• Category Archives Weather +Climate

  • The Great Work

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

    Monday gratefuls: Stevinson’s Toyota. Snow and rain. Now 8 or 9″. All moisture accepted and appreciated. My son. Shadow, the regresser. Her 15 minutes on the treat (shh. Leash.). Common Ground. Heal the soil. The Great Work: create a sustainable presence for humans on Mother Earth.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rain and Snow

    Week Kavannah: Enthusiasm. Zerizut.

    One brief shining: A cold rain has fallen; on its cool breath came a good night’s sleep, up at 5 am with a lick of Shadow’s tongue, a deep whine, unusual for her, so I moved as creaky quick as possible to get her outside.

     

    The coming Snow. Leaving her Snow shoes on. Ruby will still get her 60,000 mile service with all fluids replaced. Means I will sit. Wait. Not easy, but necessary. Keep Ruby on the road. She’s already been built. I’ve gotten at least 250,000 miles on the Toyota’s I’ve driven. Probably my last car. Now seven years old.

    A devil’s bargain I didn’t know I made back in 1963 when I got my first driver’s license. A carbon footprint, cabrón. All those years on the road. Helping send carbon up, up, up. Insulate Mother Earth.

    The freedom of driving carrying such a high cost, higher even than Dead Man’s Curve or Teen Angel. Back then car wrecks were the worst we could imagine. Now: each car a tiny Chicxulub meteor. Death by a thousand infernal combustion engines.

     

    Kate used to talk about an adrenal squeeze. Saw in my USPS advance notice I had a letter from Traveler’s Insurance, carrier for my home, auto, and personal liability. Stamped on the outside of the envelope: IMPORTANT INSURANCE INFORMATION.

    Was it my turn to scramble for another carrier? The envelope didn’t show up that day. I checked online. Found nothing. It came the next day.

    Conditional renewal. I have to accept a $5,000 deductible for Hail and Wind damage. Well, all right. I can do that. I’d read that insurers for Colorado homes see our hail threat as much more dire than Wildfire. Here’s proof.

     

    Just a moment: Do all people deserve due process? I don’t know, said our President. It might mean, he went on, one million, two million, three million trials. What was that oath again?

    Perhaps he thought then, right at that moment. What if I could be Pope? Hey, let’s get AI to see how I’d look. Tone deaf doesn’t even begin to describe that. It’s the religious equivalent of saying if you’re famous you can grab them by the pussy.

     

    On a more upbeat note. I watched, at Tom’s suggestion, Common Ground. A documentary on Prime Video. I felt tears well up often at the savage rending of our most important resource: top soil.

    Joy with the clips of regenerative farmers growing corn in fields with legume cover crops. With the 7,000 acre farm in Williamsport, Indiana. Disturbing the soil with cattle grazing, mimicking the buffalo. Turning a profit by not feeding Monsanto, Bayer, John Deere. Lower input costs. Higher return on investment. This is the way.


    Great Work Jefferson County Mountains Quotes Seed Keepers Shadow Mountain US History Weather +Climate

  • On the Way to Breakfast

    Posted on by Charles 1 Comment

    Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

    Shabbat gratefuls: Talmud Torah. Shadow. So early. Morning, early early Morning. Back and leg pain. Exquisite. Teeth gritting. PSA. OK. Medical care moving closer. Subway. Cookunity. Dandelion. Alan. Driving down the hill to Evergreen. Green green Grass. Trees waking from their Winter slumber. The Bears are out. A sure sign of a Mountain Spring. Snow overnight yesterday. Melted and gone.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Knee replacement

    Week Kavannah: Enthusiasm. Zeal. Zerizut

    One brief shining: Opening Sefaria means stepping into the long, disputative history of Jewish thought where a thousand flowers of interpretation and commentary and imaginative flourishes thrive, feeding off each other, sparking new insights, all in the service of living today.

     

    Out with a right turn toward Evergreen. Ruby’s snowshoes hissing a bit on dry pavement even though 2 inches of Snow lay in my backyard and the temperature hovered in the mid-twenties. Downshifting, brake preserving. These curves as well known as my own body’s, when to brake, when to accelerate learned over ten years. Concentration focused on the roadside for Mule Deer, Elk. Respect for the Wild Neighbors.

