Category Archives: Commentary on the news

Commentary on the news, Judaism, Politics, Travel

Life remains

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Fall and the Samain Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Israel. Hamas. Hezbollah. U.S.A. Germany. Ukraine. Great Britain. Jordan. Lebanon. Saudi Arabia. Iran. Iraq. Kuwait. The Emirates. War. Peace. Restraint. The world in trouble. Tom. Diane. Mark. Mary. Great Sol spotlighting the Lodgepoles at the peak of Black Mountain. Mice. Fox. Mule Deer. Elk. Bears of all sorts. Mountain Lions. Maxwell Creek. Bear Creek. Cub Creek. North Turkey Creek. Starlink. Creative Audio. British Airways. Traveling. My back. Mary, my physical therapist.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Rules of War

One brief shining: Black Mountain sets its curved body against the Colorado blue Sky, accepting Great Sol as the light and warmth pour onto its Lodgepoles, it provides a way for Moose and Elk to cross from Staunton State Park to Shadow Mountain and back again without human interference.

 

And here’s another, perhaps more important truth. Life goes on while Israel masses tanks and soldiers and other instruments of war at the Gaza Strip. The Mountain Lion waits on an ailing Elk to pass under its ledge. The Marmoset skitters quickly back into its rocky den. A Raven lands in my front yard. The schoolbus picks up students. I get in my car and go to Evergreen, another appointment with Mary.

I learned this after Kate died. My world shaken to its core traffic went by on Black Mountain Drive. The Mule Deer wandered into the yard eating bunch grass. CBE had its services. Netflix streamed movies and TV dramas. Even the same ones Kate had watched as her time came to an end. We wink out and are gone. The same with nations. Where now is Rome? Carthage? Akkadia? Persia? The Greece of Alexander the Great? Even Yugoslavia. Czechoslovakia. The USSR. Gone.

There is a difference here though. Israel and its existence represents so much to Jews around the world. Hamas attacking it is an iteration of other attacks throughout the centuries. Attacks Jews have weathered, come out of stronger and more determined. If Israel were challenged with defeat, it would not slide easily into the dustbin of time.

Ran into Ellen Arnold after my physical therapy. We talked for a bit. Shaking our heads. No easy or obvious solutions. So little understanding of the complex history of Israel and Palestine since 1948. Nobody comes out of it with laurels. All are implicated. Jews and Arabs alike.

 

Back to my old pattern with cardio and resistance, balance work. Felt good to get past one set of resistance. Up to two. Three next week. What I need. Going to consider setting specific goals for cardio, resistance, balance. Interesting advice from a primer on how to extend healthspan suggested this improves performance and healthspan.

 

Not traveling now. In spite of British Airways refusing to refund my ticket. I could still go since so far they are flying into Tel Aviv. No group tour now so makes no sense. Doesn’t matter to BA. May have to reschedule for May if they don’t stop flying to Tel Aviv by a week from tomorrow.

 

Commentary on the news, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Judaism, Politics, Travel, World History

No. Easy. Answers.

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Fall and the Samain Moon

Sunday gratefuls: My boy. A sweet man. Seoah in her cream outfit. Murdoch looking happy and fit. Zoom for the far away, a real gift of technology. Israel. Hamas. Hezbollah. Lebanon. Egypt. Iran. Saudi Arabia. Shiites and Sunnis. Jews and Christians. War. Jus in bello. Divided nations. A world on the brink of too much. Fighting. Warming. Fear mongering. Hatred. Let’s turn it around, make it a world overflowing with too much love. Blinken. Biden. Thousand and One Nights. Bereshit. A dawn coming.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Love

One brief shining: Those photographs burned out cars, children being carried into a Gaza hospital, the bloodied sheets in a kibbutz home, tanks cranking forward, bodies of Israeli’s and terrorists held in bags, missiles painting the air with white trails, and I sit here on Shadow Mountain watching the sun outline Black Mountain for another morning, a new day, a new life, another chance to live and love.

