Category Archives: Feelings

Feelings, Writing

En-Theos

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Yule and the 1% Crescent of the Moon of New Beginnings

Shabbat gratefuls: Joe’s visit. Ruth, too. Shadow. Tom and his week. Cold. 11. Prostate cancer. Its many treatments. The Dog run. Nathan. Natalie. Dr. Josy. Broncos v. Bills. Oh, my. Minnesota proud. Melt ICE. Politics. Poetry. Mary Oliver. Billy Collins. Rilke. Longfellow. Yeats. Eliot. Coleridge. Whitman. Dickens.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Year Kavannah: Creativity.   Yetziratiut.   “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” ― Pablo Picasso

Week Kavannah: Daat.    The Bridge Between Mind and Heart

“If Chokhmah (Wisdom/Inspiration) is a seed and Binah (Understanding/Analysis)  is the soil that develops that seed into a plant, Da’at is the nervous system that carries the vital life force from the brain to the rest of the body. It is the point of transition from “thinking” to “being.””

Tarot: Four of Vessels, Boredom

I take this as a caution, a yellow light. As I’ve been doing research for both Superior Wolf 2.0 and trying to figure out a cadence and a method for political research, it’s easy for me to get caught in the paralysis of analysis. Or, stasis. i.e., boredom.

One brief shining: Interesting, the dynamic tension between da’at and the four of vessels; if anything can connect inspiration to understanding, it’s da’at, linking the mind to the heart, ensuring the electricity of inspiration does not dissipate, become blocked, a blockage we could call boredom, “He’s lost in thought.”

I may have mentioned before that I get enthusiasms. Can be an idea, a person, a political movement, a poem, a book, a line of thought.

In using notebooklm, for example, I started out with two notebooks: political commentary and Superior Wolf. I meant to focus my thinking, my inspiration in those two areas, creating two channels which both limit my reach and give me space to expand within those boundaries.

Worked for a week or so. Then, I thought, hey, I could use a notebook for Talmud Torah, so I made one. Then, why not one for managing Shadow Home. OK. Opened that. Well, there’s always the Great Work. Yep. One more. And, hey, mussar, too. While I’m at it, let’s throw in one for Ancientrails. See what I mean?

En-theos. Enthuse. To find a feeling of godly grace, curiosity. Chinese culture and other tradition oriented cultures, too, I imagine, see curiosity as a danger, drawing us away from daily life, from the proven path and into the unknown. Uncertainty. Resulting, in this cautious view, either in stasis, boredom, or more seriously, rebellion.

My library contains a literary record of my enthusiasms. Latin. Ovid. The Classics. Poetry. Minnesota. The Civil War. The Arts. Travel. Fiction. Celtic history and myth. Horticulture. Military history. Philosophy. Christianity. Judaism. Dogs. Depth Psychology. And, more.

I have often gotten stuck at the en-theosing stage. Too much learning, analysis. Too little action. The result is a time of stasis, of stuckness. Or, boredom. In these moments da’at could have helped me, yet I never consciously focused on this character trait, how to bridge enthusiasm and planning, understanding.

I’m glad the four of vessels showed up on the day I switched my week kavannah to da’at. It encourages me to not get stuck in the ideas, the inspiration. And, it gives me a character trait I can practice for doing just that.

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Writing

Lord Willin’ and the Creek Don’t Rise

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Yule and the Moon of New Beginnings

Thursday gratefuls: Joe. Coming on a jet plane. Star Trek. Strange New Worlds. Vast distances. Space. The Milky Way. Discovery. Hubble. Webb. ISS. Tian Jian. Saturn. Atlas. SpaceX. Blue Origin. NASA. The Moon. Mars. Asteroids. Mother Earth, our spaceship. Terranauts. Great Sol.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Joe

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Year Kavannah: Creativity.   Yetziratiut.   “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” ― Pablo Picasso

Week Kavannah:  Wholeness. Shleimut.

“The concept of shleimut extends beyond the individual, applying to relationships (finding a life partner with whom one feels complete) and the community (mending societal cracks to achieve collective creativity and flourishing).”

