• Category Archives Great Wheel

  • Consider Oneness

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall and the Harvest Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Fat Bear Week. See this link. Rebecca in India. Mary in K.L. Mark in Hafir, Saudi Arabia. Me on Shadow Mountain. My son and Seoah and Murdoch in Songtan. Israel. Gaza. West Bank. Korea. Divided nations. Night Sky. Stars above and around the Lodgepoles. The coming darkness. A Mountain Morning. Aspen Torches, Trees of Ohr. The Tree of Life. Malkut to Keter. The Wildwood Tarot. Luke. Ginny. Jimmy. Murdoch, the silly. My son, the silly. Kate, who was also silly. Jon, who was not. Ruth. Gabe.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fat Bear Week

    One brief shining: A bear stands on a rock facing downstream, salmon climb the ladder of flowing water headed to their clan home to spawn, one tight powerful snap and the journey ends.

     

    War. A son whose life lies in preparation and readiness for war. A nation, Korea, divided and still at war. Israel, my coreligionists fighting a war of their own creation. Oppression has a heavy price, paid too often, most often, in blood. Consider the violence of a nation that still relegates its native peoples to lands not wanted, depriving them of the lands that once sustained them. Consider the violence of a nation that systematically denies the vote, a decent education, good housing, well-paying jobs to persons descended from the enslaved. Consider a nation that denies an entire people, the Uighurs, even the crumbs of citizenship. Consider a nation, any nation, that allows its majority to wreck havoc on its minorities without conscience or care. Most nations.

    Consider all these things. We are human after all, all too human. Jealous of what we already have, greedy for what we might get. Israel did not invent oppression. Nor did China. Neither did the U.S.A., even when slavery was legal. No. We humans find love, justice, and compassion often beyond our grasp even if in our individual hearts we might feel it. Collectively we protect our families, our clans, our regions, our skin color fellows, our nations. And in protecting, a noble and worthy action, deny others what they need, a base and evil result. This is the original sin of our species. To love those we prefer and exclude those who fall outside of our love’s sphere. A sad, pitiful narrowness to our vision.

    Then consider the human body. Consider what the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead called the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. The often unfortunate result of a reductionist science that separates the heart as a consideration of medical care from the liver, from the gut, from grief and joy and stress and despair. That separates the teeth from the pancreas. The blood from the lungs. The thyroid from the feet. Treats each one as a thing sui generis when no. Cortisol bathes each organ, blood moves through and into and out of the lungs, the gut, the feet, the brain and into the kidneys. We are one.

    Of course we can learn and know about the heart when we dissect it, image it, palpitate it, treat its actions with chemicals of our own devising. Of course. But how did the heart come to have that blocked vessel? That flapping valve? That enlarged chamber? How does the heart function as part of the oneness that is homeostasis? How is that homeostasis affected by the smile of a child? The sound of a jackhammer? The death of a loved one? The denial at every turn of opportunity?

    More. Yes. My body is one. Yes, it is. But. It is one within a community, within an atmosphere. My body so individual and precious to me can last no more than a few breaths without the oxygen exhaled by plants nearby and faraway. My body so individual and precious to me cannot live more than a few days without food grown by farmers, caught by fisherman, sustained by healthy soil and oceans and skies. My body so individual and precious to me cannot last without the touch, the warmth, the smile, the greeting of others.

    Our original sin. To misplace the apparent concreteness of our skin color, our tribe, our class, our nation as worthy of dominance over others. No. We are one. The Eternal One only knows unity. Only sees togetherness. Insists in its nature on love, justice, and compassion. It has ever been so, and has ever been denied. Our fault, our most grievous fault.


    Great Wheel Health Judaism Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Reimaging revelation Science US History Wild Neighbors World History

  • A Do Anything Day

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    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.


