Vision Quest Ceremony
A Rites of Passage Council Retreat
Remembering Who You are and the Medicine You CarryA
11 Day Village Ceremonial Encampment
October 9-19, 2018, near Asheville, NC
Deep within your soul lies a fire that directs your passion and purpose. Often this flame lies quiet like the ancient whispers of smoldering embers; sometimes directed by those internal voices, not belonging to you, that came from another time and place. You reach out to your brothers and sisters and echo these words: WHO AM I?
Transcend all that you know about yourself and the world around you. Examine everything in your life as you step into this healing village experience, full of poetry, drumming, song, dance, ritual and ceremony.
Enter the sweat lodge and purify your mind and body as you prepare for your 4-day Vision Quest in the wilderness. Emerge and lay to rest the things that have caused you pain and suffering and find serenity in the solitude of nature.
Then reunite with the rest of your village to listen to your stories. Craft a personal mythology that will guide you forward into your life with focus and inspiration.
“My experience was deeply meaningful. It was an other worldly breath that breathed new life into me. It made so many whispers in my own soul come clear. It was a cleansing baptism in the waters of my own consciousness and in the waters alive with Spirit.” –Musician age 54
Initiation into the Depths of Soul: The Calling
“Almost every culture throughout history has traditions involving the initiations or rites of passage in the wilderness by which individuals confirm the attainment of new life stations e.g. manhood, womanhood, or elder years and other important life decisions. The wonder year, the pilgrimage, the vision quest and the underworld journey are typical of such initiatory experiences.
“Rites of passage are deeply embedded in mythological consciousness as well–the fasting prophets of Judaeo-Christianity, the questing ancestors of the Aboriginal Dream-time, the pilgrimages of the Buddha and Mohammed, the medieval knights and their quest for the holy grail, the underworld journey of the great matriarchal deities, and Native Americans such as Crazy Horse, Black Elk and countless others.” –Foster and Little, The Book of the Vision Quest.
Over the ages we have experienced a decline in many of the meaningful rites of passage and initiation practices for our people. The once sacred and transformative ceremonies and rituals that informed early cultures with a sense of personal vision, community responsibility and deeply rooted connection to earth and spirit have often been replaced by “pseudo initiations” that do not facilitate or support the needed shift in consciousness required to enter into new life stations and responsibilities such as conception, graduation, baptism, confirmation, marriage, divorce, change in career, times of psychological or spiritual crisis, and developmental life passages
With the absence of such initiatory experiences we may unconsciously abandon our personal wisdom and truth, adopting the values and stories of a larger culture that often follows a spiritually devoid mythology of consumerism and economic advancement at the expense of it’s children and elders of all species. The Vision Quest is an ancient pan-cultural initiation rite of passage that encourages and supports the awakening of your own indigenous wisdom, personal vision, and purpose for being on this earth. To ‘walk naked’ into the womb of Mother Earth and pray for vision has been the way of all our ancestors as they sought to uncover the mysteries of their own sacred gifts and return to their people with vision and purpose.
Is the Sacred Mountain calling you to reawaken your indigenous wisdom, heal the emotional wounds of the past and reclaim your personal vision to bring back to your people? Will you answer this calling?
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