• Category Archives Health
  • A Mountain Flaneur?

    Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: My son’s leadership style. Gentle and nurturing. Clear. Seoah and the new golf bag. Her treats from Gangnam. Kaesong little donuts among them. A base pass for Osan. The BX. Becoming a Mountain flaneur. The Oriental House at the Osan golf course. Lunch there yesterday with Seoah and my son. Muscle relaxants. Learning to live with spinal stenosis.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The human journey from birth to death

    One brief shining: In the base pass office at Osan men and women in desert camo, light tan high top boots, came in and out bearing small insignias saying where they stood in the Air Force hierarchy: a dark oak leaf my son wore-lieutenant colonel, a pair of wings, airman first class, a brown oak leaf-major instant placement in the highly ordered military social structure.

     

    Got my base pass as a long term visitor. I can now come and go on Osan Air Base as a scrutinized civilian. Less important here in Songtan since my son and Seoah live off base but it does mean I can come and go when I need to without getting a day pass. No surrendering my driver’s license for the duration of my stay, then returning to the day pass office to retrieve it. Mary had a base pass at Hickam and used it a lot.

    Another turn of Korean medicine today. See Doctor then the massage guy. A less intense visit though which should translate to cheaper. No x-ray, less time in the procedure’s area.

     

    Random thoughts while figuring out to how live with slow walking as a lifestyle. First one. Here’s the rub about death. We spend our lives discovering and pursuing our passion, engaging life and its many gifts, struggles, then we let go of our passion for life and embrace the quiet moment. That’s a difficult transition to make emotionally. It’s not about fear but about doing the only thing you’ve even known, living, and exchanging it for a permanent experience of the unknown. Not at all like hitting the brakes more like switching from driving to floating.

    Becoming a Mountain flaneur.* As I reflected on a literally slower pace to life, the first word that came to mind was flaneur. A very urban image, yes, but one I could adapt to Mountain living. Instead of hiking, strolling or sauntering on a Mountain trail. The flaneur is an observer, a patient and measured walker whose soul purpose lies in witnessing his world.

    It may be that my body has declared itself a flaneur by default. If so, I’m fine with that. Not sure how one exercises in this situation, something to learn. Or, how I’m going to explore Korea and Israel. At a more relaxed pace, no doubt.

    Though I refuse to let this change define me, I do have to recognize it may be a permanent limitation, one I’ll have to adapt to, rather than cure. My primary identity is not challenged, but my physical expression of my self may well be. Not unlike cancer. Can’t ignore it, can’t obsess about it.

     

     

    *”Flâneur is a French noun referring to a person, literally meaning “stroller”, “lounger”, “saunterer”, or “loafer”, but with some nuanced additional meanings. Flânerie is the act of strolling, with all of its accompanying associations…Traditionally depicted as male, a flâneur is an ambivalent figure of urban affluence and modernity, representing the ability to wander detached from society with no other purpose than to be an acute observer of industrialized, contemporary life. ” wiki


  • Adventures in Medicine

    Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: That orthopedist in his chair surrounded by computer screens. The kind massage therapist. The weird procedures. A day of Korean medicine. Taxis. Recalibrating. Spines. Traveling like I was 60. When I’m really 76. Seoah. My son. Getting my base pass today. Seeing immigration about my visa. Being in Korea as a resident alien, not a tourist.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: X-rays

    One brief shining: Do you speak Korean the doctor asked I said no so he asked do you have any spinal stenosis I don’t think so I said he ordered an x-ray and yes I do massage, muscle relaxants, slow walk, no  exercise time in Korea changed.

     

    My buddy Ode sent me off to Korea with a message, have great adventures! He’s a master at finding adventure when he travels. His openness to people and experiences insures it. Oh, the stories he can tell. About almost dying in that capsized boat in the Caribbean. About picking grapes in Provence. About visiting the uber-wealthy Chinese woman in Shanghai with Elizabeth. And many more and those only the ones he’s told me.

    Me. Not so much. I find warming up to new people difficult even when I share their language and culture. There’s also a level of good Midwestern caution in my soul that feels protective but is also a bubble against anything too strange or unfamiliar. Not complaining. Describing. I still enjoy travel a lot though. I do have my moments.

    Yesterday was one of those moments. My sore hip pushed me past my normal reserve and into a medical system where only a few speak my language and at that not too well.

