HomeDan Keusal, M.S., LMFT
Jungian Psychotherapy for Individuals & Couples
"Find Your Purpose, Heal Your Pain, Live With Passion"
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Photographs by Dan Keusal
Below are some of the photographs I've taken,
found on pages throughout this web site, and in my e-newsletters.
I invite you to download any of these pictures for your personal use.
To download a picture, click on the thumbnail below, which will bring up a larger version.
Right click on that larger version, then left click on "Save Picture As..."
and choose where to save it on your computer.
You can also click on "Set As [Desktop] Background"
to place it directly on your computer's screen (Apple/Mac instructions may vary).
Enjoy!
All photos are (c) Dan Keusal
"Stream, Talapus Lake Trail." Taken in May of 2005 while I was hiking in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, on the trail that goes up to both Talapus and Olallie Lakes. Most of my favorite hikes keep me near water.
"Chuckanut Drive view." In August of 2002 I took a day trip with a friend from Seattle to Bellingham. On the ride home, we took the scenic Chuckanut Drive, and I captured this photo looking west toward the San Juan Islands. Another example of being in the right place at the right time.
"Waterfall, Tierra Learning Center." Just outside of Leavenworth, WA lies the Tierra Learning Center. In May of 2007, while on retreat, I shot this photo of the stream and little waterfall that runs alongside Tierra's main lodge. The retreat I attended was facilitated by Washington Courage & Renewal. I highly recommend their programs.
"Golden Gardens Sunset." A big part of the reason why I've chosen to make my home in Seattle is the abundance of natural beauty. Golden Gardens Beach is one of my favorite spots: on a clear day you get spectacular views of Puget Sound, The Olympic Mountains, and on the day in 1999 when I took this photo, a gorgeous sunset.
"Green Lake Pier." On a Spring day in 2007, I happened to have my digital camera with me during a walk around Green Lake in Seattle. This pier is located near the northeast corner of the lake, near the community center.
"Wagon Wheel in snow." In early 2007, I had the opportunity to visit The Grunewald Guild, in Plain, WA. The rusted wheels, the snow, the tree, and one of Grunewald's art studios combined for a near perfect composition. So often, I've found that getting a good shot is simply about being in the right place at the right time!
"Cape Alava." Located on the west coast of Washington's Olympic Peninsula, Cape Alava has been one of my favorite backpacking spots. I took this shot of the rocky coast back in July of 1992.
"Mt. Rainier." In July of 2001, a band that I was privileged to be part of, "The Usual Suspects," was invited to perform at the Yakima Folk Festival. On the drive from Seattle to Yakima, I stopped at Tipsoo Lake and got this picture just before heading over Chinook Pass.
"Tulips & Weathered Fence." I shot this at the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival near Mt. Vernon, WA sometime in the mid 1990s. If memory serves, this particular variety of tulip is called the "Merry Widow." Among all the photos I've taken over the years, this is one of my personal favorites.
"Tierra Learning Center View." Like the "Waterfall" pic (above), this photo was taken in 2007 at the Tierra Learning Center outside of Leavenworth, WA while I was on a retreat sponsored by Washington Courage & Renewal. One of the hikes that starts out on Tierra's propery takes you up a long ridge; this photo was taken at the summit.
"Wagon Wheel & Vines." This pic was taken in July of 2008 in Laurel, WA, on the property of my friend and colleague Ginger Kennell, who partners with horses in her work as a counselor. I wandered out back behind the barn and was struck by the way the rusted wheel, the vines and the plastic orange "things" came together.
"Moon & Mt. Baker." This picture was also taken on the property of my friend and colleague Ginger Kennell (see above picture). I took more than 30 different shots in less than half an hour as the Moon rose next to Mt. Baker; this is the one where it all came together. I especially love the detail in the face of the moon
"Shilshole Bay Sunset." Taken one evening in the summer of 2007, just after sunset, from a deck looking out over Shilshole Bay in Seattle. I love sunset in part because it is a "liminal" time, a threshold, a boundary...and it is at such places where so much of life's interesting stuff happens. Look at the large version of this photo...there are some lovely details.
