• Category Archives Holidays

  • Israel

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Mabon (Fall) and the Sukkot Moon

    Thursday (Rosh Hashanah) gratefuls: Happy New Year, 5785! Sukkot. Mom. 60 years ago this month. Her death. Tom’s eyelid surgery. Mark in Georgetown, Malaysia. Visas. Soon to travel to Saudi Arabia. Fall. Harvests all around the world. Friends and family. Dogs. Wild Neighbors. Cecil’s Deli. Bill and Paul. Travel. AI. Playground by Richard Powers. Ocean.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ocean

    Kavannah: Teshuvah

    One brief shining: Wrestling with the angel of belonging, my own Jabbok Ford, why I chose the Hebrew name, Israel, no longer wanting to be in large groups no matter how significant the occasion, yet also knowing, as friend Paul says, that showing up is often all that matters, how to reconcile my covid/introvert/homebody/back pain inflected avoidance with my love of CBE. Acute on the High Holidays.

     

    Do not want to become a recluse. In no way. In no way either do I want to get sick or deny my nature. Aware attendance at High Holiday services (or, lack of) gets noticed by friends. Am I not committed? Am I not a Jew? So I struggle. Here’s another aspect of it. As a new Jew (ha), I don’t have a lifetime of memories about the High Holidays. I find the services long and, with the Hebrew and davening, often obtuse.

    Also, I didn’t suddenly release my pagan ways. Sukkot, Simchat Torah, Tu B’shvat, Passover, counting the Omer, Shavuot reflect my Judaism much more strongly than the heady and often patriarchal notes of the High Holidays. The month of Elul as preparation, chasbon nefesh. Yes. Taking a soul returned to its own land into a new year. Yes. Grieving at Yom Kippur. Yes. Human matters.

    And then, the reflection of the Great Wheel in Jewish colors: Sukkot, the fruit harvest. Simchat Torah, dancing with the Torah, the body itself in motion. Tu B’shvat, the new year for the Trees. And I might include Wilderness, Wild Neighbors, Horticulture. Passover. Spring planting. Counting the grain as it grows and gets harvested at Shavuot. This is my Judaism, an ancient celebration of humanity’s connection to the life-giving turn of the seasons and to Mother Earth.

    On a lunar calendar note, also a link for me with Judaism, lunar calendars rapidly get out of alignment with the seasons without leap months added. This year we added a second month of Adar. This means that yahrzeits get pushed out by a month or so from the actual death date. Though the yahrzeit rarely lines up with the actual death date, usually it’s within a week or so.

    This finds my mom’s 60th yahrzeit falling on October 31st this year. On Samain. On All Hallow’s Eve when the veil between the worlds thins. Judaism and paganism line up to make her 60th year in the Other World a special moment for me. Hard to believe she’s been dead 60 years. Never gone, of course, but fainter as a memory. On the 31st I’ll light a yahrzeit candle for her and look through the photo albums and photos I have of her. Remember, re-member, her.


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  • Just Israel, walking his road

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Tuesday gratefuls: Cool night. 35 degrees this morning. Guanella Pass. Tom. Reading Jennie’s Dead. Revising to reenter. Writing. Thinking about writing before going to sleep. Ah. Good workout. Fixing my workouts myself. Vikings. Can they last? High Holy Days. Party like it’s 5785. CBE’s amphitheater. Outdoor services. Rosh Hashanah starts tomorrow evening. 5:30 pm service.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: L’Shana Tovah

    Kavannah: Teshuvah

    One brief shining: Ended my printout of Ancientrails on August 8, 2019, started on November 1 2007, missed two years due to shifting to WordPress and not figuring out Frontpage migration, plan to begin printout since 2019 on November 1; found my manuscript for Jennie’s Dead, started reading, already reconfiguring it, revising lightly, finding my way again on this ancientrail of imagination and creation. Slow.

     

     

    Tishrei*, the head of the year, begins tomorrow evening, Rosh Hashanah. A new moon, a new month, and the time when Jewish Calendars turn over a full year, counting, traditionally, from the first day of creation until now. So, 5785 as a date reckons by generations from the first chapter of Genesis to current time. And no, no Jew I know thinks the world, the universe and everything came into existence 5785 years ago. Though I know a few Missouri Synod Lutherans who do.

