Oh, my friends! I really needed what I found on my Clayton Beach hike today: peace, stillness, quiet. I had a little mini vacation from my computer – there was no password I needed to remember or files I needed to access; no problems I needed to solve; no fears or worries or news demanding attention. It was lovely.
As I got near the beach, I saw a small family of deer crossing the path up ahead. Magic! And pretty soon Wes and Leigh appeared on the trail, coming my way. They told me that I had flushed the deer out for them – that the deer had turned towards them when they’d seen me. Leigh and Wes were as excited about the deer magic as I was. I love meeting other people who recognize magic when they see it.
When I got down to the beach, I found a boulder to sit on. Then I closed my eyes and listened to the sound of the waves shushing onto the beach, and the birdsong coming from the forest. I felt rich beyond imagining.
I stayed down at the beach for a while, snapping photos, looking for agates (I didn’t find any today, but it was fun looking), enjoying my alone-ness.
When I headed back to my car I passed a group of hikers with toddlers and babies, being led by Jillian from the Whatcom YMCA. Jillian told me that the group meets every Thursday for a hike. How wonderful! Maz, Carina, and Jillian graciously posed for me and gave me the okay to post their photo on Facebook.
By the time I got back to my car, my soul was filled with birdsong and babies’ smiles, new friends and the magic of waves and rocks, the forest and life.
A couple of weeks ago I saw a pair of red-haired women walking on the boardwalk and was struck by how much they looked alike. I asked them if they were family and learned that they were mother and daughter – Roxanne and Hallie. Hallie, I learned, had come from Denver to perform as one of the leads in the Pacific Northwest Opera‘s production of *Ariadne auf Naxos*, and Roxanne had driven up from Olympia to spend a few hours with her daughter before her performances began.
I shared with Roxanne and Hallie that my mom had earned her degree in music performance back in the 1950s. Mom had been accepted into the Portland Opera Company after she graduated from the University of Montana, but had chosen to marry my dad instead, and move with him to Colorado to start their life together. They’d soon moved back to the PNW, though – to Olympia, in fact – and that’s where I’d spent my first years.
We swapped stories about Olympia and music for a bit then – I shared that I’d met my husband at a wedding – he’d been the photographer and I’d been the wedding singer – but I’d never had the kind of musical training, skills, or discipline my mom had had.
Hallie told me more about *Ariadne auf Naxos*. *Ariadne auf Naxos* was a comedy, she told me – and, as she described the plot, I found myself laughing out loud. It sounded like a hoot! I told her that I was going to google more about it, and I might try to get tickets for it.
But then life happened, and two weeks went by, and I never purchased tickets, and it didn’t look like seeing the opera was something I was going to be doing.
But yesterday, as I was sitting on a bench with my son in Fairhaven, I saw a pretty copper-headed woman walk by with a young man, and I realized it was Hallie! I called out to her, and she turned and grinned – she recognized me, too! I gave Hallie a hug, and met Gyan – who is the pianist for the opera.
Hallie offered to set aside a ticket for me to today’s show – but I still wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to make it. When I got home, though, it felt like running into Hallie again had been too cosmic to ignore, and I immediately purchased two tickets for today’s show.
Scotty and I got there just before the curtain rose. As soon as Hallie stepped onto the stage, I think we both knew we were looking at a star.
During the intermission, I happened to run into Gyan. I wasn’t sure if I was going to see Hallie again, so I asked Gyan to let Hallie know that I had made it to the performance.
The second half of *Ariadne auf Naxos* was where the vocalists really had a chance to shine. And Hallie’s performance blew me away! She was spectacular – her vocal range was extraordinary; her role as a coquette had me laughing out loud; she had incredible stage presence. Hallie is a unique talent.
After the performance, I stayed around to see if Hallie would appear. I didn’t see her right away, but I got into conversation with two of the other opera singers and asked them to let Hallie know that Karen had made it to the show. As I was talking to them, they pointed to my left, and said, “There’s Hallie!”
I gave Hallie a hug, and I got to tell her, in person, how wonderful her performance was. Then Scott and I, star-struck fans that we are, made sure to get our picture with her.
Hallie Schmidt. Remember that name. This woman is going to be famous one day. And I got to see her at the beginning of her career!
Driving away from that world-class performance in beautiful McIntyre Hall, past the strip malls and Starbucks on College Way, and in twenty minutes back in our home in rural Skagit County, seemed sort of surreal to me.
