Discover the spiritual power of the desert in Greater Palm Springs when you join us for Wellspring this October. Plan your trip and enjoy all the desert has to offer.
The first time I saw the desert as a young high-schooler from the Midwest—the land of retired steel plants and majestic brick factories on river throughways—I was floored. The world had never felt so big; the sky had never seemed so expansive. It’s not as if I hadn’t been awed by a sunset before—I’d certainly had a handful of formative moments at the edge of cornfields watching the sun set the low sky ablaze—but the desert was something else entirely. It was as if my soul was literally turned on for the first time. I was hooked. Since then, there have been many subsequent times in my life, frozen in that “movie-reel-memory” kind of way, where the desert has played a leading part. There was that time riding a camel through the Rajasthani desert in India, when the stars seemed to drip blessings onto my partner and me; there were dozens of sultry moments I met myself for the first time again and again in Burning Man’s Black Rock City; there was the inspirational road trip through the Oaxacan mezcal fields that led to a previous career as a travel writer. But let’s be real: Couldn’t that have just been random time and place? Is there such thing as the spiritual power of the desert?
Photo by Madhu Shesharam[/caption]
The first time I saw the desert as a young high-schooler from the Midwest—the land of retired steel plants and majestic brick factories on river throughways—I was floored. The world had never felt so big; the sky had never seemed so expansive. It’s not as if I hadn’t been awed by a sunset before—I’d certainly had a handful of formative moments at the edge of cornfields watching the sun set the low sky ablaze—but the desert was something else entirely. It was as if my soul was literally turned on for the first time. I was hooked. Since then, there have been many subsequent times in my life, frozen in that “movie-reel-memory” kind of way, where the desert has played a leading part. There was that time riding a camel through the Rajasthani desert in India, when the stars seemed to drip blessings onto my partner and me; there were dozens of sultry moments I met myself for the first time again and again in Burning Man’s Black Rock City; there was the inspirational road trip through the Oaxacan mezcal fields that led to a previous career as a travel writer. But let’s be real: Couldn’t that have just been random time and place? Is there such thing as the spiritual power of the desert?
Traditions of Desert Spirituality
Turns out that I’m certainly not alone in the supporting role that the desert has played throughout history. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, some theologians assert that the 40 days and nights spent crossing the desert was to signify the harsh conditions—punctuated by life-giving oasis—that would lead the Jewish people to their true land, and to their true relationship with God and understanding of themselves. The influence of the desert can also be seen in the Islamic tradition—both theologically (sense of the supernatural, virtues of hospitality and alms-giving, an interpretation of divine sternness), and secularly (the social solidarity necessitated by traditions of the nomadic Bedouin people). In the yoga community, we often refer to a time in our lives in which we feel siphoned from the divine as moments of living in a spiritual desert. These are moments in which we feel disconnected, unmotivated, or stuck in a rut. This can manifest in practical ways, such as an inability to leave a job or a relationship; or emotional ways, such as a tendency to repeat the same mistakes or unhealthy behaviors, despite hard-learned lessons. In the same way that the desert taught the Bedouins traditions of radical self-reliance and the Jewish people the transcendence of suffering for liberation, so too must we walk through the metaphoric burning sand of arid land to come to our own personal peace. Here are four lessons the desert gives us when it comes to spiritual awakening and power. [caption id="attachment_105283" align="aligncenter" width="768"]
Photo by Madhu Shesharam[/caption]
Desert Blooms
What it is: Every year for a period of a couple weeks—and particularly during a year of intensely unusual rainfall—there’s a spontaneous and cinematic sprouting of flowers in otherwise barren land. Endemic desert wildflowers tend to be brightly colored and deeply contrasting to the spartan-colored sands and ashy succulents that usually come to mind. Deserts in North America bloom during the spring—from about March until May for lower elevation deserts and about March until June for higher elevations. (The Joshua Trees, for example, celebrated for their Dr. Seuss-like branches and tufts of spiky fauna, are best seen in March and April.) What we learn from it: Even the most arid of land can bring forth something beautiful. Periods of the most torrential rain yield the most vivid blossoms.