Category Archives: Science

Aging, Family, Health, Science, Third Phase

Apres

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Fall and the RBG Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Kate. Our ancientrail of man and woman together. Dr. Gustave and his wife, the artist Lindsay Smith Gustave. The cataract, the eye. Its evolution from one-celled life. The hand and the eye together. Art. Seeing and making. UFO’s in Ode’s mind. The threat to our democracy. Our opportunity to act.

In the car to see Dr. Gustave. One day after. Bright light. Eye still dilated. Colors more intense, more clarity. Less sfumato. In closing the dominant left eye, the one with the new lens replacing its cataract, I can return to the sfumato that the cataract created. Damned if I don’t prefer it in some ways. Aesthetically it’s pleasing to me, the gentle blending of colors, their slight smokiness, which I couldn’t identify before. Guess I’ll have to high these eyes to a gallery of Renaissance painting after the second one’s done.

You had an extra large cataract. Yes! So I take out a cataract shaped like a walnut and I slip in a lens shaped like a plate. When the two sides of the eye close over the plate, there can sometimes be a fold. If you get a straight line in your vision at night, that’s the fold. No matter. If it’s still there, we’ll just laser it out.

This morning, here in the loft, as I look at my banks of track lighting, they have a lance of light through them at about a sixty degree angle. It does not impair my vision. We’ll see.

My distance vision is already 20/25 and will get to 20/20 in time. I could watch TV without glasses last night. This computer screen is far less fuzzy than it was on Wednesday.

At the lower left of my left eye, I have a sensation of light. Not a big deal. If it hung around though…

No resistance work for a month. Can do aerobics. No heavy lifting. (see the resistance work) Not sure what I’m gonna do with the Chewy order when it comes.

Watched a live, real time video of cataract surgery last night. Takes about 8 minutes or so. Involves slicing the mature organelle into quarters, then vacuuming them up with a teeny vacuum. The lens slips in through a tiny incision, unfolds, then gets straightened out, flattened. The edges of the eye right there are polished to prevent problems later.

All this time a retractor has the eyeball served up like an over easy egg. John, the nurse anesthetist, told me not to fight the retractor. I didn’t. Didn’t even know it was there.

Surprisingly tired both Thursday and yesterday.

Around 4:15 p.m. Kate and I drove into Swedish hospital. She had to get a drive up Covid test before her catscan on Tuesday and the draining of the fluid on her lungs the next day. Really hope this gives her some relief, She needs it. Meanwhile the stoma site has begun to heal. Almost normal looking.

Aging, Health, Science, Third Phase

Aarggh.

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Fall and the RBG Moon

Friday gratefuls: Alan. The Tesla experience. The kind folks at Cherry Hills Surgery center. The Latina who placed my IV and gave me enough eye drops I thought I was being waterboarded in a minimalist way. Savannah, my nurse, who kept giving me warm blankets. John, the nurse anesthetist. And Dr. Gustave, eye surgeon. My dominant eye, now pirated. Kate, for her encouragement and support. Tom and Paul for notes yesterday. Cheri Rubin (Alan’s wife), too.

I was back home by noon after going down the hill with Alan in his computer on wheels, as Tom calls the Tesla. At a recent cosmetic visit to repair dings Tesla replaced, at no charge, the car’s whole motherboard and added software updates. One of them added the ability to read signs and, I think, included reading speed limits. Very, very cool.

At the surgery center I filled out the usual absurd number of forms which got added, I assume, to the absurd number of forms I had already filled out. I got more forms on the way out. How many trees died for my eye surgery?

Pre-op was a series of bays separated by curtains on a snaking metal fixture attached to the ceiling. One interesting feature. I got to keep my clothes on! I guess the head is far enough away from the rest of the body.

My legs went on a triangular pillow and my head rested on what looked a hell of a lot like a mortuary head rest. Similar to Chinese pillows. Savannah gave me drops. Then the Latina, whose name I did not get, came and gave me more drops. and inserted a needle into my left hand.

