Vision Quest and the NDE: Thresholds of Transformation

The Dance with Death

In our old way of seeing, every person comes into this life carrying something sacred. Some call it the Original Instructions. It’s not a job title, a skill set, or a personality type. It’s a spiritual blueprint: a bundle of gifts, responsibilities, and relationships entrusted to you by the Creator before your first breath. Your medicine. Your purpose.

But in the noise and speed of this world, we forget. We get pulled into busyness, distraction, and borrowed identities. The Vision Quest is one of the ways we remember.

Among the Lakota, it is known as Hanbleceya, meaning “Crying for a Vision.” It’s a rite of passage, a deliberate crossing into the unknown. People call it “a little death” because the old self is laid down so a truer self can rise. You go alone into the wilderness. You leave behind food, water, fire, and company. These aren’t punishments, they are tools. They strip away the layers until only the essence remains.

The fast, the solitude, the exposure to the elements, they carry you into the liminal, that in-between space where the ordinary world thins and the spirit world draws near. And that threshold has always been a place of power. It’s where clarity comes, raw and unfiltered.

Vision Quest and Near-Death Experience: Different Doors, Same Threshold

There’s a kinship between the Vision Quest and what people call a Near-Death Experience (NDE). One you choose, the other chooses you. One is entered through ceremony; the other arrives like a storm. But both take you to the edge of what you know and then beyond it.

An NDE often comes in crisis, a heartbeat away from losing this body. A Vision Quest brings you close to that edge without crossing it, through hunger, thirst, exhaustion, and prayer. The body feels its vulnerability, the mind loosens its grip, and something deeper begins to speak.

Both experiences can turn your life inside out.

My Brush with the Threshold

I met that threshold before I ever went looking for it.

Years ago, I was putting myself through college by working at a golf course in Northeastern Ohio. It was late summer, the kind of day when the air grows heavy and still before a storm. Off to the west, clouds were piling into towering walls of gray and black. Thunder grumbled somewhere far off, and the light took on that strange, metallic cast storms often bring.

We knew what was coming. The order was given to pull the flags before lightning struck them. Frantically, I raced from green to green in a golf cart, collecting wet flags and loading them into the back. By the time I reached the ninth hole, the wind had started to swirl. A curtain of rain advanced across the course like a moving wall.

It hit just as I grabbed the flag on number 9. Within seconds, I was soaked through. Instinct sent me toward the largest shelter in sight, a massive old oak tree that must have been there a hundred years before the golf course was ever dreamed of. I ducked beneath its massive branches, gripping the flagpole like a spear.

That’s when it happened.

A flash of white filled my vision, followed instantly by a sound so loud it seemed to come from inside my chest, a crack that split the air and my awareness in the same breath. Then everything went black.

When I opened my eyes, I wasn’t in Ohio anymore.

I stood in a high mountain valley, ringed by jagged, snow-capped peaks. The air was sharp and clean, carrying a silence so complete it was almost a presence. At my feet stretched a vast field of tulips, not the tulips I’d known in spring gardens, but countless blooms in colors I couldn’t have imagined: deep greens, fiery reds, fluorescent yellows so bright they seemed to hum, and even petals patterned like plaid. They moved in waves, as though stirred by an invisible hand, yet the air was perfectly still.

There were no words, no voice, but the knowing was absolute: every flower was the Creator in form. And not just these flowers. My granddaughter. My dog. The trees outside my window. All of them. All of us. The Creator, seeing and experiencing itself in endless shapes and colors, through each of us.

It felt like forever and no time at all.

Then I was back, sprawled on the wet grass in Ohio, rain still pouring, my body aching and heavy. My chest was tight, but not with fear. With questions. Big ones. Questions, I couldn’t set aside.

Something had shifted.

Two months later, I found myself sitting in the dark heat of my first Sweat Lodge. That lightning strike had opened a door, and I knew, even then, that my life would be different. Once you’ve seen through to the other side, you can’t go back to pretending it isn’t there.

Stepping Into the Liminal

When you enter a Vision Quest, you intentionally enter that threshold space. You give up what anchors you to comfort: food, water, warmth, conversation. You grow light. Your senses sharpen. Silence settles in.

This isn’t just the kind of silence you notice when the noise stops. It’s a Presence. In that stillness, you can hear what your soul has been saying all along.

But silence by itself isn’t the whole work. You have to meet your ego: the wounds, fears, grudges, and old stories you’ve been carrying. Left unchecked, these can cloud your vision and twist its meaning. In the old way, you’d return, carrying your vision before elders who would listen, ask questions, and help you find its true shape. Sometimes the work wasn’t done in a single quest. Sometimes you’d return again and again to clarify, to deepen.

The Threshold as Teacher

Whether you arrive there through lightning or fasting, the threshold strips away illusions. It shows you how connected everything really is; not as an idea, but as a felt truth in your bones. And once you’ve felt that, you can’t go back to the old way of seeing.

