The School of Lost Borders holds the intent that one day meaningful rites of passage will be available to communities worldwide. With the present state of our planet and the incredible challenges people are facing, it is very heartening to witness this ancient rite re-emerging globally. We are committed to supporting the continuation of this movement and to empowering guides and colleagues around the world.

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  • We support international guides to offer wilderness rites of passage in their countries through training and mentorship such as the good resource of the German Speaking Guides Council 
  • We are available to attend and/or speak at various conferences, trainings, and gatherings around the world.
  • We attend and are a sponsor of the International Wilderness Guides Council Gathering that our co-founder Steven Foster began in 2001.
  • If folks from our international communities would like to join one of our School programs in the United States we offer various scholarship opportunities.

Some Lost Borders guides are offering vision fasts and trainings in other countries in partnership with local guides and organizations to cultivate the growth of wilderness rites of passage.

These programs are offered with the full support of the School of Lost Borders but are not offered through the School.

CONTACT INFORMATION: For inquiries about international programs please send a message to [email protected].

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International Offerings

  • Mirroring the Four Shields of Human Nature: The Art of Storytelling and Listening
    • April 28th – May 3rd, 2025 in Les Guilleries Park, Spain
  • Becoming Human: The Four Shields Model of Nature-Based Therapeutics
  • Month-Long Training in Wilderness Rites of Passage
    • April 29th – May 31st, 2026 in Transalquimia’s Retreat Center, Spain
  • Trailhaven and SOLB Vision Fast
    • June 26 – July 6, 2025 in The Pyrenees, Spain

SEE DETAILED INFORMATION FOR EACH PROGRAM BELOW

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MIRRORING THE FOUR SHIELDS OF HUMAN NATURE:
THE ART OF STORYTELLING AND LISTENING

Program Dates:  April 28th – May 3rd, 2025

Location: Les Guilleries Park, Spain

Instructors: Betsy Perluss, Diana Bacanu, Xavier Compte

Contact: [email protected]

Full info HERE

Nowadays, we have forgotten how to listen and how to tell. Yet the very survival of our species depends on our ability to communicate with each other in such ways as to be mutually enriched by the telling and the listening. If we cannot tell with expression, our life is mute. If we cannot listen like a mirror, we cannot reflect back the wholeness of the four shields – the body, soul, mind and spirit of the teller. What comes forth in the story is the stuff of self-transformation. Even as we “myth” ourselves into experience, so we express ourselves into existence. Our stories about our natural selves, and our means of expressing them, lead us to courage, determination, commitment, hope, wisdom, and the will to survive, to transcend the difficulty, to go beyond ourselves. Those of us who work with people must know how to listen and respond to the stories our people tell, so that we can help them create a life that is deeper, richer, and of greater benefit to our community and the earth. This seminar is designed to evoke and create a style of listening and storytelling that is uniquely your own, to practice reflecting what you hear with the fullness of your being (body, psyche, mind and spirit). It is also a ceremony and, like all ceremonies at the School of Lost Borders, requires a willingness to lose your borders and to go beyond what is familiar and known. Our time together will be a weaving of teaching circles, solo time in nature and story council.

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BECOMING HUMAN: THE FOUR SHIELDS MODEL OF NATURE-BASED THERAPEUTICS

Program Dates: 

Location: Dartmoor, England

Instructors: Betsy Perluss, Israh Goodall

Maximum Enrollment: 12 including 1 bursary place.

Contact: [email protected]

Full info HERE

All that we do and teach at the School of Lost Borders may come down to this simple intention: to tap into the deep memory that we are not separate from nature, that, indeed, we are no different from the land on which we live. To know this simple truth sets us upon the path to becoming “fully human.” Nevertheless, after absorbing centuries of messages that tell us we are different from nature – separated and above – such a path is not so clearly marked. As a result, we feel alienated and disconnected from ourselves, from others, and from this planet we call home.

The Four Shields model offers us a compass to help us find our way back to our origins on this living planet. This wheel of human nature was handed down to Steven and Meredith in the early days of Lost Borders and has become essential teaching for regaining our human wholeness within the wholeness of life. The wheel of life is archetypal, crossing boundaries between cultures and time; it is both simple and profound.

