Spirit Quest is the answer to the following questions? Why am I here and
what do I have to offer?

I became conscious of my spiritual path after a near-death experience in my
teens. Feeling like I got another chance, I did my best to follow my heart,
which led me to some interesting and unusual places. I felt my path calling
me; but there was no traditional answer telling me which way to go.
Initially, I found my inspiration through meditation. I studied Integral
Yoga under Swami Satchidananda.

Then, I felt a call toward nature. At first, friends took me out to remote
places in the wilderness; but eventually, I took myself out. Living in the
Northwoods without electricity, heat or running water, two miles from the
nearest plowed road with a new born baby was my initiation. Carrying my son
in a frontpack while on snowshoes, and pulling a toboggan with supplies back
and forth, made me strong.

Years later, I worked at a wolf sanctuary and learned about integrity and
authenticity from wolves. I would rather have been a member of a wolf pack
than a human one, and it further solidified my connection to wild things
and the earth.

While struggling to find a place in the world, teaching writing at a
community college, I was led to healing and energy work. I was carrying
around a lot of emotional baggage, and I didn’t know how to deal with it. I
received invaluable training from Phyllis Winslow at The Institute for
Health and Healing in Tucson. I healed myself while learning to do healing
on others, but my shadow still haunted me.

Later still, I was living an hour-and-a-half from the nearest town in the
mountains of southern New Mexico. Once again, I became more comfortable away
from civilization than in it. I was still running from some part of
myself-–my blind spots, my humanness–and that was where the Toltec shamanic
training came in. Working with Raven Smith and others, trained by Miguel
Ruiz, I learned to see the patterns that were creating my reality; and I
learned to help others see their patterns, too.

The intuitive counseling piece became clear the night before I went on a
vision quest. My higher self came to me in a dream and showed me what my
gift was. Intuiting and seeing–I had been doing that forever, but I was
never sure what to do with it, how it related to others. I spent months
going inward, mid-life, menopausal. Guided by the Toltecs, I went deeply
inward and saw the patterns that were affecting my life and limiting my
reality. I not only saw them, but I was able to dismantle them. I found my
gift of seeing and intuiting and began to learn how to use it.

As my life force energy became more available to me, my dreams began to
return. I found I had a backlog of dreams. One of the loudest ones was to
spend time with whales. I went to Baja, Mexico and hung out with the gray
whales in a small lagoon on the Pacific. Somehow, being there scraped me
down to my most essential nature, taking away all that was no longer
important. What I found was my inner source. In the words of Carol S.
Pearson from The New Hero’s Journey, “In order to make a difference in the
world, you need to do your own work. You need to take your own journey and
face your own dragons and find your own treasures. And the treasure for the
hero’s journey is finding out who you are so you can know what your truth
is, what your vocation is, and what it is you have to give.”

That doesn’t mean I’m done; far from it. It only means that I get to move
forward to the next step. The next step for me is using my gifts, giving
what I have to offer helping others clear the way to connect with their own
gifts, inner source and life force.

-Leslee Morrison 2004