Category Archives: Friends

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Mountains, Politics

Got it now

Leave a comment

The Off to College Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Diane. Ruth in Willville. Taking college classes. Eating dorm food. Gabe, coming up this weekend. My son and Seoah, a year ago yesterday in Songtan. Travel. Celebrex will help. Affirming life. Not waiting on death. Greeting Great Sol. The new fan in my bedroom. Keeping me cool. Electric blankets. Eyes. The occipital lobe. Frontal cortex. Amygdala. Hippocampus. Gray matter. White matter. Limbic system. Sloshing around in our skulls.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Mark’s new job!

Kavanah:  PEACE  שָׁלוֹם Shalom   Peace, quietness, wholeness (קוֹר רוּחַ Kor Ruach: Calm, composure, literally a “cool spirit”) [בֶּהָלָה Behala, beh-ha-LAH: Fear, alarm, panic]

One brief shining: The blue Sky silhouettes the gentle curve of Black Mountain, its stony bulk covered by green Lodgepoles and clonal colonies of Aspen, at ten thousand feet it rises another twelve hundred feet above my home here on the top of Shadow Mountain, yet does not lord it over us, rather graces us with a neighborly, oh, there’s another Mountain feeling.

 

Sometimes I read more into what people say than they intend. I’m not the only one, I’m pretty sure. Let me give you an example. In conversation with my long time and dear friend Tom he made a casual comment about my application to get a Whippet puppy. “That’s a life affirming choice.”

He meant, I now believe: “That’s a life affirming choice.” I heard: I’m relieved you’ve finally made a life affirming choice after several weeks focused on death or disability. Which, of course, reflects my immersion, partial, yes, but tangible nonetheless, in matters cancerous over the last few weeks.

Since, in fact, that day after my bar mitzvah, when he and Paul listened in on my telehealth visit with Kristie. I try, and most of the time believe I succeed, in living a balanced life when it comes to cancer. That is, I acknowledge its existence, keep up with my blood draws, doctor visits, take my meds. Do what’s needed, what I can do. After that let it lie as a complex fact of my existence, not really at the level of consciousness most of the time.

Over the time since my PSA went up during my drug holiday, sooner than Kristie expected, I’ve been up and down, a shortened life span, wrestling the lesser demons in my body, mostly in an unhappy stew of uncertainty about where things stood. I felt Tom had ridden through my cover and seen the other side. Now, he may have. But in this instance he was not talking about that, but instead he was giving me a thumbs up for doggy possibilities. Sorry, Tom. Got it now.

 

Just a Moment: The asshole snuck above the fold with his usual gauchity, douchebagness. Doing politics in Arlington Cemetery. Flouting military rules designed to prevent it. I suppose this falls under the there’s no such thing as bad publicity rule. I’m so, so tired of him, of his disregard for decency, for the rule of law, for his support of white supremacists, his misogyny, his overall creepiness. So tired.

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Politics

Luminescence

Leave a comment

The Off to College Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Ruth, off to college today! Good workout yesterday. The Democratic National Convention. Joe and his years. Joe and his tears. Kamala. Tim. AOC. Go, blue, go. Politics. A frisson of hope. A dollop of excitement. A Discovery of Witches on Netflix. Finishing the filet mignon from my dinner with Kate and her pearl. Tara. Dandelion.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth, her journey of independence which starts today.

Kavanah: KNOWLEDGE   Da’at (DAH-aht)   knowledge, sensibility, awareness; from ידע to experientially/cognitively know

First Sefirah = כֶּתֶר Keter, KEH-tare: Top of head, superconscious mind, literally “crown” (between Chochmah/Wisdom & Binah/Understanding)  This is kabbalah.

One brief shining: Still wrapped in the pearl’s luminescence Monday took me into an intimate place with my grief and with remembrance, a few tears as I recalled our life together, more smiles as I remembered making salads from our vegetables, eating toast with honey from our bees, evenings spent hanging out with our dogs, often Irish Wolfhounds on our laps, Hanukah nights with Gabe and Ruth on Shadow Mountain, driving down the hill to Congregation Beth Evergreen together.

 

As I go into the lab today, get my vein punctured again, small vials of blood filled by the beating of my heart, this lab test’s importance weighs a bit on my lev. Yes, I need and want the da’at, the knowledge, it will bring. Yet it could bring knowledge of a shortened life span. If so, that’s ok, I have no need to last longer than I can. Memories of Kate’s final days comfort me. Not that she wasn’t suffering. She was. But she was resolute, loving, and brave, too. A role model about how to face the end, not with a whimper, but a bang.

