Stevan: [00:00:00] Okay, A beautiful Bonzaar. Welcome to all this episode. We'll take a look back at the embers, not burn or renegade doof, or I'd like to call it adventurous camping. We'll reflect back at some of the highlights and magical moments, discuss all the shenanigans and fuckery, the controversies and community co-creations, and future, and learnings, and all the burning points from that long weekend.

This episode will be a good reference point for the future generations to decide on whether embers was a burn or not. Uh, the Gen Alphas can continue this debate in years to come. I think so. Holy dooley, what's, what a whirlwind month we had there. Um, few, couple weeks. Welcome back, Cris. How you going?

Cris: Thanks. Yeah. What a, what a crazy couple of weeks that was, um, getting ready for embers, uh, not, uh, and then having to pack my bag and head down to Melbourne for the Bonza Gathering, which was amazing. Yeah, it was a pretty, pretty hectic couple of weeks.

Stevan: Hey, well, joining us, uh, on this [00:01:00] panel, we also have, um, some other burners, uh, some first time burners, returning burners.

Let's just introduce you guys, uh, yourself, guys. Um, we've got. Cruiser.

Cruiser: Hey,

Stevan: we've got Tarsha and Peter.

Tarsha: Hey everyone.

Peter: Good evening. Thanks for having us.

Tarsha: Thanks for having us. Yeah, pleasure to be here.

Stevan: So let's give a bit of context about this, what, you know, what we're doing with this episode. Um, the devastation of Burning Seed not happening.

So I've, I've provided a timeline that I sent you to you guys detailing how we all converged, and maybe some other people also, maybe there was a diversion as well if people were just looking at going to seed. But, um, we all came together. I've got a timeline here. So on January the ninth, 2 20 25 was when Burning Seed announced that there was gonna be a burn, or January the 14th that they announced the, uh, the theme for it, metamorphosis.

Now the, the key dates that I've got here is let's focus on May the seventh, 2025 when unfortunately burning seed had to cancel the event. And from that point on, there was, um, a lot of uncertainty, uh, a lot of debate as well [00:02:00] online. So let's talk about how we all sort of like got together. This was not planned or scripted, but we ended up at, uh, at this little event called embers.

Peter: It's, I don't, I can't speak for others, but you always remember the kind of couple of weeks where, you know, there's a renegade burn's gonna happen, someone's gonna step up and organize it, but you don't know who it is and it's really stressful. Like, oh, do I, am I talking to the right people? Like, who's gonna organize a renegade burn?

Or do we have to find out a new venue? Like, really quite stressful. I don't know what other people's experience was.

Cruiser: Yeah, I, I, I was excited for my first burn. Um, a friend told me about burning seed. I had it in the calendar, you know, I've got kids, I've organized the kids and all that kind of thing.

Organized work. And um, and then when it was canceled, I thought, oh, what am I gonna do that weekend now? So when, um, when there was rumors of this, this, uh, embers burn, which I'd never heard of before, let alone the, um, the Devon Lounge, who I think was the main. Membership as I understand. Yeah. When I got a, an email link to that, I thought, great, I'm in.

Tarsha: Yeah. For me. So, uh, I'm, I'm the [00:03:00] return burner here, coming back after many, many years away, um, and had this sort of random idea one day to go back to the burn, back to burning seed and Googled it, and lo and behold it was happening in a few months. Um, and that sort of led to putting in a micro camp application.

Why not? Um, and so we were planning, I was planning to run, um, a very small camp called Reset, and we were so excited. We were organizing art and getting everyone, bringing all these virgins, my friends, you know, to my camp and then super devastated when, you know, unfortunately it had to be canceled. So I was kind of in those, you know, theme camp organizer chats and someone, well we all know who, um, suggested that there might be a, another, a renegade burn, I suppose, as it's being called.

Um, and I just wrote back straight away. I said, yep, our camp reset, we'll be there. We'll do anything we can help, um, with. And it was a really incredible couple of days and even week of just people [00:04:00] coming together, figuring things out. And I think the whole thing was, I mean, again, you'll have a better timeline than me, but it felt like we had about four weeks in my mind to get from, oh, nothing's happening now.

To actually, we're, we're on paddock. Are we calling it paddock? I'm not sure. Um, but to get together and to celebrate as we had planned. So it was a really beautiful coming together of community,

Peter: a tactical level of organizing for, for someone, a relatively new burn burner as well, just like the keenest and most, you know, efficient human that exists to pull together 400 people, event, a huge budget, huge bunch of crews into a single place in only four weeks is like a testament to, you know, humanity.

Cruiser: I was impressed with how quickly it came together. I, I didn't think it could come together that quickly. And, um, on arrival, I thought, this is amazing. Knowing that it was a four week, a four week plan.

Stevan: Well, how would you guys describe this whole experience then? The [00:05:00] embers? How, how was it?

Tarsha: It was fun. So much fun.

Peter: Yeah. I, I agree. I think it was a, a burning seed in 2025. The theme was metamorphosis, and I think nothing showed metamorphosis or embodied metamorphosis. More than embers. It was a wild party. It was silly. It was like, it was the level of silliness and, and bizarre memes that didn't make sense, unlike everything I've ever seen.

And it was just hilarious. And it was like, it, it was definitely the burn we deserved and we were, we were after. It was so much fun.

Cruiser: I, I agree with the silliness Factor and I, I often tell this story to people, um, who dunno anything about this. And it was this wonderful experience where I've come out of the hall and um, and my friend was behind me in the hall, Drew's standing there on the balcony, right.

And he's dressed like a goose. He's talking to Lucy, whose pad name is Goose. Anyway, I have a chat with them. I leave. Then my friend awkward [00:06:00] comes to me later on, he goes, oh, I got, I got, I got stuck talking to the goose. And the goose said this, and the goose said that. And I said to her, I said, you're talking about Drew?

Yeah. Dressed as a goose? Said, yeah. And I said, well, you know, the girl she's, he's talking to? And she says, no. I said, her name's Goose as well. So you are actually talking to geese. Right. And this, this whole conversation about the goose and then Goose, and then together there being geese, that kind of silliness and the laughter that comes after that.

I, I love that. I love the word play. I love the silliness. I, I know what you mean, Peter. It's fantastic.

Stevan: Would you also call it, um, invigorating after the experience rejuvenating?

Cruiser: Oh, absolutely,

Tarsha: definitely. Absolutely. I came back and I just wanted to be straight away, back into it, to something. It was like a, an emptiness and a readiness to go again, which I think is lucky for our community because we do have events and burns coming up nearby, um, as well.

So yeah, I think the silliness was a really, really key theme as well. Also just for me, I guess, reconnection. So it has been, I think my last [00:07:00] burn in New South Wales was 2017. It's a really long time. And so to come back and then to see people who've been in the community who have built and built and built and bringing their gifts, their offerings, and always, you know, with a smile, with a conversation, with a hug, um, it was really incredible to see that commitment from people as well, um, to the burn and to the community.

So I think, so that's also a testament to, you know, I, I sort of struggle with this question myself as a return burner of like the why, like why do we burn? What do we get out of it? What's the point? Um, and I don't really have the words for it, but I think that's part of it, is that we find a sort of communal meaning in the silliness and the connections and the community and the building, um, and everyone's unique talents and gifts coming together to create something that is really spectacular and quite unique in the world.

I think there's nothing quite like a burn

Cruiser: to add to that, the [00:08:00] silliness and all this, you know what, what the burn is. I'm very new to festivals in general, so I've done confest and embers. That's it both this year. So, um, confest, obviously Easter and then, um, and then Ember's, King's birthday. That's it for me.

And so my experience has been very, very small, but I cannot wait for more. So my next one personally will be Underland in, in Vic because it's close by. Because the other thing too with um, with burning seed being canceled and then going to Wisemans Ferry, that that distance doubled for me. I, I'm from Geelong, you know, so I've come from driving six hours to driving 11 hours.

Um, but, um, mate, I'll do it again for sure.

Tarsha: I think confest might be the, uh, gateway drug of festivals to a burn. They're very similar, but, you know, they're quite interesting to compare them as well, the different communities and, and the way in which the structure actually facilitates different ideas and, and different, different values perhaps in the community.

But yeah. Well, we're great that we're grateful that you have found us. [00:09:00]

Stevan: And for you, Chris, the afterglow feeling, um, how was, how was the embers afterglow?

Cris: Um, gosh, do you know, like bringing a three metre high vulva to the not a burn, uh, for greets was, uh, quite exhausting actually. Um, I realized when I picked it up, the amazing people I borrowed it from in Sydney, that perhaps I needed something like a theme camp or at least a couple of, uh, off siders to help with the setup.

So it was, it was a bit overwhelming. Um, the whole, the whole thing, um, in that regard. Like, I thought it went really well, but it was super exhausting for such a. A quick turnaround.

Peter: Just lost Chris there. Oh, sorry. Go back. Sorry. Continue

Cruiser: while she's coming back. I'll say that. Just fix, her audio was so heavy.

I remember holding, putting that thing down on the trailer and that was very heavy, that structure.

Peter: And it's certainly got a lot of use, probably the most use of any, um, genitals at the, the festival. Yeah. Yeah. On [00:10:00] Sunday night, was it Sunday night that there was a whole show predicated on a whole bunch of, um, I think it was led by Sarah Barber and a whole bunch of the Devon Lounge crew, um, and some bush doof crew.

Just like a wonderful retelling of some story classic stories through the vulva.

Stevan: That was the The Gremlin show.

Peter: The Gremlin show there. Yeah.

Stevan: All right, let's, let's talk about the main contentious kind of talking point of this. Embers burn is the fucking weather. It was pretty cold out there. I actually slept in the igloo one night, woke up to a pair of Popsicle flip flops, and it's, it was the coldest burn I've been to. Uh, this is, you know, I've been to the Canberra burns and winter solstices and, and modifyre in Queensland, but couple, yeah, it was fricking cold.

So how did it go for, you guys did it, the, the, the weather. Was it a feature or a bug

Cruiser: a burn? You, you, you gotta have it in the cold, don't you?

Tarsha: The first timer knows you're on [00:11:00] board. Yeah. So I think it's a really interesting question and, and I've seen some discussion in the community as well, and let's be clear, it was very, very cold and the first night I was absolutely freezing to my bone, but I also didn't put my thermals on.

Uh, I made mistakes. So, you know, every, and same with my camp, and every night we sort of. Improved, adapted. We had community, um, we had a few from du uh, some friends giving us some, uh, electric blankets to help out my virgins. So, you know, it, we found ways around it. It was very, very cold. But I think in saying that, so like my first burn was the burning man, the big burn.

Um, I was just a, I'm still a baby I think, but I was a super baby back then, almost 10 years ago. And that is a really challenging condition, physical environment to be in. You've got the dust, it's dry, it's hot, it's a desert where literally nothing lives. So I think there's [00:12:00] kind of similarities perhaps in facing the weather and being prepared.

But at the same time, I thought there were some really good points that were made around sort of inclusivity and accessibility of the burn, which I can totally see people's perspective and just general, you know, people were like, I'm miserable, it's cold. And I was like, yeah, I can, I can understand that you don't wanna run around as much in, you know, when it's cold outside.

Peter: I'm. I can't relate. 'cause I had heating in the cabin and I had a large number of, um, electric blankets for when we sing around the camp. But if it's any constellation, last renegade burn in 20 20 16 at, um, uh, burning Salvation, we had a hundred kilometer wind cyclone winds that picked up all of the gazebos, turned them into projectiles and destroyed a whole bunch of tents.

Tarsha: Oh goodness.

Peter: So I, so whilst I have complete sympathy for those that were Sub-Zero camping without electric blanket, uh, at [00:13:00] least there was no cyclonic winds.

Tarsha: Yes. And at least its rain. Rain,

Cruiser: no rain. Exactly. Yeah.

Peter: No rain. Oh gosh.

Tarsha: Flooding there has been flooding on that site before. I was told by friends and it was like in the camp and um, in the tents.

So I was so grateful. I, I'm not sure how my review would go if we were flooded in Yeah. Especially the tent.

Peter: The dugongs came from the river as well, but like that happens when there's flooding. I'm told it's, it's a risk. It's a risk

Tarsha: We'd all have to, you know, pile into someone's car and sleep stacked on top of each other or something.

I mean was maybe in the hall. Maybe the hall would've been a good Yeah. Um,

Peter: barricade against the jus

Tarsha: I was worried about the water, not the dugons.

Stevan: So how does this compare Cris with the Canberra burn? I mean, we do celebrate winter solstice around this time of the year in Canberra in minus degrees temperature.

Tarsha: Cris is reporting no sound in the chat.

Stevan: She's not online. Okay. Let's talk, let's talk about the location. [00:14:00] Wiseman's Ferry. And this, this is the, the first time I've actually been there and I love the site.

Peter: How great was it? It was fantastic. It was like, it's for, for Sydney siders. It was like as good as it gets an hour and a half. And it's like, when you think about the drive, it's some of the greenest drive you can do that's beautiful. Get outta the city immediately. You're driving through beautiful national park and then you arrive at a stunning site of a giant vulva there.

Like, what more can you ask for? Yeah. And then you had a hall, which, you know, took us back into the days of being, you know, primary school ravers. Yeah, it was great.

Tarsha: Yeah, it was really beautiful. I really, I came from the central coast, so we took a slightly different route. Um, but it was absolutely stunning.

And I loved camping by the river, even if it was freezing. Um, and yeah, just being, being immersed in it and the hall was, uh, the, the primary school vibe was not my vibe, I will admit. Um, but you know, at least we had a nice warm space inside. Um, and I thought the decor and everything that was done really, like [00:15:00] I saw the photos before and I was going, oh goodness, how are we gonna save this space?

But then once you were in there, um, it was very immersive. So well done to everyone coming together,

Cruiser: the venue. Stevan, I, um, I think it's an amazing venue. Um, yeah, the venue is, um, is, I think. As I understand it, 350 is the maximum allowed there. And that's what, that's what, how many we had. I believe I'd like to see more because there's so much more space on the paddock.

And maybe if it's, if it's just limited by the facilities, then porta potties are the answer. In fact, we probably need more, more toilets anyway. And those showers didn't work that well either. But if the venue's capacity is based on facilities, that venue would be awesome with more people. And just some, some porta potties, because it's a wonderful green.

I mean, it, it's isolated. We've got the hall, got all these different areas. We've got the walking, we've got the river. I mean, imagine on a, on a spring, spring day, jumping in the river sort of thing. It's, it's a cool place. Very cool.

Peter: And there are a [00:16:00] surprisingly few number of feasible properties for throwing a burn in New South Wales.

Like you can count the, there's like maybe three or four and if, if that, and they're all like four and a half hours away from Sydney. So the problem of where to throw a good burn in New South Wales is currently might, some would argue an unsolved problem. Yeah. Or at least how to throw a major larger burn.

