Category Archives: US History

Family, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Korea, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Travel, US History

Is it time to go?

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Tuesday and the Moon of Tides

Monday gratefuls: Tara and Eleanor. Arjean. Costa Rica. Iran. U.S. Israel. Gaza. Lebanon. War and peace. Mark in Hafar.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Tara

Kavannah: Shleimut. My lev, calm. Clinical trial decision made. Living into the next.

Tarot: Knight of Vessels, Eel. My spirit, strong. My decisions, made. Old, not dead.

One brief shining: While I sit in peace on Shadow Mountain, Shadow gnaws a toy, asks for breakfast. Mary roasts in summer heat. Joe and Seoah shiver in a cold Korea. Everyone seems further away.

 

A conversation U.S. Jews. Is it time to leave? Is this a Weimar moment after Adolf took power? Friends Marilyn and Irv looked at land in Costa Rica. Decided not to go. Irv said he loved the mountains. Too old to leave.

Tara and Arjean. Have hired a property manager. Are cleaning out 27 years of stuff.  Move to Costa Rica sometime in June. Stay in AirBnBs as they scout for a place to settle. A year or so experiment.

Two times when I almost left the continental U.S. 1969. Got the call for my draft physical. To Indianapolis with all of my money and all my possessions. (not much) Would have moved to Canada like my old friend Mike Hines.

Turns out psoriasis worsens when wearing wool and in hot, humid climates. Army uniforms. Wool. Vietnam.

As I left the place where I’d had my physical, a serious man told me: “You cannot enlist in the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, or the Marines.” I asked him, “Are you sure?” When he said yes, I said, “Thank god.”

Second time. After Kate died. Joe and Seoah. Planned then to retire after Korea and move back to Hawai’i. Cleared out the house and garage. Researched places on Oahu where Kepler and I could live. Checked out synagogues. Studied my budget.

Jon died. I couldn’t leave Ruth and Gabe.

My sister and my brother, Mary and Mark. Long time expats.  Mary now in Melbourne and Mark teaching ESL to young Arab men. Joe and Seoah: Hawai’i, Singapore, and Korea. Nine years

State Department urges Americans to leave the Middle East. Mark stays. Hafar has no military targets. He lives among the Saudi citizens. Not in an Aramco US compound. An old Saudi hand at this point.

I’m the stay at home of a far flung family.

When is it time to leave?

 

For me. Not yet.

Ancient Brothers, Family, Fourth Phase, Friends, Politics, US History, World History

Holding Opposites

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Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

Monday gratefuls: Ancient Brothers. Shadow, my downward dog. Iran. Israel. U.S. Gaza. Hezbollah. A cool, dark morning.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  The Deep Blue Sea

 

Week Kavannah:   Shleimut.   The alignment of the inner self with outer actions, bringing a sense of completeness to life.

 

Tarot: Three of Bows, fulfillment       Teshuva, alignment between neshama and the Self, a power that flows through me.

One brief shining: Fulfillment. Satisfaction. Not happiness. Joy in writing with more precision. Nouns. Fragments. Revising, a process with which I still struggle. My Shadow life. My Ancient Brothers life. My Jewish life. Engaged with Iran and with Mark, close by in Hafar.

 

Painful. To see Iran and my Ancient Brothers. The same day. Mary, down under. Joe and Seoah far away. Mark far away from me but near war. Grocery shopping and day care. A man pets his dog. While death races along the streets of Tehran. The One, yes, but. Pain and love, together again. Always.

A danger. Exhaustion from the steady, too steady beats of killing, of government acting in Iran and not acting at home. Epstein files. Rising health insurance costs while medical care disappears. Hospitals close. Cost of living rises. The cost of war.

So easy to turn away from accelerating drought in the Rockies. From those who need the Mountain Resource Center. ECHO’s food bank. Easier to launch Cruise missiles, Tomahawks. Drop bombs.

