The Well Sealed Vessel, with Tina Burchill
Rites of passage are essential functions of healthy human communities, but what are they, really? And how do they work? In this conversation with one of my own rite of passage guides, Tina Burchill, we discuss rites of passage and their role in village life, the specific kind of rite of passage that Tina guides people through, and the power of "the well sealed vessel."
About Tina Burchill:
Tina Burchill trained as a wilderness vigil guide with leading mythologist Dr Martin Shaw, graduating in 2018, the same year she gained an MA in Myth and Ecology. She has continued to work under the umbrella of the School of Myth in Devon, where she is also a member of the core faculty team. She also has a small homeopathic practice (she qualified in 2005) alongside working as a consultant in event management, and writing work. Her previous career in journalism included working as a freelancer in the UK for national magazines and newspapers.
Read Tina’s article Seeking defeat and growth through wilderness vigils on the wilderness vigil process.
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Megan Leatherman:
Welcome to A Wild New Work, a podcast about how to divest from capitalism and the norms of modern work and step into the soulful calling of these times we live in, which includes the call to rekindle our relationship with the earth. I'm Megan Leatherman, a mother to two small kids, writer, amateur ecologist, and vocational guide. I live in the Pacific Northwest and I'm your host today.
Hi friend and welcome. I'm so glad that you're here today. We're in the heart of the spring season now. The sun is in the sign of Taurus. We have this like steady growth available and more sunlight, more activity on the land, more food for the herbivores and predators and just more life.
Life is absolutely in bloom and I hope you're feeling that in some way today. One of the things that we're covering in this season of the show is what does this growth mean and what could it look like to grow toward village, to grow into village. And at the heart of that for me is the question of just how can we live differently? How can we live, capital L, live? And one major piece of all of our heritages and of intact villages and cultures is rites of passage, marking the natural shifts in one's growth and development as we age and journey through life, but also intentionally setting up portals and thresholds to forge change and the expression of the soul throughout our lives.
So there are many, different ways that rites of passage can look across cultures. Some rites of passage happen to us or are sort of natural, like if someone has a uterus and they bleed and their first bleed is an important rite of passage or threshold that they move through. But as most of us who bleed know, it's one thing for that just to happen to you and you have to figure out, you know, like what to use so you don't bleed through your pants, et cetera, versus what would it be like to be held inside of a container where you know what that means and what's possible and what might be hard about it and you're held by adults who have been through that before and it's more than just blood coming out of your body. It's...a symbol of some other deeper kind of growth and communion with the earth. Those are two very different approaches. So there are all kinds of modalities in terms of rites of passage, and it's not like there's any that are better than others. But there's just one that I'm most familiar with, because it's one that I went through a couple of years ago. And that's called a wilderness vigil, which I know I've talked about before. And there are other names for this kind. It's essentially a four day fast in the woods alone. And that's just one example of a rite of passage that someone could step into. It's an intentional container built for change. And then they step out of it and something has happened or been planted inside of them.
And so my guest today is one of those guides who held that space for me during my vigil and for others, Tina Burchill, who is a wilderness vigil guide with the West Country School of Myth, which is led by Martin Shaw, who is a writer and a storyteller that many of you might be familiar with. And I'll just give you Tina's sort of official bio so you can get a sense of her, and I'm excited to share this conversation with you. “Tina stepped into the School of Myth's five-weekend program in 2009 and never left. She became the first port of call for emails and inquiries about the school and now manages courses and other practical affairs. In 2014, she answered the call to train as a wilderness vigil guide with Martin, completing in 2018, along with Dave Stevenson and Tim Russell. In 2019, she gained an MA in myth and ecology after going back to academia for a year. Tina's previous career includes some 18 years in journalism and 19 years as a homeopath and she still maintains a small practice. She has a lifelong passion for the outdoors and is also an occasional storyteller who never tires of the bounty that the stories so generously offer.”
So I'm really excited to share this conversation with Tina, with you. Tina is so grounded and feels so sturdy. think she can help us understand what...rites of passage are and what's possible through them and even ways that we can begin incorporating them into our lives now, whether we decide to do something like a wilderness vigil or not. So I hope you really enjoy this conversation. In terms of announcements, I'll just say that there is a lot going on this spring at A Wild New Work. If you want to go deeper with classes, I'll start writing the Summer Journal this week, so that will be coming out soon. We have a vocational guidance group that's starting in early June as well. So if you want to go deeper into any of these ideas or hear from me week by week about how we're living in alignment with the seasons, I invite you to go to a wildnewwork.com and check out what is going on. And I want to say a big thank you to everyone who's supporting the show financially by pitching in, whether it's once or monthly.
Thank you so much to the sustainers and those pitching in as they can to help make this work possible for me to offer. I really, really appreciate it. And I want to say thank you, especially to Maria, who so recently donated. Thank you very much. OK, so with that, we'll shift into our opening invocation. So wherever you are, you might just want to notice what your body is feeling like right now.
What is the earth's body around you feeling like? Do you see signs of vitality around you?
Can you take a deep breath and feel the vitality inside of you? It's the same vitality. It's all the same energy flowing in your body and in the landscape around you today.
May each of us be blessed and emboldened to do the work we're meant to do on this planet. May our work honor our ancestors known and unknown, and may it be in harmony with all creatures that we share this earth with. I express gratitude for all of the technologies and gifts that have made this possible, and I'm grateful to the Multnomah, Cowlitz, Bands of Chinook, and Clackamas tribes, among many others, who are the original stewards of the land that I'm on.
