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I adore being
with people and animals; I am overwhelmed by the beauty, the
inherent intelligence, and the magnificence of each creature
I meet.
We all share the same life force, and so I feel a
great kinship with every living being. I love to engage
fully in life and with a sense of play. (I believe that it
is important to enjoy everything I do in order to be happy
and to do my best.) I am happiest when I am firmly grounded
in the present moment, engaged in some activity that enables
me to feel the wonder and the joy of being alive. I have an
endlessly curious mind, always eager to learn more about the
inner workings of the universe and especially the inner
workings of the human mind and heart.
I suppose
that’s why I’ve become a writer and an actor: this allows me
to experience so many ideas and emotions while at the same
time sharing them with others.
When I was growing up, I
never had any clue what I wanted to “be,” other than an
honest, loving, and kind human being who was always
exploring new things and growing. This left my parents and
guidance counselors perplexed as to what to do with me, so I
kind of drifted—or, should I say, enthusiastically
stampeded—through life for my first quarter century.
Being born and
raised my first eleven years in Anchorage, Alaska, I
developed a deep love of mountains, rivers, and forests, and
I spent as much time as possible playing outdoors.
At the
same time, I adored school and brought home a handful of
books from the library to read every night.
I was an only
child, and though I had neighborhood friends, no amount of
play was enough, so when no human nor animal companions were
available, I created elaborate stories with my stuffed
animal dolls.
From very early, I had a collection of several
dozen, each with his/her own name, personality, and way of
speaking. I would put these characters together and allow
them to create endless dramas and comedies for me, speaking
each part aloud. This was endlessly entertaining for me and
is, I think, one of the reasons I developed an early
passionate love of stories. The other reason is my Mom.
My mother
Frances stayed at home with me while my Dad Bill worked as a
pilot for Alaska Airlines (and spent all of his free time
designing and building experimental aircraft while reading
incessantly on every possible subject).
Mom spent most of
her time telling/reading me stories and singing to me, and
so I began speaking in full sentences at ten months. By the
age of two, I could perform 60 different songs from memory,
probably because I loved to listen to musical records over
and over.
The most
powerful events of my early life were artistic.
I went to
the Fur Rendezvous (Alaskan winter festival) the month I
turned two and saw my first movies, which completely
enchanted me. (I remember that they were all silent
films—the faces of Charlie Chaplin, Lillian Gish, and Mary
Pickford became imprinted on my memory forever). My first
talkie, at age two and a half, delighted me even more: I got
up in the aisles and danced while watching, “Hey There, It’s
Yogi Bear.” The next really influential movie for me was
“The Sound of Music,” which I’ve since seen dozens of times
since and remains my favorite film of all time.
I remember
having a very happy childhood until I started school.
After
learning to read in a week, I was put in charge of teaching
a small group of slower learners in my first grade class
and, of course, this was the kiss of death to my social
life. Suddenly many (maybe even most) of the kids in my
class didn’t like me. Mistakenly believing that there was
something inherently wrong with me, I became somewhat shy
and introverted—a way of being contrary to my basic nature
that it took me many years to overcome.
I excelled in
academics so concentrated much of my energy and enthusiasm
on that.
It was incredibly fun to learn about so many new
things through books. And, since my Dad was a pilot, I got
to travel extensively from a young age, and I always loved
experiencing new people and places.
But when I was
eleven, my parents divorced, and Mom and I moved to San
Diego.
This was an emotionally devastating period for me,
and it took some time to adjust to my new environment. I
eventually made many friends in my new life, but I always
held a part of myself back, even up through high school,
because I felt there was something wrong with me (some kids
continued not to like me because I excelled in school) and
also I was afraid of the loss/hurt that might happen if I
revealed all of myself. (Of course, at the time I didn’t
understand what was happening—I just often felt lonely and
in some way unfulfilled.)
A major
highlight of this period was seeing David Merrick’s “Mack
and Mabel” (with terrific music and lyrics by Jerry Herman)
when I was twelve (June 1974), which was my first live
musical and so began my lifelong love of musical theater.
This was also
when I renewed my early love of animals. The very first word
I spoke had not been “mama” or “dada” but “kitty.” As a
baby, I was fascinated by all animals but especially cats,
perhaps because I realized they had a closer connection to
humans than the wild animals (like moose and caribou) I saw
around me. (My first neighborhood was filled with cats. I
remember only one dog—the creature next door who bit me.)
But Dad
wouldn’t allow me to keep an animal.
So one of the first
things Mom and I did when we moved into our own house in San
Diego was to adopt a stray kitten, named Georgia after the
street we lived on. When we discovered that Georgia was a he
(we hadn’t bothered to check at first), we called him Baby.
Baby was my delightful constant companion until I became
extremely allergic to cats three and a half years later.
Having to give him up to our neighbors (no therapy seemed to
help my allergy) made me sad for many years, especially
since Baby continued to spend most of his time in our yard
and on our windowsills, gazing inside.
Until I
reached high school, my life was relatively balanced, even
though I didn’t have as many social activities as I would’ve
liked.
I was a ballet dancer, I acted in school plays and
San Diego Junior Theater, I went to movies incessantly, and
I spent a lot of time at church.
But high
school changed all this. Mom strongly encouraged me to focus
on my many college prep classes, so there was little time
for extracurricular activities.
My days were filled with
reading Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Miguel de Unamuno, and Jorge
Luis Borges. (Having learned to speak Spanish fluently, I
read as much or more in Spanish as in English.) I wrote
endless literary essays and mathematical proofs (I could
always visualize mathematical equations in my mind and loved
doing so) while also taking a strong interest in local,
national, and international politics. I continued to dance
and also ran cross country and track, but I didn’t
particularly excel at these.
