Category Archives: Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Great Wheel, Health, Judaism, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Reimaging revelation, Science, US History, Wild Neighbors, World History

Consider Oneness

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Fall and the Harvest Moon

Monday gratefuls: Fat Bear Week. See this link. Rebecca in India. Mary in K.L. Mark in Hafir, Saudi Arabia. Me on Shadow Mountain. My son and Seoah and Murdoch in Songtan. Israel. Gaza. West Bank. Korea. Divided nations. Night Sky. Stars above and around the Lodgepoles. The coming darkness. A Mountain Morning. Aspen Torches, Trees of Ohr. The Tree of Life. Malkut to Keter. The Wildwood Tarot. Luke. Ginny. Jimmy. Murdoch, the silly. My son, the silly. Kate, who was also silly. Jon, who was not. Ruth. Gabe.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fat Bear Week

One brief shining: A bear stands on a rock facing downstream, salmon climb the ladder of flowing water headed to their clan home to spawn, one tight powerful snap and the journey ends.

 

War. A son whose life lies in preparation and readiness for war. A nation, Korea, divided and still at war. Israel, my coreligionists fighting a war of their own creation. Oppression has a heavy price, paid too often, most often, in blood. Consider the violence of a nation that still relegates its native peoples to lands not wanted, depriving them of the lands that once sustained them. Consider the violence of a nation that systematically denies the vote, a decent education, good housing, well-paying jobs to persons descended from the enslaved. Consider a nation that denies an entire people, the Uighurs, even the crumbs of citizenship. Consider a nation, any nation, that allows its majority to wreck havoc on its minorities without conscience or care. Most nations.

Consider all these things. We are human after all, all too human. Jealous of what we already have, greedy for what we might get. Israel did not invent oppression. Nor did China. Neither did the U.S.A., even when slavery was legal. No. We humans find love, justice, and compassion often beyond our grasp even if in our individual hearts we might feel it. Collectively we protect our families, our clans, our regions, our skin color fellows, our nations. And in protecting, a noble and worthy action, deny others what they need, a base and evil result. This is the original sin of our species. To love those we prefer and exclude those who fall outside of our love’s sphere. A sad, pitiful narrowness to our vision.

Then consider the human body. Consider what the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead called the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. The often unfortunate result of a reductionist science that separates the heart as a consideration of medical care from the liver, from the gut, from grief and joy and stress and despair. That separates the teeth from the pancreas. The blood from the lungs. The thyroid from the feet. Treats each one as a thing sui generis when no. Cortisol bathes each organ, blood moves through and into and out of the lungs, the gut, the feet, the brain and into the kidneys. We are one.

Of course we can learn and know about the heart when we dissect it, image it, palpitate it, treat its actions with chemicals of our own devising. Of course. But how did the heart come to have that blocked vessel? That flapping valve? That enlarged chamber? How does the heart function as part of the oneness that is homeostasis? How is that homeostasis affected by the smile of a child? The sound of a jackhammer? The death of a loved one? The denial at every turn of opportunity?

More. Yes. My body is one. Yes, it is. But. It is one within a community, within an atmosphere. My body so individual and precious to me can last no more than a few breaths without the oxygen exhaled by plants nearby and faraway. My body so individual and precious to me cannot live more than a few days without food grown by farmers, caught by fisherman, sustained by healthy soil and oceans and skies. My body so individual and precious to me cannot last without the touch, the warmth, the smile, the greeting of others.

Our original sin. To misplace the apparent concreteness of our skin color, our tribe, our class, our nation as worthy of dominance over others. No. We are one. The Eternal One only knows unity. Only sees togetherness. Insists in its nature on love, justice, and compassion. It has ever been so, and has ever been denied. Our fault, our most grievous fault.

