After being invited by two warrior buds who I really like, I decided to make good on a long-time-wish and attend Burning Man, that wild, desert party, attended by 50,000 strangers who create an enormous, nomadic city for eight days. The self-labeled ‘burners’ have a language all their own in this advertising-free, corporate-sponsorship-free, green zone. There is dancing, partying, meditating, spirituality, elaborate art, and mutant cars! Workshops, giveaways, self-sufficiency, interdependence, night raves, and a culture of gratitude and outrageousness.

And costumes. Everyone wears costumes.

Because of my late-decision to attend, the cheapest means to get to the desert was for me to drive my trusty Subaru. By Wednesday of this week, I had assembled my best costumes on the dining room table (everyone loves Greasicle the Clown!), started a Gifts of Gratitude pile, and being somewhat responsible, took my car to be checked out by my favorite, trustworthy mechanics. So, when they informed me that the Subaru needed a great deal of work before they deemed it ‘cross-country-worthy,’ I believed them. With sadness, I believed.

Dang.

The cost of driving to the Nevada desert, outfitting myself with necessary supplies (backpack, cheap bike, food, miscellaneous desert necessities), seemed pretty costly to this mostly-unemployed man. Costly, but worth it. And now fixing the car would double that cost…should I listen to my head and finances? Or should I listen to my eager heart, ready to run off and play with fun new friends?

Lucky for me, my friend Stephen was immediately available to do ‘the warrior thing.’

That is, as I lay out my pros and cons, gold and shadow, asking for feedback, he listened carefully, asked a lot of questions, and probed how attending Burning Man fit within my life mission. While bemoaning the car costs, the preparations I had already made, etc. I tried to slip in one tiny, little innocuous fact that meant nothing: I am right on the cusp of completing the first draft of a powerful piece of fiction. I’m not even exactly sure how I came to mention this in the Burning Man debate.

(Sidebar: at 153 pages, it’s the first third of a novel - yet a complete story in itself. The writing is some of the best I have ever done and I am quite proud of it. And with the help of a really wonderful editor I have met online, I hope to make it better. The story is goofy, loving, and full of gratitude. It’s sexy and erotic, playful, and intense. I love writing fiction!)

As soon as I mentioned this insignificant, little detail, Stephen’s eyes blazed because he recognized a thing: a secret handle, a door slightly cracked: something was lurking back there in shadow.

It’s amazing to process something with another warrior and experience this deep, deep listening. I do not say this to diminish Stephen’s giftedness, because he is giftedness (that came out wrong. Where’s my editor?). Warrior listening includes bypassing one’s need to give advice, to fix things, to manipulate towards a certain outcome, or even just to say, ‘Oh, I totally know how you feel. Last week when I was in the Target parking lot…”

It’s a deeper listening, a subtler place. Listen and watch for the ‘tells,’ the little details and head jerks, the flinches that sometimes reveal a deeper truth. And Stephen had found mine.

I was running away.

“What happens with this piece of writing, now that you’re almost finished?” Stephen asked.

I tried to avoid answering, but it was too late - I had been busted.

“I, uh…” I stammered, “have got to get serious about researching publishing options, making edits, plotting the next pieces…”

Oh. It hit me.

I love sitting for seven or eight hours just putting together words trying to make myself laugh or feel sad, wondering where these fictional characters are headed. And while I have entertained dreams of book signings at Borders (the line extends out the door and around the block), I have done very little to actually make that fantasy a reality. I haven’t tried to get anything published, I haven’t made much effort to read books on writing, attend workshops, etc. (Also in the book signing fantasy, people keep bringing me boxes of Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies.)

After wild, unexpected success online with fiction I wrote this Spring, I sobered up. I told myself, “I can do this…” and then I believed it. Bought a few books on writing. Attended a writers’ workshop. Took this idea of writing a bit more seriously.

But not too seriously.

I still struggle with consistently making time to write - it hasn’t been coming easily. Or I sit down to write and let myself get distracted. Somehow, it’s still not a true priority in my life. Or, if I try to remain open and non-judgmental about it, I can say it’s not a strong *enough* priority where it shapes my life.

It was a sad realization that perhaps attending Burning Man this year - while right on the cusp of making a commitment to writing - was more of a distraction than I had let myself believe. As Stephen and I pondered this together, I realized how closely the two are intertwined. Maybe the money issue, which raised all these doubts, was just a manifestation of some deeper concerns on my part.

Perhaps I was eager to go to the desert and feel other peoples’ fire. Maybe I wanted to be around creative energy and soak it up. Dance naked. Ain’t nothing wrong with that. But I don’t just want to GO to Burning Man…I want to BE a burning man: the man on fire. I want that fire back home in Minnesota, in my life.

And here’s the kooky thing: I am on fire!

Through warriors I have already touched that fire within. I have seen it blaze and I love it! Yet I sometimes forget this fire by not tending it, continuing to seek it outside me: food. Watching TV. Answering emails. Planning a social calendar. I let myself get distracted from my life’s priorities by shiny and new baubles. I like hunting for new fires - that’s novel and new. Sustaining and growing a fire sometimes means committing time and energy to something less dramatic.

Hey, I still want to go to Burning Man. I hope to go next year. But this year, I’m going to have my own Burning Man at night in the gazebo on my back porch.

I might just edit naked with glow sticks.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 22nd, 2008 at 9:26 pm and is filed under Warrior. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.