The Foundation
I had the good fortune of having a father who was very smart and very committed to spiritual practice. He walked his talk and I came to know him as an exceptionally compassionate man as well as a very practical man. He was honest to a fault and he demonstrated an “outside the box” awareness that often contradicted many popular views of the time. He was the Chief of Federal Probation and Parole. He was also a college professor and traveled the world speaking on issues of criminal rehabilitation. His core values of truth, honesty and awareness have become mine.
Enculturation into a very non typical American family that included a mother who was an artist and her father, a well known opera tenor, established my professional biases. The family tree contained 12 members who fought in the revolutionary war. Two ancestors, Peregrine White, the first known English child born on the Mayflower in 1620 and Joseph Brant or Thayendanegea, a Mohawk war chief, ancestor of my mother, influenced me in how I viewed the world and the United States, in particular..
With this family background, I launched myself, following my own path, not actively remembering, but never forgetting where I came from. I went to Syracuse University and the University of Illinois earning degrees in Fine Art painting.
In the early 1970’s my wife, 2 friends and I traveled through Mexico for 3 months discovering the archeological and anthropological wonders of the Pre-Columbian world and it’s descendants. For a week, we stayed in a typical Mayan home made of grass, sticks and mud in the Chiapas jungle, within easy travel by mule to […]