A very great vision is needed and the man who has it must follow it as the eagle seeks the deepest blue of the sky
—Crazy Horse
Crying for a vision, that’s the beginning of all religion. The thirst for a dream from above, without this you are nothing. This I believe. It is like the prophets in your Bible, like Jesus fasting in the desert, getting his visions. It’s like our Sioux vision quest, the Hanblecheya. White men have forgotten this. God no longer speaks to them from a burning bush…
—Lame Deer, Lakota Holy Man
In various Native American cultures, grown boys reaching maturity would set out on a personal rite called the Vision Quest, leaving their tribe for prolonged periods to wander or sit alone in the wild – seeking visions from the ancient spirits inhabiting their world. In most cases this rite demanded fasting – in some even physical self-mortification. The need to receive a vision was so great that it was termed also the "cry for vision", and its significance to the boy's life would be immense. The details vary, but generally, the vision would reveal the boy's guardian spirit, as well as provide him with his life-direction – his destiny. The shaman or elders would help him to interpret the vision he'd received, and based on these understandings determine the person's role within the tribe. Thus, in a way, the vision quest was important not just to define what he will do in his life, but also to the understanding of his very nature and to whom he will eventually become.
This practice of vision-seeking is hardly limited to Native American cultures. Similar rites and rituals exist and have existed all over the world, as long as humans have been walking the face of the Earth. Biblical prophets from Moses to Elijah to Jesus, the Buddha, hermit monks in the Far-East and in Europe… all can be viewed as examples of people who set out on deliberate attempts to achieve a connection to a higher, deeper or simply different level of consciousness and awareness – from which a vision would then spring and shape their notions and actions in their worlds and lifetimes.
But what is this "Vision", where does it originate and why must people go to such extremities to receive it?
Some point to a purely spiritual explanation, and view it as a direct message from higher powers. Others (usually westerners, and more-specifically scientists) tend to use psychological-physiological reasoning (hallucinations, surfacing sub-conscious, etc). I believe, however, that no matter the reasoning used – in any case we’d be dealing with a new-found understanding borne of acute attachment to one's cultural and physical environment and its most minute details. To the science-oriented skeptic I'd try to describe it as letting the subtle clues our reality holds "speak" to us through our preconceived cultural and personal symbolism. Like a dream, the vision manifests itself through signs and symbols, drawing on the intricate webs of meaning comprising our life-world.
The ability to "converse" with Nature – with animals and plants and rocks and spirits – is a vivid aspect of any human heritage. Call it reality or call it illusion – it matters little. What matters is the tremendous potential it held in the past, and still holds, to tell us something we don’t yet know about ourselves and about the world in which we live.
Does this mean we should all now aspire to hallucinate forest spirits, awakened ghosts or burning bushes? Hardly. Our cultural and personal-spiritual views condition the acceptance of certain symbolisms, while making others irrelevant. It's for each person to discover his or her own conditioning – their filters through which they interpret reality – and through these filters allow the living forces of their environment to become understood in a lively, immediate, unmediated manner.
Now may be a good time to offer a certain clarification; which is that it's not the actual ritual of the Vision Quest which this short piece is trying to promote. Rather, it calls for the state of consciousness set at the base of such rituals, and the idea that one can (and should) experience reality on levels which the human zoo-animal is generally trained to ignore. It's not exactly the rite that I wish to imitate – it is the act of seeking attunement to reality's voice, which I believe can become an inseparable part of our own everyday life.
Yet how does one get to "hear" this voice, or "see" these visions? To get to the point where our reality constantly speaks to us or provides us with visions, we must learn to become sensitive to its voice and its gestures. It calls for us to listen. It demands us to look. It requires us to be respectful of everything our environment consists of, and to see every single atom of it as having the potential to teach us something.
There are many practices which can help us develop these skills - from Wilderness Awareness practices (which I'm particularly fond of), to sitting meditations, to a truly deep, sincere curiosity-powered scientific inquiry, or any other form which emphasizes listening and attentiveness. Generally, these practices will include elements of paying deliberate attention, hearing/seeing past surrounding "noise" (be it physical or spiritual, external or internal) and recognizing meanings and patterns where others may see only chaos or void. It's like becoming an intuitive Sherlock Holmes – picking up whole stories from minor details and clues, but rather than examining them with intellectual detachment – knowing them by total immersion and complete affiliation. In a way, it requires one to desert obvious logic and rationalization, and to devote oneself to the direct experience.
It also requires the understanding that we live our reality – and don’t just live in it. Detached observation can only reveal so much. Much more can be gained from realizing that there are, in reality, no barriers between subject and object – and that the possibility of the living Force to reveal itself to us is strongly affected by our willingness to let it live in our eyes and mind.
Perception affects reality affects perception (and vice versa)…
Thus, we're given visions, originating in the many manifestations and currents of the Force, upon which we can then act and shape our lives. This way, we direct our actions not by rigid pre-determined dichotomies, but through a deep connection to reality by context of time, place and human senses – a path which I view as the very essence of being a Shadow.
"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind."
"Truth is what stands the test of experience."
—Albert Einstein