Before My Last Breath

Today in my morning meditation I was strongly feeling my middle brother David who passed away almost two months ago on November 20, 2023. He was 71 years old. A bit of preface here: He also was my abuser growing up (to clarify: emotional and physical, not sexual) and although I had reconciled those experiences through my own inner trauma work we never spoke directly about that time in our lives. We were never very close in our young adulthood although he was very generous when I moved to Encinitas CA to participate in don Miguel Ruiz’s Dreaming School in 2002. He and his wife Carol lived two towns over in Solana Beach. We interacted quite a bit sharing meals and dog walks on the beach and David took a real interest in my son Nick who was 12 at the time. It wasn’t until 20 years later that I became fully aware to the degree of harm I experienced at the hands of my brother while involved in some somatic therapy around my CPTSD diagnosis. I was becoming repeatedly trigg...

There have been two common themes operating throughout my life: wheeled things. And spirituality (Ed Note: not religion ). One brings me closer to things like comparisons, competing, ego, being fit, adrenaline rushes, and dopamine highs. The other reveals and hopefully minimizes those attributes mentioned minus the adrenaline and dopamine high. Are they compatible? Sure. Why not? But here’s the thing: with my history of riding wheeled things and the pain of crashes blended in with the rush of balancing on two wheels it’s a diminishing return for the spiritual side of things. Falling off a 35’ cliff on my brand new Yo Eddy mtn bike when my oldest son Nick was a year old (he’s 33 now). And surviving. Crashing mountain bikes repeatedly – torn shoulder, tweaked neck, broken digits, and various concussions led me to believe that road biking or gravel biking would be safer (minus the threat of distracted drivers of course). I’ve never crashed on the road or gravel so the dat...

My nine year daughter Téa said these words as we were driving to the next town over to pick up some lumber that was milled for me at a friends custom mill. Her comment caught me a bit by surprise, and I let a minute go by as we continued driving before I asked her why she felt that way. Her reply also was curious in the depth of her self-reflection. "Not everyone can hang out with their Papa listening to music (Cowgirl by Morgan Wallen on repeat), driving in an old pick up truck (77 Ford Ranger), in rural Colorado". In an instant I saw the world through her eyes and her life as she was living it. I also felt something catch inside me realizing how I never got to experience what Téa was with my own father who passed when I was three. I also reflected on the state of the world with wars raging and humans struggling with basic life issues - clean water, consistent food sources, and oppressive political systems. Traveling this country road I had driven countless times wit...

It's a year since my last post. It's also light years from the internal place I last wrote from. The intention was there. The Path was there to follow. Yet the destination remained elusive. I could sense the huge changes lurking "out there" waiting for me to live into them. I started writing again but just that one post in January 2023. I started a podcast, and recorded 9 episodes before it went fallow. I talked about starting a coaching practice, working with men sharing what bits of wisdom I procurred along the way to hopefully assist them in their own "walk to awakening". I had one client. Yet caught up in some place akin to pugatory I found myself unable to really implement those changes at the beginning of 2023 I so clearly intended to manifest. What was holding me back? What was keeping me tethered to my inability to move forward at the pace I thought I needed? Well, sitting here now writing these words it feels like I've come full circle. I...

Wow. Has it really been over a decade since my last post? Hard to believe how much life has been lived during that time. Let's see what were some of the highlights: a year after I wrote Death of a Brother I shut down my successful renovation company, sold our big house where my biz was based in the small coastal town north of Boston, moved to our smaller house in the White Mountains of NH, found out we were pregnant with our daughter Téa after shuttering my biz and having no work lined up in NH, struggling big time with losing my identity as a builder especially after taking a job with a local logger for that first winter making less money than my greenest employee was paid, eventually picking up a hammer again repairing old ski chalets that stoners built in the 70's, and joining the local volunteer fire department as a rookie firefighter and finding my groove with that calling. What initiated all this change? I had a dream of a wolf before all of the above happened. Not...

The Death of a Brother I received the news the other day that an old friend had passed suddenly. He was not much older than myself. He was a warrior and part of our “team” from long ago. Admittedly I lost touch over the years though I found myself thinking of Fred often. Occasionally I would hear that he had left Massachusetts and moved back to the Rez in North Dakota. He was Native American. My memories were of a generous man; kind, patient, and always willing to spend time with the children in hopes they would one day respect the earth and carry on the legacy of many generations before – that of protectors and stewards of the Land. Yet he was a warrior and as such capable of taking care of himself in dangerous situations. Back in the day Fred, Mark, Jeff and myself thought of ourselves as a team of like-minded soldiers: a cross between the crew in the movie Point Break and the current Bin Laden dispensing Seal Team 6. We were tight, trusted one another, and ready for anything that we...

As some of you may know, I just returned from six days in Arizona and Utah. It was a most needed mental health holiday or “Mancation” as I called it. Just two good friends, two high powered motorcycles, and miles and miles of wide open roads and endless brilliant blue sky. It was of course, an amazing Trip. The other thing some of you also may know about me is that I occasionally dream of living out West again. It has this tractor beam pull on my soul and in a low but constant whisper continually calls to me…come back, come back my son. There will always be piece of my spirit that is part wild mustang yearning for that unencumbered spacious and open land; the constant horizon of mountains in the distance, little white puffy clouds, and piercing blue sky like a grandmothers loving eyes filled with wisdom and compassion. Yet here I am living about as east as one possibly could without stepping into the Atlantic Ocean. Go figure. But something shifted inside me on this trip. No dou...