All posts by Charles

Commentary on Religion, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Judaism, Poetry, Politics, Travel

Caverns Measureless to Man

Leave a comment

Fall and the Harvest Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: CBE. Israel Trip meeting this morning. Mary, my physical therapist. Exercises. Exercising. Jet lag. A day per time zone. 15 time zones on MST. Oh. Israel. Hamas. Hezbollah. Iran. Palestinians. Two-state solution. The Pacific. The Atlantic. They Yellow Sea. The Sea of Japan. The Korean Peninsula. The Islands of Japan. The Rocky Mountains. Shadow Mountain. Black Mountain. Conifer Mountain. The Night Sky. Darkness. The season of darkness. Samain. The Winter Solstice.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Night

One brief shining: Nash from the Schneider’s will include bagels, cream cheese, onion, tomatoes, and capers for us while we try to digest the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in Ashkelon and Gaza and Tel Aviv, and civilians both Palestinian and Israeli dying in their homes as we assess whether our trip to Jerusalem is as over as we all imagine it is.

 

So. The news continues to shock, dismay. Photographs of bodies, burned out cars, wrecked apartment buildings, fences, military vehicles. I continue to have double vision. With sorrow and grief for Israel, its promise and its failure, its dead. With sorrow and grief for Gaza and Palestine, people herded into narrow spaces, walled off, virtually imprisoned. No winners here. Only the eye of history scanning back and forth for that moment when things begin to change. Will this be it? I certainly hope so. For the dream that is a Jewish homeland. For the necessity that is a Palestinian state. For both to be true and friendly.

The enmeshed politics of the U.S., Iran, Russia, even Ukraine now threaded more deeply into the bloodied tapestry of the current Middle East. We support Israel. We support Hamas and the Palestinians. We support our Sunni brothers and sisters. We support our Shia brothers and sisters. We support. But support really means we are willing to kill those we don’t. Or, provide aid and comfort while our proxies do it for us. This part of the world is a nightmare for all who call it home and for all who have interests there. Yet for those who call it home it is just that. Home. I feel linked in sadness with all those who care for these troubled lands. All.

It is strange to have a personal stake in these events. But I do. A couple of weeks in Israel beginning on October 25th. Doubt it now. Meeting at CBE this morning with a representative of Keshet, the Israeli travel agency organizing the group part of the trip. Probably will start to unwind. I didn’t buy travel insurance so I’m not sure what the financial impact of a cancellation will be for me. Whether the airline will let me have a refund or a credit. Also strange to consider personal finances while people are dying. I need to, but it’s still strange.

Have to go get ready for the 8 am meeting at CBE. Our Keshet rep lives in Jerusalem so this will be first hand about what’s happening there. Keshet sent an e-mail to all of us yesterday outlining the financial commitments they’ve made to relief work as an organization. The needs are great and if you feel like donating there are many opportunities.

 

Great Wheel, Health, Judaism, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Reimaging revelation, Science, US History, Wild Neighbors, World History

Consider Oneness

Leave a comment

Fall and the Harvest Moon

Monday gratefuls: Fat Bear Week. See this link. Rebecca in India. Mary in K.L. Mark in Hafir, Saudi Arabia. Me on Shadow Mountain. My son and Seoah and Murdoch in Songtan. Israel. Gaza. West Bank. Korea. Divided nations. Night Sky. Stars above and around the Lodgepoles. The coming darkness. A Mountain Morning. Aspen Torches, Trees of Ohr. The Tree of Life. Malkut to Keter. The Wildwood Tarot. Luke. Ginny. Jimmy. Murdoch, the silly. My son, the silly. Kate, who was also silly. Jon, who was not. Ruth. Gabe.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fat Bear Week

One brief shining: A bear stands on a rock facing downstream, salmon climb the ladder of flowing water headed to their clan home to spawn, one tight powerful snap and the journey ends.

