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  • A Family and Friends Friday

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

    Shabbat gratefuls: Mary. A regular visitor. Spice Fusion. Tandoori Chicken and Shrimp. Lyft. Airplanes. Trains. Transportation. Shadow, the shy. The gnawer of beds. Licker of heads. Birds crying in the dawn. That Raven I saw hopping up and down. Maxwell Creek running full.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Mary, a permanent resident of Australia

    Week Kavannah: Enthusiasm. Zerizut.

    One brief shining: Mary opened the bag of take-out from Spice Fusion, the new Indian restaurant nearby, started pulling out boxes and plastic containers, and a large piece of garlic naan wrapped in enough tin foil to decorate a Christmas tree, a feast of good food with my sister. Rare.

     

    Had breakfast with Alan and Joanne. Dandelion. Always a stimulating conversation with those two. Joanne and I have an organ recital, laughing and wincing as us old folks do. Knowing the pain in the other and knowing also that the pain, while unwelcome, does not overcome life, nor the living of it. A part of the landscape for many of us over seventy and for most over eighty.

    We have stories. Told over eggs and breakfast tacos, coffee, and a blueberry scone. Of waitressing near Shiprock, Arizona. Of cutting Munsingwear underwear cutouts into smaller pieces to make ragbond paper. Or firing up the popcorn aroma machine at KMart.

    You know, friends sharing more of their story, becoming in that way part of each other’s story. Knowing each other by the breadcrumbs we drop to help others find their way in the thick forest of our memories.

    Then over to Rich’s office to deliver gifts from Ingebretsen’s, the Scandinavian gift shop in Minneapolis. A little lefse, some chocolate, some Lingonberry jam, Hackberry jam, and strings of small colorful birds. Thank you to them for finally seeing the money into my 529 account for Ruth.

    Where btw, I saw Kippur, the dog Rich and his law partner share. The last time I saw Kippur, he was a puppy who jumped up on the couch and snuggled with me like I was his long last Dad. He’s all grown up, but still that same sweet boy. What a delight to see him.

     

    Mary came. By plane, then train, then Lyft. Traveling light. So good to see her.

    We shared the second floor of 419 N. Canal for several years. Alexandria, Indiana. A small town where everybody knew your name. Much diminished from its heyday in the late 50’s and 60’s, it remains of course the reservoir of our childhoods. I’ve not been there since well before Covid.

    She and Guru will fly to Korea for my son’s ceremonial promotion to commander. Ruth will already be there, having made her first international flight tomorrow morning. Missing will be me. Hobbled still by this damn back.

    I so want to be there. To say, That’s my boy! To hug his uniformed, medaled, and beribboned person. I know he knows I would be there if I could.

    He and Seoah sent me a picture of Murdoch with his second place Dog show trophy. All three of them looked excited.


    Aging Dogs Family Fourth Phase Friends

  • Don’t think she’s trying to kill me

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

    Thursday gratefuls: Amy. Natalie. Shadow. Lifeguard Alert. Cool night. Shadow inside. Good sleeping. Great Sol. Lifted above Shadow Mountain by Mother Earth. Nathan Stewart. Greenhouse construction starts next week. Jackie and Ronda. Radical Roots of Religion Class. New Human Consciousness Class. Adam and Eve, their story expanded and changed. Paul and Sarah. Tom’s bookmarks. How did he know?

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Friends, friendship

    One brief shining: A phone call from the Golden Police Department at 6:20 am this morning got my attention, but I thought I knew its source; sure enough, “We got a call from Lifeguard Alert.”; yes, indeed, I was right as I held in my hand at that moment the mangled fob for my Lifealert necklace and button. Who knows what Lifealert dangles in the mouth of a puppy? I do.

     

    Dog journal: I don’t think she’s trying to kill me. Pretty sure. But I did knock my Lifealert fob off the nightstand while reaching for my hearing aid. Went back to sleep, got up only to find the fob gone. Looked under the bed. Yep. There it was. Had to get down on my stomach to reach in far enough. Upon pulling it out I saw the toothmarks, the plastic peeling away from the fob’s back. Shadow doesn’t know this is my lifeline does she? No.

