: :::Wet Woman::: :

The Antidote to Burning Man?

I started going to festivals when I was a teenager. Maybe sooner. Growing up in the Midwest offered little exposure to worlds outside strip malls, churches, and bowling alleys. Gatherings of musicians and artists on the other hand offered windows into wildly different ways of thinking. At first, being the son of a part-time preacher man, I was only allowed to go to Christian festivals, like the now defunct Cornerstone. But as it goes with teenagers, you can’t keep them tied down and in sight for very long. Eventually I broke free from the cautious containers my loving parents had crafted me and sought out more. The Tibetan Freedom Concert, H.OR.D.E., Phish, Lollapalooza, Telluride Bluegrass. All these gatherings expanded my understanding of what humans are capable of. I learned about the world at these circus-like shindigs, about global politics, about ways in which one can cross through the doors of perception, via dancing to different rhythms, contemplating art, munching on miraculous plants, falling in love and exploring creatively the powers of human expression.

At some point however, the energy of these events shifted. Or maybe it was just me. Youth certainly has a way of tinging all things with a magical hue and, as it goes, I have certainly aged. Yet, either way, much of the transformative mystique I once encountered at these carnivals seemed eventually to be grossly overshadowed by disturbingly high ticket prices, drowned in shitty beer, made ill with bad food, ugly architecture, uninspiring corporate logos, etc. As stages grew bigger and lights brighter, something was sacrificed in its wake. Several of my musician friends became famous. Some of them seemed to grow bigger and brighter too, their once insightful messages being devoured by glitchy womp beats and pretty lights.

Burning Man and Symbiosis were two festivals that seemed to offer a return to the culture-building seeds that seemed to have been sown in those formative years. They had no obtrusive corporate logos interrupting the preciousness of authenticity. They seemed to not center solely around rock star performers but offer inclusive, shared experiences that allowed for full participation from all attendees. Yet in time, even these events seemed to bow subtly and not-so-subtly to the seduction of hedonistic sparkle, catering to the sexiest among us, the most well-connected and woke.

*Symbiosis Festival. Pyramid Lake. 2012. Jammin’ with Ryan Herr, Lizzy Plotkin and Co.

The final nail in the festival coffin for me was my final trip to Burning Man. This farewell(?) pilgrimage to the “playa” took place at a time when everyone seemed convinced the world was about to end. Some mythical Mayan-esque serpentine quetzal was heralded by many to soon be returning to earth to save us all from doomed consciousness. 2012 it must have been? I’m unsure. There were many talks there then about the approaching climate catastrophe and our need to seek a higher spiritual frequency. Thousands of scantily clad (mostly white) festival goers pranced around the playa dust observing extremely impressive art installations that mirrored back the sentiment of a need to live more simply. Yet nothing about Burning Man is simple. It is layered in magnificent, unholy irony, nowadays being the favorite party venue for people the likes of Elon Musk (you know, the guy who literally blasted a giant cock into outer space?) Even the annual events iconic symbol, a literal burning man, seems to embody yet again the core driving energies of our overly stimulated, unrooted, hyper masculine times. It began to feel for me just as perverse and unrooted as anywhere else in America. So I quit going.

*Burning Man. (The “Green Man” Year). 2007. Temple of Forgiveness (created by David Best)

I share this all with a bit of awkward grief in my throat, knowing full well there is beauty to be found in all of it. My experiences at all these events carried with them a cornucopia of conflicting emotions, much of which I have been reflecting over for decades, little resurfacing guides who, like all good Stories only reveal their deeper meanings in time. Everything is either medicine or poison after all, depending on our view. Yet, since that last hurrah in 2012 I have been feeling deeply that it’s time for us all to do better. We can’t simply keep handing over our artistic powers to the burning men ever present and ever ready to, conscious of it or not, manipulate our deepest longings.