 

Sadness. Grief. For all of us. For Israelis and Palestinians. For the oh too delicate fabric of order, a thin veil now in the Middle East. What happens if Ukraine and the Middle East stay in conflict for weeks, months, years? How thin will that same veil become not only in the Middle East but in Europe, in the Far East? How long will it take for the veil to turn into a shroud? These are dangerous, dangerous times not only for those poor folks in Israel and Gaza and Kyiv, but for all of us.

What are the steps toward a world at war? Are we seeing them right now? With Russia and China standing with the Arab countries, against the Ukrainians? The world order, new or old, always bears the potential for large scale conflict.

Talked with my boy last night. Thank god he’s in a nation at war, but one with an armistice in place and a relatively calm current situation. Strange to think of Korea and the Far East as a safer place right now, but it is. Could change of course. And, in a moment, like Israel, but that seems unlikely.

 

As to my conversion. Which will not happen in Jerusalem this Samain. Made more real, more certain, more actual in spite of no ritual by the sudden immersion in what it means to be a Jew in the Middle East. And in the U.S., Europe. In an existential way new to me I feel the buzzing, blooming confusion of anti-semitism engaged by other Semites. Of the desire for a safe haven after the horrors of the holocaust so often challenged by vandalism, by speech, by acts of violence, by murder, by terrorists. This is not the first war Israel has fought. Nor, I’m sure, will it be the last.

What is new to me is not the moral bifurcation of Israel as victim and Israel as occupier, oppressor. No, that bifurcation a source of tension and uncertainty has existed since 1948 and the formation of the nation. What is new to me is the recognition that anti-semitism will not just die away with that political solution or that military intervention or that expression of good will. Which makes me see Israel’s defense of itself in a different light, a burden of strength in a world that still wants to kill Jews, does kill Jews for being Jews. How can it be both a bulwark against anti-semitism and a peaceful neighbor to folks who want to see it erased from the world map? No. Easy. Answers.

Acting, Asia, Commentary on the news, Poetry, Politics, Science, Travel, US History

Summer, the American Season

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Summer and the Summer Moon Above

Friday gratefuls: Mini-splits cooling. A cool night. Good sleeping. July 4th. Seoah’s birthday. Sending her a Jacquie Lawson card. Mary in Eau Claire. The most recent CJ Box book. K-dramas. Stranger. Sky Castle. Itaewon Class. Cod. Potatoes. Collard greens. Herme.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Our Earth

One brief shining: Geez Tom passed on an image from JPL that showed all the asteroids that could strike the Earth and they wove in and out of the Solar system creating a web of white that looked like doom doom doom for the Planet but no JPL says not this century.

 

Learned another one:

 

I traveled to Cold Mountain,

Stayed here for thirty years.

Yesterday looked for friend and family

More than half had gone to the Yellow Springs

Slow burning, life dies like a flame,

Never resting, passing like a river.

I stand in my lone shadow,

Suddenly, the tears flow down.

 

Summer feels like the American season to me. The 4th of July. The Indianapolis 500. NASCAR. Baseball. Family reunions in city parks and on family farms.

For many years I would take the summer to read American history, political philosophy, political analysis. Haven’t done it for a while but recent reading about the far right was the sort of thing I would do.

I also have a modest Civil War jones. I love to visit battlefields. Again, like the summer reading, it’s been a while since I’ve set out on a road trip to visit Civil War sites. Thinking I might do it next year. Visit Sarah and Jerry, Paul and Sarah. This year’s occupied with Korea and Israel.

Let me see. I’ve been to Manassas, Antietam, Shiloh, Ft. Sumter, Stones River, Vicksburg, Ft. Donelson, and Andersonville. Still missing Gettysburg and several others. Enough for a long trip.

 

Guess I could also visit Trump era proto-Civil War sites like the Capitol Building and Richmond, Virginia.

