Hey folks,
I wanted to create a space where I can bring together my different type of works and make them available for you to see. Thus Robertwdean was created. It’s still being built, but give it a cruise and let me know what you think. I’ve also wanted to create a journal / blog for sometime now, mostly to share stories and thoughts. I always enjoy and appreciate the insight others have to offer, no matter the subject. So here is my first entry. Feel free to share if you feel so obliged and thank you for the support and love!
Desert Nomads
The Desert, It’s a strange place. A place of wonder, mystery and vast extremes. The summer weather can be so blistering hot it’ll make you feel like you are boiling from the inside out, then with a sudden shift in the wind, unnerving thunderhead clouds roll in and the rush of a hundred million water drops come rolling off the surrounding mountains and into the valley creating a flash flood so violent that it’ll rip and swallow everything in its path. This is the Desert.
Its barren and lonely, Its clarity and peace, It’s wide open and It’s isolating — it’s the land of duality. Out here there is everything and there is nothing. Jesus wandered the desert, fasting for forty day and forty nights. This is where the devil tempted him… I make frequent trips out into the desert, atleast once a week sometimes more. I think I wander out to the high New Mexico desert because there is something inherently clear about that rough, unforgiving terrain. I can think out there. I can feel again. My body loosens and I sink into the dirt, I pick up a handful of sand and watch the grains run though my fingers, blowing away with the breeze, reminding me that I too will soon be nothing more than dust. All of us — the ones before us and the ones who come after us. All of our struggles, desires and even accomplishments will return to dust sooner or later. I’m learning to be okay with that though. The desert taught me this, the desert has taught me a lot. It’s about that openness, the freedom, the everything and the nothing. All of it matters, every grain of sand makes up the vast desert just as every grain of experience and life has made up me. I hold on to the precious fragments of sand, gripped tight in my palm but not too tight. - This is the Desert. It has taught me that I own nothing and that nothing owns me. The desert is slave to no man. It doesn’t ask for permission or validation. It doesn’t need to. It just is, and this is what makes the desert so frightening yet inviting all at the same tame. This is the desert. This is what it whispers to me when I get lost. What has it spoken to you?
Photos by: Robert Dean
Location: White Sands, New Mexico
Models : Colby Crain - Robert Dean
Featuring : Stetson Open Road