Judaism, Memories, Myth and Story, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

The Last Journey

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Lughnasa and the Herme Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Ruth struggling again. Still. Gabe and the last Rockies game of the season. Marilyn and Irv. A pale blue Sky. A cool night, but warmer weather coming. Kristie today. Robbie Robertson of The Band. Levon Holmes. Bob Dylan. Coltrane. Parker. Bach. Mozart. Hayden. The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Sarah and BJ. Kate, always Kate. Jon, a memory. My son, Seoah, and Murdoch.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Studying

One brief shining: Rolled my chair to the built-in desk, turned on the study lamp, took out the sheet of questions for my first class with Rabbi Jamie, this one on Jewish Identity, began to read from Art Green’s Radical Judaism, Joseph Telushkin’s Jewish Literacy, and George Robinson’s Essential Judaism and noticed how much I still enjoy studying, writing answers, thinking deeply.

 

Now it’s getting personal. Judaism, that is. No longer following the thought pathways the ancientrails of the Talmud and the Torah as an outsider, a camp follower. Reading about Jewish identity as one who will wear the kippah. Makes a big difference. Who is a Jew? What is common among all forms of Judaism? How does Israel define a Jew for the aliyah, the right of return?

This is my third, and last, venture into the inner life of a distinctive religious community. Seminary at United Theological Seminary in New Brighton, Minnesota gave me four solid years of church history, biblical studies, ethics, homiletics, pastoral care, and a bit of Hebrew and Greek. Much later, in the early 90’s I did a self-study course in Unitarian-Universalism that took two years. This doesn’t count the four years I spent earning my Doctor of Ministry degree from McCormick Seminary in Chicago.

In both of these earlier excursions I was not wholly engaged. All during my work as a Presbyterian minister, I felt apart from the main congregational life of the denomination. Because I was. My ministry was political and only became involved with congregations near its end when I worked as an organizational consultant for congregations in the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area. The UU time was a regression, an attempt to retain my ministerial role by switching to a less theologically restrictive community. In the end I found the UU movement too diffuse in its religiosity. And learned, again, that the role of minister did not fit me.

Conversion to Judaism is different. This is something I want. As Joan Greenberg said, it just feels natural. No real dogma to cleave to. So many Jews identify as atheists or agnostics. Yet, a rich and old tradition of considering life’s most difficult questions. How do we live a human and a humane life? How do we connect with the call of the natural world, as Art Green puts it in his wonderful book, Radical Judaism?

Kate found this path when she was 30. She led me to it. And my friendships at CBE have made it real. Here’s a secret wish I’ll put right out here in print. If it turns out I’m wrong and there is a heaven, I certainly want to be in the Jewish section where Kate is.

Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Torah

Revelation

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Summer and the Herme Moon

Friday gratefuls: Rebecca. Diane. Mussar. God is Here. Metaphors. Revelation. That Bull Elk, the face of God? Speaking to me of the world I do not know, but in which I live. Ruth and Mia. Introversion. On display last night and this morning. Slept long. More Rain and Hail. Computer Chip with built-in human brain cells. !!? Mountain life. Cool while the World burns.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Revelation to us, not the history of theirs

One brief shining: Convergence beginning to happen for me after a lifetime of religious and spiritual orienteering revelation it may all come down to revelation the revealing of the sacred in this life in my presence and palpable to me.

 

Whee! Heading down the slide toward a big splash in the World Ocean of consciousness. Or, the Waters of the Collective Unconscious. Or, the inner cathedral. Anyhow. In the book God is Here by Tobia Spitzer we’re discussing metaphors for God. Her contention being that we’ve hung on to a few metaphors-King, Judge, Warrior-and neglected or ignored many others all found in Torah. God as Fire that does not consume, God as pillar of Smoke, God as living Water, God as Whirlwind, God as Malakh or messenger, Angel to name a few. Also Spitzer recounts recent work in cognitive linguistics that discusses how language shapes our world and therefore how the metaphors we use determine what we can see, hear, taste, touch, and feel. Let alone consider. Which is a secondary or mediated process after sensory input.

