• Category Archives Great Wheel

  • So much to see. To learn.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Wolf Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: 8 years in Colorado. On the Solstice. The long dog ride with Tom. Memories. Challenges. Family. Death. Divorce. Mental and physical illnesses. Beauty. The Rocky Mountains. The Wild Neighbors. Mountain hiking. Deep snow. Sudden. Then, suddenly gone. Living at altitude. Becoming a member of CBE. Elk and Mule Deer visiting our back. Blue Skies. Black Mountain. Vega. Gertie. Rigel. Kep. Kate, always Kate. Who loved the Mountains.

    Sparks of joy and awe: That dog ride 8 years ago. Talking story.

     

    Back of the car anthropology. Two vanity plates. YAHWEHS. ODACIOUS. The first on a jet black fancy Audi. The other on a Lexus sedan. Also. Stickers. I heart Aging and Dying. No baby on board. Feel free to ram me. Toyoda. With yoda ears on the T and the a. I love the way we express ourselves on the back of our vehicles. So revealing. Full disclosure. I have a large decal of Lake Superior on the back window of Ruby. And, an ADL Dissent is Patriotic on a side window. There are too the cars seemingly held together by stickers like the occupants got started on the project and just. couldn’t. stop.

     

    On December 20th, 2014 Tom Crane and I loaded Rigel, Vega, and Kep in Ivory. All three trazodoned. Tom drove straight through. We talked the whole way. Talking story. The conversation continues now, eight years later. Gertie rode with Kate in the rental van filled with stuff we didn’t want the movers to take. I remember Kate telling me she bought Gertie a hamburger at one of their stops. A satisfied dog.

    These have not been easy years. No. They have been fulfilling, satisfying years though. Deep intimacy between Kate and me, especially as she began her long decline. Putting cancer in the chronic illness box. Being here for the kids and Jon after the divorce. Now for Ruth and Gabe after Jon’s death. Becoming part of the CBE community. Making friends. Learning from the ancient civilization of the Jews. Kabbalah. The Torah. Mussar. Talmud. Mitzvahs.

    The Wild Neighbors. The Mountains. The Streams. The hiking. Mountain adjustments. Four Seasons. Eight Seasons. The Mountain Fall. Golden Aspens. Against green Lodgepoles. Black Mountain punctuated with gold, then green. Snow flocked in Winter. Wildflowers in the Mountain Spring. Fawns. Kits. Cubs. Elk and Moose Calves. The long Summers. Beautiful in their own right, yet also angsty with the ever present threat of Wildfire.

    Living here has been, is an adventure. In relationships. In deep learning. An immersion in the world of Mountains. After the world of Lakes and Rivers and rich Soil.

    So much more to see. To learn.

     

    Visited Carmax yesterday. The Jeep. Prepared to sell it, then Uber home. A first for me. But. Can’t take a North Carolina power of attorney. Colorado makes it difficult. Do you want me to get you the necessary papers? Yes. Talked to Sarah while the nice lady in the blue Carmax smock did that. Took fifteen minutes. Many pieces of paper. Post it notes. Sign here stickers. OK. Thanks. Back up the hill.

     

    Got two calendars as presents.  Aimed at different parts of me. A Zen Calendar from Tom. A New Yorker Cartoons calendar from Sarah and Jerry. Yep. I recognize both of those guys as resident within me. Wonderful to be seen.

     

     


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  • How to Become a Pagan

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Wolf Moon*

    Friday gratefuls: Colorado reintroduces Wolves 2024. Wolves. Mountain Lions. Bears: Black and Grizzly. Minx. Pine Martens. Wolverines. Lynx. Bobcats. Owls. Eagles. Osprey. Peregrine Falcons. Kestrels. Our fellow predators of the Rocky Mountains. Hanukah. The Nights of December. Christmas Eve. Christmas. New Years. Yule. This dark and celebratory time of year. Saturnalia. Diane. Jenny. Mark and his two jobs. Gabe and his legos. Ruth in Colorado Springs. Tomorrow with her.

    Sparks of joy and awe: The Wolves of Minnesota

     

    Cold here the last two days. Double digits below zero. -13 the coldest I recorded. Now up to 9 on Friday morning. Bit of snow. 3 inches max.

