Samain and the Shadow Moon
Sunday gratefuls: Rising PSA. Shadow, seen. Natalie and Dr. Josy. Winter is coming. (next week) Hanukah. Ruth and Gabe. Joe. Seoah. Murdoch. What I want. Death. Other life punctuation points. Hawai’i. Nathan and the Dog run. Venezuela. Latin America. Central America. North America. The Gulf of Mexico.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Joe
Life Kavannah: Wu Wei Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress
Week Kavannah: Netzach “Endurance and Tenacity: Netzach represents the inner strength and fortitude required to pursue a goal or a passion over a long period, especially when faced with obstacles.”
Being a metaPhysician
One brief shining: Shadow cast her presence toward me, casually, too absorbed in other nearby dogs and her trazadone pall to greet her Dad when others of her kind, so many of them, were nearby, crossing behind Natalie’s FJ Cruiser with its DOGS4LIFE license plate, in the Flying J parking lot human companions holding leashes, some pulling toward Shadow to say hi, I’m here, too.
Dog journal: First I’d seen Shadow since a week ago Friday. She greeted me, but with little enthusiasm. A little bit of my heart broke. My hope for an enthusiastic smile, a jump, kisses set aside. I noticed, in a bit, that she moved a little slowly, that spark in her personality tamped down.
I’d forgotten the trazadone/gabapentin she was on while the prozac reaches therapeutic levels. Didn’t like it, but I understood the rationale. Reduce her reactivity and help her learn new behaviors. Like letting a leash on. Like easily crossing thresholds. Temporary. Similar to chemical constraints for humans in an agitated state. Shadow exists in an agitated state most of the time.
Natalie said Shadow acted the same at her place as she does at mine, vis a vis thresholds. Made me feel good. Not me. Some psychic gremlin gripping Ms. Shadow when faced with crossing from the outside to the inside.
Natalie, an empathetic and kind person, said she’d come pick up Shadow if I had appointments, keep her for the day and return her. How blessed am I. So many loving folks in my orbit.
We parted after about twenty minutes, Shadow with Natalie.
Good-bye.
Health: Yes. My labs showed my PSA jumped, in spite of the radiation, from 0.3 to 2.7. At first I saw the 2.7 and thought, yes! Only later wondering, opening the lab report again. Oh. Not 0.27.
Probably means new drugs. New side effects. Still many options between me and ordinary chemotherapy. Erleada is technically chemotherapy, says so on the pill container, but its side effects have been slight.
There again, blessed. A cancer with many treatments, slow progression. And, for me so far, no symptoms. Happy Holiseason to me!
Just a moment: Make Western civilization white again. A sad dream, a dream of the desperate, of the frightened and deluded.
Even the Asian civilizations with which I have some familiarity exhibit strong evidence of liberal ideals. Look at the young women of Korea on a virtual Lysistratan sex strike, wanting their autonomy. Or, young women and men in China. Many of the women rejecting traditional Chinese female roles, many men disillusioned by them and the job market, pushing back against their heritage of centralized control. Taiwan, too.
And here’s the paradox, the irony. Those of us strong with the force of liberal/enlightenment/renaissance ideas of no kings, individualism, small d democracy, individual freedoms and rights as human beings are the ones that recognize most the need to link arms against this tide of civilizational troubles and by opposing end them.
Yes, the liberal journey is not toward a fractious libertarianism, but toward a democratic socialism where the commonweal balances as best as possible with liberty and freedom for all. Not an easy project as our imperfect America has shown since its birth, but an inevitable one pushed forward by the creative tension between individuals and the collective. That’s what I see, what I have lived for.
“I have a son in command in the military. I asked him about this. He pointed to rules of engagement which come, according to this article, from the “target engagement authority” which is Hegseth. In spite of the fog of politicians attempting to provide cover for themselves, Hegseth’s own statement that the Admiral acted within his legal authority condemn Hegseth, not the Admiral. I agree that the Admiral tortured the rules of engagement to justify a strike on men struggling to survive. Who’s responsible here? Could it be the toxic combination of little men playing war (Trump and Hegseth) entangled with the Special Operations ethos of getting the job done no matter what?”
Arcing back for a moment to yesterday’s post about humor as a moral compass, I want to underline the lack of a moral compass on the part of this whole administration. Absence of an ethical framework results in decisions made situationally, often with the heat of passion at the helm, rather than considered weighing of good and bad consequences.
