Category Archives: Great Wheel

Dogs, Family, Friends, Great Wheel, Greenhouse, Judaism, Shabbat

Work in Harmony with Nature

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

Sabbath gratefuls: Mezuzah on Artemis. Rabbi Jamie. Marilyn and Irv. Gabe. Luke and Leo. Tara. Her Rhubarb trifle. Artemis. Staying in the Tomato temperature zone. Waldo. Jamie’s Triumph. My first invitation to a group since Kate died. Ritual. Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha’olam, asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu likboa’ mezuzah. The blessing for hanging a mezuzah.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Gabe

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei. Slip streaming the life force.

Week Kavannah: Patience. Savlanut.

Tarot: What will I do with the sabbath? The Ace of Bows.

One brief shining: They came: first, Luke and Leo, then Marilyn and Irv, Tara, later with his white helmet, riding his newly repaired motorcycle, Rabbi Jamie and the table Gabe and I prepared for them offered Strawberry lemonade, sweet Tea, hummus, cut Vegetables, Kalamata Olive bread, crackers, and Tara’s wonderful Rhubarb trifle.

 

From left: Irv, Marilyn, Gabe, Tara, me, Rabbi Jamie

Artemis: A sanctuary. A home temple to the seasons, to the Vegetative world, to human collaboration with the Soil. To the One within which we move and love and have our becoming. To the chi in Seeds and Water and Sunlight.

We dedicated her yesterday, my friends and my Rabbi. Rabbi Jamie pounded in the bottom nail. We said the blessing. I pounded in the top nail. Jamie read a Psalm he had translated about the house of David.

Back in the house we sat in just enough chairs, ate and drank from the table. Talked about matters Jewish. About Gabe’s amazing writing. About Luke as a teacher and artist. About the Tarot. And, of course, with gritted teeth of the One Who Shall Not Be Named.

It was, I think, the first time I’d had a gathering of friends here on Shadow Mountain since Kate died. Family, yes. Individual friends, yes. But not a group, small though it was. Felt good.

My sacred community-Gabe included-together to consecrate this work of Nathan’s and mine. Amen.

 

Dog journal: Shadow loves company. People and Dogs. Leo came with Luke and Shadow tried, really hard, to get old man Leo to play. He did, a bit until he fell and hurt his paw. Not bad, no limping but enough for Luke to sequester Leo. Leo is twelve years old. Old for a Dog his size.

Gabe cleverly went around the house and closed the downstairs door so Shadow had another night inside. Ate her 7pm meal and went to bed. I slept much better with her inside.

 

Tarot: I asked the deck what I should do with this sabbath. I drew The Ace of Bows.

Here’s a bit from the Wildwood book: “We witness the moment when the bow with its arrow rekindles the fire. The fire of life is promised to us by Beltane forest lovers who are currently burning in our lives. The bow created by humans shows that in order to create Spark, we work in harmony with nature, making the most of her gifts, without overwhelming or destroying her.” TarotX.net

Artemis. Final planning for her fall garden. Yes. Tarot. Doing the reading for Luke’s class. Yes, today, this sabbath day.

 

 

Dogs, Great Wheel, Greenhouse, Holidays, Paganism, Politics

Feel the Fire in your Bones

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon

Friday gratefuls: Luke and Leo. Laundry. Shadow and Leo. Buddies. Warm Night. AI. Chatgpt. Images. Mussar. Diane. Her book club and cherry chutney. The Greenhouse, Nathan’s careful work. Scott. His pollinator Garden. My son. Moving. Seoah. Murdoch. Ruth and Gabe coming up today.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Luke’s many talents

Week Kavannah: Bitachon. Confidence.  “A feeling of self-assurance arising from one’s appreciation of one’s abilities or qualities.”

One brief shining: Piece by piece the greenhouse comes together, two Koi on the door, deep raised beds on the sides, a raised bed inside it, shelving for pots and space to work along both inside walls, the clear insulating sheets going in place to let in Great Sol and retain the warmth.

