Acknowledging our Seasons

It's important to create space to acknowledge -and celebrate- the hardships and triumphs of our lives.

This past cycle has been huge for me.

I remember in past seasons feeling frustrated, irritated, deflated, depressed. Feeling like I was spinning my wheels but not really "getting anywhere".

Offering ceremony on our previous lands in the High Country was the first big manifestation of a vision.

It was back then that the seeds of change really started to take root.

Stewarding 14 acres, tipi ceremonies, sweat lodge, initiatory practices, organic home-grown produce, mountain living. A grass roots sanctuary for healing and awakening began to flourish.

After 4 years, we were forced to move on, however a new vision had already started to move through me. 2024 brought significant change.

My journey of making Primitive Friction Fire for 101 days in a row, every single day, was a huge catalyst for this. It activated a spiritual fire within with many desirable qualities.

Personal power
Luminous vision
Creative expansion
Unwavering commitment
Razor-sharp focus
Katana-like execution
Burning away dysfunctional stories
Riding strong upon the back of fiery stallion
Taking action and staying aligned to mission; vision; purpose; health; vitality.

Since then, it's been full power.

The Return Journey & New Beginnings

I've only just come back home after 8 days in the wilderness hosting Vision Quest.

Our group of Questers have made the return journey; the song of healing, awakening and renewed vision fresh in their step.

4 days and nights, fasting, in solitude, in a small circle, out in the mountains.

It's no small feat sacrificing the comforts of modernity in such a way, for an intimate encounter with the wild. Many people hear the call. Few take heed and follow through.

The Vision Quest has been one of the most powerful initiatory passage rites that I've apprenticed to, and I'm feeling inspired to open up our next round of Early Birds.

April 2025. Our Autumn Vision Quest in VIC.

You're welcome to reach out for more info.

I've now spent a considerable time in the shamanic wilderness initiation world.

At the start of this year, we moved house, and my body of work transitioned from the safety and confines of the homestead, to the chaotic unknown of mountain wilderness areas.

The Pilgrimage: Shamanic Wilderness Expeditions was officially born.

Since then, we've had five iterations of it.

Four in VIC, one in the Byron Hinterlands of NSW.

A high calibre convergence of the shamanic healing arts for awakening and higher consciousness, nature awareness skills, wilderness immersion, community regeneration and mountain trekking.

New friendships have formed, community threads have expanded in many directions, support is bubbling up in many different ways, and I’m humbled that so many of you can feel the potency of this prayer that I’m anchoring in, and are stepping forth to join me on this journey.

Desert Dunes & Whale Watching

You’re likely aware that I recently made my own Personal Pilgrimage up to the Central Australian desert for the first time ever.

I sat my own Vision Quest atop red desert sand dunes, fasting in the scorching heat, having mystical encounters with the spirit of wind and faces in the stone, and making space for continued intimate conversations with self and creator.

If you want to hear more, I shared this journey in depth on a previous episode of the podcast, Birdsong with Caiyuda.

Tour guide work had me travelling interstate across the country.

First, in the mountains of Victoria, exploring the Vic Highlands and The Grampians, alongside a two week tour through the wilds of the South Australian desert.

I had some powerful initiations into Wedge Tail Eagle medicine, and had some insightful yarns with local mob about dreamtime stories, initiation, and paranormal encounters in and around the desert mountains of the Ikara-Flinders and Vulkathuna-Gammon Ranges.

It was back-to-back-to-back recently, with my Red Desert Central Aus journey, The Pilgrimage, followed by my recent two week trip guiding a group up the East Coast of Australia.

We visited some epic National Parks, the dingos of K'Gari, ocean rafted to the white sandy beaches of Whitsunday Islands, snorkelled the Barrier Reef, and more.

It’s easy to say that kayaking with the Humpback Whales was a highlight.

A spiritually profound experience of remembering my ancient Filipino blood lineage ancestors and their sea-faring reverence and connection with the whales.

