TrueLife - Nathan Tinder - The Art of Fire

Episode Date: November 22, 2023

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/Aloha and a warm welcome to Nathan, a dedicated guardian of holistic well-being and environmental harmony. From cultivating sacred plants to sharing ancestral wisdom, Nathan’s journey is a vibrant tapestry of sustainability, education, and healing. Join us in embracing the wisdom of nature and the rich traditions woven into Nathan’s holistic approach to life.https://linktr.ee/cactivationhttp://linkedin.com/in/nathan-tinder-a481b6298 One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Fearist through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Things of our last ceremony was that, yeah, we all have our own rhythm and the rhythm of life. And to be able to sink, just, yeah, got to listen to the rhythm. That's it, man. I like to think of it as a tide sometimes. But ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast.

Whoever's having a beautiful day. I'm excited to be here. You know, every now and then my show starts with a little twist, a little turn, a little something magical. And that's how this one began today. Nathan Tender, an incredible individual with a very interesting background, all the way from tracking to medicinal plants to ceremonial fire. Nathan, maybe you to fill us in on a little bit of background about how you came to be in the spot you're in. In the spot that I'm in. Well, right now, I'm at the Sacred Living Center, which is our healing center here in Ashland, Oregon.

But really, the Sacred Living Center is you and me. And I came to be because I really had that yearning quest to know what is my center, what is my truth. I grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah with Mormon family. And all I knew when I was in elementary school that existed was Catholics and Mormons because a Catholic family lived down the street. And my worldview was blown up when I realized, you know, that there was thousands of religions. But I was taught there was only one right religion. So that struck my curiosity. and my quest for knowledge. And yeah, luckily I have a deep connection with nature.

And, you know, to me, I always told, my grandma always told me that I needed to go on a mission and get married in the temple. And I always thought, well, what is the best, the most amazing temple in the universe, but one built by creator's hands. And so I spent a lot of time in the wilderness and did a lot of camping when I was a kid. And luckily, a friend talked me into doing a psychedelic journey with mushrooms. And through that journey, I had a vision that everything I had learned in my life was kind of built on false metaphor. And so the vision I received was to relearn metaphor through the temple of creator's hands or the wilderness, so to speak, because it was the most pure metaphor that I knew on bias by dogma and beliefs. So, yeah, the question I had at that time was, what is pure metaphor and how can I achieve it?

And luckily, I found a teacher through studying in Barnes & Noble named Tom Brown, Jr. And, yeah, I decided that I was going to spend a year in the wilderness alone. So I was researching how to do that. And his, you know, I was like thinking that I needed to quest and learn how to pack and bring all of my gear into the wilderness so that I could sit out there for a year and have all my supplies and be ready and have guns and, you know, all the equipment, including the kitchen sink. And Tom Brown talked about, you know, living with nature and that everything that you needed was already at hand. and learning how to go light and how to listen to the spirit that moves through all things. And so when I read his book, I just voraciously got every book I could find and studied and went out and studied from him. What I've realized, you know, it's like life is all about finding the best teachers.

And so he was the best teacher I could find at that time. and he really opened me up to the ability to learn and to quest. He taught me how to put the quest into question and the search into research and gave me the tools to really attack the universe from a learning perspective. And put that quest in there and then to let it all go to really use. you know, we talk about the Ethernet and all that we can learn from that. There's like a skill of asking a question, but then being able to let it go and listen. And so, yeah, I've been on this quest to learn about what is my sacred living center

and how can I share that not only with myself, but how can I bring my community, my family and my loved ones into this quest and how can we through our relations learn it together and the biggest tool I found for that is the sacred fire how to make fire in the old ways and how to bring people together around this fire which is truly a metaphorical fire if we can learn the metaphor of creating fire by doing it and having fires and gathering community We can learn this metaphor that's very much like us. You know, the fire's born, it dies, it eats, it breathes. And so the metaphor, this fire, and using the seven directions as a way to explore it, has led me down a really fun path of exploration.

And this life is a playground. So, yeah, been tending the sacred fire for 20. seven years now teaching the fire at festivals and gatherings and holding fires the best way that i knew how and through that experience i've become a teacher and a healer because i didn't even know that's the direction i was going to go in but um yeah when we learn these uh techniques then And, you know, people really, people are interested in hearing them and learning them themselves. So, yeah. Yeah.

It's amazing. What, it seems so daunting to me to go out into the wilderness and live for a year. In some ways, I think most people would agree nature is the best teacher. It puts you in all the situations. It puts you in front of hunger. It puts you in front of fear. It puts you in front of worry. It puts you in front of all the elements.

