Vision Quest 2022
A vision quest isn’t just a journey of a young Native American boy entering manhood.
It’s a journey that’s available to each one of us.
I did some reading about the idea behind a vision quest, and it is described as a rite of passage that encourages and supports the awakening of your own indigenous wisdom.
A vision quest isn’t just a journey of a young Native American boy entering manhood.
It’s a journey that’s available to each one of us.
I did some reading about the idea behind a vision quest, and it is described as a rite of passage that encourages and supports the awakening of your own indigenous wisdom.
It’s a period of spiritual seeking.
And it is often composed of these three elements: Solitude. Nature. Fasting.
I realized as I reflected on our last two weeks, that all of those components have been present. Larry and I intentionally took times of solitude. We spent the entirety of our trip immersed in Nature. And when I pondered on the fasting element, I discovered that I fasted from productivity. I did not nourish my ego on what I got done, or who needed me. I existed in nature. Period.
My perimeters starting crumbing in Oklahoma. I felt it. I didn’t know exactly what was happening. Only that the version of me that I knew was experiencing a death cycle, to make way for an expanding version of myself. We listened to a podcast with Brene Brown and Father Richard Rohr and he talked so graciously about our true nature of loving. In this world so full of unloving. He said, “to love deeply is to suffer deeply.”
He’s right. Have you noticed that our society doesn’t allow us to just love everyone equally? How they shove the sides in your face constantly and demand that you choose? And to choose one side is to be angry at the other. It hurts me. My heart and my being suffer with such a harsh approach to our human experience.
What does it mean to hold onto myself in this world at war with itself? How do I choose love even when the world I love is angry at me for not choosing enemies?
Today, my soul led me, (us) to John Denver’s Sanctuary. And instantly I knew this was the perfect and appointed culmination to this vision quest. To be free to join in with this magnificent earth. To sing with the brooks. To sway with the birches. To lay in the grass and feel the heart beat of Mother Earth. To accept that all of life is a song. I am a song. To commune with the Great Mystery. And worship.
This is how I will keep loving a world that may not choose to love me back. Maybe they can’t. It’s hard. This living. And the only truly meaningful response to all of the confusion and turmoil is mercy.
Thank you so much to each of you who have followed this part of my (and Larry’s) journey. Truly it was a great joy and a lovely gift to share with you the wonder of it all. We are all connected. We are all family. Here on this magnificent earth. And I’m grateful for you. That our paths have crossed somewhere along the way.
I believe we all want to be undone. We all want to be amazed and brought to an abrupt halt to look at something that leaves us speechless. We crave wonder. We desire meaning. And purpose.
I have been enchanted by the richness of rivers. I have been ministered to by the desert. I have been silenced by the majestic mountains and been stirred to discomfort by the vastness of the canyons. We have collected sunsets and attended sunrises.
In every landscape I encountered different reflections of myself. I unearthed fears. I felt the satisfaction of cresting a summit. And I experienced a life altering humility. At how small I really am in an expansive and diverse world.
If you have been moved in any way towards wonder. If you have felt even the smallest twinge of inspiration. If you have pondered even a tiny something that rose up in you, from following this quest, then I am delighted.
For every bit of this gift, I give deep thanks.
Namaste.
*Photo Credit: Larry E. Weaver
From Cactuses to Cathedrals.
Mother Nature built her sacred, and majestic cathedrals in Sedona, Arizona. And we were privileged to set foot into them.
Sedona has a way of bringing you to internal silence. It quiets your soul almost instantly.
There are no words, at least not adequate words to describe this place or this experience.
Sedona, this is not goodbye. This is “see you later.”
Mother Nature built her sacred, and majestic cathedrals in Sedona, Arizona. And we were privileged to set foot into them.
Sedona has a way of bringing you to internal silence. It quiets your soul almost instantly.
There are no words, at least not adequate words to describe this place or this experience.
Sedona, this is not goodbye. This is “see you later.”
Morning Musings
I’ve wanted to “go West” since I was a little girl with frizzy hair and a pony tail.
In elementary school, the kids from the “cool families” would take a motorhome out West over Summer vacation. I didn’t know what ”going West” meant, exactly. But I sure knew it was something I wanted to do!
I’ve carried the dream for three and a half decades….
I’ve wanted to “go West” since I was a little girl with frizzy hair and a pony tail.
In elementary school, the kids from the “cool families” would take a motorhome out West over Summer vacation. I didn’t know what ”going West” meant, exactly. But I sure knew it was something I wanted to do!
I’ve carried the dream for three and a half decades. One of my favorite quotes that I hold to, as a guiding belief, is this:
“What’s for you will not pass you.”
Now, I’m not suggesting it’s a blanket statement, or that it resonates with everyone. But it resonates with me. It comforts me. And it helps me embrace the opportunities that come my way, and wave to the ones that pass me, without resentment.
This morning as I was having coffee, looking around me, it felt so surreal. To be in the desert. In the West. I’m here. It didn’t pass me. But it could have.
I am only recently unpacking the way the COVID shutdown affected me on a deeply personal level. As someone who holds my freedom as my most treasured gift, I will never forget the way I felt when we got the email that our flights were canceled for a trip my Louise’s and I were planning to take to Ireland and Scotland in 2020. I just couldn’t wrap my head, heart, mind, and soul around being stuck.
I remember going through the process of being so angry. And then afraid. And then just so sad. Having to stay home, or close to home, felt like prison to me, even though I loved my home. Something precious and core to who I am went into a deep sleep. It had to, so I could go on.
I became comfortable in my new, smaller world. And it’s almost like I forgot myself as I was. To the point that I thought maybe I had transformed into a home body forever.
Over the past few months, though, this restlessness started setting in. At first I was alarmed. What did it mean? Was I not as happy as I thought I was? What is missing? What is my spirit and soul trying to tell me?
I know now, that I was waking back up. And it scared me. It sounds silly. But I was nervous to go far away from home. All of those “it’s not safe” messages were checking in constantly.
It takes courage to wake back up. It takes courage to stretch into the unknown and do the things we dream of. Because dreams come with risk. They come with uncertainty.
I so value openness. Telling the whole story. Not just the high light reel that makes it sound as if there is no struggle involved. Twice on our trip so far, I took a medication to help me through anxious moments at night time. Just because we need help to get through the stretching doesn’t make us less brave. It IS scary to leave everything familiar behind for a few weeks. It’s hard to not see your kids and pets. And those you love.
But my soul needs this. To be alive and fully awake. What’s for me didn’t pass me. Although without courage, it easily could have.
I am so grateful for a spouse who holds all the space in the world for me to share my dreams and my fears with him. He is not my comfort. My comfort is within me. But his care adds so deeply to my joy.
Love over fear.
Freedom or bust.
Desert Church
The desert has been calling to me for several years. It was finally time to answer the call.
The desert has been calling to me for several years. It was finally time to answer the call.
My intuition told me that the desert holds much wisdom. Just as the desert seasons of our lives.
Both Larry and myself have been to the most barren inner places in the past decade. But we learned so much and grew to be the people we are today because of it. We confronted the weakest and the strongest parts of ourselves. And we held on. To who we were. To who we are.
And tonight. Well, tonight was desert church. The time to dance in the desert. To feel a sermon. To live it. To embrace the whole beauty of it all. So symbolic for us.
Life unfolds. It’s an elegant dance, really. Miraculous. That we are able to attend our own sacred lives. Whether we are curled up just breathing through the pain, or dancing. It’s all the sacred human experience.
We are alive. And we are full of gratitude. Taking it all in…from each sunrise, to its setting.
Photo Credit: Larry E. Weaver
