Category Archives: Shadow Mountain

Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Shadow Mountain

We

February 19, 2022 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc and the 3/4 Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Tom, leaving on a jet plane. Black Hat Cattle Company. Jon, still struggling with thrush. Bed slats realigned. Leah. Happy Camper. Good sleep. Blue Sky. Solar panels. Induction stove. The new kitchen. Life emerging. Regenerative agriculture. The Solar snow shovel. Judaism. CBE. I’m a part of it. More than a camp follower, less than a member of the tribe.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Friendship, chosen family

Breakfast at Aspen Perks yesterday with Tom. He went from there to the Hermitage to attend a virtual board meeting of ESI, the company to which he sold Crane Engineering. They made a decision. Kep kept Tom company.

I went to King Sooper to cash a check, the rebate of overpaid dental insurance for Kate in 2021. While at the bank, I said to the teller who had bent over, “Masks make hearing even harder.” She smiled, a beautiful young Latina, after standing back up, and said, “Masks make hearing even harder.” I told her that was what I had just said. We laughed for a full minute or so. Take that pandamndemic.

When I got back home, Tom and I took off for the Happy Camper. A second stop for him. Time for a second purchase in a couple of weeks for me. More important. Leah.

Leah, former executive director director at CBE, now works in the Happy Camper office. She came out a bit hesitantly, not sure she knew a Charlie. When she saw me, it’s been two years, she lit up. Charlie! Big hug. Her purple tinted hair, her Grateful Dead dancing bears lanyard, her big smile. Second big hug. I loved her, too, Charlie. I know.

A long conversation ensued. About her and her partners relocation to Vegas to care for his mother. Their return in November after her death. Vegas stinks of gambling and addiction. And really damned hot.

In the course of the conversation she included me in a we. We have all these holidays and each one’s different and a little weird. We, meaning Leah, myself, and the other CBE’ers. I loved that.

She also said, and I don’t have this quite right: All our holidays boil down to three things: somebody tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat! Leah’s a character and I’ve missed her.

Back to the Hermitage for a nap. Tom back to Comfort Suites. We met later at the Black Hat Cattle Company for a final meal together. Tom and I understand each other. Like brothers, he says. And, I agree. Brothers from another mother.

He took the Kerr Gulch Road to get to Kittredge. The Black Hat sits right on 74 with some of its parking places only a few feet from the north bound lane. The Kerr Gulch Road, which I’ve not driven, added to the western flare for Tom. It winds through ranches and Mountain vistas before narrowing considerably as speed signs drop to 20 mph, then 10. At 10 it becomes an almost single lane gravel road before depositing the persistent traveler onto 74 not far from the Black Hat.

Part of the oddness of Mountain living is you never know what a road’s like until you’ve driven it. That may sound obvious, but the differences are stark. Some roads, many, trace Mountain Streams as they follow gravity’s insistent pull toward sea level. Others climb up Mountain sides in switchbacks. But from the intersection with whatever road you’re on, they may look like any another country lane, nothing remarkable. Some valleys are narrow, but there’s usually enough room for a farm or two in the flat Land on either side of the Stream. Sometimes not. A series of switchbacks can require careful navigation, then open up to a wide view of Mountain Ranges and Valleys.

Life goes on, in endless song…

Anoka County, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Great Wheel, Health, Judaism, Kabbalah, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Mussar, Our Land and Home, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Charlie’s Difficult, Wonderful Week

February 18, 2022 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc and the 3/4 Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Rigel. Her death. Kep. That hole in my heart. Tom. Here. Cannabis. Leah. Marilyn and Irv. Susan Marcus and Thoreau. Rich Levine. Dr. Palmini. VRCC. The new kitchen. The new furniture and lamp. Snow. A good bit. Stopped early morning. Plowed Black Mountain Drive. Bright Sun. Robin Egg’s Sky. White Lodgepoles and a white Black Mountain.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rigel’s death. And, her life.

