Upon your arrival, we will establish our preparation or base camp. Having said good-bye to friends and family, having left home and packed the equipment and belongings deemed necessary, one’s purpose becomes focused and clarified. Four days of council are devoted to completing your preparation. Others may be preparing with you and, though focused on their own solitary quest; their presence lends support and provides insight. Friendships and a deep sense of spiritual community are unexpected blessings.
The days will pass quickly and there is much to be done. Our meetings will focus on creating physical and emotional balance; refining and clarifying one’s myths, goals, and life story, and how these relate to your purpose. You will receive instruction on traditional forms and vision quest “events:” creating ceremony and ritual, the mirroring aspects of nature; myths, and allegories of the vision quest; the dynamics of fasting; safety procedures; medicine wheel teachings, and ritual forms of purification and attunement. You will be helped to integrate these teachings into your personal worldview and situation.
We then journey to an area where you will find your place of power, where you will live alone for four days and nights. In sunrise ceremony you will take your leave and cross the threshold into the Sacred World. During this time you will be completely alone, but close enough to base camp to receive aid, should you need it. Once a day you will visit a designated place (your stone pile), leaving a sign that communicates your safety. Other than this minimal requirement, your time is yours to be in intimate contact with nature in its many forms, with yourself and the Spirit-in-all-things.
Returning to base camp marks the beginning of incorporation. There you will be welcomed with simple ceremony and the sharing of food. With reflection and celebration, we begin the journey back into the human world. The work of incorporation is to again take on the cloak of our civilized life and to wear it lightly and gracefully.
This phase of the program lasts three days. After washing off the dirt and dust of wilderness we will feast together, observing the fast-paced world we left behind. We will participate in an Elder’s Council, sharing stories of our time in the “Sacred World.” Your story will be attentively witnessed and listened to, and you will be assisted in finding your truths and meanings, owning your gifts, and claiming your power.
How are the seeds we bring back to be planted in the daily world with its dysfunction and distraction? How can we protect what is important and sacred, nurture it, and make it grow? What gifts do we have to give to our people? We must ask and answer these questions if our vision is to guide us in daily life. We must find a way to say, “Yes!” to life as it is to be effective and give thanks for the gifts we’ve been given.
After we have held our councils, had our feasts, and shared our ceremonies we must part. With renewed commitment and gratitude for the insight, rich experience, and friendship we have shared, it is time to walk our “path with heart,” re-entering the world we left behind to make real our vision. There the living work of the vision quest awaits us.
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