Today, global economic fragility, social alienation and environmental breakdown seem to point to a time of crisis for all humanity.
‒ A. Keith Smiley, who inspired us "to perceive problems as opportunities." (1980)
A Daughter's View
By Sandra Smiley
Dad had more interests than I could ever keep up with. Perhaps I even resented his passions when I was young, because all I knew was that they kept him busy and away—but not too busy to return to the West Pines each evening to tell Bert and me the “Ducky- Betsy-Bearie” bedtime story. In his young adulthood, as we were growing up on the mountain, Dad was consumed with the responsibility of running the Mountain House. Perhaps he kept his equilibrium through brief, daily quiet times, when he would retire to his home office and we were told to be quiet because Dad was meditating.
Sandra Smiley, fourth from left, hosting a group of performers of Tibetan
sacred dances in the Mohonk Mountain House parlor, Spring 2008
It wasn’t until I left home and began exploring my own interests that I realized that his concerns were so very broad. He visited annually a holistic health center in California, run by his ex-college roommate doctor, for check-ups and rejuvenation, where I joined him one year. He consequently became interested in natural foods, and had his own organic garden at Mohonk, which he tended daily. He and I attended several workshops together—one on community-building, and another on empowerment, involving some very personal sharing. He and my mother originated a Mohonk program called “Tune Into Life,” incorporating ”new age” concepts with appreciation of nature. For many years, when we lived on opposite coasts, we passed back and forth our discoveries in Native American literature.
Sandra Smiley carries on her father’s work on the Board of Mohonk Consultations.
I have been responsible for sorting and distributing his library on an extremely broad range of topics. Many of these books are now in the Mohonk library as “Keith’s Collection.” Perhaps it is through this time spent with Dad’s artifacts that I have come to understand more clearly his reasons for creating Mohonk Consultations. He needed an arena in which to pull all his divergent interests and concerns together. It was meant to be a truly “holistic” venture, and it remains a continual challenge to the present Board to combine his holism with a practical focus.