All posts by Charles

Beyond the Boundaries, Dogs, Dreams, Great Wheel, Hawai'i, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Travel, Weather +Climate

Namaste

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Beltane and a faint sliver of the Island Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Seoah’s massage. Muscles aching. The Palms lining the boulevards here. Murdoch. Working out. Needing help with it. The Sun. The Ocean. The Pearl River. Tropical Fish and that big Crab I saw. Kep and Rigel. Kate, always Kate.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Namaste to the Trees, the Ocean, the Mountains.

Not Hawai’i. National Western Stock Show Pro Rodeo

Walked this am without my heart rate monitor. I didn’t want to “work” out, but be out and do some good for my heart at the same time. Forgot how much I enjoy it. Time to contemplate, meditate, or be in the present.

Continued my new practice. Put my hands together, a short bow, and Namaste to certain Trees, the Ocean, the Mountains, the Sun. Even the Crabs and brightly colored Fish. This small gesture has surprised me. I say, “The god in me bows to the god in you.” I can sense reciprocity. That is, I can feel a return bow, an acknowledgment that yes, the god in that Monkey Pod Tree knows the god resident in me. Those jagged green Mountains send me the blessing of the ancient deity who lives within them. The Ocean as well.

I don’t do all the Trees or Mountains because that would look very strange and take way too long. I’d never get back to breakfast. But in those cases where I did stop, bow, silently speak the bond it created sprang to life immediately. Yes. Hello. Back at ya.

In the process, btw, I found myself yearning again to live here. Much as I try to be practical, think through the steps, hobble myself from making a too fast decision, Hawai’i and the Pacific keep beckoning. Honestly, dude.

That’s the thing about some dreams. They won’t let you alone. Keep intruding, saying, Hey, don’t forget! The horizon line on the Pacific, where the Earth curves away from my sight. The Hawai’ian donuts. The Plants in their abundance and in their color. My soul bows to each of them in turn and hears back from them, “Come.” The living Wood of the Outrigger Canoes and their Paddles. Kane and Ku. The Whales. Aloha, Charlie!

Time must pass, for many reasons, before I take action, but it feels more compelling each time the idea of life here resurfaces in my thoughts.

Seoah suggested Pilates for me. There’s a place in Evergreen. I think I’ll try it. Something new. It focuses on flexibility and balance as much as strength. What I need.

Return to Shadow Mountain. Two weeks from today. Time to immerse myself in the new, post-Kate’s physical presence life. Finish up with social security, close that Minnesota credit union account, put my new budget  process to work in everyday life. See my CBE friends, hike in the mountains, hug Kep and Rigel. This has been what I needed, this time here, a respite,  a time for recovery. By the 22nd though I’ll be ready.

 

 

Hebrew, Judaism

Sword, Sorrow, Simplicity

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Beltane and the Island Moon

Free writing for my Hebrew alphabet class

1969. A crowd. Mostly young. “We’re not gonna study war no more.”

Swords planted deep in the bodies of Vietnamese guerrillas. The Cong.

Swords planted lev deep in the young Americans who fought there.

Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.Flag draped coffins unloading from the cargo planes in Delaware.

Sorrow. A deep Sorrow. Back to the land, away from the fighting against the fighting. Simplicity. Not so much. The Peaceable Kingdom. Not so much.

2021. Hickam Air Force Base. Joseph, Major Joseph. Manning the Philippines desk. A China barrier. My son, Major Joseph.

Sorrow. Kate dead a month ago. Sorrow. Alone without my partner.

My son. A sword himself. Command and Control. Bombs. Troop support.

No longer simple. Just. Not. Simple. He loves this country. Wants to defend it.

He is a warrior. A sword for each of us who claim America as home.

I bless him. Anoint him with oil. Explain to him the sorrow of war.

He knows already. Better than I do. His friends have died. He has killed.

Just. Not. Simple.

He wraps his arms around me, “I love you, Dad.” No sorrow. No simplicity.

Just love and family and death and grieving.

 

Dreams

Of what are dreams made?

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Beltane and the Island Moon

Here’s a recent one from the sleeping side of my mind. What is it up to?

