What does “lost borders” mean?

Mary Austin used this expression in Land of Little Rain to name the lands we call desert. She wrote that she learned this expression from “Indians.”

I am using it here as an expression for the desert as well as for all of southern California itself and for the context of the quest for beauty, meaning and hope.

I am also using it here, as I believe Mary Austin did, as an expression for wilderness, including the wilderness within us.

Who writes this blog?

My name is Ken and I live in southern California and hike in its wilderness. I have a Master of Divinity degree from San Francisco Theological Seminary and have studied Hebrew and the Bible at the University of California in San Diego.

What does the photograph in the header show?

The leaves and branches are those of a black oak and the boulder behind it is granite. The place is a ridge above Strawberry Valley in the San Jacinto Mountains. The time is early morning, November 18, 2007.