Last night I took a night ride on the interstate between California and Nevada. Usually on these type of rides, I blast music but last night I chose silence for my midnight venture. I put the driver’s window down, letting the night winter air pierce my face. All around there was nothing but endless stretches of sand and sky. It’s as if the sky and the land embraced to become a horizonless black ocean.

Away from civilization, the barren desert sings its midnight melodies. Is it really impoverished when the stars are bright, the moon is full, and you hear ghostly whispers of life? Its poverty requires a subtle ear, you will hear things that you otherwise wouldn’t hear elsewhere; these are sounds that rattle the gut, sounds that resonate in the pit of your stomach. It’s a feeling that’s hard to explain and maybe it should be left unexplained.
Is this the Valley of Poverty and Nothingness that the Baha’i wrote about?

“This is the plane whereon the vestiges of all things (Kullu Shay’) are destroyed in the traveler, and on the horizon of eternity the Divine Face riseth out of the darkness, and the meaning of “All on the earth shall pass away, but the face of thy Lord….” [Qur’án 55:26, 27] is made manifest.” (The Seven Valleys and the Four Valleys).

I drove to nowhere except onto the path that led me to that feeling that one only experiences when totally alone. But I wasn’t truly alone. On that long stretch of road, the landscape was beatific in all its unforgiving austerity. The night was bitterly cold and dark with no shelter in sight. All life passed away and in its place was the fecund silence. It was right before dawn when I reached civilization. In the purplish fugue of the early morning, I saw the sun peak over the horizon. Come daytime, the sun beats its overbearing rays; its hot light revitalizes the land and I’ll be long gone when that happens.