I felt bad for her. When I asked her to repeat something because I was deaf in that ear (left, the side she was on), she said, “Oh. that’s o.k. I’m Hispanic and people say I talk really loud. So that’s sort of normal for me.”

“I know a lot of loud Caucasians.” I wanted to tell her not to denigrate herself, not for me, not for anybody, but I didn’t. She was quick, efficient and cheerful. Good at her job.

Savannah, my nurse, would have been at home in Minnesota with her blonde curly hair and blue eyes. She had an unusual amount of eyeliner, emphasized by the mask. Are you in pain? Not yet.

More eye drops. And, then, a much longer than 20 minute wait. Staring at the ceiling, considering all the eyedrops, where did they go? What would I do when I get home? No, be here. Do deep breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Reverse that. In through the nose, out through the nose. Variations.

Thoughts of aging, maturing cataracts, the disturbing article about the upcoming election I finished in the waiting room. Cataract surgery as a metaphor. Wait, they’re cutting into my EYE?

Dr. Gustave came. What are we doing? Why doesn’t he know? Taking a cataract out and putting in a lens. I agree. Which eye? Geez. That, too. The left. I agree. Are we going for the distance correction or the reading correction? Distance. I agree. He was agreeable.

John picked up the ball by asking questions I’d already answered twice. Any drug allergies? No. Bad reaction to anesthesia? No. Anesthesiologist questions. He wanted to anesthesia in the sun. Which seemed unlikely to me.

In the operating room a name I know from astronomy loomed above on a robotic arm. Zeiss. That makes three robots who have been critical parts of my health care: the DaVinci, the preying bird of radiation, and now this Zeiss. It looked far more delicate than the other two though bulky, or blocky.

After that John hooked up the versid and I leaned into the drug, falling away. Mostly. I could see during the operation. In the eye that was being sliced and diced. I saw three large purple gangly things, topped with white. Felt pressure, some pain part of the time. Not long, maybe twenty minutes.

Recovery was fast. A Latina, older than the one before, took me by the arm as if we were about to walk down the aisle, and led me to the car.

Alan asked if I spoke pirate now?

A clear plastic shield covers my left eye. I still see circles and haloes around lights, but I can tell already that the vision is clearer, more distinct. Much more on an eye to eye comparison. And, yes, the white’s are much whiter.

A bit achy since I had to sleep on my side or back and I’m a stomach sleeper. Other than that, ok. I go see Dr. Gustave today at eleven. Driving there is the test of the eye, I suppose.

Anyhow. Done for now. No lifting heavy objects. Might mean I can’t exercise for a month. Arrggh, matey, not what we wanted.

Beyond the Boundaries, Cinema and Television, Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Family, Health, Science, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Travel, US History, Weather +Climate

America’s Id

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Summer and the Lughnasa Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Amber and Lisa. Hummingbirds. Simple joys. Lisa. Her obvious concern and help. Derek, who offered to complete our fire mitigation work. A day of sunshine yesterday. Drove 150 miles yesterday to medical appointments. In air conditioned comfort. Tisha B’av. A day of mourning for the loss of the first and second temples. And, later, for all the trials of the Jews, including pogroms and the holocaust. A somber day. Yesterday.

A video maker held his Black Lives Matter sign in what he called the “most racist town in the U.S.,” Harrison, Arkansas. Here’s an edited version of that experience.

This video could be titled, America’s Id.

Also in America’s south, NASA successfully launched its Perseverance spacecraft. Headed to Mars with a helicopter and water seeking instruments, Perseverance continues the human fascination with life not of Earth. It will land in the middle of February, 2021 in Jezero Crater. An excellent explainer about why NASA chose Jezero is this July 28th article in the NYT.

Though Earthbound and isolated on Shadow Mountain Perseverance gives me a thrill. And, not just a thrill, but a scientific extension of my own interests. It pleases me in a deep way that we’ve not abandoned space exploration. Humans need to know, to explore, to test ideas and equipment. And, Mars! Speculations abound. I’m glad we Americans can still pull together for such an event. Looking forward to next February.

America’s Id and its shiniest example of hope. We are both, all. This time calls for Perseverance.