Does not change this life, this August 20th life. Which I woke into around 6 am. Opening my eyes from the small death of sleep to an unpromised resurrection. As I have for over 77 years. May continue to do so for years more.

See Tara for breakfast this morning at the Dandelion. Like a workout seeing friends restores me as I hope to do for them. Seeing. Being seen. Hearing. Being heard. Touching. Being touched. The essential food of the soul.

 

Just a moment: So happy to see Kamala and Tim, even Joe, above the fold. And that other person not there at all. The squatter removed from land he had begun to imagine was his alone.

I did not look forward to spending the last of my golden years under a Trumpist storm of bigotry, lavish capitalism, and the decline of U.S. status in the world. Of course, that’s still a real possibility, but now it’s a fight, not a giveaway. I’ll go with Kamala’s: When we fight, we win!

Mixed feelings here about protesters at the convention. Deja vu all over again. Except. In 1968 the U.S. had intervened militarily in a civil war. Based on the domino theory which imagined countries becoming communist if touched by red fairy dust. Makes me wonder what those old war mongers thought was so appealing about communism, but that’s another story.

Here the protesters have sided with the Palestinians against Israeli aggression. I agree with the facet of their argument that contends Israel has gone too far. Way too far. Where we part company is in the protesters willing blindness to the suffering of Jews over time, the reason for Israel’s existence, and the horrific nature of the Hamas attack on October 7th. This is a story with no heroes, no glory, no victory.

Art and Culture, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Mussar, Politics

Izun

Leave a comment

The Off to College Moon

Monday gratefuls: A Manny for Us. Alan. Local theater. Local playwrights. Better energy, mood. This August 12th, 2024 life with Great Sol beaming. And my lev quivering with a charge of joy and strength. Sue Bradshaw. Hitting 150. Finally using my Ninja blender. Fruits and Veggies. The Ancient Brothers, chewing the fat. Lobster pottin’. Still above ground and taking nourishment.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: from melancholy to joy

One brief shining: Driving on 38th Street in Wheat Ridge, a Denver burb, oh, there’s the Fridge’s Experimental research farm, there a huge care center for Christian Scientists, there a bar/restaurant in a faux Swiss building, the Chalet of course, a huge Lutheran hospital complex wrapped around a cathedral style church, odd design choice for the ecclesiastical heirs to the 95 theses, a left turn into a strip mall with a pizza place, a martial arts spot picturing a bald white guy holding a metal sword and looking strange to me, and a plain door for the Wheat Ridge Theater Company where I spent an afternoon surprised by the depth of a local playwright.

Kavanah for this August 12th life: BALANCE   Izun (ee-ZOON)   Balance, poise, moderation

(Derech Ha’Emtzait, DARE-ech ha-em-tsah-EET: the middle path/way/course)   [Kitzoniut, keets-own-ee-OOT: Extremism, going to either end of a spectrum]

NB: Mussar does not say that the poles of a character trait are bad. There are times when they are the appropriate expression of the middot. Imbalance on ones political or religious views can be harmful, destructive, yet there also times when the extremes serve a larger, necessary purpose. Or, say, times when being either very active or passive might be the better way.

 

 

The word for balance in Hebrew is איזון, izun. Interestingly, the word for ear in Hebrew is אֹזֶן, ozen. Using my inner ear to try to catch the middle way between last week’s struggle and this week’s grace. What sound comes between? Is it middle-C? Good way to imagine it actually. I have a hard time these days hearing the high notes, children’s and women’s voices. Bass notes. Oh, they still come through pretty well.

I would say I usually live life in the upper ranges of joy and happiness. I don’t understand musical composition well enough to use it accurately here, but I do plunge down to the bass notes once in a while. A mild manic/depressive oscillation I’ve always thought. I like this analogy though because bass notes, lower keys, are, at least I think they are, musically necessary for harmony, for a musically balanced composition. Life is like that. Taking the high notes and the low notes and arranging them along the staff lines of your movement through the day so that something beautiful takes shape.

What kind of music are you making with this one Mayfly life you’ve been granted by awakening on August 12th, 2024?

 

Just a moment: Gosh. Gee whiz. Where are the I can’t believe I’m reading this headlines? Where is he who should no longer appear in bold type? In hiding? Afraid of getting his behind whooped by a woman?

