Category Archives: Writing

Family, Fourth Phase, Great Wheel, Health, Holidays, Memories, Politics, Writing

Stories Worth Telling

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Yule and the Samain Moon

Thursday gratefuls: A Mountain Morning in Winter. Rich and Doncye. Brother Mark. Mary. A new Kindle. Hanukah presents. Jacquie Lawson Edwardian Advent Calendar. December cold and Snow. Magpies. Canadian Jays. Abert’s Squirrels. Red Squirrels.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Snow Flakes falling on Shadow Mountain

Kavannah: Ahavah (love) and Bimah (understanding) Understanding, differentiation, deep insight; from בּוּן to split, pierce/penetrate; also בֵּין between

One brief shining: I roll out the mat, kneel down in a posture not unlike a Muslim at prayer and do the push-ups I can do, then skull crushers with weights brought down near my ears, those silly calf raises, 15 goblet squats, bicep curls, wall angels, incline pushups, my upper body/lower body day.

 

Fun with chatbotgpt. NB: I asked for skullcrushers which are done with dumbbells and got this guy. Part of the fun.

BTW: If you’re new to Ancientrails, I want to explain. When I capitalize a noun like Rock or Mountain or Lodgepole or Mule Deer, I’m following a commitment I made after reading Braiding Sweetgrass. In Potawatomi everything considered alive gets capitalized out of respect. I’m not totally consistent, but I try to be.

When I went into see Rabbi Jamie about feeling meh, he mentioned two things. One, getting back to making art. He means sumi-e which I did for a long ago Kabbalah class. I also paint. Both sort of. However I turned up the heat in the loft and intend to start again. It brings joy.

Second he mentioned a website Storyworth. For those of you age peers who read this, it’s worth a look if you have kids or grandkids. Storyworth sends out a weekly prompt, you write in their software in response to them. My first two prompts were: How did you get your first job? and What was your father like when you were a child?

At some point, I’m not sure when, you’ve written your story. It’s then printed and bound and shipped to you. Price determined by how many books you want. I’m getting four. Ruth, Gabe. Joe. Myself. A neat service. I’m having fun with it and it counts as getting back to writing.

I’ve also begun writing my project of essays, ideas on observing each of the 8 Celtic holidays. Pretty far along on Yule.

 

Just a moment: Still, like many of you, I imagine, marveling at the choices for cabinet leadership our new President, same as the old President has offered up so far. Sure, Gaetz got gone as fast as he deserved, but Hegseth remains in play. Kennedy, too. And Gabbard. Patel. Many of these vie to replace the old chestnut about the fox guarding the henhouse. Now: Patel guiding the FBI. That old drunk at DOD. Vax denier heads health and human services. Combine these choices with long red tie guy’s volatile, chaotic, grudge based style of, what? Can we call it governing? Sorta drains the meaning out of that word. The point is: matches. Gasoline. All over D.C. for four years. Four years.

 

Family, Health, Politics, Writing

Heartseen

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Samain and the Yule Moon

Shadow Mountain by my buddy 4o

Tuesday gratefuls: My son and Seoah. Skiing. Here and in Korea. Shadow Mountain in the style of Hokusai. Chatbotgpt4o. Handy. Memories of my son. Of him and Jon. Kate, always Kate. Ruth. Gabe. NYT. Washington Post. Ground News. Hamas. Hezbollah. Iran. Israel. Ukraine. North Korea. China.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: My son and Seoah here for my birthday

Kavannah: Perseverance and love

One brief shining: My body on the gurney, lying on my left side facing Lynne who held a sonar wand which she glopped up with lubricant, cold as it hit my bare chest, and suddenly there, right there on the screen, a peek inside my beating heart, valves, vessels, blood flowing shown by red and blue pixel clouds that looked like a weather map. Oh. Amazing.

