Maybe It Was Just A Dream

I was a front-seat passenger in a car driven by one of my students. We were driving along a winding roadway at the top of a cliff. The vast ocean was below.

North Shores of Asturias, Spain

I don’t usually remember dreams, but this one has lingered with me all day long. The visualizations and the sensory responses remain vivid.

Without notice, almost as if the driver fell asleep at the wheel, we headed straight off the cliff. Airborne, descending, I turned around to make sure Jo (my ex-wive) and our dog Rumi, knew how much I loved them. It was peaceful conveyance of love. I wasn’t screaming. “I love you very much. I always will.” The fear of our imminent demise was not present. There was a. sense of flying, while knowing we would soon be dying.

I went to bed knowing that I would be leading an online healing meditation in the morning for a friend who is faced with a serious and sudden health issue. I went to sleep trusting that the right words would come to me during the guided meditation, that I didn’t need to worry. I could trust life. I could trust that quiet-yet-confident guiding voice within. I had helped others heal before.

Feeling comfortable that Jo and Rumi knew that I loved them from a deep spiritual place within, I laid back in my reclining front seat and surrendered. I let go. I let go of all need to control. I let go of all fear of our impending doom. I felt supported.

Years ago, when Jo was very ill and losing her ability to survive, her light and willpower fading, I surrendered. I let go. I let go of my perceived responsibility to solve her medical needs. I trusted that I would be guided by something higher. At the time, I visualized a Christ-consciousness permeating my body. “I can be like Christ,” I thought. It was relaxing. It was easy. I felt supported. In the moment, I felt a deep spiritual love. Something inside was saying, “Yes. Yes. This is the way!” I let go of all fear of our impending doom.

The next thing I knew, our airborne car was descending onto a ramped landing pad which gently flattened as the car softly was guided into a seemingly-European seaside village. We were safe. We were okay. I landed.

As we emerged from our nightmare years ago, trusting the guidance within and the doors that opened in front of us, our future unfolded in miraculous and remarkably-unexpected new ways. We were indeed guided by something higher. It was if we landed into new lives (the lives we currently live here in our small Vermont community).

Emerging from the dream, I found myself in a continuing dream, sharing the miraculous experience of the first dream with other friends and loved ones. It seemed so real. My deceased parents were present. My deceased Guru-dog Emma was present. I knew I would be okay. I knew Jo and Rumi would be okay. I had landed, and I was alive to tell loved ones about the dream, while still in my dream. I was not alone.

They say we live in a dream world, and that one day we will land in a beautiful field of strawberries where we will relax, enjoy the precious fruits of our ongoing existence, and live in peace, love, and harmony. Maybe I got a glimpse of that landing spot. Maybe it was just a dream, maybe not. Maybe, this was just another time to let go, enjoy the landing spot, and continue to trust the power of a higher, spiritually-inspired beacon of love. Maybe, just maybe, it is a reminder that it is okay to love a former life partner, while at the same time knowing that is also okay to let go of feeling protective of their safety and well-being. Indeed, maybe now, landing here, I am truly free to fly again, knowing that Jo and Rumi will be safe on their own, too.

Was this all a dream? Sometimes, there is no need to try to understand. You just know. So, you loosen your grip, and just let go!

Where Past and Future Come Together

Thirty years ago, I was part of a team of about a dozen people who were charged as corporate trainers to change the work cultures of the nine American Skiing Company resorts across the USA. In that work, we developed eight educational principles which formed the foundation of our ski and ride teaching methodologies and the basis for our resort communications. The very first principle was to create safe space.

That can sound pretty unimportant to the polished, business-savvy manager, but it became one the most impactful principles in all of my work since then. My work as a director of skier services at Mount Snow… my work as a school teacher at The Academy at Charlemont… my work as department manager at Stratton… my work as a timber frame home designer for Vermont Barns and Vermont Timber Frames… my work as a leader of health and wellness programs for veterans ,and for other people with various disabilities at The Adaptive Sports Center and Abilities Plus… and my work as a yoga teacher and coach at Heart of the Village Yoga… all benefited when I remembered to make the people I am with feel safe enough to be themselves naturally and to express their true thoughts and feelings clearly and fully.

