My Journey in Community Service
The Beginning of My Career
Born in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, home of the once largest satellite dish and the Taino Indians, I made my way onto New York rather quickly. There, my parents and siblings took on the challenges before us. Long story short, it wasn't until I graduated from high school and moved to Miami, Florida that I turned into a church goer. New ideas popped into my head about studying to be a minister. Thus, I graduated from Southeastern College of the Assemblies of God back in the late 80s. I went on to earn a Master's of Divinity degree in 95'. From there, I trained as chaplain, first in a psychiatric residential facility and later in a major hospital in South Carolina. I was fortunate in those two plus years to have excellent supervisors who held to an integrated study of the psyche with theories of spirit so as to create a useful blend that eventually shaped the way I work with people.
What followed next was a career in hospice, not church. Working with adults facing that moment of transition changed me. Sometimes it made sense. Other times it proved confusing. Nevertheless, I did it for 15 years. I never looked back on the Church thing. My career in hospice was my path.
My training in a field that combined psyche and spirit, not to mention my work in hospice, shifted my theology. I no longer held to a conservative stance. More importantly, I broadened my views. Unpopular at that. Talking about aging, illness and the last breath was hard to do. Not because I couldn't. I wanted to talk about how hospice, but many around me didn't. Even colleagues. I made it a point to develop a process called Conversing with Death that would introduce a most fearful theme in a most gentle way. The idea of working with aging, illness, and dying has never left me. And this is now some 30 years later since I began my hospice work.
After my hospice career and a military deployment, I entered academia once again to earn a Master of Arts in Community Counseling in 2011. I began a career in private practice as Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), which I've now done for almost a decade. I help adults work through trauma and manage symptoms like depression and anxiety. But there is one more thing that blossomed into my field of vision. A strange one, you might say. A little background will help.
The realm of spirit has its roots in my ancestry. And my family had its own way of carrying it. I was fortunate to find qualified teachers who supervised me while I embraced psyche and spirit. Personally, this helped with my move into mysticism and the esoteric sciences. My two travels to India--first, Varanasi for a 10-day meditation retreat and, second, to Rishikesh for a month training in Kundalini Yoga--only furthered my learning. I became convinced, and still do to this day, that we are more than the brain.
But there's one more thing you should know. My interest in ongoing consciousness spilled over into unusual phenomena. Whether it involves deathbed visions (as I saw in hospice), after death communications, near death experiences, or UFO encounters, I have incorporated these themes that are often (out of fear or ignorance) dismissed. Unfortunately, those who do experience a GENUINE encounter are likewise dismissed, and wounded in the process. I've made it a point to serve these folks. And defend them!
Education:
Southeastern College 1987
Reformed Theological Seminary 1995
Argosy University 2011
Specialized Training:
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American Institute of Vedic Studies (300 hrs) 2017
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Rishikesh Yogis Yogshala (200 hrs) 2019
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International School of Clairvoyance
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Rhine Education Center 2021-2023: Intro to Parapsychology, Field Investigations, Paranormal Phenomena Tech, Power of Nature, Exploring Exceptional Experiences, Experiencing the Exceptional and Extraordinary, Art as Psi, and Traveling Out of the Body.
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Society for UAP Studies21
Affiliations:
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Member of International Association on Near Death Studies (IANS) and an approved network therapist
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Affiliated with OPUS
