Picture this scene: you are standing atop a sand dune in the Sahara, in a 360-degree panorama of utter vastness and silence. You face west, watching the sunset, the sky a blaze of orange, blue and red. You turn to face east: just as the sun sets, the full moon rises above the rim of the desert, milky white against the darkening blue sky.

Two hours later a group of travellers sit atop the same dune, wrapped in the traditional camel-hair burnous cloak against the chill of the night. The moon is huge and bright in this clear air but even so the sky is also filled with stars. The travellers are doing zikr: a Sufi practice involving song and body prayer.

The sense of divine unity is a living pulse in this timeless landscape.

You could find such scenes in the Sahara for thousands of years: this one was in April 2001, on a group led by Amida Harvey and myself. I have deeply loved this land and its people since my first visit in 1967: but my link with the desert has been transformed by meeting in 2000 a group of semi-nomadic Bedouin who have guided Sufi retreat groups and others.

My vision for the Life in the Desert group in 2001 was a spiritual journey with several elements: the experience of the desert; living and travelling with the Bedouin; Sufi practices; a vision quest, involving solo time in the desert; and Dances of Universal Peace, these are simple where one sings and moves to prayers and sacred phrases from a range of spiritual traditions. The group was intended to serve a range of interests and succeeded.

Music and dance brought the travellers together and was one of our links with the Bedouin. Many of the dances Amida led used simple Arabic words, which the Bedouin understood, and they supported our dances with drumming. On most evenings, we had a campfire after supper, and they shared their songs and dances, welcoming Amida's guitar as part of the mix. One of our group, Nick Webley, speaks fair Arabic and several of the Bedouin speak good French so we were able to understand their songs and their way of life in some depth.

Although I have led many groups in Britain, this was the first overseas trip I have led, and the arrangements all ran smoothly. Part of my satisfaction in leading the group was knowing that our payment was an important part of the Bedouin's annual income, since their traditional economy has been disrupted. And travelling through the desert by foot and by camel as rates pretty highly as eco-tourism!

The success of the 2001 group gave me the intention to lead one group a year to the Sahara, travelling with the same group of Bedouin, who have become close friends for me. In 2002, Andy Portman and I led a spiritual journey for men, which proved to be a deep and powerful experience for all of us. When a bunch of independent men find themselves in the middle of a desert, having to depend on and support each other, the effect is healing and catalytic!

The Bedouin are profound teachers by their approach to life. Although their life is materially tough and basic, they are happy, dignified people. As they sit in a circle in the chilly light before sunrise, they are chatting, lighting the fire, making the bread, tending the camels and singing. I join them and ask myself, "Is this work time or social time?", knowing that this is a western mindset and the question would be meaningless to them. Their songs move seamlessly from praise of Allah through romantic ballads to children's play songs. Their days really are a flowing dance uniting, work, spirit, fellowship and recreation.

IMPRESSION OF AN EARLIER JOURNEY

Our caravan counts 21 participants, 22 camels and 8 Bedouin. We're tiny in the immense Sahara, but a caravan ten times as big would have been just as tiny. 'Sahera jamil, how beautiful the Sahara!' old Muhammad tells us. You bet he's right!

The Sahara is not only beautiful, she is also inescapable. Everything is brought back to its elementary state and impossible to ignore. We have to let go of our concepts. Washing with water? Sand cleanses too! By the very absence of water dirt doesn't stick. Our nails never were so clean.

The extreme absence or presence of the elements makes us aware of them more than ever. Without water everything is literally loose sand.

We knew this, but now it can be experienced, just by being in the desert. All we can do is go with the flow, accept what is coming and surrender to it. Concepts fall away and this way we are being cleaned inside too.

We sleep under the sky (a million star hotel) and wake up every morning before dawn by the call to prayer: ALLAHO AKBAR! The first light after the first prayer is an awesome experience, raising as if to illuminate the whole of nature, including us.

Not only the First Light, but the whole journey is a chosen chance to walk in the footsteps of people like the Prophet Muhammad, Abraham or Rumi, for didn't they live in comparable circumstances? Sure, the Bedouin have cell phones, but somehow time stands still here. Rumi would have seen sand and dunes everywhere, always the same and always changing. No wonder the image of the world as Unity expressing itself through Diversity started here: Le désert c'est monotheïsme, a French philosopher sighed in wonder and awe.

Every morning the Bedouin bake bread for us on the fire with ashes covering the bread. Afterwards the ashes are knocked off easily. No water, remember?

They don't eat themselves as we happen to be here in the month of Ramadan. In the evening it is their turn first and after that we eat couscous.

Then it's party time. Khaliefa tells us about life in the desert, other members of his tribe play drum (exciting rhythms: the Arabic culture meets Africa!) and sing ballads about Hinda, the local saintly woman buried somewhat further away, and Abdul Kadr, the Sufi Sheikh honoured here.

They don't see themselves as Sufis or Dervishes. A Dervish doesn't marry and in Tunisia Sufis are the people that you invite to make music for all sorts of festivities, weddings and so forth. No, they are proud to be Bedouin, people that never lose their way in the Desert (even in a sand storm they know their direction), live with camels and need space and freedom. Khaliefa prides himself in never seen a school from the inside. Yet he can read and write in Arabic and French and is by all standards a highly educated man.

Now they live in a town, for the oasis where they used to spend the hottest part of the summer has dried up. So the children do go to school. Khaliefa's father stayed in the desert, traveling with tent and camel. He cannot sleep between four walls.

Back home in the oasis Douz, a touristic town with all luxury, we take a shower and open our bags. All we see is sand, sand, sand. Someone says: 'I've seen enough sand for the time being!'. I look at my partner and without words our thoughts go to the little bag of sand that we took with us for our home altar, for we cannot bear to go home with being able to see the sand.

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