Series

Near Death Experience: The Ocean Took Me: My First Near-Death Experience as a Child – Series

It was 1959, under a sky dappled with clouds, when I spent a carefree afternoon at the beach with my aunt Dorothy, cousins, brother George, and mom.

The waves’ rhythm, the sand’s warmth, and the promise held by the distant horizon enchanted me. As George and I strolled along the shoreline, we searched for seashells and driftwood treasures. I glanced down, mesmerized by the frothy seafoam swirling around my ankles as the tide rolled in with quiet grace.

I closely watched the shoreline, hoping the waves might reveal a hidden treasure just for me. George lingered a few steps ahead, scanning the surf.

And then—everything changed.

A wall of water crashed […]

By Doré Frances|2025-10-04T13:42:17-06:00May 31st, 2025|Dore Frances, Near Death Experiences, Spirituality, Why Wisdom Is Harder Than You Think|0 Comments

Woodstock: Music, Mud, Myth, and Memory – Series

Was Woodstock the spiritual spark of a generation’s awakening? Was it the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, or what?

Harmony and understanding? Trust and sympathy abounding?

Is the moon still in the seventh house?

Is Jupiter aligned with Mars?

Yet, in contrast, the world was anything but peaceful in 1968 when Hair: The American Tribal Love Rock Musical opened on Broadway. That same year saw American bombs and napalm falling on Vietnam, Richard Nixon’s rise to the presidency, and the tragic assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

Inner-city neighborhoods across the country erupted in riots, revealing a nation deeply fractured.

Periods of crisis tend to spark visions of paradise.

The 1960s were fertile ground for New Age ideologies—some born of […]

By Doré Frances|2025-10-04T13:42:43-06:00May 25th, 2025|Dore Frances, Why Wisdom Is Harder Than You Think, Woodstock 1969 Series|0 Comments

The Girl Left Behind : This Is My Life Now – Series

This is my now. Now is the life I’m living—today, in this moment. Now holds the weight of three marriages, three divorces. Now is being a mother to a grown daughter. Now is the quiet shift into retirement, after decades spent as an advocate and educational consultant.
Now is living in Broomfield, Colorado—my first home, fully my own.
Now is coming to terms with a truth I once tried to outrun: that real trauma shaped my childhood, and left echoes in every corner of my life.
Now is waiting—for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department to release long-buried records.
Now is wondering what the final chapter will bring.

By Doré Frances|2026-03-20T12:38:21-06:00May 16th, 2025|Dore Frances, The Girl Left Behind Series, Why Wisdom Is Harder Than You Think|0 Comments

Woodstock: The Soundtrack of a Generation: From Monterey to Woodstock – Series

Charles Fleischer is the originator of the quote “If you remember the ’60s, you really weren’t there”, which has been widely misattributed to various other celebrities. It was the music!

Like meditation or prayer, music can lift us beyond ourselves. The sounds of the ’60s and ’70s moved both body and spirit.

The Monterey International Pop Festival, held in June 1967, signaled the dawn of the “Summer of Love” and became a defining moment in the counterculture movement. It launched the American careers of Jimi Hendrix and The Who, introduced Janis Joplin’s raw power to the world, and brought soul legend Otis Redding to a broader audience. Monterey set the stage for Woodstock and helped transform […]

By Doré Frances|2025-10-04T13:43:59-06:00May 14th, 2025|Dore Frances, The Sixties and Seventies Counterculture, Why Wisdom Is Harder Than You Think, Woodstock 1969 Series|0 Comments

The Girl Left Behind – Before and After- Series

So much of my life feels like scattered fragments—moments and memories that never quite form a whole. It’s a painful kind of disconnection, one that can feel not only overwhelming but deeply unjust. My mother was taken from me, and I’ve had to live with the haunting question of whether my father was the one who tore her away. When she was gone, it felt like my heart forgot how to beat.

I waited—frozen—for my lungs to remember how to breathe. I was paralyzed, trapped in what felt like an unending nightmare.

I divide my life into three chapters to make sense of it all.

The First Chapter is my life as a little girl and the young woman […]

By Doré Frances|2026-03-20T12:35:27-06:00May 9th, 2025|Dore Frances, Frances Cascinai (Mom), The Girl Left Behind Series, Why Wisdom Is Harder Than You Think|0 Comments

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 […]

By Doré Frances|2025-10-04T13:45:06-06:00May 8th, 2025|Dore Frances, The Sixties and Seventies Counterculture, Why Wisdom Is Harder Than You Think, Woodstock 1969 Series|0 Comments

The Girl Left Behind – The Story That Didn’t Add Up – 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 […]

By Doré Frances|2026-03-20T12:32:12-06:00May 4th, 2025|1161 Covington Road, Dore Frances, Frances Cascinai (Mom), The Girl Left Behind Series, Why Wisdom Is Harder Than You Think|0 Comments

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 […]

By Doré Frances|2025-10-04T13:46:27-06:00April 27th, 2025|Dore Frances, Spirituality, The Sixties and Seventies Counterculture, Why Wisdom Is Harder Than You Think, Woodstock 1969 Series|0 Comments