Reintroduction: My name is Telfer.
Allow me to reintroduce myself...
Hi friends,
It has been several months since I shared anything here, and this solstice season seems the appropriate moment to share an update about the big psycho-spiritual-professional death/rebirth happening in my sphere.
Most of you know me as Veda Dave — a playful nerd sharing all things Ayurveda & Vedic Astrology. However, after 12 years of eager experiments and over-exertion leading to burnout as a solo entrepreneur, it has been something of a relief to set that identity aside for a time and let it rest while I set about serving an inspiring mission not my own.
Since April 2024, Veda Dave has gradually gone dormant as I embraced my role as Director of Events for Dr. Zach Bush.
What I didn’t know is that this was an initiation into a larger death/rebirth cycle.
Working with Zach has been inspiring & instructive in so many ways. As the year wore on, it became clear to him that I had outgrown this role. He started to insist that I restart sharing my own work with the world.
I was a bit slower to this daunting revelation, but with his provocative encouragement I’ve been steadily settling into a fresh understanding of who I’ve always been.
So please allow me to re-introduce myself.
My full name is David Telfer McConaghay.
My middle name, Telfer, is my mother’s maiden name, passed down to me through our Scottish ancestry.
There have always been pockets of people who know me as Telfer, but for some reason I never felt like I was allowed to ask everyone to call me that — even though I prefer it to David or Dave.
So, at the end of this past summer, I sought out my esteemed Uncle — one of the main characters in my life story and the only other man I know who goes by Telfer — to request & receive his blessing to claim that name as my own.
As a symbolic act, I then offered all my remaining Veda Dave business cards to the funeral pyre that is the temple at Burning Man.
A death. A rebirth.
As with the birth of any new being, the question is: who are you? With what momentum and trajectory do you enter this life?
Who is Telfer?
Here’s what I know:
Etymologically, the name Telfer comes from the French taille-fer – which literally translates as “to cut iron.” My Scottish ancestors were indeed metal-workers (alchemists?), but apparently it was also used as a nickname for a fierce warrior – iron-piercer.
Urban dictionary defines Telfer as “one who destroys without malice.” Which is… interesting.
Meditating on these given definitions, I’ve become curious about how that maps onto who I know myself to be.
To Destroy Without Malice
What does that mean?
I think of the Sun. The Sun provides all the heat & light that makes life possible on this planet, nourishing the plants that grow into food & medicine.
At the same time, the Sun makes those plants wilt and will just as soon tan our bodies as burn our skin and leave us for dead when lost in the desert.
Fire will just as soon cook your dinner as burn your house down – but either way Fire is not mad. He’s not acting out of vengeance or punishment – he is just expressing Fire’s true nature.
Likewise, a butterfly must destroy its cocoon if it is going to fly. That cocoon served its purpose, creating a container safe enough for total transformation — a caterpillar’s tomb, a butterfly’s womb.
The butterfly has no malice toward the cocoon, but nonetheless needs to break it in order to live out its innate purpose.
And so it is with both personal & planetary evolution.
Embracing my true nature as Telfer, “one who destroys without malice,” I realize this is what I’ve always done with Ayurveda & Astrology – helping people break down the limiting conditions of their old self in order to make space for a more authentic, up-to-date identity to arise and express itself.
This is what I intend to do more explicitly moving forward. Ayurveda & Vedic Astrology will always be part of what I do, but the theory & practice of Internal Family Systems and the Animas Valley approach to Wild Mind guiding are taking center stage.
With this in mind, I’ve created Ecotone Academy in order to offer embodied education for the evolution from ego to eco – helping people shed the too-small skin of their egocentric self and step into their true identity as an ecocentric individual intimately interwoven within the web of all beings.
I’ll be sharing more about the how, what and most importantly why of this fresh expression, but for now, I’m just grateful that you’re here with me on the journey.
The earth itself is in the midst of a massive identity transformation, and I believe we are wise to be consciously evolving alongside her.
Until next time, many blessings from your friend,
