epiphanatic

Posted on 11.04.07 by jstoner @ 11:58 am

I lived. I’m ok. I have a new incision on my head, and a bunch of pretty staples in my shaved scalp. Very Frankenstein. One new wire in my brain. I’m at my parent’s house. My sister drove out from Virginia to be here. They’ve been great.

No, that’s not according to plan. Here’s the rundown:

Our appointment was at 6:30am. Got there at 7 thanks to a no-show cab from American United Cab Service. Got there at all thanks to a cab from Yellow Taxi.

My Zen teacher met us at the hospital. I went in, went through the admissions process. Met the anesthesiologist. After that my memory gets fuzzy.

The first time I ever had a general anesthetic, I was sixteen and getting my appendix out. I remember laying on the operating table and asking ‘when are they going to do the surgery?’ they said ‘It’s done.’

There were some of those moments. Putting the halo on was one. The first MRI was another. I have a few little memories of it, but it’s mostly as though it happened outside my presence.

The surgery itself is pretty clear in my mind. The halo was a troublesome beast, a big metal contraption screwed into my skull in four places. There were some pieces they added later, after they attached me to the table. The neurosurgeon had to pound on it to get one of them in. Somewhere in that timeframe they drilled two holes in my skull. I’m happy to say that part was a non-event.

Turns out my brain is anatomically unusual. I’m sure some of you will not be surprised. The neural activity and response from my body did not match what they expected from the MRI. It took them 10 hours and 8 tries of poking around with the test probe to find an appropriate spot on the left side. They were very careful and thorough.

Each ‘poke’ was a process where someone would slowly crank a straight thin wire down into my brain tissue. As it went in, tenth of a millimeter by tenth of a millimeter, a speaker crackled with neural static. When the static got loud, we would stop the probe, and the neurologist would move and jerk my limbs around, seeming to affect an exaggerated imitation of my normal spastic motions. Sometimes the static would dip in volume, and they would make a note.

It seems like the globus pallidus is an area of the brain where vestibular sensory data is processed with outgoing motor data (perhaps for stability’s sake?) Perhaps my condition is a bad positive feedback loop in the function of that system.

On the way back out, in promising locations, they switched the probe from sense to stimulate. So they would stop along the way and zap me just a bit. One time it gave me a very odd tingle in my left foot, another time, it made my tongue pull to the right. I don’t make much of that–when they tune the signal into your brain, they don’t usually get instant results.

It was 10pm when we were done with the left probe. We were all exhausted. Needless to say, they did not do the right side. I did suffer increasing discomfort as time went on–the anesthesiologist did not prepare me for ten hours of surgery. Nor was it my sense he should have–this was highly unusual.

They closed me up, and I met my mom in the ICU. I learned a lot about what they mean by intensive care. They checked on me frequently through the night. They asked me what my name was, what my birthday was, what day it was (I got to answer Halloween), repeatedly. They gave me different drugs–morphine (not a fun drug–just made me sleepy, and made the pain go away. And made me nauseous), antibiotics, various other stuff.

Over the course of the next day, I went from morphine pain to Tylenol pain. I stayed a second night at the hospital, and the next day went back to solid food.

Now I’m at my parent’s house in Fox River Grove, eating very well, sleeping a lot, watching TV, taking pills and relaxing. I’m feeling well. A little sore, but OK. Had to watch ‘Young Frankenstein’ a couple nights ago. Listening to ‘Girl From Ipanema’ on my dad’s Mac as I type this.

If anything, my dystonia seems a little worse, probably due to the physical inactivity and stress. I’m feeling my hair grow back. Apparently my scalp is innervated from the front: their incision was a long one across the front of my scalp, crossing my hairline in four places. Behind it I’m numb, with strange moments of returning sensation. It’s hard to not feel around up there.

I’m still a little weepy, too–vulnerable to every cheesy manipulative commercial. It’s embarrassing. It’s funny how that stuff manages to get itself expressed. I’m being silly–I probably need to just go cry for a while. I tried to use some of the same things that got me through the tattoo during the surgery… it was hard to repeat.