My life flows on in endless song,
above earth’s lamentation.
I catch the sweet, though far-off hymn
that hails a new creation. The Hymnary

Yes, it’s surprising, but this is how I feel. Eager for the new creation while sad about Rigel, about Kate, about the life that included them in the body. No, I’m not moving out of the present moment. I anticipate nothing. I regret nothing. I yearn for nothing.

Part of this equilibrium I have Tom Crane to thank for. He came here, to Shadow Mountain. And cousin Diane Keaton, my best person when Kate and I married. I speak with her once a week. Part of it has to do with the Great Wheel which has turned for Kate and Rigel and will one day turn for me. Part of it has do with the loving and loved members of Congregation Beth Evergreen and the Ancient Brothers. They hold me in a fine net of their care, mystic cords of love.

And, of course, part of it lies within me. One now turned toward the earth rather the heavens of the old three story universe. One reading the torah of mother nature, listening to midrash about her. Her oral torah loosed in the songs of birds, the bugling of the elk, the silence of snow falling.

Leaving now for breakfast with Tom. More in a while.

No, the deep sorrow has not left me. If someone says something kind about Kate or the conversation turns to death and dying, sometimes tears will press up, coming from a holy well of honor for her, for us. This will, I imagine, lessen over time. It did with my mother. It has with each of the dogs. Vega’s death took the longest to assimilate because she died suddenly and after we had been gone for four weeks.

Tom’s willingness to be here and his actual presence has, as my Jewish friends say of the deceased, been for a blessing. We know each other. Pain. Flaws. Joys. Anguish. Inner compasses aligned.

Kep and I have begun to negotiate life after Rigel. Just us boys. He comes up to the loft, but he’s not eager to stay. He likes to roam. Gertie would lie down on her bed, from time to time gaze up at me, and leave with reluctance.

Today is body-mind-spirit day. Breakfast with Tom. Therapy with David Sanders. Annual physical with Kristine Gonzalez. New workout with personal trainer, Deb Brown.

Did not finish this yesterday. So, I’ll just go on from here.

David Sanders called me an exceptionally intelligent person. Nice to hear. In these tough days a few compliments help. He also noted my breadth of knowledge. OK. Enough back patting. He convinced me to send him some of my work. I sent him the first fifty pages of Superior Wolf. And, I admitted that I probably had a book in me about the Great Wheel, tactile spirituality, the ur-religion. Feels like he moved the meter in my head back toward creative work.

Saw Kristine Gonzalez, my new primary care provider. What a delight! She loves taking care of folks over 65, listened to me, discussed my health with me like an adult. To my Bill Schmidt inspired question about what I needed to do to love (meant live, but this works, too) until I’m 90, she said, “Just do it. Your prostate cancer is under control. You should be able to.” A big sigh of relief to be in a smaller medical practice and with a competent, caring doc. I told her Kate would have liked her a lot.

Dave and Deb, owners of On the Move Fitness

Then, over to On the Move Fitness for a kick start to my workout routines which I’d let slide. Deb is the person who lost her husband David to glioblastoma in June of 2020 as the Covid pandemic began to wrap its coils around our lives. Dave and I bonded over cancer recurrences and now Deb and I have over grief. She gently guided me back to a new routine. Slowly, slowly.

By the time I got home I was exhausted. Called Tom and said so. He graciously agreed to let me rest. He’s coming here for breakfast before his board meeting, then we’ll probably head over to the Happy Camper. Might go to Scooter’s for lunch.

One of the upsides of all the angst this last year has been an immersion in love. Folks from all parts of my life from high school to college, family to friends, Minnesota to Colorado, Evergreen to Conifer, Judaism to Christianity have reached out, offered or given me support. It’s had the result I’ve needed. I’m not alone. I’m both needed and accepted as I am. Good to know at 75.

