STEVEN FOSTER and

MEREDITH LITTLE

WILDERNESS RESOURCE

DISTINGUISHED LECTURESHIP

I'
Wilderness Resource
Distinguished Lectureship
16
WILDERNESS VISION QUESTING
AND THE FOUR SHIELDS
OF HUMAN NATURE

Steven Foster
and
Meredith Little

UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO WILDERNESS RESEARCH CENTER

May 2, 1996
Published as Contribution No. 822 of the Idaho Forest, Wildlife and
Range Experiment Station.

Illustration on pg. vii by Lorraine Ashland.

Diagrams on pgs. 7 and 15 by james Wright.

College of Forestry, Wildlife and Range Sciences

University of Idaho
Moscow, ID 83844-1130

To enrich education through diversi~ the University of Idaho is an

equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.

ii
 Forward
Edwin E. Krumpe

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the sixteenth in

the annual series of Wilderness Resource Distinguished
Lectureships sponsored by the University of Idaho Wilderness
Research Center. The Center's mission is to promote research and
educational activities to further our understanding of wilderness
and natural ecosystems and man's relationships to them. Our goal
is to gain knowledge that can be applied to better manage our
designated wilderness areas so that the public can enjoy sustained
use and benefits from our wilderness resources. Since its inception
in 1972, the Center has supported research projects in Idaho and
the Pacific Northwest, with over thirty studies completed just in the
last two decades.

The Center also helps sponsor five university courses, giving

students opportunity to study wilderness principles and practices
and, in the case of intern students, to gain firsthand experience in
wilderness management and research. At the national level the
Center has sponsored a national conference on wilderness
management, two national task forces, and conducted workshops
and presentations at many other national research conferences,
and has been deeply involved in several international
conferences. This past year the Center and its director have
played a pivotal role in launching an exciting new journal, the
International journal of Wilderness.

But of our long-standing education traditions, the one for which

we take most pride is the annual Wilderness Resource
Distinguished Lectureship. In what has become a fine academic
tradition, the Wilderness Research Center has sponsored and
published the lectureship to encourage constructive dialogue and
to broaden our understanding of the management and meaning of
wilderness resources. Speakers of national prominence have been

iii
invited on the basis of their contributions to the philosophical and
scientific rationale of wilderness management.

Tonight, for the very first time we have invited two people to
share in the presentation of the Distinguished Lecture. To this end
we are honored to present Dr. Steven Foster and Meredith Little
who come to share their twenty-five years of experience in
conducting vision quests and fasts, rites of passage and initiation,
and other modern versions of primitive "eco-psychology" in
wilderness and wildlands.

Dr. Krumpe is principal scientist for wilderness management in the

Wilderness Research Center and a professor in the Department of
Resource Recreation and Tourism.

iv
 Introduction
John C. Hendee

This year's Distinguished Wilderness lecturers are the most

distinguished scholars and experienced practitioners of Wilderness
Vision Questing today. I feel a special kinship for these colleagues
because of their commitment to using wilderness to enhance the
human condition.

Meredith Little and her husband and colleague, Steven Foster,

have conducted vision quests and fasts, rites of passage and
initiation, and other modern versions of primitive "eco-
psychology," in wilderness for twenty-five years. Their teachers
have been nature, wise people from many ethnic groups,
indigenous and contemporary, and practical experience in leading
thousands of people through their various vision questing
programs and classes.

Steven Foster received a BA cum laude from Westmont College

(Santa Barbara) in English Literature and Psychology, and earned a
Ph.D. from the University of Washington in Humanities. He
taught English Literature at the University of Wyoming and was on
the humanities faculty at San Francisco State University. In 1971,
he left academia and took training in counseling, family therapy,
suicide prevention and crisis intervention and began wilderness
therapy work with youth-at-risk.

Meredith Little attended the University of California at Santa

Barbara and graduated from Antioch College West with a BA in
Human Responsibility. Subsequently, she attended the
Humanistic Psychology Institute and was trained in suicide
prevention, crisis intervention, family therapy, and ran a group
home for at-risk youth. She and Steven were married in 1977 and
together founded "Rites of Passage Inc." offering wilderness

v
therapy for at-risk youth in the San Francisco Bay area. In 1982
they moved to Big Pine, California, studied under a Paiute Indian
doctor for five years, and founded a school to train wilderness
leaders.

