Burning Man 2008 mushroom trip - part 2

Continued from Part 1...


I left the center camp plaza via Bonneville Road, the second concentric-ring street.  It was absolutely white around me and with no visibility, I could barely navigate, hugging the side of the road, marked by occasional vehicles, and camp structures.

At the next intersection, I decided to head up the radial spoke towards the Man, thinking it might be easier to see where to go with the large theme camps to my right.  Stumbling along, I happened to kick over a solar lantern that was sitting along the road, marking the boundary of someone's camp.  At first, I thought to walk on, but then I figured I might as well be polite and set the lantern back up.  Squatting down to do this, I had a hard time seeing, but I found its base was broken and would not be set back up easily.

Someone from the camp saw me struggling with it and invited me in, telling me it was already broken and not to worry about it..  They brought me into their bar, and offered me a shot of saki, which I refused, quoting Woody Allen, "My body will not tolerate that."

I was feeling the initial effects of the mushrooms strongly by then: dizziness, nausea, nervous tension.  They invited me to sit in a reclining camp chair, which was just what I needed.  I was able to relax and enter fully into the trip.  This was when I witnessed the absolute strangest, most alien things I've ever encountered.  It was not all pleasant; quite a bit of it was rather scary, but I was along for the ride, and there was really no way to abort the mission.

I retained a vivid memory of some of the visions that appeared.  I recalled them later like glimpses from a dream, which, back at home, I sketched out in pencil, and later rendered in watercolors, shown below.

One of them was of a strange tentacled creature with what looked like a television screen embedded in its torso.  My mind interpreted this as a genetically-engineered creature from a bleak future-world,  whose purpose was to project shows in its belly-screen for the entertainment of the kids, and doubled as a pet of sorts.  The screen would display scenes of the distant past, showing animals as they used to exist, before they all became extinct or genetically modified.

Another one was a giant twisted-up tree which was split into three parts length-wise along the trunk, with curling branches and vines connecting it all together in a mass.  All along the tree's branches, goblins, elves, fairies, nymphs, or "tree spirits" moved, cycling around and around, dancing and cavorting in a frenzy.  They seemed to be celebrating their sheer existence, but at the same time just going about their daily living.  This seemed to be a free-standing world of its own, not a product of my imagination. 

The last one I remember was a vision of being inside of a large cylinder.  Along the curved walls of the cylinder were countless tiles with animated faces, all expressing some negative emotion: fear, anger, sadness, numbness, confusion, suspicion, etc.  Each tile seemed to be a different color, the "hue" of the emotion being expressed, and fit into this cylindrical matrix.  I empathized with all these beings, each caught and trapped in its respective emotion.  I wondered where the happiness might be in this scheme, this odd free-standing symbolic world, and then, on cue, my consciousness shifted to look down toward the end of the cylinder.  There, at the end-cap of the tube was a golden disk, shining brightly like the sun, and in the center was a face like the laughing Buddha, grinning and laughing hysterically, blissfully, without a care.  Just pure joy.  My mind was interpreting all this sensory input, telling me that this was a symbol of reality; these entities were just like the myriad personalities I encounter every day, or the moods I myself get trapped in. 

I saw more during this peak of the experience, but memory fails, and the wilder visions defy description like the wholly-unexplainable elements of dreams.

I was finally able to sit up and assess my surroundings.  The alien visions had retreated a bit and I found myself sitting in a camp recliner in a theme camp at Burning Man in the middle of a dust storm, which had thankfully settled down a bit, to allow more visibility.  I saw people dancing and heard reggae music from a DJ which I'd not been aware of before. 

I found I had energy to stand, and the music's rhythm inspired me to jump out of the chair and dance frenetically.  

Part 3 coming soon...
Part 3 here!

Old Collage

This one I made several years ago at the interactive crafts table at the Laguna Beach Festival of the Arts. 

Collage

Sketches: Burning Man Dangers

This was a sketch I made of my adventures at Burning Man 2005.  Originally, I had drawn comics of these adventures, but the sketchbook they were in got stolen with my car.

Here's the whole story...

