The Mystics

On a long journey in the golden desert the dark, veiled night sky keeps us safe in its motherly vastness its luminous full eye keeps watch on the melancholies that lay ahead of us the taken spirits that once belonged to this earth, that ascended to their post-death destinations, keep us company in these long lost hours of solitude.

We reach the isolated desert that, apart from its vastness, doesn’t seem so empty it seems fuller than any other place I have lived in it is fuller than the crazy city fuller than the mad crowds of people in the streets confused, not knowing where they are not understanding why they are here.

The desert gives me a strange feeling of familiarity it is a feeling of belonging. Only here in the middle of nowhere do I feel furthest from being lost Only here do I feel no void Only here in this wilderness do I feel the safest and most secure Only in this purity of the unknown do I gain great knowledge.

I sit with those tribes of nomads that I’m meeting for the first time and I feel as if I’m sitting with my family. Round in a circle we sit drinking mystic coffee of the deep south cardamon seeds that burn with goodness in me a magic potion that is taken orally and heals spiritually their smiles put me at ease in the same manner. I pass a Beshary man, he smiles and greets me gleefully. I pass a 'Ababda boy, he too smiles, greets and offers me more of his magic potion.

Their music is another story on its own. A sword that dances like a snake in the Sheikh’s hand A shield that pushes the air and blocks the sun's rays as if arguing with its god. His feet stomp the ground as if waking the sleeping oases that hide underneath, shaking our chests with one thump after the another. His head and chin point to the sky as if raising a challenge with the invisible suddenly, he throws everything from his hands as if getting rid of a curse as if someone has caught him in the middle of a secret ritual. Someone else picks it up after the others fail to precede him in triumph, the next dancer takes the sword that still wiggles numinously

and starts another stomping round for the earth, the people and the sky.

I then went to another tribal circle The Ababda. I grabbed my round drum that is painted by the blue ink of the salty waters. One of the slim men turned his eyes to me and called me with a welcoming gesture. I joined in and my body moved automatically, rhythmically to their voices and the swaying of their bodies. They moved like camels in their places in sync with each other. Their throats and tongues turned into instruments the claps of their hands held the beat chanting their rhythm as if gulping for a taste of the air around their knees bend and they move. Their backs twist and their necks swim on their shoulders. The mantra ends with an Om.

It is the universal medicine of every tribe of every people and every religion. I was one with people I have never met. I was one with people who seemed to know me without having to know my ways. I respected their way and so they accepted me.

A member of the Ababda and Beshareya tribes of the South-eastern Egyptian desert. Marsa 'Alam, Egypt.