Free association –> solitary path, hermit, marks left behind, history, tracks, simplicity, retreat, danger, beauty, ancient, wandering, projections, spirit journey, the desert of the real, remains, scorpions, heat, vultures, white sage, fire, survival, reflection, stone, hieroglyphics.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153To the desert go prophets and hermits; through desert go pilgrims and exiles. Here the leaders of the great religions have sought the therapeutic and spiritual values of retreat, not to escape but to find reality.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d ~ Paul Shepard, Man in the Landscape: A Historic View of the Esthetics of Nature<\/p>\n
“A thousand fantasies \/ Begin to throng into my memory \/ Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire, \/ And airy tongues, that syllable men’s names \/ On sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses.” ~ John Milton, Comus, A Mask<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Night poured over the desert. It came suddenly, in purple. In the clear air, the stars drilled down out of the sky, reminding any thoughtful watcher that it is in the deserts and high places that religions are generated. When men see nothing but bottomless infinity over their heads they have always had a driving and desperate urge to find someone to put in the way.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d ~ Terry Pratchett, Jingo<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams…\u00e2\u20ac\u009d ~ Antoine de Saint-Exup\u00c3\u00a9ry, The Little Prince<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153WIDE, the margin between carte blanche and the white page. Nevertheless it is not in the margin that you can find me, but in the yet whiter one that separates the word-strewn sheet from the transparent, the written page from the one to be written in the infinite space where the eye turns back to the eye, and the hand to the pen, where all we write is erased, even as you write it. For the book imperceptibly takes shape within the book we will never finish. There is my desert.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d ~ Edmond Jab\u00c3\u00a8s<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Where is my oasis? Too far from
\nhere for me to crawl with these
\ndead legs, refusing to co-operate
\nHands and fingers clawing uselessly
\nthrough the grains of sand…\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n~ Kiera Woodhull, Chaos of the Mind<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153An afternoon drive from Los Angeles will take you up into the high mountains, where eagles circle above the forests and the cold blue lakes, or out over the Mojave Desert, with its weird vegetation and immense vistas. Not very far away are Death Valley, and Yosemite, and Sequoia Forest with its giant trees which were growing long before the Parthenon was built; they are the oldest living things in the world. One should visit such places often, and be conscious, in the midst of the city, of their surrounding presence. For this is the real nature of California and the secret of its fascination; this untamed, undomesticated, aloof, prehistoric landscape which relentlessly reminds the traveller of his human condition and the circumstances of his tenure upon the earth. “You are perfectly welcome,” it tells him, “during your short visit. Everything is at your disposal. Only, I must warn you, if things go wrong, don’t blame me. I accept no responsibility. I am not part of your neurosis. Don’t cry to me for safety. There is no home here. There is no security in your mansions or your fortresses, your family vaults or your banks or your double beds. Understand this fact, and you will be free. Accept it, and you will be happy.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d ~ Christopher Isherwood, Exhumations<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Within minutes my 115-mile walk through the desert hills becomes a thing apart, a disjunct reality on the far side of a bottomless abyss, immediately beyond physical recollection. But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all still there in my heart and soul. The walk, the hills, the sky, the solitary pain and pleasure\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthey will grow larger, sweeter, lovelier in the days to come, like a treasure found and then, voluntarily, surrendered. Returned to the mountains with my blessing. It leaves a golden glowing on the mind.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d ~ Edward Abbey, Beyond the Wall: Essays from the Outside<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Is it possible to write a poem or are these words just screams of outlaws exiled to the desert?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d ~ Dejan Stojanovic, The Sun Watches the Sun<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153She also told me it wore down her spirit to live in the desert landscape that was parched by midsummer, to plant a garden each spring and struggle to keep it alive past July.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d ~ Ursula Hegi, Hotel of the Saints<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You have wakened not out of sleep, but into a prior dream, and that dream lies within another, and so on, to infinity, which is the number of grains of sand. The path that you are to take is endless, and you will die before you have truly awakened.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d ~ Jorge Luis Borges<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Once in a while, it’s good to go random, just to see what the cosmos throws at’cha when you ask. Album: Hester Site – Them as You Speak<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[4341,6107,5385,6109,6108],"class_list":["post-5620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-virushead","tag-album","tag-hester-site","tag-random","tag-sand","tag-them-as-you-speak"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5620"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5628,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5620\/revisions\/5628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Hester](\"http:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/hestersite-450x384.jpg\")