The Story

I LEARNED EVERYTHING BY LAMPLIGHT, AND BY HELPING MASAN. I was raised between worlds. My great-grandmother Masan taught me to run at dawn with a stone in my mouth, on the high land of Black Mesa. My Lithuanian grandfather drove twenty-five miles of dirt road often in my childhood to sit in our hogan and pass on a tradition that had survived Soviet suppression. And by the light of a kerosene lamp, books and letters arrived from farther still — Switzerland, Lithuania, Japan — and a boy with no electricity read his way toward a wider world. Three lineages. One lesson, told three ways: the old people knew how to live, and they left us the tools. It began with Masan. On the worst winter nights, when the ewes were lambing in the dark, she would bundle me up and we would walk down into the canyon by flashlight — two cones of light moving through the black, the snow lit up inside them. She knew everything. Thousands of years of knowing how to live, walking beside me in the snow, holding a light. She woke me before dawn every morning — not with an alarm, but with a hand on my shoulder: "The Holy People are walking. Don't let them find you asleep." The teaching was constant, across all three of my bloodlines. The stone breath came down from Masan's father, Keh Yazh, a champion runner who carried a smooth stone in his mouth to keep his breath steady and his mind calm. The endurance and the songs came through my Lithuanian line, kept alive through fifty years when singing them could cost you everything. And the discipline of refinement — the one breath, the bowl mended with gold — came in the books that crossed the ocean to find me by lamplight. Three traditions. The same insistence: live with intention. For a while, I forgot all of it. After we lost Masan, I tried to become someone else, and I failed — not a class, but at being someone I wasn't. What brought me back wasn't rest. It was an aunt who handed me a broom, an uncle who put me on the fire, the old plants gathered by hand on the ridge — and a phone call to my grandfather, who reminded me that his own father had smuggled forbidden books across a border so our language would survive. You forgot your grammar, he said. But the book hasn't been burned. It's just waiting for you to open it again. Out on the land, and in those words, something I had forgotten came back — just enough to remember who I was, and what I carried. The old ways are not relics. They are technology — the most advanced technology for human survival. And they had been with me the whole time.

And here is the part I still can't quite believe. That table — the small one from the hogan, the one I was so proud of as a boy, the one I'd want every visitor to notice the moment they ducked through the door — I found it again years later. I refurbished it with my own hands. It sits in front of me now. Every word of these books is written on it. Every tool I teach was shaped at it. The same surface where, by the yellow circle of a kerosene lamp, the whole world once came up the mesa to find me — books from Switzerland, letters from Lithuania, a boy reading and writing his way toward a life he couldn't yet imagine. I am still writing by that lamp. The light was never meant to stay in one hogan.

Here is what I have found. The tools did not make my life simple. I have achieved things I once couldn't imagine — degrees, a body of work, a growing family, a place in two worlds. And still: there are aging elders to care for, responsibilities that pull in every direction, hard seasons, real grief, the ordinary hiccups that never stop coming. Achievement doesn't end the challenges. A full life is the challenges. That is exactly why these tools matter. They were never meant to deliver you to some finished, peaceful place where nothing goes wrong. They were built by people who lived hard lives on hard land — to be carried into the difficulty. To steady you in it. To help you meet the next thing, and the next, with a clear mind and an open chest. You will not arrive at a life without storms. You will become someone who knows how to stand in one.

TWO DECADES OF LEADING THE CIRCLE I have spent the years since carrying these tools forward — and letting them carry me. From a hogan with no electricity to an MBA, and now the final rounds of a PhD, with a dissertation on how three ancestral traditions — Diné, Lithuanian, and Japanese — each developed their own technologies for regulating the nervous system and meeting life's hardest challenges. For more than twenty years, I have led wellness workshops and talking circles for audiences of every kind — universities and school boards, physicians and psychologists, executive teams and founders, and communities working to recover wisdom that displacement and time had nearly taken. I have brought this work to world-class healing places such as Rancho La Puerta and now 1440 Multiversity. This is the heart of it: the tools our grandparents taught — across three cultures and many more — were built for one purpose. Not to deliver us to a life without difficulty, but to help us meet the difficulties that never stop coming, with a clear mind and an open heart. That is a human inheritance. It belongs to you, whatever blood you carry.

