Fourth Phase, Health, Shadow Mountain

Medworld

Leave a comment

Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

Friday gratefuls: Scans. Their news. Wind, speaking. Tara. Jordan. Aorta. Prostate cancer. Trump. Iran. Mark. Mary.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Writing

 

Kavannah: Groundedness. Yesod.    Yesod is about establishing oneself in reality, refusing to rely on comfortable illusions.

Tarot: Four of Vessels, Boredom.  A current difficulty. Cancer thoughts+Fatigue+Back pain=low mental energy. Not boredom, but lassitude, a close relative.

One brief shining: Another whap across the forehead. Increased metastatic disease. Latest PET scan. So many tests. Medworld can consume life, spreading beyond its confines and colonizing the day-to-day. I don’t want that.

 

The steady, slow beat. Since last May.

With five diagnostic procedures in less than two weeks, their reports, it is as if I live in Medworld.

Medworld is not the day-to-day world. It’s a world of white coats, big parking lots, expensive machines. A world dominated by regimented time: show up a half-an-hour early.

Hallmarks of big science. Sophisticated, intricate machines.  Acolytes of the white coats to run them. Take off your shirt. Any metal in your pockets? Lift your legs.

Followed by the abstruse report: Widespread osseous metastatic disease is substantially worsened from 1/28/2026, with numerous new lesions identified. Means, uh-oh.

Turning, turning this new information. Wondering, again, about dying. About new treatments. How will I respond to them?  The critical factor at this point. Moments. Projections. Moving away from today toward a bed-ridden, supportive-oxygen dependent patient. Loss of agency. Who will be by my side?

Winching myself, one ratchet at a time, back. To the present. Where I have no bone pain. Where I am weak, yet mobile. Where I can still write. Where I live my non-Medworld life.

Stuck. Sometimes. Forgetting that Medworld supports, is only adjacent to: walks in my backyard. Making supper. Laughing with the Ancient Brothers.

I push it back. Not repressing. Rather. Putting those thoughts in Medworld where they belong. Why? Medworld can only slow the coming of the scythe, not prevent it. As a doctor on NPR said, “The death rate for each generation is still 100%.”

Writing. Friends and family. Marriage. Death. Episodes of a life. The final days for me are not yet.

Only one episode.

 

 

Cancer, Fourth Phase, Health

Machine Medicine

Leave a comment

Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

Thursday gratefuls: Mariposa. Andres. Alan. Bubble study. A long walk. Morning darkness. Ruby. Gas prices. Iran.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Resilience

 

Kavannah: Groundedness. Yesod.    Yesod is about establishing oneself in reality, refusing to rely on comfortable illusions.

Tarot: Knight of Arrows, Hawk. I need to look at the big picture, see cancer as only a part of a long journey.

 

One brief shining: A cold gel. A sonar wand. Andres took the measure of my heart. Possible shunt. A walk, long, to the Evergreen Building for my PET scan. Pleased with how I held up. Once again radioactive tracers. Lounged in the recliner for an hour, reading a Joe Pickett novel. Kindle app on my phone. Lie down.

 

My body, investigated. Bone scan. Echo. PET scan. Baselines for the clinical trial. No more even mild claustrophobia. Too familiar.

Wearing the soft brace around my neck while out and about. My head drops. Not as far. Doesn’t strain my back. I don’t get as worn out. Though. Feels clunky. Odd.

Second Uber back from Sky Ridge. Mariposa, a squat Latina with six-inch all black nail extensions. Drove eighty m.p.h. Quiet. As I prefer due to my poor hearing.

Shadow greeted me with wiggles and kisses. I remind myself, don’t take this for granted. Remember how long it took. How much heartache.

Getting ready for this clinical trial is a trial of its own. Organize rides. Co-pay. Not cheap. A volunteer guided me each time, the hospital a maze. Sit. Again. Wait.

Charles? I’m Andres. Charles? I’m Andrew. Out of the waiting room. Lie on your side. Lie on your back. Do you want a warm blanket?