My ego gets pulled into the false narratives – wanting to set the record straight – who started what and who did it first and who is the most violent and who is the worst.
And my ego’s input feeds the beast, feeds the narrative, feeds the hate-feast. It becomes a finger-pointing frenzy of sleights and wrongs and fear, with everyone only hearing what they want to hear.
I think I’ll get off of this crazy ride. I think I’ll focus on what’s true. I think I’ll spend my time and energy in loving you and you and YOU.
When I was going through a clinical depression in 2007-2008, one of the most prominent symptoms for me was a debilitating, overwhelming feeling of guilt – I felt unworthy, undeserving of joy, ashamed of my human foibles and flaws, afraid I might unintentionally say or do something that would hurt someone else. I contemplated ending my life because I thought – in my unhealthy mental state – that it would make life easier for others if I just wasn’t here.
So I speak from a place of personal experience when I say: Let’s STOP SHAMING EACH OTHER. Let’s stop throwing guilt on each other. We don’t know what anyone else is going through – but, trust me, EVERYone here is working their way through some challenge(s). What we see on each other’s FB walls is just a slice of a person’s life, and some people choose not to publish their struggles here – but that doesn’t mean they don’t have them.
Let’s assume that EVERYone could do with some kindness and tenderness and grace – even those people who seem to have “perfect” lives.
Went up to Concrete today to pay a visit to the 5b’s Bakery. 5b’s owner, Em, came out of her office and sat down with me for a coze. It was so good to see Em again – she is a remarkable person who’s led a remarkable life, and it’s always fun to talk with her. Em introduced me to her sweet therapy-pup-in-training, Hugo, and gave me the okay to take Hugo’s picture. And a friendly young man named James who hails from NY and works as a forest ranger gave me the okay to take HIS picture, too.
As I drove home from Concrete, I impulsively turned off onto the Baker Lake Road to see what I might see. I ended up at the little Shadow of the Sentinels interpretive trail. This trail holds special memories for me – it was my first hike with my youngest son when he was a week old; when my dad was 100, his care-giver, Gwen, loaded her van with Dad, another man in their adult family home, me, and a couple of wheelchairs and took us all up to the trail because she knew Dad and Joe were in desperate need of a trip to the mountains; and when my granddaughter was not quite one, she’d hiked the trail, too. I was surrounded in sweet memories: Xander trying to focus his new eyes on the trees; Dad pointing to the tops of those trees and checking to make sure I’d gotten a picture of the forest canopy; and my little granddaughter toddling along the boardwalk, holding her mama’s hand, and grinning at her papa who waited for her at the end of the trail – a trail he’d hiked with me when his little brother was just a week old.
And, honestly, it felt like none of those memories were separated from me by time at all – all the love is still with me, and I can still feel the joy of those moments surrounding me in the woods.
For most of my drive home, I had no one behind me or in front of me on the road. It was lovely. I was in my own little bubble.
I stopped off at the Otter Beans Coffee stand for a lavender green iced tea. The young man in front of me in line was fun. He’s a manager for the local casino and took out his phone to show me some of the shows that will be appearing there soon. “Whose Live Anyway?” comedy show is coming soon – that looks like it will be fun.
I brought home more photos, some new memories, and a perfect lavender green iced tea made by Dani.
This morning’s message from the Cosmos told me to take a walk on the Padilla Dike Trail. I have come to trust this Cosmic voice when I hear it – it always seems to lead me to the exactly right place I need to be. So I grabbed my camera and headed out to the trail.
Sometimes I just walk as far as the shed, but this time the voice told me to go to the cluster of benches about half-way down the trail. So I did that. And as I was looking out at the water, I saw a little head bob up and then disappear. I recognized what I was looking at right away – an otter! I LOVE otters! Transfixed, I waited for the head to surface again – and then I saw a whole family of otters was out there – I think I counted four of them! They moved towards me through the water – diving and rising – until they were right in front of me! One of them emerged from the water, happily chomping on a fish. Every now and then one of them would swim close to me and look at me – curious what I was all about. I was charmed.
I yelled to a man coming down the trail, “Otters!” And he came over to join me in the otter magic. Because it was a little cold this morning, I had thrown on my knitted pink hat (dating back to 2017) before I’d started on my walk. Now the man smiled down at me and told me he liked my hat. I asked him if he knew when I’d first worn this, and he nodded his head, and said he did. And this led to a conversation about politics – but it wasn’t one of those hopeless, depressing conversations about politics – this conversation was full of humor and hope.
