Category Archives: Weather +Climate

Friends, Garden, Great Wheel, Greenhouse, Judaism, Plants, Seed Keepers, Weather +Climate

Nathan and Lizzy

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Mabon and the Harvest Moon

Monday gratefuls: The Ancient Brothers. The Night. A cool, very cool Night. 35 right now. Shadow curled, nose to tail. Tom. Roxann. Ode. Elizabeth. The Northshore. Lake Superior. Grand Marais. The Poplar River. Lutsen. Wolves. Moose. The Boundary Waters. My new Pendleton Blanket with the Aurora Borealis. Electric blankets.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Nathan and Lizzy

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah:  Yesod.  Groundedness. Foundation.

Tarot: Paused

One brief shining: Rain saturates the red cinder blocks making up my small patio, indoor light reflects off them as I open the door, outside for Shadow into the early morning darkness, eager, tail high, wet cold air seeps inside. I shut the door.

 

Hanging the Mezuzah on Artemis: Irv, Marilyn, Gabe, Tara, Me, Rabbi Jamie. Nathan took the photograph rendered here in the style of Thomas Benton.

Nathan and Lizzy: I love developing relationships. When they happen naturally. Yes, I’m an introvert, proud of my solitude and nourished by it. Yes. But I’m far from a misanthrope. The world has so many amazing people, kind and skilled and offering a perspective only they have. Can have.

I’ve gotten to know Nathan over the construction of Artemis, from rough idea to frame up to raised beds filled with soil and now plants. He’s a young guy, maybe early thirties. A man of business. A handyman. A trucking company. Colorado Coop and Garden.

He has plans. Emulate Tuff Shed. A Colorado firm that started out building sheds, then went to making kits that they ship all over the country. Next year he’s renting a shop where he can work regular hours, make kits for greenhouses and chicken coops, market them to the nation.

Lizzy, his partner, whom I met yesterday, runs a pet sitting business. She has larger ambitions, too. She’s a beautiful, high energy lady with a sweet soul. And, she loved Shadow. Ah, a way to care for Shadow if I get well enough to travel. Quirky dogs are her and a few of her employees special interest. Even better.

May they live long and prosper.

 

Artemis: I planted in late July. The average first frost at my elevation has come in early September, some years late August. It’s October 6th and still no frost. My Carrots, Beets, Spinach, and Kale are all cool weather crops, can withstand low temperatures, even light frosts. Especially the Beets and Carrots improve with the cooler weather, get sweeter.

The Tomatoes, my inside the greenhouse crop, do not like the cold. I’ve gotten a great first year crop with them, but if I could have had them in a month earlier, I would have had a huge crop. For a tiny greenhouse.

Nathan and Lizzy came by yesterday so Lizzy could see the almost finished Artemis and Nathan could install hooks for my cold frame tops. With the cold frame tops I can enclose the outdoor beds so they still receive Great Sol, yet remain above freezing. Extending my growing season on the outside of the greenhouse.

Once Nathan puts hard foam insulation panels-with handles-inside Artemis I should be able to grow Kale, Lettuce, Arugula over the winter. I should also be able to grow my own starter plants as winter begins to let go.

Good for my soul.

Feelings, Great Wheel, Holidays, Mountains, Paganism, Plants, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

The Springtime of the Soul

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Lughnasa and the Cheshbon Nefesh Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Road trips. Telluride. Ouray. Silverton. Durango. Shadow, rising in darkness. Morning darkness. Electricity. Artemis. Tomatoes nearing maturity. Very cool morning. Authoritarian playbooks. 2025. May you grow old in interesting times. TV. Books. Computers. Mini-splits. Fall come early. Aspen gold. CBE. Gabe and Gordonzeo. Ruth in her sophomore year.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Bubble gum and baling wire

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah:  Ometz lev. Inner strength to move forward. Courage.

Tarot: Ten of Arrows, Instruction

Generational Wisdom:
The card emphasizes the transfer of knowledge from elders to youth, ensuring that traditional skills and wisdom are not lost.

 

One brief shining: Shadow is in the house, goes straight to her Nylabone Lobster, begins to chew with what dog toy makers call aggressive chewing, the kind that shreds toys made for softer dogs, ones whose chewing gentles the toys, treats them like Velveteen Rabbits, not Shadow for she demands resistance, counts on toughness.