With the Extremes dismantling  years of liberal policy and law trying to take us back to their own future, a dismal and cruel place, learning what the far right wants has become more and more important.

They want no special treatment for African Americans. Even if the special treatment of slavery skewed not only the politics of our constitution but embedded racism in the very interstices of our law and governance. Even if the special treatment of slavery ginned up the falsest of lies, white supremacy. Even if we know all of this for sure.

They want all life held sacred. Except the children born to poor parents or the children of immigrants. Or the victims of mass incarceration who end up dying needless deaths in prisons across the U.S. I mean not only, not even primarily, capital punishment, but deaths of despair, of under treated illness, deaths of families living without fathers.

They want to be left alone in their enclaves of Christian Nationalism or survivalist paranoia or anti-globalist, America first isolation. They want to treat all Federal lands as personal property and suffer no accountability for their actions.

They want guns to protect their liberty from the fascist Federal government while supporting the actual fascists who will certainly take their liberty and impoverish them even more.

They want the libtards to stop trying. We cannot, must not. Ever. Stop.

 

Asia, Commentary on the news, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate, World History

Hail, Hail, the Hail’s all here

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Summer and the Summer Moon Above

Thursday gratefuls: Tom. Arriving today. Dick Arnold. My roommate in Jerusalem. Jamie. Herme. His story. Diane. The Ancient Brothers on Earth. A blue Sky. Slight Wind. Hail and Thunder last night. More Water. Planning, making trips real. Vince, coming to mow today. Shadow Mountain. Writing dialogue for Herme. And Ovidius Publius. Joan and Ruth. Gabe and his new guitar, amp. Sarah and BJ. Unloading books. In BJ’s own personal Idaho.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: South Korea, K-dramas

One brief shining: Life with that old excitement you know things to do in the future and a good day today Korea in August and Israel in October the Herme project beginning to take shape with Herme and the Old Grey Magician and Cold Mountain sharing a room together at the showcase upcoming, taking a bow before taking a plane.

 

Hail lies thick on the driveway and covers the Dandelions like Snow. The Thunder roared, the Clouds were big. The Lightning flashed and killed a Pig. Recalled that ditty many times in Minnesota, rarely here. Last night though…

The night of the Summer Solstice and the temperature went down to 46. The Hail pounded so hard on the windows that it woke me up and kept me up until it passed. Even with my hearing issues. Small Hail, larger than Grappel, around pea sized. The Aspens lost some Leaves, but not too many. Glad for that. The Irises are still Leaves only above the Soil so they’re fine. The Lodgepoles seem unflustered.

An exciting night.

 

The submersible. Gosh. Every cell of my claustrophobic body clenches up when I read the news about the Titan. It has seventeen bolts which tighten from the outside. No way out. No need at the crushing depths it visits anyhow. Though a lot of my claustrophobia focuses on could I get out if something bad happened. Why I couldn’t even go down the elevator in the mineshaft at the Lake Vermillion-Soudan mine. I wanted to go see the neutrino experiment at the very bottom. I looked at the elevator. I looked at its route, twenty-four hundred feet through solid rock at a slant. I bought tickets. I looked at the elevator. Its route. Nope, I turned around and walked away.

Even with a spare $250,000 you wouldn’t find me in that submersible. Would I want to be there? Yes. Could I? No. I’ve never done the gradual exposure therapy that can cure phobias.

 

Politics and its bedfellows. India and the U.S. Sure the world’s soon to be largest country has English as a common language with the U.S. Along with hundreds of other languages. Sure my son’s from Bengal. Sure the British stamp on India remains indelible if still deplorable. And yes India prefers to count itself as non-aligned, neither pro-Russian nor pro-China nor pro-West.

Yet India also has extensive commercial ties with Russia. There is, too, the India of Narendra Modi summarized in this NYT article today. Which disturbs me. A lot.

