Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Shabbat gratefuls: Shadow beside me. Artemis mine. Artemis II. Exploration. Living. Ruth at 20. David. Gabe. Jesse. Cancer.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth

Kavannah: Hakarat Hatov.  Gratitude.  “Who is rich? Those who rejoice in their own portion.” Pirkei Avot (4:1)

Tarot: paused

One brief shining: Found my phone.  Google led me to Luke’s parking lot. Emailed Luke. He found it.

Like the relief of being added to the Actinium + ARPI arm.

For a month and a half, like late October and November of last year, I’ve had consequential procedures, tests, visits with the oncologist. I get tired during these marathons.

Most of these visits require my body. Bones cannot be scanned without the bones.

Good data. Key decisions demand it. The impact on me? Mine alone.

What if adding exhaustion to an existing disease state drives me into a dark place mentally? As this last flurry of data gathering did. I wrapped this month and a half long process last Monday with an EKG. My old one: expired.

Neither exhaustion nor my cancer drove me into anything.

A barrier lowered.  Old familiars saw their chance.

Shhh, Charlie. Don’t worry about frailty. What? Frailty. Not you. Lassitude. You don’t get around well. You do the best you can.

By evening: the troubling PSA. New metastases. The pull of letting go.

I let them into my consciousness. Thursday the clutter and naysayers began to quiet. A plan existed. The trial. I got what I wanted.

Even so. After my mother died, I not only let the demons in. I set up housekeeping with them. Entertained them with alcohol and anxiety. Oh, the times we had.

I spent most of my twenties in thrall not only to alcohol and tobacco, but to bad choices.

I found my power. Kicked the demons out of the house. They left the house. Not me.

I know those demons lie in wait for my moments of vulnerability. They were there when I spent three days staring at wallpaper patterns. They showed up after Kate died, suggesting drastic changes.

Not gone.

Waiting.

For me.

Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Friday gratefuls: The Trans Lunar Injection Burn. Artemis II moving toward the moon. Clinical trial. Samantha. Arjan, Vincent, Tara, Eleanor

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Artemis II

Kavannah: Wonder. Malchut.  Shadow

Tarot: paused

One brief shining: When my latest PET scan showed a jump in metastases. After my PSA shot up to 92. Not panic. Regret. Sadness. Resignation. A downward trough.

My oncologist, Dr. Buphati, and his team wanted me in a particular arm of the study. After randomization, I am.

I’ve had a year of gliding into scanners and back out. Having bloodwork often. I’m ready to lean into a treatment plan. Act rather than diagnose.

Samantha’s e-mail: “Good news on the study. You were selected for the group receiving Actinium + ARPI. That is the most desirable group to be in btw.”

The universe has thrown me a bone.  The combination of a radioactive attack on my tumors–Actinium–and an androgen pathway receptor inhibitor–ARPI– gives me the best chance of shrinking tumors and getting.some energy back.

Good news and bad news. My clinical trial position could not be better. A high point. A place to start treatment. No matter what the trial does for my cancer, I’ll know I’ve given myself the best chance available.

When I got the PET scan and PSA results. Banged me up pretty good. My cancer was on the move. These results came in the midst of yet more trips for imaging, blood work, consultations. I was tired. Exhausted.

Not the best circumstances to absorb and frame tough information. Didn’t realize until yesterday that melancholy had been dominant. In spite of my efforts. Or, I could say, I took in difficult news and managed it well enough to avoid depression.

Cancer gives me many opportunities to practice resilience. I’m no Zen master. I don’t sit and calm myself. I do assess the context. Will my fatigue make me less able to maintain equilibrium. Yes. Less able to handle things day-to day. Yes. I watch for crankiness, low energy.

Even so. Melancholy fits like a heavy, dark cape. I become more quiet in conversation. I might jump from a 92 PSA to the cemetery. I slow down, thinking is harder. Will the trial help? I shrug.

Living with a chronic, terminal disease means making appointments, traveling from home a lot, making choices about drugs and treatments.

We know neither the day nor the hour. Not for Jesus’s return, but for our own death. I find comfort in not knowing.

Starting the trial.

Actinium drips.

I hope.

Imbolc and the Moon of Liberation

Thursday gratefuls: Morning darkness. Sleep. Jackie and Rhonda. Hep B. The winter that wasn’t. This nation. Which I love.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Teshuvah

Kavannah: Histapkot. Contentment.   Seek what you need, give up what you don’t need.

