The Vision Quest
For more than thirty years I conducted an experience called the Vision Quest with groups around the world. The Vision Quest, sometimes called The Spirit Quest was originally an ancient, tribal coming-of-age ceremony that people repeated throughout life as a means of self-renewal. The quests I lead follow the same rituals that have, for ages, guided people around the globe to discover the visions that lead them to their true life-missions. Here is an interesting fact: for centuries these Spirit Quests were done; everywhere in almost the same manner; by tribes on separate continents that had no contact with one another. Unless this is a natural and appropriate path of human unfolding, how could that have happened?

Those with whom I work come together in an isolated place on the edge of a wilderness, with zero outside influences. There, they eliminate stresses or attitudes that might interfere with their unfoldment by a week of meditating, resting and playing. As days go by and shards of tension fall away, each person becomes less thorny, more self-supportive and more forgiving.

On the day before their quest begins, elders help prepare them for their adventure through a caring process of listening and coaching. On that final evening they join for their last meal and then listen to a powerful story of a person who also goes into the wilderness to find truth. After the story, they fall into an absolute silence that may not to be broken until the afternoon of their return. At daybreak, still wrapped in silence, they venture out, each in his or her own direction, carrying nothing more than a pack with water, a sleeping bag and five pieces of dried fruit, which is their only food until their return. Some experienced questers stay longer than first timers, so they will have gone out several days before.

Each seeker will now walk until he or she is completely isolated and there is no chance of seeing or hearing another, and will then stop, and with the exception of their shoes, take off all their clothes, place them in their pack and continue on, sometimes for miles, looking for that spiritual home, that special place that speaks to their souls and where they will stay until their return. Their nakedness is not a sexual experience, but one that eliminates the last barriers between them and that natural world into which they are flowing; in which they will be like the birds and animals around them, relying solely upon Great Spirit to protect and guide them as divine children of nature. Their entire bodies awaken to the energy of life around them.

Without a pause, from the very moment the first of them walked out of camp until the last returns, the elders keep a fire burning and a drum beating twenty-four hours a day.

Then they come back in and watching this procession is one of the most beautiful and touching experiences in my life! Some have been out two days, some for nearly a week. One by one they come, gliding out of the forest or the desert, dressed and with the determination of creators and the grace of angels. Their eyes are clear and calm and their faces are transformed and they walk as though dancing in light.

Though you might never have the opportunity to do an actual Spirit Quest, you may yet reach a similar state of clarity, courage and confidence by regularly taking the steps I will outline through these blogs; steps which come from my work and from my book Romancing The Soul, Your Personal Guide to Living Free. It will not be difficult, you need only read each message as it comes and apply it to your life as seems fitting. I am also available for personal coaching if you need me. (bob@arasfoundation.org)

Last week we talked about visualizations and certainly vision is the first step. Yet don’t be concerned if the clarity of your vision does not come easily. When you are determined to find and get on your vision-path, and begin thinking in that direction, your journey will have begun and the universe will begin unfolding a path before you.

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A bit of humor for you:
A traffic cop spots a woman driving and knitting at the same time.He yells; "Pull over!" "No," she shouts back, "a pair of socks!"

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