Great Work, Plants, Seed Keepers, Writing

Yirah

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Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

Shabbat gratefuls: Ginny and Janice. Luke and Leo. Itaewon. Black Bird Oracle. Warren and his sister. Dr. Josy. Snow. Cold

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

 

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Rabbi Rami Shapiro

Week Kavannah:   Yetziratiut. Creativity.   Revising Superior Wolf, learning from my writing coach. Focus.

 

Tarot: Knight of Bows, The Fox

Reinforces my use of a writing coach (chatGPT) and honors the passion and dynamism I feel around my writing projects.

One brief shining: The way we work, speaking without thinking, breathing and heart pumping, walking, grasping and typing, as if we were the original automatons, my fingers know QWERTY, find them without attention, word after word after word.

 

Kate always said the miracle was that the body worked at all, not that it occasionally got sick or hurt. Scan your body right now. Warm extremities. Your pulse. Mitochondria. My breath, life’s moment to moment essential movement, happens. Autonomic.

Aliveness. Hebrew chiut. Yes, us organics. Too, Creeks and Rivers. Mountains and Oceans. Aliveness animates, pushes forward, links us together. Breathe in, oxygen. Breath out, carbon dioxide. Plant: Breath in, carbon dioxide. Breath out, oxygen. Interlocked.

Shadow Mountain. A massif of granite and gneiss. Holds me up when I walk in the yard. A stable foundation for Shadow Mountain home. Keeps me high and lifted up- well above sea level.

Great Sol sends energy. Nuclear fusion. With generosity. Enveloping our home, bringing light and power. Photosynthesis.  Connected. Vital.

This miracle.  This random, wonderful orbit. A fertile and forgiving home for all of us. Her aliveness. Her chiut. We forget. Without her. Oh, no other place to go. Not yet. No Shadow Mountain on which to stand. No plants, no oxygen. No us.

Yet.

We are deaf and blind. Mother Earth. Our sustenance. The heiros gamos. Great Sol and Mother Earth. Pregnant with us. With Lodgepole Pines. With Bass and Muskies. With the Laurentian Shield and the Andes. Shadow chasing Butterflies.

How, I often wonder, can we not see it? Shadow knows. She plays in the Snow. The Lodgepoles know. They dig their roots into our rocky soil, push their crowns toward the sky. We get in our cars, start the engine with no thought to the Dinosaurs and ancient Ferns. Eat the flesh of a fish we did not catch. Tomatoes we did not grow. As if it were our inalienable right.

Stop. Stand still. Listen. The Wind. A chattering Squirrel. The laugh of a child. Your own breath. See. A blue Colorado, Rocky Mountain sky. Shadow rolls over, a toy in her mouth. Water in Maxwell Creek.

Go inside. Your heart beats. Lungs exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide. That inner cathedral. It has a Holy Well, a spring welling up from the collective memories of our kind. Ra. Gaia. Spider Woman. Raven. Let there be words.

It works.

For now.

 

 

Friends, Music, Politics, US History, Writing

Bodies

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Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

Friday gratefuls: Rich on Wall Street, the national anthem. Wild Flower. Downtown Evergreen. Dr. O’Leary. No skin cancer.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

 

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Breakfast with Rich

Week Kavannah:   Bitachon. Confidence.     I need to focus on confidence this week. Important decisions for cancer treatment, how to stay confident when physical weakness challenges me.

 

Tarot: #6, The Forest Lovers

In my writing I’m learning to balance animus and anima, listening to both, especially as I link my work to the natural world.

 

One brief shining: Wall Street. More wicked than I knew. Built by slaves of Dutch owners, the first Wall Street. A stockade. In 1711 a slave market there, a city slave market. Rich taking his honors class from Colorado School of Mines. The Body Politic. Politics of the body.

Early breakfast with Rich Levine. The Wildflower’s door was open, so I went inside, sat down. Noticed on the menu: 7:30-2:00. It was 7:20. Oops. Owner came out of the bathroom, started. “You scared the shit out of me. Want a cup of coffee?” I did.

When Rich showed up, laundered and starched white shirt, blue Patagonia vest in 12 degree weather, I greeted him as a Minnesotan. Cold weather proof.

He ordered the Athena, a vegetarian omelet.  A Mountain Skillet for me, eggs and chicken-fried steak, wild potatoes, and pancakes.

