And I burned.
The heat is still rising from my chest.
My soul is still on fire.
I’m still trying to understand, trying to find somewhere to place all these emotions, as if I were slowly waking from a dream I don’t want to wake up from.
I never imagined I would go to Burning Man.
I had heard about it. I had seen videos. I had a few friends who had been.
But it had never really called me.
Until this year.
This summer, now slowly coming to an end, seemed to be full of signs. Burning Man kept appearing in conversations. Different friends kept telling me that I had to go.
And I simply said:
Maybe. When the moment comes, I’ll decide.
And that’s exactly what happened.
One early morning, just a few days before it started, I received a message from Keven, a good friend, telling me I should go.
And then Pierre, from my team, was the one who stopped responsibility from taking over:
“Nena, it’s obvious you have to go. For some reason you’ll discover.”
A few hours later, I was flying to Dubai, where I locked myself away for five days and worked almost non-stop before flying to Reno.
And that’s how my adventure began.
The first few days were hard.
Really hard.
The dust.
The rain.
The mud.
The cold.
The heat.
It felt like torture.
Sleeping in a tent. Showering with freezing water. My hair stiff with dust, my lips cracked, my skin incredibly dry.
And not a single moment of silence.
I couldn’t understand what the hell I was doing there.
At some point, I even regretted coming. I genuinely thought I had made a mistake.
Until suddenly...
everything started to make sense.
Burning Man has a way of reconnecting you with something very deep inside yourself.
With your inner child.
With that part of your soul you abandoned somewhere along the way—the one you stopped listening to, stopped caring for, perhaps without even realising it.
There is art everywhere.
Music.
Endless workshops about things I could have spent days exploring.
But above all, there are people allowing themselves to be free.
To laugh.
To love.
To dream.
Without the fear of being judged. Without worrying about fitting into a system that so often teaches us to become smaller instead of allowing ourselves to shine.
As if guided by something greater than myself, I felt that every workshop I chose somehow spoke directly to my soul.
Certain conversations stayed inside me.
Certain words arrived at exactly the right moment.
Almost as if Burning Man somehow knew what I needed to hear.
And then I understood why I was there.
I found what I was meant to find.
Some things don’t need to be explained to be real.
My heart lit up.
I danced.
I cycled.
I laughed.
I cried.
But above all...
I loved.
And maybe the fire continues...
There is one more thing I brought back from the desert.
An idea.
Next year, a little piece of what I experienced at Burning Man will become part of Benibeca.
I’m already imagining a very limited collection created especially for the Burn — pieces born from freedom, movement, self-expression and that extraordinary world I was lucky enough to experience for the first time.
It will be small. Very small.
A limited edition, available by pre-order, probably launching in May, so every piece can be made especially for those taking it to the desert.
It’s still only the beginning.
But perhaps some experiences are not meant to end when you leave.
Sometimes, they become something else.
See you in my universe. 🤍
Anjara