How? Maybe you could speak to that a little bit. What was that like? Maybe you could talk about how, like, what was like on the first day versus the third day versus the hundredth day? Or maybe you could give us some background on that. That's a fascinating story. So, yeah, the more I learn about the wilderness, the more I dive into it and practice, the more I realize I don't know. It's so true.

And the process of facing these fears and realities has humbled me to the end degree. agree, you know? And so, you know, while that that sacred question has been my goal and, you know, something that I ultimately really want to realize, what I've realized that, that goal is to bring presence into my life that the wilderness exists wherever I am. And so, yeah, I have spent weeks and weeks and months alone in the woods, and I've realized that I don't want to be alone in the woods. And yes, that goal is still a goal in my life, but that goal has taught me so much that achieving that goal has given me wisdom beyond I ever could have imagined from spending that year in the wilderness.

So in my younger years, you know, before I found my beloved and got married, I saturated myself in the wilderness and learned as much as I can. And now that I'm raising a family and have partnership in business, I am learning how to bring the wilderness into my daily life. And so it's kind of like, yeah, going out. going out on that quest actually refines the question to bring us into what I'm really or what I'm really searching for, which is how to live in relation with the earth, with my community, and that really I'm here to gather metaphor. And the only thing that I get to take home

or leave this planet with is those metaphors, which I feel like are relationship. and the relationships that I gathered with my family and my friends, but also the relationships I have with the plants, with the animals, with the mountains, the rivers, the stars, I get to bring those home as well.

It's like a game of discovery, you know. Yeah. When you say metaphors, do you see your relationship with the fire or your relationship with the stars? Do you take time to breathe that in? and then apply it to your life. Maybe you can give us an example of how you apply those metaphors to your life.

Oh, absolutely, yeah. You know, you say breath. How do I breathe these into my life? And, you know, just taking the metaphor of breath in itself is a great example, the in breath and the out breath. I breathe life in and I let it go. and I am a current. I'm a current of expression rather than a holding.

And breath is free and all around us. So it's a beautiful metaphor to really explore and learn. And it's a metaphor we get to do. I really like metaphors that we get to do because there's something about embodying a metaphor that's way different than studying it and talking about it. But the fire specifically when, You know what I realized was like I had brought metaphor that I've been taught by my community and I built an internal foundation and a belief system inside myself from those metaphors.

So when I talk about pure metaphor, the fire is an element that we get to create. Of all the elements, it's I'm not as able to create dirt and stone water. how do I create water? Well, it's already there. Air, I get to breathe it. That's pretty cool, but I haven't created it. And fire is an element that we get to create that every culture, every dimension understands fire. So when I make fire in the old ways, and my preferred technique for making fire, is using a hand drill. We're using a long drill, a stick gathered from plants or trees. And then that represents our current, our central channel, our connection to above. And then it also represents sun energy.

So this is our masculine piece to the puzzle of creation. It's basically basically a ray of light that goes forever in a straight line unless it has the earth or a ground to land on. A hearth board is a flat stick made out of cedar is my preferred hearth board. And it represents the feminine energy of the universe, the metaphor of a feminine energy. when that light, when that hand drill meets the fireboard, that is where friction is created or energy can be created. The masculine is only as powerful and full of potential as the feminine is grounding and stable.

And then we spin those forces together to create friction and energy. In that equation, we also need a little notch where the energy can collect where actually the dust falls in from the spinning of your spindle. The first prayer, please, I need a fire. I want to be warm. I want to stay alive. Metaphor. What is prayer? Where did it come from? Practical metaphor. And then, you know, there's so many little parts. This metaphor, so if we're looking at this metaphor of fire as, a creation story of a metaphor of like how I want to create a business. Well, I'm going to gather all the materials I need to create that business. I'm going to gather my firewood.

I'm going to create a space. The most important part is a space for that creation. Gather the tools that I need to create that fire. And then I'm going to sit down and to create. And there's many steps into this creation. We spin this stick together on the heart for creating friction and that energy collapse in the notch. And then when you get that friction hot enough, it will spark a coal, which is our spark of life. The representation of the spark or seed of life in our life.

are we ready to grow that spark? Are we ready for the next step in our equation of creation? For that step in this equation, we need a tinder bundle, which represents the womb of creation, much like a bird's nest for holding those eggs and seeds. It's going to be the warmest, finest materials, driest materials we can find in our known universe. And then we add that,

seed of life, that spark of life to the tender bundle, gather it, put it in there, get it all cozy. And I find this to be the most inspiring step of the whole process. But even after we've created all that energy, we have the spark. It's growing. It's in its little thing. We have it in its container. It still takes our breath, the breath of life.

