• Category Archives Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

  • Life in its brilliance and in its everdayness

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: My passport. The post office. Kristie today. Acting class tonight. The Heat and the Nuggets. The Monaco Grand Prix. Max Verstappen. Fernando Alonso. Esteban Oco. My son and his wife. Fever in the Heart Land. Thanks, Ode. A quiet, restorative Memorial Day. A good workout. Korea on the schedule. Israel getting closer to dialed in. Ecuador still in the planning phase. All the poems coming in from the Ancient Brothers. Ritual ideas.  Acting class tonight. Diane in Indiana.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Great Sol, lighting up a Shadow Mountain Morning

    One brief shining: Or, the Great Soul, Sol, source of light, source of power, source and sustainer of life itself why shouldn’t the Human soul, the Animal soul, the Plant soul, the Mountain soul be like their progenitor brilliant, a source of sustenance and warmth, a source of chi, a source of energy, yet every so often eclipsed by the turning of our inner lives, still there yes, waiting only for what Jews call teshuvah, a return to the ohr, the light of the sacred within us and to our sacred path, this orbit around our true God.

     

    Got to get going, pick up my passport from its safe spot at the Ken Caryl branch of Wells Fargo. Safety deposit box. In case of fire, down the hill. Going to eat breakfast out, come home and try to take down the last outstanding bill, then talk to Kristie, my oncology P.A.

    I’ve succeeded in reducing $14,000 worth of medical bills to $240. A victory although one I shouldn’t have had to win. One refractory $429 bill. Turned over for collection. Nope. Have disputed it, am disputing it, will dispute it until they back down. Could tell you the story, but trust me it’s only about one hand not knowing what the other one is doing.

    A day of life chores. You know the kind. They come up like whack a mole. As you finish off one round of them, another few arise. By 76 you’ve seen them come and go, talking of Michelangelo. Even the most persistent and troublesome of them get dealt with, fade into the blob of things past no longer necessary to consider. I wear my trousers rolled while whacking each mole.

     

    I’m loving the Sunshine, the blue Sky, the warmth of approaching Summer. Thought  yesterday though. Would I love the summer without the backdrop of winter? Could I tell the good without the bad? Would I know beauty without the ugly? I know we wouldn’t need a word for justice without injustice. Rasputin belonged to a Russian sect that believed the more you sinned the more God was able to bestow grace upon you. That’s the sort of rationalization that makes for a strange life.

     

    Nuggets versus the Heat. I’m excited. Might try to find a tv package that will let me watch the NBA finals. I love basketball. And F1. Watched the whole Monaco Grand Prix yesterday. Wow. That Max Verstappen. Is. A. Monster.

     


    Acting Family Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Great Wheel Health Hermitage Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Shadow Mountain Sport Weather +Climate

  • Entheos

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Mesa View Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Curiosity. The Ancient Brothers. Mark and Dennis. Coming May 23rd. Yet more Rain. Even more swollen Streams. Ancientrails as a life project. Tom and his time with Charlie H. Bill and his time with Bella. Mark and his time at the gym. Anytime Fitness. My treadmill. Marilyn. Ginnie. Josh. Jane. Kat. A banker. Vulcan Centaur.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rocket Scientists

    One brief shining: A beautiful woman with a long braid dangling over her t-shirt down to her space themed spandex had, on the back of the blue t-shirt an outline of the Vulcan Centaur rocket, on the front ULA and I asked, I’m too ignorant to know but is that a real rocket ship?

     

    Yes. She answered. And I was working on it until I quit my job a year and a half ago. What was your area of expertise? Vibration and acoustics. Oh. I see. Not sure why I keep running into engineers. But I do.

    CBE is amazing. All these smart people. This was at the Dismantling Racism class yesterday afternoon. Looked up the Vulcan Centaur and it’s been under development since 2014. Supposed to fly for the first time in July. Had a setback a month ago though with a second stage explosion during preparation for a launch.

    The class has gotten better. Taking a mussar approach to the work. I like it for the inner work though I chose an opponent for my practice this week. Four areas of possible practice each week: with HaShem (God), with Self, with a fellow, especially a victim of anti-black racism, or with an opponent.