    Great Sol had driven off the Snow on south facing Lodgepoles, but on the right, the north side of Black Mountain Drive, Winter Trees stood with white, drooping branches. Higher up on Black Mountain its now distinctive ski runs held on to the Snow even though facing south.

    Maxwell Creek ran free of Ice, its rushing waters from earlier Snow melt now calm. Full. Eager. When I passed the Upper Maxwell Creek trailhead, I began talking to Kate. Telling her about Ruth’s decision to go to medical school. About Gabe waking up. Shadow waking me up. How much I missed her knowledge and wisdom, her love. About my back pain and how I now understand from the inside her own struggles with it.

    Passing Kate’s Valley and Kate’s Creek, my attention turned to the clock. Oh. I was a half hour early. Hmm. Get a car wash? Why not.

    Lake Evergreen and its views of Bear Mountain, Great Sol glinting off light Wind raised ripples, blue as the Colorado Sky. The gray Rock of the roadside a somber contrast. No Elk grazing this morning.

    The car wash’s robotic voice said: the car wash is closed. Oh. Decided to take a look at Elk Run assisted living. I need to look at a couple of these places in case circumstances change. Still haven’t done it.

    This place sits walking distance (for most people) from CBE. After passing the Life Center of Evergreen, Bergen Bark Inn, Mt. Evan’s Hospice,  and the section 8 housing where Anne lives, I realized this was a social service neighborhood.

    Past it was the Tanoa Way residential area with dead ends and no outlets and mansions with the Mountain equivalent of Widow’s Watches, high windows facing a view of nearby Mountains.

    After I had visited spots I’d wanted to see, but had never driven to, I turned toward the Dandelion and a breakfast with my friend Alan.

     


    Friends Jefferson County Mountains Weather +Climate Wild Neighbors

  • It’s the Merry, Merry Month of May

    Posted on by Charles 1 Comment

    Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

    Thursday gratefuls: Mary coming to visit. Beltane. Snow. 32 degrees. Gnawer of Bones. Slow to trust. Shadow. Roxann who knows. Tom. Tramadol and two acetaminophens. Helps. Fantastic Four. Adam and Eve. Mordecai Kaplan. Abraham Joshua Heschel. Learning. Staying mentally sharp.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Amy

    Week Kavannah: Persistence and grit. Netzach.

    One brief shining: We float sometimes above our life, hovering over it like some household God, hoping to change directions or circumstances with a twist of the divine hand, a twirl of the sacred finger but we know all along that only our body bound to the earth can achieve miracles.

     

    Beltane. When those crazy Scots and those blue-eyed Swedes take off their clothes and dance naked around a bonfire. Enacting the magic of sympathy for Mother Earth as she takes in seeds, embraces them in her fertile womb, and kisses them into growth. Why not? She provides for us. Sustains us. Gives us water to drink and gravity to keep us grounded.

    I’ve not written many Great Wheel posts in the last few years. Like Taoism and now Judaism though, the pagan in me never sleeps. I stay alive to these seasonal changes, to their meaning for our daily lives. Even if we get Snow and freezing temperatures here on Shadow Mountain. I know the Lodgepole catkins, the Aspen leaflets, fawns, calves, kits, bunnies will emerge, small flags of life’s own Great Wheel waving the colors of renewal.

    Beltane honors the marriage of the Lord and the Lady. A maiden no more the Earth takes a lover who warms and quickens her. On Beltane ancient Celts would make love in the fields. Leap over small fires. Drive their cattle between bonfires. All to advance fertility.

    Love realizes its biological imperative. Souls join as bodies dance together in the rites of Spring. Are we ever more than then? When our hearts fill with passion and our senses brighten to the other. The one who shares our oneness. As the One shares with us all. What an orgasm. Can you imagine how it feels to be Mother Earth in the Spring?

    We cannot stay sad about death. Not when green shoots up from black Soil. As the Spring Ephemerals throw up their colorful flowers. As the Cherry and Plum offer their delicate blooms only to shed them in Snow like Storms so Fruit can grow. As the Honeybees leave their Winter Hives seeking Nectar and spreading Pollen, these matchmakers of the Sky. When Cutthroat and Rainbow Trout push out their Roe for the milky Semen’s discovery in cold Mountain Streams.

    Death does not mark a finish, rather a continuation howsomever it might be. And Beltane marks Nature’s covenant that this is so.

