About Us

Snail Mail Casey Kochmer PO Box 10069 Hilo, Hi 96721

Email: PersonalTao@gmail.com Phone: (360) 870-2897

Casey Kochmer

I am a Taoist, rooting my lineage from the natural school of Taoist discovery. I have been a Taoist my entire life. As a child I spent most of my time wandering rivers and forests just exploring nature. I spent countless moments wandering up and down rivers and learning what it was to flow with life and nature. In this, I consider nature itself to be my first true teacher in life.

Later in life I decided to understand human culture. Being a Taoist is wonderful, but we are each interconnected in a larger society. Humanity has created its own subset of rules and beliefs to explore. So I went out and explored humanity for 15 years. In society, I was trained as a physicist and mathematician. Later I somehow also earned a mechanical engineering degree. How all this happened I am not sure since I started off as a marine biologist. One can get side tracked when exploring life. I do remember being told by a job recruiter at AT&T, all I could do with a physics education (with a A- grade average) was to wash test tubes for AT&T, so I figure maybe the engineering degree could be useful for also washing dishes besides cleaning out a few test tubes. I was wrong, it didn’t help me wash dishes… but that’s life, live and learn.

After finishing several official degrees so I could pretend to fit in society, I went off in my disguise to discover what it meant to be in main stream culture. I ended up working at first as a engineer building things out of Teflon. Then for a few years I built paper airplanes and real airplanes . Every 3 years I would just switch around to something new to experience. At some point I began computer programming and chasing logic patterns. I spent time exploring the Internet and building Drug and Alcohol treatment systems for purposes of helping people recover and get aid. Later on I even spent a year or so writing a few very boring XML and programming books. However, I did manage to slip some poetry into those programming books. So officially, I am also a published poet. Heh!

Over ten years ago I decided western culture really wasn’t that exciting. Main-stream culture was indeed crazy from my perspective but it wasn’t a fun crazy. People seemed to have a bad habit about stressing out and concentrating on not enjoying their life. While instead, as a Taoist, I would just bebop about and always enjoy myself.

I decided to go back to writing and see what I could do to lighten things up a bit. I integrated my Taoist background with experiences revealed in mainstream culture and matured into becoming a Taoist teaching practices of acceptance.

A Personal Tao grew out of this. Here I am today, slowly building a Taoist Temple, helping others find a modest graceful lifestyle, teaching inner Taoist practices, opening the path of dreams into living and over time polishing the book: A Personal Tao.

Of course this history isn’t complete, I could write an entirely different bio about my personal goals to improve the public mental health care system, being an author, how I married my love Julie after knowing her for 3 days, stories about wandering the streets helping people, a consulting business, a lifelong practice of patterning studies or the healing practice I have been refining. The fact is we are each a rainbow of experience and stories. In that we each have much to teach and show in our stories to the world.

The lesson being: never define a Taoist Master by degrees or the past. Instead look to the actions of the heart and in the now. A Taoist Master is never who you expect, but rather the person living fully and uniquely as themselves while teaching acceptance along the way.

Whats next? We will see tomorrow, It’s always a day at a time.

Julie Alessio

Would you like to dance?

Dance not with swirling feet
but in dazzling words
Would you like to dance
Under the stars
Not hidden by clouds
but shining in our dreams…

Julie Alessio finds joy in movement meditation and exploring the nature of plants. Over the past seven years she has studied western herbalism, ecstatic dance and movement meditation.

Currently, she guides others in ecstatic dance classes and integrating plants into a person’s life to balance out soul and spirit. Julie teaches that each body holds a dancer, no matter what size, shape, age, limitations and experience. Ecstatic Dance is an ancient practice where the movement is the teacher.

To discover the Tao is to embrace the motion of our life. Experience connections, freedom and wild wisdom on the dancing path!

Since 2002, Julie has been offering sacred movement, conscious and creative dance for ages walking to eighty in Arizona, New Mexico, Washington, and Minnesota. Her classes have included ecstatic dance with live drumming, ecstatic dance integrating plant medicine, free-form and facilitated conscious dance classes and workshops. She has taught at colleges, yoga & dance studios and private homes. Julie weaves gentleness and intensity in her classes, encouraging each person to look within to find a deeper connection to their soul’s dance. She draws inspiration from nature, the wisdom of her own body and the rich roots of her Spanish and Italian heritage.

Julie has traveled to Puerto Rico, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Spain, Italy, Greece, China, Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Mexico. In 2002, she attended the Southwest School of Botanical Medicine (500 hours) receiving a certificate in western herbalism. Her travels and love of botanical medicine, combined with her Master’s in Environmental Studies allow her to integrate a deep appreciation for the diversity, strength and fragility of the Earth into all of her work. Julie provides individual herbal consultations as well as private movement sessions. Her big love is integrating plant spirit medicine with movement meditation.

Julie’s dance is inspired by many teachers including Vinn Marti (Soul Motion), Gabrielle Roth (5Rhythms), and Anne Green Gilbert (BrainDance). Julie has spent over 450 hours studying with these teachers including several ten-day intensives such as Vinn Marti’s Soul Motion Mastery and Gabrielle Roth’s Medicine Dance as well as Mirrors, an in-depth look at the ego. She also incorporates her teachings in other healing modalities such as Vipassana meditation and Reiki. Julie is now pleased to be offering conscious dance on the Big Island of Hawai’i in Kapa’au, Waimea, Honoka’a, and Hilo.

Brisamina Alessio

Brisamina works hard at play. She takes it seriously to always remind us to play. In this she is a true Taoist Master, enjoying the moments of life in innocence and exploration.

Brisamina:
(Translated her name means:
Breeze of the Earth)

All three of us strongly believe that everyone has unique skills to share. We work together to help teach others while learning ourselves in our own path of creating a community based upon Taoist ideals of kindness, compassion and graceful living.

Peace within your own journeys.

Sincerely
Casey, Julie and Mina