Some Dare Call It Walkabout: A Very Particualar Journey

I wasn’t looking for a vision quest. I had done that in 1990 with the Bear Tribe. Some would say twenty-five years was long enough to warrant another quest, but in many traditions a vision quest is intended for life. I simply wanted to reconnect directly with the folk music, singer-songwriter community of Kerrville, Texas, with which I had become acquainted in 2001 and 2002. That didn’t happen on the trip here described. I did, however, through seeming happenstance, reconnect with a high school friend from more than forty years earlier and had the pleasure of meeting her husband, and of revisiting Montana. My journey took seven days. It hurt in many ways: physically, emotionally, perhaps intellectually. In a week’s time I was tested in areas I long-ago passed through and mastered, but which had become tarnished or simply wanted more burnishing. There is an old Buddhist saying: Before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment: chop wood, carry water.