Tag: School of Lost Borders

Vision fast fruits: protect bees from buzz kill!

Wonderful womenFasting in the desert… again!

I just returned from a women’s vision fast in California, where I met a fabulous group of women and reconnected with some of the wonderful women guides I have apprenticed with in the past. The reason I chose to fast at this time was to celebrate the sale of Monkey Valley and to contemplate where I am at this point in my life. It is a pause between the old and the new. One of the guides, Silvia, offered the view that Monkey Valley had kicked me out—told me to leave and start the next phase of my life. I liked that!

Part of my 4-day fast mirrored the move from Monkey Valley back to Vancouver, from solitude to being close to my people. It is magical how nature can mirror us to ourselves! In this case, with the help of some yellow ants on a yellow mountain. An invading army of Crazy guidesthe ants helped shoo me off the mountain to a place that was within earshot of the laughter in base camp. The new spot was near a road, and I saw people from our group walking there every day. It was a new way to be in the ceremony, and I learned about allowing myself to be impacted by people. Very heart-warming! I was impacted by each of the women in the group, and found it was a gift to be able to feel how each of these unique souls felt as they struggled and thrived in their journey through life. Thank you, dear women!

That old nature-human heart connection

BristleconeThe time in the high mountain desert affirmed that my connection to nature is a permanent part of my life and being. Living in a city does not change that. (Especially a city like Vancouver!) A golden eagle guided me to a path that led to an ancient bristlecone pine tree. I’ll write more about these amazing trees later, but in short, they are the oldest living creatures on this earth—some of them almost 5,000 years old! During my fasting time I spent many hours in the shaded shelter of juniper trees, gazing at the sky and performing ceremony via beadwork. The ancestral spirits of the land liked the beadwork, and I could hear their voices chanting on the wind. They taught me a chant of celebration. What a blessing!

One of the things I always wonder about when I go on a vision fast is what is my purpose in life? What are the gifts I bring my people? What am I supposed to do?! I’ve learned over the years that I have many gifts, and I’ve come to the point where I don’t think I need to do anything in particular. This is a freedom and lightening of the weight on my shoulders. But that doesn’t mean I will do nothing! It just means that I have a different relationship to service and contribution. I feel more open and receptive to noticing where I am called to serve.

Serving the place I live in

Shoreline cleanup groupThere are so many ways to serve: to act for political justice and human rights; to help heal people emotionally, physically, and spiritually; to protect the environment. I really believe in serving where my heart feels called to serve, in a way that brings me joy. On the weekend of the fall equinox, I joined the many Vancouverites who participated in the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup, together with my highschool friend Stefan Bilalakis. We picked up trash along the Trans Canada Trail. I felt happy to care for the earth this way, especially as I would directly benefit by being able to run along a clean trail!

Helping protect Canada’s food supply

Today the cause is bees. The Western Canada Wilderness Committee has a campaign on to help protect bees. You have probably heard that bee populations are declining. I learned some interesting facts in the WC2 newsletter:

  • At least one third of the food we eat is dependant on pollination.
  • Canada has lost 35 per cent of its honey bee colonies annually for the past three years.
  • There is strong scientific evidence that insecticides containing neonicotinoids are causing bees to die and creating other harmful effects to the ones who live, such as memory loss that prevents them from finding their way back to the hive.

Check out the WC2 website if you’d like to find out more or make a contribution to their campaign. I sent them $25 today, and this email to Stephen Harper:

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada,
 
 There is strong scientific evidence that neonicotinoid-containing pesticides are killing bees and other pollinators. Honey bee populations in Canada have declined by 35% per year for the past three years. Did you know that bees and other pollinators are required to grow fully one third of the food we eat?
 
I am writing to request that you help protect Canada’s food supply by enacting a complete nation-wide ban on all neonicotinoid pesticides. I ask that you honour your duty to protect this land and people by protecting the bees and other pollinators that we depend upon.
 
Respectfully yours,
Karen Rempel

Karen & ChristyHere are the email addresses I sent this letter to:

Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) is seeking public comments regarding its suggested measures to protect bees from the class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids (neo-nicoteen-oids). These bee-killing pesticides have been banned by the European Union, and the State of Oregon has also placed restrictions on the use of neonicotinoids. The WC2 website has a letter form that you can fill in to write to the PMRA.

I believe that each letter or email, each dollar donated, each conversation with a friend, makes a difference.

Persistence pays off?

I received a letter from Health Canada in response to my letter. Their letter stated they are investigating the evidence about neonicotinoids, but still recommending use of this type of pesticide on seeds for Canadian farmers in 2014. Ouch! Ever since reading Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (published in 1962), about the devastating effects of pesticide use since World War II, I’ve had a sneaking suspicion that humans are insane. Greedy and insane. But 10 years after her book came out, in 1972, the use of DDT was banned in the U.S. Carson’s book was instrumental in this win, and credited with starting the North American Environmental movement. Persistence does pay off!

Guides

Karen RempelKaren Rempel is the director of Monkey Valley Retreat Centre. She leads retreats at the centre, and also apprentices on vision fasts in Colorado and California. She teaches tools to help people find healing and guidance in nature, including the medicine walk, medicine wheel, four shields of (human) nature, other ecopsychology methods, and yoga and meditation, as well as guiding questers on vision fasts.

After a decade of working as a technical writer, she earned a master’s degree in ecopsychology from Naropa University, and trained as a vision fast guide at the School of Lost Borders. She has studied the medicine wheel since 2003 and has been a student of the Diamond Approach for many years. She is a registered yoga teacher and Reiki master, committed to providing a safe environment for self exploration and growth. She is a member of the Wilderness Guides Council.

