Entheos @ Burning Man
Entheos @ Burning Man is a project of the Entheos Community, led by the Entheos @ Burning Man Advisory Board and overseen by the Entheos Community Board of Directors. Entheos is a not for profit project that is funded by its members, participants, and donors via financial contributions through the Givsum Foundation, our 501c3 Fiscal Sponsor, and contributions are tax deductible to the extent allowable by law. Annually, Entheos participants volunteer over 10,000 hours and contribute over $300k to fund interactivity, support camp operations, and gift 24/7 interactivity to thousands of people in Black Rock City.
Part of the mission of Entheos @ Burning Man is to level the playing field for people traveling internationally to Black Rock City and to lower the carbon footprint of their participation. Entheos Community Village collectively organizes, through Communal Effort, several of the core elements of surviving in the desert in order to reduce waste and the number of cars coming to Black Rock City. As a community we organize healthy meals, potable water, shade for tents, power for tents and RVs, showers, and a tent storage program. Participants here should clearly understand: we are not providing and doing these things for you as a service, we are collectively and efficiently organizing these things, as a camp, for our mutual benefit as a camp, through consensual agreement. Over the years we have observed that people coming internationally will often, by survival necessity, rent a car and then drive to a big box store to purchase food, water, bikes, tents, shade, and supplies, most or all of which is discarded at the end of Burning Man. The initiatives we have focused on at Entheos have helped to reduce this waste. The resources that Entheos organizes through Communal Effort make it possible for people to travel to Burning Man in a more sustainable way.
Our Radical Self-expression at Entheos dares to dream big, work hard, have fun, and thrive in a challenging environment in order to create magical experiences and share them with others. If this resonates with you then we welcome your participation with us in our collective mission.
Our approach to Radical Inclusion has helped us to cultivate an extraordinarily diverse group of participants from around the globe. Each year Entheos @ Burning Man reserves part of its camp population for people who have never camped with Entheos before (including both Burning Man virgins and veterans). Committed Participation and Civic Responsibility are the primary criteria for being invited to camp with Entheos again in subsequent years. Radical Self-reliance and Decommodification at this large of a scale require Communal Effort to efficiently build a camp in Black Rock City without dependence upon outside vendors. The resources we have are the resources we collectively acquire, create, transport, build, operate, strike and store for ourselves. Through our collective efforts we help keep one another healthy so that we can enthusiastically support our primary mission of providing 24/7 Interactivity as a placed theme camp in Black Rock City.
Entheos is the root of the English word "enthusiasm” and is, we believe, at the heart of the Burning Man principle of Immediacy. The Burning Man Organization describes the principle of Immediacy as follows:
"Immediate experience is, in many ways, the most important touchstone of value in our culture. We seek to overcome barriers that stand between us and a recognition of our inner selves, the reality of those around us, participation in society, and contact with a natural world exceeding human powers. No idea can substitute for this experience."
Throughout the year: Entheos Community members and Entheos camp participants are dispersed across the United States and through countries around the world. Because of this geographic dispersion, and the significant diversity of our community, it isn’t viable for everyone in our international camp to show up at weekend build sessions in San Francisco, New York, Houston, or Empire. However, as we prepare for Burning Man in the off-season, we each contribute various combinations of labor, skill and resources (consensually regarded in good faith as energetically equivalent and essentially needed) to support the creation of the Entheos camp before we ever reach the Playa. Those involved in the local, hands-on, off-playa projects are typically volunteering 100 or more hours to Entheos outside their playa participation. Those who can’t physically volunteer at the local build projects contribute more substantially in other ways that are essential to creating and maintaining the gifts we share at Black Rock City.
Before the event: Approximately 100 Entheos camp participants head to Black Rock City for Build Week, before Burning Man even begins, and many of them volunteer 60 or more hours on Playa to build camp before Opening Day.
During the event: At the official Burning Man event, between Opening and Closing Days, all participants who camp with Entheos @ Burning Man are expected to volunteer at least 12 hours during the event to help run the camp interactivity/operations.
“Radical Self-reliance and Participation cannot be outsourced, especially not through financial or transactional means. While it is normal in the default world to pay for ideas to be created, Burning Man is based on a Gifting economy. All camp members are expected to engage in Gifting through meaningful and immediate contributions to both camp interactivity and operations according to their skills and abilities.”
After the event: On Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday following the Man Burn, all camp participants are expected to participate in striking camp and Leave No Trace in order to ensure the camp remains in Good Standing (and therefore invited to return the following year).
Use the buttons below to navigate the pages of Entheos @ Burning Man and learn more about how you can participate as a camp member of Entheos.
