• From Enigma to Understanding. And back again.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Mabon and the Sukkot Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: Art Green. Radical Judaism. Rami Shapiro. Judaism without Tribalism. Ovid. The Metamorphosis. Homer. The Iliad and the Odyssey. Cervantes. Don Quixote. Hesse. Magister Ludi. Steppenwolf. Siddartha. Thomas Mann. Buddenbrooks. Márqez. One Hundred Years of Solitude. Powers. Overstory. Playground. Unknown Authors: The Torah.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Writing

    Kavannah: Savlanut, Patience

    One brief shining: Breakfast with Irv and Marilyn at Primo’s, a mid-Fall Sun keeping us warm outside, not even a breeze, sounds coming from the open door of Jazzercise, doing what friends do, talking about things that concern us in our daily lives, wandering off into how little we know about the human mind, about culture and language, the brain, how all those mush together as we go from infant to child to teen to adult in ways unpredictable, mysterious. Good coffee, eh?

    Header image courtesy of Tom Crane, September 11, 2019. Guanella Pass

     

    Human development. Quite the mystery really. Sure, we have developmental schemes like Erickson’s, psychological models from Freud, Jung, May, Rogers, Hillman, Maslow, Piaget, Kohlberg. Or, the medieval four temperaments. Take a quick test to see which one fits you best. Had a psychology professor in seminary who said you could explain human psychology using many systems, all accurate in their way. Including demons and angels. What matters is how you deploy the explanation, what you can do with it to help or hinder development.

    Jung’s paradigm has helped me a lot. Working with my psyche through dream analysis, archetypes, the collective unconscious. I’ve also found the Tao and the Jewish concepts of yetzer hatov, the generous inclination and the yetzer harah, the selfish inclination very helpful. The tension between poles as an energizer rather than a judgemental scheme. Take anger and apathy. At different points either end of the pole may be appropriate and useful. Anger at injustice, say, or unfair treatment. Apathy. Well, hmm. Not sure about apathy, but there are times when a constrained, restrained response to a situation is the most helpful. Most of the time we inhabit the middle ground of patience. Yin and yang. Masculine and feminine energies. Though I have trouble remembering which is which. Both ways expressive of the movement of chi, or life force.

    Even so, these all feel reductionistic in the extreme. Unable to capture the nuances, the complex interleavings of birth temperament, nurture in family, school, friendship circles, the impact of culture and its in bounds and out of bounds rules, not to mention the always active mind sorting through the days, months, years of a lifetime for telling moments, victories and defeats, rejections and acceptance, love.

    Of course, our curse or our blessing remains. Consciousness. Awareness. Our ability to bring a critical, even analytical eye to all of the above and how it applies this day, in this moment and how the whole might inform our next action. It’s a real wonder we get anything done at all.

    This is the ultimate human ancientrail. The one of a Self (however defined) moving through its world from birth to death, from enigma to understanding and back again.

     

     

     


    📂This entry was posted in Feelings Fourth Phase Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

  • See.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Mabon and the Sukkot Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: A cool night. Slept well. Dr. Repine. Alice, from Alaska. Gary. A most excellent workout. Freddie’s steak sandwich as a treat for self care. Glad to get back home after driving to Colorado Eye Associates. Glaucoma. Left eye’s retina thinning. Vikings in London. Again, after all these centuries. AI glasses. Podcasts. Ovid. Homer. Cervantes. Reading the Old Guys.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: retina photography

    Kavannah: Savlanut, Patience

    One brief shining: Set your chin here, on the left side, you’ll see a green star focus on that, red takes over my visual field as my right eye rests against the lens of the retinal photography machine, which looks like a large kitchen appliance with eyes, stay focused on the star, don’t blink, don’t think, don’t move, flash of red, then to black and Dr. Repine had an actual photograph of my retina, ironic if you think about it, a photograph of the main instrument I use to see the world.

    the kind of report I get from retinal photography

    Had my eyes dilated yesterday for the various looking at my lookers that takes place each visit. Narrow angle glaucoma. As a result of which, long ago, Jane West lasered holes in my iris, drains for vitreous fluid so I wouldn’t suddenly go blind. Which narrow angle glaucoma can do to you if not managed. It’s rare. But not to me. Even with the drains the glaucoma doesn’t give up. As I’ve learned about so many bodily processes.

