I am missing the desert.

I miss the simplicity and the directness of living on and so close to the land. I miss aligning myself with the rhythms of the natural cycles. I miss the uncomplicated actions and procedures of tending to my most immediate and real needs. I miss the urgency of living with strong intention. I miss the vast spaciousness of time out of time. I miss the honest efforts of living simply. I miss the like-minded camaraderie and company of other women who had chosen as I had chosen. I miss knowing the immediacy and the importance of this, and more.

We were told that as hard as it was to spend four days and nights out on our own in the desert seeking guidance, that the real test would be coming back into our lives and finding ways to live our vision directly into the world. They were not wrong. As hard as the experience was, truly one of the hardest of my life, there was a clarity about it all that struggles to find itself an easy and permanent home in the midst of the noise, distractions, expectations, and obligations. A part leftover from those days that yearns to give over to everything that was discovered and known.

Where is all of this leading? Perhaps to the knowing that we are best served to notice, and to deeply tune into what it is that is missing from our lives. To allow ourselves to feel it all the way down to its root. And then, to do whatever is within our power to remember, and to re-instate what has been lost to us. And to the world.

But of course, that would require that we are in a position to even have the space to pause, and to listen for more than the relentless, insistent inner and outer drumbeat of doing. Always doing.