June 22, 1987~~A New Story
it’s often said by those closest to me that I’ve managed to craft a truly unique and unconventional life. While it may not be the stuff of front-page news or grand, dramatic moments, it has been deeply personal, layered, and transformative. This is the story I feel compelled to share—a tapestry of experiences, lessons, and revelations woven together around the year 1987. I will also retrace moments prior to that year to add depth to the narrative. My goal isn’t to present a polished, linear memoir but rather a raw, fragmented reflection, much like the twists and turns of my actual life.
My childhood was like a bookshelf with the bookends of quiet joy and profound loneliness, and all of those feelings in between. Before 1965, I lived in isolation, feeling out of sync with the world beyond my family. I was the small boy, advanced academically but emotionally raw, thrust into social settings that often felt hostile and challenging. It was as if the playgrounds I stepped into were designed for survival, not connection. My circle of friends after 1965 often consisted of those others disregarded—the “outcasts,” the dreamers, the misunderstood. Though few in number, these friends taught me loyalty and acceptance in ways I can never forget.
Books became my sanctuary, especially science fiction. Reading stories about other worlds brought me solace, a temporary escape from the alienation I felt on this one. Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land was particularly transformative. The notion that “Thou Art God” planted a quiet seed of hope within me that perhaps life—and even I—could hold something divine. This idea became an anchor, however fleeting, as I navigated the difficulties of early life.
Adolescence marked a turning point in my life. By the time I was 15, I had fallen into the grip of drug and alcohol abuse. The substances provided a deceptive salve to ease the discomfort of intense anxiety and the ache of loneliness and self-doubt while pulling me further from my aspirations. At one point, I dreamed of escaping Earth entirely—either as an astronaut or by some alchemical or psychologjcal means of breaking away from the confines of this flawed world.
Despite the chaos of my inner life, I excelled academically, fueled by a belief that science and intellect could deliver me from my discontent. I aced standardized tests, clinched a scholarship, and secured a place in the Air Force ROTC program. But a broken love relationship derailed everything, mirroring the turbulence within me and leading me to abandon my dreams of reaching the stars.
Even as my life spiraled, I searched earnestly for meaning—particularly through spirituality. My relationship with American Christianity was rocky, at best. I attended Sunday school as a child but found its teachings unsatisfying and incomplete. Its premise of humanity’s inherent sinfulness never resonated with my soul’s deeper longing for unity and connection.
Every time I sobered up for a few weeks, which happened 4 times during my entire 16 year addictive cycle, I revisited Christianity, hoping to find something I had missed during my earlier forays. Yet each encounter left me spiritually malnourished. It wasn’t until 1987 that I began to discover a path that felt authentic to me—one that extended beyond dogma and embraced a broader perspective of divinity, love, and self-realization.
1987 was a pivotal year. After years of addiction and internal turmoil, I reached a breaking point that forced me to confront my life choices. Through sobriety and self-discovery, I peeled back the layers of my pain and societal conditioning. My higher power revealed itself not through established doctrine but through the raw and unfiltered fabric of life itself.
This revelation challenged me to discard long-held beliefs about the real children of God, sin, separation, and worthiness. I began to see that God—or the divine—is not outside of us but exists intrinsically within all forms of life. It is a shared essence, a unity often obscured by ignorance, judgment, and fear.
The conventional teachings of original sin and a single savior no longer hold meaning for me. Instead, I find solace and strength in the idea that we are each a thread in the infinite tapestry of existence. When we’re disconnected from ourselves, from others, and from the world, we perpetuate harm. But when we remember that we are intricately interconnected, profound healing becomes possible.
My story is neither one of perfection nor finality—it is a human story of questioning, failing, and learning. If anything, I’ve come to understand that the search for meaning doesn’t end in a single revelation but continues to evolve as we do. And for me, life isn’t about escaping this world anymore—it’s about being fully present in it.
All that I see, and will ever see, unto eternity, is myself.
