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Staff and Guide Bios
Staff
Betsy Perluss, PhD
Betsy Perluss, Ph.D. has been involved with the School of Lost Borders for over ten years as both a wilderness guide and director of programs. She holds a doctorate in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute where she currently teaches courses on ecopsychology and rites of passage. A gifted guide and teacher, Betsy brings much heart, intensity, and humor to her wilderness work. She is also a licensed psychotherapist and Associate Professor of Counseling at California State University, Los Angeles.
Dr. Scott Eberle
Dr. Scott Eberle is a physician specializing in end-of-life care, medical director of Hospice of Petaluma in Petaluma, California, an experienced teacher and author, and a wilderness guide. He first learned the science of medicine at U.C. San Francisco medical school, then learned the art of medicine from countless people living and dying with AIDS. He survived this difficult time by regularly seeking sanctuary, either in monasteries or in the natural world, completing more than a hundred retreats during a fifteen-year period.
Emerald North
Visionary, painter, sculptor, gardener and poet, Emerald North, brings years of vital and vibrant experience to the School of Lost Borders. She teaches from the depth of a full and rich life with humor, vision and love. Emerald has been with Lost Borders since 1993 and co-directed the School with Joseph Lazenka from 2001 through 2005. Art Website: http//www.earthtonesart.com
John Davis, PhD
John has been leading wilderness rites of passage retreats since 1984. As a School of Lost Borders staff member, he leads vision fasts and other wilderness-based retreats and trains rites of passage guides. He is a professor at Naropa University where he directs the low-residency MA programs in ecopsychology and transpersonal psychology. He also teaches wilderness therapy at Naropa. A teacher of the Diamond Approach since 1983, he is the author of The Diamond Approach: An Introduction to the Teachings of A. H. Almaas (Shambhala).
Joseph Lazenka
A vision fast guide and trainer since 1986, Joseph joined the Staff of the School in 1993 and co-directed the School with Emerald North from 2001 through 2005. Joseph brings a passionate, dramatic voice to the nurturing of individual character and calling, and a mythic empathy for people, their dreams, and the healing power of nature.
Larry Hobbs
From a field biologist studying whales and dolphins, to a psychotherapist working with individual and family systems, to a teacher and naturalist leading wildlife trips worldwide, Larry came to Lost Borders to train and to guide vision fasts. Although still conducting river dolphin research in Southeast Asia, teaching and leading natural history trips around the world, Larry's passions lay in guiding vision fasters and in sharing his knowledge of the way we understand the ecosystems that support us all.
Meredith Little
Meredith and her husband, Steven Foster, co-founded Rites of Passage Inc. in 1976 and The School of Lost Borders in 1981 – pioneering the methods and dynamics of modern pan-cultural passage rites in the wilderness, and “field eco-therapy”. The essence of their work is captured in articles, chapters, an award-winning documentary film, and books that include: The Book of the Vision Quest, The Roaring of the Sacred River, The Four Shields: The Initiatory Seasons of Human Nature
Nancy Jane
Nancy is an educator, wilderness guide, and council facilitator. She began her study of wilderness rites of passage in 1981 and has been following this calling ever since. Nancy leads youth and adult vision fasts and has pioneered wilderness rites of passage in school settings. Her intention is to listen deeply in support of others’ connection to nature and spirit; to hold the deepest, widest container of safety and acceptance for others; and to empower them in the full expression of who they are.
Ruth Wharton
An experienced wilderness guide, mentor, and therapist. Ruth has worked extensively with people of all ages in wilderness, residential, and therapeutic settings. She been a guide at the School of Lost Borders over 8 years and is deeply committed to re-introducing rites of passage into the world. This woman passionately weaves the mirror of nature through the world around her.
Silvia Talavera
Silvia has been on the staff of The School of Lost Borders since 1992 as guide and teacher. She is a hospice nurse supporting end of life transitions and end of life care at the bedside and as a community educator. She is a woman of versatility, passion, depth and humor. Silvia brings to her work a nurturing insight and deep compassion inspiring people to expand beyond familiar borders towards self empowerment.
Virginia 'Gigi' Coyle
Gigi Coyle Gigi began with a series of three-day retreats at a convent school when she was twelve. In her early twenties, the seeds of that experience led her to travel--alone in the wilderness, and in other cultures--seeking pathways to spirit, integral healing, and the partnership possible between all beings. She still travels that road.
