Category Archives: US History

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Soul

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Fall and the Moon of Radical Change

Sunday gratefuls: Jon, Ruth, Gabe. Kate. Jon’s drawing for the gate at the bottom of the loft stairs. Ruth’s Apple fritters. Easy Entree’s beef stew. Borgen. Kate reading Jennie’s Dead, what’s written. The 8 point Buck in the back yard. Kep trying to decide what to do.

“When I think of soul of the nation,” Joy Harjo, the United States poet laureate and a Muscogee (Creek) Nation member, said, “I think of the process of becoming, and what it is we want to become. That is where it gets tricky, and that is where I think we have reached a stalemate right now. What do people want to become?” Elizabeth Dias, NYT, 10/18/2020, Biden and Trump Say They’re Fighting for America’s ‘Soul.’ What Does That Mean?

Highly recommended. Elizabeth Dias is smart and knows her soul history. Of all the wonderful reflections on what the soul of the country might mean, I found Joy Harjo’s the most cogent.

Our soul, our American soul, becomes knowable in the thousands of tiny decisions, and big ones, that we make every day. Where do we live? With whom do we live? What do we drive? What do we eat? For whom do we vote? Who deserves our attention?

It’s possible, in a country as affluent as ours, to get lost in the tiny decisions. Will we wear a mask? Whose mail do we read? Whose products do we buy? Where and how do we get our healthcare? These are all important questions in our daily lives, but we often forget that the aggregate of our choices has enormous consequences for our mutual well-being. If we don’t pay attention, we forget the other, imagine that our choices matter only to us, only to the ethical framework of our family, our work, our small community.

One way to infuse those tiny decisions with broader meaning is to become intentional about them. Remember think global, buy local? If you want peace, work for justice? Do I buy the gasoline powered car or do I buy the electrically powered car?

Our national soul gathers force, gathers power, gathers momentum for change in these choices. Easy to forget. And, I agree with Harjo that we’ve reached a stalemate of sorts now. Our attention has been distracted by 2020.

What’s next? Locust? Volcanoes? Asteroids? No. What’s next is November 3rd. This is a big decision. But it will be our collective choices that make it. America will announce to the world the state of its soul’s health on November 3rd.

Is our soul just an enlarged continuation of the white male project? Or, do others have a voice? Do those who value community, diversity, globalism have the strength to redefine our soul. We will see.

Memories, Politics, US History

America, America

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Fall and the RBG Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Peanut butter and bread. For Rigel’s pills. Working for now. Kate’s conversation with Annie and her other sisters. The polls. The bugs me a lot distrust I have of them. The black, black sky and the stars, the millions, the billions of stars. Clear now.

Been thinking about America, this land I love, this nation, my nation. Our nation. Will we transform into a large simulacrum of Britain? A once mighty country brought low by its own perfidy and a too rapidly changing world? I hope not. The Plastic Hour article by George Packer gives us this one chance to turn away from that fate. We need to take it.

Not sure when I first knew I was an American. Maybe during one of the Decoration Day parades in Alexandria? Or, when Mom or Dad would talk about World War II. Mom on Capri. In Algiers. Her signal corps job. Dad dropping flour bombs on troops in training, flying folks on the Manhattan project. Air taxi. Talking about flying.

Maybe it was late at night when the TV stations turned off and the flag would wave, the National Anthem playing in the background, then the ironic screen image of a bonneted Indian Chief. Not sure.

I do remember the first day I learned our nation could be bad. It was in the summer of my seventeenth year, the same year my mother would die. We were in Canada again, Stratford, Ontario. The Shakespeare festival with its then new theater shaped like a crown. Those road signs with a crown on top of the number.

The Black Swan Coffee House sat near the Avon River in a green sward. Before Starbucks, before Dutch Brothers, before Caribou Coffee. Back then coffee houses had folk music, tables with candles. Were often dark, gloomy places. No chains that I recall. Independent small businesses dedicated to a counter culture before the one that emerged later on those same 1960’s.

