And Finally... A Year Long Program for Men

A letter from Dan Skye, Nature's Apprentice Vision Quest Guide….

Dear World,
I am deeply humbled and very excited to be next year offering a year-long men’s program of deep nature connection practices, circle work and earth-based ceremony within a community of men ready to really show up in their lives. And these are a few words to explain why…

Antler, Bone and Eagle. Belonging. How do we come to know our own story in this wild and mysterious life? How do we create practices and communities, both human and more-than-human, to support our unfolding?

When I was a child I wondered and wished I could be a man already. I thought things would somehow be easier, or at least I would feel like I had arrived.  

When I was 16 one of my school teachers, with the blessing of my parents, took me out onto the land for 36 hours, and sat me inside a small circle on my own. “You do not leave this circle until we come for you,” he said. It planted a seed. 

The year before when I turned 15 I had noticed him, getting out of his car as I walked into school. He looked a little wilder and a little stranger than the men I knew, his eyes clear and very much alive. “I've been out sitting on the land. A Vision Quest. Four days four nights, on my own. No eating, no sleeping, no water.” He said.

“You’re crazy!” I laughed. 

“One day, you’ll hear the call. When you do, come find me.” 

I wandered off to class, still thinking he was crazy. 

When I was 21 I was unexpectedly about to be a father. I called him. We shared dinner and spoke of what it was to be a father and a partner in this wild world. I wasn’t ready for either, nor was I for the full ceremony of Vision Quest.

Three years later, I heard the call, like he said I would. Choosing to bring another child into the world, had also stirred in me the need and desire, or even the imperative, to more fully inhabit my life. To really show up. For my children, for my partner, and maybe, this time, for myself too. 

“I’m ready” I said. This time, we prepared. We sat and shared our hearts together, we crawled in to the womb of the grandmother and sweated together in ceremony. He, and a small community of men including my father, took me out once more, this time for the full descent of a four day wilderness fast. A rite-of-passage. From the time of my first Quest, I entered a men’s circle and though it has changed shape, a circle of men has been an important anchor in my life. A necessity. And a joy. 

The ripples of these experiences move through me still, in strange and wild ways. Most importantly, they ripple through the fabric of my daily life, and support me to show up to the beauty, and the pain, of my life. To not only speak, but feel, deep gratitude for the gift of this precious life.

I don’t know much with absolute certainty. One thing I do know for sure though, is that what I imagined as a little boy, what I thought it would feel or look like to ‘be a man’, well lets just say it ain’t quite what I thought it would be. It keeps asking more of my heart than I thought possible, to truly love another wild being, our children, the world, with all its elation and grief. Trust and surrendered action. It’s something more along the lines of what Rilke points to in this poem:

I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.

The main practice that has held me through all of the currents of my life, is Vision Quest.

And so, I feel called by Mystery, to provide a container over 11 months for men to come together, deepen our relationship to self, earth and our human companions, and enact together this powerful and ancient ceremony. 

Will you join us?

More information here: https://www.naturesapprentice.com.au/events/mens-yearlong-quest-program

For the Wild Soul, 
Dan Skye