Gathering together in sacred spaces is arguably more crucial now than ever and it behooves us to do it right. Raging wildly, with little more than some vague new age “intention” set ablaze on other people’s lands without genuine acknowledgement of whose land we are on without even having made an effort to ask permission to be there in the first place in a misguided effort to feed each others’ griefs from centuries of displacement and lack of any real initiation by doing little more than dressing up in sexy costumes and creating “influencer” content probably isn’t what our ancestors are trying to guide us towards. And to me, it all bears a striking resemblance to everything else being sold to us nowadays. What once was a genuine effort to counter the establishment has become the new golf course, where business deals are made and egos are well fed. At night, when the neon lights flicker and good speakers drown out reality, it all seems so lovely. “All hail the Green Man!”, they say as as gas bombs erupt. “Fertility!” And the big American party keeps pumping on. In all its different manifestations. Dousing artifacts in gasoline and lighting them on fire. Sleeping with strangers in the illusive afterglow. Suddenly the Rains fall and the dance floor turns to mud. We wake up but we can’t escape.

*painting by Amanda Sage. Used with permission granted by the artist.

Maybe some of you know what I am here referring to. I’m not making this stuff up. A few weeks ago, at the annual Burning Man Festival in Nevada, that takes place on traditional Paiute land, a rainstorm literally shut the entire event down, creating such a mess that no one was allowed to enter or leave the infamous hedonistic playground. It all hit me hard in the heART. It is not lost to me the power of artful gathering. To be sure, some of the most important transformative experiences of my life took place out there in that strange realm of dust and fire. And it was beautiful. In all its strange debaucherous revelry, it somehow did offer something resembling an authentic American ritual of sorts. It was chaotic and untamed, just like us. It lifted the veil in many ways. And for all of that, I bow in gratitude. It’s of course all far too complex to simply say this is right and that is wrong. Indeed, as my mentor Martin Prechtel often reminds us, God resides in the irony… Yet these holy rains might be gifting us with assistance in transformative alteration. As dry eARTh becomes moist, could Bacchanalian gods be telling us it’s time to release ourselves from the echo chambers of this worlds many burning mans’ insatiable techno-visions and make way for the rise of the Wet Woman, the return of simple, small scale, ecologically minded, genuinely rooted gatherings of intergenerational, truly fertile intentions?

This last week I was invited to offer a few classes at a small gathering in Paonia, Colorado, where I currently live. The event was hosted by two wonderful women who live in the region and have deep connections to this place. Herbalists, healers, wildcrafters, storytellers, artists, musicians, elders, unteachers, ethnobotanists, farmers, seed-savers, weavers, foragers, etc. all came together to share ancient skills, skills that when delved into with dedication revive within us forgotten understandings of how to live well in a place, how to live freely, confidently and beautifully. Nothing was over the top. No ones names were in lights. No semi-trucks drove into town with millions of dollars’ worth of equipment to erect huge, gas-guzzling spectacles. Yet despite not having many resources or a massive production team, everything was beautiful. Flowers were arranged wonderfully under small tents. A simple earthen alter was made collectively by all attendees and placed at the center of the festival grounds. Children ran around barefoot, freely being cared for willingly by whomever the children randomly came across curiously throughout the days. Classes went on sporadically and wove in, out and into other classes, cross-pollinating with, supporting and making more clear other classes’ dreams. People rested. Others read books. Some swam in a pond while others played musical instruments, gathered wild foods or spun wool. There were items for sale, but they were articles crafted locally, made from materials harvested ethically (even glitter!). If one chose to spend money, they knew where the money was going and felt empowered in knowing they were supporting the good works of fellow community members. It felt strangely like we were making something together, not performing or consuming, but engaging collectively in what seemed oddly like what an actual normal human life is supposed to be like. All we were doing is what humans the world over have done for thousands of years. Just being normal, simple, eARTh loving humans together. Doing what normal people do; make beauty and enjoying each other company.