Blow that life into flame. And we start gently. you know when we build the energy up and then we blow more and then we blow more until that tinder bundle bursts into flame are we prepared for the next step do we have another space in a container of twigs and tinder do we have a hearth to create this fire in where it's going to be safe and contained or are we going to create a fire that's going to go out of control These are all questions for that next step. When we put our Tinder bundle in our space, our teepee of sticks,

then we need to blow it into flame again. It's the breath. And then what is the purpose of this fire, of this container? Using it to cook my food? Or am I using it to gather people in ceremony, to share moni, share energy together? to bring people from different directions so that they can all face the same way towards our center.

And so, yeah, I use the metaphor of the fire, but it's the actual doing of it that does something to our bodies. It's like natural chigong learning how to begin, how to bring these forces of the universe together in creation. There is so many little tricks and metaphors. I've been teaching this fire for 27 years, and I'm still learning more from it every time I teach someone because everyone has their own way of making fire,

and I get to watch and learn from them and ask them how they want to make fire. And all the little clues just keep becoming brighter and brighter and more clear and more clear. So, yeah, I use the fire as a way to, teach people how to learn and how to create. If you're if I'm, for instance, I was really wanting to find my beloved and I went out and vision quested in the wilderness and studied the fire. And I was like, I have tons of material. I have tons of energy. What am I missing in my quest for partnership?

And I realized that I did not have space. I was living in my truck. storage unit. I'd stay on my mom's couch sometimes, but I worked wilderness jobs. And how was I going to call in the caliber of woman I wanted in my life of all the space I had for her was my car seat, you know? Right. And so then I went on a quest to find the space. And I found a beautiful farm to live on where this guy named Peter Bigfoot, Riva's School of Self-Reliance. He taught touch healing will learn his survival, organic farming, and herbalism. And when I went out there, he begged me to live with him.

He said he built the place for me and wanted me to come be his intern. And he gave me a yurt at the top of his property that was all by itself across the creek in this most romantic spot, had a big bed at it. And I only moved into half of the yurt. I left the other half open and I kept it clean. And I figured I'm just going to create a vacuum of intention, the call in my beloved. And four months later, she showed up looking for a Sagittarius Mountain Man. There you go.

I was like, sure, I'm Sagittarius, whatever that means. And she showed up. So I used that the fire as a way to manifest the goals that I would. was inviting into my life. I think it's amazing to see the way in which people can spark their desires. People can create meaning and fire in their life. And I love the idea of the fire. Sometimes I see it in my life where there's been times in my life where the fires got

out of control and it's manifested itself in rage or discomfort or. And then there's other times where when you have a controlled, burn, it's like nothing can stop you, even though those two things kind of seem opposed, but when you can control the fire inside of you, you can direct it at any goal and you can burn away the illusion that is the obstacles in your way. It's a fascinating concept to think about. And I never, first off, thank you for that. I never really saw it as the light and the way in which the masculine that comes down to the feminine, but it's a beautiful representation of the manifestation of fire.

When you talk about teaching other people this way, and you have spoken about how you get to see the different fires inside of somebody else, is that like a metaphor for their unique abilities? Is the fire manifest itself in different ways in different people? Absolutely, yeah. It's like the way I was taught fire was a very masculine way. Um, it's, uh, we, I learned how to like, bring my energy from above and force it all into one little spot. Make it happen.

It takes a lot of energy, a lot of power. And, um, you know, for a while I used to think that women had a hard time making fire with hand drill. They would more likely want to do a bow drill or something of that nature. And seven, eight years ago, I was at a transformational festival, and I was teaching. I had a 15-year-old with me who, when he was five years old at a festival, I taught him how to make fire. And so he learned how to make fire with Boldrill when he was five and had been studying the art for 10 years, going to Earth skills, gatherings, learning from teachers of mine. and he learned from me. And he was like,

I want to show you how I make fire now. And he got down on his knees and used the hand drill to make a fire. And when he did it, he did it so eloquently, so relaxed from his center. And he had all this mojo in it. And it just looked like a piece of art. Like, wow.

