Never Deserted

There was a time when most of my hiking was meandering up the trails into the high Cascades. These days, though, I am more likely to head east into the hills and flatlands of the high desert. There is something about spacious horizons and thirsty landscapes that gets under my skin. I think I was born to be a desert wanderer; arid land satisfies my yearning for empty spaces. The moment I step out among sage and bitterbrush, native bunchgrass and juniper, broken basalt and cindery soil, I am at home.

In the desert, wind blows unencumbered through the topography and through the hollows of my mind—scouring out cobwebs of old, dusty thinking. A fresh, spacious awareness allows my mind to relax. Sometimes I sit on a stony outcrop and simply inhale the space, watching it bloom as the open nature of awareness. Niggling notions full of anxious thoughts have no place to land in that openness.

I often think that everyone should put away digital tethers and spend some time in the desert, to watch their minds deal with a dry, unobscured expanse. I imagine many folks would balk at what they would call nothingness, but that is because they are deaf to the richness of desert life. One has to slow down, remove the earbuds, and listen to the desert speak her subtle truth. A tethered mind finds the requirements of this gentle pace unnerving.

The song of arid wildness is a nature mantra, a spiritual evocation. It echoes our survival instincts and the unremembered indigenous insights of our forgotten ancestors. We must recall and inhabit the one inside us who remembers the chants of interconnection, to dance the ceremony nature invites. It is the way to walk in beauty and awareness. My spiritual mentors and indigenous friends never lost sight of this truth.

In the language of my Buddhist influence, the beauty way is referred to as realizing rigpa, “pure and total presence,” or “pristine, pure awareness.” Entering the spacious desert of consciousness compels us to recognize rigpa as inseparable from the elements: earth, water, fire, wind, and space. We dissolve into the rhythms of nature encoded in our cells. With practice, we regain our skills to venture into the spacious territory of every moment. Each step of remembrance becomes an aspiration to embody compassion for all life; we become a friend to all our circumstances. As awareness dawns in the clarity of emptiness, we help everyone understand: in desert land or mind, we are never deserted.