Through extended immersions into mountainous wilderness areas, modern conditioning began to fall away to the grandeur and expanse of the majestic creation of life. The pressure of survival forged an intimate relationship with nature. I was learning to experience reality directly, without the overlay of irrelevant mental chatter, modern noise, or influences. 

It was a time when the wilderness was still pristine. There were no cell phones, no fracking, and no pollution that had reached these pristine, untouched regions on Earth.

Learning from the vast world of nature’s exquisite beauty was healing, life changing, and set the foundational direction for my life.  

After a handful of astonishing life-saving miracles in the wilderness, I could no longer deny the existence of an omnipresent, benevolent force that is protective, loving, guiding, and available to all of us.

As a teenager, and inexperienced with survival skills, I bumbled my way through rugged terrain, extreme exposure, and inescapable brushes with death. Near death experiences afforded divine glimpses of the evolutionary transition we are all facing at this juncture of time.

Returning to civilization, I engaged in training within wisdom traditions. This training offered meditative and martial art practices that further expanded the depths of the ‘natural mind’ I had experienced in the wilderness.

Eventually, I integrated back into society as a mother and as an RN working in acute medical settings. Yet, my children and I lived at the edge of the wilderness to access a deeper balance.

The NDEs are not a distant fading memory, rather they resound more loudly than ever, vibrating a timeless truth that my indigenous elders insisted must be shared.

Now, as an elder myself, with life experience, humbled by many painful storms of human lessons, and the fruition of a seasoned practice, I offer optimistic soul perspectives, along with practical, grounded ways human consciousness can be resilient through these evolutionary changes.

Grandmother Omi ~ Marta