Category Archives: Health

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Fungi, Garden, Great Wheel, Great Work, Health, Hydroponics, Mountains, Our Land and Home, permaculture, Plants, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Science, Sierra Club, Weather +Climate

A Bold Return to Giving a Damn

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Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

Friday gratefuls: Tara. Her new puppy. Cold. Snow. Sleep. Gabriella. A Bold Return to Giving a Damn: One Farm. Amazon. New Phone. Wallet. 2024 on the way. Poetry. Road Less Taken. Lines Written at Tintern Abbey. Kubla Kahn. Notes on a Supreme Fiction. Circles. Leaves of Grass. Ozymandias. The Raven. Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. The Wasteland. Song of Myself. The Second Coming. And so much else.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Poetry

One brief shining: The end of another year approaches, our penchant for deciding calendar dates as the always orbiting Earth’s journey around Great Sol continues, brings us to Pope Gregory XIII who chose in October of 1582 in his well known Papal bull: Inter gravissimas to change the rules for leap years to prevent the Julian calendar’s drift away from the solar holidays, oh you didn’t know, well neither did I but Wikipedia did.

 

 

Gabriella. My adopted Axolotl. She’s swimming in the chinampas canals along with other wild Axolotls who will repopulate the ancient waterways of Xochimilco. I get excited about this project because it’s both the reintroduction of a wild species into its former habitat (see the five Timber Wolves released a week ago in western Colorado) and a project that supports indigenous farming methods healthy for the chinampas themselves. This kind of work will enable our grandchildren to have their best chance to adapt to a warming World.

A Bold Return to Giving a Damn: One Farm, Six Generations, and the Future of Food relates the story of Will Harris and his disillusionment with Big Ag 30 years ago. The successful transition of his family’s farm to regenerative farming makes compelling reading if you care about the source of your food. This farm is in southwestern Georgia, but it’s an example, not singular.

The USA Regenerative Agriculture Allliance, Inc trains farmers in regenerative practices. Yes, it’s about good food, food raised without pesticides, fertilizers and other “inputs” that defy the natural cycle and deplete the soil. But, it’s also about how to live in a warming World. Someday regenerative agriculture will use the perennial grains and other crops under development at the Land Institute.

Want to volunteer in the work of Ecosystem restoration? Look at the Ecosystems Restoration Communities website. They do restoration projects all over the world. The expertise and practical knowledge developed as these organization go about their own individual missions will become the Seedstock for a World that can no longer afford any depletion of natural capital.

What’s natural capital? An accounting method. That’s right. Accounting. The Natural Capital Project at Stanford University develops accounting methods that define the value of Ecosystems, Oceans, the Water cycle, Forests. Why is this important? Regenerative agriculture is a good example. Corporate farming, by far the dominant model in the U.S. and in most of the World, treats Soil, Crops, and Animals as so many widgets to be manipulated for increased profits. Their accounting methods do not have to take into account the value of the Soil, the Rain, the need for dna diversity in both food Crops and Animals. They don’t have to reckon with the future costs of ruined Soil, the dangers of monocultures in such critical crops as Corn, Wheat, Rice. Maybe they’re not as profitable as they think.

OK. I’ll stop. For now. But I will return to these adaptive approaches that will help Ruth and Gabe survive in a much changed world.

 

Colorado, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Fungi, Health, Hermitage, Holidays, Myth and Story, Park County, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Reimaging revelation, Shadow Mountain, The West, Travel, US History

Surrender Charlie

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Samain and the Winter Solstice Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Heidi. The Dragonfly Sign. Colorado Supreme Court. Psilocybin. Nahuatl Gods and Mayan hieroglyphics. Surrender. Irv. Rider. Mt. Logan. Crooked Top Mountain. The Grandfather Tree. Park County 43. Buggy Whip Road. Hangman’s Road. Washington County Maine. Climate change. Shadow Mountain. The Rockies. The Front Range. Alan. Bastien’s Steak House. The Winter Solstice. Holimonth.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Colorado Supreme Court

One brief shining: A cloth with Native American colors marking the four directions, circular, laid on it cut white Roses, small Pine Tree Branches, red Roses, Cinnamon, Coffee beans, Star Anise, Aspen Leaves arranged for a Peruvian gratitude ceremony in which I picked up a small Branch of Pine Needles, inhaled its essence three times and exhaled my love and gratitude before placing the needles gently in the center.

