International Community & Programs

The School of Lost Borders holds the intent that one day meaningful rites of passage will be available to communities worldwide. With the present state of our planet and the incredible challenges people are facing, it is very heartening to witness this ancient rite re-emerging globally. We are committed to supporting the continuation of this movement and to empowering guides and colleagues around the world.

• We support international guides to offer wilderness rites of passage in their countries through training and mentorship such as the good resource of the German Speaking Guides Council 
• We are available to attend and/or speak at various conferences, trainings, and gatherings around the world.
• We attend and are a sponsor of the International Wilderness Guides Council Gathering that our co-founder Steven Foster began in 2001.
• If folks from our international communities would like to join one of our School programs in the United States we offer various scholarship opportunities.

Some Lost Borders guides are offering vision fasts and trainings in other countries in partnership with local guides and organizations to cultivate the growth of wilderness rites of passage.

These programs are offered with the full support of the School of Lost Borders but are not offered through the School.

CONTACT INFORMATION: For inquiries about international programs please send a message to [email protected].

International Offerings

 

  NATURE BASED RITE OF PASSAGE- SPAIN

Program Dates: Oct 18-25 2026 with Trailhaven

Location: Spain, likely in Parc Natural Alt Pirineu in Catalunya.

Instructors: Kelly McClelland, Will Scott, Peter van der Vlis

Maximum Enrollment: Group of max 10 people. 

Contact: [email protected]

We are amidst a collective unraveling and rite of passage. A betwixt and between time that is both deeply unsettling and full of possibility. This is a moment ripe for change.

What is this time asking of you? What is next for you? What is your individual and collective responsibility to tend to our communities, cultures, and planet?  Significant life transitions invite our hearts, minds and bodies to open to new ways of being. What is no longer serving you? What needs to be let go? What seeds do you want to plant for the future?

This program is offered by Trailhaven in collaboration with guides from the School of Lost Borders, and is designed to explore what’s next in your life, and to celebrate your commitment to yourself, your dreams, your communities and the wider world.

Program Details: This is a 8-day rite of passage program that includes a 2-day/3 night solo ceremony. It will be held in the gorgeous the Pyreness mountains outside of Barcelona, Spain. Full info can be found here

Ballplayers would risk their lives so that spirit, light and hope might be renewed—for themselves, yet most of all for their people and community. The Mayans had faith that, through discipline and sacrifice, spirit was renewed, just as winter births new spring. What we can know is that each day of our lives we play on the Great Ballcourt. Each day we die some, each day we are reborn.

 

Our group will come together in Transalquimia’s Retreat Center, in Les Guilleries Park, a remote wilderness area located in Northern Spain (1h45 from Barcelona, 45 min from Girona).

 

We will come together for 12 days: beginning with a final Severance from the old world, stepping across the Threshold into 4 days and nights of fasting and solitude, then returning for our stories of Incorporation.

 

The metaphors we will explore include Decision Road, Death Lodge, Purpose Circle, and the Ballcourt. Our explorations together will be informed both by Mayan teachings that spread to native tribes in the plains of North America and by the lessons of modern-day hospice, learned directly at the bedside of the sick and the dying.

 

Full info can be found here