Category Archives: Minnesota

Garden, Memories, Minnesota, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Reimaging revelation

The Holy Land

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Samain and the Winter Solstice Moon

Monday gratefuls: Heidi. Irv. Luke. Money. Rich. Leo, the sweet boy. Cooper. Who may join me here. Sleep. Restoration. Resurrection. A new life, this day. Paul’s photo of the sardines. But, Paul, I’m stuck on lobster pots. Tom’s found sign. (right) Bill working with the paper marblers. Ode and the Stars. Diane getting ready for Taiwan. All the wound up little kids out there. Santa Claus. Norad. Christmas Trees. Eggnog. Lights. Yule Logs. All those pagan rooted parts of the celebration we call Christmas. Incarnation

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The ohr in everything

One brief shining: Wanted a piece of jewelry a necklace as a constant reminder of my conversion but no to a mogen David, the six pointed star, no to a chaim searched could not find anything until an Etsy artist from Israel with handmade metal Alephs showed up, loved it the beginning of the Hebrew alphabet, makes no sound, a symbol for ayin nothingness, the ein sof from which Lurainic kabbalah says all creation has its origin, now around my neck, making no sound, under my shirt, talking in quiet whispers to me of origins and nothingness.

 

 

Sorry for wearing my sacred heart on my sleeve these last few posts. No, I’m not. Well, I don’t want to weary you with it. May not be your thing. Or, you may wonder about my mental stability. Which of course you might anyway. But to me I feel sane, just fine. As they all say, right?

Have been re-reading Radical Judaism by Jamie’s mentor, Arthur Greenberg. The Radical piece comes from the Radical Theology movement that sprang up from the death of God conversation. Radical theologians wrote in honest recognition of the wreck on modernist shores that the God of old had become. He expired there, perhaps holding his long white beard in wrinkled old man hands.

In Greenberg I find a soul companion, one who’s journey and mine took the road less traveled to much the same destination. A reimagining of sacredness utilizing the tools of other ancient seekers, especially focusing on the Western religious traditions. I took the Christian turnoff, then the liberal religion loop, stayed a long while in earth centered paganism, but, like Greenberg ended up on the path to the Holy Land.

That may be the best short hand for this work, come to think of it. The Holy Land. Not just for the Middle East anymore. My Holy Land. The drive between Shadow Mountain and Evergreen through the Arapaho National Forest. Your Holy Land, maybe the Waters of Lake Minnetonka, or a Regional Park, or a pond near your townhome, or the cold Atlantic and the Waters and Lands of Down East Maine. Lucky Street and its domestic neighbors.

Bloom where you are planted. Yes, a cliche for sure. And yet profound. Who knows when this phrase entered my archives, too common to pin down. But as an ethic, a call to action, a daily motivator it has stuck with me. Sort of like the shema: Listen up, Israel. The One is our God. Our god is the one. Brought to mind often, shaping a world in its simple resonant logic.

When Kate had to move to the exurbs to be within 15 minutes of the hospital, I resisted. I had lived in the Twin Cities for 30 years. My working life had focused on urban issues, urban politics. What was I gonna do in conservative Anoka County? But there was no choice. She needed the new job. We needed the new job. So. We bought a model home on 2.5 acres of land. About 40% wooded, some scrub Oak and Black Ash with long grass, the rest stripped bare by bulldozers in the process of construction.

Those of you visited our Andover home know what we did. We quite literally bloomed, over and over again, where we were planted.

I’m going to continue this idea later.

 

 

 

Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Jefferson County, Korea, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Plants, Travel, Weather +Climate, World History

Softball, Korea News

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Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Friday gratefuls: Labor Day weekend. My son has Friday and Monday off. The Minnesota State Fair. A not so faded remnant of the Lughnasa festivals of the old Gaeltacht. A Minnesota Fall. Brilliant colors, blue Waters, trips up North. A Rocky Mountain Fall. Aspens gold against Lodgepole Green on Black Mountain. Clear cool Skies. A Korean Fall. Will find out.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Seasons

One brief shining: My son came home last night in a bright t-shirt with Aladdin 02 on the back and a Cobra on the front his left arm bruised at the bicep after he threw a pitch and a hard hit soft ball came right back to him full of joy at playing and having an injury.

