Journey Into Understandings

Part 1:  My Passage into Heart

It could be considered that there is no more sacred journey than the journey into one’s heart. It is this limitless domain possessing all possibility of self-realization and, ultimately, living a life experiencing joy. Our Heart holds a different nature of intelligence. Until its awakening, it is an intelligence resting quietly in a dormant state, void of any notion of agenda or outcome. Our heart’s resonance is a home that exists as a perpetual loving welcome. All we need do is focus our innate awareness inward, introduce ourselves to this forgotten domain of our most essential existence, and ease into the emergence of its undisturbed clarity.

As I share my story, I open my heart to you with understandings and insights that have taken many years to embody. It is what I have come to know as the disconnect from our hearts that is the root cause of trials and tribulations spanning the vastness of humanity. This exists as individual subjective perspective, all and within a collective planetary knowing of interdependence as interconnectedness.  Coming into the awareness of this is one of life’s greatest and most profound gifts. One’s journey into heart, as a joy-filled playfulness within, and as consciousness, unfolds a path where we can experience a breath of Infinity.
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Thank you for taking the journey of this story. My wish is that its voyage inspires an insight for your very own
Passage Into Heart.

Part 2:  A Life of Intangible Gifts

​This is a story of a transformational shift that has been taking place over many years of my life, years that have now turned into decades. This is a shift that does not come undone. I can only imagine there have been experiences in your life where you know absolutely for sure that you have in some way become a different person. For me, nothing could be more beautiful, awakening, empowering and tapping into such rich realms within myself than all that I have come to see as an inner knowing—by way of intense grieving. I know it might sound strange, but I can only describe my outcome of grieving as an inner “elation.” A sheer sense of freedom. A type of pure joy and connection with all that exists - people, my environment and beyond; the nature of life, consciousness, awareness within observation, and believe it or not, a notion of eternity.
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Reflecting on causation of my unbearable grief, existed a belief that my episodes of uncontrollable crying as sobbing, was the loss of a love relationship and all that was attached to this. But I have over years come to see that these thoughts and beliefs were only symptomatic of deeply embedded traumas. Clearly defined now, it was my partner in this relationship who was my spirit guide as a blessing for me having to come face-to-face with walking into the fire to identify these deep roots of past experiences.

​Part 3:  Resonance and Dissociation Aspects From My Beginning

As a child, I was far from being any kind of musical prodigy, however, I did engage in some unique explorations at the piano, holding the sustain pedal and making sounds from playing “cacophonous” clusters of sound. I remember my father sitting and reading the newspaper not really being bothered by the sonic rubs and dissonance. I would ask him if he heard the difference between me having the sustain pedal depressed and not depressed. It meant much to me that he interacted with my questioning and I have a faint memory of being surprised for some reason that his response was in fact hearing a difference in the sound. It is so interesting to me, because in much later years, the resonance of the piano played a central role in my life. Resonance and sympathetic vibration as aspects of pitch are a cornerstone of my musical and spiritual inspiration.

Part 4:  A Bit of the Dark Side

As a little guy – seven to nine years old, I was made to practice piano for 20 minutes every morning before going to school. At one point, while playing a simplified Beethoven melody, my mother, out of her own personal history of emotional frustration, told me Beethoven was rolling in his grave. Wow! I didn’t know exactly what that meant but I sensed very clearly that it wasn’t good and she did not approve of my playing. Through endless exploration, I recognize there are many possibilities as to why I, the child pianist, was the target of such hurtful communication. The most probable explanation is my mother had abandoned her own musical studies as a young adult because of her own confusions of repressed emotional expression. Sadly, this episode was just one of many instances that caused me to shut down and construct a protective wall, and in doing so, I stifled my precious emotional expressiveness.

My parents were good people. However,  they simply lacked the tools for being able to advance beyond certain stages of crucial emotional development. There has always been a tremendous amount of parental disapproval within my life, and as a result of this disapproval during my early stages of development I began lying about situations and circumstances. This inevitably led to a great deal of misbehaving and I started aligning myself with schoolmates who were, simply put, troublemakers. I knew of no other way but to skew the truth about most of my life. I was so often punished for my behaviors that I came to believe that by not telling the truth, I could protect myself. I see so clearly in hindsight that when emotional and spiritual abandonment occurs, a child is on their own—alone in the Universe. Undoubtedly, for a child, this is very difficult terrain to navigate. Emotionally, I was indeed on my own. And, so sadly in many ways, I was very much on my own in most aspects of my life.

Making things worse for my child’s impressionable conscious and subconscious mind, my maternal grandparents always sided with my mother whenever she and I had a disagreement. This continued into my teen years. I started to realize the absurdity of their perspectives which were basically steeped in and as: the child should not have an opinion. I now possess the clarity after many years of understanding the psychology of this behavior, to realize my maternal grandfather was an emotional tyrant. However, he was forced to come face to face with his own repressed emotions when my grandmother passed away. He cried in remorse and loneliness for her. This was after decades of frequent emotional and verbal abuse toward her. I now live in the depths of compassion and heartfelt understanding of all these events.

Part 5: My First Love and Auspicious Encounters

At fifteen, I discovered the great jazz pianist, Oscar Peterson. During emotionally and psychologically unhealthy, not to mention physically damaging hours of piano practice, I became obsessed with Oscar as my idol. My ego became inflated by acquiring some ability at the piano and garnering attention at school. I was more like an addict than anything else, an ego maniac with low self-esteem. I was very insecure. My playing was constricted and tense and generally lacking feel by way of a disconnect to the awareness of my heart intelligence. There were however auspicious encounters when suddenly, without knowing what I was doing, music would come through me and leave listeners in awe.

An example of this kind of overwhelming rapture occurred while I was participating in an audition for the New Jersey Allstate Jazz Ensemble. I was in my junior year of high school and the audition was held at the home of one of the directors in his teaching studio. They were associated with William Paterson University which now has one of the finest jazz departments in the United States. My dad and I drove to this home and he sat in the living room while I went upstairs to play for these two daunting educators. I successfully played all the more structurally advanced harmonies they asked for, adding some twists that impressed them. I also had to sightread some music which I did effortlessly much to my amazement. Then something out-of-body happened. I was developing the standard tune, On A Clear Day regularly in my pseudo-jazz style ala Oscar Peterson. Some lines resembled Oscar’s style and some were like Bill Evans. I was also heavily influenced by the great John Coltrane’s pianist, McCoy Tyner. The directors asked me to play for them and I shared that I would play On A Clear Day. They responded with anticipation. Then it happened: As I began to play the tune, I left my mind and body. As I was playing, all that I was hearing sounded far away from my physical ears. Something else was coming through and it was very much like the style of the great jazz pianist Bill Evans. When I finished, they were stunned. It was very quiet in the room for what seemed like a long time and I was aware that something quite “other-worldly” and definitively odd had transpired.

I have come to learn in depth, that what had taken place was me temporarily accessing a state of being “out of my own way.” Somehow, I ended up in an awareness of pure consciousness where I was listening and allowing for the information and the impulses of the music to come through. Today, we call this “the zone.” The audition was complete and we walked downstairs to meet my father. He had a rare smile of approval on his face. The two college professor/teacher/directors expressed very complimentary words to my dad. He acknowledged them and given that the experience was such a surreal blur, I really don’t remember what was discussed following the audition. I remember them asking about who I was studying with and if I had thoughts for my musical pursuits.

Part 6:  Stunned Once Again

The following week, just as I was finishing dinner with my mom and dad in the kitchen, the phone rang and I went upstairs to answer it. There was an assumption that the ringing was intended for me since a number of my friends would call regularly in the evenings. Another weirdness was that my dad did not approve of extended conversations on the phone, but being the dissociated and ego-driven teenager I was, I thought, “Too bad, I have friends” - and many of them were girls. I answered the phone and it was one the jazz ensemble directors from the audition the prior week. He was pretty much to the point with no small talk and told me that I was selected for the piano chair. This was a big deal! There was only one piano chair in the New Jersey Allstate Jazz Ensemble. New Jersey was, and still is, a very densely populated State, however, I really did not possess the capability for that chair. It was that something came through and spoke at that audition—I’d left my cognitive mind and an expanse “channeled” through me.
I became very popular at school, and struck up friendships with two new friends who were All State football players. They focused a great deal of attention on me and were great appreciators of all my musical involvement in and out of school. One of them, prior to our friendship, came to my defense when I was being harassed by one of his friends in the locker-room at gym class. Over short time, we became high school buddies. He was a great music appreciator and was very familiar with Oscar Peterson.

Part 7:  College Years and PTSD

Among all the things in my life for which I now have such heartfelt gratitude, is the vantage point I now possess. Walking a path as a devotee to “awakening unto myself” I hold as the greatest most valued treasure of appreciation and thankfulness.
Out of high School, I headed to Berklee College of Music in Boston. It was there that I developed the emotional and psychological fallout of an anxiety disorder. My family had no idea how to deal with this because it was so less accepted, then, to seek professional psychological and emotional help. In my parents’ minds, these types of insights did not exist as a viable resource. Certainly, addressing emotional issues was not part of their upbringing. This was also compounded by the societal stigmas of psychological or emotional disorders still existing at the time.

For the next few years following Berklee, I bounced around through a number of college programs as a music major. By that point, I was suffering from severe psychological and emotion trauma that rendered me in a state of fear and anxiety. None of this was diagnosed. What I have come to learn is that during my formative years, the various abuses I experienced were the breeding ground for decades to come as the formation of Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or C-PTSD.

For the next four years, I suffered from a paralyzing and frightening dependency on my parents. The depths of my clinical depression - as far as conventional diagnoses go, was horrific and life-threatening. The pain at times was unbearable, and the only relief I had was sleeping. My parents responded by letting me know how upset I was making them, expressing their disapproval of me, and finally exhibiting their pure anger. My father was less angry than my mother though. She simply did not possess the insight or tools to address how miserable she felt within her life.

I finally began to extricate myself from the depths of my situational paralysis by taking the step to move into a shared house with a couple of music-based friends. This allowed for my parents to have some recovery time as they regained their own lives. It helped their disposition toward me, and thankfully some aspects of our parent-child relationship began to improve, and through all of this, I somehow forged my way. The sad aspect is that, unknowingly, I continued to inflict such devastating self-abuse upon my mind and body. Amazingly and astoundingly, fantastic opportunities continued to come my way, but I was routinely never adequately prepared for the beauty and blessings of these gifts. More shame, self-deprecating, and self- annihilating behavior began to emerge; and in the decades following, severe depression took root.

Part 8:  Extricated and Tapping Inspiration

Into my mid twenties I became very entrenched in the exploration of analog synthesizers and was becoming known for having somewhat of my own sound and style/concept. I had a very unique ensemble and was gaining quite a bit of attention in the larger NJ area performing at eclectic venues including art galleries. There were two performances in particular sponsored by the director of an ambient music show on New Jersey's Upsala College radio station. It was called Synthetic Pleasure and was modeled after the very famous nationally syndicated radio show Hearts of Space. I was invited to be a featured artist at these concerts.

After the first show, a well-known synthesist and composer named Larry Fast approached me with very complimentary words. We spoke for a bit and he asked why I didn’t have any recordings available. At the time, for some reason, I was not into documenting what was being expressed. I simply did not have the courage to risk hearing what I was doing thinking that it would not sound good. Larry Fast commented on aspects of my performance saying, you just don’t hear this type of finesse often among electronic music artists. I was touched by this and it contributed in helping me realize that all of my hard work possessed meaning. That particular gig was a solo performance of ambient music steeped in lush harmony. The next performance was with my ensemble of many synthesizers, a tenor and soprano saxophonist and a percussionist. Once again Larry Fast showed up but this time offered me a recording deal on Passport Records. He admitted that Passport had a bit of a shady reputation for its international distribution and artist royalty practices, but he expressed that it would be a sure way to start building a more international audience for myself. I expressed my sincerest appreciation for his offer but declined saying that I really believed I could land a deal on a “major label” with a sizable budget. Two and a half years later, I was signed to RCA/Novus Records. During those years I had fused my ambient sound into writing music in the contemporary jazz genre.

Part 9:  Funny and Defining Ironies

The performance that Larry Fast offered me the deal with Passport Records, my Dad ridiculed me for the music I was playing saying, “Why can’t you play music that people will like?” Also, in an extremely dysfunctional way, my parents resorted to a peculiarity of scolding me for the price of the tickets by telling me my former girlfriend and her fiancé were there and spent a lot of money. As it turned out, my former girlfriend and her fiancé thought what I was doing was interesting as being inventive and musically explorative in nature.

