Category Archives: Our Land and Home

Family, Jefferson County, Memories, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Travel

Quiet days and pruning

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Summer and the Lughnasa Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Marilyn and Irv, their two dogs. Dick and Ellen, their two sons. Chicken. Good conversation. Safeway. Grocery pickup. Pruning. Continuing. Picking up a bit. A cool morning. Sky a gauzy blue.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Bread Lounge’s Sourdough, Pullman style

 

Manta, Ecuador

A Saturday. Got groceries. Went over to a friends for dinner. Did more pruning downstairs. Nap. A quiet day. Today, the same.

I like quiet days. When Kate said, let’s take a cruise, I was skeptical. Thinking Princess ships with 8,000 people having FUN. Our first cruise, in fact all of our cruises, were on Holland America instead. 2,000 people or so. Still a lot, but an older crowd, more interested in fun, not FUN.

We flew to Florida, Ft. Lauderdale, I think. Boarded the ship there and proceeded to sail (motor?) through the Caribbean, to the Panama Canal, then onto the Port of Los Angeles. Several stops along the way, but the days I liked best were the days at sea. On the Gulf or the Pacific, nothing else to do but relax and enjoy the ride. Quiet days.

I like quiet days and, as I’m discovering, I like living alone. Of course, I’d have Kate back in a heartbeat, but since I can’t. On quiet days I can focus on what I want to, at the pace I want. If I need attention and love, Kep and Rigel come. Not what I expected after Kate’s death.

In our stateroom

As the pruning proceeds, I’m moving lots and lots of Kate’s things. Clothes, jewelry, shoes, coats, hand creams and foot lotions, old meds, her black bag with the stethoscope. Her sewing room. Filled with squares of cloth for piecing into a quilt. Sewing machines. Plastic forms for cutting angles in cloth. Rotary cutters. Threads of all colors. Quilting magazines. Batting. The material world she left behind.

Yesterday I e-mailed Mt. Evans Hospice and Home Care to see if they wanted the two boxes full of tube-feeding supplies and some adult diapers still in packaging. The long-arm left, as I said, Friday.

As this work continues, I’m finding space opening up in the house. Neither of us had the energy to consolidate, organize, reshape our living area over the last couple of years. And, she had her spaces, closets and rooms, as I have mine.

The opening space feels good to me. Again, not something I expected. It’s the not the absence of Kate’s stuff; rather, it’s the creation of space, of space not filled up. This may be a Marie Kondo moment for me. Sort of. Seoah likes minimal furniture, often an Asian preference. I’m finding I do, too.

2015

We’ll see how it all works out, but I have a clear plan. Up to a point. I know furniture I want to sell or give away. I have places I want to move current furniture. Storage will begin to take on my scheme, not better than ours together, but one that conforms to my biases.

In mussar we often say the outer affects the inner. That is, if we change our behavior, we can change our character. In order to increase generosity, be generous. In order to increase compassion, be compassionate. I suspect this changing of my home’s physicality is the same. To live in Charlie’s best manner, redesign Charlie’s house.

What is this place? 2015. Vega and Rigel.

My imagination says that when I get the house redone, perhaps with the aid of an interior decorator and some remodeling, new staining on the exterior, then my interior life will change as well. Just how, I don’t know, but it seems likely.

The loft will undergo less rethinking, but I do have a plan to make the eventual disposition of my library easy for my heirs. Donate some now. Make sure the best loved and used books stay nearby. Organize the rest so they can be boxed and carried out to Half-Price Books or the Evergreen Library or some other place. Less clear on all my files, my 9 complete manuscripts and the ones still aborning. Those four plastic bins filled with printed pages of Ancientrails. My art. Noodling.

 

 

Family, Health, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Travel

Reimagining Home

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Summer and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Waste Removal. Mountain Waste Removal. Jon, Ruth, and Gabe. Up here at last. Diane on Zoom. Mary and Seoah English classes. Rebecca at Conifer P.T. A muscle strain. Stretches.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Family.

 

Cleared out that closet next to the boiler area. Gave luggage to Jon, Ruth, and Gabe which, it turns out, they’ll use this Thursday when they fly to Minnesota.

They’re going on a road trip with Annie’s new Jeep, which she’s giving to Jon. Annie, who lives in Waconia, moves to North Carolina sometime in the next month. An assisted living center near Sarah and Jerry, who live in Bellews Creek. Their trip includes Falling Waters and other destinations TBD. Including a stop in Bellews Creek. Sounds fun to me.

