Ep 28: Tim Corcoran on Vision Quests and Finding Your Purpose

Welcome to the Rewild Gear Podcast. Modern life, society, and responsibilities have domesticated us, but now it's time to rediscover your adventurous side. Whether that's camping, hiking, hunting, fishing, or just spending time in the great outdoors, this is the podcast for you. Join us as we get back to the wilderness and rewild. Welcome to the Adventure Welcome to the Human Made Podcast. I'm your host, Seth Spears, and I'm here today with Tim Corcoran. Tim is the founder of Purpose Mountain, where he offers nature-based purpose guidance to support people with a love for wild nature who feel a deep yearning to discover their purpose. He also serves as the co-director of the Twin Eagles Wilderness School, an organization that he co-founded with his wife, Janine Tidwell, in Sandpoint, Idaho, back in 2005. It's dedicated to facilitating deep nature connection mentoring, cultural restoration, and inner tracking. A leader of vision quests, holistic rites of passage, and men's groups, Tim has been facilitating spiritual initiations in the wilderness since 1999. Healing the cultural rift between the mainstream and indigenous cultures, transformational consciousness work, spiritual journey, ancestral work, deep nature connection, family, and health are all deep commitments in his life. Tim is a heart-centered father of 2 brilliant sons and a husband to a magnificent wife and lives in pristine Sandpoint, Idaho. Tim, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Seth. It's an honor to be here.

Great to have you here today. And so glad that our mutual friend Josh Trent introduced us because I'm really fascinated by the work that you're doing. I listened to the podcast interview that you had with him and talking about the vision quest that you're leading and some of the wilderness and survival school training. So I'd like to kind of dig into there a little bit, but first kind of get your background story and find out how you got into the work that you're doing today.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, again, just so appreciative of this time and great to connect with you here. Yeah, so my adult life has been really entirely focused on supporting people in connecting with nature and connecting with their higher calling, their vision or their purpose in life. And for me, you know, all the roots of that began as a kid, right? I'm 47, so I grew up in the '80s in the Midwest. I'm from Indiana originally. And as a boy, I was always, I was always that sensitive boy, right? Sensitive emotionally, sensitive spiritually, and, and always super high energy. Like I drove my mom and dad nuts. I've got 2 sons now, so I know what that's like.

Same team.

But I can remember just, yeah, I can remember just as a kid, like, I don't know if you remember this or if our listeners might remember this, but I just remember as a kid, everything being so alive, so novel, right? Like each day was an adventure and there was some new edge, some, some adventure, big or small, to be had. And as I grew up and I looked at the adults around me, I noticed that the adults didn't have that. And that disparity, you know, grew in my consciousness as, as I grew. And as I got closer and closer to adulthood, I wondered more and more, is this what life has in store for me? Like, am I going to be locked in a cubicle for the next 60 years or is there something bigger? And it was so rare at that time in the '80s to find adults who were deeply engaged. Right. So that was part of it. I always loved nature. And back then it was, it's a different world. Right. And I'm sure for our adult listeners, we remember, I mean, Yeah. What, we had like 3 channels.

ABC, NBC, and CBS.

Dude, exactly. And there was one good TV show on a week. And beyond that, we were just running in the woods. And so, you know, it was a different time. And it was a good time. I mean, there was a lot of nature connection, but I didn't have mentors. I didn't have anyone really looking out for me. And of course, there was also a lot of struggles. You know, I faced my fair share of childhood trauma, you know, whether it was abuse or, my parents' divorce or bullying. And as a sensitive kid, you know, I mean, I remember being, you know, I mean, 4th grade locker room, right? All of those moments of feeling like, God, my sensitivity is a curse, you know, and it's seen as something that is— I was seeing it as something that was not a good thing, something that I wanted to get rid of. And part of the journey, my journey has been learning that in fact, that's actually a tremendous gift. I mean, I look at the work I do now, whether it's one-on-one or group work with people, and that sensitivity is probably one of my greatest strengths, you know?

Yeah.

And I know we're just getting started, but already, you know, this theme of like the sacred wound becomes our sacred gift. And this idea that those things that sometimes are the most painful in life have the most to offer us and the most to teach us. So, those were some big influential experiences.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And, I think we see that a lot in society today. I'd like to dig into that a little bit further. Our audience is mostly men. And so, I know you do a lot of men's work. And, one of our goals at Rewild Gear is to lift up men, to really build up real masculinity. And to balance that out, you know, there's this yin and the yang of the masculine and the feminine. We all have, you know, 2 sides of that. But, you know, as men, we are more masculine or should be. And so trying to find real and authentic masculinity and how does that work within the work that you're doing?

Sure, absolutely. Well, I'm a huge fan of men's work. I joined a men's group here in my little town of Sandpoint, Idaho. We're kind of an anomaly, right? Sandpoint's like, we have less than 10,000 people. All the way up north here. We're like an hour from Canada. And yet we've got a huge men's group of like 40 guys.

Wow.

And yeah, that started back in 2005. I've been involved for the last 11 years since 2010. And we meet every Wednesday from 6 to 10 and we do deep work. You know, it's a deep dive every week. When I talk about men's, men's work, you know, I think it's important to kind of define what we're talking about, right? Because different people have a different understanding of what that is. Some of the most basic work that we do is what I would call masculine emotional maturity work, meaning, can I be aware of my emotions? Can I accept those emotions in my own being? And can I express them in healthy ways? Right? So acceptance, awareness, acceptance, and expression of emotions in healthy ways.

Mm-hmm.

That's kind of the starting point of most men's work these days. And then there's varying degrees of depth that different groups or different organizations or individuals facilitate that at. My critique of men's work as a movement is that oftentimes it doesn't move beyond that. Like, yes, it cultivates emotional maturity. Yes, that can be absolutely life-changing for guys because clearly we live in a world where that's not the norm, right? The old Narratives of, you know, the macho guy or the tough guy, real men don't cry, et cetera, et cetera. Like, yes, of course there's healing work on that level. But to what goal does that serve, right? Like, I could work on my emotional maturity my whole life and polish that up and get very, very emotionally mature. But what's the impact in the bigger world?

Yeah.

How am I going to leave this world? Like, yes, there are impacts of cultivating emotional maturity and that's the positive, you know, general positive impacts. But there's a deeper journey, which is what I refer to as the journey of connecting with soul or vision or purpose that oftentimes is missed. And really it's, it's kind of in a realm, in a separate realm. And we can talk about that more. But what I find is, you know, I do a lot of work outwardly, you know, with folks on purpose and vision. So people typically come to me saying, hey, I want to connect more fully with my life's calling, my purpose, my vision. How do I, how do I do that? And I, and that's the starting point. So what I find, Seth, is that having that level, a certain degree of emotional maturity is essential for, for that process. We can't really face ourselves and discover what our real gifts are for the world if we're not able to be in healthy relationship with their own emotions.

