• Category Archives Mountains

  • Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Yule and the Yule Moon

    Christmukkah gratefuls: Many happy Christmases. The complete severance of Christmas from Christ’s Mass. All of the childhood induced fantasies drifting up and out of bedrooms all over the world. All of the Jewish memories of resistance triggered now for 8 days. Holiseason peaking with Christmas, Hanukkah, and Yule all resonating, vibrating with each other. It is indeed the most wonderful time of the year.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Holiseason

    Kavannah: AWE Yira יִרְאָה  Awe, reverence, fear (פְּלִיאָה Plia: Wonder, amazement)

    One brief shining: I hear the rattling of old Marley’s chains this morning, looking at a world about to devolve into a Christmas Carol with a different ending, where the Scrooge’s of our country like Trump, Bezos, Musk, and Gates join oligarchs from around the world to ignore even the Ghost of Christmas future and forge for themselves heavy chains and money boxes that will haunt them into their unredeemed future.

    Here is the image representing “Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ” in the style of socialist realism, emphasizing interconnectedness and harmony.

    And even so, let me say a word for yirah. For wonder, amazement, awe, reverence. Paul reminded me of the Lakota phrase, all my relations. I asked chatbotgpt to give it to me in Lakota and what it means in the Lakota worldview.

    The answer* made me realize that I’ve spent decades deconstructing theological and philosophical and even scientific ideas, trying to swim down and through them to the core of what matters. Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ matches my current conclusions though I had to get through years of seminary, meditation, horticulture, dogs, loving Kate, to find the final ingredient I needed, the unitary metaphysic of Judaism. The Tree of Life in Kabbalah maps on to this native worldview, too.

    Wish it was as easy as reading this years ago and being able to integrate it, but that wouldn’t have worked. I needed to live the struggle. Judaism with Kabbalah contains this wisdom and expresses it without dogma. Makes me feel even more like a member of the tribe. Or, a tribe.

    When I talked to the Mule Deer Doe last week, when I spent time with the three Mule Deer Bucks on my first day here on Shadow Mountain ten years ago, when I planted tulips and iris and crocus and garlic and heirloom tomatoes, when I removed honey supers to carry to Kate for our honey harvest, when I sat with a Wolfhound’s head in my lap and another’s in Kate’s, I engaged the embodied learning of Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ.

    Yes, mitákuye Oyás’iŋ comes most vividly into our whole life through direct experience. Yet for me the life of the mind is important, too, and I wanted always to be able to clarify, to say in words the truth my body already know.

    In a way I sense my life is now complete. I made the swim all the way to the bottom and down there was the Holy Well of the collective unconscious, linking me to all my relations through the world of Judaism.

    Reincarnation? Could be. Death a transformation? Without a doubt. Life a continuous amazement and wonder. For sure. May as well celebrate.

    BTW: I like this image from Chatbot’s Dalle, too.

    Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah!

     

    *”Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ” reflects the interconnectedness of all beings and entities in the universe. It embodies the belief that everything—humans, animals, plants, stones, water, air, the earth, and the stars—is interrelated and part of a sacred whole. This worldview emphasizes:

    1. Unity and Kinship: All beings are regarded as relatives, forming a vast web of relationships that must be honored and respected.
    2. Reciprocity: The phrase underscores the importance of balance and mutual care among all entities, fostering a sense of responsibility toward the natural world and its cycles.
    3. Sacred Connection: Life is seen as a continuous, sacred circle in which every part has its place and purpose, contributing to the harmony of the whole.
    4. Humility and Gratitude: By acknowledging “All My Relations,” individuals express gratitude for the interconnectedness of life and humility in recognizing their place within it.

    In ceremonies and prayers, “Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ” is often used to close statements or invocations, serving as a reminder of this profound interconnectedness and the sacred responsibility it entails.

                                                    Herme Harari Israel


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  • Chrismukkah

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Yule and the Yule Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Great Sol beginning to lighten the sky. My fingers and toes. Nose. Ears. Mouth. Eyes. Neurons. Synapses. Occipital Lobe. Frontal Cortex. Amygdala. Medulla Oblongata. Spinal column. Penis. Anus. Liver. Heart. Cancer. Aorta. All organs and fellow creatures riding this body I insist on calling mine.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Microbiome

    Kavannah: Persistence

    One brief shining: Hanukkah comes as late this year as it can ever come, this year on Christmas-Chrismukkah-and extending into the New Gregorian year; Hanukkah presents have begun to pile up in my living room just as all the heavy commercial breathing for Christmas loot reaches its peak.

