Category Archives: Health

Dogs, Health, Politics, Seed Keepers, US History

Shadow. A Blue win!

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Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Shadow. Whimpering. The only sound she makes. Ginny. Janice. Annie. Luna. Luke. Leo. MVP. Tonight. Hair cut. Jackie and Rhonda. Living with the body as it is. Susan Crawford. The Democrats of Wisconsin. Seed-Keepers all. Elon.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Early darkness

Week Kavannah: Wu Wei

One brief shining: Amy clipped on the leash, allowed Shadow to guide her outside, I cheered as we came closer, step by step, to Shadow in the car with me.

 

Dog journal: The beaver has begun sawing on my bed. She won’t get far. It’s an IKEA. Sturdy. Nothing special until now. Shadow marked for all its time.

This morning I looked up from my pillow and Shadow stood between the bed frame and the wall. Good morning, I said. Soon she whimpered. At 5 am. Well, ok. Probably needs to go out. Nope. Just wanted to play.

Her morning energy level. A force of nature. Standing on her hind legs, reaching for my shoulders. Burrowing in between my legs. Nipping. Soft mouth, Shadow.

Amy came yesterday. Tall, gentle Amy. Got Shadow on the leash. We learned a new game, back and forth. I drop a treat, call her name, let her get the treat, then run a few steps away and do the same. After 5-10 times, end with touch, outstretched hand.

Amy is a good business woman. Her 45 minute sessions are 45 minutes. She works Shadow the whole time. And me. She summarizes the day’s work and e-mails it to me. Her payment system works and she sends out regular notifications of upcoming sessions.

 

Organ recital: Leaning toward giving the nerve ablation a shot. If I could get five to six months of relief… Still, needles. Spine. Back.

Gonna give p.t. a thorough shot first. If my referral can ever make it from Mountain View Pain to Luna home health care. Something not right somewhere. Too many phone calls. Sigh.

Wondering what the back pain tells me. Besides the obvious. A Jungian question. Nature’s way of telling me to slow down, take the watercourse way? Or is it a lesson in humility? You are now old. Perhaps focus on matters close to home? Ready myself for the future, whatever it holds?

 

Just a moment: Susan Crawford for the win in Wisconsin! So glad Wisconsin brushed off the crude and cynical exploits of Elon, the Cheesehead. He managed a patronizing, condescending, billionaire it’s all about the money campaign and lost big time.

A booster shot in the old blue arm for sure. Perhaps we liberals (well, ok. I’m a radical, but for the sake of unity.) can now remember that neither Harris nor Trump got 50% of the vote. Harris=48.3%. Trump= 49.8%. We are many, too. Even though it may not feel like it in the hazy, crazy times of the orange ones first hundred days.

Susan Crawford. Seed-keeper. Reminding us that a 2026 victory garden can grow from ideas and campaign tactics known already.

Do we need more focus on working class Americans? Oh, yes. We do. Does that mean we abandon progressive ideas in other areas? No.

Dogs, Health

Shadow’s Gift

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Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: MRI results. Hannah. Mountain View Pain Clinic. Luna Home Physical Therapy. Luke and Leo. Shadow. Toys for aggressive chewers. Our backyard. The Yellow Duck. Early Mountain mornings. Magenta Skies. Snow forecast. Amy coming today. Leash training.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shadow’s Gift

Week Kavannah: Wu Wei

chatgpt

One brief shining: Luke’s website, Soulscape, includes a well-done Bird figure from Dungeons and Dragons, brown pants and green top to symbolize a Tree, his own versions of the Hebrew letters from age 10, several of his newer Hebrew letters in his distinctive white on black style, and a discursus on the letter lamed, a tour de force.

 

 

 

Dog journal: Over the course of our lives together Kate and I loved and cared for 17 Dogs. As you can imagine, I’ve seen many instances of Dog behaviors. None like the one I saw yesterday from Shadow.