No results yet. The doctors sit in their offices far away. Reading scans. Looking at results. I sit at home, tired and lacking information.

The life. Chronic disease. Periods of being home, petting Shadow, reading. Periods of whirs, hums, the stick of a needle. Data. Learning what happens next.

Like that frog. Warming water. I grow accustomed to each test.  One of these tests. One of these days. There’s nothing more we can do. The cancer has gone too far. Earlier, that would have been unwelcome news. Now? One point on this path. I’ve had a long life, one not marred by disease or disability. Enriched.

Punctuation marks. My cancer diagnosis pushed me over the line into life’s last phase, the fourth phase. In the fourth phase I acknowledge my mortality. Not as distant. No longer with that slight hesitation. Maybe not me?

I lean on friends and family. Feel my body gradually giving way.  Everything is harder. Yet. I would not change this time. I’m writing my way into it.

I sit in my chair. Calm.

General

Following Spring through Europe

Leave a comment

Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

Wednesday gratefuls: Alan. Jamie. Sky Ridge. Echocardiogram. PET scan. Uber. Tom, 78. 1990. Kate and me. Married. Yesterday.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: MVP

art@willworthington

Kavannah: Groundedness. Yesod.    Yesod is about establishing oneself in reality, refusing to rely on comfortable illusions.

Tarot: Seven of Arrows, Healing.  May it be so.

 

One brief shining: 36 years ago today Kate and I landed in Rome. Our wedding thank-you notes written on our PanAm flight. Partners already. Ready to mail at the Vatican post office. Which we did the next day. A beginning, a love story, a mutual story decades old.

A true honeymoon. Italian coffee and croissants at the top of the Spanish Steps. Evening meals in a trattoria. Nights exploring our relationship. Further.

Our first, but not our last, trip outside the U.S. Well. Except for those two days in Thunder Bay.

While touring Pompeii, unbeknownst to me, Kate carried, uncomplaining, two two-liter bottles of water. A first glimpse of a trait I learned: Dogged. Stubborn. Stoic.

Those bottles of water were her Joseon Palace. Her back began giving her trouble. As mine did after the Palace in Seoul.

In Florence. The Uffizi. We both loved Primavera. Kate hunted for jewelry. A passion of hers. I found out there.

Venice. We walked on the wooden pathways to stay above the water in St. Mark’s Square. Went to an evening Grand Canal side concert. A classical trio. Our meeting at the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra echoed in Venice.

That first view of the Grand Canal after leaving the train station. We put our luggage down to take it in.

From Venice a long train ride through the Alps to Vienna. No food on the train. Hungry when we arrived at 10 pm. The concierge at the Hotel Astoria pointed us across the Ringstrasse to a cozy Viennese restaurant. Red checkered tablecloths and wiener schnitzel. Kate loved the spaetzle, a marriage long favorite.

In the Kunsthistorische Kate discovered a favorite artist, Arcimboldo. He of the vegetable portraits. Kate’s love of whimsy surfacing.

In the afternoons when we rested a trio of Bolivian pan pipers played below our balcony.

Mozart’s home town. Salzburg. A restaurant begun in 890 by Irish monks. A tacky tour, which we mistakenly signed up for, of several sites featured in The Sound of Music. The Wedding Church!

Paris. The left bank. The owner of a laundromat where we did our clothes loved our honeymoon glow and gifted us a poster. Which hangs now beside my bed.

London. Bath. A special picnic put in the boot of our rental car. Wicker basket. Table cloth. We ate near the Wookey Hole in Somerset.

Edinburgh. A whole day in bed at the Caledonian. Tired. We’d been following spring north for almost three weeks.

Our final stop on our northward itinerary: Inverness. Long walks in the fog along the River Ness at night. Taking a taxi to see the blooming heather. A tartan mill where one man arranged the spools of wool on a large iron rack so they would come out on the loom a specific tartan. Kate, ever the seamstress and quilter, found his memory astounding.

Back home. 32 years together. Dogs. Kids. Travel. Gardens and bees. Then, the Rocky Mountains.

Life. Together.

