• Category Archives Plants
  • Noble? failures

    Yule and the Quarter Century Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Mini-splits. Elements and Elementals. The abyss. Sisyphus’ rock. Nietzsche. Whitehead. Plato. Socrates. Democritus. Diogenes. Thales. Xeno. Even Descartes. Kant. Maimonides. The Talmud. The Mishnah. The Torah. Coleridge. Wordsworth. Keats. Lao Tze. Chuang-tzu. Moses. Israel. Joseph. Miriam.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Our core story

    Kavannah for 2025: Creativity

    Kavannah for this January 3rd life: Joy

    One brief shining: Went to Stinker’s Sinclair yesterday to buy some milk, but there were no quart containers available, so I took four of the 16 ounce plastic bottles to the checkout where the clerk offered to make sure there were not any quarts in the back; while he did that, I looked across the counter to the other clerk, a thin guy with slightly long dark hair, maybe early twenties, and noticed that he carried an empty holster on his hip, tied to his right leg with a carefully knotted strand of leather.

     

    I’ve had a quiet week. Spoken to a few friends. Breakfast with Tara and with Alan this morning. Otherwise getting well back into a new workout routine, this time ensuring I do two full body resistance sessions a week and still aiming for the 150 minutes of moderate cardio. Not all the way there yet, but I can feel it coming.

    Reading. Finished the Tao of Pooh and ready to start the Te of Piglet, Hanukkah gifts from Ruth and Gabe. Von Bek, stalled in the story of the second Von Bek, The City in the Autumn Stars. Parsha in Bereshit (Genesis). Commentaries. The NYT. The Washington Post.

    Watching The Outpost, Seal Team, and Archer. Hawai’i 5-0 when I workout.

    Listening to Mozart quartets.

    Exchanging e-mails here and there.

     

    Listening to the voices of my past as they continue to bubble up. Wondering why I tend to focus on the noble failures more than the successes. At least I see them as noble.

    An example. We (odd, but I don’t who recall who “we” were.) heard one of the last remaining local seed companies, Northrup King, had entered into negotiations with Sandoz, the Swiss pharmaceutical giant. This purchase followed a trend of Big Pharma and Big Ag Chemical companies buying the smaller companies who sold seeds to farmers for each year’s new crop.

    Why? The smaller companies owned patents on the seeds. When there were many local seed companies, the hybridization processes were sensitive to regional and even local variations in soil, weather, pests, and other variables important to good crop production.

    The companies buying up the patents wanted two things (at least): control over the seed patents for crucial crops like corn, wheat, soy beans, and rice. Corn, wheat, and rice provide about 50% of the world’s calories according to chabotgpt. That control was step one. After they gathered (harvested?) these patents, these companies could centralize hybridization and begin the process of working on their genomes. This was in the mid-1980’s, when genetic manipulation was still in its infancy.

    We organized. Tried to form a local co-op to purchase Northrup-King and keep them out of Sandoz’s hands. We protested at the Northrup-King building which is now a wonderful space for artists. I met a person from the General Accounting Office of the Federal Government and tried to get her interested. We looked for a local buyer.

    This was prior to the internet so I subscribed to a company, a clipping service, that would provide relevant information published in magazines and newspapers throughout the U.S. We developed crude information packets for local media.

    All this over the course of 9 months to a year, as I recall. We were way out of our league. Barely had an effect on a process more critically handled in the world of finance than of local radical politics.

    In my mind a noble failure. We did, for a while, raise consciousness of the issue. We discovered novel ways to fight big corporations and their capitalist driven desire to dominate markets by any means necessary. Still, in the end, Northrup-King disappeared into the world of chemists and genetic engineers, their seed patents with them.

     


  • See

    Samain and the Yule Moon

    Shabbat gratefuls: Rabbi Jamie. Ginny and Janice. Luke and Leo. Torah. Aviva Zornberg. Art Green. Rami Shapiro. My Lodgepole Companion and their Companions. My son. Shabbat. Bereshit. Brother Mark in Bangkok. Mary in Oz. All Dogs. That Buck.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Perception

    Kavannah: Joy and Enthusiasm (zerizut)

    One brief shining: What’s that, over there by the neighbors, my eyes caught movement in the Lodgepoles, Branches moving, but no Wind, wait, wait, wait, oh, yes, there he is, that eight point Mule Deer Buck, the one whose photograph I posted; he comes often, always majestic, proud.

     

    Often I am reminded of our hominid ancestors, how their life on the veldt trained them to pick up on the slightest motion, the smallest movements of Grass, twitches in Leaves. A something out of sight, almost, at the very periphery of our vision. My ancestral brain lights up as it did yesterday when I saw a disturbance, not in the force, but in the Lodgepoles next to my neighbors.

    First check. Are other Branches moving? Could be Wind. No. No Wind. What then? Nothing was visible. It was moderately high up from the ground. Maybe a neighbor? No. The movement seemed to press forward without stopping and a human would have been scratched, bothered, maybe hurt. Wait.

