Desert
A
mixture
of
things,
vast,
waterless expanses
without
demarcation,
scorching heat
and
paralysing cold,
storms that create whirlwinds
and
walls and columns of sand
that bury in minutes what
does not keep moving.
A
mere dust bowl
or a
featureless wasteland
where
death stalks as the elements.
Sheer deprivation
exaggerates basic needs
into
hallucinatory longings,
conjuring
both
literal mirages
and
haunting fantasies
of
tantalizing voluptuaries
and
airy banquets.
But
also revealing
dreamlike cactus
and
panting reptiles,
exotic birds
that
seem to survive
on
dew
and
camels that find
nourishment
in
thorns.
A
psychic landscape
exemplifying protracted
periods of isolation,
spiritual thirst
and
creative tedium,
disorientation
and
depletion,
mortification,
purification,
redemption
and
initiation.
Unrelieved
desert-like stretches
of
emptiness and despair.
The howling domain
of
the satanic
Lord of the Flies.
Badlands into which
the outcast
and
scapegoat
were banished.
A
desolate place
ruled over by
the god Set,
disorder forces
of
passion
and
violence
sweeping into the civilised
borders of conscious life.
Dyeing from the shrivelling
intensity of heat, cold
or lack.
A
place of trial,
encountering
angels,
devils
and
dijinns.
Parching aridity
but
flash-floods
of
inspirations
mirrored in
sporadic,
torrential rains
and
erosive winds
sweeping through
a
fantasy world of
pinnacles and
arches of
coloured stone.
Unforseen sustenance
in the psyche
activated by
extremity.
Detecting the unique,
unnoticed
signs of life.
Desert water
seeps
in
the heart
of
a plant.
Hidden sources
of
vitality in the
desert spaces
of
the soul.
Prefigured in dreams,
like
stars invisible
in
the
over-bright sky,
disclose themselves
in the black crispness
of the desert night.
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