Monday: Our Relationship to the Desert

The image of the desert that predominates among us city-dwellers is bare sand dunes that drift as the wind blows. Actually, more than 90 percent of the world's deserts are hard and rocky, including the Negev, but Muki took us to a place where perception met reality. While we were there we took a few minutes to basque on top of the sand and then Muki asked each of us to isolate ourselves from the group for about 10 minutes to appreciate how desert adds to the sense of solitude. Vicky called the sand dunes "amazing" because they brought us to a different state of consciousness and because we could "hear" the silence of the desert.