Always.

Mountains, Paganism, Reimaging revelation, Shadow Mountain
Leave a comment

Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

Tuesday gratefuls: Safeway pickup. Shadow, muster dog. Ana. A clean house. Alan, my chauffeur. Shadow Mountain. Artemis

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Yogurt

 

Kavannah: Groundedness. Yesod.    Yesod is about establishing oneself in reality, refusing to rely on comfortable illusions.

Tarot: Queen of Arrows.    “…represents intellectual mastery, logic, and honesty.”

 

One brief shining: The meaning of a mountain. Altitude. Peaks. Valleys. The crust of Mother Earth folded, compressed, lifted up from its underground slumber. Black Mountain. Shadow Mountain. The Rockies. Geological time made visible.

 

Each time I drive down toward Evergreen on Black Mountain Drive, I follow the declining northwestern flank of Shadow Mountain. Black Mountain rises to my left, ten thousand feet high.

The valley between Black and Shadow Mountains has four creeks that drain their snow and rain: Cub Creek, Maxwell, Blue, and Kate’s. As I go down toward Evergreen, I see snow melt flowing fast, filling, and sometimes spilling over the banks of Maxwell Creek. In winter snow-covered ice.

Shadow Mountain slopes up until it levels off at the top, giving me and my neighbors almost flat lots.

Orogeny. Mountain building. An example, the Laramide orogeny. A long, long time ago. The Rocky Mountains. The Wind River Range. The Black Hills.

I find the mountains mysterious. Their age. The Lodgepole and Aspen forests that clothe them. The wild neighbors who call them home. The fact that their rocky massiveness once resided in the earth’s crust. In a garden a weed is a plant out of place. Mountains are rocks out of place.

I often ponder my Mayfly life compared to the age of these mountains. How can I live here amongst these rugged mountains and not compare my life to theirs. It will take the creeks millions of years to drain them into the world ocean. We’re a blip. A lit match, soon snuffed out. This comforts me. Puts my ups and downs in a larger and longer context.

I am the universe experiencing these wonders it has built. I can feel their rough granite when I sit overlooking Maxwell Falls. I can smell the pines on a clear morning, wandering in my backyard. I can hear the wind racing through the trees, crying out, make way, make way. I can taste wild strawberries and wild raspberries that grow along Kate’s Creek.

I may be, certainly am, a blip. But to me. A day, this day, is a life full and overflowing. Nourished by the forests, creeks, wild neighbors. Sustained on my steady, stable mountain.

We may be short-lived creatures. Our lives weightless compared to a mountain. The mountains take our breath away. Yet. We sing songs about them. Write poems. Run away to them when press of urban life overwhelms us.

I-Charlie. Thou, Shadow Mountain.

The meaning of a mountain.

 

Great Wheel, Paganism, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Reimaging revelation, Shadow Mountain

A Druid

Leave a comment

Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

Monday gratefuls: Morning darkness. Tomato seeds. Gladiolus bulbs. Iris rhizomes. Lily bulbs. Artemis. Spring. Shadow, gnawer of toys.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Gumbo

 

Kavannah: Groundedness. Yesod.    Yesod is about establishing oneself in reality, refusing to rely on comfortable illusions.

Tarot: Knight of Stones, Horse. A strong connection to mother earth. Yesod. Year of the fire horse. Dramatic, even revolutionary change.

 

One brief shining: Ordered from Seed Savers Exchange–Moonglow, large red cherry, and Cherokee purple heirloom tomato seeds. From Eden Brother’s Nursery–Dark purple reblooming Iris bulbs, Gladiolus, and Star Gazer Lilies. Grounded. My gardening Yesod. Co-creation.

 

Paul sent me an article: Paganism Popularity Grows in Maine. I read it with my usual combination of gratitude and unease.

Grateful for the spread of Earth-centered affection. Reverence for Mother. God (pardon me) knows we need it. Many follow the Great Wheel, as I do. Organizing rituals. Seeing the sacred in a seedling, a garden plot, the changing of the seasons.

