Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you
- David Whyte
A week long journey of transformative self-exploration and group ritual, with a three-day solo in the wilderness.
About Wild Heart Vision Quests
Since 2004 I have been guiding small groups into the lap of the Great Mother to sit in the Earth. Traditionally called by my Lakota teachers "Crying for a Vision", colonists to this country have coined the name Vision Quest for this experience. I don't claim to guide a traditional Vision Quest, because I am not initiated by my elders in this way, yet I do follow what I was taught as closely as possible in an adapted version of Vision Quest. Wild Heart Vision Quest offers those in the Western Mind to remember their Indigenous mind/heart, through a three-day solo fast in a remote wilderness.
SUMMER SOLSTICE QUEST, 2009
June 18 - 26
Inyo National Forest, California
Register Now
FEES are offered on a sliding scale of $800 - $1,000.
Your Guide
MARIA GUTIERREZ went on her first Death Valley vision quest at age 19, which eventually led into a five year apprenticeship with a Lakota medicine man and her adoption into a Hopi family. She has sat on the earth in her own questing six times, including in South Dakota and California with traditional teachers. Her background and personal experiences with indigenous wisdom create the foundation of her skill in facilitating groups through this journey in a wild environment. Maria is also practicing Hypnotherapist, Intuition Medicine Counselor, and Self-Awareness workshop facilitator.
(415) 686-9238 :: mariaowl@earthlink.net
The Power of Rites of Passage Rituals
What prompts someone to go on a Vision Quest? Native peoples around the world practice many forms of Rites of Passage rituals for varying reasons. The Vision Quest in the form we are familiar with today is primarily native North American. Young men and some women would go out alone into the wilderness away from their village, around the time of puberty, to meet their spirit guides and receive their spirit name. The medicine men and women would also go out to pray for a vision that could help their people. As the native tribes of the world have been decimated and diminished, humans of the world have lost the great Rites of Passage rituals that have always held such healing, strengthening, and empowering medicine for us.
There are a number of people today who have rediscovered the importance of Rites of Passage rituals for human evolvement. By evolvement, I mean, as a way to bring us into the next level of maturity and responsibility in our lives, emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically. Girls become women. Boys become men. Women become Crones. Men become Wise Men. Where, in western consumer-focused culture, these transitions are not a time of mindfulness, but of switching from tampons to hormone replacement therapy, or hair gel to hair replacement inserts. Now our culture is on the brink of transformation, which could be very positive if we make wise choices. Now more than ever we must face our fears and go through the threshold into the next embodiment of our most alive selves. Our future on this planet depends on it. Vision Quest is a ritual that will bring individuals courageous enough, into that next level; more able to offer their unique gifts to the people who desperately need to receive them.
By choosing to participate in a Vision Quest, you are choosing to live mindfully. Whether you are coming from a place of knowing what you’re signing up for, or jumping into the unknown, the choice to Vision Quest is the choice to change your life.
Preparing Yourself to Quest
PRE-QUEST MEETINGS
Before departing on the journey we will gather for a four hour intensive
meeting to talk about preparations, logistics, expectations, fears, and
visions. This time will mostly focus on the creation of our temporary tribe,
trust, communication, and relationship to the Earth and our spirit guides.
We will discuss the meaning of the Medicine Wheel and the use of the
four-directions to guide us.
The first two days at base camp we will be holding ritual, councils, and group processes to further create a container of trust and safety within the group. This is the time of deeply opening to the process of transformation at hand and preparing to pass with clear intention through the gateway into the spirit world, where you will reside until you return from your solo.
PERSONAL PREPARATIONS
- One month prior to quest: Set intention, buy a journal and write about your anxieties, expectations, excitements, visions, track your dreams. Go on a Spirit Walk.
- Two weeks prior to quest: Pre-quest meeting.
- One week prior to quest: Sweatlodge ceremony to purify body, call in spirit helpers, pray, receive clarity. Stop using any mind altering substances, including caffeine. You don't want to be dealing wth withdrawal headaches on your quest. This week, drink lots of water and eat clean food to help prepare for fasting.
THE SPIRIT WALK
To help you get a sense of what it is like to fast for three days, we encourage strongly that each quester take a day to do a Spirit Walk. A Spirit Walk is a full day, sunrise to sunset, spent walking and sitting in nature. It is helpful to bring along plenty of water, a journal, and perhaps even a book of writings on mindfulness or poetry. Walking will help you physically get a sense of how it will feel to fast for three days because it keeps your metabolism going, and you will get hungrier faster.
You may want to collaborate with other questers for your Spirit Walk. Carpool to a natural area and go in different directions, planning to meet back to watch the sunset together and talk about your experiences. If you go alone, make sure someone knows where you are and when you'll be home.
VISION QUEST JOURNAL
Keeping a journal to write about your experiences before and after your quest is an invaluable tool for witnessing your personal transformations, challenges, triumphs, feelings, visions and dreams. It is a sacred testament to your courage to live fully that you can read again and again, in times when you need to remember, or just reflect.