I went alone. A place filled with foreigners. I felt brave. Got hot chocolate, coffee hadn’t entered my life. Sat down at a table by myself, took in the atmosphere. No coffee houses in Alexandria.

A singer came on stage and sang a protest song. Against the U.S. presence in Vietnam. It shocked me. An electric jolt. They’re criticizing my country. MY Country! I was an outsider there. An American. No one was thanking us for beating Hitler or stopping Japan. The singer said leave Vietnam to the Vietnamese. I did not know we had troops in Vietnam. I did not know that two years later my voice would speak the same words.

There were those other ways I learned my country. Watching American TV. Going to drive-ins for a hamburger, fries, and a milkshake. Paying close attention to the Greatest Spectacle in racing, the Indianapolis 500. Listening to the Dodgers on transistor radio while I delivered the Alexandria Times-Tribune.

Those times I got on the Greyhound bus at Mr. Stein’s Tailor Shop. Fruit on my lap. Headed across the vastness of this country to Oklahoma. On the train later headed to Arlington, Texas. This nation filled my nostrils as bus exhaust. As a conductor checked tickets. As I watched Illinois and Missouri roll by the window. Merrimac Caverns. Frankoma Pottery. The Tulsa Turnpike.

The United Auto Workers Union represented the parents of most of my classmates. Its decisions, its bargaining had a direct and positive effect. A house, a vacation place, a car, medical care, retirement pension, affording college for their kids. I left town before the U.S. Auto industry began to shrink in the wake of foreign competition. But, even those troubles reinforced my vision of American life.

Our life in these United States has been the envy of the world. Now journalists from other countries write articles pitying us. My early immersion in American culture, we each had our own, feels warm and fuzzy, a cloak of identity that wrapped around my psyche, shaping it, nurturing it, so a vital part of me feels sad when I read these opinions.

There’s more but I’m written out for this morning. What do you think of as the American Way?

Music, Myth and Story, Politics, Science, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History

The Plastic Hour

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Fall: RBG Moon, Mars, Orion, and Venus in the morning sky

Friday gratefuls: Savannah, nurse at Cherry Hills. Dr. Gustave. Sandy, the nurse anesthetist. Right eye cut and healing. Zeiss. Alan. The intraocular lens. Those who invented, designed, and made it. Annie and Sarah. Kate, her wrist calming down. Carne asada from Tony’s.

Right eye patched. I see Dr. Gustave today at 10:30. A familiar routine. Even with the right eye still dilated, I can see the words I type with clarity. Not before, not without glasses. And, even then, fuzzy,

I feel younger. Silly? Yeah, but I feel it anyhow. I’m ready for a bonus round with life.

Wondered what it meant to have Johnny Nash, the singer of “I Can See Clearly Now”, die in between the surgery on my left eye and the right one.

Checking on the idiot. Give me a sec. OMG. He’s worse. Prosecute Biden and Obama. A rally in Florida on Sunday. Won’t debate virtually. Going out in public when he should still be in quarantine. No boundaries. No sense. Aarrggh.

George Packer writes for the Atlantic. In the Plastic Hour, he wrote himself into hope after dispirited articles: “We are living in a failed state”, “Failure is a Contagion”. and, “The President is winning his war on American institutions.” He’s brilliant and has a feel for this time we’re in. Recommended. And, if you read it, what do you think?

Aging, Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Family, Feelings, Health, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History

RBG and Mars

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Fall The Full RBG Moon and Mars

Saturday gratefuls: Kate’s better breathing, stamina. Easy Entrees Oktoberfest meal today: Pork Schnitzel, Bavarian Pretzels, and German Cucumber Salad. Prosit! Sukkot. The Sukkah is up at CBE. Harvests all round the world. Confirmation on masks, social distancing, staying away from crowded enclosed spaces. My new lens. My new cheaters. Fall. It’s courage and sadness.

The alignment this morning of the full RBG Moon and Mars happened just over Black Mountain, a bit to the northwest. Beautiful in the early morning sky. Mythic, too. The warrior God of ancient Rome and the warrior Woman. Anima and Animus. The full power of masculine and feminine writ large. A good time to remember that this miserable administration has only a few weeks to its reckoning.

