And here are few paragraphs about the last thirty years! My god, has it been THAT long?! Not being able to attend, I have taken the liberty of writing a little more than I originally intended! It replaces the conversations I would probably have had if I had been there. If you or somebody else could read it out or make copies and pass them out, I would be most grateful!
Here goes…
Just out of high school, I was married to Inge Verhoef, an American pianist studying at the Sydney Con at the time. It was a marriage/partnership/friendship made in heaven. Cheapest wedding ever, though! $30 for rings, $50 for a home-made wedding dress, Mum made the cake, and we had it in my parents' backyard, next to the dunny and chicken coop! Nonetheless, we celebrate our 29 th anniversary in January! Soul mates forever. (We finally had our honeymoon after 28 years!, in Scotland, which we both love.)
Did ACO for four years, as well as casual SSO over a period of 15 years, then ETTO (Opera/Ballet orch.) for several years. Then did "New Faces" talent show on channel 9… major career shift into popular music. After this, did Sydney club circuit for many years, television appearances, touring Australia, CD releases, etc.
Currently, for the last eight years, I have been performing around the world as an entertainer on passenger cruise ships. I have increased my composing over the last so many years, launching an original music CD in the USA, and promoting my music for film and television use. I have also written a Broadway-style dance-musical along the lines of Riverdance, and am working to get this off the ground through my New York contacts.
Flashback to my early twenties, Inge and I had three children: Alex (26 now), Saskia (24 now), and Eliza (22 now). Now, Alex lives in London with his girlfriend, and the two girls both live in New York. After living in New York ourselves for five years, Inge and I are now back in Australia (none too soon! The Bush was beginning to give us a rash!), but recently moved to Bangalow, NSW, near Byron Bay. Major sea-change,
tree-change, I think they call it! Late-period Baby Boomer migration!
Anyway, in my late twenties, at the height of my violin successes (and failures… we went through some tough times), I took up the reigns of my languishing spiritual aspirations once more. Became a professional astrologer (while still performing for a living) and spiritual healer/counselor/facilitator/lecturer. Wrote numerous self-published books on various astrological and spiritual topics, as well as spiritual poetry. First professional publication came out in Oct 2005 through Llewellyn Publications… about Chiron, planet of wounding and healing.
Trained in various spiritual and healing schools and disciplines over a period of nearly twenty years. Last December, after major personal revelations, I started a new project—a major coming together of all the pieces of myself, my life, and the world around me. It combines everything that I've learned, that I am, and that I do—music, astrology, spirituality, healing, science, mythology, metaphysics, etc—under the one umbrella of what amounts to a new mystery school/spiritual way of life. It will officially open its doors in the first half of next year. I envision that this project will occupy the next fifty years of my life! (I was never one to think or plan short term! Mars in Taurus!)
In the meantime, Inge and I are building a new house (again?! Are we crazy??) on two acres within a hundred-acre intentional community in the hills above Byron. We have five lovely cats (our children now, really!): one Burmese (chocolate), one Siamese (lilac), one Oriental (brown), and two Egyptian Mau cats (specked tabbies). Inge, too, is having a major life/career/focus/lifestyle change in her midlife.
All in all, we have been blessed in our lives so far, and we know it and acknowledge it. I think this is what has kept us both so young.
For me, I still occasionally think back to our class and our school days together, with fondness and gratitude, knowing that each one of you helped shape a different part within me—more than I was aware of at the time. Only recently have I understood that our class—as with any school class or other such close-knit group, family, or community—was a hologram of everything that we would each eventually become, each one of us expressing another blessed aspect/facet of this greater hologram.
Moreover, I have come to understand/know/experience that this hologram—the individual within the group—mirrors the greatest law of the universe: the law of the eternal and simultaneous Many and One, from the atom to the cell to the human organism, to communities, to nations, to races, to planets and solar systems, to galaxies, and beyond. Call it Universe/Source/Spirit/God/Love/Oneness/Absolute/Whatever… it's all connected, all serving a higher purpose and plan, and all One, even as I already suspected in my nascent pondering in high school, and even though I was unable to put my finger on it or express it at the time. Thank you, each one of you, for being a part of the journey of my life!
Love and Light,
Martin