Luke and Leo came over. Leo would make 5 of Shadow. He’s a very gentle and kind animal, slower at his advanced age of 12 than when I first met him.

After he and Shadow sniffed all the relevant parts of each other, they went outside to play. Shadow zooming in the back as she loves to do; Leo plowing through the Snow with his head. A lot of play bows, some chasing each other through the Lodgepoles.

When Leo had had enough, he wanted to go back inside, Luke thought for the toys. Leo remembers where the toys are when he comes over. As Luke thought, Leo went straight for the toy bucket. Shadow got a toy, too, and they played separately for a while. Then, Leo got tired of it all and laid down. Shadow continued to play for a bit.

Then she did it. Shadow picked up the toy Tiger in her mouth, went over and dropped it in front of Leo as if giving him a gift. I know it’s easy to over interpret Dog behavior, to project our assumptions about their behavior onto them. But I swear Shadow gave him the toy to play with.

One of the sweetest Dog moments I’ve witnessed.

 

Organ recital: MRI results are in. Oh, boy. My lumbar spine, from L2 to L5 is arthritic and the discs herniated. Lots of nerve pinching up and down. No wonder I’ve got pain.

The herniation I imagine is from the Andover gardening years. Stoop labor. A lot of heavy lifting.

Possible treatments include opiods. No. Physical therapy. Yes. Cane. Maybe. Steriod injections. Probably not. Nerve ablation. Maybe.

All symptomatic. No fixing this back. Problem is I’d need multiple sessions with needles into my spine for either the steroid injections or the nerve ablations. With the steroids, if they help, every three months at least. With the nerve ablations possible six month intervals.

Even so. Needles into my spine? That scares me from a pain perspective and from a That’s My Spine perspective. If it were one and done, sure. But episodically for the rest of my life?

Gonna go with more physical therapy right now. Ponder the needles.

Dogs, Family, Fourth Phase, Health, Politics, US History

Pain Doc and Chauvinist Economics

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Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

Monday gratefuls: Shadow and her aggressive chewer toys. Perfect. Going in and coming out, less of an issue. Her spirit. Sitting at the Wicked Whisk with Ruth and Gabe. Talking. The spirit of Sound. And the spirit within us. Resonant. Days gone by. My son’s generous spirit. Korea. Murdoch. Luke and Leo coming up today.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Grandkids

Week Kavannah: Wu Wei

One brief shining: In the empty bakery, sold out early of its French pastries, eating the last of the scones, the shortbread almond cookies, and drinking espressos from paper cups, Ruth and Gabe and I talked of parents who died too soon, the excitement of international travel, reincarnation, and the Reformation, as families will on a late Sunday morning when they’re Jewish.

 

Seeing the pain doc today. MRI results. Home P.T. referral. Not too hopeful, but looking for any help I can get. That’s not addictive or surgical. A short list.

Need it even more. The pain has moved across my lower back and now includes my left hip and upper leg. Hope none of it is cancer pain. I don’t think so, but I don’t really know.

Will get a copy of the radiologist’s report. Look for those incidental findings.

 

Luke and Leo coming up this afternoon. Luke will help get my Dell desktop setup. Leo and Shadow can have the backyard, get to know each other.

Once my new desktop functions I plan to introduce Shadow to the stairs. So far she has not learned to go up them and that has confined her to my lower living space. And pretty much me along with her.

I’m a bit reluctant to do it since there’s a whole new world of things to chew upstairs. She’s been really good about the furniture down here. Except for my nightstand. It was not well made.

If she has toys, she prefers them. Most of the time. Like a toddler she embraces distraction. I can put a new toy in front of her and she’ll choose (chews) that over a chair leg.

Right now she has a yellow duck in her mouth, squeaking. Every once in a while, duck held tight, she’ll look up and smile. Warms me.

