My Path into Geomancy

The Early Stirrings of Geomancy Within Me - An Autobiography

I was born and raised in West Virginia in the 1950’s and 60’s, when no one had ever heard of geomancy, feng shui, sacred geometry or labyrinths. So it’s kind of a miracle that I became one of America’s first experts in all of these subjects. However West Virginia is full of people who are deeply connected to the mountains and Mother Nature. My Dad introduced me to the region’s leading naturalists, through a Nature study group called the Brooks Bird Club. Their members gave me my first teachings in sensing the spirit of place, reading the lay of the land, and understanding the laws of Nature, without knowing they were giving me the underpinnings of geomancy, bioregionalism, and sacred ecology. The observation skills they taught me became the basis of what I call “seeing with geomancer’s eyes.” I am so blessed to have received all their knowledge and wisdom about the natural world at such an early age.

When I was seven we moved to what would now be called an “intentional community,” in a more wild area at the outskirts of town. I spent a lot of time exploring the woods and creeks, breathing in the magic of the fern dells and little waterfalls. One of my favorite pastimes was sitting still enough to see birds and other animals come close to me. I discovered my first meditation technique: staring at the eddies in the stream until I entered a light trance in which the water seemed to slow down and reveal the more intricate patterns of flowing water. Without knowing it then, I was planting the seeds for my later studies of the patterns of Nature, sacred geometry and shamanic trance practices.

At eleven or twelve years old, I felt a calling to take care of the woods behind our house. I built check dams to control soil erosion, made brush piles for wildlife shelter, and planted wildflower gardens. I started to feel a “presence” when I was down in the woods, as if someone were watching me. I thought it was other kids spying on me from the ridges above, but I never saw anyone. I now know I was feeling the spirit of the forest. As I sat in my favorite spot, I would get these ideas and images in my head of a more open forest. I acted on these inspirations and thinned out the young saplings to make a healthier forest. As a result the three maples I left in my clearing spread out and became glorious trees - and became the main attraction from the living room picture windows. They drew everyone into the woods. In the autumn, when they burst into bright red and orange leaves, the colors filled the house with Nature’s glory. My forest management experiments earned me lots of Boy Scout merit badges, but also provided my first trial and error lessons in what I now call geomantic landscaping design and site planning. It also gave me my first experiences of listening to tree spirits, even though I didn’t know that’s what was going on. It’s why I say that tree spirits were my first metaphysical teachers.

As a teenager I found it difficult to decide whether to go into architecture, forestry or the ministry. I chose the architecture college at the University of Cincinnati, but soon started yearning for something more than what modern architecture had to offer. I wanted a more metaphysically-based form of architecture, site planning, and urban design in harmony with Nature. I got my first answers when I discovered the new discipline of environmental psychology, which I now think of as a modern form of feng shui. I grabbed onto it for my thesis project and studied the effects of weather and other environmental factors on the forms and uses of public plazas in the various cultures of Europe, during a summer research trip in 1970. I started applying what I was learning to modify rooms at the college to better serve their designated purpose.

During and after college, I worked as an architectural designer in a small-town office, the City of Cincinnati’s urban design department, and a large corporate firm in San Francisco -- and as designer and contractor in my own residential remodeling practice. I discovered that my talent lay in “conceptual design,” which is the first stage of a project when you try to find physical forms that express the intention and purpose the building is meant to serve. Little did I know that developing that skill would play an important part in my later geomantic design practice. But at the time, my “divine script writers” were leading me in a very different direction.

In the mid-70’s I started studying native American spirituality, shamanism, and European Goddess Religion. I learned ways to feel the energy fields around people and plants with my hands, and a great process to commune with and listen to the wisdom of tree spirits. I was starting to make sense of my childhood experiences in the woods. One of my teachers suggested that what I was looking for might be something called “geomancy.” Oh my goodness! I had a word for it at last!

Having a name for my main interests allowed me to find sources of information. I saw a listing for a series of four evening classes called “Towards an American Geomancy” offered by Steven Post in San Francisco. It gave me a sense that what I was already exploring was real and had its own history and traditions, albeit nearly forgotten. Steven opened my eyes to the existence of geomantic knowledge from cultures around the globe.

In the 1980’s I started to find others who had actually heard of these arcane subjects and eventually was blessed with opportunities to study longterm with some of the greatest masters of sacred architecture, metaphysical feng shui, Earth Mysteries, symbolic geometry, and the ancient wisdom of several indigenous cultures. As a result, I started to find a way to fulfill my dream of becoming an architect-forester-minister.

