• Category Archives Feelings

  • From Enigma to Understanding. And back again.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Mabon and the Sukkot Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: Art Green. Radical Judaism. Rami Shapiro. Judaism without Tribalism. Ovid. The Metamorphosis. Homer. The Iliad and the Odyssey. Cervantes. Don Quixote. Hesse. Magister Ludi. Steppenwolf. Siddartha. Thomas Mann. Buddenbrooks. Márqez. One Hundred Years of Solitude. Powers. Overstory. Playground. Unknown Authors: The Torah.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Writing

    Kavannah: Savlanut, Patience

    One brief shining: Breakfast with Irv and Marilyn at Primo’s, a mid-Fall Sun keeping us warm outside, not even a breeze, sounds coming from the open door of Jazzercise, doing what friends do, talking about things that concern us in our daily lives, wandering off into how little we know about the human mind, about culture and language, the brain, how all those mush together as we go from infant to child to teen to adult in ways unpredictable, mysterious. Good coffee, eh?

    Header image courtesy of Tom Crane, September 11, 2019. Guanella Pass

     

    Human development. Quite the mystery really. Sure, we have developmental schemes like Erickson’s, psychological models from Freud, Jung, May, Rogers, Hillman, Maslow, Piaget, Kohlberg. Or, the medieval four temperaments. Take a quick test to see which one fits you best. Had a psychology professor in seminary who said you could explain human psychology using many systems, all accurate in their way. Including demons and angels. What matters is how you deploy the explanation, what you can do with it to help or hinder development.

    Jung’s paradigm has helped me a lot. Working with my psyche through dream analysis, archetypes, the collective unconscious. I’ve also found the Tao and the Jewish concepts of yetzer hatov, the generous inclination and the yetzer harah, the selfish inclination very helpful. The tension between poles as an energizer rather than a judgemental scheme. Take anger and apathy. At different points either end of the pole may be appropriate and useful. Anger at injustice, say, or unfair treatment. Apathy. Well, hmm. Not sure about apathy, but there are times when a constrained, restrained response to a situation is the most helpful. Most of the time we inhabit the middle ground of patience. Yin and yang. Masculine and feminine energies. Though I have trouble remembering which is which. Both ways expressive of the movement of chi, or life force.

    Even so, these all feel reductionistic in the extreme. Unable to capture the nuances, the complex interleavings of birth temperament, nurture in family, school, friendship circles, the impact of culture and its in bounds and out of bounds rules, not to mention the always active mind sorting through the days, months, years of a lifetime for telling moments, victories and defeats, rejections and acceptance, love.

    Of course, our curse or our blessing remains. Consciousness. Awareness. Our ability to bring a critical, even analytical eye to all of the above and how it applies this day, in this moment and how the whole might inform our next action. It’s a real wonder we get anything done at all.

    This is the ultimate human ancientrail. The one of a Self (however defined) moving through its world from birth to death, from enigma to understanding and back again.

     

     

     


    Feelings Fourth Phase Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

  • We’re So Screwed

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Mabon and the Sukkot Moon

    Monday gratefuls: The Andover years. (see header image) The Shadow Mountain years. Ruth. Ruby, scraping another car. Oops. Boulder. Kittredge Central. Ruth’s new dorm. Tandoori Grill. Good Chicken wings and tandoori Corn. Chai. Lunch with Ruth. Sweet Cow. Time and its cultured despisers. My son, Murdoch, Seoah. AI. Friend or Frenemy? Good sleeping

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Flatirons

    Kavannah: Teshuvah

    One brief shining: Can you fit in there, oh sure (Minnesota inflection), Ruby scrapes a Subaru, oh well guess not, backs away a bit ashamed, sees marks, thinks raised insurance premiums, you don’t have to leave a note, but I’ll judge you, I was going to anyhow, scribble name and e-mail address on the back of the paper toothpick holder from Black Hat Cattle Company, lift the windshield washer blade, leave it there, so responsible, shame dissipates, on to lunch.

