The realms beyond our physical world, and the beings that exist there, have been a source of deep fascination and excitement in me for as long as I can remember.
When I was a child, my younger sister Denise and I could feel that there were "spirit friends" around us, and we found ways to communicate with them. We had "play sessions" with them where we each placed a shirt on a coat hanger and carried it around with us – in retrospect, I think we used them because we needed something physical to focus on. In these sessions, we carried on active conversations and adventures with these unseen friends. It was amazing how clear it was that those friends were with us as we interacted with those shirts. We could feel them and hear their messages, as well as enjoying their humor and fun.
Social pressures led us both to let go of those relationships as we grew up, but I was left with a deep curiosity about the world that my unseen friends lived in. I did some reading about it as a teenager – psychic powers, astral projection, ouija boards – but many of the books I read were peppered with dire warnings not to risk entry into that world alone.
One morning when I was about fourteen I awoke to find a spirit in my room – very beautiful, a radiant masculine being composed entirely of light, simply showing himself to me. I didn't know what to do or say, so I just let him be there for a while, and then he disappeared. I heard nothing consciously, but I believe he was speaking to a deeper part of me. From that day on, I felt an ever-present kinship with the spirit world.
Both my parents had been professional musicians during their younger lives, but when I was a child, my father was an Air Force pilot. We moved around alot, and every new place had its own mysteries to reveal. During the early sixties, when I was in grade school, we lived in Libya, on the Mediterranean coast. My father would practice jazz clarinet when he was at home, playing along with "Music Minus One" albums, band recordings that allowed the musician to fill in the missing melody. He also taught me quite a lot about music theory, and he gave me a deep appreciation of music, particularly that of Count Basie, whose band had the most amazing sound and feeling. "Just listen to that beat!", he would say as he tapped his foot along with the album "Basie One More Time", and a genuine thrill was in his voice. I loved that music, and it became part of me.
When I was 10, living near Washington, DC, a young friend showed me how he could play his new trumpet, and I was supremely confident that I could do it too, already being a music expert in my own mind. I was shocked to find that I couldn't get even the slightest musical sound out of it – I was able to make only the sound of air leaking out the end.
Naturally I told my father that day that I wanted to learn to play the trumpet. He said, "If that's what you want, I'll help you." Help me he did. With his assistance in finding teachers and places to play, I was able to launch a professional music career at age 13. At that time my father decided to offer, in his spare time and without compensation, his considerable talents as a music educator to the local high school (Bowie High School in Maryland) as the founder and director of the Bowie High School jazz orchestra, which he named the "Starliners". Playing with that band under Joe Carley's direction prepared me exceptionally well for what was to come. As it turned out, my father continued to lead the Starliners for the next decade, and many young musicians' lives were profoundly affected by their experiences in that band.
During the next 20 years, I had the good fortune to perform with many wonderful people in the jazz world (Buddy Rich, Clark Terry, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Joe Williams, Frank Sinatra and many more), culminating when I joined Count Basie's band at the age of 26. I stayed with him for the last five years of his life, touring internationally and making many recordings.
I loved playing Basie's music more than anything, but after three years with him, I had the sense that it couldn't go on for much longer. Basie's health was declining, and I also knew that I couldn't stay on the road for many more years – it was a very rough life. I knew too that there was something more for me beyond this way of life, but I wasn't able to imagine what in the music world that might be. I had done everything I had dreamed of – and more – in that world. Anything I imagined in music after that just seemed like going backwards. I couldn't make sense of it.
Lacking a new dream for the future, I began to lose touch with my momentum and drive that had served me so well up to that point. I had been playing First Trumpet with Basie, which is one of the key positions that sets the style for the band, and it requires a great deal of concentration to do it without hurting yourself. That had not been a problem for me before, but in 1983, after an unusually long break due to Basie's illness, I hurt my embrouchure (the muscles in the lips that produce the sound of the trumpet) while playing with Basie and Joe Williams at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. The result was that I could not play in the higher ranges – meaning that for the first time in my career I wasn't able play to play the First Trumpet part.
I told Basie that I needed a leave of absence to recover, but he told me that he felt it would be a mistake to leave. He asked me to stay and play the jazz solo parts that I had recorded over the last three years. He was becoming more ill, and I knew I couldn't refuse him. So I stayed for two more years, playing well enough, but far below my previous ability. It was an emotionally painful time.
In April of 1984, Count Basie passed away. For me as well as many others in the world, this marked the end of an incredibly beautiful musical era.
Though the Basie band continued playing after Basie's death, I soon left the band and stopped playing professionally, moving into the computer software development field (with my father again, who had already become a well-known pioneer in that field) and eventually becoming a specialist in business-to-business electronic commerce.
But it was during those last two years with Basie that my spiritual awareness had started to open up. One part of this was reading Shirley MacLaine's beautiful book, "Out on a Limb," which included descriptions of a phenomenon called "channeling." When I read about that, it was like an electric current was passing through me – connections were being made inside of me, linking my early experiences to some unknown yet irresistable future. From somewhere beyond me, I was beginning to get the message, "Pay close attention to this." Through synchronistic meetings with several key people, I came to know more about channeling, and I began to explore some of the information that was coming through certain channelers.
