I
continued roving around on my bike and got in a mood to
dance, what with so many camps playing pounding techno here,
goa trance there, funky breakbeats over there. I tried
dancing at a few different camps, checking out the music and
the people, but none of the music really was taking me out of
my body where I could really dance. Oh sure, I boogied, but I
didn't really let myself get swept away by the beat like I
wanted to have happen. During my wandering I chanced upon the
Drum Circle with a bonfire. I had ridden by it a number of
times but hadn't gone close enough to be sucked in. Until
now.
The
Drum Circle was contained within a fence which was the size
of a baseball infield or maybe a little smaller. At the
entrance to the area was a very tanned and wizened looking
young woman cleansing entrants with a smudge stick: a burning
stick of sage which was emitting a plume of smoke. She
brushed the smoke over you to fill you with positive energy
and to sweep away the negativity. Inside I ran into Sasha for
the second time at the festival. He had been drumming for
most of the night and said that his wrist was beginning to
hurt. We talked a bit about what a fantastic time we were
both having unfold for us as I borrowed a big bass drum and
joined in with the drumming. A little later I got to play the
heartbeat drum, keeping the heart beating steadily for as
long as the rest of the drummers kept playing with the
rhythm, which seemed to go on forever.
Okay, so
drumming for an hour or two is probably my limit, and keeping
a steady beat is not my forte. I headed somewhere after that,
nowhere in particular and stopped off at the hut with
something I heard called a heliotrope, though that may not be
what I am referring to is really called: It was a light
inside a spinning, flickering column which people laid around
staring at for minutes or hours, depending on their level of
attention deficit disorder. Whatever the proper name of this
thing it was a good trance inducer and fairly relaxing. While
I was there one of only two or three events happened where
someone got out of hand that I saw at Burning Man: There were
about 12 to 18 people laying on their stomachs around the
light column listening to some very mellow music, in a
meditative mood, when suddenly a couple of people away from
me this guy starts laughing, and asking "Is this all it
does? Is this it?" then he stands up and leers at one of
the women in the circle and says "I have a big cock. I
wanna show you, I'm gonna show you how big my cock is"
and starts making a move toward the center of the circle. The
woman is being very cool making signs with her hands for him
to be quiet, shaking her head "NO". When the jerk
started swaggering toward the center of the tent, two guys on
the other side of him kinda just really mellowly tackled the
guy and dragged him out of the tent by his heels and made him
leave. It was kinda strange and it completely broke the mood
for me so I headed on down the road towards Bianca's Smut
Shack.
