• Category Archives Feelings

  • Neither Trump nor Biden

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Marilyn and Irv. Lila and Liks. Ryder. 12 degrees this morning. A good Snow overnight. Spelling Bee. Black Mountain not visible. Still Snowing. The Ancient Brothers. Aleph. Lamech. Bet. Tav. Mem. Nun. My torah portion. Unboxing my cd player. The Brothers Sun. El Ninõ. Furball Cleaning. Ana and Lita. Music. Black-eyed peas. Soup. Crackers. Sardines and Salmon, Tuna.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The waning crescent Winter Solstice Moon

    One brief shining: If Kate and I were still in Andover, we would be sitting at our long kitchen table, pages opened in many Seed catalogues, discussing planting for the upcoming year should we try Leeks again, what was that Iris you saw, pages riffle, oh, that’s a beauty, look at this Garlic, these heirloom Tomatoes, Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, and wondering if the Bees survived the winter so Artemis Honey could fill up more jars and bottles.

     

    I ordered a couple of Seed catalogues this year. Maybe Harris and Seed Savers. They came. I looked at them briefly, but without the promise of planting, tending to the plants, harvest. I put them away. No regret. It was time to let the Gardens and the Orchard pass to other younger hands. And they did.

    The memories and photographs of those times though. Rich and lush like the early May Flower beds, the late August Garden beds, a Tree weighted down with Honeycrisp Apples. Like a hive humming with Bees, flying in and out, making honey and propolis and wax. Like an Irish Wolfhound at play. Tor gently reaching through the Garden fence in September to pluck golden Raspberries straight from the Cane.

    Cool fall evenings around the firepit with Kate, hot chocolate, some Oak or Ironwood crackling with orange and blue. A good life.

     

    Yesterday the Ancient Brothers made four predictions each. Perhaps unsurprising in one instance. We all predicted Trump would lose. Two of us predicted unrest and chaos. I hadn’t thought of that but, yes, I imagine so. 45 has dominated and shaped an ugly era of American politics and civic life. You know that. Yet my final prediction was that, even if the worst happens, ordinary life will go on. People will get up in the morning. Go to work. Raise children. Buy assault rifles. Probably at Walmart.

    Will those predictions about the election come true? Hell if I know. Our poor political system has had the stuffin’ kicked out of it. The primaries hold little suspense. The choices already seem self-evident. Old and older. Though of course that can change. I hope it changes. I would prefer neither Trump nor Biden on the ticket in the fall.

    I say that because I want Trump gone and I can see several different scenarios where he gets knocked aside by a health issue or legal peril. I say that because Biden, who has performed way above expectations, guiding the ship through turbulence of all sorts, does not have what we need. Youth. Energy. Vision. A statesperson who can lift us all up, remind us of the ideals that have made this flawed nation a great nation. TBD.


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  • It’s Insurrection Day!

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

    Shabbat gratefuls: Shabbat. A Mountain night. Cold. 12 degrees. Good sleeping. My bed. My medical guardian. My aleph necklace. Black Bean soup. Great workout. 180 minutes this week. Prolia delivered. Energy level better. Probably rising testosterone. Prostate cancer. Lower oximeter readings. Low blood pressure. Life at altitude. CBE. Parsha Shemot. The first in Exodus. People of the story.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Torah

    One brief shining: Mice are a problem for me though perhaps not in the way you think, they’re a moral hazard because others want me to kill them as does sensible medical advice and I don’t want to do that because hey mice gotta live too and yet I have four Rat zappers which do the job quite well, electrocuting the cute little buggers.

     

    Yeah. I still eat meat, though less and less, yet I do not like killing anything myself. No, that’s not strong enough. I hate killing anything. And I know that that aversion makes me an oughta be vegetarian, maybe even a vegan, but I’ve never been able to go there. Yes, I contradict myself. I know it.

    I finally looked up whether Mice are actually bad and yes in fact they can carry salmonella, hanta virus, and chew through electrical wires. I know one chewed through the plastic water hose that connects to my dishwasher. I guess that means-he cringes at the thought-deploying the Rat zappers yet again.

    The Rat zappers have to be emptied of course. No ducking responsibility. I throw the little corpses over the fence. Ravens come and take them away. At least the Rat zapper does not introduce poison into the ecosystem. And the Ravens like the food. A cycle of nature, yes, but one I’m artificially aiding. At the expense of Mouses lives.