At that point I was seeking only to heal my personal wounds in a fundamental and lasting way, and I found that the channeled non-physical beings I was drawn to had a consistently beautiful and loving perspective – beyond anything I had experienced before within myself or other humans. This was very healing on a deep level, but as it turned out, that was only the beginning.
Through my close friend from Basie's band, drummer Gregg Field, I met Shawn Randall, a wonderful channeler who is also very adept at helping others to awaken their own channeling abilities. Shortly after we met, she suggested that I had that ability myself. I was reluctant to believe that, and I resisted for quite a long time, but after several reminders from her I decided to work with her on it.
It was like opening a door to another world. As soon as I "put out the invitation" the magic started to happen. It began with a deepening rapport with my personal spirit guides (it appears that we all have at least two, one masculine and one feminine). That evolved into a telepathic communication that was conversational, and from there into full-trance channeling. This form of communication became a passion for me. I loved how I felt after returning from the trance state – it was like being bathed in the most incredible love for a moment that was like an eternity. My life was changing for the better each day as I applied the perspectives that my guides were sharing with me. I was learning "from the inside" what it was like to be them, from their perspective.
For three years I met with a group of channelers every week, deepening our trance ability, learning to let go of our personal issues, so that we could be the clearest possible conduits for the loving beings that were coming through. I treasure that time in my life with those wonderful channels, several of whom have become quite active in their channeling work.
The time finally came when I felt that I was ready for a change in my channeling work. I found that I had the ability to sit down with a person and allow their personal spirit guide to come through me to speak to them. People started coming to me to ask for readings. It was an amazingly intimate and beautiful event when a guide would come through, finally able to talk directly to the person they had been with for so long. I loved doing that for people, and I kept it on a very private and informal basis, only doing it when asked.
In 1994, at a channeled event with the wonderful being named Lazaris (channeled by Jach Pursel), I met Tysa, another musician who had been on the road herself while I had been with Basie. She later honored me by becoming my wife.
One evening in 1998, I sat down to channel for Tysa about a major personal issue she was facing. Before I entered into my trance state, I had been expecting that one of her personal guides would come through for her as they had so many times before. But as I was entering my altered state of consciousness, I could feel that a new guide was coming, and that it was a very expansive and loving being. This was the moment when the being known as Baratta first came through. This was a major shift in my channeling.
Baratta, who was obviously a very dynamic and powerful non-physical being, told Tysa that he was there to offer assistance her. As Tysa told me later that night, there were two qualities that stood out uniquely in his essence: his humor and his love.
Baratta helped Tysa move very elegantly through her personal process. He told her as well that he had come through not only to work with her, but to talk to others who might wish to talk with him.
He first spoke to others at a gathering of channels and other metaphysical people at the Tobias & Alysha Crystal Gallery in Playa Del Rey, CA. Several people were so deeply affected by his energy that they asked me if he could do a workshop there. That began a series of workshops that lasted several years.
Eventually, people across the country began seeking private readings with Baratta, both in person and on the phone. In 2005 Baratta expanded his work further to include hands-on bodywork and energy healing, with people sometimes traveling thousands of miles to experience it.
In 2009 I was invited to do a week-long Baratta event in central Mexico, and during my stay there I was struck by the beauty of the people and the culture. The people who came to the event to work with Baratta were incredibly open-hearted, and they seemed to instantly form a deep bond with Baratta. They asked me to return in 2010 for a 3-week event, and at that time we started to plan for more in the future.
In April of 2011 came another series of major changes in my life. Most significantly, Tysa and I decided to move apart, into single life. This was a profound change for both of us, and through our deep spiritual friendship and love, we helped each other to set a foundation for exciting new futures.
I decided to begin a new adventure in my life, moving temporarily to central Mexico. Now, three years later, I am living in the city of Querétaro, and I plan to stay here for the time being. I feel very fortunate to be here among these beautiful people - los Mexicanos.
During my first year in Mexico I worked 3 times a week with a private Spanish language instructor, hoping that one day I would be able to do my work for the Mexican people in their native language, so that Baratta's work could touch them in the deepest parts of their consciousness. In late 2013 I realized that dream, beginning to teach channeling classes in Spanish, and soon thereafter I was able to do all of my work here in Mexico in the Spanish language. This makes me very happy.
I'm also delighted to say that I've started playing jazz trumpet again (upon returning to the trumpet, I found that the old wounds had been completely healed). Recently I've had the pleasure of performing in concerts and festivals with some wonderful jazz musicians here in Mexico, and I am scheduled to record albums with two excellent jazz groups during the next few months.
I currently do my channeling work anywhere from 10 to 30 hours a week, depending on the events scheduled, and much of the rest of my time is occupied with other projects related to Baratta's work.
Each time I go into trance for someone, something unique and new happens, and afterwards I come back from the trance state feeling like my life has been changed forever. This has been an exciting and challenging journey, and I'm very much looking forward to whatever comes next!
– Dale Carley, September, 2014