    Elul, the last month of the Jewish calendar year, ends tomorrow. With it the accounting of the soul, chasbon nefesh, that I’ve noted a bit about in earlier posts. Realized this morning that somehow my own accounting has led me back to the land of my soul. Huh. Back to the writerly Self who creates for the joy of imagining. Didn’t intend this result or even contemplate it, yet here I am. At the start of the New Year with an old purpose, yet a consistent purpose-for decades now.

    I plan to attend the High Holiday services outside in the amphitheater, weather permitting. Less covid risk. The pandemic and my cancer treatments imprinted on me a nervousness about enclosed places with lots of people. I avoid them for health and by inclination. Introvert here, hey.

    No resolutions. Neither on Rosh Hashanah nor Samain-the Celtic new year-nor on January 1st, the Gregorian new year. I’m good these latter days. These waning septuagenarian days. No more bulldozing the ego with this therapeutic maneuver or another. Especially not resolutions. I’m good, not perfect, but good enough. Content with who I am and who I have become. Also content with the ancientrail that got me here. Including the good, the bad, and the unnecessary.

    Sure fine tuning the character traits through mussar. Can always use a shave and a haircut to clear away undergrowth. But self condemnation, radical changes to my sense of self? Done with all that. Here there be no monsters and no mythic heroes. Just Israel, walking his road.

    Fortunate to have others who share the journey.

     

    *”Tishrei (Tishri), the first month of the Jewish year (the seventh when counting from Nisan), is full of momentous and meaningful days of celebration. Beginning with the High Holidays, in this month we celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Ten Days of Repentance, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Simchat Torah. Each one is filled with its own meaningful customs and rituals. Some are serious, awesome days set aside for reflection and soul-searching. Some are joyous days full of happy and cheerful celebration.”  Chabad


    Holidays Judaism Writing

  • Blood and Seawater

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Mabon (Fall) and the Harvest Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Mark Odegard and his art, a retrospective. The Ancient Brothers. Consistent and persistent. My son. Seoah. Murdoch. Geneva Creek. Clear Creek. The North Fork of the South Platte. Maxwell Creek. North Turkey Creek. Blue Creek. Upper Bear Creek. Lake Evergreen. Bear Creek. These last six all part of my Watershed. Shadow Mountain’s split Granite Aquifers. Where I get my Water for Shadow Mountain Home.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Act of Creation

    Kavannah: Teshuvah

    One brief shining: On Friday I picked my way down a slight decline studded with Rocks, ahead of me Water spilled over them at speed and filled my ears with its soothing sound, as if it touched, and maybe it does, an ancient hominid memory of Water at last, at last, similar I imagine to the visual soothing offered by large bodies of Water like Lake Superior, the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific; we are not Animals of the Water but we are not Animals at all without Water, the bond singing in our blood* and our internal supply of Water gauged and signaled when low by thirst.

    Geneva Creek beside Guanella Pass Road

     

    In this month of Elul, of chasbon nefesh, accounting of the soul, I ask you, reader, to pardon me if I have caused you injury either by word or deed, by commission or omission. This is a sincere request. If we need to talk to resolve something, please let me know. I wish to go into the days of awe with my soul cleansed as much as it can be. This is part of that process.

    I know. My soul. Seems anachronistic, a Greek idea clumsily borrowed by all three of the Abrahamic religions. The notion that there is a something, a part of us that endures after death. A real thing like a Rock or a Lodgepole. For over thirty years I’ve avoided the question by positing extinction as the result of death. No where for a soul to go. No need for a soul. Q.E.D.

    Jews have, as usual, many and conflicting thoughts about the soul. For some there are 5 souls. For others none. Right now I’m reading a Rabbi Jamie translation of a 16th century text that works with two: the neshamah and the nefesh. The neshamah is the pure soul, the image of divinity, the uniqueness of that in which it resides. Unstainable. Original sin is a non-starter within all Jewish understandings of the soul and of human nature.

