The Rite of Return is a journey to the heart of who you are called to be after military service.  Answer the call for deep healing in the wilderness, separated from society, in solidarity and solitude, to cross the line to your whole and true self.

ELIGIBILITY

The Rite of Return is available to Current and Prior Military Service Members, Spouses, Partners, Gold Star (18+), and Dependent Survivors of Veteran Suicide.

*Veteran Rites is honored to combine arms with the VA and all Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grantees to provide innovative solutions to bring our people home to True Identity, Purpose, and Belonging so they can live a future worthy of their sacrifice.

In 2025, Veteran Rites will provide additional targeted outreach to military family members living in Clackamas and Multnomah Counties in Oregon and Clark, Cowlitz, Pierce, Skamania, Snohomish, Thurston, King, and Lewis Counties in Washington to participate in Veteran Rites ceremonies and circles. Veteran Rites has and will continue to be a place of healing for veterans across the nation.

INCLUSION, ACCESSIBILITY, INTEGRATION

Veteran Rites welcomes home the wild and whole diversity of our national military family with Love and Honor. We walk with every individual called to the land to fully prepare physically, mentally, and spiritually for their Rite of Return, and are obsessed with removing barriers to access that prevent our people from reclaiming their freedom. Once initiated on the land, Veteran Rites continues to provide integration supports and opportunities for initiates to incorporate their True Identity, Purpose, and Belonging with Veteran Rites and in their communities.

CLAIM YOUR SEAT FOR 2025

Claim your seat today on the interest list and we will begin our walk into a new story in the wilderness of Eastern Washington.

the land is calling…

The Veterans Rite of Return is a unique opportunity for those seeking seeking long term solutions to PTS, Moral Injury, Military Sexual Trauma, Compassion Fatigue, and Suicidal Ideation.

VeteranRites invites you to step off on a journey as old as humanity itself. From Co-Founder and Army Combat Veteran Mark Oravsky…

Upon leaving military service, many of us are caught at a threshold, no longer a Service Member and yet not a Civilian. We are unable to fully “return”, or reintegrate into our communities. The lack of shared experience separating “us” and “them”, stands as a seemingly insurmountable abyss. This chasm between the close bonds and brotherhood we experienced as soldiers and the lonely alienation we experience as civilians can feel impossibly wide. We know the statistics.

We feel it in our bones and many of us have walked the cliff edge between suicide and one more day. For centuries, pan-cultural civilizations and communities have utilized ceremonial rites of passage to welcome returning warfighters home from battle. In most cases, elders who had been to war met combatants outside the village. They understood that to re-enter the village too soon, without a proper rite of return, could be harmful to both the veteran, their family, and community.

These communities understood that once cleansed from battle or service, each veteran carries insight and wisdom from their experiences which are invaluable to the long-term survival and sustainability of their community.

It is time to re-establish who we are in this world after military service.

The Veterans Rite of Return serves as an initiation for veterans who are looking for a way to reconnect with themselves, their place in the world, and in their communities.

The roots of the Rite of Return are pan-cultural, and offer a model of human development that acknowledges the changes and transitions inherent in being alive. It marks an individual's passage from one stage of their life to the next.

Our Veterans Rite of Return is a guided rite of passage that is not based in any religion or dogma. It relies on each individual’s background, creativity and unique perspective to "self-generate" a ceremony that is meaningful for their life circumstance and a successful return home.

The Rite of Return is held in a wilderness setting with trained veteran and non-veteran guides. Participants experience time in community with other vets, four days of solo time, fasting in the wilderness, and a marked return where their stories are shared and deeply witnessed in council. This return marks the beginning of a veteran’s process of incorporating that which they have gained and learned during their time in service and explored in the context of time alone in the wilderness, so they may bring their gifts home, able to participate more fully, in service of their families and their community.