Following the Thread of Presence: A Journey into the Heart of Healing

At One with Nature in Alaska

It had been a long day of backpacking and bushwhacking through the wilderness of Alasksa’s Talkeetna mountain range. I was worn thin and questioning my decision to embark upon this 4 week expedition with NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School). I had no place to hide or nothing to divert my attention away from my inner world and the tumultuous feelings about my present situation and the direction of my life.

With mosquitoes buzzing all around me and carrying over 80 lbs of gear in my backpack, I had never felt this physically and mentally exhausted. During a rest, I looked at the topographical map and the plans for the day, which showed a descent into a valley few miles ahead.

As most of our time had been spent ascending snowy ridges up in the clouds, away from the lower elevations, I did not know what to expect. As I approached the descent, I could only see a green patch of tundra sloping upwards ahead and the blue sky beyond. When I peeked over the edge of the mountain there suddenly was a clear view. Before me was a lush expansive valley that startled me with beauty.

I had never with my own eyes seen such a landscape. The warmer more humid air pressed against me and I could smell the pine mixed with the minerality of the rocks and river flowing deep below. The contrast was sharp between the rocky and snowy environment I had just traversed and the inviting shades of green in the valley stretching toward the horizon.

I was speechless and empty of thought, completely absorbed into the present moment and the wonder of the natural environment. I felt entirely connected to the world around me and with something far greater than I could conceive of. No thought or idea could match the feeling of what I was experiencing. This moment became a touchstone and turning point that would later help shape my path and bring me into the work that I do now as an Acupuncturist.

Early Experience of Presence

The view of the valley in the Talkeetnas gave me a clear and memorable experience of being absorbed in presence. Alaska wasn’t the first time I had felt this however, the experience had awakened in me the memory of other instances that I had touched this mysterious feeling in the past.

As a child, time did not exist in the sanctuary of oak and maple trees, where I found stillness and solitude. The whispers of the rustling leaves in the currents of air, the verdant green of ferns , and the stump on which I would sit and look out over my family’s property all became my first teachers. The lessons they taught me granted stability, quietude and an intuitive relationship to nature. Another instance came when I was 11 years old, this time not in the forest but in the church.

One night at an evening mass, lit by the warm radiance of candlelight, I was in silent prayer with the community. Moved by the communal affirmation of peace, an expansive sacred silence lifted my heart into a tangible unconditional love. It felt as if there were no edges or boundaries to who I was, I felt a unity with all who were present. “I” felt as big as the whole building. The lingering aroma of frankincense provided me a few minutes to reacclimatize with my body and surroundings. I was not surprised by this spiritual experience but gratefully filled with a warm sense of love for of family and community. Once again, the same feeling, in a different form was imprinted upon my in soul. *

“Empty yourself of everything. Let the mind rest at peace” I read, intrigued, as high school student completing a reading assignment for world religions class. The 16th chapter of the Daoist classic, Dao de Jing continued:

“The ten thousand things rise and fall while the Self watches their return.

They grow and flourish and then return to the source.

Returning to the source is stillness, which is the way of nature…”

I lifted my eyes from the page and stared out my bedroom window, hand on my chin, breath becoming deeper, all distractions began to fade away. I was jolted out of my current reality and experienced an ebb and flow of inspired thought and emptiness of thought. This passage touched something deep within me, which felt like a remembering of something that hadn’t fully come into clear recognition yet.

A doorway had opened, a path became clear. Awakened within me was the desire to explore the spiritual and philosophical traditions of the world and how to apply them myself.

In the moment after reading the dao de jing, I felt the same kind of expansiveness that I felt in my forest sanctuary, during prayer at evening mass and that I would feel a few years later looking out over the valley in Alaska. I began to take notice of a common thread in these inspiring moments. The experiences differed in form and theme and soon they would increase in frequency with a clearer direction to follow.

Personal Growth in Emittsburg

These early glimpses laid the foundation, but the thread of presence began to take a new shape. I started college as a young man attending Mount St. Mary’s University in Emittsburg, Maryland. It was there that I was able to continue my interest in learning and applying new ideas. I took deep interest in the freshman seminar classes in which we explored various ideas on philosophy and expressed ourselves through writing. One class topic centered around the idea of “flow” by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. The idea of “flow” as the complete absorption in what one is doing, stuck with me. Though I couldn’t grasp the idea of “flow” completely at that time, I knew the feeling of it through my past experiences. My intrigue in this concept was the beginning of putting into form and words the feeling of presence I had become accustomed to. It was also foreshadowing of what was to come in the near future.