    So. In the end self care trumps Mouse lives. A first world issue for sure.

     

    And other sad news. 2024 is an election year. Maybe, THE election year. Maureen Dowd in a column today invoked Oscar Wilde about fox-hunting: “the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible” to describe the two likely candidates for President. Too close to true. I’m either an optimist or simply deluded but I cannot, will not believe that Trump will win. I know he can, that’s pretty damned obvious; but I believe that the true beating hearts of America will not allow it. Evidence? Not so much.

     

    Well, it’s Insurrection Day again. A day that, like Pearl Harbor and 9/11, lives on in infamy. Right? Well, no, not according to Republicans who swallow lie after lie after lie. There was an interesting article in the NYT the other day. 1,240 people have been arrested over January 6th. 350 cases are pending. 170 have been convicted at trial while on 2 have been found not guilty. 710 plead guilty and of those 210 plead to felonies. More than 450 0f those have gone to prison for various lengths of time ranging from a few days to 20 years. And, the article says, those 1,240 may be only half of the eventual arrests and indictments in an ongoing investigation. NYT, January 4, 2024.

    How anyone can conclude that with only 2 out of 1,240 found not guilty, and with that number likely to double in the coming months, that nothing bad happened when “patriots marched at the capital” I don’t know. All those courts, judges and lawyers at work affirming time after time the larger crime that happened one perpetrator by one perpetrator. 170 juries.

     

     

     

     

     

     


    Cooking Feelings Fourth Phase Health Politics

  • Todah, Tara

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: Trash day. New year, old trash. Still, the dark. The eight point Bull Elk I saw delicately eating grass. The ups and downs, curves and short straights of Mountain driving. Snow and cold on the way. Eleanor. Tara’s new all black Puppy. Her friend, maybe the sweetest dog I’ve met this year. Tara. A truly great teacher. She has me believing I can learn Hebrew. I already have the first sentence of my bar mitzvah portion down. Two sessions. Ariane, another engineer in my life.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Eleanor

    One brief shining: Two tail wagging, grinning Dogs ran up to me as I sat down at Tara’s house, the Puppy put two paws on my knee and proceeded to kiss, kiss, kiss, and then the other one all white to Eleanor’s all black, walked up, smiled and kissed, kissed, kissed the other side of my face little pink tongues at work seeking salt or being ecstatic to meet me, either one just fine.

     

    I’ve not had many great teachers in my life. A few good ones, maybe two excellent ones, and two great ones. The two great ones are at Congregation Beth Evergreen: Rabbi Jamie and Tara Saltzman. Rabbi Jamie I’ve talked about before. He has an ability to contain diverse and divergent thoughts, make them visible. Then to celebrate them in his students.

    I’ve learned a new way of learning from him, appreciating the value in ideas I may see as wrong, faulty, or even repellent. What a gift. Appreciative inquiry I think it’s called. This sort of learning was not absent in my life. I’ve learned from conservative political thinkers and multiple philosophers with whom I disagreed, but Rabbi Jamie makes this way of learning his default.

    Tara I’ve known as a friend for eight years. And a good one. Many heart-to-hearts, or levs-to-levs. I’ve not experienced her however in her primary career role as an educator. Until now. She may change a long standing reticence toward language for me.

    My experience of learning (not learning) German in my freshman year at Wabash  gave me linguistic phobia. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I gave up. Just quit. I saw the C or D coming with no way of raising it. So I got out before that happened. After that, when learning a language came up, I would say something along these lines: Oh, language and me? No, thanks. Or, Math, music, and language go together. I’ve only got math of the three. Defensive. Barrier creating. Self fulfilling.

    Yes, I did pick up Latin again and got a good ways into it because I wanted to read Ovid in the original. But I had a positive experience with Latin in high school. French, too. That’s why I eagerly tried German, wanting to read Kant, Heidegger, Husserl in the original. Not sure why I was so bad at it, maybe it was the method, for sure it was how I responded to the method. Which I don’t recall now.

    Oddly, at the same time I took logic. I had the same experience with it at first. Just. Couldn’t. Get it. But I hung in there, studied hard, and by the midterm I found it fun. What was the difference? I don’t know. Logic itself is a language.