Will Scott
A wilderness guide and student of the human-nature relationship for the past 9 years. Will began by leading adventure backpacking trips and has since been a guide both domestically and internationally with college-level field courses and vision fasts. He co-founded The Wilderness Within in 2003 in an effort to encourage wilderness experiences that focus on individual growth and engage some of the key questions of ecopsychology. Will has trained and apprenticed at Lost Borders and is also a Wilderness First Responder.
Win Phelps
Vision fast guide, trainer and council facilitator, he was a director in film and television for 25 years. Twice nominated for Emmys as best director in a dramatic series, he was executive producer of the Lost Borders youth-quest documentary film. Trained in ecotherapy at Lost Borders and the Animas Valley Institute, he is also a coach/mentor certified by the Hudson Institute of Santa Barbara. He is a 25-year student of the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and parent of two children in their twenties.
School Guide
Marlow Hotchkiss
“My professional life is focused around coaching, training, and facilitating others to realize their goals. I am fascinated by people and how we grow; I have a natural gift for empowering others and for eliciting their inherent talents, their authentic selves. I work most creatively and productively in the context of shared leadership and team collaboration. I believe deeply in the power of heartfelt and candid conversation to heal relationships and build community.”
Ron Pevny
Ron Pevny, M.A, recognized his calling as a wilderness rite of passage guide in 1979, and through his guiding, life coaching and consulting has been assisting people in creating lives of passion and service ever since. These days his work is focused on guiding rites of passage for people committed to conscious/spiritual elderhood, coaching individuals feeling called to claim the role of elder, and offering tours to learn about and from the Tarahumara Indians of Copper Canyon, Mexico.
Susanna Maida
Susanna loves to support others in creating a life that reflects their deepest inner truth, makes their wild heart sing, and ripples outward in ever-widening circles of life-affirming impact. She combines the theoretical stuff she learned while getting a Ph.D. in Transformative Learning and Change with her training and experience as a life and leadership coach, a vision quest guide, and a council facilitator and trainer, and then weaves it all together with a profound love of nature.
Guest Guide
Caiyloirch Marques
I am intrigued by the stories we live by. A guiding question for my own life is concerned with what personal and collective stories support us in living in a mutually enhancing manner on this earth. My work here at the school and in my wider life as an educator is in support of this inquiry.
Jackie Levin
Jackie Levin, RN, is a clinical nurse specialist who has been a leader in the field of holistic health care education and training for the past 25 years. She gives lectures, workshops, and trainings at national and international nursing conferences, hospitals, and corporate wellness programs. Jackie founded and directed the Mind/Body Education and Patient Care Program at the NYU Langone Medical Center.
Munro Sickafoose
Munro Sickafoose is a husband, father, whitewater river guide, and ceremonial leader. He has been deeply involved with indigenous earth–based ceremonies for many years. He trained as a vision quest guide at the School of Lost Borders, and has been leading groups and individuals in the wild since 1996. He has trained at the Ojai Foundation as a facilitator in the Way of Council.
Ray Hillis
Ray has led and assisted fasts with the School of Lost Borders for the past few years. He received his Ph.D. in Psychology from UCLA in 1968, recently retired from a lifelong career of teaching human development and counseling, and has had a psychotherapy practice (presently in Santa Fe, New Mexico) with a special interest in Jungian analytic dreamwork since the 1970s.
Board of Directors
Maddisen K. Krown
Maddisen has been engaged in vision quest and wilderness rites of passage trainings with the School of Lost Borders since 1998. She received her undergraduate degree in English Literature/Writing from UMass, Amherst, and holds a Master’s Degree in Spiritual Psychology from the University of Santa Monica. Between deep exhales and inhales of the wilderness, Maddisen serves as a life coach & counselor, and writes & performs stories for the stage and film.
Sara Harris
Sara Harris, MFT, has been a Psychotherapist in private practice in Sonoma County, California for over 25 years. In 1998 she began the first Northern California chapter of Bread for the Journey, a national non-profit dedicated to neighborhood philanthropy. She did Vision Quest guide training at the School of Lost Borders and also with Wilderness Rites, and is the co-founder of EarthWays (www.earthways.info), a collective in Sebastopol, Ca, dedicated to Rites of Passage and other earth-based programs. She has been an exuberant educator, guide and mentor in a variety of settings.