Vision Quest Experience

I spent a solid ninety-six hours in a tiny spot in the woods. It’s weird to think of it in terms of hours rather than in terms of experiences. Regardless, I left early Sunday morning for my Vision Quest. I brought a gallon of water and a heavy blanket to my spot, and when I arrived I sat down and ushered in the sunrise and the awakening, natural world with excitement.

Sitting for the first day was not too difficult; it was comparable to a significantly extended Sit Spot visit, which I’ve done on many occasions. I met the first half of Sunday full of eager alertness and a sense of great joy just being out there in the middle of my little grove of trees, waiting to see what would unfold for this Quest.

There was no real consideration or concern over the seeming duration of time passage as I filled my experience studying everything around me and connecting to the spot. Surrounded by young Pine trees on the transition edge of a mixed-deciduous forest with Oaks towering overhead, I was sure that I had found a perfect place. There was only one opening to my East side, but that didn’t go too far across the field of moss, perhaps fifty feet, before hitting another edge of forest.

Life surrounded me on all sides, but I could only see beyond the edge of my spot on one side. Chipmunks, squirrels, and mice constantly rustled through the leaves, chased each other, or came no closer than ten feet from me wondering what kind of creature had taken up occupancy in this place of theirs.

The transition area smelled of the moist, dew-laden earth of the forest and field, and only the deep-forest birds like the Tanager and Woodpeckers were making significant sounds of starting their industrious day.

I found myself in and out of states of mind that morning, alternating between thinking and being in Presence. I tried to meditate and to let go of the brain’s need to grasp a sense of time altogether.

So, I spent the first half of Sunday contemplating my mind’s need for thought. But the second half of the day I spent reflecting on the purpose of this Quest. I came to many realizations and insights during the next several days.

I had to take some time to really assess what this was all about, because it wasn’t about me; it couldn’t be. I wasn’t there to make a gain or to create an image. I was there because I am attempting to fulfill a need for my children. I made sure to acknowledge my purpose and speak it to the elements surrounding me so as not to be there in vain. I explained that my entire purpose, if nothing more, was to at least complete the physical part of the Quest, to show my children the integrity of sticking something out, no matter how difficult or uncomfortable it may be. I further explained in supplication that any Vision, message, or insight was not strictly for my gain, but rather for the passing down of information from experience—wisdom—to our progeny. Whatever came of this experience was as a means to an end for the betterment of all beings, for the purpose of healing Grandmother Earth.

That evening, Grandfather Sun sank behind the trees in the Western corner nearest me, but he left a coating of light on the trees across the field on the Southern end. This is the time that a small murder of five Crows moved to their evening roosting area in the West. This is the time that chipmunks and squirrels quiet considerably, while mouse and shrew become active in the leaf litter. There is a porcupine juvenile in a large Pine on the Western edge a few hundred feet away, and he whines constantly at his mother. All night long, he sounds like a baby constantly being nudged to mind his manners, or prodded to stop being naughty. This is the time that Pileated Woodpecker, who’s been laughing at me throughout the day, heads from the woods behind me in the North, to wherever he stays at night in the South. This is the time that daytime, human families are buckling down to finish homework and have supper, and I know my own family is doing just that before they say their Thanksgiving Address, as I’ve been doing out here. This Gloaming, or dusk, is a significant transitional time, and I feel like I’ve been part of it for eons as I grow closer to the little group surrounding me.

It wasn’t until this wall of light faded, replaced by a rising veil of shadow and these trees were in darkness, that the night began to show its true form, when the stars popped out randomly, and Grandmother Moon peeked through the Eastern trees.

As I lay back on the first night, my thoracic spine in knots, I rested my head on my hand and tried to relax into the night scene. I must have relaxed too much, because I woke up after several minutes of dreaming, still propped up on my hand. I blinked, but then found myself waking up again after another dream still propped on my hand. This happened maybe five times. I tried to stand up to shake off the sleep, but I was near drunk with sleepiness, and the next thing I knew I was waking up after a couple of hours as Grandmother Moon was vanishing over the Western edge of my area. Quite unhappy with myself for sleeping, I stood up and cursed in my mind at my lack of integrity, and I vowed to stay awake from then on.

