Introduction

Where to Begin?

A biography starting at the beginning might say that Victor Byrd was born on the same day legend and Church suppose that Jesus was conceived, March 25 (count nine months forward). In case this sounds a bit inflated, get a grip. According to the Merlin legends, it was past midnight when Merlin helped Uther Pendragon disguise himself as his arch enemy, Gorlios, and thus Uther was able to ride undetected into Gorlios’s castle and have wild passionate sex with Igraine who thought she was making love with her husband Gorlios. (Would’t she have had a clue?) So King Arthur was conceived just past midnight on March 25. Mary’s story is not as easy to comprehend, but let’s not go there. So if Victor always felt that he was special because his birthday was special, why not give him a break? A boy born in a coal mining town in the mountains of East Tennessee probably needed a lot of magic in his imagination.

For sure, the story of Jesus had enormous influence on the psyche of little “Vic.” Supposedly, when he was five years old the local fire department had to rush to the house to put out a small fire upstairs. When little Vic’s mother rushed home, she saw Vic leaning out the window singing “Yes Jesus Loves Me” to the firemen. Thus began the career of an entertainer who never saw an audience he didn’t love. When he was 16, he gave his heart to Jesus during a tent revival, and by that time he really was a musician who was playing the organ for a revival service. A biography might add that the year he was born was 1941, in the middle of World War II, and mention that the first post he wrote on this his new website begins with a story about the invasion of Normandy, “the longest day.'‘ A biography might skip some boring details and go to 1977 when Victor left his safe and secure life in New York City and began a year long journey that began in Crete and took him to India. The biography might then skip ahead to a time ten years later when Victor sat in meditation at IMS in Barre, Massachusetts and experienced an explosion of energy that rewired his nervous system. Or perhaps it might retrace back to the time when he did analysis with Edward C. Whitmont in New York City, and how life changing that profound experience was. At some point the biography might explain how Victor eventually became VB to so many meditation students and psychotherapy clients.

In truth, VB’s story does not follow a rational, chronological sequence of events - a series of graduation diplomas that cover the important details and decades of his life. His story twists and turns back on itself, as do all of our stories, so one entry into anyone’s story is much like a blood test: finding a good spot is important but one entry into the blood stream is as valid as another. Throughout his story, is a quest for the Real and a desire to share glimpses of what has been seen with others who have a similar quest. But as Miss Emily Dickinson saw with the keen vision of a poet, Truth can only be told with a slant. Perhaps that is the only way the soul can tell its story.

The First Essay