We live in dark times. Too many of us have plunged into the dark through “rough” initiations, and the wreckage accrues on the shores of our lives.

We are lovers of stories, and in the times of our own dark nights, we turn to stories to find solace, meaning and guidance. The old stories speak of uncertainty and of danger but also of allurement, magic, of hidden treasure. In these stories, those in trouble lose their way—only to find themselves, after tribulations, chance encounters, and much unexpected help, opened to deeper truths about something sacred within and without. Through their journey in the unknown, they become re-oriented to the meaning of their own path and what they now must do.

In these stories, the trouble bears the heft of undoing as much as it bears the weight of its own healing—and when the collective skies grow dim, we find that what is most ugly and wounded often is the precise measure of salvation.

In these stories, there is also held an eldership, a perennial pattern of human design that we know as initiation—whereby through being guided and held in the underworld, one realizes their wounds as the seeds of the gifts they are meant to give.

As young people, we needed spaces to be held, mentored, guided, seen, and challenged. We often didn’t receive this. Now, we follow the words of the ecstatic poet Rumi: “If you’ve not been fed, be bread.”

This School was born from our own immersions in the dark, the visions and gift-sprouts of our wound-wrestling and wound-tending, and we hope it can offer a breadcrumb trail for you back into relationship with the many mysteries. The human soul—and the more-than-human spirits and forces—are waiting for us to deepen, listen, and learn together.

Come and walk the path into the catastrophe with us. Together we’ll find our way.