 

My son plays on his squadron’s soft ball team. The Cobra signifies their squadron. His first time up a few weeks ago he hit a homer. Now he’s hooked for the season. He’s an athlete, has been since middle school. Cross country in the fall. Ski racing in the winter and track in the spring. High school. He also raced on the UofM’s ski team.

He and Seoah both have the athletic gene, now expressed most often in workouts and golf every weekend. Makes dad glad. Ha. Good for health and for their marriage.

 

Used the apartment’s gym again yesterday. Feel better already. More limber and a regular dose of endorphins. The same three buff middle-aged Korean women were in the weight room. Seemed like chatting had as much to do with their reason for being there as the weight machines.

Noticed, again, that I tilt to the left. Scoliosis. Polio. Beginning to have some soreness in my right hip and lower back. Not often, not always. Usually after a lot of time on my feet.

Still not sure how it will affect my stamina when I get into serious sight-seeing. May be limited to mornings. Maybe less than that. Or, maybe rest at intervals will be enough. I’m sure to find out this weekend since we’re going to Seoul for the first time.

 

Big news here. War games held for both North and South Korea. Every year a war game called Freedom Shield unites South Korean and U.S. militaries in a display of force designed as a response to a hypothetical North Korean invasion. Such exercises enhance the ability of two command structures to blend when faced with actual conflict.

North Korea launched an unsuccessful spy satellite last Wednesday in response. Then two more short range ballistic missiles this week. Today North Korea announced military exercises simulating the occupation of all of South Korea. Tit for tat.

This annual saber rattling makes both sides a bit nervous, jumpy. My son has had some extra work as a result.

On the streets of Songtan this causes no reaction whatsoever as near I can tell. The taxis pick up passengers. Folks go into the coffee shops. Buy meals in restaurants. It’s not that people don’t care. All Koreans want unification. Just not through military means. It’s more that the specter of war hangs so heavy here that it has become a backdrop to daily life. Not ignored, but not engaged daily.

Sort of like having cancer it just occurred to me. You can’t pretend it’s not there. And, yes, it could kill you. But, if it occupies your heart/mind all the time  you give up life. Which doesn’t make sense. So  you make an uneasy peace and go on about your day.

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Memories, Minnesota, Mussar

Old skills

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Lughnasa and the Herme Moon

Friday gratefuls: Janet. Her name is Janet. Mussar. Leading a discussion. Metaphor and the sacred. Thinking. Feeling. Lev. Luke and Ann. Ian. Carol. Gracie and Leo. Sarah and Elizabeth. Judaism. Reconstructionist. Finding religion again with no reservations. Hallelujah. Conversion in Jerusalem. Prostate Cancer. Irv. Marilyn now home. Tara in Europe. The Trail to Cold Mountain. Final edits. Now it’s a script for me to learn.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Leading

One brief shining: In a far away state at a time now long ago I used to sit down often at a table or stand in front of a room knowing my job was to take a conversation with those present through difficult terrain, perhaps deciding how to take on unemployment or a recalcitrant landlord or an obdurate city hall or one of the many corporations that wanted to reach into people’s lives and take away their agency, then make a turn from conversation to action. Oh how I loved it.

 

Yesterday for an hour and a half. I led the mussar group through the most difficult terrain of all, those things that matter to our interior, to our souls. I’d forgotten how satisfying it is to do that. I avoid leadership roles these days. Saying no rather than yes. Saying been there. But as a substitute for the Rabbi. A one time thing. I said yes.

I miss it. Reading the pulse of a group, guiding in a gentle way or a forceful way depending on the need of the moment, offering my own thoughts lightly or not at all or for the purpose of digging further into the topic. Yesterday’s topic was the purpose of metaphor and the application of that purpose to language we use about God. Also, strangely and powerfully, the question: What is God for? A lot to be said on this. We spent a fun hour and half doing just that.

Perhaps I could find these moments a bit more often. I don’t want to chair a committee. Nope. But I sure did enjoy the time yesterday. Though. I did fuzz up Janet’s name. Conflated her with Marilyn who sat beside her. Because the group has three Marilyns and Janet’s name, for some reason, skipped my mind. Don’t you love that phrase, skipped my mind? Janet danced away from available attention, played hopscotch in another corner just out of reach.