     

    Got started on my home office. Moving art down to a sale pile in the former sewing room. Then I’ll move the green rug to the guest room. Get the printer in place. The battery backup. Connect the cords and I’ll be ready to use the space. Some more moving from the loft, but not yet. Also finishing pruning on the wire shelving in the now dining room. After that the guest room. The walk in closet and the shelving. Continuing to prune.

     

    Ruth called yesterday morning. Sad about her Dad. Her person. We both lost our persons didn’t we, grandpop? Yep. The acknowledgment of the new yahrzeit plaques is tonight. 6 pm at CBE. It’s also Rosh Chodesh, the honoring of the new moon. And, the 6th night of Hanukah. Probably going in person.

     

    Working title How To Become A Pagan. The new book. Reorganized it using the Great Wheel. Going to sort through posts on those holidays for content. Got Wes Jackson’s book Becoming Native to This Place in the mail yesterday. Can’t find my other copy. Key books for me in this project: Looking for the Hidden Folk, The Celtic Faery Faith, The Great Work, Speaking for the Trees, Overstory, Wendell Berry’s poetry, Mary Oliver, The Outermost House, Sand County Almanac, Leaves of Grass, Tao Te Ching. It’s about reenchantment, reconnecting, gauze removing, learning to walk barefoot, seeing what you’re looking at. Having fun with it.

     

     

    *The very first full moon of the year is known in many cultures as the Full Wolf Moon, which is appropriate given the deep, ancient ties between wolves and January’s full moon. For instance, the Gaelic word for January, Faoilleach, comes from the term for wolves, faol-chù, even though wolves haven’t existed in Scotland for centuries. The Saxon word for January is Wulf-monath, or Wolf Month. Meanwhile, the festival of the Japanese wolf god, Ooguchi Magami, is held in January. The Seneca tribe links the wolf so strongly to the moon, they believe that a wolf gave birth to the moon by singing it into the sky. Just why are wolves so strongly associated with January’s full moon?

    To learn more: Moongiant.com


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  • An Afternoon Sadness

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Holimonth Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: Tor. Orion. Kate, always Kate. The morning Sun on the Lodgepoles. Kep outside at 3 am, wandering. Trump referred for criminal prosecution. And, probably not for the last time. Merry Christmas. Congress funds the government. Gabe and his legos. Ruth. Hanukah. The 2nd day. Those Maccabees. Tom and the Winter Solstice. The World Cup. F1. Baseball. The MLB ticket. Sports. Waiting on the Cold Air. Grief. Sadness.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Tor

     

    Yesterday afternoon. Back to pruning. Clearing off the wire shelving in Kate’s former sewing room. The last of her stuff still untouched. A long rectangular box. Heavy. Lifted it off the top shelf. Tor. Oh. Shot to the heart. Tor my beautiful boy. A wheaten Irish Wolfhound. Friend to Orion. Our last two I.W.’s. Petting him each night before I went to bed thinking I wanted to touch him one last time alive. He had a bad heart and dropped dead in the area behind our Andover garage. Oh.

    Clearing off some of Kate’s stuff I found a note from a reunion, a classmate’s after message. Loved being pulled down for a second kiss. I’m afraid I disappointed Kate. Not as passionate as she was.

    Tor’s ashes and that note coming right after hit me pretty hard. Grief and regret. There are some things you cannot fix. Felt like a punch to the chest. An hour plus later. Still sad.

     

    Going into the great darkness tomorrow. Perhaps appropriate. Fated. The dark night, the longest night. Since the summer solstice, we’ve lost a little light each day. Till now the days are short and the nights dominant. A Great Wheel time to be sad. For sadness. For inner work. For falling down the Great Well of inner space. Until. Until. We hit the world ocean of the collective unconscious. Swim in those waters.

    All the mourners slip down that Great Well for a time. Return to it when they lift a favorite dog’s ashes off a shelf unknowingly. Are reminded of their shortcomings as a partner. Other feelings rush into the space. Shame. Loss. Anger. Abandonment. Fear.