    My practice involved an e-mail to a person with whom I’ve had long standing differences. Sent it last night and got a reply this morning. A sweet one. Maybe there’s something to this approach. The middah this week is kavod, or honor. Honoring self and other. The theological idea is the all made in God’s image trope. Said another way, we’re all human, all riding this blue spaceship our only home together with all the other critters and plants. Honor it all.

     

    During the Ancient Brothers session on curiosity I identified curiosity as my defining characteristic. And naming what I call the valedictory lifestyle. As a valedictorian myself I’ve occasionally become curious (see!) about what happens to others who graduate first in their class academically. Turns out usually nothing spectacular. Sure a lot go into academics. Some have successful careers in business or the sciences.

    But usually no stars. No one off achievements. No amazing inventions. Why? Because we’re generalists. We easily get sidetracked by something new and shiny. If purity of heart is to will one thing, we’re not at all pure.

    I call them enthusiasms. My enthusiasms can last a long time. Religion has turned out to be the longest lasting, but inside that broad category I’ve been all over the place. From existentialist atheist to Christian to Unitarian-Universalist to Pagan and wanderer with the tribe. There’s a piece of each of these, often substantial pieces that remain intact within me. All somehow glued together with Taoism.

    There’ve been many others. Art, my twelve years at the MIA. Politics, lasting almost as long as religion, but again all over the place in terms of action. Islam which I studied after 9/11. Horticulture. Cooking. Heating with wood. Beekeeping. Dogs. World travel. F1. Science. Tarot and Astrology. Cinema. Acting. Writing. Getting degrees. Tea. Korean and now Spanish. Oh, and one that actually has been lifelong, reading. Not sure when I learned but I’ve never ever stopped. Buying books, too. To feed the habit. I’ve dabbled in painting and sum-e.

    Enthusiasms in my life are more than dabbling but less than enough to gain full mastery. But I must admit it’s been, is being, a hell of lot of fun.

     

     

     

     


    Acting Art and Culture Asia Bees Commentary on Religion Cooking Dogs Family Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Fungi Garden GeekWorld Great Wheel Great Work Hawai'i Health Hermitage Humanities Judaism Kabbalah Korea Latin Letters Literature Mountains Mussar Painting Photography Plants Poetry Politics Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Science Shadow Mountain Sierra Club Sport Tarot Tea The West Travel Weather +Climate Woolly Mammoths Writing

  • So it has been and so it shall be

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Mesa View Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Rain. Rain. Rain. Floods. Full Creeks and Streams. The greening of the Mountains. Can allergies be far behind? Rebecca. Joann. Tal. Dismantling Racism from the Inside Out. Marilyn and Jamie. My son and his wife. Murdoch. Getting on a jet plane. For the Far East. Today. The World in all its distinctiveness and all its connectedness. All my relations.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ancientrails

    One brief shining: Snow packs, Rains pound, from the top of Shadow Mountain, of Black Mountain, of Conifer Mountain, of Berrigan Mountain the Sun shines and melts the Snow, the Rain accelerates the melt and the Streams, Maxwell Creek, Cub Creek, Shadow Brook, North Turkey Creek, Kate’s Creek, flood spilling over into wetlands, high marsh grasses welcoming their abundance as they roll on into Bear Creek, widening its banks, carrying Soil and Pebbles and Rocks on their way to the North Fork of the South Platte and on to the great World Ocean.

     

    In media deluge. We’ve had Snow and we’ve had Rain. And the Rains will come again. Tonight. Tomorrow night. And the night after that. And the night after that. Keeping that Smoky the Bear sign pegged right where we want it: Low fire danger. Mostly good news. The not so good part is that Rain promotes greening. Grasses. Flowers. Shrubs. Plants considered out of place, i.e. Weeds. As long as they remain green. Fine. But once the Rains dry up and they turn brown.

    Driving down to Evergreen the other day I had trouble keeping my eyes on the road as I looked over to Maxwell Creek which drains the northwestern Slopes of Shadow Mountain. Muddy and full, it rippled and raged where it didn’t pool in grassy areas alongside it. The strange mix of culverts some concrete, some ribbed metal, some made of rock both hid and revealed the power of the water.

    Noticing a particular culvert, a one piece concrete structure with a rhomboid opening maybe 5 feet high, I saw Maxwell race through it in a torrent, spilling out of the opening in a manmade waterfall. The creek itself was only a foot deep at the most. The rest of the height serving to support a bridge for the property above it.

