Ive never been so I cant really give it a real review. I have met a number of people who have gone, (usually from the artsy, hippie, a little (or way out) on the fringes crowd) for who it is an event they either went to experience once or in some cases a few times...They all generally have good things to say about it, .
I think I understand the annual festival thing, I go through phases. In the 90's I went to the Bread and Puppet Theater in Vermont about 3 times, which was more or less guerilla theater on a grand scale for a long summers weekend.
For about the last 7 years I go to Folk Festival that is right nearby, if I feel the need to get away and have a sense of a larger community. Ive been three or four times but I can come home whenever I want over the weekend and sleep in my own bed, and just do the highlights since it is 20 minutes away
As I get older I find Im getting more sedate. Its interesting being exposed to new ideas in a creative environment and walking barefoot in the mud, but Im also liking a shower, an airconditioned room, and peace and comfort at the end of the day more and more.
I don't know if you will find that in the middle of the Nevada desert
Is this like the Old Man Gloom they burn in Santa Fe every year? When we first got there as wows, maybe 2 or 3 weeks into our year they burned this effigy and it was like a fresh start for everyone. I've often thought I should find out when exactly it is and then go there as a non-wow. I bet it'd be great!
street performer!! And travel the world (like Patch Adams and his clowning).
Oh wait.. that what the gypsies used to do right?
Bread and Puppet still does! They have been doing "street art"for about 45 years now. It is like nothing else I have everseen. Anywhere.
If they are near your area, I highly suggest putting it on your calendar, they are a very rare, memorable and alterring experience.
If not, it is worth the effort to go to their home base which is a large beautiful farm in the hills of the "Northeast Kingdom" oif Vermont (one of my favorite places on this earth).
I just REALLY sat and looked at the Bread and Puppet web site.... and one of the thoughts that run through my mind is.... HOW THE HELL DID I GET/STAY INVOLVED WITH TWI FOR SO MANY YEARS WHEN THINGS LIKE THAT WERE OUT THERE!!!!!!?
Ok ok I probably KNOW the answer... but they were having FUN... and being CREATIVE.... and I was sitting in some frikkin living room.
Ya know... if we had had the internet... life would have been different!
That Folk Festival looks pretty neat also!
There is just so much to do... and see...and experience.....!!!!! I need more time!!! I need more money!!!!
Next week we are going to NY for a day or two. Heading to Long Island.
Has anyone experienced this? This has always sounded interesting and fun! Or maybe I just long for a community with a yearly festival!!!!
This one sounds like a lot more fun to me. It mentions the Burning Man festival further down in the article. I know this guy, Lou Engle, he is a genuine Christian with a mission to reach a generation:
THE NAZIRITE UPRISING
by Lou Engle
www.TheCall.com
"America is receiving Her apostles, prophets, and evangelists, but She has not yet seen Her Nazirites!"
This audible voice from the Lord reverberated through my whole being, jarring me out of a deep sleep into a wakened attentiveness to the Holy Spirit. I knew that the Lord had spoken to me.
In fact, God's answer had come quickly to my heart's searching the night before when my 13-year old son had asked permission with determined insistence to take the Nazirite vow of Numbers 6:1-21. In his persistence, he said to me, "Dad, I don't want to cut my hair until TheCall DC" which was 8 months away at the time. He continued, "I don't want to eat meats and sweets until TheCall and I want to go on a juice fast the 40 days before TheCall. And Dad, I don't want to play baseball this year. I want to run with you and pray for revival in America."
The voice of the Lord could not have been any clearer to me through that audible voice encounter. I could hear the Lord saying to me through that encounter: "Lou, do not hinder your son from being extreme for Me. Let the young man go for it. Let him go as far as he can go with his consecration before Me. I am the One raising up the Nazirites." With fear and trembling, I knew what He was saying and I knew the holy admonition of Amos 2:11-12 where God thundered, "I raised up some of your sons as prophets, and some of your young men as Nazirites... But you gave the Nazirites wine to drink, and commanded the prophets saying, ‘Do not prophesy!'"
