Writes of Passage

A Four Session Exploration of Liminal Initiation
Guided by Kristopher Drummond, poet, dreamworker, and wilderness guide
 

REGISTER FOR ALL FOUR SESSIONS HERE

We have crossed the threshold.

Don’t you feel that?

We’ve crossed a boundary from which there’s no turning back.

This is either the darkness of our collective casket being lowered into the ground or that of the birth canal. Either way, nothing will ever be the same. We are entering what Buddhist visionary Joanna Macy calls “The Great Unraveling,” as political and climate/ecological systems lurch into the unknown.  Like every profound initiation, it means death to all that was, a liminal de-centering where we have no bearings. Surrender and courage are our currency now.

Francis Weller has called this time “The Long Dark,” a rite of passage that he sees lasting at least two generations, likely more, which means most of us won’t see the other side. One way or another, this unraveling is our destiny.  This is where we will live and love and fight and grieve, dance and improvise and create, all within this portal of the unknown. 

As with all rites of passage, it is difficult to fully face the truth of a nonnegotiable death process. Often, we experience both a profound hearing of “the call” and an equally fierce resistance to that call. Even once we do say yes and voluntarily step across the threshold, we meet dragons, guardians, and challenges that require us to dig deeper than we ever have before. 

On the path of initiation, we are emptied out, confronted with ourselves, and brought to our knees in the light of the humility of reckoning with the transpersonal forces governing our lives.  The disorienting visions and wild creativity emerging from this great humbling are what, if we’re lucky, will guide us to our own place in what Macy calls “The Great Turning.”  How will we listen our way into new forms of life together with creatures and elements, lands and waters, present and future human generations?

Writes of Passage will be a four session exploration of many of these themes of initiation through the craft of writing. Weaving community council, self-inquiry writing practices, poetic reading and exploration, nature-based exploration, and lessons on the craft of heart-forward writing at this historical moment, this will be a container for turning toward what is already so.

Centering the sacred, we will consider the mythological dimension of our current epoch and listen through language for our particular place in this turning of the ages.

The course will take place over four two hour sessions, March 2nd, March 16th, March 23rd, and April 6th, all taking place at 6:30 pm EST.  The four sessions will be roughly aligned with commonly acknowledged stages of rites of passage: 
●    Hearing the Call & Resisting the Call - letting ourselves know what we know and feel the resistance to what it means to finally say yes to the path that is being invited.

●    Crossing the Threshold/the Road of Trials - Once we’ve set yes and stepped irreversibly across the threshold, we recognize the need to shed, or die to, stories and selves that no longer make sense for the world we’re being prepared for.

●    The Belly of the Whale/The Bestowing of the Boon - At the bottom of the descent, when it seems that all is lost - as we turn toward the undeniable truth of the ending of a life or a culture, we are brought to a place of absolute surrender, where we are finally open enough to receive the vision that has been waiting for us all along.

●    The Return - Taking the gifts we’ve been given and our new vision of the world back into our communities as agents of change.

Central to this workshop will be writing prompts and practices to engage in between classes. These are essential to bringing alive the process of change in an embodied way. Please consider whether you are ready and willing to commit to a process of transformation beyond just 4 class periods when signing up.

And - importantly - there is no way to begin to approach the fullness of a true initiatory process in a few weeks together. This course is designed to be an introduction to the stages and a way of crafting self-narrative that might serve you in your own experience of death and rebirth as we undergo this collective ending.