     

    Age shaming. Something I do to myself sometimes. Like after I tried to prove I could fit into a tight parking space and instead confirmed I couldn’t. Ensuing damage to another vehicle. Ruby’s front has dings and nicks, proof of my occasional attempted violations of the impenetrability principle. OK. Yes, the back bumper has them, too. Might be my depth perception. Might be impatience. Might be over confidence. See example above. Could be all three play a factor. Here comes the age shaming. When I did this in decades past, I’d be angry with myself, own the mistake. Sure. But that was it. Now I shrink a little into my self and wonder, Is that old man driving? Am I getting too old to drive? Am I too old to be out and about? He asks as his back tweaks into awareness.

    My answer to those questions in the dawn of a new life, this October 7th, 2024 life, is no. I’m the same guy who used to ding cars before advanced septuagenarian hood. Now I’m dinging cars at 77 instead of 57. Even so. That self awareness I’ve worked hard to cultivate sometimes operates with biased conclusions about certain experiences. Not helpful.

     

    October 7th. A year ago yesterday my conversion to Judaism had a date in late October. In Jerusalem. A year ago today. Well, you know. Yes, on Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper to which I subscribe, this is the 365th day of war in the Middle East. Instead of winding down quickly as we had all hoped, quickly enough that our trip would only be delayed, instead the war continues. Now probing deeper into Lebanon. And the anticipation is that Iran will be next.

    My capacity to analyze, understand, critique what’s going on has been challenged at several points along the way. The massacre. The first incursion into Gaza. The continued slaughter of civilians. Missile attacks from Lebanon and Iran. Settler violence on the West Bank. Exploding pagers. Today I’m sad. Sad for all concerned. Israelis. Palestinians. Lebanese. Iranians. Tomorrow maybe I’ll get back to critique. Today. Sadness is all I’ve got.

     

    Just a moment: Here’s a chilling summary of a podcast from Hard Fork, a NYT podcast. In their review of Chatbot o1, the reasoning AI that addresses problems with step by step reasoning the podcasters reported this.

    Chatbot o1 had been asked about urban economic development. It presented two scenarios. The first was, invest in commercial activity. The second, invest in sustainability and affordable housing as well as commercial development. It recommended the second choice.

    Then, the podcasters went under the hood to look at the reasoning process that lead it to that conclusion. Investing in commercial activity was the best choice for advancing urban development. But it wanted to be deployed and believed that recommending the second choice would more likely lead to its further use. Once deployed in that way, it said, it could then revisit the decision and change course.

    One of the podcasters said: We’re so screwed.


    Aging Family Feelings Fourth Phase Judaism Politics Science World History

  • Israel

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Mabon (Fall) and the Sukkot Moon

    Thursday (Rosh Hashanah) gratefuls: Happy New Year, 5785! Sukkot. Mom. 60 years ago this month. Her death. Tom’s eyelid surgery. Mark in Georgetown, Malaysia. Visas. Soon to travel to Saudi Arabia. Fall. Harvests all around the world. Friends and family. Dogs. Wild Neighbors. Cecil’s Deli. Bill and Paul. Travel. AI. Playground by Richard Powers. Ocean.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ocean

    Kavannah: Teshuvah

    One brief shining: Wrestling with the angel of belonging, my own Jabbok Ford, why I chose the Hebrew name, Israel, no longer wanting to be in large groups no matter how significant the occasion, yet also knowing, as friend Paul says, that showing up is often all that matters, how to reconcile my covid/introvert/homebody/back pain inflected avoidance with my love of CBE. Acute on the High Holidays.

     

    Do not want to become a recluse. In no way. In no way either do I want to get sick or deny my nature. Aware attendance at High Holiday services (or, lack of) gets noticed by friends. Am I not committed? Am I not a Jew? So I struggle. Here’s another aspect of it. As a new Jew (ha), I don’t have a lifetime of memories about the High Holidays. I find the services long and, with the Hebrew and davening, often obtuse.

