Holy Quest Nature Walks

Communing with God in Nature

Questhaven Retreat offers Holy Quest Nature Walks on a regular basis to allow spiritual seekers to reverently walk our 655-acres of nature trails, developing a deeper connection to the Divine in a peaceful and sacred nature setting. View our calendar for dates and times.

Questhaven's trails vary widely in difficulty, from wide and flat to rocky and steep, so seekers of all fitness levels and abilities can find a trail that suits them and are welcome to join us. We recommend that you bring water, journal, sunscreen, hat, layers and hiking shoes.

We meet under the oak tree by Chapelito where we are greeted by a spiritual keynote or insight to contemplate and practice on the trail.

In the heart of nature's stillness, we receive the full meaning of God without help or interpretation.
Flower A. Newhouse

We read the words of the nature mystics for inspiration and instruction.

When we desire to find God and to be awakened, we will at regular times withdraw to those sacred places of nature, and there, lift up our heart and our whole being. There we will purify our consciousness and ask God to teach us and to instruct us. We find that as we do this, we are fed by and helped by every soul whose nature love is greater than our own.
Flower A. Newhouse

We walk Questhaven's nature trails in reverent silence.

Now these mountains are our holy land, and we ought to 'saunter' through them reverently, not 'hike' through them.
John Muir

We learn from nature's rocks, wrens, water and woodlands.

There is nothing to me that equals the inspiration of the out of doors. Books are beautiful. We enjoy them. We are inspired by them. But give me the book of nature any day, and its hills and its valleys and its lakes and its shores and its clouds and its sunshine and everything it has. It is a wonderful thing to find God in nature.
Flower A. Newhouse

We love beauty with a deep sense of awe, expectancy and joy.

Take in everything before you, and let your eyes be drenched with beauty, and as you love beauty in a reverent way, it becomes a sacrament to you.
Flower A. Newhouse

We look to nature as teacher, healer and enlightener.

This is what we want to remember during every time we approach instruction from nature or initiation into its great mysteries, that our whole gaze must be upward, our thoughts must be aspiring, they must be united with, in reverence, the glories we see.
Flower A. Newhouse

We seek to know God and the inner side of nature.

We want to see the beauty that God is painting for us constantly to our visible sight and feel with all our inner beings what is behind that outer beauty.
Flower A. Newhouse

The Meeting Circle

Click on the panoramic image to take a virtual tour of our meeting circle, located under the large oak tree adjacent to El Chapelito. This is where we gather as a group in a circle and share a spiritual keynote or insight to be used as an exercise on the trail to help us deepen our attunement experience.

The Experience

To help us to deepen our connection and raise our consciousness, a spiritual exercise is presented to experience on the trail. These exercises cover a variety of topics and techniques intended to help us gain the most from the outer beauty and inner mysteries of Nature.

• Nature Mysticism—Experiencing God in Nature
• Communion in Nature—Silence, Prayer and Meditation
• Nature's Beauty—Beauty as a Sacrament
• The Inner Side of Nature—The Nature Kingdom
• Inner Perception—Developing our Sixth Sense
• Harmonizing with Nature—The Four Elements
• Nature as Teacher—Signs and Symbols
• Oneness with Nature—Identifying with All Life
• Healing in Nature—Nature's Gift of Renewal
• Nature Mystics—Primers for Illumination

Questhaven is truly a peaceful holy ground to find God in nature. Thank you for providing such a sacred environment to journey inward...to find my own self and my loving Creator.
T.P.

Reading Suggestions

Songs of Deliverance
Flower A. Newhouse encourages her readers to journey to the mountains in the chapter At-one-ment With Nature.

The Journey Upward
Flower urges us to translate Nature's beauty to our spirits and our senses in the chapter Finding Enlightenment Through Nature.

Angels of Nature
Flower views Nature as a sacred creation to be valued and revered in the chapter Finding Enlightenment Through Nature.

Rediscovering the Angels
Flower says to go into Nature to find intelligent healers and teachers in the chapter The Open Door of Nature.