Samain and the Shadow Moon
Friday gratefuls: Done with Radiation. Ablation. Injection. Bracing. No procedures or diagnostics on the immediate horizon. Shadow at boarding school. Support over the last six weeks. NYT editorials on the military. Grief. Again. Still. The price we pay for love. Faraway and nearby friends and family. Shadow Mountain home.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Finishing radiation
Life Kavannah: Wu Wei Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress
Week Kavannah: Malchut Wonder. A feeling of surprise mixed with admiration caused by something beautiful or unexpected.
Being a metaPhysician
One brief shining: Alise and Jenna seemed genuinely sad to see me leave their radioactive workplace; made me feel good about the relationship we established over the ten sessions spread out over three weeks; easy really, I smiled, said thank you and remembered their names, asked questions, and showed up early.
A palpable sense of relief. This long, medical march which began with a P.E.T. scan in May, saw three MRI’s, a CT scan, a new radiation oncologist, lots of needles and appointments all over the south metro has come, mostly, to an end. I have a follow up with Bupathi today and Kylie (pain doc) next week, but that’s it for now.
Even the process of getting resolution to back pain, head drop, and an outlier large metastases brings its own stress, its own Thank God that’s over. Not to mention the brace, the injection, the ablation, and radiation themselves. Organizing, scheduling, securing drivers when necessary, or just driving myself. A lot.
And, of course, the varying results. Brace, a C-. Ablation, an A+. Injection, C. Radiation, hard to know at this point, but given previous experience, most likely an A. Which means that the head drop and the labrum tear will require more work.
But not right now. I’m taking a rest, enjoying the surcease of pain from the ablation, and, I hope, the preservation of my hormone sensitive status thanks to the radiation.
I get to celebrate Hanukah, the Winter Solstice, Yule, and New Years without further efforts to keep myself mobile and alive. Yay!
This is the plastic mesh that they put on my bare chest for each radiation session, oriented by small black tattoos, and clamped tight with magnets. It served as the primary positioning tool for the extreme precision required by this extraordinary therapy. My chin rested in the smaller, cupped portion of the mesh.
Just a moment: Vultures of all sorts have begun to circle the front lawn of the Whitehouse, awaiting the bloated political corpse of red tie guy’s presidency. According to a New York Times political correspondent, Trump has achieved a rare status for a second term President. He’s a lame duck a year plus before the mid-terms. After the mid-terms normally marks this transition as the President’s party loses power in Congress and his own party begins to look beyond him a candidate for the next Presidential election.
You can read about it here: Trump’s Coalition Cracking. What this means for the immediate future and the next three, long years is far from clear.
“I have a son in command in the military. I asked him about this. He pointed to rules of engagement which come, according to this article, from the “target engagement authority” which is Hegseth. In spite of the fog of politicians attempting to provide cover for themselves, Hegseth’s own statement that the Admiral acted within his legal authority condemn Hegseth, not the Admiral. I agree that the Admiral tortured the rules of engagement to justify a strike on men struggling to survive. Who’s responsible here? Could it be the toxic combination of little men playing war (Trump and Hegseth) entangled with the Special Operations ethos of getting the job done no matter what?”
Arcing back for a moment to yesterday’s post about humor as a moral compass, I want to underline the lack of a moral compass on the part of this whole administration. Absence of an ethical framework results in decisions made situationally, often with the heat of passion at the helm, rather than considered weighing of good and bad consequences.
Think Noemi with the family dog in the gravel pit. Think Kennedy mindlessly ignoring long established science supporting vaccines. Think Trump pardoning Hernández while waging “war” on Maduro. Think Hegseth, the dry drunk wanting more lethality. And getting it.
This administration makes decisions in the service of more power and profit for those in office and for those closest to them. We know it’s wrong. They may not. They may see it as the spoils of victory, reinforced by a stunning “mandate” at the polls. Trump himself, the beating heartlessness at the top, believes in garbage people and shithole nations, which implies of course that he and his are not garbage and that their nation is not a shithole. I beg to differ.
