TAYLOR:

Well, after my first Burn, I was surrounded with very wise elders who had been experiencing Burning Man since it started. And that was really cool to, you know, understand and connect to the cultural roots, but I was also like, where are all the people my age? 

And crazy enough, there happens to be a ton of people out there who were actually my age at Burning Man. And I felt like, if we really want to evolve this culture, we just need to bring everyone together.

ANDIE: 

Welcome back once again to Burning Man Live. This is me, your host, Andie Grace, Actiongrl. How’s it going out there? 

I’m thinking a lot about Burning Man in the last few weeks because we are gearing up for 2025, and I’m suspicious that it’s going to be the best Burn ever. I have some feelings about that. 

And whenever I think about Burning Man, I think about who’s coming. Over the years, certainly, I’ve watched different populations come and grow and become aware of the event. 

But today, we’re going to sit down and talk to some rising sparks in this community. I want to welcome to the show Taylor Andrews, Kat Ebert, Mani Senthil, Whitney Wilhelmy. Welcome to the show, everyone. 

And I want to start with you, Taylor, because I want you to tell me how you found your way to Burning Man in the first place. I’ve heard this, and I think it’s kind of a funny story.

TAYLOR:

Yeah. I honestly never wanted to go to Burning Man or had any interest in it. And then I was deep in my work with psychedelics, and I met Marian at the MAPS Psychedelic Conference.

ANDIE: 

Okay, but I want you to back up. I want you to tell our listeners a little bit about your background, and where you were in your life, what you were doing when you met Marian.

TAYLOR:

All right, I’m Taylor Andrews. I’m 24 now. I was finishing up my undergrad and I was also working on some research in the psychedelic realm, the University of Michigan, and I got invited to come volunteer at the MAPS Psychedelic Conference, and I had no plans of staying in the States after I graduated. I actually had bought a one-way ticket to Peru to go live with this family in the Amazon, and then figure out what my life is going to be like after that.

And then at the conference, the week had gone by and I was like, oh, this feels really good to be in the space with all these people. And the talk of Burning Man had come up a few times, and people talked of the parallels between Burning Man and the psychedelic realm. And a lot of the people they’re were just talking about how they’re going to go to the Burn next year, and they’re like, “You’re going to go to the Burn!” And I’m like, I don’t really see myself being out in a desert. What is this? 

And then on the last day of the conference, this woman came up to me. She seems like just any other hippie. 

And, then we got in this conversation; we were talking about how she has family in Michigan, and we were really relating. And then another volunteer came up and was like, “Oh my God, I love your speech,” to this woman. And I looked down at her badge and it said CEO of Burning Man Project. And I was like, “What the heck? What? Why do people keep talking about Burning Man?” 

Um. It reminds me of that meme where it’s like, “What’s worse about Burning Man? Hearing people’s stories of being stuck in the mud, or being stuck in an elevator with someone who is a diehard Burning Man fan? And so I was kind of over the whole talk of Burning Man.

But then I was like, “Okay, well, she’s the CEO. That’s kind of dope. I want to be a leader one day.” Maybe it was just the energy of being in a group of people who were just leading with their heart, and I just decided that I was going to ask to be her intern.

At first, she didn’t think I was serious. But then I wrote up a proposal to intern for her. And I canceled my one-way ticket. Packed up all my stuff, and drove across the country with just my savings to intern for the Burning Man Project, which included having to go to my first Burn. 

So, now is a year and a half later. I have participated in two Black Rock Cities, and a few Regional Burns, and now I can say that I think this year is going to be the best Burning Man ever.

ANDIE: 

You fell all the way in. It happens.

TAYLOR:

I did.

ANDIE: 

So you could have just gone to Burning Man and had a good time with a bunch of friends, but we’re here with some of the people that you know who also go to Burning Man, and I would like to walk through how everybody got involved and put a frame around this program, that is beyond just you invited some friends. Tell me what’s happening, and who these folks are that you brought along.

TAYLOR:

Yeah. Well, after my first Burn, I was surrounded with very wise elders who had been experiencing Burning Man since it started. And that was really cool to, you know, understand and connect to the cultural roots. But I was also like, where are all the people my age? And crazy enough, there happens to be a ton of people out there who were actually my age at Burning Man. And I felt like, if we really want to evolve this culture, we just need to bring everyone together.