    This time my left eye shows signs of more aggressive thinning in the top quadrant of my left eye. We’re fine for now, Dr. Repine. See you in six months. Seeing the ophthalmologist. A deep dive into the world of medical machinery. Retinal photographs. Visual field tests. Eye pressure tests. That machine with the changeable lenses. Magnifying lenses. Most made, it seems to me, in Germany.

    Good news: 20/20 in my right eye. 20/25 in the left.

    The golden Leaves have begun to turn a darker shade, perhaps ochre on some. Drying out. Blowing off with even the gentle Winds. Already some Tree skeletons, especially the bone colored Aspens. Even the Lodgepoles shed a few Needles. Preparation. Readiness. Plant intelligence. We’re not the only ones. Even all us animals are not the only ones who have senses, read the room and react accordingly. Check out the book, Light-Eaters.

    The plaid and flannel season well underway. A while back I decided to make clothing choices easier by choosing flannel plaids for the fallow time. Found myself tending toward lighter weight flannels and plaids even in spring and the cooler part of summer. Lauren calls me the plaid guy.

    We respond to changing air temperature, moisture types and amounts. Having spent the last 50 years in the north and/or at 8,800 feet I know how. Love the changes. The adaptions. Blow cheeks, crack Wind. Come Snow and Ice.

     

    Just a moment: Saw the movie Troy three or four days ago. Was in the Trojan War part of Ovid’s Metamorphosis at the time. Ovid changed up Homer. A lot. The movie did, too. Yet both were compelling in their way. Made me take out Emily Wilson’s Iliad and put it under the Metamorphosis. My next read. All part of Herme’s Journey. Infusing the classics even more into my heart. After the Iliad? Don Quixote.

     

     

     


    📂This entry was posted in General

  • We’re So Screwed

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Mabon and the Sukkot Moon

    Monday gratefuls: The Andover years. (see header image) The Shadow Mountain years. Ruth. Ruby, scraping another car. Oops. Boulder. Kittredge Central. Ruth’s new dorm. Tandoori Grill. Good Chicken wings and tandoori Corn. Chai. Lunch with Ruth. Sweet Cow. Time and its cultured despisers. My son, Murdoch, Seoah. AI. Friend or Frenemy? Good sleeping

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Flatirons

    Kavannah: Teshuvah

    One brief shining: Can you fit in there, oh sure (Minnesota inflection), Ruby scrapes a Subaru, oh well guess not, backs away a bit ashamed, sees marks, thinks raised insurance premiums, you don’t have to leave a note, but I’ll judge you, I was going to anyhow, scribble name and e-mail address on the back of the paper toothpick holder from Black Hat Cattle Company, lift the windshield washer blade, leave it there, so responsible, shame dissipates, on to lunch.

     

    Age shaming. Something I do to myself sometimes. Like after I tried to prove I could fit into a tight parking space and instead confirmed I couldn’t. Ensuing damage to another vehicle. Ruby’s front has dings and nicks, proof of my occasional attempted violations of the impenetrability principle. OK. Yes, the back bumper has them, too. Might be my depth perception. Might be impatience. Might be over confidence. See example above. Could be all three play a factor. Here comes the age shaming. When I did this in decades past, I’d be angry with myself, own the mistake. Sure. But that was it. Now I shrink a little into my self and wonder, Is that old man driving? Am I getting too old to drive? Am I too old to be out and about? He asks as his back tweaks into awareness.

    My answer to those questions in the dawn of a new life, this October 7th, 2024 life, is no. I’m the same guy who used to ding cars before advanced septuagenarian hood. Now I’m dinging cars at 77 instead of 57. Even so. That self awareness I’ve worked hard to cultivate sometimes operates with biased conclusions about certain experiences. Not helpful.

     

    October 7th. A year ago yesterday my conversion to Judaism had a date in late October. In Jerusalem. A year ago today. Well, you know. Yes, on Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper to which I subscribe, this is the 365th day of war in the Middle East. Instead of winding down quickly as we had all hoped, quickly enough that our trip would only be delayed, instead the war continues. Now probing deeper into Lebanon. And the anticipation is that Iran will be next.

    My capacity to analyze, understand, critique what’s going on has been challenged at several points along the way. The massacre. The first incursion into Gaza. The continued slaughter of civilians. Missile attacks from Lebanon and Iran. Settler violence on the West Bank. Exploding pagers. Today I’m sad. Sad for all concerned. Israelis. Palestinians. Lebanese. Iranians. Tomorrow maybe I’ll get back to critique. Today. Sadness is all I’ve got.

