The Vision Quest
A 10-day live, in-person immersion into the mysteries of Wild Nature and Wild Soul, carefully curated by Tim Corcoran and Mark Tollefson
Be held in a conscious mentoring culture led by two 20+ year experienced nature-based & soul-based mentors as you prepare, quest and integrate a pinnacle transformational experience of connecting with your deepest life vision, the largest conversation you are capable of having with the world.
A timeless ceremonial process rooted in traditional earth-based wisdom, adapted for humans living today to facilitate the journey of ecological awakening and soul initiation.
Do you hear the call of the wild beckoning your very soul?
Do you sense that you are so much more capable than you are currently expressing?
Do you yearn to connect deeply with your innate gifts and your authentic voice in order to truly serve the world and leave it better than you found it for future generations?
It doesn’t matter if you feel unworthy, afraid of the unknown, wounded by experiences of the past, lack of clarity, overwhelm or any other form of resistance, a genuine meaningful and abundant life of vision can be yours.
Since the dawn of humanity people have fasted alone in the wilderness, seeking vision in order to serve their people and their land. The vision quest is a cross-cultural, nature-based, spiritual practice to discover, make peace with, and fully engage with what remains when all possible distractions have been shed.
In this place of profound stillness and silence, a deeper connection emerges. A deeper connection to the Earth, a deeper connection to Soul, a deeper connection to one’s interconnected essence. This is Vision.
“A human not living their vision is not living at all.”
When we look to the natural world, we see that the only constants are birth, death, and renewal. The Vision Quest provides a container within which you can engage the natural developmental process of deep renewal. Releasing that which is metaphorically dying within, and embracing that which is metaphorically being born allows you to mature and grow with the changes inside and outside of yourself in order to connect with your deepest calling.
We created the Purpose Mountain Vision Quest for humans with a passion for wild nature and engaging the mystery of life itself. This experience is designed to support you to transform from yearning for a profound connection with vision, nature and soul, to living a life of profound connection to vision, nature and soul.
A Global Perspective
We are living in wildly unprecedented times amidst a global pandemic, an economic recession, political & cultural upheaval, climate change, and incredible biodiversity loss. Many of the systems, worldviews and mindsets of the past have brought great pain, suffering and destruction to our most precious Earth, countless human beings, and innumerable species across our planet. This great wounding is apparent in our forests and oceans, in our families and communities, and in our human bodies and psyches.
Yet after all this, the natural world continue to follow its original instructions. Amazingly, life continues to regenerate.
What will make the difference between global catastrophe and our planet thriving is how we as human beings show up moment by moment.
This is our time. Imagine future generations many years from now looking back at us with tremendous gratitude. They’ll stand in awe as they consider the courage and bravery of those who made a stand for what is right, when everything seemed to be falling apart.
They’ll wonder about who it was that cared so much about nature and life itself. They’ll give thanks for people like you who took courageous bold steps to discover their vision and live their purpose for the betterment of all things.
This is our time and our opportunity to make a difference. My great hope is that you discover and embody your vision for yourself, your family, your community, our Earth, and for countless future generations.
Benefits you’ll receive from The Vision Quest:
- How to use a powerful and effective approach to connect deeply with your authentic life’s vision
- How to connect with your genuine deep self, your Soul
- How to discover your natural power which comes directly from your connection to the Earth
- How to claim your authentic voice and speak your truth
- How to move through fear, doubt and inner resistance
- How to uncover your motivation, passion, and eagerness for life itself
- How to let go of old beliefs, patterns and ways of being that are too small for you
- How to find confidence that you are on your own authentic path in life, regardless of how long you’ve been searching
- How to become a mature, soul-initiated adult
- How to transcend the ego and build a lasting relationship with Soul
- How to listen deeply through the sacred silence and quiet mind
- How to deal with feelings of not being worthy and low self esteem
- How to connect deeply with nature and engage the process of awakening to your oneness with the Earth
- How to live life to the fullest, engaged in relationship with all living things
What makes this process unique?
Our map of the nature-based visionary developmental process is true to the essence of traditional earth based initiations, yet artfully adapted for modern humans living today. This is a contemporary offering designed to support you to successfully depart from the world we live in today, take the journey “up the mountain” to be touched by the power of Vision, and successfully return back to the modern world empowered to live your deepest calling.
While we have great respect for the classic rite of passage structure of severance/threshold/incorporation as well as the hero’s journey, unlike most vision quests being offered today we embrace a more evolved structure that works more effectively. After all, the journey a modern human makes to quest for vision is different from the journey our earth-based ancestors took because our daily life is so different. We place a greater focus on the transitions in and out of the journey, and have deep sensitivity and skill for navigating the unique inner landscape of the modern human being.
