Category Archives: Friends

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Hermitage, Literature, Myth and Story, Shadow Mountain, Sport

Mythic

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Spring and Kep’s Moon

Monday gratefuls: Kep. His life and mine together. Diane’s sweet e-mail. Tom’s call. Ruth and Gabe and Mia. The days after. Learning to be alone. Max Verstappen. The Australian Grandprix. My son and his wife. Reading Undertow. Dark Sky by CJ Box. Furball Cleaning. Marina Harris. Ana. Cook’s Venture. Regenerative agriculture. Wild Alaska. Safeway. Stinker’s.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Being alone, yet accompanied

 

The Ancient Brothers on myths that shaped our lives. Aboriginal song lines. Dream time. Animal archetypes and totems.* Jesus. The American myth. The Velveteen Rabbit. The Celtic Faery Faith. Ragnarok. We each had a myth that had shaped our lives. Of course more than one, but these worked on and in our lives. In deep ways.

As a young boy, Ode said, his Jesus walked on water. Rose from the dead. Fed the five thousand. A mythic life reaching deep into a boy’s heart and imagination. Tom talked about Animals as bearers of archetypal power. Which  reminds me of the Breston quote below. Bill retold the story of the Velveteen Rabbit. Love makes us real. Aussie Paul, raised in Texas but on stories of Aboriginal life, made the song lines and Dream Time real. Before this creation and after it passes away there will be the Dream Time. I talked about how the Celtic Faery Faith reshaped my spirituality and led me away from Christianity. Going down and in, rather than up and out. A rich morning, one filled with wonder and awe. Our church.

 

Afterward I watched a thirty minute recap of the Australian Grandprix. Listened to the post race analysis. A crazy race with 3 restarts. Verstappen won again in the Red Bull car. Sergio Perez, his teammate, worked his way up to 5th from 20th. Lewis Hamilton, 7 time world champion, finished second, and Fernando Alonso, 2 time world champion, finished third for the third race in a row. There was speculation that Red Bull could run the table this year, win all the Grandprixs. Whether it happens or not, that speculation tells you about the dominance of the Red Bull cars so far this 2023 season.

 

Cut up boxes for the trash. Finished sorting all of our dog stuff. Donation and throw away. Rearranged furniture in the common room. Did a Safeway pickup. Talked with my son and his wife. Weekend things.

 

Radiation approved. Finally. Start tomorrow. Not daily. Continues through the third week of April. That lymph node by my left hip and the T3 vertebrae metastases.

 

Tomorrow Ruth turns 17! A dancing queen. So happy to see her stable and present. She has been such an important part of my life for all of those years. Even more so of course since we moved to Colorado in 2014. Gabe, too. 15 on Earth Day, the 22nd of this month.

We celebrate life even in the midst of death. Like Max’s birth so soon after Kate died. A bit of her soul to him. Ruth and Gabe have seen a lot of death over the last two years. Their Grandma, their Dad. Rigel. Sollie. Kepler. We have sustained each other. As family. And this month we celebrate their young lives. In this moment. The only one we ever have.

 

 

 

* “We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate for having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein do we err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”  ― Henry Beston, The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Shadow Mountain

Fears and Regrets

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Spring and Kep’s Moon

Sunday gratefuls: My son and his wife. Murdoch. A loving conversation about Kep yesterday. Diane’s kind e-mail. Kep. Gone into the mystery. A day of cleaning up after Ruth, Gabe, Mia. Kep. Punctuated by rest and the occasional TV show. Picking up groceries at Safeway. Grief. Mourning. Again. Still. Housecleaners coming this week. Alan today at the Bread Lounge. Dogs. Caring about animals.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Kep and his consolation

 

I have some regrets. About fearing Kate’s corpse. About not being there when she died. About not being able to stay with Kep, or any of our dogs. These are regrets that do not haunt me, or at least not much. But they are real. And they reveal a fear around death that, as I’ve said before, I don’t understand. The fear is about the moment of death, not death itself. Or, maybe better, the moment of surety about death. As it happens.

When I was in vet’s office, in the special room where euthanasia is performed, I reach to pet Kep. Dr. Doverspike came in the room with two syringes. I froze. And said out loud, I don’t know what to do! Anguished. I needed to stay with him and yet I couldn’t. Left me torn between responsibility and a deeper love. A love that could not bear to see him die. Oh. So. Hard.

