4,600 years ago, a brotherhood of wise men in Mesopotamia discovered the cosmic secret for continuous renewal.
The wise men understood how the drama of life offers the means to build an eternal soul.
This esoteric knowledge remained hidden until 1916 when the Russian mystic, G.I. Gurdjieff revealed how the Octave and the Enneagram offer the possibility for perpetual self-renewal.
I encountered this knowledge in 1975 at age 24 while helping English author, Reshad (Tim) Feild establish the Institute for Conscious Life in Los Angeles. Reshad had performed with Dusty Springfield earlier in his career, and I saw how Reshad had a sorcerer-like gift to heal the sick, open the heart, and banish gloom. This movement of energy was called the Octave. From this, I became Reshad’s Octave apprentice. Together with others, we introduced Rumi to the States, as recounted in my book, Rumi Comes to America.
Fifty years later…
This knowledge became suddenly useful when my business went bankrupt on the same shocking afternoon my wife Karen collapsed from a brain tumor.
The implausible timing gave us hope to navigate the rollercoaster of medical and financial events by trusting the hidden currents of the Octave and Enneagram.
“It was like riding a wave.”
“I saw how the doctor’s seven-month prognosis was not more powerful than the healing energies available to me,” Karen explained. “It was like riding a wave, so rather than getting pulled under, I got on top and rode it to the end.”
Karen bounced back from a terminal diagnosis and lived another nine years, even starting a new career as an educator of chaplains two weeks after brain surgery.
I started a new career as an author.
After countless hours writing in doctor’s offices, airplane seats, and cold parking garages waiting for Karen, I wrote what I consider to be the world’s first wholehearted attempt to make garden-variety sense of Gurdjieff’s Octave and Enneagram: UPLIFT: How to Harness the Hidden Engine of Continuous Renewal.
My investigation looked under the rocks – the marital mishaps, business failures, con men, gurus, dervishes, rock stars, politicians, terminal illnesses, and what Zorba the Greek called “the whole catastrophe.”
After a triumphant nine years, Karen’s cancer returned as a sudden shock in December 2022.
In two short weeks, we went from hope to loss. After Karen’s passing, after 38 years of marriage, I am leaning on my lifelong inquiry to leverage trauma and grief into meaning.
I hope my sudden thrust into the Unknown conjures a story of hope and meaning through my real-time exploration of loss, grief, and renewal.