The Calling
Deep within your soul lies a fire that directs your passion and purpose. Often the flame lies quiet like the ancient whispers of smoldering embers; sometimes being directed by those internal voices that came from another time and place and do not belong to you. You reach out to your brothers and sisters and echo these words: “Who am I?”
In the silence between your heartbeats hides a summons. Do you hear it? Name it if you must or leave it forever nameless. But why pretend it is not there?
— Virginia Coyle
“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 i.e.; 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 initiator experiences.
Rites of passage are deeply embedded in mythological consciousness as well-the fasting prophets of the old Judeo-Christianity, the questing ancestors of the Aboriginal Dreamtime, the pilgrimages of the Buddha and Mohammed, the medieval knights and their quest for the holy grail, the the underworld journey of great matriarchal deities and Native Americans such as Crazy Horse, Black Elk and countless others.” ~Stephen Foster, Book of the Vision Quest
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 52
Over the ages we have experienced a decline in many of the meaningful rites of passages and initiation practices for pour people. The once sacred and transformative ceremonies and rituals that informed early cultures with a sense of personal vision, community responsibility and deeply rooted connections to earth and spirit have often been replaced by “pseudo initiations” that do not facilitate or support the needed shift in consciousness necessary to enter into new life stations and responsibilities such as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 and ancestral wisdom and truth, adopting the values and stories of a larger culture that is 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 Ceremony 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 the Nature and pray for vision has been the way of all our ancestors and they sought to uncover the mysteries of their own sacred medicine and return to their people with vision and purpose.
Is Sacred Mountain calling you to reawaken to your indigenous wisdom; heal the emotional and spiritual wounds of the past and reclaim your personal vision to bring back to your people? Will you answer this calling?
— Kedar