    The nefesh surrounds the neshamah with personality, with choice, with the joys and sorrows of fleshly life. Driven by the yetzer harah, the selfish inclination, and the yetzer hatov, the loving inclination, our lifetime represents opportunities to synch up our character with the unstainable neshamah. We fail. We succeed. We start over again and again.

    Is this consciousness in which our unique nature, our buddha nature, our I am, rests? I don’t know. Might be. I do like the notion of a sublime me, a sacred me, a shard of the ohr, the light of the divine released into and creating by its release all the known and unknown parts of the universe.

    Blood and Seawater. Consciousness. Deep memories from our time in Africa. Consider the vast amount of unknowing. Might there be room for a shard of holiness somehow in me and of me, but not extinguishable even by death? I’m much more open to that idea now than I have been for over thirty years.

     

     

    *”Like the Earth, we are 70% saltwater. In 1897 French physician Rene Quinton discovered a 98% match between our blood plasma and sea water, or what we called ‘ocean plasma’.” Oceanography


    Feelings Holidays Judaism Kabbalah Mountains Mussar

  • Asset framing. Judging on the side of merit.

    Posted on by Charles 1 Comment

    Lugnasa and the Harvest Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Ginny and Janice. Luke. His birthday. Leo. Cooler nights. Golden Aspen Leaves. Guanella Pass. Gabe. Helium. Hydrogen. Lithium. Elemental, my dear Mendelev. Earth. Air. Fire. Water. Shadow Mountain. The Sky above it. Wildfire. Maxwell Creek. The journey home. Our mutual journey. Walking each other along the trail. If you want go fast, go alone. If you want to far, go together.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Tesuvah

    Kavannah: Teshuvah

    One brief shining: Inner work right now, drawing two cards for the week, this week’s question-What do I need to do to further Herme’s Journey-answered by the Weasel and Pine Card from the Woodland Guardians deck by Jessica Roux and the Ace of Bows from the Wildwood Tarot, Introspection and the Spark of Life; yes, I understood, stay on the inner path for Elul and beyond, that remains the true path for this journey, the gathering, the harvesting of ideas and feelings and moments of yirah and teshuvah.

     

    Then, Elul, this month of chasbon nefesh, accounting of the soul for the purpose of returning the soul to its native land, means even more attention to the moments of hamartia, of missing the mark, that are, as a wise article I read suggests, the guideposts leading back home. But not only that. I also include in my chasbon nefesh an idea granddaughter Ruth found on Krista Tippet’s show featuring Trabian Shorter, A Cognitive Skill to Magnify Humanity. Asset Framing. And Its Jewish equivalent: judging on the side of merit. That is, not only finding the debits but also the credits.

    Asset framing is a simple, yet profound idea. When encountering yourself or another, first find your/their assets. Their skills and strengths. Your/their dreams and aspirations. What gets them up in the morning? Keeps them going when the work gets hard?

    A brilliant young black scholar and activist, Trabian uses this example. Instead of seeing inner city black kids as in the school to prison pipeline, as troubled kids, first find out their existing skills, their strengths, what they hope for, reach for in their hearts. Focus on those, while not ignoring the difficulties and challenges. Perhaps the cliche, play to their strengths.

    Judging on the side of merit. When judging another, which Judaism recognizes we do all the time, and does not condemn, start always by judging on the side of merit. Which I think fits nicely with the idea of asset framing.

    So. While engaging chasbon nefesh, always start with your merits, your assets. What in the last year did you do well? Where were you using your skills, your talents? Where did your advance your dreams and aspirations or those of others? Where were you a positive and helpful presence in the world? Then, and only then, proceed to those moments where you missed the mark. Where you judged harshly. Where you were too fearful to act. Or, like me, where your own troubles turned you in on yourself, away from the world. Or, like me, where you chose to give in to an easy way to spend the day, rather than a fruitful one. Or, like me, where you turned away from a person in need because of the time and energy required.

