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I recently went to Playa Del Fuego<\/a>, the East Coast regional \u201cBurn\u201d held over Columbus Day \/ Indigenous Peoples\u2019 Day weekend each year. (They also do a spring version each Memorial Day.) It was a cold, wet, and muddy festival\u2026 rather like this year\u2019s Free Spirit Gathering<\/a> in that respect.<\/p>\n Though PDF is a larger event with a lot more techno music and a lot less drumming, and more flaming art and less ritual, there are some similarities with large Pagan festivals like FSG and Starwood<\/a>. Also some overlap in attendees \u2014 every night at PDF I ran into a few people who I knew from one of those Pagan festivals. While PDF does not consider itself a religious event, in some sense it represents the same sort of pilgrimage to a temporary community<\/a> that religious festivals have embodied for thousands of years.<\/a><\/p>\n I haven\u2019t been to Burning Man (yet \u2014 if you have an established camp and would like to invite me to come give a talk, I think that would count as business travel for tax purposes, contact me\u2026), but PDF is an \u201cofficial\u201d regional Burn and operates according to the \u201cTen Principals\u201d that Burning Man Founder Larry Harvey wrote in 2004<\/a>. Indeed these formed the basis of my favorite piece of art at PDF this year, the \u201cPrincip-Poles\u201d, which invited attendees to write their thoughts on a pole for each of the principals before they were all burned.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think we\u2019re going to set Patheos on fire here, but I thought I might take that idea and run with it a bit, with a little Pagan-ish refection on the Ten Principles based on my experience at a few PDFs and discussions with Burners. Do we perhaps see some parallel evolution here with Pagan festivals? Could a Pagan event be built upon the Ten Principles?<\/p>\n (If you\u2019ve never been to a Burn, my friend Matt Muirhead<\/a> (recently named Baltimore\u2019s Best Artist<\/a> in the City Paper reader\u2019s poll) put together a short film of our PDF experience<\/a> a few years ago which will give you a hint of it.)<\/p>\n Radical Inclusion While I\u2019ve been referring to these events as \u201cPagan festivals\u201d, you certainly don\u2019t need to identify as \u201cPagan\u201d to attend. FSG explictly welcomes \u201cpeople walking all kinds of paths \u2014 Wiccans, Druids, Heathens, Pagans, Vodouisants, Santeras, Polytheists, Monotheists, Pantheists, Atheists, [and] Animists\u201d<\/a> (and I happen to know that its attendees have also included folks who identify as Buddhist<\/a>, Christian, and Jewish), while Starwood proclaims itself \u201ca celebration of diversity and alternatives in belief systems, lifestyles, and spirituality\u201d<\/a> with \u201ca community of explorers fresh from their many journeys through realms both alien and familiar\u201d. All are welcome.<\/p>\n Gifting How many times has a bottle of something fine been shared as a gift around the fire? My good friend Joe Galitsky used to lay out breakfast for everyone at dawn at Bonfire Night at Starwood, and I\u2019ve made it a habit the past few years to go around handing out wine and chocolate. (Remember, strangers have the best candy.) I have a number of small treasures that were freely gifted to me at festivals for no apparent reason other than the generosity of the giver. Gifting may not be as explicit at Pagan events as at Burns but it\u2019s certainly part of the culture,<\/p>\n Decommodification Now here we have a difference, at least on the surface. While any sort of commerce is frowned upon at 10 Principles events, Pagan events not only have vendors selling stuff but often allow them to advertize in the program guide or otherwise help sponsor the event. Festival presenters and performers are often paid, or at least \u201ccomped\u201d on admission. (Disclosure: I\u2019ve been comped or paid as a presenter, performer, or staff member at several Pagan or Pagan-ish events. )<\/p>\n On the other hand, we\u2019re not talking big-ticket sponsorship by multi-national corporations here, but rather the sort of very small businesses that anti-corporate \u201cbuy local\u201d activists like to support, who are sometimes lucky to break even on their appearance at events. An FSG vendor once told me a joke about a doctor, a lawyer, and a Pagan festival vendor splitting a big lottery jackpot. Asked what they\u2019re going to do with their winnings, the doctor talks about endowing a hospital, the lawyer wants to found a free legal clinic, and the vendor says, \u201cWell, I guess I\u2019ll just keep doing what I\u2019m doing until the money runs out.