    Anyhow at this long distance, I took German in 1965, almost 60 years ago, I regret it still. A personal failure that probably shut down many possible experiences as I traveled and grew in my learning.

    kaf

    But Tara has me convinced I can learn Hebrew. I’ve already learned the first full sentence of three in my text portion. How bout that? She combines unwavering support with a keen sense of what will be helpful for my learning. She’s a visual learner so she draws images that help her. Like a coffee cup handle that reminds her of the Hebrew letter, kaf. She says I’ll have my Torah portion done in three weeks. And, I believe her.

    I want to continue until I can translate the Torah. A hefty goal but one I believe I can handle with Tara’s teaching. Wouldn’t it be ironic if I erased my fear (yes that’s what it really is) of language engendered by German by learning Hebrew. Something sorta cool about that.


    Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Hebrew Judaism

  • It’s a New Day, It’s a New Life, and I’m Feeling Good

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: The Shema. Hebrew. Decoding. Learning a language. Ooph. Sinking into the New Year. Great Sol blazes across another Colorado blue Sky. Black-eyed Peas. Black Beans. Black-eyed Pea soup. Cooking. In my remodeled kitchen. Tom’s poems and his depth. Mario’s optimism and self-confidence. Paul’s will and intellect. Bill’s steadiness and insight. The Ancient Brothers. Five years or so of honesty, authenticity, compassion, and love. Diane in Taiwan. Great photos. Tara and her skill as a teacher. My friends.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Soup in Winter

    One brief shining: Yes oh yes each morning a resurrection, each day a new life, new chances for love and justice and compassion, for leadership in your own heart, for doing what you can, surrendering when you must, for standing out as the unique and irreplaceable one that you are as part of the one that envelops all in its sacred embrace.

     

    Leaning into the Jewish idea that each morning is a resurrection from the one-sixtieth of death that is a night’s sleep. Each day is a new life we could even say a new year since it’s the only time you have this new year, this day. What is your kavanah, your intention, for this new life you’ve been given? Yes, given. You woke up, didn’t you? Grief teaches us about the wonder and awe of this simple pleasure, waking up. And about the opportunity it is. This is not just any day, it’s a new day!

    Perhaps we should set aside New Year’s resolutions. As if we didn’t know that already, right? Instead let’s make new day intentions. Maybe find a bit more joy than yesterday. Imagine if you could find just a bit more joy each day. What could you feel like at the end of a month?

    Perhaps a bit more calmness. Not a lot. You don’t have to wind down, be chill in every moment. No. Take a breath now and then today. Try that 4-7-8 breathing or some other calming technique. At least once. See if it helps.

    In my case. Give focused attention to Hebrew while at Tara’s. Prep that black-eyed Pea soup for the MVP group tomorrow night. Consider driving into Denver to Listenup and buy a new cd player. Smile at that Lodgepole soaking up the heat and energy from Great Sol. Be easy as I do all these things. Not pressing as I might. Not pushing. Flowing with them. Letting the Water of my day find its own path to the gentleness of evening.

     

    And, in other news. In an 8-7 decision Israel’s Supreme Court had its Marbury v. Madison moment and came down on the side of judicial authority. We’ve not heard the last of this one. Also, a Korean presidential candidate got stabbed in Busan. Japan had another quake, a 7.6 with many aftershocks. Tsunami warnings in Japan and Korea. And 45’s star continues to rise among the ranks of the Grand Old Party. May it go nova and turn into a political black hole for all of them.

     

     


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  • Intention

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

    January 1 gratefuls: 2024. A new year fresh and out of the box. Great Sol. Luna the magnificent. Orion. The Great Bear. Polaris, the true North Star. Each and every Lodgepole, Aspen, Ponderosa. 2023. With all its troubles. Climate change. Gabriella. Axolotls. Regenerative farming. Soil. Microbes. Roots. Rhizomes. Bulbs. Corms. Potatoes. Heirloom Tomatoes like Cherokee Purple. Steak Diane. Cooking.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: 2024

    One brief shining: Without a sound at least here on Shadow Mountain a new year slipped across Black Mountain without notice to my wild neighbors or even to me as I went to bed at 9 o’clock having eaten my steak Diane, mashed Potatoes, and a Corn/Bacon/Red Peppers side washed down with my favorite beverage, water, and slept through the transition from midnight 2023 to an election year.

     

    No resolutions this year. A few intentions. Kavanah.

    Listening to music more. Something I let slide as computers and Alexa pretended to fill that void in my life. They don’t. Buying a good cd player, amplifier, speakers. I so love chamber music and Renaissance music. Both of them move through my body with gentle and nuanced vibrations, drawing me into and up from my inner world to another world filled with sound, changing sound.

