Schedule

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For more information, contact 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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  Lawrence (Larry) Messerman has been continuously astonished by–and deeply grateful–for the wisdom of Grandfather Fire ever since he first ‘met’ Grandfather at a gathering on the beach in Santa Barbara, CA over 25 years ago. Under Grandfather’s guidance, Larry went on to become a mara’akame (initiated healer and ritual leader in the Wirárika or Huichol tradition) as well as being involved with Sacred Fire in various capacities. (The gods seem to like keeping human people busy!) This includes organizing Ukilái retreats for men, helping to launch Sacred Fire’s mentoring program for young adults, as well as becoming a Co-Executive Director and eventually Executive Director of Sacred Fire. He currently serves as Sacred Fire’s Speaker or chief spokesperson. Larry and his wife Jessica De la O and their friend Sherry Boatright help people connect with Grandfather Fire’s ‘primal form’ at their monthly community fires in Carrollton, Georgia.

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  Lee Skinner is a husband, a father, a son, a brother, manager of a small business, and, last but not least, he has been walking the path of a Quiapaquiz from the Nahua tradition for the last 20 years. As a father to two young children and the Vice President of a local business he spends much of his days attempting to learn to juggle home and work in a more balanced way. As a Quiapaquiz, or Weather Worker in the English language, he is a tradition holder who acts as an emissary for his community in relation to the divine forces of weather.