BC vision fast – Karen's New York Love Affair

Vision Fast Retreats at BC Wilderness Visions

2012 Dates

There are no dates scheduled for 2012. If you are feeling the hunger for solo time and sacred ceremony in nature and the call of the wild is strong within you, we will do our best to fill this need, even if for just a 2-day weekend fast. The location will be in the wilderness near Missezula Lake, in a private area that’s close to a campground. The spot is near Monkey Valley. I discovered it on my first medicine walk, and it is a very special place.

2013 Dates TBD

We are currently planning for a vision fast retreat in July or August of 2013. This will be a 5- or 6-day trip with a 3-day fast, pre-fast preparations, and post-fast storytelling and incorporation. This retreat will be in the wilderness near Missezula Lake. Cost: $800 – $1,200 sliding scale.

If you are interested in participating in 2013, please send an email to info@klove.nyc.

To arrange a customized individual vision fast for other dates, contact Karen at 604.251.6337.

“…by the time you step out of your purpose circle into the broad daylight, something has happened, whether you know it or not.”
Steven Foster and Meredith Little

A teenager is about to be released from a minimum-security youth prison, and has a chance to make a new start. A stay-at-home mom contemplates returning to the work force now that all her children are in school, but is unsure about whether she is ready. A business executive in upper management feels dissatisfied despite prestige and financial success, and wonders whether some other work would be more fulfilling. A woman in her sixties is making the transition from worklife to the freedom of retirement. What do these people have in common? They are each at a time of potential transition, and wonder what direction to go in.

The vision fast is a cross-cultural ceremony that brings guidance and healing through solo time in wild nature. This journey is a very personal one, and its meaning will be unique to you. Traditionally, the vision fast is a rite of passage that marks an important transition in your life, such as the passage into adulthood. The vision fast can be used for contemplation and celebration of life at any time of change, including puberty, marriage, divorce, career change, meeting life goals and milestones (something we often don’t take the time to celebrate and acknowledge in a meaningful way), loss of a loved one, retirement, illness, and preparation for death.

Today, precious time alone in wild nature is rare, and you might wish to take this time for contemplation or to renew your connection to yourself, to the earth, and to the sacred dimension in your life. Or perhaps there is an area of your life that you want to spend some time healing, such as a distressing event or a relationship. Or maybe you are aware of an inner quality of yourself that you wish to cultivate and invite to participate more fully in your life. What longing in your heart is calling you to undertake this journey?

The vision fast ceremony begins with time spent making preparations and clarifying intentions. Then participants fast alone in the wilderness for three days and nights, following the ancient practice of going without food, human companionship, and built shelter. (To adapt this ceremony to modern questers in a mountain climate, fasters use a tarp and sleeping bag for shelter.) After the solo, you will have time to share your story, integrating your solo time and preparing to reincorporate into your life at home. For customized individual fasts, the format described here can be adjusted to a two-day or four-day fast if desired. Even a one-day fast can be very powerful.

One of the tasks of preparation is to undergo a medicine walk. BC Wilderness Visions offers medicine walks in the Vancouver area. Or type Medicine Walk in the Search box at the top of this page to find out more information and go on your own medicine walk.

The basic structure of the vision fast wilderness retreat draws on elements of rites of passage and renewal that stretch back to the beginnings of human consciousness: removing ourselves from our familiar worlds and going into the wilderness; using ceremony to deepen awareness and open our hearts; having time together in close community; having time alone; fasting; and returning with greater clarity and specific tasks.

Required reading: The Trail to the Sacred Mountain—A Vision Fast Handbook for Adults

To register, please fill in the online Registration Form. For payment information, see Fees.

Past Events at Monkey Valley

Monkey Valley Retreat Centre has hosted vision fasts, medicine wheel teachings, teachings of ecopsychology practices, medicine walks, inquiry groups, a yoga and ChiRunning retreat, and, of course, many gatherings of family and friends, too.

For a brief account of the amazingly awesome Chirunning and yoga retreat with Angela James (summer 2010), see here.

In the summer of 2009, we held the second vision fast at Monkey Valley for a solo faster. The valley rang out with the mournful notes of saxophone and the lowing of cows.

