Reflections after our ‘What is a Vision Quest’ coffee morning
My co-guide Werner and I recently offered a Coffee Morning, a gathering to informally explore the question, ‘What is a vision quest?’ Many things came out of this conversation including concerns from some participants about how to integrate the experience. Incorporation is the last of the three phases in traditional guided rites of passage and describes something about how to land the experience of vision quests back into every day life.
The First Phase
The first phase involves a departure from the world you once knew, what Meredith Little refers to as, ‘standing in the graveyard of the myth of your old life’. These initiations primarily catalyse and initiate inner change. These may be changes in the way you see and experience yourself, letting go of limiting mindsets and beliefs, connecting with true self-worth and a deep sense of belonging. Whatever it is that we long for, we must be willing to turn towards the deadwood in our lives and see it, as just that, with the understanding that we must leave it behind if we are to grow and evolve.
When the time comes you will leave behind your life back home to join us in our wild and secluded valley. We spend the first few days settling and connecting in our small soulful community. During this time we will explore the land, meet our neighbours (oak, moss, fox and fern to name a few), and experience teachings from the medicine wheels and myth. The medicine wheel teachings we are most familiar with are The Four Shields of Human Nature (SOLB) and the Nature Based Map of Psyche (AVI).
The Second Phase
The second phase is characterised by stepping across a threshold into the unknown, into a symbolic poetic reality, where we open to something greater than ‘little me’. As our bodies empty of food and our minds are no longer distracted by daily pursuits, we may step into the the subtlety of our own inner nature and the truth of our being. Into a space from which something else may emerge, awakened forgotten senses and ways of perceiving, perhaps our deepest longing and innate potential, perhaps even our wild, authentic and natural selves.
Practically we step into the time of the wilderness vigil (with the support of guides at base camp) to enter a period of fasting and ceremony for four days and four nights.
We step into Mystery. We step into the poem of our lives, into an experience of the world as sacred. It is impossible to describe adequately what happens during this threshold time, each of us will have our unique experience. You may have heard words and phrases such as nature becomes our mirror, interconnectedness, reciprocity, anima mundi… these are words. You have to taste it for yourself.
Courting this intimacy with Nature can bring a deep sense of belonging, a chance to recover parts that got lost along the way. It certainly brings us closer to our inner compass, a compass aligned with our heart.
Do not try to serve the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create a clearing
in the dense forest of your life
and wait there patiently,
until the song that is yours alone to sing
falls into your open cupped hands
and you recognise and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself
to the world so worthy of rescue.Clearing by Martha Postlethwaite The Last Phases of Incorporation
During our time together back at base camp we share the stories of our wilderness vigil and explore its gifts and implications for the life we return to. We share our stories in a form called ‘story council’ and having them mirrored back to us by the guides, offering the opportunity to see our individual narrative in a wider context. This can be one of the most touching and heartening parts of this ceremony: being witnessed, affirmed and celebrated by ‘the village’ those who have come to participate in and create this ceremony together,
and then…
What do we do when we walk through the front door of our old village?
During this last phase of time together we are committed to spending a good amount of time sharing around ways to support successful re-integration and begin the next steps of incorporation. Incorporation literally means ‘taking into the body’. We believe any lasting transformation must include a connection and relatedness with our bodies. It is simply not possible to ‘think’ ourselves into lasting change. During this phase we share embodiment practices to support grounding and landing your experiences, both within yourselves, and into your everyday lives. Alongside this, both Werner and I offer mentoring and mini retreats for those who have completed previous programmes to come together, to practice and share around each others on-going journeys.
The Return
We know from experience that the many pressures of life can pull us back into our old habits and the familiar patterns of our lives. It can come to feel like nothing significant really happened on your quest, or you might begin to feel like you need another big experience to make your breakthrough.
There has likely been a radical alteration in your sense of identity and on some level you can never return to the world that was. So you must find a way to bring this new becomingness of yourself back home back to your life and community. The truth is, you are in the midst of the final and probably hardest stage of your rite of passage. We know this as Incorporation, the process through which you take on the body of your vision and begin to live your purpose from the inside out.
The work of Incorporation, what ever the context of transitions, is always somewhat messy. Just as with grief, in it’s natural expression it is alive, wild and untamed. And from the perspective of our ordinary lives, extremely inconvenient. We must learn to have affection for our messiness. Not all paths in life are neat and predictable. Deep down we know this, or come to know it.
In day gone by there were wise elders to contain, bless and guide us, communities to bear witness. These rites of initiation held cultural significance. In our modern context this path is even more challenging. Yet, what is the alternative? To play life small and numb. To batten down the hatches, wrap ourselves in cotton wool and try our damndest not to change. I am reminded of the lines in David Whyte’s poem;
I know what I am saying.
Time almost forsook me
and I looked again.
Seeing my reflection
I broke a promise
and spoke
for the first time
after all these years
in my own voice,
before it was too late
to turn my face again.
Some paths are necessary if we are to hold to our truth and mature. To realise our calling and what it is we wish to stand for in the world is no small path and it demands something of us. What was that book from the 70’s called? The Road Less Travelled.
This is the path less travelled.
What helps with this transition?
These are some of the things we offer for the bumpy and necessary road of integration after our days together in Devon have ended.
Werner and I have created structures were folks can stay in touch with each other beyond our time together, zoom calls for meeting our clan again and offer our mentorship. I am particularly interested in somatic practices as an aid to integration - specifically Gene Gendlin’s Focusing method. I offer free monthly practice sessions and online courses in this.
Beyond that I advocate for:
Finding a Mentor. I, myself advocate for this because I have been the receiver of great mentorship over many years, without which I would not be the woman I am today.
Step by step, growing our tolerance of discomfort - growing outside of our comfort zone.
Being able to find our way back to steadiness when ‘the seas are rough’.
Getting to high ground, whatever that means to you symbolically or literally, so that we can take the long view, gain perspective.
Staying in touch with your fellow travellers. This is a shared journey, we cannot make it alone.
Being realistic about the pace of real change.
There is only one life
you can call your own
and a thousand others
you can call by any name you want.
Hold to the truth you make
every day with your own body,
don't turn your face away.
Hold to your own truth
at the center of the image
you were born with.
Those who do not understand
their destiny will never understand
the friends they have made
nor the work they have chosen
nor the one life that waits
beyond all the others.
By the lake in the wood
in the shadows
you can
whisper that truth
to the quiet reflection
you see in the water.
Whatever you hear from
the water, remember,
it wants you to carry
the sound of its truth on your lips.
Remember,
in this place
no one can hear you
and out of the silence
you can make a promise
it will kill you to break,
that way you'll find
what is real and what is not.
I know what I am saying.
Time almost forsook me
and I looked again.
Seeing my reflection
I broke a promise
and spoke
for the first time
after all these years
in my own voice,
before it was too late
to turn my face again.
All The True Vows by David Whyte