Category Archives: Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

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Uh-oh. Changes.

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Lughnasa and the Michaelmas Moon

Wednesday gratefuls:  Orgovyx. Biologic Pharmacies. Money. CBE. The New Year. Rigel, sweet girl. Kep, happy boy. Dan Herman. Rich Levine. Alan Rubin. Marilyn Saltzman. Jamie Arnold. Judy Sherman. The Ancient Ones on peregrinatio. Safeway pickup. Cool breeze last night.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Dan’s honey

Tarot: Ace of Swords

 

from Tarbell

Big news. $800 a month co-pay for Orgovyx. Not my first encounter with the predatory pricing of American pharma. Kate had a drug, I can’t recall the name right now, that was $500 a month. I’m applying for assistance. Yes, that’s enough, with the hit I took from going to one social security check and losing a third of my pension, to bite. In the decision making process between Orgovyx and Lupron. Lupron has a higher incidence of cardi0-vascular side effects. But, it’s only once every three months and covered by insurance.

Can’t imagine what folks do who don’t have resources at our age. And, that’s the bulk of us, I understand. What if you had to choose between rent and your cancer drug? Or, between food and your cancer drug? Self-triage.

On the other hand life is valuable. Sure. And, I want to do what I can to sustain mine. Let me see? Universal health care, anyone?

Boy, that Safeway really steps up. I put in a pick-up order for 8 am. They sent me a text at 6:00. Ready. Come whenever. I’m glad. It makes the morning simpler.

Barring more illness on Jon’s part or another wreck on Ruth and Gabe’s, we’ll finally distribute some of Kate’s ashes at Upper Maxwell Falls this Saturday. When Jon, Ruth, and Gabe can make it. Ruth told me she wanted some of my chicken pot pie so I’m making some on Friday. It’s been a while. Usually makes four to five full pie tins. Freeze well, too. I’ll give her two and keep two here. A good incentive to actually cook.

This will be the last of the family remembrances originally planned for August 18th. I’m planning a Kate offrenda for Dia de los muertos. I’ll burn a yahrzeit candle. (a twenty-four candle burned on the death date, but it seems appropriate.) Mix up the cultures a bit.

Which brings me to Yamantaka. The mandala at the MIA. Where I learned to accept death, my own. Long meditations on my corpse. Greeting the change, the transformation with excitement. Still sad. Yes. But also, what a moment!

Realizing I’ve been such a flat-earth humanist for so many years. Death=extinction. No god. Life is absurd. Don’t give me any of that metaphysical stuff. Changing.

Oddly, part of the stimulus for the change is a Korean tv show I’m watching, Hotel de Luna. It’s on Netflix. Instead of seeing a psychologist, Seoah saw a mudang, a shaman. Kate and I met him. The Korean worldview is a complicated mix of ancient folk traditions and high-tech, global capitalist culture.

Near Seoul, Kate. April, 2016 Visiting Seoah’s mudang

Hotel de Luna includes an Asian emphasis on ghosts, vengeful ghosts, shamans, an afterlife, and reincarnation. I’ve always dismissed reincarnation. Part of my existentialist, humanist, empiricist worldview. But. Kabbalah includes reincarnation. Buddy Mark Odegard once said he believes in reincarnation. The Buddhists, do, too. Hindus. None of this is evidence of more than a human desire to continue life in any way. Or, is it?

I’m beginning to open myself to the idea. What does it mean? What could it mean? I can feel the consolation it brings and consolation is pretty important. I know that right now. What about my embrace of the Great Wheel? Was I a Druid in a past life? Or, at least a believer in the auld religion?

When I mentioned how hard I find the idea of synchronicity, Jamie said, “Ah. The inner skeptic.” Yes, exactly. What if the inner skeptic needs an equal, perhaps stronger inner believer? What if I could find him again? I knew him once, right after college and on into seminary. He got a lot of learning from Christian mystics, ascetics, the Celtic Christian Church. He saw Jesus, Moses, and Abraham perched together on the sliver of a crescent moon while meditating.

I miss him. That guy that could embrace the irrational, the possibility of an Other World. And not cringe. Not shrink away. He was a bad boy of the Enlightenment. Oddly, the place I’ve retained most of him is in my Taoist thought. Wu wei? Yes. Sometimes. Follow the chi? Yes. Always. Experience the contradictions of consciousness and dreaming? Oh, yes. Follow the I-Ching? Yes.

Then there’s this Tarot. How can it be so damned meaningful, so consistently? Sure, it evokes archetypal thoughts, realizations. Yes. But, where do those archetypes come from? Is it the collective unconscious?

Changes on the horizon, I can feel them. Not there yet. The inner skeptic is still ascendant, but maybe not for long.

 

Ace of Swords:

“Keywords: Clarity. Clean break.”  DTB

For example. I drew this card before I wrote this post. I didn’t look at its meanings until I finished. I mean… How?

The two commentaries below are from the Rider-Waite card, but the Druid Craft card I drew differs from it in a way especially important to me. This is Excalibur, lifted up by the Lady of the Lake. The intellect (the sword) rising from the unconscious.

