Pensacola Beach Sunset

The surf fishing on Sunday wasn't anything to write home about.  Nothing but June grass, not a single bite.  But the beach is beautiful and the sunset energy is amazing.

This is my home. I've spent a lot of money and effort to make it my home, and sometimes it feels like it's a waste or going nowhere.  But when I'm out here in my element, it makes sense.  Every time I come out I have to spend some time on the beach, no matter how the time of year or quality of fishing.  I need this energy.

And I need the Pensacola side.  Perdido Key is nice and good for fishing, but the water is murky and it lacks that emerald shine of the Pensacola side.  

Growing up in Southern California, it's taking me some time to get used to south-facing beaches.  Whether it's on the beach or on the kayak (and it's usually on the kayak), the sunsets are extraordinary.  The clean energy, the way the clouds shade the sun with gorgeous red, pink and orange hues, the nature all around, it's a special feeling.

This is my base, the foundation for my energy work and creative flow.  I bring this back with me to California until I can fully move out here and completely meld into this environment.

I have a gym here now - World Gym.  I love it.  It's a lot more laid-back than the UFC in Torrance, which is kind of a madhouse and way too loud, but a good place to lift.  I have a couple coffee shops I like, some areas I like to walk.  Fishing is no longer the foundation, it's something I do, along with other things and the days flow quickly and smoothly.

And this is the source of my current creative and energetic evolution.  The new novels, the emergence of Kaelen'Zur, the personal evolution, all sprung forth from here.  Which really is to say it sprung forth from my heart, my true center, because I chose this.  All of this. 

I finally, fully feel like my true self.  I am home.

This is Home

I've been very public about my one-foot-in, one-foot-out relationship with my Florida home.  The past month or two I've been shedding these fears and falsehoods that are keeping me in this state of limbo.  This in-between state is far more uncomfortable than any negative scenario I could come up with for making a change.

That energy is gone now.  In the pure space that is left, only the truth remains, which rings loud, clear and uncompromising: this house in Pensacola is my home.

I've known this for some time, but the reality hits different now.  No excuses, no compromise.  This is my home and I need to act on this.  This week, and the past two months, I've been consciously and unconsciously creating a real home for myself.  I have a gym in Pensacola, World Gym.  And I like it better than the UFC gym in Torrance, which is noisy, crowded and poor energy.

I have regular walking trails, which I enjoy more than the ones in Torrance and Redondo Beach.  I found a balance between fishing, which was a bypass to avoid taking actual measures, and building a life.  It's no longer about "bringing home fish," it's about enjoy myself in nature, eating what I catch and living a good, balanced life.

I found a chill coffee shop to write and a nice bar to hang out.  And I enjoy both without drinking alcohol or coffee.

All of these things I could have done in Torrance, but instead wallowed in withdrawal and "waiting for things to get better."

I have a better, more balanced life here in Pensacola than I have had for years in Torrance.  Basically since covid I haven't invested anything in Torrance.  And why should I?  It sucks.  I hate it there. It's not my home.  This is.

And guess what?  Waiting around for things to get better is a waste of time.  Nothing's going to get better on its own "down the road."  Better to deal with the problems now than wait.  Sure, I can say I needed to stay in Torrance for my son, and that's true.  But nobody was making me sit around, be bored and do nothing but "wait" for things to get better.  That was my own small self, which has burned away, along with a lot of other bullshit.

I can smell the lingering scent of incinerated BS and victorious black flame.  

And "this" home is more than a house in Florida.  It's more than a lifestyle.  It's a whole new mandate, a whole new (or newly cleansed) architecture.  Here there is no "middle way," no "in between," just an unflinching truth that waits for nobody.  That is my home.

And what does that mean for my spiritual work?  Same thing, no BS.  No ego attachment, no ego to attach to.  Nothing but the truth that was always there but often ignored or distorted. 

Maybe the change will be subtle.  Maybe it'll be dramatic.  Maybe I won't recognize myself and neither will anyone else.  Maybe none of that matters.

This is home, and I'm moving in. 

Finally Florida

 

This picture was from November. It’s been far too long. I’m sitting in a plane waiting to take off after dealing with Uber and LAX and remembering why travel is such a drag. 

But, man, do I miss Florida!