My point is this. An unpredictable, greedy and often ignorant leader at the top empowers the more cunning, the more ideological in his government to get done what they want no matter history, tradition, right and wrong. They all operate in their spheres with vastly different priorities and focus. No one reins in Miller, Noemi, Kennedy, Bessent, Hegseth.
Humor as Moral Compass
Samain and the Shadow Moon (2 sessions to go)
Wednesday gratefuls: Rich. MVP. Shadow away at boarding school. Clement weather. Polska Kielbasa. Bananas. Tangerines. Celery. Baby Potatoes. Andouille sausage. Scallions. Cherry Tomatoes. Pork loin chops. Sheetpan dinners. Nathan and the Dog run. His next summer move to Kalispell, Montana.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rich
Life Kavannah: Wu Wei Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress
Week Kavannah: Malchut Wonder. A feeling of surprise mixed with admiration caused by something beautiful or unexpected.
Being a metaPhysician
One brief shining: Made a mistake, went to MVP, my only night out during the month; even though Marilyn drove, a combination of radiation fatigue, head drop, and this damned hernia acting up made me first lie down on a couch, then ask for a ride home. Geez.
I knew better. I’m exhausted from driving to radiation and getting radiated. But I love these folks: Jamie, Susan, Joanne, Ron, Marilyn, Laurie, Rich. Missed last month and missed seeing them all. When Marilyn asked to meet at the usual place, I said yes. Should have said no.
Rich drove me to my car, followed me home, shoveled my deck, and saw me into the house. What a kind and loving man.
Not the return to the group I wanted.
This just in. Marilyn texted me, offered to drive me to my radiation today. Rich must have gone back and reported to the MVP group. I feel blessed to have so many who love me, care about me.
Dog journal: Nathan came by from a project just up the road. We discussed the Dog run. He’s built many and has his tricks for working in the Snow on frozen ground. Relieved. Now if that doghouse I want will come back in stock…
Just a moment: Sleepy Donald. I can relate. I’ll be 79 in two months and I just had a night. Glad I’m not working hard to cancel the political work of the last century or so. Gotta be tiring, making up enemy lists, figuring which shithole countries to diminish and ban, which cities to occupy, deciding how you can gig the poor yet again. Not to mention acting as warmonger and peace maker in chief. The contradictions alone would level a lesser man.
Don’t know if you watch South Park. Don’t recommend it even though the real South Park lies only an hour’s drive from Shadow Mountain. A former Conifer resident is one of the pair who created it.
It’s gross. Over the top. And, yet. They’re satirizing Trump, Vance, Bondi, Stephen Miller in ways that do make me laugh. Especially Stephen Miller who is portrayed as a creepy, I may lead to your doom, sycophantic butler.
If you can stand it, the satire is spot on.
Humor has always had an uneasy, even dangerous relationship to power. I’m sure more than one court jester lost their head by taking a joke too far.
I admire the South Parks, the Colberts, the Jon Stewarts of our time. Laughing at tyrants exposes them for what they are: weak, petty, cruel leaders who seek power for power’s sake with no moral compass. Humor, oddly enough, is exactly that: a moral compass.
Again, Recess Is Over
Samain and the Shadow Moon (3 sessions to go)
Tuesday gratefuls: Shadow, doing her work. The now working Clinac. My life, worth living. Fencing companies. Building a dog run with heated dog house for Shadow. Joe’s willingness. Early Winter. The coming of Hannukah, Yule, the Winter Solstice, Christmas, New Year’s. Holiseason at its peak.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fences
Life Kavannah: Wu Wei Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress
Week Kavannah: Malchut Wonder. A feeling of surprise mixed with admiration caused by something beautiful or unexpected.
