Category Archives: Our Land and Home

Colorado, Jefferson County, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Park County, Plants, The West, US History

A Westerner

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Mabon and the Harvest Moon

Friday gratefuls: Shadow and Tom’s nylabone. Morning darkness. Hawai’i. Hickam. Honolulu. Diamond Head. Pearl Harbor. Big Island. Kona. Hilo. Volcanoes National Park. Mauna Loa. Kilauea. The Mauna Kea. Waimea. Kauai. Kalalau Trail. Hanalei Bay. Maui. Mama’s Fish House. Haleakala. Lahaina. The Weston. The Pacific. Surfing.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Hawai’i with Kate

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah:  Yesod.  Groundedness.

Tarot: paused

One brief shining: Funny how peace can soothe us, make us dance in the streets, as if that long long period of death and destruction existed only to show us how much peace means to us, how much stability and order provide the framework for a rich, calm life. Why can we not remember this before we start a war?

The West:  Woke up this morning to find my back door open! Geez. Must have been high winds over night and a not quite closed door. Glad no hyperphagic Bear discovered it. Or, a hungry Mountain Lion. Will make me more vigilant. Shadow Mountain at night. Not a place for open doors.

Been thinking about The West. About becoming a Coloradan. Which happened a few years ago. Not sure I could pinpoint a moment, more like a gradual realization that turning toward the Mountains meant turning towards home.

Becoming a Westerner is different. It has not only a specific and important geographical connotation, but also a mind set, a way of seeing what’s important from a spot that begins, at least for me, at the Front Range where the High Plains fall away and the Rockies begin.

In Indiana and later in Minnesota my attention turned toward the East Coast. To its prominence in U.S. history, its storied Universities, Boston, New York, Washington, D.C. The birthplace of our nation.

When I went to college, I chose Wabash, which styled itself as the Harvard of the Midwest. I wanted, for a long time, to live in New York City or D.C. The ocean I thought about was the Atlantic. Somehow destiny and greatness could only be found by going East.

No longer. While in Minnesota, as Mary, Mark, and eventually my son took up residence in Asia, my gaze began to turn West, toward the Pacific. Toward Asia.

As a result, when Kate and I moved to Colorado, I had already begun to redirect my gaze toward the West, toward that region of the country long associated with escape from the fuss budgets and robber baron capitalists, even from the often ossified social status of the Ivy Leagues. Go West, young man!

It has however only been of late that my inner world has fully shifted from those long years of focus on the East Coast as the region of primary importance for our country. Of course, Harvard and Yale. Still there. D.C. Still the center of U.S. political power. New York City. Still the financial center and the locus of the old world’s art and culture.

But. For me. They are all far away. A distant land of strivers, over achievers. Of people who put success before family, even before the nation. I no longer yearn to find my place in the world of their values.

Today my U.S. has Fourteeners. Mountain Streams. Huge amounts of unsettled land. Mule Deer and Elk. Mountain Lions. It is a U.S. defined more by its topography than its ability to shape the wide world. I wonder why I was ever drawn to the kinds of achievement typified by Ph.D.’s, fat bank accounts, ruling the world.

No, I’ve not replaced my suit with a Stetson, blue jeans, and a Western shirt. Although I might some day. Instead I watch Fog cover Black Mountain. I brake for the Elk Cows and their Calves crossing the highway. I live up high, not only distant from the East in miles, but also in altitude. In attitude.

I’ve abandoned the historic early U.S. for the ages long journey of Rocky Mountains, of their Hills and Valleys. For Wild Neighbors. Want to make policy? Consider them. Support and encourage a melding of humans and their natural environment rather than making the world safe for Big Ag, Big Pharma, Big Business, Big Egos.

Come out here to learn the human place in the world. Then write your dissertations, create IPO’s, pass laws.

Colorado, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Paganism, Wild Neighbors

At Least They’re Up Front About It.

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Lughnasa and the 3% crescent of the Korea Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Book publishers. Books. Authors. Eyes. Reading. Learning. Studying. Thinking. Sharing. Libraries. Institutions of Higher Learning. Humanities. Poetry. Painting. Sculpture. Music. Theater. Literature. Languages. Herman Hesse. Romain Rolland. Theodore Dreiser. Sinclair Lewis. Nathaniel Hawthorne. Henry David Thoreau. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Goethe. Mann. The Glass Bead Game.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Opening a book

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Histapkot. Contentment.

