Arts Alive San Antonio

BY JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor

How do you describe yourself?
I am a writer, musician and performance artist, with a particular interest in the intersection of art, spirituality, psychology and spontaneity. I like to explore what happens at that intersection and have been busy doing it for the past 45 years.
How are you going about it? Are you mostly using song and music in your exploration?
For me it starts with a blank piece of paper and a fountain pen. My songs, my poems, my performance pieces, all start there. And then, I like the spontaneity of what happens with a live audience, being part of the community of the moment.

Is that how the Celebration Circle started, from a need to have a spiritual community?
Again, it goes back to the intersection of art, spirituality, psychology and spontaneity. There wasn’t a place locally where I could find a creative approach to spirituality, an inclusive approach that incorporated multiple faith traditions and honored the wisdom that comes from contemporary psychology. So, we (he and his wife Zet) decided to found our own back in January of 1992.

Is it still going strong?
Well, it’s still going. (Both he and Zet laugh) It’s had its challenges during the COVID year like all other spiritual organizations and all organizations that focus on live events. Normally, the Celebration Circle does regular Sunday and Wednesday meetings, but also classes and concerts and art shows. All our events were live and about being with each other, co-creating a spiritual field of energy.

Are most members involved with the arts?
There are no members, all are welcome. But, yes, there’s a large percentage of art folks, who are either creative themselves or very involved patrons of the creative arts?

Are you an ordained minister in any official denomination?
No. I was ordained in the Universal Life Church originally, so I can officiate at weddings, but mostly, I was ordained by life. I like to think that my work is larger than the Celebration Circle. It’s about bearing witness to the power of creativity and spirituality in all settings and at all times.

How do you understand spirituality?
I don’t. That why I keep studying. But I would say, it’s the essence of who we are as human beings that keeps us focused outside of ourselves. So much of our life focuses on me, me, me and my, my, my, and trying to get more and do more. Spirituality is that side of ourselves that’s willing to look beyond one’s self and consider our connection to the whole. There have been libraries of books written by people way smarter than me on the subject. For me, it’s ultimately about experiencing the “more-ness,” more than my body, more than my mind. There’s something bigger than my human self. After years of studying it, I think it’s a waste of time to try to figure out what it is and how it is. It’s much more important to acknowledge that it is.

Have you ever had a transcendental experience?
I have, numerous times and very few of them were while I was kneeling at an altar or in meditation. They often happened in moments of crisis or moments of transitions. They came in the form of an inner voice or an inner knowing.

You have written a book called “Hurry Slowly.” Can you tell us about it?
It’s a book of essays, poems and reflections, mostly written by a younger man who was trying to be stay-at-home-father and a full-time artist, and a spiritual director and a husband, and an active community member. I was doing all these things but was still trying to honor that mystic core that requires me to slow down and be contemplative. That’s what I aspired to.

Let’s talk about your music, which is a big part of your life.
I am a singer/songwriter and an acoustic guitarist who is interested in performing songs about my experience, trying to live with my heart wide open, “trying” being the operative term. Trying to be peaceful and failing; trying to be reflective and failing, trying to be spiritual and failing. A lot of my songs are about the contrast between what we long for and what we get, and trying again for the higher path. I like to write with humor and pathos.

When I was 16 years old, I had the good fortune to go to a summer church camp where I was introduced to the concept of “encounter groups.” The premise being that if you get a group of people together and told each other your truths and listen to each other deeply, that would help us to live more authentically. At that age I was socially awkward; always felt as an outsider, but when I was introduced to this concept of honest communication in a group setting, it set me on fire.

I went to Trinity University to study spirituality and psychology to further my understanding of what was happening in those groups. I eventually realized that for me performing live provided the opportunity for the same dynamic to occur. That’s what I’ve been doing ever since.

You value friendship. What makes a long-term friendship thrive?
My friends keep me honest and conscious. I am blessed to have friends who are also working on consciousness, trying to be aware, being good citizens and good people. My friends and I have deep conversations. We aren’t really interested in talking about sports or the weather. We hold each other accountable and we really listen to each other.

You are a big reader. What book or books would you recommend to others?
Oh, wow!… At 16, a book that influenced me profoundly was Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet.” It opened my mind to the power of mystical poetry. Another book I recall was written by Sam Keene, “Apology for Wonder.” His main point was that in the culture that values rationality and linear thinking, there’s an equal and balancing importance to focus on wonder, awe, mystery.

More recently we just read a fabulous memoir called, “Salt Path,” about a middle-class English couple who lost everything through no fault of their own and ended up with no money, no home, no kids.  And the husband was diagnosed with a terminal disease. So, what they decided to so is pack their few belongings and walk along the Salt Path, which is basically the path along the perimeter of Cornwall in England. The only thing they could do is just keep on walking. They got physically stronger and experienced amazing generosity from strangers. I can’t recommend it enough.

What makes you angry?
Arbitrary rules; hypocrisy, injustice.

What makes you happy?
A cup of ice tea, or coffee, a stack of blank paper, and a full fountain pen, and a time to sit, reflect and write, the guitar by my side. That makes me happy. Performing makes me happy, too, to be in a room with people, sharing my songs.

And here comes one of our favorite questions: If you were the king of San Antonio, what would you change/implement for the good of San Antonians?
I would permanently freeze all development over the aquifer and the recharge zone. That’s our drinking water. Why would we build a single thing in the recharge zone!? Period! I would also do everything possible to actually enforce the ordinance to save trees from being razed by developers.