All right, well, Tina, thank you so much for being here today.
Tina Burchill:
Megan, you're welcome. It's my pleasure.
Megan Leatherman:
Maybe we could start by hearing a little bit about your journey. How did you come to be a rite of passage guide? I know you've undertaken your own rites of passage as part of that. Could you give us a little overview of your journey to this point?
Tina Burchill:
Yeah, I mean, that's quite a long story. Basically, I'd done Dr. Martin Shaw's five-weekend program. can't remember what it was called at the time. Probably Stalking the Rebel Soul, possibly. It's had several iterations since then. And I was also then working on crew, and Martin put out an email, which was called, it was an invitation and was entitled The King and Queen Must Wed the Land. And as soon as I saw that, that really called to me. And it was about a wilderness vigil that Martin was running. And that was actually turned out to be the last one that he ran in North Wales, just a little place by Barmouth that was basically overlooking Cader Idris. And the idea of the King and Queen Must Wed the Land refers to the old Arthurian legends.
In the myths that in order to have sovereignty in our own lives that we need a grounded relationship to the earth and to the living world. And that really, really appealed to me. And also the idea that we take so much from the earth that just not eating for four days and sort just being out there was a way to maybe give something back and to show some humility and be humble in the face of everything that the earth does for us and the food we eat and everything that we take as humans. it was really, I didn't want to do it, but I kind of felt that I couldn't not do it. It felt like a completely mad idea that I had actually heard about a couple of years before and thought I would never do it. It felt like a thing I would never do. It was too hard. How could I possibly go out there?
You know, on my own without a ten, you know, it just wasn't something I thought I would be able to do. But when I saw that it was like a calling really. So I, long story short, I did it. I got to the end. know, lots of things happened while I was out there, lots of changes that you know, that you might have had to meet, you obviously know about, you've done it. And even at the end of that, I...didn't really think about being a guide myself, because it was all I could do really to sort of get from one end to the other. But what I did know by the end of that is that I was on the right path with the work that I was doing with the School of Myth and Martin. That felt like really solid in that I was definitely on the right path.
And a couple of years later, there was an opportunity to train. Martin was really finding it was a thing. The, you know, the world and his vigil were really important things to be offering, but he himself, there were lots of other calls on his time and he was really, really busy, of writing books, like running courses. He was going to America, doing all sorts of things and he didn't really have the time to do it himself. So there were a full team of artists, was myself, David Stevenson and Tim Russell, who he offered to train and to do that really important work. So we did that over a four year process. And even then I wanted to do it, but again, I wasn't sure that I could do it, which I suppose is quite a good place to come from, know, it's sort of quite a humble place. Yeah, and I knew I had to do another video as part of that, you know, and that again, I wasn't sure I could do a second one. Initially I didn't feel ready to do a second one.
But a couple of years into that training, I was okay, I feel ready now. And the second one was completely different, it was a completely different experience. And I made it a third one at some point, we'll see. But I probably will. That's how I got to do it. So it was a sort of, yeah, it started with a calling and then that opportunity arose and it just felt like the path was opening up in front of me and that I was there for a reason really, there was a reason. This was happening, yes, that I should do it. Yeah, and it's a wonderful, wonderful thing to be doing and I really love it.
Megan Leatherman:
What do you love most about it? Like why maybe in the space of offering it for others, what really calls to you or keeps you going with it? Because I know it's a big demand on your time every year and what do you think about it?
Tina Burchill:
I love the relationship that we've developed with a particular stretch of land where we do, it's a sort of wooded valley, private land on Dartmoor, and we've been there, are just, I think it's our 11th year there, we're just entering now, and I love that we, the relationship that we've built up with that, that, you know, we go there, we sort of go a little bit early, and we, you know, we sort of spend a bit of time there ourselves.
And then seeing the vigilers through that process, seeing them sort of come in and enjoying that, it's an important job and it's just listening to where they are in their lives and being able to guide them to get the best they possibly can out of the wilderness vigil and people you know like the South we do get people traveling from all over the world to come to us in our little base camp on Dartmoor. Yeah and it feels it's just really lovely I think seeing people I think the bit for me that's very moving is always that morning when six vigilers come back and it's usually sort of somewhere between about half seven in the morning and sort of maybe half eight, nine o'clock like one by one, they all stumble in. It's just the way they look, know, the faces are just full of light. And you know, mostly people have lost weight, you know, they've got, you know, bits of foliage in their hair and twigs and, you know, usually a bit smelly. But they have such, yeah, there is such sort of light coming from them. You know, it's quite moving, feel quite moved talking about it, just.
Yeah, just really being able to sort of see that, you know, almost like something, they've experienced something that nobody else ever has experienced, their particular thing, you know, it's something that happened just to them that nobody else can experience, because everybody's experience is individual. Yeah, and it's just being able to sort of see that and welcome them back to sort of be there, know, have them sort of waited and watched over them. You know, prayed for them while they were out there, then just to sort of be part of that return and get them back into the modern world, sort of dragging them, often sort of not quite kicking and screaming, but sort of getting them. We have our job then for the next sort of day and a half is to get folks back into the modern world. But just that moment when they come back, I think, yeah, it's pretty amazing to see them and be part of that.
Megan Leatherman:
Yeah, I found it to be profound and I could imagine being on the other side being equally touched.
Tina Burchill:
I usually cry when people come to me. Yeah, know, not always, I know it's I'm not guaranteed, but quite often, you you sort of get caught up in the emotion and I usually sort of shed a little of the emotional tear of happiness and joy that they've come back to us, know, knowing the sort of many miles that they've travelled.