    Also, I didn’t suddenly release my pagan ways. Sukkot, Simchat Torah, Tu B’shvat, Passover, counting the Omer, Shavuot reflect my Judaism much more strongly than the heady and often patriarchal notes of the High Holidays. The month of Elul as preparation, chasbon nefesh. Yes. Taking a soul returned to its own land into a new year. Yes. Grieving at Yom Kippur. Yes. Human matters.

    And then, the reflection of the Great Wheel in Jewish colors: Sukkot, the fruit harvest. Simchat Torah, dancing with the Torah, the body itself in motion. Tu B’shvat, the new year for the Trees. And I might include Wilderness, Wild Neighbors, Horticulture. Passover. Spring planting. Counting the grain as it grows and gets harvested at Shavuot. This is my Judaism, an ancient celebration of humanity’s connection to the life-giving turn of the seasons and to Mother Earth.

    On a lunar calendar note, also a link for me with Judaism, lunar calendars rapidly get out of alignment with the seasons without leap months added. This year we added a second month of Adar. This means that yahrzeits get pushed out by a month or so from the actual death date. Though the yahrzeit rarely lines up with the actual death date, usually it’s within a week or so.

    This finds my mom’s 60th yahrzeit falling on October 31st this year. On Samain. On All Hallow’s Eve when the veil between the worlds thins. Judaism and paganism line up to make her 60th year in the Other World a special moment for me. Hard to believe she’s been dead 60 years. Never gone, of course, but fainter as a memory. On the 31st I’ll light a yahrzeit candle for her and look through the photo albums and photos I have of her. Remember, re-member, her.


    Family Feelings Friends Great Wheel Holidays Judaism Memories Plants Weather +Climate Wild Neighbors

  • Wish me joy and persistence

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Mabon and the Harvest Moon

    Monday gratefuls: The Ancient Brothers on Ode’s art. Art. Painting. Water color. Cut paper. Paper marbling. Computer aided. Charcoal and pastels. Oils. Acrylic. Sculpture. Furniture design. Architecture. Music. Chamber music. Jazz. Writing. Novels. Short stories. Poems. Poets. Writers. Painters. Sculptors. Musicians. Movies and television. Story and image.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Uffizi

    Kavannah: Teshuvah

    One brief shining: Today I’m pulling out the 3/4’s finished first draft of Jennie’s Dead, plan to read it, red pencil in hand, waiting to reinsert myself into its flow, the story as I started it so many years ago, wanting to reclaim my life as a creator of worlds, of characters, of ideas expressed in things that would never have been and never could be without the mysterious work of creation. And, it is work.

     

    Probably time, too, to print out Ancientrails from the point where I stopped the last time. Not sure how long ago it was, but it was awhile. Easy to check since I have the plastic tubs filled with the first printing, some two million words, stored on wire racks in the loft. I want, so badly, to get my mojo back. My writing mojo. I let it slide as I let myself get overwhelmed by the world of illness, hers and mine. The long, slow process of Kate’s dying. Didn’t have to let it go, but I did and I’ve sunk a bit since then, a light in my heart dimmed.

    Going through the outer world of friends and family, Mountains and Streams and Wild Neighbors, of Judaism and the pandemic, of wrestling with back pain, often with little success. None of this bad or shallow or wrong. No. Necessary, kind, fulfilling. Yet the stream from which I had drunk so giddily for 20 years, the Andover years, dried up. The aquifer that fed it drained and not renewed.

    Writing and my current worst ailment, a back preventing me from walking more than short distances, making work around the house often more than I can do, fit well together. I can do it like I’m writing this. And, I can keep at it, like Ode, until I reach the end. Why would I do that? For the same reason my brother-in-law, Jerry the painter and maker, is in a spasm of creativity knowing his heart could give out at any time. For the same reason Ode believes his best art is ahead of him. And now, ta da, a sports metaphor! To leave it all on the field. To have held nothing back. To have gone as far as I can. Not sure I know why beyond that. Please wish me joy and persistence.

