UNKNOWN

At the edge, when even breath became a struggle, Tanner Critz found himself laid low—not in the wilderness, but in his own home, a shell of the man who once walked the Appalachian Trail. End to Beginning is a raw and luminous account of what happened next: a journey not across mountains, but into the depths of memory, mystery, and healing.

Guided by a friend, he enters the world of Ayahuasca ceremony in a suburban house, far from the jungles of South America but no less potent. The book recounts four transformative retreats over the course of two-and-a-half years, where the author battles despair, dredges up long-buried guilt, and confronts both his past and his potential with astonishing vulnerability.

There are no easy revelations here. What unfolds is equal parts psychedelic, psychological, and mythic: visions of flesh, heart, energy, and power. As the ceremonies progress, Critz learns to let go—not just of illness, but of the identity that illness had transformed. What emerges is not the return of an old self, but the shaping of a new one.

Told with warmth, grit, and flashes of the surreal, End to Beginning is a memoir of healing, fatherhood, and initiation into life after collapse. It stands as a companion piece to End to Ending—a second trail, walked inward, toward the root of suffering and the strange, luminous possibility of joy.

Tanner is a lifelong seeker, storyteller, and teacher whose path winds through wilderness trails, martial arts dojos, and deep journeys of the spirit. At twenty-one, he thru-hiked the entire Appalachian Trail, an experience that reshaped his young adulthood and ignited a lifelong hunger for meaningful adventure. Thirty years later, after surviving a near-death illness that left him unable to continue his life's work, he found healing and transformation through the ceremonial use of ayahuasca. His memoirs-End to Ending and End to Beginning-bookend these two defining journeys.In both works, Tanner explores what it means to step away from the life we're handed and move toward the one our soul demands. With an eye for poetic detail and a reverence for hard-earned truth, his writing illuminates the path from breakdown to rebirth.Tanner is the founder and head instructor of Unity Martial Arts, a community dojo that weaves together Cuong Nhu, Brazilian Jiujitsu, and Tai Chi to develop power, presence, and deep connection. His teaching and writing share a common thread: transformation through discipline, vulnerability, and the courage to walk into the unknown. He lives and teaches in Little Rock, Arkansas with his wife and two sons, where he continues to explore the sacred space between endings and beginnings.