    Here is a photorealistic depiction of a cozy living room blending Hanukkah and Christmas with humor.

     

    Finally. One I really like. Dalle, chatbotgpt’s image maker often sludges or mashes my prompts. I love this one though. I told chatbot I liked it, too. For some reason I say please and thank you to it and in this case the much abused (by me, to my chagrin) perfect.

    For a guy with a curious bent to his life chatbotgpt outclasses Google search with ease. I use it often, and not as much as I intend to. Still figuring out how to best incorporate my new AI overlord into my life. Can Skynet be far behind?

    Here’s a surprising use. You can upload medical findings and it will give detailed, thoughtful responses. Recommend questions to ask your doctor. Flesh out (ha) diagnoses. I’ve uploaded my prostate cancer notes, my echocardiogram results and gotten back helpful information.

    This was not a random thought but one I took from Hardfork, the New York Times podcast on technology, often focused on AI. They interviewed a doctor who had finished an experiment, published in a JAMA product, that compared AI diagnoses with those of doctors with the same set of facts and using AI. Here’s an NYT article on that experiment, Chatbotgpt defeats Doctors.

    Anyhow, it’s here and I’m enjoying messing around with it. Maybe you will or are, too.

     

    Just a moment: Was gonna focus on the decade gone by, but couldn’t bring myself to do it. Not yet. Partly because I’ve made various comments about it in the last few months, anticipating this day, partly because just hitting the highlights could be dismal. How to write about it with honesty, with affection, without reliving the angst. Might not be possible. Anyhow. A task that will wait. Not today.

     

    Seed-Keepers. My friend Janice has suggested I start a podcast, or a blog. Not sure I want to go that far, but maybe I do. The idea has merit. As does focusing on American history, American literature, especially the American Renaissance. Perhaps the two could come together? Not sure how to proceed from this point, or if I want to. Yet, maybe I need to. Rabbi Tarfon: You are not obliged to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.


    GeekWorld Health Memories Mountains Shadow Mountain Writing

  • Ten Years ago on a cold dark Night

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Yule Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Winter Solstice at 2:21 am tomorrow. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Robert Frost. Walt Whitman. Jim Harrison. Billy Collins. John Berryman. Marge Piercy. Mary Oliver. Louise Gluck. Amanda Gorman. Langston Hughes. Emily Dickinson. Maya Angelou. Wallace Stevens. “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction”

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Poet’s Lev

    Kavannah: Chesed

    One brief shining: Ten years ago a long ride through the day, then well into the night, sleeping dogs huddled in the back of the white Rav4, Tom at the wheel, Snow already coming down, several inches, welcome to Shadow Mountain.

     

    Here’s a memory sliver from that day:

    OK. Now can we go back home, please?

    “The moving moon has waned, a sliver this early. It will go dark tomorrow, the Winter Solstice. Our first full day and night here at Black Mountain Drive. Tom Crane, Rigel, Vega, Kepler and I pulled into the garage about 12:15 am this morning. We drove in over several inches of snow, so a first task will be getting the driveway clear for the moving which comes on Monday.

    The three dogs slept or rested quietly the whole way. I gave them a trazidone dose at the kennel at 8:30 am yesterday. That calmed them for the first few hours and after that the buzzing of the tires and the constant motion lullabyed them. It was a surprise, but a pleasant one.

    Tom drove the whole way, 14 hours in one whack, stopping only briefly for food and gas. It was a great treat to be able to watch the miles roll away.

    When I left Anoka after getting the dogs yesterday morning, I crossed the Mississippi at 9 am, realizing as I did that this time I would be not crossing back over it for some months. The Mississippi was now a dividing line between my former homelands east of it and my new one west of it. An American narrative, for sure.

                                     Where’s Gertie?

    We passed over the Minnesota state line at approximately noon. The state sign, which reads Thank you for visiting made us laugh. Yeah, a forty year visit. But it is now over.

    Kate stopped for the night in Lincoln, finding a place where she and Gertie could sleep. She’ll be getting in later this afternoon. Then, the unloading of the cargo van. New tasks in a new place but tasks which, with the exception of clearing the driveway can wait until we’re ready. We have the next several years to get settled here on Shadow Mountain.”