 

Just a moment: Oh, spare me. Already. Third term floating out there. Can you run the country from a memory unit no matter how high end? Vance runs, then gives the scepter to the Boss. What will there be left to eviscerate?

Do you understand how tariffs raise money for us? Cars will get more expensive. Other goods, too. Inflation will rise. A possible recession. Of which Trump is not afraid. No doubt. All billionaires can continue making money even during a recession. A recession damages labor and those lower on the economic totem pole, i.e., the rest of us.

Reagan practiced supply side, or voodoo economics. Trump practices chauvinist economics and ignores their impact on anything but what his narrow America First agenda prioritizes. Yikes.

Sounds like a planned economy to me. Eh?

 

Fourth Phase, Health, Shadow Mountain

Neighbors Helping Neighbors

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Spring and the Snow Moon

Wanted to capture this while fresh. Drove into Leetsdale Ave near Cherry Creek in Denver. Right at the boundary of the largest Jewish community in Colorado. But I wasn’t there for religious reasons, I needed an MRI of my lumbar spine and Open-Sided MRI has its clinic there.

After time in an iron lung, which I do not remember, my body will not let my head be confined. At all. Ever. Traditional MRI’s therefore are out. Long metal tube, human insert. Face inches from the tube’s top. Nope.

So. Open-Sided. Though. When the sled slid under the projection of the magnetic circle, I looked up, found metal inches from my face. “I can’t do this.”

Chris pulled me back out. How about if you look to the side. I tilted my head to the left and there an opening appeared. But I was already scared. “I’m not sure.”

“I’ll get Audra and she can sit with you.”

A measure of serendipity. I’d talked to Audra on the phone Monday and discovered she had moved to Conifer last October. She had a quick wit and kindness in her voice. We agreed to swap stories of best spots to eat when I got there. A charming woman in her late 30’s, early 40’s I found her delightful at check-in, too.

Audra came in and held my hand for the entire 20 minutes of the exam. At first, still nervous, I looked her in the eyes and she pressed her thumb against my left hand which she held in her right.

After a while the odd noises of the MRI, which sounded like House music, and her comfort helped me relax. I closed my eyes.

A long twenty minutes. But, when it was done, I collected my disc with the scan on it, went out to the front desk and thanked Audra, back at her computer, again. She put my chai necklace back on.

I thought, decided to go ahead. “My wife died four years ago. That was the longest I’ve been touched since then. Regardless of the help I needed with the MRI, I wanted to say thanks for that, too.”

A sweet moment.

 

Dogs, Health

Shadow. Open-Sided MRI

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Spring and the Snow Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Shadow, regressing. Sigh. A learning opportunity for me. Amy, coming today. Mood lifters. Open-sided MRI. Tomorrow. On the lower back pain track. Chronic pain. Teaching me something. Marrow bones. Working out. Back on. Mark and his walks in Al Kharj. Western medicine. Eastern medicine. Healing. Healers. Kate, always Kate. Jeffery Goldberg, war planner and editor in chief of the Atlantic.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shadow chewing her bone

Week Kavannah: Ratzon. Will, desire, pleasure

One brief shining: Throw a dog a bone, a marrow bone, teeth clamp on, grind, worry, scrape, tear and attention becomes total, focus on the bone, like throwing out an interesting idea in a group of Jews.

 

Finished The Black Widow by Daniel Silva and started the next one, House of Spies. An all out fiction, spy, Mossad read. Love these. Haven’t done one in a while. Always trying to be on, figuring out the world, politics, technology, science. Literally, give it a rest, dude.

 

Dog journal: Amy’s coming today. Leash training. I’ve not had much luck this week. Shadow shies away from the leash. Need to get this done so I can walk her in the back, have her practice commands. I also want to take her to the vet and to mussar. Without the leash, pretty tough.

She’s not quite small enough to pick up easily for me. About 30 pounds or so. Gone are the days when I could wrestle a Wolfhound into the backseat if I had to.