On the second day—Monday-- the initial excitement of the Quest hadn’t eased, but I found that I began to dredge through regrets and mistakes in my life, and I also found that patience is certainly a virtue that one must possess to undertake sitting in one spot for twenty-four hours straight, let alone ninety-six. Although, I will admit that I did not sit the entire time. I sat, stood, kneeled, lied down, crouched, and squatted as if in some kind of extreme Sunday-morning mass, over the course of my time out. My back was not happy with a lack of a back-rest, so the dynamics of this scenario were difficult. I learned much about my physical center, as well as getting an intense, crash-course in Ki extension. This carried over into the third day, particularly during the nights in which I tested myself by wearing next to nothing as Grandfather Sun set and Grandmother Moon took his place across the sky bringing quite a chill along with her.

I scanned my relatively restricted spot that morning, and I felt compelled to investigate a place that was only twelve feet away, deeper into the transition-line of Pines and Oaks. The young trees—from ten years old to twenty years old—grew more densely packed there, and I could see a perfect nook within, from underneath the branches, that beckoned me. I reassessed my initial place, and the openness concerned me greatly; I felt I needed to go deeper. So I moved into the little grove where there was essentially “standing room only.”

No matter where I turned my body in this nook, some of my siblings’ branches stroked some part of my skin. The confined space left little visibility beyond four feet, and this seemed much more appropriate for the purpose I sought.

As I sat and greeted my little group of trees, I could only see the open sky above and the tops of the mature trees on the field edges about a hundred feet away. Standing, I was able to see the forest at the Southern edge of the field several hundred feet outside of my spot. I could see the wind blowing the tops of the edge-trees while my group of saplings stayed quite still. It occurred to me that this was similar to the mental process of going deeper into oneself in order to move into the spiritual realms. If the winds were thoughts, then the calm place immediately around me was like my mind absent of thought, quiet enough to experience the purity of the moment and place. But beyond my inner circle of quietness, out there where the winds of thoughts blew the trees heavily, there also needed to be calm in order for me to see details and hear subtle sounds more clearly in the further spheres. So I began to contemplate how to go about reaching deeper within, but beyond my inner, central self, to find a way to calm those thoughts that seemed so out of reach, beyond the subconscious into the unconscious, it seemed. This would consume me for the next day and night.

While standing facing south earlier in the day, I felt that there was somebody approaching me. I looked frantically through the trees, spying through the branches and underneath them, out as far as I could to locate any movement. I listened for alarms or footsteps. There was nothing. But I got this sensation from the trees around me as if there was something intriguing happening. Still, I found no sign of any other entities nearby, and then my mind slipped into a ridiculous thought process about something back in the secular world, and I actually went into a lengthy diatribe with the trees about how this issue concerned me. About ten minutes later, I finally noticed the alarm calls that had progressed already up the field from the South, and I noticed movement about twenty feet away. It was Dakota coming to check on me. I turned away, as was the established rule, for there can be no communication, not even eye contact, during the Quest. He saw that I was still alive, and he left accordingly.

Then I mentally beat myself up for being such an unobservant, disconnected idiot. I was beyond upset that I hadn’t noticed his presence there, and I even came close to blaming the spirits for not alerting me. But I knew that it was my own foolish ignorance that kept me from being aware. Then it occurred to me that I HAD indeed been notified: ten minutes prior. I had been notified that there was someone approaching, and I had found that this feeling came through sensing the presence of the trees and other life around me. What I didn’t do was put the feeling together with a deeper exploration of imagery or other sensation. I used no inner vision to establish how far, who was coming, what direction, or why. So then I apologized to the spirits, and I mentally beat myself up even more.

Then I let it go. I became so engrossed by my frustration that I realized that I was beginning to anticipate things. My mind was mimicking my inner vision, and I made predictions based more upon paranoia than true feeling. This became even more consuming and frustrating, so I had to allow myself to forgive myself. Only after hours of this torture was finally able to just let it go.

The chipmunk that would be my closest four-legged neighbor, by this time, came to within a couple of feet of me, exploring my presence when I was IN Presence. Acorns randomly dropped and plunked thick branches, plopped in mats of leaves, or cracked on large rocks around me.

Porcupine whined at the Gloaming, at dusk, and I went back to Presence, to extending Ki, and I let the energy of Nature flow through me again.

On that Monday night, I learned how much the winds shifted and moved from the cooler woods and wet area back and forth through my sit area. I also learned that in the winds, the Oaks overhead dropped massive air-strikes of acorn-bombs all around me. I found this somewhat comical because I had felt particularly compelled to be in this spot, so either it was a set-up by the spirits or my subconscious self, or it was an opportunity. I sought the opportunity. I found that if I stayed in Presence, I developed a sense of the proximity of falling acorn-bombs. I was hit on the back only one time during my days and nights there, and it was during a time that I was thinking rather than being. Very powerful lesson. Those things hurt.