I have trained many ski and snowboard instructors across the country. And I have trained many yoga instructors here in Vermont. In fact, the educational principles in the HOTV Yoga teacher-training manual are based on my work in the ski inductry all those years ago. Create Safe Space. No one is going to be open to learning or changing or expressing themselves authentically if they don’t feel safe, or if they feel like they will be judged or made to feel not good enough.

I was involved in the development of these principles. They contain aspects of who I am and what I bring to my work. They are in many ways who I am today as a coach at Perspective Coaching.

Why is this on my mind today? Well, I am thinking about the classes I can bring to this community in the future. I am reminded that the basis of what I do should continue to resonate with who I am as a coach and teacher. Creating safe space. Identifying and enhancing strengths. Activating prior knowledge. Establishing personal relevance. Foreshadowing. Giving meaning. Focusing on less, not more. Rewarding positive change. Creating an environment where students feel free to explore, to be curious and to experiment taking risks.

This will not happen in an environment of judgment, critique, problem-solving, comparison, outcome-focused or competition.

Have you ever heard of the practice called “Talanoa”? It’s from the Pacific Island nations of Fiji,Samoa and Tonga. It is simply the practice of telling another human being what is actually true for you right now. It is inclusive dialogue, dialogue in which there is no agenda. It is not having meetings with outcomes. It is not a discussion designed to produce a decision. It is the deliberate practice of sitting with other human beings and speaking truthfully about your inner life in a safe space without fear of judgment or consequence. Nobody arrives with a point to make or a position to defend. There is no hierarchy; discussions go where they need to in a trusting circle of equally weighted voices, regardless of status, age or authority. In these circles, vulnerability is seen as strength, not weakness.

Modern neuroscience explains why Talanoa works. The speaker’s nervous system registers the experience of being fully seen, and the listener’s nervous system co-regulates with the speaker’s through neural resonance. People with regular access to vulnerable conversation - not small talk, not performance, not managed disclosure - live longer, show lower rates of cardiovascular disease, and recover faster from illness.

It’s about genuine connection. It’s having a space where performance stops, where the managed version of yourself is not required, and where speaking the truth about your inner life is safe.

Educational principles. Talanoa. Ubuntu (another article HERE) Who I naturally am as a facilitator, leader, teacher and coach. They all come together here. Relationship-building. Community-in-nature. Heartfelt presence. Personal and group safety.

And they all come together in a way that inspire my next steps, and my goals to facilitate more classes, workshops and retreats which give people these naturally life-enhancing opportunities to come together in circle, and find real moments to connect, to heal, and feel like they are part of something more powerful than our western culture allows us to experience easily.

My next steps are to plan regularly scheduled group circles, in-person and online. I will call them Wisdom Circles. I will use these classes as foundational and supplement to the classes I will start teaching again, The Way of the Humble Warrior, in which I integrate yoga and strengthening practice with the Four Directions, Body Energy Centers, Indigenous wisdom and the Four Elements of Earth, Water, Fire and Air.

Class will either be focused on Vertical Centering, Horizontal Movement, or the combination of both, forming our own inner N-S and E-W compass (and the basis of my Perspective Coaching logo) and the integration of the archetypes associated with each direction.

And they will all incorporate these basic educational principles, beginning with creating safe space, and they will have an opportunity to practice Talanoa in a very real, practical, and naturally healing way.

It is time to get going again on my own personal E-W axis, after a self-healing time of N-S introspection and healing. It is time to realize that all of my past endeavors, personal and professional, have miraculously led me here.

