Category Archives: Shadow Mountain

Astrology, Cooking, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Great Wheel, Health, Mountains, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Tarot, Weather +Climate

Imbolc

Leave a comment

Imbolc and the 3/4 Moon (that’s 3/4 of a century for me on February 14)

Tuesday gratefuls: Winds. Swaying Lodgepoles. Cold and Snow coming. Polar Vortex slumping all the way down to Shadow Mountain. Bowe and his work today. Fatigue. Erleada. Mighty chemicals fighting prostate cancer on my behalf. The Assistance Fund. Cheese curds from Wisconsin Cheese Brothers. Night. Sleep. Electric blanket. Pillow. Kep and Rigel with me.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Kitchen. Almost remodeled.

Tarot: Nine of Bows, Respect

 

Bowe installed all of the hardware, my magnetic knife holder, a light can in place of a fan, and noted the still unfinished parts of Brian’s work. There are a couple of glitches, but I think they’re minor. Will be fixed. I love it. The hardware makes the whole. If I’m honest, what I love best are the under cabinet lights. I can see!

The kitchen invites me in. Says, work here. It’s your space. I’m proud of the design and the work to realize it. I plan to start loading the cabinets tomorrow. Too tired tonight. Even modest labor like putting things in cabinets does wear me out right now. I go slow.

This is so exciting to me. A part of the new life comes into reality. Chef mois. A lot of self-education over the next few months.

 

Time learning more about South Nodes and North Nodes. South Nodes present our “karmic” past. Things unfinished, things done wrong, things involved in tragedy or heartache, things that tip over into this life. Unfruitful reactions to circumstances. Spots of difficulty in career or marriage or self-awareness. This hinges on your ability to believe in past lives, of course. Tough for me. But, I’m learning it anyhow.

The North Node is the “cure” to the troubles of the South Node. If, like me, you have a South Node in Sagittarius, the North Node, directly across the face of the natal chart clock, is in Gemini. If I came into this life trailing wispy baggage of dogmatism, dark magic, rigid certainty, (all likely as dark sides of Sagittarius) then, the Gemini positives of listening and learning from others will help free me from that baggage. I’ll become a more well-rounded, healthy person.

Still unsure about all this, but over the last couple of weeks the houses, the planets, and the Nodes have become clearer to me. It’s a complex, maybe overly complex, art form, astrology. It does help me to remember that astrology and astronomy were one pursuit in ancient times.

And, too, learning something has its own value. The kabbalistic frame for astrology remains elusive for me. I’ll get there with it.

 

Ruth

Ruth remains under Children’s Hospital’s psychiatric care. She’s been there since dinner Saturday night up here. I’m not sure the exact nature of her crisis, but her being there still underscores its seriousness.  I can’t visit. I’m not on her list. I’ve got a call in, but the psych folks have not called me back.

No idea when, or even if, this will resolve. Having a grandchild, Ruth especially, with severe mental health problems. Sad. Hopeful. Puzzled. Loving. How can we help her right the ship? I don’t know.

 

Rigel, being beautiful, July, 2018

Rigel’s getting new drugs, or rather, more of the recently prescribed drugs: oxycodone and a muscle relaxant. They help some. As Dr. Palmini said, “We’re not trying to get her into Division I athletics.”

Final note: These Winds have blown all the time I’ve been writing. I saw 35 mph on my anemometer. Some gusts higher than that, I’m sure. The Winds of change. A cold weather system is on the way and these Winds are its harbinger.

 

Anoka County, Beyond the Boundaries, Cooking, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, General, Health, Jefferson County, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Tarot, The Move, The West, Weather +Climate

The Consolation of the Natural World

1 Comment

Yule and the Moon of the New Year, at 4% Crescent

The Webb in its L2 orbit:

“Telescope deployment is complete. Webb is now orbiting L2. Ongoing cooldown and eventual instrument turn-on, testing and calibration occur. Telescope mirror alignment and calibration also begin as temperatures fall within range and instruments are enabled.

