Category Archives: Commentary on the news

Commentary on the news, Family, Fourth Phase, Kabbalah, Writing

Guard your own soul

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Samain and the Yule Moon

Here is the vertical depiction of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, inspired by the style of Leonardo da Vinci with intricate, classical details. Let me know your thoughts or if you’d like any refinements!

Wednesday gratefuls: Edwardian Advent Calendar. Shirley Waste. Sprinkling of Snow. Holly and Berries. Ivy. Yule logs. Oak. Pinôn. The Fireplace. On a cold Winter’s evening. Great Sol spreading a pink glow over my Lodgepole Companion. Christmas Music. Dreidels. Menorahs. The Shamash. Hanukah candles. Season of lights. Ohr. Ein sof.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: the Nefesh.

Kavannah: BEAUTY  Tiferet  תִפאֶרֶת  Beauty, harmony, balance  Sixth Sefirah: Reconciliation, synthesis, integration; the Heart (between Chesed & Gevurah)

One brief shining: Gazing through a kabbalistic lens I can see sacred energy, chi, life force, consciousness, ohr whatever fits your understanding, flowing up and down, in and out, over and under as Water transvaporizes, as Great Sol’s Light feeds my Lodgepole Companion, as Raven’s feed on the carcass of a dead Mule Deer, as I breathe Oxygen from the Plant world and eat food created by Light-Eaters.

 

Just the teasers thrown out by red tie guy-Cousin Donald as Joanne Greenberg calls him-may rattle you. Force you out of the day in which we live, the only day in which you will ever live, this day. Today this December 18th, 2024 life. When you allow his provocations, his mindless choices, his venal understanding of the world to pull you into a miserable 2025, dreading its January 20th reading of the Presidential oath, the terrorist has won. Don’t let him occupy your mind and heart. Live rent free.

I hesitate, but not too much, to use this metaphor. That’s the Great Satan at work. Trying to make us angry and fearful, focused on the appetites of a man we might otherwise feel sorry for. A stunted soul with a blinkered and greed and attention-demanding nefesh.

Guard your own soul today. Seek out the beautiful. The loving. The wonderful. The sacred. Husband your power, your strength for whatever may lay ahead. Put off becoming anxious about matters not yet in play.

 

The Storyworth folks. I wrote about this a few days ago. Rabbi Jamie mentioned it to me. I’ve written answers to five questions so far, getting myself into writing mode by writing. The best way. I light my candle and respond to the question, writing as long as I can, at least 500 words, sometimes more. Which makes a thousand words plus a day with Ancientrails. That’s enough to satisfy the writerly need in me.

 

Just a moment: School shooters. Troubled teens. I know a few myself. Not troubled in that way, that is, a violence prone way, but I can see how it would not have been a long step for them. What if their parents had owned guns? Been the sort of folks who feared the world, saw it as a dangerous, dark place. If that weren’t true, what if their friends had been such people? Something has broken adolescence in America. And I don’t know what it is.

 

Colorado, Commentary on the news, Family, GeekWorld, Literature, Science, Sport

Fun with our AI future overlords

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Samain and the Yule Moon

Monday gratefuls: Google calendar. Computers. NVidia. AI. Catastrophizing. Equalizing. Leveling. Great Britain. Scotland. England. Wales. Ireland. Brittany. Galicia. The Gaeltach. The Celtic Faery Faith. Wassailing. Yule logs. Evergreen Boughs and Trees. Singing and Feasting.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Echocardiograms

Kavannah: Perseverance and Love

One Brief Shining: The bigger and harder and more important project, supporting the liberal democratic vision of Lincoln, Teddy and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which, as Heather Richardson said, means having a government big enough and strong enough to fight off not only foreign foes, but especially domestic ones: the haters, the oligarchs, religious extremists like the Christian nationalists.

Another chatbot image

Having fun with chatbot and image creation. It often doesn’t spell too well and can approach the cartoonish rather than the beautiful. Still. I can get an image I know I have the right to post and that’s original. I’ll get better with my prompts and chatbotgpt will improve over time, too. I’m also using chatbot as a resource for the work I’m doing on the Great Wheel holidays.