Ruth coming up to make me breakfast. Her specialty, French toast. This Saturday morning. Gabe sharing the poems he wrote in Oregon. Ruth in college, Gabe getting ready. Their lives full with preparation. Classes. Applications. Learning. Testing. Readying themselves for a future with dramatic climate change, increasing acts against Jews and Blacks and Latinos. What they have been thrown into.

I work. My candle is lit. These words. Those words. A Hansel and Gretel trail leading to, leading to what? A record of an Alexandria boy grown into a man. A man who acted. In theater. On the streets. In the soil. On the page.

A man whose life unfolded in the shadow of war. Whose maturation, delayed, came when conservatives began to gain ground. In 1981 Joseph’s plane landed. The wicker basket. Reagan inaugurated.

Fatherhood. Joyous. Daunting. Inspiring. Joe turns 45 this year. Seoah 48. I turned 79. Ruth will be 20. Gabe 18. That thin, yet strong line of love expressed as Ruth masters chemistry, Joe watches North Korea. I learn to write.

Too late?

We braid our lives into each others. French toast. Sunday morning themes. Breakfasts at Aspen Perks. Eleanor and Shadow playing hard. Parallel. Our braids. Their braids. The wider world. Iran. Israel. Minnesota fighting ICE.

Ruth goes to class. Bombs drop. Joe goes to work. ICE leaves Minnesota. I write. Cartels ship fentanyl. No life independent of another. The web of life woven by photosynthesis, by kisses and hugs, by acts of war.

Life. Lived in paradox and irony. Always. Holding opposites.

 

Judaism, Poetry, Politics, US History, World History
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Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

Sunday gratefuls: A restful Sabbath. Tara’s home. Eleanor will come. Iran. Israel. U.S. Khamenei. Morning darkness. The power of myth. Rumi.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Superman

 

Week Kavannah:   Shleimut.   The alignment of the inner self with outer actions, bringing a sense of completeness to life.

Tarot: Six of Arrows, transition

My inner world. Moving to the clinical trial and to a focus on draft 2 of Superior Wolf. With confidence.

One brief shining: Fusing the clinical trial decision with the ongoing evolution of my writing style. A sail like the Six of Arrows, full with the winds of agency, of growth, of resolve.

When I was in college in the last millennium, I met four students who identified as Persian. 1967. Street theater. Guerilla theater. Their Tehran was a place of deep culture and tradition. Long standing Persian culture in contemporary dress. A place of creativity contained and encouraged. They inspired me, then involved in a theater minor and modern dance.

At each turn of Iran’s fortunes, from the self-coronation of the Shah to the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis and to this morning’s headlines, I go back in time to those vibrant students. Their Iran has always stuck with me, especially as the cold hand of Shia dogmatism tried over and over again to crush it.

Talk about civilizational erasure. Bearded clerics. Covering women. Killing dissenters. Funding resistance to Israel and to Sunni Islam. Hezbollah. Hamas. Houthis. Persian culture in a burkah.

Khamenei assassinated. A part of me is so happy. I imagine those students, now in their old age, feeling an opening, a moment for theater of the people. A theater of liberation, one opening possibilities. How I wish I’d stayed in touch, remembered their names.

Part of me grieves his death. Not as a rigid dogmatist, but as a man. His life stopped.

Yet another part of me gets a thrill seeing the muscular actions of the U.S. and Israeli militaries. Taking the fight to Iran instead of suffering blow after blow from terrorists funded by Iranian oil. Take that, fundamentalists. Oh, to live in a world of black and white. Good U.S. Bad Iran. Too old for that.

I admit it. I don’t know what to do with those parts of me. A long time anti-war activist. Fighting American imperialism decades before our own authoritarian grabbed power. Ironic. Work for self-determination. Vietnam. The Lakota. Persians in a closed and throttled Islamic state.

I will not even use war metaphors for cancer treatment. Not a fight, or a struggle, rather a wounding. Needs healing, not gun-boat metaphors.