Coronavirus, Jefferson County, Mountains, Original Relation, Our Land and Home, Science, Shadow Mountain, US History, Weather +Climate

The Mountains skipped like rams

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Summer and the (new moon), the Lughnasa Moon (moon of the first harvest)

Monday gratefuls: Clean floors and toilets. Chex Mix. Cinnamon rolls. Shrimp. Claussen’s picked up the pallets. Neowise. Samwise. Tolkien. Robert Penn Warren. The harem of Elk in the lower meadow. The confused Mule Deer Buck on Shadow Mountain Drive. All of our wild neighbors. And, our human ones, too.

When Kate and I went to see Amber last week, the meadow at the bottom of Shadow Mountain Drive had a harem of 20 Elk Cows, several Calves, and one proud Buck, strutting, head high. It’s a large meadow that lies between Conifer Mountain and Shadow Mountain, at the base of both. It has a Marsh that attracts Moose sometimes and an expanse filled with Grass that gets baled for hay later on in the year, this Meadow also attracts Mule Deer and Elk.

Seeing wild Animals living their lives is thrilling. Makes life in the Mountains awe-full. Delight, joy jumps right into your chest. The Mule Deer Buck that couldn’t figure out what to do with the metal barrier on a curve closer to home evoked concern. I flashed my lights for oncoming cars to warn them. The courteous dirt bike rider behind me was cautious. The Buck was unpredictable. In the five and a half years we’ve lived here I’ve seen only one dead Deer along the road, so these situations work themselves out.

As I reached in to pull out the Denver Post, I looked up at Black Mountain. A few small cumulus Clouds crowned its peak. The ski runs are dry, jagged brown scars down its face.

Unbidden, as happens often, we live in the Mountains wrote itself on my inner screen. A muted sense of wonder followed and I stood there, the latest doom-scrolling in my hand, captivated by the Mountain summer.

When Israel went out from Egypt…The mountains skipped like rams,
    the hills like lambs. Psalm 114, NRSV

The Mountains are calling and I must go. John Muir

These are not ancient Rocks caught in the stupor of inanimacy. These are not piles of Stone pushed up from the Earth’s Crust and left alone. These are Mountains. Tall, steady, confident. Like Vishnu they are stability, order, toughness made real. Shadow Mountain allows us to live on its peak and on its sides, but it could take away that permission. One massive burn through its forest of Aspens and Lodgepole Pines and our houses would be gone. Shadow Mountain would remain. The forests would grow back.

We are so Mayfly like to these sturdy beings. Our kind may not last as long Shadow Mountain. Surely won’t if we don’t change our behaviors. Yet it gives us a home, like it gives a home to our wild neighbors. A Mountain forgives those who tread its flanks. Except, perhaps, for those who shave off its peaks, ruin it with strip mines. Or, hard Metal mines that pollute Streams, kill Wildlife.

Time though. Time is the Mountain’s friend. It waits as its colleagues Rain, Snow, Ice, Lightning, running Water scour what human’s leave. Tumble it down through Creeks and Streams. Dilute it, spread it out. A million years on Shadow Mountain will look much the same, perhaps a bit shorter, perhaps a bit narrower, but still substantial. 9358 Black Mountain Drive will have long ago become a forgotten pimple.

We can learn from the Mountains. Even our Mayfly lives can gain from patience, from being slow to react, from purification in the waters of the heavens. We need these lessons now, in these Covid 19 times.

Aging, Memories, Myth and Story, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Science, Third Phase, US History, Woolly Mammoths, World History

It’s Not Even Past

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Summer and the Moon of Justice

Sunday gratefuls: The Laramide Orogeny. The chance to see its starting point frequently. The chance to see the actual end of the Great Plains frequently. Stump grinders. Arborists. Lawn service folks. Asphalt. The Snow plows and their drivers. Jackie, our hair stylist. (Not that I have much left to style.) Seoah’s 5th day in quarantine. Only 9 to go. Kep’s hotspots healing.

