Category Archives: Health

Family, Fourth Phase, Health, Politics, World History

The Dead Live On In Memory

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Samain and the Yule Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Snow. Ruth. Gabe’s poetry. Boulder. CU. The Village Diner. Its Village Virgins punchcards. Ben and Jerry’s on Pearl Street. Only short walking distances. Resistance work. Feeling stronger. Jon and his children. Rich and Doncye.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Poetry, messages from the lev

Kavannah: Perseverance

One brief shining: As we passed Rebecca’s Herbs and Ointments, headed toward our ice cream tradition as Ruth calls it, the wind began to howl, and the cold blasted through my layers and caused both of us to hold our unsnapped and unzippered coats close, hurrying along while my back, as the pace increased, declared itself, stop stop it said. We hurried on.

 

 

Having done what I can for my back, physical therapy, lidocaine patches, and now Celebrex and the occasional tramadol, I put its complaints in the category of life as it is. Yes, it limits my mobility. No, it will not kill me. Unless of course the Celebrex does. This is me, now. At 77.

Another wonderful two hours plus with Ruth, eating at the Village Diner, one of those places students and professors flock to for the literal greasy spoons and great coffee. It wears its worn and chipped table tops, its random displays of CU-Boulder memorabilia, its fry cook behind the long counter with those stools you know, with the pride of a beloved spot rubbed real by hungry students and teachers of physics and philosophy.

During the week and after the noon rush, Ruth and I had a two person booth beside a west facing window, my hearing not the issue she assured me it would be had we come only a bit earlier. I wore my dancing Bears hat in honor of Jon’s birthday.

He was a true Deadhead, loading up whatever vehicle he owned at the time and heading out to follow the band. On one trip Kate and I loaned him Bucky, of Buck and Iris. Buck rode in the front seat of the pickup truck with Jon, happy to see more of the world than our back yard.

Ruth received calls from Jon’s closest friends: Max, Thomas, and Patty. Gabe wrote poetry. Jon was not forgotten. And will not be.

 

Just a moment: Luigi Mangione? Straight outta Mario Brothers. And, apparently, the wealthy upper crust of Maryland. Didn’t see that one coming. I stand by what I wrote the other day. No to murder. Yes to a wholesale revamping of our broken, broken healthcare system. Come on RFK. Your time to shine.

Being caught in a McDonald’s. How absolutely dead center American can you get?

 

Can you imagine Syria. A ruthless dynasty toppled. A palace ransacked. Secret prisons opened. A rebel army that knows fighting now in charge. Governing is a distinctly different skill. Who can predict?

Israel continuing its version of the forever war bombing Assad’s military assets. Not letting them fall into the hands of terrorists they said. Maybe. Or maybe they’re governed even more by hubris. Thinking they can bomb their way to a new Middle East. It will not be so.

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health

Meal Time

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Samain and the Yule Moon

Monday gratefuls: Rich and Doncye. That 529. Captive money. Jon’s 56th birthday tomorrow. Lunch with Ruth in Boulder. Lunch with Joanne today. Dinner at Evoke 1923 with Veronica on Sunday. Our year anniversary for our conversion. By the lunar calendar. Birthday brunch with Luke yesterday at Sassafras.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Regular workouts. Feeling stronger.

Kavannah: Persistence and Joy

One brief shining: Sassafras has a Cajun inspired menu and tables distributed throughout the rooms of two old Victorian homes connected to each other; when Luke came we ordered beignets with the usual heavy load of powdered sugar, then fried green tomatoes Benedict for him, grits and Shrimp for me, a nod to his southern roots and his 33rd birthday. We took a short walk afterward in this hipster neighborhood of Victorian and brick homes.

 

chatbot at my prompt. in the style of Botticelli

Beginning to find a calling in breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Eating out with friends. Keeps me fed, enhances and sustains relationships. Conversation over food, another hominid in the veldt experience. As old as humanity itself. Odd way to live, I guess, solitary and happy, yet also punctuated with laughter and deep talk. Visiting breakfast and lunch spots, fancier places for dinner. Adds 3-D moments to my zoom talks with other friends and family.

