Category Archives: Third Phase

Cooking, Health, Holidays, Judaism, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

Just Passing Through

April 14, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Rushing Waters Moon

A bit of snow. Twice. Over the last couple of days. Any moisture is good moisture in a drought and we’re climbing out of one here in Colorado.

Cooked that tenderloin roast yesterday. Oh, boy, is that good meat. And, it provides several meals over the week. Bread, potatoes (instant pot for 6 minutes), and asparagus in a sauce Kate found at Tony’s. We ate at 4 p.m. Kate said it was like a holiday meal.

sabbath2 Yes, a sabbath meal, I replied. I’m still fascinated with the idea of the sabbath, especially as I’ve learned more about it at CBE. In Jewish thought the sabbath is far from a day of rest, though it is that, too. It is a foretaste of life when tikkun olam, healing of the fractured world (or, more interestingly, of a fractured God), has succeeded and every day is a sabbath. The sabbath pulls the observer away from the technological world which has come to so dominate us, setting aside a time for family, for study, for nourishment of the self.

There are, it’s true, a lot of rules. I don’t even know most of them, but one of the rules is that you have the best food on the sabbath. Also, sex. You can’t light a fire (or, turn on electricity since it causes a spark), so the cooking has to be done before hand.

It could be one model for retirement, for the third phase. That is, the third phase as a time of personal enrichment, caring for others, enjoying the best life has to offer. Why not? And, you could golf, too, if that turns your crank.

prostate cancer Got an appointment with Dr. Eigner’s physician’s assistant, Anna Willis. If my PSA rise needs further attention, I know she’ll get me in to see Eigner. I’ve calmed down about it, the tincture of time as Kate says. Who knows, perhaps it’s nothing at all. Though I don’t think so. Glad it’s this Monday. Although. That could mean the confluence of death and taxes. Would be ironic.

Next Saturday night is the communal seder at Mt. Vernon Country Club. We’ve gone a couple of times, had reservations last year, but Kate’s shoulder surgery knocked us out of that one. Although the pesach meal is commonly referred to as the seder, seder means order. The haggadah, which means telling in Hebrew, reflects the order of the passover ritual. Used to be many, if not most, of the haggadah were a small blue booklet from Maxwell House Coffee. Over the last decades though the number of haggadahs has multiplied, driven by changes among the various branches of Judaism, yes, but more by cultural/political concerns like feminism, environmentalism, reconstruction.

pesach chagall The central point of the passover is the reenactment of the Exodus and the creation of a Jewish people. I learned last year that the telling (the haggadah) of the story focuses on children. You might be familiar with the four questions, proceeded by the often satirized question, Why is this night different from all other nights?

Easter is coming, too. I plan to take Gabe plus Jon and Ruth to a Rockies game to celebrate. No, not Easter. Gabe’s birthday.

Family, Health, Jefferson County, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Weather +Climate, Writing

Glimmers

April 7, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Rushing Waters Moon

Things we think about here. The snowpack, in all regions of the state, is way above average, nearly 150%. That means three things: an easing of the drought that has plagued the state, especially the southwest corner, a solid supply of water for the Colorado River basin states, and a much lessened fire danger over this summer. So much nicer to go into the summer months with good water supply. The arid west.

It means one other thing, too. Rushing waters. As the snow melts, our mountain streams will swell, spill over their banks. Our waterfalls will peak, like the ones just below us, the Maxwell Falls. The sound of these streams racing toward the South Platte (up here, anyhow) is one of my favorite mountain sounds. The soughing of the winds. The bugling of the elk. Late spring streams full and bubbling, babbling, crashing.

These are the Rockies now and have been the Rockies for thousands upon thousands of years. We’re here for a moment. We living things witness. It may be our most important act. We are the universe aware of itself and its wonders.

April, 2016 Gwangju. Just before the wedding

Kate had a not so good day yesterday. Some nausea. A Sjogren’s flare, maybe related. I hate to see her that way. I wish her recovery was one smooth arc from 77 pounds to 100, 105. It’s not and it will not be, but I wish it anyway.

