Selected Articles and Books I've Written
The American Interregnum:
A Time In Between?
                                                                                 ​Interregnum
                                                                      [L. < inter-, between + regnum, reign]
  • An interval between two successive reigns when the country has no sovereign;
  • A suspension of governmental or administrative functions;
  • Any breakdown in a series or in a continuity; a pause or interval.

                                         Or how about this fourth definition from a long-ago anthropologist:

  • For groups, as well as individual, life itself means to separate and to be reunited, to change form and condition, to die and to be reborn. It is to act and to cease, to wait and rest, and then to begin acting again, but in a different way.                                     
                                           —Arnold van Gennep, from Les Rites de Passage, 1908

Dear friends:
 
Oh what a tumultuous time! A time in between. A time between a dying and a rebirth. The middle phase of a rite of passage. A threshold crossing: threshing the wheat from the chaff . . . 

The Old Dance Over, 
A New Dance Coming Soon
Eight Lessons from the Lockdown
I’ve been sheltering in place for seven years.  That’s right, seven years.

No relaxed stroll down Western Avenue into downtown Petaluma.  No decaf latte at the Apple Box.  No chile rellenos at Mi Pueblo.  Not the latest Helen Mirren film at Boulevard Cinemas, nor a Phil Lesh concert at McNear’s.  Not even lunch or dinner at Al’s or Sue’s (actually, visiting the homes of friends I just did figure out).

​Yes, sheltering in place for seven years . . .
Where Are My People?  
(earlier version published in Circles on the Mountain in 2017)
“Of the three phases of a rite of passage--severance, threshold and incorporation—the hardest to navigate, by far, is incorporation.” 

I say this well-practiced line to most groups at the end of a School of Lost Borders program.  I offer it as a wake-up call for the initiate.  Having just survived the ordeal of a wilderness solo—no company, no food, no four-walled shelter—they will now return to a world that, save for a few precious friends, won’t understand much of what they say about their experience . . .  
The Day Walk
​It has been said that all spiritual stories, across cultures, have the same plot line. 2  A hero comes to an impassable river, or other obstacle, which is guarded by a demon.  The hero withdraws to gather strength, to prepare spiritually. Only when ready, the hero calls forth the demon to do battle.  By defeating, befriending, or taming the demon, the hero takes it on as an ally, absorbing its powers, which then allows a crossing of the once-impassable river.  Consider how that plot line informs the task of a Day Walk . . .
​ An Underworld Journey: 
 Learning to Cope with Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity
Electromagnetic hypersensitivity is an illness in which exposure to electromagnetic radiation can produce a variety of physical symptoms . . .   The immediate physical consequences of this malady can be devastating and the secondary psychological challenges often are just as dire.  This N=1 study by a physician with severe electromagnetic hypersensitivity describes the “underworld journey” of a person suffering from this illness. 
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                                           The Final Crossing:
                                             Learning to Die in Order to Live
My first interest in doing wilderness work has been to explore how the death-in between-rebirth phases of a wilderness rite of passage are informed by my many years of sitting with people who are physically dying.  To this end, I helped to co-create The School of Lost Border’s Practice of Living and Dying curriculum.
        ​This interest was also at the heart of my first book, The Final Crossing: Learning  to Die in Order to Live.  This book, in alternating chapters, weaves two stories into one.  The first is about the final months of life for Steven Foster, one of the co-founders of The School, as he was dying.  The second goes back in time and tells how Steven and his wife, Meredith Little, created The School decades ago.
                                                                    a blurb about The Final Crossing
"This book is itself a rite of passage.  Extraordinary insights shared by two remarkable people, one dying, the other the inner life and decisions of the physician and friend attending this fine fellow preparing to head into death.  This is the best work of its sort I have come across.  There are so many levels, so many books in this book that it might well become a teaching text in many classrooms.”
                                                        Stephen Levine,  author of  Healing into Life and Death  and   A Year to Live

 ​anticipated publication date: 
​early 2021
                                            
                                  a new book nearing completion: 
                             The Red Thread of Story
                              Emerging, Transforming, Dissolving
  
My second great interest in doing wilderness work is exploring the synergy of having your heart-mind becoming open and spacious - both by being alone in the wide-open desert and by sitting quietly on a meditation cushion.   Both interests come together in my second book, The Red Thread of Story, which is nearing completion.  Over 12 chapters, I go in search of why it is we humans tell stories.  Three parts to the book: the perspective of an end-of-life physician, that of a wilderness guide, and that of  a student of Buddhism.

​EXCERPTS FROM "THE RED THREAD OF STORY"


​​Scott Eberle, M.D.
Petaluma, California
seberle@sbcglobal.net
1-707-772-5404