My Story of becoming a Vision Quest Protector
Quest Protecting feels like a full surrender into my soul's capacity to be of service on the earth. As a young woman, 16 years ago, when I stepped into the Stalking Wolf lineage of Vision Quest Protection I really knew nothing of the sacrifice and strength required to be a Quest Protector.
I was very driven to quest during this time of my life. I was 25 years old and had just begun a year of living primitively as a Caretaker with Tom Brown Jr’s Tracker School in the USA.
By this stage I had already completed five Vision Quests, with my first being a 10 day epic journey of rebirth. Each time I quested I would fast on water and alone in the wilderness. Just one of these ceremonies was facilitated by a trained Quest Protector. After which I understood just a fraction of what it took to facilitate a Vision Quest for another person, let alone a group!
What lay beneath my drive to Vision Quest I was not aware. I had yet to gain a deeper & more conscious relationship to that which truly calls us to the sacrifice of the quest. I usually struggled through the 4 days rather than triumphed. Yet a voice so audible, so earth bound and firm would call me to that wild solo circle of power, again and again.
And yes, I have to admit every Vision Quest I completed was extremely hard and the days seemed so painfully long – and yet I genuinely loved questing! The romance of the deep fall into the natural flow of the forest was just too penetrating and powerful for me to resist. Each time I quested I could feel it working to unravel me, filling me up with a power so mysterious and gritty. A power from beyond the modern world I belonged to.
When I heard of the Quest Protector Training it seemed a natural flow in my spiritual journey. I had never given much thought to guiding others on quest. At the time I believed I was called to the training to feed my hunger for the shamanic skills of protection and awareness. These skills seemed so vital to our modern world yet so difficult for white women to discover. I knew these skills were vital to me as a young woman, particularly if I was to ever journey in life with a true, earth-connected spiritual core.
The training literally blew my top off! I had so many peak experiences of awareness during my time as a trainee - it's hard to recount it in words. I had no idea I was capable of such subtle perception of light and dark energy. Learning how to protect with shields, move with silence through a shielded area, tracking energy, how to respond to threats to protected areas... Pure earth magic! I just loved it, it felt like heaven to me. My body felt like it was alive and singing.
The initiation the whole group received through the instrumental use of quest energy during the program sent ripples deep into the imagining of my life. It felt like I will filled up with a tangible power from the silence the quester’s generated during our training. Yet I still had no idea that I was going to be a Quest Protector.
Literally 2 days after Quest Protector training finished, I was standing amongst a crowd at a Tracker School class. I was surrounded by a throng of global Tracker students who had come to learn survival skills with Tom Brown Jr. Out of the blue a man walked straight up to me and quite simply stated "I've heard you are a Quest Protector. Can you protect a quest for me?". A week later there was another and a month later another. And suddenly I was cast off into the momentous flow of serving my brothers and sisters as a Quest Protector.
I have been actively Questing and Protecting ever since and had the good fortune to journey alongside a tribe of wonderful and deeply committed Vision Quest Protectors. I'm always learning through each experience and each time I help to hold this ancient ceremony I see the flow of vision becoming stronger on this land.
Every time I protect a Vision Quest I am also questing. This energetic dynamic can feel like such an impossible ask. Yet each time I find I have access to the power I need to offer protection and surf the waves of transformation which also ripple through my life.
With every Quest Protection I am asked to expand my capacity to feel, to surrender, to see beyond the human world and into the depth of pure awareness and vision. Each time I protect I pass through the veils of my own ego and my personal darkness so I can see the truth of my protection.
The Vision Quest and Quest Protection nourishes life so deeply. It is such an honour to witness each quester emerge at dawn, their eyes so filled with light, with vision and life. This light is the very source of our humanness.
In becoming a Quest Protector I claimed my birthright to stand at this source, to actively protect it and our right to live with purpose, joy and service.
In Connection,
Kate
Kate Rydge
FOUNDER Nature Philosophy Australia
kate@naturephilosophy.com.au