Being a metaPhysician
One brief shining: Joe, my son, offered to come and build the dog run for Shadow, to set aside for a few days his serious duties and help Dad and his Dog, to do that after a fifteen hour flight from his home, a son a man can be proud of, yet I won’t let him come because this wonderful place where I live often experiences sudden, mighty Snowfalls and if one happened before or when he got here, he would have come 9,000 miles out of love and I would have no dog run. Doesn’t make sense for either of us. Damn it.
Shook off the OMG I make bad things happen feelings like Shadow shakes off rain. Still a little wet, but dry enough to feel ok.
When negative feelings crop up, they feed on themselves, multiply like Rabbits. This one begets another one and suddenly a whole life has come under scrutiny, memories retrieved to bolster the black mood.
When I drank, I often followed this spiral: I didn’t go to graduate school. I married stupidly, twice. I’ve not taken a direction in my life, rather let life carry me along like flotsam or jetsam. No agency. Woe is me and my sad, woe begotten life. And all because my mommy died young.
Nope. I’d been making choices all along. Many of them poor: Judy and Raeone, seminary. The Peaceable Kingdom. Not my woe begotten life, a Charlie begotten life that did not synch up with my values. No wonder I felt miserable much of the time.
After sobriety. Still plenty of work to do, to grab life in my own hands, shake it until it made sense, expressed who I saw myself to be. John Desteian helped me through it.
That dream. The pivotal one. I had a sword, held it high in the air over my head, lightning crackling around it while a crowd chanted, “He has the power. He has the power.” Yes, in fact I did and had had it all along. The power to change, to redirect my life.
And so I did.
Just a moment: Trump pardons convicted narcotrafficker, Juan Orlando Hernádez. Then, surprise! Honduras issues an arrest warrant for him for money laundering and fraud. Too bad for him Trump is not president of Honduras.
Now let’s play Where’s That Video? Oh, the guy it might indict has control over its release? OK. Will he at least release his actual orders, then? Like Federal Law requires? Again, recess is over. Time to pretend we’re adults now.
Boarding School for Shadow
Samain and the Shadow Moon
Friday gratefuls: Dr. Josy. Natalie. Boarding school for Shadow. Mountain folk. Tara. Snow. Radiation. T4. Nuclear fission for good. Small nuclear reactors. Good one’s built by a guy I know, a big one in Japan. Garbage people. All one. Garbage president. Cedar-Riverside. A welcoming neighborhood. Affordable housing. Built there. Cedar Riverside PAC. Economic development now at the service of Somali’s.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Dr. Josy and Natalie
Life Kavannah: Wu Wei Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress
Week Kavannah: Malchut Wonder. A feeling of surprise mixed with admiration caused by something beautiful or unexpected.
One brief shining: Crying washes the soul, purifies it with the holy salt Water of love, of caring, of devotion, and my soul went through its holy car wash more than once yesterday as I decided with a terrible and miserable reluctance to try giving Shadow to Dr. Josy, who asked me to call her and explain, and when I did, offered to call Natalie, Shadow’s most recent trainer, see what might come next. I called her.
Dog journal: Yesterday Shadow had been with me to the day, ten months. And I tried to give her to Dr. Josy. Overwhelmed, sad, frustrated, confounded I couldn’t see how I could keep Shadow safe from the cold if she wouldn’t come in. She wouldn’t. My love for her meant she had to go somewhere else.
She will. Dr. Josy called Natalie, who used to be her vet tech, and they talked, cooked up a plan. Instead of going to Dr. Josy Natalie will take her for a month’s boarding. Train her with her Dogs on coming in and out, going on a leash while Dr. Josy will do a blood test, then put Shadow on doggy Prozac.
During that time I will have built an enclosure a bit larger than the foot print of my upstairs deck with a heated shelter. Then, when Shadow comes home, she’ll have a much smaller part of the whole back until she has coming in and staying in down at home, too.
Both Natalie and Dr. Josy want to make it possible for me to keep her. Both were concerned about my health and my mental health, too. I am so touched by their caring, both for me and for Shadow. Malchut.
