RESOURCES

I learned about SOLB from Aric Bodin who trained with Steven and Meredith in the early 1980’s. I did a fast with him in New Hampshire 1984. When he told me about the Walkabout (7 days/nights walking through the desert on fast), my whole body jumped with a strong YES–I must do it! I didn’t know I was calling for change or renewal.. but I was 26, just out of nursing school, had spent much time alone in the wilds of Maine, and was drawn to ever more/deeper earth wild experiences.

Seven days and nights walking, fasting, singing, praying alone can’t not change you! I gained a clear life’s purpose: Earth–Birth–Death. It became my mission, my mantra that guided me for 40 years in these ways:
Earth: After the walkabout, I lived in the wilds of Maine, running earth-based children’s camps and leading wilderness rites of passage through my business, Earth Journeys.
Birth: In midlife, I worked as birth nurse, and practiced and taught prenatal, birth, postnatal bodywork for 30 years.
Death: In Elderhood, I worked as a hospice nurse and teacher of death practices, and now also am trained in psychedelic facilitation to support those at life’s thresholds in the SOLB tradition.

A power song came to me, that I have sung at times throughout the decades. And I remember sitting on a little hill in the middle of Eureka Valley, awake all night in my purpose circle dancing with death and gaining clarity about my life work. The next night, after a day of rest under a creosote branch, I walked across the desert under the full moon light, birthing myself anew the next morning, and finally greeted by Steven and Meredith. I had been transformed into a desert rat, and into someone who had now a strong and clear purpose and readiness to be in the world.

That walk is embedded in all I do. And the medicine wheel teachings at that time has helped me understand the unfolding of this grand life journey.

I have incorporated the teachings from this work into all that I do—in my bodywork classes, and in my work with birth and death—where the teachings are more than metaphorical—they are embodied, practical, very present and alive!

Through my work, my presence, and the spaces I hold, its threads continue to move through community, family, and all those I guide.

It is woven through my hands, my voice, and stillness. In the sitting with birthing mothers and dying people, the ceremony speaks. The teachings are not memories; they are very much alive. Assisting SOLB over the decades also helped me re-member them again and again.

Leslie Stager -Walkabout: 1985. Training & Assisting w/S&M-1985-87. Assisting Steven/Meredith since then now and then–up through 2025.