The Dawn breaks at an inlet between the Loch and the Mountains to either side. I can see those Trees as Birch or Aspen. The Flowers look like Blue Bells. Both Minnesota and Colorado have the unaltered Natural World as substantial aspects of their identities. Birch or Aspen. The Mountains. A Lake.

This card speaks directly to my inner world. The Celts, Jung, my two favorite places on Earth. Appropriate that it should signify a break through. There are dark clouds there, too, and a Bird, maybe a Heron? The Heron is the on the card for the King of Vessels in the Wildwood Tarot.

I drew that card two nights ago. I’ve begun drawing a card at night, something to meditate on before I go to sleep.

Here’s a description: “As a bird that welcomes the dawn and often lives alone, the heron is known for its awareness and spiritual thoughts that its creator offers. This bird, defending ancient secrets, is said to stand at the gate between life and death, acting as a mediator between the Celtic’s journey of the soul to another world and reincarnation.”

Don’t understand how these things can be so closely linked, but perhaps that’s the point. I don’t need to understand, but accept.

“New ideas, new plans, intellectual ability, victory, success, mental clarity, clear thinking, breakthroughs, ability to concentrate, communication, realising the truth, vision, force, focus, intensity, stimulating people and environments, new beginnings, new projects, justice, assertiveness, authority, making the correct decision.” Tarotguide.

“As with all the aces, the Ace of Swords indicates that one is about to experience a moment of breakthrough. With its sharp blade and representing the power of the intellect, this sword has the ability to cut through deception and find truth. In layman’s terms, this card represents that moment in which one can see the world from a new point of view, as a place that is filled with nothing but new possibilities.” Labryinthos

Astrology, Cinema and Television, Dreams, Judaism, Kabbalah, Myth and Story, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Tarot

Mystic

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Lughnasa and a slice of Chesed Moon

Fountain formation rocks close and in mid distance

Sunday gratefuls: Cool night. A good day, cleaning and organizing. Grief. Kate, always Kate. Jon feeling better. The Ancient Ones at 9. Sourdough. Sourdough and eggs. Mushrooms. Bread baking. Reconstructing my life. Tarot. Kabbalah. Mysticism. The life of Rocks and Rivers, Trees and Flowers.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Book of Life

Tarot: The High Priest, #5 of the Major Arcana

 

Dante Luca Signorelli

Well, all righty then. Got the loft decluttered, though if you saw it you might not agree. I have a different standard for my workplace than my living place. I like both organized, but the point in my workplace is access and stimulation. In my living place I want a clean house, with things put away in their storage spots. I’ve not achieved this yet downstairs, but it’s the goal toward which I’m pruning.

I’m pleased with the work I did yesterday. The flurry of medical matters over the last few weeks defocused me and got me off the pruning path I’d been on. Last week I got back to full time exercising and kept to a single change I wanted to make. All my appointments go in the afternoon, early afternoon if possible. Keeping the morning clear for Ancientrails, working out, and, eventually, writing again.

One change. A small one. Made for four weeks with clear intention. In this case, each time I call an office or a car service center, schedule haircuts I tell them I want to be seen in the early afternoon. Two to three more weeks and it will be part of me. After that, another small change.

So on.

The entire Harry Potter oeuvre, cinema, came to HBO Max on September first. I’ve been watching them, finished the Goblet of Fire yesterday. I love the immersive world created by set and costume designers, the increasingly dark plot lines, watching the young actors grow both into their roles and as people. Rowling’s cleverness, a distinctly British type, makes everything tinged with irony and spooned over with nostalgia.

Puts the seriousness with which I’ve been taking Tarot, Kabbalah, Judaism in a different perspective. Yes, serious. Yes, fun. Yes, not the ordinary persons experience. A sort of hidden world that includes Astrology, too. The occult, if you fancy that term.

Talked to Rabbi Jamie on Thursday and told him about my speculation concerning reconstruction. That it’s content neutral, a hermeneutic, a way of interpreting the human experience of reality, of each other, of the hidden. Also, that it opens the door for Tarot, Astrology, the Great Wheel. They too can be matters of serious consideration, tools for diving into the inner Lakes and Forests of the Other World we each carry within us.

Too, it opens the possibility that the Other World may be just that. May be that, with an emphasis on be. Or, better, the Other World becomes the Other World as we listen to it, feel its presence in our lives.

 

The High Priest

“The Hierophant advises that you return to the role of a meticulous student. Learn everything you can about your chosen area. Let that knowledge become a part of you and an operative influence on your day-to-day awareness. In this way, you can slowly and steadily establish real credibility in your field or chosen subject.”

The dream w women asking me to return, to finish my studies. Facing down the animus figures who were rigid and angry. Following the lead of the anima figure who encouraged me, said yes. Even now 56 years later. I can still study, learn. Write. The German shepherd at the gateway who sprung from beneath a cloak and licked me. The magical themes: gateway, angry men, supportive women, the Shepherd, the fiery chair which burned the men and was cool to me. The strong sense of longing to go back. Be a scholar/student. And a writer. The sense of now is the time. This was all at Wabash, though an updated, unfamiliar one.

