Holy shit the man is a woman!

---

Kiwi Burn was magic. Almost ridiculously so.

The magic started on the journey there when Roey and I stopped off on the way at a friend's house who lives on a festival site which previously was a plant nursery and so is full of magical mature trees and wooden stages and structures. I got really high and wandered around mesmerized by it all, tapping in to all the different energies and feeling so overwhelmed at how wonderful it is to be so sensitive and have that sensitivity heightened through weed and then NOT be in a city like London but be out in the bush and able to tap into everything and really feel it. On the way there I had a conversation with Rowena in which I told her about my love for miniature things and how I am planning on having a miniature tea party at Nowhere in protest of how everything in the world gets too big and then several hours later I find myself as high as a kite, playing with this 4 year old little cutey pie in the middle of a forest in her tiny wooden miniature house! Magic. And later a group of us go for a walk and I discover the most amazing and largest Ginkgo tree I have ever laid eyes on - which is rather exciting for me because I have such an affinity with Ginkgo trees and became quite sad once we leave that I will never see it again. Before departing to get back on the road again I discover however that I have lost my shoes and suddenly realize I have left them a the Ginkgo tree - aha! So I have to go back and behold it in it's beauty once more.

A pretty magical start to the journey...

And so upon arriving at Kiwi Burn I suddenly become aware that I have somehow fallen into decorating the man (after a conversation in Kiwi's garden that went "Well if it was me doing it, I'd......" and Kiwi going "Well O.K, do you wanna do it?" and me shrugging and saying "o.k!") and I have done nothing to prepare and have no materials. This is one of those moments where there is a fine line between having faith that the universe will provide and realizing you've been an idiot for not being proactive and sorting shit out. So that first morning I manage to accumulate a large crate of acrylic paints and some good fabric donated by various people and get to work painting. I also meet Andy - a beautiful Irish burner who faithfully works along side me cutting all the wood, without whom I've no idea how I would have coped.

Kiwi suggested I make the man half male and half female and at first I wasn't into this idea as I don't like the idea of large phallus's or overtly sexual art but when I realized I could make it subtly male / female I decided that was what I would do. The conversation about who would be in front arose and Kiwi announced that the male should be in front as 'a woman always stands behind the man'. "Oh reeeeaaaally?" I cry with a mischievous glint.

But when it came down to it I started to have second thoughts. Andy, who cut all the wood for me was adamant: "It's Burning MAN not WOman!". I certainly didn't want to piss Kiwi off: he'd been working on this thing for months. No, I couldn't do it, the man would go in front. But I started t realize that the colours I associated with male energies (yellow, oranges and reds: fire/action/sun/Rah the sun god etc) I had painted on the back (as I started painting without thinking about it too much) and the female colours (yellow going into greens, blues and purples...cool, mellow colours) were on the front. Ooops. The decision had been made. Uh oh! Controversy! The Man is a friggin woman!

That second day was a battle against the clock to get the man finished as the following day I was too busy to work what with cooking my camp breakfast and then teaching my fist ever yoga class. As if on cue, a small group of volunteers showed up during the afternoon, just as I realized I really needed help and cut out fabric and painted while I ran around like a headless chicken trying to manage people and make everything up as I went along - I didn't even have a design on paper before so the whole thing was literally making it up as I went along. It all got a bit stressful when it started to rain and so we all sit in Hippie's pyramid listening working in soggy conditions listening to way too loud techno which is making me even more manic and all over the place.

Once it had stopped raining I decide to finish everything off on my own... it's too stressful trying to coordinate people and so as the sun slowly sets I screw the wooden shapes on to the man, hoping there will be enough light to finish, exhausted and hungry from not having eaten all day but suddenly mellowed out and in a slightly different head space from a spliff I was given. Again as if on cue someone brings me over a platter of fruit just out of the blue. And then a lady brings corn that Andy had grown from seed...and I feel so blessed and so taken care of.

