firetender
Community Leader Emeritus
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I am very grateful for this site and to you all for being a part of it. You are my teachers. I am ready to make a commitment to this site, and to make myself available to both you and me, so we can explore some of this territory together.
The course of my life has been shaped by my relationship with EMS (1973 to 1985). It has formed the foundation for everything I’ve learned about the healing arts. There is no life experience that I’ve had when it comes to working with people for their well-being, that I haven’t run through the filter of my experience in the back of a rig. To you, I offer my hard-won perspective.
In fact, integrating those twelve years of specialization into a much broader life in the healing arts has been one of my greatest life challenges. I’ve mentioned it before, I believe the core dilemma that medics face is the battle around finding a comfortable (for the individual) balance between head and heart, action and feeling.
Ater a 22 year absence (interrupted now and again by ride-along thrills!) I’m back and plopping myself into the middle of the action. I had no intention of my re-entry going in any particular direction, although there are a few things you should know about me.
Since I left the field I’ve been working on articulating my experience as a medic. The purpose of that has been twofold:
One: I’ve always felt that the public-at-large has never really gotten an accurate picture of the experience a human being has as a medic. Everything is so much about lights and sirens, and so little is about the incredibly deep emotional and spiritual landscape that defines the territory.
Two: I’ve always felt that the medic him or herself has neither been given the tools nor the permission to explore that territory. The “cultures” of allopathic medicine and in particular EMS, lean toward, if not actively promote, a mechanized over humanized approach to the delivery of patient care.
My focus, though, was to reach the public, not the medic. Sure, Hollywood bit me! I spent 9 years of my life bringing a movie about my medic experience to the big screen (Healer). It got made, opened the 1994 Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and promptly dropped dead.
I was still driven to better understand my experience of what happened. Indeed, it very much did become an exercise in writing about past calls in detail to see what I experienced because, at the time, I could not allow myself to experience the moment.
You know what I learned, though? I really was having a deep emotional and spiritual life in the midst of being the Flesh Mechanic that I was trained to be at the time. (I DO say this proudly because that robot saved a lot of lives!) I’ve come to learn that, like a child abused as a kid, however, the trauma you experience as a Medic does get in, whether you acknowledge it to yourself or not, and has ripple effects throughout your life. I can easily say this having ex-partners as friends twenty years later and almost being able to trace the reverberations on their lives to the calls we had back when.
As I began working on a book about my experiences (mid-1990’s), once again, even though I knew I was talking story to medics, my target was the general public. Sure, I wanted a best-seller! After all, this is one rich world we’re in the midst of! But that was not to be, in part, perhaps, because I didn’t run it through your filters for truth..
Still, the overall theme of head vs. heart stuck with me, so I started to expand my search into the healing arts to better understand it. As I kept going back to my book, I learned more and more about my experiences. As I developed myself in other areas of healing and got personal counseling, I began to recognize the war between head and heart is a drama that is promoted, though never acknowledged or dealt with, in most branches of allopathic medicine. Actually, in any branch of healing taught “Western-style.”
We’re not taught how to do what we do as human beings, yet, we are called on to be in the midst of the most human and vulnerable experiences that there are.
In the back of my head, as I developed myself as a writer, went on to work with healers as a sort of “Spiritual Counselor,” and explored shamanistic ways of healing, in my heart, medics were always the people I most wanted to reach. My desire was simply to be a voice that grants permission to them to explore their humanity within the context of their vital roles in healthcare (and this is important…) AT THEIR OWN PACE AND ACCORDING TO THEIR OWN DESIRE. At least, I say, let them have that option as well as the option to armor themselves to the point of being impervious to life.
Though I was intent on and dedicated to exploring such esoteric concepts as came up in EMS services, I stayed away from presenting my work to medics, my peers.