Tarot: Knight of Vessels, Eel

“With purity of intent, your destiny defined, you are able to bring wisdom and maturity to your tasks. Embarking on a quest of personal revelation, your vision leads you onward. Your deep feelings are expressed at every turn.” Parting the Mists

One brief shining: Plane landed, he said, getting a car, leaving the rental, about 1.5 hours out; Joe had come to Colorado, the Godfather whose godchildren eagerly awaited him texting, buzzing, Ruth sending pictures of her new-to-her car, a Subaru Forester that Joe helped her find from afar, like a good Dad; when he got here lugging his usual duffle bag full of books, another Master’s degree underway, Shadow surprised us both and barked at him.

OK. Nobody comes to our house at night.  I’ll give her that. And, he’s a he. She definitely prefers women. Still. So. Joe closed the door and went back upstairs. When we went upstairs, Shadow and me, she relented, only backing away.

Joe came in for a hug, a muscled 44, smelling faintly of soap, bigger than I remembered. Though in reality it’s me that’s smaller. That affection. Borne of 44 years in each other’s lives, of so, so many memories. Of so much love.

All the longing. As I get older, I need to see him, and Seoah, too, so much more; yet, distance and the arc of a career, a successful career, mean I’ll probably never have what I need. Makes me sad.

It’s not like I need to see him every day, though that would be great, but having him and Seoah closer than 9,000 miles… Would be better. Not likely to happen.

I love my life on Shadow Mountain.  Great and good friends. Shadow. Wild Neighbors. Aspens and Lodgepoles. A house I know, that works well for me. Living in the Mountain West exhilarates me. A life that works. No regrets. Even so, I feel what I feel.

On an adjacent matter. Talking with Rachel, my social worker, (ok. yes. It still feels weird to say, my social worker.) I did resolve one bit of tension. My walking limitations and my head drop issue have left me near home bound. I can and do go out, but I fade quickly. Energy and stamina both limited.

I’ve felt, maybe for the past year, an unidentified need to do more, be more while at the same time thoroughly enjoying my at home life. A vague guilt, yet real. And, it taints my pleasure in a life of reading, Shadow, cooking, writing, watching TV.

I’d always pegged the feeling as pushing in from the second phase of career, family busyness. Rachel suggested it might also come from building a new life after Kate’s death. In two distinct, but, I feel, significant ways.

First, we had a life together, Kate and me. Attending CBE. Going to see the grandkids, Jon. Special evenings out, theater and jazz. Drives in the Mountains. Caring for each other.

Second, I was Kate’s 24/7 caretaker for almost three years, always on, always going to this appointment or that procedure or cooking or doing the laundry. Constantly busy.

There’s the proximate source of the guilt. I have a life of fewer obligations, either as partner/soulmate, or caregiver. I should be doing more, like I did for all those years. Well, no I shouldn’t.

My life, a more abbreviated one than it was in those years, does not have that level of relationship and duty. That’s a fact. Too, these physical limitations are real. I can ameliorate them some with exercise and diet, but I’m no longer capable of living the life I once lived even six months ago.

Which is oh so, so far from saying I’m not living a life of purpose and agency, a fulfilling and satisfying life. I am. And, I intend to go on doing it Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise.

The Reverend Doctor Israel Herme Harari

Feelings, Fourth Phase

Fallacies

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Yule and the Moon of New Beginnings

Wednesday gratefuls: Luke and Leo. Snowpack Pizzeria. Safeway pickup. Sheetpan meals. Climate change. Being a Jew, a son of Avram and Sarai. The Shema. The Far Right. Democratic socialism. The whole, wide world. Everywhere and everyone. The blessing and grace of the one. This darkness. This light.  Purpose. Meaning. Love. Joy. Compassion. Angst.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Ninth Wave

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:  Yirah.    Radical amazement, awe.

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs.  Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”  ― Howard Thurman

Becoming a metaPhysician

One brief shining: Natalie sent a video of Shadow crossing her threshold with no hesitation, tail up, ready to sit with the other dogs for her come in the house treat, then running upstairs with the other four, headed off to bed, in her third week away from home, away from me. An ache in my heart.

*The Ninth Wave” by Ivan Aivazovsky
Year 1850

I suppose most of us, if we felt so inclined, could document the thousand doubts our mind is heir to. I know that.  I’ve shared mine the last couple of days. So here’s another vantage point, a perspectival shift.

