What happens when you need and want to tell the truth about things you can’t quite remember? These blog posts document my many attempts to remember and to tell the truth.

Woodstock: Road to Woodstock: A Teen’s Psychedelic Journey and Coming of Age – Series

Flashback. It has been almost fifty-five years since Woodstock. Over 500,000 people came together on a 600-acre farm to celebrate peace and music in the shadow of the Vietnam War—an iconic event that redefined counterculture and reshaped rock history.

Music, Mud, and Freedom: My Cousin and I Hitchhiked Our Way Into the Wild Ride That Was Woodstock.

For many of us who came of age in the ’60s and ’70s, drugs weren’t just recreational—they were a doorway. In the right setting, with the right mindset, psychedelics like LSD or psilocybin could unlock profound experiences of awe, connection, empathy, and spiritual wonder.

As a baby boomer, I can say that some of the most formative insights of my […]

Finding the Happy Medium: Self-Reflection Without Blame

Do you feel like something is quietly stealing your joy? Frustrated by the space between your expectations and what life delivers? It’s good to be hopeful—staying optimistic can be a real strength during uncertain times.

Yet when happiness depends on things going exactly as we imagined, we often become more frustrated. Flexibility allows us to adapt and find meaning, even when the outcome shifts.

The gap between what we expect and can do often leads to frustration, stress, and conflict.

Think of your expectations as a big, bright circle—filled with hope and ambition.

Then reality hits, and suddenly you’re left with a much smaller circle inside, as if your potential just got squeezed down to size.

You’re not alone—dreams don’t always align with reality.

When outcomes […]

The Girl Left Behind – What Came Before: Uncovering Truth Through Trauma and Memory – Series

So much of my beginning was shaped by my grandfather’s quiet strength.

It feels right, at least to me, that I’m beginning to write this story now, as I wait for more information from the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department and sit with the simple fact that I am still here. There’s a pull to remember my life, and all the people who shaped it.

I want to reflect on our shared time: growing up, stumbling forward, and doing my best with what I knew.

I want to make space for the grief I carried—often silently—after losing the greatest love of my life when I was just nine years old.

I want to hold every detail from a life interrupted, a life some tried to […]

Embracing the Single Life: Finding Freedom, Joy, and Self-Discovery

Many people view being single as something to pity. If maintaining a relationship seems complicated, it’s often assumed that something must be wrong — that you’re somehow flawed.

Perhaps you don’t come across as attractive, your attitude feels too challenging for others, or your spiritual beliefs make people uneasy. In any case, love continues slipping past you, reinforcing that something is fundamentally wrong with you. Please don’t buy into those false beliefs. There’s nothing wrong with being single.

Being in a relationship doesn’t necessarily mean someone is better off — sometimes it simply means they found a workable match or chose companionship over solitude or change.

Many people make significant sacrifices to avoid being single. In truth, many of the relationships you see today […]

Woodstock: The Liberation Years: Spirituality, Intimacy, and the Revolution of the ’60s – Series

This is the first post in a series about the boldest adventure of my youth—running away at sixteen to attend Woodstock.

Some Sixties veterans compare Burning Man and iconic hippie gatherings like Woodstock, the Trips Festival of January 1966, the Summer of Love, and the Human Be-In in Golden Gate Park the following year.

The parallels are unmistakable: Burning Man and those early countercultural events embraced free love, wild costumes, audience participation, and the exuberant spirit of loud music and psychedelics.

I experienced Woodstock firsthand, though I’ve never attended Burning Man.

To me, Woodstock carried a deeper power. We were a community of mellow, free-spirited hippies, gentle in our energy. From what I’ve heard from those who’ve experienced it, Burning Man combines a different […]

Truth Isn’t Always Black and White: Embracing Life’s Gray Areas

The Truth Isn’t Always Black And White

We’re not here to agree with everyone but to coexist with compassion.

That means respecting others’ life paths and personal, political, or spiritual choices. Life doesn’t offer one truth for all.

Our beliefs grow with us—molded by our circumstances, culture, and personal stories. It’s no wonder we each see right and wrong through a different lens.

We all walk different paths, shaped by our truths.

Honoring someone else’s reality doesn’t diminish your own—it expands it.

Our version of truth may feel absolute, yet someone living a different life, in a different place or time, may see things in reverse—and still be right.

Embracing this possibility invites humility, patience, and the grace to forgive.

Tolerance DOES NOT mean enduring what is harmful.

Sometimes […]

The Girl Left Behind: A Memoir of Truth, Trauma, and Triumph – Series

These events are not imagined; they come from the pages of my real life.

I’ve chosen to share it now because I’ve lived through so much—endured, lost, and learned.

None of it holds meaning if it can’t, in some way, help others.

The truths I’ve carried for so long can no longer stay buried; the weight has grown too heavy for one heart to hold alone.

My words may not always be polished, and I may stumble to express my feelings fully. However, what I offer here is honest, unfiltered, and deeply human. I am simply a woman with a story that demands to be told. And in releasing […]

The Girl Left Behind – A Journey Through Loss, Trauma, and Becoming – Series

On the night of October 14, 1962, at 10:40 PM PST, my mother, Frances Marion Cascinai, age 37, was found dead in our family home at 1034 Pumnalo Street in San Bernardino, California. Her death certificate lists the cause as a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest and heart, labeled a suicide.

There’s no mention of the weapon itself or any additional injuries. I was just nine years old at the time. My younger brother George was six.

I begin this blog post—and the ones that will follow about my mother with a simple truth: these words are tough to put down.

Even now, as I write, I stand at the edge of this journey, only just beginning to uncover what has long […]

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