She came up to me afterwards and said, “My name is Janet, Charlie.” Oh. Oops. Ian, a visitor from California gave me a fist bump.  He’s my age. Luke came up and gave me a big hug. There was a buzz in the room, the conversation spilling over past the end of the meeting.

On my way out to the car Ginny came up to me and asked if I was converting. Yes, I said. Could I talk to you about it sometime? Ginny’s an Arkansas farm girl turned opera singer then stage actor then nurse. I told her I’d love to. Maybe the Blackbird? Which is in Kittredge where she lives with her partner.

Family, Minnesota

Alexandria in the 50s

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon (waning crescent)

Saturday gratefuls: Ruth. Her driver’s license! Gabe. Mary on her way. Mark in Hafr. Mom. Dad. Alexandria. Growing up in a small town. The 1950s. Sputnik. John Glenn. Elon Musk. Heavylifter. Tesla. The genius. And the car. Alan. Tom. The Parkside. The Royal Gorge Railroad. Canon City. BJ and Sarah. Their truck. Moving West. BJ and Schecky. Violins and cellos. Classical music. Jazz.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Family

One brief shining: Mom brought to memory by Mark’s questions about her dead now 59 years so long ago yet I remember her red lipstick, her smile, her embrace and the kindness she brought into any room a woman of her time with a 1940’s hairdo, a stay-at-home mom whose cooking was memorable, who took each of us as special and unique, who volunteered at church, whom everyone in town knew as Trudy or Tudy.

 

A different time. When life felt slower. Alexandria in the 1950s and the early 1960s. Jobs were good. 3 shifts at Delco Remy and Guide Lamp gave the southern diaspora who populated Alexandria jobs that paid well. The Alexandria Times-Tribune where Dad worked  came out 5 days a week with an extra big Thursday edition to carry the grocery ads for the upcoming weekend.

We lived first in an apartment building on Lincoln, then a small house on Monroe, and finally the bigger house on Canal. 419 N. Canal. From my age 12. 1959. Mary had come seven years before and we needed more space.

On Harrison Street, our main street, there were two grocery stores, Coxes and Krogers, two dime stores, Danner’s and Murphy’s, Broyle’s furniture, Guilkey’s shoe repair and newsstand, Fermen’s women’s store, Bailey’s drugstore, and a P.N. Hirsch Department store. Further down was the Town Theater one of two movie theaters, the Bakery, Mahony’s shoe store and Baumgartner’s Men’s Shop. A bar, too, whose name escapes me now. Always a source of mystery since kids weren’t allowed in there. A barber shop. A tailors on a side street. As was a bowling alley with pin spotters.

Lots of churches. Alexandria First Methodist. The Baptist Church. The Roman Catholic Church. The Church of the Nazerene. Missouri Synod Lutheran Church. The Church of God-Anderson, Indiana. You were known in town by which church you attended. We were members of Alexandria First Methodist and had our spot on the right side of the sanctuary under the huge stained glass window of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. Kneeling, hands on a large rock. My best friend, Ed Schmidt, went to the Catholic church. Also a source of mystery.

Life focused on church, school, and work. And on certain holidays, patriotism. The big Decoration Day parade for example. The tanks would come out from the local National Guard Armory and pit the asphalt softened by summer heat with tread marks. The color guard insisted on wearing the shirts that fit them back then. Not so much at this point. Firetrucks. Police cars. Young women doing the wave from the backs of convertibles.

Vital and personal 1950s small town life had an innocence about it that sheltered us kids from the currents affecting the world outside. We went to school, played with our friends, came home and ate supper, watched TV, went to bed. Rinse and repeat. It was good.

