• Category Archives Travel

  • Passing on Passover? The Jangs.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Second day of Passover. Kate, always Kate. Shadow the toy mover. Her zooming in the back yard. Liberation. Freedom to choose. Egypt. The many Egypts we are heir to. Tara. Arjan. Robbie and Deb. Sandy and Mark. Eleanor. Kilimanjaro. Jungfrau. Black Mountain. Shadow Mountain. A Mountain night.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Liberation

    Week Kavannah: Joy. Simcha.

    One brief shining: The Haggadah had wine stains; the seder plate had a kiwi because we can; we dipped the parsley into salt water, tears for the suffering of the slaves, of all oppressed people, spread dots of wine or in my case grape juice for each plague, retelling each part of the passover story as if we were there, as our story.

     

    Talmud Torah in the morning. (Torah study) A focus on the maggid, the telling of the passover story in the Haggadah. Complete with midrash, interpretation and expansion.

    Later, around 4, over to Kilimanjaro Drive. Tara’s house. Steep driveway with cars parked at various spots along the way. All the way up to the top where I found a spot in front of a Tesla.

    Thirty minutes before I had almost chosen not to go. Coming home in the dark. General inertia. A long standing aversion to parties. But this was Passover. At Tara’s. I’d be happy once I got there.

    So I went to the liquor store, picked up a bottle of mid-range red wine and drove past Evergreen Meadows and past Evergreen Funeral Home where both Jon and Kate lay after death, down curvy N. Turkey Creek Road to the Mountains and roads leading to her house.

    And I was happy to be there. Until we sat down to the table. Then the noise level, the angle of the voices, the general clash and clamor of a meal with eighteen other people. I began to recede. Off in my own quiet room of acoustical challenge. Nodding and smiling. Trying to keep up. Too often failing.

    Now having to rethink even Passover, at least in people’s homes. Where it means the most. Where my friends want me. Where I want to be. The congregational Passover has round tables, more distance among the guests. Kate and I usually attended. I may need to go to it just so I can hear.

     

    Talked to my son and Seoah on Friday night. Murdoch’s getting crate training. Seoah’s running, happy. We talked about Kate, her death, her wonderful life.

    My son and I discussed details for the Jang family visit this summer. Money is, as you can imagine, an issue. 5 adults and two children. Seoah’s Mom and Dad, her brother, her sister and her two kids. Airfare, lodging, transportation. Food. That’s what we’re working out now. Need to make some decisions soon because Air BnB’s begin to fill up for the summer in this time frame.

    Will be the trip of a lifetime for the Jang’s. The U.S. The Rocky Mountains. Deepening connections with my son’s side of the family. Myself, Ruth, Gabe.

    Stay tuned.


    Asia Family Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Holidays Judaism Mountains Shadow Mountain Travel

  • Gathered, then dispersed

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc and the Birthday Moon

    Monday gratefuls: The big questions. The Ancient Brothers. Barb Bandel’s funeral. Murdoch getting groomed. Seoah and my son back to their Korean lives. Ruth and Gabe. TV. Picard. FBI. Morality plays, the 3rd millennium additions. Shadow. Her calm nights. Her waggy tail. Heading into the Snowy weeks.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Jet travel. Time zones.

    Week kavannah:  Persistence and grit. Netzach.

    One brief shining: Walking through the bedroom door on my way to bed, my hand brushes the mezuzzah, and after I’ve said the shema, I say, I’m comfortable with what I have and I’m comfortable with who I am .

     

    Gathered, then dispersed. Family. Ruth staying in Boulder in her dorm. Gabe back to his room at Jen’s. My son and Seoah traveling across the big Waters, back to Asia, Korea, Songtan.

    Shadow and I stay here on Shadow Mountain. Getting to know each other better. Learning to love each other. A still point, high and lifted up, for far flung family. For us.

    A weekend of longing for more time with my son, Seoah, Ruth, Gabe. An awareness of absence, of what was near now gone. A sadness, a sense of loss. Normal for me. A way of saying how much they all mean to me.

