Category Archives: Shadow Mountain

Asia, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Korea, Shadow Mountain

Welcome Home!

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Fall and the Harvest Moon

Friday gratefuls: My bed. My house. Shadow Mountain and Black Mountain in their Autumn finery. That Mule Deer Doe welcoming me home yesterday morning. Alan and Joan this morning. Jackie at 12:30. Airing out the house. Safeway. All the conveniences and comforts of home. My son and Seoah and Murdoch. Chuseok in Okgwa. Seoah’s family. Her home village. Body and soul in different locations. Jet lag. Getting back into the flow of my life.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Body and soul

One brief shining: Have you ever awakened and not been sure where you were, either in time or space, like coming out of a dream and thinking, oh I’ll head down to the Grilled Fish Shop this afternoon for lunch with Seoah, and shaking your head and saying no, silly, you’re on a plane headed back to the USA and it’s midnight back there in the land of the Morning Calm.

 

Slept 8 hours last night. 9 pm to 6 am. Jet lag still present and accounted for yet I’m adjusted to Shadow Mountain circadians so it won’t last too long. Still have that buzzy, jaggedy feeling that comes from having left a bit of my soul in Korea. It will wander home in the next few days, reunite. Have to take extra care right now. Fall risk higher when the head and the body don’t have the same reference points.

I remember our trip to China Kate, my son, and me. Late 1990’s. When we got back to the U.S. in Seattle and went through Customs and Immigration, the Immigration officer said, “Welcome, home!” Felt personal and very welcome. Yes. On Wednesday the Immigration guy said, “Welcome back.” A bit more desultory yet still good to here. Back in the U.S.A. As Dorothy so wisely said, “There’s no place like home.”

Realized we come home in gradually narrowing circles. I left Korea and Asia. Biggest circle including Shadow Mountain. When the plane hit U.S. airspace, that circle narrowed to the Western U.S. In Dallas the circle got smaller still encompassing a mostly north-south area with the Rocky Mountains dominate. When I arrived in Denver, the circle shrank again. At the Parking Spot where I picked up the Rav4 it became smaller still, contracting with each mile I drove, finding an intimate level when I turned right off 470 onto 285 to the stretch that leads toward Conifer, up the Front Range. The circle closed when the Rav4 hit my driveway, the garage door went up, and my house light came on to welcome me home. Welcome back, Charlie. It was 11 pm when I turned Herme back on for the first time in over a month.

Home is the same, yet changed. The material artifacts my stacks of books, the bed, the couch, Jerry’s big painting, the fireplace, the induction stove all the same yet the mental overlay I bring to them now includes the streets of Songtan, the Bongeunsa Temple, the Korea Art Frieze, a long and welcome time with my son and Seoah, the trip to Jeonju and the hanok houses, the fish market, Daniel and Diane, Senior and Jake, Sejong the Great’s palace and statue in Seoul. The smells of the barbecue places, the hotpot shops, kimchi. The Songtan Orthopedic clinic and the Family Care clinic.

This is true every time I leave home. The Korean instance being close to me now and markedly different from the life of Shadow Mountain. Yet after this morning’s breakfast with Joan and Alan I will return home changed, too. With the warmth of friendship, with new food digesting, a morning drive in the Mountains behind me. This is Heraclitus, you can’t step into the same river twice. Or, come to think of it, ichi-go, ichi-e, each moment is once in a lifetime. And you leave each moment changed.

Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Korea, Shadow Mountain, Travel

Agency

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Fall and the Harvest Moon

Thursday gratefuls: My own bed. Stop now the journey has ended. 21 hours from Incheon to Shadow Mountain. Reasonably smooth. No real hiccups. Korea. The USA. The Rocky Mountains. The Mountains of Korea. Just realized I have no immediate family in the U.S. Gabe and Ruth, yes. Grandchildren. That woman who helped me open my snack on the plane to Denver. Incheon. Dallas. Denver. The Parking Spot. Home by Rav4. Up Shadow Mountain Drive for the first time in over a month. Getting mail today. Breakfast at Aspen Perks.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: 8,800 feet

One brief shining: Lost my light LL Bean coat somewhere in the Dallas Airport, left only with the t-shirt on my back, having packed everything else in the blue plastic bin for storage in Songtan, refused to buy a Dallas Cowboys sweatshirt even though I wouldn’t get back until after 9 pm, found a zipup sweatshirt at a store in the Denver Airport, liked it, and wanted the warmth so I bought it only to realize that the color I liked and the fact that it zipped up on the left meant it was a woman’s sweat shirt.