The previous year, in the summer of 2008, the grandmothers and grandfathers of this land greeted a vision faster, perhaps for the first time in many years. It is known that the Upper Similkameen First Nation travelled through the valley seasonally, gathering plants. Did the elders of the community put youths out on the land to fast while they sojourned here? I have seen a hilltop that might have been a spot for sacred ceremony…

Kim and I were very pleased that our plans to host a vision fast came to fruition August 1-4, 2008, with a two-day fast. The retreat began with a day of preparing the faster for the solo time. While the guides remained in basecamp, the faster went out into wild nature and spent her solo time with the land and her creatures. The final day was a celebration and time for the faster to tell her story and have it received by her people. Many thanks to the spirits of the seven directions for keeping the faster safe and returning her to us.

In the summer of 2005, the retreat centre hosted a four-day medicine wheel gathering, taught by Joyce Lyke and Tracy Leach. We built a medicine wheel together, and learned how to walk the four spokes of the wheel and work with the spirits of the seven directions (South, West, North, East, Earth Mother, Sky Father, and Centre). Since this gathering, the wheel has been open, available to those seeking guidance from the spirits of the land and the spirits of our ancestors.

The retreat centre has hosted numerous meditation and inquiry gatherings for students of the Diamond Approach, a spiritual path for inner realization. Inquiry is a method for sensing into one’s direct experience in the moment, as deeply as possible. Sensing physical sensations, as well as emotions and thoughts, can lead us to deeper, more subtle experiences of our soul.

Practicing inquiry outdoors in wild nature can open us to different kinds of experiences than occur indoors. We have explored inquiring with each other and with nature beings such as trees and rocks. Several New Years inquiry celebrations at Monkey Valley have involved dancing, sacred ceremony, and inquiry in the snow!

BC Wilderness Visions – renewal and revisioning

With the possibility of selling Monkey Valley later this year, I have been revisioning the way I will offer vision fasts retreats. I have a retreat planned for August 8 – 14, 2010. If Monkey Valley is no longer mine, the retreat will take place in the wilderness south of the property, near Missezula Lake, in a very sacred place I discovered on a medicine walk long ago.

Part of the revisioning process involves renaming this web site to BC Wilderness Visions. Currently I am running full content under www.klove.nyc and www.klove.nyc. But soon I will be switching to the new site exclusively, with a redirect from the old site. So please bookmark www.klove.nyc and access the site through this new address.

One of the things I’d like to do now that I’m spending more time in Vancouver is to offer some workshops locally, probably in the North Shore mountains, to give people a chance to experience wilderness work closer to home. Stay tuned to this site for details, and please let me know if you have a particular area of ritual, self-generated ceremony, or other nature work that you’d like to explore in a workshop.

The purpose of this web site is to provide information and resources to help you decide whether a vision fast is right for you. Here are some links to great topics on this subject:

What is a wilderness rite of passage? A short article written by one of my guide mentors and Diamond Approach teachers, John Davis.
What kind of quest is right for me? A brief description of group and individual quests. I offer both types at BC Wilderness Visions.

I also blog about stuff that interests me, for my own amusement, hopefully to entertain you(!), and as an opportunity to share my learning with you as life unfolds. This also allows you to get a sense of who I am to decide if you will want to do a vision fast or other wilderness work with me. For the next while, I will be writing a lot about running as I prepare for the Vancouver 2010 marathon. I will also continue to write about the vision fast ceremony, sharing stories of some of the vision fasts I have gone on. Please feel free to comment on the stories or to contact me if you have questions about doing a vision fast.

Mirroring for intention: putting it all together

I’ve been telling you the story of how Ruth and Larry mirrored my intention for my day walk, also known as a medicine walk or contemplative walk. Mirroring for intention is an important part of the vision fast ceremony. This process usually begins months before a participant’s fast, with a statement of intention in the application letter the participant prepares.

Once the guides and participants meet in the place near where the fast will take place, a key part of the preparation in the days preceding the fast is to clarify the participants’ intentions. If there is a group of fasters, they sit in circle together and listen as one by one they tell their stories of why they have come to the desert or mountain to undertake this rite of passage. When there is a solo participant, the guide or guides have the luxury of more time to spend with the faster, helping to clarify what the faster has come to claim.

To help you understand this process, I have been telling the story of a recent trip I took to the California desert. I was apprenticing on the vision fast, and while the fasters were out, the guides and I mirrored each others’ intentions for a solo day walk. I have been delving deeply into the story, so that you can understand the way that this type of work can help a person learn and grow.