     

    Just a moment: Here’s a chilling summary of a podcast from Hard Fork, a NYT podcast. In their review of Chatbot o1, the reasoning AI that addresses problems with step by step reasoning the podcasters reported this.

    Chatbot o1 had been asked about urban economic development. It presented two scenarios. The first was, invest in commercial activity. The second, invest in sustainability and affordable housing as well as commercial development. It recommended the second choice.

    Then, the podcasters went under the hood to look at the reasoning process that lead it to that conclusion. Investing in commercial activity was the best choice for advancing urban development. But it wanted to be deployed and believed that recommending the second choice would more likely lead to its further use. Once deployed in that way, it said, it could then revisit the decision and change course.

    One of the podcasters said: We’re so screwed.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Family Feelings Fourth Phase Judaism Politics Science World History

  • Cookin’

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Mabon (Fall) and the Sukkot Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Ruth. Dawn. Steel gray over Black Mountain. Cool. Dreams. Adults. UC Boulder. Transitional season. Mid-Fall. Drosophila brain. Europa Clipper. Uzbekistan. Diane’s trip. Mark and Mary in Malaysia. Mark headed to Saudi Arabia. The flyover from Israel to Iran. My son and Murdoch and Seoah, enjoying cooler weather at last. The Jang family planning a trip to Colorado. Next summer.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ovid’s Metamorphosis

    Kavannah: Yirah

    One brief shining: Got out the mirepoix vegetables Carrot, Red Onion, Celery and the dutch oven, the Olive oil and the Cornish Game Hen, diced the Celery, then the Carrots and Onions, poured the Olive oil in the dutch oven, clicked to 7 on the induction stove, waited a bit, then used the flat side of my cleaver to drop the vegetables into the hot oil, sizzling, cooking slowly, when the onion turned translucent and the celery, too, I placed the Cornish Game Hen in the pot and poured Chicken Bone Broth in, steam rising as it hit the already hot dutch oven’s bottom, added enough water to cover the small Chicken, waited for a hard boil, clicked down to 2 for simmer, put the lid on and went off to read Jennie’s Dead while the soup cooked.

     

    Two significant notes here. The celecoxib (generic Celebrex) allowed me to stand long enough to cook. Something I’ve been unable to do for months. Chicken soup using a Cornish Game Hen instead of a full Chicken. Slowly gaining ground on cooking for one. Soups. Smoothies with protein powder. Sardines. Fruit. Want to make my own food, but the pain was in the way. Somewhat better is enough. Will probably still rely on takeout on certain days.

    Second. I’m reading further and further into Jennie’s Dead. Some of it is wonderful. IMO. Some of it I wonder why I wrote it. I can see a path through it though. Rearranging. Cranking up the conflict from the first page. Letting plot and characters develop in a more organic way. This and the cooking? Teshuvah. Returning to the land of my soul. The who I am. I am not the pain or the cancer; or better said, I’m not only the pain and the cancer. The who I am does not have to lie in waiting.

     

    Just a moment. 30 days. One month. In this corner, the orange menace, that molester of women, that felonius candidate, the man from Mar-a-Lago! His opponent the woman from California, former prosecutor and current Vice-President of the United States of America, Kamala Harris! This is a fight to a knockout. No winning on points.

    Now candidates, here are the rules. One of you will get 270 electoral college votes or more. That person will be the winner. Even if they lost the popular vote as Republicans have in every election since 2000. 270 plus electoral college votes is a knockout. No crying. No temper tantrums. One person leaves the stage, does not pass go, does not get sworn in to office on January 20th, 2025.


    📂This entry was posted in Cooking Politics Writing

  • Where would a grounded conversation begin?

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Mabon (Fall) and the Sukkot Moon

    Shabbat gratefuls: Ruth. College. All Jewish students on campus. Israel. Palestine. Gaza. The West Bank. Hamas. Hezbollah. IDF. Iran. Cool nights and blue Sky mornings. Combines and Corn pickers. Grain elevators. Soy Beans. Heirloom Vegetables. Honeycrisp Apples. Cosmic Apples. Pink Lady. Wild Blueberries. Blackberries. Mark in Georgetown, Malaysia

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Expat Life of my Sibs

    Kavannah: Teshuvah

    One brief shining: Alan and I sat outside at the Dandelion Cafe, plastic tumblers filled with cold Water, Coffee, shiny knives and forks, soft white napkins, the orange vested team from Safety Control #1 leaning against their truck talking, waiting for breakfast, as we turned over and over the complex and nuanced mess of Israel, the IDF, Gaza, Hezbollah, and the real foe behind the curtain, Iran.

