Category Archives: Weather +Climate

Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Travel, US History, Weather +Climate, Wild Neighbors

See. Feel. Taste. Hear. Smell.

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The Off to College Moon

Monday gratefuls: Seeing with the lev. Charging the lev. Dow down. Orange one weakening. Kamala strengthening. Heat. The Quarry Fire. 35% containment 14 hours ago. The Ancient Brothers. Bill and Moira. Tom. Paul. Ode. On the best book, movie, music, airplane, art. Yeah, Tom snuck in airplanes. Finishing books. Books. Light-Eaters. Numbers. Reconstruction.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The life of August 5th, 2025

One brief shining: Three weeks ago a junior college student outsmarted local police and the Secret Service to send a bullet or shrapnel pinging off the Orange one’s right ear and Joe Biden saw himself as the eventual victor, today we await the Vice-Presidential pick of sitting Vice-President Kamala Harris in a presidential race turned shall we say, on its ear, showing that the Wizard of Odd pulling the strings behind the curtains of 2024 has yet more strange and wonderful events for this year of years. On the edge of my chair.

Kavanah: Kavanah: PERSEVERANCE  Netzach (NETS-ach)  נֵצַ

 

A bit more on the playing cards in the spokes of my lifecycle.* Not going with the three-story universe in the Emerson quote, I imagine he didn’t either, otherwise, yeah. Though. I find less hiddenness. More ordinary sacred moments, events, discoveries. Both in my lev and out there in my Lodgepole Companion, Great Sol, Wild Neighbors, even the physical stuff that makes up my house. All there as Annie Dillard says, holiness holding forth in time, a husk of many colors visible on lifting the eyelids after a night and the 1/60th of death.

Each life a holy life lived by us among and with gods of all times and all sorts. That so young fawn on its wobbly legs. The toddler racing toward her mommy. The Dog smiling at his human partner. Rascal. Findlay. Leo. The beating of my heart. The Quarry Fire. The sacred is not always safe. Thunderstorms. Hurricanes. The Atlantic Oscillation.

And how about this one. People I love living their lives on this spinning Planet so far away: Melbourne. Bangkok. Songtan. San Francisco. Minnesota. Maine.

The older and more clear eyed I become I wonder how wonder cannot be seen. Wonder dances in front of us, behind us, beside us, within us. Right now. In this god, August 5th, of the pantheon we name 2024.

How about hand/eye coordination. Consciousness. Love. Breath. Tides and Tidal Pools. Mountain Streams and Trout. Skyscrapers and elevators. Cars and bridges. Airplanes and rocket ships.

Do we have to make it so hard to know awe? No, we do not. We can and often do because our gaze slips away toward the next chance. We split ourselves out of this moment, this day by focusing our attention on a yesterday we regret or a future we fear. We sigh and turn away from the Dog’s thumping tail, the Fish that has swum up to the aquarium glass, the child that has gripped our hand in theirs so self-involved that what is present does become hidden to us. We, like Pharaoh, harden our hearts. That last plague no longer in our awareness.

The remedy? See what you’re looking at. Feel what you’re feeling right now. Taste with your whole body. Smell the coffee. Yes. Smell the coffee. Hear the Downy Headed Woodpecker pounding on your home.

 

*Heaven walks among us ordinarily muffled in such triple or tenfold disguises that the wisest are deceived and no one suspects the days to be gods.    Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every day is a god, each day is a god, and holiness holds forth in time. I worship each god. I praise each day splintered down, splintered down and wrapped in time like a husk, a husk of many colors spreading, at dawn fast over the mountains split.   Annie Dillard.
Colorado, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Jefferson County, Mountains, Plants, Weather +Climate

The Quarry Fire

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The Mountain Summer Moon

Friday gratefuls: Alan. Joanne. Dandelion. The Baglery. The Quarry Fire*. Firefighters. Hotshots. Planes and helicopters. Deer Creek Canyon Park and road. Smokey’s hand on HIGH at Shadow Mtn and Hwy 73. Histapkut. Hygge. Gazpacho. Berries. Bacon. Mountain living. All Critters great and small. That Fawn. Her Mom. A day of decisiveness. The best. Metinut

Sparks of Joy and Awe: A Blueberry pancake at Dandelion

One brief shining: Texts arrived wondering about how much smoke I had here on Shadow Mountain, not much, I replied, but the scent, yes; sent me to Watch Duty, the app that shows Wildfire locations and posts updates, where I saw that in this instance it will not be the consolation of Deer Creek Canyon, but its horror, the desolation of Deer Creek Canyon.