Not sure that the word God is worth rehabilitating, but I’m finding the thought process while engaged in this conversation fascinating. Part of Spitzer’s point is that we often thrown out the Torah with the King/Judge/Warrior bath water. So we turn away from understanding God because we don’t like those metaphors, but that there are many others perhaps more compelling. God as lover for instance in the Song of Songs. Or God as the still small voice. Or God as Justice.

Here’s what keeps buzzing through my head though. Why do we insist on trying to fill up the metaphor God with new wine, putting new wine in an old wineskin which means it’s likely to burst?

Reminded me of Emerson’s line in his Introduction to Nature: “…(why should we not have) a religion of revelation to us, not the history of theirs.” This pushed me to what I now consider the essence of this interesting conversation. How do we know revelation when we see it?

In other words, by dropping away from the Torah and/or the New Testament, too, we have also dropped away from considering how Emerson’s dream might come true: a religion of revelation to us, because we’ve rejected the history of their revelations as past tense, never to be repeated.

Well, that has to be wrong. If we can accept that their revelations were real and profound, as centuries and millennia of folks like us have found them to be, then there must be equivalent experiences available to us right now. Of course you can deny the whole notion of the sacred or the holy or the divine, then there’s nothing more to consider. However, if you have even a small inkling that there is more in this world than is dreamt of in your philosophy… Well.

What experiences might we have that conjure Rudolf Otto’s definition of the holy:

“the transcendent [the holy]) appears as a mysterium tremendum et fascinans—that is, a mystery before which humanity both trembles and is fascinated, is both repelled and attracted. Thus, [God] sic can appear both as wrathful or awe-inspiring, on the one hand, and as gracious and lovable, on the other.”

I have these experiences. As recently as this week. When thinking about Otto’s work and the concept of using new metaphors for God, I can easily call to mind the Elk Bull observing me from the Forest in a driving Rain. That was the face of the Holy, I’m sure of it. Holiness as Wildness. Holiness as the life of the other, the non-human. Holiness as a shock, an amazement. But here’s where I diverge from Spitzer’s work. Why call that God? Why not say it was a window, a moment of seeing into the numinous, a sacred moment which can inform my life long after the experience. Why not say the Holy is beyond our understanding, but accessible to our senses. Yes, by all means let’s use metaphor to describe it but do they have to point back to the Middle Eastern notion of a God? No. I say no.

On the other hand. Yes. Let’s look to Torah to the New Testament for clues about how experience revelation. Let’s examine and learn from all the metaphors for God. Without having to use God as a reference point. Can we experience the Holy, the Sacred in Fire? Yes. In Water? Yes. In a Tornado? Yes. Does that mean there’s an entity which ties all these experiences together in a quasi anthropomorphic whole? No. Not at all. It means rather the world as we know it is only a sliver of the whole, a whole filled with wonders and treasures we can find. But only if we choose to see what we’re looking at.

Commentary on Religion, Feelings, Myth and Story, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Nudges

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Summer and the Summer Moon Above

Friday gratefuls: Kristen. An honest doc. And, sweet. Sammie, her nurse. A sweet young woman. Quest Diagnostics. My phlebotomist there, 50 years in the business. Also a sweet lady. Lucky me to have such a great team, along with Kristie and Dr. Eigner, looking after my health. Mussar. God is Here. Myths to Live By. Joseph Campbell. The book that made Jamie choose to become a rabbi. Tal. Herme. Janet. Rebecca. Ellen. Ann, a wonderful artist. Alan, breakfast at Joe Mama’s later this morning. Marilyn and Irv. Good friends. Brunch at their house yesterday. Licks and Lila, their two pups.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Friends

One brief shining: Influences come into our lives often quietly unbidden sometimes unknown until they blossom into a nudge, a gentle tap on the shoulder or a dramatic push like Myths to Live By or that verse from Micah do justice love mercy and walk humbly with your God which took me from Appleton, Wisconsin to seminary.

