Category Archives: Shadow Mountain

Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Family, Feelings, Friends, Health, Holidays, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History, Writing

Electoral College. Today, and Today only. Yes.

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Samain and the 2021 Moon (yes, this moon will be full on December 30th and still big on the 31st. It will light our way out of this god forsaken chunk of chronology.)

Monday gratefuls: Cribbage. Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective. Snow on the ground. Blue Sky overhead. Hanukkah with the grandkids on Wednesday over zoom. Rigel’s visit today to the docs who cured her endocarditis. 37 days. When will he ever leave? The electoral college votes today. The Supreme Court ruled against the Texas lawsuit. Pushing us toward a new gratitude for our system. And, how it needs to change. BLM. Yes. Police radical reform. Yes. A broken medical system reform. Yes. Inclusion of all Americans. Yes. Better education and financial support for working class folks. Yes. Vaccines. That light at the end of the tunnel. Faint, but growing brighter.

 

Sometimes I wish I was more poetic. Less choppy, more graceful in my prose. More metaphorical. More allusive. But. I’m not. I’m a meat and potatoes writer. You can see all the ingredients. Shorter sentences. Phrases. Using those ands, buts, and ors as headers. It’s not so much choice as it is feel. The way things come out, especially when I write Ancientrails. My way. Not a High way. A side road. Might be scenic, though.

Next March Ancientrails will begin its sixteenth year. The longest project I’ve ever engaged. And, I still don’t know it’s purpose. A sort of heads up to my friends and family about life. Sure. It replaced years of handwritten journals. Probably those were more revealing about certain matters, less about others. Ancientrails has turned into a running commentary on my life, Kate’s, dogs, kids, grandkids. Politics. Religion. Art sometimes. If you’re a reader, thanks for following this inner dialogue.

Another staycation starting this week. No exercise. Learning new games we’ve purchased. Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective. Seven Wonders Duel. Twilight Struggle. Doing this and that around the house. Maybe some painting and writing. I’m trying to resolve a persistent inner conflict between caregiving and creative work.

Why is this so hard? Something about my schedule. About when I exercise. Cook. Eat. Nap. Watch TV. I could do things in a different way, but I don’t.

Yes. Even as I write this and read back over it, I can see the dark angel of doubt, of melancholy hovering over it all. Not a place I wanna be. But. Here I am. Again.

My hope. Some downtime will help a new way of organizing my time emerge. Or, an inner assent to this is the way things are now. That my creative work also involves shopping, cooking, caring. Could be. Navel gazing. Yeah.

Let’s hear it for the finality of the electoral college voting today. I don’t like the electoral college for reasons you already know, but I’m happy about its finish line role right now. Start renting the U-Hauls, Don, you’re moving house soon.

How will we move forward? The important question now. In choppy, contentious ways, I imagine. But without the fact confounder. Without the ethical midget. Without the orange hair and funny skin. Without the Dunning-Kruger mind at the helm. Without his cronies. Without his kids. Without him.

We could sink, relieved, into a blinkered return to “normal.” We must not. For, if the Donald has done nothing else, he has made us turn huge spotlights on the cracks in our nation. The Grand Canyons of racial oppression, violent policing, fenced medical care, and a chaotic foreign policy. We see them now. All of us. Time for radical change. Let’s get it going.

Beyond the Boundaries, Commentary on Religion, Great Wheel, Holidays, Judaism, Letters, Memories, Myth and Story, Original Relation, Our Land and Home, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain

A Wandering Soul

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Samain and the Moon of Thanksgiving

Sunday gratefuls: Paul’s birthday. Mark Ellis. Mary. Diane. Rigel, keeping me warm. Dr. Bachtel. Cod fingers and steak bits. Onion and Cucumber salad. A Colorado blue Sky day. Colorado road builders. Jeffco snowplow drivers. Whoever invented concrete and macadam. Britain. Wales. Scotland. England. Isle of Man. Druids. The Holy Isle. Castle Conwy. Hawarden, Wales. St. Deniol’s residential library. Chester, England. Horse racing there.