 

Summer Solstice: For those of you new to Ancientrails, this is the day I celebrate not only the victory of light on the longest day, but also the ascendancy of the night which starts tonight, continuing night by night until the Winter Solstice. We need the warmth of Great Sol for our plant allies to grow and we need the darkness and Lesser Light illumination of the night for our soul’s growth. The yang and the yin of seasonal change.

In Nordic and Scottish lands the Summer Solstice, much like Beltane, finds bonfires blazing, naked bodies dancing to the drums and pipes. Never got the chance to participate, perhaps next incarnation.

Stop a moment today. Feel the heat of Great Sol. Let the Sun enlighten you, fuel the dreams and work of your heart. An active time, a time to push forth into the world with the best, the strongest parts of your Self.

Choose, if you can, to feel fire in your bones, energy surging from feet to head like the sacred flow of energy from the crown of the Tree of Life to Malkhut, this tangible world, and back up again toward the ayn sof. Your body and soul, unique and irreplaceable, yet also one with the other, all others. The true and important secret not hidden from us except when we slip into routine, into habitual ways of knowing.

As I wrote yesterday: Celebrate, celebrate. Dance to the music.

 

Dog journal: Luke and Leo came over yesterday. Shadow greeted Leo. A nip here, a play bow there. Leo, a large and older Dog took his time to respond. He played a bit with her before lying down on the cool tile for a gentleman’s rest.

Meanwhile Shadow put her paws on the other chair down here, and licked Luke’s face. She takes others visiting with enthusiasm. Ginny and Janice come over on Sunday afternoon with Annie and Luna. More fun for Shadow.

Right now Shadow has the severed tail of a stuffed Skunk toy in her mouth flailing it from side to side while she rolls on her back. A puppy.

 

Just a moment: Well, red tie guy has proved more thoughtful than I imagined. Diane offered a reason. The isolationist wing of the MAGA movement having its say. Could be.

Dogs, Garden, Great Wheel, Greenhouse, Health, Politics

Godzilla v Mothra

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Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

Friday gratefuls: Irv, Tom. New Human Consciousness. Halle. Hip and leg pain. Exquisite. Kylie today. Taylor today. Natalie today. Alan today. Shabbat this evening. Shadow, chewer of duvets. Sweet morning girl. Tara. Susan. Diane. Morning darkness.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Information

Week Kavannah: Shleimut. Wholeness and Peacefulness.

One brief shining: Rain and slow delivery of plastic foundation tiles has delayed the construction of the greenhouse, but I’m ok with that since it will be a slow project, maybe flowers more than vegetables this year, not sure what the later planting schedules can yield.

 

Greenhouse: Nathan asked me a week ago if I would prefer plastic foundation tiles, better for water runoff in Spring. Sure, I said. He didn’t know then that the delivery of these tiles would not happen until this evening. He’s very apologetic, going to cut me a break on labor at the end of the project. Things like filling my raised beds with soil. Kind of him

The delayed construction has drained some of my enthusiasm for the project, though I imagine once the construction gets going that will return. Besides, it’s a long haul project. Once it’s up the fun begins.

Next week Nathan will have a helper and he’s done a lot of precutting so the greenhouse will go up fast.

 

Dog journal: During my nap yesterday Shadow jumped up on the bed, lay with her head on my legs, and slept. Such a sweet moment. With her willingness to hug me and get hugged back, her greater ease with the threshold (far from resolved), and her willingness to be on a leash, we’ve moved into new territory.

Of course. While on the bed, she did rip my duvet, allowing goose feathers to escape. Buying cloth tape to fix it. No sense being elaborate since she’ll probably do it again. Gonna buy new bedroom stuff from carpet to bed to nightstand after she finds her maturity.

Shadow has also mastered the stairs to the main level. She’s up there right now while I write on the lower level. Wonder what she’s doing?