    Each Friday night, at least most Friday nights, of the concert series for the year, I went first to the auditorium at St. Catherine’s when Dennis Russel-Davies was the conductor and after to Rice Park in St. Paul, to the Ordway, found my subscription seat, sat down, and let myself open to the music of the evening. For over 20 years. I met Kate there.  Like many of us as we got older, the drive in from Andover made each Friday night turn in to the occasional night, then the very occasional night until we failed to buy a series. After that those wonderful nights faded away.

     

    Turning my political energies toward the not so distant future. With papers like the Washington Post declaring 2023 as the year climate change arrived, adaptive strategies that can feed the World, restore Animals and Plants to their original habitats or help them move, and heal the devastation of our petroleum addicted economy must come on line. In my way I will discover and promote organizations and individuals working to those ends. I’ve already mentioned some like perennial crops, regenerative farming, and ecosystem restoration. But I’ve only just begun.

    This is a shift for me away from front line justice work or the work of laws and politicians, and even away from work on climate change itself. Though I’ve done little of any of that of late. I’m leaning into Thomas Berry’s Great Work for our generation, creating a sustainable human presence on Mother Earth, not by working against carbon emissions or anything immediate, rather by focusing on the sustainability of future human life.

     

    Painting and sumi-e. Grief. The idea of a move to Hawai’i. Desuetude. Faded on this one. Clearing and cleaning my loft this month will get me ready to return. Not because I’m good, but because I love color and shape and creating.

     


    Feelings Fourth Phase Great Work Humanities Painting Writing

  • A Bold Return to Giving a Damn

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Tara. Her new puppy. Cold. Snow. Sleep. Gabriella. A Bold Return to Giving a Damn: One Farm. Amazon. New Phone. Wallet. 2024 on the way. Poetry. Road Less Taken. Lines Written at Tintern Abbey. Kubla Kahn. Notes on a Supreme Fiction. Circles. Leaves of Grass. Ozymandias. The Raven. Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. The Wasteland. Song of Myself. The Second Coming. And so much else.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Poetry

    One brief shining: The end of another year approaches, our penchant for deciding calendar dates as the always orbiting Earth’s journey around Great Sol continues, brings us to Pope Gregory XIII who chose in October of 1582 in his well known Papal bull: Inter gravissimas to change the rules for leap years to prevent the Julian calendar’s drift away from the solar holidays, oh you didn’t know, well neither did I but Wikipedia did.

     

     

    Gabriella. My adopted Axolotl. She’s swimming in the chinampas canals along with other wild Axolotls who will repopulate the ancient waterways of Xochimilco. I get excited about this project because it’s both the reintroduction of a wild species into its former habitat (see the five Timber Wolves released a week ago in western Colorado) and a project that supports indigenous farming methods healthy for the chinampas themselves. This kind of work will enable our grandchildren to have their best chance to adapt to a warming World.

    A Bold Return to Giving a Damn: One Farm, Six Generations, and the Future of Food relates the story of Will Harris and his disillusionment with Big Ag 30 years ago. The successful transition of his family’s farm to regenerative farming makes compelling reading if you care about the source of your food. This farm is in southwestern Georgia, but it’s an example, not singular.

    The USA Regenerative Agriculture Allliance, Inc trains farmers in regenerative practices. Yes, it’s about good food, food raised without pesticides, fertilizers and other “inputs” that defy the natural cycle and deplete the soil. But, it’s also about how to live in a warming World. Someday regenerative agriculture will use the perennial grains and other crops under development at the Land Institute.

    Want to volunteer in the work of Ecosystem restoration? Look at the Ecosystems Restoration Communities website. They do restoration projects all over the world. The expertise and practical knowledge developed as these organization go about their own individual missions will become the Seedstock for a World that can no longer afford any depletion of natural capital.

    What’s natural capital? An accounting method. That’s right. Accounting. The Natural Capital Project at Stanford University develops accounting methods that define the value of Ecosystems, Oceans, the Water cycle, Forests. Why is this important? Regenerative agriculture is a good example. Corporate farming, by far the dominant model in the U.S. and in most of the World, treats Soil, Crops, and Animals as so many widgets to be manipulated for increased profits. Their accounting methods do not have to take into account the value of the Soil, the Rain, the need for dna diversity in both food Crops and Animals. They don’t have to reckon with the future costs of ruined Soil, the dangers of monocultures in such critical crops as Corn, Wheat, Rice. Maybe they’re not as profitable as they think.

