2025 Rites of Passage Summer Camps
for girls & young women ages 11-18
Session 1: July 7-11, 2025
@ Sacred Mountain Waters
The Way of the Water
Rise, Water Priestesses!
Water connects all life. Through this rite of passage, each young woman is called to remember her innate power, purpose, and place as a healer, protector, and steward of the sacred.
Join us this summer for a powerful, immersive initiation into Womanhood through the sacred realm of Water—our first medicine. This offering is for Growing Goddesses (ages 11-14) & Moon Mystics (15-18 offer Nature-Based Rites of Passage for young women ages 11–14 and 15–18, held in the wild beauty of North Carolina's mountain landscape.
This year’s session centers on Water as a healer, teacher, and guide—a journey of emotional and spiritual transformation. We will be held by the wisdom of three incredible mentors:
Lena Eastes
Vox Lumina – Over 20 years of Water Priestess devotion through ceremony and song
Iya Sangoma – Yoruban Priestess and master ceremonialist
These wise women will lead us to the waters and into deep connection with ourselves, the Earth, and each other. Through ritual, prayer, song, and sacred heart tending, we will learn how to tend to the emotional waters within ourselves, cultivating the capacity to heal, release, and transform.
As you tend the emotional waters within yourself much is made clear.
We’ll practice the ancient art of Water Prayer, honor the sacredness of water through offerings, and engage in the Water Song School—where music becomes a tool for healing, reverence, and remembrance. As initiates, we will begin to embody the archetype of the Water Priestess, learning to listen, to cleanse, and to step into our sacred role as water protectors.
This is a call to awaken the ancient memory of water that lives in your body and spirit.
Together, we will:
Swim in ponds, soak in hot tubs, and stand in waterfalls as a form of cleansing and renewal
Practice Watsu Level 1, a therapeutic water-based modality for deep emotional release
Craft flower and gem essences, potent plant remedies that carry vibrational medicine
Distill Aqua Florida together in a copper still—an aromatic heart-opening sacred water
Initiate the Waters of the World Practice, a ritual that awakens ancestral memory and planetary connection
Through deeply honoring water & learning practices during this initiation, transformation will unfold like a flower. Our Red Tent and moon lodge is where we have conversations that matter about becoming a woman and we address important curiosities and questions of the young women, and they share their knowledge with each other. We connect in council about self care, the power of our yes and no, sex and sensuality, health, honoring and understanding our cycles physiologically and spiritually and whatever else needs to come up. This space is healing, sacred and extremely important to decompress from our current culture and create the feminine and honoring culture we deserve.
Then, when our time together is near completion, our families and community will be the open arms of the “village” as we return like fresh water from the high mountains to nourish all of life with our clarity, power, and beauty. Please join for our Welcome Home Ceremony 5-7pm on our final day.
We believe the importance of fire tending has practical, ceremonial and inner significance. We will learn to tend the fire of our passions, creativity and power with skill and grace.
Myths are maps, and we will share some especially potent maps from the wise woman mystery school of mythic stories, these stories come alive within us, silently guiding us towards our path and our truth.
We are Water
〰️
We are Water 〰️
We are the Medicine
〰️
We are the Medicine 〰️
We are Guardians of the Sacred
〰️
We are Guardians of the Sacred 〰️
Why Rites of Passage?
Rites of passage offer space to pause, to grieve, to celebrate, and to consciously step across the threshold of becoming different versions of self. When we honor these transitions with integrity, community, and connection to the Earth, we nourish a deeply meaningful existence for ourselves & generations to come.
At Earth Path, our Rites of Passage are Earth-Centric, nourishing both the wild feminine soul and the Earth, creating a looping steady stream of reciprocity for initiates from a young age. Intergenerational mentorship, sisterhood, strong intuition, awakened creativity and deep connection with the Nature provide the taproot of strength needed to weather the tests of life and womanhood in a healthy way.
May we not come of age in isolation, unaware and in trauma.
Rather, we rise connected, in tune and resilient.
Womanhood is beautiful, powerful and worth celebrating!