Ruth had her third or fourth Destination Imagination state contest appearance yesterday. D.I., as she calls it, is a national program that has kids join with 4 or 5 of their peers, invent plays, and, this year, respond to improv challenges. There are judges and her team has placed at state the last couple of years in their age bracket. Don’t know how she did yet.

Jon says he’s tired of living in an unfinished house. Due to remodeling at his school, he gets done much earlier than normal this year, April 21st. He plans to use the long break to get a lot of work done. He’s done rewiring, replumbing, cleared out the old kitchen and purchased newer appliances. He’s done work on the kid’s rooms first, building Ruth a platform bed and Gabe a desk.

The first glimmers of new work. I’m taking my cousin Diane’s idea seriously. She wrote: “I think your writings deserve a wide (wider?) daily audience — they so compellingly chronicle daily life along with stretching the readers’ mind — and also possibly they could be gathered/edited in to a book that would appeal to our age group. Have others suggested any such to you?”

marble-main My plan is to print out all of ancientrails. I started a while back, but gave up pretty far from completion. That way I can fuss with them in the physical world, compile sheets and posts. Much harder to do, ironically, on the computer. Not sure what I plan to do, but that’s the place to start.

Probably going back to Jennie’s Dead. It’s unfinished and I want to complete it. Though. I may take time, too, to start the book Elise and I talked about, the one that comes from the heart. Main point, work is beginning to reassert itself after the long barren period.

Painting? Yes, that too. Not yet, but soon.

Ta for now. Gotta go down and take Kate off her feed bag. She’ll be free for 10 hours. She sounds much better.

Cooking, Family, Health, Holidays, Shadow Mountain, The Move, Third Phase

Rushing Waters Moon

April 5, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Rushing Waters Moon

Went to Domo last night. Ruth’s favorite spot and her choice for birthday number 13. In fact I think we’ll probably be at Domo for her birthday until Ruth leaves for college. Kate went along. It wore her out, but it was worth it. She took a box of several rings and gave them to Ruth. This was in addition to our $10 for each year present we give in the Korean red gift envelopes.

Ruth, Jon, and I had wank0sushi. This is sushi prepared with different sauces, toppings. No soy sauce. It’s a lot of food and I ran out of room, so the birthday girl happily finished mine. Gabe’s using chopsticks, sort of, and had a big bowl of ramen. Kate chose appetizers, bland appetizers since she’s had more than her usual issues with dry mouth this week.

When we decided to move to Colorado, now five plus years ago, the primary reason was to be part of Ruth and Gabe’s life as they grew up. Ruth was 8 and Gabe 6 at the time. Their lives as children had begun to whizz by. Occasional visits weren’t enough.

Last night when we left the restaurant for Shadow Mountain I turned to Kate and said, “The move was worth it.” She smiled, “Yes. It was.” Birthday dinners and a big smile like that one. Way worth it.

Gabe is also an April baby, born on Earth Day, April 22nd. I’ll take the three of them to a Rockies’ game for his 20160623_171246 birthday. He’s pretty excited about that.

One baseball game a year. That’s me. I like the whole take me out to the ballgame thing. Once. Then I remember that I never developed the chops to enjoy the game itself. But the hot dogs and the brick and the seats and the national anthem. I even like the groundsmen doing their job. The first three innings or so, I’m interested, watching the pitchers, the hitters, infielders and outfielders. However, this repeats and repeats and repeats. I’m not much of a sports fan.

The move also had the unintended consequence of allowing us to support Jon during his divorce. Ruth and Gabe, too. Again, worth it. Glad we’re here.

Alan in the Evergreen Chorales Holiday Concert

Had lunch with Alan Rubin yesterday at the Wildflower Cafe in downtown Evergreen. Kate and I used to go to the Wildflower and do our money meetings a couple of years ago. Alan’s taking over as President of the Ovation West board in July. He performs in their musicals, too. And, sings in the Evergreen Chorale. With the Rotary and Beth Evergreen he’s got an active third phase underway and having a great time with it. It’s healing to get out of the house, to talk with another adult. Good to have a friend like Alan.