The problem? A pre-emptive war with no defensive justification. Gun-boat diplomacy. Reactionaries succeeding. Naked imperialism. Might makes right. It doesn’t.

In this frame? A more intellectual reaction. I’m appalled. No matter the apparent rewards, reinforcing the king is bad. Bad for the U.S. Devastating for nations around the world. Don’t catch his attention.

We contain, as Whitman said, multitudes. I see mine in reaction to this brutal smackdown. The dominant male in me. Yes. Yes. Yes. A patriarchal part of me. One I know to not entrust with the steering wheel. In there though.

Dawn arrived on Shadow Mountain. Shadow got fed.

 

Friends, Music, Politics, US History, Writing

Bodies

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Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

Friday gratefuls: Rich on Wall Street, the national anthem. Wild Flower. Downtown Evergreen. Dr. O’Leary. No skin cancer.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

 

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Breakfast with Rich

Week Kavannah:   Bitachon. Confidence.     I need to focus on confidence this week. Important decisions for cancer treatment, how to stay confident when physical weakness challenges me.

 

Tarot: #6, The Forest Lovers

In my writing I’m learning to balance animus and anima, listening to both, especially as I link my work to the natural world.

 

One brief shining: Wall Street. More wicked than I knew. Built by slaves of Dutch owners, the first Wall Street. A stockade. In 1711 a slave market there, a city slave market. Rich taking his honors class from Colorado School of Mines. The Body Politic. Politics of the body.

Early breakfast with Rich Levine. The Wildflower’s door was open, so I went inside, sat down. Noticed on the menu: 7:30-2:00. It was 7:20. Oops. Owner came out of the bathroom, started. “You scared the shit out of me. Want a cup of coffee?” I did.

When Rich showed up, laundered and starched white shirt, blue Patagonia vest in 12 degree weather, I greeted him as a Minnesotan. Cold weather proof.

He ordered the Athena, a vegetarian omelet.  A Mountain Skillet for me, eggs and chicken-fried steak, wild potatoes, and pancakes.

Over coffee, while we waited for our food, Rich told me of his pending trip with his class, the Body Politic, to New York City. Most interesting to me? Wall Street.  Built by the enslaved.   Later a city slave market.

The owner of Wild Flower delivered Rich’s omelet, my Mountain skillet. “Ready for a refill?”

We ate.

Plantation cotton fed Wall Street’s growth. Eerily, I also discovered mortgage backed securities sold to foreign investors. The collateral? Enslaved people. Aetna insured the enslaved as property.

Rich also pointed me to later stanzas of the national anthem which include these verses:

“No refuge could save the hireling and slave

From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave”

The British armed the enslaved. We sang, “Sweet land of liberty.”

A couple more cups of coffee later Rich told me his Ob/Gyn daughter was pregnant. His second grandchild, a sister for one and a half year old Felix.

Bodies feeding. Bodies about to be born. Bodies aging.

We parted ways. Love you, Rich. Love you, Charles.

Started up a begrimed Ruby. Drove away smiling. Energized.

Rich wants to collaborate on Even the Gods Must Die, my first novel. Vulnerable. My first.  Not confident it shows skill. He says that doesn’t matter. It matters. To me.

Admission. I plan as many revisions to Superior Wolf as necessary to make it sing. Then. I’ll use ChatGPT to help me find an agent. A place I got stuck a while back.

 

Dogs, Minnesota, Politics, Seed Keepers, Tarot, US History

We Are the North Star

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Yule and the Moon of Deep Friendship

Shabbat gratefuls: A day of peace. Shadow and her cone, her brightly taped leg. Roxann. Tom. Jessie. Minneapolis. Resistance. In song and action. Red tie guy who could end this. The Federal Reserve. Washington Post reporters. Don Lemon. Cell phone videos. ICE. Border Patrol. Our poor benighted Republic.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Dr. Josy, caring vet

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Year Kavannah: Creativity.   Yetziratiut.   “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” ― Pablo Picasso

Week Kavannah: Tikkun  Olam. Repairing the world.

  • Lurianic Kabbalah: A 16th-century mystical belief that the world was created by divine vessels that shattered, scattering “sparks” of divine light. Humans perform tikkun by gathering these sparks through prayer and mitzvot.
  • Modern Social Justice: Since the 1950s, the term has become a shorthand for social action and progressive activism, such as environmentalism and human rights. 

Tarot: Nine of Vessels, Generosity

Generosity of Spirit: This card represents a deep, selfless love (agape) and a willingness to share one’s inner resources, compassion, and joy with the world.

Connection: This card emphasizes that sharing your emotional abundance fosters deeper connections with companions and the surrounding environment.

One brief shining: Non-violent resistance flows from nine of vessel’s energy, linking this peace seeker with that peace seeker in a chain powerful enough to hold back cruelty and hate, yet soft enough to ensure the well-being of neighbors in distress, and loving enough to re-place power where it belongs, in the hands of just folks.

Dog journal: Beginning the fourth day A.C. After the cone went on. Neither one of us like it much, only its proven medical purpose makes it and Shadow’s bandage bearable.

Going outside has become a chore. The bandage can’t get wet. That means I had to place the makeshift IV bag solution on Shadow’s injured leg. Difficult. I bought and received booties which are somewhat easier, but both require a lot of bending over and my right lower back does not like that. At all.

Only eleven days to go.

 

Just a moment: I can’t improve on this excerpt from a Krista Tippet Substack post forwarded by friend Paul Strickland. Her credo nourishes and promotes a way to heal our sore hearts:

…this is one of those moments when the strange and beautiful reality of the human condition rises in the face of what would deny it. In Minnesota, where I raised my children and grew this On Being Project, a world of care and dignity one human being towards another has flourished within and around all the images coming to us of violence and protest and despair. There are churches converted to food banks. There are families accompanying other families and neighbors delivering meals and other essentials to individuals who feel vulnerable for multitudes of reasons. There are strangers bearing witness, non-violently, as homes are approached and doors beaten down. There are teachers and librarians and healers stepping up to care for children and teenagers who are traumatized by all of this. I am hearing a thousand stories that are not making the “news” as I’m trying to follow it, but they too are the story of our time, and they are stories of what makes us human and humane.

I repeat: I cannot believe that this beautiful strangeness and complexity reside on one side of our political lines and not the other. A few years ago, I penned a few lines in this newsletter that have become my credo:

Enough of us see that we have a world to remake.

We want to meet what is hard and hurting.

We want to rise to what is beautiful and life-giving.

We want to do that where we live, and we want to do it walking alongside others.

We’re asking, where to begin?

We have a long way to go to find our way back to feeling our belonging to each other that has never stopped being true. But it is what we are called to. I cleave to my faith that there are “enough of us” longing to meet this calling.

The common ground of our sore hearts may be the place to begin, and return, and ever begin again.
Dogs, Minnesota, Music, Politics, US History

Action

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Yule and the Moon of Deep Friendship

Thursday gratefuls: Dr. Josy. Petscans. Glaucoma. Shadow enconed and bandaged. Tom. Roxann. Jessie. Bruce Springsteen, The Streets of Minneapolis. Resistance. ICE. Border Patrol. Alinsky, the action is in the reaction. Prostate cancer. Winter, winter where art thou? Amazon. Safeway. New Korean restaurant in Evergreen. Rebecca and Joanne. Tara.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: the action is in the reaction

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Year Kavannah: Creativity.   Yetziratiut.   “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” ― Pablo Picasso

Week Kavannah: Rachamim. Compassion.

While chesed (lovingkindness) often refers to a choice of action, rachamim is deeply tied to visceral emotion and empathy—feeling the pain of another. 

