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#244

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Summer and the Moon of Justice

Saturday gratefuls: This country. These purple mountain majesties. The lakes of Minnesota. Lake Superior. Evergreen. Conifer. Shadow Mountain. The great plains, rippling wheat. Corn fields of Iowa. Lady Liberty. New York City. San Francisco. Puget Sound. The Colorado River. The Mississippi. The South. New England. The first lighters up there in Maine. Jambalaya. Gumbo. Devil’s Tower. El Capitan. Crater Lake. The Mackinac Bridge. Protests. Alexandria. Muncie. The Big Medicine Wheel. The sacred Black Hills. Cahokia. Carlsbad Caverns. Marfa. West Texas. From sea to shining sea. Haleakala. Waipio Valley. Waimea Canyon. Da Fish House. Denali. Kodiak. Salmon. Grizzly. Wolves. Lynx. Wolverines. An amazing country still.

244 years old. Lot of candles for that red white and blue cake. Hard times. Like the Civil War. The First World War. The Spanish Flu. The Depression. WWII. Yes, it’s been hard before. Will be again. We navigated the churning, stormy waters of all those. We can get through this one, too.

A canard? Maybe. Yet, I believe it’s so. Rising out of this fire may come a nation truer to its ideals. No more Trumps. Ever. No more easy white privilege. No more easy oppression of people of color, women, lbgt. A more just economic and medical system. If we do, the pain will have been worth it.

I love this country. From Route 66 to the hot dog shaped hot dog stand in Bailey. From Coney Island to Puget Sound. From the Minnesota angle to the bayous. It’s my home, my place, the spot on this earth to which I am native. It can be tarnished by the political class, but not erased.

Here are my friends, some of my family, the graves of my ancestors. Here are the roads I traveled as a young man, the streets and fields I played in as a child, houses in which I’ve lived, the cities I’ve loved and fought for. This is the land of memory.

Let’s celebrate #245 with a 46th President. And with 45 in jail or disgraced. Make it so.

Cinema and Television, Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Family, Friends, Mountains, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History

Good News

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Summer and the Moon of Justice

Thursday gratefuls: Chuck roast fork tender in the Instapot. Yum. The stillness. Only the occasional car on Black Mountain Drive. Just us and the critters. Wild and domesticated. PSA next week. Kate’s ostomy nurse referral. Kep and the bone from the chuck roast. Rigel and the bone from the chuck roast. Kate’s voracious reading. Robertson Davies.

Doomscrolling. Covidiot. (thanks, Tom) Mask maker, mask maker, make me a mask. At home with the virus raging outside. Like a wild snowstorm blowing across Shadow Mountain. So quiet here.

Generation hide. They told us it would be bunkers, radiation hazards. They prepared us with duck and cover drills. (though, to be honest, I don’t remember any.) Pamphlets. Civil defense sirens. Those yellow and black icons of danger. Nope.

The biohazard sign, triplet open crescents over a circle. Duck and cover = masks. Bunkers = self-quarantine, but, at least above ground. No sirens, just daily updated charts of the infection curve. Never flattened here. Here, in the United States of America. Maybe we should duck and cover. In shame.

Mutually assured destruction now means all those freedumb loving libertytards who refuse to wear masks. Who refuse to believe the virus is real. Or, if it is real, they believe it’s germ warfare. God, our fellow citizens as intentional disease vectors. What….?

Our generation sits behind closed doors. Those books on the nightstand now read. Newspapers, for those ancient of days who still receive them. TV tuned to Netflix. As the bleeding edge of the Baby Boom, we’ve been in a high risk category for over 10 years. Now it counts.

Those who like good news can find a lot of it on television. Though I long ago stopped watching infotainment, the protests get covered. What a joy they are in this otherwise bleak time. Young people speaking their minds. Yes, something’s happening here. And this time, it’s very clear.

Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Family, Great Work, Health, Our Land and Home, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History, Weather +Climate

Que serait

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Summer and the Moon of Justice

Tuesday gratefuls: Seoah in Singapore (and quarantine) 6 days. Rick, the stump grinder, reasonable prices. David and Ray not so much. But the lawn will get cut. Moving the pallets. Giving the log cutter tool to Derek. Kate’s idea. At more ease with cash. Work happening. The clan.

Venality, denial, racism, support for white supremacists, demeaning the disabled, grabbing pussies. And, now, the worst treason of all: ignoring Russian bounties on U.S. troops. Outrage seems far too mild a response. This man is, and has been from the start, not only unfit for office, but a radical dismantler of its authority. No wonder the world has shaken its head, laughed, then cringed. Beginning to move on from us. A world without us. America cannot take getting much greater. Too much winning.