The Past.  Our own, our family’s, our country’s, our specie’s.  How do we view the PAST regarding forgiveness, compassion, learning, loving, and, perhaps most of all, how we live in this one precious day of this one precious life NOW?

Buddy Tom Crane’s prompt for our meeting this morning on zoom. Old Friends. Bill, Mark, Paul, Tom, me. Over 30 years of jawin’.

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” William Faulkner Whatever else the past is it only exists right now. Because everything that exists exists right now. At least from the perspective of our consciousness. Free beer tomorrow.

Ever learned anything? Faulkner’s right. Ever been in a relationship? Ever lived? Time’s arrow is an argument in physics. Maybe everything exists all at once. Or, maybe everything moves in the direction of less entropy. But, is that time? Don’t know.

What I do know is that until I could entertain the memory (a ghost from my past) of Vega looking up at me, willing me to do something about her bloat, I was trapped by the fear it caused. Glancing away from it. Pushing it out of consciousness. She died. And, I could do nothing. I loved her, she trusted me, but I couldn’t save her.

Finally, I went the whole way into the memory. Touched her again. Felt her stomach. Reassured her. Remembered that awful time at Sano when Kate and I knelt inside the metal crate. “Her heart stopped,” the vet said.

Now Vega romps through my doggy memories, being a rascal, chewing our shoes, peeing on our rugs, but also delightful and loving and funny. I had lost her to my fear.

So, the past is with us. And, within us, the past can change. Or, rather, our acceptance of it can change. When I went into treatment for alcoholism, I had years of hangovers, drunken one night stands, the grief over my mother, fear cutting jagged holes into my day to day to life. Fear that receded when the God Dionysus took over.

That guy, the one I’d been since the purple Jesus parties at Phi Kappa Psi in 1965, had to widen his arms, embrace all the pain, all the missteps, all the avoidance and denial. Had to come out of his own groundhog hole, look for the sun, as he had done many, many times. And, finally find it. Yes, I can live in the light, seeing all of who I’ve been, gathering all of it in close. Not in judgment, but in acceptance. Because, though I can’t change the past, how I live with it can change me.

Here’s a point where I get confused. That I. The Buddhists: no self. My kabbalah experiment with watching the watcher. Many selves, many masks. The long march from infancy to old age. Who was that masked man? At 40? At 30? At 10? Was he me? Or, do I have to believe that I somehow arrived at this point in my life sui generis? No past, no self. Just this accretion of cells that somehow insists on having a history? Let’s say Buddhism has a low view of the Self. Kabbalah a fractured one.

My common sense understanding? A solid Self. And what is that Self? The one who can access, retrieve memories that only this body has experienced. Yes, it’s true that this Self is not the one who experienced those memories. It exists in this moment, shaped by those experiences, yet changed by its survival into the now. And, it is not the self of the next moment since it will be changed yet again. No self? OK. Many selves, many masks? OK. A solid Self? OK. All at once, expressing a different view through the prism of consciousness. OK. After all, William James called consciousness a “blooming, buzzing confusion.”

Great Wheel, Holidays, Myth and Story, Science, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Leaning In. To the Sun.

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Beltane and the Moon of Sorrow

Saturday gratefuls: The Moon of Sorrow comes to an end. Rain. The smell of the Forest, Pine needles and Pine resin, wet Soil. Petichor. A perfume created by the mistress of all perfumery: Mother Earth. Extra bonus: smelling it while I walked out to get the newspaper. Seoah’s wonderful time with us. She helped us through Gertie’s death, through the Murdoch/Kepler wars, and the coming of the coronavirus. Family. Yes. The sun at its most northerly. And, the longest day.

To a world on fire with virus infections, economic destruction, and spreading demands for real, permanent change, the sun climbs to its highest spot in the north for the year. The Summer Solstice. A fire festival.

Though most of the new age pagan types see the Summer Solstice as a masculine, Sun god holiday, I’m more drawn, again, to the Asian understanding, specifically the ancient Chinese who had the summer solstice as the peak day for yin, feminine energy. They saw this holiday as an earth focused holiday.*

Yin makes most sense to me since the next months grow the crops, fertility as a feminine focus. (BTW: just so we’re clear. Animus and anima, yang and yin, masculine and feminine, active and receptive modes are in all of us-all of Us).