Part 10:  Reckoning 

My life history during my early- to mid-thirties had been to go after any type of work within and as self-discovery, whether therapeutic in nature or pragmatic mind/body endeavors. Among them: EST Training (twice), Rolfing, Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais, firewalk, LSD, opiated hash, and marijuana. I lived within depression with roots of shame. I continued to be a self-annihilating self-critic which was spawned from early childhood criticism, and this led to my dissociation as an adult. I engaged in sexual addictions, imbibed in alcohol, although not necessarily requiring formal institutional type treatment, I needed to realize my habits were not healthy in terms of meeting stressful situations. My RCA years brought a good amount of cocaine use as well. There was money, and I spent portions of it on high quality coke and fine cognac. Self-deprecation and the my inner-critic evolved into such a debilitating nuisance that many years later there emerged a culminating point, and as result, I experienced suicidal ideation.

After a psychiatrist diagnosed me with clinical depression, and upon returning from California in 2007, I finally entered into a steep, definitive and essential course of therapy. Serendipitously, a reference emerging from a very well-informed source, brought me to meeting with a practicing Buddhist and Diplomate of the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich. I advanced my therapy to three sessions per week and discovered a great deal that was buried very deep within my subconscious. Many childhood traumas were brought to light, including experiences of severe anti-Semitism, that had been wrought upon me as a child. My sense of shame prohibited me from sharing this with my parents. Feelings of shame for being born into a Jewish family enmeshed with my sense of responsibility to protect my family from this foul venomous behavior of ignorance wreaked havoc and left me feeling very confused. The perpetrators were the children of racists and anti-Semites in our neighborhood, and sadly for society, their father was a Newark, New Jersey, police detective.

Part 11:  Music as the Teacher Guru

Meditation came into my life as a gift when I needed it most. As a child, I always felt an affinity with Asian cultures, Japan in particular. Although at one point, a Chinese hand-sized ceramic Confucius appeared in my life. I do not have a recollection of where it came from but I felt a soothing, welcoming and knowing attraction and fondness toward it.

Some insights of meditation started to come in 1984 when I was 24. My living situations up to this point for the past few years had been in shared housing with friends, generally musicians. I moved back to my parents’ home so I could save money and invest in recording gear. Things were very different then in terms of the costs for analog recording equipment—it was very expensive. Here is the funny thing: my dad was so into being a father who exemplified loving responsibility to help and aid his children that he pretty much thought nothing of assisting financially where and however he could within his means. He helped tremendously with this adventure into beginning to develop the music that was burning within me and so longing to be expressed.

​I was developing strong and clear musical concepts and knew that this was my direction and path. What makes this so interesting is that my dad was the first to be there for me financially, yet lacked so much emotionally—and had no realization of the harm he was doing by way of a his personality traits defined as disapproving and dissociative in nature. Beyond thinking that this financial help would be a catalyst for my career, he really had very little interest in any of my forthcoming endeavors. My parents held an outward “vibe” of disapproval of the more esoteric and eclectic music for which I was becoming known. When I made the commitment to move my endeavors in a more commercially viable direction, leading to my being a recording artist on RCA records, my parents then showed great appreciation for the newer repertoire of musical compositions I had written. 

​Part 12:  Inquiry

I have delved so deeply into seeking discoveries of why we live in the various ways of going after achievement. What I am addressing here is not necessarily the nature of all that appears to be the innate aptitude for one’s specialized aspect of human intellect or another. What I have come to honor as a humble student, is the study and analysis of who we are, and the passions, interests and aptitudes we possess as a complex study within realms of ontology and expanded consciousness—beyond a particular incarnated life. I have lived as an “over-achiever” most of my life until very recently when music began to be an expressive entity of its own. The more I implement “getting out of my own way,” the more beauty as flowing emotion comes sailing out of me in the form of melody, harmony, rhythm, and overall deeply satisfying musicality. For too many painful years and decades, I have lived my life from within the prison of being shackled to my own devastating thoughts and emotions of having to prove my existence as worthy to my immediate family. This is a disease that has the full potential to operate at full-speed, running into demise by way of severe physical and/or mental illness. In actuality, I generally interpret physical symptoms as just that - symptomatic of deeply embedded emotional causation. In my case, physical devastation came in the way of severe, extremely dangerous and painful chronic fatigue syndrome. I know definitively that this physical condition was merely an inextricable mirror image of my trauma-based, self-induced emotional exhaustion.

Part 13:  Holistic Healing

The American Medical Association’s allopathic medical diagnosis and advice that I received was at best, incomplete. Realizing, that even up to that point in my life, I had accumulated valuable information culled from previous years of my investigations and studies of so many “alternative” healing modalities, I committed to a path of devoted and disciplined healing. This was by way of just a few essential shifts in my life. The main shift was commitment to what I already knew - stress reduction by way of meditation, a regular schedule of comprehensive physical exercise, and an intensified discipline within my diet. This was (and still is) eating whole foods such as huge amounts of dark leafy greens and a wide assortment of other fresh fruits and vegetables, healthy fats containing omega 3, high quality grains and their proper preparation, fermented foods for healthy balanced gut flora, and super-foods such as gogi berries, AFA blue-green algae, maca, raw cacao, spirulina, hemp based foods, powerful probiotics and various supplements such as turmeric and CoQ10.

Part 14:  Misunderstanding Depression - Unacknowledged Grief

For the year that I was back home, my parent’s found it necessary to take in my maternal grandfather because since my grandmother’s passing, although keeping up fairly good physical health for surpassing 90, he began showing signs of slowing down. Even with all his disapproval and verbal abuse towards my grandmother, he missed her terribly and was experiencing woeful remorse. My parents and I would hear him crying from the living room while we were finishing dinner in the kitchen, apologizing to my grandmother and telling her how much he missed her. It was deeply moving but our family unit was not at all in touch with how to be in an environment of these expressions of grief and sorrow. Quite surprised and emotionally touched, there was one instance when I overheard my dad saying something to the affect of how meaningful long-term, intimate relationships evolve as unacknowledged attachment to another person. My dad cared for and loved my mother deeply. He just did not have the skills or insight to express his emotions in a way that emanated from his heart.

Part 15: Primordial Grief

This took a toll leading to my brother and I in, very different ways, living in dissociation. The dissociation wreaked havoc on me and spiraled into an abyss of depression at a very young age. It has been my discovery that depression might very well be fundamentally misunderstood. Because of this misunderstanding, identifying depression may have gone astray as aspects within a vast density of medical diagnostics. It is my contention that the majority of depression is actually steeped in what I refer to as “Primordial Grief.” It is a grief of which we are unaware, exponentially exacerbated by not being aware of that which we are grieving. In other words, the primordial grief lies deep within our collective consciousness and we are in a state of perpetual grieving without being aware of this muted, dampened effect on our measurement of what is determined as emotional (and possibly mental) well- being.

Part 16:  Taking Flight - The Expansion Of Intellect, Growing Intelligence

Just prior to my mid-20s, to literally escape what was going on while back living with my parents, and now grandfather, I began spending time with friends in Amherst Massachusetts. I would drive from New Jersey, just west of New York City. I made the trip on an almost weekly basis. I would spend three to four days in New Jersey engulfed in music composition and fledgling production, and then drive to Amherst. It was a high-school musician buddy of mine who had settled there after attending the esoteric Hampshire College. My buddy was an accomplished hobby bass player, entrepreneur and young businessman who had set up a very high-end audiophile stereo component company. We listened to music through the finest reproduction equipment available at the time: Beautiful tube amplifiers, speaker and enclosures of the most forward-thinking designers, and the most extravagant direct-drive turntables for listening to experimental direct-to-vinyl disc recordings. My pal’s girlfriend was Brazilian and they were, little-by-little, having her siblings come to live in Amherst with them.

Things at the time were very bad in Brazil for those lacking financial means. Unfortunately, it appears as though those troubling times have returned for that beautiful and culturally rich country. Our Amherst household was macrobiotic. There was an ongoing exploration into the philosophy of macrobiotics which existed as the philosophy of our collective extended family. Because one of the Brazilian sisters was living with a rare muscular disease, we really ramped up the diet becoming quite strict. It was one of the best things I experienced in my life. I learned of foods, food preparation and nutrition by way of all the amazing meals we would enjoy as a household.

What I loved so much was the old-world feel as the sisters and various household members would gather in the kitchen, as needed, in planning and preparing our meals. It was a beautiful time of family bonding that, except for holiday times such as Passover, was virtually nonexistent in my home as a child and teenager. Finally, I felt like I belonged! Etched in my mind and cellular memory is the collection of music that started to play every late afternoon as a warm-up heading into the dinner plan and prep. I can hear the sound as if I were there now - Djovan, Joao Gilberto, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Ivan Lins, and many others of breathtakingly gorgeous Brazilian music. So often we would end up dancing samba and bossa nova right there in the kitchen and dining room. Many evenings the dining room table would be occupied by the household of extended family and two college renters, as well as always having guests drop by, for the great tasting super-food meals and inspiring conversation. I knew at the time I was out of my league intellectually, but coming from growing up within my family, I was absolutely devouring the stimulating and welcoming environment.

I was heavily influenced by way of the social and political groups in and around Amherst. As a child and teenager, I was not an avid reader. Reading and studying started to emerge a few years before I came into discovering meditation. I began to see through so much of the social and cultural paradigms I was raised within in terms of never questioning the status quo. In Amherst, I began to learn of corporate geo- political strategies in conjunction with various agendas of the United States, Europe, and Japan. This brought me into depths of reading about the Trilateral Commission and The Council On Foreign Relations. I began to understand the nature and design of the United States military industrial complex and its intricate interactive web of how this massive entity serves within effectuating various corporate interests beyond the scope of “national interest,” into personal gain and power. Two of the numerous informative and profoundly eye-opening books that helped me awaken to comprehending these multi-national affairs were The Nicaragua Lectures and later, Confessions of an Economic Hitman. 

Part 17: Following the Indications and Dismantling

Approximately five years after my offers from Larry Fast, and about a year prior to my new life in Weehawken, a Soulful friend of mine invited me to a Soka Gakkai International meeting. He introduced me to chanting “Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo,” which is a mantra chanted by practitioners of Nichiren Buddhism. I chanted a devotion twice a day for a many months. That’s when things really started to shift! This led to me dismantling all my endeavors related to my RCA Records affiliation, including commencing with the lengthy, and costly, process of ending all trials and tribulations with management, and an attorney representing aspects of contractual agreements.

One night after a concert, I returned home, sat on my back stoop, looked into the star-filled sky and proclaimed to my expanded self, “Its over! No more!” I dissolved my band. That night and into the next day, I stated to all Existence that I was requesting (or “I need”) a place to rent for $350 per month. At that time, I was living a nice life with two vehicles and a very nice apartment that was a wing of an old farmhouse in Far Hills, New Jersey. This was an exclusive area where people such as Jacqueline Kennedy Onasiss, Malcolm Forbes, and Mike Tyson had had residences, and it was also home to the Professional Golf Association headquarters. It was a culture of horse country.

I called the Salvation Army intending to donate 95 percent of my belongings, and scheduled a truck for the pickup. One of the workers asked me in a perplexed way if I was really sure that I wanted to get rid of the silverware I was donating. I said, “Absolutely.” He looked at me in a sort of disbelief and said, “Ok.” That was that. All gone. I put my grand piano in storage and in very short time had a place with a $300 rent. This all came about through a network of people, and I was beginning to feel as though the events and circumstances emerging were very auspicious in nature. My new location brought me into a community of new-found friends who were supporters and devout to Tibetan Buddhism in Weehawken, which incidentally, is a very old community on the Hudson River across from Times Square in Manhattan.

Part 18: Power Outage and Time for Introspective Focus

Shortly after I moved in, there was a power failure late in the evening. I lit a candle and while sitting and staring at it, I had the impulse to see if I could clear my mind of all thought. I discovered that I could for very short spurts. I knew this was an aspect of meditation and committed myself to cultivating this skill. Everything went deeper from then on. I began to receive constant opportunities related to Tibetan Buddhism—the teachings and practice of meditation. Through very close friends who were essential significant spirit guides, I was introduced to monks, Rimpoches, and events with people who were extremely committed to the Tibetan cause. I learned much of the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Buddhist teachings during that time.

Part 19: Meditation

By then, possessing a deeply felt sense of the power and goodness of a meditation practice, I devoted myself to a mind of quiet, stillness, and clarity, striving to sit for an hour at a time. I very quickly increased my meditations to two - three times per day, upwards of two hours per sitting. I became very committed in my discipline and felt a devotion towards the practice. Soon, I began to see the pragmatic aspect of meditation by how it was stimulating my intellect and bringing forth new intelligence, insights and almost mind-boggling ways of processing information.