The telescope and scientific instruments started to cool rapidly in the shade of the sunshield once it was deployed, but it will take several weeks for them to cool all the way down to stable operational temperatures. This cooldown will be carefully controlled with strategically-placed electric heater strips. The remaining five months of commissioning will be all about aligning the optics and calibrating the scientific instruments.” NASA

Monday gratefuls: Mental health care for teens. Jon’s care for Ruth yesterday. The tenderloin roast. Yumm. The blizzard in Maine. The cold in Minnesota. The mind numbing 45 degrees we had here today. Ode in Mexico. Peak TV. All the wonderful series on now. Righteous Gemstones. Pennyworth. Bulgasal. Hotel del Luna. Qin Empire. New Book-Becky Chamber’s, A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Life

Tarot:

 

Tom asked me this morning how I got along so well with prostate cancer. With grief. With living alone. OK, he didn’t ask those last two, but I figure he implied them.

When first diagnosed in May of 2015, six months after we moved to Colorado, cancer hit me hard. I sat there in Eigner’s office listening. Who me?

When I got in the car to drive back home, the first thought was: Don’t drive when in the grip of strong emotions. Oh. Yeah. Sat there for a minute wondering if it was a good idea to pull out of the parking lot. But. How am I gonna get home?

The mountains were still new to me then. Amazing me each time I went somewhere. Still true, yes, but then my amazement was new, too. I chose to drive back Deer Creek Canyon Road, a sort of back way from Littleton to Conifer.

Turning left about three miles north of the Denver Botanical Gardens, I began the trek up the site, millions of years ago, of the Rocky Mountain Orogeny.  Rocky Cliffs rose from the Earth and the road began to climb as Cliffs and Streams and Boulders began to dominate. Colorado Blue Spruce, Ponderosa Pine, Lodgepole Pine. Aspen. A few Willows and Dogwoods along Deer Creek

Numb. Yes, numb. But then. These Mountains. The layer cake of their formations. One strata on top of another pushed up, up, up out of the Bedrock during the Laramid Orogeny, 80 to 55 million years ago. This Rock was ancient then, resting in place, awaiting the slow changes that come even to the seemingly obdurate.

These facts were fresh with me because, as is my way, I’d been reading a lot about the Rockies before and after our move. I like to know where I am. And how it got to be there.

Huh. It hit me. I’m such a Mayfly. Even my cancer is such a small thing. Big to my life, sure, but in the scope and sweep of these Mountains, Granite and Gneiss and Marble and Shale exposed after a long, long sleep. A sweep of the second hand.

As is also my way my Body went out to the Mountains, following them as I drove. Embracing them as teachers, as guides on this Planet we share. I gradually became calm, understanding that my life and the life of the Mountains are not separate, but joined. Now and forever.

There is a Great Wheel not wedded to the Seasons of temperate latitudes, but one wedded to the creation, life, and inevitable doom of this Rocky, Watery place we call home. I am part of that Great Wheel’s turning. As are each of you who read this.

Before what I have long called the Consolation of Deer Creek Canyon, I experienced the Consolation of the Great Anoka Sand Plain, the shore of the Glacial River Warren. There in Andover I planted, Kate weeded. Flowers and vegetables grew. Dogs ran here and there in the Woods. Bees flew in and out of the Gardens, the Orchard.

Each fall I would find Folk Alley radio on the internet, turn it up so I could hear on our small brick patio outside the lower level. There I would replenish the soil with compost and other nutrients. Digging out onto a tarp, then shoveling it back in. When that was finished I would open the boxes of Bulbs, Corms, and Tubers and Rhizomes. They would go in the Soil, with a bit of fertilizer, at the right depth, then get tucked in with a hard pat. Next Spring there would be Lilies, Tulips, Iris brightly signaling a new growing season.

I loved that work on those fall afternoons. I’d often hear the Andover Marching Band practicing. The Garden of course had its rhythms. It was finishing as I planted the perennial Flowers.

The Garden fed us all year. Fresh veggies, canned veggies. Fruits, too. Raspberries, Honey Crisp Apples. Plums. Cherries. The Bees gave us Honey.

The Garden was part of me and I, after the eating the produce and the Honey, was part of it. I call this the true transubstantiation.

In all Seasons I would hike to my Tree in the Boot Lake Scientific and Natural Area. I would sit with my back against it, looking at all of its Children who grew in an irregular circle around it. I sprinkled Tully’s ashes there. She was a sweetheart and I wanted to honor her.

I’ve gone on too long. The point is, I long ago found my place in the Natural World, its bounty, its death, its ongoingness. And as the Mountains along Deer Creek Canyon reminded me, that was and is enough.

