• Category Archives Weather +Climate

  • This and that

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall and the Harvest Moon

    Monday gratefuls: A pink Cumulus Cloud over Black Mountain. The start of a new Day. A new life resurrected from the 1/60th death of sleep. Each Day a full book in the library of life. The vast wing dedicated to each life. Yours. Mine. The Mule Deer and the Butterfly. Rain. Fall weather this week. My son and his sweet note. Gabe. The Rockie’s game that wasn’t. Twins playing last year’s winner of the World Series in the playoffs. House cleaning today.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Life, the wonder and the miracle

    One brief shining: Small drops of Water hit my deck this morning, taking the Mouse trap outside to make  an offering to the Ravens, the dead mouse would not come out.

     

    Yes. When I got back it was late September and the Mice had made a new incursion. When I went to get my electric Mouse trap out, I noticed a blinking red light. The sign of a killed Mouse. ? Sure enough, in the worst decision of its short life, this particular Mouse had chosen the Mouse trap as its home.

    I don’t like killing mice. It makes me sad, feel guilty, puts me in a category of human behavior I never aspire to. Yet my team that came to help me clean a couple of years ago made me get over it. Too much of a health risk. And, I know. I know. Hamburgers. Bacon. Chicken wings. Who ever said contradiction was not a part of life? Even so.

     

    Slept well the last two nights. Colon less vigilant. Yay. Jet lag waning, as it will. Perhaps today, maybe tomorrow I’ll shake free of Korea’s Sun and return to the one under which I now live. These transitions go unremembered after a journey is over. Their price part of the experience like airfare and taxis.

     

    Fall in the Rockies. A distinctive time here, one I’m glad I didn’t miss. The bugling of the Elk Bull’s searching for mates. Hyperphagic Bears tipping over garbage cans, raiding cars, going into houses after a portion of the 20,000 calories a day they need before their long nap. The Aspen’s gold, muted this year, against the evergreen of the Lodgepoles. Signs for snowplowing, ads. The Mountain Lions hunting for the straggling Mule Deer, the startled Rabbit. Skies as blue and as pure as new born Fawns, reflected in Mountain Streams and Lakes. The weather becoming more unstable, veering between heat and cold, changing. Nights that go into the electric blanket zone. Days that feel warm in the sun, cold in the shade. All of us, humans and wild neighbors, making sure we’re ready for the cold season that follows.

     

    If you read the NYT, you will find in this morning’s edition an article about Bishop Joseph Strickland: A Texas Bishop Takes on the Pope. It’s rare that I have a personal connection to any stories featuring Catholicism coming of good Protestant stock and about to become a Jew. In this case though. Paul Strickland, Joseph’s older brother, is and has been a close friend of mine for over thirty years. He’s one of the Ancient Brothers who meet by zoom each Sunday morning.

    Paul and all of us Ancient Brothers have a very different take on the world than Joseph. Yet. Not a surprise that Joseph is articulate, strong, and determined. Like Paul. Not a surprise that Joseph has catalyzed others. Like Paul and the 10,000 Friends of the Maine Coast which prevented a huge LPG terminal from taking over the tiny Maine town in which he lives. Even folks in the news have families.

     

     


    Asia Commentary on Religion Family Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Health Korea Mountains Politics Shadow Mountain Travel Weather +Climate Wild Neighbors

  • Seoul Time

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Being in Monday, not Sunday. The Fish Market. Daniel. Diane. Seoah. My son. Sejong the Great. Inventor of Hangul. The Korean George Washington. His palace. The cultural and arts district around it. Yongsan, the heart of Seoul. Seoul. My son’s friends. Heat and humidity. Snow in the forecast for Conifer. Jon, may his memory be for a blessing. Kate, whose memory is a blessing.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Seoul, Korean megalopolis

    One brief shining: The fish monger gaffed the sea bream and handed the gaff’s wooden handle to me so I could hold the fish as if I’d caught it instead of bought it, then he gaffed the other, whose name I’ve forgotten and gave it to my son and me to hold together, later in the restaurant above the market these two fish appeared as Korean cut sashimi and a soup made from their heads and the bones.

     

    Yesterday we boarded the number 1 blue line at Songtan station and took the hour and forty-five minute ride into Seoul. Called a subway it was light rail on this route. We rode past clusters of apartment buildings, a few single houses, and the now routine rice paddies and thick plastic sheeting covered half moon long garden tents filled with vegetables.

    All the way from Songtan the density of the housing remains high, the countryside far away in this populous urban corridor that extends to the south as well toward Daejong. Korea has a population of 51 million plus in an area the size of the state of Indiana. Over one-fifth of those live in Seoul.

    Almost done with the novel Soil by Yi Kwang-Su written in 1932. Compared to Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle it focuses on the plight of Korean farmers who made up 80% of the population but lived lives poor, miserable, and short essentially as serfs or tenant farmers for the wealthy who lived in Seoul. The ratio of Seoul’s population to the rest of Korea remains about the same.

    Seoul is the cultural and political and economic heart of the country as it has been since the time of Sejong the Great in 1395. On a main thoroughfare which runs past Seoul city hall a bronze seated Sejong looks on modern traffic headed towards his palace grounds. The city hall  has two buildings, one built by the Japanese during their long occupation in the 20th century and the other an uber modern building by Korean architect Yoo Kerl.

    The fish market. The Noryagin Fish Market has its own subway stop which was our destination. We came up from the tracks and onto a bright day, young Koreans in blue uniforms playing baseball just outside the subway’s door.

    On the inside hawkers of various levels of intensity try to interest you in the various sea creatures on offer. Sea squirts. Sea urchins. Whelks. Mollusks of various kinds. Shrimp. Prawns. Eels. Many, many varieties of Fish. Large aquariums held Squid and Crabs, some trying to wander off.  Though its floor had water on it and the air high humidity the market did not smell fishy to me.

    When we sat down to eat in the restaurant on the fifth floor of the market, I looked up and saw: Trump World. A big two tower building across the freeway from where we sat. Diane told me that the area we could see out the window was Korea’s Wall Street, so I suppose Trump Tower fit in as a monument  to financial malfeasance.

    Daniel and Diane then took us in their KIA SUV across the Han River into Yongsan, the central downtown of Seoul. Past it we found Sejong the Great’s palace and folklore museum. Unfortunately it was hot, humid, and my hip had begun to get sore so we didn’t stay as long as I might have wanted though I think we stayed longer than anybody else wanted.

    Built in 1395 and destroyed in the 19th century (I don’t recall  how), it was rebuilt in 1885 I think. Massive. The architecture of power and status.


    Asia Family Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Health Korea Travel Weather +Climate World History

  • Water

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Osan Air Base. A hike in the Mountains with my son, Seoah, and Murdoch. Meeting several ajuma (old women) who found Murdoch fascinating. A new TV. The dense population of Songtan and most of Korea. Buses. Taxis. Maglev trains. Subways. Cars. Motorcycles. Some bicycles. Many roads built for foot traffic or Horse/Ox powered carts. Jon’s yahrzeit. Kate, always Kate.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Seoul today

    One brief shining: Murdoch lying down on a brick walkway, passersby eyeing him, smiling, some pulling further away, one ajuma with a visor and a bamboo fan stopping, saying how noble he was, aristocratic, better than a human being since he would never betray.

     

    Happening again. Jimmy Buffet dead at 76. Bill Richardson at 75. Not people I followed in any way other than seeing their names often but familiar nonetheless. A singer and a diplomat/fixer. Dead at my age. Reminders that each generation fades away, one former celebrity at a time, one notorious person at a time (yes, even Trump will die), one friend and family member at a time.