So, how does someone go about actually cultivating that relationship within oneself with their emotions? Because in the society in which we live, as you alluded to before, whether it's a machismo-type culture of, you know, men don't cry or you have to act a certain way because— or the other side, like, oh, we just have to be so in touch with our emotions and it's almost like trying to become feminine, but there's a balance in there.

Yes.

How does one go about cultivating that when it seems like there are so few positive examples or authentic examples of how this should be lived?

Yeah, absolutely. And you've brought up a couple important points right there. Like, uh, there— we do see that in the world today where, where guys are so in touch with their vulnerability that they've actually, uh, repressed, uh, a certain degree of their power, maybe a lot, maybe all of their power, right? And so as men, we are protectors. As men, we do have a relationship with our truth. And I think the best expression of healthy, mature masculinity is a man who is connected with his heart, is connected with his emotions, and uses that powerfully, knows his truth, and stands up and protects and serves his people in connection with his heart, right? It's kind of that third way rather than one end of the extreme or the other. So there's that. And then I'm sorry, what was that? What was your question again?

As far as actually cultivating that relationship within yourself, because there are not good examples that we see. And so it can seem like it's one extreme or the other.

I think men need a safe space, right, Seth, a container where, where they can feel safe and empowered to express their emotions. Men need role models, whether that's mentors, Or a circle of other men who are where we create a different cultural norm, right? Where we establish different cultural values, confidentiality, a sacred space. All of these are huge pieces and the space and the patience to grow, right? Like deep transformation isn't a quick thing. It doesn't happen in an hour or even in a weekend or even in a month. I mean, I'm a big proponent of the long journey of long-term mentoring and the bigger impact that this kind of work can have over time.

So in my own experience, you know, growing up in a big family, I have 4 brothers and 1 sister. And, you know, there's just kind of element of competition, you know, always competing, always trying to one-up each other. And I'm the oldest, so I was the best, you know, as it goes. And then, you know, in In school and college and everything and, you know, always ball busting and just going back and forth and competing and all that. And so it's like this, just this natural competitive urge that I think all men have, but sometimes it can get taken too far. And then later on in life, as we're a little bit more evolved or maybe a little bit more emotionally developed, I guess, and our ego isn't as tied into everything, that can be harder to associate. with others because of those past experiences and how we've kind of been trained or wired.

Yeah. Yeah, that's an important point. So I'm also, I love the idea of opposites in life, right? Like what I hear you speaking about, Seth, is this spectrum of on one end we have our vulnerability and on the other end of the spectrum we have our power.

Yes.

And in the mainstream world, power is acceptable as a man, but vulnerability is not. So what happens? the power side of things gets out of control and it can turn toxic or sour, right? And all kinds of stories of ball busting being taken too far where we all know those stories.

Sure.

That happens because men in those settings don't have a connection to their vulnerability, right? I mean, that couldn't happen if guys were connected with their own vulnerability and their own empathy and their own compassion for others. They'd realize, oh my God, like there's no way I'm going to inflict this kind of pain on another. So I think that's, that's a huge piece of it. And as we grow, and as we take this journey of emotional maturity, a big part of it is healing the past, is coming to terms with where did I inflict pain on another or receive pain from another, and coming to terms with that. What can I learn from that? How can I forgive others? How can I forgive myself to come to peace with that in myself so I can move forward in a healthy way?

And, how does nature play into that?

Yeah. Well, that's a huge question and I'm glad you asked. Another one of my critiques on the modern men's movement is it's largely divorced from the natural world. Yes, sure, there's men's retreats that the classic image of the Robert Bly type work beating drums in the woods. But honestly, even these days, even that has been lost. These days, what is it? Zoom calls, right?

Yeah.

Like, that's the reality of most men's work here in 2021. Um, and, and the guys are still meeting in person. I mean, my group still meets in person, but, you know, for us, most of the time it's in somebody's house or in a building. And, and so backing up, I would offer that a healthy connection to nature is essential for us as human beings. Right? Like you're probably familiar with attachment theory.

Yes.

Yeah. So the idea that our relationship with our mother, our parents, and especially our mother as an infant is hugely impactful on the rest of our lives, particularly our relationships, right?

100%.

And then we get into different attachment styles, et cetera, et cetera. So I would offer that as a human being living on planet Earth, our relationship with the earth, and I mean physical, emotional, spiritual, mental, is just as important. That in order for us to develop into the greatest expression of who we are, that we need a healthy, diverse, rich, deep, holistic connection with the natural world. In my work, this is a huge part of what I've been facilitating for 20 years, right? People talk about it this way.

Yeah.

People come to me and they might like maybe for a weekend or a week long or maybe longer work. And they say, Tim, afterwards I'll get this comment, right, Seth? They'll say, I feel like before this experience, there was a veil between myself and the earth. And I didn't know that veil existed until it disappeared. But now I can feel that that's not there. And I I feel myself as part of the earth. It's not an intellectual thing, but like a visceral thing in the body, spiritually, emotionally, them feeling themselves as connected with the earth. Right. And so that speaks to, there's a, like we see when we look in the around in the world today, we see so much desire. We see so much longing, right? And so many different ways that we fill those holes, you know, and all of addiction and distractions and a billion things, you know, drugs, sex, rock and roll, all kinds of Right. So what's the antidote to real desire? In my view, that antidote is connection. And connection to what? Well, yes, real emotional connection to other human beings, but also real deep connection to the Earth, the planet where we live. And to— I would even offer as well, just as important as that human connection and as that connection to nature, is a connection to our soul.

Like our Mm-hmm.

Calling, the reason why we're here, that the idea that life isn't random, that there's a reason for each of us to be here, a unique one. And that one of the best ways we find that is through our time in nature. So to go full circle back to your question, you know, how is nature important in this process? When we immerse ourselves in the natural world, it serves as a mirror. to our journey, right? So when we increase our senses and open up our senses to the fullness and the subtleties and the richness of nature, whether that's a beautiful— oh gosh, a beautiful mountain stream trickling down. I was just with my son and one of his buddies and we were up on a high alpine campout and oh my God, this beautiful high mountain lake trickling down. And this just the amazing beauty of the spring feeding into that lake. And it was like being connected to the essence of life. You know, I'm trying to put words onto something that's probably wordless, but—

Sure.

In that experience, we feel more whole. We feel more connected to our source. We, the things we're not at peace with tend to bubble up. Because we increase our awareness of everything around us and we can't help but to have our awareness of the inside world mirror that process. So things we're not at peace with pop, bubble up, and then we have an opportunity to work with that. Yeah, lots more to say, but maybe I'll pause there.

Sure. Yeah, I recently was on a week-long backpacking trip in Montana in the Beartooth Mountains, and I experienced this as well. know, hiking at 10,500 feet, 50-plus pounds on our back, you know, 5 days with freeze-dried food and a few snacks here or there. But just waking up in the morning and sitting next to a stream and just being at peace and having all these deep self-realizations about things in my own life, either good, bad, and indifferent, things that I needed to change, things that I liked about myself, and just realizations of who I am. And I think that there's something when you're able to disconnect from technology, from all of the, all of those things that are vying for our attention on a daily, hourly basis, that we can get a lot more in touch with ourselves. But it's so hard to do that in today's modern world just because we're so just tied into everything, you know, our phone, our computer, our relationships, everything. And so just getting back into nature to taking time, to take time away is very difficult for most people to do.