    Taxi over to a main drag here in Songtan. Up to the second floor of a nondescript office building with Seoah. A waiting room with long rows of chairs, a few scattered patients waiting. An orthopedist’s office. A reception desk to the right, the waiting area, then to the left a back room filled with curtained areas, blue and white striped curtains hanging from metal loops around metal piping. I would find out what they held later.

    First I checked in. Sort of. Seoah asked me questions for a brief form. Drug allergies. No. Cancer? Yes. She put down bladder cancer because that’s what her dad has. We corrected that later. All the while I’m calculating how much I really need to know about what’s going on. Not much, I concluded right then.

    The orthopedist sat at a modest desk with three computer screens around him and a keyboard on the desk. He had, as I’ve noticed in a few other Koreans, pointed teeth that made him look slightly menacing. He asked me a question or two then ordered an x-ray. That happened quickly and soon I was back in his office, looking at my lower spine on the computer screen to his left.

    I didn’t need him to tell me where the problem was. Normal disc. Normal disc. Normal disc. Nice gaps between them. Then two with little space and one moved out and to the right of the others on his screen. Oh. That’s not good.

    You have spinal stenosis. The medical term for those discs with little space between them. Probably arthritis. They can pinch nerves creating pain in the hip and lower back. Oh. Yeah.

    That was all with the orthopedist. Onto the massage therapist. Who was a kind young man who hurt me, over and over again. Most of the time not too badly, but I did say ouch once in a while and he would back off. All in the interest of releasing muscle tension. He communicated with me through Google  translate.

    When we finished I thought, we’re done. But no. Now we do shock wave therapy, electrotherapy, and lumbar traction therapy. Not too sure about the first two. They both involved machines I could have imagined in a medical museum. The lumbar traction therapy I recognized. It gently pulled on my body at the lower spine.

    The shock wave therapy I couldn’t tell was happening except for the cold sonagram gel my therapist squirted on my back. The electrotherapy consisted of four small cup like devices placed on my back. They crawled around over my lower back while gently heating me. Sort of like a massage chair. However. There were also heating pads underneath my chest. They were hot.

    When I left, Seoah and I went to the pharmacy and picked up some muscle relaxants. All the directions in Korean of course. The pills themselves were in small clear paper pouches enough for two daily doses for three days. Five pills per pouch.

    Total bill: approximately $200. The doctor and the x-ray were only $35 of that. The rest was massage, procedures, and the meds. Not bad, really. And I’ll get most of it back from insurance

     


  • Seoul Time

    Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Being in Monday, not Sunday. The Fish Market. Daniel. Diane. Seoah. My son. Sejong the Great. Inventor of Hangul. The Korean George Washington. His palace. The cultural and arts district around it. Yongsan, the heart of Seoul. Seoul. My son’s friends. Heat and humidity. Snow in the forecast for Conifer. Jon, may his memory be for a blessing. Kate, whose memory is a blessing.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Seoul, Korean megalopolis

    One brief shining: The fish monger gaffed the sea bream and handed the gaff’s wooden handle to me so I could hold the fish as if I’d caught it instead of bought it, then he gaffed the other, whose name I’ve forgotten and gave it to my son and me to hold together, later in the restaurant above the market these two fish appeared as Korean cut sashimi and a soup made from their heads and the bones.

     

    Yesterday we boarded the number 1 blue line at Songtan station and took the hour and forty-five minute ride into Seoul. Called a subway it was light rail on this route. We rode past clusters of apartment buildings, a few single houses, and the now routine rice paddies and thick plastic sheeting covered half moon long garden tents filled with vegetables.

    All the way from Songtan the density of the housing remains high, the countryside far away in this populous urban corridor that extends to the south as well toward Daejong. Korea has a population of 51 million plus in an area the size of the state of Indiana. Over one-fifth of those live in Seoul.

    Almost done with the novel Soil by Yi Kwang-Su written in 1932. Compared to Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle it focuses on the plight of Korean farmers who made up 80% of the population but lived lives poor, miserable, and short essentially as serfs or tenant farmers for the wealthy who lived in Seoul. The ratio of Seoul’s population to the rest of Korea remains about the same.

