• Category Archives The West

  • Visitation

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

    Shabbat gratefuls: Alan and Joanne. Book recommendations. Breakfast at the Parkside. Medical oncologist appointment. Mark getting stuff done. Mary. Her help. Family huddle. Distance. Zoom. Saudi. K.L. Oz. Korea. Rocky Mountains. San Francisco. Life in the age of instant, visual, very long distance communication.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: A simcard and a call

    Kavannah: Perseverance

    One brief shining: Walking on the black asphalt of my driveway to get the mail while three Mule Deer Does graze nearby, glancing up from time to time, the first year Buck with his spike of an antler looking around, eyeing me, then the does, not eating as often, his role; yesterday, opening my front door and seeing these two, the Doe right by the door and this mature Buck a bit further away, greeting them, taking their pictures.

     

     

     

    Mountain spirits continue to visit me. The yin energy so evident in the soft demeanor of the Doe, the pensive and a bit melancholy look in her eye. The Buck’s confident yang gaze at her, his 8 points ready for either his or her defense. Reminding me that I, too, have a Doe and Buck. A confident, ready for the battles of the psyche and the world Buck with 77 points and a vulnerable, sad Doe that looks at the Buck within and knows his vulnerability, too.

    Wild Neighbors come to my yard unbidden to eat Grass still green under the white cover of Snow, or the Bearberry, a low growing Evergreen plant that spreads over many sections of my unlandscaped property. The Mule Deer always have a gentle presence, seeming to know that even the strange two-legged means them no harm; that they don’t have to scurry away. I vacillate between being excited to greet them, telling them to enjoy the Grass and other food and wanting to chase them away, make them afraid of humans. Usually my greeting instinct wins the encounter.

    I don’t approach them, but I speak in a normal tone of voice, welcoming them and assuring them that sharing food with them is one of my life’s great joys.

    Some people think and I sometimes say that I live alone, but it is not true. Mule Deer and Elk. Moose. Mountain Lions and Black Bears. Beaver. Marmots and Squirrels. Corvids: Magpies, Ravens, Crows. Fox. Raccoon. Skunk. Brook Trout and Brown Trout. All live here in these Rocky Mountains. We try, all of us, to live harmoniously because harmony best enables us to go about our time here as we want.

    This is not to mention, of course, the Lodgepoles, the Aspen, the Willows and Dogwood, Bunch Grass, Bearberry, White Pine, Ponderosa lower down. All the photosynthesizers, the light-eaters. And the Mountain Creeks and Streams with their fish. Amphibians. Fungi. The whole blooming buzzing confusion of a Mountain eco-system.

    All held in the loving and stolid embrace of Mountains and their Valleys. My home.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     


    Fungi Great Wheel Jefferson County Mountains Plants Shadow Mountain The West Wild Neighbors

  • The Doggie Drive

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Full Moon of Growing Darkness

    Shabbat gratefuls: Tom. Conversation with him. His kindness. The Truth. A CBD ointment for aching joints, pain. Worked on my trigger fingers. Happy Camper. Evoke 1923. Mt. Rosalie covered in Snow. 13,575′. Long tie guy and his in your face appointments.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Friendship

    Kavannah: Perserverance

    One brief shining: Sitting at the table where I found my pearl, in what is no longer the long time Bistro now the Evoke 1923, Rebecca took our orders, delivered a tasty filet mignon tartare, a beet salad, and our entrees: duck for Tom and filet mignon for me while we struggled to hear, especially after the piano player started up, two old guys trying to parse the future of A.I. largely overwhelmed by the clink of silverware on porcelain, happy chatter from the table of six, the limits of hearing aids reached and exceeded.

     

    It’s nearing 10 years since the long doggie drive of December 2014. Tom and I together with Rigel, Vega, and Kepler on I-90, then I-76, finally 285 to Shadow Mountain. 15 hours or so of conversation, attention to dogs and the eventual end of the Great Plains where they wash up against the hogbacks of a precursor Mountain Range to the Rockies. That was the first phase of the actual move, Kate arriving later with Gertie and that van we had packed in Andover.

