Training
“This training has totally changed my life! I was seen in my totality and held in a wonderful and fun community. Being on the land has given me a true purpose and helped me live life more awake, more fully, more truly.”
- Mara, 2018
For more than 40 years, the School of Lost Borders has offered trainings for students, therapists, teachers, caregivers, and guides around the world. Our trainings are for those interested in deepening their understanding of rites of passage, self-generated ceremonies, and initiatory eco-therapies. They are highly experiential and provide the skills needed to support people in transition through nature-based initiatory practices. These trainings are transformative both personally and professionally and involve a profound immersion in the natural world.
Upcoming Training Programs

Becoming Human: The Four Shields Model of Nature-Based Therapeutics
May 15 - May 20, 2023 Big Pine, California Betsy Perluss, Katie Teague
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 ...
CA Month-Long Training
Jun 14 - Jul 16, 2023 Inyo Mountains - Big Pine, California Betsy Perluss, Angelo Joseph Lazenka, Petra Lentz-Snow, Meredith Little, Kim Belair
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 Mirroring the Four Shields of Human Nature: The Art of Story Telling and Listening
Aug 23 - Aug 27, 2023 Dragonback Springs Ranch, Colorado Emerald North, Scot Deily
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 ...
CO Two Week Training
Sep 2 - Sep 17, 2023 Wild Mountain, Colorado Ruth “Roo” Wharton, Pedro McMillan
This training gives students an immersion in a rite of passage ceremony, including the skills involved in leading the vision fast and an understanding of how the principles of rites of passage can ...
The Four Shields of Wholeness for Women
Sep 17 - Sep 23, 2023 Big Pine and Eureka Valley Petra Lentz-Snow, Gretchen (Grae) Gerlach
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 ...
CA Mirroring the Four Shields of Human Nature: The Art of Storytelling and Listening
Sep 25 - Sep 30, 2023 Mendocino, CA Siri Gunnarson, Betsy Perluss
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 ...
Nature of Council
Oct 14 - Oct 22, 2023 Jug Handle Creek Farm, Mendocino County, California Siri Gunnarson, Yamin Chehin
Join us on Pomo lands on the Mendocino Coast where Jug Handle Creek meets the Pacific Ocean, a unique coastal terrace ecology with a rare pygmy forest. We offer this training in the spirit of ...