Kat and I both went to Michigan State, and we’ve both been in very similar spheres with drug policy and harm reduction. Whitney I met through Merida, Burning Man Project’s Major Gifts Officer, who was also working for MAPS. And Mani and I were basically neighbors, and he’s best friends with my roommate. Then I said, “Hey, okay, I’m just going to keep pulling all these people together.”

MANI:

I was going to say, the first time I met Taylor, I’m pretty sure we got in an argument.

TAYLOR:

We did!

MANI:

She was, she was just so excited. We had just come back from the Burn, and you were talking about something, and I was like, “Whoa, girl. Take it down like three notches real quick.” 

TAYLOR:

We were all just chilling on the couch, and I got very passionate about Burning Man. I was like, “Burning Man! Burning Man!”

MANI:

Yeah. And this is my second Burn, and so I feel like I could empathize with the feeling. And I was also like, she’s going to figure it out. We don’t talk about Burning Man this passionately because then we look like Burners. And nobody likes Burners more than other Burners who sound like Burners!

I just really felt her passion more than anything else. I realized I kind of took a step back and I was like, dude, you’ve been in that position where you’ve been like, oh my God, this is the best thing ever! So yeah, it was very evident how passionate she was about this community, these people that she was meeting, all the experiences that she was having; I was like, wait, this is a great opportunity for me to learn from somebody who just experienced their first Burn. Like, how does integrating somebody into that lifestyle, that entire kind of culture, how does that feel? So I was very happy for it. I felt like I needed that reminder. And I’m very happy that you came into my life, Taylor.

TAYLOR:

Same!

ANDIE: 

Kat, what about you? What was your background on Burning Man before you spoke with Taylor about it? What did you know? What did you feel? 

KAT: 

I met Tay through a mutual friend, a very dear friend of mine. We went to the same school. Unfortunately, we didn’t actually cross paths while we were still in undergrad. But this was my third big Burn, so I’d already gone to Burning Man when I met Taylor, I’d always kind of known about it. I have been going to music festivals for years, and my favorite part of festivals was always the weird creative elements, the bits, the shticks, the art, like the interactive experiences. I love music, I love to dance, but my favorite stuff was always, you know, after the festival closes, you go out to the campgrounds and you see all the weird things people are doing. And so, I’d always wanted to go to the Burn. 

My first time going, I wasn’t planning on going. And then two weeks before the Burn, I ended up getting a ticket. And it was amazing. It was exactly what I was looking for. It was more focused on the arts and the community, and what everyone was bringing to build the community and the culture, and that’s what I really fell in love with. And that’s also where I met Whitney. Whitney and I are in camp leadership for our theme camp. Neo-Debauchery, what’s up?

I just kind of fell in love with the culture, and I think it’s really beautiful that we all come and build something. We build a city in the middle of a desert, and we build a culture of love, acceptance. Everyone is welcome and celebrated. So I thought that was really beautiful.

ANDIE: 

Whitney, I want you to tell me about your road to Burning Man. How did you find your way to the playa?

WHITNEY: 

Yeah. So when I first heard about the Burn, I added it to the list of things that I would wait to do until I was 30. I don’t know why; it’s like, I just, like, want to save some experiences. 

But when I was in my early 20s, I started going to festivals, and started volunteering with the Zendo Project at festivals. And I really felt like I found my home there and really enjoyed the work, and being able to contribute to the whole experience.

So, it wasn’t long until I realized that the Burn would be perfect for me, because I would get to contribute and build and be busy and have it be this whole fulfilling experience. 

So, I was in college at the time and the dates of the Burn always conflicted with the first week of classes. And in an intense environment like Berkeley, if you don’t go to that first week of classes, you get dropped from them. So I was like, okay, I gotta wait, I gotta wait. 

And then in 2019, I finally went for the first time. When the official event came back in 2022, my friends and I were like, ”We’re going to start a camp!” So we put in all that work, had so many meetings and finally decided on the name Neo-Debauchery.

That was one of the names that I put forward. And part of it that I love is that it really felt, at the time, like we were one of the youngest people to start a camp together. So that’s where the “Neo” came in. And we joke that as we age we’ll at some point convert it to be “Paleo-Debauchery.”

Yeah, for the last few years we’ve been coming back and it’s so fun to camp with everyone. And we’re looking forward to connecting with other young people. We love hosting first-time Burners and being able to introduce people to the Burn.