Think Noemi with the family dog in the gravel pit. Think Kennedy mindlessly ignoring long established science supporting vaccines. Think Trump pardoning Hernández while waging “war” on Maduro. Think Hegseth, the dry drunk wanting more lethality. And getting it.
This administration makes decisions in the service of more power and profit for those in office and for those closest to them. We know it’s wrong. They may not. They may see it as the spoils of victory, reinforced by a stunning “mandate” at the polls. Trump himself, the beating heartlessness at the top, believes in garbage people and shithole nations, which implies of course that he and his are not garbage and that their nation is not a shithole. I beg to differ.
My point is this. An unpredictable, greedy and often ignorant leader at the top empowers the more cunning, the more ideological in his government to get done what they want no matter history, tradition, right and wrong. They all operate in their spheres with vastly different priorities and focus. No one reins in Miller, Noemi, Kennedy, Bessent, Hegseth.
Humor as Moral Compass
Samain and the Shadow Moon (2 sessions to go)
Wednesday gratefuls: Rich. MVP. Shadow away at boarding school. Clement weather. Polska Kielbasa. Bananas. Tangerines. Celery. Baby Potatoes. Andouille sausage. Scallions. Cherry Tomatoes. Pork loin chops. Sheetpan dinners. Nathan and the Dog run. His next summer move to Kalispell, Montana.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rich
Life Kavannah: Wu Wei Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress
Week Kavannah: Malchut Wonder. A feeling of surprise mixed with admiration caused by something beautiful or unexpected.
Being a metaPhysician
One brief shining: Made a mistake, went to MVP, my only night out during the month; even though Marilyn drove, a combination of radiation fatigue, head drop, and this damned hernia acting up made me first lie down on a couch, then ask for a ride home. Geez.
I knew better. I’m exhausted from driving to radiation and getting radiated. But I love these folks: Jamie, Susan, Joanne, Ron, Marilyn, Laurie, Rich. Missed last month and missed seeing them all. When Marilyn asked to meet at the usual place, I said yes. Should have said no.
Rich drove me to my car, followed me home, shoveled my deck, and saw me into the house. What a kind and loving man.
Not the return to the group I wanted.
This just in. Marilyn texted me, offered to drive me to my radiation today. Rich must have gone back and reported to the MVP group. I feel blessed to have so many who love me, care about me.
Dog journal: Nathan came by from a project just up the road. We discussed the Dog run. He’s built many and has his tricks for working in the Snow on frozen ground. Relieved. Now if that doghouse I want will come back in stock…
Just a moment: Sleepy Donald. I can relate. I’ll be 79 in two months and I just had a night. Glad I’m not working hard to cancel the political work of the last century or so. Gotta be tiring, making up enemy lists, figuring which shithole countries to diminish and ban, which cities to occupy, deciding how you can gig the poor yet again. Not to mention acting as warmonger and peace maker in chief. The contradictions alone would level a lesser man.
Don’t know if you watch South Park. Don’t recommend it even though the real South Park lies only an hour’s drive from Shadow Mountain. A former Conifer resident is one of the pair who created it.
It’s gross. Over the top. And, yet. They’re satirizing Trump, Vance, Bondi, Stephen Miller in ways that do make me laugh. Especially Stephen Miller who is portrayed as a creepy, I may lead to your doom, sycophantic butler.
If you can stand it, the satire is spot on.
Humor has always had an uneasy, even dangerous relationship to power. I’m sure more than one court jester lost their head by taking a joke too far.
I admire the South Parks, the Colberts, the Jon Stewarts of our time. Laughing at tyrants exposes them for what they are: weak, petty, cruel leaders who seek power for power’s sake with no moral compass. Humor, oddly enough, is exactly that: a moral compass.
Again, Recess Is Over
Samain and the Shadow Moon (3 sessions to go)
Tuesday gratefuls: Shadow, doing her work. The now working Clinac. My life, worth living. Fencing companies. Building a dog run with heated dog house for Shadow. Joe’s willingness. Early Winter. The coming of Hannukah, Yule, the Winter Solstice, Christmas, New Year’s. Holiseason at its peak.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fences
Life Kavannah: Wu Wei Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress
Week Kavannah: Malchut Wonder. A feeling of surprise mixed with admiration caused by something beautiful or unexpected.