    At various points formerly dry Grasslands now served as basins for an expanded Creek. Functioning ecosystems taking some of the  Water’s power and distributing it over a wider area, taking also some of the particulates and building the Marsh. The unleashed force diminished for a bit.

    Orogeny. Geology speak for Mountain building. These Mountain Streams are its opposite. The deconstructive forces of Pachamama, sending nourishment to Deltas far away from our spot here on Shadow Mountain.

    Alan Watt wrote Tao: The Watercourse Way. Driving up here in these late Spring days the Tao is not invisible. It is palpable. The water goes where it can, goes where it must, and if blocked will work to unblock itself without losing hope or purpose.

    Taoism remains the most salient way of understanding our place in the World, this one life we get as this consciousness. For me. Our lives are Water Courses racing down the days and weeks and months and years toward the Collective Unconscious, the Ocean of All Souls. Along the way we go where we can, we go where we must and, if blocked we work to unblock ourselves.

    Each of us a Stream running down the Mountain that is this Reality in this spot of the Universe, taking bits and pieces of it along with us to enrich Deltas far away and out of sight. So it has been and so it shall be.


    Colorado Great Wheel Jefferson County Mountains Plants Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Shadow Mountain Weather +Climate World History

  • The Good Boy

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Mesa View Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Waste. Trash bags. Cardboard. Coffee. Water. My phone alarm. Erleada. Orgovyx. Each machine at Anytime Fitness. Bunch Grass. Aspen Buds. All the little Allergens getting ready to burst forth. A Mountain Morning, cool and bright. Recycling. Blizzaks. Off. Synthetic oil. In. New battery. New cabin air filter. Brakes still good. All seasons on. Charlie, the chocolate Lab.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Jackie, my hair stylist

    One brief, shining: Jackie, curly hair tall in her cowgirl boots smiles when I come around the corner and can see her through her Aspen Roots picture window, working on someone’s hair, yet able to pause for a greeting which makes me feel warm, loved.

     

    Been trying to tap into my inner critic, the Judge. Always ready to evaluate, parse, deliver a verdict. On just about everything. That jerk who pulled in front of me. My mistake when matching Korean Hangul with its English equivalents. When I overcook or undercook. When I forget something I know I know. That damned neighbor who lets their trash blow into my yard.

    You probably have one, too. Da Judge. Almighty. Black robe. Big gavel. Stentorian voice. Brooks no challenge. In my instance I first thought after interrogating myself that the Judge had my father’s voice. That was an intellectual conclusion. I mean, it must have been him, right?

    Wrong.

    It was the Good Boy. Woah. Didn’t see that one coming. Here’s how I tumbled to him. When I’m late for an appointment, any appointment, I will drive a bit more recklessly. Go around curves a bit faster. Speed. Some. I feel a tension, a sense that I’m making a mistake, one that I have to avoid if at all possible. I’m not crazy then, I still try to drive carefully, just faster. And, it often works.

    Yet I don’t feel safe. Or, I realized in an aha, legal. Hmm. Who was behind this? He popped up like a whack-a-mole. Not visible in my inner world for long. So I waited. Yep, he came up again when I saw I would almost make my 8:30 appointment at Stevenson Toyota. 8:33. Yes. He paused for a big fist pump. That’s when I caught him.

    The Good Boy. I’d named him a few weeks back when I was somewhere I can’t recall, but I had remarked to an older woman that I was just trying to be a good boy. Oh she smiled-I remember that-and said, you are a good boy.

    How silly I remember musing. Wanting to be a good boy at 76. Hair all white. Collagen skipped out. Boyhood long, long, long past.

    But no. The Good Boy in me and the Judge are the same person. Sometimes, like in the driving instance, the Good Boy finds himself in tension between Good Boy rules: Show up on time. It’s respectful. Says something about you. And. Follow the traffic laws. They’re there so driving is not chaos, dangerous. For our common good. Also why I’m mad when somebody drives dangerously. He or She SHOULD NOT endanger me for their own selfish reasons.

    I made a list of Good Boy rules:

    A Good Boy takes care of those he loves.

    A Good Boy always does preventive maintenance.

    A Good Boy takes care of the dogs in his life.

    A Good Boy does not kill the dogs in his life

    A Good Boy keeps a clean house.

    A Good Boy obeys traffic laws.

    A Good Boy takes care of his health.

    A Good Boy does not eat fast food.

