Past Programs
In the Death Lodge: Forgiveness, Apology and Reconciliation
Mar 13 - Mar 18, 2023 Mesquite Springs campground, Death Valley Meredith Little Living & Dying
Resentment is like a glass of poison that a man drinks; then he sits down and waits for his enemy to die. —Nelson Mandela Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the ...
The Great Ballcourt Initiation – Spring Fast
Mar 7 - Mar 18, 2023 Death Valley, California Scott Eberle, Cynthia Morrow Living & Dying
Please note: The Ballcourt ceremony is considered an “advanced program” in the Practice of Living & Dying (PLD) curriculum and is the only one in the series that has a prerequisite. Read ...
Mid-Winter Vision Fast
Feb 13 - Feb 24, 2023 Death Valley, California Petra Lentz-Snow, Nick LaHaise Vision Fast
“It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not ...
Open Desert, Open Mind
Oct 29 - Nov 6, 2022 Death Valley, California Scott Eberle, Silvia Talavera Living the Practices
Death Valley is a vast open space that stretches on for miles. Here the scale of desolate earth and expansive sky is something to behold. Jack Kornfield writes about the open mind in manner that ...
The Great Ballcourt Initiation – Fall Fast
Oct 24 - Nov 4, 2022 Death Valley, California Meredith Little, Angelo Joseph Lazenka Living & Dying
Death is the ultimate agent of transformation—be it a physical death or “the little deaths” encountered throughout life. Indigenous cultures developed rituals to aid and guide people through ...
Invitation Only Women’s Fast 2022
Oct 24 - Nov 4, 2022 Cottonwood Canyon, Death Valley, California Petra Lentz-Snow, Siri Gunnarson, Kim Belair Living & Dying
The need to become anew lives deep in our ancestral bones because it was, and is, crucial for the survival of our communities that we let go of what no longer serves, and enter the calling of our ...
The Elder’s Journey: The Four Shields of Elderhood for Women
Oct 9 - Oct 15, 2022 Catalina State Park - Tucson, Arizona Silvia Talavera, Cary Gaunt Living the Practices
Throughout the ages, elder women have enjoyed sitting in circle to weave the rich tapestries of their stories, stories that continued to warm and inspire people across time and culture. What ...
CO Late Fall Vision Fast (October)
Oct 4 - Oct 16, 2022 Wild Mountain, Colorado Pedro McMillan, Kelly McClelland Vision Fast
The sun sets on the heat and vibrance of summer. Fall is upon us, full of its hearty compost and harvests. Just as the seasons turn around us, the seasons of our lives turn with them. These changes ...
CA Two Week Training
Oct 2 - Oct 15, 2022 Big Pine & Eureka Valley, California Ruth “Roo” Wharton, Angelo Joseph Lazenka Training
In these times of change and uncertainty, it is crucial that we show up for our community in ways that truly serve. The world is calling us to listen in new and old ways to connect with the land and ...
CA Mirroring the Four Shields of Human Nature: The Art of Storytelling and Listening
Sep 19 - Sep 24, 2022 Big Pine, California Angelo Joseph Lazenka, Betsy Perluss Training
Telling one’s own story is an ancient art. 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 ...
NM Fall Vision Fast
Sep 19 - Sep 30, 2022 Cochiti Lake and Ghost Ranch, New Mexico Emerald North, Scot Deily, Ray Hillis Vision Fast
The land knows you, even when you are lost. ~ Robin Wall Kimmerer In increasing times of unrest and uncertainty it can be a common human experience to gravitate towards more “certainty” ...
Intergenerational Women’s Fast
Sep 3 - Sep 10, 2022 Dragonback Springs Ranch, Colorado Nancy Jane, Bettina Straub Vision Fast
Since time immemorial, women have gathered to celebrate, honor and support life. In doing so we form a sisterhood deeply rooted in our own authentic nature. As we join together to share our stories ...
18-Month Rite of Passage Ceremonial Immersion
Aug 31 - Aug 31, 2022 Various Locations Emerald North, Scot Deily Training
No matter our ancestry, we are all a part of the lineage upon this living planet. And because of this it is in our bones to be called again and again to the land and into ceremony to ...
