WHERE I COME FROM
I am alone in the sleeplessness and agitation of the darkness of the Montana night. The girls are asleep in their beds seemingly, unaffected by the changes of the last twenty-four hours. The silence of the house penetrates my whole self. I have left you so far behind. Our visit was way too short this time. When will I be able to get back? My heart aches with missing you and my body feels broken to pieces. I am yearning to know you so much better. Please, let me in. Who do you hold near? Am I of your people? Who are you and who am I?
Is my anguish merely jet lag? A ten-hour time change always leads to sleepless nights, right? The body aches must just be from exhaustion. The tightness in my heart flagging the imminent onslaught of our western stresses? I left your red sand and poetic sandstone walls only yesterday. The blue-green domed mosques and stripes of your country’s flags now only images in my memory.
I want to go back and be there with you again. I want to know more of the home of the ancient peoples and the wandering of Moses and Aaron in your vastness. Talk to me desert; sing the verses of your Koran to me once again. Let the whispers of ancients wash over my being.
I sneak from my bed in the dark of this night to the crowded bookshelves holding my collection of books on Judaism and the Middle East. I need to feel you alive and be with you once again. A small desk lamp illuminates the Hebrew bible and I take it from the shelf. Cross-legged on the floor, I crouch over the weighty tome. I sense its weight in my lap both physically and metaphysically. I begin to read. Genesis. The words are familiar, “B’raysheet.” Once upon a time, I learned this first paragraph in ancient Hebrew. The guttural, sing-song of the ancient language floods my ears. From chaos, Adonai separated the light from the dark. I read on; the first people, the story of Cain and Abel and lists and lists of descendants. Here are the stories of the ancient peoples, the Moabites, the Hittites, the Israelites. Abraham, the forefather of the Jews, and his sons Isaac and Ismail. Ismail was the son of Hagar, Abraham’s slave. After the birth of Isaac, Sarah, Abraham’s wife, becomes jealous of Hagar and asks Abraham to cast Hagar out. God advises Abraham , “Do whatever Sarah says for Isaac is the one through whom your name will be carried on. But the slave-girl’s son I shall also make into a great nation, for he too is your child.” I am awash in amazement. Isaac and Ismail are part of me.
I read from the Koran. The Koran, I know from my studies, is the compilation of the revelations of God to Mohammed. “All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds,” it begins. The Koran tells me it is not the creation of a new religion but the message of the One God. The One God of Abraham, Moses, Solomon and Jesus. I look to my shelves for my books on Islam. I read, “Mohammed learned from the Jews of the smaller clans in Mecca that in the book of Genesis, Abraham had two sons: Isaac and Ismail and that Ismail became the father of a great nation, the Arabs. Mohammed declared with joy that the Arabs had not been left out of God’s plan.” My mind and heart are swallowed up by the meaning of these words. I feel sucked into a whirlwind — the Arab nation descends from Ismail who is a son of Abraham who is a forefather of the Jews and those who followed Mohammed’s teaching are Muslims, and the Arab-Muslims are descendents of Abraham, and all Jews and Arabs are descendents of the ancient desert peoples and all revere the ancient prophets of the Hebrew bible!? Is this what I am to understand? To really understand?
In this night I am beginning to absorb the meaning of you, and me. I push the books away, turn off the lamp and lay back onto the floor. I am smothered by the dark as I lay heavy and let myself sink into the ground beneath me. Breathe in the silence. Inhale, exhale. Breathe in the silence. Inhale, exhale. The absolute stillness of you holds me. I am with you. I listen to the horses as they clip-clop, racing from behind me on the five-thousand-year-old stones leading to the center of Petra. I smell the mustiness of camels donning their woven, jewel-laden saddles, curling their grotesque lips. Your red dust burns my eyes and nose and I am forced to squint and turn away. I sink further into the warm, inviting, red sand beneath me and see the pitch-black sky surrounding me. And for long, drawn out moments, I am losing myself — losing my life. I am being set free into your world!
I dissolve into the sand, becoming tiny particles lifted into the spinning vortex that is you and the dark and the heavens coming together. I belong to this energetic force field, moving with the Universe; no past, no future. A peacefulness floods my whole being. I am true peace, pure unity, the awesome oneness. I am filled with pure light. This is something greater than my own life, greater than the life of humankind, greater than life itself.
THIS IS GOD! THIS IS IT! This is the oneness that I have been talking about, yearning to experience and feel. The oneness that I have struggled to understand and accept into my soul. This is the energetic epicenter of ALL LIFE.
You speak to me; God speaks to me. YOU give me my story. You say to me, “You are a daughter of Abraham.” The words are effervescent, energetic particles surrounding and squeezing my heart. You speak silently to the soul within me, “You are a desert woman.”
“I know,” I hear my inner voice whisper.
“You are tall and you move with your heart bared and open. You possess strength, pride and knowledge.”
“I do,” I respond silently, strength emanating from my heart-center.
“You died here in the desert. The wolf nourished itself upon your heart. You now will forever know your relationship with me, the desert, and your Allah, and your Adonai.” I am reeling from the power and meaning of this revelation. I am enveloped in true peace, unity and awesome oneness.
Hours pass as I lay asleep in the sand.
The sand begins to morph into the soft wool carpet beneath me. I slowly awake and emerge from your world. I am groggy and slow as I return to bed, careful not to disturb the aura of your grace.
The diffused light of the late Montana sunrise awakens me. I hear the rumble of heavy winds against the side of the house. My daughter, Anna, jumps into my bed, “Moma, get up, look outside, the snow looks just like the sand, like Petra!”.
Until tonight, dear desert.
