Category Archives: Shadow Mountain

Politics, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History

Sad

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Samain and the Moon of Radical Change (just not the kind I was hoping for)

Wednesday gratefuls: Kate, Kep, Rigel, our house on Shadow Mountain. My ancient friends, my CBE friends, Jude, Eduardo, and Holly. Undetectable cancer. Kate with little nausea over the past few days. The coming of Holiseason, reminding us that lights glow even when darkness predominates. The election. My sadness. My grief over the country I once knew. Grief is the price of love. Doubling down on my own values, my inner peace, humility.

Sad. That’s the main feeling. Sad. Humble. I’m turning in, again, any pretension I may have had to political analysis. God, was I wrong. Mostly, sad. Deeply sad. I’m 73, which means I carry some responsibility for this country. I’ve done things my whole adult life attempting to shape it toward compassion, kindness, justice, love for the other. Will not stop believing those are the necessary ingredients for a family, a city, a state, a nation, a world. But this election, no matter how the presidency turns out, has made me wonder how many of us in the U.S. still hold those values.

Fear and greed. A narrow understanding of what it means to be American, to be human. Damaged psyches that require values as fences. Those people should not marry. She should not have control over her own body. Those poor, teeming masses, yearning to be free had better damned well find somewhere other than here. People with those skin colors are dangerous. Police, protect us from them. At any cost to them you find necessary.

The light at the end of the tunnel, the one I saw, turned out to be an oncoming train. How has it come to this?

Laid awake for a bit last night. Not long. In spite of myself I had checked my phone. It was clear what was happening. I wondered how attached is my soul to our national soul? Does this rejection of what I hold close destroy me? No, I decided. I’m still the same person, still a citizen of this nation, but clearly now one of the other. Though. When I look at the raw votes, Biden is ahead by by 2,700,00. I guess there are a lot of us, maybe even a majority. But that maybe is what sears me.

I put this up on facebook, and I mean it.

My friends. All of you. I want to remain your friend after this is over. I hope that’s what we all want.
Whether you are Christian or not, this seems true to me: Gospel of Matthew 12:25, “Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto him, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand” (King James version).
Lincoln quoted this in his “A house divided cannot stand…” speech. We are, I think, at a moment when division could become permanent; but, I believe, with Jesus and Lincoln, that we all have to see the stark dangers if that should happen.
Let’s work to see each other, really see each other.
My fear of division remains. It will be up to both sides of the electorate to see each other. Really see.
Maybe I’ve exaggerated here, but this is my feeling on a quick reading of the results. I hope I feel better as the count goes on. I hope you do, too.
Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Family, Friends, Health, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History

Watch Him Go Away!

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Samain and the Moon of Radical Change

Sunday gratefuls: Pork loin chops from Tony’s. Butternut Squash. Rigel’s most excellent appetite. Kate’s infirmities quieting. The coming election. Throwing the bum out. Jon’s gate for the loft stairs. To protect Rigel from herself. Addiction. Never resolved, always lurking. The Trumpeter. The American Way. The American Dream.

A better week for Kate. Much, much less nausea. Stoma site looking good. Her smile. Buoys me.

Yet. When we talked yesterday about how we were, she said, “I feel sequestered.” Covid. And, her stamina. We realized, as I alluded to earlier, that weeks with several appointments wear her out. A lot. So, we’ll try to do no more than one a week for her. Her stamina makes even going for a ride an energy draining experience. With CBE’s in person activities limited and our own high risk category for Covid, that outlet won’t work. Jon had to come home from school due to an “exposed” first grader, an incident two weeks ago, but only discovered on Thursday. This is the already making the news holiday conundrum. Can we even see those we love?

Since I added back in resistance work last week, after cataract surgery made me stop for a month, my writing on Jennie’s Dead got lost. Trying to figure out how to make my days work is always a challenge for me. Not new. But, problematic again. Most of the issue is how to use morning hours.

Saw Dr. Eigner on Friday, my urologist/oncologist. I get a new PSA every three months, but now see him in six months. If I come up undetectable for several, I don’t know how many, I’ll return to every six month PSA’s. He said it could even go up as long as it doesn’t go beyond .2, .3, .4. Somewhere in there. Then they would still follow me. If it drifts up, as it did in February 2019, treatment will start again. I left his office feeling good. Cancer as a chronic disease.

