Vision — Part I

As someone who’s led vision quests for over 35 years, I’ve thought, written, and been asked about vision many, many times. And depending on the context or on the person doing the asking, my response might emphasize one or another aspect of what that word, “vision,” might denote or evoke. What you ask for and the motivation behind your asking can make a great difference.

Vision can be thought of as a more imaginative, fluid, and primal engagement with the universe and its forces… and this capacity for vision is among the highest potentials human beings have. But undertaking a vision quest to seek “a vision” can be an alluring trap, and generally teachers and sages throughout human history did not go looking for altered states. Moses was not obsessing on or looking for a burning bush. This encounter — beyond anything normal or familiar — arrested and grabbed his attention. Visionary experiences, when they happen, are like gifts from the Spirit. But if we seek, demand, or require them, our attitude and need… our “craving and desire” … will circumscribe our openness to what The Mystery might have in store for us. This compulsive looking for altered states or visionary experiences – the next shiny object – I call seeking the “neon buffalo.”

Twenty-seven years ago, I guided a vision quest that included a young man from Austria named Rupert. When it was his turn to introduce himself, I said, “Rupert, what brings you here?” He looked at me very seriously and said, “Sparrow, I want a vision. I really want a vision.”

Well, all and good… everyone would like a vision! But in the days to follow, I heard more from Rupert. He’d announce, “I know it’s traditional on the vision quest to go without food, but I was thinking of going without food and water. Can I do that?” Or… “In the ritual of the Purpose Circle you stay awake all through the last night, but I was thinking of staying awake the whole time, all four days and nights. What do you think of that?” It became clear Rupert wanted to march out of camp, summit the highest peak he could find, drop his pack, and wring his “vision” out of the solid rock.

Sitting with Rupert, I provided a mirror to show him that his fierce desire for a “vision” was likely another manifestation of his habitual attitude and routines – setting high and mighty goals and pursuing them with relentless and inflexible discipline. He was approaching his vision quest as a “Type-A, pedal-to-the-metal, go-get-it guy.” In terms of the heroic journey archetype, he wasn’t “leaving home” at all. He wanted to take the same habits, routines, and personality he displayed all throughout his life to his encounter with The Unknown or Creator. What he really needed (if he wanted a different experience) was to somehow be a different person in the wilderness… softer… more open, receptive, and accepting.

Trying so hard and relentlessly to get the “vision” we want can close the door to other teachings and insights about our assumptions or motivations… about our emotional world… about surrender or being kind to oneself — that Spirit might have for us. Rupert wanted the “neon buffalo” — a luminous, brightly colored, altered-state experience with coyotes, angels, or eagles coming down from the sky. This is a Hollywood, technicolor-image of spirit. Spirit can and sometimes does arrive that way, but virtually never when we demand or crave it. Magical beings and burning bushes come when we get out of the way, when we stop insisting on steering the ship, and allow ourselves to be led by something else.

Seeking altered states can also be an escape from, or avoidance of, other parts of reality. Rupert might experience anxiety, boredom, or discomfort if he wasn’t marching out to achieve something. If he sat there without a list or plan, he might have to explore where that discomfort was coming from… what within him couldn’t be satisfied without some grand conquest or story. Do his inner voices judge him a failure and unlovable if he lacks an extraordinary tale to tell? What is the emptiness that needs to be filled by having a big, triumphant event?

A driving search for visionary or mystical experiences often points to a “spiritual bypass.” In a coronary bypass, a tube is inserted to reroute blood around a blocked artery, but the blockage itself is not removed. And the reasons for it – stress, diet, lifestyle, etc. – may not be addressed, so “the cure” may be temporary. In a spiritual bypass, we want a breakthrough or cathartic event that leaps over (while bypassing and avoiding) certain realities or blockages we’d rather not face.

We want to be transported to the top of the mountain and live in light, avoiding the slow, arduous climb and sidestepping all the dark places of discomfort, anxiety, rage, fear, or depression. “Living in the light” is often a façade for avoiding the shadow, and attachment to the transcendent, heavenly experience can often mask a fear of descent, of looking at how we actually are living on earth. Since vision is, ultimately, seeing what is, seeking a “vision” in this way can preclude the possibility of actually experiencing one in our attempt to avoid certain parts of “what is.”

~ Sparrow Hart … January 2024