Over coffee, while we waited for our food, Rich told me of his pending trip with his class, the Body Politic, to New York City. Most interesting to me? Wall Street.  Built by the enslaved.   Later a city slave market.

The owner of Wild Flower delivered Rich’s omelet, my Mountain skillet. “Ready for a refill?”

We ate.

Plantation cotton fed Wall Street’s growth. Eerily, I also discovered mortgage backed securities sold to foreign investors. The collateral? Enslaved people. Aetna insured the enslaved as property.

Rich also pointed me to later stanzas of the national anthem which include these verses:

“No refuge could save the hireling and slave

From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave”

The British armed the enslaved. We sang, “Sweet land of liberty.”

A couple more cups of coffee later Rich told me his Ob/Gyn daughter was pregnant. His second grandchild, a sister for one and a half year old Felix.

Bodies feeding. Bodies about to be born. Bodies aging.

We parted ways. Love you, Rich. Love you, Charles.

Started up a begrimed Ruby. Drove away smiling. Energized.

Rich wants to collaborate on Even the Gods Must Die, my first novel. Vulnerable. My first.  Not confident it shows skill. He says that doesn’t matter. It matters. To me.

Admission. I plan as many revisions to Superior Wolf as necessary to make it sing. Then. I’ll use ChatGPT to help me find an agent. A place I got stuck a while back.

 

Writing

Ancora Imparo

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Imbolc and the Moon of Deep Friendship

Thursday gratefuls: Rich. Diane. Shadow rolling her ball, treats falling out. Sue. Annie. Clinical trial. Neck braces. Superior Wolf.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

 

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Sue’s loving care

Week Kavannah:   Bitachon. Confidence.     I need to focus on confidence this week. Important decisions for cancer treatment, how to stay confident when physical weakness challenges me.

 

Tarot: Ace of Arrows, Breath of Life

Yes. Irony. My writing, given sudden new life by AI. As coach. Rereading, revising. Ancientrails. Superior Wolf.

 

One brief shining: Writing, then listening to the coach. Oh, yes. Compress. Use nouns. Trust the reader. Structure. Having a careful reader trained on literature, good writing. Vulnerability respected. How do we learn? How do I learn?

Ancora imparo. Those books stacked in front of me. Furious Minds. Dog Show. Black Bird Oracle. Watching Shadow, what attracts her. That sore shoulder, how can I help it.

Uploading iteration after iteration. Feedback. Kind but pointed. Not sycophantic. Speaking with and for precision. For seeing the sculpture in the rock of my first draft.

How thirsty I was.

Help me get better, please. Stop learning. Die. Life needs, demands challenge.

Curiosity. Judged dangerous. Openness. An unpredictable citizen, one who might embrace a foreigner. Who likes meat ball soup, raw fish, rugby.

No. Homogeneity. Yields security. Order. No surprises. A dismal, dreary world of look alikes with red hat, of political commissars enforcing their dogma, of all waltzes and no rock and roll.

I prefer seeing the Bull fight in the Plaza de Toros. Even if, as Paul said, I’m rooting for the Bull. When I took notes, I could hear Spanish sprinkled with Hemingway as picadors lanced him, protected by their buffoonish mattresses.

Wandering into Mickey’s late at night, the Diner full, breakfast all the time. With Joseph. Joseph turning that experience over. Thinking, no cookies for Santa this year. We left the jolly old elf five dollars and directions.

Listening with my eyes. Hearing the plant say I’m thirsty with a drooping leaf. Shadow: I need to go outside. Right now. Pacing.

More traditional moments. Ensconced in my favorite top floor carrel, books on soteriology above me on a shelf, reading about doctrines of sin. Looking out through the full plate glass windows. Cars on I-694 uninterested in being saved.

Professor Scruton explaining the power of culture, how it shapes and defines us. My mind racing, absorbing, joyful.

There it is. There. It. Is. Learning is joyful. At least for me. It lifts my heart. Kick starts associations. Oh. Culture = architecture = language = virtues learned at funerals–“Dick always listened, lived in the background.”

Torah. The root most literally relates to “shooting an arrow” or “hitting the mark.” While hamartia, a Greek word often translated as sin in the Septuagint, means missing the mark.

Teshuvah, often translated as repentance, more interestingly means returning to your Authentic Self. To hit the mark of your neshama. Your Buddha nature.