An expansion of intellect has been shown in many clinical experiments that are readily available for reading and assessing. Numerous highly sophisticated technologically-based experiments have documented data by way of implementing electroencephalogram (EEG) tests. With the advent of ongoing diagnostic sophistication, MRIs are now used to study brain function within meditative states of consciousness. The data reveals obvious shifts of electrical activity in the brain. The expansion of intellect and increase in intelligence is due to a clearing or our minds. As we dissolve thoughts and emotions, there is then “space” or clarity. Within this clarity, new and different types of information come to us. I like referring to this as “transmissions.” Meditation opens channels within our expanded self, interconnected on subatomic levels as tapping into “the quantum energy field.” This “field” of non- localized information (intelligence) reveals itself as seemingly infinite in nature, as Nature, itself. By way of meditation I began to emerge as a voracious reader, and inherent within this, I found much joy and satisfaction exploring contemplations on the nature of Reality(Unity, Oneness, NonDual, Brahman, Christ Consciousness, Allah, God etc.)

Off To The Island

Part 20: A Journey of Transformation

Life in Weehawken was contemplative, full of insight and discoveries born of inquiry as to the nature of who we are, where we are, and how we come to exist. Days were occupied with practicing piano, reading and study, and central to all was my disciplined and devoted practice of meditation. At seemingly light speed, I was experiencing an auto-didactic education of psychology, philosophy, and concepts of quantum field theory and how all this relates to various forms of spiritual practices. Delving into realms of gnostic Christianity, Jewish mysticism (Kaballah), Hinduism, Sufism (Islamic Mysticism and Buddhism were the routine readings within my days). Very often there were mind/body/thought experiments and self-created exercises of approaching the front door of my apartment building, and suddenly emerging into a state of realization that something other than my immediate awareness was doing the walking, opening the door, and taking steps one foot after the other up the stairs. I would stop and contemplate in stillness, thinking on what this impulse could be, where was it located, and how did it emanate. What is doing the thinking of intent? I figured this was simply garden variety philosophy on the nature of the quest to understand “self.” What I did not realize at the time was the journey that was unfolding. I found myself within the practice of Shamanism and in the essence of Presence of Being.

I was living off of the fruits of publishing royalties, mainly from the gifts of being awarded a Gold Record for a project that was full of auspicious blessings three to five years prior. Little by little, all my keyboard and recording gear was sold off, which also afforded my lifestyle of material simplification and ascetic practices. Although not austere, my chosen environment reflected the mission within knowing that my life, up until this point, was wrought with lacking the insight and wisdom for a life of cultivated compassion, patience, inner quiet, and stillness, for the well-being of my physical health. I was enjoying an extremely simple life, formerly coming from moderate extravagances of spending on material goods.

The apartment was a six-room upper unit of a typically-styled early 1900s home in Hudson County, New Jersey, three blocks west of a grand panoramic overlook of the Hudson River, facing the Empire State Building. From the quaint community park located on the main boulevard I had a bird’s-eye view of the horror on the morning of September 11, 2001.

My little domain on Liberty Place was a block filled with interactive and friendly people. The neighborhood had a large Cuban and Dominican population which brought a sweet diversity of food, music, and an overall tapestry of culture. One of the next door neighbors was a family of six where typically, as with many of the Dominican families, the children were bilingual and their parents relied on them for handling interactions that required written or spoken English.

Part of the enjoyment of this intermingling of cultures was a warmth of heart from imagining distant memories of my own family as my father’s parents were immigrants from Germany and Russia. Although my grandparents learned to read, write, and speak English fairly early on in their new life in the United States, there was still a definitive challenge when it came to navigating more complex aspects of society in Brooklyn, New York, during the years 1915 through 1940. My father and uncle were always engaged in family matters and business. My grandparents owned a small grocery store in Crown Heights, a neighborhood of Brooklyn, and every morning before school, my dad would be out delivering milk and other daily essentials to their regular customers. My father always lived from a place of family responsibility. He took care of my uncle who was six years younger, and the story goes that as my grandparents worked such long hours into the evenings, dinners of sardines, cans of beans and hotdogs, and foods more of Jewish ethnicity were the regular dinners that my dad prepared for himself and his younger brother.

At one point, after my grandfather was asked repeatedly for a bicycle by my dad, the request was finally answered. To his dismay, though, the new gleaming bike came with a side cart. The idea was that my dad would be able to cruise around with his little brother in tow. This was not exactly the independence he had in mind. But as I say, my father was a Being of soulful responsibility to those closest to him. He honored his parents beyond anything in his life and this was continued into and throughout his marriage to my mother. His sense of family responsibility carried deeper than ever to his two sons as well. Despite a history of all that parents can potentially be unaware within lacking healthy emotional function, I was the beneficiary of parents who possessed dutiful amounts of responsibility toward their children.

My family history includes stories of my paternal grandmother and her sister being the only surviving members of her immediate family from the madness of the Third Reich Nazi takeover and the mind control of a vast number of the German population. We are descended from immigrants out of the very late 1800s and into the early 1900s. This is one of the predominant reasons I relate in spirit to those, like my Dominican neighbors, who were making new lives for themselves in the NYC area. The nature of this resonated deeper as I was enjoying such transformational shifts as a neighbor and friend.

The Dominican family of four children next door resembled the same kind of respect, commitment, and care for family that I had grown up with. I became very friendly with the two sons, of which one became a music promoter within the Latin dance scene. The other was always interested in the esoteric, whether of a spiritual nature or all that was emerging scientifically at the time, regarding the nature of life and consciousness. During the spring, summer, and fall, I would be out nearly every night sitting on our front stoop having conversations with a number of the young people on our block and those passing by on a regular basis. Liberty Place was a regular walking route to one of the major food stores in the area. My eclectic pad was between Kennedy Boulevard and Park Avenue, which was actually Union City.

Kennedy Boulevard provides an awe inspiring vantage point with its panoramic view of NYC spanning the George Washington Bridge down to the World Trace Center, and into the Narrows bay which hosts the enormous Verrazano Bridge connecting the NYC boroughs of Brooklyn and Staten Island. Park Avenue was home to quite a number of diverse small eateries and restaurants. We enjoyed foods of Cuban, Turkish, Italian, Chinese and Middle Eastern cultures. One of our regular stops was El Unico, a small Cuban restaurant, where at the time, we would jump in for a $2.50 lunch of roast chicken, rice and beans and absolutely delicious yucca. The lunch time hang was more of music talk, philosophy, spirituality, maybe some politics, whatever else was on one’s mind and usually a cafe con leche to round out our lunchtime meal.

Countless warm-weather nights were spent sitting on the five-foot high masonry surface, perpendicular to the width of the front entrance steps leading up and into the vestibule of the house. Perched there, I never tired of listening to two recordings that seemed to endlessly enrich my Heart’s mind with expanses of spiritual and musical growth. It was my own sacred and subtle world inside the luscious sound produced by my portable Sony Walkman cassette player and light-weight foam-lined headphones. This was a time when the advent of CDs had not been long before.
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The musical companions were The Bill Evans Trio recording You Must Remember Spring with the exquisitely refined Eliot Zigmund on drums and lyrical powerhouse bassist, Eddie Gomez. The other cassette tape was Weather Report’s Heavy Weather where the cast of players as magical masters of time and space proved to redefine the direction of modern music. The ballad, A Remark You Made, sheds light on the cavernous depth as introspection of Joe Zawinul, not to overlook his virtuosity as a keyboardist. Then there is Jaco Pastorius - as a shooting star streaks across the night sky, it is experienced in awe - and then it is gone. Brilliance morphing as genius walking the precipice of that expanse of tumultuous cosmic informational overload - hit as a ton of bricks within a portal - gleaming blinding light beyond the functional capability of all that the electro-neural-chemical sentient being can manage as sorting out and structuring order for navigating this world as it exists. Adding to the inimitable ensemble were the illustrious Wayne Shorter, Alex Acuna and Melino Badruna. I remember as still being there, the composition Havana, with its final fade, dissolving as the setting sun rested its soft gentle pastel light, quieting and softening the densely populated neighborhood. It was a magical time as my life path appears now as that of a surrealistic dream. 

Part 21: Disillusionment and Self-Reconciliation

As living life more and more as a renunciant of material possessions, a growing disillusionment of conventional life was building within me. Desiring objects and belongings, for a home, a car, various insurance policies, and the overall nature of what we consider worth working for, became less and less important to me. In fact, the more I meditated and focused on my studies, the more I really saw the nature of impermanence. Not only impermanent, but aspects of the way in which we construct our lives based on all that we have been taught. I was questioning the methods of our being persuaded as to what is meaningful and necessary for one’s feelings of fulfillment. These “persuasions” were very secondary compared to the beginnings of my awakenings on the path of realizing that the most damage that has been done to nearly all of humanity is our multi-millennium history of systematic “forgetting” that we are an Essence of Existence.

Pertaining to a chosen life as a renunciant of material possessions, it is important to share that I am by no means saying that I do not enjoy wealth and all the comforts that money can buy. Quite the contrary, I do enjoy my comforts. What was shifting deep within me was questioning what it would take for me to be comfortable and more than anything, have happiness if not a life of joy! I cannot say in any way that my life was sustaining joy for any amount of time beyond perhaps some momentary interactions. But then the joy would be gone. I wondered what it would be like to actually be a living embodiment of a joyful existence. Surely, should there emerge great fruits of my labor, then wonderful! However, bringing forth a material existence that appeared to be “out there” was not my primary focus. It was the nature of creating an inner world and infinity of wealth and joy that was, for me, the primary journey. This actually became what would be more accurately defined as an adventure! 

Part 22: Deeper Inquiry

Through all this introspection and inquiry into the nature of self, the sense that joy is dependent on any “external” stimulus of our collective consciousness as a perceived material world didn’t exist. So, I’ll up the ante here with the quest for experiencing some level of sustained ecstatic moments! I was not subjectively embodying this beyond the peak moment experiences I was having within meditation. One day, a three-hour-long sit in meditation, I was walking out of the local food store and my thoughts were focused on understanding why, for instance, the Tibetan monks meditate for hours and hours throughout their day. If the sense of joy and peak moments of ecstasy I experienced subsequent to my three-hour session was fading after an hour or two, it became clear that maintaining this type of mindset in the way of mood and temperament, would require an ongoing mental state of a meditative mind.

In ways of self-nurturing, I was certainly achieving great strides by the conviction, dedication, and devotion, of my heart’s intent. The sitting in stillness and quiet was having profound effects and outcomes in expansive ways, considering I had diagnosable complex post-traumatic stress disorder. Even being raised by such honorable and responsible parents did not mean that my brother and I escaped the dysfunctions of my family’s cognitive and emotional environment. Even ten minutes of meditation for one that is dabbling in first experimentations, brings very measurable leaps in all the benefits of meditation. My point was extreme. Inquisitiveness and seeking of the possibilities of living in joy, and just plain being happy with myself coming to know what it is to be in loving relationship with, in and as, “Me,” was paramount!

From my first spring day on Liberty Place, I experienced the unfolding of events that were not of a usual nature from the way things had been in my past. I began to see the meeting of people, and the web of relationships that we develop, as something essential and integral to our emotional and spiritual growth in this life. A web of connecting dots emerged in such clarity that I could not see life in any way but how we serve and function as mutually interdependent “spirit guides” for one another
within this journey. We are navigating an energy field that sort of tricks us by way of the neurobiological lattice encasement of consciousness that we are. I was seeing interconnectedness everywhere. Also was the phenomenon of having every aspect of all that we require at any given point in time, emerge for all our needs. I was coming into awareness of such a profound sense of trust and how being void of doubt and trepidation clears the way for our most natural flow of happiness as mental, emotional and physical well-being. I could not help but to think of this as magical. It was so unlike what had been the mechanisms of my life in the years and decades prior.

Part 23: Entering My New World
An Adventure of Pragmatic Mysticism

The “magical” first spring day on the block was met with meeting my Soul-friend, Eileen, and her then-husband, Paul. To my great surprise, they were acquainted with me as huge and very appreciative fans of the music from my RCA recordings from just a couple of years earlier. They were an eclectic pair, and Paul had a very colorful path leading him to a defined Zen-like approach within life. Their beautiful and very insightful daughter, Zoe, was sixteen at the time. Eileen and Paul were both a little bit older than me and held a wisdom that I could tell was going to play a significant part of my life in Weehawken. That it did, for sure! Eileen was a spirit more than a physical being in this incarnation. In her day-to-day life, she was as an elementary school teacher who possessed a passion for seeing the kids as souls, not necessarily as bodies with personalities. She developed the first theater program at Weehawken High school to support the expression of a soulful life. We spent much time together and if there was anyone within my journey on this spaceship Earth who was an auspicious spirit guide in human form, introducing me to something so radical and unlike what was familiar up to that point in time, it was Eileen.

On my first visit, I entered Eileen and Paul’s apartment and encountered beautiful and numerous wall hangings of all sorts of metaphysical domains and dimensions. Precious crafts and trinkets from all over the world occupied shelves on end. It was obvious and unquestionable that their heart’s emanated from within their Buddhist teachings of wisdom and compassion. I also noticed a vast and very diverse vinyl record collection which always draws me into where people are at in their views of life and how I might be able to fit in with them as friendships are about to emerge. One of the greatest understandings I acquired out of meeting Eileen was, and still is, that we have our web of relations throughout this life. There is always family or perhaps extended family. And no matter where we might travel to the farthest corners of our home Mother planet, we will without doubt always have those that we intuitively sense as family. I learned to walk my path knowing this, that there are always the friends and close relations of seeming cousins or even siblings of simply just another parallel genetic channel. But none-the-less, close family.