We’re skilled in the art of transitioning you out of the degenerative modern culture, and into our consciously created community that honors nature and soul at the center.
You’ll receive the benefits of Tim & Mark’s collective 50 years experience as mentors guiding people on transformational wilderness quests and spiritual passages in nature, as well as our deep commitment to the nature-based visionary path. We were both first brought into this journey by traditional indigenous elders & mentors, and we hold true to the essence of that pathway.
Our process is rooted in extensive deep nature connection mentoring experience, and we understand that an authentic connection to vision can’t happen until you’ve first awakened your connection to the Earth. Our process is designed to facilitate this awakening.
Our nature-based understanding of the human psyche, and the impact of living in a Soul & Vision starved world. We have a mature understanding of Wholing, the difference between the transformation that comes from the experience of self-love vs. the experience of being loved by the Earth vs. the experience of being loved by Soul / Mystery / Vision. We are skilled at guiding you to cultivate all three.
Personalized mentoring balanced with strong community facilitation. It’s not hard to send someone out into the wilderness for four days. Where skill and experience in the art of mentoring is needed is in the preparation leading up to the quest, and the integration process afterwards. We’re deeply committed to this process. You’ll benefit from a personalized process that uniquely meets you right where you’re at, along with leveraging the power of group consciousness.
This is a holistic process that incorporates body, mind, heart, spirit and soul. Somatic experience, mindfulness, mind’s eye processes, deep emotional journeys, consciousness practices, spiritual processes and soulful nature adventures are all part of the experience.
Our embrace of both Power and Vulnerability. We’ll be a rock solid container for your transformational process, and we’ll be open, transparent and emotionally vulnerable with you. We recognize the need for both in order to support your ultimate visionary development. We don’t shy back from embracing our power, nor do we hold back from expressing our vulnerability because we’ve taken the deep journey of finding our worth in connection to the Earth, the spirit-that-moves-through-all-things, our more-than-human community, and our own inner capacity for nurturing self love. We’ve got nothing to hide.
We care more – We bring a deep level of heartfelt love to your experience. We hold a powerful, safe, and sacred space that supports your deepest parts to feel supported so that you can succeed in discovering the truth of who you really are and why you’re really here.
A Personal Note from Tim
Thank you for considering taking this deep journey of the Vision Quest with me. Allow me to share a bit about myself and my story.
For the past 25 years, my entire adult life, I’ve been relentlessly following my vision to discover and fulfill my life’s purpose in service to humanity and our world. Since childhood, I’ve had a passion for wild nature and the great mysteries of life, consciousness, and soul.
As a boy I had an incredible zest for life, which at times got me into all kinds of trouble. Yet as I looked around me at the adults in my world, none of them seemed to be fully alive, their spirits seemed dampened… to say the least. I remember wondering, “Is this all there is for me when I grow up?”
I experienced my fair share of childhood trauma including abuse, bullying, and divorce. As a result, I realized that the American dream was a pipe dream, and after playing by the rules and graduating from university, I went out in search of truth. I needed to find a pathway that didn’t just serve me, but served the greater culture and the world itself.
Fueled by my passion for nature and the great mysteries of life, I sought out indigenous wisdom by living and learning from Native American communities, families and elders including the Navajo Nation of the desert southwest, the Oglala Lakota of the Great Plains, the Odawa people of the Great Lakes, and the Spokane Tribe of the Inland Northwest.
I immersed myself in deep nature connection and earth based mentoring, studying with the best visionary mentors and wilderness schools.
At age 26, I enacted my first Vision Quest under the guidance of a skilled mentor. The wisdom I found guided me to look back inside to my own soul, as well as outside into the soul of nature. The deeper I looked in each direction, the more overlap I found.
Guided by vision and purpose, I founded a deep nature connection mentoring organization along with my wife Jeannine. In 2005 we started Twin Eagles Wilderness School, which is still running strong today.
As I served thousands of people to develop a spiritual connection to nature, my learning didn’t stop. In order to find the success I did, I had a tremendous amount of fear, resistance, and doubt to move through. I joined the men’s movement and a men’s group and practiced emotional maturity amongst a circle of initiated men until I found myself as a leader in that work.
I faced enormous frustration through my journey, as I was never able to find a single path that gave me everything I needed. I explored every human potential workshop and personal development seminar I could find, continuing to face myself over and over. I studied and practiced depth psychology and took a multi-year journey with therapy, all the while still honoring the old ways of indigenous wisdom. The one constant in my journey was always a commitment to the Vision Quest as a regular practice. By putting all these pieces together, eventually I was able to heal and transform my deepest wounds, and claim the golden gifts that had been there all along just waiting for me.