    Seoul is the cultural and political and economic heart of the country as it has been since the time of Sejong the Great in 1395. On a main thoroughfare which runs past Seoul city hall a bronze seated Sejong looks on modern traffic headed towards his palace grounds. The city hall  has two buildings, one built by the Japanese during their long occupation in the 20th century and the other an uber modern building by Korean architect Yoo Kerl.

    The fish market. The Noryagin Fish Market has its own subway stop which was our destination. We came up from the tracks and onto a bright day, young Koreans in blue uniforms playing baseball just outside the subway’s door.

    On the inside hawkers of various levels of intensity try to interest you in the various sea creatures on offer. Sea squirts. Sea urchins. Whelks. Mollusks of various kinds. Shrimp. Prawns. Eels. Many, many varieties of Fish. Large aquariums held Squid and Crabs, some trying to wander off.  Though its floor had water on it and the air high humidity the market did not smell fishy to me.

    When we sat down to eat in the restaurant on the fifth floor of the market, I looked up and saw: Trump World. A big two tower building across the freeway from where we sat. Diane told me that the area we could see out the window was Korea’s Wall Street, so I suppose Trump Tower fit in as a monument  to financial malfeasance.

    Daniel and Diane then took us in their KIA SUV across the Han River into Yongsan, the central downtown of Seoul. Past it we found Sejong the Great’s palace and folklore museum. Unfortunately it was hot, humid, and my hip had begun to get sore so we didn’t stay as long as I might have wanted though I think we stayed longer than anybody else wanted.

    Built in 1395 and destroyed in the 19th century (I don’t recall  how), it was rebuilt in 1885 I think. Massive. The architecture of power and status.


  • Softball, Korea News

    Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Labor Day weekend. My son has Friday and Monday off. The Minnesota State Fair. A not so faded remnant of the Lughnasa festivals of the old Gaeltacht. A Minnesota Fall. Brilliant colors, blue Waters, trips up North. A Rocky Mountain Fall. Aspens gold against Lodgepole Green on Black Mountain. Clear cool Skies. A Korean Fall. Will find out.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Seasons

    One brief shining: My son came home last night in a bright t-shirt with Aladdin 02 on the back and a Cobra on the front his left arm bruised at the bicep after he threw a pitch and a hard hit soft ball came right back to him full of joy at playing and having an injury.

     

    My son plays on his squadron’s soft ball team. The Cobra signifies their squadron. His first time up a few weeks ago he hit a homer. Now he’s hooked for the season. He’s an athlete, has been since middle school. Cross country in the fall. Ski racing in the winter and track in the spring. High school. He also raced on the UofM’s ski team.

    He and Seoah both have the athletic gene, now expressed most often in workouts and golf every weekend. Makes dad glad. Ha. Good for health and for their marriage.

     

    Used the apartment’s gym again yesterday. Feel better already. More limber and a regular dose of endorphins. The same three buff middle-aged Korean women were in the weight room. Seemed like chatting had as much to do with their reason for being there as the weight machines.

    Noticed, again, that I tilt to the left. Scoliosis. Polio. Beginning to have some soreness in my right hip and lower back. Not often, not always. Usually after a lot of time on my feet.

    Still not sure how it will affect my stamina when I get into serious sight-seeing. May be limited to mornings. Maybe less than that. Or, maybe rest at intervals will be enough. I’m sure to find out this weekend since we’re going to Seoul for the first time.

     

    Big news here. War games held for both North and South Korea. Every year a war game called Freedom Shield unites South Korean and U.S. militaries in a display of force designed as a response to a hypothetical North Korean invasion. Such exercises enhance the ability of two command structures to blend when faced with actual conflict.

    North Korea launched an unsuccessful spy satellite last Wednesday in response. Then two more short range ballistic missiles this week. Today North Korea announced military exercises simulating the occupation of all of South Korea. Tit for tat.

    This annual saber rattling makes both sides a bit nervous, jumpy. My son has had some extra work as a result.

    On the streets of Songtan this causes no reaction whatsoever as near I can tell. The taxis pick up passengers. Folks go into the coffee shops. Buy meals in restaurants. It’s not that people don’t care. All Koreans want unification. Just not through military means. It’s more that the specter of war hangs so heavy here that it has become a backdrop to daily life. Not ignored, but not engaged daily.

    Sort of like having cancer it just occurred to me. You can’t pretend it’s not there. And, yes, it could kill you. But, if it occupies your heart/mind all the time  you give up life. Which doesn’t make sense. So  you make an uneasy peace and go on about your day.