At their "School of Lost Borders" located in the Owens Valley

of California, east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and west of
Death Valley, they train leaders from all over the world in vision
fasting and questing forms of primitive eco-psychology. Their
courses emphasize experiential study with solo experiences in
nature on four planes of development: physical, psychological,
mental, and spiritual. I have had the pleasure of taking two of
their courses at the School of Lost Borders. These courses were
different, effective, and significantly expanded my wilderness
knowledge.

Steven and Meredith are authors of many articles on wilderness

therapy and several books including The Book of the Vision Quest
(Prentice Hall), The Roaring of the Sacred River(Lost Borders
Press), and are editors (with Louise Mahdi) of Betwixt and
Between: Patterns of Masculine and Feminine Initiation (Open
Court Press). Steven and Meredith have just completed a
definitive book manuscript on wilderness therapy, The Four
Shields: A Psychology of Human Nature. I am looking forward to
hearing some of the ideas in that book this evening.

john C Hendee is director of the University of Idaho Wilderness

Research Cente0 managing editor of the International journal of
Wildernes~ and former dean of the College of ForestrYt Wildlife
and Range Sciences.

vi
 r.-: ··
_,_. .... ·.
·
viii
WILDERNESS VISION QUESTING
AND THE FOUR SHIELDS
OF HUMAN NATURE

Steven Foster
and Meredith Little

First of all, we want to thank Dr. John Hendee and the

Wilderness Research Center for inviting us to speak here. It
reflects an openness to new ideas and new challenges in
wilderness therapeutic work. We also want to thank those
students who worked with him to bring us to this hour. We also
want to introduce Marilyn Riley, who is here tonight, the first
person we trained in this work many years ago-a dear heart and
a skilled professional.

Rites of Passage and Initiation

Steven-. Many years ago, I left college teaching because I had
something more to do than speak in a lecture hall. I left the ~~ivory
tower" and went into the classroom of the world, drawn by the
certainty that our culture had lost traditional wilderness rites of
passage-rites that used to guarantee that the young grew up into
a stable society that provided for their orderly, nonviolent passage
into adulthood.

The community at large always played an essential role in this

process. For the most part, these traditional rites are lost to us,
although we can still see the ghost of them in high school
graduations, driver's license training, induction into the armed
services, and attainment of the magical, yet meaningless, drinking
age of 21.

We can certainly see the need for such rites in the behavior of
our young, who seek to be grown up in a thousand different
dangerous, illegal, or self-destructive ways. The same can be seen
in the behavior of many "adults," who, because they never
participated in traditional rites of passage, grew up into helpless
adolescents.

At the School of Lost Borders, we seek to provide ways in

which young people-and adults-can celebrate or confirm their
attainment of new life stages in a
traditional fashion-in the
wilderness. The way we use the We learn how to live
wilderness, forest, or park has
in balance with the
been described as "soft." True,
we do not lead expeditions to environment. We
the tops of mountains or rocks, utilize therapeutic
or conquer rocks, rivers, or long techniques that are
distances. But what we offer is
"hard," difficult, and challenging
not problem- or goa~
to body, psyche, mind, and spirit. orientect but ancient
Soft? Ye~wetouchtheland means of
lightly, hardly leaving a trace.
empowerment.
We learn how to yield, to
surrender, to cooperate with and
accommodate the forces of nature. We learn how to live in
balance with the environment. We utilize therapeutic techniques
that are not problem- or goal-oriented, but ancient means of
empowerment. Soft? If loneliness, solitude, hunger, and exposure
are soft, then the vision quest is soft.

Meredith What our young people are seeking is a meaningful

context in which they can be witnessed and confirmed as having
attained maturity. The wilderness provides that context, that
interface with nature that evokes truths in us that can be known in
no other way. In ancient times, people lived in the wilderness. It

2
was always there. It provided a perfect passageway for children to
leave the community and their identities as children behind. On
the other side of the passageway, they reentered their community
again, as adults.

That same wilderness is still with us. It is not entirely gone. But
what our ancestors had that we don't have is a community to
witness that passage in their life, and to listen to the story that they
brought back of how they interfaced with the earth or the 11 Great
Mother." And as they listened, the elders of the community would
see what this or that young person's role would be within the
community, so that there would be a place for that person, so that
the community would grow and survive. And the elders would
welcome that person back as an adult, no longer as a child.

In modern life, we are aware of the hunger of our young people

to grow up. Because the old initiations are gone, they seek to
initiate themselves. Again and again, we see how they test
themselves against the edge of death. The fact is, we all need to
feel that edge, especially in our adolescent years. The early
cultures taught us how to bring the young to that edge within a
meaningful, safe context. In that context the young discovered
their own unique gifts, their own way of getting through hard
times, their own way of converting darkness into light, or pain into
understanding. Members of the community played the part of
''lay-midwives" to this birthing into maturity.