In the gusting winds I thought I would freeze. I hadn’t eaten since Saturday, and I was trying to drink my gallon of water sparingly, as well. I take this concept of the “little death” seriously, so I deprived myself of as much as possible without tipping myself into the risk of absolute, physical death. Unfortunately, after two days of drinking only a pint of water, I found that my muscles were cramping considerably, and the already frigid nights reaching into the high thirties were bringing me to unbearable shivering from deep inside my core, nearly expelling me from the Quest.

I bundled up and sat awake that night for as long as possible, listening to branches rustle and acorns thwap the ground. It was a good chunk of the night that I sat awake, too, as Grandmother Moon hit somewhere near the midpoint above, and then my back forced me to change position again. And, again, in doing so, I lost the battle with sleep. I spent an extremely uncomfortable and fitful night of strange dreams and pain on the ground.

On Tuesday morning I stood again before Grandfather Sun broke over the tops of the Eastern trees, and I again cursed myself for being such a weakling. I knew I would do better that night. I prayed I would do better, and when I prayed, I then realized that I hadn’t actually made my purpose for this Quest clear to anyone: not to Nature, the Great Spirit, and not even to myself.

As I eased back into Presence, all senses open and experiencing the Now, I thought of how we, in society, seem to chase after time, horde it, and then waste much of it. We fill time with distractions, believing we’re experiencing the Now while we’re actually living in spite of it, like inviting a friend to visit you while you listen to music through headphones by yourself. Even things we do as families can be devoid of experiencing time in the present, as we’re so busy chasing the event that we’ve assigned to a particular spot in a schedule. Rather than letting Time come to us at the center, we overlay it with things to do.

We also miss things in the present while we’re so busy chasing it. While we’re busy focused on some task or event, we miss the present of an event and only see the wake left behind. If not in Presence, then I don’t feel the actions of the creatures around me; I miss the presence of all beings and events happening at the same time I’m living, and I only see the effects after the events. Then I would wonder something like: How did that happen? How did I miss that? What was I doing? And that’s not a way to exist, to me. When living in Presence, I’m riding in the boat, not chasing the wakes.

When in Presence, there is no sense of time duration, only experience. When out of Presence, time can feel as if it goes by fast or slow depending upon our interpretation. This, to me, seems like a vast waste of existence, never experiencing the reality of life as it happens. This, to me, is like getting second-hand stories of events that are truly important and should be experienced at the time. This life of catering to schedules and slating events is like fillers for an existence that we find otherwise scary or uncomfortable in its realness. We constantly cater to our mind’s beliefs, assumptions, and interpretations, even before we know the reality of those situations, and we mitigate our assumptions with fluff, experiences that lack substance, even if they seem deep and significant. In fact, it is during the deepest and most significant times that we should be in Presence. This way, we gain a fuller, richer experience of the Now.

So I found that while in Presence during this Quest, time had no meaning, and it was more like moving from within one state of progressive Now, rather than moving from minute to minute. There was no fast or slow, only Now, and all linear perception vanished while everything persisted progressively. In other words, it was an astounding insight.

While being in a state of Presence, it is reasonable to extend Ki, as this is part of the full experience of the Universe. Extending Ki is a natural part of being in the moment. It is a constant state of readiness, a state of being centered at all times. Extending Ki is the energy aspect of Presence, which sets the physical and mental in synchronicity. This is Unification of mind and body, which, to me, is an essential aspect of Presence.

So on this, my third day—Tuesday—I ventured into deep meditation on things happening in my life. I found that an Aikido school of Nature seemed to be a very logical and important step in the evolution of the purpose I am uncovering in my existence. Then it occurred to me that we’re quite presumptuous to believe that we must have some kind of grand purpose in our existence in order to live a rich and fulfilling life. Another attachment: trying to seek the purpose rather than letting it unfold along your path with the things you do. In other words, as long as we live rightly, according to the Natural Laws, then we will find our purpose when it happens, because it is the inevitable culmination of our experiences. In other words again, if we live trying to figure out what’s at the end of the path, we lose the experience of the journey in fullness, and we also get attached to the idea that there is an ending.

I didn’t want to be caught in that thought-trap.

