Schedule

All webcasts are live on Zoom from 3:00 – 4:30 pm EST (USA)

If you are registered for an event, you can request access to the recorded webcast if you are unable to attend or would like to re-watch an episode. Registration is open for all events until Sunday, June 13. 

Childhood’s Seeds for the Future—Sunday, May 16

The Thundering Years of Adolescence—Sunday, May 23

What it Means to be an Adult—Sunday, June 6

The Role of the Elder in Community—Sunday, June 13

For more information

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

Featuring

• 

  Barry Williams M.Div., Psy.D. is a Diplomate Jungian Analyst and along with his wife and late child is a mara ákâme (traditional healer) in the tradition of the Huichol people of central Mexico. He lives in the southern Rocky Mountains near Taos, NM. Barry will offer a perspective on eldership that weaves together insights from Swiss psychiatrist and scholar Carl Jung along with what he has learned from various indigenous elders he has been privileged to know.

• 

  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.

• 

  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.

• 

  Jessica De la O, Ph.D., Egyptian Goddess Lineage Councilor, Plant Spirit Medicine Healer, Sacred Fire Firekeeper

  How well youth transition into adulthood has long been a central focus for Jessica, both in her academic pursuits and in her community work. Since earning her doctorate in education, she has devoted herself to making its wisdom relevant to the needs of today’s youth. Guided by a perspective and deep trust in the spiritual wisdom of initiation, she has served as a ritual leader since 2004, assisting young women with compassion in their self-discovery and guiding them through the sacred doorway into adulthood–a true fulfillment of her life’s calling. Jessica also offers Plant Spirit Medicine healing and serves as a Sacred Fire Firekeeper, holding space for heart connection, deep expression, and shared humanity to unfold.

• 

  Lisa Lichtig, MD, Mara’akame, Firekeeper

  Lisa bridges modern medicine with ancient healing traditions, bringing 30 years of experience as a physician and midwife who has helped nearly 1000 families welcome new life. After serving many communities from Alaska to Nigeria, she established roots in Western North Carolina. She is initiated as a mara’akame (traditional shamanic healer) in the Wixárika lineage and a Sacred Fire Firekeeper. Lisa earns wisdom from decades of devotion and pilgrimage to sacred sites, guiding traditional ceremonies, mentoring countless young women, raising two sons and growing through a 35 yr marriage. At Your Healing Roots, she offers traditional shamanic healing, life counseling, and healing retreats that help individuals and couples address root causes of imbalance and blossom into their fullest expression of living. Upon request, she also travels to other communities to offer in person healing and online counseling.

• 

  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.