Dying as a Rite of Passage
For millennia, indigenous people of all our bloodlines have known “how to die”, with the natural world as our teacher from the beginning of time. Cycles of dying and rebirth are seen everywhere: the setting and rising of the sun, the turning of the seasons, the death of the elderly alongside the birth of a…
Read MoreBecoming Human: The Four Shields Model of Nature-Based Therapeutics
“If there were a measure of ‘mental health’, it would involve the ability of individuals to grow into the fullness of each season – that is, the ability to fully become, or enact, the contents of each shield.” – Steven Foster and Meredith Little All that we do and teach at the School of Lost…
Read MoreHealing Ancestral Trauma through Nature, Ritual, and community
When we heal our roots, we open up new possibilities for our future. -Thomas Hubl This 7-day program provides an opportunity to witness, explore, and transform the ancestral energy we have inherited. We sit in a sea of intergenerational and collective influences that color how we react, what motivates us, and how much we trust…
Read MoreFour Seasons of Storytelling
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
. . . Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.
excerpt from William Stafford’s “The Way It Is”
Read MoreA Light in the Dark – Forgiveness and Apology in a Wounded World
This program invites us to meet the trials of our times with courage and
honesty. In an era of upheaval and fear, we ask: How do we source our own light in the dark? To do so, we must tend to the personal wounds that shape our relationships and the world around us. Through the Death Lodge practice, we reflect on what remains unfinished in our lives. Guided by the wisdom of the modern hospice movement and the Four Shields, we gather in councils, teachings, nature walks, and a 24-hour solo, exploring the grace of forgiveness and apology.
Two Week Training for Women
This is an offering to celebrate and hold the broad, and diverse experiences of what it is to be a woman in this moment in time. Since time immemorial Rites of Passage Ceremonies have facilitated change, offering a simple but indispensable container to transition from one life stage to another, to let go of (die to) the old and step in (birth) anew, so that life can continue.
What underlies these rites is the understanding of the circular, seasonal, and regenerative nature of life and death. This knowing runs deep in the female body. Despite the patrilinear impact of the last few thousand years that imposed a culture in which the feminine was largely exiled, we are still informed by the cyclical ebbing and flowing rhythm of circular time, and an innate understanding of the evolutionary necessity of change that lives in our bones.
Read MoreCA Spring Vision Fast
The twelve day ceremony involves four days of preparation, four days and nights of fasting alone, and four days of incorporation. The prep and post fast portions of the program will be held in the Owen’s Valley (Payahüünadü), at Baker Creek Campground, and the solo threshold phase of the ceremony will take place in Death Valley National Park (Tüpippüh Valley).
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CO Mirroring the Four Shields of Human Nature: The Art of Story Telling and Listening
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 pours through gray matter, into my heart: how can I not listen generously? ~Marilyn Nelson The shields of human nature turn…
Read MoreCO Women’s Fast – Remembering Ourselves Home
What is waiting to be known and honored in your life? Together, we remember a more intuitive, embodied way of being—one that honors the transitions we face and the wisdom they bring. As we step into the threshold of change, we release what we have outgrown and attune to what is emerging within us. By pausing, listening, and surrendering to the rhythms of the Earth, we reconnect with our inner knowing, restore what has been forgotten, and return with a gift back to our communities.
Read MoreNM Fall Vision Fast
In increasing times of unrest and uncertainty it can be a common human experience to gravitate towards more “certainty” rather than less. Yet, in the Zen tradition “not knowing” is most intimate. The natural world reminds us of this intimacy and offers us refuge. There is something waiting to find us but in order to be found…we sometimes must first admit we are “lost”…
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