Kavanah (intention): Intentionality   Metinut (mitt-ee-NOOT)  מְתִינוּת

Mindfulness, presence, intentionality (literally to “move slowly”)    [חִפָּזוֹן Chipazon, chee-pah-ZONE: Hurry, rush, haste]

Parentheses=synonyms  Brackets=antonyms

Ten years this Winter Solstice on Shadow Mountain. For the first time a Wildfire, a forceful and strong one, has broken out in territory familiar to me. Known. So, not abstract. No, it’s not close and most likely will not become close. But. Makes the passage way between the Scylla of Wildfire and the Charybdis of home owners insurance more fraught.

The Quarry Fire* seems to have a human cause, one discovered up a trail in Deer Creek Canyon Park, a park where I have exercised. Mountainous, steep terrain, and, bonus: Rattlesnakes! All fleeing the heat, too, I’m sure. Firefighting is not for the weak minded or the fearful.

Many of my medical allies practice in Littleton and Lone Tree, making Deer Creek Canyon Road a reasonable alternative to Hwy 470. If I’ve had a trying visit, like my one a week ago with Kristie, I take the Wadsworth exit and head west, away from the metro area and toward the twisting turns and steep Mountain sides, Deer Creek running along the road for much of the way. The route ends near Myers Park Ranch, a large park right across from the Chamber of Commerce’s Welcome to Conifer sign.

It upsets me to have a road I’ve associated with healing and perspective become a centerpiece to Fire and devastation. The Fire crews have had a tough time achieving containment. Now in its second day the Quarry Fire has only a four percent containment. Whole subdivisions of people have had to evacuate and many of them now wait out the next stages of this burn in the gymnasium of Dakota Ridge High School.

 
 

Just a moment: On a lighter note I had breakfast with Alan and Joanne at the Dandelion Cafe. A much improved menu from our first visit there. Lot of laughing. Serious conversation. Delight in being together. Got up late this a.m. so I had to consider my kavanah for the day on the drive over and back. Finally settled on intentionality, especially the Hebrew meaning of “to move slowly”. What I want today and tomorrow and Sunday.

 

*Last updated: 11:22 a.m. on August 2, 2024

Latest Updates

  • Fire is about 431 acres and growing; 4% contained
  • 575 homes evacuated across 5 subdivisions
  • Firefighter safety is a top priority
  • Fire conditions: dry fuels, hot temperatures, steep and rocky terrain, extremely dry, with many rattlesnakes in the area
  • Firefighting resources:
    • About 155 firefighters on the ground, including the San Juan Hotshots Crew
    • Two air tankers and three helicopters
    • 23 fire rigs
    • Limited resources available due to other active fires
Art and Culture, Denver, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Music, Weather +Climate

Weather and Joy

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The Mountain Summer Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Ruth. Alan. Cheri. The Inspire Concerts. RTD. Federal Center Station. St. Anthony Hospital. New knee, me. New shoulder, Kate. Ruby. 96, high in Denver today. The Ancient Brothers. Kamala. The orange comb over. These disunited States. Rain. Hale. Luke. Leo. Ginny. Janice. Great Sol. Cancer drugs. Jewish music. Today with Ruth.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth

One brief shining: Short splats increased to faster, staccato impacts the skylights enlarging the sound, then the Hail, small at first, then larger pounded pounded pounded with the insistence of the natural world not recognizing barriers, pounding against them with the kind of fury increased by falling from a great height as Leo and I looked outside seeing balls of Ice bounce around on the black driveway.

 

A lesson in Mountain Microclimates. While Leo and I enjoyed a hard Rain with Hail, Luke only needed a transparent umbrella at the wedding being held on the west side of Black Mountain in Staunton State Park. Not very far as the Moose walks. Up and down Black Mountain. From their home in the State Park to our yards here on Shadow Mountain, the next Mountain over.