    This thing we call life has its turn with us, with our Dogs and Whales and Paramecium, even the Bristle Cone Pines and the Joshua Trees, Mosquitoes and Mayflies. Even Mountains and Streams. Then leaves.

    But, not Water. No. Water moves from liquid to ice to steam, rises and condenses and falls. Returns to the World Ocean and leaves again on Jet Stream driven Winds to Rain on the just and the unjust. There is a measure of immortality in Water.

    Korea and Japan, Peninsula and Islands, are Land forms defined by Water. Risen above the depths of the World Ocean yet surrounded by it, influenced by its moods and its weather. So different from the Landlocked Rocky Mountains in which I live or the interior Midwest in which I lived for most of life.

    There the Great Lakes, for example, were Water forms defined by the Land that surrounds them. Those Lakes first filled with Water from the receding Glaciers of the last Ice Age. Rivers like the Minnesota and the Mississippi. Smaller Lakes dotting the northern part of the State and even within the city limits of the Twin Cities.

    One of Water’s other mysteries keeping the Lakes liquid. Water floats in its Ice form. If it didn’t, Ice would sink to the bottom of the Lakes and form cold basins with occasional melted Ice at the very top. No wonder Taoism finds in Water a metaphor for how chi, the energy of life, flows through the whole World.

    In the mussar class I take at CBE we’re exploring metaphors for what has been identified with the word God. Learning how the metaphors we choose define what we imagine that word to mean, or better, what it could mean.

    What if the call of the natural world, as Art Green, author of Radical Judaism defines the sacred (my interpretation of his work), could be heard and felt in the flow of a Mountain Stream or the evaporation of Water from the World Ocean or in the pelting of Rain on a roof, onto a newly sown Field? Or in the glass of Water I just finished, replenishing my body’s supply?

    What if then we could say that we share in Water’s immortality? In its ability to wear away the hard, move around obstacles, change into different forms, give life to the thirsty? I can follow that understanding of the sacred.

     


    Asia Judaism Korea Mountains Plants Weather +Climate

  • Mountains in the Cities

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

    Saturday gratefuls: A whole Chicken and Rice for each of us. Onions. Peppers. Pickled Peppers. Kimchi. Radish in squares. Side dishes. Dates. Mushrooms. Dinner last night in downtown Songtan. Screen golf. My son’s drives. Seoah calling  herself Bunker Woman after several sand traps. Walking in the Woods on the small Mountain behind Seoah and my son’s apartment building.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: My son and Seoah’s relationship. Playful.

    One brief shining: Black ceramic bowls with a whole Chicken, Rice underneath, Mushrooms and Dates in the soup, white bowls of pickled Radish, Cabbage, Peppers, Sliced Onions, and Green Peppers, cold Water in a jug, metal chopsticks and the long Korean spoon, a meal with my son and Seoah in neon intensive downtown Songtan on a Friday night.

     

    Songtan, as most Korean cities and towns, has Mountains within its borders. Reminds me of the  Twin Cities with Lakes inside the city limits. Many not more than high Hills at this point in their geological journey, yet Forested and with changing altitudes.

    Behind Posco the  Sharp’s building 111 where my son and Seoah live on the 12th floor a small Mountain rises. Walking trails covered with soft Vegetal mats, workout equipment at various sites, this Mountain goes up from building 111 and peaks, then descends to a small commercial area maybe 10 blocks away.

    Murdoch goes on daily walks with his people there. Yesterday morning around 9 am the trails had many older Koreans out walking, using the workout equipment. Some swung side to side, some  hung on metal rings, others stretched their bodies while others turned a large wheel one way then the other or used a simple elliptical.

    I walked for thirty minutes up one side of the Mountain down the other and back again. Worked up a sweat in the humid warming air. A prized amenity to have so close to their apartment.

