| Rituals that reflect nature's reality invite us to go deeply into ourselves, she said, noting that the advent, the winter solstice, is also a time of telling stories, of deep togetherness and unity. "So it's a perfect time to be looking at this. Philosophically, the questing process starts with the person's yearning or awareness that something more is needed, either in their life, or from them, in their life. Something is missing."
My Journey
What was missing for me was a sense of purpose, after leaving a professional career that spanned more than 30 years. Who was I without that identity anchor that set the course of my days and years? How could this major life change and transition be orchestrated in a thoughtful, non-panicky way? What did I really want to do with my life, and how could I discover that? Knowing my natural inclination to stay constantly busy and say yes to everything, I wanted to be more intentional about my choices.
I also knew the time was right for me to enter a more spiritual path with a strong connection to the natural world. Earlier that summer, The International Council of the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers had come to Montpelier for a public gathering (See Sidebar). It brought together many First Nation people from Vermont, New York and Canada, to participate in traditional ceremonies, workshops and sharing circles.
Weinbaum and I were among the fortunate ones assisting the 13 Grandmothers every day. After they left, I felt both empty and full. I wanted to hold onto the openheartedness that experience evoked in me. I went to Weinbaum to learn more.
Becoming Oneself
The quest, or as Joseph Campbell called it, "the hero's journey," has its roots in ancient archetypal mythology and practices that are found in cultures around the world. Preparation is followed by a time of severance, when the hero intentionally leaves behind her life as she knows it. The time she spends in the wild becomes a threshold to inner and outer worlds.
Often this time implies a symbolic dying, and a new relationship with the natural world. Then comes the return—a symbolic rebirth—when she shares her stories with others, and begins to integrate new insights. The quester moves back to "normal" life and community, but with new purpose and vision.
Weinbaum emphasizes community, the place where the individual's expressed intention and gifts meet with needs. "Reconnecting individual, community and earth spirit is the ultimate gift of the quest," she says.
She recalls a vivid moment when her eco-spirituality first awakened. Growing up in a traditional Protestant family, she was sitting in a circle with her preschool group in their church basement, singing, "Let the sunshine in! Open up your heart and let the sun shine in!"
Suddenly a shaft of sunlight streamed through the window, illuminating the group. "I knew something at that moment," she says, "knew there was something else out there. Young children know things they can't articulate, and mine was an understanding about the life in that sunlight that I had to find my way back to."
Spiritual Journey
Weinbaum is about to turn 60. Her long pilgrimage led from commitment to—and then disillusionment with—her mainstream church, to a calling that took time to develop. Her quest to find what was missing in her life brought her to Vermont after college, marriage and graduate school. When her son, David, was born, she was working as a school guidance counselor.
"The mystery of birth cracked something open in me, and began a remembering of some spiritual roots I had. A portal began to open," she remembered. She decided to stay home with her son, and two years later, daughter Tomasen joined the family. When Tomasen went to a Waldorf school, Weinbaum wanted to go too. Waldorf education emphasizes the whole child—the heart and the hands, as well as the head. It was the kind of education she wished she'd had: learning songs and poetry, connecting with ceremonies and rhythms that honor the earth and its seasons.
A few years later, a catalog from Omega Institute, a spiritual retreat center in Rhinebeck, New York, came in the mail. Within its spiritual smorgasbord of workshops, was a description of something called a "vision quest," happening in the Southwest, at Animas Valley Institute, "a nature-based initiation."
Weinbaum immediately wanted to go. She says, "That's what started me on this path. I didn't even know what it was. I knew there was a solo [part] but had no clue what I was getting myself into." She headed off for a two-week quest. She leapt from her comfort zone into an experience that set her on a path still unfolding today.
Discovering Purpose
During the solo quest, she saw herself in a circle of people telling their stories, and felt a deep sense of support and connection. Although the meaning of this mental image did not become clear until several years later, it brought her back to work as an apprentice with the founder of Animas Institute, Bill Plotkin. Plotkin is known for his influential work, Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World (2008).
On another quest with Plotkin, this time in Death Valley, a name came to her: Woman Who Makes Connections. The nature of her work in Vermont began to emerge. And a few years later, she explains, "I was given a central practice that holds [this] all together: to be rooted like tree and still like stone."
There is a small sculpture in her living room of a tree made of heavy gauge wire, with its wire roots surrounding a rock. She says her journey since then has sought to manifest these images in her daily practice, and guide work. "To do this well, I need to be rooted, centered, in a still place."
Although Weinbaum does not subscribe to a single conceptual template, several inform her. She also studied with Meredith Little and Steven Foster, who co-founded Rites of Passage, Inc. in 1976, and the School of Lost Borders in 1981. The couple is credited with pioneering modern wilderness rites of passage and "field eco-therapy." Weinbaum uses and refers to one of their books, The Four Shields: The Initiatory Seasons of Human Nature.
Based on indigenous teachings, The Four Shields use the rhythms and cycles of the natural world—the changing seasons, the four directions, the rising and setting of the sun—to mirror human rhythms and changes, helping questers to understand their connection with the natural world, and human relationships with all beings.