Working with the idea from a couple of days ago. Write Ancientrails. Eat breakfast. Write five hundred to a thousand words on the Great Wheel. Workout. I like this rhythm and it gets my candle lit. A key reinforcer.

 

Brother Mark has flown back to Bangkok, awaiting January 1 and a flight to his old stomping grounds in Hafar, Saudi Arabia. He’s also figuring out what he needs to do to retire. A task all of us have faced or will face.

I admire his ability to live what he himself calls his unconventional lifestyle. Not many have seen as much of the world as he has. Not many Americans know Saudi Arabia and its citizens as well as he does. Mark shows  what it is to be an American by traveling to spots where our kind is not common. An important role and one he does well.

 

Just a moment: My heart goes out to Colorado skier Mikaela Shiffrin. Puncture wound from the gate at the top of her run. Having had Kate with a feeding tube I know how troublesome these kind of wounds can be. Often requiring expert management. She’s a phenom not only while skiing at speed, but in her mental toughness, yet her public vulnerability, too. This last noticeable after her father’s untimely death a couple of years ago. She’ll come back and snag that 100th victory. I’ll be skiing with her when she does.

As long I’m writing about young women I admire, let me add, again, Zöe Schlanger. Her sensitivity to the Plant world, her depth of research, and her own inquisitive intellect. You go, Zöe.

 

I understand Joe. You had the power. You love your son. 45/47 will do the same for so many, too. Not sure what I’d do. An ethical/emotional vice I hope never to encounter. My take? It’s holiseason. With an emphasis on light and family and the warmth of human community. In the spirit of the season, I’ll say.

Asia, Commentary on Religion, Commentary on the news, Judaism, Politics, World History

Where would a grounded conversation begin?

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Mabon (Fall) and the Sukkot Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Ruth. College. All Jewish students on campus. Israel. Palestine. Gaza. The West Bank. Hamas. Hezbollah. IDF. Iran. Cool nights and blue Sky mornings. Combines and Corn pickers. Grain elevators. Soy Beans. Heirloom Vegetables. Honeycrisp Apples. Cosmic Apples. Pink Lady. Wild Blueberries. Blackberries. Mark in Georgetown, Malaysia

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Expat Life of my Sibs

Kavannah: Teshuvah

One brief shining: Alan and I sat outside at the Dandelion Cafe, plastic tumblers filled with cold Water, Coffee, shiny knives and forks, soft white napkins, the orange vested team from Safety Control #1 leaning against their truck talking, waiting for breakfast, as we turned over and over the complex and nuanced mess of Israel, the IDF, Gaza, Hezbollah, and the real foe behind the curtain, Iran.

 

Where would a conversation begin? Back when a young painter of questionable talent decided to take up politics instead? Don’t forget the pogroms in Russia. The massacres in England. Or, maybe during the era of Muslim and Jewish flourishing in southern Spain extinguished by the reconquista and its ugly stepchild, the inquisition? Perhaps during the years of the Roman occupation? Or, before when the remnants of Alexander’s conquests divided up the Middle East? Or, further back when slaves in Egypt rose up and fled their pharaohonic  masters? Could start when Joseph’s brothers sold him off as a slave.  Perhaps with the story of Abraham and Sarah, my lineal Jewish ancestors (as a Jew by choice) and their child Isaac and Abraham’s other child Ishmael with the maidservant, Hagar? Of course, Noah. Really, though, with the first fratricide, the first murder, Cain on Abel. The Jewish story soaked in the blood of fear, of eliminating difference, of full on complex/simple murder.

Certainly we could say with the death camps. Organized, efficient, incomprehensible except for their oh so thereness. Not incomprehensible because they extended and intensified acts by millennia of others who felt it necessary to kill and maim those who didn’t fit this notion of Nation or that of Tribe or of Faith. A disease of the human spirit, more deadly than cancer and capable of changing the politics of even now, here in these United States.