Tarot: Knight of Bows, The Fox

“This card carries the themes of movement, change, and taking a new path. It suggests the need to be cunning, alert, and resourceful, like a fox.” Gemini

One brief shining: Jefferson County has a culvert repair project happening now, with a back hoe and dump truck, cutting slices of earth from the shoulders all along Shadow Mountain and Black Mountain Drive, flushing out the old crimpled culverts like mine. Where do many foxes like to live? The culverts.

 

Life for Wild Neighbors in the W.U.I. has its definite downsides. Don’t eat from garbage cans. Or bird feeders. Stay away from the Chicken coops. Please don’t forage my Lettuce, Spinach, Beets, Kale. A new threat now. Jefferson County public works flushing out your den. Not to mention crossing the road. Any road.

Of course, if we think about it, everywhere has been a wildland/human interface at some point. Even indigenous communities displaced some animals. So. A constant and ever changing interplay between human residence and Wild Animals.

Some Animals have turned this interplay on its head. See White Tailed Deer, Coyotes, Canada Geese. Raccoons. Bats. Even Monkeys in Asia. My sister sent pictures from K.L. of signs about Monkeys. There were Otters in Singapore.

Sighting a Bear waddling through the Forest, a Moose standing near a house, its head above the gutters, Elk Cows and their calves crossing Highway 74, that Fox I saw last week heading into the Trees, Mule Deer dining on my Grass. All a great joy of living in the W.U.I.

Why do we all slow down, or stop, if we see a harem of Elk guarded by a majestic Bull? We’re not tourists. We’ve seen it before. Not often, maybe. But more than once.

I suspect we have an innate appreciation for the Wild, for those Animals who live by their wits and ancient knowledge stored in their DNA. We may see them as brave, on their own in a predator/prey world that seems on the surface quite different from our own.

Yet. Watch the gutting of Medicaid and S.N.A.P. to fund tax breaks for American oligarchs. Drive through almost any Native reservation. Visit urban neighborhoods filled with unemployed teens and young adults. Or prisons filled with many from them.

Where’s the predator/prey dynamic in American culture? At least, and this may be a key to our fascination with Wild Neighbors, they’re upfront about it. Prey have developed strategies to protect themselves. Predators develop strategies to foil those protections. Nobody pretends that isn’t what’s happening.

Who’s the more honest?

 

N.B. on the images. These images show the bias built into large language models. I wanted an image with Animals and humans wary of each other, but also curious.

AI, Dogs, Fourth Phase, Garden, GeekWorld, Greenhouse, Health, Humanities, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain

Live Until You Die

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Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: My son. Shadow. Natalie. Mary. Guru. Seoah. Ruth. US Air Force. US Navy. US Army. US Marines. Warriors. Korea. Ruth in Seoul. Jamie and the radical roots of religion. My back. Lawn furniture. Nathan. The Greenhouse build. Living, not dying. Nothing hard is easy.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Plants

Week Kavannah: Zerizut for p.t. and resistance

One brief shining: Learning from Natalie as she explains reading a dog’s mind and feelings, head to the left or right, processing, as is walking away, not stubborn, figuring things out, wait, panting as a sign of worry, consent to hug or pet when Shadow comes up to me and stays or leaps up on my legs while I’m sitting down, two species, 15,000 years of partnership, much better understood by the one with the smaller brain.

 

A lot going on here on Shadow Mountain. A series of dog training moments, an hour or so, with Natalie. Nathan getting my greenhouse foundation ready, treating the Wood at his place for Shou Sugi Ban, delivering things he’ll need for his work. Two Kabbalah Experience classes nearing their end. Two hip MRI tomorrow. Keeping track of my son’s promotion and his visitors. Ruth in Korea. Receiving the money for the Jang family visit in August. Spring. Rains and Thunder.

Live until I die remains my mantra. Moving into tomorrow not as one less day, but as a time to anticipate, to savor, to enjoy. Natalie made an offhand comment, for example, about my needing outdoor furniture to enjoy my backyard. Oh? Well, duh. Looking through online catalogues. Probably go look in person somewhere.

