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"Just
finished the Escort to the Beloved chapter. I have cried for the first
time since December 8, 2000—the night of the car accident
that nearly
took my life. I didn't cry then. I think I became an observer of my
life. I can't begin to thank you for writing this book.”
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Trebbe Johnson's Newsletter
January 2008
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 Dear
Questers, Friends, and Seekers of the
Beloved,
The January
newsletter reaches you just after my return
from the Sahara Desert Vision Quest and
Camel Caravan that I guide each year with
Sabina Wyss and a group of nomadic Tuareg.
Every vision quest is a journey into the
immensity of nature and self. On the Sahara
quest, the adventurous spirit of the
individual (this year twelve men and women
from Switzerland, the U.S., and England) is
stretched by the inspiration and challenges
of the stark, vast landscape and by the
teachings, both subtle and direct, of the
Tuareg to whom the land is home. This
newsletter features three stories, two from
our recent quest and one from a new American
business, each about encountering timeless,
noble beauty.
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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RE-ASSUMING BEAUTY
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 On
the last day of every
Sahara vision quest the Tuaregs run a
camel race. The young men look forward to
this event for days, boasting and laughing
among themselves about who has the fastest
camel. To prepare for the race they put on
clean gandoras, the long tunics and trousers
they wear, and tie a fresh shesh around
their heads. Then, holding the camel's head
high, they prance out to where the women,
also dressed in their finery, are waiting.
The men proudly strut the camels in circles
around the women, and the women drum and
clap and cheer them on in trilling voices.
It is an exchange of appreciation between
the sexes for beauty and prowess that has
absolutely no equivalent in western culture.
This year, riding with the young men, was
the eldest of our Tuareg guides, Lili. No
one had any idea of his age, for the Tuareg
do not keep track of such things as calendar
years. But his face was deeply lined, and
his legs, poking through the bottom of his
gandora, were sticklike. He had been on many
of the old caravans that used to wind
through the desert, sometimes for more than
a thousand miles, as the men traded salt for
supplies to bring back to the women in this
matriarchal culture. Lili spoke no English
and only a few words of French, the official
language in Algeria, but he would come to
greet us Westerners each night before
sitting by the fire and settling into his
own reflections, sometimes drawing patterns
in the sand.
But when he rode out for the camel race,
Lili was transformed. It would be too easy,
and not really accurate, to say that he
became young again. Trotting around with men
who were at least a third his age, sitting
tall in the saddle and flicking a crop
lightly across his camel's flanks, he
reassumed a dignity and majesty that
previously had been invisible. Later several
of us spoke among ourselves about how Lili
was the one rider we simply could not take
our eyes off. I think we all determined at
that moment that this was how we wished to
age: to be so close to who and what we truly
are that, embodying it, we become absolutely
noble.
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BECOMING
BEAUTY
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 And
we are never too young to assume
that innate beauty and nobility. One
of the women on the quest, "Mira,"
was 24 years old. She had come to
the Sahara because her constant
preoccupation with what others were
thinking of her was imprisoning her,
and she was determined to free
herself.
She plunged into that heroine's
journey without delay. One morning,
soon after the caravan set out, she
summoned the courage to address
several people in the group in a
calm, mature way, about how she was
projecting her own attitudes and
insecurities onto them. Thus,
instead of judging others and so
feeling judged herself, she claimed
the burden that was hers to deal
with. During her three-day solo, as
so often happens, Mira's biggest
fear became the very challenge she
was called to deal with. She
discovered that the rock niche she
had chosen was closer to two of the
other questers than she had
realized. At first she felt
paralyzed by old feelings of being
watched, but she recognized that the
situation offered her an invitation
to change, so she enacted her
ceremonies as if she had all the
time and space and privacy she
needed, and sang out loud beautiful
songs inspired by the black rocks
and the starry sky. She returned
looking radiant and that afternoon
sang one of her songs for the group.
The beauty of the song and her
singing it moved everyone to tears.
Later, in a guided imagery session,
Mira saw herself donning a white
robe that gave her a sense of her
own power. At the end of the
journey, in a shop at the Algiers
airport, she discovered a robe that
looked very much like the one in the
vision: long, white, and embroidered
with stars, and she bought it after
trying it on and calling all the
group over to see and admire her in
it. And finally, on the train that
carried just a few of us on the last
leg of the journey through
Switzerland, she put her newfound
majesty into action in a most
practical way. Ignored at first by
the waiter in the dining car, she
straightened up and summoned him
over, not with impatience or
apology, but with all the grace and
elegance of a queen. She was
practicing her new way, or, like
Lili, the old Tuareg man, she was
taking on her own beauty that had
been residing deep within her just
waiting to be discovered.
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ENHANCING
BEAUTY
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 Is
it possible to be a spiritual seeker
and also care about how you look?
Sometimes I get the impression that
the answer is a vehement NO, that a
person who is truly committed to his
or her inner path ought to be above
such indulgences as self-image,
especially when they involve makeup
and clothes.
But Barbara Bitondo de Arène, who
has been on a vision quest, works
during the day in the banking
industry, and has spent years doing
lots of deep, hard, soul-searching,
believes that inner beauty and outer
beauty can--and must --fit together.
Her
More than Skin Deep workshops
focus on seeing the mythical figure
within each person and taking simple
steps to make that ideal self more
visible. Participants learn how to
mix and embellish the clothes they
have and how to use organic makeup
(and less of it) for a more natural
look. Instead of leaving the
workshop thinking that they have to
spend more money on clothes and
beauty products, clients (both men
and women) discover that they
already have all they need. "Women
tell me they walk differently," says
Bitondo de Arène. "Men say they are
suddenly more comfortable in their
skin." |
| BOOK AND WORKSHOP NEWS
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 To
cap off this newsletter focused on
beauty, here's a reminder about our
BALI FROM WITHIN journey May
14-25. If you've ever heard that
this lush South Pacific island is a
place where art, spirituality, life,
and landscape are vibrantly alive
with beauty and meaning, the reality
actually exceeds the legend. This
journey invites you behind the
scenes to meet the people and see
the places that most tourists never
get to know. The trip is limited to
six participants and there are two
spaces left.
If you're interested in our next
SAHARA VISION QUEST AND CAMEL
CARAVAN, it's not too soon to
sign up now! We've just returned
from our 2008 journey and already
four of the twelve places for the
2009 trip (January 3-17) are filled.
Contact me for a registration form. |
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Contact Information
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phone: 570/727-4272
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