 

OK, nation! See Colorado go. I loved living in Minnesota and in the Twin Cities for forty years. The North Woods. Wolves. Lake Superior. So many Lakes. Liberal to radical politics. Not perfect, no. Witness George Floyd. But no place is. And Minnesota seemed as close as they come while I lived there. Then Kate and I moved to Shadow Mountain.

As the Dead said: What a long, strange trip it’s been. Many of you know my story over the now 9 years exactly since my buddy Tom and I drove straight through from the Twin Cities with Kepler, Vega, and Rigel in the back. And, yes, that story has its definite peaks and valleys. But that’s not my reference here.

No where else in the country, this divided and often pitiful land of ours, could I have had a legal psychedelic journey on Crooked Top Mountain then come home to Shadow Mountain and read the wonderful news that the Colorado Supreme Court had called a crook a crook, an insurrectionist an insurrectionist and kicked Trump off our ballot. I mean, whoa! What a day.

I shifted my inner identification a few years back from Minnesotan to Coloradan, my Mountain home become just that. Home. Yes, we elected a gay Governor. How bout that. And of course the wild Neighbors and the Mountain Streams and the Black Bears. The Snow and the spectacular Autumns with gold and green. Over the time I’ve lived here Colorado has shifted from red to blue. Not without some Western weirdness along the way, but that makes it interesting. All that’s true.

But in one day to take a psilocybin journey with a good friend on property so evocative of a sixties commune and then learn we Coloradans had taken a firm stand, saying what all clear eyed non Trump bedazzled folks already know but somehow cannot communicate, that insurrectionists should not, in fact,cannot hold office. Well, I’m busting with state pride right now. Colorado is the California of the new Millennia. OK. Enough local chauvinism. Still, pretty damned cool. Gives this aging radical a boost.

 

Short note on the psilocybin journey about which more later. Ate the mushroom after the gratitude ceremony. Mixed with a little lemon juice supposed to make it come on quicker and go sooner. Sat outside in the glass enclosed shelter where we held the gratitude ceremony, the others going inside. Watched the curved Snowy Bowl of Mt. Logan as my inner weather shifted under the power of the mushroom.

Went inside and lay down on a heated pad. Soon Nahuatl Gods and Mayan hieroglyphics began to move across the ceiling. Sometimes two dimensional sometimes three almost down to my face. I love hallucinations. So fun. I told my guide I might be under utilizing the experience; it was so entertaining.

Turned out no. I hadn’t. I had two intentions going in, the one I wrote about yesterday, how to live fully, and the second to continue my exploration of the sacred.

During some brief conversation after being asked if we had any insights I said, yes, I had one. In living more fully I’ve pushed, thought about things to do, about acting in my life to live more fully. Answering Shakespeare, I have always chosen to take up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. Now I need to learn surrender.

To live fully I need to open up, accept what’s coming. Greet the new year with arms spread wide for what it brings rather than what I can make happen. Well, not rather than. I mean, I’ll still take up arms, of course I will, but I learned yesterday that I have another option. To embrace, to wait, to listen, to let the world and its wonders come to me. As the Wicked Witch of the West might say, “Surrender, Charlie!”

