• Category Archives Writing

  • Just Israel, walking his road

    Posted on by Charles Comment

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

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: L’Shana Tovah

    Kavannah: Teshuvah

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

     

     

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

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

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

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

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

    Fortunate to have others who share the journey.

     

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


    Holidays Judaism Writing

  • Wish me joy and persistence

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Mabon and the Harvest Moon

    Monday gratefuls: The Ancient Brothers on Ode’s art. Art. Painting. Water color. Cut paper. Paper marbling. Computer aided. Charcoal and pastels. Oils. Acrylic. Sculpture. Furniture design. Architecture. Music. Chamber music. Jazz. Writing. Novels. Short stories. Poems. Poets. Writers. Painters. Sculptors. Musicians. Movies and television. Story and image.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Uffizi

    Kavannah: Teshuvah

    One brief shining: Today I’m pulling out the 3/4’s finished first draft of Jennie’s Dead, plan to read it, red pencil in hand, waiting to reinsert myself into its flow, the story as I started it so many years ago, wanting to reclaim my life as a creator of worlds, of characters, of ideas expressed in things that would never have been and never could be without the mysterious work of creation. And, it is work.

     

    Probably time, too, to print out Ancientrails from the point where I stopped the last time. Not sure how long ago it was, but it was awhile. Easy to check since I have the plastic tubs filled with the first printing, some two million words, stored on wire racks in the loft. I want, so badly, to get my mojo back. My writing mojo. I let it slide as I let myself get overwhelmed by the world of illness, hers and mine. The long, slow process of Kate’s dying. Didn’t have to let it go, but I did and I’ve sunk a bit since then, a light in my heart dimmed.

    Going through the outer world of friends and family, Mountains and Streams and Wild Neighbors, of Judaism and the pandemic, of wrestling with back pain, often with little success. None of this bad or shallow or wrong. No. Necessary, kind, fulfilling. Yet the stream from which I had drunk so giddily for 20 years, the Andover years, dried up. The aquifer that fed it drained and not renewed.

    Writing and my current worst ailment, a back preventing me from walking more than short distances, making work around the house often more than I can do, fit well together. I can do it like I’m writing this. And, I can keep at it, like Ode, until I reach the end. Why would I do that? For the same reason my brother-in-law, Jerry the painter and maker, is in a spasm of creativity knowing his heart could give out at any time. For the same reason Ode believes his best art is ahead of him. And now, ta da, a sports metaphor! To leave it all on the field. To have held nothing back. To have gone as far as I can. Not sure I know why beyond that. Please wish me joy and persistence.

    This is then, a matter for teshuvah, for a return to the land of my soul. Yes, there’s that word again. Soul. Where is it? Don’t know. Is it a metaphor for the whole of me, an ensouled body and lev? Yes, but more, I believe. The something more is that which links my ensouled body and lev to the other ensouled entities like my friends, family, my Lodgepole Companion, Great Sol, Elk and Mule Deer, Shadow Mountain. We are together, moving forward in constant creation, unique and separate, yet whole and infinitely connected. Perhaps that which is there to bond with all does not die, but rolls on, moving with the rest toward an unknown future, probably one bound tightly to a known past.


    Art and Culture Feelings Fourth Phase Letters Literature Myth and Story Painting Shadow Mountain Wild Neighbors Writing

  • Go, Elementals!

    Posted on by Charles 1 Comment

    Lugnasa and the Harvest Moon

    Sabbath gratefuls: Zoom. WordPress. My computers. Starlink. The Internet. My links to friends, family, shopping. Solar panels & C.O.R.E. Sources of electricity. Mini-splits, electric heat pumps for heating and cooling. The induction stove for electrical cooking. LED bulbs for longlasting, low-energy consumption light. Arts and Crafts style furniture, lighting fixtures, upholstery cloth.

    Sparks of joy and awe: Electricity

    Kavannah: Yirah

    One brief shining: Give me an H, Give me an He, Give me an Li, go elementals! Let’s go 1,2,3. Now entering the big top in the first ring, give me a hand for that most abundant, simplest, colorless, odorless, yet flammable guy, and the lightest element in the whole universe: Hydrogen! Keep putting those hands together as another odorless and tasteless gas, second only to the Big H in abundance in our whole cosmos, floats gracefully to ring number 2, she floats, she stays aloof, there she is: Miss Helium! Finally, plunking himself into our third ring, that healer of manic-depression, that key to batteries for electric cars, that old soft metal guy, the lightest of the solid elements: Mr. Lithium!