And so I asked him to help me teach this class. And he was an excellent teacher. He's like, I teach, I demonstrate the fire, and then we all break apart and we all make fire. And I have usually 12, 15 people at the class. And I partner them up, and then I bounce around and help them learn the techniques to make fire. He did all of that. And I got to sit down with two women. And my mask and was like, these guys are going to have a hard time to make.

and fire. Probably not going to happen, but I'll just give them my best and they can learn from the form. And one woman was like all lanky and tall and the other woman was like super meek and inside of herself. And first of all, just getting out of the idea that we have to do this by herself, right? And that's the masculine way. I can do it by myself. I can live in the wilderness a year by myself. I'm awesome. And what I did was create a safe place for them to work together. And I taught them how I do it. I pressed down, press inwards, making downward presser, put my weight into it, and I can get the downward force that I need through power to make this fire.

And I tried that with them. They were not having it. And I was like, well, how do you guys want to make fire? Where do you find your power and your center? And they were like, from our womb, from down below. And I was like, okay, let's try gathering your energy from that. This is how I was making fire. I was all upstairs.

My energy is here. My body's stiff, holding my breath kind of. And they were like, I want to make fire from down here. And they started to twist their bodies and use their spin through their center to gather the energy. And then they have this movement. And that gave them power. and gave them strength and stability. And eventually, like, the two of them made a fire

and they locked in this hug of celebration that was just like, I stopped existing. They were just like, whoa! And that's a cool thing is when I made my first fire, I felt a shock come up from the earth and blast out my crown. It was just this little tiny shop, I was like, whoa, what was that? What was that feeling?

And every time I teach someone, they get that feeling and I can feel it again. And what I realized is that was Earth, Kundalini energy moving up through my central channel. There was a connection, a physical experience that happened. And so that day is when I learned the feminine way of the fire, how to gather my energy from my twist and from below and using the energy that's already there instead of the energy that I have to cultivate myself. So this is masculine, and this is feminine. That's the bottom of the hourglass.

And it's what is, and it's all that yummy, free energy. And now the quest is how can I bring the masculine and the feminine together in a dance inside myself for creation? And so that's kind of what I'm talking about learning. And the other cool thing is when I teach couples fire, you see everything. You can see the way they communicate, the way they work together, who takes the lead, who sits back, who feels inferior, who feels superior. You see all of that, and then you can help coach them, and they can learn how to work together, which is a metaphor that they can bring back into their life. Do you realize that you're not breathing?

Do you realize you're looking at him and grimacing right now? And yeah, it's super fascinating. It's just how we do. So it's like that metaphor of as above so below, as we do anything is how we do everything. So learning something really clearly in teaching it helps me to see the little clues to everything that's happening. So it's pretty cool. Yeah, it's super cool.

It's always fascinating to do group work like that, especially where, when you're working with people in a relationship. Because like you said, you really get to see the relationship unfold in a container that there's nothing that can be hidden, right? Especially if you're working on a goal together and if that goal is fire or a lot of times in couple of therapy, you'll see people working on a problem. And in there, you get to see all the intricacies. You get to see, like you said, who's leading, who's not leading, who's afraid to talk, who's not afraid to talk. It is. It's a sacred space.

When you do it, I'm picturing there being like a ceremonial setting. Is there like a circle around it or is it sort of like I'm willing to bet there's like a write of passage for some particular fire ceremonies too? Or what does the container look like? Yeah, you know, before I do any teaching or before I share anything, I ask that same question. What is the container? What is the container that I'm bringing? And, you know, I'm a tourist rising or something, and I'm away into beauty. I love setting up appropriate space.

And if that's like, you know, like a part of the metaphor of the fire. It's all about space. If space is appropriate, then healing happens. The reason that happens because we feel, we feel safe. We feel comfortable. we feel familiarity. If you include all of the elements at the altar or in the space, you've got water fire, we honor the directions,

then people will naturally relax and they don't even know why. It's just because their spirit feels very familiar and comfortable. So, yeah, you know, if I'm doing a fire ceremony for a marriage, I do fire ceremonies, you know. It's like we get all that out. the set in the setting. But the most important thing is bringing people into presence and creating a safe space by declaring, I am declaring this a safe space. I am letting go of energies that are not here to serve us. I am inviting in the universal energies of cooperation, abundance,

groutedness, and a safe space for this container, you know. and naming whatever those are creates space. We create space with our intention first, and then intention form follows intention. And so I think that's the most important part. As my, you know, during my life, I have learned to bring all those principles into my breath. I create safe space by breathing, the energies in,

and then letting go of those energies that I don't want anymore. And then the next breath, I invite in my infinite self. And let that go. And what I was taught was there's no such thing as time or space at the sacred fire. There's no such in the quantum realm. There's no such thing as time or space. So that creates, we're only limited by our imagination what we can do with that. When I think about metaphors and fire, sometimes I look back on my life and I'll say, man, I burn that person or I feel like I got burned there.