No. I don’t relish Trump’s struggle with Covid. Not when I view him as just a man. I neither wish nor celebrate suffering on anyone. Sure, I might joke about it, but in the end, no.

As a scumbag President, cheerleader for the Proud Boys and the Klan, as a misogynist, a racist, a mocker of the disabled, and as an ignorant man in a job that requires learning though, I’m glad he’s sidelined. May he be out of the picture long enough to ensure his defeat.

Saw Dr. Gustave yesterday. Still at 20/25 for distance. He seemed disappointed. I’m not. Things are so much clearer. Colors are brighter. The World has a certain freshness to it. It seems younger. Cataract surgery gives me a boost mentally.

Had to sign permission for my right eye to get cut. Acknowledge that I still had blurry, hazy vision in it. Forms and checklists, scheduling. The usual morass of American medicine.

I won’t rant. I won’t. Yet, for all the questionnaires, all the releases signed, the same ones over and over, the system, well, no, not a system, the chaotic, entangled delivery of medical care here in these United States, medical care itself is often thwarted rather than delivered.

If you’ve followed this blog at all, you may recall my struggles with the axumin scan and subsequent imaging. Kate still has no wheelchair. She went in Wednesday and got prepped for an unnecessary procedure, called off before it was about to start. Why? What caused her shortness of breath that has now abated? Will we get a referral to Dr. Taryle to answer those questions? Unclear.

The referral system demanded by insurance carriers is at the heart of all this trouble. It’s the way we curb medical costs. They say. It’s the way they guard their profit margin, I say. Wish we could just get Marine One to pick us up at our front door and deliver us to the doctor or the hospital. That we could get the same kind of care as the President. That all of us could get that kind of care.

Delay, denial, and skepticism are the main tools of this failed institution. Sure, there are doctors who know what to do, hospitals that deliver excellent care, but how can we access them? The burden of making the system move too often falls to the sick one. This is cruel and inhumane.

Hoping for a massive and radical change in how Americans receive medical care. Vote. That’s a start.

Aging, Dreams, Family, Feelings, Garden, Great Wheel, Health, Jefferson County, Mountains, Myth and Story, Original Relation, Our Land and Home, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, The West, Third Phase, US History, Weather +Climate

Springtime of the Soul

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Fall and the RBG Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Thoracentesis. Valet who got our car from a distant garage. The imaging employee who found an unused machine for Kate’s catscan. Phase two of the three stage plan done. Remembering to take out the blue foam. Clear vision. Michaelmas yesterday. Cool morning.

Michaelmas. The Saint’s Day of the Archangel Michael, he of Lucifer ejecting mythic fame. God’s great warrior. Also the name of the first term in British colleges and universities.

But best of all, the springtime of the soul. Rudolf Steiner. The growing season has finished. The external world had its glorious moment at the Fall Equinox, the celebration of the harvest. The body will be fed.

We turn our attention inward after Michaelmas. The nights grow longer, the angle of the sun shortens, and the days grow cold. Courage and sadness. A touch of melancholy encouraged.

When we drove down the hill yesterday, golden leaved Aspens had burst out among the Lodgepole Pine green. Framed by a typical clear blue Colorado sky the beauty made me gasp.

The beauty, the chill in the air. We know its brevity, like the beauty of the young. Those Aspen speak from the sides of Black Mountain, Conifer Mountain, Shadow Mountain. We are done now. Good bye. See you on the flip side. Their golden glamor a farewell to summer.

We know it. Many falls. The outrageous, over the top color of a Midwestern fall. The remnant of the Big Forest, the one that stretched from the east Coast to the Plains. Before the modern era a squirrel could travel tree to tree from the Atlantic to the Great Plains without ever touching the ground. So much melancholy in those colors, the abstract landscapes of a vivisectioned ecosystem.

Piles of Leaves in the yard, on the Forest floor. Running, jumping, landing in the piles. Dogs racing into them, through them. Do you remember, as I do, burning Leaves in the street? An acrid smell combining with earthy wetness. A strong seasonal memory.