    We know not how it is. We mortal creatures. Beltane celebrates mortality with its promise of living abundantly. If only we care for ourselves and the land.

    Get outside and visit the marks of this glorious, this wondrous, this most yes of seasons. You deserve the lift.


    Great Wheel Mountains Paganism Plants Weather +Climate Wild Neighbors

  • Living. Not dying.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Shadow. Her kindness. Amy. Her understanding. Cookunity. Colorado Coop and Garden. The Greenhouse. Gardening again. Korea. Malaysia. Australasia. Wisconsin. Saudi Arabia. The Bay. First Light. 10,000 Lakes. The Rocky Mountain Front Range. Where my people live.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Greenhouse

    Week Kavannah: Joy. Simcha.

    One brief shining: Nathan and I wandered in my back yard, his app that shows Great Sol’s illumination searching for a good spot to plant my greenhouse, until we neared a spot close to the shed, that was it with decent morning Sun and an hours worth of afternoon Sun more than anywhere else.

     

     

    That picture is not quite what I’m getting. Mine will have an outdoor raised bed on either side and shutters that move themselves as the greenhouse heats up and cools down. It will also have an electric heater for Winter and a drip irrigation system inside and out.

    This guy Nathan, a Conifer native, started his business Colorado Coop and Garden to give folks like me an opportunity to grow things up here. Working a garden at ground level is long past for me. But Nathan can build the raised beds at a height where my back is not an issue.

    Guess I’m regressing here in some ways. A Dog. A small Garden. Andover in miniature. The greenhouse will have a sign: Artemis Gardens. Artemis Honey was Kate and mine’s name for our bee operation.

     

    I’m loving my classes at Kabbalah Experience. Reaching deep into the purpose of religion and Judaism in particular. Reimagining the story of Adam and Eve. My life, my Jewish life and my Shadow Mountain life, have begun to resonate. Learning and living an adventure in fourth phase purpose.

    No matter what the near term future holds for my health I will not succumb to despair or bleakness. As I’ve often said, I want to live until I die. This life, I’m coming to realize, is me doing just that.

    If I were a bit more spry, I’d add a chicken coop and a couple of bee hives, but both require more flexibility than I can muster.

    I’m at my best when I’m active outside with Mother Earth and inside with a Dog, books, and new learning. All that leavened with the sort of intimate relationships I’ve developed both here and in Minnesota and with my far flung family.

    That’s living in the face of autocracy and cruelty. I will not attenuate my life. Neither for the dark winds blowing through our country and world, nor for that dark friend of us all, death.

     

    Just a moment: Did you read Thomas Friedman’s article: I’ve Never Been More Afraid for My Countries Future? His words, served up with a healthy dish of Scandinavian influenced St. Louis Park Judaism, ring more than true to me. They have the voice of prophecy.

    We are in trouble. No doubt. Trouble from which extrication will require decades, I imagine. If not longer. Yet. I plan to grow heirloom vegetables year round on Shadow Mountain. To have mah Dog Shadow with me in the Greenhouse.

    I also plan to write and think about the sacred, the one, the wholeness of which we are part and in which we live, die, love. I will not cheapen my life with bitterness, rather I will eat salads, read, play with Shadow and dine with friends, talk to my friends and family near and far.


    Dogs Family Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Garden Great Wheel Health Judaism Mountains Our Land and Home Paganism Plants Politics Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Shadow Mountain The West US History Weather +Climate Writing

  • Water, Water Somewhere

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Cold Night. Snow. Shadow. Good friends. Here and there. Family. Here and there. Daniel Silva. Gabriel Allon. Painting conservators and restorers. Peter Paul Rubens. Caravaggio. Da Vinci. Michelangelo. Hopper. Bierstadt. O’Keefe. Rothko. Kandinsky. Creativity.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rothko

    Week Kavannah: Joy. Simcha.

    One brief shining: The muddy Colorado runs in torrents through northwestern Colorado, carrying in its rush the waters of Snow packed on Mountain sides, deposited over the Western Winter, but will it, can it be enough for Las Vegas, Tucson, Phoenix, the Diné Nation, L.A., and even parts of the Baja.