Cooking, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Shadow Mountain

Primals

Leave a comment

Yule and the Moon of the New Year

tenderloin primal

Sunday gratefuls: Ruthie’s troubles. Jon’s doing much better physically and fiscally. Gabe’s blossoming into a very sweet, kind kid. Bowe comes tomorrow for finishing work. Rigel wanted a different wet food. Salmon worked. That tenderloin primal and the roast last night. The induction stove.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth, bright, loving. And, tortured.

Tarot: Two of vessels, attraction.

 

 

Beef primals. Who knew? These are the cuts that butchers use to divide up a carcass into particular sections. Chuck primals. Sirloin primals. And, tenderloin primals. My friends at Tony’s Market had a sale on primals last week. Bought a tenderloin primal. They will cut it up however you want. I chose two two pound roasts, several individual steaks, and two pounds of lean hamburger.

Tony’s left one of the tenderloin roasts unfrozen. The rest of the primal is in my freezer. I like Tony’s and Cook’s Venture, chickens, because they demand humane conditions for the livestock and natural feed.

The plan was to use this roast for first heat in the new, completed kitchen. Sigh. I went ahead anyhow. No hardware on the cabinets, therefore no stuff in cabinets. That meant I had to go looking through various boxes for: the skillet, the dutch oven, a spatter shield, Olive oil, cooking oil, brown sugar (failed on that one), the knives, a cookie sheet, a wire rack.

Hell, I was exhausted before I got to cooking. Earlier in the day I took the roast out and coated it with sea salt. Before I began assembling my cooking tools, I took it out of the refrigerator and let it warm up to room temperature.

At that point I decided to finally cut up all of the Chewy and Amazon boxes piled up in the sewing room. I moved them into the kitchen, got out my trusty pocket knife, and went to work. My kitchen window opens to the front of the house and is low to the ground. I positioned both recycling and garbage bins near the window, opened it, and lifted stuff out to the waiting maws of the plastic bins.

By the time I was done I was exhausted. Orgovyx and Erleada and cancer itself cause fatigue. I was fatigued. So I took a nap, then got up and did my find the cooking utensil walkabout.

The cooking wore me out, too. A while back I purchased two fatigue mats for the kitchen, but I can’t put them down until the kitchen gets finished. The mats will help.

Not mine, but mine looked just like this!

Even though I’m the one saying it I gotta say that tenderloin roast was perfect. A nicely crusted exterior and a pink interior with no gray streaks. Yes! I fried up some potatoes, boiled some carrots and bathed them in butter and maple syrup. A lot of satisfied noises.

A glimmer of what can happen once the kitchen has drawers and cabinets filled with tools and foods.

Happy with the results so far. My plan is to start learning basic cooking techniques and move onto Italian and Korean cuisine. I want the Hermitage to be a place where good food and good times around the table are the norm. Last night fit that notion.

Ruth, 6 years old

But. Ruth. In crisis. What a sweetheart and so hurt, so damaged from a tough, tough early life. I don’t know all the vectors that have harmed her, but I know some of them. All sad. All unnecessary. Yet, all impacting her now.

She spent the night on a psych ward at Children’s Hospital and will go somewhere else today. Makes me very sad.

 

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Shadow Mountain, Tarot, Writing

Melancholy Knocking at the Door of my Heart

Leave a comment

Yule and the Moon of the New Year

The Webb is at L2! Friend and Engineer Tom Crane says this is the best illustration of L2 and the Webb’s orbit he’s seen. Easier for me to understand full screen.

BTW: A Webb scientist said the fuel saved by an efficient launch and insertion will extend the projected life of the Webb from 10 to 20 years!

 

Tuesday gratefuls: Kep at Sano. Rigel tolerating her meds somewhat better. Susan saying you are a lovely human being. What a nice thing to say. Gabe has all his books except 1984. I told him I remembered 1984. Languishing. May be. Gray and overcast. Me, not the weather. Snow. Cold. (by Colorado standards. 15F) The Webb at its home away from home.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Orbital dynamics

Tarot: 1. The Wanderer (the Fool), 0 of the major arcana.  2. Ace of Stones, the foundation of life. 3. Page of Arrows, Wren.     Past Self-Present Self-Future Self

Brief interpretation: In the near past I had to leave my old life for the life of a wanderer, a peregrinatio seeking a new way of being in the world. I’ve reached a point where the foundation for that new life has begun to emerge, one as much in the Otherworld as in this one. This next life aborning will have study, the hooded man, chesed, imagination, and love as its guiding values. I’m going with this one.