Shadow seems to be a night owl. She loves staying out late, not coming in after dark. And yes, that’s a regression. Last night I left her out and went to bed, no reason I should lose sleep. (except for Mountain Lions, but my yard is not conducive to them as hunters.)

When I let her in around 11:30, she saw the open bedroom door and made a quick run for it, got under the bed. Her preferred sleeping spot. Around 7 I felt a soft tongue on my hand. Looked over. A black and tan face smiling at me. You awake, dad?

Now, instead of eating, she’s trying her best to disappear a marrow bone. Sharp, strong teeth on our Shadow.

 

Open-sided MRI. I saw the pain doc on February 19th. Took a full month to finally get an appointment after flubbing by the doctor’s office. Tomorrow. Open-sided MRIs exist for two separate groups: the morbidly obese and the claustrophobic. I’m in the latter category.

With all the imaging I’ve had: bone scans, cts, petscans, x-rays I’ve never had an MRI. Glad to close the loop of available tech. Ha.

Even with excellent data about the cause of my back pain, it may not help. See this recent NYT article: What Works for Lower Back Pain? Not Much

I hope for something that would let me drive more, walk more than a block or two. Otherwise my mobility remains very limited. Sitting. No pain. Walking. Pressing on the accelerator. Pain.

Dogs, Friends, Health, Politics

A Shadow in my Life

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Spring and the Snow Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Zornberg. Golden Calf. Talmud Torah. Luke and Leo, coming for a visit. Cool night. Shadow. Regression. Filling the swamp. Mastery. Death. Cancer. Back pain. Ruth, turning 19. Gabe, a junior. Mussar. Kavannah.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Equanimity

Week Kavannah: Ratzon. Will, desire. [jealousy, envy]

One brief shining: How do you count the feeling, fleeting, that carries the mood of joy at Great Sol rising from behind the turning Earth; or, the pulse of emotion as light fades behind Black Mountain, another Mountain night suddenly upon you, one carrying a nostalgia perhaps for the light or a long ago yesterday.

Dog journal: I’ve spent the last few weeks majoring in Shadow. Shadow life. Shadow food. Shadow training. Shadow exasperation. Shadow induced laughter.

A lot of progress in so short a time. From chewing my oxygen tubing and my electric blanket cord to tossing socks in the air, tearing them apart. From hiding behind the coffee table to moving about the downstairs freely. Eating well. Alert.

Ears now flopped over in front, no longer pinned back. Our communication level advancing. Then, regressing. Training with Amy. Ginny and Janice’s kind help.

One bed destroyed, each bit of soft material wrenched out through holes made with sharp puppy teeth. One bed yet unpacked, awaiting a less violent reception.

A Shadow has come over my life and brought me joy.

Glad she’s here. Fretting about weight loss, 7 pounds in a few months. Brings those intimations of mortality, always close, up into my day. Shadow shenanigans making me look up. Not today, dark master. Not today.

Maybe I should try throwing a soft rabbit toy high in the air with my teeth. Works for her.

Had breakfast with Alan yesterday at the Bagelry. A Grateful Dead themed joint. The Evergreen Chorale in which he sings will do performances of Aaron Copeland’s American Songs next week. They also travel in June to NYC to sing, with other Chorale’s, in Carnegie Hall. Hooyah.

Discovered that the drive, breakfast, and getting gas for Ruby tweaked my back enough for an unusual midday Tramadol. Mistake. A two hour nap and a fuzzy afternoon. Pain is better than that. At least so far.

Also discovered that my MRI referral had been received, but to a provider that only had closed machines and claustrophobic me requires an open one. Sigh. Back to the beginning on that one.

I find Shadow and her care, right now, drains most of the remaining energy I have after domestic tasks like working out, prepping and eating meals, doing the taxes. That sort of thing.

