Mike's Journey
Current intention: Berlin rhythms & exploration
August 2025
Current Intention
Mike intends to embrace both groundedness and exploration in Berlin. He wants to maintain daily routines - yoga, gym, meditation, good food - while remaining open to the sexual and creative energy of the city. His focus is on chipping away at iOS development for his apps while taking in fewer big events and more consistent daily practices. He's excited to explore connections with women without the pressure of partnership, letting each experience unfold naturally while building the life and work that truly nourishes him.
Meditation
Mike, feel how the challenging start to camp led to breakthrough - sometimes we must question our path to discover we're exactly where we belong. The woman at sunrise showed you new capacity for emotional intimacy you've been cultivating all along.
Breathe into this Berlin chapter where routine becomes ritual. Your daily practices - yoga, meditation, coding - create the stable ground from which you can explore the city's electric sexuality and creative energy.
Trust that each connection, whether lasting moments or months, serves your evolution. You've released the need for partnership while remaining radically open to love. This is true freedom - structure and spontaneity dancing together.
July 2025
What Happened
Mike's month was marked by profound transitions and openings. Camp initially felt challenging and disconnected for two days - a first for him - leading to questions about whether the experience required drugs and his commitment to the community. Everything shifted at sunrise when he experienced genuine love with a woman who could truly hold his emotional states, unlocking something he'd never felt before. This woman from Massachusetts sparked feelings he hasn't had in a long time, despite being poly and geographically distant. Simultaneously, he began a lovership with a dear friend. After camp, he spent time in Paris, then attended Nicole and Vota's wedding which felt like 'an old school event' with core community. Now in Berlin, he's returned to routine - cooking, working on iOS development, and exploring sexuality through Kit Kat Club and Tantra Temple nights. This past month has been 'pretty dope' - he did everything he intended. He has many balls rolling for his LLC (formed it, setting up developer accounts, email infrastructure). He's been clearing his plate to focus solely on that, including working on a paper due in August without procrastinating.
Intention
Mike intends to be super present and open at camp, taking care of himself and his friends while having good conversations and dancing. He wants to maintain his energy for work through unrelenting focus balanced with releasing when appropriate. After camp and Nicole & Voight's wedding, he'll be in pure openness - possibly driving through Tuscany with the woman he met at the retreat. He's leaving the country on August 17th for an indeterminate time (possibly until March) and wants to focus on both work and quality time with friends and family before departure.
Meditation
Mike, feel the abundance flowing through you as you prepare for this next chapter. Your capacity to be present at camp while maintaining self-care shows the integration of your monastery practice.
Visualize yourself moving between focused work and spacious openness with grace. The woman from the retreat represents one beautiful possibility among many - hold it lightly while remaining open to all that wants to emerge.
As you prepare to leave the country, trust that you're carrying everything you need within you. Each moment with friends and family before departure is a precious gift. Your journey continues to unfold perfectly.
June 2025
What Happened
Mike is feeling hungry and tired but grateful to be alone. His last month at the monastery was beautiful - he fell in love with the multi-generational, diverse community and had deep conversations with monks who continuously open their hearts despite knowing residents stay briefly. Since leaving, his father picked him up, leading to a dense conversation about money issues and his father's failing business. His grandfather died yesterday - Mike wasn't close but appreciates his faith sustained him through blindness and dementia. He's navigating continued grief around Geraldine, who has started something with Brad. Brad respectfully reached out, but seeing their dynamic at a party brought up sadness. He's feeling both sad about no longer being Geraldine's person and relief that gives permission to move on.
Intention
Mike wants to be present in New York, facilitating various things and working on his mindfulness facilitator training paper. He plans to set up scaffolding for his business and relish the NYC summer before leaving the country. He'd love to find a lover - feeling open to that for the first time without seeking partnership. He feels sexy and excited about this shift in what he's seeking. He wants to tend to himself through gym, meditation, and being on his own flow, appreciating having to only look out for himself.
Meditation
Mike, feel yourself embodying both the monastery's depth and the city's aliveness. You carry profound practice within you while remaining open to spontaneous connection and creative expression.
Visualize yourself moving through NYC with the presence you cultivated in silence, attracting aligned connections without attachment. Your readiness for a lover without needing partnership reflects beautiful growth.
Trust that the grief around Geraldine is creating space for something new. Each breath releases the past and opens you to the summer's possibilities - teaching, creating, connecting from a place of wholeness.
May 2025
What Happened
Mike was feeling hungry and tired but grateful to be alone. His last month at the monastery was beautiful - he fell in love with the multi-generational, diverse community and had deep conversations with monks who continuously open their hearts despite knowing residents only stay briefly. He met more new people daily than he had in months on Long Island, having profound connections. Since leaving, his father picked him up, leading to a dense conversation about ongoing money issues and his father's failing business. Mike feels frustrated that his father won't let go despite claiming non-attachment. His grandfather died yesterday - Mike wasn't close to him but appreciates that his faith sustained him through blindness and dementia. Mike is navigating continued grief around Geraldine, who has started something with Brad. Though Brad respectfully reached out and Mike feels good about it intellectually, seeing their dynamic at a party brought up sadness. He's feeling both sad about no longer being Geraldine's person and relief that gives him permission to move on.