 

War. A son whose life lies in preparation and readiness for war. A nation, Korea, divided and still at war. Israel, my coreligionists fighting a war of their own creation. Oppression has a heavy price, paid too often, most often, in blood. Consider the violence of a nation that still relegates its native peoples to lands not wanted, depriving them of the lands that once sustained them. Consider the violence of a nation that systematically denies the vote, a decent education, good housing, well-paying jobs to persons descended from the enslaved. Consider a nation that denies an entire people, the Uighurs, even the crumbs of citizenship. Consider a nation, any nation, that allows its majority to wreck havoc on its minorities without conscience or care. Most nations.

Consider all these things. We are human after all, all too human. Jealous of what we already have, greedy for what we might get. Israel did not invent oppression. Nor did China. Neither did the U.S.A., even when slavery was legal. No. We humans find love, justice, and compassion often beyond our grasp even if in our individual hearts we might feel it. Collectively we protect our families, our clans, our regions, our skin color fellows, our nations. And in protecting, a noble and worthy action, deny others what they need, a base and evil result. This is the original sin of our species. To love those we prefer and exclude those who fall outside of our love’s sphere. A sad, pitiful narrowness to our vision.

Then consider the human body. Consider what the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead called the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. The often unfortunate result of a reductionist science that separates the heart as a consideration of medical care from the liver, from the gut, from grief and joy and stress and despair. That separates the teeth from the pancreas. The blood from the lungs. The thyroid from the feet. Treats each one as a thing sui generis when no. Cortisol bathes each organ, blood moves through and into and out of the lungs, the gut, the feet, the brain and into the kidneys. We are one.

Of course we can learn and know about the heart when we dissect it, image it, palpitate it, treat its actions with chemicals of our own devising. Of course. But how did the heart come to have that blocked vessel? That flapping valve? That enlarged chamber? How does the heart function as part of the oneness that is homeostasis? How is that homeostasis affected by the smile of a child? The sound of a jackhammer? The death of a loved one? The denial at every turn of opportunity?

More. Yes. My body is one. Yes, it is. But. It is one within a community, within an atmosphere. My body so individual and precious to me can last no more than a few breaths without the oxygen exhaled by plants nearby and faraway. My body so individual and precious to me cannot live more than a few days without food grown by farmers, caught by fisherman, sustained by healthy soil and oceans and skies. My body so individual and precious to me cannot last without the touch, the warmth, the smile, the greeting of others.

Our original sin. To misplace the apparent concreteness of our skin color, our tribe, our class, our nation as worthy of dominance over others. No. We are one. The Eternal One only knows unity. Only sees togetherness. Insists in its nature on love, justice, and compassion. It has ever been so, and has ever been denied. Our fault, our most grievous fault.

Health, Holidays, Judaism, Korea, Politics, Travel, World History

War

Leave a comment

Fall and the Harvest Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Israel. Hammas. War. Destruction. Shiva. Kali. People in crisis. Wild Neighbors who live with death and violence everyday. Palestinians. The One that includes all of these. A swirling chaos of intermingling realities. A Fall day. Cool night. A liminal time between growing season and fallow season. The season of harvest. Sukkot. All harvests everywhere. Sustaining our human family. Mabon. Samain. The final harvest festival and the Celtic New Year. Simchat Torah. Endings and Beginnings. We come to the end and find in it our beginning. (yes, Eliot)

Sparks of Joy and Awe: One World

One brief shining: Jimmy brought me my coffee in a shiny white ceramic cup tall and slender, set it on the polished pine table top along with a small pewter pitcher filled with cream while I gazed out the window at Bear Creek tumbling and splashing over the rocks in its bed as it flowed on its way to the South Platte carrying water from Maxwell Creek, Cub Creek, Blue Creek, and Kate’s Creek.

 

Learned in some reading yesterday that among jet lag’s symptoms is gastrointestinal upset. Oh. Well, not a Korean bug, then. A gutty reminder of the intricate dance between the second brain in our digestive system and the rest of the body. This jet lag was brutal. Lasted over a week upsetting my sleep, my mental acuity, and my tummy. Gonna seek out a different way of getting to and from Korea. Probably two steps. One to the West Coast. Rest. Then fly to Incheon. Reverse. Maybe even try the phased sleep plan which seemed too complicated before I left. And now feels a bit more approachable.