How will I see myself today?
1987-The Year Of My Great Awakening
In the era of life prior to 1987, I led a highly dysfunctional life, becoming addicted to alcohol and drugs by age 15. I was hopelessly addicted from the start, and I knew that I would either die as an alcoholic/addict, or I would kill myself by age 30, if I had not yet recovered from my disease. What I did not know was what would happen if I survived and recovered from my affliction, what kind of life there would be for me to live, and what kind of person that I could become. I had made no preparations for living life without substance abuse, nor had I adequate language to describe any hopes for a sober life, other than in the simplest, vaguest of terms.
With the exit from Portland’s underworld community in 1987 and my own exit from the drug-induced and culturally inculcated insanity, a new world waited to reveal itself to me, but it did not just reach out and grab me by the hand and lead me down the path to recovery and reintegration back into the community. It would be a mistake to assume that I was totally conscious about what was going on and the direction that I was headed from 1987 forward. It is only in retrospect that a rational narrative could even be developed.
As I moved forward spiritually in that great spring and summer of 1987, I was still quite new to the path of healing and transformation. I had left my old life behind, and I was completely opened to the experience of spiritual connection, and mastery. Beginning in April I began to develop quite a meditation practice, eschewing committed relationships in order to develop a deeper practice. I remained excited about the possibilities for my life, and as of May 24th I had finally made conscious contact with a mysterious, love infused higher power. The profound spiritual experience of the 24th had brought a temporary healing of my body and mind, and for a couple of weeks, its love energy permeated my being. During that brief period of time I felt like I was swimming in a sea of new meaning, though I still had not spiritually connected the dots, or started consciously rebuilding my new self.
All that I knew was that after I had made conscious contact with this unique power, my old life seemed to disappear. I had an ability to describe the world that I had left behind, but I had no language to describe the new world that I was entering into, or the new experiences that were unfolding in the new life of sobriety. I had never felt like I was an accepted and honored part of the outside world in the first place, so finding my new people, and my language, were important endeavors to me, once I was firmly on the path to sobriety and enhanced spirituality.
This desire for a loving integration into the wholeness of life arose several years before, when I yearned for peace during the troubled last years of my first marriage and my wife’s disabling disease.. While addicted and supporting a profoundly mentally ill person, I could not fulfill the conditions for the experience of peace.
The transformation was many, many years in the making, but when it appeared within me, I was no longer tormented by my social insecurities, or my feeling of disconnection from God, my fellow-man, or Mother Earth and her plants and animals that grace this beautiful home planet that we share. Somehow, I had let go of the controls of my old ego state of mind, and a new order started revealing itself, from moment to moment. At times I felt like a guided missile, never knowing the destination for my life, but trusting whatever it was that had launched my new life into existence would get me to the right place at the right time..
I still had memories of my former life, yet they no longer informed my day-to-day thoughts, my decisions, or my overall outlook on life and love. I did not know who the new me was, though I always had a smile, and felt continuous joy. I had a series of spiritual upheavals which defied my rational mind, and I did not have the words to describe or contain the experience for many years to follow. It was as if a new person had landed in my consciousness, the old me had died, and now I was informed, moment to moment, by a powerful force of peace, silence, and Love itself.
Before 1987, there were many fragments of other people’s ideas about me with their disfiguring concepts roaming around in my mind, along with a few of my own unique miscreations. Yet, by June of 1987, the committee of many had permanently adjourned, and there was only one peaceful presence, a new ordering principle for my consciousness. And not only did I not have the language developed for the new story, the small story that I did begin to tell did not necessarily meet with a friendly reception from others. When I told my story, I would usually be met with silent stares, a quick change of subject, suggestions that I attend some church dogma indoctrination classes, or general disinterest., though a friend from a men’s group claimed that I was a “walk-in”, a term used to describe when the old ego departs a body, to be replaced by a new being.