     

    With the end of Winter in sight the question, the every Spring question in Colorado. How’s the Snowpack? This is God’s own Water Bank, stored and frozen for use throughout the Water year. Its politics more fraught than those of the Education Department or USAID. Its impact? On lives in the millions, crops, economies of the West.

    This year critical Snowpack like the Upper Colorado River Basin is at 84%. We could still get more Snow, plump it up, but time has begun to run out. The pact that governs Water distribution in the Upper and Lower Basin states resets this summer.

    Already hampered by the Gap, an error in the original pact that divided up Water allotments using peak years never again realized, and now beyond the breaking point due to rapid urbanization in the Southwest and Southern California, the pact will require a King Solomon.

    Current Water law is a labyrinth of rights based on who got there first, second, third. This makes it impossible to rationalize the allotments. The Upper Basin and Lower Basin states have their own politics to consider. Many senior Water rights are in the Upper Basin states: Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico. While much of the development has occurred in the lower basin states of Nevada, Arizona, and California.

    Thus the states of Wyoming and Colorado in particular produce most of the Water through their Snowpacks, but the largest consumers of the Water inhabit the Lower Basin states.

    Changes to Water law face years of precedent and controversy. It will not happen easily.

    Having a lower percentage of Snowpack exacerbates the problems and can be anticipated as climate change alters and warms Winter weather.

     

    Just a moment: The rejection of the judge’s ruling. The president of Salvador saying of course he would not release the wrongly imprisoned man. Our government, our “Justice” department saying nah, ne, na nah to the judge. Cruelty and our way or the Salvadoran prison way as policy. No longer a question what we have come to. This is what we are. Mean. Insensitive. Immune to the rule of law. Capricious. No way to run a country, especially this country.

     

     


    Politics The West Weather +Climate

  • It’s International Beaver Day!

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring? and the Wu Wei Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Glaucoma. Dr. Repine. Eye exam. Brother Mark in Al Kharj. His Yemeni students. A big rain gonna fall, in Indiana. National Beaver Day. Shadow. The desqueaked toys. The Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Goya’s Dr. Arrieta. The Doryphoros. The Jade Mountain. Song Dynasty ceramics. Art.

    Sparks of Joy and Art: Painting and sculpture

    Week Kavannah: Wu Wei

    One brief shining: Bought a cane, made by the Asterom family woodworkers of Ukraine; it came wrapped carefully in two parts with a nicely designed ring to cover the join between grip and the cane body where I twirled the long screw around and around until the grip fit snugly.

     

    As you undoubtedly already know, it’s International Beaver Day. I had chatgpt make this special poster. Shadow, who continues to manifest her inner Beaver, celebrated by throwing her toys in the air, running around the back, and chewing extra hard on her new bone. Oh, what a day!

    She continues to ignore me as her trainer. Sigh. As I said, I want her leash trained, the rest can come later after she matures a bit.

    She’s bugging me right now for breakfast. Excuse me while I step away.

     

    Cousin Diane sent pictures of flooding in Shelby County Indiana where my mom’s family lived and lives. Dramatic.

    She also sent some video of Madison, Indiana where a driver recorded themselves driving under a gushing waterfall cascading over the highway. The driver kept saying to their passenger, “This is dangerous.”, while continuing to drive on through. Ah, Indiana.

    Meanwhile on the Mountain top we’re in a warming trend. Though you never know about Snow there’s none in the forecast for the next few days. About time to see some Wildflowers, green Grass. Happy ungulates. Bears pushing the sleep out of their eyes.

    I’ve already stopped throwing my garbage in the rolling bin outside, instead I now wait for every other Wednesday morning and throw it in then. Reduces by a lot possible Bear raiding. That’s a sign of a Mountain Spring.

     

    Glaucoma check today. Visual field test. Eye drops. Dr. Repine and her crystal peering into my retinal nerve. A good news story for Western medicine. My glaucoma has been held at bay for over thirty years.

     

    Just a moment: It’s a beautiful plan he says as stock markets all across the globe tumble down. Tariffs confuse me. But I know what economic chauvinism looks like and this is it.

    On the new series Mobland on Paramount Plus. Pierce Brosnan, the head of a British crime family says, “What we want we take.” He goes on, “And if you disrespect us, I’ve got a man for that.” You can think of Tom Hardy, his enforcer, as the U.S. military.

    Let the wild rumpus begin.

