Lughnasa Waning Summer Moon
Category Archives: Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.
Worn Out
Lughnasa Waning Summer Moon
Oi. Over to Beth Evergreen yesterday morning at 8:30. Alan and I sat down, knocking together our rough draft of the calendar for our sixth and seventh grade class. There will be dream interpretation, several sessions on what it means to become a teenager, understanding Torah, understanding the morning prayer service, making your own Israeli flag, making your own Jewish mandala, a shiviti, a session on Funny, You Don’t Look Jewish, and much more. This took until 11:30 or so.
We met there because Alan said he had some work to do at the synagogue. When we finished, I asked him if I could help. Turns out, yes, I could. I spent another two hours with a power drill in hand, helping him put up the final trim on the yahrzeit wall. First impressions can be weird. The doorbell rang and I let a guy in, first time I’d met him. I had the drill in my hand, so the first time he met me, he saw me as a person who could use a power drill. Oh, my.
A yahrzeit wall consists of plaques with deceased member’s name, date of death, and a small light to the left of the plaque. Technology allows Leah, who manages the wall, to program the lights so that they come on during the month of the person’s death, following the Jewish calendar. Yahrzeit, literally year time, is the yearly anniversary of a relative’s death, during which mourners say the kaddish, or the mourner’s prayer, during services. I like this idea a lot. It keeps a relative’s memory alive and it honors the living by giving them certain knowledge that they will not be forgotten. Someday it may be Kate’s name will be up there, maybe mine, too.
The surprising part of all this, unpleasantly surprising, was that when I got home around 2 pm, I felt exhausted. Not just tired, but done in for the day. The degree of exhaustion seemed exaggerated. Yes, I’d been gone a long while (for these days), had no lunch and was on task the whole time. Even so. Kate reminded me that working with my hands wears me out. She’s right. The combination of careful, thoughtful work for two and a half hours followed by a roughly similar amount of time with a power tool resulted in sagging. Even a nap didn’t cover it.
It gave me a sense of what Kate deals with nearly every day. Unpleasant. In my next workouts I’m going to focus on stamina.
One Toke Over the Line Sweet Moses
Lughnasa Waning Summer Moon
The loft is clean. Sandy does such a great job. And, she does it while living with the after effects of two brain surgeries and the yet remaining tumor which necessitated a round of radiation to shrink. A tough way to earn your daily bread.
We tried a Colorado cure for Kate’s nausea symptoms. She toked up yesterday morning, lighting one of the pre-rolled Jilly Belly spliffs. She took four hits. Result: nausea subsided, heartburn began. And, she said, I feel spacy. Which she didn’t like. So she went back to bed anyhow. A work in progress. Next time she’ll try two tokes. If it does reduce the nausea, we will get her a bong and use ice in the water to cool down the smoke. I told her she was one toke over the line sweet Jesus; then added, well, maybe better, one toke over the line sweet Moses.
At mussar Ariel, the defense lawyer turned consultant to lawyers on how to navigate court procedures, gave a powerful and well-researched hour and a half on the concept of tzedakah. Tzedakah boxes are an art form in Judaica and usually have a slot for change or bills. The money collected typically goes to charities, in the American diaspora often charities that support the state of Israel, though the money can go to any good cause. In this way tzedakah has come to be associated with charity, but its real translation is justice, equity.
In the packet that he offered, Ariel quoted Rabbi Abraham Heschel, a great friend to Martin Luther King: “There is immense silent agony in the world, and the task of man is to be a voice for the plundered poor, to prevent the desecration of the soul and the violation of our dream of honesty.” And, “Morally speaking there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the sufferings of human beings, that indifference to evil is worse than evil itself, that in a free society, some are guilty while all are responsible.”
After mussar Kate and I went with many members of the group to a place called Go, Paint in downtown Evergreen. It was the start of an interesting local expression of an international movement called Empty Bowls. (the link is to an Empty Bowls event in Hopkins, Minnesota) Go, Paint has many objects in bisque (the stage for pottery after throwing and before firing when glazes and paints can be applied.). In this case we all had bisque bowls, dull white and maybe 8 inches across. There were various paints and glazes we could apply, even small clay creatures. Kate, for example, put a turtle in the bottom of her bowl.
We paid for the event. The bowls get fired, then distributed to two sites nearby which run Empty Bowl events. One is Mt. Vernon Country Club and the other is a church in Evergreen. At the empty bowl event a meal is served, $65 at Mt. Vernon, $20 at the church. When the meal is over, each participant gets a bowl. The money goes, in this instance, to the Mountain Resource Center. A friend of Kate and mine’s, Marilyn Saltzman, will be the incoming president of the MRC in January. Interesting idea.