I believe that God is saying in this passage that He was and is the One who stirs up this counter-cultural youth movement of prophets and fasting and praying Nazirites who are the dreamers that shift the destiny of nations. I knew from the encounter that night that God is raising up a new breed in America that will not be known so much for its gifts and position, but for its passion. They would be known more for their fasting and hunger for God than their feasting and games.
God is Raising Up His Nazirites
As I read the Scriptures, I believe the Lord makes very clear the reasons why He raises up Nazirites throughout history - to save a nation from Her enemies (Samson), to restore a nation to its moral foundations and establish a worship and prayer movement (Samuel), and to raise up a "voice" burning like a torch that can turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the rebellious back to the wisdom of the righteous (John the Baptist) and thus, prepare a nation to receive the visitation of Jesus Christ.
Because of this scriptural vision and hope of the Nazirites, a week after the 1997 Promise Keepers' Stand in the Gap gathering in Washington, DC, I prophesied at a youth/young adult conference in the deserts of the Southwest that God was raising up a young Nazirite, John the Baptist movement that would go to the Mall in Washington, DC to fast and pray for a spiritual awakening in America. I declared that when they would go to fast and pray, it would be a sign that America is turning to God.
On September 2, 2000, over 400,000 people gathered to the Mall in Washington, DC for the first TheCall DC gathering. I believe that solemn assembly was a fulfillment of the prophecy I received in 1997 in the deserts of the Southwest and it was a sign from heaven that this nation was turning to God.
And after 8 months of his Nazirite separation and preparation before the Lord, when my 13-year old son prayed at TheCall DC for the Nazirites to arise in this nation, a roar shook that field in agreement and a generation was marked. Today, wherever I travel across America, I run into young people who were there that day in 2000 and say that the Nazirite call changed their lives forever. I still believe that despite a darkening culture around us, this nation can turn back to God because America is beginning to receive Her Nazirites in this hour of our nation's history.
The Nazirite Summons to TheCall Las Vegas
Thus, seven years after TheCall DC, we are summoning all those who gathered then to come to Las Vegas on October 20, 2007 for TheCall Las Vegas to renew their consecration before the Lord to turn a nation to God.
For decades, hundreds of thousands of people have been going out to the deserts of Las Vegas, a citadel of ungodliness now known as "Sin City" that has become a worldwide attraction for gambling, sexual immorality, materialism and wickedness.
Elsewhere in Nevada, a gathering called the "Burning Man" is held in the middle of the desert year after year. For a week, tens of thousands act out their fantasies of a world without rule and restraint in an orgy of hedonism and fire.
But two thousand years ago, there was another Burning Man who roamed the deserts of Judea. His name was John the Baptist. History tells us that hundreds of thousands of Jews went out into the wilderness to see this Nazirite Burning Man - the one Jesus called "a bright and blazing torch". He would turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the rebellious to the wisdom of the righteous and prepared a whole nation for the coming of Jesus.
God is raising up a Burning Man generation and calling out for thousands of young people to consecrate themselves to the Lord as Nazirites and become the hinge of history for Las Vegas and this nation, turning them back to God.
Over 70,000 people gathered in Nashville on 07.07.07, now we are calling forth 20,000 Nazirites to come to TheCall Las Vegas on October 20, 2007 at the Thomas and Mack Center to fast and pray this city. "Wherever you hear the sound of the trumpet, gather to us there. Our God will fight for us" (Nehemiah 4:20).
Only known one person that's gone to Burning Man. Sounded....moderatly weird. It's in the middle of the desert, heat's up to a 100 degrees, and there's no services, to speak of although over the years the organizers have had to work with law enforcement to police the event somewhat, and I read this year the Medical services are amped up to provide some level of volunteer assistance to those who might need it. But basically the cord idea is, you're on your own, so come prepared to do what it is you want to do. In the desert, in the heat, and in the middle of nowhere, literally.
My impression is that if you can work that out for yourself, it allows for a range of free expression that's not available elsewhere, where civil and societal constraints might ummmm....frown on what some people want to express. Which might be the ticket for some people.
