In addition to taking photos, TerraMai’s Ray Pettengell filed this account of his latest Burning Man experience

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to go car camping with 47,000 of your closest friends? Friends you had, wanted to have, or never knew you had?

Or maybe you always wanted to experience a non-monetary, barter-only economy – no money, ATM cards or checkbooks? Maybe you have a closet fantasy to ride a bicycle around a desert with nothing on but a pair of fuzzy chaps, or dance your booty off until the sun rises, and then keep dancing…?

Well, Burning Man is the place where experiences like these – and many others – can, and will, happen to you, for you, by you and with you. The experience is a full-participatory festival, where the show-goers make the show.

The essence of burning man is that the special creative people who attend the festival, make the festival. It’s the people who create art cars and art installations, who decorate their bikes and bodies, that make the Burning Man experience a truly unique experience. I can say that nothing else exists (on this planet, anyway) like it.

Burning Man is unlike any music festival, party, art opening, fire show that you have ever attended, which makes it difficult to describe in words. If you are at all interested in a wild festival of the arts, and have a very open and liberal mind, then you might consider attending.

But you must be open to the experiences of “the playa.” The playa, is the Burning Man term for the Black Rock section of the Nevada desert where the festival is held.

The instant city that appears and disappears annually for the festival is named “Black Rock City” (BRC). The playa is a special place with out rigid rules, strict policies or enforcement. Yes, the Bureau of Land Management, the local sheriff’s department and even undercover police are present, but the rules are nothing like your local neighborhood.

For instance, you are not gong to be sighted for playing your stereo loud at 12:30am, or wandering around the desert topless. It is a city that cares for itself and its inhabitants. BRC practices strict “Leave No Trace” ethics and takes great care to preserve the desert it inhabits.

If you like music – especially loud dance, techno, drum and bass, break beats and trance – you will certainly enjoy the playa night life. No noise restrictions there. The music goes all day and all night and BRC is truly a city that never sleeps.

The days are full of activities like roller skating, body painting, yoga, monkey chants. Cruising the playa on your bike, people watching and observing all the interesting, interactive and creative art installations is full sensory experience.

As the sun sets over the desert, and the nocturnal folks awake, the playa really gets shakin’. Art cars fill their generators and propane tanks in preparation of the evening festivities. As the sky darkens, the music gets louder and the flames go higher.

Imagine thousands of people riding around aimlessly on fuzzy bicycles with flashing lights and glow sticks, searching for the scene that resonates with their tastes. Once one finds the right music or theme camp, they may stay a while to dance or decorate themselves for the rest of the evening. Then it’s off to the next venue.

As there are over 45,000 people, and hundreds of theme camps to visit, one can’t see them all.  To be honest, it seems like everyone is guided by some spontaneous force that flows around the playa.

No one seems to know what will happen next, or who they will meet or where they are going. Nor do they seem to care or get caught up with any agenda. Maybe this is what makes this festival so popular – because many of us live such rigid, structured lives and rarely have the freedom to just cut loose, chuck the wallet and have fun.

Burning Man represents so many things to so many different people. The type of people who attend the event range from peaceful hippies to raging anarchists, from dance junkies to pryo technicians, all of whom seem to share and care about the unique Burning Man lifestyle.

Based around art, the festival produces amazing forms of sculpture, installations, and interactive exhibits. Some of these amazing pieces like the Burning Man icon, the David Best temple, and the ‘Crude Awakening’ oil derrick, are burned as a climax to the event at the end of the week.

Thousands of peeps show up to watch the pyro technics and the blazes of fire that engulf these amazing works of art. Impermanence, a virtue in Buddhism, seems to be embraced as the crowds cheer while the structures blaze and collapse to the ground. The crowds run to the fire, dance and scream with excitement.

Is it anti-establishment? Anarchy? Who knows?

I think the beauty of Burning Man is that it’s what you experience and take away from the event is what it means to you. Burning Man is not something one can easily explain, nor should it be. Burning Man is something that can, and should, be experienced.