Garrett’s Life Vision
Updated: August 2025

Prayer

Thank you Spirit for giving me everything I need right now at this moment. Spirit, please guide me to the places you want me to be, with the people you want me to be with, doing the things you want me to do. Take me in service of your will and write this life vision through me. When my life deviates from this vision, help me be easy on myself and remember that writing this over and over again is a big step to be celebrated regardless of what happens.

Mission 

My mission is reconnection and cultural repair. When I’m embodied in my most connected self, I am in my gifts. My gift to the world is my most connected self, most connected with self, earth, people, and spirit.

Village Building School

My children are born into a deeply nature-connected, multigenerational community on the West Coast of Canada. We are living on 100+ acres of land surrounded by a wild park area. The purpose of the community is to run a not-for-profit, deep nature-connected Village Building School. The school has a 9-month adult immersion program where students live here while deepening connection with nature, humans, and ancestors/spirit. Core approaches include 8 Shields, Circling and Authentic Relating, grief ritual, and Compassionate Inquiry. The mentors mostly live on site and are deeply embedded in my children’s lives.

We are a “fake it til’ you make it” village, practicing regular men’s circles, women’s circles, forum, and sharing food together with gratitude and prayer. There are annual rites of passage for youth and adults, open to the public. My children grow up surrounded by uncles, aunts, mentors, elders, and other children, all living deeply connected with each other, the earth, and our ancestors/spirit.

Every night there is a central fire where the stories of the day are shared, where people returning from travels are welcomed home, and their stories are received. There is a culture of catching each other’s daily stories, with the main ones rising to the top to be heard around the fire. Music, crafting, and sharing gratitudes flow naturally around the evening fire. It’s not mandatory, it’s simply part of the rhythm of life.

The community has a beautiful space to host workshops, yoga, breathwork, song circles, gatherings, and weekend retreats, and to welcome international teachers when they tour through. The school focuses primarily on village building, deep nature connection, Indigenous teachings, storytelling, wilderness skills, and conscious relating. It also offers a wide variety of activities in personal development, conscious relationships, sexuality, breathwork, dance, bodywork, plant medicine ceremonies, and other creative expressions. Schools that inspire this vision include Wisdom of the Earth, Tracker School, Wilderness Awareness School, Thriving Roots Wilderness School, Tamera Healing Biotope, Wilderness Torah, Orphan Wisdom School, Esalen Institute, and Bolad's Kitchen.

Way of life

 I live with my partner and kids in a house with abundant sunlight and surrounded by nature. I have a small cabin nestled in the woods where I work in deep solitude. It is heated by a wood stove and includes a small workout area, a kitchen to host a friend for a private dinner, and windows on all sides to let in light and birdsong. The view is a perfect sit spot. Guests are welcome to stay overnight here.

My mornings are spent non-verbally in a sadhana practice of breathwork, exercise, sit spot, and prayer, followed by one to two hours of deep, undistracted work. Later in the morning I transition into mentoring or counselling sessions. One day per week is for youth mentoring, two days are for youth/adult village building immersions, and the rest of my work time is spent in counselling sessions or with Circling Canada. Evenings and weekends are for friends and family, sitting around a fire, sharing dinner together, singing songs, and catching stories from each other.

I have epic brothers in my life who are ambitious, heart-centered, integral, sensual warriors. We meet weekly in men’s circles, sit in sweat lodges and other ceremonies, and hunting is a core pillar that bonds us. We track the boys and young men in our community, speak about them, set up rites of passage, mentor them, and offer blessings.

Circling Canada

Circling Canada continues to introduce thousands of people to the medicine of Authentic Relating and Circling. Thousands have experienced the Level 1 weekend immersion and been left with an awareness they cannot unsee. They have touched an inner possibility of what conscious, present, authentic relationship with others can feel like. More and more people are shedding their masks and embracing a way of relating that opens more opportunities for deep connection, truth, and love. My focus has shifted from primarily leading immersions to mentoring new facilitators, refining curriculum, and reaching more communities.

The man I am becoming

I am learning to slow down, open my heart, walk in gratitude, and return again and again to a consciousness of “heaven on earth.” I am embodied in my silliness, playfulness, flamboyance, queerness, and love. I hold high integrity, am impeccable with my word, and make amends when I fall short. I have done significant personal work to heal immature masculine shadows related to self-seeking, narcissism, and leaky sexual energy. I continue to clean up addictions, coping mechanisms, and behaviors that no longer serve me, including using food as a coping mechanism (emotional eating, binge eating, overeating, sugar), procrastination, avoidance, people-pleasing, fawning, and withholding.

I look for ways to feed, tend, and give to my relationships (human and non-human). My morning sadhana is a devotional practice to help Spirit move through my thoughts, actions, behaviors, feelings, words, decisions, and visions. This practice includes breathwork, yoga, meditation, and prayer. I am a skillful hunter deeply connected with earth, spirit, and mystery. I practice the core routines from 8 Shields in my daily life and relationships to embody the 8 Attributes. These routines include sit spot, ancestral skills, tracking, bird language, gratitude, wandering, story of the day, mapping, music, storyteller’s mind, and expanding the senses. I regularly spend my free time with nature friends hunting, freediving, and adventuring.

I have strong support systems outside of my partnership to hold me emotionally, call me out when needed, and keep me accountable. My life is tracked by friends, mentors, counsellors, and elders. I prioritize caring for my body and regulating my nervous system through exercise, breathwork, and meditation or sit spot.