Category Archives: Jefferson County

Colorado, Jefferson County, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Park County, Plants, The West, US History

A Westerner

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Mabon and the Harvest Moon

Friday gratefuls: Shadow and Tom’s nylabone. Morning darkness. Hawai’i. Hickam. Honolulu. Diamond Head. Pearl Harbor. Big Island. Kona. Hilo. Volcanoes National Park. Mauna Loa. Kilauea. The Mauna Kea. Waimea. Kauai. Kalalau Trail. Hanalei Bay. Maui. Mama’s Fish House. Haleakala. Lahaina. The Weston. The Pacific. Surfing.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Hawai’i with Kate

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah:  Yesod.  Groundedness.

Tarot: paused

One brief shining: Funny how peace can soothe us, make us dance in the streets, as if that long long period of death and destruction existed only to show us how much peace means to us, how much stability and order provide the framework for a rich, calm life. Why can we not remember this before we start a war?

The West:  Woke up this morning to find my back door open! Geez. Must have been high winds over night and a not quite closed door. Glad no hyperphagic Bear discovered it. Or, a hungry Mountain Lion. Will make me more vigilant. Shadow Mountain at night. Not a place for open doors.

Been thinking about The West. About becoming a Coloradan. Which happened a few years ago. Not sure I could pinpoint a moment, more like a gradual realization that turning toward the Mountains meant turning towards home.

Becoming a Westerner is different. It has not only a specific and important geographical connotation, but also a mind set, a way of seeing what’s important from a spot that begins, at least for me, at the Front Range where the High Plains fall away and the Rockies begin.

In Indiana and later in Minnesota my attention turned toward the East Coast. To its prominence in U.S. history, its storied Universities, Boston, New York, Washington, D.C. The birthplace of our nation.

When I went to college, I chose Wabash, which styled itself as the Harvard of the Midwest. I wanted, for a long time, to live in New York City or D.C. The ocean I thought about was the Atlantic. Somehow destiny and greatness could only be found by going East.

No longer. While in Minnesota, as Mary, Mark, and eventually my son took up residence in Asia, my gaze began to turn West, toward the Pacific. Toward Asia.

As a result, when Kate and I moved to Colorado, I had already begun to redirect my gaze toward the West, toward that region of the country long associated with escape from the fuss budgets and robber baron capitalists, even from the often ossified social status of the Ivy Leagues. Go West, young man!

It has however only been of late that my inner world has fully shifted from those long years of focus on the East Coast as the region of primary importance for our country. Of course, Harvard and Yale. Still there. D.C. Still the center of U.S. political power. New York City. Still the financial center and the locus of the old world’s art and culture.

But. For me. They are all far away. A distant land of strivers, over achievers. Of people who put success before family, even before the nation. I no longer yearn to find my place in the world of their values.

Today my U.S. has Fourteeners. Mountain Streams. Huge amounts of unsettled land. Mule Deer and Elk. Mountain Lions. It is a U.S. defined more by its topography than its ability to shape the wide world. I wonder why I was ever drawn to the kinds of achievement typified by Ph.D.’s, fat bank accounts, ruling the world.

No, I’ve not replaced my suit with a Stetson, blue jeans, and a Western shirt. Although I might some day. Instead I watch Fog cover Black Mountain. I brake for the Elk Cows and their Calves crossing the highway. I live up high, not only distant from the East in miles, but also in altitude. In attitude.

I’ve abandoned the historic early U.S. for the ages long journey of Rocky Mountains, of their Hills and Valleys. For Wild Neighbors. Want to make policy? Consider them. Support and encourage a melding of humans and their natural environment rather than making the world safe for Big Ag, Big Pharma, Big Business, Big Egos.

Come out here to learn the human place in the world. Then write your dissertations, create IPO’s, pass laws.

Family, Far Right, Jefferson County, Memories, Mussar, Politics, US History, White Supremacy

A Culture Dying of Lead Poisoning

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Lughnasa and the Cheshbon Nefesh Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Teshuva. Accounting of the soul. Shadow on my pillow. Sleeping. 9/11. My son’s decision on account of it. Seoah. Murdoch. Jangs. Singapore. Time with Mary there and in Hawai’i. The anguish of our Middle East actions. Of Israel’s. The Evergreen Shooting. Columbine. Guns. Gun control. Our poor benighted nation. Charlie Kirk.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Tara’s hot tub garden bed

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Ometz Lev. Strength of the heart. A middah I wish for all parents and school children in Evergreen this day.

