Dust devil [Black Rock City, Burning Man 2005] Canon EOS 20D w/28-135mm IS Zoom

Home from the playa safe and sound, suntanned, and still wearing playa dust.

This was Keegan's first burn, and he's a natural. He got a job at the Post Office as a disgruntled postal worker, and got up in the mornings hours before the rest of us and went to his job, where he was rewarded with lots of schwag. He also lit up a fire staff for the first time. Kalea, now a four-year Burning Man veteran, showed her brother the ropes, took a lot of photos, and lit up fire poi for the first time. She's totally at home on the playa. Michael made friends with the guys over at REMSA with a medical scare (he's ok though) and DJ'd on an art car. I lit up my fire hoop several times, and now I think I have a new addiction. Playing with fire is fun! I also had a good year for playa photography, and hopefully it won't take me too long to get them posted.

Overall, 2005 was an amazing Burning Man. The weather was wonderful. Although we arrived during the tail end of a dust storm on monday night (a day and a half late due to mechanical trouble before and during the drive), the rest of the week was mild for the playa, and less dusty than the past couple of years. What was truly amazing this year, though, was the art. There was way more art than I remember in the past few years, and so much of it was enormous and awesome. Hopefully some of my photos will do it justice.

Every year while I'm on the playa I think about how any sort of disaster could happen while we're on the Black Rock Desert and we might not even know until we got back into cell-phone range. This year that was nearly true. Late in the week, reports started coming into the city that New Orleans was destroyed by floods from breaks in the levee. I don't think anyone in Black Rock could really have grasped the magnitude of what happened, as the word trickled in slowly, the counts of the wounded and injured were low, and we had no access to media images. By sunday, though, word was around, and there were donation jars filling up in the Center Camp Cafe. Monday, my dear friend Jay finally spoke to his parents, who still live in New Orleans, Jay's hometown. So far his immediate family are alive, but everything they had is destroyed. My thoughts go out to Jay and his family, and to all who have been impacted by this disaster.

The other bit of news to reach us on the playa was the death of Chief Justice Rehnquist. Of course, to most residents of Black Rock City, this is also a tragedy, as no one wants another seat on the Supreme Court to go to a Bushie.

Burning Man is a place of such beauty, joy, and hope. It renews my spirit and reminds me to celebrate, experience, and wonder. Recent years have brought a lot of tragedy into the lives of people all over the world, and I'm grateful that amidst the turmoil there exists such magic. I hope that the magic has greater meaning and purpose, that it's a symbol of an uprising movement that has impact. I'd like to think it does. The world today troubles me too deeply to not seek out such threads of hope.