I realized that no single body of work was whole in itself, but that each had something deeply significant to offer. The real magic came when I brought together the timeless wisdom of indigenous teachings with a modern nature-based understanding of the human psyche. Combined with my Vision Quest practice, I was able to finally birth my wholeness as a human being, and fully step into my purpose making my greatest contribution for the betterment of the world.
I’ve brought the best of all of this together into this offering of the Vision Quest. It’s my great honor to offer this as a gift to you. There is nothing more important to me than connecting with vision and purpose, and guiding others like you to do the same. I hope you’ll join me for this profound journey for yourself, and for our most precious world.
From the heart,
-Tim
A Personal Note from Mark
Thank you for checking in and reading this web page. I’m so excited to do the work I do in the world, and to help uplift our ideas about what and who we are, how we can lift that view for humanity and for the Earth.
I was born in the wilds of northern Canada and my first teachers were nature, the seasons, and a large extended family. I got to watch and see how my uncles and my father connected with nature every day as they ran our family farm. Years later as I sat with my last living uncle I asked him questions about the birds, the plants, the ecosystem and he was able to answer every question with detail and stories of life experience. He lived on the same land for over 50 years and his knowledge of place was one of the most complete I have ever seen.
I take it as part of the legacy I was handed from my family to continue that journey of discovery and exploration. For many years as I went through school, college and work I could never totally square the way humanity was living with those early memories of what it was like to live in a rich abundant environment. I struggled to find my place in the world, still holding that feeling that so many of us have in our teens that there must be some grand plan for me and my life, yet as the years passed I couldn’t find it. I bounced around from job to job and relationship to relationship trying to find meaning for how to live my life.
At the pinnacle of that frustration things began to change. I had no idea at the time that the hard work and great synchronicities that came to me would bring into my life the powerful mentors I have had, nor did I understand how profoundly they would change my life. I began to meet people that were so giving to me with spirituality, nature connection, and human design. They began to help me connect the dots in my life and see how everything I had done was preparation for the journey to live a life full of love and connection. They were as tough and exacting as they were kind and loving.
Although many of those elders have now passed on, the course they helped me set for myself continues. It’s not easy and daily I still uncover old beliefs, trauma, and wounds that need love and healing.
One of the foundational teachings I received was that it wasn’t enough to have deep transformational experiences in nature, or through work with seasoned veterans of human development. I needed to offer that same opportunity to the people in my life.
For 30 years I have worked with thousands of people individually and in groups so we could all turn our heads and look towards a more holistic and meaningful way of living our lives. The synthesis of my spiritual teachings, connection to nature, and understanding the developmental processes to grow and self-actualize as a human being has given me some very unique perspectives to share.
The Vision Quest is a pinnacle experience in this journey. It’s the best of the best. I am so excited and honored to offer this opportunity to you. Working together you can uncover your deepest essence and purpose. I sincerely hope you will join me on this journey together.
May the journey begin,
Mark
Praise
“Tim Corcoran and Mark Tollefson are two deeply present, humble, experienced, discerning, passionate and creative facilitators, highly skilled and gifted in guiding both deep soulful personal process and wilderness immersion experiences that have real power to crack open the ego and allow direct experiential access to the interdependent web of loving support too long forgotten and ignored by the vast majority of the industrialized world.
Initially reluctant to commit to another experiential training at an inconvenient time, Tim met my hesitations with support for following my authentic discernment process. After several days of feeling solid in my “no” a series of dreams and waking realizations led me to join their Spring 2022 Vision Quest with only just over a week of lead time. I’m so grateful I did.
The series of synchronicities and resonances I encountered, and the particularity of deep impact in me of those who happened to come together, the land that held us all for our 6 days of group work and 4 days of solo fasting, and all that unfolded for all of us will forever be a formative experience in reconnecting with my ancestral lineage, seeing and claiming my unique place in the world, and finding an ever deeper surrender to trust the process in reclaiming a heartfelt, embodied and rooted connection to Mother Earth and the more than human world.
Tim and Mark have earned my full throated and heartfelt endorsement as Soul Guides, Wild Men and Spiritual Teachers. May they long continue this path of service through story and song, poetry and primitive skills, ceremony and authentic communion. I give thanks for the indigenous guides, holy people, and teachers who have mentored these two and the time they’ve invested in honing their craft as emissaries reconnecting the epidemic of disconnected souls back into the participatory embrace of Right Relationship with All My Relations.”