    I stood there at my kitchen window. A spot where Kate and I still look out to our front on occasion. As we used to when she was alive. She would have wanted to see this. I waited and in his slow, purposeful way the Buck emerged, his rack having caused the Lodgepole Branches to sway. This is his Land, his Mountain. And he displayed that with each careful, but not hesitant step he took. Unlike the Does that come he did not scan his environment often, confident in his years and his weapons.

    Thanks again, Kate, for finding this spot on Shadow Mountain. In the Rocky Mountains and the Arapaho National Forest. Kate, always Kate.

     

    Just a moment: Following the Korean weirdness with less detachment than the usual American. Daughter-in-law Seoah has expressed her contempt for the current President, Yun Suk Yeol, comparing him to long red tie guy. She’s not alone among her compatriots as can be seen in the many photographs from Seoul featuring protesters in the streets.

    Also my son works alongside Korean military personnel. They’re not ones likely to get called out to enforce martial law, but they are under the overall command of the South Korean President.

    Yun survived his impeachment vote, but only just. His political power is gone. Will be interesting to see what happens next.

     

    Also following the continuing uproar over Brian Thompson’s murder and the virulence toward the whole health care system it has unleashed. Heather Cox Richardson’s post of December 5th placed the shooting in a long historical context which included this paragraph:

    “Today provided a snapshot of American society that echoed a similar moment on January 6, 1872, when Edward D. Stokes shot railroad baron James Fisk Jr. as he descended the staircase of New York’s Grand Central Hotel. The quarrel was over Fisk’s mistress, Josie, who had taken up with the handsome Stokes, but the murder instantly provoked a popular condemnation of the ties between big business and government.” Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, December 6th, 2024

    Once again, I condemn the taking of a human life. Yet. I also hope that a cleansing movement might arise from this shooting, a total restructuring of our oh so broken health care system. So many lives end too soon, come to debilitation because our health care system lacks transparency, empathy, and rationality. And again, I remind us that violence does not only come from a gun. It can also come from a letter in the mail, we have denied this procedure, that medication.


  • Blindness

    Samain and the Yule Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: For all the ways we learn and express ourselves. The Ancient Brothers on Gardener’s 8 intelligences. My son, Seoah, and Murdoch. Coming in January. Going to Korea in May. Maybe with Ruth. Snow. Mary. Mark. My family spread along an Asian crescent from Korea to K.L. to Brisbane. Far from Rocky Mountain high.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Learning

    Kavannah: Enthusiasm (Zerizut) and Joy (Simcha)

    One brief shining: Lit the candle yesterday, wrote 500 words on a why/how to celebrate Yule essay, starting with my personal journey this year, intending to produce 8 essays, one for each of the Great Wheel’s holidays, using stuff I’ve written and collected over the years.

     

    Spent yesterday in conversation over zoom with my son and Seoah in Songtan, Korea and Mary in Brisbane. Separate calls. Wrote to brother Mark in K.L. A bit weird. Sitting here on top of Shadow Mountain, in the Colorado Rockies, speaking directly to Korea and Australia. No latency. Clear pictures. Sound good. Pandemic tech and habits, a changed reality. Amazing to this small town Hoosier boy.

    Shadow Mountain Home as imagined by chatbotgpt

    Want to give a big shout out to Zöe Schlanger. An amazing intellect. Intrepid and careful reporting. The Light-Eaters. So many good quotes. Here’s an example. “I think of plants as primary and humans as secondary. Plants can do without us. We can’t do without plants.” Thank you, photosynthesis.

    Reminded me of the Iroquois medicine man I’ve often talked about. He delivered a prayer for the Soil and the Rocks, the Trees and the Mountains and the Oceans, those who swim in the Water and fly in the Sky but never mentioned humans. Why? Because, he said, humans are the most fragile and vulnerable of all creation. Without all the Plants and Animals and Water and Soil, humans can’t exist.

    In so many ways, so many obvious ways, we receive this message every day. Did you eat breakfast? Where did it come from? What was it? It was either a Plant or an Animal fed by a Plant. Did Night and Great Sol emerge this morning where you are? Imagine if Mother Earth decided to stop turning. How about the Water to fill up your Water bottle, the Water you used for that shower, or to wash your clothes and your dishes?

    We humans consider ourselves agents nonpareil, yet we could not accomplish basic tasks without an assist from Mother Earth. Thankfully, she is on our side. Even when we are not on hers. Nor could we continue above ground and taking nourishment without her and her gifts. Why are we blind to this?

     

    Just a moment: 45/47 continues to play tiddly winks with appointments to powerful positions. Now Patel, a man committed to gutting the FBI, nominated to head it. This is a revolution of the ill informed, driven by intentional ignorance and malevolence. Will the Senate do its job? Its advice and most critically consent role has never been more important.

    Have any good will left over from Thanksgiving? Time to access it now.