ANDIE: 

I love it. You’ll find the paleo activities in my camp. Um.

Mani, you said you had been the year before when you heard Taylor talking about Burning Man. What took you to Burning Man in the first place?

MANI:

The first time I ever heard about Burning Man, I was seven years old. I was trawling on Reddit or Tumblr and somebody was just all about Burning Man. As a kid living in suburban Boston getting bullied, I was like, this is the Mecca. This is a place where I can do whatever I want and be whoever I want? Cool. That sounds amazing. 

I ended up moving a bunch. I was in India for a couple of years, and then I moved back to the States. And the first time I came to California, I was like, “Whoa! Y’all live life a little different out here.” 

I ended up really connecting with one of my old managers. Her partner at the time had been a six-time Burner. Turns out we went to the same college, we were in the same fraternity. And it just kind of felt like fate, like our paths were meant to cross. He was like, “We’re going to Burning Man next year. Do you want to come?” And I was like, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, please.” He was a part of a camp that had been around for almost eight years at this point, called Kaleidoscope. And I Burned for the first time in ‘23. So Mud Year was my first year. 

At that point in life, I was 24, same as when Taylor, I guess, first hit it, and I didn’t know who I was. So it was that was kind of the time in life.

ANDIE: 

Right on. 

Taylor, I want to ask you this, and maybe you can all kind of help me understand. How did you get your head around identifying, it sounds like various perceptions of Burning Man when you all became aware of it, but identifying what barriers there are to younger people participating in the first place, and then figuring out how the organization can help nurture, and improve on reducing those barriers?

TAYLOR:

I think the conversation really started around just understanding – if I hadn’t been interning for Burning Man Project, how would I get to Burning Man? And what would be the most intimidating things? 

Also, there are so many young people who’ve grown up in Burning Man culture and Burning Man community, and there are a ton of people who hear about it because maybe they’re into the rave scene, but then there’s also just: What is the media make it like? What is the internet saying about Burning Man? 

And so you really have to exper — not to be like “You have to experience it!” — but like, you have to experience it first before you can make a statement on it.

ANDIE: 

Right? Well, I understand younger generations to care more and more over time about experiences over stuff, as society changes. Yeah. You didn’t just show up. As I understand it, you’re all team camp leadership in some way, right? You got really engaged. You dove in really hard. So how did the experience get you so wrapped up and get you to want to do that much? How did it shape your work or your activism?

MANI:

Burning Man was one of the first places I realized that it’s not a case of “If I don’t do it, nobody else will.” It’s a case of “If you see something that can be done, do it.” It was like an unlock for me. I’ve always told people like, “I don’t want to be a leader. Just tell me what to do and I’ll get it done. But I’ll do it well.”

Then I saw how my mentors, the leaders in camp, kind of operated. They were role models in a way, they led by example. They didn’t ask other people to do things. They would just do them. 

And then because I saw them doing things, I was like, oh, like, if Zack’s going to be cleaning up around camp and like prepping extra meals for people who might be coming home – everybody was doing things out of intrinsic want. There was no external pressure, it was fully of their own volition. And it really just made me realize, oh, this is my entire life. I get to decide, and do the things that I need to want to do. So maybe I should spend some time figuring out what are those things. 

I didn’t know I was an artist until I went to Burning Man. I always felt like the audience. I was like, I can appreciate art, I can collect it, I can talk about it, but I can’t make art. And then I went to Burning Man and I realized, “Oh! There’s no secret.” It’s just people decided to do it, and so they became artists.

ANDIE: 

Whitney and Kat, I’ve seen you both nodding at different times. Whitney, what do you think here? What did you experience and see?

WHITNEY: 

Burning Man ties lots of aspects of my life and different communities together. Working in psychedelic advocacy, there is a lot of overlap. And being able to volunteer with Zendo Project out at the Burn really just got me so excited, and expanded my community in so many different directions.

ANDIE: 

Kat, what about you? How did you experience getting engaged in how to do Burning Man and what happened?

KAT: 

I think my experience was a little unique, just because my first year was the first official year of our theme camp. The first year was during Renegade, but in terms of having it be like official through the BORG, that was when I showed up. And so it was still fairly bare bones, we were still building our infrastructure, still kinda figuring out what we were offering to the space as a theme camp. We are a young camp. 

