Tending Fire

06/02/2026

In a time when–to judge from the news at least–a very different kind of emotion seems to dominate–Ruth Pittard's simple, yet profound act of love is an inspiring example of what an individual can do to make the world a better place. I wonder if my good friends from Sacred Fire Asheville have crossed paths with Ruth. She certainly seems like she'd be a 'natural' around the fire!

See:

A friend of mine, a child psychologist, had never protested anything in her life.  But when she saw families being separated at the US-Mexico border, ...

05/29/2026

Don David Wiley--my friend and mentor–is offering an on-line experience of 'practical wisdom.' I hope to be there if I can get ready before for the men's fire I'll be hosting later tomorrow evening. Should be a wonderful experience! See:
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1FWyBPLsXz/

Most of us are navigating life without the kind of wisdom that once shaped how our ancestors lived — the counsel of elders, the guidance of living tradition. Don David Wiley has been walking two of those living traditions — the Huichol (Wixarika) and the Nahua of Mexico — for over two decades, initiated and recognized as an elder in both. In this virtual gathering, he brings that depth to the questions you’re living with.

Join us online for this rare opportunity:
May 30 4pm EDT/ 9pm BST / 1pm PDT
May 31 6am AEST (Melbourne Australia)
https://sacredfire.org/event/virtual-teaching-fire-2026-05/

05/14/2026

Pain is an inevitable part of being alive–something we share with other creatures. Suffering is something else: A uniquely human experience that comes from resisting what is in front of us. We can live with pain, but suffering robs us of life. See:

In a research study on adversity, Cortland Dahl recounts the experience of being a test subject, and the power of discerning intensity from pain.  ...

05/13/2026

The Path to Healing & Wholeness:
To heal comes from the Old English 'hǣlan' which means to be made whole, sound, or well. Even in our own culture then, before the advent of the Age of Enlightenment and modern science, there was an understanding that our well-being depended on wholeness and not only as an internal condition, but being in good relationship to the world around us–including others and nature itself.
Our medicine grounded in science is powerful and can be very helpful. But through the lens of far older cultures, something essential is missing from this approach. Like most traditions that have endured over thousands of years, the Wixárika (or Huichol) path that informs me as a healer, is one that experiences all of the world–including us–as alive with spirit. And it is from the level of spirit that a person is really made whole.
Find out how traditional Wixárika medicine can help you heal and be made whole by messaging me. Wishing you the best of health and well-being!

04/14/2026

Been stepping back from Facebook somewhat this past year as I've attended to my own healing. But I'm feeling good enough--in many ways the best I ever have–to step back into the fray!

For those who might be somewhat interested in community fires and Firekeeping, here's an on-line event coming up where I have an on-line discussion with my friend and fellow Firekeeper Mark Bradford–who tends Fire with his partner Liz in Melbourne. Mark is an all around great guy, and he and Liz have been involved for 12 years in an important project of Sacred Fire in Australia: A month-long annual pilgrimage through the Outback.

This is the first such offering of ‘Keeping the Fire: Stories from Our Hearths’ and hopefully I’ll help give a decent start to what will be a regular offering from Sacred Fire. I’d love for you to join me!

See:
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18LXLQVqos/

08/10/2025

Cities are structures of fear. That's been apparent these past eight weeks as I've had to leave our home in a rural area outside of Carrollton and get my cancer treatments in Atlanta. The image here is from the 10th floor of the Emory Winship Cancer Institute–where I received chemo infusions each week.

Happily, the treatments are over and I am healing in the relative peace of the rural setting of our home (including the pictured trail where i like to walk). But the contrast between urban and rural is very much on my mind.

Of course, cities have opportunities and resources that make them attractive. I needed to go to 'the big city' to receive the high -tech medical treatments for my condition. Similarly, people are drawn to a city like Atlanta because there are jobs and cultural offerings that are just not available in small towns and rural areas.

Walking the streets of Atlanta during the week, it was wondrous to see all of the restaurants, galleries, and experience the diversity of the people!

To make a city like Atlanta be functional at all takes a high level planning: those who design and build the infrastructure necessary to accommodate millions of people–including utilities and roads and then the individual high-rise apartments, condos and office towers.

Any kind of human endeavor takes planning. But the level of planning in cities is particularly concentrated or else you get chaos. And with millions of people living and working within a relatively small space, you get a lot of individuals each planning their schedules and trying to live in an ordered way.

Planning is something we need to do as humans. But any kind of planning includes a level of fear or concern: If I don't do 'x' then something undesirable will happen. I won't get what I want–the income, comfort, or future that I idealize. Multiply that by millions of people in a city like Atlanta and you have a lot of fear!

Not everyone can live in the country and even in the country, to the extent that we plan our lives or find ourselves in homes placed however far apart, we still are engaging in a level of fear or concern.

