When I first began to project myself into the world, my “anthem” (in the sense that it confronted others most directly with my nature) was “Revelation Song.” When played at the local mega-church, as I closed my eyes in meditation, the struggle of the cross arose within me. When I opened my eyes, I witnessed those around me huddling together, staring at me in frightened awe.

Today, the song that builds most immediately into sacred fugue is “King of Kings,” a succinct summation of Jesus’ ministry. The official Hillside Worship video brings the familiar tingle that comes with others “tuning in,” and continues to expand as I raise the volume.

Tuesday night, I followed this with Bethel’s “King of My Heart,” the extended video with spontaneous worship by Steffany Gratzinger. Having accepted that humanity is yet unwilling to follow where my heart leads, I have turned my attention to the natural world. The visions unlocked by the words took a corresponding turn. Rather than boats and meditative retreats, I was drawn into muffled ocean waters and a brook burbling through an ancient grove.

Still, those primal natural energies remained suspicious until the break. “You’re never going to let me down” Followed by “You are good.” Reversing the focus, I projected those out into the natural world, reviving the witness of Genesis 1: “It is good.” The imagery received from the future encouraged them. Yes, humanity is hurting you, but you will survive that exile from love.

The capstone species tumbled into awareness. Whales, dolphins, petrels, and kelp. Conifers, bears, and raptors. Wolves, felines, and cycads. Worms, voles, and grasses.

Abandoning my chair, I turn the lights off and laid down in bed. Awareness shifted. The Earth from a great distance. My heart opening and the deeper frequencies of the sun’s emanations pouring through. The encounter was resisted, and an irreconcilable pain arose within its chambers. Pulsing, massaging, pushing through – the pain built until I cried out aloud. And then a retreat, allowing the energies that had been projected to find a home within receptive life.

It doesn’t happen all at once.

Sunday brought a choice. The Super Bowl represented a global distraction that allowed me to integrate progress in dance. Again, Ecstatic Dance LA’s nature experience at Venice Beach seemed opportune. My desire was cemented by a frustration at church. Considering the opening verses of Jonah 4, the pastor provided an exhaustive summation of human wisdom – all of them in error. I built a wall around my frustration, but could not escape the response “Why am I not honored? I do the best that I can.”

No, you do not. I am here among you. All you need do is pick up the phone and ask.

Enough of people, their privilege and ritual delusions.

Venice was sunny, but blustery and cool. I followed the meditative piping on the headphones down to the waves, mimicking the terns hunting along the surf line. Dissolving into the elements, expanding into a space beyond words, free from order or dependency, simply witnessing the moment as it was.

Gathering that into the opening ceremony, I presented the elements to the community. Many were first-time attendees, not expecting experience that I generated. We made our way down to the shore, and it began. Clouds gradually blew across the sky, their progression impeded by the sun, which continued to peek through the verge throughout the dance. Temperatures dropped, but the women disrobed, sheer fabrics revealing more than seemed prudent. Many more of them than men, they danced together playfully. Navigating through the space, awareness of the signals sent was unavoidable, and reciprocated by sideways glances. Regretfully, desire is my point of entry.

Resonating with that vibration, I paused, raising arms, and projected heart-energy upwards and outwards. “You and your sisters need more power.”

Descending back into the dance, I followed the resonance to individual women. Refocusing their intentions, pouring energy into hearts, damming the overflow up into the crown chakra. The engagement was unfamiliar, many drifting away uncertainly.

Underneath, however, was a claim of primacy from a woman that I had encountered in Santa Monica. Sexual politics invaded my dance. The higher perspective allowed me to evade it. A flight of pelicans, rays of sun through the clouds contrasting with the sparkle on the waves and the orange flame on the horizon, sage-covered hills to the right arguing with construction behind and to the left, surging surf that pushed the dance up the shore. These resonated, in moments, with specific women, and the dissonance of primacy reentered the engagement.

Finally, I made my way up the shore, escaping the confusion of human desire, and danced with the elements.

Leaving early, the claims followed me. Prior to COVID, such had forced me out of the dance community. My immediate concern is to restore the biosphere that has been raped by human greed. Accepting sexual interest corrupts that goal. It serves, I have discovered, to validate greed’s primary justification: protection for mate and children. This was the thrust of the negotiation, focused on my trustworthiness. I countered, again and again, “I accomplished today what I set out to do.”

Still, it would not let me go, and so the verbalization became more precise, focusing on a woman who ventured out into the surf to immerse her bare legs. My interlocutor’s concerns were sexual, mine more abstract, concerning extension to her heart of the opening of the wader’s womb to the ocean. Visualizations followed detailing my participation in deepening that relationship, always impeded by suspicion. Brushing that aside, I testified, “I am the mechanism by which these energies adapt themselves to human limitations.”