\u201d<\/p>\n If we compare this with the commodification that has come to surround Burning Man in practice \u2014 such as concierge service to set up camps<\/a> \u2014 it may be that the formal acceptance of some small level of commerce at Pagan events has in practice been a better defense against commodification. Or perhaps Burning Man has just suffered more from proximity to Silicon Valley and its concentration of wealthy but hollow people who like to adopt a veneer of spirituality and bohemianism; East Coast regional Burns like PDF seem reasonably safe from commodification for the moment.<\/p>\n Radical Self-reliance When the weather\u2019s good and everyone you\u2019re camped with is on the ball and everything is going well, it\u2019s possible to go to a festival or a Burn and not be challenged at all.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why the best stories are about the times when things didn\u2019t go well. That FSG where you danced around the fire in driving rain. That cold and wet Starwood where everyone ducked under a pavilion for shelter and an impromptu karaoke and liquor drinking session broke out. The mud burn at PDF where you managed to help your friend in the wheelchair get across camp without sinking into a pit.<\/p>\n Those times, in other words, when you were challenged to discover and exercise your inner resources, to grow to meet a challenge.<\/p>\n Radical Self-expression For the past few years I\u2019ve run the Bardic Circle at FSG, and I\u2019ve often performed in the Bardic Concert at Starwood. We do love our bards, don\u2019t we? These Bardics are more than opens mics, they\u2019re invocations of the creative and expressive spirit that encourage everyone to find and share their gifts. And I mean everyone \u2014 I\u2019ve lost count of the number of people who have performed in public for the first time at the FSG Bardic.<\/p>\n Communal Effort Events like FSG and Starwood are certainly community efforts. Yes, there is an \u201cofficial\u201d staff that puts them together, but everyone is encouraged (even expected) to collaborate through volunteering. The Free Spirit Alliance (the groups that puts on FSG) is a member organization that was founded to provide a social network in the days before that meant Facebook.<\/p>\n Civic Responsibility Festivals and Burns are temporary autonomous zones, but they take place within a larger community. FSG has often had a canned goods drive, and more recently the Free Spirit Alliance has been looking for ways to work with charities in the \u201coff season\u201d.<\/p>\n Leaving No Trace![\"Image](\"https:\/\/infamous.net\/tzp_images\/pdf-principoles1.jpg\" "\\"Image")
The Princip-Poles<\/div>\n\n
\nAnyone may be a part of Burning Man. We welcome and respect the stranger. No prerequisites exist for participation in our community.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/infamous.net\/tzp_images\/pdf-principoles2.jpg\")
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Burning Man is devoted to acts of gift giving. The value of a gift is unconditional. Gifting does not contemplate a return or an exchange for something of equal value.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
\n In order to preserve the spirit of gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising. We stand ready to protect our culture from such exploitation. We resist the substitution of consumption for participatory experience.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
Burning Man encourages the individual to discover, exercise and rely on his or her inner resources.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
Radical self-expression arises from the unique gifts of the individual. No one other than the individual or a collaborating group can determine its content. It is offered as a gift to others. In this spirit, the giver should respect the rights and liberties of the recipient.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
Our community values creative cooperation and collaboration. We strive to produce, promote and protect social networks, public spaces, works of art, and methods of communication that support such interaction.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
We value civil society. Community members who organize events should assume responsibility for public welfare and endeavor to communicate civic responsibilities to participants. They must also assume responsibility for conducting events in accordance with local, state and federal laws.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
Our community respects the environment. We are committed to leaving no physical trace of our activities wherever we gather. We clean up after ourselves and endeavor, whenever possible, to leave such places in a better state than when we found them.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n