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Asia, Family, Health, Mountains, Plants, Politics, Shadow Mountain, US History

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Samain and the Yule Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Rabbi Jamie. Ginny and Janice. Luke and Leo. Torah. Aviva Zornberg. Art Green. Rami Shapiro. My Lodgepole Companion and their Companions. My son. Shabbat. Bereshit. Brother Mark in Bangkok. Mary in Oz. All Dogs. That Buck.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Perception

Kavannah: Joy and Enthusiasm (zerizut)

One brief shining: What’s that, over there by the neighbors, my eyes caught movement in the Lodgepoles, Branches moving, but no Wind, wait, wait, wait, oh, yes, there he is, that eight point Mule Deer Buck, the one whose photograph I posted; he comes often, always majestic, proud.

 

Often I am reminded of our hominid ancestors, how their life on the veldt trained them to pick up on the slightest motion, the smallest movements of Grass, twitches in Leaves. A something out of sight, almost, at the very periphery of our vision. My ancestral brain lights up as it did yesterday when I saw a disturbance, not in the force, but in the Lodgepoles next to my neighbors.

First check. Are other Branches moving? Could be Wind. No. No Wind. What then? Nothing was visible. It was moderately high up from the ground. Maybe a neighbor? No. The movement seemed to press forward without stopping and a human would have been scratched, bothered, maybe hurt. Wait.

I stood there at my kitchen window. A spot where Kate and I still look out to our front on occasion. As we used to when she was alive. She would have wanted to see this. I waited and in his slow, purposeful way the Buck emerged, his rack having caused the Lodgepole Branches to sway. This is his Land, his Mountain. And he displayed that with each careful, but not hesitant step he took. Unlike the Does that come he did not scan his environment often, confident in his years and his weapons.

Thanks again, Kate, for finding this spot on Shadow Mountain. In the Rocky Mountains and the Arapaho National Forest. Kate, always Kate.

 

Just a moment: Following the Korean weirdness with less detachment than the usual American. Daughter-in-law Seoah has expressed her contempt for the current President, Yun Suk Yeol, comparing him to long red tie guy. She’s not alone among her compatriots as can be seen in the many photographs from Seoul featuring protesters in the streets.

Also my son works alongside Korean military personnel. They’re not ones likely to get called out to enforce martial law, but they are under the overall command of the South Korean President.

Yun survived his impeachment vote, but only just. His political power is gone. Will be interesting to see what happens next.

 

Also following the continuing uproar over Brian Thompson’s murder and the virulence toward the whole health care system it has unleashed. Heather Cox Richardson’s post of December 5th placed the shooting in a long historical context which included this paragraph:

“Today provided a snapshot of American society that echoed a similar moment on January 6, 1872, when Edward D. Stokes shot railroad baron James Fisk Jr. as he descended the staircase of New York’s Grand Central Hotel. The quarrel was over Fisk’s mistress, Josie, who had taken up with the handsome Stokes, but the murder instantly provoked a popular condemnation of the ties between big business and government.” Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, December 6th, 2024

Once again, I condemn the taking of a human life. Yet. I also hope that a cleansing movement might arise from this shooting, a total restructuring of our oh so broken health care system. So many lives end too soon, come to debilitation because our health care system lacks transparency, empathy, and rationality. And again, I remind us that violence does not only come from a gun. It can also come from a letter in the mail, we have denied this procedure, that medication.

Asia, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Great Wheel, Holidays, Judaism, Paganism

A Way Back

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Samain and the Yule Moon

Bush_turkey Jim Bendon from Karratha, Australia

Shabbat gratefuls: Body weight workouts. Brush Turkeys in Queensland. Lizards in K.L. Asia. Korea. Songtan. Beijing. Kate, my son, and I traveled there. 1999. Japan. Ichi-go, ichi-e. Ruth and Gabe. Mary and Mark. Oz and Malaysia. Black Friday. Advent. AI prompts. Yule. The 12 days of Christmas. Feeling flat.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Light-Eaters, Zöe Schlanger

Kavannah: Perseverance and chesed. Love.