    On the Winter Solstice of that year our moving van came and promptly got stuck in a ditch. Eduardo and friends pulled it out. Snow fell and the temperatures hovered around zero. Not willing to try again the van driver took the whole load off Shadow Mountain to a more level spot, rented two u-haul trucks and shuttled the whole truckload from some spot on Hwy. 73. This lasted far into the night with dogs and movers crossing and intersecting.

    From that day until the day she died Kate said she felt like she was on vacation living up here. Six and a half years of vacation. A good retirement for her. Glad she didn’t see the MAGmA overflow decency and justice. She would have been angry and disappointed.

    Over the course of those years I’ve become Harari, a man of the mountains, now wedded to this place through location and intense experiences. Many, many memories. Some difficult, sure, but also many more intimate, fun, bound up with the wild nature of this place, with Judaism, Kate’s final gift to me.

    Mountains. If I have my way-Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise-I’ll live out my final days here, too.

     

    Just a moment: A life lived from, say mid-20th century to the first quarter or so of the 21st, has already passed, as few lives ever do, from one millennium to the next, the second to the third. We’ve also seen what may be the end of a political era begun under FDR. I’d call it whiplash, but the change has been more gradual than the crack of a whip. A new world is being born, but despite long tie guy’s next fast-food adventure on Pennsylvania Avenue, neither he nor his minions will define it.

    This new world will emerge from the tension between the mindless governance of, as Kamala Harris rightly said, an unserious man, and cultures political, artistic, and economic which my generation assumed to be stable. Oh, my.

     


    Colorado Dogs Family Friends Memories Minnesota Mountains Shadow Mountain The Move The West

  • Home

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Mabon (Fall) and the Sukkot Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Heidi. Salaam. Marilyn. Ruth. Alan. The Dandelion. Big O tires. Phillips 66 Gas. The waning of the gold. Leaves beginning to fall. Clear, bright, blue Sky. Great Sol grinning. Mother Earth happy with what they’ve made together. The Ocean. The World Ocean. The unknown of the deep. Its wildness. Beavers damming Streams, making Ponds. Thinning Forests. Wild Life. Our Wild Friends. Cyclical time.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Aspens, the Mountain torches of Mabon

    Kavannah: Teshuvah

    One brief shining: Driving past the spot where I saw the Bull Elk in the Rain, I noticed the golden torches blazing, flanking where he looked at me through the dark, Aspens, oh, I see, Bull Elk sacred in the night in May, Aspen leaves in their brilliant final phase in October, yes, I see, the Wheel turning, the sacred manifesting in its seasonal way, different yet also always there.

     

    These blue days with golden Leaves and water reflecting Lodgepole green. Lake Evergreen, a small jewel set amongst the inner Foothills, Mountains rising on all sides of it. Folks paddleboarding, kayaking, canoeing small moving dots of color rippling the reflections. You might think after almost ten years these sights would be ho-hum, I’ve seen it before, so what. No. Instead the turning of the Great Wheel puts all of them through kaleidoscopic changes.

    Soon the Aspen Leaves will be gone or scattered on the Lake like thin gold-leaf, no longer reflected but held up by surface tension, Leaf on Water, no longer Leaf mirrored. The deciduous trees become skeletal before Samain, fitting into the bleak tones of fallow fields, decay, and death.

    Too, the Elk and the Mule Deer have chosen, over the millennia, this time for reproduction. The Bears, hyperphagic, know Winter looms ahead, a season with little food. Great Sol’s rays spread out over larger and larger chunks of Land and Water, reducing their effect.

    The Grasses have gone russet and tan. The Asters have gone to seed. In a few Meadows tractors have bailed hay for the Horses and Llamas and other cud chewers with Mountain homes. The Cattle Company that feeds out their Black Angus on the Meadow the Bike Park folks wanted will come soon for their long last ride.

