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 22 - May 3, 2025 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 12 - May 23, 2025 Cochiti Lake and Ghost Ranch, New Mexico Emerald North, Kim Belair 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 ...
Diamond in the Rough: Wilderness and the Diamond Approach
May 17 - May 24, 2025 Windhorse Village, Colorado John Davis, Marlena deCarion, Ken Crocker Living the Practices
We know this: direct and intimate contact with the natural world is an open doorway to our core aliveness, our yet-to-be healed wounds, our evolutionary growth, and our mysterious depths. Our ...
CA Men’s Rite of Passage
May 27 - Jun 7, 2025 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 ...
Ceremonial Immersion (across 2 years 2025-2026)
Jun 3 - Oct 19, 2026 Various Locations Emerald North, Scot Deily, Colleen Bishop, tbird (Thompson) Bishop Training
Only a few last places remain... Hope is not a word in my vocabulary, I have to tell you. Faith is…There is beauty in erosion. And that has been evolving over time. So I think it takes us to our ...
Young Adults Nature Based Rite of Passage
Jun 6 - Jun 17, 2025 Inyo Mountains - Big Pine, California Nick LaHaise, Gretchen (Grae) Gerlach Vision Fast
This Rite of Passage is a ceremonial and utterly real opportunity to define yourself and be thoroughly welcomed into adulthood for exactly who you are. You are our next generation of world leaders ...
The Four Directions of a Queer Man: Forgiveness, Apology & Reconciliation
Jun 7 - Jun 14, 2025 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 2
Jun 15 - Jun 29, 2025 Wild Mountain, Colorado Ruth “Roo” Wharton, Callum “Bear” Bobb, Raei Bridges 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 ...
CA Month-Long Training
Jun 18 - Jul 20, 2025 Inyo Mountains - Big Pine, California Betsy Perluss, Angelo Joseph Lazenka, Meredith Little, Petra Lentz-Snow, Kim Belair Training
*Pre-requisite for this program is having completed a guided 3 or 4-day/night vision fast within the last five years. This need not have been with the School of Lost Borders. Please submit ...
BIPOC Mirroring Training: Reflecting BIPOC Stories through Nature and Belonging
Jul 5 - Jul 13, 2025 Wild Mountain, Colorado Ruth “Roo” Wharton, Praveen Mantena Training
This program is run by Wild Mountain Retreats and bookable direct on their website This program is open to all who identify as Black, Indigenous, & People of Color (BIPOC). Many of whom have ...
CO Women’s Fast
Jul 6 - Jul 15, 2025 Dragonback Springs near Saguache, CO Bettina Straub, Nancy Jane Vision Fast
- Remembering Ourselves Home - You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your ...
CO Summer Vision Fast
Jul 21 - Aug 1, 2025 Dragonback Springs Ranch, Colorado Emerald North, Colleen Bishop, tbird (Thompson) Bishop Vision Fast
In increasing times of unrest and uncertainty it can be a common human experience to gravitate towards more “certainty” rather than less. Yet, in the Zen tradition “not knowing” is most ...
Two Week Training for Women
Jul 26 - Aug 9, 2025 Inyo Mountains - Big Pine, California Petra Lentz-Snow, Kim Belair Programs, Training
This program is currently full and now waitlist only. To be added to the waitlist, use this link and fill out the application form. We are excited to offer the Two Week Training Curriculum ...
CA Summer Vision Fast
Aug 11 - Aug 23, 2025 Inyo Mountains - Big Pine, California Scott Eberle, Gretchen (Grae) Gerlach 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, ...
Collective and Ancestral Trauma: Making Peace and Moving Forward
Aug 12 - Aug 18, 2025 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 The weight of collective trauma We live in times of profound uncertainty and change, with centuries of ...
CO Mirroring the Four Shields of Human Nature: The Art of Story Telling and Listening
Aug 20 - Aug 24, 2025 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 ...
CO Two Week Training
Sep 6 - Sep 21, 2025 Wild Mountain, Colorado Ruth “Roo” Wharton, Angelo Joseph Lazenka, Kelly McClelland Training
In these times of change and uncertainty, it is crucial that we show up for our community in ways that truly serve. The world is calling us to listen in new and old ways to connect with the land and ...
New: Four Shield Training for Women
Sep 13 - Sep 20, 2025 Big Pine and Eureka Valley Petra Lentz-Snow, Taos Malaya, Gretchen (Grae) Gerlach Programs, Training
This program is currently full and now waitlist only. To be added to the waitlist, please use this link and fill out the application ...
NM Fall Vision Fast
Sep 15 - Sep 26, 2025 Cochiti Lake and Ghost Ranch, New Mexico Emerald North, Scot Deily Vision Fast
The land knows you, even when you are lost. ~ Robin Wall Kimmerer In increasing times of unrest and uncertainty it can be a common human experience to gravitate towards more “certainty” ...
The Nature of Council
Sep 26 - Oct 3, 2025 Big Pine, California Sam DeBoskey, Yamin Chehin Training
“There is a world behind the world we see that is the same world but more open, more transparent, without blocks. Like inside a big mind, the animals and humans all can talk, and those who pass ...
CA Mirroring the Four Shields of Human Nature: The Art of Storytelling and Listening
Sep 28 - Oct 3, 2025 Big Pine, CA Betsy Perluss, Kim Belair 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
Sep 29 - Oct 12, 2025 Wild Mountain, Colorado Pedro McMillan, Kelly McClelland Vision Fast
Fall is a potent season, the leaves change, the nights lengthen, and the composting of all that is overripe begins. It is a time of harvest and a time of shedding. We begin to draw inward, to listen, ...
Finding Purpose and Meaning through the Practice of Living and Dying
Oct 10 - Oct 16, 2025 Catalina State Park - Tucson, Arizona Silvia Talavera, Gretchen (Grae) Gerlach Living & Dying
" If you would behold the spirit of death, Open your heart wide unto the body of life. For your life and death are one, Even as the river and sea are one." Kahlil Gibran Life ...
Let Go into the Mystery: The East Shield of Living and Dying
Oct 11 - Oct 19, 2025 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 Great Ballcourt Initiation – Fall Fast
Oct 20 - Oct 31, 2025 Horse Thief Canyon, Eureka Valley, Ca Angelo Joseph Lazenka, Meredith Little 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 ...
The Elder’s Journey: The Four Shields of Elderhood for Women
Oct 20 - Oct 26, 2025 Aravaipa Canyon Ranch and Retreat Center, Winkelman Arizona Silvia Talavera, Trebbe Johnson 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 This will be celebrating ...
CA Fall Vision Fast
Oct 24 - Nov 4, 2025 Death Valley, California Petra Lentz-Snow, Gretchen (Grae) Gerlach 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 4 - Nov 15, 2025 Palm Canyon Campground, Anza Borrego, Ca Betsy Perluss, Cynthia Morrow, Bettina Straub Vision Fast
“I see the Feminine defined as a reconnection to the Self, a commitment to the wildness within our instincts, our capacityto create and destroy; our hunger for connection as well as sovereignty, ...