Story by Charity Clifford
Candy Russell, who was a professor at K-State for 37 years and co-founder of the marriage and family therapy program, radiates warmth and calm.
We sit in her lightly colored home in Manhattan, surrounded by books and art — a painting of a New Mexico Pueblo, a monochrome etching showing a multitude of people heading towards an old Spanish mission in a religious processional, and a spunky black pig with white spots and large teeth created by New Mexican folk wood-carvers.
Although stunning, her art holds deeper meaning for her: it allows her to bring home part of New Mexico’s spirituality.
The long-time professor says she finds beauty in the idea that all people are connected; she explains she considers New Mexico spiritual because it is the “coming together of the three cultures: the Anglo, the Native American, and the Hispanic.”
One of her favorite artists is Gene Kloss. “She is in sync with the Native American people. And very respectful of their beliefs and the Native American people in return gave her and her husband their friendship,” Candy said.
As she speaks about how gentle, respectful, and lovely the artist was, I can’t help but think that those adjectives could be used to describe Candy herself.
Candy’s awe of the coming together of friendship and culture is consistent with her practice of the Buddhist concept of awareness. She explains that awareness is “experiencing in a body sense that I am a part of a larger whole. That is systems theory. We are back to that elegant connection, connection of all parts.”
Spirituality has been a major focus of Candy’s life since she retired in 2011.
Mindfulness has been helpful to Candy as health has presented limitations. While her diagnosis or Primary Lateral Sclerosis can be scary for her to think about, she says that “if I focus on what’s now and be mindful of what’s here in the moment then I can be very calm. And I can be easily brought to tears these days, and it’s not because I am sad. It’s because things are so poignant. I can be with my meditation group and I just feel this connectedness to these beautiful people or I can be sitting in my bed with my cat and meditating and just feeling how safe and beautiful this is.”
Candy continues to be a passionate learner.
During her years at K-State she says she would “come home and sit in the chair and read and read and read. It was so exciting in our field that developments kept coming . . . We started out with structural family therapy, then we became strategic, then we became narrative, and then we became postmodern. All of that was very exciting to explore and experiment with.”
One of her interests is understanding how the mind and body are connected in ways that can help or impede therapeutic progress. She explains that “the mind is the connection between the brain and the body. And it’s also relational, because what is happening between us right now it effecting my biology and I effecting your biology.”
She loved teaching and her relationships with K-State students. “It was great fun. The students were so eager. And so excited. There were times when I just felt so in sync with the students that it was a great joy.”
Candy enjoys knowing that her students are out in the world. When asked if there was anything she wanted to tell her students she replied, “That I would love to hear from them.”
Candy can be reached at candyrussell5587@sbcglobal.net.
(Charity Clifford is a doctoral student and graduate research assistant in the marriage and family therapy program.)
