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Trebbe Johnson's Newsletter
May 2009
Intangible Delicacies
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Dear Questers, Friends, and Seekers of the Beloved,
For about a week and a half during April I was in the beautiful Chiricahua Mountains in southern Arizona attending the Fourth International Wilderness Guides Council Gathering. It was through these jagged, sun-washed mountains that the Apaches, led by Geronimo, fled when the U.S. Cavalry was chasing them out of their own homeland in the late nineteenth century. Now, 123 years after Geronimo's surrender, that heroic leader's great-great-great nephew, Joseph Geronimo, returned to his ancestral land. On the first morning of the gathering he offered a sunrise ceremony to 117 people from around the world, including Gemany, Switzerland, Denmark, the U.K., the U.S., Canada, South Africa, Ukraine, and Australia. "I could see the spirits of the ancestors up in the hills," he told me later. I wondered if those old ones had emerged in relief and curiosity as the familiar songs and the sound of the rattle welcomed the sun after so many decades.
We are fed and sustained by many things, tangible and intangible. Among the intangibles are nature, beauty, home, friendship, learning, and the pursuit of meaningful encounters with people and projects. All those delicacies were in abundance in Arizona. In fact, one of the unexpected outcomes of the current financial crisis seems to be that many people are making more room for the intangibles, even when that strange new space demands letting go of something else that has been meaningful in their lives.
This newsletter explores ways of perceiving and grasping those intangible delicacies...and how, sometimes we must let go of those we valued in the past to shape those of the future.
To those who are receiving this newsletter for the first time... welcome! Here you'll find news of upcoming Vision Arrow events, reflections, profiles of extraordinary people, and stories of transformation that occur when we accept, in small, bold, startling ways the invitations that the world is always sending us.
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THE SOUL NEEDS AIR
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 On April 1, I had the privilege of presenting an evening program in New York City to about thirty men who are members of the international group, ManKind Project, whose trainings "support men in developing lives of integrity, accountability, and connection to feeling."
At one point during our discussion of the Beloved, the ancient archetype of the inner lover who burns within each of us, leading us to passionate commitment and soulful action, I asked everyone in the circle to identify some project, idea, or pursuit that was currently alluring him and demanding a fuller commitment from his heart.
The men spoke about spiritual paths, meaningful work opportunities, new children, deepening loves. About halfway around the circle, one man became increasingly emotional as he spoke. He had already mentioned how important his wife and small child were to him and had also described a musical piece that he had composed and that was about to be performed. However, he said, choking back tears, "My wife and daughter are my food and water. But my music is my air. And I am not getting enough air these days."
Food, water, and air: the elements of survival. To feed us we need the love of others, our partners and children and friends. They are indeed our food and water. But we also need the nourishment of air, that which fills our spirit (the words respiration and inspiration come from the Latin spiritus). The metaphysical air we need comes from those explorations that we embark on with fascination, curiosity, and love as our companions. We enter into some mystery we can't live without. It is not a mystery we can ever solve, but one we wish to explore as long as we can. Breathing that air we lose track of time and find ourselves in a place of peace, exhilaration, and enchantment all at once.
What are the food and water of your life? What is the air? Are you getting enough of both?
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LOUDEN KIRACOFE: DREAM (CO)GUIDE
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 In the spring of 1998, when I was guiding vision quests with Bill Plotkin of Animas Valley Institute, Bill suggested that another Animas guide, Louden Kiracofe, and I might try guiding an upcoming quest. I had met Louden only once and suggested that we have breakfast together to see if we might be compatible.
Within two minutes of being in the company of this warm, open-hearted man with his long white hair tied into a ponytail, his hearty laugh, and his way of leaning close into a conversation as if to absorb every word, I knew I would love guiding with him. He apparently felt the same way, for we not only guided together for Animas in 1998 and 1999, but continued leading quests with my Vision Arrow. We have guided a vision quest together in the Utah Canyons every year except one for twelve years (including one September when it snowed, as shown here).
Louden has an extraordinary ability to make people feel that whatever is deepest in their heart is rich, meaningful, valid... and utterly capable of transformation when that is necessary. He works with questers' dreams in a way that I constantly try to learn and have given up hope of ever imitating. His approach respects the mystery and integrity of the dream world without ever tearing out the details and dragging them into the light of day to give them some kind of psychological meaning. He is willing to walk the tough emotional paths alongside people without ever losing his wisdom and authority as a guide. He calls himself a "desert rat," that is, someone who has hiked and climbed and explored all over the southwest. While our questers are on their solo, he reads astronomy magazines and points out features of the night sky. He is also a visionary potter. His large vases and urns, which he sells through his Wolf Dreaming Studio have a kind of subterranean jewel-like quality.
This July Louden and I will be guiding our last Deep Desert Overlook Vision Quest together. Summer is a difficult time for him to get away because of his many projects, and I am switching more and more of my attention to Radical Joy for Hard Times, the project of bringing beauty, community, and imagination to wounded places. Meanwhile, a change in U.S. Forest Service regulations is likely to affect the area where we have been guiding.
If you've been wanting to join our Utah quest and have been putting it off, now is definitely the time to sign up. The quest will be held July 16-26. We'll start in Moab, Utah, visit Arches National Park for a sunrise ceremony, then drive up to our base camp, high above two beautiful canyons. There will be no backpacking for the group, but you can be as near or far as you like for your solo.
You will always be grateful for having met and been guided by Louden.