Asia, Astrology, Cooking, Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Garden, Great Wheel, Great Work, Health, Kabbalah, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Science, Shadow Mountain, Tarot

Mind Blown

February 13, 2022 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc and the 3/4 Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Past lives. Near death experiences. Mystical experience. Reincarnation. Ode. Cooking. The meister chef, Tom. Cabbage and beef soup. Catfish. Chicken potpies. Rigel. Drinking. Ruth, so much better. Jon, too. Gabe, puzzling. My mind twisting round. The lamp, Ruth assembled. Swapping out coffee tables, the new one down here. The old one upstairs.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Reincarnation

Mind. Blown. Where to? Don’t know. That ship haha has sailed. Into the area of the map famously identified by: Here there be monsters. Or, angels. Or, Grandma. Or, the Otherworld.

My buddy, Ode, who has long insisted that reincarnation is a fact, long proven, as might a friend of both Terence and Dennis McKenna, has finally pushed me aboard the good ship Beyond. As most of the scientists in the video below claim, I don’t know where the ship has set sail for, nor how to interpret the evidence in a definitive way. But I’m aboard, maybe as a reluctant stowaway, but I want in on this journey.

No accidents. Not sure this idea and the idea of post mortem consciousness belong together; however, it is the case that for the last four years plus I’ve studied kabbalah, an ancient Jewish mystical philosophy that includes reincarnation as a reasonable and accepted part of its world (otherworld) view.

Astrology, too, as well. A brand of this even more ancient discipline called Evolutionary Astrology which presupposes reincarnation and strong hints about yours revealed by the nodes of the moon in your natal chart.

You might say, well, Kate’s dead so these ideas have more traction? Or, this is the day before your 75th birthday. What better time to throw on a sash that reads, Reincarnated! An escape hatch at last.

Those could influence me, I suppose, but all my life I’ve thought on my own, accepting ideas and rejecting ideas because they listen well in my inner chambers of judgment. Or, because they seem like nonsense. The video below listens well there.

An old and strong aspect of my thought could be called flat earth humanism, or as Ed in the video rightly calls it, physicalism. Materialism in its fancy philosophical dress clothes. Existentialist me, a Camus influenced college part of me, faced the darkness unafraid. Willing to make my own meaning. Living because I wanted to live, not because I had to and not because anyone told me how.

That Alexandria First Methodist guy, a young one, had some notion of the afterlife. My mother’s death at 47 took it to the grave along with her. Not fair. Not fair at all. Therefore neither just nor loving, both attributes of the one, the true, the mighty.

A while later I picked up the Christian mantle again and threw it over my shoulders, but this time I was not interested in the next world, but this one. How might we live here? Right here amidst war, the Vietnam War, economic injustice, racial and gender discrimination? I found answers in old Jewish notions of just kingship and a New Testament that demanded extension of love and compassion to the poorest and most despised among us.

Nowadays the Great Wheel, that pagan metaphor of life’s seasons, including the long fallow one in which we temperate folks find ourselves right now, guides my thinking. I can fold this post mortem idea into it.

This is a willed rejection of Wittgenstein in the Tractatus when he says: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. I shared this chivalric reticence, its honesty, for a long, long time. Now I feel it reveals fear rather than expressing a stoic truth.

Over the course of the next few years I plan to continue my study of kabbalah, astrology, and tarot. I ordered the three books of Edward Kelly. Gonna read them. I’m also reading two new anthropological books reassessing human development from physical, historical, and genetic perspectives. Taoism is in there, too.

The Rockies and the complicated textbook about life and change that they are teach me everyday. Pursuing these investigations because they interest me. I may have a book in there, some way of showing others how the natural world can teach us what we need to know about life, and now perhaps, death.

Gotta do something with this extra time the oncologists have given me. May as well be of some use.

And, happy birthday to me!

