In Celebration of Rites of Passage Ceremonies Across Borders
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Dear Lost Borders Family,
The winds of climate change are blowing hard. Fires were burning out of control north, and south of our headquarters in the past two weeks. Many of our friends and some of our guides in threatened areas were evacuated, and our prayers have been with everyone, human and more than human, in the affected areas!
As the weather is calming, firefighters are making headway in containment, and residents are returning to their homes, we want to share our fall newsletter with you, which focuses on the many ways the ceremony is blossoming beyond our borders.
Beyond the small scope of the school's core curriculum, the magic of the ceremony is flowing into the world through the hearts and hands of many amazing individuals. It shows up in poetry, parenting, relationships, and art. It transforms workplaces, schools, and organizations. It leads us to what we most deeply yearn for, and are at the same time terrified to find, the places where our particular need meets the need of the world.
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Today's newsletter contains a few random pieces of testimony to the power of seeds of modern rites of passage work germinating in many places across the globe, each standing for many more untold.
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Some of them are shared by trainees stepping into guiding. Others involve school guides partnering international outreach, collaborating youth work beyond our borders, or offering in house training for other organizations.
We hope you enjoy a few of the seeds that get blown across various borders and are catching hold in the fertile soil of so many different homelands, literally and metaphorically.
As a community of Rite of Passage practitioners, trainees, and guides, may we keep showing up with integrity in the heat of climate crisis and human confusion. May we continue to risk sowing seeds of beauty in the landscape of our living, wherever we go.
Some say this is a time to learn how to HURRY SLOWLY. To make space for inquiry and contemplation, and take time to harvest and digest, even if, and precisely because, our world is on fire.
May we find creative ways to straddle the ceaseless demands of modern day life, and the deep need to be present with the Earth at this time. If possible, let's trade in our to-do lists for a walk in the wild this week, just to let her know how beautiful she is. Are you in?
With love from all of us,
Petra Lentz-Snow
Lost Borders Co-Director
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Stories Crossing Borders....
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From Training to Guiding
Alexander (Ali) Trofimow participated in last year's California Month-Long Training. Almost exactly a year later, last June, he guided his first fast, holding basecamp at 5000' elevation in inclement weather in the Alps.
The story of his first guiding journey is a precious example of how trainees and guides are using the bare bones of the ceremony in the particular and unique ways they are called to serve their people, communities and cultural heritage.
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Working with Youth and Young Adults
Many who trained with the school go on to work with youth in various settings, often offering junior and senior solos in high schools.
Beyond the Young Adult Fast that is a steady component of the Schools curriculum, today we want to name and honor a few pieces of the youth work that is going on beyond our borders. Check it out!
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Vision Fasting in Spain
Diana Bacanu and Xavi Compte came to the Month-Long Training in 2017. Living and working in Barcelona at the time, both deeply contemplating a major life shift, they caught on fire with the ceremony and since then have jumped in feet first.
Nowadays, you can find them in the remote region of the Catalan Mountains, where they offer nature programs and incorporate Vision Fasts in French, Spanish and English.
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Poem by Sara Drew, 2019 Month-Long Training
For Pip -guide, mentor and friend:
Go out into the desert and fast
Take nothing but your own becoming
Seek naught but what you already are
Follow the path of the ancient ones
Do this, not for you, but for your community
Suffer, hurt, pray, surrender
Be prized apart by the joy of your own belonging
Seek shelter from the storms of your heart
Know your weakness, glory in your splendor
It is such a privilege to have a human life.
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Got stories? Contribute!
If you have a story about an experience in the field, an insight through your time on the land that you'd like to share, we'd love to hear from you. Please use the link below.
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Is it not our birthright and responsibility
to say yes to that which wants to blossom through us?
- Joseph Lazenka
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News Bites from LB Guides traveling crossing borders ...
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* Ruth Wharton and Pedro McMillian are drawn back to Australia in 2020, where they will be offering another Queer Wilderness Retreat as well as a Rite of Passage Training next spring. More information on our
Global Page
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* Emerald North and Scot Deily have just returned from a Mirroring Training in Vermont for the Wilderness Rites organization founded by Fran Weinbaum, long time wilderness guide and friend of the school.
*Meredith Little still travels internationally every year, by way of various invitations. In 2020, she will return to Austria, UK, Germany and Switzerland.
* Betsy Perluss took up an invitation to present on Wilderness Rites of Passage at the American Psychological Association convention in Chicago this summer, where she was exceedingly well received.
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