I was talking with someone before the meeting, how when we

lose our story, our sense of purpose in life, we are in danger of
losing our life. Rites of passage in the wilderness enable people to
find their story again and to bring its meaning back into their lives.

3
 The Three Stages of Vision Questing
Steven. Our teachers have been cultural anthropologists,
American Indians, and the traditions of our European ancestors.
We do not owe our allegiance to any particular tradition.
Wilderness passage rites, as taught at our school, are pan-cultural,
eclectic, and geared to the modern experience. They always
involve the same three-stage dynamic typical of "primitive" rites,
as first identified by the anthropologist Arnold van Gennep in his
classic Les rites de passage (1909). These stages, invariably
accompanied by certain sanctions or taboos, are vital to the
effectiveness of any passage rite. In the modern world, we must
re-learn them.

You begin with an ending-severance. The child must cut the

ties that bind him or her to childhood, parents, and community.
He or she must be prepared to enter the second phase, called the
thresholc;t marge1 or liminal state. The threshold stage is
profoundly existential and involves a passing through, a journey of
some kind, through a wilderness landscape that evokes
psychological states and feelings. This passage is considered to be
sacred. All that happens to the candidate has meaning and points
the way to the nature and quality of adult life. The third stage,
incorporation1 represents the attainment of a new life stage, a new
status within the community. This status is automatically
confirmed by virtue of the passing through.

The threshold or wilderness phase involves risk. In many cases,

the candidate brushes up against death. The reality of death,
however, is mainly "perceived," as opposed to "real," and is
magnified by the presence of taboos. At our school, we observe
three threshold taboos: no food (fasting), no company (aloneness),
and no shelter except a small tarp (exposure). The death is
psychological and occurs inwardly. In the threshold passage, the
child dies to childhood and comes forth as an adult. From the
passing through comes the story, which is told to a council of
"elders" during the incorporation phase.

4
 The Role of the Vision Quest Guide
Meredith What is the role of the wilderness guide in this process
wherein youth and adults celebrate their passing through the
transitions and crises of their lives? Our role depends on what we
perceive to be the needs of modern culture. And these needs are
relative to the culture.

We've come to feel very strongly that the need today is to get
in touch with our own personal calling, values, sense of meaning,
and the understanding that within ourselves we have the
answers-that we have the ability to touch on the wisdom that's
within us and to take full responsibility for that calling. In the
wilderness solitude of the threshold time, all dead wood falls
away. Only the core is left. The person returns with that core.
Some call it "vision."

But not necessarily vision in some deep, mystical sense. The

vision brought back from the threshold might be that I need to go
back and tell my family how much I love them. This in itself can
be life-changing. As guides, we're not here to infuse people with
our own values or anyone else's, but to offer a basic, meaningful
context that they then can fill with their own life and value. We
witness the discovery of this value and empower them to take this
'Vision" back to their day-to-day life.

The incorporation phase is far more difficult than the

experience in the wilderness. Vision is not vision until we are able
to take it back into our lives and live it. Our role is to make sure
that they will be safe during the time they are alone and fasting,
and to prepare them well for the risks that are present in any
wilderness experience. We must make certain these children,
who are severing from childhood, have the physical,
psychological, mental, and spiritual tools they need to complete
the "passage." Thus, we often refer to ourselves as "midwives."
We're there to facilitate the birthing-but, in fact, they give birth to
themselves. We don't judge them if they return early. We hold
them with love, are there to support them, to listen and love their

5
story, and to empower the understandings they were given about
their own way. That is, we help them understand what their story
means to the life they go back to. Their experience means little
unless it is woven into the fabric of their lives.

In ancient cultures, the community was there waiting for them

with a feast, with support, and an honoring of the new role they
took on. The visions changed the community and the roles of
other people in it.

Steven. We train people to do Its not like traditional

this work. Our special intent is therapy, which tends to
to train elders-those who have
been through this process and
be preoccupied with
understand what it is all about, peoples problems. We
those who are wi IIi ng to be there work instead with the
for people who have just come ways they can deal with
through, and to help the new
ones understand the meaning
and dance with their
of their story. problems.
An important training process is called ~~mirroring," that is, the
ability to hold up a mirror to the story that shows the positive, the
gift, the good, the beauty, the grace, the power, and the promise of
life. It's not like traditional therapy, which tends to be
preoccupied with people's problems. We work instead with the
ways they can deal with and dance with their problems. The
mirror of the elders witnesses a'nd mirrors back the beauty of the
gifts that their life has bestowed on them, gifts that enable them to
surmount their mountains.