Here is a list of the entries I have written about the mirroring process. You might find this helpful to read before turning to the story of the actual medicine walk.

Q: Does a bear poop in the woods?

A: Yes, and so can you!

Okay, you’re probably thinking I’ve totally flipped out, if you didn’t already think this after some of my previous entries about mouse turds, including “The mystery of the dead animal in my living room,” and the moving song “Blue turd on my window sill.”

But the fact is, being close to nature means being close to the full cycle of natural processes, which mostly involve birth, eating, eliminating, reproduction, and death. And when you spend time in nature, the signs of the elimination process are all around. Yesterday, when I was out for a run at Monkey Valley, I came across some magnificent signs of bear elimination. Call me crazy if you want, but I love finding bear scat. I found two piles, and one was a lot larger than the other, which might indicate that two bears of different sizes have been in the vicinity. Or maybe it was the same bear, having a big poop and then a little poop after. I noticed that both piles had undigested rose hips in them, which indicates the furry creature has been attracted to the bright red seed pods, which seem remarkably red and vibrant this year.

But what does this have to do with you, and specifically, with you pooping in the woods? One of the questions people who have never been on a vision fast ask is how to handle this basic biological function. Obviously, when you’re out in the wild on your solo, there won’t be a flush toilet, and not even an outhouse. This means you have the wonderful opportunity to experience what your ancestors did. Poop in the woods! Or in the desert, as the case may be…

We like to practice no-trace camping as part of our honouring of the land during the vision fast. This means packing out your TP, and covering the signs of any biological waste you might be leaving behind. So dig a shallow hole, and when you’re finished your elimination process, cover the hole with leaves and dirt. If there are rocks in the area where you are fasting, you can put a rock over the little pile to mark it, so that you know not to dig in that same spot again.

There is an ancient familiarity about squatting outside to perform this everyday function. The position is actually more comfortable for our body than a toilet, though if you’re out of shape it can be a strain on the quadriceps at first. Women out on a fast will get a lot more practice with this than men, learning to squat and pee too, without peeing on clothing or shoes. That’s a practice you will have a chance to master during your fasting time, especially if you drink the recommended amount of water!

A final note about biological processes for women out on a fast. It often happens that women’s cycles shift when out in nature, and your moon time might come while you are on your fast. We recommend bringing the supplies you’ll need in case this does happen. Pack the used supplies out with you, along with your TP. If you’re in bear country, you might want to keep your used supplies in a plastic bag some distance from your sleeping place, and use water and a bandanna or disposable wipes to keep clean. Or moss, if you’re in the woods.

Having your moon time while on a fast can deepen your connection with the sacred in nature, and help you feel part of the natural cycles of nature. Perhaps you will be inspired to create a ceremony to honour your moon time, bleeding directly onto the earth or making an offering of your blood in a ceremonial way.

Being out on the land during the vision fast, attending to our natural biological processes in ways that are more like the way our ancestors did, connects us to the 120,000+ life times of the human race, and helps us know that we are not alone. While our single life is finite, we are connected to a powerful, enduring life force through our human and pre-human gene pool. This is something that pooping in the woods can teach us.

Drumming for the vision fast

I was interviewed this week on Vancouver’s Co-op Radio (CFRO 102.7 FM) about the vision fast. The interview was for a radio show called Conscious Living. Listen to the interview to find out more about this thing called a vision fast. The interview concludes with a song for calling in the four directions, which I wrote about last time. When you click Log In, you are given a chance to register for the show’s web site. You must do this before you can listen to the MP3, but it only takes a minute or two.

I smudged myself with sage before going downtown to do the interview, and asked the spirits of the seven directions to be with me and help draw those people to the vision fast on July 5 – 11 at Monkey Valley who would most benefit from the ceremony. May it be so!

Why would anyone want to do a think like go without food for three days, alone in the woods, with only a tarp and sleeping bag for shelter? I think it takes a certain kind of person to be interested in this type of adventure, and a certain yearning in the soul. I believe that all humans yearn for connection with nature, because we evolved as a species for tens of thousands of years in the natural world. But nowadays, living in cities, many people do not hear their heart’s call to be out in nature. Or they may misinterpret the call as a yearning for something else, or drown it out with one of the substances so readily available to us for such purposes! So I think the vision fast ceremony appeals specifically to people who already feel their connection to nature, or who are aware of wanting to build or strengthen this connection. After all, there are many paths for gaining spiritual and psychological understanding that do not involve this level of physical discomfort!

