Personal Mentorship Program
Connecting with your true Nature
Personal Mentorship Program
Connecting with your true Nature
You know when something's out of alignment.
There's a way through this.
The first thing is to take a deep breath.
We'll go from there.
Every problem has a solution.
We approach it in two ways.
First, we understand your immediate concerns -
what brought you here - and we address them directly.
Second, if you're ready for deeper work, you walk the SACRED PATH to discover yourself as a full entity and find the tools to navigate your life going forward.
What changes is empowerment.
You see your situation clearly and who you wish to be within it. You receive a new framework - one that places you and nature at the centre, orienting you within natural rhythms and cycles.
You get new tools to work with your patterns.
Where you once spiralled downward,
you now have a foundation that holds.
If you fall, you know how to bring yourself back.
And from there, you rise.
Align with 1:1 mentorship.
The SACRED PATH
a 1:1 structured mentorship
with Founder and Mentor Das Lyon.
The full online journey of personal empowerment and healing, through a structured, three-month rite of passage.
You discover who you actually are,
where you've come from,
and the inherent power within you.
You find the wisdom of your ancestry and nature.
You develop the courage to act from truth.
By the end, you have clarity on who you are
and how to navigate your life consciously.
You learn to become your own master.
US$660 per quarter.
Online, international, one-on-one, ongoing access.
Open to all 21+, application required.
The Sacred Grove
Across the ancient world, sacred groves were places set apart for encounter, teaching and initiation.
The Celts, Greeks and other global traditions gathered in dedicated groves where ritual, philosophy, healing and instruction took place. Particular trees, rocks, springs and woodland places are still sites of knowledge for communion with the living world. In Africa, sacred forests and groves have continued this tradition - places where elders impart wisdom, ceremonies are held, ancestral knowledge is transmitted and people encounter the natural world as teacher rather than resource.
The Sacred Grove belongs to this older understanding of learning. It is a living classroom where knowledge is not simply received, but experienced.
How the mentorships work
A progressive development of four human capacities:
AIR
See clearly.
Learn to distinguish reality from assumption, noise from signal, reaction from perception.
WATER
Feel deeply.
Develop the capacity to meet emotion, grief, relationship, vulnerability and the parts of yourself that intellect cannot resolve.
EARTH
Stand firmly.
Build foundations: body, environment, responsibility, values, habits, relationships and the practical structures that hold a life.
FIRE
Act decisively.
Turn understanding into action. Speak. Choose. Commit. Change. Create.
The first thing is to listen- to hear where you're at now and the main issues you are aware of.
Then we deal with those in order of priority.
We will follow a holistic system to make sure we address the whole you - a medicine wheel if you like.
You begin with Air - clarity, conscious breathwork
and focus.
We will work with the archetype of the Father,
addressing what needs to be healed and honoured.
Through journeys, tasks, rites, guided meditation, breathwork, somatic work and our Health & Soul Audit,
you prepare yourself for real change.
Your first threshold marks the entry into deeper work.
From there, you move through Water - emotion, depth. You work with the archetype of the Grandmother, navigate grief and the emotional body
with tools that last.
Then Earth - the Mother, grounding, foundation, strength. You build the solid ground beneath you, understanding your place in the world and what sustains you.
Then through Grandfather Fire - courage and action.
You kindle the will to move forward, to speak your truth,
to do what needs to be done.
Each element takes three months.
You learn to work with each in turn.
Each has its own framework, archetypes, myth,
function, somatic work, tools and threshold rite.
You spiral upward through the medicine wheel, each return bringing deeper understanding, until you navigate yourself consciously from your own centre.
And you can repeat the process as an Apprentice
This is not theory.
This is ancient, lived, embodied work.
The Sacred Grove is the real thing.
Led by mentor, artist and author Das Lyon, MA, BA(Hons), BTech, FREC3, CPO
1:1 Nature-based Mentorship for adults at significant life thresholds.
There are times in life when the way forward is no longer obvious. This is where we work together.
At the Sacred Grove, Das offers 1:1 mentorship for men and women ready to make meaningful changes and create their own way forward.
The Sacred Path is a structured journey grounded in nature, embodied development and threshold initiations for people facing transition, difficult decisions, repeating patterns or questions of purpose.
His approach has been shaped by decades across multiple professional fields, giving him a practical understanding of how people perceive, respond to pressure, make decisions and find their way through change.
For more than 35 years, Das has studied and practised martial arts, earning black belts across multiple disciplines and teaching close-quarter combat. He is a licensed hostile environment close protection operator and first-response medic and also volunteers as a local wilderness firefighter.
For over a decade he has guided men and women through wilderness immersions, vision quests and rites of passage. His work with indigenous plant knowledge led to the publication of 50 South African Medicinal Plants. As a qualified iQhira, a traditional herbalist and healer, he has worked with nature-based practices and traditional approaches to healing.
He is a long-standing student of psychology, mythology and anthropology and has spent meaningful time with the Jawoyn people of Northern Australia and the Bedouin culture of Arabia, amongst others.
Alongside mentoring, Das is an artist and sculptor working across bronze, figurative sculpture, painting, drawing and printmaking. His art explores our relationship with Nature, mystery and being human.
Before dedicating himself more fully to mentorship, Das worked as a design director and architect, leading award-winning international projects across the UK, Middle East and Africa. After designing the largest retail store in Europe, he became a consultant to the Dubai Ministry of Arts and Culture.
He later designed and built one of South Africa's first luxury, off-grid homesteads in a remote forest setting, regenerating the land in the process.
Das brings his experience, perception and perspective to the journey, helping each person develop the clarity, courage and self-knowledge to walk their own path.
The mentor walks beside you.
The path remains your own.
2026 Offerings
ONGOING 1:1 MENTORSHIP
'The SACRED PATH'
Apply when you're ready & begin with AIR.
WILD MAN PAFURI
Next initiation: July 15th, 2027
We journey next season!
WILD MAN PAFURI
Open for 2027 bookings
A six-day wilderness initiation
A six-day journey through wilderness, silence, fire, and brotherhood.
This trail is the deepest initiatory work of the year and is intentionally limited in size.
Dates
• July 15th - 22nd, 2027
Investment
R22,500 (SA Residents)
$ 1,750 (Non-SA Resident Rate)
Format
• Men only
• Maximum 7 participants
• Application required
Focus
• wilderness immersion
• elemental rites
• personal reckoning and return
• brotherhood forged through shared ordeal
This is for men ready to step fully into responsibility and truth.
A deep, elemental journey through wilderness, animals, silence, and true brotherhood.
Held in the African wilderness area in Pafuri, Kruger, on the border with Zimbabwe, this primitive MEN’S REWILDING TRAIL is your best chance at real adventure left in the world today.
A journey through the outer and inner wilderness by a unique combination of world class guides.