In my third day of p.t. guided exercises. Back to my workouts with no restrictions except: if it hurts, don’t do it. Kate gave this sort of advice often. I have a long road back from the detraining I visited upon myself and the pain occasioned by my spinal stenosis. On it though.

Mary, my physical therapist, wanted me to take note of my hip/back pain as I was out and about over the days after my first visit. Treadmill: 25 minutes at 2.5 mph (slow walk) at 2% incline-no pain. Dancing with the Torah-about 20 minutes of jumping and twisting and moving-no pain. 20 minutes walking into a mall (remember malls?) to buy sunglasses, walk back out-no pain.

The only thing new since that first visit is the exercise regime Mary gave me.

 

3 months ago I took out a subscription to Haaretz, an Israeli English language newspaper. Dad always said, read the local news. And, I do. Right now Haaretz is an invaluable resource for the conflict happening in Israel. Its opinion pieces, photographs, and on site reporting have given me a good, and I believe sound, overview both of the events of the last two days and the future implications of this surprise invasion.

The trip which I had planned may not occur. At least not now. My plane for Jerusalem leaves Denver on October 25th, two weeks and three days from today. Unlikely this will be resolved by then. See attached below a CBE response by Rabbi Jamie sent out today.*

 

*Dear Friends of Beth Evergreen,

Friday night at Beth Evergreen (CBE), we gathered in our beautiful sanctuary to celebrate the culmination of the High Holiday Season, dancing with the Torah and one another in honor of Shabbat and Simchat Torah.  Yesterday morning, with the news coming out of Israel, our holiday joy was shaken and our Sabbath peace shattered, all the more so for family and friends in Israel who have been embroiled in internal struggles for the future of Israel’s democracy.  This brazen and unprecedented attack on Israel was deliberately timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War.  Today, we were reminded that the war continues.  And the reverberations reach far and deep.

As many of you are aware, in just a few weeks, a group of us from CBE have been planning a trip to Israel – a 9-day tour through this ancestral homeland, and a bike ride to support environmental and peace efforts of the Arava Institute.  Exactly how this  brazen and unprecedented attack will impact those plans is too soon to say, but impact them it surely will.

 In the coming days and weeks, as we watch the situation closely, we will be working with our friends in Israel and partner organizations here in Colorado to discern how to best support Israel and one another through this difficult time.  In the meantime, please consider joining me at Beth Evergreen next week, on Sunday, October 15 from 4 – 5:30 PM for a special gathering of informative dialogue, mutual support, and prayerful action to ensure the safety and security of Israel and promote peace and justice in the region.  And for something you can do right now, you might also consider making a financial donation to support life saving and peace promoting organizations in Israel/Palestine, such as Magen David Adom at https://www.mdais.org/en/donation (Israeli version of the Red Cross).

Lastly, we at CBE echo the statement issued by Reconstructing Judaism and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association made earlier today.  We are indeed:

 “…horrified by today’s massive attack on Israel by Hamas. We condemn the attacks unequivocally and join in solidarity with the people of Israel on this harrowing and difficult day. The scope and magnitude of these attacks, intentionally conducted in the early hours of Shabbat and Simchat Torah, is on a scale not seen in many years. Over 250 Israelis have been killed, over 1400 wounded, and dozens of Israelis have reportedly been kidnapped and taken hostage by Hamas. We pray for the safety of all those taken hostage and call for their immediate release.

We hold the leaders of Hamas and other militant groups responsible for this senseless loss of life, and we demand international accountability for these outrageous war crimes. Today, thousands of families across Israel are terrified. We are scared for them. We are also scared for Palestinian families in the West Bank and Gaza. We know this violence will lead to more violence. Israel has already launched strikes in Gaza, and hundreds of Palestinians have been killed. This is a day of profound anguish and horror.

