Enlightenment Intensives and Burningman--It's The Human Connection

As my preparations for Burningman intensify I'm reconnecting with my experience last year as a virgin burner. I'm also simultaneously preparing for my first Enlightenment Intensive (EI) as a monitor next week. I've written about my first Enlightenment Intensive here, which occurred in April 2005. Since that time, I've participated in a total of seven EIs along with a ten day master's training course. You can read more about these experiences by clicking on the label The Road to Enlightenment in the sidebar. Burningman and my experience of the Enlightenment Intensives are very similar in many ways. The most precious thing they have in common for me is the opportunity for intimate connection with others. I plan to continue participation in both for some time.

I have some teachers who call themselves Abraham. I was introduced to Abraham's teachings maybe ten years ago. Abraham uses the term "blended being" which refers to the human condition as being both physical and non-physical. I love this term and ever since I first heard it used I've taken it on to describe my beingness. I've taken on awareness of my blended beingness as a daily meditation practice.

I've always been a very spiritually focused person and most certainly I'm interested in Enlightenment--simply put, I'm interested in knowing the truth of who and what I am and who and what another is. I intend to directly experience this truth and to be open to this experience at all times.

I'm not so interested in becoming enlightened so I can break free of the physical world. After all, I was once free of the physical world and I assume I'll return to full on non-physical beingness at some point. But I came here to experience the physical and as far as I can ascertain, I'm not close to being finished exploring. I'm enjoying this adventure immensely. Frankly, I don't quite get the point of taking on a physical form to simply recover from my amnesia, remember who I really am and then get the heck out of Dodge. All said and done though, it doesn't seem to behoove one well, whilst taking advantage of this human condition, to forget one's true nature. My experience thus far has lead me to the insight that I fare much better in creating the specific type of life that I prefer when I'm living in Truth. So my current plan is that while I'm focused on living within this physical form to the fullest, I'm also intent on carrying on in a more enlightened, awake and aware state--that of a blended being. That's utilizing the best of both worlds, yes?

Anyway, this excerpt from Francis Weller's upcoming book, Unforgotten Wisdom: Reclaiming Our Indigenous Soul (that I found on the Wisdom Bridge Website), really speaks to my blended being as well as my Burningman experience.

What is the experience of embodiment? What awareness is necessary to know our incarnation? Sensing, feeling, responding, interacting with the world as participant, seamless intimacy. We are not apart from the world, prisoners in an internal landscape; we are members in good standing with this breathing, animate earth. What the indigenous soul knows, and so eloquently recognizes, is our kinship with clouds and wind, sunlight filtered through oak and Douglas Fir, birdsong drifting over the day, ants moving along railings and stone, comfrey blooming and self-heal offering its blue stalk to our eyes while Barber’s Adagio for Strings plays in the background. How can we feel so empty when the world is so full? Our emptiness is our failure to be in the world. Every piece of conditioning—religious, social, economic, political, educational—that places us outside this abundance, empties us.
We are bereft of the fullness in great part because what we know as alive, has been turned cold, objectified for study, researched as resource, but where soul was to be found, where love was to be felt, we only encountered abstraction.

That just touches me. Isn't it lovely?

I adore the experiences of embodiment at Burningman. There is Lap Dancing and Pole Dancing.










Buddha is all over the playa.









There is a zendo.


Altars galore.















Shadow dancing up the yin yang.







The man burns in 35 days!