A Conversation with a Mountain Elder

It was June, 1996, when I was asked to introduce myself to group of strangers high atop a snow-packed mountaintop on a National Outdoor Leadership School course in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest located in Washington, USA. We had all met earlier that day, packed our backpacks, and traversed our way up into the mountains from our drop-off point.

Asked to consider ourselves as more than our roles and identities, I pondered. Who am I? Why am I here?

I gazed out over the glistening white mountaintops and the 3-dimensional showcase of sparkling stars. In a flash of an intuitive realization, everything made sense. I was everything I was looking at, past and present, in one whole auspicious experience of living, consciously aware, intuitively connected, and inherently relaxed and free. I was here to be guided by a power I hadn’t previously recognized.

I dreamed that night of the dawn of a new beginning which would begin upon sunrise and lead the direction of my expedition, and my life, moving forward. As I recall, the dream was something like this…

An elder sat quietly beside the fire and watched the first light touch the trees.

For a long while, he said nothing.

Then he looked at me.

“You ask me who you are.

But perhaps,” he said softly, “you are asking the wrong question.”

He placed another piece of wood upon the fire.

“Before you were a name, you were a breath.

Before you were a story, you were a possibility.

Before you came into this world, the morning was already waiting for you.”

He looked toward the eastern sky.

“Do you hear the birds?”

I nodded.

“They do not ask who they are. They simply become what they were given to become.

The river does not ask if it has found its purpose.

The tree does not wonder whether it is enough.

It stands.

It reaches.

It gives.

And when its time comes, it returns itself to the earth.”

The elder turned back toward me.

“You are like that.

You are not here merely to find yourself.

You are here to remember yourself.

Remember that you belong to something older than your own story.

Remember the people whose lives made your life possible.

Remember the wounds you have carried, but do not make a home inside them.

Remember the loves that changed you.

Remember the moments when something within you became very still—and you knew, without knowing how you knew, that you were standing near the truth.”

The fire cracked.

“The purpose of your life,” he continued, “may not be something waiting somewhere ahead of you.

Perhaps it is something that has been quietly calling you from within all along.

Listen.

Not with your ears.

Listen with the place beneath your thoughts.

There is a voice there that does not shout.

It waits.”

The sun finally appeared above the horizon.

The elder smiled.

“You ask me, ‘Who am I?’

Look at the sunrise.

You are the one who is here to witness it.

You are the one who has been given another morning.

You are the one who can still choose what to do with the light.”

He leaned toward the fire.

“And someday, when your journey is nearly complete, perhaps you will understand:

You were never meant to possess the answer to Who am I?

You were meant to live the answer.

So walk gently.

Give more than you take.

Leave something beautiful behind you.

And when the Great Mystery calls you home,

may the people who come after you say—

‘Because this person walked upon the Earth,
there was a little more light in the world.’”

Focusing on Life Purpose: Asking "Why?"

As you might have guessed, I am a big-picture-first kind of learner. It is hard for me devote energy towards a future path or a current activity for which I cannot answer the question, “Why?” As a yogi, that is often one of the first questions we ask to help ourselves choose how to live more in harmony with our truest nature, asking, “Who am I? Why am I here?”

Why do I do what I do?

For the last three decades, I had a clear answer: having a wife and kids gave me a clear answer anytime there was a question as to how to proceed in my life.

In 1997, I resigned from a partnership in a consulting engineering firm in New York to marry Jo and become a step-father to Alex and Natalie.

In 2003, I resigned from my role as a manager in the Mount Snow Ski and Ride School when the kids needed schooling that was no longer available in their local community. We eventually moved here to Manchester exclusively for the kids’ schooling.

In 2007, I resigned from my role as a branch manager of a Burlington-based engineering company so that I could devote more time to Jo’s care.

Again and again, I resigned from leadership positions at ski areas (Adaptive Sports Foundation, Stratton) so that I could support Jo’s health and wellness needs.

From 2013 -2023, I also focused on my mother’s care.

