James Herriot Lives Again in Western Washington By Katherine Carroll, NTP, Associate Editor

         

   I met him. I donned a radiation apron and participated in my beloved Liberty’s extended X-ray session. Who does this...Invites the client in to be a staff for a time??? Finally, and for the first time EVER, a man, a veterinarian, my hero, not concerned about covering his legal ass asked me if I want to help get Liberty’s x-rays and points to the heavy lead apron which, all-natural woman that I am, I heft on with some fear and  trepidation. I avoid ALL x-rays. But my dog’s welfare, my beloved Liberty’s comfort and peace while being laid down with racing heart on a cold, high table won out.

              Before the table, I could hear the consult for the prior patient, a diminutive dachshund, because it was about 6 feet away conducted on the floor while the owner sat on a plastic chair, a small dividing wall between us. No Hippa or privacy concern here. We are in dog-land. But really we are in 1940s vet-land. I have met James Herriot. He has practiced here, in this little house off Highway 508, for 46 years. And I love this tan, youthful man who channels him so well.

              Temperature taking, anal gland expressing, examination for lumps led to the x-ray room just behind the wall and rather primitive. This is where I handed over my leash end. That’s how it’s done, right? The dog is taken without the comfort of the owner to the “forbidden regions” and the techs take over and you only hope they care.

              Not here. “You might stand in the doorway to give assurance…” So I do. The (dream) employee of 36 years(!!!!) tells me, you might want to wear the lead apron and assist. ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? And I do. Happy to. Liberty and I have a language taught me my King Charles Cavalier Spaniel. I emit a low moan, very low, exhaling through this moan. Rub the dog/animal’s chest or heart area at the same time. This is instantly calming peace to the animal. We know dogs calibrate to our breath so breathe deeply, calmly. Liberty melts despite his terror, his head onto my arm. They all do. Try it sometime.

              Liberty remained on the high, cold table for some time as additional x-rays were needed. I did act as assistant. In exchange, at the conclusion where one x-ray was comped, I realized I had “washed the dishes for my dinner” and it was recognized and rewarded without charge for the last x-ray.

              When one’s staff (whose duration of employment matched the length which extends most marriages) turns to me and says, “He is wonderful to work for…” I know that I have found again the old style of veterinary care. I have found James Herriot with all his funny stories of farms, owners, and their animals; their foibles and their quirks, all recorded Yorkshire-style.

In a long-lived optometry practice, since 1979 when the St. Helen's volcano blew, I have many funny or poignant stories of my own. The woman who told her eye doctor, my husband, she had a “burning vagina” stands out…A doctor's a doctor, right? Or old Pinkie, as we knew him, saying his animals were “almost human” resonates too. Hey, they are at the “doctor’s office” so tell all and hope for the best, right?

 But today, I entered into another era. An era unafraid of lawsuits. Unconcerned about appearances and protocol. A pure era that cares for a creature in an aura of timelessness. This great doctor has been practicing for 46 years. He still looks great and by the way, when we ended at 6 pm he was headed out for a farm call still working after a now-ten hour day.

              We must put on the same “blinders” that we read about as children in the horse stories we loved. Just be human. Just love and care. Forget the clock. Just be honest when the bill comes due. Don’t let the superstructure determine your practice or your behavior. Just be a man or a woman at work, doing the best you know to do with the fairness you possess and the love and courage to buck the system. Just have integrity and shine. For once, at this clinic, I wasn’t in the “get in and get out” mode. Dr. Roden’s great aura presided. I chatted. I relaxed. I was impacted by his intention. I was blessed and I left blessed. Liberty too.

              

Dream a Little Dream for Me…. By Katherine A. Carroll

Having coffee in bed this chill mid-Spring morning a cloud, quite like a schooner and even shaped so, glided across Lake Mayfield. Sailing on calm “seas” driven by a zephyr it safely crossed into the mouth of the Tilton River which fed into the Lake.

Our dreams are like this…mere vapors heading toward a Source from whence they came. God feeds His creativity through willing vessels. When we live in Union with Source, determining where His thoughts begin and merge with our own is impossible. We are One. One in Spirit, in intent, and in purpose. We glide along toward the shore of fulfillment, of achievement, buoyed up by our mutual passion and desire not realizing oftentimes we are expressing the very vibration of God as OneFlesh.