When I think about it, not too different from the way I worked while I did organizing out of my Minneapolis West Bank (Mississippi, not Jordan) office. I would meet people for breakfast and lunch, eat, discuss plans, get things started or nurture ongoing work relationships. One big difference: no agenda these days other than showing up, seeing and being seen.

 

chatbot image

Yin/Yang. Masculine and feminine. Man and woman. Gender fluidity. Animus and anima. Queer and straight. Non-binary. Trans. Thinking about all of these lately. Wondering how they intersect, influence each other. Not going to tread too far into these Waters, but I do find the animus/anima, yin/yang, masculine/feminine polarities provocative.

On the MMPI, which I took many times while in seminary, I always spiked the M/F scale. Here’s the summary of a high scores potential meaning for a man:

  • May indicate interests and behaviors that are traditionally considered feminine (e.g., interest in the arts, sensitivity, or gentleness).
  • Possibly challenges or discomfort with traditional male roles.

In times past this scale often identified such high scorers as either actually or potentially homosexual. Wrong. It did and does signal the influence of animus and anima, yin and yang energies in a person. In my case it correctly identifies what Kate called my androgynous personality. A straight male heavily inflected with anima. Probably the deep influence of Mom in my life. Not an unusual finding for men in the ministry, in helping professions.

I also scored high on the 4 scale for psychopathic deviation. This represented my unwillingness to conform to social norms and my ongoing political struggle with a racist, sexist, homophobic, classist culture. This was an unusual finding for men in the ministry, but it sure fit my personality. And, still does.

 

 

Asia, Family, Health, Mountains, Plants, Politics, Shadow Mountain, US History

See

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Samain and the Yule Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Rabbi Jamie. Ginny and Janice. Luke and Leo. Torah. Aviva Zornberg. Art Green. Rami Shapiro. My Lodgepole Companion and their Companions. My son. Shabbat. Bereshit. Brother Mark in Bangkok. Mary in Oz. All Dogs. That Buck.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Perception

Kavannah: Joy and Enthusiasm (zerizut)

One brief shining: What’s that, over there by the neighbors, my eyes caught movement in the Lodgepoles, Branches moving, but no Wind, wait, wait, wait, oh, yes, there he is, that eight point Mule Deer Buck, the one whose photograph I posted; he comes often, always majestic, proud.

 

Often I am reminded of our hominid ancestors, how their life on the veldt trained them to pick up on the slightest motion, the smallest movements of Grass, twitches in Leaves. A something out of sight, almost, at the very periphery of our vision. My ancestral brain lights up as it did yesterday when I saw a disturbance, not in the force, but in the Lodgepoles next to my neighbors.

First check. Are other Branches moving? Could be Wind. No. No Wind. What then? Nothing was visible. It was moderately high up from the ground. Maybe a neighbor? No. The movement seemed to press forward without stopping and a human would have been scratched, bothered, maybe hurt. Wait.

I stood there at my kitchen window. A spot where Kate and I still look out to our front on occasion. As we used to when she was alive. She would have wanted to see this. I waited and in his slow, purposeful way the Buck emerged, his rack having caused the Lodgepole Branches to sway. This is his Land, his Mountain. And he displayed that with each careful, but not hesitant step he took. Unlike the Does that come he did not scan his environment often, confident in his years and his weapons.

Thanks again, Kate, for finding this spot on Shadow Mountain. In the Rocky Mountains and the Arapaho National Forest. Kate, always Kate.

 

Just a moment: Following the Korean weirdness with less detachment than the usual American. Daughter-in-law Seoah has expressed her contempt for the current President, Yun Suk Yeol, comparing him to long red tie guy. She’s not alone among her compatriots as can be seen in the many photographs from Seoul featuring protesters in the streets.

Also my son works alongside Korean military personnel. They’re not ones likely to get called out to enforce martial law, but they are under the overall command of the South Korean President.