  • A letter to Kate on her 79th

    Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Kate’s 79th birthday. The Trail to Cold Mountain. A good dress rehearsal. A late night. Seeing Seoah and my son on Zoom. Getting closer to leaving this popstand. On a jetplane. With passport in hand. Sleeping in. Ann. The poems on parchment. The drinking gourd. My costume(s). Ruth. Seeing her today. Taking Ancientrails on the road. Korean history. Seoah studying American history. Her mom’s 70th birthday, two days after I get there. In Gwangju. Steak House. Luke and Vince. Leo.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Writing, again. Still.

    One brief shining: Put on my linen medieval shirt and pants, collected my poems on parchment from Ann, picked up my walking stick, got a glass of water (filling in for the drinking gourd that I forgot), proceeded with: I’m going to tell you this story in the best way I can and reeled off a mistake free performance. Yes!

     

    Kate.

    You would be 79 today. Closing in on the big 80. Wanted to catch you up on some recent happenings.

    I’m a playwright! A short play, about 20 minutes. The Trail to Cold Mountain. Performing it tomorrow night at CBE. The amphitheater if the weather permits.

    Also, I’m converting. Yes, after 32 years with you and 8 with CBE, I realized your people are my people, too. Rabbi Jamie’s excited for me. We’re studying Judaism together. 10 sessions. But before I finish my conversion will take place. In Jerusalem! On Samain! How bout that.

    I’ve become even more integrated into CBE. Joan and Alan are both in my acting class and will be performing Saturday night, too. I see Marilyn and Irv every couple of weeks, Alan once a week. I’ve become good friends with Rebecca Martin, too. Mussar remains my primary contact with the congregation although I’m considering going to regular services now that my energy is better.

    Cancer. Yep, still with me. As you know. But I’m off the meds as of Wednesday and hoping for clear sailing for some length of time. A tiny chance I’m cured. If you have any pull with the cosmic powers, see if somebody could yank a lever on my behalf. Eigner is retiring. His wife died a couple of years ago and changed his perspective. I’ll see him for a last visit on November 20th.

    Ruth’s still struggling. I’ll see her in the hospital today. Going to take her a bagel with caviar from Rosenbergs. Stanley Market. Gabe’s doing well. I think. Playing guitar, taking theater. He may express the Olson performing gene. We saw Oppenheimer last week and we’ll go to the last Rockie’s game of the season on Oct. 1st when I get back from Korea. They’re playing the Twins.

    Oh. I’m going to Korea on Wednesday. Then, Israel on Oct. 25th. A week on my own then the CBE group trip. Excited about both of these. Joe’s a Lieutenant Colonel now. Can you believe it? Remember him stomping up and down the steps at my Irvine Park Place in ski boots?

    Of course you walk through all these moments with me. Sometimes I stand at the kitchen window, look out at your Iris garden, and feel your head on my shoulder. Driving back up the hill from Evergreen I reach over on occasion and hold your hand. Your memory is a blessing for me and so many others. Not to say at all that I’m wallowing. Just that I loved you, I love you, and I will love you.

     


  • The Ancientrails of Politics, Theater, and Health

    Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: A week from today I’ll be in Osan. If all goes well. Ruth. Gabe. Acting. Tom. Diane. The Ancient Brothers on being 24. Asian Art. Shin Long-Lin. The tea ceremony. Ichi-go, ichi-e. Tsundoku. Forest bathing. In my back yard. The Asian pivot of my family. Magic the Gathering. Formula One. Baseball. Chinese bronzes. Ukiyo-e prints. The Kano period in Japanese screen painting. Song dynasty ceramics. Korean celadon. Song dynasty painting. Asia. So much history. So little known here.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Asia

    One brief shining: Put on a new ring this morning Gold with a setting of Emeralds Kate purchased in Cartagena because the jewelers had air conditioning; I had the Emeralds set in the ring when Kate had a breast cancer scare over 25 years ago, now it soothes me with her memory and as a talisman against cancer.

     

    Yesterday I loaded my pill containers with blood pressure meds, cholesterol meds, psych meds, but no cancer meds. Everybody I mention it to is happy for me. It felt liberating, for sure. Yet than niggling hangover. I’m not treating it now, as I have been for nine years. What will it do? Guess I got used to having a dike against it. Surgery. Radiation. Drugs. Trust your doctors, she said. And, zip up. Yes, dear.