Tarot: Eight of Bows, Hearthfire.  “(I) celebrate the fact that we endure, survive, thrive and grow with the support and companionship of our chosen tribe.”

One brief shining: Intimidating. No, Ruth said, you can’t be intimidating. She said it with love. Took me aback. My reaction surprised me. I can be intimidating, I replied, drawing my old male identity up. Then I thought, what am I doing?

How Ruth sees me. Maybe how most people see me? If I can’t intimidate, have I lost an essential part of my masculinity? I looked at myself from her perspective: 5’5″. Barely 130 pounds. White hair and age evident. 79. Oh, I get it.

My power has shifted from the muscled man who lifted 150 pound dogs into the car for a vet visit. I’d struggle to lift Shadow, a light 37 pounds. My power has also shifted from the political partisan who would take on anyone, especially Haislet, the ob/gyn who thought of himself a conservative (reactionary) intellectual. I used to treat argument as a blood sport. No quarter. Win or go home.

Again, Ruth. You’re not old; you’re wise. Oh?

I can no longer cut down trees, limb them, buck the rest. I have to pause to rest while planting seeds. Planting seeds in Artemis’ raised beds. Frequent rests.

Cooking demands more of me than I have to give. Standing up for over 15 minutes? Nope.

Bank. Groceries. Gas. Maybe lunch out. Not anymore.

I have one event in me in a day. A doctor’s appointment. A diagnostic procedure. A hair cut. The drive, with my head drop, wears me out. The brace helps.

Easy to forget. Slowed. Way. Down.

In spite of all this I do not feel diminished. When talking with Ruth and David, I showed up. Engaged with Ruth’s enthusiasm, with David’s hesitant vulnerability.

My mind tracks back decades. Emile Durkheim comes to me. That seminary course in the Old Testament. A tender evening with Kate at the Nicollet Island Inn. Brings in new perspectives. That was our 25th. We bought mugs to celebrate. Red for me. Green for her.

My power has shifted. Enhanced by Tara’s visits. Eleanor’s play with Shadow. By breakfast at Primo’s with Marilyn and Irv. By resilience borne of repeated encounters with cancer and death. By life lived in community. In family.

Soft power.

No intimidation necessary.

Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

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

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: MVP

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Life. Together.

Always.

Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

Tuesday gratefuls: Shadow, who sleeps against my leg. Dan Herman. Rich. Alan. Jamie. Ron. Jackie and Rhonda. Clean teeth. No work needed

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Telling the story to myself (aka: a first draft)

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

Tarot: #18 The Moon on the Water

Beyond the flight of the sacred heron lies the fusion of our ancestral soul with the soul of the Earth.

One brief shining: The Moon on the Water, a major arcana, speaks to my deepening creative journey as I hone what my writing coach calls late stage style, crisper, often in fragments, leaning more on nouns than verbs. Work that reflects my inner moon. A great joy.

Teeth cleaning. Oncologist. Nurse. Social worker. Yes. Social worker. Radiation follow up. CT scan for aortic aneurysm. Three weeks. The steady drip of medical care. This ailment, then that.

When I say, and mean, I’m alone, but not lonely, I don’t count those visits. Though sometimes I do. Maddie. Rachel. Sue Bradshaw, my PCP. Long term. Personal first, professional second. My preference.

Many friends. This cardiologist. That pulmonologist. Keeping us healthy. Reminding us that we’re not. An irony.

A friend of mine, Frank Broderick, turned 93 yesterday. 93. Frank, a man of strong opinions. Anti-Catholic. Pro-indigenous people. Served a long term on the board of the Minneapolis Indian Health Service. He wrote back to birthday greetings, “If I’d known I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself.” At coffee, rants even now about DeLaSalle High School.

Wondering if the PET scan will trigger a huge co-insurance bill.  I want to stay right here on Shadow Mountain. However. A bad fall. Pneumonia. Could push me out.

Solitude. I live alone. What happens to Shadow? My stuff. All those books. Used to be. The kids might move in. Or. I might move in with them. Unlikely. A son in Korea. Sister in Australia. Brother in Saudi Arabia. Me, by choice, in the Rocky Mountains.

