Tag Archives: Buddha

The Immortal Wayne Dyer & His Airlift Legacy

WayneDyerHandsClaspedTrue, but hard to believe, this summer marks eight years (8-29-2015) since Dr. Wayne Dyer drew his last breath and proceeded to drop his body an ocean away in Hawaii.

I first met Wayne through a series of audio cassettes I’d ordered from Nightingale-Conant in Chicago.  The series was called “The Awakened Life”. The year was 1987.  And my life was never the same.

Wayne introduced me to eastern, metaphysical, transcendent thought, he opened my eyes – and spirit – as he challenged me to take chances with my life that I would have never dared in the past. I learned to jump off cliffs … and build wings on the way down.

Emerson & Thoreau came alive for me,  sacred scripture never rang so true, mystical sages of history spoke clearly in my ears,  as night-after-night I listened to Wayne unraveling and demystifying thought concepts that for so long were so foreign to me.

That’s all changed. Thanks, Wayne.

Through what is now decades of his lectures, writings & teachings, he introduced me to Alan Watts, Deepak Chopra, Ram Dass, Carl Jung, and many others. Together, we’ve traveled the shores of Galilee with Jesus of Nazareth, meditated under the bodhi tree with the Buddha, and ridden camel-back with Muhammad across the sands of Mecca.

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My autographed copy of Wayne’s “The Secrets To Manifesting Your Destiny” program

We first met personally in March of 1997 at a Life Expo here in New Orleans. I confessed to him that he had very directly inspired me to ‘roll the dice’ and move my Airlift Productions business from my closet to a bonafide store-front with shingle out front on Iberville Street back in ’89.

He laughed and would take no credit whatsoever, saying that he never wanted to be anyone’s ‘guru’.  Further joking that if he ever took credit for anyone’s success that he’d also have to share the blame for their failures! 🙂

It was roughly a year later, while I was leading a  production team working for a NYC-based ad agency recording radio commercials in Toronto, Canada that we met again.

This time the visit was much more personal.

Through our days-long, sleep-deprived job in Toronto, I had quoted Wayne’s most incredible body of work extensively to the team I’d traveled with to Canada. At the end of the convention, we then rushed off to the airport to catch our flight back to New Orleans.

Dr.-Wayne-Dyer-RIP-at75_8-30-15Dog-tired, with my head down, waiting for our plane, a pair of sandaled feet walked past my field of vision. I looked up – and it was Wayne Dyer!

Together with his assistant Maya, he was en route  from addressing a seminar in Amsterdam, headed back to his family in south Florida. As I shook my head in surprise and astonishment, he joked, “Well, Micheal, it would seem that you manifested ME!”

We proceeded to talk and laugh together for a half-hour!

And we talked about EVERYTHING:  Life, loves, disappointments, divorce, enlightenment, authorship, radio, recording, music, the Book of Tao, the Gita, days of future passed … he even was very complimentary about my voice.  Wow.

WayneDyerSeriousLookThen, called to our respective planes, we parted.  I will always treasure this remarkable day, and my not-so-coincidental conversation and time spent with this most remarkable spirit.

Dr. Dyer, quite frankly,  I am at a loss for words to describe the impact you’ve made on my life.  And, through my life and my Airlift Productions – and the lessons you’ve taught me – the impact I have then made on countless hundreds of other lives.

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It has been said that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.  From the bottom of my heart and the height of my spirit, brother Wayne, thanks for appearing in my life… and sharing your candle with me.

 

Airlift Productions ~ Audio Alchemy from NOLA since 1984 (with a special assist-on-the-play from Dr. Wayne Dyer)

 

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(L-R) Don Banks , Dawn Vachon, Bo “Boots” Walker, Airlift Mike on a lunch break in NOLA, pre-Covid-19, no “social distancing”

The Airlift Productions Studio itself is a mirror of Micheal; warm and inviting. I immediately feel at home when I’m there…never rushed, always cordial (great coffee) and I feel like MY project is the most important thing on his mind…total focus. It’s rare to find this kind of personal service. I never have any doubt that whatever I’m working on at Airlift will come out sounding great…always! If you want professional results; use a professional…Micheal Ziants at Airlift Productions IS that professional.” — BO WALKER, Former Production Director at New Orleans’ iHeart Media Stations (and in 2023, a Utah-based recovering radio rebel.)

Timeless Cherokee Thought for 21st Century Man

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Airlift Productions NOLA Proprietor Micheal Ziants at age 25 in the woods of Pennsylvania, in a reflective picture taken by an old friend back in the day … with a vision from and for the Cherokee

 

Since the dawn of recorded time the world’s philosophers have disagreed on many things, but on this one point they are all in unison.
 
As a man Thinks … so he Is! 
 
What can any of us act on … but what we choose to think about? Thought creates reality. Thought, while invisible to man’s five senses … is the most powerful force in the universe.
 
As Emerson so eloquently phrased it, “The ancestor to every action … is a thought.”
 
Every building, every highway, every hit song, every book, everyTHING – including you & me – has at it’s root an invisible, imperceptible to the senses … THOUGHT!
 
According to the universal law of cause & effect, our thought is ‘father’ not only to our every deed, but to every condition we attract!
 
In the days before what we call ‘America’ was born, in fact in the days when all Europe was but a wilderness, the natives on these shores knew that.
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Thousands of years before the time of Abraham, before King David, before those we call the Christ, the Buddha, and Muhammad walked among us … the Cherokee taught their young this same weighty philosophical issue late at night before sleep around the campfires.
The Story of the Two Wolves.
Every moment of every day, select and choose your thoughts wisely … for from your thought springs your action, deed and virtue.  Which wolf wins? The one you feed!
Now, if you, the reader of these words – this ‘thought’ – are nodding your head in agreement as you read along, vow today to take action. Take control of your own mind. Do not allow yourself the ‘luxury’ of a negative, harmful thought.
After all, if you are not in charge of every morsel of food that passes your lips … and every thought that passes through your mind, I’d like to respectfully ask you – who is?
Feed the Right Wolf!
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With bountiful blessings, heartfelt prayers, and a fervent wish to IncreaseThePeace … from New Orleans, the new Jer-USA-lem, and Airlift Productions.  ~ Micheal

Airlift Productions ** A Catalyst for Positive Change from New Orleans since 1984