We support Israel’s right to defend itself in line with international law in the face of such violent and indiscriminate attacks. We pray for a swift end to this violence, and we hope that a slide into even further conflagration and suffering for Israelis and Palestinians can be prevented. When it is over, we recommit ourselves to working for a just and long-term solution.

With our fervent prayers for safety, security, a return of hostages, and peace for one and all.

Rabbi Jamie Arnold

 

 

Holidays, Judaism, Politics, World History

Oh

Leave a comment

Fall and the Harvest Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Simchat Torah. Sukkot. Dancing with the Torah. Holding the Torah. Ginny. Jamie. Dick. Ellen. Helen. Lisa. Elizabeth. Potlucks. Israel. Hamas. Palestine. Korea. My son, Seoah, Murdoch. Shadow Mountain. My wild Neighbors. Black Mountain. Golden Aspen. Lodgepoles. Ponderosas. White Pines. Bristlecone Pines.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Dancing with the Torah

One brief shining: Hugging the Torah mantle Helen danced in her flowing skirt, twirling as the rest of us went toward her, raising our hands and clapping, retreating and holding hands, stepping together as we circled her, her long braid flowing out in an ancient rhythm, then returning to her side.

 

Resonance. An hour or two after I left Beth Evergreen last night, Hamas struck southern Israel out of the Gaza strip. Rockets. Troops. Bulldozers. Street fighting. Hundreds wounded, not clear how many dead. At least forty Israelis. Felt a surge of emotion when I read this. Different from reading a news report and going, oh. More violence. Sigh. No this surge came from the joy, real joy I felt and shared with members of Beth Evergreen as we celebrated Simchat Torah, Rejoicing with the Torah, last night.

On the side of the sanctuary there was a smaller ark with children’s Torahs, some of them stuffed. A certain red headed 3 year old found a red stuffed Torah which he carried running and zipping between adult legs for the entire evening. Other, older kids had other toy Torahs that they held and imitated the adults.

The Torah scroll, gathered by a congregant into their arms as one would hold a large child, precedes a dancing line composed of all those in attendance who are able. Seven times around the sanctuary, each time around punctuated with a moment when the Torah bearer dances in the middle of the congregation which holds hands around them. In and out. Shouts and claps. That little red head ducking under arms and around legs holding his red Torah.

When all this dancing finishes several congregants have led the dance lines and twirled in the center hugging the Torah scrolls in their bright cloth mantle. Then we all take up prayer shawls and stand an arms length apart on both sides while Rabbie Jamie unrolls the entire scroll, or as much as we can hold using our hands covered by the prayer shawls so no skin touches the scroll itself. This evening we only got through the first two books, Genesis and Exodus.

Having previously read the last few verses of Deuteronomy Jamie then reads from the first of the five books which begins, Bereshit. The beginning. With the creation story. Another year’s cycle of Torah reading completed and another year’s begun.

As I wrote yesterday this has long been one of my favorite holidays. The exuberance, the smiles and laughter, the silliness, laying hands on the sacred. That is, each other and an important part of what binds us together. I’m still smiling.

Then. To read of the attacks. The missiles. Pictures of shrapnel, dead bodies, missiles streaking through the air toward Jerusalem. Knowing in 18 days I have a flight to Jerusalem. Knowing these are now in a way different from before my people. Knowing the moral and ethical conundrums. Oh.

Holidays, Judaism, Myth and Story, Original Relation, Reimaging revelation

Embodiment

Leave a comment

Fall and the Harvest Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Deep, vulnerable conversation. Healing. Colon back to on guard status and off active duty. Yay! Jet lag still dissipating. Blue day. Bright Sol. Green Lodgepoles. Scat in my driveway. Probably Fox. Olives. Simchat Torah. One of my favorite holidays. Dancing with the Torah. Friday: Forgot this yesterday. Mary, my physical therapist. Polio. Sister Kenny. Mary, my sister in Kuala Lumpur. Mark in Saudi. Seoah and my son in Korea. Diane in San Francisco. My close, yet so faraway family. Kepler. Kate, always Kate. Jon. Ruth, a young woman. Gabe. Rigel. My Star in the night Sky

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Friends in Colorado, good friends

One brief shining: A shiny blue Sky shone through the Bamboo mats on the Sukkah children’s hand prints on cloth decorating its slatted wooden sides, my Thursday mussar friends smiling as I came back after a six week absence.