A very enriching and massively expansive year and a half passed. I decided that I wanted to have my grand piano with me for the exploration of new possibilities within my playing. The piano had been in storage since I moved from a converted and modernized farm house in Far Hills, New Jersey. Far Hills was and still is a very exclusive enclave that culminated my metaphorical past life. The piano was one of the few material possessions that I kept in humble honor of who and what I am/was as a musician. With the constraints of moving such an instrument into an upper level apartment where the early 1900 stairwells were narrow with sharp turns into doorway passages, the likelihood of having a sizable piano in my living space seemed more and more out of the question. After just a bit of pondering, Eileen began imagining how we might configure the garage of the building that she and Paul lived. These were tall and somewhat narrow two family homes with some having a one-car garage on the street level. Their particular building had a small one bedroom apartment behind the garage. The owner of the building was a New York attorney, and as an acquaintance, he was friendly with Eileen. His father, Aldo, who appeared to be a Bohemian type of artist, lived in the ground level apartment. Eileen pursued the idea of having us create a little practice and rehearsal space out of the garage. Of course everything would be makeshift and no permanent alterations would be made. No problem there because the space was a garage - cement, cinderblock and obviously as old as the building. Aldo, his son the owner, Eileen, and I agreed on a very small fee for what was to become my “vortex portal” of bringing forth the greatest adventure of my life: trekking with all abandon of doubt, fear, and trepidation, to live on the island of St John in the United States Virgin Islands!

We hung heavy plastic and corrugated materials from used shipping boxes as insulation for the piano studio. I picked up a space heater and, all-in-all, the garage was snug and comfy. My good friend, Dennis, who was an accomplished guitarist and piano tuner, lived a block away and generously shared his skills by keeping the piano consistently in tune. The support that anyone could express was surpassed by unimaginable bounds when one day, shortly after getting the piano moved in, I opened the door leading from the main floor stairway, and I was beside myself with the new interior design of the piano room. I was welcomed by the immense and powerful energy that emanated from posters, large and small, now hanging on the walls. These were beautiful depictions of Tibetan tangkas which are paintings on cotton, or silk appliqué, usually depicting a Buddhist deity, scene, or mandala. Also, staring at the piano bench right where I would be sitting for hours a day, was a big poster of the Dalai Lama with his infinite eyes and kind, gentle and wisdom-knowing smile. The “piano studio” was transformed into the “Magic Room!”

Part 24: Mandala At The World Trade Center, NYC

After about 2 years living in Weehawken, a close friend of mine at the time invited me to attend the second of all public Mandala constructions which was being held at Tower One of the World Trade Center. After the first bombing of one of the towers in 1993, the Dalai Lama proclaimed that the sacred Mandala must be brought out of secrecy due to the urgency of what was transpiring on the world stage. I almost immediately accepted my friend’s invitation and attended my first day of 8:00 am meditation in an area designated for the construction of this sacred Mandala in the lobby of Tower One. The construction was a month long endeavor conducted by three very skilled Tibetan monks who were unimaginably beautiful individuals. This event was sponsored by the NY/NJ Port of Authority - which was more quite unlikely magic.

I ended up going every morning and staying until at least noon if not later into theday. I received depths of transmission from both the monks and the Mandala. I bonded with one of the monks. After a few weeks of eye contact and sharing a bit of loving kindness acknowledgements between the two of us, it occurred to me that I had the perfect person right here with me every day to answer one of the most plaguing questions of my life up to that point. If reincarnation is one soul out, one soul in, and vise-versa, as any type of imaginable discreet process, how do we explain population growth of a species such as humans? I was figuring that a perfect equation of reincarnation would not allow for population expansion. Within all of Unity not Being this nature of simplicity as a fathomable linear mechanism, I asked my monk friend who was not much older than me at the time. We were standing about 25 feet from the Mandala as he was taking a break. He lovingly took my hand and we walked toward the Mandala. I can still feel his hand, warm and lush, as if it is happening as I write this. He said to me: “Nothing is created.” That was it. The rest was up to me for contemplation. And that I did - for years. I came to understand what he meant by way of my studies within quantum physics, and much later my steep dive into exploring energy resonant fields and enfolded geometry as seemingly infinite dimensions. This explained so much and continues to explain the most far reaching nearly unimaginable beauty and symmetry of this Universe and our perceptions of it.

Part 25: Closer To Life On The Island

Along the way was a lot of life being lived in my space on Liberty Place in Weehawken, including all the exploration of consciousness in and out of meditation, the depths of studying, new found concepts for the music moving through me, attending various metaphysical and spiritual meeting groups, and nurturing this ascetic lifestyle of inner journey. There was an aspect that appeared to be so mystical that it was as if I was being literally guided without any effort on my part. On separate occasions I received very pronounced indications that I would be very happy living on St. John in the USVI. To many, this might seem as if just passing happenstance. However, there was an internal resonance vibrating within that somehow I knew I was being effortlessly led upon my unfolding journey. One of these indications was a postcard from a close friend and music production associate. It was the most serene photo of Maho Bay with its crystal clear aqua blue water, white sand beach and luscious foliage. He and his wife went on a vacation staying in one of Maho Bay Resort’s huts. He wrote on the back of the card, “You belong here.” That was it. Not too long after that, I was getting a hair cut by someone who I had visited a few times within the year. This haircutter started telling me about his visit to Maho Bay in the USVI. After a little bit of his description, he looked in the mirror directly into my eyes for a few moments and said, “You need to go there.” I sat in his chair and said to myself in a most self-aware way, “I guess I am going to St John!”

That portal-eske postcard was sitting leaning against the wall on the kitchen table for months. I would sit and stare at it and very often authentically feel myself there. I would imagine what it would be like to live in such a place and to leave the conventional life that was becoming irrelevant to me in every way. Although I was so committed to this way of seeking and embodying a life of a transcendent mind, I had no vision of earning a living to speak of. And the savings I had did not define me in any way as independently wealthy, at least in monetary/fiat currency terms. What I was experiencing as conventional life included the noise of urban living, toxic smog, ever increasing fast pace, congestion of traffic on the roads especially if one were to encounter rush hour heading into any of the tunnels accessing NYC from (as they say) the “Jersey side.” To me, what people lived in without questioning was clearly a very unhealthy and programmed dystopia.

Part 26: Measuring Up Within Conventional Life

As my disconcertedness within this dystopia grew ever more expansive, my late nights were getting later and later and were accompanied by enjoying tall cans of Foster’s beer. One night, when the weight of measuring myself against society’s definitions of success, providing for one’s self, and how my life must look to someone that works a daily routine of a “regular’ life, my self-esteem took a nose dive. Possessing all my insights was not appearing to garner a healthy sense of Self; at least not for me at that time. I was forgetting all that I had been so devotedly committed to, and allowed somehow for my mind to tumble into believing I was living a less than inspired life. I was not seeing a fit and was beginning to sense a knowing that my time in Weehawken on Liberty Place was coming to a close.

On this particular late night, hanging out flipping around TV channels, a high energy infomercial appeared. It was Tony Robbins’ latest-greatest program, Unleash the Power Within. A number of years earlier I had enthusiastically participated in his previous program, Unlimited Power and attended a live seminar culminating into his famed fire-walk. I had previously had experiences with shifting physiology, but walking over red hot coals opened my eyes in a new way. These encounters helped me greatly in moving through the treacherous waters of navigating career management and RCA Records. As I sat watching the entire infomercial, I acknowledged that something had to change for me in a very dramatic way. I said out loud: “I must do this. I am going to do this.” The marketing was all about committing to re-designing your life. With the relentless male TV post-infomercial voice of reason talking away at 3:00 am, I took out my credit card, picked up the phone and ordered Unleash the Power Within. I made a Soul commitment to dramatically transform my life.

Part 27: Activation Time      

Waiting, waiting, waiting - and then, finally, the box of cassette tapes arrived. It was a happy and vibrant day! In gearing up for this new study, I was further committing to myself and the power of shifting one’s mind in actualization. Creating a new and different reality! I brought the package up to the kitchen where my portal post card resided, and began my journey with Tony Robbins as my trusted coach at the helm of re-designing my life. I was now implementing all that I had traveled the last three years of seeing with new eyes and feeling with a new heart. The trajectory was to follow every instruction, morsel by morsel. This included sitting through what felt as though it really didn’t apply to my situation, paying hyper-laser attention to all concepts, and following every exercise both physically and mentally. I spent hours within the program’s journals loving up the process and writing in specifics of exactly what was instructed. Through and through. I had nothing but determination for actualizing a shift within all that I knew existed as a waking dream - this life of aggregating “particle”/energy - wave potentiality distribution into a reality of experiential happening! I wrote and wrote describing the feel of a life on a tropical island. The sounds, smells, warm breeze, salt of the ocean water, the people, how they are dressed, the food that would be available, how I would exist in such a place and where I might live. It was all so very thrilling. I worked this program of transformation religiously venturing excitedly into the neuro-linguistic programming. I lived within creating my visions with zero doubt that they would become my reality.

Part 28: Shifting In a Moment

For months I was having sessions in the magic garage portal, usually once or twice a week, with a bass player friend of mine. He was well-known and very accomplished, so much so that he’d held the bass chair in numerous Broadway pit orchestras. We would get together to mainly explore my original compositions. One day with a rehearsal set up for early afternoon, he did not show. I waited patiently for a couple of hours since this was just prior to the advent of everyone owning a personal cell phone. It took a while before I received a call from him and I knew something was up because it was not his character to simply not show without letting me know. Quite a bit after three o’clock that afternoon he called me from a phone booth on 11th Ave in NYC where he had been sitting in traffic that was at a complete stand-still. He laughed in a cynical way and told me that the word was that Jacqueline Onassis was traveling through the Lincoln tunnel with an entourage and the security detail closed the neighboring routes into the tunnel. This was unbelievable to us. As I had already been in my mindset of conventional life making less and less sense to me, this really smeared some icing on my philosophical cake. I hung up the phone, sat on the edge of my bed for what was probably about fifteen minutes, and in a moment, I called information for the phone numbers of United, American and TWA airlines. Knowing that I could not possess any trepidation, doubt or question, I called the airlines for price quotes to St John. Within a short time and multiple phone calls I did what came to be seen by so many in my life as unreasonable. I booked a one-way flight to St John, USVI!

Departure was on July 5th, 1994, out of LaGuardia International Airport. Now having two months and a few days for re-distributing the bulk of my few remaining possessions, the big one settled in. What about my piano? Thoughts of a nonconventional life on an Island included fishing, driving a taxi, working a juice bar, odd jobs etc. If all I had done musically, up to that point, was all I was meant to do, I convinced myself I was reconciled to that idea. Or so I thought. It felt important to start sharing with people close to me the decision I had made which seemed as though it would add to my conviction for not backing out. Along the way in these two short months, there seemed to be an inordinate amount of circumstances coming up that could have potentially had me derail my plans. There were all kinds of responses communicated directly to me as well as less than complimentary words spoken among others, to others. And actually to my great surprise, my older brother came to my defense in a number of situations saying to those darker judgmental ones, he’s doing something you only wish you had the guts to do! That pleased me and warmed my heart!

My determination was that I was getting out of what looked, felt, and resonated on very deep inner levels, of a highly dysfunctional and paradoxically referred to as “normal,” society. The grand piano meant a lot and had seen me through so much musical exploration, and had been a companion as a voice for all that came through as living the birthing processes of composing. I would only want this instrument to find a good home. The word was put out immediately and in not much time some responses and interest emerged. An acquaintance of mine, another Broadway musician and conductor was seeing a medical doctor for a condition related to playing. He described the doctor as a creative type and they were looking at pianos for their young son who was showing interest as diligent expanse into his early developmental piano studies. An appointment was set up for them to see and play the piano and sure enough a day later they said they would take it. That was indeed a big one for me. Saying goodbye to the piano brought heart sadness. However, in keeping with the transient nature of all that was learned and practiced over the last three years, it suddenly became just another fleeting aspect of impermanence. The energy of my piano’s existence as a collaborative friend and soulful mate within my music also gave me a gift and another kind of blessing - the morphing of ownership adding to my sense of some measurable financial stability to embark on the great adventure. All was good.

