Seeking Divine guidance the Native way

Are you at a place in your life where you need Divine guidance? Here is a ceremony that has been effective for over a thousand years in receiving answers for life direction from the Creator. It is called a “Vigil.”

Presented here is part one of a two part Blog describing the Vigil ceremony.

The Vigil

Many are familiar with the term “Vision Quest” but may not have heard of another way of seeking answers to major life decisions called a “Vigil”.

In my tradition one only holds one vision quest in your lifetime, usually when a young person is coming into adulthood, but more commonly now-a-days, sometime in ones adult life. The purpose of the Vision Quest is to find out who you are and for what purpose you are here. You also receive very important “tools” from the Great Mystery during your quest to help you accomplish the task you were created for. These tools may be a power song, a sacred object of personal power, even a new name, a name that you are to grow into.

The reason you only do this once in a lifetime is that you do not need to find these answers more than once, who you are and why you are here does not change from the day you are born to the day you cross over. How you walk out those things may change and this is where the Vigil comes in.

When faced with a major life decision such as moving to a new location, selecting a partner, changing how you make your living, etc. or when you go through a change in your responsibilities to your people, graduate from one life stage to another, it is often the time to hold a vigil.

It is a shorter version of the vision quest where you focus on just the change or decision at hand. Instead of fasting for 3 or 4 days, you fast for one day, from sunrise to sunrise. You spend one night out in nature. Similar to a full quest, it is important to have a sponsor or supporter, someone who will assist you and watch over you while you are alone in your sacred circle. It is best if this person is someone who is spiritually mature, one who carries some spiritual responsibilities.

The reason for this is that one of their duties while you are out alone, they are to remotely “sense” how you are doing, an ability not common among the majority of people these days. Sometimes a spouse or someone who is very close to you can feel these things, but it is important that they have enough experience to know when they should come to your aid and when to not interrupt what the spirits may be doing for/with you.

So here is the procedure to holding a Vigil. I want to say that this is a template, not a rigid legalistic format that you must not deviate from. Allow for changes in your own situation due to time of year, the availability of things needed such as a cold flowing body of water, and what your own inner intuition tells you would be necessary for you to be able to receive the answers you seek. Follow the template but adjust when you feel something does not fit your own personal spiritual walk.

To start any ceremony, you need to be purified. This is just like washing up before one prepares a meal. You need to wash yourself and any tools or implements you will be using to prepare the “meal”, i.e. the ceremony.

There are two ways I use to purify myself before ceremony, the first is from my Cherokee tradition, called Going to water, and the alternative would be a sweat lodge which is just as effective. I will not go into what is involved in a sweat here, but I will warn you that no one should attempt to do a sweat unless the one leading it has been trained and released to hold such a responsibility by appropriate Elders. One can suffer both physical and spiritual harm if a sweat is not handled properly. My advice is to try going to water with a mature spiritual person.

You start the whole Vigil process by fasting the morning of the day you will be going out into nature to seek answers to your situation. You spend your time preparing your sacred circle, a place you have selected because you have felt a strong connection to when walking about in the area you want to hold the vigil in.

You will need to gather enough fire wood to keep your fire burning all through the night and you will need to construct a fire pit for the fire. Other things you should do while you are waiting for the time of preparation, (going to water or the sweat lodge), would be making 4 small “flags” of colored cloth. These are short sticks usually made out of one of the sacred woods such as red willow, cedar, juniper, plum or cherry wood, etc. The color of the little flags depends on your own tradition, but they always represent the four directions. For us Cherokee it is yellow, red, blue and white. These flags are placed at the outer edge of your circle when you set up your sacred space. More about that in the section below.

“Going to Water.”

I advise that one does not do this by themselves as it is common for the person going to water to have a somewhat overwhelming experience than would normally be expected by just submersing in cold water. There is a spiritual dynamic involved with this practice that should not be overlooked.