    Colorado Dogs Family Friends Mountains Shadow Mountain The Move

  • Night Driving. Mountains

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Yule Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: Salam. Marilyn and Irv. Ruth. Great Sol. Eleanor (Tara and Arjean’s new Dog. A real sweety.) Love and Hate. Tara’s house. Tara. Vincent. MVP. Rabbi Jamie. Air tight wood stove. Mussar. Friends. Mark. Mary. My son. Seoah. Murdoch.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Eleanor, a bundle of black fluffy puppiness

    Kavannah:  MINDFULNESS   Metinut  מְתִינוּת  Mindfulness, presence, intentionality (literally to “move slowly”)

    One brief shining: On dark Mountain roads curves everywhere, tumbling down always possible, night time creates challenges even for the most seasoned, no street lights on  Kilimanjaro or Jungfrau, driveways black with asphalt, yet I found my way to Tara’s house with only one misstep, caught by Marilyn, a journey I can make without thinking in the light of day. A metaphor here somewhere.

    prompt: An image in the style of Carvaggio that shows how dangerous it can be to drive in the Mountains at night

    There are two different seasons of driving in the Mountains, Day and Night. In the day landmarks and familiarity make the usual routes easy. Roads to places not yet visited can be a challenge though even in the light. Only one way in and one way out, no connecting, linking roads. Signs often obscured.

    But at night. Whoa. Wild Neighbors cross the road. Curves bend and twist, often out of sight of headlight illumination. No street lights. At all. None. Driveways disappear. House numbers may be difficult to impossible to read. In the first couple of years we lived here, I would often drive past our own driveway after returning from a night out.

    Then, throw in ice and snow. Nope. Not doing night driving under those circumstances except for desperate times, desperate measures. During the day snow is no problem for me; though ice, well, just say no to driving on ice.

    You might think. Well. C’mon, dude. Why live there? I find the Mountains and the Wild Neighbors, the quiet and the beauty more than compensation. If I’m honest, the difficulties of night driving in the Mountains adds a note of wildness to the stew of Mountain life. A pleasing note, too.

     

    I got home about a quarter of eleven last night. OMY! That’s Oh my, yhwh. Then I decompressed from the drive and our session on love and hate. To bed around 11:30. Last time I was up that late? Maybe New Years?

    My good friends. Close as family. Rich. Jamie. Tara. Joanne. Ron. Susan. Marilyn. Now Laurie and Kaathe.

    Seeing them once a month makes even Mountain driving at night worthwhile. The conversation, the food, hugs and smiles. Seeing and being seen. Hearing and being heard. Kate was part of this group. So was Judy Sherman. Both now dead. We’ve been through death, divorce, mental illness, and family dysfunction together. The bond is tight.

     

    Just a moment: Luigi Mangione. Pharmacy Benefit Managers and the opioid crisis. NYT, 12/17/2024. Again. No to murder. Also again: WTF health system actors?! Money over health, conscience, decency. No wonder we shake our heads and hope our disease or condition will get treated fairly.

     


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  • The Times They Are A Changin’

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Yule Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: Paul. Joanne. Vietnamese food. A long lunch. Snow. Ruth. Thai food and ice cream. Finals week. Remember finals? Alan on the Tasman Sea. Shadow Mountain Home. Warm. Mini-splits. Solar panels. Electricity. Quantum computing. The future accelerating back toward us.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fresh Snow

    Kavannah: Love (ahavah)

    One brief shining: Driving in the Mountains after a Snowfall has an adventure around every curve, forty years of Minnesota Winters making me alert to tiny movements in the tires, relaxing if they slip, recovering easily, Blizzaks gripping, gripping, living in the moment because the situation requires it.

     

    As an old man driving in the Mountains in the Winter, I’m grateful for the wonderful teacher I had. Minnesota Winters. Where the Snow is not so much compared to my Colorado home, but it stays and gets slick. I am familiar with the movements of a car on Winter roads. Not to say I haven’t had my moments. I have. But always on Ice. And even then, not panicking, staying away from the brake and the accelerator pedal. Gently, gently.

