Category Archives: Shadow Mountain

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Seek-Keepers, Shadow Mountain

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Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

Thursday gratefuls: The Snow. Lodgepoles branches beginning to droop. Black Mountain white hard to see from my office window. Cold Nights for restful sleep. My Wild Neighbors know nothing of elections, only feel the results, often years later. This Rocky Mountain Natural heaven will remain, beautiful and magnificent. So will the lakes of northern Minnesota. The gales of November will still strike Lake Superior. Great Sol continues to brighten the shoreline of Maine first of our land blessed Nation. The Pacific laps on the beaches of Oahu, Kilauea breathes Fire and Rock, new Land rises just off the Big Island. Pele was not destroyed by the election. Nor the One who gathers all to its embrace and creates novelty, wholeness. This Land, our Land, from Pine Ridge to Ship Rock, shared still with all those who came here before us and who will be here after we are. Gratitude itself.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Friends

Kavannah: contentment and joy

One brief shining: The power of conversation, of holding each other, of being with each other, of walking each other home has never been more profound for me than in these waning days of 2024 as my nation shifts out from under my feet, giving voice to the cruel and frightened, and threatening those whom I love, who mean more to me now than they did three days ago.

As I’ve said to some, I read a Robert Reich quote yesterday: “The resistance starts now!” And thought. No. Not for me. That was my 2016 response, yes. At 77, another, different response seems called for. At least for me.

Doesn’t mean I don’t think Trump and his MAGAT’s should not be resisted. I do. For sure. Just not by me.

I feel an obligation to a different version of the now and to the future. In this now I want to expend my reduced energy on those I love: family and friends. To be there for them, to support them in whatever way I can.

I also feel an obligation toward and for the future. In part it is now. That is, as an elder I  need to keep my values visible, not through political action anymore, but through one-to-one, and small group moments. Through my writing. Through reading and keeping current on political thought, on the currents of the times.

Also, I will continue to donate money to organizations doing what I consider radical work. The Land Institute, seeking perennial feed grains. Seed Savers Exchange. The regenerative farming movement. The Wildlife Sanctuary. Congregation Beth Evergreen. The natural rights legal movement. The chiampas and axolotl restoration work in Mexico. In my view these organizations and others like them work to soften the blows of climate change, to change the way humans live on and with Mother Earth.

And, too, I will through reading keep up with them and what they’re doing.

Buddy Tom Crane suggested Seed Keepers as a name for this work, echoing a new novel of the same name, The Seed-Keepers. I’m going to adopt this name for my work and hereby name myself a Seed-Keeper. If you want to be one, too, let’s talk.

Herme Harari Israel

Cinema and Television, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Judaism, Mountains, Mussar, Shadow Mountain, US History

Seeking Contentment and Joy. Losing them.

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Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

Tuesday gratefuls: Sadness. Unhappiness. Dismay. Prostate cancer. Dr. Buphati. That P.A. Kristie. Contentment. Joy. Pain. 1883. Ilsa May. Her role as Elsa Dutton. Cold Nights. Snow. Wild Neighbors. The West. Comanche. Lakota. The Great Plains. Buffalo. A Wild and undiscovered country still. The West of my heart.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Home

Kavannah for election week: Contentment and Joy

One brief shining: In a small office at Rocky Mountain Cancer Care I experienced dismay, unhappiness, a strange intersection of politics and self care, and again, as I did on the drive home three weeks ago from RMCC, I felt alone, this time in the usual patient’s chair listening to the P.A. say they had no PSA for me.

 

First jolt was seeing a P.A. instead of Dr. Buphati. I liked him, was counting on his knowledge to guide me through what came next. She offered to go get him. She said she did not care either way. This was the strange intersection of politics and self care. I wanted to see Buphati, but I didn’t want to deny her skills, her right to be there. Feminism strong in me. In medicine especially. Kate.

Second jolt. We have no PSA for you. I deflated. This appointment was supposed to define the next steps in a journey that had made confusing turns over the summer and early fall. Why not? How can you not know?

She said (I don’t remember her name, if it even got through the fog.) I just got assigned.

Then I got unhappy and said so. I’m unhappy and disappointed. I don’t understand how after three weeks you don’t have it. My expectations about knowing what comes next had me in knots. I wanted, no needed, to know and I couldn’t. But why? In the end it didn’t matter.