My family still saw me in terms of the past, for the most part, as my history created great scars on the psyche of fellow family members, as well as the friends and acquaintances of my years prior to recovery. But, they could appreciate that the new me no longer required their extra concern or care, as I was now an independent, upright, fairly conscious human being. I made healthy choices in my relationships, and I chose a new, fulfilling career to replace all of the career wreckage from my past. I was but a boy again, though, while still learning the ropes, meeting new friends, discovering new possibilities for myself and others, and, occasionally, still sipping from the inner healing springs of a Miracle that quenches the spiritual thirst of all who seek it out.
This new being, this upgraded Bruce 2.0, which appeared in the summer of 1987, was like those miracle babies and children that I had always envied, and doubted. During most of the time after June of 1987, until I met my present wife Sharon in August of 1989, I spent over six hours a day in prayer and meditation, and probably as a result experienced blessed states on an almost continuous basis. I felt the deep silence of God, for lack of a better description, while being taught on the inner spiritual plane about aspects of life, and consciousness, that I had no way to learn or know about otherwise. This was not a Christian God, or a Jewish God, or the Buddha Mind, or Christ Consciousness, but those names certainly pointed to the new reality that I had somehow accessed, immersed myself in, and been dramatically changed by.
His Master’s Voice
We all have access to the inner wisdom of a master spiritual teacher, yet ” the master” lies, mostly ignored, in the inner recesses of our hearts and souls, for much of our lives. I was given a new blank slate to write my new self upon, a new possibility for living, and being, in this world, aided by this new connection with my own wisdom. The world that I once wanted to depart from so badly, was now paradise on Earth, and I knew that Heaven was not a concept for the future, but a living reality only for the present moment. But, I could not carry the old me into that world, I had to leave ALL of my verbal and non-verbal memory possessions behind, so to speak, to stay in tune with the new Spiritual music.
Those who touch the Infinite relate back to the world the ineffability of the experience, though they have been deeply impacted by that contact. The universe of Spirit defies rationality, though it will eventually speak intelligently through the healed human mind. First, the mind has to be properly prepared, and then it must be willing to communicate, no matter how mighty the struggle may be to interpret or express its energy. But if the mind is overburdened by education, knowledge, religious and cultural inculcation, the Infinite will be speaking through distorted measures of reality, creating illusion, deception, and delusion.
I have noted from my understanding and experience of others who have had dramatic spiritual experiences, is that, initially, they experienced a state of being poor communicators around the event. This lack of articulateness is quite a common, for several years that follow such an upheaval. Those that have a strong religious background try to use the language of that system of thought to interpret and communicate their own unique opening. For those who do not have a well established religious background, or who might need other language or images to convey their experience, the search through historical literature to see what others have written about their own cosmic events have been found to be helpful. There is an attempt to try to use a language that others might understand, but, unless they too have had spiritual lightning strike them, the search for an equally enlightened/awakened peer group is liable to be fairly unsuccessful, at least initially. Then there are also those who just throw up their hands, and give up on the idea of ever communicating with others about the transcendent state. And, finally, there are those whose minds are irreparably damaged by the experience, and though they may remain connected to the Spirit, their behavior and style is indicative of a person who is insane, and operating well outside of socially and culturally accepted standards.
I did not have the capacity to communicate with others what I was experiencing, for many years after 1987. I would refer to my rebirth, and talk of the old me with those who were interested, especially in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. The people who met me after my rebirth could not believe that I was ever addicted or dysfunctional in self-destructive or other-destructive ways, and I learned to not wave that recovery flag at every new person I met, so that they could have an honest chance of knowing me for who I now was, rather than who I might have been long ago. It was my movement through all of these new relationships which helped to define for me the new me, who I was now, how I now related to and appreciated others, and how I now loved unconditionally most everyone that I met. All of humanity became my brother or sister in this new reality, and my lifelong sense of dreadful separation from others had been lifted. I then set out to find my people and find out where I might fit into the new world order that was revealing itself within my mind and heart. In my naiveté, I assumed that most others naturally came by this understanding, and that I was finally catching up, spiritually, with the normal folks, the folks that never were so unhappy as to consider alcoholism, drug addiction, and/or suicide for themselves.
