The sun was hovering over the top of the mountains, giving the desert a few more golden minutes before it dipped below the hills. Its glow painted the wide-open vistas of the Mojave desert with pink and yellow tones, colors that all beings of the desert soaked in joyously on a mid-December evening.
After all, once the sun went behind the mountains, it would rapidly start to get colder and darker and the colors and the warmth of the sun would just be a fuzzy memory.
This was their second night camping in the desert. They had been looking forward to this trip. It had been years since Mind, Body, Soul, and Spirit of the Desert had a reunion.
Body was picking up sticks, as kindling for their campfire.
“Let’s get some more,” Mind suggested. “It’s going to be a cold night and we’ll want to keep the fire going for a while.”
“So…how have things been, Spirit of the Desert? It’s been a while since we met,” Mind and Body asked, as Body started to light the fire. When they spoke to anyone else besides themselves, Mind and Body always did so in unison, both saying the same words at the same time. It was like they were one being, one entity.
“Just call me Sod…we’re close friends, after all,” Spirit of the Desert replied.
“Well, Sod, how do you cope with this? We just don’t get it,” Mind and Body asked Sod.
“Cope with what?” Sod asked.
“This climate…this landscape…the harshness of it all. The below-freezing nights of winter and the hundred-plus-degree days of summer. The sparsity of rain. The gusty winds. How do you and your beings survive, let alone thrive?”
Sod smiled. “I accept what I’m given and make the most of it. Plus, amidst all the harshness, there’s ample beauty to sustain me. Simple as that.”
“Simple as that, huh? We wish we could do a fraction of what you’re doing.”
“What do you mean?”
“Give us adversity and most likely, our first response is frustration, denial, anger or worry. Anything but acceptance. Just the other day, Body bumped their foot into a rock while they were on a hike. For the rest of the hike, Mind worried a lot about whether it was going to hurt and for how long. And preceding worry, there was anger at being clumsy and not paying attention.”
“And what’s stopping you from accepting things the way they are and adapting to it?”
“If we knew the answer, we probably would be doing it, right? What do you think, Soul?”
They realized that Soul had stepped away from the campfire and was lying down on the ground, looking up at the darkening sky. The big dipper and the North Star were starting to peek out, greeting the earth.
“What are you doing there, Soul?” Mind and Body asked.
There was no reply.
Body got up and walked over to Soul. “You ok?”
They shrugged. “Ever wished you could be one with the universe?”
“Nah, we don’t have time for that kind of stuff,” Mind and Body replied.
“Well, I’m telling you what I crave. Somewhere in me, there’s a part that wants to shake hands with the galaxies, the stars, the asteroids, the planets. I want to whisper to them: ‘Hey, did you know that I am you and you are me?’”
Body grinned.
“The usual Soul stuff,” Mind and Body said, as Body walked back and sat down next to the campfire.
Body’s arms felt tight and their legs clenched hard. Maybe it was the cold, Mind thought.
“Do you need a jacket?”, they asked Body.
“No, I’m not that cold…I think there’s something bothering you. I don’t know what it is, but that’s likely why I’m not able to relax.”
“What do you mean? Your relaxation and what’s bothering me are two separate things,” Mind replied.
Body sighed. “My love, did you forget it again? Remember, a couple of weeks ago I reminded you that we’re connected, that there’s a trail that runs between the two of us and what happens at either end of the trail affects both of us?”
“Do you…” Soul started to say something, but stopped.
“What is it, Soul?” Mind and Body asked.
“Mind if I interrupt your conversation?”
“You’re funny. Of course, my love, speak up.”
“Speaking of trails, I hope you realize that there’s a trail connecting you two to the stars and galaxies up above. And that trail is called Soul. That’s all.”
For a few seconds, Mind felt less chaotic and more centered. “Hmm. If only I could do a better job at remembering what you’ve told me before, Body. You’re right. Of course, we’re connected. We’ve been that way since we arrived on earth. And Soul, Amen.”
“So, what is it that’s bothering you?” Body asked.
“Well, you know…the usual hyper-planning aspect of me: Is it going to be windy tonight? Do we have enough warm gear? What about the critters around us…are we going to be safe?”
“You got something to offer here, Sod?”
Sod laughed out loud. “Sure. You folks up for a little game?”
“Anytime,” Mind and Body replied.