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WHAT IS A VISION?
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 What is a vision anyway? Many people who come on vision quests imagine that a fantastical apparition will appear to them, that their vision will be a life mission conferred upon them by a historic figure like Crazy Horse, or a message revealed in a dramatic encounter with a mountain lion or bear.
Almost always, though, questers do not experience one transcendent vision on a quest, but half a dozen of them... profound shifts of knowing, acceptance, insight, and possibility. Each smaller "vision" feeds the next, so that the experience is cumulative. The visions they receive are both more surprising and more intimately familiar than anything they had envisioned beforehand. The "vision" defines a new path of life, a new way of being in life.
Other people have never fasted for a vision, but they have been deeply and personally committed to bringing a vision to life. In many cases, this plan or ideal felt so vital and true that it was like a sacred task. The visionaries worked hard to bring it to fruition, convinced that their plan so lucid, complete, and obviously critical to humankind that they had no doubt that they would be able to bring it to life and that it would be gratefully received.
And yet, as both kinds of visionaries often realize, times change, you change, and often the vision must change as well.
Acknowledging that this is so... and then taking the steps to explore what to do next takes courage, creativity, and honesty. It also takes the support of a community of other visionaries to help you take the next steps in a new direction as you, in turn, help them set off on their path.
September 11-18, Eugene Hughes and I are offering a one-week retreat, What Now?, especially for people who have been on a vision quest or in some other way pursued a personal vision and now feel that the come has come to re-define that powerful, guiding force. We'll camp in Nantahala Forest in western North Carolina, and spend our days just down the trail in Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest, a majestic old-growth forest where four-hundred-year-old trees tower above the ground. Together we'll form a supportive, explorative community of no more than 12 people. You'll explore your original vision and what's still meaningful about it, shed light on what's changed in yourself and the world, and transform your self and your vision accordingly.
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RADICAL JOY FOR HARD TIMES
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On April 25, from 10-11 AM Eastern Daylight Time, eight people from western California to London, England found an ecologically wounded place in their area and sat with it for an hour. We contemplated the place and our own feelings about it, listened and looked deeply, became open to the unexpected, and, before we left, created an act of beauty for the place.
Our chosen spots ranged from a coal power plant in Boulder, CO to a quarry in upstate New York, from a beach in California to the harbor at Annapolis, MD. To the amazement of several, despair and grief were not our predominant emotions. We began to love the places we had chosen and that revealed themselves to us. We also found that our curiosity was sparked: what other wounded places could we find in our areas? What could we bring to them? What would we discover there? To read an account of one person's journey (and to meet the new little green Guardian of the Susquehanna River), see my blog.
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BOOK AND WORKSHOP NEWS
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See my article, "Walking Like Lions"in the current issue of Itineraries, the magazine of the wonderful organization Second Journey. It's tells what I learned from an old pride of lions in South Africa about how to walk like a true elder... even when you think somebody else has claimed your territory.
UPCOMING PROGRAMS
Saturday, May 23, 9:00 AM-3:00 PM
Claiming Your Inner Stimulus Package:
A solo walk in New York City's own urban wilderness sheds light and insight on forging your own unique path into the future during these anxiety-provoking, exhilarating times.
With artist and filmmaker Noah Crowe and me. Bring your lunch.
$35 with pre-registration, $40 at "the door"
Meet at the Alice in Wonderland statue.
Call 570.727.4272 or email Vision Arrow for details.
June 3-14: Bali From Within
Bali, Indonesia
Time is short, but there's still space available on this one-of-a-kind journey. We'll slip behind the alluring screen of impressions that Bali presents to participate in sacred ceremonies (for example a water blessing at the sacred spring Tirta Empul and a blessing of domestic animals) and meet Balinese families, a priest, maskmaker, musician, and other local people.
June 19-21: Radical Joy for Hard Times
World Healing Institute
Cobb Island Station, Cape Charles, VA
Join us as we explore how to revive wounded places through love, curiosity, community, and creativity rather than fear and guilt.
June 26-28: The Path to the Beloved
London, England
£225
Personally and globally we stand at a turning-point, facing unprecedented ecologic, economic, and social challenges. How will you respond? Will you play it safe or risk embracing an even more radiant, wild, beautiful part of your self? THE PATH TO THE BELOVED is an approach to joyful transformation and soulful action that emboldens you, allures you, and points you in the direction that's already calling from deep within you.
For more information contact Trebbe.
To register contact Eugene Hughes
July 4-11: Radical Joy for Hard Times: A Retreat for Parents
With Rob Meltzer and Trebbe Johnson
Rob Meltzer's acclaimed Northlight Family Services in Colorado offers wilderness trips for youth in crisis. But the families of these young people have struggled as well: with fear, grief, and anger. This retreat, held in both a clearcut forest further devastated by beetles and a healthy Alpine forest, will help parents find serenity, perspective, and even joy for what they've been through.
303.650.2944
July 16-26: Deep Desert Overlook
Louden's and my last quest together in Utah (see above).
January 2-23, 2010: Sahara Camel Caravan and Vision Quest
If you're interested in the Sahara camel caravan and vision quest, it would be a good idea to sign up now. We take a maximum of 12 people, and we already have five paid registrations. For a registration form, contact me.
For a complete list of 2009 programs offered by Vision Arrow, see our website.
Call 570 727 4272 or email Trebbe if you have questions or would like to talk about any of these programs.
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