CO Mirroring the Four Shields of Human Nature: The Art of Story Telling and Listening
Aug 17 - Aug 22, 2022 Dragonback Springs Ranch, Colorado Emerald North, Ray Hillis, Scot Deily Training
Who is this miracle speaking to me? And who is this miracle listening? What amazingness are we creating? Out of gray matter a star spark of thought leaps between synapses into the air, and ...
CA Summer Vision Fast
Aug 1 - Aug 13, 2022 Inyo Mountains - Big Pine, California Scott Eberle, Betsy Perluss Vision Fast
The modern day vision quest is a border crossing practice, an opportunity to reclaim our true place in the natural world. When one steps across the threshold and into the unknown wilderness, ...
The Four Shields of Wholeness for Women
Jul 17 - Jul 23, 2022 Los Padres National Forest, CA Petra Lentz-Snow, Gretchen (Grae) Gerlach Training
Patrilinear hierarchical systems have pushed life on earth to the raw edge of social and ecological sustainability. Many of us feel the global crisis reverberating acutely in our own bodies, in the ...
Transforming Ancestral Trauma through Nature, Ritual, and Community
Jul 3 - Jul 9, 2022 Wild Mountain, Colorado Nancy Jane, Bettina Straub Living the Practices
When we heal our roots, we open up new possibilities for our future. --Thomas Hubl This program provides an opportunity to consciously explore how the shadows of the past remain undigested in our ...
Diamond in the Rough: Wilderness and the Diamond Approach
Jun 25 - Jul 2, 2022 Wild Mountain, Colorado John Davis, Marlena deCarion Living the Practices
Intimate and direct contact with the natural world is an ancient, direct, and profound doorway to being. Our ancestors knew this, and we are rediscovering it. Curiosity, experiential inquiry, ...
CA Month-Long Training
Jun 15 - Jul 17, 2022 Inyo Mountains - Big Pine, California Betsy Perluss, Larry Hobbs, Angelo Joseph Lazenka, Petra Lentz-Snow, Will Scott, Meredith Little Training
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 ...
CO June Queer Quest
Jun 7 - Jun 19, 2022 Wild Mountain, Colorado Pedro McMillan, Ruth “Roo” Wharton Vision Fast
The natural world reminds us that being Queer* is both beautiful and something to be celebrated! Showing up as who we are, and with our many gifts, is a celebration of nature’s diversity and honors ...
Young Adults Wilderness Rites of Passage
Jun 6 - Jun 16, 2022 Inyo Mountains - Big Pine, California Siri Gunnarson, Sam DeBoskey Vision Fast
Every summer the School of Lost Borders offers a wilderness rite of passage for young people ready to confirm their entry into adulthood. Nearly every culture on the planet shows evidence of a ...
The Four Directions of a Queer Man: Forgiveness, Apology & Reconciliation
May 21 - May 28, 2022 Inyo Mountains - Big Pine, California Scott Eberle, Collin Brown, Paul Browde Living the Practices
Queer people don’t grow up as ourselves, we grow up playing a version of ourselves that sacrifices authenticity to minimise humiliation & prejudice. The massive task of our adult lives is to ...
NM Women’s Vision Fast
May 16 - May 27, 2022 Cochiti Lake and Ghost Ranch, New Mexico Emerald North, Petra Lentz-Snow Vision Fast
A woman's journey is both vigorous and introspective as she covers ground outwardly, so she ventures deep within herself. Stirred by nature’s calling to be creative and complete, and beckoned by an ...
Becoming Human: The Four Shields Model of Nature-Based Therapeutics
May 16 - May 21, 2022 Big Pine, California Betsy Perluss, Angelo Joseph Lazenka Training
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 ...
Dark Nature: Matrix of Initiatory Growth
Apr 17 - Apr 22, 2022 Eureka Valley, California Meredith Little Training
Of all the shields of human nature, the dark or fall shield can be at once the most compelling and the most frightening. It calls on us continually to risk everything, to let go of what has come ...
