About Oak & Cypress Counseling

The name Oak & Cypress refers to a line in one of my favorite poems: Kahlil Gibran’s “On Marriage” from his book The Prophet. An excerpt:

Sing and dance together and be joyous,

but let each one of you be alone,

Even as the strings of a lute are alone

though they quiver with the same music.

And stand together yet not too near together:

For the pillars of the temple stand apart,

And the oak tree and the cypress grow

not in each other’s shadow.

This section of the book profoundly affected me when I first read it years ago. Like so many of us, I grew up with the notion that love comes in the form of a rescuer who is ready to solve all our problems and complete us. Finding this poem was the first time I encountered an alternative view. This description of healthy and boundaried adult connection, in which partners maintain their own identity and are part of a greater whole, changed the way I viewed love. Today, I work with my clients to help them cultivate the same type of balanced, mature love in their own lives. You can find the entirety of the poem here and you’re likely to find a copy of the book in your local used bookstore.