From here out, it looks like a total of four surgeries, not two. They implanted the left stimulator this Tuesday, and the coming Wednesday, we do the left generator. Then we have to schedule the next two surgeries. They said something like 1-3 months out. January sounds like a good time to do it, after the holidays. After the new year, my employer is switching insurance carriers,which could be a source of leverage.

But yeah, I’m OK. I’m hopeful for good results with this, but I’m just trying to keep my expectations within reason, and take it one step at a time… I love what my dad said about the promise of this surgery, but his memory of me before dystonia is much clearer than mine. I’ve had this thing thirty-three years, and of all the ways I’ve dealt with it, acceptance has probably been the most important part. This is a new approach, but I’m keeping the old one too.

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The return of John

Posted on 11.03.07 by lstoner @ 12:52 pm

John’s visit is always a happy occasion, now more than ever. This trip home even more so because the DBS operation signals a first step on the return to walking without a reeling gait and speaking clearly. I don’t expect the surgeon’s handiwork to restore the abilities of that young “pre-dystonia” lad. Now we know that the realization of hope is something we can enjoy with a greater amount of expectation. Something is going to happen—Something good.

When John was graduating from high school, the affects of his dystonia were apparent. This did not deter the US Marine Corp. recruiting sargeant from dogging his steps, or John from listening to him on the phone. I caught the phone call one time and asked if John had explained his health problems. With an explanation of dystonia, the Marine lost interest. John was put out though because he felt he could make a significant contribution to “The Corp.” He was only satisfied with my actions when I explained that he could not hold a rifle in the regulation way and that all Marines need to shoot. We will never return to those days.

Betty and I have known about John’s bravery since he was a ten-year-old and endured brutal practices called “air studies” and cerebral angiograms and countless needles. We followed his judgment when he let us know he no longer wanted the drugs that interfered with his life or the strange “operations” that had such little promise of success. Judging from the response to the news of the operation on the internet, everyone now agrees with his mother and I. I must admit these are characteristics necessary to make a good Marine.

We are off on a new track now. This involves new trials, new expectations and new hopes. We are thankful for the prayers that brought John safely this far and count on them to bring him through the rest of the way.

Lloyd Stoner (John’s dad)

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the tattoo

Posted on 10.20.07 by jstoner @ 2:28 pm

So, I went into the tattoo parlor unprepared. I had two designs in mind: one Buddha from a photograph, and one image from Steven Lane’s awesome t-shirt design. I didn’t have a clear idea what a tattoo entailed. I figured it would be painful, but I didn’t really think much about it.

I also went in thinking that I couldn’t have tattoos after surgery–it was now or never. Turns out I was wrong. After getting the tattoo and finding out how long it takes to heal–whoops, the whole two weeks until surgery–I contacted Rush. Medtronics manufactures the implant. Rush contacted them, they say tattoos afterwards are OK, but they have guidelines. And I’m fine.

Steve’s design was almost ready to go–had to simplify it some, take out a few elements, but it was cartoony enough to work almost as-is. The Buddha was this photograph. It would have required substantial tweaking to make into a workable tattoo, which would not have happened before the deadline I thought I had.

Matt and I worked out the t-shirt design quickly. He expanded it a bit, he got it transferred onto my back, I got in the chair, and he got to work on me.

At first I thought, that’s not quite so painful. Then I thought, whoa, that hurts more than I was expecting. And it did. For about three hours. Other artists would walk by: ‘That’s a lot of black.’ ‘Is that your first tattoo?’ Yes, I had jumped in the deep end.

It’s interesting to watch what your mind does with that much pain. I mean, it wasn’t agony. I’ve had arthritis flareups three or four times as painful. But the amount of time spent in pain demanded something pretty mindful.

I can’t just sit there biting a bullet for three hours–I don’t think I have that much energy. But it’s the first instinct. You just want to tense up, hold your breath, grit your teeth, think about beating someone up. Resist. I did all that.

