Headwaters Outdoor School operates on two levels. It is a school for anyone interested in learning traditional earth skills such as fire making with a bow drill, how to build an earth shelter in summer or winter, identification of edible plants and many other earth skills. The school also has earth philosophy and nature awareness classes that connect the student with the wonders of the natural world through meditations in their chosen sacred nature spots and other exercises that create a deeper connection with the environment and ultimately within them.

The second area of the school is Boys Rites of Passage. In 10 years I have led numerous classes for boys age 13 to 18 that initiate them into manhood in a conscious and thoughtful way. Over a five to six day period, I, with the help of other dedicated men, put these boys through a process that tests their physical and emotional resources. They learn the meaning of leadership while being part of a team. Some are in nature for the first time without the daily distractions of computers, CD headsets or cell phones. They learn to confront themselves by spending 24 hours on a fasting vision quest in earth shelters they build as protection from uncertain weather. They learn that being lazy and haphazard will have its consequences during storms or its rewards for those who are thoughtful and hard working.

The silence of the quest is a time for each boy to reflect upon what it means to be a man in this world and to create a “Code of Honor” for his life and for his community that he can use as a map to guide him through life’s tough choices. The choice to be honest or to lie; to have integrity or be devious; to be of service to others or to be a “user” or a “taker”’ to respect oneself or to self-sabotage – these are just some of the issues the boys grapple with as they create their code. If they can truly live their experience and follow their code in the daily chaos that is their school life, their social life with attendant peer pressures and their home life as they struggle for independence, then they carry with them the seeds of a positive and productive life that benefits all who know them.

Boys Rites of Passage is a life-altering experience for each boy. Whether the initiation takes hold immediately or creeps in slowly over time, they don’t return home the same as when they came. This ritual should be a requirement as it was in ancient times. The current ritual of kids bonding through drugs or gangs is destructive and harmful to our society and creates a generation of “lost boys”. Even the most hardened teen has responded to the rigors of the program because he is in a community of men who care in an environment where individual success is measured by the boy’s response to his own limitations and where the community of men and boys give support rather than condemnation.

When the stone of initiation is cast into the waters of the ritual, the ripples of each boy’s experience will touch the life of each person he meets.