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism

All We Can Absorb, Hear

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Samain and the Winter Solstice Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Phonak. Aimee. Mile High Hearing. Good workout. Luke and Leo. Leo’s food. Zornberg. Joseph and his brothers. The seven fat years and the seven lean years. Not-being. Catastrophe and hope. Parsha. Hanukah, night 5. Jeffco Snow plows. Trash pickup people. Mail carriers. Schoolbus drivers. Essential Mountain services. Dangerous jobs. Mountain Nights. Clear, clean, cold. A new moon. Pipe Creek. A Desert Eagle in Saudi Arabia. That Monitor Lizard in K.L.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Hearing

One brief shining: In the dark of tomorrow night the Geminids will appear, motes of dust flying through thick atmosphere, heating up, becoming meteorites, flashing across the sky in the universe primeval language of formation and destruction a reminder message to us all that our lives, our planet, our Great Sol will all burn out on some other starry night.

 

Hearing test next month. I suspect my hearing has declined. Missing things in conversations, can’t understand Gabe when he’s in the passenger seat and I’m driving. The Phonak gives me a relatively normal hearing experience, as good as I can get I imagine with only one good ear and that one on the wane. Even so. When I take out my hearing aid now, the world around me quiets way down. Good for reading, sleeping. Not so good if I forget to put in my hearing aid.

Jeff Glantz, of blessed memory, and I talked only once before his sudden death. He told me Long Island was a hundred miles long. That’s long. Not the point here though. Jeff’s hearing aid dangled out of his ear. Ever since that conversation I’ve been aware that the only thing we old folks need to look demented is our hearing aid dangling out of our ear.

Do we accept the changes of age or rail against them like Dylan wanted his father to do? Rage, rage, rage against the dying of the light. Or, perhaps the dying out of sound? There is a third option, the one I choose. Know the changes, do what you can to ameliorate them, accept what you can’t. Applies to hearing, sight, cancer, sarcopenia in my case.

 

The chaotic chatter of our time has grown, to continue from the above, deafening. Perhaps that’s what going on with my hearing. My brain no longer wants to absorb thoughts about a second Trump term (I can’t call it a presidency because, well…). About A23a floating its way toward South Georgia Island bearing 1 trillion tons of ice formerly resident in Antarctica. About the Israeli Defense Force bombing, shelling, shooting persons and buildings in the Gaza strip. About the Chinese wanting to wreak havoc with our infrastructure through cyber warfare. About Ukraine’s failed offensive. About the dysfunction of the House of Representatives and the Senate. About the many trials of the Orange one. About sexual abuse in women’s soccer and gymnastics.

Here’s what I want. A visit to the Rothko show in Paris. Rothko and me. Except, crowds and Covid. A midrashic hermeneutic for the Torah study group I’m starting. Breakfast at Primo’s tomorrow and at Aspen Perk’s on Friday. Marilyn and Irv, then Tara. Zoom time with Tom and Diane. My son and Seoah. More Snow for Shadow Mountain. Calm days for Ruth and Gabe. A gentle Winter with Snow and cold, flocked Lodgepoles and that very young Doe eating Grass in my front yesterday. Yet more books. Some good movies and TV. Quiet sabbaths unless filled with family and friends. Then noisy and upbeat.

Happy Hanukah!

Feelings, Fourth Phase, GeekWorld, Health, Judaism, Mussar

Post Conversion Let Down

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Samain and the Choice Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Leo. Doggy presence. Luke in Florida. Tom in Atlanta. Paul’s birthday. 77. Whoa. He old. Great Sol brightening a Shadow Mountain morning. Last warm day for a while. Snow coming. Over spending on Snow tires. For safety. Giving myself the best odds. Living high. Colorado. The Rockies. The Himalayas. The Appalachians. The Smokies. The Atlas. The Alps. The Dolomites.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Mountains

One brief shining: Leo lies on my rug, legs sprawled out, head down, sleeping or resting, while I sit here typing, hitting key after key with the automatic movements learned first in typing at Alexandria-Monroe High School, perhaps the class I’ve used the most in terms of daily activity, odd to contemplate though paws on the keyboard, a million dogs would not produce the Britannica.

 

I slept in this morning. On purpose. Because I liked the feel. An oddity for me, yes, but fun in a I don’t have to so I won’t sorta way. Bright eyed and bushy tailed. Ever hear that one? Don’t think I’ve felt that way since I hit 70. Awake and alert, ready to go about the day, yes, but bushy tailed? Can’t recall the day. Maybe a feeling reserved for the get up and go ages of the twenties and thirties?