The Earth gives birth to the foods that feed Us all. Us=all living things. Yes, a few exceptions like extremophils which subsist on sulfur or cyanide, but for the rest of Us-Mother Earth or Mother Ocean. The Sun is yang energy, Mother Earth yin. Both required, necessary. Each complementary to the other. This is a day to get naked and dance around the bonfire. If you’re Swedish. If not, you can go ahead. I give you permission.

This holiday celebrates fecundity, mutuality, heat, procreation, gestation. It celebrates those aspects of our lives which support our work, inner or outer. Whatever has emerged from your garden, again inner or outer, will need care to bloom, to fruit, to nut, to mature. Celebrate what you do to lift up yourself, your family, your friends. Make sure that part of your life has enough sustenance, so those relationships, your projects, don’t wither, turn brown before the harvest.

The Earth tilts fully toward the Sun today. 3:44 pm MDT. 23 degrees and 26 minutes, pointing the Tropic of Cancer directly toward our Star. And, it rises as high in the northern Sky or as low in the southern Sky, as it will all year.

Which brings to me my favorite fact about today. This is the longest day of the year. From this day forward the nights grow longer until we get to the yang holiday of the Winter Solstice. Hello, darkness my old friend. I’ll come to visit you again.

*see Ancient History for a brief summary

Aging, Health, Science, Third Phase

Cyberknifed

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Beltane and the Moon of Sorrow

Wednesday gratefuls: Spaghetti. Marco Polo. China. Cool morning. Kate’s physical. Telehealth. Dr. Gidday. The loft in the morning. The heat. Wildfire. Trees. Lodgepole Pines. Aspen. Colorado Blue Spruce. Dogwood. Lilacs. Iris. Shrub Roses. The New York Times. The Washington Post. The spread out Keaton Clan. The Human Narrative. Holy Land. Holy Water. Holy Air. Holy you.

One year ago today: Cyberknifed. 1st of 35 treatments.

Since then. Luproned. Hot flashes. Suppressed testosterone. Fatigue. Weakness. In the pursuit of a cure. 9 months later now, after the end of radiation. I think much more about the Lupron than I do about cancer though cancer is always present. The Lupron reaches out and touches me while the cancer is either gone or asymptomatic. It feels gone to me.

Think today, for a moment, if you will, of all those impacted by cancer. Those living with it, trying to cure it. Those caring for them. Their families, their friends.

Cancer is global just like Covid. Deadlier, too. 9.7 million deaths in 2017.

Colorado, Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Family, Jefferson County, Mussar, Science, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History

Speak

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Beltane and the Corona Lunacy II

Wednesday gratefuls: The steer that gave his life for our ribeye. The potato, long underground, now eaten. Sweet corn. Mushrooms. Garlic. And, the helpers, butter, Tony’s prime rib rub. Seoah’s cleaning. Kate’s bowl hot pads. More sewing by her. A Red Flag Warning day. Second in a row. Heightened awareness. Taking out the trash.

The clan gathered. Mark says covid cases are down in Saudi Arabia. Might be the heat. Mary sent a drone video of a quieted Singapore. Diane reports no mask, no shopping in San Francisco. We have a VP sweepstakes going, final chips down on May 31. Prize will be one of Kate’s bowl hot pads and a Katydidit mask.

Apres zoom Seoah and I went to the grocery store. I went in, first time in quite awhile since I’ve been using pickup. Sorta wanted to. Bought only a few things: sandwich bags, pasta, snicker’s in the fun size for the freezer. Seoah did the vegetable shopping and bought more mineral water. She doesn’t like the taste of our well water. What taste?

A young couple came into the store as I entered. Oh, I see you’re not wearing masks. I’m 73. You’re putting me in danger. You’re turning away. You should feel ashamed. I’m finding my voice in this masked/unmasked world. Did the same thing at Beau Jo’s a week or so ago. An older woman tapped me on the shoulder. I agree with you. Ever since juniors weren’t allowed to go to the senior prom in Alexandria (1963) I’ve chosen to say out loud what some people keep to themselves. But, want to say.

