Charlie Thom

I had gone to Ashland, Oregon in the early 1980s to get a Tibetan Buddhist initiation. At the initiation I had a realization when I was bi-located out of my body and had two simultaneous experiences at once and realized this was something I had never experienced in the U.S. before. In one physical reality I was here and in another reality I was also (I realize now) experiencing knowing this Tibetan Lama in Tibet. I had on a Loincloth and appeared to be his student and I was an aspiring Cave Yogi. It was spring time (or whenever all the flowers come out in that area of Tibet). I realized this was a sign from God that I had found the new direction my soul needed to go. Part of my realization was that Tibetan Buddhism is just so powerful that I needed to be more grounded into the earth. I realized that the oldest religion that started in the U.S. up out of the ground here was the native American Religion. After I realized this I asked God to send me a medicine man. But, the medicine man was a disciplinarian much like my father. So, even though I knew God sent him he was too conservative in philosophy for me to feel entirely comfortable. However, I knew God had done this. But, eventually after I did a vision quest of 4 days and nights with the Medicine Man that God sent to me where I became a Golden Dragon which meant to me I should pursue Tibetan Buddhism, My first Medicine man Teacher introduced me to Charlie Thom. This was a very good thing because the first medicine man and I had a falling out but this meant I could still sweat and learn from Charlie Thom. Charlie Thom is and was crazy wisdom like I am so I always felt very at home in his sweats because he is extremely intuitive in some of the same ways I am. For example, he is what I would call a "Soul Traveler" and he has shown up in my dreams sometimes wearing a buckskin shirt. When your teacher shows up in your dreams you have to know they are very powerful.

What does a medicine man or woman do for their tribe for thousands and thousands of years? They keep their tribe alive and sane. That is what they do. They fulfilled the needs of priests and doctors for thousands of years. If there weren't medicine men and medicine women none of us would have survived or be alive today. Before organized religions were even thought as an idea in someone's mind  there were medicine men and women worldwide keeping people alive and out of danger before it happened.

I remember going to Charlie Thom's sweat at Stewart Mineral Springs likely sometime between 1983 and 1985 when we moved south to the San Francisco Greater Bay area.

What was amazing about this sweat lodge for me was that it was snowing outside. I remember preparing for the sweat ceremony thinking to myself, "Why would we sweat in a snow storm?" But then I got inside it was all warm and toasty like a sauna from the red hot stones heating in a fire outside in the snow storm. In between sessions we all jumped in the stream which likely wasn't warmer than 34 degrees or so that time of the year. What amazed me is that here we were sweating outside in the snow and jumping in 34 degree water in likely 30 degrees outside or less (it could have been as cold as the mid to low 20s that day. But, did I feel cold? NO. I felt healthy. Very very healthy from all this. And very empowered in my life from this as well. And my wife and children were experiencing all this and amazed by it too. (The kids were about 8 to 12 years old then.) We were living a miracle and felt amazed by all this in many many ways.