Burning Man 2023 was my favorite week of my life, and the mud played a huge part

While corporate media and social media dunked on Burners, we danced in the rain.

Recommended listening: So Was Red, by Thomas Newman.

The funniest – and simultaneously saddest – part of Burning Man 2023 came as my friends and I regained regular access to the Internet on Tuesday and saw the headlines from members of the corporate news media and comments from people across social media. 

What has been painted as a bunch of self-absorbed Silicon Valley brats drowning and starving in the mud was, instead, a celebration of life and community that became the most incredible event – and my favorite week – of my life. 

The mud and rain only made it more special.

Journalists and Tweeters who’ve never been to Burning Man – and have literally zero idea what the event is – have over the last week driven misleading headlines and a cruel piling-on that demonstrates why they don’t belong at Burning Man in the first place.

To read the default-world reaction to my favorite Burn, you’d think we were all starving, drowning and suffering from hypothermia.

“Good,” so many posts shared, “they deserved it.”

Yes, in fact, we did. The incredible people at Burning Man are some of the most loving, giving, creative people in the world. 

We deserved what we got: A beautiful week of generosity, dancing, sharing and emotion that will live forever in my mind and the minds of tens of thousands of Burners.

Burning Man 2023 emphasized love and community

Ahead of the rain, this Burn had already been shaping up as my favorite. 

Cast by many uninformed loudmouths as simply a glorified “music festival,” Monday afternoon brought a trip to the Temple. The gorgeous structure – this year resembling an upside down flower from which the attendee bees can draw nectar – is the emotional heart of Burning Man.

Walking inside the Temple – it’s nearly silent as a solemn gesture to those we’ve lost – I stopped to read every single memory of a deceased loved one left by a visitor. 

The young man seared in my mind was a 20-something student at Colorado State who had, for reasons unknown to his mother and another loved one with a posted hand-written letter, taken his own life. 

I can still see his photo – in his green CSU sweatshirt smiling at the camera – seemingly full of joy. 

I stood wondering how society had failed him. Who didn’t see the signs? Who had been cruel to him? How did this young man feel like he was better off leaving this world far before he should have been taken away?

It was about 10 minutes I stood there, staring at him, reading his family members’ words over and over, tears streaming down my face as I looked introspectively.

I’m no saint. Have I led anyone to feel unsupported? To feel like they didn’t belong? 

Those 10 minutes were literally the most impactful of my 2023 Burning Man experience.

Sounds just like Coachella, right?

A couple days later, a friend of mine whom I came across opened up to me about his drug addiction. He’s struggled for years about it, and he’s largely put it in his past. 

Two nights before, he met another guy who has been going through something similar. My friend modeled for his new friend the love and support others around him have shown as he navigated the toughest part of his life. 

He cried with pride – literally on my shoulder – that he had been able to help a total stranger possibly have a breakthrough in his own life and, with any luck, take a first important step to recovery.

Just like Electric Forest, no?

Thursday night, my friends and I were riding our bikes through the dark Playa when we were stopped by two men on foot. 

“It’s Mike’s birthday,” one of them said. “Would you like a cupcake to celebrate?”

They had brought several boxes of Sprinkles cupcakes onto the Playa that night, hoping to celebrate Mike’s birthday with other Burners. The three of us hugged Mike, cheering on his birthday and devouring some delicious cake with two men we never saw before and will never see again.

Just like Tomorrowland.

Friday afternoon I was awakened by rain on the roof and a strange, unique guffaw. A Russian guy had been walking through the mud and saw the new fire in our camp.

My campmate from Bulgaria luckily spoke some Russian, and the Russian poker-player-turned-truck-driver shared a bunch of hearty laughs with us, waking up essentially everyone in our camp. A blessing.

He was the first of dozens of strangers from across North America and Europe to stop at our camp to grab a few minutes of heat, a shot of whiskey and the chance to bond with strangers from around the world.

Just like EDC.

On top of all of that, the most incredible art and music blossomed on the Playa.

The deer art car of Maxa was a favorite this year. The Chapel of Babel was a study in enormity embracing detail. The Cube kept climbers entertained. Blockhaus Steamroom — a mobile car on the Playa where people stripped naked and showered and danced — was like from another planet where no one cared about anything.