Why I remain a Zionist. Why I believe Jews deserve a nation where they can feel safe and secure. Sure. Yes. Look at the history. Do the Palestinians deserve the same? Of course they do. Is the foreign policy of Israel as exhibited in Gaza wrong? Of course it is. In the West Bank? Again, yes. Against Hezbollah? Not as much in my opinion. Against Iran, the great Ifrit of the Middle East? Again, no.

My sadness here. Deep. Especially since there lay, not even a year ago, an apparent path to peaceful resolution of the Middle East mess. Saudi Arabia would corral the other Sunni states; they would recognize Israel, isolate the Shiite state of Iran and its axis of client terrorists, design and execute a state for Palestinians. It was within reach still on October 5th, 2023. And, never forget, it was Hamas with their invasion of Israel, their raping and pillaging, their taking of hostages, that turned that hope into so much crumpled diplomatic talk.

Oh. What can it be now?

Commentary on the news, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Politics

Navigation

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Lugnasa and the Harvest Moon

Friday gratefuls: Ruby and her gps. Alan. Sunrise/Sunset. Breakfast. Our waitress and her shadow. Getting lost. Getting found. Teshuvah. Tikkun. Tzedekah. Aspen gold on Black Mountain among the larger swathes of green Lodgepoles. Blue Sky. Yirah. Hyperphagia. The Rut. Marmoset Days at Staunton State Park. Books. Literature. Writing. Excited.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Writing

Kavannah (for Elul): Yirah. Teshuvah.

One brief shining: Got off I-70 at Kipling, turned up the frontage road expecting to find at the end of it the Sunrise/Sunset diner with buddy Alan waiting there, drove past Caliber Collision, the United States Truck Driving School to the end of the road which featured a concrete mixing plant; hmmm, I stopped, looked at the map and found that, oh, I meant to get off on 6th Avenue, the six lane feeder highway going into Denver, gave up and plugged the address into my gps which gave me a route no human would have offered, but which had the advantage of finding the diner and Alan.

 

The Sunrise/Sunset diner. Birth and death. A very wholistic spot. Apparently a chain. One item on the menu. Roll Out the Bed. A cinnamon roll. Another. Cornhusker. Eggs with creamed corn poured over them. Maybe another time. Found Alan well at the back after an adventure in navigating. See above. I like to use my own sense of direction but am relieved that if and when I fail, there’s a handy backup plan.

Alan runs the Rotary’s big recycle day in Evergreen. That was last week and went smoothly. If you plan ahead, it’s easy, he said. He’s in the second weekend of his biggest role so far, Governor and Innkeeper in the musical the Man of La Mancha. Says it’s going well. Seeing it on Sunday.

 

Ann McCullough came by today. She’s a nurse practitioner with Optio palliative care. I liked her. She’s a backup plan. More personal. Comes to my house once a month, more if needed. She’ll focus on pain management all along and had some helpful ideas today. How to use Celecoxib and tramadol together. How to manage travel. A bit. Mostly she’s available, a level of care that has home as its focus. If and when needed, she can pass me over to hospice care in the same system. As she said, that’s not anywhere near, but it is comforting to know there’s a continuum of care.

Primary good point for me. Will probably make it possible for me to stay here on Shadow Mountain. She sees that as realistic. With some assistance, I do, too.

This is thanks to Sue Bradshaw’s referral. Another plus for Sue.

 

Today is Luke’s birthday. I’m taking him out for dinner, probably tomorrow night. An older grandson or very young son. That’s how our relationship feels to me. And I like that.

 

Just a moment:  Exploding pagers? Sounds like a plot device. Like a candidate who claims immigrants eat pets. Or, my crowds are bigger than yours. Not sure reality can sustain that name much longer. Heading toward fantasy and illusion.

