My pathway has been unusual - 20 years playing as a spiritual practice before composing two songs. I did not know at the time that it was related to my participation in the indigenous medicine ceremonies from the Amazon.

I played another thirteen years after that, with no new music. I encountered the ceremonies for the second time in 2004, and have since experienced an unbroken wave of virtuoso composition, and a complete shift in understanding about music.

It is like arriving at the sea after so many years following the river.

I was born in 1954 and raised in a remote logging and fishing community in the coastal forest of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. We had no road, no telephone or television, no churches or restaurants. We did have ocean, forest and sky, and all the birds, animals and fish in them. This experience is without a doubt the foundation of the music I work with.

I avoided choosing to be a professional musician when I began playing, as I did not want to harness the music with earning me a living. I spent ten years travelling the world, learned other ways to make money, and kept the music free.

Now, 35 years later, the music has matured, and I can no longer approach it as a search, having touched its source. This means that for me personally, the only way to play music with any significance is to play it for as many people as possible, while I am still here. Thus, I am building a career as a professional musician. The experience I went through that brought me the Medicine Path compositions has also completely changed my experience of public performance, so thankfully this is now a joy to do.

The guitarists who have reached me the most are Leo Kottke, John McLaughlin, John Renbourn and Mike Oldfield.

The musicians who have been my navigational stars are Atahualpa Yupanqui, Mozart and Guillermo Arevalo.