But....I don't get the impression that it's an entirely safe environment, as there's an amount of known risk involved...and aAlthough the community that gathers isn't doing so to cause harm, there's no constraints or support system if harm does occur, be it small or great. You're completely on your own and the community that may or may not be prepared to act responsibly.
I guess those things make it off-limits for me, but for others it might work.
I haven't been to a burning man, but the people who go there come thru Reno I have experienced.
Because the attendees need to carry everything in, on their way into the place, they stop and buy tons, literally tons, of sleeping bags, blankets, old and new clothes, bicycles and water. One Wal-Mart store alone here in Reno sold 50,000 gallons of water prior to the festival.
You can't tell them apart on the way in, but after the burning man you can really tell them apart.
The dirt from that burning man place is light gray silty stuff that settles on everything. And the cars and people are covered with it. The people I have talked with kind of "spent," but in a good way. Smile easy and have a nice "feel." When Katrina hit some of the burning man attendees went there to help construct things.
I'd like to go. If I had a camper and the time off from work I'd try to go.
Nevada is the most unchurched state in the nation -- fewest churches per capita -- and so the revelries that appear and abound here are of the no-God type, like burning man. Hot August Nites, Hot Air Baloon Races in September, Street Vibrations -- the Harley Davidson Event -- lots of things going on to keep people entertained.
I don't think Billy Graham ever came to Reno, although some of the evangelists have come to Las Vegas, like Kathryn Kuhlman. The ground is dry and hard, and so are many people settled into the "culture" of the place.
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waysider
I have never been there myself but I know someone who attends every year.
It's not nearly as innocuous (or communal) as it sounds.
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mstar1
Ive never been so I cant really give it a real review. I have met a number of people who have gone, (usually from the artsy, hippie, a little (or way out) on the fringes crowd) for who it is an event they either went to experience once or in some cases a few times...They all generally have good things to say about it, .
I think I understand the annual festival thing, I go through phases. In the 90's I went to the Bread and Puppet Theater in Vermont about 3 times, which was more or less guerilla theater on a grand scale for a long summers weekend.
For about the last 7 years I go to Folk Festival that is right nearby, if I feel the need to get away and have a sense of a larger community. Ive been three or four times but I can come home whenever I want over the weekend and sleep in my own bed, and just do the highlights since it is 20 minutes away
As I get older I find Im getting more sedate. Its interesting being exposed to new ideas in a creative environment and walking barefoot in the mud, but Im also liking a shower, an airconditioned room, and peace and comfort at the end of the day more and more.
I don't know if you will find that in the middle of the Nevada desert
If you go, let us know, give us the review
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Nottawayfer
You can find every kind of festival all over the San Francisco Bay Area. My favorite is the garlic festival in Gilroy south of the Bay Area.
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bowtwi
Is this like the Old Man Gloom they burn in Santa Fe every year? When we first got there as wows, maybe 2 or 3 weeks into our year they burned this effigy and it was like a fresh start for everyone. I've often thought I should find out when exactly it is and then go there as a non-wow. I bet it'd be great!
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2life
Yikes!! That Bread and Puppet thing sounds... ah... well really interesting!! And they are heading to NC and SC! I will probably wander by!
garlic festival?
Ya know.. when it comes down to it.. We can CELEBRATE everything!!! I love it!!
I guess thats part of our humanity... we like to play together!!
In my next life... I would love to be a (successful and unique)
street performer!! And travel the world (like Patch Adams and his clowning).
Oh wait.. that what the gypsies used to do right?
Ok.. I would like to be an honest and entertaining gypsy! A Globe trotting gypsy...playing in the streets................ laughing..............
(with a good health insurance plan and traveling with my own bed)
and...............
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mstar1
Bread and Puppet still does! They have been doing "street art"for about 45 years now. It is like nothing else I have everseen. Anywhere.
If they are near your area, I highly suggest putting it on your calendar, they are a very rare, memorable and alterring experience.
If not, it is worth the effort to go to their home base which is a large beautiful farm in the hills of the "Northeast Kingdom" oif Vermont (one of my favorite places on this earth).
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2life
Mstar....