     

     

     


    Dogs Health Politics US History Weather +Climate

  • It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

    Shabbat gratefuls: Talmud Torah. CBE Men’s Group. Ritalin. Shadow. Less gnawing. The Shema. MVP. Paul. Tom. Irv. Diane. Easter. Passover. Kate, always Kate. Isaiah. Leviticus. The Mishkan. The Golden Calf. Our orange demiraja. My son’s liver. Less fatty. His long month of exercises.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The tongue that says Good Morning, Dad!

    Week Kavannah: Wu Wei (yes, still)

    One brief shining: It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, several inches of new white Snow, significant chill in the air (15 degrees), Shadow zooming, leaving trails of white behind her, small paw prints near the door.

     

    When Kate and I returned from my son’s and Seoah’s wedding, April 16th, 2016, four feet of Snow had fallen the previous day. Four feet! That’s my mental marker that big Snows are possible here until mid-May.

    We got 6 inches overnight which makes 107″ for the season. A bit less than usual so far. I think our average is around 120″.

    With Mountain roads this all means the best Snow tires for Ruby. Blizzaks so far, but I may shift to a Hankook studded tire for next winter. Want to give myself the best odds possible the older I get.

     

    Conversation with Ellie, palliative care nurse, led me to a decision on treatment options for my back. Going to try the steroid injections first. See what relief I get from them. If it’s not enough, or doesn’t last long, I’ll try the radio-frequency nerve ablation.

    I needed some time to get past my fear of needles in my spine. I still have it, but the tradeoff of fear and reward balances toward trying rather than not trying. Still working on setting up physical therapy, which I look forward to.

     

    You might be interested in my practice for ratzon this month. Ratzon means will, wish, desire, pleasure in Hebrew. At MVP we locked onto the instinctual nature of desire and the conscious choice implied in will.

    Desire impels us toward some action, some theme in our life. Like ambition, love, greed, generosity, wisdom, pancakes versus eggs and bacon, get up or stay in bed. This partner or that one.

    Which desire we choose to follow when we summon our will and act determines the path of our life. This rhythm never leaves us. Day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute we choose to act on this desire or that one, accumulating in those acts habits and trends in our lives.

    My practice for this month involves looking through my acts each day to see what desires I’ve chosen to reinforce, which ones I’ve said no to.

    For example. Yesterday I got up with Shadow as her gnawing became more and more insistent. I chose her needs over my desire to remain in bed. Our new habit of my sitting on the ottoman while she snuggles into me followed.

    I wrote Ancientrails, a longstanding habit of over twenty years then got myself breakfast. Lox and cream cheese on crackers. A choice. While eating, I watched a TV show, let Shadow outside after she finished eating her breakfast.

    I decided, for the fifth day in a row, that I would wait on the physical therapist to start exercising again. Spent the rest of the morning in Talmud Torah on Parsha Vayikra, reading the first five chapters of Leviticus and Zornberg’s commentary.

    At 11 I talked to Ellie, the head palliative care nurse at Denver Hospice. We discussed the Ritalin and its effects on my fatigue, my MRI results and the treatment options.

    After that Shadow and I took a long nap. When I got up, my Cookunity order had been delivered. After horsing it into the house, I put the meals in the refrigerator, finished unloading the dishwasher, and added twenty-four cans of seltzer water to the fridge’s pullout door.

    And so forth. I reinforced my desire to be a good dad to Shadow. Several times. I reinforced my 2005 decision to write Ancientrails every morning. I reinforced television as a companion while eating. I reinforced Talmud Torah on Fridays before Bagel Table. I reinforced good selfcare by talking to Ellie and by taking a nap.

    I did not reinforce exercise, lighting the Shabbat candles.

    So. Who was I yesterday. A good dog dad. A Jew. A writer, self-explorer. A man aware of his health, though not always acting on that awareness. A man who watches television in part as a companion. A reader of fiction.

    Today more choices. More desires. More chances to shape my life. Trying to figure out how wu wei fits with this approach. Later on that one.

     


    Dogs Fourth Phase Health Judaism Mussar Shabbat Weather +Climate

  • A Day in the Life

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc and the Birthday Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Torah study. Luke and Leo. Joanne. Ron and the Purim spiel. Shadow. Her wiggly, happy self. My son and Seoah safely back in Korea. Barb’s service today. Family. Of choice. All ways, always. Big problems to solve. Ancient brothers. Raising a puppy. Sarcopenia. Workouts.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shadow

    Week kavannah: Persistence and grit. Netzach.

