Let Go into the Mystery: The East Shield of Living and Dying
Oct 11th, 2025 - Oct 19th, 2025 | Eureka Valley, California | Scott Eberle, Cynthia Morrow
All is a circle within me.
I have gone into the earth and out again.
I have gone to the edge of the sky.
Now all is at peace within me.
Now all has a place to come home.
—Nancy Wood
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, known in a myriad of ways, yet it is ungraspable. In the wide-open view of this Mystery, living and dying are fundamentally interdependent. So too is our recognition of being wholly and completely interconnected with it all.
In this age, we are born and shaped within a world that is ego-centered and ego-driven. There is enormous suffering in believing in the myth of our separate selves. When we hold tightly to an identity focused on self-preservation, we find only more fear, aggression, over-consumption, over-work, confusion and deep loneliness. The spiritual opening of the East Shield offers an expansiveness that allows us to relax within this interwoven matrix of reality.
What might it mean for you to explore this East Shield? To “Let Go into the Mystery”?
This 9-day program, in the vast and ancient landscape of Eureka Valley, is a ceremony in the East Shield of the School’s Practice of Living and Dying. This is an invitation to explore and honor the individual stories of our spiritual unfolding through life, and to let go into the Great Mystery that holds us beyond birth and death.
To support the busy mind to settle, each day will include periods of sitting meditation. We will gather in council daily, holding space for the sharing and witnessing of stories. Afternoons will include time for walking in the expansive desert to explore each of the four directions of Mystery, culminating with a day in the East: a 24-hour solo. When we reconvene, we’ll then spend several days hearing stories from this solo time. Enrollment is limited to 10.
Program Questions Contact: Scott Eberle at [email protected]
Submit Waitlist form
This program is full; however, you may add your name to the Waitlist by clicking the Waitlist button below.
Submit enrollment form
Please fill out and submit the enrollment form and then pay the program deposit below. Before you pay the deposit, please read deposit section below, all deposits are non-refundable and non-transferable. After your enrollment form is complete, please submit all health and liability forms.
Pay program deposit
Deposits: This deposit signifies your commitment to the program and is deducted from the tuition balance. All deposits are non-refundable and non-transferable. They cover the work of the specific course you signed up for, including all communication involved as well as the fee that guides pay to the school administration for the course accounting.
Additional Deposit: Some programs require a second deposit to help us affirm commitments. Last minute cancellations make it hard to fill openings and incur a loss of income to the School and the guides.
Tuition Balance: Balance of tuition can be paid before or upon arrival. Simply deduct any deposits made from the amount you’ve chosen on the sliding scale.
Additional course details & Materials
We will rendezvous on Saturday, October 11th, at 10 a.m. in Big Pine, moving from there to our basecamp in the backcountry an hour away.. We anticipate camping together the entire week, finishing by late morning on Sunday, October 19th. We will provide dinner the first night and the break-fast after the solo time. Otherwise we ask everyone to come prepared to live self-sufficiently, which means bringing your own camping equipment and food for the week. More detailed logistical information will be sent out prior to the program’s start. Of note: we will be flexing current COVID risk reduction plans according to where we are in the pandemic at the time of the program. Camping fee of $50 will be collected at the time of the program.
You will be responsible for bringing your own food and equipment, though we can provide some gear if needed. We ask everyone to come prepared to live self-sufficiently. You will need to bring shelter and clothing suitable for a full range of inclement weather.
All participants must submit the required health questionnaire and liability form.
If you have questions about the enrollment process contact us at [email protected] or call 760-938-3333.
There is no required reading for this program.
Our basecamp in Eureka Valley is at the northern edge of Tüpippüh (also known as Death Valley), which is home of the Timbisha people and the name of their ancestral and contemporary homeland. Miners came to this area in 1849 and the Timbisha’s land was stolen to create Death Valley National Monument in 1933. The Timbisha were allotted a 40 acre reservation in the park and also forced onto other reservations and into towns in the area. To learn more about our commitment to regenerative relationships please visit Cultural Relations.
To learn more about our commitment to regenerative relationships please visit Cultural Relations.
