“Soul relativity is our universality.”

A Perfect Storm

I had the good fortune of spending my adolescence in Leelanau County in Northern Michigan.  This was a time in my life of great upheaval.  My parents divorced a few years prior and my mom, brother and I moved from the southeast region of the state.  Being the new kid, middle school was excruciating.  I was a target of ridicule, as well as enduring emotional, mental and physical abuse from my stepfather.  It was the perfect storm.  In addition to the accelerated expansion of being a teenager, I was far removed from my element, peering over the precipice of adulthood.         

The Looking Glass

At 16, I had my first experience with hallucinogenics in the wilderness of Leelanau County.  I would drop LSD with friends and explore the profound mystery of the forests.  It makes me cringe when people associate hallucinogens with drugs, as it is something entirely diverse from the common stigmata.  For me, it was an awakening; a threshold of experience, imagination and understanding of all things beyond the visible world.  I appreciated the revelations of being, creativity, insight, transformation, transcendence and vision I encountered, aligning my body, mind and heart with my intuition and soul.  

Beyond the Boundaries

During this time, I had a High School Poetry and Writing teacher who encouraged me to expand my awareness and perception through meditation.  The first was a guided exploration into the inner wilderness.  At some point during the experience, I drifted from consciousness and shifted into a unique dimension of being.  It was so powerful, it took me hours to return.  I could not remember the experience, as I lacked the capacity to recall the encounter.  All I could feel was the energetic resonance of journeying beyond the boundaries of my relative existence.

Realm of Darkness

In my early 20s, I was in a musical group and living in the oblivion of inebriation.  I took a nap prior to a performance that evening.  As soon as I shifted from consciousness, I found myself in a dark space, much like a deep pit or well.  I could not see, yet I could feel the presence of three malicious entities encircling me, waiting to pounce upon my surrender.  A negative force inflicted my paralysis.  Just before they closed in, I expressed my willpower and broke the spell of their malevolent conquest.  It was then I realized where my current path was leading, inspiring me to shift my self-subscribed oblivion and embrace my soul.

“Transformation is universal empowerment.”

Introduction to Being

By the time I was 24, I had severed ties with addiction and transitioned into health and wellbeing.  Writing music, poems and short stories became my avenue for creative expression.  While working in a coffeehouse in Royal Oak, I found myself hosting a group of conscious individuals who would meet about metaphysics, at the advent of its entrance into the mainstream.  Soon I would join them and be initiated into the Fourth Way School.  Grounded in a conscious exploration of ourselves as we are, not as we imagine ourselves to be, it is an observational experience and expression of omnidimensional being in relation to our humanity.  For me, it was an introduction into being in flow with the universe.

Universal Threshold

During this time, I visited my parents in Leelanau County.  One night, I went to bed and shifted from consciousness.  Immediately, I was standing before a vast wall of breathing energy that shimmered like flowing fire.  Everything else in this space was white.  I recall stepping into the barrier.  At that moment, my girlfriend came into the bedroom and roused me back to awareness.  As I relayed the experience to her, I could feel the familiar sensation of an energetic resonance pulsing through my being.  Years later, I would understand this to be the threshold we cross as our soul leaves our body when we travel the cosmos.       

Celtic Lineage

As my awakening progressed, I discovered our family’s’ Irish lineage. Eventually I would embrace our ancient traditions and participate in Celtic Ceremony.  I had a profound relativity to these rituals that expanded my experience in understanding our culture and its ways.  After one of these ceremonies, I recalled a life in the early 1300’s as a novice, serving with the Knights Templar.  The strongest memory was being roused from sleep by French soldiers on Friday the 13^th in 1314.  On that fateful morning, I stood in bed clothes with my fellow knights as a soldier pierced each of us with a spear in an exhibition of mockery.

Paradigm Shift

Twenty-four years ago, I met my wife while taking a transformational course in being.  Soon after, I began attending meditations with her in the Jain Tradition at a local Center, focusing on ancient mantras associated with the seven chakras.  Even though many of my earliest experiences were in a group setting, it was the first time I encountered having an intimate and universal relativity, while being with others.  For over two decades, I have meditated in this tradition daily, as it has empowered and enhanced my creativity, consciousness and experience.  I feel the same resonance I felt as a teenager when I first meditated.     

The Sacred Rites

I had never been motivated by prayer, as I was led to believe it was a religious plea chanted to an imaginary deity as a request for guidance.  Twenty-four years ago, I attended a Pipe Ceremony for a healing.  That Spring, I experienced my first Inipi.  A couple of years later, I went on my first vision quest.  A couple of months after that, I walked into the Sundance Circle.  Two years later I would pick up the pipe and sit behind the bucket.  Thirteen years after that, I was given an altar.  In all my experiences, I learned to understand prayer is not a plea.  It is a commitment and intention to hold a space in service to the people. 

In the Center

The spiritual heart of Leelanau County is on Pyramid Point in a sand bowl carved by glacial activity during the Ice Age.  Reaching its summit requires a pilgrimage up steep sand dunes to its picturesque zenith.  Thirty years ago, I was drawn to this space, not really understanding why.  Until the first time I was put in the center of a Ceremony seven years ago.  I encountered the energy, silence, stillness and vision I experienced at the heart of the sand bowl three decades prior.  Whether in my first meditation as a teenager, upon returning from my soul travel, in my daily meditation or in a traditional ceremony, it is the signature resonance of my soul relativity.

“Our center is the essence of our soul.”