07 - BeaverMan 2026
Dear Internet Diary,
I am learning so much about humans! Did you know that anywhere from 70,000 - 80,000 people gather in the desert to frolic in a temporarily built city? A group of fun, creative humans I recently met just told me about this event they go to once a year. For one week in the Northern Hemisphere’s late Summer, a misfit crew go make art, play music, and live in an alternate reality of their making. They called it Burning Man. Apparently it is quite a controversial event. Many say that its polarizing nature has increased in ability to generate strong opinions for or against it. As an outsider, deducing from all the different perspectives I heard, my humble beaver takeaway is that it seems to be a radical microcosm of society at large.
Its changing behaviors seem to spotlight the extremes humans are currently witnessing on the world stage. It makes me think about a mycelium conference that I went to in Fairfax, CA. One of the presenters mentioned the 5 generations of a fungi culture they will work with before opting for a new one. (Or something to that effect, I am not a chemist, I’m a beaver. Please correct me if I misspeak. Otherwise, enjoy the metaphor.)
The culture begins by moving towards organizing itself. By the third generation it has figured out the most efficient way to take up space. Then, it moves towards entropy. By the fifth generation, the cultivator uses a new culture, discarding the chaos and starting fresh.
It is possible that human society is no different. The question is, how can we use this knowledge? Surely humans can use insight and wisdom to move through cycles of organization with the intention of starting fresh when chaos or imbalances become prevalent.
What did we do in this situation to bridge the human-beaver divide? We threw dance party! Beaverman 2026 had a DJ at The Lodge. We lit an incense, played groovy tunes, and brought out a whole bundle of sticks. Passerbys grabbed some sticks and used them as dance props, stopping for a dance party on their commute. My favorite part was noticing a business meeting happening on the second floor of a building across the street. Presenters paused their PowerPoint as participants crowded the window to record the spectacle on their phone. Surely, they were communicating with their friends about how society is restructuring itself to include more play and fun into their lives. Beaver wisdom of the day: sacred silliness makes life’s work more sustainable.
xoxo,
Beaverella Beaver
August 23rd, 2026
Rad offerings a human made for Beaverman 2026.
Very groovy laser etchings on wood.