My unease comes from paganism’s splintered and often invented roots. Rabbi Rami Shapiro answers the question: Who is Jew? Anyone who says they are a Jew is a Jew. Rattling many rabbinic cages. His point? There is no one, no text that defines who is a Jew. Q.E.D.

The same applies to paganism. Anyone can claim to be a pagan. My unease increases when Asatru and other pagan gatherings claim Northern European supremacy. Read: White.

Long ago. Perhaps 1988, I had a spiritual director, Rev. John Ackerman. A Presbyterian clergy. As I was then. Starting to write novels, I’d gone deep into what I then thought was my Celtic ancestry.

Sitting in his office in the staid Westminster church, I told John transcendence and the usual notions of God felt patriarchal. “Charlie,” he said, “You’re a druid!”

That transformed my self-understanding. I left the ministry two years later.

OK. Maybe I’m being too much the scholar, too much the adherent to religions with provable ancient roots. Why should it matter where a faith comes from?

Consider Jim Jones and his Kool Aid eucharist of death. Moonies. Or this: “‘President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.’”

Pagan and heathen. Rural folk. Those who held on to the old ways. True of the Celts when the Roman Catholic Church built cathedrals over Celtic holy wells.

I need no text to find the sacred. It’s right there: In the lodgepole growing toward the sun. In a tomato seed, bearer of life. In photosynthesis.

I’m too harsh. Let a thousand pagan faiths bloom. Yet. Critique and reject. Paganism as a cover for bigotry and violence.

Artemis will be my temple.

In her I will plant tomatoes, garlic, beets, iris, glads, and lilies.

With the vegetables I will practice the only true transubstantiation: eating.

 

Fourth Phase, Friends

Elder

Leave a comment

Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

Sunday gratefuls: A Saturday morning with Ruth. Bacon. Strawberries. Bananas. Shadow, who loves Ruth. Our poor, benighted nation.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Granddaughters

 

Kavannah: Groundedness. Yesod.    Yesod is about establishing oneself in reality, refusing to rely on comfortable illusions.

Tarot: King of Arrows, Kingfisher.   The Kingfisher dives with precision. Cut away what is unnecessary to find the truth. Edit. Revise. Edit. Revise

One brief shining: Young people in old men’s lives. Granddaughter Ruth. Mikveh buddy Veronica. Friend Luke. Links to a future I will not see. Connections to a contemporary world I do not know. As I link them to a past before their births.

 

Granddaughter Ruth in tears. “I didn’t do anything to deserve this!” She looked into her future: heated, politically unstable, education expenses stretching through medical school

“What would you do if they told you you had to come back in the office or else?” Veronica, “I’d quit.”

Luke. His art. His music. His conversion. An assistant professor of Chemistry. “Chemistry is about transformation.”

These three I know well. Ruth, my granddaughter. Veronica, with whom I converted. Later, we became b’nai mitzvahs together. Luke: art, love of the Beatles, his quick scientific mind.

All Jews. Two converts and Ruth, born to a Jewish mother.

Ruth turning 20 this April. Leaving childhood. I’ve known her longest. Since infancy. At 3 I took her to the National Western Stock Show. On the bus to get there, she turned to me, her eyes flooding with tears, “I want my mommie.” A reassuring call.

I took her to museums: Colorado History. Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Wings over the Rockies. To the planetarium in Boulder. To eat sushi.

Yesterday she came up here. To make me French toast and bacon with strawberries and bananas. To talk. To tell me the story of how she met David. How she took his hand. A sweet story. An old story. Yet always new.

No longer 3.

Veronica and I were going to have our conversion in Jerusalem. Submerge in an ancient mikveh.  However. October 7, 2023. Israel goes to war.

We had our immersions in a modern mikveh off Alameda in Denver. On Shavuoth of 2024 we read our torah portions, Veronica fluently, me not. Gave our d’var torahs. Led a small bit of the service. Bar mitzvah. Bat mitzvah.

Luke, for a time executive director of the synagogue. Not a great job for him. We became friends. A couple of difficult years after Beth Evergreen. He comes to Shadow Mountain to do laundry while Leo plays with Shadow.