 

On returning home. Realized I returned to Shadow Mountain agency when I left Joe and Seoah behind at the airport in Incheon. I love them to pieces and get the same back, yet to them I’m also an old man with a bad back, a lingering cold, a certain frailty that needs to be accommodated, accounted for. I am an old man. I do have a bad back and that damned cold wouldn’t go away. All true. I’ll even cop to a certain amount of frailty, at least from their mid-forties perspective. Yet I experienced this time with them a slow and quiet unintentional leaning into their love, their care. I liked it, appreciated being looked after, considered. Seductive and in the end, at least for now, not the side of our relationship I want to nurture.

It was an unusual trip. The episode with my back put me in a need to rest, to consider how much I could handle mode. And just as the orthopedist and Mr. Lee got me back to regular exercise and much, much reduced back pain we all got that cold. They both had it and recovered. I had it and it lingered, then became a sinus infection. Meant I spent more time than I wanted dealing with acute health care issues, then reckoning for the chronic nature of my back issues.

The net result of all this was that I presented as a needy old man for significant chunks of time. And, I was. However, in the Shadow Mountain context I would have handled all this with my own health care team. Made the appointments, followed up. But in Korea, I couldn’t due to the language barrier. That meant Seoah had to take charge of much of the detail oriented side. And I’m glad she did.

Not sure what I’m trying to say here. I loved being with my two favorite people and their dog. I loved being loved by them in practical ways. Yet I’m also my own guy, leading his own life on Shadow Mountain. Guess I want both at the same time. Seem incompatible. The future though?

Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Korea, Memories, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Travel

Family First

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Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Seoah. My son. Their apartment and its twelfth floor view. Murdoch, asleep behind me. My Korean zodiac bracelet that Seoah bought me at the Bongeunsa gift shop. The Pig. Yesterday’s workout. Tiring but pain free. Bulgogi for dinner last night. The Korean National Museum. Songtan. Korea. Shadow Mountain. Kate, always Kate. Jon, may his memory be for a blessing.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Spine

One brief shining: Thinking of Shadow Mountain the Lodgepoles and Aspens on Black Mountain the sudden change to a gold and green Mountainscape, cooler Air and blue Sky, Black Bears going into hyperphagia, Elks bugling for dominance and sex, Leaf peepers crowding the Mountain roads.

 

No, not homesick. But. I do love the Rockies. And I do miss being there as this change to fall happens. It’s a wonderful and special time. Wild neighbors preparing for Winter, many Plants finishing up their season of growth and heading toward dormancy, the surging energy I always experience then. I’ll not miss all of it. Glad for that.

 

Seoah’s got a cold. Hoarse, feeling fatigue. Overall crummy. My son has an especially long day today. Probably a quiet day. I may take myself out for lunch. Go for a walk. Exercise tomorrow.

 

Two weeks to go. Will head up to the Korean National Museum on Sunday. Begin to consolidate the learning I had from the Korean histories I read. Visual learning added to book learning. Going to buy gifts there, too. Three big gift shops. Hope they can mail them to me. Another Seoul train ride.

 

Murdoch sleeps at my feet right now. Where he stays for my son. Each morning as at home I get a cup of coffee, a glass of Water, a bowl of muselix, and sit down to write. This is a habit begun years and years ago. Writing first thing in the morning. Given over to Ancientrails now, but often including novels a few years ago. Will return to that longer version when I can.

 

Family first. An Air Force motto. And my son’s. Also a defining characteristic of Korean culture. Family comes first. Always. Here’s an example. When Jon died last year, my son and Seoah came to help. A lot of emotion of course, sometimes frayed nerves, but everybody helped, got through the first shocking weeks together.

After a while though Seoah began to ask questions. Why do you help them so much? To my son. In her definition neither Jon, nor Ruth and Gabe were family. Help, yes. Go all out? No. She wanted my son back home in Hawai’i. With his family.