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

  • Lunacy

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Kristie. Prostate Cancer. Orgovyx. Erleada. Drug holiday. Chatbotgpt4. A marvel. Adirondack chairs. Cool nights. Whacking all the moles. My son, working hard. Always. Advocates at AARP Advantage. Psilocybin. Gabe’s new yellow Converse tennies. Murdoch. Kep, my sweet boy. Kate, her memory a blessing. Jon, a memory. Hearing aid hard reset. Amy, my audiologist, following her soccer world to New Zealand. KFC. Mark in Hafar, Saudi Arabia. Getting ready for summer. Diane in the Hoosier State. Fever in the Heartland. A must read for all Hoosiers. Hate. Demagoguery. Trump was not the first.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The night Sky, the Shadow Mountain Moon with Spica, the brightest star in Virgo. May 30th.

    One brief shining: Entering a zone of yearning a place captured by that German Romantic painting Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog if you turned him around right now he would have my face my hand would be on his cane and I would be happy with all that hair while looking at the Mountains in the distance in my case the Continental Divide wondering what crossing this threshold will bring into my life and eager to find out.

     

    Here’s an aha you may have had long ago. Probably did. Insights don’t come on any particular schedule. The Gregorian calendar, which fixed the problems of the Julian. Ubiquitous now. The calendar of business. The standardization of the year. But at what cost? A heavy one, I think. It abstracts time, pretending we can define a day, a particular day, with a number and a month’s name, a so-called year. Of course we can. We do. But this is only a framing of natural cycles, ordering them according to our need for precision instead of admitting the messiness of accounting for time using the phases of the Moon as Lunar calendars do.

    If we continued to use Lunar calendars, we would be attuned to the Moon, to the night Sky. We would have to acknowledge with the addition of leap months that time has no precision as well as no real linearity. Each month the Moon waxes and wanes. And it continues this lighting up and darkening down every time our Earth turns. We can walk outdoors and see its dark new Moon phase or wonder at its brightest fullness during the Autumn. Each lunar month the Moon repeats while on the Earth it graces with its lambent light seasons change. Then themselves repeat.

    A Lunar calendar would remind us each month of the Moon’s presence its current phase. Then we could notice its phases against the backdrop of Spring’s build up to the growing season. See the Moon rise over Corn and Wheat fields, over Gardens lovingly tended. Watch as the Harvest Moon again shines down on the combines and the Corn pickers. Feel the Winter season’s Solstice that dark night and its relationship to the phase of the Moon.

    We would once again feel our lives writ in the language of the Great Wheel. Birthed in the Spring. Growing strong and tall in life’s Summer. Maturing in the Harvest time. Becoming Sage and Elder as whiteness comes to our hair and to our fields. Then repeats in our grandchildren and their children until the fallow season for the Earth herself.


    Feelings Fourth Phase Great Wheel

  • Life in its brilliance and in its everdayness

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: My passport. The post office. Kristie today. Acting class tonight. The Heat and the Nuggets. The Monaco Grand Prix. Max Verstappen. Fernando Alonso. Esteban Oco. My son and his wife. Fever in the Heart Land. Thanks, Ode. A quiet, restorative Memorial Day. A good workout. Korea on the schedule. Israel getting closer to dialed in. Ecuador still in the planning phase. All the poems coming in from the Ancient Brothers. Ritual ideas.  Acting class tonight. Diane in Indiana.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Great Sol, lighting up a Shadow Mountain Morning

    One brief shining: Or, the Great Soul, Sol, source of light, source of power, source and sustainer of life itself why shouldn’t the Human soul, the Animal soul, the Plant soul, the Mountain soul be like their progenitor brilliant, a source of sustenance and warmth, a source of chi, a source of energy, yet every so often eclipsed by the turning of our inner lives, still there yes, waiting only for what Jews call teshuvah, a return to the ohr, the light of the sacred within us and to our sacred path, this orbit around our true God.

     

    Got to get going, pick up my passport from its safe spot at the Ken Caryl branch of Wells Fargo. Safety deposit box. In case of fire, down the hill. Going to eat breakfast out, come home and try to take down the last outstanding bill, then talk to Kristie, my oncology P.A.

