All posts by Charles

Plants, Shadow Mountain, Wild Neighbors, Writing

Pinus Contarta

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Monday gratefuls: Good night’s sleep. Bringing together past and present. Knuckling down for the next chapter of my story. Excitement. Starting with and staying focused on Trees. Coastal Redwoods. Sequoias. Bristlecone Pines. Lodgepoles and Aspens. Slipping out from under the pale of grief and self-doubt. Teshuvah for tikkun.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Trees

One brief shining: Each morning my Lodgepole Companion stands tall, Branches thrust out to the east awaiting food from Great Sol, the light bringer, gentle morning winds move its Branches, in heavier winds the whole Tree sways, taking and releasing energy, its male Flowers now standing up at the ends of its Branches, readying themselves to disperse yellow Pollen with the wind, a yellow dust that will coat our driveways and make my nose itch all while impregnating the Lodgepole’s female flowers.

 

Early June. Tree sex season. When, if this season is like the others, I will have to close up my house to keep out Lodgepole pollen. It coats every surface in its broadcast of Tree passion. It only has to hit the female flowers-which grow on the same tree as the male flowers-but evolution has taught Pinus contartathat its survival depends on a blanket of pollen among its near neighbors. No female flower should go unfulfilled.

It’s easy for those of us suffer from pollen allergies to blame Pinus contarta for our sneezes. Its pollen comes the same time as many pollens from Grasses. But its grains are too large to bother humans.

This is also the time the Elk Bulls come to my yard for Dandelion dining. I’ve had Mule Deer Does, yearlings, over the past couple of weeks. Yesterday evening a yearling came up to my lower level door and looked in at me. Then turned her head and went back to the Grass and Dandelions.

Early June is also the time, now five years ago in 2019, that I began my 35 sessions of radiation. Started on June 6th, the first day the three Elk Bulls came. One or two of them have come each year since. Identifiable by the Bull with only one rack. They grew from young Bulls to full sized Bulls ready to have their own harems of Cows.

Lodgepole pollen, Elk Bulls, and radiation. Memories of summers past and present.

 

Writing, as always, massages my mind, makes it relax, then throw off sparks. Today the sparks led me to an idea, a perhaps I will notion. A focus on Colorado Trees. Visiting Forests. Learning the ways of Mountains and Trees, their mutual dance. Fits well with another spark I had yesterday. Tree mythology. Tree fairy tales. Trees in Kabbalah and in other mystical traditions.

The gardener in me. The lover of mythology and fairy tales. Of Ovid. Of religious insights. The Mountain dweller. The Hermit.

 

Just a moment: Who woulda thought? A Jewish female President. In Mexico. Oh so Catholic Mexico. Oh so machismo saturated Mexico. Yet another country teaching us what can be if we turn away from the yellow fascist pollen spread byPolitico contarta

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Great Wheel, Great Work, Holidays, Humanities, Judaism, Letters, Literature, Myth and Story, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Reimaging revelation, Tarot

I’m Into Something Good. Oh, yeah…

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Cool night. Elk. Mule Deer. Fox. Great Sol. The Great Wheel. The Great Work. The Jewish Year. Wild Trees. Ancient Forests. Sequoias. Coastal Redwoods. Bristlecone Pines. Kabbalah. Shekinah. The Sabbath Bride. Emergence. Lodgepoles. Aspens. Jewitches. Love. Justice. Compassion. A direction, a purpose. A way to live.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Emergence

One brief shining: Before the closing of the door and before I even open it, I stand hand over my eyes repeating the shema, declaring that I, god-wrestler, find the one to be all and the all to be one, which we might call god or not, but we can call it for sure the interdependent web of all things, all becoming things, everywhere there is a where, stretching from me in front of my bedroom door to the other reaches of this universe, passing by the Crab Nebula and the Horse Head Nebula on its way to a boundary where there can be no boundary.

