Sam Keen prepares to go flying, assisted by Margie Brooke of Sonoma's Community Caf?. All photos: Jeff Kan Lee/PD.
By SUZIE RODRIGUEZ / Sonoma Valley Correspondent
Over the years a great many words have been used to sum up Sonoma resident Sam Keen. Among them are writer, psychologist, great thinker, theologian, nonconformist, lecturer and mythologist.
But if Keen could choose his own two descriptors, he might opt for philosopher and trapeze artist. He is an experienced practitioner of both disciplines, and at age 81 they contribute to his sense of wonder about the world and his place within it.
And wondering about something?turning it around to look at closely from all directions?lies at the heart of philosophy. Keen has spent much of his life debating questions that can?t really be solved: How can I find meaning? How can we create a peaceful world? What does it mean to experience the sacred? Is there life beyond death?
?I?m an existentialist who thinks about human existence and a lot of other things,? Keen said. ?But as a philosopher, I live in a state of wonder. Aristotle and Plato said that philosophy begins in wonder. I turn things upside down and look at them.?
Keen has used wonder as a springboard for creating a prolific, varied and celebrated body of philosophical work. Just for starters, he is the author of a baker?s dozen books that delve into the human mind and heart, including the 1991 best-seller, ?Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man.?
He was the subject of a Bill Moyers TV special (?Your Mythic Journey with Sam Keen?), a professor of philosophy and religion, and co-produced an award-winning PBS documentary, ?Faces of the Enemy,? which delved into the way individuals and entire nations dehumanize the enemy to justify the inhumanity of war.
And for 20 years Keen served as contributing editor of Psychology Today, interviewing and writing about noted thinkers that included Carlos Castaneda, Joseph Campbell, and Herbert Marcuse.
Today Keen lives at Sky Ranch, his 60-acre property in the wild hills north of Sonoma Plaza. He is at work on his next book, co-authored with his son, about the father-son relationship. And he maintains an active schedule as a consultant, lecturer, and seminar leader. Twice a year he teaches a course at Esalen Institute (November will be the next time).
Keen also spends a huge amount of time flying on the circus-sized flying trapeze rig?complete with safety nets, bungee and trampoline?that resides in a spacious oak grove behind his home. He shares the rig on weekends with students in trapeze classes taught by experienced trainers from Trapeze Pro.
?Most people come to have fun,?? Keen said, ?but one woman went on to join Ringing Brothers for a while.?
In his 1999? book, ?Learning to Fly,? Keen tells the story of his love affair with the trapeze. On his first visit to the circus as a boy he was mesmerized by the trapeze flyers. ?The flying man soared into the center of my imagination and remained there,? he wrote. ?I began to fantasize that someday I would be a trapeze artist.?
But half a century of life got in the way before he would try.
Sam Keen was born in 1931 in Pennsylvania, but spent his boyhood in small rural towns in Alabama and Tennessee. His family were deeply religious fundamentalists, with the Bible playing a more important role than education. Keen?s primary joy was disappearing into the woods with his brother to climb trees and swing from vines. Life in the outdoors came to an end when, at age 12, his family moved to Wilmington, Delaware.
Keen was a so-so student until his senior year in college. That?s when a subject, philosophy, caught his interest, and his intellect turned on. He ended up at Harvard Divinity School and then went on to Princeton, ultimately earning two Ph.D. degrees.
He also married and fathered three children (now ages 53, 51 and 32).? Keen and his first wife divorced thirteen years ago. He?s now married to Rev. Patricia de Jong, Senior Minister at First Congregational Church of Berkeley.
After teaching philosophy and religion at ?various legitimate institutions? of higher learning, Keen took a one-year Sabbatical and never returned. After resigning his position he was ?so happy that I leaped into the air and started singing. All I could think about was that I was free.?
Moving to the west coast, Keen became a freelance writer for Psychology Today and other magazines, gave workshops, and started writing books.
In 1987 he began looking for a rural base, ?one where I could be in striking distance of an airport,? and ended up in Sonoma. With one of his sons, he built the many-windowed, high-ceilinged house in which he lives. It?s a simple but elegant place, with maple floors from an old gymnasium and California landscape paintings covering the walls.
It wasn?t until his early 60s that Keen took up the trapeze. When he finally started, taking classes at the San Francisco School of Circus Arts, he became a ?seriously addicted, chronologically challenged? frequent trapeze flyer.
A full-function trapeze now hangs from his living room ceiling, allowing Keen to practice at night and in rainy weather. But he prefers playing on the outdoor setup, and the lithe octogenarian climbs the rigging as easily and as eagerly as a teenager.
Perhaps flying on the trapeze keeps the state of wonder alive in this existential philosopher.
?If ever there was a skeptical star,? said Keen, ?I was born under it. And yet I have lived my life in amazement, with awe and I hope with great compassion. To me, these are the essential attributes we need to be whole.?
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