Rites of Incorporation: Embodying the Vision and Living the Dream
Apr 17 - Apr 24, 2022 Catalina State Park - Tucson, Arizona Silvia Talavera, Scot Deily Living the Practices
“Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly." - Langston Hughes This program is an invitation to all who have experienced a vision fast, had an idea, a ...
CA Spring Vision Fast
Apr 11 - Apr 22, 2022 Big Pine & Death Valley, California Petra Lentz-Snow, Nick LaHaise Vision Fast
Life transitions, like entering adulthood, midlife or elderhood are always “DNA invitations” to go out on the land. The need to become anew is planted deeply into our ancestral bones because it ...
18-Month Rite of Passage Ceremonial Immersion
Mar 14 - Mar 14, 2022 Various Locations Emerald North, Scot Deily Training
There is one place left in this round, plus a few last spots for the next upcoming 18-Month Ceremonial Immersion (beginning August 2022), please visit this link. No matter our ancestry, we are all ...
The Great Ballcourt Initiation – Spring Fast
Mar 13 - Mar 24, 2022 Death Valley, California Meredith Little, Scott Eberle Living & Dying
Death is the ultimate agent of transformation—be it a physical death or “the little deaths” encountered throughout life. Indigenous cultures developed rituals to aid and guide people ...
Mid-Winter Vision Fast
Feb 21 - Mar 4, 2022 Death Valley, California Petra Lentz-Snow, Scot Deily Vision Fast
“It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not ...
CA Women’s Vision Fast
Nov 9 - Nov 20, 2021 Death Valley, California Silvia Talavera, Cynthia Morrow Vision Fast
One of a woman's greatest longings is to be seen and known in her most wild and authentic self - a self that is intimately intertwined with the creative forces and cycles of nature. Like the waxing ...
The Great Ballcourt Initiation – Fall Fast
Oct 25 - Nov 5, 2021 Death Valley, California Meredith Little, Angelo Joseph Lazenka Living & Dying
Death is the ultimate agent of transformation—be it a physical death or “the little deaths” encountered throughout life. Indigenous cultures developed rituals to aid and guide people through ...
Let Go into the Mystery: The East Shield of Living and Dying
Oct 2 - Oct 10, 2021 Eureka Valley, California Scott Eberle, Cynthia Morrow Living & Dying
Throughout time and cultures, people have crossed borders of their ordinary lives seeking contact with the Mystery. An experience of Oneness, it is beyond any fixed identity. Called by many names, ...
NM Fall Vision Fast
Sep 27 - Oct 8, 2021 Cochiti Lake and Ghost Ranch, New Mexico Emerald North, Scot Deily Vision Fast
In your bones you hear the singing of your sacred ancestors. You follow in their footsteps. You go alone, with an empty belly and a bare minimum of equipment, into the heart of the wilderness, for ...
CA Mirroring the Four Shields of Human Nature: The Art of Story Telling and Listening
Sep 25 - Sep 30, 2021 Big Pine, California Betsy Perluss, Angelo Joseph Lazenka Training
Telling one’s own story is an ancient art. 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 ...
The Elder’s Journey: Four Shields of Eldering for Women
Sep 25 - Oct 1, 2021 Big Pine, California Silvia Talavera, Sara Harris Living the Practices
Throughout the ages, elder women have enjoyed sitting in circle to weave the rich tapestries of their stories, stories that continued to warm and inspire people across time and culture. What ...
The Nature of Illness, Loss and Death
Sep 12 - Sep 19, 2021 Big Pine, California Petra Lentz-Snow, Angelo Joseph Lazenka Living & Dying
The pandemic has recently brought the nature of illness, loss and death sharply into our collective consciousness reminding us that no human, no matter how healthy or resourced, is immune to ...
Transforming Ancestral Trauma through Nature, Ritual, and Community
Aug 30 - Sep 5, 2021 Dragonback Springs Ranch, Colorado Nancy Jane, Bettina Straub Living the Practices
This program provides an opportunity to consciously explore how the shadows of the past remain undigested in our personal and collective lives. To what degree are we aware of their impact on our ...