 

Health: A significant Friday morning. Taylor, Dr. Buphati’s P.A., (oh, Shadow just came back down) will tell me the results of my MRI and my PET scan. As usual, my anxiety titer hits its peak about now. Do I have many more metastases? Is there cancer in my hip joint? And if so, what happens next?

That’s at 8:30. Then, at 9:40 I see Kylie to get slipstreamed into the medical process again, this time for the SPRINT neurostimulator device implantation. My life would be better if my pain were less.

 

Just a moment: Aw. The Donald and the African-American coming to blows. Elon’s intelligence and his libertarian revulsion toward government bonded with Trump’s Revenge and Chaos tour. Result? Madness.

Now Trump’s willingness to do whatever he wants whenever he wants with no underlying rationale other than personal animus and a narcissistic belief that any thought passing through his mind is big and beautiful has clashed with Musk’s libertarian, tear it all down and don’t let it get back up sensibility. This is a perverted form of ideological logic versus irrationality. Will not end well. For any party affected. Including the U.S.

Dogs, Fourth Phase, Garden, Great Wheel, Greenhouse, Health, Paganism, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Reimaging revelation, Writing

Shou Sugi Ban Treated Wood for Artemis Greenhouse

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Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II (3% crescent)

Sunday gratefuls: Shadow jumping onto my legs this morning for a hug. So sweet. Fun with old socks. Our new, changing relationship. Back pain. Zerizut for p.t. and resistance work. Tara. Alan. Rich. Luke. Mussar. Shabbat. Morning prayers. Enveloped by Rain and Fog. Mom and Dad, both veterans. My son, a future veteran. All those who defend us with their lives.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rain

Week Kavannah: Zerizut. Enthusiasm. for p.t. and resistance.

One brief shining: As Great Sol began to disappear behind Black Mountain yesterday, a rainy Fog rolled in and gave my backyard a ghostly appearance, Lodgepoles coming in and out of sight, Shadow rushing inside all wet from running through a Cloud.

 

On Ancientrails: You may notice some extra posts here and there. I’ll signal them with something in the future, probably an image. You will find my regular as usual posts with the format of long standing.

These new posts are me trying to write out, work out my sense of where I am in my thought process about certain matters like spirituality, theology, politics. I’ve had this urge to write down things I’ve thought about for a long time. They’re incomplete sentences, non-systematic because I’ve admitted to myself that I’m not a system builder or even an always logical thinker. There is this strain of mysticism, a poetry of the inner world that means more to me than a syllogism. Though I love syllogisms, too.

You will know these entries by their lack of gratefuls, sparks, kavannah, one brief shining. Please feel free to ignore them. They’re me scratching my name in the wet Sand. I want a record of those ideas before the King Tide rolls in.

 

Dog journal: Shadow bounded into my arms this morning before I got out of bed, her paws on my outstretched legs. As if overnight, she’d forgotten to be shy, to be scared. I hugged her and she wriggled happy, licking my face. Yes, I said to her, this is what I want. What I need. An oh so special moment.

 

Back pain/cancer: Tara will take me to my open-sided MRI. I’ll have taken an Ativan for my claustrophobia so I’ll be talkative with little executive function for a filter. Glad I trust her.

Here’s an oddity with this MRI. Both my oncologist and my pain doc want images of my hips. Both have sent orders. I hope that doesn’t screw things up.

Oncologist checking for metastatic growth in my hips. Pain doc getting information for a possible insertion of a SPRINT device later. Two diagnoses for the price of one! BOGO.

 

Just a moment: We will move into the Artemis Greenhouse Moon tomorrow. Nathan comes tomorrow to begin building. He thinks it will take about a week. I’m excited. I want/need to grow things again.

It will be done in shou sogi ban treated wood. This is an ancient Japanese wood treatment that involves charring the surface of a board, then sealing it. Nathan has taught himself how to do this.

