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 Mirroring the Four Shields of Human Nature: The Art of Storytelling and Listening
Sep 25 - Sep 30, 2023 Big Pine, CA Betsy Perluss, Gretchen (Grae) Gerlach 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 ...
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 ...
Mid-Winter Vision Fast
Feb 19 - Mar 1, 2024 Death Valley, California Petra Lentz-Snow, Nick LaHaise Vision Fast
“It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not ...
The Four Shields of Dreams and Dreamwork
Mar 2 - Mar 9, 2024 Death Valley, California Betsy Perluss, Kim Belair Living the Practices
A dream comes from the same source as a tree or a wild pig—Nature itself. —Marie-Louise von Franz Dreams are like the mycelium of the psyche, birthed from an underground network of ancient ...
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 ...
Walking Into That Good Night: Exploring Our Relationship With Dying & Death
Mar 24 - Mar 30, 2024 Death Valley, CA Meredith Little Living & Dying
A place to stay untouched by death Does not exist. It does not exist in space, it does not exist in the ocean, Nor if you stay in the middle of a mountain. - The Buddha "Awareness of death is ...
Four Shields of human nature: remembering our place, our belonging, and our connection to all creation
Apr 1 - Apr 7, 2024 Catalina State Park - Tucson, Arizona Silvia Talavera, Gretchen (Grae) Gerlach Training
“The Great Summons of our time is to find our way home to our true nature in the living body of earth.” Joanna ...
CA Spring Vision Fast
Apr 8 - Apr 19, 2024 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 ...
The Nature of Council
May 3 - May 11, 2024 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 ...
NM Women’s Vision Fast
May 13 - May 24, 2024 Cochiti Lake and Ghost Ranch, New Mexico Emerald North, Cori Wright 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 ...
Reclaiming the Divine Masculine -a Program for Men in this Modern Age
May 19 - May 26, 2024 Wildlands in the San Francisco Bay Area Scott Eberle, Logan Falley Vision Fast
Reclaiming the Divine Masculine A Program for Men in this Modern Age For the longest time, patriarchal beliefs and proscribed gender roles have discouraged men from learning to listen deeply ...
CO June Queer Quest
Jun 3 - Jun 16, 2024 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 ...
The Four Directions of a Queer Man: Forgiveness, Apology & Reconciliation
Jun 8 - Jun 15, 2024 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 ...
CA Month-Long Training
Jun 12 - Jul 14, 2024 Inyo Mountains - Big Pine, California Betsy Perluss, Angelo Joseph Lazenka, Petra Lentz-Snow, Meredith Little, Kim Belair Training
*Pre-requite for this program is having completed a guided 3 or 4-day/night vision fast. Need not have been with the School of Lost Borders. For forty years the School of Lost Borders has offered ...
Young Adults Nature Based Rite of Passage
Jun 15 - Jun 26, 2024 Inyo Mountains - Big Pine, California Nick LaHaise, Gretchen (Grae) Gerlach 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 ...
Ceremonial Immersion (across 2 years 2024-2025)
Jun 17 - Oct 19, 2025 Various Locations Emerald North, Scot Deily Training
The Rites of Passage Ceremonial Immersion is a community-based plunge into what it means to be whole human beings: alive to our wildest fury, our erotic and blessing power, our grief, our joyful ...
Diamond in the Rough: Wilderness and the Diamond Approach
Jun 22 - Jun 29, 2024 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, ...
CA Summer Women’s Fast
Jul 8 - Jul 19, 2024 Inyo Mountains - Big Pine, Payahuunadü, California Petra Lentz-Snow, Kim Belair Vision Fast
Since time immemorial Rites of Passage Ceremonies have facilitated change, offering a simple but indispensable container to transition from one life stage to another, to let go of (die to) the old ...
In the Death Lodge: Forgiveness, Apology and Reconciliation
Jul 8 - Jul 13, 2024 Owens Valley, CA Meredith Little Living & Dying
Resentment is like a glass of poison that a man drinks; then he sits down and waits for his enemy to die. —Nelson Mandela Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the ...
CO Men’s Fast
Jul 9 - Jul 21, 2024 Wild Mountain, Colorado Pedro McMillan, Sam DeBoskey Vision Fast
Being a man can be easy, and not easy at all. How do people who identify as a man navigate both the immense privileges that come with maleness, and the weight of myths that come with being a man. ...
CO Summer Vision Fast
Jul 17 - Jul 28, 2024 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
Aug 5 - Aug 17, 2024 Inyo Mountains - Big Pine, California Scott Eberle, Betsy Perluss 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, ...
Healing Ancestral Trauma through Nature, Ritual, and Community
Aug 6 - Aug 12, 2024 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 Women’s Fast
Aug 16 - Aug 25, 2024 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 19 - Aug 23, 2024 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 ...
CA Mirroring the Four Shields of Human Nature: The Art of Storytelling and Listening
Sep 8 - Sep 13, 2024 Big Pine, CA Betsy Perluss, Angelo Joseph Lazenka 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 ...
NM Fall Vision Fast
Sep 16 - Sep 27, 2024 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” ...
CO Fall Vision Fast
Sep 16 - Sep 29, 2024 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 ...
CA Two Week Training
Sep 21 - Oct 5, 2024 Big Pine & Eureka Valley, California Ruth “Roo” Wharton, Angelo Joseph Lazenka 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 ...
The Elder’s Journey: The Four Shields of Elderhood for Women
Sep 22 - Sep 28, 2024 Catalina State Park - Tucson, Arizona 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 ...
Becoming Human: The Four Shields Model of Nature-Based Therapeutics
Sep 29 - Oct 4, 2024 Big Pine, California Betsy Perluss, Gretchen (Grae) Gerlach Training
“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 ...
Open Desert, Open Mind
Oct 5 - Oct 13, 2024 Eureka Valley, California Scott Eberle, Silvia Talavera, Bettina Straub Living the Practices
The very transparent, unfixed, yet alive quality of consciousness is its nature, a bit like air around us. If you relax and allow this experience of unfixed knowing, you will discover what ...
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 ...
The Great Ballcourt Initiation – Fall Fast
Oct 21 - Nov 1, 2024 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 Women’s Vision Fast
Nov 5 - Nov 16, 2024 Death Valley, California Betsy Perluss, Cynthia Morrow 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, ...