U.S. hosts International Guides April 14 - 20, 2009
The International Wilderness Guides Gathering is meeting this week in the Chirichau Mountains of SE Arizona. Guides and their families from across the world will be there "to be exposed to new and expanded stories and practices through interaction with
peers and professionals from many different cultural backgrounds and their
unique ways of working with Rites of Passage" (from Global Rites of Passage website)
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Call for Poetry and Essays
Do you have a poem or experience from your quest you'd like to share? Your voice is important, so submit to the editor your piece as a word document by August 15th for the Fall Newsletter.
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Upcoming Programs
Earth Walk for Youth 12 - 14
May 1 - 3
Quest for Leadership Retreat
April 23 - 26
Soul Quest
May 8 - 10
Men's Vision Quest
May 9 - 17
Women's Vision Quest
June 13 - 21
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 Youth Quest: Dreaming this World into Being
by Steven Encinas
Coming down off the mountain, a fire of passion and personal power radiated from their eyes and smiles. This brilliance was met by the morning sun that was simultaneously rising from the East. Both sources of light danced together in the magic of dawn, illuminating the desert stones and the hearts of all who were present. The vision questers of Sonoma Academy had crossed their threshold, bringing back to basecamp a personal wisdom that, at a certain level, only they could know.
On January 28th, nine students embarked on a personal odyssey into the desert wild of Death Valley. Along with their Rites of Passage guides and a Sonoma Academy faculty member, they set out on an adventure of discovery that promised to put their bodies, minds, spirits, and wills to the test. The nine day sojourn would mark the entry to the rest of their lives.
"Where do I stand? What do I believe?" These were the questions one student stated that she hoped to find clarity for during her quest. Such questions were common not only for these, but for all teenagers. Realistically, if they don't capture that window of opportunity before they fly from the nest, it could be decades until teens finally land in a place that allows them to ask these questions again. More importantly, it could be a long time before they get to hear the answers. This ceremony was her chance to be in council with mentors and peers, and to sit in the reflective silence of solo.
Upon her return, before going back to her home and family, this same student was asked what she was bringing back with her. "Passion, wonder, adventure, and connection," she answered. She then committed to continuing the expression of wonder, as well as the adventure of figuring it all out.
Not all came back so readily. Some were reluctant to step back over the threshold, afraid their old lives, old selves, and the world would creep back in to dull the sharpness of their newfound perception and extinguish the light they had worked so hard to find. They stated such fears as "losing the feeling", or "not being able to do anything with it".
As adults we know this tendency to let our own sense of awe and wonder fade a bit. As we go to work, pay the bills, digest the nightly news (sometimes with the help of an antacid), we forget what's really important- who we really are, and the life our soul really wants to live. Our culture tends to disregard the wisdom of youth, even as it tries desperately to cling to its own youthful image. We know a lot of "stuff", and maybe that's what dulls our vision at times, weighing us down in comfort and complacency.
"Knowledge is knowing stuff; wisdom is doing with the stuff you know," said another student quester. And so it is. This is the challenge posed to us by our youth: "How will you live today- with courage, or complacency? How are you dreaming this world into being, and is it a dream in which you soar high like the eagles?"
As for their fears, two months after their return, that firelight- that wisdom from the mountain- was still visible in their eyes. Maybe it's not cascading out quite as it was on the morning they made their way back into basecamp. Maybe it's a little deeper inside, more a part of the self that they now take out into the world. We might see it come out in flashes and flickers in what they do, as they soar like eagles and dream our future into being.
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 A Look Back: Interview with Mike Bodkin
by Alison DeLong
"You might wanna come where there's nothing." It was this daring invitation spoken by Stephen Foster to Mike Bodkin that changed the course of Mike's life and career forever. Stephen Foster- the vision quest guide who was also known as a long haired radical ex-professor- challenged Mike to take his love for mountain backpacking to a new place and experience a new ceremony. "It intrigued me," remembers Mike.
That spring of 1980 he completed his first vision quest. Not only was he hooked on the desert, but he was more importantly sold on a profound way of working with people.
Now full time Director of Rites of Passage Inc. (ROP), Mike Bodkin sat with me to reflect on the past 27 years as a vision quest guide and as a leader of one of the first non-profit organizations offering earth-based initiation programs.
A couple of years prior, Mike received his family therapy license. He had always envisioned somehow practicing therapy within nature and wilderness. After his first quest, he was beginning to see how. Since 1986 Mike has been directing ROP, after inheriting the program from the "Grandparents" of modern vision questing-Stephen Foster and Meredith Little, when they left to start their own training program (now the School of Lost Borders).
Questing in the 80's was very different than today's quest. The ceremony has evolved with our changing world. No longer limited to serving a local North Bay population, ROP now has a global outreach, thanks to the internet. Participants from Australia, Europe, and Asia fly into Las Vegas and drive to a campground in the desert for their orientation. In contrast Mike recalled the original program starting in Santa Rosa with a potluck dinner and a preparatory class just before the entire group would drive to Death Valley in a passenger van named Burrito. "Burrito was part of the night journey. (We'd) throw the packs on top of the van... it was this kind of Safari like energy".