Cooking, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Kabbalah, Mountains, Mussar, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

This Will Pass

February 12, 2022 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc and the 3/4 Moon

Saturday gratefuls: That Urbandale rocker. The new coffee table. The new lamp. Here at the Hermitage. Many items put in cabinets, fussing will be required. A plan slowly coming together. Feels wonderful. Rigel did not eat today. Her footpads. The two delivery guys from Modern Bungalow. “Do you have wildlife up here?” Looking at 4 Mule Deer in the front. Kids. Ruth’s first day back after the hospital. Snow coming down gently. Night fell.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Salmon a la Ode

Tired of feeling tired. I get only a few things done. Sit down. Nap. A few more. Not enough. I imagine it’s either the Erleada or the Erleada/Orgovyx combo. So hard to suss out though. Sarcopenia from not working out. Other meds. Getting good sleep so that’s not it.

Next week, two days after my 75th, David Sanders and the question, what’s this guy gonna do with the rest of his life? 11 am. At 1 pm I have my annual physical with Cynthia Gonzalez. First time I will have met her. Fatigue high on the list. At 3 pm Deb Brown at on the move fitness. Need to get moving, doing resistance work. Balance. Flexibility. I’ve never felt the need more.

This 74th year, February 14 2021 to February 14 2022, on the planet has had more than its share of challenges. For all of us. Some have added a few more. Like me. Widower. Single guy living alone. Remodeling, refurnishing. Rigel’s health. Jon’s. Ruth’s. Life. As it flows on in endless song.

Feeling it all today. Ruth’s struggles. Jon’s. Rigel’s. They could add to the fatigue, too, of course. My response to them, that is.

The two young guys who delivered the Modern Bungalow order. A handsome 20 something Black man and a handsome 20 something Latino. Felt like they’d been cast in a movie, the new diversity sensitive films. Just guys. Friendly and helpful. Awed, as we all are, by wild Life. This delivery will remain in their minds, perhaps later draw them to the mountains.

With weariness comes a touch of melancholy. Nothing a good night’s sleep won’t erase.

Snow means low Fire danger. Yeah. Also, beauty. 6-9 inches. Means Vince will be here. He might try the Snow raking.

Lots of moving parts in caring for a house, dogs, a life. Called the home call vets. Will get word tomorrow am about a visit. Rigel’s lethargic. I bought stick on pads for her paws which should help improve her mobility, but she’s hardly moved since I put them on. I got XL, but they’re not big enough. If they seem to help, I’ll go XXL.

At this moment life feels a little hard, a little too much. Ruth. Jon. Rigel. The fatigue, the lack of stamina. This will pass.

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Mountains, Shadow Mountain

The Hermitage Common Room

February 11, 2022 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc and The Moon of 3/4’s

Friday gratefuls: David Sanders. You’re the most articulate person I’ve ever met. Another person the night before, someone I admire: you’re the man I want to become. Geez. Yet. Nice, too. Therapy. Again. For me. For Ruth. Therapy Nation. Languishing. Mourning. Grieving. Bright Sun. Blue Sky. Black Mountain. Wireless mouse and keyboard. Wow.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth and Seoah

Living. As far as I know, it beats dying.

Noticed my ax sitting near the window. Behind it is a painting, a Renaissance replica, in the shape of a cross. Jesus crucified. Above them hangs the red dragon on a green and white background, the flag of Wales. All the way on the bookshelf’s top is a human skull, an anatomy lesson tool. Up there, too, is a seven candle menorah, a replica of the Temple Menorah from the First Temple.

The ax I can no longer wield. Too weak. Poor stamina. The painting I love as art and appreciate as metaphor. The flag is a roots thing. Captain Ellis from Denbigh,Wales. Our Welsh forefather. Though. None of my genetic work has teased out any Welsh blood. The skull. Not the only one. A beaver, a black bear, a Sabre tooth tiger (faux, but still cool). What lies beneath.

Ruth returned home. Spent the last two days with me. She looks much better, less stressed. Medication changes. More knowledge about how to self regulate. A volunteer turn on her part which suggests a much higher likelihood of benefit. She was nervous about going back to school today. As she often says, Makes sense.