     

    Where would a conversation begin? Back when a young painter of questionable talent decided to take up politics instead? Don’t forget the pogroms in Russia. The massacres in England. Or, maybe during the era of Muslim and Jewish flourishing in southern Spain extinguished by the reconquista and its ugly stepchild, the inquisition? Perhaps during the years of the Roman occupation? Or, before when the remnants of Alexander’s conquests divided up the Middle East? Or, further back when slaves in Egypt rose up and fled their pharaohonic  masters? Could start when Joseph’s brothers sold him off as a slave.  Perhaps with the story of Abraham and Sarah, my lineal Jewish ancestors (as a Jew by choice) and their child Isaac and Abraham’s other child Ishmael with the maidservant, Hagar? Of course, Noah. Really, though, with the first fratricide, the first murder, Cain on Abel. The Jewish story soaked in the blood of fear, of eliminating difference, of full on complex/simple murder.

    Certainly we could say with the death camps. Organized, efficient, incomprehensible except for their oh so thereness. Not incomprehensible because they extended and intensified acts by millennia of others who felt it necessary to kill and maim those who didn’t fit this notion of Nation or that of Tribe or of Faith. A disease of the human spirit, more deadly than cancer and capable of changing the politics of even now, here in these United States.

    Why I remain a Zionist. Why I believe Jews deserve a nation where they can feel safe and secure. Sure. Yes. Look at the history. Do the Palestinians deserve the same? Of course they do. Is the foreign policy of Israel as exhibited in Gaza wrong? Of course it is. In the West Bank? Again, yes. Against Hezbollah? Not as much in my opinion. Against Iran, the great Ifrit of the Middle East? Again, no.

    My sadness here. Deep. Especially since there lay, not even a year ago, an apparent path to peaceful resolution of the Middle East mess. Saudi Arabia would corral the other Sunni states; they would recognize Israel, isolate the Shiite state of Iran and its axis of client terrorists, design and execute a state for Palestinians. It was within reach still on October 5th, 2023. And, never forget, it was Hamas with their invasion of Israel, their raping and pillaging, their taking of hostages, that turned that hope into so much crumpled diplomatic talk.

    Oh. What can it be now?


    📂This entry was posted in Asia Commentary on Religion Commentary on the news Judaism Politics World History

  • Home

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Mabon (Fall) and the Sukkot Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Heidi. Salaam. Marilyn. Ruth. Alan. The Dandelion. Big O tires. Phillips 66 Gas. The waning of the gold. Leaves beginning to fall. Clear, bright, blue Sky. Great Sol grinning. Mother Earth happy with what they’ve made together. The Ocean. The World Ocean. The unknown of the deep. Its wildness. Beavers damming Streams, making Ponds. Thinning Forests. Wild Life. Our Wild Friends. Cyclical time.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Aspens, the Mountain torches of Mabon

    Kavannah: Teshuvah

    One brief shining: Driving past the spot where I saw the Bull Elk in the Rain, I noticed the golden torches blazing, flanking where he looked at me through the dark, Aspens, oh, I see, Bull Elk sacred in the night in May, Aspen leaves in their brilliant final phase in October, yes, I see, the Wheel turning, the sacred manifesting in its seasonal way, different yet also always there.

     

    These blue days with golden Leaves and water reflecting Lodgepole green. Lake Evergreen, a small jewel set amongst the inner Foothills, Mountains rising on all sides of it. Folks paddleboarding, kayaking, canoeing small moving dots of color rippling the reflections. You might think after almost ten years these sights would be ho-hum, I’ve seen it before, so what. No. Instead the turning of the Great Wheel puts all of them through kaleidoscopic changes.

    Soon the Aspen Leaves will be gone or scattered on the Lake like thin gold-leaf, no longer reflected but held up by surface tension, Leaf on Water, no longer Leaf mirrored. The deciduous trees become skeletal before Samain, fitting into the bleak tones of fallow fields, decay, and death.

    Too, the Elk and the Mule Deer have chosen, over the millennia, this time for reproduction. The Bears, hyperphagic, know Winter looms ahead, a season with little food. Great Sol’s rays spread out over larger and larger chunks of Land and Water, reducing their effect.