 

Art and Culture, Commentary on the news, Feelings, Humanities, Letters, Literature, Politics, US History

American Renaissance II

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The Mountain Summer Moon

Phnom Penh Park Hornbills

Tuesday gratefuls: The steady string of twists and other plot surprises. Poor Milwaukee. Joanne and I. All these years we’ve worked. Both shake head. Sushi. Evergreen. Yesterday’s afternoon rain. United Healthcare. A James Bond villain in American corporate clothing. Life with cancer. Flonase. An allergy season from heaven. So far. The Hornbills of Phnom Penh. Thanks, Mark.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Wild neighbors everywhere

One brief shining: Went into Nana Sushi in Evergreen right across from the main fire station in the same spot where Thai 101 was a few years back; saw Joanne and she asked would I rather go back to the booths, yes I would because I could put my hearing aid to the wall well when we got back there she told me she’d been sitting in the front because it was easier for her to get up. Dueling infirmities.

 

Beginning to feel reality slipping away. The shots in Pennsylvania. His fist raised in the oh so ironic Fight, Fight, Fight. Him entering the convention in profile with a large bandage on his right ear. The polls. That documents case for now disappeared. Presidential immunity. Project 2025. As if a thumb has been pressed on the flow of events in my (our) United States of America, tilting them toward putting this guy and his gang of anti-law, anti-constitution, anti-immigration, anti people of color, anti gay and lesbian, anti climate change in power. That’s the reality slipping away. As if a long string of no that can’t be rights has direction and purpose.

As the wags say though. It isn’t over until it’s over. We still don’t know what the next chapters of the political thriller we’re living in have to offer. Things could change. Couldn’t they?

 

Let’s talk instead about Ruth’s frog. A tattoo on her right upper arm. She asked for ideas for names. I suggested Twain. You know, Calaveras County. Which BTW is an event that continues to this day. I found this cute picture on the Calaveras County Website.

Perhaps there is a route through the potential dismal and painful years. An American literary and artistic renaissance. American Renaissance II. A celebration of American art and artists, locally and nationally. Organized readings, classes in person and on zoom, museum exhibitions. Poetry contests. Prizes for new art and artists. A way to remind ourselves of the history of our national spirit. And of our national spirit itself. An oh so important task right now.

When the Ancient Brothers discussed what they’d do with a quarter of a billion dollar windfall, the last thing I offered involved creating a think tank for the advancement of the liberal arts outside the academy. This could be a big idea. A way to counterpunch. With Emerson and Whitman. Twain and Bierce. Dickinson and Sontag. Oates and Morrison. Copland and Gershwin. Bierstadt and Hopper. Cage and Davis. Monk and Coltrane. Piercy and Hughes.

I like this idea. Come at them from the side rather than head on. Perhaps defuse defensiveness? This one stays in the hopper. Soft power.

Commentary on the news, Great Work, Science, Weather +Climate, World History

Water

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The Mountain Summer Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: That sinking into a pleasant day feeling. The heat. Great Sol. Carbon emissions at record highs. Life changing politics on tap. Project 2025. The Sea reaching out, claiming more Land. This heated Land. The poor, especially those in cities like Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson, L.A. Water. Transpiration. Evaporation. Precipitation. The cycle.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: My well

One brief shining: 28 years with a well and a septic system, Andover to Shadow Mountain, no fluoride, the occasional bit of radon, acidity, and chemicals, flowing in from the Aquifer below, in Andover from the Great Anoka Sand Plain, here on Shadow Mountain the well drilled into fractured bed rock, much of the same Water flowing back out through sinks, the washing machine and dishwasher, toilets and into the leech field well toward the back fence line, returning that Water to the Aquifer.

 

a more accurate depiction of the global human-integrated water cycle diagram          10 August 2020 Source Own work Author LangeLeslie and Anna Wright cc license     click to expand

. “The water cycle describes the processes that drive the movement of water throughout the hydrosphere. However, much more water is “in storage” (or in “pools”) for long periods of time than is actually moving through the cycle.” wiki

Water. Water. Everywhere. Including outer space. Astronomers find largest, most distant reservoir of Water in the Universe.* Yet as we can see from the above diagram its distribution on Earth is such that only minimal amounts of fresh Water exist and those that are available are not distributed equally across the continents. See this interesting website: A Look at Global Freshwater Distribution.