While parked, I also saw Dan Herman, who will be president of the CBE board after Hal Stein’s term is up. He had coffee with our nearby neighbor, Sheri Pissoneault. She’s the chair of the education committee for the synagogue. I liked seeing them in Evergreen, helps with that this is our home feeling. Small town.

Back to regular workouts, still very far from back in shape, but getting there the only way you can, by repetition. I haven’t gotten back to the off resistance days cardio, but I will. A few aches and pains go along with working out at 72. Part of it. Interestingly, my o2 sats have already improved with the limited work I’m doing right now. 95 in Denver last night. 93 here this morning. (that’s % of 100, or full saturation of the blood with oxygen)

groceries When we got into Domo, Denver was 70 degrees. We were, as often happens at this time of year, over dressed. When we got back home around 7 pm, it was 48 up here, headed down to 30. Vivé la differencé!

Grocery delivery today. Having a delivery service for groceries is a wonderful thing right now. Sometimes the week’s activities wear us both out. Like this week. Kate and I ate three meals in restaurants: No No’s, Aspen Perks, and Domo. The first three we’ve eaten out since her bleed last September. While it was wonderful to be out with her, it tired her out a lot. Me, too, though not as much. Not having to spend the time and the energy shopping in person is a real gift.

Asia, Cinema and Television, Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Mountains, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Legendary

April 4, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Recovery Moon

Tom Crane sent me this street poet’s work, found on Maui. I wrote him back after reading it and said we could go for an epic third phase. I meant legendary, but epic appeared anyhow. He wrote back, said he’d like that, too, but didn’t know how. I agreed. Beginner’s Mind, eh? We’d have to redefine epic, Tom replied. Yes.

And, we don’t want to get stuck in the success trap. That trap can consume the second phase, career and family, but it can be set aside in the third. So the question could be, what would a legendary third phase look like? Better than epic. Epic has that Hollywood feel, doesn’t it? Let’s forget I transmuted legendary into epic and go back to the poem.

What does an open spirit look like in the third phase? What risks might we take if we had one? What risks are particular to the third phase? To get an idea of where this might go, I looked up the Hindu sadhu. A sadhu intentionally creates a fourth phase of life.* Of course in a Minnesota winter like the last one the Jain option of wearing nothing would require modification unless the sadhu phase was to be short.

I wonder if other cultures have similar ideas? Don’t know. What I do take from the sadhu is that they have an open spirit, moving toward moksa means getting free from samsara, the worldly enmeshment that the second phase presses upon us with such vigor.

Part of a legendary third phase might involve letting go, leaving the old desires of life, shaped by education, work, and family behind. But, if they’re left behind we might be left wondering, what else is there? Those desires are the ones that motivated us, got us up in the morning, out the door coffee in hand, ready to do. The old finish line model of retirement pretended that this was as easy as buying a set of Pings, selling the house in Kenwood, and moving to a Del Webb village to drive, chip and putt. Or, head out to Margaritaville, collect umbrellas in the sand next to your beach chair. Doesn’t sound like a sadhu approach, does it?

Another image, similar to the sadhu, was the Chinese scholar who would retire from the bureaucratic life, paradigmatic of the second phase in that culture, and move into the mountains to write poetry and live amongst wildlife and forests. This is a Taoist vision, one that took over from the Confucian when either work was over or changes in the political life forced a scholar out of the court. I like this one a little better than the sadhu because I like clothes.

Wu wei: “a state of being in which our actions are…effortlessly in alignment with the ebb and flow of the elemental cycles of the natural world” is the Taoist principle these mountain hermits follow. And, a sound one, though as I’ve written before, I’m also a “take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them” sort of guy. This may be the key attitude that prevents me from fully letting go of success, of my set of Pings, that beach chair.

I’m not talking here about monastics or hermits who take to those lives, as Thomas Merton did, in the midst of their second phase. These are escapist lives, profound in their way of course, but ones that set aside the second phase much earlier. What I want to consider is the legendary third phase possible after the more traditional transition from work and raising a family.

Look forward to any ideas you might have. This preliminary look suggests some things to me. Let go. Seek spiritual liberation. Attune life to the seasons, to the natural world. Live in some seclusion from the old, second phase world.