Tarsha: It would be good to have more, um, more people on site as well as, as we get back into things. Um.

Stevan: Yeah, there's definitely more room to, there's, there's more, you know, there's, there's more room to grow, uh, heaps of space there. I think. Um, you see the over the overview shot, someone took a drone shot and you can see how many, how much space there was around, especially around where, I think where you were, Tarsha.

Tarsha: Yeah, that's right. We were reset. We were, we were like a chill out camp. So we were right down the end and we had so much space around us. Um, so yeah, we could've, uh, I'm not sure if it was [00:17:00] allocated for other people or free campers that maybe didn't show, or they camped somewhere else, uh, in the end. But we were, we were surrounded by space.

Stevan: So for Sydneysiders it's about one and one and a half hours. Um, or for people from Victoria. How long was the drive there?

Cruiser: Oh God. 11 hours.

Tarsha: Goodness.

Cruiser: 11 hours. Now I

Tarsha: that's commitment,

Cruiser: I, so for burning seed, I would've made the trip. In one go, I decided to, um, break up my drive getting there. I stayed a hip camp in Golden somewhere.

That was cool, but I didn't need to. And on the way home I thought, you know what, I'll just, I'll just go. The fact is, if I leave at nine o'clock in the morning, I get home at eight and in a normal day, I'd be awake then anyway. So apart from the boredom and the sleepiness I'm driving. You don't get tired?

Well, I don't get tired. I'm, I'm used to driving everywhere. But, um, yeah, it's a, it's a long way and I would do it again knowing how good it is. But burning seed location would be.

Peter: Although we've gotta drive.

Cruiser: Exactly. Well that's, it's very problem. Right. And, and I heard both interesting, I heard both sides of that story where people who [00:18:00] weren't gonna go to burning seed now did go to embers because it was closer.

Right. For the same, the same reason. So

Peter: yeah, interestingly, um, I know that the main organizer, a legend named roly, uh, contacted 20 different venues to try and fi lock in that site. So I think there was some, oh, what was, it? Gave me a number. It was like this number of hours driving was astronomical to do site visits for each of the different sites.

I've got this spreadsheet in front of me and it's like, there was 13 that they contacted that I think maybe were visited five that were sort of visited and shortlisted, and then another seven or so that were contacted, but were just not available. Wow. So it's kind of, you don't realize how challenging it is to actually get a feet, get site that matches such specific requirements of being able to host the art.

The, the, the rave, the, like the theme camps. It's accessible way, two, two wheel car. It's like far enough away from the [00:19:00] next site that you can't, that you're not gonna get noise complaints. Mm-hmm. And then also the owners and landowners are like, supportive enough to allow you to do something as crazy as, you know.

Hundred people.

Tarsha: Yes. And then to do it all, uh, with just a couple of weeks until that date, and I think it was, yeah, more weeks within days of kind of being like, Hey, I'm doing this. Um, yeah, and then he was on site.

Stevan: I guess another thing that is incredible is probably how the site was also available to us.

Yeah. I mean, could've been, someone else could've booked it for there long week weekend.

Cruiser: Well, no, Stephen, because of the weather,

Stevan: right? Yeah.

Peter: Well, I reckon there a lot of people off. There would've been a couple of people who received an email saying, I'm sorry, your camping trip is canceled. Although, I'm just guessing there, but it's worth noting that, that the actual landowners have three sites there.

So they've, it's plausible that they moved on some people to one of the other sites nearby and on, on Sunday morning. I remember a whole bunch of people from the next campsite over doing their like, um, like nine in the morning doing [00:20:00] some power walking through the campsite, and I was thinking, what are these?

People in spandex thinking we doing, I was like, what? What is going on on this site?

Tarsha: Yes.

Stevan: So there was a different party.

Peter: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. Yeah. I don't, I'm not sure if it was a party or more so

Cruiser: perhaps a retreat.

Peter: Yes, it looked, I got retreat vibes.

Tarsha: Well, we, um, when we got into the burn or the, whatever it is, whatever we're calling it, it's a, to me it's a burn.

If it's a burn in your heart, then let it be a burn. Um,

Stevan: it's a doof Yeah, Renegade. Doof.

Tarsha: So, um, when we were driving in, we just, you know, got distracted, saw a random road, thought that was the way to go, and we were sort of halfway down it when we went. There's no one on this road, and we had to start backing up.

And anyway, someone comes up to us back, um, from embers and says, oh, you know, don't go down there. There's like a school camping trip or something. And I think, weren't there people going through the river? I'm like, canoes or something. Did I imagine that? Oh, I might have imagined [00:21:00] that part.

Peter: Totally imagine that.

But they have, there's heaps of canoes and Kay can,

Tarsha: there's heaps of canoes that's an untouched, uh, potential. But yeah, so there were definitely, I think it was a school camp or something that was somewhere, but I assume they did

Cruiser: parked next to the sauna.

Tarsha: Yeah, hopefully.

So. Yeah. I guess they were far away enough that they mustn't have heard us and we didn't hear them and is well in world.

Stevan: Okay. Cruiser, do you wanna tell us your story from a, um, the POV of a first timer? Now you said that you've been to confest. Maybe give us a little rundown. 'cause I think a a lot of listeners out there will probably know what Confest is.

Cruiser: Yeah, right. Well, um, okay, so my story is, I guess, um, I've, uh, I've, look, I've always been in relationships, you know, married for 15 years. Um, during COVID uh, split up. Two and a half months later, I was, went into another relationship, which lasted three years. Right. So after that, um, I've been [00:22:00] enjoying just doing my own thing, right?

So I've been single 13 months now, right? But it's just been awesome just being able to say, okay, I'm gonna lock the house and I'm gonna leave. And when I come back, everything's, everything's there. So basically what I'm saying is I can go wherever I want and do whatever I want every other week because I've got kids half the time.

But I went to with some friends that I, um, have met and, um, it was amazing is what, 5,000 people Moin Easter Long weekend. Lots of theme camps, full of workshops, no amplified music. So the biggest difference for me with contest versus embers was just. And so the only music at was the silent disco and the nonstop African drumming.

When I came back home after I actually had to, um, ask Google to play some African drumming just to dull out that suburban silence that I had on that first morning. But so yeah, so was amazing. Um, and, um, I told some friends about it and one of those friends, Jeff said, I'm going to this burning seed. [00:23:00] I'm like, yep, that sounds great.

I'm in. So I was pretty excited about that. Um, was interested, interested in volunteering. I'm a volunteer firefighter, so I put my hand up for the fart team there. Went through some, we were, we had about at least three hours worth of meeting, so I felt pretty well prepared for, for the burning seed. Um,

Stevan: did you know what's, what burning seed was or even burning?

Cruiser: Well, I, I've always wanted to go to Burning Man, that, that's just a festival that I've always looked at and thought, that's amazing. So when I heard that burning seed was actually a thing, I thought, wow, that's, that's cool. I couldn't have imagined it being very Burning man-like in June. Um, but I thought, we'll give it a go anyway.

So, yeah, so Burning seed canceled, disappointed. Then I heard about embers. We got the email link and Aus in straight away, and again, put my hand up for, for volunteering. So that was cool too, because again, just knowing the one person volunteering, I thought by the time I got there, I, I'd known this, you know, the fart team already, and it was really, really cool.

And getting there and being able to actually talk to people that I knew to [00:24:00] introduce myself and say, Hey, you know, nice to meet your person. All that kind of thing. We had a meeting in the morning, I've got my fire gear on. I'm driving around the golf cart with, with care. We're just checking out barrels and setting up barrels and getting wood and talking to people and

Stevan: Yeah. I've got a lift from you as well from the golf.

Cruiser: Yes. Yes. What, what I, what did I do for you?

Stevan: You just, uh, gave me the directions to go up to the T hill.

Cruiser: Oh, that's right. Yes. Yes.

Stevan: The top of that mountain.

Cruiser: Yes, that's right. That's right. I remember that. Yeah. So, um, yeah.

Stevan: Was a religious climber.

Cruiser: Yeah. But I mean, it was just so cool driving around and, and doing it.

My shift the next day, 'cause I was on with, um, with, um, oh my God, I can't remember his name. He's gonna kill me. But he was one of the organizers and wasn't heavily involved patrolling with me. Right.

Stevan: Was it Jimmy?

Cruiser: Jimmy. Jimmy. So, um, I had the golf cart to myself basically, and I just thought, well, I'm gonna go there, I'm gonna go there.

Do you need anything? Do you need any wood? And it was just cool. I was just driving around doing stuff. I was dressed as the, the sexy firefighter with the overalls. I did have, um, [00:25:00] tape on my nipples, like little black crosses, but that was because of it, because it was so cold the previous day. I actually had chase nipples.

Tarsha: Oh, good.

Cruiser: So it wasn't, I wasn't trying to be kinky or anything that was a legit, uh, a legit thing. But again, just the silliness and driving around and then the golf cart wasn't working. So I, I've taken it apart on the road and trying to work out, there's something wrong with the car, that kind of thing.

And I worked out that choke was. A little fiddly and it's Dale's car and he was telling me about it, you know, it was just cool just having nothing. Because as a fiery too, there's nothing's on fire except Roly. The first day, um,

Tarsha: was on fire.

Cruiser: Yes. Yeah. They unloaded a full fire extinguisher.

Stevan: Well, we can't really discuss that, can we?

It's, we, we signed some, some, oh, probably. I dunno. But there will be a quiz after. There'll be a quiz later. Metaphor it. Metaphor

Tarsha: metaphorically.

Cruiser: So. So my experience as a first timer, but also as a volunteer with purpose was just incredible. And for anyone who is thinking about doing something like this by [00:26:00] themselves.

Everyone's gonna be friendly, everyone's gonna talk to you. And if you're worried about meeting people, volunteer and you'll meet people before you actually get there. So yeah, that's, that's my advice on that for sure.

Tarsha: Yeah. Can I jump in because I wanna just jump off that a hundred percent. Um, and completely agree with you.

So, um, my sort of or burn origin story was, uh, I was in my mid twenties. I was looking for, I don't know, an event on Facebook, something to do on the weekend. And what I found was, I had no idea what it was, but it was a fundraiser for Over the Rainbow. So Over The Rainbow was a theme camp back in the day, day.

Of course, I didn't know what a theme camp was at this, at this stage. And so it was just in the back of a pub. And I looked at it, and it must have had something about Burning Man principles or something in the event description, because I've gone and researched whatever's, you know, participation or communal effort, you know, what does this really mean?

And so I messaged Nat, who was the lead of Over The Rainbow, [00:27:00] and I said, Hey, I've seen this event, can I come along? I don't know anyone. And also if you need help, I can make some signage and of course that says, yeah, absolutely. Come along. So I've cut out this, um, sparkly glittery card that says Over the Rainbow.

And I'm, you know, I, I, I do okay in social situations, but I think anyone just kind of turning up to a pub in Sydney being like, here's the signage I made. I've never met you before. Hi everyone. Um, yeah, naturally you would feel pretty, a little bit nervous about that. But I turned up and everyone was obviously awesome and welcoming and so happy to, to meet me and to meet each other, I guess.

And I run into people that I knew from different sort of spaces, including that I'd been to before. And that sort of began the community for me. And people that I met that night, I still know today, still know embers saw them this week. So good. It's really beautiful. Um, and so from [00:28:00] there started going to warehouse parties.

One particular warehouse party. I'm dancing on the dance floor. At this point in my life, I wasn't drinking and I don't indulge in other things if we can say that. So I'm totally sober. Just dancing in this warehouse and loud turns to me and says, do you wanna go to Burning Man? By this point, I actually know what Burning Man is, obviously burning.

I've said, are you serious? Absolutely. I wanna go to Burning Man. And Burning Man was in a couple of months, and somehow I still don't really have the explanation for how I got myself there, but I joined a camp again with people I'd never met. I got in someone's car and we drove from San Francisco, never met the person before.

We drove out to the burn. Wow. We bought a bike along the way. One of our camp members dyed her hair in the Walmart where I was buying my bike. And yeah, we did the big burn, which you know, to me was just kind of like. Something to do. I said, I mean, it was much more than something to do, but it was just [00:29:00] happening, you know, as things happen in your life.

So that was an incredible experience and it was actually what eventually led me to moving to the States, which, you know, a few years later. So I went to Burning Seed in 2017, camped with Over the Rainbow because they'd been so wonderful. And so, um, open and welcoming. And in 2018 I left, uh, for New York.

And by that point, kind of my whole social community was burners, except for maybe a couple, couple friends that hadn't yet been converted, but got converted this year. Funnel enough. And yeah, so it, uh, that was kind of my, my origin story of how to sort of come about in this community. And as I said earlier, I was just kind of, so COVID happened, lockdowns happened.

General life hermiting happening for me and a lot of sort of personal things going through, like with my family and health and stuff like that. And just sort of had this moment, earlier this year of sort of, you know, going life is short. It is the [00:30:00] shortest and the longest thing. It is the hardest and the best thing that we will ever do.

And it brought me back to, you know, the good old burner days, I suppose we can say. And um, yeah, so I just went, oh, let's have a look. Let's see if there's any burns happening. And lo and behold, there was, and yeah. And so from there it was just kind of, let's do a micro camp, let's do an art piece. Let's just get involved.

I was just, yes, yes, yes, let's do it. And so my experience, um, bringing five virgins, running a camp, doing an artwork, three, three workshops and returning after so long, um, was, well, my friends were basically saying, you were just constantly doing tasks. You were constantly going, going, going. And maybe for them that looked a little bit chaotic because it's their first time, you know, they don't really know what this is about or they haven't seen this kind of thing before.

But for me, I think just being a part of it and making it happen and then seeing all the other people bringing their [00:31:00] creativity, their weirdness, their, you know, there's, there's almost no words for that silliness and that pure expression. Um, of, you know, for me, yes, there was the goose. I, I got taken on a goose chase.

I had to chase the goose. I don't think other people chased the goose, like, anyway. I'm still mad about that, the goose.

Cruiser: Well, I had to, so apparently I had to, but I didn't get to. But yeah,

Tarsha: I didn't even get an egg, so I never got cured by the doctor. Um, so it was, I was really ripped off. Um, and yeah, just, just the, the sharing, the silliness, the random conversations, the running into people, the new connections, the dancing, um, the weird art, the great art.

I think all of it is just wonderful. So I'm really pleased to be back and I've had a lot of people, I've been gonna, a lot of events since we're back and a lot of people looking at me like, who are you and why do you know these other people? I'm like, well, there's a [00:32:00] backstory there. So, yeah, it's really it.

Stevan: So how many. How many first time burners did you bring?

Tarsha: I bought five.

Stevan: Did it take a lot of convincing?

Tarsha: Not a lot of convincing. I think once you have one or two convinced, and that's pretty easy, the others kind of jump shift.