    Then a phone call my phone thought was spam followed by that call from the Golden Police Department. No, I had to say. I’m ok. My puppy chewed up my alarm button. What a nice way to greet the day. Shadow.

    Amy came yesterday and we made some good progress with the leash. If Natalie can’t board Shadow, I’ll continue with Amy. Shadow’s too woven into my life. Her story and mine will be told together. Even the frustration and problems are good for this old man. Keeps me engaged with the world as it is and rewards me with furry hugs and head kisses.

     

    Jackie and Ronda. Went into Aspen Park. Get my ears lifted. I go every three weeks. Partly to look good. More to see Jackie and Ronda who like to kid me and have fun. I appreciate them as friends, as a pair of women with an independent and edgy view of life and love.

    Jackie loved Kate. When I get too edgy back to her, she reminds me: This is what Kate would do. And holds up both hands with their middle fingers extended. Yes, indeed. That’s exactly what Kate would do. And Kate’s independent spirit fills the room for a minute. Even from those last few visits to Jackie’s in her wheelchair.

    Life in a place where people know my name.

     

    Just a moment: On a positive weather note. Seems we’ll have the monsoons in July and August. That means the high fire season this year should only be the month of June, as it used to be before climate change screwed everything up.


    Dogs Friends Weather +Climate

  • A Good Friend

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

    Tuesday gratefuls: Detente with Shadow. Ruth with all A’s to finish her freshman year. Sweet Sue, my PCP. Abby, med tech and phlebotomist. Dr. Buphati’s quick intelligence. Rich, a good friend. A second MRI, hips this time. And, for good measure, a PET scan. As many images as a celeb out for a party evening.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rich

    Week Kavannah: Enthusiasm. Zerizut.

    One brief shining: On the way back from a Mountain hike, he mentioned Bees, explained his hives-on-a-wire (Bear protection), invited me over right away to see his setup; Rich and I have developed a friendship, one rooted not only in Bees, but in the work of mussar, his work as my lawyer, his kindness after Kate died, his presence at my oncology appointment, a mensch.

     

    Another one of those days. A medical day. With Sue in the morning and Dr. Buphati in the afternoon. Sue has to see me every 3 months because she’s managing my tramadol prescription. A regulated substance. She’s a delight. A caring person and a good doc. She has an FNP-BC which is a souped up nurse practitioner certification.

    Nothing new this visit. But still reassuring to see her.

    After my time with her, I drove over to Rich’s office and we went to lunch at the Nepalese/Himalayan place in Bergen Park, the downtown Edina of Evergreen.

    We ran into his 86 year old mom who had come shopping there. She had her helper, Linda, and her dog, Sparky, with her. Obviously bright and with it, she’s become frail, and Rich coaxed her to come up two steps. He’s a kind man.

    Rich drove us into Englewood for my visit with Dr. Buphati and came in with me. My blood work showed stability in my cancer. Always good news. Concerning though was my right hip which threatens to buckle under me at times.

    “We’ll need an MRI of that hip to see if it’s arthritis or cancer. I’m also scheduling another PET scan.”

    Even with an open-sided MRI I now know I’ll need medication. Claustrophobia. “I’ll prescribe an ativan.”

    Rich volunteered to drive me to the MRI. After a procedure with sedation, state law requires a driver. I’m learning to accept help; Rich and Alan and Tara have made it easy.

    I’m feeling settled with the cancer. It continues, as it will. My medical team and I push back at it and it slows down. Matters will progress at whatever pace they do.

    The back pain much less so. It continues and offers now a stabbing pain in my left hip followed by a thrill of pain that descends from the hip, along my left thigh, past my knee and down to my foot. While sitting down. Sitting down used to have no pain.

    Physical therapy, round two, starts today for my back. As Rich suggested yesterday, I need to develop enthusiasm for working out. Again. A substantial practice for this month. And, a necessary one.

    I know. An organ recital with too many notes. Still…

     


    Fourth Phase Friends Health Judaism

  • Precursor Chemicals for a World War

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

    Shabbat gratefuls: A day of teshuvah. Returning to the land of my soul. To the me as I was thrown into the post-war world. Pain. Oh. My. Leo XIV. Rerum Natura of Pope Leo XIII. A world that cries out for justice. Love, compassion, and justice = leadership. Eh, Paul? Shadow. A good night’s sleep.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Standing upright in the world

    Week Kavannah: Zerizut. Enthusiasm.

