Vision Quest in Oaxaca, Mexico

October 19 - 29, 2019

Oaxaca, Mexico, Sierra Norte
La Neveria, Oaxaca

Sitting in the forest talking with the invisibles, the ancestors of place and the living beings that are part of the forest I felt an acceptance of me, of all life. There was a friendliness I have not experienced on land I have previously guided Vision Quests. The Zapotec people of this land have inhabited this village and the surrounding forest for along as anyone can remember. It has not been invaded, mined or deforested. The people live there and walk in the forest as if they have always been companions.

~ Trishuwa

Vision Quest, an Ancient Rite of Passage

Ancestors of all races and spiritual lineages
have gone alone into the wilderness.
Sacrificing food and the comfort and companionship of daily life.
Resting their body on the body of Mother Earth.
They went to remember who they were,
to clear their minds and open their hearts.
They did this with the companionship of the natural world.
They returned to their community and families,
with unique gifts, visions that only they could bring.
Given the gift of themselves they gave back.
They gave back their true nature, living their destiny.

Each day, each night of the vision quest is a journey into your past, present and future. There are extended moments when the mental chatter ceases and the internal silence is filled with the present. As your body is emptied you become clearer and a less encumbered future is revealed, reflected upon and sanctioned by the mountainside you sit upon.

The structure of the ten days. The first days are preparation for turning away from the ordinary world to retreat into a time of solitude. When you arrive at the site you will set up your tent at the base camp. Preparation includes individual consultation, ceremony and making relationship with your solo site. Four days are questing and fasting. The remaining time is for reintegration, sharing your story and listening to the stories of the other questers. Guides reflect back and provide interpretation for each story.

SHARING YOUR STORY

In the middle of the circle there is an object called the talking stick. Sometimes, there is a special one made with care and creativity. At other times a twig, branch or stone has found its way into this circle. One by one, each quester goes to the center and picks up the talking stick. Holding it they tell their story and all listen.
Sharing of story is an essential part of this journey. This is a sacred time, the sharing of deep emotions, insights, visions. Your guides listen, pray, reflect and honor your story. The telling of your story often brings a deeper understanding of insights and spiritual imperatives previously unknown or unclaimed.

The Fast
What the eyes are for the outer world,
fasts are for the inner.

- Ghandi

WILDERNESS SPIRITUAL FASTING

Intentional spiritual fasting is devoting oneself to knowing and remembering who you are and begin to experience the sacred in yourself. Going alone into the wilderness as a sacred pilgrimage renews the spiritual connection to all life. Every tree, plant, deer, person, or mountain has a soul and a spiritual purpose. Detoxifying at a soul level allows the deep hunger within us to be filled with the sacred.
When you realize, remember who you are and always wanted to be, you have healed the Earth by healing yourself. With that healing you can return the gift to the life around you.

. . . everything around you, the ground, the stones, the trees, the air, the birds, your blanket - everything - is alive, aware, conscious, intelligent, and speaking to you. For “prayer” as Thomas Merton says, “is not science but poetry.” And the poetry of prayer is built on experiencing the invisibles behind all forms of creation and then sending out from the deepest recesses of the human heart communications in return ...

- Stephen Harrod Buhner

EMOTIONAL FASTING AND DETOXIFICATION

Food is associated with love, gratification and is a source for providing sustenance for emotional needs. Going without food and daily companionship or routine is a catalyst for examining not only how you relate to food, but to life in general. Without food feelings long locked away or ignored may come to the surface. As you fast you change your way of relating to yourself and your primal needs. Emotional detoxification and cleansing illuminates how you use your mental abilities. The thought process, the woven web of your life choices that can enhance or diminish your life force are more present and there is an insistence that you examine your choices and how you respond to life. A new clarity is birthed that can help you be in the present unimpeded by the past concepts that may no be as firmly implanted as you supposed.

PHYSICAL FASTING

Going without food heightens your awareness of your body. You begin to feel each breath, the touch of a stone, the slight breeze, your skin, your bones, your hunger. The toxins in our body begin to be felt and released. You begin to touch and be touched by the natural world. Your receptivity to all that is around you is heightened and you share your physical presence with an awareness that is of the body. The awareness that you are in relationship with the non-human and non-material realm.
Going alone without food into the uncivilized wilderness invites into memory the knowledge held in your body, your own uncivilized wild spirit that embodies passion, life and the sacred.

