Jay Dufrechou

Jay Dufrechou grew up in New Orleans at the tail end of the baby boom. Some of his ancestors were among the first European immigrants to the Mississippi Gulf coast, deported gypsies and smugglers. Jay went to university and law school in northern California, where the weather was a lot better, then in his mid-thirties followed spiritual experiences into the doctoral program at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. Ever since, his professional activities have blended law and psychology.

Jay's first book, Moving through Grief, Reconnecting with Nature (2015) had its genesis one morning in the mid 1990s when Jay was trying to mediate. As rain began to fall hard on the roof above him, Jay noticed that if he stopped the chatter in his monkey mind, he began to hear the rain as he had never heard it before. For the first time in his life, he felt intimately connected with nature in a way that felt like coming home--and he burst into tears. Seeking to understand this and many other similar experiences, Jay's doctoral research gathered stories of grief, weeping, and other deep emotions in response to nature from people around the world. The desire to live closer to nature contributed to Jay moving with his family, in 1999, to Helena, Montana, where they could share their home ground with horses, goats, dogs, cats, and chickens.

Not a grief self-help manual by any means, Moving through Grief, Reconnecting with Nature tells the stories of many people who find themselves deeply moved by immersion in nature, often coming to tears that seem to blend a range of meanings and feelings, including "ecological grief" in response to the current destruction of nature by humanity, relief and gratitude when finally feeling connected to nature, a sense of "healing" of personal losses through immersion in nature, and "spiritual tears" when feeling sacred presence in nature. Many people tell Jay the most enjoyable parts of the book involve his own stories of life in Montana.

Jay's educational background includes an undergraduate degree in English (Creative Writing) from Stanford University, a law degree from the University of California at Berkeley (Boalt Hall), a doctoral degree in Transpersonal Psychology from the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, and certification as a facilitator of Holotropic Breathwork through the training program founded by Stanislav and Christina Grof. Jay has served as adjunct faculty for Sofia University, including supervising dissertation research, and has worked on breathwork facilitation teams in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, India and China. Along with Keiron Le Grice and Tim Read, Jay founded the Institute of Transpersonal and Archetypal Studies, which offers courses and certificates in archetypal astrology and transpersonal studies.

Jay's primary research interest focuses on gathering evidence to support the discovery by Stanislav Grof and Richard Tarnas that particular nonordinary state experiences may be predicted and understood through the experiencer's natal astrological charts and current transits. Jay anticipates this evidence will support a paradigm shift in psychology consistent with the understanding emerging in physics for over a century--that consciousness and matter are interrelated.

Jay continues to work as a lawyer and mediator in Helena, Montana, while also traveling to facilitate workshops in various locations. He is the proud father of Max, Audrey, and Tess, and new grandfather of Rosemarie. Jay's website can be found at www.jaydufrechou.com