I eventually became active in the great outdoors again through hiking and backpacking, I resumed bicycle riding with an association with Cycle Oregon over several years, I learned tennis, and I also ended up excelling in road and trail racing as a runner, albeit an older runner (in the master’s division), competing individually and also appearing on several championship or near-championship level Masters’ teams in both the Hood To Coast and Rainier To Pacific races. I was able have a “redo” of my life, and experience success and failure based on my own decisions, and actually glean wisdom from my interactions with life, rather than hate myself and/or others for its sometimes difficult teachings. And, yes, the new life was quite fertile ground for learning.
This new life also provided me with some of the language that I needed to communicate better with others what I had experienced on the inner plane. It also started to provide me with the language needed to describe the foundational consciousness which predisposed me, and our world to dysfunctional and self-destructive behavior, but I was not to get the full message until much later in life. Having allowed myself to return back into the world after this second birth, I subsequently gained insight into the matrix of collective human misunderstanding that was the foundation for our collective consciousness as a human race. I had no inclination to attempt to describe the “light” as the mystics and poets experienced it, for I saw the futility of that path of “via positiva” for me. My path was more towards “via transformativa” and “via negativa”, which is the path that is witnessed AFTER insight into the debris field of human consciousness is apperceived, and then healed and cleared.
What is left, after the garbage is cleared? If might be considered similar to the process of metamorphosis, which brings forth the butterfly from the caterpillar. If the butterfly could talk, I would assume that it would much rather talk about its new freedom,and the ability to fly, rather than its previous form of life sliding over the dirt. Yet, the only life that the butterfly arose from was with ground dwellers, and that is where all of its past stories were created.
Could you imagine that butterfly going back and telling his caterpillar friends about the potential for a new life, and what the “ground dwellers” might say in response?
How about
“get lost, you were never one of us, anyway?”
or
“well, it must be nice for you to fly, but it is just not for me right now?”
or
“have you heard about the great tasty leaves that parsley plant has?”
are three potential responses from those who think that change is threatening, unnecessary, irrelevant, or impossible, for themselves.
Spiritual freedom means letting go of limitations.
There is new life available to all, yet I won’t devote too many words on that one. I am not a poet, and I don’t need to draw a big audience for those who are the seeker moths of our world who blindly follow the latest human light. The light is best experienced personally and non-verbally, for then there are no conflicts created between “the word” versus “the truth of the moment”. It is best to see this process for oneself. The word will forever remain a shadow, cast by the light built into the divine heart of mankind, as it tries to define the undefinable. Yet, if the heart is in the right place, the words formed and delivered will become attuned to and resonant with the energies pointing to healing of self and of the other.
“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
June 22, 1987
When I attempt to tell my story, I have learned to turn to volume up a notch or two, especially in areas where I need to hear myself the most. Yet, just because I listen to myself does not guarantee that others who are conditioned to ignore me will suddenly pay attention. Sometimes, a bird sings in the forest, even though there are no other birds to listen to it. The real miracle is not that others listen to us, it is that we finally are singing, and listening to ourselves.
Can you hear me now?⁹
Can I hear me now?
………………..
On June 22, 1987, I embarked on a profound, life-altering pilgrimage to Larch Mountain. This sacred peak, steeped in the reverence of indigenous traditions, overlooks the Columbia River valley and offers panoramic views of majestic peaks like Rainier, Adams, St. Helens, Hood, and Jefferson. I sought solace here, grappling with the echoes of my past and the fragile hope for healing my fractured mind and body. At this point, I had been sober for three months, but the deep wounds of addiction and mental distres lingered.