Megan Leatherman:
Yes. Well, maybe this would be a good point to just dive into the Wilderness Vigil itself, like give listeners, let's maybe cover what it is and maybe why it works. It's so simple. Right. So yeah, effective, I guess. So yeah, could you tell people what it is?
Tina Burchill:
Yes, basically the roots of what we now call the wilderness vigil has traditionally been called Vision Quest. And in the West, it really was, has been brought to us by the School of Lost Borders in the USA, and it's rooted in the Native Americans Vision Quest process. And I would say it's definitely the case that or, you know, in Europe, we would have done similar kind of initiation practices. We, you know, there's some sort of stories of the saints who, you the desert fathers and mothers and, you know, Jesus himself, you so there's the Christian stories of folk who would go out and sort of fast in the wilderness. But, you know, there's the old bardic tradition of going out into wild places. So it is a thing that we have. We also have in the West, but we don't really know much about how it would have been performed or, you know, kind of what happened. So, mostly it's this model from the Native Americans that we've borrowed. Basically, the tenets of what a wilderness vigil or all-vision quest is, is basically you have the three, severance, threshold and return. So severance is the bit where you...sever from your everyday normal life. The threshold is the bit where you go out onto the land and you do your vigil or quest and the return is the bit, you the bit where you come back. So in a nutshell, that's really it. Now the School of Myth and through obviously through Martin's work, we've renamed it Wilderness Vigil.
Simply because traditionally, this is a rite of passage that would have been undergone by some young people going into adulthood, it would have been a sort of initiation. So it would have been almost like a quest to find out who they were going to be in life, you what was their role in the village or that sort of thing. And mostly what happens is, because we don't have that in the modern world, we don't really have those anymore. So people tend to...come to us is mostly in middle age. We get folk from sort of 30 onwards, you know, we get older people as well, but usually they're at some sort of crossroads. So it's really about, it's not really about that, the idea of sort of questing, but it's more sitting and just sort of just waiting and, and vigil-ing, which is why the, you know, Martin came up with the idea, you know, the word vigil, which seems a lot more appropriate for the folks that we were dealing with.
And in sort of the nuts and bolts of it, how we run it is basically people will arrive at base camp and that's that for us, that's just a little, we just set up in the woods, there's no electricity, water, it's just a sort of in the woods that we use as our base camp. So folks will arrive at five o'clock on the evening of the start day, they'll set up their little tents for base camp, they'll be there, we have a sort of day and a half where we prepare people, give information, talk about you know what's going to happen, we have one-to-one sessions, people will go out and find the place where they're going to vigil and then after a day and a half on the morning, so they'll arrive one day and have a day of prep and then the next day, so on that third day they will then set off to their vigil spot where they will be for four days and four nights and on the fifth morning they come back to us to base camp and they take with them that there's to be no fires, no food, they take water and water is really important so you have a tarp, sleeping bag, maybe a blanket, maybe a grand sheet, know stuff to keep the weather off, plenty of warm clothes, good waterproof boots and that's kind of it really.
Some people take a toothbrush, some people don't. So yeah, then yeah, that's it. So then what happens out there is between you and the great mysteries.
Megan Leatherman:
And why do you think it works? Well, guess maybe before we dive into that, how do we know if it works? Like, what are the effects you see? And I only know my own experience and what I've read about, but what do you see change for people as a result of a rite of passage like this?
Tina Burchill:
The changes, they're very, it's very subtle. The way we describe it is like what you come back with is a seed. It's like there's a seed of something inside of you and it takes time for that to to germinate and to grow into something. It's absolutely not like, you come back with a 10 point plan of this is how my life is going to change. It absolutely doesn't work like that. Most people come back, they're not really sure what's happened.
Because it's information that is going not into the head, it's not an intellectual information, it's information that's almost going into the body, sort of into the bones, into the heart, it's going right into the core of your soul really, and that takes time to sort of unfold what that really means for you. So what we ask people is that for a year, they don't talk about the experience. Because in talking about it, it's almost like you're sort of cutting away a bit of that seed. You're not letting it, know, seeing the light too soon, you're not letting it germinate into what it wants to become. it, you know, it could be an oak tree, it could be a sunflower, it could be a wolf, whatever it is, you know, it's your thing that you have to sort of take care of and nurture it. And not talking about it is...is part of that process. What we see in the past, we've run returns a year later. We ask people to do it anyway, but in the past we have run those as a group and people have come back to the same spot and they've basically gone out for 24 hours to mark the year. And then after that, they can talk about it. So we've sort of seen people through that and the sort of things.
Again, it's very individual, but people's lives often in seemingly small and subtle ways, but actually they're usually quite big in terms of how people lead their lives. But things like maybe toxic people in people's lives, they've managed, they've sorted that out. Relationships that aren't working, people that are unpleasant, they managed to cut those out of those lives. You know, given up that job, that really was not good for them, you know, that was really sort of taking from them and not giving anything back. Because that's actually one of the things that we do say individually, it's about how can I be of service? So one of the things that we would hope that people would come back with is, or over the year that would grow is like, how can I be of service to sort of my community?
