Time & Pathway Management
After a humbling experience with my main advisor Jen English in which I was made aware of the little understanding I actually had surrounding program status and program pause management, I reevaluated my tracking methods while learning to more strategically organize my pathway ahead. By pausing during times of OP creation and only becoming 'active' when submitting for review, I have been able to effectively complete project work, finish OPs, and occasionally travel while coming to the completion of my capstone phase in a timely manner and not going into extension. This has been a huge improvement since my pre-capstone cycle in which I basically extend my cycle for an additional two years.
This program cycle has been filled with productivity and transformation. With the first half of 2016 revolving completely around live band performances and completing my second full length album, the second half was focused almost totally on transition in which I moved homes/towns two times in only a four month period, relocating my self from Catalina Island and eventually to Echo park in Los Angeles, CA. These developments and transitions demanded most of my energy and so in order to focus on Gaia work I had to commit to periods of 'Gaian isolation' in which at various times of the year, for two weeks to a month, I would focus solely on OP work, reviews, advising sessions, and pathway planning. Though this method is not as consistent with my initial intention for pathway engagement, I have done the best I could given the circumstances regarding the powerful and time-consuming unfoldment within my personal and professional life that has taken place during my capstone phase.
Regardless of the way in which my timing reflects the original intentions mapped out in my LIPD, I am happy with the fact that I managed to complete the OPs which I initially set out to create in a more efficient and dynamic manner than in my previous cycle. I feel a greater confidence in my personal management abilities than ever before and am grateful to Gaia U for providing me with this initiation, enhancing my personal, project, and professional life.
Guild Evidence
Given that literally all of my guild buddies have dropped out of their given programs as Gaia associates in the past 5 years, the most notable evidence was shown by my monthly and later bi-monthy support calls with Lauryn Bellafiore, who has since left the program as well. We would check in around our personal lives, professional endeavors, projects, and pathways, offering one another support, advice, encouragement, and reflection from which we reviewed mutual benefit. We remain as friends to this day and will in fact be neighbors in Los Angeles before 2017 is finished as she is relocating from the east coast.
Additional evidence of guild participation would be my reflections from a recent think and listen with Capstone associate pursuing his MA, Lawrence Schuessler. We had begun the call with intentions to for the focus to center around OP support but it developed into more of a think and listen after finding that it would be of greater benefit. This was primarily because we found ourselves to be overall on the same page as to what is challenging with OPs and how we deal with easing the process, simply put, there wasn't too much new info he could share with me to support my process. Instead we took time to connect around our backgrounds and ultimately share patterns of our OP work and how they've evolved. It turned out Lawrence works for Outward Bound which is a wilderness program that I attended two separate courses of during my teenage years. Those programs had deeply transformational impacts on my life and I was grateful to connect with Lawrence around his experience with the organization and share heart around how our experiences and affiliation with OB has shaped our lives in such positive ways.
Participation Evidence
Because the bulk of my time and activities were dedicated to project work related to my band, performing live, and album production, my participation with Gaia U was based on immediate necessity. This means that my meetings and correspondences with advisors and associates commenced either during OP submission or to sort out details regarding either unfinished work or the clarification of information in order to evaluate goals and establish next steps to fulfill requirements. One example of this was in February 2017 when during a meeting with Jennifer English I was made aware of my lack of understanding around the subject of program pauses and how to effectively use them to my advantage. Simultaneously, through correspondence with Ava Klinger, I learned that I still had unfinished requirements from the orientation term of my pre-capstone phase. Other than attending Gaia Radio calls and associate presentations, these points of interception and re-evalutaion have been the most consistent form of participation evidence.
The most notable participation evidence was when I traveled to Nashville, Tennessee in February, 2017 and stayed with my main advisor, Jen English, who helped me to organize and design this output packet as well as clarify requirements for the completion of my capstone phase. Over the course of 4 days and 5 work sessions, with Jen's guidance and impeccable organizational skills, I was able to effectively clarify my goals and create a clear path forward, leaving Nashville feeling relaxed and ready to complete my OP5.
Experimentation & Interventions
I would consider all of my projects that I engaged in over the course of my capstone phase as experiments, every one of which contained their own unique interventions, revelations, and challenges which provided me greater perspective as well as opportunities to further experiment and come up with creative solutions with which to engage my work. Below I will give a few prime examples of experimentation revolving around intervention points during projects and how they affected my capstone pathway. In the final section I will also show evidence of how I incorporated feedback as well as tracked my trials & prototypes with others in the field of music in my local community.