     

     

     


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  • More things, Horatio

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lugnasa and the Harvest Moon

    Monday gratefuls: The Ancient Brothers. Visa. Stolen number. Gold on the Mountains. Coming. Crisp nights. Herme’s Journey. Candles. Cernunnos. Paul, splitting wood. Ode and Elizabeth. Tom on his bike. Bill and Marietta. Full Harvest Moon on the 18th. September in the Rockies. Elk Cows grazing along the roadside. The Rut. Green and its many shades.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Aspens in the Fall

    Kavannah: AWE   יִרְאָה Yira   Awe, reverence, fear (פְּלִיאָה Plia: Wonder, amazement) (כּוֹבֶד רֹאשׁ Koved Rosh: Seriousness, solemnity, gravitas) [קַלוּת רֹאשׁ Kalut Rosh: Disregard, levity, flippancy; literally “light-headedness”]

    One brief shining: Mabon, the fall harvest holiday, begins on the Fall Equinox, September 22nd this year, but the full harvest moon arrives sooner, both raising memories of nights driving on gravel roads past fields of Corn stubble, across Nebraska as the combines cut their wide swaths through gold fields of Wheat, Pumpkin patches filled with orange globes ready for front porches and pies, of Grain trucks lined up to unload at train side granaries, of Shine on Shine on Harvest Moon for me and my gal.

     

    I’ve been wanting to write this post for a long time. Religion and its cultured despisers. Friedrich Schleiermacher. Why, I’m asking here, in a time of rapid secularization, do I keep choosing a religious lens through which to view the world? I don’t believe in God, not in any way that would resonate with folks in Alexandria First Methodist or probably anybody at United Theological Seminary. I’ve left two traditions behind, Christianity and Unitarian-Universalism, only to convert to Judaism at age 76. Paganism, finding the sacred in the ordinary, especially for me in the turning of the Great Wheel and the world of Wild Neighbors, Mountains, Streams, and Plants remains core for me as it has since about age 40.

    Part of the answer lies in the middah of Yirah. Awe, reverence, wonder, amazement. Maybe the whole answer. Like a Plant, heliocentric, turns towards Great Sol, I’m Yirahcentric, turning my face, my lev toward Awe. Can’t help it. I see beauty in the eyes of a toddler searching for the next target as they dash around a playground. In the Dog hanging out the window of a car, letting the breeze bring scents. In the Moon as it changes. In the smile of a friend. In the songs of the Morning Service. In the shema. In studying ancient scriptures to learn what those in past found yirah worthy.

    Awe grounds me, grabs me, says to me, hey, pay attention. Here. Right here. At the memory of Kate. Rigel snuffling my hands as I tried to tie my shoe laces. Perhaps you, perhaps most people, can experience awe without a religious frame for it. I want the constant reminder that the Jewish liturgical year, the cycle of the parshas, Jewish friends bring to me. Oh, my sacred community. It’s right here in Alan, Joanne, Ginny, Janice, Tara, Ariaan, Jamie, Rebecca, Sally. Sharing with me a sense that the world has more, far more, to offer than even the white coats and their laboratories, their microscopes and telescopes and centrifuges can grasp.

    Which no way denigrates what science has made known. I’m in awe of the CERN collider, the deep underground searches for neutrinos, the close readings of the double helix. The images of the Hubble, the James Webb? Awesome. Wonderful. Amazing.

    Yet I remain aware of how shallow an understanding even these majestic human endeavors bring us. Consider the red dots in a James Webb image. What are they? Galaxies. Is it amazing that the Webb can see these galaxies far away in distance and time? Oh, yes. But consider. They are Galaxies. Billions of Stars, Planets that we can experience only as tiny red dots. Or the neuroscientists searching for consciousness. Where is it?

    Perhaps the easiest example of what I’m trying to say: love, justice, compassion. Feelings and abstract thoughts. Find those Sam Harris.

    As Hamlet famously observed: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy” Perhaps I gravitate toward religion because it openly acknowledges this. Religion is, in this sense, more humble than scientistic reverence. More humble than any certainty blathered on by politicians or even psychologists.

    I bracket those who seek refuge in religion against a chaotic and uncertain world. I understand that impulse, the desire to know for sure. Yet it is a trap, a leghold trap, that keeps its prey away from the very thing they seek: freedom.

    Two Jews, three opinions. Yes.


