I’m a wellness and soon to be parenting coach. I am also an artist and a lover of the subculture, impartially the event known as Burning Man. Burning Man is a week-long annual art event and temporary community based on radical self-expression and self-reliance in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. Since attending with my husband in 2012 our lives have altered, morphed, and still continue to transform in positive and powerful ways. We sold our home, divorced toxic friends, began a new spiritual journey, attended transformational seminars, joined new programs, quit jobs, the list goes on.

2014 will be a different year for us. We have festival tickets; however we are late in registering for a camp. You want to be with the “right” camp mates. For the first time, we are camping in a space known as Kidsville – which I plan on bringing my children. If you’re interested in the reason why I believe children are a vital part to the festival, I’ll respond with another post.

I’ve been following Black Rock Scouts, an amazing community that support Kidsville at Burning Man. Black Rock Scouts is a “program for burner kids, based on the Ten Principals of Burning Man. Kids are the next generation, so we aim to teach them how to sustain life in BRC (Black Rock City). Camps and services will host playa-cational field trips, events and volunteer opportunities. Scouts will earn patches, tokens or pins for things learned, survival skills achieved, good deeds and volunteering.”  “Kids attend, with their parents, where they can learn principles based on community service, generosity, and educational enhancement.” Cool – right?!

At Burning Man (Courtesy Trey Ratcliff)

Read more about the Burning Man principles here as well as volunteer opportunities.

Anyway, after a year of doing my homework, I found out that I messed up when I registered for Kidsville. I registered, but I never placed our camp. And the camp is FULL. Big mess up on my behalf, and I had a breakdown when I found out. Embarrassing, right? I’ve worked through my emotions and have since recovered. At least for now. My recovery came only after I had a big long talk with myself.

Monday: I went for a run on the beach in hopes of clearing my mind. I kept blaming myself for not following through with making our trip to Burning Man workout.

Tuesday: I finally started to ask myself “why is my body physically feeling overwhelmed and sick when I think I may not go to this festival with my children? Why is it so impactful on me? The answer arrived immediately.

You are taking on parenting in a new way – something you’ve never done before – you are going through a life altering experience in the parent coaching arena – You’re on a transformational journey to change your parenting – and this journey together would continue to expand your relationship with them even further. You would also connect with some of the most intuitive and amazing children on the planet – children who understand connection, empathy, and emotional intelligence. Kids that could really teach you! They ‘get’ everything that you are learning through your training. That is why. You, Christina, are emotionally invested in changing how we teach one another and our children. You care beyond words about the outcome as a whole and how your children will one day impact the world. Christina, you also believe that treating our children with love and respect through a non-violent parenting paradigm is how we raise and create empathetic human beings that contribute to society as a whole. Don’t beat yourself up because your feelings are pretty normal for what you’re going through. The festival is an extension of the work you’re doing. There you have it.

Now, quit those unproductive messy feelings and go do something fun with your kids.

Wow, thank you little voice in my head.

Wednesday: The little voice was following by “read your email, Christina” – and a wonderful article from Chip Conley showed up – The Emotional Survival Guide to Burning Man. Big Thank You, Chip. You can read it here.

Expressing my feelings openly has put me at ease. I’m gliding into the unknown and I know that whatever happens, it’s going to be fine. I can say I have officially surrendered my attachment to the outcome.  Phew, that was crazy exhausting.

 I’m feel really normal…. Sort of. I’m not sure what ALT things I do. 

Hudson and London

At the beach …

Appreciating nature …

The Bodies exhibit …

Building a volcano …

Hammock hanging …

Loving food …

Loving life …

Loving each other …

And if Burning Man doesn’t work out — Dragon Con Atlanta 2014 here we come!

Dragoncon (photo by greyloch: https://www.flickr.com/photos/greyloch/7996093530/)

Christina

Christina is a palm tree-loving, barefoot, beach bum wife and mother of 2 who is devoted to cultivating a family life where gratitude, self confidence, contribution and love rise above. She seeks alternative parenting methods where she can help to cultivate and guide the spiritual, emotional, and physical needs of her children. In 2013, she resigned from a corporate job in the financial industry to pursue her greater role as a parent and artist.  Since then, she has begun to pursue a career as a parenting and wellness coach. 