Alongside my coursework, something else I deeply appreciated while attending mount St Mary’s were the wonderful conversations about spirituality and simple living with the friars and seminarians living and studying at the seminary on campus. I recall a conversation with a friar who had sold all his possessions, including his car and a house, and leaving his career to follow his divine calling. His devotion and courage awoke in me great inspiration. I began to wonder: where is my calling leading me and what sacrifices it may require?

With new friends and an intellectually and spiritually stimulating environment I was very comfortable and my personal growth was exponential. Though I was doing very well, an intuitive knowing relayed the message to me that I was supposed to be somewhere else. I wrestled with it, but realized that my time at MSM was a comfortable place of growth but not my destination. I made the bold decision to follow my gut by applying and being accepted to Berklee College of music in Boston.

I finished out my year at Mount St. Mary’s with gratitude while also feeling nervous about the unknown. Two weeks later I left for my NOLS Alaska trip, and upon returning later that summer, packed my bags for Boston. I often wonder how it would have been if I stayed in the beautiful countryside in Emmitsburg, but the decision to go to Berklee changed the direction of my life forever.

Boston, Music & Meeting a Mentor

I was used to quiet nights, expansive natural landscapes, stability, and a calm spiritual environment in Emmittsburg. Moving to Boston felt like a leap into the unknown, a risk, a dangerous step into a busy and distracting world. I had left the calm and peaceful to venture into chaos and pursue an uncertain career in music. What I did not know at that time was that focusing on music was a preparation that would allow me to be receptive to meditation and healing work.

As an art music is both intuitive and scientific. When composing many musicians “feel” what is coming through them and then put it into form. To engage in musical composition or collaboration requires a certain level of receptivity to inner feelings, resonance with others and the intuitive information about a subject. For example a musician uses the skill of capturing in sound the feeling of a dreamy forest canopy, the emotions of love and inspiration, or the grief of the losses of life’s path. Though there is a spectrum of musicianship on the scale of improvisation and form, the friends I met at Berklee were more of the intuitive type. Not only were majority of people very open-minded and intuitive, but Berklee was uniquely international as well. A mixing pot of culture, self-expression and passion. Many of the gatherings with my friends involved open-hearted discussion, sharing of traditions and rich exploration of spirituality and philosophy.

One friend in particular, a true global citizen, was from Taiwan but had lived in Chile and Peru. She was also deeply spiritual and had early contact with Taoism, Buddhism and the traditions of the Inca. Our conversations were deep, nourishing, and stimulating. Having become familiar with personal accountability, reflection and prayer through my catholic upbringing and the leadership skills I learned at NOLS, I had expressed to her interest in learning deeper methods of self-examination and spiritual practice.

On one occasion my friend mentioned to me that she had been meditating and learning from a very spiritual person and was receiving some kind of healing sessions from him, which were helping her immensely . My interest was piqued and I asked if I could meet him.

There is a saying that when the student is ready the teacher arrives. This certainly was the case in my meeting with the teacher. He was a professor at a college and our meeting took place in his office. I wasn’t sure what to expect as most spiritual people I had met were in the context of the church or seminary and wore robes or the rags that acetics wear. This man was certainly not a priest dressed in robes of white, gold and purple.

He seemed like an ordinary but I was struck at the brightness of his eyes which seemed to be reflecting a light from somewhere else. He carried himself with a calm and stable strength that melted away any nervousness that I had felt in anticipation of our meeting. He invited me in and we became acquainted with a short discussion about meditation and “finding the true self”. He instructed me to sit in the chair facing him, and gave me instructions on my posture and breath. I was to sit with my spine straight, my hands facing upwards on my knees, and to allow my breathing to be natural. My focus was to be single, yet relaxed at my lower abdomen, below and behind the navel. The moments that followed fundamentally altered the course of my life and gave me access to an intentional form of this presence that I had felt all my life up until this point.

Meditation Practice

Practicing meditation for the first time In his office, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. After a while I began to deeply relax and the cycles of superficial thoughts began to slow down. An inner silence was uncovered and then suddenly I felt a warm, powerful vibration emanate from in front of me, pushing all the way through my body. Eventually, I felt fully enveloped in this vibration. Very similar to my experience with prayer as an 11 year old, I again felt as big as the whole building I was in, sensing a unity with something bigger than my little self. With my thoughts suspended and totally absorbed in the experience, I heard the teacher say “that’s enough”. With resistance to ending the experience I reopened my eyes.

