Something beneath the Nothing

The Sonoran spirits welcome all weary travelers. They do have a few expectations in exchange for shared wisdom. They demand a shedding of layers and pretenses and a willingness to breathe in their fiery intensity. If one can endure the itchy and prickly discomfort, they will be drained of excess and be rewarded with a rekindled core – creating the ideal situation for a thirsty mind, body, and soul.

My return to desert living has been a thorny one, but I am making peace with the fiery spirits and breathing in their gifts. I have hydrated thoroughly and discovered that the book, Anam Cara – Spiritual Wisdom from the Celtic World by John O’Donohue is an enriching way to refuel mind and soul. I stumbled on O’Donohue’s book in a small bookstore in Sneem, Ireland. I highly recommend the book. Every page is rich in inspiration and sage wisdom. This passage stood out from my recent reading:

“In a vast universe which often seems sinister and unaware of us, we need the presence and shelter of love to transfigure our loneliness. This cosmic loneliness is the root of all inner loneliness. All of our life, everything we think, and feel is surrounded by nothingness. Hence, we become afraid so easily. The fourteenth-century mystic Meister Eckhart says that all of human life stands under the shadow of nothingness, the umbra nihili. Nevertheless, love is the sister of the soul. In and through the warmth and creativity of love, the soul shelters us from the bleakness of that nothingness. We cannot fill up our emptiness with objects, possessions, or people. We have to go deeper into that emptiness, then we will find beneath nothingness the flame of love waiting to warm us.” (pages 32-33)

The desert finally saw some rain on the last evening of July. Not exactly a desert drench, but worth staying up for. Hopefully the Valley of the Sun will see a few monsoon storms before the season ends.