 

 

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Hermitage, Judaism, Memories, Minnesota, Politics

Regression

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Monday gratefuls: Gabe and Seo. Aspen Perks. Twist and Shout. Denver. My circuitous route to it courtesy of my GPS. Denver East. High school freshmen. Ruth. A senior in one week. Sounding good. Working two jobs, Starbucks and Rocketfizz. Mia. Leslie, may her memory be for a blessing. Regression? Organizing. Mark and Dennis in Aspen at the Psychedelic Symposium. Then coming here. Leo, quite a good boy. Israel. Korea. Ecuador. Seeing the world again. Mark teaching nurses in Saudi Arabia. Mary winding down the semester in Eau Claire. My son and his wife, their first days back in Korea.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth’s voice last night when we talked

One brief shining: A modern horror story in one long sentence would be my friend Leslie going into the hospital for a hepatitis workup, coming out with a diagnosis of liver cancer that had metastasized, returning home not to continue her interesting life as a docent at the Denver Art Museum and a retired city planner and a long time member of CBE but to hospice cared for by her daughter Megan and dying yesterday in her sleep, winking out of her world and our world with little more than a week gone by from her visit to the hospital.

 

The world is too much with us late and soon. Until suddenly it isn’t. Leslie’s death shocked our mussar group and CBE as a whole. So fast. And from a seemingly healthy state. Ye know not the day nor the hour. If she follows Jewish custom, the chevra kadisha committee from CBE will sit with her body around the clock for the three days before her burial. Jews believe the soul doesn’t leave the body for three days after death. A pine box and a grave follow. Shiva for the family. These days, as with Kate, often only one or two days rather than the traditional seven.

Don’t know Leslie’s age, but she was a rough contemporary.

 

Spent the morning and early afternoon with Seo and Gabe. Breakfast at Aspen Perks. A drive into Denver to go to the Twist and Shout vinyl record store. Gabe picked up Dark Side of the Moon. Dropped them off at their homes and went back to Shadow Mountain for a brief, thirty minute lie down, then over to CBE for the last of Dismantling Racism classes. At which we discussed next steps. An odd feeling came over me as this discussion went on. I found myself pulling back, listening to the ideas thrown back and forth, no one settling on a direction, a plan. My inner organizer winced, felt tired.

As I drove home, I wondered if this might be a regressive activity for me. I had one before when I tried to reenter the ministry as a UU clergy. Spent a long time getting through the process, then to an internship in Unity at St. Paul. Kate said it was a mistake. I couldn’t see it. Then I made the very stupid decision to say yes to a job there as their minister of development. Again Kate said it was a mistake. It was. About as far from what I’m good at as I can imagine. I resigned, finally, to everyone’s relief.

Regressions find us wanting to go back, pick up something we left behind, something that was unfinished. These feelings made me return to the Marginalian to pick up this paragraph, a summary of Karen Horney’s thoughts in her last book.* The organizer is one of those Russian nesting dolls that lives now deep within me. Followed by the writer, Kate’s husband, the dog lover, the horticulturist, the cook, the docent, the Coloradan, the mourner and the griever, the Grandpa, the camp follower Jew, the Hermit on Shadow Mountain, the lover of deepening relationships, the traveler. He’s of the past, still loved and appreciated, held in a position of honor among my past selves, but really not me anymore. He likes to feel he could still flex his muscles, stand in front of a group of strangers and call out from them a course of action that would give them at least a partial remedy to the pains of their lives.

He was good at what he did and his work satisfied the me of my thirties and early forties in a profound way. Making a substantial difference for at least a few people for a particular moment in time. Some differences still at work like the Jobs Now Coalition, The Minnesota Council on Non-Profits, The Metropolitan Interfaith Coalition for Affordable Housing, many businesses and affordable housing units on the West Bank in Minneapolis. And many others in fact.

But his time is past. Not sure where that leaves me now. More investigation required. Fortunately, the future of CBE’s antiracism efforts do not depend on me.

 

 

*The measure of growth is not how much we have changed, but how harmoniously we have integrated our changes with all the selves we have been — those vessels of personhood stacked within the current self like Russian nesting dolls, not to be outgrown but to be tenderly incorporated. True growth is immensely difficult precisely because it requires befriending the parts of ourselves we have rejected or forgotten — what James Baldwin so memorably called “the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are”; it requires shedding all the inauthentic personae we have put on in the course of life under the forces of convention and compulsion; it requires living amicably with who we have been in order to fully live into who we can be.