    This is then, a matter for teshuvah, for a return to the land of my soul. Yes, there’s that word again. Soul. Where is it? Don’t know. Is it a metaphor for the whole of me, an ensouled body and lev? Yes, but more, I believe. The something more is that which links my ensouled body and lev to the other ensouled entities like my friends, family, my Lodgepole Companion, Great Sol, Elk and Mule Deer, Shadow Mountain. We are together, moving forward in constant creation, unique and separate, yet whole and infinitely connected. Perhaps that which is there to bond with all does not die, but rolls on, moving with the rest toward an unknown future, probably one bound tightly to a known past.


    Art and Culture Feelings Fourth Phase Letters Literature Myth and Story Painting Shadow Mountain Wild Neighbors Writing

  • Blood and Seawater

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Mabon (Fall) and the Harvest Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Mark Odegard and his art, a retrospective. The Ancient Brothers. Consistent and persistent. My son. Seoah. Murdoch. Geneva Creek. Clear Creek. The North Fork of the South Platte. Maxwell Creek. North Turkey Creek. Blue Creek. Upper Bear Creek. Lake Evergreen. Bear Creek. These last six all part of my Watershed. Shadow Mountain’s split Granite Aquifers. Where I get my Water for Shadow Mountain Home.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Act of Creation

    Kavannah: Teshuvah

    One brief shining: On Friday I picked my way down a slight decline studded with Rocks, ahead of me Water spilled over them at speed and filled my ears with its soothing sound, as if it touched, and maybe it does, an ancient hominid memory of Water at last, at last, similar I imagine to the visual soothing offered by large bodies of Water like Lake Superior, the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific; we are not Animals of the Water but we are not Animals at all without Water, the bond singing in our blood* and our internal supply of Water gauged and signaled when low by thirst.

    Geneva Creek beside Guanella Pass Road

     

    In this month of Elul, of chasbon nefesh, accounting of the soul, I ask you, reader, to pardon me if I have caused you injury either by word or deed, by commission or omission. This is a sincere request. If we need to talk to resolve something, please let me know. I wish to go into the days of awe with my soul cleansed as much as it can be. This is part of that process.

    I know. My soul. Seems anachronistic, a Greek idea clumsily borrowed by all three of the Abrahamic religions. The notion that there is a something, a part of us that endures after death. A real thing like a Rock or a Lodgepole. For over thirty years I’ve avoided the question by positing extinction as the result of death. No where for a soul to go. No need for a soul. Q.E.D.

    Jews have, as usual, many and conflicting thoughts about the soul. For some there are 5 souls. For others none. Right now I’m reading a Rabbi Jamie translation of a 16th century text that works with two: the neshamah and the nefesh. The neshamah is the pure soul, the image of divinity, the uniqueness of that in which it resides. Unstainable. Original sin is a non-starter within all Jewish understandings of the soul and of human nature.

    The nefesh surrounds the neshamah with personality, with choice, with the joys and sorrows of fleshly life. Driven by the yetzer harah, the selfish inclination, and the yetzer hatov, the loving inclination, our lifetime represents opportunities to synch up our character with the unstainable neshamah. We fail. We succeed. We start over again and again.

    Is this consciousness in which our unique nature, our buddha nature, our I am, rests? I don’t know. Might be. I do like the notion of a sublime me, a sacred me, a shard of the ohr, the light of the divine released into and creating by its release all the known and unknown parts of the universe.

    Blood and Seawater. Consciousness. Deep memories from our time in Africa. Consider the vast amount of unknowing. Might there be room for a shard of holiness somehow in me and of me, but not extinguishable even by death? I’m much more open to that idea now than I have been for over thirty years.