One brief shining: Ever have that pit of your stomach feeling that something marvelous lay just out of reach, if only you could get yourself organized, find the time, open yourself fully to the possibility; I do each time I look at the green candle made by Vance Kitire, never lit since I bought it with the lovely throw rug years ago; and why you might ask, because whenever I begin and sustain a writing project I always light a candle before I begin writing for the day.

A Pagan Yule. Chatbotgpt

 

That candle contains the promise of an immersion in another world, a world of fantasy, one created by me in which I find life emerging in its own peculiar way, no less real than IRL. An embrace of another personality. Both within me and within the work itself. Yet the candle remains in its as created state. Untouched by flame. The flame that signals to me work has begun.

This does not, most of the time, feel like a burden. Most of the time it reminds me that I have another version of myself that I love. One committed to the daily work of writing a novel. I await his emergence again, his claim on my time, on my mind and heart, on my imagination. No, not waiting on inspiration, but on an inner consolidation of intention, idea, and joy.

How do I lift myself up? Find that small lever that elevates my mood? Not from the abyss, not from melancholy, but from, perhaps oh archaic sin, acedia*. I’m not a sin oriented guy anymore. Hamartia, missing the mark of my values, yes. Sin, no. But I do recognize the flat affect of acedia and when it dominates, as it does right now, I search for teshuvah. A way to return to the land of my soul. A way I’ve wandered off and for the moment have forgotten.

Mussar offers a way to adjust our inner life by acting as if. Acting as if we persevere, as if we have compassion, as if we experience joy. I’ve used mussar to get back to working out by working out. At first a bit at a time, then back to a full diet as my neshama “remembers” who I am, one who cares for his body.

Perhaps a writing schedule, as I have for Ancientrails. I long ago ritualized the writing of Ancientrails. It is the first thing I do after waking up, saying the shema, and taking my pills. I write until finished. Only then do I eat breakfast. BTW: Ancientrails will finish its twentieth year next February.

I could do Ancientrails, breakfast, write 500 to a 1,000 words on a project, then exercise. After that read. Commit to exercise during the day rather than a half-hour after breakfast. That could work. Think I’ll try it.

 

*The word acedia comes from the Greek word akēdeia, which means “an inert state without pain or care”.
Acedia is considered one of the seven deadly sins, or capital vices. It’s often described as a “noonday demon”. Some say that acedia can arise from the social and spatial restrictions of a solitary monastic life.

 

 
Asia, Family, Health, Politics, Shadow Mountain

Could Get Ugly

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Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

Monday gratefuls: Ancient Brothers and chesed. Coffee. Coffee mugs. From the Gunflint Trail. From Kate and mine’s 25th anniversary. With Dogs. From the Polar Express. World’s Greatest Grandpa. Southern Poverty Law Project. Memories in ceramics.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Another wakin’ up mornin’

Kavannah: Perseverance

One brief shining: Turn on the coffee grinder with dark roast beans, fill the coffee pot with filtered water, tighten the lid on the pot, separate out one filter for the coffee basket, measure two-thirds of a cup of ground beans, place the basket in its holder, pour the water into the reservoir, close the lid. Minutes later. Ahhh.

 

Morning rituals like making coffee. Saying the Shema. Touching the mezuzah. Breakfast. Reading the news or a morning book. Waiting a half an hour before exercise. Get my day off to a good start. The golden hours from waking up, around 6 these days, until 2 or 3. A life.

 

In Nexus Harari points to stories as those things that can connect us, many, many of us, in a shared enterprise: family, state, nation, passenger on spaceship Earth. Becoming human. I agree with him. Even family, which we take as a given, easy to define and know depends on the kinship story that our cultures teach us. In the U.S. we have pared down the family through our emphasis on individualism. The nuclear family tends to be the hub until the kids get older, then even family can narrow further to a couple or a single person. All held together by increasingly thin cords of memory and affection.

Ruth on her own at UC-Boulder. Gabe and Jen. Me on Shadow Mountain. My son and Seoah and Murdoch in Korea. Mary in Southeast Asia. Kate and Jon dead.

This frays the old patterns of families caring for their aged memories. This is a crisis, too, even in traditional societies like China and Japan where birth rates have plummeted, marriage is suspect, and adult children there often want the kind of freedom American culture offers. Especially mobility and choosing their own partners.