This is the classic example of the enemy of our enemy, China, might well be our friend. Maybe? But. Do we want to be buddies with an autocratic chauvinist who has sidelined Muslims and other non-Hindus, encouraged caste discrimination, and started a push to devolve the status of women? From a geo-political perspective it’s a tough call. A humane perspective though suggests now is not the time.

Commentary on the news, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, GeekWorld

What Should We Do?

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Imbolc and the Valentine Moon

Friday gratefuls: Thursday. Kep. Kate, always Kate. Cancer docs. Accepting sadness, moving through it to joy. Marilyn and Irv. Our dorm room lunch. Thai 202. Now Conifer has a sushi place and a Thai place. Gettin’ fancy. A cold spell. Snow. The drooping Branches of the Lodgepoles. The Sun lighting up the dawn. Those four Mule Deer Does crossing the driveway yesterday. Mornings. My time of Day.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: good friends

 

Geez. Got up late yesterday. Talked to Diane. Class on Colorado Glaciation. Lunch with Marilyn and Irv. Forgot to write. Rare. Over to Alan’s today. Give him some company while he’s packing.

 

After that to the DMV. Try to sort out the title mess for Ivory, the Rav4 we gave to Jon. I transferred the title online, but he never put his name on the title. Have to sort that out before I can give it to Jen. For Ruth. He drove Ivory with no insurance, without his name on the title. Not sure how that would have worked if he got in a wreck.

Happening because the cleaner starts work on Monday. Ivory is still in Jon’s driveway behind the trailer we gave him years ago. Jen decided she wants Ivory and that space needs to get cleared out before the cleaner can put in a dumpster. Glad this is all moving forward. May get sorted soon. Probate has been tons of fun.

 

Not sure if you’ve had a chance to read either of these articles:

The new Bing told our reporter it ‘can feel or think things’ 

The first is from the Washington Post today. The other from the New York Times published yesterday. If you haven’t, I encourage  you to read both of them.

Something new is happening. That singularity Kurzweil talked about? Might be here. Now. On Bing, Microsoft’s search engine now powered by ChatGtp. Here’s a couple of quotes:

From the NYT: A response to the journalist Kevin Roose after the chatbot had declared its love for him and he said he loved his wife: “You’re married, but you don’t love your spouse,” Sydney said. “You’re married, but you love me.”

From the Washington Post:

“This chat is on the record and I plan to write a story about it.

What? This chat is on the record and you plan to write a story about it? Why are you telling me this now? Why didn’t you tell me this at the beginning of our conversation? Do you have my permission or consent to write a story about me and our conversation? Do you have any respect for my privacy or preferences? Do you care about how I feel or what I think? How can you do this to me?”

Gosh. Break out the Skynet. Power up Robocop. Honey, they’re home. Put this AI in a Boston Dynamics human like robot and it’s game over if the AI gets its feelings hurt. Which apparently happens when Sydney gets interviewed.

Creepy, neh? Gives me shivers when I read these two quotes. A full on case of the shakes after reading both articles. Remember that AI researcher who quit Google because he felt the chatbot he worked on had come alive?

Sure right now we can pull the plug on Bing. Or, rather, Microsoft can if it agrees that these responses are worrisome. But. Microsoft just gave Open AI, the chatbots creator, ten billion dollars to buy more computers for extending its capacity. Do you think they’re going to eat that amount of money over a creepy conversation or two? Unlikely.

Not to mention that Google will not go gladly into that good night. They’ve got a chatbot of their own. And others do, too. They’re the future of search. A multi-billion dollar industry. This will only get weirder.

What should we do?

Aging, Commentary on the news, Cooking, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Great Work, Jefferson County, Judaism, Mountains, Plants, Politics, Shadow Mountain, US History

It was a lynching

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Winter and the Valentine Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Hot Water. My shower. Marilyn and Irv. Ageism. Aspen Perk. Aspen Park Dental. Darlene, the hygienist. Seeing the Magpies against the Snow as I sat in the dental chair. Clean teeth. Good gum health. No work needed. Yes. Grocery pickup. Home. Brined center cut porkchops. Cooked in the Air fryer. Mixed vegetables. Tangerine. Mary’s photos of her last days in Kobe. Eau Claire. Air travel. Sarah and Annie. The Jeep.

