I got back from Burning Man the week before last. A large part of the value of going to this festival is returning from it.
When I take people on Creative Journey retreats, two days feel like two weeks. Because they leave their usual state of mind, their usual loops. A short period away feels much bigger. When my travelers return to their lives, they come back as foreigners. They don’t immediately recognize everything. They meet their lives again, as if for the first time. This unfamiliarity is crucial because they notice everything. How does this feel? How does that feel? Does this make sense?
A similar thing happens when you go to the Playa for a week or more. You leave your life completely. It is such an alien landscape that requires your full attention to survive. When you return, your life feels foreign. You wonder why you do the things you do. You wonder if any of it is meaningful.
Leave your life so you can return. A painting on a wall becomes invisible to us if it is hung in the same location year after year. A life full of loops and habits becomes unfelt year after year. When we return to our life, we feel it, see it, and can make new decisions.
Don’t rush to return. Give yourself time to linger in the in-between. Don’t arrive back immediately. Be a foreigner in the foreign land of your life. Observe. Wonder why you should bother. Ask yourself what really matters.
So much of what I do is aspirational: do this, then that might happen. So much of it is held together by imagined consequences. Stop doing and see what actually happens.
Clean a surface. Give a hug. Make a cup of tea. Wonder what is real.
* photo by Aynur Westen