 

Another echocardiogram. Primary purpose? Check out my aorta. Which has a slight problem, so slight that I can’t remember what it is. An enlarged aorta. Looked it up. Dr. Rubenstein wanted this echo a year after my visit to him. If the mild enlargement has not changed, we’ll cross it off my problem list. Glad to do that.

Still comes with the full echo though. So I get one more look at my heart as it works. If you’ve never had one, I find them amazing. There on the sonar screen my heart valves opened and closed. Lynne took various measurements with the click of a mouse while I watched.

Before echocardiograms? Not sure. Asked chatbot. Stethoscopes. Thumping the chest. Pulse checks. EKG’s. Chest X-Rays. Those sort of things. But nothing that could see the heart at work, measure the chambers and the blood flow. Much less accurate. Thank you, technology.

Went to Noodles on the way home and picked up some Korean noodles for dinner.

 

Today I’m going to try one more time to finish the transfer of Ruth’s 529 from Kate’s account to a new one in my name. This process has had several iterations and involves starting over again with each new phone call to adjust to their needs. So frustrating.

 

My new rhythm works for me. Getting more writing done. Regular exercise and reading. What I needed to lift me out of the flats.

 

Just a moment: Hadn’t considered Trump’s vindictive streak and his nominee to run the FBI, Kash Patel. After reading Heather Richardson’s commentary on the exposure Hunter faced given both of those, I not only understand Joe’s decision, I would have made it myself.

Interesting point about RFK and his appointment to run HHS. People don’t trust our medical care system, so they’re ok with anyone who promises to shake things up. I understand this. It’s a confusing, messy, expensive bureaucracy that often doesn’t seem to have health or the patient as its top priority.

RFK would not be my choice to lead the charge, but that someone should? Oh, yeah.

 

 

Friends, Health, Writing

oh my

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Samain and the moon of growing darkness

Tuesday gratefuls: self-care. Dictating. Wind. Knives. Apples. Dressing the wound. Remembering Kate. Blood red. Cloth tape

Sparks of joy and awe: taking care of myself

Intention: compassion

One brief shining: that honeycrisp apple sat on the cutting board, seven pieces cut, on the eighth piece my hand slipped and I sliced my give them hell finger, lots of blood a bit of confusion got it to stop bleeding and congratulated myself on good self-care.

 

 

With a clumsy bandage on my give them hell finger I’m trying out dictation on word to produce this post. It’s pretty good, but I find it too slow. I I can talk ohh um well I’ll leave that in to show you the fat that I’m on a learning curve with this method of writing. If it can even be called writing.

I can talk faster than I type, but the program cannot go as fast as I talk and and produce legible text. Even so, it’s better than putting blood on the keyboard.

Started back with exercising yesterday morning. Harder than I imagined it would be, but I’m going to keep at it. Started reading seat keepers, no, seed keepers. Recommended by Paul. No lying OK we’ll keep that in too just to show you the curve has not reached far off the bottom of the graph.

This morning I’m having my winter tires put on about 25 inches of snow too late. Also having my differential lubrication refreshed. Marilyn and nerve no herb no IRV right lower case. Still learning. Can’t tell whether it’s my voice or the program, probably a bit of both.

Marilyn and I RV backspace backspace backspace oh oh. Ohh my. Verb. No. Leaning in to the microphone. Erve. Well, that’s as close as we’re gonna get.

They are picking me up at stevenson’s Toyota and taking me out to breakfast. It will be a long morning for Ruby. Now see the program correctly capitalized my maroon Toyota Rav 4. No line ohh.

This is borderline painful. I’m going to take seed keepers with me so I’ll have something to read. I imagine I will be in the very familiar customer lounge at Stevensons for some time.

I’m going to stop now. Hope this doesn’t have to be my means of communicating with you for very long.

