Stepping into the Circle

Being held by the Mother on my Vision Quest.

“You come from the light, You are the light”

I step over a curved branch that delineates my 20 foot circle. I will stay, within the forest, within this circle, for four nights and three days without eating, without distractions, alone.

I am on a mountain in Vermont, surrounded by ferns and small trees, with a view to the North of a giant Mother Oak. She is standing alone in a field. My tent is set up with a tarp stretched above it from small trees. This is my home now and it is raining. I fuss with the details of setup within my circle, passing through several strong commands from my stomach to find something to eat. I finally sit down and gaze toward the Mother Oak. There are small saplings blocking my view as they reach out to get some sun. A strong urge pulses through me to get up and move the saplings out of the way, but they are outside of my circle. And so it begins. I meet one of the most intense parts of my being. The one that wants to get busy about changing things in order to have more of what it wants, and feel less of what it doesn’t. I sense this part is imbedded in my old white bones. A force that is wreaking havoc on my inner peace, and everywhere on the planet.

I slump back into my camp chair and a messy kind of sob racks my belly. Cold rain pours off the edge of my tarp. Part of me is grief stricken by all the times I have leapt up to change either something about me, or something outside of me. And another part of me is beginning to flow into a kind of blissful presence as I realize that I get to be here in nature’s embrace without “doing” something to her, or to myself. I am here to discover what it means to BE a human in the woods. I am here to learn to trust the embrace of fern, beech, hemlock, maple, chipmunk, frog, rain, wind, sun and the deep black of night and the glowing moon. I am here to witness the bright quartz stones glowing out from grey, black rocks in old stone walls. I am here with a sweet courageous group of vision questers sitting in their hand picked circles on the same mountain, with our trusty, sincere, prayer making, deep listening, shaman guide, who is tending the fire at Base Camp.

Rootlets are beginning to push their way out through the base of my feet. My mind pops up in resistance with whining questions. “We’re really not going to leave here? We’re really not going to eat? We’re really going to be alone? My body sighs, “Yes, we’re going to stay here, Yes, we’re not going to eat, we are going to be alone, let’s be quiet now and just be here. I realize, I am not here to “quest” for a vision, but rather to let the ways of the land fill me, and empty me out.

Safe to say, this is me, this is you. The grass beneath the tent, the moss silently climbing out of the damp leaves, over rocks, shimmering green. Eyes filling with the green refractions that the universe has made to share all of this with us. Crickets playing foot drums, and chickadee’s singing tiny symphonies of glee in the up and down waves of leafy branches harboring tiny seeds.

Night comes, my ears expand to take in the subtle shifts in rain patterns, wind gusts, and the swoosh and thud of branches breaking loose and falling to the ground. I snuggle into my sleeping bag, cover my head and bring my attention inward. Hello body, I am here with you! This is our adventure. Where do we begin? A cellular flash signals the beginning of a spiral. It opens outward from the center like tree rings, fifty-eight years wide. Knots for growth and scars for pain mark each turn around the sun. I feel-sense along this precious circle of life I have been given in this unimaginably massive universe. I am sinking heavier into the earth just below me. I sense the mother holding me. Something dark and strong beyond measure is full of life and ready to transform my skin and bones into life giving substance. My death will just be a return to the Mother. I sigh.

Morning comes, it is still raining. I bring the water bottle to my lips carefully. The cold liquid courses down through the hollow tunnel to my empty belly. Layering on wool and rain gear, I head outside. This is where I will stay watching the day. I make my offerings, walking around my circle placing tobacco with tulsi from my garden to my heart and then to the earth in each direction. North, South, East, West, I am learning to feel my prayers more authentically with each offering. Every gesture matters. The art of gratitude emerging as I spend more time being thankful to the wild plants and beings that surround me, that are my family, and my survival on this round rocky globe in space.

The red prayer ties that I hung on a branch are soaked and wobble like ripe fruits in the heavy rain. Everything moves. The rain dances with the forest, the forest quakes, wiggles, and bobs. Time moves and speaks through the rain, this, then that, all at once, and then changing, until slowly, stopping, a dense quiet settles over the land.

The grass in the field glows. I feel and hear my heart beating. A blasting chirp! snaps my head to where a tiny chipmunk scurries out of the stone wall to make the most of the dry air. I shake off the shock with giggles of relief. Breath follows breath with quiet sensing of wind, Raven talk, wind in leaves, shaking off rain, Blue Jay conversations between trees, and steam rising over yellow green grass. Ferns wave at unseen friends. I imagine the spirits of the Abenaki peoples that once loved this land. I feel sadness rising, lumping in my throat. I see them running and screaming and fighting to try to survive the violence of my white colonizing race. Their bones are now a part of the old trees, embedded in the layers. I think of my ancestors missionary bones buried in cemeteries in these North East lands. Some abolitionists, others explorers, hoping to make a better world, but still blinded by white arrogance. I am hungry, I am crying, belly quaking grief, shedding guilt and seeking wisdom in myself and for my son. As I think of him, I cry even harder, sensing the unjust pain, especially for children who are having to face the horrors of cruelty, ignorance and greed in our collapsing world. And then I am quiet.

