Burning Man: A Saturn Square With Schadenfreude

Trigger Warning: Grumpy Old Man Ranting

Let's get the astrology out of the way so I can get to the angry rant part of our program. Burning Man is a festival dedicated to, they tell us, "community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance." It was "born" June 22, 1986, time unknown, in San Francisco, California. Every year thousands of people (an estimated 70 thousand plus this year) gather together to party for a week or more out in the desert. It's like Mad Max except with drugs and crafts instead of violence and car chases.

The birth chart for Burning Man has Saturn at four degrees Sagittarius. And currently, Saturn is at three degrees Sagittarius, making a close square to natal Saturn (which is at four degrees Sagittarius. Burning Man is also currently experiencing its Node Return, with the natal North Node at 26 degrees Aries while transiting Pluto in late Capricorn squares the natal Nodes. So in a sense, you could say that Burning Man's karmic chickens are coming home to roost. Specifically, in the form of unexpected flooding which wiped out the usual roads to exit the site, and turned the desert soil into an alkaline, caustic slop.

There. That's the astrology. Now for the Grumpy Old Man rant.

I lived in San Francisco for a couple of years. And believe me: that one week when all the tech bros and influencers and spoiled wealthy kids bailed out of town to go to Burning Man, there was a strange but palpable wave of peace that washed over the city. It was like San Francisco was expelling all its overpriced, overpaid, and narcissistic garbage for a week.

The people who paid anywhere between $200 and $2,800 for a ticket actually had to do some actual camping because of the unseasonable flooding. But of course, you know that the poor things who were acutely inconvenienced there for a few days have now hosed themselves off and returned to San Francisco, where they will complain about people living in tents on the streets.

Furthermore, just to prove that conspiracy theories make you stupid: over 70,000 people attended and one person died. Rather than wait to find out what the cause of death was (it was a drug overdose) Twitter, or rather X, or whatever “human black hole for profits” Elon Musk will decide to call the damn thing next week, exploded with rumors about an outbreak of Ebola -- almost certainly planted by The Government, or Big Pharma, or possibly Bill Gates.

I want you to think about this for a second — a gathering of over 70,000 people. There is an Ebola outbreak. One person dies... not 50 or 100 — just one. Good lord people, give your heads a shake!

As for the cause of the flooding? Well, there's this little thing called Climate Change that professional climatologists have been warning us about for the last 40 years. There is more than a little touch of irony to this because Burning Man generates approximately 100,000 tons of greenhouse gases every year.

Okay. I'm done ranting for now I'm about half a year away from my second Saturn Return and I'm hoping for both our sakes I don't do this too often. Damn, my bones hurt, where's my CBD? Get off my lawn you kids!