Category Archives: Friends

Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Torah

Livin’ in a small town

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Samain and the Yule Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Cold nights. Tramadol and Celebrex. Jackie. Her friends. Studying Torah with Rabbi Jamie. Sisyphus. Zeus. Hades. Holy Wells. The Elk Bull in the Rain. Seeing the sacred where you are. Beth-el. Cairns. Wrestling with the angel. Israel. Jacob.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Celebrating Luke’s birthday

Kavannah: Joy (simcha) and Enthusiasm (zerizutz)

One brief shining: Walked into Aspen Roots yesterday, Jackie had another customer’s hair folded into aluminum foil squares-hair coloring-and a man with a bald head, dressed casually in jeans and new shoes, a blue shirt not tucked in, everything neat, sat in Ronda’s chair facing his wife as Jackie worked her hair stylist magic.

 

Jackie called me on Wednesday and said she needed to reschedule. A funeral. The two in her shop yesterday had also attended the funeral. Of all of us, Jean said, I didn’t think he’d be the first to go. Jackie and Dave nodded. What followed was the usual funeral chatter. Who was the blonde with him? Oh. Him? He has issues, said Dave, I love him but he has issues. Did you know his brother Jim? No. I knew of Jim, but never met him.

One task of grieving and funerals is reordering the social structure of a group. Acknowledging the loss of a member of the group, remembering their story. Seeing people, perhaps even family members who live at a distance, either geographically or relationally. Recalling how things were. And in the process redefining how things will be now without the deceased.

When it was my turn in the chair, Jackie schedules me sandwiched between the  application of coloring and its slow baking in time, I had a chance to chat with Dave. He had retired two weeks ago from a fire department in Highland Hills. I asked him how it was going. Oh, he said, not well. When I offered that he couldn’t expect to get retirement in two weeks, his wife, now sitting in a chair festooned with aluminum foil, said, I did! We all laughed.

When Jackie began her work on my beard and hair, I asked about the guy who died. He just had to clean the gutters, she sighed. Fell off the ladder and landed on his head. I felt so sad. What a way to go. She leaned into me and said, Don’t climb on ladders. I assured her I wouldn’t. They scare me now. I even gave away my chain saw.

As I left Jackie gave me a big hug and Dave jumped up from his chair, shook my hand, “Good to meet you, Charlie.” Enthusiasm and Joy at Aspen Roots. Life in a small community. I love it.

 

Just a moment: Earlier that morning I signed onto the Bagel Table, which had to be online because Rabbi Jamie didn’t feel well. There were 12 of us, 13 including Jamie. We had a spirited and deep conversation about struggle, about family-the parsha was about Jacob’s ladder and his long negotiations with his father-in-law Laban, the nature of God or divinity. I loved it. It was fun and profound. Luke and Ginny were on.

 

Friends, Health

Some (like me) might call it murder

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Samain and the Yule Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Rich Levine. Irv and Paul. Zoom. Dandelion. Ruth. Gabe. My Lodgepole Companion. Tom’s note. Paul’s 78th. Life. This December 5th, 2024 life. Dilating Aorta. Living high. Happy Camper. Evergreen. Beth Evergreen. Mussar. Rabbi Jamie.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Kippur

Kavannah: Perseverance and love (ahavah)

One brief shining: Old friends can remind us of who we are when we forget-as we all do from time to time-as two friends recently did for me; “…your greatest teaching is your deeply personal sense of wonder and curiosity.”; and, when asking to go to my next oncology appointment with me: “You don’t have to go alone.” Oh.

 

If you were given the job of decorating the sitting room for Cardiology Now, where I went for my echocardiogram on Monday, would you choose this? Somebody did. It’s the only art there, a heart made by skeletal fingers. I mean, come on guys. A little respect.

Got news back from my echo already. Aortic artery dilation has apparently increased. My doc has made an appointment for me at a cardiac/thoracic surgeon to consult. Guess this is a test of my personal GPS after writing about the feeling of enough only yesterday. Who needs all this?

