For thousands of years when someone was ready for a major transition in their lives, they did a vision quest for insights. Why would someone leave the comfort of their home and routine in order to make change?
Breaking routine and familiarity, and stripping our lives down to quiet contemplation with our Creator, help us actually hear and become inspired by what is next in our Divine journeys.
We can wait for crisis to motivate us if we wish, but it does seem like a rather extreme way to become motivated doesn’t it? When we quest, we consciously meet the inner call for change, rather than subject ourselves to progress through crisis.
We are often deeply attached to what we already have and what we are already doing, even though we can feel the call for transformation. Questing helps us break the cycle so that we can finally see what is truly important. In understanding why it is so important to release our attachments, we find the courage to actually do it.
One of the reasons we cling to the familiar is our fear of the unknown. We feel Spirit tugging on us, but we rationalize our way into complacency because we convince ourselves that we just don’t know how to handle the changes. Then we tell ourselves we don’t need to make those changes, all the while knowing we are silently lying to ourselves.
Typically, we’ve said a prayer for right partnership, greater prosperity, clear guidance, deeper connection to the Divine, knowledge about our true path in life. We’ll get to the answer, once we let go of our attachments. In those moments, there is no greater gift we can give to ourselves than to end the inner debate and surrender to the call to release ourselves from the way it has always been.
My elders speak of this surrender as, …welcoming the wonderful reality waiting for you on the other side of the stuckness.
The unknown is the domain of the Sacred Feminine. This is where we open our arms to the love that holds us throughout each transition we make. The love of the Divine is always present. Guidance, insight, wisdom is there when we get quiet enough to notice.
Questing is a way in which we meet our fears, as expressed through our attachments, with love. In that love the fear can finally be seen as the limit we have created. In the support of a loving community at quest, we finally let the fear rest.
In that act of surrender, our inner senses open. Finally, we can see, hear, sense and know Divine wisdom through the actions of Mother Earth’s creatures or our spirit guides on the other side.
This year at New Dream Foundation’s Vision Quest (formerly called SpiritQuest), we are offering something new. You will have the opportunity to quest for a half or full day. If you have never quested, this will allow you to experience the wonder of spending quiet time with Mother Earth, with the support of a community watching after you and a Sacred Fire burning to focus the energy of the camp and the spirits.
In future, you might want to consider an over-night vision quest, but giving yourself a day-quest is a lovely way to get started as you leave your past behind and step into the wonderful reality waiting for you.
For more information about vision quest, please visit: http://www.newdreamfoundation.com/spirit-quest.htm
