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My spiritual home is the desert. If I have had a past life it was spent scurrying on the desert floor with my belly close to Mother Earth searching her out for the chance of a ripe cactus fruit or a droplet of precious water in the shallow impression on the face of a granite boulder. I regularly feel the need to crawl in the red, white or brown dust of desert, with parched earth beneath my nails, the rays of a merciless sun boring through to my heart, and nothing but my wits and a water canister for company. I can go days happily without clean clothes, without TV, without music, without the internet, without my mobile phone, without human company and conversation, without hot food, or without a bed, if that's what it takes to reach a secret outcrop of granite from which to view a silent forest of Joshua trees high in the mountains above Death Valley, gently beckoning me forward with gentle waves of their spiny arms. Most often I accept these kind invitations, and stand silent among these arboreal homunculi, long enough for the whiptail lizards and the coyotes to accept me as part of the backdrop for their ongoing activities with and within the great and silent desert. I can drive for two days and two nights just so I can hike across an inaccessible playa or dry lake bed to prove to myself that the mono-colour agoraphobic moonscape is no different on the other side.

The Desert is a place of refuge, spiritual awakening, danger and adventure. Throughout recorded history, the desert has been seen by a variety of spiritual schools as a land of illusion, silence, space, possibility and solitude. The desert's profound expanse is a call to meditation and exploration. Devoid of the usual landmarks that indicate distance and time, in the desert perspective shifts constantly. To many the desert is a hard place to love. To them, the desert is a godforsaken land meant only for road movies and nature mystics. It's a land of reptiles, arachnids, cactus and thorn-bush, where humans are unwelcome and life is tentative. They're right and that's why I love it.

Whether I am staring out into the Nubian desert of North Africa, bumping across the tracks of the Tanami or Simpson deserts of Australia , rolling in the desert dust of the Mojave, Great basin or Colorado plateau of the USA, or wandering among the giant cacti of the Sonoran desert of Mexico, I am at home.

Why the desert? Why not the sea? Or the mountains? Or the pretty hills and vales? After years of exploring this question I am no better off than my fellow desert rat - the late Edward Abbey. All old cactus Ed could conclude after five months of desert solitude was; "there's something about the desert". This is the only matter on which old Ed was ever stuck for words.

There are mountain men, there are men of the sea, and there are desert rats. I am a desert rat. But why? And why, in precisely what way, is the desert more alluring, more baffling, more fascinating than either the mountains or the oceans? The desert says nothing. Completely passive, acted upon but never acting, the desert lies there like the bare skeleton of Being, sparse, sparse, austere, utterly worthless, inviting not love but contemplation. Despite its clarity and simplicity, however, the desert wears at the same time, paradoxically, a veil of mystery. Motionless and silent is evokes in us an elusive hint of something unknown, unknowable, about to be revealed. Since the desert does not act it seems to be waiting - but waiting for what? There is something about the desert that the human sensibility cannot assimilate, or has not so far been able to assimilate. Even after years of intimate contact and search this quality of strangeness in the desert remains undiminished. Transparent and intangible as sunlight, yet always and everywhere present, it lures a man on and on, from the red-walled canyons to the smoke-blue ranges beyond, in a futile but fascinating quest for the great unimaginable treasure which the desert seems to promise. Once caught by this golden lure you become a prospector for life, condemned, doomed, exalted.
From Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey

Until I discovered the works of Edward Abbey I was totally unaware that there were other desert lovers out there craving the red dust of parched wasteland and longing to feel the sandy cargo of the arid winds that rage between 15 and 30 degrees north and south of the equator ­ beautiful belts of desert expanse. Since stumbling across the writing of Mr. Abbey, I have since explored the writings of other desert lovers who have confirmed for me that the desert provides a context for adventure, romance, spiritual awakening, and reflection for countless others. And what is more, I discovered that I am not alone in getting my kicks from scraping through the desert landscape searching out the tracks of desert denizens and marvelling at the minutia of desert geology. The desert is deadly serious but its also fabulous fun.

In the vast openness of the desert, the mind is uncluttered, free from the infernal racket of modernity. Things stand still. Life and death are clearly profiled on the surrounding terrain and the temporary nature of everything becomes clear.

For thousands of years shamanic cultures and major world religions have used the desert as an indispensable part of their spiritual teachings. Jesus Christ spent forty days in the wilderness undergoing temptation by the devil before returning to proclaim his message of repentance and salvation.

From The Gospel of Mathew
Jesus was lead by the spirit into the desert to be tempted by the Devil. After forty days and forty nights he was very hungry. The tempter appeared to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, magically change these stones into loaves of bread". Jesus replied "the scriptures teaches 'man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word from the mouth of God'.

Then the Devil took him to a holy city and placed him on a high pinnacle. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "then throw yourself off. For scriptures says 'He will charge his angels with protecting you and they will bear you up in case you should dash your foot against a stone.'" Jesus replied "Yes that is true, but scriptures also says 'You should not tempt the Lord your God'.

After this the Devil took him to a high mountain from which could be seen the magnificence of all the kingdoms of the world. "I will give you all of this," he said "if you fall down and worship me." Jesus replied "Away with you Satan! Scripture says 'You shall worship the Lord your God and serve only Him.'"

Then the Devil left Jesus alone and angels came to him and took care of him.

Jesus was not alone in using the desert as a spiritual retreat. Mahomet, during the month of Ramadan, each year withdrew himself from the world to the cave of Hera. St. Catherine of Siena spent three years in seclusion in her little room in the Via Benicasa during which she underwent a series of mystical experiences before entering upon an active life of teaching and preaching. To this day pilgrims and soul searchers head to the solitude of desert for prayer and reflection.

Perhaps the best known of the desert traditions is the native American vision quest. In its simplest form the vision quest is used as a means of resolving struggles or making transitions between life's stages. The vision quester spends days and nights alone in the desert sitting in a circle in the sand waiting for visions.

In the old days, when a man went out to get visions ­ to the wilderness, or a high place, a desert, somewhere all alone ­ well then, in the old days he didn't know if he would ever come back again. He found that place and made a circle in the sand, then he sat in the circle and waited for visions. Days and nights with no food and just a blanket ­ now after some time the vision comes. He smokes the sacred tobacco and prays and he is singing all his heart to the Great Spirit, saying "Give me a vision". He gets very scared out there. But his medicine protects him until the vision comes.
Rolling Thunder

Every desert traveller must confront their own mortality on even the briefest of trips. The desert is the closest thing to outer space here on earth ­ mystical experiences are inevitable. Sensing the infinite the desert traveller must suspend all self-deception regarding greatness. No human achievement can impress the desert. All are equal in its eyes.

If you want to experience the desert you need to give it time. There is nothing to hurry for in the desert. It has always waited. It will wait for you. When it is ready the desert will speak the truth quietly and clearly.

Do not jump into your automobile next June and head out to the canyon country hoping to see [the desert]. In the first place you cannot see anything from a car; you've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk, better yet crawl, on hands and knees, over the sandstone and through the thornbush and cactus. When traces of blood begin to mark your trail you'll see something, maybe. Probably not.
From Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey.