Category Archives: US History

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Politics, US History

Rise Up from the Grave

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Summer and the waning of the Bar Mitzvah Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Waste. Cool morning. Another quiet day on Shadow Mountain. Prolia for my bones. Leo. Being a Dog. The story of Gilgamesh and the great Cedar Forest.The New York Botanical Garden. Botany. Horticulture. Bees. Honey. Gardens. Andover. My ninja weeder, Kate. Vince. Evergreen Medical Center. Sue Bradshaw. Cancer.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Assertiveness

One brief shining: Hit the treadmill for 20 minutes, a set of resistance work, another 15 minutes on the treadmill, another set of resistance, 10 minutes on the treadmill, a long and tough session with Leo occasionally hovering over my face, licking it, telling me, what a good boy you are human.

How bout that Supreme Court, eh? A sudden shift in the substantive matters of our democracy. A strange and unwarranted granting of legal shields for the President. A gutting of the regulatory power of Federal agencies. Validating a cruel Oregon law against the homeless. Saying yes to the NRA in a First Amendment case. And so on.

Marry that series of rulings with the most important Presidential debate ever. See the confusing fallout from Biden’s performance. Giving aid and comfort to the MAGA camp and their long-tied, short-witted Jim Jones. Try to imagine what’s going to happen now. Hard to do. For me at least. 2024 will be remembered, there is no doubt at all. And it’s only half over. With an election still to come.

There’s a gospel hymn, Ain’t No Grave*. Some of the lyrics: Ain’t no grave can keep my body down, when that trumpet sounds I will rise up from the ground. I’m beginning to have the same feeling about the death of my America. There ain’t no far-right that can keep my body politic down. When that Anthem plays, we’ll rise up from the ground.

You see my heart, my lev knows that the politics of fear and cruelty, of laissez faire attitudes toward the predations of capitalism, of the unholy consolidation of power by far-right ideologues does not reflect either the purpose of our nation or the opinions of most of its citizens. We will be known now by whether we roll over, lay back in the grave or rise up.

I will not look for land in Costa Rica. I will not stop voting or agitating. I will not retire from the arena. I will not let the course of this change go unchallenged. My voice will be small since my life has Herme’s Pilgrimage as its main focus now, but my voice will never go silent. I will rise up from the grave of the America I once knew and fought for all my life.

A while back I mentioned the Storm Before the Calm by George Friedman, put in my hand by buddy Tom Crane. His talk of cyclical rather than linear pulses in our national economy and political life sees a vast change starting over the next 4 to 5 years. What’s happening right now has some characteristics of his work. He sees all this as an upheaval leading to a renewed and refreshed American democracy. May it be so.

 

*

 

Memories, Minnesota, Politics, Science, US History, Weather +Climate

I’ve seen Fire and I’ve seen Rain

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Summer and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Shabbat. Leo. Luke in Jacksonville. Ginny and Janice. The Blackbird. Kittredge. In case of flash flood climb to safety. Black Mountain Drive to Brook Forest Drive. Down the hill to Evergreen. Passing a green Arapaho National Forest. Full Streams thanks to recent Rain. Seeing individual Trees like the Ponderosa growing alone on the side of a Cliff.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rain

One brief shining: Leo sleeps on the rug next to the computer, dreaming of Luke and bones and tennis balls with squeakers in them while I hit first this key then that, glancing up to spend a bit of time with my Lodgepole Companion, looking past them to Black Mountain and beyond to the milky gray of a Cloud resting above it, wondering if that means yet more Rain.

 

We have had Rain. Seems like more than average though I can’t find data to support that. Hoping for a healthy Monsoon season which usually starts in July. Afternoon Rains. Whatever combination of precipitation types that keep our wildfire risk low.

The Cloudy weather we’ve had on occasion over the last couple of weeks reminded me of an early problem I had with Colorado. Too many Sunny days. I missed good ole Midwestern gloomy, overcast weather. Weather that meant I needed to stay inside. Read. Write. Cook. Sunny days meant I needed to be outside, enjoying the limited moments of great weather. Which meant. I constantly felt like I needed to go outside, not dither around inside. So much so that I longed for a stormy week loaded with Thunderheads and pelting rain.

Over that now. Except. When it’s Cloudy and Rainy. Then I revert to Midwest nostalgia, remembering Rainy days curled up in a chair reading. The world of the moment subsumed by the world of the text.

 

Just a moment: Yeah. He should step away. Too much confirmation of stereotypes and GOP talking points about his capacity. Yes, I believe he can still do the job. But I don’t see him or Democratic chances in November recovering from the debate debacle. We need to win this election. It matters and we all know it. If Biden can’t win, we need someone who can.

 

Friend Tom Crane found this. It had a profound affect on me as I watched it.

“About 12 seconds into this video, something unusual happens. The Earth begins to rise. Never seen by humans before, the rise of the Earth over the limb of the Moon occurred about 55.5 years ago and surprised and amazed the crew of Apollo 8. The crew immediately scrambled to take still images of the stunning vista caused by Apollo 8‘s orbit around the Moon. The featured video is a modern reconstruction of the event as it would have looked were it recorded with a modern movie camera…”  Astronomy Picture of the Day

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Great Wheel, Memories, US History

New Harmony. Fireflies.

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Summer and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: The Billy Joel/Paul Simon shabbat. Veronica. Tom. Paul. Joan. Irv. Kaddish. Yahrzeits. Numbers. Parsha Beha’alotcha. Lisa. The James Webb. The Hubble. Euclid. The context provided by the Cosmos. Storm Before the Calm. Election year 2024. The June 22, 2024 life. Mezuzahs. Orion. Betelgeuse. Rigel. Vega. Polaris. Arcturus.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Our magnificent, short, wonderful life

One brief shining: Each summer the ceiling fan in my bedroom makes sleep possible, yet it refused to turn on, so I called Altitude Electric who sent hipster bearded Karsten; no bueno, no bueno, he said to the work of the previous electrician who installed this fan, as he pulled its main body out of the ceiling and sparks flew, tripping the breaker.

 

Home. This and that. Ceiling fan that doesn’t work. Grass needed cutting for Fire mitigation. Marina calling to ask how my roof was doing. Mini-split filters need cleaning. You know.

 

Rappite Buildings, New Harmony***

On some long ago trip back to Indiana I made a brief stop in New Harmony. It sits north of Evansville in the far southern part of the state and far enough west to be on the Wabash River with Illinois on the opposite bank.

Whoa. What a place. Founded by Rappites, followers of a German Christian theosophist* and pietist, George Rapp, the Harmonist Society created three model communities, two in Pennsylvania and one in Indiana, now New Harmony. They held goods in common and were so successful in their business endeavors that Rapp sold Harmony, Indiana to Robert Owen, a Welsh industrialist. Rapp felt their secular success was compromising their religious mission.

Rapp moved the Harmonists back to Pennsylvania while Owen found a number of scientists, artists and educators who left Philadelphia on a riverboat, bound for New Harmony. It became known as the Boatload of Knowledge. Owen was a utopian who wanted to create a socialist society in his New Harmony experiment. The experiment failed, but not before the United States Geological Survey was founded.

Roofless church gate

In its latter day existence New Harmony has become a conference center, an open air museum with buildings from the Rapp and Owen eras preserved. It includes, too, a large labyrinth created by the Harmonists.

Phillip Johnson’s roofless church, a non-denominational walled compound, stands across the street from the Red Geranium Restaurant. Behind the Red Geranium lies Paul Tillich Park, the burial site of one of the twentieth centuries most prominent Christian theologians.

There is a short street that runs between the roofless church and Paul Tillich Park. One evening on a subsequent visit to New Harmony I left the Red Geranium at dusk after a tasty dinner. Strolling I went into Paul Tillich Park, read some of the inscribed boulders, left the Park and continued down the road. It didn’t go much further until it entered a grove of Maple and Oak and Beech Trees which arched over it.

Tillich Grave Site

Fireflies. Thousands of them. Lit the arched space over the road, giving it depth and wonder. My then immersion into Celtic lore meant I could only see this as an entrance to the Otherworld. Walking towards the grove, I imagined myself coming out in Faery where time passes differently and returning years later to a changed New Harmony.

Instead I chose to stop and enjoy this amazing sight.

 

 

 

*Christian theosophy, also known as Boehmian theosophy and theosophy, refers to a range of positions within Christianity that focus on the attainment of direct, unmediated knowledge of the nature of divinity and the origin and purpose of the universe. Wiki

**Philadelphia Academy of Sciences…President William Maclure, “father of American geology,” had gathered (members of the Academy) them all aboard the keelboat Philantropist [they used the French spelling]: scientists, artists, musicians, and educators, some bringing along their students, and all were eager to settle in Robert Owen’s New Harmony community on the Indiana frontier. JSTOR

***By Leepaxton at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9065488

 

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Holidays, Memories, US History

Memorial Day

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Monday gratefuls: Cool night. Memorial Day. Decoration Day. Parades. School’s over and summer starts. The World. Its many Wild Neighbors. Mountains. Lakes. Ponds. Tides. Tidal Pools. Forests. Trees. Plains. Rivers. Streams. Creeks. Meadows. Valleys. Cultures. Long evolution. Its oneness. Its holiness. Its sacred nature. Our Hullian needs. Our need for fulfillment and satisfaction.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Warriors

One brief shining: Those parades when heat softened the asphalt on Harrison Street so it could accept treads laid down by the tank from the National Guard Armory, when the guys carrying the colors insisted on wearing their old uniforms, pale stretched skin showing where the buttons held, only just, when last year’s homecoming queen sat prim and straight on the folded convertible top of an impeccably restored 1957 Chevy, when we would stand along the parade route enthralled.

 

Memorial day. Mom and Dad. Veterans of WWII. Uncle Riley, too. That generation that gave so much. War. A human horror engaged too often for too little reason. Though WWII was not one of those. To have had that great world spasm followed by the never finished Korean War and the unnecessary Vietnam War, then Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya has sullied the warrior class, making them too often pawns of geopolitical maneuvering by oligarchs, dictators, and short sighted politicians.

Yet. They persist. Often frustrated and hemmed in by those who misunderstand their role. As I once did. Warriors and priests. Old, old roles in human cultures around the globe. Both often abused. Both in my immediate family.

Easy to forget the purpose of the Lt. Col. who is my son. The USAF. Defense. Not offense. Oaths taken to defend the U.S. against all enemies domestic and foreign. Obedience to civilian authority delivered through the Commander in Chief, the President.

The military does not define who the enemies are. That’s a civilian responsibility. Often lacking in both reason and ethical justification, yes. But it is the civilian authority who aims and then empowers our military. Only then can they engage.

Warriors place themselves in harms way to defend their tribe, their people, their nation. This is an ancient and honorable role. Indigenous people in the U.S., in spite of their history, sign up in disproportionate numbers because the warrior class holds such high esteem in their cultures.

Yes, war is terrible and often, perhaps most often, wrong. That is, engaged not for defense but for seizing land, control of another people, for vengeance. For reasons of profit and misguided fears. For this last think the domino effect.

The warriors themselves continue on. Learning, training, readying themselves for what might be, for what even they hope may never be. Yet when called they will respond and respond with all that they have.

I’m not thrilled to have a warrior son. Though I recognize the selflessness of his choice. And the values which led him to choose service to country. I wish he could have become a social worker, a lawyer, a physician. He was pre-med before turning to the Air Force after 9/11.

Yet over the years I’ve come to appreciate the sacrifice in life-style, income, and personal freedom. I’ve met many of his colleagues and to a person they are warriors, too. Global politics are anarchic and still ruled by might makes right in the minds of many. We need a military, citizens willing to defend us.

They are who we honor today. Especially those who died as a result of their service.

All year after the parade we would drive over those tank treads, hardened into a feature of our main street. The slight rumble would remind us.

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Memories, Politics, US History

Old Self Surfaces

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Ancient Brothers. Socrates Cafe. Irv. A cool night for sleeping. Candles. Rituals. Sabbath. Writing. Hanukah. Yahrzeit. Kate, always Kate. Politics. Justice. A just society. Could happen. My Lodgepole Companion waving their Branches, soaking up Great Sol. Presidents. Politicians. Self-driving cars. Teslas. Electric cars. The old kind. Change.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Electric cars

One brief shining: Whoo, boy, every once in a while I put my foot in and forget to take it right back out, like yesterday at the Socrates Cafe when I, much to my surprise, felt a need to defend the reality of injustice and collective effort to remedy it, not my best foot to put in for the first time I showed up in person.

 

Underneath it all I’m still a pretty unreconstructed ’60’s radical. The establishment has the power, oligarchs and millionaire politicians make policy that fits their needs and fail to address the systemic nature of racism, sexism, classism, ageism, and the Great Work itself. The only way to alter systemic problems lies in the realm of politics, something even the MAGA folks seem to intuit. But not the folks at the Socrates Cafe.

This self, this radical self, mostly lies quiet these polarized days. Painfully gained higher emotional intelligence signals me when a situation will not be made better by my political analysis. And they are many. Something I often failed to notice in my working days. Yesterday though.

All my mussar work, all my realization of appropriate venues for political discourse got shunted aside when the majority of folks in the group took up the position that there is no such thing as right or wrong, justice is always personal and contextual, by which they seemed to mean relative to a specific, interpersonal situation.

I’m not used to having to defend the fact of injustice. Skin color for some was irrelevant. (Everybody was white.) It’s not possible to know the positive or negative effect of remedying injustice. (I have some empathy for this perspective, yet it’s an action killer.) Slavery didn’t matter. There was just nothing you could do unless you did it personally.

Acting justly in interpersonal situations? Of course. A minimum as far I’m concerned. Yet. Imagining that even the golden rule will change systemic, historical imbalances in our culture is naive at best and a form of denial at worst.

These folks all knew each other and have been doing this Socratic cafe twice a month since 2003. Afraid I violated their group norms. Didn’t mean to. But justice is a flash point issue for me.

All began because my question was chosen. The method is this: whoever has a question writes it in on an index card and turns it in. Jannel reads the questions through once. Then, the one who wrote the question explains how they came to it. After those explanations, yesterday there were six submitted questions, a show of hands votes each question up or down. 15 people in attendance. My question was: Is a just society possible? The consensus, btw, was a resounding no.

Judaism, Memories, Politics, US History

IMHO

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Beltane and the Moon of Shadow Mountain

Friday gratefuls: Snow, a Winter wonderland. Good sleeping. Alan. The Parkside. Back to it. Groceries. Mail. Life beginning to knit itself back together. Gaza. Israel. Biden. Orange one. Trials of. Japan. Korea. Taiwan. Hong Kong. China. The Philipines. The South China Sea. Vietnam. Cambodia. Thailand. Australia. Micronesia and Polynesia. The Pacific Rim.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Oxygen in the blood

One brief shining: Great Sol illuminates this Snowy world behind a cold white Sky, clouds like opaque linen handkerchiefs, my Lodgepole Companion with Snow and Frost on their branches, they do not look surprised, only resigned, not a usual look for mid-May, but not unknown either, the Mountains have their own weather, always, often surprising, one of the joys of living at altitude.

 

Both Mary and Mark have asked me to comment, compare and contrast the anti-Vietnam protest era against this one. A blue book question for this year’s contemporary Civilization final. I’ll add to it observations about the long decline of what I consider the value of higher education. I believe they’re connected.

Let me begin with some stipulations:

  1. I support Israel as a nation. This is not the same as supporting its recent military decisions. Which I don’t.
  2. I support Palestinian statehood. This is not the same as supporting Hamas. Which I do not.
  3. I have ambivalent feelings about the U.S. support of Israel’s ongoing invasion of Gaza. That is, I appreciate the U.S. helping Israel defend itself against terrorism. But we went along too far.
  4. I absolutely support students on both sides of the divide in having a right to give voice to their anger, their political analysis.
  5. I do not support anti-Semitism of any sort. Like “from the river to the sea.” for example.
  6. I understand the heat of the moment and the narrowing of vision that comes with all in commitment to a cause. It does not absolve any one of the necessity for critical thinking. (One of the values of higher education, btw)

Vietnam was, imho, a simpler issue. We were interfering in a civil war, one that had nothing, nada, to do with the U.S. Except our latter day role as the new France of Indochine. And we played silly buggers with the policy at every step. Including and most consequentially the Gulf of Tonkin resolution.

When we decided to enter the war ourselves, no longer limited to military advisors and weapons sales, we reinstituted the draft. Oh, boy. The Vietnam protests, like the Gaza ones of today, had a crucial flaw. Their flaw was the draft and its exemptions. All of us who protested were covered by a draft exemption as long as we stayed in school. That meant the war and its U.S. victims were going to be poor white and people of color who couldn’t get to college.

The Gaza flaw is a bit more subtle. Championing the rights of Palestinians against the Israeli bombs and tanks and invasionary forces so easily slips over into anti-Semitism. This is not an either/or. It’s not either Israel is put down and Palestinians lifted up or nothing. No. The issue is how to create a Middle East that can be a safe home for all.

That’s another post. Here I’ll just say that when a consensus occurs and forces coalesce the result has the power to shake the foundations of society. But not necessarily in predictable ways.

I feel our protests were more innocent, more focused on culture change, especially as they went on. Hippies and radicals. Feminists. Labor unionists. Religionists. We wanted to stop the US war machine, not the US itself. Though a few of us may have harbored ambitions there, too. I get the sense that the Gaza folks want to eliminate Israel. That’s when the whole effort crashes over into rank anti-Semitism. And is a major difference from the 60’s.

More to say, but enough for  now.

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Reimaging revelation, US History

Eternal Life

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Shabbat gratefuls: Morning pages. The Artist’s Way by Julie Cameron. The Socrates Cafe. The Morning Service. Bar Mitzvah prep today at CBE. Parsha Tazria. Lighting the candles. Saying the blessing. Learning my Torah portion. My son and Seoah’s 8th anniversary! Wowzer. Their meal yesterday. I have pictures. Murdoch at the Dog park. Honeybee rides. Scheduled for April 24th. Which, as it happens, is the wrong date. Sigh. I played with different dates. Didn’t check.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Torii

One brief shining: I look through the Torii that is my back door, seeing the deck and garage beyond, my gaze goes up, to the left and sees the mezuzah placed there by Rabbi Jamie not long after the Hamas raid into Israel, but this day I remember the Shema, that most prayed of all Jewish prayers: Shema Israel, Adonai eloheinu, Adonai echad, Hear O Israel, Our God, Our God is one, tucked into the mezuzah on a kosher scroll and that the mezuzah blesses each going out and coming in as sacred acts so I can look through my own back door from the inside and see a sacred outside, and through it from the outside and see a sacred inside, knowing then that all is one and all is sacred in this moment and in all others.

 

On this calendar Tom sent me. It is eternity now. Oh, well. That’s true. By definition. We don’t have to wait for our time in eternity. My Lodgepole companion and I exist in eternity, as do the brilliant rays of Great Sol shining on us both. As do all three mezuzahs here on Shadow Mountain. As does Shadow Mountain itself. And Black Mountain, too. All cohabiting in eternity.

Eternal life is this life, these fingers, this heart beating right now. Will my life as I am go on further into eternity’s vast expanse? Hell if I know. Yet I’ve participated in, been part of eternal life. So, maybe? A little bit of head scratching definitional play here. Sure. But, hey! We created the words and the ideas which they express. We might know more than we think we do. In fact I’m confident we do. Hope this eternal idea is one of those things in which we intuit more than we can express.

 

Just a moment: Biden creeping up on Trump. Oh be still my political heart. All we need to do is thump this orange tumor clothed in baggy blue with too long red ties. Thump him and his at the ballot box. Then we can get back to politics as forever changed, but perhaps not ushering in the American Empire quite yet.

Trump is no Caesar. On the basis of competence alone. I doubt he measures up to even Mussolini and Hitler. An inferior autocrat. That’s what he is. And he’s come along when a certain demographic felt hopeless. When all would be dictators arise. Tell me a story, a story in which I’m better than those other guys. Or those other women. Or those others. And I’ll vote for you. Always.

 

Mountains, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Sport, The West, Travel, US History, Weather +Climate

No Loyalty

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Spring and the Purim Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: My Lodgepole companion, Needles again covered with Snow. A cold Mountain morning. Remembering Andover (see header image). Being where you are. Wendel Berry. Regenerative Farming. Loving the place. Knowing the place. Where the Mule Deer come. Where the Creek blasts down the Mountain in Spring. Where the Dogwood blooms. Where Fawns and Calves move up and down the Mountains on wobbly legs.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Moisture on the Mountain and the Forest

One brief shining: You know I looked out at the Snow yesterday, falling sometimes gently, sometimes vigorously, and I thought beautiful, then when I saw the same Snow coming down on my driveway I screamed enough, no more, we’ve had plenty thank you very much, however; I did not mean it, I meant bring as much moisture as long as you can and I will be grateful.

 

Yes. Cabin fever time. That moment when what looked serene and beautiful a few short months ago now scrapes across the seasonal blackboard like bad chalk. Up here it produces a split personality. One tired of the cold, the Snow, driving on Ice, huddling up all about hygge. Wanting to run outside in a t-shirt, arms spread wide, soaking in Great Sol. The other remembering summers past when the Smokey the Bear sign pegged Extreme Fire Danger. Snow as far into April, hell, even May as you want. In fact, Snow until the Monsoons return. Please.

I’m cutting a middle ground between these two. Gonna take off for San Francisco at the end of the month. See a lot of art, maybe a Redwood or two, visit my cousin in her native habitat. Eat. Sleep. Test my back in a safe environment.

Of course. I would for sure wear Flowers in my hair if I had enough left. Gonna ride the Amtrak route between Denver and SFC. Really, Oakland, then a bus. Or, Diane. With a roomette. See the Rockies and the intermountain West without having to drive.

A way to discover if I can travel, probably back to Korea again. Maybe to Israel if this war ever ends. Perhaps this year for both.

 

Just a Moment: Caitlin Clark. Wow. 41 points. Final Four. Iowa! Once more, with feeling: Go, Hawkeyes! Iowa feels like Minnesota’s younger sister. Which would make Caitlin our niece? Always nice to see family doing well.

45. His $175 million dollar bond. His legal peril. Or, from the MAGA perspective, the persecutions not prosecutions.

Brother Mark asked if Trump won how would I be the loyal opposition?

I wouldn’t. Be loyal. Though I would be in opposition. Loyal opposition as an idea implies mutuality, a framework in which political opponents serve as testers of ideas, as citizens of a shared form of government. A form of government which all sides agree has the best interests of a nation as its true purpose.

Trump is not a politician in that sense. He is a politician though, one of the oldest kinds. A brute seeking total power. Power with which he can punish his enemies and reward his sycophants. Kings, Queen, Pharaohs, and Emperors, autocrats and dictators all are this sort of politician.

Loyalty has as its sister virtue respect. No respect for pussy grabbers, for those who provide safe harbor for white supremacists, misogynists, anti-Semites. No respect for insurrectionists, for anti-constitutionalists. No respect for frauds, for payers of hush money, for election deniers. Therefore. Q.E.D. No loyalty.

 

 

Colorado, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Jefferson County, Judaism, Minnesota, Mountains, Plants, Shadow Mountain, The West, Travel, US History, Wild Neighbors

New Identities

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Spring and the Purim Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Yet more Snow! Today. Blue Colorado Sky with scattered white Cumulus Clouds. The Ancient Brothers. Hafar. K.L. S.F. Maine. Minnesota. Jackie in Bailey. Aspen Roots. Kissing Frogs. Movies. Nights. Days. Resurrection. A new life. The Shema. Full days. Travel. Dogs. Marilyn and Irv. The Socrates Cafe. Meeting new people.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Questions

One brief shining: Each month I drive eight minutes from Shadow Mountain to Aspen Park, going by the new bakery the Wicked Whisk and my old personal trainer at On the Move Fitness, past the physical therapists who got me through knee surgery, to the never in my time up here full suite of offices and business that contain the Pinball place, the massage folks, a live theater, Thai 202 which makes the wonderful Crying Tiger, and hop up the stairs to Aspen Roots where Jackie cuts my hair and tells me she loves me which I say back.

 

Long enough now. Long enough for relationships to have come and gone. And for some to remain. My tenth year on Shadow Mountain, begun last Winter Solstice. This is where I live, a Coloradan, a Westerner, a Mountain dweller. All distinct identities created by geography and geology and the human imprint on both.

As a Coloradan I inhabit a former red hate state, transitioning to a blue progressive state. As a Westerner, I have heeded Horace Greeley and gone west though not as a young man, but as an older one. Greeley, Colorado* is named after him. The Western identity has a good deal of complexity to it as does Mountain dweller.

To be a Westerner means to enjoy the benefits of manifest destiny, of the push west of the frontier, the railroads, those seeking gold, those fleeing law or custom or poverty in the the East. Of those who slaughtered the bison and the indigenous populations who lived here before we arrived. Those who clear cut the Front Range to build Denver and the many, far too many, hard Rock mines that pollute the Creeks, Streams, and Rivers here. The Western U.S. We who arrived later are not innocent. Yet no one is innocent. Either here or there.

What happens now. What we do today. Who we are in this moment matters, too. We are the stewards, the fellow travelers in this magical wide open place. We are responsible for what happens here as are the Wild Neighbors, the Forests and Streams. The descendants of all those who lived here long ago and all those who altered the landscape not so long ago. We must build the sustainable way for humans to live here for as long as human beings can live.

The Mountain Dweller is the most personal of these three identities and the most narrow, representing that place where I live and love and have my becoming. Each day my eyes open to the top of Shadow Mountain, to the taller prominence of Black Mountain, to the Lodgepoles and Aspens that cover them both. My lungs take in the scarce air of 8,800 feet as I set aside my nighttime oxygen canula. Often Mule Deer will be around, hunting for grass.

To go anywhere. To see Jackie at Aspen Roots. To get groceries at Safeway. To breakfast with friends. To the synagogue. To the doctor. I drive on Mountain roads. Two lanes, blind curves, sudden changes of altitude, vistas opening and disappearing.

Mountains whose names I do not know rise on either side, the Streams that drain them flowing often near the road itself. Sometimes I am up high and able to see for miles, then I go down into constricted views of only Rock and Trees. All the while, not far off the road Wild Neighbors living their wild lives. Beavers damming Streams, their Ponds. The Mountain Lion on a rocky shelf waiting for Elk or Mule Deer to walk below. In my own way I appear and disappear from view around curves, into a valley, only to suddenly reappear in Evergreen.

How have these three identities changed me from the sea level view of life that was my birthright as a Midwestern boy? I’ve become more of a spectator of life outside of the Mountains. Back east. Or on the coasts. They are not close to me, and their struggles seem far away. My world has become more focused. There are fewer people out here, less urbanization, less agriculture. In those senses the Colorado/Western/Mountain world was unfamiliar to me.

I live within a smaller world altogether. My fourth new identity, that of a Jew, makes this world, this more narrow and circumscribed world, a friendly and friend full one. As has the nine years plus of living here, making connections like Jackie. And now the Socrates Cafe. This is important because, like most of us who live up here, going down the hill is not appealing. And that’s where the bon vivant of urban life plays out. Even for those things I enjoy I have to factor in a long drive in and a long drive back. Most often the positive gain is too weak to justify the hassle.

For me. Today. This Colorado guy, this Western guy, this Mountain Man has found his spot and become one with it.

 

 

*Greeley began as the Union Colony of Colorado, which was founded in 1869 by Nathan C. Meeker, an agricultural reporter for the New York Tribune as an experimental utopian farming community “based on temperance, religion, agriculture, education and family values,” with the backing of the Tribune‘s editor Horace Greeley, who popularized the phrase “Go West, young man”.[7][8][9] wiki

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Politics, US History, World History

I sense you’re slipping…

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Spring and the Purim Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Marilyn and Irv. Bill and Carol. Lea?, Lila? and Rider. Covid booster. The Morning blessings. The Shema. Snow. Slowly sublimating. (Which, I just learned, takes 7 times the amount of energy that boiling water does!) Knife handling at Evergreen Market. Rebecca. Safeway. John Connolly. Books. Still arriving. Breakfast. Waking up.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Dogs

One brief shining: Wandered in to the Safeway, past the Ugli fruit and the Dragon fruit, past the eggs and the dairy case, walked up to the counter, I have a 10:30, all we have is Moderna, that’s fine, off to the small waiting area with chairs, ten minutes later a quick oddly painful jab, thank you.

 

Still wrassling a sense of diminishment, a sullen colored mood that feels like a slight weight on my shoulders. Thrashes my self, my soul leaving them tired, exhausted even at the start of the day. Dawn does not come up rosy fingered, but scratching against the darkness, bleeding into the Forest, silhouetting Black Mountain rather than revealing. Makes me want to sit down, lie down. Go back to sleep.

Might be my long exercise drought. Two weeks ago I stopped because I didn’t want to irritate my bowels while they healed. Then the snow came and I can’t get up to the loft. Sleep is not as good. Not bad, but not good either. Or anemia. Or some mysterious dark haired revenant from my shadow. Could be cabin fever, too. Lot of staying in over the last couple of months. Might need a vacation. Probably do. Almost certainly do. So what’s stopping me?

Inertia. My back. Winter’s tenacious though now tentative grasp. In other words, nothing.

Whatever it is, I feel like that guy in the old Pogo cartoons who walked around with a rain cloud over his head. Not. Much. Fun.

I also know this will not last. If Kate were here, she might be telling me, “I can sense you’re slipping into melancholy.” Guess she is here in my heart, telling me that, isn’t she?

 

Just a Moment: Could also be the steady fall of disappointing rain from America’s election 2024. Friends are going to Costa Rica to check out land. In case 45 turns into 47. Intelligent, rooted friends. Don’t want to live out their sunset years under an autocrat. Not hard to understand though I feel no pull in that direction.

Or, maybe the politics of Israel, the U.S., Palestinians. When was the last time a majority leader of the Senate spoke for regime change in a country that has been and is our ally? I agreed with Schumer, btw. Netanyahu bought and paid, literally, for this disaster and sustains his time in office only through the cheapest of political maneuvers.

Might it also be articles titled like this: Why we shouldn’t give in to climate despair.

Sure these everyday on the frontpage news items are not Zoloft for my mood.

 

And yet. I’m not my reactions to the news. I’m not my fatigue. I can choose a different path. So. I will.