Blue Mountains Vision Quest

The plants, rocks, fire, water, all are alive.
They watch us and see our needs.
They see when we have nothing to protect us,
and it is then that they reveal themselves and speak to us.
(An Apache storyteller quoted by M.E. Opler in 'The Hero with a Thousand Faces', by Joseph Campbell)

What is a Vision Quest?

A Vision Quest is a rite-of-passage, an initiation and celebration of a particular life transition, dispensing with the old and incorporating the new. It is everyone's birth rite to pass through these transformative milestones in life, unfortunately with the forgetting of our own nature comes the forgetting of important stories, rites and rituals that show us how to do this, and as we know, society is suffering for it.

A Vision Quest is about letting go, surrendering our defences, giving up all that protects our belief system and trusting in the unfolding of each moment. When we surrender we are not only open to hearing the truths of nature but also the truths of ourselves. In traditional indigenous cultures Vision Quests take place outside of human society, out in wilderness, completely and utterly immersing the initiate into the 'more-than-human' world.

A Vision Quest is an important ritual in the heroine's journey and the wisdom gained from it is the compass with which she steers by. The wilderness is the map from which the hero navigates into the unknown terrain of his inner self. A Vision Quest is a journey into the chthonic depths of the human psyche to seek out that which must be found, that which has been lying in the shadows waiting to emerge.

The Opening of the Senses
A good part of our Vision Quest experience involves leaving behind everything we know and immersing ourselves in wild nature.

Being in the wild away from everything that is familiar to us enhances our senses, including intuition. In the wild we can see more, hear more, touch more, taste more, smell more, and feel more. The longer we experience wild and remote natural places the more sensitive we are to everything around and inside of us. Our modern lifestyles have dampened the senses so much that we have forgotten that the world is an extraordinary place that goes way beyond the material realm. With the 'stretching' of the senses we begin to open ourselves up to the 'transpersonal' realms, the realms beyond the personal. Workshop >>>

The Role of the Ego
The transpersonal realms are unattainable unless we do our 'inner work' and this begins with the transformation of the ego. The ego is our central persona and, like all the other aspects of ourselves, it has its own journey of transformation: that of maturation. As far as psychic content is concerned an immature ego is unable to perceive anything outside of itself. It has no awareness of any other phenomena in the psyche. (An outward manifestation of this would be someone who has little awareness of anybody or anything, not even of himself except the most basic functions of survival). For us to achieve wholeness our ego must become aware of what lies beyond itself. What stops us is that the ego has a great fear of the unknown. It is this fear of the unknown that holds us back in life, resisting any attempt at wanting to genuinely connect with people and the rest of nature. This resistance stops our emotional and spiritual development. It is into this 'great unknown' that this work so beautifully and profoundly takes us.

The ultimate purpose of the ego is to help the soul become conscious, however, an ego paralysed with fear is unable to support the soul in rising up out of the unconscious. When the ego is able to realise that each fear is an illusion it begins to build awareness of the world beyond itself. When we stop reacting to outside forces and begin to open up, the truth about ourselves begins to be revealed. With courage and consistency in this work the ego continues to loosen its fearful grip and continues to mature. As the ego matures we have less dramas in life, are more centred, more empathic and it frees us up to begin to align ourselves to our 'soul purpose'. Ultimately the soul has its own purpose - which is our destiny - and to achieve this the mature ego must surrender further and become, like Hanuman to Rama, the devoted servant of the soul. Workshop >>>

Soul and Spirit
A Vision Quest shifts consciousness, even if only for a moment, where we can see things in new and different ways. Re-sensitising ourselves to the natural elements and maturing our everyday ego personality are the two vital ingredients that are needed to descend into the chthonic nature of ourselves to re-claim soul. Once we learn to embody soul we can then move upwards into the realms of Spirit. Self-realized we transcend both ego and soul and see through the false duality of things. The Spirit realm is reached through deep meditation. Our work here is to support your journey through the first two realms, the everyday realm of ego development and the chthonic underworld realm of shadow (where soul lies buried), so the heavenly realm of Self-realization is possible.

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