Our deepest knowledge of most places in which we have lived and loved a landscape or the edge of a seascape may well come to us in waves. Yet, what if our recognition of desert nature comes to us in dowsing splashes, hot flashes, or sharp-edged gashes?
Perhaps our recognition of what a desert is or can be does not simply come to us through some rational process of steadily accumulating knowledge over time. Instead, perhaps we learn what is memorable about deserts through a more imaginative process, one that comes in fits and starts, by solving riddles and reflecting on paradoxes, by abandoning dualisms and junking our prejudices.