Burning Man

To the photographer who held space,

Before I knew it, two hours had passed. I had been crying for two straight hours sitting at the Temple. Not just the shedding-a-few-tears crying but the deep, gasping-for-air sobbing. The kind that has the rest of the world fading away as the pain consumes you from the inside out. The kind that leaves not just your soul but your whole body aching after it’s all over.

But it was also the kind of crying that felt freeing, releasing and liberating. The kind that once it was all over, you felt lighter. Well when I met you, it wasn’t over yet. But it was the start of the end. When I met you, my eyes were no longer blurred by the tears. I could take visually all the beauty of the Temple. I had felt the energy there long before I could see it, but this moment was the first time I had opened my eyes to the Temple around me.

You were walking by when I reached out to you. Our eyes met, and you came and sat next to me. We just sat. You held space and I began to cry again. And then you told me I reminded you of your wife. Both afraid to take up space in this world but both so deserving of the space. You told me of all the people here at the Temple that my energy was felt, that my energy belonged, that I was home.

I don’t know how you knew. You read my heart. You understood the struggles I had taking up space. You felt the anxiety in heart, the pains in my chest, the fear of taking up space. You understood, and you read this all back to me. I am afraid to take up space in this world, but I deserve to take up space in this world.

And then I told you about the letter I had in my hand. The letter I had written to a person I loved so deeply, to an idea of togetherness that was built upon the people we were two years ago, to the fear of letting go. I held on to that letter as tight as I had held onto the idea of us being together again. I cried. I cried hard. And I must have been able to get my words out in between the tears because you said to me: To release isn’t to give up but rather to gain the strength to see the beauty, not the pain. It is treasuring the beauty of what it was and letting go of the pain.

There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t remind myself of that, that I don’t smile thinking of all the beauty my old selves and my past lives have given me. Three and a half hours later, I had no my tears left in me, no more pain. You showed me the beauty of release and that was what the Temple, what Burning Man means to me.

When the Temple burned, I cried again but this time it wasn’t the fear of letting go, it wasn’t the attachment to the idea of what could have been. It was the love for all the beauty in my life, past, present and future. It was an understanding of who I am today is because of all the decisions I have made and the paths I have made for myself. It was true release.

Thank you. Thank you for your kind and wise words. Thank you for holding space for me and reminding me that I deserve to take up space. And thank you for capturing this moment.

In love and dust,
Elodie