CULTURAL RELATIONS
As an organization, the School of Lost Borders is committed to introducing participants and trainees to the important history of First Nation peoples in the many places where we hold our programs. We acknowledge much of our work, including our headquarters, are in Payahuunadü, the ancestral, historical and contemporary homelands of the Nüümü and Newe peoples.
We make it a practice to look for ways to say thank you, not only to the land, but to the community. Some guides contribute time, energy and funds to indigenous organizations as well as other efforts focused on social justice, healing, and the restoring of right relations.
Accessibility
While the programs at the School of Lost Borders are inclusive to all people, we recognize the need to have programs anchored within particular communities, such as Queer specific programs offered for the LGBTQ2IA+ community, veterans, women, men, youth, and elders. In these spaces, there is often a strong container of shared experience, which provides added safety and can be very healing.
We know that similar identity-specific programs are needed for BIPOC and other identity groups not currently served in this way by the School. We are working towards wholeness, creating more access and more representation within our own guide collective, and more inviting spaces for systematically marginalized communities in our organization and work.
Relationship
We strongly encourage people to learn about their own ancestry and roots, knowing that ceremony comes through relationship and deep connection with people and place. At the same time, we acknowledge that it is a privilege to know, and have access to records of one's own ancestry.
With that, our work is focused on offering all people an opportunity to experience belonging on this earth. To feel a part of, and not separate from nature. As this relationship is remembered, marked and celebrated, we hope that all cultural identities and traditions can co-exist a bit more peacefully.
Solidarity Statement
We at the School of Lost Borders are aware that our work exists within a context of challenging and often painful issues related to justice, equality, diversity, and inclusion. These issues touch on race, ethnicity, gender, class, and other categories. They also touch on our relationships with the lands where our programs take place and the complex cultural relations with the traditional peoples of those lands.
We are in deep exploration about how to understand and contribute to healing from these issues. We remain committed to welcoming all those who are called to our programs and to doing our part to remove any barriers to responding to this call.
We are committed to actionable change, social justice, and regenerative relationships with all beings and the land.
We honor the Indigenous peoples of all of the lands where we work.
We are committed to and engaged in active listening and learning and our work is ongoing. We welcome input and feedback and will continue to share as we go.
Cross Cultural Protocols
Lost Borders has adopted Youth Passageways’/Restoring Lifeways set of Cross Cultural Protocols (CCP) for Rites of Passage work as powerful resource and map for how to lean into cross-cultural work and ceremony. Developed almost a decade ago by members of the Youth Passageways community, the CCP form the baseline of how we continue to learn and move together as a community.
Guiding Principles, Themes and Inquiry
Assume Goodwill
We enter with a spirit of goodwill. We strive to trust that others are doing the same.
Historical Context, Healing & Reconciliation
We acknowledge historical context and historical relationships of peoples and place, recognizing that many cultures have been subjected, and continue to be subjected, to deep violations. This context affects access to power and justice and is embedded in relationships between peoples. We strive to educate ourselves and others about these dynamics, open ourselves to the pain, help sensitize others to it, and contribute to healing and reconciliation.
The Right to Earth and Spirit
We recognize the rights of all people to deep relationship with Earth and Spirit, and that we all have the right and innate ability to receive information from the more-than-human world.
Cultural Humility
We commit to a practice of cultural humility and cultural self-awareness. We strive to increase skillfulness communicating across cultures and deepen awareness of our own and other’s cultural norms. We take responsibility to deepen our understanding of our own cultural and ancestral practices and ritual forms, and those of others. When we share teachings/artifacts from cultures other than our own, we do so with discernment, and provide context. We strive to become aware of and name the lenses through which we see the world, and recognize that others may see things differently. We ask rather than assume as much as possible.
Relationship to Place
Both in our home communities and when entering into a new place, we strive to educate ourselves about the land, the historical and contemporary and political context of the peoples of that land, build relationships with the people of that place, and follow local protocols as best we can. This includes seeking permission to conduct ceremony or other activities in that location.
Addressing and Growing through Conflict
We are committed to ongoing Cross-Cultural relationships, and strive to develop and support mechanisms and processes for working with conflict, reconciliation and forgiveness. We believe that justice and healing are central to each undertaking, rather than secondary benefits or distractions.
Sexuality & Gender
We recognize the essential nature of sexuality and gender in the work of rites of passage, and openly explore the dynamics of masculinity, femininity, and queerness (as archetypal energies, social dynamics, and deep cultural wounds) in our work together. We recognize that binary thinking is a product of patriarchy and colonization, and seek to bring balance by honoring and making space for all genders inside and outside of this binary. We strive to create inclusive spaces where LGBTQIA+ folks (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning, Intersex, Aasexual, plus) feel seen, heard, recognized, and honored, and to recognize and mitigate our own privilege in order to create safe spaces to center the voices of those often marginalized.
Sexual Wholeness
We honor sexuality as a natural, life-affirming force present throughout the human and more-than-human world. We acknowledge the impact colonization has played in subjugating and/or distorting sacred sexualities and commit to culturally humble, trauma-responsive practices that support the revitalization of authentic lineages of sexual health and wholeness. We celebrate all sexual orientations, and expressions of intimacy, including asexuality, as a part of a vibrant ecosystem of varied expression.
We understand agency, consent, learning and awareness to be at the heart of creating a sexual wellness culture. Through this process, we strive to undo cycles of harm. When damage is done, we work to support the repair needed in our communities through processes rooted in healing justice, protection from further harm and, when possible, transformation of the root causes of the affliction. We affirm and work together towards a world in which every person can experience sexual wholeness.
Different Perspectives/Perceptions of Time
We strive to become sensitized to different perceptions of time within and between different cultures. We recognize that ceremonial time differs from linear time and our work and schedules are designed with that awareness. We strive to set and keep to agreements of time and space, including agreements that at times, time will be fluid and processes will last as long as required. We commit to holding a long view of time, which holds in our awareness many generations of ancestors as well as future generations to come.
Legal Considerations and Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC)
We recognize that many aspects of culture, including dress, symbols, ritual and language, may be subject to intellectual property laws. Additionally, some indigenous peoples have their own norms, customs or legal systems associated with the use of their cultural ways. We strive to become aware and abide by these norms, customs and laws and practice Free Prior and Informed Consent.
Exchange of Money/Commodification of Rites of Passage
Many issues exist around the commodification of spiritual traditions and cultural symbols of indigenous and diasporic peoples. We strive to educate ourselves on these issues, and to act with consciousness and transparency around the exchange of money in our work. We support practitioners having sustainable means as they assist communities and pursue right livelihood in these transition times. We strive to make initiatory work accessible and equitable for all that need it.
For more info on how Lost Borders works with this please see Our Way With Money
Legacy
We honor our teachers and seek blessing to operate alongside of our mentors, teachers and elders in the use of ceremonial and ritual processes. Our work is inherently inter-generational, therefore we seek out participation from all generations. We are accountable to future generations for what we model by what we teach and how we teach it – today.
Gratitude, Generosity, and Celebration
We celebrate, acknowledge, and give thanks for every step toward right relationship. It takes courage to face these conversations directly; even having them is cause for celebration. We water the good along the way.
*Payahuunadü is the Nüümü and Newe peoples word for the so-called Owens Valley, roughly translated as “the land of flowing water.”