Your first time to Burning Man there’s this great ceremony of the ringing of the bell. Before I got out there, I was warned by the Burners of our group that I should be prepared to hit the Virgin Bell, or roll around in the dust. In my mind, either of the two options were equally exciting to me, and I intended to do either with the utmost pride and vigor.

Now, looking back, I understand what it really means to enter the world of Black Rock City as a virgin, a first timer, a novice, an innocent child. Out of everyone in the group, I feel like I was the biggest virgin of them all, not because I was without knowledge, understanding, compassion, and wisdom, but because I am void of true experience.

It was my first solo trip. It was my first leap outside of the normal excepted lifestyle. It was my first with truly focused and brilliant artists, all trying to capture and produce. It was my first introspective look that I was able to capture and want to create from. It was the first time where I felt my existence occurred as a result of the current troubled state of the world.

I talked to Mike the other night on the phone, and this wonderful talented mind told me I had a beautiful piece of film. I can recall the piece perfectly; I was in Camp Heaven, hardly feeling bliss. In a moment of true vulnerability, I have captured myself on camera feeling disconnected, alienated, and out of place. At the time I felt like the only one, but Mike says to me, “its like wow. Is this really what people go through in Burning Man? And its like, wow, well yeah. But then you get over it and you adjust along the way.”