Part 29: Preparation and Follow Through

Following through on the idea of minimalism, shopping for a backpack and a tent was the next step. The idea of a spackle bucket came to mind because I reasoned that such a setup would be airtight and waterproof. I guess the thought of being in any situation had occurred as visions - torrential downpours, swimming the bays keeping my stuff in tow... It seems funny, now. The spackle bucket had tiger stripes painted on it by one of my oldest and best buddies. He was along for the trip in a vicarious capacity. It ended up being packed with cans of sardines, beans, re-sealable bags of seaweed, utensils, and a six inch iron skillet. The bucket also functioned as a wash basin, clothes washer and flipping it over, made a great sounding hand drum. One evening, my buddy and I went and enjoyed an outing to a well known camping outfitter in New Jersey. I picked out my two person Kelty tent and a nice trekking backpack. Things were coming together and taking shape. Each day I was able to cross off items from my detailed to-do list. It was imperative to stay on task with my list if the timing trajectory was to align for the day of departure. A number of friends offered names and phone numbers of possible contacts. I got on the phone and pursued what never really came easily to me up to that point. Cold calling and introducing myself wasn’t something that I preferred to do, but I made a mission out of it. I actually ended up having a few inspiring conversations. However there were also a couple that I remember as not so brightly lit. Funny how some folks will leap into a rather parental disapproving mode without even knowing you. I chalked it up once again to their own fears of walking beyond the lines of one’s thresholds for comfort.

Part 30: Arrival

I arrived on St John as the sun was setting. What a gorgeous otherworldly sight! I walked around Cruz Bay just a bit, short distances at a time given that my backpack was about twenty pounds overweight. I had packed two dense books that I figured would be a good way to start off with my new life. Continuing on with reading in context from where I had left off, the two favorites were a Treatise by Alan Watts and Dark Matter and Hyperspace by Michio Kaku. Alan Watts had been a tremendous influence on me from the very first pages of one of his most popular writings, The Book: On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are. This one was my very first stage of significant awakening to the illusions and distortions of what we believe to be reality. Not only were these books dense in content, but they were weighing down my backpack in a pretty severe way. My shoulders were aching, so public benches were a welcome sight.

My first destination was Maho Bay. Maho was about a 15 to 20 minute ride by taxi up and down hills and around switchbacks. The taxis were mainly retrofitted pickup trucks with two parallel benches facing each other on either side. It was just about dark at this point and it turns out that the taxi driver “saw me coming.” The administration office where you check-in was already closed and he knew it. Being new on the island, I had to get street smart and wise very quickly. I ended up with a pricey round-trip without a place to stay. I let him know a little bit of my dismay but was very careful not to overstep my bounds. Starting off on the wrong foot would not be the way to go with the native locals of a Caribbean Island. I knew this for sure and after all, compassion, kindness, wisdom and understanding were some of the fundamental ideals that I was practicing to live by.

Back in Cruz Bay from my futile excursion, in between dropping my backpack off my shoulders to rest, I would saunter around short distances seeking a place to stay. Given that it was July 5th, not much was going on. Tourist season ended a while ago and things were very quiet. At this point it was getting to be around midnight and I spotted two gentlemen walking the main road in the center of town. Just to get an idea of how chilled out and remote the type of existence on St John was at the time, there was only one stop sign on the entire island, no traffic lights, and an entire population of less than 3,500 residents on an eight-mile stretch of island. I had absolutely nothing to lose by walking right up to these guys, stating that I just got “on island” (as they say), my backpack was killing me and asking if they knew of a place where I could stay. They had been out for the night losing their cares and worries and it was obvious. One of them looked me up and down, paused and said, “You look okay! I’ll put you on my boat.” What?!!? I said to myself! Where is your boat? I asked in disbelief. He pointed to Cruz Bay Harbor and said, “Out there on a mooring.” Ok, I thought! The adventure has now officially begun. They helped me with my belongings, boarded his dinghy, and we were motoring under a canopy of stars out to his boat! 

Part 31: Gazing Into The Universe
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Moving in and out of all kinds of sailboats, from small day-trippers to larger 40- and 50-foot voyage sail vessels was magical to me. My accommodations for the first night had been a small sailboat, with a tiny cabin that was used for stowing gear. It was a simple boat, probably 12- or 14-feet, and was fitted with comfortable cushions on the sitting benches. My host wished me good night and said he would be back to bring me into town at about six in the morning. I saw this significant spirit guide off as he motored back to the dock of Cruz Bay.

My first order of business was to get organized a little bit and have a snack. At that point, I was pretty hungry, so some tasty treats from my tiger striped spackle bucket were very welcome. My sleeping bag had been a birthday gift from Eileen the year before and could easily have been considered a vision of insight for all that was to come. A nice sleeping setup on the bench cushions was ready in minutes. After having my late night meal and some “outback” style preparation for heading to bed, I dropped down on the make-shift sleeping setup with a tremendous relaxing deep exhale. The soft sweet subtle clang of the metal rope supports that gently bounced off other boat masts, near and in the distance, was as soothing as a summer night’s remote wooded location of an orchestra of crickets and cicadas. Also was the dreamy mellow and rich sound of water lapping up against the side of my luxurious open air bedroom as well as other moored neighboring sail boats. I was laying comfortably with my head resting on my hands, with fingers interlocked. I gazed up into the dark night sky which was lit with twinkling lights of celestial bodies’ communication of light from many, many millennium past. It was a blanket of stars that was my backdrop to this dream experience. All was quiet and still within, as well as the immediate surroundings. No cars, city noises, dense smog-filled air, machine noises - nothing - just the beautiful sound design of vision becoming reality. I was enthralled with the majesty of such a poetic sight, and the one thought occupying my mind was, here I am, first night, a couple of little bumps in the road, but I am sleeping in Cruz Bay Harbor—on a boat!
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At about three a.m., I woke up suddenly to a drizzling rain that was intensifying. A night time rain was not something I had taken into consideration just a few hours before as I enjoyed the mystical panorama of stars. I jumped up and pulled out the waterproof fly from my Kelty tent and spread it out over my sleeping bag. It worked just fine for staying dry and was yet another initiation of the dreamy journey. Six a.m. came around and my host, as human alarm clock sounded off. “Hey, my friend!” He said in a quick tone and temperament. “Time to get going!” My new acquaintance was a bit more stern this early in the morning, but it didn’t matter to me. I quickly jumped up with an inner expression of gratitude, organized my few belongings and was off heading back to land.
As we parted he wished me a good day and good luck. Oddly enough, it occurred to me months later, I had never again seen or crossed paths with this gentleman who had extended his graciousness for my well-being and safety when I was in need. He was an example of the fleeting blessings we receive when are we open to remaining still and quiet within our minds of doubt-free knowing as trust, within simply Being.

Not wanting to venture too far on foot, I eased my way to one of the early morning spots that was a regular for some locals. It was surely obvious that I was new on the island. I was greeted by well known long term St John residents talking over their early morning eye-openers. This little establishment was known for their biscuits and gravy. And if you were a seasoned islander living the spirit as the final frontier of western civilization, a six a.m. beer, rum, or vodka mix was a routine accompaniment. Sitting at the bar with a rare morning coffee, I enjoyed observing and taking in the surrounding conversation. I quickly came to identify the long-term locals, generally by their sun-weathered leathery skin and their overall demeanor of a sailing culture. These folks came to St John for the same reason as my trek: escapism. I sat quietly, wide-eyed, with a subtle happy smile. A woman a couple of bar stools away asked me where I was from and if I am passing through. I shared in a few words my intent to set up on the island. Asking me what my thoughts were of work, I responded keeping things really simple in that I was taking things slow and as they came for the moment. Responding to her inquiring as to what I had been doing on the mainland, I shared that I am a musician. Some interest developed in her suggesting opportunities for work, but she was quick and certain in making it clear to me that the options were slim. I was sort of passive about this since because playing music was not foremost on my mind. Here too, it came to be strange that I had not seen or crossed paths with my second acquaintance for many months. St. John is a very small island and it was pretty unusual not to run into folks here and there. 

Part 32: A Surprise Acquaintance
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The beauty of this aspect of the sojourn and story is that while not seeing my early- morning-less-than-optimistic-transitory friend, the next time I crossed paths with her was about eight months later. I was playing a nice paying gig at a gorgeous cliff side open-air style home overlooking a remote bay on the South Atlantic side of the island. I recognized the face and demeanor in a second and thought, “That’s her! From the first morning!” I approached and said with a huge smile, “Hi! Do you remember me?” She looked for a few moments and as I realized I was a distant memory to her, I responded explaining that I was the one - new on the island over six months ago with the giant overweight backpack - early in the morning - at the joint in Cruz Bay! Her eyes almost popped out of her head. She said, “You’re the musician!” Yes, and I proceeded to share that I had auspiciously stumbled into many opportunities for playing and it was keeping me busy on five to seven gigs a week during tourist season. There was amazing magic that I saw in her smile. Beautiful things happen when you know all is good!

Part 33: Settling In

The initial week was spent at Cinnamon Bay campgrounds. The first evening there, after setting up and having dinner, I went for a swim taking in what can only be described as surreal. The only thoughts in mind as I rested floating on my back looking up at the changing pastel colors of the sky at sunset was, I am here—this is amazing! Surreal! I did it! I had fulfilled my vision thus far!

My time was managed between the camp site and making routine daily trips into town at Cruz Bay. Early mornings were spent in meditation, communing with trees, birds and other little residents of the surroundings. This was followed by breakfast, some simple spackle bucket laundry cleaning and usually a saunter to the beach for a swim. The accommodations at Cinnamon Bay ranged from very nicely designed permanent structures with full sleeping and bath facilities to large walk-in family tents and simple camp sites. I had my tent setup in a sweet spot in a dense area of trees with a nearby path leading to the white sand and the crystal clear blue water at the west end of Cinnamon Bay.

By late morning, with a packed lunch, I would set out to hitch a ride into town. Thumb out on the winding hilly roads was not only legal but the main mode of getting from one place to another for those without a vehicle. It wouldn’t take long before a ride was offered by a familiar face who would become a regular acquaintance very quickly. Small island - same folks day in, day out. I took routine trips to town in the early afternoons where I would explore the immediate area of shops and services for essentials that I might need. Food, post office, phone, bank, etc. After about the third day of becoming quite familiar with the way of life on St John and beginning to interact with various locals, it was getting to be late in the afternoon and I knew I should head back to the campsite. Walking down the quiet main drag lined with palm trees and folks living a slow paced life, I heard some live music emanating from one of the well known restaurants in Mongoose Junction which was pretty much quaint shops for tourists. There was always a regular crowd of locals hanging out for the pre-dinner happy hour. I climbed the railroad tie steps from the street and kept myself inconspicuous on a balcony outside some French doors, looking into from where the music was emanating. A guitar player with a very cool midi setup was playing and singing a great repertoire of tunes spanning James Taylor, The Eagles, The Beatles, Elton John, Carol King and older standard type tunes of Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Nat King Cole, etc. This was right up my alley of appreciation.

Although I was off to the side, he saw and felt my presence as any musician feels “the vibe” of another musician. I was really enjoying his set and was taken by his level of accomplishment as a player and singer. I guess I just wasn’t expecting this on a tiny little island. As he moved into his break, I once again acted upon what up to recent times was not really within my comfort level. However, approaching him in my new dream world of an environment was less intimidating here among the local folks that knew all the goings on. I immediately complimented him on his playing, singing, tunes and midi setup. He was appreciative, very approachable and very knowing that I was a working musician from the nature of the midi acknowledgment. He asked what was happening with me being on island and how long my stay is. I responded by saying, “I’m here man!” “You are here to live?” “Yes,” I said with a knowing, yet seeking smile. Some conversation ensued. He treated me to a beer and asked if I would be into getting together to play sometime in the afternoon. That’s musician talk for, “I want to check you out.” Or - hold an audition to see if you can play and break the monotony of able musicians being far and few between. Without any intent of playing music and being involved in “a scene,” I immediately said, “Yes!” We arranged for him to pick me up in his little Suzuki jeep-style island run about (which was the vehicle of choice in this environment) the next day and headed to one of the very, very impressive open air, torch-lit restaurants at Caneel Bay Resort.

Part 34: The First Gig

There were a number of acoustic console pianos in various locations at Caneel Bay. A nice little Yamaha sat in a restaurant that was eventually to be my dinner time home, three evenings a week for a very cool and hip solo piano gig. With his acoustic guitar in tow he asked me what I would like to play. I said I was really “digging” his James Taylor tunes from last night’s gig at Mongoose Junction. He suggested Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight. I always was, and still am, a huge James Taylor fan and loved that song. Although I had never played this tune, it was easy for me to play it by ear since none of the chord changes are that tricky in terms of harmonic progression. We played and I dug deep into my heart. When we finished, there were some moments of precarious silence. It was broken by him shaking his head slowly from side to side, chuckling, and asking, “Can you do a gig Sunday night?” I laughed a humble laugh and said, “S U R E ! !” He followed by asking, “Tell me again, what are doing here??” I responded, “Hanging out, man!” He had been living on St John for the past 10 years and was the “music guy” hub for connecting with most everybody and everything I would need to get working as a piano/keyboard player. I was living my dream!