Chemistry has transformed him. Confident, eager. Loved by his students. So happy to see this.

No Sun City. No adults only living situations. No going to the home. Staying in my home. Having a vital social life. Including these three.

This is how I remain alone, but not lonely.

How I can be a steady, stable point for these three. Young adults finding their spot. Living into themselves.

May it continue to be so.

 

Fourth Phase, Health, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Travel, Weather +Climate

My travel snowpack sits way below normal.

Leave a comment

Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

Shabbat gratefuls: Snow! Vince. Shadow, dancer in the snow. Ruth. French toast and bacon. Lab results unread.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Snow

 

art@willworthington

Kavannah: Groundedness. Yesod.    Yesod is about establishing oneself in reality, refusing to rely on comfortable illusions

 

Tarot: Page of Vessels, Otter     I need more play, more  lightheartedness.

 

One brief shining: Snow fell. Mountain joy. Our drought parched Arapaho National Forest. The lodgepoles and aspen at Shadow Mountain home. Need moisture. Even more, a lot more. I hunkered down, besotted by the falling, falling snow.

 

Snow brings water to thirsty grasses, trees. Skiers to A-Basin, Vail, Steamboat. Silence. Muffles sound. Alters the landscape, smoothing out rock outcroppings, covering vegetation.

Snow matters.

This winter, until yesterday: forty-nine inches. 2016: two-hundred and twenty inches. Snowpack way below normal. Never thought about snowpack in Minnesota. Here it’s vital. Not only for Colorado, but for the Colorado River basin. Las Vegas. Phoenix. LA. All depend on Colorado’s snowpack. Releasing water over time. Snow melt.

Surrounded by a National Forest filled with second stand, close together lodgepoles and aspen. Drought=high fire risk. Lodgepoles close together burn by crown fire. Fire jumps from the top of one tree to the next. Hot and fast. One reason we all pay ridiculous premiums for home insurance.

As the drought here deepens, I’ve been thinking about other droughts in my life. I’m in an exercise desert. My travel snowpack sits way below normal. Otter reminded me. I’m in a play and lightheartedness drought.

Exercise. Since I turned forty, I exercised. Daily often. No less than 5 days in a week. Resistance and cardio. Worked with my hands and legs in the garden. I was in good, no, excellent shape.

Of late. Not so much. I find excuses not to exercise. A tough day yesterday. Workout room too cold. Like today.

Mood regulation. Guard against heart attacks. Retain muscle mass. Balance work. Fall prevention. All benefits of regular exercise. Fights cancer, too.

But. Finish Ancientrails. I’m comfortable sitting down. I’m going to die of something anyhow. Why make the effort.

I hate this. Not exercising harms me physically. Perhaps even more mentally. Why am I not taking care of myself? A dissonance between how I perceive myself and how I act. How to bridge the gap.

Travel, like exercise, fills the heart. Shifts in perspective. Lightheartedness. So many good memories. Singapore. Angkor Wat. Joseon dynasty palace. Okgwa, Seoah’s home village. Street food in Bangkok. Blood pudding in Inverness. Italian coffee. Chilean fjords.

Last time I left home for more than a day: September, 2023. Back went bad. Sent me into chronic pain world. Better now. Stamina sucks. See exercise. Standing for any length of time. Nope. Makes travel feel onerous. Beyond me.

Drought takes. Water from the bunch grass and lodgepoles. Traveling to see Joe and Seoah. To see the National Museum in Taipei. Damages roots.

Like our snow drought I have no surefire way to fix my travel drought, my play and lightheartedness drought.

Drought dehydrates. Devastates. Stunts growth.

And yet. Snow slides off lodgepole branches. Shadow dances, her blackness covered in white.

 

Back Pain, Cancer, GeekWorld, Health, Post Polio

Abraxas

Leave a comment

Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

Friday gratefuls: Andrew. Nessa. Bone Scan. Radioactive tracers. Abraxas. Tesla. Uber. Tough day. Noem. Gone. Morning darkness.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Technology

 

Kavannah: Shleimut.   Being present to myself.