    Then, too, a sense of joy for the new memories. Casa Bonita. Birthday lunch at Snarf’s with Ruth and Gabe, my son and Seoah. Boulder. My son’s big hugs. I love you, Dad. Seoah’s hands in mine, saying that when the two years in Korea are up, they want me to come live with them. Whether I do or not, being wanted filling my soul with warmth. Gabe coming up on the commuter bus. Ruth greeting us outside her dorm across from the planetarium. Where we used to go on Friday nights when she was younger.

    There is, for us old folks, a rhythm of gain and loss when loved ones visit or when we visit them. A knowing of that ultimate departure embedded in the Thanksgivings, Hanukkahs, short and long trips to see each other.

    In this we are unlike the families of the past. We stayed in our villages, lived our lives in extended families, perhaps never knowing long absence.

    Today we pursue individual dreams. Off to Boulder for college. Over to Malaysia for a stint teaching ESl, then never really going back. A time as a bicycle messenger, then 20 years or so in Bangkok, more years in Saudi Arabia. Breckenridge for 3 three years, after that Maxwell AFB, Georgia, Hawai’i, Singapore, Korea. 40 years in Minnesota traded for a new life in the Rocky Mountains.

    Strong moves for us, weakening moves for family, for that sense of home only the rooted can know.

    Sure, I’m a globalist, a man of the world, not just my own nation. And I love the adventure of  a new life in a new place. Always have. A wanderer at heart like my sibs.

    Yet sometimes. The cost can feel too high. When love becomes primary, not achievement or travel or the shiny new thing offers that. I miss my dead and my far away family.

    I also love my life here on Shadow Mountain. Now with Shadow, the growing puppy. Yes. And yes to my CBE friends. Yes. All yes.


    Dogs Family Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Travel

  • Ancientrails. Almost twenty years old.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Yule and the Quarter Century Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: -8 degrees. Yet more Snow. Winter. Introspection. Diane, healing. Mark, all dressed up and ready to teach. Mary in the Florida of Oz. My son and Seoah, coming for my birthday. Talmud Torah. Exodus’ strong women. Moses. Yod Hey Vav Hey. Hashem. Adonai. I am. I will be who I will be. The burning bush.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Writing Ancientrails

    Kavannah 2025: Creativity

    Kavannah for the week: Appreciation of Opposition   Haarecha shel machloket

    One brief shining: All through the nation MAGA folks will go to sleep tonight ready for their big day on Monday, Martin Luther King’s day of service, and cousin Donald’s hand on the bible, John Roberts presiding; I’ll give them their moment, but not my country.

     

    Here is the image inspired by Caspar David Friedrich, capturing the nighttime scene in Bangkok’s Chinatown as described.

    Want to lift a glass to Ancientrails. Early in February it will end its 20th year of daily existence. Started, oddly, in Bangkok. On a nighttime visit to a 7/11 I rushed across a side street and in the dark missed a gutter in the street. My right leg stayed still while my body kept moving. Thought I sprained my ankle. Hobbled on to the ATM, took out $100 in bahts, and limped across Yaowarat, Chinatown’s main drag, to my modest hotel. 2004.

    Had about a week left before my flight home. Not wanting to miss the city, I drug my leg around, not worried because, hey, it was just a sprain. The nice lady at the physical therapist felt my leg and said, “Oh, that’s not a sprain. You’ve ruptured your Achilles tendon.” Well. Shoot.

    Surgery. January 2005. Two months no weight on the right leg. What the hell am I gonna do? Cybermage William Schmidt set me up with Frontpage, a Microsoft app, and I began to write. I shifted, again with Bill’s help, to WordPress in 2007. Somehow the first three years got lost in the old bits and bytes shuffle.

    I write every morning, no matter where I am, with few exceptions. Kate had her crossword puzzles and I have Ancientrails. Over 2 million words a few years ago. Probably closer to three now.

    What I had decided to do was to take my journaling online. A blog. An anachronism now. Who writes blogs? Who reads them? Always had a thin hope that Ancientrails might take off, but frankly it never has. Oh, yes. There’s you, faithful reader, and I appreciate you more than you know. But a mass audience? Nope.

    I get it, too. There’s no through line here except my life and opinions. Occasional theologizing, political opining, even art criticism though that’s fallen away for the most part. No telling what I’m going to be up to because I rarely know until I start typing.

    Once in a while something fills my attention, like Ancientrails’ approaching double decade anniversary, and I remember to write about it. Most often, it’s a riff.