Since I’m starting a little late in the gardening year, I’ll have to be careful with what I plant, but I’ll get crops this year. Plus there will be flowers.

 

 

 

 

Garden, Great Wheel, Mountains, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Talmud, Torah, Wild Neighbors

Artemis: A Riff on Tactile Spirituality

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Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

A Tactile Spirituality

“I live at 8,800 feet in zip code 80433. I’m having a greenhouse built in my backyard. What vegetables will grow well in it. Look for heirloom varieties. Include recommended planting dates. Mostly I want salad ingredients and greens. Tomatoes.”

This is the prompt I gave chatgpt for a quick assist in knowing what to plant. I got back 21 pages of detailed recommendations, including specific heirloom varieties of Tomatoes, Lettuce, Radishes, Carrots, Beets, Onions, and Herbs.

Spirituality has the curse of the three-story universe, René Descartes, and destructive deconstruction. That is, Abrahamic prayer and devotional practice has historically “aimed” its prayers up toward the heavens and away from the corruptions of the flesh. Descartes’s dramatic division of the mind from the body reinforced a religious path focused on the immaterial mind, released from the body. And, in turn, Mother Earth. While deconstruction did unveil the power dynamics involved in how our agriculture works, how choice of books for a syllabus reflected white privilege, and the patriarchal symbolism of the three-story universe, it also made demythologizing a knee jerk way of removing mystery and grace.

As a result a tactile spirituality seems, at first look, an oxymoron. The mind. The heavens. Transcendence. Those are the domain of spirit. Not the soil. Not the forests. Not the feet or the hands. Not the world of this reality, this busy, noisy, fussy, often bloody and violent reality. How can we gain the peace, the calm, the centeredness where spiders crawl, illness ravages, and death dominates?

That’s where Artemis Greenhouses comes in. About as down and dirty a human activity, or I should say, human aided activity as I can imagine. Soil (no, not dirt) under the fingernails. Nurturing small plants. Beets. Spinach. Lettuce. Radishes. Plucking off predating insects. Blocking out Deer and Elk. Harvesting the red and white Radish. The red Beet. Rainbow colored Chard. Green Kale and Spinach. Eating them.

Fuel for the body. That most inelegant of spiritual residences, the body. Full of blood and waste, nutrients and foreign matter. Under some understandings only a vessel for the soul, a way to keep the mind alive.

No. Souls are us. Our living flesh ensouled. Sacred. Hardly ordinary unless you call, as I do, the ordinary sacred. What we touch feels the hand of a god, the god. What we embrace knows the warmth of a god, the god. The soil in which we plant seeds quickens when we work it.

The Mule Deer Doe who feeds her newborn fawn feeds a divine presence, a unique and precious never to be repeated instance of god made flesh. Maxwell Creek filled with Spring Rain pulls bits of Rock and Earth from its bank as the god-in-water, returning the Rocky Mountains to the World Ocean.

Sure. The Torah. Yes. Talmud Torah. The hands of living gods have written it and the minds of living Jews finds god within, upon its pages, in its stories. It teaches us. Yet, it teaches the same message as Maxwell Creek. That god rushes to the Sea. That god fills every molecule of Water.

I read the scripture written in the bark of my Lodgepole companion. I see the yellow Flame of the Aspen Catkin against the blue Flame of a Colorado Sky and read of life’s elegant and graceful re-emergence in this, the wet season.

In my world all spirituality is tactile. In Shadow jumping on my legs. In turning the pages of a Torah commentary. In hearing the voice of Luke or Ginny or Janice. In tasting a bit of Lettuce, an Onion, a fresh heirloom Tomato. All of the tactile is spiritual.

