My earliest childhood memory that I still picture so vividly is myself at three on a swing in our backyard in Cincinnati, Ohio (USA) As I swung higher and higher into the sky, I felt I was flying with the birds. I was alive, I was free, and I was filled with delight that God could create such an incredible thing, this earth, this life, and the beauty of all of it. And the sense that I was a part of this creative miracle! I was completely present to God at that moment, and God present to me.
Being raised Catholic, I was taught much more about the rules and regulations and sin and punishment than about my wonderful God of the swing. My God was love and acceptance and delighted in my being. My God was outside the church and bigger than anything anyone had told me.
But growing up in the fifties my life experiences taught me more about limitations than expansiveness. Though I was being taught to think small and do as the others were doing, I had big dreams, secret dreams that I was sure my God of the swing supported. I wanted to be an actress, not so much to be rich and famous but so I could touch people’s lives, make them laugh and cry.
I got married instead deciding I could live the life for which I was programmed and be an actress on the side. Neither the marriage nor my acting career was very successful. But living in New York, I discovered a whole new world where expansiveness was allowed amid the anonymity. When acting proved too frustrating, I started a theatre company, thinking I could touch people’s hearts with the plays I produced.
Still there was something missing, something pulling, something prodding. It always seemed to be just around the corner.
It felt like a sense of destiny calling me, a puzzle that had only a few missing pieces. If I could only find them and put them into place then I would be complete, then I could rest, then I could live happily ever after. At that time, the search for a soul mate came closest to embodying this mixture of longing, mystery and destiny, this thing that eluded me.
It kept me moving along a path of discovery that led me to an even greater understanding of love. Eventually I realized that I was searching for my highest self, not another person or soulmate. I was seeking the oneness I felt with God and all creation that I first glimpsed on the swing. I was longing to discover my deepest calling, my life’s destiny, a sense of purpose and meaning one can only find by expanding consciousness.
The first time Peru came into my consciousness was in 1987 when I was living in New York City. I had recently closed down my theatre company and was looking for a new vocational direction. I went to see a psychic who said, “I see you in Peru”. She may as well have told me she saw me on the moon. At that time, I wasn’t remotely interested in Peru and politely told her she must be mistaken.
About that time I began meditating, conversing with God on a regular basis. Through those meditations I was led in surprising magical ways, first to Union Theological Seminary (in NYC) and a Masters in Divinity and then to South Africa just after the release of Nelson Mandela and the fall of apartheid in 1990.
I ran a church-based outreach program in Johannesburg for the homeless and unemployed of the inner city, which evolved over the years from feeding and comforting to empowering and healing –myself as well as the community. By the end of 1997 I was feeling it was time for me to move on, but I didn’t know to where or with whom.
One night I read an article in the local newspaper about a visiting anthropologist who worked with spiritual healers in Peru. I decided to attend a talk he was giving and was riveted from the onset.
There were “channels of light” within the human body visible to certain shamans, he told us. The shamans were able to work with these channels, to see illness in people —physical, emotional, spiritual, which for them were all connected. They were also able to shift the energy within their patients in order to realign these rivers of light and restore health and well-being.
I knew this was true and I wanted to learn how to it too. I wanted to meet those people. There was such a sense of urgency within me I’m sure I could have gotten on a plane right then. During the break he told me about a trip he was planning in June and promised to send information. Once again Peru had entered my consciousness, ten years after the psychic said she saw me there. Six months later I was in Peru. I knew even before I went, it would be an amazing opportunity that would change my life in a dramatic way.
During that first trip to Peru, I met two shamans named Regis and Sergio who would become my teachers. I invited them to come to Johannesburg to teach a workshop I would organize. That first workshop amazed me from start to finish. Everything fell into place perfectly even though I didn’t have the faintest idea what they needed in advance. I felt my consciousness expanding, although my mind couldn’t comprehend it all in a logical way. It opened the door to my new life.
On their last night in Johannesburg, Regis shared with me a vision he had of a spiritual center in the Sacred Valley near Cusco. As soon as Regis spoke about it, I saw myself as part of this vision. In a moment of deep revelation, I knew I was moving to Peru. So by 2000 I was living in Cusco. Over the next seven years, that vision would become my own as I built and developed the Paz y Luz (Peace and Light) Center in Pisac, a small town beside the river in the Sacred Valley.
A few months after my first book was published in 2006, a woman calling herself Imaya, appeared at my retreat center in the Sacred Valley saying she had a message for me. She was sweet and disarming, but still I was a bit skeptical. She told me she was a channel. There was an entity she called Luz who wanted to speak with me.