Joy marks the time. Once returned to my authentic self as a writer, I can relax. Learn. Grow into a writer, one known and unknown.

Ancora Imparo.

Simcha.

 

Cancer, Dogs, Fourth Phase, Health, Writing

A Strong Link

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Imbolc and the Moon of Deep Friendship

Monday gratefuls: Robin. Shadow the bandageless. Audrey, winning at regionals. Sports. Joe, the three letter guy. ICE. Minnesota.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

 

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Actinium

Week Kavannah:   Bitachon. Confidence.     I need to focus on confidence this week. Important decisions for cancer treatment, how to stay confident when physical weakness challenges me.

 

Tarot: Seven of Arrows, Insecurity

Between treatment protocols. Exhausted. Not working out. A time of deep uncertainty.

One brief shining: A trigger finger locked. Life hinging on unproven chemicals, tests, blood draws. A sore right shoulder. Love of friends and family. Shadow. Unavoidable mortality.

 

Underlayments. Love. Joseph and Seoah. Ruth and Gabe. Mary and Mark and Diane. Korea to Melbourne to Saudi Arabia. Kate across the threshold. Knowing and seeing each other anyhow.

The love of old friends and new. Ancient Brothers. CBE.

Feeling connected in a Dog’s kisses. Coffee in the morning. The Shema.

So that. When cancer makes an aggressive move, I want to push back, get into a clinical trial. So that. When exercise falls away, my tennis shoes go back on.

And yet. Sometimes. I sit back in my chair. Think. Oh, come on. Enough. May I ride it all out from the comfort of this recliner? Surrender. Wait. For a miracle. For a finish.

Not the brave face. Nor a frightened one. Weary.

I do not want to scare those who love me. No. Yet I do not want to be dishonest either. This is not easy.

Not most of the day. When soreness or shortness of breath hits. Then. Pain suggests: a sick man who a moment ago was in his forties, eager. Whap.

Underlayments. I lean into love, buoyed up by Joe’s voice, by Tara singing happy birthday. By the regard in which I hold myself.

Underlayments. Remember. Shadow’s waggly tail. Gabe’s new poem. Superior Wolf’s second draft.

Consolation. More to do. Rejuvenation.

Not dead yet.

Knowing. Deep. This day, this singular unrepeatable day. All I’ve got. Ever. And this day, right now, hands on the keyboard. Shadow sleeping nearby. Morning darkness not dispelled. I am fully alive. Laying down breadcrumbs.

Underlayments. How to reconcile. Weariness and excitement. Pain and joy. Not easy. Not impossible. Most often through writing. Talking it out. Diane and her book club. Tom and a new book. Listening.

Realizing words. These words spilled in a certain order. Saying, hello out there, hello.

My one strong link to my journalist father. A need to express myself. Clearly. Often. Yes, a need. Not a want. That peculiar inside-out move of the artist: exposing the inner journey so others know they are not alone.

Ancient Brothers, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Shadow Mountain

Not Yet

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Imbolc and the Moon of Deep Friendship

Monday gratefuls: Chocolate. Birthday presents. Canceling the Washington Post. Again. Five days of friends and family. Cold weather and Snow ahead

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

 

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Tsundoku

Week Kavannah:   Bitachon. Confidence.     I need to focus on confidence this week. Important decisions for cancer treatment, how to stay confident when physical weakness challenges me.

 

Tarot: Page of Arrows, the Wren

ChatGPT writing coach has begun to tune my late stage craft. Like the Wren it relies on subtlety, less rather than more.

One brief shining: Shadow and I, alone again; Tom and Paul flew off in a jet plane, Ruth busy at work and school, a time now to focus on writing, Ancientrails and Superior Wolf, to gather myself for the start of my clinical trial, a few fancy chocolates left.

 

Bathing in the after glow of a long visit by old friends. Feeling their concern, Tom loading cardboard in my recycling bin. Their love, Paul recalling his daughter Kate’s first months. NICU. Angel nurses. A three way group hug before they left.

39 years. Half my life. Friendships built on dogsled trips in the Boundary Waters, clambering up wooden ladders, so many meals together. Deaths and divorce.

New memories. Three elder men squeezed into the booth that Ruth found for us to protect our hearing. Her sweetness. Drawing Paul out on his life. Remembering Tom was the electron microscope guy.

