A Dream Written in Ink
The Real Me
At 17 years old—on an accidental heroic dose of mushrooms at a Grateful Dead concert—I pierced the veil and experienced the Oneness of everything. In that moment of unity consciousness, I caught a glimpse of who I truly was—and it was far greater than I could have ever imagined. It wasn’t a knowledge I could find in a book, but a direct, experiential remembering of my place in a reality much larger than myself. Some might call it a spiritual awakening.
A few months later, on September 29, 1991, I declared in my first journal the desire to be a writer. I had no idea how I would get there—only that my soul was somehow tethered to the words, ideas, and and visions of the writers I admired. What I’ve since learned is that the difference between those who manifest the dream and those who don’t is simple: one believes in the dream; the other is afraid of it. For years, I was the latter.
Still, with monk-like devotion I kept moving my pen across the page, guided only by curiosity, naive trust, and surrender into the process.
The Dreaming Process
What I’ve learned—and will spend the rest of my life exploring—is that creation begins in the mind. Reality reflects the images we hold within, and every act of creation begins with a thought and a feeling. The dreaming process is born out of imagination, amplified by vision, guided by intuition, and sustained by belief. As such, dreams requires courage, because to dream is to declare a future the present cannot yet see.
For me, that dream was expressing the mystery. I recognized it long before I had any idea how to live it, and I felt the words long before I ever committed them to paper. Yet like many artists, I spent a large portion of my life struggling in the gap between survival and expression.
For 15 years I worked as a corporate copywriter in Seattle, lending my words to some of the world’s biggest brands while quietly repeating the mantra, maybe this one will fulfill me. All the while, the deeper dream kept whispering, waiting for me to fully tether to it.
The Dream That Wouldn’t Let Go
Despite the fear, doubt, and imposter syndrome, I kept showing up and doing my part. I did so because at the soul level, I knew the dream was possible. Maybe that’s why I’ve always been a late bloomer—because I was in suspicion of the dream, rather than in trust.
And so driven by an intangible vision, I kept experimenting with style, voice, form, and content—all the while filling journal after journal with the yearnings, dreams, desires, heartbreaks, fears, successes, and general confusion that comes with the human experience.
Then in late 2015—through the marriage of intention, persistence, and synchronicity—I received the opportunity to become Dr. Joe Dispenza’s editor. It began with editing his blogs. Then nine months later, upon asking me if I would be interested in helping him with Becoming Supernatural: How Common People Are Doing the Uncommon, I replied, “Watch how fucking fast I quit my job.”
I did. And I never looked back.
I will forever be grateful to Dr. Joe for giving me my first break, an opportunity which activated my soul’s calling.
My Hero’s Journey
As a young man, when people would ask me what I wanted to write about, I would clench my fists as if grabbing something tangible and say, “You know…life!” While I did not yet have the skill, craft, or life experience to bring words to the feelings, sensations, and storms of the human experience, I instinctually knew that if I wanted to have big things to write about, I had to have big experiences.
That idea led me all across the world—volunteering at an orphanage in Tanzania; working in Berlin for a global corporation; working at an Irish bar on Crete; working as a school photographer’s assistant in Vietnam and China; volunteering for India’s most important environmental lawyer; trying to create my own travel show with a friend in Europe; having solo adventures through South Africa; taking improv classes and fronting a band in Seattle when I barely knew how to play guitar; moving to first Mexico to finish my book (and later for love); and making a bunch of other bad decisions along the way—which as it turns out makes for good stories.
Like the classic arc of the hero’s journey, I was continually called from the known into the unknown. But what I now see is that these adventures weren’t just about external trials. They were initiations into what I call the monoanimamyth—a journey of inner transformation where every leap outside my comfort zone mirrored a leap of my consciousness. This is the hero’s journey as the evolution of consciousness. One of those leaps became my first book, A Curious Year in the Great Vivarium Experiment. Looking back, I see how every risk, failure, and act of courage was not just a story lived, but a step into the embodiment of the myth that was living through me.
MY WORK
The books I’ve written, and the books I will write, contain the wisdom I wish someone had given me as a young seeker. Since they didn’t exist, I had to go out into the world and call experiences to me that were full of agony, ecstasy, triumph and despair. Then I had to internalize them, learn from them, transmute them, and ultimately embody them. Only then could I express them as stories and ideas others could relate to, learn from, and hopefully not have to live through the darkest parts as I did.
My passion is transformation: experiencing it, teaching it, and writing about it. Through the lens of consciousness and human potential, I aim to serve as a vehicle of higher expression—partnering with visionary creators across art, business, and science to elevate global consciousness. Whether through books, media, or meaningful conversation, my work seeks to illuminate the intersection where science meets storytelling, and where human beings awaken to their power as conscious creators.
