Feb 11 Insight: What Puts the 'Vision' in a Vision Quest?

What Puts the ‘Vision’ in a Vision Quest?

(The 3-Minute Weekly Insight from Spirituality U.)

A Vision Quest is a cultural and spiritual “rite of passage” practiced by young people in some Native American groups to mark their becoming adults and full members of the tribal community. The Vision Quest takes young people through a symbolic, spiritual process of “passing through,” and “being reborn”.

In this practice, young people—primarily young men—emerge out of adolescence and into adulthood. They do this by taking part in a ritual in which they leave their families and wander alone into an uninhabited wilderness area within walking distance of their community. Their wandering typically lasts one to four days. 

During this period of solitude the person undertaking the Quest often fasts from food and sometimes water, and usually goes without sleep. The Quest is often undertaken under the guidance of an elder from the tribe.

The sensory deprivations endured by the youthful ‘Quester’ may lead to waking dreams or hallucinations (one type of Vision) and to deep spiritual insights (another type of Vision).

One understanding of these visions is that during the period of fasting and sleeplessness the deep concentration leads the Quester to a state in which the mind becomes “comatose” or blank. Thoughts cease and the universe unfolds in the consciousness in a beautiful, non-verbal way.

 The Vision can bring the Quester profound insights into himself and the world. The insights usually relate directly to the young person’s future purpose and destiny in life. The Quest can help the young person develop new forms of spiritual communication and form complex, abstract thoughts not available to children.

During a Vision experience the young person may be visited by a spirit guide that takes the form of an animal such as a coyote or crow that communicates important information. This Vision creature may continue to visit the Quester from time to time throughout adult life.

At the end of the Vision Quest the person who left the tribe as a child returns to the group as an adult who is welcomed as a full partner in the community. As a full partner, the returnee may apprentice himself to another adult in the tribe to follow a “career” path that was revealed during the Quest. Such a path might be that of a medicine man, boat-maker, or crafter of bows.

There seems to be a yearning for people in many cultures and religions to find more profound ways to mark the rite of passage from childhood to adult life. And even though the Vision Quest is traditionally a Native American and Innuit practice, people from other cultures now attempt to complete the Vision Quest experience. One reason for this is the fact that rituals to mark the passage from childhood to adult life have somewhat evaporated from Western cultures. Observant Jews may guide their children through Bar or Bat Mitzvah ceremonies. Some Christians guide their children through “confirmation” when they reach their teenage years. Sadly, graduation from high school (a secular act) is now the key marker of transition out of childhood.

For more information about the Vision Quest ritual visit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_quest