EternalSunrise.org

“Can I have a light?” the dreadlocked girl half-jokingly asked, bending her cigarette towards the torch held by a man in a t-shirt with a yogic phrase in Tibetan. Behind her swarmed 150 torch-bearing people in the early evening darkness, encircling the latticework wooden structure in preparation for the Burn.

The bride and groom, hand-in-hand and in their third outfits of the night (the first of which had been sewn by one of my friends and apparently didn’t allow the groom to wear underwear), led the moment of silence as the fire marshals – wet blankets at the ready – patrolled the crowd. And then the drums began, the lights from the DJ area flashed, and everyone rushed towards the 30-ft. tall “A Return To The Heart: A Fire Effigy Celebrating Love And Compassion.” Some paused to light the hanging Chinese lanterns on fire, while others, such as my friend Nora and myself, pitched ours in pell-mell, standing back as the whoosh of fire overpowered the drumming. Flames streaking towards the sky in a roar, the heat dramatically increased and the wedding guests were encouraged to retreat behind the circle of flagpoles; these marked the safe zone from which the heat wouldn’t harm. Transfixed by the fire, everyone cheered as the top of the structure fell piece by piece. As the temperature dropped the dancers began.

There was the short-haired girl with unshaven armpits and a hula hoop; the young mother with dreadlocks down to her ankles, who kept them tied up in an enormous bun as she led her 5-yr-old in a wild dance; the man in leather pants who approached the fire, arms outstretched in prayer to commune with the spirit of the flames; the woman in Native American attire, a solitary 12-inch earring of feathers whirling around her head as she danced an a transport of ecstasy to the beat of the drums, drums, drums.

Family members, notable for their straight-laced clothing, gorged on chocolate fondue as I wondered what the Devin and Liz’s parents thought of their children, their children’s friends, their lifestyle; and wondered in turn what my parents would think if I held a reception like this.

But thoughts were banished as the firedancers began to spin. Four at a time, then six, then eight, they would spin until their flames were extinguished or they grew tired, walking to the edge of the circle to have the ends of their ropes smothered with water-soaked blankets the fire marshals had charge of. Each arm in a different rhythm, the dancers would slowly turn in circles or walk towards friends to discuss technique or show new skills. Two of them joined up: back-to-back, one bent forward as the other leaned backwards, supported by his friend, both spinning circles closer and closer to their faces. The highlight was the hula hoop spinner. Lighting 10 rods sticking out from an oversized hoop, she began around her waist, moving to her shoulder, her neck, her knees, turning in slow circles as she spun…and spun…and spun. And never got burned.

Wrapped in a blanket with Nora, the mesmerizing flames lulled me to sleep until she roused me enough to stumble down the moonlit path to our campsite, the Hookah Camp, and into our miniscule pop-up tent. I awoke briefly when two guys said my name in a stage whisper: it was Ricky, the photographer in leather chaps we’d eaten dinner with, and Andres, the Columbian jewelry designer, wanting to get the camera Ricky had inexplicably left in our tent. Falling into a restless sleep punctuated by Nora moaning in her dreams, sleeping diagonally, and stealing my pillow, and the unfounded suspicion that I couldn’t possibly still be laying on the mat, I could so vividly feel the grass stems through the bottom of the tent, I awoke at the ungodly hour of seven p.m., the generator for the DJ setup allowing eerie psytrance -- full of wails and drums -- to echo over the half-dozen campsites scattered throughout the tall grass and shrubs of the field. Nora and I took a walk, whispering as we passed people sleeping in their tents large and small, and returned for a restful sleep in our baby tent. The sun eventually beginning to bake us alive, we awoke for real as Andres joyfully bid us good morning in his Columbian accent as he blew up an inflatable pool chair, inquiring if we wanted to go to the beach on Lake Michigan later.

We had to return to Chicago with our horridly inept random carpool person, Craig, but first we needed breakfast. There was yerba mate, the caffeine-filled South American drink I’d read about but never tried, and there was the chai and the almond and vanilla soy milk; over in the food area were unnamed balls of spicy dark almond paste mixed with indefinable ingredients, a hot potato-and-spinach salad, and delicious cold potato salad left over from the bounteous spread of the night before, which I had gorged on. Having attended a vegan wedding in the past, I was trepidatious that the food would consist of lukewarm pasta, but was so taken with the varied fare that I had seconds.

Nora and I found our way to one of the dozens of round tables under the trees, joining a skinny ponytailed guy and a large woman with spirals shaved into her head, her remaining hair bleached blonde at the tips and spiked, and sporting her just-a-wee-bit-too-small faux-snakeskin vinyl outfit from the night before.

“One of the reasons I like psytrance instead of goa is because I have better flow,” said the guy, explaining he had recently learned to spin with a different rhythm in each hand. “Have you ever inhaled fire?” asked the woman. “It changes your whole experience…”

Nora and I exchanged glances; our friends back home would never say something like that. But who were we to say that our conversations wouldn’t sound as impenetrable and weird to a Burner? And certainly they were very nice, something I remembered one of my alternative-minded friends (with her fair share of purple-and-black hair and tattoos) telling me once. “The more tattoos and piercings a person has, the nicer they usually are.” When the guy left the strange woman turned to us, introducing herself as Isa and telling us we could call her “Yo Bitch” if we forgot it, explaining she was originally from New York and remarking that no one else at the wedding would call someone a bitch. This was true; gentleness pervaded everyone’s interactions. While there was a high level of energy, no one swore the entire weekend.