 

Dropped Kep off at Sano at 7:30 this morning. Drove down Shadow Mountain in a medium intensity Snow. Those Blizzaks grip the Snow. Much better than that damned Ice. Which I avoid even on level Ground. Up here, I just don’t move when it’s icy.

Kep’s abscess did not reduce much with the antibiotics. Might mean it’s a tumor rather than an abscess. He has x-rays and a biopsy if necessary at 1 pm. Prostate cancer has taught me to not get ahead of myself with disease. Right now I know nothing. So, I’m not worried. Very much.

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

Rigel’s meds have not helped in any obvious way, but maybe a bit more time with them? At first they increased her wobbliness. Not what we wanted. Now though she seems to tolerate them. She’s begun eating again. Very sensitive tummy, my Rigel.

Having both of my companions with potentially severe medical issues does push me toward despair. I try not to stuff it nor get overwhelmed by it. Let it in. Yes, that makes sense you’d feel that way, Charlie. But. Going further with it will complicate rather than solve anything. So. Let it go now.

I had a lot of chances to practice this attitude during Kate’s long illness. Don’t stuff. Don’t hang on. Let those potentially negative feelings pass on by. Wave as they exit.

Giovanni Battista Ciolina – Melancholy Twilight (1899)

Perhaps related to the mood alterations of these passing clouds I have felt melancholy knocking on the door of my heart, asking for permission to enter. Not working out. Not writing. Closing the day down around noon. Conclusion-hopeless asshole. Oops.

Then I remember, judge yourself as whole person, and favorably. Love yourself, then your neighbor. I try to look at myself as I would look at someone else going through the same situations, thoughts. What would I say then?

Hell, melancholy dude? You have a right to be depressed. It’s been a tough fucking year. Melancholy would fit the facts. But you’re not really melancholic. Pre-melancholic. And there’s no need to go there.

Start working out again. That’s body level prozac. Keep learning, keep studying. That’s mind level prozac. Lean into wu wei, that’s spiritual level prozac. And call me in the morning.

I want to be a “lovely human being.” That’s as good a goal as I can imagine. I also want to be me: authentic me. And have those two as the same. Could happen.

Coronavirus, Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Garden, Great Wheel, Great Work, Health, Judaism, Mountains, permaculture, Plants, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Tarot

Land, Sea, and Sky

Leave a comment

Yule and the Moon of the New Year

Where’s the Webb? 99.79% to L2 at 8 am MST. 1900 miles to go. Mission Day 30. Speed now: 450 mph.

Next

“L2 Insertion Burn

Mid Course Correction Burn (MCC2) – Begins L2 Insertion

Nominal Event Time: Updated: Launch + 30 days

Status: Schedule and Post MCC2 Coverage

Activities to plan and execute MCC2 – the insertion burn for Webb’s L2 orbit. MCC2 corrects any residual trajectory errors and adjusts the final L2 orbit.

The James Webb Space Telescope is launched on a direct path to an orbit around the second Sun-Earth Lagrange Point (L2), but it needs to make its own mid-course thrust correction maneuvers to get there. This is by design, because if Webb gets too much thrust from the Ariane rocket, it can’t turn around to thrust back toward Earth because that would directly expose its telescope optics and structure to the Sun, overheating them and aborting the science mission before it can even begin. Therefore, Webb gets an intentional slight under-burn from the Ariane and uses its own small thrusters and on-board propellant to make up the difference.

There are three mid-course correction (MCC) maneuvers: MCC-1a, MCC-1b, and MCC-2. This final burn, MCC-2, which inserts Webb into its L2 halo orbit.” NASA.

 

Monday gratefuls: Marina Harris and her cleaning crew. Alan’s recovery from Covid. His role in the Colorado Ballet. The Ancient Brothers Ode to Joy this morning. Ali Baba’s gyros. Cancer. Prostate and otherwise. Rigel and her meds. January. Winter in its fullness in Minnesota. Colorado has cold December and snowy February, March, April.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Love

Tarot: will require its own post.

 

This damned event keeps getting new legs, fresh legs. In history the U.S. response to Covid will confound future generations. Why didn’t they take it seriously? Even after so many dead. So many hospitalized. So many left with lingering troubles.

Not to mention of course the number of the unmasked, unvaccinated who want to take over the government. I’ve become news shy. Like many of you, I know. Who wants to read about the brutal murder of Caesar or the Beer Hall Putsch? That is dangerous, of course. It is the uninformed and the passive who underwrite with their absence the fevered path of the few.