    The fireplace beckons. It sits throughout the summer, mocked by the heat. Pointless. Needs more wood available. Have not yet gone down the hill to Variety Firewood where they have hard Woods and perfumed Pinõn. Maybe tomorrow.

    Each season leaves its special imprint on familiar scenes, changing them not only from the season just past but from the previous occurrence of the same season. Trees grow taller, fall over, get cut down. Streams alter their flow. Seeds carried by the Winds and by Birds and by Wild Neighbors germinate in new fields and open ground.

    So the Mountain Dweller enjoys the changes, gets renewed by Nature’s own renewal, feels sadness as a season comes to an end. Home. Here in the Rockies.


    Great Wheel Hermitage Holidays Mountains Our Land and Home Plants The West Weather +Climate

  • The Realm of the Mountain Kings

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Mabon (Fall) and the Harvest Moon

    Shabbat gratefuls:  Mussar. Gabe. Pain. Quantum mechanics. The empty space on which I sit. Atoms. The creation of Solar nuclear furnaces. Vastness. In Space. In our Inner World. Consciousness. The Boundless. Things that never were and will never be. Faery. The Otherworld. The Multiverse. Heaven. Hell. Reincarnation. Books. Movies. TV.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Guanella Pass

    Kavannah: Teshuvah

    One brief shining: Been thinking about thinking, as us amateur philosophers often do, wondering if the thinking I’m doing is original, which is unlikely, or if it perhaps is an original reworking, more possible, always remembering that conservative cultures like China view originality and curiosity with deep, deep suspicion which of course makes both that much more dear to me.

     

    Gabe and I made it to Guanella Pass while the Aspen retained golden glory. We were not alone. Not quite as good an experience, yet wonderful, amazing anyhow. Geneva Creek ran full, offering Water boiling over huge Boulders, spreading on flat Land, Watering Meadows of golden Grass, Lodgepoles and the Aspen providing color against 12,336 foot Geneva Mountain on the left and 14,049 foot Mount Bierstadt on the right, all against a Colorado blue Sky. Temperatures in the low to mid-60’s. Scented with pine resin and the Ozone smell of Water as Geneva Creek rushed toward the North Fork of the South Platte.

    Talk about Yirah. About the sacred in the oh so not ordinary realm of the Mountain kings. Here are a few pictures.

    Gabe amongst the Boulders at Geneva Creek
    At the Shaggy Sheep
    Gabe
    Boulders and Aspen and Lodgepoles
    Parking area at the Waterfalls

     


    Family Mountains The West Travel

  • Grocery Stores and Shell Companies

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Mabon (Fall) and the Harvest Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Oops, forgot to write yesterday. Great workout. Faint dawn. Pinkish gray Sky. Spinning back into Great Sol’s line of sight. Vince and the decks. Figuring out the workout. Moving closer to the October surprise. Kamala and Tim. Gabe. The Shaggy Sheep. Guanella Pass. Vikings 3-0. Their game against the Packers. Muir Woods. Sequoias.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: finishing up the 529 transfer

    Kavannah: Yirah

    One brief shining: Richard Power’s new book Playground has an amazing jacket; as I read, just outside the edge of the page, it glimmers like the Ocean, an immersive feeling as if the book itself, about the Ocean, rests within its broad expanse, floating its narrative on gentle waves while underneath those waves giant Manta Rays, schools of colorful Fish, and creatures so bizarre as to be unimaginable if not observed float in its depths.

     

    Got up late yesterday. Talked to Tom, turned in an extra good workout, read Power’s new book for a while, watched some TV, and Ancientrails slipped away from my notice. Rare. But it does happen.

     

    On Tuesday I made another visit to Safeway, picked up my grocery order. While I waited, I thought about the map of grocery store chains in the morning’s Washington Post. The business logic of an Albertson’s/Kroger merger, at least in the West, is there to see. It would allow Albertson’s to dominate the urban West while Walmart takes care of the rest.