    One brief shining: Walking in to the bathroom, the shiny new restaurant, a Cheese Cake Factory, had no customers, only anxious waiters, greeters, cooks, runners dressed in black like faux monastics waiting to go into service, anticipation rolling through them like slow waves of prayer.

     

    Alan got a free invite to the soft opening of a new Cheescake Factory at Colorado Mills. Free food. A chance to enter a birthing, another mostly identical sibling for other Cheesecake Factories came out of its construction womb into the full light of a new business day.

    First, the manager of the Colorado Mills, Kirma, came to our table and greeted Alan. She’s in Evergreen Rotary with him. A big get for her, this well-known anchor level restaurant.

    Over the course of our meal, the service manager who had recently hired 305 people to work in the new restaurant, stopped by. Alan chatted her up. After she left, he said, “This is where I live. Corporate training.” He managed all the sales training for Centurylink before he retired.

    Earlier in the morning I had breakfast with Marilyn and Irv at Primo’s, the small cafe near their home in King’s Valley. Marilyn and Salam left this morning for Jacksonville, Florida to visit Marilyn and Irv’s son. From Jacksonville they fly on to Cozumel for another Grandmother-Granddaughter trip.

    By the time I got home. Whew.

     

    Just a moment: I listen like a fanboy to Hardfork, the NYT podcast on high tech, mostly AI. This latest entry casts a very interesting light on the personas of AI’s. Hosts Kevin Roose and Casey Newton point to a trend in AI responses that are overly congratulatory, That’s a great business plan!, or biased toward positive responses, Your attitude toward vaccines makes you special!

    They associate this turn toward the obsequious with the likes of social media.  Whatever keeps the user in front of the screen longest. Hallucinations and objectivity be damned. This level of customer pleasing could wreck a key feature of AI: its reputation for honesty. Yes, it has hallucinations, but they are not intentional. This is.

     

    Trump Tarrific has begun attempts to unravel the mess he’s made of the world economy. Some sorta deal with Britain. Talks of talks with China. Let’s make a deal!

    America First, of course, has the unintended consequence of sullying the reputation of our once hegemonic nation. Or, perhaps I’m wrong, perhaps that lowering of the flag is exactly the point. Disentangle us from world shaping responsibilities. A casual attitude toward the plight of others, a laser focus on the perceived solutions to problems at home. This is blood and soil nationalism, the precursor chemicals for world wars.


    AI Denver Friends GeekWorld Politics US History World History

  • Freedom. Often painful. Always difficult.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

    Sunday gratefuls: Joe. Bill. Rob. Seth. Matt. Jim. Allan. Jamie. CBE men’s group. The Cow Elks and Bull dining while we talked. Berrigan Mountain and Elk Meadow behind us. Sanctuary outdoor porch. The wonderful Ponderosa with its twisted limbs. A breeze. My son. Donyce. Rich. Shadow, greeter of the dark Morning.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Men, talking

    Week Kavannah:  Enthusiasm. Zerizut.

    One brief shining: As Mother Earth kept turning toward the east, Berrigan Mountain slid across the horizon and Great Sol seemed to move lower in the Sky, the Air around us grew chilly while we talked on of 8 year old sons, narcissistic ex-husbands, mothers who shamed us, the isolation of Covid, getting caught driving while drinking, hoping that somehow our story would intersect with another’s lev, allow us to be seen and heard.

     

    A young Bull Elk with only two points had a harem of ten Cows, unlike Marlon Brando in Waterfront, he was already a contender. His virility displayed itself as I turned past the Life Care Center of Evergreen and drove up the asphalt road leading to the synagogue. Men’s group.

    We’ve begun to open ourselves, still easy to move into the head, Jewish men after all,  acculturated to hide vulnerability, paper over feelings with work and vain glory. American men.

    Some lonely. Some afraid. Some eager. All glad for the presence of other men, a rarity for most. Like Shadow trust will not come without time, without bravery, without tears and laughter. Well begun.

