RESOURCES
Your online home for articles, resources, stories, and inspiration from Lost Borders.
Browse to discover a world of wisdom from our collective lifetimes.
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RIP Larry Hobbs
SOLB Contributor | Living and Dying, Living the Practices
Larry Hobbs knew the story of the stones -- through decades of footfalls and through years of geological study. Larry knew the story of this great wide earth, written in melting caps, rising seas, changing currents, changing times. He knew the human story, at least parts of it -- broken and whole and breaking again. A story of imbalance leading the way towards unthinkable horizons. A bleak story, but with room enough for healing, with faith enough for mystery, with at least a backward glance towards hope.... ...
The Wild Imaginal World of Storytelling and Mirroring
Betsy Perluss, PhD | Training
The aim of mirroring is always to empower and validate the gifts already present in the story. But even still, mirroring mystifies me. It is such a simple practice and yet something occurs that I just can’t fully grasp. What is it that draws us down so deep? What loosens our tongues, allowing words to fly freely? What gives rise to such tears and ineffable joy? Indeed, part of what we experience remains hidden, like a coin in a magician’s hand.... ...
Rites of Incorporation: Embodying the Vision and Living the Dream
Silvia Talavera | Living the Practices
....when I woke up that morning I took the inspiration of that inner voice and began to feel the excitement in every cell of my body and began taking action steps to manifest the vision and live into the dream. I ran with it and the old story was relinquished. I was supported and encourage by both the seen and unseen.... ...
The Wild Minds Podcast – interview with Betsy Perluss
Betsy Perluss, PhD | Living the Practices
Guide Betsy Perluss is featured on the Wild Mind Podcast speaking on: ● Reimagine ourselves as intricately interwoven with the world beyond our skin. ● The four shields of human nature: The body, psyche, mind, and spirit, and the value of seeing and experiencing a bigger reality. ● Considering how can we begin to live in a not-so-human-centric way? ...
Young Adult’s Nature Based Rites of Passage
Lost Borders | Vision Fast, Youth
Marking the threshold of adulthood takes great courage, perhaps now more than ever before as young people face growing stressors of environmental & social crises. These programs support youth and young adults to cultivate self-trust, responsibility, and a personal understanding of one’s innate belonging & unique place in society and the natural world in these intensifying times. ...
Earth Exchange Café: Meredith Little Foster- Dying and Living Well
Meredith Little | Living and Dying
Meredith Little Foster musing all about dying and how living is enhanced by turning towards, rather than away from that as a tricky and tender topic. ...
The Giveaway
Betsy Perluss, PhD | Living and Dying
I am humbled by their eagerness to show up fully, their creative responses to a world dressed up in disaster, their questioning of firmly held societal assumptions, and their dedication to the call for justice and equity and for right practice in relationship with the ceremony.... ...
Incorporation- Embodying the Vision
Silvia Talavera | Living the Practices
In a rite of passage ceremony there are three distinct phases one must pass through. Each of these phases carry it’s unique and challenging work. The first of the phases is Severance, the stepping away, severing from and relinquishing the old behavior, places and situations that no longer serve and continue to hold you back… ...
Living the Practices- applying the bare bones
Nancy Jane | Living the Practices
Many years ago, after training with School of Lost Borders’ founders Steven Foster and Meredith Little, I remember their strong urging to future guides: “Take the ceremony and make it your own.” Those words, I think, capture the innovation and originality of the programs under the branch of the School called Living the Practices. Here the personal interests, unique skill sets, and specialized passions of individual School guides find expression in offerings that apply the bare bones of the vision fast ceremony... ...
Are You Queer, Different, Odd, Singular, Strange? The Importance of Belonging
Dr. Scott Eberle | Living the Practices
Queer: “1. Differing from what is usual or ordinary; odd; singular; strange.” To belong: “1. To have a proper or suitable place. 2. To be part of; be related or connected (to).” For the first 42 years of my life—42 of 65—I believed that if ever I were to join a new group, I was… ...
Radical Acts of Re-member-ing
Petra Lentz-Snow | Vision Fast
Rite of Passage ceremonies have been held in near infinite forms and shapes for thousands of years, shaping and shifting according to weather, landscape, ancestral lineages and the particular needs of the community which enacted them. What sets modern rite of passages apart, is not so much the forms of ceremony we use today,… ...
Like A River – Earth Converse with Emerald North
SOLB Contributor | Living the Practices, Vision Fast
Description from Earth Converse Podcast: Ready to flow like a river? Penelope’s first guest conversation is with the wise wonderful Emerald North. “A woman of the earth, artist, poet, a guide and most of all, a human being that is deeply connected and living with, on and through the living earth around her day to… ...
