PROGRAM SCHEDULE
The School offers programs in a variety of locations throughout the four seasons.
We recommend registering at least six months to a year in advance to give you time to prepare for your ceremony or program as well as to ensure a spot is available for you.
CA Spring Vision Fast
Apr 3 - Apr 14, 2023 Big Pine & Death Valley, California Petra Lentz-Snow, Scot Deily Vision Fast
Life transitions, like entering adulthood, midlife or elderhood are always "DNA invitations" to go out on the land. The need to become anew is planted deeply into our ancestral bones because it was ...
NM Women’s Vision Fast
May 10 - May 21, 2023 Cochiti Lake and Ghost Ranch, New Mexico Emerald North, Petra Lentz-Snow Vision Fast
A woman's journey is both vigorous and introspective as she covers ground outwardly, so she ventures deep within herself. Stirred by nature's calling to be creative and complete, and beckoned by an ...
Becoming Human: The Four Shields Model of Nature-Based Therapeutics
May 15 - May 20, 2023 Big Pine, California Betsy Perluss, Katie Teague Training
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 Men’s Vision Fast
May 20 - Jun 1, 2023 Big Pine, California Sam DeBoskey, Scott Davidson Vision Fast
The world is changing fast… and we must do our best to keep up. We now face unprecedented waves of transformation. The blossoming and decay of our modern ways is calling attention to fundamental ...
The Four Directions of a Queer Man: Forgiveness, Apology & Reconciliation
Jun 3 - Jun 10, 2023 Inyo Mountains - Big Pine, California Scott Eberle, Collin Brown, Paul Browde Living the Practices
Queer people don’t grow up as ourselves, we grow up playing a version of ourselves that sacrifices authenticity to minimise humiliation & prejudice. The massive task of our adult lives is to ...
CO June Queer Quest
Jun 6 - Jun 18, 2023 Wild Mountain, Colorado Pedro McMillan, Ruth “Roo” Wharton Vision Fast
The natural world reminds us that being Queer* is both beautiful and something to be celebrated! Showing up as who we are, and with our many gifts, is a celebration of nature’s diversity and honors ...
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 Training
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 ...
Young Adults Nature Based Rite of Passage
Jun 17 - Jun 28, 2023 Inyo Mountains - Big Pine, California Siri Gunnarson, Nick LaHaise Vision Fast
Every summer the School of Lost Borders offers nature based rites of passage for young people age 18-28 ready to confirm their entry into adulthood in the eastern mountains of Payahuunadü (also ...
Diamond in the Rough: Wilderness and the Diamond Approach
Jun 24 - Jul 1, 2023 Wild Mountain, Colorado John Davis, Marlena deCarion Living the Practices
Direct and intimate contact with the natural world is an ancient and profound doorway to being. Our ancestors knew this, and we are rediscovering it. Curiosity, experiential inquiry, mindfulness, ...
Young Women+ Nature Based Rite of Passage
Jul 17 - Jul 29, 2023 Inyo Mountains - Big Pine, California Siri Gunnarson, Kim Belair Vision Fast
This is a call for young women+ (trans women, cis women and non-binary people who see themselves as fully, partially or sometimes female-identified) age 20-32 seeking affinity space to liberate and ...
CO Summer Vision Fast
Jul 26 - Aug 6, 2023 Dragonback Springs Ranch, Colorado Emerald North, Colleen Bishop, tbird (Thompson) Bishop Vision Fast
In your bones you hear the singing of your sacred ancestors. You follow in their footsteps. You go alone, with an empty belly and a bare minimum of equipment, into the heart of the wilderness, for ...
CA Summer Vision Fast
Jul 31 - Aug 12, 2023 Inyo Mountains - Big Pine, California Scott Eberle, Silvia Talavera Vision Fast
The modern day vision quest is a border crossing practice, an opportunity to reclaim our true place in the natural world. When one steps across the threshold and into the unknown wilderness, ...
Intergenerational Women’s Fast
Aug 10 - Aug 19, 2023 Wild Mountain, Colorado Nancy Jane, Bettina Straub Vision Fast
Intergenerational Women’s Vision Fast - Remembering Ourselves Home - To be whole. To be complete. Wildness reminds us what it means to be human, what we are connected to rather than ...
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 Training
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 ...
Transforming Ancestral Trauma through Nature, Ritual, and Community
Aug 23 - Aug 29, 2023 Wild Mountain, Colorado Nancy Jane, Bettina Straub Living the Practices
When we heal our roots, we open up new possibilities for our future. --Thomas Hubl Ancestral Trauma The stories in our lineage are part of who we are today, but much of their influence remains ...
CO Two Week Training
Sep 2 - Sep 17, 2023 Wild Mountain, Colorado Ruth “Roo” Wharton, Pedro McMillan Training
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 Training
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 Training
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 ...
CO Fall Vision Fast
Oct 7 - Oct 19, 2023 Wild Mountain, Colorado Pedro McMillan, Kelly McClelland Vision Fast
As the leaves change, a different way of life is tugging at your heart. A new story is begging to be told. And your gifts are longing to be shared with the world. Marking life passages allows you ...
Let Go into the Mystery: The East Shield of Living and Dying
Oct 7 - Oct 15, 2023 Eureka Valley, California Scott Eberle, Cynthia Morrow Living & Dying
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 WoodThroughout time and ...
The Elder’s Journey: The Four Shields of Elderhood for Women
Oct 8 - Oct 15, 2023 Aravaipa Canyon Ranch and Retreat Center - Winkelman, Arizona (extra cost for accommodations apply) Silvia Talavera, Cary Gaunt Living the Practices
“We are the seeds of the tenacious plant, and it is in our ripeness and our fullness of heart that we are given to the wind and scattered.” Kahlil Gibran Throughout the ages, elder women ...
Nature of Council
Oct 14 - Oct 22, 2023 Jug Handle Creek Farm, Mendocino County, California Siri Gunnarson, Yamin Chehin Training
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 ...
Rites of Incorporation: Embodying the Vision and Living the Dream
Oct 22 - Oct 28, 2023 Catalina State Park - Tucson, Arizona Silvia Talavera, Kelly McClelland Living the Practices
“Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die life is a broken winged bird that cannot ...
The Great Ballcourt Initiation – Fall Fast
Oct 23 - Nov 3, 2023 Death Valley, California Meredith Little, Angelo Joseph Lazenka Living & Dying
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 ...
CA Fall Vision Fast
Oct 24 - Nov 4, 2023 Death Valley, California Petra Lentz-Snow, Kim Belair Vision Fast
Life transitions, like entering adulthood, midlife or elderhood are always "DNA invitations" to go out on the land. The need to become anew is planted deeply into our ancestral bones because it was ...
CA Women’s Vision Fast
Nov 7 - Nov 19, 2023 Death Valley, California Betsy Perluss, Ruth “Roo” Wharton, Kelly McClelland Vision Fast
Like the waxing and waning of the moon, our inner essence is reflected in the creative forces of nature, in the continual movement of light and dark. Throughout the stages of our lives, we flow ...
The Great Ballcourt Initiation – Spring Fast
Mar 12 - Mar 23, 2024 Death Valley, California Scott Eberle, Cynthia Morrow Living & Dying
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 ...
Rites of Incorporation: Embodying the Vision and Living the Dream
Oct 20 - Oct 26, 2024 Catalina State Park - Tucson, Arizona Silvia Talavera, Kelly McClelland Living the Practices
“Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die life is a broken winged bird that cannot ...