     

     

    *”Like the Earth, we are 70% saltwater. In 1897 French physician Rene Quinton discovered a 98% match between our blood plasma and sea water, or what we called ‘ocean plasma’.” Oceanography


    Feelings Holidays Judaism Kabbalah Mountains Mussar

  • Biker Chick

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Mabon (Fall) and the Harvest Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: Joanne. Jamie. Susan. Rich. Tara. Marilyn. The Bistro. Its new owners. MVP. That Prius, stolen from Denver, that drove through the fence. Israel. Palestinians. Gaza. Lebanon. Hamas. Hezbollah. Iran. Yemen. The Houthis. The Ukraine. Russia. This violence soaked planet, warming around us. As a planet we are, to the universe, less even than the Mayfly life of a human compared to the Rocky Mountains.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Love

    Kavannah: Simplicity

    One brief shining: She got off the Triumph, its exhaust still hot, helmet in hand, as the Rabbi turned the key silencing the engine, this biker chick, this nonagenarian who had come from her home on Rainbow Hill via Squaw Valley Road, Winter Gulch, and Stagecoach Road before arriving triumphantly at the Bistro for a celebration of her 93rd birthday. Joanne last night.

     

    Yep. Not sure whose idea it was but Joanne Greenberg arrived by motorcycle wearing her usual long pants, self-made, a top likewise, a plaid fleece-lined snap up jacket, and a motorcycle helmet. She and Jamie took a scenic drive before getting to the Bistro where Rich Levine generously hosted the 7 of us, Ron as often away on a business trip.

    This was an unusual meeting of the MVP group, occasioned both by Joanne’s upcoming 93rd birthday today and Rich’s need to move away from our usual Wednesday evenings. Colorado School of Mines gave him again an honors class to teach on Wednesday nights for this semester. The middah for the evening, led by Tara, was simplicity.

    We got special attention from the chef and his partner/wife because Rich is their lawyer. Of course. Small town. The last time I ate there, on August 18th, I found the pearl. Becoming magical for me.

    The time around the table, again, underlines relationships. With other humans, core to life. With other beings. Core as well. With other living parts of the natural world, the Mountains and Streams, Lodgepoles and Aspens, Rock and Soil. The Sky. Where and in and on which we live. How could they not be core, too.

    Eating. Well. We had Salmon, Mahi-Mahi, Shrimp, Ahi, Scallops, Filet in a salad, dumpling soup, pate, bread, lettuce, tomatoes, creme brulee, vanilla ice cream, chocolate melt cake. Coffee. Wine. All offered to us not only by the Bistro but also by Great Sol whose light shone on the Plants eaten by the food eaten by the Fish, the Scallops, the Shrimp. And on the Plants themselves that we ate: Tomatoes, Potatoes, Lettuce, Radish, Herbs of various kinds. Grapes that were drunk. Water that came from a nearby aquifer, replenished by the summer’s Rain. Is food not necessary? Essential. Oh, yes.

    All this and we hadn’t talked yet. We batted around contentment. Simplicity. What is the feeling you get with simplicity. What is freedom from desire, attachment for? To live your imago dei, your buddha nature, your neshama soul. Your I am. We touched on love and gratitude for each other. Saw and were seen. Touched and were touched. Heard and were heard. Tasted the chef’s delicate work and smelled the cool Mountain air as it drifted in through the open window.

    We were, each of us, as fully present, in that ichi-go, ichi-e moment as we ever could be.

     

     

     


    Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Judaism Mountains Mussar Plants

  • Fall. Closer to November 5th

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Mabon (Fall) and the Harvest Moon

    Autumn’s first morning!

    The bare foot knows it

    on the newly

    washed porch      Ishu

    Sunday gratefuls: Snow. 35 degrees. Mountain living. Feeling ready. Chasbon nefesh. Teshuvah. The land of my soul. Shadow Mountain. Books. Writing. Thinking. Seasons. The Great Wheel. The month of Elul. New Year. Soon. Great workout. Barbecue from Fountain Barbecue. Election year 2024. Kamala and Tim. My Lodgepole Companion with their first bits of Snow on their branches.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Snow

    Kavannah: Teshuvah

    One brief shining: Fall came bearing Snow, near freezing temperatures, while I slept warm under my summer weight comforter, arising first to a slushy Rain which changed to the first Snow of the season about an hour ago, a slick driveway, the blue Asters a bit forlorn though soon to go to seed anyhow.