     

    Blame it on Tom. He’s having us present three of the naturally occurring elements as our Sunday theme for the Ancient brothers. He had us pick three numbers between 1 & 94, then wrote us an e-mail revealing that our numbers were the atomic numbers for our elements on the periodic table. I picked 1,2,3.

    Here’s his charge to us: “What you were choosing is the Atomic Number of the element you can read about, research, write poetry about, combine with other elements to compound your effort, discuss the philosophical underpinnings of the origin of your chosen elements (or the universe itself), draw pictures of your element as it stands alone or as it combines with others. In other words, the usual Ancient Zeitgeist applies.”

    Not sure where I’m going with mine yet though I like the circus metaphor. Probably will have to touch a bit on Lurianic Kabbalah and the tzimtzum*. Perhaps the Tree of Life as well. Going to have fun with this today.

     

    Feeling lighter after Ann’s visit. I have the Celebrex and tramadol to help with pain. That helps, too. Still ouchy, I’d say a 3 most of the time except when I’m sitting, rising to a 7 or 8 if I stress my back. That’s with the pain relievers on board. Why it doesn’t bother my workouts, I don’t know. Must be isolation of muscle groups though I also don’t usually experience pain even on the treadmill. Unless I go past 20-25 minutes. Odd, eh?

    I also feel lighter because even though the presidential race is close at least we have a good chance. Looks like the North Carolina GOP candidate for governor is gonna give us a boost in that important state. A Black Nazi? Posted on a porn site. Dude!

    I’m also feeling the faint stirrings of a new novel. Something I want to get going. Just a spark right now, but we know sparks can lead to wild fires of creative power. Shiva energy.

     

    Time for a workout after breakfast. I’m in contact with a couple of guys who might come to the house, help me with my workouts. I need to freshen mine. Get them targeted even more on my core to help my back. Might even return for another round of physical therapy with Mary.

     

    *The term zimzum originates in the Kabbalah and refers to God’s contraction of himself before the creation of the world, and for the purpose of creating the world. To put it another way, the omnipresent God, who exists beyond time and space before creation, withdraws a part of his infinite presence into himself. With this divine gesture, God restricts himself in zimzum, clearing the empty space that is necessary for creation. The emanation and the creation of the world are then able to occur in the center of God following this act of zimzum. In this process, God limits his omnipotence, so that a finite world can exist within finite contours. Without zimzum, there would be no creation.    wiki

    NB: I would not use the word God here. What I’m after with the tzimtzum is the process of earliest creation and how we might understand it.

     


    Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Health Judaism Kabbalah Science Writing

  • Asset framing. Judging on the side of merit.

    Posted on by Charles 1 Comment

    Lugnasa and the Harvest Moon

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

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Tesuvah

    Kavannah: Teshuvah

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

     

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

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

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

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

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

     

     

     


    Family Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Health Holidays Judaism Politics Writing

  • The Ancientrail

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    The Mountain Summer Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Mussar. Smiling Pig. Diane on Orcas. Mary down under. Mark in Phnom Penh. My son and Seoah in Songtan. Me on Shadow Mountain. Nineteen and a half years of Ancientrails. Books. Teshuvah. Tikkun Olam. Workouts done by Tuesday. Erleada, again. Fatigue. Ruth. Bob’s Your Uncle. Voles. The Olympics. That surfer photo. Caitlin Clark.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: This amazing Planet

    One brief shining: Sat down at the Smiling Pig, a barbecue joint in Bailey, looked out the window and saw Mt. Bailey on the right, Crooked Top Mountain on the left as Hwy 285 came down Crow Hill in a straight line with my table before a sudden curve to the right as it dives into the Platte Valley formed by the North Fork of the South Platte River, without the concrete barrier an out of control semi could spoil my lunch of barbecued chicken wings, smashed potatoes, and baked beans.