I’ll have to revisit Scott Taylor’s book, Souls In The Sea: Dolphins, Whales, and Human Destiny, for a re-exploration of cetacean consciousness and the wisdom of these sea-souls.

Body Weight & Body Work

My recent fitness training program tested my mental fortitude in a big way.

Hitting the gym is easy. It was the rapid reduction of calories that eventually made me irritable, fatigued, and cognitively drained.

Add on 12000 - 15000 steps a day, my Desert Quest, and our Grampians Pilgrimage during the training program, and it was a real invitation for endurance, perseverance and discipline.

The new program gave me the accountability and focus to lose 8.5kgs of body fat / water weight, while increasing strength in the gym and building lean muscle mass.

I’ve felt this as creating another foundational pillar of personal power through enacting the vision of having a strong, functional, mobile, flexible, aesthetically pleasing body.

My 30 Day Ice-Bath challenge at the start of the year paved a path to regular cold thermogenesis sessions, which has done my body and it’s ability to recuperate after heavy training sessions and injuries (including my crushed finger, also at the start of the year) a world of wonders.

A new tattoo was also on the cards, marking my body for the first time in over 10 years. I was inspired to channel my own meaningful art design after coming across the traditional Visayan and Kalinga tattoo culture of the Philippines some years ago.

The left side of the body is often linked to feminine characteristics and energetic expressions, hence the marking on my left leg, symbolizing that connection to my mothers Filipino heritage.

Speaking of tattoos, after years of rumination, I finally started a laser tattoo journey of fading a few tattoos so I can eventually rework those body parts. I’m using numbing cream during this part of my tattoo removal journey, and thank goodness for that, coz I could still feel the painful zap even with it applied.

Social Media, Nature Spirits & Extra-Sensory Perception

While I upped my social media game in a big way, I didn't increase my audience size anywhere near as much as I thought I might have, which has offered plenty of opportunities for reflection and iteration.

I released 13 episodes on the podcast, which was great, and despite the slow digital growth, the in-person boots-on-the-ground programs have flourished.

The creative wellsprings have been bubbling strong; the key has been knowing what to focus on and using the sharp-katana to slice away the distractions.

My framework of Consume-Create-Imaginate has been a guiding star to ensure I’m staying focused and not caving in to the endless distractions of modernity.

Intentional consumption > intentional creation > spaciousness to imaginate.

For the first six months I posted a video 5 times a week on average, with the intention of working toward 50K as an audience size.

I’m but a mere fraction of that, however a video I posted on TikTok got over 50K views, currently sitting at about 75K.

Funny where and how the metrics decide to show up.

It was great to contribute to programs outside of my own with Friction Fire workshops, and to take a pause with mates mid-winter for a multi-night trek through the snow-capped mountains of the Vic Highlands.

I’d love to incorporate some more alpine snow trips in the seasons to come. Who knows what the nature spirits have in store.

To be sure, the mountain spirits have been speaking much louder this year.

No surprise with all the wilderness time, but my in-depth exploration of The Gateway Tapes earlier this year certainly helped with the further development of my extra sensory capabilities and esoteric faculties of mind.

If you’re not familiar, the CIA published a report titled "Analysis and Assessment of The Gateway Process" in 1983.

They showcased that hemi-sync technology (hemisphere synchronization) can trigger shifts in consciousness that allow someone to untether from physical reality and tune into greater metaphysical dimensional fields.

The document was declassified in 2003 and discusses practical techniques that help participants manifest goals, convert energy to heal one’s body, travel through space-time to access new information, and access various levels of intuitive gnosis.

The tapes are unique, yet like other meditation and transcendental processes, the similarities are in shifting brain wave states from the normal waking state of Beta, to the more creative, restorative, and intuitive states of Alpha and Theta…

Where the subconscious mind is more easily accessible -and suggestible- and where access to the more “hidden” realms of reality become more available.