This drain will not last as she matures, our relationship deepens, and our mutual understanding grows. For now though…

 

Just a moment: Blowing up Teslas, eh. I get it. I mean, Elon. Who is, as a Daily Show comedian reminded us all, an African American. An Afrikaner. With his fingers deep in the American Pie.

Want to say I disapprove. And the Midwest, middle class, nice white boy part of me-in other words most of me-does. Even so…

Commentary on Religion, Dogs, Family, Health, Politics

Jesus comes to the Americas

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Spring and the Snow Moon

Friday gratefuls: Shadow’s morning greeting. All bounce and joy. Alan at the Baglery. Evergreen. Conifer. Bailey. Constipation. My Taos ring. Kate, always Kate. Shadow’s bed. No more stuffing. Elon and China. Treats. Shadow and her toys. Bagels. Losing weight.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Vermont Flannel

Week Kavannah:  Social Responsibility

One brief shining: Up in the air, the black sock, pounced on, the pink sock, ripped and shredded bed, a rubber ball carried as if conquered by a Roman legion, tail up, ears out, running, then looking over the arm of the chair with wide brown eyes and a smile. Shadow.

 

Ritalin. Has helped my fatigue. May have suppressed my appetite a bit. Losing weight. Could also be another turn of the cancer screw. Hard to tell. Wake up tired. Once I get moving, I’m fine. The steady drip, drip, drip of this and that.

 

Ruth’s coming up Tuesday. We’re celebrating-early-her nineteenth birthday-with a meal at Sushi Den. The Sushi spot in Denver. She’ll drive. Give grandpop a break.

She’s also bringing me lox from Costco. Cheaper yet more, according to her.

It makes me feel so good to see her proactive, loving school, reaching out, planning for her future. Next year she starts her new major, integrative physiology. Headed toward some medical career, I think.

The amount of hard work and tears she’s invested in this new way of becoming. Inspiring. A testament to her fighting spirit and the human spirit.

 

Two Mormon missionaries come to my door. Blue suits, official looking nametags with Elder in front of their names. I doubt they were twenty, maybe still in their teens.

As a man of religion myself, I honor and respect the commitment these young spreaders of the Mormon word display. I accepted a Book of Mormon: another Testament of Jesus Christ bound in faux blue leather matching their neatly pressed suits.

Elder Brommard, something like that, said I should read, he flipped through pages, this chapter first about Jesus coming to the Americas. Could of said, stop right there, dude. Didn’t.

Tempted to invite them in if they come back this weekend. If I do, I would say this: I know you want me to believe this. What I’d rather know right now is why do you believe this?

A question that fascinates me. What causes a person to cross the threshold of belief? Move from a natural skepticism to whole hearted acceptance.

I shook Elder Brommard’s three offered fingers, cold and clammy, nodded to his buddy, and declined to talk to them. Said they may come back this weekend. We’ll see.

 

Just a moment: Who would you give war plans for China? A billionaire whose company has begun to lose market share there? Who’s a buddy of Xi Jinping’s? Whose loyalty is to, what? Money. Power. White people. He’s an Afrikaner, don’t forget.

There are things I don’t understand about the Trump/Musk axis. A lot. Motive seems clear. Power. Money. Retribution. Revenge. Chaos. Mission accomplished. But the means, the stab, crash, break means?

 

 

Dogs, Health, Judaism, Memories, Mussar, Sport

Shadow and Healing. And, Basketball!

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Spring and the Snow Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Lashon hara. Mussar. Shadow. Twisters. Diane. Mark. Mary. My son and Seoah. Murdoch. Kate, always Kate. Cold night. Fair sleeping. Shadow’s toys. Our backyard. The fence. The shed. The deck. Rabbits. Voles. Chipmunks. Winter. Spring. The in between time. Imbolc.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Humans and Dogs

Week Kavannah: Social Responsibility. Achrayut.

One brief shining: Good news comes in, too, like the friend whose lesion seems benign, the shoulder with less pain and increased range of motion, Shadow calmer, happier, the Ritalin decreasing my fatigue, even Great Sol out for a longer Colorado blue Sky stint.

