Adults Only
Duvall, WA and other PNW Locations
Early Bird Price: $3,595
before October 31st, 2025
In-person:
Session 1: April 19-25, 2026
Session 2: July 19-25, 2026
Session 3: September 16-23, 2026
Virtual:
5/26/26 (6pm-8pm PST)
6/30/26 (6pm-8pm PST)
8/4/26 (6pm-8pm PST)
8/25/26 (6pm-8pm PST)
9/29/26 (6pm-8pm PST)
Sometimes
if you move carefully
through the forest,
breathing
like the ones
in the old stories,
who could cross
a shimmering bed of leaves
without a sound,
you come to a place
whose only task
is to trouble you
with tiny
but frightening requests,
conceived out of nowhere
but in this place
beginning to lead everywhere.
Requests to stop what
you are doing right now,
and
to stop what you
are becoming
while you do it,
questions
that can make
or unmake
a life,
questions
that have patiently
waited for you,
questions
that have no right
to go away.
“Sometimes”
By David Whyte
Shadowcraft is not an escape into nature, it is a homecoming. In this six-month rite of passage, you will be asked to slow down, to notice what the hurried world has hidden from you, to move quietly through darkness, and to remember your place in the circle of earth, self, and community. Connection with nature and the night will serve as a primary source of both refuge and challenge, a doorway through which to explore what it means to be a steward of that which you care about most, even when you cannot see what lies beyond the next bend in the trail.
Ultimately, Shadowcraft offers an invitation to examine how we show up with life and death, and what it means to belong to the wild.
In this journey, you will:
- Reawaken belonging by rooting into wild land, ritual community, and the more-than-human world.
- Transform your relationship with fear so that challenge and uncertainty become teachers rather than barriers.
- Hone your intuition until trusting your inner knowing becomes second nature.
- Learn to move with confidence in physical and metaphorical darkness, cultivating stealth, awareness, and embodied presence.
- Access mythic and archetypal principles that illuminate your life patterns and help call your unique gifts forward.
At the heart of the course are not answers, but a series of sacred questions:
- How do we celebrate and connect with the wild beauty of this world while accepting fear and grief as steadfast companions?
- How do we remember our relatedness and forge enduring bonds of kinship with each other and the earth even in the face of change, death, and loss?
- How do we as a community ritualize the moments of transformation that call our unique gifts into greater expression for the benefit of the “village”?
Shadowcraft is woven directly from these threads of inquiry. Participants can expect to meet parts of themselves they may have never encountered before, and come away with a fortified sense of personal agency and deeper trust in the web of support and connection that is always available – in ourselves, each other, nature, and beyond.
The Journey
Shadowcraft unfolds over three in-person gatherings spanning spring, summer, and fall. Each session builds on the last, weaving together practical skills, community, play, and encounters with darkness and mystery. What begins as a training in awareness and stealth grows into a profound encounter with wildness, impermanence, and the more-than-human world.
Session One: Foundations and Awareness
April 19th to April 25th (2026) – Duvall, WA
Discover the fundamental arts of stealth, awareness, and archetypal exploration while building the skills and community bonds needed for the path ahead.
Session Two: Practice and Embodiment
July 19th to July 25th (2026) – Duvall, WA
Strengthen your skills through progressive challenges while exploring the energetic and archetypal dimensions of your personal journey.
Session Three: Culmination and Transformation
September 16th to 23rd (2026) – Other Location, WA
Face your edges and perceived limitations in this 8-day culminating experience designed to call forward your courage and deepen your relationship with the wild.
Core Routines and Virtual Sessions
Shadowcraft doesn’t only live in the woods. Between gatherings, you’ll practice at home and stay in touch with your cohort to keep the connection alive.
Core Routines
Core routines build the muscle memory and presence you’ll need in the field. These simple daily practices are not optional, and are the heartbeat of Shadowcraft:
- Sit Spot — returning again and again to a place on the land, listening and witnessing changes.
- Fox Walking — moving with silence, patience, and presence.
- Owl Eyes — softening focus to expand awareness.
- Journaling, gratitude, storytelling — harvesting insight and sharing it with others.
Virtual Sessions
To help hold the container, we gather virtually between sessions on May 26, June 30, Aug 4, Aug 25, and Sep 29 (Tuesdays, 6–8pm PST). These online circles are a chance to:
- Share your experiences with the core routines of nature connection.
- Stay connected to your cohort, tending the threads of community even while apart.
- Reflect together on the edges you’ve encountered and how they mirror your life beyond the program.