As the bride walked down the aisle, Luke said, the heavens parted and shone a bright light directly on her. Heaven sent. We take in the awe, perhaps dismiss it as random, as unmotivated and therefore meaningless except in a Hollywood sort of way, but yirah is yirah. Wherever and whenever. Yirah is a human emotion, a middot, too, one known in the lev, in the mind-heart. Experienced not in its source but in its recipient.

I enjoyed the thirty minutes or so of heavy Rain, conditioned by decades of Midwestern life to know the nurturance of a good Rain. Good for the crops. Leo wasn’t so sure about the Thunder. He didn’t tuck his tail between his legs, but he did pace. Some Dogs can have an outsized response to Thunder.

Tira, a Wolfhound bitch who lived with us in Andover, once impaled herself on a fence gate and clawed apart and bit, too, a license plate on the Tundra parked just across from the gate. I ran out when I found her and lifted her 160 pound body off the gate in one move. Adrenaline. Fortunately the wound was not deep. Her teeth and front paws though. Bloody.

 

Just a moment: Will elaborate tomorrow, but I spent a joyful day with Ruth today. We walked to Alan and Cheri’s from Union Station. Painful, but doable. So irritating to have this impediment. Walking has been my favorite way to see a city. Now I have to walk some, rest some. Walk some, rest some. Made it to Spire Condominiums across from the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.

Up 38 floors to 3810, Alan and Cheri’s place, for another home based concert. Rabbi Joe Black, senior Rabbi at the huge Temple Emmanuel, sang. As did Eitan Kantor, a local Jewish musician. And a pianist and song writer whose name I don’t have. More on this tomorrow.

Commentary on the news, Great Work, Science, Weather +Climate, World History

Water

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The Mountain Summer Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: That sinking into a pleasant day feeling. The heat. Great Sol. Carbon emissions at record highs. Life changing politics on tap. Project 2025. The Sea reaching out, claiming more Land. This heated Land. The poor, especially those in cities like Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson, L.A. Water. Transpiration. Evaporation. Precipitation. The cycle.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: My well

One brief shining: 28 years with a well and a septic system, Andover to Shadow Mountain, no fluoride, the occasional bit of radon, acidity, and chemicals, flowing in from the Aquifer below, in Andover from the Great Anoka Sand Plain, here on Shadow Mountain the well drilled into fractured bed rock, much of the same Water flowing back out through sinks, the washing machine and dishwasher, toilets and into the leech field well toward the back fence line, returning that Water to the Aquifer.

 

a more accurate depiction of the global human-integrated water cycle diagram          10 August 2020 Source Own work Author LangeLeslie and Anna Wright cc license     click to expand

. “The water cycle describes the processes that drive the movement of water throughout the hydrosphere. However, much more water is “in storage” (or in “pools”) for long periods of time than is actually moving through the cycle.” wiki

Water. Water. Everywhere. Including outer space. Astronomers find largest, most distant reservoir of Water in the Universe.* Yet as we can see from the above diagram its distribution on Earth is such that only minimal amounts of fresh Water exist and those that are available are not distributed equally across the continents. See this interesting website: A Look at Global Freshwater Distribution.

The notion of increased heat across the globe caused me to go hunting for information about fresh Water resources since transpiration and evaporation will both increase as the thermostat gets twisted higher and higher. This will have the effect of changing existing patters of freshwater distributions. But how? I don’t know if anyone is planning for this.

This will happen whether the red hot MAG(m)A flows through our political veins or not. As will Sea level rise. And all the other climate change sequelae. Which means that a Ron DeSantis attitude might prevail among U.S. policy makers. What attitude? Florida Gov. DeSantis signs bill that deletes climate change from state law. Just don’t say climate change. And it will go away. Right?

The world may soon enter a period of leadership when national interests, dare I say it, trump global interests. Such a good time for it, too. Since dramatic and difficult to achieve carbon emission reductions are necessary to avoid the worst scenarios. Unlikely to happen. Which will result in a world catastrophe. I admit we were headed that way anyway, but these political changes will seal off any hope for effective addressing of climate change.

This puts the onus on those of us in the liberal to leftist camp to figure out how to work on these issues without governmental support. It can be done. Look at the nature rights movement. The many NGO’s out there from Ancient Forest champions to eco-justice. Even the restoration of Axolotls and Chiampas farming.

Perhaps that will be the way of the future for compassionate and justice oriented work. Happening now.