Tarot: Ten of Cups, (Druid Craft)

  • Domestic Harmony: Suggests a stable, secure, and happy home environment. This card often points to a desire for or achievement of an idyllic country life.
  • Gratitude and Blessings: A call to recognize and appreciate the blessings you have. The cups are a reminder of the rewards that come from love and connection. 

One brief shining: This Shadow Mountain home with its three levels, the guest level and the home office, the main level with Arts and Crafts furniture and lights, the fireplace, the breakfast nook built by Jon, a remodeled kitchen, a pantry, an exercise room, the downstairs level with its oriental rugs, comfy chairs, television, bedroom, and laundry room, Shadow’s food and toys, the fenced in backyard filled with Lodgepoles, Grasses, Groundcovers, Wild Flowers, and now Artemis, a place of memories with Kate, with Vega, Rigel, Gertie, Kepler, with guests over the years, its solar panels, its four car garage and library above, a front with no lawn, more Lodgepoles and Aspens, Kate’s Iris bed and her Lilacs in back has been my refuge, my hermitage, my home of eleven years come this Winter Solstice. Yes to the Ten of Cups.

Oh, my: Gabe and Ruth both sent texts. Gabe: “So today Charlie (Kirk) got shot and killed. And evergreen highschool got shot up. Today is strange.”  Ruth: “One of the things I don’t get is how you can be so set on defending a fetus and its life yet guns are more of a right than life is for students.”

Rabbi Jamie opened our sanctuary to any in town who might need it. Ironically he presented a program last night on teshuva. “While often translated as repentance, its deeper meaning is about taking action to return to one’s true, divine self…” Gemini The Jewish month of Elul, in which we are right now, encourages a time of reflection-of cheshbon nefesh, an accounting of the soul-with the aim of teshuva before Rosh Hashanah.

How can we as a nation, as a culture, return to, as one sage put it, the landscape of our soul? Not just the shooter(s) in the 47 school shootings to date this year (Ruth’s numbers), no, but our  culture dying from lead poisoning.

Where is the landscape in which I grew up? Flawed in many, many ways to be sure, but at least one in which gun owners hunted, did not demand their “second amendment rights” and the only duck and cover was to shield ourselves (ha) from a nuclear explosion.

Great Work, Jefferson County, Mountains, Quotes, Seed Keepers, Shadow Mountain, US History, Weather +Climate

The Great Work

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Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

Monday gratefuls: Stevinson’s Toyota. Snow and rain. Now 8 or 9″. All moisture accepted and appreciated. My son. Shadow, the regresser. Her 15 minutes on the treat (shh. Leash.). Common Ground. Heal the soil. The Great Work: create a sustainable presence for humans on Mother Earth.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rain and Snow

Week Kavannah: Enthusiasm. Zerizut.

One brief shining: A cold rain has fallen; on its cool breath came a good night’s sleep, up at 5 am with a lick of Shadow’s tongue, a deep whine, unusual for her, so I moved as creaky quick as possible to get her outside.

 

The coming Snow. Leaving her Snow shoes on. Ruby will still get her 60,000 mile service with all fluids replaced. Means I will sit. Wait. Not easy, but necessary. Keep Ruby on the road. She’s already been built. I’ve gotten at least 250,000 miles on the Toyota’s I’ve driven. Probably my last car. Now seven years old.

A devil’s bargain I didn’t know I made back in 1963 when I got my first driver’s license. A carbon footprint, cabrón. All those years on the road. Helping send carbon up, up, up. Insulate Mother Earth.

The freedom of driving carrying such a high cost, higher even than Dead Man’s Curve or Teen Angel. Back then car wrecks were the worst we could imagine. Now: each car a tiny Chicxulub meteor. Death by a thousand infernal combustion engines.

 

Kate used to talk about an adrenal squeeze. Saw in my USPS advance notice I had a letter from Traveler’s Insurance, carrier for my home, auto, and personal liability. Stamped on the outside of the envelope: IMPORTANT INSURANCE INFORMATION.