Friends, Health, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Reimaging revelation, Writing

An Unsystematic Theology for the non-Supernatural

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Mabon and the waning Sukkot Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Ginny. Janice. Alan and the Piggin’ Out Barbecue in Lakewood. The Evergreen Chorale. Ovation West. Community Theater. Gabe. Ruth. Studio Arts. UC Boulder. Go, Buffs. Coach Prime. Great Sol. Maxwell Creek to Bear Creek to the South Platte to the Missouri to the Mississippi to the World Ocean.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Watersheds

Kavannah: Serenity  Menucha

One brief shining: At the Piggin’ Out Barbecue you enter behind their food truck, WhattheTruck, and find yourself in a room only big enough for 8 people, six if they’re large sized, and a smiling woman with silver eyeliner, at a tiny counter, the menu on the wall to her left, a glass covered drinks cooler on the other side of a doorway leading back to the kitchen, out of which a staff person comes carrying finished orders outside to one of three seating areas, one in an enclosed tent, another under what looks like a large carport, and the third tables on a concrete slab.

 

Met Alan at Piggin’ Out last night. Tasty. I had a slab of ribs with spicy sauce, macaroni and cheese, baked beans, and a honey glazed chunk of corned bread. Obviously a joint and a local favorite. People came and went while we ate, most picking up to go orders.

Had breakfast with Marilyn and Irv, too. A day of friends and minor key domestic tasks.

 

Ann, my palliative care nurse, called just as I’d hit the garage door button on my way to Piggin’ Out. She had to reschedule. A funeral on Friday. We set up a zoom for Thursday in place of our 1 pm Friday appointment. Looking forward to talking to her. This regular conversation with a medical person feels supportive, kind. We all need support and kindness.

 

As you can tell from my title, I’ve chosen a path that works for me. I tried, more than once, to write a Ge-ology. A Pagan Halakah. A Great Work focused website. Systematic. With chapters and subheadings and thoughtful transitions between big ideas. A Mother Earth focused imitatio of, oh what the hell, Aquinas, Tillich, Barth. Discovered my mind doesn’t work that way. I work in smaller, sermon or ancientrails sized pieces. And, thoughtful transitions, building toward a comprehensive conclusion about matters holy, sacred, and divine? Not so much.

However. I have written, over the course of many sermons and postings, in hand-written journals, and spoken in numerous conversations, occasionally insightful remarks about the nature and accessibility of the sacred world. I want to begin gathering those, seeing if I can place them somehow together without giving up their ad hoc, highly contextualized origins. A Hermes’ Journey task.

 

Just a moment: Well. A week from now. 7 days.  Do you feel a big nuclear bomb with a cowboy dressed Orange One astride it, one hand on the fuse and the other waving a Stetson dropped toward our nation? Or, do you hear high heels clacking on the floors of their new home in that big Whitehouse on Pennsylvania Avenue?

I have no idea what will happen. Maybe like you?

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Woolly Mammoths, Writing

No. Yet, Yes.

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Mabon and the Sukkot Moon  (Yes, I missed Sunday.)

Monday gratefuls: Ruth. Gabe. Alan. Blackbird Cafe. Kittredge. An unsystematic theology. Snow in the forecast. Gray white Skies. Skeletal Aspens. That evening zoom with my son, Seoah, Murdoch, Ruth and Gabe. A family moment. Diane back in the USA. Mark still in K.L. Kate, always Kate. Irv and Marilyn. The Night Sky. Kepler and Gertie.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: That moment with Ruth

Kavannah: Compassion rachamin

One brief shining: We were all there, this patched together family, Ruth in my red leather chair, Gabe on its ottoman, me in my blue Stickley chair, my son, Seoah, and Murdoch on zoom in Songtan, Korea talking and laughing as my son opened his birthday present from me, Seoah told Ruth she was beautiful, Gabe mentioned theater as an interest of his, and I luxuriated in the normality, the sweetness of a family joined together with almost no blood ties, but love, oh yes, love.

 

So much yesterday. Forgot to post. Ancient Brothers. Ruth and Gabe. Going out for lunch with Alan only to discover after waiting for a bit that muscle relaxants had put him to sleep.