Shock absorbers: far away. Friends become critical, necessary. Tom and Paul, distant yet close. Warms me. Tara, who plans a move, soon, to Costa Rica. Damn it. Alan and Joan, who like Frank is 93. Marilyn and Irv. Luke. Ginny and Janice. Close friends.

Ruth and Gabe. Grandkids already loaded in the cultural missile of higher education.

I love my splendid isolation. On top of Shadow Mountain. The moon of my inner sky illuminating my ancientrail.

Yet.

Feeling a hug from my boy.

Oh.

Yule and the Moon of New Beginnings

Tuesday gratefuls: Snow. Ruth at A-Basin. Gabe working puzzles. Shadow away. Goya. El Greco. Velasquez. Picasso. Pissarro. Monet. Rodin. Renoir. Cezanne. Toulose-Lautrec. Poussin. Van Gogh. Rembrandt. Holbein. Durer. Bosch.  Wyeth. Hopper. Bierstadt. Pollock. Rothko. O’Keefe. Turner. Waterhouse. Giotto. Michelangelo. Da Vinci. Botticelli.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Artists

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:  Gevurah   strength, discipline

Creating Space: “Gevurah is the strength to create space and to hold space… it’s what helps us nurture our passions.” — Renee Fishman

Dog journal: Nathan starts on the Dog run tomorrow. The igloo Dog house sits in its cardboard box from Chewy. The pheromones are in the mail. Doggy puzzles, tires, rubber donuts, her lobster and other favorite toys await her not so gentle chewing. Shadow’s coming home.

I enjoyed the time without her, after I finished grieving. I didn’t have to worry about her, get home faster to take care of her. No sleepless nights while she roamed outside in the cold.

Yes. I enjoyed all that. I also missed her smile, her greetings, her affection, her body curled up nose to tail beside my pillow at night. Her puppy joy at chewing, learning new tricks. Seeing the world through her eyes.

With her new learning, the Dog run, the igloo Dog house with its heater, the prozac and the pheromones, our time together will lose the edge of despair she occasioned in me from time to time. That I will not miss.

The Moon of New Beginnings: This new year, this secular new year, I plan to usher in a bit differently than the past 78.

First, I will do a Celtic Cross spread, asking the question: How can I live my best life in 2026?  I’ll report back on what I discover.

Second, I will choose a year kavannah, an intention for the year at least partly based on what I learn.

Third, I will set up this computer to make my review of news sources easy to access. This will entail creating tab groups in Chrome, finding a permanent spot for my political books, and better learning how to use Substack. It will also mean creating scheduled time for this work on a daily, weekly, monthly basis.

Fourth. I will create a new novel project in Scrivener and continue in depth research for the revised Superior Wolf novel. More group tabs, more reading. And, time for this in my schedule.

Fifth. Shadow and I will settle into yet another new phase of our life together, one, I hope, less fraught for both of us.

Mabon and the Harvest Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Veronica, who will finally get her harmonica from Hannukah. Ginny and Janice. Such fun. Luke on Sunday night at Bella Collibri for his birthday. Ruth and deer on her morning walk before work. The Elk Rut. Black Bear hyperphagia. 20,000 calories a day. Aspen gold. Maxwell Creek running full from Tuesday’s Rain. A Mountain life.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: A Mountain Fall

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Yirah. Awe and Wonder

“Awe is more than an emotion; it is a way of understanding, insight into a meaning greater than ourselves. The beginning of awe is wonder, and the beginning of wisdom is awe.”  Abraham Joshua Heschel

Tarot: #9, The Hermit (Druid Craft)

• Seeking guidance: While primarily about internal wisdom, the card can also indicate seeking a mentor, teacher, or counselor to help illuminate your path.
• Caution and planning: The Hermit advises against impulsive action. It’s time to consider and plan your next move carefully and with discretion. 

One brief shining: Saw Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue, also Jon Stewart’s after Kimmel’s initial benching; uneasy lies the head of the court jester, the one who sees the Burger King for what he is “…stark, raving mad.” (senior U.N. diplomate) and tells what they see, making people laugh, yes, laugh at his buffoonery.

Dog journal: After weeks of regular return in the evenings, Shadow has become skittish about coming in. Makes me sad. And, it’s a deal breaker. If I can’t keep her safe from night hunting Mountain Lions and quiet for the neighbors, she’ll have to find a new home. And, I very much don’t want that,

Janice’s niece Heather, a dog trainer, is moving to Kittredge and has helped her and Ginny with Annie. May have to switch training models to save Shadow’s life with me. I’m so deeply invested in Shadow; I love her so much that I can’t imagine life without her.

