I sat in the emptiness for a long time. Many years in fact. The Universe didn’t let me initiate any new things, rather there was a constant asking to let go, and let go more, and let go even more. It felt like I was hanging in the air, unable to hold onto anything. It was a very uncomfortable experience, until I learnt to trust the void and the invisible realms.
That was my vision quest, the time I spent transitioning from one phase of life to the next; healing old pains, and connecting to the visions of the future. Traditionally vision quest is the transition rite in shamanic societies, but in our modern world we are too busy to stop and integrate our lived experiences and seek wisdom and visions for what’s to come. These transition periods are so important, however currently we live in a culture that has us believe that we need to run through our lives because stopping equals to failing. In reality, we are missing out a lot.
In 2017 I did an actual vision quest, led by an Ecuadorian shaman, sitting in a German forest without food or water for four days. We were a group of people participating in the experience and we were all taken to specific spots in the forest where we were meant to stay all on our own in silence, stillness, and deep meditation. I was indicated to stay next to a big oak tree, which I happily did. Then I just... sat there. After not too long, sitting there doing absolutely nothing turned out pretty challenging. Initiations are often great challenges, and back then I had not yet discovered the peace and magic of the present moment. I was feeling the western human inside of me, who was bored to sit still and do nothing, feeling like nothing was ever enough, always wanting something more. There I was all on my own, with nothing to do, stuck in the forest next to this ancient oak tree, and I was not wanting what I was going through. But there was no escape.
That experience mirrored very much those years of vision quest I was going through in my life back then. It was so hard to surrender and just be. When we don’t understand the pure magic and sheer miracle of BE-ing, of just existing, being alive, and feeling the interconnectedness with everything around us, simply being can seem very boring and useless. When our nervous systems are used to constant stimuli and doing, it is hard to stop and relax to the pure perfection of the present moment. But when we don’t know how to stop, we are missing on life altogether. The experience of living is so rich; being in a body, breathing air, having nature around us, feeling emotions, seeing beautiful things like a sunset, and in addition to all that, we have the subtle realms and spirits that constantly surround us. Each moment is utterly miraculous, and when we are not able to realize it, we are living life out of a state of trauma (which is very common, of course). We miss the pure magic that is constantly available to us.
My soul incarnated on Earth with pretty big plans for my healing and awakening journey, and for the first 25 years of my life I really didn’t know at all how big those plans actually were and what I was meant to go through. Of course I am still not done; I am nowhere close to completing those plans, but I think I now have a pretty good understanding of what this all means and what it truly takes to awaken in a world that is so one-dimensional. Considering all that I know now and everything my soul desired for this lifetime, it makes a lot of sense I had to spend YEARS sitting in nothingness, just healing and vision questing. These things take time. There are small awakenings and big awakenings. Sometimes your soul has a plan that is soooo much bigger than your little human self could ever grasp. So then you surrender and trust the process even if you don’t understand everything.
We open up to our souls and inner seeing step by step. Our limited human perspective is not capable of grasping it all at once. We sit in silence and stillness and it can feel like nothing is happening. Yet so much is happening. Slowly, over time, you go from one way of experiencing the world to a completely different way. The soul and the ego-mind inhabit completely different realities. It is in vision quest that we grow into our soul selves. From the ego to something so much bigger and more expansive, to magic that is way beyond our little selves. It can seem boring, pointless, or a total failure to the ego, but the very opposite is true. We are unbecoming everything we are not, everything this society imprinted into us, and becoming empty vessels for God to work pure magic through us.
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