So that's the thing that sort of develops and often you can't do that if you're in a sort of nine to five office job or whatever. I mean, it might be a great, that could be the thing, you know, working for a charity, whatever, you know, that could be a good thing for some people. So it's definitely not one size fits all, but it's sort of really small, yeah, seemingly small and subtle, but actually quite profound changes in the way that you sort of conduct yourself. And so I to give you an example of that from my own without going into too much personal detail. I, like in the months after the vigil, I was sort of driving along and I was thinking about something and I sort of, I bashed into a car in front because I wasn't paying proper attention. I mean, it wasn't only really minor, there was no damage done. It was just one of those little things. And it sort of made me realize that I, the thing that I was thinking about was, I was like repeating an old pattern. It was an unhealthy pattern.
And I'd been thinking about that when that happened and it made me, it was like a bang, like, stop it now. Like, you know, enough of that, you know, enough of that. Let's, you know, move on in a more sort of constructive way. So it's really, that's really what it's about. It's just people kind of finding ways to live their lives that is more of service, you know, to themselves and to everyone else, you know, and just being about human beings, I think I would say, you know, just being sort of better you know, it's best we can do the best you can, you know, do, you know, let's just get rid of, you know, a lot of that stuff that's put on us, you know, often in childhood, not through anyone's particular fault, but you know, society does it. Some people have sort of fairly abusive upbringings or, or trauma, you know, people have traumatic things and, know, when you're out there, I think people are able to let go of some of that stuff, you know, let go of that thing that, you know, abusive trauma that happens that is causing sort of bitterness and rancour and making them stuck in their lives, you know, they're able to leave it out there, you know, and just let it go and then they're able to sort of move on in their own lives. Does that make sense?
Megan Leatherman:
Yeah, I appreciate hearing that it's a subtle shift because I think speaking for myself, there's this feeling that something like this could be the silver bullet or the answer. This one thing will change everything. And it kind of does and kind of doesn't. And so it's nice to hear that that's normal and natural.
Tina Burchill:
Yeah, and you still have to do the work, you know, it's not the kind of, here's a pill and you can just take this. But you know, you still have to do the work. You know, have to work with it. And, you know, some people come back, they don't want to hear what they've come back with. No, it's like, it's not, they don't want to do it. But, you know, if you're going to follow that, you you do it and people come back with all sorts of, yeah, all sorts of things have occurred, you know, and this is, you know, for some people, you know, I'm just sort of, I don't want to give away too many personal stories, but I just remember one woman who went out a few years back, whose baby tragically died when it was very little, I just a couple of weeks old, and she just went out and grieved, you know, she just, you know, and she...she did it and I made her promise that she had to come back because that was my worry is that you know she would want to just go out and just stay out there you know with her baby and she you know made a promise she gave me a word that she would come back yeah and she she obviously she did and for her it was really a helpful part you know it didn't make it all better but it was a helpful part of her grieving process and I think that is something that you know indigenous peoples you know in the past why nature is the place, just go out into a wild place and that is the place, you know, to express those sort of emotions and to sort of do that. So yeah, it can be, it can be sort of, that can be the reason, you know, people come for all sorts of, all sorts of reasons. And often they don't really know, you know, there can be things that they think are kind of all sorted and done and dusted and they, they come up, you know, when you go really deep. when, you know, I think when you're out there, what happens,
It takes about three days, it's why it's four days, is it takes about three days to really empty, to be empty of everything. By that, you know, that's emotions, it's thought processes, it's all the chatter, chatter, chatter that goes on in our head. And it takes sort of about three days to really, to let all that come up and be processed. And you know, you've got no food, so you're not cramming it down with food, you're just letting those emotions come up, you're letting those thoughts come, you're sitting with them. And after three days, usually that's pretty much, it's all kind of bubbled up and then that's when your psyche can sort of move a little bit wider into the place. And that's the bit where you really see the sort of place and the person's psyche interacting in a way. It sounds weird, but it really does sort of happen like that, you things you see, you when we call it, when people come back, will, what we call mirror their story.
So they'll tell us, you know, in sort of 15 minutes or so, you know, the story of their sort of four days, you know, and the guides will mirror it back, you know, sort of out sort of patterns and stories and myths, might sort of come to mind and sort of images and which is often quite difficult to do as the vigilante who's just done it, it's all kind of enmeshed. And you'll know what's important, but that's the bits that you say, but you don't often know what to do with it. And we're just giving you something to start with. This is just a starting point really, and you can then go away and work with that. So yeah, I think that's, can't remember how we got started on that.
Megan Leatherman:
Yeah, no, I love it. Thank you. Why does something like this, like how does this work to place a seed inside of someone? Is it just being with the land? Could you go out and not fast and just be out there for a couple hours and receive this? Is it the duration? Is it the fasting? Is it what you do as the guide? Is it all of it together? I know it's a mysterious process, but why, why is this such a
I just love that it's so simple but so powerful and I'm curious what you would say is the reason why it offers us this seed.
Tina Burchill:
It's a bit like, do you know anything about alchemy? Because you get the well sealed vessel. So that's a good sort of analogy. If you were to just go out on your own, you wouldn't have that support and I'm going to use the word safety, but I don't mean it in terms of like completely 100 % safe because you're in a natural environment and you know, you might get stung by an ant or...trip over a branch, you know what mean? So don't mean that kind of safety, but you have that, what we do as guides is we offer that ritual container so that you can, the vigilors can go out and let themselves sink into the process and let that unfold without having to worry about. any other, do you know what mean? Practicalities, they know that we're there, we're there, that if anything happens, we're there, we sort of check in, there are ways, as you know, there are ways that we sort of check that everyone's okay, sort of a couple of times a day, without actually going in and having a chat. We pray for them, we're rooting for them, we're there, we've really sort of got the best interests at heart, and I think that's really helpful, you know, as are the people in the group.