Absolutely. This is, this is the journey of our times. If I could ask for one wish, you know, for our world today, Seth, I think it would be that everybody could just pause.

Mm-hmm.

This kind of happened, right, with COVID right, with the lockdown. But if everyone could pause and stop all the distractions, all the notifications on their phones and computers, and just catch up with themselves, like, how is my life really doing? How am I really doing? How am I really feeling? How am I really being? There's all kinds of things that we're actually, as on the whole, that as human beings, where we're out of alignment with our deeper selves. But we distract ourselves through everything you're talking about, technology today, or we numb ourselves with alcohol or screen time or, you know, you name it, so that we're never able to actually catch up. But the beauty of nature is that it's always there. It always has been. And all we have to do is pause. And as we're talking about, connect with the natural world. And from that place, it doesn't take long for a person to get clear on what's working, what's not, where they're in alignment with their real deeper calling and where they're not. And most people experience this like you're talking about, maybe on a hike or on a camping trip.

Mm-hmm.

But what if we held the possibility that that's just the start of something? What would happen if we paused for a full hour without even the distraction of hiking from point A to point B? What would happen if we paused for 24 hours? What would happen if we paused for 4 days? That's the work of a vision quest, is taking a deeper pause. A really deeper pause, really stopping, shedding all those distractions, fully immersing in the natural world and holding a question. Why am I really here?

Hmm.

Here we have this world that seems to be unraveling at the seams all around us. What's my place in the world? What do I have to offer? When I die, what will the legacy be that I've left behind? Will my life have mattered? And is that just my immediate family, maybe my kids or my wife or my husband? Is there something beyond that? Not to say that there should or shouldn't be, but this is the deeper question. And then when you imagine, gosh, there have been people throughout history all along who have really cultivated that process, who have treated that like a ceremony, those taking that kind of time and who have maybe dedicated decades or, or more, maybe lifetimes, maybe generations of doing that work and realize, wow, there's something there. Like for me, a big part of my adult work in this life is connecting with indigenous communities, recognizing, wow, there's still so much wisdom there that we have to learn from as modern white folks.

Mm-hmm.

That we still haven't really learned. And that, you know, historically, of course, we colonized and we killed so many of those people off. And there's so much for us to learn. I mean, there's a lot of work there, work of cultural restoration and cultural regeneration and coming to peace in a healthy way, in culturally appropriate ways. And so, you know, this is hugely important work for our times. Hugely important.

Yeah, for sure. So let's talk a little bit specifically about the vision quest and the actual work that you're doing with so many men.

Yeah.

So let's give me a brief synopsis about what that looks like.

Yeah, for sure. And just to be clear, I do work with a lot of men and I also work with women. So the vision quest is, in my estimation, I think the quintessential, kind of the ultimate personal growth, quote unquote, experience that one could have. But I don't actually consider it personal growth, right? Personal growth, I'm more reserved for work like emotional maturity work, like we were talking about, or if people are into therapy, that's kind of working in the realm of the ego, kind of the normal waking, sometimes what I refer to as the middle world. Just normal reality. When it comes to vision quest work, what's happening is we are intentionally leaving behind the realm. This is the intention, right? It's to leave behind the realm of the ego, the realm of normal everyday waking consciousness, and enter into a different realm, what I might call the realm of soul, right? Or what some people would refer to as the lower world. Interestingly, kind of this, there's this 3 worlds model, right? With like— Regular waking reality being middle world, the upper world being the realm of like, say, traditional classical enlightenment, enlightenment, right? Where we achieve kind of the one is all, all is one through, say, meditation. But what's missing there is the access to the lower world. And this is something that I think is the big missing piece in our world today. And it's because I could, I could Again, I could polish my ego. I could get as emotionally mature as I want. I could spend decades doing that work, or I could, you know, meditate till the cows come home and experience my oneness with all of life. But so what? Like, at the end of the day, what impact is that going to have on this world? So the journey of the quest is to connect with the soul, with something deeper, with my purpose, with why I'm here. And it's kind of the ultimate simplification. It's the ultimate shedding of distractions, as we said. In its purest form, it's 4 days alone in nature, fasting, and being still, holding the singular intention of, why am I here? It's for people who have gotten to that point of saying, I am no longer willing to live my— live this expression of my life in the way that it's happening. There's got to be something more. I know I'm capable of more in this world. I know there's greater gifts I have to give. And I'm done. I'm going to stop. I'm not willing to live another day until I know what I'm here to do. And when a person's in that place, those are the people I love to work with. Because when a person's in that place, okay, now we're ready. Now, here's the thing. It's relatively easy to sit in the— I mean, okay, it takes a certain amount of discipline, but it's not hard to send someone out as a facilitator to go sit quietly in the woods for 4 days. Like, in a way, anybody could do that. Now, not anybody should do that, but the art of the process is in the mentoring, right? Is in all the preparatory work and all of the integration work.

Mm-hmm.

So when I lead folks on Quest, There's, um, we, I typically offer them as like 10-day experiences where we have 3 days of intensive, uh, mentoring preparation work, plus 3 days of integration work, you know, afterwards. And that's surrounded by even more prep work ahead of time, uh, like Zoom sessions and that kind of thing.

Yeah.

Before, as well as more integration work afterwards. Um, because getting really clear on intentions, On what's really happening in one's life, on the bigger questions of what are the bigger transitions in my life, right? Like we get into this idea of natural law, the natural law that states that the only 2 laws in nature is that everything is born and everything dies. And then everything gets renewed, really maybe a 3rd. So how are those natural processes of death and rebirth happening in my life? What am I letting go of? What phase of life, what ways of being, what relationships, what ways of seeing the world no longer serve me and do I really need to let go of? And what's being born? What, what's new and novel and mysterious and surprising that's emerging on its own in my life? And how do I acknowledge that? They're simple questions, but they're super deep. And when people really take the time to process this in a deep way, it's incredible what can happen. I mean, Mark Twain has that quote that says, 2 most important days of your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why. And for me, I mean, I look at my first vision quest and I'm just like, wow, that was probably the singular most important day of my life aside from my birth, you know, and look, I'm married. I've got an amazing wife. I've got, I've had, I have 2 sons. I was present at their birth, but I got to say, you know, if I were to, if I were to have to rank it and not that we have to rank it, but boy, oh boy. Um, first vision quest, like that's, that's right there at the top.

Wow. Yeah. How old were you when you, uh, did your first one?

It was a while ago. I was young. I was, uh, oh gosh. Well, it was 2001, so I was 26. Okay.