Many things have changed. Many patterns shattered. And I’m so anxious to see how these energies - the inspiration, the freedom, the massive breakdown of barriers and blockages, plays out in the playground. Everything grows better in Florida. Energies move better. Change happens faster. 

And soon- for a while - I will be home. Alone. 

What Changed?

I was looking back at some of my old posts, from around 2016-18, and noticed a shocking level of anger and pain in them.  Very harsh communication toward people I know who really didn't deserve that tone.  A tone that really detracts from the message. 

What was going on then?  I recall that was a period of transition for me personally - a lot of good things but also a lot of stress, personal attacks and unprocessed anger and pain. It wasn't until very recently that I finally faced and processed all that festering anger and suffering, but by then it was mostly just unprocessed, there really wasn't anything acute.  In 2016-18 it was acute, and I didn't even realize it years later.  I'd go back and read my posts and it never hit me.

So what happened recently that's caused me to notice?  Because now I look at a lot of my communication and I was swimming in anger and reactive energy, which really took away from the strength of my message.  Sifting out all that anger and reaction, there are really good things here and a strong energy that comes out.

And if I look back in my daily life, yes, the anger, anxiety, reactive energy and unprocessed grief has greatly held back my spiritual and energetic process.  And it's only after I started processing it that really big "gifts" started coming online.  

But did I suddenly receive new gifts or were they always there and just clouded by this unprocessed emotional energy?  I test that 60% is new gifts and 40% is prior energy more aligned.  In that 60% I test that is "came online" as a result of my finally being able to process that grief, which allowed me to fully receive transmissions and build structures.  It's led to a massive amount of progress,

And this progress in turn has given me more resources to notice and address some of my long-standing emotional issues.  It's allowed me space to separate my true self from my expression and question some things.

Looking back at my past patterns, I was unconsciously and even consciously holding onto a lot of anger.  It was feeding me, energizing me.  It felt good.  It even gave me a community of shared anger.  

Sometimes anger is justified, but this was not me, not my true nature.  I'd been swimming in this for so long I had identified with it - and it goes way back, much further back than the late 2010s, so I really did think this was "just who I am" and had to manage it.  

Then something shifted.  I started facing the panic and anger and finally processing the ocean of grief from decades and prior lives. So much grief it would have been overwhelming to deal with before - and that's probably why I distracted myself with anger and reaction, I just wasn't ready and didn't know how to deal with it.

In my teens I was actually better at dealing with it, I wrote a lot of poetry and would go into "moody" periods.  I wasn't processing it or transmuting it, but I was in touch with the grief.  Instead of learning to process it, I pushed it away and distracted myself with work and "adulting," and when it came in I felt panic and pushed it away more.

I learned to face and process the panic, but not the grief.  And then the anger just became a security blanket that I thought was "just me" and I went on with life.  I actually was doing pretty well, finding all these breakthroughs and gifts and feeling pretty blessed, so what's the problem, right?

Then something shifted, and now I'm troubled by this style of expression, and what was underneath.  It's okay to feel anger, but to "be" angry is pretty toxic and heavily distracts from my message.

I feel really sorry for the harsh tone and hurtful communication. Yes, I saw things and I was “right,” but it’s pretty clear I was communicating only with the intent of proving the authenticity of my spiritual gifts instead of fully integrating them and communicating from the heart to be received and actually make a difference. And more painfully, I was hurting people who didn’t at all deserve it, and it wasn’t how I truly felt about them.  I saw their future suffering and saw a way out, but communicated in such a way that it would ensure they never changed and I could prove my gift and be right.  Nobody wins in that scenario.

It feels jarring now to revisit these posts and recall that cycle of anger and frustration. I didn’t go through life being angry at the world all the time, but it’s clear I wasn’t dealing with my pain and energy drains. I was fighting through my problems and fighting through my communication. And making life really hard for myself.

Ultimately it’s a waste of my gifts and a poor representation of the man I am. It’s worth a deeper inquiry into what changed between then and now that brought me out of that cycle. 

What brought me to the point where I could finally face my grief?  What brought me to the point where I could finally reject the anger patterns at an unconscious level, that the core "me" could finally say "that's not me" and throw it off?  

