I grew up in the hill country of West Virginia, near the Virginia border, and pursued many passions in the wild and wonderful: fishing, camping, caving, whitewater, and straightening the curves as a teenager. In the 70's, I majored in hedonism during on and off years at several colleges and miraculously emerged with a psychology BA and an MS in Parks and Recreation. Of course, I wound up being a landscaper, a homebuilder, and a real estate investor-all entrepreneurial endeavors which hardly matched my BA or MS.
Moving from college into self-directed enterprise, my political views shifted from die-hard liberal (knocked on doors for George McGovern in '72) to the more business-friendly side of the political spectrum. I think spending hours personally making up the payroll and tallying all the "withholdings" got to me.
Life changing circumstances -
Surviving early childhood with substance addicted parents, father died before I turned six, mother went on revolving in and out of detox while I alternated living with other family members till age ten when my aunt officially adopted me.
Growing up in a small town single parent (latch-key) household.
A gap decade with spurts of higher education. Then delving into metaphysics.
Training with Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross as a group therapy facilitator. Much learned about death, dying, and coming full-on into life.
One year volunteer service as a full-time hands-on caregiver for the terminally ill at Elizabeth Callari's Center for Awakening in NC. This was extended into part-time service at another locale for eight more years.
Meeting LeAura, the woman who lights up my life every day for nearly three decades. And every day, I am so grateful!
Living in a home surrounded by trees.
Three journeys to India that tally to nearly half a year's exposure to all that is India.
Spending seventeen years as a member of a spiritual, guru-based, service organization (cult) and then breaking free. To heal and grow from the experience, years were dedicated researching cults and their amazingly similar machinations.
Building, renovating, creating beauty in our family endeavors here in North Carolina and in Costa Rica.
Adopting two phenomenal children-a daughter born in India and a Russian-born son. Seeing them bloom into adulthood, brings delight and affirmation that we've been so blessed with each other.
Having planted thousands of trees and other greenery, preserved as many trees possible on our building sites, and remained a vegetarian for decades, certainly speaks to a sense of stewardship and care for the environment. As a family, we've routinely made conservation of energy a priority using passive solar in all of our homes, careful orientation in siting homes, and in some cases, installed biofuel and solar heating systems.
Reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Put the qualifier on government intrusion into the entire environmental movement just as the promoters of man-made global warming became more strident in their claims and rather cultish about those who would question the "facts". That was six years ago when I began digging into the "green movement" and finding evidence of a burgeoning tyranny.
Tons of non-fiction material cover the gamut of issues on energy, climate change, man-induced cataclysms, and political persuasions. I found few stories about what happens if we allow a grassroots movement (to make the world a cleaner safer place) to be commandeered by those who seek power and wealth.
We witness today a swelling wave of restrictions, regulations, mandates, green taxes rolling our way thanks to an open agenda to bring "sustainability" to your life and especially to the lives of our children' and their children. Imagine seeing an entire ocean bay sucked out to sea by the approaching tsunami. That's what I'm seeing. That's why I wrote the saga of Mountain Whispers with fervent hope that we still have time to change the current trajectory to a rational, measured, liberating middle way.