I kinda came in at the ground level and was able to contribute in ways that I feel like maybe I would have felt a little more apprehensive of trying to participate in a very established camp, of just being like, oh, I’m new here, you know. People already have roles, and this camp is already very established. So I think that was a little unique for me. 

You talked earlier about barriers for young people, and I wanted to touch on that a little bit. One of the big barriers is as young people, we haven’t acquired the same amount of wealth or, you know, have those assets, like some of the more established older camps, having the ability to build up infrastructure, and finding ways to contribute to that, as a young person that maybe doesn’t have as much money…

ANDIE: 

A lifetime of accumulated Burner stuff in the closets of many older Burners. Yeah. Years of survival stuff. Yeah.

KAT: 

‘Cause it is, it’s survival, right? So, I think that, and because it is a lot, you have to bring everything that you need for a whole week in the desert. 

You know, joining a camp that was still in its first few years of being a theme camp was a great opportunity for me. 

I also only knew one person in my camp when I first came to Burning. And then I met my camp and was like, “Oh my God, you’re all some of the coolest people I’ve ever met in my entire life. I want to spend more time with you. I want to create something with you.” That was kind of how I got involved.

And, it’s a lot of work, running a camp. It’s a lot of work. And we start planning, like, six months, eight months – like, we’re now starting to really pick back up with meetings and everything. 

ANDIE: 

Happy spreadsheet season!

KAT: 

For real! But it feels really good to be able to contribute in this way and to have something that we, as individuals and as a collective of individuals, can offer to the playa that is unique to us. We’re using a lot of bits, and shticks, and just… Yeah, it’s a good time. I love camp. I love my theme camp.

WHITNEY: 

Really, truly, in those first couple of years, we were just so scrappy and throwing it all together. And we’ve gotten so much better now, and built up this sort of foundation that we can go from. But, that’s like, really at the heart of it. And it was so fun. Scrappy, but make it look polished.

ANDIE: 

How have you put a structure around that though? I’ve heard reference to mentorship. Is that an element of the Rising Sparks program? Can you describe a little bit of the structures here?

TAYLOR:

I think that kind of ties into what Mani was saying before about like: Just do it. Just do it.

MANI:

Anyway, anyhow, figure it out. Burning Man is one of the biggest experiences that taught me that just because I don’t know how to do something doesn’t mean I can’t do it. And so once you take that limiter off of everything, you realize you’re capable of doing anything as long as you want to put the time and energy towards it. It’s being able to figure out things that you might not initially even know how to figure out. It felt like a new superpower was unlocked.

ANDIE: 

I love that. I feel like it’s permission to get yourself involved.

TAYLOR:

Based on everything that everyone’s shared right now, I think the way that you get the most out of Burning Man, is if you’re participating. And what does participation mean? Contributing? How do you contribute? If the ticket already costs a certain amount of money, you just started your career, how are you going to take off this time? Then you go out to the desert, and you think it’s a music festival, and it’s not; you’re probably going to have a shitty time. 

But if there’s a way to streamline those pathways for people to be able to contribute in a way that aligns with them, and feel like they’re putting into something that’s bigger than themselves, while still having just like the awe of being out in the desert, that’s when people really feel like they’re connected to the culture and to the community. 

And so, I think what we’re really aiming to do is just to make those pathways more seamless. 

Whitney and Kat would be awesome mentors in helping and guiding people who are new who want to join a theme camp. Pulling off the bandaid of just doing it ,and having the experience, it opens you up. 

But I also think making it more accessible. How do you even get a ticket to Burning Man? Just creating more doorways for people to feel connected to the community, and somewhat acculturated before they even get to Black Rock City, or get to a Regional Burn is such a big component of it.

You want to go where your people are. You wanna know that you have someone. And in a city that’s just made up of 80,000 people, for just a week, and you don’t know anyone, that’s really intimidating. And there’s still times even when you do know people and you’re out there, and you might feel lonely, but I think that’s also part of the experience because then you can go back to your people at your camp or the group that you’re volunteering with. 

We just want to kind of set those roots up before even getting on to the playa, or going to a Regional Burn. How do we make those doors more open for people?

And also demystifying Burning Man. It is something really wacky and weird and there’s nothing like it in the world. But how do we make it seem like it’s not a gatekeeping culture? Because it’s literally just being a human. Express yourself. Don’t be a dick. Straight up like that. Period. 