 

I’m into something good.* Said this this morning during the Ancient Brothers. An exciting burst of serendipity, synchronicity, plain old enthusiasm. Heading toward eudaimonia. Wow. Sounds manic as I write it. Has some of that flavor. The shovel that uncovered this new path? A dream. And the Dreamers’ response to it.

And… Here we go. I’m going back to Wabash College. At least that place I was when I was there. Serendipity note: the Herman’s Hermits song below was released in 1964, the summer before my last year of high school, and before my mother’s death in October. Another serendipity note: Herman’s Hermits.

When I went to Wabash, I had competing emotions, both so very strong. The first. Grief. Unresolved, not understood, in no way dealt with. Mom was dead. I left home to go to this school, at the time highly competitive, and bare my small town intellect to so many others so much smarter than me. Grief and uncertainty. Toxic at best.

The second. Finally! A liberal arts education. A chance to get into the cultural deposit of the West. (It would be many, many years before Asia showed up in my life.) Philosophy. History. English Literature. Languages. A chance to grow beyond my autodidact years, guided by professors and stimulated by fellow students. Hard to convey the excitement, even relief, I felt at starting college.

Then German happened. I wanted to read Hegel, Nietzsche, Kant in the original. So I signed up. And floundered. Bad. Got c’s and d’s on quizzes and tests. Where this headed was clear. Abject failure. I did not do the brave and movie worthy thing. Face up to it and overcome. No. I dropped German like a hot potato masher hand grenade.

At the end of the year summer jobs were hard to find and Wabash was expensive. I decided to go further. Leave Wabash altogether. I’m not big on regret, but this is one of them for me.

The dream. Said. Go back. Be who you intended to be. The one that got lost along the way. So who was I going to be, the 18 year old version of this 77 year old. I wasn’t sure of anything but my desire to dive headlong into the deep waters of the liberal arts. Where would I come out? No idea. Didn’t want to know. I only wanted the journey. No destination.

I’ve made a journey, but got off the path of liberal arts, shunted aside by politics and religion. By alcohol and women. By travel and jobs. All ok, all good. Yet not where I wanted to be.

Now. The tarot card, the Hermit, hangs rendered in neon over my breakfast table. Herman’s Hermits remind me of the year before college, feelings accelerating, ground speed increasing. I’m also reminded of my first response to Kate’s death. I’m going to be a hermit. Hence, the neon. Last year I wrote a one-act play introducing Herme, the Hermit, and Cold Mountain’s poetry. And the dream says, go. Teshuvah. Return to the highest and best you.

A semi-hermit, a sometime recluse, a happy loner. But one with the permission to study, to write. To go back into the liberal arts and see if, as Israel: God-Wrestler, I can add to the world my own learnings.  About the Great Wheel, the Jewish liturgical year, trees and plants, about process metaphysics, about religion, about poetry and literature, about transformation and metamorphosis. These are the lenses through which I have learned to see the world.

Next. Organizing my days, weeks, months, years around this Fool’s Journey. After that. On to the diving board, spring up and down. Out into thin air.

*

Dreams, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Great Wheel, Great Work, Jefferson County, Mountains, Politics

A Summer Evening. Dreams

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: A summer night. My Lodgepole Companion swaying gently, soaking up Great Sol’s singular gift. A Light Eater. (just got this book) Dreams. Dreams suppressed but not forgotten. The dream group with Irene: Irv, Sandy, Jane, Clara, Susan. Zoom. Chinese food. Evergreen. Its evolution. Changing demographics. Felonious guilty, guilty, guilty.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Hush Money Jurors

One brief shining: Like you, I imagine, I looked at the headlines, typefaces bold and big, pressing up from the mast head, yes, yes, yes, at last a verdict, a consequence for this man, one venal, shallow, desperate man, who has been my President but never my President, and yet, and yet, a man nonetheless, one with the same generous gift granted us from the long arc of evolution, this body and mind, this ensouled flesh.

 

OK. As much fun as it is to chart the long voyage of Felonious Sinsbad, I’m gonna stop. For now.