"Green Lake in Autumn." Sometimes ordinary circumstances yield better-than-ordinary results. Last Autumn was walking around Green Lake in Seattle and shot this picture--I love the way the late afternoon light, the long shadows, and the last vestiges of color on the trees gently frame the two anonymous figures on the bench.
"Deschutes River, Bend, Oregon." In November of 2009, I delivered the keynote address at the annual session of the Oregon Dental Hygeinists Association in Bend, Oregon. I shot this picture while walking downtown during a break.
"Kala Point Sea Stones." I took this picture on Kala Point, a few miles south of Port Townsend, Washington, during a retreat in January of 2010. While walking along the shore, I noticed the brilliant colors and patterns of some of the stones in the water. I leaned over and took three pics. In this one, light, water, wind, and the stones came together perfectly.
"Snowflakes On Red Holly." Taken right outside the door to my home during the "blizzard" Seattle experienced just before Christmas in 2008. We had snow nearly every day for two weeks, bringing a city not used to that much snow...to a halt. But there were many moments of quiet beauty, and this was one of them.
"Fountain, Cornish Playhouse courtyard, at Seattle Center." One Saturday morning, I joined some friends to watch a film ("The Secret of Roan Inish") at McCaw Hall at Seattle Center. Afterward, we enjoyed a few moments in the courtyard outside the Cornish Playhouse, and this fountain caught my attention.
"Really Love Something." While driving to a meeting one afternoon, I came across this scene at the end of an exit ramp. I don't know who created the signs or why they decided to hang them in this particular place, but I'm glad they did. I wrote about this experience in the Spring 2011 edition of my e-newsletter. The first time I encountered these signs, I pulled over and snapped a few pictures with my cell phone, but since the camera on my cell phone at the time was so bad that the resulting photos looked more like impressionist paintings than photographs, I went back later with my Panasonic digital camera and took these higher-resolution shots.
"Whatcom Falls" One Sunday afternoon I found myself needing to get out of the house, so on the spur-of-the-moment, I decided to drive from Seattle to Bellingham to shoot some photos in Whatcom Falls Park. This one immediately stood out for me because of the way it combines several different elements: moving water, the leaves from the tree, the two large stones....
"Sunset, Christmas Eve." I shot this at the end of a long walk in a local park on Christmas Eve 2011, just before joining some friends for evening festivities. I didn't have my camera with me, so I shot it using just what I had at hand: the camera built in to my new cell phone.
"Autumn in Carkeek Park." A gray day, a weathered bench, a tree ablaze with autumn color, fallen leaves, and Piper's creek in the background--all captured with my cell phone camera. Autumn 2012.
"Labyrinth, Whidbey Institute." Taken (with my cell phone) on the first weekend of the New Year in 2013, after some friends and I had taken the ferry from Seattle to Whidbey Island to walk the labyrinth on the grounds of The Whidbey Institute. For the full story, see the Winter 2012-2013 edition of my e-newsletter.
"Water Wheel (Fernwood) in Snow, Holidays." Years ago, when I lived in northern Indiana, one of my favorite places to visit was "Fernwood," a nature center in nearby Niles, Michigan. And one of my favorite places at Fernwood was this water wheel. This photo was taken just before Christmas in 1989.
"Pink flowers along the driveway." I took this photo with my mobile phone camera, through my open car window, along a friend's driveway while leaving their home after a visit. Beauty can be found anywhere. (March 2015)
"Langley Sunset." I took this picture while on a weekend trip to the town of Langley on Whidbey Island, a short ferry ride from Seattle. I was fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time, to capture the combination of the waters of Puget Sound, the shoreline of Langley, and the light of the setting sun. (July 2015, taken with my mobile phone)
"Berries, Leaves, and Twigs." One morning I walked out to get in my car to go to work, and a bush I'd walked by (literally) 10,000 times before...suddenly seized my attention, blazing with late-autumn colors: bright orange berries, yellow leaves, fallen in just the right places, earthen twigs.(November 2015, taken with my mobile phone)
"Half Moon, Winter Sky." I took this photo from an ordinary place (the parking lot of my office), at an ordinary time (at 3:30 in the afternoon), with an ordinary camera (my mobile phone), all reminders to me that the extraordinary is often right there in front of us, and that there is beauty even in life's moments of bare simplicity. (taken December 2014)
"Stone Bridge, Whatcom Falls Park" One weekend morning, I read a story in the paper about a park I'd never explored. I grabbed my camera, made the 90 minute drive from Seattle to Bellingham, and spent the afternoon shooting photos. This is my favorite image from that day. The way the bridge recedes into the distance suggests both invitation and the unknown, which is how it often feels to take the first step across each"next bridge" in our journeys.This photo offers a visual representation of one of the themes in my essay "Living Larger."