Ruth made it ok. She said she was filling in for Grandma. And she was. Kep had the comfort of a familiar and loved human. Just as Kate did with Sarah. Proxies for my presence. My love never in question, but at that moment putting me in excruciating pain.

Facing our fears is best. I’ve read that. And mostly I believe it. If fear rules our lives, we cease to live our lives. Rather we pinball away from this job interview and this possible relationship and those oh so critical moments in the lives of ones we love. Yet I also believe that there is an ok-ness to allowing a loved other, like Ruth, like Sarah to face your fear for you. The love held between us helps us through. They know I care. They express my love for me.

As near as I can tell, these moments are the only ones where I’ve chosen, or allowed, proxies for my deepest feelings. I face my fears otherwise. Most of the time.

A fear I had after Kep’s death. Coming home to an empty house for the first time in over thirty years. No Kate. No dogs. Just me. I needed to to go in and so I did. Turned out ok.

In fact it was memories surfacing as I drove up Shadow Mountain that were harder. Kep waiting at the back door for me. Tail wagging. Or, later lying down at the back door waiting. His paw prints in the snow. Once I opened the door and walked in, I was home. My place of refuge.

Of course his presence was everywhere. His collar. Leashes. His hair from a blown coat. His food. His food bowls. His medicine. His beds. I cleaned those up yesterday, readying some for donation, some I threw away. Not to be rid of him or his memory, but to start anew. I did the same thing with Kate’s stuff. Yet she’s still here. Everywhere. As are Vega, Gertie, Rigel, and Kep. This is their home, too. And will be as long as I am the carrier of their memories.

As I write, my current form of therapy, I realize that my absence at the death beds of those I love changes nothing about how much I love and love them. I do not dismiss, do not shun memories. I open myself to them. Remembering Kate in the garden. Or in the bed with her feeding tube. Kep running the fences. Lying with his head on my feet. Gertie sleeping next to me. Rigel and Kep, too.

Neither however do I wallow in them. If I need to cry, I cry. If I laugh, I laugh. They are components of who I am now. The bearer of these lives still living.

 

Denver, Dogs, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Shadow Mountain, Writing

Talking Story

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Spring and the Garden Path Moon

Monday gratefuls: Kep. Not sure how he’s doing. The Ancient Brothers. Luke. My son. Cold nights. Good for sleeping. Snow showers. The Swerve. An education about the Renaissance. Trump. In a rut. And, possibly a jail cell. The far right. Undertow by Jeff Sharlet. Hamnet, recommended by Kate. Painting continues today? Mia and Ruth, best friends coming up on Wednesday. Gabe, too. Teenagers in the house. For three days.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: LBMs

 

The Ancient Brothers told a story. Mark suggested it. He started, spoke for a bit, then passed the story to me. I passed to Tom, Tom to Paul, and Paul to Bill. The story telling brought out another facet of each of us, one not previously visible. The improv persona. Each of us had a different style and it was obvious. One more cerebral. Another more interior monologue. Another on advancing the plot. Bet we’d be better at it if we did it more. Fun.

Mark’s in a veteran’s writer’s group that focuses on story telling. Where he got the idea. Reminded me of the even more difficult drinking game played in Wales where one person starts a poem and the next person adds a stanza, then the next.

Tom had an interesting thought. What if, instead of artificial intelligence, we sought artificial consciousness? What would we be after then? What would it look like? Sound like? The idea has taken up residence. Not sure where to go with it, but the notion intrigues me.

 

Luke came over at 2. I’d taken a nap and got up at 2. Woops. He didn’t leave though. I found him.

I started a fire. We talked for a couple of hours. He’s started a new job with Judaism Your Way. Learning a new software program for handling contacts for this innovative model. No fees. No dues. No building. Three rabbis and a large staff. They’re holding a Passover Seder at the Denver Botanical Gardens. Last year they had 8,650 folks present or online. An interesting place to work.

Intentionally very inclusive. Luke and and the Executive Director, who is not Jewish, are gay. Judaism Your Way was the first Jewish organization in Denver to have a presence at the Pride Parade.