What does that metaphor mean to you when you talk about fire and getting burned? Well, you know, there's a, we can use fire to burn away things for purification. Yeah. But we can also use it to burn things to call things in. If I burned somebody, I was taught to take responsibility for that action and help the healing. Yeah. or do whatever it takes to fix what I've broken to the best of my ability. And so, yeah, that's the, it's the two-edged sword, you know, we can create a fire that keeps us warm

as contained, or we can create a fire that burns people. We can create a clean fire or we can create a smoky fire, which causes people. to you know cough and be uncomfortable and want to leave and so it's just being mindful of that that fire we're burning what we're bringing in to our inner fire and how is that affecting our relations around us I love that you know I never thought about it from that angle but yeah depending on what kind of fuel you're giving the fire you could give off toxic smoke or you give off like a cleansing smoke that cleanses the area and stuff like that. What are some of the biggest, like we could talk about it physically or metaphorically,

but what do you think are some of the positives and negatives that people burn in their fires? You know, are they bringing in bad feelings? Are they bringing in bad materials? And does it matter what they were raised on? Or what do you think? Well, you know, like metaphorically, I think that was, I was taught what good and bad was. Right.

You know, what is bad? So I think that that's just, you know, an experimentation. We as children, we threw different things on the fire, and then we saw how it burned. And I think that, you know, that's what we're here to do. We're here to make mistakes to burn things that suck. and if we don't ever try those out, how could we ever know? And we get a lot of guidelines,

but we really need to learn for ourselves. We need to fall down and we need to be okay with making mistakes and know how to put clean wood on to fix that problem, you know? So, yeah, I think that the 27 years of working with this fire, I'm still learning how to create a smokeless fire, how to for not to be too hot,

how to be too big, how to make my firewood last, how to create a system where I'm supported and other people are helping bring firewood home so that we can burn a clean fire together. And I do a lot of ceremonial work and people will tell me, you know, I'm in too much chaos. I have too much dirtiness to come sit with your fire.

And I tell them that's bullshit. Your chaos is welcome here. Let's sit with it and see what it has to teach us. I'm going to sit here forever. You're welcome. You can come or go. But, yeah, we did a ceremony. One of the participants was like, I don't think I should sit.

I'm going to be too negative for the group. And I was like, your chaos is welcome here. and by that to know that there was a safe space for him and whatever whatever condition he was in was enough to clear that energy. That was all that had to be done. There's something it seems that harkens back that's in our DNA to be by a fire and be in a sort of heightened state of awareness. It's the certain crackling of the fire or the light that it gives off,

especially when you're in a group setting. And often what accompanies that setting is like storytelling. And I'm curious, is there usually a story that follows part of the ceremony or do you invite people to tell stories during the fire? What goes on there? So, you know, I used to do wilderness therapy with troubled youth. And we gather around the fire and talk about our problems. And the research is within two minutes of sitting with a fire,

we move from beta alpha waves down to alpha alpha waves we have four states of consciousness beta alpha alpha beta delta and so um kind of like our societal when we're in society when everything's moving real fast we're in beta um which is great for like fight or flight make something happen get things done but um it's not a really great place to be creatively um also when athletes are in the zone, they're in their alpha wavelengths. If kids are brought into alpha before they're taught, they're going to retain way more information. Like teaching someone a foreign language, if you get them into alpha bravely first, they learn so much faster. And so the fire, we've been sitting around forever. It's been our life link. And it creates that safe space automatically. And

people go right into a meditated space. And when we were doing the wilderness therapy, we would be in fire season. We would not have a fire to sit around and we would create like a pretend fire with a nowgene bottle and a headlamp. We'd all sit around now. And the quality of the shares was dramatically different. And the other thing is, is when we're sharing, you know, it's a vulnerable place to be and everyone's staring at us and it's like, ah.

But when we get a stare at the fire while we talk, we can say the things that we couldn't say when we were looking someone else in the eyes. And that brings the energy through. So, yeah, and storytelling, oh, my gosh. Storytelling is a way to express metaphor. And, you know, like, yeah, we call it the original TV when we sit out of fire and we get into Alpha State and we communicate with metaphor and express. The mind's eye, it has a way prettier vision than we can ever portray it through reading or film. It's a true art form. And yes, I have so many stories.