War Mode to Wholeness – by OIF Vet Mitchell Brookman
SOLB Contributor | Living the Practices, Vision Fast
I am a combat veteran with two tours in Iraq, resulting in four broken vertebrae, traumatic brain injury, and post-traumatic stress.... I met a friend who introduced me to the Rite of Return offered by Veterans Rites...Armed with my intention, the safe compassionate space opened by our guides and the wisdom of self-generated ceremony I set out on the fourth day to spend four days in the wilderness, alone without food or shelter.... ...
Ancestor Preparation: On Becoming a Good Dead Person
Betsy Perluss, PhD | Living and Dying, Living the Practices, Vision Fast
Note: This short piece has been submitted to Circles on the Mountain for publication. For better or worse, wilderness rites of passage programs have gained a great deal of popularity over recent years. For better, because many of us have worked hard to see meaningful rites regain their importance within modern culture. We know that… ...
I Lay Down My Burden and Rise – Navy Veteran Steve Fronckowiak
SOLB Contributor | Vision Fast
Steve Fronckowiak was a US Navy Surface Warfare Officer who deployed with three different commands from 1998 to 2005. He was led to the Veteran Rites of Return by his ex-wife and friend. ...
Hello, our great and beautiful family!
Lost Borders | Vision Fast
This is Gordon from the beautiful soil of Kenya in East Africa. Its been awhile and am happy to share with you about what’s going on with my life during this transition into this other full moon. Lot has happened. A road that was both challenged with pandemic that caused a stand still to schooling… ...
Learning to live
SOLB Contributor | Vision Fast
It is my third day without food. In the night I awaken now and again, cozy in my warm sleeping bag, and watch the Big Dipper move around the north star. At the early light of dawn over barren rock hills, I bid farewell to a waning moon as it dips behind the ridge far… ...
Incorporation from the Great Ballcourt Fast
Lost Borders | Vision Fast
Good morning dear Friends, Oh, how you and Death Valley have been on my mind and in my heart. For days after returning home to Colorado, I would wake up in the night and look for the stars above my head and feel sad to find the blank stare of my ceiling or I would… ...
Vision Fasting As our World is Burning
Lost Borders | Vision Fast
Sitting on a mountain perch at 8000 feet, I have come to the Inyos to fast. Longing to see my brilliant, beloved Sierras to the west, today, they are not visible at all. The smoke from the relentless fires of the American West has totally obscured them. ...
Turning Into Life
Meredith Little | Living the Practices
Thirty years ago Steven Foster and Meredith Little founded The School of Lost Borders, offering rites of passage experiences based in part on Native American vision quests. ...
Song: My Time Is Now
Lost Borders | Vision Fast, Youth
Composed and performed by Sifo Sonwabise, Naomi Mwangi, & Rebecca Hartt ...
Podcast: On Being A Mortal Animal with Dr. Scott Eberle
Dr. Scott Eberle | Living and Dying
In this interview, we explore the practice of living and dying and what it means to be a mortal animal. ...
Elderhood Initiation: A Personal Story
Larry Hobbs | Vision Fast
As initiates and creative, energized citizens, we must sever from our home and from what is familiar in the outer world. ...
The Nature of Intent
Joseph (Angelo) Lazenka | Vision Fast
“What is my intent?" is asked not to define some ultimate purpose, outcome, or goal, but to allow the question itself to inform and guide. ...
The Red Thread
Dr. Scott Eberle | Vision Fast
My own life-thread is red. Red as in life-blood red. Red as in a red-rock desert with its vast open space. ...
Rites of Alignment in a New Global World
Meredith Little | Vision Fast
In our modern upbringing we have this idea that life is linear; that we are born, we live, and we die and that’s it. ...
The Four Shields of Wholeness
Steven Foster | Vision Fast
If there were a measure of “mental health,” it would involve the ability of individuals to grow into the fullness of each season--that is, the ability to fully become, or enact, the contents of each shield. ...
Wilderness Vision Fast and The Four Shields of Human Nature (PDF)
Meredith Little | Vision Fast
In 1996 Steven and Meredith gave a lecture at the University of Idaho called "Wilderness Vision Questing and the Four Shields of Human Nature". ...
Wilderness Rites of Passage
John Davis, PhD | Vision Fast
Across time and in countless ways, people of many cultures have gone into the wilderness to mark life transitions and seek guidance. ...
Re-wild Interview: Petra Lentz-Snow on Rites of Passage
Petra Lentz-Snow | Vision Fast
In this interview, Petra gives us an in-depth look into the purpose and process of rites of passage, both naturally-occurring and intentionally sought out ceremonies, such as guided vision fasts. ...
