PLEASE NOTE: TREE OF LIFE LEADERSHIP IS CURRENTLY IN AN IMPORTANT REST AND RE-ENVISIONING PROCESS OF THESE OFFERINGS. WE DO NOT PLAN TO BEGIN A NEW COHORT IN 2022. PLEASE CONTACT US IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN LEARNING ABOUT FUTURE OFFERINGS. YOUR AND OTHER’S INTEREST ABSOLUTELY MOTIVATES US TO BEGIN AGAIN.
A Letter to You…
The waters in the great cauldron of life are being stirred. The Grandmothers are whispering.
Spirit is calling. We are putting our ears to the ground, our noses to the wind, praying to the
four directions, singing to the moon, warming the ashes in the central fire pit.
The door to Initiation is opening.
This is an invitation into the Tree of Life Adulthood Initiation.
We, who have been down this road and through this portal, understand the grit, the determination, the integrity and devotion to stay connected to your longing that it takes to make it through this journey.
In asking the hard questions, taking the time to sit with deep self inquiry, to clean up the messes from our youth and ancestors, to address what we have taken on that may no longer serve, we learn how to stand upright; to come into alignment with Spirit, with this Earth, and our own Soul.
We aim to bring in lasting grounding, balance, and harmony through deep ally-ship from Spirit.
We delve into our own ancestral connection, working in the landscape of ceremony, creating deep connection to wildness and the still places, and adopting daily practices.
We create support structures with elders, peers, aunties, and anchor systems that cultivate long term relationships which inherently build community.
This is an invitation through a portal; a proposal dropping at your feet. The proposal involves a commitment to a preparation of FOUNDATIONS followed by an INITIATION journey. Reciprocity to the land, spirits, and people who are aiding you, relationship with your ancestors and the land you are sitting on, and a willingness to be in deep ceremony are central to this endeavor.
All the “not readies,” all the “I need time,” are understandable, but only for a short while. The truth is that there is never a “completely ready,” there is never a really “right time.” As with any descent to the unconscious, there comes a time when one simply hopes for the best, pinches one’s nose, and jumps into the abyss.
~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Templates as old as humanity will provide a map for the Tree of Life journey. Mentors, elders, and anchors in your community will hold the container for you. Your own individual connection to Spirit will be strengthened and will support your process of truly re-claiming your healthy maiden and claiming your birth rite into initiated adulthood.
Through direct mentoring, ceremony, deep self inquiry, and being held by elders and community, we make this passage. Having those who have gone through this process before, who are aware of the aspects needed to come through this passage, while creating the support structure of elders, aunties, and community, is truly a unique gift in this modern context.
We acknowledge that in our current society, beyond the academic and the work worlds, our youth are left up to their own when it comes to maturing and developing into whole beings. In the places and times of an intact culture, it would be our elders who would be very invested in the journey of the youth, for if they are not consciously led, held, and pulled into adulthood, they may never reach there. Some would say that a young person while in the exploratory and adventuresome phase of adolescence, eventually longs to be in touch with their gifts; gifts that they were born here to offer into the world; that they may be made truly useful.
After she/they re-claims her/their healthy maiden through the Foundations Journey, she/they feels pulled into her/their gifts. Here, she/they must cross a "river of grief" in order to get there, she/they must descend. Claiming her/their gifts and being able to offer them to the world is a large part of what coming into adulthood is about. The crossing of this "river of grief" is, in essence, a spiritual death; a necessary release of the smaller version of her/their self; a multi-stage ego death, that allows the larger adult-self to emerge. This is not a simple or easy process, for even spiritual death feels all the world like real death.
The Descent journey is a solo journey, and it cannot be done alone. It is a significant commitment and is not an easy process. It requires the ability to push life back and to create space for a sort of contained self-absorption of self-examination and inner work. It demands looking within at one’s self honestly and sharing with vulnerability in a circle of witnesses what you find there. It asks one to dissolve what is known of oneself to find what is true when the masks have been identified and stripped away. The Descent invites a peeling back of the conditioning that no longer serves, a transmutation and integrating of the wounds carried from this life and beyond. It isn’t comfortable. It is not easy. And done with compassionate mentoring and guidance in an incredible circle of trust, there is a peculiar joy to the work. The laughter accompanies the tears. And the journey requires a deep commitment and a shift in priorities to choose an encounter with death that transforms and liberates at the level of one’s soul. And even wading through the river of grief shall pass. There is a shore on the other side, where others await you, see you and celebrate you. A place where you are welcomed into adulthood and can live your sovereign life, with an embodied sense of interconnectedness within the web of life that sustains you.
We focus on two important life stage markers in a woman’s life:
Maidenhood Rites—what we call the Blood Rites—in the Foundation journey
Adulthood Initiation—what we call the Creation Rites—in the Initiation journey
“For years I have felt lost and confused, feeling all the external pressure to know who I am and what my path is, how to make a living, and be a producing member of society with some expectation that it would all be clear and immediate as soon as school was done. As I felt those pressures increase I wanted so badly to be able to meet them but only withdrew further and further inward into cloudiness and depression, feeling more disconnected from who I thought I was than ever. I needed mentorship and a safe container to move through the generations of stories that were making life so dark and murky for me, and I couldn’t do it by myself. I found a community of women who I truly look up to as role models of service, adulthood, and womanhood, who not only show me how to live in a good way through their actions, but could teach me how, and guide me through the process of clearing my ancestral lines and personal traumas, building self-generative practices, and unearthing and claiming my gifts to be able to step into selfhood and service. It continues to amaze me that through this process I’ve released self-destructive patterns that I’ve carried my whole life, and now truly feel free from. I am healing my relationship to my family, to my body, and to the emotions that have made it hard for me to show up to life. Today I feel stronger in my sense of self, freer from the shackles and shadows that have kept me in hiding and self-loathing, and energized and inspired to activate in my service and give back to the world that continues to give me so much.”
~previous Tree of Life Initiate