My new musical acquaintance became a good friend and shared two very essential and pivotal books with me not too long after coming to meet one another. The profundities of Autobiography Of A Yogi and Black Elk Speaks live within me as a primordial wisdom and have shaped a great deal of my path in life. I thank him for this too.

Part 35: Becoming A Local   
 
I ended up renting a tiny room in a somehow fully functional type of shack. It was a share with a rather introverted Vietnam vet who grew up on St John. He built the shack on his mother’s property overlooking a south eastern bay heading into the South Atlantic. It had a simple indoor bathroom and kitchen. The shower was outside and he rigged up a long run of circular coiled copper tubing on the ground which sat in direct morning sunlight. This was gravity pressure fed from the main cistern on their property and supplied about five to eight minutes of a very comfy hot shower in the morning. Although this simplicity was very luxurious, water conservation was at a height due to a severe lack of rainfall in that area of the South Atlantic Ocean. That was no issue for me since environmental preservation had been a way of life and mindfulness all along. I rented the tiny room for three months and then moved on to an airy spread on the east side of St John called Upper Carolina. This looked out over breath taking Coral Bay where the seaplane would come in for mail delivery once a day. I had great and inspiring times playing many gigs in a number of varying scenes all around Coral Bay. Life was good!
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For now, one of the two pinnacles of all experiences in the USVI was my three-night- a-week piano gig at Caneel Bay Resort. I would spend most of my days reading and swimming in a remote part of Hawksnest Beach, head to Caneel bay at about 3:30, wash up, have some dinner and play my solo piano gig in a trippy environment of the torch lit open-air Sugar Mill Restaurant. Pretty regularly, if they weren’t too terribly hit with a rush of large table reservations during the prime tourist season, the head chef who expressed his appreciation for my contributing to his ambiance, would have a beautiful, right off the menu dinner waiting for me at the end of my last set, along with a glass of Cabernet or Merlot, as well. I would close my eyes and have to pinch myself to assure that I was still in this Earthly body, living in this life! It was gratitude, gratitude, gratitude. 

Part 36:  St John to Minneapolis

After many months of meeting new friends and acquaintances, having varied interactions with folks who shared interesting and often unique and inspiring stories, I began to sense a shift both physically and emotionally. Within my free-spirited, hitch- hiking-around lifestyle “on island,” mixed with the mundane day-to-day responsibilities of my conventional life as a musician, began to experience the beginnings of island fever. I had heard of this, but never really considered the truest nature of the experience. Well, I got to know the very disconcerting feeling of being claustrophobic on an island in the South Atlantic Ocean.

What a strange sensation it is to yearn for a bigger rock. Just around that time, I met a woman who was working to bring Tibetan monks to St John. In fact, if I am remembering correctly, it seems as though I had seen some monks in maroon and gold robes, and for the most part, I assumed they were visiting for a special event. It piqued my interest to find out, and given how auspicious energy was really ramping up in my life, it was within days that I ran across the woman I had met earlier and who turned out to be their host. We chatted for a bit, however, I realized the timing was simply not going to work out for me to become involved with her endeavors, or have any meaningful time with the monks.

Also at this time, I was feeling the intense gravity my sister-in-law who was slowly losing her battle with cancer. It was a very short time after this when I received word that my brother’s wife passed away and her suffering in the life had ceased. Tragically, my nephew and niece at 11- and nine-years-old were the depth of sadness. Their beloved mom had transitioned from this world of vibrational density at the young age of 39. As timing would have it, living in a sense of things existing as both in alignment, and yet some aspects slightly out of alignment, a few months earlier I had made the acquaintance of two people at Caneel Bay Resort. It was on my Friday and Saturday evening duo gig that a like-minded musician-at-heart-and-soul, husband, father of four, and marketing/advertising-by-day guy, got his ear caught on the grooves and harmonies we played. He listened as the notes floated over the palm trees and naming torch lights along the pathways that led to one of the open-air bars just off the private resort beach. Wayne was with his wife, sister-in-law, and her husband, on a very nice forget-about your- cares weeklong vacation. A typical anxiety reducing getaway from the high energy, mania-paced, gotta earn the hundreds of thousands in order to afford the medicinal decompression at yet another high priced get-away in order to de-stress; only to head back into the same rotation all over again... And again... And ....My sarcasm aside, it is this system of stress-out and de-stress that brought me to one of the five the most outstanding and love induced paths of my life.

The following evening, the musician-at-heart-and-soul guy made it a point to convince his family entourage they needed to have after-dinner drinks at the open-air bar where I was playing. My musician partner for the gig was a singer/guitarist who had a beautiful repertoire of tunes, as well as a smooth warm set of singing pipes. He chose eclectic pop songs of artists whom I related from within my taste of harmonic color and flavor. It was great having exposure to his song list as I had the opportunity to learn quite a few lesser known, yet compositionally-rich tunes.

After our second set, this soon to be soul-brother stepped up and introduced himself. His overture was with ease and style, appearing to have absolutely no trepidation with sparking up conversation with a total stranger. This was of note to me, since that is an attribute up until that point in life, I simply did not posses. His words were gracious and beyond complimentary to the extent of asking me with a type of “you-know-what-I- mean” wink. “So, what are you doing here playing this gig?” I was taken aback and simply responded, “Thanks man, it’s a gig...here on a beautiful, pretty much timeless island.” He continued, “Yeah, but you know what I mean, what’s up? How did you end up here? From where?” His smile and demeanor were huge and so was the love and appreciation beaming from his heart.

He introduced himself as Wayne, but in short time, along with all others close to him, became WayneO - soul brother WayneO - from Minneapolis, MN. A fairly lengthy conversation ensued which very quickly included his wife Lynne. We covered quite a bit of ground, sharing brief history discovering much in common. Within all that WayneO shared, it became obvious that he was very plugged into an aspect of the Minneapolis music scene and some of its very high profile players, composers and producers, many of whom had worked closely with Prince and other stars that had come out of the Minneapolis funk scene. As Lynne listened on, WayneO conveyed an invite to me - anytime I wanted to come for a visit, give them a call and their home is open to me. I took this as a great compliment.

I shared with them how I was beginning to feel the bizarre nature of island fever and could very well take them up on their offer some time in the near future. There was an antsy feeling settling in, almost as if I was compelled to count the weeks until I would be leaving St John. The feeling was pronounced and palpable one late afternoon as I was riding in the back of a Zuzuki jeep style vehicle on the way to my Sunday evening trio gig on the south-east side of the island, off Coral Bay. More and more, less and less appealed to me within the tropical existence. What was reregistering as emerging within my mind was that I had more to do and more to accomplish musically and artistically, than island life could possibly offer.

My exit was decided by the phone call informing me of my sister-in-law’s passing. This was in the mid-1990s and airlines still honored immanent bereavement arrangements for scheduling flights. There were actually specially trained customer service personal for navigating those who were grief stricken and I must say it was an extremely compassionate and heartfelt endeavor of the airline. It was late spring and my short notice plans fell into place. The few material possessions I had accumulated since arriving nearly a year earlier were given to the owner of the shared “shack” when I first arrived on St John. My three-month stay there had been rustic but comfortable, and I was fortunate to return there for my final four weeks of my life-shifting adventure. He was quite taken aback by my offerings as gifts. It seemed by getting to know him, that he hadn’t received too many gifts throughout his life. Living as a loner and from what I could deduce of his suffering from PTSD as a Vietnam vet, he sort of sheepishly responded, “Really? You are giving these to me?” Although, despite his soft response, he did possess a brash side that took some getting used to. It wasn’t long before I began to discover that as he realized an acquaintance was honorable, he responded with much respect and a sincere nurturing nature. It was heartwarming to gain his friendship. Now, my tiger-striped bucket had been inherited by someone that looked at me with mutual appreciation. There were also nice bedroom pillows, a woven blanket and the six inch iron skillet that were among the gifts to my guarded friend. What a great feeling it is to be accepted and trusted by someone so hurt and jaded. I never forgot the short visit when we said goodbye to one another, just because I knew what our time together meant to him, and in turn, to me as well. It was the guitarist and man-about- the-island that gave me a ride to Cruz Bay for my departure. Appropriate that it was a kind of bookend in terms of relationships. Ours saw some ups and downs - in and outs throughout my time on St John, which I guess was to be expected with sensitive artistic types such as ourselves.

I have learned many lessons along the way as to the nature of becoming involved in other peoples’ lives - especially when suffering from low self-esteem and a mindset of scarcity. My history was steeped in becoming reliant on others simply because I lacked the belief in myself and how to follow through on things that would yield sustainable outcomes for me. The road has been a long one of many years moving into the beauty and never disappointing realm of heart consciousness - trust in all that is - The Tao - knowing there is no scarcity and coming into a love and light that supports my own esteem, never questioning my abilities in terms of the debasing inner self-annihilating self-critic - which ran amuck throughout my life. All the complexity of why, how and when we incarnate - emerge- cosmologically in time/non-time/space/non-space aggregate into this life as a domain of electromagnetic spectrum of energy/density.

As I boarded the small passenger boat headed to St Thomas for my flight back to the mainland, my musician pal said in a strange and almost condescending way, “You’ll be back.” I nodded my head in acknowledgment, and after sharing a hug and verbal expression of my appreciation for him, found a seat on the boat. While staring introspectively out the window, I thought to myself in no uncertain terms, “No I won’t.”

Over the years since, there have been fleeting considerations of visiting, but given all I learned of the Virgin Island’s brutal history of torture and genocide, I vowed to myself to never ever visit as a “tourist.” I’ve thought how closely related mechanisms of tourism and terrorism exist as in many cases, an outgrowth of one another - certainly a complexity that few happy tourists understand, or are willing to embrace. I saw it among the black West Indian friends I’d made, and I came to understand their collective traumas and unending conscious and subconscious, generation-to-generation grieving.

My flight back to NYC was by way of Puerto Rico, and I finally arrived at the apartment of my “brother-from-another-mother” friend, Paul, who had carried out the idea of the tiger striped spackle bucket when all yet to be encountered in St John was still resided within the great unknown. We also got a light laugh as acknowledgement when I referred to him as “Cuz.” There was a deeply meaningful time in my early- to mid- twenties when his mom was my functional surrogate mother. Or at least that’s how I looked at the relationship. I spent a lot of time at their home escaping my troubles of family fallout. Despite our generational age difference, Irene and I became very good friends. We were sort of fondants to one another, and she treated me to many very nice dinners in exchange for chauffeuring her around on errands, doctor appointments, and nights out with her friends to either the Metropolitan Opera or some other music or theater event in NYC.

At that time, Paul and I found solace in one another amid the burden of our inability to navigate our way within conventional life and its programmed expectations. I spent just a little over a week at Paul’s place in Hoboken while getting in touch with Wayne from Minneapolis. In the meantime, at the urging of the musician contingent (which included my guitar buddy with the less-than-optimistic sendoff, back on St John,) I made plans to spend five days at a Kriya Yoga retreat in northern Michigan. These particular St. John/Michigan musicians had visited the retreat and were supportive followers of the teachings, even though “island life” would not necessarily resemble such. After leaving a voice message with Wayne and not hearing back for a couple of days, I shamelessly gave it another try. This time rather than his number at home, I dialed up the work/office number he shared that fortuitous night while chatting in the torch light and soft, warm South Atlantic breeze. Sure enough he answered and what ensued was a type of verbal stutter step of, “Oh, oh, well... I, um, uh... will have to talk with my wife... and kids about you visiting...” I learned that Wayne did, indeed, make quite a number of offers to musicians who not only called, but showed up. Not that his wife, Lynne, was irritated with this, but my request certainly came along with severe eye-rolling and exclamations of, “Wayne!!, Another musician coming to crash at our place??!!” We had a short but impactful phone call and left it that he will be back to me very shortly. The call from Wayne came and all was good; Lynne was ok, the kids were ok, and I was welcome based on a vibe that they had felt comfortable with me. I finalized my trek to the yoga retreat and then on to Minneapolis.

While at the retreat, I experienced a fire yoga presented by two kriya yoga teachers/disciples. This was unlike anything I had encountered up to this point. Over a period of a few hours of exuberant chanting and intense meditation, more chanting - and more chanting, the masters coaxed a sizable flame into responding to their hand and body movements. This was no ordinary, seemingly random, burning flame.

This flame was in profound conversation with the yogis. It was fluid and graceful as they communed with hand gestures and body movements that became a dance of divine ecstasy. I had an epiphany yet again! Consciousness, energy: no such thing as inanimate anything. The message was All is intelligent, and on some level, all is an informational, feedback-looping exponential non-linear information—otherwise known as intelligence. My path was shifted once again into deeper and more subtle realms of existence. The substance of expression within what I previously viewed as things, events and conditions, revealed to me that the fire as yoga was an interactive, interconnected, interdependent living entity dancing a graceful dance of symbiotic kinship as the yoga masters embraced the fire as an intelligence. Beyond stunning!