 

Dog journal: Puppy hands. Small hematomas on the back of my hand. Eager Shadow, saying hi hi hi hi hi, I’m so glad to see you! So so glad! Old skin, young nails sharp and wielded with the muscles of an excited puppy.

Shadow’s ears have finally lost their pinned back look most of the time. She still cowers and flinches sometimes and her ears go flat. I ache when I see that. Something happened to make that her response to a human. Don’t know what. Waning, though.

She owns her space, plays with toys, greets me, no longer the shy, hypervigilant Dog under the bed.

Blessings to her and those first inquisitive Wolves who coinvented Dogs.

 

Finished mussar on zoom a second ago. Haven’t gone in person since adopting young Shadow. Today I wanted to have time to workout. Half hour there, half hour back. I would have been too tired.

I mention this because I also know there is a healing energy I get from showing up. It’s substantial and balances the energy I get from my mostly private life. As do my various zoom calls, breakfasts and lunches.

No matter how private, introverted, isolated we might be we are still creatures of community. You don’t have to look further than language itself to prove that. Language marks you as a member of this group or that one and even if you only use your language to process your own thoughts you remain part of that community always.

I get healed and buoyed up as I hope to heal and buoy up others. Showing up, as my friend Paul likes to remind me, marks the other as important, significant, loved. Medicine we all have and we all need.

 

Just a moment: It’s that most wonderful time of the year. Basketball tournaments everywhere, including March Madness. Cinderella teams. Juggernauts. NBA future draft picks. WNBA future draft picks. State level tourneys.

A Hoosier thing. High school basketball. Sure, other states, but we always believed nobody else loved high school hoops the way we did.

The Lion Sleeps Tonight. That song on the school bus radio as we pulled away from the Anderson, Indiana gym. Where only moments before tiny Alexandria had won the sectional by beating the Anderson Indians in the Wigwam. (yes. not that anymore.)

I remember frost on the windows, seeing each other’s breath in the cold March air as we screamed into the night. What wonderful joy!

 

 

 

 

Cooking, Dogs, Fourth Phase, Health, Politics, Seed Keepers, Shadow Mountain, US History

Help Me?

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Imbolc and the Snow Moon

Monday gratefuls: Shadow and me. Cool nights. Good sleeping. Figuring out Shadow. Amy. Annie. Luna. Leo. Gracie. St. Patrick’s Day. Taxes. 529. Cousin Donald. Democrats, wherever they (we) are. A world changing. My son and his theologizing. Seoah.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Granite Mountain Hotshots

Week Kavannah: Social Responsibility. Achrayut.

One brief shining: We were all together, Maine to Shadow Mountain, spots around the Twin Cities, as we have been for several years on Sunday morning, talking about sleep, yes, but really seeing each other, nodding to the gods the neshama the imago dei in each of us linking arms again as we walk each other home.

 

Dog journal: My instincts about dogs came alive in the struggle over Shadow and coming inside. I realized what needed to happen.

When she came to the door, I opened it. When she then ran away, I closed it. We did this many, many times on Saturday. Many times. Now when she scratches on the glass, I open the door, sit down, and she comes in! Hallelujah. A chorus from Leonard Cohen in his raspy voice as background music.

Shadow and I crossed a bridge on Saturday, from puppy enigma to young dog companion. My confidence level in our relationship solidified. And hers with me. I can see it. We see each other now.

What a journey. 100% worth it. We needed each other and, thanks to Ginny and Janice and Heather and the Granby Shelter folks, we found each other. A journey only just begun. More doggy tails to come.

 

Have found a meal service I like. Cookunity. Not cheap, but not expensive when balanced against eating out. Lots of meal selections, easy to heat up, and all the ones I’ve eaten, six as of last night’s Chicken Schnitzel with Mustard mashed Potatoes, tasty.