The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead warns us against what he calls fallacies of misplaced concreteness. That is, taking an idea and removing it from its context as if it were a thing sui generis. For example, imagining that there is such a thing as intelligence, justice, love instead of understanding that they are all part of a process of ongoing life, embedded in persons and situations and never existing in any other sense.

So when I place my finger on the doubts, the fears, the weariness and conclude from that I am melancholic or even depressed, I commit just such a fallacy. Yes, those doubts, fears, and weariness are part of me, yes. The key word in that sentence being part. Over the last couple of days I’ve obscured-through a fallacy of misplaced concreteness-my whole self. Imagining that the map I’ve written with those words is the true territory of my soul.

It is not. As Whitman wrote, I am many, I contain multitudes. I am no more explained by doubts and fears than I am by my knowledge and compassion. Probably less so. Why? Because the doubts and fears are more like flotsam and jetsam in the ocean of my Self. Sometimes certain currents swirl around, collect them, force them to the shore, to consciousness.

Oh, yes, I am these, too. No, wait. They are all I am. I cannot see beyond them. Never ever true.

Always a part of larger, more complex and wonderful whole. Not to be ignored, not to be pushed away in fear or pushed down in frustration, but to be felt and known and embraced and then put back out to sea, their work done. For now.

Not quite ready to stop listening to and learning from my doubts, my I can’ts. But I will be. Soon, I hope.

*Ninth Wave (Russian: Девятый вал, Dyevyatiy val) is an 1850 painting by Russian marine painter Ivan Aivazovsky. It is his best-known work.[1][2]

The title refers to an old sailing expression referring to a wave of incredible size that comes after a succession of incrementally larger waves.[3]

It depicts a sea after a night storm and people facing death attempting to save themselves by clinging to debris from a wrecked ship.   Wikipedia

 

*

Feelings, Fourth Phase

I Can’t Quite

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Yule and the Moon of New Beginnings

Tuesday gratefuls: Ruth, who sees me. Joe coming in January. Shadow in her third week of boarding school. Going to public spaces. That old debble melancholy. Deep darkness, nurturing. Now more light, let the growing season show its first tiny shoots. The dance of light and dark. Shadows. Shadow Mountain.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Self

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:  Yirah.    Radical amazement, awe.

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs.  Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”  ― Howard Thurman

Becoming a metaPhysician

One brief shining: Can you feel the trembling heart of children, ones who await not gifts but special dispensations from the holy Santa Claus who once a year accomplishes the miraculous, Reindeer powered sleigh landing on rooftops, finding a way in even to non-chiminied homes, eating millions of cookies and drinking gallons of milk, knowing what each child’s heart needs, and bringing a present that speaks love and caring.

 

And so. I’ve mostly said it out loud. I can feel, often feel, boxed in by my choices, living a tentative life with medicine offering temporary balms, welcome, yet always with the awareness that this drug, that ablation, will fail.

Chips away at my sense of self, my fantasy of permanence. I feel myself too often sliding into no, I can’t, rather than my usual, from a life I remember well, I can. I can’t travel. I can’t take care of this dog. I can’t engage large tasks. I can’t stand long enough to cook. I can’t.

When I can’t takes over, the self does not lose agency, it relinquishes it. No wonder sadness follows. What a pitiful excuse for a human being. Who’s old enough to know better.

Ah, as Shakespeare wrote, there’s the rub. I do know better. But knowing is a weak cousin to action and an even more distant relative to healing a wounded heart. From this well, I look up and see others handling their lives, doing this and that, keeping their life going while I languish. The one who can’t.

I know. For sure and certain.  This view flows from a crippled heart. And yet, I can’t seem to find that Archimedean lever to move my inner world.

It’s not for lack of love. Not at all. Friends and family, yes. Who see me. Care for me. It’s not for lack of self knowledge gained the hard way over years of analysis and honest self-reflection.

Then, what is it? I think, sometimes, that I should sell the house, move into a condo or an apartment, or assisted living where the burdens I feel in this independent, introverted life I lead would fall away. Then I remember AA, wherever you go, there you are. No to geographic escape.

