“Go deep, my friends, and break free from anything that is keeping you from knowing and living your true brilliance of Body, Mind, Heart and Light.”
—Ezekiel
Healing Quest
Healing Quest was born the summer of 2000 when my friend wanted to vision quest and asked if I would hold the space for her. Since then, every summer during the August full moon, a group of up to 25 people from around the country gather for 8 days just outside Ashland, Oregon. We base ourselves on Earthteach Forest Park, a pristine piece of land identified by Agnes Baker Pilgrim, one of the 13 Original Grandmothers, as sacred, indigenous vision quest land. Some of us are called to be “mountain questers” and others, “camp questers.”
This extraordinary and incomparable week-long ceremony serves both the Individual, as well as the collective, Human Soul. Our theme is Unity, and our template, Shamanic Rebirth. Supported by abundant natural resources, we create a village that includes a sweat lodge, tepee, kitchen, shower (both with hot and cold running water!) and healing clinic.
Shamanic Rebirth offers us an opportunity to participate in a conscious death and reincarnation within this lifetime. The process occurs in phases and somewhat differently for the two types of questers, yet the outcome for all is equally powerful.
Each Healing Quest participant receives assistance in naming the life they’ve been living that is outdated and no longer healthy or functional. For example, one person released a life of self-doubt, another, a life of expectations and judgments, and another, a life of procrastination. Then, through a very specific death ceremony, questers allow that life and their participation within it to die.
Shortly after the ceremony, each mountain quester is accompanied by their death guardian, a camp quester, through the Death Gateway and into the Spirit Realm. They make a sacred place for themselves upon Mother Earth, and enter into a life review for three days and nights.
By the morning of the fourth day, the mountain questers are ready to reincarnate. Their death guardians become birth guardians and arrive to escort them into the conception of their new life. Together, they make the voyage from the Spirit Realm, through the Birth Gateway, and into the womb of our teepee.
The final aspect of Shamanic Rebirth is called “resurrection of self.” This is the period post-quest where each person integrates their experiences and begins living their new lives. This phase completes itself within about nine months, just in time for the next Healing Quest, where mountain questers can return as camp questers, and camp questers either choose to quest on the mountain, or remain in camp for another season.
Our Healing Quest ceremony is alive and continuous no matter where we are or what we’re doing. We might be in the Spirit
Realm participating in life review, in the tepee drumming and rattling on behalf of someone, in the healing clinic giving or receiving a healing, or in the kitchen eating fabulous organic food. We laugh and sometimes cry, and our experience of interconnection with one another, the land and the universe is always palpable.
Are you living in your personal power? Are you led by your heart or your mind? Can you imagine breaking free and allowing a familiar life to die? Are you ready to make a commitment to yourself and become part of a community? To participate in a Shamanic Rebirth?
If you’re interested in learning more about or committing to Healing Quest, contact me right away. We have informational talks that take place in various parts of the country, specific dates for commitment and two pre-Quest meetings.
Healing Quest is about service. To the Self and to the All. It’s a path, and the longer one walks it, the greater the benefits.