Luke’s still having a tough time after having resigned from CBE. His job at Judaism Your Way is only part time so he has financial tensions. He’s a super bright, artistic, sensitive soul. Glad he sees me as a friend.

 

I imagine Doug will be back today to continue the Garden Pathing of my walls. Excited. Getting the inside, especially the main level, painted and the art hung will make Shadow Mountain home a more welcoming and inviting place. For guests and for me.

After lunch with Mike and Kate Saturday I went to Pangaea Carpets at the Evergreen Design Center. Picked out a Nepalese carpet, 5×7, for my upstairs home office. It needed warming up and its own feel. This one has Cypress Trees and is in greens that compliment the new main level look.

Not sure whether Doug will have time right now to do the downstairs level. I hope so.

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends

Eros. Agape. Philia. Storge.

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Spring and the Painted Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Mike and Kate. Campfire Grill. Ruby on the Mountain roads. Pastrami. Truffled Mac and Cheese. Luke coming up today. My son and his wife. BJ and Schecky. Gettin’ hitched. Kep the early riser. Sleeping in after that. Myth. Ovid. Artemis. Lycaon. Philemon and Baucus. Lucretius. The Nature of Things. Metamorphosis. The Arabian Nights. CJ Box. Richard Powers.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Ancient Brothers

 

On the nature of love. Eros. Of course. I remember. Though prostate cancer long ago canceled out experience. Agape. Reserved for a person better than me most of the time, but still a destination, part of the long journey.

Philia though, affection among friends, friendship. Sustains me now. Whether it be the Ancient Brothers with our decades of memories or members of CBE or Kat, the Aspen Perk’s waitress. Mike and Kate. Luke. High school and college classmates. Even Kristie, my oncology PA, and Dr. Gonzalez, my PCP. Affection rules these relationships.

Here I would also add my wild neighbors, the Lodgepoles and Aspens, Shadow Mountain, Black Mountain, Maxwell and Bear Creeks. All that is around me in its wildness.

Love is a many layered reality. I discovered just today that there is yet another Greek word for love, storge, which means love and affection especially of parents and children. I’ll put that into this post, too. Not only for my son and his wife, Jon, Ruth, and Gabe, but for cousins like Diane whom I’ve known almost my whole life, Mary and Mark, each dog I’ve had the privilege to share my life with, and each person who might experience me as a mentor.

Storge also sustains me and helps me see my role as a sustainer of others. Realizing our importance to others is sometimes difficult as self-abnegation is often taught to us as a substitute for true humility. I’ve struggled with this over the years as you might have, too. But of late I’ve come to see that I add something valuable to the relationships I’m in and if that’s the case it probably means I am someone valuable. In my own unique way. As you are yourself, unknown reader.

How important it is to reach out and keep these relationships alive and vital. I find myself saying now to various folks, as I did to Mike and Kate yesterday, it’s your turn to send up a smoke signal. Don’t know how that entered my mind, but I’ve liked it because it points to the mutuality of relationships. After meeting with others after they’ve given me the honor of an invitation, I say, I’ll send up the next smoke signal.

I’ve had trouble realizing that mutuality requires me as well as the other. I’ve often thought of myself as interchangeable with others and if I don’t nurture a relationship that the person will get what they need elsewhere. Which is, of course, partly true and necessary to know. Yet. I also have to recognize myself as one of a kind, a person who brings to a relationship what only I can bring. In other words I have to see my own part in a relationship as important, as important as what the other/others bring.

Better learned late than never.

Denver, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Friends

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Spring and the Garden Path Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Luke. My son. Doug. Kep. 8 degrees and Snow. A good night. Slept well. A fresh look for the main level. On its way. Alan and his joy. His move to a castle in the sky. John Porter, co-owner of the Bread Lounge. Evergreen. My Mountain town. Fixing the walkway around Evergreen Lake. The Elk dining on exposed grass along Hwy. 74. ChatbotGPT4. AI. HUMINT.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Luke

 

Down the hill to Evergreen yesterday. The Bread Lounge. Alan. Came up in a rental Polestar from his new place high above the mean streets of Denver. His Tesla is the shop for expensive body work. The skin of the Tesla costs. He backed into a truck last year but this was the first time he could get it in a place he trusts. The Polestar he says doesn’t do everything his Tesla does. How could it?

