Earth
green brown
parks towns
river ocean trees field
prays world heals
cedar pines aspen alder birch
spring water = earth juice
snowy sunny rainy magic
windy fiery fires smoke
roots trunk cloud
fumes noise crowd
dried woods
polar melts
brace storm fears
earth cries tears
prism cloud after
child laugh
rouge boots splash
seize trash
hikes trail
climb
plays
hopes
birth
human being
Mamma Earth
-Karen Molenaar Terrell
(All photos by Karen Molenaar Terrell.)
sleep mourn
waves beach
outer reach
alone rainy
while
wound heals
quiet feel
quite still
enter birds trill
plant rises
comes awake
renew takes
grows
fresh grass
green spree
bunny lambs
prune clean groom
tulip bloom
April trail
-Karen Molenaar Terrell
(The audio podcast for this post can be found at this link.)
Feel Love’s presence.
Feel the power of Love.
Listen to Love’s voice:
You are so loved.
You are My precious child.
You are always with Me.
And I am always with you.
You are Love be-ing.
The belief that you can ever be separated
from Me is a lie,
for you are embodied in My Body.
You are one with Me.
You are in the womb of Love.
There is no power that can usurp My government
or the governing of My own ideas,
for I am ever-present,
all-powerful,
glorious,
magnificent,
never-ending Love.
Amen.
(The audio podcast for this post can be found at this link.)
Recent events in the world have made me think about my irrepressible, intrepid little sunflower of two years ago. I’m thinking it might be time to retell that story…
(Originally published on July 13, 2020.)
One happy story has emerged from the Slug Battles this summer: The Story of the Intrepid Little Sunflower.
The slugs and snails have been voracious this year. When my little sunflowers first sprouted I covered them every night with jars. When they outgrew the jars I would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and go on Slug Patrol – looking for any snails or slugs that might be chowing down on my sunflower youngsters (in the morning I would take the slugs and snails out to our wetland – what I’ve dubbed my “Snail and Slug Refuge” – and ask them to please stay down there). Eventually I started wrapping copper tape around the bottom of the sunflowers’ stems and that seemed to work pretty well – UNTIL one morning I found a slug or snail had chomped through the stem of one of the sunflower youngsters and the top three inches were hanging from the bottom three inches by mere threads. I tried to tape it together, but that didn’t work well. Finally, I pulled the top part off and – finding I didn’t have it in me to toss it in the compost – I put it in a little bottle filled with water and put it on top of a book case, and waited for nature to take its course.
But the little sunflower did not die. In fact, it appeared to me that it even grew a few inches.
A couple weeks went by and the leaves started turning yellow. It was obvious to me my little sunflower teenager needed nutrients. On impulse, I put about half an inch of soil in the bottom of the bottle and made sure the bottom of the sunflower stem touched the soil – I hoped the plant would somehow suck up the nutrients it needed – maybe it would grow roots? I wasn’t sure how that worked – but it seemed possible to me.
And today when I looked over at the sunflower teenager he seemed to have grown six inches overnight! I looked at the bottom of the bottle and there were roots in there!
I planted him in a planter out on the deck. Right now he is out there, straight and getting taller, and waving happily in the breeze at me.
(Originally published on September 13, 2020.)
You may remember the story about the intrepid little sunflower who was sawed in half by a slug earlier in the summer and grew new roots in a bottle. I transplanted her to a pot and put her out on the side of the house by her sister – where she’d originally been when she was attacked in the infamous Slug Wars. She thrived and grew out there and now she’s blooming!
Because she’s in a pot I was able to move her away from the dark background of the house for a photo of her in the sunlight. Check it out…
(Here’s a photo history of the Intrepid Little Sunflower.)
-Karen Molenaar Terrell
midst clash fight death
their hopes build peace
sunny faced bloom
grows above ashes
a perfect moment
I sit in the warm sunshine
with nothing to do
-Karen Molenaar Terrell
human risen
stone rolls
fresh draft blows
light fills tombs
inner holes
inner gloom
inner heart
tears apart
olden ideas
adore happy
child laugh
tulip bloom
sunny
newly borne
-Karen Molenaar Terrell
(Photo of tulips by Karen Molenaar Terrell.)