Jon is still having trouble with panic attacks. His whole endocrine system seems wobbly, this affecting that, then that affecting something else. No fun at all. Impacting his sleep, too.

Into the cleared out shelving will go comforters though I plan to prune them, too. With the luggage I’m keeping consolidated there is plenty of room for storage there. After I finish that, I’m going to clear off the long arm, which has accumulated stuff. Also going to get Kate’s quilting and sewing stuff ready for Ruth, Jamie, and Laurie.

When that’s done? The closets around the TV, then the clothes in the bedroom. Plan to move the Teak chest of drawers upstairs into the guest room. Leave two drawers empty. Storage in the rest. Keeping at it until the house has the Stickley table upstairs in the sewing room, the Stickley couch out there also.

At Domo

Considering moving the two chairs downstairs up in front of the fireplace, buying a smaller couch to replace them. Perhaps some William Morris wallpaper. Not sure where, but I love his stuff. Stay roughly in the Arts and Crafts aesthetic. If I’m going to live here long term, I want the house reflect me.

Kate’s stuff will not be gone. Jerry’s paintings, her quilts and counted cross stitch, her sculpture, her retirement present, the Granlund, the work I bought her for her 75th. Plus a lot else will remain.

I do want to erase the feeling of the house as an assisted living facility. That phase of its use is over now and it felt less like home than it did a functional, medically oriented dwelling. Which worked well while we needed it. And, I’m glad it did. Still, not the world I want to live in now.

Went to P.T. yesterday. Rebecca poked and prodded, had me bend and twist. Her conclusion? My long walks on Hickam were too much for my right leg. I strained a muscle and the result can be felt, a knot over my femur head which radiates pain in several directions. Her therapy? Stretches, then a gradual reentry to my exercise routine. About 4 weeks.

Life flows on, in endless song, how can I keep from singing.

 

Aging, Colorado, Dogs, Family, Friends, Health, Judaism, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, The Move, The West, Third Phase

Considerations

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Ostara and the Ovid Moon of Metamorphoses

Saturday gratefuls: Tough towels. Morning lucidity. Vaccines. Kate’s appointment today. Georgia GOP. No doubt now about their racist, oligarchic ideology. The Voting Law. Ditching the filibuster.

Sparks of Joy: Vaccine #2 on April Fool’s Day.

Gabe’s bris

Miracles in my world. The greening of the Lodgepoles. The leafing out of the Aspen. (both of these I’m anticipating) A Black Mountain decked in white. Iris rhizomes throwing up stalks for another year. (this, too, anticipated) Fawns. Calves. Colts. Life. Abundant and rich. Puppies. Dogs. Love. Mountains. Justice. Memories. So many, everywhere. Hallelujah.

Oh. Terrible night. Kate talking throughout the night, explaining her dreams to herself, she said. Lotsa lost sleep for both of us. Makes everything more difficult.

Contacted Jewish Family Service in Denver. They’re sending a social worker out who specializes in gerontology. With her we’ll develop a plan, perhaps, plans, that we can use to define our next year, few years. Housing options. In-home health care options. That sort of thing.

There are lots of services available but knowing which ones exist, which might come to the mountains, costs, is difficult. At best. Same with housing options including, but not limited to, buying another home.

Kate’s healthspan, lifespan are critical, but unknown. I imagine this will include some more time with Dr. Thompson, consulting. Mine are, too, but I’m the more functional at the moment. Dogs are a crucial element. Our stuff is less of an issue. We can sell or keep. My library can be sold in whole or in part. In that sense we’re portable. Except for the Dogs.

I suppose you could say, why didn’t they consider all this before they moved to the Mountains? Fair enough. We did give it cursory attention, but we both felt good, were planning for a healthier time than we got. Didn’t happen.

Shadow Mtn. Drive, down the hill a mile from home. Black Mtn ahead

Living in the Mountains is a big adventure for us, something we wanted long before we decided to move. I don’t regret it, not for a minute. Even if it seems foolish. Even if it was foolish. To lose a sense of adventure, of new possibilities, is to die before the grave.

We’ve had six years so far. A really long vacation in a place people come to from all over the world. Would I make the move knowing what I know now? Maybe not, so I’m glad we did it without knowing.

Rigel and a bull Elk in our back a day before my first radiation treatment.

My hope is that we will find a combination of home health care services that allow us to remain here. Moving the Dogs would be very difficult. They’re both older, Rigel beyond the expected life span of large breed Dogs at 12, and Kep turning 10 this year.

