Hey I'm Dave Room... Father… Storyteller... Shift Shaper... Author of Pacha's Pajamas. WisdomTech advocate.

Was Up Steemians!

I’ve been called a lot of things in my life from Rumi to Yellowman, from Romper to Dahveed. But my most important identifier is Melia’s Papa - I’ll get to that shortly.

For now, I’ll first share the start of my journey.

My parents met at UC Berkeley. Mom is from East Lansing, Michigan via the Bay Area town of Lafayette. Dad came all the way from Sydney, Australia at age 16 to attend Princeton University. During this time, he became an ardent supporter of the Civil Rights movement and even participated in some lunch counter sit-ins. After graduating from Princeton, he entered UC Berkeley to pursue a graduate degree in Sociology and became the Secretary of Slate, a precursor organization to the Free Speech movement. Mom was the Treasurer of Slate. Dad helped her with the numbers.

Within a year, they were married. They were thinking to have a couple children and then adopt some African-American children since so many were ending up in foster care. Several months before I was born, a mutual friend of my adopted parents and my biological parents (all of whom attended UC Berkeley) asked if my parents to be would consider adopting first.

As I understand it, my grandparents on my biological father’s side were pressuring my biological mother to terminate the pregnancy, because my father was married. But he was separated and he loved my mother. My mother had already had an unwanted baby from a previous relationship at a different university, which was being raised by family members.
After some contemplation and conversation, Mom and Dad decided the order did not matter so much and agreed to become my parents. They brought me home a couple days after my birth.

My Early Years

When I was about seven years old, I saw a cheetah head in my bathroom mirror and I realized that Mom and Dad were not my biological parents. But I knew they loved me.

I played sports in high school and got good grades. I was accepted by both schools to which applied. I decided on Stanford over UC Berkeley.

I had no idea what I wanted to do, so I majored in Electrical Engineering because it was supposed to be the hardest, taught you how to think, and almost guaranteed a job after graduation. I realized I didn’t want to be an Electrical Engineer so I continued on at Stanford for a Masters in Engineering-Economic Systems degree, which is essentially using math to solve business problems.

After university, I worked in a boutique management consulting firm, a handful web startups, some with friends, and none of which survived the bursting of the dot-com bubble.

InterWorld was the highest flying of the startups I worked for. I was a top performing sales engineer in the region. Always number two though, behind Bernard, who lied through his teeth, as my grandma Maudie would say. I wasn’t willing to lie to get a deal. In retrospect, I bet this may have been part of the reason the boss lady would not let me try my hand at sales.

Becoming a Father

Around that same time, I got married and a year later, “we” got pregnant. I had an inkling that the baby was a girl. I had mentally conceived her five years earlier in verse as I watched fireworks after a Fourth of July breakup. My wife was convinced the baby was a boy based on her Mom’s pendulum test and the bump shape.

During the pregnancy, I had a nagging feeling that I might not be able to relate to a newborn. I was great with children once they could talk, but had been inept with infants. When handed a baby, within seconds, the baby would inevitably squirm and squeal back to their mother’s arms.

We were blessed with an amazing midwife who had done over 10,000 births (mostly in China). The midwife broke the rules of the birthing center and let me catch the baby as it entered the world. I was overjoyed to see that Melia was Melia rather than Dahveed. I held Melia to my chest for​ a moment before handing her to her mom.

The first two weeks were a whirlwind of which I have no concrete memories.

When Melia was two weeks old, her mother laid her on my chest. Melia inched her head up into the crook of my neck. She felt like the sweetest puppy, nuzzling me. Energy went through my entire body and I knew at that moment that this was the most important relationship of my life. And that when she is a young adult, I need to be able to look her in the eyes and tell her I did everything to make this world a more peaceful, loving, and joyful place!

I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

This launched me on a 15-year quest that lands me here on Steemit, looking to find my tribe.

What Are You?
All my life, people have asked me "What are you?"

For the longest time, I’d say I'm a quarter Egyptian, a quarter German and a half Creole from Nawlins (that Creole for New Orleans). Being Creole was cool because I could talk about being French, West African, and Native American. But I loved being Egyptian. Pyramids, the Nile, the Sphinx. What's not to like? People would say I looked Egyptian. Egyptians have sworn I look exactly like one of their relatives. I remember being at the King Tut exhibit at the De Young and Grandma Maudie yelling "That's David." I've also been told that I look like a generic third world guy.

When I travel, people often think I'm from there (e.g., Ethiopia, Brasil, South Africa, Belize, Costa Rica, Morocco) as long as I keep my mouth shut. Really, I see myself as a citizen of the world. Dad lived in the U.S. for 36 years, and never got citizenship. Dad couldn't stomach the dirt we do.

My answer to the question "What are you?" changed after I connected with my biological parents and even more so after I got my DNA results.

Turns out I am 40% African. I am also 1.4% Native American, and 56% European (including 7% Ashkenazi). No Egyptian.