Yun survived his impeachment vote, but only just. His political power is gone. Will be interesting to see what happens next.

 

Also following the continuing uproar over Brian Thompson’s murder and the virulence toward the whole health care system it has unleashed. Heather Cox Richardson’s post of December 5th placed the shooting in a long historical context which included this paragraph:

“Today provided a snapshot of American society that echoed a similar moment on January 6, 1872, when Edward D. Stokes shot railroad baron James Fisk Jr. as he descended the staircase of New York’s Grand Central Hotel. The quarrel was over Fisk’s mistress, Josie, who had taken up with the handsome Stokes, but the murder instantly provoked a popular condemnation of the ties between big business and government.” Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, December 6th, 2024

Once again, I condemn the taking of a human life. Yet. I also hope that a cleansing movement might arise from this shooting, a total restructuring of our oh so broken health care system. So many lives end too soon, come to debilitation because our health care system lacks transparency, empathy, and rationality. And again, I remind us that violence does not only come from a gun. It can also come from a letter in the mail, we have denied this procedure, that medication.

Health, Politics, US History

What Have We Got To Lose?

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Samain and the Yule Moon

Friday gratefuls: Rabbi Jamie. Making art. Friends. Ichi-go, Ichi-e. Health insurance. The failure of capitalism. Failing institutions in the U.S. 45/47 already tripping over his long red tie. Plants. Plant intelligence. Consciousness. Materialism. How shall the twain meet? Scrabbling off a 2-D life. With a little help from my friends.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Making art

Kavannah: Joy (simcha)

One brief shining: Sitting at the end of the long table between Gordon and Ellen, I reinforced for myself, yet again, the over the top value of my Phonak hearing aid, having forgotten it in its charging cradle back home, voices from mere feet away arrived muffled, testing my puzzle solving skills and reminding me, too, of how socially distancing bad hearing can be.

 

 

The murder of Brian Thompson of Maple Grove, Minnesota. Yes, United Health Care, formerly known as Group Health, a colossus in American health insurance, has its roots and headquarters in my former home state of Minnesota. My AARP Advantage health plan is a United Health Care product. I have experience with it as a user, an insured, and as a source of news from time to time when I was in Minnesota, often about how much the executives made in salary and bonuses.

Dr. William McGuire, former CEO of UHC, donated $10 million for Gold Medal Park near the Guthrie Theater. He also owns, in retirement, the Minnesota soccer club, the Minnesota United. A billionaire.

How much of that money is literal blood money? Money “earned” as “profits” by holding back coverage to plump up the quarterly P&L. In 2016 I was denied an axumin scan that would have accurately targeted the location of my resurgent cancer. Experimental, UHC said. That meant I entered 35 sessions of radiation with the powerful beam aimed at the area, the prostate fossa, or bed, statistically most likely to harbor active cancer cells. That wasn’t where they were.

After a prostatectomy and 35 sessions of radiation, if prostate cancer returns, it is incurable. Where I am now. Since 2019. Would a more targeted bout of radiation cured mine? I don’t know, of course, but I was not given the chance to find out. And, it was my last hope for a cure. Yes, I do carry some anger about that.

With what the NYT described as a Torrent of Hate for Health Insurance Industry exploding across social media, it occurred to me that we might see in that vitriol a clue to Trump’s victory. A toxic stew of anger about health care, inflation at the grocery store checkout and the gas pump stirred into a broth of white supremacy, anti-semitism, homophobia and misogyny. A generalized and deep upset with the way things are.

Institutional distrust sweeps in there, too, not just for the health care “system.” The church. Higher education. C suite salaries compared to those in their employee.

I can imagine a person saying, this is too much. Harris sounds like the old boss; Trump sounds like a different boss. What have we got to lose?

Friends, Health

Some (like me) might call it murder

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Samain and the Yule Moon

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

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Kippur

Kavannah: Perseverance and love (ahavah)

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Judaism

Blah. Bah.

