Samain and the Gratitude Moon
Saturday gratefuls: the inventor(s) of pho. SeoAh and I had pho in Evergreen last night. Trees lit with Christmas lights down Black Mountain/Brook Forest Drive. (though. Mule deer bucks sometimes get their racks tangled in these lights.) The snow that graces our yard, Black Mountain, the road to Evergreen. The cold, too.
3:30 pm. The sun has disappeared behind Black Mountain yet still lights up a cold blue sky.
It’s the Holiday Walk in Evergreen tonight. The touristy part of town will close their chunk of Hwy 74 for wandering carolers, Christmas tree lighters, stores with holiday cider and hot chocolate. SeoAh and I will travel past it to the Pho place near King Sooper’s in Evergreen. SeoAh loves pho. So do I.
Exercised. Read more about tzedekah, the Jewish equivalent of zakat, one of the five pillars of Islam.
4:30 am. Orion’s shoulders and head and bow have a misty cover this morning, but his boots and his loyal dog showed above Black Mountain. Headed west again, he’s a bit like Sisyphus, always chasing the hare that stays in sight, but can never be caught. The gratitude moon has reached the waxed gibbous stage, well more than half lit but not quite full. Its light surprised me by creating a shadow to follow my path as I got the mail.
Continuing my journey toward the creation of the Ottoman Empire with Resurrection: Ertugrul. This one and a few others like it have a huge Muslim following, as you might imagine. The deeper I get into it, I’m now in season 3, probably 200 episodes or so, the more it worries me.
Though the story has me hooked, obviously, the depiction of jihad, of Islam as the only way, of the daring lengths to which its warriors will go has me thinking of current day mujaheddin. They may (almost certainly do) see themselves in the depictions of Ertugrul and the Turkmen fighting Mongols and Christians. The unrelenting chants of allahu akbar (God is Great.) and death to infidels feel like propaganda. And, are probably received in that way.
The golden age of television has introduced us to writers, actors, locations, and narratives from many different cultures. I watch Korean and other East Asian dramas as well as Bollywood movies. This is a chance to peek behind the national/cultural psyche of these locales. I relish it.
In Resurrection’s case it has helped me understand some of the media that informs and influences Muslims. This show has powerful resonance, drawing us in not only to the lives and travails of its characters, but also showcasing a certain violent devotion not new to Islam. As I’ve written before, television now allows us some of the best parts of travel, not through travel shows, but through the unfiltered presentation of material deemed congenial to a particular culture.
Only 200 some episodes to go.
I come from a long line of mothers. So do you. This thought always strikes me as strange. Think of how many things had to go right for you to exist. Sure, there’s that whole randomness of the sperm that crosses the finish line, but think historically, think evolutionarily, think all the way back to that first organism that took the lightning bolt or the warmth of the undersea vent. Whenever and however life first appeared. Your existence, and mine, means we exist in an UNBROKEN chain of reproduction from that first wiggler, that first animate entity. One after another after another after another, for billions of years. Maybe 4.1 billion years according to 
Why? What we know now about sexual abuse is that it often (usually) involves an authority figure and a subordinate. Sexual desire hasn’t waned in the last two thousand years, I’m sure of that. And the Catholic churches presumption of holy authority and that mediated through its bishops and their clergy trumps even the boss/employee relationship, the coach/athlete relationship, and the doctor/patient relationship.
Yesterday. A do this, then do that, then do that day. 1st up. Feed dogs, then write blog. 2nd. Make breakfast. 3rd. Blow snow. 4th. Workout. 5th. Drive to H-Mart in Westminster. 6th. Back home through rush hour traffic. (bad planning on my part) 7th. Phone call from Kate just as I turned on to Shadow Mountain Drive. Kep attacked Gertie. 8th. Get home, unload, check Gertie. One puncture, a couple of scrapes. 9th. Cook supper. Bulgogi. Clean up while Kate cleaned Gertie’s wounds. 9th. Watch the last of Unforgotten, a Masterpiece presentation. 10th. Finish Terminal list. 11th. Go to bed. Got a lot done. Good use of a day.
H-Mart is a trip. As an experience and as a trip. You definitely enter Asia when you walk through the door. In the aisle entering the building were the giant and tasty Korean pears, bundles of 24 ramen packs. Then on into the produce section. Persimmons, Korean melons, huge papayas, durian, jack fruit, bitter melon, lots of mushrooms, bok choy, noodles. Next up was beef and other meats. A whole 20 foot display held beef hearts, tripe, liver. Sea food. Dead, frozen, live. Packages with whole salmon heads, for example. Sushi fish, some sashimi, beds of ice with prawns, shrimp, large dressed rainbow trout, golden pompano, China grown tilapia.
I was not the only round eye in there, but I was the only round eye male shopping alone. In this H-Mart, located in a relatively upscale suburb, Westminster, the clientele was mostly Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. In the much larger H-Mart located in more downscale Aurora, the mix is much more diverse with East Indians, Filipinos, more round eyes, Malay, Latino.
2019. The Blade Runner year. Dystopian time? Match. Authoritarian regime? Match. Police killing those marginalized to society? Match. The cinematography of our era may look different-though Hong Kong, Shanghai, Dubai-but the underlying premise of a dark future catching up with all of us was prescient, if not exactly surprising.
Dystopian futures, even ours from the perspective of 1982, have this seeming anomaly: Life goes on. Most folks make some accommodation, some compromise, and go on with their daily routines. Short of mass suicide, what other option is there? It is those very accommodations and compromises that are fertile soil for the demagogue and the populist. See Trump, Erdogan, Germany’s alt-right, Hungary’s Viktor Orban, Brazil’s Michel Temer. Movies have to convey dystopian troubles cinematically, so we think if the visuals don’t correlate with ours that the movie doesn’t apply. Wrong. It’s the core cultural themes that are important.
I’ve begun to assimilate into Jewish culture. Different from becoming a Jew, just like Jewish assimilation into American culture is different from no longer being a Jew, my identity is largely intact, but I find myself much more aware of living life through a Jewish lens. Their holidays are now mine. Their community, mine. Their marginal reality, also mine, though this last requires a full choice on my part, not just acquiescence. That is, I choose to stand with my new culture against all elements domestic and foreign and not to retire into privilege when things get hairy.
Been thinking about actions to fight climate change. The inversion of the Great Work championed by his Satanic Majesty, the orange tumor on our democracy, threatens human genocide. Intentional mass murder of potentially billions. Hitler and his crowd? Pikers.