I’m lucky in that Kate left me enough money to sustain my life on my own. That I have good, close friends here and far away. I can manage. But my circumstances are not shared by many, perhaps not most of my age peers. Culture changes more slowly than jobs do. Than desire and ability to live a life of your own making does.

Again, my family. Mary and Mark in Asia and Saudi Arabia for much of their adult lives. Me in Minnesota, then the Rockies. Far from the Sycamores on the Wabash. Far from Madison County. Alexandria. As my analyst Jon Desteian put it: an atomized family.

All this now put in the alembic of an unserious man and his many hatreds, his colleagues yearning to reshape reality in an even more atomized direction, hoping to dismantle the New Deal, strip away the thin gruel offered by Medicare, Social Security.

Could get ugly.

 

 

Art and Culture, Asia, Family, Fourth Phase, Friends, Great Wheel, Judaism, Korea, Mountains, Shadow Mountain

Herme’s Journey

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Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

Sunday gratefuls: Tom’s safe trip. My son, Seoah, and Murdoch coming January. Then, a trip to Korea in May. Followed by the Jang family visit here in late summer. Snow. Whippets. Irish Wolfhounds. German Wirehairs. Akitas. Breeds I love. Asia. Korea. Malaysia. Australia. Thailand. Cambodia. Saudi Arabia.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Leftist politics

Kavannah: Perserverance

One brief shining: A Mountain retreat, a home on granite, gneiss, and schist, raised above sea level by 8,800 feet, overlooking Black Mountain with its ski runs, Lodgepoles and Aspen colonies, in the Arapaho National Forest and drained by Maxwell Creek to the north and North Turkey Creek to the south, home to my day-to-day life in these middle years of the 2020’s.

 

On a lighter note today. Current TV favorites: Tracker, Sealteam, Fire Country. Reading anew Nexus by Harari. Also, Emily Wilson’s translation of the Iliad. Best movie I watched recently: hmm. None come to mind. Oh, Late Night with the Devil. Weird. I can no longer understand dialogue in movie theaters so I have to watch what’s available on streaming services with closed captions. Favorite meal last week, filet mignon with Tom at Evoke 1923 last Friday.

Herme’s Journey. Still on this path. I’ve finished another reading of Ovid. Also, the Odyssey. Am in the fourth book of the Iliad. I’m reading the parsha of the week most weeks along with commentaries. Also books that challenge me like Nexus. Keeping mental knives sharp.

My commitment to regular times with family and friends has increased. I zoom, breakfast, lunch, and on the rare occasion eat dinner with them. Also expanding my circle of friends, not by much, but adding Veronica for example.

The lunar calendar of Judaism meshes well with my pagan sensibilities and my focus on the Great Wheel. Trying to integrate the two in meaningful ways. An ongoing project.

Am working on a new meditative practice, focusing on a work of art for ten minutes or more, then reading art historical material about it. An NYT idea.

And more. All this is to stimulate, reinforce my lifelong journey. See what bubbles up.

 

Just a moment: Talked with my son and Seoah yesterday. There is a sweetness, a visceral joy in seeing them, hearing them. My heart lifts and my sense of well-being, already good, increases. Murdoch hears my voice, but does nothing. Nothing to smell here, so meh.

That sense of well-being. I’ve noticed Luke and Jamie initiate hugs when we see each other. There’s something about that that fills my soul, too. Ron and Rich. Tom. Ruth, Gabe. I hope the others feel the same way about my participation. Hugs are a way of claiming intimacy and saying yes to it.

Will not know for some time what the most abhorrent of adventures will look like, feel like. Cabinet picks? An unserious man taking an unserious approach to the job in the whole world that has the most economic and military power.

Committed to the seeds of decency, honesty, love for the other. Still and always.