I’m still alive, healthy for 74. Love Kate, the dogs, our house, family, extended and birth, our CBE friends, my Ancient friends. I love reading, learning, writing, creating. Colorado and the West. The humid East. The Midwest. The Mountains and all of our wild Neighbors. Neither resigned to life, nor resigning from it.

Ready for this moment and the next. Here I come.

Garden, Great Wheel, Holidays, Humanities, Memories, Mountains, Myth and Story, Our Land and Home, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

They Say It’s His Birthday!

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Spring! and the Ovid Moon of Metamorphoses

Shoutout to birthday boy Publius Ovidius Naso, or Ovid as we know him in the English speaking west. He’d be two thousand and fifty-four today.

Saturday gratefuls: Safeway pickup. Kabob skewers. Kate’s fluid flowing. Psalms class finish. New class start April 9. Writing poetry. Colorado Mountain Sun. Ancient ones on Justice. Vaccines. April Fool’s Day: shot II for me.

Sparks of Joy: Unclogging Kate’s feeding tube and avoiding another ER adventure. Wu wei, the Way of my life.

March 1, meteorological spring. No romance in that one. March 20, today, 5:37 MST, the Vernal Equinox. Spring. Ostara. Bunnies and crosses and parting of seas, oh my! Lots of romance, lots of theological pulling and hauling. This religion defining moment: resurrection and another: the Exodus. I settle these days for the Sun and the Earth’s celestial equator. See this explainer if you need more. More or less equal hours of Sun and night.

Yes. We’ve moved from the transitional time of Imbolc to the birthing blooming buzzing time. Spring. No wonder the Anglo-Saxons, those Northern European ancestors of so many of us, chose a fertility goddess, Eostre, to celebrate. Estrogen. Ostara. Easter. Yes, the Catholics took her name, added it to the resurrection celebration, and, voila: Easter!

Jesus as Eostre. A dying and rising God like Tammuz, Adonis, Attis, Dionysus, Osiris, or Jesus seem like good company for a fertility goddess. Any gardener can testify to the thrill of planting dusty brown clumps of vegetative matter in the Fall of the year and in the Spring of the next year, the rapture of a moistened bed pierced by green shoots, then Tulips, Crocus, Grape Hyacinth, Iris, Lilies in colorful flower.

Isn’t resurrection a matter of taking a dead thing, or what appears to be a dead thing, putting it away, and having it rise out at the right time? If you listened to the Southern Gospel Revival’s rendition of “Ain’t No Grave” )two posts below this one), you heard the line, “Ain’t no grave, can keep my body down.” Further on, “When that trumpet sounds, I’m a risin’ from the ground.” Could be sung by every Tulip bulb I ever planted.

This is the right time to celebrate those things you may have planted a while back, projects or dreams that have needed some time in the grave or the soil or the unconscious.

It’s also the right time to look at the bed you’ve tended, the one in which you planted them, your life. There might be weeds, or, as I prefer, plants out of place. Note that this means you may have good habits or plans or projects that have become plants out of place in your life. You may have to remove them so your new projects and dreams will flourish.

Ask Eostre for help. You might find her in your anima, perhaps buried in your shadow. She’ll burst out, give things a boost up, if you let her. I’m sitting right now on Shadow Mountain, imagine what lies beneath.

Colorado, Family, Health, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, The West, Weather +Climate

Post Interrupted

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Imbolc and the Megillah Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Kate. Her doggedness. Rigel’s, too. That stimulus bill. Biden at work. Spring and Winter playing with each other. Now it’s my turn! Spring this weekend. Winter next week. Writing poetry again. Going with life as it streams through 9358 Black Mountain Drive. Elk Creek Fire paramedics. Swedish E.R. Dylan.

Sparks of Joy: Vaccines. Ode’s prints. Ruth.

This post got interrupted yesterday:

Elk Creek Paramedics came to our house yesterday. Kate was in extreme distress, trouble breathing, pain, nose bleed that wouldn’t stop. They took her out of the house and down the hill to Swedish E.R.

She’s still in the hospital this morning (Sunday, March 7) though I expect she’ll be released today. No obvious reason for the incident in x-rays or blood work. Scary, but looks like it will resolve.  Kate’s Caring Bridge site

It started here.

Colorado on my mind. There’s a fascinating thread on Pinecam.com about whether it makes sense to live up here. Here’s the key section from the post that started it:

“My wife and I own property in an unnamed Foothills community served by a community well system. I’ve got reason to believe there are issues with water supply, long term, and so we may be looking at selling soon. We’ve also experienced difficulty finding property insurers willing to write policies in our area due to wildfire risk – it’s not impossible, just expensive.”