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Mussar

Again, gevurah

Leave a comment

The Off to College Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Parsha Devarim. A milky blue and white Sky with gray Clouds stacked in rows in the northeast. Overnight Rain. 48 degrees. A cool Mountain Morning. Veronica. GOES-19. Most recent project on which she worked. Her description of the Falcon Heavy rockets landing. Her joy in seeing the launch. Gevurah. Cancer. Friendship.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Love

One brief shining: Not sure what to do with myself as my confidence in my body erodes, breathing hard while coring an apple, walking a short distance, from the garage to the house say, and needing a rest, wondering what’s making me so weak, what’s making it so hard to breath, not inspirational, why I need to find gevurah yet again today.

Kavanah: Gevurah   Strength, ability, willpower

 

Have to figure out a practice for gevurah. In mussar a practice is a way of strengthening a middot, a character trait. For example, if your middot is chesed, loving-kindness, you would look for opportunities throughout the day to make another’s burden lighter or at least a way to share it with them. Or, carry some groceries into a house. Run an errand. Send a kind note. Express your love or admiration for someone.

This does two things. First, it helps you recognize those moments in life when an opportunity to express loving-kindness arises. Second, it helps you actually express loving-kindness when those moments arise. Mussar believes in building from the outside in. That is, the more you see chances to exercise a middot and act on them, the more habitual they will become. Changing your character not through psyche wrangling like in therapy, but more in the way an athlete builds skill in there sport. Practice. Practice. Practice.

So. What might be a good practice for me to learn how to experience my gevurah in this August 10th, 2024 life? First, I might search for moments when I express strength but might otherwise gloss over or ignore it. Like writing. A strength I have here on Ancientrails is persistence, honesty, typing skills. Or, a more simple example. I make a good bagels and lox sandwich. Have several different ways to cook eggs. Another, I said the blessing and lit the candles for Shabbat last night. A ritual reminder of my Jewishness, of the light that comes in and through me through the divine nature of my brain and body, to take a day for rest and replenishment of my spirit. When I find these moments, celebrate them, large or small.

Second, search for opportunities to express my gevurah. Take on tasks in bite size chunks. And complete them. Think, consider, weigh, analyze. Write. Write some poetry. Write about what I’m learning on Herme’s journey. Through the Tarot cards I pull each morning.

Just a moment: Considering the number of men with prostate cancer. That I know: Steve, Dave, Mike. Me. Charlie H. Dick R. Wondering about organizing them. But to do what? Support each other? Sure. But. Maybe to consider how being a man has affected our approach to cancer? That sounds more interesting.

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism, Memories

Witness

Leave a comment

The Off to College Moon

Thursday gratefuls: MVP. Ruth. Diane. Tom. The up over and the down under. Bangkok. Songtan. Melbourne. Orca Island. San Francisco. Robbitson. Shorewood. Minneapolis/St. Paul metro. Evergreen. Conifer. Genesee. Denver. Lakewood. Luke and Leo. Shadow Mountain. Black Mountain. Conifer Mountain. Rain, Rain. Come again. And again.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Harris/Walz

One brief shining: Sitting cross legged beneath the big painting by Jerry, the Blue Ridge Mountains landscape, Ruth explained how she and her roommates needed to solve a mistake, housing at UC Boulder had put two young women and one young man in the same room, but the conversation swiftly turned to classes: American history to 1865, Political Science 101 in the election year of all election years, studio arts, ways of knowing and finally whether to get a parking spot-no-and a possible library job-yes.

 

Kavanah: PEACE  Shalom (shuh-LOME) שָׁלוֹם   Peace, quietness, wholeness

 (קוֹר רוּחַ Kor Ruach, core ROO-ach: Calm, composure, literally a “cool spirit”) [בֶּהָלָה Behala, beh-ha-LAH: Fear, alarm, panic]

 

Smoky Sky, cool Air, decent Rain yesterday. A feeling of Fall, premature, yes, but welcome, very welcome anyhow. Four seasons. The Great Wheel turning once again. Nights lengthening. My favorite half of the year not far away.

This August 8th life incorporates these changes, makes the late night from MVP feel integrated with this resurrection moment, this reincarnation of my neshamah. The milky gray of the Sky has combined with my Vaad of last night, reflected in the heavens. The MVP group was the last round of folks I brought into my most recent cancer news since Ruth and I discussed it yesterday.