New memories. A Sunday dinner around my breakfast table. Dad’s fettucine, beloved by his daughter, Kate. Tom’s question, what do you expect in the next ten years? Birthday chocolates for dessert.

The Bistro. Where I found Kate’s pearl. Where we ate with Jon the day he moved out after his divorce. Where Kate and I would dine. Now where old friends from away and I dine. Log framing and a blazing fire, piano music.

Bread and roses. Feeling their hands on my shoulder

Robert Duvall. Jesse Jackson. dead

Bob Weir. Loved listening to Weir’s riffs. Ripple. Sugar Magnolia.

Another mark of aging. Lights going out one by one.

Kate and Jon’s deaths.

Why Tom and Paul’s visit meant so much.

While I’m alive.

Not yet a light gone out.

Family, Fourth Phase, Great Work, Seed Keepers, Weather +Climate

That path is for your steps alone

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Imbolc and the Moon of Deep Friendship

Monday gratefuls: Talking with Paul. His fettucine. Michael and Kate. Ramadan. Mark in far Hafar. Mary down under. Tsundoku.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

 

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Millennials

Week Kavannah: Bitachon. Confidence.     I need to focus on confidence this week. Important decisions for cancer treatment, how to stay confident when physical weakness challenges me.

 

Tarot: Page of Vessels, Otter

Otter, who moves easily between land and water, encourages me to linger in my inner cathedral, bathe in its holy well of imagination, then write.

One brief shining: Once again a full table at Shadow Mountain Home, shared with two who will live into the heat of a changed nation, an altered climate, as will Ruth and Gabe, and three old men, loving the future through them all, seeing the struggle ahead but not able to be part of it.

 

Call it the tragedy of aging. I can see flooded subways, more hot, snowless winters. The hurricanes of political change. Tom, Paul, and I have laid our children and grand children on an altar of our own making. There is no ram coming in their place.

Fifty-three degrees. Yesterday. Scant Snow on the ground. Mid-February. Kate speaking. We’re all gonna fry.

Children and grandchildren we love and cherish face challenges of a scale so outsized I go pale.  Michael. Kate. Ruth. Gabe. Ellory. Sylvan. Say their names, too.

Other old white men. Say. No danger ahead. Chained to money, quarterly profit margins.

My mortality sinks into my bones. I love Joe, Ruth, Gabe. So much. And, they love me back, great joy.

“There is a road, no simple highwayBetween the dawn and the dark of nightAnd if you go, no one may followThat path is for your steps alone”

 

 

Cancer, Fourth Phase, Health, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Keep This Clanky Body Working

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Imbolc and the Moon of Deep Friendship

Sunday gratefuls: A Blackbird birthday breakfast with Tom, Paul, Ruth. Evoke 1923. Crème brûlée. Sweet thangs.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

 

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Valentines Day

Week Kavannah: Bitachon. Confidence.     I need to focus on confidence this week. Important decisions for cancer treatment, how to stay confident when physical weakness challenges me.

 

art@willworthington

Tarot: Two of Vessels, Attraction

A Valentines Day card. Kate, always Kate. Love. Shadow. My sweet girl.

One brief shining: We sat, the four of us, in a booth, 79, 78, 79, 19, Paul, Tom, me, Ruth, ordering Corn fritters and sweet syrup, Avocado toast, talking, laughing, a fine birthday morning.

 

Oh, to be young and athletic. The condom supply ran out in three days. And Valentines Day thrown in, too.

I’ve been chemically impotent since 2019, because a lowered T score starves my cancer and my body of a hormone that gives me energy, aids in gaining muscle mass. No wonder I have trouble opening jars.

That drive, that two of vessels attraction. Desire-fenced out.   Bit by bit my inner assassin has claimed territory–gardening in fifteen-minute bursts, my male gaze dimmed.

But not my bitachon. Not my ahava. Not my lev. The assassin can only target flesh. If anything, my friendships have deepened. Spirituality broadened as I’ve grown Tomatoes and Beets in Artemis. As I say the shema.

Five years this April since Kate died. Five years with no human next to me in bed. No breakfast conversations. A long, but accepted sadness.

Not living without love. Close, dear friends. Family. Tom, Paul, and me last night. Cassoulet, Scallops, Beef Tenderloin. Ruth and her big bag of candy. Tara singing happy birthday by text.