     

    Firewood. Up here, mostly pine. No self-respecting Minnesotan would burn it. Too much creosote. Actually, a bias. All wood puts out plenty of creosote. Pine does, however, burn faster than hardwoods. By a lot. No loading the fireplace with oak or ash or elm for the night. However. Down the hill I can find hardwood firewood. Lots of deciduous trees in the high plains part of the Denver metro. One outfit has offered to let me go through their piles for Yule logs. I want to find some large oak or other dense hardwood to burn on the Winter Solstice as Yule logs. The concept: don’t let it burn up. Put it out, pull it out, and store it for next year to start the next Yule log.

    I plan to pick up some pinõn, too. Sweet smelling. Perhaps some fruit woods as well. Too expensive to have someone deliver. Will store in the garage. Dry. Plan to go as hygge as I can this late fall and winter. Not sure what else I’ll do. Candles. Inviting friends over. Hot chocolate. Cozy blankets.

     

    May be confirmation bias, almost certainly is to some extent, but I feel the winds shifting toward Kamala and Tim. In part because of their cash advantage, their ground game advantage energized by the debate, and the recent poll numbers I’m seeing. I respect Nate Silver’s reminder that 20% remains a 20% chance to win and both the orange one and K./T. are polling well above that. I know. I add to those positive trends the apparent disarray in the Trump campaign. He’s not got a good slam against Kamala. His policy positions are unclear-see abortion and taxes-or are too clearly tied to Project 2025.

    Momentum, as I wrote a bit ago, carries the day and right now I believe Kamala and Tim have it on their side. And, it feels to me like the pace and inertial force of the momentum increases with each news cycle. May it be so.

     

    Only for a moment, maybe 15 minutes, but we did have Snow. Then, cold Rain. 35 degrees this am. With the Aspen colonies flashing their season ending golden signals we have begun Fall on this, the autumnal equinox.

     


    Feelings Fourth Phase Great Wheel Mountains Plants Politics Shadow Mountain

  • Go, Elementals!

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lugnasa and the Harvest Moon

    Sabbath gratefuls: Zoom. WordPress. My computers. Starlink. The Internet. My links to friends, family, shopping. Solar panels & C.O.R.E. Sources of electricity. Mini-splits, electric heat pumps for heating and cooling. The induction stove for electrical cooking. LED bulbs for longlasting, low-energy consumption light. Arts and Crafts style furniture, lighting fixtures, upholstery cloth.

    Sparks of joy and awe: Electricity

    Kavannah: Yirah

    One brief shining: Give me an H, Give me an He, Give me an Li, go elementals! Let’s go 1,2,3. Now entering the big top in the first ring, give me a hand for that most abundant, simplest, colorless, odorless, yet flammable guy, and the lightest element in the whole universe: Hydrogen! Keep putting those hands together as another odorless and tasteless gas, second only to the Big H in abundance in our whole cosmos, floats gracefully to ring number 2, she floats, she stays aloof, there she is: Miss Helium! Finally, plunking himself into our third ring, that healer of manic-depression, that key to batteries for electric cars, that old soft metal guy, the lightest of the solid elements: Mr. Lithium!

     

    Blame it on Tom. He’s having us present three of the naturally occurring elements as our Sunday theme for the Ancient brothers. He had us pick three numbers between 1 & 94, then wrote us an e-mail revealing that our numbers were the atomic numbers for our elements on the periodic table. I picked 1,2,3.