A long day for Kate.
Ancora imparo
Lughnasa Waning Summer Moon
The full Waning Summer Moon hung just above Black Mountain yesterday, so I watched as it disappeared behind the peak. It surprised me how fast it sank. I watched only for 2, maybe 3 minutes, then it was gone. At its last it was a bright line among the Lodgepole pines marking the rocky contours where it had been. This morning it’s well above the peak, looking much like the earth in the earthrise photographs from the Apollo missions.
The moon and the sun remind us, as do the stars, that we are not only alone on this rock, but alone for millions and millions of miles. At least. That simple fact could bring us together as a species, but it doesn’t. And, frankly, I don’t understand why, since it means that this little spinning piece of debris from the formation of the solar system is our home and any other possible home is way too far away to move to in any numbers. If at all.
When we were at the Beth Evergreen teachers’ workshop last week, Tara asked us what we thought we brought to the classroom. “I bring a spirit of inquiry, of curiosity,” I said, then surprised myself by voicing an insight I didn’t realize I’d had, “I’ve always lived the questions, not the answers.” True that.
Sometimes, not often, I wish I could lean into answers, just accept a few, take them as settled law, stare decisis for the soul. But, no. Conclusions in my world are tentative, preliminary, awaiting new information. I think this is what the long ago psychiatrist meant when he said I had a philosophical neurosis. If so, so be it. As a result, I’ve been unendingly curious, never lacking something new to consider, never taking yes for an answer. Or, no.
I’ve modulated my approach so it’s not as acidic, not as relentless since I now realize that most people don’t share my intense, but actually (in my mind) playful attitude toward truth. Playful, I should note, in this age of “fake presidents,” but not stupid.
Ancora imparo.
Bees, Nausea, Beth Evergreen
Lughnasa Waning Summer Moon
At 7 I’m off to Evergreen to Rich Levine’s. We’re going to harvest honey from one honey super and try to use the flow hive. The flow hive is an invention by an Australian beekeeper that has the bees put honey in plastic frames instead of a honey super. An ingenious torquing mechanism uncaps the honey and it flows through a tube into jars or a bucket. Mine came just after Kate and I decided to move to Colorado, so I’d hung up my beesuit. I have it Rich. Hope it works. That was five years ago now, and they’ve come up with improvements. Rich has one of the new ones, too.
Kate’s growing more frustrated with her nausea and I don’t blame her. Imagine if, on any day, you could be debilitated, often without warning. Imagine, further, if that debilitation resulted in weight loss and as a direct result, loss in strength and stamina. Her gall bladder ultrasound came back normal. We’re in an odd situation now of hoping that at least some test will show something. Normal is usually a good result in any medical test, but when you have something unexplained. Well. What we want now is something diagnostic, and that something treatable.
I put up 7 lesson plans, or at least what qualify in my very rookie way, as lesson plans. Each lesson plan has to relate to the overall theme for the year, reconstruction and the b’nai mitzvah experience, yet stand alone. Here’s an example. Might be used before Simchat Torah, when the reading of the Torah finishes and then starts over again.
Understanding the centrality of Torah in Jewish life
Intro. What is Torah? Why is the Torah read through, then repeated? Discussion
Lesson content:
a. Write, in Hebrew, the names of the books of the Torah
b. A conversation about the broader and deeper meaning of Torah.
c. What stories shape your life? Family stories? Childhood stories? Books, movies, anime
Finish: Dance with the Torah scrolls. (a common practice on Simchat Torah)
I’m moving further and further into the life of Beth Evergreen. Kabbalah, mussar, Jewish Studies Sampler Sundays (or, as Rabbi Jamie said at the annual meeting on Thursday: Jesuss) teaching bar and bat mitzvah students about this central ritual in Jewish life. Participating in a mussar group focused on spreading mussar in congregational life. Getting to know well at least a few members: Marilyn, Jamie, Tara, Rich, Alan, Anshel, Sally, Ron, Susan, Sheri. Seems both odd and normal. Odd in that I’m a pagan; normal in that I love this community and want to help sustain it.
Gifts. All day long.
