A contemporary Queer Rite Of Passage program, designed for the modern Queer adult human seeking a supportive space to claim themself within the context of the current times we are living in.
Whether stepping into adulthood, middlehood, parenthood, elderhood, otherhood, marking a transition, an ending, a beginning, celebrating, grieving, this is an opportunity for a threshold experience, witnessed and supported by Queer guides, community, and the land.
Many of our ancestors may have experienced the potency of community supported rites of passage and we believe that initiated Queer adults bring an important flavor of collective healing by realizing and claiming our gifts while being seen. Let’s mark our gender affirming surgeries, hormone-related therapies, name changes, breakups, commitments, current roles, and identities by pausing together in witness and support!
Inspired by solo fasts, vision quests, nature therapy, forest bathing, traditional and nontraditional rites, rituals, and ceremonies of all kinds, this is a community call to those who feel the pull to go deep around the campfire with fellow kin who are curious and feeling the call to step into our expansive ways of being.
Traditional land-based rites of passage programs are often set in wild, remote, off-grid environments where some backcountry experience is necessary as questers typically head off into the wilderness for a multi-day solo fast from food, people, and shelter.
Neither backcountry experience nor special outdoor gear will be needed for this program. We will be living together on forty acres of private retreat space set in the rolling meadows and forested foothills of Southern Vermont. Basecamp at Beaver Falls is nestled beside an expansive pine and hemlock forest with a river running alongside wide, flat, well-marked trails. Accommodations include both camping, indoor lodging and meals.
This six day program is an invitation to those who may be craving more than a weekend-long retreat but may not be drawn to, ready, or able to participate in an extended multi-week off-grid initiation due to time, resources or other barriers. This program centers the story circle as the ceremony, meaning that the sharing and listening is what will inform and shape the 24 hour threshold ceremony, along with the support of the land and the guides. Some participants may determine that their threshold ceremony may involve a fast from food, people, and/or shelter, while others may benefit from a ceremony that looks radically different.
This Queer Rite of Passage program is a response to the modern day reality that there are many ways to give space to human seasons of becoming, that there is no one path of initiation that fits all, but there are major benefits for you, your community, the land and beyond, that come with exploring these potent acts of marking time, crossing thresholds, and creating our own ceremonies with the love and support of experienced guides.