Titanic’s End was a highlight last year and even more impressive in 2023.

Here comes the rain

When Saturday brought news that no one was leaving (except a handful of hitchhikers by foot), there were a couple “Oh shit” minutes amongst friends.

Yet reality quickly set in – we weren’t going anywhere – and everyone I encountered adapted to the notion that we’d all get to spend more time in Black Rock City.

What luck!

Even as text messages of concern trickled into attendees through the spotty cell reception – triggered by sensationalist doomsday headlines from the corporate news media – the Burners showed who they are and why they belong at Burning Man.

Camps set up stands to hand out food or drinks to those who needed it. People trudging through the mud stopped strangers to ask if they needed anything.

My camp offered sleeping spots in our RVs to people around us in tents whom we didn’t know 48 hours earlier.

One woman I met left her camp with a bottle of Jameson to offer uplifting shots. Art cars played music to keep spirits high. 

The year before, Burning Man had persevered through incredible heat and dust storms. Some rain wouldn’t ruin our 2023 parade.

As the default world suddenly became consumed with our misery, so many of us took the opportunity to express the 10 principles of Burning Man, including communal effort, civic responsibility and participation. 

That night was possibly my favorite ever at Burning Man.

My husband and I wandered barefoot through the mud – it was the easiest way to get around – through the camps to the Esplanade, stumbling across a group from Moab, Utah, who made our night.

The group at camp Booty Worship was full of nothing but joy and celebration, even in the chilly mud. DJ Loba spun a set that kept the crowd smiling for hours, even as she came into the crowd from the booth and played her saxophone to her own set as a fire twirler entertained behind her.

I kid you not.

Afterward, Future Turtles threw an impromptu party – our favorite gay party of the week – where we saw many old friends and made some new ones as the sky met dawn.

“That was one of my favorite nights ever at Burning Man,” I heard more than once over the next 24 hours.

The following night brought us to an incredible celebration of life, love, community and music at Octopus Garden.

Even as we left Black Rock City in our RV Monday afternoon — it took 11 hours for us to get to the paved road — we rejoiced. In line to leave, we met strangers who passed out freshly brewed cappuccinos, I got to hear about a friend’s engagement to marry in the Temple, one guy passed out popsicles, and we even held an impromptu dance party as I played one of my DJ sets.

Total “misery.”

People who haven’t been to Burning Man literally have no idea what it is

People who haven’t attended Burning Man can’t understand what it is. They can’t. It’s impossible.

That isn’t some deficiency on their part – Before my first burn in 2019 I thought it was just a sex, drugs and rock & roll romp through the desert. 

On the second day this year I saw two friends who were experiencing their first Burn. In the months before, they had so many friends try to describe Burning Man for them. 

After two days on the Playa, they told me my pre-Burn description of Burning Man had been the most accurate of all: 

“Indescribable.”

To people who’ve never attended, it makes the reaction of most Burners to this year’s half-inch of rain and foot of mud indescribable too.

It seems impossible, to journalists and Tweeters behind their keyboards, that tens of thousands of people would relish in the chilly rain and clay, taking the opportunity to meet new people, cuddle around the campfire and take joy in being stranded at the world’s greatest event for another couple days.

Yet that’s what happened.

Despite the glee some took in hearing about our falsely reported “misery,” people I know at Burning Man rejoiced in the rain, embraced the mud, helped total strangers and hosted some of the best parties of the week.

Sorry, Burning Man haters, we weren’t miserable.

Instead, many of us – like myself – experienced the most incredible week of our lives.

To be sure, a minority of people at Burning Man freaked out. You can’t go anywhere without finding some bad actors who, in this case, have their cars now stuck in eight inches of hardened mud for other people to clean up. It’s utterly disgraceful. 

Yet the worst of Burning Man 2023 wasn’t the rain.

It was the false, cruel headlines, tweets, comments and coverage from people who’ve never been to Burning Man taking glee in what they thought was our misery. These people falsely reported about just how shallow and selfish all of us “Silicon Valley” brats are. 

It’s all been a reminder of why I cherish escaping the default world for a week every year, and why we’ll be back to Black Rock City in 2024.

Cyd Zeigler experienced his third — and favorite — Burn in 2023. You can also follow him on X and Instagram, as well as following DJ CYD on Soundcloud.