 

*”Two teams of astronomers have discovered the largest and farthest reservoir of water ever detected in the universe. The water, equivalent to 140 trillion times all the water in the world’s ocean, surrounds a huge, feeding black hole, called a quasar, more than 12 billion light-years away.”

Commentary on the news, Feelings, Mountains, Politics, Weather +Climate

Staying Out of the Kitchen

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The Mountain Summer Moon

Friday gratefuls: Alan. Tom. RMCC. Rocky Mountain Cancer Care. Radiation Consult. July 18. CBE. Donating money. Great Sol. My Lodgepole Companion. Ruth and Gabe. Paddleboarding and kayaking on the Lake in Evergreen. Barb. Memory Care. Heat. Altitude cooling. Mini-splits. Parkside. Breakfast. Evergreen. Shadow Mountain

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Human Experience

One brief shining: Saw a squib about a guy with a frying pan and an egg on the sidewalk in front of the Death Valley Visitor center in Furnace Creek, California which sent me to the weather app I use, Willy Weather, to see what local forecasts were and found Denver at 102 for the next three days, sending our 13-16 cooler temps into the mid-80’s, hot for us, but that guy with the frying pan was counting on close to 130, hotter even than Palm Springs at 124.

 

I can’t imagine living in those conditions, in hot places, any of them. Phoenix. Death Valley. Palm Springs. I like extreme weather, but I like extreme cold and lots of Snow, high heat makes my soul shrivel. Don’t imagine I’m very different from any other human in that regard.

Of course we’re temperate creatures, evolved for seventy degrees, sea level, and shaded environments at this point, but the norm has never appealed to me. Why I live in the Mountains always hoping for colder than normal. No matter the season.

The problem though. Climate change. Already sea level rise. Already migrating plants and animals. Already extreme heat. Already more and stronger hurricanes, typhoons. Life will look and feel different in the near term future. As it already does along coastal areas, in unshaded areas, in large cities, in the Caribbean and the western Pacific.

 

Just a moment: Biden digs in. Biden says he’ll beat 45. Biden says he’s all good. I say, humbug. An extraordinary moment that requires an extraordinary response. Not a pull in the foxhole over my head, fingers in my ears, saying nah nah neh nah nah response. We need a transfusion of political energy and will. I don’t know if Kamala Harris is that transfusion. Don’t know if she isn’t. This is meet the devil at the crossroads time, Robert Johnson might have a clue. We’re all of us on the left singing the I don’t know what happens next blues. Imagining the thin red line of MAGA wrapping itself around our flag and squeezing like a boa constrictor. There is still time. Yet how might we use it? Throws hands in the air. Shakes head.

 

A slow weekend approaching. Shabbat. Reading. Eating. Talking with the ancientbrothers. Just right.

 

 

 

 

Memories, Minnesota, Politics, Science, US History, Weather +Climate

I’ve seen Fire and I’ve seen Rain

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Summer and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Shabbat. Leo. Luke in Jacksonville. Ginny and Janice. The Blackbird. Kittredge. In case of flash flood climb to safety. Black Mountain Drive to Brook Forest Drive. Down the hill to Evergreen. Passing a green Arapaho National Forest. Full Streams thanks to recent Rain. Seeing individual Trees like the Ponderosa growing alone on the side of a Cliff.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rain

One brief shining: Leo sleeps on the rug next to the computer, dreaming of Luke and bones and tennis balls with squeakers in them while I hit first this key then that, glancing up to spend a bit of time with my Lodgepole Companion, looking past them to Black Mountain and beyond to the milky gray of a Cloud resting above it, wondering if that means yet more Rain.

 

We have had Rain. Seems like more than average though I can’t find data to support that. Hoping for a healthy Monsoon season which usually starts in July. Afternoon Rains. Whatever combination of precipitation types that keep our wildfire risk low.

The Cloudy weather we’ve had on occasion over the last couple of weeks reminded me of an early problem I had with Colorado. Too many Sunny days. I missed good ole Midwestern gloomy, overcast weather. Weather that meant I needed to stay inside. Read. Write. Cook. Sunny days meant I needed to be outside, enjoying the limited moments of great weather. Which meant. I constantly felt like I needed to go outside, not dither around inside. So much so that I longed for a stormy week loaded with Thunderheads and pelting rain.