I need to figure this out living in this place I love, with the Dog and human family I love, with my friends, with my wild neighbors both of whom I love. With Mother Earth, from her I  came and to her I will return.

Feelings, Fourth Phase

Seeking Joy

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Yule and the Moon of New Beginnings

Monday gratefuls: No fire during the high winds. No downed Trees. Nathan starts work on Friday. Will finish before Shadow comes home. Ruth and Gabe, my empaths. Joe, too. Hannukah. Food in the fridge. Water from the well. Septic system. Generator. Internet. Friends checking in. Mother Nature and her powerful ways. Pagans at Stonehenge and Glastonbury Tor. The Winter Solstice. Light returns. Slowly.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Melancholy, my old friend

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:  Yirah.    Radical amazement, awe

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” ― W.B. Yeats

Tarot: Paused

One brief shining: Those moans and sighs, the pulsing of windows, the generator’s gentle music have seized; but this day, a day when the sound of the chain saw will dominate, more high winds, yet all the while neighbors and businesses have barely begun to set things right again, squaring up life today with what’s left from yesterday.

 

Ruth gave me a spiral bound calendar of positive affirmations. When I asked her if she thought I was depressed, she hesitated, then nodded. Later on I told her that yes, sometimes I wonder if I’ve just had too much. Too much loss. Too many medical interventions. I guess the word, better than depressed, might be melancholic.

If I’m honest, and I try very damn hard to be nothing but, I’d have to admit that I’ve often shrugged off exercise. Often spent most of my day watching television. Something I despise. I have three major projects I could work on: Seed Savers, a new Superior Wolf novel, a regular schedule of reading, then commenting on the news. But I only get to the planning. Eating enough has become a challenge.

Perhaps I’ve been  down a long time. Longer than I’d like to admit. Am I coping? Oh, yes. Handling things, even or especially in tough times, I consider a strong part of my character. Yet handling things, too, can take its own toll.

Judaism holds joy to be a religious obligation and I agree. Perhaps my most necessary task this Yule and in the new year will be to focus more on the joy that surrounds me and is within me. To both see it and feel it, let it in.

Like what, you might ask? The generator. Ruth and Gabe’s love. Shadow. No pain in my left hip and back. A constellation of friends, near and far. This delightful house now molded to my life. Great Sol rising. Seasons changing. Family who love me. Memories of a great life with Kate. A mind that continues to sharpen itself on the whetstone of experience. Prostate cancer treatments to keep me alive. More than adequate money. Each Lodgepole and each Aspen. Each species of Moss, Ground Cover, each Wildflower at Shadow Mountain Home. Artemis. Ruby. Electricity. Positive affirmations, eh?

Joy, joy, joy to the fishes and the deep blue sea, joy to you and me.

Dogs, Dreams, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Memories, Politics

Again, Recess Is Over

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Samain and the Shadow Moon (3 sessions to go)

Tuesday gratefuls: Shadow, doing her work. The now working Clinac. My life, worth living. Fencing companies. Building a dog run with heated dog house for Shadow. Joe’s willingness. Early Winter. The coming of Hannukah, Yule, the Winter Solstice, Christmas, New Year’s. Holiseason at its peak.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fences

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:   Malchut  Wonder.   A feeling of surprise mixed with admiration caused by something beautiful or unexpected.

Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: Joe, my son, offered to come and build the dog run for Shadow, to set aside for a few days his serious duties and help Dad and his Dog, to do that after a fifteen hour flight from his home, a son a man can be proud of, yet I won’t let him come because this wonderful place where I live often experiences sudden, mighty Snowfalls and if one happened before or when he got here, he would have come 9,000 miles out of love and I would have no dog run. Doesn’t make sense for either of us. Damn it.

 

Shook off the OMG I make bad things happen feelings like Shadow shakes off rain. Still a little wet, but dry enough to feel ok.

When negative feelings crop up, they feed on themselves, multiply like Rabbits. This one begets another one and suddenly a whole life has come under scrutiny, memories retrieved to bolster the black mood.

When I drank, I often followed this spiral: I didn’t go to graduate school. I married stupidly, twice. I’ve not taken a direction in my life, rather let life carry me along like flotsam or jetsam. No agency. Woe is me and my sad, woe begotten life. And all because my mommy died young.