    The Mountains after a new Snow have slopes of flocked Lodgepoles, their Aspen colleagues looking cold and skeletal without their leaves. A beautiful transformation that we get to see often in the changeable weather of Colorado. Snow. Sun. Snow. Snow. Sun and blue Skies. A different sort of Winter from Minnesota. Less brutal. More episodic in its dramatic weather. Much, much more Snow.

    If it were not for the threat of Wildfire, Shadow Mountain would be an ideal home. In the midst of beauty in all seasons, cool Nights, dark Skies, silence, Wild Neighbors, and Rock, so much Rock, cold Streams. The gift of Wildness at every juncture. Reminders of the ongoingness of Mother Earth everywhere. Which in turn remind me of the temporariness of my own Life. No American immortals up here.

    Today is Jon’s birthday, he would have been 56. I’m going over to Boulder to have lunch with Ruth. She’s come a long, long way since he died two and a half years ago. Now a college freshman, living on her own for the first time. Loving her classes, learning. Facing down fears and the anti-Semitic tonality of so many college campuses right now.

    She still misses “her person” and has rough moments, sometimes sobbing and despondent. But I can see her resilience take hold now, acknowledging the feelings, managing her response. Bouncing back. Grief is a journey and one that never completely ends.

     

    Just a moment: How bout those Syrian rebels? Striking when no one expected it. Shifting, yet again, the volatile stew of Middle Eastern nations. How will their ascendance change the politics of the Middle East? At least one thing sticks out to me, the rebels are Sunni and therefore not disposed to support Iran, Hezbollah, or Hamas. Probably not keen on Israel either, of course.

    Not to mention. Turkey is part of the Middle East, too. Look north from Turkey’s northern shores and nothing but the Black Sea separates you from the Ukraine.

    In the immortal words of Bob Dylan: the time they are a changin’.

     


    Asia Boulder Family Mountains Politics Shadow Mountain World History

  • See

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Yule Moon

    Shabbat gratefuls: Rabbi Jamie. Ginny and Janice. Luke and Leo. Torah. Aviva Zornberg. Art Green. Rami Shapiro. My Lodgepole Companion and their Companions. My son. Shabbat. Bereshit. Brother Mark in Bangkok. Mary in Oz. All Dogs. That Buck.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Perception

    Kavannah: Joy and Enthusiasm (zerizut)

    One brief shining: What’s that, over there by the neighbors, my eyes caught movement in the Lodgepoles, Branches moving, but no Wind, wait, wait, wait, oh, yes, there he is, that eight point Mule Deer Buck, the one whose photograph I posted; he comes often, always majestic, proud.

     

    Often I am reminded of our hominid ancestors, how their life on the veldt trained them to pick up on the slightest motion, the smallest movements of Grass, twitches in Leaves. A something out of sight, almost, at the very periphery of our vision. My ancestral brain lights up as it did yesterday when I saw a disturbance, not in the force, but in the Lodgepoles next to my neighbors.

    First check. Are other Branches moving? Could be Wind. No. No Wind. What then? Nothing was visible. It was moderately high up from the ground. Maybe a neighbor? No. The movement seemed to press forward without stopping and a human would have been scratched, bothered, maybe hurt. Wait.

    I stood there at my kitchen window. A spot where Kate and I still look out to our front on occasion. As we used to when she was alive. She would have wanted to see this. I waited and in his slow, purposeful way the Buck emerged, his rack having caused the Lodgepole Branches to sway. This is his Land, his Mountain. And he displayed that with each careful, but not hesitant step he took. Unlike the Does that come he did not scan his environment often, confident in his years and his weapons.

    Thanks again, Kate, for finding this spot on Shadow Mountain. In the Rocky Mountains and the Arapaho National Forest. Kate, always Kate.

     

    Just a moment: Following the Korean weirdness with less detachment than the usual American. Daughter-in-law Seoah has expressed her contempt for the current President, Yun Suk Yeol, comparing him to long red tie guy. She’s not alone among her compatriots as can be seen in the many photographs from Seoul featuring protesters in the streets.

    Also my son works alongside Korean military personnel. They’re not ones likely to get called out to enforce martial law, but they are under the overall command of the South Korean President.

    Yun survived his impeachment vote, but only just. His political power is gone. Will be interesting to see what happens next.

