![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Dec. 9th, 2007 12:09 pm
My spirit guide has large teeth.
So this morning I went on a vision quest.
Some of you are laughing, I can tell. But please do read this.
But it was really cool, and it was scary too. Evaluating it as a rite of passage, I can understand the fear; part of the definition of said rite is that it is a time of danger, reversals, etc.
The setup was this: We were on the stage of McGaw, the chapel - so that we could be in a sacred space, providing a sort of safety net - with all the lights out except one spot. In the center of our circle was a candle that was lit just before the drumming began. There were six of us, including the professor (it was an extra-credit sort of thing for my anthro class). We were told to lie down, and when the nature-music-thing started, to visualize a place out in nature. We were to wander around until we found a hole, and then when the drums started to go down into it and through a tunnel. The tunnel would lead somewhere, and when we came out into that place we should look around. If we found an animal we should be polite and say hello - it would probably be our spirit guide. Then we could ask it questions or follow where it lead - actually, if it did head off we HAD to follow it or risk becoming lost in the trance. And it was a trance-state, trust me. More on that later. When the drumbeat changed, we had to thank the animal if we had found one, and head back so that we would be safe. Before we started, my professor sealed the circle by smudging it three times, and lighting the candle in the center.
Then the drumming started, and it was loud. It bounced off the walls and our ears, but because it was so steady it rapidly became the thing that put you in trance. Underneath the drum beats was a sort of singing/music, sometimes sounding like the undertone of a Tuvan throat singer and sometimes more like pipes or a flute. It varied in tone and intensity, and it was a little frightening. However, it also added to the trance-state and helped guide the quest.
We did this twice. I'll address each separetely, because there's something deeply interesting about both.
I went down a hole in a river bank, and I could not get out of the tunnel the first time. Honestly. I took a wrong turn and was standing at the bottom of a hole, looking up. There was something up there, and I could see gold-yellow grass, but the opening was ten feet above my head. I spent a while trying to find a way up - inching up the sides with my back to one and my feet on the other, digging holes in the sides for my hands and feet, jumping... eventually I gave up, headed back to the fork, and this time took the righthand one. I could see the opening after a long time crawling, but never got out - the drumming ended before I could.
Now, all of this was okay. I thought it only took about five minutes and was a little annoyed the drumming ended so fast.
Then I looked at the candle and freaked the hell out.
It had burned down halfway. We'd been out for twenty minutes or more. That means I was in that tunnel for a looooong time. This was the single scariest part of the whole thing, that I could lose so much time. I'm pretty sure I was in trance - even breathing, not aware of my surroundings, unable to move but clearly not asleep. But no spirit world!
So then we decided to do it again, just to see what would happen. The 'singing' noise under the drum showed up a lot faster this time, and I went under a lot faster. This time I went down a hole that was at the base of a tree, in between the roots, and walked through a tunnel. It was totally dark, and I trailed to fingers along the walls so that I had some sort of sense of where I was. It sloped up, and then I was climbing out.
I had INTENDED to be back on the golden-yellow grass plain. Instead, I came out onto a very large branch, 80 feet up in the air. That was unnerving, especially since there were no other branches to climb down onto. I hung out there for a while, sitting with my feet swinging, trying to figure out how to get down. I had looked everywhere except left, so eventually I thought to look that way. And oh look, a staircase winding around the tree. This took me fifty feet down and then there were branches. The last ten feet I just had to drop, but that was okay. I was expecting a bird to show up as my spirit guide, because of the $@#^ tree, but there was nothing in sight. So I headed out across the veldt that started below the tree. After some walking, the land sloped down. On the slope were boulders. I nearly walked past them, but one moved.