Great Wheel, Mountains, Paganism, Plants, Weather +Climate, Wild Neighbors

It’s the Merry, Merry Month of May

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Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

Thursday gratefuls: Mary coming to visit. Beltane. Snow. 32 degrees. Gnawer of Bones. Slow to trust. Shadow. Roxann who knows. Tom. Tramadol and two acetaminophens. Helps. Fantastic Four. Adam and Eve. Mordecai Kaplan. Abraham Joshua Heschel. Learning. Staying mentally sharp.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Amy

Week Kavannah: Persistence and grit. Netzach.

One brief shining: We float sometimes above our life, hovering over it like some household God, hoping to change directions or circumstances with a twist of the divine hand, a twirl of the sacred finger but we know all along that only our body bound to the earth can achieve miracles.

 

Beltane. When those crazy Scots and those blue-eyed Swedes take off their clothes and dance naked around a bonfire. Enacting the magic of sympathy for Mother Earth as she takes in seeds, embraces them in her fertile womb, and kisses them into growth. Why not? She provides for us. Sustains us. Gives us water to drink and gravity to keep us grounded.

I’ve not written many Great Wheel posts in the last few years. Like Taoism and now Judaism though, the pagan in me never sleeps. I stay alive to these seasonal changes, to their meaning for our daily lives. Even if we get Snow and freezing temperatures here on Shadow Mountain. I know the Lodgepole catkins, the Aspen leaflets, fawns, calves, kits, bunnies will emerge, small flags of life’s own Great Wheel waving the colors of renewal.

Beltane honors the marriage of the Lord and the Lady. A maiden no more the Earth takes a lover who warms and quickens her. On Beltane ancient Celts would make love in the fields. Leap over small fires. Drive their cattle between bonfires. All to advance fertility.

Love realizes its biological imperative. Souls join as bodies dance together in the rites of Spring. Are we ever more than then? When our hearts fill with passion and our senses brighten to the other. The one who shares our oneness. As the One shares with us all. What an orgasm. Can you imagine how it feels to be Mother Earth in the Spring?

We cannot stay sad about death. Not when green shoots up from black Soil. As the Spring Ephemerals throw up their colorful flowers. As the Cherry and Plum offer their delicate blooms only to shed them in Snow like Storms so Fruit can grow. As the Honeybees leave their Winter Hives seeking Nectar and spreading Pollen, these matchmakers of the Sky. When Cutthroat and Rainbow Trout push out their Roe for the milky Semen’s discovery in cold Mountain Streams.

Death does not mark a finish, rather a continuation howsomever it might be. And Beltane marks Nature’s covenant that this is so.

We know not how it is. We mortal creatures. Beltane celebrates mortality with its promise of living abundantly. If only we care for ourselves and the land.

Get outside and visit the marks of this glorious, this wondrous, this most yes of seasons. You deserve the lift.

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

Living. Not dying.

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Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

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

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Greenhouse

Week Kavannah: Joy. Simcha.

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

 

 

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Great Wheel, Sport

April

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Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Shadow, eater of bones. Fatigue. Ritalin. Breakfast out. CookUnity, above adequate. Passover this Saturday. Liberation. Easter, April 20. Resurrection. Jihad. Greater and lesser. Mark’s students, boys becoming men. Dire Wolves live. Colossal Bioscience. De-extinction. Science wonders. The Night Sky. Orion, my old friend. Andover. A time of abundance.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Dire Wolves alive

Week Kavannah: Wu Wei

One brief shining: Shadow comes over, puts her paws on the arm of my chair, stares up at me with her soulful dark eyes, and says, in crystal clear Dog, I want my breakfast!

 

April. Brother Mark and Dad’s birthdays. Ruth and Gabe’s. Kate’s yahrzeit on April l2th, celebrated on April 28th of the Hebrew calendar this year. My son and Seoah’s wedding anniversary. #9 this year. Passover and Easter.

An emotion filled month recognized by T.S. Eliot’s Wasteland. April is the cruelest month. Has some of that flavor for me.