6
 The Four Shields
The mirroring process is based on a kind of "primitive"
psychological paradigm we call the Four Shields. Two lines
intersecting at right angles. A four directions cross. With a longer
foot, we see it everywhere in our churches. Now, draw a circle
around it.

What we have here is the American

Indian, Australian Aboriginal, Anglo-
Celtic, East Indian Buddhist symbol of
the four directions, the four winds,
the four gates, the four heavens, the
four hells, the four ends of the
earth-and the four seasons. In the

If we are of this land called the North American continent, we

live, breathe, and have our very being within the compass of the
four seasons. The four seasons of nature are also the four seasons
of human nature. This cannot be otherwise.

The Summer Shield

In the summer of life, we are children in the physical body of
nature. We live in thrall to our senses, our reactive emotions, our
erotic instincts. Unthinking, unfeeling, and innocent of any
premeditated wrongdoing, we are like the body of nature itself,
subject to our survival instincts of fight, flight, or freeze. Like all
the other species, our basic function is to survive and grow, to be
born, to fluoresce, and to die in a world ruled by the basic
evolutionary laws of the survival of the fittest.

In the summer of human life, our needs are material: food,

shelter, and the goods and services that satisfy our bodily cravings.

7
Like children uninitiated into adulthood, we defend what we
possess. Our actions are guided by the need of the ego and the
physical body to survive attack. We are subject to the elemental
emotions of fear, rage, jealousy, possessiveness, and are incapable
of seeking the well-being of others. We do not take responsibility
for our actions and act without thinking. Instinctively, we play the
competitive games of survival, some of which are violent, seeking
the advantage over others.

Summer represents the first phase of a rite of passage. It is the

period during which the child is prepared to cut the ties that bind it
to childhood. Via severance, human nature is prepared to be
initiated, by the passage of fall, into the rigors of winter. In ancient
times, childhood was merely a prelude to the main theme-the
initiatory passage. The sensual, emotional, egotistical persona was
always expected to become more than a child.

At the School of Lost Borders, we teach our students how to

prepare the child of summer to enter the initiatory passage of fall.
The child (of any age) is afraid. Emotions are visceral, close to the
surface. We look into the face of a 50-year-old man and see the
boy; we look into the face of a 19-year-old and see the little girl.
We do not attempt to diminish the child, but to honor the fear of
the child. The wilderness is not the comfortable womb of home.
The wilderness cares nothing for our selfish little desires to be
comfortable, secure, or entertained.

We are always this child. We never leave this child behind,

not even when we are dying. We can no more do without this
child, and the consequences of its actions, than the great wheel of
the seasons can do without summer. The child of summer is a fact
of our nature. But it is only one part of the whole.

The Fall Shield

Mereditlr. Summer must become fall. Even so, the child must
become adolescent. The fall represents a time of constriction, a
time of inwardness, when the child of summer must symbolically
die to childhood and be reborn as an adult. It is a time of

8
initiation. The initiation must be complete if the child is to be
ready for winter, when the snows blow freezing cold, and ice grips
at the will to survive. If it were not for fall, the people would never
survive the winter. The children would never grow up into
adulthood. There would be no one to take care of the children.

To get to winter, summer must pass through the dark lands of

the fall. These lands of the fall shield are like the "psychosphere,"
the "morphogenetic fields" described by Rupert Sheldrake in The
Presence of the Past. They are the memory fields of the human
psyche. The inward face of self-consciousness, feeling, and
dreams. The dreams of our ancient ancestors, the dreams of our
genes. Here we feel the eyes of our opposite sex parent turned
upon us, often with disapproval. We try to be good, to do what
those eyes tell us. But sometimes we rebel. We want to go our
own way. We want to find out who we are.

The fall shield is the threshold of initiation, where the wheat is

threshed and the chaff falls away. The bare seed is left. In
wilderness rites of passage, the tools that thresh are hunger,
isolation/seclusion, loneliness, boredom, and exposure to the
indifferent forces of nature. These are true tests of adult potential.
Although the "adolescent" is seemingly at risk, the risk is more
"perceived" than real. The experience js more psychological than
physical.

Much richness can be found in the darkness of the fall shield.

Feelings can be like quicksand, and we have to stay away from
black holes of depression, guilt, shame, regret, and grief. But we
must not try so hard to avoid this place. Here we can drink from
the springs of self-acceptance. Here we can walk in the valley of
the soul. Here we can find the will to be who we say we are.
Sometimes we wallow in old wounds, playing the helpless victim.
We refuse to grow beyond our past.