I just REALLY sat and looked at the Bread and Puppet web site.... and one of the thoughts that run through my mind is.... HOW THE HELL DID I GET/STAY INVOLVED WITH TWI FOR SO MANY YEARS WHEN THINGS LIKE THAT WERE OUT THERE!!!!!!?
Ok ok I probably KNOW the answer... but they were having FUN... and being CREATIVE.... and I was sitting in some frikkin living room.
Ya know... if we had had the internet... life would have been different!
That Folk Festival looks pretty neat also!
There is just so much to do... and see...and experience.....!!!!! I need more time!!! I need more money!!!!
Next week we are going to NY for a day or two. Heading to Long Island.
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shazdancer
Hey, Bread and Puppets is practically family, mstar. Founder Peter Schumann's wife Ellie is E. Wh1tes1de's sister.
As for me, I've been to the Clearwater Festival a few times, lots of folk/bluegrass/world beat music, fancy crafts, and good-for-you food.
http://www.clearwater.org/revival/aboutfestival.html
And I've been to this one (a smorgasbord of arts), performed in it once a ways back:
http://www.sonoarts.org/index.html
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wrdsandwrks
This one sounds like a lot more fun to me. It mentions the Burning Man festival further down in the article. I know this guy, Lou Engle, he is a genuine Christian with a mission to reach a generation:
THE NAZIRITE UPRISING
by Lou Engle
www.TheCall.com
"America is receiving Her apostles, prophets, and evangelists, but She has not yet seen Her Nazirites!"
This audible voice from the Lord reverberated through my whole being, jarring me out of a deep sleep into a wakened attentiveness to the Holy Spirit. I knew that the Lord had spoken to me.
In fact, God's answer had come quickly to my heart's searching the night before when my 13-year old son had asked permission with determined insistence to take the Nazirite vow of Numbers 6:1-21. In his persistence, he said to me, "Dad, I don't want to cut my hair until TheCall DC" which was 8 months away at the time. He continued, "I don't want to eat meats and sweets until TheCall and I want to go on a juice fast the 40 days before TheCall. And Dad, I don't want to play baseball this year. I want to run with you and pray for revival in America."
The voice of the Lord could not have been any clearer to me through that audible voice encounter. I could hear the Lord saying to me through that encounter: "Lou, do not hinder your son from being extreme for Me. Let the young man go for it. Let him go as far as he can go with his consecration before Me. I am the One raising up the Nazirites." With fear and trembling, I knew what He was saying and I knew the holy admonition of Amos 2:11-12 where God thundered, "I raised up some of your sons as prophets, and some of your young men as Nazirites... But you gave the Nazirites wine to drink, and commanded the prophets saying, ‘Do not prophesy!'"
I believe that God is saying in this passage that He was and is the One who stirs up this counter-cultural youth movement of prophets and fasting and praying Nazirites who are the dreamers that shift the destiny of nations. I knew from the encounter that night that God is raising up a new breed in America that will not be known so much for its gifts and position, but for its passion. They would be known more for their fasting and hunger for God than their feasting and games.
God is Raising Up His Nazirites
As I read the Scriptures, I believe the Lord makes very clear the reasons why He raises up Nazirites throughout history - to save a nation from Her enemies (Samson), to restore a nation to its moral foundations and establish a worship and prayer movement (Samuel), and to raise up a "voice" burning like a torch that can turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the rebellious back to the wisdom of the righteous (John the Baptist) and thus, prepare a nation to receive the visitation of Jesus Christ.
Because of this scriptural vision and hope of the Nazirites, a week after the 1997 Promise Keepers' Stand in the Gap gathering in Washington, DC, I prophesied at a youth/young adult conference in the deserts of the Southwest that God was raising up a young Nazirite, John the Baptist movement that would go to the Mall in Washington, DC to fast and pray for a spiritual awakening in America. I declared that when they would go to fast and pray, it would be a sign that America is turning to God.
On September 2, 2000, over 400,000 people gathered to the Mall in Washington, DC for the first TheCall DC gathering. I believe that solemn assembly was a fulfillment of the prophecy I received in 1997 in the deserts of the Southwest and it was a sign from heaven that this nation was turning to God.
