HomeDan Keusal, M.S., LMFT
Jungian Psychotherapy for Individuals & Couples
"Find Your Purpose, Heal Your Pain, Live With Passion"
| Receive my email newsletter! |
Dan Keusal's e-newsletter
Spring 2026 edition:
"Consciousness, Courage, Completion"
(to get my newsletters delivered directly to your email inbox,
join my mailing list! Us the sign on box on the left side of this page)
Greetings...
Sometimes, as we focus intently on the big thing that we think we ‘should’ be doing, we find ourselves called to something else—something smaller, gentler, more subtle. Often, this latter call seems to arrive out of left field, and although not as grandiose and ambitious as our original agenda, it has the quiet feel that we are meant to be doing this.* I had been working intently on drafts of not one but two “big” essay ideas for this newsletter…when a favorite song from my college days came back to mind. Over the course of the next few days, I came to realize that this was what I was meant to write about first. I hope that as you read, you find something that speaks to your own experience, and that is of some help, wherever you are on your journey.
~Dan
*(scroll to the end for an interesting, synchronistic footnote on this idea!)
* * * * *
Reflections: “Consciousness, Courage, Completion"
About 45 years ago, when I was an undergraduate at Notre Dame, singer/songwriter/musician Dan Fogelberg released his epic, double-length LP song cycle titled “The Innocent Age.” I still remember feeling mesmerized by the opening strains of his acoustic guitar work on “Nexus,” the first song on the first side of the first disc. The lyrics that followed drew me in even more deeply.
Recently, I was listening to “Nexus” yet again. As is so often the case with favorites we return to over and over, I found new layers of meaning emerging, and came to see the chorus as a kind of anthem for life:
Wealthy the spirit
That knows its own flight
Stealthy the hunter
Who slays his own fright
Blessed the traveler
Who journeys the length of the light.
Fogelberg seems to be calling us to three things that serve us well as we move through our days: consciousness, courage, and completion.
“Wealthy the spirit / that knows its own flight” calls us to consciousness. It is Fogelberg’s modern echo of the ancient inscription at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi: “Know thyself.” To know your own ‘flight’ is to be aware of the uniqueness of your journey—its particular direction, shape, challenges, and opportunities.
“Stealthy the hunter / who slays his own fright” calls us to courage. There are frightening things we each carry within us, some of which seem to have been with us from the moment we were born. Then there are the frightening things we personally encounter in outer life along the way. Finally, there are, increasingly, frightening things going on in the wider world, things that can feel overwhelmingly big and beyond our control. Part of the work in living lies in finding ways to slay our fears in the face of each of these. I don’t think this means some heroic, solo quest to do it all by ourselves. What if to ‘slay’ one’s fear, one’s ‘fright,’ means simply to summon the courage to face those fears, including the courage to ask for help and support when we need it?
“Blessed the traveler / who journeys the length of the light” calls us to completion. It is one thing to make a start, buoyed by enthusiasm and expectant hope. It is another thing entirely to see the journey through to the end—to persist, even when it’s hard to see “the light”; to keep at it until our destiny is realized, until we’ve learned the lessons we came here to learn, and have made the contributions to life that we alone can make.
Years ago, I sold or gave away about 150 of my old LPs—all except one: I kept the copy of “The Innocent Age” that Dan Fogelberg signed for me after a solo concert he did in Seattle back in February of 1992 at the Paramount Theatre. After the show, I waited for hours in the freezing cold, hopeful. When he finally emerged from the back door, he was gracious, engaging, and funny. After we talked about music for a few minutes, I asked him why so many of his paintings and photographs were of graveyards (in addition to being a musician, he was an accomplished artist). He replied, with a wry smile, “Maybe because eventually I’m going to spend so much time in one.” He died of prostate cancer in 2007, a few months past his 56th birthday.
None of us know how long “the length of the light” will be for us. We can only hope to cultivate consciousness and courage along the way, and do all we can to reach completion, whatever that may be.
*The day after I finished writing this reflection on how our “big” agendas can be replaced by ones that are smaller, gentler, and more subtle, and that feel even more meaningful, former Washington Post Books editor Ron Charles published this story in his Substack post: “Wednesday night in Washington, Mahreen Sohail accepted the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for Small Scale Sinners, a story collection about women in Pakistan. Sohail noted that she’d worked on a novel for more than six years but couldn’t find a publisher. In desperation, she turned to the stories she’d been writing on the side simply as a creative release. ‘I’d written a whole other book,’ she said. ‘Art can be surprising. It is one of the many joys of making it, how it can reveal yourself to you.’”
Resources For A Life Of Depth And Meaning:
(photo): "Pink flower petals, stepping stones Kubota Garden" On a visit to Seattle's Kubota Japanese Garden back in 2018, I came upon these stepping stones, surrounded by beautiful pink flower petals. For me, the photo serves as an invitation, beckoning the viewer to something on up "the trail." (Click on the photo to download a copy for your own enjoyment).
Dan Keusal, M.S., LMFT, Psychotherapist. (206) 523-1340. Email: dankeusal@dankeusal.com
