Schedule

3:00 – 4:00 pm EST

For more information

For more information, contact Sherry Boatright at sacredfirelifeways@sacredfire.org

Featuring

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  Don David Wiley. In 1996, the Spirit of Fire — known as Grandfather Fire — appeared before David as an apparition in the garden of a meditation retreat center near Mexico City. Grandfather Fire asked David to be his conduit, so that people everywhere could discover their innate connection to spirit and have an experiential relationship with nature and the Divine. It was an encounter that profoundly altered his understanding of what is possible and how to live.

  Grandfather Fire 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 — who began his formal apprenticeship in these two ancestrally related shamanic paths. From the Huichol tradition, he received initiation as a mara’akame — healer, counselor, and ceremonial leader. From the Nahua path, he was initiated as a granicero — weather worker, ceremonial leader, and healer. In 2008, he received initiation as a Huichol tsaurirrakame(elder shaman). On the Nahua path, he became Caporal Mayor — teacher and tradition leader — inheriting Don Lucio’s altar and lineage. As a recognized elder in both traditions, he carries the title of respect: Don David.

  Also beginning in 1996, Grandfather Fire began speaking directly through Don David during special ceremonial gatherings — work that has touched thousands of people across the globe for nearly three decades. Among the Huichol, an axihuatakame is a god-speaker: a conduit who enters a deep trance state so that a divine presence can speak directly through them. A collection of Grandfather Fire’s wisdom was published as Heard Around the Fire in 2010; a second book is in final editing.

  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. He continues to train a dedicated community of students, healers, ceremonial leaders, and firekeepers — ensuring that this wisdom is carried forward.

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  This course was created by Sacred Fire Co-Founder Don David Wiley, informed by his more than 25 years of experience as a Nahua and Huichol traditional healer, ceremonial leader, teacher and elder. His comprehensive spiritual perspective on the phenomenon, power, and importance of prayer incorporates both the practical and the spiritual, empowering people to fully engage in their day-to-day lives.

  Read David’s full bio here.

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  Sherry Boatright, Sherry practiced as a licensed psychotherapist for 30 years, specializing in working with women and women’s groups. In the late 90’s she answered a calling to an indigenous spiritual path that led to becoming an initiated “weatherworker” or Granicera in the Nahuatl tradition of the highlands of central Mexico. Later when a healing path was opened in the Nahua tradition, she undertook years of pilgrimage and training and was initiated as a Tepahtiani healer. She has a healing practice in Carrollton, GA.

  In 2005 she became a Firekeeper for Sacred Fire. Since 2006 she has served Sacred Fire as Director of LifeWays producing a series of offerings that support community members throughout the natural transitions of the life cycle from birth to elderhood.