The other side: On Tuesday at Rocky Mountain Cancer Care Pat came out from the radiation suite, his long mustache curled up in a smile.
“You next?”
“Yep. Did you leave any radiation for me?”
“Sure did. Asked’em to turn up for you, too.”
“Well. Thanks, dude.”
Later when I had finished he had just seen the doc, I smiled at him and his wife, Sandy. “I felt that, dude.” He laughed. “See you next time,” he said. “Yeah, for the same thing.” He laughed again.
A genuine connection at the heart level. Pat’s a short guy, wore a Western vest under a barn coat, jeans. And that hat. A baseball hat made of American flag cloth with an Eagle on the bill.
Not so different after all, left and right.
Baron Samedi and Shadow
Samain and the Radiation Moon
Thursday gratefuls: Loving Shadow. May it mean I need to let her go? Struggling. Anxious. Stressed. 14″ Snow. 9 degrees and she won’t come in. And, yes, I’m grateful to be alive, to struggle. The Jewish way. Part of this world. Radiation. Yes. Same. Sparkling fresh whiteness. Eleanor, who helped. Tara. Her scratch at the door. Hegseth, showing us the problem with unserious men.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Snow
Life Kavannah: Wu Wei Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress
Week Kavannah: SERENITY Menucha Serene, literally “at rest/comfortable” “In Jewish tradition, ‘menucha’ (מְנוּחָה) signifies a profound state of spiritual and physical rest, tranquility, peace, and fulfillment, going far beyond merely ceasing work. It is a core concept tied to the Sabbath (Shabbat) and the ultimate spiritual destiny of the soul.” Gemini
Being a metaPhysician
One brief shining: As the 9 degree cold slumps across the threshold that may separate Shadow from a life here, my fingers feel it as I type this, hoping hoping that she will lift her reluctance long enough to just let me close the door, no longer for me, I am warm, but for her so I can once again nurse the delusion that this is working. She does not.
Dog journal: Sometimes love is not enough. I’m seriously considering calling Dr. Josy, who took an instant liking to this mostly sweet girl. See if she would take her, for good. For her good. For Shadow’s good. For my sorrow at not being what she needed.
Not what I want, but may be what she needs. A new home with an older dog to teach her. Because this old dog can’t seem to do it.
Oh. I hate this. So deep in my heart.
Just a moment: Beginning to wonder if what has happened in the Caribbean may represent a toxic combination of Hegseth/Trump little boys playing war with the more serious culture of men tasked with doing the nation’s dirty work. Whatever it takes. By any means necessary. Only doing it always far from the public eye. Naive to the ways of valueless men, men without honor, men only interested in some middle-school fantasy of us against them. Feels like somebody needs to declare recess over.
Perhaps the Democrats need a seance with the spirit of Marie Levaeux. Use her knowledge for the 2026 campaign. This time calls for fighting the oligarchs on ground they understand but do not own, what evil lurks in the hearts of men and how best it might be combatted. Don’t think her advice could be any worse than the Dems are getting right now.
I, for one, would sit at that table, recognizing the power of other traditions, other ways of understanding how to engage the important battles of this age.
Even Fiction Requires Logic
Samain and the Radiation Moon
Monday gratefuls: Todd. Alise. Jenna. Dr. Carter. Ruth. Cold outside. Shadow, the hugger. Football. Basketball. Christopher. Paul. Minnesota nights. Rum River. Carlos Avery. Boot Lake SNA. Lake George. Cedar Creek research facility of the UofM. Oak Savannah. Great Anoka Sand Plain. Glacial River Warren. The last Ice Age. Woolly Mammoths. Sabre Tooth Tigers.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Pukaskwa National Park
Life Kavannah: Wu Wei Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress
Week Kavannah: SERENITY Menucha Serene, literally “at rest/comfortable” “In Jewish tradition, ‘menucha’ (מְנוּחָה) signifies a profound state of spiritual and physical rest, tranquility, peace, and fulfillment, going far beyond merely ceasing work. It is a core concept tied to the Sabbath (Shabbat) and the ultimate spiritual destiny of the soul.” Gemini
Tarot: Being a metaPhysician
One brief shining: A bit of Snow covers the backyard, Dog tracks crisscrossing it near the backdoor, Artemis rests, holding only Garlic planted in early November, over the leech field tall Grasses, now brown; that leaning Lodgepole Derek cut down stacked in logs to season since it blew over while still alive, the Aspen beyond my bedroom window skeletal, the fallow time has come.