A worry? I don’t want to go into the hospital, have surgery at 77, possibly need rehab. Kate’s journey informs my own in this case. Each time she went into the hospital she took a step or two further down the stairs leading to death. Don’t want to start that journey.

Unless, of course, I have to. The question is how much dilation is actually dangerous? Am I at that point? Or, is watching and waiting the best strategy. TBD. This I know is true. Aortic dissection=bad. A situation as Kate used to say: “incompatible with life.”

If it needs doing, I suppose I’ll do it. Stay tuned.

 

Breakfast this morning with Rich. A good friend. A sweet man with a big heart. Mostly catching up, but I did hand off to him transferring Ruth and Gabe’s 529 money. And I asked him about another pot of money that could be available for them. Business.

We also discussed, as you might expect, the hard problem of materialism v. idealism. Rich is a philosophophile. As am I. Not too many folks you can go down that particular rabbit hole with.

A privilege and an honor to know him and count him as a friend.

 

Just a moment: The murder of the United Health Care executive. Caveat: I say no to murder no matter the instigation.

However the two bullet casings with deny and delay reminded me of a long ago lesson in seminary about forms of violence. A decision to deny and delay treatment can be the bureaucratic equivalent of murder. Please note: I’m not saying it’s like murder; I’m saying it’s exactly murder. That is, if an insurer denies or delays treatment for a member of its plan and that denial or delay results in their death, that’s murder.

Perhaps beginning to investigate and prosecute insurance malpractice with criminal charges as the goal might push matters in a, shall we say, healthy direction?

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism, Mussar, Politics

Tears and Laughter

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Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

Tuesday gratefuls: Susan. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Her house. Beautiful. Jamie. Rich. Elephant Company. Tara. Marilyn. Ron. MVP. Going to bed late. Dreams of travel. lodging. As some pundit observed, long tie guy has flooded the zone with too many bad picks all at once. Orion, my buddy. The Mountain Night Sky.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Habeas Corpus for Elephants

Kavannah: Perseverance

One brief shining: We sat in Eames chairs around a large Camelot table, a spotlight outside revealing a beautiful outcropping of Rock, 15 foot glass windows, the east facing wall, showing the glittering lights of Denver, down the hill and far away, while we talked about anavah and sinah: love and hate, trying to find purchase in our lives for growing both as soul traits, character traits.

 

Every once in a while, like last night at Susan Marcus’s architect designed home, I feel blessed, blissed to sit with people smarter than me as we try to figure out how to lead our lives in a soul-full manner. How we can we express the essence of ourselves as sacred beings, using the medieval practice of mussar as a guide.

In those conversations we move from our lives into learning, from learning back into our lives. We struggle with the usual things: parents, children, marriage, existential angst while trying to place them within the context of developing our ability to practice humility, enthusiasm, love, hate (or repulsion), our ability to let the light of our own divinity shine unobstructed. Not easy work, but done with love and compassion. Confidentiality. Honesty.

A lot of laughter, occasional tears. Befuddlement is common. And, admitted. Gotta say I love being a Jew and part of Congregation Beth Evergreen.

Also, food. Last night butternut squash soup, chicken wings, cowboy caviar, a fancy salad, hummus, carrots, and for those who drink, a red wine labeled, 7 Deadly Sins.

 

Just a moment: Harder than I thought it would be. Getting back into working out. Deciding this time to privilege weight training, resistance work over cardio. My heart rate has remained excellent, but my muscles have given way even more to that old devil, sarcopenia. Where once I opened jars and bags with practiced ease, I now often have to resort to tricks and accessories. Not acceptable. And remediable.

Plan to make sure my resistance routine is solid, making gains. Then, I’ll add back in the cardio on my treadmill. Self-care, it’s not just a river in Egypt. Oh, wait…

 

In spite of myself l find a habit gained during 45’s reign of error returning. Opening the New York Times to see what he’s done now. Who’s he appointed? Why? Of course the why question has no answer. Whim. Some strange political calculus. An indecipherable conclusion based on misinformation.

