Coming Soon in February 2026
A 9-Week Video Immersion
 

Traditional Wisdom for Challenging Times

A 9-Week Video Immersion

(This Course serves as a pre-requisite for the upcoming Sacred Leadership 6-month Program)

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Many of us feel it.

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The sense that the world is shifting faster than we can orient.

 

That old systems are straining. That something essential is being tested—not just socially or politically, but at the level of culture, relationship, and spirit. These are not new conditions.  Human beings have faced upheaval, loss, uncertainty, and collapse many times before. Indigenous and ancestral cultures did not merely survive such periods—they developed ways of seeing, relating, and living that allowed them to endure without losing their humanity.

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Traditional Wisdom for Challenging Times is a nine-week immersion exploring those ways of knowing.

Taught by Tony Ten Fingers, mentor, storyteller, and author, alongside Nate Summers, survival skills instructor, author, and nature mentor, this course offers guidance rooted in lived tradition and practical experience rather than theory or trend.

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This is not about adopting an identity or copying a culture.
 

It is about remembering how human beings have always learned to meet difficult times—together, in relationship, and with humility.

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Course Format

• 9 weeks of recorded teachings

• 2–3 live gatherings per month for dialogue, reflection, and integration

• All sessions recorded and available for viewing at your convenience

• Course begins February 2026

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Core Themes We Will Explore

Rather than following a rigid system, this course moves through interconnected themes that have guided human beings through uncertainty, disruption, and renewal across cultures and generations. These themes are not presented as beliefs to adopt, but as ways of orienting, relating, and acting in challenging times.

 

Right Relationship

At the heart of traditional wisdom is relationship.

We explore what it means to live in right relationship with land, ancestors, community, and self—not as an abstract idea, but as a lived practice rooted in responsibility and reciprocity. Participants are invited to consider how imbalance in relationship shows up in modern life, and how repairing relationship becomes a foundation for resilience, belonging, and continuity.

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Abundance, Gratitude, and the Wópila Tradition

Many traditional cultures did not orient around scarcity, even in hard times. They oriented around gratitude, generosity, and abundance rooted in relationship.

Drawing from the Lakota understanding of Wóphila—gratitude as a way of living—we explore how thankfulness, humility, and giving shape both individual character and communal strength. This theme reframes abundance not as accumulation, but as awareness, participation, and care for what is already present.

Participants will reflect on how gratitude functions as a stabilizing force during uncertainty, and how generosity—of time, attention, and effort—strengthens culture.

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Endurance Without Panic

Traditional peoples learned to endure without being ruled by fear.

This theme explores long-view thinking, emotional regulation, patience, and disciplined response in times of stress. Rather than reacting to every disturbance, resilient cultures learned when to act, when to wait, and when to conserve energy.

Participants are invited to examine modern crisis patterns—panic, overreaction, burnout—and contrast them with ancestral approaches to hardship rooted in steadiness and perspective.

 

The Importance of Ceremony

Ceremony has long served as a stabilizing force in times of change.

We explore the role of ceremony in marking transitions, restoring balance, strengthening identity, and maintaining relationship with forces larger than the individual. This includes an examination of how ceremony functions—not as performance or spectacle—but as a living practice that aligns people with time, place, and purpose.

Participants will reflect on how the absence of meaningful ceremony impacts modern life, and how appropriate, grounded ceremonial practices can be honored and reintroduced with care and integrity.

 

Deep Earth and Nature Connection

For traditional cultures, nature was not a backdrop—it was a teacher, relative, and guide.

This theme focuses on rebuilding a direct, embodied relationship with land, seasons, weather, animals, and elements. Participants explore how attentiveness to the natural world sharpens awareness, steadies the nervous system, and provides orientation during uncertainty.

Through simple field practices and reflection, participants are invited to re-engage the living world as a source of guidance, resilience, and belonging.

 

Clarity of Vision and Purpose

Clear seeing has always been a survival skill.

This theme explores awareness, listening, restraint, and discernment—learning how to perceive what is actually happening rather than what we fear or assume. Participants will examine how attention, humility, and presence support better decision-making in complex or unstable conditions.

Seeing clearly also includes knowing when not to act, when to speak, and when to remain quiet.

 

Mentoring an Leadership

Traditional cultures placed great importance on mentoring—not as hierarchy, but as relationship and responsibility.

This theme explores leadership as service, guidance as stewardship, and mentorship as a long-term commitment to people and place. Participants reflect on what it means to lead without domination, to teach without ego, and to carry responsibility without seeking recognition.

We also examine how the breakdown of mentorship impacts modern communities—and how rebuilding intergenerational guidance strengthens resilience at every level.

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Carrying Wisdom Forward

Not all teachings are meant to be shared in the same way.

This theme addresses discernment, boundaries, and responsibility in carrying wisdom forward. Participants explore the difference between learning, honoring, and extracting—and what it means to be a careful carrier of teachings rather than a consumer of them.

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Walking Between Worlds

Most participants are not leaving modern life behind.

This theme focuses on living traditional values within contemporary realities—work, family, technology, and community—without losing grounding or integrity. Rather than rejecting the modern world, participants are invited to become bridges: carrying wisdom forward while remaining present and responsible where they are.

 

Practices & Integration

Each week includes:

• Simple field practices that reconnect awareness to body, land, and daily life

• Reflection and journaling prompts to integrate teachings personally

• Guidance for applying ancestral principles in modern contexts

Live sessions are designed to be alive, relational, and responsive, shaped by participant experiences and current conditions rather than fixed scripts.

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Additional Topics May Include

• Survival skills as expressions of ancestral knowledge

• Original human nature and cultural amnesia

• Relationship with the elements

• Creating meaningful ceremony in contemporary life

• Building regenerative relationships with people and place

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What You Will Be Taking With You

By the end of this immersion, participants will carry:

• Practical tools for resilience rooted in tradition and lived experience

• Greater clarity and steadiness in uncertain times

• A deeper sense of connection to land, community, and self

• A framework for living with responsibility rather than fear

• An invitation to reimagine life through humanity’s oldest ways of knowing

This course is for those who sense the ground shifting—and want to meet it with clarity, respect, and courage.

​BIPOC scholarships are available, email Nate at primalnate@gmail.com for info​

(This Course serves as a pre-requisite for the upcoming Sacred Leadership 6-month Program Late Spring/Early Summer 2026)

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