When FastForward reporters visited the workshop, Best’s team was working hard to create eight towers that would be packed up and shipped to the desert at the end of August. The top tower of the temple was 80 feet high! The engineers had to think about a lot while building the temple. Winds can get up to 80 miles per hour, and trying to reduce their carbon footprint was challenging. They used a lot of recycled wood and also recycled their own wood to reduce their environmental impact when possible. At the workspace there were bits of wood in all shapes and sizes sorted, cataloged, and organized. The smallest pieces could fit in the palm of your hand.
When the structure burns, so does all that hard work. When we asked how it feels to see their structure burn, Lisa Marie Schull said, “There is a sweetness and a sadness, but I’ll remember the experiences I had, how I grew here, how I related to people, the skills I learned...”
Also, an element of watching it burn is the uncertainty; they don’t know how it’s going to burn. Watching how it happens is part of the beauty. When she is at Burning Man, Schull thinks this is how everyday should be, looking at the beauty of how things happen, leaving no trace.