3 Days dans le desert: Night 6

I'm lucky, I'm unlucky.

It's quite a stroke of luck that whenever I've been meaning to go to the desert it happens during full moon. Maybe it is around the times of full moon, I'm compelled to go to the desert. Maybe it's just a coincidence. Whatever the cause may be, for the last two times (or the first two times) I've seen the desert under full moon. Now some of you may say rightfully "what's wrong with the full moon?” There's nothing wrong with it. It's simply gorgeous. It illuminates the desert at night time in such a way that you feel as though you're walking in an artificially lit soundstage of massive proportions. You can take beautiful pictures without the grain problem. Actually so crisp that they look like they're shot during daytime with the stars in the background. (Though this looks like the stars are FATOSed into a day time picture. Not cool.)

What's wrong is that it shouldn't have happened "twice". The desert being away from the civilization and all provides a clear night sky. This gives you the chance to see the galaxy we're living in, otherwise not visible where even the slightest light pollution reflecting to the sky. This also includes the natural light pollutant: the moon.

But let's, for the benefit of this piece here, say I was lucky.

As the sunsets on the western skies, the moon rises on the east. It's nothing short of a cosmic vaudeville; a man leaves the stage on right, and a woman -perhaps seeking him- enters just the moment he left, barely missing. Then as she leaves, the guy walks back in, usw.

Of course, I'm rightfully assuming that many of you have no idea whatsoever how majestic the entrance of the moon is at the desert (so unlike burlesque entrances the vaudevillian tradition is known for). For couple of reasons: It's a well known optical illusion that these celestial bodies look bigger than they are due to the refraction that occurs at the occult. The amount of space the light has to go through is many times more than the usual when we see the moon on the horizon. This adds a slight amplification to it. Also notably you have a frame of reference in which you can compare the moon with other things of known sizes, so that you realize how bigger it is than it looks when it is up above. Now these are conditions more or less achievable elsewhere in the world. What the desert provides is the visibility and other atmospheric phenomenon.

Since visibility is mostly dependent on the immediate atmospheric conditions on a given location, most of the places we tend to live are comparatively poor than that is experienced in the desert. The driest place in the Northern America pretty much gives you zero humidity for couple hundred miles in every direction. This minimizes the water particle haze that normally impairs visibility (A good example is the Key view vista point in Joshua Tree National Park in which you can even see a mountain in Mexico, which according to the guide is a good hundred miles away. That should give you an idea about the visibility index.)

So put on top of that the desert is practically air pollution free you will be amazed by the results. What you see is what most of the humanity saw in the clear skies for ages. Two eyes in the sky, ever watching, ever seeing. As the moon was rising on the horizon, Jay Jay fired up all of a sudden and started to talk. Most of the shit we have spoken that night are greatly guided and inspired under his influence, so here's the credit for you JJ, be known and revered by multitudes of people.

The whole desert experience and the implied or overt mysticism is not a coincidence. Na-uh. I refuse to believe that the desert people and the invention of monotheism, astrology is coincidental. They're in fact rather consequential. Anyone who spent a night in the desert will stand witness to this I'm sure. Anyone who objects to what I'm saying will stand corrected after a night in the desert. There are a couple of reasons why I believe the desert has such effects on us human beings, and below is my dissertation on that.

First for all, you who may be reading this with a grain of salt as advised by your civic cynicism index; I will not challenge your assumptions. After all, I would only fit so well the definition of a "poseur", if I say and think of a 3 day escapade in the desert would warrant a drastic change in deciding who I am, how I would think, etc. There's nothing more justified than snickering behind such a person's back and smirking to his face. I would do the exact same things for the exact same reasons, so go ahead, smirk and snicker. After all when you smirk, the whole world smirks with you, when you go out to the desert and come back claiming that you're "a changed man", well, you come back changed alone.

So I address you all as a changed man. But of course, please do not forget what Howard Zinn always cautions us about: there's always a rate of proportionality when you consider things.

In order to have a clear understanding of what I'm meaning to tell in the below dissertation you should be noted of the fact that, I was and I am still a card carrying materialist, positivist of Marxist dialectical materialism before and after this said experience. The "changed man" discourse is not one of mystical transformation, but a rather materialist one.

Also for the clarity of thought you should know that I do not regard the nature in that romantic sense which is rampant among outdoorsy types. I do not view the escape from society and civilization is the answer and the remedy to our problems. I have a broader, unifying approach on the matter. The civilization itself is the remedy against the "external nature" which has no understanding, no remorse, no repent, no forgiveness; no nothing that is invented by the human kind, which consequentially and ultimately is a part of the nature itself. So in a way, the nature has all the given properties that we invented, since we are a part of the nature. But the nature that is -external- to human achievement and labors (i.e. animal wildlife, deserts, etc) as seen by the escapist literature and philosophy does not. As Carl Gustav Jung once said: "The nature shall not win, but it also shall not lose."