During the first session we had together, Luz told me about a previous life I had in Atlantis. Imaya and I were friends during that life time. I had been a young boy in Atlantis, privy to a special council that knew the “fall” was near. I was charged to take the wisdom teachings of Atlantis to this region here in South America where I was now living.
In subsequent sessions, I was given symbols by Luz and told to make specific ceremonies. We planted crystals on the property which I owned to activate certain lay-lines. Luz told me that the time was coming soon when a new phase of my work would begin but there were certain things I needed to do to prepare myself. By our last session together, I was feeling overwhelmed by the energy and information I was receiving. I closed the door and Luz went silent.
Imaya herself seemed unphased by the information she was imparting as well as my reaction to it. She remained cheerful, warm and friendly throughout, even though I was sometimes rude and often suspicious. One day I was driving to Cusco with her when she said out of the blue, “Your man may be close at hand.” I nearly slammed on the breaks. “What man!” I wanted to shout.
How could she have known that much of my journey from NY to Johannesburg to Peru included a longing to meet my soul mate? We had not discussed this subject with Luz. After I moved to Peru several years before, I felt I had found my destiny and no longer needed a partner to feel fulfilled. So my reaction to her statement surprised me. It was an odd mix of anger and fear. I defensively told her I wasn’t looking for a man. I was happy the way I was. She just smiled which irritated me even more.
My harsh reaction to her casual comment eventually led me to contemplate if in fact, I had really released my desire to find my soul mate. Perhaps reaching my fifties without committing myself to a long-term relationship was an indication that some growth and transformation was still needed. In my meditation time I sat down with Spirit to discuss what I could do. I said, “If I can heal whatever it is on my own, great. I will make that my intention and we can get started. If I need a relationship to do that work, then you deliver the appropriate man to my doorstep!”
And Spirit did.
Christer arrived in June 2007 with his group from Sweden to attend a workshop I was teaching on the Andean Tradition and the 4 Elements. After the morning session, I went over to talk with him (he was a very handsome guy!). Somehow our hands touched, each right on the other’s left. There was a strong current pulsing through us in a rapid circular motion. We looked into each other’s eyes saying nothing.
The workshop continued without any chance for us to process what happened until that evening when Christer approached me and asked, “What was that – the energy flowing through our hands this morning?” My heart started to pound as if it had just occurred to me that I was attracted to this tall gray-haired handsome Swede. “I don’t know”, I said, “but if you’d like to discuss it, come in.”
We talked with each other like old friends. The strength of our energy connection was matched by the connection of our personal interests, spiritual journeys and mutual attraction. Christer was a business consultant from Stockholm who was on a spiritual search, he told me, open to changing his life.
I had never met a man with whom I was so instantly comfortable. It was as if we had known each other all our lives. By the end of the year he moved to Peru to start a new life with me. We married in June 2008, a year after we met. We had our challenges of course but we both felt a strong sense that we had come together for a reason.
I believe that “magic” happens regardless of the circumstances of our lives – the good, the bad, the ugly or the sweet. In fact some of my most challenging experiences have been the most grace-filled, when I’ve been able to shift the quality of my experience simply by changing my perspective about it. And of course, it is much easier to change our perspectives, than to change a situation that is outside our control.
In 2011 Christer and I traveled from our home in Peru to the States for my mother’s 90th birthday party. The day after we arrived, Christer woke up not feeling well. As we got ready to go out, he said he couldn’t breathe. I called an ambulance. On the way to the hospital his heart stopped beating. It turned out he had a blood clot in his lung that stopped his heart. Although the ER staff revived him six times over the next 40 minutes, his brain was deprived of sufficient oxygen. He was 12 days in the ICU in a semi coma.
It was certainly not the holiday we planned or hoped for. Christer and I had met only four years before in a magical fairy-tale way where the prince and princess were destined to live happily ever. Not to say our relationship didn’t have its challenges but we saw them as opportunities to heal and grow into our better selves. How could it all be ending just as we were getting started?
Yet those days with him in the hospital were profoundly beautiful and full of love. The most unconditionally loving thing I ever did was to help Christer pass over. It was then that I really understood how shifting your perspective on a situation, changes your experience of it. When the worst thing you can imagine can also be one of the most beautiful experiences of your life, then you have the key to ultimate freedom.
What I’ve discovered in my years of writing, story-telling and experiencing magic is HOW we tell our story is more important than the story itself. How we tell our stories- not just in print for others to read, but more importantly to ourselves in the secret recesses of our hearts- shape and change how we experience the world. Our choices can be powerful and life changing.
There are tools and practices we can use to teach ourselves to respond to the circumstances in our lives in more positive ways. We can learn to step out of the drama and into a state of grace, where we can process our feelings yet discover in the discomfort, the gifts and opportunities waiting for us there. That’s the magic.