Then there is the yearning to know yourself more deeply, to find guidance or healing, or to mark a life passage in a significant way. Perhaps you might feel the urge to test yourself, and gain a sense of confidence or strength from knowing you have passed the test. Certainly this is one of the functions the vision fast has served historically, as a right of passage from adolescence to adulthood. Since many of us never experienced or marked this passage into adulthood as a teenager, for some adults this might feel like an incompleteness that the vision fast ceremony can remedy.

When it comes to finding guidance, healing, inspiration, and self-knowledge in nature, the process is very mysterious. Time alone on the land opens us up. It makes our ego shell more permeable, usually in a safe and gentle way. It deepens our senses and our awareness, opening us to knowing and interacting with the natural world in a different way than we might experience on a weekend hike with friends. Being alone and not having to interact with others is actually a great gift, which allows a portion of our regular unconscious functioning (to maintain a self image, monitor how the other person is feeling, make sure the relationship is okay) to work for a different purpose. All of these factors, and the physiological changes brought about by fasting, can lead us into altered states of consciousness, where information is available to us in a new way.

This type of opening into the unknown is not for everyone. It takes a courage and a curiosity. A willingness to look foolish (or at least, dirty!). It takes a wanting. This is why on the School of Lost Borders vision fast program page they have a statement to warn away those who might be entering into this too lightly: “Or just forget that such a wild idea ever came into your head.” I love that! Enter at your own risk…

Safety and the vision fast

Next vision fast: July 5 – 11, 2009 at Monkey Valley

This week I had the great pleasure of giving a presentation on the vision fast to the Vancouver chapter of the Society for Technical Communication. Our March STC program was a Pecha Kucha event, in which speakers each discuss 20 slides for 20 seconds, making the presentations a short and informative 6 minutes and 40 seconds.

People are curious about the vision fast or vision quest, and intrigued by the idea of it. One of the things that deters people from trying it is fear of being alone in the wilderness, and particularly fear of wild animals. This is something I too had to face, and have since come to terms with, both as a participant and as a guide. I have had encounters with bears in the wilderness, and even saw a cougar in the distance once. As I have discussed elsewhere in this blog, I have come to realize that it is a rare privilege to encounter a magnificent wild animal like a cougar or a bear.

But, more importantly for the faster who has concerns about such encounters, these animals are very aware of humans and will avoid them if at all possible. The danger of attack from a wild animal is miniscule. My co-guide, Kim Ashley, and I thoroughly prepare fasters at Monkey Valley so that they know how to behave if an encounter happens. With some common sense and a little bit of advice it is easy to make sure an encounter with a wild animal is a blessing and not a danger. As guides, it is very important for us to make sure that each faster returns safely to her or his people. We are confident in our ability to teach you what you need to know to do that.

Another question people have about the vision fast is about the “no shelter” prohibition. The modern-day fast is adapted for city folks in a northern climate, and, again, making sure the faster returns safely is of primary importance. So the vision fast as taught by the School of Lost Borders and at Monkey Valley provides for temporary shelter in the form of a tarp, or even a tent if the faster feels this would be necessary. We teach tarp craft before the fasters go out, so that you learn how to put up a tarp that will keep out all the elements. Believe me, I have huddled under a tarp in the most frightening of storms and managed to stay warm and dry!

We also use a buddy system, in which each $Women\'s Fast in California, 2008$ person leaves a sign at a buddy pile once a day, so that we know everyone is safe. If something should happen, help will be on the way in less than 24 hours. Much of the time in the first two days of preparation before the fast is spent in teaching fasters what they need to know to stay safe on their fasts, and during this time we teach the buddy system as well. We also provide materials to help you prepare when you register to do a fast at Monkey Valley. If you would like to read more about the vision fast and surviving alone for three days and three nights in the wilderness, I recommend The Trail to the Sacred Mountain—A Vision Fast Handbook for Adults. This is required reading before doing a fast at Monkey Valley.

I hope these photos of groups of people who have survived their fasts will inspire you to try it yourself! The Programs page has more information about the upcoming fasts at Monkey Valley. Check it out.