A big turning point occurred for me in 1985, when I leapt at the chance to participate in an Earth Mysteries study tour of England and Wales, sponsored by the American Society of Dowsers. I got to work in the field with fourteen of the world’s leading experts in geomancy, dowsing, labyrinths, and Earth Mysteries — at their primary research site and dozens of major sacred sites and Stone Age megalithic monuments. I met the co-founders and researchers of the pre-eminent Dragon Project and learned about their discoveries over the previous fifteen years of energetic anomalies at the sites, effects of Earth Energies on human consciousness, and the scientific and intuitive methods they used. At the end of the trip, they acknowledged me as a fellow geomancer, and kicked my butt to go home and start teaching what I knew.

As a result, I founded the Westcoast Institute of Sacred Ecology in Berkeley, CA, became a full-time geomancer, started teaching classes and organizing study groups to gather other like-minded people around me to help revive geomancy and develop some useful modern applications. I really wanted to keep learning about the energies at power spots and their effects on human consciousness, so one of the groups sought and found several sites, which looked and felt like the ancient megalithic structures I had just visited in England. We led field trips to dowse and experience the Earth Energies, which I still do today.

I also formed a “Geomantic Design Group” to support other environmental design professionals who wanted to incorporate geomancy and feng shui into their practices. We spoke at professional conferences and offered design services, most notably a master site plan for one of the first Peace Gardens in America, in Sebastopol, CA.

In 1987 I had the great good fortune to meet two masters who would become my main mentors. My desire to untangle the confusing information available about feng shui, and understand its underlying principles, was finally met by the opportunity to study with Grandmaster Thomas Lin Yun, Rinpoche, the lineage holder of the Black Hat Tibetan Tantric Buddhist tradition, who was largely responsible for bringing feng shui into the mainstream of the western world. I was fortunate to be part of the first small group of non-Asians to study with him soon after he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. That intimacy allowed me to get my questions answered and to acquire a solid foundation for continued study and practice.

I also started to study with Dr. Keith Critchlow, Professor at the Prince of Wales Institute of Architecture in London, who is regarded as one of the greatest living masters of sacred architecture, sacred geometry, Islamic sacred art, and the Platonic-Pythagorean Mystery School teachings. By attending his Kairos Foundation summer school programs in the U.S. and Europe, I tapped into an oral, mystery school tradition that gave me a much deeper understanding than what is available from book-learning. I am so blessed to have studied with him for twenty years, and am doing my best to pass on his vast knowledge and wisdom.

Meanwhile I was also weaving another thread throughout the 1970’s and 80’s. I was on a mission to figure out why the San Francisco Bay Area culture was so different from any other place I’d lived or visited. When I first started to read about geomancy and feng shui, I had wondered if the extraordinary geography and climate were factors in creating the unique human culture. I wondered why northern Californians talked about their region as a “state of mind.” Not finding any information about how to understand the patterns of place at a regional scale in geomantic literature, I set out to invent what I termed “regional geomancy.” After twenty years, I succeeded in developing an interdisciplinary process to be able to hear the “story of place,” or the essence of a place and its people. It combines the understanding of the geological formation of the region, the ecosystem, weather patterns, natural history, indigenous people’s mytho-history, sacred geography, land form feng shui, medicine wheel teachings, and the art of divining place energies and Qi flows.

By 1991, I felt an urge to go deeper with my understanding and use of geomancy and feng shui, so I developed a year-long training program, knowing that teaching is a great way to up the ante and learn what your heart desires. The students in the first year dubbed it a “geomantic mystery school,” so I realized it was time to change the name of the Institute to the American School of Geomancy.

And that shift launched the story arc I’ve been riding ever since. I am still following my passion for sharing all the knowledge and experiences I’ve been blessed to receive — through lectures, seminars, field trips, educational training programs, and feng shui and building design consultations. I’m still following the same mission — to generate new ways to use ancient geomantic wisdom to create a more harmonious world. And that story is told on the other pages of this site. You can see what I’ve been up to on the Seminar, Consultation, Publication, and Background (Curriculum Vitae) pages.

You can see what I’ve been up to on the Seminars, Consultations, Store (Publications & Recordings), and About Me (Biography & Curriculum Vitae) pages.