One day soon Winds driven by the Cold slumping down from the Arctic will strip them all, Maple, Oak, Ironwood, Elm, Ash, Locust, Hickory, Sycamore, dislodge their Leaves and the tree naked against the coming winter. The Aspen gold rush will disappear and only the ghostly gray-white of their Trunks and Branches will remain.

A woman I learned ritual craft from thought this denuding of the deciduous Trees might explain Samain and the Celtic belief that the veil thinned between this world and the next during the transition.

Kate’s sister Sarah married Jeremiah Miller. A painter. Before I met her, Kate bought two of his very large paintings. One hangs in our bedroom. In it the Sky is a gunmetal blue and its complement of cumulus Clouds show as reflections in a Pond. Both Sky and Pond show through a Forest of bare Trunks and Branches, a before Winter comes scene we see all year.

This turn of the Great Wheel follows the gradual waning of the Light until the longest Night, the Winter Solstice. What better time for introspection, for the Soul to rise?

May this season of the Soul’s Springtime give you what you need for the next months and years of your journey, your ancientrail.

Commentary on the news, Politics, US History

Our Id. Our Shadow

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Fall and the RBG Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Mountain Waste. Amy’s Cheese Enchiladas. Orion. The dark. The night. Amber. Dr. Gustave. Cataract surgery. Cataracts. Maxwell Falls, upper and lower. Shadow Mountain. Its solidity. Welcome, Fall. The Harvest. The turning of the Aspen’s high up on Black Mountain.

Oh. As the evangelicals love to proclaim, we are being tested right now. Can this nation, or any nation, live divided? Trumpian fingernails, worn near the quick, scrape across the blackboard of TV and written news. One insult after another. Bad ones. The action is in our reaction.

With the pandemic already heavy on our souls, the death and replacement of RBG feels like too much to bear. As if the heavens have opened and instead of compassion and grace, their god sent psychopathy and misery. Is their orange deity this powerful? Is he this tone deaf to his electoral defeat, his trashing of religious values, his arrogant misogyny? Yes, I guess he is.

The Chinese find courage and sadness in the fall. I do, too. This fall. Right now. Today. This moment. Sadness and just behind it anger. Courage, too, though. I will not retreat into despair or lose my love of this nation. I will not lose my core belief that we are all in this together as creatures of mother earth, of this vasty and mysterious universe.

Trump is, I guess, this nation’s id, forcing us to confront our shadow, our long and shameful treatment of those different from our white Anglo selves. If we can stand the chaos, then there are great days ahead, because this shadow has the energy to carry us into a new era. Not quick, not today, but in the weeks and months to come.

This means that no matter the results of this action or that we hold tight to our dreams, to our children, to the future. We continue to act, to push ahead. Not for any particular result, but because it is who we are and how we stay with the pulse of change.

Commentary on the news, Politics, US History

The Anvil

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Lughnasa and the 5781 Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Jon and Ruth cooking lunch up here yesterday. Gabe asking me to sharpen the knife I got him. (which made me think about starting a charity, Knives for Hemophiliacs). Jon getting the new axle on his Subaru. Kate’s calm during the visit. RBG. Orion. Four Republican Senators. With courage and heart.

Kate lost sleep after RBG’s death. Tom, profoundly sad. Our nation has begun to grow up when a woman’s death has serious political consequences and her life defines a role model for men and women, boys and girls. The contrast between her 100 pound frame and what it contained with the 240 pound frame of the orange one and what it contains. Well.

The political struggle over her Supreme Court seat may define us as a nation every bit as much as the election on November 3rd. Hypocrisy’s seat is already taken by Mitch McConnell. Trump’s callous disregard for real heroes and for the country’s well being will be on full display. A Peacock of Presidential disdain. The Republican party’s soul, what tiny shred of it still hangs on, will get a chance to grow. Or, finally sink into oblivion.