 

Aging, Asia, Fourth Phase, Health, Judaism, Mountains, Seek-Keepers, Shadow Mountain, US History

An American Sannyasa

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Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

Friday gratefuls: Snow, and more Snow on the way. Harris and Waltz. Liberals. And, radicals. Politics. Changing in big ways. History. Always moving and shifting. The One, taking it all in and forming a new world. Cold nights. Diane. Tom. Irv. Paul. My son. Seoah. Murdoch. Shadow Mountain. A Snow globe week.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Purpose

Kavannah for election week: contentment and joy

One brief shining: May have seemed odd to you that I chose contentment and joy as my intentions for election week, that most fractious and unhappy of weeks for one side or another, may have seemed odd especially to have continued with them after the elevation of an anti-liberal mean of our collective culture; yet, I have found them good for me, instead of being angry about a situation now beyond my reach, I have been able to draw to myself a lesson about my life’s purpose.

 

A while back I borrowed the idea of a fourth phase of life from the Hindus.* I don’t define it in the same way, but I find the idea of a stage after retirement-our version of the forest dweller stage-makes sense.

The commonality between my view and Hinduism’s lies in death and acceptance. Readiness for death and seeing it as not only somewhat imminent, but as welcome.

This week I not only learned that the orange one will be our next President. I also learned that my cancer is not aggressive, and not hormone resistant. Which gives me a longer possible lifespan. And, I’m glad. Even so. Death lies over the horizon, but not nearly as far as it used to.

I would not know if I was fully enlightened and I’m not detached. I may have some wisdom but that’s for others to know, not me.

The rise of a populist anti-liberal agenda, a rise that came with unexpected force, has clarified my fourth phase. Though I am a Forest dweller and though that remains a central part of who I am, I passed, as I said a week or so ago, into Sannyasa when diagnosed with prostate cancer. Over the almost ten years since then I’ve been conflicted at a core level.

Some of the conflicts. In but not of Judaism. No longer an activist but feeling like I should be one. Wanting to hike in the mountains but being constrained first by shortness of breath, now by a gimpy back too. Wanting to travel more. But. See s.o.b and back. Learning to live without Kate and without dogs.

Resolutions. Converted to Judaism. Election 2024 has made see my role in culture and politics. I am a seed-keeper, not an activist anymore. (If this isn’t cultural appropriation. I hope not because it fits so well.) Hiking and traveling. Can do some with good drugs and patience, but it’s never gonna be easy for me again. I have lived into a life without Kate and without dogs. Difficult, of course. At times it still is. Yet I have a Herme Harari Israel life defined now:  An introverted Mountain man who struggles with God. However you want to fill the God bucket. Or, even if you want to live it empty.

So I will continue to write. Continue to read. Continue to study mussar and be with my CBE friends. Continue to love them and my other friends and family. All this is enough for me. My fourth phase. An American Sannyasa.

 

*Brahmacharya The student stage, when one focuses on learning and gaining knowledge. This stage is the time before puberty and up until marriage.

Grihastha The householder stage, when one is occupied with family and household matters. This stage is when one starts a family and maintains a healthy marriage.

Vanaprastha The forest dweller stage, when one retires from business as usual.

Sannyasa The stage of renunciation, when one is wise and fully enlightened, detached from everything, and ready for death. A Sannyasi is a religious ascetic who has renounced the world by performing their own funeral and abandoning all claims to social or family standing. 

Asia, Denver, Plants, Shadow Mountain

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Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

Shabbat gratefuls: Gaza. Palestinians. Israel. Iran. Lebanon. Syria. River Otters in K.L. Herons, too. Mary, Mark, Guru. Daylight saving time. (Just kidding, I’m not grateful for this.) Ginny, Janice, and Luke. Primo’s. Pinõn and Oak. Kindling. Ready for Yule. Santa Fe. Clay Fireplaces. Shadow Mountain’s Fireplace. (Is a shower a Waterplace?)

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Hardwoods

Kavannah: CONTENTMENT   Histapkut הִסתַפְּקוּת  Contentment, simplicity, moderation; from ספק to divide/apportion  (נַחַת Nachat: Satisfaction, gratification, comfort) (קִמּוּץ Kimutz: Minimalism, frugality, thrift)

One brief shining: Drove down the hill yesterday to Variety Firewood, took a wrong road and found decommissioned Army Fort Logan, a rush of familiarity from having spent time at Warner/Robbins, Hickam, and Osan USAF bases, unexpected, wandered around a bit, gave up, with reluctance entered the address into my GPS, and found it.