 

Most of all I want to acknowledge a summer night. Last night. I drove over to Evergreen for a meal at the Coal Mine Dragon restaurant with Joanne, Rebecca, and Terry. A good time was had by all. Around 8 pm we finished and I drove home in the uneven light of a Mountain evening. The temperature hovered in the mid-60’s, gradually declining as I went up in altitude from Evergreen on Brook Forest, then Black Mountain Drive.

Green Grass, Aspens lit up with chartreuse leaves not yet mature, Willow’s golden with new branches, Red Osier Dogwood bright against them both. The various Creeks and Streams flowed peacefully, calmer now following the powerful runs from last week’s rain. The Lodgepoles of course as backdrop for them all, climbing each Mountain I drove past. The trees of the Arapaho National Forest all well-watered and ready for a season of growth.

Dusk finds Mule Deer and Elk out for a late meal though I saw neither on the way home.They were enjoying the evening, too, somewhere else in the Mountains.

Driver’s side window down I drove my usual speed, slower now than in the past, what I consider a speed safe for my Wild Neighbors. The muted light, Great Sol already obscured by the Mountains, but not gone, the comfortable temperature, the Mountains climbing above me, the Creeks and Streams flowing beside the road.

 

Earlier. Another session with those Irene calls The Dreamers. A collection of folks spread out: Santa Fe, England, Half Moon Bay, Evergreen, Conifer. This time only Sandy and I had dreams. Irene put them in a bowl and drew my name so I started. This one was old, May of 2021, but one that has never left my consciousness. I had never discussed it before yesterday.*

Not gonna say a lot about it here except to note that the conversation about it has, I think, pushed me much further along the trail. Feeling the latter day purpose of my life growing clearer. I have been trying to give myself permission to lean into study, serious study. And more writing. Perhaps in an Ancientrails style, perhaps fiction. Both? Yes, lifting the veil. Seeing a rich and powerful next chapter emerging.

Will require more thought, organization. Some decisions about focus. Yet I can feel all of that beginning to surface. At last.

 

*”The Dream. This was at Wabash, my first college: 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.”

 

Colorado, Politics

Felonious Trump

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Friday gratefuls: Mark in Bangkok. Mary in Melbourne. Diane in San Francisco. Me here on Shadow Mountain. My son and Seoah in Songtan. The gathered, sacred community of Congregation Beth Evergreen. The cloud of witnesses: Kate, Jon, Leslie, Rene, Kep, Rigel, Gertie, Vega and all the others. Mom and Dad. The torah of this world. Friends like the Ancient Brothers.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Awakening

One brief shining: So if you’re not woke, you’re asleep, right, a thing a lot of those on the right aspire to not by using pills, but by using denial, obfuscation, disinformation and then proposing sleep as a superior state of being, when the real results are fever dream nightmares of immigrants clambering over sacred white people dwellings, of Blacks cheating sacred white people out of jobs-by using education, of sacred white people losing their rung on the social ladder and falling, falling, falling.

 

Yes. I can’t avoid it. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. 34 times. Guilty. Each count with up to four years of prison time. Felonious Trump. My new name for the king of sleaze, the baron of white supremacy, the duke of bad faith. I know it’s inappropriate to gloat. This is not gloating. This is clear-eyed appreciation for the rule of law, those 12 jurors tried and true, the legal system not only at work, but finishing a job before the election.

Our first felon President. Something that never occurred to me. I mean, Nixon, sure. But what an anomaly. Iran-Contra. OK. That was something, too. Even so. We got to see the final act of one of our nation’s dismal encounters with Felonious Trump. Ah.

I know. Appeals. That pesky election where an unfathomable number of our fellow citizens don’t care about the conviction of Felonious. Where, living as we are in the Upside-Down in this Stranger Things political era, the conviction enhances their loyalty, makes them even more sure of their orange bewigged demon saint who wears ties too long and suits too big. I know. Yet somewhere in this Yankee Doodle Dandy land there must be enough of us to just say no to Felonious. Has to be. Right?