I have my toe in the Christmas Spirit pond. Not fully there, but it’s coming. Feels wonderful. Getting ready to dive into some research on Yule and the Winter Solstice. Where most of the Christmas traditions originate. I love learning about Celtic and Northern European religious traditions. Their pantheons. Their myths and legends. Snorri Sturluson. Wagner’s Ring Cycle. Tolkien’s work. Beowulf. Not sure why but these traditions resonate with my inner life. As does Taoism and the lifeways of the Japanese. Much more so than the New Testament or the Torah. Seems strange that it would be so. But, it is.

Even Diwali and Holi. I’d like to experience Holi at least once. Throwing colored powder at each other to celebrate the riotous colors of spring and the triumph of good over evil? Yes. Messy, beautiful, ecstatic.

Buddhism doesn’t do it for me either. Except certain aspects of Tibetan Buddhism. Yamantaka. Bardo. Again, not sure why. Thin soup for me.

Those traditions that find animacy everywhere like Shinto, many Native American traditions. Yes. Roman and Greek myth, legend. Yes, not in a soul way, but as story, as ancient layers below this civilization in which we live.

Perhaps my soul never left the time into which it was born. Maybe during the journey out of Africa when all things were miraculous. When all things moved and lived and had their being right alongside those of us on pilgrimage to humanity’s future. Or, maybe some shamanic ancestor moved directly into this body. Wondering what it was like far from his or her time.

Whatever the explanation. Once I began to see, and then shed, the totalizing myths I’d been steeped in from birth… Well. I can’t unlearn the fragile and human created nature of them. The scent of fear in them, attempting to make certain an uncertain world. Building meaning for lives out of tissue paper and sealing wax. Like the Catholics who built their English churches over Celtic holy wells. Tried to absorb enough of the Faery Faith to draw the Celts away from their pagan practices. It worked. For a while. As Judaism and Islam work for a while, for many. Zoroastrianism.

Not sure about Hinduism. It seems to want those most early, most primal connections with this place. Great stories like the Ramayana and the Rig Veda. I don’t know it well enough. Maybe never will. The Mahabharata. Many mystical practices. Lots of color and fun. Also, the dark side of caste, of killing Muslims.

This month though, the time of deepest darkness, has inspired so much wonderful music. Story. Celebration. At least for those of us in the temperate latitudes. And, I revel in it. Going down with the longest night into the well of my soul. Coming out to light an evergreen tree, hang mistletoe, holly and ivy. Santa Claus. Elves. Snow. Cold. Icicles. Sleighs. Horses with halters. Fire up the yule log. Wish I could lift a glass of grog, or ambrosia, or single malt scotch. But, alas no.

Guess this is my Sunday unsermon. Leaving one way and seeking others.

Colorado, Family, Holidays, Humanities, Judaism, Myth and Story, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

8 Lights for Covid Nights

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Samain and the Moon of Thanksgiving

Saturday gratefuls: A full week of workouts. Garlic steak bits, Shrimp, Broccoli, Rice. The Cow that died for our meal. The Shrimp, too. 46 days. K=shaped recovery. Essential Workers. Hanukkah. Yule. Winter Solstice. Christmas. Lights. Decorations. Music. Good cheer. Remembering the Maccabees. The menorah. The prayers. Solar Snow shovel. Cod. Drug holiday for mirabegron. Cribbage. 7 Wonders Duel. Deepening intimacy. Covid. Its horrors and its wonders. The election. A new year coming.

Did some decorating yesterday. Will finish today. Up here in the  loft? Pagan mysteries time. Lights. Santa Claus. Ornaments. Christmas quilt. Christmas pillow. Katy did them. Bill’s gift Christmas tie and Santa hat on my Woolly Mammoth. Snow globes with Christmas scenes. Grandma’s holiday music on Pandora. Grandpop’s, too. A tree, too, possibly today.

