RESOURCES

“The world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting– over and over
announcing your place in the family of things.”

Mary Oliver – Wild Geese

About 10 years ago it came to me that the weak link in our work in rites of passage is incorporation.
Over the years since beginning this work I would hear every once in a while from past participants the
challenges of the return. That ‘every once in awhile’ became a steady flow of the same theme. At the time
I kept having ideas of offering a specific program on incorporation.

Years went by and I shelved the idea. I found many reasons why not to move forward with this dreaming.
Then I began in small ways to start reaching out to the participants four times a year at every change of
season to lend some support and encouragement. Though it was somewhat helpful to some but not to all.
I still continue this practice during their year of incorporation. For me there is a sense of letting them
know that there is some care and support. And a little reminder of knowing that they really did something
significant out there.

Then years later after moving to Tucson, Arizona in 2020 I was awakened from a dead sleep to an inner
voice telling me “Now is the time for starting a program for incorporation”. The intensity of that voice
inspired me to go straight to the my computer and eek out a first draft and the rest was history.
In April of 2022 the program Rites of Incorporation: Embodying the Vision and Living the Dream
was offered.

The above process was my opening intro to the program. I used my story as an example of what can
happen to a vision, idea or a dream if left unchecked. I recalled when I first suggested my idea the only
response I remember receiving is “It has been done before unsuccessfully” and with that I dropped the
ball and allowed the business of my life to take over.

I recalled feeling rejected and the dream unworthy of pursuing. The other thing I felt is not having
support.

Those were three major things that held me back. I then shelved the idea and it all but disappeared. Fast
forward to 2020 when I woke up that morning I took the inspiration of that inner voice and began to feel
the excitement in every cell of my body and began taking action steps to manifest the vision and live into
the dream. I ran with it and the old story was relinquished. I was supported and encourage by both the
seen and unseen.

Though the first program was a success. The following year it was canceled due to only one person
enrolled. Which came as a great surprise. I continue to remain breathing into this dream and doing my
best to avoid the pitfalls of judgment, blame, and shame because I believe that there is a need.
I am currently working on creative ways to redesign the program and will continue to take action towards
moving forward with my vision wherever it takes me.

Our dear participants continue to return home with many of the daunting challenges that face them. I can’t
say emphatically that this program will resolve anything. But I will say it offers another opportunity to
delve deeper into the hard questions: What is holding you back from manifesting your vision, dreams and
ideas? What will it take to move forward towards reclaiming the vision, the claiming statement, or your
souls longing? Are you ready to relinquish what is getting in the way of your becoming? And then send
them out in nature to help teach, guide and inspire.

The bigger vision for me in sharing my story is to pay this forward with the invitation to us all to continue
looking at creative ways we can assist and better serve our people on their rite of return not only after a
vision fast but after any programs that inspires the spirit and touches the soul. I imagine I am not the only

one that sees this as something we can improve on. I for one would love to share ideas and lend support to
anyone who feels the call to provide ways to support the incorporation phase of rites of passage.

“The great summons of our times is to find our way home to our true nature in the living body of earth.”
Joanna Macy