Tarot: Six of Vessels, Reunion     Shadow reminds me. My little boy plays with her. Feeds her.

 

One brief shining: Encountering high technology: Radioactive tracers. The bone scan machine. Uber. A self-driving Tesla.  An organic among computer chips and software and radiation sensing crystals.

 

 

Retired Army Sergeant Andrew inserted an IV into my arm at 11:35. Flushed it with saline. Left the room to retrieve a lead box about 10 inches long and five wide. Removed the syringe with radioactive tracers that light up on bone. With a single push he sent it into my blood stream.

He took out the IV. “Come back at 2:30.” Three hours in a place where I could not rest my head. That soft brace? No match for hours in cafeteria and lobby chairs with no head rest.

By 2:30 I was so grateful to lie down. The too familiar curved table. Accepted me and supported my neck. The forty-minutes sandwiched between two cameras sensitive to the gamma rays coming from my bones? The most comfortable I’d been since I got to the hospital.

One of four imaging tests.  Baselines for the clinical trial.

After my much needed rest: time to enter another technology tunnel. Called up the Uber app on my cell phone. Of course. Credit card expired. The ritual:  Card number. Security code. Expiration date. Ah.

I entered the network of self-employed drivers near to me. Who would drive me home? Abraxas took my request.

Abraxas, a man in his early sixties drove a black 2025 Tesla. “Abraxas?” He nodded. “Charlie?” I nodded back while closing the heavy door and looking up through the transparent roof.

“Abraxas?”

A five-thousand year old Egyptian god. Rooster head and snakes for arms. Represents that God is one with everything.

Hmm. OK. Not sure about snakes for arms. Can roll with all is one.

A mind-stretching combination of magical thinking and a self-driving car.

When Abraxas bought his Tesla, he opted for a full self driving kit. Used it all the way from Skyridge Hospital to 9358 Black Mountain Drive. His hands fluttered, on occasion, below the steering wheel.

He even took the Deer Creek Valley road. A road through the mountains. I use it when I’m tired of the freeways. Very curvy. With bicyclists. All on self-drive.

When we got to my house, the Tesla dutifully parked itself.

Bones scanned by machine. Curves navigated by software. Me in my body.

Home again, home again.

Shadow wiggling. Smiling.

Fourth Phase, Health, Judaism, Politics, Shadow Mountain

Peace?

Leave a comment

Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

Thursday gratefuls: Tara. Fantastic Four. Shadow, the early riser. The U.S. military. The Middle East. War. Peace. Negotiations.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Snow

 

Kavannah: Shleimut.   Being present to myself.

Tarot: Ace of Vessels     My emotions need recharging from the deep waters of my soul. I am the stag.

 

One brief shining: Today they begin, the bone scan, the echo, the pet scan. Two cts. Is my body strong enough to withstand the trial? How we will know if the treatment I’m getting works. This bone scan against that one.

 

Not looking forward to the next week and a half. My life has pauses, then bang, bang, bang. More blood tests. More diagnostics. Since last May, the pace of surveillance has ramped up. A lot.

More scheduling. More rides needed. More information over my transom than I can keep up with. A lot.

Meanwhile, the world.  Crazy. Real estate developers as diplomats? A President against foreign intervention starts his second war this year. Israel a hegemon.

A headline says Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler may devolve into niche makers of the last gas fueled cars as China rises in building ones fueled by electricity. Many self-driven.

Climate change supercharges hurricanes. Ate our mountain winter. Sea levels go further into Miami. New York City. Thwaites Glacier rests precariously on warming Antarctic waters.

What about measles? Polio. Even covid and the flu. A polio survivor. I remember the line at age 8. Thurston Elementary. About to get a shot. The vaccine. How indignant it made me. Not fair.

Vaccines don’t work? Says the cabinet secretary, Robert Kennedy. Thanks to the polio vaccine, twenty four years later. 1979. Polio eradicated in the U.S. Measles outbreaks increasing.

