Into the Eremos
“In the desert, your thoughts echo in the silence.” — Unknown
October 27th, 2025
📍Moab, Utah, USA 🇺🇸
Greetings from the wilderness!
I’m so glad to finally be back on the road, car camping through the American Southwest (I’m writing this on Thursday evening). After a failed start, I will caravan with my two sisters, mother, and two nieces through Moab, Utah. We will be spending the weekend at the Hoodoo Moab, Curio Collection by Hilton, which was voted one of The Reader’s Choice Best Southwestern Hotels & Boutiques by the Zoe Report for 2025. It looks perfect for this girl’s trip with my young nieces.
After checking out on Sunday morning, I will say goodbye to the family and head back out on the road solo.
In preparation for this leg of my trip, I did a lot of research about the state of the National Parks during a government shutdown, and was pleased to learn that the Grand Canyon did not fully close. I have a campsite on the North Ridge reserved, and will drive from there down to Sedona, Arizona, Monday afternoon in time for my photoshoot on Cathedral Rock.
As I perpare to enter back into the desert by myself, I’m reminded that I know the Eremos well.
In Greek, Eremos means “the desert” — a lonely, desolate place. But for the mystics, the Eremos was never about isolation; it was about encounter. Even Jesus withdrew to the Eremos again and again. It was where He fasted for forty days, where He wrestled with temptation, and where angels came to minister to Him. The Eremos was both exile and embrace—the wild, quiet space where everything unnecessary fell away, leaving only God.
We often imagine spiritual growth happening in the fullness of life — community, creation, abundance. But the mystics knew the Eremos is where the soul is refined. It is the sacred dependence that makes room for Presence.
The Desert Fathers and Mothers fled to the Egyptian wilderness seeking solitude, but what they found was communion. In the silence, they heard the whisper that the noise of the world had drowned out. In the absence of distraction, they discovered that God was not “out there” at all, but dwelling within.
This was the start of the monastic tradition. More than just a location, “the desert became a sacred place—set apart as a place for contemplation, asceticism, and prayer. These developments changed the course of Christian history…[These ancient monks, like Jesus], teach us about listening to the natural world, the quest for silence and solitude in arid lands, the paradoxical pulls of solitude and community, and the cultivation of deep inner quiet.” (The Sonorous Desert).
I think we all have our own Eremos—a moment when the Spirit leads us into barrenness so that we might remember who we are. To listen. Sometimes it looks like burnout. Sometimes grief. Sometimes an illness that challenges the illusion of control. Sometimes it means getting stuck and in need of rescue.
I’ve had to remember a few times this month, the Eremos is not punishment; it is invitation—An invitation to remember that the stillness of the desert is the same stillness that lives in us. To step away from the noise and return to the unhurried rhythm of grace. To be stripped of all false selves until only Love remains.
So if you find yourself there — raw, disoriented, emptied — do not rush to leave. Stay long enough to listen. Because in the Eremos, you are not alone. You are being met.
With Love,
Jennifer
P.S.—I’d love to hear from YOU! Rather than emailing me or dropping me a DM, please post a comment below 👇
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