    I’ve succeeded in reducing $14,000 worth of medical bills to $240. A victory although one I shouldn’t have had to win. One refractory $429 bill. Turned over for collection. Nope. Have disputed it, am disputing it, will dispute it until they back down. Could tell you the story, but trust me it’s only about one hand not knowing what the other one is doing.

    A day of life chores. You know the kind. They come up like whack a mole. As you finish off one round of them, another few arise. By 76 you’ve seen them come and go, talking of Michelangelo. Even the most persistent and troublesome of them get dealt with, fade into the blob of things past no longer necessary to consider. I wear my trousers rolled while whacking each mole.

     

    I’m loving the Sunshine, the blue Sky, the warmth of approaching Summer. Thought  yesterday though. Would I love the summer without the backdrop of winter? Could I tell the good without the bad? Would I know beauty without the ugly? I know we wouldn’t need a word for justice without injustice. Rasputin belonged to a Russian sect that believed the more you sinned the more God was able to bestow grace upon you. That’s the sort of rationalization that makes for a strange life.

     

    Nuggets versus the Heat. I’m excited. Might try to find a tv package that will let me watch the NBA finals. I love basketball. And F1. Watched the whole Monaco Grand Prix yesterday. Wow. That Max Verstappen. Is. A. Monster.

     


    Acting Family Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Great Wheel Health Hermitage Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Shadow Mountain Sport Weather +Climate

  • Entheos

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Mesa View Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Curiosity. The Ancient Brothers. Mark and Dennis. Coming May 23rd. Yet more Rain. Even more swollen Streams. Ancientrails as a life project. Tom and his time with Charlie H. Bill and his time with Bella. Mark and his time at the gym. Anytime Fitness. My treadmill. Marilyn. Ginnie. Josh. Jane. Kat. A banker. Vulcan Centaur.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rocket Scientists

    One brief shining: A beautiful woman with a long braid dangling over her t-shirt down to her space themed spandex had, on the back of the blue t-shirt an outline of the Vulcan Centaur rocket, on the front ULA and I asked, I’m too ignorant to know but is that a real rocket ship?

     

    Yes. She answered. And I was working on it until I quit my job a year and a half ago. What was your area of expertise? Vibration and acoustics. Oh. I see. Not sure why I keep running into engineers. But I do.

    CBE is amazing. All these smart people. This was at the Dismantling Racism class yesterday afternoon. Looked up the Vulcan Centaur and it’s been under development since 2014. Supposed to fly for the first time in July. Had a setback a month ago though with a second stage explosion during preparation for a launch.

    The class has gotten better. Taking a mussar approach to the work. I like it for the inner work though I chose an opponent for my practice this week. Four areas of possible practice each week: with HaShem (God), with Self, with a fellow, especially a victim of anti-black racism, or with an opponent.

    My practice involved an e-mail to a person with whom I’ve had long standing differences. Sent it last night and got a reply this morning. A sweet one. Maybe there’s something to this approach. The middah this week is kavod, or honor. Honoring self and other. The theological idea is the all made in God’s image trope. Said another way, we’re all human, all riding this blue spaceship our only home together with all the other critters and plants. Honor it all.

     

    During the Ancient Brothers session on curiosity I identified curiosity as my defining characteristic. And naming what I call the valedictory lifestyle. As a valedictorian myself I’ve occasionally become curious (see!) about what happens to others who graduate first in their class academically. Turns out usually nothing spectacular. Sure a lot go into academics. Some have successful careers in business or the sciences.

    But usually no stars. No one off achievements. No amazing inventions. Why? Because we’re generalists. We easily get sidetracked by something new and shiny. If purity of heart is to will one thing, we’re not at all pure.

    I call them enthusiasms. My enthusiasms can last a long time. Religion has turned out to be the longest lasting, but inside that broad category I’ve been all over the place. From existentialist atheist to Christian to Unitarian-Universalist to Pagan and wanderer with the tribe. There’s a piece of each of these, often substantial pieces that remain intact within me. All somehow glued together with Taoism.