The election. I’m going to buy a steak and fixings for Tuesday or Wednesday. Celebrate, celebrate, dance to the election returns. Yeah, I’m exposing myself to the downside of even bridled optimism. I feel ok though. 10% is a chance, a legitimate chance, yes, Nate. But, it’s not much of a chance. We must delete our President. Put him in the trash. Excoriate and damn him. Arrest him and imprison him. An actively evil person. Yes, I’m stoking the culture wars with these comments, but what the hell? It’s true.

Colorado, Commentary on the news, Dogs, Family, Great Wheel, Great Work, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, The West, US History, Weather +Climate

Colorado

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Fall and the Moon of Radical Change

Thursday gratefuls: Kate’s stoma site looking good. Rigel off antibiotics. Her gut can relax. Rigel early in the morning, barking as loud as she can. Why? Oh, why. No idea. Mac and cheese with ham. Comfort food. The East Troublesome Fire. The Cameron Fire. The Calwood Fire. Reminding us that climate change is real and not tomorrow.

Wildfires are us. The West is burning. Precipitation blocked by warming oceans. Trees dried by low humidity, killed by pine bark Beetles. Grasses squeezed dry, lying ready for ignition. Rabbi Jamie’s home in Granby. The East Troublesome Fire. Evacuated. He posted pictures on Facebook. Scary.

Clouds this morning red from the Wildfire refracted Sun. We have moisture on the way. Hope it comes in time to wet down our Very High fire hazards. The National Forest Service closed the Arapho National Forest, the one in which we live, citing dry Trees and strained fire-fighting resources. This means no Denverites, no other out-of-towners at Lower and Upper Maxwell Falls. Well, it means there should be none.

Speaking of Colorado. Here’s a video from near Telluride.

Could have been worse. Think if the Jeep with the camera was a tiny bit further along on the trail. The woman who drove the falling Jeep is in a Grand Junction hospital with serious injuries. She bailed just before it went over.

Then, too. An election is coming. Like Winter. Did I say vote? Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote.

Aging, Colorado, Commentary on the news, Cooking, Coronavirus, Family, Feelings, Friends, Health, Jefferson County, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Science, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History

Fattening, Not Flattening

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Fall and the Moon of Radical Change

Wednesday gratefuls: New wheelchair. #19! Better comfort for Kate. Covid days and Covid nights. With the flu on its way. Hunker down, USA. A gift from Ancient One, Tom Crane. Safeway. Picking up groceries in my jammies. Cool weather ahead. And, snow! Drive down that fire danger. Yeah.

On the drive down the mountain to Safeway the Sun angle, the brown and gold Grasses, naked Aspen among the Lodgepole sent me back to trips to Aunt Marjorie’s house for Thanksgiving. Over the hills and through the woods.

Picked up some squash today. Yum. Also, thought I indicated I wanted 5 tomatoes. Got five pounds instead. Chili tonight. Safety wise pickup is the gold standard. As it is in terms of limiting impulse purchases. However.

The third surge of the first wave has come up hard against the rocky shore of pandemic fatigue. We have fattened the curve, instead of flattening. And, we are at it again. This time though with a broader reach in regions. That dovetails with three accelerants: the seasonal flu, cold weather and more indoor gatherings, winter holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah.

By the time 2021 arrives two months plus a little from now we might be ready to skip ahead to 2022.

The fall after college, 1969, Judy and I moved to Appleton, Wisconsin. My bakery job had me up at 4 am as my first Wisconsin winter closed in. The owner, almost joyous for a Norwegian (I now know.), used to sing, “I’ve got my love to keep me warm.” Yeah. But, he was the boss, you know. I can still hear him. Seems like the perfect song now.

Or, this. The weather outside is frightful, the fire is so delightful, and since we’ve GOT NO PLACE TO GO, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! (caps mine, ya know.)

Did I forget to mention the election? An election is coming. Like winter. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote.

Local satellite gathers dust from meteor. The Lockheed-Martin works off Deer Creek Canyon Road celebrated as their designed and built OSIRIS-REX blew on asteroid Bennu and collected (they hope) dust in an extended ring.

There is a robust space industry in Colorado and it will get much bigger if Trump’s Space Force decides to permanently locate its headquarters here. It has a temporary headquarters in Virginia but there are already several sites here: Buckley AFB, Peterson AFB, Schriever AFB with 10 of its fifteen units in the state already.