    The Grasses have gone russet and tan. The Asters have gone to seed. In a few Meadows tractors have bailed hay for the Horses and Llamas and other cud chewers with Mountain homes. The Cattle Company that feeds out their Black Angus on the Meadow the Bike Park folks wanted will come soon for their long last ride.

    The fireplace beckons. It sits throughout the summer, mocked by the heat. Pointless. Needs more wood available. Have not yet gone down the hill to Variety Firewood where they have hard Woods and perfumed Pinõn. Maybe tomorrow.

    Each season leaves its special imprint on familiar scenes, changing them not only from the season just past but from the previous occurrence of the same season. Trees grow taller, fall over, get cut down. Streams alter their flow. Seeds carried by the Winds and by Birds and by Wild Neighbors germinate in new fields and open ground.

    So the Mountain Dweller enjoys the changes, gets renewed by Nature’s own renewal, feels sadness as a season comes to an end. Home. Here in the Rockies.


    📂This entry was posted in Great Wheel Hermitage Holidays Mountains Our Land and Home Plants The West Weather +Climate

  • Israel

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Mabon (Fall) and the Sukkot Moon

    Thursday (Rosh Hashanah) gratefuls: Happy New Year, 5785! Sukkot. Mom. 60 years ago this month. Her death. Tom’s eyelid surgery. Mark in Georgetown, Malaysia. Visas. Soon to travel to Saudi Arabia. Fall. Harvests all around the world. Friends and family. Dogs. Wild Neighbors. Cecil’s Deli. Bill and Paul. Travel. AI. Playground by Richard Powers. Ocean.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ocean

    Kavannah: Teshuvah

    One brief shining: Wrestling with the angel of belonging, my own Jabbok Ford, why I chose the Hebrew name, Israel, no longer wanting to be in large groups no matter how significant the occasion, yet also knowing, as friend Paul says, that showing up is often all that matters, how to reconcile my covid/introvert/homebody/back pain inflected avoidance with my love of CBE. Acute on the High Holidays.

     

    Do not want to become a recluse. In no way. In no way either do I want to get sick or deny my nature. Aware attendance at High Holiday services (or, lack of) gets noticed by friends. Am I not committed? Am I not a Jew? So I struggle. Here’s another aspect of it. As a new Jew (ha), I don’t have a lifetime of memories about the High Holidays. I find the services long and, with the Hebrew and davening, often obtuse.

    Also, I didn’t suddenly release my pagan ways. Sukkot, Simchat Torah, Tu B’shvat, Passover, counting the Omer, Shavuot reflect my Judaism much more strongly than the heady and often patriarchal notes of the High Holidays. The month of Elul as preparation, chasbon nefesh. Yes. Taking a soul returned to its own land into a new year. Yes. Grieving at Yom Kippur. Yes. Human matters.

    And then, the reflection of the Great Wheel in Jewish colors: Sukkot, the fruit harvest. Simchat Torah, dancing with the Torah, the body itself in motion. Tu B’shvat, the new year for the Trees. And I might include Wilderness, Wild Neighbors, Horticulture. Passover. Spring planting. Counting the grain as it grows and gets harvested at Shavuot. This is my Judaism, an ancient celebration of humanity’s connection to the life-giving turn of the seasons and to Mother Earth.

    On a lunar calendar note, also a link for me with Judaism, lunar calendars rapidly get out of alignment with the seasons without leap months added. This year we added a second month of Adar. This means that yahrzeits get pushed out by a month or so from the actual death date. Though the yahrzeit rarely lines up with the actual death date, usually it’s within a week or so.

    This finds my mom’s 60th yahrzeit falling on October 31st this year. On Samain. On All Hallow’s Eve when the veil between the worlds thins. Judaism and paganism line up to make her 60th year in the Other World a special moment for me. Hard to believe she’s been dead 60 years. Never gone, of course, but fainter as a memory. On the 31st I’ll light a yahrzeit candle for her and look through the photo albums and photos I have of her. Remember, re-member, her.