    There’ve been many others. Art, my twelve years at the MIA. Politics, lasting almost as long as religion, but again all over the place in terms of action. Islam which I studied after 9/11. Horticulture. Cooking. Heating with wood. Beekeeping. Dogs. World travel. F1. Science. Tarot and Astrology. Cinema. Acting. Writing. Getting degrees. Tea. Korean and now Spanish. Oh, and one that actually has been lifelong, reading. Not sure when I learned but I’ve never ever stopped. Buying books, too. To feed the habit. I’ve dabbled in painting and sum-e.

    Enthusiasms in my life are more than dabbling but less than enough to gain full mastery. But I must admit it’s been, is being, a hell of lot of fun.

     

     

     

     


    Acting Art and Culture Asia Bees Commentary on Religion Cooking Dogs Family Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Fungi Garden GeekWorld Great Wheel Great Work Hawai'i Health Hermitage Humanities Judaism Kabbalah Korea Latin Letters Literature Mountains Mussar Painting Photography Plants Poetry Politics Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Science Shadow Mountain Sierra Club Sport Tarot Tea The West Travel Weather +Climate Woolly Mammoths Writing

  • So it has been and so it shall be

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Mesa View Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Rain. Rain. Rain. Floods. Full Creeks and Streams. The greening of the Mountains. Can allergies be far behind? Rebecca. Joann. Tal. Dismantling Racism from the Inside Out. Marilyn and Jamie. My son and his wife. Murdoch. Getting on a jet plane. For the Far East. Today. The World in all its distinctiveness and all its connectedness. All my relations.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ancientrails

    One brief shining: Snow packs, Rains pound, from the top of Shadow Mountain, of Black Mountain, of Conifer Mountain, of Berrigan Mountain the Sun shines and melts the Snow, the Rain accelerates the melt and the Streams, Maxwell Creek, Cub Creek, Shadow Brook, North Turkey Creek, Kate’s Creek, flood spilling over into wetlands, high marsh grasses welcoming their abundance as they roll on into Bear Creek, widening its banks, carrying Soil and Pebbles and Rocks on their way to the North Fork of the South Platte and on to the great World Ocean.

     

    In media deluge. We’ve had Snow and we’ve had Rain. And the Rains will come again. Tonight. Tomorrow night. And the night after that. And the night after that. Keeping that Smoky the Bear sign pegged right where we want it: Low fire danger. Mostly good news. The not so good part is that Rain promotes greening. Grasses. Flowers. Shrubs. Plants considered out of place, i.e. Weeds. As long as they remain green. Fine. But once the Rains dry up and they turn brown.

    Driving down to Evergreen the other day I had trouble keeping my eyes on the road as I looked over to Maxwell Creek which drains the northwestern Slopes of Shadow Mountain. Muddy and full, it rippled and raged where it didn’t pool in grassy areas alongside it. The strange mix of culverts some concrete, some ribbed metal, some made of rock both hid and revealed the power of the water.

    Noticing a particular culvert, a one piece concrete structure with a rhomboid opening maybe 5 feet high, I saw Maxwell race through it in a torrent, spilling out of the opening in a manmade waterfall. The creek itself was only a foot deep at the most. The rest of the height serving to support a bridge for the property above it.

    At various points formerly dry Grasslands now served as basins for an expanded Creek. Functioning ecosystems taking some of the  Water’s power and distributing it over a wider area, taking also some of the particulates and building the Marsh. The unleashed force diminished for a bit.

    Orogeny. Geology speak for Mountain building. These Mountain Streams are its opposite. The deconstructive forces of Pachamama, sending nourishment to Deltas far away from our spot here on Shadow Mountain.

    Alan Watt wrote Tao: The Watercourse Way. Driving up here in these late Spring days the Tao is not invisible. It is palpable. The water goes where it can, goes where it must, and if blocked will work to unblock itself without losing hope or purpose.

    Taoism remains the most salient way of understanding our place in the World, this one life we get as this consciousness. For me. Our lives are Water Courses racing down the days and weeks and months and years toward the Collective Unconscious, the Ocean of All Souls. Along the way we go where we can, we go where we must and, if blocked we work to unblock ourselves.