 

MVP tonight. Rabbi Jamie on trust/compassion with the metaphor of rock. This small group at CBE supercharges my month. We’ve been meeting for years now, lost two members to death: Judy and Kate, and have gotten as close as a group can get. Figuring what I can make since we always bring food.

 

So. An odd, kind of silly deal with my Snow tires. Jesus told me two of my Blizzaks were at 4 mm tread. I knew it, too. I took them back last year when a tech said they could go a little further. Nope. So Jesus offered me a deal. Salvation for two Blizzaks. I don’t know how they get away with that name even in Latino circles. Too many jokes, I’d think. Anyhow. He would give me a deal on two new ones. But. I’d have to leave the car until 1:30 pm. This was at 9:30 am. Nope. Put’em on.

Drove home, ordered two new Blizzaks from Tire Rack.com. About $20 more than what Jesus had offered. Shoot. Going to big O in Evergreen on Friday to have them put on. I know. But I brought this on myself. Having good tread and good winter tires for Mountain roads? Perhaps not necessary, but prudent. And damned if I don’t have a real strong prudent streak. Always surprises me, too.

 

Post conversion let down. Had such a buzz going the last month or so. Getting ready, making schedules, preparing myself for transformation. A peak on Tuesday in the mikvah. Slowly. Like air going out of a balloon. Life deflates. Not depressing, but a daily normal state over against a time of heightened anticipation, excitement. Maybe like the time after opening presents on Christmas morning. Gathering energy for the long haul now, a Jewish life until death.

Although. I do have an inner calmness now. As if some vibratory mechanism in my inner world got turned off. That is the opposite of an excited state and I’m still getting used to it. Feels like I have enough time now, as if the future has gone quiet, not clamoring for a piece of me right now.

Changes.

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism

Matters of the Heart

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Samain and the Choice Moon

Sabbath gratefuls: A good heart. Dr. Rubenstein. Denver. The Brown Palace. Driving down the hill. Parsha. Jacob at the Jabbok Ford. Dvar Torah. Reading a psalm. Holding the Torah scroll. Leading the shema. Lighting the shabbat candles. Mindy’s flour-less chocolate cake. Joan and Rich. Marilyn and Irv. Tara. Alan in Cuba. Ron and Iris. Luke and Leo. Rabbi Jamie. My home, CBE. The oneg.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Holding the Torah scroll

One brief shining: Wearing my kippah in the synagogue now I went up to the ark and Rabbi Jamie took our two Torah scrolls out, handed one to me, one to Veronica, heavier than I had expected, while we held them I lead a spoken shema then Jamie and Veronica, who has a beautiful singing voice, lead a sung shema we returned the scrolls to Jamie who replaced them in the ark.

 

Yesterday was a heart day all the way. Left home at 7:45 to drive into and through downtown Denver to the offices of the SCL heart and vascular institute to see Dr. Rubenstein. My first visit to a cardiologist. That enlarged aorta discovered by the family practice doc in Korea. Emmie put the leads on me expertly, a baseline ekg. Took my blood pressure. Discussed my meds and my medical history. A bit later the now de rigueur knock on the door and Dr. Rubenstein entered.

That grade 1 mitral valve dysfunction? Everybody over 60 has it. The enlarged aorta. Mild. Nothing to worry about. Another echo in a year just to see if it’s expanding. If not. Probably forget about it. Keep doing what you’re doing. Your heart is fine. What I thought.

I had a question for him though. Did he ever consider the heart in the context of the Hebrew word lev? It stopped him. Not sure what you’re asking, he said. Well, we’re dealing here with the heart as an organ, but do you ever consider it as part of the heart-mind. You mean all this? He swept his hands up and down over his body. Yes.

Not in here. Here I’m focused on the organ, how it’s working. Outside of here, then I take into account the spiritual. But not here.