Following the Call of Transformation - Costa Rica to the Peruvian Amazon
While attending a breath-work facilitator training course (Clarity Breathwork) in Costa Rica at the Pachamama retreat center in February, 2014, I was intending to complete a two week program which contained 4 modules that would be completed over the course of the retreat, after which participants would graduate with certified credentials as a 'clarity breath-worker' which could be integrated into the resumes and practices of our personal and professional healing & wellness services. Though I had learned other forms of breath work in the past and this technique was similar, the context, which focused primarily on healing birth trauma, was very different. Though the first week was educational and insightful, it didn't provide me with the level of depth, challenge, and personal self-exploration which I wanted. Near the end of the first module my girlfriend and I at the time did some research on an educational center located in the Amazon of Peru called, Paititi, which was a facility that specialized in guided transformational immersion retreats in which participants engage in traditional plant medicine ceremonies to facilitate deeper levels of healing and consciousness transformation. I had been inspired by such practices in the past and as it turned out, there happened to be a month long immersion starting just a week later which still had available spaces for us to sign up. I decided to follow my gut, cancel plans to complete the second week of the breath work training, sign up for the Paititi course and book travel to the Peruvian Amazon. Though my Clarity Breathwork instructors were sad to see me go and I was leaving behind a community of students with whom I felt connected I trusted that my choice to join the Paititi retreat would challenge me more and ultimately greater perusal growth along my pathway. Though I had light experiences with psychoactive plants and altered states in the past I had never engaged with them in such a contained, traditional, or structured way, not to mention the concoctions we would be imbibing would be much stronger than anything I had experienced previous. After I finished the month long immersion with Paititi I can say without a doubt it was the most intense, challenging, and transformational experience of my life. This entire experience was an experiment as I spontaneously willingly put myself into what could be (and in many ways was) a very uncomfortable and unfamiliar situation which ultimately turned out to be one of the most insightful and rewarding journeys of my life.
Ecstatic Juggling - Wayfarer Residency & Producing the Coyote Run Album
Another point of intervention which required experimentation during my capstone phase was during projects which would become focal points of my 3rd & 4th output packets. In May 2016 while in preparation to begin recording the 'Coyote Run' album (which was scheduled to be made over the moth of June) we (Ecstatic union) were invited to perform and curate a residency at the Wayfarer for the month of June in Costa Mesa, CA. This meant that we would be featured as the headlining act for every Monday night (4 shows) in June and would also be responsible for finding two other opening bands for each night. It was a tough decision at first because I had made a scheduled and commitment to record the CR record but given that this was the largest opportunity we had been offered so far as a band, it was definitely in our best interest to go for it. Another factor that complicated this was that half of the band, Oliver and I, were living on Catalina Island and the venue was located on the mainland, meaning that we'd be doing a lot of traveling back and forth every week. Despite our choosing to take on the residency I still maintained the commitment to, during the time available, act as producer and engineer for the Coyote Run record with Kasie. This meant that I'd be traveling back and forth with certain amplifiers and instruments every week because we were playing with with for the residency as well as using them in the studio. On either Saturday or Sunday of a given weekend in June, I'd book my ticket to the mainland, load our equipment on the our golf cart, drive to the express boat, load everything on, enjoy an hour long cruise across the channel, arrive at my mothers' home in laguna and meet with the rest of the band on either Sunday or Monday morning in order to rehearse for our set, play our Monday gig and on Tuesday or Wednesday (depending on recording schedule), catch the boat back to the island to work on the Coyote Run record. Even though it was a lot to take on rather spontaneously for a whole month it was beyond worth it as we grew tremendously as a band and individual performers. My professional dexterity also greatly expanded by playing both the role of performer and band leader as well as engineer and producer throughout the week.
To Greater Horizons - Leaving Catalina and Moving to Los Angeles
In late summer of 2016 I decided it was the best decision for the development for the band as well as my personal and professional development to leave Catalina Island (my hometown & where I had been living since fall 2014) and move to Los Angeles, which even though was just across the channel, represented a vastly different world and lifestyle entirely. Earlier that same year I was content to imagine spending a great many years there but as the band grew along with my ambition and desire to progress and learn more, the nostalgic and laid back lifestyle of living on an island wasn't strong enough to hold me anymore as I felt destined for greater horizons. I had never lived in a city before and had many unconscious fears and judgements about doing so. I first made the move to Topanga Canyon which still appealed to the part of me which wanted to stay sequestered from the city and larger world, naively thinking I could live in the quiet solitude of Topanga as well as the bustling city life of Los Angels, which was at least a 45 min drive away without traffic. I was hired as a smoothy maker and dish washer at the 'Topanga Living Cafe' and rented a small cabin where I lived with my girlfriend/bandmate, Kasie, at the time. After three months things were rough in my relationship with Kasie, I was tired of my job, and after a short but impactful conversation with a close friend about moving to the city, it was clear and like a flash of lightning I decided I would make the move to Echo Park, less than a 10 minute drive from downtown Los Angeles. I trusted that this decision would greatly increase my chances of exposure and development for Ecstatic Union, while also providing me with greater opportunities to expand my social contacts, professional network, personal growth, and understanding of the greater world and culture. The same day I found the perfect house to rent through a craigslist add, saw the place, fell in love with it, submitted an application and in about three weeks was moving into echo park to begin my new life. Its been a year and 4 months since I moved to Echo Park and its been one of the most enriching experiences of my life. Ecstatic Union has grown in leaps and bounds since. We've played over 40 shows, went on our first tour from California to Washington and back, released our second album, recorded the third, have played at some of my favorite venues in LA, made our first high production music video, have a publicist premiering our new songs along with a management company distributing our upcoming album and continue to attract greater opportunities and connections as the months pass. Personally Iv'e transformed and grown in this period tremendously. I have made many new friends and professional relationships which I continue to learn, grow, and develop through, I am in an incredibly satisfying, creative, and healthy relationship with a beautiful woman and fellow creative, and I no longer hold unconscious judgments and fears of cities or "the real world". I now see these environments of potent areas for growth, transformation, expansion, and community. I feel more connected to the larger community of artists and the world as a whole, feeling empowered to give my gift and continue to create a life which brings more beauty, love, inspiration, and care to myself and all whom I encounter.