 

Got some insight on the two Charlies from yesterday’s post. Turns out I’ve become anemic since my last round of labs. Combine that with low T and my chemo drug. No wonder I’m dragging by mid-afternoon. No clear reason for it either. More labs drawn yesterday. The phlebotomist and I have become friends. I see her that often. Medical stuff. Necessary, but also a nuisance.

 

At mussar yesterday Jamie talked about the one book that made him want to become a rabbi, Myths to Live By. A Joseph Campbell work. Haven’t read it so I ordered it. Put that book together with a Reconstructionist background and Rabbi Jamie comes into clear focus. A man driven by myth, the truest expression of human reality. A better and more solid, more lasting influence than mine. For sticking with the choice.

Made me reflect on my own choice to go into the ministry. It wasn’t just this verse from the prophet Micah: Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God, but it was the core of the push. It was the beginning of the 70’s. The Vietnam War still raged its ugly way across that divided nation. While dividing ours, too.

I met the Reverend Curtis Herring in Appleton. An insistent voice against the war in a very conservative section of Wisconsin [Joe McCarthy once represented this area in Congress and is buried in the Appleton Cemetery. As is Harry Houdini, btw] Reverend Herring convinced me to give seminary a try. I did.

Like, I imagine, Rabbi Jamie once the decision to attend rabbinical school or seminary is made, no matter the original impetus, a certain amount of occupational socialization begins to occur. Yes, United Theological Seminary had a distinct and active left political student body. That drew me there and got me started, but the intellectual heft of a two thousand  year old tradition also captured my attention.

Twenty years later I wandered out of the ministry in a haze, blessing the universe for having Kate show up at just the right time in my life. My initial impulse, a justice oriented ministry, had proved a great fit for me until I began to focus more attention on the church side of the equation. I no longer believed in the resurrection, the power of God, or the staying power of the church as an agent of social justice. In the Christian world that meant get out.

Had I entered the ministry from Rabbi Jamie’s mythic impulse I might have stayed longer. Reconstructed the resurrection. The God metaphor. Found a way to ground the justice work more in local congregations. As it was, I had no choice but to leave an institution in whose root ideas I no longer had faith.

Acting, Asia, Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Judaism, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Herme and Religion’s Institutional Decline in the U.S.

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Summer and the Summer Moon Above

Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Waste. Joan. Abby. Debbie. Alan. Marilyn. Tal. Rebecca. Cold Mountain. China. Chinese art and poetry. Asia. The arts of Asia. Song dynasty painting and ceramics. The Japanese tea ceremony. Ichi-go, ichi-e. Wabi-Sabi. Korean celadon. Ukiyo-e wood cuts. The temples of Angkor and Bangkok. Haiku. Zen. Chan Buddhism. Applause last night when I finished reading Cold Mountain poems. Keys on the Green. Beet salad and a Reuben. Coffee. With Rebecca Martin. Heated days. My fan, air purifier, oxygen concentrator, and mini-split on cool. All electric sleeping aids.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Spoken Word

One brief shining: Last night I learned again how pleasant it is to have people clap for something I’ve done when all I did was read poetry by Cold Mountain out loud stopping between 10 poems for dramatic effect and interpreting his condensation of Mountain recluse scholar life.

 

Herme, the character for my character study class, has begun to emerge. His first work has been identifying 8 to 10 poems of Cold Mountain to use as the core of his piece. I have at least two other components to add to the project. A way of introducing the Hooded Man of the Wildwood Tarot Deck as Herme himself. Then weaving into his major arcana characteristics the Celtic ways of the Old Grey Magician. I want Herme to blend the Hooded Man and the Old Grey Magician into one person. Following that I need to figure out a way for Herme to introduce himself and the poetry of Cold Mountain without becoming didactic. The obstacle I feel right now is the gulf between the world of the Celts and Tarot  and the somewhat hard edged, very Chinese world of Cold Mountain. The bridge is the reclusive nature focus. I know that much.

