How often do we see in spiritual journeys the example of the monk, who has retreated into the small cave, high in the Himalayas where no one would dream of going; sustaining him/herself on just the most meager bits of sustenance, battling his/her demons in an effort to become ‘more’ of what?, attain what? Or perhaps to answer the “big” questions. Who am? Why am I here?
And then the ‘aspirant’ makes their way down the mountain and reinserts ( some just wait in the cave and let society come to them) themselves into the ‘everyday’ with a ‘new’ perhaps elevated perspective of being.
The “vision quest” is often a rite of passage in many indigenous cultures that sees a young person of a tribe being ushered into the wilderness to fast and sit and ponder and ‘be’ for a determined time, taking on the elements, fending for self, eventually getting into an intimate realization of the participant’s connection with him/herself and the ‘the world’ he is finding himself in.
Acknowledgement and use of these “old ways” have re-emerged and are being remembered by our collective consciousness.
Many of us have spent a good deal of our lives in caves called cubicles. We’ve staked out our living space and unconsciously created our own ‘rights of passage’. This is a part of our being human.
If we can pull back enough we can see that we are all on a ‘vision quest’ for self understanding and remembering from the very moment we stepped onto the earth plane. We’ll change our location every once in a while, set ourselves down, mark out our territory, take in the experiences of our environment, learn what we need, experience more of who we are then move on when we’re ready to take on the next quest.
Is it possible that these exercises are all microcosmic expressions, or reflections of just what we are all experiencing here on the earth plane.
Aren’t we all on vision quests – right now?
-Paul Reynolds