Nope. I’d been making choices all along. Many of them poor: Judy and Raeone, seminary. The Peaceable Kingdom. Not my woe begotten life, a Charlie begotten life that did not synch up with my values. No wonder I felt miserable much of the time.

After sobriety. Still plenty of work to do, to grab life in my own hands, shake it until it made sense, expressed who I saw myself to be. John Desteian helped me through it.

That dream. The pivotal one. I had a sword, held it high in the air over my head, lightning crackling around it while a crowd chanted, “He has the power. He has the power.” Yes, in fact I did and had had it all along. The power to change, to redirect my life.

And so I did.

 

Just a moment: Trump pardons convicted narcotrafficker, Juan Orlando Hernádez. Then, surprise! Honduras issues an arrest warrant for him for money laundering and fraud. Too bad for him Trump is not president of Honduras.

Now let’s play Where’s That Video? Oh, the guy it might indict has control over its release? OK. Will he at least release his actual orders, then? Like Federal Law requires? Again, recess is over. Time to pretend we’re adults now.

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Health, Memories

I have

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Samain and the Shadow Moon

Monday gratefuls: Pictures of Shadow. Missing her. Darkness. Resolve. Football. Da Broncs. And, yes, always-the Vikes. The Nuggets. F1. Alexandria beats Anderson in the Wigwam (sic) 1963? Bobby Plump. The Indy 500. Jim Clark. A.J. Foyt. Mario Andretti and sons. Sports. The Atlanta Rabbits.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Gevurah

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah: Malchut     Wonder.   A feeling of surprise mixed with admiration caused by something beautiful or unexpected.

Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: Cleaned up the kitchen, unloading the dishwasher, putting dirty dishes in, a cycle, wiped down the counter, washed a sheet pan and a large bowl, poured myself a glass of eggnog, and sat on my stool as my porkchop, broccoli, and potato puffs warmed up.

 

Radiation starts up again today. I think. If the biomed engineering techs got it back up and running. Finishing Thursday, seeing Bupathi on Friday.

Clinac iX. My photo

When I talked to Dr. Carter last Tuesday, he repeated what I keep hearing from various sources. “We’re treating your cancer like a chronic disease.” Hard to say how amazing this statement is. I’ve had stage 4 cancer since 2022 and he says it’s a chronic disease. Stage 4 has, historically, meant the end. And soon. Now, chronic disease. Wow.

On a sidenote. Don’t you think the Clinac looks like an adorable, goofy cartoon Dinosaur?

 

A curiosity: Have been unable to quash these wandering questions, maybe doubts, about my life. Am I a drama King? If everything’s running smoothly, something must be wrong?

Do I push situations in my life toward the extremes? After I quit drinking, I would have, up to this point, have said no. Even after divorcing Raeone and leaving the ministry, I felt strong, like I’d made necessary choices, not pleasant ones, choices to align my life with my values and beliefs.

Then, marrying Kate. We had this wonderful life together where we consistently made choices to support each other, family members in need, to support Mother Earth, to love and care for dogs. To travel the world together. Of course we had our differences, our troubles but we loved our way through them.

The move to Colorado, to be near the grandkids, extended that life into the Rocky Mountains. Where I got cancer. Where Kate got sick and died. Where all four of the dogs we brought with us died. Where I’ve now spent four and a half years in this wonderful home she found without her. Where back pain and a bad hip have left me less than able since Korea in 2023.

Then I adopted Shadow. 10 months ago. An up and down experience. As you, dear reader, already know.

I’ve written because I find writing brings me clarity, is the closest thing to true self-therapy I’ve ever found.

My conclusion, after having written this, looked back with I feel is honesty, I’ll answer my own question. These situations, especially since the move to Colorado, have been moments not of me pushing things to an extreme, but of me being forced by circumstance to confront and deal with real life extremes. Physical illness. Death. Mental illness. Grief. Jon and Jen’s nasty divorce, its fallout, then fallout from his death. Now the life of a dog I love wrestling with her own demons.

And, that’s ok. Life is as it happens. The key question is, do we show up to meet it there. I have.