That truth is never just for you. In the old way, a vision carried responsibility. It came with a charge: to live differently, to serve, to bring the medicine you received back to the people.

Black Elk’s Crossing

Black Elk, the Oglala Lakota holy man, was no stranger to the power of the threshold. At nine years old, he became gravely ill. His body lay still in this world, but his spirit crossed into another. In the language we use today, we might call it a near-death experience.

In that state, he was met by six sacred beings, the Grandfathers, who guided him to the spirit world. There he saw visions both beautiful and terrible. The Grandfathers showed him the struggles his people would face: the loss of their lands, the breaking of their way of life, the grief that would come with it. But he also saw the healing, the return of balance, the revival of the sacred ways, the restoration of harmony between the people, the land, and the Creator.

When he returned to his body, he was not the same boy who had fallen ill. That vision was not given for his comfort, and it was not meant to be kept. It was a charge, a sacred responsibility. It became the foundation of his life’s work, shaping the songs he sang, the ceremonies he carried, and the counsel he offered. It aligned him with his Original Instructions and set him on a path he would walk for the rest of his days.

Black Elk’s crossing teaches us something vital: the medicine of a threshold experience is never meant to end at the edge of the seeker’s life. Its purpose is larger. It is intended to move outward, to guide, to heal, to serve. The vision is only complete when it is lived, and when the gift is returned to the people.

Coming Back: The Hardest Part

Crossing the threshold changes you. But returning, carrying what you found back into the everyday world, that’s the real challenge. The world will pull at you. Old habits will try to reclaim you. Forgetting is easy.

Integration is the work. In the old way, the community helped carry the vision. There were ceremonies, stories, and shared responsibilities. Today, we often have to build that support ourselves. Journaling, telling the story aloud, and returning to the land that held you are ways to keep the vision alive.

Returning to center isn’t a one-time act. It’s a way of walking, over and over, in alignment with what you were shown.

Many Roads to the Mystery

Every culture has its ways into that threshold. Some fast alone in the mountains. Some enter deep prayer or meditation. Some follow the guidance of dreams. Others work with plant medicines. The shapes differ, but the aim is the same: to step beyond the small self and touch the holy.

Even now, you can make such a doorway. Go to the wild places. Leave the phone. Let hunger and solitude sharpen your senses. Let the wind and the birds speak to you.

Listen.

Because the sacred is not far away. It’s already here. We just need to move the clutter out of the way.

Wrapping the Bundle

The Vision Quest and the Near-Death Experience are two roads to the same truth: life is far bigger, deeper, and more mysterious than we think. When the noise falls away,  whether by accident or by design, we hear what our soul has been saying all along:

Return to center.

You were never alone.

You’ve always been part of something greater.

When we live from that place, the medicine we carry spills out into our families, our communities, and the land itself. That is the gift of the threshold. Not just to see, but to return changed, and to live in a way that keeps the vision alive in the world.

The Intersection of Nature Awareness and Spirituality

How the Senses Become the Gateway to the Sacred

Two Paths That Meet at the Same Trailhead

Two areas I return to again and again are:

• Nature awareness,

• Spirituality and the unseen world,

At first glance, these may appear to be separate trails. One teaches us how to observe the patterns of birds, wind, and weather. The other invites us to explore intuition, dreams, and our relationship to the Creator.

But the longer I walk in awareness, the more I see how these two paths are really one. Nature awareness, when practiced with reverence, awakens something ancient within us. It finetunes the senses, and those senses, when fully alive, become the very tools we need to see into the sacred.

This article is about that intersection. About how slowing down and paying attention doesn’t just keep us safe or informed. It opens the door to the holy.

Awareness Is a Spiritual Discipline

Let’s begin with a simple truth:

Awareness changes you.

It is not a neutral act. When you learn to notice the wind shifting direction or the sudden silence of birds or the way light softens before a storm, you’re not just gathering data. You’re stepping into a relationship with the living world.

And relationship is the root of all spirituality.

In the old ways, awareness wasn’t just a skill for hunters or gatherers. It was a way of staying in conversation with Creation. Every footprint in the snow, every flick of a deer’s ear, every breeze carried a message. Not metaphorically literally.

So the first truth is this:

Nature awareness is a doorway to the sacred.

But not the kind you find in stained glass windows. This sacred breathes. It watches. It waits for you to notice

The Supernatural Is Natural If You’re Paying Attention

When I speak of the supernatural, I don’t mean ghosts or fantasy. I mean the deeper, subtler layer of life which our ancestors simply called Spirit.

It’s the sense of being watched in a silent forest, but not in fear. It’s the dream that answers a question you never spoke aloud. It’s the deep knowing that rises from your gut before your mind can catch up.

These aren’t superhuman powers. They are original human abilities. Our birthright as humans.

Your body is wired to notice things modern culture has trained us to ignore. When you spend time on the land with intention, your senses recalibrate. The world quiets. The finer frequencies begin to hum.

Call it intuition, sixth sense, or gut feeling. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s real and it’s a skill you can remember.