“Ok, I’m not going to tell you exactly what it is, but I will ask that all of us lie down on the ground to start with.”
Mind started running wildly. Body’s arms were tight again.
“I sense a bit of anxiety here,” Sod said.
“Well…I don’t really know what you have in mind. And it’s freezing cold right now. And I’m not really up for some crazy rock-climbing stuff or whatever else you’re going to ask us to do. And…”
“Mind, would you be up for trying it for a little while and see how it goes?” Sod interrupted.
Curiosity ran up to Mind, starting at Body’s side of the trail.
“I guess so,” Mind said.
Body and Soul laid down on either side of a Joshua tree. Body ran its fingers over its trunk, which was composed of strands of fiber, which kept the tree alive and standing amidst the torrential winds which were common here.
Mind was still a bit anxious and wandering around in circles: the harsh weather, work tasks that needed to get finished, planning for a rental car reservation, scheduling a review of personal finances…the thoughts never seemed to stop.
The fire was warm, but they were lying a few feet away from it. Body was feeling cold. They pulled up a blanket, their hands tucked into the jacket, their feet crossed over and toes curled up.
The ground was cold, but in a somewhat odd way, it felt inviting. Body felt themselves slowly sinking into the sand, inch by inch, as if someone was calling them down into the earth. With every in-breath, Body felt like they were taking in something from the earth. They didn’t know what it was but there was a distinct sense of something seeping in, making its way through its insides. They looked around for Sod, but Sod was nowhere to be seen.
“Where are you, Sod?”, Body asked.
There was no reply, just the eerie silence of the desert. Body started to relax into the sand, their muscles heaving a sigh of relief. They looked up at the purple, blue, black and white dots in the sky – billions of stars painted across a canvas spanning two-hundred-thousand light-years – and within moments, Awe had put on its backpack and started hiking at Body’s end of the trail. Both Mind and Body were surprised: they had expected Awe to start at Mind’s end of the trail, but instead, it bloomed from Body’s side. Hairs on arms rose up, tears dripped down from eyes, arms let themselves go and relaxed into the cold sand, legs unclenched and stretched out.
“Do you feel me now?” Sod asked.
Body tensed up at the sudden unexpected question, before relaxing again.
“Where are you?”, they asked.
“Deep inside your being,” Sod replied.
Body knew, intuitively, that it was all Sod’s doing – all that relaxation, that kissing of the earth, that sense of awe at the night sky – but never expected it to turn out this way.
A few minutes later, Awe ran into Sod on the Mind-Body trail. “Am I doing my job well?” Sod asked.
“The proof is in the Mind and on the Body, so yes, you are. Thank you!”
Awe waved at Sod and continued its hike until it reached the end of the trail, on Mind’s side. Mind felt like someone had just taken a broom and swept out all the thoughts that were romping around inside it and given up the room entirely to Awe.
“How did you do that?”, they asked Sod.
“Do what?”
“Clear up all that commotion and fill me with Awe?”
“I don’t know. I’m just a mirror reflecting what’s around me. What happens to you is beyond my control.”
Mind started to say something, but stopped. All they could feel was gratitude and wonder, but they couldn’t find words to express that feeling.
Body got up and walked over to the boulders near their campsite. There was a pair, with one huge boulder balanced ever-so-precariously on top of the other. It seemed like it could fall down any moment, but there it was, living amidst all the uncertainty that could be dumped upon it.
Mind was fascinated by the stark contrast of delicate balance and immense grandiosity, their silence, their age – thousands of years – their perseverance and all the changes they had endured over millennia. A random gusty burst of wind could bring down the top rock, crushing it into pieces, and yet, here it was, standing quietly and reverently. There were indeed fallen rocks and trees; that was life, after all, but these two were still married to each other, despite all the challenges.
Mind couldn’t help but rethink their concept of uncertainty and how to live with it. Every time they recollected moments from their past where uncertainty almost always led to anxiety, the image of the two boulders took over and filled Mind’s entire home.
The boulders were painted blue by the moonlight, but there were also faint shades of red and yellow, from the campfire. As the wind blew the flames around, their reflections on the boulders also kept shifting. Mind felt like they were watching a late-night symphony playing out in the desert.
“What are you thinking about?” Sod asked.
“Where do I start?”
“Anywhere you like. The desert is vast.”