The August 7th life filled my cup while accentuating my sorrow. Yes, sorrow. That dark sadness from the last few days (lives) remains. Its tendrils gathering, pooling. A sense of foreboding. And. Ruth came up. We worked on transferring the MinnesotaSaves college fund money to my name. Ruth filling out the forms with her neat handwriting, discussing with the MinnesotaSaves folks what we needed to do. When we finished with that, I took a nap while she filled out a job application for work/study at the UC Boulder main library.

When I got up, I made lox, cream cheese, and bagels with onions and capers. I know. A little on the nose, but, hey! We both enjoyed them

Her excitement about her classes triggered those oh so sweet  memories of the first days of a new semester, a new quarter when a new field of study lay before me. Or, a deepening of a favorite area. And dealing with a roommate issue, so first days of college.

Having her here felt warm, loving. Though I did end up tired.

And that before I drove to Evergreen for MVP. Which went until 9:45 pm. Discussing responsibility and gratitude. Family. My vaad. Rich, Susan, Joanne, and Ron as witnesses. Not fixers. Not even empathizers, but listeners and seers. Though I have to face this alone internally, I am not alone. I’m in the company of those walking me home. As I walk them.

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health

The Gothic Parade

Leave a comment

The Off to College Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Soaking rain yesterday. A Red Squirrel in the Lodgepoles. A Mule Deer Doe eating lunch and taking a siesta in my backyard. Elizabeth’s Dog. Dying. Exploring Reconstructionism. Flagging off the Book Club for Elizabeth. Tim Walz, eh? May he live long and prosper the Democratic ticket this fall. 45% containment on the Quarry Fire. Hot flashes return.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Concern for a dying Dog and her human companion

One brief shining: Elizabeth looked upset when she opened the Zoom call for the CBE bookclub, her eyes red and concern lightly etched in her face, Ellen said she was sorry about Elizabeth’s Puppy, yes, Elizabeth said to me, my vet told me today my Dog has only two weeks to live, my heart sank, I’m so sorry, another two folks came on the call, one who said, maybe we shouldn’t do this tonight, another saying we’ve all been through this and it’s so hard, yes, and with that we set aside the book club in favor of loving-kindness.

Kavanah: CLARITY  Tohar (TOE-har)  טֹהַר

 

Made me think of Gertie licking my face for thirty minutes days before she died. Vega looking up at me when she got the bloat. Finding Tor in the tall Grass. So many. Each one a wrenched and torn lev. Kate signing I love you. Mom saying, Son. Death is hard.

Sure, I can face my own. That’s easy because it belongs to me and I won’t be around to experience the aftermath. I remember Kate saying, I know my death will make people sad. Yes, sweetheart. So sad.

I’m having a difficult time right now. Not depression, but maybe melancholy. Shortness of breath seems worse. My back. Well. Not being able to walk easily. Thinking about wheelchairs and riding the carts in airports. Of course, the cancer that I seem to now be fighting with much less effective treatments. Probably growing. An occasional whisper in my inner world, “I’m dying.” My reserve tank remains full. I’m not desperate. Still. The life of August 6th, 2024 has the God of decay in its timeworn husk.

I imagine all of us face this at some point. That life, that God which collects all of the difficulties and struggles we have, real and imagined, and sets them out on our psychic Main Street in a Gothic parade. Black streamers, black confetti, those glass-sided Victorian hearses and a marching band playing dirges. Presents them to us in a slow moving black and white movie reel. We stand there with a black ribbon waving and tears falling. The reaper gives slow waves from the back of a dark PierceArrow.

The temptation of course is to turn the dial toward a colorful, cheerful homecoming parade, or that ticker tape day for the Apollo 11 crew. I urge you to resist. The dismal parade has its purpose. We grow not by denial but by acceptance, not by repression but by acknowledgement. We know our humanity best when we let our feelings, our fears and anxieties out. When we can celebrate them all as real and true.

Each of the issues that are mine: shortness of breath, diminished mobility and pain, cancer are real. Pushing them away will not energize the efforts I need to make.  Amelioration does not come through ignorance. So I have to keep them all present, close. Those prickly feelings that make me turn away, want to flee, or shut down? Though the path they push me toward is not the one I’ll choose, their presence forces me to see. To feel. To act.

O.K. Maybe we could insert a couple of clown cars and a Cirque du Soliel act or two in the dismal parade. For color.