Go ahead, I waved my hand dismissively. Still trying to reorient. She handed me the results of the DNA results for my cancer cells. Nothing of significance. That means no clinical trials, no targeted therapies. Oh. I took the papers, glanced at them, wondering where my readers were. Nothing of significance. Oh.

In the end she went to get Dr. Buphati. Who came in masked, as was she. Making it difficult for me to hear. He agreed I had every right to be upset. That somehow the lab didn’t have the results. I told him my upset had started back in June when my PSA went up after my drug holiday. Then went down after going back on Orgovyx. My visit to the radiation oncologist who said I had hormone resistant cancer. After which Kristie said, no. Not without rising PSA on two drugs. Erleada came next. This was the PSA measure that would tell the difference. But there were no test results.

We talked for a bit more. His knowledge and clarity helped me calm, but the dismay and the sadness had already burrowed their way into my feelings of the moment. When the phlebotomist, a kind Latina, young, asked me how I was, I said feeling down. And I was. She knew that already. Helped me put on my jacket.

I wanted contentment and joy. They were/are my intentions for this week, but I lost them at the words no PSA results. I wanted to be calm, clear, kind. But I wasn’t. I felt let down by Dr. Buphati, by RMCC. No mussar moves came to mind.

So the valet got my car and I drove away toward the Mountains, wanting only to be home.

 

Just a moment: That was yesterday. I got some Chicken wings, cole slaw, and Potatoes at Safeway, drove to Shadow Mountain, and binged 1883. Soothing myself. Letting myself feel sad, disappointed.

In 1883 I witnessed one of the best dramatic performances I’ve seen. Ilsa May, a young actress, plays Elsa Dutton who turns 18 as her family makes their way as part of a wagon train headed to Oregon. Her arc from bonneted, piano-playing Tennessee girl to cowgirl, then wife of a Comanche warrior and becoming a warrior herself was an alembic for my feelings. In seeing Elsa take the real agonies and the ecstasies of young maturation I rode with her. Seeing a way through the self-inflicted responses I had. Better this morning. Much better. Thanks, Elsa.

Asia, Denver, Plants, Shadow Mountain

Navigation

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Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

Shabbat gratefuls: Gaza. Palestinians. Israel. Iran. Lebanon. Syria. River Otters in K.L. Herons, too. Mary, Mark, Guru. Daylight saving time. (Just kidding, I’m not grateful for this.) Ginny, Janice, and Luke. Primo’s. Pinõn and Oak. Kindling. Ready for Yule. Santa Fe. Clay Fireplaces. Shadow Mountain’s Fireplace. (Is a shower a Waterplace?)

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Hardwoods

Kavannah: CONTENTMENT   Histapkut הִסתַפְּקוּת  Contentment, simplicity, moderation; from ספק to divide/apportion  (נַחַת Nachat: Satisfaction, gratification, comfort) (קִמּוּץ Kimutz: Minimalism, frugality, thrift)

One brief shining: Drove down the hill yesterday to Variety Firewood, took a wrong road and found decommissioned Army Fort Logan, a rush of familiarity from having spent time at Warner/Robbins, Hickam, and Osan USAF bases, unexpected, wandered around a bit, gave up, with reluctance entered the address into my GPS, and found it.

Panoramic image of Fort Logan, 1908, William Bevington

Yeah. Occasional luddite here. I like to use maps and my own sense of direction. Often, three times in the last thirty days for example, and I just realized this, I’ll navigate on my own having looked at Google Maps before I go, only to discover a filigree in the turns or exits that I forgot or mistook. Realized that if I used maps as I used to, I’d have the map with me. That sturdy, paper simulacrum of this place or that. Nope. Now I look at an electronic map, put the key moves in my memory and drive on.

Gonna continue to do this. I like getting lost, seeing things I hadn’t expected, didn’t know were there. Like decommissioned Fort Logan which gave me a start with its similarity to the places my boy has lived over the last fifteen years. Its Civil War era buildings are still there, too. At least some of them. Its large parade ground, too. Part of it has become a National Cemetery.

I also enjoy wandering through different neighborhoods, seeing how people live. What stores are there. In this instance I got to see the Halloween decorations of these lower middle class/working class homes. Some quite elaborate including a looming pirate and several witches.

Small, split Oak

Yes. I did find Variety Firewood. An interesting place. A huge open area with used/junked cars against a tall chain link fence, then piles of Pine wood with huge sections, piled higher than me, smaller split logs piled around a large Conifer. Concrete highway markers made bins next to them: Oak. Pinõn. Cedar. Pallets near the ramshackle old house OFFICE held split logs of Cherry, Apple, Hickory, more Oak.