    Later in the day I went with my son and Seoah to screen golf. For $35 dollars they rented a room for three hours. Along the back wall was a large screen which had the ability to not only project various golf courses and their holes but to show the trajectory of a drive, the path of an iron shot, bunkers, roughs, water hazards. It could also show an instant video of your last swing, keep score, tell you the amount of backspin and side spin on your ball, where the ball struck your club face.

    They played 18 holes. My son shot a 94. Seoah, who prefers outdoors golf, did less well. I had fun watching them, seeing them applaud each others good shots, help each other with kind advice, be with each other. My son chipped in on one shot and we all got up and high fived  him.

    After returning to the apartment to feed and walk Murdoch, we set out again, this time on foot to downtown Songtan which is only ten minutes or so from the apartment.

    Seoah had a found a place that met her two key criteria: first, clean. Second, delicious. We walked through narrow, most often sidewalkless streets, cars going around us, delivery motorcycles weaving in and out, the traditional Asian exuberance of neon signage. Past coffee shops, clothing stores, many different kinds of restaurants, a small traditional grocery where they made rice cakes, sesame cakes, and other delicacies on site. Clubs. Bars advertising soju (a Korean vodka and a favorite beverage) and beer. Fried chicken places.

    Lively and interesting.


    Asia Cooking Dogs Family Feelings Fourth Phase Mountains Plants Travel Weather +Climate

  • Softball, Korea News

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

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

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Seasons

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

     

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

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

     

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

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

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

     

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

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

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

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

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


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

  • A Babette’s Feast of Sushi

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: The gym. A workout. Rain. Typhoon Haikui. Sushi place. Lunch with Seoah. Tripping the circuit breaker. Murdoch. Soil, a classic Korean novel. Kate, always Kate. Jon, a memory. The USAF. Osan AFB. Sim cards. Smart phones. Computers. Zoom across the waters. From Songtan to downeast Maine.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Humid Korea

    One brief shining: That lunch with Seoah yesterday first came miso soup, kimchi, pickled onions, water cress, seaweed packages, creamed corn (I know.), then udon noodles in soup, after that a large serving platter of sashimi, beautiful fresh Salmon, Tuna, translucent Fish, a buttery cut, all thicker than U.S. sashimi slices, later tempura a sushi roll and a dish of Fish entrails.

     

    This was the Babette’s Feast of sushi. The food kept coming on the little serving trolley. The smiling waitress unruffled as she sat down dish after dish. I quit before the sushi roll and the Fish entrails. Full. Seoah ate on. Not much in the way of carbs, mostly protein and vegetables.

    The restaurant had a second story perch over the same ro (street) on which Seaoh and my son’s apartment building sits. A delightful time with Seoah talking and eating, sharing. Making more memories together. Due to rain we took a cab both ways, oddly the same cab driver both ways.

     

    Got back to workout routine. Treadmill and resistance. In a room of eight treadmills I had one to myself until a Korean man came and chose the one right next to me. An American would have chosen one in the rank of treadmills facing the other direction. We ran together for a bit.

    In the weight room were three buff middle-aged Korean women and an older Korean man. I felt slightly self-conscious as the only old guy, only white guy, and the only one lifting lighter weights. Got over it. I know my weight lifting, my lower body work with the exercise ball, planks. Did shoulder presses, chest presses, concentration curls, flys, crunches, plank, dips, and squats.

    Felt good to get back in the gym. My body had been feeling sore and I am demonstrably weak. I can cure most of that with regular gym time here and back home. Our bodies are meant to move.

     

    Jet lag is in the past. Normal bed time. Up at 5:30-5:45. Joe gets up around the same time. He checks up on baseball, other sports. We talk a bit. He gets ready and leaves between 7 and 7:30 in desert camo with the oak cluster of a Lt. Col. prominent. Sand colored boots.

     

    It’s the end of the rainy season here but typhoon Haikui has pumped up the cloud systems, sending more and more water over Seoul, Osan, and most of South Korea. The Mountains on the way to Okgwa and Gwangu over the weekend looked like Jungles with Vines overgrowing road signs, Trees green and healthy and numerous.