This life calls to me. Again. Still. From a deep place. And this card reminds me. Again. Look to the library, to the mind, but most of all to the heart. What matters for my soul? For the souls of others?

 

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Great Wheel, Holidays, Kabbalah, Mountains, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Tarot, Third Phase

The Year of Grieving ends in Wisdom and an Irish Wolfhound

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Lughnasa and the Chesed Moon

Sunday gratefuls: 49 degree morning. Ruth, only a strained shoulder and sprained back in a car accident with Jen. Gabe o.k. A quiet three days. Subway. Tarot. Kabbalah. The Hermit. The Magician.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth’s ok

Tarot: finishing the Life spread

 

As you may recall from yesterday, I created a new Tarot spread. Forgot to say it’s my final project in the class. We all have to show something we’ve learned. Not gonna go through the whole thing with them, too long. And, I imagine you didn’t read it through. But, I have. And, I will again.

Why? Because the tarot cards have the capacity to breach the veil of consciousness into the collective unconscious, to call out and up to awareness archetypal energies at work in my life. The only way to do it? Hardly. Poetry. Art. Friends. Kabbalah. Torah. Sacred literature. Movies. Literature. Nature. The tarot works for me much to my surprise.

#8. Samain/Binah, Three of Wands

“Keywords: Confidence, Realizing goals

Hard work begins to payoff…Realizing long term dreams and goals.” DTB

Perhaps Steiner’s springtime of the soul. A man, a farmer? an arborist?, stands with his hand on a Tree, looking out to the horizon. Beside him three wands have begun to leaf out, signaling that his work is vital, growing. A scene of future possibility. The full grown tree recalls earlier work, perhaps of another such man, now mature.

“Binah refers to the analytic, distinguishing aspects of God’s thought.

It is the uppermost feminine element in the Godhead, and is symbolized as the mother of the Shekhinah. Many of the symbols associated with Binah are therefore identical to those of the Shekhinah.” Jewish Virtual Encyclopedia

8 is infinity stood up straight.

Samain is the time when the veil grows thin and the boundary between this world and the other world is at its most permeable. Thus, Halloween, Dia de los muertos, All Saints. Coco.

The Celts chose to start their year now, at Summer’s End. The seasons between now and Ostara are Samain, Yule/Winter Solstice, and Imbolc. With Ostara these make up the first half of the Celtic year.

All this suggests that my life after Kate’s death may take a turn at Samain rather than Michaelmas. If her spirit/soul lives on (I make no assumptions.), then she will be able to communicate easily with me. I will make her an offrenda, my altar surrounding her ashes is a good start.

We’ll have a meal together, as Latin and Central Americans do in their graveyards on dia de los muertos. We’ll discuss her life and mine. She’ll have a glass of chardonnay, scallops and rare steak with fresh boiled asparagus. Finished off with some espresso, doppio, and a flan. I’ll have the rare steak, fried potatoes, and asparagus. Espresso and flan. A Paulaner Thomasbrau.

Perhaps I will achieve binah about her death and my life, discerning understanding.

#9 Yule/Tipharet  Ten of Wands

“Keywords: Demands. Burdens. Overwork.

Carrying the weight of responsibility or obligations on your shoulder…Uncomplaining acceptance of your perceived burden. Reassessing priorities and values.” DTB

“Tipharet represents the ideal balance of Justice and Mercy needed for proper running of the universe.

This Sefirah unites all the upper nine powers.” JVL

The season of Yule, midwinter. The season beginning at the Winter Solstice. I feel strong, centered, in midwinter. 40 years a Minnesotan. The winter will not be ten wands on my back, though I would say that those wands don’t look all that heavy.

The man here, who does look overburdened, has walked a long way and has now begun an uphill segment. Might be me, coming back from down the Hill and through the Valley of grief. Navigating now a new life, back up on the Mountain. It will be, could be, that the new understanding of life will have created a tension between the old ways of life with Kate and the new ways of a realized life without her physical presence. That may be the ten wands.

But tipharet is the beautiful, the balanced place between Justice, Gevurah, and Mercy/Chesed. So it may also be that the wands will have begun to balance themselves, their weight distributed well for the climb.

#10 Imbolc/Hokmah  Ten of Pentacles

“Key words: Blessings. Prosperity. Legacy

You may be in receipt of a legacy, or are creating one-either for your family or the wider community. Even difficult circumstances can carry hidden benefits. The chance to count our blessings and discover that they’re too numerous to count.” DTB

This is the last card in the spread, having now come round the full Great Wheel from Ostara to Imbolc. That it should have an Irish Wolfhound on it tells me all I need to know. The circle of Kate and mine’s life is in this card.

The woman stands in the black, out of the frame, perhaps out of this world. Perhaps in the other world. The gray headed man has a blond haired granddaughter by his side, Ruth, and a young man, perhaps Joseph over his shoulder. This represents the family left after the woman has gone into the blackness of death.

Though dead, the woman still holds a pentacle, a symbol of earth and abundance. Her presence is yet a source of comfort and grace for the family still on this side of the veil.

