Andy Buru on Desire Retreat Apr. 5-8.2023        

The most deviant nightly desires are often precisely the same things we rebel against during the day. Yes and no is closer to each other than feeling nothing. This is why we need contained rituals and conscious and consensual play parties. Andy believes that desire is like a seed buried deep in the subconscious; while it grows, it shapes our creativity and eros. If desire remains repressed, it will manifest itself in the most unexpected places. That’s why most people feel safer in a BDSM club than in a nightclub or even at the office. Exploring desire is a layered process. When one layer peels away, another one appears. And there is an opportunity to deconstruct almost anything, like sexual orientation, gender, fetishes and kinks. It’s an empowering process of rediscovering oneself. However, desires are rarely a solo activity; if they were, they are likely to have been explored already. So exploring desire is a group process through interactions and witnessing. Seeing each other’s desires validates them, giving them life, and that makes us all both braver and safer because the shadows are out in the open. Playing with desire borrows a lot of modalities from theater, like mask possession, character creation, and ritualized scenes. And it teaches how one person’s desires can co-exist and even enhance the desires of another or a group of others in a sort of wordless negotiation. Play parties are often the arena of these fantasies, birthing endless, dream-like explorations into experiences that would be unimaginable in everyday life. The following morning, everything is slow; it’s like the world is readjusting itself back to normal again while the tribe is celebrating and integrating their wounds and victories, knowing that the results will revibrate far into the outside world.