    Kavanah (intention): DECISIVENESS   Charitzut (char-ee-TSOOT)   חֲרִיצוּת

    Decisiveness, assertiveness, industriousness; literally “pointed/sharp”

    Its poles- (שְׁקִידָה Shkida, shkee-DAH: Focus, application, diligence)  [עַצלוּת Atzlut, ahts-LOOT: Inactive, hesitant, not present]

     

    Been thinking about the long and winding path of Ancientrails. For over nineteen years, since February 2005, I’ve written this daily. Almost all days. 7118 from then to now. Over 8,000 posts. When last I counted, over 7 years ago, two million words. It’s changed over the years. As I’ve changed. Begun in the aftermath of an Achilles tendon repair-a nighttime fall in Bangkok the November before-its original purpose was to put my journal on line. A web log. A blog.

    Some of the changes along the way have come from the difference between a private, hand written journal and a public memory cache. I deep sixed a job offer from a UU congregation by writing about my interview on here. I’ve made a few people mad, probably hurt a few unknowingly. My son told me to delete his name entirely due to his moving up in his chosen career. On occasion I ended up in a surprising controversy. One time over a few posts about my first wife, Judy. Seems she could tell our story in short stories, but her fans didn’t like my version.

    An old situation, one I hadn’t known existed, involved a girl from my high school class, Margo, who felt she’d been passed over for valedictorian. Who knows, I admitted. She could be right. The patriarchy was alive and well and unchallenged in 1965.

    Mostly I’ve shared thoughts about politics, paganism, family, the messy contents of my thinking. In the process I’ve written myself into many insights, finding that writing about a problem provides critical distance, allows just enough objectivity to heal some wounds, deal with some troubles. I’m thinking here of Kate’s illness and death. Cancer. The oh so strange of American politics.

    Writing this whatever it is has become a morning prayer, a confessional, a soapbox, a place of wondering and questioning. I write it, then read through it as a post, editing lightly. Probably won’t quit until I can no longer write.


    Feelings Fourth Phase Writing

  • Transitioned

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Mountain Summer Moon

    Shabbat gratefuls: Lengthening nights. Warm days. Spanish food for the Fourth. Judy Sherman. Kate. All those who suffer, yet are strong. Resilience. Workout yesterday. Joanne. Responsibility. Seeing, being responsive. Kavod. Honor. Teshuvah. Botany. Cambium. Phloem and xylem. Heartwood. Photosynthesis. Carbon Dioxide in. Oxygen out. Creating food for us all.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Energy into matter

    One brief shining: Got a thick cardboard box, heavy, filled first with crenelated paper, opened the larger box inside and removed the slices of acorn fed Iberian Jamon ham, of chorizo, of other ham slices, churros and xocalate, then the smaller box which contained Olives, grilled Peppers, nuts greeting my Fourth of July feast.

     

    Every once in a bit. I’ll see some food offering. In a grocery store, especially one like Tony’s. Or, online, maybe Wild Alaska or at the Spanish food site, La Tienda. The Store. My imagination gets caught by the marketer’s guile and visions of a scrumptious meal dance before my inner eye. Not real often. But on occasion.

    Less often, my eye’s dance, my inner tongue tastes the delicacies on offer and I reach for my money. The anticipation never matches the reality. Oh, if it only could. Sure the Jamon ham is tasty, but not in a lift off, send me to the moon way. The Olives are good as are the Peppers. Good, not amazing. I know. You’d think at 77 I would have learned. And mostly I have. But on occasion…

     

    Still no word from Rocky Mountain Cancer Care. Not sure why getting in to see these radiation oncologists is taking so long. Kristie put me on the Orgovyx to tamp down the cancer while I wait to get in, but it’s been almost three weeks and I don’t even have an appointment. I’ve jiggled Kristie and Rocky Mountain. Nada. I’m a bit frustrated. Ready to have these metastases radiated.

    I’m assertive about my care. In general and especially so with cancer, yet moving medical bureaucracies is no easier than moving corporate or governmental bureaucracies. Sometimes you have to wait.

     

    Back to the tarot deck. Pulling cards each day. Tarot tickles my inner compass, puts a probe down below my consciousness. Yesterday from the Wildwood Deck I turned over a five of vessels for the second time in three days. Ecstasy. Happiness. Realization of a dream. And from the Woodland Guardian deck, the Bee and the Pomegranate. Productivity. Hard work.

