Not finding. Uncovering.What happens in a vision ritual, in nature and in the seminar room, and how you recognise a vision.
All vision rituals have the same purpose: to stop your chattering mind for a moment. Then a question becomes possible that you never think through in everyday life. Why am I here?
Vision ritual. Nature or seminar room. Without one or two days of integration, the vision is a slip of paper.
In short.
A vision ritual stops your chattering mind for a moment. Then you can be in direct, undisturbed contact with what you call the divine, the universe, the all-one, whatever your word for it is.
In that contact you uncover something: why am I here? What is my most important task? Not finding. Uncovering. It's already there.
Three parts, three to six days.
Preparation, alone, coming back. Each part one to two days. Whoever drops the third is selling you an experience. The vision isn't the goal on the horizon, it's the wind in the sails, and that takes time to arrive.
- Preparation: 1 to 2 days. Arriving, getting used to it, the nervous system
- Alone: 1 to 2 days. The one ritual, without a goal
- Coming back: 1 to 2 days. The words, the way back
What a vision ritual is.
Vision rituals have existed for many, many years, and there are different forms of doing them. But they all really have one purpose. To stop your chattering mind for a moment. So that you can have an undisturbed, direct communication with what you call the divine. Or the universe. Or the all-one. Whatever the word is for you. I'm genuinely open there, and I offer you different words on purpose, because that's your business.
And in that communication a discovery actually happens. The discovery is: why am I here? What is my most important task?
The word for it is vision. And honestly, it's incredibly hard to describe. But people who have found theirs, you can see it in them. In the light in their eyes when they talk about their thing.
It isn't finding. It's uncovering.
A vision isn't a goal.
Vision workshops are different from goal workshops, and that's a huge difference. A goal you reach. Then it's gone, and you need a new one. You can picture a vision like this: it's the wind in your sails. It's something that drives you. Your everlasting burn-in, instead of a burnout.
Then you're like a permanent battery that doesn't need recharging. Why? Because it's in your whole existence. Not as a plan on the wall, but as a direction that you are.
You make it in your head. You plan it, you reach it, you need a new one.
You uncover it. It was there first. It's the wind in your sails.
Costs strength. When you get tired, it falls over.
Gives strength. Burn-in instead of burnout. Doesn't need recharging.
Sits on a slip of paper or in a spreadsheet.
One word, two words, three words. And a light in your eyes when you talk about it.
A hundred a day.
One.
Two forms: nature or seminar room.
There are vision rituals outside in nature, and there are ones in seminar rooms. Both have exactly the same intention. And I'll be honest with you: personally I prefer doing them indoors. I'll explain why in a moment.
One to two days of preparation, one to two days alone in the wilderness or the forest, one to two days coming back.
One to one and a half days until your nervous system relaxes. Then the one ritual. Then integration.
Great deprivation. Hunger, thirst, lack of sleep. At some point comes the moment when you're so fed up you think: I'd rather die now, or I'll run back to camp.
Your body gets used to rituals, to journeying, to the drum, to the group. No hunger, no thirst. The relaxation does the work.
Whoever decides "then I'll just die here on the ground" is the one for whom it happens the next moment. That's possible, and it's real.
You see it in the breathing: deeper, longer. The group goes quiet. Then it starts becoming possible.
Safe places where people feel comfortable have become very hard to find. And you fill in 277 pages of safety forms so that everything is insured. As a leader, staying within the law is almost impossible now.
A hotel with space. Where you can make a fire. Where there are corners you can retreat into. That's enough, and it's safe.
Laws and visions, honestly, that's a completely contradictory story. But that's another topic. What counts for you: both forms lead to the same place. One through deprivation, the other through relaxation.
How it runs.
This is how a vision seminar runs indoors. The outdoor form has the same steps, just with forest instead of room and hunger instead of drum.
Arriving
Six to twelve people. A place with space, a fire and corners to retreat into. Phone away. You don't have to achieve anything, that's the first thing your body gets to learn.
Getting used to it
Your body gets used to rituals. To perceptions outside the usual. To journeying with the drum. To working and relaxing in the group. That usually takes one to one and a half days.
The nervous system
That's mainly what it's about. As soon as your nervous system relaxes, your head can relax. As a leader you see it in the breathing: it gets deeper, it gets longer. And the group starts to be in harmony.
The one ritual
Then comes this one ritual you go into. With the question: why am I here? What is my most important task? The chattering mind stops. And then you uncover what was already there.
The words
In the end it's one word, two words, three words. That's the moment I can't describe to you. Ask me about two or three people when we see each other. Look at the hairs on my hand. They stand up.
Coming back
One to two days of integration and sharpening what you discovered. That's no add-on. Without this part, the vision is a slip of paper you put in a drawer at home.
It isn't finding. It's uncovering.
What you need to be clear about.
Questions before your first vision ritual.
Four for the person leading, one for yourself. A sentence is an answer, ten minutes aren't.
- "How many people did you guide through vision rituals before you gave your first alone?"
- "How do you bring us back, and how much time is planned for it?"
- "What happens if I want out halfway?"
- "What do I get in contact with, and may I call it what I want?"
A sentence is an answer. Ten minutes aren't.
The three questions that apply to every ritual have their own page: how to spot spiritual nonsense with three questions.
The The way back.
The vision is uncovered. Now comes the part most people underestimate: one to two days of coming back, integration, sharpening. What does the word mean for you on Monday? In your work, in your family, in your body? You sharpen that, with the group and the leader, until it sits.
And then let it work. A vision isn't a resolution. It doesn't need renewing every morning. If it's real, it carries you, and you notice it because you no longer need recharging.
For me the end of these workshops is the most beautiful thing I know. Seeing what happens to people. It's stored in my body, every single one.
The wind in your sails. Not the goal on the horizon.
Common questions.
Who writes this.
Around a hundred workshops with different teachers, many years as a student of two indigenous shamans in North America and Mongolia and of a teacher in the Moroccan desert. He has guided around 120 to 150 people through vision workshops, around two thousand through rituals, safely in and safely back out.
Only what he knows from the inside himself is written here. What he hasn't done isn't here.
My intention with these pages: I share my knowledge so you can find the difference yourself. Between shamanic bullshit and something truly special.
Rituals work.The question is in which direction.
In mentoring you practise exactly that for six months: knowing where you are, seeing what is there, and holding your own direction. Even when someone else in the room has the drum.
See the mentoring