Where does that end, though? This woman, having been given the sea off Venice Beach, does she receive the oceans? Recalling the message sent to their sisters, I explained that the ocean chooses its representatives. Each teaches the next, and in their glory the call to them men that will commit to the work of healing the world.

Yet, still more suspicion regarding my integrity, until I reached a point of judgment. “You are only proving your unsuitability to participate in the task set before me. My service is to Life itself, and the role that any woman plays will be determined by the degree of her commitment to that end. I must empower the virtue of your sisters, free from the pollution of thoughts that impugn our integrity.”

Witnessing the trauma of children used as pawns in a struggle for control, I drew pictures that illustrated the precepts of our journey to independence and posted them on the southern wall of their room. The large floor was reserved for their projects, the furnishings being limited to inflatable beds and a computer workstation. Still, I wasn’t certain that the lessons had sunk in until my elder son, a junior in college, began lecturing me over dinner on the proper application of power and love.

Still, for years they were skeptical of my spirituality. Greg, as I counseled him through a painful breakup, was first to make concessions. Kevin was close behind, under my prompting to consider how his moral posture at work facilitated the creativity of his team.

Still, children need to define their own space. My financial situation doesn’t make it easy for them. Psychology has used law to stake claim to the mind, undermining the position of independent mental wellness professionals. My sons sensed, as their earnings soared in the field that I left, that I needed to concede my mistake, and return to high tech. What I attempted to make clear to them was that the factors that made that unsustainable still applied. In fact, my personal influence has grown in the intervening years. I am unmanageable, in the sense that no supervisor is going to be able to control my attention, a fact that leads immediately to the conclusion that I am myself management material.

Their alienation from me was stiffened by the correlation with the narratives that they were fed during my divorce. It came to a head during a walk at the Malibu tidal marsh over Thanksgiving weekend. Kevin was arguing that psychology, with the tools of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and psychopharmacology, provided the tools needed for mental wellness. As occurs when I am confronting lies propagated by selfish gestalts, I raised my voice and addressed the air. Alarmed by crackling energy, Greg told me to keep my voice down.

Focusing narrowly on Kevin, then, I spent the next thirty minutes dissecting his narrative. CBT is a minimal improvement on prior practices that actually harmed patients. Yes, pharmaceuticals can kick the brain out of a destructive spiral, but the psychiatrists have absolutely no idea how they actually work, which means that side effects can be worse than the disease. In fact, every rigorous study shows that only one factor leads from mental disease to wellness: an experience of authentic relationship that convicts the client that they are capable and worthy of love.

Concluding this dialog, Greg interjected to observe, “Dad, how can you expect others to trust you when you haven’t done the work yourself?”

What lies implicit in this kind of comment? That became clear only in December, when I blew up and exposed the false equivalencies that had been cultivated in their minds over the last twenty years. Confronted with that injustice, Greg softened.

When he takes his archery jaunts on the weekend, he revealed, he stops in quiet moments and open himself into to nature, and inescapably encounters my presence there. He admitted that I have cultivated experiences for him, over the years, that have awakened sensitivities unknown to his peers. In fact, when he attempts to share the concerns they instill, his peers respond, “Our parents and grandparents screwed up the world while enjoying their privileges, and the only thing for us to do now is to enjoy those same privileges as long as we can.” Greg is, simply, afraid for the future.

As for Kevin, I send texts and emails to no response. But, after testifying that I value his love, something subtle shifted. His thoughts come through to me now, though still with a defensive anchor against the vastness of my concerns.

All this as prelude to yesterday. Reading to the conclusion of Keltner Dachner’s “Awe,” I tripped over this quote from Rachel Carson:

“…that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood…[children should live according to] a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation of things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.”

This distillation of Greg’s despair tore my heart open at its foundations, and I found within the fear of his generation. Tears welled up as I attempted to let it wash through me, allowing the fear to ground itself on the hope that arises from the Divine Presence. Immediately they were present with me, my two boys, bearing witness to the gravity of my responsibility. As they watched the sorrow dissipate within me, each after the other offered, “I am glad that you are here.”

For the last twenty years I have wandered the world talking with people that claim the authority of Love, telling them that they were sending Love’s precious children into places of darkness that were painful to them.

Without exception, their response was “Who do you think you are? Some people gave me a piece of paper. And these other people pay me money to do what I do!”

At the end of last year, the pain finally wore me out, and I started telling them, “Look – love does not take vengeance. It does not punish people. It just goes away. Understand me: in its raw form, the natural world is a destructive place.”

And they said “Who do you think you are?” Worse, they started telling others to ensure that I do not have the resources to continue the work that I do.

My response: during the first wave of the COVID-19 outbreak, the evening news on MS-NBC documented the fear and exhaustion and heartbreak of the front-line healthcare workers. At night, I opened my heart to that pain and called angels down to sustain and protect them. After my tears had exhausted themselves and I drifted across the globe, a man’s voice rang out: “It’s Brian Balke.”

I rescue those that I can.