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Anacortes Senior College

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' Wednesday afternoon classes

CHAKRA CHATTER 102: Charge And the Energy Body, $30 tax incl.

$30

with Henny Nouwen, RN, LMT

Calendar Jan 14, 2026 at 4 pm, runs for 6 weeks

This course is based on the book "Charge and the Energy Body: The Vital Key to Healing Your Life, Your Chakras, and Your Relationships" by Anodea Judith.

This class will continue to explore and deepen your level of self-understanding and responsibility for charging and discharging of your vital force. It will help you to understand your own workings, the forces that propel those you love and how to stabilize and harmonize the energies within you and beyond you. It will awaken you to higher dimensions of self-expression, self-healing and creativity.

There is no prerequisite for this class. If you have taken 101 it will enhance your exploration and deepen your understanding of the chakras and their functions.

Learn conductivity and healing exercises to transform emotionally reactive habit patterns to responsive action, thereby freeing you from limitations of self-expression.

Guided experiential exercises will be used, including meditation, breath and yoga to enhance the functions of body/emotion/mind & breath, which will lead you to a better understanding of yourself in relationship to your Life, Love & Light Force.

Instructor: Henny Nouwen, RN, LMT

Henny started learning about and experimenting with the unseen realms of energy awareness, auras, chakras, energy medicine, bodywork as well as metaphysics and mysticism in the 80’s. She has been in private practice for 32 years using healing touch, intuition, insight and wisdom as an Integrative Healer.

Henny brings with her 18 years as a cardiovascular circulating nurse in open heart surgery as well as having been an ordained minister in metaphysical teachings for nine years. Over 40 years Henny has taught a multitude of classes on the mind/body connections, death, grief & loss, energy awareness and healing. Henny is driven to share her knowledge of how true healing happens in the recognition of the greater reality that sources our energetic being and teach you how to get in touch with it.

DNA and Genealogy: A Workshop, $30 tax incl.

$30

with Dick Tolman

Calendar Jan 14, 2026 at 4 pm, runs for 6 weeks

Basic genealogical research principles will be described. Genealogical rules will be presented, and help will be provided to know what to believe and what deserves skepticism. The principles and methods for genealogical research with DNA will also be discussed by the instructor.

If you are serious about genealogy, you must have your DNA sequenced. The rules have recently changed—you must have your DNA sequenced at Ancestry (they no longer allow DNA sequence uploads from other vendors).

This is a workshop—identify problems in your ancestry to work on. Bring a basic (paper) pedigree—4 to 6 generations with as much data as possible on birth, death, and marriages.

InstructorDick Tolman

R. L. Tolman is a twice-retired medicinal scientist (Ph.D., University of Utah in bio-organic chemistry--specialty DNA) with a consuming interest in history and genealogy; an experienced teacher, lecturer, and writer (120 refereed scientific publications). He won the National Genealogical Society’s Best Family History Competition in 2006 and has published articles in The Register (New England Historic Genealogical Society), Crossroads (Utah Genealogical Society) and Nevada in the West (Nevada Historical Society). He has been a volunteer at the Nevada Historical Society, a Family History instructor at Truckee Meadows Community College/Reno and at the Anacortes (WA) Senior College. He maintains the website, 29DeadPeople, https://29deadpeople.com, a site for sourced genealogical essays. He is a pro bono genealogical researcher and prefers to work on impossible problems and those that have been published in error.

Environmental Shaping of Human Variation, Adaptation and Evolution, $30 tax incl.

$30

with MJ Mosher, BSN, MA, PhD

Calendar Jan 14, 2026 at 4 pm, runs for 6 weeks

Welcome to Anthropological Genetics

“In diversity there is beauty and there is strength” (Maya Angelou).  “Diversity is the engine for culture” (Robert Redford).  “Peace is not unity in similarity but unity in diversity, in the comparison and conciliation of differences” (Gorbachev).  “By suppressing differences and peculiarities, by eliminating different civilizations and culture, progress weakens life and favors death” (Octavio Paz).  Without diversity among and between human populations we cannot adapt, evolve and survive.\

Survival is found in the ongoing dance of genetics, culture, and environment.  Here we are learning the steps of that dance.  Genes may control our sensitivity, flexibility, and capacity to respond to different environments, but environmental factors themselves actually cause great variation of gene expression.  We recognize that environmental effects modified traits in human diversity through varying generational exposures. Those modifications are sex-specific and vulnerable to the timing of exposure.

Today’s human phenotypes represent the sum of many gene- by-environmental interactions over the life-course and increasingly complex interventions stimulated by modernization. These interventions looked like a good idea at the time.  However, research now identifies many of their effects as problematic to the health of following generations. We will discuss today’s diversity in populations and how understanding that is so important.

Instructor: MJ Mosher

MJ blends experience from diverse professional careers. She served as a clinical nurse in Denver, as a researcher through a Postdoctoral Fellowship at National Heart,Lung and Blood Institute, University of North Carolina, and as a professor in anthropological genetics and nutrition at Western Washington University. She served as principal investigator in population studies with the Buryat of Siberia and Mennonite of Central Kansas, and additionally participating in studies with the Russian Old Believers in Oregon and indigenous populations of the Amazonian region of northern Peru.