YOU WILL BE DRINKING WATER DURING YOUR FAST.

WAITING UNTIL SPIRIT IS HEARD As my prayer became more attentive and inward I had less and less to say. I finally became completely silent. I started to listen Which is even further removed from speaking. I first thought that praying entailed speaking. I then learnt that praying is hearing, or merely being silent. This is how it is. To pray does not mean to listen to oneself speaking. Prayer involves becoming silent, and being silent and waiting until spirit is heard. -Poem describing Vision Quest by Kierlegaard

PREPARING FOR THE VISION QUEST

Before you arrive at the Vision Quest site, you are encouraged to have begun your physical preparation weeks or months prior to the arrival date. After enrollment you will receive information and suggestions that will assist you in this preparation.
Your guides and logistical staff will provide information, ceremony and answer your questions as you continue to prepare for four days and nights of solitude at your fasting site.

You will arrive October 18 at Tierra Del Sol. On October 19 we will leave in vans for the Vision Quest site. The Quest Program will end Sunday afternoon, October 29, 2019.
(Nutritious Food is Provided)

Travel recommendations and accommodations before and after the Vision Quest will be provided. The Day of the Dead follows the quest and is sure to be a fantastic event for those that want to explore the magic of Oaxaca.

There are also cabins near the site that are available for a gentler re-entry. Your guides are Trishuwa and Scott Harshman. Your hosts are Juan Pablo and Aniate Ruiz. We are also fortunate to have Pablo Ruiz Lavelle as host. He has been committed to care-taking the land of the Sierra Norte as a lifework.

Contact Trishuwa * trishuwa@gaianstudies.org * 575-956-3089
Scott Harshman * bamagryphon@gmail.com

REGISTRATION

The cost is $700
Non-refundable deposit is $200.
Payment in full by September 1, 2019

YOUR GUIDES:

Trishuwa has been guiding Vision Quests since 1988.
Trishuwa works with the ceremonial forms of communicating with the invisibles of the world-Sweat Lodge, Sacred Pipe, Vision Quest and the Medicine Wheel. She is Ceremonial Director of the Church of Gaia and founding member of Foundation for Gaian Studies. As a young child she lived near San Juan Pueblo in New Mexico, along the Rio Grande. While living there she had her first visions that have guided her throughout her life and are the foundation of her work. She is of mixed blood; Irish, Cherokee, African American and English. Her genetic mixture and spiritual visions influenced her to advocate the inclusion of people of all races in indigenous ceremony.

Trishuwa’s apprenticeship with Sun Bear, the Ojibway holy man who founded The Bear Tribe Medicine Society included working with Vision Quest, Sacred Pipe, Sweat Lodge, the Medicine Wheel, and the indigenous heart language for communicating with all species, the elementals, and the invisible world of Spirit. Her teaching partnership with Stephen Buhner expanded these ceremonies to include inner-council work focusing on individual awareness which is intuitive and feeling based as well as analytical.

Scott Harshman, Ordained Practitioner of the Church of Gaia and Ceremonialist offers rites of passage ceremonies, healing with the Sacred Pipe and Sweat Lodge to his community and has been a Vision Quest guide since 1998. He studied with Dhyani Ywahoo, with Stephen Buhner in Sacred Plant Medicine, and Earth ceremony with Trishuwa. He is a Pipe carrier and has combined plant medicine and ceremony as a life path.

Your hosts are Juan Pablo and Aniate Ruiz. We are also fortunate to have Pablo Ruiz Lavelle. He has been committed to care-taking Tierra DelSol as a lifework.

In the end, the quest is very personal. It is you and your thoughts and your prayers to the Great Spirit. There is no blueprint for vision questing, no checklist of do’s and don’ts. Just you, the powers, and isolation. If you vision quest only once in your life, at least you took time with the Creator as to why you are here. Afterward, you, the vision quester, will be better prepared to use the special gifts with which the Great Spirit endowed you to join with those concerned ones who seek to help this planet.

-Ed McGaa, Eagle M