    Each of us a Stream running down the Mountain that is this Reality in this spot of the Universe, taking bits and pieces of it along with us to enrich Deltas far away and out of sight. So it has been and so it shall be.


    Colorado Great Wheel Jefferson County Mountains Plants Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Shadow Mountain Weather +Climate World History

  • Friends and Acquaintances

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Mesa View Moon

    Saturday gratefuls: Joann. Rebecca. Terry. Coal Mine Chinese Restaurant. Evergreen, my Mountain town. Grieving. Alan. The Wildflower Cafe. Anytime Fitness. Doug Doverspike, bit in the face by a Catahoula. Dave. Urku. Catacachi, Ecuador. Rabbi Jamie. Tal. Character Study class. Kate. Her Creek running full into Maxwell Creek. Daffodils. Red Tips on the Aspen Branches.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Friends

    One brief, shining moment: A blossoming time for me, a Beltane aspect of my Winter years, friends becoming richer and more available, travel prospects offering themselves, workouts back to resistance as well as cardio, a hobby with F1 and motorsports for diversion, feels like coming out of Plato’s Cave.

     

    Small groups like mussar, mvp, dining out with friends either one-to-one or maybe four at most. Yes. Needed. Appreciated. Loved. More than that? Draining. Exhausting. So. I don’t do those hardly ever.

    Last night out with Joann Greenberg, Rebecca Martin, and Terry, Rebecca’s partner. The Coal Mine Chinese Restaurant in Evergreen. They all knew the owner and all the owner’s kids. Lots of Evergreen years among those three. A thick culture. And with Rebecca and Joann even more years as friends. Back before CBE. Both at its beginning. 50 years ago. Felt privileged to be included.

     

    In the morning yesterday breakfast with Alan at the Wildflower Cafe. Sitting at at their outside tables on the Evergreen boardwalk. Breakfast nachos with carne asada, cheese, red sauce, Avocado’s. Coffee. Alan shaved his beard! For my craft, he said. He’s in a play that required him to play a younger character. Only the third time since 1977 he’s shaved. Grows back in about a month. No big deal. That’s Alan. He takes what comes and smiles about it.

    After he left, I spent a little time wandering around the shops. I rarely do this because this part of Evergreen is touristy. Went into two places geared to separating the visitor from their money. Not interesting. However, the longtime shoe repair had a going out of business sale and I picked up a couple of pocket knives, nice ones, for $30.

     

    Worked out for the second time at Anytime Fitness. Cardio at home, then 10 minutes over there. Swipe my fob. Hit the machines. Legs and upper body. What I needed. Not having to think about form. I already feel the pleasant exhaustion in my muscles afterward. Not sure how long I’ll use the machines because I’m used to using my own equipment. Though. Right now I need the ease of using the machines to get some strength back.

    I did run into Dr. Doverspike there. He got bit by a Catahoula. And had the healing scars to prove it. The Dog launched himself at Doug’s face. Did not puncture his skull. But could have. Yikes!

     

    Beltane celebrates the start of the growing season after the first renewal of Spring. Hand fasting marriages contracted for a year and a day. Farm labor hired. Sympathetic magic. Sex in the fields to encourage the union of the Maid and the Green Man. Jumping over fires for fertility. The May Pole.

    I feel right in synch with the season. And it feels good.

     


    Dogs Family Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Great Wheel Health Hermitage Judaism Shadow Mountain

  • The Great Wheel Turns

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring and the Waiting To Cross Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Good sleep. Kep, sleeping when I got up. A Mountain Night Sky. Sergio Perez. Won the Jeddah Grand Prix. A good race. The Ancient Brothers. Sarah, Annie, BJ, and Schecky. Pacific Cod for supper. Waiting to Cross still. Spring. Meteorological Spring on March 1st. All the Spring festivals around the world. Nowruz. Easter. Passover. Ostara. The Feathered Serpent at Chichen Itza. Family reunions in much of Asia.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Equinox

     

    One of the solar holidays. When the earth receives sun light and experiences darkness in roughly equal amounts. The opposite of the solstices which feature the longest day and the longest night. The autumnal equinox south of the equator. Meteorologists do not use the solar holidays. The first day of meteorological spring was March 1st. Three months after the first day of Winter on December 1st. Beltane will be the next Great Wheel holiday, celebrating the start of the growing season.

