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W.J. O'Connell (known as Janame) was born in 1948 in Dunedin, New Zealand.
Education: Janame claims he didn't start learning until he left school at the age of 14, and dropped out of his plumbing apprenticeship to devote more time to being a sixties hippie. He later attended nautical college, as in those days they paid people more to learn about fishing than he was making actually doing it. He obtained an Inshore and Coastal Skipper's ticket and a Second Class Diesel Engineer's ticket as well.
Janame started travelling in the late sixties and, apart from one spell in a domestic situation and several years living in ashrams, he's still, as far as he's concerned, travelling. So, no fixed abode.
Creative Activities: Janame started writing haikus instead of taking photographs while travelling. This led him to play around with song-writing and he won the Gold Guitar Award (for song-writing) in 1986 in Gore. Encouraged, he entered the Mumba Festival in Melbourne (and was a finalist), and the Tamworth Gold Guitar Awards in N.S.W., Australia. While living in an ashram in upstate New York in the mid-90s, Janame started writing prose and has had a few short stories published. He has written poetry, but mostly for his own pleasure.
Spiritual Interests: Janame started dabbling in meditation in the early seventies. Like many at that time, he was intrigued with Eastern concepts and understanding of reality. He played the spiritual field and settled on a technique that is largely based on Kashmir Shaivisim philosophy and Kundalini Yoga. This opened the door to a deep interest in mysticism.