United StatesOn June 2914-day changeTrend
New cases40,041+80%

This box from this morning’s NYT follows Covid 19. In the last two weeks Covid cases have jumped 80%! So much winning. This man has actively caused the deaths of thousands of U.S. citizens. Ignored a James Bond villain, Vladimir Putin, who authorized election tampering and pay for slay in Afghanistan against American soldiers. Not to mention tweeting positive utterances about white supremacists. No, not only the “good people on both sides” remark, but new ones. Including the pink shirted man and the barefooted woman holding guns on protesters outside their St. Louis mansion.

Who would rid us of this troublesome President?

On a more upbeat note I scheduled my third Lupron influenced PSA for July 7th. I see my oncologist, Dr. Eigner, on the 17th and Dr. Gilroy, who managed my radiation, on August 3rd. A year ago I was in the midst of the 5 day a week drives out to Lone Tree. Lying down on the altar of sacrifice, listening to the Band.

Nope, I don’t think about cancer much. Life goes on until it doesn’t. Freezers go bad. (ours continue to chug along for now) Yards need mowing. Seoah’s in Singapore. Wildfires are possible. The future’s not ours to see.

Meanwhile, carbon emissions.

Coronavirus, Dogs, Family, Friends, Health, Mussar, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Travel

One Day at a Time

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Summer and the Moon of Justice

Wednesday gratefuls: Simplicity. Does this idea bring me joy? Kondoing my thinking. Maybe. MVP. Rich. Susan. Marilyn. Tara. Judy. Zoom. Covid’s forced introspection. What matters in our daily life? What doesn’t? Seoah between Narita and Singapore. Picture of her with mask and faceshield on the plane. Kate finding Kep’s hotspots. Sano. Going down, coming back up.

On Shadow Mountain. The Sun rising, Black Mountain lit. The Air still cool. All the promise of a new day. Each day is the only day in which you’ll ever live. We’re all one day old, every day. Each morning we can choose to continue old patterns, the remnants of other days, or we can choose new habits, new actions. Even new thoughts. Each day is New Year’s. Old Mother Time melted away last night and the infant wrapped in the sash titled TODAY has succeeded her.

What will you do with this one wild and precious day?

We’re taking Kep to the vet. He has several new hotspots that have shown up on his back. Not sure why, not sure what to do next. So, we’re calling in Dr. Palmini.

Kate’s spirits took a dive yesterday when she discovered Kep’s hotspots. Seoah’s gone. She can’t hug Ruth and Gabe. Her stomach acted up. All got to be too much. She’s resilient though. Look at how she’s handled the multiple insults to her body.

Seoah will touch down in Singapore today. Or, rather, tomorrow. The mysteries of the International Date Line. Her flight gets in just after midnight Singapore time.

First Wednesday with no Kabbalah class since January. School’s out. Teachers let the monkeys out. Gonna take a rest over the summer, then pick up the Kabbalah thread again in the fall.

Groveland U.U., the congregation I joined soon after I left the Presbyterian ministry, wrote me a note yesterday asking if I would do some presentations for them over Zoom. An unexpected pleasure, made possible by your friend the Coronavirus.

MVP (Mussar Vaad Practice Group) met last night. The middot (character trait) we discussed was simplicity. As I’ve mentioned here before, mussar involved identifying a character trait and then creating a practice for yourself that you can use to strengthen it. There are many different lists of soul traits, some exhaustive, some short.

Once you find the middot or middah (plural) on which you need to work, you’ve defined what the mussar teachers call a soul curriculum. Judaism is very clear on the journey. You’ll make mistakes, regress. What’s crucial is to not stop. That may sound zealous, but it’s not. It’s a recognition of our humanity.

My practice, if I should choose to accept it, is to ask what thoughts bring me joy. Not sure yet whether I like this. I created it, so I can change it, but it seems interesting. Just not sure whether joy is a good criteria for thoughts. Even so, it intrigues me. I’ll give it a go for a while, see where it leads.

Great Wheel, Holidays, Myth and Story, Science, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Leaning In. To the Sun.

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Beltane and the Moon of Sorrow

Saturday gratefuls: The Moon of Sorrow comes to an end. Rain. The smell of the Forest, Pine needles and Pine resin, wet Soil. Petichor. A perfume created by the mistress of all perfumery: Mother Earth. Extra bonus: smelling it while I walked out to get the newspaper. Seoah’s wonderful time with us. She helped us through Gertie’s death, through the Murdoch/Kepler wars, and the coming of the coronavirus. Family. Yes. The sun at its most northerly. And, the longest day.

