This is Burning Man

It's been compared to Brigadoon and Woodstock, called Xanadu and Utopia. But none of these terms captures the essence of the ecstatically wild, visionary desert gathering known as Burning Man. Every year, an elaborate, fantastical city rises out of Nevada's vast and forbidding Black Rock Desert, only to vanish again one week later. The rules are few: Participation and self-reliance are mandatory; money and spectators are not allowed. It is, without question, the most glamorous, anarchic city on earth, dedicated purely to creativity and play, where on any given stroll you might wander past giant metal flame-spewing lotus flowers, commune at a three-story temple made from discarded dinosaur puzzle pieces, or hop on a life-size, glowing white whale as it sails over the sands backlit by an endless starry sky. But Burning Man is more than just fun. It's an environment that exists in complete opposition to normal society in that the usual rules and standards are ignored or inverted in the pursuit of fresh experiences and new identities. It's a place where accumulated cultural debris is swept aside in order to reestablish and reinvent what's important and what's meaningful in one intensely accelerated, vividly colorful week. Burning Man is the most profound and subversive idea to surface in decades - and has become the underground mecca for Americans who are searching for community and meaning.

Brian Doherty is a senior editor at Reason magazine, a monthly focusing on politics and culture. He has written for dozens of publications, ranging from the Washington Post to USA Today to Salon.com, and his work has been anthologized in many books. He lives in Los Angeles and has attended Burning Man for the past nine years