"Being a Civilian Doesn't Have to Suck" - PNWVets #WeARE Conference

It may have sounded something like this on July 18.

“Being a Civilian Sucks,”

“I’ve been out a couple of weeks.”

“Now is the time. I’ve never said this before.”

“I am a Gold Star Mother.”

“I don’t usually trust and hang out with some veterans.”

“I didn’t do enough.”

“I am a spouse that keeps it all together.”

“I didn’t serve, but these are my people.”

“I climbed back from suicide.”

“I found my purpose.”

“That identity thing. THAT!”

“I am a Woman. I AM a Veteran.”

“I would like to call in…”

“I am who I am.”

“I teach now.”

“I can sing us a song.”

“I want to know more about that org.”

“I thought I was the only one.”

And so much more that is their story to share.

With every voice the heads started nodding.

The circle got lighter. Shoulders started to relax.

By the end of two councils at the PNWVets #WEAre Conference, the staff that holds the wooden dogtags of over 150 initiates in our Rite of Return ceremonies now held new stories from every corner of the northwest representing the wild and whole totality our military family (civilian angels included).

Raw, imperfect, reluctant emotional sweat, hopeful, and often irreverent it was (It is us after all:).

Veteran Rites was honored to be a small part of a much larger story that began with a dream over a decade ago by PNWVets, that if we just gathered as we are with as few barriers as possible to connect and collaborate we’d all be better off. To join a new mission, a local potluch, help out with dump runs, answer quesrtions on claims, to not feel alone when we get smacked with grief, then get back up. Now there are some 20,000 members of our community connected through their facebook page, with community meetups led and held in too many counties to count in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.

This gathering, powered by Gold Star Families of Washington, Blue Star Families Puget Sound, and PNWVets, called us all in to do that thing that is just so unnatural for the loyal soldier inside…practicing slowing down, being fully human, and celebrating that WE ARE STILL HERE.

Not to get stuck in that season, but enough to fill our cup, witness, be seen, and move our arses to the next local huddle, or to Paws for Purple Hearts, Balanced Being with Kim Nedrow, Permission to Start Dreaming Foundation (Warrior PATHH), Blue Star Families, Gold Star Families, Military Family Outdoors, Healing Roots, CAVE Community and Veteran Events, NineLine Veteran Services, Redefining You Foundation, Kitsap County Veterans Advisory Board, Abundance Healing with Marleen Berg, Columbia Basin Veterans Center, and to support our local Veteran Owned Magic like What the Charcuterie. And on, and on..

I was reminded that I as a veteran am here today because so many friends have put their hands on my oar for the last twenty years after I walked across the gates of Gulfport, MS with a DD214 and no idea of who I was, what was next, and to truly feel that I belonged in a disorganized world at war with itself (and myself for that matter!)

Somehow, through their strength, I was able to help myself first, then others row.

And ask…

How are you…REALLY?

Who are you…REALLY?

What’s your STORY?

And when I am humbled and inspired by that truth, being a CIVILIAN DOES NOT SUCK.

So thank you Josh Wheeldon, Monica McNeal, Jane Hughes, and Blue Star Families for the opportunity to serve.

And to all those bearing the ungrieved grief and untold story of your sacrifice, you are not alone.

Because #WEAre connected.

PS. Most of these photos were taken by Kyle, a Clark County PNWVets lead and former Army NCO. He doesn’t care about the credit, just show up to PNWVets.

Live your myth, everything else is a lie -(or something like that) - Joseph Campbell.

Ryan Mielcarek is an OIF Seabee Veteran and Executive Director of Veteran Rites where he found his True Identity, Purpose, and Belonging ten years after exiting service. He occasionally plays the banjo in circle with his friends, always in honor of those that never came home and those that became causulties of war on American Soil.

2026 Rite of Return Ceremony Announcement - Who Am I Without the Uniform?

The 2026 rite of return ceremony rsvp is OPEN

Spring Rite of Return 

April 24 - May 5 (Women Only)

Spring Rite of Return

  May 8 - 19 (Men Only)

Summer Rite of Return

  June 19 - 30 (Co-ed)

Fall Rite of Return

  September 8 - 17 (Co-ed)

The Land is calling!

Veteran Rites invites you to step off on a journey as old as humanity itself…

Upon leaving military service, many of us are caught at a threshold, no longer a Service Member and yet not a Civilian. We are unable to fully “return”, or reintegrate into our communities. The lack of shared experience separating “us” and “them”, stands as a seemingly insurmountable abyss. This chasm between the close bonds and brotherhood and sisterhood we experienced in service and the lonely alienation we experience as civilians can feel impossibly wide. We know the statistics.

We feel it in our bones and many of us have walked the cliff edge between suicide and one more day. For centuries, pan-cultural civilizations and communities have utilized ceremonial rites of passage to welcome returning warfighters home from battle. In most cases, elders who had been to war met combatants outside the village. They understood that to re-enter the village too soon, without a proper rite of return, could be harmful to both the veteran, their family, and community. These communities understood that once cleansed from battle or service, each veteran carries insight and wisdom from their experiences which are invaluable to the long-term survival and sustainability of their community.

It is time to re-establish who we are in this world after military service…

The Veterans Rite of Return serves as an initiation for veterans who are looking for a way to reconnect with themselves, their place in the world, and in their communities.

The roots of the Rite of Return are pan-cultural, and offer a model of human development that acknowledges the changes and transitions inherent in being alive. It marks an individual's passage from one stage of their life to the next. Our Veterans Rite of Return is a guided rite of passage that is not based in any religion or dogma. It relies on each individual’s background, creativity and unique perspective to "self-generate" a ceremony that is meaningful for their life circumstance and a successful return home.

This ceremony has proven to relieve the suffering for those seeking long term solutions to PTSD, Moral Injury, Military Sexual Trauma, Compassion Fatigue, and Suicidal Ideation.

Our Rite of Return is held in a wilderness setting in Eastern Washington with trained veteran and non-veteran guides. Initiates experience time in community with other vets, four days of solo time, fasting in the wilderness, and a marked return where their stories are shared and deeply witnessed in council. This return marks the beginning of a veteran’s process of incorporating that which they have gained and learned during their time in service and explored in the context of time alone in the wilderness, so they may bring their gifts home, able to participate more fully, in service of their families and their community.

Claim Your Seat & Next Steps

The Rite of Return is available to Current and Prior Military Service Members, Spouses, Partners, Gold Star (18+), and Dependent Survivors of Veteran Suicide.

Veteran Rites welcomes home the entirety of our national military family with Love and Honor. We walk with every individual called to the land to fully prepare physically, mentally, and spiritually for their Rite of Return. We are committed to removing barriers to access that prevent our people from reclaiming their freedom. Once initiated on the land, Veteran Rites will continue to provide opportunities for initiates to incorporate their True Identity, Purpose, and Belonging with Veteran Rites and in their communities.

Participation in the Veterans Rite of Return requires completion of the six-week Roots of Resilience course. This course serves as a foundational preparation, offering shared language, tools, and community support that deepen the Rite of Return experience and help ensure participants are ready for the demands of the ceremony. Veterans must complete Roots of Resilience prior to attending a Rite of Return, and can also be taken as a standalone transition course.

Submitting a Rite of Return interest form does not guarantee immediate placement in a ceremony. Applications are reviewed and responded to based on priority of sign-up and available ceremony dates. Our team will follow up with you directly to listen to your story, discuss next steps, course enrollment, and potential ceremony timing.

The Rite of Return is available to Current and Prior Military Service Members, Spouses, Partners, Gold Star (18+), and Dependent Survivors of Veteran Suicide.

This year, we invite Veteran women and spouses to our inaugural women-only ceremony, which celebrates the unique sisterhood, bonds, shared experiences, and empowerment that womanhood brings. We gather as a community to support and honor the transition each self-generated ceremony offers.

Veteran Rites is honored to combine arms with the VA and all Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grantees to provide innovative solutions to bring our people home to True Identity, Purpose, and Belonging so they can live a future worthy of their sacrifice.

STRENGTH TO RISE - VETERAN RITES IMPACT

THE SOUL

Veteran Rites was born from a desperate prayer of a 14-year Army Infantry ground pounder seeking to find a hole "to scream into it" after returning home from combat in Afghanistan.

With nothing to lose and on the brink of suicide, he answered the call to take his story to the wilderness as warfighters have done since time immemorial to make meaning of their suffering. Through fasting, self-generated ceremony, and a return to community willing to hold his grief with their hearts, he was able to lay down what no longer served, put his pistol back on the shelf, and return initiated into society. He found a wise civilian guide that had walked with hundreds through their dark nights of the soul in their return to wholeness.

