The rituals do not represent exact ages but inner stages of maturation, helping youth to transition from one state of consciousness or being to another.

​

Puberty: the first ritual marks early manhood and womanhood as a transition into greater self-understanding and empowerment.

A six-week course, the first initiation culminates in a ritual vision quest on the land and a naming ceremony. Participants will explore and create their personal myth and a symbol of their power. They will learn to transform challenges unique to their age into a power that can guide them moving forward. Individuals will work independently and in small groups, with additional private sessions from the group leader, to establish and share bother personal and group intimacy. 

 

Adulthood: the second ritual marks the completion of the passage into manhood and womanhood as a transition into independence and a guiding life purpose. 

A three-week course, the second initiation culminates in a weekend overnight that takes the participants into the wilderness of nature and the self. Based on archetypal or cross-cultural rituals from human history, the participants will be immersed in nature, working by the fire and in community. Guided by the wisdom and experience of their peers and councilors, the participants will work through shadow content to claim the power within. The culminating experience will be an initiation in nature, followed by two weeks of grounding rituals that help create a vision for the future.

 

Marriage: the third ritual marks the transition into marriage and the union of the masculine and feminine.

Based on the sacred traditions of the hieros gamos or sacred marriage, this ritual unites the masculine and feminine, within and without. Taken as a couple, the first two of the six-week sessions are taken separated by gender, in which men and women explore how to create wholeness within themselves. The next two sessions bring the couples together in alchemical union, the first session with the couple together in privacy and the second in the larger group. The final week takes the couple into nature to create and fulfill a ritual union designed by the couple, including a sacramental oath and a combined visioning session. The ritual can be combined with a traditional marriage ceremony, a rededication ceremony, or take the place of a ceremony.

 

Birth: the fourth ritual marks the transition of birth for both men and women. Birth references not simply the birth of a child, but birth of our creativity, our purpose.

Beginning separately with men and women grouped together by gender, the participants will begin to imagine into the gift of creativity. Initially working through the apprehension and expectation of the expectant birth by gender in the first two sessions, the couples will then come together to address and integrate their fears, hopes, and dreams. Together they will create a vision plan for moving forward and share vows of their own creation to help them move forward into collaboration. Naming the vision and envisioning their future gift and purpose will be the culminating ritual.

 

Midlife:  the fifth ritual marks the transition of middle age—navigating the mid-life crisis and reclaiming our purpose.

When our lives transition from what we have known, the cultural patterns of parenting and occupation, we are called to remember and reclaim who we are. This time brings a crisis of identity and offers an opportunity to transcend our limited perception into a greater vision of wholeness and healing. Known in other cultures as a time to reclaim our original sense of self, this marks a time to rededicate ourself to the path of service of our soul and a return to wholeness. Confronting past fears and loves, participants will journal and create their own myth and soul collage to envision where they want to go in the future.

​

Old Age:  the sixth ritual works as an initiation into “old age.”

Men and women will work separately in three week sessions to overcome personal and cultural limitations to embrace the gift of aging, coming together for the final session. Through retrospective reimagining, the aging process is redefined through group ritual and celebration. With a particular focus on drumming and dance, participants will learn to “dance naked under the stars” and “walk barefoot upon the earth,” as tribes from the past. Together we will embrace aging as a gift.

 

Death: the seventh and final ritual is a preparation for death and transformation.

Overcoming our cultural denial and fear of death, we will learn to see death as a gift of transformation and liberation. In this six-week session, we will work through our fears to integrate elements of our past to move into the afterlife. Recalling the Eastern perception of life as a preparation for death and a way to consciously transition into the afterlife, we will prepare for the end of our life and the beginning of a new life. Incorporating past-life experiences and teachings from different religions and wisdom traditions, we will move together into a future of liberating release.

​

All rituals will incorporate dancing, drumming, chanting, and ritual art.