I’m reclaiming childhood memories and welding them onto the thinking I’ve done. Long since childhood passed. This house is Hanukkah house and I’m glad. This loft is a Christmas without the birth loft and I’m glad. Oh, the weather outside is not as frightful as I’d like, but up here it’s delightful. Down below it’s all dreidels and gelt and candles. Also delightful. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

What are you gettin’ for Hanukkah? For many Jewish kids Hanukkah is the Jewish Christmas. A time for gift giving and receiving. No Santa Claus, but, hey. Many, including those who do give gifts, light the menorah, one candle a night for 8 nights, say the prayers, then it’s done. You can’t blow out the candles and you can’t use them, i.e. read by them, use them to light your way to bed, hunt for a fallen coin. At certain points dreidels come out, gelt-now mostly gold foil wrapped chocolates, singing.

Back of all this. A more interesting story.

Alexander the Great divided up his empire among his favorite generals. Seleucus I Nicator got Western Asia, a large chunk of land that ran from present day Turkey in the west to parts of present day Uzbekistan and Pakistan in the east. They pushed the Ptolemy’s out of Palestine around 200 b.c.e. Hellenization, in which many upper class Jews dropped their religion and adopted Greek lifeways, was already well underway when Antiochus IV Epiphanes took over the Seleucid Empire in 175 b.c.e.

Thus, there was a conflict not only between Jews and the Seleucid empire, but between Hellenizing Jews and those determined to maintain their faith and practice. Antiochus came into the latter conflict by declaring traditional Jewish practice forbidden.* This led to the Maccabean revolt, a guerilla war fought by traditional Jews against the Seleucids. They won.

And, now. Hanukkah. The Seleucids, perhaps Antiochus himself, had profaned the second temple. (see the wiki entry below) When the Maccabees got the temple back, they found all the oil in the temple desecrated save for one amphora that still had its priestly seal intact. Then, a miracle occurs.

No new oil could be obtained for 8 days and the amphora contained only enough for one day. Still, the temple menorah had to be lit. During the night all seven lights were lit. Always. When the temple menorah, which was huge, received oil from the one still blessed amphora, it stayed lit for 8 days until fresh sanctified oil could be had. The miracle.

Though the temple menorah only had seven lights, the Hanukkah menorah has nine. 8 of them commemorate the miracle and the 9th, the shamash, (helper, servant) is lit first and lights the other candles. In the tradition that we follow, on the first night there is one candle, on the second two, on the third three and so on until 8. Kate lights the candles and reads the prayers. I recite them with her. If the kids are here, gifts get distributed. Much like Christmas.

The first level of meaning is the miracle of the oil. That’s the one most recall. The second level of meaning lifts up the willingness of traditional Jews to take up the fight against the mighty Seleucid empire. And win! A third level of meaning is that the traditional Jews fought for the right to be different from their imperial power. Although. The traditional Jews may have also been fighting to reclaim Judaism from the upper classes who had assimilated.

It is a minor holiday compared to the High Holidays, Pesach, Sukkot, Simchat Torah, but it is the holiday most visible to the goyim. And, it has been made to fit into the whole Christmas holiday dither.

Ruth at Beth Evergreen, new year’s 2017, end of Hanukkah

 

*According to 1 Maccabees, Antiochus banned many traditional Jewish and Samaritan[14] religious practices: he made possession of the Torah a capital offense and burned the copies he could find;[24] sabbaths and feasts were banned; circumcision was outlawed, and mothers who circumcised their babies were killed along with their families;[25] and traditional Jewish ritual sacrifice was forbidden. It was said that an idol of Olympian Zeus was placed on the altar of the Temple and that Israelites set up altars to Greek gods and sacrificed “unclean” animals on them. Wiki

Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Family, Great Wheel, Great Work, Holidays, Our Land and Home, Plants, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Holiday Spirit(s)

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Samain and the Moon of Thanksgiving

Friday gratefuls: Sleep. Cribbage. Kate, always Kate. Rigel, who kept me warm last night. Kep, just because. Nordic Advent calendar by Jacquie Lawson. Advent. The days of our lives. Covid. 46 days. Ruth. Gabe. Jon. Jon’s birthday on the 10th. 52. Hanukkah begins the same day. Santa Claus. Yule logs. Christmas trees. Lights. Ornaments. Holly and ivy. Christmas music. Corny and classical. This wonder-full time.

 

Bloomberg. The magazine. Peak Oil is Suddenly Upon Us. Yet another reason Covid is a blessing. If climate change matters to you, this article is a bit of good news. It features the conclusion that peak oil is behind us by British Petroleum, BP. May it be so. And may we push it along.