 

Learned that two of the Ancient Brothers had the power of positive thinking, Dale Carnegie, as a deep and lasting influence. Another conceptual therapy. How to train the mind toward a positive and successful mindset. Felt a slight twinge of envy. If I’d had something like that, would I have persevered in marketing my books? Might I be published by now?

In my case I’ve always gone for mantras and prayers and rituals that investigate my life, my inner life, and encourage me to act, yes, though success fell long ago outside my grasp. Not sure why. Of course there was school. Where success was long past being a goal and had become an expectation. One that tired me out, wore me out, burned me out. And btw my Dad had me read Dale Carnegie because he believed I needed to learn how to get along with people. I did. But because he required me to read it, I pushed its lessons away.

Even writing. I wanted to get published. At first a lot. And publication would have been success of a sort. I did try, but I let I can’t get there become truth. As one of us said, if you believe you can or if you believe can’t, either will be true. I let myself believe my writing wasn’t good enough. That no agent, no publisher would want it. I tried to achieve 100 rejections in a year. Couldn’t stay with it. Didn’t stay with it. I stopped trying.

Those stories where the young writer sends manuscript after manuscript over the transom, never admitting defeat, always crampons on, ice ax in hand scaling the slippery cliff to publication. Not me. I used to be embarrassed by this fact. That’s how I decided it was my writing and not my perseverance. Easier to take, I guess.

So here I sit at 77 with no artistic successes to my name. On me. Perhaps on my talent. Not really sure. That’s not to say I haven’t led a satisfying and purposeful life. I have. Cue the no blood ties family. The gardens and dogs and earthy life of Andover. Of political battles fought and won. Organizations created. Deep thinking maintained, emotional stability attained and sustained. Personal relationships made and sustained. My life with Kate.

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Writing

Not sure at all

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Mabon and the Sukkot Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Garbage out. No garbage back in. Shirley Waste. Nights in the thirties. Jennie’s Dead. Dead. Phantom Tollbooth. Most excellent. Coffee in the morning. Mineral Water. Spoons. Forks. Knives. Especially Japanese knives. Fruit. Clementines. Grapes. Bananas. Honeycrisp Apples. Pears. Tomatoes. Dragon. Jack. Durian. Asia. Begging bowls.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Mind. Whatever it is.

Kavannah: Netzach in its sense of persistence

One brief shining: Sitting on a knife edge, no, wait, standing on a narrow path, chasms on either side, a Mountain Meadow at the end of the path, I’m walking shakily, old man legs weakened by sarcopenia and easy distraction, needing to cross yet another hazard in the video game Life, will I keep on exercising? Or, not.

 

When I considered stopping my cancer treatments, I stopped exercising. Felt a whoosh of freedom. I have time in my days for creative work, taking care of domestic tasks, living my life of tasks, of agency. Why, you might ask? Well, I exercise, which I have done since turning 42, 43, now only in the mornings. It’s when I have energy.

Dilemma and the source of the freedom feeling. That’s also when I feel good to write, make phone calls, pay bills, do difficult reading, load and unload the dishwasher, pick up around the house. I also have regular breakfasts which break into the morning as well.

By early afternoon, two or three at the latest and that if I had a full night’s sleep-which I usually do-my energy wanes into watch TV, read fiction, light tasks. Often a nap.

You can see the problem. Does the exercising provide enough benefit to me to use up valuable morning energy? When life has begun to look shorter. Which I admit could be wrong. I feel like the answer to this question is yes, it does. Because. Vitiates sarcopenia. Lifts my mood. Improves my heart rate. Helps my bowels.

But. I also want to write. In particular. And writing requires a rhythm. Which I find best now in the mornings. The fog of the afternoon and evening is subtle. Some of the obfuscation comes from fatigue. Pure physical weariness. Better now with the celebrex, but still enough to slow me down. Some of the obfuscation though, and this is the critical one, is mental. Not in my mind doesn’t work as well then, at least mostly not that. But a sort of brake, a diminishment of will.