 

Just a moment: Colorado is in the news yet again. Not, this time, for legalizing marijuana or hallucinogenics, but for not building highways: Colorado’s Bold New Approach to Highways — Not Building Them. NYT, May 31, 2024. That’s right. Colorado will not widen I-25, a sea of congestion at most hours of the day and early evening. Why? Induced demand. A phenomenon widely understood since the 1960’s according to this article. The build it and they will come movie about freeways always filling up to their maximum capacity, often much sooner than predicted. Turns out induced demand increases air pollution. How bout that?

So. If we want to reach climate goals in the area of transportation we need to get drivers off the highways, not induce them to drive on them more often and in greater numbers. That means public transportation and strategic placement of housing near jobs. We’re on it here in the Centennial State. But. Hey, if you want to ski here, hike here, raft here, come on out!

Friends, Wild Neighbors

Visits from Wild Neighbors

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Diane. Ginny and Janice. Luke. Domo. Corvids. Ravens. Crows. Magpies. Those Mule Deer young ones. Working out. Learning Torah, reading Hebrew. That strange veil over my mind for a couple of months. Rural Japanese food. The gardens of Domo. Wild Neighbors. Black Bears. Mountain Lions. Great Sol. Shining.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Mule Deer yearlings lounging in my back yard

One brief shining: Got up, still a bit sleepy, upstairs, looked out the window and saw trash in the driveway, Bears, when I went to the kitchen window, not Bears, two huge Crows flew up and out of my recycling bin, could not leave it open anymore, Crows do not forget, outside, picked up the spilled coffee filter, the plastic bag from my online pharmacy, a book’s packaging, tossed it all back in the bin, and closed the lid.

 

In my defense. I only put recyclables in this trash bin that I place conveniently in front of a low kitchen window. However. When my housekeeper comes, she often throws garbage bags in this bin. I’ve never told her otherwise so she’s not at fault. I take what I think are the garbage bags and put them in the garbage bin in the garage. I missed a garbage bag-they’re opaque.

Bears. Will find and displace garbage over a wide area. Never thought about Crows and Ravens.

Gonna have to tell Ana to leave the trash bags inside. I’ll put them in the right bins. Could have done this a while ago, just didn’t.

So. Wild Neighbors #1. Crows in my trash.

 

Wild Neighbors #2. Since I no longer have dogs, I leave my front fence gates open, hoping that some Wild Neighbors will find their way into my back yard. Yesterday when I went up to work out, there were four yearling Mule Deer Does with coats matted a bit, not yet mature and sleek. All eating Grass and Dandelions. This made me happy.

Even happier later on in the afternoon when I came downstairs and saw two of the Does lying down, chewing their cud, peaceful in every respect. Surprised at how happy I was. Having a space where these Wild Neighbors felt comfortable enough to dine, take a nap, enjoy a relaxing afternoon. I felt fulfilled, oddly. Though I did nothing but open my gates.

Read up a little bit on Mule Deer. They can run over 40 miles an hour. That’s pretty fast. When chased, they sometimes engage in totting. Jumping on all four legs at the same time. Not sure about the adaptive advantage, but it must be there.

 

Went into Domo again. This time dinner with Luke. Of Leo and Luke. He could not believe I’d come in just for him. But I had. Relationships require nurturing.

He had Chicken Katsu and I had a Cabbage, Rice, and Beef dish. Domo serves food typical of rural Japan. Some sushi, but a lot of Udon noodles and other dishes like the one I had.

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Jefferson County, Mountains, Park County, Shadow Mountain, Travel

Desiderata Days. Mountain Nights.

