Burning Man: The Coyote Shaman

It was after they'd burned the Temple. I could feel the heat from the flames as we approached. It was uncanny. People were crying, cheering, and laughing as they moved around the temple in a massive counter-clockwise circle, watching their pains and fear disintegrate into the Playa. They seemed more dressed up than they were for the Man Burn, and indeed, Jake and I had both donned white tribal face paint and I was wearing Ashland the cougar on my head.

Everyone seemed to be in a daze. Jake and I were walking around the flaming remains of the structure in a quite train with the rest of the crowd, half-lit by the flames which gave off such an intense heat that I had to shield my face with my camera and look through the viewfinder in order to walk so close. I was in a state of split consciousness: Part of my brain was dedicated to focusing on the pain I had just shed during the Burn, and part of my brain was focused on photography. It was overwhelming.

Then, suddenly, amid all the confusion and noise, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned to find a beautiful young man standing there with a lovely coyote draped across his head. I automatically reached out a hand and rested it between the coyote's ears.

He lifted his hand and did the same for my mountain lion headdress. And we stood there for a moment in a state of Complete Understanding. I felt as though everything stopped then; the flames, the crowd, and even my lungs had stopped moving.

But even in that profound moment, reality was too hard to ignore: The crowd was pushing us forward, so it had to end. I asked to take the Coyote Man's photo, and he nodded, though didn't speak. I stood back and fired a few shots. 

Looking at them now makes me wish I were still there. I wish I could have talked to this guy more in-depth. We had an odd moment of understanding in the middle of the Playa that I cannot explain because I have never experienced anything like it before nor since. It’s hard, after all, to understand the complexities of the human mind until you’ve been to an event like Burning Man.