    Looking forward to the cooler and drier weather of September. Cool back home, I noticed.

     


    Asia Cooking Family Feelings Fourth Phase Korea Travel Weather +Climate

  • Lucky and Privileged

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa and the Herme Moon

    Saturday gratefuls: Cybermage Bill Schmidt. The Ancient Brothers. Alan. Joan. The Bread Lounge. Jamie and Benji. Rich and Ron. My son. Jon’s estate. Leo. Luke. Tal. CBE. The Parking Spot. Checking off my before Korea list. Close to done. Gray Skies before Great Sol has come above the horizon. Mountain Streams now running lower. That fourteen point Mule Deer Buck on Black Mountain Drive. Gracie and Ann. Janet. Metaphors, shaping our world. Shaping our metaphors, shaping our world. The brain. Consciousness. The sacred.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rain in the Mountains

    One brief shining: Pre-trip excitement beginning to rise, packing Artemis honey in bubble wrap (the last large jar), that Breckenridge tumbler, too, rolling up the t-shirts with Mountains and Buffaloes on them, the dish towels with Beavers and Mountain Goats, the children’s books about the Rocky Mountains, Colorado and Mountain stickers, carefully placing them all in that Chinese box that brought something here a while back, then packing tape, packing tape, packing tape along with an APO address and it’s off to Korea ahead of me.

     

    Feeling lucky and privileged this morning. Healthy enough to travel at 76. Money enough to travel. Family I want to see living in a place I’m excited to explore further. Korea. Feeling the collision of four big events coming in this next week: the showcase on my first ever play script on Saturday plus Tuesday class and Thursday dress rehearsal, my first lesson with Rabbi Jamie for my conversion on Thursday, finishing up my travel plans by counting my drugs and ordering what I need if any, talking to Vince, Luke, nailing down how much money I’ll need in my bank account, and my appointment with Kristie where my drug holiday will probably be officially begun.

    It’s been a while since I’ve traveled. Last time was to Hawai’i. My son and Seoah. I’ve not done any international travel since Kate and I went to Korea in 2016 for my son and Seoah’s wedding. This time I’m going radically light. Only a backpack with meds, electronics, one t-shirt, one pair of socks. I’ll buy socks, t-shirts, underwear when I get there. I already have some pants and shirts there as well as a split keyboard and a mouse. There’s been a lot of lost luggage this summer travel season and I want to travel light. Also, no direct flights. I don’t mind checking a bag onto a direct flight, but if there’s even one stop? Nope. Not sure yet what I’m going to do for Israel. Probably the same.

    My whole family travels much more than I do, so this would be no big deal for them, but for me it feels like quite the adventure.

     

    Looking at the devastation in Lahaina. Found my heart sinking, wondering most about the fate of the Banyan Tree around the court house. Relieved to see it was damaged, but not killed. A picture of a woman who spent five hours! in the ocean. So, so sad. 60 deaths. Knowing someday it could be Shadow Mountain captured by the news.


    Asia Family Feelings Fourth Phase Hawai'i Mountains Shadow Mountain Travel Weather +Climate

  • Under the Mushroom Cloud

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa and the Herme Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Oppenheimer, the movie. Gabe. The last revision of The Trail to Cold Mountain. Acting. Cool night. Closed caption contraption. In and Out. Euphemisms. Driving. In rush hour. On I-70. With the express lanes functioning. God is Here, the book. Metaphors. For the sacred. Mussar. Leading mussar today. Getting back into the Mountains after having been in the city.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Movies

    One brief shining: Trinity on the White Sands of New Mexico, a tower alone, an old fashioned motor and chain lifted a ball with electrical wires coming off of it, like a head connected to a neural mapping device, only this was no head, rather it was the first atomic bomb moving slowly link by link to its moment of explosive truth.