"Dandelion." I took this photo with my cell phone camera on a Spring morning in 2015 at the Evans Creek Nature Preserve, about 40 minutes east of Seattle. It was only later that I came to appreciate it as a natural "mandala," and as an image of Jung's idea of "circumambulation of the self." For more, see the Summer 2016 edition of my newsletter.
"Positive Spirit," a sculpture by Shirley Erickson in Big Rock Garden Park in Bellingham,WA. I love both the sculpture itself (see below for a close-up) and its setting. I took this photo in July 2016,and featured it in my Autumn 2016 e-newsletter.
(here's a close up of the sculpture "Positive Spirit," shown in context in the above photo).
"Sanctuary And Grieving Angel." The background photo in this two-pic collage is one I took (on July 4, 2015) of The Sanctuary, a small structure in the woods at The Whidbey Institute on Whidbey Island; the foreground pic is one I found on my sweetheart's Facebook page on the morning of November 9, 2016. It was her idea to put them together: she'd put my photo as her "background photo" and the angel as her "profile pic," in a way that left her Facebook page looking pretty much like this. I simply put the two together without all the accompanying Facebook graphics. I like the symbolism of how this image came into being, the idea that we'll only find our way by looking to the sacred feminine, and then integrating feminine, masculine, and collective.
"Hoarfrost, leaves, grass." I took this picture in Seattle's Carkeek Park on a frosty winter morning just a few days after the Winter Solstice in 2015. I featured this photo in the Winter 2016-2017 edition of my e-newsletter.
"Daffodils (yellow and orange)." I took this at a park in Redmond, WA (on the "eastside" of Seattle), using my cell phone camera, while waiting for friends to return from a walk one fine Spring afternoon. From an ordinary moment and an ordinary "camera"...extraordinary beauty.
"Water droplet on lupine leaves." Taken with my cell phone camera during a walk in Evans Creek Preserve in April of 2017. Many of the plants had several droplets on several leaves, but this single, centered droplet seized my attention more than any of the others.
"Autumn: Stone, Bench, Path." Autumn has always been my favorite season. I love this photo not only for the changing leaves, but for the ways the solidity of the stone and contemplative invitation of the bench and the bridge play off each other. I took this photo in late Autumn, 2015 with my cell phone camera, while out on a walk.
"Waterfall, Capilano Suspension Bridge Park." In October of 2017, I was invited by the C.G. Jung Society of Vancouver, BC to deliver a lecture at the Museum of Vancouver. The next day I took this photo in nearby Capilano Suspension Bridge Park. I love the way the different elements--trees, rocks, water--come together.
"Snow-covered bridge, Seattle." One winter night in January of 2012, Seattle woke to a relatively unusual occurrence: several inches of snow. Braving streets that weren't yet plowed, and (if memory serves) a steep, slippery trail, I descended into a nearby park, and got this photo. I love the way that snow quiets us, if only for a while, and how bridges usher us over the ravines and across the thresholds...of life.
"Snowfall on leaves and buds, Christmas Day 2017." For the first time in 120 years of official weather records, Seattle got one inch of snow on Christmas Eve AND another inch of snow on Christmas Day in 2017. As is often the case, I enjoyed capturing the beauty that was right there in front of me--this photo was taken on a walk just a few minutes from my home, using nothing but my mobile phone.
"Sweet Doing Nothing (Willows Inn, Lummi Island)." I took this photo on the grounds of the Willows Inn while enjoying a weekend away on Lummi Island. The writing painted on the wall, "dolce far niente," is Italian, and I later learned that it translates literally as "sweet doing nothing." Merriam Webster says the phrase has come to imply "pleasant relaxation in carefree idleness." So many elements in this photo seem to invite this: the picnic table that says "come, sit, rest," the open door and the lantern above it, the ivy and flowers that blend into the painting of a fruit tree on the wall of this little courtyard.