     

    Torah study in the morning. Ten tests of the freed Hebrew slaves as they move through the desert wastes of the Sinai. Taking the slaves out of Egypt. Yes. Taking Egypt out of the freed Hebrews. Hard. Liberation begins in the lev. Backsliding, fear, regression. Part of the package.

    Why bring us all the way out here? So far from the familiar life. This cannot be what freedom is. Or, if this is freedom, I prefer the certainty of servitude. Let me go back. I’m scared. What if I’m not strong enough, good enough. Enough.

    To move away from oppression to liberation requires sacred awareness, awareness of the power and resilience beneath the beaten down heart, the overworked, over stressed body. Realizing, yes, that fear of liberation, of gaining personal freedom and responsibility can cripple us, too. As much, early on maybe more, than the dull routines of our personal Egypt.

    Not different from the confinement of maleness in America.

     

    Just a moment: Men showing off their brute strength by deporting the weak, the outcast, the poor yearning to be free. Mocking the great Lady of New York Harbor, inverting the American promise, slashing the preamble of the Constitution into shredded parchment. If it’s aesthetic or academic or kind. No. If it’s crude, cheap, destructive, dogmatic, malicious. Yes.

    Can you hear the slaves wandering in the desert where capitalist shrouds constrain all the loving-kindness, all the justice, all the mercy, all the rational and life-saving thinking? If it’s not good for the bottom line, what good is it? The Egypt of an extractive, idolatrous economy. Killing all of us while making some very comfortable in the funeral procession.

    No. He will not be the Pope. But. He’s already Pharaoh.


    Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Judaism Men Politics Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Torah

  • On the Way to Breakfast

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

    Shabbat gratefuls: Talmud Torah. Shadow. So early. Morning, early early Morning. Back and leg pain. Exquisite. Teeth gritting. PSA. OK. Medical care moving closer. Subway. Cookunity. Dandelion. Alan. Driving down the hill to Evergreen. Green green Grass. Trees waking from their Winter slumber. The Bears are out. A sure sign of a Mountain Spring. Snow overnight yesterday. Melted and gone.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Knee replacement

    Week Kavannah: Enthusiasm. Zeal. Zerizut

    One brief shining: Opening Sefaria means stepping into the long, disputative history of Jewish thought where a thousand flowers of interpretation and commentary and imaginative flourishes thrive, feeding off each other, sparking new insights, all in the service of living today.

     

    Out with a right turn toward Evergreen. Ruby’s snowshoes hissing a bit on dry pavement even though 2 inches of Snow lay in my backyard and the temperature hovered in the mid-twenties. Downshifting, brake preserving. These curves as well known as my own body’s, when to brake, when to accelerate learned over ten years. Concentration focused on the roadside for Mule Deer, Elk. Respect for the Wild Neighbors.

    Great Sol had driven off the Snow on south facing Lodgepoles, but on the right, the north side of Black Mountain Drive, Winter Trees stood with white, drooping branches. Higher up on Black Mountain its now distinctive ski runs held on to the Snow even though facing south.

    Maxwell Creek ran free of Ice, its rushing waters from earlier Snow melt now calm. Full. Eager. When I passed the Upper Maxwell Creek trailhead, I began talking to Kate. Telling her about Ruth’s decision to go to medical school. About Gabe waking up. Shadow waking me up. How much I missed her knowledge and wisdom, her love. About my back pain and how I now understand from the inside her own struggles with it.

    Passing Kate’s Valley and Kate’s Creek, my attention turned to the clock. Oh. I was a half hour early. Hmm. Get a car wash? Why not.

    Lake Evergreen and its views of Bear Mountain, Great Sol glinting off light Wind raised ripples, blue as the Colorado Sky. The gray Rock of the roadside a somber contrast. No Elk grazing this morning.

    The car wash’s robotic voice said: the car wash is closed. Oh. Decided to take a look at Elk Run assisted living. I need to look at a couple of these places in case circumstances change. Still haven’t done it.

    This place sits walking distance (for most people) from CBE. After passing the Life Center of Evergreen, Bergen Bark Inn, Mt. Evan’s Hospice,  and the section 8 housing where Anne lives, I realized this was a social service neighborhood.

