Power Talk Live

Karen's Art Showing Dec-Jan

2009-10-19T09:08:00.000-07:00

Mosaic Coffee House Wallingford just off of 45th Street

all of December and January

Please stop by

Among the RosePetals

2009-10-19T08:57:00.000-07:00

Emerging / Submerging In Between Niether Caught nor Free

not Suspended or Engaged

However Engaging

2009-09-21T01:47:00.000-07:00

Her arms were not long enough to reach her desires and so she settled for the fallen fruit.

Keep it comin' Video

2009-09-14T21:03:00.000-07:00

Enjoy this video you can make your own for free,
it's really fun!

Who/ What Is God?

2009-09-10T08:32:00.000-07:00

I am sharing this with you because I whole heartedly agree

with the changed perception about who/what God is~ Karen

Shirley Krogstad from Hendersonville, North Carolina, writes: If you had to name one "belief" of yours that has evolved or grown the most over the last ten years, what would it be?

Dear Shirley, Since my whole belief system is deeply interrelated that is not an easy question to answer. I like the story told about an elderly bishop who remarked, "The older I get, the more deeply I believe but the less beliefs I have." That is exactly what I feel.

To answer your question more specifically, however, I believe it would be the way I think about God. God is no longer a person, a being or an entity to me. God is rather a presence in whom, to use words attributed to St. Paul, "I live and move and have my being." The "old man in the sky" was the first image to go, then the heavenly judge who kept record books and finally the father figurewho desired praise and whose mercy I implored. The invasive, external heavenly deity faded and new images began to intrude themselves into my consciousness.

The interesting thing to me was that while these old images were fading, the God intensity within me remained steady and steadfast. Today I am a God-intoxicated person, but my definition of God is anything but crisp and well defined. I struggle to find words big enough to use when I try to talk about God. God to me is now more of an experience of transcendence, or perhaps the source of life, the source of love and the ground of all being. An experience to me is vastly different from a being who might be described externally. People hear these concepts sometimes as simply words. I hear them, however as a call to transcend all human limits and all human boundaries. God to me is a call to live fully, to love wastefully and to be all that I can be.

A redefined Jesus still stands at the center of my God experience. He is not the one sent to be my savior, redeemer or rescuer. Jesus is not to God what Clark Kent is to Superman, a deity masquerading as a human being. He is rather a God presence through whom I am empowered to be open to the life, love and being that flows through me.

I now call myself a mystic because in my understanding of God I have gone beyond words into a kind of wordless wonder, awe and mystery. This is not where I was a decade ago. I doubt if it will be where I am a decade from now, but it is where I am today and it represents the evolving, growing frontier of where I was ten years ago.

Thanks for asking.

– John Shelby Spong

Flying

2009-09-07T07:57:00.000-07:00

I'm not falling I'm Flying!

When I have new opportunities or the

opportunity to be new the beginning often

feels like I am falling. Actually leaving the

familiar to follow what your heart is calling

you to do requires trust and commitment.

Sometimes stepping into the unknown is

like free-falling; I have stepped out into

new territory having left what felt stable

and solid.

As we let go of fear we realize;

I'm not falling I'm flying!

Wyoming Sunset

2009-09-04T22:56:00.000-07:00

I love that Nature is so in the moment.

No two sunsets are ever alike

just like people!

Best Friends

2009-09-02T04:31:00.000-07:00

Rex and Emma

Sometimes our best friend is our pet.

It is my experience that pets can fill a need

to be loved unconditionally. As I have been

working to help my daughter make a major

move there has been an opportunity to

spend time with my dogs that have

been living with her.

Regardless of how long it has been since my

last visit my dogs are always excited and

happy to see me. Somehow they always

know when a little extra love is needed.

Whether the pain is emotional or physical

they always seemed to stay even closer.

I am grateful for their example of

non-judgement, loyalty, and companionship.

We Are Family

2009-08-29T21:40:00.000-07:00

One of these doesn't look quite like the others.

Celebrating diversity!

PEACE

2009-08-27T04:33:00.000-07:00

What does Peace look/feel like to you?