    A Good Boy eats well.

    A Good Boy reads a lot. Always learning.

    A Good Boy only watches television in the evening.

    A Good Boy works out.

    A Good Boy uses time well.

    A Good Boy fights for justice always.

    A Good Boy protects Pacha Mama, mother earth.

    A Good Boy hikes.

    A Good Boy does not criticize others except gently.

    I’m sure there are many more Good Boy rules I haven’t tumbled too yet. It’s been a long life. These rules constitute an internal deontological ethic. A rule based way of determining if something is good or bad. If the Good Boy does not hike, he’s being bad. If the Good Boy works on Dismantling Racism, he’s being good.

    A big problem with rule based ethics is that they can and often do develop rules that come into conflict with one another. Show up on time. Yet follow traffic laws. A Good Boy works out. Except when he can’t. A Good Boy doesn’t make mistakes when studying. Except he does if he wants to learn. A Good Boy wants to be a gentle and forgiving critic of others. Except when the other violates a Good Boy rule. All the exceptions produce tension.

    In the instance of euthanizing Kep I stood over him when Dr. Doverspike came in the room. Those syringes. Oh. I loved Kep. I care for him. I can’t be the one who kills him. I want to be with him. I can’t kill him. Unresolvable.

    My conscious ethics are not deontological. I’m more of a situational ethicist though I have a strong touch of the teleological when it comes to matters of justice. Not gonna go into this because I’ve gone on too long today.

    The Self. Our Selves participate in a unity that is bounded by our body, yet each self is a distinct and unique part of us, too. Like all the universe. My situational ethicist Self knows and embraces without judgment the tension I felt over Kep’s final illness. He also knows and often overrules Good Boy rules.

    But when I’m acting from the below the shadow line of consciousness the Good Boy often steps in and makes decisions. Whether I’m ok with them or not.

     


    Feelings Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

  • Microdosing

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Mesa View Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Miami Grand Prix. Sacred objects. The Most Ancient and Proud Brothers. Psilocybin. CBE. Dismantling Racism. Depth. This time. Anger/Patience. K’ass and Savlanut. Simcha. Joy. Ed Brill. Comedian. Laughing. Ginnie. Ron. Alan. Cheri. Tara. Suzy and Pete. Josh. Those Mountain Streams, full. The Ponderosa Pines lower down. Their beautiful Bark and Branches. Tall.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Community

    One brief, shining: Took another microdose of psilocybin yesterday and it moved into me with subtlety and power, creating a slight aura of light and deepening my vision, especially into the Trees, the silent gentle guardians of our Mountain World, and as I considered them my feet became Roots, spreading like Rhyzomes into the Soil beneath my feet, my spine and upper torso lengthened as I reached toward the Sky, feeling minute movements in the Air around me, feeling a Squirrel run up my Trunk, and a Robin land on one of my Branches, until I stopped growing for a moment, standing there knowing why I had chosen this spot for my eternal home.

     

    Psilocybin is so gentle. Each time I’ve used it. It feels like an inner deep massage, muscles relaxing while sensory input sharpens. And it attunes me to plant life. Set and setting, I suppose. Timothy O’Leary’s contribution to the field of psychedelic research.* Plants have been and still are so important to me. These friends. Wild neighbors, too.

    The Lodgepoles and Aspens that line my every drive whether to Evergreen or to Aspen Park. Corridors defined by and watched by Trees. The Lodgepoles and Aspens add to their number Ponderosa Pines, Colorado Blue Spruce, White Pine, Willows, Red Osier Dogwood as the Mountain Valleys descend from the top of Shadow Mountain.

    The Trees observe, feel our passing. Shade us. Breathe out Oxygen, take in our  CO2. Yet we treat them as things. To cut. To remove. To use in building our homes and places of work. It occurred to me that every tree is Shel Silverstein’s Giving Tree. Giving of itself to us until we take all from it. Yet growing again, and again, and again.

    I stand with them. Plant Trees. Love them and they will love you back.

     

    Agnostic.** Pagan. In relation to ideas of God in any religion, I am agnostic. In relation to where I find divinity and sacredness, I am pagan. As I demonstrated above. My sense of God is the inner divinity to whom I bow when I say namaste. In that sense I am a polytheist with 7,942,645,085 other Gods in my pantheon. I could easily increase that number by each Tree on Earth. Each Elephant. Each Dog. Each Mackerel and Krill. Each drop of Water, each tongue of Fire, each inch of Soil, and all of the Sky. Yet I am no pantheist.