Was it my turn to scramble for another carrier? The envelope didn’t show up that day. I checked online. Found nothing. It came the next day.

Conditional renewal. I have to accept a $5,000 deductible for Hail and Wind damage. Well, all right. I can do that. I’d read that insurers for Colorado homes see our hail threat as much more dire than Wildfire. Here’s proof.

 

Just a moment: Do all people deserve due process? I don’t know, said our President. It might mean, he went on, one million, two million, three million trials. What was that oath again?

Perhaps he thought then, right at that moment. What if I could be Pope? Hey, let’s get AI to see how I’d look. Tone deaf doesn’t even begin to describe that. It’s the religious equivalent of saying if you’re famous you can grab them by the pussy.

 

On a more upbeat note. I watched, at Tom’s suggestion, Common Ground. A documentary on Prime Video. I felt tears well up often at the savage rending of our most important resource: top soil.

Joy with the clips of regenerative farmers growing corn in fields with legume cover crops. With the 7,000 acre farm in Williamsport, Indiana. Disturbing the soil with cattle grazing, mimicking the buffalo. Turning a profit by not feeding Monsanto, Bayer, John Deere. Lower input costs. Higher return on investment. This is the way.

Friends, Jefferson County, Mountains, Weather +Climate, Wild Neighbors

On the Way to Breakfast

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Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

Shabbat gratefuls: Talmud Torah. Shadow. So early. Morning, early early Morning. Back and leg pain. Exquisite. Teeth gritting. PSA. OK. Medical care moving closer. Subway. Cookunity. Dandelion. Alan. Driving down the hill to Evergreen. Green green Grass. Trees waking from their Winter slumber. The Bears are out. A sure sign of a Mountain Spring. Snow overnight yesterday. Melted and gone.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Knee replacement

Week Kavannah: Enthusiasm. Zeal. Zerizut

One brief shining: Opening Sefaria means stepping into the long, disputative history of Jewish thought where a thousand flowers of interpretation and commentary and imaginative flourishes thrive, feeding off each other, sparking new insights, all in the service of living today.

 

Out with a right turn toward Evergreen. Ruby’s snowshoes hissing a bit on dry pavement even though 2 inches of Snow lay in my backyard and the temperature hovered in the mid-twenties. Downshifting, brake preserving. These curves as well known as my own body’s, when to brake, when to accelerate learned over ten years. Concentration focused on the roadside for Mule Deer, Elk. Respect for the Wild Neighbors.

Great Sol had driven off the Snow on south facing Lodgepoles, but on the right, the north side of Black Mountain Drive, Winter Trees stood with white, drooping branches. Higher up on Black Mountain its now distinctive ski runs held on to the Snow even though facing south.

Maxwell Creek ran free of Ice, its rushing waters from earlier Snow melt now calm. Full. Eager. When I passed the Upper Maxwell Creek trailhead, I began talking to Kate. Telling her about Ruth’s decision to go to medical school. About Gabe waking up. Shadow waking me up. How much I missed her knowledge and wisdom, her love. About my back pain and how I now understand from the inside her own struggles with it.

Passing Kate’s Valley and Kate’s Creek, my attention turned to the clock. Oh. I was a half hour early. Hmm. Get a car wash? Why not.

Lake Evergreen and its views of Bear Mountain, Great Sol glinting off light Wind raised ripples, blue as the Colorado Sky. The gray Rock of the roadside a somber contrast. No Elk grazing this morning.

The car wash’s robotic voice said: the car wash is closed. Oh. Decided to take a look at Elk Run assisted living. I need to look at a couple of these places in case circumstances change. Still haven’t done it.

This place sits walking distance (for most people) from CBE. After passing the Life Center of Evergreen, Bergen Bark Inn, Mt. Evan’s Hospice,  and the section 8 housing where Anne lives, I realized this was a social service neighborhood.

Past it was the Tanoa Way residential area with dead ends and no outlets and mansions with the Mountain equivalent of Widow’s Watches, high windows facing a view of nearby Mountains.

After I had visited spots I’d wanted to see, but had never driven to, I turned toward the Dandelion and a breakfast with my friend Alan.

