Don Nix

Don Nix
Don Clinton Nix died peaceful early on the morning of June 1, 2020 in Sonoma at the age of 81. He had been a resident of Sonoma for the past 26 years.
Don was born in West Texas to E. C. and Evelyn Nix on March 13, 1939. He was the younger of two children. His sister Ann preceded him in death.
As a young man, Don followed his father's interest in golf and won the New Mexico State Championship at age 17 which earned him a golf scholarship to Texas Technological College where he met Ann, his future wife.
Don attended law school at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas and then practiced law in London for a year. He and Ann married in 1966.
Don's interests led him from law to teaching business law at Texas Christian University (TCU). He returned to school to achieve a PHD in International Relations at John Hopkins University and spent the second year of the graduate program in Bologna, Italy.
With a law degree and a PhD in International Relations, Don did the next most logical step. He became an artist.
To survive his seven years as a PhD student he began to paint as a personal outlet and creative expression. Upon completion of his degree, teaching positions were scarce and art became an alternative career as his work was selling. As a friend once said of the couple, "Ann and Don married and instantly became downwardly mobile." In truth they were unconsciously orienting themselves to inner fulfillment and meaning, rather than what might offer status and success.
In 1973 Don and Ann joined two hundred other artists at the old Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, Virginia were they both produced art for the next thirteen years. Within the first year Don won major recognition in exhibitions and publications. His works have become part of important collections in Dallas, New York and Washington, D.C. where his paintings hang at the U.S. Department of State.
Seeking personal renewal Don learned of Esalen Institute, a retreat center in Big Sur, California, with an emphasis on mind-body connection and experimentation in personal awareness. Don's experiences at Esalen awakened more fully his passion for exploration of consciousness. The family soon relocated to California.
Don and Ann began studying with Hameed Ali, founder Diamond Heart Work and were students for ten years. Don continued to paint and began a search for visual equivalents of the non-ordinary states of consciousness through which the meaningfulness of life enters our awareness.
In 1996 he founded the Re-Enchantment Project teaching classes and leading workshops in Northern California. Don wrote two books on the evolution of consciousness and how quantum physics is changing our notion of Reality. He also wrote twelve books of poetry. He continued to express Life as an artist and a student of consciousness throughout his years.
Don is survived by his wife of 55 years, Ann Fursman Nix, of Sonoma and his daughter, Shann Nix Jones, and grandchildren, Sophia and Benjamin, and son-in-law Richard Jones and his daughters Ceris and Elen all of whom reside in Wales on Chucklinggoat Farm.
Several months before his death, Don wrote his death haiku and summarized his beliefs and life. "I am preparing to sail back into the glittering, living, and conscious galaxies, where I came from and where I belong, truly belong, for all of eternity."