Jon is a lifelong student of meditation, Bhakti Yoga, and practitioner of mind-body medicine, nursing and healing. He has been an RN, a non-profit director, lecturer, problem solver, teacher, and musician. Through it all he has been devoted to helping people skillfully navigate the sufferings and joys of life, right up to their last breath, as well as helping nurses, doctors, health care professionals, and peacemakers deliver more compassionate care to patients, families and communities.
He has won numerous nursing awards, (Great 100 in NC) (UNC School of Nursing Alumnus of the Year). He has seen over 40,000 hospital patients in a no charge consultation service. From 1990-2018 this trailblazer served as a nurse clinician at one of the country’s foremost academic medical centers Duke University Hospital. There he specialized in teaching the mind-body healing, stress reduction and non pharmacological adjunctive pain management approaches. He worked throughout the Medical Center with patients having complex and challenging health conditions and also served as a resource for hospital staff dealing with the challenges inherent in the changing health care system.
From 1986-1996 Jon served as the founder and president of the Flying Monkey Foundation, a 501(c)3 non-profit foundation which sponsored over 60 mind-body-spirit educational workshops and seminars in North Carolina. Presentations included, Ram Dass, Stephen Levine, Healing Touch, Patch Adams, Larry and Barbie Dossey, Pema Chodron, Krishna Das, Sharon Salzberg, and Jai Uttal. Also in conjunction with Ram Dass’ Prison Ashram Project, for 3 years he directed their national prison penpal program and taught meditation and did a few chanting programs in prisons.
A popular presenter he has given many seminars, lectures, workshops and classes that teach stress reduction, mind-body healing, complementary therapies and palliative care to hospital patients, health care professionals, community and church groups, and schools. In addition to patient consults, he would average 20 classes a year to Duke Hospital multidisciplinary staff. Recordings here of his stress management and relaxation teachings.
His latest offering, “Wise Dying, Wise Living” program is a culmination of his many years working with people at all of life’s stages, including death, and stems from his belief that learning to skillfully navigate life changes and uncertainties, helps us to do the same with the transition that is death. Death becomes a wise advisor to improve our quality of living in our life.
Jon began his own meditation practice in 1972. In 1975, at age 22, he started his training with as a teacher of meditation, and spirituality under the mentorship of meditation expert, psychologist, spiritual teacher and writer Ram Dass. Please go to this page to learn more about Jon and Ram Dass. Ram Dass awakened Jon to the power of love through chanting practices, and this recording artist features two chanting CD recordings here.
in 1996, Duke Nursing leadership requested Ram Dass (Richard Alpert, Ph.D.) to write a recommendation letter for the nomination Duke Hospital was submitting for Jon to win the Norman Cousin’s Mind Body Medicine award. The winner that year expanded health care for poor people in Mississippi.
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