 

Then. Breakfast at Aspen Perks. Marilyn and Tara were just leaving as I was coming in. Talked to them for a bit and Marilyn offered to sit with me while I ate. We had a good conversation. Went home and finished the book God is Here. Turns out the author is into process theology. Whitehead. I mentioned this to Marilyn and she told me the story of Whitehead hall at her alma mater. 5 stories with no elevator. When she and Irv were dating, he wouldn’t follow her up to her classes on the fifth floor. Love dies on the fifth floor of Whitehead was a saying for them ever after.

 

That evening. A potluck, the shabbat service, the oneg. Got there a bit early to talk to Jamie. Make sure I was not included in any singing. Of which there is a lot in a Jewish service. No, I wasn’t. He had a color coded order of service that showed when Veronica and I were supposed to come up. Which he didn’t follow as it turns out.

I read his translation of a psalm, participated in lighting the shabbat candles, and held a Torah scroll as did Veronica. After the scrolls were put away and we finished leading the congregation in the shema, Jamie looked at us, indicated the congregation, and said, “Look out on your home.”

Veronica and I both did the d’var Torah, a talk or an essay based on the Torah portion for the week. Veronica talked about the conversion process while I focused on Jacob at the Jabbok Ford.

I’ll post mine when I finish writing it for Joan. She couldn’t hear all of mine. I did it extemporaneously, so I’m going to try to recover roughly what I said.

The oneg afterward included a flour-less chocolate cake Mindy offered to make for me. She’s a master baker and it was wonderful.

A lot of pats on the back, congratulatory comments. Dan Herman, past congregation president, gave me a gift of carrots pulled from his garden last week and a large prescription bottle filled with marijuana buds also from his garden. Gotta love that.

So now the conversion process itself has ended. The mikvah and the naming ceremony finished this week and an appearance as a new Jew (thanks, Alan) in a service. But. I have eight more sessions with Jamie on various aspects of Jewish life. The next one, this month, is on Jewish identity.

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Judaism

A Shortie

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Samain and the Choice Moon

Tuesday grateful: Choice day. Immersion. The prayer on the third immersion: Shema Yisrael. Adonai Elohenu. Adonai Echad. A drop of blood. Some conversation. Then, lunch at Yahya’s on E. Colfax. Kate, my guide on this journey, the one who went before me. A bit, a tiny bit, of anxiety. The unknown. A bit, a larger bit of excitement. The unknown. A day of inner change. Ritual. Thousands of years I will be part of. All my friends here and out there.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Choice

One brief shining: Heard the alarm, snuggled back into my warm blankets thinking oh today, said the Shema, stayed in bed a little longer, groaned a bit as I do in the mornings, old man noises I call them, rolled out of bed, picked up my phone and my life alert pendant, ready to change my life.

 

Short one. I went to Seven Stones cemetery yesterday, looking at possible memorials for Kate and me. A pleasant visit. Met a woman who had been an officer at Hickam 1995-1996. Saw all the options. A beautiful location, one I would choose if it didn’t cost so damned much. On considering the likelihood of any one visiting the site the money doesn’t make sense. We’re talking minimum ten thousand dollars. Going up as far as you want. Including a $2500 opening and closing fee for putting an urn in the ground! I mean, come on. All of our dogs are there except Rigel and Kep. That’s why I thought about it in the first place.

 

A good workout yesterday, too. My back remains calmer. Not absent, but much less intrusive.

 

I plan to write a second entry today when I get back, so this will be it for now. Got to get dressed for the mikvah. Then, undressed.

Health, Judaism, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

A bit of this, a bit of that

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Samain and the Choice Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Israel. Hamas. Palestinians. Hezbollah. Saudi Arabia, especially Hafar. Malaysia, especially K.L. Korea, especially Songtan. The Rocky Mountains, especially Shadow Mountain. Minnesota, especially the Twin Cities. Maine, especially Robbinston. San Francisco, especially Lucky Street. The Mikvah of East Denver. The three immersions. Veronica. Becoming a Jew. Molly, the kind Dog at the windshield replacement place.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Lodgepoles Branches flocked with Snow

One brief shining: Snow drifted down as it often does in the Mountains, white, glowing like Diamonds as it covered the black driveway, the brown deck, the blue solar panels gently accumulating, so light and fluffy it could stuff pillows.

