Dear friends, family, loved ones,

On Sunday, August 9, my beloved – our beloved - Tav left us to head into the great mystery.  As many of you know - because, like so much else in his life, he was open about what he was experiencing - Tav had been dealing with memory loss and cognitive decline for the past eight or so years.

At first, we attributed this to tiny strokes that showed up on his first MRI, and were optimistic about his healing. In early 2020, after new scans, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. In between, over the past several years, Tav and I devoted ourselves to a wide range of healing methods - medical, alternative, and spiritual. He was willing to work hard at anything that had a chance, even a remote one, of helping him. Sadly, they made little or no difference. As time went on, his loss progressed at an increasing rate. 

He could no longer do the work he loved: teaching and being with others on their journeys of spirituality and personal healing. We knew he was facing the possibility of a long, slow decline full of pain and indignity that would have been terribly hard on Tav and those closest to him. Instead, he started on a path that led to a dignified, honorable, incredibly courageous death at the time of his choosing. It seems way too soon, and yet in terms of the window of opportunity, it would have been too late had he waited much longer. 

I know this loss will hit many of you hard. Tav was a huge light in this world for so many people. All of his life, he was a seeker of truth and the deeper mysteries of life and beyond.  And his devotion to this quest spoke to others. Beginning from his earliest years in Macon, Georgia; through his “hippie days” (as he called them); then coming out of addiction as he embraced the Twelve-Step program and community; and all throughout his years as a devoted and gifted teacher, writer, and breathwork practitioner, Tav always emerged as a guide to others on their own inner journeys. 

He didn’t do this on purpose, it just happened. People saw who he was, they saw what his being was all about, and this spoke to many of them. Rather than cultivate this attention, he did the opposite. He regularly went inward in deep and ongoing practice – with breathwork, meditation and other work on himself. He constantly read the most profound spiritual texts from all traditions. And he lived what he learned, what both of those paths had to teach. He was, first and foremost, about being in service.

Tav walked his talk. When something wasn’t working in his life, when there was conflict, at some point he would always, always go within, look at himself, and then apologize, even when he had nothing to apologize for. He relied on the support of the Great Mother, who he referred to as Big Mama. He connected with many deep spiritual traditions and teachers, especially in Ireland and Australia. He hugged trees; gently patted moss, rocks, and whatever horse I had in my life; was constantly awed by clouds and fog; loved swans and hawks, ravens and vultures. He adored Layla, our calico kitty, who doesn’t like to be petted but would lay across Tav’s legs every night as we watched TV.

Tav’s love of his close family was deep and he often wished he could get back East more often to see his son Ason, daughter-in-law April, their sons Dallin, Kellen and Lochlan, and Ason’s mother Joyce. He was incredibly proud of the men Ason and our son Bryn have become and shared with them the family passion for Georgia football, and the eternal quest for a national championship.

When we did get back to Georgia, it delighted him to visit his sisters Tricia and Jackie and brother-in-law John. Tav’s brother Bill was also often part of the crew until his own passing in 2016. We’d laugh, listen to music, have ridiculously good meals, and of course watch football, often joined by John’s brothers and many old friends, all with wild, funny stories about their escapades. Tav counted the time he spent with the Allman Brothers in Macon during his early twenties as among the most meaningful of his life. 

Tav was one of the first long-haired hippies in Macon, an enthusiastic early proponent of LSD, which led to his first major spiritual awakening, and belonged to more than one commune.  He had more adventures than I could count, and I always wished he would write them all down for a book, which he started in recent years but didn’t finish.

Tav was incredibly generous of himself, his time, anything he had to give. He’d want the best of whatever was available to go to others. He would stay with a breather for countless hours. He loved to prepare food for people; to share the movies and music he loved; to see the best in each person he encountered; and to keep telling and showing them what he saw until they saw it too. 

He was a brilliant teacher with an incredible mind. He wove magic into his work with self-deprecating humor, extravagantly elegant mannerisms, quirky southern expressions, and a knowledge of spiritual systems and understanding of holotropic principles that went both deep and wide.  He would always worry about messing up, but somehow when he started to speak, it flowed through him in a way that was both inspired and inspiring.

Tav wrote and had published three deep and wide-ranging books on spirituality and healing relating to addiction recovery, movie-watching and the holotropic paradigm, plus a book of poetry and a training manual, and five professionally recorded CDs that give listeners a feel for his teaching. Even before he lost his memory, whenever he’d pick up one of his books and look at it, he’d be surprised and say, “I wrote that?” as if it was too good to have come from him.  You might not know that he also wrote seven screenplays, with the same talent and flair that he brought to everything else he did. 

I believe Tav’s greatest lasting contributions – in addition to our memories of him, his books, and recordings of his teaching - are the Awareness Positioning System (APS) and his fierce devotion to what he termed “Radical Personal Empowerment.”  This last takes the concept of the inner healing impulse and extends it as far as it’s possible to go.  In healing work, there is nothing more essential to a person’s well-being than that which comes from within – and anything that doesn’t support, or leads away from, that emergence is doing the person a disservice and taking power from where it belongs, which is with the individual.  

Toward the end, when his brain wasn’t working too well any longer, Tav became almost pure love.  The crackling fire he’d always been had become a glowing ember, but that ember was unadulterated, bright and strong.  The idea of radical personal empowerment became two simple words, and he wanted everyone he had contact with during those last days to hear them and believe them: “Trust yourself.”

Writing this is one of the most painful yet profound things I’ve ever done. I wish he could read it and take it in, but of course he’d never believe it.  I wish he could be here to edit it, as we’ve always done with each other’s writing, both professional and personal. I’m sure he’d find every last misplaced comma or not-quite-right word. And I’d sigh, and be a little annoyed, and know he was right, and change it. 

Someday, I might tell the entire story of our time together, the journey we were on with each other, with breathwork, with incredible friendships and nature and music, with the gifts of the world in so many physical and spiritual manifestations. One of the last things we said to each other was, “We had a good run.” I think we all had a good run with Tav. It just wasn’t long enough.

Even though the Tav who left us on Sunday wasn’t the Tav I’d met 34 years ago, he was somehow more of himself than ever, and I will miss him every day. Right now, I don’t know if I will ever stop crying. I know many of you will cry too. I visualize our collective sadness as Tav’s way of bringing people and communities together once more, to be real and to feel deeply, in spirit as he did in life. 

To honor Tav’s memory, I think he would love for you to watch movies, listen to music, visit with trees, TRUST YOURSELF, and find the object of God/Goddess’s love everywhere.

To say something for or about Tav, what he meant to you, or (best of all) tell a story, we’ve established this memorial page. 

Celebration of Life gatherings for Tav will be held as soon as it is safe to do so, probably in California, in Macon, and perhaps in Europe so his many friends there can gather too.   

In lieu of flowers, if you feel like making a donation in Tav’s memory, we are suggesting either Final Exit Network or MusiCares (general donation/in memory of).

With love and deep gratitude always,
Cary Sparks

By Neil Young, one of Tav’s absolute favorite musicians, from the songs Look Out for My Love (1978) and Harvest Moon (1992):

I'm home again to you babe
You know it makes me wonder
Sittin' in the quiet slipstream
In the thunder.

Come a little bit closer
Hear what I have to say
Just like children sleepin'
We could dream this night away

But there's a full moon risin'
Let's go dancin' in the light
We know where the music's playin'
Let's go out and feel the night