“Indeed it is.” The desert night had a welcoming feel of vastness, like a king inviting people over into his grand palace. ‘Come one, come all. Soak me in’, it seemed to say.
And, with Sod lying down in their center, Mind did soak it in. Being in a landscape with miles and miles of blue moonlit trees, rocks, sand, arches, shrubs, washes and canyons, how could they resist taking it all in?
The expansiveness of the desert started to make things feel less constricted. Things that the Mind considered impossible, those narrow biases and restricted beliefs, rigid routines and mindsets – I can always do this; I can never do that; I’m not going to alter that behavior – those refusals to accept change, to treat adversity as an opportunity for growth…all of them previously felt like bags of stones locked up in compact vaults; but now, amidst the graceful spaciousness of the desert, the vaults were swung wide open and the stones had morphed into balloons floating up in the starlit sky. There was nothing constraining or limiting them; sure, some balloons might not make it to their destinations, others might blow up, others might float freely with nary a care in the world, but at-least they were released from the shackles of rigidity. With a little help from Sod, their fears and lack of faith had dissolved into the wide-open arms of the desert.
Body kept staring at the sky. From out there in the desert, the stars and planets seemed like tiny ants crawling across the skyscape.
“I’ve been amazed by those for thousands of years, too,” Sod said, reading Mind’s mind. “Every time I look up there, it’s like the first time I’m viewing them. Wonder renews itself every time.”
Mind was silent, again. All those things they had fretted about – those climbs up corporate ladders, ‘urgent’ work deliverables and deadlines, those delusional moments of self-importance – all of it seemed so grand in the moment, but now, after being gifted a wider perspective, it felt like tiny ants crawling across the landscape of life. And yes, of course, ants were important and valued and had their place in the scheme of things, but Mind was starting to confront the reality that they had been treating them like elephants.
There was an ease, a lightness that filled Mind’s being, a sense of feeling centered and anchored to the earth. They knew this wouldn’t last forever. After all, Sod wasn’t going to stay much longer. But the present moment was what mattered, and in this moment, that lightness and stability felt cherished and craved.
The sky was dark blue, lit up by the stars and the moon. Soul had their arms and legs spread out wide, looking up at the stars, with a smile on their face. With every breath, their being kept expanding, until it was spacious enough to take in the sky. And that’s when they started to feel the presence of stardust inside them. Or was it Sod doing their magic? It was hard to tell. And if they looked close enough at the sky, they could see the outlines of their face reflected in it.
Other than the occasional soft breeze, it was silent and cold. Yet, Soul didn’t need a blanket. In fact, they felt warm and snuggly. Maybe it was the embrace of the starlit sky that was keeping them warm. They didn’t care. All they knew was that their candle was lit up again, their essence – a precious gem they thought was lost – had been found.
“What are you thinking about?” Sod asked, from within.
“About what you’ve done to me and how grateful I am for that.”
Sod smiled. “Remember, I’m just a mirror reflecting the magic of the desert. Speaking of the desert…you see that Joshua tree over there?”
Soul made Body turn around to look at the tree that was in their campsite. It was about thirty feet tall and had branches growing in almost every direction.
“Did you know that Joshua trees don’t flower for the first few decades of their lives? They just grow up straight and keep doing so, until one day, they decide to start blossoming. Once that happens, it’s the birth of a new branch. And each branch then grows in whatever ‘crazy’ direction it wants,” Sod said.
“Interesting. I like how each branch is unique and, when it’s ready, takes its own direction. People may call it weird or unsightly, but the branch keeps growing, staying true to its essence,” Soul replied.
“I knew you’d like that aspect. It reminds me of how you’ve chosen to evolve and grow on your own journey.”
Soul wanted to hug Sod, but realized that it was hard to embrace someone who was centered deep within you. And, like Body and Mind, they felt a distinct sense of seeping down into the sand, as if the earth was calling them all in. They spread their arms further out, only to realize that Body and Mind were now lying next to them, on either side.
All three of them could feel Sod’s presence in their being. It was like a stream flowing through, connecting and reuniting them. With every breath that Body took, they inched closer to each other and deeper into the cold sand. Out in the distance somewhere, coyotes howled, their songs echoing across the desert. And soon enough, there was just one coalesced being in the campsite, deeply lost in love and gratitude with the earth and with themselves.
