"Blackrock – The Floating World" – August 31, 2002

In the space between Pacha Mama and Kauai, I am led once again to the City of Dreams. It is clear to me that I cannot survive in New York, this will be my first stop before heading to this island called 'Kauai'.

The landscape of Blackrock is so deep within the realms of Fire. I am loving the existence of such a place; the Incarnate manifestation of a magickal city which appears for only two weeks in the desert.

Blackrock is a city of synchronicities, where the many lines of our destinies find each other, a mapwork of shared providence echoed in the many lines of the playa herself. This will be my second journey to this realm, the first suggested a year previous by Vogel, as we travelled cross-country in a converted u-haul trailer to experience this place for the first time.

Such is a realm of creativity unleashed, where the imagination and aspirant fellowship of humanity is given opportunity to shine under the harshest of conditions.

Before his suggestion, I had no idea such a thing existed. That there was a place where such art ran rampant. Where the many people came together to burn away that which did not serve them, losing and finding themselves in the flush of neon and endless dance.

I had been to the City of Dreams before. A year or so earlier Vogel had invited me, initiating me to her wonders.

It was a magical place. Flush with the energies of the emergent World. I had come by different paths this time, finding my way into a realm of iron and fire, of metalworkers and fellow firedancers.

There was a magic of embodiment there. Where beings stepped deeper into the freedom of who they could be, burning away the bits and pieces of their old selves that no longer served in a radiant pyre after an elemental ordeal of personal alchemy.

Burning of the Man

The elementals were so strong, expressing themselves through the swirling storms of glowing dust. Dancing with the unleashed energy of the pyre. Despite the distance, I could feel them, their intelligence and grace, shifting the textures of the space.

Burningman theme – The Floating World

The Quest leads me once more to Blackrock, the City of Dreams … where I encounter many avatars of Fire, as well as connecting with allies met in the jungles of Costa Rica …

Sacred Portals in the Desert

Over time, I could come to see that vastness of this place, the confluence of ley upon the land which expressed itself as the annual ritual of ‘Burningman’, where the many tribes of the realms would gather, sharing their dreams of a freer World.

I had been to the City of Dreams before. A year or so earlier Vogel had invited me, initiating me to her wonders.

It was a magical place. Flush with the energies of the emergent World. I had come by different paths this time, finding my way into a realm of iron and fire, of metalworkers and fellow firedancers.

Looking back across the akasha, I see why I shot the photo when I did, how the many letters, the many languages of humanity were lit from behind by the most elemental of things.

I continued to wield the photography, feeling for the space within myself where I could illuminate the magic I felt beneath the surface of the world.

And in that sky I saw angels.

Characters Appearing in this Episode

Christine Cannavo

It seems a mirage made real. In which I ended up in places of Iron and Fire, accompanying the firedancing troupe I had made acquaintance with during my stay at Tillary Tower.

. It is here I meet with a beautiful filmmaker who invites me to visit her at a place she calls 'Shangri-Lafayette', in the towne of Lafayette just east of the City of Clouds, known on the surface plane as 'San Francisco'

It is here I have a flash of Love, meeting the very elfin girl I had met at Pacha Mama. Here, in a flurry of balloons and mystical synchronicity, there is happiness. It is a thing of magick, with one event leading into another in beautiful synchrony. One of the only times I will be graced by Love in the dream city, though I will attempt to conjure it's essence many times in the years to come.

I am honoured, for it seems I am to spin fire in the inner circle of the City. Such will turn out to be a grace afforded me many times on the Quest, a thing I realize later is the current manifestation of the magick of Fire, of transformation itself, under the auspicies of the Man.

In the burning of the man I have the sense that we are pilgrims, travelers finding their way home. Such is a brief and passing revelation, for I am young, and full of lust and abandon, caught in the shifting tones of my own confusion and aspiration.

Over the years, I will come to see that this is so much more than a city, that she is a portal, a gateway between dimensions, where beings are assisted in their endless becoming. Having made alliance with Christine, I make my way westward, towards San Francisco, to this place she calls 'Shangri-Lafayette’.

“City of Dreams – Sparseland“

After leaving the jungle, I am called to the City of Dreams once more. That such a place exists in the incarnate, woven of so many strange and wondrous energies entices me. Calls to something within that had long-since been unmet.

The sigil of Fire is strong here. Metal, iron and fire. Driving out here with a pair of lovers; I find my way to a place called ‘Sparseland'; there to connect with the troupe of firedancers I had been playing with in New Yorke. I do not know where the adventure will lead. It is strange, to consider this from the Now. The hodgepodge of thoughts and reactions, sensations and movements that defined ‘youth’.

Ah. I had one of the most romantic, beautiful moments of my Life here. The girl I had found resonance with on the sacred land of the Mother appears. It is one of the magnificent qualities of the City of Dreams that synchromysticies occur so easily; as if the chaff separating us from our Wonder is made thin.

(more notes on this)

It seems a mirage made real. In which I ended up in places of Iron and Fire, accompanying the firedancing troupe I had made acquaintance with during my stay at Tillary Tower.