In 2017, they put out the call for veterans seeking their own answers to the questions we all struggle with after service;

Who AM I? What's My Purpose? Where do I Belong?

Many started to answer and begin their walk to the land only made possible through Civilian Angels willing to show up for the whole Veteran story. We started Coming Home Together. In 2024, we continued to live into that question of what it means to be fully human, in a body, and in community after service.

THE STORY

2024 marked a year of death and rebirith for Veteran Rites. We convened three Rites of Return, a Mirroring Workshop, Memorial Council of Remembrance at American Lake, Monthly Frequency Healing at the Seattle Vet Center, and held a Rite of Return Guide Training Ceremony, empowering, inviting, and deeply investing in the next generation of veteran guides and peer facilitators to carry our prayer of being a presence where our community feels seen, heard, and worthy of being alive.

Shortly after guide training and our fall Rite of Return, our beloved mentor, co-founder Larry Hobbs transitioned to the Great Rite of Passage in the sky after his four-year battle with cancer, inspiring us all to grieve well and rise stong in our commitment to being Wild and Free, Reverant Towards All, Whole in Body, Heart, Mind, and Spirit, with Nature as Guide and Mirror, and to Rise Together in Unity and Difference.

As we were greiving this death we were selected as a recipient for the VA's SSG Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Program in the Pacific Northwest, with additional funding and an invitation to join a nationwide network to put suicide prevention back into the veteran and community-based programs that can meet our people where they are at. Our call in accepting the SSG Fox is to demonstrate that our kind of values and work are essential in bringing our people all the way home so they can enjoy a future worthy of thier sacrifice. We will always remain rooted and prepared to serve anyone that answers the call within to take the next step with Veteran Rites, whether or not they are served through the SSG Fox program or not. Preliminary impact highlights are included at the end of this report and a full impact evaluation of SSG Fox on those we serve will be completed in winter of 2026.

In 2024 we found the Strength to Rise like our initiates so courageously reminded us how to do at the Rite of Return and at our first Incorporation Gathering. We rose in solidarity with the WA State's Governor's Challenge to Prevent Veteran Suicide, with our partners at the Seahakaws Task Force 12, in small circles at the Seattle Vet Center, and in countless peer-led Circles of Return where skilled veteran facilitators bring their talents and authentic lived experience to combat isolation so we can heal and live fully in a return to true belonging.

Our volunteers rose with us, bringing over 1,100 hours of chopping wood and carrying water in ceremonies and circles of healing. Our community partners and funders gave us the confidence and resources to invest keeping our people and programs safe (thank you Boeing and Boeing Employees), as we continue to listen deeply and respond to what our military and civilian angel family needs to join our circles to reclaim True Identity, Purpose, and Belonging. We rose and sang with Listening to Smile and trained at the The Wilderness Guides Council.

In 2024 we tilled the soil and planted a new Roots of Resilience course as a prerequisite to the Rite of Return or to be taken as a standalone "shallow water" rally point to begin the journey of coming home whole. With the creation and continuous improvement of Roots, we set a directional stone to complete the circle years in the making...

THE QUESTIONS

As this is being written we are living into the question of "How do we stay true to our compassionate authenticity while also being responsive to the people we serve and what is being called by SSG Fox to integrate science and spirit?"

Which guide trainees will beging to emerge as leaders of our circles and ceremonies? How will our community help inform the strengthening Roots of Resilience, Rite of Return, Rites for Incorporation, and Circles of Return? How do we keep leaning into the teachings to REST and REBALANCE in our own bodies, the body of our organization, and social fabric of our community while doing what needs to be done to serve the people? How do we continue to bring in to balance pay that empowers everyone that contributes to this mission and ceremony?

What would a home for VR look, smell, and feel like with renewed funding (thank you Harnish Foundation) for that purpose? What stories will break us open and change us? How can we stay as close to the ground and keep it simple as we grow and strengthen? How can we partner better, listen deeper, AND soften with the self-care we espouse? How do we carry these gifts in a good way and in OUR WAY?

All I know is this incredible team of whole veteran and civilian angel leaders will always keep showing up as Larry did with and open and authentic heart that is in sincere prayer and devotion to the real grief, whole person, and untold story. Because our scars from service are half the story, the community we come back to writes the rest. Thank you for the privilige to hold the edges of the circle of belonging with you.

Cj Ryan Euegene Mielcarek

Seabee OIF Veteran

Executive Director, Veteran Rites

2024 GRATITUDE VIDEO

2024 IMPACT PDF

I AM a Softball Named Love from Larry Hobbs

I AM a Softball Named Love by Larry Hobbs

Hello there. I AM a Softball Named Love. Like any other softball, I have a cork center, a leather cover, and 88 raised stitches that help me glide through the air like a determined eagle on a mission whenever I’m smacked by a batter or hurled by a pitcher. But what I love most is being caught in a soft oiled glove, or landing in a heavenly patch of grass while the sun rises. I don’t see why everyone makes such a fuss about me. I just like to ride the wind, go on adventures, and spend time with playful humans.

As for my ancestry, who knows? I might be from the US, Vietnam, China, India, or Costa Rica. What I do know is whose hands have touched me.

They tell me I’m special because Larry Hobbs gave me my name. He scrawled it across my leather with a magic marker in the Channeled Scablands during his farewell ceremonial tour. He and Susan visited the Veteran Rites guide team the day before the ceremonial game began—bringing tears, laughter, big Larry smiles, and, of course, stories. They didn’t linger at the threshold; instead, I found my place on the altar, resting on the same land where Larry had guided hundreds of souls across the finish line of their own field of dreams.

When the ceremony began, I was passed around the circle with care. I could feel the warmth of stories pressing against my stitches, the same warmth Larry radiated when he looked into someone’s eyes and made them feel like the most important player in the game of life.

Since then, I’ve traveled far and wide—touched by players of all kinds and cultures, from the Channeled Scablands to Colockum Ridge, Easton Ridge, the Rainbow Lodge, Vet Centers, American Lake VA. I’ve even rested in ceremonial boxes beside four big rocks, sage, and a half-smoked cigarette hidden by Trebbe Johnson, Sara Harris, and Silvia Talavera.

On Larry and Susan’s land, I was present when he and Trebbe gave the raddest, longest rendition of Jumping Mouse at what became his last ceremony there. Not long after, the guide team caught sight of him cruising on a scooter in downtown Roslyn. Can’t make this up.

At the end of the 2024 season in the Scablands, I was part of a great mirror for a man who, as a child, dreamed of being a professional baseball player. Guides and Initiates took to the Four Bases of Human Nature, and for one shining moment, we all got to feel what it was like to be the Starting Pitcher in the center of our own lives. I don’t know if I’ll ever have a greater game than that.

On the way home from that ceremony, I was brought to Larry at the hospital in Ellensburg. He and Susan held me tight and listened to that story. There were tears, there were smiles. We all knew it was close to his final inning.

Months later, when Larry was called up to the super major leagues in the sky, his loved ones gathered, drummed, and tossed me around while sharing tales of a man who left everything he had on the field—even when his stitches had loosened so much he could no longer fly with the wind. His fields were Family, Science, Ceremony, Sobriety, Stories, Nature, Adventure, Big Questions, and Circles of Humanity. Whatever the field, he tilled it with the soil of the heart.

And here I remain. Another full Veteran Rites season under my belt, more stories etched into my leather. I’ve been battered tender, washed with emotional rain, and lightened by the sun. My name is fading. The first version of me is already dying.

So who am I now?

What is my purpose?

Where do I belong?

Why was I named Love?

I think I’ll take it the land with a prayer and perhaps come back claim (drumroll please)…

I AM a Softball Named… Magic. Or Meredith. Or Doug!

Or whatever. I trust the Ceremony.

First Witness (Trebbe Johnson)

Thank you, Love Softball, for sharing your story with us. Truly, you have witnessed so much. And consider all the hands that have held you: hands trembling with fear, with pain, with so much desire for healing and change. You have been the perfect shape to fit in those hands. You have given the one who held you something to embrace when they needed so badly to be embraced themselves. And embraced by what? Embraced by their own beauty, their courage, their stubborn insistence on surviving when so much seemed to be pulling them in exactly the opposite direction.

You are round as the Earth, a bird’s nest, the iris of our eyes. Larry laid you on the altar and gave you a name, and whoever picks you up takes hold of the lineage and, when they lay you back down, passes it on.