Vision Quest Overview
This experience is structured as a 10-day live, group immersion in wild nature, along with group Zoom sessions before and after:
Heeding the Call – Nature-based Practices & Visionary Foundations
Zoom
We’ll begin the journey by gathering together as a group over Zoom while everyone is still home. This early groundwork is designed to set in motion your deeper psycho-spiritual process as you prepare to leave the world of ordinary consciousness.
- Learn a powerful set of daily and weekly routines that serve as a foundation for your visionary developmental process.
- Come into right relationship with your body, mind, heart, spirit & soul as preparation for the journey ahead.
- Discover the secret to leveraging your existing community of relationships to anchor the process of supporting your soulful adventure.
- Learn how dreams, synchronicity and symbols from nature are the language of vision/soul, and how to speak that language in preparation for the deeper conversations to come.
- Establish essential deep nature connection practices that will take you into a rich relationship with the living Earth.
The Journey Up The Mountain
First three days of our 10-day immersion
to Leaving the modern world behind, our bonds deepen as we arrive on the land together. We’ll create a conscious cultural container together as we acclimate to the group, our place, and the more-than-human-world. This enables us to begin the deep work of courageously facing one’s self within a safe container in direct preparation for the Vision Quest.
- Learn an honorable way of greeting the land that will hold you through your visionary transformation.
- Experience a blend of group work and personalized mentoring to deepen your nature-based psycho-spiritual journey.
- Discover the power of intention for your Vision Quest, and how it will shape your entire experience. Find meaningful ways of allowing the voice of mystery and the land to inform your intention far beyond what the mind and ego are capable of.
- Learn how to embrace a mature, reciprocal give-and-take relationship with both wild nature and wild soul.
- Work with fear, resistance, and doubt that might otherwise prevent your quest from succeeding, including a deep journey into both your shadow and your light.
- Learn to work with your cast of inner selves in order to reduce inner conflict, cultivate authentic inner harmony, and open the floodgates of vision.
- Learn about obstacles, tools, and neutral elements to the Vision Quest to support your experience.
- Discover how to comprehensively physically prepare for the Vision Quest in order to ensure your safety.
Wild Visionary Revelation – The Vision Quest
Center four days of our 10-day immersion
“This is the pinnacle experience of the entire event. 96 hours alone on the land, fasting and lamenting for your vision. Like a great time-out on life itself, you will spend these timeless days dwelling in a liminal space, free of every possible distraction. Here you will hear the voice of the Earth, deeply engage the mystery, and commune with Soul.
This sublime, ancient passage that all of our human ancestors the world over have been practicing for millennia is an initiatory rite unparalleled in its capacity to reveal your unique gifts, soul powers, timeless essence, deepest calling and much more.
- Experience your full, raw, wild nature as you immerse in wild nature.
- Discover how to create a deeply personalized, ceremonial space for your process.
- Experience complete freedom from the modern world, and it’s conscious and unconscious impact on your whole being.
- Learn to engage the quiet mind, the sacred silence.
- Discover what it means to be dreamed by the Earth.
- Enact a mythical “death & rebirth” experience to completely release the past and fully open yourself to your tremendous potential as a new human being.
- Touch the “truth at the center of the image you were born with.”
- Enter into “the largest conversation you are capable of having with the world.”
Coming Down The Mountain
Last three days of our 10-day immersion
Returning from your Vision Quest to our safe, sacred container, you’ll be welcomed back with open arms from your guides and companions alike. You’ll bring nourishing food back into your body, rest deeply, and begin the essential process of integrating your experience, as you prepare to take your precious vision back home to share with your people and with the world.
- Receive guidance & support on moving from the deep liminal world back to the physical world, now with new eyes.
- Receive personalized, soulful reflection of your quest from skilled & experienced guides to help you experience the true depth of your vision quest, and learn what countless others have discovered; that much more happened on your vision quest than you first thought.
- Learn a powerful set of journaling prompts and practices to support your integration process.
- Be mentored on how to spend time on the land to both process your experience and stay connected to your vision.
- Feel the nurturing, generative power of our group that shares the same deep experience you are having to support you in claiming the full power of your vision.
- Experience Dream Work, Active Imagination, and Sensory Meditation exercises to help deepen your capacity to speak the language of Soul and make meaning out of your visionary experience.
- Be supported to resolve issues of giving and receiving pain in your life, one of the keys to living a purposeful life of vision.
- Learn what it means to live or “perform” your vision so that you have full access to the power of your vision.
- Be well supported to prepare to return home with your gifts & vision, born anew.
- Learn how to stay awake to the truth of your vision so that you can live a conscious, soulful, purposeful life moving forward serving the world.