After a few moments, I started paying attention to my breath, as my years of meditation have taught me. Which helped a bit.

But then I started giving attention to the pain. Not making anything up about it, just noticing all the details of how it felt as he traced my skin with needles. It started to fill my mind. And I found I could relax into it. Get interested in it. It wasn’t the pain that was so awful, it was the resisting.

That worked for a moment. The trouble was, he would stop. And when he started again, I had to struggle back to a mindful state.

After going through this about fifty times, I looked at something else: what was the source of the resistance? Very simple fear. It was also interesting. It was much more difficult to be with than the pain. I didn’t get as far with it.

One newly-emerging spiritual capacity for me is something I want to call ‘non-discriminating mind.’ Being able to be with what’s happening right now, and appreciate it for what it is. Not to compare it with something else. Pain? OK. No pain? OK. Not that I got there that evening, but I can see it from here. Being that way on a tattoo artist’s table seems possible to me.

My Burning Man experience was the beginning of it. I had a moment of just pure appreciation of what is, being at a particular place and time, and being happy. And not caring about what I may have imagined forty would look like: this unmet goal or that disappointment.

I’m not saying it’s the place to live your whole life from. Preferring pleasure over pain is not such a bad thing. But it’s interesting to be free of that preference. And it’s not the same as not having it.

And…the results? Well, it’s not done at this writing. Though the risks are low, I figure I’m probably better off waiting till late November to finish it. And it doesn’t look bad as it is…

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Connor

Posted on 10.19.07 by jstoner @ 4:00 pm

Connor Anderson, 11 years old, gets his first DBS procedure today in New York. That’s brave. I chickened out on brain surgery when I was about his age. Not a bad idea at the time. Still, way to step up. Go get ‘em Connor.

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the surgery–more details

Posted on 10.17.07 by jstoner @ 8:10 pm

A few things:

First, thank you. The outpouring of response and support as I face this is really beautiful. A little overwhelming, actually. And lots of “whatever you need let me know” offers. Being pathologically independent (like a lot of handicapped folks) it’s a little hard for me to think of what to do with that.

Materially, I think I have it covered. I’ll be staying out at my parent’s place for a few days after both surgeries. Otherwise, all blessings are accepted: prayer, meditation, good thoughts and wishes. Someone wanted to send me healing reiki energy… sounds great.
Fun facts:

If the surgery is successful, I may gain weight. I am forty years old, five foot eight, 135 pounds, and I can eat almost anything I want, and not gain weight. I weight about the same as I did in college. That is (at least in part) due to my condition. Excess muscle tension–that’s what dystonia is–elevates my metabolism. I’ve talked to a few folks who have gained as much as thirty pounds.

Now, I do limit my indulgence: there’s more to a healthy diet than controlling my weight. But this may entail some adjustments. I’ve never had a weight problem before. I hope I can address it more through exercise.

Also, one of the side effects of the surgery is something they call the honeymoon period–brain swelling gives some short term relief from dystonia symptoms. It’s a good sign–means they got close to the right area–but it passes. The lasting results come after the process of adjustment.

I am participating in research. This surgery is not fully approved by the FDA–they call it a ‘humanitarian exemption.’ Meaning insurance does pay for it, but you have to be part of a trial. There are two groups: the experimental group and the control group. Both get the full surgery. For the first three months, they pretend to turn on the control group’s stimulators. After the trial period, they video you, and compare with video they take before the surgery, try to isolate the placebo effect, record the results… oh, and they turn everyone’s stimulators on.

So it’s fifty-fifty: I might get the benefits of surgery right away, or I might have to wait three months. I’m OK with it… it’s for science, after all.

Infection is a whole different animal when you have foreign objects in your body, especially your brain. Especially wires going into your brain through holes in your skull–it’s like a little germ highway. So for example, if I want a tattoo, it’s now or never.