     

    Baby boomer? Yes. They’re talking about my generation. A massive number of births following a long and bloody war. Which, at its end, changed the world forever. The movie Oppenheimer gives us a glimpse into the work, the pragmatic scientific bloody-minded work, that made that change. It shows us, yes, the story of the Chief Executive Scientist behind the bomb’s completion, Robert Oppenheimer. A complex man filled with paradox and living a life always on the knife edge of tragedy. Yes, an American Prometheus chained ever after to the rock of fame and infamy, governmental vultures stopping by to pick at his liver, healing up and then starting over again.

    What it does not show is the mushroom cloud hovering over us baby boomers, the first generation to grow up with the knowledge that humanity held the awful power to eliminate itself. An anti-evolutionary device, the A-bomb. Too easy but I’ll say it anyway. Our sword of Damocles. Mutually Assured Destruction. MAD. ness. What else can it be?

    Under the mushroom cloud spies snuck here and there, covertly hunting for nuclear secrets. The US and the Soviet Union locked in a standoff made Velveteen Rabbit by the missile silos in Siberia and in the fields of Wyoming and South Dakota. That same mushroom cloud hovers still. Only now the so-called nuclear club has many members: China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Israel, the U.S, North Korea, France, the United Kingdom.

    Ironic that in the early winter of the baby boomer generation the great threat to the world is no longer that mushroom cloud but an early industrial age blanket made of carbon. Not to say the nuclear threat does not remain. It does. Yet so far the MAD notion of self-destruction in an instant has held fingers away from the buttons.

    All the while we drove our cars, buses, trucks and turned on our air-conditioners, joined the electric revolution.

    Apocalypse now is not a movie anymore.


    Politics Science Weather +Climate

  • Changes

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Herme Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Rebecca. Mussar. Hail at 5:30 AM. 48 degrees. Living at altitude. That Bull Elk Tuesday night. Wildness. Wild neighbors. Fox. Moose. Marmot. Robin. Magpie. Abert’s Squirrel. Red Squirrel. Ravens. Crows. Lodgepoles. Aspen. Various Grasses. Judaism. Sadness. Acting Class. Herme. Taking shape. Writing. Creating a short play.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Wildness

    One brief shining: Wham wham wham woke me up as Hail pounded against my bedroom window followed by driven Rain Thunder and Lightning all the old familiar sounds from my Midwestern days not so welcome in the Arapaho National Forest with all its Lodgepole Pines.

     

    Breakfast with Dick Arnold, my roommate in Israel. He says the Tomatoes in Israel are the best anywhere. Something about irrigation with slightly salinated water and the Tomatoes compensating by producing more sugars. Looking forward to that. Israeli restaurants divide up by dairy or meat. He’s lactose intolerant so as long as he’s in the right restaurant, he can eat anything. Handy. Kosher, I’m sure. Dick was a therapist specializing in kids and abused women.

    Talked to him about Ruth a bit. He gave me a tip. When I told him I felt sad about her situation, he said it might be empathetic sadness. In other words a feeling I’m getting from her, too. Might help guide me when I’m with her. He said something else that surprised me, but made sense. After that all caregiving, you’ve been opened up. I understood what he meant immediately. I knew I’d changed over the last few years but I thought it was just aging. Not only that. A welcome opening of my heart.

     

    Came back from breakfast, read some more from Cuming’s Korea’s Place in the Sun, felt sleepy and took a long nap. Over to Jackie’s for a hair cut. The estrogen was flowing. Jackie, I said, you run a friends central salon. Friends, mostly women, stop by, give her a hug and kiss. Same for Rhonda. A warm, loving space. We could use more of them. And. My hair looks great.