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Desiderata days. Cool, good sleeping nights. Colorado. Guanella Pass. That jerky store. The Cutthroat Cafe. Happy Camper. The Waterfall. Geneva Creek. The Continental Divide. The Shaggy Sheep. Jefferson Lake. Ruby and her new shoes. Taking a day. Letting it just be. Mountains. Forests. Streams and Creeks. Bridges and trails: The Abyss and Burning Bear Creek Trails. Square Top Mountain. Mt. Blue Sky. Mt. Rosalie. Square Top Mt.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Rocky Mountains, my home

One brief shining: Great Sol, my inner ohr, has begun to peek over Mt. Grief and Mt. Inertia, encouraged by the trip to San Francisco where we/I/us let go of the Lilliputian ropes with which we’d bound ourself to one place, Shadow Mountain, and to one journey, becoming a Jew, and to the dark arts with which death enthralls our psyche, let go of them and got out, on the train, let go of them and went on a trip.

 

Yesterday. Ah. Well.

At last. After too many years. Too much thinking and sitting. Yes. I did it. I went on a short but profound adventure, never leaving the familiar confines of Jefferson and Park Counties. Here’s how it went. With pictures.

Before. A while ago. I named Tuesdays as desiderata days. Go anywhere days. Let the day unfold. Rather than directing it: Write now. Eat now. Study Torah and bar mitzvah portions now. Sleep now. Watch TV now. Workout now. Do work-a-day things to manage my life. Pay bills. Write e-mails. Contact my docs. No. Not on a Tuesday. On Tuesdays I would set aside all that, get in Ruby and head out.

Problem was. I never did it. Oh, I went on a few hikes last year. But not on Tuesdays. Just never let myself experience the freedom I put in my calendar. I even have the Tuesdays named on my Google Calendar: Desiderata Days.

Until. Talked with Tom. The Florida Panhandle has a different understanding of Mountain than we do here. They even put up this mural and named a road and businesses after Blue Mountain:

64 feet. The highest point on the Gulf of Mexico. Photo Credit: Tom Crane, retired.

After I finished talking to Tom the day could have devolved into a usual Tuesday. But it didn’t. I put on my jeans, my LL Bean vest, got my car fob and tiny wallet, a hat, got in Ruby, and left the house. First to King Sooper for the ATM. Cash for the Happy Camper. On to 285 headed south and west toward Pine, then Bailey.

Bought some edibles. Still can’t believe this is legal. Always feel a bit furtive.

Down Crow Hill and it’s 7% grade into Bailey and the Cutthroat Cafe. Passed the Smiling Pig Saloon and Smokehouse where I hope to take Tom, Irv, and Paul in a couple of weeks. Breakfast outside. Oatmeal and Italian sausage. Coffee, sourdough toast. Over for a look at the Sasquatch Outpost. They’re all in on Sasquatch tourist items. From t-shirts to action figures, signs and blankets. Plus footprints.

Faced a decision. Go home or go to Guanella Pass? A desiderata day. Guanella Pass. On Highway 285 through the Platte River Valley, past Shawnee, the Orvis ranch and fly fishing destination, Villa Marie, the Shaggy Sheep, and onto tiny Grant. Turn right.

The Continental Divide
Upper Geneva Creek
Turned Around here

I only drove part way up the 11,700 foot Pass which leads to the old mining town of Georgetown, also accessible from I-70. I had gone on a whim with no water bottles or camelpak. No sunscreen. Plus, it rained much of the time. No raingear. No such thing as bad weather only inadequate gear.

On the way back down I stopped at the jerky place I’ve driven past many times. The owner, a luxuriantly white bearded old man with an oxygen canula, said, “It’s a tiny shop. Just look.” He pointed to the signs above the racks: Salmon jerky, Beef jerky, Alligator jerky, Buffalo, Elk, local beef. I paid with cash and when I did he pointed to a sign, no tax with cash. Cheating the taxman, I imagine. Especially since above this sign was a $1,000 bill with a head shot of our criminal ex-president. The Mountains.

Back home I rested. Thinking. Yep, about a half a day’s energy. That’s my limit these days. Most important. I smiled. Desiderata days. After the bar mitzvah, a desiderata week. Off to Taos.

Feelings, Fourth Phase

Is It Happening Now?

