Healing arts provided include massage, bootbaths, body painting, more? Hosted by Monkey Puzzle @ Mercury & 4:00
ANASURA YOGA AT HANUMAN-VILLE
Monday-Sunday 4:00pm-6:00pm
Come practice Anusara Yoga at Hanuman-ville. Challenging classes with deep poses. DJs playing smooth rhythms. Take the Hanuman ride afterwards! Hosted by Hanuman-ville @ Esplanade & 4:30
POLE DANCE CLASS
Monday-Sunday 4:00pm-5:00pm
Swing with the grace of a monkey and impress your friends! Please, no freshly applied lotion to the class. This is an athletic event so be aware of your limitaitons. Hosted by Lamplighters @ Venus & Orion’s Belt
SMART DRINKS, SO 90’S SO AMAZING
Monday-Sunday 4:00pm-6:00pm
We mix delicious vitamin drinks and pour them in your cup. Remember BM is BYOC event. Ice donations are always appreciated. Hosted by HeeBeeGeeBee Healers Camp @ Earth & 4:30
2ND ANNUAL PALENQUE NORTE LECTURES
Monday-Saturday 4:00pm-6:00pm
Join us for a series of exciting lectures and panel discussions on Shamanism, Ethnobotany, and cutting-edge psychedelic research. Hosted by The Brane Village @ Earth & 7:00
GONZO’S GROOVY COCKTAIL HOUR
Monday-Saturday 4:20pm-6:20pm
Come, relax, bounce around a bit, and find your inner Gonzo… with complimentary cocktail service, but of course! Hosted by Gonzo’s Inner Sanctum @ 9:00 Plaza & 2:00
FRISBEE ON THE PLAYA!
Monday-Saturday 4:20pm-8:00pm
Come on out and get your disc on! Hosted by Doc (From 9:00 & Esplanade look ‘inward’ and ye shall find)
POLY HIGH TEA
Polyamorous, poly-curious, & poly-friendly are invited to join us for tea and cookies and a lively discussion about responsible non-monogamy based on honesty and love. Arrive at 3pm and bring a water donation to enjoy Poly Paradise’s famous Human Carcass Wash. Hosted by PolyParadise within Shangri-La
Here are some of the crazy vehicles out and about on the playa -
Tom: For me, this was the most important day of the Festival. This was the day that The Temple of The Stars was set ablaze. Yesterday, burning The Temple of the Man was a huge, raucous, hellraising, exhibition of all the wildness and energy that this event had collected in one place. The Temple of The Stars was a different matter. The Temple of The Stars was constructed through the collective effort of hundreds if not thousands of people over the course of the week. Each piece of wood placed and nailed by someone had been cut by someone else, the pattern of the cut had been drawn by yet another with the master patterns executed by others still. This is not all that remarkable, it happens daily as houses or any number of buildings are built. What made it remarkable was the fact of all this effort being made for what appears to be a piece of ephemeral art.
To say that it is just a piece for show would be to diminish it’s larger significance, The Temple of the Stars is more than just a temporary artwork. It is full of small personal inclusions, goodbyes mostly: special farewells to deceased loved ones, biers for relationships that are meant to be a last letting go, pyres for ways of being that people hope to leave behind, all bound together in a collective conflagration that will consign these passed moments to the hands of heaven and the stream of time. These consist of collections of photographs, letters, poems, small artworks, small but significant bits of personal ephemera and effects, material representations of time and energy shared and spent that now are to be shed in a mass ceremony of ending. All will be consumed by the fire and even the ashes will disappear in a matter of weeks. It is a clear indication of the shared difficulty that many have with letting go and the depth of feeling and involvement that characterizes most people’s emotional lives. This work of many hands seems extraordinarily beautiful to me.
When the temple was finally set alight there was none of the raucous display of energy that had characterized the burning of The Man. People waited quietly, it was late in getting started. The first flames drew a few whoops and hollers, then there was no sound but the roar of the fire as it spread over the structure. The light and heat grew and intensified until it seemed as bright as day and the heat coming from the fire verged on too painful to be so near even though no one was closer than about one hundred and fifty feet. The flame that at first gilt and glorified the Temple, filling it with light and dancing shadows too soon exacted the price of such awe inspiring beauty. The structure collapsed in upon itself and the flame began to wane. The crowd sat silently for so much longer than I ever would have expected. They watched until almost everything that could burn was consumed. Security relaxed and some folks went to scoop up bits of the still hot ashes. People slowly began to drift away, back to their camps, the esplanade or out into the large, dark, artwork dotted area beyond the remains of the Temple called Deep Space. It was a sad moment but there was a sense of completion.
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