Took her, Gabe, and Jon to Katsu Ramen. Was gonna be Domo, Ruth’s favorite, but it’s closed due to omicron. This was her 15th birthday meal. From last year. I took Gabe to his favorite, Benihana, last month. This little family. Sweet and, it seems, taking steps to heal from years of trauma physical and trauma emotional.

A good time together then I drove back home, all the way across the Denver metro and up the hill to Shadow Mountain.

Rigel. Not eating. Won’t let me give me her pills. I called a different vet, a local home call vet who does acupuncture, other things. We’ll see if she can help. Rigel also occasionally retches, like there’s something stuck in her throat. I don’t know what’s going on. She’s gone to the door to the Otherworld many times and always turned around and walked back. I’m neither hopeful nor despairing. Today, she’s alive. I’ll do what I can today.

Had my first therapy appointment in many years yesterday. Dr. David Sanders, who founded the Kabbalah Experience and teaches the class on the Sefer Yetzirah that I’m taking right now. We met on zoom. Which I preferred to going in, wearing masks. Trying to hear.

Some tears. Talking about Kate. About our life together, our love, our commitment to each other’s growth. Focusing on life after Kate. As David asked, “What does this 74 year old man have left to do with his life?” Exactly.

I’m paying the bill myself. No insurance. Because I want to. May be weird, but it makes me feel good. And I can. Feels more like its mine, not mine and the damned Advantage Care. No pleading for help. Getting it.

All boxes of kitchen stuff off the common room floor. Ruth won the contest. Common Room. A good one. The Common Room is a spot where we can gather, enjoy a fire in the fireplace, have a meal. Be together. Congratulations to Ruth!

Feeling on the cusp of change. But, I’ve felt that way for a while. Even so. A sort of forward leaning, yet in the moment feeling.

May sit in my new rocker a while today. Read. Maybe even light a fire. I want to read even more and I hope this new furniture arrangement in the Common Room will encourage that for me.

Enough for today. See you on the flip side.

Cooking, Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Shadow Mountain

Clash

February 8, 2022 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc and the 3/4 Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Rigel the wonder dog. Up and out today. Go figure. Kep. Half the night with Rigel upstairs, half with me downstairs. First round of cabinet stuffing complete. Safeway pickup. David Sanders. Sleep. Marina Harris. Container Store. Enlightenment. Sunny Sky. Warm Day. Colorado weird.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rigel alert and happy to see me this morning. When I thought she might have died overnight.

Rigel and a bull Elk in our back a day before my first radiation treatment.

Clashing movements in my life. Rigel yesterday. Enfeebled. Back legs splaying out. Coughing. Not eating. Looking miserable. Today. Happy to see me. Up on her own. Outside. Ate a piece of hotdog with her meds in it. Did not eat her breakfast so it’s not all good, but from Monday? Wow.

Wonder dog.

That silverware goes in the top left drawer. The wooden spoons, spatulas, tongs, whisks below them. The potato masher, basting brush, wooden pot scraper below them. The Portmerion punch bowl over the microwave along with the Portmerion soup tureen. Mixing bowls and measuring cups and measuring spoons in the triangular cupbard, bottom. Thermometers and scale and knife sharpeners. Can opener and immersion blender. To the right of the stove.

Roasting and baking pans, wire racks for them below the oven. Plates large and small over the dishwasher. Bowls above them. Serving dishes flat above them. Serving bowls above them. In the cabinet next to the refrigerator, bread box. Above it. Metal baskets for potatoes and onions. Above them Corning Ware.

The new furniture coming Friday, displaced from Thursday by a therapy session with David Sanders. Tom’s wonderful offer to be here if Rigel worsens to a terminal situation.

Classes this morning. So. Much. Going. On.

Jodi can’t work this week because her father in Iowa City has lung cancer and took a turn for the worse. She’s going home.

And so on. Whew.

