Introduction

             The morning begins. The alarm was set for 6:30, but today my internal clock woke me earlier and robbed me of three minutes of precious sleep. I rub my eyes while I fantasize about calling in sick, and then suddenly the breath is knocked out of me. My five-year-old son has just executed a swan dive onto my belly. His giggle makes me smile on the inside while I recover my breath. I escort him off the bed so my beloved partner can try to finish her dreams. At this age, I am still his hero and champion. As much as he exerts his will to get what he wants, he still looks up to me, watching me as I climb upstairs, prepare my cup of tea and sit down to check my email and morning schedule. Some mornings we get to play a bit before I leave for work, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays we commute together on the city bus as we stop at the grocery store for some bakery items and munch our goodies on our walk to the preschool. It’s a habitual pattern I have grown to adore. When I look around me, I see so many positive things. I have a wonderful wife and a charming child, family I can always count on, fabulous friends and a cozy home. Being on a Board of directors at my condo and providing needed services at the university also gives me a sense of community.  I really love my life, but things weren’t always this way.

             The people who know me today probably wouldn’t have recognized me ten years ago. Today they see someone who goes to work everyday, manages a group of student workers, is mild-mannered and is as stable and reliable as can be found. The remnants of my past eccentricity are subtly found scattered around my office in the forms of icons and pictures. If I could choose one word to portray who I was back then, I would say mercurial. That definition suited me perfectly: “(of a person) subject to sudden or unpredictable changes of mood or mind; sprightly; lively.”  Unpredictable is not how people who know me today would describe me, except on one of my favorite holidays of the year: Halloween. Yes, on Halloween I get to tap into my inner spirits and get completely into costume. Sometimes scary, sometimes funny, but that one day of the year I still get to be completely unpredictable. It is the way that I get to reminisce and reconnect back to a time when that adjective illustrated the norm of my daily life.

            In the course of my erratic past, there was a moment of complete clarity where I was able to collect all of my eccentric and remarkable experiences. In 1997, after impulsively taking a backpacking trip through Europe on a budget of less than three hundred dollars, I returned to the United States and saw my country in a completely different light. The contrast of my frugal travels through Europe and the joy that I attained on that journey opened my eyes in a way that would change me forever. When I returned, there was nothing else more important for me to do than to publish my thoughts. My mission was to explain where we as Americans had lost our way and had got caught up in the trappings of our materialism. At first I used the blossoming World Wide Web to post these ideas and writings until someone suggested that I should compose a book. His words rang in my ear like an angel’s song and instantly I was on the task. My thoughts flew through my fingers as I hammered on a laptop at any free moment from work. Chapter titles like “Spiritual Evolution,” “Energy & the Human Condition” and “Forgiveness” were born. I quickly began to notice that I was writing in a way that went beyond what I personally experienced. Messages that seemed to come from a divine source was appearing in the passages. Unexpectedly I began to receive insights into global issues and prophetic visions of darker times ahead. As I continued to type I noticed a blending of my writing that fluctuated between my own words and a channeling of this mystical energy. The normal chaos that usually accompanied my days had vanished. I felt stable and solid. My mind became a focused lens and in twenty-eight days the manuscript was complete.

            It was a holy moment for me. The surge of energy cleansed my soul as I wrote those pages. I sat back and read what I wrote. It was perfect. It was exactly what I wanted to say. In my mind, it was the way to better life and I was determined to get the word out. At the same time, poems flowed through me and there were many days where I was able to compose more than three poems in a single sitting. They were esoteric verses full of prophesy. All I had to do was quiet my mind from my daily work and the poems would just come. My energy was contagious and the people around me encouraged me to publish. With the help of some wonderful people in my life at the time, I created a front and back cover, registered the book with the Library of Congress, hired a professional book-making firm and published my first paperback.

            All the work and energy was draining, but the effort was just beginning. I quickly realized that binding a book was only the first step. The harder struggle was getting it in bookstores and to the broader audience. I was successful in getting the book into local stores, but the national chains weren’t dealing with independent authors. Impatiently, I started going door to door to sell my book. That met with some success until my big break came. I finally landed my book in the most popular bookstore in Boca Raton, Florida. It was a place where presidents came for speeches and book signings. My book was on their shelf, and I was scheduled for a presentation and book signing. I was poised to take my message to the next level, if only I could hold my stability in the midst of the extreme positive and negative energy that surrounded me.

            I worked as a web designer and personal computer consultant during the creation of the book. While I was moving forward with the marketing efforts, I was also involved with a secretive group of people who invited me to work with them. They were rich and powerful, and they offered me opportunities beyond my wildest dreams. They needed someone who knew about the emerging World Wide Web and who could be their personal computer consultant for their digital needs. Getting involved would require one step at a time – due to their protectionist nature – but I already established myself as a trusted computer person with a member of the group. He was to be my advocate.

            This was no ordinary person. He was one of the most powerful venture capitalists in the area, funding ideas and then taking them over. He was curious of these visions I was having, and once asked me what I thought would be the next big thing to come to technology. I informed him that the television and the computer would come together into one device, and videos would be watched online instead of the popular VHS tape format. I also let him know that television stations would know the details of everything that we watched since the digital signal in future TVs would enable them to track all our viewing activity. He was hungry to know where the next millions would be made, and hoped to tap into my gifts to further increase his wealth. I was wary of his signature of ‘SS’ and how his phone number ended in 0666 (not to mention the extremely hateful and elaborate expletives of their two-year-old daughter towards him and his wife). As a token of gratitude, he invited me to choose where I would like to live. I could pick practically any city I wished. “Even San Francisco?” I asked. He explained that it wouldn’t be a problem. I thought I could handle it. Temptation and pride allowed me to mingle with this group more than I should have. When I decided that I was getting in too deep, I rejected the group and informed them that I would not be able to work with them any longer. Their verbal disappointment hinted of something more dangerous than just a farewell.

            That evening, a prophetic vision came to me, which was stronger than anything I had previously experienced. It was an image of my own death, and the only way to avoid it was to leave. For hours I tried to shake the notion, but as the minutes ticked away, the presence of something horrible grew more imminent. I thought it unfair to be so close to furthering the success of the Moonphase book project, and yet have to flee to avoid bodily harm. I paced in my living room thinking of what I could do to remedy the situation. Ten o’clock came, then eleven. The energetic visions grew stronger with the passing of each hour. Finally, I decided the only course of action was to run. At around 2 a.m. I drafted a poem titled, “To My Assassin” and taped it to the inside of my apartment door. Now, in a controlled frenzy, I gathered a few personal items and threw them in my car. I sent a few instant messages to some online acquaintances spread throughout the country and thus routed a path of friends so I could hide for some time. Finally, I grabbed my ex-girlfriend’s cat, got in the car, took one last look at my pleasant Delray Beach apartment overlooking a moonlit lake and drove off. It was just after 4 a.m., September 11, 1998.