Well, it’s now. The good folks at Chicago Tattoo hooked me up, recommended by a woman named Lauren who had cool–and well done–tattoos. Went with Matt Ziolko. As of this writing, it’s not done, but I’ll post pics when it’s ready. The experience is a whole post unto itself.

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star turn: my CBF profile

Posted on 10.09.07 by jstoner @ 10:44 pm

I modeled for some promotional materials for the Chicago Bike Federation, and wrote a little piece for their site. This was edited a fair amount, but it came out fine. I’m happy to support CBF.

Filed under: Chicago and bike and life
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under the drill

Posted on 09.30.07 by jstoner @ 11:00 pm

[Context: I have a condition called muscular dystonia. This post is mostly for people who know me, and would care. For the rest, I will post my specifics soon. In the meantime, this is a general description.]

Burning Man, Buddhism, and now brain surgery. It’s been a pretty eventful few months. And it’s not over.

October ~~5th~~ ~~16th~~ 30th I go under the drill. [10/6 clarification: it's been postponed twice.] Two holes, two wires, deep into my brain. Thus the name: deep brain stimulation, or DBS. Then a second surgery the ~~24th~~ 7th of November, to implant and connect pacemaker devices–stimulators that will send a microcurrent into said brain, specifically, my globus pallidii.

It’s a big step, and like the other two, a long time coming:

I’ve tried all the drugs, and none of them add more than the side effects subtract;
I’m getting older, I’ve been walking funny a long time now, and my right knee and hip are starting to suffer. It’s not bad. Yet. I can see the direction it’s going;
I’ve considered brain surgery before–when I was a kid, they would lesion your thalamus with liquid nitrogen. Maybe it helped, maybe not. Maybe you lost the ability to speak. Primitive operations with advanced technology. They still don’t quite know what they’re doing, but they know a whole lot more than they used to. The comparative sense is reassuring, whether that makes sense or not;
The risks are low. I’m in good health: when I saw Dr. Bakay, my blood pressure was 100/58. It’s even reversible, and you can turn it off if it messes you up;
Dr Verhagen, the movement disorder specialist, and Dr Bakay, the neurosurgeon, seem highly confident they can do me some good. Dr Shannon, my regular MDS, says I’m a good candidate–people with my profile do well with DBS;
I have the necessary employment factors: full insurance, and supportive management;
I’m a person who has been skydiving, bungee jumping… just got back from Burning Man, excited to go next year… not that none of that scared me, or that I’m unfamiliar with the paralysis of fear, but some of it is my personality;
I’ve found a couple helpful online communities–DBSforDystonia@yahoogroups.com is a great bunch, lots of folks who’ve been through the exact same thing I’m doing.
I’ve tried for a long time to rationalize my fears–not so much to eliminate them, but to move my sense of fear beyond the instinctive response. It’s an educational process, including object lessons (skydiving) and also meditative practice. I suppose it’s been a somewhat coincidental process, but it’s helped me prepare for this moment.

Overall, the technology has improved (slowly) and my dystonia has worsened (slowly) and I’ve aged (slowly) and the lines are converging at a point where it makes sense to do this.

These are my two biggest concerns:

There’s a good chance it will help, and a not so small chance it won’t. I do have some of the best doctors in the world. But no one’s batting a thousand.
There is maintenance for this system. It requires new batteries every couple years. Yes, minor surgery, they open you up, pop out old batteries, and pop in new, all outpatient. Given my general pessimism about the state of the world, I can imagine a lot of scenarios where that replacement could be hard to obtain. That whole hell in a handbasket thing could make this more difficult. But this could help too. It’s certainly lower maintenance than botox.

I have other concerns, but they’re all pretty minor. The surgery is, well, riskier than skydiving, but safer than getting hit by a car, and I’ve done both more than once. The total statistical risk of death is one percent, and most of that is for patients older and sicker than I. And there are increased risks around infection. And electromagnetic fields–no MRI around my stimulators. I wonder what EMP would do.