 

Yesterday and today are Snow days. Not a big storm, maybe 6-8 inches, but a cold one. 5 degrees when I got up this morning. White dominates the landscape. No Kep to run and investigate in the back. The Snow came at a good time, late Thursday and over Friday, after Thanksgiving dinners had been eaten and guests returned to their homes. I’m reevaluating my practice of putting my Snow tires on in early December. Maybe mid-November would be better.

 

A quiet day yesterday. I reshelved some books in the loft, moving towards getting them all back from my Hawai’i move sorting. Then I’ll have Furball Housecleaning clean it again. Right now it’s too messy to clean.

Had to sort out my internet/router connections because my Starlink subscription ended on November 23rd. Took a little doing. Not much. Wish Musk was not, well, Musk. I liked Starlink though at times it was not superior to dsl. It was a simpler connection for me. And usually faster. Time of day mattered. A lot of work from home types living in the Mountains.

 

Thanks to Mary and her exercises my back has receded as an issue. I have to do a set in the morning and evening, plus one I do throughout the day if the back starts to act up. Much, much better. Still don’t know how I would fare on a trip, but I now I have tools to take care of myself thanks to her.

 

Getting closer to the ritual moment for my choice to become Jewish. I’m excited and looking forward to having to having it done at the same time. I’m hoping a lot of folks show up for the service on Friday and our oneg afterwards. I’ll see these friends I’ve had for eight years as, as Alan put it, a new Jew.

Not sure yet if I’ll wear a kippah. Feel like I want to, but I don’t want to look silly either. I know, that’s silly. Still… Part of the issue is that I’ve not worn one all these years and it feels odd to contemplate doing it now. Not everyone does. Probably fewer than half at services. Almost no one other than Rabbi Jamie wears one during the week at Beth Evergreen. Not sure I know why they’re worn. That might help me.

OK. So I looked it up. No particular reason. Reform Jews have typically not worn them at all, though that seems to be changing. I liked the idea of wearing one for certain times, like for services or when studying, or, on the sabbath. More on this later.

 

 

Health, Judaism

Cancer Dancer

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Samain and the Choice Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Dr. Eigner. Retiring. Testosterone. Rising. Thanksgiving. Urban Farmer. Ruth and Gabe. Tomorrow. Tom. Diane. Alan and Joan. Today. Rabbi Jamie. Tonight. Mezuzahs. Learning the shema in Hebrew. Snow. Driving Mountain roads in Snow. 76. Mountain life. Wild Neighbors. Adapted to the Snow and cold. Humans, in our artifice. Vince and his girls. Fixing the strip in the lower level.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Good medical care

One brief shining: Not often, no, but yesterday hunger rumbled my stomach as I drove to my appointment with Dr. Eigner, the last one, and I pulled into Wendy’s, got a Dave’s single and a chocolate frosty, finished the hamburger in the car before I went inside, the frosty when I came back to the car. Not my preference, but. Fast. Food.

 

Dr. Eigner walked in looking fit. You’ve seen your numbers? Yes. They’re good! He’s always cheerful at any apparent good news.

PSA .04. Undetectable. Testosterone. 31. You see your testosterone is increasing? Yes. The good news is you’ll have more energy, gain some muscle, maybe some weight. (I don’t want to gain any weight.)

And, the bad news is that the cancer has food. How long will it take for my PSA to go back up? When do you treat me again?

Great question! The question. And I won’t answer it.

Oh.

Because there are three variables. How high is your testosterone? How much did the PSA increase and how long did it take to get there. So. If we said we’d treat you at 2 and your PSA stayed at 1.9 for three years, then went up to 2? We wouldn’t treat you because it took a long while to there. If, on the other hand, you come in next time and your PSA has increased to .4? We’ll probably treat you.