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Samain and the Yule Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Rich Levine. Small Estate Affidavit. The arcane lore of the law. The law itself. Making and enforcing laws. Judges. Lawyers. Police. Detectives. Canon law. Bishops. Diocese. Bishop Joe Strickland. Life in spite of. A good life in spite of. Seed-Keeping. Soil. Roots and Rhizomes. The Light-Eaters. Zöe.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Boulder

Kavannah: Perseverance and love (ahavah)

One brief shining: As I drive down the hill, and everything is down the hill from my home on Shadow Mountain, the lights have gone up, pushing that holiseason instinct to brave the advancing darkness by illuminating it, brilliant tiny bulbs of all colors strung along eaves, up a forty-foot Colorado Spruce, on wires from a tall pole to form a tree of lights, we are still here they say, look at what we can do.

 

I have only one thing that carries a weight for me. You might think prostate cancer, but no. That’s not it. It’s transferring the money from Kate’s 529 accounts for Ruth and Gabe to my own. I want to start giving Ruth money. Since last August. My formophobia notwithstanding I have dutifully sent off three packets of declarations, forms, and certificates. Still no joy.

Dealing with it makes me tense, jaw tightens. Teeth clench. My emotional resilience plummets. Not good for problem solving. Especially over the phone, to call center employees. Some who can do this, but not that. Those who can do that are not available and will call me back. Right.

Reached out to Bond and Devick, my financial planners, since they’re in Minnesota and it’s a Minnesota program. They helped me. Sort of. Going to see Rich tomorrow. If I can, I’m going to hand it to him and ask him to finish this for me. I want it off my back.

 

Going to see Rabbi Jamie tomorrow after mussar. Twice in the past month I’ve encountered a barrier within that I didn’t know existed. I believe my flat affect stems from its grip on me. The barrier is enough.

My first encounter with it was on my second visit to my medical oncologist, Dr. Buphati. I’d gone to that meeting expecting clarity about the status of my advanced prostate cancer. When I discovered they did not have my PSA results, drawn in their office three weeks before, I hit the barrier.

As if a train of cars, each one carrying a different emotional cost levied over the whole of my nine year plus cancer experience piled up, each one pushing against the other with the force of inertia gained over time and distance.

Over most of those nine plus years I’ve tried to deal straight up with the news about this change or that, move on to the next step, treading that fine line between being informed and responsible as a patient and trusting my doctors as Kate asked me to do. Sure, I’ve had times when fear overcame me, uncertainty pushed me to my knees, but each time I got back up. In this moment, at that visit I could not get back up.

Though I left after that visit with a feeling of doom and sadness overwhelming me, I drove home without incident and did right myself later in the day.

For some reason I cannot recall the second time right now. Not the trigger that is. But the feeling? Oh, yes. Here’s a different metaphor. Have you ever worked in or been in a factory where they had heavy doors attached to a counterweight with a chunk of lead in the cable holding the door open? If there’s a fire, the lead melts and the counterweights engage pulling the door closed to protect whatever lies beyond it.

That sort of feeling. As if what has gone before has been so much, that my feelings slammed my inner world shut. Trapping those feelings that threatened to engulf me.

It doesn’t surprise me that these moments have come to visit. The last ten years have held more tough times than I can recall. Yet I feel I’ve learned how to navigate the grief and the fear neither ignoring nor denying it, while not being captive to it either. In spite of that I have had death, divorce, and disease as my constant companions over the last ten years. I have not forgotten that. I don’t dwell on it, but the memories and the feelings remain stored within me.

When I stepped into this new period of uncertainty about my prostate cancer, right after my bar mitzvah ironically, I’ve gone up and down. Sometimes steady. Sometimes not. The most current manifestation of these feelings has been a flat affect, not down, not up. Blah. Unmotivated. Slow. Tired. Very much like acedia.

The door to my inner world slammed shut. Bottling up my exuberance and joy.

I don’t like living blah. My life means more to me.

