Vison Quest at Future Quest

We clutch our journals, our water bottles, and our pens: fifteen youth sent to find a place in the woods to sit and ponder. I find a small rock under a tree in the middle of a clearing from which I can see the lake and hear the loons.
    This is the first part of our Vision Quest, on the Future Quest 2007 camping trip. I am supposed to write about what makes me happy, to help me try to find my passion. As I begin my list I notice more and more how often nature is mentioned. Later those who are comfortable unofficially compare lists and on everyone’s nature appears as the thing that makes us happiest. Even those of us who live in cities can become close to nature out here and together we acknowledge an almost primeval love for the earth. At my feet a cricket begins to chirp. He falls silent when I move and so I keep still, and write a poem about him. I ponder the difference in size of our worlds, which are essentially the same one, and I wonder, as I sit here, knowing so much more, if the cricket's world is the better one. And I wonder how much more there is to my world which I don't know.
    At night the members of my campsite sing camp songs and roast marshmallows. We tell stories or discuss the latest computer games and have tooth-brushing parties, spitting into a little hole in the ground. Mornings are spent just talking, perhaps about the previous night's sleep or about animal sightings. We make a fire and soon clutch cups of tea in our hands, shivering a bit in the crisp forest air. One morning we make up spiritual names for each other, matching animals or plants and specific traits to people's characters. This is done with laughter and much joking but the memory stays with me. My name is still special and meaningful to me.
    Later on, we wander up to the next lake to Vision Quest once more. It is a smaller group this time, and we nestle into the grass on the steep bank of this lake to study individual objects around us. I etch every branch and curve in the tree above my head into my memory. I shut my eyes and use my other senses to try to heighten awareness. Suddenly I can feel the activity beneath me in the ground. The sap runs through the roots of the trees, and I can feel a steady rhythm in the burrowing of the worms and the beat of the warm sun and the shivering of the tree. This new attentiveness comes quickly, and with joy I open my eyes to record this moment in my journal. I look around and watch my friends with their eyes closed and suddenly I realize how much of life is not about only us. Yet an utter peace rests on us and calm emanates from us as well. When our leader begins a prayer I can fully and truly appreciate wonder and awe in God, in nature, in the people around me, and in myself.
    Future Quest is an experience I will never forget. It has engraved itself in my memory, like the tree and like the cricket. It has caused me to look within myself to accept the world around me. It has brought me closer to my dreams and to an acceptance, if not an understanding, of how God works in little miracles around us every day.
    A collective gasp emerges from my group in the middle of our prayer. There, floating not twenty metres off shore, is a beautiful and majestic loon. Thank you, God.
-Magdalena Jennings