The Purpose of Living In the Desert
A Metaphysical Exploration for Human Transformation
I grew up in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. My neck of the woods is called the Lakes Region. I was blessed to grow up with a lake in the backyard of our family home when times were good for Dad’s business. I grew up without the concept of a desert.
There were endless mountain ridges covered in white pine and birch trees. Winters were as harsh as living on a tundra at times. The springs were slushy, wet, and dreary. Summers were short. Black flies and blood-thirsty mosquitos ruled the skies and the land.
We explored, hiked, swam, sailed, skated, skied, and chopped lots of wood, literally. Living in the woods near glacier lakes was magical. I never imagined living in a desert, let alone comprehending the metaphysical aspects of doing so.
After landing in Arizona, I learned to chop wood and carry water because we purchased our first home and began having children. As the good Lord would have it, my wife and I moved to Arizona in 1986 because I had accepted a new job at the Phoenician Resort. We look back on our nearly forty years as mostly magical times.
Living here has been a transformative experience, raising our family and starting more than one business. Times are good now with the arrival of a new grandson six months ago; Ford Jones, the next generation of spiritual snipers is here. We’ve enjoyed the highs and lows of life living here. I’ve trudged through my dark night of the soul.
The valley of the shadow of death is the chasm every human must cross. Darkness and suffering are the springboards to courage, action, and change for the better. The desert is a profound and real experience for me, and the metaphysics is clear as day.
Nature Calls Us
Some places on this Earth draw us near, not for their abundance, but for their lack. The desert is one such space — a barren land often characterized by scorching heat and biting cold extremes. On the surface, it appears inhospitable, even hostile, yet humans have found it to be a place of spiritual awakening and metaphysical insight.
Why is that? What is the pull of the desert that inspires pilgrimages for soul-searching? With its sparse surroundings, the desert is an invitation to turn inward. Devoid of distractions, you’re left with nothing but the essence of being. It’s an empty canvas waiting to be filled, not with things but with fundamental questions of existence.
Big Questions
Who am I? Why am I here? What is my purpose? There are no easy exits to escape these daunting queries in the desert, even though the cost of the average home in Arizona is through the roof.
My experience is that life after fifty gets better because everything is simpler by design. The nest is empty. We do work we love. The bills are paid. Food is on the table every day. We are healthy and free to do what we want when we want. But we had to travel to and live in the desert for decades to get where we are now. The older we get, the more humble we become, and the less we need to be right or control the uncontrollable.
Every soul has a purpose: to overcome the lower levels of consciousness sold as virtues by some religions. Look around. We see rampant fear, shame, remorse, guilt, envy, impatience, anger, rage, addiction, and selfishness gone wild. It’s always been this way! We are here to get over our head trash, no matter how much we might suffer living in the metaphorical desert. We are here to love no matter where we live. We are here to find unity, realizing the power of our similarities.
Exodus for All of Us
The Book of Exodus in the Bible describes the Israelites’ 40-year journey through the desert as a period of testing and transformation. It was in the wilderness that they forged a covenant with God and discovered their collective identity. The desert acted as a crucible, stripping away the extraneous to reveal the core of who they were and what they were meant to become.
There is enormous metaphysical importance and practical applications for the wisdom found in Exodus. Put your religious bias aside and see the similarities from and more evolved, Godly view on a metaphoric and metaphysical level.
Be the Buddha
Buddhist texts also make reference to the desert metaphorically. In the Dhammapada, it is said, “Better than a thousand hollow words is one word that brings peace.” The Dhammapada is a collection of sayings and verses attributed to the Buddha. It’s one of the most widely read and best-known texts in the Buddhist canon. The book offers ethical and philosophical teachings, serving as a guide to living a meaningful and purposeful life.
Similarly, the barrenness of the desert may be seen as an expression of the Buddhist notion of emptiness. It’s not a void to be filled but a space where enlightenment can flourish. By stepping into the desert, we step into the emptiness and potentiality of our own lives. But believe me, the desert where I live isn’t empty anymore.
Most Poets Know It
Poets and authors have often turned to the desert to articulate the unexplainable. In “The Waste Land,” T.S. Eliot used the imagery of a dry, desolate landscape to delve into the disillusionment and search for meaning post-World War I. The desert symbolizes the existential crises that haunt us all, providing a backdrop where we can confront our deepest fears and hopes, like having a pack of hungry coyotes chow down your cat.
In the words of American naturalist Edward Abbey, “Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.” The desert serves as that wilderness, a space of challenge and revelation. It asks nothing of us but demands everything, stripping us down to our purest selves. Even though it’s hard to find much open desert, consider the metaphorical and metaphysical significance for yourself.
Emerge and Transform
When we emerge from our respective desert, it’s with a sense of having met the divine, not in a far-off heaven but within the very fabric of our being. And that, perhaps, is the entire purpose of being in the desert — to meet ourselves, in all our flawed yet astonishing complexity, and to find a glimmer of the infinite in the grains of sand beneath our feet. To be united with the One.
Welcome to the art of human transformation.
Sources:
The Bible, Book of Exodus
Dhammapada, Buddhist Scriptures
“The Waste Land,” T.S. Eliot
Edward Abbey, “Desert Solitaire”