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Beltane and the Moon of Shadow Mountain

Tuesday gratefuls: Happy Camper. Mary Jane. M.J. Hedstrom. Raeone. Judy. Carolyn. Tina. Women of my past. Relationships. Being radical. Even now. Bernie and Elizabeth. BLM. Pro-Israel. Pro-Palestinian. Anti-Hamas. Anti-Iran. Ready for national health care, affordable housing, enough food for all, education as often and as long as needed.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Seeing the establishment for what it is

One brief shining: Often these mornings I put a split English Muffin in the air fryer, get out the lox, cream cheese, and capers, butter them, slather on cheese, put two slices of lox on one side, capers on the cheese, stick my thumb in a mandarin orange and peel it, pour another cup of coffee, grab a mineral water, and sit down to learn what mischief the world has been up to while I slept.

 

Maybe Great Sol. Bright sunshiny days. Blue skies. Mountain air. The scent of Pines. Maybe the onrush of the bar mitzvah. Prep going well. It’s finish line time in two weeks. Then on to another focus. Maybe a waking up from the long sleep of grief, coming into this life, this 77 year old life as a widower, an introvert, an often hermit, a Jew. But coming into it as a whole and vital person, still engaged and alive, ready for today. Talking to Tom. Going to the Happy Camper. The Cutthroat Cafe. Maybe up the Guanella Pass. Resting.

I have false dawns. When I think I’ll turn and turn, wake up, and be ready for a brand new life. Well, not brand new, but one aimed in a new direction, new focus, new patterns, new dreams. But every once in a while, often years apart, an inner Great Sol will illuminate my inner world. A new path, usually a fool’s path, a beginner’s mind path will wind its way through the reaches of my soul. Divorcing Raeone. Judy. Getting sober. Deciding to go to, then finish seminary. Focusing on political work even in my ministry. Becoming a pagan. Meeting and marrying Kate. Writing. The Andover move. The trip to Southeast Asia. That horticultural associates degree. Moving to the Mountains. Kate’s decline and death. Becoming a Jew.

Now I can feel the heat of a new dawn, feel the coolness of a long night beginning to lift. But I’ve felt like this before. I have a doubt, a mild cynicism. Oh, you’re too old. Nothing new under this inner sun. You’re too weak, too damaged by various physical maladies. All those other dawns. What have they produced anyhow? Well. A lot actually. A whole life, one marked by this and that, up and down. A normal life, a good life. A satisfying life. Oh. Huh.

I need these break points, bechira points where the world behind becomes just that, a past, all well and good while it happened, but fading away, its hold over my talents and resources loosening so a new focus can emerge.

Perhaps this is a violation of the current scripture: be here now. Or perhaps it’s a perfect example. I don’t know. But I yearn to fall forward, or even leap forward. Is it happening now?

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Holidays, Memories, US History

Memorial Day

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Monday gratefuls: Cool night. Memorial Day. Decoration Day. Parades. School’s over and summer starts. The World. Its many Wild Neighbors. Mountains. Lakes. Ponds. Tides. Tidal Pools. Forests. Trees. Plains. Rivers. Streams. Creeks. Meadows. Valleys. Cultures. Long evolution. Its oneness. Its holiness. Its sacred nature. Our Hullian needs. Our need for fulfillment and satisfaction.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Warriors

One brief shining: Those parades when heat softened the asphalt on Harrison Street so it could accept treads laid down by the tank from the National Guard Armory, when the guys carrying the colors insisted on wearing their old uniforms, pale stretched skin showing where the buttons held, only just, when last year’s homecoming queen sat prim and straight on the folded convertible top of an impeccably restored 1957 Chevy, when we would stand along the parade route enthralled.

 

Memorial day. Mom and Dad. Veterans of WWII. Uncle Riley, too. That generation that gave so much. War. A human horror engaged too often for too little reason. Though WWII was not one of those. To have had that great world spasm followed by the never finished Korean War and the unnecessary Vietnam War, then Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya has sullied the warrior class, making them too often pawns of geopolitical maneuvering by oligarchs, dictators, and short sighted politicians.