My first reaction was to turn away, hide myself. My Trump scarred psyche didn’t want to face the next few weeks. They will be painful in the extreme. At least for me. Decency is in retreat. Honor gone. The nation’s well-being headed for a storm sewer.

Who can stand up now? Who will? The answer to these questions are key. Lisa Murkowski. Susan Collins. Two more at least are needed. Cory Gardner, maybe?

Let it be that the contest over RBG’s seat becomes the anvil on which our restoration gets hammered out.

Cinema and Television, Commentary on the news, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Friends, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History

An Age of Wonders

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Lughnasa and the 1% crescent of the Labor Day Moon

Thursday gratefuls: A better day for Kate yesterday. Chewy prescription order shipped. Mahi-Mahi in tomato sauce. Easy Entrees. Mary, Mark, Diane. Generous, kind. Tom and his knotty gift. Knotical. The Ancient Ones, my FFs, friends forever. Alan. The compounding pharmacy for my surgery eye drops. Rigel, the Yipper. Kep, the Snuggler.

An age of wonders. Peak TV. There has never been so much good television, ever. And, there might not be again since Netflix spends money as fast as the Mississippi flows into its delta. Right now I’m watching the Turkish series, the Gift, an English limited episodes drama, The Third Day, and the Sony production, Away. The Gift and the Third Path fall in the folk horror genre, like the movies Midsommar and the Wicker Man. Away stars Hilary Swank as commander of the first expedition to Mars. Great Britain and Korea also make compelling television.

Every Tuesday morning I speak with cousin Diane in San Francisco, sister Mary in Singapore, and brother Mark in Riyadh. At the same time. With video. On Sundays I speak with the Ancient Ones, my FF’s, friends forever, in Minneapolis and Maine. Every other Thursday Alan Rubin and I have a video chat. Without Zoom the pandemic would be so much worse.

Another wonder. I wonder who will rid us of this troublesome President? Several million of us, I hope. Gotta work to make it happen. Encourage friends and co-workers. Family. Vote! Make phone calls. Send e-mails.

I’m reading Rage, Bob Woodward’s book. It’s the only Trump era book I’ve read, finding my Trump box always filled to overflowing and not wanting to add that last word. It’s not revelatory so far, except for the big news of Trump’s early understanding of the nature of Covid. That’s a major item. He goes back to the beginning of Trump’s administration to put this story in context.

Early in the book Woodward tells the story of Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum. He told his cabinet, after they tried to dissuade him, that he wanted the tariffs. Just implement them and we’ll see what happens, he said. His finance cabinet folks said the U.S. economy is nothing to play with. Do it anyway.

This after they pointed out that we’re no longer a steel producer or an aluminum producer and tariffs would therefore have the result of raising prices on imported products, not invigorating our once dominate foundries.

He went ahead.

An early signal of Trump’s discounting of experts and privileging his gut response.

I also read, yesterday, this troubling article by NYT columnist, Thomas B. Edsall. Most of us know, I think, that we live in partisan bubbles these days. Our friends, our news sources, our own analysis of the political. Even families. We don’t talk politics on Thanksgiving or at the reunion. Our lives are hermetically sealed from the other.

I’m guilty. I see the Trump base, the MAGA reactionaries as I think of them, as both deluded and obedient. Edsall shows that this sort of us/them thinking might end in violence around and after the election. Our descent into Banana Republic status has gained momentum.

What do we do? It’s not as easy as “having conversations with those with whom we disagree.” First of all, most of don’t know many with whom we disagree, at least not well enough to start a civil, literally, conversation. Second, even if we do know a few and engage them, our minds tend to be as made up as theirs. Where’s the gap, the space, for understanding each other. It’s thin at best.

My admittedly partisan notion is that we first need to lower the intensity of public discourse. I believe electing Biden will do that. Then we need to do a careful, honest, and serious review of our own attitudes. Push white supremacist ideologues back to the fringes where they belong while opening ourselves to the pain and anguish of Trump’s base.

This does not mean denying our own convictions. I won’t give an inch on eliminating racism, providing health care and food and housing for the neediest in our nation. Even so, I need to consider the sort of policies that would also benefit the white working class, would address the fears of white suburban women that their safety and their children’s is at stake, would reassure the small business owner that we care about their survival.