Back to writing. Kate read the first half of Jennie’s Dead and her response to it jarred me back to the keyboard. I can’t exercise until next Monday so the time is easy to find. I feel good, like I know I should. Writing buoys me up.

Beyond the Boundaries, Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Family, Health, Humanities, Minnesota, Our Land and Home, Politics, Shadow Mountain, US History

Soul

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Fall and the Moon of Radical Change

Sunday gratefuls: Jon, Ruth, Gabe. Kate. Jon’s drawing for the gate at the bottom of the loft stairs. Ruth’s Apple fritters. Easy Entree’s beef stew. Borgen. Kate reading Jennie’s Dead, what’s written. The 8 point Buck in the back yard. Kep trying to decide what to do.

“When I think of soul of the nation,” Joy Harjo, the United States poet laureate and a Muscogee (Creek) Nation member, said, “I think of the process of becoming, and what it is we want to become. That is where it gets tricky, and that is where I think we have reached a stalemate right now. What do people want to become?” Elizabeth Dias, NYT, 10/18/2020, Biden and Trump Say They’re Fighting for America’s ‘Soul.’ What Does That Mean?

Highly recommended. Elizabeth Dias is smart and knows her soul history. Of all the wonderful reflections on what the soul of the country might mean, I found Joy Harjo’s the most cogent.

Our soul, our American soul, becomes knowable in the thousands of tiny decisions, and big ones, that we make every day. Where do we live? With whom do we live? What do we drive? What do we eat? For whom do we vote? Who deserves our attention?

It’s possible, in a country as affluent as ours, to get lost in the tiny decisions. Will we wear a mask? Whose mail do we read? Whose products do we buy? Where and how do we get our healthcare? These are all important questions in our daily lives, but we often forget that the aggregate of our choices has enormous consequences for our mutual well-being. If we don’t pay attention, we forget the other, imagine that our choices matter only to us, only to the ethical framework of our family, our work, our small community.

One way to infuse those tiny decisions with broader meaning is to become intentional about them. Remember think global, buy local? If you want peace, work for justice? Do I buy the gasoline powered car or do I buy the electrically powered car?

Our national soul gathers force, gathers power, gathers momentum for change in these choices. Easy to forget. And, I agree with Harjo that we’ve reached a stalemate of sorts now. Our attention has been distracted by 2020.

What’s next? Locust? Volcanoes? Asteroids? No. What’s next is November 3rd. This is a big decision. But it will be our collective choices that make it. America will announce to the world the state of its soul’s health on November 3rd.

Is our soul just an enlarged continuation of the white male project? Or, do others have a voice? Do those who value community, diversity, globalism have the strength to redefine our soul. We will see.

Family, Garden, Great Wheel, Memories, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Nothing is lost.

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Fall and the RBG Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Cheaters. Again. Stephen King. The Institute. Dr. Gustave. Makeshift eye protector. PSA’s forever. The Wind. Golden Aspen. Blue Sky. Black Mountain. The loft. My library. This computer. Amber. Kate. Her Jevity.

The spirit of Fall has come into me, rests with me. The Trees of my inner Mountain have changed color, taken gusts of wind, and lost most of their leaves. The bare, fallow time Soul needs this transparency for its work.

Perhaps each fall I grieve the loss of those leaves, wish for a while longer with their food making, their feeding. Mom’s death in October, the 25th Mary writes, came amongst this seasonal loss. Added to it. The feelings around her death seem to reemerge eachFall, making my mood sad, reflective, inward. Melancholic.

Seasonal synchronicities reach deep, help us experience the Great Wheel as a reality in our life. As Mom’s death created this strong Fall resonance for me, I can walk my ancientrail of grief and death as Trees lose their leaves, Grasses brown, Meadows turn gold.

The experience though has more sides. The seasons are never just this or that. It is the Elk rut. The Mule Deer rut. The Black Bear’s final eating, hyperphagia, before hibernation. Roots store the sugars and proteins from a Summer’s sun and rain. The Mycological world begins absorbing and repurposing the fallen Leaves, the dead Animals, increasing the depth of duff and topsoil.

Life literally in the midst of death. Melancholy might be the Mycology of the soul. It grabs onto our fallen persons. The withered dream. The gathering dark. Changes them. Makes from them compost for the growth we need. Nothing is lost. Nothing.

Family, Feelings, Health, Memories, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Shadowed Mountain

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Fall and the waning RBG Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Our money. The house on Shadow Mountain. The loft. Ivory in a new home. Jon’s Subaru, now planted in our garage. Mary, Mark, Diane, Kate: the clan. Sleep. Movies. Hamburger.

