Vision Quest - key instructions

The Vision Quest has been taught within many traditional cultures. It is an ancient way to open to your Heart and experience a deeper communication with the essence that can guide you through the rest of your life. There are numerous ways to approach this sacred practice of time apart in the wilderness, which usually involves fasting from all food and in some traditions from water as well, and various preparations, ceremonies, and number of days spent on a quest.

The amount of days of a Vision Quest whether four, five, or thirty days is of less importance than your spiritual preparation, your Spiritual Purpose and your Intention that empowers the active Prayer that is the Quest.

Rachel and I did a four day Quest in the Pine Barrons of New Jersey in July of 1992. We had spent most of our lives following our spiritual paths and had recently sold our house and left our careers as artists to pursue and accomplish the Path. This Intent is what empowered our Quest and the amount of days nor the issue of drinking water nor the idea behind staying awake throughout the quest affected the outcome.

A four day Vision Quest relates to the Four Seasons, the Cycle of Life - Birth, Growth, Effulgence, and the decline into Death, though a Vision Quest does not ripen like a fruit with the final days becoming clearer or better than the beginning of the Quest. The Quest arises as you step within your Circle. The first moment when you enter the Vision Quest is just as an important  moment as the last night before the dawn.

Preparation

The one of the most important aspect of the Vision Quest is your preparation. The spiritual work of Letting Go of the structures and beliefs systems of our human world. Breaking Habits  of Mind and sitting upon our Mother Earth and reconnecting with Her Rhythm helps you toward an Openness beyond concepts, and to know and follow your Spiritual Purpose coupled with a strong Intention to see it through.

The physical site for your Quest should be completely removed from human activity, a place where the land invites you.

The Prayer of Intent unfolds the Heart’s Path

Praying to our Earth Mother and the Radiance with a Purpose beyond the Self to be shown your Heart’s Path

Once you have decided on the place of the Circle pray to the Elementals of the Land to allow the Opening of this spot for the Heart of All Being

Thank the land, and spirits of the Ancient Ones to bless your Quest

Guide me, teach me, show me my life and how I can benefit All Beings

I take this first step into the Circle with my Death as my Witness

Leaving the world behind Letting Go of All

I am here for the Openness of All Life and Call the Spirit that Moves through All Things to show me my way

May I Release my Heart to the Peoples of Earth

May I Unbind my Heart to the Elements of Earth

May I Unwind my Heart in the Concentric Fields of Earth

And Break the Walls Eclipsing my Heart

To Walk in the Radiance of Origin’s Blessings

May I Walk the beach upon my Mother

And Breathe the ocean air to Live in my Heart

May I Swim the waters of Mother’s Womb

And Acknowledge the fluidity of Heart’s Blessings

May I Sit upon my Mother showing me the Way

And Feel the Healing run through my spine to shine among the Stars

Within Aware Sight may I Let Go

And Feel the Heartbeat of the Earth

Within Aware Being may I Let Go

And Read the Blessings Written upon a Rainbow Sky

Within Aware Life may I Let Go

And embrace the Heart Essence of All Being

On the Path of Primordial Grace

May the Winds Free me to Transcend like the Rising Sun

On the Path of Origin’s Calling

May the Waters show me the Fluidity of Being like the Full Moon

On the Path of Primordial Joy

May the Lights Arise in my Heart like the Vision upon a Butterfly’s Wing

With the Blessings of the Holy Ones

May I Continue to Traverse the Path of Origin and Joy

For All Being

The Quest

When you take the first step into your quest circle, you have already prayed for guidance and given thanks to the our Earth Mother, to All life, and to All Peoples of the Earth.

As you cross the threshold into a Vision Quest, you leave everything outside your Circle, all prayers, all spiritual practice, and all the concerns and worries of your life. You enter into a sphere of simplicity, a time of openness, an embrace within the radiance of origin, and your only duty is to be open and aware, to see and to hear with your heart the teachings that will be imparted to you about your life’s path. You pay respectful attention to everything going on around you.

Taking a single step into the Quest Circle initiates the quest and the teachings, answers, life’s path can be brought to you even in the smallest happenings and from the humblest of creatures.

All experience is absorbed by your waiting Heart, ready to feel All.

Then you can enter the Circle with the Prayers to All Life, to All Being, To the Great Spirit, the Spirit that Moves through All Things with the knowing of initiating a profound act in your life.

All Phenomena, the living Heart of the Earth is a visionary experience that can come alive for you if you Let Go and Open your Heart. Too often people think that visionary experience has to be ‘Rainbow Colored Buffalos’. But the truth is the whole of this naturally arising universe, Our Earth Mother is One with the Heart of Origin -  The Spirit that moves through All Things

And as you enter the Quest Circle you need to be very aware about every occurrence no matter how mundane or ordinary of plants, Insects, animals, etc. The Vision Quest is allowing your Heart to open into the Heart of Origin, to speak to you, to show you, to teach you in ways that only an Open Heart can See and Hear.

Difficult experiences may arise during your Quest and you need to ride them out for these experiences are speaking to you, trying to show you something important about your life.  So Breathe in and allow them and know that this too shall pass! The Intent of Essence is speaking to you through the natural world, through the animals, birds, and insects, plants, and trees, the Sun and Moon, and also through the visionary pathway of your Heart. It is truly a time held within the Heart and basis of All experience. There is only openness and your ability to wait, waiting without filling up the space with anything else, waiting without waiting, settling within an undefined and open space.

If you want to start a Vision Quest process and need guidance, feel free to write me

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