❂ 8-day wilderness retreat in Death Valley, California
❂ 3-day / 3-night solo fast
❂ Pre-retreat preparation workshop
❂ Post-retreat incorporation workshop
❂ Change-Makers
❂ Impact Founders & Investors
❂ Coaches & Consultants
❂ Purpose-Driven Organizations
Modern culture does not actively designate time and space to acknowledge distinct life changes. We start a business, close a major chapter of our career, exit a relationship, become a parent, or loose a loved one without any apparent slowing down of the steady march of work and paying the bills.
Yet, these changes require acknowledgement. In these life changes we are shape-shifting into someone new; a new version of our self. The old self that existed in that job or in that relationship or in that prior time of our life has to be celebrated, released, and laid to rest in order for the next chapter of our life to be fully born. Otherwise, we run the risk of living partly in the past and partly here, never quite fully available for life as it presents itself now.
A vision fast or wilderness rite in a remote natural location, held by experienced guides, and in a circle of community is a traditional means of marking these changes and connecting to how our core sense of purpose wants to next be expressed.
Join Spencer Honeyman and guest guide Dashielle Vawter for this upcoming, in-person 8-day retreat involving a 3-day solo fast embedded in Death Valley, California.
The process will involve the three-fold stages of severance, threshold, and incorporation. There will be a facilitated pre-retreat and post-retreat call with the guides to prepare and integrate.
Please see FAQ section below for more details about this specific location retreat in terms of timing and location.
(This offering falls within the "Earth" dimension of Enliven's Elemental framework.)
Elemental Practices
Spencer is the founder of Enliven Academy and Climate Wisdom Fellowship, a leadership coach, a graduate of Pomona College’s interdisciplinary Environmental Analysis program, and a Certified Integral Facilitator.
Spencer was trained by several master teachers with an emphasis on somatic, experiential transformation, including, among others, Thomas Hubl & Diane Musho Hamilton Roshi. He has over 20 years of practice in Hatha yoga (Shadow Yoga/Scott Blossom) and 15 years in Buddhist meditation (Mahamudra with Daniel P. Brown & Dustin DiPerna) and adult developmental theories.
Outside of work, Spencer can be found making music with friends, hiking the California wildlands with his family, or building something with his hands in the studio.
Dashielle is a coach, singer/songwriter, minister, wilderness quest and mountain guide. She supports Enliven as a guide for wilderness-based retreats and offerings.
Dashielle grew up running around in the woods of the California Sierra Nevada, the deserts of Anza Borrego, and on the beaches/in the oceans of San Diego. Her parents, brother, sister-in-law, nephew, aunt and cousin still live there. She is as much constituted in relationship to these places and people as by her professional and educational pursuits.
Dashielle holds a Bachelors in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of California, Berkeley and is currently pursuing a masters in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. She has also studied organizational culture at Saybrook University and trained as a facilitator with Community at Work. She is passionate about and continues to study organizational systems and personal and cultural change processes.
She has also trained as an outdoor educator with the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) and a Wilderness EMT with NOLS Wilderness Medicine Institute.
She has worked with hundreds of adults and youth on over 150 backcountry trips. She is particularly passionate about culturally appropriate rites of passage in wilderness contexts and has been honored to be a part of dozens such initiations for both adults and high school students over the last 12+ years.
Dashielle trained for two years with the Center for Sacred Studies as a ceremonialist and believes that ceremony can be a powerful technology for cultural change and seeding new forms of relationality with each other and the more than human world. She loves to officiate weddings for friends and colleagues.
Partial scholarship available upon inquiry.
(One single payment or two payments of $1300)
The group process and solo fast component of this program will happen in Death Valley National Park. We will gather for one night at Tecopa Hot Springs before heading out to our basecamp in Death Valley. We will also return to Tecopa Hot Springs for our last night.
The closest airport is Las Vegas (Harry Reid International), at about 2 hours away. There will also be carpooling from other areas available for participants to coordinate amongst themselves.
You will have plenty of water each day that you fast, at least 1 gallon per day that you will take out with you. Your solo position will be a short distance (~20 min max) from the basecamp that we set up in Death Valley. Everyone is mapped on a topo map so we know where you are. You will each have a "buddy" where each day you move a stone into a circle and your buddy moves it out. This lets your buddy know that everything is alright with you. It is a very rigorous and safe container to support you in this essential rite of passage experience.
Healing is essential work for our lives. Meditation and awakening practices are also essential. Rites of passage are different. These are externalized processes that we go through where we are witnessed by community in our sending off and witnessed in our return in which we claim and are claimed by a transition we are making in our life. It is extremely healthy and necessary to have experiences that mark these transitions, otherwise we run the risk of slowly crossing a threshold without recognizing the appropriate letting go of old ways and taking on of new responsibilities that are required and thus living "out of sync" with who we actually are. This is very complementary to healing and awakening work.
The format is a mixture of group council work, solo walks, and light connection over meals with movement and music sprinkled in. There is a good amount of time spent together but also plenty of time, including the 3 days/3 nights solo, that you will have time to recharge on your own with the land.
Day 1 - Saturday, April 19th, 4pm - Arrive to Tecopa, Initial council.
Day 2 - Sunday, April 20th - Head to DVNP. Set up basecamp. Site walk.
Day 3 - Monday, April 21st - Intention Council
Day 4-6 - Tues - Thurs, April 22nd-24th - Solo Fast
Day 7 -Friday, April 25th - Return to basecamp in morning. Integration day.
Day 8- Saturday, April 26th - Depart basecamp, back to Tecopa Hot Springs. Story council / Incorporation.
Day 9- Sunday, April 27th - Closing council. Depart for home.
Group size for these vision fasts are capped at 6-8 for intimate numbers and enough time for each person to share process in the group. There will be two guides and two assistants as well. So maybe a group total of ~10.
There is a communal kitchen setup with propane two-burner stove, cookware, utensils, dish setup. Participants bring their own bowl, cup, and eating utensils. We provide the meal the evening before heading out and the meal upon returning and participants provide their own meals outside of this. We send you recommendations for how to plan for this once signed up.
We have an extensive checklist we provide to participants but essentially you'll be tent camping at basecamp and then when on the solo fast, no tent. Based on time of year and weather we will provide appropriate recommendations for gear.