The Transition Home – Living Your Vision
Zoom
Back home now, we will close our journey together by returning you to our circle of support. This final integration phase is designed to support you in what can otherwise be a tumultuous journey of learning what it means to live with vision and bring your gifts back to the world.
- Return to our safe and sacred circle of support to process the ups and downs of your new, visionary life.
- Be given mentoring sustenance for your soulful, nature-based practices to keep your connection to vision alive.
- Receive the support of our powerful cultural mentoring structure that offers both nurturing love and solid accountability to support your journey.
- Learn what it means to “live your soul image”, to somatically embody the full power of your vision.
- Discover how to wrap the bundle of your visionary experience so that it lives on regeneratively.
- Experience a deep and powerful final ceremony to close out our space.
- Learn how to stay awake to the truth of your vision so that you can live a new, conscious, soulful & purposeful life moving forward serving the world.
About Tim
Tim Corcoran is the founder of Purpose Mountain, where he serves as a Vision Quest Guide and certified Nature Based Purpose Guide to support people who hear the call from wild nature to discover their purpose, those with a burning desire to live their vision and a willingness to work with resistance and fears through the Ecology of Self and Voice Dialogue.
Tim also serves as co-Director of Twin Eagles Wilderness School, an organization he co-founded with his wife, Jeannine Tidwell, in Sandpoint, Idaho in 2005 dedicated to facilitating deep nature connection mentoring, cultural restoration, and inner tracking.
Tim is a leader of men’s groups and holistic rites of passage for males, guiding and initiating men and boys into the new paradigm of the mature masculine.
Since 1999, Tim has dedicated his life towards consciously furthering this vision of living in balance with the Earth, community, family, self, spirit and soul.
Healing the cultural rift between the mainstream and indigenous cultures, transformational consciousness work, the spiritual journey, ancestral work, deep nature connection, family and holistic health are all deep commitments in his life.
Tim is a heart centered father of two brilliant boys and husband to a magnificent wife, and lives in pristine Sandpoint, Idaho.
About Mark
Mark Tollefson has been teaching nature-based connection and facilitating transformation for 30 years. Born in the wilds of northern Canada and from a young age mentored by people intimately connected to their lineage and nature-based roots he brings rich life experience and wisdom to his work.
Mark has been a survival skills instructor at Tom Brown Jr.’s Tracker School, the executive director of Wilderness Youth Project and the Center for Urban Agriculture at Fairview Gardens in Santa Barbara. He has owned a pub and restaurant, worked as a roughneck in the oil fields, helped open an international high school in New Zealand, and founded his own non-profit working to promote sustainable farming with the Maya of southern Belize.
He has participated in and started many men’s groups and has sat in circle with men for many years.
He has guided hundreds of people through rites of passage into holistic living and thinking, helping those he works with to step into a new paradigm of being that is based on Thriving Life, connected to our true purpose for being alive at this time.
Mark works one-on-one and in groups with people who wish to live from their essence and uncover the blocks that keep them from living a Thriving Life. His unique process of using myth and story-telling helps create a map unique to each person that will uncover true vision and purpose.
Mark has many passions including playing music, poetry, carpentry, and cooking delicious food. He is the father of two amazing children and lives in Santa Barbara, California.
Next Vision Quest Being Offered:
April 7 – 16, 2023
in the high desert of southern California
- Lead Vision Quest Guides: Tim Corcoran and Mark Tollefson, plus assistants.
- Group Size: Up to 12 participants
- Ages: 18+
- Times: We begin at 9:00 am Pacific on the first day, and close by 5:00 pm Pacific on the last day, so plan your travel for the days before and after.
- Location: Quail Springs Permaculture Retreat Center, Maricopa, California.
- Nearest Airport: Santa Barbara, California (SBA) or Los Angeles, California (LAX).
- Accommodations: Camping is provided.
- Meals: Participants are responsible for most of their own meals. Some meals are provided.
- Gear List: Will be provided after registration. Participants are responsible for providing all of their own camping gear including proper outdoor clothing, cooking supplies, and most of their own food. Some group gear will be provided.
This Vision Quest Experience Includes
- Full 10-day live, in-person group immersion experience.
- Zoom sessions before and afterward to support you in preparing for and integrating your visionary experience.
Register Now
Step in to this profound journey of questing for vision.
10-Day Wilderness Vision Quest with Tim Corcoran and Mark Tollefson
Normal cost is $2,650 USD. Payment plans are available.
Early Bird Discount! Receive a 10% discount if you register six weeks or more before the start date (by February 24, 2023), for a total of only $2,385 USD. Use coupon code EARLY-BIRD-VQ
To get started, please click the button below to register online.