the cleansing flames of moderated debauchery

8/14/2019 The Cleansing Flames of Moderated Debauchery

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The Cleansing Flames of

MODERATED DEBAUCHERY

Wild Writing WomenSacred Sites

Carla K

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this essay.

by Carla King


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I take a swig rom the whisky bottle and pass

it to the man next to me, reecting that the last time Istood in ront o a bonre in the middle o the night sharing mind-altering substances with strangers I stood in a cold, dusty desert inthe American West surrounded by hundreds o uorescently-clothedhumans over-excited by drugs and alcohol and the shared experienceo burning down a very large neon-encrusted wooden man the size o asmall skyscraper that exploded with reworks and tumbled in ames to

the dry, cracked earth.

Carla King


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Te smaller children, blinded by their masks, turn the wrong wayand bump into their more graceul elders who gently guide them inthe correct direction. By the time the whisky bottle comes aroundagain the villagers are leaping into the embers, over them, across them,daring the sparks to catch their costumes aame.

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Carla


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Standing on thiscairn in the British

Isles, my blood iswarmed by the whiskyand a simmering orecognition. Admittedly,the Celts have made generouscontributions to my DNA over

the centuries, so perhaps that iswhy everything seems so eerilyamiliar: the soggy ground,the voice o the man singingto the ddlers tune, the straw-clad dancers, the embers nowdying down and the eeling o

cleansing and ertility. Anythingcould happen now, or tomorrow.Midnight approaches and I am conicted as to whether to jump acrossthe embers or just stand there transxed by the glow, or kiss the mannext to me, or do cartwheels down the hill, or lie down at in the dirtand stare up at the stars.

I have done all this and more at the Burning Man estival, which hasbeen compared to the Wicker Man ritual o human sacrice practicedby Celtic pagans rom these islands, but in act is not related to thisor any other such ritual, says ounder Larry Harvey, who claims tohave simply been motivated to burn an efgy as an act o radical sel-expression.
http://www.burningman.com/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicker_Manhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicker_Manhttp://www.burningman.com/


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One cant help but wonder how many individual acts o radicalsel-expression have included re and dancing and sex and drugsand music over the years, and happily caught on as an ofciallyrecognized pagan ritual. But since when does anybody need an excuseto burn o some energy? Wednesday is designated Hump Day

in the working world rom San Francisco to Belast, and in Dublintowneons away rom the cairn where I now standSaturday nightsare designated abandonments rom the restrictions o the workday asevidenced by the bandaged knuckles and bruised cheekbones o halthe young men walking to church on Sunday morning.

Circle the Maypole, circle the flamesThen run off and do what you will


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But back to Burning Manwhat is it then? It is Wicker Manand Beltane and Samhain, it is the Maypole and Christmasand All Hallows Eve. It is polytheisticchoose your gods andgoddesses, pass around the whisky bottle, or whatever mind-alteringsubstance that comes your way, circle the ames and then run o and

do what you will.

We humans seem to need to get wild and perhaps anonymous andbreak the social mores o the society in which we normally live.Practically speaking, Beltane has been said to be an opportunity totemporarily put aside marriage vows in avor o desire, but sexuallicentiousness also may have served to ensure ertility among non-

ertile couples, not to mention genetic variety.Psychologically speaking, the ways that religion and associated ritualsserve people and society are more complex. Proessor o Psychologyand Psychiatry Steven Reiss determined 16 basic human psychological

Psychedelic lint on the grand great earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_polehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_pole


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desires that motivate people to seek meaning through religion:power, independence, curiosity, acceptance, order, saving, honor,idealism, social contact, amily, status, vengeance, romance,eating, physical exercise, and tranquility. O course, each o us has thesemotivations in dierent doses.

One year at Burning Man I spurned alcohol in avoro a psychotropic cactus that made the hundredso uorescently-clothed creatures rolicking in thedesert look very small and uzzy, inconsequential, yetirritating, like psychedelic lint on the grand great earth.Fires dotted the desert or as ar as I could see, and the moon was ull

and bright. Te peyote created an environment that provided the idealantithesis to a lie lived in the highly organized city o San Francisco. Ineeded a ground connection, some tribal society, and a heavily nature-bound ritual, and so I latched onto some Native Americans, their acessmeared with ash and charcoal, drumming and dancing around a pile oaming jetsam while chanting ancient mantras in deep voices. I circled

The earth felt solid, the sky reliably fastened to it.

Ca


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the ames with them and, as long as I didnt look up at thebright uzzy lint, the earth elt solid and the sky reliably astenedto it. And or months I elt I could survive until the next excuseto misbehave.

I dont know i its the Celtic DNA singing in my veins or i its theeect o the whisky but standing on the cairn with the blazing reand the Irish landscape still lit by the midsummer sun below my eet,lakes and greenery and clouds in dark blue sky, I know that this thingwere doing here is the real deal, pure and purposeul and heartelt and

joyous. Suddenly the earth eels wobbly and the sky is a melt o cloudsand stars. I stand stunned, on the brink o ainting or running o

screaming into the dark, but a man with a aming torch takes my armto guide me down the muddyroad back to the mummers hallwhere music and dancing ispromised. I look or my riendsand nd them similarly led.Tat is, all but Cathy, who struts

condently down the muddyroad with a aming torch in herhand.

Te whole village slips downthe hill, laughing riotously. Icouldnt keep up but or the manat my elbow. Finally, we reach

the mummers center where abar is set up over a laundry tub,the old olks are dancing, andthe teenaged accordion player istext messaging between tunes.Suzanne is dragged onto thedance oor and proves her graceCarla King

the cleansing flames of moderated debauchery

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