Walking the Land – Vision Quest on Bear Butte
My friend, Eagleman, Ed McGaa, Sicangu (Sioux) warrior, was a fighter pilot during the Vietnam War. He became a mystic after that, and that was how I met him. I had read his book, Mother Earth Spirituality and it vibrated in my heart and soul.
My father was one-quarter Eastern Cherokee through his father’s side of the family. That meant I had one-sixteenth, or thereabouts, of remaining Native American blood running through my veins. Sometimes, a recessive gene can become dominate in a person, as it did with me. As a result, I walked the Good Red Road through eighteen years of training with my father. It was one of the two greatest gifts he gave me.
I remember during biology class in the twelfth grade that the teacher, Mr. Benson, was teaching us about the basics of genetics. He was very excited about it. He said there were dominant genes and recessive genes in people where they acquire a given trait or condition. What stuck in my memory was someone in class asked if a person could have dominant recessive gene and he said yes, we’re a mix of the two. I grew up always feeling very DIFFERENT from everyone else. Mr. Benson’s enthusiastic talk about genetics made me think that maybe I was a VERY recessive gene type of person and that was why I felt alone, like this was not my “home,” and that I had very unique skills and qualities I’d never encountered in anyone else.
Maybe part of it was because of that wonderful infusion of Native American blood? I simply didn’t know. What I did know was that I felt like I was born on the wrong planet and didn’t belong here due to my psychic and clairvoyant abilities which I never, ever let anyone know about. I lived two lives; one for Earthlings and the other, my interior life and emotions. This would all be realized later as my inherent spirituality and connection with all of other life on Mother Earth.
After reading Ed’s book, I realized that ALL of my differences, internal skills and abilities came from the Native American way of seeing and living in the world. Until I read his book, I didn’t know where I truly ‘belonged.’ Now, I knew. And I pressed my father on his Native American blood and he said his great-grandmother, at age sixteen, was forced onto the Trail of Tears. As the Eastern Cherokee people were forced off their land on the eastern seaboard, the US Army herding them like cattle toward Oklahoma where there was a reservation waiting for them, she escaped in Tennessee and ran over the border and into Kentucky.
My great-great grandmother took on an English name to conceal her identity and later married into the white Gent family. She never told anyone her real name, fearing the Army would come and take her. All that had come down through the family was that she was a “healer.” In her vernacular I would guess that she came from a medicine family and was being trained in the traditions of healing by her parents. Typically, this was passed down through the generations. A child from each new generation was chosen and taught the “medicine.” It had no name other than that it was used to help heal “all our relations,” including humans. I was the child chosen from my generation by my father to learn the “medicine” from age 9 to 18. Today, it is called shamanism, but he never used that word, only “medicine,” which meant “to heal.”
I wrote Ed a letter, asking him to come and help build a sweat lodge on our property on Oak Creek, eight miles south of Sedona, Arizona, and he came. He stayed with us, and he and I clicked instantly on every level. For me, he was an old friend from the many incarnations that we had shared. He recognized our spiritual and soul connection as well. When the sweat lodge was built by many willing volunteers, Ed and I became co-sweat lodge leaders. We would lead an incredible, magical, mystical four rounds with drums and songs, red hot rocks with cold water thrown on them that mingled with the hearts of all who attended in that darkness within the lodge. That one event is captured in his second book, Rainbow Tribe: Ordinary People Journeying on the Red Road, and he had asked me to write the chapter on the sweat lodge. It is chapter 5 of the book entitled “Rainbows in Sweat Lodge.” You can read about our group experience with the blessing of the Great Spirit and all our relations.
Ed urged me to go up to the Rosebud Reservation because he knew I was a family-lineage shaman taught medicine through my father’s Eastern Cherokee inheritance. He had a friend, a Yuwipi medicine man and his wife, Patti Running, who was a sweat lodge leader. I went without question.
After a stint of six weeks on Rosebud, Ed next told me to go to Bear Butte and take a one-day vision quest. His girlfriend had wanted to have an ‘experience,’ and so I think he wanted me to go with her because she had no concept of what a vision quest was all about. Native Americans use the vision quest, with the guidance of a medicine person, to connect in with their deepest heart centered self, to understand how they fit into the cosmos (my words), and receive a vision that will help them continue to grow into it. I agreed to go with her.
