Shamanism is full of surprises. Some are wondrous and awe inspiring, some are nauseating and gut wrenching. Difficult experiences are often necessary for letting go of your world. This book uses real life experience as scaffolding for all the lessons, insights, practices, and recommendations earned on my personal journey. It is the book I wish I had ten years ago.

Excerpt from Detours:

"There was a time when older men supported and taught boys how to become men and facilitated a rite of passage to sanctify the process of becoming a man. These practices were lost for a long time and only in the last few decades have they started to creep back into modern culture through men's gatherings. There is a deep psychological need for all men to feel "proven". Until that happens, we will always remain boys, never taking full responsibility for ourselves, regardless of the age of our bodies.

I was unconsciously motivated to take on strenuous and risky tasks as a way to initiate myself into manhood since there wasn't any structure or support given to me. One such event was the climbing of Mt. Whitney during the Winter. Mt. Whitney is the tallest mountain in the continental United States standing 14,505 feet tall. It is also a convenient 5-hour drive from my house in Los Angeles. I had already hiked the entire 22-mile route in the summer and felt quite good about my fitness level. Seeking more challenge, I decided to hike it in the following Winter.

There are a few things that make the hike much harder in the Winter. The risk of falling rocks on the access road caused a three mile closure from the trailhead. Instead of 22 miles, it's a 28 miles round trip. The entire track is covered in snow and it's much harder and more dangerous to hike on snow than dirt. It requires extra gear and that means more weight to carry the entire distance. The snow also obscures the trail in most places so it's easy to get disoriented.

My first summit attempt failed and it was a weird feeling being the first time I had ever tried to climb a mountain and didn't succeed. It was too much and I wasn't strong enough. So I trained. I did several steep practice hikes and ran laps in the twelve-story executive building at my work campus. On the second attempt, I made it to the top feeling exhausted and amazing. Concerned about reaching the car before dark, I started the descent. Several hours later I realized that we had gotten lost. It was around 3 or 4 pm at this point and we were several miles from the trailhead. I knew we would have to hike a long time in the dark and I started to panic a little. To make matters worse, I fell through a snowdrift into a shallow stream. Being stuck up to my armpits in snow and mostly immobile, I was able to maneuver just enough to bite into some nearby hard packed snow with my ice axe and drag myself to safety.

Almost immediately the survival instinct turned on. In the most dispassionate calculating way, I felt as though I became a hiking robot one foot in front of the other until further instructions. There was no need to waste energy on being upset or scared since it wouldn't help the situation at all. This was a very important time in my life when I realized how close I was dancing to the boundary of death. Being exhausted and disoriented I knew for a fact that if I didn't hike myself out, nobody was going to find my body until the snow melted in the Spring."