Lughnasa Waning Summer Moon
What gifts did I get yesterday? The first question before I go to sleep. Woke up, emerged from unconsciousness to consciousness. Breathed the whole night long. Kate was next to me, sleeping, my partner. Kepler was, as always, happy to see me wake up. He rolls over so I can scratch his stomach, his tail goes up into happy mode. As the morning service says, the orifices that needed to open, opened, and closed when appropriate. There was water at the tap, always a gift in this arid climate. The meds that my doc has prescribed to help me extend my health span got washed down with some.
Gertie and Rigel were happy to see me, coming up for a nuzzle and a lean. The air was cool and the stars still out. Shadow Mountain stayed stable underneath me. The carrier brought the Denver Post and we read the collective work of its reporters, recorded by the printers on newsprint made most likely in Canada.
When I went up to the loft, I got on this computer, using electricity supplied by the Inter Mountain Rural Electric Association. As the sun came up, our own solar panels began translating its energy that traveled 93 million miles, generated by the powerful nuclear fusion of our star. My mind is still sharp enough to put words together, thoughts. My hands still nimble enough to pound the keyboard.
All these gifts and we’re only at about 6 am. The list goes on throughout the day. Kate at the table when I go down for breakfast. The workout created by my personal trainer. Time to nap. A mussar class focused on tzedakah and zaka, how can we purify our soul by gifting resources to others. A car that runs on gas brought here by oil tanker, trucks, a gift from the plant and animal life of long ago, crushed into liquid form by the power of geological processes. Back to Beth Evergreen for the second time for the annual meeting.
There the gifts of people, relationships built and nurtured over the last few years, granting both of us the opportunity to be seen, known, and the chance to offer who we are and what we have. Finally, the cycle ends with a return to sleep, to unconsciousness. Hard to avoid gratitude after doing this sort of exercise each night.
Comfy chairs, Elk, Feeling Dull
Lughnasa Waning Summer Moon
Selling out wall to wall for remodeling! How could we resist? Kate needed a comfortable chair, the old and worn Swedish model no longer matches up with the curve of her back and her head lowered by shrinkage in her spine. We found one at the Stickley sale, not another Stickley piece but a fat comfy leather chair with plenty of back and head support, a nice ottoman, and a sale price far below list. Happy birthday! Every 74 old woman deserves a decent chair, am I right?
On the way over to the Audi Stickley store we drove along Co. 470 East. Which goes south. Confuses me every time. This divided highway, an incomplete ring road around the Denver metro, has been under construction since we got here in 2014. Like many civil engineering projects there is a lot of soil piled up in various places, barriers, zigzagging lanes, changing speed limits and concrete barriers on both shoulders. Trucks move on and off the narrow lanes. Instead of the neverending story, this is neverending road construction.
Kate made peach honey from Western Slope peaches we bought a week or so ago. A big lug. Ha. Looks beautiful. I’ll have to take a picture and post it here.
Over to Beth Evergreen. Down the mountain, around the curves, into Evergreen. Past the Catholic Church on 74 where a huge elk bull and a harem of maybe 40 cows and calves hung around on the church lawn like bikini clad women on a beach. We’re not to the rut yet, that comes in late September and October.
At the synagogue Rabbi Jamie and Alan were a bit late so I helped Leah, the executive director, unpack the new, padded folding chairs for the social hall. We’re getting new chairs for the sanctuary and will no longer store the additional chairs in the social hall. That will be a big improvement.
When Jamie and Alan arrived, we had a brief meeting with Tara, director of education. Alan and I have a September 5th family session with parents of b’nai mitzvah age kids and the kids. The new curriculum that we’re using focuses on the emotional and developmental needs of the kids rather than emphasizing learning of prayers and Hebrew. This will be, I understand, controversial.
In the teacher workshop that followed that meeting Jamie said something I found very interesting. It went something like this: Public schools focus on subjects, learning math, art, literature. Finding out what content appeals to you. Religious schools should focus on the self. Discovering yourself and how you fit in to the larger world. The new curriculum conforms well to this pedagogy, but as you can see it puts student personal development over particular content, apparently a big change for religious school.
Found myself feeling dull during the workshop. There were five teachers: Karen, Debra, Alan, Cheri, and myself plus Tara and Jamie. I know all these people well except Cheri. She’s new, a former resident of Israel. That carries a certain cache in Jewish life. On reflection my dullness may have been a low grade anxiety. A lot of Hebrew. These are all Jews. A lot of understood subject matter. I’m better there, but still my learning curve is steep. Having to imagine how I’m going to teach and do it well in an environment where education is very important.