    While I know it’s no masterpiece, I have added a codicil in my will to continue paying my cloud based service, Ionos, and its predecessors to keep Ancientrails on line after my death.

    It is, at least, a piece of Americana. My peculiar America.

     

     


    Fourth Phase Memories Travel Writing

  • Experiencing the World

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Mabon and the Sukkot Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: Kamala. Tim. Blue. Red. Orange obstacle. The obstacle is the way. Great Sol. MVP. Angst. Love and pain. Humility. Elephants. Free will. Or, not. Stan Draghul memorial service. A man focused on experiences not things. Wondering about my own memorial service. Yahrzeits. The Yarhzeit wall at CBE. Judaism. A way of being and staying human.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Deep friendships

    Kavannah: Joy

    One brief shining: Stan’s son Adam said there was a lockbox in his hospice room, though “knowing my Dad the code was pasted on the bottom;”  he opened the lockbox after Stan died and found all of his passports; opening them at the memorial service he held up the changing pictures and leafed through the visa pages: China. Nepal. Israel. South Africa. Cambodia, “all over the world,” a man hungry for experience.

     

     

    I only knew Stan a bit from mussar days pre-pandemic. He never returned after Covid got legs. Each of his children, his friend/partner, his long time nurse (Stan was a family practice doc), and a friend from his men’s group all spoke of him with consistency and admiration.

    As often happens to me, I left the service wishing I’d known him better, much better, than I did. A person could write an interesting book attending memorial services for a year and offering life lessons from the lives summed up in them. With Stan I would say choose compassion, kindness, keen intellect, curiosity, wanderlust, love of family and profession. Traits. Ways of being in the world. Available to all, but certainly manifest in Stan’s life.

    Afterward. A meal. Eating with Marilyn, Joanne, Tara, Jamie, Ginny, Sally, and Janice. You know. Croissants split and filled with Chicken salad. Baguettes sliced with raw roast beef. Vegetables with humus. Fruits. Strawberries. Blueberries. Wonderful grapes.

    The morning.

     

    The evening. Instead of holding MVP in the Sukkah-it was too cold-and the Evergreen Chorale was practicing its Christmas concert in the sanctuary, we moved to Jamie’s parent’s house. Not far away. A profound evening of deep sharing, lots of laughter. Probably not enough tears. Heartfelt and honest. A source of Joy. Every one around the table: Jamie, Marilyn, Ron, Rich, Joanne a good friend.

    Rich, as he does from time to time, threw a real oddball into the conversation. He has some role, not sure what, in a Colorado Supreme Court case being heard Thursday:  Petitioner-Appellant: Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc.,
    v. Respondents-Appellees: Cheyenne Mountain Zoological Society and Bob Chastain. The issue before the court:
    Does the petition make a prima facie case that Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou, and Jambo are entitled to release?
    Did the district court have subject-matter jurisdiction?

    Missy, Kimba, Lucky, Loulou, and Jambo are African Elephants being held at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs.

    Too, the Court meets in one of its community settings: Wolf Law School at UC-Boulder. Right where I dropped Ruth off Sunday evening after sandwiches at Snarf’s. I’m gonna go. Provided I get up in time and can find parking. Oral arguments are at 9:15. Boulder’s about an hour away. Rich said to get there early. I’m thinking 8:15. Which means leaving here at least by 7:15. Then, the critical piece finding a parking place on campus on a school day. Ruth will help me. We might go together.

    This falls under my new act spontaneously commitment made when I returned to the land of my soul. Does mean, to my regret, that I will miss Simchat Torah which is Wednesday evening. Got to hit the hay early before an early Thursday morning.

     

     


    Judaism Mussar Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Travel

  • Knowledge Gaps

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Mabon and the Sukkot Moon

    Saturday (Yom Kippur) gratefuls: Teshuvah. The Book of Life. Almost sealed. Sukkot starts on October 16th. Kol Nidre. Gaza. The West Bank. Palestinians. Israel. Israelis. Hamas. Hezbollah. Lebanon. Iran. Egypt. Syria. Jordan. Saudi Arabia. AI. Yetzer hara. Yetzer hatov. Yin. Yang. Polarities within the Unity. Darkness and the dawn. Solar storms. Auroras.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Magnetosphere

    Kavannah: Patience  wait for it

    One brief shining: As the darkness gives way to dawn and dawn to full day, I watch Black Mountain throw off its night time cloak, stretch its Rockiness up to the light as Great Sol appears again in the East, Mother Earth having spun round once again, this ritual of rituals, light to dark, dark to light, matches and feeds the turning of the Great Wheel as this tilted Earth dashes through space around our Star.