Begin Journey with the book Stone Breath

Join me at 1440

WHERE THE STONE BREATH BEGAN From the Prologue of Stone Breath In the late 1800s, Keh Yazh — called Sore Foot — lived on Big Mountain. Every morning he ran east, small pebble stone on his tongue, breath counted, eyes soft on the horizon. Then he worked: a large flock of sheep, corn fields that demanded constant attention. He did not train for races. He trained because that was the way. He trained with sweats, with diet, with ceremony. He kept a museum of proof in his mind — every hard run, every time he pushed through. When word came of a twenty-mile race against Hopi, Zuni, Apache, and men from the Plains, Keh Yazh prepared as he always prepared. His family rode with him for days. They camped among strangers. The prayers and teachings were for his mind as much as his body. He needed to withstand all kinds of challenges — different cultures, different ceremonies, sometimes words that cut, sometimes spiritual battles. But Keh Yazh did not go to fight. He went to run. He prayed for clean lungs, for strong legs, and for a clear mind that would not react to provocation. He ran with the stone on his tongue, breath locked to his stride. When fatigue hit, he softened his eyes to the whole horizon and let his mind go silent. He did not look back. He finished strong. Then he went back to the sheep and the corn. His ancestors had done the same for thousands of years. He passed the practice to Masan. Masan passed it to Tonas. Now it passes to you. ABOUT THE BOOK Stone Breath follows Tonas Yazzie as he carries his grandfather's most treasured possession to a Lithuanian village he has never seen — and discovers that the code for a good life was never lost. It was only waiting to be remembered. It is a novel and a field guide in one. A love story, a homecoming, and a hundred-mile race woven together with twenty ancestral tools — drawn from Diné, Lithuanian, and Japanese lineages, and confirmed by modern science. Tools for breath, for grief, for courage, for belonging. Simple enough to carry in your pocket. Old enough to have carried your ancestors. Some books you read. This one you keep close — like a stone in your pocket. Begin the journey below. ↓

COMING THIS SUMMER

THE COUNCIL FIRE

The Original Instructions for a Breaking World ·

Book Three of The Ancestral Watch Series

The seventh generation is watching.

In a world running out of the old fuel, The Council Fire asks the one question that matters — will this honor those who come after us? — and answers it the way our ancestors did, across four continents and twelve keepers of forgotten knowledge.

This is the big one. The book that lifts these tools out of one life and sets them against the largest question we face: how a people — how a world — remembers an older, wiser way to live.

The fire has been lit the whole time. It is your turn to carry it.

Coming this summer. Be at the fire when it's lit —

Gifts to Carry with you
the Stone Breath and Gratitude

Before you enter a big meeting or competition, take a Stone Breath. If a small pebble stone is nearby, please pick up one and hold in your hand. If not imagine one. Look at it, feel its journey over the centuries. Close your eyes, Inhale deeply 4 counts, hold 4 counts, exhale 6 counts, hold 4 counts. Repeat 4 more times, acknowledging what uplifts you. Now how do you feel? This is a state we learned from stories of my great Grandmother Masan. This is the start of meaningful transformation.

With Masan — my great-grandmother and first teacher. Everything I carry, I carry because of her. This is my gratitude.

With my grandfather. He lived to 103. This is where the teachings come from.

Success Journal

They Tried to Erase a Whole People. Now They're the Happiest Nation on Earth.

A story about Lithuania — and about what survival actually looks like. I'm Diné and Lithuanian. Two peoples who were supposed to disappear. Neither one did. I write a lot about my Navajo side — the language, the sheep, the ceremonies that survived. But today I'm standing in a Lithuanian solstice festival in California, weaving crowns and singing the old songs, and I want to tell you about my other bloodline. Because their story of survival is one of the most stunning in the w

It's here. Stone Breath, Ancestral Code for Modern Lives. Born on the solstice, on purpose

Labas, broliai ir seserys 🌿🇱🇹 Ya'at'eeh Šiandien — Rasos. The solstice. The night our people have never slept through. Tonight, somewhere, a Lithuanian is lighting a fire on a hill. Weaving a vainikas of oak and fern. Singing the dainos our great-grandparents sang — the same songs they kept alive in their kitchens through fifty years when singing them could cost you everything. And they did keep them. That's why we're still here. That's why today the happiest young people

The Lithuanian Book Smugglers, the Song Keepers, and the Man Who Raced Hills Into His 70s

Early 1900s. A man leaves Lithuania. Not because he wants to. Because the Tsar has banned his language, his alphabet, his songs. The punishment for speaking Lithuanian in public is exile to Siberia. The punishment for teaching a child to read their mother tongue is prison. So he walks through forests at night. He carries books hidden under hay in a wagon. He crosses borders that don't want him. He boards a ship in the dark. He arrives in America with nothing. Maybe twenty dol

30,000 Years of Wellness Wisdom — Now a PhD, a Book Series, and a Movement

This week I keynoted for Apache, Hopi, and Navajo grant school board members. Last minute invitation and I said yes. I always say yes to this kind of work. Before the call I sat down and did what Masan taught me. Fifteen minutes. Stone breath. The practice her father passed to her, and she passed to me before I could even read. I wasn't nervous. I was ready. I opened with stories about her, my first teacher. Big Mountain. No electricity. Kerosene lamp. Four hundred sheep outs

