By John Stevens
I first met Michio and Aveline in 1988 when I was invited to live in their home in Brookline. I was recommended to them by Aveline’s niece, Mariko, who I had met at Becket while I was in the work-study program there. I got to Becket by answering an ad in the East West Journal about the work-study program over the winter of 1987-88 while pruning trees at an organic apple orchard in Washington. When I arrived at Becket in May of 1988 the person who had invited me to come for the work-study program was no longer there, but Gale Jack graciously allowed me to join the program anyway. Alex was managing Becket at that time.
I lived with the Kushis for a year in the Brookline house, getting to know them and Norio, Phiya, and Hisao. I scribed for Michio during many consultations and drove him for coffee and trips to and from Becket. I also had scribed for Ed Esko, Marc van Cauwenbergh, and other teachers. I completed the first two levels at the Kushi Institute while there and managed the store at the Summer Conference.
After living in Brookline for a year, I went back to Becket, where I met my wife, Christine (“Tineke”), who had come to Becket after studying macrobiotics with the Nelissens in Amsterdam. We met in November 1989 and were married at Becket in March 1990. We have been married for 36 years and have two daughters and one granddaughter.
I had first gravitated toward a macrobiotic lifestyle in about 1970 when I got involved in the Twin Cities food co-ops in 1970. My younger brother had done the 10-day brown rice fast around that time. I was investigating different dietary approaches.
I had resigned from a position as a bank officer in Minneapolis in 1972 and went on the road in 1976 with a backpack and a guitar, living here and there over the next twelve years, including a seven and a half month stay in 1984 at the Vega Institute in Oroville California. There, I worked for Herman and Cornelia Aihara, scribing for Herman, meeting various macrobiotic teachers and students, and reading as much of Ohsawa’s writings as possible. I had heard about Herman from a friend in Ashland, Oregon after reading Michio’s The Book of Macrobiotics. I had been working in the Financial Aid office at Southern Oregon College (now Southern Oregon State University).
I just showed up on Herman’s porch in the spring of 1984. He invited me to join the work-study program there. After a couple of months, he put me on the staff.
I left Vega in December 1984. A friend and I from Vega decided to make a trip to Mexico and Guatemala in my 1967 Volkswagen camper van over the 1984-1985 winter after meeting Jerome Canty and hearing about his experiences in Mexico.
Eventually I found my way to Becket and spent two years between Becket and Brookline with the Kushis. When I told Aveline that I was from Minnesota she said that the first wave of students to come to her and Michio were Hippies from the Haight/Ashbury district in San Francisco and the next wave was from Minnesota.
John Stevens is a longtime macrobiotic practitioner living in St. Paul, Minnesota.