Being a metaPhysician
One brief shining: Joe, my son, offered to come and build the dog run for Shadow, to set aside for a few days his serious duties and help Dad and his Dog, to do that after a fifteen hour flight from his home, a son a man can be proud of, yet I won’t let him come because this wonderful place where I live often experiences sudden, mighty Snowfalls and if one happened before or when he got here, he would have come 9,000 miles out of love and I would have no dog run. Doesn’t make sense for either of us. Damn it.
Shook off the OMG I make bad things happen feelings like Shadow shakes off rain. Still a little wet, but dry enough to feel ok.
When negative feelings crop up, they feed on themselves, multiply like Rabbits. This one begets another one and suddenly a whole life has come under scrutiny, memories retrieved to bolster the black mood.
When I drank, I often followed this spiral: I didn’t go to graduate school. I married stupidly, twice. I’ve not taken a direction in my life, rather let life carry me along like flotsam or jetsam. No agency. Woe is me and my sad, woe begotten life. And all because my mommy died young.
Nope. I’d been making choices all along. Many of them poor: Judy and Raeone, seminary. The Peaceable Kingdom. Not my woe begotten life, a Charlie begotten life that did not synch up with my values. No wonder I felt miserable much of the time.
After sobriety. Still plenty of work to do, to grab life in my own hands, shake it until it made sense, expressed who I saw myself to be. John Desteian helped me through it.
That dream. The pivotal one. I had a sword, held it high in the air over my head, lightning crackling around it while a crowd chanted, “He has the power. He has the power.” Yes, in fact I did and had had it all along. The power to change, to redirect my life.
And so I did.
Just a moment: Trump pardons convicted narcotrafficker, Juan Orlando Hernádez. Then, surprise! Honduras issues an arrest warrant for him for money laundering and fraud. Too bad for him Trump is not president of Honduras.
Now let’s play Where’s That Video? Oh, the guy it might indict has control over its release? OK. Will he at least release his actual orders, then? Like Federal Law requires? Again, recess is over. Time to pretend we’re adults now.
I have
Samain and the Shadow Moon
Monday gratefuls: Pictures of Shadow. Missing her. Darkness. Resolve. Football. Da Broncs. And, yes, always-the Vikes. The Nuggets. F1. Alexandria beats Anderson in the Wigwam (sic) 1963? Bobby Plump. The Indy 500. Jim Clark. A.J. Foyt. Mario Andretti and sons. Sports. The Atlanta Rabbits.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Gevurah
Life Kavannah: Wu Wei Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress
Week Kavannah: Malchut Wonder. A feeling of surprise mixed with admiration caused by something beautiful or unexpected.
Being a metaPhysician
One brief shining: Cleaned up the kitchen, unloading the dishwasher, putting dirty dishes in, a cycle, wiped down the counter, washed a sheet pan and a large bowl, poured myself a glass of eggnog, and sat on my stool as my porkchop, broccoli, and potato puffs warmed up.
Radiation starts up again today. I think. If the biomed engineering techs got it back up and running. Finishing Thursday, seeing Bupathi on Friday.
When I talked to Dr. Carter last Tuesday, he repeated what I keep hearing from various sources. “We’re treating your cancer like a chronic disease.” Hard to say how amazing this statement is. I’ve had stage 4 cancer since 2022 and he says it’s a chronic disease. Stage 4 has, historically, meant the end. And soon. Now, chronic disease. Wow.
On a sidenote. Don’t you think the Clinac looks like an adorable, goofy cartoon Dinosaur?
A curiosity: Have been unable to quash these wandering questions, maybe doubts, about my life. Am I a drama King? If everything’s running smoothly, something must be wrong?
Do I push situations in my life toward the extremes? After I quit drinking, I would have, up to this point, have said no. Even after divorcing Raeone and leaving the ministry, I felt strong, like I’d made necessary choices, not pleasant ones, choices to align my life with my values and beliefs.
Then, marrying Kate. We had this wonderful life together where we consistently made choices to support each other, family members in need, to support Mother Earth, to love and care for dogs. To travel the world together. Of course we had our differences, our troubles but we loved our way through them.
The move to Colorado, to be near the grandkids, extended that life into the Rocky Mountains. Where I got cancer. Where Kate got sick and died. Where all four of the dogs we brought with us died. Where I’ve now spent four and a half years in this wonderful home she found without her. Where back pain and a bad hip have left me less than able since Korea in 2023.