     

    Cousin Diane should be in Tashkent by now. On tour with Overseas Adventure Travel after spending a few days with her Uzbeki friends. Sounds like quite a journey. A lot of it focused on the Silk Road, then and now. Bought a standing globe this week, something I’ve always wanted. Found Uzbekistan. Central Asia remains mostly a blank spot in my knowledge, its history and its contemporary, post Soviet Union reality. Perhaps Diane’s time there will educate me on her return.

    Reminds me of where I was with China, Japan, and Korea, Southeast Asia before my trip to Singapore, Thailand, and Cambodia in 2004. Stimulated by a lecture in my Southeast Asia guide program at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Bob Jacobsen showed slides of Angkor Wat, including the quarter mile long bas relief on the most well known temple there. It had the churning of the sea of milk.

    Bas relief from the 12th century Khmer civilization
    Another rendering

    That next year I entered docent training, a two year every Wednesday series of lectures on world art history. Given my recent trip to Southeast Asia and a trip with Joseph and Kate to China in 1999 I chose to focus a lot of my learning on Asian art, especially China and Japan. What I don’t know about Asia is still much vaster than what I have learned, but I do have a good baseline knowledge of Asian history, in particular the various arts of China and Japan.

    Of course brother Mark and sister Mary’s long residency in various parts of Southeast Asia, mostly Malyasia and Singapore, Mary, and Thailand and Cambodia, Mark, meant I already had a face turned toward those countries. And India, too. Though not as much. Then Joseph got stationed in Osan, Korea, met Seoah, married, and returned there a year and a half ago. Kate and I went to Korea and Singapore in 2016 for Joe and Seoah’s wedding.

    As China has rapidly developed, the world’s attention has belatedly turned toward Asia, too. When Joe, Kate, and I were in Beijing, the traffic was largely people on bicycles carrying charcoal briquettes and even refrigerators by pedal power. No longer. And only 24 years later.

    Not sure Central Asia will ever have such a moment. But. Things change in geopolitics and they’re changing at a rapid pace right now without a world hegemon.


    Art and Culture Asia Family Travel World History

  • The Realm of the Mountain Kings

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Mabon (Fall) and the Harvest Moon

    Shabbat gratefuls:  Mussar. Gabe. Pain. Quantum mechanics. The empty space on which I sit. Atoms. The creation of Solar nuclear furnaces. Vastness. In Space. In our Inner World. Consciousness. The Boundless. Things that never were and will never be. Faery. The Otherworld. The Multiverse. Heaven. Hell. Reincarnation. Books. Movies. TV.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Guanella Pass

    Kavannah: Teshuvah

    One brief shining: Been thinking about thinking, as us amateur philosophers often do, wondering if the thinking I’m doing is original, which is unlikely, or if it perhaps is an original reworking, more possible, always remembering that conservative cultures like China view originality and curiosity with deep, deep suspicion which of course makes both that much more dear to me.

     

    Gabe and I made it to Guanella Pass while the Aspen retained golden glory. We were not alone. Not quite as good an experience, yet wonderful, amazing anyhow. Geneva Creek ran full, offering Water boiling over huge Boulders, spreading on flat Land, Watering Meadows of golden Grass, Lodgepoles and the Aspen providing color against 12,336 foot Geneva Mountain on the left and 14,049 foot Mount Bierstadt on the right, all against a Colorado blue Sky. Temperatures in the low to mid-60’s. Scented with pine resin and the Ozone smell of Water as Geneva Creek rushed toward the North Fork of the South Platte.

    Talk about Yirah. About the sacred in the oh so not ordinary realm of the Mountain kings. Here are a few pictures.

