The Great Ballcourt Initiation – Spring Fast

Death is the ultimate agent of transformation—be it a physical death or “the little deaths” encountered throughout life.  Indigenous cultures developed rituals to aid and guide people through these stages of change and renewal, utilizing the power of death to enhance and intensify these experiences.  For the Mayan people this ceremony was played out on the Great Ballcourt.  The court, and the ritual game played upon it, were an enactment of the great transformations: from life to death, from the middleworld to the underworld, from humanity to divinity.   

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.

And you?  Are you willing to risk everything (which ultimately we all must do) that your rebirth might bring you a life purpose strong enough to carry you all the way to your final dance with Death? 

We invite you to step onto “the Great Ballcourt,” poised for a time between Death and Life, journeying into the ceremonial Underworld where you will leave behind what you have known, to perform your own dance of purpose, passion and renewal.  Dying to your old name, your rules, your belief system, your truths and lies, you will dance alone “between the worlds”, calling in a new life more authentically your own. 

Program Overview: 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.

Course prerequisite: The living-and-dying metaphor evoked by the Ballcourt allegory is strong, so it’s important that the theme be right for you. In the early years of offering this ceremony, we saw that some people were overwhelmed by the combined physical challenge of a four-day fast and the emotional/spiritual challenge of the thematic material.  Therefore, we encourage people to have already completed a full-length PLD course, or that they have done a 3-day or 4-day solo wilderness fast. If you don’t meet this prerequisite exactly, but feel that you have had similar experiences that would have you well prepared, please write to us. We want to support you coming if this feels right for you..

Program Questions Contact: Scott Eberle at [email protected]