It doesn’t sound like fun, but at least it’s interesting: you stay awake while they implant the wires, so they can ask questions while they poke around.

It’s actually an interesting procedure:

You arrive at about 5 am. They mount a frame on your skull, under local anesthetic, which they will screw to the table during surgery. This keeps you from moving, and gives the doctors a frame of reference while they’re poking around in there;
They MRI you, with the frame on. That way the frame’s position is in the data with the rest of your brain data;
They evaluate where they should put the wires;
They dump the MRI data to a program that plots a range of safe paths through your brain. They mostly want to avoid sticking an artery. Which is good, because I wasn’t planning on a stroke at this point;
They bolt you to the operating table, give you more local anesthetic, drill a hole in your head (bzzzzzzz! Yes, while you’re awake) and start poking around on one side. They’ll start with the right side of my brain, since the left side of my body is most afflicted–that whole opposite side brain control thing;
First they go in with a test electrode, zapping around (in a very specific area) to see if they get a good response in relevant parts of the body;
When they figure out a responsive spot, they put in the permanent electrodes, mount them to your skull (don’t want those buggers to move), and close you up;
If all went well, they repeat on the other side;
You spend the night in the ICU, and in the morning you go home.

Then, the following Wednesday, they implant the stimulators. They put them under your collarbone, and they run wires under your skin up your neck behind your ears, to the top of your head, where they connect with the wires in your brain. It’s supposed to be the more physically traumatic procedure.

That, of course, is just the beginning. After you’re a little better, they start programming the stimulators. Which takes six months to two years of experimentation. And lots of ups and downs–a setting helps, then some of the improvement goes away, then they make a new adjustment. It sounds like a long ‘three steps forward, two steps back’ process.

But it also sounds really promising. I’m kind of excited.

Updates will be posted here as events progress.

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Cloud Gate

Posted on 09.22.07 by jstoner @ 10:25 pm

Made it official: I am now a Buddhist. Not just philosophically, but with a teacher, and a lineage, and a dharma name, and everything.

John Cloud Gate Stoner. I asked for an English dharma name, just because I like the idea of participating in the larger encounter of Buddhism with the West, and I thought it would be appropriately symbolic. As Buddhism has moved from India, to China, to Japan, and other places, it has changed those cultures, and in turn been changed.

That’s what makes being a Buddhist now so exciting: the substance of that process is working itself out in this moment in the West. We are seeing new ideas emerge, spiritual innovations like Big Mind, the integral stuff, and so forth.

That’s not the whole reason I did it, but it’s one reason. Mostly I just wanted to put myself on a path of spiritual mastery in a committed way.

When I got home from the ceremony, one of my neighbors said he would have to start calling me ‘Bean.’ Cloud Gate is also the official name of ‘The Bean,‘ the sculpture in Millennium Park here in Chicago. We had a good laugh.

When he gave me the name, my teacher did not have that in mind. In the ceremony, called jukai, he spoke at length on the significance of the name. My memory is not clear, but here’s how I’d say it:

In Zen, clouds are symbolic of reality, or manifestation. They are boundaryless: it’s hard to say where they begin and end. They arise as a result of unseen processes. And they lack solidity; there is nothing to cling to in a cloud. So the world is.

Gates are also symbolic of awakening, or a choice to awaken. In the bodhisattva vow, we say ‘Dharma gates are boundless; I vow to open them.’ So at every moment we are faced with the choice to open the gate or not, and in taking the Bodhisattva Vow I am committed to opening it at every moment.

So a cloud gate would be a gate of formless form, leading continually into awakening. Well, that’s about the best I can do with it now. Perhaps Joshin will post to the comments.

Filed under: spirit
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Burning Man gear

Posted on 09.19.07 by jstoner @ 9:46 pm

This part of my Burning Man report just didn’t fit with the rest of what I had to say, but I still wanna say it:

I’ve been camping three times in my life, including Burning Man. The thought I had was: ‘I may overcompensate. That’s OK.’ So I took just about every recommendation I got, and I managed pretty well.