An anti-big business conversation might yield interesting results, for example. Debt relief. Job protection and job education for those below middle class income. Higher pay for “essential” jobs since we know how essential they are.

Commentary on the news, Cooking, Dogs, Family, Great Wheel, Health, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History

Unpopular Opinion

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Lughnasa and the Labor Day Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Jon, working on his Subaru. Getting more and more stable. Kate’s tough week. Appointment tomorrow with pulmonologist. The beautiful blue Sky Colorado day. Snow lingering in the Forest, on our north facing roof. Alan, for agreeing to take me to my surgery, even at an unreasonable hour. Rigel, enjoying her bland diet: Rice and cut up chunks of stew Meat. Jackie, of Aspen Roots. A great haircut.

Kate. A very difficult Saturday. Breathing harder. Now even lying down. Her chest x-ray shows a larger pneumothorax, some loss of lung capacity. Doctors decided it was ok to wait until Monday morning. Based on her struggles since then, I’d say they were wrong. But here we are anyhow.

Rigel’s diet has become brown Rice and Beef. Which she seems to like. Seoah showed me how to dump a bunch of Rice in the instapot, wash it three times, then put water in up to my first knuckle. Hit Rice, wait about 15 minutes. Voila! Fluffy Rice. I used brown Rice because it was in our pantry thanks to Seoah.

Seoah influenced me a lot on how to take care of the kitchen. In a good way. I needed it. Put the dishes straight in the dishwasher. Simple, eh? Put the cutting board outside in the sun to disinfect after a vinegar rinse. Clean pots in the sink if possible rather than taking up space in the dishwasher. Keep wiping things down. Throw stuff out in the fridge before it goes bad. I probably learned all this from Kate, too, but this time it’s stuck. Much easier.

9/11. It’s time, I believe, to stop opening this wound. Each time we do, each year, it’s we who bleed. We bleed sons and daughters in a mistaken war against Islam, against terrorists. Yes, it was terrible. Yes, it was shocking. Yes, it’s an important moment in our history. All true.

But think about how different the last 19 years would have been had it become a criminal investigation rather than an excuse for military adventures. I believed then and believe now that that’s how it should have gone.

Go get the bad guys. But, just the bad guys. Not a whole region or religion. Instead the dark hearts of Wolfowitz, Cheney, and Rumsfeld put us in a war against terror. And gave Bin Laden his real victory. The action is in the reaction as Saul Alinsky says.

An unpopular opinion, I know. But, it’s mine.

Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Health, Holidays, Politics, US History

Labor Day

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Lughnasa and the Labor Day Moon

Monday gratefuls: For all those workers who have kept up their jobs, at risk to themselves, so that we might have necessities like food, gas, medical care. Talking with Kate, releasing my angst from below. Letting go of my desire to paint, to write. For now. Spaghetti alfredo last night. Chicken brine. Rommertopf.

Labor day. What a tough and ironic holiday for right now. Labor day. Millions who had jobs in March have none now. Labor day. Millions who kept their jobs fear for their lives and their family’s lives because of their exposure to Covid. Labor day. Unions representing only a small portion of the work force. Labor day, Certain jobs, like policing, have been exposed for their rotten cultures. Labor day when those who work with their hands have few chances.

Labor day. The government at the Federal level has abandoned laid off workers. Governments at the state and city levels, levels of government also hard hit by the pandemic and the economic crisis, do what they can. Too little.

Labor day. Going back to school day. Only for some and those who have gone back have had outbreaks. Back to school for many, most? Boot up the laptop, sign in to the school’s website, go to your class. Learn. Works fine if you have quiet, if you have a laptop, if you have an internet connection, if you’re a self-starter, an already good learner. For others? Not so sure.

Labor day. September 1 ends meteorological summer and starts meteorological fall. Also augurs the imminent Flu season. How will labor do if Covid and the Flu join hands, mutually infecting people?

Labor day. An ironic holiday for current times.