Really awesome that you got to be part of this experience, Luke!

My wife (who went in 2015) is fond of saying that "there's Burning Man, and then there are all other festivals." And we've been to our share of festivals. She also remarked that "coming back down" takes most people a couple of weeks.

She has always mentioned the sheer scale of it... and yes, you CAN see Burning Man from space. And that was the original gig... to send a visible message to aliens who might be watching. But yeay, if you put Google Maps over the Black Rock Desert and switch to "satellite view," you can clearly see it.

I think you are precisely right that Burning Man is what each person wants it to be. There's also the slightly more "woo-woo" view that you take away exactly what you needed. As I have not yet been, I leave that open.

Here's one for you, though: an unusually large number of innovative creative projects are started in September and October. Coincidence?

As for the spiritual side, I am married to someone who's often "off the deep end" in that direction, and what I have come to understand is that life is constantly unfolding, and people are wired very differently. And so, I think of the example of how people in the middle ages might respond to your smartphone as "magic" and "supernatural" and compare it to things we might think of as "woo-woo" today... that will become a matter of science fact 100 years from now, when our ability to observe and measure them have grown to that point.

Anyway, thanks for sharing your amazing experience!