You're there, you're part of a group, you're not on your own, although you are on your own. We, the guides are there offering you that, you know, we've done it, you know, we've seen, you know, probably 150 people through the process over the sort of 11, going into the 11 years that we're in now. So we've seen it lots of times before, and it just allows you to just sink into it. We find quite often when people email, they go, oh yeah, I did it for...two days on my own, but I came back. Because they don't have that sort of guide. And also, we've been able to, in the bit beforehand, have our one-to-one session where we've had a really good chat with you. Obviously, there's the medicine walk that you know of, that you do before the video. So we talk through that. talk through, you you write a biography, sort of 5,000 word biography as an application process. So we have that to go on. And we really try to sort of get to the bits of your life that might be pertinent to the wilderness vigil, you know, to help you to come through it.
Yeah, and I think it's important to say, least, just I wanted to get it in somewhere, is that I think quite often these things, you know, as humans, you know, we kind of see nature as just a bit of a backdrop, you know, to our own psychological, you know, shenanigans going on, and we just go out there and nature's just there. But it's very much, you know, the way that we do it at the School of Myth is very much sort of not that, it's about that conversation and relationship. And that's what we're working with, I think. But yeah, why does it work? So yeah, the seed is what you asked about, isn't it? How does that seed? You say, yeah, mean, yeah, the whole well sealed vessel is the thing and the safety of the guides, you know, and obviously the skill that we've developed over years of doing it. And yeah, and Martin's work prior to that, which is...sort of trained us. it's, you know, it's the history of that. You know, and I also think it's something that humans have done, as I said, for a really long time, you know, it's a bit like stepping back in time really. So it's, it is something that absolutely does work. Yeats, he said it's, he said there's the quote of “finding the face you had before the world was made.” You know, it's a quote that Martin which sort of used to use, probably in his book, Wolf Milk - little plug.
So yeah, it's kind of that really. You're getting really to the core. Yeah, think, know, Bill Plotkin talked about, we'll talk about it, his soul work, you know, if you've ever read any of this, or Bill Plotkin, does, you know, how they do it, they do it from a very Jungian, a very Jungian point of view, you know, he does it, which, know, has it's, has it's, you know, very much on a parallel to kind of what we're offering. So it's kind of, it's soul work, it's really getting right into the into the soul of the thing, seeing who you are. And so of course there's going to be sprouts, new growth coming from that. And also, we also say that usually there's something has to die when you get out there. Maybe it's not one thing, it could be a series of things, but something has to be sort of put to bed as it were. Something has to die for the new growth to emerge. Winter, autumn, winter, summer, know, it's that sort of process. Yeah.
Megan Leatherman:
Yeah, thank you. So I've been using this term like rite of passage, but hearing you talk about it and what you said earlier about how the people who come to you are a little bit later in life than perhaps we would have been, you know, long ago with our ancestors. Do you call would you refer to this work as rite of passage work or what do you like to use?
Tina Burchill:
Yeah, yeah, think we definitely call it rite of passage. And I would say rite of passage is basically marking a passage from one stage of life to the next. It's a boundary, I would say, a boundary period of time. Out of the everyday, that's the of the severance bit. You're severing from your everyday domestic lives and going into a wild, unknown situation.
And at the other side of it, you will be different. You will have gone through something. Rites of passage don't have to be Vision Quest or Wilderness Vigil, you know, there are other rites of passage. But that is the, you know, that is, I would say that's what a rite of passage is. It's something that is not in your normal life that you do that's different. But actually, I just came to mind an example of a really sort of rite a passage that's a kind of much smaller affair, but it gives a good example of it. My stepson used to be a pupil at a Steiner School and they had a thing at a certain age, they would get to leap over a fire. I don't think it was a massive fire, but it was a thing that everybody, all of the kids knew when they got to this certain age, I can't remember, it was like 12 or 13 or something, but when they got to this certain age, they would do this thing in front of the whole school.
And they would get to sort of jump over this fire to sort of mark that sort of transition and everybody knew they'd done it. It's a really small thing, but it was a thing that I think is a good example of a rite of passage that youngsters can be part of. It doesn't have to be going out and starving themselves. But again, that sort of thing, I think what makes it the rite of passage is in part the...the school, they all do it and they all know they're going to do it and everybody watches them do it. They are treated differently after. And unfortunately in our culture, we don't really have that with these kinds of rites of passage. In the past, everyone would have done it. They would have known, everyone would have known.
Now, the return I think can be the hardest part because you've done this thing, this massive life-changing thing and people just...at best aren't really interested, you know, they don't really understand why you've done it and that's one of the reasons we suggest that you don't talk about it because it's, they weren't there, they don't understand. Yeah, and it's a sad thing and the return can be the hardest part of that.
Megan Leatherman:
Yeah, I remember when you told us not to talk about it for a year, I was shocked and like, how could I not? And I had this big experience, but in the end, I ended up being so grateful because you're absolutely right. the way I thought about it a year later was so different and I'm so glad I didn't tell anyone anything because it would have cheapened it so much. And I still don't even really talk about it. And I remember you said after a year, you might not even want to.
And I was surprised that was the case, because it's still, yes, we don't really have the language for it in our culture. So I don't know how it would be received and the return.
Tina Burchill:
Cheapen is good word actually, yeah. Cheapen is a good word to describe how people can sort of diminish the experience by sort talking about it, yeah.