Upon my arrival at Minneapolis/St Paul airport, there was a wait that was filled with anticipation for Wayne as I remembered him. I was greeted and welcomed with a feeling of inner knowing as we navigated our re-acquaintance in such a different environment and circumstance. Given the surrounding events leading up to this point - the passing and funeral of my sister-in-law, seeing and understanding the trauma of my very young niece and nephew, the surreal experience of the last year on St John, three years prior to island life of devout meditation and study hours per day, and now continuing on from five days of what seemed to feel as a lifetime of insight within the Kriya yoga retreat, I came to learn that Wayne perceived me as a persona of some sort of guru. My hair was long almost shoulder length, thin body frame as I have always been, beard and I was dressed in Bohemian style with sandals, shorts and loose light- weight shirt. Also, I was wearing my trusted Dorje necklace, as I hand signaled a piece sign to Wayne from about 25 feet away. I can see how he felt a vibe of sort of other- worldliness as we approached one another.

Over the following days and weeks, we all got to know each other and I was welcomed into their family. Lynne, their three daughters and son, Uncle Ron and Aunt Norma were just the beginning of seeing my new extended family within this web of life that extends in very precise, karmic and profound ways. And as serendipitous synchronicity would have things, as of this writing, summer 2018, I am scheduled to co-present a men’s retreat with Ron and Norma’s son, Tony Signorelli, at the serene and gorgeous Christine Center in Willard, Wisconsin. Tony is an accomplished and prolific author within subjects ranging from our national and global political climate, to how men can interact affectively with nurturing presence to those involved the #MeToo movement. Having found some grounding in the Minneapolis suburbs, I pretty much immediately began to seek out a living situation of my own. I had been on the phone in Wayne and Lynne’s kitchen as they overheard me making arrangements for looking at one potential living situation in Uptown Minneapolis (which was still quite Bohemian in nature in the mid-1990s). They came to me and expressed that I should take my time and relax about finding a place. There was no rush – they enjoyed my company. I ended up a very welcome guest in their home for just over three weeks. Just as so many contemporary families have their challenges within raising children, especially when the focus of the parents is on keeping up with the big pricey lifestyle, I saw very quickly that my meditative demeanor was something very foreign to them. They felt and understood a deep appreciation for my itinerate path in life—one of seeking into remembering, introspection, and inner quiet as a way of health. And within their “conventional” mythic religious beliefs, saw a quality of a grounded and centered serene nature offering another take on the story of the Sacred Heart and Christ Consciousness that they had not yet considered within their journey of Catholicism.
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Over the years, one of the inspirations Wayne brings up from time to time, is the conversation we enjoyed when I offered the idea that the Second Coming of Christ could very well be our modern day interpretation of Christ Consciousness. The body of Christ being I AM by way of Heart Consciousness as there can be an experiencing of I AM Presence - in and of All that IS - ever was - ever will be; related within experiential notion of time/space, or in other words, the dimensional domain hosting our collective emergence as an inherent, seemingly subjective human perspective. As I did not want to overstay my welcome, I made an appointment to see a room in a lovely upper duplex. It was a beautiful house and the owners intent had been to offer rooms to as many like- minded people as possible. It was a bit of a communal idea as he was very generous in sharing the home’s space, furnishings, very elaborate kitchenware and appliances, and as a bonus, he was a professional pianist with his well maintained, regularly tuned midsize grand piano sitting in the sunroom. This too was offered in very open and generous terms for me to do as much playing as I would like. This was a sweet alignment of synchronicity, yet again, as I made regular use of the instrument.

I discovered a very familiar aesthetic in Uptown Minneapolis resembling the design and ambiance of where I grew up as child in the Vailsburg section of Newark, New Jersey. The homes were built in the 1900s to 1950s and trees lined the one-way streets and parks throughout the area. One of the main differences as a natural setting is that there is no exaggeration with Minnesota being known as the land of 10,000 lakes. In South Minneapolis alone, I’ve enjoyed Lake Harriet, Lake Calhoun, and Lake of the Isles in a way that can only be described as a surreal dream of pleasantry and heart-warmth. I was feeling quite content for some time and it didn’t take long before some connections were made and I found myself working steadily on the weekends with fabulous musicians.

My entry into the Minneapolis music scene was by way of wedding and country club engagements as well as some sporadic club performance work. Regular routine calls were coming in from one band leader in particular - a soul singer at heart that between he and his marketing-savvy wife who worked at a high-profile advertising agency, kept me booked every weekend with multiple playing opportunities. By way of these weekend gigs, I received calls from the bass player in the band who was partnered in a music production company that booked sizable jingle projects. There too, I began meeting top-flight players and the remuneration was a very nice bump to my monthly income.

But even with the sought after primo studio gigs, most of the jobbing was weddings and country clubs which after some time wore at me that I was destined to be a “weekend” gigging musician. This came with some disillusionment coming from my auspicious serendipity of becoming associated with RCA Records as a musical artist. My ego was not reconciling with this realty in any kind of healthy way. This is not to say that I was not constantly creating artistic projects that were authentic to all that I had as an expression of heart and soul. It was my lack of resourcefulness and seeing what I was creating as deeply worthy for the goodness of others that was missing. This is not a good recipe for maintaining self-esteem, especially in the arts.

Months and years passed, hosting and abandoning a sweet meditation group, producing ambient ethereal music tracks, and passing on many opportunities that would have been viable for the expanse and distribution of my art as an expression of deeply held vision and desire. What I now understand, both clinically and esoterically, as a path in life that was an “IS-ism” - that which is to Be as a learning and unfolding for a much broader and boundless karmic manifestation-as-spiritual journey, was/is an inherent foundational framework. And, within that framework, I was deciphering the sojourn of complex post-traumatic stress disorder and its infinite non-linear “corrupted data” aspects as dissociation leading to clinical major depressive disorder.

My initial residence in Minneapolis lasted three years when, once again, my eastern European Gypsy blood and nature kicked in. I had been enjoying many new friends and yet again, the uniqueness of a different culture, this time being the Midwest of the United States. Things were still existing in a much more pronounced way in terms of the day-to-day pace of life in Minnesota, at that time. Over the years, with population expansion and a lack of forethought within infrastructure panning, the Twin Cities has become and remains a fast growing almost bursting-at-the-seams densely populated urban environment, which also came with a nearly unimaginable suburban sprawl. It was the summer of the latter part of my third year that I took flight back to New Jersey seeking artistic opportunities. There were a few of these treks where I would end up with the feeling of an inevitability heading back to Minneapolis. There was a definitive point when the Land of Lakes became home to me. I felt it and did not resist. It was a healthier existence for me, yet along the way having to reconcile the challenge of how I “fit in” with dreams and visions of the more creative side of composing, producing and playing music.

As everywhere, there are many artists who must work “day jobs” in support of their art in a society and culture that places less value on aesthetics and romanticism than materialism and the programmed distortions that value a fiat currency. Philosophically, how do we find well-being and sustainability when true wealth and definitions of resources are so vastly misunderstood from within the depths of that which designs and defines a cultural paradigm? Back when I was recording for RCA/Novus Records, my performing band grew to an ensemble of seven musicians - all that since have had very productive and successful careers. Barry Danelian, who moved through years of touring with Tower of Power and is now tenured with Bruce Springteen’s horn section; tenor saxophonist, Mack Goldsbury, who not long after our RCA time, took his family to Berlin, Germany, found great acceptance there and never came back except for just a few brief visits; percussionist, Emedin Rivera; bassist, Gary Foote; and drummer Karl Latham, have all had glowing years of various musical opportunities whether performing, recording, producing or involvements with writing, finding themselves with lasting and sustainable publishing royalty remuneration.

Of the greatest impact was when now-famed jazz saxophonist Craig Handy introduced himself to me and stated, “Hey man, your sax player is real good and all, but if you ever want, I would be totally into doing your gig.” This was after a concert at the South Street Seaport in Manhattan where crazily enough, my band shared the stage with the great Roy Haynes. Due to the contemporary jazz radio exposure I was receiving in NYC at the time, my band was invited under the sponsorship of CD101.9 and Coors Brewing Company to participate in the Seaport Jazz Series held just after work hours in the bustling enclave of lower Manhattan in and around Wall Street. Craig Handy was one of the “straight ahead” up and coming virtuoso young jazz players who participated in Herbie Hancock’s New Standards tour on recommendation from Micheal Brecker who performed on the award- winning recording. Since that time, Craig has been all over the world and is considered one of the first-call jazz saxophonists of our generation. Our meeting coincided yet again, years later, in a way that left me with no doubt of how we influence and “program,” synchronistically with intent, aggregate the function of nature in a creator/created way of dancing within, and as that which we are—interconnected fundamental nature—as itself. We will return shortly...

The nature of the small-minded, fearing, doubt-driven ego can be monstrously challenged when seeing one’s peers moving through and into opportunities that grow careers, and setting up a nice life of having way more in the way of creature comforts. So is the nature of the observing ego when an accomplished musician makes his way by the fruit of devoted, disciplined, and mature approaches to their art. I was swimming, barely that is, in a mass of water that was constantly presenting the seeming inevitability of drowning in my own fears, doubts, self deprecation, and self-annihilation. I simply did not know how to get out of my own way. I say simply because getting out of one’s own way from the vantage point of achieving it really is simple! It is our very own thoughts that are making emotions, and emotions making thoughts that are the impediment. Self- produced confusion by thinking that :something must be done rather that living as the consciousness state of Being. As musical expression, when we come from the place of thinking, “I must now play something,” or, “I am going to play based on something I know,” we are doomed. Getting out of one’s way is listening into the “void of potentiality” via, and within and of, Heart and responding within this domain. It is listening, simply listening.

Referring to the concept of quantum super positioning and applying the forward-thinking concept in these terms, we “simultaneously” listen in and respond based on our own developed vocabulary of harmony, melody, rhythm, and the mix of technical development. It is a self-reflective, in-and-of the interdependent symbiotic synergy that one creates the other in this synergistic non-linear expanse. All is there for us as we simply listen in effortlessness.

It is the notion of Tao - Being - flow - our consciousness prior to any thought producing emotion and vice versa. We then, by way of this listening, portray this process as emotional expression: the very essence of the notes played in time and space. The notes are placed in such a way as adhering to that which we are listening “ in to” as an emergence of the golden mean, infinite spiral swirl found in all of nature. The golden mean, as massively explored and applied mathematical equation describes nature’s symmetry of non-linear unimaginable perfection. From within this exquisiteness of natural phenomena rests the mysticism of synchronicity. Events that appear to coincide within a web of what we so often jump at calling, chance or coincidence. It seems as though this chance-like coincidence can very well be understood and embraced when we hold a larger view of events, circumstance and conditions that define our limited perception within and as time/space and ego construct. I have come to realize, perhaps theorizing in my own way of practical applications to creating metaphors and analogies in guiding and teaching that help others see these magnificent structural aspects and components creating our world of interactions and various degrees of perceived “separation.” Once we dissolve the concept and neuro-linguistic programming steeped in that which does not exist, separation, or more deeply examined as non-duality, synchronicity takes on a “whole” new bright beaming, loving and enthusiastically expansive light as perception of reality and all Cosmological infinite boundlessness.

A Fiery Passion of Intent Emerging as one of my impulse urges and callings, was yet another episode of leaving Minneapolis and heading back to NJ. In truth, I was feeling compelled to experience living in Manhattan. And that I did. But first, I experienced a massive dose of synchronicity. Just after arriving back in New Jersey and taking advantage of living in the same building on Liberty Place from nearly ten years earlier, I had an experience that nearly topped all of what was becoming clear as to the nature of non-duality and separation as we perceive events, time, and space. I became inspired to engage and serve by volunteering for the Coalition for the Homeless in NYC. I drove a van packed with prepackaged meals on Saturday evenings. This lead to my eyes being opened in new and plaguing ways as to the trials, tribulations, and tragic suffering of people who are living a path in life that unfolds as experiencing a seemingly pre- programmed disadvantaged and even more societal ruthlessness and disenfranchised reality. I took in stories with fascination and heartbreak, and questioned how these conditions and circumstance exist within the grand scheme of things. Sadly and compassionately the answer becomes clear as we continue to live within the hypnotic state of seeing others as separate from “Me/I”; seeing another as something other than me. And most importantly, I asked why the other’s pain and suffering was any less than what my pain and suffering would be given the same situation. It is the sum of collective emotional intelligence - where we all are in our own way in terms of evolution as human development.

Separation is bred into us all from our beginnings in the manifest incarnate state of neuro-awareness. It is our language that further exacerbates our condition of perceiving good-bad, up-down, inner-outer, animate-inanimate, on and on. There is nothing that is not moving, vibrating within everything as every thing and every thing as everything - fractals of a “holographic” dream as the dream weaver. One Saturday night on our food distribution route, heading down Seventh Avenue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with WBGO Jazz Radio playing in the van, on comes an interview with Craig Handy! It is hard to describe what I experienced. I felt elation for Craig and our interaction back at South Street Seaport, yet envy and self-loathing emerged out of my existence of not achieving visions, dreams, and artistic pursuits that were held so deeply in my heart.