    OK. I’ll stop. For now. But I will return to these adaptive approaches that will help Ruth and Gabe survive in a much changed world.

     


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  • Consider the Aspen

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon among the Lodgepoles in the back

    Thursday gratefuls: Winter Solstice Moon. Great Sol making Black Mountain visible. The Lodgepole out my window, its gentle, steady, stable presence. Shadow Mountain beneath me, a strong support for my house and my life. The Winds that blow from the west. The Snow that reveals Wild Neighbor treks across my driveway. The Rocky Mountains. The Sangre De Cristo. The San Juans. Creed, Colorado site of the long ago largest Volcanic eruption ever.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: This sacred Place

    One brief shining: Consider the Aspens, naked now to endure the cold of Winter and wait for the warmth of Spring, tall gray/white bark branches reaching skyward in fractal forming patterns, Escheresque if viewed with a fixed gaze, a sturdy trunk rising up from the rocky Soil of Shadow Mountain to create a strong pillar for its days and nights held in one place, its Roots below unseen holding the whole of it anchored while also reaching, reaching for nutrients, for other Aspens since they are communal, growing in tribes of individuals all bearing the same DNA, consider the Aspen.

     

    Kavanah. Intention. When I went on my mushroom pilgrimage, I set the intention of examining what it meant to live life fully. Now. I got the answer from deep in my Soul, from my Chayah*, my supra-rational self—the seat of will, desire, commitment and faith. Surrender. To live fully you must include Surrender.

    What does that mean, my friend Bill asked? I wrote this a few posts back:

    “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.” from December 20 post, Surrender Charlie

    From that nugget the notion of faith began to vibrate in my mind, in my soul, my Chayah in a different way. What if that was the element I had missed all my life? Faith that included surrender. Not just faith as an outgrowth of intellectual work, of considering arguments, logic, but also of allowing my Self, my Soul to sink into a place of confidence, of knowing without knowledge, of commitment to a path because the path itself was the way. An almost Taoist thought, I just realized.

    Great Sol projects life giving energy 93 million miles through the vacuum of space where a bit of it lands on the Lodgepole I see out my window. That ohr, that light, both makes the Needles of this Pine Tree visible to my eye, but also starts the magic, the miracle and yes, both words fit of photosynthesis. All across Mother Earth this miracle happens. Blades of Grass, Leaves of Flowers and Vegetables, of Deciduous Trees, of Seaweed, of Moss and Wheat gather in this long traveled energy and convert Great Sol’s ohr into chemical energy, sugars, that provide the whole animal kingdom including humans with food.

    I see, have been seeing this miracle since that Spider wove its web over our kitchen window at 311 E. Monroe. The Garden Spider with her black and yellow abdomen ran up and down her web gathering her life energy from insects that gathered theirs from plant life. It has taken me decades to see this miracle all the time. Now though I look out my window and bang, there’s a revelation. The sacred interconnectedness of all things. Not found in a book or a sanctuary or a puja or on a meditation pillow but right in front of my sacred eyes! How marvelous is that.

    It is one, this vast blooming buzzing chaos I can see is not chaotic, rather it is a pulsing and living part of a vast, so vast, sacred whole in which we humans move and live and have our being. And we Jews say YHWH-I was/I am/I will be-is also one. I say it every night before I go to bed and every morning when I wake up. The Shema. I say it when I leave my house and when I return. It’s written in the mezuzahs on my door frames. I say we are part of, not apart from this sacred whole that has no beginning and will have no end.

    And I became a Jew because I found others sacred to me who wanted to celebrate this, this wonder. And, yes, I’ll even say, I have faith in Jewish civilization as a path which unveils the sacred, which includes me, and will include me, will support me, will remember me.

    And which includes you, dear reader, and all that surrounds you. And all of us.

