This excerpt is the first section a recent autobiographical essay entitled “Fishing For My Self.”

I Was Warned

“Inexorably, the aim and direction of your purpose resolve into the blinding light of the rising sun.  The death of your former life has given way to birth.  All is holy; all is aflame with the glory of life.  Nature is but a mirror of the newly born.”                                     Steven Foster, 1938-2003

I had spent four days alone, fasting in the high, wild White Mountains outside Death Valley. According to Native American tradition, I was to remain awake through the last, long night – my symbolic death – to greet the dawn and rebirth.

I was in my late thirties, marking what I hoped was a passage through a turbulent stage in my marriage. Prolonged anxiety attacks were plaguing me for the first time since law school. I nearly abandoned going out alone into the mountains, fearing I would panic. But the leaders of our group, Steven and Meredith, lovingly helped me get back on course. I gathered my courage during the days we prepared to go into the wild, each of us alone.

Before we met each morning, I fished at dawn for rainbow trout in Big Pine Creek as it flowed through willow forests down the east side of the Sierras. I happily fed our little band with my catches. The anxiety faded; maybe I could live four days alone in the wilderness.

On departure day, I woke to the sound of Steven playing his cold banjo off in the distance, rousing us before dawn. I tried not to think about Deliverance.  

Reasonably confident, I set out from our mountain base camp as the sun rose, after a quiet, solemn ceremony of prayers for my safety and success, the scent of burning sage in the cool morning air. Stepping outside a ring of stones to begin my adventure, I became invisible – and the others ignored me as I began my ascent.

I camped nestled among scrubby ancient Piñon pines, just big enough to support a tarp – my only shelter from the sun and afternoon showers. Fasting slowed my pace to a crawl. But I explored during the bright, warm days, finding quartz with the bits of gold that lured gold miners there a century ago, and shards of obsidian from ancient Paiute arrowhead makers. I gazed over precipices plummeting thousands of feet toward Death Valley, watching hawks and vultures soar endlessly. Immense white sand dunes shimmered below, many miles away.

The fasting and sheer solitude sharpened my senses, but with a surreal edge. I could focus on even the smallest and usually overlooked things, being entirely in the moment. I spoke to a rabbit squatting at my feet one day. Unafraid, it feigned interest in my warning about the red-tailed hawks circling overhead. I silently wished the hawks good hunting as well. I laughed at male lizards doing push-ups on the rocks to impress the ladies. I watched for rattlesnakes with every slow, careful step. I painted and wrote, including a story for my children. The anxiety attacks disappeared.

The final night was the hardest. At 6,000 feet, the moonless May evenings were breathtakingly clear and cold. For hours I watched the brilliant night sky, marveling at the darting shooting stars and slow moving satellites. I listened attentively to the owls and other night creatures. Four days without food had weakened me. I wanted to stay awake to greet the dawn, following the venerable ritual. But part of me wanted to sleep so morning would come and I could return to companionship and my first food in days. Not necessarily in that order. Waves of fear were followed by waves of deep contentment and connectedness to all things, including myself.

Eventually, restless sleep won out. In the most vivid dream of my life, I found myself in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, thinking, “Why am I here?  I’m supposed to be in the mountains finishing my vision quest?” I desperately wanted to get back to where I was supposed to be.

Later, I found myself in London, in a shop owned by an early member of the Grateful Dead. He was pleasant, but no help at all in returning me to the White Mountains. My desperation, and hunger, grew. Riding in a gondola in Venice, I devoured a crunchy head of lettuce, then realized it was a delicious pair of socks.

After a globe-spanning struggle to return, I was suddenly back in Golden Gate Park. But it had changed completely, the gardens and towering, fragrant eucalyptus trees replaced by strip malls, fast food joints, and other plagues. I was utterly forlorn as the dawn approached and I could not find my car to race back to the mountains. But just before I died of despair, a young dark haired boy came to me, smiling. “Don’t worry, mister, I know where your car is.” He led me by the hand to my car. My vision quest was saved and I awoke.

After I hiked gingerly down to base camp, we hugged and smiled and feasted on hard-boiled eggs and fruit. Back at our original camp, we plunged naked into the icy creek, rushing with fresh Sierra snowmelt. We lounged in Steven and Meredith’s beautiful sweat lodge in the willow forest. Then, for three days we sat together in soft grass in a clearing, one by one telling the stories of our experience.

  Our leaders were my beloved, long-time friends, Steven Foster and Meredith Little. In the early 70s they rediscovered the ancient vision quest ceremony for recognizing, marking, and honoring life’s passages. Since then, they had been introducing it to a Western world that had lost its way, giving countless people the opportunity to live their own hero’s journey.

Doing this work for so long, their deeply thoughtful insights into our stories were illuminating. After I recounted my epic dream, Steven said without hesitating that the little boy who saved me . . . was me. I shuddered and knew, of course, he was right.  I had saved myself when all hope seemed lost.

Steven and Meredith had known me since I was sixteen. They knew about my marriage, anxiety, and disenchantment with my career as a lawyer. After sharing his thoughts about my vision quest story, Steven also shared, with a chuckle, a prediction:

“You’re in for one helluva mid-life crisis!”

I laughed nervously, fearing his powers of perception.

Copyright © 2014, Daniel W. Hager. All Rights Reserved.