When I was about 20 years old, I read a book (and for the life of me, I can’t remember the title) that was about Native American vision quests and initiation. Essentially, what a young initiate or a person who was a seeker, or needed healing, clarity, or spiritual renewal would do is go out into the remote wilderness where you will never see nor hear another person nor have any kind of distraction, find a place where their gut tells them is right, and then carve a circle into the ground and sit in it.
That’s it.
But you sit in it for four days, without food or water or anything else.
You just sit there and deal with yourself.
This was basically recreated in Martin Scorsese’s, The Last Temptation of Christ, when Jesus spent 40 days and nights fasting in the desert. I’ve included a clip of that below.
I’ve always wanted to do this every since, and there are actual companies that you can hire to do this and guide you and where they can be there essentially to make sure you don’t die until you’ve stumbled back into camp physically buckled but inwardly transformed days later. I toyed with this idea, but it’s expensive, and I felt like a real trial without the possibility of help was the more authentic way to go. I would really have to deal with that fear and with the elements.
It was the middle of the summer lockdown of 2020. I had already decided to lean in hard toward self-confrontation. I didn’t spend my time bitching about politics, or fear-mongering on Facebook, or binging on Netflix, or making sourdough bread or whatever the fuck else monkey-see/monkey-do thing people collectively did to avoid themselves during the greatest opportunity for personal evolution ever presented in their lives.
I feel like I need to go into this for a minute, because I think it’s important.
Just about a week before the quarantine hit here in the United States in March, one night both my long-standing Facebook and Instagram accounts were hacked and totally deleted out of the blue. I had them for about a decade, and had a pretty good following. I was on that crap all the time before this random Sunday night.
Everything went down. Totally deleted. My immediate feeling was oddly relief.
I had so much invested in these things. So many things that I’d created and photos and videos, etc. I had actually made great and fascinating friends with creative people from around the world. I had earned work and had amazing experiences based on work that I’d posted here and relationships created here. It was a great loss, but I was relieved.
It was a great loss, but I was relieved.
I didn’t realize how enslaved and addicted that I was to this stuff, and holding on to people on these things who in reality, really kind of sucked.
Then, the quarantine hit. I was isolated x’s 10, but so grateful to not be exposed to the monkey see/monkey do internet hive-mind shit show. It did hurt to have my voice largely taken away (and to be honest, sometimes it still does) but it also helped force me to go within, which was everything.
Anyway, I was off of social media for over four months before I decided to start over with brand new accounts. It was a four month fast from that crap. I just can’t recommend this enough, or at the very least, taking one day completely off a week. I started again with a totally new perspective. I would be on it far, far less, and I would be much more particular about what I engaged in and the quality of people who I’d permit into my life. I truly, and I mean this… don’t give a shit anymore. I was liberated, and I feel like I have been ever since.
I used this time since March to take a very hard and long look inward alone. I meditated a lot and have never missed a day since. I continued to refuse to watch and be manipulated by TV news. I travelled to old places and let a lot go… a lot. I dropped any and all things that I’d identified with before. I really think that is key. People identity themselves with things, and are instantly limited and confined within that box and that tribe. I don’t want to be limited, and I don’t just want to be a fucking unit in a school of fish.
I would not have done this with anywhere near this intensity without having been forced into this situation that I believe my soul was really asking for.
I just hoped so hard that at least a large majority of humanity used this opportunity to do something similar, rather than just obsess about Trump (I was guilty of this a couple of times early on myself, but I later succeeded in taking part and completely detached from the circus.), fear-post about the virus every two minutes, and binge watch the latest shitty streaming internet water cooler event of the week so you can be the first to post about it and get those, “likes”.
I think from the conversations that I’ve had and the feeling that I have about it all, that enough of us did it. I like to believe that we collectively hit some sort of turning point, anyway.
I feel like we were collectively heading 100mph into a brick wall, and events have given us a chance to find ourselves and free ourselves, or at the very least begin the search.
