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Programs
The School of Lost Borders in committed to creating opportunities for people from all walks of life to express their invdividual natures within old and modern ceremonial practices.
Solitude and silence in wild nature, the commitment to community, honoring personal intent, and the acknowledgment and responsibility to bring forth one's gifts, are the foundation of our ceremonies and teachings. Every course at the School is a right of passage, a border crossing from the past to the future, from the old to the new, from the outward to the inward, from the self to the Self. The emphasis is on the challenge of life transitions, the borders we all must cross.
TrainingRites of Passage trainings for vision fast guides and other human beings. Trainings explore the elements of The Four Shields of Human Nature, Mirroring, and Storytelling in immersion programs through one week, two week of month-long trainings.
The modern day vision fast is a border crossing practice. When one steps across the threshold and into the unknown wilderness, boundaries begin to dissolve and our vision begins to expand. Everything is pregnant with meaning, and nature speaks to us in the voices of rock, tree, and wind. Following the ancient pathway of this rite of passage, we step into our true nature and remember our home among the wild. We become who we were born to be.
The Practice of Living & DyingAs our modern culture has grown ever more sophisticated, we have also become ever more divorced from our natural surroundings and from ancient wisdom about living and dying. We have pushed Death away from Life, the dying away from the living - all in order to impose the illusion of control on the uncertainty of change. We have lost touch with the natural world and with our place in it as mortal animals. We have forgotten "how to die."
Living the PracticesWe seek to answer a call heard in the voices of people who sit in our circles. Many people express a longing to bring their deep and ceremonial relationship with wild nature into their work lives, homes, relationships and communities. Living the Practices is designed to synthesize the traditions of the School of Lost Borders with spiritual, artistic/creative, personal and professional disciplines and practices.
Upcoming Programs
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.
“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…
The world is changing fast, and we must do our best to keep up. We now face unprecedented waves of transformation. The blossoming and decay of our modern ways is calling attention to fundamental questions about who we are and how we relate – to ourselves, each other, and the world we’re part of.
These questions illuminate a new and yet very old story about what it means to be a man. In these times – what does that mean? What are the inherited forms of masculinity that are calling out to be transformed? Healed? Loved? What are the gifts and the wounds that need to be grieved, praised, and renewed to truly honor and embody this shared identity of manhood?
Through this rite-of-passage we invite those who identify as Men to take a leap – to look deeply at our notions of manhood – and to enter the threshold with an empty belly and open heart. Alone and together we’ll embark on a shared journey towards finding integrity, towards finding ourselves and our community, and towards finding our yet-to-be written futures that are calling us to slow down and show up to embody the transformation these times are asking of us.
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”…
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 four days and nights. There you live with yourself in solitude. You surrender to the mirror of your wild environment, and to memory, the looks-within-place. You enter the mansions of nature’s soul. You ponder the questions: “Who am I?” “Who are my people?” and “What is my intent?”
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 irresistible urge to cross personal boundaries, she travels the path of her unique destiny. Her passions and gifts are her map. Psyche is her guide. Dreams are her nourishment, the land her friend….
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.