Then I adopted Shadow. 10 months ago. An up and down experience. As you, dear reader, already know.
I’ve written because I find writing brings me clarity, is the closest thing to true self-therapy I’ve ever found.
My conclusion, after having written this, looked back with I feel is honesty, I’ll answer my own question. These situations, especially since the move to Colorado, have been moments not of me pushing things to an extreme, but of me being forced by circumstance to confront and deal with real life extremes. Physical illness. Death. Mental illness. Grief. Jon and Jen’s nasty divorce, its fallout, then fallout from his death. Now the life of a dog I love wrestling with her own demons.
And, that’s ok. Life is as it happens. The key question is, do we show up to meet it there. I have.
Come Again No More
Samain and the Shadow Moon
Sunday gratefuls: Sadness. Shadow at Natalie’s. Snow yesterday. Resilience. Hard times*. Grief. Missing my dog. Weak. Mountains. Appalachians. Blue Ridge. The Piedmont. Wasatch. Sierra. Cascades. Wind River Range. The Rockies. Tectonic Plates. Subduction. Orogeny. Basalt. Gneiss. Granite. Shadow Mountain. Shadow’s Mountain.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Chesed
Life Kavannah: Wu Wei Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress
Week Kavannah: Malchut Wonder. A feeling of surprise mixed with admiration caused by something beautiful or unexpected.
Being a metaPhysician
One brief shining: Guess it shouldn’t have surprised me, but there it was, clutching my heart; she left up the steps on a yellow leash and vanished from my sight, my Shadow, gone as surely as if Clouds had obscured Great Sol’s light, yet paradoxically a shadow remained, making my inner light a chiaroscuro occasioned by a strange mix of hope and grief.
Gotta admit I’ve handled hard times better. I thought. Where’s my resilience? Ironically the topic for the Ancient Brothers this morning. Even more irony? It’s my topic.
Not feeling so resilient. And yet. I recognize this sadness, this listlessness. It’s grief. Some of it retrograde from agreeing with Kate’s choice. Some of it from watching Kepler struggle up the same stairs with the help of Mia and the home vet on his way to euthanasia. Most of it from watching my little Shadow leave. Even though. Even though I knew she was coming back.
I had been ready, no, not ready, but seeing the loving thing might be, probably was, to let her go. Too much like Kate. Too much. And I tried. I offered her to Dr. Josy who put this new plan in motion, bless her. She and Natalie have been so kind. Chesed, loving kindness. Not Jewish alone, a Hebrew word for human compassion. You know it when you feel it.
This morning, right now as I write this, my heart once again feels a bit flayed, a bit constricted, yet there’s also a wiggle, maybe a tail wagging?
My resilience runs through this valley, one where I can’t make out the valley’s forested and rocky walls, where my energy dissipates at even the thought of moving forward, where tears flow.
Then, slow slow dragging steps. Not yet for me. Not right now, but I take those steps, I will take those steps. I know I will because I have. In having taken them before I know I can and will take them now.
Not today though, because not enough tears. Not enough.
When I spent some time indulging my Civil War interests, I bought a CD of Civil War songs for a road trip to Vicksburg. This one came up for me this morning, a plea, a prayer, a hope no one has the right to expect. And yet…
*Chorus:
‘Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,
Hard Times, hard times, come again no more.
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;
Oh! Hard times come again no more
;
Boarding School and Radiation Vacation
Samain and the Shadow Moon
Shabbat gratefuls: Shadow. Natalie. Dr. Josy. Concerned friends and family. Boarding school. Shadowless. Grief. Darkness, my old friend. Respite care. Joe. Seoah. Murdoch. Vince. Nathan. Dogloo. Preparing an outside space for Shadow. Men’s group. Straw. Hard insulation. Heating pads. Heater for Water bowl.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Resilence
Life Kavannah: Wu Wei Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress
Week Kavannah: Malchut Wonder. A feeling of surprise mixed with admiration caused by something beautiful or unexpected.
Being a metaPhysician
One brief shining: Natalie easily clipped on the yellow leash, Shadow calmed after an excited greeting of her old friend and followed her up the stairs and into Natalie’s truck where she waited while Natalie came back down to grab the food, carried it upstairs and I was Shadowless for the first time in ten months, no curled up doggie beside my pillow last night.
Dr. Josy examined her and drew blood in preparation for prescribing doggie fluoxetine for her PTSD. Which we all agree she must have since she has stayed outside in bitter cold (for Colorado) in spite of being offered food, warmth, and love. Animals act in their self interest unless something intervenes. Bizarre behavior.