She is not absent from the lives of her family, just absent from Malkut, the physical realm.

This card strongly suggests to me that a full year after Kate’s death will find me, and our family, living and celebrating together, informed and supported by Kate’s legacy, her person and the wealth that she created. The spirit of the Irish Wolfhound, kind, compassionate, loving, loyal made present to all of us.

Since this is also the card for hokmah, or wisdom, I’m also inclined to believe that the year of grieving for Kate will bring to all of us a better sense of how to live our lives, both with each other and for each other.

 

Beyond the Boundaries, Fourth Phase, Great Wheel, Jefferson County, Mountains, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Tarot

That Bear!

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Lughnasa and the Lughnasa Moon

Friday gratefuls: That bear. Fantastic Fungi. The workout. The fall. Mussar. Chili cheese dogs. A Friday with no appointments. Domestic chores. New neighbors coming. Three in a row. The Tarot. Kabbalah. Shan-shui poetry.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Liberation

Tarot:  Cernunnos, #15 Druid Craft Deck

 

Six and a half years later. Three or four years after Kate. I saw a Bear! A big one. On the same road as I was. And, I was on foot.

Yesterday I did another of my outside cardio workouts. I chose to go around the “block” across Black Mountain Drive from me. A pretty long block as it turned out, about 30 minutes worth. Supposed to be 10, but I had a bad image in my head of the length of the roads.

Krashin went down hill. I’ve recently discovered all the side roads from my stretch of Black Mountain Drive go downhill. Hmm. Must live on the top of Shadow Mountain, eh?

Downhill in Krashin’s instance is toward a deep valley that runs between Shadow Mountain and Black Mountain. The forested valley has no roads, no homes, past the end of a short lane off Krashin. Wild. One or two homes on Black Mountain, perhaps a few more, then over the top of its 10,000 foot peak is the large Staunton State Park. Plenty of critters.

As I shook my head at how little I knew of my own neighborhood, I looked up. The road curved further away from a route back to Black Mountain Drive. A big black Bear ambled across it. Way big. Healthy with lustrous black fur, not in a hurry. Off on a morning errand hunting for food. Then it was gone.

A car came by from the Bear’s direction, slowed to a stop. “Yep. I saw him.” “Good. Just wanted to be sure.” No fooling around when it comes to either Bears or Mountain Lions. Either one can create havoc with the human body.

Being on foot made me vulnerable. I had no bear mace, no bells to ring. I was in shorts and a t-shirt, tennis shoes. Not fighting shape.

So I went on anyhow. Curiosity. That thread I mentioned a few posts back? Often helps me make decisions that are not in my immediate best interest. Where was the Bear? I wanted one more glimpse. Perhaps he hadn’t gone far into the woods. There are homes on both sides of the road, but their properties have many trees.

Couldn’t find him. (I say him because of the size.) I did keep looking, realizing I couldn’t outrun a Bear, they’re fast. Frisson.

During stretching I had started watching Fantastic Fungi, a documentary Tom Crane recommended quite a while ago. What a treat. Made me interested, yet again, in Mushrooms, Lichens. I’ve gone through phases. Ready for another one, I believe. Not only finding edible ones, but becoming more familiar with their roles in forest decomposition, communication. Also, psilocybin. (btw: the documentary is on Netflix.)

Just looked up the Colorado Mycological Society. Looks like fun. Birding? No. Not me. Hunting for Mushrooms? Learning more about them? Yes.

Point here with the Bear? The radical interconnectedness that Mycelium, the underground part of a Mushroom,  a fruiting body for the organism, offers. Mycelium, threadlike, growing one cell at a time, dominate the rich soil layer near the surface. They carry nutrients back to the fruiting body, sure, but they can also transport nutrients between and among groves of trees.

Like Mycelium, the wildlife here are mostly invisible. Once in a while, a sighting. Usually Elk or Mule Deer. The occasional Fox. Marmot, Woodchuck. Squirrels. Chipmunks. Rarely, Bears, Mountain Lions, Lynx, Bobcats. We moved into their habitat and they’ve learned, more or less, to live around us, out of sight, wild. Like the vast underground networks of Mycelium, there are large populations of wild things all around us. At least up here in the Mountains.

We Humans live such sheltered lives, huddled in our right angled dwellings, getting our food from refrigerators and grocery stores, evading the fall of night with electricity. We, at least most of us, know little about how to sleep outside, find food, evade predators. Yet that is the way of wild things.

Cernunnos, #15 of the Major Arcana in the Druid Craft deck.

Cernunnos is the great horned God of the Celtic pantheon. “…the Gaelic god of beasts and wild places. Often called the Horned One, Cernunnos was a mediator (between humans) and nature, able to tame predator and prey so they might lie down together. He remains a mysterious deity, as his original mythos has been lost to history. A God of the Wild.

Given my brief encounter with the Bear and seeing Fantastic Fungi, this card calls to the deep in me. Joseph used to call me nature boy. My mystical feelings run not toward the ineffable, the distant God, but toward the Mycelium that connect us to the Wild life all around us. Cernunnos is the God of those tiny threads, often invisible to us.

