In my youth, my days were filled with nature, play, athletics and the relative ease of small-town life. At 10, my family moved to the suburbs. By my mid-teens, I felt disconnected, rebellious and alone– suffering from a lack of meaningful culture and spiritual guidance.

After graduating from school in 1985, I followed an invitation to work overseas in international media. I spent my twenties operating in major metropolitan centers, highly-demanding environments and complex foreign locations. I learned about business, politics, finance, art, humanities, science, culture, ideology, ethics, and the necessity of integral operations.

As I worked my way up the professional ladder, I felt a sense of accomplishment and a deeper feeling that something was missing. In 1990, I decided to accept a scholarship to the San Francisco Art Institute to focus on my own creativity and expression.

A year later, I moved to Los Angeles to continue my work in commercial media. In addition to my production life, I sought connection with nature. Shortly thereafter, I was introduced to an artist-grandmother who offered monthly sweat lodge ceremonies. I was inspired by her work, authenticity, knowledge, ceremonies and prayers. She encouraged me to walk my path, seek answers and release my mind.

Over the next years, I juggled media production and spiritual exploration. By 1994, I was suffering from burnt out and took six months off to rejuvenate in the coastal redwoods of Northern California. There, I slept until noon, walked in the ancient forest, sat under trees and searched for deeper meaning along the rugged coastline.

Feeling regenerated, I returned to Los Angeles to direct my first commercial project. It was there, on set, in the midst of shooting, that I had the stark realization that my professional life was incongruent with my deeper personal needs. I became acutely aware of the impacts of my occupation, a city-based lifestyle and the true cost of living separate from nature. There I was, 28-years-old, sitting in a director’s chair, trying to figure out how to navigate a drastic change of heart, mind and life-purpose.

I spent the next months searching for a conscious production company to no avail. I decided to sell my belongings and relocate to Oregon to focus on personal wellbeing. I took a production job to make ends meet and spent a lot of time in Nature. One evening, while out mountain biking, I had two spontaneous mystical experiences that completely shifted my reality. I was at a loss for words and understanding. I needed more guidance and help navigating this newfound reality.

After speaking with friends, I was introduced to a Chinese qigong master who invited me to study, explore deeper mystical knowledge and expand my practice. Later that year, I received the Tibetan Avaloketesvara initiation and undertook an educational journey to work with masters in China and Tibet. When our programs concluded, I stayed on in Lhasa to explore the lands and better get to know my inner terrain. I sought understanding for my mystical experiences and the Life Force that introduced itself to and through me back in Oregon.

During my time in Tibet, I had an  experience with a group of monks who were chanting in a temple. I was mesmerized by their chants and practices. Unexpectedly, a younger monk invited me to climb over the banister to join their offering. The smiling monk placed his yellow hat on my head and woolen robe around my shoulders. I began to chant and was surprised to find that I knew how to make the multi-tonal sounds. I chanted for some time. The monks and Rinpoche smiled with pleasure. I smiled back, experiencing a deep knowing, joy and sense of familiarity with something I had never done before.

A few days later, I travelled deeper into the high plateau near Chomolungma (Mount Everest). While mediating in a monastery, I had an encounter with an old, adept caretaker who had been watching me all day. In the late afternoon, he approached and inquired about my reason for visiting. My answers were obviously unsatisfactory as the caretaker raised his voice and shook his broom in discontent. He then told me to “Go home! You won’t find what you are looking for here!” And that, “I would find answers to my questions in the land where I had incarnated!”

What?! Why? When, Where? How?… Hmmmm?

My return ticket was still some weeks away so I departed for Nepal and India to follow a vision I had received in Lhasa. During my week-long visa stopover in Kathmandu, I experienced another supernatural event at the Monkey Temple. This stretched my reality even further. My mind had no reference for what was happening. It was as if life’s great mystery and orchestrations were being revealed without a filter, or instructions.

After landing in New Delhi, I travelled north to the Buddhist enclave at Dharmsala. En route, I befriended a German monk who pointed me to a quiet refuge at the edge of town. I spent my days in silence, exploring the landscape, meditating in temples, contemplating experience and practicing spiritual forms. I explored documentary ideas with the Tibetan government in exile, and then traveled to Nepal to experience the birthplace of Gautama Buddha.

In my time abroad, I found deep knowing, resonance and inspiration in the ancient cultures and peoples. I returned to America with the words of the caretaker telling me to look there. I began training in the Lipan Apache wisdom tradition and began free-lance production work based in ecology, sustainability, education and outdoor adventure.

In 1998, I met my future wife and embarked on a quest to find a homestead. No sooner had we settled than my path took another turn. While shooting a reality tv series, I sustained an injury that was to became my own reality check. It was undeniably, another nudge to go deeper.

My recuperation process revealed the limitations of western medicine and my desire for deeper meaning inspired a  career change. Worker’s comp supported my education. I spent four years researching, studying and certifying in a number of interdisciplinary healing modalities and weaving it all into a professional practice.

In 2005, I traveled to an energy medicine conference in the Peruvian highlands. While there, I was invited to apprentice with the Andean-Inkan Holy Mountain Tradition. This was a deep homecoming and a more harmonic approach to integrating my personal, professional and spiritual life.

In January 2007, I was invited into the celestial realms of the Andean-Inkan Holy Mountain Tradition. This began a more intensive period of cosmological trainings and excursions. Later that year, I was initiated by lightning, tasked with organizing Andean retreats, traveling  abroad to convey ancient wisdom and helping people awaken consciousness.

In 2008, after welcoming my first son, I received a vision to make the film Wisdomkeepers, Paqo Andino. A friend offered philanthropic funding and pre-production began in earnest. Filming commenced in early 2009 and wrapped in late 2010. During the production and editorial processes, I balanced relationship, parenting, filmmaking, teaching, clients, homestead construction and ongoing initiations.

In early 2014, I began a six-year global journey offering film screenings, cosmological talks, cosultations and program retreats. When borders closed in 2020, I landed in Montana to rest, reconfigure and spend more time with my children.

These past years have been a deep time of introspection, recalibration, regeneration and preparation for what is to come. Guidance assuredly whispers, “continue what you are doing. Prepare yourself. It’s almost time for what comes next.”

In 2007, I began a series of projects to create platforms to share wholistic life ways and sacred practices that have, for the most part, been lost to time and modern cultures. The work itself is not my own. I am simply a messenger.

Our principles are based in conscious living, non-duality, self-responsibility, community, sovereignty, trust, inner wisdom and wholistic practice. We are dedicated to creating collaborative opportunities for people to come together and live a deeply meaningful, interconnected and joyous life.