The bike: the playa hates bikes. The dust gets in everything, and I mean everything. I didn’t ride much, but by Wednesday my bottom bracket was creaking, and on Friday it seized. My bike had a cool ‘Ganesha loves you’ sticker from my friend Srini, and Sunday someone said I should invoke Ganesh–he is the remover of obstacles, after all. So I picked up the bike and it rode fine.

Still, one lesson: don’t bring a good bike to the playa, but don’t bring the crappiest bike you can find. A neighbor at the coop had a bike she never rode, an ancient Free Spirit, and she gave it to me. Think of a bike as something you use up, like soap. You don’t want to run out of bike.

And another: make sure your bike is in good shape before you go. You can get help, but it’s better to deal with problems before you go, not once you get there.

One other lesson: maybe Ganesha really does love me.

I didn’t see as much as I wanted, I didn’t meet up with as many people as I wanted. I had a great time anyway.

The sunblock: This Neutrogena stuff is the bomb. I came back almost as lilly-white as I left. I have skin cancer in the family, so i don’t mess around with the sun. It’s also broad spectrum, which is a big deal, especially for those of us of excessively Caucasian persuasion.

The clothes: This was about as arty as I got. My friend Crystal decided not to go this year, but she helped me a great deal, just knowing what to bring. She made a couple brightly colored sarongs, which doubled as sashes and headscarves. She took a pair of gymshoes I never wear and turned them into these awesome leopard kicks. Check out the flaming shoelaces. A huge hit–everybody loved them.

The biggest compliment on the shoes was from 1-Luv, the girl who managed the Biodiesel Bus from the airport. She asked to see a show of hands who was a Burner virgin. I raised mine, and she gave me a puzzled look: ‘Those are not virgin shoes.’

The bag: Isaac of Chicagowig makes awesome messenger bags. Sam at the coop has one. I wanted one, and Burning Man was a good excuse to make the purchase. This is the bag. Well, was before impregnation with playa dust.

Great bag to carry stuff in. Great bag to ride in. I love the bag. Not such a great bag to live in: kinda heavy, especially with a full Camelbak. You gotta have your water with you at all times at Burning Man, and attaching it to a heavy bag didn’t work so well for me.

Nonetheless, I hope to get many years of solid use out of it.

The camera: This was the cheapest digital camera I could find, and it took great pictures. Crappy viewfinder, but I’m happy with how things turned out.

The shaving mug: I shave with a mug and brush and solid soap anyway. Coincidentally, this method uses very little water. Great way to reduce gray water.

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Back from the Burn

Posted on 09.16.07 by jstoner @ 7:59 pm

I went to Burning Man this year. I survived. I had a lot of fun. Had some deep, life-changing experiences. I got home.

I went looking for more than a party. Something ill-defined, including a party, but more. Spiritual experiences. Creative and participative opportunities. Interesting people and art. Beautiful women. Found pretty much all that. No sex, no drugs, at least for me. Some things went very well, some not so much. But it was quite fulfilling.

My pictures are here.

My camp

Entheon Village is a big camp, about 400 people this year. The focus included green sustainability themes and a strong spiritual focus: the name means ‘a place to discover the spirit within.’ There were seminars, there were temples–a goddess temple and a zendo, there was visionary art, there were big parties with dj’s, there were people whose vision of spirituality was generally congruent with mine, people focused in different directions than I, and people I could quarrel with in small ways or simply enjoy their company. I generally chose the latter.

There were a lot of people engaged in shamanic or subtle-energy focused practices. Lots of art informed by various psychedelics. I met some folks who–shall we say–were exploring various states of mind. It was very interesting just to be with them.

I didn’t partake myself: I am looking seriously at having brain surgery soon. Didn’t think it was a good time to be messing with my brain in new ways. More about that in future posts.

