I am well into my seventies as I write this, and reflecting on my memories and aspirations seems right. In that spirit, I can say that living fully and authentically has been a guiding light throughout my life.

 

As a child, I was fascinated by myths, legends, fairy tales, and the world beyond the family farm that was once a Louisiana plantation.

 

As a student, I dived into poetry, world religions, psychedelic transformation, spiritual development, and clinical psychology.

 

In my adult professional years, I mixed Eastern healing mantras with Western evidence-based treatments in Texas hospitals, universities, and public schools. I jumped at the chance to share this synthesis in personal growth groups and trainings throughout Europe. In addition, I was able to make recordings of mantra chanting that opened hearts and calmed minds all around the world.

 

Now at this point in life as I quiet down from professional activities, I'm focusing more on being honest about the privilege I've enjoyed in life, passing on a positive legacy to the next generations, and cultivating simplicity and spiritual depth rather than accomplishment.

 

Since we are creatures of a time and place and of patterns of cultural conditioning, and since we make ourselves heroes of our own stories, let me acknowledge how that plays in my life.

 

I was a white child of the 1950s in the racially divided American South. I grew up with a lot of privilege and was instilled with confidence that I would always have enough and more than most. Seeing my mother struggle with white male supremacy made me want to use my privilege to stand up for women. When I teased my close friend that he couldn't come to my seventh birthday party because he was black, his wise and powerful mother looked me in the eye saying, "Little Henry, you know that ain't rght," which set me on a course to stand up for civil rights. When the bishop's blessing at my first communion was not a cosmic thunderclap but just a kind old man's touch on my head, I vowed to follow my own path to explore spiritual illumination.

 

Stepping back a bit from being the hero of my own story, let me acknowledge the web of support around me. In the first place, I deeply bow to the women who have loved me and who I have loved. I'm very fortunate in how this has shaped me. I'm deeply grateful to my mother and to my partners.

 

My mother Mary Emily Barret Marshall was an intense person who sometimes roamed through our house ranting passages from Shakespeare. She often called me her prince. She taught me valuable lessons including deep appreciation of literature, the importance of standing up to patriarchy and racism, and the principles of reverence for life and of noblesse oblige. She was troubled by paranoia as she grew older, and I feel confident that my study of psychology was in part motivated by a wish to ease her distress.

 

Susan and I met when we were seventeen-year-olds at a summer program for high-ability science and math students. In the glow of a Louisiana sunset, I saw stars shining in her eyes and a bond began to grow between us. We married just after we both turned twenty. Susan was powerfully logical and intuitive, incredibly skilled in setting goals and in accomplishing them. She became a wonderful mother to our two sons. She taught me to be a trustworthy father and to love our children more than to identify with our differences.

 

Rickie Moore was my friend, partner, colleague, inspiration, wife, and beloved partner for over thirty years. She taught me to "know what you need, say what you want, and have clear intentions" which became fundamental to our life together and to the therapeutic system we developed called Tri-Energetics (TE). Rickie and I traveled throughout Europe as teachers, therapists, and group leaders. In our private life we delighted in tantric lovemaking and using psychedelics to explore altered states of consciousness and to come to peace with death and dying. At the end of Rickie's life, she showed me what I can best describe as "intentionally leaving a worn out body." Even today, I still feel her presence.

 

Elisabeth de Boer van der Kolk (Betta) came into my life as we both neared seventy years of age. I was ready for another intimate relationship and found a soul mate in her. We each had decades of life experience to share, and we talk a lot. Her sensitivity and resilience, her kindness and determination are an intriguing mix orbiting around her essential Self. As she says, "I'm a piece of work" (I say, "Lucky me"). Betta's desire to relocate from the Netherlands to the United State prompted me to say yes to this call of love and to accompany her. Primarily this allows me to live with the woman I love. It also brings me closer to my sons and their families, and face to face with my own American karma of privilege, racism, aspiration, and idealism. Moving to upstate New York means loosening my rootedness in Amsterdam and that seems very resonant with the process of passing leadership of the TE Community to the next generation. This all feels simultaneously exciting and restful, like a spirited visit with a dear friend.