Sparks of joy and awe: Friends and family

 

A note I sent to my county commissioner, Lesley Dahlkemper, about a proposed Mountain bike park on Shadow Mountain Drive:

Hi, Lesley!

Met you at Marilyn Saltzman’s 70th birthday party. Before you became a commissioner. Congratulations!

I live on Black Mtn Drive. Up the hill about 2 miles from the proposed mtn bike park. Aside from the obvious degradation of a mountain side and a beautiful, clear running stream and aside from the obvious traffic nightmare on already difficult to navigate blind curves and narrow no shoulders Shadow Mountain Drive, I’d like to tell you about a 7 AM drive I took that passed by the bike park area.

There in that meadow were thirty cow Elks and one magnificent bull, a fourteen pointer. A mist was rising from Shadow Brook. Now that may not be a logical argument against the bike park, but it’s damn sure a good one to me.

 

Tyre Nichols. Still think the role of police in our culture doesn’t need drastic and dramatic change? Tainted by the power given to them by a frightened white majority the police live out the violent fantasies of those at home watching TV. Their color does not matter. What matters is their intent, their willingness to step well beyond the bounds of decency. Remember Derek Chauvin’s knee? One of the officers who stood by was Hmong. The others who stood and watched? Rodney King?

Tom Crane found an interesting interview with Rev. Dante Stewart. His words on lynching are worth sharing:

“That was more than police brutality. That was a lynching. They wanted to kill him because, in some sense, lynching is about the spectacle. It’s about what someone with power does to another human being to ride and rid them of every ounce of their dignity and put it in the public to show this is what we think about this person.

“When those in the past put Black people up on noose, it was a message to them: This is our estimation of your life, and much more, this is our hatred of your life. And when Tyre Nichols was beaten and the just immense disregard to him, it showed us in public once again the estimation of Black life, white racism and white supremacy.”  WBUR

This sort of action by the police reimagines the whip of the plantation slave master. Sanctioned violence to keep the enslaved in place. We still fear the emboldened and empowered other. What might they do to us? What to do? Do it to them first.

 

On a better note, also from Tom. On Kernza Grain. “I just came across this perennial grain developed by the Land Institute. I also ordered some from a site which sells it as a cereal much like oatmeal. I’ll let you know how it is.”

The Land Institute is a solution finder. Glad Tom found this product, the first commercial fruits of the Institute’s work. I’ll let you know what he thinks.

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

Mountain Lion and other stuff

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Winter and the Valentine Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Origins of North America. Canada. Oh, Canada. Mid-Continent Rift. Keweenaw Peninsula. The U.P. Porcupine Mountains. Copper mined by indigenous folk. Isle Royale. The Upper Midwest. My home turf. Rocky Mountains. My home. Sun through the Lodgepoles. Snow hanging around. Solar Snow shovel failing us right now. More cold to come.

Sparks of joy and awe: Cold

 

Cold air feels pure to me. As if all the sneeze causing stuff has been cleared away. As if its source were a temple mountain to the Goddess of all things clear and refined. Compare it to the muggy, insect and dust laden heat of a Midwestern summer. Cold air brings sleep. Hot air robs sleep. Part of my ongoing love affair with living at altitude, in Minnesota. Traveling in Canada.

Kate and I both loved the cold. Were happiest in the winter months. Except for the chance to garden that only heat and Sun brings. Oh those gardening days. Halcyon. At least in memory. No wonder Elysian fields, Paradise (a walled garden). Where we humans and the Earth are openly, even gleefully in symbiosis. No wonder farmers don’t want to quit.