He had some concerns about his move. Waiting for the elevators. The noise of a forced air system. And from the outside. The Mountains are quiet. Has had good elevator conversations and not long waits.The forced air came on with a whump but after building maintenance replaced the filter, a whu. So that’s good. He said he can tell the place is quiet because when he opens the patio door it’s noisy.

A good gym with everything you’d want. Hot tubs. A movie room. A dining room for guests on the top floor. A view to the southeast with Pikes Peak. And a nighttime view that’s spectacular. Cheri posted a picture of it on Facebook. Very urban. Going down and walking to restaurants, to get food, go to a jazz club. Plus everybody’s calmed down now the move is over. Alan was in fine spirits.

Met the owner of the Bread Lounge, John. Shook his hand. Oh. A very strong grip. Made me feel a bit fragile. He’d been on the Evergreen Fire Department Board. And, I imagine, a volunteer. Strong like bull. Alan knows lots and lots of people. He comes up every Friday for Rotary breakfasts at the Country Day school. We meet after that.

A bit of Snow made the drive down what I call technical. Had to use all my Minnesota driving knowledge. Plows had not been out and the light Snow had become icy. All those years of seeing Snow on roads in the Gopher State have trained me. I can see what I’m looking at.

 

Right now it’s single digit temps and high winds up here on Shadow Mountain. The Lodgepoles swaying. Snow blowing up in whorls. A cold blue Sky.

Going into Evergreen again today to have lunch with Kate Strickland and Michael Banker at Campfire Grill. Looking forward to that. I saw them last at the Dushanbe Tea House in Boulder.

Speaking of younger friends. Luke’s coming up tomorrow. Kat’s reading the book I gifted to her. I like that I have these links to the upcoming generation. And to Ruth and Gabe’s. Makes me feel like an elder.

 

Doug worked yesterday. Got started in the kitchen. Says he may come back today. Getting closer. Not sure yet if he’s going to do the downstairs right now or later.

 

 

Family, Fourth Phase, Friends, Shadow Mountain, Travel

Down the Garden Path

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Spring and the Painted Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Benjamin Moore’s Garden Path. Doug. A sweet guy. Kat, interested in philosophy, psychology, psychedelics. Nichie. Kep. Changing colors. Shadow Mountain. Firm beneath me. Black Mountain. The Sun. The Moon. The Lodgepoles and the Aspen. Those Mule Deer Does on the road yesterday. The Black Bears beginning to roll over and shake their paws. Ah, time to get up, it’s Spring. Ramadan. Allah. The Prophet Mohamed. Jesus, the Messiah. Abraham, the father of them all.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Spring Snow

 

Had a grocery order to pick up yesterday morning. Took myself out to breakfast at Aspen Perk’s. How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan went along. Pushed open the door, looked inside. One person at the bar. Nobody in the booths. Just right.

The cheerful waitress with a lot of tattoos on  her right arm came up. She has round glasses, blond hair, and a smile. Always. Can I look at your book? Sure. I’m interested in self help, psychology, philosophy. This is about psychedelics. Those, too. Some of the best insights I’ve had came from taking LSD.

When Tara and I had breakfast there a while we back, we’d speculated that this same waitress might be a Ph.D. student. Obviously bright and engaged, she makes an impression. Maybe late twenties.

I’d noticed a y’all the last time Marilyn and Irv and I ate there and asked her about it. Yes, originally from Texas. Ah.

We chatted for a bit after she brought my coffee. She’s struggled with depression and has some good results with psychedelics. I told her about the Plant Magic Cafe. She got excited. Just by the name!

Two eggs, crisp bacon, country potatoes, sour dough toast. Breakfast out. After dinner at Three Victorias last night. Livin’ high on the hog.

Michael Pollan took me through his conclusions gleaned from his study of psychedelics, his interviews with researchers, guides, and promoters, his own trips. He was of the opinion that legalization would take a while. And would need careful thought and guidance.

He hadn’t counted on Oregon and Colorado. A strange combination of libertarians, latter day hippies, and millenial/gen Z enthusiasts squeaked out a win in both states. Oregon first, Colorado last year.

I gifted the book to Kat. We’d exchanged names. She seemed surprised and delighted. Come back in and we’ll talk about it. Maybe I’ve made another friend in the younger age brackets. That would be nice. She’s going to visit the Plant Magic Cafe, too.