    Herme’s Pilgrimage has legs. Learning botany basics in a Coursera class from Tel Aviv University. Finished the Tree communication class from the New York Botanical Garden. Am reading my way through a book on Tree myths and one on old growth forests. Did a Google arts and culture search on Trees and got thousands of hits. This pilgrimage has a wandering path with Trees as a lodestar. For now. Plants, too.

    I have transitioned from the days of learning for my conversion and bar mitzvah to a new field of knowledge.

     

     

     

     


    Cooking Health Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Reimaging revelation Tarot Writing

  • Herme’s Pilgrimage

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

    Shabbat gratefuls: Ginny and Janice. Irene. The Dreamers. Yud Heh Vav Heh. Chai. Aleph. The Shield (Star) of David. Tarot. Woodland Oracle Deck. Orange one. Older one. Our country. Right and wrong. Love it, don’t leave it. The 1960’s. The Peaceable Kingdom. Judy. The Goat. The Aurora in the Lake. Steppenwolf. Cooking and heating with wood.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Dreams

    One brief shining: The thickly polyurethaned round table had a jigsaw cutout of a house and a Mountain, outside Bear Creek ran full and strong; as I drove to the Blackbird for breakfast with Ginny and Janice, I’d noticed the sign, In Case of Flash Flood Climb to Safety; as a result, I looked again at Bear Creek, saw its strength contained for the time within its banks and was glad.

     

    This new, integrative journey, Herme’s Pilgrimage I think I’ll call it now, has me reaching back into closets stored with varied kinds of knowledge. The story of Zeus, Hermes, and Lycaon. Of Baucis and Philemon. The South Node on my astrological chart. The Wildwood Tarot. The Tree of Life. Kavanah. Teshuvah and Tikkun. Resurrection. Reincarnation. The Tea Ceremony and the way of Chado. The Great Wheel.

    As I wander on this pilgrimage, knowing how to read a Tarot spread will come up alongside quantum mechanics. Sun sign next to the sephirot on the Tree of Life. A roku Tea cup and a tallit. How these will resonate, reverberate. What fun, eh?

    Today the Tarot and Oracle cards have my attention as does the parsha Shelach, Numbers 13:1-15:41.

    Beaver and Birch, Woodland Oracle Deck

    The Woodland Oracle suggests drawing a card a day to become familiar with the deck. Seemed like a good plan. So I did. The Beaver and the Birch.

    Upright the Beaver and Birch suggests a focus on home, doing the decorating, maintenance that create a home. This felt propitious because Herme’s Pilgrimage focuses on activity I can do at home. Also, the Beaver works hard, creating not only a home and a dam with their hard work, but a Pond as well.

    The pond can represent the work of Herme’s Pilgrimage. A layer that reflects the Sky, the rational world of appearance, and a depth below where matters of myth and legend, religious practice, and poetry lie.

    The dam suggests the barrier, the boundary I need to construct so I can focus on letting the Pond fill up and surround my home. I will leave my home by swimming through the Pond and return the same way.

    The Woodland Wardens represented in the 52 cards of the deck combine Animals and Plants. Jessica Roux, the creator of the deck, says she was inspired by the Victorian language of Plants as well as the Creatures themselves.

    Whatever focuses my attention, sends it down unimagined paths, has value to me. Tarot and oracle decks have that capacity for me. Music, too.

    Wanting to go as far down the Rabbit hole, into the Pond, and through the Looking Glass as I can.

     

     


    Feelings Fourth Phase Great Wheel Hermitage Plants Tarot Wild Neighbors Writing

  • Herme’s Journey

    Posted on by Charles 1 Comment

    Summer and the waning Bar Mitzvah Moon

    Monday gratefuls: The Ancient Brothers. Great Sol. Shadow Mountain. TV. Books. CD’s. Jazz. Mozart. Telemann. Bach. Coltrane. Monk. Parker. Gregorian Chants. Rock and roll. CD player. K-dramas. Netflix. Amazon Prime. Mhz. Starlink. Conversation. Listening. Seeing. Really listening. Really seeing. The Aspen out my bedroom window. The dead Lodgepole.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The lesser light-the Moon

    One brief shining: When I go now to an airport, when I even imagine going to an airport, I recoil, seeing the old Native American punishment, running between rows of TSA employees, airline boarding agents, and crabby fellow sufferers all diminished by the experience, yet needing to pass along, like some fraternity hazing ritual, the same misery to the pledges not yet seated in their too narrow and too jammed together seats. And paying often thousands of dollars to do it.

