By Section - By Author - By Subject
Introduction - Desert Oracle - Desert-ED

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In alphabetical order our contributors and their stories are:

Tony Hillerman: "The Fallen Man"
"The Sunset had flared out behind Beautiful Mountain when Chee's Patrol car bounced over Lucy Sam's cattle guard and gained the pavement. In the darkening twilight his headlights did little good and Chee almost missed the unmarked turnoff. That put him on the dirt track that led southward toward Rol Hai Rock, Table Mesa, and the infinity of empty country between these massive old buttes and the Chuska range. "

Pat Little Dog: "Desert Years"
"Sometimes I would just stand outside my cabin and look across all those hills, over to the faraway blue mountains of Mexico and across the great valley of greasewood all the same color of green stretching out for miles. And I would wonder about my life being tied up in this desert. And I would think about death, that is always just a breath away."

Philip K. Hitti: "The Original Arab, The Bedouin"
"In the Fertile Crescent empires have come and gone, but in the barren wastes the Bedouin has remained forever the same. The Bedouin, the camel and the palm rule supreme over the desert. And together with the sand they constitute the four great actors in its drama. "

Philip K. Hitti: "Muhammad, The Prophet of Allah"
"The message of the Arabian Muhammad was a parallel of the message of the Hebrew prophets of the Old Testament. God is one. He is all-powerful. He is the creator of the universe. There is a judgment day. Splendid rewards in Paradise await those who carry out God's commands, and terrible punishment in hell for those who disregard them. Such was the gist of his early message."

William Langewiesche: "The Physics of Blowing Sand"
"They said the sands are fickle. Dunes may drift for decades in one direction, or not drift at all, then suddenly turn and consume you. Consumption by the sand is like other forms of terminal illness: it starts so gently that at first you don't worry. One day the grains begin to accumulate against your walls. You've seen the grains before, and naturally assume that a change in the wind will carry them away."

Peter Mansfield: "Through Western Eyes"
"The truth is that the struggle between Christendom and the World of Islam has never really ended, although it is being fought on different battlefields and with new weapons."

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas: "Kalahari: The Desert"
"I once walked right into an empty werf, as their tiny villages are called, and didn't see the little scherms, or huts, hidden in the grass until I noticed a small skin bag dangling in a shadow, which was a doorway. Then I saw the frame of the scherm around it, then the other scherms as well. The werf was abandoned, all the people had slipped away..."

Geoffrey Moorhouse: "The Fearful Void"
"It was because I was afraid that I had decided to attempt a crossing of the great Sahara desert, from west to east, by myself and by camel. No one had ever made such a journey before, though many men have traversed the desert from north to south... There was only an adventurous challenge in trying to cross the biggest desert on earth between its most distant boundaries. "

John Nichols: "Precious Balance"
"It happens, then. Quite suddenly one morning I jump up, tired of nihilistic visions, rarin' to change. And without further procrastination I dress warmly, gather up my camera equipment, jump into my truck, and head westward from this green Taos valley in which I live, aiming for the deserted mesa land lying just beyond the Rio Grande Gorge, a treeless almost uninhabited territory that seems to hover with the neutral rhythm of millenniums, as constant as the sky above ... and just itching to save my soul. "

John Nichols: "On The Mesa"
"Their existence here, along with that of the clams, the fairy shrimp, and the tadpoles, intrigues me. Even a translucent mosquito larva attached to the water skin seems reason enough to marvel. Seldom do we take our hats off to the small wonders which clutter all natural experience. Certainly the electric company's environmental impact statement makes no mention of these hardy little souls. "

Terry Tempest Williams: "In Cahoots With Coyote"
"Once, after descending into a side canyon to look closely at the striations in the rock that resembled the multicolored petticoats of Spanish dancers, Georgia could contain herself no longer. She howled. Her companions, worried sick that she might have fallen, called to her to inquire about her safety. She was fine. Her response, 'I can't help it -- it's all so beautiful'"

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas: "Kalahari: The Birth"
"When the fluid from a mother's womb falls upon the ground the child's now is determined, and it is partly for this reason that birth is such a mighty thing. "

Wilfred Thesiger: "The Crossing of the Empty Quarter"
"In the desert I had found a freedom unattainable in civilization; a life unhampered by possessions, since everything that was not a necessity was an encumbrance. I had found, too, a comradeship inherent in the circumstances, and the belief that tranquillity was to be found there. I had learnt the satisfaction which comes from hardship and the pleasure which springs from abstinence: the contentment of a full belly; the richness of meat; the taste of clean water; the ecstasy of surrender when the craving for sleep becomes a torment; the warmth of a fire in the chill of dawn."