Dog journal: So. Now she comes in when she will, but does come in, in her own time. This, my Shadow, is enough for me.
The continuing adventures of Donald: Hegseth denies. Well, of course, he does. The Weasel. Oops, sorry, didn’t mean to disparage Weasel kind. Nope. He’s the fourth grader caught with his hand in the teacher’s candy jar. T’wasn’t me, miss. I swear.
I trust Washington Post reporters far, far more than that guy who never saw a tube of pomade he didn’t like. Deny. Deny. Deny. If, in this case, as the JAG lawyers said, this “second tap” is a war crime, and/or outright murder, I’d hide under my desk, too.
Under the norms of a long ago America-what’s that? It’s been less than a year? Really?-this scandal would sink Hegseth and the President he rode in on. Today? Might mean more square footage for the Great Gatsby Gilded ballroom. Or, some other deflection like, for example, hey, Bondi, investigate Democrats in the Epstein files.
Oh, no. I’ve got it! He could pardon the former President of Honduras, a convicted narcotrafficker, while returning to the Rooseveltian days of gunboat diplomacy against the President of Venezuela, because, well, because Maduro is a, what is it? A narcotrafficker.
No, you could not make this stuff up. Not because people wouldn’t believe it, but because even fiction has to have an internal logic. And, this guy, red tie guy, acts by whim and fancy with a healthy dose of greed and self-interest to season the stew.
I read The Bulwark on Substack, a collection of conservatives, real conservatives, who find all of this as despicable as I do. In their Thanksgiving Day post, Trump is Exploiting Tragedy to Burn This Country Down, JV Glass and Sarah Longwell, in reacting to red tie guy’s screed against immigrants from poor countries as his response to the despicable murder of Sarah Beckstrom, referred to a long post on Truth Social, in which among many, many horrible things, the President (or, more likely, his ghost Stephen Miller) discuss denaturalization for naturalized American citizens. Both Joseph and Seoah are naturalized citizens.
Here are excerpts from that post compiled by Chatgpt:
Trump wrote he would “permanently pause migration from all ‘Third World Countries.’” Reuters+2VPM+2
He said the pause would allow “the U.S. system to fully recover.” VPM+1
“Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation.” AP News+2VPM+2
He pledged to “terminate” millions of admissions made under the previous administration, including those he described as “illegal admissions … signed by … Sleepy Joe Biden’s autopen.” MarketScreener+1
He promised to end all federal benefits and subsidies for non-citizens. MarketScreener+1
He vowed to “denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility” and deport any foreign national deemed a “public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western civilization.” MarketScreener+2Reuters+2
He wrote that many foreign-born U.S. residents “are on welfare, from failed nations, or from prisons, mental institutions, gangs, or drug cartels.” AP News+1
Black Friday
Samain and the Radiation Moon
Friday gratefuls: Chart House. Thanksgiving. Ruth. Shadow, the rascal. Hip pain. The National Guard. Our weakened nation. Colorado. The Rockies. Wyoming. The Wind River Range. Yellowstone. The Druid Pack. Wolf 21. The West. Bison. Elk. Mule Deer. Lodgepole and Bristlecone Pine. The Krummholz line. 14’ers. Skiing. A-Basin. Aspen. Vail. Steamboat. Telluride. Crested Butte. Breckenridge. Copper Mountain.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Waxing Moon
Life Kavannah: Wu Wei Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress
Week Kavannah: Gevurah “While Chesed is associated with flow, Gevurah provides the structure that allows this flow, acting like river banks to channel energy. It is seen as essential for establishing healthy boundaries, creating space for important work, and preserving what is most valuable.”
