To be in the desert alone

... is to understand the absoluteness of solitude, the positive nature of emptiness. During the day, no sound - just mile after mile of sameness. Imagination has no context for the vastness of the desert when you're in it alone. And at night, in the moonless world, amid the smells and the silence, you lie down and have no idea what you're lying on. Is it a snake? A cactus? So you lie and wait, look up at the stars, and receive the ground, the coolness of the sand, giving up the idea that mind could grasp the lumps under your leg or your shoulder. And then the thought of time. Is it midnight? Is it five days later, five years later? And what am I who wonders what I am? And the smile that comes from knowing that you can't know and don't really care, that the answer to that would shrivel in the delight of this moment. Nothing of life imagined can compete with the beauty of nothingness, the vastness of it, the unfathomable darkness.

This amazing desert earth has been my greatest teacher. She doesn't budge from what she is. I sit on her and there is no movement, no discussion, no complaint. The earth just gives, without condition, unnoticed, and that's the proof of love. She doesn't ever withhold. She doesn't compromise. The way she speaks is through the wind and the rain, the sand, the rocks, the sounds of her creatures. She just sings her song without meaning, and she continues to give without any expectation of return. She'll support you all your life, and if you throw a tin can onto her or dump poison into her blood-stream or drop a bomb on her, there is still total, unconditional love. She keeps giving and giving. She's me awake. She's you.

this is an excerpt from the book i am reading these days - a thousand names for joy by byron katie. a tremendous source of inspiration. now that i have this strong morning dose, i shall set myself out for my morning walk to school. have a lovely day, all!