A remembrance of Tom Brown, Jr.
Tom Brown, Jr. passed from the physical realm in August of this year. Tom was the link between Grandfather Stalking Wolf (and his lineage) and everything on this website. That is, without Tom, the teachings represented on this website would not be alive in the hundreds of Protectors trained in this tradition and thousands of Questors who have allowed themselves to be transformed by the Quest.
I don’t know it’s possible to describe the passion that Tom taught with. When I took the Tracker School’s “Standard” class in 1988, I was over the moon with the depth and breadth of Tom’s teachings around wilderness survival skills. But more than that, I became transfixed with Tom’s brief introduction into Grandfather’s “philosophy” skills. An agnostic at the time, I was very surprised to suddenly have a great thirst for this hidden knowledge. There was a certain power and possibility that came through Tom’s words and his presence. A Truth that resonated well beyond the words he spoke. Tom briefly described the Vision Quest as one of the classes offered through the Tracker School (later, I discovered that Tom had actually passed teaching of the Quest on to Malcolm Ringwalt, Karl “Bear” Povisils, and Chuck Geowey who quested during Tom’s first group Vision Quest and subsequently apprenticed at his next Quests).
By the time I came back for the advanced standard and tracking classes, my thirst for exploring the philosophy/spiritual skills was unquenchable. Again, this was only a small part of these classes but Tom laid out more breadcrumbs and, thereafter, I absolutely had to know more about the Worlds unseen and Eternal. Tom did not merely pontificate or share wisdom, he pointed the way to exploring Truths that can only be known through direct experience. He challenged his students: “prove me right or prove me wrong”. And without that direct experience, true transformation is not possible.
Eventually I took Philosophy I-III at Tracker and volunteered at another. There was a certain magical presence in Tom’s teachings, but it was always the direct, personal experience that transformed my Heart, that melted my hardened (and false) beliefs. Tom would point the way but the student had to walk that path.
Sometime in there I took my first Vision Quest with Bear, Malcolm, and Chuck. A couple of years later I took the Protector Training Class with Malcolm and Bear, and I found my Path. I only directly studied with Tom a few times after that, mostly via his online classes. His regular “haunting” of my dreams became less frequent over the years. But I cannot imagine my life without Tom’s influence and showing me this sacred pathway – the “philosophy” skills (see his book Awakening Spirits) and, especially, the Vision Quest.
The Vision Quest, as passed down in Grandfather’s tradition, is such a profound and powerful transformational experience. Perhaps the single most important teaching is to simply pay attention – to everything happening in the physical, emotional, mental, and beyond. To shift to simple awareness. To simply be in the Eternal Now moment. This Light of awareness is both healer and guide. And it lives within us, at our core. This is a Truth that I may not have ever recognized without the foundation of Tom’s teachings, even if I never heard him directly use those words. Another way to say this is that Tom was a transformational teacher, opening the Hearts of his students to their core Truth.
There have been many rich, profound, and heartfelt remembrances of Tom on social media. One that particularly resonated with me was written by Sam Robertson on the Nature Philosophy Australia Instagram account. In part:
“Tom was a powerful healer who embodied the light and the shadow in equal measure. It’s what made him a brilliant teacher. There were no white robes or new age spiritual bullshit with Tom. No, he was blue jeans, coffee, cigarettes and Hummers. He was an imperfect human navigating the belly of the beast of Western Culture with the same power and presence of the Yogis and ascended masters meditating in some remote cave.” 
One reason I appreciate Sam’s words is because it reminded me how I judged Tom after reading his books – namely how surprised I was that the author of “The Tracker” and “The Vision” could be a chain-smoking driver of a lifted ¾ ton pick-up. Of course, Tom’s humanness (and any judgements around that) did not diminish the Power and Truth of his words. Moreover, Sam showing me a new perspective brings to my awareness how many hundreds of teachers Tom shaped, and not just the Vision Quest Protectors represented by this website.
Thank you, Tom Brown, Jr., for your unbounded passion and love for the Earth and your students. May this passion live on in your students and, in turn, all they touch. Godspeed, see you on the other side of the Veil.
In Gratitude, Matt Hansen
P.S. Check out this short video of Tom passionately speaking of two targeted Quests.