Memories, Minnesota, Politics, US History

Political Follies

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Spring and the Mesa View Moon

Monday gratefuls: Israel. Korea. My son and his wife. Travels in the future. Taking the Mesa view. Dismantling Racism. Anti-semitism. Racism. Justice. Love. Compassion. Paul and Sarah Strickland. Gary Stern. Luke and Leo. CBE. Shadow Mountain. The end of the endings. A beginning. The threshold. The Ancient Brothers, a family. Falling loons in Wisconsin. Mary. Mark in Saudi Arabia. Arabian Nights, my next long read.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Serious wrangling with Racism

One brief, shining moment: Radicals often mistake boldness for victory, stubbornness for analysis, and often confuse fantasy for reality, leaving themselves open to dismissal by history and bemusement from their contemporaries.

 

As I’ve delved deeper into the American far right, I’ve had to confront my own follies when acting while radical. I want to give  you a few examples because I see some of myself in those exercising the right to exit mainstream American culture.

 

In the early seventies, not long after I had moved to Minnesota for seminary, I joined a group called the Wild Goose Collective. There were twelve of us, if memory serves. Two lawyers, one of whom would become a close friend, Howard Vogel, the leaders of Clergy and Laity Concerned about the War, two strong women whose names I don’t recall, two local guys Paul Anderson, who would go on to become an abbot in a Buddhist Monastery, and a fellow Scandinavian whose name is on the tip of my neurons but won’t release. He ended up in California as a therapist. And others whom I don’t remember. This was a long time ago.

We conducted guerilla theater actions throughout the Twin Cities. One instance. A pro-war (Vietnam) rally along the Mississippi would be visited by a boat made to look like the aircraft carrier, USS Enterprise. Howard and Rebecca and the Clergy and Laity women would set off in canoes to intercept the boat and prevent it from landing. This was to draw press.

Meanwhile those of us on the shore passed out press releases about the number of Vietnamese killed by bombing sorties from the Enterprise. In this instance we called ourselves P.U.K.E. People Upset about the Killing Enterprise.

I do not consider this action a folly. It got press action and allowed us to get our message out. The point.

The folly came as the Wild Goose Collective began to imagine bigger plans. Specifically, and how very Marjorie Taylor Greene of us, we began to imagine a balkinization of the U.S. Why? Because the United States, when acting as a hegemon, proposed to police the world. Couldn’t do that if it had become, say, broken up into different nations. Texas. California. The Upper Midwest. The grain and corn and cattle Belt. The South. The Northeast. Something like that.

Not much different from imagining Christian Nationalism in northern Idaho or a takeover of all the Federal lands in the West.

 

Second instance. After a bunch of us Minnesota progressives had helped get Paul Wellstone elected to the Senate, we also knocked off a twenty year Hennepin County commissioner and got our guy elected. We decided to form the FLA. The Farmer-Labor Association. Our motto: put the FL back in the DFL.

Again. This was not the folly. We did elect other progressives to city council seats, the legislature, and helped set the Twin Cities on a progressive path.

However. As we began to succeed, we got ambitious. And decided to push for state level progressive programs to build affordable housing, make health care available for all, free job training, and expand a state version of food assistance. The best became the enemy of the good. We ignored the political realities of our situation and tried to get the whole pie all at once rather than accept the incremental change that is how policy changes get made in a democracy.

We failed. Energy sank. And, like the Wild Goose Collective, we all went our separate ways. Some of us, of course, remained politically active, but the cohesion and energy we had dissipated because we wanted too much, too fast. Look at the Freedom Caucus in the House of Representatives.

 

Third instance. Judy Merritt and I bought a farm in northern Minnesota. Near Park Rapids and Lake Itasca. We named it the Peaceable Kingdom. It would be a place of refuge and later training for those wanting to dismantle the system. Except. Judy and I weren’t getting along.

She took off with the guy who farmed our land as a renter. I sold the farm and moved back to the Twin Cities to finish seminary. We had exercised our right to exit without realizing how important personal relationships are when executing big plans.

 

My point here is that a lot of the Far Right action I’ve seen and read about suffers from similar problems. It’s in the realm of political fantasy. And, it doesn’t reckon with the facts of human relationships or how change gets made in a democracy. Not all of it. But a substantial portion. Like the Christian Nationalists. Like the folks who believe they can force the Federal Government to turn over lands to the states. Who, BTW, don’t want them.