The death of
my Dad during my senior year of high school (he collapsed of
a heart attack in front of me and I was unable to revive
him) was the biggest blow to my life so far, and it took me
over ten years to fully recover from his loss.
When I
researched all the colleges in the USA, one really stood out
for me, so I turned down full scholarships at Harvard and
Stanford to attend St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New
Mexico. St. John’s (sounds religious but isn’t) features the
so-called Great Books program, which was really a
mind-blowing adventure. Starting with the ancient Greeks
(and learning to read and write ancient Greek in the
process), I read original texts in philosophy, history,
drama, music, mathematics, theology, and science up to the
Renaissance during my first two years there, all from a
highly questioning standpoint.
There were no
professors nor grades at St. John’s (and only the one course
of study), but we had ‘tutors’ who lead fascinating
discussions about what we were reading.
I spent most of my
free time organizing and projecting movie screenings three
or more times a week (I was secretary and then president of
the St. John’s film society) and choreographing and
performing various dances. I was a member of Albuquerque’s
Southwest Ballet Company for awhile but ended up not being
able to juggle this with school. I had little free time
because most of my waking hours were spent reading about and
discussing perennial ideas.
While this was
an exciting intellectual adventure, my personal world was in
shambles. Every belief I had was challenged inside the
classroom and out, and I ended up even becoming an atheist
for a few years.
Alarmed at
this turn of events, Mom begged me to take some intensive
Bible night classes in Kirkland (near Seattle), Washington
during the year I’d decided to take off from St. John’s to
“find myself.” Unfortunately, the program at the church she
endorsed was not only narrow-minded but also misogynous. I
stuck it out for about six months before I couldn’t stand it
anymore. In the meantime, I attended Bellevue Community
College, studying philosophy (I found out that was what we’d
been doing at St. John’s in our approach to every subject:
philosophizing) and music theory.
Instead of
returning to St. John’s College the next fall (1983), I
ended up staying in Seattle and going to Seattle University,
where I studied philosophy and Latin.
It was a wonderful
school but quite expensive, so the next fall I transferred
to the University of Washington, where two years later I
earned a BA in Philosophy. During that time, I also took
endless classes in French and German and achieved fluency in
those two languages. (Upon graduating from high school, I’d
gone to Europe for three weeks with classmates and had been
frustrated that I couldn’t speak with people in the four
countries we visited—France, Germany , Switzerland, and
Italy. I vowed that I wouldn’t go back until I’d mastered at
least French and German.)
Philosophy had
appealed to me so much because I felt I could explore the
deeper workings of the universe through it.
It was very
exciting trying to penetrate to the heart of every subject
through philosophical inquiry! Still, a part of me felt
restless and unsatisfied after spending so much time in
academia. As a senior, I decided I’d probably take a year
off after college and explore other options in the world. I
thought vaguely about going to grad school in English and
Drama after that but wasn’t sure. I had no idea what I
wanted to do with my life.
So when I was
nominated for a Melon Fellowship in the Humanities and
surprisingly ended up winning it, accepting it seemed like
the smart thing to do. After all, it would pay my total
tuition and books in grad school, a generous living stipend,
and also for me to study abroad each summer.
I really did
enjoy philosophy, so the fact that I had to use the Melon to
get a PhD in philosophy rather than studying something else
didn’t seem so bad.
I chose to go
to Stanford for a joint a PhD in Philosophy and Humanities
because many varieties of philosophy seemed to be
represented there, plus I could read the Great Books again.
(The Humanities program consisted in reading and discussing
primary texts from the Greeks to the present in philosophy,
literature, history, theology, sociology, and psychology.)
The Humanities program turned out to be wonderful, but I
became increasingly uneasy about the Philosophy program. The
graduate students and professors in Continental Philosophy
(which grapples with the Big Questions: Who am I? Why am I
here? What is right and wrong? Does God exist? etc.)
gradually left, and this had been my field of interest.
Those remaining in Analytic Philosophy (who believe
philosophy should be a scientific dissection of arguments
and that the Big Questions have no meaning because it is
isn’t possible to empirically specify the meaning of each of
their terms) were doing something very abstruse that had
little relevance to our daily lives, a relevance which I
thought philosophy, above all things, should have.
Despite this,
I had a great time at Stanford. I danced every day (I got
back into ballet and started studying jazz and modern
dance), and I saw movies every night (there were endless
movies in all the ethnic houses on campus plus the classics
at the great Stanford Theatre, a restored 1930’s movie
palace, complete with live organ).
I had a lot of free time
because learning and teaching philosophy (as a teaching
assistant) came easily to me. So I didn’t have to spend more
than 5 or 6 hours a day studying and attending classes.
I befriended
people from all over the world (especially through eating my
meals at the various international houses on campus) and
visited them at their homes during my summers in Europe.
I
spent the summer of 1987 studying French literature in Nice,
France, the summer of 1988 studying German language,
culture, and literature in Salzburg, Austria (after enjoying
10 glorious days in my favorite city, London, where I went
to the theatre every night), and the summer of 1989 studying
the work of Heidegger (a Continental philosopher) in Perugia,
Italy. Before that last summer, I happily spent the first 6
months of 1989 living in Heidelberg, Germany, where I
studied with one of the greatest living philosophers, Hans
Georg Gadamer.
Returning
to Stanford after all this adventure was not fun. I found
that my advisor had left and no one remaining understood the
dissertation I was writing, which was about Plato’s theories
of love and friendship.