ANDIE: 

That’s a fine distillation of the 10 Principles into one little pithy statement right there.

TAYLOR: 

Yeah, I’m glad you said that too. I think that Mani touched on it. You see other people doing something, and then you just do it because you want to also contribute to it. And then if someone does something for you, it doesn’t feel transactional. That’s such a big component of it. In the default world, everything seems like, okay, you’re doing this for this, or you’re gifting to someone because it’s their birthday, and you’re hoping that they’re going to give you something back for your birthday. Out there, it’s just like, no, we’re all actually just in this together because we want to see each other succeed, and it doesn’t feel like there’s a hidden agenda beneath it besides the fact that you want to collaborate together and create something cool. And just having an incubator or a space to do that, that isn’t limited by what our already existing systems outside in the default world are, is really inspiring.

KAT: 

I think the fact that it is, like a currency-less community, um, really makes that more accessible in terms of like, contributing something to the Burn. It doesn’t have to be financial, um, and so…

MANI:

I feel what you’re feeling, Kat. My first Burn I thought, oh, a gift has to be a physical thing. I didn’t even consider…  Somebody came up to me at my first Burn and said, “Thank you for dancing. That was a wonderful gift.” I don’t think anybody in my entire life has ever thanked me for dancing! And it changed the idea of what is a gift, what is something that we can give to others, and what is the value that what I’m giving to others provides?

KAT: 

Yeah. Thank you, Mani. That was well said, and shifting that mindset of a gift being something material, like Mani said, and to being like, how do you show up, can be a gift. And what you contribute, whether you’re just like, giving out compliments or, high fives or stickers or whatever it might be, there’s a way that you can contribute to the community and bring something to give to the city that doesn’t have to be like a material, a material item. As young people, like Taylor mentioned before, maybe we’re still starting our careers, it’s nice to have that option. And I think it also causes you to think more creatively of, like, “What can I what can I bring? How can I show up?”

ANDIE: 

What about you, Whitney? What do you think is important about keeping this culture alive and evolving for the next generation?

WHITNEY: 

Tay’s ideas around Rising Sparks and bringing this into like a big collective? I see that as a symbol of loving peer pressure. Anytime anyone expresses any interest in going to Burning Man, I just immediately want to lovingly peer pressure them. I love being lovingly peer pressured. I love doing it to other people. Most people seem cool with it.

I tell people to wait until you’re 100%, because those hard moments at the Burn are going to take that 100%. That’s like the necessary baseline for wanting to go to the Burn and make it all happen. But if you’re there, then you should totally do it, and Rising Sparks and the idea of creating mentorships and resources and just keeping that conversation alive and expanding it to more people, who are young, and maybe a little curious, I think it’s really awesome. 

And Burning Man is where I get to nurture a lot of my intergenerational friendships and relationships, and that’s a wonderful opportunity for all of us I think.

ANDIE: 

I see nods from everybody. How is that manifested for all of you?

KAT: 

First of all, with intergenerational relationships and fostering that, there’s a lot that we can learn from each other, like, older Burners learn a lot from the younger generation and vice versa. 

ANDIE: 

Mani, what is important to you about keeping Burning Man culture alive and evolving for the next generation?

MANI:

I think Kat mentioned this, like my intergenerational relationships. If there was an inflection point that I could point to and say, this is why I am the way I am right now, I would say that having the majority of my friends switch from under 25 to over 30 in a single year, – it changed everything for me. It changed how I view life, my perspective of it. 

What it really showed me is, there are a lot of these relationships that I have coming from another generation, but we’re the same. The commonality between us is a lot closer in a lot of ways, but also very far sometimes, but there is a way to appreciate that.

When I’m at the Burn, I’m definitely keeping an eye out. I’m always looking for people in their 20s cause I’m just like, “Somebody here has to be able to relate to me a little bit.” And I meet — very rarely I meet some people my age out at the Burn, and I’m always like, “Oh my gosh, how did you get here? Hi, can I be your friend?”

ANDIE: 

It’s kind of funny because now that you point that out, I moved to San Francisco in my mid to late 20s, and went to Burning Man. And very quickly I went from a very small friend group and a ‘new kid in town,’ and they were all my age that I might have met going out to clubs, to, I knew all these older Burners, the people who kind of had started this thing and I had this inspiration, I kind of leveled up my cultural understanding of the world and my place in it, and certainly San Francisco and the people that I was seeing all the time. It’s a really interesting observation.

