Discovery has been the central theme of John’s life. At a tender age his father and mother allowed him to freely explore his neighborhood unsupervised, sometimes for hours and miles from home. This opportunity set a course for freedom that allowed him to say “yes” to the world. John encountered both bright roads and darker roads including: a near drowning where he was rescued by a dog; the testing of life threatening edges; periods of substance abuse and a near fatal heart failure. Good fortune included a Philosophy degree at a world-class university where he learned about the power of words and truth. He gained a trade as a decorative plaster artist and has risen to the top of his field over the past 35 years. He has been blessed by and challenged to grow as a husband and as a father.
At the age of 36 John had a pivotal near-death experience and was graced with a second start, which was recorded and published as a part of a book called “The Fiery Muse,” by Teri Degler. This experience left him disoriented and set him on a dedicated course of daily writing to “safeguard” and to “direct” his future. He sharpened these skills for 22 years and has become a fine poet and talented self-taught musician.
John developed an insatiable appetite for learning, worked extensively with gifted spiritual teachers and read voraciously. His resonance with writings of Sufi mystic, Hazrat Inayat Khan, led him to the exploration of sound and mysticism through the Native and Mayan flutes, resulting in an album called “From The Silence.” He founded and ran a non-profit for three years called “Talking Flutes,” a “success-oriented” program focused on sound, emotional intelligence and “meeting the true self” with 9 widely divergent populations. These experiences “teed him up” for meeting Dove at “an Evening for the Soul” where he pressed a poem into Dove’s hand at the end of the evening after being “Engaged by a Master” (see The Telling-series1, chapter1)