     

    Still enjoying a post bar mitzvah push sense of opening, of new possibilities. Herme’s Journey, which I imagined after the dream workshop last month, got sidelined a bit by the week of the ritual, guests, celebration, and the week of physical recovery that followed that one. Though. Kavod for the Trees (Honoring the Tree) has kept it alive.

    Herme’s Journey followed thoughts and feelings triggered by my Wabash dream. That dream encouraged me to reenter the life vision I had when I started college almost 60 years ago. To embrace that dream of a long period, lifelong in my hopes of those years, as a student, then a scholar. With libraries and writing instruments my primary tools. With ideas and their expression as my life work.

    Herme, you may recall, is the name I gave to the neon sign I had made of the Hooded Man Card* from the Wildwood Tarot Deck. The name I gave to myself in the wake of Kate’s death, of a mourner then a griever, then… I wasn’t sure what.

    Herme’s Journey blends the Hooded Man Card with the first card of the Tarot Deck: The Fool. The major arcana of a tarot deck tells a story of the Fool’s journey, begun blithely, a bindlestaff over one shoulder, a dog alongside, stepping off into the unknown. In the Wildwood deck** the Wanderer’s journey is through the Wildwood. Yes. My journey, too.

    The Wanderer is a beginner, the beginner’s mind at play in the fields of the psyche. Herme’s Journey is my Wanderer’s path, a beginner’s path, but one begun with the age and experience of an old man. So, Herme’s Journey.

    What lies along this path? Still unclear though Trees play a central role. As does the Great Wheel of the Year and the Jewish Lunar Calendar. As the pilgrimage unfolds, I plan to explore Kabbalah, my long period of work with Ovid’s Metamorphosis, poetry and literature, myth and legend, fairy and folk tales, religion, and the arts: music, painting, sculpture, theater, dance, opera.

    What will come? Again, unknown. It will be the path, not the destination. What I will do is read a lot, write, travel, think, listen, see, taste. Talk.

     

    *The Hooded Man stood at the winter solstice point on December 21, along with the earth and the sun in the night. This is the time to be alone and contemplate life. This card describes the gates of death and rebirth, deep inside the Earth.  Hooded Man

    **A central theme of the Wildwood Tarot is the interconnection of humans with the wild, with animals, and with the calendar cycle.


    Feelings Fourth Phase Great Wheel Hermitage Holidays Humanities Kabbalah Latin Letters Mountains Myth and Story Plants Poetry Tarot Travel Weather +Climate Wild Neighbors Writing

  • Tsundoku

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Workout. Bechira point. Good choice. Herme’s Journey. Each Tree. Each Rock. Each Stream. Each Valley. Each Meadow. Each Ocean. Each Volcano. Each Dog. Each Person. Great Sol. The Great Wheel. Sukkot. Pesach. Shavuot. Tu B’shvat. Lunar months. Lunar calendar. Cyclical time. The phases of the Moon. Cognitive effort.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Accepting

    One brief shining: Check out the stack, pick up a current favorite like Storm Before the Calm (thanks, Tom), sink into that Stickley chair, find the dust jacket flap marking where reading left off, open the book, and proceed to learn, in this case that there are cycles in our national life, that Friedman’s way of parsing two of the big ones may offer hope for the grandkids. Smile quietly.

    Reading. What a revolution in my life when I learned how. Of course, Dad read. And wrote. Being a newspaperman. Mom I can’t recall though I imagine she read, too. Exemplars of a sort. Enough anyhow. All three of us: Mary, Mark, and I read.

    Interesting word, read. It can mean something as simple as understanding a Stop sign or an effort as complicated as following the story of War and Peace. When I say we read, I don’t mean we can read, I mean we actively use the skill to learn. As Mark Twain said, There is no difference between a man who can’t read and one who doesn’t read.