A cougar was lying on a rock to my left (is anyone else noticing something about me and the left?). I went around to face her and said hello. Once she'd acknowledged me, she got up and walked away, clearly meaning for me to follow her. I didn't move fast enough and almost got lost - not exactly a good thing, as it could put my spirit/soul in a bad place if I didn't do what I was meant to. Fortunately, she stopped and waited for me. This is one of the few times she spoke - she told me to hold onto the fur of her neck so I wouldn't get lost. I did and we walked on. We went down the hill and across an area that I can't describe, then into a ravine and among rocks. We climbed up them (I let go at this point, as she said we'd gotten through the hard part and I wouldn't get lost now) and over something, and then down. I think we went over a mountain, because we stopped in an alpine meadow below the snowline, covered in those pretty groundflowers you get in that sort of place. Here she sat on a rock (to my left! again! and she was on my left the entire time we were walking). She was really lovely - a classic cougar look with her front paws neatly square. I asked her a question which I will not share, and received an answer but not in words, which I also will not be sharing. Then the drum rhythm - which I had forgotten about, even though it was so loud and right beside me, because of the steadiness - changed, and I felt that I was being pulled back. As I'd been instructed, I thanked her and said goodbye, then hurried back across everything to my body. When the drum stopped, I opened my eyes.
Unsurprisingly, the candle had burned down even further. This quest was actually slightly shorter in reality, but it felt far longer to me - like it went on for an hour or more. My professor opened the circle by re-smudging, blew out the candle, and let us go. Emma and I were halfway home before we began to talk about it, because we needed time to think. She too didn't get through the first time, and the second time she came up in the middle of a lake. She told me she was actually too frightened to talk to her spirit guide, because he was a fish of some kind and she doesn't like water over her head. She got herself to the shore and stared at the water - she could not look right; there was something preventing her. I was on her right in the circle, but I doubt that was the problem. From what I can tell, this element of fear is not uncommon in vision quests, but you have to learn to overcome it. Emma wants to try again, and so do I.
We weren't asleep. One, there was a drum FIVE FEET FROM MY EAR. A very loud one. Two, I don't fall asleep on the floor. Three, it takes me at least half an hour to fall asleep and we weren't lying down for that long at a stretch. Four, I know the difference between lucid dreaming, daydreams, and being awake but in a trance state. I am almost 100% percent sure I was in the latter.
There are various explanations for all this - psychological, physical, sociological, anthropological. My professor acted as a shaman and the purpose of the quest was to find out something. And I did. So I'm inclined to believe there was something to it.
If you got through all that, I'm impressed.
Some of you are laughing, I can tell. But please do read this.
But it was really cool, and it was scary too. Evaluating it as a rite of passage, I can understand the fear; part of the definition of said rite is that it is a time of danger, reversals, etc.
The setup was this: We were on the stage of McGaw, the chapel - so that we could be in a sacred space, providing a sort of safety net - with all the lights out except one spot. In the center of our circle was a candle that was lit just before the drumming began. There were six of us, including the professor (it was an extra-credit sort of thing for my anthro class). We were told to lie down, and when the nature-music-thing started, to visualize a place out in nature. We were to wander around until we found a hole, and then when the drums started to go down into it and through a tunnel. The tunnel would lead somewhere, and when we came out into that place we should look around. If we found an animal we should be polite and say hello - it would probably be our spirit guide. Then we could ask it questions or follow where it lead - actually, if it did head off we HAD to follow it or risk becoming lost in the trance. And it was a trance-state, trust me. More on that later. When the drumbeat changed, we had to thank the animal if we had found one, and head back so that we would be safe. Before we started, my professor sealed the circle by smudging it three times, and lighting the candle in the center.
Then the drumming started, and it was loud. It bounced off the walls and our ears, but because it was so steady it rapidly became the thing that put you in trance. Underneath the drum beats was a sort of singing/music, sometimes sounding like the undertone of a Tuvan throat singer and sometimes more like pipes or a flute. It varied in tone and intensity, and it was a little frightening. However, it also added to the trance-state and helped guide the quest.
We did this twice. I'll address each separetely, because there's something deeply interesting about both.
I went down a hole in a river bank, and I could not get out of the tunnel the first time. Honestly. I took a wrong turn and was standing at the bottom of a hole, looking up. There was something up there, and I could see gold-yellow grass, but the opening was ten feet above my head. I spent a while trying to find a way up - inching up the sides with my back to one and my feet on the other, digging holes in the sides for my hands and feet, jumping... eventually I gave up, headed back to the fork, and this time took the righthand one. I could see the opening after a long time crawling, but never got out - the drumming ended before I could.