Behind all these old signage, big ones, cluttered around each other reminding me of the warehouses in New Orleans that hold Mardi Gras float decor.

Thanks to Celebrex I opened Ruby’s trunk and loaded her up with Oak and Pinõn. Enough to make her tail heavy as I drove home. They had no logs, only split wood. Which, for most folks would be fine. I want to find a location that has whole logs of Fireplace size. Hardwood. Until I do a couple of the largest split Oak pieces will have to do. The Pinõn will perfume Shadow Mountain home.

The old woman in the office warned me not to trip over her dog’s long rope. She came out, measured the wood I’d selected, and for it and a box of kindling I paid $27. In Minnesota this would have been exorbitant. Here in the arid West, and down the hill from my Mountain home where only Pine is available, a price I paid without complaint.

Stopped at Oyama Sushi on the way home for a sashimi lunch.

Family, Fourth Phase, Health, Politics, Shadow Mountain

The Obstacle is the Way

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Mabon and the 3% crescent of the Sukkot Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Teshuvah. The Shema. A unified metaphysic. Cancer. Prostate and all other forms. Oncologists medical, radiational, and urological. The Fates: Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos.* Rebecca in India. Mark still in K.L. Mary and Guru, too. Songtan, South Korea. San Francisco. The Twin Cities. Maine. The Rocky Mountains. Boulder. Denver. Where my close people live.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Cold Air

Kavannah: Teshuvah

One brief shining: Turned off Union Avenue, found a parking spot, crossed the small bridge over the I’m sure well intended faux creek, into the zombie office building, one of hundreds, maybe thousands in the Denver metro, found the elevator and pressed 4 in the five story building, got out and walked down the long hall, empty office spaces splayed out on either side, only two occupied on the whole floor, Locomotive Services and Mile High Hearing, where my newly refurbished hearing aid got returned to me, bluetoothed to my phone of course as it would be, right?

 

A few now barriers to being clear as the Scientologists say:

1. Government ban on Kaspersky antivirus and password manager has forced me to get a new password manager. Bitwarden. I found a way to transfer all my passwords to it, but it’s new to me and doesn’t work the same way Kaspersky did. Means I often to have to stop for something formerly automated. A first world problem for sure. But…

2. That 529 that will help Ruth pay her college bills? I’ve gotten everything into them, twice. Except. They don’t like the declaration my lawyer sent them saying I inherited 100% of Kate’s assets. They want a small estate affidavit. For estates under seventy-nine thousand dollars or so. Doesn’t make sense to me. I’ve been at this since early August. Unresolved.

3. Herme. My time of mourning, early grieving neon sign depicting the Hermit from the Wildwoods Tarot deck has gone dark. Need to call an electrician.

4. My once upon a time reliable handyman, Vince, has ghosted me on a few tasks. Do I start a relationship with someone new? Always something of a hassle. He also does my snowplowing. ?

5. Only non-first world issue here. See Buphati, my new medical oncologist, again this Monday. He’ll give me my PSA to see if I fit into castration resistant or castration sensitive diagnostic criteria. He will also update me on the DNA of my cancer cells and whether there’s some treatment modality available.  Also, when I’ll need another PET scan. Probably, too, how, if at all, radiation factors in to my next treatments.

Just a moment: As we will have to learn how to adapt to full on climate change, we may have to learn how to live in a dramatically changed nation. My teeth gnashing, dooms day for democracy feelings are gone. I’m ready to push into the next phase of our nation’s history. If necessary.

  • THE FATES and their roles
  • Clotho: The spinner, who spun the thread of human fate
  • Lachesis: The allotter, who dispensed the thread
  • Atropos: The inflexible one, who cut the thread to determine the moment of death 

Great Wheel, Minnesota, Plants, Shadow Mountain, Sport

Memories

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Mabon and the Sukkot Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Ruth and Gabe here. The darkness before dawn. Using the Lenovo. Family. My son. Seoah. Murdoch. Mary. Mark. Diane. The Good Fight. Jon. Kate, always Kate. Electric blanket and a down comforter. Plus a cool night. Winter storms next week.

