PROGRAM SCHEDULE
The School offers programs in a variety of locations throughout the four seasons.
We welcome all cultural and gender identities and people.
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.
CO June Queer Quest
Jun 6 - Jun 20, 2026 Wild Mountain, Colorado Callum “Bear” Bobb, Ruth “Roo” Wharton, Timotéo(Téo) Ikoshy Montoya II Vision Fast
For over the last decade at the Queer Quest, groups of people from every part of the queer community have gathered on the land to celebrate our stories and step into the fullness of our queer ...
Dying as a Rite of Passage
Jun 13 - Jun 20, 2026 Inyo Mountains – Big Pine, CA Cynthia Morrow, Scott Eberle Living & Dying
For millennia, indigenous people of all our bloodlines have known "how to die”, with the natural world as our teacher from the beginning of time. Cycles of dying and rebirth are seen everywhere: ...
CA Month-Long Training
Jun 17 - Jul 19, 2026 Inyo Mountains - Big Pine, California Betsy Perluss, Meredith Little, Petra Lentz-Snow, Kim Belair, Angelo Joseph Lazenka 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 an ...
The Young Adult Rite of Passage
Jun 20 - Jul 1, 2026 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 ...
Four Seasons of Storytelling
Jun 28 - Apr 4, 2027 Bay Area Backcountry and Zoom Scott Eberle, Logan Falley Living the Practices
One week-long gathering in Bay Area backcountry: September 20-27, 2026 All other sessions by Zoom. Following Your Own Life Thread There’s a thread you follow. It goes among things that ...
CO Summer Vision Fast
Jun 29 - Jul 10, 2026 McClure Pass, CO. 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 ...
Queer Men’s Fast
Aug 2 - Aug 16, 2026 Wild Mountain, Colorado Sam Balka, Pedro McMillan Vision Fast
Want to Learn More? Come meet the guides and ask your questions. We're hosting a virtual Info Session on Monday, June 8th, 5:15 PT/6:15pm MT. Registration ...
Two Week Training for Women
Aug 7 - Aug 22, 2026 Inyo Mountains - Big Pine, California Petra Lentz-Snow, Kim Belair Programs, Training
This training offers the Two Week Training Curriculum offers in a gender expansive/inclusive women cohert and with a special focus on women's rites of passage. WHY A TRAINING FOR WOMEN? While ...
Becoming Human: The Four Shields Model of Nature-Based Therapeutics
Aug 11 - Aug 16, 2026 Inyo Mountains, Payahuunadü, 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 ...
CA Summer Vision Fast
Aug 17 - Aug 29, 2026 Inyo Mountains - Big Pine, California Gretchen (Grae) Gerlach, Scott Eberle 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, ...
NM Mirroring the Four Shields of Human Nature: The Art of Story Telling and Listening
Aug 19 - Aug 23, 2026 Northern New Mexico 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 Women’s Fast – Remembering Ourselves Home
Aug 23 - Sep 1, 2026 Wild Mountain, 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 ...
Composting Whiteness & Cultivating Solidarity
Sep 8 - Sep 15, 2026 Payahuunaduu (AKA Owens Valley, CA) ~ Near town of Big Pine Kelly McClelland, Will Scott Living the Practices
May we recognize the inevitability of this great changing time And our part to play in it May the beauty of what’s to come carry us forward on a steady current of conviction – and still – ...
CO Two Week Training
Sep 11 - Sep 26, 2026 Wild Mountain, Colorado Bettina Straub, Pedro McMillan Training
An Invitation A rite of passage is, at its heart, about community. We may come to ceremony because of personal hardship or longing, but its real power is in how we bring that change back to our ...
The Initiatory Nature of Loss
Sep 13 - Sep 20, 2026 Payahuunadü (Big Pine) and Eureka Valley, California Petra Lentz-Snow, Gretchen (Grae) Gerlach Living & Dying
The land around us (and within us) teaches with each passing season, and with each flood, drought, fire and storm, that out of change, crisis and a dying to what was, there appears a new story of ...
CA Men’s Rite of Passage
Sep 14 - Sep 25, 2026 Inyo Mountains, Payahuunadü, California Scott Davidson, Nick LaHaise 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 ...
NM Fall Vision Fast
Sep 14 - Sep 25, 2026 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” ...
CA Mirroring the Four Shields of Human Nature: The Art of Storytelling and Listening
Sep 21 - Sep 26, 2026 Big Pine, CA Kim Belair, Gretchen (Grae) Gerlach Training
The need to share and listen to stories lived deep in our bones. And yet, in today’s fast-paced world, many of us have forgotten how to truly speak from the heart—or how to listen in a way that ...
The Great Ballcourt Initiation – Fall Fast
Sep 28 - Oct 9, 2026 Eureka Valley and Big Pine, Ca Angelo Joseph Lazenka, Betsy Perluss 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, 2026 Death Valley, California Petra Lentz-Snow, Gretchen (Grae) Gerlach Vision Fast
"To thrive, to live, we must come to the thinnest places, where life and death aren't opposites but bedfellows.” - Bayo Akomolafe At the core, rite of passage journeys help us remember the ...