My holistic approach (considering
the philosophical significance of the whole text instead of
just extracting the arguments) was dismissed as literary
criticism and, in the face of this ongoing opposition, I
decided that I definitely didn’t want to spend another year
or two sitting in a library just to finish writing the
dissertation. I longed to get out into the world! I’d never
wanted to be a professor anyway, and academia had become too
stifling and limiting for me to continue.
There were a
number of movies I’d seen that had touched me deeply, even
transforming my life in some ways, and I realized it was
this emotional exploration that I was largely missing by
focusing so much of my time on academia.
So, much to Mom’s
dismay, I walked away from my PhD (leaving Stanford with two
master’s degrees instead) after I was accepted into film
school at the University of Southern California in Los
Angeles.
But film
school, enjoyable though it was, turned out not to be the
training I’d need to write and direct movies.
Because of my
strong academia background (and because I knew that the USC
film department accepted only a very small percentage of
applicants), I’d applied to the academic section, called
Critical Studies, in which people researched the history and
aesthetics of film. I’d reasoned that once I’d arrived I
could then transfer into Production, but this turned out not
to be the case. I was allowed to take only one production
class and after that only a few (very mediocre)
screenwriting classes.
But I stuck it
out until I got my third master’s degree.
After all,
learning about the history of film and being a teaching
assistant in various film subjects was quite interesting for
awhile. And, through my job of writing weekly feature
articles and film reviews for the USC school newspaper, I
was able to travel free to film festivals in Montreal,
Toronto, and Park City, Utah to interview numerous actors
and directors, which was a lot of fun and a real learning
experience. I also made a film of my own, a 45-minute career
biography of Lillian Gish that analyzed the more
naturalistic acting style she helped bring to movies.
I also became
an intern at a small film production company.
But I was so
appalled at their general attitude and lack of integrity
that I eventually quit. After graduating from film school, I
started writing screenplays, though I had grave doubts about
what would happen to my work. (While in film school, I’d
heard horror stories from famous screenwriters about how
their work had been twisted once it was sold). In the
meantime, since I’d lost my own beloved first dog Ozu, I got
the idea to earn money doing pet sitting for the rich and
famous in LA. This turned out to be a really fascinating
adventure, taking me all the way to Hawaii for a month on
the beach. That, and subsequent trips to Hawaii, have shown
me that I’m happiest when living in a tropical location.
Living in LA
opened up my world in many ways.
I got deeply into the
alternative health scene by meeting so many fascinating
health professionals after organizing a weekly free lecture
series at a Santa Monica health food store near where I
lived. (I also did a tremendous amount of research for a
book I wrote and ended up never publishing, called
Killers of the Cure: The Medical Monopoly’s War Against Your
Health.) I started practicing yoga every day, which I
still do and which has positively transformed my body and my
life in many ways. (I also took three teacher trainings in
yoga and taught classes for awhile.) I got interested in
shamanic practices and pursued them, studying Plant Spirit
Medicine over the course of a year (1996) with Eliot Cowan
and studying Tensegrity with Carlos Castaneda, among other
courses. I even took massage training at School of the
Healing Arts the first half of 1997 (while living with Mom
in San Diego) because I planned to move to San Francisco to
massage part-time in a friend’s elderly care facility while
continuing to write.
Then I met the
man who was to become my husband, Dr. Dean Howell, N.D. (www.DrDeanHowell.com),
in a fairytale way.
Click Here
to read about the serendipitous way we met. After we got
engaged, I moved to the Seattle area and began working in
his office, doing copy writing, patient photo processing,
front office and finally massage work.
We married
September 6, 1998, and then I helped him write his first
book,
NeuroCranial
Restructuring: Unleash Your Structural Power.
(NeuroCranial Restructuring (NCR) is the most powerful
physical medicine technique in existence,
redefining
protocols for the treatment of pain and dozens of other
conditions. It also improves facial beauty, postural
patterns, mental and emotional clarity, as well as a variety
of physical health disorders.)
Dean and I
decided to buy 200 acres in Eastern Washington and create a
home and retreat center there, so we started building
outside Tonasket summer of 1999, opening our retreat center
summer of 2000.
Besides having healing retreats for Dean’s
patients (which we continued to do as long as we lived
there), that first summer I also organized a yoga retreat, a
shamanic journeying class, and a course in something called
Body M.A.T.H. (Multidimensional Approaches to Healing).
Though it was too exhausting for me to continue sponsoring
so many programs (I had to cook for and clean up after all
the guests as well as take them on daily hikes), I’m very
glad that I did so that first summer, because it got me back
into shamanic journeying and energetic healing (which I’d
learned while studying Plant Spirit Medicine and also
Reiki).
I had a
profound experience during one of my shamanic journeys that
changed my life. I asked what I should do to become a
successful writer.
I expected to be told to turn my
screenplays into books. Instead, I saw a full-color
adventure movie pass before my closed eyes. Judging from the
dress, it seemed to be Elizabethan England. I later realized
that this story was to become a book called Magical Heart,
the first in a series of historical romantic adventure
novels spanning 1600 to the present and following the
fortunes of one family of healers as they explored the heart
of mental, emotional, and political power.
This seemed an
exciting but such an overwhelming task that I figured I
needed some preparation, especially since I’d never written
a novel.
So I started by writing a practice novel, You’re
Mine, a contemporary romantic thriller (Chris seeks to
stop a cyanide gold mine while protecting Margo from the
mysterious killer wreaking havoc in the small town of
Tonasket, Washington.). I had been part of the Okanogan
Highland Alliance, a grass-roots effort which defeated a
toxic cyanide mine that multimillion dollar investors had
wanted to put into our community. And I imagined the action
and intrigue that could’ve happened had such a mine been
opened. The resulting novel wasn’t particularly good, and
I’ve never quite known what to do with it when I’ve gone
back to revise it. (But my guinea pig readers/editors seemed
to really like it, so maybe I can rewrite it someday and
actually publish it.)