Anoka County, Denver, Dogs, Jefferson County, Park County, Shadow Mountain, US History, Weather +Climate

Why I Stay

February 5, 2022 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc and the 3/4 Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Award Winning Pet Grooming. Beautiful Rigel. Shaggy Sheep’s carnitas taco. South Park and the Continental Divide. Beautiful with Snow. McKesson Biologic. Erleada. Happy Camper. Cheeba Chews. Making dreams come. Driving on a Snow packed highway. Like old times. Park County. The Mountains. The Valleys. The blue, blue Sky. Warmer. Getting stuff done.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: South Park, the High Plains

Tarot:

The Rocky Mountains. My chief complaint about Andover was that there was no there. Until I got on our property. Meaning: whenever I drove into the Cities, I’d come home via I35 or I94 to Hwy 10, then up Round Lake Blvd. It was businesses, homes, industrial buildings, four lane zipping here and there, sometimes six or eight lanes. I never left the comfortable built cocoon of human habitation and its concrete and steel support system. Uninspiring. Deinspiring. Blah. Bah. Humbug.

To be fair Anoka County was wonderful. An (relatively) undiscovered gem of the Twin Cities Metro. Boot Lake Nature Reserve. Oak Savannah. Rum River County Park. The Cedar Creek Nature Center. But even these existed as cordoned off chunks of the natural world. Protected. And the protection was necessary. Exurbation.

In a very real sense I don’t live in Colorado, I live in the Rocky Mountains. Colorado is the Denver Metro, the big ranches on the Eastern Plains, and the even bigger ranches in the Western part of the state. Here the dominant reality is Mountains. Streams. Valleys. Pines and Aspen. Mule Deer, Moose, Elk. Mountain Lions and Marmosets. Sudden changes in weather that can breathe bone chilling cold, bursts of vehicle covering Snow, hot and dry winds, and glorious clear blue Sky.

I go down the hill as little as possible. Not because I hate the city. I love cities. But because I love the Mountains more. One of the coolest parts of living up here is that ordinary tasks, like taking Rigel to the groomers is an adventure. A drive most folks would buy an airplane ticket to have. Kate stayed here until her death because, she said, “I felt every day like I was on vacation.”

With the exception of certain medical appointments and the occasional outings with family, I have no need to leave the Mountains. Just changed my primary care provider from Littleton to Evergreen for that reason. Well, ok, I’d grown disgusted with the care from New West Physicians. That provided an incentive.

Here are a few photos from today’s trip to Bailey and beyond.

South Park, a Park in the Mountains is a large flat section, High Plains, surrounded by Mountains. In this case the Continental Divide. This is BTW, The South Park. Hundreds of square miles. Looks like Minnesota west on Hwy 12

Kenosha Pass. 11,000 plus feet. Living here the Mountain Pass has become an important feature of driving. Did not understand how important before I moved here.

Cooking, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain

Award Winning Pet Grooming. Happy Camper. Shaggy Sheep.

February 4, 2022 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc and the 3/4 Moon

Friday gratefuls: Racism. Anti-Semitism. Sexism. Caste consciousness. Hate. Love. Justice. Resistance. Struggle. Le lucha. The long dureé. Vince. Snow. Ruth and her commitment to herself. Jon and his love for her. Betty Whiteout and Ctr Salt Delete, names for Minnesota Snowplows.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Container Store (for my new kitchen organizing)

Tarot: Nine of Bows, Respect.

Started putting things in cabinets and drawers. Gonna have to get creative since I lost two drawers in the remodel. Going to the container store tomorrow. Pots, pans, dishes, bowls, cups, infrequently used items like soup tureen, large serving dishes, punch bowl, even appliances will have plenty of room. Towels and dishrags, too. Often used items like forks and spoons and steak knives, spatulas, tongs, wooden spoons, as well. But the not so often used things like thermometers, Kate’s extensive collection of single use kitchen devices, e.g. cherrypitter, pomegranate deseeder, not so much. I look forward to solving this problem. Seriously.