I think having a home in Florida, committing to it and using it as a pathway to deepening my spiritual practice was the key.  Having a house of my own is essential for me at a core level.  The Pensacola area moves at a much slower pace, which aligns with my natural rhythm, allows my mind to slow down, deepens presence and creates space for this kind of inquiry.  Even mundane things like yard work create space, more so than working out, which doesn't slow my mind.

And of course there's the fishing, which takes my mind off everything else, connects me to nature and the cycle of life and taps into my joy.

So this slowing of the mind, presence, creating long spaces of detachment from the everyday cycle, plus my continued commitment to spiritual work, brought me to that place where the panic came up and I could face it and go through it into the grief.  And the spiritual tools allowed me to finally not just face it but transmute it.  I wasn't just "moody," or just moving through it, I was transmuting the grief into the flow of life.

And with the energies unstuck and unblocked, things really start flowing.  And with the ocean of grief gone, there's nothing to block or distract, so the anger patterns just sit on their own.  And then they start looking ridiculous and I can feel how hurtful that communication can be.

Anger and anxiety are high-energy emotions, they tend to drown out more calm base state energies.  There's a good heart that gets drowned out by all that noise until you start identifying with the noise.  Then, free from those patterns, and free from the anger/grief trap, the quiet feels SOOOOOO good, like a long-lost friend. And that's the place where truly strong and effective spiritual communication comes from.

It's a process, and I'll have more to say as I revisit this, but it feels good to be myself, and to feel bad about the way I've been.  To better honor my gifts and the people who are called to receive them.      

Analyzing Financial Energies, Torrance vs Pensacola

Beach This Morning - Perdido Key

Since I am transitioning from a life in Southern California, where I've grown up my whole life, to my home in Pensacola, FL, it's a good time to examine the energies and note some of the differences, particularly related to the flow of money.

It's not easy to notice the energies of an environment when one is immersed in it. That's why periods of transition are useful, they help us to see things from an objective perspective.

For example, Torrance and Southern California in general are objectively "well off" financially compared to most parts of the country, at least in terms of given standards - higher standard of living, larger economic output, more material wealth.

But these things don't tell us the energetic environment, they only tell us some of the story.  When you look underneath, you see this wealth is actually not set on a good energetic foundation at all.  Southern California has heavy karmic and soul contracts that serve as a form of energetic "debt" that carries a very high interest rate.  That's why it seems everyone (and myself included when I was plugged into this grid) is "running just to stay in place."

Southern California has a high leakage - people make a lot of money.  They also waste a lot of money, lose a lot of money and get burdened with extremely high "sunk costs" that make it impossible for even the wealthiest to simply relax and enjoy their blessings.  The image of the relaxed Southern Californian at the beach just enjoying the sunshine and good life is just that, an image.  I go to all these beaches on a regular basis and have for years.  You'll see kids relaxing and enjoying life, but the adults are either never there or completely distracted and overwhelmed.

There is no sense of peace and satiety in Southern California.  It is never "enough" and everyone is teetering on the precipice of financial ruin, no matter how much money they have. In fact, the wealthier people are more at risk, those with less are more "comfortable," except those people literally cannot afford to live there anymore.

"Keeping up with the Joneses" is so endemic I didn't even notice that's the water everyone is swimming in until I started visiting places like Thailand and Pensacola, FL where most people are happy with what they have, which is a fraction of the wealth Californians have. They don't envy their neighbors nearly to the extend they do in Los Angeles or Orange County.  The wealthy lifestyle propped up by crushing debt (real debt, not spiritual debt) that is extremely common in Southern California doesn't really exist in Pensacola, they operate from a different paradigm.

Now, that's not to say Pensacola is perfect.  There is a poverty mindset, scarcity patterns (interestingly these are almost identical in both locations, despite the massive differences in relative income and wealth.  It has a certain resignation to failure that goes pretty deep.  But ultimately, the prevailing energy of Pensacola is far more peace, acceptance, happiness and gratitude for what they have instead of envy or anxiety over what they don't have.  People have a lot less but overall they're a lot happier, more generous, and more grateful.

A lot of this difference has to do with Pensacola's closer relationship with God.  Christianity is far more open, prevalent, accepted and celebrated than secular Southern California.  So spiritual connection, and the flow that comes with it, is more available.  That's not to say there aren't distortions and corruptions, there certainly are, but the energetic soil is cleaner and more nourishing.