You and your helper first smudge yourselves with the smoke from burning sage. The smoke from sage is the equivalent in the spirit realm to water in our physical realm. It is used to “wash up” everything to be used in the ceremony as well as for ourselves. I like to roll up a wad of long leaf sage and burn it in an abalone shell. I usually place the smoldering ball of sage onto a bed of sweetgrass in the shell. This prevents any possible toxic fumes from the shell burning and also provides the smoke of the sweetgrass which is a special treat to the spirits who will be assisting you.

I wash/scrub my hands and my body in the smoke, then take handfuls of the sage smoke and wash them over my head, my forehead (mind) and then my heart. This way I have cleansed/prepared my whole physical and inner being. Later, at the site of the Vigil, I will do the same with all the things I will be using in the ceremony such as a Pipe, matches, and various other objects.

Now that you are “presentable” to be in the company of the spirits and the Creator, you proceed with going to water. You and your helper walk out into the stream until you are waist deep in the cold, flowing water. You face upstream and ask the spirits to come and assist you, to prepare you for your vigil. This is more than just a cleansing; it is a way to shift your consciousness from a physical awareness to a more spiritual one. You submerse your self seven times facing into the flow of the water, one dip for each of the seven directions. For the Cherokee it is first the east, the north, the west, the south, our mother earth, our creator above, and finally, to the center of our universe, our own higher self (your heart). Other tribes go in the opposite direction and many do not do the seventh one.

You say just before you go under the water, “I honor those helpers in the East”, etc. If you are blessed by the spirits, you may find it difficult to go under after the third or forth time, this is why you need a helper. They hold you under your belly and help pull you back up after each dip. I have seen people be so overcome during this preparation that they cold not get out of the stream on their own.

The Sacred Circle.

Now that you have prepared to enter your sacred circle, your supporter walks with you to it and makes sure you have everything you will need. You should have a way to light your fire, a covering such as a hide, blanket or bedroll, a Pipe if you have access to one and know how to use it and I recommend a journal to write in. This last thing is not traditional and is sometimes looked upon as a sort of crutch, but I have forgotten so many important things shown to me during ceremony that I would rather record what is given and be a little less than traditional, then to loss important information due to my over active mind or sleepiness.

Your area should already be prepared before you went to water with plenty of wood for the fire and your directional flags should be in place as well. After you have entered your space, your supporter "closes" the circle with a ring of tobacco or corn meal that has been smudged/cleansed and set aside as sacred. Closing the circle is done in the following manner. I start in the east and following my tradition go counter clockwise to the north, west south and then back to the east. Other traditions go the opposite direction; you will decide what the correct way is for our self.

I stand at the eastern "door" of the circle; the places marked by the eastern flag, and hold the tobacco up to the spirits that are responsible for that direction. I invite them to come join me and assist me in my seeking. I then walk a quarter circle to the next direction, sprinkling tobacco as I walk along. I invite those from that direction to come join us as well. The tobacco I held up to the east is dropped at that spot, followed by the sprinkling of more tobacco as I walk along to the next direction forming a line from one area to the next. This is repeated until I have come full circle back to the eastern door. Once this circle of tobacco has been formed, nothing is able to come into the sacred space unless invited. This applies to the physical realm as well as the spiritual realm.

An example of this is when my partner (at the time) wanted to do her vision quest. We selected the place that felt right to her, confirmed by an amazing interaction with a butterfly that landed in our hands which we were holding together at the time. (Her name was Kamama, Butterfly) I always watch for a confirmation of spiritual things from nature. It is trustworthy as we cannot manipulate the birds, animals or say, the weather.

After I closed the circle, she stayed there for three days. On the second day around noon, a small black bear came walking along towards her, but stopped right at the edge of the tobacco circle. It took a good long look at her and then walked around the edge of the circle and continued on its way . Later that afternoon another bear, one that had a different color, came along the trail the first one had gone down. It stopped right at the edge of the circle, and then precede around the other half of the circle. There is much significance to the bears, their color, the way and directions that they walked, etc. But the main point here is that they honored the law of the circle.

I want to add that the same thing happened with deer and other critters, but little birds and small squirrels ran back and forth without ever seeming to notice the boundary. This is because some creatures and some spirits are considered "innocents." They are allowed to enter sacred space without invitation as they only bring sweet goodness from the great Mystery.

