Moon from Bow, WA (photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell)
Embraced in Light
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Moon from Bow, WA (photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell)
Category Archives: photography
Dazzling Days of Derring-Do
Remembering days when we played hide and seek
in the parking lot at Mount Rainier on summer nights –
my fellow park employees and I slithering
under trucks and dodging behind cars
and laughing so hard our bellies hurt.
Or we might go looking for bears on the trails
in the evenings – hoping we wouldn’t actually
find any, but enjoying the idea of it –
my friend, Dan, pulling me in front of him
for protection, as we encountered imaginary beasts.
We were young. The world was full of adventure
and laughter, and derring-do.
Forty years have brought changes –
marriage, motherhood, responsibilities.
My body seems more matronly than springy
these days. I will be entering my sixth decade
in a few weeks. I felt some trepidation about this.
Would I never have another adventure?
Were the dazzling days of derring-do done?
I went for a walk around the lake yesterday.
I wanted more. Walked from old town to the park.
I wanted more. Walked from the park to downtown,
and back again. Then Scott came home with an idea:
Let’s walk the trail to the beach when the sun sets.
I was all stretched out from nine miles of walking,
and ready for more. A walk in the evening cool.
Darkening trail, lovely roots and rocks to climb
smell of fir and cedar and briny bay
and the sunset – brilliant reds and golds
and blue filling my eyes in the west as the full
moon rises in the east, shimmering silver on the sea.
Crashing waves, sparkling light from sun and moon,
peace and perspective from the stars dotting the above.
And then flashlights come out of our pockets
and we find our way back through the woods,
rocks and roots, joking about what we’d do
if big eyes glowed towards us at eye level down the trail –
and we’re laughing and brave and young again.
The adventures haven’t ended.
There are still dazzling days of derring-do.
– Karen Molenaaar Terrell
Sunset from Clayton Beach
Moonlight over Clayton Beach
Morning Walk with Dad
Happiness is spiritual, born of Truth and Love. It is unselfish; therefore it cannot exist alone, but requires all mankind to share it.
– Mary Baker Eddy
Morning walk and talk with Dad in LaConner –
Karen: Dad, it’s beautiful outside! You want to get up and go for a walk with me?
Dad: (lying in bed) No. I’m comfortable here.
Karen: But it’s gorgeous outside! Come on! Let’s go for a walk.
Dad: Okay.
(Once we’re outside, I follow Dad’s lead. He takes us on to the boardwalk along the Swinomish Channel.)
Dad: (Standing at the end of the boardwalk and sweeping his arm across the Swinomish Channel) This is so beautiful. I could stand here all day.
(Eventually we move to a bench in the sun.)
Dad: (Looking at John Wayne’s boat tied up at the dock) John Wayne is dead. We might have been the same age. I don’t know. He had a lot more active life than me.
Karen: (laughing OUT LOUD) He did NOT have a more active life than you. Did he climb mountains? Did he climb around on K2?
Dad: (smiling) Well, he made more action MOVIES.
Karen: There’s a big difference between movies and real life.
Dad: I could sit here all day. Because you’re here with me. I could sit here all day with you. There are not many moments like this.
Dad: My grandchildren came to see me not too long ago. Recently. I think it was my birthday or something. I’m very proud of them.
Karen: They came on your birthday. They came to see you because they love you.
Dad: (smiling) Of course they do. Because I am a loveable old man.
Dad: I could sit here all day watching the people. (pointing to the sky) Look! There’s only one cloud in the entire sky today!
Dad: (after we’d been out for 40 minutes or so) Okay. Let’s get back to Mom now.
Dad: (as I’m leaving) Thank you for going out on a walk with me today.
Karen: It was fun!