Feeling glum has passed. Still ready for that holiday spirit though. That pagan holiday spirit. After all: Evergreen tree, lights, drinking and feasting and gifting, mistletoe, holly and ivy, being with family and friends. None of that in the New Testament. Well, ok. Gifts. The three wise guys. Otherwise it’s Saturnalia and Northern European traditions. Gotta get those decorations.

Cribbage. Playing more of it now. Something Kate and I enjoy. Will try rummikub, too. Just got two two player games: The Twilight Struggle and the Duel. Two more in the mail. Expecting a good while still until the all clear, go breathe on your neighbors without killing them. Keep changing things up a bit.

Kakun thoughts. In conversation with Kate. Trust first. Two leggeds all equal. Life precious. Stay at it. Learn. Serve. Protect. Educate. Create. Work as part of nature, not on it or in spite of it. See. See. Hear. Hear. Clunky so far, but maybe it’ll get smoothed out. I do have a family crest, somewhere. Not sure if it has a motto or not. I’ll try to track it down.

No election fraud. Ballots cast included President and down ballot races. Republicans did ok on down ballot, but the Presidential race is suspect? Come on, guys and gals. Geez.

Colorado, Commentary on Religion, Commentary on the news, Great Wheel, Holidays, Memories, Mountains, Park County, Politics, Shadow Mountain, The Move, Third Phase, US History

My Christmas Wish

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Samain and the Thanksgiving Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Last night Kate said as we were going to sleep, I know one of your gratefuls. OK. Your electric blanket. Oh, yeah. She right. And that down comforter on top of it. Plus, the cold bedroom that makes them both necessary and a joy. In the single digits here. Windows open. Our way. The small Animal which created the narrow tracks that look like a tiny wagon had crossed our snowy driveway. The Mule Deer that came by later. My own, for that matter. The wheel tracks of the garbage taken out yesterday morning. Temporary memories. Our mailbox. Bought one that has a door in the back as well as the front. I can get the mail without standing on Black Mountain Drive as folks drive home from work.

 

Prepping for a Hanukkah post. Advent, too. Yule and the Winter Solstice. Why is our New Year’s in the middle of winter? Kwanza. This is a big holiday month. We need it this year. We also need it to be safe. Hope you have an uncomplicated but joyous holimonth.

My Christmas wish. Please make DJT disappear from the television, social media, and print. I don’t care if he stays in the Whitehouse until US Marshals come to serve him an eviction notice. I’ve coined a phrase, and I don’t want it to offend those who got PTSD in horrendous circumstances, or to demean them in any way, but Post Trump Stress Disorder is real. His voice, his image, news articles about him trigger me. His careful enunciation of outright lies, his presentation as conman in chief shames our country and has been repudiated. Couldn’t we muzzle him for the next 48 days? I have a wire muzzle for Kepler that out to fit him. Or maybe noise cancelling electronic devices when he opens his mouth?

Still feeling glum. I don’t have the holimonth spirit. And, I want it. Gonna find that box of Christmas decorations in the garage and lug it up here. String up some lights. Position my small collection of Christmas snowglobes around. Put out ornaments. I’ve got a spruce on our property to cut for a tree. Not a very big one. While I’m decorating, I’ll hit Pandora’s Christmas music stations.

Oddly, what I miss about Christmas is not the church services, except for the music. I don’t miss the creche. Nor the story of a baby God. I miss the parts of Christmas that make it a family holiday. The tree. The music. The food. That Night Before Christmas feeling. I want to put out a five dollar bill, ok, maybe a twenty, so Santa can go eat at the Rustic Station in Bailey. Get some of those buttermilk pancakes. I’ll put out hay for Rudolph and Dancer and Vixen and all the team. Some milk or whatever elves prefer. This is the Christmas that absorbed so much of the pagan Yule.

