The Walk About Love
Under the Mediterranean sun with a tribe of bohemian walkers
from all over the world, I crossed the desert of Israel on an annual
pilgrimage that celebrates human unity in a land of endless conflict.
I've lost track of days, objectives, and unnecessary material desires.
Mornings begin when the dawn pierces through my sleeping bag with its blazing heat. Breakfast is a circle of song and dance motivated by our love-drunk hippies' mission to spread peace and love in these war-torn lands. Armed with nothing but musical instruments and hugs (which we employ with equal force), we simply walk to spread a message of hope and unity. Amidst a stark landscape of visual artistry, embraced by shifting sands and a thick carpet of stars overhead, the desert of Israel became my home for six weeks, and this tribe, my family.
The ‘Walk About Love’ is a yearly event that essentially follows the Israeli National trail from Eilat in the south all the way to Mount Hermon in the north of the country. This bohemian pilgrimage spans 100 days and sees people join from all over the world. I had heard about it while travelling in India, though I had no idea how much it would transform me.
The unending emptiness of the desert acted as the perfect mirror to deeply reflect upon. In its vastness, there was no noise to drown my inner voice out, no distractions to keep me from turning inward and nowhere to escape when I faced the parts of myself that I would’ve instead hidden from. At first, it was challenging not to shower but once a week, especially when I was actually caked in sand and sweat. But with time, the feeling of being ‘dirty’ began to feel like being a part of the landscape.
Living in the open amongst all the elements was daunting. The lack of walls is especially confronting, without even a bush to huddle close to for comfort. It is like swimming in the middle of the giant ocean with no horizon in sight. The desert is life or death. Conditions are so extreme that any ray of sunlight can be enough sustenance for a small plant to struggle its way to blossom. Similarly, walking through this landscape far from the modern world felt like that same beam of light unfolding the potential within me.
It is no wonder some of humanity’s greatest prophets received their revelations while wandering the desert.
Some dormant part of myself came alive in these weeks. My soul drank nutrients from storytelling at the nighttime campfires, sharing hardships with this community, and space my soul was afforded to search. Surrendered between the Earth and Sky’s enormity reminded me that I was a child of a great Mother. Her wisdom exceeds all that Man has accomplished in his feverish attempt to control, dissect and analyze all aspects of her intelligence. The moon and stars had hung in the sky like lanterns long before Moses wandered the desert, or Jesus walked on water. Her tides had thunderously inhaled and exhaled millennia before Einstein discovered relativity, or Socrates taught Plato. While Shakespeare composed his great romantic tragedy, our Cosmos danced like lovers in a continual meeting and parting.
Upon arriving back in civilization, I immediately felt walls. There were real walls like the ‘Wailing Wall’ in Jerusalem, the claustrophobic walls of my bedroom, but more palpable were the walls in people’s hearts. As we danced our way into the city, bringing with us the unfettered wilderness of the great outdoors, I felt like an alien descended on another planet. How long would it be until I too conformed to the standards of society by dulling my thunderous inner voice?
My only hope was that the sand and the sweet smell of campfire clung to my skin long enough to shield me from the perilous clutches of the convention, so that I may continue tending to my inner desert now in full bloom.