Rites of Passage and Culture
Betsy Perluss, PhD | Vision Fast
However, the archetype of initiatory rites demands a response, so we move ahead slowly, carefully, to bring this life-giving ceremony to those who yearn for it. ...
The Practice of Council in a University Human Development Course
Betsy Perluss, PhD | Vision Fast
The first step in bringing Council into a classroom setting is to properly introduce the importance of dialogue. ...
Podcast: Nature and The ‘Me’ Problem with Larry Hobbs
Lost Borders | Living the Practices, Vision Fast, Youth
Whether you are digging in the soil or digging in your past, pointing a finger at the moon or contemplating your future, we and the universe are inseparable. ...
Paying Homage to the Dark
Lost Borders | Living and Dying, Living the Practices
In other words, while it may be the dark that contains the unexpected, unwanted, and incomprehensible, it is also that which illuminates and grants us the ability to see what is hidden there. ...
Queer Quest Tribute
SOLB Contributor | Queer, Vision Fast
By Alicia Banister: But to sit in sacred space with an entire group that shares that common thread, that common understanding of shame and fear and celebration, that is a gift that I had no idea until I stepped into that space that my soul was craving. ...
Lamenting for A Vision
SOLB Contributor | Vision Fast
By Dr. Kabir Bavikatte: We return from our fast, dusty, sunburnt and smelling of wind, sand and silence. The desert has scoured away our anxieties and rendered us agape. ...
Die Before You Die
Petra Lentz-Snow | Living and Dying
Whether you believe this tale or not, it is true that in every dying we are freed, and born anew. ...
Effects of a Rites of Passage Ceremony on Veterans’ Wellbeing
SOLB Contributor | Living and Dying
The process of returning warriors home from war long predates current problems the United States is having with caring for its veterans. ...
Queer Futurism: Denizens of Liminality
SOLB Contributor | Living and Dying
By Pinar Ateş Sinopoulos-Lloyd: To honor queerness, one must honor where queerness comes from—the earth. It is a decolonizing process by nature. ...
Desert Flowering
SOLB Contributor | Training
Arriving in the sacred Inyo Mountains I am greeted by an unexpected profusion of wildflowers. A sea of purle, pink, yellow and red, scattered beneath the pinion pine and junipers. A testament to the hidden ferticility held deeply in this dry place. ...
A Desert Fast
John Davis, PhD | Vision Fast
The lesson of that vision fast in the desert is that I hold within me – and I can open myself to – all that I need. This is enough. ...
Discovering Psyche in Nature
SOLB Contributor | Vision Fast
By Patricia Pint: It is difficult for me to imagine nature without a soul. I could feel her on the top of the mountain. ...
The Ballcourt Fast
SOLB Contributor | Living and Dying
By Eve-lynn Civerolo: As you step across the threshold into the unknown wilderness, boundaries begin to dissolve and our vision begins to expand. ...
How to Prepare for Your Vision Fast Ceremony
Betsy Perluss, PhD | Living and Dying, Living the Practices, Queer, The Early Days, Training, Vision Fast, Youth
The more time and effort you take to prepare, the more meaningful your ceremony will be. It is important to keep in mind that the vision fast ceremony is not a quick-fix deal. ...
Cracked Open: The Nature of Grief, Loss and Illness
Petra Lentz-Snow | Living and Dying
What does it mean to come fully alive in the face of death and dying? ...
Individuation Within The Context of Ecological Identity (PDF)
SOLB Contributor | Living and Dying
By Rupert Marques: What is an appropriate response for Outdoor Education to the great challenge, and the great opportunity of our time? ...
What is a Vision Quest and Why Do One? (from Huffington Post)
Maddisen K. Krown | Living and Dying
We live in a world marked by borders, borders between continents, people, and even between our own hearts and minds. ...
Touching Earth, Finding Spirit: A Passage Into The Symbolic Landscape
Betsy Perluss, PhD | Living and Dying
How could we possibly comprehend this alchemical treatise if it were not for shimmering mountains and the sultry valleys? ...
The Transpersonal Dimensions of Ecopsychology: Nature, Nonduality, and Spiritual Practice
John Davis, PhD | Living and Dying
Spirituality has been part of the deep ecology and ecopsychology literatures from their beginning, though not without hesitation. ...
Fasting in the Wilderness
Steven Foster | Living and Dying
To our way of thinking, there is no pat answer to the question, “How do I prepare?” Rather the question is: “What way feels best to me?” ...