Yesterday Isabel and I joined a group of friends for a discussion of the spiritual nature of the desert  (an environment to which many hermits had lived). The conversation moved mainly around the importance of using this environment so as to connect with the earth, in all its bareness.
    This is certainly true. But in addition, the desert was for many the place where a bond was created, a link between our grounding in the earth and our reaching for the transcendent.

It was Anthony the Great [270 AD]  who launched the movement that became the Desert Fathers , first moving to what is now the Eastern desert of Egypt.