As I sat there in silence with the teacher before me, I felt as if I had traveled to a beautiful new place and some of it came back with me. I was seeing and hearing without the descriptive thoughts that usually accompany visual and auditory perception. Things simply were. Breaking the long, deep silence, he asked ”so, what did you notice?.”Stimulated by his question the thoughts began to flow again and I wondered to myself Is this guy a saint?, a special holy man? How did he do this? We spoke about my experience and he assured me he wasn’t a special person, he was just “getting out of the way”. I left his office inspired and with basic mediation instructions to practice on my own.

This was the beginning of a deeply impactful friendship and mentor/ student relationship. Over the next two years we would meet regularly, in both group and for individual sessions, practicing meditation and having spiritual discussions. My dedication to the practice of meditation increased and I began to develop a new confidence, trust and calmness. Though each time I sat down to meditate wasn’t a mind blowing experience, I was becoming more accepting of life, making better decisions and more importantly more I became more kind and accepting. I began to realize could cultivate presence in myself, that it wasn’t just something that happened only in special moments or places. The idea of self-cultivation greatly interested me, and I was ready to explore further.

Qigong, Healing & Embodiment

I continued my studies in music at Berklee while also pursuing a new found interest in self-cultivation, philosophy and spirituality. In between practicing classical guitar and writing musical scores for film, most of my time was spent contemplatively walking around Boston and reading books like: Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda, Teachings of Ramana Maharshi, and Open Heart, Open Mind by Thomas Keating.

The meetings with my mentor were still the highlight my week. His presence and guidance was igniting a new type of inspiration within me. In addition to sitting meditation, he also introduced me to Qigong, a branch of Chinese medicine and a self-cultivation method in taoism. In our qigong sessions he would instruct me on how to stand, breath and focus my mind. After aligning the body, breath and mind with presence, we would then practice simple dynamic movements, a way of bringing meditation off the cushion and into motion. After these sessions my mind and body felt smoothly integrated with each other, allowing for more focus and more vitality.

During one particular session he taught me a qigong exercise that provided me with a personal experience and insight into the layers of the mind and body and how they interact and work together. The exercise was a standing qigong practice in which I was to direct my awareness sequentially through the layers of my body, the environment, and then allowing the mind to become receptive to the calm, spiritual presence within.

While practicing, I was surprised to feel warmth and pressure where I was focusing my awareness. It felt similar to how water absorbs into a dry sponge, my body was absorbing the intention of my mind. After I directed my awareness down the front and backsides of my body from head to toe, something interesting began to happen: I could feel this warmth and presence inside my body while focusing on my lungs, heart, abdomen and even my bones. Eventually I could even sense the space outside of my body, expanding outwards like a balloon to fill the office from floor to ceiling. The exercise ended after a few minutes of my senses and mental impressions being suspended and all that I was aware of was expansive non-cognitive stillness. I was filled with wonder, gratitude and purpose to

After practicing this exercise I had three very important realizations, each revealing another layer of integration. It became apparent to me that the mind was more powerful than I had believed before and that it directly impacts, conscious or not, what and where its’ focus is directed. This lead me to begin considering the deeper impacts of my values, thought systems and reactions on the physical expression of my life and on those around me.

The practice of this qigong meditation also gave me clarity beyond doubt that there was more to me than just my physical body. It was clear that there was a spectrum of who I was ranging from the very fine qualities of mind, to intermediary quality non-physical energy or vibration, then to the dense physical matter of the body. New dimensions of life, possiblity, and understanding were opened for me. I felt like an explorer, filled with wonder and intrigue about a new environment with different terrain, flora and fauna.

Aside from metaphysics and philosophy, practicing qigong felt good, it began to improve my health and my relationship to my body. I had been told all my life that the body was the temple of the soul. This direct experience confirmed it and helped me know that they are not separate and static forces but dynamic and integrated polarities. I began to understand that cultivating the health of the body was like the strong and deep roots of healthy tree; which allowed the tree to grow stong, weather the storms of life, and express itself fully. It was exciting to contemplate these new realities and the idea that one could cultivate the health the body and the mind together. Qigong was providing this experience of embodied presence that brought together the mind and body.

This was my introduction to Chinese Medicine and the Taoist practices which utilized methods of cultivation of the body & mind for health and spirituality. These were the early seeds of a career as an acupuncturist. I knew that I wanted to hold space for others in the way that my mentor was holding for me.

A Spiritual Framework with A Course in Miracles

Acu school, family,

Body 5 Medical Qigong

Body 6: Synthesis of experience and knowledge with various philosophical schools rooted in presence,

Conclusion

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Emmittsburg, Maryland