Exploring the frontiers of gay consciousness with ROBERTO BLAIN

The Vision Quest: Part IIn my last column, I described the advent of my midlife awakening. My soul’s calling began to assert itself, and left unheeded, it pulled out the big guns—creating a mysterious illness in my body that forced me to take pause before impelling me to go on a vision quest in the New Mexico desert. I promised to tell you about that “fateful “ journey, so here’s the story.

In the beginning of 2000, I decided to abandon a successful entertainment-industry career to become an entrepreneur. Certainly I was excited about my new business enterprise, but just as compelling was the chance to prove to myself that I could create from nothing — without a regular paycheck — and escape my fate as a soldier-cog in a large, grinding corporate machine. (In retrospect, it’s fair to say that this decision, while well-intentioned, was more ego-based than soul-directed; I had ignored “soul signs” to go in certain other directions.) Then, during the last year of what was to be a three-year entrepreneurial stint, I had a series of death-and-illness dreams that manifested in an actual, and mysterious, physical ailment. With my body “on strike,” I grudgingly embarked on a vision quest, hoping to find both healing and life purpose.

It was a scary time. I had no idea where to go, and my limited funding didn’t help. My first choice, India, was out; it was too expensive, and the notion of trekking to the other side of the world in my weakened state was daunting. As suggestions poured in from friends, I narrowed my destination to the New Age environs of New Mexico or, perhaps, an ashram in Colorado. I’d head east, for sure, but not all the way: I was determined to avoid the fate-worse-than-death temptation to throw in the towel and return home to my family on the opposite coast.

There was terrible initial upheaval, as the quest involved ending a relationship, relinquishing my home in Beachwood Canyon, and leaving wonderful friends. Toughest was my fear of running out of money and ending up on the street with a shopping cart. I resolved to just start heading east with no plans to return, occasioning my shocked and saddened (and, in a few cases, mildly envious) friends to plan a farewell party. When I first migrated to Los Angeles from San Francisco, I had huge ambitions, and now I was leaving it all for an uncharted destination, an unknown destiny. But I knew in my heart of hearts it was time.

A vision quest is an age-old transformational rite of passage that involves going back to nature to refresh and connect with one’s truth, purpose, and responsibility. Immersion in the primitive environment (away from the day-to-day distractions and trappings of urban living) facilitates the reception of soul direction—resulting in a transcendental, formative experience. In indigenous cultures (Native Americans, Inuits, et al.), the vision quest was a standard step toward maturity, carefully orchestrated by elders steeped in initiatory rites of passage. In our society, one has to seek or create the ideal conditions for this kind of immersive spiritual journey, as there are few markers and support systems that can compete with the constant, cacophonous stimuli of civilization. The Welsh poet David Whyte says that when we go on these pilgrimages, we seem to be traveling “out there” to some place (Mecca, the ashram, the desert monastery), but it is really an interior journey, one that seeks to connect our heart and soul.

The fates conspired… and I surrendered to the desert. A few days before my scheduled departure, a friend informed me that a gay woman he knew in Embudo, New Mexico, needed someone to house-sit her little adobe farmhouse for a week. Relieved that I might have a place to land, I contacted her and we had instant rapport. Other friends provided markers. “Go to Chaco Canyon—I had an amazing spiritual experience there,” one offered. I set off for New Mexico both anxious and excited about the unknowns. Another signpost: Halfway through my trip I received a cell call from my writing partner, Dr. Donald Kilhefner, who had first encouraged me on this journey. “There is a powerful Native American shamanic practitioner named Wolf,” he said, “a gay man initiated into the Lakota tribe, who just did some powerful healing work here in L.A. He lives in Glorieta, New Mexico, and you should visit with him.” I was on my way!

Embudo is a magical little oasis along the banks of the Rio Grande located halfway between Santa Fe and Taos, just north of Hispaniola and next to Dixon. A loving and soulful elder gay couple had purchased a landmark, 150-year-old adobe in a valley along the river and had sold parcels of the adjoining land to a small group of carefully selected friends, building a solid, grounded community of kindred spirits. (I am excluding names because this community values privacy.) This couple and several other residents gave me an amazing welcome. They invited me to dinner and introduced me to their homes, their horses, and their land. To my delight, they gave me unfettered access to the portion of the Rio Grande bordering their properties. Most importantly they welcomed me into their hearts, sharing their stories and listening to mine—providing a much-needed balm for my aching soul.

Eventually, when they felt comfortable, they brought me to an amazing temple built by a gifted New Mexico artist inside a mountain on their property. Made of a beautiful white stone, it looked like the inside of a lotus blossom. The spiritual ceremony we held there one evening—officiated by Wolf, who came to visit—was powerful and transformational.

Over the next month, the stress and strain of the city began to dissolve—washed away by the New Mexico rains and the healing Rio Grande. Father Donald Goergen says that “untouched nature has a purity to it that can raise one’s heart and mind immediately to God.” He says that his own desert experience involved an interior oscillation between fatigue/fear and beauty/delight and that it necessarily generated a sense of dependency, a move from self-reliance to reliance on something greater. My time there tracked similarly, and that was the point.

In my next column, I will share in more detail some of the galvanizing and inspiring experiences I had amid the luminosity and barrenness of the desert, including visits to a powerful sweat lodge at Wolf’s compound in Glorieta, the stoic, cloistered Christ in the Desert Monastery in Chama Canyon and the vibrant, joyful Hanuman Temple in Taos. All culminating in a revelatory dream I had while sleeping in a teepee that signaled my integration—and the completion of my first vision quest.

Roberto Blain is head of talent acquisition at USC, on the executive team of c3 transmedia, and co-facilitator of the Gay Men and the Midlife Awakening workshop. Contact him at roberto@consciouscreativity.com.