When we arrived at Bear Butte, a group of Lakota people greeted us. They asked us why we were there and I told them. They asked which part of the mountain we were going to hold our vision quest. I pointed to the right, but they asked us not to go there because that is where Crazy Horse was buried. I agreed that we would honor his spirit by going left, climbing the main mountain instead to perform our vision quest, and they were grateful.
We arrived at dusk. The girlfriend had packed a tent and went into the woods near the bare top of the mountain. She said she would feel “safer” in the woods, protected, and I said fine. I chose the very top, bare and completely open to the elements, consisting of only rock and dirt. I gave her some of my many tobacco ties to string around her vision quest site. The tobacco honors all the spirits and Mother Earth. It is strung around in a circle, like a medicine wheel that honors the four directions and the center, which symbolizes Mother Earth. I rolled out my sleeping bag. As I did, a bald eagle flew over me, his scream echoing across the area. I mentally thanked him for his blessing, and that for to me, this was a good sign. He was flying south, which meant ‘fire’ and swiftness, as if telling me what the energies were already amassing quickly.
As I finished my stringing of tobacco ties, a second bald eagle came from the west and circled over the peak. I cried because it was so beautiful as she circled four times around the top of the peak, calling out, her cries like music to my heart and ears. She too flew south to join her mate on a tree far below the summit, nesting for the night.
It was dark by the time I found a slight depression in the ground and I opened up my sleeping bag. At that moment, I saw a flash of lightning in the west, followed by drum-like thunder moving through the night sky. The flash of the bolt showed me this huge thunderstorm coming our way. The size of it took up 1/6th of the sky and I knew it was coming directly to Bear Butte. I had no waterproof tarp to protect me from the coming onslaught of downpour. All I had was my coat with a hood, the jeans I was wearing and my hiking boots.
I knew that vision quests were never easy. They would test the individual physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. The thunder rumbling grew closer and closer. To say I knew I was in for the test of my life, was an understatement. Sure, I could abandon the vision quest and find lots of protection in the woods where my companion was at. But to do that went against my knowing that I was going to honor the vision quest way in every respect, and not ‘cheat’ on it by seeking cover and a big hole in the ground to set up my tent. I would not dishonor the spirits as this sacred ceremony was ancient and worked ‘as is’ for many good reasons.
Girding myself, I lay there, hearing the sudden gusts of wind beginning to whip across the bare top of the mountain. Sometimes fifty to sixty mile an hour wind blasts hit my head, my boots and ankles. I could feel the wind tugging at my garments, grateful that the slight depression in the ground saved me from the worst of it. I began to pray in the four directions to Mother Earth and Father Sky that they move me into my heart, my love for them and focus only on that. I prayed for a vision that would guide me forward, understanding that not everyone got a vision. And that if I didn’t have one, it did not mean that I’d failed. It just meant that it wasn’t time yet for it to be given to me. Many things can happen on a vision quest and I had no expectation of the outcome of it.
The night was black. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, no matter how close I held it to my eyes. The wind was howling now, like a banshee. The dirt was lifted off the bare surface, stinging my face and hands. The thunder grew louder, my body vibrating with each crashing hit. Soon, I would be soaked to the skin and knew I would be battling hypothermia throughout the nighttime hours. Would I even last the night? Would my spirit be taken from my body? Those thoughts didn’t scare me. I was not afraid of death or of dying. It was something each of us would do in our lifetime.
I got very sleepy, despite the zig-zagging of the lightning ripping across the top of the mountain. Several bolts struck the mountain here and there. I felt like I was in an active earthquake zone. I closed my eyes, trusting Mother Earth, grateful to be slightly cradled in her arms in this depression where I lay on my back. As I fell asleep, waiting for the torrential rain to arrive, I felt my entire body sinking downward. Down, down, down I went. I remember how love seemed to cocoon me. I felt the protection of Mother Earth surrounding me. And that was the last thing I knew.