There is a small herd of Mule Deer Does who’ve been coming up the utility easement to eat needles off slash Derek dumped there. When they’re here, the scene becomes instant backwoods. An over the river and through the woods tableau. They’re here right now. The Buck, an eight-pointer, was here this morning. Neither Kep nor Rigel paid attention. Just as well. A chance encounter between a Dog and a Buck can result in injury or death for the doggy.

Kep noticed them. He walked through Snow, looked. Gave a short yip and came toward the house. The Deer munched Pine Needles, secure on the other side of our fence. Kep came in.

Rigel has begun to hesitate to walk up the five stairs to the kitchen level. She’s fallen, slid several times and she has the new meds on board. They’re supposed to help, but it appears to me that they’re making her feel strange. Doesn’t help confidence.

With Rigel’s legs and arthritis and spinal owies becoming more evident. With Kep’s nose undergoing x-rays and possible biopsy on Tuesday it looks like my companions may have rough water ahead. Since they are my grief counselors, sleeping partners, and the biggest part of my interaction with the living world, their troubles are very much my troubles. I’m not getting ahead of anything. Just aware that they, like Kate, like me, are mortal creatures. Like Abraham Lincoln.

Simcah Torah, Congregation Beth Evergreen. 2021

Thinking about donating money. What it means. How I decide. Most of my donations go to Congregation Beth Evergreen. There I’m saying yes to community, yes to friends, yes to thousands of years of history, yes to a religious culture cultivated by this unusual gathering. I don’t feel like I’m supporting the church. I’m supporting the chemistry of a place that accepts me and loves me as I am.

Otherwise I give a bit here, a bit there. Some to Dog shelters, some to performing arts organizations, some to politicians and some to political organizations.

Deciding that next year and thereafter I’m going to focus my giving beyond CBE in a different way. My largest non-CBE donation was to the Land Institute where Wes Jackson and his crew push toward perennial Crops and no-till agriculture. I’m gonna lean toward these radical solution organizations, ones working with the Soil, with Plants, with agriculture. I value the courage it takes to stand against farming practices that seem so entrenched as to be unmovable. And I value the creative thinking that the Wendell Berry’s, the Mary Oliver’s, the Aldo Leopold’s, the Thomas Berry’s, the Wes Jackson’s represent.

So this year. CBE and those working on long-term, universally applicable solutions to systemic problems in agriculture and protection of our World: Land, Sea, and Sky.

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism, Mountains, Mussar, Shadow Mountain, Tarot

I love these people

Leave a comment

Yule and the Moon of the New Year

Where’s the Webb?  98% of the way to L2. 16000 miles to go. 465 mph. Cold side: -344. Hot side: 128. Mission day: 29. The last day of the trip. Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow!

Sunday gratefuls: Susan and her organizing. Jamie, Rich, Irv, Marilyn, Ron, Tara. Judy. Jewish caroling. The Tree of Life. Jon. In need. Ruth, in crisis. Gabe. Being Gabe. Rigel’s meds. Not helping so much. Kep’s either so far. Abraham Lincoln, in the back of Rich’s Volvo. That dying dog look. Tears from me. Safeway pickup. Ali Baba and their gyros. Ruby, chugging along, a petrol burning antique.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Abraham Lincoln. His journey ending.

Tarot: later

 

Went Jewish caroling in Golden. Up on Meadow Run Drive where Judy lives. I hum. Besides, I didn’t know the words. They were in Hebrew. Judy has ovarian cancer and is in yet another round of chemo. The MVP Mussar group, gathered by Susan Marcus, sang to her and delivered a Tree of Life silver scarf pin. Judy had made cookies and tea, so we went in and sat around her lovely dining room table, teak, I think, and chatted for a half an hour.

I love these people. That’s what came to mind as I drove back up the hill to Conifer. We’re in this crazy thing called life together.

most of Gertie

Ron had Abraham Lincoln in the car with him because Kim had come home via DIA and he had to pick her up. Abraham Lincoln accepted the attention as we leaned in the  back to pet him. His face alone would have told me he’s in serious trouble. Seeing him took me to tears with no stopping go. Dogs are so stoic. They do, I realized, live until they die. That could easily be a quote from Abraham Lincoln, or Gertie, or Vega.