 

Family, Health, Politics, Writing

Heartseen

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Samain and the Yule Moon

Shadow Mountain by my buddy 4o

Tuesday gratefuls: My son and Seoah. Skiing. Here and in Korea. Shadow Mountain in the style of Hokusai. Chatbotgpt4o. Handy. Memories of my son. Of him and Jon. Kate, always Kate. Ruth. Gabe. NYT. Washington Post. Ground News. Hamas. Hezbollah. Iran. Israel. Ukraine. North Korea. China.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: My son and Seoah here for my birthday

Kavannah: Perseverance and love

One brief shining: My body on the gurney, lying on my left side facing Lynne who held a sonar wand which she glopped up with lubricant, cold as it hit my bare chest, and suddenly there, right there on the screen, a peek inside my beating heart, valves, vessels, blood flowing shown by red and blue pixel clouds that looked like a weather map. Oh. Amazing.

 

Another echocardiogram. Primary purpose? Check out my aorta. Which has a slight problem, so slight that I can’t remember what it is. An enlarged aorta. Looked it up. Dr. Rubenstein wanted this echo a year after my visit to him. If the mild enlargement has not changed, we’ll cross it off my problem list. Glad to do that.

Still comes with the full echo though. So I get one more look at my heart as it works. If you’ve never had one, I find them amazing. There on the sonar screen my heart valves opened and closed. Lynne took various measurements with the click of a mouse while I watched.

Before echocardiograms? Not sure. Asked chatbot. Stethoscopes. Thumping the chest. Pulse checks. EKG’s. Chest X-Rays. Those sort of things. But nothing that could see the heart at work, measure the chambers and the blood flow. Much less accurate. Thank you, technology.

Went to Noodles on the way home and picked up some Korean noodles for dinner.

 

Today I’m going to try one more time to finish the transfer of Ruth’s 529 from Kate’s account to a new one in my name. This process has had several iterations and involves starting over again with each new phone call to adjust to their needs. So frustrating.

 

My new rhythm works for me. Getting more writing done. Regular exercise and reading. What I needed to lift me out of the flats.

 

Just a moment: Hadn’t considered Trump’s vindictive streak and his nominee to run the FBI, Kash Patel. After reading Heather Richardson’s commentary on the exposure Hunter faced given both of those, I not only understand Joe’s decision, I would have made it myself.

Interesting point about RFK and his appointment to run HHS. People don’t trust our medical care system, so they’re ok with anyone who promises to shake things up. I understand this. It’s a confusing, messy, expensive bureaucracy that often doesn’t seem to have health or the patient as its top priority.

RFK would not be my choice to lead the charge, but that someone should? Oh, yeah.

 

 

Health, Politics, Shadow Mountain

This and That

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Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

Friday gratefuls: Shabbat. Alan and Joanne. Australia and New Zealand. Richard Powers. Rick. A large mussar gathering. Treyf. The New York Times. The Washington Post. Axios. Colorado Sun. Ground News. Nexus. Almost done. Resistance. Working. Medical oncologist today.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Family

One brief shining: Staring into the abyss, the abyss staring back. A love story.

 

Yet another oncology appointment. In Littleton this time, no longer within visual distance of Swedish Hospital, its tenth floor where Kate died. Another blood draw. Far less angst now. I know the direction we’re headed. More orgovyx and erleada. More blood draws. Maybe a replacement at some point for erleada.

Cancer, as Scrooge might say: Bah, humbug.

 

Tis the week before Thanksgiving and all through the house no one’s talking politics, not even a mouse. Not a problem for me since my Thanksgiving will involve Ruth, Gabe, and Jen. Gloating predicted to be a problem for red visitors to blue homes. Just you wait sentences spilling from the mouths of blue guests to red homes. Whatever happened to this once upon a time refuge for glutting instead of gloating, for football instead of nah nah ne nah nah.

Maybe Native Americans will smile.

 

Had my septic system pumped yesterday. It had been a while. My equivalent of your city sewer system. Since 1994 I’ve lived off the city water and sewer grid. A leech field. A well for water. Had to replace the pump a few years back. Not cheap. Neither was pumping out the septic tanks. That means, BTW, I haven’t had fluoride in my drinking water for thirty years.