And sometimes I know I'm going to tell a story, but most of the time the stories come through being inspired by the moment. Yeah, it's, you know, there's a companion with fire that I've noticed, and it's the shadow. The shadow seems to twist and turn with the lights and the air that breathe through the fire. And sometimes it's a great invitation for people to do their own shadow work. And maybe that's why people feel so comfortable expressing some of the darker sides of themselves, because they can see the shadow that the fire illuminates. What do you think is a relationship between the shadow and the fire? Well, I know for a little story that came to mind for me, what is I create, I do fire ceremonies at Galactic cactus where I grow medicine for ceremony.

And I really love the sacred plants and I believe they're tools of the sacred fire. And so when we have a fire and I literally do it in a round. flower bed and have tobacco and San Pedro and all these beautiful sacred plants around us. The fire casts their shadow on the universe and they get to dance. And so, you know, in reality, the darkness holds the light. So when we make friends with our darkness and we can see it dancing, it really flips our perspective to know that our shadows are actually holding our light and that they are necessary. And we can make friends with them and allow them to dance and be freed from those perceptions we've given them. And so, yeah, the other thing is creating space for shadow.

One of the things, you know, that we lack in our lives is space for that grief, for that shadow work to exist. And so in our ceremonies, you know, we create space for that. And people able to explore their shadows in a safe way, be supported. You know, I call this prayer technology. So it's like using ancient wisdom, plant wisdom, these older ways to create a technology that will bring us into the future. So I call these skills future technologies. And yeah, it's just like if we make the space for it and we can explore it.

a safe way, then we get to learn and release those beliefs of the good and bad we put behind everything. And that feels great. Yeah, it's sometimes I, in the midst of a ceremony or by a fire, you know, you really begin to have things revealed to you. And a lot of the times in life, I've learned that it's not so much that you go to a school to learn stuff. I mean, you do go to school to learn stuff. But it seems to me a lot of the real wisdom is revealed to you. And it's revealed to you in moments of community and sometimes in solitude, but especially around a fire. When we think about our shadows, for example, sometimes there's been times where I've been sitting by a fire and I'll notice my shadow and I'll notice the state that I'm in. Like I'll be like, you know, I kind of feel down or I've been feeling depressed lately and I can look at my shadow and I can see it's elongated.

And there's a relationship there. It's like, oh, this feeling that I have about feeling this way about myself is just a, you know, it's a variation of my shadow. It's a, it's not the actual image or reflection of me. It's just the way that I see myself right now. And that's what I mean about, like, the ideas being revealed to you. Like a lot of the times, all the information you need to make a good decision in your life comes from being aware of the situation. you're in. But for some reason, it seems to reveal itself to you in ceremonies or in solitude in some of them. Have you found that to be true? Yeah. These technologies are to create the space to

break patterns so that we can have reflection and perspective. When we get to sit with the fire, it allows us the space to inquire deeply and to gather that perspective of that shadow that we could not see elongated before. And so, yeah, we use these technologies to shift our perspectives so that we can see outside of ourselves and learn things that we couldn't have learned from doing the exact same patterns

that we've been doing over and over again. And I think that's, yeah, why taking time for ceremony, for prayer, for exploring our consciousness, meditation, breath work, which I like to call breath play, plant medicines, and sauna, like climbing mountains, all of those things really help us shift our perspective. When we breathe really hard for hours and then make it to the top of the mountain, and get to experience expansive vision. And then we can see our shadows and our non-shadows from a completely different perspective.

And for me, a ceremony is the same thing as climbing a mountain. It's just, and it's a lot of work. It's like when I go, when I do a ceremony, I spend a ton of energy and then to create the space. And then the ceremony is kind of a way to build spiritual strength, learning how to sit and be present for myself and for others, is exercising different muscles than I would normally exercise in my life. And they just keep getting better and better and better and better.

You know, sometimes in ceremonies or working with different plant medicines or just with people in general, people can find themselves in difficult situations. Like maybe a memory comes up where they're not real happy with what happened or they're reliving it for a moment. What do you do in that scenario when someone finds themselves on the edge of a bad episode?

Well, I start with gratitude. Thank you. Yes, we got some. These are the gems we're really looking for. If we just come and we sit in presence, And so we're like, yeah, everything's perfect and rosy. Oh, I love the way everything goes. Oh, that music's amazing.

Yeah, I really dive into thank you. That is real. What you're experiencing is real. That perspective that you're having is valid and real. And thank you for bringing that to the table. And then there's just, you know, lots of ways. to help that energy move. You know, one of my favorite ways to move,

what we call this negative energy. Some people call demonic energy, negative energy. What I call it is, what would I call that? Non-truth, it's not a real program. So it's just looking at life. as a program. Does this program help me with my life or is this program detrimental to my life? If we want it in our life, we enhance it. If we don't, we learn how to let it go. And what I have found, you know, I do body work for a living. I do

transformational massages. Not only are these vibrations, these trauma stored in our brain, but they're also stored in our bodies. So if we identify that, sometimes we might not be able to clear that in the ceremony, but we can create other tools of intention. Once we've identified what's going on, maybe we're not going to heal at that moment. We know what our edges, where we can work towards what we want to let go of.