I find the four meal plan works well for me. The meals arrive fresh and their use by dates make ordering a week’s worth problematic.

Breakfast I manage well. Lunch, too. The evening meal though I’ll often skip because I’m tired or at least too tired to go through the whole rigamarole of cooking and cleaning up. Still, I need the proteins and veggies. Four nights covered. All right.

Also measure the cost against having a light housekeeper come in twice a week to cook a couple of meals, tidy up, do laundry, unload the dishwasher. Probably a hundred to hundred and fifty bucks a week. This notion driven for the most part by the cooked meals.

Taking care of myself while living alone is not always easy. Maintaining chez Shadow Mountain, seeing I eat well, workout. I can do it, have been doing it, but things that ease the way are always welcome.

Fortunate to have enough money. Kate, always Kate. Still caring for me four years after dying. What a woman.

 

Just a moment: I liked the image that came to me of my age peers as the faded flowers of the Baby Bloom, seedheads ready, needing to disperse our seeds so that a new generation of just and compassionate Americans rise up when Spring finally comes for our benighted nation. Help me make this happen?

Health, Myth and Story, Politics, Seed Keepers, US History

The Daily Miraculous

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Imbolc and the Snow Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Talmud Torah. Shadow, her jaws, her claws, her intensity. A cold night. Good sleeping. Studying Zornberg. The Golden Calf. Cookunity. Shrimp and cheesy grits. American Idols. MAGA. Cousin Donald. $$$$. Matt Desmond. Jon Stewart. Working out. Finishing taxes and 529.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: AGI

Week Kavannah: Social Responsibility. Achrayut.

“Being human means being conscious and being responsible. By becoming responsible agents for social change we actualize not only our humanity but also our mission as Jews.” Viktor Frankl

One brief shining: When I turn my coffee grinder on and it begins its whirring chomping way through the dark roast espresso Beans, my ear knows, just knows when enough has been ground to fill the coffee maker. How?

 

The human body. Talk about awe. It knows so much more than we realize in consciousness. Like the length of time it takes to grind enough coffee beans. Or, where we are in a room and what’s behind us. Or, how fast we have to go to avoid a car merging into our lane. How to move and twist for a layup. When we’re in love.

How to get enough oxygen to your brain. Blood to your organs and extremities. How to make hormones that regulate blood sugar. How to clean toxins from your blood.

Or your brain. Which makes a navigable world each time you open your eyes. Taking in the right amount of data. Not too much, not too little.

The new field of sociogenomics recapitulates Heidegger and his dasein. We affect the world and the world affects us. Through genomics. How the body’s genetic material adapts and gets adapted to by its social environment.

The wonder, the awe of it all. Kate and I often observed that the wonder is not that the body fails sometimes, but that it works so well almost all of the time.

Breathing. Moving us through space. Reminding us to rest. To sleep. Perchance to dream. To wake. To eat. Making use of the fuel we provide it through metabolism. Parceling out nutrients to each and every cell. Speaking of miracles. Of magic. Of life.

 

Just a moment: I’m imagining a new Whole Earth catalogue. Or, better, a Seed Saver’s Catalogue. With colorful pictures, descriptions of Seeds like organizing, working the political process, current facts about poverty and its many solutions, success stories from around the country and the world, resources.

What Seeds might you include? I would want information on the American Renaissance. Poetry. Slavery. Stonewall. How to grow a garden. Raise Chickens. Wild Neighbors. Climate Change. How to repair a leaky faucet. How government works. The constitution.

Perhaps some sort of AI way of generating new and more information, connections. A link, maybe, to the Wikipedia project.

Liberty and freedom. Communal responsibility.

How to train a dog, raise cattle. Do wildfire mitigation. What are the responsibilities of a citizen?

Engaging, short articles. Lots of images. Lots of resources. If possible, free to all. A labor of love of country and Mother Earth.