When the revolutionaries take over the government, they usually turn out to be same as the old boss. Since this is a revolution based at root on greed and fear, it may stretch things farther than any of us hope, certainly more than we want, but the U.S.A. has and will recover. That is my Seed-Keeper faith and one I will help make happen.

 

Art and Culture, Asia, Family, Fourth Phase, Friends, Great Wheel, Judaism, Korea, Mountains, Shadow Mountain

Herme’s Journey

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Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

Sunday gratefuls: Tom’s safe trip. My son, Seoah, and Murdoch coming January. Then, a trip to Korea in May. Followed by the Jang family visit here in late summer. Snow. Whippets. Irish Wolfhounds. German Wirehairs. Akitas. Breeds I love. Asia. Korea. Malaysia. Australia. Thailand. Cambodia. Saudi Arabia.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Leftist politics

Kavannah: Perserverance

One brief shining: A Mountain retreat, a home on granite, gneiss, and schist, raised above sea level by 8,800 feet, overlooking Black Mountain with its ski runs, Lodgepoles and Aspen colonies, in the Arapaho National Forest and drained by Maxwell Creek to the north and North Turkey Creek to the south, home to my day-to-day life in these middle years of the 2020’s.

 

On a lighter note today. Current TV favorites: Tracker, Sealteam, Fire Country. Reading anew Nexus by Harari. Also, Emily Wilson’s translation of the Iliad. Best movie I watched recently: hmm. None come to mind. Oh, Late Night with the Devil. Weird. I can no longer understand dialogue in movie theaters so I have to watch what’s available on streaming services with closed captions. Favorite meal last week, filet mignon with Tom at Evoke 1923 last Friday.

Herme’s Journey. Still on this path. I’ve finished another reading of Ovid. Also, the Odyssey. Am in the fourth book of the Iliad. I’m reading the parsha of the week most weeks along with commentaries. Also books that challenge me like Nexus. Keeping mental knives sharp.

My commitment to regular times with family and friends has increased. I zoom, breakfast, lunch, and on the rare occasion eat dinner with them. Also expanding my circle of friends, not by much, but adding Veronica for example.

The lunar calendar of Judaism meshes well with my pagan sensibilities and my focus on the Great Wheel. Trying to integrate the two in meaningful ways. An ongoing project.

Am working on a new meditative practice, focusing on a work of art for ten minutes or more, then reading art historical material about it. An NYT idea.

And more. All this is to stimulate, reinforce my lifelong journey. See what bubbles up.

 

Just a moment: Talked with my son and Seoah yesterday. There is a sweetness, a visceral joy in seeing them, hearing them. My heart lifts and my sense of well-being, already good, increases. Murdoch hears my voice, but does nothing. Nothing to smell here, so meh.

That sense of well-being. I’ve noticed Luke and Jamie initiate hugs when we see each other. There’s something about that that fills my soul, too. Ron and Rich. Tom. Ruth, Gabe. I hope the others feel the same way about my participation. Hugs are a way of claiming intimacy and saying yes to it.

Will not know for some time what the most abhorrent of adventures will look like, feel like. Cabinet picks? An unserious man taking an unserious approach to the job in the whole world that has the most economic and military power.

Committed to the seeds of decency, honesty, love for the other. Still and always.

