Honoring Change:
Ceremony, Ritual, & Rites of Passage as Tools for Transformation
A residential 5 day training for therapists and helping professionals
- Are you a Therapist or Healer wanting to deepen your own relationship with Ceremony & Ritual practices and facilitation?
- Are you longing to weave greater connection with the earth, humans, and that which is beyond us into your healing work in the world?
- Would you like to increase your knowledge, practice and skill set for more confidence in creating and facilitating Personally Meaningful, Culturally Relevant Ceremonies & Rituals?
Course Description
Come gather on the land in community to explore your own relationship with Ceremony, Ritual and Rites of Passage as a starting point for facilitating others in these practices. It’s been said that “The only constant in life is change.” As guides and healers, we experience this maxim on a daily basis. We bear witness to changes large and small, wanted and unwanted, as our clients and students grow and mature, enter and exit relationships, jobs, life stages and more. Whether or not a particular change is chosen or thrust upon us, transition affords opportunities to let go of old ways of being, to re-evaluate our beliefs and values, and to learn, to grow, and to discover our strengths and capacities, as well as to step more consciously into our embodied lives.
Throughout history, cultures have developed ceremonies to mark major life transitions and to help people integrate the psycho-spiritual shifts that accompany change. In our increasingly mechanized, computerized, fast-paced modern world, many of us have lost our traditional ways of ceremony and ritual. Instead, we learn myriad methods to numb our pain and to avoid the feelings accompanying change. In this course we will reconnect with that which has personal and cultural significance to each of us individually, and we’ll delve into processes and practices for creating meaningful experiences that honor the complexity of life change. Along the way, we’ll be looking at cultural appropriateness, and how to support our clients and students to acknowledge and honor the significance of life transitions in unique and personalized ways.
Course Objectives
Through lecture, discussion, and experiential learning, you will:
- Understand the arch of life transition through a Rites of Passage model
Recognize and explore the inherent opportunities and challenges within the process of life change
- Learn to craft, and facilitate personally meaningful, culturally relevant ceremony and ritual in support of clients’ life transitions within the therapeutic process
- Co-create and embark on an overnight ceremonial wilderness solo to honor your own life transitions and unfoldings in a personally meaningful way
- Experience how nature, silence, and solitude can be powerful doorways into deeper listening and personal alignment
- Consider how to responsibly partner with the earth and unseen allies in practicing and facilitating ceremony
- Look at the importance of incorporating circumstances and pathways for integration of change following ceremony
October 18 – 22, 2023 (Glen Rose, TX near Dallas/Ft. Worth)
Tuition Investment: Reg Price ($1725); Early Bird Price ($1575) ends August 18, 2023
Ceremony is a full-body prayer of saying ‘YES’ to what is.
Honoring Change: Ceremony, Ritual & Rites of Passage as Tools for Transformation:
Further Information & Logistics
2023 Schedule:
- Honoring Change is a residential 5 day-long program.
- We begin on October 18th at 9 am, and end on October 22nd by 5 pm.
Location:
This intensive program takes place in Glen Rose, TX (near Dallas/Ft. Worth). Our days will be spent outside learning and practicing nature-based Ceremony and Ritual techniques that can be easily applied to participants’ current therapeutic, coaching or educational practices.
Lodging & Meals:
Since this is a residential program, camping is included as part of the course. Participants will be responsible for bringing their own camping gear (check in with us if you need to borrow some gear). Due to Covid-19 concerns, participants are requested to bring and prepare their own food. Coolers with ice will be available for food storage and individually wrapped snacks will be provided. Note that as a part of this course, there will be a 24 hour ceremonial solo time with an option to fast.
Transportation:
Participants will be responsible for arranging their own transportation. Let us know if you are interested in sharing a ride from Boulder or sharing the cost of a rental car and we will put you in contact with other course participants.
About Your Facilitator:
Katie Asmus, MA, LPC, BMP
Katie Asmus is a Somatic and nature-based psychotherapist, Ceremonialist, Coach, Mentor, Teacher and Rites of Passage Guide. Founder and director of the Somatic Wilderness Therapy Institute in Boulder, CO, US, Katie describes the essence of her work as: bringing forth the innate wisdom within every-body, opening people’s minds and hearts to greater possibilities, and bringing more love and peace to the planet through tending the hearts and souls of the humans.
With a Master degree in Somatic Psychology, over 30 years leading individuals and group programs out in nature, and a lifetime of apprenticing to ceremony and rites of passage, Katie is passionate about normalizing, celebrating and bringing compassion to what it means to be human. For the past 20 years, alongside maintaining a private psychotherapy practice, she has taught graduate students at Naropa University and Prescott College. In addition, through the Somatic Wilderness Therapy Institute (and in collaboration with other inspiring colleagues) she created and facilitates both on-line and in-person workshops and trainings in Somatic Trauma work, Ceremony & Rites of Passage facilitation, as well as a wide variety of wilderness, adventure and nature-based therapy skills.
Katie is a tender of the thresholds and strongly believes in the necessity of following our deepest longing while simultaneously knowing and feeling our interconnection and belonging to the greater web of life.
A NOTE REGARDING COVID-19 PROTOCOLS FOR IN-PERSON PROGRAMMING: we will be monitoring the evolving situation and giving updates to program participants on our own specific protocols. These protocols will be based on local, state, and federal recommendations and requirements as well as outdoor industry best practices and will be communicated closer to the program start dates to ensure we are keeping current with appropriate precautions. For additional questions or information contact us at [email protected]