Before Judy’s I had lunch with Jon at Ali Baba’s, not too far from Judy’s house. Ruth had a mental health crisis yesterday in school. Not sure exactly what happened but she got very anxious and lashed out at an administrator. She went home to Jen’s house to cool down. They’re with her this week.

ballgame with Jon

Jon’s still running short of money. I helped him a bit this month. He’s in a better mental place. Sarah may come out in the Spring and help him clean up his house. “If I get a bed, things will be closer to normal.” He’s lived in his house for five years with no bed. He sleeps on an old couch.

On the way back from Golden I stopped at Safeway and picked up my grocery order. A full day for me. Driving. Human interaction. Dog interaction. Wu wei-ing my way along. Feeling it all. Glad to be where I was. At Ali Baba’s with Jon. At Judy’s with the mussar group. At Safeway picking up groceries. Here at home with Kep and Rigel.

alchemical marriage

I can feel the Hooded Man and the Queen of Vessels leaning in to each other. Listening. Applauding each other for the actions and feeling they bring to interactions. Soon we may have a hand-fast marriage. A trial for a year and a day. Often entered into on Beltane in auld Ireland.

Here’s an old Christian hymn  lyric: I’ve got joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart, down in my heart to stay. I would say that’s where I am now. And grief. And love. And patience. All down in my heart, down in my heart to stay.

 

Shadow Mountain, Tarot

How do I let wu wei guide me?

Leave a comment

Yule and the Moon of the New Year

Tarot: How do I let wu wei guide me?   Avoid-Present-Future     Knight of Vessels, Eel.  Queen of Bows, Hare. The Hooded Man, #9.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Eel, the Wildwood says, is a symbol for a spear. The Gae Bolga, a spear named after the Eel, was a weapon of the ancient Celtic warrior, Cuchulain. In this spread I’m taking the knight of vessels as my warrior spirit, the part of me that wants to wield my Gae Bolga and skewer my enemies, especially the enemies of my people. I cherish this energy. It has guided me through much of my life and I’m loathe to lay it down. But. As I consider the fourth phase, this last ancientrail in Malkut for me, I’ve begun to let go of the spear, to put it away, perhaps forever. Avoid picking it up if you can, this card says. It interferes with the journey.

 

The Queen of Bows, a sacred Hare, brings alert female maternal instincts to the surface. She is my present. I choose to see her and the Hooded Man as anima and animus, my present and my future. Together.

 

The Hooded Man and the Hermitage bond. Focusing on home, on being here. Letting my writer and my chef and my painter and my host and my student out to play. I want to boogie toward the Last Dance. Twirling the Hare and the Hooded Man to a Riverdance tune.

While also sitting beside Mountain Streams, under the bows of Pines and Aspens. Following the Water Course Way.

Art and Culture, Asia, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Tarot

How to be Useless

Leave a comment

Yule and the Moon of the New Year

Where’s the Webb: !96% of the way to L2! Only 27000 miles to go. Once around the equator or so. Mission day 27. Cold side: -340 Hot side: 134

Rigel

Friday gratefuls: Luke, a sweet man. Rabbi Jamie. Tears. Smoking. Quitting. Drinking and sobriety. Rigel’s new meds. Bowe. Jodi. Brian. The cabinets. Allmmmooossst done. Singing to Judy, taking her a silver tree of life scarf pin. Rabbi Jamie, Rich Levine, Ron Solomon, Marilyn and Tara Saltzman, Susan Marcus and me. I’m lending moral support. No choral moments for me. Abraham Lincoln, the dog. Leo, the dog.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Coming together for a member of the tribe in trouble

Tarot: How do I let wu wei guide me?   Avoid-Present-Future     Knight of Vessels, Eel.  Queen of Bows, Hare. The Hooded Man, #9.

 

Kep and Rigel

Bowe came around 9:30. Just as Rigel and I got back from Sano vet. Decided to take her in. Arthritis is a bugger. Turns out she also has a slipped disc. Came away with a muscle relaxer and Oxycodone. Gonna see how it works. If they help her, I’ll get more of it. Tomorrow Kep. His nose has swollen a bit and Palmini wants to rule out a dental problem. We’ll see.

This is an important part of my life. Taking care of the dogs. Having to decide when they need to be seen without Kate’s intelligence and knowledge to guide me. Buying and dishing up their food, their treats. Their meds. An important part of their life is taking care of me. Symbiotic. In a healthy way.

