Professions of a Professional Pilgrim: July 2013

July 9, 2013
My Dearest friends and family,

The month longVirginia layover on the nomadic journey that is my life draws to a close this morning as I greet you from Gate A4 in the Norfolk International Airport. I'm off to Miami, on the cusp of another Cuba adventure. Heavy on my mind is this unfinished travelogue recounting what inquiring minds have most asked about, the Vision Quest! It’s not due to a lack of attempts that it hasn’t been delivered. I have starts on discarded envelops, soiled napkins, the backside of store receipts, the margins of plane tickets, even the back of my left hand. These travelogues usually “come upon” me without warning in spurts of images and phrases. If I don’t write them down as they occur, they are lost forever. The spurts around the Quest have been sporadic and short lived and thus, this installment will follow suit of the last and be heavy on the photos, light on the commentary.

First, an introduction to questing for those who are not familiar with it. The School for Lost Borders describes it like this:

"The modern day vision fast [quest] is a border crossing practice. When one steps across the threshold and into the unknown wilderness, boundaries begin to dissolve and our vision begins to expand. Everything is pregnant with meaning, and nature speaks to us in the voices of rock, tree, and wind. Following the ancient pathway of this rite of passage, we step into our true nature and remember our home among the wild. We become who we were born to be."

There are three stages to the process:

1. Severance-leaving your world behind, separating yourself from previous concerns and allowing yourself to be removed from all normal contacts.

2. Threshold-stepping across the limitations of your former life (time spent alone in nature fasting)

3. Incorporation-returning from your journey and assuming the task of bringing yourself, your vision, your realization into the gross body of the world-for the benefit of your people.

As for how a quest comes to be, one person (in this case, me) feels called to do a quest, the elder guides who are going to lead it “put it out there”, (both verbally and telepathically) that one is going to happen, the stars start swirling and the moon twinkling, and then the Universe pulls together a sacred group of souls to share the experience together.

Once the group is formed and a date set, each participant writes a letter of intention to the elder guides so they can begin to pray around it. Here are excerpts from my letter:

… I remember clearly the exact moment of that calling: I had taken the manual about vision questing that Krystyna loaned me on a morning meditation walk and while sitting on a rock in the middle of a dry creek bed I read the introduction. It had something to do with a letter about a suicide victim and the bafflement around what had brought the woman who jumped off the bridge to take her life. I don’t remember the implicit connection between the suicide note and questing, but I assume it was that someone with a sense of purpose (which a quest can provide) isn’t likely to commit suicide. It resonated with me.

My claimed purpose for going to High Hope [last August] was to read 30 year’s worth of diaries and write a book about my own obsessions with suicide and the depressions that feed them. I now see it as ironic that I came to a place called High Hope with my own “high hope” for a book to flow from me that would help my anonymous comrades in the trenches of depression to feel understood and to offer suggestions for how to best support a loved one during difficult times. That books remains in me and one of my requests of my Quest is to discover and address the block that keeps me from sharing with others my story via the gift with words with which I was born…

…what is my quest about? Fear, plain and simple. It’s about digging up and moving through mine, transforming their energy and no longer feeling disempowered by them. It’s not that I want to be rid of fear all together. It, like most things, is fine, even “good for you” in moderation (wine, coffee, chocolate! for example) I just don’t want it to inhibit me from living full throttle.

I close this letter of intention with a quote from a diary entry dated August 22, 2012:

“My arrival here at High Hope will mark the rest of my days with the transformation I am undergoing. I am blessed with time and space for the divine answers to my Holy queries to soak in. Chandler and Krystyna model the wise soul I will be some day. I desire to give as they do from such a grounded place.”

So, that's how it started. The following pictures will narrate some of the highlights and process.

Back row: Fellow questers. Front row: Bodhi (ranch dog), elder guides (Chandler, Krystyna) and me

In-gathering night we were taught to read topography maps and were shown where our base camp would be on the 1,700 ranch. Next morning we were given compasses and sent off to find it.

Once found, we started setting up camp.

Near the top of the list of things to do: build a latrine.

Camp ready. Waiting for further instructions

Knot tying 101. As part of the prep for doing our solos (spending 2days/2nights alone in the wilderness) we had to learn how to make primitive shelters with a tarp and rope.

It didn't go well for me. No matter how many times I listened to the instructions, watched the model and even had someone move my fingers, I couldn't get the S.O.B.s to turn out right. My "not good enough" issues came up and I got so enraged that I yelled out a “Fuck!!!!” that shook the tree tops. All the other explicatives in my lexicon followed that. My guides' reaction? "Good! We've got something to work with here." In that space of calm, I saw with clarity that my anger was about my belief that it's not OK to not be perfect. I was making erroneous assumptions about other's disapproval. I was expecting of myself what I would not expect of anyone else learning to tie a hard knot for the first time. It was a moment for learning acceptance and patience and surrender. Once I regained my composure, Krystyna suggested that I put the rope around my waist, close my eyes, get out of my head and tie the knot from intuition. Got it on the first try.

SOLO CEREMONY--spiritual prep for two days/ two nights alone in the open wilderness:

After we step into the circle, we speak our intention to the guides, say to whom we dedicate our quest and what we would like for the elders to pray for us. Then we are saged.

It was a snot-slinger of a moment for me...balled like a baby. It wasn't that I was scared of being alone at night in the woods. It was more like a goodbye cry.

Departing with my buddy, Tana. For safety reasons, every quester has a partner. The two decided where to have their "buddy pile," which is a communication system to make sure that 24 hours don't pass without knowing that the other is OK. One comes in the a.m. to leave a sign (usually a rock taken off the pile) that all is well and the other comes in the p.m. to do the same.