    Waiting for the light. Which comes. Not in the Spring. But on the day after tomorrow. As the days grow longer, bit by bit. So does clarity about these emotions. Set them in the context of life, of flawed humanity. No I was not all that Kate wanted, but I was much of what she needed. As she was for me.

    These moments have become rare, but not gone not completely. Love is a many splintered thing and grieving its loss one of the most complicated acts in life. No, that’s not right. Love is never lost. Grieving the loss of the beloved. The tactile mutuality. Sitting across the table talking. Lying in bed together. Visiting other nations, other cultures. Together across years and decades. That’s what’s lost.

    The descent into darkness and the gradual return of the light. A fundamental message of the Great Wheel. A message of life-death-life-death-life and again as long there is time and life. Before the Sun goes red giant. Until.

    Happy Hanukah and a very Merry Christmas.

     

     


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  • A fascinating time to be alive

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Holimonth Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Dinner with Tom at the Willows last night. Long time friends. Diane. A Mountain Wind. Snow knocked off the Lodgepoles. Snow and Ice on Black Mountain Drive. Advent. Sussex. The Jacquie Lawson advent calendar. Going to bed. Waking up. The Chrysalis Effect by Phillip Slater. CJ Box. Kep, the old dog. US vs. Netherlands. How to become a pagan. Acting class. Nitya. Teaching the Ancient Brothers.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Holimonth

     

    Acting class has been hit by illness. Tal, the teacher, has the flu or something like it. Nitya, a class member, spent several days in the ICU and is still recovering in the hospital. Not sure what will happen. Tal wants to hold a class on Friday, but I’m reluctant to go given the recency of his bout with the flu. A tough wind down for what has been an interesting and challenging experience.

    I was ready. I’d gotten both monologues memorized and somewhat polished. I knew all the lines in my two scenes. Not wasted work. Good work. Helps the brain. Adds some literature to the bank.

    Tomorrow morning I present in the Creativity class. Think I’m going to do my How to become a pagan piece. Wrote it yesterday. Gotta see how long it is when spoken. Going to lean into writing and art over the winter as I said yesterday. This was a start.

     

    High Wind warning today. The Lodgepoles have begun to sway. Dancing with each other as Sunlight makes their tops glow. I haven’t written about it but the Mountains and their Trees and Wild Neighbors? I would have missed them. A lot. Couldn’t imagine being in a city environment where no Pine Trees framed the Nighttime Stars. Will not trade this beauty for a place with less. Hawai’i matches the Mountains with its Oceans and old Volcanic Mountains, its rich fauna. Someday. But right now. This wonderful place is home.

     

    The world. Russia looking like a blind Bear in the Ukraine. Wrecking the place, striking out wildly. China finding that suppression and repression have their limits. Even with a newly anointed dear leader. The US struggling with divisions at home and new fractures among European allies. Not a great time to be a world power.

     

    It is however a fascinating time to be alive. Talks of a moon base. Be still my John Carter, Flash Gordon little boy heart. The James Webb showing us more and more of the universe in which we live and move and have our becoming. A world shifting its long term basic rules. Climate change accelerating. Women growing in power. China and Russia and the upstart USA. All in flux.

    Glad to have these years as my last ones.


    Acting Great Wheel Hawai'i Hermitage Politics Shadow Mountain The Move US History Weather +Climate World History Writing

  • Buttery

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa and the Durango Moon (oops. Lughnasa. Not Imbolc. My bad.)

    Tuesday gratefuls: Not on a ventilator. Vaccines. Boosters. Omicron. Living in pandemic times. Caring friends. Who’ve kept touch. My body. Its immune system. A blue Colorado Sky. Hawai’i. Minnesota. The Soil. Here. In Minnesota. In Indiana, the best of the Hoosier State. The Volcanic Soil of the Hawai’ian Islands. Pele. Kiluaea. Mauna Loa. The great mystery of the World Ocean. the Kep. Dreams. Doubling down on moving. Back to it tomorrow. Ode’s hippy days. And, nights. Life after a harsh Covid slap. Sweeter, more precious.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Immune response

     

    Today I feel only tired. Brain fog lifted. No residual symptoms except for a slight cough. Amazing. Tomorrow will be a full week since I got so hammered by the virus that I could barely drag myself around. Memory of that Wednesday, wiped. Now, less than a week later, I’m on the up ramp toward feeling good. Virologists. Immunologists. Pharmaceutical workers. Pharmacies. Pharmacists. It takes a metropolis and lotsa labs to beat a virus. I’m thankful for all of them.