Tarot: #1, The Shaman

“The shamans unique quality is the ability to enter and commune with all levels of sentient life on the earth. It is he who shudders with the wisdom and joy contained in the haunting music of the whale song or whose skin prickles with arousal at the howling of the timberwolves. His soul reverberates with the unheard sonorous call of the mountains and smiles with pure joy at laughter of the waterfall.” Parting the Mist

One brief shining: Under the bed eyes glowing cone attached lay Shadow in her most secure most safe spot wondering wondering about the silly thing around her head about the bandage on her right front leg about her Dad looking at her and speaking softly.

 

Dog journal: Shadow came home, happy to see me, snuggled up in my legs, licked licked licked my face. If she wasn’t so furry, I might have done the same to her.

Dr. Josy said Shadow followed her around in the house. Wondered if she did the same to me. Was she anxious? No, I don’t read her that way. She wants to be in my vicinity, and when I sit down, she wanders off to do her own thing. Natalie, the trainer, calls Blue Heelers velcro dogs. Once they bond to you, you’re the center of their life.

This is gonna be hard. She needs to go out, yet have the bandage protected. Dr. Josy made a plastic leg cover out of an IV bag and tubing. Works, but I have to get it on her, my back not always a cooperator. Just two weeks. We’ll get by. Ordered some outdoor socks that will be easier to get on and off.

 

Just a moment: Saul Alinsky said the action is in the reaction. This basic principle of non-violent protest has played out once again on the Streets of Minneapolis. The violent, cruel, inhumane reaction of ICE and Border Patrol agents to the action of Minneapolis citizens has produced political pressure and a lot of it. Will it be enough to change the course of this thugee approach to immigration enforcement? I’m not sure.

My guess? Yes, for a bit anyhow. Yet. The entrenched callousness and ruthlessness of MAGA and their sorta leader, red tie guy, suggest they ain’t gonna wanna change for very long and no more than they have to.

Unless. More cities, more US citizens take to the streets. And if Democrats grow a spine. Push back. Possible. Just possible.

I’m attaching Springsteen’s song again just because.

Dogs, Far Right, Minnesota, Politics, Seed Keepers, US History

Always Looking for Minnesota

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Yule and the Moon of Deep Friendship

Wednesday gratefuls: Thomas Friedman. Paul Wellstone. Al Franken. Ilhan Omar. Hubert Humphrey. Walter Mondale. Rene Good. Alex Pretti. All the Minnesota resisters. ICE. Border Patrol. Minneapolis. St. Paul. Lake Superior. Up north. The Boundary Waters. Ely. Duluth. Grand Marais. The Gunflint Trail. Andover.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Resistance

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Year Kavannah: Creativity.   Yetziratiut.   “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” ― Pablo Picasso

Week Kavannah: Rachamim. Compassion.

While chesed (lovingkindness) often refers to a choice of action, rachamim is deeply tied to visceral emotion and empathy—feeling the pain of another. 

Tarot: Two of Stones, Challenge

Many challenges… are born of insecurity and subconscious issues…In the modern material world, where so much emphasis is placed on a show of power or wealth, it is often a perceived position or status that enflames… rather than the reality of a situation. Holding your own ground and defending your position at such times can be achieved by keeping in touch with pure and positive motivations and holding on to personal integrity and sincerity…Remain clear and focused on your objectives and stay firm in your ethical efforts to proceed… Parting the Mist

One brief shining: Dr. Josy led Shadow out on her yellow leash, the cut on her right front leg below the carpal pad too deep to repair at home; Shadow didn’t want to go, she snuggled up between my legs, looking up at me with those pleading eyes, Dad can’t you fix this?

 

Dog journal: Shadow cut her leg, not sure how. Going to check the Dog run today. A deep cut. Dr. Josy had to take Shadow home with her, to her office. She sedated Shadow and stitched up her leg. Shadow will be home this morning wearing the cone.

The last time a Dog looked up at me with those fix me Dad eyes Vega had just come home from the Bergen Bark Inn after Kate and I returned from Joe and Seoah’s wedding. Vega died that night from bloat.