 

Bees, Dogs, Garden, Great Wheel, Hermitage, Holidays, Jefferson County, Judaism, Kabbalah, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Paganism, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Reimaging revelation, Shadow Mountain, Wild Neighbors

Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ

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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

Fungi, Great Wheel, Jefferson County, Mountains, Plants, Shadow Mountain, The West, Wild Neighbors

Visitation

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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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Colorado, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Jefferson County, Mountains, Plants, Weather +Climate

The Quarry Fire

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The Mountain Summer Moon

Friday gratefuls: Alan. Joanne. Dandelion. The Baglery. The Quarry Fire*. Firefighters. Hotshots. Planes and helicopters. Deer Creek Canyon Park and road. Smokey’s hand on HIGH at Shadow Mtn and Hwy 73. Histapkut. Hygge. Gazpacho. Berries. Bacon. Mountain living. All Critters great and small. That Fawn. Her Mom. A day of decisiveness. The best. Metinut

Sparks of Joy and Awe: A Blueberry pancake at Dandelion

One brief shining: Texts arrived wondering about how much smoke I had here on Shadow Mountain, not much, I replied, but the scent, yes; sent me to Watch Duty, the app that shows Wildfire locations and posts updates, where I saw that in this instance it will not be the consolation of Deer Creek Canyon, but its horror, the desolation of Deer Creek Canyon.

Kavanah (intention): Intentionality   Metinut (mitt-ee-NOOT)  מְתִינוּת

Mindfulness, presence, intentionality (literally to “move slowly”)    [חִפָּזוֹן Chipazon, chee-pah-ZONE: Hurry, rush, haste]

Parentheses=synonyms  Brackets=antonyms

Ten years this Winter Solstice on Shadow Mountain. For the first time a Wildfire, a forceful and strong one, has broken out in territory familiar to me. Known. So, not abstract. No, it’s not close and most likely will not become close. But. Makes the passage way between the Scylla of Wildfire and the Charybdis of home owners insurance more fraught.

The Quarry Fire* seems to have a human cause, one discovered up a trail in Deer Creek Canyon Park, a park where I have exercised. Mountainous, steep terrain, and, bonus: Rattlesnakes! All fleeing the heat, too, I’m sure. Firefighting is not for the weak minded or the fearful.

Many of my medical allies practice in Littleton and Lone Tree, making Deer Creek Canyon Road a reasonable alternative to Hwy 470. If I’ve had a trying visit, like my one a week ago with Kristie, I take the Wadsworth exit and head west, away from the metro area and toward the twisting turns and steep Mountain sides, Deer Creek running along the road for much of the way. The route ends near Myers Park Ranch, a large park right across from the Chamber of Commerce’s Welcome to Conifer sign.

It upsets me to have a road I’ve associated with healing and perspective become a centerpiece to Fire and devastation. The Fire crews have had a tough time achieving containment. Now in its second day the Quarry Fire has only a four percent containment. Whole subdivisions of people have had to evacuate and many of them now wait out the next stages of this burn in the gymnasium of Dakota Ridge High School.

 
 

Just a moment: On a lighter note I had breakfast with Alan and Joanne at the Dandelion Cafe. A much improved menu from our first visit there. Lot of laughing. Serious conversation. Delight in being together. Got up late this a.m. so I had to consider my kavanah for the day on the drive over and back. Finally settled on intentionality, especially the Hebrew meaning of “to move slowly”. What I want today and tomorrow and Sunday.

 

*Last updated: 11:22 a.m. on August 2, 2024

Latest Updates

  • Fire is about 431 acres and growing; 4% contained
  • 575 homes evacuated across 5 subdivisions
  • Firefighter safety is a top priority
  • Fire conditions: dry fuels, hot temperatures, steep and rocky terrain, extremely dry, with many rattlesnakes in the area
  • Firefighting resources:
    • About 155 firefighters on the ground, including the San Juan Hotshots Crew
    • Two air tankers and three helicopters
    • 23 fire rigs
    • Limited resources available due to other active fires
Colorado, Jefferson County, Memories, Mountains, Plants, Shadow Mountain, Wild Neighbors