     

    Also following the continuing uproar over Brian Thompson’s murder and the virulence toward the whole health care system it has unleashed. Heather Cox Richardson’s post of December 5th placed the shooting in a long historical context which included this paragraph:

    “Today provided a snapshot of American society that echoed a similar moment on January 6, 1872, when Edward D. Stokes shot railroad baron James Fisk Jr. as he descended the staircase of New York’s Grand Central Hotel. The quarrel was over Fisk’s mistress, Josie, who had taken up with the handsome Stokes, but the murder instantly provoked a popular condemnation of the ties between big business and government.” Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, December 6th, 2024

    Once again, I condemn the taking of a human life. Yet. I also hope that a cleansing movement might arise from this shooting, a total restructuring of our oh so broken health care system. So many lives end too soon, come to debilitation because our health care system lacks transparency, empathy, and rationality. And again, I remind us that violence does not only come from a gun. It can also come from a letter in the mail, we have denied this procedure, that medication.


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  • Visitation

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

    Shabbat gratefuls: Alan and Joanne. Book recommendations. Breakfast at the Parkside. Medical oncologist appointment. Mark getting stuff done. Mary. Her help. Family huddle. Distance. Zoom. Saudi. K.L. Oz. Korea. Rocky Mountains. San Francisco. Life in the age of instant, visual, very long distance communication.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: A simcard and a call

    Kavannah: Perseverance

    One brief shining: Walking on the black asphalt of my driveway to get the mail while three Mule Deer Does graze nearby, glancing up from time to time, the first year Buck with his spike of an antler looking around, eyeing me, then the does, not eating as often, his role; yesterday, opening my front door and seeing these two, the Doe right by the door and this mature Buck a bit further away, greeting them, taking their pictures.

     

     

     

    Mountain spirits continue to visit me. The yin energy so evident in the soft demeanor of the Doe, the pensive and a bit melancholy look in her eye. The Buck’s confident yang gaze at her, his 8 points ready for either his or her defense. Reminding me that I, too, have a Doe and Buck. A confident, ready for the battles of the psyche and the world Buck with 77 points and a vulnerable, sad Doe that looks at the Buck within and knows his vulnerability, too.

    Wild Neighbors come to my yard unbidden to eat Grass still green under the white cover of Snow, or the Bearberry, a low growing Evergreen plant that spreads over many sections of my unlandscaped property. The Mule Deer always have a gentle presence, seeming to know that even the strange two-legged means them no harm; that they don’t have to scurry away. I vacillate between being excited to greet them, telling them to enjoy the Grass and other food and wanting to chase them away, make them afraid of humans. Usually my greeting instinct wins the encounter.

    I don’t approach them, but I speak in a normal tone of voice, welcoming them and assuring them that sharing food with them is one of my life’s great joys.

    Some people think and I sometimes say that I live alone, but it is not true. Mule Deer and Elk. Moose. Mountain Lions and Black Bears. Beaver. Marmots and Squirrels. Corvids: Magpies, Ravens, Crows. Fox. Raccoon. Skunk. Brook Trout and Brown Trout. All live here in these Rocky Mountains. We try, all of us, to live harmoniously because harmony best enables us to go about our time here as we want.

    This is not to mention, of course, the Lodgepoles, the Aspen, the Willows and Dogwood, Bunch Grass, Bearberry, White Pine, Ponderosa lower down. All the photosynthesizers, the light-eaters. And the Mountain Creeks and Streams with their fish. Amphibians. Fungi. The whole blooming buzzing confusion of a Mountain eco-system.

    All held in the loving and stolid embrace of Mountains and their Valleys. My home.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     


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  • Herme’s Journey

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

    Sunday gratefuls: Tom’s safe trip. My son, Seoah, and Murdoch coming January. Then, a trip to Korea in May. Followed by the Jang family visit here in late summer. Snow. Whippets. Irish Wolfhounds. German Wirehairs. Akitas. Breeds I love. Asia. Korea. Malaysia. Australia. Thailand. Cambodia. Saudi Arabia.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Leftist politics

    Kavannah: Perserverance

    One brief shining: A Mountain retreat, a home on granite, gneiss, and schist, raised above sea level by 8,800 feet, overlooking Black Mountain with its ski runs, Lodgepoles and Aspen colonies, in the Arapaho National Forest and drained by Maxwell Creek to the north and North Turkey Creek to the south, home to my day-to-day life in these middle years of the 2020’s.