In 1953 Pete Schoening saved my dad’s life, and the lives of four other men, with his belay (known as “The Belay” in mountaineering circles) on the slopes of K2, the world’s second highest mountain. If not for Pete’s belay, a lot of us would never have been born. Pete’s grandson, Brian Schoening, recently invited me to chat with him about “The Children of the Belay” on his podcast. To listen to the podcast, click here.
Here’s a photo of The Children of the Belay taken when the descendents of the 1953 K2 climbers were able to get together in Leavenworth, Washington, in 2006.
I’m thinking about the stone that Love has been rolling away from my heart over the years – the ego, blame, self-will, guilt, fear, anger, selfishness, sense of being “put upon” and treated unfairly – and I’m so very grateful for the progress so far – so grateful for the light that’s reached me – so very glad to be alive – to be able to experience the birdsong and blossoms and sunshine of an Easter morning.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell
Every summer, the week before school started, my friends and I would ride our bikes out to our local school to look at the class lists taped to the front door that told us what room we’d be in the next year. I was so excited when I learned I was going to get the “new teacher,” Peravena Jackson, for my fifth grade teacher.
Miss Jackson was fresh out of college, and I still remember her clearly – she loved to laugh and explore, and help her students find their super powers, and she had a beautiful smile. When Miss Jackson learned my dad was a well-known mountaineer she asked him if he would help chaperone a ski trip for her class – I still remember her enthusiasm and energy as she went skiing for the first time, and I remember she wore that beautiful smile the entire day. I remember snow flakes in her hair.
Miss Jackson nurtured the good in her students. She gave us opportunities for success. She was the first person to call me a writer – she told the entire class that I was a good writer. That meant something to me. And she knew how to tap into my desire to be the best I could be – she had daily timed quizzes on the multiplication tables and I made it my goal to be quicker each day than I was the day before. By the end of the year I was crowned the “Multiplication Queen” and could do those multiplication sheets in less than a minute. Learning those multiplication tables is something that has helped me my entire life. Miss Jackson built me up and never failed to acknowledge when I did well at something. She was my biggest advocate.
But it wasn’t just ME she nurtured. Miss Jackson – like every great teacher – brought out the best in ALL of her students. She found every student’s gifts and set about helping her students develop those gifts. All the students in her first class – each and every one of them – were blessed to have Miss Jackson for their teacher.
In sixth grade my family moved to a new home two hours away and I lost touch with my old friends and with Miss Jackson for a while. But I never forgot her. And the confidence she’d helped nurture in me stayed with me and got me through some challenging times in my new community. She’d taught me I could trust myself and my own abilities – one of the most valuable gifts anybody can give to another.
I got married when I was 27. It had been 17 years since I’d had Miss Jackson as my teacher – so when she suddenly appeared at the door to the room where I was getting put together for my wedding ceremony, it felt like magic! She gave me a big hug and I could feel her positive, joyful energy wrapping me all up in love on my special day.
For another thirty years we chiefly kept in touch with Christmas cards, but then – fifty years after I’d had “Miss Jackson” for my fifth grade teacher – I found her and two of my old elementary school classmates on Facebook. We messaged each other back and forth and in 2018 my old classmates and Peravena and I were all able to come together and be in the same room for the first time in more than five decades! It was kind of surreal, actually, and very cool!
And now here we are 55 years later. These days I find myself in an age group labeled “elderly” by some folks (which I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around – I still FEEL like I’m a “kid,” you know?). How blessed am I that my “elderly” self still has her fifth grade teacher mentoring her through the ups and downs of life? Peravena Jackson Wilson continues to inspire me and nurture the good in me. She has this uncanny ability to know just when I need an encouraging word – just when I’m starting to doubt myself and what I’m doing here, she’ll pop onto my FB wall and leave a comment that lifts me back up. Yesterday “Miss Jackson” popped onto my wall to leave me this message: “I think of you and your written thoughts when I need a positive outlook on a negative situation. Thanks again for your thoughtful written words!!” And see? Right there. My fifth grade teacher can STILL make me feel like my life has meaning and purpose, and that I matter to her. That is what great teachers do.
Great teachers never stop teaching and nurturing the good in their students – and “Miss Jackson” is one of the world’s great teachers. I’m so grateful I got to be in her fifth grade class all those years ago. And I’m so grateful I’m still connected to her today.
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 