The feeling was maddening to the point of rather severe anxiety. I had become friendly with another volunteer, a woman who held like-minded social and political views. We enjoyed one another’s company on the distribution runs and did just a slight bit of socializing after our Saturday coalition responsibilities. We also enjoyed by way of personal conviction, what was frowned upon by the Coalition leaders by going off our assigned route, seeking out people in need of a meal. We found ourselves in some very questionable and dicey environments and situations of darkness within how those that have lost everything will come to exist. As the broadcasted radio interview unfolded and my out-of-body anxiety intensified. My volunteer friend asked blatantly, “What’s going on with you?” I looked at her, feeling dazed. Apparently my mind state was obvious. She went on to describe how I was feeling, what I was experiencing. She felt a huge energy of palpable shift within me that was stifling in the van. I explained a little bit and given her deeply empathetic nature, she engaged and helped talk me through the anxiety and self-demoralizing, annihilating wave that was thundering through my mind without any boundaries of control. I continued sharing in some of my story and she found it fascinating and intriguing on a human level.

Not long before, upon her request, I had sheepishly shared a recording of some original music. She was astounded and could not understand why I was not valuing my work to the extent that I would be working professionally all the time with great financial reward. I could not possibly have explained because I had no understanding of the mechanism that was killing me up to that point. As we continued down Seventh Avenue, I vowed silently to myself that there must be a way to connect with Craig and collaborate musically. THERE MUST! So bizarre. Within my mind it was as if this was life and death, and perhaps it was—perhaps—which which revealed itself years later as I planned my own demise. It was a brutal time when untreated Major Depression had its way. I had a lost marriage, no career to speak of, and no way out that could be seen. Simply self-annihilating, self-demoralizing, self-destructive, self-hating mechanisms hold the reign when we don’t know how to live in and as one’s heart. So the self insistence that overtook me that evening in the van unfolds as a life lesson of magnificent proportion. Teachings that when listened to and understood, in a humble way, are gifts and function as a key to the door which opens a portal of self-awareness that has the power to heal. We must listen to this distant whispering when it comes.

On my path, there were still many miles and painful interactions to travel. However, what was learned and acquired along this way as insight, wisdom and precious, auspicious, nurturing teachings, are a way to an unfolding of the locked heart - the connection of the pineal gland/third eye of the prefrontal cortex to the heart - the memory center as a vault of “remembering” who and what we are and why we have aggregated within All cosmological existence to Be in manifest form as this experience so commonly called, life. The “magical” mystical realm within the infinite resonant field of the human heart, and the stunning-ness of this living entity exceeds by far the notion of an organic mechanism that simply pumps blood throughout our cardio-vascular system. Soon enough within this path of awakening unto Me, the human “will,” (call it what we might: focus, intent, passion as vision, unstoppable belief) will play itself out as synchronicity in many important and beyond wonderful ways of coming into heart consciousness.

Now at 60, and never more alive writing this, nothing could be more of a triumphant celebration of the self. Over my years of devotional, disciplined, humble work and study, practice and application, flowing as practice, living life as a practice of Being, to come into self awareness of self-love, self-acceptance, I have come to understand understanding my reason for Being. Within knowing of my family and no longer questioning, or resisting trials and tribulations, I’ve acknowledged the history of my dysfunctional family fallout which I experienced as severe trauma, exist as simply all that they are, what they are/were and all is as it is. And ALL IS GOOD! I am good - just as I AM; simple, in every moment, “Being” rather than attaching so desperately to outcomes. There is another way. As Being, now, here, focusing on what is right in front of me and knowing, living in an unfolding-as-flow of effortlessness...the more I get out of the way of flow, it becomes clear that there exists no impediment to all because all interconnectedness and interdependence is to Be. However, as I said, there had still been a road of many miles ahead.

A few years after hearing Craig Handy’s interview on WBGO in our food distribution van, At just about 40, I was determined to find a place in Manhattan. Along the way as I was living back in Weehawken on hiatus from Minneapolis, my interest in music sampling developed as an art-form in creating music tracks from pre-existing music. However, my compositional focus was creating for the most part, sampled tracks out of original music or hybrids of my own compositions and sound designs. I was in and out of my decision for making a sizable investment in a state-of-the-art audio sampler and diving in deep as I was always accustomed within my work. I headed into Manny’s Music and Sam Ash on 48th St in Manhattan and shopped for a new Akai MPC 2000 Sampler/Digital WorkStation. The MPC 2000 was state-of-the-art at that time. Checking functions and talking prices with a manager/employee friend from a rehearsal studio that my band frequented for working out arrangements prior to performances years earlier, the deal looked good and I was just about ready to take the plunge. Pondering my new concept and its trajectory, I went outside the store to work through some self- convincing within my mind.

Suddenly, everything began to move into slower and slower motion; even the sounds of of the street seemed to slow down as if to lower the pitch. I was not far from the entrance to Manny’s when I look up and slightly down the street eastward. At that moment, I saw, in disbelief and emerging panic, the huge stature, dreadlocked hair, and slow extremely self-assured saunter of Craig Handy. My mind went silent. So silent that within this slow motion, Craig was just about to pass me by. I was transported to the driver seat of the Coalition for the Homeless van hearing - THERE MUST, THERE MUST be a way to collaborate musically. Time moved slower and slower in those few seconds of me being very aware that I need to say something - it had been nearly 10 years since our encounter at South Street Seaport. And this is a story of a life packed with meaning and ultimately in service and good of others, which has taken decades to learn - a story of meaning far beyond the need for musical accomplishment. In fact musical accomplishment exists in the shadow of this path of meaning - other than the aspect of applying “getting out of my own way” and playing from that mind-state as my primary musical accomplishment. That, in and of itself, is what always goes directly to the heart and soul of others.

Craig! I felt as if I was hearing my own voice from a subtly distant vantage point. At this point in time, Craig Handy was internationally known and any number of times, someone, or numerous musicians or non-musicians would inevitably call out to him on NYC streets. Further into this story, we were driving into Manhattan together and when we got to the Lincoln Tunnel toll booths with Craig driving, the toll attendant said, “Hey, yo! Nice show with Herbie (Hancock) the other night!” I shook my head slowly and deliberately with a very subtle out-breath almost silent laugh as deep homage. As I called out to him on 48th St, time resumed its natural flow, Craig looked over at me, I said my name, “Hey man, Charlie Elgart” (at the time I was using my given name). A perplexed look came to his face and then a knowing smile. The conversation went like this: “Hey, man! What you doin’?” “I’m thinking on buying a pricy sampler.” “What? You doin’ samples? That’s what I been thinking about doin’ with my own music,” was his response. Somehow, what came out of my mouth in an enormously unlikely way was, “So let’s do somethin’ together.” He said, “I always dug your writing. What are you doing?” “Don’t know yet, but I feel good about the direction.” He was all for us getting together, so we did within that next week.

This is far from the first interconnected fascination within my life. As years have passed, there has been greater and greater definition as to the nature of focused mind intent and the power of this co-sourcing out of a “web” of potentiality. As if energy that comprises this electromagnetic spectrum as the domain of our human “physical” existence reflects an ever expanding holographic synergy - as an enfolded geometry of our “stories” - life path as to the meaning of our very existence - why we incarnated within/of and AS this realm. - and the non-linear exponentially expanding fractals we play and dance as the characters within this phenomenal stage as theater located somewhere, somehow in the domain of cosmic expanse and contraction - a cosmological breath no different than the push and pull of our oceans tide dictated by Gaia’s/Earth’s synergistic companion, Moon. To experience our five senses, our primary sixth sense and all that is ever more being defined as senses within subtler levels of which are commonly felt and processed. From within the brilliant work of Robert Sardello, we have the gift of expanding our awareness into the senses of self- movement, balance, life-sense, the nature of warmth we find in others, speech as words and the reality they create beyond communication. This is a program of belief as to what this thus-far-dimensional-terrain is, in its essence, and how it comes about as human perception, and adapts itself creating more and more fractalized meaning. It is thought: the birth of concept within the other, the “I” as the Essence of Uniqueness found in the other. Then there waits for us venturing into the recent western discoveries and the understanding / defining of scalar energy. It is the domain of the subtle form of light as consciousness, manifesting thought processed as a transducer being the coherence of pineal gland and heart. Scalar energy - emanating our “sixth sense” - when you feel that phone call about to happen, intuition - sensing and then experiencing in physical form - all existing as an enfolded elegant, eloquent geometry beyond all we have forgotten when emerging into the world of matter-based frequency/vibration/energy. Yet, my discovery has been the utter beauty, joy and reverence for the remembering. It is the little by little process of remembering all that is accessible within the soul’s heart as memory - subtle-form memory. That which is in and of, “beyond” as mutually inherent - the electromagnetic spectrum which hosts “our commonly lived world of gamma rays, radio waves, x-rays, microwaves, and, of course, our “sliver” existence of visible light.

Then there is the massive density now unfolding as an understanding of zero point and its informational wonders. Crossing paths with Craig Handy opened a massive vista and what turned out to be a caldron of learning deeper life lessons. There were many that rose above all that I needed to learn being a musician on his level of virtuosity. Our relationship brought a musical project he named Addicted to the Process - the classroom in which my desk and chair were placed front and center, unavoidable intensity of awakening unto what it is to hear harmonies, melodies and rhythms as a master linguist would write and speak their primary language. The experience catapulted me into a realm of humility that accelerated with growing pains beyond my expressing in words. It was at times a treacherous ride into surrendering myself and all that needed to be let go of in this life, including my visions, dreams of sorts, my self- defined and proclaimed expectations, my notions of what the early childhood traumas would now reveal as unfolding in a perfect symmetry of seeing my life - feeling my life - and grieving into a steep process that would last nearly 15 years. It was an education and training that I welcomed for some auspicious season - mainly that I knew this was and is growth on an immeasurable scale beyond this life - what was, is, and will be. Yet, this is a perspective within linear time. Perhaps how focus and obsession with where we go as transitioning from this life is a misplaced concern as trajectory. Perhaps as we place our focus and devotion on remembering from where and what we emanate, many more of our mystical questions will morph inherently into and as self-emergent answers. As fears dissolve, doubts and contrived stories are dismantled purely out of a state of a resolved benevolent whispering voice from deep within the heart’s resonant field, yet expanding and expanding as a sphere which possesses no center nor circumference.

With journey after journey, and always seeming to chase after something, so often a question of, “Where is the fulfillment?” exists as the next sign post ahead. Fulfillment comes in the hidden form of Being. Being who you are prior to expectations, making plans, following an agenda, seeking or yearning a desired outcome, sculpting one’s life from a mechanism of fear, doubt, distrust, trepidation and overall negative perspective of how life is life. And a perspective does not have to be all that pessimistic to operate rather unknowingly from a vantage point of scarcity or various forms of judgment reigning over mythic stories that play out as hypnotic waking dreams that ultimately are the root cause of such debasing separation and perceiving so much of all that exists as ”other.” We can articulate projecting love toward one another, however without attentiveness, empathy, consideration, gratitude, patience and compassion, what exactly is the essence of the love we are expressing. The love begins within. Knowing and having some figurative measurable degree of the remembering of who we are - in all time/non-time, dimension/dimensionless states and forms of existence on any level of consciousness awareness, as the emergent nature of awareness being the droplet of water and all aspects as aggregate components that are that droplet of water, and its inseparable existence as the ocean itself. As we cultivate infinity as a vantage point, inward projection with no existing aperture, we begin to sense the glorious nature of I AM. All that ever was, All that ever will be: - All Now - Now - Now. In whatever form that expresses expression - knows a knowing - unfolds as an enfoldment, infinitely so. This essence emanates as love, a quiet stillness, empty yet infinitely full, unimpeded potentiality unto any intent of any fathomable/ unfathomable interconnected, interdependent, flowing ever-present stream void of source or end output outcome.

We can understand the unimaginable calling into response as one non-differentiated state of happening/nonhappening. This is where this story continues, or begins, or loops into creating an exponential re-co-creation. A “system” of such marvel, that its own unspeakable nature is referred to but never existing as Tao, and there exists the paradox of entropy, yet at the same time, design, mechanism as mind-bending nonlinear self-reflective self-creation as all living systems, cosmically undefinable as spontaneous emergence. No such thing - this is all perceived from the limitations of dualism, or any “ism” of choice/non choice. Seek within the heart - listen lovingly - an expanse shall greet you as a form/non-form existent projection of who you are - inducing a whispering, subtler and subtler in proportion to stillness and “inner” quiet - Being. 

July, 1994
​The evening prior to my
​early morning departure.
- ​Weehawken, NJ