The notion of increased heat across the globe caused me to go hunting for information about fresh Water resources since transpiration and evaporation will both increase as the thermostat gets twisted higher and higher. This will have the effect of changing existing patters of freshwater distributions. But how? I don’t know if anyone is planning for this.

This will happen whether the red hot MAG(m)A flows through our political veins or not. As will Sea level rise. And all the other climate change sequelae. Which means that a Ron DeSantis attitude might prevail among U.S. policy makers. What attitude? Florida Gov. DeSantis signs bill that deletes climate change from state law. Just don’t say climate change. And it will go away. Right?

The world may soon enter a period of leadership when national interests, dare I say it, trump global interests. Such a good time for it, too. Since dramatic and difficult to achieve carbon emission reductions are necessary to avoid the worst scenarios. Unlikely to happen. Which will result in a world catastrophe. I admit we were headed that way anyway, but these political changes will seal off any hope for effective addressing of climate change.

This puts the onus on those of us in the liberal to leftist camp to figure out how to work on these issues without governmental support. It can be done. Look at the nature rights movement. The many NGO’s out there from Ancient Forest champions to eco-justice. Even the restoration of Axolotls and Chiampas farming.

Perhaps that will be the way of the future for compassionate and justice oriented work. Happening now.

 

*”Two teams of astronomers have discovered the largest and farthest reservoir of water ever detected in the universe. The water, equivalent to 140 trillion times all the water in the world’s ocean, surrounds a huge, feeding black hole, called a quasar, more than 12 billion light-years away.”

Commentary on the news, Feelings, Mountains, Politics, Weather +Climate

Staying Out of the Kitchen

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The Mountain Summer Moon

Friday gratefuls: Alan. Tom. RMCC. Rocky Mountain Cancer Care. Radiation Consult. July 18. CBE. Donating money. Great Sol. My Lodgepole Companion. Ruth and Gabe. Paddleboarding and kayaking on the Lake in Evergreen. Barb. Memory Care. Heat. Altitude cooling. Mini-splits. Parkside. Breakfast. Evergreen. Shadow Mountain

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Human Experience

One brief shining: Saw a squib about a guy with a frying pan and an egg on the sidewalk in front of the Death Valley Visitor center in Furnace Creek, California which sent me to the weather app I use, Willy Weather, to see what local forecasts were and found Denver at 102 for the next three days, sending our 13-16 cooler temps into the mid-80’s, hot for us, but that guy with the frying pan was counting on close to 130, hotter even than Palm Springs at 124.

 

I can’t imagine living in those conditions, in hot places, any of them. Phoenix. Death Valley. Palm Springs. I like extreme weather, but I like extreme cold and lots of Snow, high heat makes my soul shrivel. Don’t imagine I’m very different from any other human in that regard.

Of course we’re temperate creatures, evolved for seventy degrees, sea level, and shaded environments at this point, but the norm has never appealed to me. Why I live in the Mountains always hoping for colder than normal. No matter the season.

The problem though. Climate change. Already sea level rise. Already migrating plants and animals. Already extreme heat. Already more and stronger hurricanes, typhoons. Life will look and feel different in the near term future. As it already does along coastal areas, in unshaded areas, in large cities, in the Caribbean and the western Pacific.

 

Just a moment: Biden digs in. Biden says he’ll beat 45. Biden says he’s all good. I say, humbug. An extraordinary moment that requires an extraordinary response. Not a pull in the foxhole over my head, fingers in my ears, saying nah nah neh nah nah response. We need a transfusion of political energy and will. I don’t know if Kamala Harris is that transfusion. Don’t know if she isn’t. This is meet the devil at the crossroads time, Robert Johnson might have a clue. We’re all of us on the left singing the I don’t know what happens next blues. Imagining the thin red line of MAGA wrapping itself around our flag and squeezing like a boa constrictor. There is still time. Yet how might we use it? Throws hands in the air. Shakes head.

 

A slow weekend approaching. Shabbat. Reading. Eating. Talking with the ancientbrothers. Just right.