     

    Tonight is dress rehearsal. My parchment copies of the Cold Mountain poems, done in calligraphy by Ann, get delivered today at 12:30. Perhaps a white banner with the Chinese ideograms for Han Shan. I’ll put on my linen pullover shirt, my linen medieval pants, and if it’s cool enough for the rehearsal, the hooded poncho. I have my water gourd, too. The sort used by Chinese recluses and martial artists to carry wine. It’s my visual signal that Herme and Han Shan may be the same person. I’m going to run through the whole thing again. I know it, but I fell out of character at a certain point Tuesday. Don’t want that to happen on Saturday night.

    Just realized I don’t feel the same sort of vulnerability with The Trail to Cold Mountain that I’ve felt with my novels. Odd since Joan’s in the class. A successful novelist. Tal helped me understand the collaborative nature of playwriting. Maybe that’s it. The first written work I’ve done that was collaborative. Maybe a clue there?

     

    Been feeling Kate this week. Her 79th birthday tomorrow. A full post for her then.

     

    How bout those Georgia indictments? No Federal pardons allowed and no pardons at all allowed until 5 years of a sentence has been served. Sounds fair to me. The Orange One is the most indicted Presidential candidate ever! What an honor.

    I hope for a few things for the next election. That the indictments convince independents to vote Democrat. That the abortion issue catalyzes women, including moderate Republican women to not only vote, but to get out the vote. That the fall off [to death] of four million older white males and the large number of newly voting aged Gen Z’ers give Democrats a boost.

    Also, I’ve been amazed at Biden’s successes with the Inflation Reduction Act, the bipartisan Infrastructure bill, the Covid Relief bill, and the CHIPS act (building semi-conductors at home). This is not to mention his deft handling of the war in the Ukraine, supporting that nation without getting us directly involved. Also not to mention (bar Hunter’s problems) the scandal free term. No dogwhistling. gaslighting, or outright incitement to riot. Which shouldn’t have to be noted as a success except over against 45’s awful, treasonous behavior.

    We have to sell Biden’s work.

     

     


  • A significant day

    Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Waste. Off all cancer meds. Got rid of last medical bill I didn’t owe. Performed The Trail to Cold Mountain in class. To applause. 2 hour workout. Yesterday. A good day. Ticking off pre-trip have to’s. Vince coming today. Seeing Ruth at noon. Joan’s poncho with hood. Abby performing without the words. Chocolate chip cookies. The Church of Hera. That Squirrel at my window.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Trail to Cold Mountain

    One brief shining: A ritual of abandonment I take the compacted trash to the yellow trash bin and the recycling to the green bin throughout the week then on every other Wednesday the bins tilted and rolling like thunder across my asphalt driveway, I deposit them lids forward to Black Mountain Drive as other’s drive by on their way down the hill to jobs in Denver or Littleton or Lakewood.

     

    Some days. Have more in them than others. Tuesday was such a day for me. Wrote a post about conversion, ate some breakfast. While waiting for breakfast to settle before my work out, I called New West Physicians.  After a year of back and forth convinced them that no, I did not owe them $429 for that echocardiogram from April of 2021. Raised both arms after the call. Victory! Worked out. A good one. Took a long nap.

     

    Telehealth call with Kristie. Stop the Erleada and the Orgovyx right now. Today. Should start feeling better in a month. While in Korea. Could be off the meds for weeks, months, years. I choose years. But of course my cancer has all the agency in the matter. Still blood draws every 3 months. I imagine if the PSA continues undetectable for a certain length of time they might stretch that out a bit. If the PSA starts rising? A PET scan. Probably radiation again, though maybe new meds. Part of the plan is to live long enough for new and better treatments to be on the table. I’m ok with that plan. Now well into my ninth year with cancer. Still alive! Would not have been so in my instance as recently as 20 maybe even 10 years ago. Grateful.

    My oncologist, Dr. Eigner, is retiring. His wife died a while back and he wants something different. I get it. I’ll see him for a last visit when I get back from Israel. He wants that. And so do I. He’s guided both me and Kristie over the ups and downs since my diagnosis in May of 2015. That’s a long time. I’m grateful to both of them for the kind and compassionate care they’ve given me. Healers in truth.

