On a recent trip to Morocco, we signed up for a multi-day excursion to the western Sahara Desert. Aside from dunes and camels, we hoped to see an actual oasis in the desert. We did not. However, since there are only an estimated 90 true year-round oases in this vast expanse, the chances were slim, anyway.
The lack of oases did not mean there was a lack of watering holes, almost all of them man-made and a few in the late stages of drying up for the season. There were, on the fringes of the desert, many riverbeds, mostly dry. These were managed waterways, with the source of the water upstream tightly controlled, available for purchase for watering the gardens in the riverbed soils.
On two occasions, we watched women washing clothes in nearly dry pools and puddles along a creek wending its way out of the Atlas Mountains.
The water, both for the gardens and the washing of clothes, clearly was incredibly valuable. My understanding of the desert oases in northern Africa is that they are even more priceless.
Kasbah-Ait-Benhaddou is a fortified town sitting on a river wash in central Morocco. This location, now famous as the location of filming for Gladiator, Indiana Jones, Game of Thrones, and Lawrence of Arabia, has huge historical significance. It is a UN World Heritage Site. It sits on the edge of a valley among the Atlas Mountains, once serving as a critical trading site. People travelled the valley because it offered potential for water and streams from the nearby mountains.
Oases, even today, are invaluable. In our modern world, though, the term “oasis” has taken on a new meaning, and more significance. They are locations, either physical or emotional, where we rejuvenate and revitalize our spirit. In a very hectic, even confrontational world, a retreat such as is offered by our own oasis means we can relax and prepare to deal with the stresses and complications of the outside world with renewed energy.
The Value of an Oasis
In historical times, missing an oasis meant sure death in the desert.
In modern times, the emotional toll of missing out on your oasis may not involve death but depletes us physically and emotionally.
In ancient times, sheiks aggressively protected their claim to specific watering holes, charging a levy to use the water or refusing entry to the site. Many nomads met their deaths attempting, in desperation, to pierce the barrier to gain access to the water supply.
In modern times, our lives are as aggressively dominated by employers, big business, and government. The stress of living in this competitive, hostile environment requires that we take a break, periodically, from the rat race. Sometimes, we turn to short vacations. Other times we turn inward to mindless media entertainment, or to our social networks of friends and family. Sadly, hundreds of thousands turn to alcohol and drugs. In our attempt to find our own oases, many of us, like the travellers of olden times, die in our efforts.
Having a safe oasis is an essential for every one of us.
However, we seldom know where to find those green havens in a barren world. Instead, we rely on others’ definition of what an oasis looks like and where to find it.
Be Sure It Is Your Oasis
My wife and I love to travel. While we practice simple living and own very little, travel is the expenditure on which we focus. We sold our house, own only one vehicle, rarely dine out, spend almost nothing on new clothes and live frugally in many everyday areas. Some view us as minimalists, while others feel sorry for us because of our meagre possessions. Yet, we are not poor. Indeed, we are richer than most.
That is because we know where our personal oases can be found. My wife likes to socialize. I like to research, enrich my life by learning about the world, and love trekking in the wilderness. Two different oases, but travel is our shared oasis.
Close friends of ours loathe travelling. They love fine food. That is their main oasis.
Another couple has discovered that their hobbies provide them with their green retreat.
Several friends are very active in their dance club. While we join them occasionally, they are passionate about dancing. Our other two sets of friends dislike dancing.
The list of unique passions goes on. Each of our closest acquaintances has found his or her oasis that allows them to refresh mentally and even physically.
The important part of these individual definitions of an oasis is that no one else defines, for them, what their passions will be.
On the other hand, we also know people who must “keep up with the Joneses, in order to search for their oasis. Biggest TV, most advanced electronics, fanciest car, most lavish vacations, brand-name clothes and fine furniture, and so on. Yet, they are not content.
Why? They have allowed others to dictate what they should like or strive for. They are trying to fight their way into someone else’s oasis.
The Trek to Your Oasis
Finding your own oasis is not as simple as merely saying, “I like this and I am going to get it.”
