Not Me

Karen makes masks from feathers she takes from road kill and from discards on the ground.

Karen has two sons who, one night, sat around a campfire on their 10-acre property and played drums until 2 in the morning.

Karen saved a hawk after being blown end-over-end by the backwash of a passing 18-wheeler. She set it on a box in her front seat and drove home. It was so stunned its eyes rolled around and around. She wasn't thinking about what she'd do if it came to. She got home and wrapped her forearm in a towel. It proceeded to sit on her arm for a half hour until it shook its wings and its head and took off. 

Karen lived four years with a medicine woman out West, studying her ways and learning how to build sweat lodges and everything.

Karen's a registered nurse. She works in hospice. She's learning to play the harp.

I learned all this over dinner at the Somerset Harp Festival last night.

Whoever said harpers are milk-toast sissies has never met Karen Ellmore.

You go, girl.