Stevan: Well, how did you describe it to them?

Tarsha: Oh, I hyper fixated on, um, on the principles and sounded like I was in a cult.

So

they were like, not this again. I was like, but decommodification, it's so good. It's so, I was, um, I was very convinced I was ready, very ready to go back and look. I think it started with one of my friends is a ceramicist, so we were like, let's do some art together. And then from there, I think other friends were like, cool.

We really like Tessa's ceramics. Like, you know, everyone's going, let's check it out. And it was easy to, to kind of convince them. So yeah, a good time.

Stevan: Yeah, we had, we had quite a number of, um, first time burners, which is great to see. I mean, you know, so [00:33:00] I, I did collect some burner voice messages and that was one of my, my aim for that burn was just to, just to survey or just to get more of a feeling of what this community would would be like, how we co-created itself.

And, um, we've got a collection of, uh, short burner messages. So, we'll, what we'll do is take a break and we'll throw it to a bunch of these, um, uh, voices from first time burners.

Halo6: Today. My name's Lockie, but I go by Halo six in the field. This is my first burn. Ever been Ding A little bit, but this is my first time doing this kind of event.

Feels like home. It's beautiful. Big shout out to my homies, Ricardo and Callum, the only ones who didn't bitch it for this event. All the other eight people did. So big love to those guys. Big love to everyone here. Thank you.

Minx: Hi, I'm Mink. I am at the Renegade Not Burn. I am having a fabulous time as a virgin.

I am loving the community, loving the people, and loving participating and you know, [00:34:00] experiencing all of this with everyone here. And I am looking forward to meeting more of you at other Burns. Love you guys. Bye.

Astra: Hi, I'm Astra and this is my first burner experience and camping experience and I have met the loveliest people.

If you ever get a chance to experience it for yourself, please do.

Caltrix: Hello, my burn name is Cal Tricks and I'm a young bush lad from sydney and I'm here to get amongst the fun here at Embers. I'm having a great time with my friend Lockie. We are just cruising around in the sunshine and yeah, I'm looking forward to a good event, meeting some cool people, having fun and just exploring around.

Yeah, it's our first burn. Let's get it. It is our first burn and I, hell yeah. Yeah, let's get it. Very excited. Thank you Mr. Walkman.

Rory: My name's Rory. I'm from, uh, Sydney, Australia, uh, pen hills, and, uh, yeah, just my first burn and, and loving the vibe and, and everyone's, [00:35:00] uh, just so peaceful and, and and welcoming and um, I can't believe it that we're just, yeah, we are here.

We made it.

Kangaroo: Oh, that's very nice. My name is Christian. They call me Kangu. Um, I'm experiencing my first burn actually, even though I've been ding for my whole life. This is the first one and I feel very, very happy to meet so many like-minded and kind-hearted people. And I wish everyone the best burn that we can have and enjoy life.

Thank you.

Michelle: Hi, my name is Michelle. I was a virgin until last night. I saw some people dancing naked, round the fire, and I decided f it. I've only got a few layers on. I pulled it off. I ran round the fire. I think it's my first [00:36:00] naked public exposure in quite a while. I then danced for like three hours on a speaker, and this wonderful lady came to join me and did three moves and didn't realize that the speaker was not joined to the stage.

She brought me down, but it was totally worth it. I've met this guy who's amazing, his name is Stevie, and he's had stickers and outfits and he's about to penalize me, but that's okay. 'cause I like it. That is the most amazing thing with the most amazing people. And I'm fucking, oh, excuse my language. Gentle listeners, cover your ears.

But I'm so many decades old for this to be my first bloody good thing and it's bloody good. I'm so pleased someone's chosen to document the experience and I can't wait to hear what every other little variant and follower says. Gracias. [00:37:00]

Ed: Thank you very much. Uh, I'm Ed. Uh, it's my first burn. It's all very exciting.

Uh, I've been in Australia for two weeks, so this is, uh, a good second weekend. Yeah. Am I gonna top this? Uh, yeah. I'm enjoying the, the danger acid sign, but tell me more about the dangers before, you know, just so I have all the information. But anyway, yes, I'm glad to be on the podcast and, uh, glad it's my first burn anyway.

Thank you

Sherry.

Tess & Cruz: Hi, my name's Tess. Hi, I am Cruz and this is our first burner. Yep. Uh, I'm from dark and young country and it's been great to see all the. What happens here at a burn and, um, experience what the community has to offer and give and also, um, receive, um, the offerings.

[00:38:00] Yeah. Great. Thank you.

Thank you.

Paul: Hello, my name is Paul. Nice country in Sydney. Nice. That's it. Burn. Yeah. It's first time.

Tell us, tell us about yourself.

Ah, interesting. Um, it's touching to hear the story of past quite, you know, traumatizing sometimes for listening to it as well after, um, when though we, past couple of hundred years now, we still have those wounds yet to be healed people, Aboriginal people especially.

Yeah, it's quite touching.

Aphrodisiac: I go by aphrodisiac. I joined the camp Reset, uh, little arts and crafts one. This is my first burn and I have absolutely loved the amount of, um, the giving that is just so overwhelming, um, at this, at this festival. So [00:39:00] this burn has been, um, absolutely amazing. And we've got a few ideas of, um, what we can contribute next time around.

So yeah, we pretty, we really, um, appreciate this, this event. It is been pretty magic.

Carlos: Hello? Hello, hello, my name is Carlos. This is, uh, my first burn. It was truly something to behold the community, like all the other doses alike, everyone's very wholesome, very welcoming. That didn't change, but there was also another element.

Maybe it's the fire, maybe it's the primal aspect of it. I do not know, but I had a conversation with one lovely woman who described the whole experience as a wholesome debauchery, and I think that's same. Could not be more accurate. Thank you very much.

James: I'm James from Inno West Sydney. Um, this is my first burn, uh, [00:40:00] but not my first doof.

Had a great time here. I met a big, um, wide range of people and had a lot of fun. I'm gonna keep this up 'cause I think it's good for you to come out and do this once every three, six months or as often as you can, you know, like a little reset from, from the fake reality. So, um, yeah, keep it up everybody, and see you in the future.

Torbin: Uh, my name's Tobin. I'm from, uh, Hornsby area in Sydney. Um, how many burns have you been in? Sorry? How many burns have you been in? This is my first burn a bird. This is my, I'm a virgin, but I've heard a lot about it from my friend who's very instant. Uh, it's been a wonderful experience, um, so far. And today I'm not gonna delay gratification.

I'm gonna go hard early. That was my mistake yesterday. Um, and thank you to everyone I've met. Everyone's been so lovely.

Peter: That was amazing. What Great clips. Thanks Steven.

Stevan: Okay, we're back. Alright, cool. Peter. Uh, let's get, uh, your, your origin story. How did you find out about the burner [00:41:00] culture and how did you come about to the embers?

Peter: Interesting. My, my origin story, well, my, I met a burner about, oh, over 10 years ago called Bubbles or Amelia Loy, who was at the time setting up a new theme camp called Wombat Manor and says, yeah, 20 20, 20 15.

And I came along and Amelia was, is rumored to be the first ranger she'd been there from the beginning. She was the town, uh, um, data analyst. So she did the survey and so she knew everything about Burner. She would the burning, burning world, and she would show, showed me around and introduced me to everyone and explained that this is like how adults play and explain that we all have this sort of slight suspension of disbelief whilst we all have this wild experience and we all burn out trying to do it.

Then my first time volunteering, I guess, was in 2016 with, um, uh, burning Salvation was the first Renegade Burn, and then spent, you know, many years coming [00:42:00] back to any event that I could in 2020. The Amazing, um, Jeremy from Dirty Birds and, and Wombat Manor kind of merged into what's called Bush. And so my last five years of burning has been fairly bougie, right?

So, uh, Bourg diof will often, you may have seen, have the best coffee. Each coffee grain ground is hand ground to the perfect level of, um, coarseness and then weighed to millimeter precision accuracy. So I'm, I'm used to a fairly, you know, with, by virtue of being in or around Bush dorf, high level of bougieness.

But this, but, and then when Burning Sea was canceled, we were, we were planning to do the sort of kickoff Red Earth Radio, which is this amazing thing in burning seed history of broadcasting the, um, what's happening live internationally, as well as doing a lot of the recording and a bit of history making, kind of like Bonzaar podcast, I guess, but nowhere near as cool.

Um, so when it was canceled, we, uh, [00:43:00] were glad not to have that commitment anymore. And then we just set up a nice little camp on the hill overlooking things. And although I was used to bougieness, this level of luxury that we had at this festival was next level. I mean, there was like a sauna, like that's pretty special.

There was like, I don't know if anyone saw a, a bed that. On wheels like a robotic bed. Oh, had a nice, the dream boat, say again?

Tarsha: Is it the dream Boat? What it called? Is that what it's called? Yeah, I was,

Stevan: it was a dreamboat station. Yeah.

Tarsha: Yes. Yeah, it was the Dreamboat. That's right.

Peter: It was pretty fantastic. It was incredible.

But my highlight was definitely the Rascal, uh, Stevie Rascal who played, uh, an amazing set. So his, his, he channeled what he, who he referred to as Dirty Rascal and would, I think he said things like who he described as a dirty, what was it? A dirty, sassy slut that he just likes to be pounded by a big fat cock in [00:44:00] every, from every end.

And she plays music to match. Anyway, Stevie Rascal played this beautiful, uh, combination of s trance and disco and uh, it just had the entire, like hundreds of people dancing like wild animals on pretty much every night. Uh, there was a name named after name, sorry. There's a road named after Stevie Rascal called Rascal Road.

I dunno if anyone saw that. And I'll just quick shout out that, uh, did Rascal had that Stevie Rascal has Hardy for the Full Moon from the 11th to 13th of July in Elans and suggests people check it out on Facebook. So, yeah, but my, I, I think I kind of felt there was a bit of a metamorphosis. I mean, there's an interesting conversation about the metamorphosis, the burning New South Wales burning ecosystem generally.

But for me, on the Sunday, I was hyper fixated with becoming like a human metronome. Namely, could I [00:45:00] spin some LEDs in at 120 BPM or whatever the, um, the speed of the music was. I spent hours until my hands were like literally bleeding, spinning these L led D stuff. Um, which is something I'd done at growing up at the National Folk Festival every year.

Um, you know, we spent all our nights fire twirling on the, on the thing, but it was the first time I'd ever both actually both spun at the burn, but also then, yeah, get seriously into spinning LED sticks on, um, on the speakers that were amazingly set up by Rowan and the rest of the team behind the operation of the event.

So I had an absolutely amazing time. I didn't contribute as much. I just kind of rested and then partied like a wild thing. But it was a lot of fun.

Stevan: But for a burn, that's not a burn. We had 16 registered theme camps, which is quite a lot, you know? Um, and for people for these, uh, camps to come together within three to four weeks.

Amazing. Uh, let's go, let's quickly go [00:46:00] through some of them. House of saun, which is the sauna that we mentioned, uh, Devon Lounge, Al Manor, Devon Air Mansion, space Camp, which, um. They did the bar in Octagon.

Tarsha: Yeah.

Stevan: Now costume remix is probably, I wanna give you a big shout out there to Goldie, who the first theme, timer first time doing a theme camp as well.

And so this, uh, you, you guys happen to go to this thrift shop. It was 24 hours actually.

Cruiser: Yeah,

Tarsha: we were right next to it, so we were constantly going past it. But I'm curious to hear from others if they made it down that far.

Peter: This is a great thing about a burn. You just, you miss out on 80% of the amazing things that happen, and then you get to hear about it secondhand.

Tarsha: Mm, absolutely. Yeah. The off shop was awesome. Absolutely incredible.

Stevan: Yeah, it was amazing. A lot of fun. And I was, I was, I was seeing people wandering around like 3:00 AM in the morning, just going there and just trying outfits and stuff.

Tarsha: Can I also give a shout out to them because, well, my camp reset, which will, you know, be rebranded, uh, for the next burn.

But we were next [00:47:00] to, uh, the op shop costume remix, and they came over and gifted us a whole bunch of t-shirts, clothing, textiles, and we're an art camp. So they, they just came over, introduced themselves, gave us a whole bunch of stuff like fabric paint and just kind of expanded the, the art offering for us.

So they were really beautiful, amazing neighbors to have, must say.

Stevan: We also had the burning seed post office.

Peter: That was pretty cool. Lot of fun. We had a delivery at one point. Very exciting.

Stevan: Yeah. Did you guys get any mail from them?

Tarsha: No, sadly not. We gave lots of mail. We sent lots of mail.

Cruiser: I, I didn't get any mail, but, you know, again, as a first timer, I'm sitting there at, um, it might have been in the, in the Devon Air Mansion, or at least the tent nearby, dressed in, you know, for the long lingerie champagne breakfast it was.

And, you know, rolling his crew just come walking, sorely dressed and walking with purpose and confidence. And there's that music playing on that speaker. [00:48:00] And Rosie, the dog's dressed up in a little hat, and it's just, here come the post office.

Who are these people? Like This is amazing.

Tarsha: 18 hundreds.

Cruiser: Yeah, I know.

It was, it was, it was really, um, it was outta place. I mean, but perfectly in place. But I just, I'll just have this memory just go, what is that music? And oh my God, look at these people and just thinking, that is amazing. You know,

Tarsha: they made quite a sight in their red jackets.

Cruiser: They did, they really did.

Tarsha: British sort of little bit British military Red coat vibe. It was good times.

Cruiser: Very cool.

Stevan: So, yeah. Um, the other theme camps were tentacle temples.

Cruiser: Oh, I love that one.

Stevan: Slayers. Did you get a massage from the Tentacle guys?

Cruiser: I did B twice.

Tarsha: Lucky.

Cruiser: Mm-hmm.

Stevan: The reset, uh, dreamboat Station, eternal Flames. Uh, there's also Appearance by Spice that took over, I think.

Devon Lounge.

Tarsha: That's right.

Stevan: Doof. Doggies. Not familiar with these guys. Uh, and Peachy also [00:49:00] did a Sunday session there. Yeah. So a lot of theme camps. A lot of theme camps.

Peter: Yeah. Yeah. And that wasn't even all the theme camps. Right. There was a limitation of the number that could come because there was a whole bunch that couldn't fit.

So we hit the, hit the Limit very quickly. So it's a good sign for the future of New South Wales burning.

Cruiser: One of my favorites was the, um, again, in the Debonair Mansion. Um. They've got the speakeasy at the back, right? Yes. So you've got this, this lounge frontage, but then there's a fireplace there, and if you crawl through the fireplace, you're in the speakeasy.

Yeah. I didn't even see this. No,

Tarsha: that was a, a highlight for me as well.

