Vision Quest A Journey of Empowerment

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Featured in Montana Free Press, August, 1999

Alone at last! As I labor up the sandy path straining under a heavy pack, I pause to shift the weight and look back down the valley. My friend Susan's red pickup truck is a tiny toy receding in the distance. I feel a flutter of anxiety in my chest, a little fear, a little anticipation, a lot of excitement. Taking a couple of deep breaths, I sigh and turn back to the trail, careful not to scratch my legs on the many yucca plants that dot the landscape through which I climb. The trek is physically difficult for me after the auto accident last October, the weakness and pain in my body still a frustrating reminder. Am I crazy to attempt this venture only nine months later? Nine months, a gestation period, and yes, I am here to birth something new and to rebirth the parts of me that died that day on the highway in Boulder Canyon.

Further on and higher now, I pause again to renew my breath and rest my back, propping my pack against a large sandstone boulder to relieve me of the full weight of my load as I lean into the warm solid rock and gaze up at the shallow cave that is to be my vision quest site. When I chose this site, an arch in the sandstone cliff carved by water, wind and time, the shallow cave reminded me of the rock art figure of a woman under a rainbow-like curve that I discovered in an adjoining canyon when I first came exploring here in early spring. That image, so powerful and mysterious opened the doorway to my being here now, in this place, on this quest. And, like that ancient woman, I too will stand protected beneath the arch of heaven.

The comforting thought of shelter and protection propels me onward as I finally leave the deer trail I have been following and make my way carefully through the yucca and the sneaky little prickly pear cactus hidden in the lush prairie grasses up to the sandy floor of the cave to begin this adventure into the unknown of nature and Self. As I step across the threshold, the outer world of my ordinary reality falls away and nothing will ever be the same again.

I begin with this excerpt from my book on both traditional and contemporary vision quest that has been evolving since I began the study, practice and leading of this kind of experience in the mid 1980's. I share with you this description of the beginning of my first quest because it flows out of the heart of the adventure and might capture the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual experience that such a quest becomes. The quest still holds such power and magic for me that nine years and nine quests later, I can instantly return to this first experience in the blink of an eye and the turning of my thoughts inward to that time and place.

The term vision quest was coined by 19th century anthropologists studying Native American cultures of this region and has remained a generalized term referring to various life passage rituals that have evolved over thousands of years and are found in almost every tradition, culture, and religion. Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and Judaism were all defined by the vision quests of their respective spiritual leaders. In Native American tradition, Quetzacoatl, Wovoka, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Black Elk and Plenty Coups to name but a few, returned from the sacred mountains with vision and direction for their people. A cross-cultural tradition, the vision quest is an archetypal¹ journey with both personal and collective elements.

There are characteristics common to most all vision quests both ancient and modern. In many indigenous cultures, a first quest often marked a rite of passage from adolescence into adulthood and was celebrated by both men and women. We have few such experiences available to the youth of today to help them process and honor their growth. Perhaps events like the Columbine shooting might be avoided if we helped our youth honor their warrior spirit in positive ways such as a vision quest. Instead we try to control and suppress the warrior within, which can lead to shadowy eruptions of the warrior archetype that we are witnessing now in youth violence.

Quests are not just for adolescents, however. In the adult life of native peoples, the search for vision and higher guidance through isolation in nature was part of important life transitions as it can also be for us today. Those engaging in various modern vision quest models may do so for many reasons. Grappling with loss through death or divorce; changes of career, home or lifestyle; recovery from addiction, serious accident or illness; children leaving home and other mid-life challenges; and the greatest challenge, facing one's own death, are examples. People also quest to celebrate successes and achievement, or "to get away from it all" and renew. How wonderful to have a way to honor life passages, and allow change and crisis to create consciousness.

A vision quest, traditionally, was both a personal and collective event. The quester went in search of a personal vision which then became a vision of importance to the community as well. A vision quest was never a solitary experience. Training and preparation witnessed by the elders and teachers of the tribe and support from family and friends was all important. Some books on modern vision quest dangerously do not give enough emphasis on having adequate preparation and support. When a person separates from their ordinary reality world and goes into isolation in nature with few provisions to fast, pray, meditate and seek guidance from whatever divine source they may honor, the experience is very powerful and needs guidance and witnessing by experienced leaders. Even more important, in my experience, is assistance in integrating the quest back into the world of our ordinary reality lives. It can be quite deflating to want to share the magic of a quest only to have one's family and friends exclaim, "you did what during your vacation this year?!!!"

Paradoxically we often fear what we are seeking. " So exactly what kind of vision does one expect on such a quest?" many people ask me with apprehension. Until you have a personal numinous experience during wakefulness or sleep, it is difficult to explain in words. To drop away from all the sensory overloads in our world and be alone and silent in nature always brings a feeling of oneness with all things. This in itself, for many, is vision enough. In addition, one might receive an awakening of understanding about a life question or a personal "vision" of life purpose to follow, or a deep knowingness of the next step on the path. In spite of all that our society does to negate the inherent mystical and intuitive abilities all humans share, some people can still fully open to communication with Creator, spirit guides, power animals, or plant medicine to receive guidance and gifts. In native traditions where honoring Spirit/Creator/God in all of life was endemic in the culture, this was the primary focus of the quest.

In over 15 years of study and experience of vision quests and through counseling and teaching dream work, I have developed a vision quest model that is well suited to modern life. I call this a "Dream Quest." An individual Dream Quest endeavors to create an experience similar to a traditional quest while providing more flexibility in planning the elements of the experience to meet the needs and capabilities of the quester. While one person may be up to going into the wilderness alone for three or four days with only minimum shelter, clothing, and no food, many others may never be able to tolerate such an experience.

If you are considering a vision quest/Dream Quest, try contemplating it from several perspectives. On a mythic plane, think of a vision quest as the heroic journey of the Spiritual Warrior within each of us, a symbolic ordeal that occurs in a sacred space in nature that possesses it's own power, where-in the Warrior encounters his own demons and angels that are reflections of his psyche.²

On the physical plane a quest is a symbolic exercise in survival. Through change of focus, intention, environment, and diet, the quester enters a highly sensitive state of bodily awareness and feels the connection he/she shares with nature and all living things. Bodily states of emptiness and weakness often give rise to issues about personal survival and moving through these fears reveals unexpected sources of strength and power. Many questers report the dramatic loss of life-long fears and increased self-esteem.

On the transpersonal or spiritual plane, we vision quest to seek self knowledge enriched by the wisdom of the unconscious speaking symbolically through our dreams, visions and synchronous³ events. Our quest experience becomes the awakened recognition of ourselves as "spiritual beings having a human experience rather than human beings having a spiritual experience,"⁴ a simple, but powerful, change in perception that can make great positive shifts in our individual and collective world consciousness.

1. A term used by Carl Jung to define universal ideas or themes in the consciousness of all humans regardless of gender, nationality, religion, culture or time period.

2. I use "his" here because the warrior achetype is considered to be masculine or yang although warriors may be either men or women.

3. Another Jungian term referring to an event such as thinking of a friend and then having them telephone you shortly thereafter.

4. Paraphrased from Teilhard de Chardin and Dr. Wayne Dyer.

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