I toyed on the way home last night from acting class-driving up the hill between Shadow Mountain and Black Mountain-with doing the whole project as a one act play. My aim would be introduce the not well known in the U.S. Chinese tradition of Rivers and Mountains poetry to Mountain audiences. The reception of Cold Mountain’s work the two times I’ve read them has been wonderful. Part of it is Cold Mountain’s rendering of life in the Mountains away from the dust of urban life delivered to an audience of Mountain dwellers. Might be fun. A playwright? Why not?

Acting calls on different aspects of my person than my usual reading and writing. Emotions. Body. Alertness to an audience. Ability to read the words of others in a manner that conveys meaning using all of those tools. I find the challenge energizing. Not looking forward to the memory work however. I have to get better at that. Somehow.

 

How bout those Southern Baptists? Doubling down on, well, stupidity. Closing doors left slightly ajar that allowed women, oh the shame of it, to mount pulpits and lead congregations. This article in today’s NYT, The Largest and Fastest Religious Shift in America is Well Underway, is the most recent of four articles focused on the secularization of American life. A phenomenon already well played out in Europe. In the article they argue that those institutions with high barriers to entrance also have high barriers for leaving and have suffered less attrition than those like my previous religious home, the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. which were more liberal in their theologies. Yet they too have begun to decline, a long slow ride to virtual irrelevance as far as the broader culture is concerned.

Many years ago in the 1980’s I got my Doctor of Minister degree. My thesis way back then was on the decline of the Presbyterian church and other liberal Christian denominations. I don’t even remember my arguments. I’ll have to get the thesis out and read it again. I used to be pretty knowledgeable about all this.

Oddly I still believe in religious institutions but not ones with high barriers to entry and leaving. I believe in them as small communities where friendships can develop, where life’s big questions can be explored, where life’s transitions can receive ritual expression, and where the knowledge of the past can inform and leaven the present. Reconstructionist Judaism does it for me, at least in its CBE expression. But any religion could open itself in the same way. And I hope they do because religious life is an ur part of human life, one developed long before academics and politics and cell phones, and one with a vital human contribution to make.

 

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Judaism, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain

The Sacred

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Trips becoming more and more real. Vince, my man. Kat. More connected, more grateful than ever. Tom. Mary. Sarah and BJ. Kate and the sweet picture with my daughter-in-law. Kep, my furry friend, a blessed memory. Rigel, too. Gertie, Vega. The Colorado companions. Cleaning off the art table. Getting back to painting. Sumi-e. Korean. Our journey around the sun, through the galaxy, and with the Milky Way itself. All the wild Babies out there right now, learning about life and its wonders, its perils.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Life finds a way

One brief shining: Water amazes me in every way liquid solid steam all different the liquid and the steam states capable of powering engines, generating Electricity, carving Mountains, carrying nourishment from one Continent to another, aqua vita not only whisky but aqua vita, a metaphor for the flow of ch’i and the reality of the flow of ch’i, either fresh or salty a wonder on which to float, in which to dive, over which to paddle cradled in Lakes and Ponds and Rivers and Oceans, delivered by pumps and pipes, everyday necessary, water, wow.

 

Had a down day in the afternoon again. Watching too much TV. Not tackling household tasks. Then I thought. Wait a minute. Yesterday I met with friends for breakfast (even though they didn’t show up, I did), had my car detailed, read many more Cold Mountain poems. Read some other poets of the Rivers and Mountains school of Chinese poetry. My character study began to take shape. Read two chapters in the excellent book God is Here. Made connections with Keshet (rainbow), the Israeli travel agency.

Still on the old achievement treadmill once in a while. Maybe more than once in a while. Enough, already. And I mean ENOUGH already! I’ve done enough, have enough, am enough. Always. No matter what I do or don’t do. I am. Or better I am becoming. Without the lace and frills of degrees or salary or salutes or celebrations.

I’m OK, You’re OK. The World’s OK. To go back in time to the self-help cliches of the early 70’s. This is the day the big bang has made let us rejoice and be glad in it.