In wilderness rites, the dark shield of each adolescent is tested.

It is tested by living in it. The adolescent must live in her or his
own sphere of self-awareness. This can be intolerable at times. At

9
other times, it can be ecstatic. The student is told that the
threshold time is sacred. During this sacred time, whatever she
does is sacred. There is nothing that she can do that is not sacred.
But the concept that we ourselves are sacred, as well as profane, is
a little strange to many. People wrestle with their past, with the
child within them. Usually they find a way through the labyrinth.
And all during this time, the wilderness surrounds them. They
look into nature and see themselves reflected.

We are always that adolescent. Every time we come around to

fall, we are that adolescent we were when we were 16. And fall
always comes after summer. The child of us again has to enter the
time of experience when the leaves fall from the trees and the
nights grow colder: the time of changing, of turning, of maturing,
of reaping the fruits of summer. Every time we come around to
this dark passage again, we have to find the courage to turn and
face it.

Winter Shield
Steven: Winter is here. Who do we ask to guide us through these
perilous times? The children? They are too busy playing with their
toys. The adolescents? They are too busy being initiated. Only
the adults in the community can insure the survival of the whole.
For that reason alone the children must be severed from their
parents and put through the threshold passage. Their readiness for
adulthood must be certified and approved by the people.

The attributes of adulthood are many. They bear such names

as self-control, self-reliance, commitment, vulnerability, hard
work, order, selflessness, patience, sacrifice, endurance, empathy,
etc. The true adult recognizes the interdependence of human and
nature, and lives in accordance with the ways of the wild. The
threshold experience in the wilderness confirms that these
attributes are present in the young.

The north shield represents the mind, or what the biologist

Gregory Bateson calls umental process" (Mind and Nature). This
mind activity is recognized throughout the universe in the

10
organization and interaction of multiple parts. The activity of the
human mind can be discerned in thought, language,
communication, science, and all the 11ologies." Laws, institutions,
orders, and disciplines have their roots in mind.

Incorporation into adulthood is a function of the winter shield.

When the children return from the threshold trial, elders from the
community stand ready to receive them and to confer the rights,
responsibilities, and privileges of adulthood. They belong to a
greater body than their own now. They belong to the social body
on which the health of all the children depend. And although they
still retain the child of summer and the adolescent of fall, these
shields are under the governorship of the adult of winter.

Wilderness passage rites, as taught at our school, always

include the careful incorporation of those who return from the
threshold This process involves the celebration of certain
moments: re-entry into the social body, the ingestion of food,
turning away from the mountains, and the conscious acceptance
of community. Within 24 hours, a council is convened, during
which time the returnees tell their stories and the elders respond
with their ~~mirroring" of meaning. The attainment of adulthood is
confirmed. The candidate is empowered to live a life befitting the
new life station.

11
Spring Shield
Meredith Spring brings a sense of being a part of something
greater than ourselves-a new life, a new hope, a shift in
perspective toward the light. In the spring of human nature, the old
forms of winter are broken. New life comes forth. The rite of
passage has come full circle: body (south), psyche (west), mind
(north) and spirit (east). The spirit of regeneration; the spirit of
birth, when something springs from nothing. The creative
impulse. Child becomes adolescent, becomes adult, becomes
newly born. Where is death? If death is on the great ~~wheel of the
seasons," it occurs here, in the northeast, where the old forms
disintegrate and the spirit begins to breathe on the seemingly dead
seed.

The constriction of the fall shield is countered now by the

expansion of the rising sun. The darkness of the initiatory passage
was necessary so that the child could become an adult, so that the
adult could be illumined. This illumination is the by-product of
the discipline. It has been earned by hard work, by virtues
encountered in the dark passage. The quester is rewarded with a
vision of the Holy Grail. She or he sees with the long view. He
sees how he can change his life. She sees how she can dance
with the divorce. He realizes he must tell his children he loves
them. Examples of sudden insight and illumination are typical.

What is Vision?
Vision is nothing if it is not attached to appropriate action.
Plenty of people return with 11 Visions." The spirit shield of spring is
oozing with the stuff to make visions. Wild nature inspires visions,
although usually they are not the kind where angels descend on
ladders of light. People tell us all kinds of stories. We listen
without judgment, but we tell them their vision means nothing
unless they can get their feet on the ground and assume the hard
work necessary to activate these visions for the benefit of the
community.