People stop their cars to see Elk harems, Mule Deer fawns, a Fox warming itself on asphalt. Why? We don’t stop for dogs, cows, chickens.

That Bear. What a gift I felt seeing him. Why? Rising up from this Elk, that Fox, the Bear is the numinous presence of Cernunnos, the Wild as a dangerous and alien place. We shiver at the sight of creatures who navigate the wild in their daily existence. They are not of our world.*

Tarot commentators find this card intimidating, warning us against dark impulses, becoming enslaved to our wild passions. Not to me. In our sexuality, in our pairs, in our procreation we become one with the wild, perhaps only during the small death of orgasm, but perhaps also through bonding with another human, one of our own species.

These are not dark impulses, rather they are the wild portions of our own soul. Yes, they can scare us, make us do things we regret. Sure. But they can also show us the animal within us, the one who recognizes Cernunnos as its embodiment.

I celebrate the Wild. Cernunnos. Love making. That Bear.

 

 

*We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth. Henry Beston

Aging, Art and Culture, Asia, Fourth Phase, Great Wheel, Holidays, Mountains, Myth and Story, Our Land and Home, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Tarot

Sannyasa

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Lughnasa and the Lughnasa Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: HVAC mini-splits. Tom. His HVAC guy. Diane. Cousins. Family. Extended and virtual. Claire and her new life. Social Security. Cool morning. Allergies. Ragweed. Chenopods: amaranth, pigweed, waterhemp, russian thistle, lamb’s quarters. Washing machine. Dishwasher. Stove. Refrigerator. Sink. Well. Pump.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The trouble small bits of plant sex can cause

Tarot: Justice, #11 of the Major Arcana

 

Beginning, slowly. Sensing. Too much time in the afternoons. I take this as a good sign. I’m getting what I need to get done in the mornings, my best portion of the day, then I have a larger chunk of time in the afternoon where I feel a bit aimless. Over the last three years, the afternoon and evenings involved caretaking for Kate. So, filled up, always something else to do.

The pruning, the planning for the 18th, the administrative side of taking over all responsibilities, have all begun to yield. Hardly finished, but none of them weigh on me, pushing me, as they had even this last month.

The Musician and the Hermit – Moritz von Schwind

In my life change often comes because I’m bored. Oh, I’ve got time for this, now! Or, what could I be doing with this time? I have a few go to’s: reading and writing at the top of the list every time. Travel, especially close to home. Hiking. Museum going. Eating out. More time with friends.

There is, too, a niggling sensation that I could be doing more. Something more in a justice/climate change/political activism way. And, yes, I could.

But. I’m trying to lean into the life of the sannyasa, the fourth stage of Hindu life, a stage of renunciation, of pursuit of spiritual matters. And, the life of a mountain recluse in the shan-shui tradition of China. Perhaps, for now, a semi-hermetic life. Focused on reading, learning, writing. Self-awareness. Deepening my inner journey.

I’m going to mark September 29, Michaelmass, as a time to focus on whether this will remain my path. A retreat, perhaps. Three days somewhere in the mountains. Seems like a good idea.

Drew the justice card. No big insights today.

But. I did get a letter from Social Security yesterday explaining why they can’t pay me right now. My mistake. I didn’t give a new routing number after I closed the Health Care Credit Union account.

However, I have a call with them on Thursday, long awaited. This will be the one where I claim survivors benefits which will bump my social security up a grand plus. I started this process in April when I informed them of Kate’s death. Lots of getting put off, turned over to someone else.

 

 

*”It can also suggest a frustrating encounter with bureaucracy. If it shows up in your reading in this context, be prepared to navigate some red tape. Get help or advice from someone within the system you’re working in. Stay patient and persistent. This card in a positive position and upright indicates a good outcome.” tarotluv

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Simple Gifts

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Summer and the Lughnasa Moon

Monday gratefuls: Rigel eating and running. Mary’s pictures from the Van Gogh show and the Beach. Hsieh Ling-yun. Shan-shui poetry, creative sensibility. Wabi sabi. Fermented foods. Korea. The United States, as a vision. The United States, broken.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The cool Wind off Black Mountain yesterday afternoon.

Tarot card drawn: The Lovers, number 6 of the Major Arcana

 

The gifts of our parents. The Ancient ones theme for our Sunday conversation. As it happened, Bill and Ode went first. Happy childhoods, role model parents. Smiles and good feelings. Tom, a thoughtful assessment of what his parents inherited from their parents and how that made him more accepting of what they had to offer him. Paul found gifts. There must be a pony in there somewhere.

We described our mothers as gentle and well-liked. We recognized from our childhood the post-depression, post-World War II definition of motherhood, realized in the women who birthed us.

Fathers were different. More individual in our telling. More difficult, sometimes, but also more formative. My father, from whom I was estranged most of my adult life, gave me a willingness to express contrary opinions in the public square. A willingness to use analytics to solve problems, to understand political life. A tendency to wander, to find the curious and the unusual. A conflicted version of hard work. That is, he modeled hard work. Always. But he expected it of me just because he was my father.

