Eden Solas was in residence as our HDTS Scout in 2014-2015.
The HDTS Scout Residency is dedicated to learning more about the people and places that make up our diverse and ever evolving community.
My Time in the Desert: Andrea said, “It’s called the geographic cure.” I had moved from LA to Joshua Tree to get away from everything I thought was going to kill me. But it always followed. A lot of people move to the desert believing the same. The miles between people in the desert allowed us to feel like we had healed, but anytime someone reminded us of what we couldn’t handle, we would lash out, hide again, and come back out when we were too lonely, only to repeat the process.
I grew up religious and see the desert as purgatory, a place where spirits wander thinking that they finally have their freedom while also secretly knowing that this “freedom” is only within the bounds of this place. The elderly Buddhist nun I knew at the desert monastery had been a married doctor with grown adult children. She meditated every day and was a Tibetan Buddhist scholar. She told me she had become a desert nun because her daughter was an alcoholic and she could not stop being her enabler. She had been a practicing Buddhist for 20 years but she began to cry. The desert spirits wander their purgatory not alone, but holding hands with their troubles, making sure they both feel free. —Eden Solas
In her Scout book, Eden writes about her time working at the “check cashing place”, substitute teaching in the local public schools and reading tarot at the swap meet.