With what?

Orgovyx and Erleada. The same ones you were on.

Well, I guess this is good-bye.

Yes. I wish we hadn’t met, better for you. But since we did, I’ve appreciated the time I’ve known you. You’re a good man, Charlie.

You, too, Dr. Eigner.

I now understand this dance. With advanced prostate cancer the idea is off the drugs until the cancer recovers, then back on them or something new that’s come on line. Thus, cancer as a chronic disease. A new world for cancer patients. Living with the disease rather than dying from it. As long as possible. Kathy. Diane. Judy for five years. Mike. Dave. People I know.

 

Breakfast with Alan and Joan this morning. Rabbi Jamie comes tonight to hang the mezuzahs. I’m going to get a cheese pizza. He eats eco-kashrut.* Doubt I’ll get there though I get it and it would be better for me.

Looking forward to having these markers of my added identity put up. I like the way they honor the concept of thresholds and liminal places, reminding me to make going out and coming in a sacred moment.

Gradually adding practices to reinforce and deepen my choice.

 

 

 

 

*Eco-Kashrut, also called the Eco-Kosher movement, is a movement to extend the Kashrut system, or Jewish dietary laws, to address modern environmental, social, and ethical issues, and promote sustainability.[1]

This movement began in the 1970s among American Reconstructionist Jews, and eco-kashrut or eco-kosher approaches enjoyed a resurgence in the 1990s with the work of Reconstructionist rabbi, author, and activist Arthur Waskow. A third wave of the eco-kashrut or eco-kosher movement began in the mid-2000s, spurred on in part by a series of kosher production facility scandals.[2]

…More recently the movement has been championed by other Kosher-keeping Jews who strive to eat only food that has been ethically and sustainably produced, and ideally, locally sourced.[6] Eco-Kashrut also finds expression in the sharing of sustainable shabbat meals.  wiki

 

Art and Culture, Health

Missing Art

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Samain and the Choice Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Choosing Judaism. Nov. 28th. Temple Emmanuel. Mikveh. Beit din. Blood letting. Rabbi Jamie. Mezuzah hanging Nov. 21. CBE. Luke. Feeling better. Leo. And his friend the Corgi puppy. Gracie, Anne’s dog. Marilyn and Irv’s Australian Shepherds. Kippur, Rich’s new dog. Kep. My sweet boy. And Kate. Always her. Rembrandt’s Lucretia. Goya’s Dr. Arrieta. Beckmann’s Blind Man’s Buff. Kandinsky. Bacon. Close. Augustine. Aquinas. Chardin. Tillich. Whitehead. Evans-Wentz.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Blind Man’s Buff

One brief shining: Missing this morning access to the Art Institute, those hallways filled with art become good friends, relationships that repaid frequent visits with new insights: Goya gripping the sheet as Dr. Arrieta treated him, Lucretia bloodied by her own hand after being raped, the tall red figure with flowing yellow hair in the Kandinsky, new acquisitions, new shows being installed.

 

On the personal health front. Yet again. My first labs after stopping all treatment for prostate cancer. Undetectable PSA! Still rock bottom low testosterone. Good news. And the echocardiogram. Nothing serious as near as I can tell from the report. Dr. Gonzalez will let me know.

Back to normal. Do back exercises. Workout. Try to eat right. Maintain low stress levels. See friends. Write. Read. Sleep. Repeat. All calm here.

Goya, Self Portrait with Dr. Arrieta, 1820         Minneapolis Art Institute

As you might have noticed, I’ve felt nostalgic this last few days for my time as a docent at the MIA, the Minneapolis Art Institute. Art occupied an important spot in my life before my twelve years at the museum and only became more important during that time. I grew to understand and appreciate a much broader range of artistic expression across many different cultures and time periods. What a lucky dude I was to have that experience.