    What’s been on your mind over the fallow months? Perhaps a new project. A vacation. Mending some family relationships. Making new friends. Maybe you thought about learning a new language. Starting a family. Meditation. Going on an inner journey. This is a good time to begin. When the energy of the season pushes up the Daffodils and the Tulips, when the Robins return, and the Ice melts on the Lakes, when the Air warms. When spirits lift with the Sun. Build on the energy of Mother Earth, use her to help you get a solid start.

    You might consider the Jewish and Christian big messages during this time, too. Look for the way out of any bondages, addictions, enslavements you may be experiencing. Look for the Red Sea moment when you can push away from what entraps you and set out looking for the promised land.

    What deadens you? What part of you needs resurrecting? This could be the season of your great wakin’ up mornin’. Also a good time to work on your fear of death. See the evidence on Trees and Shrubs. The greening of the Grasses. The colorful emergence of Flowers from the long gray fallow times. You are no less a part of the Great Wheel than they are. Let its ever changing rotation carry you forward into new life.

    Here on Shadow Mountain Spring always comes in the midst of our Snowiest month. No Flowers yet. Not much Snow either so far. April can also see heavy Snows. When Kate and I returned from our Asia trip for Joe and Seoah’s wedding, we had four feet of Snow in the driveway. April 16th.

    A Mountain Spring is brief, but exuberant. The Streams run full with Snow melt. The Aspen’s and the Dogwood and Willows leaf out. Wild neighbors give birth to Calves, Fawns, Kits, Cubs, Kittens. Snow leaves from all but the most shadowed and north facing places.

    When the Snow is done, a short window opens to the changes from Winter to Summer. Then we’re in Summer.


    Great Wheel Mountains Shadow Mountain

  • A Festival of One Act Plays

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Valentine Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Alan. The Mislaid Wife. The Festival of One Act Plays. Evergreen Players. Tal. Deb. Lisa. The audience. Jill. The Ancient Brothers on space. Between us. Within us. Center cut pork chops. Brining. Marilyn and Irv. Breakfast today. Aspen Park Dental. Cleaning. Also today. Grocery pickup. How to Become a Pagan. Learning Korean. Mary’s last days in Japan. Brother Mark in Oke city. Frozen vegetables.

    Sparks of joy and awe: Theater

     

    A medical week. Oh, joy. Teeth cleaning today. Kristie tomorrow. And the Vascular Institute on Wednesday. That should be plenty of body parts for one week.

    Gonna go through the active metastases site with Kristie, then lay it to rest one way or another. Treat or not treat. Get a Prolia injection today, too. For ma bones. This is a treatment because of my other treatments which weaken my bones. Geez. Want to move the Prolia injections to Evergreen Medical Center. Closer.

    Not sure what to expect at the Vascular Institute. They’ll do an ultrasound of my left leg. Looking for a spot of restricted blood flow. If they find one, I’ll probably have a stent put in which will allow the blood to flow normally. Kate had a blocked superior mesenteric artery. Putting the stent in was not a big deal.

    Next week my birthday present to myself is a pulmonology exam. Big fun. Specifically asking the question about continued living at 8,800 feet.

    Nuff.

     

    February is Black history month and I’ll say one last time that Imani Perry’s South to America is worth the read. It lagged a little near the very end, but up till then it was charming, sensitive, and challenging. Taught me many lessons. Would be interested to hear her on the Memphis situation.

     

    The Festival of One Act plays. Alan directed The Mislaid Wife. Precis. A man calls the police to report his wife missing. She was funny, made me laugh. Lots of energy. And she was sexy. Conceit. His wife has not gone missing. She’s aged. And still in the house. Funny and sad.