All studies examined the relationships among diet, genetics/epigenetics and biomarkers of energy balance, obesity, and cholesterol. MJ believes that teaching is a two-way experience, with teacher and students (or study participants) learning from each other.

Jane Austen’s Persuasion: Why read a 250 year old novel?, $20 tax incl.

$20

with Susan Guterbock

Calendar Jan 14, 2026 at 4 pm, runs for 3 weeks

Come join a "Janeite" to explore the wit, wisdom of human nature of Jane Austen. Her characters act within the context and family of Regency (1811-1820) England. The themes are timeless: family, social class, community and love. The need to marry is a preoccupation with Jane’s characters. Why do they do it: necessity, security, status or love?

Persuasion is Jane Austen’s last and shortest novel. The heroine, Anne Elliot (27 years old) is still suffering from a love lost 8 years ago due to a persuasive argument against it. Now that lost love reappears. A great deal of persuasion is needed by all parties.

Persuasion: The action of persuading or seeking to persuade; presenting of inducements or winning arguments to a person to induce him to do or believe something. OED definition **Jane-ite: an enthusiastic fan or devotee of the works of Jane Austen. Coined in 1890 by literary critic George Sainsbury.

Prior to the course, the instructor encourages you to read the book or at least look at one of the several film versions.

Instructor: Susan Guterbock

Susan is a dual national-US and UK. Grew up in the east bay area of San Francisco and went to UC Berkeley from 1964-68 (exciting times). She was introduced to Jane Austen by her English mother. She is an avid reader and when she becomes unsure about what to read, she returns to JA. JA continues to delight Susan with her astute observations of human nature and portrayals of people from all classes of society.

In 2017 Susan and three friends (two of whom are "Janeites") went on our own self-guided tour of the places in Jane Austen’s life. We went to Lyme Regis (mentioned big time in Persuasion) and none of us fell off The Cobb.

What Every American Should Know About Energy, $30 tax incl.

$30

with Tim Bertch

Calendar Jan 14, 2026 at 4 pm, runs for 6 weeks

The primary purpose of this course is to provide a basic understanding of the role of energy in every American’s life. This 6-lecture course will contain the following lectures:

L1 will cover the history of energy and begin to discuss how energy is generated today.

L2 will continue with the ways energy is generated today giving a basic understanding of the principles and equipment involved and potential future energy sources.

L3 will discuss trends in U.S. energy generation including future predictions and touch on importing and exporting energy.

L4 will compare U.S. energy use to the rest of the world; in the past, today and looking ahead. It will touch on the challenges that developing countries have with providing sufficient energy per capita.

L5 will discuss how the supply of fresh water, production of meat and crops, fisheries and more have become dependent on energy to meet demand. 

L6 will have the class use what it has learned to create a world map of how much energy each region needs in the future and how various energy sources should be used to provide it.

Instructor: Tim Bertch PhD

 I completed my undergraduate studies at the United States Naval Academy, have an Engineering Masters from the University of Connecticut and earned my Engineering Doctorate at the University of Maryland. Other experiences include commanding a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine, leading the San Diego Wastewater Department with almost 1000 employees and $4B of capital equipment, qualifying as a Professional Engineer, directing a division of General Atomics, holding three patents, authoring several books, and past EMT experience.  Energy is essential to our future as a nation; as are citizens who can differentiate between energy hype and energy reality.

Getting Ready for Spring in the Home Garden, $20 tax incl.

$20

with Anita Johnson

Calendar Feb 4, 2026 at 4 pm, runs for 3 weeks

This three-week course will be provided by three instructors who are WSU-Skagit County Extension Master Gardeners

1. Steve Schanen - Basic Botany to Help You Know and Understand Your Plants - Learn about the history of plants and how the oldest plants are still with us. Learn about flowers and how the flowering plants are organized. Learn about some plant families and how knowledge of plant families will help you in the garden.

Steve is a high school teacher in Oak Harbor and former native plant nursery owner as well as a WSU-Skagit County Extension Master Gardener.

2. Kelly Maupin - Seed to Salad – This is a two-part session:

(1) From Seed to Maturity Jump Start Your Garden with Winter Sowing - You will learn the easy, low-cost seed starting method where seeds are sown in containers outdoors from December through April. This technique uses the natural freezing and thawing cycles to stratify seeds if needed, and the containers act as mini-greenhouses promoting germination when the time is right.

(2) Growing Tomatoes - Learn the Skagit County Master Gardeners method for growing beautiful tomato plants & produce. This class will include the fundamentals of germination, seedling growing methods and tools, common problems facing tomato growers and how to avoid them, the different types of tomatoes, and choosing the right tomato for our region.

3. Virgene Link-New - Rose Care and Pruning - Do you sometimes wonder how to properly care for and prune your roses? It can be a challenge to grow roses well in Skagit County. Expert Virgene Link-New will cover planting, pruning, fertilizing, watering, and pest & disease management for a variety of rose types in this talk.

Virgene is a long-time chairman of the Rose Garden at the Master Garden Discovery Garden.

Course Facilitator: Anita Johnson – WSU-Skagit County Extension Master Gardener

Full Course




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