Please leave your comment below

Experience

2009-08-27T01:10:00.000-07:00

EMMA

'Guru of Experience'

Time

2009-08-27T01:02:00.000-07:00

Time

Tic Toc Tic Toc

So fluid, So elastic, So relative

Tic Toc Tic Toc

Adaptability

2009-08-26T07:16:00.000-07:00

I Love this picture because it shows the beauty

of being Adaptable!

No Longer

2009-08-22T22:21:00.000-07:00

No Longer Karen

See yourself a child no longer behind the screen.

Reach out and take the hand of your life's partner.

Retrieve for yourself the creative life force that knows.

Breathe life into your senses, awaken you must

Open the door so in you can go and out you can come.

Meet yourself in the presence of the One.

Life is behind the door,the life you choose to see no more.

You've kinked your umbilical cord and exist on only a tricle.

Rejoin yourself and from here travel together.

For pain and grief and shame you will feel.

Once remembered though no longer seems real.

The mystery now cracked like a thin egg shell

gives way to release and celebration.

Dare you remember, dare you look?

Sacrifice only your illusions of current security.

Live true reality.

Run

2009-08-22T22:11:00.000-07:00

Do not walk but run into

the mouth that would devour you

for it is in being consumed not consuming

that the light dawns. Karen

Cat On A Hot Tin Roof

2009-08-22T21:49:00.000-07:00

Pretty Cats

Have you ever heard of the Strengths Test?

This special test identifies your top 5 strengths.

The philosophy is to play to your strengths and perfect

them rather than attempting to focus your energy on

developing your weaknesses. Work with what's working

and leave the rest to those who do it best kind of theory.

I took this test and found it interesting because one of

my strengths was something that I had thought of as more

of a weakness than a strength. It turns out that one of

my top 5 strengths is ADAPTABILITY.

I have said many times that I am kind of like a chameleon,

I can pretty much fit in anywhere and make it work.

My original thought about that was that I wasn't rooted

to my own style, my own character. Now I understand the

value of being adaptable. I've experienced so many changes

in these past two years especially and I have pretty much

rolled with each change finding my place in the new situation.

Seeing my ability to adapt as a strength has also given me

more self-trust to go into new situations and opportunities

with assurance and curiosity rather than trepidation.

I chose my kat pic because I'm in Texas right now and it is

too hot! I like Seattle's summer weather better!

Logos

2009-08-15T10:54:00.000-07:00

LOGO FOR MY DESIGN BUSINESS

INNATE DESIGN

I'm working on a new logo for Power Talk Live Radio. This logo

is the one I created for my Interior Design Business.

I am truly fluent in space planning, energy clearing and design

If you're feeling the need for a change give me a call.

I am a graduate of the Art Institute and have lots of skills and

creative ideas!

DEVO

2009-08-15T10:39:00.000-07:00

DEVO

I want to introduce you to my _______ I'm not

sure how to classify who/what Devo is to me.

I was feeling lonely and my maternal instincts were

kicking in so I decided to visit Paws, a shelter for

animals with a friend one day. I didn't really have an

intention of bringing a cat home. After all I'm pretty

much a 'dog person'. I met Devo and it was connection

at first touch. He was sitting on a tall play tower just

chillin and I walked up to him and put my hands around

his head to massage his cheeks and he began purring

and the more firmly I massaged him the louder he purred!

I looked into his eyes and saw that they have the most

beautiful blue ring around the pupil with a dynamic green

iris~ You can ask any massage therapist, anyone who

purrs at their touch is already in our heart.

Needless to say after some brief paperwork Devo was mine.

He adapted immediately to the house and rolled onto his

back to have his belly scratched within minutes. I watched

his behaviors for about a week before I named him.

He's actually named after Dean Martin, I love party boy,

laid back and romantic ere Dean was. Devo is my variation

then and it fits him purrrfectly.

Tree Planting Video

2009-08-14T17:38:00.001-07:00

My friend Courtney honored her father's transition
with a wonderful tree planting ceremony.

Our World will be a better place when we learn
to give space and reverence to those we value!