I had some very intimate experiences, not sexual, just a relaxation of personal boundaries, interpersonal compassionate openings… difficult to describe in a satisfying way. With people under various influences, and not. Really beautiful to experience in a safe space. Entheon was like that, intimate, supportive, open. Lots of people who could just be loving without qualification or expectation.

Great people

Broadly, the mood at Burning Man was like that, a permeating sense of deep generosity. I think the gift economy aspect of the event creates that, a really welcoming atmosphere. As well as people who would do that in the first place.

One guy I met, Eddie Ray Watts, had this great sculpture project out on the playa, a beanstalk from the Jack and the Beanstalk legend. I took a few pictures of it, here’s one:

Eddie is a biochemist at Vanderbilt (I think?) working on some really cool combinatorial recombinant DNA stuff. Basically he’s developing techniques to produce protein varieties by the trillions, and test them against proteins that occur naturally in the body, trying to turn them on or off, thereby treating disease conditions. Expanding on current techniques, and reducing their cost.

And he makes this really cool art with his friends. I came up just as they were finishing and joined them at their camp for a beer. Very cool people. Lots of interesting cool people like that at Burning Man.

Attitude adjustment

I confronted the participative culture of Burning Man early. Entheon had a truck going out to Burning Man from Chicago. I requested a spot for some of my things, my tent, rebar, some clothes, and so forth. As the burn approached, I didn’t hear back about places and times to load stuff and so forth. I got concerned.

At this point, I had met the Entheon Chicago crew. Entheon is run out of Chicago, though it’s mostly people from all over the world. In particular I had met Koko, the guy running logistics. Koko is a great guy, and an odd combination of things. Very down-to-earth. Vegan. Makes his own clothes. Has a commanding presence, like a general on the battlefield. Long blond dreadlocks. Manages a lot of the Entheon operations.

Anyway, I was in the middle of a bitchy email to Koko and the relevant players, when I realized, ‘This isn’t really how I want to approach going to Burning Man, is it?’ Not to mention how that would go over with Koko. So instead, I started to ask, ‘Where can I help?’ Not that I could do much at that point. But it was my first point of real engagement with the spirit of the event. It was my camp too. Failures were mine too.

And that did carry through. I needed help with things–getting set up with my tent and stuff–and got it. They needed help, working in the kitchen, handling some positions–I stepped up. I brought some extra stuff–more rebar than I needed, an extra tent. I made it available. Because of my condition, my neck pulls my head down, so naturally I found moop. I picked it up. I did not rise to major player status in a 400 person camp, but I got in the spirit and pitched in.

I’d say the first burn was about getting a sense of what it’s like, and what you can accomplish in that environment. The second time, I’ll have to be more ambitious. I’m already getting ideas: shopping for hand-cranked ice-cream machines on ebay, plotting how to bike-power them, buying interesting toys on Sparkfun… my mind is racing.

While I met and worked with lots of people including Koko, I also have to call out the invaluable assistance of Kyle, who did most of the work setting up my tent. Kyle was creative, experienced, and resourceful, and set me up with a much more comfortable arrangement than I would have made by myself. Pepper, who was very busy managing electricity for Entheon–and dealing with exhaustion–took time out to make sure I got my camp properly broken down and shipped back to Chicago the night I left. Good help from good new friends.

And Crystal–totally, thank you for all your support, advice, artistic help, and friendship… you made the experience so much better, and the preparation so much more fun.

The defining moment

As great as the entire week was, I have to say the pinnacle was the first night. There was a full lunar eclipse, and the moon turned red, and the night sky lit up in a way I don’t get to see in Chicago. I lay on my back for a long time, looking at the Milky Way, thankful for this life. Like, in tears, no joke.

I went to Burning Man to mark the passage of turning forty. The experience was like the opposite of a midlife crisis: call it a midlife epiphany. I mean, life isn’t perfect right now, but it’s very, very good. I have a lot to be thankful for. I have a great family, good friends, a decent job, a lot of good things going on, and a lot of opportunities to help and support others. I’m starting to see the fruits of regular spiritual practice. Spiritually, intellectually, and emotionally, I’m in a very good place.