Panoramic image of Fort Logan, 1908, William Bevington

Yeah. Occasional luddite here. I like to use maps and my own sense of direction. Often, three times in the last thirty days for example, and I just realized this, I’ll navigate on my own having looked at Google Maps before I go, only to discover a filigree in the turns or exits that I forgot or mistook. Realized that if I used maps as I used to, I’d have the map with me. That sturdy, paper simulacrum of this place or that. Nope. Now I look at an electronic map, put the key moves in my memory and drive on.

Gonna continue to do this. I like getting lost, seeing things I hadn’t expected, didn’t know were there. Like decommissioned Fort Logan which gave me a start with its similarity to the places my boy has lived over the last fifteen years. Its Civil War era buildings are still there, too. At least some of them. Its large parade ground, too. Part of it has become a National Cemetery.

I also enjoy wandering through different neighborhoods, seeing how people live. What stores are there. In this instance I got to see the Halloween decorations of these lower middle class/working class homes. Some quite elaborate including a looming pirate and several witches.

Small, split Oak

Yes. I did find Variety Firewood. An interesting place. A huge open area with used/junked cars against a tall chain link fence, then piles of Pine wood with huge sections, piled higher than me, smaller split logs piled around a large Conifer. Concrete highway markers made bins next to them: Oak. Pinõn. Cedar. Pallets near the ramshackle old house OFFICE held split logs of Cherry, Apple, Hickory, more Oak.

Behind all these old signage, big ones, cluttered around each other reminding me of the warehouses in New Orleans that hold Mardi Gras float decor.

Thanks to Celebrex I opened Ruby’s trunk and loaded her up with Oak and Pinõn. Enough to make her tail heavy as I drove home. They had no logs, only split wood. Which, for most folks would be fine. I want to find a location that has whole logs of Fireplace size. Hardwood. Until I do a couple of the largest split Oak pieces will have to do. The Pinõn will perfume Shadow Mountain home.

The old woman in the office warned me not to trip over her dog’s long rope. She came out, measured the wood I’d selected, and for it and a box of kindling I paid $27. In Minnesota this would have been exorbitant. Here in the arid West, and down the hill from my Mountain home where only Pine is available, a price I paid without complaint.

Stopped at Oyama Sushi on the way home for a sashimi lunch.

Art and Culture, Asia, Family, Travel, World History

Knowledge Gaps

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Mabon and the Sukkot Moon

Saturday (Yom Kippur) gratefuls: Teshuvah. The Book of Life. Almost sealed. Sukkot starts on October 16th. Kol Nidre. Gaza. The West Bank. Palestinians. Israel. Israelis. Hamas. Hezbollah. Lebanon. Iran. Egypt. Syria. Jordan. Saudi Arabia. AI. Yetzer hara. Yetzer hatov. Yin. Yang. Polarities within the Unity. Darkness and the dawn. Solar storms. Auroras.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Magnetosphere

Kavannah: Patience  wait for it

One brief shining: As the darkness gives way to dawn and dawn to full day, I watch Black Mountain throw off its night time cloak, stretch its Rockiness up to the light as Great Sol appears again in the East, Mother Earth having spun round once again, this ritual of rituals, light to dark, dark to light, matches and feeds the turning of the Great Wheel as this tilted Earth dashes through space around our Star.

 

Cousin Diane should be in Tashkent by now. On tour with Overseas Adventure Travel after spending a few days with her Uzbeki friends. Sounds like quite a journey. A lot of it focused on the Silk Road, then and now. Bought a standing globe this week, something I’ve always wanted. Found Uzbekistan. Central Asia remains mostly a blank spot in my knowledge, its history and its contemporary, post Soviet Union reality. Perhaps Diane’s time there will educate me on her return.

Reminds me of where I was with China, Japan, and Korea, Southeast Asia before my trip to Singapore, Thailand, and Cambodia in 2004. Stimulated by a lecture in my Southeast Asia guide program at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Bob Jacobsen showed slides of Angkor Wat, including the quarter mile long bas relief on the most well known temple there. It had the churning of the sea of milk.