Ancient Skills Modern Soulwork

Many spiritual traditions speak of cleansing the doors of perception. That’s exactly what nature does, one sense at a time.

The scouts, healers, and seers of old didn’t just know the land. They listened to it. They fasted, they prayed, they watched with stillness. They didn’t separate survival skills from spiritual ones. Tracking a deer and tracking a dream were two sides of the same coin.

That brings us to a key practice in this path:

Inner Tracking

Inner tracking is the art of following your thoughts, emotions, and dreams, the same way you’d follow animal tracks in the mud, or across a snowy meadow.

It asks questions like:

• What am I feeling right now

• Where did that feeling come from

• What is it pointing me toward

By learning to read the outer signs in nature, you sharpen the tools needed to read the signs within. This isn’t metaphor. It’s method.

The Bridge Between the Seen and Unseen

Here’s how I like to frame it:

• Nature awareness sharpens your ability to see the visible.

• Spiritual practice sharpens your ability to sense the invisible.

• And the bridge between the two is attention.

Attention is sacred. It is the currency of presence. Where you place your attention determines what becomes real to you.

Try this the next time you’re out on the land:

1. Sit quietly without expectation.

2. Let your breath sync with the wind.

3. Soften your eyes and listen with your whole body.

4. Ask silently, “What am I not seeing?”.

5. Then wait….

You may feel nothing. Or……

You may feel a subtle presence rise around you. You may hear something without sound. You may receive a wordless answer.

That’s the mystery.

And that’s the gift.

Practicing Reverence in Everyday Life

You don’t need to be a spiritualist, shaman, or wilderness expert to walk this path. You only need to be willing.

Willing to listen.

Willing to slow down.

Willing to believe even for a moment that the forest is speaking to you.

Because it is.

Nature awareness isn’t just about paying attention.

It’s about paying respect, offering gratitude.

It says:

I am not above this world.

I belong to it.

I am not alone.

I am in communion with wind, water, wing, and root.

That’s real spirituality!

Returning to the Sacred Conversation

So the next time you step outside, don’t just look.

See.

Don’t just walk.

Listen.

Let your senses become the gateway. Let awareness pull you back into the sacred conversation between Earth and Spirit.

It’s not far.

It never was.

The deeper I go into the old ways, the more clearly I see this truth:

The supernatural isn’t out there.

It’s right here.

In the rustle of leaves.

In the rhythm of your breath.

In the knowing that rises when you slow down enough to listen.

And in that stillness, we remember who we are.

The Wilderness Fast: Remembering the Ancient Way of Seeking

“Whoever you are no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -- over and over announcing your place in the family of things.” - Mary Oliver, The Wild Geese

For thousands of years, cultures worldwide have ventured into the wilderness alone to seek guidance, renewal, and purpose. They've done this not out of novelty but out of necessity. In times of transition, such as adolescence, grief, calling, or crisis, a person would often go out to fast. Not to escape the world but to return to it with new eyes.

This practice has been known by many names, in many languages, but at its root is a simple truth: solitude, fasting, and time on the land open the heart to deeper knowing.

Today, this practice is often referred to as a vision quest. While the term is widely used, it can be vague and sometimes misleading. In certain cultures, such as among the Lakota, it refers to a very specific ceremonial rite with defined protocols, responsibilities, and sacred teachings. Using the term loosely risks blurring important cultural boundaries and missing the depth of what this rite truly is.

At the same time, the core elements of this practice, fasting alone in nature to seek clarity and connection, are not exclusive to one people. They are found in many cultures worldwide. Whether it's a boy becoming a man, a person grieving a loss, or someone yearning for direction, the wilderness has long served as a mirror, a teacher, and a threshold.

This is what we call a wilderness fast: a time of intentional solitude often lasting four days and nights, where one brings no food, no distractions, and no comforts, beyond what's essential. There is no fire. No phone. No tent. Just the self, the land, and the sky overhead. It is a time to listen deeply to what the wind has to say, to what the body reveals, to what the soul has been waiting to speak.

Preparation matters. This is not a casual hike or a camping trip. Those who undertake a wilderness fast are often supported beforehand by guides or elders who help them clarify their intention, understand the symbolic nature of thresholds, and prepare mentally and spiritually. Afterwards, the return is just as important as the going out. One must return not only to reenter daily life, but also to share what was received, whether it was a vision, a shift in awareness, or a deepening of responsibility.

Not everyone sees visions in the way we might expect. Some receive dreams, symbols, or signs from the land. Others face their fear, or sorrow, or confront a truth they've long avoided. And sometimes there is only stillness, what seems like nothing, but even that "nothing" changes them. What matters is not the drama of the experience but the depth of the listening.

In this way, a wilderness fast is not about chasing after visions. It's about becoming ready to see, to remember one's place in the circle of life, to hear what's been speaking all along, and to walk back into the world carrying something of value. Something rooted. True. Hard won. A gift not just for oneself but for the people.