 

Dogs, Feelings, Friends

Come Again No More

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Samain and the Shadow Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Sadness. Shadow at Natalie’s. Snow yesterday. Resilience. Hard times*. Grief. Missing my dog. Weak. Mountains. Appalachians. Blue Ridge. The Piedmont. Wasatch. Sierra. Cascades. Wind River Range. The Rockies. Tectonic Plates. Subduction. Orogeny. Basalt. Gneiss. Granite. Shadow Mountain. Shadow’s Mountain.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Chesed

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah: Malchut     Wonder.   A feeling of surprise mixed with admiration caused by something beautiful or unexpected.

Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: Guess it shouldn’t have surprised me, but there it was, clutching my heart; she left up the steps on a yellow leash and vanished from my sight, my Shadow, gone as surely as if Clouds had obscured Great Sol’s light, yet paradoxically a shadow remained, making my inner light a chiaroscuro occasioned by a strange mix of hope and grief.

asleep last night at Natalie’s. a hard day of play.

Gotta admit I’ve handled hard times better. I thought. Where’s my resilience? Ironically the topic for the Ancient Brothers this morning. Even more irony? It’s my topic.

Not feeling so resilient. And yet. I recognize this sadness, this listlessness. It’s grief. Some of it retrograde from agreeing with Kate’s choice. Some of it from watching Kepler struggle up the same stairs with the help of Mia and the home vet on his way to euthanasia. Most of it from watching my little Shadow leave. Even though. Even though I knew she was coming back.

I had been ready, no, not ready, but seeing the loving thing might be, probably was, to let her go. Too much like Kate. Too much. And I tried. I offered her to Dr. Josy who put this new plan in motion, bless her. She and Natalie have been so kind. Chesed, loving kindness. Not Jewish alone, a Hebrew word for human compassion. You know it when you feel it.

This morning, right now as I write this, my heart once again feels a bit flayed, a bit constricted, yet there’s also a wiggle, maybe a tail wagging?

My resilience runs through this valley, one where I can’t make  out the valley’s forested and rocky walls, where my energy dissipates at even the thought of moving forward, where tears flow.

Then, slow slow dragging steps. Not yet for me. Not right now, but I take those steps, I will take those steps. I know I will because I have. In having taken them before I know I can and will take them now.

Not today though, because not enough tears. Not enough.

When I spent some time indulging my Civil War interests, I bought a CD of Civil War songs for a road trip to Vicksburg. This one came up for me this morning, a plea, a prayer, a hope no one has the right to expect. And yet…

*Chorus:
‘Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,
Hard Times, hard times, come again no more.
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;
Oh! Hard times come again no more

;

Aging, Cancer, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Hermitage, Memories, Myth and Story, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain

Alchemical work

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Samain and the Radiation Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Joanne. Diane. The Alembic. Jung. Freud. Rogers. May. Frankl. Maslow. Satir. Fromm. Adler. Horney. Erikson. Paul Goodman. Adorno. Marcuse. Benjamin. Habermas. Unamuno. The hermeneutics of suspicion. Ricoeur. Guides from my student days. The theology of liberation. Cornel West. Shadow Work. Ivan Illich.

Sparks of joy and awe: A day of rest

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:  Hakarat Hakov   Gratitude.    “Who is rich? Those who rejoice in their portion.” Perkei Avot 4:1

Tarot: Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: Shadow, shadow work, the work done but unrecognized, unpaid, unappreciated housework, child rearing, transporting yourself to work, self checkout, pumping your own gas, making your own travel arrangements, assembling products that come in pieces, maintaining a yard and a vehicle noticed and named by radical thinker, Ivan Illich, in his book, Shadow Work. How much shadow work do you do?

Alembics. “…historically used by alchemists and for producing medicines, perfumes, and alcohol, the word can also be used metaphorically to mean something that refines or transmutes.” Gemini

I’ve begun to think of my life in terms of alembics. When was I thrown into a life situation, either by my own choice or by outside circumstance that resisted logic, yet compelled me to respond in unexpected, unusual, new ways?

A major early almebic? The death of my mother. No way to reason my way through that. A moment of dark transformation, carried without thought into the dark recesses of my heart, clashing with a changed world, and not well. In spite of being in a family, I sat in this alembic alone, feeling the fires of fear, doubt, grief lick up and around my stunned self.