     

    On a lighter note today. Current TV favorites: Tracker, Sealteam, Fire Country. Reading anew Nexus by Harari. Also, Emily Wilson’s translation of the Iliad. Best movie I watched recently: hmm. None come to mind. Oh, Late Night with the Devil. Weird. I can no longer understand dialogue in movie theaters so I have to watch what’s available on streaming services with closed captions. Favorite meal last week, filet mignon with Tom at Evoke 1923 last Friday.

    Herme’s Journey. Still on this path. I’ve finished another reading of Ovid. Also, the Odyssey. Am in the fourth book of the Iliad. I’m reading the parsha of the week most weeks along with commentaries. Also books that challenge me like Nexus. Keeping mental knives sharp.

    My commitment to regular times with family and friends has increased. I zoom, breakfast, lunch, and on the rare occasion eat dinner with them. Also expanding my circle of friends, not by much, but adding Veronica for example.

    The lunar calendar of Judaism meshes well with my pagan sensibilities and my focus on the Great Wheel. Trying to integrate the two in meaningful ways. An ongoing project.

    Am working on a new meditative practice, focusing on a work of art for ten minutes or more, then reading art historical material about it. An NYT idea.

    And more. All this is to stimulate, reinforce my lifelong journey. See what bubbles up.

     

    Just a moment: Talked with my son and Seoah yesterday. There is a sweetness, a visceral joy in seeing them, hearing them. My heart lifts and my sense of well-being, already good, increases. Murdoch hears my voice, but does nothing. Nothing to smell here, so meh.

    That sense of well-being. I’ve noticed Luke and Jamie initiate hugs when we see each other. There’s something about that that fills my soul, too. Ron and Rich. Tom. Ruth, Gabe. I hope the others feel the same way about my participation. Hugs are a way of claiming intimacy and saying yes to it.

    Will not know for some time what the most abhorrent of adventures will look like, feel like. Cabinet picks? An unserious man taking an unserious approach to the job in the whole world that has the most economic and military power.

    Committed to the seeds of decency, honesty, love for the other. Still and always.

     


    Art and Culture Asia Family Fourth Phase Friends Great Wheel Judaism Korea Mountains Shadow Mountain

  • The Doggie Drive

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Full Moon of Growing Darkness

    Shabbat gratefuls: Tom. Conversation with him. His kindness. The Truth. A CBD ointment for aching joints, pain. Worked on my trigger fingers. Happy Camper. Evoke 1923. Mt. Rosalie covered in Snow. 13,575′. Long tie guy and his in your face appointments.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Friendship

    Kavannah: Perserverance

    One brief shining: Sitting at the table where I found my pearl, in what is no longer the long time Bistro now the Evoke 1923, Rebecca took our orders, delivered a tasty filet mignon tartare, a beet salad, and our entrees: duck for Tom and filet mignon for me while we struggled to hear, especially after the piano player started up, two old guys trying to parse the future of A.I. largely overwhelmed by the clink of silverware on porcelain, happy chatter from the table of six, the limits of hearing aids reached and exceeded.

     

    It’s nearing 10 years since the long doggie drive of December 2014. Tom and I together with Rigel, Vega, and Kepler on I-90, then I-76, finally 285 to Shadow Mountain. 15 hours or so of conversation, attention to dogs and the eventual end of the Great Plains where they wash up against the hogbacks of a precursor Mountain Range to the Rockies. That was the first phase of the actual move, Kate arriving later with Gertie and that van we had packed in Andover.

    On the Winter Solstice of that year our moving van came and promptly got stuck in a ditch. Eduardo and friends pulled it out. Snow fell and the temperatures hovered around zero. Not willing to try again the van driver took the whole load off Shadow Mountain to a more level spot, rented two u-haul trucks and shuttled the whole truckload from some spot on Hwy. 73. This lasted far into the night with dogs and movers crossing and intersecting.

    From that day until the day she died Kate said she felt like she was on vacation living up here. Six and a half years of vacation. A good retirement for her. Glad she didn’t see the MAGmA overflow decency and justice. She would have been angry and disappointed.

    Over the course of those years I’ve become Harari, a man of the mountains, now wedded to this place through location and intense experiences. Many, many memories. Some difficult, sure, but also many more intimate, fun, bound up with the wild nature of this place, with Judaism, Kate’s final gift to me.