Cruiser: There's probably about 40 or 50 people in this, you know, six by three gazebo out, out the back with a, with a bar service and everything. It was, um, it was the warmest place to be on the Friday. I think it was the Friday night, I think it was.

Tarsha: I think Saturday night, Saturday night, remembering

Stevan: prohibition party, I, they're all blurry. Not supposed to drink there.

Cruiser: Exactly. Yeah. Not nothing out the front, but out the back. Wow. All good.

Tarsha: That was, that was such a highlight for me [00:50:00] too, because I, I was actually telling care about my experience of this, and it was one of, yeah, one of the top ones from this burn.

So out the front, like you've got the beautiful Victorian, the red velvet, you know, there's a couple of people around, there's a bit of fire. It's like, okay, something's happening here. Some people sitting, it's actually set up so that people are like sitting in the lounges. So you think that's the event and then you see someone go under a fireplace and you go, okay, what's that?

That's, that doesn't look right. And you've got no idea what's about to happen. So you go under, you can barely fit. There are people just slammed up against you. The room is packed and then you're like, oh, I know you, hi. I know you and someone gives you a drink. And it was just absolutely glorious to be in that space.

Yeah. Again, really compact and just kind of having conversations on people's faces, but again, just turning to people and being like, oh, you know, it's been a few years. How are you going? Nice to see you. [00:51:00] Um, it was really incredible. So hats off to them. The speakeasy is incredible and apologies to any potential first time burners who are now gonna have their, their speakeasy experience, uh, ruined by knowing what's, what's coming.

Yeah. Thanks. We shoulda kept a secret.

Cruiser: That's such a beautiful story. And you know, it's, it's great to hear that story, but when you tell that pe that same story to people who weren't there or who haven't seen any of this before, it's so much better.

You know what I mean?

Tarsha: Yeah, right.

Cruiser: 'cause you, you're trying to describe this, this sort of, this two tents put together with exactly what you've just described and the, this fireplace, what fireplace, how do you get through the fireplace?

Tarsha: Why is there a fireplace in the middle of the bush? Exactly. Yeah. Why is there Victorian? Exactly. They were real sofas. These poor people had to bring out into the bush. Very cool. It's an incredible effort.

Peter: And talking about side hustles, the, if anyone noticed, there was an incredible art installation that had been installed by, um, you know, an OG in the community Rowan and up on the, on the hill [00:52:00] it had lit up the old, well, I dunno how old it's, but the old sort of castle sandstone building and whatnot.

And I'm told, although I never, um, the edge venture up there, that up there was an incredible installation, some incredible art. And so just, yeah, the scope of side adventures that you could have is, is incredible. Mm.

Stevan: Yeah, I, I can confirm because I actually climbed that what was up there on a Friday and on a Saturday and, ah, massive effort by, uh, was it, yeah.

Did you say Rowan? Yeah. Massive effort to carry all that gear and all that stuff. And there was actually, um, a signage that had the 10 principles there. There was like an arch gateway thing, and I think it was on a Saturday that it kind of blew over. That was collapsed. And when I went up there and I, you know, I, I, I met these other, other people climbing that place and I said, look, um, you guys can just help to erect it back up.

And they said, oh, this is their first burn. And it said, oh, that's amazing. What kind of, uh, [00:53:00] message is that sending you? It's like you guys are holding the 10 principles up. All of us.

Tarsha: Yeah. That's incredible.

Stevan: Yeah, the art piece up in the hill, that was pretty good. Um, there was probably, maybe, no, no kind of, um, no kind of messaging there in terms of, uh, the 10 Commandments, but, um, you can probably see the similarities.

Cruiser: Very cool.

Stevan: Okay, let's talk about the acknowledgement of country, which I thought it was, uh, one of the highlights for me as well.

Tarsha: Absolutely.

Cruiser: It was beautiful.

Stevan: Yeah, beautifully done.

Cruiser: Personal. Personal

Peter: and hilarious. Mm, very, it's the first time I've seen in i in country that I was like cing myself. It was like watching a comedy duo and, and it was kind of perfect because that's like burner humor, right?

It's like hilariously serious. Yeah. And they almost unintentionally, perhaps, well maybe intentionally sort of embodied that with their. Amazing dynamics. Mm.

Stevan: I think they kind of knew the crowd they were actually performing it ceremony, I think that they understood. So yeah, it was, it was [00:54:00] hilarious. Yeah.

Tarsha: I hope one day they might consider joining us.

I did pitch that it to them. So I think I saw Uncle Colin at the, at the protest, the, the, the, what was the protest called? The dungog.

Peter: The crowning is the, to be very clear, what protest was crowning of the Doong.

Tarsha: Think he were standing there going talk about that A lot of, okay.

Stevan: For, for something that's not a burn.

It's a lot of, uh, fuckery and shenanigans going around. I was expecting adventurous camping, but yeah. Um,

Peter: well, whether it's a burn or not depends on where you land on that, that debate, right. I, I would argue a burn is an event organized by burners for burners. Um, and evidently there were some people that, you know, made the valid legal points that without the, a burn is defined by defined, you know, there's certain requirements to, to align with the, the band and the US brand.

And that's really around governance. There's a certain level of governance and um, and sort of process that you need to follow for [00:55:00] something to be an official burn. And, you know, there was, it would've been impossible of course to throw an official burn in months prior to it. But we, and I don't think we really needed an official burn, but it's still a burn.

We can call it a burn. But others, what is it a d Are we Doofers

Cruiser: in the, in the sort of. You the depth of, of the official burn. If you try throw in deification, deification and radical self expression and radical self-reliance, then the burn itself is a burn. Mm-hmm.

You know what I mean?

Tarsha: Yeah. '

Cruiser: cause it's without the, without the, the commercial Black rock, it's, it's, we're self-reliant in the group that we are.

Yeah. It's true. And the self expression of everything that we did. Yeah. Communal. Now, I, I'm saying this with, without, without any sort of, you know, formal political alignment to dugongs or anarchy or whatever the hell you guys talking about now, I still don't understand that. I don't need it half. There you go.

Peter: But, um, I think you're right, Cruiser, um, makes it the burn is the fact there is the adherence to the 10 principles. Right. The 10 plus [00:56:00] plus.

Tarsha: Agreed.

Cruiser: I'm calling it a burn.

Tarsha: Yeah. To me it felt like a burn, but I totally understand that there are, you know, there's a, I guess it's like, it depends on the perspective that you take, like what framework you're using to analyze it.

So, you know, do we look at it from a legal or a political point of view, or do you look at it from your own experience, or do you look at it from the perspective of community or through the principles? I think it, it throws this question of what is a burn into the fray And for me, yeah, definitely a burn.

It was with burners doing burner things.

Peter: For anyone that hasn't worked is a professor at a university, therefore is giving us a,

Tarsha: was it a burn? We could debate it all day.

Peter: Stevan, you're on mute.

Cruiser: Yes. Steven's talking to himself.

Peter: I thought he was coming through. Isn't great. There we go.

Stevan: Yeah. [00:57:00] So I was just gonna say that, um, that there are certain elements that sort of like makes it a burn, such as the ten principles is obvious ones.

There's also the theme camps, which you are a lot of people say, are the, are the lifeblood of the event of the long weekend.

Tarsha: Mm-hmm.

Stevan: Um, there's also volunteering. I mean, without the volunteering doesn't really happen, does it? Mm-hmm. Or it's not safe or absolutely what And, and the art, I think art is important, but that's what we all come here for, you know, to, to express ourselves.

Yeah. And what else, what other elements? I mean, we talked about the volunteering. So range to, to cap it all off with the theme camps. We also had rangering ranger stations, sanctuary First Aid, and I think a few other things.

Peter: Yeah, there's, there's DPI, which is the people responsible for doing all of the, um, like building electrician, plumbers, setting up the things.

There's the gate, the ticketing crew, there's the rangers, sanitation leave, no trace crew who, who are here, collect 17 kilos of. Content. Content, of course, the, [00:58:00] um, medical and first aid of which people, there's the art crew, there's theme camp, team placement done by Jeremy, the fart with representation here and cruiser.

There's tons of people that make that happen

Tarsha: and many people overlapping in those roles. Too many, many overlaps going above and beyond any one definition.

Peter: It's not a burn if there's not a risk of burning out.

Tarsha: Yes, the burning out.

Cruiser: I'm volunteering. I talked about volunteering earlier when I'm talking about, you know, it's a great way to meet people and all that kind of thing. But, you know, in what I do and what I've done, I, I always like to be sort of part of the event, not just attending the event, whatever that may be. Um, I've always been that way, so being a part of the volunteering, um, you know, tick that box for me as well.

And it was, it was great to just have a little bit of a, a finger on the pulse, um, and be a part of it before and after. It was very cool. So again, [00:59:00] anyone thinking about it, I say do it.

Tarsha: Yeah.

Stevan: So it didn't feel like a festival to you, cruiser?

Cruiser: Well, I mean, I, this is my second festival, so, um, I dunno. Um, but it, it certainly did.

I mean, you know, my as a, as as a fart member in winter. With five barrels, you know, there's not a lot of action there. I mean, I'm, I'm, we actually had an incident that involved someone actually catching

Peter: no names.

Cruiser: No names that my, um, my main, uh, my main. Keeping those barrels burning with, um, collecting wood and faring it around on that golf cart.

So yes, definitely a festival. But um, on the Friday and Saturday, it gave me a sense of, um, a sense of purpose, a sense of, um, you know, a way to pass the time. But it is also very social as well. I mean, if you think about me driving around, going to barrels, asking people about wood, going and checking out the gate because they're, they're isolated there, especially on the, um, on the Saturday, I think they might have been shut the gate late, late on Saturday, people they were coming.

But [01:00:00] being able to have that golf, golf cart and go and, and talk to them and it was great. It was really good.

Tarsha: If I can pick up on that question of was it a festival, um, to maybe delve into, delve, goodness, the chat gpt is coming out. Um,

Peter: synthesize your thoughts

Tarsha: Yes, yes. To explore the topic more. Um, so when I got into Burns, I was going to a number of commercial festivals, and I think that's what we often, that's the subtext when we talk about, is it a festival, is it not?

Oh, right. Okay. Um, so commercial festivals, it's, as you all know, it's like you pay for your ticket, you're a spectator. You go and see the show, you go and buy your food, you buy your booze, and then you buy your luxury tent. You know, it's all, everything is provided there for you, um, to make it quite comfortable and quite easy.

And so you are a consumer. And you feel entitled to consume the entertainment. That's the point. And I think what makes a burn a burn is really those principles that have been set up decades and [01:01:00] decades ago by some crazy hippies on a beach. Um, and really for me, I think the Decommodification is one of the most important ones.

Like actually to speak to that too, um, goodness, I hope my friend's, okay, I won't name names. Um, but you know, it's setting up, bringing five virgins, setting up a camp, bring them along. So you have all this communication that you give about, here's what we're doing, and you make your little Excel spreadsheet that's based on the survival guide and you write your messages and have you checked?

Have you checked? Yes. Confirm. Anyway, we're packing up the car with my mate and my mate turns to me and says, I said no. I said, we've gotta leave room for the water. And my mate goes, put, there's toilets on site so they'll have running water. We can just drink that. I said, no, no, we're, we're not doing that.

We're bringing our own water. And you know, 10 liters at least you're bringing maybe 15 is a good number. And, um, so this, I think this kind of, and, and that's nothing on my mate. I think my mate had very good [01:02:00] intentions of, well, there'll be water, we can drink the water. So no, you are not getting sick on my clock.

I really think that, that that principle, that there is nothing there. So there's no food, there's no water, but also there's no act, no one is paid to perform, no one is on the clock. So like, everything that is created is just created purely from the heart, from the mind, from the spirit, from creativity, from weirdness, just for the sake of doing it.

And that's the thing that you almost, in this very capitalist society that we live in, you actually find that really difficult to get your head around, why do we do that? Right? And I think it really speaks to, you know, without getting too woowoo, it speaks to a deeper humanity. I think, as you were saying Peter a bit earlier up, that it's, it's meaning that we're creating somewhere in all of that and magic in some way.

Cruiser: I'm, I'm glad you said all this, Tarsha, because when Stevan said, does it feel like a festival? You know, my experience at festivals, I, I haven't actually been to a, [01:03:00] you know, a music festival. I, I haven't, I haven't been to a commercial festival. So my experience has been obviously, and this, yes, you've been lucky, but by definition it feels like, you know, is actually more of a burn than it actually is a, a festival by what you just.

Tarsha: Yeah, definitely more closely, closely aligned. Yeah. And that was an interesting discussion I had with another friend too, about, about that particular, um, confest and, you know, confest has food available to purchase, so it's like not as de modified. And I mean, there's also benefits to that, right? For that particular setting.

Um, it makes things a little bit easier in certain ways. And yet, I mean, I just, I I scrape by on my two minute noodles at a burn and yeah, yeah. You know, everyone seems to get fed and have more than enough food by the end of it. So it's, um, yeah, it's a very, it's an interesting one. And I think sometimes in the community you'll, you'll hear some pushback against, is it a festival?

But I think,

Cruiser: yeah, I won't use that word again.

Peter: It's festival. It's totally festival. It's not, it's a non [01:04:00] yes. Day event.

Stevan: It's, it's an in, it's, it's a ongoing kind of in joke, not tell the friends it's a festival, right? So,

Tarsha: ah, it is a festival. A festival is a, is a celebration of culture. Like,

Stevan: I, I, I still call it adventurous camping because as soon as I got to the emper, as soon as I got to the campground, first thing I heard was, uh, are you sure you want to camp there?

'cause there's a bunch of snakes there, like red belly or something. Oh no. Adventurous camping. I love it. Um, yeah. So let's, uh, let's take another break. Uh, we've got more burner voice messages, so we'll play, play those and, um, we'll be right back after these short messages.

Tyne: Hi, this is Tyne coming from Embers, and I hope that you all get the chance to come and experience the burning community here in Australia.

We really do love having new faces and seeing people out on the paddock, and, [01:05:00] uh, also like to see people come to third degree. Have a great day. Bye.

Ciaron: My is Kian. Um, I don't really have a burner name. I've been to like a few burns a while ago, like burning seed, just like multiple burning seeds. Other than that, I haven't been to many burns.

Um, I'm 14. Uh, I really like this burn. I like, just like the, the small amount of people, like makes it more of like a tight knit community kind of burn. Yeah.

Rave Grandpa: Rave Grandpa says you can always take more, but you can't take less.

Jeremy: All right. This is jazz. And my ideal burn is one where I surprise and delight people.

Fancy pants: Uh, hey, I'm fancy pants and you should be building things for this burn.

Any burn?

You heard me?

Ulf: Okay. So it is Ulf the wolf and [01:06:00] I'm still waiting for the leopards on Sunday to come out at a Devon launch because, um, yesterday was outstanding or lots of people that behaved like leopards. So I'm having a good vibe. Let's see what the Sunday brings.