This is, you see, my life. Not the anteroom for my death. No matter what’s going on. Not even if I ever need to move into hospice. Learning. Loving. Growing spiritually. Right. Up. To. The. End.

 

Dog journal: Natalie has skills. She’s deeply read and connected with other trainers in online chatgroups. She’s dedicated to positive training. No shock collars. No harshness. Rather. Learning the heart and mind of dogs. Applying that in problem situations to recognize, then shape behaviors.

An example. Using feeding time to increase trust with Shadow. Feeding her from my hand makes her associate me with her food. “It’s all about the grub,” Natalie says. The walk, drop a treat behind, change direction game gives Shadow the choice to follow me. At some point she’ll just follow me. Working next on getting her to come inside voluntarily and like it. Walking on a leash.

I recognize and admire Ana’s house cleaning, Natalie’s training, and Nathan’s careful work.

A lot of dystopians imagine a world where A.I. puts humans out of work, yet makes enough cash available for a no work life. This will be awful, directionless, purposeless.

No. I don’t believe it. I believe the essence of the human experience lies in relating to each other, to animals near and far, in growing our own food at some level. In painting. Sculpture. Dog training. Construction. Cooking. Conversation. The joys of retirement.

 

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Garden, Great Wheel, Health, Judaism, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Paganism, Plants, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, The West, US History, Weather +Climate, Writing

Living. Not dying.

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Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Shadow. Her kindness. Amy. Her understanding. Cookunity. Colorado Coop and Garden. The Greenhouse. Gardening again. Korea. Malaysia. Australasia. Wisconsin. Saudi Arabia. The Bay. First Light. 10,000 Lakes. The Rocky Mountain Front Range. Where my people live.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Greenhouse

Week Kavannah: Joy. Simcha.

One brief shining: Nathan and I wandered in my back yard, his app that shows Great Sol’s illumination searching for a good spot to plant my greenhouse, until we neared a spot close to the shed, that was it with decent morning Sun and an hours worth of afternoon Sun more than anywhere else.

 

 

That picture is not quite what I’m getting. Mine will have an outdoor raised bed on either side and shutters that move themselves as the greenhouse heats up and cools down. It will also have an electric heater for Winter and a drip irrigation system inside and out.

This guy Nathan, a Conifer native, started his business Colorado Coop and Garden to give folks like me an opportunity to grow things up here. Working a garden at ground level is long past for me. But Nathan can build the raised beds at a height where my back is not an issue.

Guess I’m regressing here in some ways. A Dog. A small Garden. Andover in miniature. The greenhouse will have a sign: Artemis Gardens. Artemis Honey was Kate and mine’s name for our bee operation.

 

I’m loving my classes at Kabbalah Experience. Reaching deep into the purpose of religion and Judaism in particular. Reimagining the story of Adam and Eve. My life, my Jewish life and my Shadow Mountain life, have begun to resonate. Learning and living an adventure in fourth phase purpose.

No matter what the near term future holds for my health I will not succumb to despair or bleakness. As I’ve often said, I want to live until I die. This life, I’m coming to realize, is me doing just that.

If I were a bit more spry, I’d add a chicken coop and a couple of bee hives, but both require more flexibility than I can muster.

I’m at my best when I’m active outside with Mother Earth and inside with a Dog, books, and new learning. All that leavened with the sort of intimate relationships I’ve developed both here and in Minnesota and with my far flung family.

That’s living in the face of autocracy and cruelty. I will not attenuate my life. Neither for the dark winds blowing through our country and world, nor for that dark friend of us all, death.

 

Just a moment: Did you read Thomas Friedman’s article: I’ve Never Been More Afraid for My Countries Future? His words, served up with a healthy dish of Scandinavian influenced St. Louis Park Judaism, ring more than true to me. They have the voice of prophecy.

We are in trouble. No doubt. Trouble from which extrication will require decades, I imagine. If not longer. Yet. I plan to grow heirloom vegetables year round on Shadow Mountain. To have mah Dog Shadow with me in the Greenhouse.

I also plan to write and think about the sacred, the one, the wholeness of which we are part and in which we live, die, love. I will not cheapen my life with bitterness, rather I will eat salads, read, play with Shadow and dine with friends, talk to my friends and family near and far.