A glimmer. Sent out this interesting article How to Be Useless to a couple of my very useful friends. I did that because it broke a logjam in my own thinking about how to live my life. Example. The dogs are important. Being with them, caring for them, being cared for by them is a joy, a respite from being useful. Example. Writing. I love writing and I intend to do more. My Werewolves in Ancient Times book came today. Gonna read it. Take notes. Go back to Ovid. Do a Superior Wolf prequel. Lycaon’s life. Exercise is important, too. As are the things I do on Domestic Duties Day.

That was also a part of the insight. On Wednesdays I devote myself to the quotidian. Insurance. Food. Bills. Money. Taxes. That sort of thing. And, I do it willingly, not ducking it because I have something else to do. Wednesday is a day set aside for that work. If I get done early, I can write or exercise.

After I get the kitchen reinstalled and the living room/furniture moving done, I plan to set three days for exercise. And only three days. I will focus on writing on the other three days and when I have time on exercise and D3 days.

But, and here’s what I learned from Chuangzi, the focus of the Psyche article: it’s all important. Relaxing. Exercising. Reading for pleasure. Reading for knowledge. Learning. Paying the bills. Taking care of the dogs. The goal is not being useful, but to live the life that presents itself. My life and its useless moments will be different from yours. The key is to live the life without the kind of head fogging chaos I created when only certain things had precedence: writing, exercise, domestic duties. Sitting around petting the dogs, watching TV, reading. Going to museums. Important not because they’re useful, but precisely because they’re not.

Puts the humanities and the arts in a very different perspective. That Chinese scholar alone in his hut in the mountains learned to play the Qin, write poetry, do calligraphy. Not for posterity but for his own development and appreciation. That’s me.

The Hermit. In the Hermitage. Living my life. As it has appeared after 74 years.

Cooking, Dogs, Family, Fourth Phase, Health, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Tarot

Remodeling, Dogs, Family

Leave a comment

Yule and the New Year Moon

Where’s the Webb: On Mission day 26 all the primary mirror segments have deployed and the Webb continues to slow as it heads toward L2. 515 mph. Hot side: 134, Cold side: -340.

Thursday gratefuls: Under cabinet lighting! Drawer organizers. Getting closer to the finish line. But, Brian… Sigh. Rigel’s arthritis. Seeking help. Ruth wants to go to Greeley to a museum. Jon and I have sushi plans for Friday. Gabe’s getting his Hanukkah present, books from Amazon: Frankenstein. Swiss Family Robinson. Fahrenheit 451. 1984. The Godfather. Snow and wintry weather ahead. At least some. The Wind.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Toddlers and dogs riding with their heads out of car windows

Tarot: The Wanderer, 0 in the major arcana

 

The remodeling update. Bowe installed under cabinet lighting and I love it. I like clear light when I’m prepping and cooking. He’s also going to install a magnetic knife/utensil holder so I don’t have to have the large wooden block on the counter. I’m working on a minimal plan for things actually out on the counter top. I think right now toaster, coffee grinder, coffee maker, probably a cutting board, but maybe not. I want a clean top for easy working.

Kep and Rigel have kept close watch on Bowe, making sure he doesn’t have any stray treats. Also they have opinions about the remodeling. Like, why isn’t it done, Dad? Brian, I tell’em. It’s all down to Brian.

Right now I’m looking at drawer organizers, containers for staples. Other things like standard spice bottles. This is fun. I’m excited about putting everything away in an orderly fashion. I know! Weird, eh? But, there you go.

The first meal I cook in the new kitchen for others will be for Jon, Ruth, and Gabe a week from Saturday. Tenderloin roast. Mashed potatoes. Vegetable salad from Tony’s. Something fancy to kick things off. Get a good vibe in the new space.

Another view. Not sure why this gives me joy, but it sure does.

Once I get well into the kitchen reinstallation I’ll have, as my mother would say, beaucoup boxes. They’ll have to be broken down and stood up in the recycle bin. Lots of different tasks. I’ll also be organizing the pantry as well.

When all the boxes that have held skillets and plates, silverware and storage containers, serving dishes and pots and olive oil and cooking oil and rice wine no longer clutter the floor in front of the fire place, I’ll call Modern Bungalow and get my shipment set up. Also have to find a couple of strong guys. Gonna go on Nextdoor Shadow Mountain. Moving furniture.

Taking Rigel to the vet tomorrow. Her arthritic back leg worries me. She moves so well with it. Still hunting critters, digging under the shed, prancing when she comes in from outside, but she sometimes slips on the stairs going up to the living room. I put down grippy strips on all of our stairs for my two unsteady females: Kate and Rigel. Doesn’t seem to do the trick all the time. Not sure if Palmini (the vet) has any tricks. I hope so. She eats well. She’s eager to go here and there. She barks and whines. She’s a living treasure, as the Japanese would say.