Rescheduled my appointment with Deb Brown for Zoom.

Talked to Ruth again yesterday. She’s pleased with her care at Denver Springs. Music therapy, group therapy, regular individual therapy sessions. It makes me happy that she wants to call me to talk. Sad that she calls me from a psych unit.

That’s the roof with the solar panels. See the problem?

Sent Vince, new snowplow guy a note. Would he be willing to rake off the bottom foot or so of my solar panels when he plows? This would pay for itself if he’s willing. Then, the snow slips off as the sun comes out and I get back to electricity generation. Especially important since the mini-splits are electric.

I did turn the hot water heat on in Kate’s sewing room because I’m going to be rearranging the pantry and bringing things back into the kitchen from there. It’s still a point of chaos in some areas, too. Not gonna deal with that until it’s warmer, too expensive to heat all year round.

Becky Chamber’s, A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, is an interesting read. Her characters and world-building are very strong. The plot maybe not quite as important. Recommended. Like being back in the reading groove.

Lots of positives right now. May they continue.

Abraham Lincoln died. Rich made a digital picture file.

Got to take Rigel to Bailey today for Award Winning Pet Grooming. Gonna go first to Happy Camper for Cheeba Chews, then on into Bailey to the groomers and on past them to the Shaggy Sheep, near Grant, for lunch and to wait on Rigel. Shaggy Sheep is fun. A New York City chef wanted the quiet life so he moved to Colorado and put a restaurant together on Hwy. 285 between Bailey and the Kenosha Pass.

Coronavirus, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Mountains, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Tarot, Weather +Climate

A Master Class. Kitchen. Erleada. Ruth.

February 3, 2022 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc and the 3/4 Moon

Thursday gratefuls: That below zero crunch in the Snow. Minnesota. Abraham Lincoln. Rich. Judy. Marilyn. Tom. Irv. Fresh Snow beauty on Black Mountain. On the Lodgepoles. On the Hermitage. Master Class in Black History. Back to reading. Loading coffee cups in the new shelving. Figuring out how to use the Speed Brew Bunn. (for high altitude)

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Money

Tarot: The Hooded Man, #9 of the Major Arcana

Loaded coffee cups into the pantry cabinets, smaller than the old ones, but probably better this way. While feeding the dogs. I’m getting underway. More this morning.

Vince came to plow the driveway. He has a six wheel ATV. An odd-looking thing. But powerful. He did a great job, including eliminating the small ridge of snow in front of the front door that both Josh and Ted left. I think Vince is a find. He also does landscaping.

Connected with Ruth yesterday. She’s in the Denver Springs psych hospital. Voluntarily. She sounded good. Joking, asking me to give Rigel and Kep a hug for her. She wants, really wants, to get her psyche calmed down. I hope she’s able to do that. I love her so much and it makes me hurt to see her in trouble.

Decided I’ll schedule the Modern Bungalow delivery for my birthday. A way to celebrate with a major change in the front room. I don’t know what to call that room. Great room sounds pretentious. Living room doesn’t feel right. It has a breakfast nook and a fire place. The area around the fire place is a separate space. I don’t know. Any ideas out there?

Been watching a Master Class in Black History on Amazon Prime. It’s excellent. I got to know Cornel West a bit at the 1974 Liberation Theology Conference in Detroit. I also met Angela Davis when I worked on the West Bank. There were a few members of the communist party who lived on the West Bank and were active in neighborhood politics. I can’t remember the couples name right now, but they held a do for Angela and invited me. This would have been in the mid-1980’s. Very much worth watching.

BTW: I agree with everything I’ve heard so far on the program. Knew some, but also learned a lot.

Felt a sag in my excitement about the new kitchen as I start to reorganize it. Realized it was the midday blues. Gonna get back to exercising, starting today. Better energy when I work out. Was gonna go to On the Move Fitness, but wrote Deb a note and said, “I’ve got the Omicron jitters. Let’s schedule a zoom session.” Probably over cautious. But. I’m not now, nor have I been sick for the last two years. In less you count prostate cancer, of course.

