Lost Borders Press publishes from "the country of lost borders,” the old Paiute Indian name for the Owens Valley, one of the most spectacularly beautiful places on earth. We invite you to wander this country within the covers of our books.

You too may lose your borders .

The Press was created, and its publications are offered, to support the growing number of youth and adults looking for meaningful ways to move from one life stage to another: child to adult, single to married, adult to elder, and the greatest change of all, living into the unknown of dying. Crossing borders. Losing borders. Living and dying more consciously in the same cycles of renewal which are expressed daily, and elegantly, in the natural world around us.

Here are stories and teachings that lead us beyond the borders of our technological paradigm. We seek to find ourselves in a world where human and nature are one, sacred is not separate from our daily lives and struggles, and where the yearning for wholeness leads us toward compassion and passion for each other and this precious land that sustains us.

Lost Borders Press does this in support of the growing number of other truly fine trainers and guides around the world.  These people have committed their lives to “midwifing” youth and adults through the death-and-rebirth of meaningful wilderness passage rites.

High Sierra QUEST FOR VISION RETREATS - thirty eight years of leading quests to purposively seek renewal, wisdom-guidance, vision, healing and empowerment for your life path from the "Powers of the Universe" through ancient time-tested indigenous attunement-practices.

TOM PINKSON, Ph.D., is a transpersonal psychologist, ceremonial retreat and vision-fast leader, sacred storyteller, author and spiritual guide and founder and director of Wakan, a nonprofit organization committed to restoring the sacred in daily life. Tom helped start the Second Hospice program in the United States and then worked for 32 years with terminally ill children at the Center for Attitudinal Healing in California, successfully integrating the wisdom teachings of the Huichol and other medicine teachers from around the world that he has studied with for forty five years into his work as a practicing psychologist.   His book -  “The Shamanic Wisdom of the Huichol: Medicine Teachings for Modern Times” is the autobiographical account of Tom’s decade-long immersion in the shamanic traditions of the Huichol tribe of the Sierra Madre in Mexico bringing new life to this ancient eco-centric tradition. Tom has been leading yearly vision quests in the High Sierra since 1972.

Most recently he founded and conducts a new program – Recognition Rites for A New Vision of Aging – Honoring Elders  that shifts mainstream attitudes, beliefs and behaviors about aging and older people into the positive and socially-integrative ones found in indigenous cultures. 
 

The Wilderness Guides Council is a non-profit, membership organization dedicated to the concept that wilderness is the root source of our spiritual values, inspiration and healing. We are a world-wide community that uses a pan-cultural model for rites-of-passage work, including the ceremony variously called the vision quest, wilderness quest, vision fast and other names.  While each of our members operates their business independently, we are each committed to the same mission and ethics. We are incorporated in the United States and our members can be found around the world.

Whether you are a guide looking for other guides to share experiences and hold community with, or are an individual seeking a guide for wilderness initiation, we hope you will take the time to explore this web site and it's resources.

Current members who offer guide services are listed in the Guide Directory with links to their email addresses and websites. WGC guides would love to hear from you.