As I stood atop this natural observatory, encircled by the silent testimonies of ancient mountains, a light breeze carried the pine’s aroma to my senses, cleansing the turmoil within me. I bypassed the observation deck’s guardrail, seeking a secluded spot, hidden from the world, where I could commune with the spirit of the landscape. First, I turned my attention outward, letting the profound beauty of my surroundings saturate my awareness. Then I turned inward, attempting to still the ceaseless chatter of my mind. The voices, those relentless narrators I had lived with for so long, described my every action and thought with mechanical detachment—but their hold on me began to falter in this sanctuary of nature.
Something extraordinary unfolded as I attempted to pray and meditate. For the first time in my life, I felt as though I was dissolving into the natural world around me. The separation I had always felt from life, from others, from God, began to vanish. Suddenly, everything—myself, the mountains, the river, the sky—was one continuous, unbroken field of existence. An ineffable warmth began to flow through me, richer and closer than anything I had known, an overwhelming presence that quelled the mental noise and filled the silence with unmistakable clarity.
Then came the voice—not the detached commentary of inner turmoil but a steady, calm declaration from deep within my consciousness.
“He is having an experience with God.”
These words were not spoken aloud, yet they resonated within me an undeniable truth.
And, these were the final words spoken in my mind with that irritating, stubbornly persistent, and fragmented third-person perspective that I had developed over the last year of subsrance abuse. I had developed chemically induced schizophrenia, and one of its effects was the uncomfortable experience of hearing my hidden thoughts like they were external voices. I had begun despairing that the voices would never leave, even after nearly three months of sobriety. I also had Parkinson’s disease like shakes that often rolled over my entire body like a tidal wave.
A veil had lifted, revealing a reality where I saw nothing but connection, unity, and love. The mountains were not distant; they were a part of me. The river below did not wind away—it flowed through me. For the first time, my mind was quiet; the tremors in my hands and body were gone.
Peace enveloped me fully.
This realization was not merely visual or intellectual; it was experiential, rooted in the essence of being itself. The artificial boundaries of self and other dissolved, and I could see with startling clarity that all of humanity was my family, each person a part of me in the great tapestry of life. Love, which had always felt conditional—tainted by expectations, hurt, or judgment—now radiated freely and unreservedly. This love extended even to those who had wronged me, those I thought I could never forgive. It was as if God had shown me the world through a lens of boundless compassion.
For those many moments, I touched eternity. I witnessed a life where suffering could not cling, where healing meant more than sobriety or restored health—it meant awakening. Recovery was no longer confined to avoiding drugs or alcohol; it was learning to live devoid of hard boundaries, free from the mental constructs that separate us from others and the divine. It was about wholeheartedly loving the world, in all its imperfections.
Descending from that peak, I carried this transformation back to the structured chaos of human life. Through small gestures—seeking forgiveness, expressing gratitude, reconnecting with community—I strived to embody the vision granted to me on Larch Mountain. I looked not only for my own people but for ways to extend that peace outward and offer it to others, even if only in fleeting moments.
True healing, I realized, is not about perfection or escaping pain but about presence. It is remaining open to the profound truth that we are deeply interconnected to one another, to the Earth, and to God. Moments like the one I had atop Larch Mountain remind me that within every chaotic mind, every fractured soul, lies the potential for transcendence.
I don’t have to travel to the underworld again to find that truth, or to look for somebody who might listen to me.
“WHERE ARE MY PEOPLE?”
became the question of the day.
I hiked the short distance back down to my car, and then drove towards Portland, from Larch Mountain. I was guided to go to NE 73rd and Glisan, where the US Postal Service’s EAP program was based. I had called in sick after the fourth of July holiday in 1985 after working there nearly ten years. My employer had required that I be clean and sober, and I had failed miserably in two hospitalized recovery programs, and I departed in shame.
I walked into the door, and I was greeted by both Larry and Mike (Mike visited me in the Care Unit 3 years before, and Larry was the director of the EAP since I could remember). I called out to them by name, yet neither man immediately recognized me. When I mentioned my name, they were both blown away. I was happy, or, more precisely, ebullient, and Mike said that I was simply radiant. They wanted to know what was going on with me, and I stated, with a matter of fact attitude, that I was having a spiritual experience. They both gave me a huge hug and acknowledgement.
