15 years ago Barbara Whitestone approached me, after we met through friends in Grateful Dead circles, and asked if I wanted to help her run the Furthur Foundation. I said yes, of course, and we began a powerful collaboration that lasted a decade.
It is impossible to speak of her, or anyone like her, in the past tense. I know she agrees, and would argue the point with her trademark passion and conviction. Energy persists, she would say (particularly hers, I would say).
She is, among her many qualities, hard-nosed, sensitive, opinionated, loving, a whirlwind of energy, and a taproot into the inky blackness. She understands the infrastructure, in both (all three?) realms. She has one foot in the spirit world, and another so firmly on the ground that it is hard for me—a narrower vessel—to reconcile these poles. She contains multitudes, and no one who knows her begrudges her any of them. A rare treat, the totality of Barbara Whitestone, for us and the world.
I know she hears this. Send her some love.