Over that now. Except. When it’s Cloudy and Rainy. Then I revert to Midwest nostalgia, remembering Rainy days curled up in a chair reading. The world of the moment subsumed by the world of the text.

 

Just a moment: Yeah. He should step away. Too much confirmation of stereotypes and GOP talking points about his capacity. Yes, I believe he can still do the job. But I don’t see him or Democratic chances in November recovering from the debate debacle. We need to win this election. It matters and we all know it. If Biden can’t win, we need someone who can.

 

Friend Tom Crane found this. It had a profound affect on me as I watched it.

“About 12 seconds into this video, something unusual happens. The Earth begins to rise. Never seen by humans before, the rise of the Earth over the limb of the Moon occurred about 55.5 years ago and surprised and amazed the crew of Apollo 8. The crew immediately scrambled to take still images of the stunning vista caused by Apollo 8‘s orbit around the Moon. The featured video is a modern reconstruction of the event as it would have looked were it recorded with a modern movie camera…”  Astronomy Picture of the Day

Great Wheel, Politics, Weather +Climate

A Paradox

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Summer and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

Friday gratefuls: Irv. Marilyn and Salaam. Lila and Licks. Leo. Luke. Great Sol bathing us in Light. Kate, always Kate. Safeway Pickup. La Tienda for the Fourth of July. The good ole, finger lickin’, summer watermelon eatin’, mall infested, flag wavin’, pickup drivin’ USofA. My country. I love it and won’t leave it. Joe Biden. Bless his heart. Election 2024.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Leo

One brief shining: Reading the debate take-aways, Trump ranting, Biden stumbling, the most important Presidential debate in years and all we have to show for it are two old men, one a felon and a certain psychopath, the other decent and coming off an effective Presidency, who couldn’t keep up with his own plan for the encounter. We are well and truly screwed.

 

You can decide who is who in this charming, short video.

No. I didn’t watch it. Glad. I’m sticking with my election kavanah (intention, sincere direction of the lev) to not let these matters upset me. Doesn’t mean I’m not aware and don’t react. If Trump wins, I will be sure to let my oncologist know she has to keep me alive for at least five more years. I refuse to die during a Trump presidency. So there.

Enough for now.

 

A gradually darkening sky in the West. We’re in a cycle of off and on Rain, some Storms. Bright Sol in the East.

Reminds me of the interesting paradox of the growing season. As the heat builds in the Summer, especially after the Summer Solstice which was last week, the days have already grown shorter. As corn and beans fill the Midwest and as Gardens throughout the country fill up with Radishes and Heirloom Tomatoes and Beans and Carrots and Onions, as Honeybees fly, land on Flowers, pollinating and gathering Nectar to turn into Honey, the nights grow, too. Lengthening, making Shabbat candle lighting times move earlier.

The Great Wheel at work, turning gently and slowly toward Fall, the fallow season, Winter. A waltz. A slow dance. Giving up the salsa heat for a gavotte, as the tempo continues to become more tranquil, less rushed. Underneath the pulse of energy transformed to food, of Flowers turning into Apples and Cherries and Plums, runs a counter current. The colors of Fall. The sound of combines and corn pickers in the fields. Vast swaths of Nebraska and Kansas will turn golden. Can you feel Mother Earth’s own shabbat gathering force? If not right now, you will soon enough.

Instead of longing for eternal Summer, everyday a Spring Break day, I long for the quieter, darker, cooler seasons of Fall and Winter. I do enjoy going out to get the mail in my t-shirt. Being able to get my trash bins to the end of the driveway without Ice or Snow. I like seasonal vegetables fresh from the garden and all the many shades of green. Sure. I love the manic energy of Plants as they move fueled by great gulps of Light, Water from Summer Rains. Yes. But even more I love the early darkness. The cool, even cold days and colder nights.

My psyche.