So I did much contemplation about Ki extension, Presence, and the techniques of Aikido. I put myself into a “trance” of sorts, of envisioning the techniques while extending Ki and practicing in the deeper level of consciousness: what some would consider the spiritual realm. This infuses the techniques into the mind and body, but also allows one to explore them beyond three or four dimensions of time and space, but also spiritually as units of Ki interacting with others in pure reflection, Mushin, No-mind.

During this day I was hanging out with the trees again, facing South, and I was in Presence when I got an inexplicable urge to sense presence specifically within my sit area. Sensing presence and being IN Presence are not entirely the same thing, but in order to sense presence, I need to BE in Presence. (This “inexplicable” urge also prompted a deep contemplation about science being supposedly objective, but unwilling to explore the spiritual realm as another extension of science itself.) Anyway, while sensing presence, I felt that the trees in the area were “paying attention to something.” It was as if something had caused them to shift their “tree-vision” to something outside my small circle.

When I obeyed my inner vision drive to look into the distance through the branches, I saw movement in the distance. This time, it was Quinn, my middle son, approaching from a few hundred feet away bringing me water. He was too far to be heard, and he had not yet set off the alarm I knew would be coming from that area, and I could only see his head coming over the field of Showy Goldenrod from the distance. This time, I got the message, and even though I may have missed the message that may have come ten minutes earlier, I very strongly received this one that came in plenty of time to teach me an extremely valuable lesson of awareness and connection. I was quite pleased with this lesson.

Quinn brought the water. I turned away before he got to my spot. He left the gift, then went back home.

That evening, the Crows glided from the East to the West, following Grandfather Sun from a distance. Pileated Woodpecker darted out from the forest behind me, made a short appearance, then slipped over the Western tree-tops, within which Porcupine whined as if mother was annoying him again with waking up for the night.

That night, I drank the water deeply, and I embarked the oncoming of the frigid night with next to nothing on my body. This was a time to test my extension of Ki. After four days devoid of food and two nights rife with fitful sleep, at best, not to mention sitting in one spot for three days, I wanted to push my test to prove that I was worthy of being a vessel of healing and protection of all my relations for the Creator.

I put myself into a state of Presence as Grandfather Sun dropped behind the trees in the West. As night diluted the colors of day with tones of gray, the temperature also dropped significantly, and continued to do so as the winds picked up and began an upheaval of near gale-force proportion. Extending Ki as night enveloped me and my place, I watched Grandmother Moon rise and stood in my position as the cold intensified around me. I was always the type of kid who wore t-shirts in the winter when going to school, or who would swim in the frigid waters just to show off a little bravado—all Ego garbage, of course—but this was different from “attacking” the cold with pure mental will or obstinacy. This lesson became a matter of not resisting the cold, but rather embracing it as something real that I could turn into even stronger Ki that created a buffer over my skin, or maybe just beneath it, kind of like a layer of Ki fat! I found that while extending Ki, I could indefinitely stay in the descending temperatures without exhausting Ki. However, I also found that it takes a toll mentally and physically to stand and focus in this way, and my back ultimately became the culprit that betrayed me. Not because of a lack of Ki, but because of a lack of spinal fortitude, I had to take a break and try to rejuvenate myself. I suppose I’m just not made to “sleep” on the hard ground for several nights in a row anymore. Alas. But I did stay with Grandmother Moon, extending Ki to my siblings around me, well into the night before I had to rest. Of that, I am satisfied.

On Wednesday, I thought it would be the easiest day because I was at the last leg of the Quest. I thought Tuesday, the third day, would be the longest. There were points throughout the Quest, during which my Ego spiked and grew frustrated, irritated, and impatient. I constantly had to temper this mind with will and strength from the Creator to let these petty emotions go. But Wednesday had me quite bound by my Ego at a couple of moments. I found this particularly intense when I started thinking about exactly what I was going to eat when I left the next morning. I even found that in my night-fits of strange dreams that it wouldn’t be uncommon to dream about gigantic apples or other strange foods. Oddly, as starving as I was convinced I must be, I didn’t really feel too hungry. When I finally did eat upon my return, however, my body certainly didn’t respond the way I had thought it might.

Many new insights, particularly with inner vision or intuition came to me during that day. Some things are too personal to mention, but it was a poignantly productive day with lessons I needed to learn about dealing with certain aspects of my life, which included trying to hone my inner vision. This led me back to the concept of trying to calm the winds outside of my inner circle, deep into my unconscious, spiritual awareness. If I could control the “winds” of thoughts directly in my mind, within my inner consciousness, then perhaps the outer consciousness was about controlling the winds of thoughts in the mind of my spiritual self. This again set me on the meditation of extending my spiritual self and taking a very different approach to the spiritual mind from that which I’d taken previously.