I’ve been a sort of Twin City’s snob here in Colorado. The Denver Post is not a good paper. I really don’t think it is, but when Marilyn told me she wrote for it, I backtracked, owning prejudice. Not that the Star-Tribune is a Des Moines Register or New York Times, but still… Also, the art scene here. Especially the Denver Art Museum. Not an encyclopedic museum. Stuff hung poorly. Bah. Humbug. No Guthrie or Children’s Theater. No St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Also, further in to any of these things from Conifer than from Andover.

Result? I’ve let my art world experiences wither. An important part of my life gone. Want to remedy that. Not the Denver Post. But the DAM. Live theater. Jazz. Which is quite good here. Means scheduling time to go and actually going. A bit harder solo, but not much. I don’t mind night driving. I don’t like it, but I’m not impaired. I have the money, the time. And, the art world I can visit during the day. Maybe schedule an art day a month? Something like that.

Ever since I quit the MIA because the docent role had changed and not to my liking, I’ve had this feeling. Now almost eleven years, perhaps a bit more. Time to wrassle this bear to the ground.

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health

I call bullshit

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Samain and the Choice Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: My son. Jon’s estate. Probate. Still not over. Good sleep. Luke. Tarot. Astrology. Jamie. CBE. Becoming a Jew by choice. Israel. Hamas. Gaza. War. Peace. Gravity. Epigenetics. Genetics. A Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Angels in America. Oedipus. The Bacchae. Jason and the Argonauts. Odysseus. Telemachus. Penelope. Eumaeus. Jesus. Paul. Luke. Mark. Matthew. John. Moses. Abraham. Isaac. The angel at the Jabbok Ford. Struggle. Revelation. A calm heart, a clear mind. Palestine. The Nakba.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: My son as Jon’s probate representative

One brief shining: Jon died over a year ago, his ashes remain in a plastic box on a shelf here in my study, his retirement account and mutual fund account still frozen by his death, messages flickering back and forth among my son, Jen, a financial advisor, and me the last details of a life cut short by angst and meth.

 

Colorado law on beneficiaries after a divorce. Complicated. Paper this and paper that required. Divorce decrees. Powers of Attorney. Copies of a pension plan document and a mutual fund document. Then decisions up the ladder in a financial affairs company. All will work out. In time. So. Many. Steps. My son, a saint for his brother whom he loved unconditionally.

Many twists and turns among the living. Those I know. Many. Late life gender transition. Brain bleeds. Illness. Joining a tribe. Monitor Lizards and Monkeys outside a Malaysian home. That white Camel Mark has befriended. APEC in San Francisco. Bringing the U.S./China tension close to home.

 

Call from my doc last night. All will be well, all manner of things will be well. Sort of. We’ll check my blood panel again in two months, ratchet down my Synthroid dose to 100 micrograms from 112. Echocardiogram today to check out that aorta and the walls of my heart. Had my blood drawn yesterday to check PSA and testosterone levels. Exercising. Sleeping well. You know. Old people stuff.

 

I push back against thinking young. I’m not young. I’m 76. I’m old. I want to think old in a healthy, vibrant way. I want to be who I am without needing to reclaim past eras of my life. Sure I have my medical issues. Most of us do at this age. Yet I get up each morning, write, eat breakfast. Go about my day as a man, an adult responsible for himself, his house, his relationships. I have assets that the younger me did not have and could not have. Stored knowledge. Experience of joy and grief with enough of both to know how to navigate them. With authenticity. Long friendships. Having lived long stretches in different places. Deepened inner knowledge.

No. I do not want to be young. Do not need to be young. I am me. At 76. This may seem like a trivial distinction but our culture, even some of the medical advice I see wants me to turn my gaze back toward my forties or my fifties, to imagine myself living as that man did. In that way we live longer, better. No. I live best by knowing who I am right now. And living my best life now. Other cultures, most cultures, have know this to be true, obvious. Revered the elderly. Ours tries to rip our wonderful reality out from under us in the name of long life or psychic well-being. I call bullshit.