branches up, roots down

  My friend,    Donald Engstrom,    years ago coined a phrase worthy of generous usage. Every time I say this phrase or write it, his voice resonates in my consciousness.    Every equinox, I think of Donald, for my good friend is deeply committed  to the building and nurturance of the emerging "Cultures of  Beauty ,  Balance and Delight."    Beauty, balance and delight – for that is his phrase - are certainly the stuff of equinoxes.   The spring equinox is today, and as luck would have it, it is a beautiful day in San Francisco, The sun is shining, the breeze is sweet and fresh, and on the way to my office I was met with more smiles than eyes avoided. San Franciscans tend to take honest delight in a sunny day.   Today light and dark are in perfect balance. How rare a thing that is!   Every other day  of the year the light is trumping the dark or the dark is trumping the light. But today, they face each other equally….not to do this again until the fall equinox.   Tomorrow, li...

A week ago I received a phone call from a friend of a client. She had found my card in his wallet and she remembered him talking about his “shrink”. She called to let me know he had died of a sudden heart attack. I had seen J. once a week like clockwork for well over seven years. He turned fifty a few months back, and we had spent some time reviewing all the events of his forties that had been so difficult, both of us imagining that the fifties would be better. He had worked hard in therapy, and for the last two years he’d been sober. J. was a big man who tried to move thru the world taking up as little space as possible. He was quiet, shy, and uncomfortable being the focus of attention. The very fact that he could tolerate therapy at all was a miracle. Early on, I learned to draw out and encourage his dark sense of humor. He could come across as dour, but laughing, he became a different being. J. had come from the kind of twisted Christian home where almost anything en...