 

Colorado, Dogs, Family, Friends, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, The Move, The West

The Doggie Drive

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Samain and the Full Moon of Growing Darkness

Shabbat gratefuls: Tom. Conversation with him. His kindness. The Truth. A CBD ointment for aching joints, pain. Worked on my trigger fingers. Happy Camper. Evoke 1923. Mt. Rosalie covered in Snow. 13,575′. Long tie guy and his in your face appointments.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Friendship

Kavannah: Perserverance

One brief shining: Sitting at the table where I found my pearl, in what is no longer the long time Bistro now the Evoke 1923, Rebecca took our orders, delivered a tasty filet mignon tartare, a beet salad, and our entrees: duck for Tom and filet mignon for me while we struggled to hear, especially after the piano player started up, two old guys trying to parse the future of A.I. largely overwhelmed by the clink of silverware on porcelain, happy chatter from the table of six, the limits of hearing aids reached and exceeded.

 

It’s nearing 10 years since the long doggie drive of December 2014. Tom and I together with Rigel, Vega, and Kepler on I-90, then I-76, finally 285 to Shadow Mountain. 15 hours or so of conversation, attention to dogs and the eventual end of the Great Plains where they wash up against the hogbacks of a precursor Mountain Range to the Rockies. That was the first phase of the actual move, Kate arriving later with Gertie and that van we had packed in Andover.

On the Winter Solstice of that year our moving van came and promptly got stuck in a ditch. Eduardo and friends pulled it out. Snow fell and the temperatures hovered around zero. Not willing to try again the van driver took the whole load off Shadow Mountain to a more level spot, rented two u-haul trucks and shuttled the whole truckload from some spot on Hwy. 73. This lasted far into the night with dogs and movers crossing and intersecting.

From that day until the day she died Kate said she felt like she was on vacation living up here. Six and a half years of vacation. A good retirement for her. Glad she didn’t see the MAGmA overflow decency and justice. She would have been angry and disappointed.

Over the course of those years I’ve become Harari, a man of the mountains, now wedded to this place through location and intense experiences. Many, many memories. Some difficult, sure, but also many more intimate, fun, bound up with the wild nature of this place, with Judaism, Kate’s final gift to me.

Mountains. If I have my way-Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise-I’ll live out my final days here, too.

 

Just a moment: A life lived from, say mid-20th century to the first quarter or so of the 21st, has already passed, as few lives ever do, from one millennium to the next, the second to the third. We’ve also seen what may be the end of a political era begun under FDR. I’d call it whiplash, but the change has been more gradual than the crack of a whip. A new world is being born, but despite long tie guy’s next fast-food adventure on Pennsylvania Avenue, neither he nor his minions will define it.

This new world will emerge from the tension between the mindless governance of, as Kamala Harris rightly said, an unserious man, and cultures political, artistic, and economic which my generation assumed to be stable. Oh, my.

 

Friends, Health, Writing

oh my

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Samain and the moon of growing darkness

Tuesday gratefuls: self-care. Dictating. Wind. Knives. Apples. Dressing the wound. Remembering Kate. Blood red. Cloth tape

Sparks of joy and awe: taking care of myself

Intention: compassion

One brief shining: that honeycrisp apple sat on the cutting board, seven pieces cut, on the eighth piece my hand slipped and I sliced my give them hell finger, lots of blood a bit of confusion got it to stop bleeding and congratulated myself on good self-care.

 

 

With a clumsy bandage on my give them hell finger I’m trying out dictation on word to produce this post. It’s pretty good, but I find it too slow. I I can talk ohh um well I’ll leave that in to show you the fat that I’m on a learning curve with this method of writing. If it can even be called writing.

I can talk faster than I type, but the program cannot go as fast as I talk and and produce legible text. Even so, it’s better than putting blood on the keyboard.

Started back with exercising yesterday morning. Harder than I imagined it would be, but I’m going to keep at it. Started reading seat keepers, no, seed keepers. Recommended by Paul. No lying OK we’ll keep that in too just to show you the curve has not reached far off the bottom of the graph.

This morning I’m having my winter tires put on about 25 inches of snow too late. Also having my differential lubrication refreshed. Marilyn and nerve no herb no IRV right lower case. Still learning. Can’t tell whether it’s my voice or the program, probably a bit of both.