 

 

 

 

Commentary on the news, Great Wheel, Great Work, Science

Cosmic Context for Election 2024

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Summer and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Irv. Tara. Veronica. Her Bat Mitzvah party. Blazing light from Great Sol. Black Mountain’s gentle curve against a Colorado blue Sky. My Lodgepole Companion, among the Lighteaters. Monkeys in Bangkok and K.L. Primates. Gorillas. Bonobos. Chimpanzees. Orangutans. Lemurs. Gibbons. Humans. Monkeys. Baboons. So many relatives.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Our order among living things

One brief shining: Sunlight filtered down to Earth after its 93 million mile journey, some eaten by Coastal Redwood crowns, some by Kentucky Blue Grass on unnecessary lawns, some by the Saguaros in Arizona, some by fields of unnecessary Corn in Iowa, some by Moosehorn and British Soldier Lichen, photons into carbohydrates, raw energy into matter, a transubstantiation so real and true that it supports life of all kinds on the surface of Mother Earth.

 

Here is the best piece of theology I’ve read in quite a while: Earth’s Mysterious, Deep Dwelling Microbes That Sculpt Our Planet. Ferris Jabr, NYT, June 24, 2024. If you choose to read it, you will learn that the Gaia hypothesis has infiltrated much of contemporary science that deals with matters biological, ecological, and, yes, even geological. Life shapes our Earth. Our Earth shapes Life. Here’s the closing paragraph:

“For more than two centuries, Western science has re­garded the origin of life as something that happened on or in Earth, as if the planet were simply the setting for a singular phenomenon, the manger that housed a miracle. But the two cannot be separated in this way. Life does not merely reside on the planet; it is an extension of the planet. Life emerged from, is made of and returns to Earth. Earth is not simply a terrestrial planet with a bit of life on its surface; it’s a planet that came to life. Earth is a rock that broiled, gushed and bloomed: the flowering callus of a half-sealed Vesuvius suspended in a bubble of breath. Earth is a stone that eats starlight and radiates song, whirling through the inscrutable emptiness of space — pulsing, breathing, evolving — and just as vulnerable to death as we are.”

https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2024/05/30/nasas-james-webb-space-telescope-finds-most-distant-known-galaxy/
Just a moment: Here’s another look at God: Piping up at the Gates of Dawn. Dennis Overbye, NYT, June 22, 2024. In this article scientists enthuse that something like JADES-GS-z14-0, a luminous Galaxy formed a mere 300 million years or so after the Big Bang, could have done all it did in “such a short time.” That makes geological time seem like a Mayfly. JADES-GS-z14-0 is the most distant Galaxy ever found.
The James Webb at work.
Commentary on the news, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Science, Torah, Weather +Climate

Talmud Torah

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Summer and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

Friday gratefuls: Sleep. The fan. Rain. Vince. Jamie. The dead Lodgepole. Books. Storm Before the Calm. Orgovyx on the way. Juneteenth. Love. Justice. Compassion. Irv. The Ancient Brothers. A dull white Sky. Little Breeze. The Mountains with their green clothes on. Rock outcroppings. Mule Deer. Elk. Fawns and calves. The life of June 21, 2024. Sweets from Durango via Melbourne. Where it is the Winter Solstice.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Low Fire Danger-in late June

One brief shining: Opened a pocket-knife I bought when the shoe store in Evergreen went out of business, slit the tape on the box from Durango Chocolates, discovered a sealed foil bag, inside it paper shredded insulation, then two cool packs-colder than ice!-and below them a box wrapped in clear plastic announcing chocolates inside, the knife again, the box has yet more shredded paper inside covering a melt in your mouth chocolate bar, sea salt toffee, and Bear balm; a bar mitzvah present I received a day before the Winter Solstice in Melbourne where Mary sat with her computer and ordered it.

 

Started torah study with Rabbi Jamie yesterday. Once a month we’ll read the parsha of the week and Aviva Zornberg’s commentary. The current torah readings are in the book of Numbers. Her commentary, “Bewilderment” will be what we use for now. Jamie’s also going to share a weekly commentary he gets from Art Green, his mentor and former president of the Reconstructionist Seminary.

