Vision Questing

I think that if you take the last two days and compare them to the last two quarters, I have posted more on facebook and this blog cumulatively. Ha ha ha. I guess I just was emotionally exhausted and needed a break. I am feeling rather lazy these last two days. Lots going on and I'm just wiped. Every once in a while, you have to cut back on the work you do and just sit in a hammock and let it ride for a day or two. This post may make you all wonder what I've been smoking. I swear, nothing.

Carl Jung said that every 7 to 10 years people go through transitional periods in their lives where they question what they've done, who they are, and make adjustments along the way so they end their lives exactly where they were supposed to be.

A friend recently asked me about my Vision Quest. Many in my family know of my Vision Quest a few years ago. Most do not understand it. Why did I go to Texas, undergo a sweat lodge ceremony where I underwent grueling heat prior to climbing to the top of a mountain, to sleep under the stars, alone in the wilderness with no food or water in 100 degree heat during the day and below 0 at night for four days and three nights?

If I told you, you still wouldn't understand.

Suffice it to say that like many of us, I was looking for answers. Coupled with the fact that I like to try new things. When life knocks and gives me an opportunity, I take it and to hell with the reasons why. I figure it's all going to shake out in the end anyway, and most of you will forget what I did within a few weeks. 'Oh, that's that crazy Elaine again, just going off on another flaky adventure.'

And of course, true to form, I got more questions than answers. It's taken me a few years to answer even a few of those questions. Most of them are very personal, so I'll share here what did happen that is not so personal.

When I was preparing for my Vision Quest, I was told that through change in focus, intent, environment and diet, the quester enters a highly sensitive state of bodily awareness and is subjected to lucid dreams. So, for two weeks prior, I fasted and meditated and thought on life.

When I climbed to the top of the mountain, at the highest point I could find, I was given four words to meditate on. Stillness - Empty - Surrender - Beauty

I'm reading through my journal now and remembering it all. Some of the visions I had were visual. Some were auditory, such as the early morning just before dawn when I awoke to the sounds of claws trying to claw through my mattress pad to get to me. I was afraid to move. It was so real. I could hear the echo of a cavern and nails on a board and stone underneath me. I just knew that something was trying to get through to me. It ended like every vision did, with me falling fast asleep, so deeply that I could not awaken if I tried. Many times I did, but I could not awaken.

Most of the time, I just slept. I had a feeling that was part of my vision, the sleep. Someone was telling me to relax a little, take it easy more often, and get some rest for goodness sake.

There was the one time when I had a kinesthetic experience where I was sleeping and someone yanked, hard, on my right foot as I lay there.

Oddly enough, I never wrote down my big vision, just all the little ones that led up to it. How the animals came so close to me, and the birds would literally come and surround me in the morning and sing for me. (they would come just to the few trees around me and sing their hearts out) It was like they were curious about what I was doing there. I wrote that all down, but never my vision that led to my Indian name. I held it close to the vest for a few years now. I was told not to share it until I felt ready to. That time is now. I've gone through a sort of rebirth these last few months, culminating this past week where I have finally decided to reemerge.

My actual vision, the one that gave me my name, was all things combined. It was auditory, visual and kinesthetic. Not only that, but I also found physical signs when it was all done.

Here it is, in short form. I was sitting up, looking out over the trees, and a mountain lion approached me. He walked slowly and deliberately, but I was not afraid. He looked deep into my eyes as he approached and came and sat at my feet, looking up at me, much like my dog does when looking for a treat. He laid his head in my lap and we sat there. I can't remember if I stroked him or if we just enjoyed each others company. Finally, he looked up at me after a very long time, and just gave me a very sad, very sorrowful look and I had an understanding. I just knew that he was saying he was very sorry for what he had to do to me, but it was necessary. I looked down at him and told him "go, do what you must." He took left his paw and put it on my right thigh, looking at me all the while with love. Then he unsheathed his claws and swiped down my leg, from inner thigh to outer leg near my knee. It was painful and it bled. Then I slept. When I awoke, near my foot I found what looked to be a large paw print in the sand. A large pad with four toes, very clearly defined, and larger than my hand. Just one print, and very, very clear. So clear that I wondered if someone was playing a trick on me, but I was the only one up there, and no one else knew that I would have had a vision of a mountain lion.

Then my vision returned to me and a coyote playfully approached me, bouncing and bounding. She came to me and saw my blood and felt my pain and came to clean my wounds. She licked my wounds and they healed. I slept again, and when I awoke, she was back with a pup, and he was wounded. He had a broken leg. I repaired the leg and she was thankful to me for my help, and they went away. As he ran, he healed and the bandages fell away.

That's it, that's my vision. It resulted in the longest Indian name the Medicine Man had ever given anyone. Ask me in person and I will share my name, but I will not do it over the internet.

It took me two years now to figure out some of the meaning in this vision. It is so very clear to me now, and looking at it, you can see why it just looks like crazy mumbo jumbo. I believe I know who the mountain lion was now, but I still await the trickster, the coyote, to come and heal me.

For now, I sit here with my leg splayed open waiting for her.

Am I losing you all yet? LOL