 
 

Seasons: A cool morning. Forty-three. The greenhouse heater either can’t keep up or turned itself off. I’ll find out later this morning. These late August days and all of September mark a gradual transition from growing season weather to the bleakness of the fallow season. Sometimes cold, even frosty, sometimes warm.

 

Soon the Aspens on Black Mountain will begin to turn from green to gold. Jackie who lives above 9,000 feet in Bailey said they’d started to turn a while back where she is. Kenosha Pass, too, said a friend of hers. The whispered reports we share. Knowing seasonal change for what it is. Life-changing.

 

When to put on the Snow tires? Will my cold frames be done before the first frost? When will the Garlic come? Do the mini-splits need cleaning? How’s my supply of firewood? How about that first Snow? When will it come? Homes become refuges from the cold. Shadow loved the Snow in February. How will she react when it comes again? With delight, I imagine.

 

Mountain roads. Become more challenging. Technical. Call on forty years of Minnesota winter driving experience. When these Blizzaks lose their tread, I’m buying Hankook quiet studded tires.

 

Holiseason lies only a couple of months away. Starting on Samhain and running through the Epiphany. My favorite time of the year. Family and friends. Festive days and long cold nights.

 

But. Not yet. First the corn-pickers and the combines. Reaping the harvest as the mad colors of a Midwestern Fall bloom, red Sugar Maple leaves floating down, down onto Lakes and Ponds. Boaters heading out to see the colors on Lake Minnetonka. College football underway. Can the NFL be far behind?

 

I love this transitional time. A joy of living in the temperate latitudes where we have four seasons, more or less. And this change from the heat of summer to the crisp weather of fall? The best. All poignancy and anticipation.

 

As Rudolf Steiner said, the springtime of the soul. That’s why cheshbon nefesh fits so well here. An outer change enhances, encourages an inner one.
Asia, Dogs, Family, Fourth Phase, Health, Korea, Weather +Climate

500 MPH

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Summer and the Korea Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Waste. Shadow, the seeker in the dark. Russian Kale. Chioggia Beets. Bloomsdale Spinach. Sprouting. Rainbow Chard. Rocket Arugula. Lettuce Lolla Rossa. Peeking out. Tomatoes blooming. Squash, too. 8.8 Earthquake. Tsunami. A dangerous Mother. The Jang itinerary. Artemis. Baseball. Football. Soccer. Basketball.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Sprouts

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Yirah. Awe.

Tarot: The Knight of Arrows. Hawk.  What do the cards have to tell me today?

One brief shining: Ended my p.t. with Halle after 19 sessions, back to my own routine with cardio, upper and lower body days, feeling the burn, the muscle memory taking over, an habituated expectation that on this exercise my body needs to do this. Serious grind.

 

chatgpt couldn’t get the number of people right. But you see the idea

The Jangs: My son sent out an itinerary for their 7 days here. A possible list of things to do. Ride the Georgetown Railroad. Museum of Natural History and Science. Dinosaur Ridge. Water activities on Evergreen Lake. Guanella Pass. Those sorts of things.

Have to take into account age, too. Two elderly, two kids, two middle-aged adults. Not to mention diet. The first, highest priority item? A visit to H-Mart for food suitable for a Korean palate.

It’s one thing transitioning from an American diet (if you can grace hamburgers, meatloaf, potatoes, peas, and corn with that lofty word) to the subtle and varied Korean diet. Quite another to go from Korean to American.

Seoah’s a pro at this though, so it will be no problem. My son, too.

 

Dog journal: Shadow and I have both lowered our stress levels. Her coming inside for her evening meal makes night time easy. Her coming up on the bed at naptime and sometime (earlier now) in the night signals her growing security. This makes me happy.

 

Mother Earth: Kamchatka Peninsula. 8.8 temblor 90 miles off its Coast. One of the strongest ever recorded. Underwater fault lines slip. Water rushes up to 500 mph. It’s the sudden stop on this Coast or that one. Water rises at speed, sweeping Rock, Sand, Buildings, Animals, people as it does.

She’s a dangerous lady, our Mother.

 

Health: Going to Colorado Pain today for a consultation. Hopefully leading to the implanting of a SPRINT device.

My pain level has receded with p.t., some modest help from steroid injections, and the car seat cushion. Receded, but not gone. My mobility remains limited. Bending over painful enough to make me avoid it.