    It would affect us in Conifer. With King Soopers, a Kroger grocery, and Safeway, of the Albertson family-our two grocery stores-we’ve been notified our Safeway would close. I used to shop at King Soopers and could return there. With my budget the need for careful comparison between the two is unnecessary. If, however, I had a family and watched the pennies, I’d feel cheated. Especially in this time of inflated grocery costs. I hope the FTC turns down the merger.

     

    Tom told an interesting story about the SR-71, a retired spy plane hanging in the Air and Space museum outside Omaha. The docent who gave his group a tour said the titanium needed to build it, a lot, came from Russia during the cold war. How did our cold war enemy agree to something not in their self-interest? They didn’t. The CIA set up several shell companies around the world ostensibly making titanium cookware. Guess the Ruskies never checked how many pots and pans got made. BTW: The SR-71 had a top speed of Mach 3.5 or roughly 2,600 miles per hour.

    I mention this because it seems the Israelis pulled off a similar feat with the pagers that exploded in Lebanon. They set up a company in Hungary that made and sold pagers and other small electronic communications devices. That’s a real long game. Explode the pagers to diminish Hezbollah’s ability to respond. Then assassinate leadership through targeted air strikes followed by more air raids aimed at munitions and missiles. An involved plan.

     

    Just a moment: An election. Here. Soon.

     

     


    Politics Shadow Mountain The West US History World History

  • No Loyalty

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring and the Purim Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: My Lodgepole companion, Needles again covered with Snow. A cold Mountain morning. Remembering Andover (see header image). Being where you are. Wendel Berry. Regenerative Farming. Loving the place. Knowing the place. Where the Mule Deer come. Where the Creek blasts down the Mountain in Spring. Where the Dogwood blooms. Where Fawns and Calves move up and down the Mountains on wobbly legs.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Moisture on the Mountain and the Forest

    One brief shining: You know I looked out at the Snow yesterday, falling sometimes gently, sometimes vigorously, and I thought beautiful, then when I saw the same Snow coming down on my driveway I screamed enough, no more, we’ve had plenty thank you very much, however; I did not mean it, I meant bring as much moisture as long as you can and I will be grateful.

     

    Yes. Cabin fever time. That moment when what looked serene and beautiful a few short months ago now scrapes across the seasonal blackboard like bad chalk. Up here it produces a split personality. One tired of the cold, the Snow, driving on Ice, huddling up all about hygge. Wanting to run outside in a t-shirt, arms spread wide, soaking in Great Sol. The other remembering summers past when the Smokey the Bear sign pegged Extreme Fire Danger. Snow as far into April, hell, even May as you want. In fact, Snow until the Monsoons return. Please.

    I’m cutting a middle ground between these two. Gonna take off for San Francisco at the end of the month. See a lot of art, maybe a Redwood or two, visit my cousin in her native habitat. Eat. Sleep. Test my back in a safe environment.

    Of course. I would for sure wear Flowers in my hair if I had enough left. Gonna ride the Amtrak route between Denver and SFC. Really, Oakland, then a bus. Or, Diane. With a roomette. See the Rockies and the intermountain West without having to drive.

    A way to discover if I can travel, probably back to Korea again. Maybe to Israel if this war ever ends. Perhaps this year for both.

     

    Just a Moment: Caitlin Clark. Wow. 41 points. Final Four. Iowa! Once more, with feeling: Go, Hawkeyes! Iowa feels like Minnesota’s younger sister. Which would make Caitlin our niece? Always nice to see family doing well.

    45. His $175 million dollar bond. His legal peril. Or, from the MAGA perspective, the persecutions not prosecutions.

    Brother Mark asked if Trump won how would I be the loyal opposition?

    I wouldn’t. Be loyal. Though I would be in opposition. Loyal opposition as an idea implies mutuality, a framework in which political opponents serve as testers of ideas, as citizens of a shared form of government. A form of government which all sides agree has the best interests of a nation as its true purpose.