This culturally inculcated strong family orientation has begun to fray as kids leave the home village, marry foreigners, as Seoah did, take jobs in China, as her brother did; however, the brother moved back to Korea and built their parents a new house, Seoah convinced my son to forego a plum assignment in NATO to return to Korea for four years to be close to her parents.

Culture has a conservative disposition, it changes slowly, sometimes not at all, and breaking from its received understandings can cause guilt and shame. Powerful, powerful motivators.

 

Aging, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Travel

A Mountain Flaneur?

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Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Thursday gratefuls: My son’s leadership style. Gentle and nurturing. Clear. Seoah and the new golf bag. Her treats from Gangnam. Kaesong little donuts among them. A base pass for Osan. The BX. Becoming a Mountain flaneur. The Oriental House at the Osan golf course. Lunch there yesterday with Seoah and my son. Muscle relaxants. Learning to live with spinal stenosis.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The human journey from birth to death

One brief shining: In the base pass office at Osan men and women in desert camo, light tan high top boots, came in and out bearing small insignias saying where they stood in the Air Force hierarchy: a dark oak leaf my son wore-lieutenant colonel, a pair of wings, airman first class, a brown oak leaf-major instant placement in the highly ordered military social structure.

 

Got my base pass as a long term visitor. I can now come and go on Osan Air Base as a scrutinized civilian. Less important here in Songtan since my son and Seoah live off base but it does mean I can come and go when I need to without getting a day pass. No surrendering my driver’s license for the duration of my stay, then returning to the day pass office to retrieve it. Mary had a base pass at Hickam and used it a lot.

Another turn of Korean medicine today. See Doctor then the massage guy. A less intense visit though which should translate to cheaper. No x-ray, less time in the procedure’s area.

 

Random thoughts while figuring out to how live with slow walking as a lifestyle. First one. Here’s the rub about death. We spend our lives discovering and pursuing our passion, engaging life and its many gifts, struggles, then we let go of our passion for life and embrace the quiet moment. That’s a difficult transition to make emotionally. It’s not about fear but about doing the only thing you’ve even known, living, and exchanging it for a permanent experience of the unknown. Not at all like hitting the brakes more like switching from driving to floating.

Becoming a Mountain flaneur.* As I reflected on a literally slower pace to life, the first word that came to mind was flaneur. A very urban image, yes, but one I could adapt to Mountain living. Instead of hiking, strolling or sauntering on a Mountain trail. The flaneur is an observer, a patient and measured walker whose soul purpose lies in witnessing his world.

It may be that my body has declared itself a flaneur by default. If so, I’m fine with that. Not sure how one exercises in this situation, something to learn. Or, how I’m going to explore Korea and Israel. At a more relaxed pace, no doubt.

Though I refuse to let this change define me, I do have to recognize it may be a permanent limitation, one I’ll have to adapt to, rather than cure. My primary identity is not challenged, but my physical expression of my self may well be. Not unlike cancer. Can’t ignore it, can’t obsess about it.

 

 

*”Flâneur is a French noun referring to a person, literally meaning “stroller”, “lounger”, “saunterer”, or “loafer”, but with some nuanced additional meanings. Flânerie is the act of strolling, with all of its accompanying associations…Traditionally depicted as male, a flâneur is an ambivalent figure of urban affluence and modernity, representing the ability to wander detached from society with no other purpose than to be an acute observer of industrialized, contemporary life. ” wiki

Asia, Cooking, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Korea, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Wild Neighbors

The Meat Shop

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Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Thursday gratefuls: K55. The bus to Osan AFB. T-card. Transportation money on a debit card. Rain from Typhoon Hauikui. Seoah. Murdoch. My son. Comic books. Dressed in his uniform and off to work. Posco the Sharp. My son and Seoah’s apartment complex. CS. A convenience store. The Meat Shop. How my son cares about his squadron.

Sparks of Joy and  Awe: A well organized and easy to understand bus system

One brief shining: When boarding a city bus in Songtan, the bus stop itself tells you how far away in minutes your bus is as well as having a swiping spot that tells how much money you have on your T-card no digging  through pockets for change or wondering when the bus will be there or whether you have enough money for a fare. Civilized.