The Global Ancestral Code for Living to 100

By Tony Skrelūnas, Diné/Lithuanian, MBA, Phd Candidate “Sʼah naaghai bikʼe hózhó.” Walk in beauty. Live long. Die wise. — Diné Blessing Way, Hozhoonji “Ikigai.” A reason for being. The intersection of what you love, what you are good at, what the world needs, and what you can be supported for. — Okinawan life philosophy, Blue Zone principle “Sveikata — tai ne tik kūno būklė. Tai ryšys su žeme, su šeima, su daina.” Health is not only the condition of the body. It is the

Innovations in AI and Robotics Driving Solutions for Climate Change and Emerging Markets

Climate change demands urgent action, and technology is stepping up with new tools to meet this challenge. Artificial intelligence and robotics are no longer confined to labs or factories. They are now active players in agriculture, environmental management, commerce, and wellness. These technologies are reshaping how we adapt to a warming planet and create new economic opportunities. This article explores how AI and robotics combine to fight forest fires, support indigenous

The Silent Theft: How the World Wastes Its Most Precious Resource—And How We Can Reclaim It

Note from the Author, Tony Skrelunas, MBA, Phd Candidate The stories in this article are not abstract to me. They are written on the faces of my relatives. I have uncles with the same quiet dignity and profound, nature-taught wisdom as Jerry. I have witnessed brilliant minds in my community, like Maya, slowly dim under the weight of systemic neglect. The Navajo Nation, my home, has been strategically overlooked for generations, its gifts to the world conveniently forgotten. A

The Final Council: Architecting a Post-Extraction Future for Economics and Technology

By Tony Skrelunas, MBA, Phd Candidate, Navajo/Lithuanian, Transitional Economic Leader Co-Founder of the Protectors of the Seventh Generation The Dream of the Protocol It begins with a dream. Not a gentle wish, but a solemn, recurring vision that arrives with the weight of prophecy. In it, I walk through a world both familiar and shattered by the legacy of a single, flawed operating system: an economics of extraction and a technology of domination. But from this silence, a ne

Seeds of the Ancestors: A Lithuanian-Navajo-Hopi Journey to Remember Our Food, Our Stories, and Ourselves

A Personal Prologue: The Global Ancestral Table My life's work exists at the intersection of global systems and ancestral wisdom. Currently, as part of my PhD research, I am deconstructing the very frameworks of sustainable development, arguing that the most resilient models are not new innovations, but ancient principles waiting to be remembered. This journey is the heartbeat of my heritage. I am Lithuanian, from a lineage of forest-dwellers and amber traders on the chilly s

WHY TRIBEAWAKEN EXISTS

Every person on Earth has it.

Your ancestors had the procedure — refined across thousands of generations — to win the gold medal. To build the change-making business with a heart and a soul. To raise a family with honor. To make sure everyone shared in the prosperity, now and seven generations forward.

Most of the world has wandered away from these teachings.

Most societies no longer have an elder. Most families no longer have a wise one to turn to. Most companies and most nations now run on mission statements, vision statements, return on investment, and quarterly goals — and almost nothing else. The deeper operating system is gone.

I have been lucky.

I was raised in both worlds. Taught the ancestral procedures by my great-grandparents on Black Mesa, who lived them every day — honor, laughter, hard work, ancient farming, sheep herding, the morning prayer. Educated in the highest tiers of business, governance, and now scholarly research. I walked the boardroom and the dawn run. The negotiation table and the sheep camp. The PhD seminar and the morning prayer.

Seven years ago, I created TribeAwaken.Com to give back.

To uplift the neighbor. To strengthen the community. To recover the tools. To carry the teachings forward — for every individual, every family, every company, every nation ready to remember.

The teachings are still here. They are in your DNA. In your grandmother's kitchen. In the songs your culture almost forgot to pass on.

The work is to help you find your code.

— Tony Skrelūnas

Work With Me

THE PRACTICE

ROOTED Raised traditionally on Black Mesa by his great-grandparents. Taught from childhood to greet the morning gods and carry the Stone Breath discipline. Lifelong practitioner of Diné, Lithuanian, and Japanese traditions. Competitive runner. Long-distance racer. A body still in motion.

SCHOLAR PhD candidate formalizing how ancestral wisdom can inform world-class wellness, high-performance human development, and supporting technologies. MBA from Northern Arizona University. NAU Alumni Centennial Alumni Awardee, Graduation Standard Bearer, and the only Lithuanian and Native American descent in the NAU College of Business Hall of Fame.

COACH High-performance coaching for CEOs, founders, executives, and world-class athletes. Specializes in breakthrough work, performance blockages, threshold transitions, and high-stakes negotiations using ancestral practices formalized through PhD research.