I finished reading it all, and the responses reflect concerns in the minds of most who live in the mountains, especially in the more developed areas like Conifer and Evergreen.

When I lived at sea level in the Midwest, I often wondered how people could live in flood plains. I mean, they’re flood plains, right? Well, I understand now. Many of us live where the land calls us. Kate and I do.

This is the WUI, wooee! Wildland/Urban Interface. Sociologically we’re an extension of the Denver Metro area, an exurb, much like Andover is in Minnesota. About the same distance out, too. Different geology though.

In Andover we lived on the Great Anoka Sand Plain, a shore line area of the ancient glacial river Warren. Lots of rain, a deciduous forest, oak savanna, and fields that grew whatever crops folks wanted. We grew perennial flowers, vegetables, fruits and nuts, kept bees.

In Conifer we live on a mountain top at 8,800 feet. This is the arid West. Drought often, as it is now. Folks grow what they can and some do well, but it’s tough with the more intense sun, elk and mule deer, rocky infertile soil. Unlike Andover, we live here on the sufferance of the wild fire cycle.

On our property water availability depends on precipitation and older water stored in cracks in the bedrock. Our well has been refractured, meaning the rock got opened up some by water under pressure or drilling.

Astrology, Our Land and Home, Politics, Shadow Mountain, US History, Weather +Climate

Chilly

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Imbolc and the Megillah Moon

Monday gratefuls: 7 degrees this morning. Up 26 from yesterday. 75th trip underway, go Earth. Joseph’s happy birthday on Facebook. Vaccines. 45’s guilt. Those who know it. Those who don’t. Covid. Winter and all its trimmings.

 

Sparks of Joy: Kep and food. Rigel’s prance. 45 out, 46 in. Seeing dogs sticking their heads out of car windows. Young children being themselves.

Our house. Needs insulation. When wind blows through the mountains, it also blows through our house. Nice in the summer, not so much in the winter. The windows leak. Doorways, too. Also, the heating of the great room, kitchen, and sewing room is inadequate. If I were married to someone other than Norwegian Kate Olson, we’d have fixed all this years ago. As it is, we usually just put up with it until it gets a bit warmer. -19, however, challenges even Scandinavians. Maybe later this year?

However. We’re much better off than those poor bastards in the South. Respect to all of them for confronting ice and cold in a place ready for neither. Friend Bill Schmidt recounted his daughter Moira’s observation of a highway near their Austin, Texas home. Ice. A hill, a curve. Brake lights. Cars slippin’ and slidin’.

Talk to any Colorado native and they’ll tell you that all of our traffic problems are caused by Texans who move up here. Maybe 5%. The rest is people who just don’t know how to drive.

The lunar New Year has turned us into the year of the Ox. If this is your spot in the twelve year Chinese astrological cycle, you’re likely “Prudent, follow procedures step by step, take things slowly, unlikely to be influenced by others or environment, do things out of personal idea and ability, go ahead steadily and surely, always can achieve the set goals.” This according to Your Chinese astrology website.

As a February pig myself, I’m “…very talented, kind and full of vigor. …lucky to get help from the elders and assistance from benefactors. …could be very dignified and healthy during the life.” Same site. Well…

And, finally, a political thought for today. I agree with the Democrats decision to not call witnesses for Trump’s impeachment trial. The McCarthy call revelation was tasty, no doubt, but the better choice was to finish the trial with dispatch.

No chance for a second narrative to take hold. The House managers did a better than credible job at prosecuting their case and showed the nation Trump’s guilt. The vote would not have changed and having it a short time after their good work underscored the 43 boot lickers’ shame.

We’re a long way from done with all of this; but, now we can move onto the important work. Undoing as much of 45’s legacy as possible quickly and moving on matters too long neglected like climate change, racial and economic justice, immigration, radical police reform.

Our Land and Home, Politics, Shadow Mountain, US History

More Politics. Skip if you want.

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Imbolc and the waning Wolf Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Yeti USB Microphone. Podcasting. Maybe. Impeachment. Trial. Reminder. Biden at work. The boggy reality of our politics. Tom’s poems and science facts. Perseverance, on track for February 18th touchdown on Mars. The things we’ve seen. Wind. Cold. Snow. On its way.

Sparks of Joy: Wolves and their predation. Coming soon to Colorado. Vaccines. Leigh Thompson. Ruth. Seoah. Murdoch. The Sun in the blue Sky.