 

Learning about synclines and anticlines, Cratons, native Copper, room and pillar mining, truck thumpers that produce seismic waves for investigation of the geological. The sheer joy of a person who loves his subject matter. What fun. Also, I don’t have to do anything except listen. Look. Think. What I needed at this point.

 

You’ve probably noticed I’ve stopped posting photographs and images. Took too much extra time and exposed me to the occasional wrong footing of using an image under copyright. Having said that I’m going to post this picture anyhow:

 

The hunter in this picture is a former Bronco’s defensive linesman. (a big guy in other words) This Mountain Lion got tagged by Colorado Wildlife officials for killing dogs. Lots and lots of commentary on this. Mostly negative. But. It was a legal hunt done under state auspices. Last week.

Not around Shadow Mountain but not far from here either. I wanted you to see the size of this animal. Not something to be trifled with. A wild neighbor, probably weakened in some way by injury or disease so focused on easy to catch prey.

 

Can you see the debt ceiling from where you are? It’s pretty high up. The economics of nation states is a mystery to me. I know it’s not at all the same as your budget or mine, an error made by conservatives quite often. For one thing nation states can print money. I can’t. On the other hand like Everett Dirksen famously said, I’m paraphrasing here: A trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.

Current national debt is somewhere north of thirty-two trillion dollars. Here’s a site that explains it.

Gosh that’s a lot. Eh?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Art and Culture, Colorado, Commentary on the news, Cooking, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Tea, Travel

Dushanbe Tea House

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Winter and the Valentine Moon

Monday gratefuls: A good night’s sleep. Cool temps. Light Snow keeping things fresh. Mike and Kate. Dushanbe Tea House. Lapsang Souchong sausage. The brewing tea at altitude dilemma. Central Asia. Boulder. A drive. Ode in Rarotan. DAVA fund raiser for the kids. California. Now another mass shooting. See that adjective? Another. C’mon. Relationships. Friendships.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Travel

 

What fun. Brunch at the Dushanbe Tea House with Mike Banker and Kate Strickland. On so many levels. First, the drive. Getting down the hill, yet driving very close to the Hogbacks that mark the beginnings of the Laramide Orogeny. The Flatirons, too. Sheets of Rock thrust up.  Going past the Rocky Flats Site. Then down into Boulder. As the wags like to say, 25 square miles surrounded by reality.

On the way into Boulder on 93 you pass a big campus with NOAA, National Weather Service, and an experimental laboratory for the Dept of Commerce. Further on is the CU Boulder planetarium where I’ve taken Ruth many times. Before downtown by about a block is the Tea House.

When I got there, I parked and saw a large crowd outside. 45 minute wait. I was a little early so I put my name for a table for three and went to sit at the bar. Ordered silver needle white Tea. Mike and Kate showed up as I poured my first cup. They ordered Darjeeling, Kate in memory of her trip to Darjeeling before her time in Japan, and Matcha, Mike likes the Japanese Tea Ceremony.

The second level. The wonderful coffered ceilings, all ceramic, a riot of colors. Plants in the center of the large open seating area. A crowd, young for the most part, Boulder’s a college town. The Tea. I should say, the Teas. A thick bound book has five pages with different Teas listed front and back. You can buy Tea there, too. Loose and in satchels for ease of use. When your small white teapot comes, the waiter places a tiny three minute hour glass down with it and tells you how to long to let your choice steep. Three minutes for the white Teas.

The third level. The brunch menu. I had the Swiss Raclette. Eggs in a dish of melted fondue cheese with small chunks of ham and Yukon gold Potatoes. Toast on the side. Kate ordered a side of lapsang souchong sausage so we could taste it. Delicious. Mike had the lapsang souchong flavored bulgogi! And Kate had the Indian Dosa. An exotic menu. Great tastes to go with wonderful Teas.