Yeah. And in a lot of cultures throughout history, they have kind of this rite of passage, you know, going from adolescence to adulthood or— but we don't have that in our modern society.

Right.

And so do you see the vision quest as kind of facilitating that experience and that type of rite of passage?

It certainly can. It certainly can, Seth. This is a huge piece that— and a huge question I've been sitting with professionally my entire adult life. We actually do have rites of passage in the modern world. They're few and far between, but that's one of the things I've worked on cultivating here in Sandpoint and in our broader region, the Inland Northwest, is through our wilderness school. I've worked with thousands of families, adults, kids, And I have long-term mentoring relationships, right? So I've got kids that are not kids anymore, that are now adults that I've been mentoring for 15-plus years. I'll say this. So here's a little story. So last spring, I led a vision quest up here and it was a group quest. One of the participants was a young man. I won't share his name just out of respect for privacy, but I had been mentoring him since he was 6 years old. When he was 13, I took him through a rite of pa— formal rite of passage out of boyhood into adolescence where we formally recognized you're no longer a boy and you're now a young man. That involved like a one-day, a 24-hour solo, kind of a mini quest, if you will. And now at 19, he came back to me saying, Tim, I'm ready to step into full adulthood.

Hmm.

So he came to the quest and we His experience was a bit unique in that we held it as a formal rite of passage into adulthood. Because we had 15 years of mentoring, because he had an established connection to nature, because I had mentored him in emotional maturity, he had a lot going into that, Seth.

Sure.

And you could imagine that the depth of his experience, this isn't about better or worse, but with that kind of a childhood and adolescence, He was able to achieve some incredible visionary states, frankly, and make a deep, deep connection with his essence and his calling in life. Different, say, than some others who maybe I'd never worked with or didn't have some of those experiences who were coming maybe at a different life stage, right? We had 40-year-olds, we had 60-year-olds coming.

Sure.

So here's another example. There was another guy, and I won't say any names, but he came, maybe he was around 40. he hadn't necessarily done so much of this deep inner journey previous in his life. And although he was 40 years old, no one had ever marked that transition for him out of childhood. And so what happens developmentally when we, when it never gets marked, the transition out of childhood, you know, into adolescence or the transition out of adolescence into adulthood, there's a part of us that's still stuck in that life phase.

Yeah.

And so his work, it was humbling work. He's 40, he's clearly a grown man. And yet he had to come to terms with the fact that, God, part of me is still a boy. And part of me was never really initiated. And all right, I'm going to take this time, if nothing else, and acknowledge and mark this transition that no longer am I that boy. I'm going to let him die out there so that I can really step into the man who I'm destined to be. And that became like the arc of his whole journey. He had all kinds of, you know, different elements and threads, of course, that expressed itself. So yes, the quest can serve as a rite of passage into adulthood. Does it always? No, it doesn't always, but it can.

So this sounds very both cathartic and therapeutic in a lot of ways.

Yes.

I'd be curious to hear the experiences that people have had over the years as far as going through it and what has been the outcome on the other side? All positive? Any negative? Good, bad, and the ugly.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, and there's so many different stories, right? One of the big things we see is a lot of folks who come to a quest do have that nature connection awakening that I was talking about earlier. So you use the term therapeutic. There was a book written, oh gosh, a while ago. Oh, I'm forgetting the author. But basically the title of the book was something like, we've had 100 years of psychotherapy and the world hasn't gotten any better. Right. And the point was, hey, therapy was supposed to like help heal the world. It was supposed to help make a difference. And here we are. We're still— feels like we're still going down the toilet, you know. What's going on? Well, something must have been missed. And so again, this idea that maybe if we look at therapy and again, kind of men's work and even women's work, or all that emotional maturity work, whether it's male or female, as kind of dwelling in the middle world, right? Then it never quite accesses the lower world. It never quite accesses the nature connection piece. And so when we bring that nature connection piece on board, That's a big one. So a lot of people have that awakening. A lot of people have, again, of course, you know, the experience of connecting deeply to their essence and their soul. Healing work can happen in the context of a quest. Like we had a participant a little while back who came back off his 4 days on the hill and came back in tears saying, I'll never forget his first words out of his mouth were, oh my God, in all the work I've done, he was a guy who was big into like plant medicine and ayahuasca and all of this, you know. And he said, wow, in all those experiences, I never, I'm realizing now that I never actually felt safe, or more specifically, my inner child actually never felt safe. But up here on these 4 days, know, without that, because to be clear, the Quest is not about entheogens. It's not about plant medicine.

Yeah.

We like to say that a person earns every ounce of transformation that they experience on the Quest. He, so he said, my inner child never felt safe. And here in this experience, it finally did. And that was wildly transformational for him. It changed the trajectory of his life. He was stepping into fatherhood.

Wow.

He felt so much more empowered to actually be a father and actually maturely raise his son. He was a business owner. It changed the trajectory of his business, his organization. So that's one example. I kind of shared the story of the young man who used it as the rite of passage into adulthood. What's another example? Or another good story. We had a woman come out actually. And for her, her big, the big gap that she brought in was, was all about never being seen in the world, right? Which is a common thing, right? I think a lot of, a lot of people experience that these days, like never being deeply seen. And so a big part of the transformational process for her happened in the pre-work, in the prep days and the Zoom calls, where just being in a community of loving, supportive, empathetic, compassionate other human beings, whether that's the guides, the staff, or the other participants, was hugely, hugely impactful for her. And for the first time, she was actually able to be seen. Then she took that out onto the quest. Right. And she realized, oh my God, how that was actually the bigger gap in her entire life and her childhood and growing up and the whole bit. And coming back, that hole had been filled. And she was able to see how, God, for the last 30 years, I've tried a billion different ways to fill that gap, but none of them really ever worked, right? There's that, what's the saying? We can never quite get enough of what we truly don't need.

Yeah.

And that had been the case for her. So afterwards, Oh my God, you know, she, and I'm still in touch with her, but she was, afterwards she was so alive. She was just so genuinely connected back with her own real joy, with her calling, you know, and not needing all of those things that had, she previously, you know, the addictions or the distractions or whatnot that she had tried to fill those holes with. And then of course that shows up, you know, and she's happier, her personal relationships improve, she shows up better at work, so that improves, et cetera, et cetera. I'm a big proponent of the, of, like I said, of long-term mentoring, of taking our time with things. So for me, like I actually waited quite a while before I started facilitating Quests. I was in no rush to You know, to get started on that. I waited at least 10 years before really getting started in guiding quests because I believe it's such a deep process and it's such a sensitive place that people go to. I just hold the responsibility of that in such sacred regard, right? I would never want to harm someone, certainly on my watch. So it's very rare in my experience leading quests for people to have negative experiences. Where I think we see more of that is when people go out on their own without guidance, where people say, oh, this sounds cool. I'm going to go out for 4 days just on my own. I'm going to do some journaling ahead of time. Some people are like, oh, maybe I'll take some, you know, I don't know, some mushrooms or something along the way. And my wife loves to say this. She says, you know, we can't be in the container and be the container at the same time. Meaning that, you know, this deep work of transformation, we're social beings, right, Seth? Like we need one another.