Tarot: Being a metaPhysician
One brief shining: The Chart House sat me at a four top, the last in a full house, where Great Sol’s presence came through a window wall; Mackenzie from Florida, my server, was cheerful and kind asking me if I was ready to order: Caesar Salad, Filet Mignon rare with Garlic mashed Potatoes, and Key Lime Pie which I quit halfway through the Filet, got a box for the rest, and trudged up hill to Ruby, my hip no longer quieted. Happy Thanksgiving.
Just a moment: Trump calls out the National Guard. Of West Virginia. To D.C. Where a judge rules their presence illegal. Ignored. Meanwhile a former CIA trained counter terrorism Afghani who lives in the state of Washington decides to drive cross country. Adding tragedy to tragedy. A living remnant of our failed war intersects violently with the idiocy of saving our cities by occupying them.
What does our rotund Dear Leader conclude from this? We need to tighten immigration. No, Donald. You need to stop using military force as a tool of repression and suppression. Instead of following the judge’s order red tie guy wants 500 more troops.
You need to, oh hell, I’ll just say it, resign and take Vance and Hegseth and Noemi and Kennedy with you. You can all live happily in MAHA/MAGA world at Mar-a-Lago while the adults get back to the serious business of governance.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Dog journal: Shadow has me looking at animal behavorists. Her behavior baffles me. She continues to hold back from coming inside. No treats, no cajoling, no sweet talk works. She does come inside, on her own time. Where she enjoys her meals, treats, toys, time with me. As if the back and forth of only moments before never happened.
She also, in spite of trying several different methods, will not let me put a leash on her. When I have, rarely, succeeded, she doesn’t seem to mind walking with the leash.
Other than those two behavioral quirks-major ones, I admit-she remains a sweet, loving girl who sleeps curled next to my pillow, enjoys treat play, toys, visitors both canine and human.
Health: The hip steroid injection does not seem to be holding. Disappointing since I had it just last week. The ablation, on the other hand, has relieved my pain on the left side. Wearing the neck brace when I drive helps fight fatigue. Too early to tell on the radiation with seven more sessions to go.
Mad King Donald
Samain and the Radiation Moon (3 sessions)
Thanksgiving gratefuls: Jackie. Ruth. Shadow. Todd and Alise. Rocky Mountain Cancer Care. My son. Seoah. Murdoch. Mary. Mark. Diane. Gabe. The Ancient Brothers. Alan. Joanne. Marilyn and Irv. Tara. Luke. Ginny and Janice. Leo. Eleanor. Annie and Luna. Derek. My Wild Neighbors. The Night Sky. Orion. Polaris.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth
Life Kavannah: Wu Wei Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress
Week Kavannah: Gevurah “While Chesed is associated with flow, Gevurah provides the structure that allows this flow, acting like river banks to channel energy. It is seen as essential for establishing healthy boundaries, creating space for important work, and preserving what is most valuable.”
Tarot: Being a metaPhysician
One brief shining: Ruth, my beloved granddaughter, who drove up here from Longmont and in turn drove me to my radiation session in Littleton, came back and put together the new kitchen stool for cooking, finished her chemistry homework with Luke’s assistance, and, for a final flourish made a sugar cream pie.
Ruth works two jobs. As a Starbucks’ barista and a cleaner in the CU library. She also has a full class load in the pre-med curriculum that includes biology, chemistry, statistics, and sociology. I’m so proud of her.
Gabe won a writing prize in a story contest that included 13,000 entries. 700 winners. Go, Gabe. He also got accepted into the University of Montana’s writing program with a $5,000 scholarship. Both of them had incredibly difficult childhoods, then their Dad died.