We may delude ourselves into thinking that something is our passion when we know little sbout it. Our interests change over time. Although we should not let the outside world dictate our passions, our closest family certainly is an essential part of our decision-making.
What we love when we are thirty is not the same as what we will love at 45. What we are passionate sbout at 45 is different from what is most significant at 65, and so on.
We may also have two or more passions, or oases, as I do, and my wife does. Finding how significant each may be involves a journey of exploration.
Regardless, we need passion and enthusiasm in our lives. One couple in our circle of friends no longer has that passion. Deaths of close family, the mental anguish of Covid-19, health issues, and retirement seems to have drained their energy. We are seeing their rapid decline every day. They now usually decline to even socialize. Rather than having an oasis in which they can relax, they have created a prison for themselves.
Even if you have not found experiences about which you can be passionate or have found ones in which you want to immerse yourself, you do not need to stop seeking.
When you are confident that you have a safe oasis to which you can escape, you will find the energy to explore other opportunities and events along that journey. Th world no longer is limited to either desert or oasis.
Your trek to your oasis might, and, indeed, should, involve embracing the potential for new experiences and interests. At the very least, it will give you insight into other possibilities and a greater understanding of the world around you. It is a little like the nomads of the 1800s and earlier, meeting up at their safe watering hole, and swapping stories about the things they encountered along their own trek.
A Brief Resting Spot
There are two possibilities when you believe you have found your oasis: it will be your permanent place of refuge, or it will be a momentary respite from your travel through life. In either situation, finding your oasis is an accomplishment that many people fail to achieve.
When we stop enjoying our experiences, we no longer are in our oasis. Oases are not meant to be permanent locations but stops along the journey. That does not prevent us from lingering for a while.
Some of retreat to our homes, as if the structure itself will conceal us, comfort and console us. That turns our oasis into a prison, or a fortress from which we dare not venture. Our homes are not meant to be hideouts. They are our origin, but not our destination. They are one of our physical oases but should not be our psychological oasis.
I have been a nomad for most of my life. Being too nomadic causes my wife stress. We compromised, and I now have a permanent origin, while she has a physical oasis.
We likely will move again within a few years, as our needs and tastes evolve.
For several years, our travel oasis involved numerous cruises. Recently, following Covid, we decided we wanted to explore, before the next world crisis unfolds, so we are travelling to different locales. Likely, we will be focused on Latin America again in a few years. Our physical oases vary. Our mental ones, at the moment, are fairly constant. As we age, the lure of travel may decrease. Then we will explore other oases.
Many oases are brief resting stops, and then we continue our journey.
A Final Oasis Destination
Although, most often, our current oasis is not our final one, that does not diminish the significance of it. While we are in our oases, we should embrace it as if it is our final goal. To spend valuable moments of pleasure worrying about our next stop detracts from the pleasure of the moment.
This is one of the two keys to finding your oasis.
When the nomads of the past gathered at a major oasis, they did not fret about the sandstorms they would face the next day, or the day after day of drudgery in hostile conditions. They revelled in the moment. They embraced life at the oasis, knowing that they would have to move on eventually, and accepting that reality. But they lived in the moment.
Key one: Embrace the moment but recognize the future.
While they relaxed at the green watering hole, they may have absorbed the beauty of the location, but that was secondary to soaking up the pleasure of being in the company of relatives and friends who had been absent from their lives for many months. They feasted and they celebrated before moving on.
That is Key Two. Oases are never places. They are the experiences associated with and around those places. Life is not about places or possessions. It is about living and experiencing.
Our focus should not be on a place, or a thing.
Perhaps you recently bought a fine car. Or maybe you spent money on a huge new television. Soon, both will be worn out, and newer, bigger, better ones on the market. Those things do not bring the lasting pleasure.
Experiences remain with us.
Your final oasis is not a thing or a place. It is the ultimate experience that you find most fulfilling. And, likely, that final oasis, too, will lead into another final, and better one, and so on.