March 14th, Pi Day, is an opportunity to celebrate all that is beautiful, elusive, and enigmatic. Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle. It’s an irrational number, meaning the decimal has no end and no repeating pattern.
Conversely, the Fibonacci sequence is an elegant series of numbers where each is the sum of the two preceding ones, typically starting with 0 and 1 (0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, ...), resulting in the Golden Ratio, often represented by the Greek letter Phi (Φ). In the Natural World the Golden Ratio appears in natural phenomena, such as the arrangement of petals on flowers, the spiral of seashells, and the branching of trees.
Pi is related to the Fibonacci sequence through Euler's formula: The product of phi and pi (1.618033988... x 3.141592654...), approximately 5.083203692, can be found in golden geometries, which appear in relation to things like the Egyptian pyramids.
Anyway, it has taken me a week to formulate the words to express the tragic loss of a dear friend. But I have found my feelings best described in these beautiful, elusive, enigmatic, and elegant equations.
In the early hours of March 7, 2025, to the shock of the Hollywood community, my friend Big Steve unexpectedly crossed over. Steve touched so many lives. He was a true Christian, never in it for himself, only wanting to help others.
Steve was also a Zen Master, always fully present, a calming presence, a gentle giant. And he was a Mensch, thoughtful, honorable, respectful, grateful, always improving himself, with integrity, always fighting for fairness, always keeping his word.
Readers of my spy novels will recognize Big Steve, whom I modestly immortalized therein. Fans of my Louise Moscow spy thrillers often praise BIG STEVE.
About 10 years ago, although a very private person, Big Steve was kind enough to let me interview him, because I recognized his larger-than-life persona. I had paid him a fee and an advance on my modest royalties. Now, I’m grateful I took that time, and careful notes of his incredible life journey. Steve was a pure soul who followed his instincts to change his stars for the better.
I last saw Steve about two weeks ago, when he drove me to LAX to catch my flight to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. We had such a lively, loving, and joyful conversation, as always punctuated by a big hug and mutual I-love-yous.
When I told my dear friend, Sheila Lowe, a wonderful author who lives on the spiritual plane, about losing Steve, she said, “Give him a chance to recover over there, before asking him to give you a sign.” She added, “We set up several exit points that we can choose to take.”
She must have been reading my mind because I’d been struggling to feel his presence. Having lost him so suddenly, I and many others were distraught. But, that same day, I’m pretty sure Big Steve had already sent me a subtle sign.
While driving home up Beverly Glen, a giant dried maple leaf floated down from the sky and kissed my windscreen on the driver’s side. Then I noticed a swirl of maple leaves on the ground to the right. It was all kind of slow motion. I don’t think I’d ever noticed maple leaves in LA before, having grown up in the Midwest seeing them everywhere, suddenly, there they were.
When I told Sheila this, she said, “Sometimes it takes a long time for them to give signs. Your friend must be a very strong spirit to come through so soon. Very cool!”
Indeed.
Celebrating Steve on Pi Day feels like coming full circle.
Steve was camera shy, so I’m grateful to have these photos from a couple years ago.
Floofles sends her love.
Beautiful story!
Lorraine Evanoff: Idus Martii MMXXV A.D.
Big Steve, a Zen master, was, and is at peace.
Your imagery of crossing over has truth in teachings of the immortal Shankara (who crossed over at a mere age 33), and Plotinus, and Schopenhauer poeticized the image of The All temporarily using our mortal bodies (of water and earth) and shedding the body, with no change whatsoever in The All. As we live, we are bodies occupied by The All. Death releases The All that was in us to The All.
The poet Hölderlin wrote in "Hyperion":
Ich habe nichts, wovon ich sagen möchte, es sei mein eigen.
* * *
O selige Natur! Ich weiß nicht, wie mir geschiehet, wenn ich mein Auge erhebe vor deiner Schöne, aber alle Lust des Himmels ist in den Tränen, die ich weine vor dir, der Geliebte vor der Geliebten.