    One brief shining: Grappel pelted down, small pellets of snow, fog shrouded the route between Evergreen and Conifer, driving on and out of it on my way to the Happy Camper, more joint relief edibles for night time.

     

    After sleeping through the leaving of my son, Seoah, and Gabe, I got up to a happy Shadow. We played a bit. Wrote Ancientrails, fed her, then got ready for Torah study.

    Eleven people. A minyan. A lively and learned discussion. The tests of the Israelites on their way in the wilderness. Our family history. Also a family of choice for me. Lots of new voices.

    Afterward, I drove to Bailey and picked up edibles for sleeping. Stopped at Buster’s and got a 12 pound bag of Natural Balance puppy food. Found even that bag heavy. I mean. Geez. Gotta get that resistance work back. Gassed up Ruby in a windy storm of grappel, then back home.

    More cold weather. 10 when I got up. Not Minnesota cold but still… After 10 years of Coloradification, cold to me.

    My son and Seoah spent 2 years plus in Hawai’i and a year in Singapore. They prefer the moderate heat of Hawai’i. Korea has its share of cold, snowy weather in a maritime climate. Tougher.

     

    This last week, with Shadow and visiting family and my birthday. Exhilarating. Filled with love. Also exhausting.

    I have decided to skip my son’s promotion ceremony in May. I will focus my energy and resources on the Jang family visit in late June or early July.

    Seoah’s mom and dad, her brother, and her sister, possibly her sister’s husband, and three kids coming to the Rockies, to Conifer.

    A once in a lifetime trip for them. I’m excited for them to be here. Seoah’s dad, in particular, loves Mountains. 8-10 days

     

    Just a moment: The Ancient brothers theme this morning-what big question would we like answered. I have two.

    How do we restore the flawed, yet wonderful government and culture we had only a month ago? What are the things that I can do to make that happen? Who are my allies?

    How do we continue the work necessary for a sustainable human presence on Mother Earth? With climate deniers in the ascendancy around the world, at this critical juncture for global warming.

    A second part of the topic responds to this Mike Nichol’s quote: “The only safe thing to do is take a chance. Play safe and you’re dead.” When did we last take chance?

    Adopting Shadow is this year’s main chance. Can I do it? Will I be good for her? Can we create a life together?

     

     

     

     


    Ancient Brothers Dreams Feelings Fourth Phase Great Work Torah Weather +Climate

  • Ways of Healing

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Yule and the Quarter Century Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Alan. Charlie’s dying, too. This disease will run its course. Phrases offered as billboards in my mind. Ruby on Mountain curves. Polar vortex slumping. Arriving soon. Snow first. Cancellations. Gunflint Trail coffee mug, over 35 years old. Ancientrails approaching its twentieth anniversary. The value of conversation. My interlocutors, all of you. Including readers of this blog.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Being heard and seen

    Kavannah 2025: Creativity

    Kavannah this week: Wholeness and peacefulness

    Here is the image inspired by your paragraph, created in the style of Minoan art. It reflects the vibrant colors, flowing lines, and intricate details characteristic of this ancient artistic tradition, capturing the warmth and connection of the moment. 2nd try, still not quite what I wanted. Anyhow.

    One brief shining: Ears offered in gentle wholeness, eyes turned toward me, body relaxed, yet engaged, an occasional smile, grimace, nod across my coffee cup and his red plastic keep the coffee warm thermos, as I did what the mussar practice for this week (from the Thursday group), suggested and told my friend Alan, in response to his how you doing, how I was doing.

     

    Normal, or rather, traditional Minnesota winter weather coming to the Mountains. Snow and below zero cold. Cancellations. I’m glad. My Coloradification has been complete for a while now. Cold starts in the mid-20’s. Below zero? Head for the thermostat. Snow and ice on Mountain roads, especially at night? Nope. Not anymore. Even with my Minnesota skills I know too big a risk when I see one. For me.