     

    *”Our sages have said: “She is called by five names: Nefesh (breath), Ruach (wind/spirit), Neshamah (breath), Chayah (life) and Yechidah (singularity).”2 The Chassidic masters explain that the soul’s five “names” actually describe five levels or dimensions of the soul. Nefesh is the soul as the engine of physical life. Ruach is the emotional self and “personality.” Neshamah is the intellectual self. Chayah is the supra-rational self—the seat of will, desire, commitment and faith. Yechidah connotes the essence of the soul—its unity with its source, the singular essence of G‑d.” Chabad.org

     

     

     


    Faith and Spirituality Feelings Fourth Phase Judaism

  • Faith

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: Marilyn and Irv. Tara. The dark. Gradualism. Getting things done, slowly. Surrender. Emunah. Faith. The Jewish Way. Mussar. Torah. Shabbat. Holidays. Zen. Taoism. Easy Entrees. Kavanah for 2025. Choosing a way forward. Including surrender. On signs and portents. Trash day delay. Mark, mail carrier. Ana and Lita, housecleaners. Vince, handyman and Snow plower. Helping me live independently.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Surrender

    One brief shining: Opening my arms and leaning back, letting 2025 come at me with all its got while I smile and wait knowing this next year is the one I’ve been waiting for, the one when magical and miraculous things will happen, when love will be the only thing left, when I will once again live as I’m meant to with human and wild, life and death, intellect and ignorance.

     

    I could explain it with cognitive bias. Or whatever it’s called when you have something front of mind and you keep seeing references to it in newspapers, books, hear it come into conversation, happen upon a magazine article that features it. But I won’t.  Let me give an example. Long ago I bought an Anne Rice book featuring angels. This maven of the vampire world decided to write a book about goodness instead of evil, I guess. I liked Lestat and the Mayfair witches so I’d give it a go. It was on my Kindle and I never got around to it.

    This week I picked it up. It has, in the beginning, a heavily Roman Catholic emphasis and if you know Anne Rice that won’t surprise you. What surprised me was the main story line about Jews in thirteenth century England. It would have been a curiosity to me when I bought the book, now it has existential meaning. This is not a great book by any means, though an offhand comment by Fluria, a bright and capable Jewish woman, struck me. She spoke about Jews in Oxford being harassed, their homes burned, “It spreads like a plague,” she said, worrying about her community in Norwich. Oh, just like Israel v. Hamas affects Jewish life in the U.S.

    My inner life has taken a new direction and my mind reinforces it whenever it can. Yes. But why did I pick up the book now? Why did my decision to convert coincide with the Israel Hamas tragedy? I chose emunah, faith, as my mussar evening long before I chose to convert. Now it challenges me, as I wanted it to, in a way much different to what I intended. How did it happen that I would have a bar mitzvah?

    I’m choosing to surrender to the notion that cognitive bias works in mysterious ways its wonders to perform. That my new, dare I call it faith, in a Jewish life comforts and supports me, gives me confidence that my life will grow in purpose and love. That’s what my conversion meant. For me, Judaism evokes faith in a grounded experience, one rooted in the soil of Mother Earth and in the souls of my sacred community, nourished by compost from a rich and varied tradition.

     

     

     

     

     


    Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Hebrew Judaism Kabbalah Mussar Talmud Torah

  • Shadow Mountain Christmas Morning

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

    Christmas gratefuls: Hanukah. Bright, sparkly Snow. Flocked Lodgepoles. Black Mountain white. My son. Seoah and her family. Murdoch. Christmas in Korea. Shadow Mountain. My support and foundation. Tom and Roxann on Kauai. Washington County, Maine. Robbitson. Max. Paul and Sarah in Burlington, Vermont. Covid. Lingers still. Christmas. Incarnation. Imago dei. B’tzelem Elohim. Saturnalia. Christmas Trees and Yule Logs. Eggnog and Mistletoe. Holly and Ivy. Krampus. Great Sol lighting up Black Mountain

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The almost full Winter Solstice Moon last night

    One brief shining: T’was the night before Christmas and I got up at 2 am before I could get up and go to the bathroom the scene outside my bedroom window caught my eye and in spite of the 3 degree temperature streaming in through the slight opening I left I could not look away as the Lodgepole shadows, the Arcosanti bell’s shadow, the shadow of the shed created negative space around the sections of sparkly snow between and among them. A scene in which, if Santa had landed, I would not have been at all surprised.

     

    Christmas morning on Shadow Mountain. 8-10 inches of fluffy, twinkling Snow. 3 degrees. Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, and Rosemary Clooney might swing by on a sleigh pulled by draft horses. Great Sol throws low angle sun beams at the Trees, lighting us up but not heating us up too much. Though. This is Colorado. We’ll see high thirties and low forties later on this week. Odd how a snowy, cold Christmas has been sold as quintessential for the celebration of a Levantine savior. That manger would not have been a safe place for a baby today in the Rockies.