My dreams explode into my life as a sense of being “driven” and I cannot resist the great impelling. They never fail to yield some valuable cargo, some loot that I’d never have attained any other way but by listening to the demand to pursue hard and fast.

Dr. Mark Mulrooney captured this on a bike ride with me in Mossyrock

The 7^th day of creation was one of rest to celebrate completion of that foundation. But do you presume the creating stopped there? Of course not. We are made to create; co-creators with God, our Source. Personally, when the creative outlet is subjugated to left-brained work, I am famished in Spirit. In order to be fully happy, content, and fulfilled, I MUST feel the river of the creative flow of the Universe through the vessel of my yielded Spirit. I must not just feel the urging toward creation but yield to the action of writing it down—what will become Reality.

Therein lies a magical act: writing the dream. The ancients knew it. We can think, we can meditate on it, but in my experience, before the dream is written it remains floating unattached in the ether to any real foundation that will provide the sea-legs for it to stand firmly grounded upon.

We are gifted with vapors, essences of ideas, desires, dreams, visions…but as is the nature of a vapor, unless it is captured it evaporates and like a dream is so soon forgotten. We might reach into the corners of our mind but we cannot quite find it ever again only the fragments of regret.

The secret of bringing miracles into our lives is to pay astute attention to the still Voice, the silent nudgings, the impelling drive. Go into the Garden of Paradise in your own center, your Adytum, the sanctuary without doors, the place God dwells if you have given Him entrance, and look into the eyes that hold your future. Your co-creations that will lift up this struggling Planet will emerge.

Sometimes all you receive is a flash of insight. Set the course. Through the mists and fogs it will all be revealed as you chart steadily and surely. Common sense has no place in the building of dreams. The ability to block distractions and opposing Voices is the weapon of greatest value in this sea of exploration of possibility. Just hold firm to the impelling whether vision or Voice. It will come to pass.

Adytum Sanctuary was built this way, a castle, a mansion, from virgin forest land where only Indians tread lightly before. Nutritional Visions was built this way before supplements entered optometry in an office setting. My career as an international food activist was built this way when I was far too busy to take on more. Regardless it came and I was made capable by the grace of God. My Tao/Way has come by listening even when it directly opposed what we perceive as Earthly Reality or Common Sense. I am a sheep listening to my Shepherd. And it has led me to serene shores every single time laden with blessing and fulfillment unmatched.

(c) 2016 Katherine A. Carroll

Traveling Lightly by Katherine A. Carroll

              

             Facing the leap, the chasm, which takes you from one life to the next, you pass with nothing but your “self” but that is too much. The body must stay behind. You travel lightly; spirit only can fit through that eye of the needle.

              I have known people who linger on because of possessions. They are either defined by them, as in “work” or past jobs and titles. Or those who just can’t bear to have them pass to others. Some grasp things to themselves too long, far longer than their bodies are able to clasp to themselves. The law of disuse sets in…things are meant to be used, enjoyed.

              Putting myself mentally at the moment of death, I see and know that we step away from all of the weights, these encumbrances that have demanded from us; made us their slaves in upkeep or a slave to pretension of being owned and defined by their presence. We take that step and we don’t mind at all. Suddenly we wonder why it drove or compelled us at all. It is so easy to step away and even easier to leave the weight of the body that weighed us down as much as it provided a vehicle for delight.

              We will, in the final analysis, leave with even less than we arrived with: sans body. We must discipline ourselves to attend to the things that truly matter; to be willing to be limited in our affinities. To be stewards and not owners—including our body. To hold things so lightly that, like sand flowing through spread fingers, we release as easily as things come.

              What remains? Faith. Hope. Love.  You must have faith in something. Some One or that leap and chasm is into fear and not familiar…love…home.

copyright 2016 Katherine A. Carroll

Be Determined to be Limited in Your Affinities By Katherine Carroll, Associate Editor, Health Freedom News

www.adytumsanctuary.com in Mossyrock, WA on the road to Mt. Rainier

Adytum Sanctuary (.com) is where I live and work. Having several other jobs as clinic administrator at our two optometry practices and working at the National Health Federation plus having familial obligations (okay…pleasures) means that time is really something to be managed carefully.

