After several other therapists, I met Clark in 1984. We "clicked" immediately and for 8 years he skillfully invited me to change my script in profound ways. In 1994 I asked him to take me on as an apprentice psychotherapist. We wrote a contract, and I began my training. Eighteen months later we agreed that process was complete and I opened my practice. Then our relationship began to morph into a friendship. So we went from therapist and reparenting father figure, to mentor, to friend and colleague. We spent many fine weeks at TA conferences in Mexico, Canmore, and Montreal. Clark was quite a social person and delighted in introducing me to the TA 'old-timers'. I will treasure those memories.
What I will remember most about Clark is how he trained me to be a therapist, and specifically a Transactional Analyst: the worldview he held and how it informed his work with people. Most vividly I remember a special moment with him in the condo we were using for group work in St. Petersburgh Beach, New Years in 95. We had just completed a couple of intense hours with sexual abuse survivors, work that the clients used as redecision pivot points. Clark and I were by ourselves, quietly standing on the balcony, reflective, looking over the Gulf. I was moved by what had taken place. I said something like "Their lives will never be the same after this morning." And Clark said "It's spiritual man, it's spiritual."
Clark asked me onetime to draw my personal power diagram. It's a flowchart or an organizational chart of sorts, showing one's power lineage. Mine has changed since then to include other mentors and shamen, but at the time it included my father, several of his friends, therapists like Berne, Jung, and Freud. Clark however was right there at the sharp end beside me, nudging, inviting, sometimes pushing and pulling, always cheering me into my becoming.
Clark and I share a spiritual orientation that rests on the idea of a spiritual life that envelopes our human physical life. You may have heard him say "We are not our body." While I miss him and cry for that empty space in my life, I take some solace in our future reunion, perhaps with a glass of Turkey. In the meantime, Hafiz helps. Clark liked this one:
A Hard Decree
Last night, God posted on the tavern wall
A hard decree for all of love's inmates
Which read:
If your heart cannot find a joyful work
The jaws of this world
Will probably
Grab hold
of your sweet ass.