    Here’s his charge to us: “What you were choosing is the Atomic Number of the element you can read about, research, write poetry about, combine with other elements to compound your effort, discuss the philosophical underpinnings of the origin of your chosen elements (or the universe itself), draw pictures of your element as it stands alone or as it combines with others. In other words, the usual Ancient Zeitgeist applies.”

    Not sure where I’m going with mine yet though I like the circus metaphor. Probably will have to touch a bit on Lurianic Kabbalah and the tzimtzum*. Perhaps the Tree of Life as well. Going to have fun with this today.

     

    Feeling lighter after Ann’s visit. I have the Celebrex and tramadol to help with pain. That helps, too. Still ouchy, I’d say a 3 most of the time except when I’m sitting, rising to a 7 or 8 if I stress my back. That’s with the pain relievers on board. Why it doesn’t bother my workouts, I don’t know. Must be isolation of muscle groups though I also don’t usually experience pain even on the treadmill. Unless I go past 20-25 minutes. Odd, eh?

    I also feel lighter because even though the presidential race is close at least we have a good chance. Looks like the North Carolina GOP candidate for governor is gonna give us a boost in that important state. A Black Nazi? Posted on a porn site. Dude!

    I’m also feeling the faint stirrings of a new novel. Something I want to get going. Just a spark right now, but we know sparks can lead to wild fires of creative power. Shiva energy.

     

    Time for a workout after breakfast. I’m in contact with a couple of guys who might come to the house, help me with my workouts. I need to freshen mine. Get them targeted even more on my core to help my back. Might even return for another round of physical therapy with Mary.

     

    *The term zimzum originates in the Kabbalah and refers to God’s contraction of himself before the creation of the world, and for the purpose of creating the world. To put it another way, the omnipresent God, who exists beyond time and space before creation, withdraws a part of his infinite presence into himself. With this divine gesture, God restricts himself in zimzum, clearing the empty space that is necessary for creation. The emanation and the creation of the world are then able to occur in the center of God following this act of zimzum. In this process, God limits his omnipotence, so that a finite world can exist within finite contours. Without zimzum, there would be no creation.    wiki

    NB: I would not use the word God here. What I’m after with the tzimtzum is the process of earliest creation and how we might understand it.

     


    Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Health Judaism Kabbalah Science Writing

  • Navigation

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lugnasa and the Harvest Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Ruby and her gps. Alan. Sunrise/Sunset. Breakfast. Our waitress and her shadow. Getting lost. Getting found. Teshuvah. Tikkun. Tzedekah. Aspen gold on Black Mountain among the larger swathes of green Lodgepoles. Blue Sky. Yirah. Hyperphagia. The Rut. Marmoset Days at Staunton State Park. Books. Literature. Writing. Excited.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Writing

    Kavannah (for Elul): Yirah. Teshuvah.

    One brief shining: Got off I-70 at Kipling, turned up the frontage road expecting to find at the end of it the Sunrise/Sunset diner with buddy Alan waiting there, drove past Caliber Collision, the United States Truck Driving School to the end of the road which featured a concrete mixing plant; hmmm, I stopped, looked at the map and found that, oh, I meant to get off on 6th Avenue, the six lane feeder highway going into Denver, gave up and plugged the address into my gps which gave me a route no human would have offered, but which had the advantage of finding the diner and Alan.

     

    The Sunrise/Sunset diner. Birth and death. A very wholistic spot. Apparently a chain. One item on the menu. Roll Out the Bed. A cinnamon roll. Another. Cornhusker. Eggs with creamed corn poured over them. Maybe another time. Found Alan well at the back after an adventure in navigating. See above. I like to use my own sense of direction but am relieved that if and when I fail, there’s a handy backup plan.

    Alan runs the Rotary’s big recycle day in Evergreen. That was last week and went smoothly. If you plan ahead, it’s easy, he said. He’s in the second weekend of his biggest role so far, Governor and Innkeeper in the musical the Man of La Mancha. Says it’s going well. Seeing it on Sunday.