You really notice it when you see people who move from wealthy areas to Pensacola and are immediately triggered.  "There aren't any good jobs," "fewer opportunities," "lack of growth (not true)," complaining about certain expenses, where are the expensive specialty shops, etc.  The energy here really triggers people steeped in their money rich/energy poor lifestyles.

How does this relate to the flow of money?  Clearly the Southern California energy is far out of the flow, yet objectively they have more (yet everyone feels poor there).  Pensacola is much more connected to the flow, yet they seem to have little to show for it.  But if you keep digging, you see evidence that the stronger flow is raising the community.  And more importantly, it's elevating in a way that is aligned much more closely with spiritual truth, which means while the "paper wealth" will burn away (sometimes literally, like the recent fires in LA), the areas in the flow will continue to grow.  

What does this mean for you?  For now the takeaway is to learn to identify the different energies and feel into their inherent truth.  It's challenging to do this when you live in a location, so finding an objective distance helps.  Noticing these things will help you notice these patterns in yourself.  For example, I've been immersed in "mass leakage," "keeping up with the Joneses," and "never enough" patterns my entire life, to the point I'd become nose-blind to their toxicity.  Finding that awareness is the first step to deprogramming those patterns to reclaim true financial flow.

There's more to talk about, but allow this to serve as a wake-up call for gaining true awareness and energetic sovereignty.  

Another Miracle Healing, and Now the Challenge

I'm stepping even more fully into my newly-awakened gifts.  This time I alleviated chronic back and shoulder pain from a client, again through remote healing. It took one remote session.

The clients don't even have to be online, I can do this on my own time and it works.

Now I need to work on a much more difficult challenge - healing my own back pain.  Apparently it's a lot easier for people like me to heal everyone else than themselves.  So that's the challenge now.  That and further embodying, expanding and expressing this awakened gift inside me.

I have another visit to my Pensacola home in about ten days.  That week is set now to be legendary.  The last visit changed my life and led directly to this awakening. But the next visit is set to make that June one look like the introduction.

 

Empty House Vision Revisited

I was thinking again about that "empty house" vision I posted about in 2019.  Thinking about all the changes that happened in my life between then and now, and how that vision, and my relationship to it, has changed.

And as I thought about it, I also thought about Bob Dylan.  Because he is one of my favorite musicians.  He was very influential when I was in high school, inspiring me to write poetry and try my hand at writing novels.  Recently I rediscovered my love for his music and the impact of "Highway 61 Revisited," which brings me back to here.  

This is my house.  The backside.  In a once-in-a-lifetime snowstorm.  It's often unoccupied.  The rest of the time it's just me.  And it's not empty.

 

This was my house in Thailand.  Put every penny I had into it at the time, and then some.  It's now always occupied and not mine anymore.

A house has been a critical part of my evolution pretty much since I got out of college.  Bought a house right away with my first wife and after the divorce I made sure she could keep it so our son would have a stable place to grow up.  It served its purpose - he's grown up to be a great young man and a father of his own.  That house was always a piece of crap - old, busted, terrible area - but I loved owning a home and making it a home and missed it when I left.  

For years I tried to find myself in various ways, and had some successes and setbacks.  I found a spiritual home in Thailand as I was evolving in my spiritual journey.  I ended up paying to have a house built in an area my wife wanted (which I wouldn't have built there if I knew then what I know now).  It's a nice house - simple but beautiful, a really good house.  The only problem is, while Thailand might be my spiritual home, I realized at some point I would never live there.  Her family ended up moving in and retiring there and it's worked out well for them.  So what I thought was my spiritual and "forever" home was a (VERY expensive) stepping stone for me and a home for a really nice family that's had to suffer a lot through their lives and deserves happiness in their later years.  

It was around that time when I wrote about the "empty house" vision.  You see, while I'd been creating homes for others, this was a period in my life when, once again, I had no home.  I knew California certainly wasn't my home and had grown to resent it.  Thailand wasn't my home.  And as much as I tried to "have a home" in each area, the universe drew me in another direction.