 

Interesting. Yesterday I sat in the Sukkah with the other mussar folks, Rabbi Jamie giving me a hug when I sat down next to him. We began the conversation with a meditation as we always do. And I got this feeling of sitting in one for thousands of years. As if this moment, the one I inhabited also, simultaneously, inhabited other moments in serial regression. A sensation of at-one-ment. Sukkot is an ancient harvest festival, the sukkah supposedly similar to the temporary dwellings farmers used during the hectic last days of the harvest before the winter rains. Probably not originally Jewish in origin.

Jews, who incorporated this festival long ago-and Rabbi Jamie says it used to be the primary holiday, not Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Days of Awe-imagine these sukkah as also representing the temporary dwellings used by the Hebrew slaves during their forty years in the wilderness.

I love Sukkot and the holiday that immediately follows it, Simchat Torah, rejoicing with the Torah. Simchat Torah is tonight. I’m going even though it’s a second night out for me this week. During this holiday the Torah Scroll is removed from the Tabernacle, completely unscrolled, and the congregation, using prayer shawls to grip it, dances with the Torah. It marks the completion of the reading of the entire Torah in the old year and the beginning of the new year’s reading in Bereshit, Genesis.

Not sure why I find Sukkot and Simchat Torah so meaningful, but I have for several years. I love the physicality of them both. The sukkah and the unscrolled Torah. The dancing. Eating in the Sukkah. An embodied way of celebrating our connection to the holy, to the divine that manifests whenever we open ourselves.

Perhaps that’s it. The embodiment. The whole of me involved. Not just my head. I find the High Holidays very heady and so not as meaningful. Odd for me to say, I know. But maybe I need not an out of body experience of the sacred but an out of mind one. Take me out of the theological and the ethical and the political and let me dance with the Torah. Hey!

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Politics

Healing

Leave a comment

Fall and the Harvest Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Sue Bradshaw. A quiet day. Discussing medical insurance with Julie Freshman. Alan. Tom. Diane. Joan. Marilyn. Irv. A bright blue Colorado morning. A cold night. Deep friendships. Agency. Loss of Agency. Contraction. Twins win! Baseball. Gabe. Ruth’s senior pictures. Songtan. My son. Osan. CBE. Ron. Rich. Jamie. Susan. Judy. Kate, always Kate.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The power of conversation

One brief shining: The smell of coffee comes up from the kitchen, the computer screen is blank waiting to be filled with today’s words sent from my mind to yours, and the heat pump rattles along squeezing hot air from the cooler air outside and pushing it inside.

 

Ah. The refreshing feel of a therapeutic conversation. Got off zoom with my buddy Tom and I feel cranked up and ready to go. The good morning time. MVP tonight. A day of friends and depth. I need it. As Tom and I discussed, feeling off center, not quite with it, in a malaise offers fertile ground for the Well of Sorrows to rise and become your whole consciousness. Saying that out loud to a friend who understands? Healing. Thanks, Tom, and in advance, all you MVP’ers. Especially Rich who is bringing the whole meal tonight. Cheese enchiladas and fixings. Yay, Rich.

 

Tomorrow I begin P.T. at Berrigan P.T. in the Buchanan Rec Center in Evergreen. The first step on a way back from this back kerfuffle. Mr. Lee and the Korean orthopedist calmed down my flare but I need a plan for my back I can follow. P.T.’s a good start.

Today I call the Lutheran Spine Center. They’ll work up my back more thoroughly than my Korean folks did. What the Korean guy would have done eventually. Between the two, p.t. and the Spine Center, I’ll figure out a way to organize my workouts to make my back as strong as it can be.