Note: These are not professional quality photos – took these pictures with my cellphone – because, of course, I left my actual cameras AT HOME. But oh well. It was a great morning. 🙂
Dad in LaConner, WA
LaConner, WA
LaConner, WA
Heron on Dock
one cloud in sky
Lab Girl and a Walk in the Forest
I finished Hope Jahren’s book, Lab Girl, last week – and I loved it. I thought a lot about Jahren’s book as I was walking through the forest at Rasar State Park on a camping trip this week…
“Some unique trigger-combination of temperature-moisture-light and many other things is required to convince a seed to jump off the deep end and take its chance— to take its one and only chance to grow. A seed is alive while it waits. Every acorn on the ground is just as alive as the three-hundred-year-old oak tree that towers over it… When you go into a forest you probably tend to look up at the plants that have grown so much taller than you ever could. You probably don’t look down, where just beneath your single footprint sit hundreds of seeds, each one alive and waiting… When you are in the forest, for every tree that you see, there are at least a hundred more trees waiting in the soil, alive and fervently wishing to be.” – Hope Jahren
Maple seeds waiting…
“Once the first root is extended, the plant will never again enjoy any hope (however feeble) of relocating to a place less cold, less dry, less dangerous. Indeed, it will face frost, drought, and greedy jaws without any possibility of flight. The tiny rootlet has only one chance to guess what the future years, decades— even centuries— will bring to the patch of soil where it sits. It assesses the light and humidity of the moment, refers to its programming, and quite literally takes the plunge… If a root finds what it needs, it bulks into a taproot— an anchor that can swell and split bedrock, and move gallons of water daily for years, much more efficiently than any mechanical pump yet invented by man. The taproot sends out lateral roots that intertwine with those of the plant next to it, capable of signaling danger” – Hope Jahren
cedar root
trunk and roots
“The first real leaf is a new idea. As soon as a seed is anchored, its priorities shift and it redirects all its energy toward stretching up. Its reserves have nearly run out and it desperately needs to capture light in order to fuel the process that keeps it alive. As the tiniest plant in the forest, it has to work harder than everything above it, all the while enduring a misery of shade.All the sugar that you have ever eaten was first made within a leaf. Without a constant supply of glucose to your brain, you will die. Period… It’s inescapable: at this very moment, within the synapses of your brain, leaves are fueling thoughts of leaves.”
Forest Canopy, Rasar State Park (photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell)
“Trees are a unique type of plant because their stems can be more than one hundred yards long and are made of this amazing substance that we call wood. Wood is strong, light, flexible, nontoxic, and weather-resistant; thousands of years of human civilization have yet to produce a better multipurpose building material. Inch for inch, a wooden beam is as strong as one made from cast iron but is ten times more flexible and only one-tenth as heavy… Every piece of wood in your house— from the windowsills to the furniture to the rafters— was once part of a living being, thriving in the open and pulsing with sap.” – Hope Jahren
Hole in Tree
Cedar Log
Cedar Trees
“You may think a mushroom is a fungus. This is exactly like believing that a penis is a man. Every toadstool, from the deliciously edible to the deathly poisonous, is merely a sex organ that is attached to something more whole, complex, and hidden.” – Hope Jahren
Mushrooms on Stump at Rasar State Park (Karen Molenaar Terrell)
“Plants do not travel through space as we do: as a rule they do not move from place to place. Instead they travel through time, enduring one event after the other, and in this sense, winter is a particularly long trip. Trees follow the standard advice given for any extended travel within a rustic setting: pack carefully.” – Hope Jahren
Rasar State Park
Wild Sweet Peas
Dandelion and Buttercup
“There are thousands of different palm species, and they all belong to the Arecaceae family. The Arecaceae are important because they were the first plant family to evolve as ‘monocots’ about a hundred million years ago… The very earliest monocots soon evolved into grasses, and grasslands eventually spread across the vast areas of the Earth where it’s just a little too wet to be a desert and still a little too dry to be a forest.” – Hope Jahren
Maple seeds waiting…
“Research has shown how a brief glimpse of green significantly improved the creativity that people brought to bear on simple tasks.” – Hope Jahren
Skagit River, Rasar Park
Meadow, Rasar Park
Rasar Park
Peace
Earlier this week – at the end of a long, dark day – I looked out the window and saw this – a blessing, a promise, a symbol of diversity, a symbol of peace and hope. I really needed this right then…
Love Rules!
My thoughts have been turning a lot lately to one of my favorite hymns in The Christian Science Hymnal – “Love” – with words by Mary Baker Eddy…
Love
Brood o’er us with Thy sheltering wing
‘Neath which our spirits blend
Like brother birds, that soar and sing,
And on the same branch bend.
The arrow that doth wound the dove,
Darts not from those who watch and love.
If thou the bending reed would break
By thought or word unkind,
Pray that His spirit you partake,
Who loved and healed mankind:
Seek holy thoughts and heavenly strain,
That make men one in love remain.
Learn, too, that wisdom’s rod is given
For faith to kiss, and know;
That greetings glorious from high heaven,
Whence joys supernal flow,
Come from that Love, divinely near,
Which chastens pride and earthborn fear.
Through God, who gave that word of might
Which swelled creation’s lay:
“Let there be light, and there was light.”
What chased the clouds away?
‘Twas love whose finger traced aloud
a bow of promise on the cloud.
Thou to whose power our hope we give,
Free us from human strife.
Fed by thy love divine we live,
For Love alone is life;
And life most sweet, as heart to heart
Speaks kindly when we meet and part.
– Mary Baker Eddy
Love rules!
You Will Bring Love
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Bring the Best of Yourself
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“Love is the Liberator”
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Beauty is a Thing of Life
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Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 