12
 Common also are stories of connection with spirit, God, or
indwelling Mind. American Indians consider spirit not to be some
invisible thing living inside life forms. To them, spirit is the thing
itself, the creature, the species itself. In the wilderness, such
11
Spirits" are everywhere. Some sting, some scratch, but their
purpose is sacred. They remind us of the web of life, which is also
a spirit. At the school, we encourage our students to pray. It does
not matter to us whom they pray to. But the act of prayer, like any
act of faith, is a powerful ally in times of distress. When you are
praying alone in the wilderness, you notice that all things seem to
be praying with you. Could it be that one of the functions of the
great web of life is to pray?

Some people come to us who want nothing but spirit-we call

them 11 airy fairies." They want to wallow in the light of
illumination, but they can no more do that than spring can avoid
becoming summer. They are like children afraid of the darkness.
They don't want to talk about what's going on in their lives. They
don't want to talk about their shadows and the skeletons in their
closets. They seek the power of illumination. But the power of
illumination is nothing if it is not linked to the fearful child who is
afraid to go into the dark passage. True visions are earned in the
opposite shield, in the western passage, where loneliness and
hunger dwell.

The word 11 Vision" can be deceptive. The vision of the spring

shield must become a part of the body, the psyche, and the
rational mind. The 11 Vision quest" or ~vision fast" is not really
about vision. It is about balance, about all four shields blending,
harmonizing, as one-the four seasons of human nature, blending
as one, even as the four seasons of nature blend into what we call
the 11year."

Steven: Twenty years ago, a Native American teacher taught us

the basic paradigm of the four shields. What he taught us then, he
might scarcely recognile here. This simple metaphor has become
the ecopsychological foundation of our work. By passing through
wilderness rites, thousands of young people and adults have

13
helped us to enlarge the scope of it, and to make it relevant to the
modern human experience. It bears some resemblance to a
similar paradigm devised by the psychoanalyst C.G. Jung in A
Psychological Theory of Types many years ago. It also bears a
likeness to the dynamics of van Gennep's rites de passage. But
above all, it is a theory that has been tested in the experiences of
those who have gone alone into the wilderness and returned with
stories to tell.

Of course, the vision fast is only a part of the training process.

There are many other pan-cultural, traditional experiences in
wilderness settings, with therapeutic value. These initiatory-type
experiences are means of strengthening the shield structure of any
given individual. Wild nature easily lends itself to symbols and
complexes related to each of the four shields. In the stuff of nature,
the individual sees him/herself reflected. For example, our training
of wilderness therapists often includes such exercises as bodily
orientations to the earth (summer shield), night walks (fall shield),
tracking and survival arts (winter shield), and all-night vigils
culminating in sunrise (spring shield).

Meredith: Perhaps what we're really describing here is a model of

the immune system. It is human, but it is also natural. The four
shields are actual shields, protecting us from dis-ease. Notice that
the body, the basic object of healing in western medicine, is only
one of the shields. The psyche, the mind, and the spirit are also
coequal in importance. Damage to one of the shields can threaten
the whole. In other words, disease can come to the spirit, the
mind, or the psyche, and have an impact on all four, including, of
course, the body.

If the self becomes stuck in any one of the shields, then the
whole system grinds to a halt. We not only have summer in
summer, but summer in fall, summer in winter, and summer in
spring. In a healthy person, the shields go up and down fluidly,
from summer to spring and back to summer and so forth. In an
unhealthy person, the shields may continue to go up and down,
but some of the shields are shriveled and almost useless, others

14
lopsided, grotesque, or heavily weighted. Much of this imbalance
can be righted in the wilderness, through various passage
experiences. Nature does the teaching. Our job is not to be
gurus, medicine teachers, or therapists, but lay midwives who hold
a safe space for individuals to birth themselves.

~ouTH · 5UI'-1r-1E.R..,

15
Steven. Thank you for listening so attentively. Now we would
like to show you a short clip from a video film of a youth vision
quest filmed last year in the lnyo Mountains. It's a visual
counterpart to what we have been talking about.

Selected Questions and Answers

Where does the name "Lost Borders" come from?

Steven: The Paiute Indians called our country, now known as

Owens Valley, the .. country of lost borders." Mary Austin, author
of land of liU/e Rain, also wrote a book called lost Borders. We
borrowed the name from her and from our Indian neighbors.

Do you ever challenge the parents of the kids in your youth

program to go on a vision quest too?