Sparks of joy and awe: Time with the grandkids

Kavannah: UNDERSTANDING   Bina     Understanding, differentiation, deep insight; from בּוּן to split, pierce/penetrate; also בֵּין between  Third Sefirah = Left brain (opposite Chochmah/Wisdom) (Tevunah,  Comprehension, analytical thought, reason & intellect)

One brief shining: After a good day at Boulder on Thursday, good day=not in pain or overly exhausted, began to rethink my life, yeah, I know, again, maybe getting out even more, or maybe moving around more, not exercise, but going places, doing something for fun, spontaneity and joy mixed in with seriousness and focus.

 

Right now, late October, when I turn off the light as I go to bed, I can look up at a tall Lodgepole in my backyard and placed as if by an angel is a star that crowns it. Twas the Night Before Christmas comes to mind. More though. I see how crowning a “Christmas” tree with a star probably came to be. Christmas is in quotes because the Evergreen Tree in mid-Winter is part of the Yule tradition, symbolizing eternal life.

I plan to have a Yule log this Winter. Still haven’t gotten down to Variety Firewood to look for sizable hardwood logs and pinõn, but I will. Maybe Sunday after lunch with Alan.

Hanukah, the Jewish festival of fire and light for the darkness, comes very late this year starting on Christmas day and ending on January 2nd, in the new year 2025.

Long ago and far away from the Rocky Mountains in the bustling small town of Alexandria, Indiana, I carried newspapers for the Alexandria Times-Tribune where my dad worked. I had two routes. The first one I thought of as the Monroe Street route. It started on Monroe Street a block or so west of the Nickleplate railroad tracks. It wound through neighborhoods near Thurston Elementary School, the new one where I attended 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades.

The second route, the Harrison route, had more customers, started north of Monroe Street and ran to the town limits out near the ruins of the Kelly Ax Factory.

On both of them I enjoyed the time alone, folding newspapers into small squares and deftly curling them onto my customers porches. All except the big edition on Thursdays that carried all the grocery store ads my dad had sold the previous week. That one we rolled up and put a rubber band around. They flew through the air pretty well, but not as accurately as the smaller squares.

Point of this? Saw a brief story about Freddie Freeman’s walkoff home-run in the bottom of the 10th against the Yankees in the World Series. I used some of my paper route money to buy a transistor radio I could clip on my belt while I carried papers. I often used it to listen to baseball games. I was a Dodger fan.

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Minnesota, Mountains, Shadow Mountain

Love is more powerful than discomfort.

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Grandma. At Chief Hosa lodge

Mabon and the Sukkot Moon

Monday gratefuls: Boulder. Ruth. Snarfs. The Flatirons. The greens as Great Sol sank below the horizon. Grandpopping. Podcasts. One on crime and disorder. Another on Walter Benjamin. Falling. Of the Aspen Leaves. The dry Willow Leaves blow away, many carried downstream by Maxwell Creek. Samain only 10 days away. Simchat Torah Wednesday.

Sparks of joy and awe: UC Boulder

Kavannah: Compassion  Rachamin

One brief shining: Ruth and I sat at a blue metal table on Pearl Street, Boulder’s main drag, our paper wrapped sandwiches spread out in front of us, mine a french dip sans jus, hers something with nothing animal, a few cars drove by since we were far from the Mall, Leaves finished with their seasons work lay scattered on the sidewalk as we spoke of painful childhoods, death, deception, and treachery.

 

Our initial impetus for moving to Colorado came after I attended an Ira Progoff retreat in Tucson. In a meditation on the next stepping stones of my life I realized Kate and I needed to be here in Colorado for the kids. Reinforced on the drive back when I showed up at Jon and Jen’s with no warning to Ruth. She saw me, turned and ran back in the house. That was April of 2014.

Kate agreed. We gave ourselves two years to make the move. Momentum took over though and by that October Kate had been in Colorado as our scout, finding a house. I knew I would dither and Kate was decisive. 9358 Black Mountain Drive. In the Mountains as we both wanted. Jen called it Mountain fever and was mad that we’d not moved closer. We however were not coming to be babysitters, but grandparents.

Andover and its gardens, its bees, its orchard, its woods had become too physically demanding for us. Kate had retired three years before. It was an inflection point for us. We still had four dogs: Kepler, Rigel, Gertie, and Vega. As the Winter Solstice neared Tom Crane and I got in our Rav4 with tranquilized Kepler, Rigel, and Vega. Drove straight through. Rather, Tom did. We talked the whole way only stopping when one mammal or another had to pee. Kate left a day or so later in a van I had packed full with items we didn’t trust to the movers. She had Gertie with her, feeding her Whoppers on the way out. Well. Parts of Whoppers. Which Kate reported Gertie approved.

