The desert does not fear death. The desert mouse fears the hawk, the desert deer fears the human, the human fears itself. But the desert is not afraid. It is beyond fear, larger than every life in it; and at the same time, the desert is every life in it.
The desert is not separate from lives filled with fear, and hunger, and contemplation. It holds these, and every step and screech, every birth and death, every flight and stand, every shift and growth; it holds them but it is not held by them. It is not trapped by them.
In the desert, death is natural. A carcass drying in the sun, a prickly pear cactus decaying into the ground, an insect serving a snack to a bird. There is no shame, no judgment, no restraint, nothing but what is.
What is natural in me is co-opted by discontent, desire, doubt, uncertainty. And this, too, is natural. But unlike the prickly pear, or the prey, living shoulder to shoulder with death, I push away anything I don’t want to face. Sensations and feelings arise and I step aside, half here and half somewhere else, watching uncomfortably.
But what I feel needs me in order to be felt, like the desert soil needs the prickly pear’s dry husks, like the hawk needs the mouse. If I’m unwilling, what I need to feel doesn’t go away, it slumps between life and death, not lived and not let go either.
As nature ourselves, why is it so hard to live naturally? Why do we serve ego over essence, building layers and barriers between our minds, our bodies and what is? Why do I fight against the process that is my life, that is life — the process that I have no choice about inhabiting, from the moment I’m conceived to the moment I die?
How much easier it would be to surrender to what is, as nature calls so softly, and sometimes harshly, for me to do. As God calls so tenderly, and sometimes forcefully, for me to do.