It reminded me of those early festival going days. No one was trying to prove anything then. Oh, who am I kidding? I’m sure some were! Probably many! But most were adorned in handmade patchwork pants and survived on the veggie burritos made by friends in parking lots. It wasn’t a perfect scene back then. Not by any means. And neither was Forest to Field. We still have many generations to go before we actually grow into a culture worthy of descending from. But how good it is to see people coming together, not because Hollywood said to, or Trump, or Biden or Bud Light, not Rolling Stone Magazine or Pitchfork but because this is what humans do. We celebrate together. We learn together. We grow together. We make beauty and share it. We cry on the shoulders of old friends and share with them our struggles. We laugh vulnerably with new ones and listen to their songs. We eat together, foods we harvest and cook ourselves, from our own gardens. We try our best. And at Forest to Field this is how it was. We camped together. We danced. We prayed. We made mistakes. We had fun, simply.

After we all feasted together one evening, a dear old friend, Ayla Nereo, sang for us all, beautiful songs many of us know, that speak of our shared story. Her mesmerizing lyrics offered reminders of our extended community of seed keepers, whose struggles to stay rooted mirror our own. Although it can be easy to forget, we are never alone. In a world of so much noise, so much distraction, so much misinformation and fear, this movement is far vaster and interconnected than we think. We simply need to slow down, to pay more attention to our own stories and invite others in, as they are. And as the stars shined brightly over us that night, nestled in a forest of fruit trees, the community made space for the children. The littlest amongst us were placed on the edge of the stage and it was clear why we are here.

*Photo by Tyson Leonard .Forest to Field Festival. 2023.

This is what had been missing. When things get too big, when things get corporate, when we become overly focused on our own personal journey, when the memory of what all this is even for, that we are here not for ourselves but for the benefit of the whole and thus drugs and egos overshadow the subtle vibrations of peace found when living simply and making beauty together, when DJ’s are worshiped more than local water spirits and someone else’s fashion becomes more desired than displaying ones culturally authentic self, than it doesn’t matter whether it’s yet another tacky Coors Light presents event at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater where you have to pay $10.00 for a bottle of stolen water and even more for a shitty hotdog or if it’s a well disguised, seemingly woke event like Burning Man where giant images of Phoenix’s soar over crystal-filled stages. It’s still all but reproductions of the same burning thing. Modernity wins again, and the goddess is forgotten.

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…The Phoenix is neither here nor there...

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…

My wife and I watched a movie the other day with our daughter. It was a cartoon about the Polynesian trickster demigod, Maui. In the story, a young girl is driven, as I was in my youth, as we all are as we mature outward from adolescence, to wander, to seek that which lies beyond the safe confines of our little worlds. Moana, as the girl is named, finally heeds the great call, and leaves her home, a small island in the Pacific, on a little boat. Drifting in the unknown for who knows how long she eventually crosses paths with the great Maui himself. Together they learn to appreciate each other’s differences and see them as strengths. In time, they join forces to battle a terrible fire-filled monster whose hatred was preventing Moana’s peoples’ crops from growing, from fish to arrive to their shores in abundance, etc. They try to fight this blazing lava demon off but to no avail until finally Moana realizes the awful creature’s heart is missing, and it is she who has the heart. So together, Maui and Moana, with great skill and determination, place the beast’s heart back where it belongs, in her achingly lonely chest. Suddenly, the terrible burning creature transforms into a wet, lush, green, life-giving goddess. And as Mother Earth heals, as the Oceans regain vitality, so too do the people.

My daughter told me yesterday that we all carry with us such a heART. I think she is right. Maybe instead of fighting the monsters that we perceive to be destroying us, be they slimy Senators from Kentucky, cultural scenes who have outgrown their original intent or enormous, seemingly unbreakable corporations like DuPont or Bayer, we ought love them to death. Maybe we need to find their long lost hearts and place them back where once they pumped heroically, long before forgetfulness made everything burn.

