Well, I wasn't planning for the duck to go in beak-first, but that's how it turned out...for a little background, this project turned out to be very much about my process of moving on from my father's death by senile dementia in 2004. The sense of powerlessness that I had, watching him come apart, was very difficult to cope with. Now my husband is going through the same thing with his father.

I didn't even understand the metaphor that Burning Man represented for me until I reached the playa and had been there for a few days. I've been watching father-figures go down in flames for a decade now - so ritualizing it, finally, seems like the sane thing to do. I loved my father very much, and I miss him.

It is hard to come to terms with the fact that in the face of death, we have no power. There is no practice run. Nobody becomes "good" at dying, because you only get to do it once.