Desert Lessons

from 10 days walking barefoot and silent through the Sahara desert

Walking barefoot and silent through the Sahara desert, time’s restrictive cages quickly dissolve. What emerges are vast open spaces through which the rhythms of life dance and play.

Sunrises welcome the day, tracing an arc from softness to ferocity until sunsets welcome a blanket of stars. Moonrises illuminate the dead of night. Everything cycles through changing faces of aliveness.

The earth, too, pulses with this silent aliveness, offering endless diversity amidst seeming sameness. Bare feet feel the shifting textures and temperatures, from the hot, fine sand of sunlit dunes to the cool and damp of those in shadow. And then the sand itself morphs into paper thin rolls which crunch underfoot, or wide cracked slabs which are cool and smooth to the touch.

Our bodies move through cycles in the desert too, adopting a rhythm of heartbeat and footfall in togetherness and community, a caravan of relaxing minds, expanding hearts, and bodies that are here, here and always here, amidst the stillness and change.

Life in the desert sings its songs loudly into the silence. Every bush, plant and animal stands out in its vitality and tenacity, offering its gifts to something else. One plant’s small round leaves are filled so roundly with pockets of water that it seems to celebrate its miracle with shiny joyous bunches, which the camels gratefully receive. Another’s pungent leaves and yellow flowers are punctured with holes from the meals of the iridescent green caterpillars which leave long thin lines in the sand. There are footprints too of the desert fox, who reveals its long ears and white tail to a lucky few. Our 5am departure morning is blessed by the presence of Arabian wolves.

So there is life everywhere in the stillness and timelessness of this vast space. Ever more precious in its scarcity, because each being can really be seen as the miracle it is. Nothing is taken for granted. Nothing is overlooked as insignificant or unimportant. This is life moving through the vastness.

And so too was our small caravan of 20 humans and 6 camels: life moving through the vastness. It was far from easy, but life is far from easy. A gastric virus came with us, emerging into our delicate bubble and moving stealthily and inevitably to inform each journey in its own unique way. Alongside the arcing of the sun and moon, were cycles of vomiting, diarrhoea, muscle aches and fever. For some, brief and intense. For others, extended and recurring. Meanwhile, the desert held us, like we had never been held before. The sands enfolded us, the night skies embraced us, the sweetness of community, both human and camel, encircled us. And most of all, we were held in the embrace of timelessness. There was always only this, here, now. And this here now can always be met with love.

The journey home was another great teacher. The first leg from the desert to Marrakech, tossed about in a bus snaking through the Atlas mountains, reminded me how normal it has become to assault and overload our senses. Like eating a meal without having tasted, digested and assimilated the last. The second leg, through layers of deadening tarmac, airport concourses and train tunnels, reminded me quite how far we have removed ourselves from what brings us alive, all in the name of comfort and ease.

Yet coming home to my family and the depth of love I feel here reminds me that this aliveness is a choice, too. I was met this morning in the frosty garden, by a squirrel standing on its hind legs at my feet, comically holding a Rich Tea biscuit in its mouth. As if to say, “Look at me here! Just as amazing as a Fennec fox!” And he is, of course, just as amazing. As is the texture of grass coated in frost, the sharp air in my nostrils, the thin sun slanting through wintry trees.

So I arrive back full of apparent contradiction: depleted and rejuvenated; deconstructed and reformed; uncertain and clear; broken and open; quiet and playful. There’s a freedom in contradiction too.

I am learning, through these journeys, that the vastness is here all around and within us, wherever we are. Whatever the conditions. That was the gift of both desert and illness. Take beauty and invite challenge in! Take challenge and remember beauty is here! The gift was to receive the vastness of the desert as my teacher, and also to receive the joys and sorrows of life as my classroom. The invitation continues to be: can you learn to meet life with love?

Of course, it was so much harder to remain spacious, soft and loving when my stomach was cramping while we travelled into the noise of the world. I had to cry on a shoulder along the way, reach for healing yoga and Ayurveda on my return, walk barefoot into the garden to receive from an English squirrel. We need whatever precious jewels return us into the arms of vastness, especially when life appears to close in around us. For me, these jewels are yoga, meditation, nature and community, but for you, it may be anything which helps you remember that you truly belong here.

Because wherever we are, however self-sufficient or insufficient we believe ourselves to be, each of us belongs to a caravan of life moving through a vastness framed by the rhythmic rocking motions of change.

It’s beautiful, nourishing and life-affirming to surrender into the arms of this truth. To be held by the vastness, to marvel at the wonder of change and beauty, to receive the blessings and teachings of life.

And it’s beautiful, nourishing and life-affirming to learn to meet life with love.

If you feel called to the desert, I wholeheartedly recommend meeting Her in silence and wonder. I travelled with Dharma Nature, with guided meditations and dharma teachings offered by the wonderful Denis Robberechts. And watch this space… a seed is growing to invite a group of you to join me in the desert too, one day.

Day retreat: receiving blessings

In the meantime, I am offering a sanctuary for us to receive some of these blessings during a day retreat near London on December 8th (and again on January 25th). The day will be mostly in silence to allow us to connect deeply inwardly and outwardly. But there will also be time for sharing and togetherness as well.

We will practice gentle yoga to reconnect to the body with presence and care.

We will walk slowly in silent meditation through an ancient woodland, inhabiting our moving, breathing bodies and opening to receive the aliveness around us.

We will immerse ourselves in a wild swimming lake, breathing deeply and surrendering fully to receive the vital aliveness and profound stillness of cold water.

We will melt into the heat of a wood-fired sauna to allow its warmth to penetrate our bones.

Silence will end when we choose to eat lunch and share stories around the fire before walking back through the woodland for closing meditation and renewed stillness amidst the warmth and aliveness of our caravan of togetherness.

These days usually fill up fast, but due to the over-full nature of this time of year, I have had some cancellations for December 8th. So if you are able to step out of this seasonal spiral of busyness, and wish to receive desert energy and winter blessings, you are warmly welcome to join us. I am also taking bookings for January 25th and March 1st. Email me for more information or to book your place, and you can also read more about the days here.

Yoga, meditation, wild swimming and sauna at Wasing Estate

Let’s come together to remember the vastness and timelessness which already holds us, wherever we are. Let’s learn to meet what arises as we journey through life with kindness, support, wonder and awe. Let’s learn to live in love.