In the
meantime, other books started to pop up into my mind, and I
had so many ideas I couldn’t begin to write them all.
I did,
however, complete 16 books over the next few years by using
the shamanic journeying techniques I’d learned, writing in
my spare time with still working with Dean full-time in his
office. Dean and I also continued to explore various healing
modalities, further studying shamanism as well as taking
courses in gem therapy, Reiki (we became Reiki masters), and
Remote Viewing.
 The very first
book that called my attention was
The Journeying Workbook:
Adventuring to Unleash Your Inner Power
(which has now finally been published, by
Morgan James Publishing).
Right after the shamanic journeying class at our home, July
of 2000, I was hiking up Chatunza, the mountain behind our
home, when it “spoke” to me, giving me an entire personal
growth/self-help book in a flash. I went back home and wrote
for three days straight, barely eating or sleeping. Early
readers found the book life-changing in many ways. (It
guides you step by step through 100 healing inner journeys
that can empower and revitalize your life: it enables you to
‘download’ extensive accurate information/guidance on any
topic you wish while you become more relaxed, gain a deeper
understanding of yourself, enhance your intuition, unlock
your full creativity, and experience the fun and wonder of
exciting inner adventures.) I’m glad it’s finally available
to everyone.
Another early
idea became
The Princess and
the Pekinese, a children’s picture book about
a snobbish “princess” who
runs away from her family’s new puppy after making a
shocking discovery and encounters hard lessons on the
streets.
(When she returns home, her snobbishness is
replaced by an appreciation of her blessings. Children
follow “Princess” Lillian on an exciting whirlwind adventure
with a surprise twist that enables them to experience the
value of unconditional love, family, self-insight,
acceptance of others, and appreciating blessings.)
I showed the
manuscript to just one publisher, who loved it and said he’d
publish it in a few years.
This seemed like a long time to
me, so he said he’d show me how to publish it myself right
away. That was late 2002, and I had no idea what I was
getting myself into. To make a long story short, I ended up
spending all of 2003 publishing three of my books and all of
2004 publishing one more while marketing all five of them
(my four and Dean’s book). This was challenging, grueling
(very long hours), often unpleasant, and ultimately
exhausting, so I’ve decided not to self-publish anymore. In
the future, I’ll sell all my books to other publishers.
 The other
books I published myself include:
The Pekinese Who Saved Civilization,
which I “channeled” for my rescue Peke Sir Addison (www.AddisonTheDog.com).
In it, Addison the Wonder Dog reveals the ‘true’ history of
the world—from the canine perspective—and humorously shows
how to solve all problems, thereby saving civilization.
(Ever wonder what’s really wrong with the world? Addison, a
cute curmudgeonly old dog with an ego the size of the
universe, will tell you. He pontificates on nearly 100
subjects—from love to money, career, health, relationships,
ethics, politics, media, environment, education, human and
animal rights, the economy, and more.)
One day I was massaging patients in Dean’s office
while Addison, as usual, sat in his bed by my side.
A patient
remarked that she was sure Addison wanted to write a book.
So when I went home that night, I turned on my computer and
announced to Addison that I was available to help write his
book. He eagerly bounded to my side, stared at me intensely,
and we began. From then on, he always rushed to my side and
seemed to beam his thoughts to me whenever I sat down to
work on ‘his’ book. By the time we finished, I thought it
was the weirdest book I’d ever encountered, but a lot of
people find it hilarious (it’s basically a social satire on
every subject imaginable with over 100 comical photos of
Addison doing various human-like things). Also, the book won
an award from the Dog Writers Association of America, so who
am I to judge?
Next I
published
Living In A Glowing
World: Poems for Every Season, which is a
collection of the best poems I’ve written, grouped
thematically according to the six different seasons and
their accompanying emotions. (It evokes a world alive with
beauty, love, renewal, and self-transformation.)
 Then in 2004 I
published
The Adventures of
Melon and Turnip, a picture book which shows
children how to peacefully resolve conflicts among them. It
concerns two very unusual friends who embark on an
action-packed adventure, encountering danger and making
exciting discoveries about the value of caring and
friendship, choosing happiness, and making dreams come true
while being loving, honest,
and kind to others and true to
self.
I also almost
published my juvenile fantasy adventure novel.
(Eleven- year-old Talia discovers that the old tower by her
family's new home is a portal to ancient worlds and other
dimensions of reality.
Through a series of six
spine-tingling adventures, Talia learns valuable lessons
about self-esteem, courage, inspiration, honesty, joy, and
self-reliance. Then she and her friends Daniel and Michelle
embark on the first of six pulse-racing missions to save the
world, traveling to Atlantis to battle the evil Nivid and to
save the Great Sapphire of Knowledge.) But when some
friends, including an award-winning novelist, told me that
they think it’s as good or better than the Harry Potter
series, I realized I should instead find a large publisher.
The book was chosen to go through a team of editors for the PNWA (Pacific Northwest Writers Association) Author-Editor Clinic, and their comments were extremely helpful, as was the feedback I got from dozens of grade school librarians and students, all of whom really loved the book.
So at some point I will rewrite it and send it out to my agent (right now I’m concentrating on screenwriting). I do believe it is the best work I’ve ever done and will be an inspiration and provide positive role models for millions of children and adventuresome adults worldwide, while being highly entertaining and thought-provocative. Then I will move forward with the other six adventure novels in the series (a new one each year for the characters, in which they travel to many ancient and modern civilizations on various quests): Talia and the Great Sapphire of Knowledge, Talia and the Bird of Paradise, Talia and the Secret of Fire, Talia and the Great Lion, Talia and the Ancient Medallion, and Talia and the Mystical Heart.