Becoming a Storyteller
When Melia was two, I helped build a nonprofit from the ground up called the Post Carbon Institute, which was focused on relocalization as a solution to a myriad of global issues including peak oil, resource depletion, pollution, deforestation, and more.

When Melia was five, I helped start a nonprofit called Bay Localize (now Rooted in Resilience) to address global problems by building community resilience in the Bay Area, focusing on local food, energy, and water.

Two years into it, when Melia was seven, I noticed that I was speaking to the same people over and over. Not literally the same people, but figuratively. I wanted to reach more young people, people of color, and mainstream thinkers.

Soon thereafter, I started noticing the word story everywhere I looked. I discovered that story and music were ubiquitous in major social movements across the planet from Apartheid to Labor to Civil Rights. It came to me that we needed to incorporate story, entertainment​, and music into the work.

When Melia was eight, I dove deep into the world of story. I learned that stories have been the most effective technology for passing on traditions, values, and beliefs since the beginning of language. The mind stores information in the form of stories. People learn and remember best through story. Stories create and strengthen neural pathways in our mind, thereby influencing how we feel, think, and behave. Stories bring communities, tribes, and countries together. Corporations were increasingly using story to create lifelong relationships with customers. Do-gooder​ organizations were starting to as well.

Around that time, I started meditating after taking a Kriya class from the Art of Living. I came to see this as the beginning of my “Awakening Journey.”

I see the Awakening Journey as the journey within, to know oneself​, to tap into one's inner guidance system, to feel one's connectedness, and to discover one's gifts and soul purpose. This often occurs through dreams, meditation, mindfulness, healing work, and integration of experiences. As we better understand our self, we bring this awareness to waking life, channeling our creative genius and energies to create the world we want to live in, in service to the greater good, in collaboration with others on the path.

I decided to transition out of the nonprofit world and to focus my efforts on young people. I thought young people were the greatest leverage for societal change. They are the future parents, teachers, and leaders. They can be leaders as young people. And they may be the only way to get to some parents.

Pacha

So I joined together with a fellow storyteller named Aaron Ableman to develop a​ youth engagement platform called Pacha’s Pajamas that manifests as a first-of-its-kind augmented reality book and aspires to be an animated series. Aaron and I co-wrote “Pacha’s Pajamas: A Story Written By Nature” - which is an Awakening Journey - before he moved on to pursue a career in music and television.

Pacha is a little girl awakening to her immense gifts and bringing them to the world. Her imagination is bigger than the Andes Mountains - homeland of her ancestors. When she goes to sleep, the characters on her pajamas become her guides her on dream adventures to learn more about herself and her world.

In this first book - A Story Written By Nature, her pajamas are covered with plants and animals - a whale, tree, jaguar, mushroom, pebble, and hummingbird.

Before Earth Day, Pacha’s magical pajamas carry her into an epic dream in which she joins with the critters on her PJs to organize a nature festival to save the planet from destruction.
Pacha awakens with the inspiration to show the world that We Are ALL Connected.

The Young Reader book is written for 7-12-year-olds but great for parents to read to 4-8-year-olds​.

My best friend Allah El Henson and I are now working on a prequel rhyming picture book for called “A Toddler Tale Told By Nature.” The illustrations of the book are based on 3D models and will come to life seamlessly creating an unparalleled experience for​ the 2-5-year-old​ crowd.

One thing that always makes me smile about the Pacha project is that Melia has been involved from the beginning. She is the voice of Pacha and has appeared in numerous videos as well as given us valuable critique and advice along the way.

Becoming a Shift Shaper
People often read “Shift Shaper” as “Shape Shifter.” The notion of shift shaping came to me in 2008 when I was immersing myself in story. I realized that change was the only constant and that I had the choice to go with the flow or to work on shaping the flow. Around the same time, I was hearing about the collective shift towards sustainable ways of being that was underway. I started thinking of myself as a Shift Shaper since all my work is to create pathways for raising consciousness. That is what Pacha is designed to do. I am also working on a stealth blockchain project that seeks to enhance collective intelligence and wisdom.

Of course, there’s a lot more to my story including illness, divorce, lost and made small fortunes, the corresponding existential epiphanies, meeting my biological parents, my works, my poetry, my practice, a pivotal relationship with a spiritual gypsy which accelerated my awakening, among others. But I’ve written enough for now.

If anyone reads this far ​and wants to hear more stories, I am happy to oblige.

Also, I'd love to be in conversation​ about:

• WisdomTech (tech that makes us wiser)
• Collective intelligence
• Extended realities
• Applied storytelling
• Living the story you want to tell
• The hero’s journey vs. the awakening story vs. collective journey
• blockchain for good
• Self-literacy
• Natural law
• The 2nd American Revolution
• What the heck is happening on Earth.

Many blessings from my family to yours!

Thank you for reading.

#WeThePeople
#GreatAwakening
#333

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