The Erleada, which I’ve been taking for 6 days now, did drop my energy level at first but that seems to have waned. Also a few hot flashes. Not bad. Not good. Oddly, just as I typed Erleada, the phone rang. McKesson Biologic Pharmacy. They’re the folks that handle my Orgovyx script, too. Kind and competent. My favorite combination.

And, ta dah! $10 a month rather than $3,000 or $650.

-30-

Astrology, Colorado, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Great Wheel, Health, Kabbalah, Mountains, Myth and Story, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Tarot, US History, Weather +Climate

Education and Snow and Drugs

February 1, 2022 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc and the 3/4 Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: David Sanders. Rebecca. Claire. Bonnie. Elisa. Snow. Coming down hard. Shingles vaccination. Safeway pickup. Rigel’s meds. Kep’s good appetite. Kabbalah Experience. Their classes. The kitchen. Mostly remodeled. The Mountain roads in the Snow.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Language, mediator or creator? Or both?

Tarot:

Today. Trash out early in advance of snow too deep to move the bins through. First push for Vince, tomorrow. See how he’ll do. I’m hopeful.

Talked about soul mates in Torah and the Stars. Is there some one, perhaps only one, who can complete you? Kate considered me her soul mate and I considered her mine. Took me a lot of relationships to find her. Worth it. In the class following Torah and the Stars, Sefer Yetzirah II, David Sanders quoted Eric Fromm: love is being committed to the growth of another. Excellent. Kate and I fit that definition in so many ways.

It also allows for the sort of love I have with Kep and Rigel, with my ancient brothers, with Jon, Ruth, and Gabe. The sort of love that CBE has shown to me.

I felt energized after the two classes. I needed it because I still had to go back to Safeway, after a jaunt there around 8:30 am to pickup groceries and drop Rigel’s prescriptions at the pharmacy. After Mark Odegard’s bout of shingles, I committed myself to getting the vaccine(s). Did it. Got the first one. Two months later, the second one.

Picked up Rigel’s meds, muscle relaxant and oxy, got a poke in the right arm. Which hurt, btw. Came back home.

Next up tomorrow: getting started on kitchen reorganization. I plan to savor the opportunity to organize plates and silverware, herbs and spices, bread box and coffee maker. Getting them in places that will not recreate the clutter I had before the work began. When I see how long that will take, not long I imagine, I’ll call Modern Bungalow and schedule the furniture delivery.

Ellen Arnold, Jamie’s mother, served on a subcommittee of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) vetting the new social studies standards for Colorado Schools. She asked those of us in the Thursday mussar group to read the ADL’s positions and to comment to the school board.

This is what I submitted:

As an old man who’s seen the changes in our country since the early 1960’s, I’m proud to be part of a state that takes history seriously. But.

The ADL’s comments on these revisions, which I have read and with which I agree, make me remember the adage that history is written by winners. While this may be true in the short term, the job of historians and educators is to balance the winner’s version with the facts of how others were affected by the winner’s victories.

This would include at least the facts about Native American deaths and cultural cancellation by the United States Government. It would include at least information about slavery congruent with the information in the New York Time’s 1619 project. It would include factual information about the Yellow Peril era and the subsequent incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII. It would include factual information about US colonialism in the Philippines. It would include information about the Holocaust, Nazi’s, and other genocides that have occurred, e.g.the Armenian, the Rwandan, and the Cambodian.

This is far from trivial. The history that we learn in school becomes the bedrock against which we measure the veracity of competing claims in political campaigns, in discussions with friends, in making business decisions.

The trust given to you is not only to the truth, although it should first be that, but it is also a trust given to you by those not educated, by those not born, by all of us who need informed fellow citizens to make our democracy work. Don’t put the shackles on young minds. Set them free with the truth. Please.