Yeah.

Real change. I mean, mentoring is such a huge piece. Having people who can hold space. We look back at the ancestral path and back at our earth-based ancestors. There were always the elders. There were always the mentors. There were always the uncles or the aunties holding space for the younger people on their transformational journey. And that was alive throughout life. So that's something we can learn from, you know, having caring, experienced guides who've gone through the journey themselves can help avoid some of those pitfalls. So like, for me, I actually did that on my second quest. I did a solo quest without guidance. And I was so shooken up from it afterwards. I mean, I went out there, I did the 4 days. I had this incredible experience where this giant bull moose came and bedded down like 15 feet from me. Scared the hell out of me. And, and afterwards, it literally took me, you know, I didn't have the support of a mentor before or after. It literally took me 5 or 6 years to come to terms with what had happened.

Wow.

I was not in a good place for the first couple months afterwards. You know, part of what happens in a quest is we intentionally— the ego gets destabilized or even deconstructed. And so you need a container to kind of fall apart in and then be put back together, so to speak. When that container is not there, that falling apart can get pretty messy. You know, I mean, I remember having times where I was questioning my own sanity in that experience, like, what is going on here? And, and just not having the care and the space being held by someone else. It was, it was not a good thing. So I— That would be like the biggest thing I would encourage people is don't go off and do this on your own, please. Not everyone's going to have that difficult of an experience as I had if they do it on their own. The other thing we see is in the integration work. And for anyone who's done deep work, I think recognizes the importance of integration work. It really can't be overstated.

Oh yeah.

For people who do quests with me, they are consistently surprised by the level of transformation that happens afterwards. Like everyone always thinks, oh, it's the event. It's kind of the Western mindset to think it's the 4-day event that's gonna be the main thing. So that's when the change is gonna happen, right? That's when the fireworks happen. Well, actually, no. Oftentimes it's afterwards. It's in looking back at the experience. It's in the debrief, the reflection, the integration, the mirroring.

Yeah.

Brain science knows this. You know, we know the human brain learns not primarily through experience, but in recapitulation of experience. And then of course, indigenous wisdom, earth-based wisdom knows this. It was always the elders asking the younger people, what did you experience? There would always be that counsel. So that's important. Yeah, that's, that's a really important piece.

Yeah, no, the integration, that makes a lot of sense for sure. Yeah. Tim, how has doing this work impacted your life as both a husband and as a father? Oh gosh, that's huge.

And of course, really personal. I mean, first, I'll just say I'm super blessed to have my wife. Janine and I have been together since we were 22. And, well, it saved my marriage. I'll tell you that. Early on, you know, with my own story, I was kind of alluding to some of that. I had my wounds growing up. So as a young man, I had a tendency towards jealousy. Just to be straight up about it.

Sure.

And I was— my wife's beautiful. And I was always, you know, looking around, like, oh, which guys are looking at her? And is someone trying to steal her from me? And early on as a young man, I didn't recognize— I didn't understand that that was a projection. I didn't understand that I didn't believe I was worthy of love. And so I was afraid that, you know, I didn't believe I was worthy of my wife's love. And so I was afraid that someone was going to steal her from me. And, and yeah, I was not easy to be with early on like that. I would, I would come up with stories of jealousy and make shit up that wasn't really happening. And that took a toll on my relationship with her.

Sure.

I was lucky to have mentors at the time. I remember one time we were apprentices at a wilderness school and I was convinced this one guy was trying to steal her from me and I was super jealous and the whole thing. And It was really upsetting my wife. And, you know, she's like, ah, she wanted to take a break. And oh my God, we weren't married yet. And I was just like devastated. I went out, we went out to South Dakota to one of our mentors at the time, an old man who's now passed, Gilbert Walking Bull, who was a traditional Oglala Lakota healer, holy man. And I went and he worked with the sweat lodge amongst other things. And I remember going out there, Seth, sitting in the sweat with him. And I didn't say a thing about my experience of what was going on. It was too personal still for me at that time. And I was too scared and everything else. And after the sweat, right? So I had like not told anybody except for my wife about what was going on. He had no way of knowing. And afterwards I came out of the sweat. The way he would always run sweats was you would have your process. And at the very end, he would— have some sort of reflection for you, some sort of comment, some mentoring. And he goes on at the very end to say, to call me out on my jealousy and naming specific actions and things I had said, right, that he had no way of knowing happened. And I'm like, what is going on here? He's like blowing my concept of reality out of the water. Like, who talked to you? Well, nobody had. He had seen this spiritually. And he told me straight up, he's like, if you don't get in check with your jealousy, you're going to lose her. And she's the love of my life. I mean, there's no question, like soulmate, it's the whole thing. And so it was after that, you know, I spent time on the hill. I spent time in Vision Quest getting clear about what the heck's going on. What is this fear I have? Why am I? And that's when I first was able to awaken to the fact that, oh my God, I don't feel like I'm worthy of love, period. And that was about me, not her. And then that came back to, oh my God, my parents' divorce. Oh my God, being bullied in grade school. Holy shit, that abuse I faced when I was 6. I had to face those things. You know, I had, my psyche had shut all that off. Understandably so, that's what the psyche does. And there's a time that's appropriate at a certain time. To protect you. But at a certain, yeah, for protection. But at a certain time, if we're gonna grow, We have to face that stuff and it's different for everybody. So that was it for me, Seth. I had to face that. And it was in the sanctity of the quest. And I was able to see like, wow, I've got this whole future. I was able to see like we could get married, we could have kids, we could start a school together, we could make an impact. We could find a common vision, a common purpose and make an impact. There's so much potential for us, but none of that's going to happen. If I don't do this healing work first.

Wow.

So that was a huge one for me. And thankfully I had enough support, enough mentoring, enough courage, enough willingness, enough dedication to do all of that and come out the other side, be able to heal that. And, you know, I'm super blessed to say that we're still together today. We've got a great relationship. We got kids. We've, we've, we're living into that vision, you know, and it still grows and I still grow every day. I still have issues. You know, it's not like this is a magic bullet. But it is a practice that really can serve humanity.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's amazing. And then as a father, how has that affected it?

Yeah. So my sons are 12 and 15. And, um, well, are you a dad?

I am.

Yeah. So, you know, uh, not an easy path being a dad. No, not an easy path. I mean, There's some really big pieces. So, I feel so strongly about all this stuff we're talking about. So, I've raised my sons very close to the earth, right? They are awesome wildlife trackers. They're awesome birders. They know their survival skills. They know all kinds of stuff. They're very, very competent in the woods. I work hard to raise them as emotionally mature males, right? So they're still on their journey, but I regularly, in our family culture, we were talking about culture, I regularly make space for emotions. I do my best to model that as a dad in healthy ways. Like, I've got my anger, I've got my sadness, I've got my shame, I've got my joy. All of this is part of what it is to be a man. Am I perfect at this? No way. But this is, this is what I'm holding. And I regularly personally maintain the practice of the quest for myself. Like I try and get out there about once a year on vision quest so that I am on track with my path in this life. And there's times when that takes me away from my family, but then I'm, when I come back, I'm able to be fully present, right? That's the vision. And—

Love that.