Now in our 16th year, the Growing Goddess and Moon Mystics programs continue to offer deep, soul-nourishing initiations that inspire confidence, connection, and joy. Each summer, we gather in the gorgeous mountain wilderness of North Carolina to feast our wild souls with the songs of trickling wild streams, hawks soaring flight, bubbling laughter and the power of being witnessed and held to rise to who we are and activate our dharmas.
As a circle of devoted mentors and wild-hearted youth, we are supported by song, ritual, laughter, and the beauty of the natural world.
These programs are a celebration of feminine emergence & a place to ask:
🌿 Why am I here?
🌿 What are my gifts?
🌿 What calls me forward?
Through sisterhood, ceremony, and Earth connection, each girl is lovingly witnessed into her own becoming. Together, we rise—tending the sacred, feeding beauty to the Earth, and stepping into the wise, wild women we are becoming.
Meet Your Guides
Lena Eastes
Founding Director, Visionary Leader, Ceremonial Guide
Lena Eastes is devoted to cultural renewal, Earth connection, and sacred rites of passage. With contagious joy and deep empathy, she inspires others to live in alignment with their inner wisdom, the rhythms of nature, and the call of justice and beauty.
For over 16 years, Lena has led transformational Rites of Passage for girls and women, including Earth Path’s five-day “Growing Goddess” ceremony. As a thresHOLDER, she lovingly officiates life’s major thresholds—birth, motherhood, marriage, self-marriage, and the sacred passage from girlhood into womanhood.
She is a singer for the Earth, a protector of childhood and human dignity, and a creative artist of community and ceremony. Whether she's playing flute to the sunrise, blessing waters, crafting herbal medicine, or hiding in a bush during a Deer & Coyote game, Lena brings fierce grace, presence, and a wild-hearted devotion to all she touches.
Lena walks as student, teacher, mother, mentor, and friend—with reverence for the plant world, the spirit world, and the deep intelligence of each being she meets.
Iya Sangoma Oludoye
Sacred Activist and spiritual midwife. She is a traditional Yoruba priest of the ancestors and Obatala. As founder of the Kindred of Sangoma, she is an Elder to the Earthskills Rendevous community and many other tribes in the Southeast. Sangoma is the mother of three daughters, the grandmother of 12 and the great grandmother of one. A Multicultural artist and the facilitator of programs that push the envelope of cultural regeneration, rites of passage and ancestral trauma.
Cat Hood
Expressive Arts Facilitator & Marketing Mystic
Cat Hood is a multidisciplinary artist devoted to awakening the sacred through collaborative creativity. With a deep reverence for beauty, spirit, and the unseen, she weaves together body painting, dance, adornment, singing, and ritual theatre to create living, moving art. Her work invites others into spaces where art becomes prayer and where community becomes ceremony.
Cat is a vision carrier and cultural builder, devoted to co-creating experiences that bridge mysticism and embodiment. She draws on the wisdom of nature, ancestral guidance, and spontaneous creative flow to craft transformative environments—whether through immersive ritual spaces, collective performances, or sacred adornment.
She is a lead collaborator in GaiaMari Adornment and a core artist within Taproot Arts Collective, and brings her presence to events and festivals as both muse and ceremonial anchor. Cat supports others in stepping into their own radiance and expression, especially through threshold crossings and rites of passage.
Her work is rooted in reciprocity, reverence, and right relationship—with the land, the spirit world, and the community. She walks the path of artist, mystic, guide, and beloved friend—devoted to beauty that heals and honors the mystery.
Mariah Nolan
Mariah is beyond grateful to be part of the EarthPath Education community.
For over a decade, she has walked alongside children and youth in a variety of settings—from schools and daycare centers to summer camps, wilderness therapy programs, nonprofits, and Rites of Passage work with young women. Through all of these environments, Mariah has witnessed a profound truth: children awaken more deeply to who they are when they feel held by the natural world.
Her work is rooted in the belief that stillness, deep listening, and embodied connection with the Earth support young people in remembering their wholeness. She is devoted to creating spaces where movement, nature, and soul are honored as vital parts of learning and growth.