Right now she’s back inside after her early morning constitutional, playing with her new ball, rolling it with her nose, chewing on it till it squeaks, then turning to the new, bigger tire I got her. She’s so good to buy for because she gravitates toward new toys. She’s a delight in every way but that crucial one.

A Mountain Fall: Below is a thirty second clip of an Elk Bull bugling. Not sure how the sound got that moniker, but it reminds me more of a distressed varmint than a 700 pound, weaponized ungulate male hunting for a date.

This is also the time Black Bears go into hyperphagia. A biological imperative triggered by the change of seasons, a Bear in hyperphagia will eat constantly, working to put on protective fat and sufficient body weight to survive the upcoming winter and hibernation.

They will break into cars and trucks, garbage cans, even homes to satisfy this urgent craving. That’s why Mountain wise folk never put their garbage out until the morning of pickup. I often see upturned plastic bins with debris scattered around them.

Too, a Mountain fall features only the golden turn of Aspen Leaves against the evergreen of Lodgepole Pines. Very unlike the Midwestern fall when deciduous Trees like Oaks, Maples, Ironwood, Ash splash color in vivid hues all across the landscape. Can you imagine what it was like before the Big Woods were cut down?

Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

I’ve been meaning to lay down some tracks for a while. Not sure I have a whole album yet, but here’s a start.

I’m a Tao de Jew. With a strong measure of Paganism, or what Reb Zalman called Gaia consciousness.

Yes, I suppose in our own journeys we will often become syncretists even though syncretism itself gets no love from religious folks or scholars.

Can I unring the wu wei bell now that I’ve converted to Judaism? Can I eliminate my full body immersion in the Arapaho National Forest? Can I set aside the teachings of Jesus about the oppressed and the stranger? Or, in its metaphorical grandeur the notion of resurrection?

No, I cannot. Why? Because these and other ideas have found roots in my psyche, helping to shape my nefesh as it provides a link between the inner world of my neshama and the world, the One, of which it is an inextricable part.

I see the neshama as helical strands of dna connecting all life to its distant origins in the evolutionary story. I see the neshama as a vital, vibrant link with what Jung called the collective unconscious, the deep well of human experience available to each and all.

The neshama links each of us to the One through depth and purity, retaining a clarity of purpose unsmudged by the conflicting tensions of the yetzer hara and the yezter hatov.

Wu wei offers insight into the movement of chi, of life force through the One. It flows in and out of the neshama, in and out of all things, while never being separate from any of them. The vitality of the One moves through and with the ten thousand things. If we stop and listen, stop forcing matters, we can follow chi with ease by attending to wu wei.

When I look out the window, wander in my yard, drive among the Mountains, the Creeks, and the Forest and breathe in Treeness, Creekness, Mountainness, feeling my temporary porous barrier, my skin, blend into this Mountain world and the Mountain world blending into mine, I follow the pagan path which nurtured me and nurtures me.

This is nefesh, that link between the desires of my neshama and the aspects of the One in my immediate life. The One is one. Not two, not three, not many. One. This is why transcendence as an idea, one shaped by the notion of a three-story universe and Whitehead’s fallacies of misplaced concreteness, makes no sense to me, in fact repulses me as a spiritual goal.

What I do understand about death. That resurrection is real and total. That no bit of matter or energy gets destroyed. Whether we resurrect as a spray of molecules or a somehow intact consciousness, I have no idea. Will find out myself someday. As will you.

Luke 4:18-19

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captiveand recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free,   To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Whether I find this passage formed me or guides me, I don’t know. I do know that the essence of this bit from the Gospel of Luke has informed my life from a time before I had become fully aware of it.

How do I understand it now? As a statement of the One, igniting in all a sense of responsibility and care for all. I often tell the story of the Iroquois medicine man who prayed for the winged ones, the four leggeds, the Waters, the Trees and the Mountains, those who swim in the water, and all those who live in the soil.

He never mentions the two-leggeds. When I asked him about that after he had planted a Pine Tree as a symbol of peace, he said, “Oh. We two-leggeds are the most fragile of all creation. In order for us to survive we have to ensure that all the others on whom our lives depend thrive. So we pray for them.”