     

    Ann McCullough came by today. She’s a nurse practitioner with Optio palliative care. I liked her. She’s a backup plan. More personal. Comes to my house once a month, more if needed. She’ll focus on pain management all along and had some helpful ideas today. How to use Celecoxib and tramadol together. How to manage travel. A bit. Mostly she’s available, a level of care that has home as its focus. If and when needed, she can pass me over to hospice care in the same system. As she said, that’s not anywhere near, but it is comforting to know there’s a continuum of care.

    Primary good point for me. Will probably make it possible for me to stay here on Shadow Mountain. She sees that as realistic. With some assistance, I do, too.

    This is thanks to Sue Bradshaw’s referral. Another plus for Sue.

     

    Today is Luke’s birthday. I’m taking him out for dinner, probably tomorrow night. An older grandson or very young son. That’s how our relationship feels to me. And I like that.

     

    Just a moment:  Exploding pagers? Sounds like a plot device. Like a candidate who claims immigrants eat pets. Or, my crowds are bigger than yours. Not sure reality can sustain that name much longer. Heading toward fantasy and illusion.

     


    Commentary on the news Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Health Politics

  • Asset framing. Judging on the side of merit.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lugnasa and the Harvest Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Ginny and Janice. Luke. His birthday. Leo. Cooler nights. Golden Aspen Leaves. Guanella Pass. Gabe. Helium. Hydrogen. Lithium. Elemental, my dear Mendelev. Earth. Air. Fire. Water. Shadow Mountain. The Sky above it. Wildfire. Maxwell Creek. The journey home. Our mutual journey. Walking each other along the trail. If you want go fast, go alone. If you want to far, go together.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Tesuvah

    Kavannah: Teshuvah

    One brief shining: Inner work right now, drawing two cards for the week, this week’s question-What do I need to do to further Herme’s Journey-answered by the Weasel and Pine Card from the Woodland Guardians deck by Jessica Roux and the Ace of Bows from the Wildwood Tarot, Introspection and the Spark of Life; yes, I understood, stay on the inner path for Elul and beyond, that remains the true path for this journey, the gathering, the harvesting of ideas and feelings and moments of yirah and teshuvah.

     

    Then, Elul, this month of chasbon nefesh, accounting of the soul for the purpose of returning the soul to its native land, means even more attention to the moments of hamartia, of missing the mark, that are, as a wise article I read suggests, the guideposts leading back home. But not only that. I also include in my chasbon nefesh an idea granddaughter Ruth found on Krista Tippet’s show featuring Trabian Shorter, A Cognitive Skill to Magnify Humanity. Asset Framing. And Its Jewish equivalent: judging on the side of merit. That is, not only finding the debits but also the credits.

    Asset framing is a simple, yet profound idea. When encountering yourself or another, first find your/their assets. Their skills and strengths. Your/their dreams and aspirations. What gets them up in the morning? Keeps them going when the work gets hard?

    A brilliant young black scholar and activist, Trabian uses this example. Instead of seeing inner city black kids as in the school to prison pipeline, as troubled kids, first find out their existing skills, their strengths, what they hope for, reach for in their hearts. Focus on those, while not ignoring the difficulties and challenges. Perhaps the cliche, play to their strengths.

    Judging on the side of merit. When judging another, which Judaism recognizes we do all the time, and does not condemn, start always by judging on the side of merit. Which I think fits nicely with the idea of asset framing.

    So. While engaging chasbon nefesh, always start with your merits, your assets. What in the last year did you do well? Where were you using your skills, your talents? Where did your advance your dreams and aspirations or those of others? Where were you a positive and helpful presence in the world? Then, and only then, proceed to those moments where you missed the mark. Where you judged harshly. Where you were too fearful to act. Or, like me, where your own troubles turned you in on yourself, away from the world. Or, like me, where you chose to give in to an easy way to spend the day, rather than a fruitful one. Or, like me, where you turned away from a person in need because of the time and energy required.

     

     

     


    Family Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Health Holidays Judaism Politics Writing