“The sādhu is solely dedicated to achieving mokṣa (liberation), the fourth and final aśrama (stage of life), through meditation and contemplation of Brahman. Sādhus often wear simple clothing, such saffron-coloured clothing in Hinduism, white or nothing in Jainism, symbolising their sannyāsa (renunciation of worldly possessions).” wiki

Family, Health, Mountains, Music, Third Phase, Travel, Weather +Climate

Soul’s Jumping Off

April 1, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Recovery Moon

BJ returns to the Beacon Hotel and Broadway today. She suggested taking the train to the airport, so I’ll be taking her down to the Federal Center station. It’s very close to Ortho Colorado where I got a new knee and Kate got a new shoulder. We’ll wave to our now spare parts as we pass by.

It’s been a good visit. She and Kate made spritz cookies yesterday. They also sorted through Kate’s stash of yarn. The result is a box I’ll mail to Idaho. Something for BJ to do next summer while she manages renovation of her home there before the Grand Teton Music Festival starts up in August.

We had five inches of snow the night BJ came. It’s gone now from the driveway and roads. Some remains in the shade and on the thicker snow that has been here for a while. As I said yesterday though, we’re not done. Our second snowiest month starts today. Not April Fool’s either.

Not sure exactly what prompts them to do this, but Kepler and Rigel take turns lying down in the narrowest part of our home, the passage between the kitchen and the living room. As a meal is under preparation, they watch. Hope. Then, when it’s ready, they lie there and watch as food gets carried from kitchen counter to dining table, then back. This is beneficial because it promotes good balance as we step between legs and over bodies.

Friend Tom Crane sent a picture from Maui. They’re in, I think, a set of condos just to the right of Whaler’s Village if you’re facing the ocean. He and Roxann were in Lahaina yesterday. Its whaling history had Tom wanting to harpoon something. He said he wouldn’t though because that’s bad juju. Yes. But, maybe he could find a whale of deal in one of Lahaina’s many shops and art galleries. Harpoon that.

Beyond those condos is the Sheraton. It publicizes Pu‘u Keka‘a (Black Rock), a spot where divers sometimes jump into the ocean. Notes from travelers say that such diving is frowned upon. As it well might be, since this rock was, in traditional Hawai’ian lore, the jumping off spot for soul’s to the after life.

halema'uma'u Jules Tavernier — halema’uma’u Jules Tavernier

There is a real and probably unresolvable tension between the booming tourist industry on all the islands and the native population. Many places sacred to the natives, like Pu’u Keka’a, draw tourists. Another such spot is Halemaumau crater on Kilauea. This crater, which has undergone rapid transformation since the most recent eruptions of this active volcano, is the traditional home of Pelé, the Hawai’ian goddess of volcanoes. On any visit in the past there would be offerings scattered around the crater, fern fronds, flowers, bottles of alcohol. Pelé is not an abstract, far-away goddess, but one who upends life on the Big Island often. Even non-native locals give Pelé her due.

Though the USA claims to be a non-imperial power, Hawai’ian history proves otherwise. We took it, dethroned the monarchy, and made the islands safe for sugar plantations. Michener’s Hawai’i tells the tale in easily readable prose.

The stories of these islands have a geologic tale of great scientific interest. They have a Polynesian mariners’ tale that unveils the navigational skills of thosw who took to the seas in catamarans, sailing north to populate these islands. They have a long story of their descendants and their battles, their taboos, their human sacrifice.

They have a shorter history of the haoles, non-native Hawai’ians, who came from Asia and the U.S. Some worked the sugar plantations, later the pineapple and coffee fields, mostly from Japan and Korea. Others came with money and power.

Hawai’i has a more than a soft spot in my heart. It’s a second home. Yes, that’s not too strong. We fell in love with the islands long ago and would have lived there if we had enough cash. Yes, in spite of the imperial history and in spite of the tourist industry. They are beautiful, enchanting, mesmerizing. The scent of loamy soil, gardenias, and jasmine are as fresh for me now as when we first went. The combination of lush landscapes, the vast Pacific, and the unimaginable power of the volcanoes that created them, casts a spell, one which we willingly let enchant us.