Shadow’s leaving last night brought that right back to the surface. Many weeks after Vega’s death her plea for help would come in my mind’s eye. I’d push it away because the pain, the pain of not being able to help…

I learned a great life lesson with that memory. One day I decided not to push it away but to bring it back, to relive the anguish in her eyes, to relive the moment when Kate and I went to Sano Clinic and knelt together over her body, both crying, saying goodbye to a Dog with an outsized personality, a companion we loved. After recalling it, reliving the pain, I no longer needed to push away the memory.

Just a moment: Thomas Friedman* and Al Franken are good Jewish boys from St. Louis, Park. Both, like Paul Wellstone, another good Jewish boy, roughly my age.

Wellstone’s 1990 campaign, conducted from the back platform of his famous green school bus surprised Rudy Boschwitz, the two term incumbent senator. Wellstone won.

He drew on the same reservoir of left populist political attitudes that today fuel the non-violent protests against ICE, the Border Patrol, and red tie guy’s cruel policies. A sense of decency, of justice, of belief in the American dream, of belief in equality before the law runs deep among Minnesotans.

Why I wrote on the 16th, after the murder of Rene Good: If any state in the country can stand against this abuse of Federal power, it’s Minnesota.

 

*”Friedman: I will just say one thing about my fellow Minnesotans, who I’m really proud of for the way they’ve risen up against what is basically a deliberate provocation. Minnesota is a unique place.

I always tell people this story. When I was about 5 years old there was actually a Jewish Mafia in Minneapolis, and my dad grew up with a lot of these guys. They were mostly bootleggers. One day, when I was young, my dad came home and said one of his friends had been sent to jail. When you’re 5 years old and your dad says he knows someone who went to jail, it just blows you away. I said, “Dad, what did he do?”

My dad thought for a second. I was just 5. He said, “Son, he was shopping in a store before it was open.” That’s Minnesota for breaking and entering. It’s that kind of place.
Whenever people ask me where I’m from, I say, “Well, I live in Beirut or Jerusalem or Washington, but I’m from Minnesota.” And you will never understand my column if you don’t understand that. My column is called Foreign Affairs. It used to be, anyway. But it really should be called Always Looking for Minnesota.”  Interview in the NYT, 1/27/2025
Minnesota, Politics, US History

Love is the Power.

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Yule and the Moon of Deep Friendship

Monday gratefuls: Good sleeping. Cold weather. A bit of Snow. Shadow, sleeping. Roxann, recovering. Tom, too. Jessie. Alex Pretti. Rene Good. Minnesota strong. January in Minnesota. Marilyn and Irv. Tara and Eleanor. Paul, shoveler of Snow. Braiding Sweet Grass. Furious Minds. Prostate Cancer. Western medicine.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Minnesota

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Year Kavannah: Creativity.   Yetziratiut.   “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” ― Pablo Picasso

Week Kavannah: Rachamim. Compassion.

While chesed (lovingkindness) often refers to a choice of action, rachamim is deeply tied to visceral emotion and empathy—feeling the pain of another. 

Tarot: #6, The Forest Lovers

The Forest Lovers represent a positive spiritual force of creative emotional energy and a universal desire for harmony. The inhabitants of the Greenwood revere and respect the rites of love as the force that ensures the unfolding cycle of creation and emotional stability. Always bring the light of love with you; allow it to illuminate the darkest corners of your world and support you through whatever you set out to do.

One brief shining: Yogurt, yes, cheese and Egg burrito, yes, protein bar, yes, a tin of Sardines, yes and I’ve hit sixty grams of protein, ah, still finessing my diet, the biggest challenge of my life after Kate’s death, neither great nor bad, if not quite good, nourishment, I know. I know.

 

Tarot: I’m so glad I drew the Forest Lovers this morning. The Birch Tree wound with green Vines reminds me of Minnesota, especially the Arrowhead where Paper Birch, Aspen, Balsam, Spruce, Jack Pine, and White Pine continue the southern reach of the Boreal Forest, enclosing the many Lakes there and providing habitat for Moose, Wolves, Canadian Lynx, Black Bears, canoers, and other Wilderness loving tourists.