There is, I know, a chance they’ll tell me not to go to Israel. Apparently long walks are not good for spinal stenosis. And Israel is one long walk after another. I’ll still go and stay at least through the conversion and the Jerusalem leg of the group trip. Might choose to come home then rather than complete the itinerary. We’ll see. This is why I hopped on this so fast after getting back. Want to give myself maximum options.

 

How bout that Matt Gaetz? He showed Amurica. What a petty, narrow-minded, weasel can do if he doesn’t get what he wants for Christmas. Oh, wait. This is the United States Congress. Right? Hard to identify. I suggest we put in a playground with a see-saw, a sandbox, and a slide. After all these are the people running the most powerful country on earth. They should have what they need to relieve the stress of it all.

Oh. And another aspect of this. Guess who Marjorie Tyler Greene’s only candidate for speaker is? Donald Trump. That’s right. The Donald, that old fraudster. Wonder if she plans to hire Rudy as his aide?

 

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Shadow Mountain, Travel

More on the Well of Sorrows

Leave a comment

Fall and the Harvest Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Retinal nerve stable. Pressures stable. Good glaucoma news. Dr. Repine. Driving Deer Creek Canyon Road on the way home. Flaming Aspen torches lighting the way. The way the Mountain Fall varies by altitude and terrain. Brooks Tavern. Not good, but familiar and at home. First workout. Training the body. Seeing Sue Bradshaw today for back consultation, a plan to stay healthy enough to travel. Well, healthy enough. The Measure of Our Age. An excellent book on aging in America. That colon. Still on duty after all these years.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shadow Mountain beneath me. The Sky above me.

One brief shining: Deer Creek Canyon Road winds up from the high Plains into the Foot Hills following Deer Creek and the steep Canyon walls it has cut over millions of years of spring Snow Melt, Monsoon Rains, and steady, steady work; along the banks of the Creek the Willows and the Dogwood reflect back the golden light of the Aspens during this one short season when the Canyon road is its own torch light parade.

 

Back to my workouts. At last. Boy am I detrained. Weak and lacking stamina. Felt good to get back at it. Early days and slow, modest gains but that’s how comebacks work. I’ve done them before. This was an unusually long stretch of dormancy occasioned in part by travel, by allowing it to be that way, by my back issues, then the cold, then coming home. To live healthfully I know I need to keep up cardio, resistance with a focus on my core, balance, and flexibility. Over the years I’ve done well at the first three, not so much on the flexibility and that caught up with me. Workouts are mood lifters, too, and not working out can allow dark moods to deepen. Not trivial at all. The best and cheapest medicine. Then, good food.

Going to see a nurse practitioner today to get some referrals for an orthopedist, p.t. Given my spinal stenosis I need a care plan. One I can use from here on out to keep my back quiet and allow good walking, traveling. Have mostly done this sort of work with personal trainers or on my own. Need some professional help this time.

 

Still in a subdued, though not dark place. Not yet recovered. Not wanting to pin my current state on the Korea trip. Am I too old for this sort of travel? No. But if not how can I make the whole process more manageable. The hip and back pain and the cold might be one offs, too. Find a workout and flexibility regimen that calms down the back and I’ll be ready to go again. Good thing since I leave for Israel on the 25th.

Allowing the well of sorrows to have its say without succumbing to the invitation. There is a strength in saying yes to feelings that are not warm and fuzzy. That help us reorient, motivate ourselves. Owning, for example, my role in my weakened state lets me find my role in reversing it. Or, feeling fragile, even frail motivates me to work on diet, exercise, contact with friends.

 

 

 

Asia, Commentary on Religion, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Korea, Mountains, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Travel, Weather +Climate, Wild Neighbors

This and that

Leave a comment

Fall and the Harvest Moon

Monday gratefuls: A pink Cumulus Cloud over Black Mountain. The start of a new Day. A new life resurrected from the 1/60th death of sleep. Each Day a full book in the library of life. The vast wing dedicated to each life. Yours. Mine. The Mule Deer and the Butterfly. Rain. Fall weather this week. My son and his sweet note. Gabe. The Rockie’s game that wasn’t. Twins playing last year’s winner of the World Series in the playoffs. House cleaning today.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Life, the wonder and the miracle

One brief shining: Small drops of Water hit my deck this morning, taking the Mouse trap outside to make  an offering to the Ravens, the dead mouse would not come out.

