As our modern culture has grown ever more sophisticated, we have also become ever more divorced from our natural surroundings and from ancient wisdom about living and dying. We have pushed Death away from Life, the dying away from the living—all in order to impose the illusion of control on the uncertainty of change. We have lost touch with the natural world and with our place in it as mortal animals. We have forgotten “how to die.”

Over 30 years ago, a cultural transformation—a slow rediscovery of the lost art of living and dying—began simultaneously in two different settings. In 1973, the first American hospice was started in New Haven and two years later, the first California program opened in Marin County. Also in 1973, Steven Foster began working for a government agency called "Rites of Passage” and two years later partnered with Meredith Little (also in Marin) and together they began their pioneering work in wilderness rites of passage. Thirty years later, these worlds met at Steven’s deathbed. 

Meredith Little and hospice physician Dr. Scott Eberle are committed to promoting more understanding about rites of passage within health care, and increasing awareness about the dying practice contained in rites of passage work.  Their dream is to learn what will be evoked by the dynamic juxtaposition of hospice, rites of passage, and the land we live on, that we might each be inspired to live and die more consciously amid these challenging times.  They explore how to bring this learning back into our personal and professional lives. 

They offer talks, lectures, and programs throughout the world.

Course Overviews: 

Where Hospice and Rites of Passage Meet - An Introductory Program

Introductory talks and 1 - 2 day programs for health care professionals and others interested in exploring this topic, held at different sites across the U.S. Though facilities will vary, typically short programs are offered at a retreat center or a developed campground. Upon request and when time permits, we are open to offering these educational lectures or seminars to both caregivers and rites of passage guides.

Full-Length Outdoor Programs

Each of the following trainings will explore the personal, evolving mythos of each participant, while also seeking to create a bridge between the growing wisdom of the modern hospice movement and the ancient, pan-cultural wisdom of indigenous people. We will begin together in the evening of the first day. The next four days we will explore the “four seasons of living and dying” with meetings in the mornings, solo time in nature each afternoon, and stories told each evening, evoked by this time on the land. Many of these programs culminate in a one-day solo-fast with stories told in a council setting afterward, mirrored by Scott, Meredith and the group.

The Great Ballcourt Vision Fast is a more “advanced” program built around a four-day fast. It is meant for people who have either completed one of our other wilderness programs, or a three- or four-day wilderness fast of some kind.
                

Dying as a Rite of Passage - Program for “Caregivers” of Any Kind: In this 6- to 9-day training we invite “caregivers” of any kind to join us as we explore how the pan-cultural teachings about rites of passage can help us to guide others (and ourselves) through the dying process. We will be camping out for the entire week so that our group can be held in the special container of an isolated natural setting. Activities undertaken are non-strenuous, and “safety first” is always our emphasis. Our goal will be to see how the lessons we’ve learned in our own “caregiver” roles blend with what the natural world has to teach us.

In the Life Lodge - Forgiveness, Apology and Reconciliation:
Imagine you live in a community that has its own “Death Lodge,” a place where a dying person can rest and receive the visitors who come to say goodbye.  This is the natural place of “making it good” with your people so you can cleanly move on, and they can let you go in the fullness of completion. One of the great challenges we all face in life is to do this work now, when it is most needed, rather than waiting until the last days of our dying.  Call this the work of “the Life Lodge.”  In this program, we invite participants to move through “the four shields of the Life Lodge,” looking to restore a personal and communal balance that embraces the wounds of the past without becoming mired in them.  If you listen, today more than ever, you can hear a cry for this kind of healing—be it in the lives of individual friends, or in the biggest stories of our time.

The Great Ballcourt Initiation Fast - An Advanced Program:  This unique program blends allegorical material drawn from the Mayan culture with the wisdom of hospice work, all in support of a four-day solo fast in nature. Briefly, the “ballcourt player” is called to consciously step onto Decision Road—a road that leads to the Death Lodge, the Purpose Circle, and ultimately a rendezvous with Death on the Great Ballcourt in the Underworld of Xibalba. In the Death Lodge, the ballplayer makes peace with his people and says all goodbyes. He then enters the Purpose Circle alone to make his final preparations with and for himself. And finally he enters the Great Ballcourt where he plays against the Lords of Death to consciously call in a new life with renewed purpose and commitment. We recommend that people have first completed one of our other courses or some other three- or four-day wilderness fast. 

The Wounded Healer: Listening and Mirroring in a Health Care Setting:
In a health care setting, caregivers often focus intently on diagnosing and fixing problems.  When the pace of this work becomes too fast, too intense, the ability to truly listen can diminish.  Often lost in a patient’s life-and-death struggle is a personal lifestory: a mythic telling of "who I am" and "where I'm going" in that person’s singular and precious life.  If not seen and not heard, the patient becomes twice-wounded: already ill, she also becomes invisible. This new program invites people who work as caregivers—be it as professionals or volunteers—to hone their own capacity to deeply listen and to give back a person’s unfolding story.  To do this, each participant will be asked to be both “patient” and “healer.”  As “patient,” each person will explore a deeper telling of his own story as a “wounded person,” offering that story to a circle of caregivers.  As “healer,” each person will also be asked to listen deeply to the stories that others tell and to mirror them back.

Programs in the U.S. offered by Other Guides

Passage To Elderhood: Are you one of the increasing number of people in or approaching their senior years who sense that there is a difference between being an elder and being older? Do you feel an inner call to an elderhood of purpose, passion, service and spiritual growth? Do you feel frustrated by the lack of support for the role of elder in today’s world? This workshop, at a rustic retreat center in Savery, Wyoming, is designed to serve as a rite of passage for those feeling this call. Through this rite of passage and its practices such as dreamwork, the way of council, ceremony, deep imagery, and a 12-24 hour period of solitude and fasting in nature, you will have an opportunity to shed limiting beliefs, attitudes, and self-identifications and to embrace a deeper knowing of your wisdom, gifts, spiritual connection, and the legacy you are called to create as an elder. Camping is an option for those who want to sleep on the land.

International Programs

Six to twelve-day seminars offered in various settings, basecamps and seminar houses outside of the USA. Open to all-comers. 

For specific offerings, visit Lost Borders International.