Byron McMillan is the founder of Elder Fire Collective (EFC), a soul guide practice rooted in the conviction that midlife is not a crisis to manage but a chrysalis to inhabit. Drawing on decades of formation — as a decorated U.S. Army veteran, Fortune 500 operations leader, pastoral minister, community organizer under Dr. John Perkins, and a decade of contemplative practice through Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation — Byron guides people through the deep transitions that reshape identity, purpose, and belonging. EFC’s work is grounded in Black wisdom traditions, Ubuntu philosophy, mythographic practice, and the elemental language of fire and threshold. Byron is currently in formation as a soul guide through Leon Vanderpol’s Center for Transformation and as a griot through Martin Shaw’s School of Myth.

Byron also serves as a coach with Chipmunk Punk Coaching and a consultant with Community Equip’d — both committed to culturally competent leadership development and nonprofit capacity building for visionaries and changemakers driving social change. He brings to this work his lived experience across community organizing, outdoor and environmental education, and contemplative ministry.

Based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Byron and his partner Tamara are co-developing Terra Curativa, an emerging permaculture and desert living community rooted in the Bosque. He holds that the work of transformation — personal and communal — is always a return: Sankofa. What we retrieve from the past is the fire we need for what’s ahead.