Life still lived. While the executioner works.

Am I less than myself now? Paul carried canned dog food, that ceiling fan downstairs. I feel the concern in Tom’s voice. Yet. Ruth said, “I don’t see you as old; I see you as wise.”

A body in decline. Standing up to cook. So hard. Trigger fingers lock up over the keyboard.  Ageism sees physical decline as mental decline. No. I am not diminished. The assassin cannot have my mind. Challenged by cancer, by sarcopenia. My authentic Self–refined. Ready to learn more about my craft.

Where I am now: surrounded by friends and family, loved and loving. My sense of purpose clarified by my writing coach, ChatGPT. Eager each day to see how I can revise Ancientrails, polish it. Excited to work on revision #2 of Superior Wolf, then Missing.

Keep this clanky body working as long as possible. Not finished.

 

 

Fourth Phase

They Say It’s Your Birthday

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Imbolc and the Moon of Deep Friendship

Shabbat gratefuls: Tom and Paul. Shadow and her bootie. Rabbi Jamie. Irv and Marilyn. Snow, at last.  Ruth. 79. Birthday.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

 

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Tandoori Chicken

Week Kavannah: Bitachon. Confidence.     I need to focus on confidence this week. Important decisions for cancer treatment, how to stay confident when physical weakness challenges me.

 

Art@willwordsworth

Tarot: Four of Stones, Protection

It represents finding a personal place of emotional and spiritual safety. The dolmen provides a physical and energetic shield for the vulnerable. The rising sun signifies the return of hope and energy after a period of trial or darkness.

One brief shining: Here I am traveling again on a new circuit around Great Sol, same as the old circuit but new to me in my 79th year, moving fast, leaving flecks of stardust and memories in my wake, ready for a year of creativity and joy.

Birthdays. Wonder when we started celebrating birthdays? Can’t imagine early Homo Sapiens sitting around the campfire eating birthday cake.

This year. A wonderful birthday with two boxes of fancy chocolates, two old and beloved friends from away, Ruth coming up. Immersed in concrete love.

The 79th year. As grandson Gabe put it, “In 2 days, you’ll be a year from 80.”  When we read someone is 80, we think: “Boy. They’re old.”

Given recent cancer news, new metastases and passing into hormone resistant disease, I wonder about my last birthday. New treatments mean I’ll likely reach my 80’s.

The Germans gave us candles — one for each year, and one for hope. One birthday soon that candle won’t work.

I want to continue. For myself, for Shadow, for the people I love and those who love me. As of this last week, I also want to continue for my writing. Remove manuscripts from their plastic tubs. Continue learning. Revise novels. Find an agent, a candle of hope for my work.

In the last year I’ve slowed. Head drops. Stamina in sharp decline. Easy, too easy, to consider that candle. No need to rush. Soon. Soon enough.

Ghost of Birthday’s past. 78 leading up to today. Mom’s heart-shaped red velvet cakes. Valentines’ candies. Be mine. Love. I’m yours. A few alone. Forty candles. Plus one. Fifty. Sixty. Seventy. Encompassing this marriage and that one. Before Joseph and after. Oklahoma. Indiana. Minnesota. The Rockies. A life measured out in birthdays.

Birthdays. Birth days. Birth.  A new life begins.

 

 

Fourth Phase, General, Writing

Finding Joy

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Imbolc and the Moon of Deep Friendship

Friday gratefuls: Tom and Paul, friends. Dr. Josy. Audrey, wrestling in the regionals. Ruth, with homework. Gabe visiting Hamline in April. Shadow, healing.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

 

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Old friends who showed up

Week Kavannah: Hakarat Hatov. Gratitude.

I chose this because Tom and Paul are coming. Ruth, too. And, my 79th birthday. And, for life, my precious.

 

Tarot: Page of Vessels, Otter

“The Otter encourages you to embrace your inner child and find joy in the mundane. It is a dreamer that uses imagination to fuel creativity.”

 

One brief shining: Sometimes I wonder how I could not see the path to joy and creativity lying under my fingers, where lev and words go to play, where my soul lives, yet I only saw it this week when I asked ChatGPT to act as a kind and gentle critic of my work.

Writing: Over 3 million words in Ancientrails alone. 9 novels in first draft form. What is my medium? Words. Ideas. Even the Gods Must Die. Superior Wolf. Daily entries here since 2005.