    Past it was the Tanoa Way residential area with dead ends and no outlets and mansions with the Mountain equivalent of Widow’s Watches, high windows facing a view of nearby Mountains.

    After I had visited spots I’d wanted to see, but had never driven to, I turned toward the Dandelion and a breakfast with my friend Alan.

     


    Friends Jefferson County Mountains Weather +Climate Wild Neighbors

  • A Busy Thursday

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

    Friday gratefuls: Alan. Snow. Ruby’s all season shoes. On Monday. Plus many fluids. Back pain. PSA blood draw. Cancer. And other fancy stuff. Shadow and the marrow bones. Tom’s portrait of Shadow. Lake Superior. The Boreal Forest. The Arrowhead. Grand Marais. Thunder Bay. Up North. Parashat Tazria-Metzora

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Being a student

    Week Kavannah: Persistence. Grit. Netzach.

    One brief shining: The Mountains rise up and slope down into Valleys, our roads here in the Rockies thin slices of asphalt or gravel following the rising up and the sloping down, the changes in direction commanded by rocky prominences and Snow melt filled Streams carrying the Mountains themselves downstream ever so slowly, slowly.

     

    Yesterday. Seems so far away. So far away. Diane reminded me to ask for help. To set up ways to get to appointments-not only when I’m being sedated. I know this transition has to occur. Yet I’ve gone so long now on my own. I need, yes need, to let others do for me what I would do for them.

    Irv and Paul and I discussed the nature of evil, whether it exists at all or is just a human construct.

    At the Kabbalah Experience we continued our exploration of the story of Adam and Eve. This time wondering about our ability to live outside the givenness of our lives, to see what we cannot know exists.

    Dave Sanders offered the Truman Show as an example. A simulacrum. Where is the edge of our learned world? Do we need a stage light to crash through the set for a big reveal?

    His point? The Garden of Eden as Seahaven, the village in Truman’s life. A small paradise filled with every needful thing. The stage light, the Snake and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bad. The expulsion as Truman’s daring escape on the sail boat.

    Later Rabbi Jamie and our Thursday afternoon mussar group discussing the middah of bushah, most often translated as shame. Not in Jamie’s translation of the Orchot Tzaddikim. He uses self-consciousness or conscientiousness.

    Bushah arises when we realize we have been less than who we see ourselves to be. Shame comes when we see ourselves not as less than we see ourselves to be, but when we see ourselves as less than intrinsically. Shame, in other words, is an extreme, even perverted instance of bushah. Guilt, embarrassment, chagrin may represent the mid-point of this continuum from shyness to shame, the healthy feelings that encourage us to investigate our behaviors, then act to change them.

    After all that I drove over to Evergreen Medical for a blood draw, another PSA. My every three month peek into the status of my cancer. Waiting for the hormone resistant shoe to drop. Wish I could allay that feeling, expunge it. Just wait and see.

    But I know that’s the next phase of this journey, that it marks a more treacherous road ahead. A part of me wishes we’d just get on with it. Go down the chemotherapy path or other treatments for hormone resistant Stage 4 prostate cancer.

    I don’t want that, not really. I want to stay where I am as long as I can. Androgen deprivation therapy, my current protocol, always fails. Not whether, but when. The waiting though carries its own cost. Will this blood draw be the one?

    Living with this uncertainty and the insidious effects of back pain can create moments of intense darkness.


    Fourth Phase Friends Health Judaism Kabbalah Mussar

  • Friends.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring and the Wu Wei Moon II

    Sunday gratefuls: Shadow, the trench maker. Tom’s visit. Paul’s trip to Salt Lake City. Kathleen and Jason. My son. Murdoch. Seoah in Gwangju. Zoom. Technology. Alan. First Watch. Dramaturgy. Steroids. Back Pain. Veronica. Her brother. Shiva minyan. Kaddish.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Deep and old Friends

    Week Kavannah: Persistence and strength. Netzach

    One brief shining: Sitting shiva for Kate, her yahrzeit on the Hebrew calendar tomorrow, memories of her as the ninja weeder, as the physician to children, as my longtime traveling companion, friend, and lover, her dexterity, her quilts, her presence that remains with those she loved.

