Early childhood brushes with my future …

I was born in Rogue River, Oregon and after a relatively uneventful first two years, (not that I remember them) my brother was born. Life was good, I was the child of a couple of hippies and there was no public school and … no TV. When not attending to schoolwork or chores my brother and I, could be found hiking around the thousands of acres of forest land that we lived within.

I spent most of my childhood near or on the Oregon coast. Florence, Coosbay, Tillamook and the small towns in between was where I spent the early years of my life. Soon after being born my parents moved to a commune between the coast and Eugene. I then recall our family living in a farmhouse close to where the commune was. When I was about five we moved to a tiny whistle-stop of a town, so small it has since been erased off of the map. It was here that my first brush with my future would occur, a future I would only find out about twenty-seven years later.

Canary was a very small community near the coast south of Florence and here our post office and barber shop were one and the same. Around five years old I began experiencing intense flying dreams where I would find myself running from the top of the driveway all the way down towards the house, but I never would make it all the way down the driveway. At some point I ceased running and simply was flying over the house and the adjacent woods. Soon I found that in order to fly in my dreams that I simply need to rock back and forth very quickly, as if on a swing where I would swing back and forth faster and faster until I was airborne … no, more as if I was laying down on my back and rocking back and forth until I would simply float up, roll over and fly off.

The dreams were very vivid and I would often find myself doing some extensive exploring of the woods. One night I dreamt of a cabin in the woods with an apple tree in front and it was very detailed. The following day my brother and I went hiking. We ended up in an unfamiliar part of the woods and I soon began to make out landmarks from my dream. We came into a bit of a clearing and just as I had seen in my dream, there was this abandoned cabin with an apple tree in front. The place was in complete disrepair and seemed to have been there for well over twenty, thirty or more years.

We lived in a double wide mobile home and though it was no Taj Mahal, we called it home and loved it. We had over six acres of beautiful forest land within the mountainous coastal region of Oregon. The rivers and streams were teeming with wildlife. With the help of a backhoe, a caterpillar and a drilling rig, we turned that place into a homestead. Fruit trees were planted, gardens were seeded and grass was sown. Life was good, I had two great parents who though not exactly conventional, did the best they could.

My Father was raised Pentecostal while my Mother was raised Catholic. Dad went into seminary school while Mom attended Catholic School. After they both became disillusioned regarding their respective faiths, they broke with convention and struck out on their own. It was the late sixties and what a time to be angry at the establishment, they rebelled and ended up finding each other in a health food store and bookshop in Mount Shasta, California. Soon after they discovered the Eastern gurus.

They found one particular guru who they seemed to resonate with and for the next several years I would find myself singing songs in a language that I did not understand when attending the Thursday night meetings with fellow devotees. This was a confusing time in my life and not an easy one, not many of the other kids understood my parents faith, let alone myself, I just wanted to be “normal”.

As a child my parents owned a natural food candy bar company. They would print little sayings and inspirational quotes on the backs of their labels, so that the person eating it would not only have his body nourished, but perhaps his mind and his soul. Speaking of souls, When about six years old I recall seeing what I thought to be the ghost of a fur trapper. In our home.

We had a walk in closet that had been converted into a prayer room. We had a heavy piece of fabric that functioned as a door. It was located in the middle of the hallway which connected my Father’s office, our bedroom, a bathroom and prayer room with the living room.

One day while in our room, my brother and I thought we saw a shadowy figure walk from the bathroom into the prayer room. After a few more sightings, I asked Mom if she saw anything. She replied that she did not and then added that such things did not exist. I was a bit puzzled at her reply since I had sworn that I seen him, as did my brother. I don’t recall much else about it, though I do recollect his appearance in great detail. He had a coonskin hat on with buckskins, the kind with the fringe. He had a long rifle slung over his back and seemed to be carrying a Bowie knife in his right hand. He held his knife at the ready and was hunched over as if trying to sneak up on someone.

Around this time I suppressed my abilities, it was not a conscious decision, but rather a choice I made subconsciously. After being rebuked by my parents a few times when I had approached them regarding unexplained occurrences, I stopped mentioning them and they seemed to stop on their own accord. It was not until many years later that I would understand my childhood.