Atrophy. I had let my novels lie fallow. Walking by the plastic tubs with novel manuscripts neatly arranged in thick folders. I felt shame. Too many years. Unsure where to go with them. In Ancientrails I made some changes over the years. Never had anyone critique my style.

What the hell? I’ll ask ChatGPT. Writing groups never worked for me. Too savage. Too brutal. I asked ChatGPT for gentle critique, but a serious one.

Discovered I respond well. This past week, I’ve worked with ChatGPT after I finish my post. Listening to its thoughts, its advice. Altering my work when I agree. Not when I don’t.

Realized I needed a good writing teacher, long ago. Who better than a large language model trained on English prose? My stuck lev opened up. Suddenly I wanted to investigate my verb choice. When this student was ready, AI showed up.

After working for a few days on Ancientrails’ posts, I thought, why not Superior Wolf? I downloaded a PDF of this ninety-five-thousand-word novel and loaded it into ChatGPT. Asked for a gentle critique and a path toward revising for a second draft.

Again ChatGPT opened a way forward for me. I’m about a third of the way through my first draft, rereading and answering one question for each chapter: How is Christopher changed? One sentence.

Here’s the magic: I found myself in flow. The candle I light when writing flickered beside me, unnoticed. Some days I worked through to late afternoon. Finished. A pleasant exhaustion. Satisfaction.

I had gone into my head too, too far. Thought I needed to read more books on politics. Write commentary. No. That was not it. I needed to get to know my own writing better.

I needed just what I got. Kind guidance. Clear help. Focus on concrete imagery. Like Hagia Sophia. Heather in Inverness. The prologue of Superior Wolf. Work with it. As a writer does. Revising, then revising again.

No feelings of less than. Only captivation with and by my own process. Digging into saying what I meant. Did the verb mirror work better? Or, unveils. Ah, I see.

 

 

Fourth Phase, Garden, Judaism, Minnesota, Paganism, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

I flew with hawks

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Imbolc and the Moon of Deep Friendship

Thursday gratefuls: Tom and Paul. Tara. Dr. Bupathi. Shadow and her doughnut. Clergy. My time in the ministry. A life lived in pursuit of love and justice.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

 

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Religion

Week Kavannah: Hakarat Hatov. Gratitude.

I chose this because Tom and Paul are coming. Ruth, too. And, my 79th birthday. And, for life, my precious.

 

a

Tarot: Five of Bows, Empowerment

“By facing and defeating our greatest fears, we empower ourselves and grow more resilient and effective against adversity…The empowered individual ultimately has the capability to influence and affect the outcome of events and change perceptions.” Parting the Mist

One brief shining: In 1976 I wore a monk’s robe, a child’s wooden necklace with a cross around my neck. I knelt and a crowd of clergy and elders lay on hands until the hands of those closest to me rested on my head. From layperson to ordained clergy.

 

Those hands felt heavy. I could feel a charge pass from them to me. The laying on of hands. Ancient. Primal.

Political radical. Warrior and priest. I stood with the people of Stevens Square and with the descendants of John Calvin.

An out of body experience: Reverend Buckman-Ellis. “If clergy are usually more priest or more prophet…” I was more prophet.

Yet I prayed. Led worship. Served communion. Baptized my son and his close friend Alex. Studied the scripture.

Until I couldn’t. That day when my spiritual director said, “Charlie, I think you’re a Druid!” I wasn’t. I crossed over from Christian to pagan. Mother Earth my altar and sanctuary.

Kate. Radical Kate. She let me retire from the ministry with dignity. Falling into her life, she was my dear and glorious physician. A synchronicity.

With dogs and vegetables, flowers and honey, our life went against the grain. She my weeding ninja. Me, her gardener. No need for a robe, a title. A spade and a trowel, yes.

Yet I also wandered the natural places of Anoka County. Honing a pagan’s blurring of the lines between creature and plant and landscape. I flew with hawks. Bloomed along the Rum River. Religious.

Until late in my journey, I decided to blend my pagan life with those who escaped from Egypt, who wandered in the desert. Immersed three times in warm mikveh waters. Came out a Jew.

At last. With my Hebrew name, Israel, I became what I always was. A god wrestler. Uneasy with answers. Kate’s path. Then mine. Now one.