Rec | THE DESERT AS A SPIRITUAL PLANE

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I think the desert is a bit haunted and I don’t believe in literal ghosts but there is something about the psychological effects of being in an environment that is actively trying to kill you that may as well equate to haunting on a very old level in your body, also all the animals with their strange water-storage adaptations look like little sprites. I was once circled by vultures 3 miles into the desert in 104° temperatures, behind a ridge so I couldn’t see civilization, felt like I was walking alongside Death

@eatgraeps

Feb 19, 2025

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@nanabo

This reminds me of Jorge Luis Borges's short story The two kings and the two labyrinths, where he explores the concept of a labyrinth. Where the danger lies? Is it in a labyrinth made of walls and galleries, defined by ins and outs, as you get deeper abd deeper inside, or the empty space of a desert where the are no ins and outs and the definitions of space infinitely get more and more blurry. https://www.medina502.com/classes/ml260_2017/readings/Borges-The-Two-Kings-and-the-Two-Labyrinths.pdf It's just two paragraphs short, but gets your mind active thinking about the desert

Feb 19, 2025

@eatgraeps

nanabo Wow that is raw as fuck. Glory to him who does not die. Today I feel like the unending desert and the labyrinth can both be allegories for the prisons we find ourselves in unintentionally- we may not even be aware there’s a way out as we run through the passages trying to survive- familial, structural, circumstantial. Thinking of Icarus and the Minotaur and how they both found themselves in the labyrinth through unlucky birth. I love how the Arabian king was able to find his way out by calling on his god. Thank you very much for sharing this passage

Feb 19, 2025

@nanabo

eatgraeps when you talk about these structural prisons, it's one of the reasons I like the allegory of the desert as a labyrith that it's bot defined by physical limitations, but by the lack of it and no visiable structures. Most of our personal prisons permeate our lives in ways we cannot tuly delimitate if we have left them or not. While, in the traditional labyrith we keep entering in its inside, there is no inside in de sert, kinda like a loss of reference or introspection, truly a sense of loss. It's interesting to think what a way out would loook like when there is no out... maybe a comfort in the process of investigation... maybe finding the little nuances that we may not notice at first sight. But I'm really glad you enjoyed the passage, it's crazy how he writes, makes me a little insane hihi

Feb 19, 2025

@eatgraeps

nanabo I could not have described it better. Desert or labyrinth, the idea that we are operating within structures we can’t really understand without getting above. Yurrrr

Feb 19, 2025

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