GROWTH PARTNER Currently advising on all phases of a world-class hospital and wellness village development. Selectively partnering with additional global institutions in healthcare, technology, hospitality, and wellness on systems-level design and transformation. Background. Three decades operating at the highest levels of governance, enterprise, and tribal economic development — the boardroom and the dawn run, the negotiation table and the sheep camp. I've built things that lasted. These tools are how.

KEYNOTE & RETREAT LEADER Currently delivering keynote talks and leading immersive multi-day retreats and residencies for executive teams, leadership conferences, wellness institutions, and global gatherings. Topics include high-performance leadership rooted in ancestral wisdom, breakthrough thinking for CEOs and founders, the operating system of regenerative wellness, and the future of human development. Conducting an executive performance and wellness residency at a world-class institution in Scotts Valley, California, summer 2026. Booking selectively for 2026 and 2027 for keynotes, executive offsites, multi-day intensives, and curated retreats worldwide.

AUTHOR Currently writing The Ancestral Watch series weaving Diné, Lithuanian, and Japanese ancestral lineages into a practical framework for living and leading. The first book is published. Writing is focused on ancestral intelligence, leadership, performance, and regenerative systems published regularly at AncestralWatchPress: https://payhip.com/AncestralWatchPress

What people ask before they reach out. Answers to the questions that matter most. Q1. What is ancestral wisdom-informed coaching, and who is it for? This work is for people who are already capable and successful — and who sense there is more available to them. Coaching with Tony serves leaders, founders, athletes, and individuals who want to overcome personal blocks, deepen the meaningful practices they already have, take their craft to the next level, and gain more wisdom in their lives. The frameworks draw on Diné, Lithuanian, and Japanese traditions — refined across thousands of years of human performance, presence, and right relationship. The results apply to any person from any background, in any field. Q2. Is Tony open to working with people of all backgrounds and nationalities? Yes. Clients come from many backgrounds globally — tribal executives, tech founders, hospital CEOs, athletes, and enterprise leaders across continents. The ancestral wisdom Tony draws on belongs to no single people — it is humanity's shared inheritance. Diné Hózhó, Japanese Ichigo Ichie, Lithuanian Talka — these are technologies that serve any person willing to do the work. What matters is whether you are serious. Q3. What tools and practices are shared in the work? Tony shares a growing toolkit of practices drawn from his lineage and decades of refinement — the Stone Breath, the Dawn Gratitude, the Centering, the Three Questions, the Mantra Anchor, and many more. Several are freely available at AncestralWatch.com for anyone to use. Tony is also developing AncestralPeaks.com — a forthcoming app curating wellness, positivity, and uplift sessions, and creating space for shared practice across a global community. Coaching clients receive personalized practices calibrated to their season, their work, and their goals. Q4. What does a coaching engagement with Tony look like month to month? It depends on the person and the season they are in. Some months are strategic — clarity around direction, decision-making, leadership at scale. Some months are somatic — Stone Breath, the ancestral toolkit, presence under pressure. Some months are creative — writing, building, breaking through to the next level. There is no fixed curriculum because no two people face the same terrain at the same time. The engagement is calibrated continuously. Q5. Can Tony work with my whole organization, not just individual leaders? Yes. Two of the six tiers are organizational. The Growth Partner work is full institutional engagement across all phases of design and transformation. The Keynote & Retreat Leader work brings the framework directly to executive teams, leadership conferences, and wellness institutions. Both engage the whole organization, not just its leadership. Q6. Where is Tony based, and does he work with clients globally? Tony is based in Arizona and is launching active in-person engagements in Santa Cruz and Silicon Valley beginning summer 2026. He works with global clients remotely and travels for in-person intensives. His clients span tribal governments, Silicon Valley tech firms, hospital systems, robotics firms, and international enterprises. Geography is not a barrier to the work. Q7. I'm not a CEO or a famous athlete — can I still work with Tony? Yes. The work is for anyone serious about their own growth. Clients have included leaders at every level, founders building their first venture, athletes mid-career, parents navigating transitions, and individuals seeking deeper meaning. What matters is not your title — it is your readiness to do the work. Tony coaches a small number of people each year across many walks of life. Q8. Are there free resources I can explore first? Yes. The Stone Breath, the Dawn Gratitude, and other tools from The Ancestral Watch book series are freely available at AncestralWatch.com. Take what helps. Use what serves. They are yours. Q9. How do I begin? Submit a brief request for a discovery conversation through the contact page. Engagements are limited and by invitation. Please include your role, your organization or field, what you are working through, and what you would want from a coaching engagement. Tony reviews every request personally and responds within seven days if there is a fit.

ANSWERS TO FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

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