 

Went out last night for a farewell dinner for a master sergeant who worked in my son’s office. The Meat Shop. In that cluster of small shops and restaurants I mentioned across from the main gate for the base. Slices of meat in a long row of glass covered cases. Pork. Ham. Galbi. (beef cut in small pieces). Sausages. Pork belly. Some marinated in soy sauce, others in a barbecue sauce. Vegetables like bok choi, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes. Rice at a separate station. Lots of small saucers and plates and bowls. Linoleum and several long tables.

An odd decor which featured a Klimt print, muscle bound scantily clad women, tiled surfaces with faces on some of the tiles, a Korean calendar, lacy paper on some of the shelving.

Back at the table every four chairs had a gas burner and a large griddle tilted downward toward a grease pit. Cut out the chef. Make the guests cook their own meal. A very typical Korean spot. Hot Pot the same. Galbi, too.

Seoah has her own opinions about how meat should be cooked. Wielding scissors, also so Korean, she cut our meat into smaller pieces, turning them with chopsticks. A loud and boisterous evening. Lots of beer and meat. Very American yet with a strong Korean stamp.

 

Seoah and I took a taxi home because my son  had to walk all the back across base to his car. When we got home, Seoah went down the CS (convenience store) and the dry cleaners. I sat down on a stone bench to wait. My hip was sore for some reason.

While I waited, the towers of the five tall apartment buildings in the Posco the Sharp complex rose above me. Lights on in random windows. A slight mist in the air. Cars came and went from the parking garage directly across from where I sat. Hissing in the recently rained on streets.

Delivery motorcycles avoided the automated gates and turned into the garage. Not busy, a late evening pace of movement. Folks returning from work. Going out for a meal or to a club. Ordering food for delivery.

Thought of Shadow Mountain. The Lodgepoles and the Aspens. The Mule Deer and Elk. Bears and Mountain Lions. Black Mountain across the way. This spot where I sat was as far away from Shadow Mountain as I could get. Urban. Gentle slopes. City streets. Constant movement of cars, buses, taxis, motorcycles. People living high off the ground stacked on top of each other. Lights blinking and fading, suddenly appearing.

Yet, I liked this, too. I also realized how it fooled the eye. Yes, every one lived one above the other, side by side, yet each apartment was an individual home. Folks here did not live their lives with each other, rather they lived their lives in their own versions of home, still separate from each other. Not like, say, a small village where Seoah grew up.

Sure on any day you’ll run into way more people here than I do on Shadow Mountain, but the number you know? Probably about the same, given the usual differences between introverts and extroverts.

I could live like this. But I don’t want to. I prefer my own house, my wild neighbors, the Rocky Mountains. Still, at another point in life? Maybe.

 

 

Acting, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Shadow Mountain, Travel, Writing

Two to get ready

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Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Monday gratefuls: Paul’s ok. And the rest of us, well… Hard to say. Luke. Leo. Vince. Almost ready to go. A bit of packing. Some last minute details. Ruth. Seeing her today. Still feeling the afterwash from the play. A solid, satisfied feeling. Reminds me how much I love to write. And perform. A blue Colorado Sky. A Shadow Mountain Morning. The penultimate I’ll see for over a month. So ready to be on the road. Vince and Luke and Leo will take care of my house.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth

One brief shining: Head buzzing a bit from sleeping in after the three late nights last week body atingle the after effects of hard work and a lot of loving given and received hugs and well wishes bon voyages applause quiet moments with Ruth a dinner with Alan and Joan nighttime drives up Brook Forest and Black Mountain Drives waiting for another flash view into the call of the natural world.

 

Tomorrow night well after midnight I’ll head out to the Parking Spot, a long term guarded lot near DIA. From there a shuttle bus to the American Airlines terminal and after that to the security checkpoint. My flight is at 5am and I’ll be there early, but I want to have no hiccups. I’ll sacrifice sleep for made connections. Sleep and I are going to have a rocky relationship for the next few days anyhow. Why not start at the beginning?

But, like most trips there are still some here and now matters to attend to. Have to go the Conifer post office and see if they’ll extend keeping my mail past what appears to be a hard limit of 30 days. I’ll be gone 36. I don’t imagine it’ll be a problem, but I do have to have the conversation with them. Then over to Evergreen and CBE to take the check for my dues. Without getting into the saga it’s a journey every year due to mailing foul ups and Mountain post offices. After that down the hill to see Ruth one last time before I leave.