 

 

Just watched two videos, one 13 minutes long and one over 5 minutes. They were evidence in the trial of 45. If you haven’t seen them, maybe you shouldn’t. They’re brutal and reveal the underlying problems we have. This degree of anger and misdirected rage will not slink away. It will be underwritten and reinforced by these videos. They’re good evidence for the trial, no doubt, but I know many of the Proud Boy ilk will see them as moments of glory, as prolegomena to a future assault. A “better” one.

Right now, on this mountain and on the ones nearby, I’m sure some patriots are loading rounds, polishing their weapons, listening to Rush and Alex Jones. When will be the next time to muster ourselves? The constitution has never been in such peril. Our country can’t survive. What if Biden dies and Harris becomes President? We’re all screwed, that’s what. We gotta fight now.

Cousin Diane told me about an NPR report on the flocking of Far Right activists to Germany for rock concerts, gatherings with other, international groups like ours. Germany! The notions of human equality, equal rights under the law, the vote as a means of ensuring democratic governance have their enemies all round the globe.

Yes, this is an imperfect nation. Watch equally disturbing videos from the execution of George Floyd, the shooting of protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin by Kyle Rittenhouse. Remember the middle passage. Jim Crow. Immigrant children separated from their families. News headlines about the Yellow Peril. Women’s suffrage and all the struggles since then for women’s equal rights.

And, yes, these imperfections demand action now. Right now.

These Far Right folks are only part of the barrier to those actions. Corporate capitalism also stands in the way. So does the insidious nature of sexism and racism, infecting many who declare they want to do better. But somehow can’t.

The next few years will be the true trial for this nation’s soul. We will be part of it, you and me. What will your grandchildren say about your actions?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Great Wheel, Mountains, Myth and Story, Our Land and Home, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Heal Yourself with the World

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Sent by friend Bill Schmidt. Good advice.

 

 

Advice  from María Sabina, Mexican healer and poet – “Heal yourself with the light of the sun and the rays of the moon. With the sound of the river and the waterfall. With the swaying of the sea and the fluttering of birds. Heal yourself with mint, neem, and eucalyptus. Sweeten with lavender, rosemary, and chamomile. Hug yourself with the cocoa bean and a hint of cinnamon. Put love in tea instead of sugar and drink it looking  at the stars. Heal yourself with the kisses that the wind gives you and the hugs of the rain. Stand strong with your bare feet on the ground and with everything that comes from it. Be smarter every day by listening to your intuition, looking at the world with your forehead.  Jump, dance, sing, so that you live happier. Heal yourself, with beautiful love, and always remember … you are the medicine.”

 

Beyond the Boundaries, Commentary on Religion, Great Wheel, Holidays, Myth and Story, Our Land and Home, Poetry, Shadow Mountain, Writing

Imbolc 2021

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Imbolc and the Wolf Moon

Monday gratefuls: Easy Entrees bacon wrapped pork tenderloins. Green Beans. Kate’s no nausea days. House cleaning today. LLBean and my new shearling hurricane shirt. The Ancient Ones tell stories around the council fire. Tom’s story. 45 gone. 46 doing stuff I like. Feel better. Imbolc.

The Ewes, the pregnant Ewes. Milk for their Lambs. Means Milk for all. For Cheese. For children. Imbolc. In the belly. In Ireland this is and was the birthing time for Sheep. The Lambs came; the Ewes freshened; the family fed on food not stored over the long fallow time.

It was clear the promise of the day after the Winter Solstice was not false. There would be another spring, another freshening of the earth. All would be well, all manner of things would be well.

What a precious and delightful time. Lambs gamboling. Suckling. Milk squirted directly into children’s mouths. All delighted by the miracle of birth and renewal.

Hard to put ourselves in the place of people who subsisted on stored Grains, Vegetables, smoked Meats over the long fallow time begun on Samain, Summer’s End, and lasting until today.

Brigid, the Triple Goddess. Her day. This from a wikipedia article:

She is the goddess of all things perceived to be of relatively high dimensions such as high-rising flames, highlands, hill-forts and upland areas; and of activities and states conceived as psychologically lofty and elevated, such as wisdom, excellence, perfection, high intelligence, poetic eloquence, craftsmanship (especially blacksmithing), healing ability, druidic knowledge and skill in warfare.

Poetry, the smithy, and the hearth were her domains, thus the Triple Goddess. The often week long festivals the Celts celebrated on their four cross quarter days: Imbolc, Beltane (May 1), Lughnasa (August 1), and Samain (October 31st) gave villagers a break from their subsistence lives. A chance to play, to sing, dance, trade, honor their gods and goddesses.

