The Borderlands and the Crossroads
Orienting and forging new directions in your life
A Mentoring Series with Erin Chalfant, MA, MFA
Engage your Internal Compass.
We all encounter tough chapters and rough terrain in our lives, and the way we wrestle with these challenges makes us who we are. The Crossroads Mentoring Series is a powerful container to support a distillation of the medicine from the wild and often chaotic landscapes of your life.
Life works in mysterious ways; change is the only constant. There are chapters of our lives that ask more of us, when we feel hopelessly lost and unable to gain a sure footing—this landscape is known as the borderlands. Perhaps you’ve recently left a job, a relationship, had a powerful plant medicine ceremony, or had a big move, and your life is feeling chaotic. You’re in a space of transition that is needed, but now there is this strange sense of being in-between.
Like it or not, you have wandered into the borderlands, the place where what was is gone and what will be has not yet appeared. It may be tempting, but don’t rush this moment. You’ve woken up to something, answered a call, made a big shift, and now it is time to pull through the medicine of those choices and integrate it into a new way of being.
You’ve worked hard to get here, and now are likely trying to leave as quickly as possible. But what if you don’t? The Borderlands are the vast territory of the unknown landscapes inner and outer. The Crossroads is the way out or deeper in. This is the decision point where we gather agency and determine the next version of ourselves.
A bit of guidance helps in these wild borderlands. First, like all prepared travelers, you’ll need a compass to orient and navigate through this tricky and often changing landscape. In the Crossroads Mentoring Series of four one-to-one hour sessions, we will set aside time dedicated to create a structure and container for this work.
The Elements as Guides
The Elements are ways of understanding patterns, events and behaviors cross-culturally. Indigenous Native American cultures work with the Medicine Wheel, and the Celtic traditions also look to Air, Fire, Water and Earth as guidelines and structures of support.
The sessions are arranged as follows:
Air in the East
Session One: We set intentions, explore ideas in the mental realm, access resources, and have an introduction to what elemental support and pattern recognition looks like.
Fire in the South
Session Two: We ignite the power of the fire element and explore myth, re-storying your life, and naming your archetypal patterns through understanding primary relationships.
Session Three: We dive deep into the subconscious and collective layers of your psyche with dreamwork, creative expression, and powerful movement practices.
Water in the West
Session Four: We come back to life with a new vision, and we make plans, set up structures, access ongoing nourishment, and prepare for integration and a grounded way forward.