Mein ganzes Wesen verstummt und lauscht, wenn die zarte Welle der Luft mir um die Brust spielt. Verloren ins weite Blau, blick ich oft hinauf an den Aether und hinein ins heilige Meer, und mir ist, als öffnet' ein verwandter Geist mir die Arme, als löste der Schmerz der Einsamkeit sich auf ins Leben der Gottheit.
Eines zu sein mit Allem, das ist Leben der Gottheit, das ist der Himmel des Menschen.
Eines zu sein mit Allem, was lebt, in seliger Selbstvergessenheit wiederzukehren ins All der Natur, das ist der Gipfel der Gedanken und Freuden, das ist die heilige Bergeshöhe, der Ort der ewigen Ruhe, wo der Mittag seine Schwüle und der Donner seine Stimme verliert und das kochende Meer der Woge des Kornfelds gleicht.
Eines zu sein mit Allem, was lebt! Mit diesem Worte legt die Tugend den zürnenden Harnisch, der Geist des Menschen den Zepter weg, und alle Gedanken schwinden vor dem Bilde der ewigeinigen Welt, wie die Regeln des ringenden Künstlers vor seiner Urania, und das eherne Schicksal entsagt der Herrschaft, und aus dem Bunde der Wesen schwindet der Tod, und Unzertrennlichkeit und ewige Jugend beseliget, verschönert die Welt.
Or, in Armando's spontaneous translation:
I have nothing that I may call my own.
* * *
Oh, blessed Nature, I don't know how it comes to me when I lift my eyes to your Beauty, but all pleasures of Heaven are in my own tears that I weep, I the lover before you the Beloved.
My whole being becomes still and listens as the soft wave of air strokes my breast. I am lost in the vast Blue, often I look up to the Aether, and into the holy seas. Oh, it is so like a kin-Spirit opens her arms to embrace me, oh, it is as if lonesomeness lost itself in Life in the Divine.
Oh, to be One with the All, Life in the Divinity, that is the heaven of Humanity.
Oh, to be One with All that Lives! With these words, One leaves behind armor and scepter, only for all Thought to merge into the great Picture of the Eternal World, even as the fervent painter's mere practices pale before his (ineffable) Urania, and the former bond of Fate fails to maintain Mastery, and, in the Union of Essential-Being, Death disappears and gives the blessing of Inseparability and Eternal Youth and Transfigures the World in Beauty.
________________________________________________________________________
My translation from Hyperion is spontaneous and cannot yield the beauty of the very simple, Romantic, Beethoven-era German language of the ineffable poet, Hölderlin.
But Hölderlin, Shankara, Plotinus shape my deepest feelings of "crossing over", and it would certainly appear to me that the Zen, "Big Steve," has a vision of The All and our Merger into The All that is like this.
Chuang-tzu, that wonderful Tao Master (which is the meaning of the latinized appendix (-tzu)), whose writings are full of humor and make of spirituality fun, semi-comic, always deeply serious study -- Chuang-tzu believed that no one who is "dead" wants to come back.
That implies an awful lot.
To me the closest vision is that penned two hundred years ago by Hölderlin.
Two hundred years ago, as a student (I think in Stuttgart), Friedrich Hölderlin inspired Schelling and Hegel with a Stoic truth that bound the three in friendship -- Hölderlin wrote it in their "Stammbuch": Ἓν καὶ Πᾶν -- (hen kai pan) -- One in All.
From your narrative, I feel our loss, I cannot imagine YOUR LOSS, since Big Steve was a dear friend. You make me feel our loss.
But YOUR loss, with your happy photos, the happy, spiritual times you shared together.
YOU have a heartfelt loss that is deeper than anything we, at a distance, can feel.
That is a loss that stings. The loss of a loved one.
But you make me feel that Big Steve is IN -- Ἓν καὶ Πᾶν -- not only now, but during the time of his life before crossing over.
Zen.
Ἓν καὶ Πᾶν