A Note on Trials/Prototypes with others in Field of Music and Feedback Incorporation
In October 2016, while still living in Topanga, Ecstatic Union performed a 3 songs live (audio/video) studio session with 'Bride Family' productions in Burbank, CA. At this point I was still considering signing a lease in Topanga and solidifying my commitment to make it my home for the year. I discussed my musical goals with our Bridge family engineer, Nathan, who gave me a chance to reflect more deeply on my options. We discussed his personal experience with his involvement in the Los Angeles musical community and after hearing of my plans to live long term in Topanga, he strongly advised against it, suggesting I move somewhere in LA that is more central and 'closer to the action'. He assured me that doing so would help build our network and fan base by being more available to the community, attending a greater number of events, and providing more opportunities to meet with others who could be a supportive force in achieving my musical goals. This was the spark of inspiration for me to make the move into the city, which later turned into a motivated fire after my discussion with Paul (noted above as 'the impactful conversation with a friend') driving me to apply for and ultimately move into my now current residence in Echo Park. In reflection of my personal patterns in the past around how I have oriented myself to pursue a professional music career, up until my move to Los Angeles, I primarily focused my goals and operations 'away' from the world; i.e. trying to start a band on the island of kauai, moving my band to the redwood forest of Mendocino to set up a retreat center for artists (3 hours from San Francisco), setting up a studio on Catalina Island where I planted to bring artists from the mainland to record, to eventually envisioning the same scenario in Topanga. Though every one of these prototypes/experiments moved me closer to a more practical method of sharing my gifts and expanding my skillset, when viewing the work of fellow colleagues who have found success in the field of music, I see how other methods could have accelerated my process sooner and more efficiently. For example, my close friend Thomas Dolas, whom I played in bands with in my high school and early college years, moved with his bandmate (in his project, Mr. Elevator) to Los Angeles in 2012 at age 20. Now, after 6 years in Los Angeles, he is an in demand and well respected musician who runs his own recording studio, co-founded the record label 'Lolipop Records', leads his own band Mr. Elevator who has toured extensively across the US with a dedicated fan base, and now plays keyboards for the world renowned psychedelic-garage-prog-rock band, "The Ohsees", whom I have personally been a fan of since I was 16 years old. I loosely followed his process over the years but because I was more focused on inner work and chasing more spiritually (and at times impractical and grandiose) goals I didn't allow myself to really see the value of his efforts. In many ways, my experiences over the past three years have brought me back to earth and helped me to align my goals towards manifesting my artistic vision in a much more practical and professionally oriented context. I see how much Thomas' focus and commitment to a singular goal in pursing a career in music has literally 'paid off' as well as how much he has grown as an individual through doing so. When looking at the larger community of others in the field of music as profession, the most successful are those who don't shy away from cities and culture, but instead integrate themselves into them, for at least a time, until their craft has become lucratively regenerative enough to move or work wherever they chose. I now see the more efficient model is first to integrate my work and efforts within a community connected to the larger framework of humanity and modern culture (aka a city) and after establishing a solid fanbase and network of colleagues, leverage that influence to draw people together for learning and creative opportunities like music workshops, recording retreats, and wellness services catered to musicians. I can then move these operations to more rural and idyllic locations, realizing in a more professional way, my initial goals. Through integrating the feedback I received through consulting with Thomas and reflecting on his process over the years, along with my conversations with Nathan and Paul, I ultimately chose to make the decision which ultimately catapulted my professional music career and personal growth by moving to Los Angeles.