My mom modeled compassion, a desire to meet each person without judgment. She supported me, honored my gifts, which my father challenged, belittled. To this day I don’t know why he did that.

Mom, Dad, Me

They were both conventionally Protestant; not overly affected by their faith, but committed to it. Both of them prized intelligence and learning though my father denigrated it in me. Why? Don’t know. They kept in touch with their extended families, Mom’s in Indiana, and Dad’s mostly in Oklahoma.

At 74 I love learning, love figuring out how and why things work, what the facts and the possibilities are. I try to meet each person without judgment and to exercise compassion for their journey. A radical analysis of our economic, educational, health, religious, and political systems, mine since college, represented a working out of my father’s liberal views carried to what I consider their logical conclusions.

My impact from both parents seemed less profound than any of the other four in our group. That may be because my mother died young. I never got to know her after I became an adult. And Dad and I never overcame the distance between us.

We all agreed though that whoever we are now, in the elder stage of life, came through choice, intentionality. We are not the sock puppets of our parent’s gifts or their curses. Yes, they shaped our lives, no doubt, but how we use compassion, a sense of humor, a genius for invention, gentleness, a hard-edged approach reflects how we have chosen to incorporate them in the now long stream of our life.

A touching conversation.

 

The Lovers. A sequelae. As a change, a transformative wave, pulses through my life, as it creates difficulties, struggles, it does point toward a new creation. What will that new creation be like? Not sure yet. My sense, if I have to choose between important and unimportant (see below), I’m thinking of the difference between the Chinese literati role model and the engaged political and religious life I have known. Perhaps between passive and active. Learning and doing. Which will inflect my next path more?

There is a distinct and strong part of me that would read, write poetry, paint, listen to music, dine with friends, go for hikes, travel some. That has always felt like a lifeway that needed to wait. Come the revolution, maybe that would be ok. Come publishing. Then. Yes.

Now. In the wake of Kate’s death I’m once again reexamining my primary inclinations. When I met her, I leaned into writing, a definite change from life as clergy/activist. Perhaps I could see that change as a step toward a more reclusive, monastic life, a way only partially taken.

Is now the time? There’s a Trappist/Benedictine soul in this body. With those words referring to lifestyle, not content. There’s a Taoist soul in this body. One which does not take up arms against a sea of trouble, but rather flows around them, with them. There’s a mystical soul in this body. One that finds nourishment in odd places: tarot, torah, astrology, astronomy, poetry, paintings, sculpture. There’s a Great Wheel soul in this body, one that desires only a place in the natural process, a moment of birth, a short life, a long death. There is, too, a Jewish soul in this body, one committed to others, to community, to justice, to learning.

Will I try to rebuild my past life, only at a different age and place? Will I listen to the murmurings in my soul? Will I follow what I believe to be the deeper path for me? Deeper at this moment in time. The Lovers card suggests I will need to choose. Are these the choices? Not sure. Are these the best choices? Again, not sure.

 

*”This is one of the times when you figure out what you are going to stand for, and what your philosophy in life will truly be. You must start making up your mind about what you find important and unimportant in your life. You should be as true to yourself as you can be, so you will be genuine and authentic to the people who are around you.” Labyrinthos

“There is an approaching conflict that will test your values. In order to progress, you are going to have to make a decision between love and career. Neither will disappear forever, but the choice will shape your priorities.”  Trusted Tarot

 

Astrology, Family, Friends, Health, Hebrew, Kabbalah, Our Land and Home, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Tarot, Third Phase

The Death Card

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Summer and the Lughnasa Moon

Friday gratefuls: Alan and the Parkside breakfast spot. Rabbi Jamie, Ellen, Marilyn (x2), Carol, Sally, Diane, Rebecca. The hot dog lady. The drive up Brook Forest to Shadow Mountain. The still rapid Maxwell Creek along the roadside. The Rock faces, the Ponderosa and Lodgepoles and Aspens and Willows and Dogwoods. The Cow Elk that sauntered across the road in front of me.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Getting up only one time last night.

Tarot of the Morning: Death, 13th card of the Major Arcana

 

We’ll get to the Tarot later, but let me say before we do that it’s good news to me.

Yesterday I met Alan for breakfast at the Parkside. A large patio offers outside dining. A cool morning when I got there at 9:20, the Sun crept around until, as in the parable, I took my jacket off and hung it on the chair.

Before I left for Evergreen, the boys of Grant Property Medic came to weed whack the lawn. That’s the way they do it. A little strange, but ok. They were only response I got to a request on Nextdoor Shadow Mountain for lawn mowers.

Not cheap. But, it’s done. The grasses in some spots were thigh high thanks to the rain we’ve gotten. They had gotten ahead of me while I was in Hawaii. Gotta get my own mower repaired, but I needed to get the place mowed once before I do that. Only two, three times a year anyhow and done for fire mitigation, not for house beautiful.

Still hacking away at budget stuff. A busy week, busier than I thought it would be. Knowledge level about the budget, our assets, cash flow increasing. Not there yet though. Have to keep weed whacking my way through the underbrush. As I often say under my breath, you’re getting there, Charlie. You’re getting there.