 

Brother Mark has Saudi on his mind. He got a job offer there for a position through August 31st. He’s been all over Saudi Arabia and this is a new spot. Something he relishes. Reminds me of Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, Ray Stevens and the Sheik of the burning sands. Back in the less woke day. As my sister Mary said, he’s keeping up the tradition of the traveling Ellises. Indeed.

 

Doug has Kate’s old sewing room almost finished. Garden Path by Benjamin Moore is a color that shows up in brother-in-law Jerry’s big painting of the Blue Ridge mountains near his house in Belews Creek, North Carolina. It’s a light green. I’ll post some pictures when thing are a bit further along.

 

 

 

Cooking, Dogs, Family, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Hermitage, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Snow Days

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Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Kep. Snow. Cold. Books. James Pogue. Jane Benett. Wes Jackson. Cetaphil. Great workout. United Health Care. Health Insurance. The American Medical System. CBE. Ruby and her faithfulness. ChatbotGPT, an interlocutor. This Dell laptop. My desktop. The home office, getting closer. Probate. Kate, always Kate. Her memory in foam. LL Bean. Chewy. Amazon. USPS. UPS. Lifelines in the Mountains.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Dr. Doverspike

 

I’m three quarters through How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan. A good read. Learned a lot about psychedelics. Or, ethnognens. Makes me more eager to try some again. A trip to the Plant Magic Cafe and I should be able to find a guide. Learned of guides in the book. Very un-60’s, but it sounds useful to have a psychologist available on my first trip back to the interior homeland.

I recommend the book. A lot of good history of psychedelic research, of how the 60’s blew up decades that’s right decades of research with psychedelics. A cast of characters that include Timothy Leary, Al Hubbard, Ram Dass, Henry Osmond, and many other key figures in the years since Albert Hoffman accidentally discovered LSD for Sandoz, the pharmaceutical giant, on November 16th, 1938.

Pollan recounts the history in magazine article style (thanks, Diane). He also tells of his own trips after overcoming a long hesitation about experimenting with hallucinogens. The research he covers should provide comfort to anyone who would like to use these drugs but fears them because of the propaganda from the 60’s and 70’s.

Another great workout yesterday. 266 minutes for the week already. 9 hours of sleep. I feel good. Like I knew I would.

 

Friday. Well. Left this. Sitting here on my browser. And watched the Snowfall, had a Fire in the fireplace, read. Watched some TV. I took a Snow day. It was fun. Was gonna mail my taxes, run some errands, but the day was too beautiful. Still Snowing this morning. One Snow day. Two Snow days. A reason I live in the Mountains.

Although. Supposed to have my second round of radiation yesterday. Nope. United Profit Care still dithering on whether to approve it. Anova Cancer Care and United’s just say no team are in communication.

I understand the hesitation on United’s part. My PSAs are undetectable. The two mets only show mild uptake of the tracer. Could be that the androgen deprivation therapy has not yet finished working on these two and will knock them back, too. Yet. We can kill these two sites and eliminate them from my future.

Whatever transpires, I’m at peace with it. Because, how does it help me not to be? I’ll consider an appeal, sure, but is the sturm and drang worth it? Not really confident it is.

 

On Monday I had my glaucoma check and had dinner with Ruth and Gabe. I haven’t left the house since. Stuff kept canceling. Radiation on Tuesday, then on Thursday. Alan this morning. Doverspike’s coming by at 2 pm to give Kep some acupuncture and check on his progress. Still Snowing today so I think I’ll skip the trip down the hill until tomorrow. Buy a new pair of Keens and visit the Plant Magic Cafe.

I’ve enjoyed these in the house days. I can write, read. Could work on my Korean and my calculus but I didn’t. Kep and me. The fireplace. Got in my cardio minutes. Watched some movies. Cooked. I love time alone. Wouldn’t want it to be all I have, but these last three days on a Mountain top with Snow drifting down. Food in the refrigerator. A Fireplace with Wood stacked nearby. A nice vacation.

Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Hermitage

The Great Circle Route

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Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Dr. Repine. Space Invaders, or Visual field exam for glaucoma. That sweet tech whose name came out muffled through her mask. My Phonak, something with the battery or the charger. My “insurance” company. American medicine. The labyrinth. Little India. With Ruth and Gabe. Ruth driving. More assured. Gabe with some facial hair. Driving the great circle route around Denver.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Night Sky on Shadow Mountain

 

Busy day. Feed the Kep. Write Ancientrails. Breakfast. 100 minutes of workout. Shower. Drive to Littleton. Eye doc. From Littleton to Northfield to pick up Gabe and Ruth. Over to Little India. Back to Northfield. Drive home. A complete circle around the Denver metro. 120 plus miles.

 

While eating with Ruth and Gabe at Little India, where Ruth knows the wait staff, a call came in from Anova Cancer Care. No approval yet for my radiation. Could be a week. Oh. They took me off the schedule.

Frustrated. But not surprised. If I had another option, I’d have taken it. Pre-existing condition has made me permanently joined to the Minnesota medical insurance behemoth, United Health Care. Their second guessing of my oncologists has been a dynamic theme since they denied my first axumin scan.

Constantly caught within a triad of big insurance, big pharma, and the folks trying to deliver my health care. There is no scenario in which you build a health care system like the one we have. It creeks. It leaks. And it makes having cancer or any other chronic illness a constant challenge.

 

Every six month glaucoma check. Stable. Dr. Repine is thorough, but quick. She explained my heterochromia to me. I have a blue rim around my brown eyes. Arcus senilis. Fatty lipids create a white haze around the outer iris which refracts the brown beneath as blue. Common, apparently. Odd.

 

I should explain my workout numbers. They’re generated by my fitbit. It gives double minutes for time in the cardio and peak heart rate zones. That way I can workout for 50 or 60 minutes but end up with 100 minutes of workout time according to the NIH standards. The minutes not in the cardio or peak zone are still in the zone of moderate exercise. The NIH recommended 150 minutes represents moderate exercise. Or, they say, 75 minutes of vigorous exercise. The cardio and above fits into that level of exercise. Thus, the double minutes on the fitbit.

 

Gabe thinks I’m going to live to be 95. Or, a hundred. When, he noted, he would be 38. Doubtful. But it’s sweet he thinks that. He’s got some peach fuzz. Conflicted about it. Maturing is hard. Though he seems on that path.

Ruth says school’s going well. She’s still struggling. Depression. OCD. But she’s got a therapist she really likes and sees regularly. Working at it. She’s not alone. The number of teenagers with serious mental health issues has grown alarmingly. Especially since Covid.

Being a teenager has never been easy, but the changes over the last decade or so have created so much frisson for them. Gender. Climate Change. LGBTQ+. Two working parents. Political division. The woes of higher education roiling their attempts to sort what comes after high school.

What can grandparents do? Love them.

 

Asia, Cooking, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Hermitage, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Sweetness

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Imbolc and the Waiting To Cross Moon

Sunday gratefuls: For each of the Ancient Brothers and their uniqueness. Zoom. Kep drinking Water. That ancient Water. Recycled through time, now in an aluminum bowl near me. And, in Kep. Becoming Kep. Dr. Doverspike skiing the Powder. Organizing and cleaning out my freezer. Done. Cooking my own food. Chicken. Pork. Fish. Sustainable all. Frozen Vegetables and Fruit. Eggs. Seeing Gabe on Monday night. Ruth thrifting in Boulder.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Seeing what we’re looking at

 

Sweetness. My son and his wife. Dressed for golf. He’s shooting for a 20 handicap. He’s got the bug big time. So does she. They play every weekend. Often 36 holes or more. Murdoch has become less independent. More of a lap dog. Odd. Might be sensing the upcoming move.

Sweetness. Seeing those old men on my zoom screen opening their hearts. Letters from great-grandchildren. Imagination. Looking up at the stars and out to the tides. And into each other. Special and irreplaceable. Church.

Gettin’ things done. Home office getting closer. Needs a great rug. Some more art. Working my way through the needs attention inbox. Finished it. Nothing left. Feels good. Money piling up in my accounts. Changed draw from the rollover, but no money going out for drugs. Orgovyx free now until the end of the year. Erleada still no word. I’ll lower the draw when I find out about it. Not till then though. Potentially $2,200 a month.