All of us–rural or small town dwellers up to the more urban/urbane need a respite from the fear and concern that comes with being human. That begins to drop away as we find ourselves in the wild order of nature or the 'other than human.' That's when we get beyond the structures of fear–however wondrous–and begin to touch something eternal, mysterious, and far beyond our human concerns. That's also the realm of heart and spirit. More about that to come!

08/06/2025

How the religious impulse plays out in Silicon Valley...

The Rationalists, a community focused on the risks of artificial intelligence, regularly gather with tech figures and other like-minded people in a complex that covers much of a city block.

08/04/2025

Sufi teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee emphasizes the spiritual nature of the current "poly-crisis" that we are experiencing as the materialistic world-view of modernism (actually post-modernism) is running out of steam. His visions lead him to believe that getting to the other side of breakdown will take two centuries. Meanwhile, we can create sustainable communities that will be a reference for better times to come.

I would add that traditional wisdom like that of my Wixárika (Huichol) path will be an important resource for what Vaughan calls these"enclaves of light."

See:

Mystic and Sufi teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee offers a deeply personal and prophetic reflection on the spiritual dimensions of ecological collapse and civilizational decline. Rooted in both visionary experience and ecological witness, he names this time as the Darkening of the Light—an era in whic...

07/14/2025

An amazing documentary about my friend and fellow Firekeeper Carole Nomessin from Bristol. I am honored to have spent time at her home when Sacred Fire had a Fire Speaks event in Bristol two years ago. The video is a testament to Carole's resilience and courage in overcoming some difficult circumstances in her life. Her connection to Fire has helped her to identify her American father's Salish roots--a traditional people from the Pacific Northwest. Carole speaks here about that discovery unfolding after she attended a Sacred Fire Reunion in Oregon in 2009. That's an event that Jessica and I also attended.

Carole has a big heart, and is such a loving presence. I only wish we had more opportunities to be together...especially around the fire! See:

This is the story of Carole Nomessin the Lady on Fire

07/05/2025

I know, it's been a while! And yet, I have been quite preoccupied with the subject of healing lately. Here's why:

Yewniquely Attired: That’s me a couple of weeks ago. As I’ve shared on Facebook recently, I am in the midst of chemo and radiation treatments for a cancerous tumor near my left tonsil.

“You’ve got cancer.” Not the words anyone wants to hear! But for around 40% of the people in the U.S. and modern cultures, this will be a diagnosis.

Having been called to become a healer in the Wixárika (Huichol) tradition, it is interesting to navigate through the world of high-tech allopathic medicine. From the outset of my treatments, it seemed important receive it all as ‘spirit medicine’ in line with the perspective of a tradition that has supported well-being for a people over thousands of years.

How to do that? Well, for one, every time I receive either a radiation or chemo-therapy treatment, I wear one of my t-shirts with a Wirárika design, as well as a Wirárika bracelet on each wrist. That may seem like a superficial fashion statement, but it helps me to stay connected with my identity in that tradition.

For the radiation treatments, while my head is secured tightly by the mesh mask that ensures that the proton beam targets consistently, I try to see it as a form of Fire. In my tradition–and many others–Fire is the spirit that animates our hearts and helps us feel connected to each other and the world.

Recently, a friend alerted me to the fact that one of my chemo infusion ingredients (Paclitaxel) is derived from the bark of the Pacific Yew tree. That hit like a lightning bolt!

“Coincidentally,” a kindred species of Yew was revered by different indigenous traditions of Europe for thousands of years. Because of the toxicity of its needles, bark and wood, Yew has often been associated with death. And yet, much like the card representing death in tarot, it has connotations of transformation–the ‘little deaths’ that we must experience along the way in order to have a fulfilling life.

Yew trees are amongst the oldest found in Europe. They are challenging to date them because part of their death/re-birth character stems (literally!) from the fact that as they age, their core dies out and they become hollow. The usual approach of counting rings doesn’t work with Yews. But the oldest of these trees is thought to be a particular Yew tree in Scotland that is purportedly up to 5,000 years old!

As it happens, when I was in Scotland to support one of Sacred Fire’s Fire Speaks events three years ago, I joined some friends to visit a Yew tree in the Borderlands region. The powerful presence of that great being was immediately noticeable! A picture of that Great Yew of Ormiston is below.

From the Old English, the word ‘heal’ has the connation of being made whole. And ultimately, that is what I am seeking through my allopathic treatments. I have a particular challenge right now that shows up in the form of cancer. But looking beyond my story, there is a pervasive need out there ‘to be made whole.’ Technology is definitely useful as I am finding in my allopathic treatment. What it does not do so well is make us feel whole. That’s the realm of spiritual medicine that has been practiced by the Wixárika and many other indigenous traditions over millennia.