March 29, 2025
My involvement with The Warrior Sanctuary emerged naturally from my personal awakening.
After decades of building my team-building company, cityHUNT, I experienced a profound shift in 2019 that drew me toward yoga, meditation, and indigenous healing practices.
My path crossed with my godfather, Itzhak Beery, who has devoted nearly three decades to working alongside indigenous communities in South America.
Through him, I connected with Chris “Kanyini” and Paige “Zai’ra” Benson, whose vision of making ancient wisdom accessible deeply resonated with me.
I became a founding circle member of The Warrior Sanctuary and now serve on its board.
Creating Sacred Spaces in Ecuador
One of our first initiatives—and one particularly close to my heart—was establishing an indigenous retreat center in the lush forests of Mindo, Ecuador.
This sacred space serves a vital purpose: providing a safe haven where tribal elders can share their teachings, preserving wisdom that might otherwise disappear due to colonization, resource extraction, and cultural displacement.
The ceremonial house, known as a maloca, holds special significance for me. It’s named after my father, Igal, who was Itzhak’s closest friend and who passed away when I was just 14.
Creating this space feels like honoring his memory while building a bridge between generations and cultures.
At Amaroo (as the center is called), indigenous wisdom keepers can teach their practices, while people from around the world can learn approaches to healing and connection refined over thousands of years.
It’s a place of cultural exchange and preservation that honors the original stewards of these traditions.
Bringing Ancient Wisdom Home
While our work in Ecuador remains vital, we’re equally committed to making these practices accessible closer to home.
In both Atlanta and New York, we’re creating opportunities for people to experience yoga, meditation, breath work, and other ancient practices through sliding scale and donation-based models.
In my own community near Atlanta, I’ve been supporting practitioners who offer free meditation classes, yoga sessions, sound healing, and other modalities.
Our approach is straightforward but effective: those with financial means sponsor others, while those with limited resources participate at reduced rates or even for free.
Most people pay a fair middle price that keeps the system sustainable. This model dismantles the economic barriers that typically limit access to wellness practices.
Too often, these powerful traditions become exclusive luxury experiences available only to those with disposable income.
We’re actively working to transform that paradigm, making ancient wisdom accessible to everyone, regardless of their financial situation.
Why This Matters Today
In our fast-paced, technology-saturated world, we’ve drifted away from our innate connection to nature, our bodies, and each other.
While modern medicine and science have delivered remarkable advances, they sometimes overlook the wisdom preserved in indigenous and traditional healing systems.
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed what many had already been experiencing: a profound mental health crisis affecting communities across the spectrum, particularly those facing economic and social disparities.
Anxiety, depression, trauma, addiction, and sleep problems have reached epidemic proportions.
Ancient wisdom traditions offer proven approaches for addressing these challenges—not replacing modern methods, but complementing them.
These practices have been refined over thousands of years to support human flourishing and deserve a place alongside our contemporary approaches to wellness.
The Sanctuary’s Approach
At The Warrior Sanctuary, we concentrate on three core areas: education about holistic healing practices, access to transformative events and experiences, and creating physical spaces where people can reconnect with themselves and others.
We honor the lineages and individuals who have preserved these traditions through countless challenges, ensuring future generations can access their birthright of wellness practices.
Our work aims to reconnect people with their innate capacity for healing and growth, fostering more balanced individuals and communities.
The spaces we create are thoughtfully designed to support transformation.
Through drum circles, holistic healing courses, sound journeys, yoga classes, meditation retreats, and Reiki sessions, we provide environments where both teachers and students can explore ancient practices in contemporary settings.
A Personal Connection
For me, The Warrior Sanctuary represents the perfect integration of my lifelong passion for creating meaningful experiences with my newfound appreciation for ancient wisdom.
Throughout my career with cityHUNT, I’ve witnessed how play and connection transform workplaces and relationships.
Now, I’m applying those same insights to wellness and spiritual development.
After my own awakening experience in 2019, I realized how profoundly these practices had changed my life.
I lost 50 pounds, dramatically improved my health, and developed a completely different relationship with myself and others.
Having experienced these benefits firsthand, I’m passionate about making them available to everyone.
Living at Serenbe, a wellness-focused community on 2,000 acres outside Atlanta, I’ve witnessed firsthand how intentional environments foster transformation.
Our work with The Warrior Sanctuary applies this same principle—creating spaces where healing and growth emerge naturally.
Looking Forward
As we continue developing The Warrior Sanctuary, I envision expanding our reach while maintaining our commitment to accessibility.
We’re forging partnerships with like-minded organizations, developing online resources that complement in-person experiences, and documenting indigenous wisdom (with appropriate permissions) to preserve it for future generations.
I believe these ancient practices offer profound solutions to modern challenges—from mental health struggles to environmental degradation to social disconnection.
By making them accessible to all, we’re not just preserving traditions; we’re revitalizing them for today’s world.
Through The Warrior Sanctuary, I combine my entrepreneurial experience with my passion for wellness and ancient wisdom.
It perfectly expresses my belief that when we connect authentically with ourselves, others, and the natural world, everything else falls into place.
Whether you seek healing, growth, or simply a deeper connection to yourself and others, The Warrior Sanctuary offers a pathway to explore ancient wisdom in accessible, contemporary ways. I invite you to join us on this journey of discovery and transformation.