Ladies and Gentlemen, My Producer!

Thanks Tame, I’m glad to be here!

And Happy Holidays to YOU, dear readers of the Tame Bear weblog; without you I would have no one to indulge my playfulness and creativity, and no one with whom to share my thoughts and ideas on Technology, Nature, Being, and Sustainability. (Yes, my ideas, though I’m quite pleased with the way Tame Bear has been presenting them here).

PeteO and iPhone – 2008

Many of you — friends near and far, friends old and new, and many passers-by who’ve happened upon this blog and have become fans — many of you know me as a webmaster, owner of Oakley Studio, LLC here in the midwestern town of Goshen, Indiana.

I’m writing today to tell you about the journey of discovery I’ve been on for nearly my whole life, a spiritual quest to understand the true nature of reality.

This may be a revelation to many of you, who have known me and are familiar with at least some portions of my arc through life…

• The childhood of science experiments, terrariums, fish breeding, turtles and chameleons, encouraged by my father and mother; of camping and hiking with family in Colorado’s high country, all of which sparked in me a love for nature and a deep desire to understand this thing called LIFE.
• The Tri-Mu years in high-school, growing up in Wilmette, Illinois, when I was forming my Christian identity.
• The early college years at University of Illinois, Champaign/Urbana, when I was exploring Zen Buddhism, altered states of consciousness via hallucinogens, and various possible science paths (veterinary medicine, applied physics, molecular biology).
• Maybe you met me in the summer of 1976, when I was a door-to-door salesman for the Southwestern Publishing Company, working in Kansas City, Missouri, and encountering every possible type of person in all walks of life.
• Maybe you knew me the year I spent at School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where I began to seriously consider visual art and design as a viable career path.
• Perhaps you knew me at Denison University in Granville Ohio, where I finished out my degree in Art & Biology, and then went to live in the Reba Place neighborhood of Evanston, Illinois in 1980, working as a freelance graphic artist.
• You may have known me as Peter Bray Paterson – the name my parents gave me; or as Peter Bray Paterson Oakley – the name I took in marriage to my dear wife Patricia Anne Miller Oakley, who has remained with me on this journey for nearly a quarter of a century.
• Maybe I worked with you over the years at these places: Films Incorporated, Chartmasters, Mindscape, America Online, Videodiscovery, About.com, and Goshen College, as my work in graphic design became ever more entwined with the evolution of computing, networking, and the global internet.
• Maybe you know me through church connections: Trinity Methodist Church, Reba Place Fellowship, Seattle Mennonite, Assembly Mennonite, New Perspectives, or Upper Room.
• And perhaps you know me through photography and my “Wisdom Road” table at the local Farmers Market, where I’ve merged a love for words of wisdom with a love for visual beauty.

Through all of this varied work and life experience, I’ve thought deeply about the thing we call life, the moving and working and breathing and thinking force within us (and to some similar degree within all creatures with whom we share our planetary home). What animates us and causes us to be self-reflective conscious living beings? Why do we appear to be castaways on a tiny island in a vast sea of stars? And what has God, or the idea of God, to do with all of this?

Out of this long steady contemplation has arisen a cohesive theory about the nature of reality. You’ll find it in a small book, released earlier this year, entitled:

"Oceans of Light"

The book is published by Smashwords, a leading ebook publisher, and is available in every ebook format. You can find the book in the Apple iBook Store, at Barnes & Noble, Kobo Books, Diesel Books, Sony Books, and it will shortly be making it’s way onto Amazon.com.

The book can be read on any computer or on iPhone, iPad, Nook, Kindle, or Sony ebook readers.

To all those of you near and far, friends new and old, who have known me through various parts of my life, I offer this book to you as a way of sharing more of who I am. Doubtless you have done some similar contemplation about Life, the Universe, and Everything. I would love to hear from you, should this book stir you to write some of your own thoughts and learnings on your own path of life.

I also invite you to contribute honest, thoughful reviews and ratings of the book because that always helps spur sales! I welcome and cherish your participation in launching this little book about the Multiverse into the popular imagination.

Even if you’ve never purchased an “ebook” before, here’s where you can find it:

• Smashwords.com
• Barnes & Noble
• Kobo eBooks
• Sony eBooks
• Diesel eBooks

If you are an iPad or iPhone owner, the Apple iBook Store is the place to buy it. Nook owners can download it from B&N. And it will be available soon to every Kindle on the planet through the Amazon Store. Please buy and read “Oceans of Light.” Thanks so much!

I want to also encourage you to tell all your friends who may know me, who would enjoy reading a newly published author who they know or have known, on a topic that embraces our deepest questions and stirs the imagination and a longing to know. Again, thanks so much!