Might be cold comfort, but I can see the same seeds of self destruction sown in the West today that my colleagues and I sowed in those oh so remarkable days of the early seventies in Minnesota.

 

Minnesota, Politics, Shadow Mountain, US History

Could Be Fun

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Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Happy Camper. Smiling Pig. Furball Cleaning. Chance of Snow. Bahrain Grand Prix Sunday. Red Bull. Ferrari. Mercedes. Aston Martin. Alpine. Alpha Tauri. Williams. McLaren. Haas. Alfa Romeo. Probate. House cleaning. Good sleep. Radiation. Pacific Cod. Breaded. Lodge skillets. Cooking. Findlay and the deer. Max. Kep. Tweaking his meds. Dr. Doverspike.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Workout yesterday. 110 minutes.

 

Down a rabbit hole. A lot of my attention has gone to the Vanity Fair article Diane sent out. Fascinated. No, not going conservative. But the threads of political ideas active in the U.S. have entered a zone of extreme ferment. Not always visible.

Ever since my Alexandria days fringe political movements have interested me. Even then, in the late 1950’s and 60’s, we had the John Birch Society, the Minutemen, and the Ku Klux Klan active in our town. One of our doctors was a Bircher. Founded in 1958 in Indianapolis one of its early members and top financial supporters was Fred Koch, founder of Koch Industries.

Dad published a page or two from the John Birch Blue Book in the Times-Tribune, our local newspaper. It exposed the radical ideas held by Robert Welch, the Society’s Indianapolis based founder. Made me feel good to see Dad take a stand against them.

Both the Birch Society and the Minutemen held strong and in the latter case, violent, anti-communist views. Wikipedia entry: “…observers have stated that the JBS and its beliefs shaped the Republican Party, the Trump administration, and the broader conservative movement.[18][19][20][21] Writing in The Huffington Post, Andrew Reinbach called the JBS “the intellectual seed bank of the right.”[22]”

The KKK passed out leaflets in town from time to time and held recruiting drives at a local restaurant on Highway 9, aka the Highway of Vice Presidents (Dan Quayle and Benjamin Harrison were Hoosiers.)  The Klan has a long and infamous history in American fringe right wing circles, but the Birch Society and its effect on the Koch family has to get its props, too.

What reading the Vanity Fair article did. First. Though perhaps still fringe movements in regard to the larger society the New Right, the Dissident Right, the Christian Nationalists, the Evangelical right, and the Trumpists do have a strong hold on the Grand Old Party. Second. Some, hardly all, but some of the ideas in the article resonated with my back to the land, anti-war, anti-establishment ideas of the late 1960s. Third. Got me wondering about if this might all weave together at some point. Far left. Crunchy right.

Most of all. Back in the day. The day being 1968 in Muncie, Indiana. Not all that far from Indianapolis. I told Bill Hariff, leader of the SDS on Ball State’s campus. I want to be a theoretician for the revolution. I know. Naive. Precious. Maybe even laughable.

Yet. In these days of living on the mountain top. With a deep background in both the history and reality of right wing extremists and far left extremists. BTW: Among whom I still count myself. Could I take on a role as a writer about these movements? Maybe a new weekly blog? Say, notsoAncientrails. Wondering. Or, help organize an online think tank that might do for the next New Left what the Birchers seem to have done for today’s buffet of conservative ideas? Probably both have been done and I don’t know about them. Still. Could be fun.

Anoka County, Bees, Colorado, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Garden, Health, Hermitage, Jefferson County, Judaism, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Plants, Shadow Mountain, The Move, Writing

Waiting To Cross

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Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

Monday gratefuls: Dr. Eigner. Dr. Simpson. Kep, the early. Snow. More Snow. Mild temperatures. The Ukraine. Biden. The James Webb. Tom and Bill, the science bros. Max, getting older. Ode, the well-rooted wanderer. Paul, the steadfast. Alan, the cheerful. The Ancient Brothers, a true Sangha. Zoom. Korean fried chicken. Jon, a memory. Kate, always Kate. Ivory. Ruby. Oncology.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Ancient Brothers

 

So I said it out loud. My reaction to mom’s death turned me from a confident, ready to take on the world teenager to a frightened, hesitant young adult. One who dropped German because he was failing it. Shame. One who convinced himself there was not enough money for Wabash because he was afraid to go back. Shame. One who entered then a great teacher’s college, but a mediocre university. Ball State University. Shame.