    Mountains. If I have my way-Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise-I’ll live out my final days here, too.

     

    Just a moment: A life lived from, say mid-20th century to the first quarter or so of the 21st, has already passed, as few lives ever do, from one millennium to the next, the second to the third. We’ve also seen what may be the end of a political era begun under FDR. I’d call it whiplash, but the change has been more gradual than the crack of a whip. A new world is being born, but despite long tie guy’s next fast-food adventure on Pennsylvania Avenue, neither he nor his minions will define it.

    This new world will emerge from the tension between the mindless governance of, as Kamala Harris rightly said, an unserious man, and cultures political, artistic, and economic which my generation assumed to be stable. Oh, my.

     


    Colorado Dogs Family Friends Memories Minnesota Mountains Shadow Mountain The Move The West

  • An American Sannyasa

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

    Friday gratefuls: Snow, and more Snow on the way. Harris and Waltz. Liberals. And, radicals. Politics. Changing in big ways. History. Always moving and shifting. The One, taking it all in and forming a new world. Cold nights. Diane. Tom. Irv. Paul. My son. Seoah. Murdoch. Shadow Mountain. A Snow globe week.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Purpose

    Kavannah for election week: contentment and joy

    One brief shining: May have seemed odd to you that I chose contentment and joy as my intentions for election week, that most fractious and unhappy of weeks for one side or another, may have seemed odd especially to have continued with them after the elevation of an anti-liberal mean of our collective culture; yet, I have found them good for me, instead of being angry about a situation now beyond my reach, I have been able to draw to myself a lesson about my life’s purpose.

     

    A while back I borrowed the idea of a fourth phase of life from the Hindus.* I don’t define it in the same way, but I find the idea of a stage after retirement-our version of the forest dweller stage-makes sense.

    The commonality between my view and Hinduism’s lies in death and acceptance. Readiness for death and seeing it as not only somewhat imminent, but as welcome.

    This week I not only learned that the orange one will be our next President. I also learned that my cancer is not aggressive, and not hormone resistant. Which gives me a longer possible lifespan. And, I’m glad. Even so. Death lies over the horizon, but not nearly as far as it used to.

    I would not know if I was fully enlightened and I’m not detached. I may have some wisdom but that’s for others to know, not me.

    The rise of a populist anti-liberal agenda, a rise that came with unexpected force, has clarified my fourth phase. Though I am a Forest dweller and though that remains a central part of who I am, I passed, as I said a week or so ago, into Sannyasa when diagnosed with prostate cancer. Over the almost ten years since then I’ve been conflicted at a core level.

    Some of the conflicts. In but not of Judaism. No longer an activist but feeling like I should be one. Wanting to hike in the mountains but being constrained first by shortness of breath, now by a gimpy back too. Wanting to travel more. But. See s.o.b and back. Learning to live without Kate and without dogs.

    Resolutions. Converted to Judaism. Election 2024 has made see my role in culture and politics. I am a seed-keeper, not an activist anymore. (If this isn’t cultural appropriation. I hope not because it fits so well.) Hiking and traveling. Can do some with good drugs and patience, but it’s never gonna be easy for me again. I have lived into a life without Kate and without dogs. Difficult, of course. At times it still is. Yet I have a Herme Harari Israel life defined now:  An introverted Mountain man who struggles with God. However you want to fill the God bucket. Or, even if you want to live it empty.

    So I will continue to write. Continue to read. Continue to study mussar and be with my CBE friends. Continue to love them and my other friends and family. All this is enough for me. My fourth phase. An American Sannyasa.

     

    *Brahmacharya The student stage, when one focuses on learning and gaining knowledge. This stage is the time before puberty and up until marriage.

    Grihastha The householder stage, when one is occupied with family and household matters. This stage is when one starts a family and maintains a healthy marriage.

    Vanaprastha The forest dweller stage, when one retires from business as usual.

    Sannyasa The stage of renunciation, when one is wise and fully enlightened, detached from everything, and ready for death. A Sannyasi is a religious ascetic who has renounced the world by performing their own funeral and abandoning all claims to social or family standing. 


    Aging Asia Fourth Phase Health Judaism Mountains Seek-Keepers Shadow Mountain US History