Meredith: As a matter of fact, three of the parents of kids who

went through the program last summer are coming later this year
to participate in their own vision quest. They saw what it did to
their kids and they want to find out for themselves. We're seeing
more and more of this. Many of those who sign up for the vision
quest are children of adults who have already experienced it.
Interest in this rite of passage seems to run in families. Fathers
want their sons to do it, mothers their daughters.

In a traditional culture with rites of passage into adulthood, the

kids would not be the ones to spark their parents' interest. The
parents, having already been through these rites when they were
young, would raise their children within the tradition. The kids
would participate in the rites because their parents did.

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Do you ever keep track of what happens to these young
people after their experience of the vision quest?

Steven: Only those who have kept track of us-a surprisingly

large number. Some of them are kids who went out with us twenty
years ago. They're no longer kids. They work, they have families.
A large number of them have gone into the natural sciences,
ecology, and the helping professions. For the most part, they seem
to be succeeding with their lives within a broad socio-economic
spectrum. Few that I can think of are actual "losers." I can think
of a whole lot more who are actually actively pursuing their
"vision."

I don't mean to be sentimental when I say that all these people

share the memory of an uncommon experience-at least in this
culture-a skin-to-skin encounter with a wilderness ecosystem
while alone and hungry. A journey through the interior landscape
of their own wilderness. What value does it have? I don't care
much for statistical measurements of experiences as priceless as
these. I prefer to think that the true value of it will be understood,
someday, when all alone we cross the threshold of the wilderness
passage of death.

Meredith: We know that when people return to their daily lives,

sooner or later they go through what we call a "predictable
depression." It happens like Campbell's "monomyth." The hero
or heroine returns with the gift, the boon, the vision, only to
encounter doubt and old habits. At that point, the "call" can be
refused. The hero can turn away from the work of planting the
seed. Or the hero can see this monster of depression as a
challenge, a commitment, a dangerous opportunity.

All the elders can do is to prepare them for this "predictable

depression," to challenge and empower them to acknowledge that
what they learned in the wilderness is still strong within them. We
tell them it is one thing to have a vision and it is quite another to
make that understanding work. We tell them the "predictable

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depression" is the "starter button." The time has come to act, to
make the vision work.

Steven:. The elders' council is an

invaluable opportunity to make a The ldnd oftherapy
difference in how at-risk youth see that identifies the
their future. How many kids are
good and empowers it
accustomed to a kind of continual
failure? Everybody's down on them is far too rare in this
and often for good reason. They culture Surely there
have begun to entertain a negative is hope to be found in
attitude about themselves. What
our young!
else can a bunch of elders do than
react positively to a scared kid living
alone in the dark without any food in his belly? It would seem to
be proof that the kid's got something in him/her. Why, every
parent should be proud.

The kind of therapy that identifies the good and empowers it is

far too rare in this culture. Surely there is hope to be found in our
young!

Is there a predictable time when people might want to

do this?

Meredith Yes. When they want to confirm their passage into a

new life stage. From childhood to adulthood, for example. Or at
mid-life, when a person confirms the passage from young
adulthood to older adulthood. Or from single to married, or from
married to divorced, or from childlessness to parenthood, or to
confirm the end of grieving, or to mark the beginning or end of a
significant life change.

The intent of the individual is all-important. The intent-"Why

I am doing this"-is confirmed, or validated by participation in the
rite. "By doing this, I confirm that this is so."

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How hard is it to fast in the wilderness?

Steven: It is probably much more difficult to fast at home than in

the wilderness. At home, refrigerators, grocery stores, and
restaurants are close by. The temptation is strong. You're sitting at
a bus stop. The person next to you is chomping on a hamburger.
You walk through the house-apples and grapes fill a bowl on the
table. Civilized America cries 11 Eatl Eat!" on every street corner.
In the wilderness, much of the food is so natural it doesn't even
look like what we know as food. And the nearest civilized food is
far away. Therefore, the temptation is less.

Medically speaking, no noticeable harm is done to a healthy

adu It or teenager. A loss of glycogen and electrolytes, maybe a
little fat. Water intake is far more important. Our people go out
with water. In the summer, a gallon per day. The psychosomatic
effects of a three- or four-day fast in the wilderness can be strange,
but not particularly difficult to endure. Transient dizziness,
vertigo, tendencies to ~~black out," sensations of weakness, and
occasional nausea are typical. Boredom sets in more quickly
without the distraction of meals.

Most people report that the fasting was not the difficult part.
Rather, it was the boredom, or the loneliness, or the helpless terror
of a thunderstorm. Without food in its belly, the human psyche
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eats" memories, sensations, emotions, feelings, thoughts,
illuminations, and prayers; it ~~eats" the landscape, the trees and
rocks, and the insects and birds. Fasting erases the boundary
between the self and nature. The person who returns from a
wilderness fast may have a hungry body, but the soul, the mind,
and the spirit have been fed.

