It takes a long time to see the desert..- Atul Singh

A friend of mine penned a beautiful article under the same name that I have chosen for mine. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and I agree. 

Her thoughts though were more likely in the literal sense, regarding the beauty and variety of the desert landscape and the unique lifeforms it nurtures. The same can be said about the Tundra or the Rainforest or a child or better still a woman. But my drift here is about life itself. Bear with me on that for a bit. 

We are busy living, as a desert is being a desert. We are preoccupied with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or with small and big joys that we get to experience. Some of these flow through our senses, onwards to wherever taste of food goes after it’s been tasted, or love and kindness go after they have been felt. Other joys, which are more surreal, like seeing the kids grow and succeed or even a plant blossom and throw out buds and flowers, are experienced more holistically by our being. 

These we enjoy and experience alright, but do we ever step away and see our life for what it is. Do we ever zoom out to see ourselves, our experiences in the context of life itself, in the context of our journey, who we are, what we perceive and how our presence affects our environment. Do we ever take time to be aware of our own beauty or warts that exist, just like the desert has the prettiest flowers peeping out of the thorniest bushes? And do we ever take time to examine and revel in the millions of tiny beautiful details our person carries, from the tiny bits of hair woven in our eyebrows to our attitudes and thoughts. I bet that if we do, we don’t do enough. It takes a long time to see the desert afterall. 

Humans have this unique ability to think and know that they are thinking and knowing. Thoughts flow into other animal’s intelligence organs also, and they act on them, but do they know that they are thinking? Us and other animals have their intelligence organ, mostly concentrated in the brain. A tree however has no specific part called brain, and still knows to seek sunlight basis some intelligence. Plants respond to nurturing homes and people quite differently than those where they are neglected. So, the instincts/thoughts are there in all life foms including plants. The organism acts upon them too. But, the awareness of being aware is uniquely human, best we know. 

So a desert, a beautiful one, harboring extraordinarily unique forms of life and landscape, where gorgeous Cacti with plum moisture laden trunks stand erect laced with countless tough and sharp thorns. An ecosystem where rocks and sand and shrubs, and colorful birds, insects, snakes have figured out a way to co-exist, sadly does not get to see itself and revel in its own endless and immeasurable beauty. An even more unique but inhospitable landscape, a more barren desert, where the only thing to ever change being the size and orientation of endless sand dunes, courtesy hot and howling desert winds; does not know its own beautiful predicament either. They cannot perceive themselves. 

As we look at our lives we can both be part of and an observer to our life. We can even think about our own thoughts. We can for the most part know whether they are laden with jealousy or compassion, anger or kindness, avarice or gratitude. We can explore our inner landscape just like we could a vast an endless desert. We could pore into the nook and crannies, turn over rocks and see scorpions scramble out, from within our inner landscape. We could find an oasis here and a whole cluster of plants singed by the mid day Sun there. because the water, that once was, ran out. We could see a few indomitable proud Saguaros, nay attitudes, jut out of an otherwise inhospitable and barren landscape. We can indeed explore away… but it will take time.

We can know that the direction of our thinking is drifting negative or positive. We can know if we purposefully or mistakenly hurt someone. We can know and feel that our own being needs some replenishment of a hug or presence of friends or that we need some alone time to feel better. We can know that our habits are leading us up or down the ladder of success. We have all these abilities, but do we really utilize them. Do we ever step away from ourselves to see ourselves fully. If we did, would we not be amazed at every little piece if us? Just like a little flower sticking its bright red petals out from under a rock, would we not look at the arrangement of our eyebrows on our face, or just that we have ten unique and perfectly carved digits sitting at the end of our arms. 

Lao Tsu says in one of his endless pithy sayings that “when we see something as beautiful, something else becomes ugly”

If we incorporate this thought into our view also, as we see the desert i.e. ourselves, doesn’t everything we are, all our shortcomings, all the failures, all the dark spots on our face and persona, don’t all of them become a just one of the rocks and shrubs in the desert landscape, that carry their own unique beauty and purpose. Is it not then than we can explore ourselves even more fully and dare-say gently, with this subtle warmth of acceptance within us. Getting to know onself then becomes an exercise in amusement and adventure rather than of judgement. And the endlessness of the exploration continues throughout our lives because just like the desert we are changing. We are growing and dying in a million ways each day, expanding and contracting in our abilities, worldview and perhaps the expanse of our entire being. 

It will indeed take time, because like my friend noted in her article, it takes a long time to see the desert. 

I wish you Godspeed for the journey.