    Why? While I believe in an ultimate unity of all things, I do not believe in an homogenization of all things by using any concept as inherent in everything. In fact I believe that God, in the sense I’m using it, creates, emphasizes, celebrates uniqueness. The great mystery is the powerful, the wonderful combinatory affect of all this uniqueness into one pulsing living whole.

    Nothing is outside it. Nothing is rejected. Everything is held in its sacredness, in its true divinity without sacrificing its own distinctiveness. Matter is energy. Energy is matter. When one shifts to the other, the divinity, the sacredness it carries is not lost but transferred. How could it not be? Therefore the distinctiveness which it has created remains as it shifts in form and kind.

    I suppose I could argue, maybe I am arguing that this proves a life beyond death. Maybe. Who knows? Kate. Kep. Dad. Mom. Regina. They know.

     

     

     

    *Set and setting respectively refer to the internal and external factors that influence your psychedelic experience. “Set” is a reflection of your inner climate—your mood, personality, beliefs, perceptions, and so on. “Setting” refers to all that’s going on outside, such as the people around you and their behaviors, the music playing, the smells and weather in the air, even the cultural forces that aren’t as readily visible. Bailey Elyse, Double Blind, Oct. 2, 2020

     

    **agnostic (n.)

    1870, “one who professes that the existence of a First Cause and the essential nature of things are not and cannot be known” [Klein]; coined by T.H. Huxley, supposedly in September 1869, from Greek agnostos “unknown, unknowable,” from a- “not” (see a- (3)) + gnōstos “(to be) known” (from PIE root *gno- “to know”). The coinage is sometimes said to be a reference to Paul’s mention of the altar to “the Unknown God” in Acts, but according to Huxley it was a reference to the early Church movement known as Gnosticism (see Gnostic). The adjective also is from 1870.

    I … invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of ‘agnostic,’ … antithetic to the ‘Gnostic’ of Church history who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant. [T.H. Huxley, “Science and Christian Tradition,” 1889]

    The agnostic does not simply say, “I do not know.” He goes another step, and he says, with great emphasis, that you do not know. [Robert G. Ingersoll, “Reply to Dr. Lyman Abbott,” 1890]  etymonline

     


    Fungi Plants Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Shadow Mountain

  • Going Nowhere

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Mesa View Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Tom. Rebecca. Diane. Going Nowhere. Maui. Shadow Mountain. The heart and its journeys. Joy. Simcha. Kate and her yellow roses. Jon’s prints. Gabe and his guitar. Ruth and her art. Kep, my sweet boy. Rigel, my sweet girl. Living alone, but not lonely. Dave and Anytime Fitness.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Simcha

    One brief, shining moment: Ram Dass after his stroke made a short film, Going Nowhere, and watching it last night before bed the title burrowed into my heart-mind (lev) and released my soul, freeing it from need, from desire, from the ache of producing, not bad for thirty minutes of TV. (Thanks, Tom.)

     

    Yeah. So simple. The best stuff is. Going Nowhere. But home. And, my favorite Ram Dass quote: We’re all just walking each other home. Yes. Sink into that idea, that feeling, that koan. And find the via negativa.

    Embrace the way of no way. Walk the path of no path. Live the life of no ambition. For in the literal end we are all going nowhere. Except home. Kate is home. Regina is home. Kep is home. Rigel is home. And, in some paradoxical way that I do not understand, so am I.

    Here is also a truth. I do not find my no path to nowhere following Ram Dass. I do not need or want a guru. A Hanuman. Though I admit I would enjoy living in his house. I have found my own via negativa.

    Didn’t recognize it until that phrase going nowhere pinged around in mind like a pinball shot by Tommy, the deaf dumb and blind kid. Yes. The Great Wheel. It goes nowhere turning always back to its beginnings, the same seasons, the same celebrations, the same holidays, the same Earth, the same Winds and Weather, the same life coming up from the Soil, the same Fallow time when we all need to rest.

    We all go nowhere from the start. From birth we could know the release of life’s journey home because we experience it over and over. If we wanted, we could celebrate our birthdays as our unique marker on the via negativa that is the Great Wheel. We take our journey around Sol and return to the same spot. Having gone nowhere. (I bracket the movements of the Solar System and the Milky Way because they too are going nowhere.)