 

Just a moment: Tim Walz. How bout that?

 

Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Travel, US History, Weather +Climate, Wild Neighbors

See. Feel. Taste. Hear. Smell.

Leave a comment

The Off to College Moon

Monday gratefuls: Seeing with the lev. Charging the lev. Dow down. Orange one weakening. Kamala strengthening. Heat. The Quarry Fire. 35% containment 14 hours ago. The Ancient Brothers. Bill and Moira. Tom. Paul. Ode. On the best book, movie, music, airplane, art. Yeah, Tom snuck in airplanes. Finishing books. Books. Light-Eaters. Numbers. Reconstruction.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The life of August 5th, 2025

One brief shining: Three weeks ago a junior college student outsmarted local police and the Secret Service to send a bullet or shrapnel pinging off the Orange one’s right ear and Joe Biden saw himself as the eventual victor, today we await the Vice-Presidential pick of sitting Vice-President Kamala Harris in a presidential race turned shall we say, on its ear, showing that the Wizard of Odd pulling the strings behind the curtains of 2024 has yet more strange and wonderful events for this year of years. On the edge of my chair.

Kavanah: Kavanah: PERSEVERANCE  Netzach (NETS-ach)  נֵצַ

 

A bit more on the playing cards in the spokes of my lifecycle.* Not going with the three-story universe in the Emerson quote, I imagine he didn’t either, otherwise, yeah. Though. I find less hiddenness. More ordinary sacred moments, events, discoveries. Both in my lev and out there in my Lodgepole Companion, Great Sol, Wild Neighbors, even the physical stuff that makes up my house. All there as Annie Dillard says, holiness holding forth in time, a husk of many colors visible on lifting the eyelids after a night and the 1/60th of death.

Each life a holy life lived by us among and with gods of all times and all sorts. That so young fawn on its wobbly legs. The toddler racing toward her mommy. The Dog smiling at his human partner. Rascal. Findlay. Leo. The beating of my heart. The Quarry Fire. The sacred is not always safe. Thunderstorms. Hurricanes. The Atlantic Oscillation.

And how about this one. People I love living their lives on this spinning Planet so far away: Melbourne. Bangkok. Songtan. San Francisco. Minnesota. Maine.

The older and more clear eyed I become I wonder how wonder cannot be seen. Wonder dances in front of us, behind us, beside us, within us. Right now. In this god, August 5th, of the pantheon we name 2024.

How about hand/eye coordination. Consciousness. Love. Breath. Tides and Tidal Pools. Mountain Streams and Trout. Skyscrapers and elevators. Cars and bridges. Airplanes and rocket ships.

Do we have to make it so hard to know awe? No, we do not. We can and often do because our gaze slips away toward the next chance. We split ourselves out of this moment, this day by focusing our attention on a yesterday we regret or a future we fear. We sigh and turn away from the Dog’s thumping tail, the Fish that has swum up to the aquarium glass, the child that has gripped our hand in theirs so self-involved that what is present does become hidden to us. We, like Pharaoh, harden our hearts. That last plague no longer in our awareness.

The remedy? See what you’re looking at. Feel what you’re feeling right now. Taste with your whole body. Smell the coffee. Yes. Smell the coffee. Hear the Downy Headed Woodpecker pounding on your home.

 

*Heaven walks among us ordinarily muffled in such triple or tenfold disguises that the wisest are deceived and no one suspects the days to be gods.    Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every day is a god, each day is a god, and holiness holds forth in time. I worship each god. I praise each day splintered down, splintered down and wrapped in time like a husk, a husk of many colors spreading, at dawn fast over the mountains split.   Annie Dillard.
Art and Culture, Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Hermitage, Holidays, Judaism, Mountains, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Reimaging revelation, Shadow Mountain

My ancientrail

Leave a comment

The Off to College Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Ruth. Willville. August 20th. On her own. With a net. Returning to the Solar System. Gaia. Great Sol. Space. Vastness. Galaxies. Huge. Galaxy Clusters. Huger. The Universe its ownself. Our home. Our tiny, tiny presence in our galaxy, our local cluster, the whole of everything. And thanks for all the fish.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shabbat

One brief shining: Reading the parsha, the end of Numbers, then the book on Reconstructionism for class and for the CBE bookclub, lighting the candles, and saying the berakhot, the blessing over them, settling in to my Shabbat, sleeping, then rising, resurrected, granted another life, the life of August 3rd, 2024, lived with friends Marilyn and Irv, with more books and some TV until the day fled, the life was over, and I went down into the 1/60th of death again.