CO Three Week Training
Aug 28 - Sep 19, 2021 Wild Mountain, Colorado Ruth “Roo” Wharton, Pedro McMillan Training
Wilderness Rites of Passage have been practiced in cultures around the world as a way to celebrate and transition from one phase of life to the next - to leave behind what no longer serves and step ...
The Four Shields of Wholeness for Women
Aug 23 - Aug 23, 2021 Inyo Mountains - Big Pine, California Petra Lentz-Snow, Gretchen (Grae) Gerlach Living the Practices
Patrilinear hierarchical systems have pushed life on earth to the edge of social and ecological sustainability. As women we feel the pain of the global crisis resonating in our bodies and personal ...
CO Mirroring the Four Shields of Human Nature: The Art of Story Telling and Listening
Aug 4 - Aug 8, 2021 Dragonback Springs Ranch, Colorado Emerald North, Ray Hillis, Scot Deily Training
The shields of human nature turn with the experiences of life, from the smallest cell to the great seamless whole of the biosphere called earth. It begins with the body (summer), turns into psyche ...
CA Summer Vision Fast
Aug 2 - Aug 14, 2021 Inyo Mountains - Big Pine, California Betsy Perluss, Scott Eberle Vision Fast
The modern day vision quest is a border crossing practice, an opportunity to reclaim our true place in the natural world. When one steps across the threshold and into the unknown wilderness, ...
CO Summer Vision Fast
Jul 28 - Aug 8, 2021 Wild Mountain, Colorado Pedro McMillan, Ruth “Roo” Wharton Vision Fast
The call of the earth is getting louder! The ecological stress we see in wildfires, flooding, and global pandemics can leave you feeling helpless, frightened and stuck. Technology and the fast pace ...
CO Two Week Training
Jul 1 - Jul 14, 2021 Dragonback Springs Ranch, Colorado Emerald North, Scot Deily Training
The two week training offers the participant an immersion into the vision fast ceremony, including the beginning skills necessary to lead it and an understanding of how the principles of the vision ...
Diamond in the Rough: Wilderness and the Diamond Approach
Jun 26 - Jul 3, 2021 Wild Mountain, Colorado John Davis, Marlena deCarion Living the Practices
Intimate and direct contact with the natural world is an ancient, direct, and profound doorway to being. Our ancestors knew this, and we are rediscovering it. Curiosity, experiential inquiry, ...
CA Month-Long Training
Jun 16 - Jul 18, 2021 Inyo Mountains - Big Pine, California Betsy Perluss, Angelo Joseph Lazenka, Petra Lentz-Snow, Meredith Little, John Davis Training
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 ...
CO Queer Quest
Jun 8 - Jun 20, 2021 Wild Mountain, Colorado Pedro McMillan, Ruth “Roo” Wharton Vision Fast
The natural world reminds us that being Queer* is both beautiful and something to be celebrated! Showing up as who we are, and with our many gifts, is a celebration of nature’s diversity and honors ...
Queer Men in the Life Lodge: Forgiveness, Apology & Reconciliation
Jun 6 - Jun 13, 2021 Inyo Mountains - Big Pine, California Scott Eberle, Collin Brown Living & Dying
Imagine you, as a queer man, living in a community that has its own “Death Lodge,” a place where a dying person can rest and receive the visitors who come to say goodbye. This is the natural ...
Young Adults Wilderness Rites of Passage
May 28 - Jun 7, 2021 Inyo Mountains - Big Pine, California Siri Gunnarson, Pınar Ateş Sinopoulos-Lloyd Vision Fast
Every summer the School of Lost Borders offers a wilderness rite of passage for young people ready to confirm their entry into adulthood. Nearly every culture on the planet shows evidence of a ...
CA Men’s Vision Fast (Postponed until 2022)
May 19 - May 30, 2021 Big Pine, California Will Scott, Larry Hobbs Vision Fast
The mystery is calling! The Sun is rising and illuminating a new and yet very ancient story about the value and worth of what it means to be a man. Perhaps now more than ever -- or perhaps now just ...
NM Women’s Vision Fast
May 17 - May 28, 2021 Cochiti Lake and Ghost Ranch, New Mexico Emerald North, Petra Lentz-Snow Vision Fast
A woman's journey is both vigorous and introspective as she covers ground outwardly, so she ventures deep within herself. Stirred by nature’s calling to be creative and complete, and beckoned by an ...