This is a rare privilege for me. He and I decided to continue our monthly sessions that had been focused on conversion lessons and turn them into torah study. When I was in seminary, the classes on the New Testament and the “Old Testament,” now the Tanakh for me, were my favorites. Something about studying source materials, getting to know them and their stories really well. About revelation and its history. About literature, ancient literature. About myths and legends. About adapting their meanings to the contemporary world. That fascination is still there.

If I remember, I’ll share some from our sessions.

Yesterday we discussed how to interpret God since neither of us are supernaturalists. How do we make sense of the character god’s role? Didn’t get far with that, but as I’ve thought about it since I found myself wanting to go back to Rabbi Toba Spitzer’s book, God is Here, about metaphors for god. Lowercase god is the way Rabbi Rami Shapiro differentiates the henotheistic deity of the Torah from the One who is all who is us who is becoming new right now and always.

 

Just a moment: Heat. Across the U.S. Across the world. High heat. Record breaking heat. Don’t hear much, except in Florida, about climate change deniers. Down there in that puzzling state DeSantis has perfected the nah nah nah nah response to Black history, queer life, and climate change. If you don’t talk about them, they’re not real. DeSantis hasn’t passed the object permanence stage of human development. That’s when babies learn that peek-a-boo’s a game, not the way things are. Poor Florida.

 

 

 

Commentary on Religion, Commentary on the news, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism

Rites of Passage

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Beltane and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

Friday gratefuls: Retrieving my phone. Smiling Pig Saloon and Barbecue. Irv. Paul and Tom. Mussar. The Perkei Avot. Letting us heal ourselves. Kristie. Prostate cancer. Mets. Radiation and Orgovyx. Gabe and baseball. Ruth’s dinner.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: P.E.T. scans

One brief shining: Bathing in the presence of friends and family, no not that kind, the kind where folks see you, come to your Bar Mitzvah, give you presents, and say nice things about you, how significant, how important, so appreciated.

 

Two rites of passage this week. The Bar Mitzvah. Which continues to reverberate in my soul. Wild thought about that. Veronica and I did our conversions at the same time. Now we’ve done our bonei mitzvahs together. She’s 28, beautiful, talented, smart. I’m 77. Together, it occurred to me we represent youth, promise, the feminine, and the elder, maturity, the masculine. A whole person.

 

Second rite of passage. The drug holiday P.E.T. scan results. Not what I wanted. Three or four new metastases. Spinal column, pelvic lymph node. Which means. Meds. Orgovyx starting early next week. Then, radiation at some point this summer. Yet again. I will glow.

Kristie, who takes good care of me, said this is still manageable. And that she would tell me if it was not. That’s reassuring. Sort of. Still manageable made me go, huh.

Each iteration of treatment and recurrence adds up, carries its own weight. Yet I remain positive about the management and care I receive. My cancer seems hardy, able to withstand the best we can throw at it while each time there’s been something to do, something to put it back in quiescence.

That still manageable though. There may come a time. But it has not come yet.

So I will not dwell on it. As the rabbi’s say, each sleep is 1/60th of death and each morning a resurrection into a new life. Today is a new life, a chance to begin again. And that will be always true. Until death does me part from this world.

 

Just a moment: To all those embryo’s resting in cryogenic slumber. The Southern Baptists care about you. Like Alabama’s Supreme Court. Well, that’s what they’d like you to think. Actually ‘Bama and the Southern Baptists want to reach into the culture and impose on it their particular understandings of what it means to be human.

The Jewish position on this issue is clear and has been for centuries. Life begins with the first breath. Like Adam and Eve. Further. Because of this, if a problem occurs during pregnancy, the mother’s life is always given priority.

 

Another instance of religious certainty damaging human beings. Noticed Catholic Bishops have apologized for the treatment of Indians in boarding schools. That happened because Catholics of the time believed with certainty in the truth of Catholicism, the necessary dominance of Christianity over native beliefs, and the manifest destiny of American civilization. Very, very toxic confluence.

The message? Think about those things about which you are certain. Do any of them lead to harm for other people or for the world which sustains us all? Discard them now and learn humility.