The sun was out for much of the first few days and the temperature had risen to about sixty degrees. But the weather in Oklahoma has a tendency to change rather abruptly and I knew that they were predicting thunderstorms and that a cold front was also supposed to come through sometime during the third day. I decided that I should turn my cell phone on and check the weather forecast. It’s a very good thing I did because I would have never imagined what I was in for. The weather report said that a snowstorm was coming in. It usually doesn’t snow that often in Oklahoma, but I would have never anticipated a snowstorm this late into March. I kept scrolling down through The Weather Channel’s hourly report and it looked like the storm was expected to last for over twenty four hours. My first thought was "…Oh #@%*". Weather reports are often inaccurate and I was hoping that this would be the case, but I just started to prepare myself.
The rain started coming down around 11 pm and then I could see and hear the lightning striking close by. Initially, I was just hoping that I wouldn’t end up getting struck by lightning. But the rain quickly changed to ice pellets and before long it turned into snow. The wind was so strong and the snow was blowing sideways. I pulled the bivy sack over the sleeping bag and then braced myself for what was yet to come.
The snow kept coming down hour after hour, so I did the best that I could to cocoon myself within my sleeping bag. But it was really difficult to be trapped in my little cocoon for hours on end and then at some point I would have to go out to relieve myself. Somehow the moisture got into my sleeping bag. Some of it came from the snow that had fallen on me when I went outside. Bivy sacks are supposed to be waterproof, but the one I have is over ten years old now and it may have some abrasions that allowed moisture to come through. Then there’s also the condensation that builds up as I lay there breathing during all those long hours. I was doing the best that I could to stay dry but my sleeping bag and clothing were getting wet.
I definitely wasn’t too thrilled to have the added challenge of a snow storm, but I thought to myself that I had already come this far and I could surely hold on for another thirty something hours till my friends came for me on Sunday morning. I also remembered how some of the elders had told me years ago that one just needs to endure. There’s no such thing as cancelling, making excuses or flaking out among the traditional native people who go through intensive practices such as the vision quest or sun dance. They would make an exception if someone had been bitten by a rattle snake. But aside from some kind of serious threat to one’s life, they fully expected a person to just go through with it.
I managed to pass out for a few hours here and there during the third night on the mountain. I remember waking up and thinking to myself "I guess that I’m doing okay here." But I was concerned that the friends who dropped me off at the base of the mountain would be worried so I thought that had I better give them a call to tell them that I was alright. I kept trying to call, but I was getting an error message saying that the call had failed.
It turns out that one of my friends was also trying to call me and she couldn’t get through because I had turned the phone off. She had left several urgent messages telling me that I needed to come down off the mountain. My friends became a little frantic when they didn’t hear from me and one of them was even considering calling out a search and rescue unit. I am so thankful she didn’t. I could imagine all those men showing up on top of the mountain and then I would be standing there arguing with them and refusing to come down.
The sky began to clear shortly before sunset on the fourth day. Cloud cover helps to hold the heat in and I knew the clearing sky meant that things would get even more difficult and they certainly did. I was already cold and partially wet, but the wind kept blowing very hard from the north and the temperature dropped down to the mid twenties. I was shivering and the cold was nearly unbearable. All kinds of thoughts were running through my head. I had read accounts of people who had frozen to death out in the wilderness and I was a bit concerned about my own survival.
My toes were starting to go numb and so I would pull one leg up at a time and massage one set of toes until they thawed out and then I would switch to the other foot. I put on extra pairs of socks and then I started looking for anything else that would provide an added layer of warmth. I ended up wrapping some extra pairs of underwear around my feet and then I tied bandanas around them to hold everything in place. I then wrapped small plastic grocery bags around my feet. All of these things did help, but I was still freezing my ass of and I had to curl up in fetal position to conserve body heat.
The wind was so fierce at the top of the mountain and it just kept blowing more cold air in from the North. Getting caught in the snowstorm evoked my own feelings of frustration and anger and I erupted a few times. I probably needed to vent my frustration, but I realized that staying in that space indefinitely wasn’t going to serve any useful purpose. I needed to accept what was happening and just deal with it. I did the best that I could to be present by breathing into whatever I was going through from one moment to the next and that took me into a profoundly deep altered state. In some ways it felt like being in a dream, but it also helped me to break through my normal limitations and I could feel a much stronger presence moving through me.
Native doctors among the Kiowa tribe have gone to these mountains for centuries. Some of these mountains are considered to be sacred because of the powerful forces that reside there. These mountains can be described as a window between the worlds. I kept thanking the spirits for bringing me back to the mountain again and I could feel their presence more strongly whenever I did.
The most powerful part of the vision quest always occurs on the fourth night. That’s when I feel the presence of the other forces or beings working to help me heal. This is also the time when I have received the various gifts of healing that make it possible for me to assist others. I felt a very powerful presence entering through the middle of my back during the night. I was happy because I received what I worked so hard for. I’m still not sure exactly what that was all about, but I do know that its part of the gift of healing that comes during the vision quest and I’ll watch over the coming months to see how it manifests in my life.
It was so difficult to get through that night and I was wondering how I was going to make it down the snow covered mountain. My friends were scheduled to pick me up around 8 am so I packed up my gear as quickly as possible and started heading down about an hour beforehand. The mountain is covered with all kinds of rocks, prickly pear cactus and yucca plants and so I knew that I had to be very careful. I did my best to work my way around the rocks and cacti, but I basically ended up sliding and falling my way down the mountain this time. Fortunately the snow cushioned my falls. I finally made it down to the base after thirty minutes and then I had to dig the water bottle that I had stashed under a juniper bush out of the snow. I had waited an awfully long time for that water, but I didn’t have much time to drink though. I had to head on up the road to the location where my friends knew to pick me up. Needless to say, I was so relieved to see that truck coming down the road for me.
I always feel very otherworldly after coming off the mountain. I was sitting at my friend’s dining room table a few hours later having breakfast and I could feel my entire body oscillating. I went on to the hotel a few towns over later that afternoon and I just kept breathing into all the feelings and sensations that were emerging within my body for the remainder of the day.
