Wounding is part of initiatory rites in many primal cultures, and childhood wounds — and their healing — play a part in almost every workshop and vision quest I’ve ever led. But along with the commonality, there are obvious differences.
A basic condition of childhood is that the child is small and the world around it is – relatively – immense. When nurturance is lacking, this fundamental truth can lead… Read More »
In our current worldview, dreams are considered nonsensical and irrational. They don’t satisfy our requirements for “reality” and are judged as irrelevant to our daily lives. But in the view of many peoples throughout history, we’re dreaming all the time. Unaware that we might be dreaming, we call our dream “reality,” and in so doing, consign other states of awareness — the “realities” of primal peoples, the ecstatic journeys of… Read More »
When people ask the meaning of the name, Circles of Air and Stone, we answer with a poem.
Circles of Air, Circles of Stone…
The Earth circles, and night follows day.
We bury our seeds; we bury our bones;
While sacred birds circle and prey.
“All large scale human cooperation is based on… sets of rules that, despite existing only in our imagination, we believe to be as real and inviolable as gravity.” **
Vision quests nearly always include a profound encounter with different orders of “reality,” as one’s current dreams and stories – often separating us from the earth, ourselves, and each other – encounter that primal reality which gave birth to humans in… Read More »
Over the years, many people (who may not have thought it through) have said to me, “I’d like to do a traditional vision quest.” The obvious response, “Traditional to who?” usually elicits the reply, “You know, a Native American vision quest.”
In the year 1500 AD, 15-20 million people in North America lived in 200 separate nations with a wide range of languages, traditions, and cultural practices. Given that diversity,… Read More »