    This is a misery through which millions and millions have passed. And many succumbed. What better evidence do we need for our essential sameness? The virus doesn’t recognize skin color. Nationality. Ethnic origin. Religious preference or sexual preference. It recognizes the human body. The one we all share. Perhaps our mutual suffering can teach us what reason seems unable to.

    Suffering is as much a human common denominator as love. When our body sinks into pain, to illness, to fragility caused by a microscopic organism, we experience what others of our species experience. The agony of existence, its rough edges, its limits. When we feel love, we experience what others of our species experience. Its sublimity. its comfort, its infinite possibility.

    Find the wisdom about our common life in these most basic, universal and real shared moments. We all get sick. Suffer. We all fall in love. Rejoice. Let’s reach out to each other in both.

    On the last day of quarantine my doctor said to me, “Wear your mask if you go out. Stay away from crowds and crowded places. After next Monday, you’re good.” Gonna stay in for the next week anyhow. Nap. Gradually start exercising again. Eat more. She also said, get a flu shot as soon as you feel better. I will.

     

    Not said much about Lughnasa this year. But. Just read an NYT article about Princess Kay of the Milky Way. Got me going. Unless you live in Minnesota or are particularly attuned to its state fair traditions, you’ll not have heard of Princess Kay. Or butter sculpting. Let me explain.

    Each year (asterisk for the pandemic years) before the Minnesota State Fair begins its August through Labor Day run, a young woman leader of the state’s dairy industry is chosen. She becomes Princess Kay of the Milky Way. Since 1965 a full-sized bust of Princess Kay and the other four finalists has been sculpted in the butter booth of the Dairy building. Yes, that’s right. 900 pounds of butter, salted, gets shaped into the likeness of all five young women.

    You wouldn’t believe the ice-fishing on Lake Mille Lacs either. Minnesota has some strange traditions. That Winter Festival, too.

    The relationship to the Celtic holiday of Lughnasa (not Imbolc, that starts in February) is this: On August 1st the Celts began a market holiday for the first fruits from the field. Corn dollies. (wheat=corn) A parade with the first shock of wheat. Loaves of bread from the first harvested wheat. Thus, btw, the Catholic feast day of Lammas, or loaves.

    This agriculture celebration with feasting and games and display of farming’s first fruits of the year kicks off the three season harvest holiday that includes Fall on the autumnal equinox and Samain, or Summer’s End, on October 31st. It’s resonance continues in county fairs and state fairs in Great Britain and the U.S.

    On a personal note. In 1971 while an intern in Ada, Minnesota I participated in the wedding of the just chosen Princess Kay of the Milky Way. It was considered quite a privilege.

     


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  • Ikigai identified at last.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Aloha Moon

     

    June 17, 2015. Shadow Mountain

    Checked my postings about this Japanese idea. Nothing ever resolved since I learned about it several years ago. What gets you up in the morning? What gives your life coherence? “…ikigai is a concept that has been rooted in the cultural fabric of Japan for centuries and simply means, “reason to live.” ikigai.com

    After three empty days last week, days where I saw no one and learned the lesson of needing human contact again, I got to thinking about ikigai. What gets me up in the morning? What is my reason to live?

    Thought back on the life review I did with the Ancient Brothers a few weeks ago.  A little too heady: justice, love, writing, learning. Things like that. Not at the core.

    When I drove to Evergreen this morning, I focused on this question. Began to feel some urgency about it. Afternoons drag here without purpose. Makes me feel negligent, indulgent. Neither one a good German value. So there has to be something, right? A thread, a coming back to this sort of thing, more obvious when seen from the 8,800 feet view?

