Robin at his wedding in Glenorchy, New Zealand, wearing a korowai, a traditional Maori cloak.
I’m fortunate to have had some amazing experiences and adventures in my life, starting in my early twenties and continuing all the way to today. I’ve tried to learn from these experiences and incorporate what I’ve learned into my personal spiritual path, and into my work as a ceremonial leader, teacher, scholar, writer, and musician. While I take this work seriously, sometimes it’s just fun to tell an entertaining and colorful story, and this is the section of the website for that.
Over time, I hope to share a number of these travelogs and spiritual adventure stories here. But for now, I’ll start by providing a list of possible subjects to give you a sense of the breadth and scope of what I have to share.
Lake Wakatipu and the Southern Alps, looking toward Glenorchy, New Zealand.
A seminal retreat at Mt. Shasta in 1981 — where I experienced my first Native American sweat lodge. my first vision quest, and my first peyote ceremony.
My time living and working at The Ojai Foundation, a workshop and retreat center and alternative community, from 1983-87, where I was able to work with a wide variety of spiritual teachers, artists, and scholars, including Joan Halifax, Grandfather Wallace Black Elk, Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche, Terence McKenna, Robert Bly and many others.
This time at The Ojai Foundation included a pilgrimage to sacred sites in the southwest with Harley Swiftdeer, the epic month-long Way of the Warrior retreat with a huge roster of teachers headlined by R.D. Laing, a pilgrimage to Joshua Tree with Terence McKenna (and my first experience with smokable DMT), and my first experience taking a heroic dose of mushrooms.
My 1996 trip to West Africa to check out the music scene in Senegal and Mali, and to see the spirit possession ceremonies in Ghana. This also included the experience of getting malaria and typhoid at the same time and nearly dying.
My immersion in the rave scene in the San Francisco Bay Area, starting in 1998 and featuring countless underground raves. This includes numerous times attending Burning Man from 200-2006. It also includes my 200 trip to Europe to check out the EDM scene, which featured the Glastonbury Festival and the Love Parade.
My 2015 trip to Peru, including visiting the Sacred Valley and Macchu Pichu, and a retreat in the jungle outside of Pucallpa, where I took ayahuasca and worked with Shipibo shamans for the first time.
My 2017 trip to India and Nepal, including time in Ladakh, Dharamsala, the Parvati Valley, going on the Char Dam pilgrimage by helicopter, and a two-week shamanic retreat with Bhola Banstola in and around Kathmandu.
My 2020 trip to New Zealand, which included getting married on the shores of Lake Wakatipu by a Maori elder, and a mad scramble to fly home before the full force of the coronavirus pandemic shut everything down.
Robin and his wife, Tracy James, at Kedarnath, after leaving prayer offerings.
Machu Picchu, Peru
After all-night ceremony with shamans in Nepal (Robin is in back row, mid-right, in green shirt).
Kedarnath temple, India. One of the four sacred sites of the Char Dham pilgrimage.
Robin with Shpibo shamans after all-night ceremony in Ucayali in the Peruvian jungle.
Ga possession dance ceremony in Accra, Ghana
The Ojai Foundation in its early days, with Topa Topa mountain in the background.
If any of these are a subject you would like to hear about, please feel free to let me know, and that will motivate me to post more about it.
