The Story of Mount Monadnock Retreat & Fire Speaks — Monadnock
Camp Wanocksett | Dublin, NH
Thurs - Sun, August 21-24, 2025
Register Now
The Sacred Fire communities of New England
welcome you to attend a special Fire Speaks
Weekend, featuring the sacred Story of Mt. Monadnock
This three-day, three-night event—held at the base of Mt. Monadnock, will be a special opportunity to deeply engage with sacred teachings, traditional ceremonies and ancestral spirits of the land.
We have been blessed to receive the sacred story of this mountain from Grandfather Fire over the past years. Last year, for the first time ever, we had the opportunity to ritually engage with the sacred story through a ritual reenactment! This ritual deepened our experience of the sacred story and opened a new possibility for deep relationship with this important sacred site. This year’s event will offer a continued opportunity to get to know this special mountain. It is open to all – those who have participated in the past as well as newcomers.
During our time together we will connect heart-to-heart as we bring forth and participate in a ceremonial sweat lodge, a healing and purifying ritual known within many traditions as a way to cleanse and renew one’s body, mind and spirit.
Held in a safe and sacred way, this ancient rite will prepare us to receive a very special story: the Story of Mt. Monadnock. This story comes to us from the “time before time,” from the very beginnings of the lands and waters and peoples of the land we now call New Hampshire. The Spirit of Fire—also known as Grandfather Fire in the Americas—was present at that time, as Fire has been present since the earliest moments of creation.
There was a time when all peoples lived in relationship with the living beings of nature. Mountains, rivers, plants and animals were known to have spirits that could offer gifts of healing, wisdom and nourishment. This story connects us to that time, and opens the possibility of once again engaging with this great being.
If you have attended a Fire Speaks event before, you know what a special time we have in store for you. If you are new to Fire Speaks, this event will be a unique and powerful time, a special opportunity to tap into the deep, ancient wisdom of Heart energy that Grandfather Fire shares with us. It is a time to receive guidance about how to find meaning and purpose in challenging times from one of the world’s first and greatest teachers.
For the past 20 years, Grandfather Fire has been sharing teachings, sacred stories and life guidance with people all over the world. He cuts through doubt, confusion and illusion with a long-view perspective that delivers tried-and-true ways to find connection, compassion, learning, growth and healing. He’s wise, funny, provoking and astonishingly insightful.
Find out more information about the Grandfather Fire phenomenon here.
All Meals and Lodging/camping are included with the weekend retreat registration.
Arrive Thursday 5pm. On Friday we will work together to build and participate in the sweat lodge. Saturday we will engage with the Dramatic Reenactment of the Story of Mount Monadnock.
All participants will be invited to a review of Grandfather’s teachings, where we can remember, share and fully imbibe the wisdom teaching. This event will happen the subsequent weekend.
Please note: Those under 18 years old require special permission to participate in the sweat lodge Other restrictions may apply. For complete sweat lodge information,
please download this PDF.
If you are interested in only attending the Fire Speaks event and not the entire retreat CLICK HERE.
Registration
Registration is open.
Our retreat venue, Camp Wanocksett, is spacious and requires a moderate amount of walking between the camping areas, the fire tent and the dining hall.
If you have concerns about your attendance please contact Jane Wollack at jane.wollack@sacredfire.org
Register NowSchedule
This schedule may be updated or changed.
Please look for an email a week before the event for any updates.
Thursday, Aug 21, 2025
- 5:00 pm Arrival & Check-In
- 7:00 pm Dinner
- 8:00 pm Orientation
Friday, Aug 22, 2025
- 8:30am Breakfast
- 9:30am Orientation & Sweat Lodge Construction
- 12:30pm Lunch
- 1:30pm Sweat Lodge Construction
- 5:30pm Light Dinner
- 7:00pm Gather for Sweat Lodge
Saturday, Aug 23, 2025
- 9:00am Breakfast
- 10:00am Community Preparations for Grandfather Fire
- 12:00pm Lunch
- 1:00pm Registration – Arrival for Fire Speaks Day Visitors
- 3:00pm Welcoming at Fire
- 5:00pm Dinner
- 7:00pm Fire Consecration for the Audience with Grandfather
- Late Ritual Re-enactment of the Story of Mount Monadnock
Sunday Aug 24, 2025
- 10:00am Breakfast
- 11:00am – 1:00pm Camp Closing
- 1:00pm Final Circle
Price
Adult Mt Monadnock Full Retreat $435
Child Mt Monadnock Full Retreat $195
For more information
For more information, contact For more information, contact Chris Griffin & Jane Wollack at newenglandfirespeaks@sacredfire.org. Check out our Facebook page; New England Fire Speaks for any updates. at newenglandfirespeaks@sacredfire.org
Hosting Firekeeper(s): Chris Griffin
Featuring
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Don David Wiley, traditional conduit for the Spirit of Fire
David Wiley’s perspective on what is possible and how to live life was profoundly altered in 1996, when the Spirit of Fire, often called Grandfather Fire, appeared before him as an apparition in the garden of a meditation retreat center near Mexico City. Grandfather Fire asked David to be his conduit, so people everywhere could discover their innate connection to spirit and have an experiential relationship with nature and Divine. Grandfather sent David to find two indigenous elders, Don Lupe Ríos Gonzales of the Wixárika (Huichol) tradition of Mexico’s Sierra Madres and Don Lucio Campos Elizalde of the Nahua tradition of the central highlands. At Grandfather Fire’s request, these two elders began David’s formal medicine and ceremonial apprenticeship in these two ancestrally related shamanic paths.
From the Huichol tradition, David received initiations as a mara’akame, a healer, counselor, and ceremonial leader; from the Nahua path, he was initiated as a granicero, a weather worker, ceremonial leader, and healer. After years of service and leadership, he received permission to teach these two traditions to those called to these shamanic paths. After Don Lupe’s passing in 2003 and under the support of mara’akame Don José Sandoval de la Cruz, David received initiation as a Huichol tsaurirrakame (elder shaman) in 2008. On the Nahua path, David became a Caporal Mayor (teacher-tradition leader) when he inherited Don Lucio’s altar and the responsibility for his Nahua weather working lineage after Don Lucio’s passing in 2004. As a recognized elder in these two traditions, he has received the title of respect, Don David.
Concurrent with Don David’s immersion in this traditional medicine path work, starting in 1996, Grandfather Fire began speaking through Don David’s body during special gatherings. This has been some of the most impactful of Don David’s work, touching thousands of people. Among the Huichol, an axihuatakame is a “god-speaker man,” a traditional spiritual conduit who enters a coma-like state so that a deity can physically interact directly with humans. A collection of Grandfather Fire’s wisdom was published as Heard Around the Fire in 2010; a second book is in final editing. An archive of teachings can be found on sacredfire.org as Grandfather Fire’s Wisdom. Over the years, Grandfather Fire inspired Don David and the community growing around Grandfather’s wisdom to spread traditional lifeways through the world. This lead to the founding of nonprofits Sacred Fire, which began training Sacred Firekeepers and hosting events and programs in 2004; Blue Deer Center, a Sacred Place in the Catskill Mountains of NY, a spiritual retreat of healing and transformation in nature which opened in 2005, and Sacred Fire Foundation, a charitable organization founded to promote and protect traditional indigenous lifeways in 2009.