This dream occurred in an updated, co-ed Wabash College which I attended for one year, my first.

Several women, including a dean, asked me to return, finish my studies. The men in the dream were rigid, angry. In general and at me. Following the lead of the dean, I said yes. I remember calculating in the dream, “Yes, even now after 56 years.” I can still study, write, learn.

At a gateway out of the administrative offices a German Shepherd lunged at me from beneath a cloak and proceeded to lick my face. After passing through the gateway, I was put in a fiery chair with some other men. It burned them but was cool to me.

I had a strong sense of longing, a keen desire to go back, be a scholar/student again. A writer.

This dream feels important, more so than many of the others I’ve had recently. Not gonna conclude much about it right now. Any ideas, impressions: welcome.

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Friends, Holidays, Memories, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Travel

Penultimate Day in Colorado

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Beltane and the Island Moon

Thursday gratefuls: The intricate web of people, near and far, family, friends who held and hold me as I walk, slowly, this most ancientrail. Emily, who will love Rigel and Kep while I’m gone. Rigel and Kep, my home companions. The Ancient Ones. CBE. MVP tonight. Covid 19 test at Walgreen’s today. Jet travel. The great moisture we’ve gotten in May so far.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Mountain Night Sky. Lift. (airplane wings) The vastness of the World Ocean and the  Islands sprinkled throughout. Life.

Our Korean angel

 

After plowing through several usernames on different sites as I changed our information to my information, I found one I could use and not have to start over: animist. Guess it’s not front of mind for hardly anybody. Yeah. (psst. Don’t tell. Though. I do use a password manager.)

The safety deposit box and all banking accounts are now in the trust, the Olson Buckman-Ellis family trust. The big advantage of this is that, at my death, either Joseph or Jon can write checks, access the savings and the safety deposit box. It was simpler for me since I was the joint account holder, but it will be a different situation when I die. A little extra work now makes life easier for them.

I’m also switching to all online bill paying through Wells-Fargo. Easier, quicker, better records. Cheaper, too.

Tuesday morning it took right at 2 hours to remove Kate from the Verizon account and establish me as the account owner. Will said, “She’s going by the book.” I sat in the uncomfortable plastic chair as he calmly talked her through it. I’d spent just under that completing the banking changes with Cody. Over 4 straight hours from starting with Cody to finishing with Will.

Wiped me out. The sitting. The why of the tasks. The long interaction with other people. Slept for two and a half hours when I got back home.

It’s been a theme. The death certificates, too. Many of these tasks have taken longer than usual. Different reasons in each case. I have, however, finished everything that had to be done before I leave. Feels great, burden lifted.

More tasks still, but none that have to be done before I leave.

Called Emily and had her come out again. We chatted, exchanged information, I paid her, gave her the keys. Glad I had her come back. She’s going to be the one staying here and she’s obviously competent and caring.  Leaving the dogs is difficult. Again, a burden lifted.

Staples laminated my proof of vaccine card. Free. A smart move on their part. I also faxed the death certificate to OptumRx. After the I pushed the button for send, the fax machine reported it was in deep sleep. Huh? Several minutes later it woke up, printed a receipt.

Breakfast now. Get started packing. Shouldn’t take too long, but has to get done. Covid test at Walgreen’s at 10:45. Info for Hawai’i’s safe traveler program. Prevents a 10 day quarantine. Worth it.

MVP tonight. Appropriate. Reconnect in person with folks, some of whom I haven’t seen in a year. Others came to make the minyan at Kate’s service and at shiva. This gives me a chance to reenter the in person world of CBE before I leave. Glad for that chance.

Family, Feelings, Great Wheel, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Shloshim ends

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Beltane and the Island Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Kate’s death, one month ago today. Kate conducting Brahm’s from her hospital bed. Kate and I laughing, as we often did. The end of shloshim. The guy at Verizon. Cody Wise. A long nap. Sufficient money. A house in a wonderful location.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Pacific Ocean, may it be pacific for me. Traveling again.

kate and me in time

Thirty days. + one. I got the call, “She’s gone.” Wham, life went sideways. The last month has been a poignant game of Chutes and Ladders, climbing, climbing, sliding back down only to climb again. A Sisyphean time.