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Does your work make people dependent on the wilderness?
Doesn't it make them more vulnerable to the dangers of the
city- because they can't find their strength in the
city-they have to go to the wilderness to get it?

Meredith: Ultimately, the goal of this kind of work is to help

people learn how to move back and forth between the worlds,
easily and effortlessly. In such a way, wilderness blends with
human life lived in the city. Or human life lived in the city blends
with wilderness.

Exposure to the wilderness is absolutely essential to the future

of the human race. As our wilderness areas shrink and our
atmosphere changes, we must make the right choices about which
way to go. Exposure to the wilderness for four days and nights
without food or shelter ~~puts dust back into your blood," as they
say. You never forget. The experience becomes a kind of
conviction. You want to have a say in what happens to the
wilderness, the environment, and the earth.

Is vision questing becoming more popular?

Steven. Do you mean the word 'Vision quest," or the sort of work
we do, the three-stage process involving a three- or four-day-and-
night fast alone in the wilderness? The word itself is quite popular
and will become even more so. Films, books, footwear, outdoor
gear, airplane trips to Hawaii, perfume, beer .... I shudder to think
what the capitalistic culture will do with this word. Though the
term 'Vision quest" may become common and mundane as a
penny, the actual experience of a 11 Vision quest" will always be
rare, sacred, and deeply inviolate-at least to those who value and
learn from their experience. Incidently, the word 11 Vision quest" is
from the Latin "sight, or thing seen" and "to seek, to inquire."

Is the experience of a vision quest, as we have defined it,

becoming more popular? There is no doubt this kind of
experiential ~~inquiry" within a wilderness setting is growing more
popular, even as the eco-psychology movement, of which it is a

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part, reaches into classrooms everywhere. Many people are
coming to be trained. They are eager to explore ways in which
they can provide safe wilderness contexts in which individuals and
communities can experience the old way of the passage rite. As
the years pass and we enter the next century, the desire to be
alone and hungry on the earth will flourish. It may become an
extremely appropriate way for people to orient themselves,
prioritize their values, and remember why they are here. And
maybe, just maybe, there will be some who return from the
mountain of vision with answers, real answers to the challenging
questions of our times.

Suggested Reading
Bateson, Gregory. Mind and Nature (Dutton, 1979).

Foster, Steven and Little, Meredith. The Trail to the Sacred

Mountain (Lost Borders Press, Big Pine, California, 1981 ).

Gennep, Arnold van. The Rites of Passage (University of Chicago

Press, 1960).

Jacobi, Jolande. The PsychologyofCC. }ung\Yale University

Press, 1973).

Lawlor, Robert. Voices of the First Day (Inner Traditions,

Rochester, Vermont, 1991 ).

Lovelock, J.E. Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (Oxford

University Press, 1979).

Sheldrake, Rupert. The Presence of the Past(Collins, 1988).

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 Wilderness Resource
Distinguished Lectureships
1977 Sen. Frank Church Wilderness in a Balanced Land-
Use Framework

1978 Roderick Nash Wilderness Management: A

Contradiction in Terms?

1979 Cecil D. Andrus Reorganization and the Depart-

ment of Natural Resources:
Implications for Wilderness

1980 Patrick F. Noonan Preserving America's Natural

Heritage in the Decade of the
Eighties

1981 Russell E. Dickenson Wilderness Values in the

National Parks

1982 Michael Frome Battle for the Wilderness: Our

Forever Conflict?

1983 Wilderness Confer. Issues on Wilderness Manage-

ment (not a publication)

1984 Brock Evans In Celebration of Wilderness:

The Progress and the Promise

1987 Jay D. Hair Wilderness: Promises, Poems,

and Pragmatism

1988 lan Player Using Wilderness Experience to

Enhance Human Potential

1989 (Chief) Oren Lyons Wilderness in Native American

Culture

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1992 William A. Worf A Vision for Wilderness in the
National Forests

1992 Roger Contor A Vision for Wilderness in the

National Parks

1994 Bill Reffalt A Vision for Wilderness in the

National Wildlife Refuge System

1995 Mike Dombeck Wilderness Management of

Public lands Administered by the
BLM: Past, Present, and Future

1995 jon Roush A Vision for Wilderness in the

Nation

1996 Steven Foster Wilderness Vision Questing and

and The Four Shields of Human
Meredith Little Nature

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Universityof Idaho