    Gabe amongst the Boulders at Geneva Creek
    At the Shaggy Sheep
    Gabe
    Boulders and Aspen and Lodgepoles
    Parking area at the Waterfalls

     


    Family Mountains The West Travel

  • Shortie

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Mabon (Fall) and the Harvest Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Gabe. Celebrex. Tramadol. Ruby. Guanella Pass. The Shaggy Sheep. Bailey, the Bigfoot Museum and Store. Hwy. 285. Leaf peepers. Pain. Mountains. Aspens. Lodgepoles. Valleys. The North Fork of the South Platte River. Living where people come to recreate. Happy Camper. Edibles. Alan. Breakfast tomorrow. Sunrise Sunset Diner. Fall and its sad beauty.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Waterfalls

    Kavannah: Yirah

    One brief shining: In Grant, turned right off Hwy 285 onto Guanella Pass, 22 miles on to Georgetown on I-70, up hill to 11,669 feet then down hill to Georgetown; at the trailheads to Burning Bear Creek and Abyss trails, enough cars parked alongside the road to fill a football stadium parking lot; Gabe and I turned back not far from there and found the Waterfalls, spent time taking photos, enjoying the fast running Creek and its cascading flow.

     

    Photos tomorrow. Short version of the trip. Fun, important with Gabe. Painful. Driving him home after a morning of sightseeing began to hurt as we got on Hwy 470 headed into Denver and continued from that point until I got back home. Don’t think I can continue to do this. I sang songs to distract myself from the painful hip. Worked surprisingly well.

    Beat up and drug down by the time I hit my chair. More on this tomorrow.


    Family Fourth Phase Health Mountains Travel

  • Chuseok and Teshuvah. Double post. see below as well.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lugnasa and the Harvest Moon

    Shabbat gratefuls: Torah. Jamie. Mussar. Ruth and Gabe. Lighting the candles. The shema. CBE. Mary and Guru. Mark in Bangkok. My son and Seoah in Okgwa for the Chuseok Festival.* Alan and his busy weekend. Good sleeping. Kristie. Second opinions. Cancer. Spinal stenosis. Sally. Aging. Its joys and its struggles. Scott and Yin. Men. Women. UC Boulder.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Friendship

    Kavannah: Teshuvah-“…the journey of teshuvah is not about “turning over a new leaf” or being “born again”; rather, it is simply finding our way back to the land of our soul…Every person possesses a core of inherent goodness whose integrity cannot be compromised. While outwardly, one’s actions may not always reflect this inner goodness…people always have the ability to shed their superficial facade and do teshuvah—returning to their truest, deepest selves.” chabad.org

    One brief shining: Chuseok draws families together in North and South Korea, often back to the places of their birth or raising, like little Okgwa for Seoah, back for thanksgiving for family, for the harvest, for love between a brother and a sister, all over that land, a return to the place of your formation; we might say finding a way back to the land of your soul, which has an individual component, of course, but also and strongly a community, familial component, though, yes, the land of your soul and your homeland may be also be widely divergent.

    Chuseok card

     

     

    Sept 2023. Seoahs family

    The key move here, from a Jewish perspective, lies in the neshamah, that essence of you, that buddha nature, that stainless and unstainable core to which one can always return, no matter how hamartia-missing the mark-has confused your nefesh, the outward facing portion of you that changes, grows, shrinks, expands depending on which of the many wolves you feed.

    The month of Elul, our current month in the Lunar Calendar for 5784, encourages all Jews to chasbon nefesh, accounting of the soul. Look back over the last year and see if you got lost in moments of despair over an illness. Like I did. See if you judged others harshly, rather than judging them on their merits. Like I did. See if you neglected opportunities to act with loving-kindness. Like I did. See if you failed to discern again the purpose of your life. Like I did. See if you failed again to act on that purpose. Like I did. Take steps to amend those personal lapses that you can. Like I have. Take steps to open your lev to your true path. As I have.

    Teshuvah is not about guilt, however. It is about sweeping away the barriers in your life to being who you most truly are: a sacred becoming, a moment in the ever expanding tapestry of novelty that is the universe and everything. A unique and irreplaceable soul, a unique, never to be repeated, ishi-go ishi-e self awaits your joyous return.

    No stains that lead to damnation. No sins even God could not forgive. Only you and the land of your soul. To which, at any time, you can, with exuberance and calm, return.