Roxy: I'm Roxy,

um, what do I say? Um, my brother name's Eli.

This is Adeline.

You wanna say hi? No, don't eat the microphone.

She waved. It was Adeline. Um, she's my friend's child. Say something. What do I say? Say your name.

Nella: Um, my name, uh, my name is Nella and my burner name is Diana.

I've been to a lot of burns, including Burning Man when I was four and I've been burning my whole life and I love it.

I think Adeline has something to say. What do you wanna say? Don't use the microphone,

please. Do you wanna say something[01:07:00]

You've said enough.

Dom: Morning burners. This is Nerf herder. I'm down here getting, preparing for the, uh, welcome to country. We're right by the temple. It's a beautiful morning. Some beautiful burn is about cruising around on beds and doing some lovely yoga. It's a fantastic day. So looking forward to seeing you down here in about 20 minutes.

Feel the spirit of the place. Thanks guys.

Jazz: Good day Burners. This is jazz and Sherry, AKA mischief and mayhem here, bringing you the sunshine and. Uh, good vibes. Good vibes to, to bring in the morning. Um, on this sunny day, uh, we are out here in the beautiful paddock of mountains campground at Embers Burn. Um, looking forward to a exquisite and beautiful collective journey of consciousness.

Sherry: Enjoy your morning coffee, keep the burn in your, in your heart and soul, and we'll see you in the [01:08:00] dust.

Jazz: And, uh, don't forget to stay hydrated.

Mikel: Okay, so I'm Mike, and my burner name is Mike, I think. What do you reckon? Do I have a what? Do you Nickel? Nickel. I get mickle off Jay. I like Mickel. So that's gonna be my burning name for this, uh, this session.

Mickel, nice to meet you.

Jai: Hello. I'm Jai, or ai. Um, I've come randomly to this little embers burn. Um, and the story last year is I was at, um, main Burn. I did the lead build on Connie McCone face, the traffic cone, and it was an epic time.

Turtle: So my name is Turtle and I believe in setting an intention when you're coming into a new space.

And my intention for this burn is to be the most playful version of myself. Even when I'm working, I can still be playful. That's me. [01:09:00]

Trouble: Uh, hi. I am trouble. I have an unhealthy love of spreadsheets. I'm fairly new to Burning, but like a duck to water or a doong to bubbles or a burn at a fire. I love it.

Tash: Hey, it's Tash here, Tash Boots.

Um, a message to the Burner community is Go forth and prosper.

George: It's George and I love the Burner community for the fact that it is a community and it creates a, um, a place where people can express themselves and without as many constraints. And it, you become part of something bigger than yourself, which I feel is very important.

Den Momma: Of course, I will do anything for swag. Well, almost anything. [01:10:00] My name is Den Mama. And Fuck Your Burn.

Pebble: I'm Pebble. I'm currently acting as echo base for Rangers. I'm about to be Sparky Shadow, I believe now Spark's coming back, uh, and I'm about to make some signs that say you're not allowed to smoke in the hall.

That's, that's my news. Ah, well.

Nat C: This is Nat, um, from the, from the Ashes that Ember will burn.

Owen: Yeah. Okay. So my name's Owen. Um, I was traveling here, um, and I got lost and

I dunno what to say. I've got nothing. I've got nothing.

Roly: Hi, my name's roll. I'm from Newing. Yep. You can insert whatever you want me to say here. That will do.[01:11:00]

Nugby: Hey, I just wanna say, fuck the Dugongs vividly. Resistance.

Caer: I'm care at Embers the Renegade. Not a burn because we don't wanna be sued

and it is a beautiful day for shenanigans.

Stevan: Okay, welcome back. Um, speaking of Fuckery and Shenanigans, um, let's talk about all the stuff that went down on that weekend. There's plenty of to talk about. So who wants to go first? What was your favorite shenanigans?

Peter: It was the crowning of the Juong that

Stevan: you might have to explain that Yeah. To the listeners.

Peter: So when. The co. Okay. This is, as far as I understand it, I've been trying to understand the backstory, but it was the first time that a single meme has infiltrated every element of the event. And it was absolutely unparalleled. It was [01:12:00] incredible. It was epic. And so I believe what happened is when, when the, uh, the official, official burner, um, organization in, in Australia, um, yeah, pointed out to Rly, the, the main organizer that it was not an official burn and he ought to avoid using the term burn.

He pushed back in the most burny way possible, and he made a real great, uh, point of it. And he said that the, the Western Juong Corporation has officially sanctioned this burn. Maybe not, you know, the official Burning Man sanctioned per se, but the Western Juong book. There's a lot of anti-authoritarian people in our community, right?

And, and so some people took a lot of, um, offense to the Western Juong Corporation, I believe, um, stepping up and, and there was a significant resistance, I think as many as 35%. Um, people actively identified as a resistance. And they were there in a big way. They wore red. They, um, there was a lot of coordination.

There was even like masks. And it was at [01:13:00] some point that the Western juong, the, the, I dunno, the CEO or the, the, the king I should say of Western Juong Association was, um, uh, who is, we recognized all of us, I hope recognizes a benevolent corporate overlord. Would the Yeah. Juong resistance. Uh, these anarchists came and, and were, um, gr Yes, there we go.

Yeah. Um, gratuitously unnecessarily, um, protesting. And I think that's kind of terrible. Like, I, I think we should really appreciate Western Juong. I'm not pro western juong. I just think that like, you know, anyway, these libertarians were kind of quite, anyway, there's a point in which the, um, duke go leader was being crowned with a really beautifully made 3D printed crown.

And when the resistance, um, uh, got,

Stevan: it wasn't from Tim U

Peter: no, I believe it was, it was an, you know, a, an original DIY proper crown. But there was sadly, um, he was then. The Crowner, who I believe is the, uh, red Dragon, [01:14:00] or it's also the Alii. Juga. I don't know. I kind of got a bit lost there, but he received, I'm lost there, man.

Pretty high during the middle of the, the, the coronation. So, um, yeah, it was just amazing to see such absurdity and, and fun and, um, yeah, no, there was nothing else like it. Satire and sincerity.

Tarsha: And, uh, Peter, you had a statistic there. 35% was something or another. Was that from the survey?

Peter: Yeah. Yeah. Did an amazing survey afterwards.

115 or so responses or really, and he's, he's this guy, he's, you know, he is like a successful medical professional when he just goes and there's a lot of other people who supported that survey. I, I, I understand as well.

Tarsha: Rolly is awesome. The survey was fantastic. I would just like to point out in the name of good solid research, there were only two options in regards to this question, and many people had no idea what we were actually picking, myself included.

Cruiser: I had no idea.

Stevan: People [01:15:00] didn't know what a dugong was. So let's explain what it, it's a Sea Sea, right? Sea cow. Yeah. A dugong. Australian mammal.

Peter: Australian mammal. An air breathing mammal. Similar to, almost identical to a, um, oh, what's the thing that's like. Manatee right seal in the us Do they have manatee?

Cruiser: Oh, that's what it's, right.

Yes. Yes.

Peter: I have no idea where, where that originated. Like why did he Well, I love it because it's a quintessential Australian animal, right. And, you know, from northern Queens. And in fact, fun fact, they, there is evidence that people used to eat them in coastline of Australia. But, so I'm glad in the sort of fuck you to the American, uh, uh, burner culture.

We chose at least an Australian animal.

Tarsha: Hmm. It's very local. That's his place, spirit.

All those things.

Stevan: Now, did you guys encounter the, the cheeses, Christ

Peter: what?

Tarsha: Oh yes.

Cruiser: Jesus Christ.

Tarsha: I did.

Cruiser: That rings a bell. But

Stevan: that was Drew again. So I've, I've heard you know, whispers around saying that Drew was [01:16:00] the MVP of the embers.

Oh, it's classic. Oh, he had that, he, he had three costume changes in one day in a, in a Jesus Christ. The next,

Cruiser: not to mention that inflatable marketing thing, you see out front of

Stevan: that as well. He's, he's, but the cheeses Christ was where he would bless everyone with assortments of different kinds of cheeses.

Tarsha: Something like that.

Stevan: Some worshipers and some angel cheeses and yeah, it was a lot of fuckery there. It was well done. It was well done. You,

Tarsha: there was some lovely people making pizzas in the kitchen who nobody knew there was pizza because Jesus Christ was, was right in front of the kitchen. So everyone was getting cheese on their knees.

I was just watching on the side going, okay, this is awesome. Must that kitchen crew. Damn.

Stevan: I didn't, I didn't kneel down because, uh, lactose intolerant couldn't, couldn't convert. But it, it was hilarious. That's bet. Um, yeah.

Tarsha: Honorary member [01:17:00] of whatever cult, you've just joined

Peter: a lot of food, came outta that kitchen.

I was so impressed. Yes. Yeah.

Stevan: And did you guys, uh, partake in the midnight prank?

Cruiser: Midnight prank? Yeah.

Tarsha: Didn't know about it.

Stevan: I think there was a bunch of them. They, because those, I think someone arrived at midnight at Gate. I think this was a Friday night or something. And I think Drew and Allie just decided to, let's, let's go prank these guys.

And if the people showed up at the gate or with the person that's arriving, I, I wasn't there. I didn't go. It was too far.

Cruiser: Oh, is this where they turned their back?

Stevan: I'm not sure. But everyone just said, let's go to the gate and prank some people. So a lot of pranking going on. Yeah. What other shenanigans?

Cruiser: Oh, I, look, I had this beautiful interaction with, um, this guy who, I think he, he must have turned up late and I believe he was by himself.

Right. And, you know, I was on duty, so he thought I was cruel and I couldn't help him. But that's, that's how we met. Right. Anyway. Later on, um, he's, um, he's, I said, oh [01:18:00] man, how, how you going? I won't name names. He goes, oh, just, I've just made a spoon. I'm like, oh, that's cool. That's cool. And he showed me, because you, you could make your little spoon and you could decorate it.

And he had some, some labels on it, uh, uh, little, um, letters on it. And it said, uh, bump ahead. I'm like, oh, yeah, that's clever. And he said, I've made this other one as well. And it's his, um, the letters on that one just said, fork. And I laughed. I said, oh, that's funny. 'cause it's, it's a, it's a fork, but it's actually a spoon.

He goes, no, no, no. It's 4K Now. I told this story at one of the, um, at one of the burn barrels after I delivered my comedy routine for the second time that night. And, um, I've told this story and then about 30 seconds later, this guy walks past and I said, Hey, hey, show, show me your spoon. Show me your spoon.

And he produces this spoon that says fork. And everyone just lost their mind. It was another one of those beautiful, lovely, funny, silly moments, which I'll never forget. And I've told many people that story because it was just so much fun. Really.

Peter: I was there when he was making it. I was so impressed with that spoon.

It was [01:19:00]

Cruiser: the fork. Yeah. Not the spoon, the fork.

Stevan: That spoon making workshop was just the best.

Peter: Yeah, I, I was very proud of this.

Stevan: And it was always full.

Peter: The spoon I made, which had a small medium and a large, it was like a, it made it for Rollie. It was like a, wanted it to be on a key ring. Three different size spoons with different size, um, spoon heads depending on the use case.

Cruiser: Well, when I, when I first set foot in the spoon making station, I thought to myself, geez, you're gonna be hammering a way a long time to make that into a spoon. Then I worked out what was going on.

Peter: Yeah, you need a really small meal when you're at a burn, you know, you don't wanna,

Cruiser: well, yeah, yeah.

Tarsha: I barely time to eat.

Cruiser: But, um, I told a story before, before we started about, um, about, um, being in the hall. Now, this beautiful moment again, I'm hanging around with, um, with Orchid because I was waiting for Jess to get into that other, uh, the Sal manner because she was gonna do this sexy stomping act and I was gonna be the volunteer.

[01:20:00] And I'm thinking, what's that? And she was explaining to me that she's gonna step on me. And I'm like, I would like that. I'd like a massage. She goes, no, I'm gonna step on your, on your face and on your stomach. I'm like, oh my God, is it safe? Anyway, we went through the whole process and it didn't happen, thank Christ.

But, um, but, uh, that's what I was waiting for anyway, or needs to use the bathroom. I said, yep, in the hall. I'll go too. There's one in, there you go. I'll go while she's in the bathroom. I'm looking at the art installation because I hadn't been in the hall yet, and, um, the dj, Alicia Mayhem was on stage and she said, ohy, whatcha are doing?

And I said, oh, play something, you know? And she goes, no, I don't wanna, I don't wanna, um, play to an empty hall. And I said, well, look, why, why don't you just play a, she asked me what kind of music I like. I said, listen, don't ask me, I'm just gonna say a beachy or something like that. And I said, why don't you play something that you play when you wanna build a dance floor?

Okay, cool, cool. She presses a button and turns a knob, and this really deep, sexy base just came out. I theatrically jumped off the stage by sort of pivoting on the speakers and started bopping around, and I threw my hat off and I started taking off my jacket and swinging it around like a stripper.

Anyway, off [01:21:00] comes outta the bathroom. I go, when I come out, there's a bit of a dance floor happening. Anyway, that was, that. Went outside, got stuck talking to the goose and the other goose geese. Um, and then, um, later on that night, uh, Alicia comes up to me and, and thanks me for, for creating this dance floor for her.

And I said, I, I didn't do that. That was, that was all you. I messaged her on Facebook to ask her what, um, you know, what she uses and all that kind of thing, because I was amazed by her, her genre. I've been introduced to Bass House. I listened to one of her sets, you know, it was an hour long set. I listened to the whole thing.

It was, it was amazing. But that one song that she played in the hall, I remember the name of it. I can't remember it now. But because I had my 11 hour drive, I put into Spotify, I started a radio station based on it. And that music got me home the whole, the whole time. So 11 hours of hearing songs I'd never heard before.

Because of the one song she played on that stage.

Tarsha: It's 'cause you asked it to, you gave her the space to do it.

Cruiser: I didn't do it. It was all her. It was just you ate her on a bit. I just catalyst. I was a catalyst, that's all. [01:22:00] Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Peter: Another dance floor highlight was this incredible artwork. I don't know if you guys saw that was set up on, I think it only really came out on Sunday, but it was prepared by, um, Teresa.

That was a surgical game where you, there was all of these Operations.

Tarsha: Operations,

Peter: yeah. You had to, had some tweezers.

Tarsha: Yes. Like our childhood,

Peter: it was the coolest. The only dance floor you have, you get some tweezers and you have to go and take, I can't remember all the things that were, you could take out, but, um, it's very cleverly planned and place these things in clever locations on this giant human body.

And, and if you got it wrong, of course it would beep and get angry at you. So it was, that was a lot of fun.

Cruiser: That's cool.

Tarsha: Were they bones?