MANI:

Yeah. When it comes to the culture, I feel like there’s definitely an old versus new culture in Burning Man. And I think a huge part of keeping the Burning Man culture alive is going to be figuring out how to bridge that gap between generations. There’s different needs and wants. There’s different ways of perceiving the world. And, rather than inherently being like, we’re just different, we think different, finding a way to bridge that gap is going to be a key point of how to keep Burning Man culture alive.

TAYLOR:

The intention behind Rising Sparks is to fill that gap, and to find a way to collaborate where, although the culture and the values may be expressed differently, we all are still having the same intention, and still holding the same values. They may just have evolved and they look different now. So I’m really excited to see where and how Rising Sparks unfolds in helping that gap.

ANDIE: 

What advice would you give a first-time Burner from the perspective of a young Burner your age? How would you find your place in the community?

TAYLOR:

I would say to start with either a theme camp, or volunteering. I think that those are the easiest – not the easiest; nothing’s easy out there, but I would say that those are the biggest opportunities for acculturating in a way where you feel like you’re part of the community.

I think of it as like, Burning Man is this one culture, value, belief system. And then there’s all these different little micro-communities that express them differently, that are expressing them based on their local context. And if you can really find your people within that realm, then you will feel more connected to the larger picture of all of it.

WHITNEY: 

Yeah, I echo that. I do really well when I have a responsibility and a purpose and an offering. And maybe not everyone’s like that, but it is a really grounding aspect of being out there, for so long too, to kind of have some basis of what you are doing and working on and offering can be super helpful.

That said, don’t overdo it. I overdid it in 2022 and 2023 and had three different huge responsibilities out there, and it was Working Man two years in a row. 

I thought before 2024, this past year, that I would be taking 2025 off, but I actually stepped down from being a co-lead in my camp, to just sort of being there and doing what I saw needed to be done, but not holding the huge responsibility, and it was my best Burn ever. And I’m like, there’s no way I’m taking 2025 off!

ANDIE: 

It’s a very normal life cycle of the Burner experience, I have to tell you.

WHITNEY: 

Yeah. So finding that right balance, but having some purpose to ground can be really helpful.

TAYLOR:

Whitney, you know that 2025 is going to be the best Burn ever now!!!

WHITNEY:

Yeah. That’s what I’m hearing.

ANDIE: 

Mani, Kat, what about you? What advice would you give first-time Burners who want to find their place in the community here?

MANI:

I would distill it down to a single concept. There’s too many details. You’ll figure the rest out. But for any first-time Burner, I always say, “Don’t go to this if you want to have fun.” Burning Man is not fun. Burning Man is the worst place on earth. Why would you go there?

ANDIE: 

Burning Man sucks. Don’t go.

MANI:

It’s literally the worst place on earth. I love it so much! 

Um. I think there’s a priming that needs to be had for a lot of first time Burners of like, “This is not something that is just going to be good.” There are equal parts good and not so good, and probably uncomfortable and probably psychologically challenging. Just going into it with the mindset of, “I’m not going here to have fun”, but instead”I’m going here to participate in something that will maybe allow me to see myself, the people around me, and maybe even the world, a little bit differently.”

That’s the intent of why I personally go to Burning Man. Every year I go, I come out of it becoming a better person, becoming more aware of myself, and the people around me. And I feel like understanding the intention of why you’re doing something, that’s what makes doing the thing worthwhile.

ANDIE: 

Kat, what advice do you give to the first time Burner?

KAT: 

In terms of finding your community and kind of like finding your people at the Burn? I just want to echo what Tay and Whitney said about, like, volunteering or finding a theme camp that resonates with you, and most of them have an Instagram page or something that you can look into. Those are great ways to get more integrated into the community versus just going, and showing up at open camping.

But my advice to first time Burners is: It’s a survival festival. You have to be ready to survive a week in the desert in intense conditions. Obviously you’ve seen everything from crazy windstorms, to 115 degree heat to, you know, um, the playa shrimp coming out to play when Muddy Man happened. 

Being prepped in that way, and then also prepping yourself mentally. Out of my three big Burns, you know, my first one was like, almost like a fantasy. It was absolutely incredible. Amazing. I wouldn’t have asked for anything differently. 

