About Eden: A Little of My Story
One of my main passions in life has been experimenting with various methods for cultivating vital energy and transforming and shifting States of Consciousness.
It all began in my first year away from home at a 4 year College when I discovered cannabis and magic mushrooms. These medicines opened my eyes to a profound sense of well-being and appreciation for the richness of the moment and showed me radically different states of Consciousness that I didn’t know were possible.. Since then I have embarked on discovering methods for achieving these heightened states of well-being, energy, and Consciousness in a more sustainable way. This eventually led me to discover Buddhism, Indian yogic practices like Asana/Stretching, breathwork/pranayama, and meditation.
I lived on the Big Island of Hawaii for nearly 10 years, from age 19 to 29, where I resided in different intentional communities, and also eventually bought 2 acres of land next to an intentional community GaiaYoga Gardens, which I slowly shaped into an off-grid fruit tree, banana and coconut orchard, and built an off-grid cabin with solar and rain catchment that I lived in for about 8 years. I originally moved to the Big Island to be immersed in Mother Nature 24/7 and to be where the fruit was growing. At the beginning of my spiritual journey an important practice was eating a mostly raw vegan diet of fruits, veggies, nuts and seeds (basically anything that still had their original water content) and so I wanted to be as close to the Source of the food as possible.
I had the luxury of living a very simple life with very few bills, rent, or responsibilities, and spent most of my time studying spiritual texts, meditating, doing yoga, spending time with people in the communities in the area, going to the Ocean, going to ecstatic dances or other local gatherings, free climbing coconut trees, foraging for fruits, working on the land tending to the fruit trees, and simply Existing.
When the lava flow of 2018 eruption happened it erupted in our district of Hawaii! The Lava river that formed from one of the fissures that opened up in our area was 2 miles from our properties. There was literally a thousand-foot-wide lava river that meandered its way to the Ocean from the fissure half a mile from my land. Thankfully the eruption ceased after 3 months of non-stop spewing millions of gallons of lava, and my land and neighbors GaiaYoga were spared. I decided to close my Hawaii chapter and sold my land to one of my neighbors and moved to Northern California, to immerse myself in the nature scene and culture here.
During the early years of my Hawaii chapter I fell into a really good rhythm with my daily meditation, yoga, running and breathwork practice. I would wake up, drink a coconut, go on a 2-mile run, come back and do some yoga stretching, and light breathwork to relax my body more, and then meditate for 30 minutes. I was living in an intentional community my first year on the island, at a place called Gaiayoga Gardens, and had a simple daily life of doing “Land Dance” or work-trade for room and access to fruit and coconuts from the land. We lived in simple Tarp roof “breeze houses” with screen walls, so it was very connected to fresh air and the elements all the time. I was getting into really sublime states of bliss from my morning meditation and yoga routine which seemed to positively impact the remainder of my day. The benefits also began to become cumulative, where I was getting into deeper and deeper states of meditation each morning, sort of continuing from where I left off from the previous morning’s sit.
I began accessing what is known in Buddhism as Jhana, or deep concentration states of absorption into a chosen object of meditation (namely the breath). Normally the mind is so full of thoughts, jumping from one thought to the next in a continuous stream, that it’s normally not recognized how tumultous the mind can be in daily life. With my morning routine, my mind began to slow down to a significant degree, which revealed an abiding serenity, clarity, joy, and vitality that began to shine through my Being, really enhancing my whole day. I was deeply curious that I could achieve these states of bliss and well-being with just the raw naked power of the mind, and I was hooked. Thus my spiritual cultivation journey began to unfold.
