Are You Ready...

• To Build Your Self-Confidence
• To Understand Yourself More Deeply
• To Know What is Truly Important to You
• To Seek Vision and Direction for your Life
• To Mark your Passage into Adulthood

This trip is an amazing opportunity to dive deeply into yourself and your life, while also being a part of a creative, supportive and honest circle of your peers.  It is a chance to reflect upon and heal past wounds as well as to look into nature’s mirror to see the signs for which way to head on your future path.

For both teens and parents, the Youth Quest is a rich opportunity to honor the transition you are encountering as a family. You teens are preparing to launch into the world and your parents are preparing to let you go.  For centuries different cultures have recognized the importance of helping youth make the passage from childhood to adulthood.  Around the world this transition has been marked by rites of passage ceremonies. These rites challenged the young person in such a way that they were forced to face themselves, thus discovering their own inner dilemmas and ways of handling them. In the process they would also uncover their unique gifts for their people. In the latter part of the rite the initiate would go through a pivotal witnessing wherein the elders and the larger community would acknowledge the new adult in their selfhood and in their new capacity and responsibility as an adult in the community. New privileges and responsibilities were bestowed at this time.

In numerous cultures rites of passage into adulthood included a prolonged period of solitude and fasting in the wilderness.  In addition to the somewhat well known vision quest traditions of various Native American peoples, solitude in the wilderness has been a part of the passage into adulthood for Australian Aborigines, the Basque in Spain and many others. This kind of questing in the wilderness is also found in prominent places in our biblical heritage. Thus, it is into these widespread and long practiced footsteps that we step as we head off for our Youth Quest. Our own practices are in many ways contemporary and modern, but they are rooted in archetypal human traditions and the need to have the next generation step forward to accept the blessing and the work of their family and community.

TRIP SCHEDULE

June 6: Pre-trip meeting, San Rafael, CA (11 am – 2 pm, Teens only; 3 – 5 pm, Parents only)
August 7, 8 am: Send off ritual, teens and loved ones, San Rafael, CA.
August 7 – 15: Youth Quest in the Inyo Mountains. Nine-day quest experience for teens and guides with two days of solo time in nature for the teens, and time in base camp on either side of the solo time.
August 15, 10 am: Family/friends pick up their returning questers at our wilderness basecamp in the Inyo Mountains.
Late August: Follow-up Meeting and Slide Show, San Rafael. Meeting with teens after their quest to support them in the challenge of bringing the benefits of their quest experience back into their daily lives.

What’s Included

• All meetings as noted above.
• 9-day ceremony in the wilderness including:  All guidance, meals, group gear and safety management; training in “leave no trace” camping, natural history of the high desert and creating personal ceremonies for transformation.
• Preparation guide and list of personal camping gear to bring.

What You Need to Provide

• Transportation to our meeting place in San Rafael, CA at the start of the trip and home from the quest site at the end of the trip. Directions to be sent to you upon registration. Carpools may be arranged as desired.
• Personal camping gear (equipment list provided).
• Ability to carry your own loaded backpack for approx. 30 minutes.

GUIDES FOR THE YOUTH QUEST

Casey McCarroll, M.A. has worked since 1996 with youth aged 5-18 in the wilderness as an outdoor adventure program coordinator, backpacking guide and wilderness therapist and in the classroom as a Head Start teacher. He has studied rites of passage facilitation with the School of Lost Borders and Wilderness Reflections and is currently working as a staff therapist and transition counselor at Holden High School in Orinda, CA. With his colleague Karl Smart, Casey is developing a rites-of-passage-based curriculum for youth dealing with cancer and life threatening illness. He is a leader of coming of age groups for middle school boys and a vision council member with Stepping Stones Project. He also works privately as a mentor for teens in the SF Bay Area.

Vanessa Eyen, M.A. has her Master’s degree in Outdoor Education and Community Counseling, a Bachelors degree in Psychology, and is certified as a yoga teacher and wilderness first responder. Passionate about fostering a connection to the natural world, she worked as a teacher, program director and trainer for outdoor environmental education companies since 2001. Specializing in nature based counseling, she was the teacher assistant for the undergraduate classes Ecopsychology and Dreams, Myths, and Symbols with Mary Gomes at Sonoma State Univ. Vanessa guides youth quests for several bay area schools and organizations.