Farewell to a friend…

Rick and I weren’t close buddies… but we connected – for over two decades.

Sometimes, he was like a big kid, and others, he was ethereal, mercurial and all-knowing.  But in all of those states, he was authentically Rick Jarow.

Over that time, I built websites with him, we worked on video projects together, I assisted in his yearly gatherings at Ananda Ashram – where my mother resided for many, many years – and I built his repository of audio at Bandcamp.

Just this past fall, Rick and I met at his home to discuss strategy, expanding his writings online, finding publicists for his books and, well… life.  And we had planned on starting in earnest on these things when he returned from his trip to India.

Sadly, Rick passed of natural causes around the 6th of February.  Well – sadly for us.  I’ve no doubt that he is singing, dancing and chanting in the heavens somewhere.

In one of his last blog posts, on aging – he wrote this – which is incredibly poignant, and fitting for me to share here:

“…facing aging and its attendant phenomena is an initiatic prelude to facing our death, and moving into dying consciously is to greet every moment with a fullness of presence. Where your heart goes is where you find yourself–at any age. Instead of resenting the inconveniences of this process, let us dare to embrace their teachings and let go of what must be let go of with grace and wonder.”

I was blessed to have known him.

RIP.