prana + alchemy in the quest

colleen bishop
Mar 22
4 min read

Updated: Apr 15

There is no certainty in this process, in this work of wilderness questing—no assurance of a transformative or even positive experience or outcome. Undoubtedly, it is not a ceremony for spiritual or soul bypassing—quite the contrary.

The enigmatic power of ceremony and nature will, unabashedly, reveal the habitual patterns we've been employing to bypass, block, repress, project, and/or deal with traumatized patterns in our relationship with life and death. Occasionally (and, perhaps, more often than not), the revelation is presented in ways that are messy, quivering, and uncomfortable. The intent is for any or all of these patterns to emerge—from the depths of darkness—and break through the surface layers, allowing us to see, experience, and face them—empty, alone, and exposed.

Ultimately, the uncomfortable and traumatized parts that have been buried beneath a moment or a lifetime of armoring arise for us to say yes to alchemize them. However, such dissolution and disintegration beckons the courage and willingness of the seeker, the quester, to confront it: No one else can do it for them.

Author enacting an unexpected ceremony while 10' from the top of a 100' pillar of ice. Just 10' from the top, a lifetime of self-doubt and a bodily armor or congealed prana buried beneath an imposed narrative of "failure to thriving" emerged. She had a choice: to either continue to reiterate the congealed parts, or allow the dissonance to beckon her toward transformation. Ten feet from the top, she began to transform the narrative a rewrite a new story: The Story of Thriving with Life. — Author enacting an unexpected ceremony while 10' from the top of a 100' pillar of ice. Just 10' from the top, a lifetime of self-doubt and a bodily armor of congealed prana buried beneath an imposed narrative of "failure to thrive" emerged. She had a choice: to either continue to reiterate the congealed parts, or allow the dissonance to beckon her toward transformation + alchemy. Ten feet from the top, she began to transform the narrative a rewrote a new story: The Story of Thriving with Life.

Enacting ceremony and being immersed in nature moves prana—the process moves energy and breaks down our habitual defenses. This movement of prana enables us to experience and confront the emotions, memories, and experiences we have been suppressing. In essence, they arise within the ceremony so they can be released—so they can die a good death—allowing us to choose whether or not to let them go.

Repressed emotions and memories are stored in the body as congealed, blocked, or stagnant energy, indicating areas where prana is not flowing. When prana moves into and reaches said areas, the suppressed parts emerge and can dissolve in a cathartic release, if we allow it. However, if we tense around them and continues to internalize or project these experiences, inward or outward, the repressed emotions, stored memories, traumatic experiences will persist, reinforcing the congealed areas.

Whether it's the sight of a frozen waterfall combined with a lifetime of self-doubt or the presence of a mountain lion that quivers at your own aura, whatever triggers our defenses is integral to the narrative of liberation—the process of transforming prana, if we give it permission to belong.

African lion resting in the warm sunshine on the Serengeti plains

Consider a storm, for example: Wilderness storms have a way of untethering us from our ideals and agendas—perhaps habitual mechanisms that unsustainably make us feel secure and in control. This is the embodied purpose of the storm: to untether and reorient atmospheric pressure.

The question then becomes: how to you respond to the presence of the storm? Do you become tense around it, try to move it away or fix it, and/or project the defensive patterns you acquired back onto it, thus reinforcing the congealed places inside of you and perpetuating a cycle of suffering that is tied to feeding the hungry illusory ghost of control—a false attachment? Or, can you fully experience and confront the storm's pranic power to bring to the surface any repressed emotions, traumatic experiences, and energetic blockages parts, and allow them to be alchemized?

"whatever triggers our defenses is integral to the narrative of liberation"

The latter vignette summons immense courage to face ourselves. In doing so, we face life, and in facing life, we face death. We re-write the narrative and enact embodied liberation with life. Poet and wise elder, Mark Nepo (2007) suggested that when we confront the wild and untamed territories and collisions of life and death within us, openly and honestly, the encounters "hone us into an instrument of living that turns suffering into a music that is bewitching and healing, a music we call love" (p. 65), for we accept that we have no control over the stream, but we can choose how to live in the flow.

The first vignette, however, reinforces the narrative of separateness and deepens the "experience-dependent-neuropathway" that prevents us from responding with compassion and freedom, and further entrenches the pattern of ignorance and pain. The storm ultimately passes through to help us transform, to alchemize the congealed atmospheric pressure.