Really, it began when
I was 17...

I was a pretty happy kid before that. After my "un-schooling" years, I'd decided to give public school a try at age 11 and I loved it. In high school, I was very "successful" by all the common benchmarks -- I had top grades, was a 3-sport varsity athlete, and my resume was full of leadership positions and extracurriculars. But sometime in the spring of my junior year, I experienced a spontaneous and devastating "awakening" experience that left me very rattled. 

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What started as a period of incredible bliss and openness that I truly could not explain slowly became like an open wound. I no longer had any skin between my heart and the incredible pain and suffering of the world, and I simply couldn't take it. 

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In a few short months, I crumbled. I was overcome by fatigue and flooded with such a gut-wrenching and inescapable sadness. Things became very dark. By the time I was 19, depression had set in in earnest, and I was not sure I wanted to be alive. Naturally, this rather frightened me, so I decided I'd better make some changes. I took a leave of absence from university and found myself walking on a long, long trail in Spain. 

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For 5-weeks I walked, and as I did so, I visualized the qualities that I wished to cultivate: Love, Joy, Forgiveness, Peace, and Presence. I don't know what led me to do this -- besides desperation -- but I do know it had a profound impact on my perception of reality. The depression lifted, excitement returned, and I was "me" again. 

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This left a lasting impression on me. How had my world changed so much just by walking and thinking different thoughts? I became obsessed with understanding the mind, and pursued training in various forms of meditation, eventually finding myself neck-deep in a Tibetan Buddhist Lineage. I even became a monk for a while. 

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Fast forward to today, I continue to be exploring, creating, and noticing. The things that most fascinate me are the mind, the heart, the body, the earth, and creative expression. My deepest wish is to understand what this "being human" thing is all about, to express my deepest gifts, and to help others do the same.

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