In the Desert You can't Remember Your Name

Living in the desert for months changes a person. My peers might remember the song, “Horse with no name,” by Dewey Bunnell?

“I’ve been through the desert

On a horse with no name

It felt good to be out of the rain

In the desert you can’t remember your name

‘Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain”

Identity falls away when there is no one trying to label you. I could describe ourselves as nomads but I no longer feel the need for modern day attachment to labels by job, economic class, or any other myriad of sub distinctions that culture attempts to place on me.

I have become (for today) she who lives in the desert with the “plants and birds and rocks and things.” (Always wondered what the things were meant to be.)

It’s refreshing to just be, not to be judged or confined by expectations. I am free to be different every day. Today I am a rock hunter, searching for fire agates on the ancient slopes of old volcanos. Yesterday I was water hunter, filling water jugs and taking a weekly shower. Tomorrow I may talk to friends and research our next location. 

As I simplify life to what is necessary (shower is top of the list!), I return again and again to identity and ego. Who am I if I am not my career? If I am not a political affiliation? If I am just living in the desert with a trailer of no name? 

When I see our country work so hard to define a group of people, an ideology, or belief, we can see how this creates division. 

I am made different than you. 

Those with power are attempting to put us at odds. To make us right and wrong, good and bad, us and them. 

Listen closely to the language. Is there guilt or shame? Is there judgement or condemnation? Is there emotional manipulation to have a certain opinion?

Do we really want to engage with one another from this perspective?

I’ve learned that as I drop my ego attachments to being what is expected of me (career, class, where I live, sexual orientation, political affiliation) that I am whatever I choose to be at any moment. I am not constrained by division. I don’t have to box myself into a category of opinion, or belief. I can choose every day to be something different, or I can choose to be undefined. 

I hope we learn to approach one another with appreciation and compassion first and foremost, allowing each other the space to be whoever we choose at the moment. I believe in the basic human goodness of people (not those in power), if we were to label anything, maybe it could be, “Are you kind?” 

“How much do you hold love and peace?”

Then every other label is put into proper perspective. Because first we stand in our hearts toward one another, connecting in our common humanity. But this would require lack of judgement and lack of defensiveness. 

We get to choose how we want this journey to unfold. We have the power to decide what is important and how to relate to one another. What world are we going to create?