I was born in Pasadena, California, in my grandmother's house on December 5, 1951 at 11am. My mom didn't like doctors much so she used a midwife. I grew up in the L.A. area. We moved around quite a bit, for one reason or another. By the time I graduated from high school, I had gone to 9 different schools. I never had a sense of a home-town -- I was a child of a constantly-changing suburbia.

I was raised by conservative Christian parents. They were very loving but also very strict.  I didn't really feel like I was given a chance to be myself or question anything. I learned to read at about age 5 because we had family Bible studies every night and all had to read. We did not have a TV from my age of 7 until 15. We were also instilled with the idea that the world was in the hands of the Devil, so we had to avoid being "worldly". When I was 11 we joined a Christian cult led by a Chinese man from Taiwan.

In high school, I loved math and science. I planned to be a physicist and help make nuclear fusion a practical energy source. Ever since I was a young child I was interested in efficiency and believed that cars should get a lot more than 12 or 14 miles per gallon This developed into an environmental and sustainability concern. By the time I graduated from high school however,  I became enthralled with computers, so I switched my major going into college to Information Science. I went to the University of California at Santa Cruz and after a year became frustrated with the various experimental teaching styles (in some cases no teaching at all by the professor), so I dropped out and went to a computer school in San Jose, California, I landed my first programming job about 7 months later at the age of 21 at Caelus Memories, a disk drive maker that made disk drives the size of washing machines for mainframes. I was fascinated at how much storage capacity these disks had -- over 7 Megabytes!

I quit that job about a year later to go to East Coast on  the "Great Migration"  -- an attempt to expand the Christian cult I was in by establishing new churches in major cities. After short stays in Virginia and North Carolina, I ended up in Atlanta, Georgia. During this time I was very unhappy but did not fully acknowledge it to myself. I almost moved back to Santa Cruz where I had lived before the "migration". The cult was a crutch for me and the focus of my life. We had about 10 meetings per week, so it filled most of my spare time.  I continued my computer programming career at a major bank in Atlanta, and got married to Amy, a girl I had met in Santa Cruz.

A secondary wave of migration happened.in 1978, and I volunteered to go to Amherst, Massachusetts. For a while we shared a large house in the nearby town of South Hadley with another couple who had a baby. Amy got pregnant and a daughter was born to us in the hometown of Emily Dickenson, Northampton. We named her Henna Ruth, but when she was about 14 she changed her name to Poxodd

The cult church in Amherst struggled and after a year or so the leaders threw in the towel. Amy and I decided to return to California. We stayed with my brother Thom while I looked for a job and a permanent place to live. We stayed in an apartment for a while in Hayward, where there was another branch of the cult church.

Partly as a result of my strict disciplinarian  Christian upbringing, I was a very introverted child and this carried a couple of decades into my adulthood. I consider myself a late bloomer -- I had my awakening at age 30 while in Hayward. It was than that I decided I didn't believe the Bible was the Word of God anymore. I couldn't reconcile the Bible with physical reality. I came to the conclusion that evolution is a scientific fact, and Darwin's theory of natural selection is a pretty decent starting point to explain it, although I did ponder other theories.  Because of my upbringing of belief in the literal Truth of the Bible, I could not find a middle road to become a liberal Christian. However, I did not become an atheist; rather, I became a seeker. Soon afterward, Amy and I decided to return to Santa Cruz, coming full circle. She continued to attend the cult church in Santa Cruz for a few years before becoming an atheist (or at least not wanting anything to do with "God" or "Higher Power")

My seeking took me into the edges of new science. I ran across a book by Michael Talbot which led me to the Seth Material. I became enamored with these writings and ended up reading and collecting every book by Jane Roberts I could get my hands on. These ideas formed the foundation of my new belief system. The core idea in the Seth Material  is that "you create your own reality". This seemed both strange and intriguing to me. I kept my new belief system a work in progress and have still to this day. I am not arrogant enough to believe I have found the Truth. I like to read books on philosophy and religion and science when I have time, to get new perspectives and refine my belief system.