Anyway… back to the desert. I cheated a little. This was the middle of summer, and I was headed to the Mojave desert. It was hot as fuck. I had prepared with some source of shade and I brought four gallons of water for four days. I felt that if I didn’t, I might literally die out there. No food, though. No food, no books or writing materials or music or distractions of any kind. I decided to bring my phone in case of emergencies and to document it just a little, but as it turns out… there’s no way anyone could have helped me anyway, I was just to far out there, and would be undiscoverable even if anyone tried.
There was one last little country store a few miles from where I would be turning off into the dirt roads and hills of the Mojave Desert. I was in a Native American Reservation (which I unfortunately don’t reminder the name of), and it turned out that this very area had a legendary Sasquatch-like creature called, “Mojave Man” that had haunted the desert around here for many hundred of years. “Fuck me”, I said when I saw the statue at at this little store. Of course, this thing would be here right where I was doing this. Here’s a photo that I snapped of the statue there.
I drove a few miles into the desert on a dirt road and backed my vehicle way up a steep hill to the top, where there was a flattened area. I almost thought I wouldn’t make it up there, but I just didn’t want to pack my shiot up that hill over multiple trips in that heat. I parked my car on about a 45 degree angle, and just hoped that it would hold there for those few days. It made me cringe, but it did. It held.
It was early the morning, but it was already as hot as it was windy. I immediately set up some shade with a tarp that I’d brought and dragged my big cooler up onto the flat. I got everything set up and put away, and then proceeded to draw a circle circle into the Earth. That was it. I sat down and looked around. This would be home for a while. I spent most of the day walking clockwise around the inside of the circle. I would ask myself questions about myself and my life and what I needed to do, etc. I would ask the questions and then walk in this circle for hours and hours. Answers came. A lot of answers came. I had to pay for them in this way, but clarity and answers came.
I built a fire as the sun started to go down later that night and took these photos. It was beautiful, but I’ll tell you something… once the sun went down and it got dark, it was frightening. I couldn’t sleep. My imagination was going full shit-show. Was this crazy fucking Bigfoot thing going to make an appearance in the dark and say hi? Was some fucking UFO going to drop down and land and make me piss myself? I kept the fire going, and stayed up all night. Both nights were dark nights of the soul. There were no visions, but I had too fully confront a lot of my fears, and I don’t just mean the crazy Mojave Man ones (which is pretty funny to me, looking back). I mean about my life and life itself. I had to deal with my darkness in the darkness. I’ll admit… I couldn’t fucking for that sun to come up and save my ass. It eventually came. I watched it come up and glide across the sky all day until it was dark again.
Part of the visionary experience that seekers have had for thousands of years in this way can come from sleep deprivation as well as fasting (among other things). For me, I was leaning into both. I watched the sun come up, which when you’re by yourself in the silence of a vast desert, is a very special experience. It was mine and nobody else’s. It was very personal. I would see this happen again the following morning, and these would be, without any doubt, the longest two days of my entire life.
I was in a constant battle for shade. The winds were so high, they were continuously blowing my shelter down. The thing was, the summer desert heat was so intense, the shade was far from just being for comfort. I started to realize that I actually needed it to survive out there. It’s no joke. Heat stroke and dehydration can set in in a hurry, and I would be fucked out there in the middle of bum-fuck by myself if it did. I started to worry a little. My plan was to be here for four days. I had done a full two. I decided that when the sone came up again, I’d pack in in and call it.
I want to do this again, but maybe up in the Pacific Northwest in the woods or mountains somewhere, or if not, then at least not in the summer in the desert. I feel like I need to do it right and get those full 3-4 days in. I got a lot out of this, though. Make no mistake about that. A lot.
I just wanted to share this experience with you, and hopefully put the bug in your head to try something like this (safely and within reason) yourself in some way if you can. Enjoy!