To a world on fire with virus infections, economic destruction, and spreading demands for real, permanent change, the sun climbs to its highest spot in the north for the year. The Summer Solstice. A fire festival.

Though most of the new age pagan types see the Summer Solstice as a masculine, Sun god holiday, I’m more drawn, again, to the Asian understanding, specifically the ancient Chinese who had the summer solstice as the peak day for yin, feminine energy. They saw this holiday as an earth focused holiday.*

Yin makes most sense to me since the next months grow the crops, fertility as a feminine focus. (BTW: just so we’re clear. Animus and anima, yang and yin, masculine and feminine, active and receptive modes are in all of us-all of Us).

The Earth gives birth to the foods that feed Us all. Us=all living things. Yes, a few exceptions like extremophils which subsist on sulfur or cyanide, but for the rest of Us-Mother Earth or Mother Ocean. The Sun is yang energy, Mother Earth yin. Both required, necessary. Each complementary to the other. This is a day to get naked and dance around the bonfire. If you’re Swedish. If not, you can go ahead. I give you permission.

This holiday celebrates fecundity, mutuality, heat, procreation, gestation. It celebrates those aspects of our lives which support our work, inner or outer. Whatever has emerged from your garden, again inner or outer, will need care to bloom, to fruit, to nut, to mature. Celebrate what you do to lift up yourself, your family, your friends. Make sure that part of your life has enough sustenance, so those relationships, your projects, don’t wither, turn brown before the harvest.

The Earth tilts fully toward the Sun today. 3:44 pm MDT. 23 degrees and 26 minutes, pointing the Tropic of Cancer directly toward our Star. And, it rises as high in the northern Sky or as low in the southern Sky, as it will all year.

Which brings to me my favorite fact about today. This is the longest day of the year. From this day forward the nights grow longer until we get to the yang holiday of the Winter Solstice. Hello, darkness my old friend. I’ll come to visit you again.

*see Ancient History for a brief summary

Aging, Anoka County, Coronavirus, Denver, Dogs, Faith and Spirituality, Feelings, Friends, Great Wheel, Health, Jefferson County, Kabbalah, Mountains, Myth and Story, Original Relation, Our Land and Home, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, The West, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

At Her Funeral

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Beltane and the Moon of Sorrow

Thursday gratefuls: Gauze sponges. Wax o-rings for Kate’s leakage. Stoma powder. The chance to care for Kate. A forty degree morning on Shadow Mountain after 92 degrees in Denver on Monday. That silly Rigel, not acting her age. At all. Kep, the serious. Dog groomer today. The Kabbalah class. Folks liking my presentation. Workout yesterday.

Pine pollen season. Yellow streaks on the asphalt. Pollen lying on wooden tables, adding some color. The winds rushing through the Lodgepoles, shaking loose enough for a yellow storm. Part of the turning of the Great Wheel. That I could do without personally. But, how would we get baby Lodgepoles otherwise? Sneeze and bear it.

Wildfire danger remains high. Dry, Windy. Yesterday the Humidity in the loft was 2%, outside 6%. The arid West. A positive note. It was 80 degrees up here and a slowly rotating fan was all I needed to stay cool. Rigel, we’re not in Andover anymore.

A woman in my kabbalah class wants my Grammar of Holiness read at her funeral, “…whenever that may be.” A strong positive reaction to it from the class. Rabbi Jamie’s going to reprint in the synagogue newsletter, the Shofar.

Always thought my reimagining faith project would be a book, a radical theology with chapters and footnotes and acknowledgements. Nope, two pages. There it is. It feels said to me. We’ll see if I continue to feel that way.

After reading several pieces about Covid and underlying medical conditions, Kate and I have decided to become coronavirus hermits. Our hermitage, Shansin, on top of Shadow Mountain. We’ll ride it out with as little flesh and blood contact as we can stand. Would sound bleak, but Zoom helps, and we’re introverts, happy with each other, ourselves, and our dogs.

And, given recent news, I will add: white, privileged, financially secure, and aging with good medical care.

Still no word from the Singapore government. Seoah may fly there next Tuesday. May not. Covid has impacted lives in so many different ways. This is just one of them, but it’s personal, right here.

From Shadow Mountain, where the sun is rising and the morning is cool.