    Trump is not a politician in that sense. He is a politician though, one of the oldest kinds. A brute seeking total power. Power with which he can punish his enemies and reward his sycophants. Kings, Queen, Pharaohs, and Emperors, autocrats and dictators all are this sort of politician.

    Loyalty has as its sister virtue respect. No respect for pussy grabbers, for those who provide safe harbor for white supremacists, misogynists, anti-Semites. No respect for insurrectionists, for anti-constitutionalists. No respect for frauds, for payers of hush money, for election deniers. Therefore. Q.E.D. No loyalty.

     

     


    Mountains Politics Shadow Mountain Sport The West Travel US History Weather +Climate

  • New Identities

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring and the Purim Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Yet more Snow! Today. Blue Colorado Sky with scattered white Cumulus Clouds. The Ancient Brothers. Hafar. K.L. S.F. Maine. Minnesota. Jackie in Bailey. Aspen Roots. Kissing Frogs. Movies. Nights. Days. Resurrection. A new life. The Shema. Full days. Travel. Dogs. Marilyn and Irv. The Socrates Cafe. Meeting new people.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Questions

    One brief shining: Each month I drive eight minutes from Shadow Mountain to Aspen Park, going by the new bakery the Wicked Whisk and my old personal trainer at On the Move Fitness, past the physical therapists who got me through knee surgery, to the never in my time up here full suite of offices and business that contain the Pinball place, the massage folks, a live theater, Thai 202 which makes the wonderful Crying Tiger, and hop up the stairs to Aspen Roots where Jackie cuts my hair and tells me she loves me which I say back.

     

    Long enough now. Long enough for relationships to have come and gone. And for some to remain. My tenth year on Shadow Mountain, begun last Winter Solstice. This is where I live, a Coloradan, a Westerner, a Mountain dweller. All distinct identities created by geography and geology and the human imprint on both.

    As a Coloradan I inhabit a former red hate state, transitioning to a blue progressive state. As a Westerner, I have heeded Horace Greeley and gone west though not as a young man, but as an older one. Greeley, Colorado* is named after him. The Western identity has a good deal of complexity to it as does Mountain dweller.

    To be a Westerner means to enjoy the benefits of manifest destiny, of the push west of the frontier, the railroads, those seeking gold, those fleeing law or custom or poverty in the the East. Of those who slaughtered the bison and the indigenous populations who lived here before we arrived. Those who clear cut the Front Range to build Denver and the many, far too many, hard Rock mines that pollute the Creeks, Streams, and Rivers here. The Western U.S. We who arrived later are not innocent. Yet no one is innocent. Either here or there.

    What happens now. What we do today. Who we are in this moment matters, too. We are the stewards, the fellow travelers in this magical wide open place. We are responsible for what happens here as are the Wild Neighbors, the Forests and Streams. The descendants of all those who lived here long ago and all those who altered the landscape not so long ago. We must build the sustainable way for humans to live here for as long as human beings can live.

    The Mountain Dweller is the most personal of these three identities and the most narrow, representing that place where I live and love and have my becoming. Each day my eyes open to the top of Shadow Mountain, to the taller prominence of Black Mountain, to the Lodgepoles and Aspens that cover them both. My lungs take in the scarce air of 8,800 feet as I set aside my nighttime oxygen canula. Often Mule Deer will be around, hunting for grass.

    To go anywhere. To see Jackie at Aspen Roots. To get groceries at Safeway. To breakfast with friends. To the synagogue. To the doctor. I drive on Mountain roads. Two lanes, blind curves, sudden changes of altitude, vistas opening and disappearing.