My first guest, five years ago this August 2015, said something during his stay that has stuck with me to this day. Phillip Folsom, owner of Fulcrum Adventures, told me, “Katherine, be determined to be limited in your affinities.” He was an ex-Marine running team-building high rope courses and stayed at Adytum Sanctuary as he taught skills to our local high school in 2010. He taught me a skill that serves me still.

So many things interest us. So many things tug at our time, energy, and passions. As I tugged at buttercups today, the spreading “weed” with adorable yellow flowers, I realized something. The buttercups, which sprout up everywhere in my Pacific Northwest garden like dandelions (we use no chemicals, herbicides, or pesticides here on this sacred land) were competing in this draught season for water with productive blueberries and must go. Sacrifices must be made during good times and bad if we are to find the fruit which we are clearly here to bear, being compared in Holy Scripture to a grapevine. Any of you who has a vine or a whole vineyard knows that branches bearing nothing are cut away to nurture those who actually bear. And bear they do. I have no idea what we will do with all these grapes coming this year….

But when there are limited resources to be spread around over several focal concerns our lives, we must be more careful than ever to be “limited in our affinities.” Phillip also gave me the wise observance, “Katherine, you tend to dilute your focus.”  How’s that for a first guest? He saw right through the “Gemini” in me. Yet he spoke the pure truth to me on all counts and I loved him for it; few would dare. And it’s stayed with me all these years.

So how to define our focus? For these buttercups invading the productive, life-giving, health-enhancing blueberry bushes I planted as a memorial to my sister Jacqueline Leeba’s death August 8th of 2014, they competed. They threatened to choke out the life I was wishing to nurture to recall our happy times picking blueberries together when my kids were small, Sarah Brightman’s Phantom of the Opera playing in the car on the drive home while we ate all we picked. The buttercups speak now that anything that competes with our focus must go, or be shelved until the proper time.
To every thing there is a purpose and a time for everything under heaven.- King Solomon

Had Jackie known she was to die in her 60th year after enduring five hellish years of traditional cancer treatment making doctors and drug companies rich and she more diminished in every way, would she really have hunkered down and kept her nose in her books to attain her doctorate in Depth Psychology? Only she can answer that question. But my personal benchmark is this: our lives are not our own. We are here to serve others. We are here also to make our God happy and fulfilled in our very being, living in close union and intimacy with Him as a lover, a best friend, a husband of the heart, and our Maker.

I recently saw a sign in the Home Gift Section of Nordstrom’s. “If you have the power to make someone happy, do it. The World needs more of that.” In my life, it’s not just people but animals and the Planet…and God whom become the focus of my “happiness spreading and service mission.”

It is important, at some point in your life, to ask what your destiny calling is. I asked in my 20s and a long “wilderness” period ensued while my gifts were being honed and even built upon like stepping stones. Don’t think that during this time, I felt unheard. In fact, during this time in my 40s I felt “put out to pasture” when all of what I had to give and bring to the World seemed absolutely invisible. But I put the question out there, “God, reveal to me my destiny and my purpose on this Earth.” It is always devastating to witness the lives of others who carry on with no knowledge of the need to ask this crucial, defining query. It will make or break time here. Make it meaningful and satisfying on a soul level or make it just a trivial pursuit of achieving, acquiring, and maintaining.

One vacation in Zihuatenajo, Mexico years ago in a lazy fishing village with nothing to do but read, swim, rest, think, and then write about it all yielded up a goldmine in a rather “channeled” article called The Matrix. You can find it here: http://katsmeditations.blogspot.com/search?q=matrix

This “Matrix” – it became the benchmark, the gold-standard by which the activities of my life would be measured. We need something, even if it changes as we change and grow or accomplish things in life, to guide our path so that if age 60- or God forbid before- deals us a death card, we can leave knowing we accomplished what we came to do.

As I recently shared with an Adytum Sanctuary guest who had the traumatic and stressful experience of escaping Iran last year, this Matrix blog article gave a glimmer of hope to a highly successful athlete and businessman, only 45 years of age, who had a very unexpected stroke. Mark lost his wife, his home, his children, and his job because even though his body worked just fine, he was suddenly reduced by brain damage in his words, to kindergarten level in speech and writing and processing speed.