Yet. They persist. Often frustrated and hemmed in by those who misunderstand their role. As I once did. Warriors and priests. Old, old roles in human cultures around the globe. Both often abused. Both in my immediate family.

Easy to forget the purpose of the Lt. Col. who is my son. The USAF. Defense. Not offense. Oaths taken to defend the U.S. against all enemies domestic and foreign. Obedience to civilian authority delivered through the Commander in Chief, the President.

The military does not define who the enemies are. That’s a civilian responsibility. Often lacking in both reason and ethical justification, yes. But it is the civilian authority who aims and then empowers our military. Only then can they engage.

Warriors place themselves in harms way to defend their tribe, their people, their nation. This is an ancient and honorable role. Indigenous people in the U.S., in spite of their history, sign up in disproportionate numbers because the warrior class holds such high esteem in their cultures.

Yes, war is terrible and often, perhaps most often, wrong. That is, engaged not for defense but for seizing land, control of another people, for vengeance. For reasons of profit and misguided fears. For this last think the domino effect.

The warriors themselves continue on. Learning, training, readying themselves for what might be, for what even they hope may never be. Yet when called they will respond and respond with all that they have.

I’m not thrilled to have a warrior son. Though I recognize the selflessness of his choice. And the values which led him to choose service to country. I wish he could have become a social worker, a lawyer, a physician. He was pre-med before turning to the Air Force after 9/11.

Yet over the years I’ve come to appreciate the sacrifice in life-style, income, and personal freedom. I’ve met many of his colleagues and to a person they are warriors, too. Global politics are anarchic and still ruled by might makes right in the minds of many. We need a military, citizens willing to defend us.

They are who we honor today. Especially those who died as a result of their service.

All year after the parade we would drive over those tank treads, hardened into a feature of our main street. The slight rumble would remind us.

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Memories, Politics, US History

Old Self Surfaces

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Ancient Brothers. Socrates Cafe. Irv. A cool night for sleeping. Candles. Rituals. Sabbath. Writing. Hanukah. Yahrzeit. Kate, always Kate. Politics. Justice. A just society. Could happen. My Lodgepole Companion waving their Branches, soaking up Great Sol. Presidents. Politicians. Self-driving cars. Teslas. Electric cars. The old kind. Change.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Electric cars

One brief shining: Whoo, boy, every once in a while I put my foot in and forget to take it right back out, like yesterday at the Socrates Cafe when I, much to my surprise, felt a need to defend the reality of injustice and collective effort to remedy it, not my best foot to put in for the first time I showed up in person.

 

Underneath it all I’m still a pretty unreconstructed ’60’s radical. The establishment has the power, oligarchs and millionaire politicians make policy that fits their needs and fail to address the systemic nature of racism, sexism, classism, ageism, and the Great Work itself. The only way to alter systemic problems lies in the realm of politics, something even the MAGA folks seem to intuit. But not the folks at the Socrates Cafe.

This self, this radical self, mostly lies quiet these polarized days. Painfully gained higher emotional intelligence signals me when a situation will not be made better by my political analysis. And they are many. Something I often failed to notice in my working days. Yesterday though.

All my mussar work, all my realization of appropriate venues for political discourse got shunted aside when the majority of folks in the group took up the position that there is no such thing as right or wrong, justice is always personal and contextual, by which they seemed to mean relative to a specific, interpersonal situation.

I’m not used to having to defend the fact of injustice. Skin color for some was irrelevant. (Everybody was white.) It’s not possible to know the positive or negative effect of remedying injustice. (I have some empathy for this perspective, yet it’s an action killer.) Slavery didn’t matter. There was just nothing you could do unless you did it personally.

Acting justly in interpersonal situations? Of course. A minimum as far I’m concerned. Yet. Imagining that even the golden rule will change systemic, historical imbalances in our culture is naive at best and a form of denial at worst.

These folks all knew each other and have been doing this Socratic cafe twice a month since 2003. Afraid I violated their group norms. Didn’t mean to. But justice is a flash point issue for me.