Click the image for an enlarged view.

Sketch: 5 Things that Could Have Killed Me at Burning Man
Left side: top: Cirque du Flambe, bottom: The Colossus
Right side: top: Angel of the Apocalypse, bottom left: Tesla Coil, bottom right: El Diablo

Watercolor Vision Painting: Dancing Wood Spirit

This was a detail of a vision I saw during an intense mushroom trip I had at Burning Man.  It was of a giant tree split into three along the trunk, with wood spirits dancing along its boughs.  The wood spirits were part of the tree, and at the same time free-standing entities.  They were not the tree, nor in the tree, but they were of the tree.  This watercolor painting was based on sketches I made long after the trip.

Dancing Wood Spirit
Watercolor on watercolor paper

Burning Man Stories: The Dust City Diner 2011

In 2011, I mostly stayed in camp, led and participated in our theme camp's events.  I made only a few jaunts out on the playa during the week.  One of those was late at night into the wee hours, biking around the inner playa, seeing all kinds of amazing sights.

But I knew I'd hit the jackpot when I rounded the corner on a back-lit wall to see a small slice of a 50's-style diner hopping along and serving a sizable crowd.  This was in a remote corner of the deep playa, near the trash-fence, the official boundary of the event.  An artful sign lit up in pink proclaimed this to be the "Dust City Diner," an installation I had heard of before.

The waitresses all sported beehive hairdos, cat-eye glasses, and pink waitress uniforms, and were hot!  The cook at the grill wore a "domestic violence tank top" (commonly called a wife-beater).  They had clearly taken great pains to include every detail of a 50's diner: the stools with puffy red seats, ashtrays, napkin dispensers, salt, pepper and sugar shakers.

From the stories I'd heard, the staff of the DCD would happily ignore and "diss" anyone standing around the installation, who was not actually sitting on one of the dozen-or-so stools at the counter.  Those on the stools were the "customers" and were given attention and service.  I was prepared for this, and was not disappointed that they were not distributing food to all comers.  I just hung out and watched the performance of serving, taking orders, cooking, dancing to the music, and bawdy joking, etc.  Eventually, some customers in the stools were ready to move on, and I graduated to a foot stool.  These were strategically placed at the corners of the counter, where there was enough room to stand on the foot-stool and enjoy the diner's service.  They offered coffee, which I gladly accepted.  They insisted on using their cups, rather than those of participants, to keep the diner theme intact. 

I enjoyed the conversation around the counter, though I can't for the life of me remember what was discussed.  Soon, a stool was vacated, and I got to enjoy full customer status.  At some point, a waitress would yell out, "Who wants a grilled cheese?" and took a count of how many to make.  Not long after, they served piping hot grilled cheese sandwiches with a pickle on the side.  It was cut in half, so I shared mine with someone next to me who had sat down prior to the order being taken.  To the guy occupying the footstool next to me, I offered the pickle, which he accepted.  This was just excellent: hot food made by someone else, out in the middle of absolute nowhere.  I hung around for another round of sandwiches which I again got to share with others.  Satisfied with the snack and refreshment, I relinquished my coveted spot at the counter, and moved on.

These amazing, unexpected and magical experiences lurk at burning man, hiding in the vast expanse and darkness, just waiting to be discovered.

Free Caricatures drawn in Public

I draw people for free on Main Beach, Laguna Beach, CA using just a Super-Sharpie.  Here are some of the results:

Color Drawing: Guts

This is a drawing I made many years ago, before I'd really studied anatomy.

Guts
Pen and colored pencil

Still-life with Eggplant and Tangelo: graphic art

This was a project for a class at Orange Coast College.  I drew the monochrome image by hand, using a Wacom tablet and Painter 5.0, then colored it using a few different schemes. 

Still-life with Eggplant and Tangelo: line drawing

Still-life with Eggplant and Tangelo: line drawing with added color

Still-life with Eggplant and Tangelo: Final rendered image

Still-life with Eggplant and Tangelo: Stylized coloring

Three Collages

 Back when I used to work as a game tester, I filled notebooks full of written-up bugs found in computer games.  I'd often doodle in the margins of the notes, as I used to do back in school.  I saved some of the best doodles for many years.  I  compiled them into a set of collages, colored with watercolor paints, at a fun group collaging event we had at the studio, recently.  Enjoy!
 

