It was written in the stars..   

One fateful night I laid down in my front yard and looked up to void. As my pupils opened vacuously, they absorbed the light from thousands of once hidden suns. The sky opened itself up to me, filling with more and more glowing white dots. Flashing and fading lines began to shoot between them until It was written in the stars.. 

As if it were painted, stroke by stroke, a galactic shade of blue dragged across the veil between earth and the great unknown.


The first symbol the universe showed me was the eye of Horus, a symbol of healing and protection from evil..

𓂀

As the eye faded, a second symbol was painted in the sky; the Greek Omega. A symbol of the end.

Ω 

At the time, I had no idea what the significance of these symbols were at all. 

So, why then were they shown to me? Fate? Happenstance? Some weird ancient DNA sequencing?  

I tend to lean towards the former.

The older I get, the easier it is for me to see how all things are interwoven. 

All we have been through. The good, the bad, the seemingly unnecessary, it was meant to be. 

It's destiny.

And despite popular belief, fate is not predetermined. It's self determined. 

It's up to us to learn and grow from the lessons we've been given. 

To move forward and make something of this life. 

Lest we be doomed to repeat the same mistakes, over and over again. 

Let us get it right this time.

This is the end.  

Another fateful night, I had set out to face my demons. I was determined to overcome myself.

On a walk to clear my head, my "higher self" spoke to me. And he told me;

"This is the end."

I began to panic. I couldn't die NOW, I was JUST starting to get my life togeth..

"This is the end."

My life flash before my eyes like a storybook's pages being quickly flipped between your finger and thumb. All I saw was regret and longing for things to be different. It showed me, an anxious mess, worried about the opinions and perceptions of others. All of my precious time wasted, doing only what others had planned for me. 

He repeated with conviction. 

"This is the end."  

I snapped back into my body.

Fear stricken and convinced death is now looming over me, I carried on with my walk to the park where me and my friends played as kids. I went there to seek comfort, but as I leaned back on the slide to relax, I looked to the sky and again, it opened itself to me. But it was different this time. There were no gleaming stars or constellations. It was a white void, a looming incandescent cloud. 

It called to me. It needed me to make a choice; transcend now or remain stagnant and suffer.

I could not provide it an answer. 

Believing that transcendence meant choosing death, and leaving this realm, it was far too much for me to deal with. I denied its call and began walking to my friends house, where I thought I would be able to escape this madness. 

Just a few paces in, and I noticed that I was covered in sweat. Wiping it from my brow, my heart began to race, beating faster and faster, the walls were closing in..  

I feel my body collapse and hit the ground. There is nothing but darkness.

After a moment, an off white manuscript begins to fade in to focus. 

Looking down the page, I realized that it was a newspaper. 

And I was now reading my own obituary.

"Durand man, 26 years old, dies of heart attack in Tremble park."

With a desperate gasp for air, I return to my body, already climbing to my feet. 

I made my way to my best friend's house and tried to compose myself before barging in to ask for help..

As soon as I did, he dropped everything he was doing and sat with me the rest of the night. 

While we were talking, that looming white veil had made its way down from the sky. It was now a white curtain, and it was draped just to my periphery. It continued to call me. It still wanted me to make that decision. 

It felt as if, if I were to choose "transcendence", the curtain would be pulled and I would wake up in a white room. 

I held on to life while the television was sending messages in the background; a satire on most peoples lives being nothing more than a vapid, superficial, pining for attention and approval. 

I can still hear Dakota's mom saying "Life is what you make it, Deon", while I'm having my existential crisis on their couch. 

When the void stopped calling and I'd finally started to grip onto reality, I looked at that TV and it said,

"Close Enough"

There is no coincidence. 

I couldn't believe much of anything anymore. There was only one thing that was certain, 

This really was the end. The end of meaningless suffering. The end of martyrdom. The end of floating my life away.

After several hours of counsel, Dakota and I hugged and said "I love you". I walked out his door and made my way home feeling changed. Was this what I was looking for? I've surely received the message. There was more there for me to unpack, than I even realized. The birds began chirping unlike I've ever heard them before. It was almost 4am, and my small town sounded like a fucking safari. As if the birds were saying, 

"Congrats, kid. You've made it through.."

It was a welcome to the start of something new..

Welcome to the waking dream. 

The Appalachian Trail  

A week later, I made my way down to Amicalola Falls, GA. 

It was time for something big. I was ready to completely change my life. 

I decided that I would take my first ever hike, The Appalachian Trail. 

Initially, the purpose of this endeavor was to punish myself for not having fulfilled my promise, for not living up to my own expectations. 

My vision quest became more than I ever could have imagined it to be. Not only was it the challenge I was looking for, but it gave me friends, experience, and a whole new perspective on life and the world. 

About a month into trail, our group of friends had stopped in Boone, NC to hang out at Surf N' Turf's cabin and have some fun. Walking through that college town, I came across a pop up shop selling pins. 

One of the pins that caught my eye simply read, "Opus."

Opus; A work of art. One's life's work. 

It resonated with me. I have felt for a long time that my art is simply an expression of the accumulation of my life experience. So really, what better word to wear on my chest.

I bought that overpriced pin, stuck it in my leather guitar strap, and carried it that way for the next 2000 miles. 

This is where it will remain.

The Return  

If you think scaling mountain ranges for thousands of miles, venturing across the country for 6 months with nothing but the things you carry on your back would be difficult.. It's nothing compared to the existential crisis you will face when you return to this dystopian hellscape that's been hand-crafted by human greed and psychopathy. 

It looms over us all, the threat of never being able to realize your true potential. 

Not ever allowing yourself to fulfil your dreams because of distraction and convolution. 

To be sidetracked indefinitely by conforming to made up, arbitrary societal standards. 

Your life has been planned out for you, from before the day you were even born. 

The consequence of living out the life that has been planned for you is not even mediocrity,

It is servitude.  

"You're born, you pay taxes, and then you die" 

Truly the words of the most NPC mother fuckers of all time. 

Don't regurgitate the same bullshit you've been force-fed since birth. Find your own way. 

Mold your own reality. It really is possible, it's just also really hard.. 

This is the thought process behind Opus. 

When I got home from trail, I spent a few nights curled up in a ball, crying. 

I was afraid to death that I would never being able to truly see freedom again. 

I took another risk, and bet on myself. I loaded my credit cards and bought all the gear I would need to produce music. With none of my job applications leading to anything but dead ends, I began working on paving my own path. 

And here we are now, about 2 years of exponential growth later. 

I am ready to move beyond the skill acquisition and foundational building phase. 

I am ready to move forward and make something real out of this. 

I am ready to share myself with the world.

And hopefully the world will welcome me with open arms..

I'm looking to elicit positive change in my own life and the lives of others,

Through creating powerful, meaningful, and moving pieces of art. 

I look forward to meeting and working with the passionate and driven individuals that find their way to Opus. 

I one day hope to form a tight knit community which supports one another in paving our paths forward. 

Not the ones that ware laid out for us, but the one that we have chosen.

It is time that I free myself.

It is time that I fulfill my promise..

What will you do with the clay you've been given?