Being (n.) a state of awareness, presence

Dérive (n.f. ) drift: an aimless walking practice that increases awareness while imaginatively exploring urban environments.

As I open the doors to my re-imagining of dérive as a creative art form, drift with me for a while…

photo by Robby Brown, AZ

Welcome to Being/Dérive!

I am a violinist who lives and plays in Las Vegas, Nevada. I am also a certified mindfuness teacher…and a desert wanderer.

My home sits at an imaginal crossroads in the Mojave desert.  To the east is the glittering siren mirage of the Las Vegas skyline and to the west, the beckoning ancient silhouettes of Red Rock Canyon. Across the span of just a few miles, I see environments that are seemingly worlds apart.  

This confluence of desert and city inspired me to create Being/Dérive.com, a Jungian Art-Based Research inquiry based on the concepts of dérive, depth psychology and music making.

Through the pages of this website, you will virtually experience Red Rock canyon, a land held sacred by the indigenous people for thousands of years. I will be carrying my violin on my back, ready to play music in response to nature. 

Then, with the same open sense of beingness, follow me through the Paris and Luxor hotel casinos to encounter examples of simulacra, seen through the lens of depth psychology.

Imagining ourselves as emissaries from the reality of the surrounding desert, we will bring with us the ancient understanding that the entire world is alive, or as renowned archetypal psychologist James Hillman termed it, the anima mundi, (soul of the world).

I invite you to join me in this embodied way of knowing both land and city, wherever you live.