Kavanah: PERSEVERANCE  Netzach (NETS-ach)  נֵצַ

 

I cobble things together. Not exactly syncretism. I have no larger design in mind. Discovering useful ways of understanding, framing, defining. I’m finding the life of August 4th, 2024 a contemplative one. Coming as it does after Shabbat and graced by the presence of my Ancient Brothers. Better for me than living in the moment. Living a full life, one day at a time. AA resonance. Jewish inflection. Expansion of the be here now idea to a waking day. Carpe diem fits. Though it might be a bit aggressive. How about cradle the day, or enjoy the day, or embrace the day?

This all fits well with the lesson of Yamantaka. Meditating on my corpse. Seeing death for what it will be. For me. Not a time to fear but to include in the ongoingness of life. Whether darkness or reincarnation or sudden awakening in a different form. As significant as birth. As love. As justice. As compassion.

Eudamonia comes from the Greeks. Aristotle. A cleaner, more as I experience the flow life way of approaching life’s purpose. Especially considering the longue dureé, how very important and mostly insignificant I am and will be. How I was before I was. If I was. The Mexica idea. Life is a dream between a sleep and a sleep.

Being a Jew. Bathing in the waters of the mikveh. And in the community I find at CBE. And in the long, rich tradition of Jewish thought and ritual. Saying the shema in the morning and in the evening. Studying mussar. Friends.

Hanging with the Ancient Brothers. With Diane. Friends and family over the years. Mary and Mark. My son and Seoah. Dogs.

The Great Wheel and the pagan eye that finds the sacred, the divine right here on the surface of things where Tomatoes grow and Iris bloom and Rain falls and Wildfire burns.

Following the Jewish liturgical year and the Great Wheel. Cyclical time. Not linear. More important to me. Though aging matters, too. I’m fond of the years I’ve lived. And the many, many lives known one day by one day.

Of course, Taoism. Another way of understanding the unitary, yet always evolving one in which we move and live and have our becoming.

With these ideas, these notions, this framing I find each day, each new life, a miracle. A time to savor. To not waste. To know as ichi-e ichi-go, once in a lifetime. And all beautiful. Wabi-sabi.

My tao. My ancientrail. Herme’s journey.

Colorado, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Jefferson County, Mountains, Plants, Weather +Climate

The Quarry Fire

Leave a comment

The Mountain Summer Moon

Friday gratefuls: Alan. Joanne. Dandelion. The Baglery. The Quarry Fire*. Firefighters. Hotshots. Planes and helicopters. Deer Creek Canyon Park and road. Smokey’s hand on HIGH at Shadow Mtn and Hwy 73. Histapkut. Hygge. Gazpacho. Berries. Bacon. Mountain living. All Critters great and small. That Fawn. Her Mom. A day of decisiveness. The best. Metinut

Sparks of Joy and Awe: A Blueberry pancake at Dandelion

One brief shining: Texts arrived wondering about how much smoke I had here on Shadow Mountain, not much, I replied, but the scent, yes; sent me to Watch Duty, the app that shows Wildfire locations and posts updates, where I saw that in this instance it will not be the consolation of Deer Creek Canyon, but its horror, the desolation of Deer Creek Canyon.

Kavanah (intention): Intentionality   Metinut (mitt-ee-NOOT)  מְתִינוּת

Mindfulness, presence, intentionality (literally to “move slowly”)    [חִפָּזוֹן Chipazon, chee-pah-ZONE: Hurry, rush, haste]

Parentheses=synonyms  Brackets=antonyms

Ten years this Winter Solstice on Shadow Mountain. For the first time a Wildfire, a forceful and strong one, has broken out in territory familiar to me. Known. So, not abstract. No, it’s not close and most likely will not become close. But. Makes the passage way between the Scylla of Wildfire and the Charybdis of home owners insurance more fraught.

The Quarry Fire* seems to have a human cause, one discovered up a trail in Deer Creek Canyon Park, a park where I have exercised. Mountainous, steep terrain, and, bonus: Rattlesnakes! All fleeing the heat, too, I’m sure. Firefighting is not for the weak minded or the fearful.

