Today, we celebrate Week 5 of Steemit Vision Quest ( #svq ), where we collectively envision: Desert Wilderness. This week's highlights include a song that honors the divinity in sexuality, along with a striking collection of images and words that bring us in body, heart, mind, soul, and spirit to the desert.

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Steemit Vision Quest - Week 5: Desert Wilderness

The Spotlight

🔥 Desert Wilderness by @fishyculture

@fishyculture is on fire, with her fifth consecutive entry in SVQ. I believe this one is my current favorite, of the many gems she's shared with us. Her Vision thoroughly impresses me, on many levels, as if I'm looking into a diamond with many facets. I resonate with this message, first and foremost, about the unfortunate reality that some relationships are torn by the ripples of wavering sex drive, not to mention the jillions of other excuses to separate.

So relatable! Am I right? Feels like divine timing to me, having experienced a similar ripple in my relationship about a month ago. Happy to report my companion and I are rocking the love life now, with new angles of intimacy thanks to the help of some radical honesty, bedroom burning up like twin flames... (OK, OK, I'm getting off track here). :) To me, the words of @fishyculture honor the family dynamic, and the partnership dynamic, and the divine dynamic that sexuality (in all its glory) is a God-given gift, as is all of creativity. Thank you God for the Creative Fire!

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The Showcase

💎 Desert Wilderness by @artzanolino

The library of Visions by @artzanolino must be colossal. Everything I've seen so far has been strikingly awesome, with curious textures that draw me in closer and closer, wondering and wandering through the layers. This Artist brings so much brilliance in the visual aspect of SVQ, with fascinating imagery. As stated by the artist, the creative process involves a combination of hand-painted imagery and found photographs. These are acrylic paintings on linen, with multiple layers of photographs, blended in Photoshop.

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💎 Steemit Vision Quest Week 5 by @pual

Happy to see @pual again in SVQ, with another fantastic digital illustration. Here, he's using a digital drawing program called Blackink, with brushes that allow him to cover the canvas space with vibrant colors very quickly. I love the sunset, resulting from paint thrown around, and I admire the animals and plant life I see in this the desert scene. It's a pleasure to see a focus on the living aspects of the desert–a place that often appears so dead. Yes, in my experience, the desert is enormously alive, from the shifting sands to the twinkling stars.

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💎 “The Message Of The Moon” (Original Song) by @cabelindsay

Some of you know I just returned from the desert wilderness, where I shared a week-long annual retreat with 30 of my spiritual brothers. “The Message Of The Moon” is a song that resonated with me there. I sung it as we passed the talking stick, and I had the good fortune of gazing straight into the moon during the song.

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💎 Desert Wilderness by @trucklife-family

Happy birthday to you, dear @trucklife-family. Good to know you are born again again again... I'm grateful for the reminder that I can do the same. As usual, your poetry blossoms and unfolds as layers of truth reveal themselves to me, as I look at your words a second and third time. Your use of the word “tender” touches me, as that is the keyword that I brought with me to the desert as my main intention: tenderness. Yes, and I love the way you honor the Journeys with a capital “J” and the Lessons, and The Desert Wilderness. So much subtle brilliance in your poetry. Thank you.

My life is yet so tender.
So many Journeys yet to take,
Ever changing Lessons still await.
The Desert Wilderness,
Allows me rebirth.
Allows my pain to have some worth.
I am meant to learn,
I am meant to bring forth this message of remembrance,
We are all of this earth!
There is but one,
One way to continue.
The promise to respect our sacred earth,
And all things within her.

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💎 Desert Wilderness Animated Drawings by @cronosclocks

She's back, with another shockingly innovative animated image series. Superb Work here. This time is a story of isolation and despair. The message feels melancholy to me, and I honor the artist for going to this emotion space and expressing from that place. I'm grateful for the acknowledgment of the painful stretches we undergo as human beings. It's sensible to remember the thirst and the loneliness when we consider the desert environment. Something so interesting in the passing of life, the turning of soil, the shifting of sand, the severity of the elements, the fragility of life... all of which we see in the desert, in the stillness. Somehow, we gain firmness through the shifts and the unknowns, managing to find the Path that is aligned.

Change is constant, in our bodies, and in all of the earth. We are designed to undergo massive changes. Am I right? When I was in the desert just a few weeks ago, I learned that the desert sand is dead earth, as opposed to the organic matter that makes up much of the brown soil we see in gardens, for example. I also understand that there is a thin line between the forests and the deserts, i.e. the desertification of the forest, and in truth there is evidence of the oceans in every mountain I've visited–sea shells and fossils way up high in the Rocky Mountains of Wyoming.

A monologue of an agonizing being that is inside a depression infused by for his missing capacity of forgiveness and his contradiction towards himself and his beliefs.

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The Rewards

Today's showcase is a collection of Works by some of Steemit's most wildly imaginative and gifted creative thinkers. We appreciate these people for braving the storms of this day and bringing themselves into the Flow that is Steemit Vision Quest. This a true act of courage, and it deserves to be applauded, and rewarded.

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The Continuation

As you can see from Week 5, SVQ continues to create a sense of awe, with a blend of surreal, ultra-real, and superconscious Visions! An exciting new Journey is underway in Week 6, with the theme: Queen Of The Forest.

I owe tremendous thanks to @eaglespirit, @rensoul17, and @girlbeforemirror, for carrying the torch of SVQ last week, in my absence. Most of me has returned from the desert! Thanks to each of this week's Artists. Thanks to you, for being here, and for being you. And thanks to the invisible Forces, always working wonders with us.

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