Second Witness (Silvia Talavera)

Blessings to you, Softball stitched tight with stories and infused by the strong soul who has left his legacy to keep us healing forward. Your softness helps with the holding, and your roundness helps with the feeling of eternal wholeness. You are tenacious and resilient; your inner strength withstands the battering traumas of the outer world because you carry the best of who we are.

You are meant for all of us—for every ceremony, every battered warrior, the lepers and the kings. Please keep flying and landing in the center of our hearts, reminding us of who we are.

Third Witness (Silence of the Land)

Editor’s Note
Magic—or Meredith, or Doug, or Whatever—has reenlisted with Veteran Rites under a lifelong contract with Ceremony, “This Shit is Real” edition, for as long as they’ve got cork left. That’s just the deal.

2025 Veterans Rite of Return Ceremony: Welcome Home

---

WHO AM I?

WHAT’S MY PURPOSE?

WHERE DO I BELONG? 

The Rite of Return is a 12-day rite of passage for veterans seeking to answer the soul’s call for deep healing in the wilderness in order to lay down what longer serves and step into who you are truly called to be after military service.

Our veteran-led ceremony has proven to drastically reduce the symptoms of PTS, compassion fatigue, moral injury, and suicidal thoughts by embracing all aspects of our human nature, identity, and experience.

These Rites saved our lives, now claim yours.

WELCOME HOME

The Veterans Rite of Return Ceremony serves as an initiation for veterans who are looking for a way to reconnect with their whole selves, their place in the world, and their communities.

The Rite of Return is held in a wilderness setting in Eastern Washington with trained veteran and non-veteran guides. Initiates experience time in community with other vets, four days of solo time, fasting in the wilderness, and a marked return where their stories are shared and deeply witnessed. This return marks the beginning of a veteran’s process of incorporating that which they have gained and learned during their time in service and explored in the context of time alone in the wilderness, so they may bring their gifts home, able to participate more fully, in service of their families and their community.

The pancultural ceremony is not based in any religion or dogma. It relies on each individual’s background, identity, creativity, and unique perspective to "self-generate" a ceremony that is meaningful for their life circumstance and a successful return home.

ELIGIBILITY

The Rite of Return is available to Current and Prior Military Service Members, Spouses, Partners, Gold Star Family Members (18+), and Dependent Survivors of Veteran Suicide.

INCLUSION, ACCESSIBILITY, INTEGRATION

Veteran Rites welcomes home the wild and whole diversity of our national military family with Love and Honor. We walk with every individual called to the land to fully prepare physically, mentally, and spiritually for their Rite of Return. We are committed to removing barriers to access that prevent our people from reclaiming their freedom. Once initiated on the land, Veteran Rites will continue to provide opportunities for initiates to incorporate their True Identity, Purpose, and Belonging with Veteran Rites and in their communities.

CLAIM YOUR SEAT

Claim your seat today, and we will begin the journey into the story that has been waiting for you. Each ceremony is limited to 12 initiates.

2025 - A Prayer for Release and Renewal - Nina Ojeda

I said: what about my eyes?
He said: Keep them on the road.
I said: What about my passion?
He said: Keep it burning.
I said: What about my heart?
He said: Tell me what you hold inside it?
I said: Pain and sorrow.
He said: Stay with it.
The wound is the place where the Light enters you.

- Rumi

VETERAN RITES 2024 - We cross with intention into 2025 with Deep Awe and Gratitude for an entire community writing a new story of what it means to come home to True Identity, Purpose, and Belonging.

Keep it Burning with Intention

(A New Year’s Prayer for Release and Renewal) - Nina Ojeda

As the year turns, I step into a time of new beginnings,
Honoring the balance between release and renewal.
I let go of what no longer serves me,
Making space for growth, love, and light.

I release the weight of past wounds,
For they are teachers, not chains.
I step forward with an open heart,
Soft and unafraid, grounded in love,
Ready to embrace all the beauty and truth this life offers.

I call upon health—vibrant and steady—
To nourish my body, mind, and soul.
May my roots sink deep into the earth,
Anchoring me in rituals that uplift and connect—
With myself, with the Divine Creator, with love.

May our union be a garden of light,
Where love blooms wild and free.
May it shine brightly enough to illuminate all corners of our lives,
Creating warmth, laughter, and joy.

I hold space for new beginnings—
For peace and creation,
For family, commitment, and devotion that is steadfast and true.
I call to the soul of a child, born of pure love,
And welcome the possibility with quiet reverence.

I remain playful, adventurous, curious, and full of wonder,
Never abandoning the wildness within me.
I honor balance: grounding my power with humility,
Honoring my strength by seeking rest and sanctuary.

May my career thrive, a reflection of my brilliance and creativity.
May abundance flow, allowing me to live a life of joy and generosity.
May I find new ways to grow, to learn, and to alchemize all I have endured.

Above all, may my heart remain open—
Open to love, to forgiveness, to the infinite possibilities of life.
May I never close myself to the one I hold dearest,
And may the hurts of the past never dim the light of the present.

This year, I honor the dance of duality:
The practical and the spiritual, the playful and the devoted,
The seeker and the nurturer, the lover and the learner. In all things, may I walk a path of peace, love, and understanding.

I surrender these intentions to the flow of the universe,
Trusting that all is unfolding as it should.

As I move forward, I carry light within me—steadfast and true.
This light will guide me to growth, to love, and to truth.
I am not seeking wholeness. I am whole.
I am not chasing illumination. I am illuminated.

Illuminated

On Love and Union

i saw the reflection
of a thousand suns
weaving light
into the shadows i thought
i would carry forever

On Growth

i am the seed
planted deep in the earth
stretching upward
through shadows
toward the light

On Spirituality

rituals root me
in the earth
yet my spirit soars
where no branches
can reach

On Healing

i am not broken
the cracks were made
to let the light in
to teach me
that beauty grows
from pain

On Parenthood

if love had a form
it would be a child
birthed from the union
of truth
and devotion

On Ambition

my brilliance
is a flame
that will not dim
to make others
more comfortable
i was born to shine

On Home

a sanctuary is not a place
but a feeling
of peace
that whispers
“you belong here”

On Letting Go

the past is a teacher
not a prison
its lessons are etched
on my heart
but i will not
carry its chains

On Playfulness

wild and curious
i dance through life
with the freedom of someone
who knows the strength
of soft laughter

On an Open Heart

i have promised myself
to keep the door open
even when the cold bites
because love does not thrive
in locked rooms

Nina Ojeda is a writer, ceremonialist, mother, boss lady, and purveyor of communal spaces of wholeness and revelry. She lives in the Pacific Northwest.

Winter's Wisdom Gives Me Solace - Silvia Talavera

Winter Solstice 2024 

Dear Lovers of the wild,

Like the sun, can we stand still at the darkest time of year where the pulse of life stops for a timeless moment? Can we face the darkness together  and as we do so reach out to find and touch the light within ourselves?

As the sun kisses the darkness it reflects  the sun’s rebirthing as it brings with it the potential awakening and divine spark that lies within all hearts and souls.

Winter’s cold winds whispers to the fallow land a song of what lies beneath the frozen ground. With words of all that lies dormant and some things that will succumb to deaths door. Carrying with it  melodies of memories of what lies ahead. Awaiting renewal and rebirth.

This time of hibernation allows for a natural slowing down to make space  and time for a much needed pause. For discernment and self realization. To attune oneself to what matters, and to find purpose and meaning.  A time to discover the hidden garden just below the frozen ground.

Though many demoralized people see this “dead of winter” a metaphor as description of their bleak inner lives. It begs the invitation to ask the winter landscape of ourselves what feels dead in us? And wonder in fact what might be dormant? What is still left unrealized?

The winter season carries the seeds left from last summers end through to the much needed final gestational period towards  the miracle of life. May  all beings hold steadfast towards the reclaiming  of the divine spark within  each of us. That is our birth right. Wholly, holy, holy. 

May it be so.

In service with heart,

Silvia

Oh winter’s wisdom give me solace, keep me clear, and make me strong.

Well I know this frigid land and darkened place where I belong.

Yet can I bear a moment more? will I pass this seasons test?

Another year of standing brave and moving towards my best..

I open wide my eyes that I might see the path with clarity and insight.

The path of wisdom’s way that leads me towards the subtle glow of light.

The bird of hope is near and its song is whispered in the air,

giving me the needed strength and lifting my despair.

                                                                  - st    From Winter’s Test

Silvia Talavera (she/her) 

Inspired by the wild places without borders Silvia guides from a full life experience that is filled with the sacred, profane and the wild graced with humor and curiosity.