    June, 2019

    I think I found it. Here’s the phrase: Living well within and for nature. I could add a coda, seeking justice for all, but I think this phrase covers it. Living well equals the Greek idea of eudaimonia. So, another way of saying this: flourishing within and for nature. Goes back at least to that Garden Spider spinning its web on the kitchen window at 311 E. Monroe St., Alexandria, Indiana. My gentle mother and I engaged in wonder as the Spider spun its web, caught and cocooned its prey. Ate.

    Ever since, or at least since then, maybe age 8 or 9, I’ve been a close observer of the natural world. (And, yes, I know there’s a sense in which it’s all natural, even human artifice, but I choose the narrower, folk understanding.) When I finished college, I wanted to move to a place with Lakes and Pine Trees. With four Seasons, a real Winter, not the icy, slushy mess of an Indiana January. Jack London inspired me.

    So it was not, as I’ve always imagined when I considered a life purpose, college and the world of the mind that was my ikigai. No, that was an interesting and fun sidebar, but my life and my moves since then have involved getting closer and closer to the natural world on an everyday basis.

    Ushuaia, Argentina 2011

    Kate and I shared this ikigai, I believe. The gardens, the orchard, the bees, the dogs. Moving to the Rocky Mountains where Kate up to the end said happily, “I feel like I’m always on vacation.”

    Now I’ve found my holy Valley and returned to hiking as an every week, usually twice a week, event. Today the holy Valley had the sweet smell of Pine Resin, the splash of color from many Wild Flowers, the sound of peace from Kate’s Creek.

    The Green Man, Andover

    Of course I have other interests. But the guiding core of my life has been seeking a place where wildness was part of the every day. Shadow Mountain is such a place. And I feel happy here. Don’t need more.

    Have you found your ikigai?

     


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  • My America

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Aloha Moon

    Yesterday. In the front of my house.

    Tuesday gratefuls: The USA. America. The Rockies. The Great Lakes. The Great Dismal Swamp. The Appalachians. The Okefenokee Swamp. The Big Woods. Northern Minnesota. The Cascades. The Smokies. Blue Ridge Parkway. Natchez Trace. Mississippi Delta. The Bayous. The East Coast and the West Coast. The Mississippi and the Missouri. Hawai’i. Kilauea. Mauna Kea. Kauai. The Big Island. Bison. Elk. Mule Deer. Black Bear. Grizzly. Trout. Haddock. Lobster. Bass. Walleye. Muskie. The Tetons. The Great Plains. The High Plains. Denali. Tongass. Kodiak. Salmon. Seals. Otters. Sea Lions. Walrus. Lichens. Mushrooms. Douglas Fir. Lodgepole Pine. Ponderosa. Oaks. Maples. Ironwood. Woodchucks. Turtles. Grasses. Elms. Chestnuts. Hickories. All the wild things. All.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The soil of the Midwest.

    Tarot: Going to do a full spread

     

    I offer three long quotes from three different Americans. Tom Crane sent out the first a week or so ago. The other two have a central piece in my own thought and I’ve now added the Whitman piece. I present them to you after this 4th of despair and chagrin.

    They reflect, are, the America in which I still believe, of which I am a citizen, and for which I shall fight.

     

     

    Preface to Leaves of Grass

    by Walt Whitman

    “This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”

     

    From the Introduction to Nature, by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

    “OUR age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and Nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs? Embosomed for a season in Nature, whose floods of life stream around and through us, and invite us by the powers they supply, to action proportioned to Nature, why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe? The sun shines to-day also. There is more wool and flax in the fields. There are new lands, new men, new thoughts. Let us demand our own works and laws and worship.

    Undoubtedly we have no questions to ask which are unanswerable. We must trust the perfection of the creation so far, as to believe that whatever curiosity the order of things has awakened in our minds, the order of things can satisfy.”

     

    Henry Beston, The Outermost House: A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod.