The Four Shields demonstrates that our lives move with the seasonal cycles and directions found in the natural world and incorporates all aspects of being: body, psyche, mind, and spirit. It begins in the summer of physical awakening, turns into the fall of our inner depths, moves into the north of our intellect, and emerges in the mysteries of spring. The Four Shields also helps us understand the maladies and symptoms that occur when the natural cycles become hindered in our lives. Thus, the Four Shield model provides an excellent diagnostic tool, as well as the means for restoring movement toward wholeness.

During this six-day experiential ceremony, we will dive deep into the Four Shields, evoking each shield through teaching, solo time on the land, council, story-telling, and mirroring. Each shield will reveal its essence and provide a doorway to the next shield. We will also look at how the Four Shields teaching is used in wilderness rites of passage and how it can be applied in other therapeutic settings, schools, and organisations. This will be a hands-on, practical programme, as well as a time to deepen your practice of becoming more fully human as a being on Earth.

We will hold camp at Greenland Farm situated in the heart of Dartmoor, England.

If you have any questions please email: [email protected]     

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MONTH-LONG TRAINING IN WILDERNESS RITES OF PASSAGE

Program Dates:  April 29th – May 31st, 2026

Location: Transalquimia’s Retreat Center, in Les Guilleries Park, a remote wilderness area located in Northern Spain (1h45 from Barcelona, 45 min from Girona)

Instructors: Betsy Perluss, Angelo Joseph Lazenka, Petra Lentz-Snow, Rupert Marques, Carine Roth, Diana Bacanu, Xavier Compte

Maximum Enrollment: Group of max 12 people. The training will be in English.

Contact: [email protected]

Full info HERE

CONTEMPORARY WILDERNESS RITES OF PASSAGE

Throughout the human story people have made use of wilderness and the ‘mirror of nature’ as a means of gaining clarity in life or marking significant life transitions. Individuals have crossed the threshold into wild places to attend more closely to the movement of soul, to remember what is at one’s core, what is most important. Such transitions in a person’s life were often marked through ceremony as initiatory events or passage rites as a means of reinforcing both to the initiate and the community the new orientation, direction or phase of a person’s life.
 
This training draws on the work of pioneers in the field of contemporary wilderness rites of passage and will attend to both the experiential work of learning the skills and approaches to holding initiatory work, as well the theoretical underpinnings of this work.
 
FOR THOSE WITH A WILDERNESS GUIDE VOCATION
 
The month-long intensive is designed for those who seek to explore and develop their vocation as wilderness guides within the tradition of the School of Lost Borders. Participants are given the opportunity and mentorship to fully immerse themselves in the ceremonial and practical aspects of modern-day wilderness rites of passage that have evolved – and continues to evolve – throughout years of experimentation and practice, and have been passed down through the teaching of our elders. 
 
Although this training supports those who choose to creatively transform and adapt this work to a variety of settings, our teachings remain rooted in the contemporary tradition of wilderness rites of passage; namely utilizing a four-directions eco-centric wheel of development as an underlying framework and attending to the three classic phases of a passage rite: Preparation, Threshold and Incorporation. The threshold or liminal stage of the initiation being a four day and night fast alone in a wild place.
 
Prerequisite:  Participation in at least one guided 3 or 4 day Vision Fasts done recently (in the last 4-5 years). Have a look to Vision Fast guided in Spanish and French by Transalquimia, and Vision Fasts guided in English by Hand on The Earth.
 
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TRAILHAVEN AND SOLB VISION FAST

Program Dates: June 26 – July 6, 2025

Location: The Pyrenees, Spain, most likely held in the beautiful Parc Natural Alt Pirineu in Catalunya

Activity: Vision Fast, including a 3-day Solo Ceremony

Maximum Enrollment: Group of max 10 people. The training will be in English.

Program Guides and Contacts:

Full info HERE

We are amidst a collective unraveling and rite of passage. A betwixt and between time that is both deeply unsettling and full of possibility. Our lives are shifting, the climate is changing, antiquated systems and structures are breaking down. You yourself may be going through a life change: a new job, aging parents, kids leaving the home…

This is a moment ripe for change.

What is this time asking of you? What is your individual and collective responsibility to tend to our communities, cultures, and planet? How can your personal and professional leadership be rooted in wholeness and integrity? Significant life transitions invite our hearts, minds and bodies to open to new ways of being. What is no longer serving you? What needs to be let go? What seeds do you want to plant for the future?

This program is offered by Trailhaven in collaboration with guides from the School of Lost Borders, and is designed to explore and celebrate your commitment to yourself, your dreams, your communities and the wider world.

Are you ready to cross the threshold?