Munro SickafooseMunro Sickafoose is a vision quest guide, an initiated man, 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 also trained at the Ojai Foundation as a facilitator in the Way of Council. He is currently Netkeeper of the Wilderness Guides Council, and is working towards a Masters of Divinity degree.

He guides at Monkey Valley and in Oregon and Washington. He also guides through the School of Lost Borders, teaching a program on the four shields of leadership with his wife, Susanna Maida. Visit his web site for details of other guiding trips he has planned.

Angela JamesAngela James has run 18 marathons and completed Iron Man Canada in August 2008. Angela has been a Team in Training marathon coach with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s (LLS) groundbreaking charity sports training program since 2004. She no longer has Achilles tendonitis since using the ChiRunning form. Now Vancouver’s only certified ChiRunning instructor, she plans to give workshops all over the world teaching others this revolutionary technique. Her shining spirit uplifts and motivates everyone she teaches.

Angela incorporates ChiLiving as a practice along with her tea business. “Chi Tea” is her catch phrase, because she believes so strongly in the benefits of both ChiRunning and health-promoting, organic Rooibos tea. Angela is also an accomplished cello player. Visit her web site to learn about Angela’s upcoming ChiRunning workshops in Vancouver.

Kim & ChaiKim Ashley guides vision fasts at Monkey Valley and is a life coach. She is the founder of Transformational Learning and Coaching. She is a PhD candidate in East-West Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, is a certified life coach through NLP and Coaching Institute of California, and is a member of the International Coach Federation.

She trained as a vision fast guide at the School of Lost Borders. Her background and education blend the ancient wisdom traditions of the East with contemporary success principles of the West, resulting in a step-by-step coaching approach to living with greater courage, balance, abundance, and happiness. She loves walking in the wilderness with her dog, Chai.

Back from the desert

Ruth and Larry in base campThe School of Lost Borders California Fall Vision Fast was amazing! I was an assistant for the 11 fasters and the two incredible guides, Ruth and Larry. Some people marked their passage into adulthood, and others into elderhood. It was such an honour to witness the courage and vulnerability these fasters showed as they faced the unknown and went to fast alone in the desert.

Base camp with Ruth and Larry was so much fun, with gorgeous weather and very little wind. We were in the Eureka Valley, in foothills surrounding a big open bowl of flat desert floor. I had a few amazing runs there, as well as My tentin the area around Big Pine, where we camped before and after the solo time. A night run as the moon was coming up out of the White and Inyo Mountains was incredible!

I’ll write more next week about the medicine walk I went on, for which Ruth and Larry helped me clarify the intention I brought to the desert, of working on anger. It was such a gift to work with these two guides, and I have a new grounding as a result of it. More to come…

Vision quest—maintaining sacred tradition

Cultural misappropriation of sacred ceremony

Cultural misappropriation is a danger in adopting Evelyn Eaton's The Shaman and the Medicine Wheeltraditional ceremonies for contemporary use. It is true that peoples on every continent have used solo time in nature for spiritual purposes. It is a human birthright—a way of connecting directly to the natural world and to deeper realms of spiritual realities. Yet so much has been taken from the first peoples of North America, and there have been incidents of anger about Caucasian groups using first peoples customs. Even in cases where a white person has been trained and given permission by a Native American medicine man, such as in the case of author and medicine woman Evelyn Eaton, others in Native American communities have disagreed and been angry with those who allow white participation in their traditional Native American ceremonies such as the pipe ceremony and sweat lodge.

What to do? How to navigate this territory of cultural misappropriation? Certainly, when using or adapting traditional first people ways, it is vitally important to do so with respect and with honouring of the first peoples of the land where we do sacred ceremony, and with thanks for the teachings we have received. The School of Lost Borders, which teaches a modern vision fast rite of passage, changed from using the term vision quest to using the term vision fast. They did this out of consideration for Native Americans.

I believe that in this time of ecological crisis the earth and all the people on it need us to be aware of our interconnectedness with the earth and all living creatures. The old ways of the first peoples are needed, to help foster this awareness. Some Native American leaders and writers agree that the old ways are needed, and they are willing to teach them to all people, regardless of race. With over 50% of the earth’s population living in cities now, we need a ceremony that brings people out into wild nature. And certainly, people of all ages need rites of passage to bring meaning, celebration, and an awareness of being part of the wholeness of our world. I believe that the need for and value of this ceremony is great. My own personal experience of it, fasting annually for the past three years, is that it is so healing and transformative that I want to offer this experience to others. So I have chosen to learn to guide others in the vision fast ceremony as taught by the School of Lost Borders.

BC eagle feathersMy friend Janet, who has the Métis heritage, gave me an eagle feather and sage to use for smudging in the traditional way. I feel she invited me into these ways with her gifts. She has encouraged me to offer the teachings I learn to First Nations people in the Merritt area. I have felt shy about doing this, and think it must be very inappropriate. But she told me to do it. People want to be in the sacred ceremony. In some cases the old ways have been lost to the first peoples themselves, and they are hungry to learn wherever they can. I have invited First Nations people from the Merritt area to events at Monkey Valley, and will continue to do so, even though I still feel very shy about it.

I try to remember to use the sacred ceremonies I have learned with respect for the first peoples. I thank the ancestors of the land where the ceremony is being held. I thank the spirits of the land, and the grandmothers and grandfathers, and ask for their help and guidance in keeping the fasters safe and teaching them what they need to know. The spirits seem to listen and to help. This is all I know.