Wonderful story! I'm curious to know more about the school you attended that lead to such wonderful rites of passage rituals. As part of my depth psychological graduate studies (at Pacifica Graduate Institute), we took a mini-trip into the California hills exploring the tradition of 4 shields (my professor works with the The School of Lost Borders). I'm amazed at this opportunity you had, and it also makes me feel very hopefully that these kinds of transformative experiences might become more common place as we all seek to enrich ourselves and how we interact with this world! Thank you for sharing!