Rites of Passage
I guide vision quests and other rites of passage for groups & individuals. I'm trained in the ecopsychology tradition of the School of Lost Borders and the Animas Valley Institute. I also bring my background as an ordained teacher of Buddhist meditation & practice to the work, as well as my background as a performing artist, dancer, & storyteller. I believe there is great power in myth & story, when we can see them at work in our lives.
Rites of passage can go by many names: vision quest, vision fast, wilderness therapy, wilderness solo. The name is not important. What's important is that a person have the opportunity to mark a stage of life or significant event in their life. This can be stepping into elderhood, parenthood, or adulthood. It could be about coming out, letting go of a significant relationship, or claiming one's role as an artist, healer, or leader.
Whatever is needing to be claimed or witnessed, the rite of passage provides the container for the person to set their intention, spend time in powerful solo ceremony in the wilderness, and be witnessed & welcomed in that change by their community.
What is needing to be claimed or witnessed in your own life, or the life of someone you love?
When we allow the natural world to be our teacher, our true essence can emerge.
Being witnessed telling our soul's story is powerfully liberating.
We are creating a powerful culture of ceremony, using old teachings & new ideas.
Solo, Second Night
You awaken to the dying August moon riding the blackened
sky overhead, whispering down half-truths.
Her ghostly white light showing only shapes and shadows
that might be here, or might be in some other world.
Your own black shadow when you get up to piss looking like a human-
shaped hole you might fall into, and a dark red falling star
pulling you back to that long-ago summer in the mountains of your home.
Your heart now aches for the fields and forests of that place,
so far away. For that perfect summer love, so distant in memory
you’re not even sure she was real.
You may have just made her up as a story
to tell your heart when you’re lonely.
You feel your younger self slipping away like a river,
details lost as they’re pulled around the bend out of sight.
You’re standing in the current, wet to the knees, trying desperately
to grab onto the water that rushes through your fingers.
And you feel a part of you dying inside, as a baby
that is unloved will turn its face to the wall and sigh itself into oblivion.
Can a thing be true and untrue at the same time?
Can your heart be both living and dying?
Broken and whole, a rabbit caught in a trap
and running free over the fields?
You step out of the river. You crawl back into bed.
You’re not sure you want the responsibility of being human.
Why were you even chosen for this task?
An angel tapped you on the shoulder and said
“It’s your turn now.”
With black eyes she handed you the blade and said
“Go, kill a thousand dreams.”
With white eyes she handed you a beating heart
to plant in the desert, there to bloom into the tree of your longing.
But these are only just thoughts.
The roaring wings of Nighthawk snap you back into the moment.
Cold morning air stings your face.
You see that Orion’s belt has been swallowed by the light of the sun,
and it’s time to get up and live into the rest of your life.
~Naga Nataka
Contact me about Rites of Passage
808-494-9436