Invocation

This past August I made my first trip to the Playa. This is the familiar and affectionate term used by attendees of Burning Man to refer to their home away from home.


The whole trip was deeply spiritual. An effigy of a man is the hub of the space, a center in nothing, the middle of desert expanse. He is burned on the final Saturday night. There are fireworks, there is screaming, drums, dancing. Firespinners spin. When the man burns there is chaos. 


There is also a temple built each year. It is a reflective place where people leave their pain, loss and grief to be consumed by the flames. The Temple burns on Sunday night. People are transfixed. This year it was called the Temple of Transition. There is total silence when the Temple burns. Total.


The burn hollows us out, relieves us of wooden weight. We then re-create.


I wrote a poem for a Rite of Passage taken by the women I camped with this year. The poem was a gift I received a few weeks before I left LA for the Playa. It was a moonlit night. From a quiet space, it welled up. 


I share it here as a reminder of the strength and beauty that inspires us to be wholly who we are, newly who we are, wherever we are: gifts, on and off the Playa. 

The Temple of Transition, Tuesday.

Invocation:


We come to the verge, where earth and ocean meet

With the support of our sisters

Beautiful women, all

We invoke the strength of these elements

That hold and embolden us

As we be in the world

Beautiful women, all

This beach

shows no footprints

Not because no one has come before

But as testament to the power

Of the earth,

The air

The water

to hold, absorb, transform

every gesture we make

beautiful women, all

Under the moon and the stars, we close our eyes

Stars bright as a sun, or dim and distant

We turn inwards

And with a vertical gaze

Sense the stillness

Hear the quiet

And be held in the calm darkness

Inside us

Beautiful women, all

We invoke the earth

The air

The water

The safety and strength of what creates us

these elements that hold us

Beautiful women, all

We turn inwards,

Safe to gaze at all that’s inside

With the support of our sisters

The sun moon and stars

We are curious observers

Of the marvels of our selves.

We explore.

Follow the footprints, our traces on this earth:

We acknowledge, we honor, we clearly see

what we’ve done

Who we’ve been

What we’ve created

We discover, in the light of these stars, our sisters

So we can offer it all

To who we are becoming

The best we keep, the rest we release

We invoke the power of

Earth and ocean

It’s immersion, conversion, transmutation, transformation

And humbly seat ourselves

Before ourselves

Before one another

Beautiful women, all

In stillness, peace and trust

For all that we become.
Beautiful women, all.

The Temple of Transition, Sunday.