Holy Burdens & Familial Connection

It was only a few months ago that I put down my dog Titan, a young German Shepherd. He was my best mate for the few years that we were together.

I can't remember the last time I was faced with such heavy grief. Navigating that was deeply sorrowful, and yet that holy burden brought much beauty, deepening me into the richness of life in such a way.

The weight of responsibility that a partner, parent, father, and king of a kingdom has to bare can indeed be a holy burden at times.

As Martin Shaw has said, “to live a soulful life, not a numb one, is to be aware of a certain degree of pain”.

As an extension to that, expanding your awareness to take in the ever-flowing river of grief and sacrifice that forms part of the backdrop of the landscape of your life, is something we must embrace.

Although I continue to make mistakes, and despite being away from home a reasonable amount in recent times, I’ve had some valuable teachings and learnt new ways to be a better leader, parent, and partner.

My time away from the kids always reinforces that my time with them as children is limited, and to cherish these times as much as I can remember to do so.

It’s been great to create a sense of harmony between spending time with family, offering my gifts to community, personal exploration, and creative expression, finding ways to anchor in a greater quality of presence when I’m with the kids, and when I’m working on my craft.

I’ve stopped using the negatively-charged phrase of “the forever challenge” of finding harmony within these aspects of life. I’ve chosen a different reality to operate out of.

Systemizing / structuring / scheduling my life has been a necessity to allocate my time and attention accordingly.

The recent vision was to bring the family to our last iteration of The Pilgrimage, and Vision Quest, which has presented a different layer of 'village' and community, and the medicine offerings that such interactions can bring.

It was a big-deal to me that for the first time in my adult life, just recently, I expressed to my old-man just how grateful I am that out of anyone, he's been my dad, and that I really value all the earlier experiences of him taking us out into the bush camping as kids and clearly laying a solid foundation of nature connection for me to return to as an adult.

I said ‘I love you’ to him, for the first time, face-to-face, since perhaps I was a tiny kid.

A massive journey to get here, and a great thing indeed to do so before time had it’s way and the hour became too late.

Rounding Out The Year & Choosing Greatness

This time next week, we’ll be in Bali for a month long family holiday.

We'll take the kids to swim with the turtles, see the monkeys, experience Indonesian culture, eat chicken skewers and nasi goreng, soak up the sun, and do some fun activities.

I’ll have time to write and work on some new projects, and I'll be dropping into a Dark Room Retreat as a birthday present to myself while we're over there.

It's been a huge year of manifestation.

Of taking action.

Of making things happen.

Of anchoring the vision and grounding it into reality.

The winding path of 2024 has led me to step into and reclaim my power in a big way.

And here's the kicker...

With the right skills and resources and support and vision, you can do it too.

(If you need support with this, I’m currently creating something to assist you in Anchoring the Vision into Reality)

It doesn't just happen overnight. It's taken me years of trial and tribulation and triumph to get to this point where I'm "living / enacting the dream".

Sharpening your sword against adversity is how the exceptional are forged. The struggles, setbacks, discomforts and difficulties are necessary parts of the journey.

You need to be willing to go against the grain and endure risks and challenges. You need to be willing to make sacrifices that not everyone is prepared to make.

It's the path of true greatness, which is to say, the path of you feeling truly great about yourself in exploring your potential and what you're capable of, enacting your own authentic soul path, your unique creative expression, and sharing that with the world as a medicine gift.

You’ll never achieve greatness if you keep making the same poor choices every day.

You won’t reach new heights by kicking stones around at the base of the mountain.

The future you is depending on the current you, to keep the promises you made to yourself yesterday.

Break the cycle, change your beliefs and behaviours, and start moving toward the greater vision calling you forth.

2025 is just around the corner, but it doesn’t mean much if we’re not anchoring the vision into the forever-eternal here-and-now moment.

Thanks for being here. It’s been a wild ride and I’m ready for more.

Let’s go.

This Year in Review (where EVERYTHING changed) & Anchoring The Vision