     

    Over to the synagogue for the last class of the character study. Wore a short sleeve shirt and shorts. Beep! Wrong again. We performed outside at the synagogue’s amphitheater and after the sun went down it was chilly. Joan thank god had brought me a poncho with a hood for my costume. Wool. Saved me from shivering through The Trail to Cold Mountain.

    Three folks said, “Brilliant!” Not sure what that means though it’s positive. Felt good. Screwed up a bit. Will practice more, but I know it. Just jitters, I think.

     

     


  • Good Enough

    Lughnasa and the Herme Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: The Trail to Cold Mountain. Joan. Rebecca. Deb. Abby. Tal. Acting. Being Jewish. Israel. Korea. Rabbi Jamie. Night drives up Brook Forest and Black Mountain Drive. Black Mountain. Shadow Mountain. Berrigan Mountain. Conifer Mountain. Aspen Perks. Friends there. Travis. Brought me coffee without asking. Grieving. A journey toward wholeness. The work of acting. Memorizing. Love. PSA and testosterone. Prostate cancer. Love.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Love

    One brief shining: Undetectable again my PSA and a T score lower than 10 which you would think would make me feel wonderful but no, it raises the reality now of the drug holiday when I go off Erleada and Orgovyx for as long as my cancer will allow it which feels like jumping out of a plane with no parachute relying on good luck or another sky diver to pluck me up before I crash into the earth.

     

    That probably overstates how I feel. But not by much. Since 2015 I’ve segued from one treatment protocol to another, always getting surgery, radiation, or androgen deprivation therapy. To go naked. To just let the cancer have a safe space with no barriers to its growth? Yikes! The theory is two fold. The first. The radiation and ADT (androgen deprivation therapy. keeping my psa and testosterone suppressed chemically.) may have done such a good job that my cancer [my cancer. huh. I guess it is just that.] will not wake up, at least not for a very long time. The second. The ADT drugs lose their efficacy after a while and have to be stopped before that point, usually two years after starting their use.

    I will still have blood draws every three months. Always waiting for the one where the PSA starts to rise indicating the cancer has begun to grow again. That is the most likely scenario. How long that takes is unknown and peculiar to the individual. There is a slight possibility that all these treatments have cured me. Unlikely, but possible. However, even with a long run of suppressed PSA tests I will never know for sure. That will only happen when or if I die of something else.

    This is that window of time every three months where my blood gets drawn, the test results come back, and I meet with Kristie, my oncology PA. At this point it doesn’t raise my anxiety level much, but it does raise my awareness level. Oh. Yeah. Cancer! No escaping that. Literally. No escaping it at this point. Big fun.

     

    The good news is that I keep living instead of waiting to die. Writing The Trail to Cold Mountain. Learning to act. Putting on a showcase. Converting to Judaism. Taking care of the house. Eating out with friends. Talking to friends and family over Zoom. Living in the Mountains. Seeing sacred moments like the Rainy Night Watcher. Dreaming. Dog sitting. Traveling.

    In that sense, that most important sense, my cancer treatment has been wildly successful. With only occasional periods of awful fatigue and hot flashes, side effects, I’ve been strong enough to care for Kate through her long illness, continue working out, engaging life, not sitting in death’s waiting room. Good enough for me.


  • Look Round

    Summer and the Summer Moon Above

    Thursday gratefuls: Rabbi Jamie. Judaism. Rebecca. Alan. Leo coming up on Saturday. Luke. The balance of my inner life. The things that throw it off. Weather. Lab results. Anxiety. Self-doubt. The soul. And its compass. No, better. Its gyroscope. Still strong. Moderate fire risk. My home. A sanctuary. As are the Mountains, CBE, the Ancient Brothers. Books. The U.S.A. Korea’s Place in the Sun by Bruce Cumings. Reading. Thinking. Loving. Health. Sleep.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The soul’s gyroscope

    One brief shining: The question is not will you get pushed around and down by the winds of change that blow through your inner life, of course you will, rather the question is have you created a strong gyroscope that knows how to keep you steady even when your inner balance shifts off course.

     

    Gyroscope. “A gyroscope is a device used for measuring or maintaining orientation and angular velocity.” [ Ancient Greek γῦρος gŷros, “round” and σκοπέω skopéō, “to look”] wiki

    My inner gyroscope became a strong stabilizer thanks to my now long ago meditation on my own corpse, occasioned by work with the Tibetan Buddhist mandala of Yamantaka that hangs in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts Tibetan gallery. Not the only aspect to my inner stability, no, but what I consider the most important.