The freezer. Threw out old meat. Made three compartments: Fruits and Potatoes. Vegetables. Meats. Much better. Food of my own making. Yes.

 

Reading my way into the changes in our world. The times they are achangin’ agin’. Becoming Native to This Place. Vibrant Matter. Christian Nationalism. Seeing Like a State. Perilous Bounty. Lots of magazine and newspaper articles. Other reading I’ve done over the years. Localism. Anti-corporatism. A reverence for nature. Threads I held and hold dear. Now running through a crowd of folks who hate government, love the Founders and the Extremes, guns, staying in your tribal lane. Who are willing to regulate women’s bodies. Who want to exit the current culture and live in the West.

There is a post-Enlightenment movement that has handholds for all these folks, for me. Post modernism. Regenerative agriculture. Rebuilding rural communities. Rebuilding inner city neighborhoods. Enforcing monopoly laws. Reinstating the estate tax. A wariness of Big Pharma, Big Grain, Big Ag, Big Business.

Getting clearer. Details and conflicts. Roots. Possible impacts on current politics.

 

A bit of good news. La Nina is gone! An El Nino will startup sometime this  year. Water will follow for the dry West. And this Forest in which I live. May it be enough to create a moderate Fire season as opposed to a high or extreme one. Something to ease the mind. Help the Snowpack and the Colorado River Basin.

How bout that time change, eh? So. Much. Fun. Kep’s making moves for food. Early, he thinks. Really, a bit late. I slept in. Right past the change. Now Kep and I are living it together. Oh boy.

 

 

Dogs, Dreams, Fourth Phase, Friends, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Birthing a New Worldview?

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Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Dr. Doverspike. Kep. Acupuncture. Salmon. The lick mat. Powder on the way. Back country skiing. Snow today. Black Mountain white. Dawn. Tom in Mendocino. His 75th today. Happy birthday, Tom. Cafe Beaujolais. Doug the Painter. Marilyn and Irv. The 60’s are not dead. Psilocybin. Mescaline. LSD. Ayahuasca. Peyote. Good friends, in depth conversations. Ruth calling me yesterday.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth’s call

 

Brunch with Marilyn and Irv at Aspen Perks. We discussed the Alan Lightman PBS series: Searching: A quest for meaning in the age of science. We all found Lightman’s emphasis on the journeys of specific Atoms from Supernovas to Solar system formation to Planets to life to us and back out again after death reassuring. Yes. And we also thought his reductionist materialism left out an important perspective. A world beyond, within, in addition to this one we can know with our sensorium. Dreams. Hallucinogens. Mystical experience. Emergent phenomena as evidence, including consciousness. The John Cleese moderated University of Virginia panel on reincarnation.

We also discussed family, grandkids, and dream work that happens at CBE. Gonna join the dream work group.

 

Dr. Doverspike came to see Kep at 2. He agrees that Kep’s recovery is slower and less obvious than he had hoped. Could be some spinal issues, too. He believes we’ve handled the pain and may (he hopes, me too) be looking at a need to strengthen muscles. That will be easier once Kep can move freely in the yard, but that won’t happen for another month or so. Snow.

Kep seems happier, more alert. Pain under control. He also stands taller when he’s not exhausted.  I’m willing to go a full month to see if we can generate better results. I did move Kep’s food downstairs.

Doverspike is off to the interior Mountains today hunting for powder.

 

Started a fascinating book yesterday by Jane Bennett, Professor of Political Theory and chair of the Department of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. Vibrant Matter. She’s arguing for what she calls the active participation of nonhuman forces in events. Thing-power. “I will try to give voice to a vitality intrinsic to materiality, in the process absolving matter from its long history of attachment to automatism or mechanism.” p. 3

I’m reading it as part of my project of understanding the New Right and as part of my Becoming a Pagan project. There’s an odd and uneasy convergence between the two. It may be only the sound of rebellion against received wisdom, but there may be more, too. I’m beginning to wonder if the forces threatening to drive our nation apart might have deeper, more profound roots than has been noticed so far.

Those roots might have fertile soil in a rethinking of the influence of the Enlightenment and the role of science in our daily and political lives. In other words we may be trying to birth a post-enlightenment worldview. One that honors science and rationality, but dethrones it from an imperial position to a collaborative one. A lot going on here. Only have a partial toe in the water.