    Each year we live is a rehearsal for our journey home. No. Not a rehearsal. A lived experience of the via negativa. What a thing to acknowledge on our birthdays! All the striving and sorrow, all the anger and love, all the joys and learnings, all going nowhere as we have done each year. A true and lasting journey to nowhere. The real ancientrail.

    The ineffable journey home. No. Not ineffable. We train for it each year. If we could embrace the changed seasons, the changing seasons, as our teachers, our guides on the way to mystery, the mystery would reveal itself to us.

    The fallow time is now my time, heading toward my own Winter Solstice, the great and final dark night of my soul’s ancientrail in this earthly instance.


    Cinema and Television Feelings Fourth Phase Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

  • Memory Foam and Vibrant Matter

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Septic and Waste. Ruth. Gabe. Probate. My son’s diligence. Kate, always Kate. That Tempurpedic mattress. Sleep. The changing of the times. Kep’s good appetite. Taxes finished. Beau Jo’s pizza. Finished. A workout day. Vibrant Matter. Assemblages. Conatus. Aporetic. Learning new words. ChatbotGPT4. Fun. Resting heart rate getting lower. Dreams. Playfulness. Snow and Cold coming.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Probate and my son

     

    Didn’t expect this. Rotated the Tempurpedic mattress Kate and I bought around Thanksgiving of 2015. Settled in the other night for sleep. Realized that this memory foam mattress contained imprints of Kate’s body. And I was lying on top of them. Felt good. Much like life in the house. The imprints of her life and mine are everywhere, from the collection of specialized kitchen utensils to the small glass Turtle on the new home office shelf. Her sewing room now a dining room. The Portmerion plates, bowls, serving platters. Bought on our honeymoon in London. The oriental rug she bought for her townhouse. Jerry’s two big paintings. Imprinted. In my heart. Imprinted forever. Her memory a blessing.

    Ruth has decided she wants to go to CU Boulder, get a BFA with a concentration on printmaking. This is a change from Cornell for a Pharm.D. which has been her focus for the last couple of years. And she may change again. And yet again. She is, after all, sixteen, soon to be seventeen. The time of wide swings in interests, goals, dreams. May she find herself, her focus, her own way when it’s time.

    Meanwhile Gabe’s wrestling with facial hair, dead lifting two hundred pounds, and trying to get his GPA up to a B this semester so I’ll take him to Benihana.

    Next month is birthday month for this pair. Ruth on the 4th and Gabe on the 22nd, Earthday. Brother Mark’s birthday on the 11th and Dad’s on the 12th, the date of Kate’s death. Also Kate’s second yahrzeit. Gabe will turn 15. A big month for family.

     

    Read chapter 2 of Vibrant Matter. Jane Bennett uses a big Electric grid blackout in 2003 to demonstrate how vibrant matter can act within what she calls an assemblage and affect both human communities and other assemblages. The notion of vibrant matter for her entails a new way of understanding accountability in the political and legal spheres.

    Though Enron played a role in this blackout so did the deregulation of the electric grid, changing the rules so power generated in Ohio could be sold to homes in California. More. The behavior of Electricity itself. When running through a grid on its way to a more distant destination Electricity might follow the path set out in the contracts or it might choose to follow a different route. In this case it did, creating on its own a loop of Electricity running through the grid in Ohio and other near by states. In the end it was a complex interaction of vibrant matter, Electricity, Trees falling on transmission wires, Wildfire, legislation, corporate greed, and the building out of exurbs that created the blackout.

    This understanding of vibrant matter as what Benett calls an actant changes the legal considerations for assigning blame. A fascinating approach to what I might call animism or paganism.

     


    Family Feelings Fourth Phase Politics Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. US History

  • A Psychedelic Old Age Anyone?

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc and the Waiting To Cross Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Movies. Women Talking. TV. New Amsterdam. On Joy, Season 4, episode 1. The Last of Us. Finale. Furball Cleaning. CJ Box. James Pogue. Anarchy. Political Violence. Decivilization. Michael Pollan. How to Change Your Mind. The Plant Magic Cafe in Denver. Keens. Ruth and Gabe this afternoon. Taxes. It’s time. Silicon Valley Bank. Vibrant Matter.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: ChatbotGPT

     

    This week. One eye exam. Two radiation treatments. Three visits with friends. And a Peruvian glazed chicken breakfast for supper. Almost Christmas. Gotta figure out my playlist for the Cyberknife. Coltrane. The Band. Cool jazz. The Blues. The Goldburg Variations. Not sure.