Also. On Monday I had on odd experience. Deanna, the ultrasound technician was deaf. She spoke in a stilted way, watching my lips.

She had it down. I admired her ability to succeed in a hearing dominate world.

As she said, “Two ohdurs. Hernia. Scrrotum.” She pointed to the words on her paper. I nodded. Trying to find the source of my pain two Sunday’s ago.

In Lakewood. 101 degrees. I drove back up the hill as soon as we finished.

 

*A quicksilver messenger of fate, the Hawk can help and support you to see through layers of doubt and uncertainty to the problem at the heart of the matter. Be swift and use your common sense to progress.

Dogs, Greenhouse, Plants, Seed Keepers, Weather +Climate, Wild Neighbors

She Also Kills

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

Shabbat gratefuls: Nathan. The heater. The fan. The drip irrigation. Tomato plants thriving. Squash and seeds. The Fourth of July. Shadow, chewer of leashes. Render of sheets. My sweet girl. Kate, always. Death. Life. The time between a sleep and a sleep. Rock and Roll. Give me the beat, boys. Tara and Eleanor. Choosing Granite. Kitchens.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Photosynthesis

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei. Feel the One moving in and through my life. Flow with it.

Week Kavannah: Hear on the side of merit

One brief shining: Nathan hung the heater from a greenhouse rafter, cut a hole in the Cedar siding for the fan, ran an extension cord from my outdoor plug and threaded it into the greenhouse interior, set the fan to come on at 90 degrees to exhaust air and the heater at 60 degrees to warm it on cool nights. 65 degrees inside the greenhouse on this 48 degree morning.

 

The Greenhouse: Yes, Nathan came on the afternoon of the Fourth to work. He’s a man of his word and I appreciate it.

The exhaust fan will draw air through the windows and into the greenhouse when the temperature inside it goes above 90 degrees. It hit 104 this week. The heater will come on now in the night if the greenhouse dips below 60 degrees as it did a week ago, going down into the low forties.

This is all to make the Tomato plants glad. As my good friend Rich said, “A six hundred dollar salad.” Even so.

Having another living organism here makes me so happy. The greenhouse fills my heart in the same way Shadow does. I guess that’s my little family now: Shadow, the Plants in Artemis, and me.

Again. Live until I die.

 

Dog journal: The leash saga. I bought a yellow neoprene leash. 10 feet long. Attached it to Shadow’s collar. Not easy. She went into an immediate sulk.

The first night I unclipped it, remembering her chewing up her leash from the Granby shelter. The next day near evening I got it on her again. Left it on that night and, wow, she did not chew it off. We went outside. She peed. Wrapped me in the leash. We came inside over the devil’s threshold.

Left it on her that night, too, as Natalie suggested. Oh. Well. One neoprene leash severed from its clip. I had also purchased a pull tab leash. About 9 inches long they clip to the collar and make putting on a leash easier. Pick up the tab, clip the leash onto its ring.

Never got a chance to use it because I got the original leash I bought for her clipped on using turkey hot dog treats. High value treats.

Left the pull tab on her last night. She chewed it off. I’m not sure, but I think we got past the leash jitters yesterday, so it might not be necessary. Useless now anyhow.

Just a moment: Mother Nature feeds us, keeps us warm, provides material for our homes and the things we put in them.

She also kills people. By Flood and Fire, Tornado and Hurricane, Volcanic Eruption and Earthquake. By extreme Heat and Cold. By Tsunami and Drought. By poisonous Snakes and disease bearing Insects. By Grizzly Bears and Mountain Lions.

 

 

 

Asia, Dogs, Family, Fourth Phase, Politics, US History, Weather +Climate, World History

Ruth at the DMZ

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Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

Memorial Day gratefuls: Again, Shadow leaping into my arms as I sat on the edge of the bed. Rain. A soaking Rain. Needed. Big R. Dog treats. Ativan at Safeway. A pickup order. Gas at Stinkers. Pushing myself. P.T. exercises. Back pain. My Ancient brothers: Paul, Tom, Bill, Ode. Thyroid meds. Lifealert.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rain

Week Kavannah: Zerizut. for p.t. and resistance.