Becoming Human: The Four Shields Model of Nature-Based Therapeutics
May 17 - May 22, 2021 Big Pine, California Betsy Perluss, Angelo Joseph Lazenka Training
The Four Shields model offers us guidance in the form of a map to help us find our way back to our origins on this living planet. This earth-based wheel of human nature was handed down to Steven ...
Dark Nature: Matrix of Initiatory Growth
Apr 11 - Apr 16, 2021 Eureka Valley, California Meredith Little Training
Of all the shields of human nature, the dark or fall shield can be at once the most compelling and the most frightening. It calls on us continually to risk everything, to let go of what has come ...
CA Spring Vision Fast
Apr 5 - Apr 16, 2021 Big Pine and Eureka Valley, California Petra Lentz-Snow, Angelo Joseph Lazenka Vision Fast
Life transitions like entering adulthood, midlife, or elderhood are always “DNA invitations” to go out on the land. The need to become anew is planted deeply into our ancestral bones because it ...
The Great Ballcourt Initiation – Spring Fast (Postponed until 2022)
Feb 28 - Mar 11, 2021 Death Valley Scott Eberle, Meredith Little Living & Dying, Past Programs
An Advanced Program in “The Practice of Living and Dying” Death is the ultimate agent of transformation - be it a physical death or "the little deaths" encountered throughout life. ...
CA Women’s Vision Fast
Nov 9 - Nov 20, 2020 Death Valley Betsy Perluss, Silvia Talavera Vision Fast
One of a woman’s greatest longings is to be seen and known in her most wild and authentic self – a self that is intimately intertwined with the creative forces and cycles of nature. Like the ...
The Great Ballcourt Initiation – Fall Fast
Oct 21 - Nov 1, 2020 Death Valley Meredith Little, Angelo Joseph Lazenka Living & Dying
Death is the ultimate agent of transformation—be it a physical death or “the little deaths” encountered throughout life. Indigenous cultures developed rituals to aid and guide people ...
Open Desert, Open Mind: A Wilderness Program for Contemplatives
Oct 17 - Oct 25, 2020 Eureka Valley Scott Eberle, Silvia Talavera Living the Practices
The very transparent, unfixed, yet alive quality of consciousness is its nature, a bit like air around us. If you relax and allow this experience of unfixed knowing, you will discover what ...
CA Two Week Training (Full with waitlist)
Oct 10 - Oct 23, 2020 Big Pine and Eureka Valley Ruth “Roo” Wharton, Larry Hobbs Training
This training gives the student an immersion in the vision fast ceremony, including the skills involved in leading the vision fast and an understanding of how the principles of the vision fast can ...
CA Mirroring the Four Shields of Human Nature: The Art of Story Telling and Listening
Sep 26 - Oct 1, 2020 Big Pine, CA- Baker Creek Campground Angelo Joseph Lazenka, Betsy Perluss Training
Telling one’s own story is an ancient art. 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 ...
NM Fall Vision Fast (Full with waitlist)
Sep 20 - Oct 1, 2020 Cochiti Lake and Ghost Ranch NM Emerald North, , Ray Hillis Vision Fast
In your bones you hear the singing of your sacred ancestors. You follow in their footsteps. You go alone, with an empty belly and a bare minimum of equipment, into the heart of the wilderness, for ...
The Elder’s Journey: Four Shields of Eldering for Women
Sep 20 - Sep 26, 2020 Baker Creek Campground - Big Pine, California Silvia Talavera, Sara Harris Living the Practices
“We are the seeds of the tenacious plant, and it is in our ripeness and our fullness of heart that we are given to the wind and scattered.” - Kahlil Gibran Throughout the ages, elder ...
Grief, Loss, and Transformation
Sep 9 - Sep 16, 2020 Southern Colorado-Dragonback Springs Ranch Nancy Jane, Past Programs
The land around us (and within us) teaches with each passing season, and with each flood, drought, fire and storm, that out of change, crisis and a dying to what was, there appears a new story of ...