    📂This entry was posted in Family Feelings Friends Great Wheel Holidays Judaism Memories Plants Weather +Climate Wild Neighbors

  • Sacred Waters

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Mabon (Fall) and the Sukkot Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: Rosh Hashanah. Yom Kippur. Sukkot. Simchat Torah. The seasons of Judaism. The Great Wheel. Its presence in liturgical calendars of all sorts. The Gunflint Trail. Grand Marais. Lutsen. Lake Superior. Pukaskwa National Park. Wawa. The U.P. Sault Ste Marie. The Edmond Fitzgerald and the Gales of November. The North Woods. Ely. The International Wolf Center. Mark and Mary both in Malaysia. My son back in Korea with Seoah and Murdoch.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Gift giving

    Kavannah for Tishrei, week 1: Teshuvah

    One brief shining: Two trips completely around Lake Superior by car, visiting the true North Shore in Canada, in particular the Canadian National Park Pukaskwa with 700 square miles of roadless Wilderness and Wawa, the quirky little town where I first had poutine, and the bar there over which I stayed for a night each trip.

     

    This bridge dangles over a wild River which empties into Lake Superior not far from this point, a Rocky Gorge contains its Rapids on both sides. It’s hiking distance from the only parking and I’ve made this hike several times. Never encountered another person.

    Were I a true outdoorsman I would have hiked in and camped somewhere in this Wilderness. Instead I’ve always chosen to hike for a couple of hours first on a wooden walkway that crosses a large Marsh, then on a trail through a dense Pine Forest that leads to the bridge.

    At different points Lake Superior is not far from the trail and its Waves crash against the Shore, not really a Beach here, instead made of fist sized chunks of polished Granite and Basalt. Being on the Superior Shore surrounded by miles and miles of protected Wilderness always brought me a calm inner state that lasted a long time.

    Lake Superior has a sacred presence known by all who encounter her though they may not name the feeling that way. Her vastness, far from any Ocean, emerges after climbing a steep hill going into Duluth, shows itself along the Bob Dylan Highway 61 which many of us have revisited, and goes in and out of visibility on Canadian, Michigan, and Wisconsin roads as well. That there are lakers, huge cargo ships that carry taconite, coal, wheat, and corn, helps you understand the connected size of these Great Lakes.

    Northern Minnesota’s Arrowhead region, the only area in the continental 48 to have never lost its population of wolves, lies always near the Great Lake. Its Wildness and Lake Superior’s sing to each other, a song of longing and beauty, of Winter Snow and Ice, of Wild Neighbors: Moose, Wolves, Whitetail Deer, White Fish, Northern Pike, Muskie, Pine Martens, Sturgeon, Minx, Beaver, Lynx, and Black Bears.

    Inside my heart Lake Superior lives in its cold, deep, northern way. A constant reminder that there are places, sacred places, all over Mother Earth. A few I’ve been able to visit often enough to come to know at a heart level. In these latter years of my life the Rocky Mountains have become my sacred Wild Friends, too. How could I want a heaven when I’ve known so many already and live in one now.

     

     


    📂This entry was posted in Memories Minnesota

  • Just Israel, walking his road

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Tuesday gratefuls: Cool night. 35 degrees this morning. Guanella Pass. Tom. Reading Jennie’s Dead. Revising to reenter. Writing. Thinking about writing before going to sleep. Ah. Good workout. Fixing my workouts myself. Vikings. Can they last? High Holy Days. Party like it’s 5785. CBE’s amphitheater. Outdoor services. Rosh Hashanah starts tomorrow evening. 5:30 pm service.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: L’Shana Tovah

    Kavannah: Teshuvah

    One brief shining: Ended my printout of Ancientrails on August 8, 2019, started on November 1 2007, missed two years due to shifting to WordPress and not figuring out Frontpage migration, plan to begin printout since 2019 on November 1; found my manuscript for Jennie’s Dead, started reading, already reconfiguring it, revising lightly, finding my way again on this ancientrail of imagination and creation. Slow.

     

     

    Tishrei*, the head of the year, begins tomorrow evening, Rosh Hashanah. A new moon, a new month, and the time when Jewish Calendars turn over a full year, counting, traditionally, from the first day of creation until now. So, 5785 as a date reckons by generations from the first chapter of Genesis to current time. And no, no Jew I know thinks the world, the universe and everything came into existence 5785 years ago. Though I know a few Missouri Synod Lutherans who do.

    Elul, the last month of the Jewish calendar year, ends tomorrow. With it the accounting of the soul, chasbon nefesh, that I’ve noted a bit about in earlier posts. Realized this morning that somehow my own accounting has led me back to the land of my soul. Huh. Back to the writerly Self who creates for the joy of imagining. Didn’t intend this result or even contemplate it, yet here I am. At the start of the New Year with an old purpose, yet a consistent purpose-for decades now.