     

     

     

    *”It’s the other time of the year in Korea besides Lunar New Year’s Day, aka Seollal (설날), when family members gather together.  Usually, this means traveling to the home of the head of the family, often one’s grandparents.

    According to legend, an ancient king of the kingdom, Silla, started a month-long weaving contest between two teams.   The team who had woven the most cloth won, and they were treated by the losing team with food, drinks, and other gifts.  Thus starting the tradition of Thanksgiving almost 2000 years ago.

    Some scholars also tie Chuseok to Korea’s history, wherein agriculture was a big part of daily life.  Koreans commonly offered rituals to ancestors to give thanks and celebrate the harvest moon.

    Traditionally, the purpose of Chuseok was for family members to gather together during the full harvest moon. This usually appeared in the sky on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar. Families wanted to celebrate and show gratitude to their ancestors for the fruitful harvest.

    Chuseok is very much a traditional holiday where many of the customs from the old days still stand.”

    Chuseok in Korea

     

     

     


    Asia Family Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Holidays Judaism Korea Memories Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Reimaging revelation Shabbat Travel

  • Antisemitism and Distant Family

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lugnasa and the Harvest Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Chesbon nefesh. Accounting of the soul. Elul. The Shofar. Dawn. As light returns. Dusk. As darkness falls. The long, slow move toward the Winter Solstice. The Torah. Parshas. CBE’s Jubilee year. Shabbat. More kisses on the head. The Mule Deer Doe and her Fawn. The Asters in my back yard. Diane and her Hoosier pilgrimage. Mark, soon to be in Sakakah, Saudi Arabia. My son. Seoah. Murdoch.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ginny’s voice

    Kavannah: HONOUR כָּבוֹד Kavod    Honour, respect, dignity; literally “weight”  (יְקָר Yikar, yee-CAR: literally to regard as “valuable/precious”) [זִלזוּל Zilzul, ZILL-zool: literally to treat as “cheap”]

    One brief shining: At each service over the Jubilee weekend, at all the High Holiday services, we have armed and uniformed deputies of the Jefferson County Sheriff at the synagogue, looking out of place with their bulky gear, the shoulder radio, the baton, the gun who double as door openers, greeting us with their paramilitary smiles, and reminding us as we leave to return our name badges. Anti-semites.

     

    All day, everyday, the synagogue’s doors require a buzzer and a familiar face to open them. Our windows have a special bullet resistant film that once applied makes it harder for an assailant to easily break them with a weapon. We also added air conditioning when the furnaces had to be replaced. So we wouldn’t need to prop open doors.

    I want to believe that it can’t happen at Congregation Beth Evergreen, but of course that’s naive. We’re in gun rich Colorado where the far-right white supremacists and anti-semites hunt or bow each evening to the altar of the gun. If they’re out there in Colorado, they’re armed.

    Not a new reality, but a persistent one. From yellow stars to pogroms to the holocaust violence against Jews has been a hallmark of the diaspora since at least Roman times. Never ignored. Never stopped. Much like cancer, it occurs to me. We can’t pretend it’s not there. We do what we have to do. Yet we cannot, will not live our lives in fear.

     

    Talked with my son and Seoah last night. They’re starting to golf again as the weather has begun to cool. Though it’s still hot in Songtan. Seoah’s sister has begun preparations for planting in this, the first season she begins to take over from her parents. Seoah’s mom and dad own a good deal of land in their small village of Okgwa. All of it under cultivation from rice to peppers to tomatoes and whatever else can be sold to grocery stores, restaurants, or kimchi factories. Seoah’s mom works making kimchi when the growing season is over.

    They’re coming here in December and want to connect with Marilyn and Irv, Alan. My friends are now their friends and vice versa. When I go to Korea, I see Daniel and Diane. Daniel interpreted at their wedding. He’s now a food importer/exporter. I also catch up on Jamie, Nacho, Kevin and other of Joe’s buddies from his many deployments and stationings. Not to mention connecting again with Seoah’s family.

    Meanwhile Mary and Mark continue their expat lives, touching down in Southeast Asia, then heading to Australia or Saudi Arabia. My distant family.

     

     

     

     


    Family Judaism Travel US History World History

  • See. Feel. Taste. Hear. Smell.

    Posted on by Charles 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.


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