The weed starts making me paranoid though: what am I doing decorating the man?!? That's like the symbol of this entire festival and what I have done to qualify or deserve being part of it? I'm not even an artist... well, not in a regular sense. What if this is rubbish? What if my male and female designs are complete crap and I will have to hide for the rest of the event out of embarrassment?

Suddenly, a constant trickle of people start appearing and walking by and telling me how awesome the man is, what a good job I've done. As if on cue. I feel utterly overwhelmed.

I realize I will need artificial light in order to finish and as soon as I realize this I see that Jos, a wwoofer I met in Coromandel is setting up his camp with a friend 50 meters away and they happily drive up and beam the headlights on to help me. I am pretty high now and slightly incapable of doing some of the screwing in but this French guy is only too happy to help and is the perfect assistant. Again, I need something and it magically appears. Over and over again.

Kiwi comes over as I work and I point out about the woman being in front. And of all the reactions I expected from him, when I told him I didn't even really decide it to be that way, instead it just flowed that way, we shared the most beautiful moment where something behind my eyes and behind his just kinda connected and some kind of unspoken mutual understanding took place. Rah. Love that man.

I finally realized that I was not going to finish the man. The heart I created for the female's bits was not the right shape and I didn't have any fur for the man's mustache (because come on now, this is ME decorating the man so he will obviously have a mustache). I suddenly realize what a huge blessing it is that it had flowed this way... adding the male and female symbols, heart and mustache, the two final touches should be a sacred moment and should be savoured...so much better to leave it for the next day when I am fresh and more able to enjoy it.

And so after my mornings endeavours I walk towards the man and sure enough Andy has just finished what he was doing and was ready to help cut out the last bit of wood and the woman get's her heart, sparkling in the sun and the man get's his mustache and one final look and the perfectionist in me goes 'no, look at that bit of smudged paint there' and so I walk over to the tin of paint, the very last step of finishing and see that the lid is fused, damn it I need a screw driver and there isn't one and I look up and there walking towards me is a random guy carrying a screw driver...

It was only afterwards that I realized how the male/female ties in to the alpha and omega symbols that Kiwi also created for his design... thinking about polar opposites, two sides of the same coin...male/female beginning/end and how the next step in the evolution of this planet is embracing the whole i.e LOVE and how beautiful it was that the way it naturally flowed was to have woman facing forwards.

The entire process was completely magical. I have never I think so intensely experienced the natural flow of life where each and every need was met and I was so aware of the perfection in everything. I literally felt like I was just a channel for this whole process to unfold...that it wasn't even coming from me but I was allowing something to flow through me...

Jeez, if only I could recapture all my favourite moments there... the next few days were a flurry of drunken antics, glorious naked swimming, dancing, snuggling, naked jelly wrestling, meeting new soul cats, incredible conversations with evolved beings, three legged egg and spoon racing, cartwheel competitions, head stand competitions, hooping, too much bourbon, lusting after and frolicking with 22 year old boys, falling for cowboys and bareback riding...

I stayed until the very end when it was just about 5 of us frolicking in the paddock, pegging each other and demooping the site and then pancake making and one final gorgeous swim before group hugs and heading back to reality...

....well not really. I ended up going back to Coromandel, with my new found friend, a man called Hippie who lives in a commune in a beautiful garden of Eden and is..well a fucking hippie really. But the very best kind.

Oh. And the yoga class went rather well. So well that people couldn't believe I hadn't taught before. And it very much felt like the universe had pointed which way I should go and so....

Wait a minute. You'll have to wait for the next blog entry.

---

Photos

munchkin
my 4 year old play buddy on the journey up

Working on the man day 1
the female side gets painted

the final touches
a pink fur moustache is the grande finale

the man finished
masculine side

the man finished
female side

moustache love
Me and two girlies I kidnapped and brought to my gate shift

portable moustache kit
a little last minute project for Kiwi Burn

Auntie Mazarith
rockin it

ouch
bruises from naked jelly wrestling

MPW crew
last afternoon on site