 

Yes. When I got back it was late September and the Mice had made a new incursion. When I went to get my electric Mouse trap out, I noticed a blinking red light. The sign of a killed Mouse. ? Sure enough, in the worst decision of its short life, this particular Mouse had chosen the Mouse trap as its home.

I don’t like killing mice. It makes me sad, feel guilty, puts me in a category of human behavior I never aspire to. Yet my team that came to help me clean a couple of years ago made me get over it. Too much of a health risk. And, I know. I know. Hamburgers. Bacon. Chicken wings. Who ever said contradiction was not a part of life? Even so.

 

Slept well the last two nights. Colon less vigilant. Yay. Jet lag waning, as it will. Perhaps today, maybe tomorrow I’ll shake free of Korea’s Sun and return to the one under which I now live. These transitions go unremembered after a journey is over. Their price part of the experience like airfare and taxis.

 

Fall in the Rockies. A distinctive time here, one I’m glad I didn’t miss. The bugling of the Elk Bull’s searching for mates. Hyperphagic Bears tipping over garbage cans, raiding cars, going into houses after a portion of the 20,000 calories a day they need before their long nap. The Aspen’s gold, muted this year, against the evergreen of the Lodgepoles. Signs for snowplowing, ads. The Mountain Lions hunting for the straggling Mule Deer, the startled Rabbit. Skies as blue and as pure as new born Fawns, reflected in Mountain Streams and Lakes. The weather becoming more unstable, veering between heat and cold, changing. Nights that go into the electric blanket zone. Days that feel warm in the sun, cold in the shade. All of us, humans and wild neighbors, making sure we’re ready for the cold season that follows.

 

If you read the NYT, you will find in this morning’s edition an article about Bishop Joseph Strickland: A Texas Bishop Takes on the Pope. It’s rare that I have a personal connection to any stories featuring Catholicism coming of good Protestant stock and about to become a Jew. In this case though. Paul Strickland, Joseph’s older brother, is and has been a close friend of mine for over thirty years. He’s one of the Ancient Brothers who meet by zoom each Sunday morning.

Paul and all of us Ancient Brothers have a very different take on the world than Joseph. Yet. Not a surprise that Joseph is articulate, strong, and determined. Like Paul. Not a surprise that Joseph has catalyzed others. Like Paul and the 10,000 Friends of the Maine Coast which prevented a huge LPG terminal from taking over the tiny Maine town in which he lives. Even folks in the news have families.

 

 

Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Korea, Shadow Mountain, Travel

Not all the way back yet

Leave a comment

Fall and the Harvest Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Jet lag. That Korean stomach bug. Surviving still. High winds today. Bright blue Colorado Sky. Great Sol out and shining. My son, Seoah, Murdoch. Their big apartment. Songtan. The family practice doc. The orthopedist. Bongeunsa. Seoul. Jeoju. K-dramas. Gabe. The Rockies. The Ancient Brothers on savoring. Korea. Repine. Bradshaw. Derm. Recollecting Korea. Distances made real by the body’s unwillingness to leave one place for another. Breakfast at home this morning.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Moments. This one.

One brief shining: I could tell you my fingers curve, strike the keys from long muscle memory, my feet crossed on the small foot rest, my back slumping in the Henry Miller, now upright again, as the folded, bathed neuronic miracle between my ears sends messages and has them spelled out here in pixels by the keyboard’s link to the computer screen, no prior knowledge of what I’m about to say necessary, write this word, then that one, they come down from the boss organ.

 

The unexplored regions of our own body. Have you seen your brain? Probably not. Yet, it works, anticipates, sees to fuel and motion and elimination and rest. All on behalf of… What?

That was weird. Two blackouts. A third. High winds can screw up the power lines. Even cause fires. After the fourth pulse off the generator kicked on. Going now just below where I sit. Its reassuring purr makes me feel taken care of. Glad I had Bear out in May to do the maintenance on it.