Colorado, Health, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Move

March 29, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Recovery Moon

Ooff. Beware what you wish for. Got back to working out yesterday. Huffing and puffing. Resting between sets. My legs were rubbery when I left the gym and this morning when I got out of bed. Detrained. Starting back, even slow, was difficult. No other way to get there though. And, just two sets plus cardio. A ways to go. Glad to have begun, however.

This is an ancientrail that didn’t use to exist. Back when we were mostly farmers or laborers, back when we were still in the veldt hunting and gathering, exercise wasn’t necessary. It came with the day. Run down some game. Climb a tree for fruit. Hoe the field. Gather in the grain. Hitch up the oxen. It’s only since farming and manual labor diminished that we’ve been getting the modern, sitting disease. Now we live in cities, drive or otherwise ride to work, and find desks a more common habitat than the field. We are victims of our more brain less strain lifestyle.

This means we have to find time in a life occupied by other things, gathering money rather than tubers, for example, to move our bodies and stress our muscles. It seems unnatural, the treadmill or the bike, the weights, the bands, the various exercises, yet in fact it is exercising the body that is natural and our modern daily routine that is not.

Here in Colorado getting outside hiking, climbing, biking, camping, hunting, fishing are popular. Our spectacular natural amenities the mountains, the snow, fast flowing rivers and streams beckon, are visible even from downtown Denver. Yet 5280, a glossy magazine covering the Denver metro scene, had a recent issue devoted to work/life balance. Seems metro folk work more hours per week than most other cities in the U.S.

finish When you read the literature, it’s clear that exercise is not only beneficial, but necessary for good health, especially as we age. I didn’t start until my late 30’s and it took me a while to get regular at it. Now it feels weird to me if I don’t get in my workouts on a regular basis. The last two months were an anomaly and one I didn’t like.

Exercise not only benefits the body, but the mind as well. Yes, endorphins release if you go hard and that’s reinforcing, but for me, the real advantage is the knowledge that I’m caring for myself. If you do what you can, diet and exercise (and my diet is ok, barely), then what comes is part of the aging process.

The trick, at least for me, was staying with it long enough for exercise to become a habit, one that felt more normal than ignoring it. It wasn’t easy and I had long stretches where I could have quit. Glad I didn’t. Not sure what kept me at it. I’m a believer at age 72. When my personal trainer said I moved better than a lot of the 30 and 40 year olds she saw in the gym, I was surprised, but pleased. Worth it.

Anoka County, Family, Friends, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

The Mountain Way

March 28, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Recovery Moon

Kate, BJ, Ruth, solar eclipse 2017 at BJs Idaho house

Kate’s sister BJ comes tomorrow for the weekend. She and her s.o. Schecky were out here in September, a planned visit to see our house, but they came the day Kate went into the hospital. They took me to a Japanese restaurant for sushi the night Kate had her hemicolectomy. It was a kind thing to do. I needed the break. Look forward to seeing her.

Had lunch with Alan Rubin yesterday. He’s auditioning for a part in Cabaret, another Ovation West production. You might recall he was in “Funny Girl” which Kate and I saw last fall. He’s taken to retirement by becoming a performer. Taking voice lessons, learning music theory, and this year becoming President of the Ovation West board. He and I were teaching the religious school class until I had to quit due to too much stuff going on at home. A good friend.

John came by and fixed my john. Apparently I blew the seal plunging out a clog. Geez. Water under pressure is powerful. Just ask all those folks in Nebraska. Interesting article about the one guy who manages all the Army Corps of Engineers dams on the Missouri River. He chooses whether to let dams fail or send more water downstream to already flooded farms and towns. Another one the next day wrote about the 25 states under risk for extreme flooding as this winter’s cold begins to loosen, melt snow and ice. When a severe winter like this last one thaws, if it comes too soon, the water hits frozen land. No buffer in the land, just like flooding a parking lot.

Walking and Hiking in Bear Country Your neighborhood is bear country, too!