I know at times I’m shrill. Or, a scold. I’m not willing to suffer fools silently since silence in the face of evil only encourages the bastards to believe there are no consequences. Yes, the three gates: Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind? Sometimes I’m not fully there on the last one. I want to be but my anger over, say, racism or flaunting disease protection protocols, often gets in the way. Working on it.

And, yes, self-righteous. Well, nobody’s perfect, eh?

In Korea the nation is open now, but everyone wears masks outside the home. If everybody wore masks, I’d feel safer and more comfortable out of the house. Though to be fair I did read an epidemiologist and m.d. authored article that said getting infected is unlikely in a shopping situation like a grocery store. They’re big, lots of air circulation, short period of exposure. That sort of thing. However. Choosing where to wear masks only makes overall compliance weaker. Let’s keep them on until we get those downward numbers consistently.

Coronavirus, Family, Health, Jefferson County, Mountains, Myth and Story, Original Relation, Plants, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Science, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History, Weather +Climate, World History

A Pagan’s Way

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Spring and the Corona Luna

Wednesday gratefuls: Ed Smith. His hands. Kate’s new feeding tube. Getting there on the leaks. Slowly. Glacially. But, getting there. Seoah’s concern, love for Kate. Her helpfulness. Rigel and Kep, always. Masks. Gloves. Those who hope the coronavirus will lead us to rethink society. Among them me. Mountain Waste Removal. Mt. Evan’s Home Health Care. The snow pack above average.

The spirit of 2019. An urgent doctor visit yesterday. The balloon that holds Kate’s feeding tube in place collapsed. Back to the surgeon. He put in a new, slightly larger tube and said anytime Kate had trouble to come see him. This was our first urgent visit since Bloody January though it was the norm in 2019. The gaps between visits are longer. May they continue and lengthen.

Since we went to a medical building I put on mask and gloves. Kate had a mask. These were the smaller masks, but Seoah’s sister’s husband found 50 NS95 masks for us. Just because. Her sister mailed 8 of them to us yesterday. The Korean government allows 8 a month to be sent out and then only to family. She’ll keep sending them as long as the crisis and her supply continue.

Can you feel the irony here? The world hegemon is getting medical supplies from South Korea. It’s a sixth of our size. And, can you feel the love? Family. Across oceans and cultures.

Hard to be sure but I think the newly administered Lupron, my third, has weakened me some. I had a tough time on my workout Monday. I had a two hour nap yesterday, then slept an hour or so long last night. We’ll see about my workout today. The hotflashs have been somewhat more frequent. Life in the chemo lane.

Been reading the book Braiding Sweetgrass. It’s the first book in the Rocky Mountain Land Library’s book club. Robin Wall Kimmerer is the author, a botanist and a member of the Potawatomi nation. Kate Strickland worked, I believe as an intern, at Milkweed Editions when they were publishing this book and got to know Ms. Kimmerer well. It’s a compilation of short think pieces, not quite essays, closer to memoir.

In the human narrative class with Rabbi Jamie we’re reading the last section of Art Green’s book, Israel. In it Green talks about the relationship between a people and the land. In wondering what I could learn from this chapter, I decided I would focus on how a people, all people, relate to the land.

That brought to mind both the Rocky Mountain Land Library and its unusual mission and my episodic work on reimagining, reconstructing faith. Increasingly this reenvisioning has come to focus on how to articulate my pagan way, not as the way, but as a way, one that might guide more folks back to the literal source all life, the sacred marriage between the sun and mother earth. And, in so doing, spur them protect our mother, or, more accurately, protect a space for humankind here.

I decided to read the four books in the Land Library Book club over the time of the Israel kabbalah class, which runs into June. I added a couple of other books I have, the Lunar Tao and Becoming Native to This Place.

A chapter in an often imagined book about my pagan way will be my presentation for the class. It’s tentatively titled, Becoming Native to This Place. Something to do while the world sinks into itself.