Tag Archives: stars

Stepping Into Magic

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Here’s the link to the podcast.

I’ve been in a funk today – I feel like I’ve been treading water just to stay afloat – mourning friends and family who have passed on in the last several years. But just now – as the sun slipped beneath the horizon – I left my house for a quick walk and stepped into magic. I was instantly surrounded in evening smells and sounds – frogsong and birdsong and the perfume that comes from the spring flowers as the evening wraps around them. I looked up at the night sky and saw a light shining down on me – I think from a planet – and then, further away, a star twinkled at me. And I was just suddenly so grateful. So grateful to live in a place where I’m safe to walk around the block on a fragrant spring evening. So grateful that the sounds I hear are coming from birds and frogs, and not cannons and guns. So grateful that the sky is clear and clean and I can see the stars on a sweet spring evening.

I looked up at the stars and could feel my friends and family with me. I felt a part of something cosmic and divine.

Blue Cosmos (photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell)

The Snow Crunches Under My Boots

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The snow crunches under my boots 
as I walk alone under the stars
shining above clouds in a navy blue sky.
It’s twenty degrees Fahrenheit and my breath
turns into steam as it leaves my mouth.
I keep my eyes on one star and let it pull me
into space with it. Feeling at one with infinity.
=Karen Molenaar Terrell

(Photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell.)

Blue Cosmos (photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell)

A Universe Alight

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Rising above
the cacophony
lifted by Love
the noise wanes
as I gain
height until it ceases
to be and I am in flight
among the stars
a universe alight
with joy and hope
part of me, part of you,
we are part of this
every moment new
-Karen Molenaar Terrell

Blue Cosmos (Photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell)

Go Outside and Look at the Stars

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If you have a clear sky tonight go outside and take a gander at the stars. From our home, Venus looks HUGE tonight. The frogs are just starting to make their music. There’s peace and beauty all around us.

The stars help put everything in perspective for me. The universe is so much bigger than our problems – and I find that oddly reassuring. I always say hi to Mom when I look at the stars. And now I say hi to Dad, too.
– Karen

“The stars make night beautiful, and the leaflet turns naturally towards the light.”
– Mary Baker Eddy

Blue Cosmos (photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell)

A Space Explorer

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I’ve been feeling her with me this past week –
hearing her laugh, seeing her smile –

the night was clear, the stars glittering
above me and I asked Scott
to join me on a walk around the block
to look at the cosmos.
I always think of her when
I look at the stars – she loved to learn
about them.  Scott’s just finished reading
a book by Neil deGrasse Tyson, and I remember
the photo of her standing with Tyson
and it makes me smile. Two of the world’s
great geniuses together – though she didn’t
recognize herself that way. She used to tell us
it was a miracle my brothers and I survived
to adulthood with her for a mother –

but we were so blessed by her! And the stars
feel so close tonight! I imagine myself
an astronaut – venturing out of my spacecraft
into space, tethered to my little home by
a simple rope, and my heart gives an excited
leap. And then it occurs to me – I AM
in space, traveling through the stars – I AM
a space explorer. And she is with me.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

Blue Cosmos (photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell)

 

Moz, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Jolene Unsoeld

Moz Molenaar, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Jolene Unsoeld

Throughout All Time and Space

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“The divine Spirit, which identified Jesus thus centuries ago, has spoken through the inspired Word and will speak through it in every age and clime. It is revealed to the receptive heart, and is again seen casting out evil and healing the sick.”
– Mary Baker Eddy

“This healing power of Truth must have been far anterior to the period in which Jesus lived. It is as ancient as ‘the Ancient of days.’ It lives through all Life, and extends throughout all space.”
– Mary Baker Eddy

I love looking out at the stars on a clear night, knowing that the starlight that’s reaching me now may have started out from some of those stars thousands of years ago. My new favorite star is Sirius – the light from Sirius takes eight years to reach Earth. That means the light I’m seeing from Sirius started eight years ago – when I was in the midst of a personal crisis I thought might never end. I find comfort somehow in knowing that, even then, Sirius was shining its light on me. When I look up at the stars I feel myself connected to something – a presence and power – far bigger than the little speck of the universe known as Earth. I feel myself connected to Life that’s infinite and fills all space. 

