| News Bits & Announcements |
|
CA Women's Fast
 This summer Silvia Talavera, Ruth Wharton and Betsy Perluss (with Sage Abella assisting) led the CA women's fast jointly, to honor old times, and bring together the guides that pioneered the first women's fast 10 years ago in 2003. Go women!!! |
Thank you!!
We are so happy to announce that after receiving some more donations for the school's new 4-wheel ride we have now reached our goal. And with some generous extra help, we were even able to purchase new off road tires - after we blew a tire on one of our first trips into the Inyos.
Our heartfelt gratitude goes to the many good hearts that made this possible!!
|
|
Earth Lullaby
Trevor Thompson fasted in the Inyo's during the CA Summer Fast of this year.
A songwriter and musician, the Earth Lullaby came to him in a time of great need, during his first night on the mountain, when a terrible sound sent him into a tailspin of fear.
Click here to read his short account of what happened next and to hear the beautiful sound file of 'Earth Lullaby' that was born from it.
|
Today
This morning, a group of courageous 2-week trainees are coming back to Big Pine from their 4-day fast in the Eureka Valley, with winds gusts up to 50 miles an hours. Blessings on their safe return and on their celebratory dinner tonight!! |
|
|
|
2013 Lost Borders Fall Newsletter
|
|
Dear Friends and Allies,
And so it begins: after a busy summer season, buzzing with programs, participants, and guides coming and going, nights have become cooler here in the Owens Valley, just as we crossed the threshold of equinox, marking once again our descent into the rich, and fertile ground of darker months to come.
Bearing witness to leaves first turning, next dangling, and then suddenly dancing through the air, only to finally sink gracefully into the land, the heartbreaking beauty of autumn can't but open one up to reflect, remember, and return, to our soul, our essence and the fertile soil of our living.
With summer turning into memory, and the last folly of fall programs underway, we offer you a few stories from some of our staff today: Read Betsy Perluss's account of her 28 day hike on the John Muir Trail, Dr. Scott Eberle's reflection on the blending of Buddhist meditation practice with time on the land and Larry Hobb's article on birding, vehicles and sustainability.
And don't forget to check out the News Bits & Announcements in the left hand column. Be sure to click on the link to the Earth Lullaby for a musical treat!
With fall blessings and gratitude for the unprecedented burst of color that accompanies every true letting go,
Petra Lentz-Snow
School of Lost Borders
|
|
On the John Muir Trail - by Betsy Perluss
"Walking is the great adventure, the first meditation, a practice of heartiness and soul primary to humankind. Walking is the exact balance between spirit and humility." - Gary Snyder
It has now been one month since I've completed the John Muir Trail. One month since I stood on top of Mt. Whitney, at 14505', feeling jubilant and crazed with life, set loose like that cold morning wind that tossed my hair and whipped my face. It has been one month now, since descending the highest peak in the lower 48, I walked, finally, through the Whitney Portal and put down my pack for good (or, at least until next time). After hiking 17 miles on that final day, I was altered and in a daze, but when I saw Joe walking up the trail to greet me, I knew I had made it home. And, yes, of course, even in the midst of all the laughter and kisses there was, and continues to be, an underlying thread of grief of having to leave the mountains behind. Truthfully, I could have easily turned around and gone out for another month...or two. The temptation of the never-return.
Click here to read the full article
|
|
Something very peculiar - Scott Eberle
What a School of Lost Borders program and a Buddhist retreat have in common is that each offers a different (yet complementary) practice for cultivating a higher quality of storytelling. At the School we speak of vision, intention, fasting, authentic storytelling, deep listening; and we invite the vast open space of the desert to provide the container-the mirror-for this mind-opening, heart-opening practice. On a Buddhist retreat, the language also begins with vision (Right View) and intention (Right Intention), while embracing the cultivation of stillness, insight and lovingkindness as yet another kind of mind-opening, heart-opening practice that helps a yogi to access a deeper storyline inside.
When Cazeaux and I began weaving these two together with a group out in Death Valley, we consciously aimed at simplicity. The shared group intent was for participants to open to spaciousness, inside themselves while sitting and outside while walking the land. And so the program itself had to be spacious-much more so than any other either of us have co-led before.
Click here to read the full article
|
|
Birding, Vehicles & Sustainability - Larry Hobbs
I love birds and I love reading the emails about all the wonderful birding trips and birding in our amazingly diverse county. I also love my grandchildren who live in Seattle and I drive over to visit them every week that I am not working out of the state. My innate love of nature and my need to drive my vehicle around to do the things I deeply enjoy leaves me, and many of us I think, in a deep and constant dilemma: how to live a worthwhile life and also be kind and gentle to this delicate planet. I have been studying and writing journal articles about systemic sustainability for humans on this planet for a few decades (I would be very happy to send journal articles or book chapters to anyone interested: Larry@inlandwhale.com); and by my research, humans are putting about 100,000 times the amount of carbon into the atmosphere than would be normal for our species, as one member of the infinitely complex ecosystems of which we are a part. Those kinds of numbers are pretty hard to relate to so here is another and I think rather surprising number: a passenger vehicle emits about 1 pound of carbon per mile of travel (20 pounds of carbon per gallon of gas if you get 20 miles per gallon) mostly as carbon dioxide. That's a lot of carbon! So here is the dilemma which I and, I think, all of us as conservationists face daily: how do we relate to the fact that we are putting a pound of carbon into the atmosphere per mile we drive our automobiles (be that for work, visiting family, shopping or birding)?
Click here to read the full article, that was published by the Audubon Society.
|
|