Mariah is drawn to EarthPath Education because it empowers young women to stand fully in their truth. Through rites of passage rooted in ancient, earth-based traditions, girls are supported by nature, by community, and by the wisdom of transition. These ceremonies honor change as sacred. They teach young people to move with the rhythms of the Earth, celebrating their own shifts and phases as they grow. In this work, each daughter is held in the arms of nature—reminded that she is capable, deeply connected, and never alone.
Vox Lumina
(aka Voxylu)
Queen-Priestess of Orga Water Priestess, Water Healer, World Water Ambassador, Maker of the All Water Medicine (since 1996), Keeper of the Temple of Orga and the Organ Water Library, Singer of the Song of Light, Sound Healer, Musician, Recording Artist, Composer/Creator of Vibrational Medicine, Generator of Pythagorean Tones/ Intervals/ Harmonic States, Creator of Coherence, Mother, Sister, Daughter, Granddaughter, Lover of Life
Creator/Director at the Temple of Orga, Chakra Activation Yoga, River Alchemy Project, and The Light-Sound-Water Initiations I am the Queen-Priestess of Orga, the Realm of Organically Generated Sound, Time & Form.
For 30 years I have been making vibrational medicine for bodies of water and sharing the technologies/ leading the rites and initiations of lightbody/soundbody/waterbody activation in order to create coherence as the All Water we are, and to prepare our body of water- to bring us together, to strengthen our bonds, and to build our capacity- to remember and be All We Are.
Evie Irving
is an Ayurvedic practitioner, wellness guide, and founder of both Ayurveda With Evie and Full Cup Catering Co. Her work bridges ancient wisdom with modern living, offering grounded, seasonal support for individuals and communities seeking nourishment in body, mind, and spirit.
With a deep background in hospitality — from food trucks to fine dining — Evie integrates her culinary expertise with her knowledge of holistic health to create vibrant, nourishing meals that celebrate the seasons. Whether cooking in a retreat kitchen or for a family table, her food reflects a belief that nourishment should be beautiful, accessible, and deeply satisfying — a ritual of presence and pleasure, intentionally crafted for the moment at hand. She holds that when we nourish the physical body, digestion extends beyond the gut to support emotional and spiritual processing as well.
Evie brings over two decades of experience in the healing arts, with training in clinical massage therapy, integrative nutrition, Western herbalism, and studies in Traditional Chinese Medicine. She is a recent graduate of The Ayurvedic Institute, where she had the honor to study under Dr. Vasant Lad. Her approach is rooted in honoring each person’s unique constitution, rhythms, and capacity.
A lifelong horsewoman, Evie draws deep inspiration and wisdom from her time with animals and the land. Horses have taught her to listen beyond words, to lead with softness, and to trust the intelligence of instinct. That same presence shapes how she holds space — with steadiness, intuition, and care.
Food As Medicine
We are extremely blessed to have Evelyn Irving, lead Chef Queen, Ayurvedically Trained and creatress of jaw dropping flavor provide us deep nourishment on the daily The feedback is that the initiates want Evie to come home with them and keep cooking.
Our meals will be nourishing, local when possible, and can accommodate allergies with advance notice. Please note, we strive to keep a majority plant based menu, with sustainable animal protein offered a couple to a few times.
Location & Getting There
We will be hosted in the amazing forested land where the two rivers meet at the gorgeous Sacred Mountain Waters Wellness and Wilderness Center in Marshall NC, near Asheville NC.
Best airports to fly into Asheville and Greenville (pick up and drop off available no need to rent a car)
Other possible airports to fly into: Charlotte NC or Knoxville, TN (car rentals or shuttles will need to be arranged)
*Please confirm acceptance to the program and organize a ride with us before committing to a flight. Please text Lena at 828-775-7174 to coordinate your pick up.
Sacred Exchange
Sacred Exchange
the cost for this camp is $766 until February 15
then it will go up to $866.
This includes lodging, nourishing meals, all ceremonies, teachings, and materials.
Session 2 is just one week later,
July 14-18, 2025.
The theme of the 2nd session is the Way of the Rose.
Participants are welcome to come to both sessions if they feel called.
