Introduction - Life and Career Review

Age 16-17 I spent the year abroad, it was a year with abundant yields. I learned Spanish, I took an art course at the Fine Arts college once a week. I spent every weekend in the small Basque fishing village of Laketio, where old cultural traditions are still practiced. I lived with a Catalonian Family out side of Barcelona for one week. I spent one week on the island of Majorca. At the end of my program my father, step-mother and grandmother came and we toured around Spain for one month.

Leaderful Leadership despite hierarchy rule

Creativity through photography and darkroom

Canada, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Switzerland, England, France, Spain, Italy, Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Ghana, India My learnings and unlearnings while traveling are beyond places, most revolve around the commonality of humanity, the joy and sorrow, the struggles and triumphs. There are many wise people still upon this Earth, many are the simplest. So many happenings in travels get magnified in later life. As in the butterfly effect, having a tremendous impact on how you see yourself and relate to the world.

During this entire season I lived in a cave outside of Bristol, Vermont, I call it The Heart Cave. The cave is across the New Haven river ( which you must ford) from the Lords Prayer rock 10 minute walk up South Mountain. I was bare foot, with no flashlight, hitchhiking where I needed to go. Corinne and I also lived in the cave for one month together in 2004. It is the most perfect environments I have ever inhabited.

I started to do "The Initiation" which is carried out by the Remembrance Community, who have been taught and ordained by Martin Prechtel. Many of my friends have gone through the process which takes one year. Before and after I tried to go through the initiation myself, I participated in many of their ceremonies. This is a 'rights of passage' process which was brought by Martin from the indigenous Mayan people of Lake Atitlan in Guatemala. I will expand on this Un/Learning at some point because it is crucially relevant to 'creating our culture'. One of the critical issues was the elder initiating had not been initiated themselves because it is a youth to adulthood initiation. It is a great and powerful thing they are doing, yet I dropped out after 6 months for various reasons.

For these two winters I lived in and help found a spontaneous international community called Ram Ram. I lived barefoot this entire year. Experiences: monk life style, pilgrimage to Mayan ruins and through Belize, yoga, meditation, devotional singing, baking, communal cooking and gardening.

A balanced relation rooted in Spirit and Ethic Overstanding and Love

This experience taught me about punctuality, responsibility, the importance of 'the need' you are fulfilling in a business design to be clear and identified. I learned the joy of fulfilling multiple needs as a producer and a community member/supporter.

Staying with Naga Baba Shivaraj Giri, an elder sadhu who lives naked - Digambaram (He was highlighted in the documentary film "Naked in Ashes") Many deep experiences with Baba over the past three years as well. The Indian culture has a social structure that was created by high visionaries and has coded into it "securities". One such code is a high respect held by the 'house holders' (working class) for those who have nothing, 'renunciates' monks/sadhus. There are many such codes and it is a beautiful thing to see that it is an integral - interdependent support system that is grass-roots / commons.

Several months during these three winters, Corinne and I would go daily to sit under the mango tree with Baba Shyam Kishore Das. He is a Sita Ram Baba, which means he worships the Divine as masculine and feminine united. He has been a renunciate since he was a boy. His teachings are simple, “Don’t run after money! Use your life to serve others with devotion.” His Love overflows and fills our lives, having nothing, living outside and he still tries to give us what little he has.