Okay, at the risk of being placed in the “tinfoil hat” category, I’m going to go ahead and say it: I do not believe Life is confined to this planet, or the three and half to four billion years that scientists believe life has been on Earth. I believe Life to be eternal and infinite – without beginning or end, or boundaries. “God forms and peoples the universe,” Mary Baker Eddy writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures  – and my thoughts about the universe coincide with her thoughts there.

There are some who believe, I guess, that the healings – what they would call “miracles” – that happened in Jesus’ time were only for that time and place in the universe, and can’t be repeated. But Eddy writes: “Jesus’ promise is perpetual…The purpose of his great life-work extends through time and includes universal humanity. Its Principle is infinite, reaching beyond the pale of a single period or of a limited following.” She writes: “The time for the reappearing of the divine healing is throughout all time…”

I like the idea that we’re not separated from the rest of the universe  – that we’re not separated by time or space from the healing power of God – Love and Truth and Life. I like the idea that this healing power of Love is perpetual, on-going, ever-present, without limits or bounds, and ever available to us. And I REALLY like the idea that there are other expressions of life peopling the universe.  When I look up at the stars, I send out my love to the other expressions of life that might be out there, with the hope that my love will carry through time and space.

It is my belief that the healing power of Love and Truth will, as mankind progresses onward, eventually be seen as the only real power. 

“The periods of spiritual ascension are the days and seasons of Mind’s creation, in which beauty, sublimity, purity, and holiness – yea, the divine nature – appear in man and the universe never to disappear.”
– Mary Baker Eddy

NASA image of Sirius:

“Love… blazons the night with starry gems”

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 It is Love which paints the petal with myriad hues, glances in the warm sunbeam, arches  the cloud with the bow of beauty, blazons the night with starry gems, and covers earth with loveliness. – Mary Baker Eddy

Arctic regions, sunny tropics, giant hills, winged winds, mighty billows, verdant vales, festive flowers, and glorious heavens, – all point to Mind, the spiritual  intelligence they reflect. The floral apostles are hieroglyphs of Deity. Suns and planets teach grand lessons.  The stars make night beautiful, and the leaflet turns naturally towards the light. – Mary Baker Eddy

***

Just took the dog for her nightly walk. It is freezing out there. The lawn is sparkling with frost, and the sky is sparkling with stars…

I heard stories today – scary stories about people doing scary things – hurting each other, showing no kindness or care for their fellow man. I admit that for a while I felt overwhelmed by the sadness of those stories. Helpless to make things better.

But when I looked up at the stars tonight – their far-away light reaching us through milliions of miles and thousands of years  – I felt as I always feel when I look out at the stars – like I’m part of something really amazing. Like there’s a majestic purpose to it all, and we’re all of us a part of that purpose. 

And my thoughts went to those people doing the terrible things to their fellow man. I wondered if they were looking up at the stars, too – or if, at some point, they’d stopped looking at them. I asked them, in my thoughts, if they realize how amazing they are, and what an amazing world they are a part of.  I found myself hoping that they would look up at the glittering sky and share in what I’m feeling right now – share in the joy, share in the love – know their beauty and nobility as Love’s children.  I found myself hoping  and longing for all of creation to see the universe through the eyes of Love.  As Mary Baker Eddy writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:  “It is Love which paints the petal with myriad hues, glances in the warm sunbeam, arches  the cloud with the bow of beauty, blazons the night with starry gems, and covers earth with loveliness.”

There’s an oft-repeated line from the movie, Clash of the Titans: “Release the kraken!” And it came to me yesterday that it’s beyond time we “Release the peace!” instead. Our world is long past krakens. We all deserve more than myth and hatred and violence.  It’s time we recognize who we each are as the children of Love, made in the image and likeness of Love.

A new friend in Africa who’s just finished reading my book, Blessings: Adventures of a Madcap Christian Scientist, sent me a lovely message this morning. This part of his message especially touched me: “i now feel like you are an African and i can boast of having a new and a good friend…” I love that! I love being seen as an African by an African. That has got to be the highest praise.

I know my new friend looks up at the stars when his part of the world is dark. And I’m sure that he feels what I feel, too, when he gazes on them. I know he looks up at the stars through Love’s eyes.

I’m so very glad to know we are dwelling under the stars, and amongst them, together.

Midnight foretells the dawn. Led by a solitary star amid the darkness, the Magi of old foretold the Messiahship of Truth. Is the wise man of to-day believed, when he beholds the light which heralds Christ’s eternal dawn and describes its effulgence? – Mary Baker Eddy