Imbolc was also a time for discerning weather, peeking into the immediate future. Hoping for Spring, but knowing it could still be distant. It was this tradition that has translated in the U.S. into Groundhog Day. Here’s a Scottish proverb that suggests the link. Bride is Brigit.

Imbolc is a good day to consider those freshened thoughts and projects you have. What came up for you during the dark, fecund days of Winter? Are there dreams or hopes or works you imagined then that need a push right now? You can ask Brigit for help. It’s her big day and she’s listening.

If you have an artesian well nearby or know of one, you could also follow the ancient Celtic practice of dressing the wells. On these holidays the Irish, the Welsh, The Scots, the Cornish, the Manx, and Bretons would, in ancient times, take flowers to the well, make corn dollies representing Brigit and leave them there, tie rags with wishes and prayers to shrubs and trees nearby.

These Holy Wells are pathways to the Otherworld, the world of Faery, and a place where the Holy Ones pay attention to the needs of the common person.

Brigit, the Triple Goddess, is a Fire Goddess, and at Kincaid in Ireland a double monastery, men and women, kept her eternal flame alive throughout the year. Might be a good day to have a Fire in the Fireplace, her hearth, and consider the creativity her Holy spirit represents.

Welcome all to the blessed season of Imbolc. May your projects blaze up and warm you and yours.

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Still here. Still ok.

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Winter and the beautiful waning crescent of the Moon of the New Year

Ordinary time. Is there any such thing right now?

Saturday gratefuls: Kate. A good night’s sleep. For both of us. Much needed. Rigel keeping me warm. Kep the good boy. Impeachment. 25th Amendment. Resignation. January 20th. All. Subway last night. Beef stroganoff tonight. Easy Entrees, thanks Diane and Mary. Life. Its wonder even amidst its difficulties.

 

 

 

Whoa. Yesterday was tough. I slept from eight last night to seven this morning. All the way through. Thankfully. Feel rested and ready for today. Grateful, really grateful.

Kate’s still worn out though the oxygen situation has resolved. She’s already fatigued from whatever has been going on for the last three weeks, then to have an insult like the oxygen concentrators gave her was hard. She’s still asleep. I’m glad.

As long as I can stay rested, healthy, get my workouts in, see friends and family on zoom, I am ok. Though on occasion I get pushed right up against my limits. I imagine Covid is helping me since I don’t get out, am not around sick people. Or, when I am, I’m masked. Odd to consider, but I’m sure it helps.

Life continues, no matter. Until it doesn’t, of course. That is, even when an evil bastard like Trump is in office, we still have to eat. When a rampant virus rages, we still have to sleep. When a family member is ill, we still love each other, support each other. Life is a miracle and wasting it, well, please don’t.

Got an article about building a computer. Something I’ve always wanted to try. Might just do it. Also read about an experiment that proved quantum entanglement is not instantaneous. And one about the lost merry customs of Hogmanay. And about lyfe, the idea that life might be, probably is, existing in forms we carbon based life forms might not recognize, even if it’s in front of us. And another on why water is weird. And another on why the universe might be a fractal. (thanks, Tom)

No matter how proximate or distant disturbances in the force, science goes on, literary folks write books and articles, the past remains a source of inspiration, and the future a source of hope. No matter whether life has meaning or whether it is absurd (as I believe) the secondary effects of this strange evolutionary push into awareness persist. And, yet they persisted.

Lucretia hangs in the Minneapolis Institute of Art, ready for witnesses to her dignity, her sense of honor, and her tragic fate. Goya’s Dr. Arrieta, not far from her, documents gratitude for healing and the comfort of ancestors. Van Gogh’s Olive Trees teach us that perspective differs from person to person, yet each perspective can be beautiful while remaining unique. Beckman’s Blind Man’s Buff embraces the mythic elements of life, helps us see them in our own lives. Kandinsky. Oh, Kandinsky. His colors. His lines. His elegance.

Mt. Evans and its curved bowl continues to deflect weather toward us here on Shadow Mountain. The light of dawn hits Maine first, as it has for millennia. The polar vortex slumps toward Minnesota.

Roman Ephesus. The last standing pillar of the Temple of Diana. Delos. The Temple of Apollo at Delphi. The ruined temples of Angkor Wat. Chaco Canyon. Testimony to the ancientrail of human awe. Of an eagerness to memorialize wonder.

It is, in spite of it all, a wonderful world.