Peter: I can't remember. Yeah, I think there was some bones. I think I pulled out some bones. Yeah.

Tarsha: Mm. That tracks. That tracks. Yeah. That's really, that thing is huge. It's more than life size.

It's incredible. The work that must have gone into it.

Stevan: Well, she put it together in a couple of weeks is amazing. Oh goodness. Yeah. Yeah. Un unfortunately, so impressive. Cris, uh, holy dooley dropped out, so we lost her [01:23:00] connection so we couldn't get any words from her. But, um, it would've been great for, uh, you know, to, to hear about the reeds and the gates and bringing that giant, uh, vulva.

Mm-hmm. Um, okay, let's, let's take another quick break. We'll be right back after these short messages.

Jasper: My name, this is Jasper, um, otherwise known as King Neptune, um, one of the founders of Sunset Island. And, uh, what a wonderful sunset. It was last night. Uh, you know, I could almost visualize where we would put Sunset, sunset Town as it's now called if you were here.

But, uh, Shane is an ibiza, the celebrating his 50th birthday. And, uh, you know, but what a wonderful location. This isn't it, to burn and, and to connect. Reconnect to rekindle. The embers are there. The embers are just being waived by us all. And you know, when you've got embers, you've got fire. So we can't wait to, uh, maybe reignite burning seed next year.

Kaiser: Hello? Hello. It's, uh, [01:24:00] Kaisa here, reporting from Embers. We have just had a acknowledgement in the country and it is beautiful here in Sydney. We have got a beautiful sunny day and I am about to dress up as a mermaid, getting ready for the peachy party. I hope you all keep burning

bright. Bye. And to the peachy people, we will be doing peachy things and we'll be thinking all of our fellow peaches.

Bye-bye.

Lau: From Wise and Ferry, this is Bernie Dao, chairman Lau, the, the former mayor of, uh. Red Earth City, uh, of the burners, Republic of Ong disgracefully at your service. Um, I'd like to acknowledge all the hard work by the organizers of the Embers burn. Uh, it wasn't exactly Plan A, but you know, hopefully next year we'll be back bigger ever at [01:25:00] burning seed.

And as a silent disco here, the, the other Asian birder reminds me this is not a burn. And, uh, yes, I, I, I am par partially responsible for the, uh, misconstrued legal threats.

No, no roll, roll is a good man. We, we'd never really sue him. Well actually, uh, a bank balance, this is running a little low start burning seed next year. So yeah, maybe my lawyers should get in touch with the organizer members.

I, I'll hopefully see you in a paddock one day soon. And until then, been bright.

Michael: Hello, I'm Michael Trobridge. I'm having a fantastic time here. I'm just, uh, just got out of this amazing sauna, jumped in the river, and, um, just. Just wonderful music and dancing, and I'm just loving life. Um, and, uh, [01:26:00] I happen to be naked right now and nobody cares. And, um, it's so free and what natural and, um, it's just, um, a good way to be.

Um, by the way, I'm president of Nude Movement Incorporated a registered charity here in Australia, and we, we, uh, no, don't, don't go on about that. Okay. Well, you can look it up. All right. All. Anyway. Um, world Naked Bike Ride. I'm the organizer of that. Anyway. All right, here's, uh, I guess I've said enough.

Alright, good.

Rowan: Hey, good day. Uh, my name's Rowan Ko. I'm, I'm an artist, and, uh, we're making art out here with all the art stars, uh, down on the green grass in front of, uh, peach Club. It's a beautiful day at Embers. And I'd just like to thank everyone for welcoming me and, and a mutual welcome back to them all, love and community to everyone.

We'll definitely shout out to Campeche, Campeche, [01:27:00] Nevada. Hope you have a great big burn, and we'll be looking forward to more campeche shenanigans here in Australia.

Starchild: Um, this is Nathan Star Child, and I just wanna say something really profound and important, but I can't think of anything right now. So. Just, just think of something profound and important in your head.

Mm-hmm. You got it? Yeah, I agree.

Jake: Hello there. Uh, this is Jake or otherwise known as Percy Borough. Um, I'd like to

share the message and, uh, perhaps a little bit of permission to come as you are, do [01:28:00] what you need to do, get your feet on the ground, and we're gonna love you up exactly as you are.

Meljoy: Hi there. My name is Mel

Joy

Bast: and I'm Bass,

Meljoy: and we are here to send you some beautiful, loving messages

Bast: from the Embers Burn in the beautiful Wiseman's ferry area.

Meljoy: Yeah, we just finished the Welcome to Country and it was a beautiful touching and moving ceremony. One like I've never felt before. I felt very connected to this land and the people and it made me feel like full of love, I think.

Bast: Yeah, I love your radio voicemail, joy.

I have. It was very informative and very well done and I'm feeling connected to country and very welcome and this land. Very welcome, and I'm looking forward to having a lovely. Adventure out on the flyer today. [01:29:00] Yeah. What are you looking forward to today? Meljoy?

Meljoy: I'm looking forward to spending time with my friends and regathering your love.

Maybe you. Yes. Me? Yeah.

Bast: Would you like to spend time with your lover today? Of course, I would. Or your friends

Meljoy: of or both at the same time? Yes.

Bast: I'm looking forward to spending time with you.

Meljoy: Yeah. And, uh, we just want to tell everybody that spread the love. Be happy. Don't hold your fears, um, within you. Talk, talk, talk.

Get it out there.

Bast: I'm looking forward to taking, taking my bart off into the country and serving fresh IPA to the masses.

Meljoy: Woo-hoo. Woo-hoo.

Bast: Anyway, this is Baston Mel joy signing out.

Stevan: Let's talk about some of the, so we mentioned earlier about some of the 10 principles that we witnessed, or some of the 10 principles in play at Ember. What? Give us, can you give us some examples of other [01:30:00] things that you saw observed in terms of 10? Can I, principles

Tarsha: can, I'll, I'll tell my story. Um, about 10 principles, which involves a bunch of my burge, my ceramicist and electrician, and a bunch of, uh, longtime organizers.

So I've got a ceramicist who's very, very fixated on making ceramics, who had been wanting to do, um, a fire pit burn or something like that. Bake. And I, you know, I asked a few people, it was kind of like, too hard basket. We've got enough on our plates. Anyway, she brings her stuff along and basically her and another Virgin James, uh, managed to talk to Jimmy, managed to talk to someone and said, can we put some ceramics in the temple when it burns?

Cruiser: Oh, wow.

Tarsha: Um, and to fire them, we got the, they they got the app Yeah. Yeah. To fire them. So she had worked out by watching the effigy burn. She had worked out what the temperature was going to be like. Is it 500, 600, 700 degrees. Um, and she had this special clay, I dunno much about it, but she said, yep, it's like [01:31:00] a quick high burn sort of clay.

Anyway, so the day of the temple burn and, you know, after some of you had been moving the temple into place Oh my God. And we placed our messages on there. Um, and so we sauntered over and Reagan was doing the setup, and we were told to find Jimmy and then put them in there. Catching up with Reagan, we'll put it that way.

Very long term. Uh, long time burner. Yeah. We were given the permission and Reagan, we had wrapped these ceramics in banana leaves and foil and coffee and all sorts of things. And, um, six of them went in six packets and we watched it burn, which was incredible knowing that something we had just made with our hands was, was gonna be in there.

And we didn't expect to see anything, of course on the other side. So we watched the raking and all of, um, the people doing the raking is, I dunno, is there an official word for them? The RAKers team. The fart team. Okay. I like the, it's a little bit more ritualistic, [01:32:00] so fully on board.

They were fully on board with what we were doing. And so we were kind of circling as the embers, you know, was turning into ash. Um, and they were gently raking and we were looking, we couldn't see anything, just a few little pieces of foil and the morning came, it's time to pack up. We go back to the site and we found these tiny little balls that we had made.

They looked like something from Pompeii, like covered in this darky ash. And not everything survived, but a few little pieces actually did come out of that. So it was a really beautiful story and there were many moments along the way of sort of people meeting and helping each other with different things, new brand new virgins, with really longtime key organizers, uh, in this scene.

And just seeing people coming from really different backgrounds, different skill sets, different life perspectives, totally different ways of approaching problems [01:33:00] and coming together, making some art. And then, you know, watching it go up in the temple was just incredible. So it's something that for any future organizers of burns, if you're listening, we are very keen to do it again on a bigger scale with more organization and more prep, um, and maybe getting more people involved as well.

Peter: Actually necklaces making that would be so cool. Oh,

Cruiser: there was actually also, I dunno if it was that night or the previous night, but there was actually a roast chicken in the fire as well.

Tarsha: Okay.

Stevan: That was on the, the, uh, temple Temple burn as well. Yeah. Yes.

Cruiser: There you go. Ceramic and a roast chicken

Stevan: curry spices. Beautiful.

Tarsha: Yes. Someone we actually saw that, you're right, you're bringing back my memory of someone had like a cast iron pot and they were sort of eating and we were raking and it was all happening

Stevan: and there was a bunch of women also chanting as well afterwards they were singing.

Cruiser: Oh, that was beautiful. Yes.

Tarsha: Daughters of the Burned Women, something like that. Yes, yes. That was very cool. [01:34:00] Yeah. Now we are the daughters.

Stevan: Now we, we mentioned a lot about D Commodification. Now with that, the other side is the gifting part. Mm. Um, did you guys receive any, any unusual, any memorable gifts?

Cruiser: Yes, yes I did. I've got photos of them that I put in the Facebook group, which I'm just gonna look at now.

But I got a, um, I got something from the witch doctor. I got a, I got a beautiful key from Elena. Now Elena said to me and a few other people that she gave these keys to, that this key will unlock whatever you want it to. So don't think about it now, but when you go home, think about what it's gonna unlock.

I'm looking at the photo now, so it's just a little key with little label that said for you. And that was wonderful. Sarah, the witch, um. I dunno, this scary looking skull. Jess gave me this card that says I'm supported on my path Sarah. The witch doctor also gave me a, um, a doctor certificate for contracting the plague, which, um, she gave me the plague, then claimed to cure me of it, but

Tarsha: What a scam.

Cruiser: Yeah,

Tarsha: what a scam. Big farmer. These days.

Cruiser: [01:35:00] But, um, a big shout out to Ben, who was rolling around with

 his trolley making toasties for people. Oh

Tarsha: yeah.

Cruiser: Completely portable setup, hosted cheese sandwiches. Wow. Just random.

Tarsha: That, that reminds me of, I did not take the time because I was too distractible to get gifted.

But David and his hungry Caterpillar with a similar thing, uh, making, I don't know if it was pancakes or scones. I heard different stories. It was scones. Oh my God. I'm so, I'm so frustrated that I didn't wait around, but he brought me so much story just seeing that Caterpillar roaming around and then when he saw the whole setup and it was from scratch, mind blowing.

Peter: It was electric. It was a fully electric system. That was incredible.

Tarsha: Absolutely incredible.

Stevan: I think he ran into some trouble. I think it was Saturday night or Sunday night where the gas couldn't, was too cold to, to cook with gas. Oh, no. Gas bottle actually froze over so. It was, it was good setup. Also, the, the first, the thirst [01:36:00] aid.

Did you guys

Peter: Oh my gosh, yes. The thi aid accident.

Tarsha: That was so great.

Cruiser: I had a cordial late at night. It saved me, it saved me.

Tarsha: You were in need

Peter: was a great gift.

Tarsha: Yes.

Stevan: And the, and the commercial. It was so the communal kitchen, um, I thought there was a lot of gifting around, especially with food. Some drinks. Yeah.

Yeah,

Tarsha: a lot of drinks. The drinks were fantastic. The, the drinks were flowing for sure. Very appreciative.

Stevan: One thing that was different, I guess to most the, is that there is a communal kitchen that we can use. Mm-hmm. That's where everyone can come together anytime of the day. Um, whenever you're hungry or thirsty.

I thought it was a great addition and it's something that's already there, so maybe, you know, it's, it's a luxury to have, otherwise something that we have to build. Or it could be a part of a theme camp, a kitchen thing camp.

Tarsha: Mm-hmm.

Stevan: But. Kitchen actually helped a lot, I think out. Yeah, definitely was the range of camp was there and the fire and the octagon and [01:37:00] the showers.

Yeah. Cool.

Cruiser: Well, every, every major camp at has a, has a kitchen associated with it and it's, it's a great place to come together at mealtime. Yeah.

Tarsha: Mm. Yeah. It is a nice, I know we had some, not with my camp, but some free campers who also were mostly burgeon. Um, one, maybe one or two repeats, returners, and they had planned to gift pizzas, which they originally planned to do at camp.

And then they were the ones that ended up then going to the kitchen, making use of the communal kitchen being, you know, sort of cock blocked by Jesus. And, but apparently, apparently the kids loved the pizzas so that, you know, they, they had a lot of customers there, so yeah, it was wonderful to have a kitchen space.

Yeah. And kitchen crew. It was really cool. Brought, brought people together.

Cruiser: Speaking of kids, it was wonderful to see so many families there that

Tarsha: it was,

Cruiser: that surprised me and I thought that is. Beautiful.

Tarsha: Yeah, I agree. And how amazing it must be for the kids to experience that and for the families to feel comfortable to [01:38:00] bring their children, um, into the community.

Yeah. Very cool to see.

Stevan: Okay. So there was a lot of communal effort going around. Uh, we built, that's how we built the effigy through communal effort. Yes. Also the temple as well. We actually had to move it, it took a lot of manpower and, you know, burner power, I guess

Cruiser: I look, I take a lot of credit in, um, in commanding the crew on how to move that thing effectively and safely, because the first time we lifted it, I'm surprised no one got very badly hurt.

So, um, I'll, uh, I'll put my hand up and say there I was thanked afterwards. I was thanked afterwards for taking, taking charge and just basically just, you know, using my voice to say, do this, do this, do this. It was, it was good. I was happy with that. Excellent. What, what I was wearing at the time wasn't, you know, um, didn't really match the sort of, um, the, the leadership role that I had taken.

Um, but, uh, it, it worked. It worked.

Tarsha: We, I was actually running a workshop in which we were going to, um, have a procession to the [01:39:00] temple at the exact time that the temple started moving, which I'm not, I'm not sure if that was planned or not planned, but it actually worked out perfectly because as I was setting up for the workshop, I saw you guys start taking bit by bit the temple, and I'm going, we are just gonna roll with it.

We're gonna pretend that's not happening. And by the time we were kind of ready to do our little procession in silence, we went down with our messages and everything was done. So it was, I think it was quite a quick, a

Peter: literal It was quick.

Tarsha: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Literal moving, which is the whole burn. It turns out

Cruiser: it was, wasn't it?

Tarsha: Yes. I think by that point I was so done. I'd already rescheduled the, the workshop and all sorts of things. So I was like, well, if the temple's there, it'll be somewhere and we'll just get amongst it.