    Yes, there’s a bit of absurdity to my life. It veers from the sublime to the profane and back again. Wait a minute. That’s everybody’s life isn’t it? One moment we’re watching our grandson make his uneasy way across the floor to us and the next we’re paying bills. Getting on a jet plane for that much needed vacation. Stuffing the grocery list in our pocket and heading out to Safeway or Lunds.

    We can’t afford to stay in one state too long. Neither the mundane or the profound. Not built for it. A continuous state of ecstasy would drive us mad. Too much of the quotidian dulls us, pulls under. We all need to work on our ecstatic to the ordinary balance.

    That’s why I plan to head into the Plant Magic Cafe someday soon. See if there’s someone who can help me find a willing source for some psilocybin. It’s been a minute for me. It’s now legal in Colorado to receive a gift of psilocybin. And to have it in your possession. But you can’t buy it.

    Not that that’s the only source of ecstasy for me. Dream world. Hiking in the Mountains. Reading a great poem. Discovering new ideas. Deep conversations with friends. Writing. Even so. It is one and I want to go again.

    There was this time, you see. Long ago and far away. But not so long ago, really. When students opposed a stupid war. Men walked on the Moon. And there were drugs to help you find your own way among the stars. The music, too. That wonderful music. We did slip the surly bonds of normal life. A time when the ecstatic to the ordinary balance tipped toward the ecstatic.

    We lived it. Some of us. Then many of us, most of us, allowed the lapping Waters of work and family to serve as a constant draught from Lethe. We never fully forgot though. A bit of Tinkerbell’s dust remained caught in our hair.

    No. I don’t want to go back to a psychedelic age of protest and up the establishment. That was college. This is old age. What I want is a psychedelic old age. And protest? Of course. Always. Up the establishment? Never quit on that one. Or the protest either for that matter.

    Thing is I can’t stay up late lying on the floor with my head between the speakers and the Doors cranking out Riders on the Storm.

    What’s that look like? A psychedelic old age. About to find out.


    Beyond the Boundaries Feelings Fourth Phase Memories Politics Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. US History

  • Birthing a New Worldview?

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

    Saturday gratefuls: Dr. Doverspike. Kep. Acupuncture. Salmon. The lick mat. Powder on the way. Back country skiing. Snow today. Black Mountain white. Dawn. Tom in Mendocino. His 75th today. Happy birthday, Tom. Cafe Beaujolais. Doug the Painter. Marilyn and Irv. The 60’s are not dead. Psilocybin. Mescaline. LSD. Ayahuasca. Peyote. Good friends, in depth conversations. Ruth calling me yesterday.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth’s call

     

    Brunch with Marilyn and Irv at Aspen Perks. We discussed the Alan Lightman PBS series: Searching: A quest for meaning in the age of science. We all found Lightman’s emphasis on the journeys of specific Atoms from Supernovas to Solar system formation to Planets to life to us and back out again after death reassuring. Yes. And we also thought his reductionist materialism left out an important perspective. A world beyond, within, in addition to this one we can know with our sensorium. Dreams. Hallucinogens. Mystical experience. Emergent phenomena as evidence, including consciousness. The John Cleese moderated University of Virginia panel on reincarnation.

    We also discussed family, grandkids, and dream work that happens at CBE. Gonna join the dream work group.

     

    Dr. Doverspike came to see Kep at 2. He agrees that Kep’s recovery is slower and less obvious than he had hoped. Could be some spinal issues, too. He believes we’ve handled the pain and may (he hopes, me too) be looking at a need to strengthen muscles. That will be easier once Kep can move freely in the yard, but that won’t happen for another month or so. Snow.

    Kep seems happier, more alert. Pain under control. He also stands taller when he’s not exhausted.  I’m willing to go a full month to see if we can generate better results. I did move Kep’s food downstairs.

    Doverspike is off to the interior Mountains today hunting for powder.

