Out Of The Office And Into The Wild: How Fasting In The Desert Helped Me Find Purpose

At the turn of the New Year of 2012 I walked into the desert to make sense of my life. I have always felt at home in the desert; it calls me with its basin of sky, its harsh beauty, its way of mummifying the castles of dreamers. There is a challenge here for me to take up space in a way that confirms: I matter. It seemed a fitting place for my Vision Quest, a spiritual journey in the wilderness spent fasting for three days and four nights in a remote spot, without shelter, alone.

Since my divorce and return from living in East Africa a few years before, I had been steadily dismantling the life I had built in service of becoming a psychotherapist. Years of living in survival mode juggling grad school and jobs, spending down my savings as I worked six day weeks, and returning to intern status had taken their toll. I was exhausted and sinking into self doubt. In my relationship, too, I faced a turning point; whether to take the next step or to let go.

I sought answers to these questions; what direction should my life take? What's my purpose? What's getting in my way?

As a therapist myself and as someone who has benefited from therapy, I had tried finding these answers through my weekly sessions but failed. I decided that I needed the type of experience that can only be found out of the office.

The Vision Quest is a rite of passage ceremony which includes three phases: severance, when you cut ties with your ordinary life; threshold, when you leave your community and spend solo time fasting and seeking your vision; and incorporation, when you return to your community and receive the wisdom of your elders through reflection so that you can bring your vision into the world.

The Vision Quest is a deep encounter with the self, or soul, to gain a vision of what we can offer to our community. It's a journey of dying to the old stories in our lives so that we can be reborn into what we are becoming.

Returning to the wild, stripped of the modern comforts that help me forget that, I, too, am an animal, is to affirm the uniqueness of my wild, human, soul and its connection to oneness, to God-nature. Only here, it seemed, could my questions find a teacher wise enough for the task.

We arrived together as a community of twelve seekers and three guides. During the time of severance we made intentions, asked for guidance, discussed safety, and then went out to choose our place on the land where we would live alone for the threshold time. I chose a low, rocky ledge with a cave and hill viewpoint. I settled in.

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