Sometimes the interpretation is too obvious to consider.  I really needed a home.  A man needs a house of his own.  And I'd being giving away, well, pieces of myself, to others.  Acts of love but also acts of neglect toward myself. They were fulfilled, I was empty.

I started exploring Florida in 2021-22 and at the end of 22 bought a house in Pensacola, Florida.  My plan was to use this as a toehold in Florida, rent it out and figure out later what to do with the equity when the time was right.

And in this case, the universe again pushed me in a different direction, first by hooking me into the Florida lifestyle and then by "blessing" me with shitty, unreliable tenants who completely trashed the beautiful little house and then left without paying their rent.

So, out of love for the house, the area and lifestyle and frustration with being a landlord, I decided to take the house back to live in, even if only a little bit.  I took the house back for me.  

And that decision turned out to be magical. 

The first thing I did when starting to furnish the place was to create a meditative/spiritual space.  But I've grown to discover that every aspect of the house, and my experiences there, has had a huge spiritual impact on me.

Yes, I've been going there alone, for the most part.  Sometimes I'd bring my son and we'd share vacation time.  The rest of the time it's just me.  But I had a home now.  And it feels like home.  It's cathartic, it's grounding, it's inspirational and fulfilling.  Filling.  Yes, that "empty house" is being filled, with every jet-lagged trip, with more and more experiences, energy and revelations.  And furniture and art and stuff.

It's like the soil where I can take root and grow.  And I didn't even really know how much I needed this.  Some people love a nomadic life.  I need a castle.  Even if that castle is a three-bedroom house in Pensacola.  Maybe especially so. And I've made it into my castle.

And much like the king, I don't spend much time in it.  But it's there.  And because it's there and I do return, I'm starting to find myself growing into the kind of man who can command a castle.  I'm challenging myself to grow and deepen.  I'm rediscovering practices I'd put aside that now "stick," perhaps because the practices are no longer theoretical, they're tangible.

When I wrote about the "empty house," I asked myself how can I create something out of emptiness?  The answer is so simple, you bring an intention into that emptiness.  You speak the word and the universe begins creating that thing, sometimes at cross purposes with your "plans."

I literally created three homes out of nothing - NOTHING.  I was basically broke when we bought the first house, and it saw a life come into this world, grow up, and create life of his own.  I created a house in Thailand out of nothing - again I was broke.  I created this house in Pensacola basically out of an intention to live in Florida.  And then the intention materialized when I thought I "wasn't ready."

And I still lie awake in bed (not so much these days, but up until early 2025), worrying about how I'm going to make this work, that I'm going broke on this "pipe dream," paying rent and a mortgage, flying out all the time.  And yet, somehow, it's not just working - I'm flourishing.  All those lessons I tried to learn that felt so hard years ago, that I "gave up," are coming online, almost like they were always there and I just needed to be in a place to accept them.  

Suddenly I wake up and realize, I'm not just fishing and escaping reality.  I'm fucking BUILDING a reality, for the first time in YEARS I have a reality.  Maybe a fishing rod is my magic wand and I just couldn't accept that something I truly enjoy for myself could actually be the foundation of my evolutionary work.  That limiting belief that "fishing is just a hobby" or "fishing is an escape" or "fishing isn't sexy" is just, well, someone else's bullshit and not mine.  

Fishing is an integral part of me.  Even filleting fish is a spiritual practice for me - I used to say meditative, but it's even more primal than that.  It's a connection to the source and cycle of life, where my soul's essence connects with the earth's life essence.  I connect with the sun, I connect with the wind, I connect with the water, I connect with life, and my soul connects with it all.  

That is powerful, sexy shit.  

I always wondered why some women would look at me "that way" when I'm sunburnt, hands covered in fish and bait slime, dirty, tired, hauling my kayak or surf cart back to the car, or why my wife likes that I fish.  Maybe they're sensing that deeper energy running through me, that I hadn't even been aware is there.

When I was a kid, I remember my dad saying how much he loved watching me fish or coming back from a day fishing.  He said that's when I was my real self.  I think... yeah.  That's right.

And so, my life is filling up.  My "house," and actual house, is filling up.  And the emptiness is gone.  And I'm consciously figuring out how to create "something out of nothing."  And I've been doing it pretty much my whole life.