    “We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate for having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein do we err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”


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  • Its Beary business

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Aloha Moon

    Saturday gratefuls: Living at 8800 feet. Cooler than down the hill. Sealed driveway. Hawai’i. Jet planes. Masks. Santa Fe art crawl. Gabe. A sweetheart. Ruth. Sad. Jon. Jon. Kep. More inside work done. A week with less going on. Kate’s memorial Iris bed in bloom. Best week of exercise in a long time. Sleep.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Iris

    Tarot: Two of Stones, Challenge

    art@willworthington

    “The Two of Stones asks us to consider: Who and what are the challenges and challenges in our own lives? Do we handle them from a grounded and well-balanced place?” tarotx.net

     

    Down the hill yesterday to Santa Fe Drive, the first and largest of Denver’s Arts Districts. On the first Friday of every month they have an Art Crawl. I asked Jon, Ruth, and Gabe if they wanted to go, eat at the food trucks that line up at several spots on and off Santa Fe. We met in front of the Dart Gallery where Jon had a print exhibited for a show back in March.

    We got food from various trucks and sat on a concrete structure that had absorbed a lot of heat during the day. It was uncomfortably hot and humid. 82 when I left for home. When I got to Shadow Mountain and it was 57 degrees, I put it down in my record book (here) as the largest temperature spread between down the hill and back up since I moved here. 25 degrees!

    Wandering here and there we went into galleries and workshops and centers for the arts. One gallery had a tall, finely crafted lamp encased in a metal and wood surround for a mere $12,000. This guy’s work was meticulous. Still…

    Gabe said he was really sorry they missed my performance. Everybody’s phone was shut off because Jon chose to wait until his check came to pay his phone bill. I messaged them several time and had grown concerned. Sarah and BJ connected with them somehow and alerted me. Glad that’s all it was.

    Ice cream cones in hand we wandered back to our vehicles and I left the urban heat island for the Mountains.

     

    This morning I took off for Evergreen to have breakfast with Rebecca. Almost to 73 on Brook Forest Drive I saw what at first appeared a large dog off leash. Nope. A medium sized Black Bear, the second I’ve seen since we got here. It loped along unconcerned about traffic. I watched until it disappeared in the tall Grass, going about its Beary business.

    The thrill of seeing these wild animals never wanes. No matter how long you’ve lived up here seeing the animals who live on their own by ancient, ancient rules of which we have no part stops us in our tire tracks. They are the past and the future. Their lives would only improve if human civilization shrank or disappeared.

    The Bear had a shiny coat, moved with the ease of a healthy animal in its place, following its own designs. What a privilege to be here.

     

    On a less sanguine note. The Extremes, for sure. But enough about them. How bout that Xi Jinping in Hong Kong:

    “Political power must be in the hands of patriots,” he said, after swearing in a new leader for the city, a former policeman who led the crackdown on huge anti-government protests in 2019. “There is no country or region in the world that would allow unpatriotic or even treasonous or traitorous forces and people to take power.” NYT, 7/2/2022

    Except maybe in that beacon of liberty, the dis-United States of America.

    I’m beginning to feel energized. Maybe it’s the Synthroid, yes, that’s possible, but I love a good bare-knuckle fight where good manners and courtesy go by the wayside. Not energized enough to do what I would have, organize resistance, but energized enough to keep writing, keep poking the corporate/capitalist/right wing Christian demagogues, keep rallying the folks who still have some empathy with the poem on the Statue of Liberty.

    Blue state values advance. Red state values retreat. This will become more and more evident as the years go by. Whether we accept and reinforce this sorting or try to reclaim a United States may be the biggest political question of the next decade.

     

     

     


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  • The Summer Solstice. And Acting.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Living in the Mountains Moon

    art@willworthington

    Tuesday gratefuls: Learning. Acting. Felix. Alfieri. The Black Box. Low friction theater. Tech night. Showcase. Summer Solstice. Beltane, leaving. Growth. Green. Pollen. Mountain trails. Black Mountain green, Lodgepoles and Aspen. Very cool morning, 43. Blue Colorado Sky. Pure yang. Today only. Ichi-go, ichi-e. Needing to work harder at learning lines.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Our Showcase on the 27th, all scenes go up

    Tarot: Two of Arrows, Injustice

    “Two of Arrows, Injustice, encourages us to be less judgmental and critical of the motives of others. We rarely know what is going on and why someone is doing what they do. Today the Two of Arrows asks us to step out of time for a moment. Orientate ourselves with the Wildwood: question our beliefs and seek out the truth of a situation.” tarotx.net

     

    How about that Summer Solstice? See Deng Ming Dao’s comment below.* I love the feeling of growth and abundance that shows all around me. Lush Grasses in the Meadows. (the pollen, meh) Green Pine Needles make the Lodgepoles look Spruced up. (lol) The Aspens sway in the wind, their Catkins beginning to emerge. The Mountain Streams have slowed as the Snow melt and Spring Rains have receded.