The man, Pat, was a Vietnam vet, and he talked a bit about that. Then I saw he was wearing a jacket with a mountain logo on it, and I asked him if he was a climber. I learned he’d climbed Denali when he and his family had lived in Alaska, and I told him I’d climbed Rainier, Baker, Adams, and Hood in my younger days. And THEN I saw he was wearing a WSU cap, and he told me his daughter had gone to school there, and he was a Coug now. I told him my son and I had both gone there, too.
By this time the little family of otters had swum away, and I could see them scampering on the shore of the island not far out in the bay. I pointed them out to Pat, and we watched them for a little longer.
I asked Pat if I could take his photo – it would probably end up on FB, I told him, and asked him if that was okay. Pat told me he wasn’t on FB, but his wife was – and he’d let her find him there.
After Pat and I parted, I began my walk back to my car – I think I was smiling the whole way. I was so grateful to have seen the otters this morning. Magic!
The magic wasn’t done, yet, though. I discovered a whole ‘nother place I’d never been before – but I’ll put that in the next post. (Photos by Karen Molenaar Terrell.)
For I am persuaded that neither Facebook, PayPal, Fox, or AI, nor trolls, nor bots, nor politicians who lie, – not conglomorates nor fake news nor oligarchs nor gazillionaires – can separate us from the power of Love that is everywhere. -Karen Molenaar Terrell (at 5 in the morning and still half-asleep)
I typed this poem out on my Facebook wall early in the morning, and when I came back to check on it, I found a little box underneath it, with the question: “What does this poem mean?” I was curious what Meta’s AI would have to say about a poem that talks about Meta’s AI. (Which is META by definition.) I found myself laughing out loud when I read when Meta AI had to say about the poem. It was kind of sweet. It actually guessed correctly my intent. It lacked any human ego and took no offense. It was kind of charming. Here’s a screenshot:
Reviews of Dan Brown’s book, The Secret of Secrets, have used the terms “entertaining,” “absorbing,” “encyclopedic lecturing,” “clear bias,” “unnecessary descriptions,” “tedious,” “predictable,” “silly”, “fast-paced,” “fun read.” And I guess I would agree with all of that. 🙂 I enjoyed The Secret of Secrets enough to finish all 671 pages of it – although I found myself frequently checking what page number I was on so I could calculate how much more time I still had to invest in this read.
One of the things that other readers criticized were the constant references to the tourist spots of Prague, but, personally, those references were some of my favorite parts. I love tourist books. Other readers complained about the continual diversions the author takes to roll out facts and details that have little or nothing to do with the plot. Here’s an example, I think, of what they meant: “The Temple of Athena, he mused, recalling how ancient Greeks had practiced catoptromancy by gazing into dark pools of water to glimpse their future.” But, again, being the nerd I am, I kind of liked those diversions. It was like watching an episode of Jeopardy.
But, as a madcap Christian Scientist, here’s what I found most disappointing: Brown’s references to metaphysics. Brown’s book was promising at the start. His character Katherine, a doctor of noetic science, says, “Your consciousness is not created by your brain. And, in fact, your consciousness is not even located inside your head.”
Okay. Cool. As a student of Christian Science I’ve come to feel that we live within the one Consciousness, our Father-Mother God, and are expressions, reflections, manifestations, ideas, children, images and likenesses of this one universal Consciousness. At this point in the book, I was excited about the possibility of Dan Brown exploring the idea of a non-material universal cosmic consciousness.
But as I read further into the book, I realized that Brown still couldn’t quite let go of the notion that consciousness is connected to the brain – with his character Katherine explaining that the brain acts as a transmitter for the “nonlocal consciousness”: “Your brain is just a receiver—an unimaginably complex, superbly advanced receiver—that chooses which specific signals it wants to receive from the existing cloud of global consciousness. Just like a Wi-Fi signal, global consciousness is always hovering there, fully intact, whether or not you access it.”
I felt that Brown was heading the right direction, but he couldn’t quite take that last step of letting go of a physical transmitter for a metaphysical presence.