And my sons see that. My sons see that. And so, um, I'm doing my best to, to not just, you know, teach them these things, but to really live these things, that emotional maturity, that connection to vision, um, honoring my wife in a, in a healthy way, modeling conflict resolution in healthy ways. All of this is, um, and ultimately supporting them. Um, As they can, so they can be connected with the earth, they can be connected with community, they can be connected with themselves and with their calling so that when the day comes and they're ready to really have that big question of who am I and why am I here, that they'll be fully supported. And, you know, they may take a different path than I do. Maybe they wind up in the city. Maybe they wind up doing something totally different, you know, for them to know that's okay. And they'll, if they're connected with their calling, like, that's the biggest thing I could ask. So all of that, I mean, came to me in my first quest. I remember seeing the fact that I would be, my wife and I would, that we would get married and that we would have kids and that, you know, we would raise them in a different way. My boys are homeschooled and really we do more, and that's mostly my wife. And it's more like being unschooled, right?

Sure.

So, It's been huge. And, I haven't even spoken too much about rites of passage, but that's another thing we've consistently surrounded them by is they had a welcoming of life ceremony when they were babies. They had a transition into middle childhood when they were 8 or so. My oldest has now gone through his rite of passage into adolescence. My youngest isn't there yet. And, they'll have a rite of passage, they can be sure, when they're ready to be done with adolescence and actually step into adulthood. So, and all that's more than just me. That's not just me holding that. They're surrounded by a community of people who value nature and value soul and vision and have aunties and uncles and friends and other families and elders and grandmas and grandpas who all value this and can help support that.

Yeah.

So that's a, that's a huge one.

No, that's great. Do you ever have couples that go through a vision quest together or like friends or groups like that? Or is it they're completely separate off by themselves?

What does that In terms of the actual 4-day experience?

Yeah.

Typically, no. I mean, sometimes we'll get a group or a family that wants to, you know, go through the experience at the same time. But the essence of the quest is about one human individual connecting with their place. And so to do it with another person, not that I'd, you know, I'm careful about being rigid about this kind of stuff, but I haven't led that. Like, I wouldn't— I don't think I would send 2 people out together. Um, that could happen, um, but I think it would be very rare and it would be a very unique situation. Um, so typically, no. Typically people would go out just, just on their own.

Gotcha. And it seems like there's more men than women that are actually going through this process.

Uh, no, no, not, not, not for me. I mean, when we lead— when I lead quests, it's usually a pretty good, uh, A pretty good split.

Really?

A lot of people will traditionally look at it that way. And, there's some traditional indigenous cultures that there's certainly some research that's been done on this that say that it was only the males that needed this and the same for the sweat lodge because females had their menstrual cycle, which was a ceremony built into the body. However, and I don't know if you or our listeners have heard about this concept, but that was all held in a cultural, in an intact cultural context. So if we look at, you know, a traditional earth-based culture, maybe in some cultures the women didn't need these things, but they had other ceremonies held by the grandmothers or the aunties.

Sure.

In order to support them in their process, which women today, I mean, by and large, of course, don't have. So the quest has just as much to offer men as it does women. And I mean, really all genders.

Yeah. Got it. Tim, why is nature and the outdoors so important to you? How did— I'm guessing that that started from an early age.

Yeah.

But what is it about that that has just taken hold of you so much in your entire life?

Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, it does go back to my childhood. As I said, I mean, I faced— I had a great childhood in so many ways, Seth, and I had my fair share of struggle. And when I was going through my pain, you know, I didn't have mentoring. I didn't have, like I said, elders or mature adult males or females really looking out for me. Nature was the one place I could go to, to find peace, to find solace.

Mm-hmm.

It was the one place I could go where I was fully accepted. It was the one place I felt completely free to be myself. And, that's always been the case. I mean, I've been able to heal those wounds and feel free to be myself in community and amongst other people. But, I mean, God, it's kind of a funny question like, why is nature so important? Oh, I can't imagine anything but it being important.

Sure.

Here's an interesting thing. I'm a bit of a word nerd, right? I love studying language and words. And I love indigenous languages. I've yet to find an indigenous language that has a word for nature. Oh. This is really interesting. People have to think about this. Indigenous languages don't have a word for nature. Okay, so full stop. Like, what the heck? I mean, they live in nature, so why wouldn't they have a word for nature? Well, of course, the answer is— the reason for that is because If they do have a word, it's more like their word for life. The concept of nature, we could say, is in some ways a colonialist concept. It's a concept that's rooted in separation. What is not nature? I mean, everything is nature. We all, everything that we see around us, whether it's man-made or natural, quote unquote, comes from the earth. And even if it did, even if it was a meteorite that came from space, that's still nature too.

Mm-hmm.

Right? We have this concept as modern people that we are separate from nature and that we have to get back to it. Like, people always tell me, oh, Tim, I'm so excited to, you know, get away from my busy life and get back to nature. And I get it. I mean, I can kind of have that perception as well, but Part of the journey, Seth, is remembering that we are nature and we always have been and we always will be. And there is no separation. But to answer your question, I had an elder years ago, Ingwe. He was of the Akamba people from Africa. He said that in wilderness or in nature, we— he would put it this way. He said, we hear the voice of God. Right? And that if we destroy the wilderness, if we destroy nature, we destroy our ability to hear that voice.

Oh.

And so, you know, that's one way of looking at it. Or we can think of kind of the Chief Seattle quote, you know, that if we— we are nature. And so if we destroy our own habitat, I mean, I think this is pretty well recognized at this point, If we destroy our own world, we're shitting in our own bed. I mean, we're destroying our own home. Like, I mean, look at climate change. Like, it's crazy. You know, I mean, I live in Idaho. Like, God, we have the wildfires. We had a— this summer, we had temperatures one week of 115 degrees. It was like Death Valley.

Wow. It was nuts.

We have wildfires season starting earlier and earlier. Like, it's, it's the real deal. Like, humans have, have fallen away from our connection with the natural world, and it's really to our own peril. Um, so yes, we physically need our, our biosphere to live. I mean, that's obvious. Um, but it's not just a physical thing. It's a spiritual thing. We need nature to find our calling, to find our purpose, our vision. We need nature to— I think experience the ultimate expression of emotional maturity. We need nature for everything. So yeah, those are a few thoughts.