Marilyn and I RV backspace backspace backspace oh oh. Ohh my. Verb. No. Leaning in to the microphone. Erve. Well, that’s as close as we’re gonna get.

They are picking me up at stevenson’s Toyota and taking me out to breakfast. It will be a long morning for Ruby. Now see the program correctly capitalized my maroon Toyota Rav 4. No line ohh.

This is borderline painful. I’m going to take seed keepers with me so I’ll have something to read. I imagine I will be in the very familiar customer lounge at Stevensons for some time.

I’m going to stop now. Hope this doesn’t have to be my means of communicating with you for very long.

Aging, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Shadow Mountain

May you feel safe and secure

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Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

Sunday gratefuls: Great Sol warming the Snow until it rises into Air. Lodgepole Branches almost cleared. Colorado Winters. A backyard though with 20″ or so piled around the Lodgepole Trunks. Headlines and shaking heads. Gathering ourselves for what must come next.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Jackie

Kavannah: contentment and joy

One brief shining: Studied Torah yesterday online with Jamie and Luke and Irene, Avram and Sarai leaving Ur of the Chaldeas and heading off into the unknown, Avram’s thoughts gathered from wondering about the Stars and their origins pushing them out of a place where Gods had faces and could be carried from place to place into a place and an encounter with a world and life unknown to them.

 

Yes, a dangerous, felonious, misogynist who runs with a crowd of would be Kluxers has changed again the double meaning of the White House. A brute fact as philosophers and scientists alike would say. Yes, he has shown the world a decided and never gone shadow side of American life. Some of us fear the other and when pressed hard enough by circumstance dire or perceived to be so we allow it to surface, even take control.

In this election both sides. Both sides feared. Feared the other and allowed our shadow sides to guide us through the political maneuvering that led to Nov. 5, 2024. Those of us who thought long red tie guy was the problem let our fear out as scorn, as dismissal, as heads shaking. No, it can’t happen. They’re too stupid and he’s too venal.

The other side feared us, too. Because they thought we might win again, continue pressing on them the things they feared. Symbolized by trans folks, LBGT folk, women who demanded control over their bodies and their lives, strangers piling across the borders hoping for some of what they held onto so tenuously.

The oligarchs had lessons in Europe about how to play their instruments. The cello of immigrants diluting and cheating. The oboe of women’s traditional roles. The drums of racial purity. The piccolo of blood and soil nationalism. Violin cadenzas of sexual normality.

And we stood aside, complacent in our truth. Holding onto disparagement of the ignorant others. Wrapped in our cloaks of decency and righteousness. In that sense true elites. An aristocracy bred of our ignorance of the economic lives of others.

We ignored economic hardship of those essential workers. Remember them? The grocery clerk. The convenience store worker. The bus driver. The Amazon warehouse employee. The police officer and the snowplow driver. The former factory worker turned Walmart greeter or holding down a McJob.

And we lost our way.

I hope the seed-keepers among us can call to mind the mother aghast at her supermarket receipt. The commuter who cringes at the cost of yet another tank full of gasoline. The renter whose housing costs rises into a choice between home and food. The anguish of one facing illness only to become burdened by regular unpayable bills showing up in the mail.

Long red tie guy has promised to cure these ills. He will not. He cannot because his fealty is to his narrow slice of peers, people who do not have these problems. He only played the Piper’s tune. The Billionaires March instead is what he hears and follows.

There are miles to go. Miles to go before we sleep and as we walk each other home let those miles be filled with love, justice, and compassion. Or, as a group of my friends presciently claimed years ago: Leadership.