I woke up slowly, hearing the cries of the eagles that had a tree nest far below the summit. I groggily opened my eyes, looking up into a clear blue sky with a pink dawn, long before Father Sun would rise. I moved, expecting my clothes to be soaked. Oddly, I felt warm all over, even my face which was open to the elements. Frowning, I lifted my hands, looking at them. They were dry! I ran my fingers up the sleeve of my coat. It too, was dry. Struggling to sit up, the air almost freezing, I surveyed my clothing, my jeans, my boots….I was one-hundred percent DRY! Only a quarter size spot of rain was on one of my boots, darkening the leather so I could see it. I was in shock.
How did this happen? I saw one of the eagles fly over the top of the mountain, calling, and felt so blessed. I looked around me. Everywhere, except about a foot around where I had lain, was dark, indicating the soil was well soaked with rain, and it was everywhere I could see on the top of the mountain in the developing dawn light. The air was quiet. It was cold. There were no sounds except for the back and forth call of the two eagles. There was a nearby lake and I saw them both fly off in that direction after circling the top of Bear Butte.
I stood on shaking knees, surveying the area. As Father Sun rose, those long, golden slats shooting silently across the land, embracing the eastern side of the mountain, I could see water droplets on the forest trees below, like scintillating diamonds in the golden light. It was beautiful. I was warm. I looked back on my slight hollow where I’d slept the night, never waking once. It too, was dry in comparison to the darkened soil everywhere else.
Humbly, I placed my hands upon the dry soil, closing my eyes, silently thanking Mother Earth, who I realized had brought me into her body, warmed me, protected me from the elements, and loved me….I will NEVER forget that love that surrounded me; and tears fell upon the soil as I realized my vision quest had been a physical one. I have always loved Mother Earth and all her relations, and She had protected me from a very fierce thunderstorm that had remained around the mountain all night. My circle of tobacco ties were gone, too. At first, I thought the wind had strewn them but as I searched for them later, they were nowhere. The spirits had taken the gift of my ties and my heart opened in joy over that event. I felt so blessed, humbled, and ONE with all my relations in that moment.
I took my prayer flags: red, yellow, black, blue, white, and green, and gave them to a nearby pine tree as a gift.
My companion, who later crawled out from beneath her destroyed tent (it was torn apart by the wind I surmised), was soaking wet, upset, cold and muddy. Where she had placed her tent, behind a slight knoll, the dirt had run down to the bottom, turned to mud and lots of water. Where her tent had been, it was little more than a large mud hole now as I peered down at it. The trees had lost branches during the night and they had fallen all around the tent, although not hitting it directly. I helped her reclaim her sodden tent, the broken aluminum spars and we packed out, leaving nothing behind. I left a handful of cornmeal behind, a wand of sacred sage and a quartz crystal that I buried, thanking Mother Earth for her graciousness.
I don’t remember much about walking down the side of Bear Butte that early morning, my step light and my heart overflowing with love and happiness. My companion did nothing but complain about how “hard” it was and that she couldn’t sleep at all because the wind was tearing around in a circular motion, her tent crushed by the heavy gusts. She complained that the thunderstorm seemed to remain right over us, and never move; thereby flooding her out of the tent. I asked her if she had a vision and she shook her head.
She asked me if I had a vision and I said no—and that was the truth. I’d slept like a baby well loved by Mother Earth, in her arms, all night long. But I didn’t tell her that, because that was the gift given to me and I would cherish that experience forever. To feel Mother Earth’s love directly, I have no words that can adequately convey the FEELING of her very living presence enfolding me like a beloved child, holding me all night long. I’m seventy-six now, and I can remember that night on Bear Butte in every detail to this day.
I wish everyone could experience what I had. I feel if they had, they would stop raping and harming Mother Earth, polluting the water, air, and soil so that nothing will grow in it any longer. She is a living, sentient, conscious being, just like you and me. I have loved Her since I was a child; one of my earliest memories. And that night on Bear Butte proved just how much she loved me. What an eternal, unforgettable gift.
My greatest wish is that everyone respect Mother Earth, understand that she loves us, but now in 2022, She must fight for her life because the human virus of selfishness, greed, and disempowerment of others are presently ruling our earthly existence. She is rebelling against this. Climate change was brought on by patriarchal males. It has upset the harmony and balance all across Mother Earth and all her relations. They are the real “virus” killing Her and killing all of us. Search your conscience and I hope that your love of our planet will touch your heart and you will make changes that benefit “all our relations.” In doing so, perhaps we can resuscitate Her so life as we once knew it can occur again.
