I soon head off for 11 days to Colorado’s celestial Sangre de Cristo Mountains on a sacred passage retreat.
I’ll be on a vision quest, camping at altitudes between 8,000 and 12,000 feet, in the shadows of five towering, 14,000-foot summits. It’s a dramatic mountain panorama rivaling the Grand Tetons in Wyoming. I’ll be surrounded by mountain streams and open savannahs of juniper and pinyon pine punctuated by groves of large ponderosa pine and aspen trees. It’s a landscape I’ll share with mule deer, bighorn sheep, mountain goat, pronghorn antelope and beautiful black fox squirrels. Bird life abound. Eagles should be circling above.
For six of the 11 days I will be entirely alone. No computer, phone, or newspapers, and for four of the six days I will be fasting. For nearly a week I will not speak to anyone, only to the animals, flowers, waters and trees. I will use the time to reflect, meditate, write, experience the wilderness, listen to my heart and spirit, and perhaps chart a path for the rest of my life.
The vision quest was designed and inspired by John P. Milton. In the late 1970’s, Milton moved to Crestone and discovered the ancient stone meditation seats that fill the land here. An estimated two thousand such sacred stone meditation seats cluster on the Sacred Land Trust area, the largest aggregation of such sacred sites in the world.
I will share the details when I return!