The Call of the Wild

“The Breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep. -- Rumi

Since the beginning, people have gone to natural, wild places in search of life’s meaning. Spiritual leaders from St. Francis of Assisi to Gandhi to Moses sought solitude in nature and received inspiration, renewal, deep healing and vision.

The demands of daily life give us no time to pause, reflect and listen to the voice of our hearts. The Vision Quest is a nature-based rite of passage that has been used in some form since the dawn of man in the search for inspiration. It is based on the simple premise that deep personal searching and spiritual connection to nature can open our hearts and reveal answers to the mysteries of life.

Removed from the distractions of daily life, guided by your own true nature, and the wild nature around you, you seek your truth, your authentic voice, the one that longs to be heard.

Deep inside, we are all naturally wild, intuitive, creative and connected. As we grow up in our Western culture, we forget one, two or all of these innate qualities that are necessary to live a deep, meaningful, connected life. On a Vision Quest we remember what is deeply buried in us – how to connect with the natural world and find our true home in the universe. Each of us is capable of rising up to life’s biggest challenge, living fully, passionately and making a difference. During the solo time, in solitude with nature, we cry for a vision that can carry us into the next phase of life. This time-honored ceremony, a lamentation and celebration of our deepest truths, is a ritual of great power and transformation. Some form of the vision quest has been used multi-culturally since the dawn of mankind to help people cross major life thresholds with purpose, intention and ceremony.

Most quests involve an eight-to-12-day journey in a wilderness setting. The heart of the vision quest is a three-day and three-night solo in nature, usually spent fasting. The days before the solo, or time of solitude, are spent in group where spiritual, physical and emotional preparation build community and help deepen the experience. The days after the solo are spent together, telling stores, and incorporating the mystical, magical quest experience into everyday life.

To open the soul to the universal language of the natural world, the vision quest utilizes cross-cultural traditions, such as reverential interaction with wild things, drumming, dance, song, storytelling, council, mixed with modern-day techniques for accessing our deepest self, dream work, creative “wild” art, poetry, deep imagery, wilderness skills.

Most people who have enacted a vision quest ceremony divide their life in two phases, pre and post-quest. There is no other ceremony like it.

2008 QUESTS

September 24-5 - East Coast Autumn Quest. Sponsored by Animas Valley Institute with Bill Ball and Lauren Chambliss.

This East coast quest begins at Rune Hill in the fabled autumn hills of New York’s Finger Lakes region. The group will do its preparation work at Rune Hill retreat center and then travel by car a short distance to an exquisite, natural lake in the legendary Catskills Mountains, where the deep waters, accessible mountain vistas and color-enriched forest will whisper your true name. Autumn in upstate New York is the perfect time for a vision quest, the changing colors around you mirror the beautiful death to your old way of life and presage the coming rebirth. See Animas website for cost and details.