Why? I was scared. Quite honestly, when I was a medic and tried to talk about or explore these kinds of things with my partners, for the most part it was “Get into crap like that and you can’t do your job!” As a writer and artist I get enough rejection in my life without talking about the things that mean most to me with the people that are closest to my experiences and then getting shut down.
My lesson, this trip – and I have you to thank for this – is all that crap was in my head. To give you an idea of how powerful that thought was, I held on to that anticipation of rejection for years! I am very pleased to have begun making connections here that have shown me, indeed, it’s a struggle most of us share and y'all are willing to share with and support each other.
I’ve encountered so many reasonable, responsible and responsive human beings here who, just like me are doing their very best to find their places in a completely insane environment. I’m willing to risk showing you who I was and who I am in the hopes you may benefit from my experience.
The hell with it if you think me a Wuss! I’ll get my revenge! Soon enough a few of you will be trying to get me into the back of a rig to go to the Nursing home and I’ll…
So, now, so it’s clear, I’ve developed a website as a vehicle of outreach to healers of all stripes. I even have a page directly speaking to paramedics. It’s fairly obvious that the voice I use is the one I use to talk to EMS medics because they embody the struggles that all healers go through, IMHO.
On that site I offer services (for money) in counseling, I have art for sale (not medic related except on metaphoric levels), a workshop that exercises your ability to move freely between head and heart – without getting ripped to shreds; and a book to push that is specifically about my medic experiences and what they taught me about more esoteric experiences as a healer.
And though I know this is ridiculous because what I’m doing is apologizing (I have always SUCKED at marketing myself!), I want to repeat that I didn’t come here to sell. (If you check out the website, you’ll see nothing’s really ready to go; it’s still in development).
But, for the sake of transparency, I WILL be developing the site into something that will help me reach who I need to reach, wherever they need to be reached, and make me lots of money so I don’t have to settle for being a Wise Scrote who gets to his next gig by faking a seizure in the middle of Happy Hour at the local Pub!
I came here to check in and see if I’m ready to own my experience fully and to share it freely with the people who most matter. At the same time, I appreciate your support so I can continue to give for free what has been given to me.
I’m ready. How about you?
The course of my life has been shaped by my relationship with EMS (1973 to 1985). It has formed the foundation for everything I’ve learned about the healing arts. There is no life experience that I’ve had when it comes to working with people for their well-being, that I haven’t run through the filter of my experience in the back of a rig. To you, I offer my hard-won perspective.
In fact, integrating those twelve years of specialization into a much broader life in the healing arts has been one of my greatest life challenges. I’ve mentioned it before, I believe the core dilemma that medics face is the battle around finding a comfortable (for the individual) balance between head and heart, action and feeling.
Ater a 22 year absence (interrupted now and again by ride-along thrills!) I’m back and plopping myself into the middle of the action. I had no intention of my re-entry going in any particular direction, although there are a few things you should know about me.
Since I left the field I’ve been working on articulating my experience as a medic. The purpose of that has been twofold:
One: I’ve always felt that the public-at-large has never really gotten an accurate picture of the experience a human being has as a medic. Everything is so much about lights and sirens, and so little is about the incredibly deep emotional and spiritual landscape that defines the territory.
Two: I’ve always felt that the medic him or herself has neither been given the tools nor the permission to explore that territory. The “cultures” of allopathic medicine and in particular EMS, lean toward, if not actively promote, a mechanized over humanized approach to the delivery of patient care.
My focus, though, was to reach the public, not the medic. Sure, Hollywood bit me! I spent 9 years of my life bringing a movie about my medic experience to the big screen (Healer). It got made, opened the 1994 Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and promptly dropped dead.
I was still driven to better understand my experience of what happened. Indeed, it very much did become an exercise in writing about past calls in detail to see what I experienced because, at the time, I could not allow myself to experience the moment.