    Mountains whose names I do not know rise on either side, the Streams that drain them flowing often near the road itself. Sometimes I am up high and able to see for miles, then I go down into constricted views of only Rock and Trees. All the while, not far off the road Wild Neighbors living their wild lives. Beavers damming Streams, their Ponds. The Mountain Lion on a rocky shelf waiting for Elk or Mule Deer to walk below. In my own way I appear and disappear from view around curves, into a valley, only to suddenly reappear in Evergreen.

    How have these three identities changed me from the sea level view of life that was my birthright as a Midwestern boy? I’ve become more of a spectator of life outside of the Mountains. Back east. Or on the coasts. They are not close to me, and their struggles seem far away. My world has become more focused. There are fewer people out here, less urbanization, less agriculture. In those senses the Colorado/Western/Mountain world was unfamiliar to me.

    I live within a smaller world altogether. My fourth new identity, that of a Jew, makes this world, this more narrow and circumscribed world, a friendly and friend full one. As has the nine years plus of living here, making connections like Jackie. And now the Socrates Cafe. This is important because, like most of us who live up here, going down the hill is not appealing. And that’s where the bon vivant of urban life plays out. Even for those things I enjoy I have to factor in a long drive in and a long drive back. Most often the positive gain is too weak to justify the hassle.

    For me. Today. This Colorado guy, this Western guy, this Mountain Man has found his spot and become one with it.

     

     

    *Greeley began as the Union Colony of Colorado, which was founded in 1869 by Nathan C. Meeker, an agricultural reporter for the New York Tribune as an experimental utopian farming community “based on temperance, religion, agriculture, education and family values,” with the backing of the Tribune‘s editor Horace Greeley, who popularized the phrase “Go West, young man”.[7][8][9] wiki


    Colorado Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Jefferson County Judaism Minnesota Mountains Plants Shadow Mountain The West Travel US History Wild Neighbors

  • Mountain names and places

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

    Shabbat gratefuls: Shabbat. Lighting the candles. Quiet. Rest. Irv. Marilyn. Tara. Ariane. Vincent. Eleanor, the all black Puppy and her white friend. Lots of kisses. Hebrew. My bar mitzvah aliyah, Exodus 19:25-20:2. Kilimanjaro. Annapurna. Zugspitz. Silverhorn. Jungfrau. All roads leading to Tara and Ariane’s house on Kilimanjaro. Apple and Peanut butter, an easy supper. Hearing aid. Oxygen concentrators. Oximeters. Living at altitude.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Friends

    One brief shining: Ariane, an engineer, has made 38 loaves of bread in his bread machine; he has a record of each loaf which includes machine settings, ingredients, and results; he held up a slice of his 38th loaf yesterday morning and told me that the bread inside the crust is called the crumb.

     

    The names up here. I’ve mentioned Troublesome Creek and Troublesome Gulch before. To get to Tara’s yesterday I took Shadow Mountain Drive to the Evergreen Road, turned right on North Turkey Creek, then left on Silverhorn to Jungfrau, Jungfrau to Kilimanjaro. I live on Black Mountain Drive which turns into Brook Forest Drive while passing through the Arapaho National Forest.

    Tara and Ariane live in an upslope house with a wonderful view. Yesterday Mt. Blue Sky and others near it were covered in Snow. Black Mountain is visible from their house, too. Just looked at a map and our homes are not that far apart in straight line distance, but there are no straight line roads here. Mountains in the way.

    When I drive down Shadow Mountain Drive, I follow North Turkey Creek along the flank of Shadow Mountain. Shadow Mountain itself is long and slopes down from the top where I live to the Evergreen Road. I can only see it from the parking lot of the Safeway several miles away otherwise I’m on it or too close to it to make out any of its features. An oddity of living in the Mountains.

    The road to Evergreen goes through a Valley, Evergreen Meadows, a long Valley that runs from Shadow Mountain Drive and Evergreen Road intersection for several miles. While driving through, I pass a couple of smaller Horse ranches, a suburban like development, and a still intact ranch with lots of Horses and a collection of pioneer cabins, all in disrepair.

