EP 88 Shadow Shorts #18

Shadow Shorts #18 is out now! Recorded at BRC in 2025 participants were challenged to explain BM‘s impact in 5 minutes or less. Each Shadow Short is one person’s story, please enjoy this short story of how Burning Man has impacted and influenced people over time.

Meet Mariah, who describes how the event replaced her rigid lifestyle with a newfound sense of emotional openness and service. A central theme of the conversation is Zendo peer support, a sanctuary where volunteers assist attendees navigating difficult emotional or psychedelic experiences. By highlighting these personal stories of transformation and community care, the program aims to document the "shadow" or lasting influence the festival leaves on its participants' lives.

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Transcript

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Before we start, I would like to ask your help to do two things. First, tell a friend or two who you think might like the show. And second, please rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. The more reviews the show gets, the more likely it will even appear in search results. Thank you, and now on to the show. 

They make the trek out to Burning Man for a week and a day. After a lot of work, oh, there's a lot of play. Party party drama drama drama b**** b**** b****. Year after year, they come back to scratch that itch. They all say their lives have been changed. After many years, lives have been rearranged. That changes what this show is all about. You'll see the impact. of burning up and out. So sit back, relax, and cancel all your plans. These are the stories about the shadow of the man. 

Hello and welcome to the Shadow of the Man Show. I am your host, That Andy. This is a Shadow Shorts episode recorded at Bernie Man 2025. You can tell because of the background sounds. Okay, I have to apologize in advance for the variable sound quality. The microphones are quite sensitive and it picked up some noise from handling and occasionally the speakers allowed the microphone to drift away while speaking. Uh the sound might be more variable than the studio recordings, but the stories are fantastic. Please enjoy. 

Hi, my name is Mariah and I'm from Santa Cruz and I've been burning for three years or this is my third year. Okay.

Really loving it.

And gosh, the impact of Burning Man. Imagine someone who was very regimented and structured and deciding, okay, let me check this Burning Man thing out and coming out of it totally changed. Totally.

So, what did you bring home with you from your first Burning Man?

Oh my gosh. an openness, open heart, um service, sharing. I was always about the heart and sharing, but so much deeper level. Yeah.

Did you your first born, did you just come by yourself or did you come with a group or

I was actually involved with um Zeno, so doing the the Zeno volunteering and um again being able to be of service there and have been doing that for the past, you know, two years. This is the third the third one. Uh do you do any of the like regional stuff? I know Santa Crease has a pretty uh vibrant community, right?

They do. I actually have not been involved very much with that.

Yeah, they haven't unscrust or something. It's a

something like that.

Yeah.

Um something like that.

Yeah.

So yeah. So tell me more about Zeno. Like what do you do with that? Like it's

So that's a peer support for people who were having difficult experience, emotional experience or psychedelic experiences. So there is this safe place. It's now part of the rangers haven where people can just come without questions being asked about, you know, their name or whatever

and just get the support that they need in order to reenter the quiet in a more balanced way.

Is that part of what you do in the the rest of your life too or is it just a kind of a kind of kind of I do that kind of support without psychedelics and being here um it's just yeah gives me much more deeper experience with people who are having really out there experiences. Yeah.

And do you see yourself coming back here again and again or

so far? Yeah. I wasn't planning on coming this year and about month ago something pulled me and said Last bird.

Yeah, we're doing it.

So, Zeno, is that like what keeps you coming back?

Big part of it. Yes. But also just the spirit here. You walk around, everybody's friendly, checking in with each other and it's just such a fun, creative experience. It's lovely.

Yeah. Cool.

Great. Well, thank you so much. It's been a wonderful interview.

Thank you. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this show, please subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen. The more reviews the show has, the more likely it will even appear in search results. Also, please tell a friend and share this show with anyone that you think might like it. Word of mouth reaches quite far, especially in the Burning Man community. If you would like to contact us, please send an email to Shadow of the Manodcast. atgmail.com. You can also follow Shadow of the Man on social media at Facebook, Instagram, Blue Sky X, and YouTube. The links for all of these are available at shadowoftheman.com. Feel free to use any of these social media accounts to provide any feedback you might have. Your thoughts on the show are greatly appreciated. Thank you and see you soon for a new episode of The Shadow of the Man. Thank you for listening to this latest show. We have to make another one. Very soon you'll be listening to a new Shadow of the Man.