Today’s a Happy Camper day. I’ll see the white tops of the Continental Divide as I drive on 285. Snow sprinkled Ponderosa, Lodgepole, Spruce line the highway. At points along the way, tucked away in the tree are the stone chimneys and fireplaces left over from earlier settlers cabins. Not to far from Conifer High School, on the way to 285, are two cabins from that time, too. They’re dotted all over. Plenty on Shadow Mountain Drive. The road goes up steeply and down dramatically. Mountain roads. Each time I drive here I look at the mountains, scan for wildlife, enjoy the odd mix of businesses and homes, some mansions often high up. Five full years this Winter Solstice and it’s all still beautiful and amazing to me.

I’m not a small government guy. Not at all. I believe government has the responsibility to keep all of its citizens healthy, educated, housed, and with adequate nutrition. Even so. I want government to recede, go back to its normal presence in our lives. Post Trump Stress Disorder has made me eager to have him gone and to have words and whole sentences, complete thoughts in the mouths of our government officials. Calm. Quiet. At least until January 20th. Please.

Asia, Family, Humanities, Myth and Story, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Travel, US History, World History

Kakun

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Samain and the Moon of Thanksgiving

Wednesday gratefuls: Kakun, family precepts. This article. Ikigai. Ichi-go, Ichi-e. Cribbage. Card decks. Playing as the snow came down yesterday. Other cultures. Repositories of wisdom about how to be human. Ours, too. The snow on Black Mountain. The beauty here. Politics. Covid. Going, Going.

 

 

Japan. An old, sometimes conservative, sometimes radically modern place. So much to learn from them. The article I link to above: This Japanese Shop is 1,020 Years Old has three ideas that resonate (thanks, Tom, for reminding me of this idea). Kakun, family precepts. Many Japanese families have a motto, or a family saying that guides them. Like those quotes at the bottom of European heraldry, I suppose. “Live long, live healthy, die suddenly.” “As long as you strive to be popular, you will remain unpopular.”  “Boys must help with the housework.” Quotes from this website, SoraNews. It’s masthead reads: Bringing you yesterday’s news today.

Shinise. This term connotes a business that has been in business for a really long time. 19 for over a thousand years. 140 over 500 years. 3100 over two hundred years and 33,000 with over a hundred years. In this last group are Nintendo and Kikkoman. These businesses, especially the older ones, have opted out, really probably never participated in, the notion of maximizing profit, expand all you can. Seems like an idea that might be important in late stage capitalism. The more shinise, the more stable the economy.

Kakun + shinise = Ichiwa. Family precepts, or values, married to a shinise approach to business, can yield stability and security that lasts. Makes me wonder about our individualistic, upwardly striving, materialistic culture. But, as a counter point. A useful reminder that there are many ways to be human.

As I age, I find myself more interested in family, about what mine means, about the message, the kakun, that is implicit in ours. Not sure what it is, but I think there is one. One thing that’s a part of our kakun is service as a calling. Teachers. Warrior. Doctor. Organizer. Writer. Journalist. Maybe you can think of others? Pass them along if you do. Perhaps another is: Learn. Lottsa graduate level education. Travel? Read?

In a mixed economy shinise might play a disproportionate role. While the necessary matters like housing, medical care, and sufficient income for food and education would be governmental responsibilities, there are plenty of opportunities for businesses that have kakun and shinise at their core. In Bangkok, 2004, I visited a small community of folks whose only product was Buddhist begging bowls. The bowls required several different steps, all done by hand, and the steps got distributed among families. Bought one and it sits nearby.

We’re so binary. Liberal? Conservative? Which are you? Well, on this, I’m liberal. On this, conservative. On this, maybe, neither one. Are you an individualist or a communitarian? Are you gay, straight, trans, bi? Life requires nuance. Ideology is good for critiquing, but not so good for planning.

It might be that a conversation around these values is what we, the USA, needs.

Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, US History, Weather +Climate

Iran. The Supremes.

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Samain and the almost full Moon of Thanksgiving

Saturday gratefuls: Sleep. A two hour nap yesterday. Peak TV. That beautiful Thanksgiving Moon. The stars this morning. Black Mountain. All the family and friend connections made and reaffirmed (while spreading Covid.) Pictures of Trump walking away. Political perspectives. Differing. The flag. Other symbols of our nation. BLM. AOC. CDC. The Rocky Mountains. The Laramide orogeny. Plate tectonics. Super Novas. The origin of life. The miracle of life. Death. Yes, it’s a miracle, too.