    Yes, if you know me, you know I have a book thing. Kate said to me once, “Most people go to a library. You buy the book.” Well, yeah. A habit formed first at Guilkey’s Newstand with comic books and then all of Ian Fleming, then whatever looked good. When I had a little money, I bought books. When I had enough money, I bought more books.

    Do I read them all? No. Tsundoku is the Japanese word for the stack(s) of books you’ve purchased but haven’t read. These articles in Big Think: “I own too many books” and in Maria Popova’s Marginalia: “Umberto Eco, Why unread books in our library are more valuable to our lives than read ones.” explain.

    My favorite rationale from these articles? Tsundoku is an antidote to the Dunning-Kruger effect, the tendency of ignorant people-Twain’s those who don’t read-to believe they know and understand vastly more than they do. Orange 45, I’m looking at you.

    Those unread books apply a force field to any upwelling of know-it-allness. Why, right here, I don’t know much about Herodotus, or the life of Edward Hopper, or the American Prometheus. My ignorance extends to Clausewitz, Severe Weather, and the plays of Plautus. Perhaps I’ll get to them, some day. But even if I do there will still be the volume on the journeys of Captain Cook, or that other one about the geology of the Plains. Or… You get the idea.

    I love the content of books and not the books themselves so my library contains no first editions, few signed books. It does contain the complete works of Emerson, more than one translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy and Ovid’s Metamorphosis, and lots of science fiction along with, well, many many others.

     


    Feelings Fourth Phase Humanities Latin Letters Literature Writing

  • Scanned

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the 1% crescent Shadow Mountain Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: IV’ed. Radioactivated. Scanned. Freddie’s. Being kind to myself. Wild Trees. Coastal Redwoods. The tallest Trees on Earth. Steve Sillet and Michael Taylor. Timber cruisers for the Trees. Marie Antoine. Climbing Trees like an arborist. Treeboats. Forest-Canopy science. Redwood Crowns. Whole Biomes. My Lodgepole Companion. Pinus contarta latifolia.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shekinah

    One brief shining: A butterfly I.V. attached to a vein in my forearm, saline introduced, then a closed lead canister opened, and a syringe pulled out with 5 milliliters of liquid radioactive agent in its barrel, connected to the IV, a push, and $13,000 worth of a cancer discovery tool went into my bloodstream, after that I sat back and read Wild Trees while it distributed throughout my body.

    me and the machine

     

    See my tilt? Spinal stenosis. My t-shirt got a laugh from the P.E.T. scan nurse and tech. I told the tech doom and gloom would not get me through all this. But humor sure helps.

    Proud of myself. I fought the phobia and the phobia didn’t win. This machine is optimal for me in that its doughnut hole is relatively short in length and the top of the hole leaves room above my head. Most important for me: I could see out the whole time. (ha) I ran through several iterations of inner dialogue about fear. The only thing you have to fear… Thanks for that, Winston. Face your fear. I am. I didn’t take drugs. Yeah? Then open your eyes. I did. The doughnut hole was above me, but I could see the room beyond. And I felt calm. A major advance for me.

    Still couldn’t do a bone scan without drugs. The distance between face and machine is much narrower and the slot for the body is much longer. And the procedure is very slow. Hopefully no more bone scans.

    I don’t like to do drugs because they require that I have a driver. It’s a long time for a friend to wait and someone has to clear their schedule. Though. Alan did say I was very amusing after my first P.E.T. scan. Valium, if I recall correctly.

    Results in two or three days. Have to get signed up for Rocky Mountain Cancer Care’s online patient portal. Then I can see the radiologists report for myself. Don’t talk to Kristie until next week.

    Oh, the places I’ve been.

     

    Just a moment: Been reading Wild Trees. A wild Tree is, in the slang of arborists and tall-Tree climbers, a tree that has not been climbed. Up until the 1990’s that included all the Coastal Redwoods. Climbing these tall Trees requires a high degree of technical climbing knowledge plus athletic climbers. Until Steven Sillet climbed Nameless, no one had ever been in the Redwood Canopy. His rash and dangerous efforts not only made him the first, but started him on a career as a Forest-Canopy Botanist. He and his wife Marie Antoine, also a climber, teach at Humboldt College in Arcata, California to this day.

     

     

     

     

     

     


    Feelings Fourth Phase Health Plants Writing