Creative Alchemist | Mystic & Dreamer | Earth Steward | Soul Whisperer | Slow Living & Tea Aficionado | Wisdom Seeker | Shadow Worker | Twilight Journeyer |
Michael Brant DeMaria
Over three decades ago, DR. MICHAEL BRANT DEMARIA’S life took a profound turn. As a child protection team psychologist, he worked with over 2,000 cases of severe child abuse and neglect, leading to compassion fatigue, burnout, and even suicidal thoughts. Seeking healing, he embarked on a life-changing vision quest guided by a Native elder—alone in the wilderness, without food or water. This journey ignited a deep heart-opening and reawakened his first loves: nature and creativity, while instilling in him a reverence for the profound mystery of living and dying—far beyond what modern culture teaches.
Since that transformative experience, Michael has dedicated his life to exploring what he calls the way of twilight—embracing the paradoxes of life and death in a way that opens the heart rather than closes it. Through music, writing, film, and mentoring, he helps others navigate this path.
He is the author of four books and the creator of the Peace Within program and book (Peace Within: Clear Your Mind, Open Your Heart, Embrace Your Soul, and Heal Your Life). His music, streamed over 250 million times worldwide, has earned four Grammy® nominations, eight ZMR awards, six #1 albums, and a Native American Music Award. His work is also featured on the Grammy®-winning album All About Bullies Big and Small and in collaborations with Eckhart Tolle, Mark Nepo, Peter Kater, and Noah Levine.
As a storyteller and filmmaker, Michael has written, directed, and composed original sound tracks for four award-winning films and three award-winning plays, including his most recent film, The Twilight Café.
www.michaeldemaria.com.
My 10 Best
(In no particular order)
The Old Man and the Sea
One of the first novels I read that wasn’t young adult fiction. The story of solitude, the struggle against nature, and the deep relationship between the old man, the fish, and the sea captivated me. It felt like a call of the soul—a journey into the unknown that would later resonate in my vision quest work.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
I read this in one sitting during that painful awkward early adolescence and fell asleep, only to wake up unsure whether I had read it or dreamed the whole thing. It was a reading experience unlike any other. Later, I bonded with my best friend Bill over our shared love of this book.
The History of Western Philosophy
After moving from Connecticut to Pensacola, Florida, I was in deep culture shock—grieving the loss of my first real girlfriend, my friends, and my Ivy League lacrosse aspirations. That summer, I found my father’s copy of this book and read it cover to cover. It was a turning point. I decided to invest in something no one could ever take away from me—my mind, my education and the journey of gaining wisdom that no one could take from me. I became obsessed with Socrates and committed myself to his maxim: Know thyself and decided I too would become a philosopher one day.
Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind
A year after my difficult move, my best friend Bill Schulz moved down from the Northeast. We both missed home – he was an avid hockey player and I an avid lacrosse player, neither of which were found at the time in the deep southern town of Pensacola FL, but we bonded over our love of philosophy and music. I introduced him to Socrates, and he lent me Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. It blew my mind. Two years later, I would meet my Zen meditation teacher, Dr. Bill Mikulas, who remained my mentor and friend for 45 years. One moment from the book still stays with me: a single, unexplained page with nothing but a picture of a fly. I was hooked!
Tao Te Ching
While working as a personal trainer at a gym, an older gentleman—who happened to be a Tai Chi teacher—handed me a note with the words: Tao Te Ching (Feng Edition). He told me Tai Chi was the physical embodiment of the book. I immediately went to the book store, found a copy and still have it. It has been the closest thing to a bible I’ve had in my life—ever having a special place in my bedroom or even right by my bedside table. At the time, I was struggling with Christianity and my Catholicism, and this book resonated at a deep level. It also led me to Tai Chi, Chi Kung, and later becoming a black belt in martial arts.
Memories, Dreams, Reflections
At 18, I was a college sophomore struggling with painful emotional issues—what I later came to call soulchosis. I wondered if I was losing my mind. Then I found Jung’s book, where he openly admitted to his own struggles with reality. It was a turning point. If Jung survived, maybe I could too. This book also inspired me to pursue a career as a Jungian-oriented psychologist – something I also thought of as an applied philosopher of wisdom.
Man’s Search for Meaning
Around the same time, I read Frankl’s account of surviving Nazi concentration camps. It was hard to read and put my first world troubles in perspective, and most importantly I resonated deeply with his concept of logotherapy—his belief that our deepest drive is the search for meaning. Having grown up with a father who lived through WWII in Italy, this book moved me profoundly. It remains a cornerstone of my personal and professional life and a book I re-read whenever the going gets tough.
The Book of the Vision Quest
In preparation for my first vision quest with my native teacher, my mentor Bill Plotkin recommended this book. It moved me in the same way Jung’s Memories, Dreams, Reflections did—raw, real, and deeply personal. Foster’s writing on death and rebirth in the desert made the vision quest accessible to me in a way that helped me prepare more deeply for what I was about to experience – I’m so grateful that book prepared my mind for what my heart, body and soul would endure – something that would change me forever. Years later, I had the honor of working with him in person and he was every bit as amazing in person – a poet, musician, mystic-jester and wise elder!
We
I was struggling in my marriage and trying to understand how I had been committed to the same woman since I was 15 who was so very different than I was in so many ways. I was scared I was going to leave and I was scared I was going to stay. Almost 20 years into our relationship and almost 15 years married. This book, alongside Erich Fromm’s The Art of Loving, taught me about the difference between “cotton candy love” and the deeper, more enduring “stirring oatmeal love.” Now, 43 years into my marriage and 48 years together, I credit my personal work with Robert and this book for helping me understand what true love is. Robert was one of the wisest, most humble, dearest souls I have ever met. Perhaps the truest male elder I ever had. All of his books remain on my ongoing reading list and he was generous enough to write the introduction to my book, Ever Flowing On: On being and becoming oneself.
Life on Land
At 60, I was experiencing my second Saturn return and struggling with chronic pain and injuries from a life time of being an athlete. Emilie’s book was a revelation. Like Jung and Foster, she wrote with raw honesty about her own journey. Her understanding of our oceanic origins and her work with Continuum profoundly changed my relationship with my body. I can now say at 62 I am pain free and have a dynamic, fluid, ‘embryonic’ relationship with my body that all started with Emilie’s book. It led me to Rolfing, and a renewed relationship to gravity, water and the fluid system of my body. Not as an object in space, but as a fluid, ever flowing unfolding…