Family, Garden, Great Wheel, Holidays, Judaism, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Plants

A Pagan Covenant

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Mabon and the Sukkot Moon

Friday Gratefuls: The Sukkah. Harvest festivals. Celebrating the intimate link among humans, Great Sol, Mother Earth, and Seeds. Fall. The sweet, sad, soulful song of Aspens and their gold. Hygge. Coming soon to Shadow Mountain. Rabbi Jamie and his high holiday sermons. Ruth, who wants to eat together again. Sunday. Boulder. Kate, my love. Talking to her. Laurie and her Chi-town food truck. Tulsa King. On the Run. Phantom Toll Booth. The Iliad. Homer.

Sparks of joy and awe: The Harvest

Kavannah: Patience

One brief shining: The CBE sukkah has wood lattice on its three sides, mesh grass matting for a roof, and three children’s decorated tapestries, with a lulav always on the table, the four species: branches of myrtle, palm, willow bound together and the etrog, a large citrus fruit separate from them, the branches waved north, south, east, west, up and down, while saying a bracha, a blessing, the etrog picked up at the end a blessing and a ritual which has a theme of Jewish unity, sure, but more to the point represents the moment in time, the harvest, which Sukkot celebrates.

Seed Savers Exchange is one of the oldest and largest heirloom seed conservation organizations in the world.

Email: diane@seedsavers.org

Corn pickers and combines. Gathering in their mechanical dinosaur ways Corn, Wheat, other Grains. A rhythm with which I grew up. Farms all round my hometown of Alexandria, Indiana, around my mom’s hometown of Morristown and on the land between the two to the south, to Muncie on the east, to Elwood on the west, and Marion on the north. I learned early to always slow down on a gravel road if a hill blocked the view in your direction of travel. There might be a lumbering mechanized giant moving very slowly just over the crest of the hill.

Later the grain trucks would back up to silos when the market was right and carry the harvest to elevators and their huge silos which held many farmer’s crops for loading on grain cars for dispersal to the General Mills, Kellogs, Cargills of the world. So ordinary. Common. Mundane. Usual. Wasn’t until l moved to the Rockies that I found myself apart from the rituals of agriculture.

Oh, once in a while I’ll see a tractor harvesting hay off a Mountain Meadow, but that’s rare enough to be remarkable. There are Cattle in eastern and western Colorado, a few up here in the Mountains, but that’s ranching. It works to different rhythms and has slaughter as its grain truck to the elevator equivalent.

As long as Kate and I lived in Andover, we observed the fall agricultural rituals albeit on a much smaller scale. Tomatoes. Potatoes. Onions. Beets. Carrots. Beans. Raspberries, Ground Cherries, Honey Crisp and Macintosh Apples, Pears, Cherries, Honey. Whatever we planted. Flowers, cut Flowers, too.

Kate would can, dry, and we both would bottle honey. Then go out to the firepit and throw a few logs on, sit with the dogs milling around, and enjoy quiet time together. The harvest season. A feast. A moment when the covenant among Soil, Seeds, and human toil revealed its promise.

Great Wheel, Hermitage, Holidays, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Plants, The West, Weather +Climate

Home

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Mabon (Fall) and the Sukkot Moon

Friday gratefuls: Heidi. Salaam. Marilyn. Ruth. Alan. The Dandelion. Big O tires. Phillips 66 Gas. The waning of the gold. Leaves beginning to fall. Clear, bright, blue Sky. Great Sol grinning. Mother Earth happy with what they’ve made together. The Ocean. The World Ocean. The unknown of the deep. Its wildness. Beavers damming Streams, making Ponds. Thinning Forests. Wild Life. Our Wild Friends. Cyclical time.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Aspens, the Mountain torches of Mabon

Kavannah: Teshuvah

One brief shining: Driving past the spot where I saw the Bull Elk in the Rain, I noticed the golden torches blazing, flanking where he looked at me through the dark, Aspens, oh, I see, Bull Elk sacred in the night in May, Aspen leaves in their brilliant final phase in October, yes, I see, the Wheel turning, the sacred manifesting in its seasonal way, different yet also always there.

 

These blue days with golden Leaves and water reflecting Lodgepole green. Lake Evergreen, a small jewel set amongst the inner Foothills, Mountains rising on all sides of it. Folks paddleboarding, kayaking, canoeing small moving dots of color rippling the reflections. You might think after almost ten years these sights would be ho-hum, I’ve seen it before, so what. No. Instead the turning of the Great Wheel puts all of them through kaleidoscopic changes.