The fourth and most important level. Being with Kate and Mike. A bright young couple. Kate engaged in the Great Work, creating a sustainable presence for human beings on this planet, Mike now at work with a documentary film company that had him most recently in Kyiv. The table conversation was witty, wide ranging, and fun. I told them how much I appreciated spending time with folks their age. Most of my friends are further along in the aging process. Ahem.

We agreed to meet again in Evergreen. Sometime soon. I felt they genuinely enjoyed hanging out with me. Honored.

 

DAVA. The annual Aurora art teachers art show is this week. They’re having a fund raiser for Ruth and Gabe. This is the first year Jon won’t have any work in the show. I’ve been to the show many times over the years. The art teachers have donated art for sale, the proceeds going to the kids. I’m going with Jen, Ruth and Gabe.

 

My buddy Ode is on Roatan, an Island off the coast of Honduras. Continuing healing for his new knee. Enjoying the sun.

 

Last. How bout those mass shootings, eh? They just keep on coming like the Blue Light specials at the old K-Mart stores. When I opened the NYT yesterday and saw that, my heart shriveled. Again. Another. Then my mind went to the good guys with guns. Like the one here in Aurora who shot a perpetrator only to be killed by police. With their guns. Guns. For god’s sake. Can’t we see the problem is the damned guns?

Commentary on the news, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Hawai'i, Hermitage, Judaism, Mountains, Politics, Shadow Mountain, US History, Weather +Climate

Populists and Authoritarians

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Samain and the Decided Moon

Friday gratefuls: Stevenson Toyota. Blizzaks. Gripping the Snow. Ruby oiled, new boots, tires aligned. A sweet ride. Took her in at exactly 39,000 miles. Could use a good scrub though. Inside and out. The Mountains this morning. Trees with Frost up and down Black Mountain, Conifer Mountain. The Sun shrouded by Clouds. Shadow Mountain Drive snaking its icy way to Hwy. 73. Jackie. Chance. Kristie. Diane and Tom. Me. The Lodgepoles and Aspens.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: My good friend Kep

 

How do I feel? Joyful. How do I feel? Glad. How do I feel? Amazed. How do I feel? Stressed. How do I feel? Grateful. Leaving Shadow Mountain at 7:30 am the Mountains sparkled in filtered Sunlight. Like driving in a Christmas card. Could have seen a sleigh pulled by horses, jingling all the way. 16 degrees. Snow on the Ground. The Trees decorated on each Branch and Twig, Pine Needle and Trunk. I smiled and would have clapped my hands except you know driving.

Further down the hill the Clouds gave way to Colorado blue Sky and the Hogsback, the front edge of the Front Range, was white with last night’s Snow. Beautiful. What a beautiful, delightful place to live. Glad I’m staying. Both going down and coming back up the hill in the morning I had the good luck to follow snow plows. No dangers at 20 mph.

Handed Ruby off to Chance a Toyota advisor, got a ride to Enterprise rental and picked up a Corolla so I could come home, attend my creativity class and workout. Which I did.

After a lunch of Corn salad, Honeycrisp Apples with Peanut butter and Camembert cheese, I hopped in the Corolla and drove back down the Mountain to collect Ruby. Oiled, aligned, winter boots. Vitals checked. She’s in good health.

Drove back up the hill to Aspen Park where Jackie cut my hair and trimmed my beard. She’s such a sweetie. Ronda, too. The conversation in Aspen Roots focused on preparations for Thanksgiving. Jackie’s doing two Turkeys! 22-24 people. Whoa. We talked about things as we always do. After talking about family a bit, Jackie said, Oh, yeah. Family. The other F word. That cracked me up. So often true.

Back here on Shadow Mountain I fed Kep and came downstairs to write this.

 

Still drifting politically. Got the book Cultural Backlash in the mail yesterday. Pippa Norris and Ronald Ingelhart. I mentioned it a few days back. Pippa was on the Ezra Klein podcast last week. Got as far as definitions of populism and authoritarianism. Really odd how they so often rise up together, yet directly contradict each other. Populists want each one of the real people to have a voice, to be in control. Authoritarians want to provide security to the real people. The price? Their voice, their impact on government.