CA Women’s Vision Fast
Nov 3 - Nov 14, 2026 Lemoigne Canyon, Death Valley, Ca 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, ...
A Light in the Dark – Forgiveness and Apology in a Wounded World
Nov 7 - Nov 15, 2026 Hanaupah Canyon, Death Valley, California Bettina Straub, Scott Eberle Living & Dying
Forgiveness and Apology in a Wounded World ‘Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.’ - ...
Becoming Human: The Four Shields Model of Nature-Based Therapeutics
Jan 18 - Jan 23, 2027 Palm Canyon Campground, Anza Borrego, CA 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 ...
Mid-Winter Vision Fast
Feb 15 - Feb 26, 2027 Death Valley, California Petra Lentz-Snow, Nick LaHaise Vision Fast
Deep within we know. No matter how much dissociation and trauma we may carry, we still know. We know in our bones when life has grown stale and the skin around us begins to itch and crack. ...
Walking Into That Good Night: Exploring Our Relationship With Dying & Death
Feb 28 - Mar 6, 2027 Death Valley, CA Katie Teague, Betsy Perluss Living & Dying
“To live in this world you must be able to do three things: To love what is mortal, To hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it, And when the time comes to let it go, to ...
The Great Ballcourt Initiation – Spring Fast
Mar 9 - Mar 20, 2027 Lemoigne Canyon, 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 ...
CA Spring Vision Fast
Apr 5 - Apr 16, 2027 Big Pine & Death Valley, California Petra Lentz-Snow Vision Fast
CO-Guide TBA Life transitions, like entering adulthood, midlife or elderhood are DNA invitations to go out on the land. The need to shed and decompose what is no longer true so that we can become ...
NM Women’s Vision Fast
May 10 - May 21, 2027 Cochiti Lake and Ghost Ranch, New Mexico Kim Belair, Emerald North Vision Fast
An Invitation to Step Into Your Own Becoming At certain moments in a woman’s life, something deeper calls. A quiet but undeniable knowing begins to stir — a desire to step beyond the familiar ...
Queer Storytelling and Mirroring: Training on Queer Becoming and Belonging
Jun 13 - Jun 19, 2027 Inyo Mountains - Big Pine, California Gretchen (Grae) Gerlach, Scott Eberle Vision Fast
“The universe is made of stories, not atoms " - Mariel Rukeyser Stories of Queerness, both from human folx and from the more-than-human-world, are emerging; miraculously sprouting hermaphroditic ...
CA Month-Long Training
Jun 16 - Jul 18, 2027 Inyo Mountains - Big Pine, California Betsy Perluss, Petra Lentz-Snow, Kim Belair, Meredith Little 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 an ...
THE YOUNG ADULT RITE OF PASSAGE
Jun 21 - Jul 2, 2027 Payahuunadü and Inyo Mountains, 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 ...
CA Summer Vision Fast
Aug 15 - Aug 27, 2027 Inyo Mountains - Big Pine, California Gretchen (Grae) Gerlach, Scott Davidson Vision Fast
“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” - Maya Angelou Life changes us again and again- through puberty, ...
Dark Nature: The Initiatory Descent into the West
Aug 15 - Aug 21, 2027 Inyo National Forest, CA Betsy Perluss, Cynthia Morrow Living & Dying
Dark Nature is a seven-day initiatory immersion into the West—the season of descent, endings, and inward turning. Together we explore how life initiates us through loss, disruption, and change, and ...
NM Mirroring the Four Shields of Human Nature: The Art of Story Telling and Listening
Aug 18 - Aug 22, 2027 Northern New Mexico 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 20 - Sep 25, 2027 Big Pine, CA Kim Belair, Gretchen (Grae) Gerlach Training
We need new stories, new terms and conditions that are relevant to the love of land, a new narrative that would imagine another way, to learn the infinite mystery and movement at work in the ...
NM Fall Vision Fast
Sep 28 - Oct 8, 2027 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 Great Ballcourt Initiation – Fall Fast
Oct 4 - Oct 15, 2027 Eureka Valley and Big Pine, Ca Angelo Joseph Lazenka, Betsy Perluss 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 4 - Oct 10, 2027 Aravaipa Canyon Ranch and Retreat Center, Winkelman Arizona ( extra cost for accommodations apply) 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 Throughout the ages, elder women ...
CA Fall Vision Fast
Oct 24 - Nov 4, 2027 Death Valley, California Petra Lentz-Snow, Gretchen (Grae) Gerlach Vision Fast
"To thrive, to live, we must come to the thinnest places, where life and death aren't opposites but bedfellows.” - Bayo Akomolafe At the core, rite of passage journeys help us remember the ...
CA Women’s Vision Fast
Nov 9 - Nov 20, 2027 Lemoigne Canyon, Death Valley. Betsy Perluss, 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, ...