 

God is Here takes our perceptions shaped by the word God and puts them through the metaphorical ringer. Changing them, adding to them, recognizing the metaphors as signals for new ways of approaching the sacred, the divine. Though I’m on board with new ways of describing what we mean when we use the word God or its other names like Elohim, Hashem, Adonai, YHVH, I still feel like we’re holding the wrong end of the stick. In other words I think we should talk about why water has a sacred valence. Air. Fire. Earth. Humans. Trees. Rocks. Dogs. Cows. Bacilli. Why do we need to fill in the vacuum created by the word God? Why not acknowledge the sacred nature of all things and learn how to talk about divinity itself in their terms. This is neither panpsychism nor pantheism nor panentheism. This is a version of animism.

 

Holding some disappointment that the Elk Bulls have not come. At least not when I was looking. I’ve held off having the yard mowed to preserve their favorite food. I miss seeing them.

 

Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Torah

The Hardest Problem

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Kate, her memory, her sweet and blessed memory. Jon, a memory. Another cool Night, good sleeping. 41 this morning. Spanish Grand Prix. Nuggets game 2 tonight. Another gray Morning with Clouds slipping over the peak of Black Mountain. Reading the Bacchae and the Iceman Cometh for monologues. Dionysus. God as metaphor. Consciousness. The hard problem. The waning Shadow Mountain Moon. Ingenuity, the little helicopter that could. On Mars. American space exploration. Yes. The James Hubble.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Consciousness, hard problem or not

One brief shining: So the brain takes in information from the senses to predict how to survive in the next few moments its job for millions of years and in the process has to build a map of reality-remember though the map is not the territory-and then move our enfleshed DNA to find food, hide from a predator, find a willing partner for reproduction all the while keeping track of its own reactions to better enhance its performance and in the process creating a narrator who can sift through and identify learnings, help in non-immediately crucial tasks like talking and laughing and wondering thus creating the Self?

 

Been having lots of various ideas over the last week or so. One of them tentatively expressed above. A summary of this article in Quanta, What Is the Nature of Consciousness?. Then a building notion, one nurtured over years of skepticism tempered by yearning. About God. Got this new idea from a book I’ve bought but not read, God Is Here. By a Reconstructionist Rabbi. Its thrust is to update metaphors about God. Fair enough. They need it. But, I realized. What if even an update has the wrong end of the stick? Makes more sense to me that God is the metaphor. Satan, too, for that matter. As Shiva and Vishnu and Brahma and Ganesh and Kali. Allah. The Tao. Chi. Prana. Soul.

Metaphors for this ages old dance between organism and environment. What is Fire? Water? Earth? Air? Death? Love? Sex? God as a metaphor for the wrestling organisms do with a problem even harder than consciousness, how to survive in an often hostile world, a world accessed only through the mediation of the senses, a world we cannot know directly-Kant’s ding an sich, the thing in itself-yet in which we must move and love and have our becoming. A mystery compounded of mystery. The ineffable world critical to our next action. Did that work last time? Why? Will it work again? Why? Is there a way to optimize my/our reactions to ensure our life? At least for now?

One of my favorite Torah stories: Jacob wrestling with the Angel at the Jabbok Ford. Yes. Our moment to moment struggle. Leaning into behaviors that have served us in the past yet finding ourselves blocked by new circumstances, ones inscrutable based on our learnings to this point. Or Abraham and Isaac. What must we be willing to give up to continue. To make our next actions a bit more likely to avoid serious injury or death? And, critically for God as metaphor, who or what says this behavior is the right one? That is, the one most likely to advance our DNA into the future?

Guess this work is appropriate to Sunday morning. Would not preach in a Presbyterian church, but a UU church or a Reconstructionist synagogue might hear it.

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

Life in its brilliance and in its everdayness

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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.

 

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Entheos

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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.

 

 

 

 

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

So it has been and so it shall be

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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.