Not a lot of shame in my life. Very little. That’s where it lies. Perhaps now having put it out there. So late. 76. It will fall away. It took me years, nearly three decades, to put the pain of her death in perspective. Treatment for alcoholism. Quitting smoking. Quitting the ministry. Years of Jungian analysis. Finally. Meeting Kate. 26 years later. I finally passed the threshold of grieving mom’s death.

And started living my life. As a writer. A gardener. A dog lover. A beekeeper. An anachronistic blogger. With a woman who loved me as I was and one whom I loved as she was. A love where we wanted and supported the best life for each other. We traveled. A lot. We stood with both sons fully.

Abundance. Yes. Ode’s word for our Andover home. Yes. Flowers. Meadow. Fruits. Nuts. Berries. Grapes. Honey. Plums. Pears. Apples. Cherries. Iris. Tulips. Spring ephemerals. Roses. Hosta. Gooseberries. Beans. Heirloom tomatoes. Leeks. Garlic. Onions. Kale. Collard Greens. Lettuce. Carrots. Ground Cherry. Raspberries.

The fire pit. The woods.

The dogs. So many dogs. Celt. Sorsha. Morgana. Scot. Tira. Tully. Orion. Tor. The Wolfhounds. Iris. Buck. Hilo. Emma. Kona. Bridget. The Whippets. Vega and Rigel. The IW/Coyote Hound sisters. Gertie, the German Short Hair. And Kep, the Akita.

It was so good. Until the work became burdensome. Until I visited Colorado one year and Ruth ran away from the door because she didn’t expect me. A surprise visit. Then we had to come. The two. A push. The work of Seven Oaks had become too much. A pull. We wanted, needed to be there for Ruth and Gabe.

So we packed everything up. And on the Winter Solstice of 2014 moved here, to the top of Shadow Mountain. 8,800 feet above sea level. Into the Wildland/Urban Interface, the WUI. With four dogs: Kep, Gertie, Rigel, and Vega. Again, thanks to Tom for helping with the dog move.

When the time came, we put away Andover and envisioned a life together in the Rocky Mountains. Kate felt like she was on vacation every day until she died. Where she found the Jewish life she had always wanted. Where we both found ourselves immersed in the lives of our grandchildren, of their parents.

Now Kate is dead. Vega is dead. Gertie is dead. Rigel is dead. Only Kep and I remain alive. I’m at another threshold, waiting to cross.

Anoka County, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Hermitage, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Shadow Mountain

Good memories

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Winter and the Wolf Moon

Monday gratefuls: The Good Life. Helen and Scott Nearing. Kate and mine’s version. Garden catalogues. The Bees. Their Superorganism. The Squirrel that used to steal our Honeycrisp Apples. Gertie standing on my electric fence. Those first Shoots in the Spring. Grape anemones. Daffodils. Crocus. The eagerness to get out there. Plant something. Reluctantly waiting for May 15, the last frost. The Woods in Winter. That Opossum that visited me one Winter Solstice.

Sparks of joy and awe: Horticulture

 

Happy and fulfilling memories. The Andover years. Kate and I working as a team in the Vegetable Garden. I handled the Orchard, the Bees, and the Flower beds, but the ongoing work of the growing season in the Garden. A mutual task. Harvesting Honey. Also mutual.

Kate earning money allowed me to work in the Gardens and in the Woods during the day. If I had worked full-time, we couldn’t have had as much. With writing I could take a break and plant. Cut wood. Tend to the Bees. We both felt the division of labor worked well.

We did have a housecleaner. Cooking and shopping were also my responsibilities. It was a good life. And a level of physical effort we did not want to continue after we both got older. Moving to Colorado came at the right time in our lives. Out here we had the grandkids, CBE, the Mountains. Travel. Also a good life, one suited better to our energy.