So in today's culture and society, we're so disconnected from the natural world, the wilderness, nature, the wild. And all the work that you're doing is helping to bring people back in touch with that and reconnect with their soul and the natural world. However, there's so many people that maybe they live in New York City, or San Francisco or wherever, and, you know, they're in a concrete jungle, and it's just the microwave society and just the convenience of everyday life. They don't even see it that way though. It's just life to them. So how do you— how do we connect with those people and help them to understand that there's so much more other than just this urban environment that seems to be so prevalent in today's world?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and I think there's that recent statistic that now more than half of our population is now living in urban environments. environments, right? For the first time in history. That's a really important question. What I find is that for those who are ready, because there's always the readiness question when it comes to the individual journey, people have a sense. People have a sense of, wow, I'm getting too much, too much of the jungle fever, you know, of the urban jungle fever. How do we connect to them? Well, it's podcasts like this. I mean, I applaud you for your work, you know, in getting this this message out there to the world. But I think it's important that people do, especially folks who are living a more urban lifestyle, do take the time to make that connection in their lives, whether it's just going to a nearby park or driving the hour to a state park outside of the city or taking the bigger breaks, the bigger immersions into a week-long or a 10-day-long experience like a quest or something else. But what I find honestly, Seth, is, and this is probably partly a function of the fact of just the work that I do, but what I find is that many people do recognize the cost that an urban lifestyle has. And I mean, my big message to people is To slow down and listen to the feedback inside your own heart. And that if you recognize that things are moving a little too fast, hold open that question. Again, I was speaking to this earlier. Wow, what would happen if I really paused, if I really took a break from all this, even just for a short period of time? I mean, I look back again, I look back at my first quest and I see how that's literally set the trajectory, the arc For my entire life. Yeah.

You mentioned earlier about community and how building that is incredibly important. And I think in today's society, most communities, they're this kind of homogeneous culture that comes about based on where we were born or based on our job or schools or things like that. And we just kind of get tossed into it. But then there's this other side of in this more virtual entrepreneurial culture where, you know, you can work from anywhere. And COVID has, you know, brought this up a lot more where with Zoom and the internet and everything else, we can kind of work from anywhere or work from home. And so people are trying to build cultures or trying to manufacture them artificially. And I don't know that either one is actually a natural community or culture. Can you speak to that a little bit? Because it seems like there They're both extremes, um, and there's pros and cons to both, um, but I've seen a lot of failures on both sides too.

Yeah, yeah, it's a huge question really. Um, are you familiar with the, the magazine called Yes? Yes Magazine?

No, I don't think so.

Okay, it's, it's a cool, uh, kind of progressive magazine. They did an article a couple years ago where they acknowledged that, um, they said one of the greatest threats to the natural world, to the earth, is the tendency of modern people to move about so much, right? Like people follow jobs anywhere. Like that's the big thing tying people to place these days, right? There's not much commitment to a single physical place. When we look at our earth-based ancestors, they all had— were living with a certain degree of commitment to place. When we have a commitment to place, guess what happens? Especially if there's others with a commitment to place, then we are automatically committed to those other people, those other humans. So real community is physical. I mean, let's just call a spade a spade. Zoom communities are— or internet communities, and people throw that word around, That's not real in my experience. I mean, is there something there? Can people connect? Yeah, of course. Can there be value there? Sure. But that's not real community. Real community is when people are living together and in one another's physical sphere day in, day out over time. And where people go through experiences together, where people raise kids together, where people— face conflict together and are forced to figure out how to deal with it, right? Like, again, I go back to my childhood. When I was a kid, it was just me and the other kids in the neighborhood, right? Like, there were some that I hated. There was some that I really liked.

Yeah.

And there was the bullies and all these people you had to deal with. That doesn't happen these days. What do we have these days? We got playdates. Oh, you know, and I'm going to very carefully select my friends just based on who I like. And I'm only going to hang out with them. And then kids never really learn how to deal with conflict in the same way, right?

Mm-hmm.

So some of my teachers have said, you know, one of the ways you know community is really starting to form is when conflict emerges. That's a healthy indicator of community because it means that there's been enough time put in, that there's enough safety and enough depth that conflict can actually happen. And then you've got to work through that. There's nothing wrong inherently with conflict. Where we go sour is the thought or the belief that it shouldn't happen, or when we don't cultivate skills to deal with that. I mean, look at any marriage, look at any family. Like, conflict is part of the deal. As difficult, as uncomfortable, as painful as it can be sometimes, it's part of the deal. We got to learn to deal with that. So that's a big part of my work locally, right? Like at our wilderness school here, Twin Eagles, we've used the wilderness school as a structure to build local community, right? Like my story of the young man who went through the vision quest, I am good friends with his mom and his dad. His older brother and his younger sister have both, I've been mentoring them, all 3 of them, you know, for 15 plus years. Like we have a shared commitment to place and that's just one other family. I mean, there's dozens of other families You know, that have this. And we see each other in the grocery store and we hang out together and we have meals together and we do community functions together. And so I think I look at community very differently, I think, than most people today. I would hold that part of the healing of our world that we're looking for is going to be found in commitment to place and commitment to other human beings in the long run. It doesn't necessarily mean we have to live in some sort of eco village or intentional community, although that's happening, you know. Yeah. Um, but I think that's a big piece of what's missing for people, um, is that, that kind of community building.

Got it. Yeah, it's just really interesting to see, uh, because people are moving, you know, wherever they want because they can now. Yeah. Um, but then it's just based on the location, but then it seems like we're lonelier than ever. less connection than ever, even though, um, objectively it's where someone wants to live. Um, but it seems like there's less fulfillment in that.

Right. And, and really quick back to that Yes magazine article, their reasoning for why that's such a threat to the earth with people moving around so much is because when we don't have a commitment to place, Seth, we don't notice if, if every 5 years I up and move to a new place, I don't notice the changes as much, right? Like I've lived in Sandpoint since 2004. So what's that like 17 years? I've seen the changes. I've got a commitment to this place.

Sure.

I'm active in the community and not letting developers come in and destroy beautiful natural areas. If everyone's always up and moving, where's the— who's watching out for, for the land itself? You know, who's, who's being the voice for the land? Um, that, that can't happen. And, and then the bigger question is like, when we look at our earth-based ancestors, what happens if we had 50 years of commitment to place? What would happen if we had 100 years of commitment to place? What would happen if we had 1,000?

Yeah.

You know, what would our spirituality look like if it's actually emerging from the place? So that's kind of a bigger vision I'm holding is this vision of a relocalization, you could say, of our spirituality. But spirituality originally came from the land. It still does and it still can. Last point on that, some of my traditional Native American elders have told me, they said, Tim, the vision we're all holding together, because it's one vision, it's not just me, is actually a 5— they said 300 to 500 years. And I'm like, what? What do you mean 300 to 500 years? That was really depressing for me at first. And they're like, yeah, like it's not going to fully come to pass for that long.

Whoa.

And I'm like, what? And so in some ways, what we're talking about is reestablishing a, we could say, and I say this very carefully, and I know this can be a hot topic for people, but we're reestablishing a native connection to the earth.

Hmm.

