Reach

As my time between the trees has led to dust I can’t help but marvel the changes my life has undergone in the past year. As an adolescent I would lie in bed at night and picture myself on grand adventures. I wanted to be the female Kerouac. I wanted to be strong, independent and to move forward. As I’ve grown I’ve come into trusting this crooked journey and all the strangeness that has come alongside it. Above money, give me a story and above beauty, give me voice. The further you travel the more doors open and all the different ways to live a life begin to reveal themselves. Even now, as the dust from another pocket of society loosens itself from my skin I sit in awe at the changes life has undergone. How many moments did I sit in silence this spring moving through hurt and self doubt as winter’s wind worked it’s way through the holes of the wooden cabin in the woods? How many times did I think to connect but instead, remained silent?

To be here now, reeling from seven days of magic and the openness of an environment that challenges you to step into your strangeness rather than bury it I feel an odd wave of comfort. How appropriate that my first burn a year ago, Caravansary, was themed around travelers venturing together while this year, The Carnival of Mirrors, took a much more isolated path and challenged me to look inward. Seeing things as they are above how you would like them to be is a lesson that has slowly entangled itself in the web that holds together my movement from one place to the next. To be a traveler it is sometimes easy to get caught admiring the exterior while passing through. Allowing yourself to hide vulnerability beneath distance becomes all too easy with practice. What a beautiful lesson to be reminded of the darkness that is coupled in our light. We are not one dimensional characters meant to shine for those in transit. In us is a grey area where our inner child, still hopeful, struggles to connect while the adult keeps us safe. Challenge yourself to see the child in those around you and recognize the child that rests within yourself. Each and every one of us is moving through something. Each and every one of us growing. Let yourself reach out and in turn, allow those around you to shed their walls.

Relase the carnival and let yourself be.

Let yourself be.

-A

**It's been two years and I have yet to bring my camera out on the playa but luckily there are plenty around to capture the beauty. Photo: Geometria and sculture by Alexandr Milov