     That first connecting email he sent, three sentences, took hours to write. Mark clung to the words penned in Zihuatenajo, “If each of those things (identities) were stripped away, I could still create a life of deep value and meaning by appreciating God and living in ways that brought pleasure to Him and consequently increasing unity with Him by living in those ways that make Him happy.” Our great accomplishment was publishing a book review Mark did, reading a book on stroke and commenting from a personal perspective. Later Mark went on to buy a home again, to get a job, and to get his children back. The “Matrix” was the defining strength, the “strong tower” in which he decided life could be lived again.

When we strip away the excess and competing things, like buttercups, starving out resources of time, energy, and passion which are indeed limited resources, we find our Matrix and our true calling and destiny. We find that we really need to be determined to be limited in our affinities so that we can live an intense life well.  “It is always later than you think.” This found on a garden wall and wise words to those of us awake and aware and caring to craft our lives with precision.

        We will leave a legacy that way and not just a lot of scattered, unfocused or wasted activity. This is how I wish to live my life: investing in the happiness and evolution of others –family, friends, and guests alike (and my own “self”), protecting the Planet, our food supply, and being in intimacy with my Father, my God.

         In an old, influential book called Magnificent Obsession by Lloyd Douglas, he states that the more we give, the more we expand. Lloyd notes inside of this novel that it is best to give and invest secretly not sharing it about to pad our ego, then it will come back to us in ways that enlarge and expand our personality. We keep ascending the mountain to attain “our highest and best” purpose on this Earth. I have seen this to be true in my own life and also in the principle taught in another old book, read in my youth, called Try Giving Yourself Away.

This outward focus, the path of service, and the life of a servant, has created a 5-star retreat Inn serving over 2000 people from all over the World from virgin forest land. It has created a happy life for me, albeit an extremely busy one, far more so than I’d ever thought possible to actually lead. Perhaps that is another story for another time for there is some inherent magic in this lifestyle – some supernatural strength given to accomplish 3-4 times what many others are.

But for now, as I weed out the buttercups choking the potential of the productive blueberries, I will weed out negative, contentious people, activities, and thoughts which dilute my focus and my potential. My own motto has been, “If it doesn’t flow, it goes.” But Phillip Folsom, you spoke a good word to me in August of 2010 when you noted my tendency to dilute my focus and demanded, “Be determined to be limited in your affinities.” Concentrate and focus 100% on our loves, our passion, our gifts and talents, and 100% too on what we can change and 0% on what we cannot. Then our lives will be distilled, like a fine essential oil both sensual and healing, into an essence which of great value to ourselves, mankind, the Planet, and our Creator.

The Ugly Frugality of Time by Katherine A. Carroll, NTP, Associate Editor, Health Freedom News

Frugality. We view this as such a virtue. But frugality with minutes, with time given, is such an ugly frugality indeed; a wasteland, a desert, an empty well promising much and delivering little. Like all hoarding, it is not rewarded.

Only when we open our purse and let money flow does more come. Stagnation via hoarding stops the supply.

Only when we give of ourselves by giving the time of our very lives, the stuff our life is measured by, is more given in more meaningful ways. Measuring life in the miserly frugality of time is to be destitute in the rich quality of all that time holds. For time freely given holds a depth and a return reward attainable to those who understand this.

The impact on those on the other side of the “exchange” of this frugality? Marginalization… Patronizing…not listening to what is being said but thinking of what is next either mentally in response or in the agenda; already seeking to get this time over with to move into that time. In the day of the iPhone head-tilt, where time is diluted and distracted by so much informational competition we can’t possibly take it all in in the stream of fast-flowing info-bytes, shared time becomes a scarce commodity as it’s given over to virtual-World time. Eye contact is more precious than we imagined. Thoughtful listening before the answer is formed a prize to attain to. Instead, ready to launch like a rocket upon command at the first pause or usually, interrupting, these mark communications and create a loss in communion.

Despite many talking about living in the now, “there is only this moment,” this is the essence of not living in the now but thinking future always. The practice of mindfulness teaches us this. Watch your thoughts for just a few minutes and you will see; many people are not inhabiting the present moment because we are already planning where we are heading next. And those on the other side of the divide of frugal-time-begrudgingly-given are actually being victimized at a profoundly core level and are much aware of the destructiveness of these types of miserly interactions. Whether distraction or patronizing and fulfilling a “duty” prevail in these communications that lack communion, there is a stringy quality, very thin and threadbare, that leave these interactions which should hold richness, meaning, and deep connection bereft, heartless, void or at minimum, a thin veneer over what could have been, should have been….those damned unspoken heart-longings and expectations unmet.