Megan Leatherman:
I'm curious what you think would be possible if something dramatically shifted and it's like a much larger portion of our world was doing rites of passage with young people or doing wilderness vigils. If there were a lot more people kind of moving through important experiences like this, how do you think our world would be different?
Tina Burchill:
That's a good question. I it would be different. There's a quote actually I just jotted down for you. I think this can be quite relevant. Stephen Foster and Meredith Little, are the, they've written the book of the vision quest, their school of lost borders. And there's a little quote from them, which just sort of sums up how important it is. And they say, “without passage rights, individuals could not have understood their life crises. Nor could they have been capable of confidently assuming the responsibilities and privileges conferred by their new life station. Tribal units would have become unstable and ceased to survive, for each person's passage affected the collective." So I think that's, yeah, so I think that for me that, you know, it's about we're all part of something, we're all part of a, you mentioned sort of, sort of theme of your season was about the village, and I think village is what an important word, know, it's like each of us are part of a community, sort of a village. And when we don't do these things, it's, you don't know, you know, who are you? You don't know who you are. You know, when push comes to shove, you know, who are you within that? You know, what sort of person am I? And I think that's why often people get to, why we see people, you know, those cross roads moments in their lives are kind of, okay, this is, this is a moment, you know, it's different for different people, but what.
Where am I going in my life? Who am I in my life? What next? Kind of thing. But it can also be in certain situations. I imagine what's going on in the USA at the moment. Yeah, all kinds of changes happening. And one, some people might think it's great, but there's also crises. Some people might call it a crises. It's an upheaval, right wing, going towards the sort of right wing and not accepting certain individuals.
Racism, misogyny, it's, you we have it here as well, you know, it's, it's, one would like to think that, you know, those things would be better managed, maybe, you know, it's not, can't, we can't be idealistic and sort of hark back to a past where everything, everything was wonderful and amazing, you know, just because we had sort of rites of passage or whatever, because of course it, of course it wasn't, but yeah, do, I think it would.
It would be helpful. And certainly in these times of, you know, these times of environmental crises, you know, and global warming and all the rest, you know, I just think like, you know, if the very least we can do is to go and sit in, sit out and just be humble and just ask like, well, what can I do? What can I do to help? You know, asking whether it's whatever your God is, Mother Earth, know, whether you're sort of pagan, Muslim, Christian, you know, whatever, the religion doesn't matter when you're when you're sort of out there with those energies, it's kind of what is it, what can I do? Please guide me. I think that surely that anyone, anyone of us, that's got to be a beneficial thing for us as a human race. We don't do that anymore.
Megan Leatherman:
Okay, I have a bigger question I want to get to, but one little one that I guess maybe selfishly I'm curious to hear your thoughts about. mentioned, you know, when you're out, it doesn't matter what your religion is really when you're out there with the energies of that land. And you mentioned at the beginning, one of your favorite parts is the relationship you've built with that land. And I'm curious what you could tell us about how that relationship gets built and how it's different if you went to lead a wilderness vigil on a patch of land you had never been to, and it was maybe recently logged and not really cared for. How is it different? Like, how can the land hold us differently? And what do you do that nurtures that relationship? Could you tell us a little about that?
Tina Burchill:
We were, you know, there is, the woods that we use does have maintenance, so it's not a sort of untouched woodland. You know, it was untouched for a long time, sort of over the, it was in sort of the hands of a family and I think for about 60 years or so, sort of over the Second World War and sort of onwards, it was actually sort of unmanaged and untouched, but more recently it has been, and yeah, I mean, yeah.
I mean, wouldn't want to go to a place where I didn't know and run a wilderness video because it's a very, I think that would be irresponsible without sort of getting to know that land and yeah, just sort of at least visiting. mean, this was a land, I mean, we started doing it, Martin lived nearby and it was a land that his family actually knew, some of his family had sort of known it as it used to be.
It's not public access anymore, but they used to go walking there. it's, you know, and it's local to us. You know, I live 15 minute drive from it. You know, and the landowners are quite happy for us to go and we asked that we can go and have a walk around or just do a recce. So we always, and we don't really go there in the winter, but we always go, you know, and sort of run up to the wilderness vigil. We'd always go and sort of have a walk and sort of just be there for a bit. And before we actually…When we go to set up camp, will go off, the three of us, we will go off on our own for a bit and just offer some libation and just say some prayers or just sit for a bit and get a feel of what's going on. So yeah, so that's a difficult question. think it's about being respectful.
It's about not sort of taking, not just sort of just looking at it as a thing that we take. It's about sort of trying to offer something, you so that's why we always sort of, you know, we always sort of take sort of libation of some sort. We, you know, we try to tread as lightly as possible on the land. You know, we don't leave stuff if we see things left behind, you know, we clear it up. So it's that kind of respect.
Yeah, and just telling, just talking out loud and saying, is, you know, at the beginning, this is what we're doing, this is why we're here. And then each time we go, we'll say, you know, hello, here we are again. You know, it might sound silly to people who don't have that sort of relationship. But yeah, it's just like, you know, we've got a group of people coming and, you know, we have really good, we have good intentions and please look after them.
That sort of thing - guide us through it and so it's just sort of it's that kind of thing really it's just having that having that sort of work you know. Martin's done a lot of work in that area as well in that that bit of wood you know Martin himself has been out and done rituals and you know if you read Bardskull it's been - probably some of your listeners have read that book - but that's that's the that's the land that we use for for the wilderness vigil so it's something that you know the school of myth has worked with for a while.