Just as the Bears honored the boundary, so do the spirits. It is a spiritual law, no one but the innocents will cross a boundary set up properly with the right intentions and attitude of trust.

So now that you have set the circle, the supporter leaves and does not return physically, but does set aside the rest of the 24 hours to wait and pray for the seeker. I often use a system of a flag hanging in a tree to signal that things are going ok, if I check on the site from afar and do not see the flag, I know that the seeker is in need of some assistance.

The Vigil at night.

You should be settled into your circle with your fire going well before sunset. If you are not proficient at making and maintaining a fire, I recommend that you learn from someone before you go out into the woods alone. You owe it to all your relations out there to be able to have a safe fire, and you owe it to yourself to be able to maintain an effective fire to warm you throughout the night. The fire is more than just a means of warmth; it is a living spiritual being that will assist you with your vigil. Many times it will act as a window into the other dimensions to show you your answers. I have seen many things in the glow of the coals of a sacred fire.

So what makes a fire sacred? It is intent mostly. Intent expressed by your respect to this living being, fire. You make it out of only natural materials. I use dry pine needles and cones as my starter. I use dead, dry twigs off of trees for the kindling.

Did you ask the tree for permission to take its dead branches? If not, you may find that the branches won’t break and when they do they jab you and you get pieces of bark in your eyes.

The idea is to have a small fire that you tend throughout the night, not a big bonfire. A big fire will distract you, is dangerous, and will deplete your fuel to fast.

It is said that white men keep warm carrying wood for a big fire.

One of the reasons for the fire is to help you stay awake. By having to continually tend it, it forces you to remain alert. If your fire goes out and you cannot re-start it from its own coals, your vigil is over and you might as well go home.

As the night progresses, you will want to separate the hours into four equal parts. Each segment will be used to apply the question you have brought before the fire to how it connects with your past as a child, then how it relates to your teen years, then how it is for your life as an adult, and finally, how it will be in your future as an Elder.

Calling in the assistance.

After the circle is closed you will call on those from the different directions to come and assist you. I call this “calling a council”. I believe that each of us has a council made up of ancestors, spirits, angles, our higher self, the Mystery, etc. By inviting them to come and join you as you seek your answers; you access all that is for help.

The best way I know to do this is with a Pipe ceremony. If you do not have a Pipe or do not know how to properly conduct that type of ceremony, then you can call them in this way.

Again, have your shell lined with shredded sweetgrass, I put a layer of flat cedar on top of the sweetgrass, and then I put a burning ball of long leaf sage onto the cedar. I hold tobacco up to the direction and invite those who live in those areas to come and join in the council. After each directional invitation, I put the pinch of tobacco onto the burning sage. When I am done, I thank them all for joining me and present my questions to them. We then spend the rest of the night in communion.

The answers you receive may be in many forms, and come to you in fragments throughout the night. This is why I bring a note pad. I write the answers down as well as any visitors or unusual circumstances that occur.

I forgot to tell you all how to end your Vigil. It is of the most importance that you end the ceremony by expressing your appreciation to those beneficial spirits/angles who came to it. This is simple, but if not done can have some unpleasant consequences.

I address all those who gathered to help me throughout the night and tell them I send them home with honor and appreciation for their assistance. I mention that the ceremony is complete with the putting out of the fire and that is it. Simple, but important.

Blue sky,

Jim Tree

Follow up note: I really depend on you guys for input. Here is a response to this post that is right on the money, Wado Shinning Eyes!

Hi Jim,

I read your entry and was wondering if you meant it the way it came across to me. In short, you said that if you don't thank all the spirits that you may have unpleasant consequences. I think that if you intentionally take helpful spirits for granted and continually forget to honor those who help you that they may stop helping or even showing up at your ceremonies because your energy may not possess the grace that would draw them in, but I like to think that once in the spirit world, those spirits choosing to be helpful would be at continue to be benevolent. I believe that they are of a high enough consciousness that concept punishment (i.e., unpleasant consequences) would not even enter into the picture.

ShiningEyes