As I said in the Ancient Brothers yesterday, even the years of Kate’s decline were good years. Sure there was anguish, pain, frustration, anxiety. But we had three solid years of working closely together again to keep her healthy and alive. In her last year I would apply lotion to her arms and legs because they would get very dry. A lot of touching. Not the rosy glow of forgotten difficulty, rather the difficulty was the point. The connection. As our many hours in the garden had been all those years ago.

 

The same with these years after her death. Two in April. The adjustments, the adaptations. The work on the house. They have been the necessary domestic duties that kept me grounded. As did caring for Rigel and Kep as they cared for me.

Even the cancer. Not fighting it. Learning to live with it. With the now much reduced stamina occasioned by androgen deprivation therapy. Going slower. Doing things in slower increments. Resting more. Also a good life.

Yes, I may recognize the benefits later. Sometimes in the moment. But, I do find them. More and more the realizations of the good life I’m living come to me daily. As a result, I’m calmer, more accepting.

Blessed be.

 

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Garden, Great Wheel, Great Work, Health, Hermitage, Judaism, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Mussar, Plants, Politics, Shadow Mountain, The Move, Writing

Dutiful

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Winter and the Wolf Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Breakfast with Jen, Ruth, Gabe, Barb. Driving back up the hill. F1. The MIA. The Walker. The docent program. My many years there with good friends and art. Acting class. Creativity class. Origins of North America. Finding the volume of a Mountain. Korean. Pruning moving forward. Interior painting, early February. Probate. Still moving. slow. ly. The Good Life. Scott and Helen Nearing. Eudaimonia. Kristen Gonzalez. Psoriasis. Mark and the USPS. Mary in Kobe. Ancient Brothers.

Sparks of joy and awe: Eudaimonia

 

Human flourishing. Eudaimonia. Satisfaction. More important than happiness. Duty is just another word for cultural norms received and accepted. Obligations. On the other hand. Imposed. Why do we do what we do?

Assessing the life that is neither heroic nor mediocre. Since that’s where most of us end up. No need to measure ourselves against the ends of the bell curve. No need to measure ourselves. But can we be at peace with a life without comparisons?

As for me, I choose eudaimonia. Flourishing. Satisfaction. And, yes. Duty plays a role. Family. Sacrifice. Friends too. Being there. Wherever love is, there is duty. To be honest. Sincere. Kind. Helpful. To support the best for the other. Right down to the end. And by implication to support the best for yourself. Also, duty. The unexamined life is not worth living. Yes. A duty to yourself to know thyself. And to thy own known Self be true.

 

What’s interesting for me right now is how much a sense of duty has played in my life. Oh, no! The original oppositional defiant guy admitting to a sense of duty. I who even rebel against my superego. You can’t make me!!! Yes, duty.

A minor yet significant example. As a convinced feminist of the Betty Friedan/Simone de Beauvoir second wave. At the age of 26. In seminary. Went to the Rice Street Clinic late on a Winter afternoon. A scalpel I felt on the first cut slashed my vas deferens on both sides. Shutting down sperm from my testicles. Being responsible for my own contraception.

Another. One I’ve mentioned before. Fits here. No. I don’t want a Johns-Manville full scholarship to college. Managing people in a large corporation is not me. Will never be me. High school.

Once convinced of Vietnam’s sturdiness as a nation, one that had held back China for over 3,000 years. No. I will not fight, nor support that war.

After reading a convincing study about the future job prospects for Ph.D.’s. No to graduate school.

Family. Staying in the fire with Jon. Ruth. Gabe. Kate in later life. Mark. Yet also. Cut your hair or leave! Leaving.

These may not at first reading seem like duty. But they are. A duty to myself, to my own understanding of how to be present in the world.

When I realized Ruth and Gabe needed us in Colorado. Broaching the idea of a move. Kate on board. Following through.

Those two and a half acres in Andover. Leaving them better than when we bought them. How? Working it out with Kate over the years. Together. Staying the course with the full cycle of responsibilities throughout the year. Each year.

And, dogs. Living into their lives. With them from puppyhood to death. Oh. Sweet duty. Painful duty. Life realized in full.