23 Mar
11 days
Death Valley, CA
2027 vision quests
Four quests in 2027. Eight places on each.
$1,595 with early registration, $1,795 after that. Registration closes 30 days before each start date.
How pricing works ↗
23 Mar
11 days
Death Valley, CA
18 May
11 days
Gila, New Mexico
10 Aug
11 days
Abiquiú, New Mexico
16 Sep
11 days
Southern Vermont
The eleven days
How a vision quest works, in three steps.
Everyone is afraid before a fast, including the guides.
Prepare
Meet your guide and your group, tell your story, learn the ceremony, the safety rules and the medicine wheel, practise sleeping out. By the time you walk out you have already left most of your fear at base camp.
Four days
Go out
Alone within reach of base camp, fasting on water, with a stone-pile check each day so we know you are safe. What you do with the time is yours.
Four days & nights
Come home
A welcome ceremony, food, an elders' council where your story is heard and mirrored, and a plan for the life you are returning to.
Three days
What people say
The quest stays with you.
Small groups of eight · Vermont, New Mexico and Death Valley · Prices and dates published, no surprises.
1980
● Guiding since
150+
● Small-group quests led
11
● Days on every quest
2
● Scholarship places per program
“The greatest choice”
“What a gift!”
“I am finding my wings”
“Such an inspiration”
“Truly a rite of passage”
Hover to pause
Why people come
Why people come to Circles of Air & Stone.
A guide who still goes out himself, a group small enough to know you, and a return that is held as carefully as the solo.
- 01
A guide who still quests.
Sparrow Hart has gone out himself every year since 1980 and has led more than 150 groups. He wrote the training manual other guides use.
- 02
Small groups, real safety.
Eight people at most, a daily check at the stone pile during the solo, and a preparation that covers medication, fitness and fear before you walk out.
- 03
The return is part of the quest.
Three days of incorporation on site, then post-quest counselling if you want a partner for the months after.
- 04
Honest terms.
Prices, deposits and refund rules are printed, and two places on every program carry a payment plan or scholarship.
Meet your guide
Sparrow Hart and the team.
Circles of Air & Stone (also known online as Quest for Vision) is a wilderness rites-of-passage organisation based in Putney, Vermont, founded and guided by Sparrow Hart.
● Guide recordCircles of Air & StonePutney · VT
Surname
Hart
Given name
Sparrow
Base
Putney, Vermont
First quest
1980
Trained in
School of Lost Borders tradition
Groups led
150+
Created the Mythic Warrior men's training in 1994. Author of
Letters to the River: A Guide to a Dream Worth Living and The Vision Quest: A Guide's Training Manual.
Q<CIRCLESOFAIRANDSTONE<<HART<<SPARROW<<<<
1980<<PUTNEY<<VT<<GUIDE<<150<<<<<<<<
He guides with
Alan RobertsAdam WadelRiver StrongAmanda RaderJulia WolfSebastien Butterfly
Meet Sparrow and the team ↗
Where we quest
Compare the three landscapes ↗
Three landscapes, one ceremony.
Earth & water · home groundVermont
Lake shore and forest in the southern Green Mountains, an hour from Brattleboro. Mist on the lake at sunrise, geese overhead in September.
Mountains & riverNew Mexico
The Gila and Aldo Leopold Wilderness near Silver City, and the Chama River canyons near Abiquiú: ponderosa pine, hot springs, cliff dwellings, summer thunderstorms.
Air & fireDeath Valley, California
Sand, stone, silence and a sky full of stars, with a creek-side base camp near Big Pine.
Good to know
Questions people ask before they call.
Something else on your mind? Write to Sparrow directly.
Ask Sparrow a question ↗{{f.a}}