The other
books I’ve written but not yet put out into the world
include several more children’s picture books, a series of
humorous middle-grade chapter books, and more romantic
adventure novels.
The picture books loosely fictionalize
real life experiences with my dogs, including The Poopy
Pekinese (When Addison the Pekingese is forced to attend
Kitty’s birthday party, he accidentally drinks spoiled milk,
and hilarious chaos ensues. This slapstick comedy shows the
value of being kind to others.) and The Stinky Shepherd
(Alex the German Shepherd is so upset about his city’s
endangered stray dogs that he eats a huge pile of rotting
scraps. The resulting noxious gas makes him fly and
hilariously enables him to save lives in this slapstick
comedy that shows the value of animal companionship and of
doing good to others.) In order to avoid leaving my German
Shepherd Hanna out,
I got into a very silly mood and wrote Fairy Tales For
Exceptional Dogs and Their Humans (One hundred
traditional fairy tales are humorously twisted, with
different species of dogs as heroes, and given surprising
endings—such as “Little Red Riding Rottweiler” and “Goldie
Locks and the Three Basenjis.”).
The chapter
books revolve around my Peke Twins Addie and Rocky.
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Click photo to see a larger version
Trisha Howell with companions Addie and Rocky |
After Sir Addison died August 2003 (at age 17 ½), I was inconsolable, so Dean encouraged me to get another Pekingese. Addie (www.AddisonTheDog.com/AddieRockyCai) was two months old when I adopted her, and we went on book tour together that December. And since I couldn’t play with the feisty little gal 24/7, we finally adopted her twin brother Rocky on April 2004, so that my little angel of endless love would have a much-needed full-time companion. The two were blissfully happy and delightfully getting into endless trouble for the next 15 months. In the meantime, I wrote three books about them; Addie, The Playful Pekingese (Sir Addison the Pekingese is enjoying his retirement—until his rambunctious orphaned niece Addie shows up on his doorstep and turns his life upside down. Funny, dangerous, and poignant adventure follows, involving all the dogs and cats in the neighborhood.), Addie, Adventures of a Show Dog (Addie enters the exciting world of being a show dog, meeting new friends and getting into more hilarious adventures. A major surprise—finding out that she has a long lost brother names Rocky--totally changes her life.), and Addie and Rocky Conquer the World (Addie and Rocky go on book tour to meet their fans and have a series of hilarious and endearing mishaps as well as exciting adventures.)
Unfortunately, July 3, 2005 was the last time we ever saw Rocky.
We were living on 40 unfenced acres in Snohomish, Washington at the time, and all four dogs ran down the driveway when they heard fireworks. I raced after them and found Alex, Hanna, and Addie, but no Rocky. We looked the rest of the day and sent out a huge search party the following day, hiring a tracker on the third day. He and his very skilled dog located the spot where Rocky’s scent disappeared as well as the fresh tire tracks nearby of the vehicle that we believe picked him up. Four psychics independently gave the same description of the man who grabbed Rocky, a man who apparently steals dogs to sell but gave cute Rocky to his disabled sister in downtown Snohomish. A psychic even located the neighborhood, and I knocked on doors. Some people had seen Rocky being walked! But my plastering the neighborhood with flyers with his photo offering a $1,000 reward—along with front page stories in two local newspapers and an incredible spot on the statewide prime time TV news—never led to his return. Addie was inconsolable, dropping from 8 pounds to 6 in the following two weeks (she refused to eat) and afterwards continuing to mope around for months, obviously in the grip of an unshakeable depression. She had a special bond with Rocky that perhaps only other twins can truly understand. In April 2006 we adopted a 4-month-old courageous white fuzz ball of joyful energy we named Cai (which means joy in Welsh), Addie’s cousin (they have the same grandparents). Much to my surprise, Addie loathed this enthusiastic and loving little guy, and it took about a month and a long animal communication session for her to even begin to accept him. But they—the Pearl Girl and the Joy Boy, as we call them—became great buddies, and he really helped her morale. She seemed content, even happy, though she’d lost that sparkle of ecstatic innocence which she had before the tragedy of losing her twin.
But then tragedy struck again on December 14, 2007, the night before dear Cai’s second birthday.
Addie and Cai were in our backyard here in Brentwood (Los Angeles) several terraces up, by the swimming pool. Beyond it is wild land, but I thought it was fully fenced out and so they were safe. I was wrong. I let them out for their final bathroom break about 11:30pm and proceeded to get ready for bed. When they didn’t come back after about 10 minutes (which was not unusual), I called out, but no one answered. Then I heard barking. It took me a minute to realize anything was wrong because they often bark at noises, etc. they hear. And when I rushed up to where they were, I was too late: I saw a coyote carrying a limp Cai’s body in his mouth and scampering up a very steep hill where I could not follow. I grabbed a barking Addie and, totally shaken, headed back to our house. Cai was one of the most beautiful and upbeat creatures I’ve ever met. He was always ready and enthusiastic to do anything, playing with and lavishing affection on anyone who engaged with him. I so miss his constant fervent kisses, his looks of total love and gratitude, his cocking his head and finally crying like a little baby when his food took too long to prepare (patience was not his strong suit), his enthusiastic sprinting on our walks, his sweet little head nestled in the crook of my neck, and his wild abandon when he wrestled with me!
If it weren’t for ThetaHealing (www.ThetaHealingTechnique.com), I don’t think Addie and I could have survived Cai’s loss.