Yeah, and we always say to people like when they arrive in their spots, you know, the first thing to do is just to sort of say hello. It's like you're going into somebody else's house. You know, you wouldn't just run roughshod, you sort of knock on the door politely, wait to be invited in and take your shoes off. And you would just treat someone else's house politely. So it's just treating it like you would, you know, we're visitors and we're visitors to this area. Yeah, so I think that's does that answer your question?
Megan Leatherman:
Yeah, lovely. Thank you.
Tina Burchill:
Difficult one to answer actually because it's sort of it's sort of quite a lot of subtle. Yeah.
Megan Leatherman:
Yeah. So you did a second wilderness vigil. don't know if it was there. Was it?
Tina Burchill:
Yes, it was. Yes, was on that. Yes. Yes. And that's another thing that all of us, all of us guides have done, have done vigils like on, on that particular, on that particular bit of land. So, you know, we can, we can say with hands on hearts, you know, truly, that, you know, we know these words and there is, you know, there's no malevolent forces. There's nothing, there's nothing there that is, that is out to hurt them. You know, we can say that about that, that, that wood.
Where you wouldn't want to go somewhere completely, completely new and not have a relationship. You'd want that sort of not have a conversational relationship with it. I do think sort of, think nature is very forgiving, because even areas, we've had people who've decided to set up their camping in areas that have recently been, trees have been cut down and stuff. And they cut them, they don't cut them, that cut trees down willy-nilly, they they've got a sort of process of, you know, they're clearing some beech trees in order for the oaks. You know, oaks over here, oak trees are getting rarer and they're sort of struggling with global warming. you know, part of the maintenance of particular land is if they're sort of cutting down some of the beaches and the holly and they're trying to make way and encourage the oak. So there are areas where sort of trees have been sort of failed and then also sometimes in storms, things happen. We've had people set up their camping areas adjacent to or within it and they've still had to find wilderness vigils so I think nature can be very forgiving.
Megan Leatherman:
So in your second wilderness vigil, you said it was very different. And I'm curious if you could tell us a little bit about what you feel like maybe needed to be fostered in you or let go of as you stepped into the role of a guide or what are the skills or gifts that you bring that you pull on in guiding? Tell us a little bit about what it's like to be in that role and maybe what…your own kind of rite of passage into that.
Tina Burchill:
I think the most important thing is that it's not about you as the guide, it's to sort of leave your ego at home. None of this is about you. It's about the vigilers and it's about the piece of land and that relationship. Really our role is we guide, but we don't sort of impose ourselves on it. And actually on my...
My second was, I mean, weather wise was really different. My second, my first one, it was in Wales and it kind of rained the whole time and know, all that sort of mist that you get in sort of North Wales. was, you know, it was really quite awful weather for most of it. Whereas my second one, actually, I don't think it rained at all. It was glorious, glorious weather. And I think you sort of, pros, you know, once you've sort of processed that, I wouldn't say I enjoyed the second one. Because that's not quite, I wouldn't go as far as to say I enjoyed it because it's really hard, no matter what the weather, it's really hard not eating and just having nothing to do. You just, you know, you do just get bored. But it was easier. I think the whole thing was, it was much easier the second time.
But one of the things, which I just, as I'm talking to you, I'm realizing this, one of the things that happened to me is that I...sort of about halfway through it, I was, I realised that the spot that I'd chosen, I was sort of under some sort of little birch trees, little silver birches, and I kept banging my head, I had to sort of bend down to get to it and sort of go under these trees. And I kept banging, bashing my forehead, you know, and then there was, came a point where I realised, you know, it's like, I'm not bending my head. It's like, I'm being told to bend my head, you know, be humble.
You know, so I think that was, that was a kind of important message because it's one of the things I used to, they, you know, used to sort of laugh at one of my catchphrases, you've got to bend your head. And then I was like, oh, okay. This is what that, you know, that's just one thing that I remembered, but it was, yeah. So I think that is, is just having that, that ability to, to just, you know, forget about yourself. And it's not, it's not about you or what's going on.
You know, I think, you know, being in the woods is easier to do that, you know, you just sort of become sort of part of it in a way, it's like, you know, sort of really enjoy that sort of stillness, you know, that quietness, life is much slower, everything slows down, the pace of life is, you know, you get to know, you get to know what time is, like, you know, really what time means when you've been, you've got absolutely nothing to do.
And you're not supposed to be walking around and exploring and you can do a little bit of that, everyone does, everyone does. But you're not supposed to be sort of sort of very far, you know, and actually you don't really want to when you've not eaten for a couple of days, you've not got the energy. Yeah, I mean, we've got a good team, you know, it's like being, we've got a good guide team, you know, there's three of us, myself, David and Tim, who've worked together, I'd say for the 11 years and we, you know, got each other's backs, you know, we work really well together, you know, we've some new guides who've just finished their training last year, Lucy Cooper and Michael Martin, we all seem sort really good, so yeah, it's just sort of trusting each other and being able to work as part of a team, I think the main, you know, that's mainly it's, think it's just being able to put yourself, put yourself sort of aside and yeah.
Megan Leatherman:
Yeah, that makes sense.
Tina Burchill:
Yeah, can't, off top of my head, can't, I'm sure there are sort of other, you know, I have other skills that, from my life, that I've brought to the, you know, brought to the table, as it were. And, you know, obviously you've got to be able to mirror, I think, sort of kindness and, you know, to bring that into the picture, sort of, if you see something that needs, yeah, because it's not, sometimes people come back and things have occurred, you know, and you can see that they're...that there's something that they need to address that maybe they're not seeing. You sort of have to be able to ponder out in a kind way, or you wouldn't be doing your job. You can't ignore it. You can't say, it's amazing, everything's wonderful, great job. If there are sort of, there might be just this little thing that actually you need to look at this. It's not for us to.
