This 4th of July my family underwent a tremendous transition when my Dad passed away. While I’ve been open about his death and the loss I feel, I haven’t shared as much as I’d like to about him as a human. While anyone who reads the blog or follows me on social media knows that I consider him an amazing man, friend, mentor, and father, I want people to know why he was all of those things. That’s what I’m doing today. So, my friends, let me introduce you to my father, Melvin Harris.
Melvin C. Harris was the middle of three children born to Lula Mae and Willie Harris. He and his family lived in the projects of Harlem, a neighborhood in upper Manhattan. to say his beginnings were humble would be a bit of an understatement, but through the love of his parents and his brother and sister, Melvin managed to avoid the pitfalls that so often come in underserved areas.
Growing up in a home full of love and warmth, Melvin learned the value of family - the closest friends and support system anyone could ever have. He was incredibly close with all of them, routinely calling his parents just to talk and seemingly conversing with his brother and sister through good and bad times. You could tell he was on the phone with one of his siblings by the laughter that seemed to fill our home when he was on the phone. He passed the importance of family on to me, something I’ll be forever grateful for.
While my father excelled in academia virtually from the time he was enrolled in school, even his academic excellence wasn’t a sure bet to finding a better life outside of the projects of Harlem. However, at 17, he found a way to move from the projects to a better life. He found it in the U.S. Navy. Enrolling a full year early, Melvin found himself on a Navy destroyer during the Viet Nam war. Ultimately he made it back home, one of the lucky survivors of the war.
Over the years, my father never stopped exploring the world, the arts, and the spiritual, a state of constant inquisitiveness that he passed on to me. He was a musician and artist, studying saxophone at a music conservatory in Los Angeles and finding the joy of creating visual art through fractals, a form of computer graphic art. His fractal art was featured in various art galleries in New York City and Vermont, and his works were featured in publications like “Art and Beyond” and “Art New England”. His works were always skewed to the inspirational and spiritual side, driven by his studies of mystic Christianity, Rosicrucianism, and the Qabalah.
My father was always spiritually minded. He was raised in St. Philip’s Episcopal Church. He was even a choir boy. Although he embraced the spirituality of the church, he found that it didn’t satisfy his search for more esoteric knowledge. In middle school, he joined the Rosicrucian Fellowship with his mother’s written consent. Later, after moving to California in the early 1970s, he met the leader of a Kabalistic order, Builders of the Adytum.
While there, he met and married my mother, Vickie, and from there, they went on to travel the path of the spiritual together. Over the years, my father continued his spiritual journey with my mother as his partner, joining various groups such as Artisans of Light, Fraternity of the Hidden Light, the Freemasons, and Beverly Hall. Both he and my mother were never satisfied that they had learned all they could about the world beyond, another form of constant inquisitiveness that they passed on to me.
Eventually, Melvin founded his own spiritual teaching, Rose Light. It was the culmination of his research, teaching, and guidance for others seeking the same spiritual knowledge that he had found throughout his life. That work is embodied in his book, Gnosis and the Tarot, A Key to the Gnostic Path of Tarot. It only took one meeting for anyone to understand his true commitment to the spirituality of humans, connecting to them, and being a light in the world.
Finally, and most important to me, my father, Melvin, believed that family was of the utmost importance. It was the driving motivation behind everything he did. I believe this is largely owed to my grandparents, their love for him and his siblings, and their support of his continuing journey down the spiritual and artistic path.
My father was my rock, my best friend, and my spiritual mentor. He was there to celebrate with me in the good times and support and lift me up in the bad times - just as he was with all of his family. His grandchildren were his absolute greatest joy. I, my son, Eukiah, and my mother and father were all blessed to live together. He and my son were incredibly close. He called Eukiah his “heart” and “best buddy” in the whole world, and my son was as equally and deeply connected to his grandfather.
If you’ve read all the way to what is now the end of this post, I thoroughly thank you. Although this post is on the long side, it only imparts a fraction of my father’s accomplishments and his commitment to family, art, and spirituality.
Over the years, I have constantly referred to my father as my best friend, mentor, and inspiration. Of course, a lot of that came from the way he raised me with grace and love, but a lot of it also came from just learning about his life. Melvin C. Harris was a great man, and we lost him too soon.
Although his passing brings pain and loss, it also brings something else that I should have expected from knowing him and being raised with his love and teachings - hope. I am a firm believer in the spiritual and the life that comes after this one, and I know without a doubt that my father is not resting in peace. Rather, he is continuing to explore the unseed in the service of th Universal Brotherhood of Life.
Rest in continual exploration and love, dad.