Stevan: Kicking goals and moving goalposts. Yeah.

Tarsha: So we did, it all worked out.

Stevan: Well. Let's talk about the effigy and the temple, the design and how it burn because uh, you guys have to sort of like describe it.

'cause I was at there. For both of [01:40:00] those burns. Um,

Tarsha: the temple was a beautiful, um, sort of timber structure with this kind of sheer fabric, um, that was really stunning.

Cruiser: Three-dimensional, lotus inside, was that what it was supposed to be, A lotus leaf?

Tarsha: Like a lotus could be. Yeah, I think so. I could see that kind of coming out.

And it was interesting because they created space. By, not by sort of creating a structure, but actually creating parts that moved out. So kind of taking advantage of the horizontal plane, I would say. Um, so you had those kind of pedals around the perimeter that you could walk around and walk through and then you could go inside.

I think there was a little seating.

Cruiser: Yeah. You could sit inside it. It was, it was like, it was art that could be used before it was burnt.

Tarsha: Yes. And people did go and sit in there late at night. I was around the, um, the ceremonial file fire and people at midnight, 1:00 AM 2:00 AM just sitting in there chilling out.

Kids would go in there. Um, it was beautiful to see and it had a really nice effect because of that fabric. I thought the fabric was quite [01:41:00] unique as an addition. Um, and it just kind of blurred out the environment a bit. So everything went white and hazy, but then you still were connected to it. You could still sort of see the sky and see what was happening outside and beautiful.

The setting, I think by the river, by the fire as well, although it did get moved understandably. But for the time that it was there, it felt that that area to me felt quite significant after, after everything that had taken place there.

Stevan: Yeah. Big shout out to Reagan who designed and built temple.

Tarsha: Absolutely.

Stevan: Big job. And allowed us. He also came from, yeah, he also came from Melbourne as well. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Wow. A big drive. Big effort. Yeah. Did anyone take in the naked, hippie run? We did have a little circle there.

Cruiser: I did.

Stevan: I think strawberry was the first one to sort of like, get things going.

Peter: Did you Steven?

Stevan: No, I did. I was at Perimeter. I just let all the naked hippies do their thing. Yeah.

Cruiser: The funny thing about being naked in front of that fire was that it was freezing. Right. But when your whole body's exposed to that radiant heat, [01:42:00] beautiful. It was warmer being naked.

Peter: True.

Stevan: So did you do it?

Cruiser: I did, yes.

Stevan: How did it feel? Tell us.

Cruiser: Well, it was cold at first, and um, it was awkward because I had, was wearing so much, it was difficult to sort of take it off. And then, um, then running around and then looking at the, sort of the moving crowd and thinking to myself, where are my clothes? Because they were over there by those people, but those people now moved, so my landmarks were all gone.

So, um, yeah, didn't do it for long, put it that way.

Peter: Did you find your clothes in the end?

Cruiser: I did. I did. I lost the beer though. I did lose a beer. Dunno where that one went.

Stevan: Now, did you guys witness, you, you, you talked about this earlier cruiser, um, Rollie setting himself on fire, but, um, that's not what, what we're interested in talking about.

What um, what actually inspired from that event was, so did you guys see someone, I think Nbe posted on the Embers page where Rollies was, was Karaoking was singing to, to the song of I'm On Fire. That was kind of like the whole irony of the whole situation. So [01:43:00] inspired by that incident. I've got, actually, I've actually designed a little quiz, so let's, do you want guys wanna play a little quiz?

Yeah. Taking this off? Sure, sure. So this quiz is about well inspired by Rollies, um, setting himself on fire. But, uh, the quiz is about theme songs. About fire or it has a title, song of it in it, it has fire in. So let's begins. It's a bit of fun here. Question number one. So what you have to do is gimme the song title and the artist who performs it.

Okay. And bonus points, if you can give us a shitty karaoke rendition of it. Oh, wow. So for example, um, the song that Rollie was singing too was, I'm On Fire by Bruce Springsteen. The question number one, gimme the Song title and the artist. So the, the whole, the whole theme is about fire or embers or whatever.

So this song was released, released in 1957. This song sold over 1 million copies in less than two weeks. The lyrics, this is probably way before your time, the lyrics and tempo mizes, the wild energetic spirit of the [01:44:00] 1950s. That represents the intense emotions of love and desire, capturing the explosive nature of falling head over heels for someone

Cruiser: Burning Love. Elvis Presley.

Stevan: No, this song is also known, come from biblical references that fire symbolizes the presence of God. I've got it. And was,

Peter: I've got it. I asked the source of the original question and the source is just thinking about the answer as we speak. Mate, that's gotta be Jerry Lee's Lewis Great Balls of Fire.

Stevan: Correct? You're right. Yeah, I was gonna say it was also used in Top Gun. Now two other movies change off the reasoning model. Yeah, right. Top Gun. I doesn't think about the answer. There we go. Are are you cheating there, Peter?

My brain's not working. So released in 1989 from the album, everything, it became the number one hit in nine countries, including Australia, Sweden, uk, and USA. Now this song has been covered by many musical artists, including Australian Boy Band, human Nature, and the [01:45:00] British Girl Group.

Cruiser: Eternal Flame.

Stevan: Yeah.

And who sang it?

Cruiser: Bengals. Well, they, they, they didn't, that wasn't the original. It was, it was, was it? Oh, there you go.

Stevan: Yeah. 1989. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. Who who'd you think was the original cover or the song?

Cruiser: I dunno. It's just been done that many times. I mean, yeah. I think Body Jar did it as well. Yeah.

Peter: Would you have accepted Nothing Compares to you by Ade O'Connor, which was also released in 1989, became a hit in nine countries and covered by musical artists across generations.

Stevan: That's true too. Yeah. But it doesn't have anything to do with Flame. Flame or Fire, does it?

Tarsha: And it's not the name of a theme camp. Mm. It's a theme camp.

Peter: Well, I mean, there's a theme camp looking for a new name. I hear Reset. Could be Nothing compares to you. Oh, no, it doesn't.

Tarsha: That's That seems mighty personal.

Released in, we've got, we've got, anyway, let's keep going.

Stevan: Released in 1983 from the album, speaking in Tongues. This song was inspired by the concert goers at a Parliament Funkadelic concert. Number nine on the US [01:46:00] billboard and number 94 on Australian singles chart in 1984. They are timeless. Classic. Now reflecting the rebellious spirit of the 1980s, this song explores the notion of fighting with, sorry.

This song explores the notion of fighting fire with fire in a way to destroy something that has been trapped in you.

Peter: Burning down the the house.

Stevan: The song also offers the idea, sorry,

Peter: burning down the house by the talking heads.

Stevan: Yes, you're right.

Peter: I didn't realize it was, uh, inspired by a fun academic crowd

Tarsha: as you read your I

Stevan: it provides the idea of, um, being trapped or something like burning down the house.

Yeah. Cleansing it for the heart and soul.

Peter: And it teaches us that. Reminds us that when the roof is on fire, don't call fart dance harder. Goodness.

Cruiser: Love that.

Stevan: Released in 2012. So this is more of a recent one from the, from the Album Girl On Fire, the Song Rich Number 11. Anyone know this song?

Tarsha: It's Alicia. Alicia [01:47:00] Keys.

Stevan: What's a song?

Tarsha: Girl on Fire?

Stevan: Yes. From the same album. She named it. Yeah.

Tarsha: I was like, that's a trap. Oh my God. Yeah. I got one. There was no chat P there.

Stevan: Yeah. Kind of inspirational song. Yeah. Talks about, uh,

Tarsha: we listen to that coming in. I think possibly,

Stevan: yeah. Illustrates the qualities of women attitude and strength of all women going through hard times.

I guess.

Tarsha: Happy to represent us. Yeah. Yeah. Single representation. Mm. Alright.

Stevan: Okay. Released in 2012, uh, sorry. In, in 2011 from the album 21 Rich number one on the us uh, billboards Hot hundred and number 11. Here in Australia, the song is about being in a relationship where there are red flags around, and yet you still love that person even though they, even though you're separated.

This song is a pop power ballad with lush instrumental.

Cruiser: It's not that annoying. It's not Kings of Leon or

Stevan: no, no.

Tarsha: Is it Taylor Swift?

Stevan: It's a, it's a power ballad. So is it a [01:48:00] swelling strings of By Adele Arrangement? Sorry.

Peter: By Adele?

Stevan: Yeah. Yeah. What's the song?

Peter: Oh, lemme think through my memory Here. Set Fire to the Rain.

I can see. Yeah. Is that right? My favorite Adele's music. Yeah.

Tarsha: She's a good artist.

Stevan: Okay. The next one released in 1989 from the album Stormfront Front, reach number one and number two. Here in Australia, the lyrics list significant events between 1949 and 1989.

Cruiser: Oh, it's Billy Idol. Uh, Billy, Billy Joel. Um, we didn't start the fight.

Stevan: Yeah. Quite a, quite a great song actually. Um, mm mm It's a good one. Political, but, um,

Tarsha: I think we're starting a playlist. Yeah, there should be a playlist. We're starting a playlist here. We need to have like a set, maybe Saturday, 6:00 PM

Cruiser: Someone needs to rewrite that song to be burner specific with current world events.

Stevan: We could do that, I think. Yeah, it's good idea.

Tarsha: Could use some [01:49:00] AI to do that. Easy. Now you've got an idea.

Ai, Spotify this one use a recent one as well.

Stevan: They released in 10, uh, 2010 from the album. Teenage Dream Rich, number one in the us And number three here, it's got uplifting lyrics and explosive chorus.

This empowering pop anthem celebrates individuality.

Cruiser: Firework. Perry. Perry

Tarsha: firework. There you go. Very good.

Stevan: Yeah. You guys, what do you guys reckon on that song? Is, does that empower individuality? Is that something like self-expression? Is it, it,

Cruiser: look, it does. If you take it for these burners, if you take it off the radio on maximum rotation and listen to it as a individual piece of music, yes, why not?

But otherwise it's annoying.

Stevan: It's overplay maybe. Okay, because it's got a couple more released. In 72, 19 72, this song reached Platinum Set Certification selling over 1 million copies and number two in the US Billboards and Australia as well. The recording artists, their 40th and [01:50:00] final top 10 hits in the Billboard Charts news during the Miss Universe 2010 Swimsuit Competition.

This song also was also featured in the Lilo and Stitch the new one and the original one and remixed in the Circus. Still de show Viva Elvis.

Cruiser: Ah, so it's a Burning Love there. Is it?

Stevan: Yes, it's, yeah.

Cruiser: I love that song.

Stevan: Waiting for me to Finish it or just, um, wasn't sure about that song. I, I just was It's an old song classic though.

Cruiser: My, my Ex Wife's Brother's wedding song, wedding Dance. Really cool. Memorable.

Stevan: Okay, this last one, I think you'll get released in 1987 from the album Diesel and Dust. This song is a politically charged rock song that addresses the displacement of indigenous Australians from the lands reaching number six in the Aussie charts.

But number 17 in the [01:51:00] US there's a burning. It's a burning. Beat me to it.

Tarsha: Jinx. Nice work. Are we right? Presumably?

Stevan: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, of course.

Cruiser: Midnight. Oh, not all. Yeah, not all.

Stevan: Yes. Well done. Nice work. Well, these, these are, these are just some of the, uh, themes and some of the, we, they call it embers. Maybe we can call it something else.

Mm. They've got heaps of ideas there from all these great songs and lyrics.

Peter: Yeah. I think the theme of this podcast is definitely that the ember still glows. As Rly said after the event, the amber still glows and the was evident in the fire pits was evident in the music. Evident in the starting of the, um, the new camps.

I think it's, uh, very exciting times. My Spotify playlist. Spotify playlist,

Tarsha: yes.

Cruiser: The Spotify playlist is literally called ember's whole girl dj. I should rename it Alicia Mayhem, but that's what it was.

Tarsha: But you know in your heart who it's, yeah.

Stevan: Cool. So that was the So we, um, okay, let's, let's take another quick break and [01:52:00] we'll be right back.

These messages.

Warren: Hello, I'm Warren. Uh, I'm originally from Perth, Western Australia and I did my first, uh, burn at Blazing Swan. Did that for a couple of five years at, uh, uh, camp Unicorn Power. And now I'm pleased to have to have my first New South Wales burn with the Devon Lounge and loving it.

Robin: Oh yeah, Robin Trips.

That's my, uh, my paddock name.

I went to my first burning seed in 2014 and then I went back again in 2015. I didn't go in

2016 'cause it got flooded out, but they had some backup burns and one of 'em was called water wall overflow. And I went to that one. And then I went again in 2017 to burning seed 2018 and 2019.

And then I went back again in 2023. And here I am at Embers.

Viking: Good evening, fine humans, this is Viking come up [01:53:00] to you all the way from Melbourne. I would like to put a shout out to every single one of the beautiful people that, that have made this place absolutely spectacular. It's amazing the amount of energy that just gets poured into this space by trippers four trippers and for the greater good of all and all in sundry in between.

So folks, thank you kindly. You're all fucking wonderful and I look forward to seeing you at the next event. You are fucking magical everyone. Cheers.

Patrice: Hey, good morning from Sunny Australia. It's a bit chilly right now. My name is Patrice. Last night I realized that it is important to keep all the heat inside your body so you hear the top of your head.

You gotta keep it nice and warm because all the heat goes out of the top of your head, but you also need to keep your feet warm to maintain that energy, oh, not the energy, rather to maintain the heat within your container. Otherwise, if you have a cold head or cold feet, all that heat's just gonna go out and you're gonna freeze to death.

Wom, that is my listen to you. Enjoy your nuggets. [01:54:00]

Festival grinch: Hi there, my name is Tash, also known as the festival. Grinch, uh, reporting to you from embers, not a b burn. Just wanna say, make sure you party hard, party safe and look good while you're doing it. Oh yeah, woo.

Jimmy: So my name is Jimmy. I'm from Sydney. I run this sway and my message to all the burners is to keep looking out for each other and yourselves.

Chanting: Haning calling out here from into the valley, sending lots of love, and also just talking now about reclaiming and rewriting, owning past traumas and rewriting them as your beautiful, vibrant celebratory selves. Thank you. Love you all.

Oli: This is Ollie. Um, [01:55:00] I've been here for, well, this will be my 1, 2, 3. This will be my fourth burn.

And, uh, I'm in a mission to find the phone I lost last night.

CJ: It's Mr. Clifton Wilson coming into you hot from ember's 2025. I got my girl here. Say hello to the crowd.

Hey, yo.

Aw man. What a shout out that is. Hey. Gets the people going. Yeah. Yeah. We're out here on a fine Sunday afternoon sunshine and people are happy. Smiles about, people are looking a little dusty as well.

