Meet Kurt Smith, the Visionary Founder of the Wild Divine Project

"The Wild Divine Project is the company I've been gearing towards all my life, amassing the experience and resources to do it," says founder Kurt R. Smith. "The question that motivated me was, "How can we provide integrative healing tools and services to people in an effective way?' The answer, I knew, could not be found by taking it through the medical industry, which I'd worked in up until now."

Smith, a Ph.D. scientist, specializing in biomedical engineering, had created several companies in the medical industry. Two of these are owned now by Medtronic, Inc., the largest medical technology company in the world, which provides about 60-65 percent of all the cardiac devices that go into people's bodies.

"Near the end of my tenure with Medtronic, I was doing a study which led me to explore alternative, integrative and complementary medical care. Many of these centers were popping up in the U.S., and I became friends with many of the people running them. I saw they were struggling because it was very difficult for them to evolve financially within the medical system. I said to myself, 'Okay, let's peel off and do another start up company.' " It would be his sixth.

The Beginnings

That's when Kurt began looking at various entertainment-based channels to make integrative healing tools and services available to people. Coincidentally, at the same time, he started rock climbing with a Boulder, Colorado neighbor, Corwin Bell. Corwin told Kurt about an idea he'd always had to combine a computer game with biofeedback in order to help people get in tune with themselves and transform their lives.

"Wow, I thought. Here;s an entertainment-based model that can benefit people by providing both preventative and integrative care," said Kurt. Corwin joined forces with Kurt's new company and put together a team to work on the game.

The result is The Journey to Wild Divine, which integrates the power of the spiritual journey with an innovative human-computer interface and high-end multimedia production to produce an unparalleled and fulfilling interactive experience.

At the same time, Kurt looked at additional entertainment-based channels and turned to one of his pet passions, music, to serve as another healing modality. The result was Healing Rhythms music, which is in the process of creating nine different CDs of healing music.

The Scope

As an overall umbrella for these products and his vision, Kurt and Corwin chose the name, The Wild Divine Project. The Wild Divine Project is more than innovative products. It also plays the role of meta-network facilitator. "It's an initiative to help people get beyond their feelings of helplessness in the world," says Kurt. "It's a way to get them to say, 'Wait a minute, I can do something. Give me the tools. Give me the connectivity that I need in order to express myself the way I want to, as a soul trying to figure out how to do world service.' "

"I believe that we each have a certain amount of divinity in us and a certain amount of wildness, and, in our lives, we fluctuate back and forth, pushed and pulled between the two," said Kurt. "At those times when the divine meets the wild in balance, then we find the greatest realization of divinity and man - we find the Wild Divine."

The Journey to Wild Divine

Not surprising then that the "inner active" multi-media adventure is called The Journey to Wild Divine. "The journey that Corwin Bell is developing is very profound," said Kurt. "All his life, he's been churning on it and working on it. Corwin lives and operates from his core as a very spiritual person with many spiritual practices. When you combine this with his graphics capabilities, the artistry is mind-blowing. Like a technology that's been waiting to evolve, The Journey could not be here until now. Maybe now, our world is also ready for it. I've seen people sit down with it and have transforming experiences."

Corwin and Kurt have also brought in some leaders in the field of consciousness to collaborate on the spiritual elements of the project. These include Jean Houston, a pioneer researcher in human development and extending human capacities, and Nawang Khechog, a former Buddhist monk, who's studied with the Dalai Lama and is one of Tibet's foremost world music composers and musicians. From the start, Liana Mattulich, a lama and highly experienced biofeedback expert in Denver, has been helping Corwin move The Journey from concept to reality.

Healing Rhythms

Healing Rhythms, the music arm of The Wild Divine Project, is putting out an eclectic mix of CDs, all of which have in common the purpose of healing. For example, The Healing CD will act as a tool that doctors can give patients to demonstrate compassionate caring.

"Right now, because of insurance constraints, the average doctor meets with a patient for eight minutes - a really sad situation," says Kurt. "Doctors have their backs against the wall because they really do care for the patient and want to provide the best care, but they simply don't have the time to do it the way they'd like. They'll be able to give this CD to the patient. In its own way, the CD will say for the doctor, 'Even though I can only spend a short amount of time with you, I do want to express that I care about you. Here is a CD with compassionate music on it that you can play when you get home from your procedure to help you in your healing process.' "

The Healing CD, like many of Healing Rhythms CDs, is a compilation of music from various artists. This one includes three Grammy nominees.

Kurt co-produced and co-wrote the music and lyrics for another CD, Soul Flight, performed by his own band, Wild Divine. "Soul Flight is a concept album that really looks at what the experience of the soul is as it moves through this particular life," said Kurt. "It kind of complements The Journey to Wild Divine. The Journey is an initiation experience. And Soul Flight's music and words will hopefully give people a reflection of what their own life experience has been in terms of awakening to their soul and understanding what it means to be manifest in this place."

Healing Rhythms is also producing CDs by artists, including Chris Berry and two Zimbabwe-based bands presently in Boulder - Kutandara and Shamwari.

Everything's A Collaboration

Everything that The Wild Divine Project does - from The Journey to the music to the way that people work together in the company - is a collaborative effort. "In every one of my start ups, I use the 'Columbus method' of putting things together and making things happen," said Kurt. "It's like, 'Hey, we're going out to sea. We don't know exactly where we're going, but we know that something new is out there.' We look for people who want to get on the ship and help us. Together, we leave the port, knowing the trip is high risk, but will also be a real adventure.

So, Kurt has built a team where everyone is pretty much on the same boat. Then, when people see a leak on the ship, they don't think about whose responsibility it is to fix it. Rather, they say, "I'm going to take care of that, and if I can't, I'll find someone who can."

"We're also a team in that the employees have significant ownership in the company," said Kurt. "Instead of the typical 5 or 10 percent that most companies put aside for employees, we take a huge chunk and say, 'Hey, this is our boat. So, let's make it happen.' "
Kurt has found that in risk, there is a struggle. "And, in struggle, there is always a consciousness and a level of emotion that I thrive on. I love people around me who feel this way, too," said Kurt. "In some way, life is almost meant to be a struggle, and, when we're struggling, there is clarity to what's happening. When we're not struggling, we can easily become complacent."

Kurt puts his money where his mouth is. When investment money was short for The Wild Divine Project, he and his wife Lynn put up their own money. "In exploring ourselves deeply, we came to this awareness: Maybe this is the reason we're here - in order to use all the resources we have to bring artistry and spirituality and healing together for the first time, in a way that touches people profoundly," said Kurt. "Hopefully, The Wild Divine Project is the small snowball that starts the avalanche to help the world's consciousness evolution shift somewhere important."