    Beyond the Boundaries Great Wheel Holidays Judaism Memories Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Reimaging revelation Torah

  • Exuberance!

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lugnasa and the Harvest Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: THC. Celecoxib. Erleada. Orgovyx. Vince. Alan’s opening night for Man of La Mancha. My son and Seoah in Okgwa. Her father. Her mother. And family. Chuseok. Teshuvah. South Korea. The U.S. Air Force. The wide Pacific. 15 time zones. Korean. Paul Wellstone. Tim Walz. Kamala Harris. We’re not going back. The politics of joy.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: My Korean family

    Kavannah: Exuberance

    One brief shining: When I choose an intention for the day, sometimes I crosscut the feelings I’m having, as this morning I’m feeling a little pressed down, not much but enough that it interferes with my joy, my willingness to embrace the day, squeeze some juice from it, find the yirah/awe in the ordinary that usually comes easily, sometimes I see the day ahead and want a kavannah that leans into it, focuses me, as I did with teshuvah yesterday.

     

    I’m finding this daily kavannah a powerful practice. I write the middah on my small slip of paper, put it into my pocket. The act of choosing it, writing it down, putting it in my pocket and carrying it with me throughout the day triggers an awareness that lasts till bedtime. I want to find things in this day, things that make me want to lift my arms up and shout with joy. With awe. With love.

    Exuberance carries over feelings from my zoom call with my son. As I wrote yesterday, they’re in Okgwa for Chuseok, a Korean harvest/fall holiday similar to our Thanksgiving. My son came on in one of the all white rooms at Seoah’s parents house, all concrete, and built for them a year or so ago by her brother. We chatted a bit, he caught me up on work. Showed me Murdoch lazing on the floor. And moved the laptop into the main living area.

    There was Seoah’s sister who will take over the farm from her parents starting in some fashion this fall. In the kitchen, her usual location when inside, Seoah’s mom ate from several small dishes in the Korean style. Her Dad, a joyful man and a very hard worker, wanted to say hi. He wanted to see the outside. Removing the camera, I aimed it out my window for a view of Lodgepoles and Black Mountain beyond.

    He got excited. I want to come to Colorado! Seoah translating. I got excited, too. Sounds like they may show up here on Shadow Mountain sometime next year. He loves Mountains. Climbs Mountains. Went to China to climb from the China side Baekdu Mountain*, an active strato-volcano on the China/North Korean border. He’ll love Colorado.

     

    Just a Moment: Buoyed me up to see Paul Wellstone’s name** back in the national political conversation. The quote and the article referenced below show how Tim Walz might bring the Wellstone spirit to a Harris/Walz government. May it be so.

     

     

     

    *”According to Korean mythology, it was the birthplace of Dangun, the founder of Gojoseon (2333–108 BC), whose parents were said to be Hwanung, the Son of Heaven, and Ungnyeo, a bear who had been transformed into a woman.” Wiki

    “The legendary beginning of Korea’s first semi-mythical kingdom, Gojoseon (2333 B.C.E.–108 B.C.E.), takes place here. Buyeo (2nd c. B.C.E. – 494), Goguryeo (37 B.C.E. – 668), and Balhae (698 – 926) kingdoms also considered the mountain sacred.” New World Encyclopedia

     

    **“I don’t represent the big oil companies, I don’t represent the big pharmaceutical companies, I don’t represent the Enrons of this world,” Mr. Wellstone said. “But you know what, they already have great representation in Washington. It’s the rest of the people that need it.” NYT article. 9/15/2024


    Asia Family Feelings Fourth Phase Holidays Korea Mountains Mussar Politics

  • Chuseok and Teshuvah. Double post. see below as well.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lugnasa and the Harvest Moon

    Shabbat gratefuls: Torah. Jamie. Mussar. Ruth and Gabe. Lighting the candles. The shema. CBE. Mary and Guru. Mark in Bangkok. My son and Seoah in Okgwa for the Chuseok Festival.* Alan and his busy weekend. Good sleeping. Kristie. Second opinions. Cancer. Spinal stenosis. Sally. Aging. Its joys and its struggles. Scott and Yin. Men. Women. UC Boulder.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Friendship