It was always family-first… do whatever I needed to do to support the needs of my family. I have no regrets; these times were quite remarkable and enlightening. I learned so much. I had the time of my life, learning from living a full life.

There was always a clear answer to the question, “Why?”

Nowadays, without family priorities anymore, the “Why?” is less clear. For the first time perhaps in my whole life, my focus has been on asking this question over and over, and listening deeply. I am allowing the time to let my intuition guide me. And, as we know, we need to give ourselves quietude in order to hear the quiet guidance of our intuition. So, I have given myself time to focus on me and my own needs, whatever they might be. It’s a whole new paradigm for me.

I love what I do. I am so fortunate that our private lives led Jo and me to the healing powers of yoga. I am so fortunate to have found my natural gifts to teach, to coach, to heal, and to help guide others towards a more heart-centered, stronger, and more meaningful way of being. I am so blessed to be able to look at my life now with a perspective of newness and creative freedom, even as I have been blessed with an inspiring, long-standing clientele to build upon.

For my students, the “Why?” is usually about getting stronger so that they can perform longer and more effectively in life, more pain-free, or with a healthier and happier life perspective. It is about integrating the stretching aspects of yoga, the strengthening aspects of physical training, and the life-enhancing aspects of shared life experience, modern science, and ancient wisdom.

For me, the “Why?” is evolving as I listen more deeply to my own intuition and to the guidance of all that is sacred around me, but there is definitely a heart-centered aspect of my being that longs to be expressed more freely and more powerfully, and a deep desire to move this world towards a more compassionate and conscious existence. I am a teacher, yes. But I am also a healer, a visionary, and a warrior at heart. And this warrior needs a new, or at least re-invigorated, mission!

My gift is to provide a safe, stable, and compassionate place for people to freely be themselves, to learn to heal, and to feel empowered in heartfelt ways to live a stronger, more responsible, and more meaningfully intentional lives. It is about seeking our higher potential together by maintaining a positive perspective towards possibility. And it is about having long-term, experientially-educational relationships with my students… relationships that are mutually inspiring, relationships that allow me to express my caring nature through my presence and my elder-wisdom, relationships that offer a kinder, more cooperative way forward for our world. For me, there is definitely a more worldly component to the, “Why?”

Moving forward, and in order to allow the “Why?” to keep evolving, I’d like to expand my work and the scope of my reach in the following ways:

(1) Write a weekly educational journal article, focusing on the different paths and practices of bringing yoga to life in heart-centered, insightful, and powerful ways. Or, simply, integrating practices which help ourselves open up, let go, get stronger, and live longer, more satisfying lives.

(2) Lead group-circles of wisdom-seekers and way-finders, online and in-person, perhaps on a donation-basis, to continue to challenge and expand our perspectives and elevate our consciousness. I’d also like to include more Bhakti into my emotionally heart-opening yoga teachings (storytelling, poetry, chanting, group sharing and healing).

(3) Lead classes and workshops for those with athletic bodies, especially those with mountain sports backgrounds, that are designed to introduce the benefits of yoga to their performance and longevity training programs. These workshops would build upon my “The Way of The Humble Warrior” programs which integrate: indigenous teachings of the Four-Directions; elemental and energetic principles; yoga philosophy and practices (energizing and restorative in nature), and functional strength training.

(4) Continue to lead transformational retreats outside in nature, and prioritize long-term personal coaching clients, online and in-person. It is my hope that the first 3 priorities will feed the personal coaching work.

(5) I will also be looking for ways to re-engage in service work and perhaps also mountain sports work.

What do you think? Do you have suggestions for me? For you, Why am I here? Please feel free to contact me with your comments. I’d appreciate hearing from you. Sometimes, your comments and reflections help me see myself more clearly! Thanks!

The Power of Emotions

It was a warm and sunny morning. I was alone with our dogs, Emma and Rumi. I had just received a phone call from my sister. My mother had just been transported by ambulance from her home of 65 years to the hospital. In my heart, I knew she would never go home again.