At 7:30 this morning I have another round of p.t. Rebecca has me gradually ramping up my exercise routine. My leg feels much better, about ready to get back to cardio. Want to include at least a hike a week. I’ve wanted to do this for years, literally.

Mussar, Thursday afternoon version, met. Good to be back there on a regular basis. As with Alan, I enjoy seeing folks, being with them, thinking with them.

Before the meeting I went over to the yahrzeit wall and found Kate’s plaque, newly installed. A bit of a shock, seeing it there, even though I expected it. I still have the occasional, oh, I gotta tell Kate moment, so it’s good to have the reminders that she is dead. That may seem weird, but it’s true. Acceptance is a process, a learned state, and it takes repetition.

For example, Eduardo told the other day that he’s sixty. Wow. Would not have guessed that. I immediately thought, Kate will be surprised. Who knows, maybe she is.

Had to break off writing this morning. P.T. at 7:30 am. Rebecca furloughed me next week based on good progress. We’ll see how I do and adjust if necessary the week after. A rational choice. Not a maximum revenue approach. Salute Rebecca.

Down the hill to Hwy 470 to Kipling, up Kipling to Chatfield, Wells Fargo. Safe Deposit box. Hunting for our marriage license which I will need to finish my application for Social Security survivor benefits. Also picking up the remainder of Kate’s jewelry connection to pass on to Jerry Miller, Sarah’s husband. Kate’s wish.

I’m holding back two pieces, one an emerald ring I had made for Kate when she had a breast cancer scare 20 years or so ago. I’m going to wear it in memory of her. Also, a gold and lapis lazuli necklace Kate bought in Santorini on our cruise of the Aegean. Again, a memory piece.

After sifting through the papers and boxes, throwing out some no longer needed, like my receipt for Blizzaks from TireRack.com (no idea why it was there in the first place), I concluded that the marriage license was not there. Have to get one from Ramsey County vital records.

On the way home I stopped in to see Jackie, my hair stylist, and changed my appointment to the next week. Tom’s coming and we’re gonna be out doing things.

Time to revert back to the death card. The most feared card in the Tarot deck. This came up on many of the commentators websites. For example: “First things first, don’t be afraid if you’ve pulled the death tarot card! Along with the Tower and the Devil, Death is one of the most feared cards in a Tarot deck. This is normal since most people fear dying and any card representing such a thing would naturally be viewed as negative.”  A little spark of joy. 

The same website offers these words to describe the significance of the upright Death card: “Ending of a cycle, transitions, getting rid of excess, powerful movement.” If you put this together with the six of cups I drew yesterday: “With the Six of Cups reversed, you can finally close accounts with the emotional undertow that has been part of your life.“. it’s not tough to recognize the pattern.

We’ll go into the major arcana/minor arcana distinctions once I’m clearer on them, but for now it’s enough to observe that the Death card is one of the Major Arcana, the 13th of 22. My life since Kate’s illness and decline finished on April 12th with her death. A long, difficult, and often painful journey. A shift in life style to one more reclusive and focused on medical matters, uncertainty, angst. Around 3 years or so total. A distinct intensification over the last year.

As the last three months have passed, a month for each year?, a storm of emotions has crossed my inner world. Horror, terror, fear. Abandonment, loss. Tears and a heart rent by anguish. Mourning. Beautiful and rooted rituals, most from the Jewish perspective, held me in an alembic, a place where the fire of those emotions could drive away the dross and leave me with the gold of Kate’s memory, not as a source of torment, but as a source of sustaining wisdom and love.

That gradual change has brought a punctuation to the last three years, a period, or perhaps better, a semicolon, not jettisoning it as too awful, but making it an and. There were those three years; and, there is the next phase of my life. The Death card and the six of cups underline that change for me. I see it in them and they, somehow, see it in me.

What the effect of that transition, the end of the Kate cycle of my life, means is not yet apparent. Nor could it be. I’m a new born. A different life will grow from the fertile soil of this change. I know it. And, I trust it will be a good one.

So. Yeah, Death card! Thanks six of cups.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hebrew, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Writing

Ah

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Language. Language about language. Language about languages. Language about the mind, created in the mind. The mind talking to itself, using symbols and signs. Which it has to interpret, even the ones it uses to talk to itself. A Mobius strip of neurons and synapses.

Data. Outside data. Collected. Fingers. Nose. Ears. Eyes. Tongue. Which the mind interprets. Builds. Say, a Tree. A lover. An Ocean. That pickup truck. A Dog. Stars.

Words not created in this mind. What are (a more loaded verb here than often understood) they? Where are they? In my mind where I’ve put the pieces together or out there, somewhere? What do they mean, those words? What did the one who wrote them mean them to mean? How can I know?

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. LW. Does this seal our lips forever?

Or, I think of David Hume, that Scottish curmudgeon, kicking a cabinet and saying, “I refute it thus.” Speaking of Lord Berkley. “To be is to be perceived.” The stubborn persistence of things. That stubborn consensus we seem to share. Yes, the tree is there. Where? Right over there.