In Colorado, when you sell your home with a septic system, you have to pay $800 or so to have it certified as functional. Gives the term deep dive a different inflection.

 

Just a moment: So. Was Gaetz a Trojan horse to let Hegseth and Gabbard in? Was this the plan all along? Cunning, baffling, and powerful. This red tie guy and his minions. Some see Gaetz’s withdrawal as an early win for the Senate. I’m not so sure.

 

How bout that Netanyahu? Now an indicted war criminal. He’ll have to seek asylum in the homeland of his buddy, 47. Maybe get sanctuary in the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem? He’s got indictments at home, too. Like you know who. What a pair.

 

I stand by my Seed-Keeper mode for the next four years. Some of us have to remind others that this is an experiment, these Untied States. No, not a misspelling. If we’re not vigilant, the constituent parts of the United States might well become untied. And, no, not even his long red tie will be able to put us back together again.

Perhaps this Thanksgiving instead of party politics we might try to find common ground on what freedom means. Liberty. On how different paths might lead to justice for all.

And to all a good night.

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Politics

You know

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Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

Wednesday gratefuls: Rubberized weights. Working out. Feeling it. Cold night. 10 degrees. Coloradified. Me. Paul. Robbinston, Me. Lobster Pots. New Brunswick. Canada. New Foundland. Wawa. Marathon. Sault St. Marie. Toronto. Stratford. Pukaskwa. Road signs with the crown.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Body weight workouts

Kavannah: Perseverance

One brief shining: Marked HEAVY the cardboard boxes containing my rubberized weights for in-the-house workouts sat just outside my front door and posed a conundrum for this muscle wasted senior citizen, staring down at them, laughing at the paradox of not being able to lift the tools he needed to be able to lift the tools.

 

No. They’re not still out there. I cowboyed up and lifted each box, one at a time, to the lip of the door then shoved them into the living room. Where they still sit. Knife in hand, I’ll open them, and carry the fifteen pounders one at a time, the ten and fives two at a time, downstairs.

Another chatbot created image. Just what I’ll look like in only a few short months. By Spring I’ll be able to kick sand in the face of all those beach bullies. Like Jack Lalanne promised in those ads in the back of the comics. Or, maybe not.

I’ll settle for being able to open cans and bags. Carry groceries with ease. Not feel like such a wet noodle.

 

Realized last night that I’ve arrived at inner peace. No regrets or worries bother me before my head hits the pillows. My to do list nags me, yes, but not in an OMG, I gotta get this done sorta way. Not to say that on occasion a moment of angst doesn’t squash me. Consider my last visit to the oncologist as an example.

I did have a summer and early fall time of perplexity about my cancer. Didn’t know what came next or how long I had to live. Let that gnaw on me for a while. Even then though I never lost sleep, chewed my fingernails.

Not sure how I got here. Darn it. I could write a self-help book otherwise. A key component I do know. Contemplating my own death. Accepting it. Embracing it as a necessary, even desired punctuation to life. Meditating on my own corpse. Yamantaka to thank for that.

My paganism plays a role, too. The Great Wheel turns. The growing season ends, then the fallow time, finally the Winter Solstice and the long dark night. Death as part of the natural cycle.

Judaism does not emphasize life after death. Though it considers the possibility. Some kabbalists believe in reincarnation. I’m willing to be surprised. Joanne said, “You know you have to give up heaven and hell!” Never believed in it anyhow. Three story universe. Yesterday’s notion.

 

Just a moment: Oh. Well. Linda McMahon. WWF exec. With the necessary qualifying sleaze and scandals. For Education Secretary. A Cabinet department red tie guy has promised to gut. Foxes. Hen houses. Scorpions riding frogs. You know.

 

 

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

Tears and Laughter

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Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

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

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Habeas Corpus for Elephants

Kavannah: Perseverance

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

 

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

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