    Kavannah: Teshuvah-“…the journey of teshuvah is not about “turning over a new leaf” or being “born again”; rather, it is simply finding our way back to the land of our soul…Every person possesses a core of inherent goodness whose integrity cannot be compromised. While outwardly, one’s actions may not always reflect this inner goodness…people always have the ability to shed their superficial facade and do teshuvah—returning to their truest, deepest selves.” chabad.org

    One brief shining: Chuseok draws families together in North and South Korea, often back to the places of their birth or raising, like little Okgwa for Seoah, back for thanksgiving for family, for the harvest, for love between a brother and a sister, all over that land, a return to the place of your formation; we might say finding a way back to the land of your soul, which has an individual component, of course, but also and strongly a community, familial component, though, yes, the land of your soul and your homeland may be also be widely divergent.

    Chuseok card

     

     

    Sept 2023. Seoahs family

    The key move here, from a Jewish perspective, lies in the neshamah, that essence of you, that buddha nature, that stainless and unstainable core to which one can always return, no matter how hamartia-missing the mark-has confused your nefesh, the outward facing portion of you that changes, grows, shrinks, expands depending on which of the many wolves you feed.

    The month of Elul, our current month in the Lunar Calendar for 5784, encourages all Jews to chasbon nefesh, accounting of the soul. Look back over the last year and see if you got lost in moments of despair over an illness. Like I did. See if you judged others harshly, rather than judging them on their merits. Like I did. See if you neglected opportunities to act with loving-kindness. Like I did. See if you failed to discern again the purpose of your life. Like I did. See if you failed again to act on that purpose. Like I did. Take steps to amend those personal lapses that you can. Like I have. Take steps to open your lev to your true path. As I have.

    Teshuvah is not about guilt, however. It is about sweeping away the barriers in your life to being who you most truly are: a sacred becoming, a moment in the ever expanding tapestry of novelty that is the universe and everything. A unique and irreplaceable soul, a unique, never to be repeated, ishi-go ishi-e self awaits your joyous return.

    No stains that lead to damnation. No sins even God could not forgive. Only you and the land of your soul. To which, at any time, you can, with exuberance and calm, return.

     

     

     

    *”It’s the other time of the year in Korea besides Lunar New Year’s Day, aka Seollal (설날), when family members gather together.  Usually, this means traveling to the home of the head of the family, often one’s grandparents.

    According to legend, an ancient king of the kingdom, Silla, started a month-long weaving contest between two teams.   The team who had woven the most cloth won, and they were treated by the losing team with food, drinks, and other gifts.  Thus starting the tradition of Thanksgiving almost 2000 years ago.

    Some scholars also tie Chuseok to Korea’s history, wherein agriculture was a big part of daily life.  Koreans commonly offered rituals to ancestors to give thanks and celebrate the harvest moon.

    Traditionally, the purpose of Chuseok was for family members to gather together during the full harvest moon. This usually appeared in the sky on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar. Families wanted to celebrate and show gratitude to their ancestors for the fruitful harvest.

    Chuseok is very much a traditional holiday where many of the customs from the old days still stand.”

    Chuseok in Korea

     

     

     


    Asia Family Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Holidays Judaism Korea Memories Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Reimaging revelation Shabbat Travel

  • My ancientrail

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    The Off to College Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Ruth. Willville. August 20th. On her own. With a net. Returning to the Solar System. Gaia. Great Sol. Space. Vastness. Galaxies. Huge. Galaxy Clusters. Huger. The Universe its ownself. Our home. Our tiny, tiny presence in our galaxy, our local cluster, the whole of everything. And thanks for all the fish.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shabbat

    One brief shining: Reading the parsha, the end of Numbers, then the book on Reconstructionism for class and for the CBE bookclub, lighting the candles, and saying the berakhot, the blessing over them, settling in to my Shabbat, sleeping, then rising, resurrected, granted another life, the life of August 3rd, 2024, lived with friends Marilyn and Irv, with more books and some TV until the day fled, the life was over, and I went down into the 1/60th of death again.