    To stand across the great divide of wanting more time and the same being doled out with the frugality of a rice-gruel in war time is to be aware of the value of time given. It is to be cherished if and when we find the exchange with our God, ourselves, and others. Of all the focus of our life, time holds the most value by far and the energy we bring to this time allotted whether to our God, our selves, or to others is the most nurturing and soul-satisfying.

     For some, time is the medium that equates most with love and true compassion, concern, caring, and interest. For some it is gifts. Gary Chapman’s 1995 book, The Five Love Languages, reveals the basic languages of love- of feeling loved- and for each of us it may be different in how we wish to receive love-energy and how we must learn to give it in the right “language” so the other can “hear” and “feel” it. Touch, acts of service, words of affirmation, receiving gifts, time….maybe we even relate to several of these when we feel loved. For me, it is time and words. Love me in any other way and it is wonderful but not transformational, magical, and supremely satisfying as quality time- not duration- and word-gifts are to me.

       To interpret love as “time” and to face a frugality of this highest need, to endure the diminishment of it in one’s expectations and then in one’s actual experience and more so compounded as time passes, is to live inside of a cave when a mansion is nearby and vacant. Soon we learn that humans will let us down and the only way we can really experience true love is from our Father, our God who is never lacking in any of the ways of showing love. In the final analysis, we are all alone with our Creator so the sooner this deeply loving relationship is embarked upon and nurtured, the better. That way we are not looking outside of ourselves for the basic needs of being human, but within.

It is really about faith and trust. I can't tell you how many very ancient people are still saying, "I don't have time to...." and usually it hinges back on needing to do tasks. Tasks and errands and the endless to do list make for a sparse life.

        Industry, Ben Franklin-style (who was a mentor of mine in my 20s) and the American work ethic (well, what is left of it before we became a welfare nation/nanny state) must be balanced with investments in our God, in others, and in ourselves or what is life for but to work hard so another can reap the fruit of all our labor (whilst neglecting everyone, even ourselves...) when we die. These things all take time.

             Frugality of time leads to not carving out a place in others' hearts. We live on there, you know, in many hearts hopefully.  A false time-thrift, while we take care of endless business or waste time in senseless activities, leads to oblivion and not being remembered. But most of all frugality of time means that everyone was shortchanged in the present and into the future when they reflect back on us when we are gone (even while we are yet living in many cases).

            We must have faith and trust that when we feel overwhelmed and pressed and burdened with too much for any one human to possibly do (and I have three jobs, and little help, so I know what I speak of) that our schedule will flow with a supernatural ease and that as we give time to people and concerns and causes outside the narrow scope of our lives that more time will come rushing back to us, or the maximizing of such time, to fill the void we have created. Emptying...always emptying and pouring out so that we might have more. Recognizing we have failed and desiring to change is the first step. Leaving this new demand and burden when we feel overwhelmed already at the feet of the Master is the next step. Then be ready to participate in a new Grand Adventure, rich with moments and memories.

This mastery of time, of time management and time invested, may take a lifetime like any virtue worth acquiring. As Michelangelo patiently and wisely said, “I am still learning.”

(c) 2015 Katherine A. Carroll, All Rights Reserved

Birthdays are Between You and God By Kat Carroll

                The celebration of our birth is different from my viewpoint than how it’s currently celebrated. This viewpoint wasn't inculcated into me by any religion. It is my own conception. God is our Creator. Every year I ask Him what He’s going to give me for my birthday. He’s my Father. Dads like to spoil their little girls. Every year He faithfully answers me- boom, right into my heart/mind/ear. This year, at age 54, he tells me, “Humility.” It’s always something like this. It’s never material. Since I’m His daughter, who needs material? We own the Universe. He’s interested in working eternal qualities that will create a treasure of a person more than He’s interested in possessions.

                God gives word-gifts that turn into the treasure of the expansion of a person, leading to their greater evolution. Maybe that’s why word gifts like cards, especially when written in, have always been so powerful for me. Words are things. We view them as some vapor emerging from our breath but really at their heart, words are tools. Words create, like my Creator Father and the Word- Jesus created "by the word of His mouth." So He gives me words that encapsulate qualities and characteristics that will be created in my heart and reflected in my life year after year. This is actually more important than a little girl's pony or a party or presents…

                One of my favorite quotes is from Rumi, “World power means nothing. Only the unsayable jeweled inner life matters.” This is it. The inner treasure created by the investments year after year of qualities and characteristics into the “self” or the essence of a person.

                A birthday at its best needs to honor the existence of the person celebrating. It needs to honor their existence and the way their being on Earth changes things. I never understood the celebration of life for dead people. It is called a funeral. They are dead. Birthdays are a celebration of a life. It is active acknowledgement and gratitude for a life while the person is alive. Birthdays aren't really just about wishing all their dreams come true. In the final analysis, birthdays as they are celebrated today were most likely created for marketing just like Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day, and all the other holidays we feel compelled to get out there and spend some money on. I want to celebrate a life with a more thoughtful approach.

                At the heart of birth day- it is gratitude that a person called by the name of the birthday boy/girl, man or woman, etc. exists. Just as we deflect all things to the Father not claiming the credit for ourselves- the good that moves through us, a channel,  in particular- so a birthday needs to be deflected back to the One whom allowed it to come to pass.

                 My own birth was a miracle from conception on. It is an incredible story and I'm amazed I survived it. Clearly there was much opposition to my coming into this World/experience. So the celebration of my life needs to return to the One who made sure it succeeded.

                It would be nice, even wonderful to know that people valued my existence here. But since I already own the Universe I have no need of anything really. I am the daughter of a very great King…What is important to the Creator/King is to know that His work, His creation is an open channel to bring his Kingdom to a greater expression in this World.

                Maybe that’s why He’s given me such an interest in warfare both spiritual and physical. Surely, there is enough evil here to convince anyone that we are in a battle; we are not in peacetime. My life and the celebration of my life continuing and surviving, is for one reason: to advance the Kingdom of my Father who shapes me with His word gifts. He’s allowed me to live another year. Sometimes against all odds. 

                This year a Mac Truck crossed the center line into my lane. I had a mountain to swerve into. There was no time for fear. My death looked me literally right into my eyes before he swerved away and fortunately not tipping over in the radical movement. I get to live another year. Why?

                I do my part. Each of us should. We occupy sacred ground; the sacred space of our humanity inside of a body. The magnificence of a European Cathedral in its glory of arches and flying buttresses is nothing compared to the majesty of the human spirit. The Kingdom- the Adytum- the sanctuary without doors is within. This is the focus of my Father this birthday: making this interior terroir lovely and filled with treasures of joy, peace, servant hood (all gifts of the past birthday questing…), and this year it is “humility" that I was told would be mine.

                Sugar, alcohol, rich foods, feeding narcissism, and gifts….this is not a birthday. Yes, there is love and well wishes. But that’s really not a birthday either. A birthday is a work in progress. It is a cathedral in the making and one that might just take 100 years, just like the Earthly ones do, with several investing in the progress and process. In the end though, if all goes well, the structure stands up under severe weather and the storms of life. It’s filled with exquisite beauty and the treasures of art and peace and worship and praise.  And its structure feeds so many, houses so many, nurtures so many, fills so many. It is everlasting too; so well-built that nothing can take it down.

                The celebration of a life/birthday leads back to the Maker, to the Sculptor. For without that desire to create, without the inspiration of that first breath and filling- well, we’d just be a gleam in our Father’s eye. We owe our lives to Him and thus our birth day to Him too. He does a good job. And it’s a lifetime commitment ending up, hopefully, in a monument to His daily investments and annual reminder where we sprang from. A birthday at best is a joint celebration, don’t you think?

                

Windy Ridge Route to Mt. St. Helens “The Exquisite Comeback”

Please visit my main blog, accessible from the Adytum website by selecting the blog bar on the left hand side: or http://blogspot.adytumsanctuary.com/.

This, like the blog before it, are two different perspectives of the same mountain with lessons learned from each foray into Nature to be her student.  Meantime, enjoy the slideshow but I do hope to see you and hear your comments on the main page. We are nearly to 10,000 hits on the Adytum Sanctuary blog in one and half years...thank you all for sharing this blessed life with us here at Adytum.