Soon the Aspen Leaves will be gone or scattered on the Lake like thin gold-leaf, no longer reflected but held up by surface tension, Leaf on Water, no longer Leaf mirrored. The deciduous trees become skeletal before Samain, fitting into the bleak tones of fallow fields, decay, and death.

Too, the Elk and the Mule Deer have chosen, over the millennia, this time for reproduction. The Bears, hyperphagic, know Winter looms ahead, a season with little food. Great Sol’s rays spread out over larger and larger chunks of Land and Water, reducing their effect.

The Grasses have gone russet and tan. The Asters have gone to seed. In a few Meadows tractors have bailed hay for the Horses and Llamas and other cud chewers with Mountain homes. The Cattle Company that feeds out their Black Angus on the Meadow the Bike Park folks wanted will come soon for their long last ride.

The fireplace beckons. It sits throughout the summer, mocked by the heat. Pointless. Needs more wood available. Have not yet gone down the hill to Variety Firewood where they have hard Woods and perfumed Pinõn. Maybe tomorrow.

Each season leaves its special imprint on familiar scenes, changing them not only from the season just past but from the previous occurrence of the same season. Trees grow taller, fall over, get cut down. Streams alter their flow. Seeds carried by the Winds and by Birds and by Wild Neighbors germinate in new fields and open ground.

So the Mountain Dweller enjoys the changes, gets renewed by Nature’s own renewal, feels sadness as a season comes to an end. Home. Here in the Rockies.

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.

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Judaism, Mountains, Our Land and Home

Bonus Post on Paganism and Judaism

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Summer and the sliver Summer Moon Above

 

From the beginning of my turn toward paganism I identified it as an ur-religion. That is, one all of us could embrace even if we layered on top of it another tradition like Buddhism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Judaism.

I’m still there. Why? My paganism locates the sacred, the holy, the divine in the stuff within me and around me. That is. The Lodgepole. Leo sleeping beside me on the rug. My lev. The Soil beneath me and the Rock beneath it and the core of the Earth beneath that. The Robin and the Magpie. The Fly and the Katydid. The Morel and the Candensis. The Worm and the Snake. The Stream flowing and the Pond resting. Beavers and Marmots. Mountain Lions and Bears. The Microbiome in my gut. The Mitochrondia in our Cells. Our Galaxy. Those Galaxies. Dark Matter. Multi-verse Worlds.

I believe this non-dogmatic, non-sectarian sort of paganism crucial to caring for our Planet as we go through the fiery apocalypse of Climate change. And, it is not in conflict in any way with my Judaism which insists on a unitary view of all things. All things contain a shard of ohr, or holy light, holy energy. All things.

I choose Judaism for my human and humane interactions. I choose paganism to undergird and focus attention on the World which holds us like a Bird’s nest holds fragile Eggs.

 

Acting, Great Wheel, Our Land and Home, Poetry, Shadow Mountain, Travel, Weather +Climate

A Do Anything Day

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Summer and the Summer Moon Above

Wednesday gratefuls: Tal. His new play. Learning Cold Mountain’s poems. Writing more for my character project. Acting. Acting class. Coffee beans. Coffee grinder. High altitude coffee maker. Writing. Ancientrails. A long road from my past through today. Bill Schmidt for helping me set it up. Allergies. Tree sex. Pollen, Pollen, Everywhere. Ruth. Gabe. Another bright blue Sky. Warm to hot days. The green. All the green. Everywhere the green. Mountain living. BJ. In her own personal Idaho.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth

One brief shining: Life rises from thermal vents, creates itself in tidal pools, wanders onto Land, Seeds allowing Plants to walk away from the Shore, moving and changing as it stretches itself into new shapes, new ways of being until Animals big and small, until humans, now able to look back, all the way back to its beginnings, life looking at itself, wondering about its own meaning.

 

Tuesday. Writing. Finding out more about Gaius Ovidius. About the Hooded Man. About Cold Mountain. Deciding to memorize one poem a day. Here’s the first one. From memory:

Where’s the trail to Cold Mountain?

Cold Mountain! There’s no clear way.

Ice, in summer, is still frozen.

Bright sun shines through thick fog.

You will not get there following me.