The reminder of Wild Minnesota and the reminder of the power of love to illuminate even the darkest corners of our world encourages me to see our political dark corner from a different vantage.

Non-violence as a strategy assumes power comes from helping others see the oppression, the injustice that can only endure when people of conscience look away, pretend it isn’t there. Non-violence chooses love as a healing force, as a way to make change, to be the difference the protester wants to see in the world.

There is an argument that non-violence cannot work in an authoritarian polity, like say Hitler’s Germany. If the ruling authority does not care about public perception, about individual human lives, then protest can be silenced either though violence or stopping it before it happens.

While it’s true that the Miller/Trump/Noem worldview reads as authoritarian, and that the leadership of ICE and the Border Patrol are outright authoritarians, we’re not Germany in the 1930’s. Not yet.

Why? Because there are still millions who love freedom, liberty, and justice. Sure most would rather ignore the immigrant among us. Many never encounter an immigrant, documented or undocumented.

But the love of our friends and neighbors in Minnesota will not let us look away. They brave the cold and the danger to awaken that ember within, to ignite a Wildfire of love that can burn down the twisted, dark forest of hate. Open your heart and you will become a wildfire of your own.

I will never forget Rene Good and Alex Pretti who gave their last full measure of devotion. I hope you won’t either.

Far Right, Fourth Phase, Holidays, New Apostolic Reformation, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., US History, White Supremacy

Values and Norms

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Yule and the Moon of Deep Friendship

Friday gratefuls: Shiva Minyan for Dick. Visiting times today. Ellen. Jamie. Russ. Asher. Isaac. Tol. Jonah. Mikaela. CBE. Shadow of the morning. Kate, always Kate. Gabe, looking at college. Minnesota melts ICE. Courage. Bravery. Resistance. Living from your nefesh. Refreshing the soul. Tom. Roxann.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Cold

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Year Kavannah: Creativity.   Yetziratiut.   “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” ― Pablo Picasso

Week Kavannah: Daat.    The Bridge Between Mind and Heart

“If Chokhmah (Wisdom/Inspiration) is a seed and Binah (Understanding/Analysis)  is the soil that develops that seed into a plant, Da’at is the nervous system that carries the vital life force from the brain to the rest of the body. It is the point of transition from “thinking” to “being.””

Tarot: Three of Bows, fulfillment

Meaning: Nourishment from a spiritual source gives inner security and joy. Goals and desires are reached, making life rich with emotional scrutiny and a sense of completion.

One brief shining: Cold Air descends to Shadow Mountain, a Snow Storm comes behind it, offering another reprieve from dangerous Wild Fire conditions; life here at Shadow Mountain home greets the cold and awaits the Snow with joy, displaying, as Mary Oliver put it, stars on our shoulders.

 

Funerals/Memorial Services: Had an insight about these rituals of remembrance. Yes. Helping family and friends grieve. Yes. Public acknowledgment of a loss and the beginning of a readjustment in the community. Who will we be without Dick. Important work, for sure. And well known.

Another, perhaps more subtle effect. The reinforcement of community norms, what we consider virtues. So, when Marilyn said Dick personified the mussar traits of humility, compassion, gratitude, and generosity, we learned to measure ourselves.

When Jamie said his father hated funerals, it gave us permission to hate them, too. When Russ talked about reading The Prophet with his father, reading and spending time with our parents while they’re alive got underlined.

This is not insignificant. I went to bed last night wondering how I showed up for others. Was I humble? Aware I did not show up for my dad. These tensions between our perceptions of ourselves and the virtues our community values become a growing edge for each of us. No. Not to wallow in regret or to compare ourselves against the life of another, rather to weigh ourselves against our own aspirations, our own behaviors.