Dogs, Family, Friends, Health, Jefferson County, Mountains, Myth and Story, Original Relation, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, The West, Third Phase

Sanshin Speaks

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Beltane and the Moon of Sorrow

Sunday gratefuls: Two Elk bucks, eating dandelions in our backyard. Kep, stepping on my eye in his surprise at seeing them. Seoah, bleary eyed, “I got video!” Sanshin reminding me of the reassurance he sent last June, just before I started radiation therapy. Reassuring me now. Wild neighbors. Who go where they want, when they want. For whom humans are at best a nuisance. For my heart, which follows my wild neighbors

Kep likes to get up, then lay down on me in the morning. It’s part of our getting up ritual. When he does, though, he can see out our bedroom window. This morning he let out a bark and lunged forward, putting his right foot on my right eye. Ouch. Good thing eyelids move fast.

As I let Rigel and him outside, I saw what had caused Kep to react. Two Elk bucks stood on our drainage field, eating dandelions. Talk about the web of life. They are huge, as big as the Cow Moose I saw last week, perhaps a bit bigger.

Neither Rigel nor Kep barked at them. The two Dogs and the two Elk eyed each other. Kep and Rigel went off to pee and wander around the yard. The Elk continued eating dandelions. Elk Bucks, healthy ones anyway, can fend off Wolves and Mountain Lions, so Kep and Rigel were no threat to them. Kep and Rigel seemed to get that, too.

At first I thought these couldn’t be the two who came last June 17th to reassure me before my radiation therapy started. One of those had only one antler. Then. Oh. Yeah, the horns grow back each year. Could well be the same two, back to their secret stash of the yellow flower. Right now they’re resting among the lodgepoles in the northeast corner of our property. Last year they stayed the night.

Yes, the radiation has been on my mind. It was a year ago this month that my imaging work was complete, the new diagnosis finished. I knew the radiation would start, but I wasn’t sure quite when.

These two Elk, come again for our dandelions, have also come again to soothe the part of me that remains anxious, uncertain. No definitive news on the effectiveness of the radiation until November. Dave died last week and a needleworker friend of Kate’s died last week, too, also of glioblastoma. Cancer always wants to kill you.

Commentary on the news, Feelings, Friends, Mountains, Politics, Shadow Mountain, The West, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

A Change in the Weather

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Beltane and the Moon of Sorrow

Saturday gratefuls: Gray rain Clouds over Black Mountain. The blue Sky behind and above them. The two young Bucks dining on our grass yesterday. This weakened body, ready to be free from Lupron…and cancer. Protests. And, the protesters. The police. Those whose lives have been damaged in the last six months whether by Covid, or job loss, or police brutality. Each Black life heartened. A new day dawning. I fervently hope.

Ghosts. During my workout yesterday I did a triceps exercise, close-grip on workout bench. I could hear Dave telling me, “If you want to make it harder, just take your chest closer to the bench.” It was as if he were in the room, encouraging me. The reality of the experience shocked me.

All day yesterday and still this morning a gray cloud like the one over Black Mountain hangs in my inner world. Not quite to melancholy, but close. This world is too much with me, late and soon.

I wonder, why am I not like this all the time right now? That’s an encouraging thought. Why? Because it means I’ve learned to accept the reality around me, the moments of grace as well as the moments of sadness and sorrow. I’m not pushing either of them away, nor am I letting any of them dominate me. They come and they go.

Shadow Mountain is far away from Lake and Hiawatha in Minneapolis. Far away from my friends joining with others there. Far away from the folks with whom I worked over many years. It feels strange to not be there. Just another of the wispy clouds floating in the sky of my inner world.

The outer winds blowing here this morning are coming from the east, not usual. It’s as if the power of change sweeping through the Twin Cities has caused a change in our Front Range weather. May it be so for us, and the rest of our country, the rest of our world.

Family, Great Wheel, Jefferson County, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, The West

900 lbs .10 oz

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Beltane and the Moon of Sorrow

Friday gratefuls: Shavuot. Rabbi Jamie. Tara. Marilyn. Alan. Ron. Rich. Judy. Susan. Sleeping well, always good. Oxygen concentrators. The engineers who designed them. As Mark said yesterday in an e-mail, remember your well pump. Wildfire. Soap. Lysol. Used in the right places, of course. Bleach. Shampoo. Laundry detergent. The world beyond our driveway. The moose and the hummingbird.

I saw a moose! About a half mile from home. A mature, and very big, female. She was in a neighbor’s yard, heading toward the back. I could see her against the house so scale was pretty obvious. Moose cows can be be up to 1,100 pounds though I doubt she was that big. Maybe 900? And tall. Around six feet at the shoulder.