Natalie has found a fifteen pound dog, Alfie, who needs a new home. She will introduce him to Shadow, then to me. Might be of the yappy sort, but if he can help Shadow learn normal doggie behavior, I’ll adapt.
I’ve most often cared for multiple dogs so that will not be a challenge. Question of fit with Shadow and me is the primary issue.
Have to find someone to build the outside dog run. Vince. Nathan, or Joe. One month. I’ve figured out the heated shelter for her and the fencing, the design. Have to settle on a gate. Of course, it is winter but I doubt the ground’s frozen yet. It’s not been cold enough for long enough.
Health: Got a call from Alise yesterday morning. The Clinac had issues and I couldn’t get my radiation. Not surprised after learning annual maintenance costs on these hyper sophisticated machines runs between three and five hundred thousand dollars.
That would be a high paying blue collar job, technician for radiation machines. Requires a minimum AA degree in biomedical engineering with more complex responsibilities requiring a BS in biomedical engineering. Experienced techs can make a hundred thousand a year or more with additional money coming from overtime pay. I would imagine overtime is plentiful. When these machines are down, patients aren’t getting treatments and hospital/clinics are losing revenue.
Which all means my treatments now extend through Thursday.
BTW: Not sure about home plate in the mid left of this picture.
Just a moment: You make think Ukraine, Gaza, whack a drug boat, gerrymandering, or the Supreme’s on tariffs are big news. Well sure they are. But one story rules them all: Netflix buys Warner Brothers, HBO, and HBO MAX. Come on folks, priorities.
Boarding School for Shadow
Samain and the Shadow Moon
Friday gratefuls: Dr. Josy. Natalie. Boarding school for Shadow. Mountain folk. Tara. Snow. Radiation. T4. Nuclear fission for good. Small nuclear reactors. Good one’s built by a guy I know, a big one in Japan. Garbage people. All one. Garbage president. Cedar-Riverside. A welcoming neighborhood. Affordable housing. Built there. Cedar Riverside PAC. Economic development now at the service of Somali’s.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Dr. Josy and Natalie
Life Kavannah: Wu Wei Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress
Week Kavannah: Malchut Wonder. A feeling of surprise mixed with admiration caused by something beautiful or unexpected.
One brief shining: Crying washes the soul, purifies it with the holy salt Water of love, of caring, of devotion, and my soul went through its holy car wash more than once yesterday as I decided with a terrible and miserable reluctance to try giving Shadow to Dr. Josy, who asked me to call her and explain, and when I did, offered to call Natalie, Shadow’s most recent trainer, see what might come next. I called her.
Dog journal: Yesterday Shadow had been with me to the day, ten months. And I tried to give her to Dr. Josy. Overwhelmed, sad, frustrated, confounded I couldn’t see how I could keep Shadow safe from the cold if she wouldn’t come in. She wouldn’t. My love for her meant she had to go somewhere else.
She will. Dr. Josy called Natalie, who used to be her vet tech, and they talked, cooked up a plan. Instead of going to Dr. Josy Natalie will take her for a month’s boarding. Train her with her Dogs on coming in and out, going on a leash while Dr. Josy will do a blood test, then put Shadow on doggy Prozac.
During that time I will have built an enclosure a bit larger than the foot print of my upstairs deck with a heated shelter. Then, when Shadow comes home, she’ll have a much smaller part of the whole back until she has coming in and staying in down at home, too.
Both Natalie and Dr. Josy want to make it possible for me to keep her. Both were concerned about my health and my mental health, too. I am so touched by their caring, both for me and for Shadow. Malchut.
The other side: On Tuesday at Rocky Mountain Cancer Care Pat came out from the radiation suite, his long mustache curled up in a smile.
“You next?”
“Yep. Did you leave any radiation for me?”
“Sure did. Asked’em to turn up for you, too.”
“Well. Thanks, dude.”
Later when I had finished he had just seen the doc, I smiled at him and his wife, Sandy. “I felt that, dude.” He laughed. “See you next time,” he said. “Yeah, for the same thing.” He laughed again.
A genuine connection at the heart level. Pat’s a short guy, wore a Western vest under a barn coat, jeans. And that hat. A baseball hat made of American flag cloth with an Eagle on the bill.
Not so different after all, left and right.