Kate reminded me, after a rant, that October is my season of melancholy. Mom’s death came this month, in 1964. Couldn’t remember the exact date, I think it was October 5th.

Anyhow that’s the date I gave CBE for recalling Mom’s Yahrzeit. Yahrzeit’s occur according to the Hebrew Calendar. October 5th, 1964 fell on the 29th day of Tishrei. This year the 29th of Tishrei is on October 17th, so her Yahrzeit will be celebrated in service on that day.

I bought a 24-hour Yahrzeit candle that we will burn on Saturday. Maybe I’ll make hamloaf, mashed potatoes, and canned peas. Get out the albums from her war years. Remember this woman who carried me for nine months, gave birth to me, loved me through polio, elementary school, and almost all the way through high school.

Not sure why I decided this was the year to acknowledge her Yarhzeit, but it feels appropriate. And, good.

Cancer. Tomorrow my first psa after the lupron should have vanished from my body. My last lupron shot was in April. If the psa comes back undetectable, it will suggest that the radiation did kill the recurrence. If not, well…

This instance of my prostate cancer was a recurrence though I’ve come to question that word. Some small remnant of cancer cells survived the removal of my prostate and are now a second clinical manifestation of the same cancer.

Recurrence or new clinical manifestation of the old cancer my cancer did not go away, did not stop trying to spread out, grow bigger. And, it succeeded. We tried a second time to cure it: 35 doses of radiation plus nine months of androgen deprivation therapy, the lupron. 60/40 chance of a cure according to both Eigner and Gilroy.

Even if this psa is clear, 5 years have to go by without a higher reading to make a statement. Then, you have 5 years of clear tests. Not, oh, you’re cured!

The burden of cancer is its ambiguity, the layer of uncertainty it adds to daily life. Stubborn, resilient, recalcitrant to treatment cancer stays with you.

So, melancholy. Yes. a time of the year, a time of life, a time of a disease’s journey.

Aging, Coronavirus, Great Wheel, Jefferson County, Mountains, Original Relation, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, The Move, Third Phase, Travel

Mountain Recluses

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Fall and the RBG Moon. Orion, Mars, Venus, and the Great Dog

Monday gratefuls: Ancient friends. Their journeys. Learning and education. Life. All those drops for my eyes. Peanut butter and Rigel. Carne asada, twice baked potato, and salad. Safeway pickup. That snow yesterday. Mom’s yahrzeit on the 17th.

A bright, sunshiny day in the high 50’s. I worked at my computer. Turned around. A gray day. Snow blizzarding down, swirling. 39 degrees. Colorado. An hour later. No snow. Blue sky. Sunny. Black Mountain absorbed it all.

My ancient friends keep talking about the Ground Hog day nature of their lives. Not so for me. Each day has its own challenges. Our meal times vary. Sure, there are equivalent actions at familiar times: feeding the dogs, a.m., coming up to the loft, writing this blog. Breakfast, change Kate’s bandages. Noon or so nap. Evening dog feeding, some television. In between these though I could be reading, painting, writing.

Our life had a cloistered feel even before the pandemic. That’s intensified, for sure. We don’t have the occasional meal out. No movies. No CBE. Zooming with family, friends, synagogue classes. Yes, not the same as in person, as we all know now.

Both of us though are introverts. Kate even more so than I. Happiness is a book, a project, a downtime hour painting or sewing, watching a movie. Of course we love our kids, our grandkids, our friends, the folks at CBE. We would like to see them more often. But, not too much more often.

Mountain recluses. That’s us. Just got a novel, A Life of Li Bai. Either at retirement or upon banishment Chinese literati took up mountain living, usually as recluses. Li Bai, a Tang dynasty poet exiled in the time of the An Lushan rebellion is a mountain poet.

Here’s one of his memorized by generations of Chinese schoolchildren:

Thoughts in the Silent Night (静夜思)

床前明月光，   Beside my bed a pool of light—
疑是地上霜，   Is it hoarfrost on the ground?
舉頭望明月，   I lift my eyes and see the moon,
低頭思故鄉。   I lower my face and think of home.

