Gene Stirm

There are two types of journeys in life, The Ordained and The Mundane. The mundane is easy to recognize, it’s the path you choose. The Ordained journey is only recognizable when you look back on your life and see how far you’ve come and wonder, how you got on this path?

Over a trek of sixty plus years, Gene Stirm, 1945, has realized his Ordained Journey. As he approaches the summit of the mountain that he didn’t know he was climbing, he can now see the many forks and turns that have led him to where he is today.

Without a vision for his life, he quit school in his third year of college and went to the mountains. It was the Sixties, the Vietnam War was getting hot, hippies were cool and confusion rained supreme. He pitched his tent in Camp Four, the warmest part of Yosemite Valley, where the diehard climbers and campers stayed. He didn’t have a formula or plan. He just intended to stay until he figured out what he wanted to do with his life. He stayed for almost a year.

As spring arrived, he spent more time on the trails and by summer he was soloing in the high country for weeks at a time. He spent time reading the Bible, the Life of Buddha, Kahlil Gibran’s ‘The Prophet’, Lao Tzu’s ‘The Tao’ and the poetry of To Fu, among others. Finally, at the first winter snows in late 1968, he moved to the town of Ahwahnee, California. He says the most important lessons he learned, “was to follow my heart, seek the high ground and that there is more to life than meets the eye.” He finished art school and began a career in Graphic Arts. A career that spanned thirty years and include art director for Josten’s Publishing, owner of both a printing business and menu design company, which brought him to live in Los Angeles.

A number of twists and turns took him to the healing ministry and the study of alternative medicine. He received a Holistic Practitioner Certification in 1996 and began a practice in Anaheim, California. More recently, He has received Certification in Hypnotism. He blends East, West and Native American philosophies with modern and ancient practices of healing and Shamanism. He has been given the name Paka by his granddaughter and called a Shaman.

In 2004, he and his wife moved to Tehachapi, California, where he continued his studies of Native American art and culture and Shamanism. It was at that time he began rewriting a number of his screenplays into novels. In 2008 he received a Doctor of Shamanism Degree from ULC Seminary. Gene has been connected with publishing, book design and editing most of his professional life. However, Mystical Path To Mystique, is his first published novel.