A MEMORY OF GIOVANNI PESCETTO, ME AND FRITZ SMITH

During the second Zero Balancing Teacher Training Program, I found myself rooming with Giovanni Pescetto, from Baltimore, a big, tall, irrepressible man of Italian descent, an acupuncturist and long-time Zero Balancing student.

For two of our training segments, we met at Rio Caliente, a incredible, beautiful retreat center near Guadalajara, Mexico.

Our group was fortunate to also have the artist and yoga teacher, John Wimberley, guide us in gentle hatha yoga each early morning. After this particular morning’s yoga session, Giovanni and I went to the steam room.

“Steam room” hardly does it justice. You took off your clothes on the wooden deck above the room and descended stone stairs into a space that was excavated through the igneous rock which lay immediately below the surface throughout the area; it was more a cave than a room.. At the far end, there was water gently flowing. This water rose up from the volcanic underground hot springs from which Rio Caliente got its name. It came to the surface at over 150 degrees and was directed through a shallow small pool at the far end of the cave in which were immersed eucalyptus leaves and other aromatic herbs. To be in this space was profoundly relaxing and soothing, with the naturally produced moisture, heat, and the wonderful scent.

This morning, after Giovanni and I had been sitting there a little while, Fritz Smith, the founder of Zero Balancing, and our primary mentor in the training, came walking down the steps and sat down. As was generally the case, we just said hi and continued to relax and meditate.

After a short while, I began to feel something unusual. My body, slowly and then more strongly, began reacting to a force that I had never felt before in my life. To this day, it is hard to find words to describe it. It seemed like I was being moved and shaken by waves of sound or of light. I felt my body resonating and beginning to feelt almost like a big bell that was being rung. To this day, I am not sure if it was my actual torso that was moving back and forth or if I was primarily feeling a dramatic flow of energy. It was certainly an extremely strong and unprecedented sensation of energy and movement.

This force was emanating from where Fritz was sitting. Though he was, however, just sitting there, exhibiting no unusual outward signs of movement or expression.

This extraordinary experience continued for some minutes, perhaps five. Yet the experience resonates in me to this day; I can recall the feeling at any moment. It was not an audible sound that was ringing me. It felt like illuminating waves were hitting me. The proprioception was that of a rhythmic flexion and extension of my torso. It was a wondrous feeling. What can one call it…shaktipat, divine energy, chi? In any case, it was a breathtaking experience.

When one feels energy this strongly, the identification with one’s physical body dissolves to some extent and one feels more energy than structure—or perhaps it is simply the unusual heightened experience of both simultaneously.

In any case, after the experience had somewhat subsided, I shakily got to my feet, walked up the stairs and back to the room that Giovanni and I shared. Giovanni walked silently beside me.

When we got back to the room, I naturally wondered if Giovanni had felt something as well. I hesitatingly asked, “Giovanni, did you feel something unusual coming from Fritz down there just now?”

And in his brash, loud voice he immediately shouted, “DUDE! WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT???”

We sat down both astonished and ecstatic, transported by the experience.

As in other times when I’ve been privileged to have singular experiences of energy that seemed to emanate from someone, for some reason, it doesn’t occur to me to ask them about it. I am left speechless, digesting the experience in wonder for years, really for the rest of my life. However, some years later, I did ask Fritz if he remembered being in the steam room with Giovanni and me, that time, and if there was anything unusual he was aware of. He said remembered being there with us but no, not any special experience on his part. That confirmed for me that although certain extraordinary experiences may seem to emanate from someone, it is likely not their personal energy that is activated. It is something else—perhaps a “transmission” from one of their teachers—likely Muktananda in Fritz’s case. But, of course, their teachers are likely also not the originators of this energy. Sometimes forces may be transmitted through us, which we may not even be aware of, but which, like this time with Fritz and Giovanni at Rio Caliente, may illuminate and change a whole life.

(excerpted from “Life in the Bones: A Biography of Dr. Fritz Smith and Zero Balancing” pp. 161-162)

A Letter Written and Read To Giovanni in mid-November, a few days before he passed,

Dear Giovanni,
I’ve been thinking about you. I know you are in hospice and in what may be the last stages of what we call - this life. You remember the time, we were in the steam room/cave in Rio Caliente? And we both felt the energy - shimmering, the rocking, the light coming from Fritz or at least from the area where he was sitting?

I’ve often been frustrated that I don’t feel that very often. Yet as I’ve been thinking about you, I realize if what we felt was real then that energy of course persists, even when you or I pass away. Who are you? Who am I? The I is the ego – and of course it won’t last.

I always liked the line, “That’s all she wrote.” We could think it means a variety of things. She reached the end of the letter and said goodbye.  It could mean and that’s all God wrote and God’s a she. It certainly could be in a Springsteen song…maybe it is. And you know this that we call OUR life, and what we’re going to miss, is the ego-led charge through our days on earth. But “that’s all she wrote” - THAT is not the whole story. Because really the story goes on. The songs continue, the shimmering, the rocking, the light, and the voice in the night. So maybe we stop writing, stop what we call living, but that shimmering, rocking, light - what Dylan called that “thin, wild mercury sound” - goes on through all creation. Maybe it did get benefits from our lives and minds, some new twists, some new fulcrums, some funny stories and some tragic tales. So we make our contributions to the big book, the big story that’s been written since the beginning of time and continues until the end of time.

Your story, your energy is unforgettable to me and to many other friends, students, and clients.  So while you or I may not live longer, Love lives, energy lives, shimmering, shining, rocking and singing forever on our long walk home.

Love Love Love to You, My Friend 

David

Giovanni Pescetto