 

 

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Seek-Keepers, Shadow Mountain

Join the Seed-Keepers

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Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

Thursday gratefuls: The Snow. Lodgepoles branches beginning to droop. Black Mountain white hard to see from my office window. Cold Nights for restful sleep. My Wild Neighbors know nothing of elections, only feel the results, often years later. This Rocky Mountain Natural heaven will remain, beautiful and magnificent. So will the lakes of northern Minnesota. The gales of November will still strike Lake Superior. Great Sol continues to brighten the shoreline of Maine first of our land blessed Nation. The Pacific laps on the beaches of Oahu, Kilauea breathes Fire and Rock, new Land rises just off the Big Island. Pele was not destroyed by the election. Nor the One who gathers all to its embrace and creates novelty, wholeness. This Land, our Land, from Pine Ridge to Ship Rock, shared still with all those who came here before us and who will be here after we are. Gratitude itself.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Friends

Kavannah: contentment and joy

One brief shining: The power of conversation, of holding each other, of being with each other, of walking each other home has never been more profound for me than in these waning days of 2024 as my nation shifts out from under my feet, giving voice to the cruel and frightened, and threatening those whom I love, who mean more to me now than they did three days ago.

As I’ve said to some, I read a Robert Reich quote yesterday: “The resistance starts now!” And thought. No. Not for me. That was my 2016 response, yes. At 77, another, different response seems called for. At least for me.

Doesn’t mean I don’t think Trump and his MAGAT’s should not be resisted. I do. For sure. Just not by me.

I feel an obligation to a different version of the now and to the future. In this now I want to expend my reduced energy on those I love: family and friends. To be there for them, to support them in whatever way I can.

I also feel an obligation toward and for the future. In part it is now. That is, as an elder I  need to keep my values visible, not through political action anymore, but through one-to-one, and small group moments. Through my writing. Through reading and keeping current on political thought, on the currents of the times.

Also, I will continue to donate money to organizations doing what I consider radical work. The Land Institute, seeking perennial feed grains. Seed Savers Exchange. The regenerative farming movement. The Wildlife Sanctuary. Congregation Beth Evergreen. The natural rights legal movement. The chiampas and axolotl restoration work in Mexico. In my view these organizations and others like them work to soften the blows of climate change, to change the way humans live on and with Mother Earth.

And, too, I will through reading keep up with them and what they’re doing.

Buddy Tom Crane suggested Seed Keepers as a name for this work, echoing a new novel of the same name, The Seed-Keepers. I’m going to adopt this name for my work and hereby name myself a Seed-Keeper. If you want to be one, too, let’s talk.

Herme Harari Israel

Acting, Cinema and Television, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, US History

I know

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Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

Wednesday gratefuls: Generator. Electricity. Snow. America. Our coming time of growing darkness. Harris. Troubled. Elections. Democracy. My son. Mountains. The West. Minnesota. Colorado. The Left Coast. History. Coffee. Prostate Cancer. Hibernation. Bears. Mountain Lions. Mule Deer. Elk. Wild Neighbors.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Friends and Family

Kavannah for election week: Contentment and Joy

One brief shining: The oxygen concentrator coughed and turned off as the fan’s light blinked on, then off, I waited a moment, and heard the chug-chug-chug of the generator kick on as the automatic transfer switch did its job and the oxygen concentrator returned to duty and the fan bathed me in light. Time to get up.

 

There will be time, too much time, to sort out the implications. Yes, he won. I know. Yet I still seek this week contentment and joy. I will still enjoy and celebrate the holidays of light and the one of darkness, most important to me. Thanksgiving will find me looking back over my gratefuls, finding the ones appropriate to that day.

I love my son, Seoah, Murdoch. Mary and Mark. Luke and Leo. My Ancient Brothers. Ginny and Janice. Marilyn and Irv. Alan and Joanne. Tara and Arjean. The MVP group. CBE. This country. Now more than ever. All Dogs and Wild Neighbors. All members of the Tribe wherever they may be.

Relinquishing my equanimity, my joy, my contentment to the fevered anxieties of those losing their status and power. No. I will not do that. This morning on a Snow covered Shadow Mountain I am at peace. Neither angry nor despairing. Ready though.

A suffering world has drunk the toxic waters of he who would save them. The USA has not shrugged off this trend, instead it has leaned into it. As always when history turns this way, the need for those who will carry the flag of justice and democracy and freedom through and beyond these days reaches its high tide.