Bas relief from the 12th century Khmer civilization
Another rendering

That next year I entered docent training, a two year every Wednesday series of lectures on world art history. Given my recent trip to Southeast Asia and a trip with Joseph and Kate to China in 1999 I chose to focus a lot of my learning on Asian art, especially China and Japan. What I don’t know about Asia is still much vaster than what I have learned, but I do have a good baseline knowledge of Asian history, in particular the various arts of China and Japan.

Of course brother Mark and sister Mary’s long residency in various parts of Southeast Asia, mostly Malyasia and Singapore, Mary, and Thailand and Cambodia, Mark, meant I already had a face turned toward those countries. And India, too. Though not as much. Then Joseph got stationed in Osan, Korea, met Seoah, married, and returned there a year and a half ago. Kate and I went to Korea and Singapore in 2016 for Joe and Seoah’s wedding.

As China has rapidly developed, the world’s attention has belatedly turned toward Asia, too. When Joe, Kate, and I were in Beijing, the traffic was largely people on bicycles carrying charcoal briquettes and even refrigerators by pedal power. No longer. And only 24 years later.

Not sure Central Asia will ever have such a moment. But. Things change in geopolitics and they’re changing at a rapid pace right now without a world hegemon.

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?

Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Holidays, Korea, Mountains, Mussar, Politics

Exuberance!

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Lugnasa and the Harvest Moon

Sunday gratefuls: THC. Celecoxib. Erleada. Orgovyx. Vince. Alan’s opening night for Man of La Mancha. My son and Seoah in Okgwa. Her father. Her mother. And family. Chuseok. Teshuvah. South Korea. The U.S. Air Force. The wide Pacific. 15 time zones. Korean. Paul Wellstone. Tim Walz. Kamala Harris. We’re not going back. The politics of joy.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: My Korean family

Kavannah: Exuberance

One brief shining: When I choose an intention for the day, sometimes I crosscut the feelings I’m having, as this morning I’m feeling a little pressed down, not much but enough that it interferes with my joy, my willingness to embrace the day, squeeze some juice from it, find the yirah/awe in the ordinary that usually comes easily, sometimes I see the day ahead and want a kavannah that leans into it, focuses me, as I did with teshuvah yesterday.

 

I’m finding this daily kavannah a powerful practice. I write the middah on my small slip of paper, put it into my pocket. The act of choosing it, writing it down, putting it in my pocket and carrying it with me throughout the day triggers an awareness that lasts till bedtime. I want to find things in this day, things that make me want to lift my arms up and shout with joy. With awe. With love.

Exuberance carries over feelings from my zoom call with my son. As I wrote yesterday, they’re in Okgwa for Chuseok, a Korean harvest/fall holiday similar to our Thanksgiving. My son came on in one of the all white rooms at Seoah’s parents house, all concrete, and built for them a year or so ago by her brother. We chatted a bit, he caught me up on work. Showed me Murdoch lazing on the floor. And moved the laptop into the main living area.

There was Seoah’s sister who will take over the farm from her parents starting in some fashion this fall. In the kitchen, her usual location when inside, Seoah’s mom ate from several small dishes in the Korean style. Her Dad, a joyful man and a very hard worker, wanted to say hi. He wanted to see the outside. Removing the camera, I aimed it out my window for a view of Lodgepoles and Black Mountain beyond.

He got excited. I want to come to Colorado! Seoah translating. I got excited, too. Sounds like they may show up here on Shadow Mountain sometime next year. He loves Mountains. Climbs Mountains. Went to China to climb from the China side Baekdu Mountain*, an active strato-volcano on the China/North Korean border. He’ll love Colorado.

 

Just a Moment: Buoyed me up to see Paul Wellstone’s name** back in the national political conversation. The quote and the article referenced below show how Tim Walz might bring the Wellstone spirit to a Harris/Walz government. May it be so.