In the Garden Andover

Leaving the Twin Cities after forty years, a bit longer for Kate, was tough. I had friends, especially the Woolly Mammoths, and I had immersed myself in the cultural life of the Twin Cities: The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra where Kate and I met. The Science museum which Joseph and I loved. The Children’s Theater, The Guthrie, the MIA, the Walker. Both of us had spent hours and yet more hours planting, weeding, living with dogs, caring for bees and extracting honey. Sitting by the firepit. Just being together in a place we shaped from our first days there.

Yet. The call of being with our grandkids as they grew up in what we knew were challenging circumstances with an angry mother and father felt compelling.

Kate and Ruth developed a strong, strong bond. Kate helped Ruth learn to cook, sew, be a Jew, and a young woman. I took Ruth on adventures to museums, the National Western Stockshow, hikes in the Mountains. Gabe, too. When Kate died, then Jon, Barb, Jen’s mother aka Tennessee Grandma, and I were left. Barb had to move to into an assisted living spot and sees the kid’s less.

I would have gone to Hawai’i in spite of all this had I not figured out that my son and Seoah’s return there was not certain as I’d initially thought. Glad it turned out that way. Ruth and I have become close, Gabe as well. I’m an important, stable, calm presence in both of their lives. They both love Shadow Mountain Home, being up here.

Now I drive to Boulder once or twice a month. Gabe comes up and stays for a couple of nights. Critical for them, I believe. And, me. When I think about them, about my son and Seoah, about Mark and Mary and Diane, then about cancer, I can see keeping up with treatments as long as they are life extending. Love is more powerful than discomfort.

Art and Culture, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Letters, Literature, Myth and Story, Painting, Shadow Mountain, Wild Neighbors, Writing

Wish me joy and persistence

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Mabon and the Harvest Moon

Monday gratefuls: The Ancient Brothers on Ode’s art. Art. Painting. Water color. Cut paper. Paper marbling. Computer aided. Charcoal and pastels. Oils. Acrylic. Sculpture. Furniture design. Architecture. Music. Chamber music. Jazz. Writing. Novels. Short stories. Poems. Poets. Writers. Painters. Sculptors. Musicians. Movies and television. Story and image.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Uffizi

Kavannah: Teshuvah

One brief shining: Today I’m pulling out the 3/4’s finished first draft of Jennie’s Dead, plan to read it, red pencil in hand, waiting to reinsert myself into its flow, the story as I started it so many years ago, wanting to reclaim my life as a creator of worlds, of characters, of ideas expressed in things that would never have been and never could be without the mysterious work of creation. And, it is work.

 

Probably time, too, to print out Ancientrails from the point where I stopped the last time. Not sure how long ago it was, but it was awhile. Easy to check since I have the plastic tubs filled with the first printing, some two million words, stored on wire racks in the loft. I want, so badly, to get my mojo back. My writing mojo. I let it slide as I let myself get overwhelmed by the world of illness, hers and mine. The long, slow process of Kate’s dying. Didn’t have to let it go, but I did and I’ve sunk a bit since then, a light in my heart dimmed.

Going through the outer world of friends and family, Mountains and Streams and Wild Neighbors, of Judaism and the pandemic, of wrestling with back pain, often with little success. None of this bad or shallow or wrong. No. Necessary, kind, fulfilling. Yet the stream from which I had drunk so giddily for 20 years, the Andover years, dried up. The aquifer that fed it drained and not renewed.

Writing and my current worst ailment, a back preventing me from walking more than short distances, making work around the house often more than I can do, fit well together. I can do it like I’m writing this. And, I can keep at it, like Ode, until I reach the end. Why would I do that? For the same reason my brother-in-law, Jerry the painter and maker, is in a spasm of creativity knowing his heart could give out at any time. For the same reason Ode believes his best art is ahead of him. And now, ta da, a sports metaphor! To leave it all on the field. To have held nothing back. To have gone as far as I can. Not sure I know why beyond that. Please wish me joy and persistence.