I can honestly say, I closed the distance in my mind between a party and a spiritual experience. The word that came to mind was ‘ananda,’ from the Sanskrit meaning a deep sense of spiritual bliss, beyond ordinary happiness.

Premature eburnulation

While I was having my epiphany, Paul Addis was allegedly burning the Man early. I couldn’t see it from where I was, and I’m glad. I was busy with something more important.

In and of itself, it was a great prank, or stupid and dangerous, depending on the facts as they emerge. I’m not that interested. I think he’ll get an aggressive prosecution, and an aggressive defense, and he’ll probably be dealt with fairly. He’s a lawyer himself, so he should be able to handle his situation.

I don’t think much of the point he was making. I’ve only been to Burning Man once, and I’m already bored of the chorus of old-timers protesting that ‘It’s just not the same,’ ‘Larry Harvey is an asshole,’ blah blah blah.

I want to say this with all due respect for those who have gone before, and full appreciation of some who were a great deal of help to me personally: This refrain is an ineffectual complaint. It doesn’t make any difference to the situation as it exists.

There’s some idea that Burning Man is turning into Disney: the participative culture is dying. It’s a spectator event.

I can’t speak at all to the Burning Man organizational issues Paul talked about. But I can see this much: it’s harder to provide participative openings as things scale up. Watch the current tv video of the Piano Trebuchet or the erection of the Crude Awakening oil derrick. I love it, but the scale of this stuff makes it hard to imagine participating. How do I pitch in when you’re setting up a 100 foot tower? How do I engage with that as art? It takes a bit more imagination: do I climb it, do I critique it, do I meditate upon it, do I draw pictures, do I have serious conversations with the artists…?

Or do I just look at it, dumbfounded at its mass, as it rises, stands, or bursts into flame? And how does an environment dominated by art like that invite or repel my own artistic aspirations? Am i inspired, or subtly intimidated?

I can see that there’s a problem, perhaps in the environment created now, perhaps in my response, and the responses I saw. Maybe there is a bad dynamic, suppressing the spirit that once was.

Here’s the thing: calling Burning Man ‘Disney’ does nothing to solve that or any problem or engage anything in a skillful way. Burning the Man early just invited more of the spectation that Paul wanted to criticize, and proliferated gossip, which is, again, rife with spectation. Truly creative gossip is fun, but rare. (Wish I’d thought of it when I was there: ‘Paul Addis and Larry Harvey were lovers and had a falling out…’) Trust me, it was not the wake-up call Paul had in mind.

Here’s one idea: organize a large number of novice artists, and display their work in a special collection on the playa. You could even create an online community for collaboration among different novice artists and projects. Maybe the Black Rock Arts Foundation could contribute small grants. Or not, maybe have some other financial base, or just let the artists raise their own funds. Maybe some of it will be less interesting, but it will get people engaged in making art.

Another idea: organize artists to design art to welcome and accommodate graffiti. You could establish some visual symbol that said ‘tag me.’

That’s just off the top of my head. There have got to be a million better responses than moaning about how much better it used to be. Ways to invite and engage people even as the event expands. Think, people.

Here’s another issue raised: as you scale up, there are new dynamics that come into play. It’s harder to be anarchic in a city of 40,000 than a group of 400.

I don’t have as useful a response to that as the other issue. I also come from a different value system from a lot of burners: I don’t have an issue with authority. I have an issue with authority misused or unfairly granted, but of itself it simply is. It has its time and place. I’m not an anarchist. I like my dad. And as I said, I don’t have any sense at all of the BMOrg issues. Maybe someone out there can pick that one apart better than I.

The bottom line is this: I don’t care how much better it used to be. I don’t give a shit about BMOrg politics. I care first and foremost about my own participation, and what I contributed (and will contribute next year) to the experience of others. The rest, to me, is secondary. And if Burning Man helps me deepen and broaden that spirit in my life, I call that success.

Filed under: life and spirit
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