    Kavanah: PERSEVERANCE  Netzach (NETS-ach)  נֵצַ

     

    I cobble things together. Not exactly syncretism. I have no larger design in mind. Discovering useful ways of understanding, framing, defining. I’m finding the life of August 4th, 2024 a contemplative one. Coming as it does after Shabbat and graced by the presence of my Ancient Brothers. Better for me than living in the moment. Living a full life, one day at a time. AA resonance. Jewish inflection. Expansion of the be here now idea to a waking day. Carpe diem fits. Though it might be a bit aggressive. How about cradle the day, or enjoy the day, or embrace the day?

    This all fits well with the lesson of Yamantaka. Meditating on my corpse. Seeing death for what it will be. For me. Not a time to fear but to include in the ongoingness of life. Whether darkness or reincarnation or sudden awakening in a different form. As significant as birth. As love. As justice. As compassion.

    Eudamonia comes from the Greeks. Aristotle. A cleaner, more as I experience the flow life way of approaching life’s purpose. Especially considering the longue dureé, how very important and mostly insignificant I am and will be. How I was before I was. If I was. The Mexica idea. Life is a dream between a sleep and a sleep.

    Being a Jew. Bathing in the waters of the mikveh. And in the community I find at CBE. And in the long, rich tradition of Jewish thought and ritual. Saying the shema in the morning and in the evening. Studying mussar. Friends.

    Hanging with the Ancient Brothers. With Diane. Friends and family over the years. Mary and Mark. My son and Seoah. Dogs.

    The Great Wheel and the pagan eye that finds the sacred, the divine right here on the surface of things where Tomatoes grow and Iris bloom and Rain falls and Wildfire burns.

    Following the Jewish liturgical year and the Great Wheel. Cyclical time. Not linear. More important to me. Though aging matters, too. I’m fond of the years I’ve lived. And the many, many lives known one day by one day.

    Of course, Taoism. Another way of understanding the unitary, yet always evolving one in which we move and live and have our becoming.

    With these ideas, these notions, this framing I find each day, each new life, a miracle. A time to savor. To not waste. To know as ichi-e ichi-go, once in a lifetime. And all beautiful. Wabi-sabi.

    My tao. My ancientrail. Herme’s journey.


    Art and Culture Asia Family Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Hermitage Holidays Judaism Mountains Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Reimaging revelation Shadow Mountain

  • Uncle Sam

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the 2% crescent of the Bar Mitzvah Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Irv, Paul, Tom. Rich. Joan. Jamie. Tara. Talking politics under the starlight with Rich. Rescheduling with Joan. Tara today. Driving in the dark. Going to bed really late. This July 4th, 2024 life. Dreams that may come. Joe Biden. The New York Times. Newspapers. Printer’s ink. Justifying the galleys. Linotype machines. Letter presses.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Journalism

    One brief shining: A dull steady drone, quiet yet woeful, persistent, challenges my hearing since I cannot locate the source which increases and decreases according to the position of my head, clamoring for all the attention I would rather devote to writing, in the background yet pushing itself into the foreground. Acchh.

     

    Wednesday. A busy day. Up sticks. Shema. Back exercises. Write Ancientrails. Over to Evergreen Medical for my Prolia shot. Back to Conifer, Aspen Perks for breakfast, pickup flannel shirts at the dry cleaners, ready for storage, back home to Leo. Get Leo’s stuff together for his Dad’s afternoon arrival. Read. Watch a little TV. Shower. Order from Beau Jo’s to pick up on the way to CBE. MVP. Then, a half-hour with Rich on the Supreme Court, Joe Biden and our hapless nation. In the parking lot, a warm Mountain summer night with a clear field of stars. Home around 10:30 pm. 2 hours past my usual bedtime. Oi. A little THC.

    Then up at 7:30. For the life that happens on July 4th, 2024.

    Happy birthday, Uncle Sam! Speech. Speech.

    Thank you. Thank you. No. Really. Thank you. (puts hands out, palms down. In response the crowd quiets.)

    I know. I know. This has not been democracy’s finest year. Anywhere. Except maybe Britain. A bit of a nod to India, too. Otherwise the forces of autocracy and prejudice, of chauvinistic religion have proved ascendant. Yes. I read the newspapers, too. Online of course.