And so we can set that intention and then find the tools to move that. So, yeah, the first thing I do is say, yes, thank you. Fuck yeah, this is great. Yeah, it's, it's such a pivotal time for someone who goes and finds themselves seeking answers and they come upon the cusp of it and maybe they're not sure of how to move through it. You know, integration is another part too and it sounds like you've, you, all my cats are going crazy. Sorry about that.

But yeah, the integration process too. Sometimes afterwards, you'll notice that maybe people come back and they have some thoughts that they didn't think about before. Do you guys normally follow up with like an integration process or maybe there's a series of files? or how does integration look for you guys? Yeah, integration comes in many ways. It depends on the work we're doing. We do private ceremonies and we do retreats. Those are more intensive.

We talk and meet on Zoom and do like a pregame. And then afterwards, we also do integration. And just see where people are, what they're working on, what they found difficult for reentry into normal life after that pattern grade break. But then, yeah, I have a garden, galactic cactus where I grow plants, and I told you about that fire pit we created. Every Monday night, I have an integration fire. So I invite people that want to integrate journeys, life journeys, relationship things,

a safe place to talk about it and not to be fixed. That's the important part. I'm not here to fix you. I'm here to help you find the way to fix yourself. That's not my job. That's not our job, right? And so, yeah, I do every Monday night in Ashland, sacred fire for integration,

also for prayer and music and just getting to know each other, creating a space for community to relate and to connect. and that works amazing. We also have created like chat groups where people can talk about things that are going through. One of the big things we do is, you know, what gifts do you have for this fire? What gifts do you have for the community?

And people can explain what their gifts are. And then they have each other's contacts and they're not just relying on us as well because everyone is a healer and a guy, and a teacher in their own way. And so it's empowering people to remember that. Yeah. Earlier you had mentioned that the plants are tools for the fire.

What does that mean? So tools of transformation, you know, if we're using the fire as a way for healing, dark shadows for learning more about ourselves, There's many tools for that. You know, I really, like I said, breathplay, you know, somebody has that intense experience. Let's identify that emotion and breathe it through.

That's a really great tool that's free, available, always, anywhere. That's my first favorite tool of the sacred fire. Then, you know, we have tools like sage for cleaning and cleansing energy, sound for clearing and cleansing energy. We have music for. for group sound healing, bringing everyone into the same vibration. It also teaches us things through the song, through the words spoken in song and also the vibration of the song.

That is a tool of the sacred fire. Storytelling, amazing tool of the sacred fire. The way we move energy is through breath, sound, motion and emotion. So movement at the fire is another tool that we use for moving energy, emotion, creating a safe space where people can cry freely or be in joy freely. That's a tool of the sacred fire. Tobacco, a tool of the sacred fire.

What do we use tobacco for? To remember to get back into our body. And then what I've been doing is. learning from the plants directly by growing the tobacco to see what it has to teach us, which is a really fun way to learn them. Psychedelic plant medicines, another way to get outside of ourselves and learn another perspective. Like psilocybin is a big thing right now.

That is a pattern breaker that really brings us into another state of consciousness through vision, it takes us on a ride. People are doing a lot of five MEO journeys these days. That's a way to get to know God consciousness from way up there. We dip into God consciousness and we think, oh my God, my little life is just kind of like not that big of a deal. My favorite tool of transformation is using San Pedro as a plant teacher. And And another name for San Pedro is Wachuma, a Ketua name, and it means headless. So getting out of our heads and into our bodies. San Pedro is less of a tool that takes us somewhere else, but it's more of a tool that brings us into our center and into, just like the plant grows.

It grows aligned like the hand drill reaching towards the heavens. It's brought its energy in. it has become a pure reflections of the stars and sacred geometry. So it teaches us balance. It's a natural or it teaches us clear, coherent energy. Silicizes us and opens our channels so that we can feel more freely who we are in the here and now. And then it also creates a group coherency and cohesion like no other psychedelic I've ever worked with. and the fact that we can hear each other clearly.