Big night out last night. Oh man. That was a fun one, wasn't it? Hey, we had a good time out there. That was a good one. Today we're, I think it's a good action for some sauna. Action. That sounds nice. Yeah. Maybe make up some bond knees later. Oh yeah. Hey, this is CJ over and out. [01:56:00] Have a great burn, everybody.

Randy: Oh, it's recording.

Hey, it's Randy r Bulls. Look out for me on the paddock today and I'll, I'll deliver all your baby faces a little mustache. Can't wait to see you out there. And stick on a stash on that little cute face of yours. Love Randy. Roz,

Peace: I would like to be the part of the change I want to see in the world. I'm Barry, I'm Peace. From Turkey, from Earth.

Creatrix: Hello. I am Creatrix. I'm from Sydney and I've been burning since 2019. I'm the art lead for third degree and I think what is. Pretty fucking awesome about burning. For me, burning did change my life.

And I think that what is really awesome for me about burning is the community, [01:57:00] the culture, and the art. And when you combine the three of those together and build communal art on site, that for me is when the magic happens. And I love the shenanigans and the pranks and the crazy shit that you encounter at three o'clock in the morning.

You don't get that anywhere else. So yeah, love burning, love the community. It's my place, my people.

Rumble: Hello burners. This is, uh, rumble in, uh, new South Wales. Just wanna say, uh, I love you all and, um, I hope you're having fun on the paddock. Giddy up.

Matt: Hi, I'm Matt.

Usher: Um, I'm Asha. Thank you. Thank you brother. Um, I'm really grateful to be here and connect with this land and this new family.

I, I celebrate us in gathering [01:58:00] and connecting overall over, like beyond the differences in, um, sharing our heart and being expressing ourself in our authentic expression. Thank you.

Rob: This is Rob Prichard coming from. Wisemans vary and um, got a lovely day snowed overnight, but it's come good today. We're just doing the pack down. Lovely weekend, lovely people. And, um, we'll see you next time. Go embers burned.

Felipe: Keep doing the work so we can keep on burning because we all deserve this more than anything. It's worth every minute of it. It's always worth it. Um, Philippe sending love to everyone and yeah, you, you're, oh, amazing.[01:59:00]

Stevan: Cool. And we're back. Okay. Let's give us some shout outs.

Cruiser: Shout outs, like every person I interacted with because you guys made this event for me. Um, I can't wait to do more. And, um, honestly, it was the people that made this for me. The weather was terrible. Um, you know, the drive was long, but the random interactions I had with every single person that I spoke to was just beautiful and memorable, and I'll never forget it.

And I look forward to seeing those people in the future. And again and again.

Tarsha: A hundred percent. And you will, that's the beauty if you,

Cruiser: I know, right? I know. Yeah.

Tarsha: You'll actually see some familiar faces and I think, you know, to this idea that we sort of have of, of coming back as a return burn and hopefully with getting some momentum with some more events that are happening.

We've had a bunch of burning pubs. So there was [02:00:00] one in Sydney. I went up to the one in Newcastle on the weekend as well. And there's a central closed one happening, I believe, next weekend. So there's a lot of events and I think some theme camps, even organizing some fundraiser parties. So I hope that we might even get some more return burners, uh, enticed to come back to us with big open arms, um, and open hearts and just full of love to see everyone.

And of course our embers, what are we called? Ember ites. I've seen that thrown ember around. I'm not really sure, but,

Cruiser: well, is is embers, is this the startup? Something ongoing with embers, because embers was the burning seed replacement.

Tarsha: That is a good question. I dunno,

Cruiser: is it burning seed or is it another renegade because burning seed will get canceled.

Tarsha: Only time will tell.

Peter: I think we can look forward to another similar event, if not a bigger event than

Tarsha: our third degree is coming up in.

Peter: Yeah. Third degrees happening at the beginning, the beginning of September. It's gonna be an amazing event near Sydney and it will be an [02:01:00] official burn so that you don't have to, um, discuss whether, whether it's or not, it is undoubtedly an official burn.

Yes. And of course, uh, Mr. Rascal is organizing an event in two weeks up in Elands for anyone that wants to join the rascal verse. And then I guess, yeah, there's, you have to wait until next year for next New South Wales burn.

Tarsha: Mm. I'll we'll look forward to it Keenly.

Stevan: I, I thought this burns was to, to use the term psychedelic because it actually, um, mine men mine manifested a lot of, a lot of things that, a lot of good stuff that's coming out from it.

One of the things that I wanna mention is probably that talking about shenanigans gonna fuckery, is that there's gonna be a lamp lampshade kind of workshop

he goes. So, you know, stuff like that. Just, uh, another cult being formed, you know, J Jazz's, um, workshop that's gonna come in, I think in August. So a lot of things to look forward to.

People were just manifesting other, you know, other ideas because it's, it was invigorating. It was, you know, it was restoring the, this, this embers experience to [02:02:00] me. Um,

Tarsha: absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Seeing Jeremy walk around as a lamp and a bunch of people as lamps, um, was

Stevan: very cultish. Right. It's like, who are these, you know, unusual people.

Tarsha: Just you, joy for me, just pure joy.

Cruiser: It makes sense. Sense as a hat it makes sense. It's really, you've got a hat that makes light. I love it. Yeah.

Tarsha: To me it was just, just seeing a lamp moving across, you know, the middle of the night, you're just like, tumbled out of a tent or something, or some music. And then person.

Cruiser: When you saw that, was it a light bulb moment?

Tarsha: It was, oh goodness. Um, yes,

Stevan: it was for me. I'm gonna a, we can put it like that.

Tarsha: Yes. The workshop sounds awesome. Yeah.

Stevan: Yeah. And just, people just, just wanted to catch up, you know? And we recently had vivid in Sydney and people just after straight afterwards, they just went, you know, just to caught up.

Uh, a lot of connections, reconnections, uh, but it was actually, um, impressive burn, considering Absolutely. That we [02:03:00] lost seed and um, yeah.

Tarsha: Really brought the community back together. Yeah.

Cruiser: Was very honored to be a part of it.

Peter: Ditt o? Yes.

Stevan: All right. Any last words you guys wanna say? Anything just before we wrap it up,

Tarsha: just thank you to everyone for making it happen, for being there, for being a part of it. Literally for making it, because we can't do it without each other.

Cruiser: The gratitude of just everyone who did what they did and just, even if they didn't do anything, they were just being themselves.

Yeah. You have my gratitude.

Tarsha: A hundred percent.

Peter: And thank you, Stevan, for giving us the opportunity to share these days with Yes. Amongst ourselves and to any listeners. This is a real blessing and privilege. So thank you for organizing this.

Tarsha: Yes. Thank you so much. Thank you. It's been a pleasure.

Peter: And thanks to the amazing PY who's been sitting, uh, working hard to ensure that everyone can hear us.

And, oh, sorry. It shouldn't break the, the third wall.

Tarsha: Nobody's here. What are we [02:04:00] talking about? That must be a ghost.

Stevan: Awesome ghost. Uh, we, we, we've said it, it was a pleasurable burn. It was a burn, not a festival. Um, but to me it's still adventurous camping. Um, love it.

Tarsha: A festival of sorts. Yeah. In the true sense in a

Cruiser: festival of burning and fuckery.

Tarsha: Mm. That's how you're gonna pitch it to your friend. Yeah. What kind of festival is that? Bring water.

Cruiser: Yeah.

Stevan: Yeah. Cool. Thanks guys. Thank you. Thank you, Sam. We'll soon.

Thanks everyone for listening. Thanks to my guest host, uh, cruiser, Peter, Tarsha, and Cris, who unfortunately had to, had some bad connection problems and had to drop out. Thank you all for listening and well, we'll in this episode [02:05:00] with some more burner voice messages and some more,

some cheeses. Christ jokes, I think.

Yeah.

Pi: Hello, I'm hi, uh, from Newcastle and Happy Burn to everybody.

Amanda: Hi, Amanda. And I believe that the 10 principles are great, but we only need one principle, and that is if you are doing too much, we are doing it wrong.

Neil: All right. All right. Okay, so we've got Neil here, AKA tangent. We, uh, we were intending to do Red Earth Radio at Burning Seed this year, and, uh, [02:06:00] obviously things kind of fell apart, but actually pretty, very happy, I have to say, with how everything's come together in the end. I think it really shows how much everyone in the community loves what they do and care about each other and, and understand the value and in, uh, bringing some gifts and sharing.

So we've got, um,

this, um, space bar. Yeah, we're sitting, sitting behind this, uh, the space bar at the moment. I'm not sure where the Space Bar boys are at. Um, we we're in the octagon, uh, which has just become a bit of a open space for anybody to jam and, uh, jump on the decks or do a workshop. And, [02:07:00] uh, we've got James Best at the moment on the decks giving us some nice tunes to ease back into the evening after a somber Sunday temple burn.

And, uh, there's a, yeah, there's a nice bubbling energy. I'm surprised to see people still got plenty of juice left. Wanna savor the most if they can on the rest of the weekend. End Kang's here. Holding up a 18 plus sign at the bar. Always keeping things responsible. Yeah. Bar close. Nah, nah, nah.

But we've got my, yeah, my good friend Kangu here has been, uh, running the decks here for a long time over the weekend. And uh, it's his first burn. Long time, first time burner. We used to live together for many years and, uh, I've always wanted [02:08:00] to welcome him to become part of the scene and show us, show him how we do and invite him into the family.

And, uh, yeah, it's been lovely to see pretty much converting him. Yeah. Not a cold looking. Pretty converted though. Yeah. And even if it is a cold, but nah, it's okay. Um,

Laura: to my burner friends, new ones, old ones, beautiful connections. I have big love for the shenanigans, the fun, um, the smiles, the giggles, and, um, the tears and hard times. Thanks for being there. Thanks for the love. Uh, love you guys.

Did you state your name, Laura? I didn't. Okay. Laura.

Chris: I am Chris. I'm [02:09:00] from Manly. I'm still trying to wake myself up.

Alex: Hello, uh, my name's Alex. I'm from Sydney, Northern Sydney, and uh, I am here at Ember's 2025. I have been to a number of burns. I've been to seed three times and a couple of smaller ones. Very happy to be back in the burn seed. The burn circle. It's been since 2019. So, but this time we've brought, uh, a whole, I'm here with my family and four other families.

And across the group, um, there's very few people that have been to an event like this before. So it's very interesting to see how people are responding, how my friends are responding, um, particularly how the kids are responding. But I think there's just so many great things that lessons, ways of life, principles we can adopt from something such as this to take into our broader lives.

And I'm having a lot of fun and I'm having a lot of fantastic conversations and I'm inspired to create my own theme [02:10:00] camp one day under the moniker of the Raucous Porous Caucus. So keep an eye out folks.

Ned: No, I don't. I'm Ned and I'm from Newcastle and I am completely stumped as to what I should say, but at least the fire's warm. My ass is cooking. Um, over and out.

Hannah: Uh, hi, I am Hannah and there's a chicken cooking in the embers of the burn fire. Uh,

that's all from me.

Amanda LeMay: Hey, this is Amanda. I just wanna say to all of you gorgeous people out there, you are all awesome. Keep doing what you're doing. Stay connected, stay loving, [02:11:00] keep creating what you're creating. There's a lot of good stuff we can keep doing. I'm excited for the future. That's it.

Teresa: I am, uh, Theresa, AKA kink be, and I am from, well, I'm from a wa, I'm living on a wku country, but I'm a Banja woman. And, um, here I am in this beautiful place. Pretty happy to be here. I just bought a game out here called Ulceration. I thought about it three weeks ago and printed it and uh, figured out how to do some electronics.

Is the first time I've done my own electronics. Usually I rely on other people. Um, Jeremy's always the first person that I call on. Jeremy Funky, and, um, he's so great to work with because he's one of those people who never, ever says no to me. [02:12:00] So I say to him, Jeremy, I have the this, I have this great idea.

And of course they're all great ideas, right? Um, and he, um, he says, cool. So let me tell you how that would work. And then he goes through all the process of telling me how it might work, and then I'm like, ah, nah, let's not. But sometimes we do. Sometimes we do the make the things and it, and it is worth it.

Um, but this one was actually quite simple and I figured out it, uh, by myself, um, with Hamish Hamish, me Leanna's partner. Um, he was my guiding light who assisted me even one time at 3:00 AM when I sent him a text saying, okay, I've gotten to this point, but uh, how do I worry it from here? And I couldn't figure that bit out.

And he even like, spoke to me at that time of the day. Um, so that is how I managed to get there, which is always the way of like knowing where there are some incredible skills [02:13:00] and feeling okay to call on them. So that, um, you can actually try something that you've never tried before. Um, and to me that is really, uh, one of those things where you figure out how you can dream way bigger when we have each other.

And, uh, it comes to a, a saying that I often say, which is that we can only dream as big as the community that will support us. And uh, that's what I just love about this community. Yeah. You know, it's like,

Browny: alright guys, you're tuned in to Bonzaar podcast. We have seven new episodes coming up. We're gonna be dropping them, uh, once a week for the next, uh, seven weeks. And I've just been told that I've been cut. I'm not allowed to say this. They're taking the microphone away from me. [02:14:00] I'm sorry, but it had to be said goodbye.

Cheese angel: Hello, I am Carmen and I don't go by the name Carmen. I go by the name Cheese because I am the queen. Well actually I'm the angel of cheese. See, once upon a time before cheese, Jesus Christ and God, there was cheeses. Christ. He blessed everyone with the yummy goodness of cheese.

I worked for him in the loyal sub, in a loyal subject of an angel.

I wear this angel hat, it is made outta cheese. And now I go around telling, giving people joy. So I'm going to sprinkle a little bit of joy into your world. What did the cheese say to itself in the mirror? Hello me. You look good. Ah, what did the [02:15:00] other cheese seeto itself in the mirror? I'm just getting a fitter and fitter.

I'm just getting fitter and fatter. Okay, if you thought those jokes were good, wait until you hear my gooda jokes. Well, how do you get a bear out of its cage with cheese? Come and bear. Come and bear. Come and bear. This is a very sad story to be laughing about.

What happened after the glorious cheese factory got blown up? No, sorry, what, what was left? Nothing much. Just debris. Okay. Well, um, hope my jokes weren't too cheesy and I hope they will be, um, fabulous and, you know, um, feels like awesome. [02:16:00] I call it ah, I keep on forgetting my last line. Um, well yeah, I really hope you enjoyed this.

Um, legendary. I hope my jokes were legendary. If you get it, then yeah, uh, subscribe, leave a like put on the bell just to, you know, turn on notifications. 'cause this podcast

rules it is set on fire and I think you guys should listen to all these podcasts 'cause it

is, wow. It is amazing. It might even be better to listen to than Cheese.

Well anyways, bye-bye.

Roly: I'm on fire.

Transcripts transcribed by Descript AI