The cities are the direct end results of the civilization, our homes direct products of the human productivity and safety. These are not to be despised or should be regarded as our private prisons just because they're "unlike" the rest of the observable nature, leading the path to the conviction that they must be -against- the nature. On the contrary, it is in our nature to build these sophisticated nests, for we are sophisticated and our nests can not be any other way. They are complicated because our fears, desires and needs are complicated. They offer luxury, security and comfort because we do seek them, and the fact that we seek them makes them a -natural- component of human species. The proportions of these factors are debatable, but the "naturalness" of them is not. If you do not criticize a bird for denying its nature for "building a nest", you can not criticize a human being for living under the safety of literal and civic roof. We live in nature, we are a part of the nature, and ergo whatever we do is inescapably natural but may be unlike anything any other animal are known to be able, willing, needing to do.

However, Howard Zinn says: "The proportionality is not to be forgotten." You can and should criticize human beings for believing only in the illusion of these nests to the point of forgetting where we are, what we actually do.

While Jay Jay was talking incessantly he pointed out to the horizons around us, I think he asked us: "Look around you, what you see?" At least that must be something like that since we started looking around, as we walk back to the top of the hill, heading to the lonely bench where the lady poet once sat. As we walked like the proverbial strangers in a strange land, all that we have seen was a barren landscape. We saw the stars above us, the moon and the now vanishing twilight on the western horizon. It was no different than walking on another planet drifting aimlessly and meaninglessly in space. So that's what I said "It is as if we're walking on a planet."

That somehow burned a fuse somewhere in my mind. It was true, and we knew it all along: we *were* walking on a planet drifting aimlessly and meaninglessly in space. And of course this was not the first time that we thought about the reasonable deduction. Every now and then everyone speculates about how meaningless our existence is, how we are just a speck in the universe, yada yada. What made this one special was that not only we thought about it this time, we clearly realized the truth behind the deduction. It's nothing to be congratulated. You don't feel particularly "special" by being able to realize such a thing in the given conditions. It's only natural, for Murat and I reached the realization almost simultaneously without having any prior conversations on the subject (I probably reached first though; it is Murat's imperative to lag behind.). Actually when you consider the fact that Murat, too, is a positivist hard core materialist like myself, it is doubly astonishing that we had "a collective mystical moment" (for the lack of a better term.)

Can we isolate this realization from the inherent quality of the desert? After all, sometimes it has more to do with what is offered less. And that's not surprising. The banal and basic etymological approach would hold that the desert, as the name implies, is a state of being forlorn, deserted by a lot of thing including those we can relate our existence to. This feeling of isolation, loneliness combined with the lack of routine mundane stimuli trigger some of the well suppressed thoughts and the basic knowledge we have regarding our existence. Absence of the things that normally entertain our thoughts which form our consciousness, clearly and outspokenly point to the basic ones about our existence. This, in return, provokes mysticism, since there are and will be many ontological things that will remain unanswered.

But the desert, I believe, does not present you the answers. It simply takes the current ones away. Desert is the place where your alibis too desert you. Effectively, the desert just derails your assumptions of who you are, by not necessarily adding any divine input or intervention, but simply being able to show what you already know, but fail to "realize". That, is the tragic dichotomy of human kind.

See, there's no divine moment. None of the acid trip experiences the place is known for: We didn't think we saw god in person, we didn't hear the moon shining on us, we didn't taste the rainbow. Just the desert, being itself: that is keeping the stimuli and its associations to a bare minimum so that we do not continue to think that the sky above us no different than the ceilings of our own device. There's no safety, there's no comfort, there's no civilization. The home is a beautiful lie we want to believe in. The civilization is a wonderful device, we have to internalize. Our lives are only there to sustain and prolong the lie, so that we're not messed and disoriented with the questions we can not possibly answer. The escape from the truth and its consequences is the only way we can evade the questions regarding our existence on this lonely planet.

This somehow reminded me of the best novel (or for that matter book) of all times: The Little Prince.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know how it being enjoyed by those low brows, sentimental school girls and people with three items in their libraries is annoying. I know how often you see it in the info sheet of Yonja people is enough to justify smirks and snickers galore. Still, I think it's not due to something the book lacks that it is popular even among those of the low cognitive fiber. A good book after all should be successful on all levels appealing to human beings. Just because it's successful enough to be appealing even the lowest scum of the earth, doesn't cancel out the other dimensions of the book.

The Little Prince, as you well know is a prince who lives on an asteroid. In which he can watch the sunset multiple times (check), where he looks at the distant stars and wonders (check), where he tends and cares for his rose which makes his existence meaningful (checky the check check).

Of course, the author of the book has to meet him in the desert (this somehow reminds me of Jay Jay), where he is stranded. They form a beautiful relationship, etc etc, and you have to read the book right away if you haven't done so in the last 6 months. But why did this realization reminded me of the Little Prince? Was it because the only other book I read in the last 10 years is Da Vinci Code? No. It is because all this time I have thought the book is only meant to be read and understood only on a metaphorical level. I stand corrected (you have the stand to do anything). The book was also being completely literal.