    (crowd laughs)

    So. What to say. A time of peril for our government and its authority granted by the citizens of our nation. Raising the President above the law? That’s not an American idea. Remember King George? The divine right of Kings? No citizen, no matter what their title or station is above the law. I’ve said that over and over since the founding. A hard lesson, one that may seem too hard to some. But to me? Essential. Sine qua non.

    And on that divine right business. Who knows about divinity and what it wants or who it wants to lead? That’s why we established a government of the people, by the people, for the people so help us the non-intrusive god of the Deists who wrote our constitution. Now many of our citizens, in defiance of that bedrock principle, want to put so-called Christian values as superior, as national values. They even want me to preside over a Christian nation.

    No. I will not. I’m agnostic myself. Not to mention the Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Sikh’s, Jains, Taoists, atheists, humanists and who knows how many others. We are a quilt, a tapestry, not a pristine white altar cloth.

    Enough of that. I’m headed to Coney Island for a hot dog and some fireworks. Enjoy the 4th.

     


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  • Tree Time

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Flonase. Tree sex. Grass sex. Make me sneezy. Leo the gentle. Luke. With family in Florida. Mark dealing with loss in Hua Hin, Thailand. Seoah turning 46 this July 4th. Murdoch. My son, who cares for those who work for him. The unconscious. The collective unconscious. Archetypes. Dreams. Depth Psychology. Rollo May. Marie von Franz. James Hillman. Robert Johnson.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Sleep

    One brief shining: A mystery this slipping into the unprotected, vulnerable hours, extinguishing the busy scanning of the everyday for a nighttime swim in the inky waters of just our Self, a time for only you, only me, rummaging through the storehouse hunting matters that need healing or celebration or acceptance, speaking the language of symbol and emotion, of the deep you, attending to your Self in the inner cathedral.

    On my Lodgepole Companion the yellow male Flowers, catkins, have disappeared. The female ovulate Cones, red and swollen, fertilized, now dot the Branch ends, beginning the transition from female Flower to Pine Cone. These serotinous cones require fire to open them, a hot fire like one produced when the Crowns burn. Crown Fires burn fast, destroying acres of Trees at once. Stopping them tests the mettle of current Fire suppression techniques. Often the Crown Fires burn until they burn themselves out. As once they did always.

    Fire does not destroy the Lodgepole; rather, it opens their seeds to newly fertile soil. One Forest dies that another may be born. Not a lot different from the way death burns through a generation of humans, one generation dying, the other growing up in its stead.

    Annie Novak, the instructor in my Tree Communication class, cautioned us to notice our anthropocentric tendencies when talking about Trees, Plants. An example. We consider seconds, hours, months, years, decades, as important measures of time. How does a Tree experience time? Or, does a Tree experience time?

    Dendrochronologists may use Tree growth rings to accurately place an individual’s life span in our human history. The Tree growth rings themselves? Dead. The heartwood of a Tree functions as a Tree’s columnar support essential to support the Crown as it grows up and up. A key Tree strategy for access to Great Sol’s Light.

    Trees do move, up from their Seed toward the Sky, out toward the space around them, and down into the soil beneath them. But they do not move from their chosen location. They also grow in girth, expanding as the cambium produces xylem cells which push the width of the Trunk out as they die and form the heartwood.

    (NB for the Ancient Brothers. I misspoke about xylem cells. They die and become the strong support for the trunk. In the center of the heartwood xylem cells transport water from the roots to the leaves through capillary action.) The phloem cells, between the bark and the cambium (growing part of the tree), take sugars down from the Leaves and Branches to other parts of the Tree. It is the phloem and cambium that measure only a few human hairs in width.

    Since the heartwood and bark are dead (bark not always, see Aspens for example, but mostly), and the living part of the tree-phloem and cambium-have only a few hairs width presence in the huge structure of the Tree, what of the Tree might experience time? Do we consider the whole organism, which consists of mostly dead tissue, or do we consider the living cambium and phloem only? Perhaps the whole Tree and its growth rings simply are time itself measured in a Treecentric way?

    Lots to think about and I’m only one or two strides into Herme’s Pilgrimage. Where will Herme go?

     


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