 

In my life feminine influences have been very dynamic, unfolding into the material structure of my existence and shaping the expressions of my essential Self. As far as I can tell, masculine influences have more directly engaged my awareness of who I am and to what I aspire. They have a particular resonance with whatever Self is. Let me focus on the influence of four remarkable men.

 

Adano Ley (Swami Nityananda Saraswathi) was like a wise older brother and a guru for me. I sought him out when I was nineteen and I was looking for someone who was a "master" (of his mind and of himself). Adano didn't tolerate adoration. His teaching style was irreverent and surprising. He wouldn't be pushed by my urgency to gain knowledge. He taught me to clean up my body to clean up my thoughts and emotions, thereby giving me a solid base for spiritual practices. Adano likened his role to the drill sergeant at basic training who teaches recruits how not to kill themselves with their own weapon (in this case, the weapon was my mind). Adano taught me to pay attention and to really respect what the body needs.

 

Satguru Sant Keshavadas was like a general (in Adano's metaphor) who gives the recruit a mission to fulfill. He guided me in discovering the power of chanting mantras and taught me to heal myself and others with them. Then he told me to take mantras to the West. He gave me a purpose that I felt inspired and compelled to fulfill. In my experience, Keshavadas' presence was very loving, wise, and full of authority. There were times when he chanted that my hair stood on end and the room was filled with light and a palpable vibration. There were also times when trusted women friends were disturbed by his sexual transgressions (which Keshavadas did not deny). My own integrity demanded that I look clearly at both his greatness and his failings. I had to learn that "the light bulb is not the light." These incongruous parts co-existed in him.

 

Dr. Gerald Smith was my beloved professor of religion when I was an undergraduate. He inspired me with approaching religion from the perspective of cultural anthropology. He taught me to look carefully at the intersection of religion and social justice, and to trust the synergy of critical thinking and intuition. Gerry's intellectual curiosity was refreshing, simultaneously reflective and playful. He taught me to consider and question beliefs from different points of view. Gerry saw the search for truth as like peeling an onion, rather than looking for a precious jewel. He was a great onion peeler.

 

Dr. Timothy Leary, who was known as the "High Priest of LSD" in the 1960s, was an inspiration and a role model for me. I was enthralled with his 1964 book paralleling the psychedelic experience to the journey of the soul after death described in The Tibetan Book of the Dead. It was a brilliant guide for my first LSD experience. Almost ten years later, when I studied psychopathology in graduate school, Leary's highly acclaimed 1957 book on personality diagnosis was the text for the course. At that time, Leary was in prison for possession of marijuana and parole violation. The mystery of how this brilliant man's life had unfolded prompted me to study him for my doctoral research and led to a warm friendship in later years. I learned from Tim that I needed to communicate clearly, and to not reassemble my thoughts in mid-sentence. I also learned from him that the primary determinants of all that we are and all that we do are fundamental expressions of DNA, rather than matters of our thoughts and choices.

 

For over forty years the community of participants in groups that Rickie and I led in Western Europe has brought me close friends. The experiential groups that we called Playshops cohered in circles we called Playshop Family. Folks who went further to join different TE training groups became a TE Graduate Circle. The talented musicians who played and sang in these groups helped me bring mantras into gatherings large and small, and to make recordings that carried these magical songs of power out into the world. Thanks to the support of all these people, mantras have touched many hearts, and I learned to have close friends to turn to with joys or concerns, with worries or inspirations.

 

Now I am committed to being present for gatherings in our TE Community in Europe and to continue to lead from behind as I pass the baton to the next generation to guide the experiential and teaching groups and to lead the mantras. Simultaneously, Betta and I are growing new circles of friends in upstate New York and renewing friendships and connections in our nesting points sprinkled around the United States. Amsterdam remains a dear home spot for me, even as my life-long connection to Louisiana deepens and my new connection to upstate New York and it's rich Dutch history begins to blossom.

 

And on we go.