branches up, roots down

There is such a thing as time travel. It doesn't involve fancy machines, casting circles or calling allies and spirits from other dimensions. Time travel is part of the human experience. Heck, for all I know animals and plants do it too. As a therapist, I kind of specialize in it. I invite people to journey back to an earlier chapter of their lives, encouraging them to tweak and twiddle with perceptions of events, thereby changing the present and the future. But you don't need to be in therapy to time travel. Just attend a high school reunion or call a friend you haven't talked to in years. This past weekend I was trundled back in time to the era I lived in Cannon Beach. In many ways, I'm still there. Jan dying will probably mean that I spend a lot of the upcoming months back in time. Every few hours a new memory pulls me back. Rooms open up that I haven't been in for decades. Moonlight on sand and smoke in bars are ventured back to. I am time traveling, ...

It is Lammas, the cross-quarter point between solstice and equinox. The reign of the Sun King is on the wane. The clients I see at 7pm I now need to turn on the lights for and I’m no longer waking early with the sun. This week, for the first time, I can sense the dark waiting just off stage. Here, right before summer begins its descent into autumn, I am grieving. In every life, there are key people who, like points of stars making up the zodiac, help create the story of our lives. I’ve had many of these, and I am blessed with a complicated and sparkling tale of a life. One of these stars died in the past week, but just like real stars, her light will still shine long past her death. I graduated high school early, desperately wanting to escape the confines of my family and Morgan Hill , just south of San Jose , California . Immediately I set out with my friend Diane in her VW van to discover America . I didn’t get very far, just up to the top of the Oregon Coast . In that short...