It's not for us to sort tell people what they have to do, but we can sort of identify, you sort of patterns or things that are coming through that actually maybe this is something they need to kind of think about and look at. I it's having that ability to be able to do that in a kind way.
Megan Leatherman:
Yeah, I remember feeling like, you you and Tim and Michael, I could tell there was something different. Like it did feel like there wasn't as much like psychic clutter in each of you. It felt like you were very clear vessels where it just, you felt so sturdy and you each talked about your own experiences, but you didn't make it about you. It was like offered in service. And I remember just feeling so relieved when you told us about yours that like you, I guess I could see something of my own uncertainty in you, what you shared, like I didn't really want to do this, but I felt called and I wasn't sure I could do it, because I wasn't sure I could do mine. so yeah, I think there was something, the work, all of the work that you three have done in your own lives, I think allowed you to show up just so clear and sturdy and I felt like I could bounce off of you because I was so terrified and not sure and so yeah, A plus on guiding. It was wonderful.
Tina Burchill:
And I would say probably, it's a sort of job that you would probably want to be a bit older. You know, I imagine like if you if somebody was 20, and like wanted to do this, I, you know, maybe you could sort of do some sort of outdoor kind of nature stuff with younger kids. And I think maybe sometimes, you know, like younger teenagers, like they don't want old fogies like us. know, they want somebody in their 20s that can, you know, know possibly but I would say like somebody in their sort of early 20s probably they've not got enough life experience to be able to sort of effectively sort of guide people so I think yeah a bit bit of bit of maturity and life experience is a good it's a good thing.
Megan Leatherman:
Yeah, well maybe as we kind of come to our closing time I could ask you one more question about the village so like you said the theme for this season of the show it's growing into village and like we've talked about I think rites of passage and initiations into adulthood are essential for village to exist and I'd love to hear what you think of with the term village, what does that mean like or look like for you and how does it connect or not connect to rites of passage, anything you want to say in that regard.
Tina Burchill:
I guess I suppose village can mean a lot of things, can't it? But I think really community is really the thing that we're talking about. I just think in modernity, in the West, we just aren't in the place where those sorts of relationships we would have had. maybe even a couple of hundred years ago, before technology and everyone having a car.
That's the village would have been much more important because everybody, you mostly you wouldn't have moved out of the village much or you'd have married in the village and everything was about the village. we have much more, with Modernity, have much more freedom and we have much more choice as well. But we've also lost, you know, we've lost something, I think, and part of that, you know, that kind of rites the passage that we talking about before. You know, that villages doesn't really exist to welcome us back anymore. Yeah, I mean, it depends. We can't go back, can we? I think there is a trend at the moment to sort of hark back to becoming indigenous and go back to some sort of fantasy, know, Paleolithic times and how wonderful it would have been. You know, we'd all be living together in perfect harmony.
And I just, actually think the reality is that it, it probably weren't, you know, if you think about sort of villages a few hundred years ago, you know, what, what about, what about the lad who wants to wear a frock or a dress? don't know if you have the word frock, you might not know what I'm talking about, but do you know what I mean? It's sort of like that, that acceptance that we have in the modern world, which is, which can only be a good thing with people's gender, sexuality, you know, whatever people can be who they want to be, you know, as long as they're not hurting anyone else, like who cares? You know, but sometimes the problem with a village or a tribe or whatever is that the difference is not always accepted. It's like, you know, you're always fighting with the other tribe down the road or the other community. There's always a little bit of that, you know, which is part of being human. So I think it's important not to get lost in some sense of some fantasy ideal. But on the other hand, We are human beings, we pack animals, we do need other people, we do need a pack. I think people find that in all kinds of ways. That can be a good supportive thing.
Megan Leatherman:
Yeah. Thank you for bringing in a balanced perspective about it. Is there anything we haven't covered that you think is really important for people to know about rites of passage or wilderness vigils?
Tina Burchill:
I don’t think so Megan, we've covered everything, I'm just looking at the notes that are made, but I think we've covered everything.
Megan Leatherman:
Well, where can people find you if they wanted to hear more about what we've talked about today, where can they go?
Tina Burchill:
There's, Martin has a website, so Dr. Martin Shaw, and as part of that website, there is a courses page, and that's where you will find information about wilderness vigils and wilderness vigil guides. So you'll find me under the wilderness vigil guide section. And there's a little bio, very brief bio, tells you a little bit about my background. If anyone's interested, I've also written an article on the wilderness vigil process and my first, gone into a little bit more detail about my first wilderness vigil. There's a link to that on that page.
Megan Leatherman:
Wonderful. Thank you. I'll put those in the show notes for people. Thank you so much, Tina. This was just a joy for me, and I think it will be really sweet for listeners too and inspiring. So thank you so much.
Tina Burchill:
Fantastic. You're welcome.
Megan Leatherman:
Okay, well I hope you really loved this conversation and that it inspired you in some way. Thank you again to all of you supporting the show. If you would like to go deeper or if the show is meaningful to you and you want to see it continue, you can go to buymeacoffee.com slash Megan Leatherman and pitch in once or monthly. I will see you again in two weeks where we will be discussing soul paths with another amazing guest, talking about what your soul path is and mine and how do we live our path and also be in relationships together with our own unique soul paths. So I hope you take such good care and I will see you on the other side.