My Story
Our Story

(A slow breath. The sound of crackling wood. A long pause before the words come.)

My name is Rynhardt.

Ancestral Fires was born from a remembering,
a returning to what truly matters.
Not as an idea, but as a journey my whole life has been shaping.

I was five years old when the world cracked open.

My baby sister, Denise, slipped quietly into the water one day and didn't come back.
I remember the ambulance,
my father soaked to the bone,
my mother pale with silence.

I remember asking,
"Will she get better when she goes to the hospital?"
And the way no one could answer.

That was the first time I felt the mystery,
the aching question beneath all questions:
What is this life, if it can vanish so quickly?

That moment became a doorway I've been walking through ever since.

I grew up under the African sun,
a child of open skies and red soil,
where the land was both wild and wounded.

I remember the smell of rain on dust,
the warmth of fresh cow dung under my bare feet,
the songs of weaver birds in the thorn trees,
and the owl that watched over us from the lamppost at night.

I remember the chameleon my grandfather showed me,
and the way my father taught me to build a bird trap.

Even then, the wild world was whispering,
teaching me to listen.

At sixteen, we left for Australia.
I left behind not just my home, but a language, a way of belonging.

In this new land, I was quiet, searching.
I thought knowledge might fill the space,
so I studied nanotechnology and materials science,
believing that if I understood the atomic world,
perhaps I'd understand life itself.

My dream was to create new energy storage technologies,
to help heal the planet through science.

But the deeper I looked,
the clearer it became that we already have the technology and the skills
to live in balance with this world.

What's missing are the values,
the stories that guide how we live.

As I once said, "Let's make efficient living sexy."

But I realised that no amount of technology could heal a society
that had forgotten how to live in relationship with the earth.

Around that time, I lost a dear friend.
He was reading Steve Jobs' autobiography, inspired by what a single life could do.

His mum asked him one day,
"Did Steve really do good in the world? Everyone's on their phone now."

I said, "A knife can be used to stab someone or to butter your bread, it depends on the mindset."

He went quiet, his crystal-blue eyes staring into me, and finally said,
"Then we should change people's mindsets."
He fist-pumped and smiled.

A week later, he fell five stories from a building.

That moment broke me open.
I couldn't go back to life as it was.
I left my studies and dreams of becoming a researcher
to pursue a different kind of science, the science of the soul.

I turned inward,
to meditation, breathwork, dance, acro yoga, time in nature.

I learned that to heal the world, we must first heal ourselves.
Once our inner dragons are tamed, we can see beyond the ego
and remember what we are part of.

That's when I asked myself,
What truly brings me alive?
What helps me reconnect to my authentic being?

I found joy in hiking with friends, in movement, in laughter,
in the simple medicine of breath and play.

So I began to weave those together into events I called
"Journey to Your Inner Child."

We laughed, danced, and rediscovered wonder.
We healed through play.
And I realised that healing doesn't happen in classrooms,
it happens on the forest floor,
around the fire,
with muddy hands and open hearts.

Along the way, I've been blessed to cross paths with
countless incredible humans, friends, mentors, strangers
who became mirrors, teachers, and kin.

From deep, unexpected conversations under starlit skies,
to the shared tears and laughter of community,
each connection has shaped me.

Living in the Lighthouse, a shared house where we experimented with intentional community, was another initiation.
That space taught me more about relationships than any book ever could,
how to hold grief together,
how to listen when silence is needed,
how to live in rhythm with others,
and how healing becomes possible when done in community.

Those experiences reminded me that the fire is not just for warmth,
it's for relationship, for truth-telling, for remembering together.

But in those years, even surrounded by community,
I walked through one of the darkest times of my life.

Grief turned to numbness,
and I sank into a deep depression where I no longer wanted to be here.
Everything I thought gave life meaning, success, knowledge, control,
crumbled.

In that darkness, I began searching again, not for answers,
but for something real.

That's when I discovered Jon Young's "Tracking Your Roots to Nature",
which led me to Tom Brown Jr. and the teachings of Grandfather Stalking Wolf.

His story struck something ancient in me,
a remembering that the Earth herself is alive,
that silence is a teacher,
and that through the land, we are never truly lost.

Those teachings became a lifeline,
a quiet voice reminding me to keep walking,
to sit by the fire,
to listen.
They continue to shape me today,
as I deepen my practice and relationship with this living world.

The more I practiced these ways,
the more I felt called to share them.

From those early gatherings came new seeds:
bush school programs for children,
clay workshops and nature days,
sensory games where joy could run wild and free.

Each one whispered the same truth:
the medicine we seek was never lost, only forgotten.

The more I sat on the earth,
the more I carved wood,
wove baskets,
made fire with my hands,
the more something ancient stirred,
a remembering of who we are beneath it all.

That's when Ancestral Fires was born.
From grief and play, from science and spirit,
from the simple desire to remember what it means
to be truly human, woven into this living world.

Now my work is to share what I've learned,
to help others move slowly again,
listen deeply,
and light a fire, both in the hearth and in the heart.

Around these fires, we practice what the lineage of Grandfather Stalking Wolf taught:
that nature connection is not a hobby or escape,
but a way home.

From these practices come many gifts:

Belonging, when we finally feel held by the land.

Awareness, when our senses wake and our hearts follow.

Resilience, when inner and outer storms teach us to move with life.

Reverence, when love for the Earth becomes devotion, not duty.

Cultural Healing, when we remember the old ways,
storytelling, stillness, community, fire,
and rediscover that the medicine was always here.

I believe this remembering is not just for me,
but for all of us.
Each person who reconnects helps the whole world breathe a little easier.

So if you feel that spark,
that quiet pull toward the fire,
you're already part of this story.

Come sit beside me.
Come walk the old paths.
Listen to the language of birds.
Learn with your hands again.

"Let us remember together, that we belong to this Earth, and she belongs to us."

(The fire crackles. You can almost hear the night lean in to listen.)