In fact, people were nothing if not kind. The night before I was admiring the hotness of the guys at the bar area. (For some reason, Nora and I decided hippie types tend to attract majorly hot men and not-as-hot women that the men like for their personalities and not looks. This is anathema to how we, in our enclaves of superficiality in Wicker Park and Lincoln Park, relate to strangers in daily life.) Two of them conversed in a language I didn’t know. “What was that?” I asked the one sporting a sideways cap, a shirt ironically proclaiming him to be ‘DRUG FREE,’ and a plastic cow toy hanging from his neck by a neon-colored plastic bead necklace. “Hebrew,” the guy replied, “We were blessing the wine.” He went on to explain he is a tai chi instructor and yogi, showing me right then a small breathing exercise I could do to release the tension. “You have such good energy,” he kept telling me, “I can feel what great energy you have.” My new friend Perry came up. “Isn’t she hot?” the yogi asked. Of course I basked in the attention.

Perry, a middle-aged and portly man, was wearing a sarong most of Saturday night as he played bartender before the burn. When Nora and I got to talking he told us he recognized our voices, explaining he was in the tent next to us. When we profusely apologized, saying we hadn’t realized anyone was taking a nap as we set up, he said not to worry. “The girl in the tent on the other side of me, though… She invited two guys into her tent to help her ‘change.’ Let’s just say they got a little loud.” We giggled, silly at having had several drinks on an empty stomach as we waited for dinner to be served an hour late.

Luckily there were activities. Beneath the huge oak tree hung a huge swathes of white fabric, lights, and swing, on which children would occasionally swoop dangerously close to people’s heads during dinner until a parent tied it too high for them to climb onto. On another tree was fabric for silk climbing. Armed with one trapeze/silk climbing class under her belt, along with years of dancing experience and a muscular frame, Nora pulled herself to the top of the 20-ft. fabric, wrapping her feet around to slide graciously down. Two teenage gymnasts were next, swarming like monkeys up the rope in seconds and hanging upside down by one foot, their parents remarking how much nicer it would be to have a mat underneath. But what I shone at was the hula hooping. Someone had made the hula hoops, of which there were half a dozen under yet another tree. Hula hooping is in my blood: my aunt won the 1957 Illinois Grand Championship Hula Tournament, or something like that (and still has the trophy to prove it). I was able to effortlessly hula for a good five minutes without pause, eventually turning in circles and walking a bit as I tried to copy the more advanced hoopers. Nora and our friend Geoff weren’t quite as successful, but just having Geoff using a hula hoop made the entire trip to Michigan worth it.

I forget who it was that mentioned he was there, but when Nora and I found out we were intent on finding him. Part of our theatre group in college, Geoff lives in an alternate universe in Chicago. He will occasionally run into our theatre friend Rory, and I saw him at his apartment once in February when I went on a date with his roommate (another theatre person); but neither Nora nor I had actually run into him in the three years we’ve all lived here. Of course it made sense he was at the wedding, since he was roommates with the groom, Devin, in college, but seeing him -- the square software engineer -- surrounded by crunchy burners and using a hula hoop, made us inordinately pleased. He remains an enigma to us; genuinely interesting to talk to, he never emotes or initiates, yet when we were saying goodbye on Sunday he told us we should “give me a call or stop by sometime.” Oh, what a small world Chicago is, as the wedding proved over and over again:

I knew my friend Samarantha’s ex-boyfriend, neo-cyber-gothic fashion designer Flux, would be in attendance, seeing as the bride is one of his customers. Arriving on Saturday, loaded with sleeping bags and boxed wine and in a foul frame of mind over the ineptness of our carpooler’s nonexistent driving skills, Flux came racing towards us in a golf cart and insisted we hop on immediately so he could take us to one of the cooler camps. Throughout the time we’d say hello and I’d meet a new person, such as his pal Nohipcrocon or Xhusakaco or some made-up multi-syllabic tongue-twister, or his golf cart co-pilot/Best Man who’d flown in from being a snowboard/ski bum in Colorado -- and who kept mentioning to me and Nora that he didn’t want to eat too much at dinner because then he’d be nauseous when he did acid later. Ricky the photographer from dinner turned out to be the guy who shoots Flux’s designs for his website, and I later discovered on MySpace that he knows Bakari, a guy I’d met at an advertising exec party months ago with my roommate and her boyfriend. Then just as we were about to leave we saw Travis, the bike messenger god/author, whom I’d first met six years ago at a birthday party of Sam’s and who apparently knows everyone in the city, even Craig the carpooler. So goes Chicago. So goes life.

After our potato-heavy lunch, and a futile session of pleading with Craig to relinquish the car keys in favor of Nora, who actually knows how to drive, we left the organic farm for the “assembly line” of Indiana and the “elevator” of Illinois, as Travis told us to remember the highways are. While I wished there had been a moment memorializing the fact Devin and Liz were now united in holy matrimony (or whatever they chose to call it), the fire effigy was an experience I’ll not soon forget. I’ve always been intrigued by Burning Man, and to be surrounded by people who make the annual pilgrimage for 10 or 11 days made me realize that yes, I could go. Perhaps not for longer than a weekend at first, but knowing now the conviviality and generosity of spirit that is encapsulated in the kind of people who are attracted to spinning fire and drum circles, I am confident it would be a life-changing experience—for the better. Even this was, in a small way. I thought I’d know no one, thought we’d be outsiders the entire weekend, but we weren’t. By virtue of being there, we were accepted into a community about which we knew nothing, and I emerged with an indefinable sense of pleasure at that fact.

Now if only Devin and Liz will annually renew their vows…