My Religion

I was baptized into the Roman Catholic Faith and followed my parents’ directives in this until I left home at about age 19. Once I got my own place I dropped all that and began focusing in earnest on developing my musical career.

In my 20’s I began traveling and studying the religions and philosophies of other cultures, dropped my rock and roll focus and turned to contemporary folk. As I traveled I played music and learned how to write my own songs.

In Greece I met Veronica, Irish born Canadian girl who became the mother of my son Chad. She too was an artist and writer and shortly after Chad was born gave me a book by Idries Shah called The Sufis, which seemed to neatly sum up everything I had been thinking about the relationships between culture, religion and philosophy. I had already been practicing meditation in earnest for a few years and so was familiar with some of the territory covered in this and other books.

I also met an authentic traveler and teacher on the spiritual path, Paul Reps whose presence over the next few years influenced me greatly.

In 1979 I met my wife Karen who was to become the mother of our children Chaya, Nika, Ky and Kadir and we began our journey together.

In 1986 Karen, the girls and I traveled to India…(the boys had not yet been born) and it was in Delhi that I was initiated into the Sufi path and given the name Baba Farid. I asked my teacher, “Does this mean that you expect me to become a Moslem?” He smiled with the greatest love and elegance and said, “No Baba, I do not expect any such thing. I am simply giving you the best of Islam to study.”

I have a drop each of the major wisdom traditions running through my veins (as we all do), and I joked with a friend of mine the other day that they are simply battling out their differences in my bloodstream.