You know what I learned, though? I really was having a deep emotional and spiritual life in the midst of being the Flesh Mechanic that I was trained to be at the time. (I DO say this proudly because that robot saved a lot of lives!) I’ve come to learn that, like a child abused as a kid, however, the trauma you experience as a Medic does get in, whether you acknowledge it to yourself or not, and has ripple effects throughout your life. I can easily say this having ex-partners as friends twenty years later and almost being able to trace the reverberations on their lives to the calls we had back when.
As I began working on a book about my experiences (mid-1990’s), once again, even though I knew I was talking story to medics, my target was the general public. Sure, I wanted a best-seller! After all, this is one rich world we’re in the midst of! But that was not to be, in part, perhaps, because I didn’t run it through your filters for truth..
Still, the overall theme of head vs. heart stuck with me, so I started to expand my search into the healing arts to better understand it. As I kept going back to my book, I learned more and more about my experiences. As I developed myself in other areas of healing and got personal counseling, I began to recognize the war between head and heart is a drama that is promoted, though never acknowledged or dealt with, in most branches of allopathic medicine. Actually, in any branch of healing taught “Western-style.”
We’re not taught how to do what we do as human beings, yet, we are called on to be in the midst of the most human and vulnerable experiences that there are.
In the back of my head, as I developed myself as a writer, went on to work with healers as a sort of “Spiritual Counselor,” and explored shamanistic ways of healing, in my heart, medics were always the people I most wanted to reach. My desire was simply to be a voice that grants permission to them to explore their humanity within the context of their vital roles in healthcare (and this is important…) AT THEIR OWN PACE AND ACCORDING TO THEIR OWN DESIRE. At least, I say, let them have that option as well as the option to armor themselves to the point of being impervious to life.
Though I was intent on and dedicated to exploring such esoteric concepts as came up in EMS services, I stayed away from presenting my work to medics, my peers.
Why? I was scared. Quite honestly, when I was a medic and tried to talk about or explore these kinds of things with my partners, for the most part it was “Get into crap like that and you can’t do your job!” As a writer and artist I get enough rejection in my life without talking about the things that mean most to me with the people that are closest to my experiences and then getting shut down.
My lesson, this trip – and I have you to thank for this – is all that crap was in my head. To give you an idea of how powerful that thought was, I held on to that anticipation of rejection for years! I am very pleased to have begun making connections here that have shown me, indeed, it’s a struggle most of us share and y'all are willing to share with and support each other.
I’ve encountered so many reasonable, responsible and responsive human beings here who, just like me are doing their very best to find their places in a completely insane environment. I’m willing to risk showing you who I was and who I am in the hopes you may benefit from my experience.
The hell with it if you think me a Wuss! I’ll get my revenge! Soon enough a few of you will be trying to get me into the back of a rig to go to the Nursing home and I’ll…
So, now, so it’s clear, I’ve developed a website as a vehicle of outreach to healers of all stripes. I even have a page directly speaking to paramedics. It’s fairly obvious that the voice I use is the one I use to talk to EMS medics because they embody the struggles that all healers go through, IMHO.
On that site I offer services (for money) in counseling, I have art for sale (not medic related except on metaphoric levels), a workshop that exercises your ability to move freely between head and heart – without getting ripped to shreds; and a book to push that is specifically about my medic experiences and what they taught me about more esoteric experiences as a healer.
And though I know this is ridiculous because what I’m doing is apologizing (I have always SUCKED at marketing myself!), I want to repeat that I didn’t come here to sell. (If you check out the website, you’ll see nothing’s really ready to go; it’s still in development).
But, for the sake of transparency, I WILL be developing the site into something that will help me reach who I need to reach, wherever they need to be reached, and make me lots of money so I don’t have to settle for being a Wise Scrote who gets to his next gig by faking a seizure in the middle of Happy Hour at the local Pub!
I came here to check in and see if I’m ready to own my experience fully and to share it freely with the people who most matter. At the same time, I appreciate your support so I can continue to give for free what has been given to me.
I’m ready. How about you?
