Jeff is a spiritual teacher, writer, and artist who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife Stelli and their dog, Brady the Whippet. He was born in Orlando, Florida in 1953 and grew up in the small town of Titusville, on the east coast of Florida.

Jeff had an unusual childhood. He came along when his parents, in their 40s, weren’t expecting a fourth child. His father James had retired from the Union Railroad in Pennsylvania and moved his family to Titusville to start a business and play golf in his spare time. He leased some land next to the Indian River called Sand Point, and developed a mobile home park for snowbirds.

Jeff’s dad felt it would be best for his family to live in the park alongside the residents. Jeff was free to roam the park, and though his mother feared Jeff’s attraction to the river, he was left to explore on his own. His mother trusted others in the park to keep an eye on Jeff should he need anything. It was as if he had many sets of grandparents in the park to watch over him.

Jeff’s rich inner life, deep resonance with the natural world, and insatiable curiosity led him on many adventures. When he was four years old, he took it upon himself to paint his neighbor’s, Scotty’s, mobile home. Scotty, unfortunately, wasn’t pleased. Jeff was fascinated by the battle between “good” and “evil.” Sometimes he pretended to be a soldier hiding out behind trees or in the bushes, looking for the bad guys. When he was 9, he was captivated to see US Army tanks pass in front of his home on Highway 1 during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Jeff had many mystical experiences throughout his childhood. Sometimes he saw the spirits of deceased persons and sensed things would happen before they occurred in the material world. He served as an altar boy at St. Gabriel’s Episcopal Church where twice he passed out due to overwhelming sensations during Communion. When he was 19, Jeff was asked a question by the Church Deacon, Mr. Horton, “What does it mean to you when I say that God loves you?” Jeff knew his life had changed in that moment, and he set out on a path to find the answer.  His journey went both wide and deep. He read Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramahansa Yogananda, and on the afternoon he finished reading the book, Christ appeared to him in a vision and held Jeff in a warm and loving embrace. Jeff studied the works of Edgar Cayce, Carl Jung, Thomas Merton, and was initiated into Transcendental Meditation. His spiritual practice has evolved through the years and is now rooted in the ideal of perfection, as embodied by teachers from various wisdom traditions, including Yogandanda, Anandamaya Ma, Babaji, the Buddha, and Jesus Christ.

Jeff’s spent his early adult years in Gainesville, Florida where he and his first wife raised three beautiful daughters, Robin, Holly, and Nellie. He worked as a horticulturist at Fairchild Botanical Garden in Miami. He started his own landscape construction business with his partner, Bruce, which they later sold. He then worked at Atkins Technical where he started out in sales and marketing, and gradually rose the ranks to become the CEO. When Jeff met his second wife, Stelli, he returned to writing and a deeper engagement of his spiritual practice. Stelli and Jeff were married on November 11, 2001 in Kauai, Hawaii, then moved to California for Stelli to start graduate school at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology (now called Sophia University).

Jeff’s move to California was marked by his full-time commitment to writing. He dusted off an old manuscript he started in his late 20s, The Orange and Blue Drive-In, enrolled in an MFA program at Goddard College, and started the California Institute of Arts and Letters (CIAL) with Stelli and two friends, Mark Yoslow and Jessica Duttlinger. Over a 15-year period, CIAL published over 40 books of poetry, poetry in translation, and Black Zinnias, a literary journal.

In late 2003, Jeff went through some life changing experiences of spiritual emergence where he spontaneously went unconscious and delivered messages from spirit. Stelli transcribed these messages, which they began to refer to as “The Readings.” Serving as a channel was difficult for Jeff. The early experiences were frightening. He sometimes had the sensation of being hung upside down, being dragged behind a moving vehicle, and regaining waking consciousness with an abrupt “landing.” These episodes were not something he ever thought would be a part of his life. Jeff spoke to several experts on altered states of consciousness, including Arthur Hastings who taught at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Marcia Emery, an expert on intuition, and Penny Pierce, a well-known intuitive, all of whom encouraged him to keep going. Soon after these episodes began, Jeff felt called to explore the ministry, and in 2006, he started divinity school at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California.

Jeff is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, and he is the Pastor at Ladera Community Church in Portola Valley, California. He spends his free time writing, drawing mandalas, playing classical guitar, traveling, spending time with friends and family, and exploring the beautiful land around him with Stelli and Brady. He also gives private spiritual readings for those seeking a deeper, transformative spiritual journey.