4 • The Soul Quest

A treasure hunt for parched participants.

For Burning Man this year, I am creating the Soul Quest: a treasure hunt for parched participants.

This will be a v1 of something I hope to build on and continue with for future years.

The idea is something I wrote about before in more depth, but the short of it is that you need to find and solve a series of clues to discover the treasure. The clues are on posts I hope to station at nearby camps, so that burners go to explore the neighborhood a little while searching, and not just come for one particular thing or event.

Each post also gives you instructions for your journey to the next: a prompt to discuss with your fellow questers.

The posts are themed by the elements — Earth 🜃, Fire 🜂, Water 🜄 and Air 🜁 – with the prompts being People Development challenges that lead you on the real quest: a search for deeper understanding of your soul.

This is a concept drawing for the posts to help me figure out materials (and costs). Not shown is the main treasure destination.

My first Burn was in 2017. My friends Tim and Dan introduced and prepped me so thoroughly and well for the playa that I had veteran burners tell me I was “the best prepared first-timer they’d ever seen.” 95% of that credit goes to their love and care; the other 5% is just me listening and taking notes. It ended up being a perfect first Burn for me: a magical, life-altering first time seeing Black Rock City at night from Esplanade; a playa romance; countless rambunctious adventures including seeing Daft Punk played at the trash fence; a profoundly moving and powerful Temple burn and grieving experience; and receiving two playa names to top it all off.

The one thing I didn’t do that year was create and bring art to the playa. So for the 2018 Burn I made a menu of life stories of mine, and offered people a sampling. This proved to be an incredibly popular gift, but it was art that only existed when I was telling my stories. I long to build something more lasting. Enduring. Permanent.

As I dive deeper into my soul and nourish it, I am embracing calling myself an artist despite feeling like a 5-year old with crayons compared to so many of my friends. But comparison is the thief of joy, so whenever I have those insecurities crop up I quiet my mind, thank it for speaking up, and commit myself to one step at a time.

I am an artist.

That concept drawing is where I start. This Midjourney rendering of some ideas is a nice suggestion of where I’d like to go.

The Man burns in 103 days.

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