Thank goodness February 2007 I started studying a wonderful healing modality called ThetaHealing! This has totally transformed my life, making me happier, more confident, empowered, intuitive, loving, and strongly in touch with the fundamental creative energy of the universe, which I can now partner with to make huge changes in myself and others. ThetaHealing is an attainable life-altering miracle. It is a method of supercharged meditation and prayer that teaches you how to utilize the fundamental creative life energy of the universe to change limiting conscious and subconscious beliefs, to read what is going on inside the human body, to perform physical and emotional healings, to download teachings about anything, and to manifest anything you wish in your life. So, armed with this, I was able to resolve the guilt and grief that I was feeling and to console Addie to such an extent that I was able to get her to eat already the next day. Also, it was such a comfort to be able to talk with Cai’s spirit and to know that he is okay. (In fact, I feel his presence much of the time, usually as if his energy were sitting on my left shoulder; he also watches over Addie.) He told me what happened: the coyote came down and threatened them, going for Addie. Cai threw himself between them to protect her and, after a brief fight, the coyote grabbed him, breaking his neck and killing him, then rushed up the hill when I appeared. Cai’s death hurt but it was over fast. This was, of course, horrible, but it was a big comfort to me that Cai said that, even knowing his end, he was glad we chose him to be a part of our family; he would have rather had the 20 months with us than a longer life elsewhere. He wants to return as my human child, but I don’t know if Dean and I will ever have one. If we do, I cannot think of anyone better than Cai to be our baby!
The other
novels I’ve written (besides You’re Mine) include
Deed of Love, a historical romantic action-adventure
(Philip and Clarice travel the length of England, pursuing
the thief who stole the property deed they must deliver to
Cornwall before it’s too late.), The Courtesan,
another historical romantic action-adventure (Broderick and
Rebekah broker a tin sale in southern England that may cost
them their lives.), and Seduced, a contemporary
erotic thriller (Ross and Jenna must stop a network of
political and financial corruption that points to the
highest levels while eluding the mysterious killer pursuing
them.) Now I feel like I’ve finally gained enough skill to
write Magical Heart (Colin and Rose must put aside
their past to stop the secret society determined to
infiltrate England’s power elite.) and the related novels
that will follow it.
Before writing
any of my historical novels, I read close to 100 books on
the natural, political, and social history of the British
Isles (a place I have always adored) then took a 5-week
research adventure there Spring 2002.
With a small pack on
my back and a Britrail pass, I roamed for three weeks in
England, one in Scotland, and one in Ireland. I was
delighted to have amateur historians lead me through the
wilds of Dartmoor (Devon), showing me the magnificent Tors
(majestic craggy hills) and roads used in Elizabethan times.
I consulted with a professional historian in Exeter and
another who lead me through York.
But besides
London (my perennial favorite), the most evocative places I
visited in England were the mystical Glastonbury
(purportedly the lost Avalon of King Arthur’s day), hidden
Knaresborough (home to the Elizabethan prophetess Mother
Shipton’s magical cave and wishing well), and the bucolic
Lake District (green rolling hills filled with pristine
lakes and quaint towns of charming stone buildings).
In
Scotland it was the many castles and the rugged Highlands
that captured my heart. And I could barely tear myself away
from southern Ireland because the pastoral Lakes of
Killarney, the Gaelic-speaking Dingle Peninsula, and the
wild cliffs and shores of the Ring of Kerry were so
inviting. And to my delight, people everywhere embraced me
with amazing kindness and good cheer.
But my writing was interrupted, as I said, by publishing
and marketing five books through my own
HowellCanyonPress.
Some of this was fun—I’ve made numerous bookstore, school,
library, and conference appearances, doing readings,
signings, presentations, and workshops, often with Addie and
Rocky along (whom, I admit, are really the main attraction).
I love talking with new people and seeing their joy in
encountering the books and meeting the Peke Twins. I’ve also
enjoyed giving people free bookmarks and large color posters
based on the books, whether they buy anything or not. And,
of course, it’s been gratifying to get so many excellent
reviews and to receive fan letters from both children and
adults who’ve enjoyed my books so much.
What wasn’t fun was sitting in front of a computer 10-12 hours a day coordinating various aspects of book publishing:
pre-production (editing, illustration, page and cover design) and printing, reading articles and e-books about marketing, taking internet marketing courses, writing endless publicity material, creating media kits, generating nonstop articles and presentations, soliciting distributors and wholesalers, setting up advertising (in numerous trade publications, magazines, newspapers, and internet sites), sending out bulk snail and e-mailings, soliciting endorsements and reviews, soliciting bookstore, library, and specialty sales, entering contests, coordinating personal appearances, getting radio interviews, answering endless email and phone calls, creating and maintaining websites, participating in trade organizations, and the thousand other tasks that are the daily reality of the book publisher. Even most small publishers have a team to perform all these jobs, but I couldn’t afford to hire anyone else, so it was just me.
The problem is
I’m the artsy-fartsy, not the business, type.
Yes, I was
able to actually do all this and eventually do it fairly
well, but I never enjoyed it, so it drained me. Dean
remarked that I’d often be in a foul mood after long days of
publishing and marketing. These activities didn’t feed my
spirit and kept me away from what did (like reading and
writing books and going for long walks in nature), so this
was unhealthy. Finally, even though many of the books
printed were not yet sold, I had to give up on it all to
save my health and sanity. Oh well, at least I learned a
tremendous amount during this whole process. While I was still publishing and marketing Summer 2004, I escaped my work as much as possible by going repeatedly to every regional Shakespeare in the park performance (I especially love Last Leaf Productions and the Green Stage!) and any other affordable theater production I could find. This not only reawakened my love of theater but also my love of acting. I finally had to admit it to myself: I wanted to be up there too! I had felt this urge many times before, but now it was too strong to deny.
