Burning Man celebrates the summer solstice

Embrace the ethos in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert

Story & photos by Eric Cachinero

“Welcome home.” They were the first words I remember hearing as I was received with open arms at the greeter station to participate in my first Burning Man. I was a Burning Man virgin in 2011 with no true concept of the weight of the words that welcomed me. I had walked through the gates of the unknown and unfamiliar, and spent the first several days trying to understand what I was witnessing.

My moment of clarity and understanding came later that week while hundreds of toga-donning people pulled a 50-foot tall wooden Trojan Horse along by ropes, before launching flaming arrows at it and watching the entire thing burn to the ground. I understood in that moment that experiences like these are why people make the trek year after year to one of the most inhospitable places on the planet.

Is Burning Man a model of a psychedelic futuristic civilization? Is it a lingering flicker of ancient man? Is it an abstract radical idea? The answer to those questions isn’t entirely clear. But what is a bit clearer is that in 1986, Burning Man founder Larry Harvey and several friends descended upon Baker Beach in San Francisco and burned an 8-foot-tall improvised wooden effigy to celebrate the summer solstice. The ritual ignited a chain reaction that would lead to the creation of an annual gathering of more than 70,000 in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert.

Click here to read the full story.

This year's Burning Man will take place August 26 to September 3. Click here for information.