    Closer to home Black Mountain, at 10,000 feet is 1,200 feet taller than Shadow Mountain and I can see it plainly. Right now. Great Sol has begun to light up the stands of Lodgepoles on it and a blue Colorado Sky. But the massif of Shadow Mountain, huge and over four miles from my house to the Evergreen Road? I live on it and see it as my land, my neighbor’s land, but its shape? Not visible to me.

    A good metaphor for the sacred. We live in it, see it when we can nearby, but its shape and expanse? Not visible to us.

    This is my place. The place from which I see the world most often. What I see are Mountains and Valleys, Mountain Streams and Wild Neighbors like the 8 point Elk bull I saw yesterday on Jungfrau while headed to Tara’s. It has become my home and I would like to stay here until I die.

     


    Colorado Jefferson County Mountains Shadow Mountain The West Wild Neighbors

  • Surrender Charlie

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Winter Solstice Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: Heidi. The Dragonfly Sign. Colorado Supreme Court. Psilocybin. Nahuatl Gods and Mayan hieroglyphics. Surrender. Irv. Rider. Mt. Logan. Crooked Top Mountain. The Grandfather Tree. Park County 43. Buggy Whip Road. Hangman’s Road. Washington County Maine. Climate change. Shadow Mountain. The Rockies. The Front Range. Alan. Bastien’s Steak House. The Winter Solstice. Holimonth.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Colorado Supreme Court

    One brief shining: A cloth with Native American colors marking the four directions, circular, laid on it cut white Roses, small Pine Tree Branches, red Roses, Cinnamon, Coffee beans, Star Anise, Aspen Leaves arranged for a Peruvian gratitude ceremony in which I picked up a small Branch of Pine Needles, inhaled its essence three times and exhaled my love and gratitude before placing the needles gently in the center.

     

    OK, nation! See Colorado go. I loved living in Minnesota and in the Twin Cities for forty years. The North Woods. Wolves. Lake Superior. So many Lakes. Liberal to radical politics. Not perfect, no. Witness George Floyd. But no place is. And Minnesota seemed as close as they come while I lived there. Then Kate and I moved to Shadow Mountain.

    As the Dead said: What a long, strange trip it’s been. Many of you know my story over the now 9 years exactly since my buddy Tom and I drove straight through from the Twin Cities with Kepler, Vega, and Rigel in the back. And, yes, that story has its definite peaks and valleys. But that’s not my reference here.

    No where else in the country, this divided and often pitiful land of ours, could I have had a legal psychedelic journey on Crooked Top Mountain then come home to Shadow Mountain and read the wonderful news that the Colorado Supreme Court had called a crook a crook, an insurrectionist an insurrectionist and kicked Trump off our ballot. I mean, whoa! What a day.

    I shifted my inner identification a few years back from Minnesotan to Coloradan, my Mountain home become just that. Home. Yes, we elected a gay Governor. How bout that. And of course the wild Neighbors and the Mountain Streams and the Black Bears. The Snow and the spectacular Autumns with gold and green. Over the time I’ve lived here Colorado has shifted from red to blue. Not without some Western weirdness along the way, but that makes it interesting. All that’s true.

    But in one day to take a psilocybin journey with a good friend on property so evocative of a sixties commune and then learn we Coloradans had taken a firm stand, saying what all clear eyed non Trump bedazzled folks already know but somehow cannot communicate, that insurrectionists should not, in fact,cannot hold office. Well, I’m busting with state pride right now. Colorado is the California of the new Millennia. OK. Enough local chauvinism. Still, pretty damned cool. Gives this aging radical a boost.

     

    Short note on the psilocybin journey about which more later. Ate the mushroom after the gratitude ceremony. Mixed with a little lemon juice supposed to make it come on quicker and go sooner. Sat outside in the glass enclosed shelter where we held the gratitude ceremony, the others going inside. Watched the curved Snowy Bowl of Mt. Logan as my inner weather shifted under the power of the mushroom.