In the summers they would drive through Yosemite over the Sierras. "We'd watch the sunrise over Mono Lake. You'd always feel in the morning that you hadn't just been traveling, but that you had changed worlds-shifted frames. You'd done the night soul journey. That feeling of being in another world would come up really strong."
Despite the end of the group night journey, the sense of community in today's quest is much stronger than before. Mike says, "There has been a change in focus from being an individual on the quest to being a community." Even though the participants may be strangers on day one, specific activities such as cooking meals together and talking and listening in council offer a strong container for questing together with one's "village"...
(Continued on ROP website)
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 Bears
by Tom Anderson
According to a new CNN poll, seventy-three percent of Americans said that they were somewhat or very scared about the way things were going in the United States, even though they also said that things were going fine for themselves personally. Think about that for a moment: Seventy-three percent of Americans are frightened, even though most of them aren't quite sure why.
This reminds me of the first time I vision quested with Rites of Passage. Starting about a month before my trip, I started thinking about bears - and not in a good way. Even though I grew up camping and hiking in bear country in western North Carolina without ever seeing a bear, let alone being frightened of them, I started worrying that I might have to deal with a bear on my vision quest. I would fall asleep at night with them on my mind and sometimes they would show up in my dreams. But, I did my best to put the fear aside and I didn't let it stop me from making the journey. You can imagine my relief when I found out that there aren't any bears in the White Mountains of California where my group quested.
I talked about my bear fear in one of our opening councils on my quest and Mike Bodkin, who was leading that trip, showed me the bear totem he wore around his neck. We talked about bear energy and how it represents the "go within place" of the West. If I wanted to find out why I was afraid of bears, I was going to have to look inside. What was the thing that I was really afraid of? What are we all really afraid of? Is it the bears on Wall Street or the ones that call us to look within and find our true vision for the world, the true purpose of our being?
If we let our fears control us, then we let the fear win. Instead, we can use fear to teach us something about ourselves. It is precisely in these times of deep transition that we are ripe for the deep inner work. We can use the fear of what is going on in the economy to lead us to a deeper understanding about the fears we hold inside. I can imagine no better place to do that kind of inner work than on a vision quest.
These are rich times we are living in...rich in opportunity for growth and healing, for ourselves and for the planet. While most of us will run and hide our heads under the covers, it is the true hero that will seize this moment in time and create something of lasting value from it. It is in the goo of metamorphosis that the caterpillar changes to a butterfly. Lasting change, personal growth, and soul healing will always require a bit of the goo, so don't miss this chance to roll around in it.
Remember, there are no bears out there - only the ones in our minds.
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 Parents at the Threshold
by Alison DeLong
My son's first birthday was a joyous event this month. Deserving equal celebration, my husband and I toasted our glasses, in a humble honoring, for surviving our first year as parents. Stunned by the quick passage of time, I remembered last year's pregnancy culminating in the monumentally challenging, yet amazing, homebirth.
One potent moment I will never forget. I was sitting with my watermelon belly, thinking of this unseen baby inside, when a wave of grief overcame me. I realized from this day forward my task is to let go of this being inside of me. Starting with his birth, followed by each stage in his developing independence, my job is to love and nurture while letting go all the while.
This memory surfaced recently as I sat in a circle of parents. All ten parents were facing the West of the medicine wheel, looking inward as their children were stepping out to become adults. It was my offering to hold a council that allowed a place for them to voice their experience with this intricate transition. As each of their sons and daughters began their solo in Death Valley that same morning, there was a recognition that they too stood at a threshold. Each parent knew their relationship with their child was changing, but none of them knew how it would result.
For most of these mothers and fathers, this was the first time they had spoke of their feelings around letting go. After almost 18 years of their "give away" as parents, they were now being asked to change their role. One daughter directly told her mom "I no longer want to be parented any more". Others were less direct, by being typical teenagers- more absent and indifferent at home and clearly ready to fly from the nest.
While there were many tears shared for this loss of connection with their sons and daughters, as most prepare to leave for college, there was also revelry in the growth of their young adults. Some parents noticed that the preparation for the vision quest evoked a new maturity and presence from their once aloof sons. A new sense of respect for their parents' experience and input seemed to be expressed, as some youth asked for help with their gear and other quest preparations. This initiation somehow offered an opening for a new type of relationship, perhaps one on the same level as equals.
Half of the circle of parents spoke of this transition as an opportunity to focus on themselves for a change. Many were applying for graduate school programs, while one father was excited to return to his neglected art work. These parents were ready to enter the North shield with a new give away. Perhaps the "empty nest" syndrome is only a grievous occasion when the parent left at home forgets to find a new expression for their gifts.
As a new parent, this was clear to me: parents need opportunities to grieve the loss of their children as they grow up and eventually go away. Community, along with a contained process to mark this transition of letting go, is essential in celebrating the amazingly unique young adults that our children are becoming. Most importantly, if parents choose the vision quest as that container, they would be able to cycle through the medicine wheel once more, re-entering the North shield with their new give away.
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