How do we ever make sense of death and the awful emptiness it brings to the living? Especially when it comes as Mother Earth makes a seasonal turn toward new life. Plants shooting up from Winter’s sleep. Mule Deer Fawns and Elk Calves and Mountain Lion Kits. Bear Cubs. Baby Mark, baby Curtis, baby Ruth, baby Gabe. And Kate’s death. All together. Death and life. The Great Wheel turning, grinding as it goes.

I like the cohesion of Passover and Easter. Their twin messages confront April with powerful reassurance. Slavery of any kind diminishes, weakens the human experiment. Liberation from  the slaveries we are heir to lifts us all.

Death ends a life but it does not end life. Resurrection can heal a whole fallow season, the human heart as it emerges from mourning, the soul killing atrophy of numbness to existence.

These two ministers to the inner and outer realms complement each other. Live in tension perhaps as key representatives of different religions, but can be embraced by both and by those with none.

Religion holds these non-rational ideas, lays them alongside the daily human existence. Reminds us that bondage is not our fate; that death and rebirth are fellow travelers. Always.

 

Sports stop: Do not count your championships until they’re hatched. Or something like that. Ask Duke. Ask Houston. Both lost games they thought were theirs. Duke losing its long predicted Cooper Flag coronation as king of the teen basketball prom. Houston losing its championship in the final seconds of the final game of March Madness.

The new look of college basketball? Uncertain, but likely. Build a team of one and dones. Go for it. A coaches nightmare, I would think. Every year trying to get the one or two best players coming out of high school. Transferring others to compliment them. Play the season. Get into the playoffs. Hopefully. Rinse and repeat.

 

 

Aging, Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Garden, Great Wheel, Great Work, Politics, Wild Neighbors

They Call it Puppy Love

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Imbolc and the full Snow Moon

Friday gratefuls: Mini-splits. Shadow. Ginny and Janice. Luna and Annie. Leo. Gracie. My Lodgepole companion. The crooked Aspen outside my bedroom. The Mountain Lion family near Morrison. Black Bears. Soon. Mule Deer and Elk. Fox. Abert’s Squirrels. Red Squirrels. Rabbits. Voles. Mice. Marmots.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Wild Neighbors

Week Kavannah:  Yirah. Awe.

One brief shining: Tis an odd season this with taxes due next month, the wearing of the green celebrating St. Patrick who took Irish Wolfhounds to the Pope, big Snows covering basketball tourney roads, and hints of Spring with resurrection and liberation waiting to manifest.

 

Always of two desires in these months. Crack wind, Winter blow, Snow. Stay longer. Fire in the fireplace. A good book. Cold nights for sleeping. Yes.

Open vistas. Clear Skies. Mountain Wildflowers. Aspen Catkins. Lodgepole Anthers. Rabbit families. Chipmunks. Greening Willows and Dogwood. Mountain Streams in full voice, tumbling and turning. A sense of possibility strong in the Air. Yes.

Dog journal: If you’ve never had a skittish puppy lay at your feet, head rested on your slipper. If you’ve never had a puppy wriggle up the side of your leg and look you in the eye with, yes, puppy love. If you’ve never had a puppy. I wish you had.

Shadow incarnates love. Adoration. Companionship. Even the struggles and the outright exhaustion. All part of the joy.

Puppies, like Wildflowers and Spring, remind us of the Great Wheel, Maiden-Mother-Crone, life begetting life. Old age and youth running next to each other in partnership. With love.

Shadow. A small streak of black fur bounding through Snow drifts, racing around the perimeter, the fence line, all young muscle and limber movement, all newness. A potion to ease the aching joints and rigidity of 78 year old bones.

 

Just a moment: I keep finding Seeds. Books about Seeds. Seed-Keepers. Seed Savers Exchange Catalogue. Seeds. The Seed Vault in Svalbard. Chapters in the Light-Eaters. Lectures in online botany classes.

Recalling the spiny nubbin of a Beet Seed. The delicate Carrot Seed. The thick Pea. The Soil in an Andover raised bed leavened with compost and top soil, organic chemicals. Pressing the Seeds into the Soil. Feeling a frisson of future salads, side dishes.