Can we come together in simple, new ancient ways, to listen to Plants more so than nonsense fraternity drivel, to seed and weave and revive and nourish Big Stories more so than rumors of war and useless gossip of celebrities of whom play no actual role in our daily lives? Can we meet again once more as we use to, long ago, in a time we seldom think of anymore, when all that mattered was that we were together, and alive? Maybe then, when we are well clothed in beautiful hand spun garments we made ourselves from plant kin we harvested with permission before replenishing the land with good seeds while singing songs we ourselves wrote to honor our teachers and grieve the ones we have lost while feeding too the unborn generations yet to come, maybe then we can muster up the much needed courage to discover a way not yet known, one that is not “right” or “left”, this way or that, but hidden somewhere in-between it all. A way that leads us beyond business-as-usual into that melancholy place residing within the chest of modernity where a heart ought be. Maybe then, instead of trying to fight the old ways thus only igniting further aggressions and ever more conflicts, we can begin to hospice them, gently, softly, with the care not of a burning man but of a wet woman..

…”rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pumn”

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*For further views regarding Burning Mans environmental impact on the Black Rock Desert and the recent rainfall: High Country News

*I, like many I am sure, have a complicated relationship with author, Daniel Pinchbeck. Yet it cannot be denied he has added much to conversations around transformative festivals, psychedelic culture, cryptocurrency, ecology, etc. As with anything you read, including my work, take what he says with a grain of salt. Here is an article he recently wrote about Burning Man in his usual critical tone that seems to aggravate most yet I feel offers a necessary vantage point seldom offered.

How Burning Man Failed

*For deeper dives into the idea of Hospicing Modernity. Please explore the import work of Vanessa Machado de Oliveira.

*For classic cuts from the Tibetan Freedom Concert: Beastie Boys RATM Radiohead

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**Thank you from the bottom of my heart to the new paid subscribers. I cannot express enough how much your generosity inspires me to go further and see deeper. A deep bow to you.

An extra special thank you to Joshua Schrei for offering me a scholarship to his year long course on Mythical Stories Embodied. (If you haven’t yet listened to his podcast, The Emerald, please do yourself a favor : The Emerald Podcast ).

We all need each other.

Thank you. Gracias. Khob Khun Kahp.

All blessings.

~Gregory Pettys

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“Seeds”

by Ayla Nereo

…

My brother lives in a jungle concrete 
like a belly gone to rumbling 
only wants a taste of the sky 
wind and fire, setting the seeds 
for the son of his son come with him 
one day to come 
My sister, her hands are raised 
for the stakes are high and she knows it 
and I am singing for her vision 
singing for her vision 

This is not mere speech 
all we seek is here where we stand and 
shape as clay, turning tides dug deep and 
wider still to hold what comes 
and wider still to say 

We'll never be moved from here 
our lives will live in the seeds we've sown 
calling what's coming clear 
our will is held in the gardens we've grown 
as light from the sun we can give 
as rivers meeting can become one 
walk toward the call of this 
and plant it deep for the ones to come 

One day 
none shall be imprisoned 
for tending the land 
for feeding our children 
One day 
we will cherish the soil 
valued more than gold 
its value more than gold 
One day our hands will raise 
for the way we walk and how we own it 
and I am singing for this vision 
singing for this vision 

This is not mere speech 
all we seek is here where we stand and 
shape as clay, turning tides dug deep and 
wider still to hold what comes 
and wider still to say 

We'll never be moved from here 
our lives will live in the gardens we've grown 
calling what's coming clear 
our will is held in the seeds we've sown 
as light from the sun we can give 
as rivers meeting can become one 
walk toward the call of this 
and plant it deep for the ones to come 

My brother live in a jungle concrete 
like a belly gone to rumbling 
only wants a taste of the sky 
wind and fire, setting the seeds 
for the son of his son 
to come with him one day 
taste the roots he was born from 
pass him the story how all 
hands came together as 
one

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#mayallbeingsbehappyandfree