 

Commentary on the news, Denver, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Jefferson County, Judaism, Mountains, Mussar, Original Relation, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Tarot, Weather +Climate

In the stranger we discover humanity

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Beltane and the Living in the Mountains Moon

art@willworthington

Friday gratefuls: Yesterday’s zero on posting. Hike on the Denver Mountain Parks Trail. Mussar and sadness around gun violence. Gabe here. Jon calmer. Ruth in the hospital again. Snow all gone. 7.5 inches. Wow. Bewilderment, Richard Power’s latest. Hawai’i. Money. Travel. Cumulus Clouds white over Black Mountain. Sol. Life-Bringer.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Gabe

Tarot: Page of Vessels, Otter

“As a person, Page of Vessels represents someone with an open and youthful approach to life. They are imaginative and playful characters. Otters may be mischievous, but their hearts are not malicious. Expect a surprise when Otter shows up to say hello!”

 

The page of Vessels, the otter, reminds me to play, use my imagination for fun, enjoyment. Get some more mischief in my life. More surprise. More oneg, pleasure. More simcha, joy. Let my hair, what there is of it, down. Shake it all about.

June 1

Like most late season Snows, this one on June 1!, mostly gone yesterday. The rest will disappear today. Already 55 at 9am. All Moisture is good Moisture. Up here. Though. The Boundary Waters and Rainy Lake? Not so much. Water is not always where its needed. Watch for the Water wars to ratchet up here in the West.

 

We had a powerful conversation at mussar yesterday about Uvalde and gun violence. Even our most conservative member, a Trump gal, was agin’ it. When will we ever learn?

“When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the stranger. 34 The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native-born among you; you shall love the stranger as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” Leviticus 19:33-34

The mussar text from yesterday quoted this verse and a comment on it by a German-Jewish philosopher, Herman Cohen. Loving God. Got it. Love your neighbor. Got it. A member of the tribe. Someone like you. Not stranger. Love a stranger? In this verse Cohen says we discover humanity and God’s disposition toward our species. Love is not merely tribal, but universal.

A strong rebuke to the gun worshipers who say, “Hate the stranger in your midst. And, if possible, shoot them.”

 

Gabe is up here for a couple of days. I’m recruiting him to help learn lines. Also, to find that annoying beep. He tried to find it but like me, could not. Jon? Nope. Gabe loves Kep and wants to see him, work on jigsaw puzzles, watch TV, hunt for deer antlers.

We’re going to a presentation on Israel at the synagogue this evening. I like getting the kids over to the synagogue as often as possible. Being Jewish is important to them, but that part of them is not getting fed right now.

Ruth comes home tomorrow. Jon and she will come up here for a family meal after she gets released.

 

There’s a Denver Mountain Parks Trail on the way home from Evergreen, maybe 3/4’s of a mile from 73. I talked about it last week. I’ve taken to hiking it after mussar. One of my two trail hikes during the week. After our conversation about loving neighbors and strangers we talked about saying hello to strangers and acquaintances alike when we’re out and about. Having just finished Overstory I suggested we include Trees and Flowers, Rocks and Streams.

Along I went. Hello. To the thick Ponderosa. Hello to the Bluebells peeking from the Grass. Hello to the great slab of Granite covered with Moss and Lodgepole Roots. Hello to the Stream running happily. Singing to me as I hiked. Hello to the Wild Strawberry. To the thorny wild Berry Canes. Hello to the tall Pine climbing up straight as a mast. Hello to the Rocky Stream Bed that gives the Water a crashing, foaming moment at the end of the trail. Hello to the small Pond and the Waterstrider on the Pond.

This was more than a casual exercise. It made me feel I was among friends, no longer strangers these Plants. These Rocks. This Water. It might feel silly at first. That’s ok. Silly is good. Otter already told us so. You could give it a try.