Your heart and mine are not the same.

If your heart were like mine,

You’d be there, already.

 

Called the gas company. They wanted to change out my gas meter. Turned out they’d already met their quota. Why would they change it out? Each year a random number of meters get swapped out for identical ones and sent to a testing facility to determine their accuracy. I found that interesting.

Then, Nielsen ratings called. You know, the famous one from the old days of ABC, CBS, and NBC. They’re still doing their thing. But since nobody here was in their target demographic I got a pass from them, too. I found it oddly reassuring that they were still in business. As if the 1950’s will never die.

 

Plunked down some more hard cash to ensure aisle seats on my flights from Denver to Heathrow, Heathrow to Ben Gurion. Easy access to the bathrooms trumps a window seat every time at my age. Couldn’t do the same on the return for some reason. Maybe later.

 

I’ve not written about the Summer Solstice. My favorite part. It means the nights grow longer and the days grow shorter. I do not like hot nights, nor do I like hot days. Some warmer days after the cold of Winter feel good. I’m enjoying the ones we’re having on Shadow Mountain right now, but as they get hotter? Not so much. Why I enjoyed Minnesota and its short summers. Shadow Mountain, too. Cool nights are the difference between a good night’s sleep and a bad one for me. Last night stayed warm for a while and disturbed my sleep in spite of my fan and my mini-split. Feeling a little loggy this morning.

Colorado, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Mountains, Mussar, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Travel

A Thursday with Friends

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Summer and the Summer Moon Above

Friday gratefuls: Tom. Ellen and Dick. Hail. Again. Cool nights. Good sleeping. God is Here. Metaphor. Kathy. Luke. Vince. Gutters. Psilocybin. Flower. Weed. Red Rocks. The Bread Lounge. A Cuban. Evergreen. Gracie and Ann. CBE. High water on the fish ladder. Maxwell Creek running full.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Friendship

One brief shining: Life in its fullness comes running at you, with you like a Mountain Stream after a heavy Rain, crashing over barriers, not allowing any obstacles, where necessary spreading out, then calmly, gently flowing into the placid waters of a great River, headed to the World Ocean.

 

Yesterday. A full day. Talking to Diane, always a pleasure. Catching up on family news. A favorite cousin for all of us moved into hospice. We’re all in the aging range. This group that used to play with each other at Thanksgiving, during family reunions at Riley Park, on the farm outside Morristown. Family in its longue dureé as Ginny, daughter of Diane’s sister, Kristen, gives birth to a new generation of the Keaton clan as have children of other cousins. We will wink out one by one, but the family will continue.

 

Over to the Bread Lounge to read a bit before Tom got here from DIA. Instead ran into Tal and Alan talking to each other. Alan in his  usual I’m here to assist you mode trying to figure out how he can help Tal’s new company, All in Ensemble.

Alan’s decided to let his beard grow back. I’m glad. It was odd seeing him clean shaven. He shaved for his art, as he says. A role in Zorro!, the musical.

Together we talked about Tal’s character study class, about mutual friends and family. The Bread Lounge serves as the student union restaurant for Evergreen. Go there and you see folks you know.

After Alan left, Tal and I discussed my character Herme. He liked my idea of a one-act play to introduce the Rivers and Mountains Poets of China to Mountain audiences. He offered to help me in any way he can. He’s bringing an outline from a playwrighting class to our next Tuesday class. Who knows? Perhaps the Hooded Man will play up and down the spine of the Rocky Mountains. Could happen.

 

Tom got to the Bread Lounge after navigating an overly busy DIA filled with summer travelers. We ordered sandwiches, which came late so we had to pack them up and head over to mussar. Where we discussed the role of metaphor in our daily lives and the implications of metaphor for understanding what we might mean when we use the metaphor God. A good heart/mind conversation.

Following mussar Tom and I were hosted by Ellen and Dick Arnold, Rabbi Jamie’s parents. A wide ranging conversation which had as its focus the upcoming trip to Israel. Dick will be my roommate for the group part of the trip.

 

When we got back to Shadow Mountain, Vince was here mowing and weed whacking. In the rain. Vince is a good guy. Lucky to have him as my friend and property manager.

Tom and I were tired. We talked, then went to bed. Getting ready now for our trip this afternoon on the Royal Gorge Rail Road.