Peak experiences while a child and a psychologically strange upbringing have had me chasing this dragon as long as I can remember. Why are we here? What’s a meaningful life? How can we bring all the fantastic potentials of human life into this actual, daily living? This ecstatic and fantastic joy! This sense of freedom, of a depth of grounded love! It’s possible to live this way, no?
Along the way I’ve practiced deeply in a number of lineages, including a few Buddhist approaches, especially Tibetan, Qi Gong and Hatha Yoga, Advaita Vedanta, Devotional Christianity, Circling and other relational approaches, Integral Polarity Practice, and taken a small hundred different psychedelic trips. I also have a Master’s Degree in Integral Theory, for which I conducted a 2-year research program on the question “What is We Space” – what I now call “Awakened Interbeing:” what happens when a relationship ‘wakes up,’ rather than a solitary individual.
One of the key moments in that journey happened when at my first cohort in-person meeting for my Master’s program: an experience of Awakened Interbeing, which set me on much of the course I’m on today. Ah! It’s possible to live this way, together! Ah! This is actually how we’re going to live and organize in the future!
It’s only a possibility, not an inevitability. And the timeline might stretch out centuries – but helping to bring that about – a culture practicing this way of being as the world together – is what I’ve dedicated my life to.
Maybe because that’s a bit woo-woo, and high-fallutin’, the path my actual life has taken has been one of integration – something I emphasize with everyone I work with. Take those experiences, take those skills, and apply them to your actual life, now! To the people you actually touch and impact in a day-to-day way. Drink your tea, do your dishes. Joke, have fun. Don’t take yourself too seriously. But aim towards something that really matters.
I’ve been working with others as a guide of one sort or another for about ten years at this point, on an ecology of practices that form an approach to life guided by the above. I spend my days happily tickling my kids, walking around (mostly) Amsterdam, cooking food that makes me go ‘oh wow this is really good,’ and writing, thinking, and practicing.
Life is Good.