Many of my medical allies practice in Littleton and Lone Tree, making Deer Creek Canyon Road a reasonable alternative to Hwy 470. If I’ve had a trying visit, like my one a week ago with Kristie, I take the Wadsworth exit and head west, away from the metro area and toward the twisting turns and steep Mountain sides, Deer Creek running along the road for much of the way. The route ends near Myers Park Ranch, a large park right across from the Chamber of Commerce’s Welcome to Conifer sign.

It upsets me to have a road I’ve associated with healing and perspective become a centerpiece to Fire and devastation. The Fire crews have had a tough time achieving containment. Now in its second day the Quarry Fire has only a four percent containment. Whole subdivisions of people have had to evacuate and many of them now wait out the next stages of this burn in the gymnasium of Dakota Ridge High School.

 
 

Just a moment: On a lighter note I had breakfast with Alan and Joanne at the Dandelion Cafe. A much improved menu from our first visit there. Lot of laughing. Serious conversation. Delight in being together. Got up late this a.m. so I had to consider my kavanah for the day on the drive over and back. Finally settled on intentionality, especially the Hebrew meaning of “to move slowly”. What I want today and tomorrow and Sunday.

 

*Last updated: 11:22 a.m. on August 2, 2024

Latest Updates

  • Fire is about 431 acres and growing; 4% contained
  • 575 homes evacuated across 5 subdivisions
  • Firefighter safety is a top priority
  • Fire conditions: dry fuels, hot temperatures, steep and rocky terrain, extremely dry, with many rattlesnakes in the area
  • Firefighting resources:
    • About 155 firefighters on the ground, including the San Juan Hotshots Crew
    • Two air tankers and three helicopters
    • 23 fire rigs
    • Limited resources available due to other active fires
Art and Culture, Denver, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Music, Weather +Climate

Weather and Joy

Leave a comment

The Mountain Summer Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Ruth. Alan. Cheri. The Inspire Concerts. RTD. Federal Center Station. St. Anthony Hospital. New knee, me. New shoulder, Kate. Ruby. 96, high in Denver today. The Ancient Brothers. Kamala. The orange comb over. These disunited States. Rain. Hale. Luke. Leo. Ginny. Janice. Great Sol. Cancer drugs. Jewish music. Today with Ruth.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth

One brief shining: Short splats increased to faster, staccato impacts the skylights enlarging the sound, then the Hail, small at first, then larger pounded pounded pounded with the insistence of the natural world not recognizing barriers, pounding against them with the kind of fury increased by falling from a great height as Leo and I looked outside seeing balls of Ice bounce around on the black driveway.

 

A lesson in Mountain Microclimates. While Leo and I enjoyed a hard Rain with Hail, Luke only needed a transparent umbrella at the wedding being held on the west side of Black Mountain in Staunton State Park. Not very far as the Moose walks. Up and down Black Mountain. From their home in the State Park to our yards here on Shadow Mountain, the next Mountain over.

As the bride walked down the aisle, Luke said, the heavens parted and shone a bright light directly on her. Heaven sent. We take in the awe, perhaps dismiss it as random, as unmotivated and therefore meaningless except in a Hollywood sort of way, but yirah is yirah. Wherever and whenever. Yirah is a human emotion, a middot, too, one known in the lev, in the mind-heart. Experienced not in its source but in its recipient.

I enjoyed the thirty minutes or so of heavy Rain, conditioned by decades of Midwestern life to know the nurturance of a good Rain. Good for the crops. Leo wasn’t so sure about the Thunder. He didn’t tuck his tail between his legs, but he did pace. Some Dogs can have an outsized response to Thunder.

Tira, a Wolfhound bitch who lived with us in Andover, once impaled herself on a fence gate and clawed apart and bit, too, a license plate on the Tundra parked just across from the gate. I ran out when I found her and lifted her 160 pound body off the gate in one move. Adrenaline. Fortunately the wound was not deep. Her teeth and front paws though. Bloody.

 

Just a moment: Will elaborate tomorrow, but I spent a joyful day with Ruth today. We walked to Alan and Cheri’s from Union Station. Painful, but doable. So irritating to have this impediment. Walking has been my favorite way to see a city. Now I have to walk some, rest some. Walk some, rest some. Made it to Spire Condominiums across from the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.

Up 38 floors to 3810, Alan and Cheri’s place, for another home based concert. Rabbi Joe Black, senior Rabbi at the huge Temple Emmanuel, sang. As did Eitan Kantor, a local Jewish musician. And a pianist and song writer whose name I don’t have. More on this tomorrow.