    A woman sat next to me. Older. Gray hair, a long flowing plaid dress. Gray vest. She seemed interesting. I wondered, as I occasionally do. Still no energy to pursue anything. We even chatted for a bit with Deb, the woman I took to my first acting class, after she finished her role as God. Maybe if I run into her again.

    Joan Greenberg, member of CBE, and author of You Never Promised Me a Rose Garden wrote a country version of Orpheus and Eurydice. Highly stylized presentation. The best script of the batch by far.

    Talked to Tal. He mentioned the acting class starting next week at the Synagogue. Jewish playwrights. Part of me would like to take it up, but I’ve told myself I’m focusing this semester on How to Become a Pagan. Though I’m not. At least not right now. Saying that out loud to him made me take a look at the way I’ve been doing my schedule. I really want to write this book. Not sure why I’m blocked on it. I have lots of research, years of thinking about the topic, and it matters to me. Maybe this was the jolt I needed?

     


    Acting Art and Culture Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Great Wheel Health Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Woolly Mammoths Writing

  • Dutiful

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Wolf Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Breakfast with Jen, Ruth, Gabe, Barb. Driving back up the hill. F1. The MIA. The Walker. The docent program. My many years there with good friends and art. Acting class. Creativity class. Origins of North America. Finding the volume of a Mountain. Korean. Pruning moving forward. Interior painting, early February. Probate. Still moving. slow. ly. The Good Life. Scott and Helen Nearing. Eudaimonia. Kristen Gonzalez. Psoriasis. Mark and the USPS. Mary in Kobe. Ancient Brothers.

    Sparks of joy and awe: Eudaimonia

     

    Human flourishing. Eudaimonia. Satisfaction. More important than happiness. Duty is just another word for cultural norms received and accepted. Obligations. On the other hand. Imposed. Why do we do what we do?

    Assessing the life that is neither heroic nor mediocre. Since that’s where most of us end up. No need to measure ourselves against the ends of the bell curve. No need to measure ourselves. But can we be at peace with a life without comparisons?

    As for me, I choose eudaimonia. Flourishing. Satisfaction. And, yes. Duty plays a role. Family. Sacrifice. Friends too. Being there. Wherever love is, there is duty. To be honest. Sincere. Kind. Helpful. To support the best for the other. Right down to the end. And by implication to support the best for yourself. Also, duty. The unexamined life is not worth living. Yes. A duty to yourself to know thyself. And to thy own known Self be true.

     

    What’s interesting for me right now is how much a sense of duty has played in my life. Oh, no! The original oppositional defiant guy admitting to a sense of duty. I who even rebel against my superego. You can’t make me!!! Yes, duty.

    A minor yet significant example. As a convinced feminist of the Betty Friedan/Simone de Beauvoir second wave. At the age of 26. In seminary. Went to the Rice Street Clinic late on a Winter afternoon. A scalpel I felt on the first cut slashed my vas deferens on both sides. Shutting down sperm from my testicles. Being responsible for my own contraception.

    Another. One I’ve mentioned before. Fits here. No. I don’t want a Johns-Manville full scholarship to college. Managing people in a large corporation is not me. Will never be me. High school.

    Once convinced of Vietnam’s sturdiness as a nation, one that had held back China for over 3,000 years. No. I will not fight, nor support that war.

    After reading a convincing study about the future job prospects for Ph.D.’s. No to graduate school.

    Family. Staying in the fire with Jon. Ruth. Gabe. Kate in later life. Mark. Yet also. Cut your hair or leave! Leaving.

    These may not at first reading seem like duty. But they are. A duty to myself, to my own understanding of how to be present in the world.

    When I realized Ruth and Gabe needed us in Colorado. Broaching the idea of a move. Kate on board. Following through.

    Those two and a half acres in Andover. Leaving them better than when we bought them. How? Working it out with Kate over the years. Together. Staying the course with the full cycle of responsibilities throughout the year. Each year.

    And, dogs. Living into their lives. With them from puppyhood to death. Oh. Sweet duty. Painful duty. Life realized in full.


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