     

    My good friend Tom visited, again. He’s a faithful and honest wanderer on this ancientrail of life. We talk, mostly. About matters of the heart. He’s come often enough that folks at mussar, including Rabbi Jamie, greet him by name. Marilyn and Irv have eaten breakfast with him more than once.

    He brought gifts for Shadow. Spoke gently to her, waiting out her cautious, sniffing approach. A man for animals. Obvious.

    We men can be different. Tom and Paul and Mark and Bill and I have taught each other how. The Ancients. Men together, caring for each other. Walking each other home.

     

    Drove down to Wheatridge yesterday morning. Time with Alan. First Watch. A chain breakfast joint with a wonderful menu and lots of seating.

    Challenged myself, testing the legs and back on a thirty minute drive. Not a good experience. Driving has become difficult, even over relatively short distances. This lumbar spine thing is, as we used to say, a real pain.

     

    Planned to go to Veronica’s shiva minyan for her brother who died last month. Shadow, however, would not come in. I can’t leave her outside at night-the shiva service started at 7:30. She didn’t come in until 7:45. 30 minutes to the synagogue. Back home in the dark.

    Feel guilty I couldn’t make it since Veronica and I became Jews on the same day and became a son and daughter of the covenant on the same day. We’re bonded.

    Enough, with the continuing back pain, to press me down a bit, tease the dark moods, open the cavern door just a tetch. You know how that goes. Can’t slam it shut or else more darkness will spill out later. Don’t want to leave it open since sadness and guilt suppress joy.

    Acknowledge the guilt. Sad I couldn’t go. Also, glad. Don’t like to go out in the evening, especially at night. Feeling glad made the guilt a bit worse. Could I have gone anyway? Nope. Too late.

    The good in it. Having friends up here that matter enough to feel guilty about not showing up. The cavern’s bronze doors beginning to swing shut.

    As I embrace the man I am, neither the man I want to be nor a man I don’t want to be, they clang shut.

     

    Just a moment: Those famous first hundred days. Turns out, if you’re incompetent and you show it, clap your hands. If you’re petty, mean, and cruel and you show it, clap your hands. If you’ve damaged the economy and you meant it, clap your hands.

    Oh, wait. They’re not clapping, are they?

     


    Dogs Fourth Phase Friends Politics

  • Living. Not dying.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Shadow. Her kindness. Amy. Her understanding. Cookunity. Colorado Coop and Garden. The Greenhouse. Gardening again. Korea. Malaysia. Australasia. Wisconsin. Saudi Arabia. The Bay. First Light. 10,000 Lakes. The Rocky Mountain Front Range. Where my people live.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Greenhouse

    Week Kavannah: Joy. Simcha.

    One brief shining: Nathan and I wandered in my back yard, his app that shows Great Sol’s illumination searching for a good spot to plant my greenhouse, until we neared a spot close to the shed, that was it with decent morning Sun and an hours worth of afternoon Sun more than anywhere else.

     

     

    That picture is not quite what I’m getting. Mine will have an outdoor raised bed on either side and shutters that move themselves as the greenhouse heats up and cools down. It will also have an electric heater for Winter and a drip irrigation system inside and out.

    This guy Nathan, a Conifer native, started his business Colorado Coop and Garden to give folks like me an opportunity to grow things up here. Working a garden at ground level is long past for me. But Nathan can build the raised beds at a height where my back is not an issue.

    Guess I’m regressing here in some ways. A Dog. A small Garden. Andover in miniature. The greenhouse will have a sign: Artemis Gardens. Artemis Honey was Kate and mine’s name for our bee operation.

     

    I’m loving my classes at Kabbalah Experience. Reaching deep into the purpose of religion and Judaism in particular. Reimagining the story of Adam and Eve. My life, my Jewish life and my Shadow Mountain life, have begun to resonate. Learning and living an adventure in fourth phase purpose.

    No matter what the near term future holds for my health I will not succumb to despair or bleakness. As I’ve often said, I want to live until I die. This life, I’m coming to realize, is me doing just that.

    If I were a bit more spry, I’d add a chicken coop and a couple of bee hives, but both require more flexibility than I can muster.