Up here getting a tradesperson out to the house, really tradesmen since I’ve not yet encountered a female plumber, electrician, handyman (though I’m sure they exist somewhere), often depends on a personal relationship. Herb, of H2O plumbing, ignored my phone message. He didn’t remember that I was the guy who lived in Andover when he lived in Nowthen. When I got him on the phone, he remembered and got a guy over here in two hours. Like living in a small town.

The mountain way. Had to take the garbage and recycling bins back inside the garage. The bears are awake. Bears can smell food, the Colorado Dept. of Natural Resources says, from five miles away. I still don’t let the dogs out at dawn or dusk because of mountain lion predation. All the critters are hungry as the snow melts, food’s been a scarce resource for a while now, just like every winter.

Another interesting part of the mountain way, driving up here. Roads in the mountains, except for I-70 are neither straight nor multiple lanes. Hwy 285, a divided four lane now past Conifer, devolves into a curvy up and down two lane (with the occasional passing lane) as it heads toward Bailey and Park County. The rest are two lane, no passing, winding. No sight lines beyond the next curve up and down.

It took a while to learn, but there is a code. Leave the person in front of you a healthy distance since deer or elk might be standing in the road around the next bend. Don’t go too fast or too slow. Stay alert. If somethings ahead, either wildlife or Jeffco sheriff’s deputies, blink your lights at oncoming traffic. This confused me at first since it was the signal you had left your lights on back in the old days before car lights turned off by themselves.

Two sorts of drivers violate this unspoken code. The first, most of us grant license, are tourists. We have two spots on Black Mountain Drive/Brook Forest Drive (same road), Upper and Lower Maxwell Creek, that draw crowds from the Denver area each nice day. There are also folks staying in Evergreen in one of the many cabins or motels who wander out of town for a drive in the mountains. Many of these drivers brake at every curve, even going uphill, which is silly since the mountain will brake for you if you let up on the gas.

The second type are residents who have to get down the mountain thirty seconds faster than you do. They’re the ones who’ll put you in danger. I haven’t seen it, but others write of people who pass them. Passing on these roads is like spinning a roulette wheel with your life and somebody else’s. Others will crowd up on your bumper. As if that changes the physical reality we both face. Flick their lights in your mirror. You know.

Mostly driving here is sedate since the roads don’t really offer a safe alternative. I like that since it gives me a chance to savor the rocks, the trees, the peaks and valleys while moving at a speed safe enough even if I encounter a bouncy young fawn or calf or a whole herd of elk.

Aging, Family, Health, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

What Will I Do?

March 25, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Recovery Moon

dreams Go now, the illness has ended. Feeling 95%. Still something in my lungs, not much. So seven weeks after the molasses filled drive back from Denver, I feel able. Still got workouts and stamina to increase, but I enjoy that. Imagine me doing a little dance on the balcony of the loft, a dance of thanksgiving for a strong constitution and a return to the unremarkable state of health.

What’s next? Call a plumber to fix the toilet leaking from its seal to the floor. Get our hair done. An appointment for teeth cleaning. Mail the taxes. Send Mary the letter confirming her part ownership of that oil well in Canadian County, Oklahoma. Finally get to my trainer for a new workout. Follow up on that PSA increase. Kate’s hi-res ct and visit to the pulmonologist. Get back to regular cooking. You know, stuff. Stuff that we do when we’re not occluded by an internal war between our immune system and some inner space invader.

I also have a lunch with Alan Rubin on Wednesday. Slowly getting back to some contact with CBE. It’s been a long while, but I miss those folks. I was still besnotted during the chicken cook soup cook off and not fully there.

If you want, you can insert a youtube video of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” here.

satire Remember the Producers? Zero Mostel? In it was the classic hit, “It’s Springtime for Hitler”. Well, it’s springtime in the Rockies and all of Colorado. Here’s another pirouette for great comedies and a plié with arm extended for the beauty of Black Mountain.