Will complete my packing, essentially done, later on today or early tomorrow. Check in for my flight. Go over my packing list a final time. Excited. Ready. Would go right now if I could.

 

I do have a new idea for a novel. It’s banging around, making itself felt. Imagining this and that. How this might look, where this thread might lead. I love this time with a new work. Where all the ideas are fresh, seen in their fanciest clothes before the hard work of writing begins to wear them down to real thoughts and words. Where all the possibilities expand out from a simple idea, roads leading to this plot or that one. Characters emerging, sinking away. Writing winnows all those roads until there are only the essential ones, all those characters down to the ones needed to tell the story, all those places to the ones most evocative of the storyline.

Acting, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Myth and Story, Plants, Reimaging revelation, Shadow Mountain, Tarot, Wild Neighbors, Writing

Go now, the play has ended

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Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Sunday gratefuls: The Trail to Cold Mountain. Performed to applause. Released. Packing started. Radical light this time. The company of actors. Acting. Alan and Joan at dinner last night. Cold Mountain. His poetry. The improv class’s Armando. Ginnie. Rebecca. Marilyn and Irv. Ruth. Jen. Gabe. Joan’s piece on the dybbuk. Alan’s on aging. Tal, a master teacher at 26. A chilly Mountain Night. Luke and Leo. Vince. The Parking Spot. TSA open at 4 am for precheck security. Korea. Israel. Taipei.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Live a Great Story (decal on a Jeep back window)

One brief shining: This time there was a crowd when I walked out, confident in my piece, carrying the drinking Gourd and my parchment poems, dropped into Herme and Han Shan’s story, Great Sol gone unseen as Berrigan Mountain rotated west with the rest of us, a light breeze blowing.

 

Go now, the play has ended. My first play has found an audience. What a rush. I finished saying, “Take the Trail to Cold Mountain.” And we all had. My performance was over. The work of the summer over. Ups and downs culminating in a work I was proud of and a performance I was proud of. Felt wonderful. Stretched in a healthy way past my comfort zone.

Only will know later if my goal for the piece spreading the word about the Rivers and Mountains poetry tradition of China found its way into anyone’s heart. If I had written an artist’s statement for The Trail to Cold Mountain it would have been something like this:

I want to introduce to a Mountain audience the Rivers and Mountains poetry tradition of China through the Tarot archetype of the Hermit. I believe most Mountain folks have a strong component of this archetype that led them here. We like the curvy roads, the cool Mountain mornings, living with Wild Neighbors on Forested Land. No, more. We need to live away from the World, to clear the heat and dust from our minds and be where the Wind sings through the Pines. So, too, in China. In the Andes. In all the great Mountains and Forests of the World. We are one people.

Poetry and archetype, myth and legend. Religion. This has long been my realm. From one novel to the next, from one job to the next, even the motor behind the justice work. Now it speaks to where and how and with whom I live. In the Mountains, with other Hermits yet also linked in loving ways to a community, caring for them and being cared for by them. Still linked in deep heart connection with Minnesota made friends, with family far away and nearby, living my own life with them all, yet apart from them, too.

Deepening the love. Burning away the dross.

 

Coming home, late. Drove up Brook Forest and Black Mountain Drives. Realized a powerful raison d’être for experiencing the sacred. As I drive along the familiar ranks of Lodgepoles and Aspens, I look now for another glimpse, a brief appearance of the natural world calling to me. (Art Green, Radical Judaism, p. 120) I know that the opportunity, the chance to again see through a portal like the Rainy Night Watcher exists. Thus, I’m more aware of the sacred all along the drive.

This is, I imagine, the reason others over the course of history have written down their experiences, collected the stories of others, and collected them in what we call sacred writings. Not to freeze those moment and make them rules against which to measure our lives, but as clues, as prompts to the possible moments when the natural world will reach out to us, to help us be ready to see what we’re looking at.