One brief shining: Went to Big R for the first time in years, past the bronze Elk front porch bench, into the store, past the weapons and ammo, past the huge fans for animal stalls, past the 50 pound bags of Chicken feed, toward the aisles of Dog beds, Dog food, Dog treats, nursing my gimpy left leg as I walked, found the bag of treats Natalie recommended, treats of Cattle spleen, lungs, trachea, realizing in that moment, again, the awful cruelty of eating red meat.

 

Had a crashing, booming, hailing afternoon while I slept with the window open, Rain spraying in, my electric blanket on against the 38 degree chill. Such a perfect feeling of comfort. Brought back memories of Memorial Days past when I would go out into the family car, turn on the radio, eat popcorn, and listen to the broadcast of the Indy 500.

I can imagine death as slipping over the edge of living while wrapped in similar comfort, a moment then of peace. Of lost physicality. Of drifting away into the next adventure. I neither wish it soon nor do I fear it.

 

Dog journal: Shadow jumped up onto my legs, into my arms. Again. Wriggling and happy. We hugged each other. The feeling sublime. I know that’s a slippery, maybe treacly, word, sublime, but when you combine love and eagerness what word would you use?

We’re not all the way there, Shadow and I, but we have had a few break through moments. Natalie comes today at 10.

 

Just a moment: Trump Tarrific wants retailers to “eat” the tariffs. Guess we could call that a value negated tax or VNT. The mirror of VAT.

Not sure you’d feel Great quite yet if your profit margins dipped in order to prop up red tie guy’s simulacrum of economic policy. But, hey, we’ve all got to take one for the team now and then. Eh?

 

Ruth at the DMZ

 

 

 

Dogs, Friends, Weather +Climate

Don’t think she’s trying to kill me

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Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

Thursday gratefuls: Amy. Natalie. Shadow. Lifeguard Alert. Cool night. Shadow inside. Good sleeping. Great Sol. Lifted above Shadow Mountain by Mother Earth. Nathan Stewart. Greenhouse construction starts next week. Jackie and Ronda. Radical Roots of Religion Class. New Human Consciousness Class. Adam and Eve, their story expanded and changed. Paul and Sarah. Tom’s bookmarks. How did he know?

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Friends, friendship

One brief shining: A phone call from the Golden Police Department at 6:20 am this morning got my attention, but I thought I knew its source; sure enough, “We got a call from Lifeguard Alert.”; yes, indeed, I was right as I held in my hand at that moment the mangled fob for my Lifealert necklace and button. Who knows what Lifealert dangles in the mouth of a puppy? I do.

 

Dog journal: I don’t think she’s trying to kill me. Pretty sure. But I did knock my Lifealert fob off the nightstand while reaching for my hearing aid. Went back to sleep, got up only to find the fob gone. Looked under the bed. Yep. There it was. Had to get down on my stomach to reach in far enough. Upon pulling it out I saw the toothmarks, the plastic peeling away from the fob’s back. Shadow doesn’t know this is my lifeline does she? No.

Then a phone call my phone thought was spam followed by that call from the Golden Police Department. No, I had to say. I’m ok. My puppy chewed up my alarm button. What a nice way to greet the day. Shadow.

Amy came yesterday and we made some good progress with the leash. If Natalie can’t board Shadow, I’ll continue with Amy. Shadow’s too woven into my life. Her story and mine will be told together. Even the frustration and problems are good for this old man. Keeps me engaged with the world as it is and rewards me with furry hugs and head kisses.

 

Jackie and Ronda. Went into Aspen Park. Get my ears lifted. I go every three weeks. Partly to look good. More to see Jackie and Ronda who like to kid me and have fun. I appreciate them as friends, as a pair of women with an independent and edgy view of life and love.

Jackie loved Kate. When I get too edgy back to her, she reminds me: This is what Kate would do. And holds up both hands with their middle fingers extended. Yes, indeed. That’s exactly what Kate would do. And Kate’s independent spirit fills the room for a minute. Even from those last few visits to Jackie’s in her wheelchair.

Life in a place where people know my name.

 

Just a moment: On a positive weather note. Seems we’ll have the monsoons in July and August. That means the high fire season this year should only be the month of June, as it used to be before climate change screwed everything up.

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

The Great Work

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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.

Friends, Jefferson County, Mountains, Weather +Climate, Wild Neighbors

On the Way to Breakfast

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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.

 

Great Wheel, Mountains, Paganism, Plants, Weather +Climate, Wild Neighbors

It’s the Merry, Merry Month of May

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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.

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

Living. Not dying.

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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.