     

    Started a fascinating book yesterday by Jane Bennett, Professor of Political Theory and chair of the Department of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. Vibrant Matter. She’s arguing for what she calls the active participation of nonhuman forces in events. Thing-power. “I will try to give voice to a vitality intrinsic to materiality, in the process absolving matter from its long history of attachment to automatism or mechanism.” p. 3

    I’m reading it as part of my project of understanding the New Right and as part of my Becoming a Pagan project. There’s an odd and uneasy convergence between the two. It may be only the sound of rebellion against received wisdom, but there may be more, too. I’m beginning to wonder if the forces threatening to drive our nation apart might have deeper, more profound roots than has been noticed so far.

    Those roots might have fertile soil in a rethinking of the influence of the Enlightenment and the role of science in our daily and political lives. In other words we may be trying to birth a post-enlightenment worldview. One that honors science and rationality, but dethrones it from an imperial position to a collaborative one. A lot going on here. Only have a partial toe in the water.


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  • Being Alive, Being Alive

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Kep, my 5:30 guy. Dr. Doverspike. My son. Jen. Ruth. Gabe. Stars. Searching. for meaning. Meaning. Purpose. Eudaimonia. Life. The cycle of life. The interdependent web of all Souls. The deep Ocean of connected life and collective memory. Our desire to know, to learn, to love. Compassion. Humility. Boundaries. Books. Movies. Paintings and sculpture.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Brain

     

    Zoom. Facebook. The telephone. Television. Inadequate, each in their own way, when compared to face-to-face, body-to-body encounters. Yes. But I would miss them if they were gone. Zoom allows me to keep up with folks I care about but cannot see face-to-face very often, if at all. It allows me to have powerful moments of connection every Sunday morning with my Ancient Brothers. Facebook. At a less connected level I see old high school friends. What their life contains. Our lives turning over at the same rate. All 76 now. College friends long dispersed throughout the country. Even CBE friends when they travel.

    Would I give up my breakfast with Rich this Friday? My lunch on the same day with Alan? Thursday mussar. MVP once a month? Of course not. And those encounters are richer. Needed. Loved. Rebecca is back from India and I look forward to seeing her soon. Tal and Luke have their own late twenty-something arcs to their lives. And I’m part of all these.

    We love to find the downsides. Especially to technology. The ways it robs us of something. I see the upsides. Perhaps it is the solitary life I lead at home. Which I want, need, love. Yet solitary with no desire for isolation. In the average week I prefer to have the predominance of my hours experienced alone. But not all of them.

    A break while I fed Kep led me to this observation. Wonder if we’re confusing correlation with causality in the instance of Zoom and social media. Stipulated: they’re not as good as fleshly encounters. But. What if the deficits we ascribe to them are the result of too little human interaction, not the medium? If that were the case, the prescription would not be to have less zoom or Facebook, rather more fleshly meetups. And use Zoom and social media when you can’t. This feels true to me.

     

    All righty then. Having said that let us to turn to other matters. Like the capture of the GOP by Trump’s base. Which may not save him in this campaign for the nomination. But. Which will make all GOP candidates do obeisance to the hard right constituents in their state or congressional district. What will this mean for the 2024 campaign/election cycle? Unclear for now, but it could divide the GOP into a moderate (sort of) camp, think Mitt Romney and the Proud Boy, insurrection crowd. Gonna be messy.

     

    Watching a PBS series, Searching: Our Quest for Meaning in the Age of Science. Alan Lightman has a sort of Saganesque persona and speaks in the oracular voice that we’ve come to expect from scientists in serious documentaries. I don’t find him convincing.

    His quest for meaning is earnest. A bit too earnest for my taste. He’s apparently never wondered if he’s asking the right question. For example. A couple of Joseph Campbell quotes on meaning.

    Joseph Campbell: “There’s no meaning. What’s the meaning of the universe? What’ s the meaning of a flea? It’s just there. That’s it. And your own meaning is that you’re there.”

    Joseph Campbell: “I don’t think [the meaning of life] is what we’re seeking. I think [it’s] an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”

    Lightman does make an interesting observation at the end of the third session, the last one. He muses that all the atoms in his body came from the stars. He refers to them oddly as his atoms. When he dies, he goes on, his atoms will disperse into soil, the sky, another person. That’s the future he thinks, that we are all connected in that way. Weak tea as an idea, imho, even though, or perhaps because, it’s so obviously true.

    Two more to watch. Watched number 3 first. Maybe they’re better.


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