Nothing is as bright as Love

Sunset at the Agafay Desert in Marrakech, Morocco

I’m here to practice. It’s all a practice — it’s all Love.

As much as I value my solitude (and I really value my solitude), life always offers beautiful reminders that we are interconnected beings. We’re interconnected with the Earth, with animals, creatures seen and unseen. We’re interconnected by language, and most of all, as human beings, we are connected to other human beings. My happiness is connected to the happiness of others; my sourness to the sourness of others. We’re all one.

There’s nothing like being out in the desert where all the landscapes merge into one to remember that we are all one landscape as one shared human creature. Each individual has its own peaks and valleys, its own dips and trails, its own natural foliage, its own fauna, but at the end of the day, we are all one landscape. We are all one land mass — we are all one Earth.

My trip to the Agafay Desert in Marrakech one evening reminded me of that.

I booked the trip the same day, feeling spontaneous and desiring to step away from the bustling medina my accommodation was situated in. A trip to the desert was a perfect escape into stillness and peace. I joined two other female solo travelers, Chelsea from Angola and Amanda from Brazil. A few moments later, we were joined by Crystal and her companions, from France and Italy. The conversations moving through the van were English, Portuguese, French, and a bit of Arabic. It felt like home to me, swimming in the sea of the song that is language. Since childhood where I was often in Igbo-speaking environments understanding and speaking very little, I learned to discern the relative truth of a situation based on the non-word language spoken — the tone of voice, facial expressions, tensness or relaxedness in the body or pitch, the intention behind the words, the cadence of communication. I learned to listen to the music of conversation and watch the dance of connection. I guess I learned how to allow meaning to show itself to me irrespective of which language was being spoken.

It was the same case on this trip to the Agafay Desert. I ultimately appreciated the ease of communication and connection I had with the others on the trip: Chelsea, Amanda, Crystal and her companions. When we arrived to the barren land, empty and waiting for us it seemed, the sun was sinking her daily slinky something down behind the earth, only to eventually make an appearance as the moon moments later. I felt the connection with the setting sun and the moon. We rode camels (I don’t recommend, and I won’t be doing it again — the camels gain nothing from that.), and I felt the connection with those working at the camp, offering us tea and small cookies — which if you ask me they were just chin chin — and helping us tie our scarves and making small jokes. Fellow African camaraderie.

Maybe it was the sadness from the camels I felt, or the general overwhelm that can surface from being around so many different energies: people, personalities, animals, languages. Maybe I was tired of connecting with everyone and everything, so after riding the camels and just before dinner, I took some time apart to be in one corner of the camp. Observing the way that the curves of the earth would connect with each other, I formed a deeper connection with myself. In this deeper connection, I could feel some part of me fighting. She was rising in defensiveness to try and keep myself in solitude and away from the connection with others. Perhaps influenced by the vastness of rolling land before me, the larger part of me remarked in the way that the inner self remarks to the conscious mind, “you’re fighting yourself, because you are already interconnected with other beings. It’s not even worth fighting. It’s not even worth questioning.”

I listened to my inner wisdom and said a prayer, knowing that the last of the sun’s rays would hold my etheric words and alchemize my tenderness into strength when the sun would show herself again.

Every day is a practice. A practice of connection.

After dinner, we all came together for a magical dance around the fire, which I loved because we were all involved. Everyone was in it — no one was left out, no one sat back and watched. We were singing, we were dancing, people were ululating. Through the music and the invitation of the instruments, warmed by the fire, we were together. Led by Mohammed and his youthful exuberance, we released, connected with the fire, observed the fire. Truly, we were honoring the element of fire and honoring the earth. Stomping into the earth, shaking the earth, feeling the vibration of the earth move through our earthly bodies, allowing our spirits to move through our arms and legs.

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Journey with me for a moment…

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It was magical, mystical, and a chance for Divine surrender. Divine forgiveness.

I considered the ritual around the fire a forgiveness of the part of myself that rose in defensiveness against being connected to people. And through the shaking, dancing, holding of the hands of other humans as we contracted into the flames and expanded into the dark symphony of night, I realized that fear (defensiveness, misunderstanding, woundedness) will always be an indication of where Love desires to shine itself even more broadly, like the rays of the setting sun, like the rays of the rising moon.

This Love shining as the moon in the darkness, my tenderness alchemized into strength, says, “you may think fear is everywhere but really, nothing is as bright as Love.”

Nothing is as bright as Love.

And so it is.

Gratitude.