Example. Today I need to call the MnSaves folks to continue the process-the now toooo looonnnggg-process of transferring Ruth and Gabe’s education money into my name. I can handle the phone call, the waiting, the repeating of information, the yet one more thing to do in the morning. I won’t do it the afternoon. If I absolutely had to, I could, but I don’t feel emotionally ready to put up with bureaucratic bullshit later in the day.

Example. I tried to workout in the afternoon a couple of weeks ago. Made sense to me since I used to workout at 4 pm for about twenty years. Nope. My body does not want to do that.

It is true that I can engage others just fine though. Like MVP Monday night. Like Mussar at 1pm on Thursdays. But. If I do that more than once or twice a week, or if, like Monday I don’t get to sleep until late, it cuts into my morning time.

Not sure how to handle this. Not sure at all.

 

 

 

 

 

Cooking, Politics, Writing

Cookin’

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Mabon (Fall) and the Sukkot Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Ruth. Dawn. Steel gray over Black Mountain. Cool. Dreams. Adults. UC Boulder. Transitional season. Mid-Fall. Drosophila brain. Europa Clipper. Uzbekistan. Diane’s trip. Mark and Mary in Malaysia. Mark headed to Saudi Arabia. The flyover from Israel to Iran. My son and Murdoch and Seoah, enjoying cooler weather at last. The Jang family planning a trip to Colorado. Next summer.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ovid’s Metamorphosis

Kavannah: Yirah

One brief shining: Got out the mirepoix vegetables Carrot, Red Onion, Celery and the dutch oven, the Olive oil and the Cornish Game Hen, diced the Celery, then the Carrots and Onions, poured the Olive oil in the dutch oven, clicked to 7 on the induction stove, waited a bit, then used the flat side of my cleaver to drop the vegetables into the hot oil, sizzling, cooking slowly, when the onion turned translucent and the celery, too, I placed the Cornish Game Hen in the pot and poured Chicken Bone Broth in, steam rising as it hit the already hot dutch oven’s bottom, added enough water to cover the small Chicken, waited for a hard boil, clicked down to 2 for simmer, put the lid on and went off to read Jennie’s Dead while the soup cooked.

 

Two significant notes here. The celecoxib (generic Celebrex) allowed me to stand long enough to cook. Something I’ve been unable to do for months. Chicken soup using a Cornish Game Hen instead of a full Chicken. Slowly gaining ground on cooking for one. Soups. Smoothies with protein powder. Sardines. Fruit. Want to make my own food, but the pain was in the way. Somewhat better is enough. Will probably still rely on takeout on certain days.

Second. I’m reading further and further into Jennie’s Dead. Some of it is wonderful. IMO. Some of it I wonder why I wrote it. I can see a path through it though. Rearranging. Cranking up the conflict from the first page. Letting plot and characters develop in a more organic way. This and the cooking? Teshuvah. Returning to the land of my soul. The who I am. I am not the pain or the cancer; or better said, I’m not only the pain and the cancer. The who I am does not have to lie in waiting.

 

Just a moment. 30 days. One month. In this corner, the orange menace, that molester of women, that felonius candidate, the man from Mar-a-Lago! His opponent the woman from California, former prosecutor and current Vice-President of the United States of America, Kamala Harris! This is a fight to a knockout. No winning on points.

Now candidates, here are the rules. One of you will get 270 electoral college votes or more. That person will be the winner. Even if they lost the popular vote as Republicans have in every election since 2000. 270 plus electoral college votes is a knockout. No crying. No temper tantrums. One person leaves the stage, does not pass go, does not get sworn in to office on January 20th, 2025.

Holidays, Judaism, Writing

Just Israel, walking his road

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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

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

Wish me joy and persistence

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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.

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism, Kabbalah, Science, Writing

Go, Elementals!

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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.