Vision Quests

Archives

Altered States (Part III)

Yesterday, joining an online class, the host wanted to begin with a meditation. She pulled a card labeled “The Vision” from a deck, read the description, and suggested we meditate on that.

As you know, I’m in the “vision business,” having led vision quests for 35 years, but as I followed the prompt I was surprised by where I was led. Most people, when thinking of “vision,” imagine a very… Read More »


Egos and Trees

In the process of guiding vision quests, I share a cornucopia of rituals, exercises, or ceremonies which people may do – or not – as part of their solo time. The following – Presenting Your Ego to a Tree — can be fun, as well as quite revealing.

It begins by having people go onto the land and wander until they each find a tree that “speaks to them,” a… Read More »


Black Elk’s Dream … and Mine…

Black Elk was a ‘wichasa wakhan’ — medicine or holy man — of the Oglala Lakota, born in late 1863 on the Little Powder River in Wyoming. He had been taken ill at age nine, unresponsive and lying in a coma for several days.… Read More »


The Other Story

Real Vision

The Other Story:

Over the past several days, I’ve been editing a training manual I created for a men’s program — the Mythic Warrior – that encompassed nine weekends, one per month. The manual includes “the game plan” — the list of rituals, processes, and exercises planned for each weekend – a section on Rituals and Exercises describing how to set up, perform, and lead each of the processes, as… Read More »


Coming to Our Senses

After several sodden vision quest days in Nova Scotia, wishing for sun, I decided to just “love what is.” It was a good decision!  And this love letter to Nature, to the primal reality of a wet and dripping world was one of the results. Enjoy!

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Wind moves in the branches. This morning brings rain and fog, the call of a lonely sparrow, the tapping of dripping… Read More »


Circles of Air & Stone • Putney, Vermont