This transmutation produced no gold. No, it produced a broken soul, one ready for abandonment, for sudden shifts from light to dark, from innocence to intoxication. Yes, the second alembic, which contained the first, grew from days at Phi Kappa Psi and Wabash where I learned to smoke and to drink.

An alembic that would not shatter until March of 1976 when I began treatment at a Hazelden outpatient clinic in Minneapolis. Getting sober allowed me to gather in pieces of the dark time and begin to transform them into psychic gold. To understand that the grief, the agony, the isolation (self-imposed) had forced me to mine my inner resources in ways and at a time most people went to prom and figured out what to do with their lives.

Other alembics. The Peaceable Kingdom. Seminary. Adopting Joseph. Vietnam era protests. Studying philosophy and anthropology. Marrying Kate. Andover with its gardens, dogs, bees. Writing. Shadow Mountain. Kate’s illness and death. Cancer. CBE. Converting to Judaism. Old age with a terminal illness, the fourth phase.

I like the use of alembic to describe these times because it recognizes that the pressures and fractures and falls and emergence shape us in ways unpredictable, unknown, yet in which we have no choice but to participate as best we can.

Are you in an alembic right now? Or, have you emerged from one recently? Or, long ago. How did it transform you? How is it transforming you?

Ancient Brothers, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends

Loved Ones

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Mabon and the Samain Moon

Monday gratefuls: Luke and Leo. Shadow. My dying fan. Vince, who has returned. Artemis, who wants her late fall makeover in her western bed. Old friends and new. Joanne. Her call. Her stroke. Alan and Cheri, visiting her. Ode in his place, his studio. Naked Aspens. Smoky the Bear at high Wildfire risk. Big O Tires, Ruby’s Snow shoes. This morning.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Professor Luke

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Hochmah.  Wisdom.   “Who is wise? The one who learns from every person.”  Perkei Avot: 4:1   Making medical decisions this week.

Tarot: Paused

One brief shining: Luke came up with his laundry and Leo, who lumbers along, a big old Dog with arthritis yet his same calm loving presence, Shadow circling him like a quick small bird, wanting to play, not understanding age, yet in her not knowing quickening memories for him of a younger Leo so he moves a bit faster, plays.

 

Loved ones: A weekend filled with friends and family. Rich bringing me Kim’s wonderful soup on Saturday. Our conversation.

After he left, my regular call to faraway Korea, my son on his couch, me in my chair. This now forty-four year long relationship as vibrant and loving as ever. A sweet and kind and compassionate man.

Sunday morning, my four Ancient Brothers, all well past the three quarters of a century mark, gathering around our cyber camp fire to speak of our week, keeping each other up to date on our lives. Then each of us taking a turn reflecting on place and what it means in our world.

A phone call. Sorry I stood you up. Well, Joanne, a stroke counts as a pretty good excuse. We talked, as we do, of matters of the heart, her Albert, my Kate. Life alone. Her path after the stroke that landed her in Lutheran hospital’s ICU. Damned insurance companies. She said men her age peers, early 90’s, suffered from testosteronitis. My age not as much. I felt flattered.

While I talked to her, Leo came down the stairs, his happy face familiar with my place and turning, as is his wont, to the silver bucket in which I keep Shadow’s toys, his collar and his rabies tag getting tangled in the bucket’s handle, surprising him, but in his gentle way, he handled it.

Professor Luke followed, his duffel bag of laundry over his shoulder. Leo went outside to see Shadow. We sat here, in the two leather chairs, friends and coreligionists. I told him I would help him in any way he needed when he took over the bagel table Torah study next week. Filling in for Rabbi Jamie who starts his sabbatical November 1st.

He’s excited about his work, teaching Chemistry at Colorado Community College. I’m so happy to see him finally in a work setting that nourishes him. He’s needed that for as long as I’ve known him, going on four years now.

After he left, Vince showed up straight up from his work with an architectural restoration firm at the Colorado State Capitol. He solved the motion sensor light problem, found an arcing extension cord, and will come back to fix that. I could tell he’s once again my property manager. He’s always been my friend.