Not to go too far with this but there is a certain element of resurrection here. I used the word occluded, another word could have been buried. During a long and severe illness we turn in on our selves, our world becomes a primal struggle over which we have little if any external control. By primal I mean just that, a fight waged between cellular creatures so small we cannot see them, entities that have more in common with that first molecule that wiggled in the primordial soup than they do with us. During this conflict the body focuses on the struggle, not on errands, to do lists, future dreams, present possibilities. We become buried by the constant back and forth of immune system versus virus, immune system versus bacteria.

Now, sometimes, but only once, our body doesn’t win. That’s true burial or cremation, or going green into the ground, whatever carcass disposal mode suits you or your survivors. However, most of the time we emerge, as if in a Hammer film, from our undead state to once again walk among the tribe of the still living.

abyss And, yes, in that state now, I feel resurrected, reborn, renewed. A little shaky perhaps but that fits such a state doesn’t it? What’s next? Not in the quotidian sense I mentioned above, but what’s next in the sense of “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Mary Oliver was the poet of our intimate relationship with mother earth. She listened, saw, felt what it meant to be embodied, to be embodied in this amazing natural state, this gift, this once in a lifetime reality that we are.

This one, my wild and precious life, my one wild and precious life, has been returned to me, or at least that’s how it feels. What, as the city planners say, is its highest and best use? I’ve had ideas before, but this is a chance to consider what that means now: 72, mortality signals falling like rain, yet invigorated and experienced, befriended and befriending, not alone, well read, ready. What will I do?

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Health, Judaism, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

Ruach. Breath. Wind. Spirit.

March 24, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Recovery Moon

breath ruach Head. Mostly clear. Lungs. Mostly clear. I’m beginning to feel the illness bidding me goodbye. So long, it was good to know ya. Nah, it wasn’t. And don’t come back, please.

Kate continues to show steady, if incremental, gains. She smiles more, laughs more. Until, that is, she opened the letter from Swedish Hospital advising us that our balance with them was $25,000. Oooff. Our insurance provider has not, for some reason, paid them. I get to chase that down today. Being sick in America. If the illness doesn’t get you, the debt collector will.

If we didn’t have resources, didn’t have enough education and chutzpah to front the insurance company about this, we might end up stuck with the bill. Kate’s experience since September has been long, invasive, and expensive. Without insurance we’d be eating away at our IRA. I don’t think this should be too hard to clear up; but the ominous nature of a letter like that creates an unpleasant frisson. To say the least.

I’m debating going to see my doc about o2 sats. They’re below normal, though not in a dangerous range. The high 80’s a good deal of the time. Normal is above 95, though above 90 nobody worries. Since we’ve gotten here, my sats have been around 90 most of the time. As Tom pointed out, we’ve lost 75% of our available oxygen just by being at 8,800 feet. That would make a normal reading 93 if I’m doing my math and physiology right.

breath in out I really don’t want to confuse Kate’s journey right now, especially since we see the same doc, so I may wait a bit, be sure the flight of respiratory illness I sampled over the last two months has actually ended. In time I would like to know if anything in my lungs compromises my breathing. It’s certainly possible. I smoked for 13 years. Not proud of it, but I did. I also worked in a couple of high particulate matter jobs in my younger days, cutting rags at a paper mill and moving completed asbestos ceiling tiles to pallets. And, Dad had severe asthma, using an inhaler virtually his whole life.

Ruach. The Hebrew word for breath, wind, and for spirit. The Greek word is pneuma. God breathed ruach into the lungs of Adam and he lived. Since the traditional test for death was holding a mirror or a hand up to the nostrils, no moisture on the mirror, no felt breath, it’s not a stretch to equate breath and breathing with life. No breath, no life. Many traditions, especially Hindu and Buddhist, have breathing related practices. So do the Sufi as my friend Debra Cope has taught me.

breath dive reflex What impedes breathing, impedes life itself. Impedes the spirit of all life that dwells within us. Like health breathing is unremarkable to most of us until its ease experiences an interruption. Water boarding, or extreme interrogation (not torture as our CIA likes to say), is horrific because it emulates drowning. Our body has reflexes built in, the diving reflex, for example, that protect us in the case of sudden immersion in water. This means that our DNA carries a history of dangers to our breathing.