"Sea Stones in Driftwood, Kala Point." Almost 10 years ago, a friend generously offered me the use of her condo on Kala Point (near Port Townsend, WA) for a retreat. Walking the beach one evening, I came upon this piece of driftwood, and took a photo with my old Lumix digital camera.
"Autumn Leaves, bench, Green Lake." Glorious gold foliage surrounds an inviting bench on the shore of Seattle's Green Lake. I shot this photo with my cell phone camera in 2013.
"Evergreen Branches, Snow." I love the beauty, and the message, the presence of the ever-green, even as it receives and holds winter snow. I took this photo with my cell phone camera late in 2017.
"Stone Bridge, Path." One Autumn afternoon, I treated myself to a mini-retreat, a few hours away from it all, in the Japanese Garden at the Washington Park Arboretum in Seattle. This was one of the last photos I took that afternoon, and it remains one of my favorites: a stone bridge (across a small stream), leading to a path, that leads off...to a not-quite-fully seen, unknown place. I love metaphors!
"Descent." I took this (with my cell phone) while walking in the Llandover Woods Greenspace in Seattle in 2019. Reminds me of what Richard Rohr once wrote: "The path of descent is the path of transformation."
"Snow on red holly." Taken just a few steps from the door to my home, just a short while after a Seattle snowfall (the enduring advantage of cell phone cameras: we usually have them with us...when a moment presents itself!)
"Sheltering in place: pink rhododendron." I came across this beautiful example of Washington's State flower just a few steps from my home, while heading out for a walk one morning in early May 2020, during the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic. At a time when there was so much illness, suffering, and death across the globe, this flower served as a reminder of the beauty and life that could still be found..."just a few steps"...from wherever we are.
"Gray and Fog." I took this photo at a local waterfront beach, on the morning before the autumnal equinox. It seemed to mirror the troubled state of the world at the time, and perhaps offer a way through it. See my autumn 2020 e-newsletter, "Out of the Gray & Fog."
“Morning Snow Through Leaded Glass.” A friend with a cabin in eastern Washington has generously invited me, on several occasions, to enjoy a getaway there. This photo, taken early one winter morning through window of the bedroom where I sleep, offers glimpses of the snow that had fallen overnight, seen through the old, elegant architecture of colored, diamond-shaped panes of leaded glass. It's not the "artsy-est" photo I've ever taken, but sometimes a cell phone camera, a moment, and a certain quality of light are enough.
"Snow on back deck, Feb 2019." A dear friend navigated I-90 during Seattle's "snowmageddon" storm in February 2019 (in a seriously snow-worthy SUV!) to take three of us to his beautiful vacation cabin in eastern Washington. I took this photo of snow piled up on the back deck. I love the way that the winter light gives everything a slightly blue tint.
"Hydrangea, Close To Home." I snapped this phone with my cell phone while out on a walk just a few blocks from home--yet another reminder that beauty and sustenance are never far away.
"Falling Together." Taken just a few feet from the entrance to my office, this photo, in addition to showcasing the beauty of autumn, hints at other layers of symbolism--the 'falling' and letting go that is at the heart of the season, and the many in the one depicted in the form taken by this tree's trunk or branches
"Garden Waterfall, Bellingham, WA." I took this photo a few years ago in the garden of an Airbnb in Bellingham, WA during a weekend away to celebrate my birthday.
"Adventure Ahead" One day, at the entrance to a trail that I walk regularly, I encountered something new: on an old tree stump (out of which new branches had begun to grow), someone had placed an orange sign reading "Adventure Ahead." I took it as a reminder: even in familiar places we have gone many times before (or with familiar people, or jobs, or...) you never know what adventures may, indeed, lie ahead.
"Council of Elders." On a trail that I walk several times a week, I had passed by these trees dozens of times before I really noticed them, a semi-circle of a unique kind of wisdom: rooted and reaching, taking in and putting back out, simultaneously inhabiting moments and decades. When I finally did notice, I stopped to take this photo with my phone--another moment of what I've come to call 'everyday enchantment,' another reminder that beauty and wisdom and hope are always there...if we are just paying attention.