Brown talks about the idea of a universal consciousness being a part of many religions and cultures. He writes: “The symbol of the halo was widely associated with Christianity, but Langdon knew there were many earlier versions—from Mithraism, Buddhism, and Zoroastrianism—that portrayed rays of energy around their subjects.” And “Like everyone around him, Langdon was stunned. He also knew that this very idea—the notion that human thoughts create reality—existed at the core of most major spiritual teachings. Buddha: With our thoughts, we create the world. Jesus: Whatever you ask for in prayer, it will be yours. Hinduism: You have the power of God.”
Dan Brown lives in Boston – home of The Mother Church for Christian Science. In the textbook for Christian Science, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, the word “consciousness” is mentioned 80 times. And I guess I can’t help wondering – and speculating – why Brown didn’t mention Christian Science in The Secret of the Secrets. Sure, Christian Science isn’t considered one of the world’s major denominations – but, as a cultured, intelligent, well-educated man who lives in Boston and wrote a book about metaphysical universal consciousness, I’d expect that Christian Science would have shown up on his radar at SOME point, right?
And this got me to thinking about Dan Brown’s humanness and mine, too. We all have biases. All of us. And I’m thinking it’s human nature to want to be seen by others in our political tribe as not being one of “those guys” over there in the other tribe. As a self-identified “progressive Christian” I’m triggered by anyone trying to lump me in with those “other” Christians – the fundamentalist conservative ones. I make a point of letting everyone know that I am not THAT kind of Christian. And I can imagine that Dan Brown might have the same concerns. This is pure speculation on my part, of course – but it could be that he does NOT want in any way to be associated with those crazy Christian Scientists. And, as a human with my.own biases, I can not blame him. But I might have gained more respect for him if he’d been a little more fearless.
None of what Brown had to say about consciousness seemed “cutting edge” or mind-blowing to me. I’ve lived with these concepts my entire life.
I liked some of the other ideas Dan Brown shared in his book, though. I like the take on the “online world” that Dan Brown’s character, Katherine, offers: “I think you have to consider that the online world is a real world…when you see someone glued to a phone, you see a person ignoring this world – rather than a person engrossed in another world…a world that, like this one, is made up of communities, friends, beauty, horror, love, conflict, right and wrong. It’s all there. The online world is not so different from our world…except for one stark difference… It’s nonlocal.”
Brown writes: “…our current technological explosion is actually part of a spiritual evolution…a kind of training ground for the existence that, in the end, is our ultimate destiny…a consciousness, untethered from the physical world, and yet connected to all things.”
This reminds me very much of an interesting dialogue about science and technology between Mary Baker Eddy and an interviewer, as recounted In Prose Works (Miscellany, p. 345). The interviewer asks Eddy how she feels about the “pursuit of modern material inventions,” and Eddy replies: “Oh, we cannot oppose them. They all tend to newer, finer, more etherealized ways of living. They seek the finer essences. They light the way to the Church of Christ. We use them, we make them our figures of speech. They are preparing the way for us.”
And I like what Brown’s character, Katherine, says about fear and death: “Fear makes us selfish,” Katherine said. “The more we fear death, the more we cling to ourselves, our belongings, our safe spaces…to that which is familiar. We exhibit increased nationalism, racism, and religious intolerance. We flout authority, ignore social mores, steal from others to provide for ourselves, and become more materialistic. We even abandon our feelings of environmental responsibility because we sense the planet is a lost cause and we’re all doomed anyway.” Katherine says, “Death is not the end. There’s more work to do, but science continues to discover evidence that there is indeed something beyond all this. That message is one we should be shouting from the mountaintops, Robert! It’s the secret of all secrets. Just imagine the impact it will have on the future of the human race.” And “The elimination of the fear of death transforms the individual’s way of being in the world.’ Grof believes that a radical inner transformation of consciousness might be our only hope of surviving the global crisis brought on by the Western mechanistic paradigm.”
In Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy writes: “The fact that the Christ, or Truth, overcame and still overcomes death proves the ‘king of terrors’ to be but a mortal belief, or error, which Truth destroys with the spiritual evidences of Life; and this shows that what appears to the senses to be death is but a mortal illusion, for to the real man and the real universe there is no death-process.” (p. 289) Later in Science and Health, Eddy writes: “Christian scientific practice begins with Christ’s keynote of harmony, ‘Be not afraid!'” (p. 410)
“Man is deathless, spiritual. He is above sin or frailty. He does not cross the barriers of time into the vast forever of Life, but he coexists with God and the universe.” -Mary Baker Eddy
You know those shows you see on television where the bride spends HUGE amounts of time, thought, and bucks choosing the just right ring, dress, caterer, flowers, music, photographer, and reception venue for her “big day” – those shows where every minute detail of the wedding production is analyzed, critiqued, and judged for its merits on visual perfection? Where the ceremony is somber and refined and the highlight of the whole shebang is the dress the bride wears?