I don’t think this anxiety will pass until I’ve actually taught a few classes and have a better feel for how that works, specifically how I will work in that setting. Don’t like feeling dull.
Kate. Naikan practice.
Lughnasa Waning Summer Moon
Kate’s not having a good week. Yesterday was especially bad, enough so that she considered going to the emergency room. Or, to the hospital. That thought, born more I think of frustration than any particular worsening of her symptoms, gives you a sense of how this series of insults effects her.
Jon picked up Gabe from Mussar yesterday. It was his Meet the Teacher evening at Swigert Elementary. When I asked him how these things were, he said, “boring.” I imagine so.
Mussar was interesting. We did a Jodo Shinsu Buddhism practice called naikan. It involves asking yourself three questions, then writing as detailed an answer as you can for each of them. Traditionally, the three questions start off with your mother. What did my mother do for me? What did I do for my mother? What trouble did I cause her? Over time you can add father, siblings, work, nature, whatever can be explored with these questions. After you write down the answers, in a naikan retreat, a person will come and interview you; that is, they will listen to you read your answers out loud with no comment, no interaction. They are there only as a witness. Sort of like the 4th step in AA.
A variation on this theme that Rabbi Rami Shapiro uses is to ask yourself these related questions just before going to sleep: What gifts did I receive today? What gifts did I give today? What trouble did I cause today? I did it last night and found it soothing.
We’ve been exploring, too, the link between suffering, acknowledging the suffering of others or our own, not trying to fix it, just acknowledging it and the apparently strange link between that practice and happiness. Frequent readers know happiness is not much on my menu. I prefer eudaimonia, human flourishing. Still, the point is the same. Our flourishing is not about a life without suffering. It’s about a life that engages and embraces suffering, does not push it away, yet does not become consumed by it.
I struggle with wanting to fix Kate’s nausea or just being with her as she goes through its impact on her life. Like most, I think, I do a bit of both. Chronic illness presents the greatest challenge here. The suffering continues. My ability to be present for her waxes and wanes with my own feelings of vulnerability, frustration. I want, simultaneously, to wave that unavailable magic wand and hold her hand. Tough. At best.
Ah. Finally. An emergency where I could be of assistance
Lughnasa Waning Summer Moon
Becoming Emo
Lughnasa Waning Summer Moon
Got up with Kate at 2:45 am, went upstairs in the dark (to preserve night vision) and out on the deck attached to the house. We watched the NNE sky for about a half an hour and on the peak night of this much ballyhooed annual running of the Perseids saw 3 meteors. 3. It was a clear, beautiful night and stars dotted the sky. The Milky Way swept across its dome carrying souls of many cultures to the world beyond this one. And we were out there together. Glad the Perseids got us up. Might try again tonight.
My shift to emo continues. Still strange, but becoming more, what, usual? Ruth, Jon, and Gabe came up around 8 pm last night to drop off Gabe for the week. The start of his school year is out of synch with Jen and Jon’s. They’re back at work, but he has another week to go before school starts. Ruth’s school, though in the same Denver school district as Gabe’s, started last week. McAuliffe middle school marches to its own drummer, just like Ruth.
Ruth had a lot to say about school. She’s excited, loves school. And I love her. Her presence warms up my day, makes me very happy to be a grandad, to have a role in her life. She’s in honors math, mindfulness and meditation, Chinese, art, life sciences and will run cross country this year. I couldn’t be more excited about her life if she was my own child.
Jon’s still working out the sequelae from the divorce. He spent, he said, the last couple of years trying to manage the stress. He’s gotten out of shape, hasn’t handled his diabetes as well as he normally does. His house is a work in process and will be, I suspect, for a couple of years, maybe more. Adapting to being a single parent, in a divorce situation where he can only communicate with Jen, his ex, by email is difficult, too. No wonder the U of happiness troughs out in the 40’s and 50’s. Better times ahead.
Gabe’s on a new drug for his hemophilia now. It only requires a weekly subcutaneous injection and keeps his factor level steady with no canyons and peaks. This is brand new medication. He’s only on it because he can no longer have a port. He’s working on a fifth grade project, at his initiation, on racism. Fifth grade culminates in a project and his has a focus on race from the perspective of African-Americans. I’m going to help him with some research.
This is love. Family is an exercise in life cycles, with various family members beginning or ending cycles that others have been through. The interactions between and among the cycles makes family life dynamic and a reservoir of wisdom and hope. Struggles and joys, achievements and failures, emerge and subside. During each one we are there for each other. As it has been across human culture for thousands of years.