This is then, a matter for teshuvah, for a return to the land of my soul. Yes, there’s that word again. Soul. Where is it? Don’t know. Is it a metaphor for the whole of me, an ensouled body and lev? Yes, but more, I believe. The something more is that which links my ensouled body and lev to the other ensouled entities like my friends, family, my Lodgepole Companion, Great Sol, Elk and Mule Deer, Shadow Mountain. We are together, moving forward in constant creation, unique and separate, yet whole and infinitely connected. Perhaps that which is there to bond with all does not die, but rolls on, moving with the rest toward an unknown future, probably one bound tightly to a known past.

Politics, Shadow Mountain, The West, US History, World History

Grocery Stores and Shell Companies

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Mabon (Fall) and the Harvest Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Oops, forgot to write yesterday. Great workout. Faint dawn. Pinkish gray Sky. Spinning back into Great Sol’s line of sight. Vince and the decks. Figuring out the workout. Moving closer to the October surprise. Kamala and Tim. Gabe. The Shaggy Sheep. Guanella Pass. Vikings 3-0. Their game against the Packers. Muir Woods. Sequoias.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: finishing up the 529 transfer

Kavannah: Yirah

One brief shining: Richard Power’s new book Playground has an amazing jacket; as I read, just outside the edge of the page, it glimmers like the Ocean, an immersive feeling as if the book itself, about the Ocean, rests within its broad expanse, floating its narrative on gentle waves while underneath those waves giant Manta Rays, schools of colorful Fish, and creatures so bizarre as to be unimaginable if not observed float in its depths.

 

Got up late yesterday. Talked to Tom, turned in an extra good workout, read Power’s new book for a while, watched some TV, and Ancientrails slipped away from my notice. Rare. But it does happen.

 

On Tuesday I made another visit to Safeway, picked up my grocery order. While I waited, I thought about the map of grocery store chains in the morning’s Washington Post. The business logic of an Albertson’s/Kroger merger, at least in the West, is there to see. It would allow Albertson’s to dominate the urban West while Walmart takes care of the rest.

It would affect us in Conifer. With King Soopers, a Kroger grocery, and Safeway, of the Albertson family-our two grocery stores-we’ve been notified our Safeway would close. I used to shop at King Soopers and could return there. With my budget the need for careful comparison between the two is unnecessary. If, however, I had a family and watched the pennies, I’d feel cheated. Especially in this time of inflated grocery costs. I hope the FTC turns down the merger.

 

Tom told an interesting story about the SR-71, a retired spy plane hanging in the Air and Space museum outside Omaha. The docent who gave his group a tour said the titanium needed to build it, a lot, came from Russia during the cold war. How did our cold war enemy agree to something not in their self-interest? They didn’t. The CIA set up several shell companies around the world ostensibly making titanium cookware. Guess the Ruskies never checked how many pots and pans got made. BTW: The SR-71 had a top speed of Mach 3.5 or roughly 2,600 miles per hour.

I mention this because it seems the Israelis pulled off a similar feat with the pagers that exploded in Lebanon. They set up a company in Hungary that made and sold pagers and other small electronic communications devices. That’s a real long game. Explode the pagers to diminish Hezbollah’s ability to respond. Then assassinate leadership through targeted air strikes followed by more air raids aimed at munitions and missiles. An involved plan.

 

Just a moment: An election. Here. Soon.

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Great Wheel, Mountains, Plants, Politics, Shadow Mountain

Fall. Closer to November 5th

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Mabon (Fall) and the Harvest Moon

Autumn’s first morning!

The bare foot knows it

on the newly

washed porch      Ishu

Sunday gratefuls: Snow. 35 degrees. Mountain living. Feeling ready. Chasbon nefesh. Teshuvah. The land of my soul. Shadow Mountain. Books. Writing. Thinking. Seasons. The Great Wheel. The month of Elul. New Year. Soon. Great workout. Barbecue from Fountain Barbecue. Election year 2024. Kamala and Tim. My Lodgepole Companion with their first bits of Snow on their branches.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Snow

Kavannah: Teshuvah

One brief shining: Fall came bearing Snow, near freezing temperatures, while I slept warm under my summer weight comforter, arising first to a slushy Rain which changed to the first Snow of the season about an hour ago, a slick driveway, the blue Asters a bit forlorn though soon to go to seed anyhow.