Yeah. That wasn’t us.
My engagement ring was a little garnet ring I picked out from a small jewelry shop in Pike Place Market in Seattle, and the man who sold it to us was cheerfully, flamboyantly, hilariously gay – he had us cracking up the minute we walked into his shop. My wedding dress was the first dress I tried on from the sales rack at our local Bon Marche. Cost me $120. Our minister was a hoot – we’d met with him for a required counseling session, and when he told us that anything he had to say to us would be pretty much useless at this point – because it’s really only AFTER the wedding that the bride and groom realize what they’ve gotten themselves into (we later learned that he’d just recently been divorced), we immediately recognized the man had a sense of humor, and he was, for sure, the minister we wanted officiating our nuptials.
The wedding was a joyful, light-hearted affair in a small Methodist church in Gig Harbor – I remember the minister asking us if we really wanted to hold the service in his church – it was very small – could maybe hold 100 people – and very old (it’s since been torn down and a larger church built in a different location) – but, for our purposes, that little church was perfect – I liked the cozy smallness of it and the stained glass windows – and from the church’s steps we could look out across the water and see Mount Rainier rising above the hills in the distance. The wedding itself was simple, joyful, and natural. We weren’t too concerned with “perfection” – we just wanted our guests to feel comfortable and loved.
The reception was held in my parents’ backyard – with the sound of laughter, and the smell of daffodils and plum blossoms, filling the air. And we played volleyball in the pasture – the groom’s team won, but it was a close game. The minister came to the reception, and fit right in with our hooligan families and friends. Before he left he told us that sometimes he’s really worried about the future of the newlyweds he marries – they often seem more concerned about the wedding than the actual marriage – but, after watching us yukking it up with our families and friends, he felt good about being a part of our ceremony. He knew we were going to be alright. We knew how to laugh.
***
When I think about that day, I can’t imagine why anyone would want to deny other people the right to a wedding, and to a life-long commitment in marriage with the partner they love. I can’t understand why any couple would feel their own marriage is threatened by allowing others the same rights that they have. I feel a real yearning for other folks who love one another, and are brave enough to make a commitment to each other, to be allowed to have what my husband and I were allowed to have.
So this really cosmic thing happened today on the boardwalk. I was walking along, enjoying the sunshine and the people and the pups – my old friend, Baker pup; Archie and Buddy; Blue and Maverick; Murphy (who did his Buddha pose for me); and my old friend, little Daisy – and I had to stop and snap a picture of sweet Baker greeting someone on the boardwalk with his paws on the man’s chest – it was just so typical of friendly Baker. Baker always puts a smile on my face.
When the man caught up to me, I showed him the picture I’d taken of him and Baker, and asked him if it was okay to post it publicly. He smiled and thanked me and told me it was fine to post it. I asked him for his name, and he told me he was Ve. “Is that a Vietnamese name?” I asked him. Ve looked surprised that I would recognize a Vietnamese name, and I explained that my Australian daughter-in-law is of Vietnamese heritage, and that she and my son and granddaughter are all learning Vietnamese. Ve asked if they’d ever visited Vietnam, and I told him they’d gone a year ago to visit some of my daughter-in-law’s family who still live there. Ve told me then that his wife was there right now visiting her family while he stayed here and watched the children.
Then Ve said he was a “street photographer” and took pictures of people he met – and we realized we had that in common, too! He said he’d taken a photo a while ago of a pup named Bear and he’d made a card for Bear’s human. He’d been been looking for her for a couple months, but hadn’t run into her again. I asked him to describe Bear, and he took out the card he’d made and showed me Bear’s picture. I instantly recognized little Bear, and told him Bear’s human, Rebecca, was a good friend of mine! (What are the odds, right?!) I told Ve that I’d actually met Rebecca on the boardwalk several years ago (via little Bear), and had run into her again when I’d gone up to Mount Baker for a hike, and we’d become good friends! Ve’s face lit up in a big smile. He said he could totally see the two of us as friends, and asked me if I could get the card to Rebecca.
So on the way home, I stopped by Rebecca’s house to give her the card. She happened to pull into her driveway just after I got there, and I was able to deliver the card in person and get a hug, too!
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 