Trying to capture my breath, I went outside to sit in our private backyard. The dogs followed me through their doggie-door. They sat at my feet as I cried and cried, loudly. As herders do, they had their heads up and their eyes open, resting, yet in their protective state of alertness. I felt their presence. I felt their understanding.

Suddenly, all hell broke loose. They jumped up, barking wildly, and ran to our property line, merely 15 yards away. They hesitated briefly, then ran through the electric fence. I realized I hadn’t put their electric-fence collars on them.

Before I knew it, they were both running towards a man and a woman walking their dog through a neighbor’s property. I was not too far behind them. Rumi, our young male, kind of hung back and barked. He was like the Prince, protective of the older female Emma but usually following her lead. Emma. She was 10 years old and partially blind, but maintained her stature as the Queen, the leader. Without hesitation, she went right after their dog, who was 3 times her size.

As I was running towards the confrontation, the man turned and kicked Emma across her side and she landed about 10-feet away, rolling in pain. Without hesitation, I shoved the man away from her in the other direction. He was much younger and much heavier than me, but something swelled in me that was instinctively powerful.

Gathering himself, he walked away yelling and cursing at me. Tongue-tied by my emotions, heart beating wildly, I said nothing. I gathered Emma and Rumi, and returned quietly to the more pressing matters at hand.

My mother, who lived almost 2 hours away, and who I had been visiting religiously for 10 years since my dad’s passing, was later transferred to a rehabilitation hospital and later to a nursing home where she passed a year or so later.

As a puppy, Emma had made many visits with me as I spent weekly time with my dad in his last years. She accompanied me on many trips I made to visit my mom. She was my hiking companion, and had summited Equinox Mountain, Dorset Peak, Pico and Killington (on the AT/LT) with me, as well as many hikes to Equinox Pond and Prospect Rock. Emma had been there through it all… my dad’s passing, the birth and growth of our yoga studio, my mom’s passing, the deterioration of our marriage.

In the midst of everything going on, Emma passed away a few months ago, after I returned from a few weeks away, and before we sold our house of 23 years and ended our marriage of almost 29 years. Some of you will understand that blessing.

When Jo called me up to tell me that Emma had been put to permanent sleep. I cried and cried. Loudly. Like I had a few years before. Rumi stayed by my side. The vet said that Emma had been quietly suffering for many years. Through it all, she had maintained her grace and gentleness… and her caring for me.

She had always made me feel like I was seen, like I belonged. She always welcomed me home. She always made me feel safe.

In her last years, few understood why I would pay extra attention to Emma’s safety. As she got more and more blind, I would sit by her side, especially when young and rambunctious kids would visit and run around. In my own way, I was protecting her and the kids who did not understand her protective instincts.

Few understood the connection we had. No one understood the gravity of that day when my mother left her home for the last time.

Most of you know me as a quiet, kind and caring guy. I rarely show my emotions. I am a Capricorn, born on December 25. My instinctive nature is to provide safety and stability with a quiet strength to persevere and to protect. But I also know that my emotions are my superpower, too. My love is unconditional and quietly powerful, especially when I am with other beings who recognize it and accept it. Obviously, it can also be expressed outwardly in powerful ways with my efforts to protect and to care for others… when the time is right.

Hanuman remembered his own superpowers when he leaped across an ocean to save Sita. I remembered my superpowers when I leaped up to protect Emma… as well as when I did what I needed to do to care for my parents, my former wife, and her kids.

And I am reminded every day when I look into the eyes and touch the hearts of my yoga and personal coaching students, that our true power is in the wholehearted expression of our loving emotions.

To this day, I see Emma as my guru… the one who has opened my heart and taught me (and continues to teach me) how to be powerfully graceful and gentle.

On a path of truth-seeking, finding our way as we learn from our life experiences, sometimes our most powerful lessons lie somewhere in our most surprising moments… especially when those moments are born from the uninhibited expression of our innate loving emotions.