Visioning The Wyrd Part 1
Published in Sacred Hoop Magazine Issue 106
I awaken from a doze. I have been fasting and questing for several days, sitting in nature, listening to the voices of a stream. Its white water falls and froths over rocks, bubbling into the pool in front of me. It flows down among the trees to my right; the trees are cloaked with ferns and lichen: the stones look like velvet gnomes huddling in coats of moss. I am enfolded by verdant wildness, and my soul is nurtured by the stillness of elemental beings.
It already seems I’ve been here a long time, but when I complete my quest it’ll be a memory and will seem like a dream.
Many cultures have seen life as a kind of dream. In the Medicine path I walk it is called the ‘sacred dream of life’.
Everything in life is part of this: everything is dreaming in its own way – rocks, lizards, humans. Each of us carries a unique piece of this sacred dream, a part needed by the whole. A vision quest is a way for us to clarify our part, our piece of the sacred dream.
When you go into the wilds and stop eating for a few days, your thoughts drop into deeper rhythms. You become attuned to the cycles by which nature lives, and the border between ‘me’ and ‘not-me’ is less distinct.
I feel I’m dreaming with the beings around me – the water, the yellow gorse flowers, the breeze caressing my hair. I imagine the dreaming of trees – breathing but once in 24 hours, writhing their branches into the sky, spreading leaves and dropping them year after year. We must be like little fireflies to them.
I dream of eternal cycles of growth and decay: bracket fungus eating birch; lichen consuming rock. I see the heads of dragons in old dry sticks. Everything is in flux, cycling and recycling, energy flowing in and out of form.
A wilderness quest connects us with the world as it was when humans emerged. It awakens cellular memory of our core essence, and our sense of self expands beyond the everyday idea of who we are. From this perspective we quest into life-questions of importance such as ‘Who am I?’ and ‘Where am I going?’
Every one of my quests has taken me deeper into these questions and filled my life with meaning. But my intention this time was to look not only at my direction but at the collective direction of humanity. How does ‘my’ dream weave into ‘our’ dream?
When I am in my house, there can be the thought that I ‘should’ be getting on with something. But here that voice is silent. Here there is nothing to be done, nowhere to go, nobody to become: thinking isn’t really needed. There is only the eternal simplicity of being with each moment. I am at peace.
We can learn from the minutiae. I have been gazing into the mirror of a still pool, watching the world of water-boatmen and pond-skaters, rapt in fascination and love for these little creatures. They move on the surface and seem to be playing ‘chase-me’ or ‘tag’ with each other.
They live in two dimensions: there’s no up or down in their world, only the horizontal. I wonder how aware I am of other dimensions. There’ve been times when I’ve lived only on the surface, but now I resolve to live the vertical axis too – the heights and depths of the inner dimension, consciousness.
At times my internal dialogue goes quiet, and I find myself filled with the sound of flowing water. At other times the chatter of thought flows as ceaselessly as the stream. But whether my mind is busy or still like a pool of clear water, underneath there’s something eternal – the field of consciousness itself, as ancient as the grey granite around me. It is through the field that I know my interconnection with all things, and through this knowing that I feel my essence-self.
Feeling the essence-self I become clear about my sacred path and who I’ve come here to be.
The sun comes out and lights up the land around me. Liquid pearls of dew spangle the grass, sparkling with colour. I notice a spider’s web gilded with light: it reminds me that all things are connected through an invisible web of light. I know my kinship with all life. And my destiny is to awaken and live this knowing.
My remembrance of this will then help others to remember.
The water that passes is connected with all water: with clouds and rain, seas and ocean, with ice-cap and steam, even with the water within each of us. I too am part of the flowing of life, the river of consciousness that flows through us from ancestors long ago, to descendants many generations later. It flows on, and we will remember our relationship with all life again.
I reflect that there was a time when all people lived within nature. We were all tribal people, and everyone breathing today is descended of tribal ancestors.
Taken From The Book Earth Wisdom Teachings