     

    Thinking about Herme, the short play. Four characters: Herme, Gaius Ovidius, the Seeker, Cold Mountain. I have Herme and Cold Mountain down. I need to work on Gaius and the Seeker. That is, I have to create their characters as distinct from Herme and Cold Mountain. Not only voice, but posture, attitude. Guess that’s why they call it acting. According to Meisner, I have to find a truthful way to be them in an imaginary situation. I also have to write more dialogue, edit some of what I’ve got. The challenge is real, but I’m getting there.

    Feel like I’ve found a strong ending by changing the way the last poem will be read. In the voice and character of the Seeker. Signalling that she has joined Herme and Cold Mountain. Joan came up with the idea that Herme and Cold Mountain are the same. I liked that idea and I’m using it. Tal has helped me see how I need to shape the characters and the dramatic arc. I like the collaboration.

    My first time writing a play and I find the help supportive. Mostly. I’m a little defensive. Hey, that’s my work we’re talking about. Maybe it’s the changed nature of my nature that Dick helped me see. Allowing help in.


    Acting Korea Travel Weather +Climate Writing

  • See the Wildness

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Herme Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: Dick and Ellen. Ann. Gracie. Lid. Joan. Tal. Deb. Abby. Alan. Those two Elk Bulls. Experiencing a cool summer in a heating World. The World Ocean. Mountains. Acting. Writing. Herme. Gaius Ovidius. The Seeker. Herme and Cold Mountain. Judaism. CBE. The synagogue. Lightning. Rain. Wabi Sabi. Ichi-go, ichi-e. Cold Water. Coffee.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Bull Elks

    One brief shining: Lightning crashed down from the night Sky, Rain poured on my windshield as I drove the curves and increasing altitude back home from acting class, a twelve point Bull Elk looked at me from the side of the road near Maxwell Falls his face and antlers framed by Lodgepole Pines.

     

    Another evening of Mountain magic. During acting class Alan had moved us outside to the amphitheater for his piece on aging. While he read Dylan Thomas’ Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, a twelve point Bull Elk wandered near the Grandmother Tree eating the luxuriant Grass occasioned by the persistent Rains we’ve had. He still had his Velvet. Alan went on reading. The Bull went on munching, collecting energy from the Great Sol. Thunder rumbled in the background, a cool Breeze came ahead of it. When Alan finished, the Bull had wandered on.

    CBE occupies a plot of land not far from the large Elk Meadow Park, the first effort of the Mountain Land Trust many years ago. They bought up all the land east of the Mountains behind the synagogue and west of Hwy 74  for some miles to the north, put it into a permanent land trust to keep the Meadow wild. Especially in the Fall harems of Elk come through the Meadow, stopping to rest there.

    The wildness of these magnificent Animals shows in their confidence around humans. They neither approach us nor steer away from us. We are in their domain, but of it in a manner similar to the marmot, the fox, and the rabbit. If the Elk wish to cross the highway, they cross the highway. If they want to lie down for a while in your front yard or come to my back yard and eat my dandelions, they do it. Moose are the same. Healthy Elk and Moose can defend themselves against predators so they have no reason to fear.

    All very sweet

    Driving home after class though. A Thunderstorm roiled, Lightning lit up the night sky. A heavy Rain fell cooling the air. I had passed Upper Maxwell Falls and begun the final climb toward the top of Shadow Mountain. When. I looked to the left. Slowed down. There. Right at the edge of the road, but in the Forest stood another Bull Elk, equal in size and rack to the one I’d seen earlier in the evening. He looked at me and I looked at him. A guardian of the Forest wildness. Not my friend, not my family. A wild neighbor checking up on a domesticated neighbor as he drove by.

    I’m not saying this well. Imagine yourself on a black night driving through the Rain high up in the Mountains. You see faintly illuminated by your headlights a large Bull Elk standing still, watching as you pass. A Mountain Spirit, rarely seen, offers you a chance to see. See the wildness all around you gathered into the eyes and Antlers of one Animal.

     

     

     


    Acting Feelings Mountains Shadow Mountain Weather +Climate Wild Neighbors