God Comes

2009-08-12T23:16:00.000-07:00

God Comes karen

God comes as a hand in the darkness
Seemingly to some I seek to pull them into
the shadows; deeper into their fears and doubts
with an assumed agenda of suffering and
punishment Alas, I wait for the moment, the
hour and day to rescue and aide, sacrificing
surrender to freedom as I gently exude my presence.
Illuminating falsehoods with outstretched hands
I reach into hearts and minds of those that can see
and hear beyond their present pain and for all who
would but consider response relief is only a moment
away. I come into Your darkness to accompany you
Into the Light!
Release your despair and your illusions of separateness
Allow my love to lift you into your Light.

What's Eating Me?

2009-08-12T22:41:00.000-07:00

What’s eating me? karen

Out of the handful of childhood memories I have many
of them involve food. When I was a little girl I lived in Virginia.
A couple of times a year we would visit my grandparents in
Maryland. My father’s mother, Geema, would bake and bake.
There was always a couple of tall pretzel tins in the living room closet
filled with chocolate chip and sugar cookies. I remember watching
her bake the sugar cookies. She kept the dough on the kitchen
porch to keep it cold and only brought it in to quickly scoop out
a cookie sheet’s worth before she rushed it back out the door.
She rolled the dough so thin that when the cookies were held up to
the light you could see through them. I remember the smell was
like heaven to me. I felt so loved and sneaking extra cookies
out of the closet was my first experience of stealing!

When I was 6 years old we moved to Maryland and lived with
Geema for about 7 months while our house was being built.
There was a lot of tension between my mother and Geema.
I remember my parents took my sister and I to a neighborhood
snowball stand for a treat one night. It was unexpected and
exciting. Sky blue with marshmallow and chocolate with
marshmallow, I don’t remember which I had and which my sister
had I like them both. I savored this treat and the time we got
to spend just the four of us.

Dinner time in my house was always at 5pm sharp no exceptions!
Your butt better be in your seat and ready to eat or there were
angry words. Not a wonderful way to ready oneself for an enjoyable
meal. My mother as near as I can tell didn’t like to cook. Her
perspective was not one of joy and liking what she did was not
mandatory. Her cooking left much to be desired in creativity and
taste. We had the same 6 or 8 menus and none of them were
meals I would ever care to eat again. Once we were seated the
mediocre food was portioned out and there was always a stack
of white bread on the table to eat from if dinner didn’t fill us.
Margarine, not butter, and desert a cookie maybe certainly
no more than two and always store bought.

I don’t think we ever got through a dinner without my father
brutally criticizing my sister for “eating like you’re going
to a fire”. Not always but often there were tears and sometimes
my sister was allowed to be excused so she could cry in private
with permission from my mother. I learned many things at the
dinner table none of them very happy lessons. For example;
don’t talk eat as quickly as you can but not so quickly
that you’ll be accused of going to a fire, be on time or else, don’t
complain about the food, it won’t change anything and you’ll
be yelled at or even worse grounded, the extra piece of meat
is father’s, the more white bread you eat the more you want,
if you want more than two cookies you’ll have to sneak in later
after the kitchen is cleaned up and be very quiet so no one sees
you in the kitchen so that later when it is discovered that
someone has eaten cookies you can pretend it wasn’t you.

Independence could not come soon enough for me. I started
babysitting at 11 and had my first real job at 14 at the swim and
tennis club in the snack bar! I often made more french fries than
were ordered so I could eat the extras. The candy bars were too
tempting to pass up and by the end of the summer I had probably
put on about 7 extra pounds. Being a perfect size 7 I had a lot of room
to indulge before it was noticeable unlike my sister who had a weight
“problem” since she had her tonsils removed at the age of 8.
(I’m pretty sure the absence of tonsils didn’t have anything to
do with her weight gain).

The fall of my 15th year I experienced my first self-imposed diet.
My sister was always dieting unsuccessfully. Geema had gone on a
diet prescribed by her doctor and was losing weight remarkably fast.
I thought if Geema can do it I can. I allowed myself one
indulgence over the two weeks, one half gallon of mint chocolate
chip ice cream. I would travel downstairs with a tablespoon where
the extra refrigerator was when the urge got too great and very
deliberately open the container fill my spoon, close the container put
it away and eat my ice cream with full attention. There were several trips
where one tablespoon didn’t quite cut it but each spoonful required
the slow laborious process to be followed to ensure I was not going
unconscious. You see this half gallon of mint chocolate chip ice cream
was all I could “cheat” with and it had to last two weeks which was
the projected length of this experiment. . I took off 14 pounds In
those two weeks on the grapefruit diet. What a rush !