Today and tomorrow are the last days I have to finish up stuff here that has to be done in person. I’m almost there. The only remaining tasks of that sort I’ll handle today. I have to apply for a credit card in my name at Wells Fargo and switch the safety deposit box into the trust. At noon I see Emily a second time to go over the information for her, give her the house key, and pay her. The house sitter/dog sitter. Also, I haven’t faxed a death certificate to Optum Rx, the only one that required a fax. Laminate vaccine card.

As far as I know, that completes the have to’s before I go to Hawai’i.

Got to take Kate off the dental insurance. Sign up for Survivor’s Benefits from Social Security. When I get back, the task of cleaning out her clothes, jewelry, sewing room will be up front. May be difficult. We’ll see. I’ll have help.

Less numb, more aware of the moment. A curtain still hangs, less opaque than before, shielding me from too much. When that veil lifts, a different stage of mourning will begin.

This afternoon and tomorrow my focus will turn to getting ready to go to Hawai’i. Deciding what to take. What to buy there. As I said before, my first trip in a very long time. Excited, a bit wary.

Family, Feelings, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Home and Family: where the healing is

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Beltane and the Island Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Kate and I sitting, breathing hard, surrounded by unpacked boxes the last week of December, 2014. Kate and I at Congregation Beth Evergreen, some winter night, at a study of King David. Our first night there. Kate asking me to plant an extended Iris bed and Lilacs in her memory. On it, sweetheart. Kep and Rigel, asleep in doggy dreamworld. Robyn at the Board of Pensions. Yet more Snow. Emily and Mobile Critters.

Sparks of Joy: MVP Thursday night. Hawai’i.

Spent all day yesterday at home. Social Security was too busy, so I’ll get a letter from them about signing up for survivor’s benefits. Spoke with the Board of Pensions, confirmed my 1/3 pension decrease. Worked out. Found myself tired after the morning. Napped as usual.

Might sound depressing. Not my experience. I get fed by being alone, need time to myself even after positive interactions like Sunday: Ancient Ones, Marilyn and Irv. Back to Wells Fargo today. Finish up credit card, safety deposit box, savings account change overs. After fax death certificate to Optum Rx. Didn’t get that done yet. Laminate vaccine record.

Today is the penultimate (a word Kate loved) day of shloshim. Tomorrow is the month anniversary of Kate’s death. All of my shloshim for Kate occurred in the Jewish month of Iyar, notable for turning bitter water into sweet.

Psychic alchemy turns mourning, grief into new life. In the mind’s alembic memory and the present moment swirl together. A past that has to be past transforms the present of the living. I’m far from that point, but not so far that I can’t imagine it.

 

Forgot to post this.

Bees, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Garden, Great Wheel, Judaism, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Plants, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Hey, Pardner

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Beltane and the Moon of Mourning

Saturday gratefuls: Kate, sticky with the honey harvest. Kate, shepherding me into a shower, giving me antihistamines after multiple bee stings. Kate, Celt, and I at the St. Kate’s art fair in St. Paul. Cody Wise, a Wells Fargo Banker. Rich Levine, bee keeper. Rabbi Jamie. Mark Koontz, of Primitive Landscaping. He will extend and replant the Iris bed and put in three Miss Kim lilacs in the back. BJ live on the radio with Schecky.

Sparks of Joy: Beekeeping. Getting tasks done.

Wild grapes waiting for Kate to turn them into jelly

Yesterday afternoon I pulled out all the honey harvesting equipment: uncapping knife and rake, solar wax renderer, motorized extractor, buckets, and filters. Took it to the driveway so Rich could pick it up for our work this morning with Sofia.

As I moved these objects, each last touched by us in 2014 when we moved, a wave of sadness and longing swept over me. Kate and I were partners. We grew flowers, picked fruit in our orchard, planted and harvested vegetables, managed a pack of dogs. My partner is dead. I missed her so much in that moment. Went back inside, sat down, cried for a bit. Not paroxysmally, but tears running down my face.

We were bound together by those things of the soil, of the four-leggeds, of the six-legged. It was a good life until the physical burden of became onerous. The move to the mountains, here on Shadow Mountain, came at a time when we needed to set down those tasks, pass them onto the younger couple that bought our Andover home.