A wilderness guide since 1993 and a seasoned hospice nurse and a Reiki practitioner. Silvia continues to hold the similarities of the symbolic death and the physical death and how one mirrors the other and how both of these have informed her life.

She is a supporter of deep immersion into the natural landscape where exploration of the mythic, the archetype and the imaginal dimensions is the gateway to the hero/heroine’s journey.

Silvia is an elder, great grandmother, mentor and embraces her elderhood with great joy, deep humility and daily gratitude.

Her work in all its expressions is devoted to the reawakening of our true selves and remembering our natural instinct to love and healing for the benefit of all beings and remains committed to service of the greater good.

The loving sister of a Marine Vietnam Veteran, Silvia has brought her magic and spirit to Veteran Rites since 2020.

Email: silvia@lostborders.org

A WHOLE LIFE WORTH LIVING - VR 2023

THE SOUL

Veteran Rites was born from a desperate prayer of a 14-year Army Infantry ground pounder seeking to find a hole "to scream into it" after returning home from combat in Afghanistan.

With nothing to lose and on the brink of suicide, he answered the call to take his story to the wilderness as warfighters have done since time immemorial to make meaning of their suffering. Through fasting, self-generated ceremony, and a return to community willing to hold his grief with their hearts, he was able to lay down what no longer served, put his pistol back on the shelf, and return initiated into society. He found a wise civilian guide that had walked with hundreds through their dark nights of the soul in their return to wholeness.

In 2017, they put out the call for veterans seeking their own answers to the questions we all struggle with after service;

Who AM I? What's My Purpose? Where do I Belong?

Many started to answer and begin their walk to the land only made possible through Civilian Angels willing to show up for Veteran grief. We started Coming Home Together. In 2023, we continued to live into that question of what it means to be fully human, in a body, and in community after service.

THE STORY

2023 was a threshold crossing in a number of ways. We convened Four Rites of Return, one in each season with a 3-day Mirroring for Empowerment Workshop to help prepare us all for holding the Greatest Stories Ever Told. Three new incredible whole and wise women took the guide seat, one being an elder civilian angel and two veteran women. We had our first Rite of Return with more women then men initiates. A wave of compassionate veterans answering the call from the incredible Progressions Program at the Vancouver, VA have brought their skills, wholeness, and integrity to VR.

The Veteran Rites Board adventured deep into the question of what it would mean for Veteran Rites to steward land as a home for WA State Veteran Suicide Prevention thanks to a planning grant from Washington State. We gathered with bare feet and open hearts for a Memorial Day Veterans Council of Remembrance at American Lake VA. Three initiates undergoing their ordeal in the Spring had enough gusto to come back to assist within the same year at a Rite of Return, that's a month of whole service to us all on the land! Veteran Rites Council training at Frog Creek Retreat Center with Gigi Coyle kept the spirit of our council community in the current. VR sent two veteran women to train and represent VR with Listening to Smile to amplify the healing power of sound for the veteran community. By the end of the year we had widened and diversified our leadership circle with new board members to hold and govern our living prayer together, and hired a new Director of Community Integration take take our long term integration support for our community to the next level.

Veteran Peer Facilitators held Circles of Return for our community with the MST Women's Circle, Mirroring for Empowerment Hybrid Practice, and Veteran Vibrations online and at the Seattle Vet Center. Our Veterans Council Community continues to hold the space and the culture of living from the heart and "Leaving No Story Behind." Our WDVA Vet Connector kept us in the fire with our Partners at Seahawks Task Force 12, Seward Park Audubon, Path With Art, and Nine9Line Veteran Services. Our guides, emerging guides, assistants, peer facilitators, and net keepers showed up and served the people. So many volunteers carried the living prayer of our School of Lost Borders, Wilderness Guides Council, and Veteran Rites lineage. Our donor fellowship got our backs. We were able to touch and be touched by the lives of over 300 souls, initiating 30 into the line of 99 and 99 million that have come before on the lands that still hold their stories.

We laughed, celebrated, cried, joked, let our inner loyal soldiers get away, rebalanced, played, served, planned, grieved, bore witness, opened up, sang, got dirty, surrendered, held fast, fumbled, prayed, and practiced. Mentors, mirrors, and teachers, including our initiates, showed us kindness and inconvenient truths. Nature held us the whole time. We were grateful just to have another day to experience a day, always close to the grief of conflict, those no longer with us, and especially the children. Then we tripped over our own feet to remember to not take ourselves so seriously. Most of all, our people showed up with grit, grace, and BIG generosity of spirit.

THE QUESTIONS

And now we turn into the questions for the next Four Seasons of Human Nature. Who will answer the call into Rite of Return and Guide Training? How do we honor a reinforced Community Integration Program and the freedom of self-autonomy? What are we learning about living, serving, and healing TOGETHER as one human family in Unity and Difference?

What would a home for VR look, smell, and feel like? Can the way we hold the culture and protocol for council be a way to Welcome Home our veterans as they are handed their DD-214? What stories will break us open? Which will challenge and change us? How can we stay as close to the ground and keep it simple as we grow and strengthen? How can we partner better, be more culturally competent, listen deeper, AND soften with the self-care we espouse? How do we carry these gifts in a good way? I have no idea right now, but I do know that somewhere a Veteran is desperately seeking to find their home in the peace of wild things, and we will show up for that AS ONE COMMUNITY.

Because our scars from service are half the story, the community we come back to writes the rest. Thank you for the privilige to write it with you.

Cj Ryan Euegene Mielcarek

Seabee OIF Veteran

Executive Director, Veteran Rites

2023 GRATITUDE VIDEO

2023 YEAR IN PICTURES

2023 IMPACT PDF

Leaving No Story Behind - We Are In This Together

2024 Spring Rite of Return

Veterans are the light at the tip of the candle, illuminating the way for the whole nation. If veterans can achieve awareness, transformation, understanding, and peace, they can share with the rest of society the realities of war. And they can teach us how to make peace with ourselves and each other, so we never have to use violence to resolve conflicts again.

—Thich Nhat Hanh

2024 Winter Incorporation Gathering

2024 Winter Incorporation Gathering

Spring 2024 Rite of Return

2024 Rite of Return Guide Training

2024 Memorial Council at American Lake VA

Summer 2024 Rite of Return

Larry and Susan Hobbs

Summer 2024 Mirroring Workshop

Veteran Vibrations at the Seattle Vet Center with the music of Listening to Smile

Fall 2024 Rite of Return

Veteran Rites with the The Wilderness Guides Council

This Veterans Day we bow to Veterans and the Civilian Angels that have and stand with us as we move with slow urgency to step into a new story that begins to live up to the Thich Nhit Hanh’s call to “to make peace with ourselves and each other, so we never have to use violence to resolve conflicts again.”

Behind every Veteran story is a family and community of unsung heros that step into the circle our lives to bear the grief and the praise of the greatest stories ever told, the story of humans healing and living together fully and authentically.

This Veterans Day, we would especially like to honor all of the Veterans that answered the call with Veteran Rites to share their story of transformation and the lineage of often unseen family members, friends, partners, spouses, wisdom keepers, translators, and allies in these lands and beyond that have our backs.

To the Veterans and Civilians in 2024 that went above and beyond to volunteer deep time, space, or resources in order to make transformation happen for others, thank you for all you carry for and with us.

Jamo Gaines

Twan Martin

Debbee Maraglio-Lynn

Maria De Jesus Gomez

Aaron Hughes

Landon Kinsey

Semba Love

Jessica Gorée-Medoff

Dan Medoff

Briana Foster

Brandon Dorrington

Dell Leeth

John Smedstad

Sarah Blum

Carol Mussotter

Galen Stilwel

Sara Harris

Mitchell Brookman

Tara Souch

Pete Krawitz

Erin Cooper

Silvia Talavera

Trebbe Johnson

Sher Diwatahan

John Crary and Barabara Whiteside-Crary

Sheila Sebron

Steve Fronckowiak

Swil Kanim

Chris Wolf

Mark and Amanda Oravsky

Jim and Michelle Baumgart

Jeffrey Goldstein

Gigi Coyle

Jackson Sillars

Donny Reed

Danny Frazier

Wade and Teresa King

Banks Lake Brewery

Urban Log Studios

Hub City Honey Company

Nine9Line Veteran Services

Seattle Vet Center Staff

American Lake VA Suicide Prevention

Wilderness Guides Council

Seward Park Audubon

Change the Narrative WA

Seahawks and Task Force 12 Partners

The Marie B&B (Olympia)

Susan Hobbs

Larry Hobbs

The Hobbs Family

Our entire Donor Fellowship that stand with us.

The lands, waters, and people on this plane and the next that give us the privilege to heal on ceded or unceded indigineous land.

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May we continue to move in combined arms to Leave No Story Behind with Love and Honor.

Cj Ryan Eugene Mielcarek

Executive Director, Veteran Rites 

NMCB 74 (OIF) Veteran

Leaving No Story Behind - Jose Victa "Lolo"

By Sher Diwatahan,

“Lolo” is who he was to me. Lolo is the Tagalog word for grandfather. His actual name was Jose Victa. He was a humble, impoverished farmer. But when World War II came, he answered the call to fight for his country, the great archipelago of the Philippines, as a guerilla fighter. So effective were these fighters that my family changed their surname to Victa to hide from being wanted by the Japanese.

But growing up, I didn’t see Lolo as a badass being hunted by the Japanese. I was 14 when he came to the United States, him barely knowing English. I didn’t know Tagalog, and we were both quiet, coexisting in the same house rarely saying anything to each other. But I do remember the raucous he would make watching boxing, yelling at the TV with fists punching into the air. My mom would translate stories of the neighborhood kids giving him marijuana to smoke, laughing because they thought they were pulling the shade over his eyes. But we were laughing too—he used to grow his own in the Philippines and gladly welcomed the offerings. I remember the man that cultivated our yard into a beautiful oasis, and the man that would stare out the back door contemplating life.

I always thought I took after Lola, my grandmother, with her round face and stern expressions. When I told my mother I was majoring in retailing and minoring in business and entrepreneurship, she told me that my grandmother would go to the market selling things to help make money for the family. These things solidified in me that I was a hustler, like Lola. 

But recently I’ve wondered if I’m more like “Lolo ko”, my grandfather. With my work to better my mental health and decolonize myself, my thoughts regularly go to my ancestors—the headhunters and those that fought against the Portuguese and Spanish that I come from. I think of their ferocity and try to tap into it to balance my timidness and difficulties speaking up for myself. But I don’t need to look back that far in time. Lolo defied people and establishments when he fed and hid American soldiers separated from their units. He defied an entire country and the Axis to get medicine to prisoner of war camps, nearly being caught time and time again. And much to Lola’s chagrin, he defied the matriarch of the family to plant fruit trees on the outskirts of the farm for the hungry to feed themselves.

Reflecting back, this man was not solely a World War II guerilla hero of legend. Nor was he solely the slow, bent man with a full head of luscious white hair that shuffled everywhere. He’s both, not either/or. If I want to tap into my ancestors, I would do well to use Lolo as an example of strength in standing up for what he believed and for those that could not. He is an example of wholeness and light that could challenge and hold the shadow. 

Despite not being proficient in my learned language, he loved in a universal language. He loved with a humble quietness. He loved his family, his country, and his neighbors with a fierce softness.

Sher Diwatahanis a 9 year OIF/OEF Navy Nuclear Electronics Technician with 3 deployments. After leaving the Navy, she became the first female power plant control operator on the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) electrical grid. Sher graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a Bachelor of Science in Retailing with three minors in Textile Science, Business, and Entrepreneurship. In addition to being a wilderness guide with Veteran Rites, she works with homeless youth and fights against food insecurity in her community. Sher wears many hats: first-generation immigrant, first-generation college graduate, wife, mother, dog mom, and part-time caregiver of her mother. Yet, one's own identity has been elusive for her. Sher’s path towards healing and self-discovery has not been easy due to the trauma she has experienced, but her resolution to seek help and guidance brought her to Veteran Rites. She knows the path towards healing can be difficult and daunting, however, she is ready to help cast a shining light for the lost. At Veteran Rites, she hopes to lead by example and guide others with compassion. When Sher is away from Veteran Rites she spends her time as a visual artist, writer, master gardener, Filipino reconstructionist, and petter of dogs.

Leaving No Story Behind - Richard C. Maraglio (WO-1)

Just six days after Debbee Maraglio-Lynn was born, her father, Richard C. Maraglio courgeously answered the call above and beyond the call of duty in Vietnam. These actions would would result in him earning the Distinguished Flying Cross.

---

The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 2, 1926, takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Flying Cross to Warrant Officer One (WO-1) Richard C. Maraglio (ASN: W-3161151), United States Army, for heroism while participating in aerial flight evidenced by voluntary actions above and beyond the call of duty on 13 November 1968 while serving as a helicopter pilot with 1st Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, in the Republic of Vietnam. On this date in the vicinity of An Loc, elements of the 1st Squadron became suddenly engaged with a large enemy force. When ammunition had to be resupplied to the embattled troops, Warrant Officer Maraglio completed four resupply missions under extremely adverse and dangerous conditions. Each time upon approaching the extremely narrow landing zone, his aircraft came under intense automatic weapons fire. However, he immediately directed his door gunners to fire on the enemy and began taking evasive action. As the aircraft started to descend he realized that since his aircraft was overloaded and the landing zone was narrow, it would be impossible to climb out again. He, along with the pilot, skillfully affected a controlled crash landing to deliver the ammunition on four separate missions. Warrant Officer Maraglio’s courage and professional ability contributed greatly to the successful resupplying of the friendly force. Warrant Officer Maraglio’s unwavering devotion to duty, personal bravery and expert flying ability were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit and the United States Army.

https://valor.militarytimes.com/recipient/recipient-84910/

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We at Veteran Rites call Debbee Dr. Deb, an accomplished Navy Veteran and organizational leader who is on the path of becoming a VR Rite of Return Guide and skillfully facilitates spaces of healing that serve the whole veteran in body, mind, spirit, and soul. She carries on the the courage, skill, and humility of Richard (who is currently battling cancer) through her own voice, wisdom, experience, and compassion to relieve suffering and empower veterans to live fully and serve again.

I want to honor the Veterans close to my heart: My grandmother, Peggy, a WWII Army Veteran; my Grandfather, a WWII  Army Veteran; my Mother, Dottie, an Army Vietnam Veteran; my father, Richard, an Army Vietnam Veteran; my brothers, Frank and Perry USAF Veterans. To all my family members who have served and have not mentioned. To my partner/spouse, a retired Public Health Service Veteran, my dear veteran friends, new and old... Thank you for your continued camaraderie and service to your families and communities. I send much love and deep gratitude to you all. - Dr. Deb

Dr. Deb with Donny Reed facilitating Frequency Meditations at the 2024 Veteran Rites Winter Incorporation Gathering. You can read Deb’s full bio on the VR Leadership Page.

We Are Veterans ... Our Rite of Return

WE ARE VETERANS…OUR RITE OF RETURN

A Community Mirror by Dr. Debbee Maraglio-Lynn

We are beautiful

We are Veterans

We are Nature

Our stories are us and give life to our new stories

Our new creations and our I AM statements.

We are joyous and safe

We forgive others for ourselves

We love ourselves

We are free from shame

We are free from the military

We are loved by God

We build and grow community and trust

We are a masterpiece, glorious, powerful and worthy of Love

Our stories are perfect just as they are

We heal our Earth

We heal our Ancestors to heal our children

We are the shadows within the light and the flame within the night

We are the same yet unique and ever-changing

We simply are

We are strong, real, and accomplished humans

We are worthy and deserving of love and respect

We are able to be vulnerable

We are worthy and deserving of acknowledgment

We are worthy of all the happy and beautiful emotions that come with respect

love and being seen

I am enough

You are enough

We are enough and we ALL BELONG HERE

We are Veterans

We are Nature

We are Beautiful

We are Connected to our Creator, the Earth, to each other, and our ancestors

We are mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers,

Aunties and uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers

We are the daughters of our mothers

The sons of our fathers

Returning from the Rite of Return Ceremony

Whole initiated adult humans

Sharing our seven stories revealing the mysteries and messages

Revealing the human spirit’s ability to transform, transmute, and lay to rest what once was

To unveil what truly is and what is possible

Diving deeper into self and community

To find meaning in self

In messages from nature and in messages from God

Finding love, self-care, beauty,

grief, another’s suffering,

love of self, love of God,

Deep love of family, and love of community.

The mighty helpers of family and community asked for help

Allowed themselves to be supported and loved, Allowed for the receiving of help

The helpers were helped, loved, supported, and safe

Asked for help from God, the Creator

The owls sang messages

The squirrels watched and protected-safety

A lightness and immense love of family

Love and Joy

A dingo doglike parent and child pass across the path with a message

Deep rituals and strong sense of safety

A father’s love

Joy and love

The right spot is found after several trials landing northeast

Buzzy bee protects

Beloved cats and humans in a series of sorries and forgivenesses, acceptance lands

Love and Joy

Enchanted forest sunlit glen barefoot walking in awareness

Understanding pain of husband

Self-love and child-like joy

Joy and Love

Far away hilltop, rest,

Facing the bully head on

Until no more loathing words came

Knowing safety, love of self, and being loved

Love and Joy

The ridgetop found beauty with plans of a funeral; realized a wedding more appropriate

To take only what is needed, honor community and Earth

A queen with a beautiful crown; bee stings messages, eagles soar

Joy and Love

Being seen and heard

We are held in support, honor, and safety

We are seen and heard

Willing to give and receive; help and love

Phenomenal…Bubbling Brook…Humbled…Honored

Excited…What will the medicine do?

Magical, Rested, Hurt Good, So proud of you

Sharing vulnerability, joy, song, and poetry

LOVE and JOY

Gratitude…Filled with Seven Stories

Wonder, unpredictable, real

Beauty in grief, sunset spider web flashing, grief and beauty coexist

Stories intertwine, loom woven of contrast, connection of the weaving threads in community

DEEP GRATITUDE

I am enough

You are enough

We are enough and we ALL BELONG HERE

We are Veterans

We are Nature

We are Beautiful

We are Connected to our Creator, the Earth, to each other, and our ancestors

Becky, Chuck, Kristina, Kristin, Mark, Doug, and Dana, thank you for showing us all what is means to come to True Identity, Purpose, and Belonging after military service.

From the team privileged to hold that story…

Photos: Dr. Debbee Maraglio-Lynn, Chuck Tyler, Cj Ryan Mielcarek

Bow to Mark Oravsky and Donny Reed for preparing initiates for their Rite, to Larry and Susan Hobbs for opening up their hearts and land to us, Enterprise Truck Rental Olympia, The Marie Bed and Breakfast, Warrior PATHH, The Wildernesss Guides Council, our initiate community, partners, and donor fellowship.

For just one of many moments over twelve days in August 2024, you helped mend the scars from service with the joy of wild freedom.

In Loving Memory of Tim Linder

Wholeness and Nature - The Love Song of Larry Hobbs

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

- T. S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

So closes the epic of T.S. Eliot’s masterpiece, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, with the inevitable return from whence we all came, nature. It is a poem that Veteran Rites Co-Founder Larry Hobbs, myself, and elder guide Trebbe Johnson hold close to the chest. Larry once wrote his master’s thesis on it in an attempt to “diagnose” ole Alfred, and in another life I had “we have lingered in chambers by the sea” spray painted on my dorm room ceiling as a knuckleheaded wannabe undergraduate poet at Marquette before I enlisted and headed to Iraq. I asked him what the thesis concluded, and in that Larry laugh, he said, “he’s screwed, and we all are to unless we shift to a new paradigm in our thinking.”

As a wildlife bioligist, explorer, recovering therapist, photographer, storyteller, and seasoned example of day to day sobriety, he had lived many lifetimes and could have written many books on humanity. At his initiation into modern day rites of passage with Stephen Foster and Meredith Little at The School of Lost Borders, he dove into direct experience into the “Big Lie” that we are anything but nature, and has since guided and mentored hundreds of souls across the threshold into their direct experience with that truth, with the prayer that when we meet our true self and each other from the deepest parts of our being, as nature, we might actually begin to return to right relationship with the earth, with each other, and all species.

At the core of the Rite of Return for Veterans is this initiatory return to our True Self, Purpose, and Belonging with all our imperfect, wounded, wild, vulnerable, paradoxical, and sticky parts included.

As we say, “you’re not broke when you come and you’re not fixed when you leave.”

You are whole, living into the eternal dance of bringing the undernourished parts of yourself into balance, just like earth.

But in order to step into who you’ve always been but are not yet, you have to claim that wholeness and face the old stories, ways of being, and ungrieved grief that no longer serve.

When you do courageously show up for the death and rebirth of your true self, magic happens.

We can’t explain it.

You are shifted into a new paradigm you never thought possible.

Co-Founder Larry Hobbs and VR Rite of Passage Guide Susan Hobbs.

Now, after decades of study and sweat, Larry and his “Wizards of Climate Change,” Charles Fowler, and Megan Rodden, have published a work that calls on us into a new paradigm shift of how to show up for earth, The Wizards of Climate Change: How Can Technology Serve Hope and Justice? Holism in Dealing with Global Problems.

To the extent that we humans believe that we can solve our species-level problems with technology, we remain on the path to self-destruction. But there is an alternative; we can see other species like ours as empirical examples of how to be a species—how to participate in ultimate reality. This article exemplifies how holistic information provided systemically by other species can be used. Such information reveals the magnitude of humanity’s challenges and what is needed to address the myriad interrelated global problems, including climate change. Such systemic thinking involves a shift from conceptually extracting things from their context to seeing everything embedded in its context.

This scientific and spiritual work was too controversial for mainstream scientific publications, as it calls us to to see the world and other species in ways that stretch our understanding of ourselves beyond our comfort zone. So thank you Zygon, for your courage to show up for the new paradigm of hope.

So let us go then, you and I, and listen to Larry’s Love Song to Wholeness and Nature.

And as he would say, “Don’t Forget to Have a Good Time!”

Give Rise to New Life - Spring Equinox

Spring Equinox 2024 

Dear Friends of the wild places,

 The spring is now making its way towards emergence and winter’s last hold is inviting us to name what dreams are ready to sprout. Or might we wonder whether some things might be lying dormant waiting to re-emerge. The time of hibernation is ending and the quiet stirring we are feeling both inwardly and outwardly is a sense of hope.  And the surge of life force flowing through our veins is warming us towards renewal.

The winter’s darkness is finally yielding to the light of spring and the dead of winter now begins to give rise to the new life.

As the first crowning of the tentative new growth appears, we begin to sense the excitement of the possibilities that lie ahead. And we begin to follow the pull toward the sunlight of personal growth fed by the rays of visions and dreams. There is a lure in the spring to expand into the creative that is now longing to be expressed.

Spring spurs the verdant miracles upward in a subtle explosion as the earth gives way to the new birthing. Just as in nature we are wired to grow and bloom and just as in nature we reflect the beauty, the abundance and sacred of the one who created all things.

May you rise to the sacred and wholeness within your self that you might create miracles. This world is in need of miracles. This world is in need of your wholeness.

With heart,

  Silvia

“Tell me, what will you do with your one wild and precious life?”

                                                                          Mary Oliver

Silvia Talavera (she/her) 

Inspired by the wild places without borders Silvia guides from a full life experience that is filled with the sacred, profane and the wild graced with humor and curiosity.

A wilderness guide since 1993 and a seasoned hospice nurse and a Reiki practitioner. Silvia continues to hold the similarities of the symbolic death and the physical death and how one mirrors the other and how both of these have informed her life.

She is a supporter of deep immersion into the natural landscape where exploration of the mythic, the archetype and the imaginal dimensions is the gateway to the hero/heroine’s journey.

Silvia is an elder, great grandmother, mentor and embraces her elderhood with great joy, deep humility and daily gratitude.

Her work in all its expressions is devoted to the reawakening of our true selves and remembering our natural instinct to love and healing for the benefit of all beings and remains committed to service of the greater good.

The loving sister of a Marine Vietnam Veteran, Silvia has brought her magic and spirit to Veteran Rites since 2020.

Email: silvia@lostborders.org

Exhale. Pause. Observe. Give Thanks. Inhale. Continue - Crossing into 2024

In invitation from the incredible Autumn Skye of @autumskeyart

As we breathe the final exhale of this past year and prepare for the inhale of the new year, may we remember to take a moment of pause, even if brief, to dwell in the liminal space between.

May we reflect on all that has occurred over this last cycle, all of our actions and effects in the world, all of the stories that we have carried along the journey that may be ready to be laid to rest. Acknowledge all of the losses, all of the gifts, all of the love, all of the grief, the celebration, the breakthroughs, the healing, the growth, death, birth, creativity, awakening.
These facets of our experience are intertwined and prismatic, inseparable and each with their own embodied teaching.
Exhale.
Pause.
Observe.
Give thanks.
Inhale.
Continue….

As we all step into into 2024, may we take Autumn Skye’s words into our hearts and into the wild, raw, and slow heart of nature, where our stories and wholeness are always being mirrored back to us in the most beautiful way.

In that soulful silence a spark of inspiration will inevitably arise. We will hear a whisper from the wind of what needs to be released in order for our next story to emerge, what parts of our being are aching to be reclaimed, voiced, and nourished.

A natural threshold will be revealed between two trees, or we will create one with weary, grieving, sticky branches. Whatever is there in front of us will be perfect and awkward.

All the insecurities, grief, fears, doubt, and resentments that have been doing pushups in the parking lots of our mind will suit up and do what they do.

The ghosts of our heart will cement our legs into the sod. “I just can’t do it” we’ll think.

But then our remembered ones will say with compassion, “It’s time, we’re good now.”

The beating prayers and intentions in our chest will open our mouths and finally find way to meet the sky.

And we will cross once again, shaking, wild, free, and really uncertain of what’s to come.

Because that is the calling, and simply how we’re built.

May the land rise up to meet you and the sky embrace you.

We can’t wait to meet you on the other side, and hear the first telling of your story.

It’s the least we could do for being so essential to ours.

Love and Honor,

Cj Ryan Eugene Mielcarek, Seabee OIF Veteran, Executive Director, Veteran Rites

Enjoy a few minutes of video nature prescription featuring the frequency sounds of Listening to Smile.

Oh, and don’t forget to have a good time!

The Darkest Hour: Renewing Ourselves

“ A reminder of the sacredness of life as well as our innate connection to the worlds capacity to renew itself in the darkest hour.” Michael Meade

Hello dear veterans, humans, and explorers of wild nature,

Here you are in mid-winter awaiting the solstice sacred pause through the darkness and into light. A cosmic moment reminding you that this is an opportunity to bring your inner gifts, your genius and your own light in the midst of the dark to shine in service of the highest good. And that you also, like the good earth, have the capacity of renewal during the darkest of times.

This is also the time of actions that pull us towards manifesting our visions and dreaming. Ask yourselves... What things are lying dormant and what things will die during this fallow time? What actions do you take in service of humanity? In what ways have you accessed the wisdom of your wholeness during the difficult times?

The winter season is filled with hidden treasures and is full with survival tools and good actions, thriving skills and self-empowerment. One only needs to look closely and pay attention to the miracles occurring during this fallow and dormant time.

During the holidays and the holy days there are opportunities and blessings in the giving and sharing to open your hearts to humanity.

May this time bring you regeneration, joy and peace wrapped in the ribbons of divine love.

People are like stained glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out,

but when darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.

Elizabeth Kubler- Ross

With Heart,

Silvia Talavera Senior Wilderness Rites of Passage Guide with Veteran Rites (Below Left)

View fullsize

View fullsize

Original “I AM” art by Jessica Gorée-Medoff Veteran Rites Wilderness Rite of Passage Guide and Board Member ( Above Right)

May the warmth of the sun wrap it’s arm around you and yours in this crossing of solstice threshold into longer days.

And may you always find grounding in the truth and wholeness of your “I AM.”

If you are having troubling remember that, just have the #Strength2Rise and reach out.

We know who you are in truth and how you serve in truth.

Love and Honor,

- VR

Anybody can pray for rain, you best get digging a well.

This is a trip report from the Wilderness Guides Council gathering in CO and a Kendeda Foundation gathering in Montana from VR Executive Director CJ Ryan Mielcarek.

Nearing the Tiny Church in Emigrant, Montana on a clear October day I heard Charlie Crocket say on YouTube the words “anybody can pray for rain, but you better start digging a well.” Then he proceeded to sign Midnight Run while I caught the sign saying Welcome Weary Travelers.

What makes a man think that he can forget about what used to be
Be happy with the way life is, not think about what once was his
Whiskey drunk and under the gun
I'm taking me a midnight run

I'm taking me a midnight run
I'm making another one
A thousand miles or more I'll drive to where I lived when I thought I was alive
They'll never know I was ever around
Just my shadow on the ground
I turn east to face the sun
After making me a midnight run

I tell you all 'cause you need to know
They don't call for me to go
I hear that voice coming 'cross the miles
I got no choice but to be gone a while
I say get in you better lock and load
Don't let the wind block the road
I'll be gone but when it's done
I'm all alone on my midnight run

I'm taking me a midnight run
I'm making another one
A thousand miles or more I'll drive to where I lived when I thought I was alive
They'll never know I was ever around
Just my shadow on the ground
I turn east to face the sun
After making me a midnight run

Something about all that made me pull over and go in when I’d have rather kept on to Yellowstone after a couple thousand miles and few days on the road.

To be honest had it been any intentional garden or four upright walls welcoming weary travelers I feel I’d a stopped for a spell to cross a threshold into some open sky with no timekeeper on standby, including the one in my head.

A few days before Birdy Bear and I loaded up in the Silverado from Olympia, WA with a mission to make it to the Wilderness Guides Council gathering in Deer Hill, CO. We came to tap in to the national network of tender-hearted wilderness weirdos that have been beating the drum for over 40 years in their own way signing the song that the only way out of this mess is by journeying into our internal wilderness in the community of the wilderness. I pulled over with limited reception to hold an online incorporation council with the initiates from our last ceremony somewhere near MOAB. With that complete, I had to drop Birdy off with a sitter in Cortez. And that dear dog sitter Jacek happened to also have spent five years as VA Homeless Veteran social worker in San Francisco. No accidents I thought, and gave him a sweater for his efforts for our community.

I arrived late night to Deer Hill Expeditions to some ridiculous moonlit hospitality from WGC Netkeeper Christi Strickland then climbed in the back of my truck in the struggle to get to sleep. I awoke with icicles on my nose in the shadow of the back shoulder of ancestral lands Mesa Verde.

I jumped right in still twisted around my own axle from that driving into reconnection, service work, deep conversations, and intentional councils that stretched our hearts and our patience into the unfolding story of how to be fully human in a community of unity and difference. I listened and learned about the struggles and glory of so many radical humans of all generations each doing their courageous work finding the peace of their true nature and guiding others to do the same. Queer, trans, straight, non-binary, elder, middler, and wise youth of many perfect shades of humanity opened my eyes and heart with their stories. After some conflict exploration on CAREfully setting a container that honors belonging and inclusion for all, we eventually locked arms as beings of nature each on our human trip, with much to explore and integrate in ourselves, as organizations, and as a council moving forward, intentions set for WGC in the PNW in four seasons.

I was humbled to share just a little about me but more importantly the Veteran Rites story.

A story of unity and difference, how every Service Member, Veteran, Partner, Provider, or Survivor that courageously answers the call becomes our teacher on how to be a better human and protector of space to ourselves, each other, and the land.

A story of their stories, their terror, loss, isolation, trauma, prayer, and resilience. An unimaginable landscape of battle wounds patched up on cliff’s edge, of grief, desperation, isolation adorned by imperfectly whole humans with an unpredictable contradiction of intersectionality, ancestral roots, creativity, spirituality, betrayals, shadows, presences, identities, gender expressions, skin tone, dark humor, tenderness, politics, personality structures and individual experiences that could win the Joseph Campbell Human of the Universe Mythology Award. Every single one of them.

A story for all times, of Veterans and Civilians fumbling shoulder to shoulder to practice soaking in each other’s grief and lived experience with a one-two punch of intentional community and solitude in nature.

A story for all people, if we deploy our resources with urgency to remove barriers for ALL people to access their true nature as nature, we may just be able to sing this humanity song at it’s highest octave.

OK. I didn’t say all that but I meant to. So here’s the redo and on to Montana.

Wilderness Rite of Passage Guides Semba (Army), Sher (Navy), and Jessica (USCG).

After giving our beloved Larry, Susan, Trebbee, and Kinde a hug and proceeded to drop off a couple of badass woman elders a ride to the airport, including our Board Member Sara Harris, I picked up Birdy and deployed up the highway with kinds of food and amount of sleep I’d rather not mention. I stopped in Utah, regretting I didn’t get a chance to catch up with a few of our VR Community in Colorado, including my old Seabee battle buddy Justin. I was thinking this as I put the nozzle and set it to pump till full. I heard that big click and looked at that how much I’d spent. Exactly $74.00. Our unit was Naval Mobile Construction Batallion 74 out of Gulfport, MS. I also stumbled up a Black Rifle Coffee Company brick and mortar. Can’t make this stuff up.

When crossing into Montana the Gods and Goddesses were in good moods. Man what country.

Birdy and I arrived at 4:50pm for a 5:30pm event in Bozeman for the Kendeda Foundation that generously supported us and a ridiculously powerful network of grassroots organizations in making Montana, and the world a better place. From Land Conservation to Veterans to Indigenous Healing and Renewal, I just felt lucky to be in a room with such do-gooding all stars and learned so much about the spirit and the people of Montana. I ran into Heather from Project Sanctuary, an incredible organization for military veterans and families. She was gracious enough to make sure I at least didn’t look like I didn’t know anyone there.

Diane Blank opened her speech with the Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry. It was perfect. I was able to tell her and Tim at Kendeda before they close the doors on their foundation that they definitely funded the Peace of Wild Things at Veteran Rites. The whole deal just gave me hope for humanity and reminded me that we are all playing our parts in preserving, protecting, and healing this spinning rock. Also, that I could sill wear a blazer. Having hit my adult deadlines in CO and MT…

I turn east to face the sun
After making me a midnight run

And there we were again, at this little out of nowhere church for weary travelers so I can pass through Yellowstone on the way back to Washington. Something about this sign spoke to me. Something about stopping and slowing down after an incredible VR Ceremonial Season with not much time to integrate. So I did my thanks for all these blessings hoping no one else came in because that would be super awkward in a shoebox church. The stroll though Yellowstone was like a walk in What Dreams May Come.

Having been connected to groups like Yellowstone Forever from going to the dinner the night before I somehow felt initiated into a community closer to this land. Yes there were Bison and all sorts of 2 and 4 legged beings, but it was the quiet moments in the super accessible rolling hills and healing waters. I think I cried out whatever needed to be released from the last year of holding stories, and took some glamour shots of Birdy amidst those waters and the Tetons.

It is beauty that wells up the chest most of all. It’s why I think we do the healing in the wilderness. It’s also the place where all of the committee in my head starts the film reel of shoulda and coulda of life, and where I heard the winds of the Tetons say the midnight running is an old story. So instead of pushing on through the night, I stopped in Jackson, said goodbye to some old friends from that old story, said a little prayer at the Veterans Memorial, and headed down the Snake River.

There’s something about the snake and the shedding of skin and old stories. Of the windy and unpredictable path of life. And this was the river to truly mark my 45th birthday from a few days before, of six years of being broken open on the land in ceremony to embark on a very strange and inexplicable journey to bring others to do the same.

There felt some sort of completion here to a man on a midnight run which eventually led to the clean rivers of fatherhood and sobriety. So I got a good scream in and shouted thanks to all the beings of that land and in my life that have had my back, including you reading this. And then it clicked, this is The Roaring of the Sacred River, for me at least. Still wet from My River Runs Through it, I hopped on a hybrid Mirroring for Empowerment Practice with some initiates who held the first telling of this big story.

At VR we believe a story in nature has to be witnessed. And there I was, with the privilege of good people around me willing to witness and be witnessed without trying to fix anything about me or my story. Wild, real, and raw I shared and was held. A perfect reminder that no one gets out this ceremony of life alive and as Mark Nepo suggests, “Life is just tough enough that we need each other.”

Then I heard the news about conflict in Israel and Palestine.

Some fifteen hours of driving remained ahead of me crossing some of the most isolated lands of Idaho as all everyone in my own internal system had their say reflecting on the crisis. I finally crossed the Columbia and made it back home. A week later I am still rocked in what it all means, what it all meant, and what is mine to do as a human, a leader, and as a Veteran.

I keep hearing, “follow the drum beat and get to the grief.”

I keep seeing the image of a constellation that a few of us worked on at a workshop earlier this year where we journeyed into the root of veteran suicide.

At this workshop, there were felts put down as representatives for the disruptive veteran and the insecure civilian. What emerged in the abyss between them was a felt representing the well of ungrieved grief that can only be addressed by soaking in each other’s pain and the deep witnessing of each other’s story. I took this as saying that any action, system, structure, and culture that does not allow for all of the hands accountable for the results of war to viscerally feel the grief of war is just kicking the can down the road with a band aid made from the fabrics of fear, indifference, and division.

The scars from service are half the story, it’s the community we come back to that writes the rest. If we had a form in our culture and veteran service system where we normalized grieving together as a community more of our people would not become casualties of war.

Why this insight matters right now.

It just seems that what we are learning as Veterans transforming the conflicting wilderness within our souls towards wholeness, balance, and peace is something the world might need in times of war and peace.

Something that innocent children will always need.

One council at a time, can we practice standing down our internal armored divisions to hold the ungrieved grief and unheard stories of THE OTHER?

I believe we can get big enough to hold the edges of that container.

It think it will be slow medicine.

It would definitely take generations.

But all I can do is quit praying for rain, and start digging my well from this spot.

With a prayer that this shovel will contribute lasting peace to someone, somewhere, sometime.

BRING ME THE RIOT IN YOUR HEART

“Bring me your suffering.
The rattle roar of broken bones.

Bring me the riot in your heart.
Angry, wild and raw.

Bring it all.

I am not afraid of the dark.”
― Mia Hollow

This wild and whole group of veterans courageously answered the call for their 12-Day rite of passage and initiation into True Identity, Purpose, and Belonging after military service. By diving into their own wilderness to lay down what no longer serves they have crossed the threshold into who they have always been called to be but haven’t been yet.

Char (USN)

Brad (USMC)

Twan (Army)

Mark (Army)

Bishop (Army)

Rocco (Army)

Danny (Army)

Dylan (USAF)

It is so. You and the land will never be the same. You are the best of what it means to be a whole human and a veteran. Keep submitting to your own myth. Everything else is a lie.

Welcome Home Dragons of the Scablands.

Catch four and half minutes of Veteran Badassery at the 12-Day Fall 2023 Rite of Return in the Channeled Scablands of Eastern Washington, featuring the epic photographic mirror by John Crary and the frequency minded music by Listening to Smile.

We Are the Safety of the Shore: Grand Rising

Shända L. De Anda at the Rite of Return

The Safety of the Shore

By Shända L. De Anda

She knows it’s close …

can feel its breathing.

Tries again to scream

but only hears her own heart beating.

The monster closes in.

There’s no place left to hide.

She turns to fight … what she faces is a mirror.

The monster is her ... it’s somewhere inside …

She looks deep, unable to turn away.

It’s bigger than a small thing … no it’s much more.

IT is great strength, raw power, fierceness.

She is her own protection …

after a turbulent journey, the safety of the shore

---

Veteran Rites bows to the courage, resilience, and wholeness of the eight initiates from our military family who blessed our ceremony on Easton Ridge this August.

With grace and grit, you show us that whatever the “turbulent journey” in life, the grief, the pain, or uncertainty, we can always find the “safety of the shore” if we turn into OUR TRUE NATURE and THE NATURE THAT MIRRORS OUR WHOLENESS.

From that remembering we can always regain our footing in our TRUE IDENTITY, PURPOSE, & BELONGING.

Your stories are completely yours and all of ours.

Together, WE ARE the Safety of the Shore…GRAND RISING.

Welcome Home with Love and Honor.

Mzsoldier

Mary C.

Rachael

Emily AKA “Purple Haze”

Incredible Whole Veteran (left) and Teresa (right)

Anthony

Summer 2023 Veterans Rite of Return Ceremony Team and Initiates

From Top Left: Elder Wilderness Rite of Passage Guide Susan Hobbs, VR Co-Founder and Senior Guide Larry Hobbs, WROP Guide Mitchel Brookman, Ceremonial Assistant Brandon Dorrington, Incredible Whole Veteran, Initiate Mzsoldier, WROP Guide Semba, Initiate Teresa, Ceremonial Assistant Debbee Aquila, Initiate Rachael.

From Bottom Left: Initiates Mary C., Emily AKA “Purple Haze”, Anthony, and Shända L. De Anda

Acknowledgements: Deep gratitude to all VR Rites of Passage Guides (Susan, Larry, Mitch, Semba) and our incredible Ceremony Assistants (Debbee, Brandon), VR Welcome Wagon Jess Gorée-Medoff & Dan Medoff, Inventory Crew Carol & Galen, the crew holding down circles while on the land (Mark, Steve, Sheila, Shari), our man JD in Roslyn, our Community Fellowship of Donors, Enterprise Truck Rental (Olympia), The Marie Bed & Breakfast (Olympia), and Andrew Nicholls at Urban Log Studios.

Thank you to the voices that enabled our initiates to hear the call to the land: The Compassionate Warrior Council for Reintegration, Sarah Blum, Thunder, Yolanda AKA “Ya Ya” Jones, and all souls within and beyond the bare bones wilderness rites of passage lineage of the School of Lost Borders, the Wilderness Guides Council, and Veteran Rites.

We honor the privilege to have gather and heal in the wilderness cared for and stewarded by Larry and Susan Hobbs for decades, which sits within the boundaries of the ceded lands of The Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation.

Witness three minutes of Veteran Transformation in the YouTube Video above with moments from the land with the frequency-minded music of Listening to Smile. *Volume Up!