Edwin Jay Hutchison
Prison I.D. # P-68859
Housing Unit: 2-N-79L
CSP-SQ/ One Main Street
San Quentin, CA 94964

Date: April 24, 2013

RE: Blog Post #1

An Invitation into the Soul of A Man

Hello World! May peace and blessings be upon you and you read my thoughts and feelings.

I am Edwin Jay Hutchison and I'd like to invite you to embark on a journey, one that began for me on January 28th, 2000. That was the day I was sentecned to a prison term of thirty (30) years-to-life under California's horrible and diabolical "three strikes laws". I committed a non-violent, no weapons involved, with no physical injuries, second-degree robbery of a business. On the night of March 21, 1999, I was intoxicated on crack-cocaine and at the end of a three-day binge. I was suffering from insomnia, hungry, and smoked up $1000 which was needed to pay my bills. I was roaming the streets of long beach, California in a state of hopelessness. In this desperate "state of mind", I entered a business, with no gun, knife, brick, or any real plan, the proceeded to rob the store. That was the end of my life as I knew it and the beginning of my current journey.

My story is not all about crime, but more about the "transformation, growth and love." It is a story of enduring fourteen (14) long years of alineless, separations, lengthy nights, prolonged days, my dreams, my nightmares, my angers, my frustrations, my ongoing struggles within our criminal justice system. My fears. But not only these things.

Over the years, I realized the fact that I could not allow myself to languish in this mindset, so I started down a road of self-discovery. I knew that if I wanted to have a rewarding and significant life, I had to discover a way of benefiting from the losses in my life and move forward. I had to metaphorically change my discontentment, my loss, and my melancholy story into something more precious and worthwhile. I had to find a reason "to live"...

Consequently, after a decade of introspection, I know "myself" and I've developed a true deepening of my "soul" by creating a cultivated compassion for others, as well as myself. I've discovered my "authentic self". I've taken off the masks. Honestly, I would not have thought, in a million years, that I would have to come to prison in order to be "free". How ironic, would you agree?

This is just a brief synopsis of my life and the experiences I've undergone which has expanded my abilities to give and receive love. The life of this man is a true journey, a passage that must be traveled, regardless of how bad the roads of unpleasant the accommodations are along the way. Each of us are here for a short visit not knowing "why", yet seemingly for some divine purpose. I now know that we are all here for the sake of others...for the countless unknown souls with those fate we are connected with through the bond of our empathy...