 

Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Hawai'i, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Travel, Weather +Climate

Lucky and Privileged

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Lughnasa and the Herme Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Cybermage Bill Schmidt. The Ancient Brothers. Alan. Joan. The Bread Lounge. Jamie and Benji. Rich and Ron. My son. Jon’s estate. Leo. Luke. Tal. CBE. The Parking Spot. Checking off my before Korea list. Close to done. Gray Skies before Great Sol has come above the horizon. Mountain Streams now running lower. That fourteen point Mule Deer Buck on Black Mountain Drive. Gracie and Ann. Janet. Metaphors, shaping our world. Shaping our metaphors, shaping our world. The brain. Consciousness. The sacred.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rain in the Mountains

One brief shining: Pre-trip excitement beginning to rise, packing Artemis honey in bubble wrap (the last large jar), that Breckenridge tumbler, too, rolling up the t-shirts with Mountains and Buffaloes on them, the dish towels with Beavers and Mountain Goats, the children’s books about the Rocky Mountains, Colorado and Mountain stickers, carefully placing them all in that Chinese box that brought something here a while back, then packing tape, packing tape, packing tape along with an APO address and it’s off to Korea ahead of me.

 

Feeling lucky and privileged this morning. Healthy enough to travel at 76. Money enough to travel. Family I want to see living in a place I’m excited to explore further. Korea. Feeling the collision of four big events coming in this next week: the showcase on my first ever play script on Saturday plus Tuesday class and Thursday dress rehearsal, my first lesson with Rabbi Jamie for my conversion on Thursday, finishing up my travel plans by counting my drugs and ordering what I need if any, talking to Vince, Luke, nailing down how much money I’ll need in my bank account, and my appointment with Kristie where my drug holiday will probably be officially begun.

It’s been a while since I’ve traveled. Last time was to Hawai’i. My son and Seoah. I’ve not done any international travel since Kate and I went to Korea in 2016 for my son and Seoah’s wedding. This time I’m going radically light. Only a backpack with meds, electronics, one t-shirt, one pair of socks. I’ll buy socks, t-shirts, underwear when I get there. I already have some pants and shirts there as well as a split keyboard and a mouse. There’s been a lot of lost luggage this summer travel season and I want to travel light. Also, no direct flights. I don’t mind checking a bag onto a direct flight, but if there’s even one stop? Nope. Not sure yet what I’m going to do for Israel. Probably the same.

My whole family travels much more than I do, so this would be no big deal for them, but for me it feels like quite the adventure.

 

Looking at the devastation in Lahaina. Found my heart sinking, wondering most about the fate of the Banyan Tree around the court house. Relieved to see it was damaged, but not killed. A picture of a woman who spent five hours! in the ocean. So, so sad. 60 deaths. Knowing someday it could be Shadow Mountain captured by the news.

Acting, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Shadow Mountain, Writing

The three R’s: Writin’, Recitin’, Rewritin’

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Summer and the Herme Moon

Monday gratefuls: Ana. Marina. Furball Cleaning. Prolia. Shot today. Bones. Conifer Medical Center. Korea. The Korean War and its aftermath. Still vibrating. The Cold War. The DMZ. Hanoks. Seoul subway. Focusing on Seoul this trip. And Seoah’s family. Next time Taipei. After that, Japan. The Asia turn for my little family. Mary, Mark, my son, Seoah. Even Murdoch, the dog with genes from the Akita Prefecture. God. Gods. Goddesses. Dryads. Nymphs. Wood sprites. Faeries. Mushrooms. Psilocybin. Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Trail to Cold Mountain

One brief shining: Here’s how it goes I sit in my Stickley arm chair with the wide wooden arms place coffee and a can of seltzer water on a book or a coaster pick up a page of The Trail to Cold Mountain to read out loud which I do then I put it down and recite the first character’s lines without looking if that goes well I recite the first speech and add the second then so on down the page until I go back and recite from the very first page all the way to the one I’ve just learned.

 

Five pages mostly learned in that manner. By the end of today I hope to have the first six pages. That puts me into the Cold Mountain poems plus some added lines between some of them. I have the rest of today and tomorrow to finish. Might make it, might not. But. I’ll be close. That will give me the next week to imprint it all. After I’ve gone off book as we actors say (LOL), I’ll spend more time on character development and blocking. Though. The blocking is pretty simple. At least as I have it in my mind right now. Might change I suppose. Ann will finish the calligraphy for the poems by the 17th and hopefully the banner, too. I still to have find a cloak and hood, a pair of medieval woodsman’s boots. Get my linen shirt and pants pressed. I don’t iron. All this for one performance.