 

 

 

*”According to Korean mythology, it was the birthplace of Dangun, the founder of Gojoseon (2333–108 BC), whose parents were said to be Hwanung, the Son of Heaven, and Ungnyeo, a bear who had been transformed into a woman.” Wiki

“The legendary beginning of Korea’s first semi-mythical kingdom, Gojoseon (2333 B.C.E.–108 B.C.E.), takes place here. Buyeo (2nd c. B.C.E. – 494), Goguryeo (37 B.C.E. – 668), and Balhae (698 – 926) kingdoms also considered the mountain sacred.” New World Encyclopedia

 

**“I don’t represent the big oil companies, I don’t represent the big pharmaceutical companies, I don’t represent the Enrons of this world,” Mr. Wellstone said. “But you know what, they already have great representation in Washington. It’s the rest of the people that need it.” NYT article. 9/15/2024

Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Holidays, Judaism, Korea, Memories, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Reimaging revelation, Shabbat, Travel

Chuseok and Teshuvah. Double post. see below as well.

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Lugnasa and the Harvest Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Torah. Jamie. Mussar. Ruth and Gabe. Lighting the candles. The shema. CBE. Mary and Guru. Mark in Bangkok. My son and Seoah in Okgwa for the Chuseok Festival.* Alan and his busy weekend. Good sleeping. Kristie. Second opinions. Cancer. Spinal stenosis. Sally. Aging. Its joys and its struggles. Scott and Yin. Men. Women. UC Boulder.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Friendship

Kavannah: Teshuvah-“…the journey of teshuvah is not about “turning over a new leaf” or being “born again”; rather, it is simply finding our way back to the land of our soul…Every person possesses a core of inherent goodness whose integrity cannot be compromised. While outwardly, one’s actions may not always reflect this inner goodness…people always have the ability to shed their superficial facade and do teshuvah—returning to their truest, deepest selves.” chabad.org

One brief shining: Chuseok draws families together in North and South Korea, often back to the places of their birth or raising, like little Okgwa for Seoah, back for thanksgiving for family, for the harvest, for love between a brother and a sister, all over that land, a return to the place of your formation; we might say finding a way back to the land of your soul, which has an individual component, of course, but also and strongly a community, familial component, though, yes, the land of your soul and your homeland may be also be widely divergent.

Chuseok card

 

 

Sept 2023. Seoahs family

The key move here, from a Jewish perspective, lies in the neshamah, that essence of you, that buddha nature, that stainless and unstainable core to which one can always return, no matter how hamartia-missing the mark-has confused your nefesh, the outward facing portion of you that changes, grows, shrinks, expands depending on which of the many wolves you feed.

The month of Elul, our current month in the Lunar Calendar for 5784, encourages all Jews to chasbon nefesh, accounting of the soul. Look back over the last year and see if you got lost in moments of despair over an illness. Like I did. See if you judged others harshly, rather than judging them on their merits. Like I did. See if you neglected opportunities to act with loving-kindness. Like I did. See if you failed to discern again the purpose of your life. Like I did. See if you failed again to act on that purpose. Like I did. Take steps to amend those personal lapses that you can. Like I have. Take steps to open your lev to your true path. As I have.

Teshuvah is not about guilt, however. It is about sweeping away the barriers in your life to being who you most truly are: a sacred becoming, a moment in the ever expanding tapestry of novelty that is the universe and everything. A unique and irreplaceable soul, a unique, never to be repeated, ishi-go ishi-e self awaits your joyous return.

No stains that lead to damnation. No sins even God could not forgive. Only you and the land of your soul. To which, at any time, you can, with exuberance and calm, return.

 

 

 

*”It’s the other time of the year in Korea besides Lunar New Year’s Day, aka Seollal (설날), when family members gather together.  Usually, this means traveling to the home of the head of the family, often one’s grandparents.

According to legend, an ancient king of the kingdom, Silla, started a month-long weaving contest between two teams.   The team who had woven the most cloth won, and they were treated by the losing team with food, drinks, and other gifts.  Thus starting the tradition of Thanksgiving almost 2000 years ago.

Some scholars also tie Chuseok to Korea’s history, wherein agriculture was a big part of daily life.  Koreans commonly offered rituals to ancestors to give thanks and celebrate the harvest moon.

Traditionally, the purpose of Chuseok was for family members to gather together during the full harvest moon. This usually appeared in the sky on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar. Families wanted to celebrate and show gratitude to their ancestors for the fruitful harvest.

Chuseok is very much a traditional holiday where many of the customs from the old days still stand.”

Chuseok in Korea