Mountain Time

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The Mountain Summer Moon

Sunday gratefuls: The Ancient Brothers. Sleep. That nightmare with the undefeatable monster who kills everyone, enjoys it, and disappears at times. The Rockies. Gabe. Walking. RTD. My son and Seoah. Murdoch the languid. Bagel table yesterday. All Dogs. Everywhere. This benighted nation. The finished line. Blue Sky. Gentle Black Mountain.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: My Son

One brief shining: We got here, let Rigel, Vega, and Kep out of the SUV after Tom’s marathon driving session from Andover to Shadow Mountain, the three Dogs ran around in the yard, peed, drank some Water, then ran right back to the SUV, jumped inside, and settled down for the ride home.

 

Colorado has had many moments. The first one for me was that Samhain when I took possession of the house after closing. Walked out in the backyard. Three Mule Deer Bucks grazed quietly. I got closer to them than I would now, looked in their eyes. They looked back. By the time they turned and bounded away, I had the feeling that the Mountains had welcomed me, saying I belonged here.

Acclimating to the altitude. While unpacking. Left Kate and me huffing and puffing. That one day in May the next year when I learned I had prostate cancer. The consolation of Deer Creek Canyon that followed. Prostatectomy in July of the same year. First time meeting Seoah.

Finding CBE through the class on King David taught by Bonnie. Meeting Marilyn and Tara there.

Doing the Fire mitigation, felling Lodgepoles with blue plastic ribbon tied to their trunk. The Durango/Mesa Verde trip with Paul, Tom, Ode.

My son and Seoah getting married in Gwangu. Kate and mine’s last big trip together. Including Singapore and Mary’s kind gift of a stay in a hotel suite. The magic of Umar. Vega dying when we got home. Jon’s divorce. His decline starting.

Cancer returning. Radiation. Buying Ruby for the A.C. while I drove to Lone Tree. Kate’s slow decline starting.

Seoah coming in January to help out, having to stay until June. The pandemic. Gertie dying.

Kate’s many hospitalizations. Her joyful time at CBE, living her Jewish life. Her death.

Mourning and grief. Jon’s death.

Somewhere in this time the start of the Ancient Brothers.

Three years of visits to my son and Seoah in Hawai’i, then Korea after Kate died.

Rigel’s death and Kepler’s death.

The Elk Bull looked at me from within the Forest. In the rain. And the Mule Deer looking in my bedroom window late at night.

My conversion and time overall at CBE.

Trip to San Francisco.

Now three years plus after Kate’s death, prostate cancer becoming more serious.

Through all of this. The Rockies. Black Mountain. Shadow Mountain. Conifer Mountain. Bergen Mountain. Kate’s Creek and Valley. The Wild Neighbors. Black Bears. Elk. Mule Deer. Mountain Lions. Squirrels, Red and Abert’s. Marmosets. Chipmunks. Voles. Fox. Bobcat. Lynx. Rabbits. Rattle Snakes. Bull Snakes. Black Widow Spiders. Wolf Spiders. Maxwell Creek. Cub Creek. Upper Bear Creek. Bear Creek. Lake Evergreen. Evergreen, a Mountain town.

Great Wheel, Great Work, Jefferson County, Judaism, Mountains, Shadow Mountain

Penultimate

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Beltane and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Friends. All of them. Near and far. Family. Ruth and Gabe. My son and Seoah and Murdoch. Mark. Mary. Diane. Tara’s help with some additional Hebrew I got for tomorrow. Tara. Irv. Tom. Paul. Marilyn. Heidi. Alan. Jamie. Veronica. Mindy. Kat. Lauren. Elizabeth. Kate and Mike. Kate’s Creek. Kate, always Kate. Great Sol. Exuberant this morning.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Completing a long journey

One brief shining: The Shema in the morning, I cover my eyes: Listen, God-Wrestler. YHWH is our God. YHWH is one, touch the mezuzah, still sleepy I pick up my phone, take my morning pills, put in my hearing aid, check for dishes and empty cans of mineral Water, try to remember when I took my synthroid, then upstairs to see Herme still lit from the night and turn him off. A new life has begun.