 

Checking on the idiot is coming to a close. I hope. What happened to his promise to leave the country if he lost? I know. I know. Power. How he handles his smaller monarchy, reigning over GOPland, may have a lot to do with how our country moves forward. If he insists on demagogic rhetoric delivered to thousands of unmasked adoring subjects, without pause, we may be in for a bad four years. 2024? Oh, god no. Let’s hope as a Christmas present to his fellow gutter Christians he decides to focus on building towers in Wuhan.

Iran’s top nuclear scientist killed by gun. Live by the bomb, die by the gun. Assassination. A dangerous implement for a state. When one seeks revenge, first dig two graves. Middle East volatility. Problematic since the end of the Ottoman empire and its continuance insured by the long war against terror. If this is Israel trying to provoke even more direct action against Iran by the orange excrescence, OMG. A full out war between our ally Israel and its powerful enemy, Iran, could push us into a war. Of course we would and should side with Israel, even if it is the provocateur, but… Glad our boy is headed to Hawai’i.

Not sure what a war would mean for Saudi Arabia where brother Mark teaches. Riyadh. Iran and Saudi Arabia are toe-to-toe enemies, too. With only the Persian Gulf separating them. And the o.e. has sold Saudi Arabia many sophisticated weapons. The lame duckness of a defeated President may be more like a game of Angry Birds. What can he do in the waning days of his administration? Plenty. Watch out.

That Supreme Court ruling against New York’s restrictions on churches, synagogues, mosques, and other religious gathering places? Hmmm. I’m torn. Should religious freedom trump public health? The ideal would be a situation in which religious leaders, and their faithful, say, oh, we don’t want to die in large numbers, so let’s follow the recommendations of scientists. And, science itself.

The question is, can a government, any government, constrain people from gathering to worship in the fashion they prefer? I can follow the reasoning that says this is such a basic right under our constitution that the answer must be no. I would not want a similar prohibition on the right to assemble, for example.

Yet. The prohibitions in question did relate to all religions, so nothing there about government picking religious sides. The danger is obvious. And, may not exist for much longer. Why not equivocate, or just not rule? Why not err on the side of public safety? The government’s most significant role, it seems to me, insures just that.

Many other unhappy ruling will surely come. His legacy. The o.e. and Moscow Mitch. Makes our work harder, but that much more important.

Day has come. The sun lights up the peak of Black Mountain and highlights the five ski runs built by a friend of my former doctor. Yes, you can own mountains. No, you shouldn’t be able to. But, then… Our house? Life’s complicated.

On the flipside.

Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Dogs, Family, Health, Jefferson County, Mountains, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History

Double/Triple Irony

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Samain and the Thanksgiving Moon

Thursday gratefuls: A good visit with a potential new doc. Our since we moved here doc, Lisa Gidday, retires January 1. 2020 was too much for her. Also a good visit for Kep with his dermatologist/allergist. Yes, even dogs. He has hot spots (allergies, I think) in addition to the infection he got from grooming. Orion headed for the evening sky, in the early morning now partly behind Black Mountain. Ruby. Snowshoes today. Oil change. Rear door diagnosis.

Happy to report that Kate’s had several good days in a row now. A crummy two day stretch, a Sjogren flare?, or it would be two weeks plus. When mama’s happy, everybody’s happy. Makes me smile.

Found this wonderful tribute to a brave dog and his friend on Next Door Shadow Mountain. A local story and a beautiful one. Hope you have a friend like Winston.

He’s flopping like a fish pulled untimely from his Whitehouse pond. Throwin’ shade. Dissing the election process which his own head of cybersecurity said was as good as it’s ever been. Which every election official in every state has certified as sound. The votes of which elected more Republicans than anticipated yet somehow screwed up the Presidential vote. On the same damn ballot? Call Rudy!

So. Tired. Of. His. Bullshit. Go away, bad President. Go away.

Rigel slept last night with her head on my pillow, her back snugged up against Kate. Believe she’s beaten the endocarditis. Worth it.