    Often characterized as the Tibetan Buddhist God of Death, Yamantaka really wants to aid you in coming to terms with your own death. This is very important in Tibetan Buddhism since the ability to be tranquil at the time of your death affects your possibilities for reincarnation. That is, what your next reincarnation will be.

    I’m no Tibetan Buddhist but I recognized a good practice when I saw one and began a long period of meditating (visualizing and staying with the visualization) of my own corpse. It took a long while but I became comfortable with the image of my dead body. I’m sure the actual Tibetan practice is more involved and more subtle than what I did, but the effect for me was to gradually relieve me of any fear of death. It did not relieve me of wanting to live. To the contrary. Life became more vibrant, more precious.

    I’ve now encountered three what I would count as good deaths: Kate’s, Judy’s, and Leslie’s. That is, they all accepted the truth of their final illness, saw it for what it was, and lived at peace in the final days before their deaths. That does not mean they did not want to live. Of course, they did. Leslie said when told of her liver cancer, “Well, that sucks.” And, it did. Judy Sherman said often, “This beast will kill me. But not today!” Kate was so calm (when she was not experiencing air hunger) that she could reach out to the respiratory therapist who had just stuck a long needle in her wrist and drawn blood from an artery there and say, “Kenton, good job with the ABD.” (arterial blood gas draw). She saw the outcome of this phase of her long illness and chose to die. As did both Leslie and Judy.

    In the Greek sense of gyroscope they took a look round and saw things as they were, did not let denial cloud their judgments, knew this was not abnormal, rather so so normal. Their inner gyroscopes were strong, keeping them steady even at the end.

    How is your inner gyroscope?


  • The Magic of the Ordinary

    Summer and the Summer Moon Above

    Wednesday gratefuls: Rebecca and her 45th high school reunion. Joan and her son who has started to receive social security. Alan and his tenderness. Abby and her passion. Deborah and poetry. Tal and his sweet empathy. Deborah as Wonder Woman. Acting class last night. Working on Herme. Growing, changing. Taking shape. The purpose of life. Figuring it out. Letting the anxiety through. Letting light in. Anxiety opened a Leonard Cohen crack.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The purpose of life is to burn away everything but love.

    One brief shining: Drove down the hill to pick up my new hearing aid at Mile High Hearing, saw Amy and left for Dave’s Chuck Wagon Diner over on Colfax seven minutes away anxiety bubbling after having given myself two new cancers and one autoimmune disease then deciding that was ok I could handle it when all of sudden the purpose of life bubbled up and I knew what it was: to burn away everything but love.

     

    Usually the first and loudest critic of my own work I believe I’ve found the purpose of life. Kinda hubristic, yeah? Still. The purpose of life is to burn away everything but love. Sounds right to me. Ha. How bout that? Nothing like having decided cancer(s) were on their way to claim my body but not my soul. That got the old philosophical engine cranking over then purring.

    I even give myself a pass on the anxiety. I’ve been sick long enough and spent enough time placing it into perspective, one foot before the next, that sometimes a bit of new data can upset my inner balance. So. You’re ok, Charlie. Or as Dr. Gonzalez said when I sang the worried song in an e-mail to her: You’re fine. I see this all the time. Oh. All right. Zip up and trust your doctors. Kate’s right there with me.

     

    Emotions have been close to the surface for the last couple of weeks anyhow. Not sure why. Kate coming into memory and tears almost there, too. Joy at seeing Luke and in the acting class last night. Deep curiosity reading a one volume history of contemporary Korea. Expansion of my heart at seeing blue Sky. Satisfaction with my home. Awe at the beauty and wonder of the Mountains and the Wild Neighbors.

     

    Life has begun to take on a magical component. How to describe it? The ordinary shifts subtly toward the extraordinary. That Lodgepole. Is it waving at me? The mist rising from the road last night. Transported me to an Other World. Kate’s Creek now has a mystical presence in my life as place of healing. The Wild Neighbors who share their lives with me on occasion I see as spirit messengers. Even the anxiety I felt over the last few days. A crack that let the light shine in.  How can I keep from singing?

    Perhaps the transition from this world to the next lies not as far away as we think.