Program Details
February 14-22, 2026
3 Tiers: $1,800, $2,500, $3,500
($300 Deposit Required-Refundable if not a fit; non-refundable once accepted into the program)
Min 5 participants
Max 8 participants
Men age 21 and older
Death Valley, California
Praveen Mantena
Jeffrey James
Booster Blake
As men we are designed to do hard things. In fact, we must do hard things to feel truly alive. But in a culture dominated by mental abstractions—strategic planning, screens, and AI—we’re starving for the kind of direct, embodied challenge that forges an unshakeable inner-knowing. The kind that settles into your bones so you can navigate and handle whatever comes next in changes.
Because change is always coming. Our lives are shifting, the climate is changing, and the old ways alone of being adult men are no longer serving. Archaic societal structures and worn out paradigms that cause harm are breaking down. These significant transitions invite our hearts, minds and bodies to open to new ways of being, both personally and professionally.
How do we tend this collective rite of passage amidst change? What leadership styles or old ways are no longer serving you? What is dying in your personal or professional life? What is emerging? What does listening and joy look like now? What is being called forth in your unique ways as a man and a leader for this next chapter? What seeds do you want to plant for the future as your legacy?
This program is not for everyone. It will not be a fit for curious dabblers, busy biohackers, or self-improvement folks looking for their next fix. This is a ceremony for men ready to mature into whatever is coming next—whether that’s deeper parenting, evolved partnership, transformational leadership, entrepreneurial ventures, career pivots, or a deeper spiritual awakening.
If you’re a leader who wants to engage your fullest capacity in service of your calling, the people in your life, and planetary well-being, you’re in the right place.
As your guides we will support you on this journey physically, psychologically, and spiritually. There will be an intention setting process that will help you clarify the truth of who you are now, and to ground into what is emerging in this next chapter. We will help prepare you for three days of fasting and solitude in nature. During this solo time you will reconnect to a more timeless and aligned place with yourself, the earth and its elements, to allow what’s dying to come to its rightful end, and bring forth what’s needing to emerge with greater clarity, wonder, and conviction.
Upon returning from the fast, we will mirror and reflect the story of your time on the land. After your solo time, the integration process will support you in bringing the fullness of who you are into your daily life, and the world you now co-create.
The Vision Fast will take place in February in Death Valley NP in the Mojave desert of California. As part of the preparation you will have an interview and prep call with one of the guides, and a group prep call before we meet in-person.
If this vision fast is calling to you, and you are ready to begin, we invite you to start by putting in your deposit. We will contact you to schedule your interview, and confirm fit and preparation details.
The threshold lies before you. On the other side of it is the man you are readying to become.
Will you cross it?
The journey in-person will happen in 3 phases:
01
Preparation & Intention-Setting
Phase 1
02
3 Day Wilderness Solo Fast
Phase 2
03
Return, Storytelling & Incorporation
Phase 3
Your Guides:
Jeffrey James
Having lived for periods of time in all states on the west coast of the United States–including Hawaii and Alaska–for the first 4-1/2 decades of his life, he made his way inland to Colorado in 2016 and continues to make home in the hard-scrabble mountains and burbling streams that make up the Front Range Mountains.
Jeffrey came through the portal of traditional psychotherapy–he’s been in private practice since 2012–and he has been leading men’s group since 2015. He first encountered wilderness work via a training designed to help adults guide youth through rites of passage in 2015. It was there and then that his fire for the power of initiatory rites was lit. He’s been assisting and guiding wilderness work since 2017 and continues to be more and more deeply called into the wilds within and without. Jeffrey’s work continues to shift from psychotherapy into the terrain of the Mystery, Soul, and the deeper work that is ours to do.
As a guide, Jeffrey brings a grounded calm, a quiet holding, and an intensity of presence with a fierce heart all in service to what most wants to emerge in each individual and in each group organism. He comes most alive in the realms of purpose, soul, and mystery and is increasingly devoted to listening differently and deeply to what is his to offer to the world.
Booster Blake: For more than 20 years, I’ve been helping men build the skills to create lives they truly love. My own path has taken me through raising two amazing sons, navigating an amicable divorce, exploring diverse therapeutic modalities, cultivating unconventional relationships, and fostering a strong community of brotherhood. Along the way, I’ve gathered a toolkit of practices and hard-earned insights that I now share with others to help them discover their own answers.
At the heart of my work is a simple conviction: self-examination is the key to building a life of deeper connection. I believe the quality of our relationships shapes the quality of our lives, and I’m committed to helping men grow into deeper connection with themselves, with others, and with the world around them.
Praveen Mantena:
A world traveler and cross-cultural nomad since childhood, Praveen (he/him) comes from an upbringing in Asia and the Middle East before calling America home. A life’s passion for guiding wilderness rites of passage was preceded by wide-ranging and eye-opening stints in the military, academia, the corporate/start-up world, and narrative art photography before the ceremony came calling.
He currently coaches, advises and mentors the leadership teams of start-up businesses and non-profit organizations in the principles of conscious and inclusive leadership. Praveen’s own journey in wilderness rites of passage first began with guiding programs for the School of Lost Borders, before transitioning to adapting and evolving the ceremony into both broader and more specialized contexts.
He is committed to bridging the timeless wisdom of the greater natural world with the sensibilities and challenges of our contemporary times, and finding one’s own courage, passion and guidance through it as a community leader.