In remembering these things a sort of strange hope rises. That we, the faded flowers, now the Seed heads of yesterday’s generational garden will leave our Seeds of love, justice, and compassion to grow in the rich Earth of this once and future nation.

Maybe we could create a Seed Catalogue for our nieces and nephews, our grandchildren. Even a Seed Savers Exchange for the ideas and actions that still hold the promise of a victory garden for diversity, for equality, for shared wealth and opportunity.

Or a nation in exile limned in a new Whole Earth catalogue for those of us who hold fast to the notion that rapaciousness, cruelty, mockery, and misogyny have no place in America’s fields and beds. Plant these instead, these seeds of liberty and freedom with their attendant responsibilities.

Plant this seed of love and that one of compassion. Fertilize with chi, illuminate with ohr, moisten with joy.

Commentary on the news, Friends, Great Wheel, Health, Judaism, Mussar, Politics, US History

Toxic. What else can you say?

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Yule and the Quarter Century Moon

New Year’s Day gratefuls: Tara. Ron. Ruth and Gabe. Veronica. 5 degrees this morning. Good sleeping. Snow. A new year. Kinda. The Realm. Von Bek. The Grail. Snowplows. Another Mountain Day, another Mountain life. Ruby in her winter shoes. MVP tonight. Family. Love. A new Zen calendar. Enlightenment. Not hard. Not easy. See what you’re looking at.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The feel of a fresh slate

Kavannah for 2025: Yetziratiut  Creativity

For January 1 life: Wonder, Malchut

One brief shining: Sitting with Tara over sausage patties, home fries, eggs over easy, and sourdough toast, coffee steaming, the noise almost too much, I felt yet again love, again chesed, again the presence of one who sees me as I am and accepts me, as I see her and accept her.

 

I promised something less abstruse today. Here it is.

Carried the three largest split Oak logs in with the intention of burning them last night, starting a new tradition, burning Yule logs on New Year’s Eve since I missed the Winter Solstice. As in love with the night as I am, I no longer experience as much of it. I go to bed early, too early I felt for burning the Oak. Or, maybe I’m just too set in my ways. Whatever. I didn’t do it. Again. That’s twice.

On a related note: I was gonna go upstairs and hit 30 minutes on the treadmill. Thought about it right after I got back from breakfast with Tara. Almost. Knew it was my yetzer hara, my selfish inclination saying nah. You worked out yesterday. You can work out tomorrow. Take a rest already.

I read instead.

We make these sort of decisions at bechira points, choice points, and whichever way we decide we reinforce the likelihood of making that same choice again. I had two bechira points yesterday and chose the easy way. The good news here is that the yetzer hatov, the generous inclination, the possibility directed yetzer, will always have a chance to change that decision at the next bechira point, reinforcing the way that nurtures becoming.

Mussar expresses a medieval psychology, yes. But. Clyde Steckler, professor of pastoral care at United Theological Seminary, said you can explain the workings of the mind using any system of thought you want and still come up with useful, meaningful ways to understand it. Mussar exemplifies this idea.

I no longer live in a world of bad and good, right and wrong, but in a world of possibilities and potentials reinforced or thwarted. Maybe it’s that field that Rumi talks about. The one out beyond right and wrong. Where we can meet. My practice this month helps reveal this reality: this too is for the good.

 

Just a moment: Driving a pickup truck into a crowd of revelers on Bourbon Street. These newer pickups look like weapons to me. Their massive grills. Cabs high above the rest  of us tooling along in our SUV’s and sedans. And aggressive driving? Speeding. Impatience. Road rage. Seems baked into the I’m bigger and stronger than you are toxic masculinity cast in steel and named Ram. About to get stroked by the red tie guy. Who will attempt to make normative an unthinking, insensitive, domineering version of maleness.