By the time I was 16 and driving I had gotten good at inventing excuses
to miss dinner. I proved my success at escaping the dreaded evening
torture by regularly dining out alone at the local fast food, Ginos a
hamburger joint just at the edge of our town. I felt like I was getting
away with something big and I also felt a little bit guilty because of
course lying was involved but hey I was paying my own way after all
it was my money. Food became freedom and rebellion and proof,
proof that I could take care of myself and that I was smarter than
‘them’ because I wasn’t getting caught. Food had come a long way
from being those irresistible longed for cookies Geema baked when
I was little. Now food was something I used to escape. Escape my
family and their control but really what I was trying to escape were
my feelings, feelings that seemed pointless to express and too
depressing to feel. Like that white bread on the table at every dinner,
food would always be there to fill me up when there wasn’t enough...

You Plant

2009-08-12T22:31:00.000-07:00

You Plant karen

An orange seed … you trust
will grow into an orange.
You plant it… a tree grows
you are surprised!

You expected an orange
you cope and find good with the tree.
One day an orange appears
you are surprised!

You’d gotten used to settling for just a tree
but… you can allow that the tree
could out do itself and you
accept the orange,
(having forgotten it was your original intent)

The orange stays on the tree
because you have not partaken of it;
having forgotten your original desire to
taste it and it begins to rot and decay.

You are not surprised but saddened,
because you have come to believe
that life is not abundant

and your fears which you have never forgotten
have been realized and affirmed…
nothing good lasts forever.

It does not take you long to recover
and you have clearly decided that
planting orange seeds is not for you;
It is too painful.

You have participated in creation and
slept through the demonstration
by not partaking.

You are questing after Eden while you are in it.
confirming all your illusions.

Consumption

2009-08-12T22:16:00.000-07:00

Consumption karen

Gratitude postures me to use my world.
When I am unable/unwilling to appreciate I feel used.

The world is here for my use.
The world does not feel used by me.
My creations are here to serve me.
My creations want to be all used up by me.

My body, mind and heart are here to be used by me.
They want to be used up by me, to be lived fully
in a constant embrace never partnerless.

The natural state of my creations is surrender.
They are constantly giving themselves to me with abandon.
Throwing themselves at my feet, asking to be devoured.

If I do not seize the moment of their surrender they
languish undevoured-purposeless-suffering-waiting-forgettng
dreading-imagining-creating a false reality out of fear,
thinking themselves into masters in the absence of the Master.

Let me then the dreamer and the dream dance heartily
through all forgetting and own the forms of my dream,
be the forms of my dream and dismantle to recreate
myself again and again as I breathe in and out.

Riding The Brake

2009-08-12T22:11:00.001-07:00

Riding The Brake karen

I want to feel and I pray for numbness

I want to have and I pray for rest

I want to be seen and I pray to be hidden

Why do I ask for what I am afraid of?

Why am I afraid of what I ask for?

Walking wounded, believing my fear

I am too blind and confused to hear myself

Calling out into the sea of distractions that

I invented for safety, they kill me daily.

I Don't Like Life Touching Me

2009-08-12T21:46:00.000-07:00

I Don’t Like Life Touching Me karen

I don't like life touching me
With it’s grubby hands and hungry eyes.

Never satisfied always looking for more
Digging in my yard deeply underneath where I sleep

Waking me to witness the theft
Leaving me to feel open eyed and quizzy

I don’t like life touching me
As it passes me on the street

Sniffing my aroma, drinking me in-
To a conversation I do not want to have

Proving my resistance
Costing me unjustifiable guilt.

I don’t like life touching me
Snooping around among my friends

Waiting for me to trip
Tipping my hand for unfair advantage

Watching my every move
To be there when I fall.

I don’t like life touching me
Vigilant and faithful