If I were to qualify any particular aspect of this Quest as the “Vision,” I would say that this was a most powerful aspect of it. It is something I will continue to explore for quite a while, I’m sure.

It was on this day that the chipmunk neighbor decided to come within inches of me to see what I was up to.

The Pileated Woodpecker once again bubbled from overhead, flying Southward across the field and over the distant trees. The small murder of Crows drifted from the Eastern tree-line across the forest in the distance, circled several times as they moved, like a spiraling tide of black leaves caught in a gentle whirlwind, casually diving at someone, then disappeared fully in the West.

Porcupine started whining again, and it was officially the buckling-down time of evening.

This Wednesday night, night number four, I said my Thanksgiving Address as I always do, and I then took time to apologize to our Earth and our relations for the way our people have treated them. It was then that I really sat and relaxed in a deep sense of camaraderie with the wilderness that I have not really felt before. I’ve always felt deeply connected to Nature, and I’ve felt familiarly close for a very long time, but this was deeper in a way of being immersed to the point that I actually didn’t feel like a human hanging out with my woodland family. Rather, I felt as if I had become one of the trees, taking a spot among my relations. I felt rooted to that spot, and I could feel myself on the threshold of feeling the extension of sensing the presence and messages, feelings, and personalities of other beings in the area beyond sensing their pain or sensing their contentment. And, no word of a lie, it was then that a shooting star bolted from East to West overhead. And as Grandmother Moon began to move up behind the canopy in the East into the thickening clouds, I heard the strangest sound to my right, to the West. It was the sound of a monstrous creature choking on something: I pictured a buffalo coughing up a hairball. It took me a moment of honing in my ears to realize that the sound was high above, not at ground level. As it cleared its throat, Barred Owl began an overture that spurred the calls of several owls in the area until a full council was hooting back and forth for several minutes. I attempted to participate, but my throat was swollen and dry from not drinking enough water, and I only sounded ridiculous to the point that I’m pretty sure they scoffed, laughed, and flew away.

During that night, I seemed to be surrounded with animal activity, unlike the other, quieter nights, as if there had been some kind of curfew lifted and everyone was allowed to return to business as usual as my Quest wound down to completion.

The next morning, I watched for the last time on that Quest as Grandfather Sun stretched from behind the trees in the East and day saturated night, enlivening darkness with color. When He reached the point at which I met him on my first morning, it was time for me to leave. I said a heartfelt Thank-you to my little family, to the Keeper of that spot, and silently departed into one of the most brilliant and enriched mornings of my life. Not many things have looked more glorious, tasted sweeter, smelled so beautiful, felt so refreshing, or sounded so pleasing as the emergence from the Quest.

TenFires 合気道
"I used to wish and hope and pray that I would have a teacher, when I was a kid. I wanted that "Grandfather" figure or "Master" to guide me. That wish gave me some impetus to dig myself in to really learning whatever I could, for I wouldn't want to be a disappointment if the day ever came that I met this incredible person.
I never met this one person, though. But I realized, after about fifteen years, in retrospect, that I had been quite fortunate to have had so many different influences of so many different aspects of Aikido, primitive living, and philosophy, after all. Ultimately, Nature was my greatest teacher, with all of these people of so many cultures and ages being my guides.
I'm so fortunate that not only do I still have these guides, but that I find new ones constantly, and they are often children, my own included.
I used to believe that I needed someone to show me how to be spiritual. Now I know that I only needed someone to show me THAT I could be. Nature and genuine passion did the rest.

The most valuable lesson I've learned, though, regarding striving for the pinnacle of existence, is that there is no greater power than a need beyond the self.
Doing this (trying to be on a selfless path but for selfish reasons) to become enlightened, I've found, only brings one to an intellectual grasp, if that.

But when living literally for the welfare of all other beings, for the rights, peace, and freedom of all others, for the preservation of our world as a Whole, in earnest, and being willing and happy to die for this, then incredible things begin to happen.

My ideas of needs and comforts have always been minimal and conservative, but the idea, when I was younger and more foolish,was always to bring ME closer to Nature, which I had to learn the hard way was doing little more than creating lots of stagnation and frustration.

After becoming a father, and after really grasping how much we are a family in this world--all of us--I've found that very need that exists beyond my selfish ideas and that going to extremes has become necessary, easier, and has brought me much deeper than I had imagined possible BECAUSE of the need to live beyond myself."