"You can still be what you want to be, what you said you were, when I met you and when you met me."

I'm a quiet polymath (or dilettante) who likes to chill out with smart, liberal, gentle people and share candid conversation and learn together…and sometimes sing and dance and talk nonsense and act completely goofy.

I love everything creative or sensual: writing, philosophy, art, music, cooking, nature, plants, animals, children, elders, storytelling, living lightly, sharing intimacy, and honoring beauty everywhere.

I spent almost two years living in a strict Zen monastery so if you wanted help with meditation or the philosophy of Zen I could tell you what I know.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I like meeting people, sharing stories and interests and kindness. I think Couchsurfing is the best way for me to do that. I like hosts who aren't too shy to show me their true self and tell me their troubles as if I were an old friend. I don't like being a "guest"; If you host me, please be very blunt and honest and I will do the same! :)

Anecdote: I had a strange experience of self-realization thanks to Couchsurfing. I've always been obsessed with learning and disparaging of cars. Then lo and behold when I was couchsurfing my host informed me that my hometown has the highest rate of education and bicycling in the US. Hmm……not sure how I feel about that.

Interests

Poems, places, ideas, the land.
Humanity, plants, music, love.
Crowdfunding, tribesourcing,
free culture, free spaces.

In school I wrote my thesis about highly-scalable ways of producing community, security, and freedom from the bottom up by way of networked local economies and "open source" commons. Right now I'm volunteering with an organization in Greece dedicated to finding general recipes for community using the same principles. I'm a bit obsessed with the notion of designing replicable patterns that can be implemented or modified by anyone.

• animals
• arts
• culture
• writing
• poetry
• singing
• beauty
• dancing
• education
• dining
• cooking
• recipes
• meditation
• traveling
• cars
• socializing
• music
• teaching
• volunteering
• sightseeing

Music, Movies, and Books

Rivers and Tides
Tarkovsky
Old Joy

The Unknown Craftsman
One Straw Revolution
Small is Beautiful
Society of the Spectacle
A Pattern Language
Tools for Conviviality

Modern photography like Jack Gescheidt, Andy Goldsworthy, Spencer Tunick, Edward Weston, Edward Burtynsky, Robbert Flick, Lewis Baltz.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I hitchhiked through 24 United States last summer. Then I fell in love.

Teach, Learn, Share

By nature I like talking, questioning, learning about almost anything. I spent 8 years in university trying to learn the basics of every subject because I just wanted to be capable of sympathizing and participating in all the strange things people think and wonder about. And in many ways, the university is an index for exploring the world.

I have found that what is most satisfying to me, what feels most worthwhile, is just the lives and stories of individuals and the many kinds of relationships I can have with them. To me that is the ultimate teaching, learning, sharing. I love people and I get lonely. :)

Some concrete skills I can teach include:
how to program a smartphone app
how to build a permanent house out of soil
how to grow food with minimal time and space
how to express yourself musically

What I Can Share with Hosts

It makes me much more comfortable if I can contribute by doing chores and tasks like cleaning (I used to live in a monastery!), cooking, or any kind of errands.

I'm not traveling for sightseeing or entertainment or relief; I'm just traveling for "spiritual" purposes, to meet people and know them intimately. I think traveling is hard, but it's worth it to meet people and places.

Countries I’ve Visited

France, Germany, Mexico, Switzerland, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States

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