When I took Kep in for his vet appointment yesterday, it was 75 in Englewood. 75! November 18th. Thanksgiving next week. And, 75. The world feels off kilter for us old folks who really do remember snowy Thanksgivings, white Christmases. I did see in the Washington Post this morning that our carbon emissions will be at their lowest for three decades. Covid dropped them, of course. And, the orange excrescence. If people weren’t dying, I’d say it’s worth it. Over a quarter of a million now. That’s Winston-Salem or Norfolk disappeared from the map.

Lock yourself down.  This Atlantic article tells the truth about what we should be doing right now. But, we won’t. I get it, too. The Christmas retail season for a consumer based economy. Gonna trash that and still survive politically? I wouldn’t wanna be a governor right now. But. The other shoe will drop when kids come home from college for Thanksgiving and/or the Christmas holiday period. And. Of course. Families will still put aside common sense to embrace relatives, loved ones. I read the other day that this surge, 170,000 new cases a day, has been driven by small gatherings in homes and bars. We’re ramping up the number of infected just in time for the most volatile and problematic time in the whole year so far. Think about that. In all of 2020 we’ve got the worst time ahead of us.

Here’s the double/triple irony. The vaccines look good. Doctors are much better at treating Covid. But, so many will die and get sick simply because Trump will still be in office over this time of increasing vulnerability for so, so many. Cursed year. Cursed year.

Ta for now. Gotta get the snowshoes in Ruby so Stevinson can mount them.

Colorado, Commentary on the news, Denver, Jefferson County, Mountains, Myth and Story, Our Land and Home, Park County, Politics, Shadow Mountain, The Move, The West, US History

The New West

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Samain and the Moon of Thanksgiving

Wednesday gratefuls: Mountain Waste. Doctors. The one here and the ones out there. Roads. The builders of Colorado Mountain roads. His Dark Materials. Phillip Pullman. Friends. Caregiving. Tsundoku. Collecting books you have not read. William Schmidt. Bill. As he goes through the next 14 days. Tom on December 1st. Carne asada unthawing. Carnitas and beans for supper.

Red Sky in the morning through the Lodgepoles. A western greeting. When it’s red like this, I always think of Louis L’Amour. I’ve only read one of his. It surprised me. The prose was more like Dashiel Hammet. I think it was Riders of the Purple Sage.

When we moved out here, I expected cowboy hats, western shirts, cowboy boots, maybe guns on the hip. Bars with half-doors on spring pivots. Lotta chaw. I have been disappointed. There is the occasional Stetson. Cowboy boots are the most common of the things I mentioned. Very few western shirts, though attending the Great Western National Stockshow saw many of them. It’s the rodeo guys, the paid cowboy entertainers, who dress western.

Although. Yesterday when we got our hair done, Jackie showed me pictures of her son’s wedding. The minister, her son and his bride stood on a large boulder. Her proud father, all dressed in black with a black Stetson and belt with silver stood off to the side below as did the small number of wedding guests. The chairs were hay bales with Diné blankets. This western culture lives on among ranchers. It’s more of a rural thing.

Denver and its metro area, including the Front Range where Kate and I live, is the New West. Skiers, hikers, back country campers, and many millennials have added themselves to the state. In spite of the many bumper stickers like Native, Colorado: We’re full. This change irritates the hell out of “native” Coloradans. Who are, in my opinion, feeling a slight taste of the angst their ancestors gave the Utes, the Apaches, and the Comanches who lived here first. They’re not native here. No one is, in the longview. It took those wandering tribes from Asia a while to populate North America, but even the earliest of them weren’t here 50,000 years ago. But, as we used to say in the first grade, those early nations did have dibs on the land.

This change in the human population has changed both the physical and political landscapes. The number of hard rock mines here, hard rock mines with toxic runoff and piles of toxic tailings literally dot the mountainous part of the state. After the Indian wars, the settlement of Colorado got a big push from Eastern mining and railroad interests, plus one pulse of gold diggers. Pikes Peak or bust. Most, almost all, busted. There was gold here. And silver. And magnesium. So many minerals that a college, The Colorado School of Mines, has taken a storied place in both the states recent past and mining around the world. The mines, the railroads, even the stockyards that grew up around the ranches and the confluence of north/south rail lines, were not locally owned, nor locally controlled. Colorado was, back then, a vassal state of financiers, industrialists, and railroad owners like James J. Hill.

