Winter Cold Moon
Katie, my physical therapist, is young, only a year and a half into her career. She’s thin and a somewhat recent transplant from Florida. Colorado and its mountains, its snow, even its trout streams are her playground. She went snowshoeing on Hoosier Pass yesterday, the road from Fairplay goes over Hoosier Pass to Breckenridge. It’s high, you can access altitude above the tree line. She did, being out there “a few hours.” Afterwards, she said, she fished. Fly fishing. Which she took up a year ago with classes and a membership in Trout Unlimited.
She tells me my flexion and extension are remarkable. She says, too, that the stiffness and achiness that I have is typical. “It’s not scar tissue or anything else like that, it’s the body’s reaction to the surgery. It will pass. You’re doing very well.” That was nice to hear.
As the day winds down and night falls, the knee begins to kick out pain again. Feeling better, I’m going up and downstairs more often, walking more, generally putting the knee to work. By day’s end it’s tired of the effort and says, “Slow down. Stop.”
We’re on the sixth night of Hanukkah, many candles have burned to get us here. Lots of wrapping paper and delighted squeals. Opened boxes litter the coffee table and the couch, gift sign. Ruth got skins for her skis today. These get put on skis when you want to go up the mountain, rather than down. Gabe got Pokemon cards and a sketch book.
Hanukkah requires some discipline, apportioning presents so there are some left for the end of the 8 days. Jon enforces a strict two-present openings a night rule for both kids. Kate recites the Hanukkah blessing in Hebrew while Ruth and Gabe try to follow along.
Our three generation household runs pretty smoothly in spite of the usual sibling rivalry.
During holiseason many cultures celebrate holidays of light: hanukkah, diwali, christmas, for example. They are rituals that stand against the primal fear occasioned by the winter solstice; that the sun will never return, that the world will continue to grow dark. Even last night at mussar we spoke of the light of the candle, finding the light reflected in unusual places, the light that can get us through this period.
The sabbath experiment. I liked it for the most part. There was a couple of hours + for reading. I reread the material on zeal in the Mussar text translated by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan. I also read the Torah portion for this week, the story of Sarah ending with the death of Abraham. Finally got into 
We have entered the corporate zone. Black friday is a religious event in board rooms across this great land, accountants eagerly showing spreadsheets of how much money will be made from poor people desperate for a decent present to give loved ones. Yes, once we’ve put away the gravy boats, the extra large platters, the aluminum foil we can move on to the biggest revenue source-I mean, holiday-of all: Christmas.
The notion of incarnation and its celebration hooked up with the Roman Saturnalia and the rest is Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. I don’t know what percentage of annual retail sales occur post-Thanksgiving, but I’m sure it’s more than you’d think. According to 
My version though puts forward not an individual event in Bethlehem, not just incarnation in one child, but an incarnation in every child. Each babe is a true miracle, the universe creating and recreating creatures who can reflect on it. Life, as a random feature of development on this blessed planet, animates, literally, inanimate matter. Life is a godlike power, awesome and equal to any of the claims about the powers of Allah, G*d, Vishnu, Mithras, Ahura-Mazda.
And so. Climate is what you expect. Weather is what you get. Trump and his rhetoric is now the national climate for acts of hate. I expect people like the KKK, Westboro Baptist, climate deniers, women haters, anti-Semites have been emboldened to act both by Trump’s rhetoric but also by the violent, thuggish behavior he not only allowed but reveled in at his rallies. In other words the climate relative to non-white, non-male, non-European, non-Christian, non-straight life is turbulent and chaotic, tending toward personal acts of violence and scorn.
On these matters I believe defense is the strongest act right now. Reaching out to the government for help against these grievances will prove futile. Jeff Sessions as attorney general? Come on.
Here’s an odd outcome of the election. I’m planning on joining Congregation Beth Evergreen. Strange, huh? Turns out you don’t have to be Jewish. Weird, to me, but true.
Then, there’s Rabbi Jamie Arnold. He’s an unusual guy: an athlete, a good musician, a composer and arranger, too, an intellectual, and an embodiment of compassion leavened with toughness. This combination of skills and character make him a compelling leader.
But mostly there’s the potential for action against the impending Trump regime. Politics is not a solo sport; it requires allies. Congregation Beth Evergreen seems to have a core of folks who’ve done actual work in political situations. It clearly has a number of folks who want to do work on the Trump watch. That includes me. My politics and my spiritual journey have always been tightly wound together so working with folks at Congregation Beth Evergreen seems like a continuation.
He sits, early in the morning, while it is still dark outside, with his head in his hands. Orion, his longtime friend hangs in the sky visible to the southwest, Scorpio and Cassiopeia and the Drinking Gourd out there, too. A crescent Thanksgiving Moon, waxing toward its Super Moon event on November 25th, was visible last night.
In this case Trumpism is the monster, a living candidacy patched together from a body of populist resentment, the brain of a nativist bigot, the nervous system of fearful white males and the legs of second-amendment worshipping other-phobic citizens. The arms, though, the arms are Trump’s, dangling like the tentacles of a squid, ready to grab, squeeze, embrace. Force. Trump is Frankenstein to this political moment in the Republican Party. The GOP provided the lightning that brought this monster to life and has paraded it with pride through this mockery of a campaign.
Race relations are in a visibly violent phase. Police kill black folks with so steady a drumbeat that it has become like Trump’s long string of insults to America, dulling our capacity for outrage. Misogyny is at its peak in the Donald, powerful at the same time as our first serious female candidate.