Vision Quest

Before you arrive at the Vision Quest site, you are encouraged to have begun your physical preparation a minimum of three weeks prior to the arrival date. Conscious preparation is treating your body as a friend with intelligent awareness. THE FASTING PATH by Stephen Buhner will assist you in this preparation with clear guidelines and thoughtful suggestions that will enable you to begin to revitalize your physical body.

When you arrive at the site there are others who, like you, have been preparing for this time of healing, discovery and rebirth. Your guides are there to provide information and ceremony so that all may share, question and continue to prepare for their four days and nights of solitude at their own fasting site.

Prayer, good food and more cleansing in sweat lodge nurture this circle of questers. The first days of preparation you choose and make relationship with your solo site, asking to be welcomed and protected. During your solo time, your guides provide a means of checking on your safety daily without interfering with your solitude. Water is always available. You are encouraged to take what you need to protect yourself from the elements by taking a minimal shelter, a tarp, and other minimal essentials to insure the maintenance of good physical health. It is a time of looking into the eyes of the other questers who also made the choice to take this time and journey into the unknown. As you walk through the portal leaving the ordinary world behind so do others, and you know that they too are fasting and listening to the wilderness within and without. You also know your guides and the support staff are in prayer and vigil for you. This unseen companionship of others becomes part of your questing time.

Each day, each night is a journey into your past, present and future. There are extended moments when the mental chatter ceases and the internal silence is filled with the present. As your body is emptied you become clearer and a less encumbered future can be revealed, reflected upon and sanctioned by the mountainside you sit upon.

When you return, greeted by your guides and those who wait for you back at camp, you will have time to adjust to people again, eat food, take part in ceremony and begin to prepare for the journey home.

Sharing Story

In the middle of the circle there is an object called the talking stick. Sometimes, there is a special one made with care and creativity. At other times a twig, branch or stone has found its way into this circle. One by one, each quester goes to the center and picks up the talking stick. Holding it they tell their story and all listen. Sharing of story is an essential part of this journey. This is a sacred time, the sharing of deep emotions, insights, visions. Your guides listen, pray, reflect and honor the story, help with understanding and prepare the teller for the journey of returning to her life, but with new eyes, deeper understanding and perhaps spiritual imperatives previously unclaimed or unknown.

In the end, I think Coyote, the trickster of the mind who beckons us to follow our heart, is playing with us all. We are not that old as a species and not that long-lived. Although we can be incredibly resourceful and creative, our wisdom is often unseasoned. Perhaps, you will return again, once more shouldering your pack and making sacred pilgrimage, following your heart, fasting and deepening your relationship with your mind, your emotions, your spirit and your body. When you realize, remember who you are and always wanted to be, you have healed the Earth by healing yourself. With that healing you can return the gift to the life around you.

The Mountain, I became a part of it.
The Herbs, the fir tree
I became a part of it.
The morning mists, the clouds, the gathering waters,
I became a part of it.
The Sun that sweeps across the earth,
I became a part of it.
The wilderness, the dew drops,
the pollen,
I became a part of it.

- Joan Halifax

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