The pulmonologist treats matters related to breathing. But the pulmonologist, no matter how skilled and learned, deals with the physical challenges to breathing, not the spiritual implications. No, that is up to us and our own way of understanding the body/mind/spirit links.

Breath jacob-wrestling-with-the-angel A breathing issue is not, then, solely the province of pulmonology. It is also the province of theology broadly understood. Theology, for me, is the way you identify, organize, and deal with matters of ultimate importance. Life itself is, of course, a matter of ultimate importance to an individual; therefore, life and how it is for us at any particular point is a directly theological matter. Breath, the spirit of life that fills our lungs, provides our cells with oxygen so that they can carry out the physiological functions that are life in the body, is also of ultimate importance.

Here’s a website devoted to breath meditation.* Note in the second sentence that prana, a Sanskrit word, means both breath and life. No breath. No life.

My journey right now forces me to investigate my breathing at both a physiological and a theological level. It’s all o.k., too. None of us get leave this ancientrail alive. Something takes our breath away. That something shows the fragile nature of even the most master of the universe sort of person. Right now I’m going to attend to my breathing, my o2 sats, the spirit and life they make possible within me. An ancientrail of the third phase, no doubt.

*Breath is the universal factor of life. We are born the first time we inspire, and we die the last time we expire. Breath is life itself. In Sanskrit the same word–prana–means both breath and life.

All that lives, breathes–even plants and the bacteria that make bread rise. The process of breath is identical in all, consisting of inhalation and exhalation. It is the most immaterial factor of our existence, being a link-manifestation of the mind/spirit that dwells in all. For this reason, the breath is the natural and logical basis for meditation, the attempt to “enter into life.” The breath is the key to the cultivation of pure consciousness.

Art and Culture, Family, Health, Politics, The Move, Third Phase

I miss them still

March 21, 2019 Charles Leave a comment

Spring Recovery Moon

Today is Kate’s pulmonology appointment. Another key moment on this journey. Is she fit enough for surgery to place the j-tube? Does she have some lung disease? And, a week delayed.

The cold. My cold, that is, and it’s follow on sinus infection has begun to lose its grip. Glimpses of normalcy, breathing freely. Is this it? The end to this seven weeks of this and that rattling around in my blood stream, squeezing my lungs, filling my head? I sure hope so. May do a little dance.

Ironies. Judge Gorsuch, a Colorado deep conservative appointed to the court by he who shall not be named, has sided with the liberal judges on a Yakima Indian treaty dispute. Being a Westerner, he’s been exposed to much more Indian law than any other member of the court. Not sure where he stands on public lands. Guess we take what we can get in this moment of conservative judges dominant in our judiciary.

Weather here unremarkable. Warmer, blue skies, great clouds.

On art. 12 years at the MIA opened my heart, my mind to the strange world of art. Not that I hadn’t visited before. Ever since I spent time in the small museum on the campus of Ball State I’ve haunted museums, art fairs, galleries. But then I was an art appreciator in a very random way. I had little context, little history of the art I saw. After my two year class on art history in preparation for being a docent, I had at least a modest grasp of the history of world art. As I prepared for tours, went to continuing education, that knowledge grew.

I’ve been frustrated since leaving the MIA with my inability to interact with art on a regular basis. That’s one reason I started painting. I wanted that intimacy I had while at the MIA. For a few years after my docent training, the museum, closed on Mondays, allowed docents to be in the museum that day. That meant a chance to experience the art with no crowds, almost no other people.

I loved those Mondays and would wander happily through the Chinese paintings, the Japanese teaware, the 19th century galleries filled with Delacroix, Goya, Courbet, Gerome, Cole, Church, Bierstadt. I could spend time with Rembrandt’s Lucretia, Dorphyoros, Goya’s Dr. Arrieta, as much time as I wanted.

To know a work of art well you need to see it in person, spend time with it over weeks and years. Let it speak to you as the artist hoped it would with color, with shape, with composition, with subject matter, with brush strokes and chiaroscuro, with its own, often centuries long story. The works become your friends, acquaintances who teach you, let you be your self, but also be affected at a soul level. I miss that still though my friends from the MIA live on in my memory, with me here on Shadow Mountain.