    I’m listening right now to the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. This King’s College tradition is a staple of the Anglican Church and a Christmas Eve program. A musical entrée into the long fate of a Jewish boy born millennia ago. Irony, too. The Anglican Church hollowed out decades ago though as a state church its clergy still fill its remaining parishes drawing a government salary. Read this week that about 10% of them have formed a union. Godspeed.

     

    I might go out later today for Chinese food. A Jewish tradition that Kate and I followed for many years even before moving to Colorado. Usually includes a movie, too. My hearing has declined enough that movies are not as much fun as they used to be. I miss a lot of the dialogue, making the whole a muddle. Much better to be at home with closed captions turned on. Thanks to Christmas there are several first rated movies available: Saltburn, Maestro, and Rebel Moon by Zack Snyder to name three. I’ll get takeout, come back to Shadow Mountain. I have the best seat in the house.

     

    Talked to my boy last night. His morning, Christmas day while I was still in Christmas Eve. Always weird. Learned that the painful tests he had for compartment syndrome last week were diagnostic, not a treatment. The treatment is a fasciotomy, a 30% success rate. And, the surgeon who would perform the procedure is passionately against it. It’s also very painful. Probably not gonna happen.

    Saw Seoah’s sister, Seoah in pigtails. Murdoch. The oldest boy came on the Zoom and looked at me for a long time. Not sure what that was about, though I did meet him briefly in September. A bit of snow on the ground in Songtan. A sorta white Christmas. Seoah’s family wanted to go on base for good tacos at Taco Bell and good pizza at Pizza Hut. Not common foods in the Korean diet. And just as well if you ask me.

     


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  • See Beyond a Dystopian Future

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: New Snow. Cold. Christmas Eve. Ancient Brothers on Christmas. Animism. Joseph, his brothers. Jacob/Israel. Steel gray/blue Sky. Flocked Lodgepoles. Bears in hibernation. Elk and Mule Deer resting. Fox and Mountain Lions hunting. All wild neighbors adapting to the Snow and cold. Paul and Max. Kate, of blessed memory. Kep. Rigel. Gertie. Vega. Who left Shadow Mountain. Jon, too.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fire

    One brief shining: Diane gone to Taiwan, Mary and Guru traveled south to Melbourne, my son and Seoah dress for the cold in Songtan, Mark remains in Hafar, while I look out my window for Black Mountain, it’s not there.

     

    Asked the folks at the National Autonomous University of Mexico to send me a photograph of my adopted Axolotl, Gabriella. They obliged. She’s a beauty. In an Axolotl sort of way. When I get my phone cord up here to transfer pictures, I’ll post it here.

    This project has my attention, the reintroduction of Axolotls to the chinampas canals in Xochimilco. Next I’m going to support one of the chinamperos who farm the chinampas in the traditional way. As I wrote before, this kind of work prepares the World for what comes after climate change. I feel a need to support folks willing to see the future beyond dystopian writings and fever dreams. And my lev, my heart/mind, seems to always land on folks caring for the land, for wild creatures, exchanging the old ways, the bad ways for Earth friendly farming, for chinampas canals clean enough to host again the Axolotl.

    This work, a necessary part of the Great Work of our time-creating a sustainable presence for human beings on Planet Earth-does not push back against carbon emissions or try to change the minds of politicians. Though that’s so important and critical for Ruth, Gabe, Imogen, Max and all the grandchildren. It imagines a world once again attuned to the rhythms and needs of the soil, of Plant life, of Animal life, including but not privileging, human life.

    At this age I want to say Yes instead of No. I’m weary of the struggle against greed and exploitation, oppression and entrenched bigotry like racism and anti-semitism. Though again that struggle is so important for Ruth, Gabe, Imogen, Max and all the grandchildren. I’m searching, scanning for projects and ideas that will last, that will ensure food and healthy ecosystems, that have faith in the future, that build that future starting now.

    I can’t support them all and I can’t support the ones I do very well, but I want to have a link, a real connection to them. Money is one way. Making their work known is another. Finding those committed to this work and celebrating them is another.

    We can learn again to farm with the Land, not in spite of it. We can clean our Waters, protect Mountain Biomes, seed Ecosystems with Animals and Plants eliminated by human activity in the past. Five Oregon Wolves have dispersed this week here in Colorado, for example. This work happens on all continents, among all peoples. I love them for it.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     


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