I admire their resilience.
Just a moment: Here’s an important article in this month’s Atlantic: The Conservative Movements Intellectual Collapse. Here are two sentences that give you the flavor.
The author, Jonathan Chait, one of my favorite Atlantic writers, shows how first gradually, then in toto, even previously independent think tanks like the Heritage Foundation fell under the Trumpist spell, explaining, for example, the strategic importance of Greenland and the Panama Canal, then, when nothing happened regarding them, stayed silent.
In the vacuum of ideas that is the Trumpian black hole it is not surprising that such entities as the New Apostolic Reformation, Christian Nationalism, and White Supremacists now led by Nick Fuentes who blithely owns his anti-Semitism with no cover at all, have taken the place of thought.
This may, as his term moves closer to its event horizon, leave a real opening for those of us with, well, ideas. There are now, for example, three mayors of major U.S. cities: Seattle, Boston, and New York City who are democratic socialists. Even the faded remnant of the Democratic Party may come up with an idea or two. (he said hopefully.) May it be so.
Riders in the Storm
Samain and the Radiation Moon
Wednesday gratefuls: Ruth. Sugar cream pie. Driving me to radiation today. Luke and Leo. Anne. Waxing crescent Moon. Christmas lights. Jackie and Rhonda. Shadow the mystery. Dog Poems. Billy Collins. Cold night. Darkness growing. Alise and Jenna. Skiing at A-Basin. Jon and my son. Brothers. Gabe, accepted to Montana. Black Bears. Mountain Lions. Wolves. Canada Lynx. Bobcats. Fox.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Linear accelerators
Life Kavannah: Wu Wei Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress
Week Kavannah: Gevurah “While Chesed is associated with flow, Gevurah provides the structure that allows this flow, acting like river banks to channel energy. It is seen as essential for establishing healthy boundaries, creating space for important work, and preserving what is most valuable.”
Tarot: Being a metaPhysician
One brief shining: With Hannukah presents, Christmas presents, a kitchen stool, a ceiling fan, sheets for my bed all delivered, most still in their boxes, my living room looks like a receiving dock, a few opened, those Silence Please mugs for Gabe and Ruth, the Tuskegee Airmen hoodie and baseball cap plus the crystal ball with the planets suspended in it for my son, jigsaw puzzles, a color chart for the wall for Ruth, the kitchen stool, the ceiling fan, the sheets, mechanical puzzles of the most difficult category still taped and sealed shut. Holiseason
Alise and Jenna pull me a bit this way and that, put the plastic mesh on, and get me a warm blanket to cover my bare chest. Then they leave the room, closing the foot and a half thick lead and concrete door, and I am alone, offering my cancer as a sacrifice to the gods of radiation with my hands gripping metal rods behind me, keeping my arms out of the way.
A flashing red light signals danger, stay out, yet I remain. The Clinac iX whirs and buzzes, its looming bulkiness hidden from me, rotating, bringing the beam to bear on just. the. right. spot.
And. Over. Alise of the cold hands helps me get up while Jenna strips off the sheet, wipes down the hand rests and the neck rest, readying the sliding bed for another sacrifice already in waiting.
From reading yesterday I learned that a Clinac costs $1.5 million dollars and requires between three and five hundred thousand dollars in maintenance per year. The clinic or hospital also builds a concrete room with thick walls and doors to house it.
Just a moment: Comey and James cases dismissed. Presidential fatigue an issue. Red tie guy wants a bigger ballroom. Nobody seems to know whose page they’re reading from in Ukraine peace negotiations. Whatever happened to Gaza?
This clown car administration honks its horns, spins in circles, confuses themselves while the rest of us gasp open mouthed at matters never associated with the Presidency. Like his press secretary assuring us that the President does NOT want to execute members of Congress. Relieved to hear it. Like wanting to build a yet bigger gilded ballroom, one out of proportion with the White House.
Riders in the storm. Into his world we’re thrown.