We need each other. We need to stand up and to sit down with each other. To continue our lives. To embrace beauty and wholeness. To seek and find the sacred in each moment and in each person we meet.

We must not raise the cup of bitterness and despondency. Instead pour it out and refill the cup with whatever gives your life fullness, satisfaction. This is what we will need to ensure our children and grandchildren inherit a world not driven by fear.

 

Just a moment: Found out yesterday that I’m not in hormone resistant prostate cancer. At least not yet. My PSA has continued to go down, though it’s not yet undetectable. Means my metastases are not growing.

This news was welcome and it came on Election Day.

 

Watched the tenth and final episode of 1883 yesterday, too. Cried through it all. This is transcendent television, showing what the medium can do. Over these next four years I want to channel Elsa’s spirit of embracing the moment, embracing joy and pain, seeing this wild and often strange world for what it is. Our home.

 

Herme Harari Israel

 

 

Friends, Health, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Reimaging revelation, Writing

An Unsystematic Theology for the non-Supernatural

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Mabon and the waning Sukkot Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Ginny. Janice. Alan and the Piggin’ Out Barbecue in Lakewood. The Evergreen Chorale. Ovation West. Community Theater. Gabe. Ruth. Studio Arts. UC Boulder. Go, Buffs. Coach Prime. Great Sol. Maxwell Creek to Bear Creek to the South Platte to the Missouri to the Mississippi to the World Ocean.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Watersheds

Kavannah: Serenity  Menucha

One brief shining: At the Piggin’ Out Barbecue you enter behind their food truck, WhattheTruck, and find yourself in a room only big enough for 8 people, six if they’re large sized, and a smiling woman with silver eyeliner, at a tiny counter, the menu on the wall to her left, a glass covered drinks cooler on the other side of a doorway leading back to the kitchen, out of which a staff person comes carrying finished orders outside to one of three seating areas, one in an enclosed tent, another under what looks like a large carport, and the third tables on a concrete slab.

 

Met Alan at Piggin’ Out last night. Tasty. I had a slab of ribs with spicy sauce, macaroni and cheese, baked beans, and a honey glazed chunk of corned bread. Obviously a joint and a local favorite. People came and went while we ate, most picking up to go orders.

Had breakfast with Marilyn and Irv, too. A day of friends and minor key domestic tasks.

 

Ann, my palliative care nurse, called just as I’d hit the garage door button on my way to Piggin’ Out. She had to reschedule. A funeral on Friday. We set up a zoom for Thursday in place of our 1 pm Friday appointment. Looking forward to talking to her. This regular conversation with a medical person feels supportive, kind. We all need support and kindness.

 

As you can tell from my title, I’ve chosen a path that works for me. I tried, more than once, to write a Ge-ology. A Pagan Halakah. A Great Work focused website. Systematic. With chapters and subheadings and thoughtful transitions between big ideas. A Mother Earth focused imitatio of, oh what the hell, Aquinas, Tillich, Barth. Discovered my mind doesn’t work that way. I work in smaller, sermon or ancientrails sized pieces. And, thoughtful transitions, building toward a comprehensive conclusion about matters holy, sacred, and divine? Not so much.

However. I have written, over the course of many sermons and postings, in hand-written journals, and spoken in numerous conversations, occasionally insightful remarks about the nature and accessibility of the sacred world. I want to begin gathering those, seeing if I can place them somehow together without giving up their ad hoc, highly contextualized origins. A Hermes’ Journey task.

 

Just a moment: Well. A week from now. 7 days.  Do you feel a big nuclear bomb with a cowboy dressed Orange One astride it, one hand on the fuse and the other waving a Stetson dropped toward our nation? Or, do you hear high heels clacking on the floors of their new home in that big Whitehouse on Pennsylvania Avenue?

I have no idea what will happen. Maybe like you?