Ruth sent me a note about a model railroad museum in Greeley. She wants to go. So do I. Part of our thing has always been museums, zoos, the planetarium in Boulder. Makes me feel good when she asks to do something. Not all 15 year old girls want to be seen with their Grandpop, let alone go somewhere with him.

Was gonna take Jon to a jazz joint this month. But. Omicron. Too crowded and breathy. We’ll do sushi at a less crowded venue.

This is, a meme I saw on Facebook, the winter of our discount tents.

 

 

 

 

General, Judaism, Our Land and Home, Politics, Shadow Mountain

Canaries in the Coal Mine of our Democracy

Leave a comment

Yule and the Moon of  the New Year

Where’s the Webb? 95% of the way to L2. 847000 miles from home. Only 52000 miles to go. Mission day 25. According to the graphic all mirror segments are now deployed.

Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Waste. Bowe. The grout and the backsplash. The farm sink. Inching closer. Closer. CORE. Generator. Kohler. Solar panels. Juice in the house. Computers. Induction Stove. Lights. Televisions. Mini-splits. Baseboard heat. Fans. Treadmill. Rigel’s stiff leg.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Electricity (lol)

Tarot: Queen of vessels, Salmon

 

The hostage taking in Colleyville, Texas. Congregation Beth-Israel. A Britisher who believed Jews controlled the media, the banks, the government. Old tropes from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Yes. Propaganda has affect. Even after all its creators are long dead. Want to understand some of the white supremacists? Read The Turner Diaries. Words have power. Ideas have power. And, conspiracy ideas can kill.

My shoulder next to Alan’s. Next to Marilyn’s. Next to Jamie’s. Next to Luke’s. Next to Ellen’s. Together. Solidarity challenges hate. Love challenges hate. Compassion challenges hate. As Beth Israel congregant Jeffery Cohen, one of the hostages, said:

“(He) said he didn’t regret the generosity the congregants had initially shown the stranger who showed up at their synagogue.

“I don’t like what happened. I wish it hadn’t. I wish this guy hadn’t been that way,” he said. “But where would we be in a world if we didn’t welcome the stranger? That would not be a world that I want to be in.”” Washington Post, 1/18/22 

Not a world I’d want to live in either.

If you’re not Jewish, or closely aligned, you may not be ticking up the number of assaults on Jews and synagogues. If you are, though, each incident seems like one more finger pulled out of the dike behind which lies a lake of venom. I think Jeffery Cohen had Never Again on his mind; he refused to kneel when the hostage taker demanded it. As the anti-semites become more emboldened, as white supremacists increase their attacks on Americans of color, the fabric of our Republic has begun to tear. Sometimes I wonder, Jose? Is that flag still there?

Max Beckmann

I find myself thinking about the Weimar Republic. Of the world after the Spanish Flu. About the flourishing world of the Incas and the Aztecs just before the conquistadors arrived. About the Moors in immediately pre-inquisition Spain. About those doomed civilizations. Those who loved and laughed and danced among them. How shocking the rise of the Nazis. How shocking the world’s morality weakened in the aftermath of a long plague. How entrancing the pleasures of Germany after WWI. How vibrant and colorful the indigenous empires before the plumed helmets and arquebuses.

It is vanity of the most naive and dangerous kind to think all these were abberations. That Rome falling has nothing to do with 2022 America. That Kublai Khan’s vanquishing of the Song Dynasty does not have lessons for us. The Song dynasty was a high-point in ceramics, painting, of literature and song. The Yuan dynasty which followed it in 1271 had a steppe Mongol as its emperor.

I hope, without much conviction, that the Trump era brought in the clowns and we voters packed up their tents and hurried them off to the long time home of American circuses, Florida. Yet as the anti-semites pull themselves out of their darkened rooms, as the Klan and the Proud Boys and the 3%’rs and their enablers in the GOP take politics into a muddy, mucky, bloody brawl, as climate change bears down on us, I wonder how many it will take to pack up the tents and the menageries and the sideshows this next time?

I don’t want to live through the demise of American democracy. I’m guessing you don’t want to either. What’s the priority right now? I guess I’d fall back on this old chestnut: the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good folk do nothing. Spoken by noted British conservative, Edmund Burke.