A Brief Biography

My name is Karen Jo Ebersole Kohler Dene Terzano, and my name is so long because I have been married and divorced three times. I just go by Karen Terzano these days and have thought about using K.J. Kohler as a nom de plume if I ever write truth telling fiction. Of course there is always my Buddhist name, Kanjo, but outside of monasteries, I don’t tend to use it.

The Jo in my name reflects my family’s southern origins. Both branches have been below the Mason Dixon line since before there was a Mason Dixon line. My little nuclear family of Mom, Dad and me moved to the Detroit, Michigan area when I was five and there we remained in permanent extended-family interruptus. My memory's set of lenses, tell me these childhood years were unhappy more often than not, but that is a story to be told another time.

I ended up being an only child, and now since I am without spouse, with both parents dead and a virtual stranger to more distant relations, I am an orphan. I do have one glorious daughter though who has re-migrated to the Deep South and now calls Atlanta home. She is far away and is as independent as I am, but we do manage to keep our vital relationship alive and healthy through sporadic email and even more sporadic visits.

I have been many places and have done many things in my life. I have been in 48 of the 50 United States and all the provinces of Canada. I have spent time in all of the countries of Central America; Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. I have visited Mexico, Columbia, Ecuador, and Bolivia and have climbed the hills and ruins of Machu Pichu in Peru. I have walked the Great Wall of China, studied Ch’an (Zen) in her temples and have dug ditches with her people. I have performed the tea ceremony in a temple tea house in Kyoto Japan and have done a thousand prostrations in front of Amida Buddha. Pilgrimage once brought me to Europe and introduced me to the towns and cities of France, Spain and Portugal which interestingly brought a re-internalization of new testament Christianity.

In my adult years, I have sometimes been regarded as a workaholic, and during others, an irresponsible adventurer. I certainly was an alcoholic for most of my adolescence and early adulthood, having started drinking and drugging at the age of 12 or 13. Those “mind-altering” years brought great pain and difficulty in an attempt to escape great pain and difficulty, and being a smart and lucky person, I finally joined AA when I was 23. I gave up all the drugs and booze then, and left behind a fast life which had found me at times flirting with motorcycle gangs, working as a black jack dealer (and sometimes taxi dancer) in Vegas, and occasionally smuggling pot across the Canadian border. (These too are interesting and entertaining stories for another day). In the decade following my renunciation of consumable intoxicants, I ended up participating in all the 12 step programs related to substance abuse; AA, Alanon, ACOA. It is during this great growth period that I also earned a couple of PhDs in Biopsychology and Clinical Psychology.

The years between 23 and 47, would find me working in various hospitals and clinics, teaching at 3 different Universities, giving in-house 3 day workshops on stress reduction to both Fortune 500 companies and the US Army, and doing a variety of other professional odds and ends like sitting on boards of non-profit organizations and being a State of Michigan consultant for the Health Professional Recovery Program. These years also saw me marry three times, divorce twice, and become a mother to my only flesh and blood child.

I bet you have guessed these were my workaholism years. But what you might not guess is that I wasn’t any more happy in workaholism (or motherhood) than I had been in my “Looking for Mr. Goodbar” (1977) years. Even after I fulfilled the American dream of success, (marriage, big house, successful career, beautiful children, expensive toys, etc.), I still experienced significant amounts of debilitating anxiety and depression. So, somehow still believing that it was possible to live in the world as a happy person, I kept searching for a way out of misery and eventually discovered Eastern thought/practice. This discovery has ultimately led to my being a Zen teacher today, and that story is the whole story. The introduction you are reading now only serves as its beginning.

In 1998 my third husband was diagnosed with Post-Polio Syndrome and we ended up moving to Costa Rica to get out of the cold. Seven years of sun, sand, and hotel ownership/management brought a long delayed end to a mismatched marriage, some increase in savings and a ticket back to the States. The Costa Rica years were rich and full of drama, but these stories too will have to wait for their telling.

In 2005, the Costa Rica chapter of life closed for me with a painful divorce and I came back to the United States to take care of my father who had a healthy body and failing mind. I ended up moving him to Vermont where I settled in as a resident of the Vermont Zen Center. I was to remain there for 2 years, assiduously practicing zen, and visiting with Dad (who was in an Alzheimer’s facility 5 minutes away), until zen, the way I was practicing it, didn't work anymore and my long flight from “life as it is”, came to a crashing halt. It was then, my good friend and ex-husband number two convinced me to move to Ellsworth Maine so he could help me with the care of my father.

Dad died New Years Day of 2008, and with his death, I entered into an amazing state. For first time since 1972, (or maybe ever), I was without obligation or commitment to anyone or anything. I was completely without ties. What was I to do with an unique state like this? Well, I ended up doing what any reasonable person would do, I thru-hiked the entire 2,181 miles of the Appalachian Trail. The length of this trail is remarkable, but what is even more remarkable, is that if one walks the entire length, they will complete the equivalent of climbing (and descending) Mt. Everest (29,028 feet) 16 times. Why I thought this activity was a completely reasonable response to the total loss of connection is a major part of why this blog is titled, “Coming in From the Cold”. This extraordinary experience took 6 months to complete, and even today, 6 years later, I still am in the process of digesting it.

Since then I have continued to take long hikes, and have to date, walked several branches of the Camino de Santiago de Compestela, (Way of St. James), including Camino Frances, Camino Finnesterre and part of the Camino Portuguese. One jaunt took me to Nepal in 2012 to experience the high altitude crossing over Tillman's pass.  The leader of that particular expedition told me I was the oldest woman to make that crossing, but I bet they tell all the old women that. Another long hike of note has been a 500 mile semi-urban walk from my home in Ellsworth Maine to New York City on one of the U.S. millennium trails, The East Coast Greenway. Long walks of 100 miles or so continue to pepper my life, though I have set down expeditions for a while, as life has taken another serendipitous turn and I find myself today, the guiding teacher of Ordinary Mind Zen in Scandinavia, where the journey into warmth and connection seems to be blossoming.

This blog is meant to be the story of Zen Master Work in Progress.