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Great Wheel, Hermitage, Holidays, Humanities, Kabbalah, Latin, Letters, Mountains, Myth and Story, Plants, Poetry, Tarot, Travel, Weather +Climate, Wild Neighbors, Writing

Herme’s Journey

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Summer and the waning Bar Mitzvah Moon

Monday gratefuls: The Ancient Brothers. Great Sol. Shadow Mountain. TV. Books. CD’s. Jazz. Mozart. Telemann. Bach. Coltrane. Monk. Parker. Gregorian Chants. Rock and roll. CD player. K-dramas. Netflix. Amazon Prime. Mhz. Starlink. Conversation. Listening. Seeing. Really listening. Really seeing. The Aspen out my bedroom window. The dead Lodgepole.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The lesser light-the Moon

One brief shining: When I go now to an airport, when I even imagine going to an airport, I recoil, seeing the old Native American punishment, running between rows of TSA employees, airline boarding agents, and crabby fellow sufferers all diminished by the experience, yet needing to pass along, like some fraternity hazing ritual, the same misery to the pledges not yet seated in their too narrow and too jammed together seats. And paying often thousands of dollars to do it.

 

Still enjoying a post bar mitzvah push sense of opening, of new possibilities. Herme’s Journey, which I imagined after the dream workshop last month, got sidelined a bit by the week of the ritual, guests, celebration, and the week of physical recovery that followed that one. Though. Kavod for the Trees (Honoring the Tree) has kept it alive.

Herme’s Journey followed thoughts and feelings triggered by my Wabash dream. That dream encouraged me to reenter the life vision I had when I started college almost 60 years ago. To embrace that dream of a long period, lifelong in my hopes of those years, as a student, then a scholar. With libraries and writing instruments my primary tools. With ideas and their expression as my life work.

Herme, you may recall, is the name I gave to the neon sign I had made of the Hooded Man Card* from the Wildwood Tarot Deck. The name I gave to myself in the wake of Kate’s death, of a mourner then a griever, then… I wasn’t sure what.

Herme’s Journey blends the Hooded Man Card with the first card of the Tarot Deck: The Fool. The major arcana of a tarot deck tells a story of the Fool’s journey, begun blithely, a bindlestaff over one shoulder, a dog alongside, stepping off into the unknown. In the Wildwood deck** the Wanderer’s journey is through the Wildwood. Yes. My journey, too.

The Wanderer is a beginner, the beginner’s mind at play in the fields of the psyche. Herme’s Journey is my Wanderer’s path, a beginner’s path, but one begun with the age and experience of an old man. So, Herme’s Journey.

What lies along this path? Still unclear though Trees play a central role. As does the Great Wheel of the Year and the Jewish Lunar Calendar. As the pilgrimage unfolds, I plan to explore Kabbalah, my long period of work with Ovid’s Metamorphosis, poetry and literature, myth and legend, fairy and folk tales, religion, and the arts: music, painting, sculpture, theater, dance, opera.

What will come? Again, unknown. It will be the path, not the destination. What I will do is read a lot, write, travel, think, listen, see, taste. Talk.

 

*The Hooded Man stood at the winter solstice point on December 21, along with the earth and the sun in the night. This is the time to be alone and contemplate life. This card describes the gates of death and rebirth, deep inside the Earth.  Hooded Man

**A central theme of the Wildwood Tarot is the interconnection of humans with the wild, with animals, and with the calendar cycle.

Commentary on the news, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Science, Torah, Weather +Climate

Talmud Torah

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Summer and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

Friday gratefuls: Sleep. The fan. Rain. Vince. Jamie. The dead Lodgepole. Books. Storm Before the Calm. Orgovyx on the way. Juneteenth. Love. Justice. Compassion. Irv. The Ancient Brothers. A dull white Sky. Little Breeze. The Mountains with their green clothes on. Rock outcroppings. Mule Deer. Elk. Fawns and calves. The life of June 21, 2024. Sweets from Durango via Melbourne. Where it is the Winter Solstice.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Low Fire Danger-in late June

One brief shining: Opened a pocket-knife I bought when the shoe store in Evergreen went out of business, slit the tape on the box from Durango Chocolates, discovered a sealed foil bag, inside it paper shredded insulation, then two cool packs-colder than ice!-and below them a box wrapped in clear plastic announcing chocolates inside, the knife again, the box has yet more shredded paper inside covering a melt in your mouth chocolate bar, sea salt toffee, and Bear balm; a bar mitzvah present I received a day before the Winter Solstice in Melbourne where Mary sat with her computer and ordered it.

 

Started torah study with Rabbi Jamie yesterday. Once a month we’ll read the parsha of the week and Aviva Zornberg’s commentary. The current torah readings are in the book of Numbers. Her commentary, “Bewilderment” will be what we use for now. Jamie’s also going to share a weekly commentary he gets from Art Green, his mentor and former president of the Reconstructionist Seminary.