Now, all of this was okay. I thought it only took about five minutes and was a little annoyed the drumming ended so fast.
Then I looked at the candle and freaked the hell out.
It had burned down halfway. We'd been out for twenty minutes or more. That means I was in that tunnel for a looooong time. This was the single scariest part of the whole thing, that I could lose so much time. I'm pretty sure I was in trance - even breathing, not aware of my surroundings, unable to move but clearly not asleep. But no spirit world!
So then we decided to do it again, just to see what would happen. The 'singing' noise under the drum showed up a lot faster this time, and I went under a lot faster. This time I went down a hole that was at the base of a tree, in between the roots, and walked through a tunnel. It was totally dark, and I trailed to fingers along the walls so that I had some sort of sense of where I was. It sloped up, and then I was climbing out.
I had INTENDED to be back on the golden-yellow grass plain. Instead, I came out onto a very large branch, 80 feet up in the air. That was unnerving, especially since there were no other branches to climb down onto. I hung out there for a while, sitting with my feet swinging, trying to figure out how to get down. I had looked everywhere except left, so eventually I thought to look that way. And oh look, a staircase winding around the tree. This took me fifty feet down and then there were branches. The last ten feet I just had to drop, but that was okay. I was expecting a bird to show up as my spirit guide, because of the $@#^ tree, but there was nothing in sight. So I headed out across the veldt that started below the tree. After some walking, the land sloped down. On the slope were boulders. I nearly walked past them, but one moved.
A cougar was lying on a rock to my left (is anyone else noticing something about me and the left?). I went around to face her and said hello. Once she'd acknowledged me, she got up and walked away, clearly meaning for me to follow her. I didn't move fast enough and almost got lost - not exactly a good thing, as it could put my spirit/soul in a bad place if I didn't do what I was meant to. Fortunately, she stopped and waited for me. This is one of the few times she spoke - she told me to hold onto the fur of her neck so I wouldn't get lost. I did and we walked on. We went down the hill and across an area that I can't describe, then into a ravine and among rocks. We climbed up them (I let go at this point, as she said we'd gotten through the hard part and I wouldn't get lost now) and over something, and then down. I think we went over a mountain, because we stopped in an alpine meadow below the snowline, covered in those pretty groundflowers you get in that sort of place. Here she sat on a rock (to my left! again! and she was on my left the entire time we were walking). She was really lovely - a classic cougar look with her front paws neatly square. I asked her a question which I will not share, and received an answer but not in words, which I also will not be sharing. Then the drum rhythm - which I had forgotten about, even though it was so loud and right beside me, because of the steadiness - changed, and I felt that I was being pulled back. As I'd been instructed, I thanked her and said goodbye, then hurried back across everything to my body. When the drum stopped, I opened my eyes.
Unsurprisingly, the candle had burned down even further. This quest was actually slightly shorter in reality, but it felt far longer to me - like it went on for an hour or more. My professor opened the circle by re-smudging, blew out the candle, and let us go. Emma and I were halfway home before we began to talk about it, because we needed time to think. She too didn't get through the first time, and the second time she came up in the middle of a lake. She told me she was actually too frightened to talk to her spirit guide, because he was a fish of some kind and she doesn't like water over her head. She got herself to the shore and stared at the water - she could not look right; there was something preventing her. I was on her right in the circle, but I doubt that was the problem. From what I can tell, this element of fear is not uncommon in vision quests, but you have to learn to overcome it. Emma wants to try again, and so do I.
We weren't asleep. One, there was a drum FIVE FEET FROM MY EAR. A very loud one. Two, I don't fall asleep on the floor. Three, it takes me at least half an hour to fall asleep and we weren't lying down for that long at a stretch. Four, I know the difference between lucid dreaming, daydreams, and being awake but in a trance state. I am almost 100% percent sure I was in the latter.
There are various explanations for all this - psychological, physical, sociological, anthropological. My professor acted as a shaman and the purpose of the quest was to find out something. And I did. So I'm inclined to believe there was something to it.
If you got through all that, I'm impressed.