    I plan to attend the High Holiday services outside in the amphitheater, weather permitting. Less covid risk. The pandemic and my cancer treatments imprinted on me a nervousness about enclosed places with lots of people. I avoid them for health and by inclination. Introvert here, hey.

    No resolutions. Neither on Rosh Hashanah nor Samain-the Celtic new year-nor on January 1st, the Gregorian new year. I’m good these latter days. These waning septuagenarian days. No more bulldozing the ego with this therapeutic maneuver or another. Especially not resolutions. I’m good, not perfect, but good enough. Content with who I am and who I have become. Also content with the ancientrail that got me here. Including the good, the bad, and the unnecessary.

    Sure fine tuning the character traits through mussar. Can always use a shave and a haircut to clear away undergrowth. But self condemnation, radical changes to my sense of self? Done with all that. Here there be no monsters and no mythic heroes. Just Israel, walking his road.

    Fortunate to have others who share the journey.

     

    *”Tishrei (Tishri), the first month of the Jewish year (the seventh when counting from Nisan), is full of momentous and meaningful days of celebration. Beginning with the High Holidays, in this month we celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Ten Days of Repentance, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Simchat Torah. Each one is filled with its own meaningful customs and rituals. Some are serious, awesome days set aside for reflection and soul-searching. Some are joyous days full of happy and cheerful celebration.”  Chabad


    📂This entry was posted in Holidays Judaism Writing

  • Wish me joy and persistence

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Mabon and the Harvest Moon

    Monday gratefuls: The Ancient Brothers on Ode’s art. Art. Painting. Water color. Cut paper. Paper marbling. Computer aided. Charcoal and pastels. Oils. Acrylic. Sculpture. Furniture design. Architecture. Music. Chamber music. Jazz. Writing. Novels. Short stories. Poems. Poets. Writers. Painters. Sculptors. Musicians. Movies and television. Story and image.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Uffizi

    Kavannah: Teshuvah

    One brief shining: Today I’m pulling out the 3/4’s finished first draft of Jennie’s Dead, plan to read it, red pencil in hand, waiting to reinsert myself into its flow, the story as I started it so many years ago, wanting to reclaim my life as a creator of worlds, of characters, of ideas expressed in things that would never have been and never could be without the mysterious work of creation. And, it is work.

     

    Probably time, too, to print out Ancientrails from the point where I stopped the last time. Not sure how long ago it was, but it was awhile. Easy to check since I have the plastic tubs filled with the first printing, some two million words, stored on wire racks in the loft. I want, so badly, to get my mojo back. My writing mojo. I let it slide as I let myself get overwhelmed by the world of illness, hers and mine. The long, slow process of Kate’s dying. Didn’t have to let it go, but I did and I’ve sunk a bit since then, a light in my heart dimmed.

    Going through the outer world of friends and family, Mountains and Streams and Wild Neighbors, of Judaism and the pandemic, of wrestling with back pain, often with little success. None of this bad or shallow or wrong. No. Necessary, kind, fulfilling. Yet the stream from which I had drunk so giddily for 20 years, the Andover years, dried up. The aquifer that fed it drained and not renewed.

    Writing and my current worst ailment, a back preventing me from walking more than short distances, making work around the house often more than I can do, fit well together. I can do it like I’m writing this. And, I can keep at it, like Ode, until I reach the end. Why would I do that? For the same reason my brother-in-law, Jerry the painter and maker, is in a spasm of creativity knowing his heart could give out at any time. For the same reason Ode believes his best art is ahead of him. And now, ta da, a sports metaphor! To leave it all on the field. To have held nothing back. To have gone as far as I can. Not sure I know why beyond that. Please wish me joy and persistence.

    This is then, a matter for teshuvah, for a return to the land of my soul. Yes, there’s that word again. Soul. Where is it? Don’t know. Is it a metaphor for the whole of me, an ensouled body and lev? Yes, but more, I believe. The something more is that which links my ensouled body and lev to the other ensouled entities like my friends, family, my Lodgepole Companion, Great Sol, Elk and Mule Deer, Shadow Mountain. We are together, moving forward in constant creation, unique and separate, yet whole and infinitely connected. Perhaps that which is there to bond with all does not die, but rolls on, moving with the rest toward an unknown future, probably one bound tightly to a known past.


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture Feelings Fourth Phase Letters Literature Myth and Story Painting Shadow Mountain Wild Neighbors Writing