     

    Breakfast with Alan this morning. The Parkside. Next to the Evergreen Arts Center where Alan’s Rotary meets early on Friday mornings. This week, I said, had challenges. Mostly in the ever changing world of cancer. As I wrote a few posts back in Overburden, I have strategies for these moments. And they work. To varying degrees. This week I’d say they worked reasonably well since the challenge level was high.

    Kristie said, as I wrote, this disease will run its course. Recognition, yet again, that my cancer is incurable. And, if something else doesn’t take me out, it will be happy to step up. When? No one knows. I’m in as good a place as a stage 4 cancer guy can be according to Kristie. That’s welcome news. Yet it has a grim underlayment.

    So I told Alan the whole current context for my feelings this week. He listened. I listened, too, to myself. As I spoke, I grew lighter. Brighter. Remember that bit about the healing power of conversation? No, it cannot cure my cancer. But. It can cure my soul.

     

    Just a moment: Wanted to issue a sort of correction. I wrote cousin Donald did not have his hand over his heart at Jimmy Carter’s funeral. And he didn’t. But. I did notice later where his hand was. It was over his stomach.

    3 days and counting. Still no glimmer about whether I’ll engage, ignore, or run wildly about my house, hands in the air, screaming for no apparent reason.


    Fourth Phase Friends Politics Weather +Climate

  • It will be us. And, it will be so.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

    Monday gratefuls: My sweet, kind Ancient Brothers. The Seed-Keepers. Veronica. Ruth. Gabe. Samain. The fallow time. Snow. Boulder. Snarfs. Shadow Mountain. Election 2024. Clarity. Warming. The Great Sol Snow Shovel. Tara. My Lodgepole companion. A Colorado Blue Sky.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Lunch with Ruth

    Kavannah: contentment and joy

    One brief shining: Strange to recalibrate a life at 76 yet I did just that a year ago this month, having my penis-my penis!-pricked (hah), disrobing and immersing myself in the mikveh, explaining my reasons for embracing a new way of life to a beth dein, house of judgement, and taking a new name, Israel, one who struggles with God.

     

    Israel. Part of my nom sacré, Herme Harari Israel. My fourth phase name. In the direct toledot, generations, of Abraham and Sarah. My now forever ancestors. This name also signals my continuing pagan life as the hooded man of Shadow Mountain. Feel free to refer to me by any name you wish.

    The Moon of Growing Darkness. A bit of explanation. You may think this refers to the election of long tie guy, but no. It refers to my joy as the days grow shorter and the nights increase, headed toward the Long Night, the Winter Solstice. Yule in the pagan way. My affection for the dark, for the night long proceeds long tie guy, proceeds cancer, proceeds Judaism.

    No, I’m not an owl. I love the mornings when my strength and intellect and creativity peak. But as much I love the darkness. Might have begun during those fall days in Andover when I would dig out and replenish the soil in the flower beds that arced around our lower level brick patio.

    As I worked, Folk Alley radio played in the background and a chill Minnesota fall day would make the task a deep joy. Lying not far from the tarp onto which I put the Soil would be brown bags full of Corms, Rhizomes, and Bulbs. With the Tulip Bulbs, I would place them in slightly raised rectangular wire baskets, place them at the right depth, then shovel Soil back over them with a bit of Organic matter mixed in. The Rhizomes,  new Irises that Kate had chosen, might go in next to the Tulips. On the next tier up of this three tiered bed I would sprinkle Daffodil Bulbs and plant them where they landed, going for a mass of yellow in the Spring.

    The Crocus Corms would go into the bed next to the front porch and that would come a bit later. This was a twenty year ritual, one I looked forward to because I loved the thought that within the nurturing Soil, beneath the Snow, tucked in warm against the bitter Minnesota Winters were these small capsules, no less amazing, perhaps more amazing than a space capsule, of life, holding within them enough nutrients and ancient wisdom to throw up a stalk when the temperatures signaled safety, push out leaves that would begin to gather more food for the all important Flower, that seductive botanical invention that draws Pollinators, and would, in time, die back as Seeds formed. Even though most of these Flowers never propagated by seed.

    How could a gardener not be in love with darkness? Seed-Keepers will work in the darkness of the coming red tie guy years. Tucked in warm against the bitter autocratic Winter, small communities ready to send up stalks when the political temperature is right. Then to send out Leaves and power a movement into Flowering. It will be us and it will be so.

    Yes, we had Morels in our Woods

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