Rune Window to Future City

Dream-state with Alien and Cars

Trippy Collage

Complex Chaotic Sketch: Wiggle State

Wiggle State

Burning Man 2008 mushroom trip - part 1

At Burning Man 2008, I had a mushroom trip that forever changed who I am.  I saw visions of aliens that stayed with me afterwards. 

It was a double dosage for me: an eighth of an ounce of dried material.  A double dose of psilocybin cubensis mushrooms was more than I had ever attempted, and this was to be a roller coaster ride.  I had gifted some legal salvia divinorum X60 extract to a friend and in exchange, was lucky enough to receive the dried fungus.  The week of Burning Man flew by with little chance in sight to use them, always seeming to have another obligation.  Finally, Saturday rolled around and this was my last chance to dose, as we were packing up the next day.  That night was scheduled the climactic burning of the man.  The dust storm had been predicted to be bad that day, but rather than rest, I crunched down the mushrooms with some water and prepared to trek out into the storm.  My plan was to hike across the city to the other end of the Esplanade where I hoped to check out the art galleries at Entheon Village.

I set out into the dust storm, having strapped on my protective gear for the dust.  My gear consisted of a dust mask over my nose and mouth, swim goggles to protect my eyes, my prescription glasses that I need to see, sunglasses over my glasses, and a bandanna and hat with chinstrap.  All these layers of glass and plastic covering my eyes tend to cloud up with dust and need to be wiped off frequently.  Also, due to the heat of the day and my warm moist breath held against my face by the mask, my swim goggles eventually puddle up with sweat until it gets in my eyes, a salty alkali dust mixture.  So, I need to duck into a shelter periodically to empty my goggles and wipe them down.  Of course, this necessitates taking off all the gear and starting over. 


The dust wasn't so bad on the street, the wind being blocked by the tent city, and, sensing that I could easily withstand this half-hearted blow, I goaded the wind, egging it on and challenging it to blow harder.  My wish was soon manifested, as I reached the open plaza around the center camp, where the wind was blowing hard and the air was white.

As the mushrooms began to kick in, with a feeling of dread and slight nausea, I was approaching Center Camp, where I had planned to reconnoiter.  Approaching the building, feeling my trip coming on, and staring down at the whiteness of the path in front of me, I started to see a round shape emerge that became clearer as I stared.  Knowing it was an artifact of the mushrooms' effect on my senses didn't lessen the effect, as it came into focus and I was staring at an image of the Mayan calendar.  This was vague, but unmistakeable as it appeared before me in the whiteness. 

Soon I was inside the Center Camp Cafe, a large circus tent with a coffee bar, art installations, performance spaces: a hub of culture and expression.  On the floor in the center of the round tent was a map of the city that I had planned to consult, as I had lost my own map which I'd been given at the gate.  In the center was an open space where dancers, jugglers, hula hoopers, etc, would perform, stretch, socialize, rest, and what-have-you.  There was a yoga ball with covering of stuffed Pooh bears that I had seen there before, which was a favorite of the kids, but which wasn't being used.  I flopped down on it, belly first, and used it to steer around the large playa map.  I had the sensation a little of flying out of my body as I cruised the playa symbolically on this map.  Sure enough, I located my destination, Entheon village, at 2:30 and A.  No problem.

Rising off the ball, I exited the cafe on the side.  The wind was daunting, and the air was a haze of dust.  A young woman flagged me down as I was walking and tried to recruit me to help the Lamplighters with their nightly ritual.  I asked what it involved, and she told me it involved cleaning and filling lamps, carrying them and hanging them on posts.  I regretfully told her that I was too high to handle that right then, and she kind of gave a start like she'd touched something hot.  She understood, though and was soon off recruiting others who were more enthusiastic.  As a side note, I did serve as a Lamplighter in 2010.

Continued...