Dates for 2024
✨Saturday 6th to Monday 15th July ✨(Fully booked✨No spaces left)
✨with David & Jen🌳 £900
✨Deposit £400 & £500 two weeks before Vision Quest starts✨
For July Vision Quest only contact Jen jen@reconnecttoself.scot 07931886573
For August and September Vision Quests contact David ✨07760 273943
🌳Saturday 10th to Monday 19th August ✨With David & Denise✨ £900
✨Deposit £400 & £500 two weeks before Vision Quest starts✨
🌳Saturday 31st August to Monday 9th September✨With David & Cat✨£900
✨Deposit £400 & £500 two weeks before Vision Quest starts✨
For August and September Vision Quests contact David ✨07760 273943
The Vision Quest
The journey into the wilderness: to seek vision, wisdom and self-knowledge is as old as human civilisation itself. In all cultures and societies it has existed in one form or another and all great spiritual leaders, from Jesus and Buddha to Knights of the Middle Ages and modern day Medicine men and women, have tested themselves and sought enlightenment in this way, bringing back what they have learned to their people, so that they may all benefit from the experience.
Every earth-based culture, such as the Celts, Siberians, Africans, Tibetans and Native Americans, has had a tradition of enacting formal rites of passage of one kind or another. The most effective way of moving from one life stage to another is by “marking” that transition with ritual and ceremony. One of the most effective and simple ways of doing this is to allow ourselves to really feel, deeply feel, our connection to the land and allow the land to move us.
The vision quest is based on Native American Indian models and traditions, but it draws its power from the land in England which Earth Encounters has been gifted. The model is merely a framework into which the quester pours his or her own life experiences and beliefs.
What happens on a Vision Quest?
“Leaving it all behind, you head for The Sacred Mountain, taking your problem, your dilemma, your need for understanding and fulfilment, to the breast of Mother Earth. There you will remain alone: fasting, seeking, crying for vision, for a period of up to four days and nights.”
The Vision Quest is a 10 day long journey which is split into three stages: Severance, Threshold and Incorporation.
Severance, the first stage of the process, begins as soon as you decide to undertake the Vision Quest. It involves clarifying in your mind the reasons that you want to go through a rite of passage ceremony and what you wish to gain from the experience. Then, when you arrive in Pontrilas, the formal part of Severance begins. There are three days of instruction, earth awareness exercises, ceremonies and counselling. During this time you will learn about what lies before you and begin to open your eyes and heart to the energies of the earth. The counselling will help you to focus on your purpose. Next, you will go out to the land and find your place of power, in which your Threshold time will be spent.
The Threshold time will take 4 days and nights. You will depart from base camp at sunrise and spend your time fasting, praying, making ceremonies – doing whatever you feel is appropriate for you.
Even if the weather is beautiful and sunny and you spend most of your time bathing in its glory, you will probably find that you can’t avoid your own darkness sneaking up on you. Four days and nights can seem like an eternity: fear will probably raise its ugly head and so will boredom. You might well find that an awful lot of suppressed pain, anger, hatred, grief, guilt or whatever will start to surface and it’s you who has to work it through. Over the period of 4 days, your inhibitions will drop, your resistance will give way and you will find that you can give yourself permission to cry, to do ceremonies, to scream at the sky, to do whatever it is you need to do. You are the Ceremonial Leader, the Medicine Person and you find that nature does respond.
You might feel that it’s all too much for you to handle; that you’re all alone with it, but you’re not. The whole of nature is around you and ready and willing to help. You might even get the sense that behind you are all those who have gone before, all those that have gone this way: Jesus Christ; Buddha; Mohammed; Black Elk; Crazy Horse; Odin and millions of others. You are now walking in their footsteps.
Doing a Vision Quest is not easy. It can push you to your limits, both emotionally and physically, but it is immensely powerful, rewarding and life transforming. And it will bring you a heightened sense of your place within nature, or your true self.
On the 5th sunrise, you will return back to base camp. This signifies your return to the real world, but also leaving behind your old self, to begin afresh. There will be a ceremonial meal and the sharing of stories among your fellow participants. After coming face to face with modern civilisation again, it will be time to tell your story and, most powerfully, hear it mirrored back to you by David, as a symbolic myth of your life..
Why do a Vision Quest?
Seeking vision is a way of finding answers, finding direction, finding what is “missing in our lives”, finding the gifts we have to bring our people.
The Vision Quest is a ceremony specifically designed to facilitate change, to help people move from one stage of their lives through to the next. You will emerge from the Vision Quest with a profound connection to the Earth, and to all of nature. You will in all likelihood know yourself more completely, have dealt with unresolved issues from your past, made plans for your future, discovered who you really are and what your purpose is in life. You will take these discoveries with you to your people – your family, friends and colleagues.
Spending time alone, fasting in the wilderness gives a deep inner strength and sense of freedom to be yourself, but in the end – as with everything – you will get out what you put in. Nature reflects yourself back to you. As is often said “the story of the quest is the story of your life.”
Who is a Vision Quest for?
A Vision Quest is for anyone of any age, from teens upwards. If you are feeling stuck in your life, confused about where you are and what your meaning is or if you have specific situations that you want to confront, then this can be the perfect way to go about it.
If you want to mark a transition in your life, to celebrate a new beginning, or if you are seeking resolution on a matter that needs to be ceremonially completed, the Vision Quest can provide the framework for all of these life events.
Deep in your heart, you know whether or not you want to experience a Vision Quest.
Youth Vision Quest
The Vision Quest is an especially pertinent experience for teenagers and has an innate appeal to them. We often find that adults who go through the Vision Quest are answering questions that they have carried with them from childhood and youth and which have coloured their whole lives.
Traditionally, the Vision Quest was a natural part in the cycle of life to initiate young people into adulthood. Today, many old traditions have been dispensed with, family values have broken down and many teenagers find themselves lacking the opportunity to engage in positive initiatory experiences to mark their graduation from childhood to adulthood. They find themselves choosing alternative means of initiation which are often socially unacceptable: drinking, drug taking, underage ‘thrill’ driving, house breaking: none of which activities are encouraged by the community or by the law. The Vision Quest “Rite of Passage” is a turning point in life, undertaken when the older child is ready, to find oneself and intended spiritual and life direction. Ideally, as a graduation exercise, the course might be offered at the end of the last year of the candidate’s schooling, enabling the candidate to return to a post-school life and the beginnings of adult responsibility with a clear focus, powerfully moved by having lived close to the healing power of nature apart from the placenta of home and school.
“Nature is continually informing us, but we fail to see and hear because our minds are so crazy.” ~ Sun Bear