We partnered again, living in the move. It took us most of 2014 to get ready and we worked hard. Once here in the Rockies we found ourselves tested by cancer, by Jon’s divorce, by Kate’s medical issues. Through it all. Partners.

Even to the last. Death with dignity. Yes, the right choice for you, I said. Even beyond the last. I’ve hired a landscaper who will fulfill two of Kate’s last wishes, a larger Iris bed in front and Lilacs planted in back. Half of her ashes will go into the Iris bed in August when family gathers to honor her on her birthday, August 18th.

Those tears, that sadness. It was for the good stuff. The way we lived together, always. Yes, I miss my pard, as we might say here in the West, but the knowledge and memory of how we were together does and will sustain me as I move forward.

Grief is the price we pay for love.

 

Asia, Family, Great Wheel, Health

Life and Death

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Beltane and the Moon of Mourning

Tuesday gratefuls: Kate, head back, asleep in the car. Kate in t-shirts and shorts with Snow on the ground. Kate’s t-shirt, Though she be tiny, she be fierce. Rigel against me last night. Kep. Yet more Snow. Sleep.

Sparks of Joy: Rigel’s eating well. Chuang T’zu.

Back to working out. New work out, body weight. For Hawai’i. Felt good. Plan more walks, longer there. Increase cardio.

No word yet on the death certificates. I’m going to call today. It’s absurd that I have to shepherd this process, but I need to get on with it.

I have a list of pre-Hawai’i tasks and post-Hawai’i tasks. I want to get all of the pre-Hawai’i work completed so I can take my first vacation in quite awhile in peace. Especially need to get that IRA logjam resolved, get the money river flowing again.

As the shloshim continues, one more week plus a day, some of the grayness has begun to lift. The haze lightens. Not all the way, maybe not for a good while.

Yesterday I intended to do more than start working out again. Nope. I read. I napped. I watched TV. Fed the dogs. Made food. Ate it. A kind of fatigue, a languishing. As Deb said, some day are better than others. Just go with the way you’re feeling. Trying that out for now.

Always appreciated the New Orleans style funeral. Second-lining, trombones, dancers. Chuang-t’zu, after his wife died, sat on the floor banging pots and pans, having a good time. Confounded his friends.

Chuang Tzu Sings Upon his Wife’s Death (Written by You-Sheng Li )

 

When Chuang Tzu’s wife died, his friend Hui Tzu came to offer his condolences and found Chuang Tzu hunkered down, drumming on a potter pan and singing.

Hui Tzu said, “You lived with her, raised children with her, and grew old together. Even weeping is not enough, but now you are drumming and singing. Is it a bit too much?”
Chuang Tzu said, “That is not how it is. When she just died, how could I not feel grief? But I looked deeply into it and saw that she was lifeless before she was born. She was also formless and there was not any energy. Somewhere in the vast imperceptible universe there was a change, an infusion of energy, and then she was born into form, and into life. Now the form has changed again, and she is dead. Such death and life are like the natural cycle of the four seasons. My dead wife is now resting between heaven and earth. If I wail at the top of my voice to express my grief, it would certainly show a failure to understand what is fated. Therefore I stopped.”  (Chapter 18)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Family, Feelings, Garden, Memories, Minnesota, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

There is a road, no simple highway…

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Ostara and the Moon of Mourning

Saturday gratefuls: Kate wanting to visit the fields of Heather around Inverness. SeoAh and her smile. The Grateful Dead shabbat last night. Ripple.* Mourning in the Mountains with CBE and CBE. Kate breathing freely, walking with purpose once again.

Sparks of Joy: Vaccines. Mobile Critter Care.

retired at last

There are ripples in the still waters of my soul. Kate. She lives there now for me, an eternal companion. Today and tomorrow. She reminds me of the love we shared, the way we were together, the way I am thanks to her. And I carry her forward in Malkut. Waiting someday to travel to the keter, the crown of creation’s endless motion, with her as a companion.

Irony. Having a sore in my mouth, above the left canine. Hurts to eat. What Kate experienced for at least three years. All the time. No wonder she became food aversive. Add nausea to that pain. Awful. The feeding tube gave her at least two more years of life even though it created problems as it solved them.