    I’m at my best when I’m active outside with Mother Earth and inside with a Dog, books, and new learning. All that leavened with the sort of intimate relationships I’ve developed both here and in Minnesota and with my far flung family.

    That’s living in the face of autocracy and cruelty. I will not attenuate my life. Neither for the dark winds blowing through our country and world, nor for that dark friend of us all, death.

     

    Just a moment: Did you read Thomas Friedman’s article: I’ve Never Been More Afraid for My Countries Future? His words, served up with a healthy dish of Scandinavian influenced St. Louis Park Judaism, ring more than true to me. They have the voice of prophecy.

    We are in trouble. No doubt. Trouble from which extrication will require decades, I imagine. If not longer. Yet. I plan to grow heirloom vegetables year round on Shadow Mountain. To have mah Dog Shadow with me in the Greenhouse.

    I also plan to write and think about the sacred, the one, the wholeness of which we are part and in which we live, die, love. I will not cheapen my life with bitterness, rather I will eat salads, read, play with Shadow and dine with friends, talk to my friends and family near and far.


    Dogs Family Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Garden Great Wheel Health Judaism Mountains Our Land and Home Paganism Plants Politics Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Shadow Mountain The West US History Weather +Climate Writing

  • Veronica. Shadow. Spine Treatments. Oh, my.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: Lao Xi. Dao De Jing. Wu wei. Alchemy. The Sage. Pu, pure simplicity. Ziran. Authenticity. Just so-ness. Lao Tse’s journey to the West. On an Ox. Stopped at the Hangu Pass to write his wisdom. The Tao. The Way. Or, the Ancientrail of Chi. Other wisdom ways. That Iroquois medicine man. The Sun dance. Christianity. Especially Eastern Orthodoxy. Mystics of all cultures.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Lifting the veil and seeing the ordinary as sacred reality

    Week Kavannah: Joy. Simcha.

    One brief shining: We sat there, the two converts who shared a mikveh day, who received new names on the same day, who did Bat Mitzvah and Bar Mitzvah at the same Shavuot service, both a bit cold as a Mountain Evening’s chill settled on Murphy’s, an eatery beside Bear Creek in Evergreen, and caught up about her impending divorce, her brother’s death, her father’s injury, my back and cancer and Shadow my new puppy, upon leaving I said Jews together, she said it back, and we hugged, then just before I got to my car she turned, came to me, and we hugged again. Veronica. Harmonica. Hanukkah.

     

    Dog journal: Shadow’s back to training with me now. Except for the leash. She runs when she sees it. Gotta get her leash trained. I want to take her with me places. To the vet. To a groomer. As the weather warms, she’s blowing her coat. To mussar to meet my friends, see the synagogue. Over to the Happy Camper. On grocery pickups. Wandering around. Maybe a hike if the injections work.

    Shadow loves her toys. I bought her a miniature tire and she hasn’t played with anything else for a couple of days. Her playfulness makes me smile.

     

    What injections you might ask. On April 22nd at 11:00 am, I’ll have needles inserted into four foramens on my lumbar spine. Steroids. Could take two weeks to start working. Typically lasts less than three months if it works at all. Partial relief at best since it will not treat the arthropathy, arthritic damage. A more modest first step. Plus, only ten minutes or so, requiring no anesthesia.

    After this there are two other possible procedures: radio frequency ablation of the nerves, and peripheral nerve stimulation. Both are more involved, yet offer the potential for longer term relief. One set of needles at a time.

     

    Just a moment: Veronica worked on the GOES satellites, vehicles in her parlance, and now manages Lockheed’s planning and development for the next generation weather satellites. As Trump defunds NOAA, he wants to privatize weather data, leave it to a corporate entity yet unborn. If he succeeds, Veronica may not have work. Who do you know directly affected by the blob that ate our government?

    Judge scolds the Justice Department for ignoring her rulings? Scolds. Oh, we are well and truly screwed.

    Anticipatory obedience. Check. Congress at heel. Check. Judiciary sidelined. Check. Government as we have known it gutted. Check. Our economy in a tailspin. Check.

    Let me know when it’s over.

     

     


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