Intention
Mike intends to remain fully present during his last three weeks at the monastery while simultaneously preparing for his next phase. This includes planning for Camp, an all-day workshop he's calling 'All Day We Practice' in New York, and starting a shell business for app development. He aims to find balance with upcoming party and travel-heavy months and secure housing in NYC for June. A key intention is to deepen his practice and take full advantage of working with the teachers there, particularly the Roshi, whom he feels he hasn't leveraged enough. He wants to emerge from the monastery experience and step into a new way of living, feeling supported and grounded.
Meditation
Mike, as you complete your time at the monastery, feel the integration of its deep stillness into your being. Visualize yourself carrying this potent presence into the vibrant energy of your next chapter.
See your creative visions for workshops and apps manifesting with ease and joy, supported by the clarity you've cultivated. Envision meaningful connections with your teachers and a community that resonates with your path.
Embrace the transition with trust, knowing you have the tools to balance dedicated practice with engaged worldly creation. Step forward with confidence and an open heart.
April 2025
What Happened
Mike found his past month at the monastery to be 'a lot' – cool, intense (living the schedule of 13th-century Japanese monks), but also mostly smooth with moments of intensity. He's been in a flow of saying 'yes' to everything, including random construction work like building a cabin with a 77-year-old master carpenter monk. He appreciated witnessing a true, active, multi-generational community. During a meditation intensive (seshin), he had peak experiences, including the longest period of continual mindfulness he's ever had, feeling grounded and finding no narrative for an extended time. He deeply experienced meditation as rest, ease, and bliss, even with a demanding schedule (3 AM wake-up, 10 PM sleep). However, he also experienced a significant flavor of loneliness, a feeling that's been amounting, related to not having people with whom he can fully share what he's trying to do, both in New York and at the monastery.
Intention
Mike intends to fully immerse himself in the monastery experience, remaining disconnected from technology and deepening his connection with nature, the present moment, and the experienced practitioners around him. He wants to continue refining this disciplined lifestyle as preparation for the period afterward when he'll have complete freedom to structure his own schedule, hoping to maintain the powerful rhythm and containers he's experiencing at the monastery.
Meditation
Mike, as you settle into the monastery rhythm, feel how the rigid schedule actually creates a container for profound freedom. Each transition from one activity to another offers a moment of choice and recommitment.
Your practice doesn't need validation or acknowledgment from teachers - notice how the desire for external approval arises and dissolves, leaving behind the inherent value of your presence.
The 'leaving home' you're experiencing through your relationship with Geraldine is reflected in this monastic practice - a willing surrender of comfort that paradoxically leads to a deeper homecoming to yourself.
March 2025
What Happened
Mike spent the early part of the month with his family, struggling to maintain patience, particularly with his father. He then spent time in New York City with Geraldine, which was beautiful but painful as it highlighted what he was giving up in their relationship. They had a profound ketamine journey together with John Fagan that deepened their connection and temporarily dissolved barriers between them. They reconnected intimately afterward, which felt clean and like a celebration of their love rather than creating more difficulty in their separation. In his final week with family, Mike tried to be fully present but felt he didn't spend enough quality time with his brother, who he's concerned about due to his lack of direction and environmental influences. Since the group's last meeting, Mike has been at a Zen monastery, finding the experience simultaneously ordinary and profound. He's discovering that his previous training has prepared him well for this immersive practice. The schedule is intense - waking at 4:30 AM, working seven hours, sitting in meditation for three hours, plus service and liturgy - but he finds it nourishing rather than draining due to the clear containers and transitions throughout the day.
Intention
Mike wants to show up with presence for the transitions ahead, especially as he prepares to leave for a Zen Mountain Monastery where he'll participate in intense meditation retreats. He intends to embrace the structure of monastery life ("the warm hug of death of the schedule") while continuing his meditation teaching work. He aims to maintain patience with his father, with whom he's developing a deeper connection as he sees and holds space for his father's "little boy" and associated fears and anxieties.
Meditation
Mike, as you prepare for significant transitions, breathe into the space of surrender. Feel the liberation in consciously choosing sacrifice without martyrdom. Each breath strengthens your capacity to be present with change.
The monastery schedule you describe as 'the warm hug of death' is actually teaching you that structure creates freedom. As you hold space for your father's inner child, recognize that you're also holding space for your own.
The patience you've cultivated is a gift that will serve you through every transition. Trust that nomadic or rooted, you carry home within you.
February 2025
What Happened
Mike broke his rib at the beginning of February, which limited his ability to exercise - a key mood regulation tool for him. He spent much time at his parents' house, experiencing sadness but finding it "welcomed" as part of a grieving process. He went on a few dates with a woman but knew she wasn't right for him, yet found himself repeatedly reconnecting with her before she eventually ended things. Mike has been feeling into the concept of 'sacrifice without martyrdom' as he prepares for significant life changes, including leaving his apartment with Geraldine and becoming nomadic again.