This is a rare privilege for me. He and I decided to continue our monthly sessions that had been focused on conversion lessons and turn them into torah study. When I was in seminary, the classes on the New Testament and the “Old Testament,” now the Tanakh for me, were my favorites. Something about studying source materials, getting to know them and their stories really well. About revelation and its history. About literature, ancient literature. About myths and legends. About adapting their meanings to the contemporary world. That fascination is still there.

If I remember, I’ll share some from our sessions.

Yesterday we discussed how to interpret God since neither of us are supernaturalists. How do we make sense of the character god’s role? Didn’t get far with that, but as I’ve thought about it since I found myself wanting to go back to Rabbi Toba Spitzer’s book, God is Here, about metaphors for god. Lowercase god is the way Rabbi Rami Shapiro differentiates the henotheistic deity of the Torah from the One who is all who is us who is becoming new right now and always.

 

Just a moment: Heat. Across the U.S. Across the world. High heat. Record breaking heat. Don’t hear much, except in Florida, about climate change deniers. Down there in that puzzling state DeSantis has perfected the nah nah nah nah response to Black history, queer life, and climate change. If you don’t talk about them, they’re not real. DeSantis hasn’t passed the object permanence stage of human development. That’s when babies learn that peek-a-boo’s a game, not the way things are. Poor Florida.

 

 

 

Shadow Mountain, Travel, Weather +Climate

Out. And, all aboard!

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April 7, 2024

 

Spring and the last crescent of the Purim Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Generator. High winds. Lodgepole companion ok. Calm now. Travel plans in place. Art and San Francisco. Diane and her town. Internet down. Starlink available but no way to access it. Great Sol illuminating Black Mountain. A certain immediacy blocked. Another immediacy heightened.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Generator

One brief shining: Charging, charging, the docking station for my medical guardian said, going off and on twice, the oxygen concentrator quit, then turned back on, twice, I heard the rumble of the generator’s engine through my wall, those winds that chilled the house yesterday and last night stopped the free flow of electricity from the grid and the internet connection made through Centurylink, glad to have the Kohler generator doing its emergency service.

 

Rare. The DSL is down. So are my mini-splits. If it was colder, I’d turn on the gas heat. Not sure why the mini-splits are down but so are other electrical services on the west side of the house. Irony: the Starlink installation would bypass this problem, but I can’t access it without the internet.

Change of weather systems can be brutal up here, bringing high winds that break electrical transmission lines and sometimes the telephone lines as well. Apparently what happened last night.

Might make me reconsider Starlink. If you recall, I dropped it right after I had it installed because of Elon Musk’s anti-semitism. Still, if it’s the only way to have reliable internet…

 

An odd moment when I realized the Centurylink connection was down. How could I host the Ancient Brothers? I can’t. What’s going on in the world? No NYT or WP. Are others up here also without power? Can’t check Nextdoor Neighbor. It’s on the internet. Felt as if a sensory organ had gone quiet.

There is an apparent immediacy to the internet, one we rely on, one I rely on.

Yet it is only apparent. It is instead highly mediated, requiring electricity, servers, available transmission modalities. Even Zoom or Skype, the video phone calls of Dick Tracy’s wristwatch, take place in cyberspace with no skin in the game.

 

Odd. And telling. I can walk outside as I did a moment ago to get the mail. The Lodgepoles and the Aspen. The Granite and Gneiss. Right there. Great Sol warms me without need of electrical wires or gas piping. I move through space. While in the cyberworld no matter how it might appear we’re always seeing a two-dimensional screen. Even virtual reality doesn’t change that. The only movement for me is fingers on a keyboard or my hand on a computer mouse.

 

Just a moment: On April 24th I board Amtrak, find my roomette and settle in for a 34 hour overnight journey to San Francisco. There I’ll settle in to the Chancellor, a boutique hotel on Union Square.

Diane has a comedy night and a trip to Muir Woods planned. We’ll also avail ourselves of a fine restaurant or two. She also has memberships in the Asian Art Museum and two others.

My main intention, my kavanah, for this trip is vacating Shadow Mountain for a bit. After that. Spend time with Diane. Spend time with art, something I feel starved for. See some sights. Test my back.

Bon Voyage to me!