Home to Community
From far-off places, Weinbaum returned to Central Vermont, knowing she needed to make her knowledge accessible. As a mother, she especially wanted to create opportunities for other women. She set out to do just that.
She met Gillian Kapteyn Comstock and her husband, Russell, who had founded Metta Earth Institute: A Center for Contemplative Ecology in Lincoln. Together Weinbaum and the Comstocks created a series of retreats and quests called Spirit Root for women, guiding quests out of Lincoln and into the Adirondacks in the late '90s.
Next she was introduced to David Oldfield's pioneering work on rites of passage for adolescents: The Journey, A Creative Approach to the Necessary Crises of Adolescence. Indigenous people traditionally conducted such rites, so she developed "…a modern rite of passage that honors the threshold between childhood and adulthood with the dignity and meaning it once possessed."
Creating community is the essence of ceremony, says Weinbaum, who next worked with a group of clergy who wanted to use nature and wilderness rites in their church work with youth. "This work exposed my deep yearning for spiritual community: the connection, the collective purpose and vision. But they were not my community." She joined a local church and, although this developed many wonderful and genuine connections, realized the natural world outdoors, not a church, was her spiritual home.
It was then Weinbaum began to build her own spiritual community, organizing women's wilderness fasts in the greater Montpelier area. To date, about 40 women have gone into the wilderness for four days and nights on solo fasts. Each fall, Weinbaum sends out an email, asking women questers to let others know she is offering a "giveaway." Then she sits back and waits—"rooted like tree and still like stone."
"Ninety percent of the people who come, come through people they know," she says. "That connection is a huge part of trusting the process." Once a group is assembled and committed, preparation begins, with veteran fasters teaming as big sisters and mentors to the neophytes.
"There are several ways to get called to this work. Often something happens that shatters your world, demands your attention in a way that you can't ignore. Often it's a loss that tells you that life moving forward is going to be different; something that brings you to your knees," she says. Whatever the reason, Weinbaum helps them understand what is happening, and helps frame their intention through questions and conversations: Why now? What got you here?
Practicing Commitment
My preparation time with Weinbaum included sitting with and reflecting on questions, such as: What is ending? What am I leaving behind? What no longer serves me? What is standing in my way? Who and what are my allies and sources of strength? What is my relationship to spirit? What am I marking by undertaking this journey?
An integral part of the solo quest is fasting, employed by many religions and indigenous peoples. Our bodies get a message when we fast: We are dying. Body and brain chemistry changes in response. A shift in awareness occurs: We get clearer, more open, more present to our inner and outer surroundings.
By the time I actually went on my wilderness quest, I had lived with my questions, delved into them, written an intention statement, identified specific resource people—or allies—in my network of friends, spent a day fasting and walking in the woods, and then talked to other women fasters about their experiences and what to expect. I felt ready.
Weinbaum asks each woman to make four commitments: first to her own journey, committing the time, and second to the group of women who come together "to hold their stories in a sacred way." Third is a commitment to stay connected to each other, and fourth, to the land and community we all live in. When a woman can say, yes to all four, she comes to a council where she speaks her intention, and joins her story to other women who have fasted before.
The final work is to select a solo site, and go out on the land for the main event—a four day-and-night quest. When the women return, they spend a full day, telling and hearing each other's stories. This is where Weinbaum's superb listening and mirroring skills come in. She reflects back each person's story, weaving in her knowledge, discerning and deepening her understanding of her experience.
Weinbaum has learned that going without food is less difficult than coming to grips with time alone, without our routines and distractions. There is nothing to do, or listen to, or talk to, but our own deepest thoughts and the natural world. She says, "When you've emptied, you're in a place to receive and fill up with other things—the good stuff."
Ultimate Vision
The ripple effect of a growing number of women questers extends into local life. "We know each other on a deep level," she says. "The starting place is the personal journey, but the reason to do this is to shift the tides locally…to create the models for a new civilization. There's a shift ready to happen, moving from independence to interdependence."
Shortly after we talked, Weinbaum flew to the Ukraine, an area devastated by nuclear fallout from Chernobyl, to attend The International Gathering of Wilderness Rites Passage Guides. The association of guides joined with local groups working to restore community and reconnection to the earth. Representatives from around the world sat in council, heard each other's stories and learned from each other.
Yet rather than feeling she has to make something happen, Weinbaum says she has come "to trust the power, the beauty and authenticity of just going out on the land and listening." She had a dream on this summer's solo quest that answered her question about the future. She said, "This is now my goal: to support other women to step fully into the role of guide, elder, sister, and community member, so that the fasts continue to grow beyond my initial vision 18 years ago."
My own quest at Green River clarified what I needed to practice in my daily life, and gave me the confidence to stay true to myself. It also helped me to let go of old habits that had prevented me from taking risks. I trust that if I clear away the clutter of my over-active mind, sit in stillness and ask for guidance, I will receive what I need. Getting stuck in my comfort zone is no longer a worry. I am open and ready to move—I already have—in new directions that call me.
For more information, email fran@vermontwildernessrites.com,
or visit the website: www.vermontwildernessrites.com |