Like we were all displaced. My ancestors are from Ireland. There was the great, you know, exodus of my people from the potato famine. You know, what was it that, that caused that? And when we— and part of what we're going back to, this 300 to 500-year vision, is yes, it's, it's a— it's re-establishing a native connection to place. And so if my lifetime, if the work I do in my lifetime— I mean, if we use the metaphor of that's a house that we're building, you know, maybe my lifetime is just helping us lay the found— the cement foundation.

Wow.

Okay then, that's my work. You know, maybe my sons will start to build a wall. Maybe my grandkids will, you know, I don't know, or great-grandkids or great-great-grandkids will be the ones to put the roof on.

Yeah.

You know, that was tough, particularly for me as a dad. I'll just say it was realizing that, God, even my own sons aren't going to experience the full benefit of that vision. That was hard. That was actually really hard for me when I recognized that. But I said, okay, if this is where it's at, this is where it's at. Because it is slow going. I mean, this kind of change that we're talking about, this is not quick stuff.

Yeah.

You know, but we got to get straight with that. What's our commitment? And that 7 generations thinking, wow, okay, can I care? Can I love that much to really give in this way? So those future generations really can have a better world than I had and that my sons will have. Wow.

Yeah, there's a lot there for sure.

Yeah, for sure.

Tim, tell me a little bit about the Twin Eagles Wilderness School, some of the work you guys do there, some of the experiences you cultivate.

Yeah. So, so with Purpose Mountain, my other organization, that's where I focus more on the vision quest work. I do a lot of one-on-one work there. Twin Eagles Wilderness School, that's the organization my wife and I founded in 2005. And that's here in Sandpoint, Idaho. We kind of serve the broader inland Northwest. We work with folks in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, Spokane, Washington. And it's very much based on in-person programs. We do a lot of youth programming and adult programs. The basic intention of Twin Eagles is helping people connect with nature. It's not so much focused on the journey of connection to vision and purpose, although that kind of happens as a side effect, as you might imagine.

Sure.

But, and the way we do that mostly is through the old skills of like wilderness survival and animal tracking.

Yeah.

And birding and edible medicinal plants, you know, all of this good stuff. We've been really successful locally. So we have like a really thriving year-round program. You know, winter, spring, summer, fall for youth and adults. We train mentors, big giant summer camp season that we actually, that we just wrapped up. And it's really on the front end, kind of, it looks like programs for adults and youth to connect back with nature in that way. But the deeper intention is building that community that we're talking about, right? And yeah, 17 years in now, 16, 17 years in, we're seeing some of the benefits of that. Yeah, there's a lot to say on that, but that's the short of it.

Got it. Tim, we're coming to the end of our time here today, but what is the biggest life lesson that nature and wilderness and the outdoor has taught you over the years?

The biggest life lesson that nature and the wilderness has taught me. Wow. Well, I think it's what we've been talking about all along, you know. That's a great question. Just feeling into that here for a minute. So one is a reflection of my worthiness as a human being, the lesson that I am worthy as a man, as a human being, that I'm worthy of love, that I'm just worthy, not for anything I've done, but just because I'm alive. There's multiple answers. Another answer is I have a very important vision and I'm no more special than anybody else. Part of the lesson that nature has taught me and I think teaches everybody is humility. Humility, like humus of the earth, H-U-M, right? You look at the language, the etymology there. People get that on the vision quest. I've gotten that on the quest for sure is, God, I'm just one person, you know, in this great big world. And yet my role is very important. So it's a beautiful balance of like humility on the one hand and specialness. And then an honest assessment of like, my life's important, but not more important than anybody else's. And that humility is really important. So, so yeah, I mean, my worth, my vision, and that life, I think with the humility piece, that life is bigger than me. You know, it's that, that others, other people, other generations, ancestors, future generations, the wholeness of life, the sum of life itself is actually what's most important. And that the greatest thing I could do is give myself, like give my life to the earth, to my people, right? Like what are my gifts and how do I most fully express those in this life? I think that's probably the quintessential answer that I've come to at this point to your question. Yeah.

Great. Is there a book or books that have had just a major impact on your life?

There have been some, but honestly, I mean, I look at my mentors, my personal mentors as You know, without question, I mean, having had a far, far more bigger impact than that. I mean, the whole book podcast thing, it's great, you know, and there are some good books and podcasts and things out there, but there's just no match for real mentoring relationships, you know.

Totally.

One book that stands out, that said, is Black Elk Speaks. by John Neidhart. And that's the story of Black Elk, who was a traditional Lakota holy man. And a big part of his life story that was chronicled. Amazing book, amazing book. And really chronicles his journey and everything we're talking about, this journey of connecting to vision through nature. Yeah. Include a link to that in the show notes.

Tim, what's one piece of advice you would give to our audience?

Well, I think it's what we were talking about earlier. My biggest piece of advice would be to slow down, connect with nature. If people are listening to this and feeling inspired or resonating with this, I would suggest, God, even if you can, can you take 20, 30 minutes, get away from the busyness of life, Surround yourself by as much wild nature as possible. You don't have to go to Alaska, but can you drive an hour to that state park or whatever it is, right? And give yourself some time. Can you give yourself half an hour? Can you give yourself a few hours? And maybe go out with the question of, you know, God, if this is resonating, go out with like, treat it almost like a ceremony, this time in nature, and just go with a question. The question of what is my deeper calling in this life and how am I in alignment and how am I out of alignment with that? Like, that's a huge question. And just taking even a couple hours without a bunch of distractions, try and leave the dog at home, try and leave other humans behind, leave human structures behind. Don't take your bike or your kayak. Just go, like your feet on the ground. Take your shoes off if you're brave. If you're really brave, get naked. That would push the edge. But go out there with a question and a belief that nature can speak back to you. And it typically doesn't speak in English, but it'll speak in synchronicities or signs or symbols or a feeling or maybe a dream that night, or maybe just the way you feel when you see a raindrop rolling off a beautiful aspen leaf that's starting to turn from green to gold. And you'll remember something, you'll have a feeling and you'll have a sense of what the answer is to that question. Yeah, so slowing down, connecting.

Great. Sam, thanks so much for your time today. I've really enjoyed this conversation. And where can our listeners find out more about you and the work that you're doing?

Yeah, so I would definitely encourage people to check me out at Purpose Mountain. That's my organization where I'm doing the work of most of what we're talking about here today. It's www.purposemountain.com. It's really easy. I've got like a free PDF download. It's called— I call it a Purpose Discovery Kit. And it's got some writing in there, but mostly it's like a workbook. And it's got some cool exercises kind of further along this line of what I just suggested, something I call a soul wander. And there's some reflective ideas and gives people just a little bit more of the sense of my work.

Great. Thanks, Tim.

Great. Thank you, Seth. Yeah, great being here with you.

Until next time, stay wild.

Thanks for listening to the Rewild Gear Podcast. You could check out the show notes for today's episode at rewildgearpodcast.com. If you're ready to spend more time in the At REWILD, our line of high-quality, minimalistic outdoor gear can help you do just that. Check us out at rewildgear.com.