I am a fifty-year-old yogi and writer. I live in Conway, New Hampshire where I enjoy jumping into cold rivers, meditating along the banks, writing at coffeeshops afterwards and drawing money early out of my 401(k) to pay for it all.
My parents were a former priest and nun in the Catholic Church prior to leaving the service so they could have a family. I’m glad they did that! Some of the best conversations I had with them while growing up were spiritual in nature. I remember my Dad talking so fondly about the virtues associated with the vow of poverty he took when he became a priest, for example. And that connecting with God was about connecting with something “bigger than you.” My mother had a bulldog work ethic from growing up on a corn farm in Iowa. She was sick of Catholic judginess and being told she would “go to hell at every turn,” which I can relate to. My parents met at a religious retreat in Iowa and the rest is history.
As an adult, I turned to yoga for my spiritual growth. I had injured my hip running track in college, and my sister Becky recommended yoga to help rehabilitate it. I started taking classes in 1999 and, after ten years of taking classes, felt like I was missing something. I traveled to Nepal in 2009 to study yoga there. There I met a Hindu Sannyasin named Shivgiri, the spiritual leader of the Pashupat Yoga Nepal ashram. I call him guruji. His ashram is in Matatirtha, a small mountain village on the outskirts of Kathmandu, Nepal. The experience in Nepal helped me to realize that it was meditation that I was missing. I have been meditating regularly ever since.
Towards the end of my one-month stay at the ashram, I started getting angry. And where I would normally run from that anger, or drink or watch TV, there was nowhere to sweep it under the rug in Nepal. It boiled over and I talked to my guru about it. After I flew home, I confronted a bully that tormented me in middle and high school. After I did that, it felt like a big black cloud that had parked itself over my head evaporated. And a new era of happiness emerged.
After that confrontation, I joined the Mount Madonna Center as a karma yoga and was lucky to have met Baba Hari Dass. Babaji was a silent monk that led the spiritual practice at the center. I remember one day, somebody asked Babaji, “My friend has been doing yoga for ten years, but feels like she isn’t moving forward. She’s stagnant.” Babaji wrote on his whiteboard, “Tell her to do the four purifications.” That will move her forward. And the look in Babaji’s eyes made me realized he wasn’t kidding around. So I started doing the four purifications (they are documented in the book The Ashtanga Yoga Primer by Baba Hari Dass if you would like to find them).
A coupe of months later, I experienced a kundalini awakening. This was a powerful experience that has given my life new meaning. I describe it in my Facebook/YouTube post here if you’d like to hear more: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1ByJCoqmib/.
The kundalini awakening was just one example. I feel like yoga and meditation has opened up a magical side of life for me. It has filled me with love and light. It has helped my depression. Helped me quit alcohol and marijuana. To eat healthier. It has helped me to give up the pursuit of excessive wealth so I have more time for what’s important. I have more joy now.
I find purpose in sharing that with others. This is what inspires a lot of my writing.
Writing Background
I found myself reading Fyodor Dostoevsky at 4 in the morning one day. That was after my trip to Venice, Italy during my undergraduate studies at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. That’s what WPI’s global studies program did to poor engineers like me – it made them read at 4 in the morning. That would have been, what? That was in ninetee cough. Excuse me. The guy to girl ratio at WPI back in those days – not too long ago mind you – was about 3 to 1. I know, right? And despite the incredible fraction, I became incredulous to learn that the women had a saying that “the odds are good but the goods are odd.” Totally unreal, right?
I studied electrical engineering at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute WPI and after Venice completed minors in International Studies and Social Science.
A special thanks goes out to professors Rick Vaz for encouraging me to go to Venice and John Zeugner and John Wilkes for inspiring my growth path in writing afterwards. I’m poorer but happier for following my heart.
I walked into John’s office one day and asked for a summer reading list. And, man, that was killer. So, ya, he really messed up my sleep schedule. I studied sociology with the other John. He told me when I was graduating that “I’ve only had a handful of students that have written at your level.” That really knocked my socks off. So those three jerks contributed to me making this website instead of working on my real career.
You know, there was another saying floating around the WPI campus back in the day. And as an electrical engineering major, this one really grabbed my attention. It was this: you can’t spell geek without double-e. I know. Unreal again, right? Little did these folks know that I would one day create a state-of-the-art website.
Why Would Anyone Want to Read me?
Spirituality. I live and breath the stuff.
I’m the son of a former Catholic priest and nun. I’ve also been practicing yoga and meditation since 1999. Spirituality frames my thinking. It undoubtedly comes through in my writing too.
So here you go: if you like reading about spiritual topics, I’m your man.
I also write about international travel, bullying, psychology, sociology, fist fights, electrical engineering, revenge and art.
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