Think of proportions, but think of the inherent qualities of the thing we're pondering about. Earth is no different than an asteroid. It's only the proportions that make us think it is something different than an astral body in the void. Yet, the proportions add nothing to its final quality. It is what it is, and it is a bigger asteroid (or the other way around).

The sky above us is not a firmament like we are forced to believe. It is there for the very same reason why we are here. The same force of gravity holds down this layer of gas around us. Think of it like this: You're walking in a jungle, would you think just because the jungle covers the space above you, it is separate from the plane of being that you live on? Just because this thin layer of gas adds a tint to the space around you doesn't change what it is. It's a fucking sun block. It's a UV filter. It's the colored glass you look through. It surely is not a ceiling and it surely doesn't change or challenge the fact that it's tiny layer of gas, who coexists with you.

Moreover, just because there's no frame of reference to perceive motion and everything seems relative to us, we do not become static. The earth revolves on its axis, which revolves around the sun, which revolves around the galaxy, which revolves around the universe, which revolves ad nauseam. So even as you sit here, read these under the ceiling of the thing you have to believe in, just like the little prince has to believe in his rose, you're moving in the space in many directions at the same time. It's a cosmic roller coaster ride, but just like the jaded people I've seen in the six flags last summer, snoring during what seemed to be the longest fall of my life, we do not notice. We are somehow bored by this constant trip (and I have to add it is just like the Turkish series "Bizimkiler" which goes on and on, a lot of things change, but then nothing really changes.)

We don't believe in the motion that is outside of ourselves. Since there is no destination, since it seems as though we're running in circles (ellipses to be more precise on heliocentric point of reference) we think of our movements within the ride itself are more valid. Howard Zinn who inexplicably joins this piece warns us about our apolitical "policy" by saying "you can not remain neutral on a moving train." If we alter it for the purposes of this discourse we can say: "You shall not remain neutral on a moving train, you shall move to get a better view of where you are, how fast you move."

Somewhere during our discussion about our movement within the space we realized how it is impossible to map our movement due to the lack of reference points. In order to quantify any movement you have to have a reference point in which you set your measurements regarding, speed, vector, time etc. We don't have any of those. We're moving, but then again, in relation to what? We know that we live on the outer rim of the milky way spiral galaxy, but that doesn't comfort us. Where's the milky way galaxy in relation to the rest of the universe which lacks a center? So ultimately were not even traveling at a mind boggling speed, but we are also lost.

"Maybe" we speculated, "just maybe everything moves so that at the end all the movement offsets itself, and nothing really moves. Maybe everything is still." That thought disturbed us more than the ever moving "roller coaster ride theory". Xenon shouldn't be right, or else how could we possibly change?

These were some of the obligatory "deep thoughts" we stumbled upon our journey in time and space while we ambled through the thin layer of crust of our little asteroid we call the earth. It surely felt special, but not in a qualitative connotation. It didn't feel good, it didn't feel bad, it wasn't desirable, and it wasn't repulsive. It was what it was and it gave us a different perspective. We are changed, not dramatically, not like the new age gurus who sell their Ferraris and grow 20 years younger than they are. None of that bullshit, no. It changed us just a little, but considering how little we may ever change, it was big. That's relativity for you.

And of all these things that I wasn't able to see before. I thought about the Little Prince once again. What he meant by:

"Voici mon secret. Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux."
(And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.)

I always thought about these lines as somewhat regressive and sentimentalist. Whenever I feel regressive and sentimental I agreed a great deal, but at other times I refused that such a thing as "heart" does exist. Heart is blood pumping organ. Everything goes on in the brain. But then who really can say that the Little Prince meant "the heart", the cardiovascular organ itself? Heart is the essence of the knowledge and thoughts we glean upon the earth during our stay. The eyes see things as they are, the brain inadvertently calculates and compiles the knowledge in relationship to the others, creating thoughts. But what is the essence of thoughts? How do they relate to who we are? What good is the clarity of "thought" if it means nothing else other than something unto its own? What good is thinking for its own sake? What good is understanding without realizing? What is the point of "knowing" unless it changes who we are?

Maybe it is because I only trusted my eyes and my intellect, I didn't grasp the essence of things that I knew. I failed to see the truth behind what I already knew. I crunched the numbers and data, I've compiled the thoughts and knowledge but didn't know what to do with them. Rumi says "The knowledge without love is a burden to heart." Love or heart, essence or realization, I have carried the burden of truth for far too long without letting it reflect on my existence. What was essential was invisible to my eyes and my thoughts. I only realized when it was this late in my life.

Finally, Jay Jay was tired of speaking and inspiring us to reconsider who we are. He remained silent, but present so that we can reflect on what we heard and seen. We chose to reflect on these over a bottle of wine and a smoke from the hookah we brought just for this purpose. Hence the idea of taking a picture while the moon was high and the desert was completely illuminated.

Murat sat and posed for this one (obviously the hookah is empty). But later we drank and smoked, reflecting as much as the moon on who we are, based on what we have received.

The above picture is a simple reminder of that.