The context of my old age.

Where can we find peace? Not in the clanging of the MRI or the cool gel of an Echocardiogram. Nor in bloodwork or office visits. Certainly not in the newspapers I read every morning.

A touch on the arm. Shadow’s tongue licking my hand. Tara sitting with her legs draped over the chair arm. Shadow and Eleanor playing, bumping, running.

The Mule Deer does that visit my front yard often. Dining on grass. Delicate. Graceful as they move across my field of view.

Ruth offers to drive up. Make me French toast. Even bacon. Gabe asks me to offer him fun facts about himself. He can’t think of any.

No matter. The craziness. The tests. No matter.

Even in the midst of external chaos. Teshuvah. Return to the homeland of your soul. I am a writer, a lover of nature, human partner to Shadow, curious, resilient. A friend and a brother and a cousin. A Jew named Israel.

I also love. My Ancient Brothers. My synagogue friends. Mozart. Shadow Mountain home. My life.

Peace lies not on the newspaper pages. Not in lab results or treatment protocols.

Peace lies in being who you are.

No matter what.

Literature, Writing

Hold them

1 Comment

Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

Wednesday gratefuls: James Talarico. Go, Ken. Maddie. Veronica. Bone Scan. Echocardiogram. Exercise. Shadow.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fingers

 

Kavannah: Shleimut.   I edit and revise. Ancientrails. Superior Wolf. I tell friends I love them.

Tarot: Nine of Arrows, Devotion

“… “weary” warrior who is battered and bruised but keeps moving forward with determination.”

 

One brief shining:  Tsundoku. My large ottoman has four stacks of books. I clean it off, new books find their way to it. Over and over. I feel no guilt, not even regret. All these books, all of them, add to me, even if briefly held.

Kate got me a print a long time ago. A frocked scholar standing high on a library ladder, reading from one book. Holding another ready. Since I was young. Reading. Reading from one book, holding another one ready. It sat on the wall next to my sink for years.

Tom sent me the word. Tsundoku. If you saw the books piled on my couch, my upstairs reading chair, housed neatly in bookshelves that line my 900 square library, you’d know the word applies. He said it applied to him, too.

Here’s how it happens. I’m in a period of interest. Let’s say how the far right came to be. Matthew Taylor’s, The Violent Take It By Force. A book on the philosophical roots of replacement theory. I do some internet searching, find Furious Minds that explains three strains of MAGA thought. Another one on the John Birch Society. Another on the KKK in 1920’s Indiana.

I buy them. Read Taylor and Furious Minds. Both of which lead me to new books. Or. Emergence Magazine has a sale. Nature My Teacher. Collections on meditation and Mother Earth. More books arrive.

I tire of learning, learning, learning. Need fiction. I find a trilogy like All Souls by Deborah Harkness. Buy them all. Buy twenty volumes of the Dresden Files.

See how this happens. Judaism, the people of the book. My people. I read to learn Kabbalah. About the parsha of the week. Take classes that have required reading. A community, like me, surrounded by books.

Another. Writing a book about werewolves. Ovid. Lycaon. Commentaries on Ovid. That collection of folklore. Writing a book focused on Duluth, Lake Superior, Lakers.

Poetry. By the dozens. Art criticism. The ways of war when Joseph joined the Air Force. Another book shelf of horticulture books. Bee keeping. All these books.

Amazon enabled me. Easy access to any book I felt I needed. Brown boxes with the swoop on my front steps. Oh. I ordered this?

Most of the books I buy I intend to read. Some are for reference. The purchases on long term enthusiasms like Celtic history, folklore come in even as new enthusiasms crank up the Amazon bill with books on emergence, geology, Islam, Greek Orthodoxy.

God, I can’t stop. My mind hungers. Always.

Wait. Could there be a book on tsundoku? With information about the 30,000 books in Umberto Eco’s library. Explaining the collection of the British Prime Minister Gladstone. The one that became a residential library.

If there is, I’ll find it.

And, yes. Buy it.

No. I won’t need it.  I will hold it.