Reclaiming Initiation:

A Gateway to your Rite-of-Passage

Adulthood initiation rites are ancient, pan-cultural traditions practiced the world over. These rites were designed to hold the adolescent ego—the caterpillar state—within a sacred chrysalis, allowing it to dissolve, die, and be reborn as a fully mature being, capable of truly serving and sustaining culture.

Our ancestors knew: initiation is the bridge between individual existence and the profound Mystery of life—teaching us to thrive in uncertainty rather than grasping for control.

Yet today, most initiatory wisdom has been uprooted or lost, leaving humanity collectively uninitiated, fearful, and disconnected from the Earth’s wild, emergent intelligence.

At a Crossroads

We stand now at an evolutionary threshold, with urgent truths to face:

You can’t initiate yourself.

No mentor is coming to do it for you.

This isn’t another Hero’s Journey.

This is the death of the Hero -

and the beginning of true adulthood.

"In traditional cultures all over the world, the transition to adulthood was marked by ceremony and ritual that focused on the death of the child and the birth of the adult. They announced clearly that from this moment on, there were different expectations and responsibilities."

— Michael Meade, "The Water of Life: Initiation and the Tempering of the Soul"

A Mycelial Map for Modern Initiation

In this interactive course, we’ll explore a mycelial map of initiation, journeying through:

  • Core themes and personal initiatory challenges

  • Theory and embodied ritual practices

  • Deep reflection, council circles, and meaningful homework

  • Active participation in an online community forum

We’ll evaluate where we stand on our unique initiatory paths, clarify our next steps, and consciously walk into our maturity.

Step boldly forward—your initiation awaits.

Course Modules

Course Modules

    • An overview of humanity’s Threshold into Collective Initiation through climate disruption and Collapse. 

    • Liminality as the overarching quality of the “spiritual work” of our generation

    • Compositing of the Hero/Martyr Narrative back into it’s rhizomic roots, opening space for.. (we’ll discover the various fruiting narratives emerging from this renewal process)

    • A dive into the realm of Soul, with various arguments for and against this prime materia of human existence

    • Rites of Passage from a Transcultural and Transcorporal perspective

    • The Necessity of Trauma - what trauma is, why it exists, and the contours of it’s organic healing intelligence

    • The Wound as Womb - Wounds as Ancestral Inheritance of Lineage Gifts

    • Nervous System Regulation and Polyvagal Theory

    • The Mechanics of the Emotional System from an Earth-based Perspective and how to properly digest emotion through Self and Co-Regulation

    • Attachment Theory - The dynamic nature of Love, and how unlocking the keys to our Embodied Safety in relating is necessity for Expansion, Freedom and Soul-Evolution

    • What is Anchoring- Why we need a Guide-rope to go into the Depths

    • The Origins of Western Cosmology and where it’s incomplete

    • Uncertainty and the Panpoly of Quantum Physics (Why Light is really Queer)

    • How the Brain Works - Pattern Tracking and our Ancestral Inheritance of Birdsong

    • Nature Speak: Questions and Riddles

    • The Matrix of Meaning and Immersive Story

    • Metaphor, Mythology and the Crossroads

    • Before There Was White - Ancestral Reckoning in the Time of Nation-States

    • Mentorship as a Fundament of Ecology - and how to grow and tend your own mentorship garden

    • The Denial of Death and the Loss of Village

    • What Actually Happens When we Die

    • Food for the Ancestors - Feasting, Foraging and Flame

    • Family Trees, Generating our Genealogy, and Imaginal Memory

    • Ancestral Pilgrimage 

    • Self-Organizing Systems and Emergence - How to Partner with Life

    • Reciprocity (and why we were taught a Kindergarten version of God)

    • Imaginal vs. Deductive Knowing and why both matter

    • Initiation into the Mysteries

    • Becoming Transparent to the Transcendent - Ritual Magic

    • Constellations of Power - Altar Magic

    • The Power of Praise - Prayer as Activism and Self-Responsibility

    • The Alphabet vs. the Goddess (And other false dichotomies that failed our Culture)

    • Anima, Animas, and Animism

    • The Shadow as your Inner Beloved

    • Dancing with Death (Even if you have 2 left feet)

    • Integration as the Quest of our Time

    • Vision Quest and Viral Questions

    • Next Steps - What is your responsibility of Initiatory Bridge Building in 2022 (and how not to fuck this process up)

Testimonials

  • “John's facilitation of the Initiation Rites course was exactly what I needed. He was very down to earth and present in his space holding and in the sharing of the knowledge. I was always so curious to hear more from him as he implemented great techniques in storytelling and the use of analogies to really ground in these large, complex and revolutionary ideas. I highly recommend taking this course, it may just change your life like it did mine!”

    Nature Mbanefo

  • “John’s introduction to Adulthood Initiation was a potent catalyst for personal growth and discovery in my life. This is a first step towards something bigger, and John’s offerings are a beautiful portal to a new understanding of what it means to be initiated in these turbulent times.”

    Gil Shefer

  • “John's Adulthood Initiation series was soulful and provocative. His dedication to this journey was evident through his deep knowledge and curiosity. There were so many seeds planted and threads exposed and I am grateful for the map he provided as I feel more confident to continue navigating the process myself now that the series has wrapped up. Especially poignant for me were the pieces related to ancestry and the dance with death. Thank you John!”

    Ashley Flemming

  • “I came to John’s initiation rites as an older person craving ritual and deep exploration into mental and emotional conditionings that prevent full maturity. I was amazed at how this brilliant one articulates the potential snags and blocks along the way to adulthood. He has a very sweet but rigorous way of analyzing and synthesizing cultural psychological ecological factors involved in full thriving humanness.”

    Joni Cooke

REGISTRATION AND RECIPROCITY

One-time payment: $197

5% of all course proceeds will be donated to local Indigenous Land Rematriation Project.

Register Now to Secure your Spot!

 FAQs

  • Nope! This class is delivered asynchronously, which means you can start it whenever you want, at your own pace. You have lifetime access and we encourage you to return to the content many times throughout your initiation process.

  • No.  All class videos are available online.

  • This course will be training how to build a powerful inter-relational web of support around you, where you will share your learning, receive questions and feedback.  We also highly encourage you to take the course with a friend or small group for a more powerful learning integration journey.  

  • The full course content lasts about 5 hours, and the assignments will take longer depending on your readiness and enthusiasm for transformation.  We recommend waiting at least a week between each module, and some participants have taken one module a month, really working deeply with the content and assignment.

    You’ll have lifetime access to the course, so you can feel free to break up the modules according to your schedule, and repeat videos to let the content sink in deeper.

  • This course is 100% online and you can access the course materials from a laptop, tablet or mobile device. Because this is a video-based course, you will need an internet speed of at least 1.5 Mbps to stream the videos. Dial-up or satellite internet may slow down access to the materials. 

  • Please, please, talk to your friends about these tools and perspectives. Our deepest desire is to build a global culture around the revitalization of rites of passage and adulthood initiation.

  • We’ve put a lot of time, thought and care into the Foundations of Adulthood Initiation Course, and we’re charging for it because we believe it has value for life. We ask that you respect the effort that went into the course and do not share it without permission.

  • If you’re interested in hosting a group session, contact us below. 

  • Send us an email using the form below and someone from our team will be in touch shortly.

 

Get in touch