What will linger longest for me about her last hospital stay is sign language. Some of you may remember Kate learned sign language when she lost her voice not long after we married. While in bed, her speaking requiring extra breaths for a full sentence, we began signing I love you: little finger, index finger, and thumb extended. I would sign and place the hand with the sign on my heart.

While on the drive over to Evergreen Memorial to complete the paperwork for her cremation, I thought about family, our immediate family. The counted cross stitch she made, the one that took her three years and two continents to complete, is in Arts and Crafts style. It has mostly green vines on a beige background. Near the top are three words: Love is Enough.

I want this to be our family motto. I will have t-shirts made for each of us with her completed work printed on them. With a katydid. Kate had cloth labels made with a katydid and the words Katy did it.

The works of her hands cover so many beds, hang on so many walls, rest on various chairs and couches. Carry things from here to there. She loved sewing for specific people and she loved giving them what she had made.

She walks today on the most ancientrail of all: a road, no simple highway between the dawn and the dark of night. I know she travels it unafraid, curious. Open. Glad. Filled with Joy.

Ok, yes. My metaphysical honesty makes me add, how the hell do I know? I don’t know. But if there is a road, and if Kate is on it, her keen mind and open heart will serve her well.

I’m sleeping well. Eating ok with the exception of crowding food over to the right side of my mouth to avoid the sore. It will pass. Sadness and distraction still travel with me because I’m on a road, no simple highway, between life with Kate and life without her.

A lot of grieving happened as Kate’s condition worsened, as we both acknowledged it, said out loud where her journey would take her. As it has. I grieved her loss with her, saying what I would miss about her, how much I would miss her.

She reminded me that she was losing me, too. Oh, yeah.

Not sure how long this will go on. As long it must, I suppose.

 

 

*”There is a road, no simple highway
Between the dawn and the dark of night
And if you go no one may follow
That path is for your steps alone

Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to blow”

Family, Judaism, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Post remnant from Thursday

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Osatara and the Moon of Mourning

Thursday gratefuls: Kate, always Kate. Her memorial service and each of those who attended. Each person who has Kate in their heart right now. Ruth, who offered to stay with me last night and the night before. And, did. Jon, who saw Kate’s spirit before she died. Gabe. Kep and Rigel. The Woolly Mammoths.

Sparks of Joy: Ritual and its healing power. Sitting shiva. SeoAh’s arrival.

Wednesday I drove down the hill on an icy Shadow Mountain Drive. Evergreen Memorial Park. Finish the details of Kate’s cremation. When I left, as I realized suddenly what I had done, I had to stop, put my hand out and steady myself on the door jamb. Goodbye to the earthly container, the thing of Malkut.

Kate has returned to the cycle of life, ready to join the upcoming surge of spring and the growth of Beltane. As you, as I, move through this turning of the Great Wheel, she can walk with us, point out the energy and the power from her side of the veil. The gardener in her delights in this time and I delight in it with her.

As her condition deteriorated, I bought two sets of emergency call lights, synched them and place them around the house and up in the loft. We never used them. This morning, when I came up to the loft to write this, the receiver next to my computer blinked off and on, blue light flickering. I plan to let it blink until it runs out of energy.

We decided that I would I sit shiva, go through the mourning rituals. And, I am. There’s a lot about it that I don’t understand, most of the rules I don’t know, but CBE will guide me through it. Rabbi Jamie and my buddy Alan Rubin.

The torn garment, or torn ribbon, represents rending of life by the fact of death. I’m choosing a black ribbon to tear.

Not sure whether we’ll do seven nights (shiva means seven), probably not, but on Sunday night there will be a shiva minyan, requiring at least 10 members. A service very like the one done on Wednesday will be held.

Of all the statements made about Kate over the last week, the one that touched my heart most came from Lisa Deutsch, a CBE member and member of the Thursday mussar group Kate and I attended, “She was,” Lisa wrote, “what you would call a good Jew.” That makes me so happy because Kate considered her Jewishness a primary fact of her life, one she was only able to honor fully after we joined CBE.