We can communicate clearly, whereas mushrooms not as much of a communication medicine in ceremony. Everyone kind of goes, the San Pedro brings everyone into a clear, coherent field that is really helpful for the cohesiveness of that container, of that fire. And it's a truth serum, so it brings out truth, which is very handy because we have so much chaos in our lives. Sometimes it's hard to see truth.

So, yeah, and then, you know, I grow, I do regenerative agriculture. And so by growing these plants, I've learned regenerative propagation techniques, for instance, a tobacco plant has thousands. and thousands and thousands of seeds on it. One tobacco plant could plant could plant an entire valley. So what that tells me is how eager this plant is to serve. And by growing it, they have big giant leaves. They're very protective.

The hummingbirds love them. The bees love them. They bring a really grounded vibe, and they protect space vibrational, is what I've learned. The San Pedro, you know, it's like one thing to ingest, but it's another thing to sit with these plants and learn from them directly. When I sit with my plants, my San Pedro plants, there's something that happens. I sit and look at them and stare at them and I love them, and I feel the love back.

It's like this energetic connection. And what I've realized is like they're my gurus, this guy back here. Buddha guru and I planted him in a Buddha body and then he grew out the head and he's a monstrous figure and so I sit with him and say okay if you're my guru show me something and through the metaphor of the sacred fire I've gathered a language that's universal I can bring the sacred fire to Colombia and teach them and they understand what I'm saying beyond words So by studying the fire, learning how to get into those meditative states, I have learned how to communicate with the plants, with animals and spirit in a different way that I would have learned if I'm just using words and verbiage in my head. And so these are gurus that we get to hang out with.

These plants are here to teach us, and they're a direct way to have a teacher at home, which is so cool. Yeah. Yeah, it is. It's mesmerizing to think about what we can learn from just taking time to observe nature. And I like the way you described it as another language. We can all see the way in which a vine climbs a tree and produces a flower at a 45-degree angle on August 23rd at 4 p.m. It just knows to climb to a certain height and do that. There's this innate language in nature that we can take and extrapolate and use in our own life. it seems to be a language of there's a path forward.

There's a path of growth that must be chosen. In doing so, you can climb to higher depth or climb to higher heights. It's wonderful to think about. And I'm so thankful for your time. I got to learn a lot about fire. I got to learn about language and the way in which someone can provide a ceremony and help other people through it. I thought that was really well done.

And I appreciate your time. But before I let you go, Nathan, where can people find you? What do you have coming up? What are you excited about? Well, I'm still excited about fire. Yeah, what do I have going on? I have the Sacred Living Center where my wife and I do healing work. She works from the more feminine perspective, working in the biofield,

that energetic field, and from the center. And then I do massage in a thing I call the censorum, which is a sensory. appreciation chamber where you receive sound healing and, um, and yummy smells, yummy taste, basically everything I've learned from the plants and from the fire I've brought into an hour and a half transformational massage session where people are just like, whoa. And I love that work. It's my favorite thing. And then I also, we do community ceremonies here in Ashland. We are doing a retreat in the Baja, 45 minutes north of Cabo,

at a retreat center with a hot spring, where we're going to do a week of transformational ceremonial work, play, nature, immersion, and rewilding. I'm very excited about that. It's the container that I've dreamed of, in the desert surrounded by all kinds of beautiful cactus and nature and a really, really amazing space. We do private ceremonies for individuals, couples, there's small groups here at our Healing Center. And you can find our work. Oh, and then I also have Galactic Cactus, where I sell San Pedro plants and cutting.

things so people can bring their own gurus home and learn from them. I also sell, I build plant altars, so I build, I craft plants together to make living cactus art and sell them as altars with pretty crystals and Buddhas and then for people to meditate with. Yeah, the way you can find me is Nathan Tinder on Facebook, Cactivation on Instagram, Get Cactivated on TikTok, Sacred LivingCenter.com for our healing work, Hummingbird Hearts for our retreats.

And also I'm going to be doing more like corporate leadership work, bringing teams in so that they can learn to be more cohesive together and gathering these future technologies to, yeah, create alternate perspectives for dealing with problems in their companies and leadership. So, yeah, hummingbird hearth.com. Hummingbird is the collector of all the finest things in the universe, and so we've collected them in one place at hummingbird hearth.com, and at galactic-cactus.com is where you can find plants.

Fantastic. Nathan, hang on briefly afterwards. I'll talk to you briefly afterwards. But ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for hanging out with us today. Go down to the show notes. Check out Nathan's links. If you want to learn more about the things that he's spoken of, the fire, the San Pedro, or just maybe you want to bring your corporate team down there and check them out.

That's all we got for today. Ladies and gentlemen, Aloha. Thank you.