    Went inside and lay down on a heated pad. Soon Nahuatl Gods and Mayan hieroglyphics began to move across the ceiling. Sometimes two dimensional sometimes three almost down to my face. I love hallucinations. So fun. I told my guide I might be under utilizing the experience; it was so entertaining.

    Turned out no. I hadn’t. I had two intentions going in, the one I wrote about yesterday, how to live fully, and the second to continue my exploration of the sacred.

    During some brief conversation after being asked if we had any insights I said, yes, I had one. In living more fully I’ve pushed, thought about things to do, about acting in my life to live more fully. Answering Shakespeare, I have always chosen to take up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. Now I need to learn surrender.

    To live fully I need to open up, accept what’s coming. Greet the new year with arms spread wide for what it brings rather than what I can make happen. Well, not rather than. I mean, I’ll still take up arms, of course I will, but I learned yesterday that I have another option. To embrace, to wait, to listen, to let the world and its wonders come to me. As the Wicked Witch of the West might say, “Surrender, Charlie!”

     

     


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  • “Pulvis et umbra sumus.”

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall and the Samain Moon

    Saturday gratefuls: Standard Time. My favorite. DST. Boo. Black Mountain, hidden again in the mist. Fog. Frosted Lodgepole Needles. Big Snow on the way. 10-12 inches. Ruth and Dazzle Jazz. Sunday night, I hope. Cell phones. The time before cell phones. Desktop. Laptop. Computers of all sorts. Batteries. EVs. Climate change. Sea level rise. Greenland and Antarctica. Israel. Gaza. Palestinians. Public opinion. Fingers and toes. Skin and nose. Heart and lungs. The Body. Amazing and wonderful. Kepler and Kate, my sweethearts.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rigel

    One brief shining: The Lodgepoles have a flocked look as I drink my coffee, write, look up and gaze out the window toward Black Mountain, that ten-thousand footer obscured not so far away but invisible as the dew point matches the temperatures here on Shadow Mountain.

     

    We are but dust and shadow. “Pulvis et umbra sumus.” The Latin poet, Horace. Quoted in a poem sent out by buddy Tom Crane this morning. Brought to mind for me the Plaza del Toros in Mexico City where they sell tickets by sombra e sol. Shade or sun. I bought sombra. Worth it as the afternoon wore on and the dead bulls left the ring for donation to orphanages around the city.

    Spent some time a couple of weeks ago researching the ontological nature of shadows. Surprised that the consensus seemed to be that shadows have no ontological nature since they cannot interact with the world. So why then did I buy a ticket for sombra and not sol? Because sombra would be cooler! To me: Q.E.D.

     

    Here’s a sensation I forget each year only to have it delight me with its return. That feeling of expectation as the weather changes and big Snow is in the forecast. What will it be like, this Snow? How will it change the landscape? Of my yard? Of Shadow Mountain? of Black Mountain? How cold will it get? I can feel the Fire in my fireplace already. Perhaps some hot cocoa in my hand. Reading a book in one of my three favorite chairs. I suppose this is hygge, or the anticipation of hygge.

    What is hygge? Here’s an explanation:

    “Hygge is about cosiness and surrounding yourself with the things that make life good, like friendship, laughter and security, as well as more concrete things like warmth, light, seasonal food and drink.” scandinaviastandard

    How very Jewish of those Scandinavians. Joy as a religious obligation. Hygge as a facet of shabbat. Ah. The Snow has begun to fall. Crank up the hygge dial here on Shadow Mountain. My workout, then a fire and a book and a snack.

     

    Meanwhile the world flies Palestinians flags and students wear green bandanas in fealty to their notion of Hamas as a liberation front. While here at Shadow Mountain Home we fly the Stars and Strips and the blue and white flag of Israel. Which does NOT mean I do not care about Palestinian civilians. I do. The rules of war, remember? Proportionate response. Protect civilians. No justification with the why of war can erase these obligations.

     

     

     


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