I settled down to a long, successful career in computer programming and database management, in Santa Clara, California. The commute from Santa Cruz was brutal but the job was fun for many years and I was well compensated. In 1996 I became somewhat depressed, or began noticing that I had been depressed. I was very unhappy with my disfunctional marriage and family life which I freely admit was my own responsibility. The 74-mile round-trip commute through the Santa Cruz mountains on Highway 17 started feeling even more brutal after I got in the middle of a five car pile-up. I didn't know what else to do and felt that marriage counseling wouldn't get us anywhere so I told my wife I was leaving her and moving to Santa Clara. After a brief adjustment period I felt much happier. A year a half later the divorce was final.

After my separation, I began to explore yoga and meditation. Through my yoga instructor I met a meditation teacher, Francis St. Claire, and began taking meditation classes from her. I did some past life regressions sessions with her guidance, which I am skeptical of to this day, However, I did enjoy the meditation practice and experienced some powerful Kundalini energy, which surprised me.

As the 90's rolled on, I became gradually frustrated with my job, as I saw things changing: outsourcing of jobs, and a sense of being devalued, even though I was making more money than ever.With the speed of computers increasing so fast and new software development tools changing every year, my niche skill of performance tuning did not have the same value, and I was placed on projects that I did not really enjoy.

On a trip to Arizona I met and  became infatuated with a woman who lived in Rochester, New York. In 1999 I took a big leap -- I quit my job and moved to Rochester.  I put most of my retirement money in risky and possibly shady investments. I was very naive. The investments returned $15K/month on paper until a year later they all crashed. (I am still trying to retrieve a large chunk of my nest egg in a group legal action we are taking against a man who is now probably the richest man in Costa Rica)

Duriing this period I met two  people who have had a long-term ipositive mpact on my life: David and Jim Ross. We have been good friends even while living in different locations. David and Jim are creating a network of co-creators, and I am delighted to be a part of the process, supporting the effort with my website skills.

In Rochester, with money or without, I started to pursue the quest of "what's next". I had already watched enough Joseph Campbell videos to know that "follow your bliss" was a pretty decent idea. I recognized that my pursuit of material possessions for the sake of material possessions and status held no meaning or spiritual reward for me. In 2000-2003, I explored the healing arts and spiritual practices. I have been certified in several modalities of hands-on healing, including Reiki, Body-Talk, Integrated Energy Therapy, and Lomi-Lomi.

I also studied organic gardening, which led me to Permaculture. I obtained certification in 2004. I became focused on sustainable living and a vegetarian lifestyle with lots of raw foods and experimented with a 100% raw food diet. I decided I wanted to focus my life on creating a healthy organic food supply for myself and others.

During this period I also focused on improving my relationship skills and personal development. I took workshops with the Hendricks Foundation ("Conscious Loving"), the Human Awareness Institute, The Mankind Project, Re-evaluation Co-Counseling, The Heartwork Institute, and Sid Simon, as well as many other less-formal workshops and discussion groups. As a result of this work, I have a deepened understanding of myself, have gained self-confidence, and improved my ability relate to others in both one-on-one and group settings.

In December of 2003 I made another shift, after a relationship break-up, moving to Arizona to actualize the dreams I developed for a community of love, health, freedom, sustainable abundance, and spiritual development. My ideas about money have shifted into a more balanced view, since I have realized that money is very important to accomplish what I am  passionate about. I took some worksshops that helped with this: The Millionaire Mind workshop put on by Peak Potentials and a Christopher Howard workshop.

Therefore, in 2007 I began a web design and development business to encourage support my friends' creation of  a social networking and educational site as well as assist sustainability in the business world, and to help fund the Sacred Garden Sanctuary and other projects. I never consider myself finished with personal and spiritual growth, realizing that there is always so much more to learn and experience. I intend that the community which we will build here will provide opportunities for personal growth for all participants, and an abundance of sustainable health, wealth, connected relationships, joy, and satisfaction.

I am  Steward of Sacred Garden Sanctuary. As Steward, I am  responsible for managing Sacred Garden Sanctuary and taking the community development forward as time and resources allow.

I am also involved in The Grand Theatre restoration project, having created their website for a token fee and donating most of the time it took to put the site up.

 My daughter is now married and living near Canton, Ohio

I am looking forward to launching you4ia.com with David and Jim Ross later this year (2008), which will be a website masterpiece of global proportions.