Moose do wander around our area, though they’re not common. Folks have seen them at Flying J Ranch, in the meadow at the bottom of Shadow Mountain Drive, Kate and Gabe saw a female at the pond in the little meadow about a mile down the hill from us. This one was in the opposite direction, on Black Mountain Drive headed toward Evergreen.

She looked back over her shoulder at me as I drove by, then sauntered off toward the forested incline that began behind the house. If you go up and over Black Mountain or Conifer Mountain near our house, you find yourself in Staunton State Park, a large and beautiful place. No roads that way though. To reach it by car you have to get on Hwy 285 and drive a few miles. I imagine that’s where they come from.

But, wait. That’s not all. Both Kate and I rescued hummingbirds yesterday. One was in the loft and the other in her sewing room. My little guy wanted to get out the window facing Black Mountain Drive. After opening the window and trying to let him out on his own, I picked him up in a kleenex and let him fly away. Kate used cloth.

The moose was fun. But, the hummingbirds seem meaningful since both Kate and I did the same thing, maybe to the same bird, on the same day. Gonna have to think about it. Let it sink in.

Hummingbirds are sort of the local bird. Many people put out hummingbird feeders. They come here in large numbers. We have a feeder, still hanging in the same place it was when we moved in. I don’t fill it because feeding wildlife of any kind leads to habituation. And, habituation is not good for wild animals.

Based on some quick googling, I’d say mine was a broad-tailed male. Our eyes met when I opened the window and his small body moved slightly toward me. I could feel his intelligence and his calm. He was not anxious, just wanted back outside. When I picked him up, he did not struggle. I used the Kleenex to keep my scent off of him. It fell to the driveway as he flew quickly away.

The female moose, maybe 900 pounds. The hummingbird, .10 ounces or 3.16 grams. Life in its extremes. Both living in these mountains. Both with intention and mobility. Our neighbors. Our wild neighbors.

Lucky we live in the Rockies.

Aging, Family, Friends, Mussar, Our Land and Home, Poetry, Shadow Mountain, Talmud, Third Phase

I witness. I wait.

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Beltane and the Moon of Sorrow

Thursday gratefuls: MVP last night on calmness of soul. Calmness of soul. Kate’s many improvements, her seder practice. Seoah’s frittata. Rain. Thunder. Another cool morning. Pictures of nearby bears on Nextdoor Shadow Mountain. One really big guy. Cataracts maturing. The morning sun, rising bright.

I have no clue how others see me. For some reason. Weird to discover this at 73, but there you are. The person my ancient friends described a couple of weeks ago? Huh? I mentioned this to Kate and she said, well, you’ve never cared how others see you. True. And, not true. I mean, I want to be seen favorably; but, I’m not willing to pay for it with my integrity. No one wants to be reviled. At least I don’t think so. Not sure what this means, but it feels strange to realize.

Got pretty far behind on the Talmud. Questioning my commitment. Is it worth the amount of time required? Maybe not for me. I can’t tell if this question has arisen because I’ve let it slip, 7 days now, or because I find it interesting, but only sometimes. Maybe not enough to keep at it for seven and a half years? Yes, I like long projects. But. I also have to like the long project itself. Leaning toward bagging it.

Loft reorganization report. Yes, you might be surprised to know that this is still underway. Getting much closer, but the fiddly stuff toward the end always takes a while. Filing. Redoing some decisions. Maybe this week? Really looking forward to a finished job.

Why so slow? A major job. Paying attention to other things led to me piling books and papers here and there. Not exactly new, but I let it go on for a while. Then. OK. This is too much. Things have to change. Passed that point well over a month ago. I’m moving furniture, books, files, painting and sumi-e brushes, inks, paints. Had to clear off the tops of the book shelves to accommodate new additions to my library.

Also, I can only work on it for a limited period of time until I get weary. This is a psychic thing I don’t fully understand. Yes, there’s a lot of mental energy in deciding what to do with this and that, where that file or set of files needs to be, which books go together, how I can set up my painting and sumi-e to best support my work. OK. Maybe that explains it actually. Well, that plus Lupron.

Oh. Final introspection. My practice for calmness of soul is, whenever I see my image-mirror, zoom, elsewhere-I will recall this phrase from Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself: I witness and I wait. See below.

From Song of Myself, Walt Whitman

Trippers and askers surround me,
People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and city I live in, or the nation,
The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new,
My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,
The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,
The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or loss or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations,
Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news, the fitful events;
These come to me days and nights and go from me again,
But they are not the Me myself.

Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,
Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,
Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,
Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.

Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders,
I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait