Connected pathways
Return asks something different.
What service required may not be what return requires. Some begin with a course. Some begin in a Circle. Some feel called toward ceremony. The work continues through relationship and ordinary life after any event ends.
Three offerings for the work of return.
Roots of Resilience, Rite of Return, and Circles of Return offer a course, wilderness ceremony, and continuing community. Each has its own purpose within a life that continues beyond any one event.
Roots of Resilience
Six weekly online meetings. Veteran peer facilitation. Shared language, reflection, practical resilience, and a foundation for the Rite of Return.
Rite of Return
A guided wilderness rite of passage, including preparation, severance, fasting, solitude, ceremony, witness, and return.
Circles of Return
Council, shared experience, deep listening, local and online gatherings, and continued practice in community.
One Arc · Preparation through incorporation
Preparation begins before the land. Incorporation continues after it.
Timing varies with cohort dates, readiness, health, travel, and ceremony placement. This is the shape of the journey, not a guarantee of automatic enrollment.
Preparation
Before the land
Complete Roots of Resilience. Build shared language, relationship, practical skills, and a grounded foundation.
Readiness and coordination
Meet with the team about readiness, health, accessibility, travel, gear, intention, and current ceremony space.
Severance
Scheduled Rite
Enter the land.
Threshold
Cross the threshold through fasting and solitude.
Incorporation
Return, eat, rest, tell the story, and be witnessed.
Continuing practice
Carry insight into family, community, work, repair, service, boundaries, love, and ordinary life.
What the work asks
Show up honestly. Participate in your own passage. Respect consent and confidentiality. Ask for what you need. Remain accountable to health, safety, community agreements, and the consequences of what you choose.
A threshold is not a place to remain.
Ready for a next step?
There is a person at the other end.
Looking ahead to 2027. The current interest form says 2026 ceremonies are full and lists first available 2027 for both Rite of Return and Roots of Resilience. Interest begins a conversation; it does not guarantee a place.
Express program interest (opens in a new tab)
Opens the existing Veteran Rites interest form in a new tab.