I believe I prefer William James, “Consciousness is a blooming, buzzing confusion.” We put down this yod, that hey. A vav. One more hey. And we agree, sort of, about what they denote. Or, we don’t.

Look at the evidence. Fake news. It’s all in your mind.

No, no. It’s really there.

Oh, really? How do you know?

I see it. I can touch it. I can smell it.

Ah.

 

Beyond the Boundaries, Dogs, Dreams, Great Wheel, Hawai'i, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Travel, Weather +Climate

Namaste

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Beltane and a faint sliver of the Island Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Seoah’s massage. Muscles aching. The Palms lining the boulevards here. Murdoch. Working out. Needing help with it. The Sun. The Ocean. The Pearl River. Tropical Fish and that big Crab I saw. Kep and Rigel. Kate, always Kate.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Namaste to the Trees, the Ocean, the Mountains.

Not Hawai’i. National Western Stock Show Pro Rodeo

Walked this am without my heart rate monitor. I didn’t want to “work” out, but be out and do some good for my heart at the same time. Forgot how much I enjoy it. Time to contemplate, meditate, or be in the present.

Continued my new practice. Put my hands together, a short bow, and Namaste to certain Trees, the Ocean, the Mountains, the Sun. Even the Crabs and brightly colored Fish. This small gesture has surprised me. I say, “The god in me bows to the god in you.” I can sense reciprocity. That is, I can feel a return bow, an acknowledgment that yes, the god in that Monkey Pod Tree knows the god resident in me. Those jagged green Mountains send me the blessing of the ancient deity who lives within them. The Ocean as well.

I don’t do all the Trees or Mountains because that would look very strange and take way too long. I’d never get back to breakfast. But in those cases where I did stop, bow, silently speak the bond it created sprang to life immediately. Yes. Hello. Back at ya.

In the process, btw, I found myself yearning again to live here. Much as I try to be practical, think through the steps, hobble myself from making a too fast decision, Hawai’i and the Pacific keep beckoning. Honestly, dude.

That’s the thing about some dreams. They won’t let you alone. Keep intruding, saying, Hey, don’t forget! The horizon line on the Pacific, where the Earth curves away from my sight. The Hawai’ian donuts. The Plants in their abundance and in their color. My soul bows to each of them in turn and hears back from them, “Come.” The living Wood of the Outrigger Canoes and their Paddles. Kane and Ku. The Whales. Aloha, Charlie!

Time must pass, for many reasons, before I take action, but it feels more compelling each time the idea of life here resurfaces in my thoughts.

Seoah suggested Pilates for me. There’s a place in Evergreen. I think I’ll try it. Something new. It focuses on flexibility and balance as much as strength. What I need.

Return to Shadow Mountain. Two weeks from today. Time to immerse myself in the new, post-Kate’s physical presence life. Finish up with social security, close that Minnesota credit union account, put my new budget  process to work in everyday life. See my CBE friends, hike in the mountains, hug Kep and Rigel. This has been what I needed, this time here, a respite,  a time for recovery. By the 22nd though I’ll be ready.

 

 

Family, Health, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, The Move, Third Phase

Tough

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Ostara and Kate’s Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Kate’s clear head, her choices. Death with dignity as an option. The Ancient Friends. Rabbi Jamie. CBE. Sleep. Kep and Rigel.

Sparks of Joy: Sarah calling the Long Term Care folks. A Golden with his head out the window of a pickup truck.

I know about true love. And, about bad love. Kate and I lived and loved into each other, saying yes. Saying of course you can. Of course we can. In bad love you hear and say no, you can’t do that. I don’t want to. Not now.

We bring out the depth of each others soul. Kate’s needle gifts, her love of Mother Earth, Flowers, Vegetables, Dogs, Fruit. Grandchildren. Sons. My writing. My love for Mother Earth, Flowers, Vegetables, Dogs, Fruit. Grandchildren. Sons. Not hidden, not wished for, but acted upon.

Supporting each other, even when the world might not agree. Have 7 Wolfhounds and two Whippets? Sure. Put in an orchard? Of course. Go around Latin America. No question. Move to Colorado? Not only that, let’s go up in the mountains. End life on your own terms? Yes, if that’s what you need.

This ancientrail of human life may have come close to an end for Kate. She wants to consider death with dignity. I imagine she’ll choose it. Does it make me scream inside? Yes. Does it make me sad? Yes. Will I support her? Yes, as in all things.

This is stark. It means a time certain, not an ambiguous, drawn out process. But, the end is the same. And, it’s coming for Kate, as it is for us all. Just sooner for her.

I cried a lot last night. Sat up with friends talking. Then, slept well. No anxiety. This is sad. Not unexpected. No details yet. It’s not decided decided. But I know Kate. Once she broached this idea, her mind was close made up.

It makes sense to me. She was told she’d have to wear the bipap at least at night from now on. She hates it. It’s intrusive, invasive, and claustrophobic. There is no hope she’ll come off of it. Also, she’s exhausted from a two and a half year struggle with first this, then that.

She’s so frail, her breathing labored, her movement restricted to bed, mostly. No magic bullet. No procedure. No medications left.

What would you do?