Since 2006, Mel Van Dusen has produced Present! through KMVT community television in Mountain View, California. The program explores creativity, spirituality and personal growth. Mel is particularly interested in the near-death experience (NDE) for it's potential to inspire viewers to live fuller lives. After traveling to Russia recently, Mel added "International Focus" to his list of interests.You will find thirty six videos dealing with his experiences in Russia traveling with American delegates from the Center for Citizen Initiatives. He is now traveling in Northern India and will return with video in December, 2015, In 2016, Mel will explore and video in the Amazon headwaters.
The only people I've met who know what is ultimately important in life for a certainty are those who have glimpsed death and come back to tell about it. With this in mind, I have sought out those who have had NDEs or mystical experiences and have successfully integrated what they have experienced into their lives. These people have become my teachers.
Visitors to my house will note the zen dry garden with it's precariously balanced rock sculptures. Inside, guests are transported into a mythical world with curious things I've gathered from travel. My place has been inspired by the experiences of the people I have interviewed and by the museum exhibitions I have included in this website. Mainstream media will entice you with little snippets of what has taken museum curators a long time to put together. It's such a waste not to have an enduring memory of their work. My intention is to film as much of these wonderful exhibitions as I can, thus creating a kind of cultural archive of the best that I have experienced.
If you can listen to what my guests are saying with an open mind and heart, I feel your life will be enriched as my life has been. As one of my guests put it, "When you lose your fear of death, you lose your fear of living, and life becomes a perpetual unfolding of now."