    Coming home last night I saw a young Mule Deer Buck, his small rack still in velvet. He dined on the tall grasses growing up from the edge of Brookforest Drive. Munching as I drove past, he looked up for a moment to acknowledge my passing.

    The sun had set but still cast light on the Western horizon. The longest Day. As Deng Ming Dao notes though, this marks the apotheosis of Yang for the year. From this point on it declines until we reach the Yin moment of the Winter Solstice.

    June 17, 2015. Shadow Mountain

    Beltane to Lughnasa. The growing season in its most vigorous, summer marking its middle. Corn has long since jetted past the old cliche of knee high by the Fourth of July. New hybrids grow faster, yield more. But? Better? Well…

    The Midwest throws a party for the Summer Solstice. Corn and Beans pushing toward harvest. Cows in the fields and in the barns. Pigs getting fed. Chickens roosting, finally, at home. Farmers hard at work from sunup to sundown. The remnants of the Big Woods in full leaf and flower. Grasses green and plentiful. Alfalfa. Timothy. Almost to first cutting.

    Without this season the whole world goes hungry. Celebrate, celebrate, dance to the music!

     

    Acting. Alan and I met for breakfast then went over to the synagogue where we ran lines for the Odd Couple. Four times. And screwed them up at tech night. Tech night means final blocking and working on the lights. Tal said this was low friction theater. Minimal stage dressing.

    Learning lines has proven more of a challenge than I expected. I’ve not put in enough time and plan to remedy that this week. I’m going to learn how to read my partner’s lines into the computer so I can toggle it on and off while repeating my lines. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. As long as it takes.

    At this point I do know the lines for both The View from a Bridge and the Odd Couple. What’s hard is remembering them on cue. Odd Couple is 97% there. View from the Bridge maybe 40%. One of my big ahas from this first acting class is to start learning lines earlier and put more time in run throughs with my acting partner. After 50 years it makes sense that I’d have a few things to learn. Oooh, boy.

    I’ve got Macbeth down. 100%. I’m the announcer. I say at the beginning, “The Tragedy of Macbeth, by William Shakespeare. Act One.” Then I go out four more times announcing act two, so on. That’s it.

    This is a much shortened version of Macbeth. The script is two pages long. To give you the flavor, the final lines are: Alan as a soldier: Stab, Stab, Stab. Macbeth: Ow, Ow, Ow. Macbeth dies.

    I’m excited for the showcase, but still have a bunch of work to do. Starting with the computer work today. Alan and I are going to run our scene again. I go to Hamish’s on Sunday to work on View from a Bridge.

    Turns out acting lessons require real work.

     

    *”The Daodejing speaks of the valley spirit, of the importance of the female character, and of Tao as the mother. That doesn’t negate the opposite: pure yang. It is also a concept in Tao.

    Today is a time of great yang. The daylight is longest.
    As we contemplate that, we can see that it took a year to get here, it lasts a day, and the time will move toward darkness and yin.

    Therefore, as much as we might want to celebrate pure yang, it is a brief state. The rest of the time, everything is far more mixed.” Deng Ming Dao, a facebook post


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  • Natural Healing

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Living in the Mountains Moon

    art@willworthington

    Friday gratefuls: My journey over a lifetime. Kate. Always. That trail. With the Creek, the Mountain Stream. The fallen Trees. The tall Pines. The Wild Strawberries. The Rocks. The steep valley walls. Wild Rose. Primrose. Those yellow Flowers I can’t identify. A place of great sanctity. A holy place. A sanctuary. Friends. Near and far.

    Saturday gratefuls: Stephanie. That trail again. Happy Camper. Aspen Perks breakfast. Salad. Apples. Peanut Butter. The Continental Divide. Mt. Rosalie. Mt. Evans. Black Mountain. Staunton State Park. Richard Power’s Orfeo. Learning lines. Mini-splits. Jon. Money.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: That trail.