- Receive guidance and framing as the program arc deepens.
Together, the routines and virtual sessions weave the six months into a continuous thread — keeping you rooted, practiced, and ready for the path ahead.
Who Should Apply
Shadowcraft is not for everyone. It is a true rite of passage — demanding, mysterious, playful, and transformative. Cohort size is limited to 12 participants in order to maintain an intimate group feel.
This journey is for you if you feel:
- A longing for wildness — to root yourself more deeply in the land and remember what it means to belong to the living world.
- A readiness to face fear — not to conquer it, but to listen to it, befriend it, and discover its hidden wisdom.
- A hunger for edge and challenge — to be tested in body, mind, and spirit, in ways you cannot rehearse.
- A desire for community — to be held in a circle of people walking the same path, and to contribute your voice, your courage, and your playfulness.
- A call to threshold — to step out of the familiar and cross into something larger, older, and more mysterious than your everyday life.
You don’t need to be a survival expert to do Shadowcraft. But you do need to bring readiness, resilience, and self-responsibility. This is what we ask of every participant:
- You are comfortable with hiking, camping, and tending to your own basic needs in the outdoors.
- You bring a strong sense of self-responsibility. You are aware of your own trauma and triggers, and are able to communicate your edges.
- You are ready to engage with the core routines of nature connection between sessions, knowing they are foundational to the experience.
- You are prepared for nights outdoors, for the possibility of rain, mud, and cold, and are able to persist without creature comforts.
- You are ready to lean into challenge, to find the gift hidden inside discomfort, and to discover new strength at your edges.
- You are willing to meet your fellow travelers with honesty and respect, even when it is difficult.
A Note of Caution
This is not for you if you are seeking comfort, certainty, or easy answers. Shadowcraft is a significant undertaking, and will ask hard questions of you: who are you in the midst of fear and challenge? How do you tap into courage when it matters most? What are you willing to let go of in order to more fully meet this moment in your life and on the planet?
Participants should be in generally good physical and mental health and be ready to engage in a transformative experience with a significant degree of uncertainty and mystery.
Tuition and Financial Aid
Shadowcraft tuition is $4,495. Early Bird pricing is $3,595 before 11/1/25, then $3,995 before 2/1/26.
Payment plans and financial aid are available. You may request financial aid in your application. A 25% non-refundable deposit is due upon course registration.
Your tuition supports land, facilitation, food (dinners are provided during in-person sessions), and scholarships to widen access.
Questions?
Please contact Carlin Gettliffe at [email protected] for any questions or clarifications about this program and the application process.
Meet Your Core Instructors
Carlin Gettliffe
Carlin is a somatic coach, fungiphile, and rite of passage facilitator. His experiences in the tops of apple trees and sneaking around in the dark as a child led to a deep and lasting trust in the power of nature to invite our truest selves forward. As a synthesizer and edge-walker he has dabbled in many worlds, spending time as a business founder, science fiction writer, bartender, physics researcher, and hitchhiking vagabond. He weaves multiple complementary elements into his facilitation, including perspectives from somatic trauma therapy, gender reconciliation work, poetry and myth, archetypal embodiment, and the Light Dark Institute. Carlin is a graduate of the Immersion and Nature Instructor Training at the Wilderness Awareness School.
Brooke Nelson
Brooke grew up exploring the woodlands, sagebrush steppe and salty shores of the Pacific Northwest. After graduating from the University of Washington, she developed a passion for the sea and spent years working for marine conservation organizations. When her attention shifted to life on land, she attended and taught at Alderleaf Wilderness College where she earned certificates in Wilderness Skills Education and Ecology, Wildlife Track & Sign (Level III), and Permaculture Design. In 2019, Brooke attended the Nature Connected Coaching program at Earth Based Institute. At Wilderness Awareness School, she graduated from the Nature Instructor Training program and worked as the admissions coordinator and Immersion Year Two core instructor. She loves wandering the wilds with people who marvel at the same things she does – animal tracks, native plants, bird calls – and sharing curiosity about all we find.
Chris Laliberte
Chris spent 20 years at Wilderness Awareness School, where he founded the Community School program, instructed and coordinated The Immersion, and also held several Program Director and leadership positions. In addition to being passionately committed to transformative nature connection, Chris is a Storyteller and long-time student of Myth and the power of stories to shape our perceptions, our worldview, and our communities. He completed a Master’s in Mythological Studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute, and has studied with Michael Meade and other leaders in the movement to understand and re-shape the myths we are living as individuals and communities.