My second Burn is really difficult. It like brought up a lot of stuff internally, for me that I needed to work through, but it also really kicked off my healing journey fr the next year. 

And then this last Burn was, it was overall really great. It wasn’t like, the highest high end, but it wasn’t, there wasn’t very many lows. It’s an intense experience in a lot of ways, and so I think, being prepared for things to come up and to just kind of prep for that. You want to prep physically and mentally, as well as materially for your, whatever you might need in the desert.

ANDIE: 

All right. I’m going to bring us home here. Why do you think this is important right now, of all things, for younger generations, Gen Z, Millennials, everybody to move beyond being spectators and become active participants in events like Burning Man?

TAYLOR:

The context of the world. The context of the world is my answer. We all are really feeling a sense of needing evolution to unfold right now. There’s no… There’s… Tomorrow is today. And I think that we all want to feel like we’re part of something that is making a ripple impact that’s positive throughout the rest of the world.

MANI:

I personally love Burning Man. It’s one of the few places on earth I can truly be myself. And I want to do everything I can to help other people maybe experience that as well. And even if they can’t, just come enjoy what you want to enjoy.

KAT: 

I think the younger generation needs to participate so that we can build the world that we want to see. This is happening in a lot of my spaces of like, we are sick and tired of the world that we currently live in and what we’ve been left with, with a dying planet, and horrific policies going into place that directly harm people of different identities. It’s a pretty scary place right now, especially here in America. I think there’s a lot of tension globally. 

So I think showing up as the younger generation; global change starts locally, right? If we show up and we start building the world that we want to see, you never know who you’re going to meet at the Burn. There’s people from all different walks of life that hold all different types of positions and have all different types of power and influence. The Burn is a great place to show up authentically and express ourselves, and it’s a little more accepting in a sense. There are people that go to Burning Man that are assholes, and there are people that don’t agree with you that do cause harm with their thinking or what they say, but I think the Burn is…

ANDIE: 

It’s not utopia. I see shaking heads. Everybody agrees this is not utopia.

KAT: 

But I think it’s a great container to interact with people that are different than you in this more relaxed environment. I say relaxed meaning, as opposed to like the strict social norms that we experience in default world. Um. And I think it’s a great way to actually have those conversations, and to change people’s perspectives just by showing up authentically. And, so, we have a duty if we want to see the changes in the world that we want to, this is a place that we can do that, and try to build out the community we wanna see.

WHITNEY: 

I really feel for people in our generation, and the younger generation, too, just with all that social isolation, and yeah, the state of the world where we are now, too. And shifting in those moments from spectator to participation is empowering. 

I’ve always had this strong sense of civic responsibility, and it shows up in funny ways at the Burn, because it might be like some ridiculous or mundane or debaucherous thing that you’re doing, or it could be really serious and a serious offering that you’re providing. But that feeling does translate back into default world as well. And so being able to exercise that muscle, and just feel more present and sovereign in your life is a wonderful experience.

ANDIE: 

Some things never change, and these sentiments about Burning Man are among them. I’m hearing voices that sound like mine when I first came here. It makes me really happy to see how much work is going into keeping that alive.

Anything else about Rising Sparks that you want to make sure people know? I believe that people can also follow you on the Instagram at The Rising Sparks.

TAYLOR:

Yes, our Instagram is slowly taking off the ground. We’ve created a Substack which you can subscribe to at TheRisingSparks@Burningman.org. We are currently in the process of developing a website.

ANDIE: 

This is wonderful news. So people can tune in there and find out more, get involved, and hopefully come on along and become a Rising Spark. 

I’m really excited to see that this is happening. It feels really good. As a member of Generation X, and, ah, one of the older generations has been at Burning Man now for about 28 years, the fact that it’s just as alive and you care just as much as I always have just really feels good, and I love hearing about it. So thank you so much for being here.

MANI:

Thank you so much, Andie.

TAYLOR:

Thank you.

KAT: 

Thanks, Andie. 

WHITNEY: 

Thanks for having us.

ANDIE: 

This has been another episode of Burning Man Live. Thank you for listening today. 

Thank you to everyone involved in this production of Burning Man Live; the whole production team, and to Taylor Andrews, and Kat Ebert, Mani Senthil, Whitney Wilhelmy. 

I’m your host, Andie Grace, Actiongrl, looking forward to the best Burn ever.

We’ll see you next time. 

Thanks, Larry.

 

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