    Tarot: Seven of Stones, Healing. And, Again.

    Key words: “Give our minds a break, Calmness, Meditation, Stillness, Healing, Reevaluation, Patience, Perseverance, State of stability, Attentive care, Take time to relax and unwind, Connection to the source energy.”  tarotx.net

     

    Forgot to finish this yesterday. A busy day. Over to Aspen Perks for breakfast: Salmon Eggs benedict. Reading Orfeo. After a morning with what people especially beyond Richmond Hill (think Pine, Bailey) call the camper and RV races. Or, the RV assholes. Or, those bastards. Folks from down the hill invading, driving too fast. Often with trailers in tow. Passing on curves. Generally being jerks. After Richmond Hill 285 goes from a four lane divided highway to a two lane, no dividers. That’s when things get clogged.

    At 9 am I was still a bit ahead of the bulk of it. But I had a guy towing a trailer behind me, a BIG RV ahead of me for much of the way. Irritated locals often try to pass early. Not waiting for the passing lanes that come after the road to Staunton State Park. It’s a recipe for accidents. And, they happen. And, they kill people.

     

    I was on my way to the Happy Camper for my every two months or so cannabis run. 25% off! for the whole month. Still digesting a Stanford study that says thc can increase inflammation in the veins and arteries around the heart. Gonna consider genistein to counteract this effect. Sleep is critical and my thc use has made 8 hours every night possible. Gonna contact my docs to see about safety and dosing.

     

    As my avanah (humility) practice for the month, I’m using a focus phrase: ichi-go, ichi-e. Every moment is once in a lifetime, unique, precious. Trying to use it every time I encounter a living entity: Kep, Myself, Rocks, Lodgepoles, Elk, Friends, Waitress, other Diners, Birds, the Sun, Black Mountain. All the time. Sort of like the Jesus Prayer. Trying to make it subliminal, yet also present as I move around through my day.

    In this way I can learn to take up the right amount of space in my life. Not too much, not too little. Not minimizing my gifts, not over emphasizing them. Making sure I remember to bring my whole self to each precious moment. Since it will not be repeated, it’s the only chance I have.

     

    I have now hiked what I’ve begun to think of as my trail, at least when I’m on it, three times since Gabe and I were on it last Saturday. I may go again this morning. Yesterday after my time with Stephanie, Dr. Gonzales’ PA and a sweet lady, I hiked it with the ichi-go, ichi-e focus phrase.

    I saw that patch of Wild Strawberry blooms and thought of Ingmar Bergman’s film of the same name. A favorite. The Mountain Rose Bushes are in full Flower, too, five white Petals brightening the trail. They will give way to Rose Hips as the Wild Strawberry Blooms will to Strawberries.

    The little Stream, I don’t know its name, flows a bit less vigorously as the Snow melt and Rains subside. Still it sings, dancing over Rocks, falling down the Mountainside, continuing its creation of this holy Valley.

    Oddly, as I thought about this trail last night, I realized I’ve done just this, exercised outside in spots that became favorites for a very long time. I used to hike the trail along the Mississippi down by the Ford Avenue Bridge. Then I moved on to the Crosby Nature Farm, also along the Mississippi. When I worked for the Presbytery, I often exercised or walked at the Eloise Butler Garden and Wildlife Sanctuary. 

    In Andover I went to the Rum River Regional Park and snowshoed a trail through Woods behind the new library in the Winter, spent other times at Boot Lake SNA. Now I’m on my trail just off Brook Forest Road. Up here though the options are much more abundant. I’ve also been on Upper Maxwell Falls, The Geneva Creek trail outside of Grant, and plan to hit the Mt. Rosalie Trail soon.

    My equivalent of the Celtic Christian practice of peregrinatio. The Skunk Cabbages are probably blooming right now at Eloise Butler. I miss seeing them and the bright yellow of the Marsh Marigolds. The power of the mighty Mississippi, too. Though a Mountain Valley is equal to them in its own way. Love the one you’re with. Eh?


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