Inspired by this reception, I returned to the Main Post Office, and checked in with the Personnel Department, where Eleanor Workman was the head of the department. She immediately recognized me, and then offered me an application to reapply for my “lost” position.
“No thank you, Eleanor, I just wanted to express my apologies for working for this company in such an unhappy manner for so many years”.
She stated that I could get the job back with little problem, since the Post Office knew that they fired me even though I was still a practicing alcoholic. I then stated that what would make me the happiest is if she could schedule a meeting between me and the head of Plant Maintenance, John Zimpleman.
Well, he was “in”, so I went right up, and I had a direct opportunity to make amends to him for my poor performance from 1980-1985. He greeted me warmly, listened to my story, was quite impressed, and then stated that he wished his son could discover what I just found, because John Jr. was rapidly descending to my former level. Wow, this day of amends went so well, I remained ecstatic about all future interpersonal possibilities.
One day that next week, while visiting our world famous Powell’s Book Store on Burnside in Portland, I saw my old psychiatrist, Dr. Dan Beavers. He was standing in the metaphysical section of the book store. I walked up to him, and he did not immediately recognize me. I stuck my hand out to him, and re-introduced myself to him.
“Bruce, this can’t be you, can it? Last time I saw you, I was wondering how much longer you could survive if the medication did not turn your life around.”
“Dan, the medication worked just fine. I never used it, at least not in the way that you would have intended for me to use it. I finally found a new way to live life without medication, drugs, or alcohol. I now accept full personal responsibility for my thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and activities”.
“Bruce, that is the desired outcome for all of my patients. Congratulations on your success!”
I gave Dr. Dan a hug, and apologized for using him like a tool in my effort to manipulate my former employer, the US Postal Service. He said that I did not need to make amends to him, and that he was there for me to serve all of my needs, whether I considered them dysfunctional or otherwise. But it still felt good to see Dr. Dan and show him my healthier sense of self. I was to never see Dr. Dan again. When I recently saw his obituary for his premature death in 2015, I felt great sorrow, and cried.
In the continued interest of “finding my people”, I attend the INTA Conference in Portland In August of 1987 (International New Thought Alliance). The person that I was most interested in seeing was Jack Boland, the recovering alcoholic who had started a SUPER CHURCH in Minnesota, with well over 5000 members. He also had a following of many hundreds of thousands of recovering people worldwide, as his approach to spirituality, sobriety, and healing was pretty universal. The integration into this new community was a fascinating immersion into a group energy that I had never experienced before. I WAS SO HIGH THERE!!!
I got to see firsthand a group of well over 1000 people warmly embrace the musical group Alliance, which starred Jerry Florence. They had some hits in the 1980’s, and they were a group of gay men who all had HIV’/AIDS. Having recently left that “evil” Hinson Baptist Church where gays were bashed regularly, this was like a breath of life to a drowning man, even though I had no homosexual tendencies. The tenderness that I felt towards Jerry Florence and the group of men that constituted Alliance still lives in me today, and I still have tears today for the suffering of all people who have been judged as unworthy or just plain ignored.
It has been a great challenge and adventure living this life. It has also been a great fulfillment for me to have lived long enough and to have become articulate enough to be able to put into words my unique experience of life.
I attempt to bring into the verbal universe my extended journey into the mystery of human consciousness, it’s infinite possibilities, and its corruption by those with selfish and self-destructive agendas.
Finding my unique story, and finding the supportive silence underneath that story, is the journey of my salvation, the hero’s journey towards healing and integrity.
What is “reality” and who am I?
Watch out, for more stories are always forming around those questions!
I am what I am, but I am not what I seem
We all need a bigger story.
We all need more heart and healing.
We all need each other to make our stories complete.