And another famous poem (in China) by Han-Shan, or Cold Mountain, Poem 302:

出生三十年， I’ve been in the world for thirty years,
當遊千萬里。 And I must have traveled a million miles.
行江青草合， Walked by rivers where the green grass grows thick,
入塞紅塵起。 And entered the frontier where the red dust rises.
鍊藥空求仙， Purified potions in vain search for immortality,
讀書兼詠史。 Read books and perused the histories.
今日歸寒山， Today I return to Cold Mountain,
枕流兼洗耳。 Pillow myself on the creek and wash out my ears.

The pandemic has changed our lives, but not that much. Li Bai or Han Shan could have lived here.

The Consolations of the Mountains. Our wild Neighbors. The dark night Sky filled with Stars and Planets and Galaxies. The Lodgepole Pine and the Aspen. The dancing, sparkling Streams. The sturdy Rock. The thinner Air. Shadow Mountain home.

Beyond the Boundaries, Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Friends, Great Wheel, Jefferson County, Mountains, Original Relation, Plants, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

Minding the Gap

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Fall and the RBG Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Two ayes for two eyes. Clearer, some fuzziness. Supposed to go away. Easy to read computer screen. No pain. Tony’s. The clerks at Tony’s. Kate’s wrist improving. This mythic sky. Fall. Courage. Sadness. Springtime for inner work. The days and nights of the year’s last half. The harvest. The rut.

Come into me, spirit of Fall. As I drove down Shadow Mountain yesterday, the golden glory of autumn Aspens against the evergreen Lodgepoles, all on soaring Mountain sides, this prayer came, unbidden. Soon my hand moved in a waving motion, like the sageing rituals of the Lakota, wafting the vision of Fall I could see into my heart, into my soul.

Judaism emphasizes kavanah in prayer. Intention. I wondered, what is the intention of this prayer? Why has it come to me?

Minding the gap. That’s the intention, I understood this suddenly, too. The gap between my self-understanding as a distinct and separate living being and the World outside my car window. It is a false understanding, made to appear real by the mind we carry and the body that is its vehicle. I am part of the Fall, part of its courage and sadness. Part of its springtime for Soul work.

The Great Wheel turns. We live through its Seasons. Its Seasons live through us. Invite the Season into your body, into your Soul. Live within it, not as an observer only.

Then. The Mountains. What do they mean? Strong. Hard. Tall. Shansin make me strong, hard, and tall like Black Mountain, like Shadow Mountain, like Conifer Mountain. Raise the mountain in me, let it support and define me.

Then. The Aspens. Make me aware of the living links I have with friends and family. Like the Aspen Grove. Interleaved. Sharing nutrients and knowledge and warnings. Then, no, not like the Aspen Grove, as the Aspen Grove. Help me feel the rootlets of these Aspen, these Lodgepole supporting me, feeding me, making me aware of what’s coming.

Why these prayers, these meditations, came to me, I can’t say. They were powerful and sank into me, radiated back out of me. I was one with the Fall. One with the Mountains. One with the Aspen Groves.

The Great Wheel has within it the learnings we need. And, apparently, will grace us with them when we need them. Blessed be.

Music, Myth and Story, Politics, Science, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History

The Plastic Hour

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Fall: RBG Moon, Mars, Orion, and Venus in the morning sky

Friday gratefuls: Savannah, nurse at Cherry Hills. Dr. Gustave. Sandy, the nurse anesthetist. Right eye cut and healing. Zeiss. Alan. The intraocular lens. Those who invented, designed, and made it. Annie and Sarah. Kate, her wrist calming down. Carne asada from Tony’s.

Right eye patched. I see Dr. Gustave today at 10:30. A familiar routine. Even with the right eye still dilated, I can see the words I type with clarity. Not before, not without glasses. And, even then, fuzzy,

I feel younger. Silly? Yeah, but I feel it anyhow. I’m ready for a bonus round with life.

Wondered what it meant to have Johnny Nash, the singer of “I Can See Clearly Now”, die in between the surgery on my left eye and the right one.

Checking on the idiot. Give me a sec. OMG. He’s worse. Prosecute Biden and Obama. A rally in Florida on Sunday. Won’t debate virtually. Going out in public when he should still be in quarantine. No boundaries. No sense. Aarrggh.

George Packer writes for the Atlantic. In the Plastic Hour, he wrote himself into hope after dispirited articles: “We are living in a failed state”, “Failure is a Contagion”. and, “The President is winning his war on American institutions.” He’s brilliant and has a feel for this time we’re in. Recommended. And, if you read it, what do you think?