 

Firewood. Up here, mostly pine. No self-respecting Minnesotan would burn it. Too much creosote. Actually, a bias. All wood puts out plenty of creosote. Pine does, however, burn faster than hardwoods. By a lot. No loading the fireplace with oak or ash or elm for the night. However. Down the hill I can find hardwood firewood. Lots of deciduous trees in the high plains part of the Denver metro. One outfit has offered to let me go through their piles for Yule logs. I want to find some large oak or other dense hardwood to burn on the Winter Solstice as Yule logs. The concept: don’t let it burn up. Put it out, pull it out, and store it for next year to start the next Yule log.

I plan to pick up some pinõn, too. Sweet smelling. Perhaps some fruit woods as well. Too expensive to have someone deliver. Will store in the garage. Dry. Plan to go as hygge as I can this late fall and winter. Not sure what else I’ll do. Candles. Inviting friends over. Hot chocolate. Cozy blankets.

 

May be confirmation bias, almost certainly is to some extent, but I feel the winds shifting toward Kamala and Tim. In part because of their cash advantage, their ground game advantage energized by the debate, and the recent poll numbers I’m seeing. I respect Nate Silver’s reminder that 20% remains a 20% chance to win and both the orange one and K./T. are polling well above that. I know. I add to those positive trends the apparent disarray in the Trump campaign. He’s not got a good slam against Kamala. His policy positions are unclear-see abortion and taxes-or are too clearly tied to Project 2025.

Momentum, as I wrote a bit ago, carries the day and right now I believe Kamala and Tim have it on their side. And, it feels to me like the pace and inertial force of the momentum increases with each news cycle. May it be so.

 

Only for a moment, maybe 15 minutes, but we did have Snow. Then, cold Rain. 35 degrees this am. With the Aspen colonies flashing their season ending golden signals we have begun Fall on this, the autumnal equinox.

 

Cooking, Dogs, Dreams, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Garden, Great Wheel, Judaism, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Plants, Shadow Mountain

Oh, my

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Lugnasa and the Full Harvest Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: New credit card. Tom in Omaha. At the Air and Space museum. Good workout. Isaac coming today. Possible personal trainer. Ginny and Janice today. Cooling nights. Gold popping up here and there on Black Mountain. My son. His commitment. Palliative care. Sharpe. Salisbury Steak. A vegetable smoothie. Bad dreams.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Protein

Kavannah: Teshuvah   Returning to the land of my soul

One brief shining: Geez, ever have a night where the dreams stuck with you and you wish they hadn’t; last night I bought a used Porsche that had bald tires and rust, tried to preach in a synagogue bare foot which they said was ok, but couldn’t find my sermon, woke up agitated, out of sorts.

 

What dreams may come. Must have been feeling insecure last night. Perhaps because I got a Groveland UU e-wire announcing their dissolution. Kate and I were a part of Groveland from the beginning and I preached there off and on even after we moved to Andover, then the Rockies. I tried to help them grow. Didn’t have much luck. A feeling of failure. Though I never was their minister except for a brief period. Guess it is a feeling of failure. As I write this, I feel bad. Sad. Inadequate. Groveland was the place Kate and I landed after I left the Presbyterians.

Moods. As I’ve written. Need to return to the land of my soul. Which is here, today, this September 19th life of 2024. Shadow Mountain. Seeing friends. Living. How do I feel? Down. How do I feel? Grounded. How do I feel? Anxious. How do I feel? Sad. How do I feel? Inadequate. How do I feel? In my body. How do I feel? Grateful. How do I feel? Gathered in. How do I feel? Anxious. How do I feel? Surprised. How do I feel? Glad. How do I feel? Here. How do I feel? Sad/OK. How do I feel? Ashamed. How do I feel? Oh, yeah. How do I feel? In myself. How do I feel? Knowing. How do I feel? Back. Mostly

What I learned here was why I never served as a pastor. Not me. I’m a political activist, an organizer, but never a minister. Even though I tried on the role briefly. Twice. Kate told me it wasn’t me. She was right. I wanted to work. To mean something. Sure, that’s fine. But I couldn’t get to that being someone I wasn’t. I didn’t have the right skill set to help a congregation grow unless I was a consultant, not of the congregation. And I was not meant for a pastoral role.

I found work that mattered, that was me, in Andover. Gardener. Bee Keeper. Dog wrangler. Lumberjack. Cook. Husband. Writing. Learning. Oh, the joy I felt. We felt. How much time I wasted trying to fit into square holes when I was a plant shaped peg. A lover of dogs, plants, bees, writing, Kate.

Here in Colorado I have a new focus. The Mountains. Judaism. Friends and Family. Writing. Learning. All about love.