The challenge
and the adventure of taking an author’s material and making
it one’s own while creating a role—a living, breathing human
being—is very fulfilling.
I love doing it myself and
watching others do it: I enjoy seeing the same movie or
theater piece over and over, noticing ever more the nuances
of each performance—that’s what I call fun! And acting is a
way to explore and to be fully engaged in the human
experience. You search for the deeper humanity of a
character through your own humanity and also through being
fully present to and genuinely, specifically responding to
your fellow actors. Acting is living truthfully in imaginary
circumstances. And it’s one of the most challenging,
exhilarating, deepening, and enlivening activities I’ve ever
encountered (as is also writing).
I spent the next two years seriously studying acting at Freehold Studio-Theatre Lab in Seattle while returning to minimal writing and working in Dean’s office. I still made some personal appearances for my books but not many. After my first year of basic acting technique and Shakespeare at Freehold, I auditioned for Last Leaf Productions and got in! One of the most glorious experiences of my life followed: playing Titania in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and Juno in “The Tempest” all over Washington State! I loved the camaraderie of being with a theater troupe, I loved the process of acting, I loved performing on stage for live audiences, and, as for locations, I especially loved our weekends at the various Renaissance Faires and all the colorful people I met there. I was truly in my element! I returned for my second year of training at Freehold, re-energized and with an even greater commitment to acting. I studied the incredible Meisner technique in an intense, year-long, ten-hour-a-week workshop, along with wonderful classes in auditioning, improvisation, and personal clown. I started private voice lessons for stage acting, pop singing, and opera singing. I started dancing again, not ballet but my own jazzy free form that expresses more intimately who I am. In the meantime, I appeared in numerous plays at Freehold, even producing my own version of Somerset Maugham’s delightfully witty and wise comedy, “The Constant Wife,” starring myself and Dean’s son Derek (who had caught the acting bug from me).
But to back up a moment, Dean and I had returned to the Seattle area September 2003 so that Derek (a liberal arts and sciences student at the time) could again live with us (he’d lived with us in Tonasket but had to move back to Western Washington to attend college) and so that Dean’s son Brandon (a high school football and basketball star) could spend more time with us.
It was also great during our 3 years in Western Washington (two in Snohomish and one in Marysville) to be able to see more of Dean’s daughter Selena (who now has a doctorate in naturopathic medicine from Bastyr University), her husband Charlie, son Xander, and daughter Emlyn as well as Dean’s son Nathan (who’s one of the key players at Microsoft Mail).
And, being the culture vulture that I am (I adore movies, live theater, concerts, museums, and good restaurants), it had been hard being isolated ten miles up in the mountains above a town of only 1,000 people, though I did enjoy the incredible scenery and especially the hiking and the snowshoeing on the 3,000 wilderness acres that surrounded our home.
Our 200-acre Tonasket estate (which includes 13 bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, and over 11,000 sq. feet of living space among 4 buildings) is now for sale (you can get a $10,000 reward for referring the person who buys it!). I will miss it when it’s gone (we used to go there some weekends but not now that we are so far away; we do have a nice caretaking family renting one of our two 5-bedroom houses), but it will be better for it to go to a very large family or an organization that can make maximal use of it.
I have one
more ongoing project I’m excited to tell you about.
For the
past four years, I’ve been reading as many writing (craft)
books as I can get my hands on, and I’m always acquiring
more. I summarize the best tips from each in an
ever-growing document organized according to sections:
general, theme, setting, description, plot, scene,
character, dialogue, and comedy. I have about 100 writing
books now (in my collection of approximately 4,000 books),
and when my readings and my notes are complete, I’ll have an
approximately 100-page book, Great Writing Secrets, distilling all you
need to know to write excellent fiction and nonfiction. I’ll
offer this as an e-book download, and it’ll save many people
years of reading while revealing all the jewels I’ve gleaned
from those books.
Besides the above, I enjoy spending my free time playing with Addie and my Mom’s dog Brenda, reading, traveling, hiking, golfing, bowling, meditating, playing piano, doing yoga, Pilates, and especially Core Fusion www.exhalespa.com/core_fusion1682.html, taking health and spiritual seminars, talking with a wide variety of people, and playing various games.
My current spiritual focus is on continuing to explore the power of ThetaHealing and also on expanding myself even further with Evolutionary Technique (www.evolutionaryinstitute.com and http://newvisionaries.net/TEN), a wonderful method for making tremendous breakthroughs in consciousness for yourself, for humanity, and for all of Life (see www.evolutionarycoachingandleadership.com for US classes). Its outlook and methods are so revolutionary that it is impossible to accurately describe here, but I can very enthusiastically recommend that all of you begin to learn it by reading founder Soleira Green’s life-changing books, especially The Evolution of Everything and The Alchemical Coach Handbook, which you can order at http://newvisionaries.net/TEN/books.htm
Summer 2006 we moved to Los Angeles. All four of us were ready to get away from the 6 months of winter rain/cloudiness in Seattle, and Los Angeles was a great place for Derek and me to take our acting to a whole new level. Of the 500 acting teachers in LA we read about, we chose what sounded like the 30 best to audit classes with, and of those we chose 8 teachers to pursue further study with. We are studying or have now studied with Yale School of Drama teacher Gregory Berger-Sobeck (www.thebergstudios.com/technique.shtml), Meisner and Uta Hagen actress Lindsay Crouse (www.lindsaycrouse.org), Film and TV veteran Scott Colomby (www.tv.com/scott-colomby/person/38249/biography.html), Meisner teachers Justine Visone and Kurt Sinclair (http://synthaxistheatrecompany.com), moment-moment director/actor Anthony Meindl (www.metatheatre.org/l_classes.htm), and acclaimed actor-director-teacher-coach JD Lewis (http://www.theactorslab.com). I started sending out headshots and resumes late 2007 and immediately began booking film work (both shorts and features), which I am immensely enjoying!
Also here in LA I studied opera singing with the legendary retired Met star Richard Fredricks (www.bergall.org/fredricks.html), got singing lessons with singer and choir director Sue Fink (http://www.angelcitychorale.com) and singer-songwriter Cutis James, vocal coaching with dialect and vocal expert Robert Easton, and studied the history of early 20th century music with the very gifted composer, piano and horn player Brad Kay (call him at 310-822-4139 for musical training and for upcoming performance dates). I often attend some of Brad’s many live gigs and dance onstage to accompany the musicians and singers.
I have also started work on a new screenplay, a romantic comedy feature called Alive Again about an overly serious health-allergic man who must infiltrate a hilarious health clinic to recover his dead father’s blood sample to prove who he is and, in the process, falls in love unbeknownst with the woman who accidentally killed his father. He goes from being angry and world-weary to being able to forgive and to appreciate the beauty and goodness in himself and others. I guarantee it will be an entertaining, funny, and very different story! I am currently developing it among an award-wining group of screenwriters led by screenwriter and teacher Glen Benest (323-912-9195).
My stepson Derek continues to act while pursuing his music (he plays drums, guitar, and piano as backup in bands) and massaging patients in my husband Dean’s LA and Seattle offices, and he also has launched a film editing business specializing in demo reels, music videos, and TV series (you can contact him at 425-445-5563 to book his services). My stepson Brandon distinguished himself as a terrific quarterback at Santa Monica College and has now won a full scholarship to Texas A&M to play football. Dean continues to do groundbreaking physical medicine work (www.DrDeanHowell.com) at his various offices, to teach doctors’ classes, to conduct medical research, and to write articles and a new book. He has also developed an amazing small treatment device called The Bodie Box (www.BodieBox.com), which successfully treats hundreds of medical disorders with microfrequency currents, and he continues to offer VIBE (www.vibemachine.com) and Bionic Hydrotherapy detoxifying footbaths at our LA home office (call 310-472-8643 for more info).
I want to
leave you with some thoughts from the best book I’ve read in
many years, The Four Agreements (www.AmberAllen.com)
by Don Miguel Ruiz (www.MiguelRuiz.com).
Following his simple suggestions has amazingly transformed
my life, and I think it can yours as well.
The first
agreement is: Be impeccable with your word.
This means to
use (the energy of) your words to love and to otherwise
positively reinforce yourself and others. Never judge,
blame, criticize, or gossip about yourself or others; this
just creates emotional poison and pain. Your word is the
power you have to create, and being impeccable with it will
create freedom, beauty, love, and heaven on earth. It’ll
also help give you immunity from the verbal poison of others
because your mind will be fertile only for uplifting words.
The second
agreement is: Don’t take anything personally.
Whatever
others say or do results from the agreements (beliefs) in
their own minds and therefore has nothing to do with you. If
you (mistakenly) take things personally, then you may feel
offended, suffer, over-defend your beliefs, or create
conflicts (all of which is really because of your own
unhealed emotional wounds). Choose instead to love and to
feel good. When you feel good, everything around you is good
and everything makes you happy. (You love yourself, so you
love everything around you.) Choose to be honest with
yourself and to trust yourself. When you see people as they
are without taking anything personally, they can never hurt
you. If you don’t take anything personally, anger, envy,
jealously, and even sadness disappear. This brings enormous
freedom.
The third
agreement is: Don’t make assumptions.
We tend to make
assumptions about everything and (mistakenly) believe
they’re true. We assume that others see, think, feel, or
judge the way we do (and even assume that we ourselves are
or want something different from what we actually do). We
misunderstand, take things personally, and thus suffer.
Instead, it’s better to always ask questions until you’re
clear and also to always ask for what you want. When you
don’t make assumptions, your whole way of communicating
changes, and your word becomes clear, clean, and impeccable.
With clear communication, all problems can be resolved. This
is the path of personal freedom.
The fourth
agreement is: Always do your best.
This is the action of the
first three agreements. Everything is alive and changing, so
sometimes your best will be high quality and other times not
so good. It doesn’t matter if you’re sick, tired, or
stressed, if you always do your best, there’s no way to
(negatively) judge yourself. Be aware and learn from your
mistakes: practice, look honestly at the results, and keep
practicing. Doing your best, you’ll live your life
intensely, be productive, and yet be good to yourself and
easy on yourself. To do your best, you must take an action
for its own sake—because you love and enjoy it—not because
you expect any reward. Doing your best doesn’t feel like
work because you’re enjoying whatever you’re doing. You do
your best because doing so makes you so happy. Action is
about living fully, expressing who you are. The best way to
say, “I love you, God,” is to live your life doing your
best. You were born with the right to be happy, to love,
enjoy, and share love. You don’t need to know or prove
anything. Just be, take a risk, and enjoy your life. You can
only truly be yourself when you do your best (otherwise
you’re denying yourself). You express your divinity by being
alive and loving yourself and others.
If you keep
all four agreements, you’ll have a beautiful life which you
largely control.
But you must have a very strong will
because everywhere the path is full of obstacles. The old
(negative) agreements most people share are alive and very
strong. So if you fall, don’t judge yourself. Just stand up
and keep going. If you keep doing your best, you’ll weaken
the old agreements and eventually establish new healthful
ones to gain total freedom.
I wish you a
life full of love, health, happiness, joy, peace, freedom,
and all other blessings.
Sincerely,
Trisha Howell
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