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Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the number of moments that take our breath away.

And so I leave Tiree for six weeks in the desert of the Sahara.

'In time's desert I feel your presence.
In the rock's silence I hear your footstep.
Emotion overcomes me.
Then, like a sudden downpour
Fear of death startles me'. (`Abd Al-Sabour 1992,

8 months of the year I currently spend in the Libyan Sahara, it is a place of meditation...the silence, the space...is totally humbling. The previous poem frankly sums up what we all finally face, life for us all is finite.
Enjoy it while you can. Carpe Diem...

"For Arab poets, the desert in its presence or absence is power, but this power takes different forms. . . .In all cases, the desert is a context, whether a life threat or a life, and it has a voice."

Sahara means desert in Arabic, an arid space, desolate and waste-also with the sense of being open and unprotected, borderless (jarda). Such a contrast to my island home ?

While passing through the busy terminal 1 at Heathrow I was hit with the simple thought that ,I felt a fear, the fear of humanity. While in my home environment, sailing or wandering through my vast desert home, I am outwith the tidal wave of discontent that is pushing humanity at ever increasing speed towards the abyss.

And an 11 year old boy is murdered while playing football & we (the people I work with and I) find another 10 bodies in the sand near to the Sudan border, one wearing a manchester united shirt. And the world is so small, too small for this sadness. And yet the PC attitude of the 'have's' is still imposed on the 'have nots'.

yes the 'Fear of death startles me'...yet the anger that can take an innocent life scares me nearly as much as the PC attitude that these actions should go unpunished...or that a life sentence for murder can mean 12 years?
.
Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth...life for a life...

"The sunsets of the western Isles are in my humble opinion amongst the most beautiful on the planet" and I base this comment on traveling the globe for the last 20 or so years. Whether in the height of our long summers or in the stormy dark depth of winter, who cannot resist the quick run down to a beach to watch the last few minutes of the days passing or the sweaty run to the top of the knoll.
Maybe the day has been a hard one emotionally or a tiring one physically...but those last few moments of the day always lift my spirits.

The sunrise in the desert in comparison is awesome...and I have yet to see it's like in any other place...yet where the sunrise at home promises hope for the next day, the desert sunrise (in all but the few mid winter weeks) marks the begining of another baking day. In someways the sunrise in the desert is threatening.



It was 47c here in the Sahara yesterday, the heat is all consuming in this vast wilderness, I long for a Tiree sunset...



Oh sunny days !!!