That’s the second big lie behind the nativist bumper stickers. These faux natives of Colorado did not “own” it. Those who saw the West, the Rockies in particular, as a source of resources for their own plans, did. They controlled the politics and the wealth. Those so-called natives descended from peasants who worked the land and mountains for Wall Street feudal lords. The New West, the new Colorado, has its own Fortune 500 companies. The space, technology and military presence here makes Colorado a unique blend of highly educated workers and outdoors enthusiasts. It also means that the state has gone from red to purple to blue over the last few decades. Again, a process highly irritating to those who want to close our borders to new residents.

Kate and I are part of the New West, the new Colorado. So are many of our neighbors. We have moved West as Horace Greeley once urged young men to do. Sort of. Many of us came from the humid east, but many come from Texas and California. Colorado, by a slim majority, became the first state to mandate by popular vote, the reintroduction of wolves. The natives were the chief opposition. The rancher crowd and the hunting oriented outdoors folks. This will not be their first defeat along environmental lines. We also elected a gay Governor, Jared Polis, two years ago, after having been called the Hate State not twenty years ago.

When I consider all this, I’m not surprised any more at the low relevance of old west motifs. My fleece and plaid shirt, denim and hiking shoes, are the dress of the New West. At least for me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Joy, Joy, Joy Deep in My Heart

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Samain and the Moon of Radical Change

Monday gratefuls: 20 degrees. Some snow on the ground. A marathoner kicking past the house around 6:30 a.m. Training. A Trumpless Whitehouse. The Denver Post delivered. Those ribs from Easy Entrees. Kate’s scallops. The Johnson girls. As they get older. Their sis zoom bar. The Ancient Ones, with Alan added. That strong feeling I get now when I get in the kitchen. I’m a cook. The epitome of androgyny Kate said last night. A compliment in my eyes.

Meme: You know why your candidate lost? You didn’t put enough flags on your truck. Ha.

One thing I keep wanting to do and haven’t gotten around to: figure out how to display an American flag regularly. I don’t want the Gadsden flag crew and their Confederate battle flag allies to continue having exclusive rights. Displaying a flag does not make you a patriot, but its display almost exclusively by the right wing sends that message. The way to reclaim it for all America is for those of on the left, and liberals, too, to fly it. No, I’m not attaching twin gigundos to the back of Ruby. Not even an American flag decal. But, on the property here. Yes. I’ll figure it out. Maybe you will, too.

I will be ready for the post-election critiques. I will. But not just yet. I want to roll in the hay we made last week. Dive into it from the upper deck of the hay mow. Disappear in it, swimming through the hay like a happy, happy fish. That hay mow smell, that’s America, the old America, the one I grew up in.

The farm. Many of us had one in our family because many families created by WWII vets had farmers in their family. The farm in our family was just outside Morristown, Indiana. Family lore has it that Grandpa won it on a bet at the horse track. Its believable, he was that sorta guy, but I do not know the truth of it. Riley, the only boy out of my Mom’s four sibs, ended up living on the farm. I don’t know the story behind how that happened. Many summers I would spend a week or so there along with some time in town with my Grandma, Mabel.

Lots of good memories. The smell of cedar. The old artesian well that kept the milk cans cool for collection. The moss on it and the damp darkness of its shed. The corn crib with its shucked ears of feed corn. And, the hay mow. Of course, this was all a really long time ago. 60 plus years for some of the memories, but they feel current, alive. Just down the gravel road back toward town, after a bend in the road, is Hancock cemetery. Many of my Keaton relatives, including Uncle Riley and Aunt Virginia, Grandma and Grandpa, Aunt Barbara and several others are buried there. Richard, my first cousin, now lives on the farm, and, like Uncle Riley, is the main caretaker for the cemetery. Small town, rural roots. Me.

Those were good times, but of course they had their darkness. As does this election. This is not the time for either. Now is the time for connecting today with yesterday and through that lens seeing tomorrow. Enjoy the victory. I sure am.