And after 8 months of his Nazirite separation and preparation before the Lord, when my 13-year old son prayed at TheCall DC for the Nazirites to arise in this nation, a roar shook that field in agreement and a generation was marked. Today, wherever I travel across America, I run into young people who were there that day in 2000 and say that the Nazirite call changed their lives forever. I still believe that despite a darkening culture around us, this nation can turn back to God because America is beginning to receive Her Nazirites in this hour of our nation's history.
The Nazirite Summons to TheCall Las Vegas
Thus, seven years after TheCall DC, we are summoning all those who gathered then to come to Las Vegas on October 20, 2007 for TheCall Las Vegas to renew their consecration before the Lord to turn a nation to God.
For decades, hundreds of thousands of people have been going out to the deserts of Las Vegas, a citadel of ungodliness now known as "Sin City" that has become a worldwide attraction for gambling, sexual immorality, materialism and wickedness.
Elsewhere in Nevada, a gathering called the "Burning Man" is held in the middle of the desert year after year. For a week, tens of thousands act out their fantasies of a world without rule and restraint in an orgy of hedonism and fire.
But two thousand years ago, there was another Burning Man who roamed the deserts of Judea. His name was John the Baptist. History tells us that hundreds of thousands of Jews went out into the wilderness to see this Nazirite Burning Man - the one Jesus called "a bright and blazing torch". He would turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the rebellious to the wisdom of the righteous and prepared a whole nation for the coming of Jesus.
God is raising up a Burning Man generation and calling out for thousands of young people to consecrate themselves to the Lord as Nazirites and become the hinge of history for Las Vegas and this nation, turning them back to God.
Over 70,000 people gathered in Nashville on 07.07.07, now we are calling forth 20,000 Nazirites to come to TheCall Las Vegas on October 20, 2007 at the Thomas and Mack Center to fast and pray this city. "Wherever you hear the sound of the trumpet, gather to us there. Our God will fight for us" (Nehemiah 4:20).
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socks
Only known one person that's gone to Burning Man. Sounded....moderatly weird. It's in the middle of the desert, heat's up to a 100 degrees, and there's no services, to speak of although over the years the organizers have had to work with law enforcement to police the event somewhat, and I read this year the Medical services are amped up to provide some level of volunteer assistance to those who might need it. But basically the cord idea is, you're on your own, so come prepared to do what it is you want to do. In the desert, in the heat, and in the middle of nowhere, literally.
My impression is that if you can work that out for yourself, it allows for a range of free expression that's not available elsewhere, where civil and societal constraints might ummmm....frown on what some people want to express. Which might be the ticket for some people.
But....I don't get the impression that it's an entirely safe environment, as there's an amount of known risk involved...and aAlthough the community that gathers isn't doing so to cause harm, there's no constraints or support system if harm does occur, be it small or great. You're completely on your own and the community that may or may not be prepared to act responsibly.
I guess those things make it off-limits for me, but for others it might work.
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Kit Sober
I haven't been to a burning man, but the people who go there come thru Reno I have experienced.
Because the attendees need to carry everything in, on their way into the place, they stop and buy tons, literally tons, of sleeping bags, blankets, old and new clothes, bicycles and water. One Wal-Mart store alone here in Reno sold 50,000 gallons of water prior to the festival.
You can't tell them apart on the way in, but after the burning man you can really tell them apart.
The dirt from that burning man place is light gray silty stuff that settles on everything. And the cars and people are covered with it. The people I have talked with kind of "spent," but in a good way. Smile easy and have a nice "feel." When Katrina hit some of the burning man attendees went there to help construct things.
I'd like to go. If I had a camper and the time off from work I'd try to go.
Nevada is the most unchurched state in the nation -- fewest churches per capita -- and so the revelries that appear and abound here are of the no-God type, like burning man. Hot August Nites, Hot Air Baloon Races in September, Street Vibrations -- the Harley Davidson Event -- lots of things going on to keep people entertained.
I don't think Billy Graham ever came to Reno, although some of the evangelists have come to Las Vegas, like Kathryn Kuhlman. The ground is dry and hard, and so are many people settled into the "culture" of the place.
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