After the 19th, if that’s the showcase date, I’ll decide whether I want to take this to a one man show. That would require a good bit more work. OK. A lot more. Could be worth it though. My fantasy is taking it on the road up and down the Rocky Mountains to theaters in Mountain towns. If that works well, then the Himalayas are the limit. Ha. Could keep me out of trouble for a coupla years.

The process of creation lifts my spirit, makes my heart sing. Though that’s not to deny the hard slogging it also requires. I’m not like Ode where every day is a good day in the studio. Some days yes. Some days no. Some months, even years between work on a piece.

I am considering starting a new novel. Which seems deleterious to me in some ways. That is, I have Jennie’s Dead already well underway but I’m stuck. Or, better, just don’t want to work in that universe anymore. And haven’t for a couple of years. Not sure why. Just don’t. I’ve also got the Pagan work underway, too. And, a good bit of work on the Great Wheel. Plus a bit of a start on a novel, the Protectors. And, editing and rewriting Superior Wolf. Yes. Plus now. A possible one man show? See what I mean.

Even so. The idea of starting a new novel excites me and that may trump the slog of the other work. Or, what feels like a slog right now. Oh, phooey! I love to write. That’s the main thing. I clearly don’t care about getting published, but I do love to write and I am serious about it in spite of not caring about the next step.

Besides, I do live on a Mountain top.

 

 

 

 

Acting, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Shadow Mountain, Writing

Life and imaginary life

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Summer and the Herme Moon

Friday gratefuls: Joan. Alan. Bread Lounge pastries. The Cuban. Calendars. Mayan. Gregorian. Julian. Lunar. Jewish. Celtic. The Great Wheel. Seasons. Living into revelation. Living with revelation. Seeing the sacred. Seeing yourself as you are. The examined life. The authentic life. The life that burns away everything but love.  Psilocybin. Guides. The layers of our selves. Inner life. Acting. The Trail to Cold Mountain. Brother Mark and sister Mary. My son, Seoah, Murdoch. Korea.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: honest conversation

One brief shining: After I exercise, I go out on the loft’s deck, sit in the wicker chair carried here from Andover when we had that glass table top, Great Sol still behind the garage because it’s close to noon, and look at my house, the Lodgepoles in the yard, up to Black Mountain, the ski runs there carved by privilege “earned” in the petroleum addiction trade, and pinch myself yes you do live here.

 

Feeling even better about long periods of time alone. Yet also with times, often intense times in conversation. Going into the world of shared life with Rebecca, Tom, Diane, Alan, Luke, Rabbi Jamie, the Ancient Brothers, Joan, Tal. With the mussar group. With MVP. With Rich and Ron. This rhythm of welcome isolation and precious time with others feels like the right mix for me these days. I do wonder as I write this what I do for fun. Not much as I review my life over the last few years. The occasional hike. Movie. A nice meal out. Keeping up with F1. Art used to have  a big role for me. Not so much now. Perhaps that’s something I can change. Maybe learning Magic: the Gathering will open up an avenue for me. What do you do for fun?

 

The Trail to Cold Mountain. Learning it a page at a time. A focus for the next three days. I talked to Ann yesterday. She’d doing the calligraphy for Cold Mountain’s poems. I also asked her to make me a white banner with Cold Mountain’s name in Chinese. Two characters. If she can, I’ll hang it in the background as part of the scene setting. The rest of the scene is this:

Deep in a land of Mountains and Forests. In front of a cliff, a cave. A grove of pine trees opens out from the cave. A campfire burns in the grove, lighting the cave with flickers of light and shadow. Cut logs serve as chairs around the fire. Evening has fallen and a cool breeze carries the scent of pines and a not too distant river. Far off is the place Herme chooses to live. Green peaks in the background.

Since I completed my first draft, it’s taken up less mental space. Though. If all goes well and other folks think it’s worth expanding, too, it may take up a good deal of my time after I get done traveling. Adding more scenes, extending the run time from 20 minutes or so to over an hour.

May have gone a little overboard with all this. I bought a woodsman’s shirt, pants. A gourd like Chinese scholars used to hold wine. I’m spending a tidy sum having Ann do the calligraphy for the poems and perhaps the banner. Not to mention the cost of the class. Going to check with the Magic Castle, a costume place, and other prop shops to see if I can rent a woolen hooded green cloak and woodsman’s boots. Wish I’d thought of costume rental before I bought the outfit, but…