 

Bar Mitzvah day tomorrow. Today is penultimate, one of Kate’s favorite words. I’ve practiced. A lot. I’m as ready as I can be. Within one year I have converted, completed the studies necessary for conversion, learned my torah portion in Hebrew so I can read it with no vowels and no punctuation from the torah scroll, practiced leading portions of the morning service, gotten my tallit from Joanne and learned how to use it. Tomorrow the Hebrew meets the scroll as we say. Ha.

It’s not been easy. At times I felt I might founder under the expectations, the constant study. Like learning a new language. The religious language of an ancient people. Yet each step has deepened my conviction about becoming a Jew. Even with the whole Israel/Gaza mess and the aborted trip to Israel.

Each time I go in the synagogue, if I remember, I wear my kippah. I say we when discussing matters Jewish. My lev, my heart-mind, has shifted allegiances to this oddly rigorous, yet undogmatic spiritual path. My inner pagan remains intact, nurtured now by Rosh Chodesh, the Jewish lunar calendar, Sukkot, Passover, Shavuot, Tu Bishevat as well as the Great Wheel and the unitary metaphysic I claim every morning and evening when I say the Shema. Reconstructionist Rabbi’s like Jamie, Art Green, Toba Spitzer, Rami Shapiro, and Michael Strassfield continue the radical project of Mordecai Kaplan. In doing so they have, for me anyhow, opened my lev to the intimacy of teshuvah and the world-embracing power of tikkun.

Yes. But that’s not where it started for me. First with Kate. The convert. A slumbering Judaism that got reignited when we moved to Shadow Mountain and found Congregation Beth Evergreen. Rabbi Jamie made it easy for us to be there, even pagan me. Friends that we made made it home.

It was those friends who engendered the aha that decided me. Those who enter the sanctuary, the mah tovu implies, make the sanctuary sacred. Our friends. Now, after Kate’s death, my friends. My sacred community. Here in the Rocky Mountains. Among the Mountain Jews. Which now include me.

 

Great Wheel, Great Work, Jefferson County, Judaism, Mountains, Mussar, Plants, Shadow Mountain

Taller than its neighbors at Elk Meadow Park, Tree #3

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Beltane and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

Occurred to me today that I can honor any tree I want. Doesn’t have to be in my yard though I imagine the bulk of them will be.

Today I had a blood draw in Evergreen so I drove up Stagecoach Road to one of the many trailheads for Elk Meadows Park. Got out of the car and walked over to the main path. On the left side of the main path was a stand of Lodgepole Pines. Though the elevation was only 7,700 feet they seemed to be doing fine.

Probably influenced by reading Wild Trees I chose the tallest of those in the grove for my honoring.

A sense of the Park
The tallest in this shot

This Tree grows in a small Grove on a slightly sloped area. A Colorado Forestry website says Lodgepoles prefer a slight slope and this Tree has found one. Like my Lodgepole Companion most of their Branches push out from the Trunk toward the Southeast. Also like my Companion this tall Lodgepole has almost no branches toward the Northwest.

Its lower Branches contained fewer male sex organs than my Companion, but shared this characteristic with its neighbors. Further up they began to proliferate. About two thirds of the way up a row of Branches had female Strobilus that were taller and fuzzier than the others. Don’t know what that means, but some of Tree #3’s neighbors had the same pattern.

The softer, yellowish pine cones are the male organs. The more erect one in the middle is female which will transform over time into serotinous cones. Serotinous cones have heavy pitch sealing the precious seeds inside. Only the heat of a Forest Fire will cause the pitch to melt and allow the seeds to disperse onto the scorched earth.

When you live in the Mountains, it is so easy to drive past the Trees, seeing them only as a barrier to accessing the slope of the Mountainside. Or, to see them and think they’re all alike. If you’ve seen one Lodgepole, you’ve seen them all. They do share many characteristics. Altitude and soil preferences. Monoecious reproduction. A thin bark. A susceptibility to Fire, especially Fires that advance from Crown to Crown. The hardest for smoke jumpers and hotshots to control.

Yet they are all different. All unique individuals expressing their full potential in that one spot where they grow, adapting their Branching strategies to the microclimate of other Trees, position on a Mountain, shelter or not from Storms, the nutrient value of the Soil.

The bark of Tree #3