Weddings. Swearing in of public officials. Baptisms and bris. Observing holidays. Protests. All have norm setting, norm reinforcing moments. It’s how we learn to be Jewish, American, Christian, Coloradans. Minnesotans. MAGA or progressive.

 

Just a moment: Nearing the end of Furious Minds, the Making of the MAGA New Right. Dense and scholarly, Field’s points to three main intellectual sources for Trumpism and MAGA. First, Claremont College and Institute, where paleoconservatives and downright scary thinkers gather and push each other further and further to the right. Second, postliberalism, especially the work of Notre Dame scholar, Patrick Deneen, in books like Why Liberalism Failed. Third, National Conservatism, in particular the work of Yoram Hazony as in his National Conservatism, Rediscovered.

We can add Field’s work to the Violent Take It By Force in which Matthew Stafford offers a summary of how the New Apostolic Reformation aided the success of MAGA at the polls and influences the Trump Whitehouse.

Over the next few weeks I’m going to, at times, pull the focus off the latest outrage to discuss how we got here. What are the sources, the political and mass movement impulses that have put us in such a dismal damned place.

Aging, Far Right, Fourth Phase, Friends, Politics, US History

Transformations

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Yule and the Moon of Deep Friendship

Thursday gratefuls: Rich. Dick. Tara. Laurie. Susan. Ron. Marilyn. Jamie. Joanne. Roxann. Tom. Shadow and her bone. The Dog run. Nathan. Kalispell. Dreams. Visions. Growing with the soul. Tarot wisdom. Furious Minds. The alt-right. The far right. DJT, wrecker of a nation. Rebuilding our country. NATO. Allies and enemies. Kong.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Minneapolis

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Year Kavannah: Creativity.   Yetziratiut.   “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” ― Pablo Picasso

Week Kavannah: Daat.    The Bridge Between Mind and Heart

“If Chokhmah (Wisdom/Inspiration) is a seed and Binah (Understanding/Analysis)  is the soil that develops that seed into a plant, Da’at is the nervous system that carries the vital life force from the brain to the rest of the body. It is the point of transition from “thinking” to “being.””

art@willwordsworth

Tarot: Ten of Bows, Responsibility

  • Prioritization: A call to assess what truly matters and learn to say “no” or ask for help.

One brief shining: One scoop, a cup, prozac in a pill pocket, crunching sounds, check her water, listen to her lapping it up until she comes next to me, asks to go outside, open the door, and Shadow disappears into the morning darkness.

Aging diary: No, not mine this time. Others.

Thinking about Dick’s sudden, unexpected death. A gut blow to his family and friends. Yes. As a way to die, which is something those of us in our golden years have to consider. And do, from time to time. Yes, please. Now I lay me down to sleep.

A friend, recovering from his own no good, terrible week, has his beloved suddenly scheduled for surgery. Aging demands so much of us at times. Collapses matters that would bring us to our knees in midlife into days and weeks of insults. Calls on reserves, resilience, often more than we may feel we have. When friends and family can step in, shore up the wave punished dock of our soul.

Another friend. Finally sold his business. This last month! So happy for him. A creative guy. Musician. Actor. Playwright. Scriptwriter. Author. Married to his best friend for forty years. Released now.

Go with your soul in all these instances. Link life changes to the deep purpose you and only you can fulfill. Then we can die with grace, console and comfort each other, once again let our soul free to create.

Just a moment: Our elected agent of chaos gives voice to and puts the unparalleled power of a waning hegemon behind racism, xenophobia, downright madness. An unwanted wrecking ball to years of liberal hubris. Imagining we could proceed with half measures, leaving out this constituency for the next one, not paying attention to the realpolitik of our nation.

We remain a creedal nation, one devoted to the dream of a place where many peoples have a chance, and only a chance, to learn how to live with each other in spite of the abysses of otherness. Somehow gaining strength and joy from staring right into the chasms between us, then eagerly building bridges across them.

I see today and yet hold fast to a new nation, one reimagined and committed to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. For all.