All began because my question was chosen. The method is this: whoever has a question writes it in on an index card and turns it in. Jannel reads the questions through once. Then, the one who wrote the question explains how they came to it. After those explanations, yesterday there were six submitted questions, a show of hands votes each question up or down. 15 people in attendance. My question was: Is a just society possible? The consensus, btw, was a resounding no.

Commentary on Religion, Feelings, Fourth Phase, GeekWorld, Health, Judaism

Works for Me

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Socrates Cafe today. Tara lesson today. Torah and the morning service. Rami Shapiro. Judaism without Tribalism. Ruth and Gabe. Mark in Hua Hin on the Gulf of Thailand. Three Body Problem trilogy. Breakfast at Aspen Perks. Picking up shirts at USA cleaner. Groceries today. Pickup again. Got hot dogs for Memorial Day. A very rare treat.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Lodgepoles of Arapaho National Forest

One brief shining: Have taken no shirts to a dry cleaner/laundry since Kate died, not sure why, but last week I took in my new shirts and my flannel shirts, the new ones to have a wash and an ironing, the flannel shirts for a seasonal dry cleaning, ready now to store in the closet until the next Winter, and it felt like a splurge. So expensive. BTW: I did wash my shirts in the washing machine. Just so you know.

 

A good workout week. Hit my 150 minutes again. Moving up on weights. Always feel better when I get all my workouts in. Think of Diane headed up Bernal Hill on her jogging route. Ode in the gym gettin’ buff. Watch the red meat, eat fruits and vegetables, more fish and chicken. Workout. Live longer, healthier. Maybe. No phone call yet about my P.E.T. scan. Part of it, too. Mind the cancer.

 

Got a new set of all-seasons for Ruby. Big O. They know the double entendre, I’m sure, but using it on a tire retailer? Seems odd. To me anyhow. Oil change, too. Synthetic. 10,000 miles between. Feels luxurious after a life time of 5,000 mile oil changes. Course those of you with the electrics. Don’t they beat all when it comes to maintenance. I like leaving as many dollars up here in the Mountains as I can. Help the local economy.

 

Led mussar on Thursday. Always fun to lead a group temporarily. Considering another dive into the educating realm. Right now I’m in a havruta with Gary Riskin. Traditionally talmud torah, torah study, was done in pairs. Read a text. Summarize it, analyze it. Sharpening each others thought process. A lively back and forth. Probably where the quip, two Jews, three opinions, came from. We meet every two weeks over zoom. We worked on Cain and Abel last session. The only class I’m in right now.

But. Having just finished Rabbi Toba Spitzer’s excellent God is Here, and halfway through Rabbi Rami Shapiro’s Judaism without Tribalism, with Rabbi Michael Strassfield’s latest, Judaism Disrupted: A Spiritual Manifesto for the 21st Century, ready after I finish Shapiro, I may consider creating a class using these three books. Plus maybe one of Mordecai Kaplan’s, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism. The work in Toba Spitzer’s book and Rami’s show the power of Reconstructionist thought. I find them working the same vein as Emerson.

That is, how can we use the spiritual deposit of the ages while maintaining an open, even skeptical attitude toward religion as an institution? I found Unitarian-Universalism too broad and too thin a tool for this quest. Paganism worked better for me. Until I found a group committed to the same rigorous approach to religion as Emerson and myself and committed to community at the same time. Reconstructionism.

I find Spitzer, Shapiro, and Strassfield working at the outer edges of what Shapiro calls Judaism without tribalism. Calling into question the very way we understand the sacred, Spitzer’s work on metaphors, and Shapiro’s focus on Judaism’s two key moves: teshuvah and tikkun.

Teshuvah, or return, means in his thought returning to who we really are after jettisoning other’s expectations, and being dead honest about who we are. Tikkun means repairing the world: the physical world, the political world, the emotional world. These are, according to him, the mission of Jews. To embrace our true selves and repair a damaged reality. Works for me.