So I have never had a problem admitting that I’m a geek.  In doing this, I made sure to set certain boundaries.  Am I ever going to spend my evenings in some poorly lit basement playing Dungeons and Dragons? No.  Do I have any desire to write poetry in Klingon?  Never.  Am I ever going to go to a sci-fi convention?  Certainly not.  THOSE are the people who need to get a life.  Not me.

Things started to change.  I had met the woman who would eventually be my wife and early on in our relationship she mentioned that she was being dragged to Dragoncon in downtown Atlanta by her sister who wanted to check out the art on display.  My future wife certainly is not as geeky as me, so I couldn’t wait to hear horror stories about fat sweaty guys in stormtrooper costumes freaking out because there was a female in their presence.  Here’s the kicker: she loved it.  She told me that she and her sister were already planning on going back next year and I had to go with them.

Fast forward one year and there I was in Atlanta having no idea what to expect.  There are not enough words in the English language to describe the sensory overload that I experienced. People of all ages were dressed as every character in popular culture that you could imagine and thousands more that you couldn’t.

Every character you could imagine.

Four hotels full of people.  Thousands and thousands of them.  Is there every “con” stereotype there?  You bet.  Fat guys?  Check.  Women in corsets that look like they might explode at any moment? Unfortunately.  Poor personal hygiene?  You betcha.  Here’s the thing though.  The vast majority of convention guests were nice.  They represented every group from every walk of life, and they were all totally patient waiting in the miles of lines.  It all just reinforced to me that I have no problem standing up to being counted with the geeks.  They are good people.

Good people. No idea what they are, but good people.

Spaceballs group costume. Fantastic.

Oh by the way, I GOT BOBA FETT’S AUTOGRAPH!  Boba “no disintegrations” Fett!  I saw Bishop and Newt from Aliens! I got to hang out with the man who played Darth Vader! Did I hear or understand 2/3rds of what he was saying?  No, but I didn’t care.  My then-soon-to-be wife got Sean Astin’s autograph and I am pretty sure that if he had asked her to fly away and live with him in The Shire she would have said yes.

Good Ole Samwise.

At the end of the day, we all have some geek in our heart.  I encourage everyone to take at least one weekend a year to let it out and play.  Just make sure to wear some deodorant.

So I hung out with Darth Vader. For over three hours. He called me “his little friend”. I bought him a shandy, an actual shandy. He’s British. I think it’s a thing there. So yeah, not to be confused with the VOICE of Darth Vader, the great James Earl Jones, I am talking about the former Mr. Universe, Dave Prowse. The ACTUAL Darth Vader.

Drinking A Shandy

My sister and I were celeb stalking people watching during Dragoncon. We were sitting at one of the Marquee lounges when suddenly my sister elbowed me and did the eye nod. Let me just state for the record that I am terrible at silent communication. I also have terrible hearing and I can’t read lips. Basically, I would be the LAST person to take on a top secret mission or stakeout. Since subtlety is not my strong suit, I turned to her and said “what?”, probably fairly loudly based off her reaction and the fact that I’m hard of hearing. When I finally understood what she was getting at, I turned and saw Darth Vader standing five feet from us. He was chatting it up with various people and then he looked our way. I’m also really bad at looking away, particularly with famous people. He caught me staring, my sister hit me, but it was too late, I was transfixed. It was like he had some mind controlling power over me and I couldn’t help but being drawn in. hee hee. He motioned for us to come over and without a second thought, we did.

Next thing I know, he’s telling me about his daughter’s wedding and his thoughts on Spielberg and Lucas. I was totally enthralled. At least the parts I could hear. Did I mention I have a hearing issue? So for the next three hours we talked, well, Darth Vader talked. I executed the typical social cues of a smile here and a laugh there, tossing in an excited “really?” or “oh my gosh!” while adding in the appropriate amount of social shoulder touching because I could hardly hear a thing. He was right next to me and between his accent, his old man voice and my terrible ears, I basically caught just over a sentence an hour. So yes, I was totally faking it with Darth Vader, BUT, it was still completely and utterly one of the coolest experiences of my life! And I bought him a shandy.

What did I learn from it all? When famous old men call you over, introduce you as their “little friend” and let you buy them a shandy – roll with it, folks. Even if you have to fake it to make it happen.

David Prowse, my sister Steph, and Me
Dragoncon 2008