Before the blackouts, I planned to do a short disquisition on how the brain/mind sends messages without a conscious decision. That would be pretty slow, wouldn’t it? Let’s. OK. What’s next? See. That’s good. Where was I? We’d never get anything said or written if we had to will the words to come out. No, we talk. We write. And our brain/mind sees to the flow. And, oddly, the content.

 

Had to send Gabe the tickets to the game, hoping he can find someone to take him and a friend to the Rockie’s last game. This jet lagged, stomach bugged elder was not up to it. Hate doing that, but self-care comes first. Nothing serious. Disoriented and tired of my colon saving me from myself. Real tired. Will pass. Sooner rather than later, I hope.

 

I know. Sorry. A life full of the occasional woes these last few weeks. I try to document them and not over report, leave a trail so that if I want to know what happened right after Korea I’ll have enough recall it. Still, they’re not uplifting even though each one a part of this human experience.

That said, I’m not into uplifting anyhow come to think of it. Thoughtful. Sensitive. Emotional. Descriptive. Questioning. A bit of diatribing. Analysis. Fun. Yes. But uplifting for uplifting’s sake? God, no.

Gonna go slow today. Rest. Eat. Read. I will return to my former brightness when it happens and not before anyhow.

 

 

 

Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Shadow Mountain, Travel

Looking toward Korea

Leave a comment

Fall and the Harvest Moon

Saturday gratefuls: The Harvest Moon. Mabon. Lake Superior on Michaelmas. Tom and Roxann. At Lutsen Lodge for dinner-with Goose chowder. Northern Minnesota. Missed. My son, Seoah, and Murdoch home from Chuseok in Okgwa. Alan and Joan. Jackie and Ronda. Life in the embrace of the Mountains. Jetlag. Jet planes. Time and movement. So much to do, so little energy to do it. A sign I saw. Ha. Nailed it. The drive to Evergreen. The Bread Lounge. Back in the Mountains, driving on Black Mountain and Brook Forest Drive. The world of an out of joint mind.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Waters of the Great Lake Superior

One brief shining: The curve of Black Mountain from south to west, a tight curve heading away from home toward Upper Maxwell Falls, early Fall Leaf peepers already up and at the trailhead, pushing past Brook Forest Inn and its beaten down Livery Barn, a left at the fish ladder for a jaunt past Lower Maxwell Falls, two cars only, on to the inevitable and perennial Road Work ahead, this time  work on our gas pipelines, orange safety jackets complementing the golden Aspen Leaves, after the sweeping curve comes Kate’s Creek, and finally Hwy 73 which rolls on into Evergreen.

 

Jet lag, which I pronounced almost gone yesterday afternoon, slipped back in over night. If it were a game of finally fitting the full face mask on straight, I’d have about a quarter turn to go. Looking to the side back towards Korea while wanting to see clearly now. But not quite able.

One of the debilitating effects of jet lag comes in its tugging at your mind, saying, Hey, Dude! Something’s not right. Must be you. Let’s see what we can dig up from the well of sorrows. This way lies madness. No, I’m not ready for assisted living. That fall? A reminder to be mindful on the stairs. Stop it. I can handle my own affairs. Damn it.

Of course, the well of sorrows has/is a reservoir of issues, concerns, doubts, infringements on agency. And, they’re not all bogus. That’s the trick of course. Oh, well. I may not be ready for assisted living now, and I’m not, but could it be out there in my future? Sure. Made a note to contact Jewish Family Services and get an elderly housing specialist up here for a consult.

Made an appointment with my doc to continue work on my back issues. Probably a referral to an orthopedist and a physical therapist. Also going to check out simple yoga and get back to a workout routine that got me to 76 without these problems. Act now or forever hold your peas. Something like that. Another appointment for my glaucoma check. Will hit Derm when I go to the family practice clinic. Have to get stuff in before I leave for Israel. See. I’m handling things. He said still looking off toward Korea.