I look to the Mother Oak. She stands, and stands, and stands, and stands. A doorway opens in my dreaming to the time of my indigenous ancestors, the Celts, the Druids. Duir, Oak, the oak door. The roots, I need to focus on healing the roots. The roots of my ancestors, the roots of myself. Out of the roots emerges the trunk, the bark, the solid, quiet, standing of the tree, whose limbs reach the heavens, touch the biosphere, fill the air with oxygen that we breath. The tree shades the Earth, her leaves replenishing the soil, capturing water, sustaining the cycle of creation. Our destiny as humans is completely dependent on the trees. Roots, Pattern, Destiny. These words are my mantra, as the light slides without shadow from East to West.

A dense cloud disperses behind the Mother Oak revealing the blue breast of Mount Ascutney. The blue mountain reminds me of blueberries and a blueberry pie hot from the oven. My mouth waters. I smile and drink a sip of water. My belly grumbles like a beast more ferocious than anything in these woods.

Colors slowly merge into dark shapes as night arrives. I crawl into my tent, rain patterns play the soundscape loudly through my body. My hungry belly has stopped asking, and now is quietly drawing me inward to a kind of rest and reflection I have never experienced before. Quiet and open, my mind easily descents into the spiraling rings of my being. I curl into a fetal position, safe within my sleeping bag, and feel the Mother Earth holding me to the surface of her. I breath carefully and am drawn to the cringe moments of my life. I feel the heat of shame, raw shame as memories of my speechless submission to invasions of my body and mind wash over me. I lean into the earth and gather these shame filled memories into my arms and let them weep. I let them know I am here in the forest and am held by the Mother. I will not shame them for feeling, anything.

The rain beats hard on the tarp, my parts of self continue to present themselves. The scared, frozen, running, fighting, worrying, numb, addicted, anxious, dizzy, heavy, sad, broken parts. I feel a tight belly grief that emerges as my baby body wailing alone in her crib. My toddler body shares the memory of a hard, head hitting fall to slate ground, and the angry look of a sister retracting her hand moments before. My teenage girl stares hard at a mirror wishing she could have a smaller nose and bigger eyes, and skinnier thighs and nicer clothes. I watch her bury the fury of unlovability beneath momentary pleasures, smoking her first cigarette, getting high, getting drunk, snorting speed, having sex. I pull my arms tight around myself and feel the Mother Earth holding me, snug in the dark, in my own little tent cave.

The deep pulse of the Earth’s heart emerges up through the rocks and into my skin and bones. I am safe, and can hold myself, my myriad selves. Then more parts come…My thirty year old reminds me of the cold room in the abortion clinic, the doctor saying “I know your father, are you sure you want to do this?” Layer after layer the spiral continues. My wife self, getting a divorce, sobbing into the steering wheel, driving away from the courthouse. My mother self, split open wide, feeling the warm blood between thighs and the total exhausted eruption of tears and joy after twenty hours of labor and sweet baby body sliding onto belly to place on breast, the milk hard in my breast ready to give support this new fragile yet vibrant life that I love with every cell of my being.

The rain beats harder on tent, on leaves, on ground, tiny streams of water whisper near my head. I snuggle in more and feel the deep warmth of wool inside my sleeping bag. Gratitude fills my heart as I think of my son, now full grown, telling me how to secure the rain fly on the tent and angle the tarp just right so the rain will shed away. I feel tiny, like the chipmunk and at the same time giant like Mother Earth herself. She is holding me as I hold all of the parts of myself that have been so lonely in their pain. I am re-rooting. Creating a pattern that I pray will be of service to the destiny of this giant unfolding, ever changing, miraculous universe.

I wake to the Raven cawing loudly as it flies from West to East to greet the Sun. I emerge out of the tent wobbly with hunger. It is the 4th morning of my days in my fasting circle. It is time to pack up and return to base camp. I go to each direction within the circle and speak for a long time to the grandmothers and grandfathers of the East, South, West and North, the above, the below, and to the sun and the vast universe. I am humbled and deeply grateful to feel the presence of the world encircling and holding me. No humans can hear me, but I feel heard.

I pack up all of my belongings into two packs, my water jugs now empty. Hoisting everything on my back, I step out of the circle. Turning around, I look at the slightly pressed down leaves and grass and mud that gracefully held me these past days, and then turn to the Mother Oak. Root, Pattern, Destiny, my vision quest will never be over. My spiraled healing journey in this sacred place has deepened my roots, a new pattern is emerging, what will be my destiny?

Arriving at base camp I am greeted by the crystal blue eyes of my guide who hugs me, and says “You did it!” Taking my packs, he leads me to the fire. It becomes the center of my new circle. My fellow “questers” emerge from the damp forest and find their place around the fire’s pure elemental warmth and light. This fire is our grandfather and we honor it with offerings.

A table is laid out with food. I see a blueberry as shiny blue as Mt. Ascutney, and I take it into my mouth and crush it in my teeth, savoring the sweet sour tang the little globe gifts me. I am giggling, high, joyous! My eyes release tears that slide into my smiling mouth. “I come from the light! I am the light!”