  • Visitation

    Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

    Shabbat gratefuls: Alan and Joanne. Book recommendations. Breakfast at the Parkside. Medical oncologist appointment. Mark getting stuff done. Mary. Her help. Family huddle. Distance. Zoom. Saudi. K.L. Oz. Korea. Rocky Mountains. San Francisco. Life in the age of instant, visual, very long distance communication.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: A simcard and a call

    Kavannah: Perseverance

    One brief shining: Walking on the black asphalt of my driveway to get the mail while three Mule Deer Does graze nearby, glancing up from time to time, the first year Buck with his spike of an antler looking around, eyeing me, then the does, not eating as often, his role; yesterday, opening my front door and seeing these two, the Doe right by the door and this mature Buck a bit further away, greeting them, taking their pictures.

     

     

     

    Mountain spirits continue to visit me. The yin energy so evident in the soft demeanor of the Doe, the pensive and a bit melancholy look in her eye. The Buck’s confident yang gaze at her, his 8 points ready for either his or her defense. Reminding me that I, too, have a Doe and Buck. A confident, ready for the battles of the psyche and the world Buck with 77 points and a vulnerable, sad Doe that looks at the Buck within and knows his vulnerability, too.

    Wild Neighbors come to my yard unbidden to eat Grass still green under the white cover of Snow, or the Bearberry, a low growing Evergreen plant that spreads over many sections of my unlandscaped property. The Mule Deer always have a gentle presence, seeming to know that even the strange two-legged means them no harm; that they don’t have to scurry away. I vacillate between being excited to greet them, telling them to enjoy the Grass and other food and wanting to chase them away, make them afraid of humans. Usually my greeting instinct wins the encounter.

    I don’t approach them, but I speak in a normal tone of voice, welcoming them and assuring them that sharing food with them is one of my life’s great joys.

    Some people think and I sometimes say that I live alone, but it is not true. Mule Deer and Elk. Moose. Mountain Lions and Black Bears. Beaver. Marmots and Squirrels. Corvids: Magpies, Ravens, Crows. Fox. Raccoon. Skunk. Brook Trout and Brown Trout. All live here in these Rocky Mountains. We try, all of us, to live harmoniously because harmony best enables us to go about our time here as we want.

    This is not to mention, of course, the Lodgepoles, the Aspen, the Willows and Dogwood, Bunch Grass, Bearberry, White Pine, Ponderosa lower down. All the photosynthesizers, the light-eaters. And the Mountain Creeks and Streams with their fish. Amphibians. Fungi. The whole blooming buzzing confusion of a Mountain eco-system.

    All held in the loving and stolid embrace of Mountains and their Valleys. My home.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     


  • It will be us. And, it will be so.

    Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

    Monday gratefuls: My sweet, kind Ancient Brothers. The Seed-Keepers. Veronica. Ruth. Gabe. Samain. The fallow time. Snow. Boulder. Snarfs. Shadow Mountain. Election 2024. Clarity. Warming. The Great Sol Snow Shovel. Tara. My Lodgepole companion. A Colorado Blue Sky.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Lunch with Ruth

    Kavannah: contentment and joy

    One brief shining: Strange to recalibrate a life at 76 yet I did just that a year ago this month, having my penis-my penis!-pricked (hah), disrobing and immersing myself in the mikveh, explaining my reasons for embracing a new way of life to a beth dein, house of judgement, and taking a new name, Israel, one who struggles with God.

     

    Israel. Part of my nom sacré, Herme Harari Israel. My fourth phase name. In the direct toledot, generations, of Abraham and Sarah. My now forever ancestors. This name also signals my continuing pagan life as the hooded man of Shadow Mountain. Feel free to refer to me by any name you wish.

    The Moon of Growing Darkness. A bit of explanation. You may think this refers to the election of long tie guy, but no. It refers to my joy as the days grow shorter and the nights increase, headed toward the Long Night, the Winter Solstice. Yule in the pagan way. My affection for the dark, for the night long proceeds long tie guy, proceeds cancer, proceeds Judaism.

    No, I’m not an owl. I love the mornings when my strength and intellect and creativity peak. But as much I love the darkness. Might have begun during those fall days in Andover when I would dig out and replenish the soil in the flower beds that arced around our lower level brick patio.

    As I worked, Folk Alley radio played in the background and a chill Minnesota fall day would make the task a deep joy. Lying not far from the tarp onto which I put the Soil would be brown bags full of Corms, Rhizomes, and Bulbs. With the Tulip Bulbs, I would place them in slightly raised rectangular wire baskets, place them at the right depth, then shovel Soil back over them with a bit of Organic matter mixed in. The Rhizomes,  new Irises that Kate had chosen, might go in next to the Tulips. On the next tier up of this three tiered bed I would sprinkle Daffodil Bulbs and plant them where they landed, going for a mass of yellow in the Spring.

    The Crocus Corms would go into the bed next to the front porch and that would come a bit later. This was a twenty year ritual, one I looked forward to because I loved the thought that within the nurturing Soil, beneath the Snow, tucked in warm against the bitter Minnesota Winters were these small capsules, no less amazing, perhaps more amazing than a space capsule, of life, holding within them enough nutrients and ancient wisdom to throw up a stalk when the temperatures signaled safety, push out leaves that would begin to gather more food for the all important Flower, that seductive botanical invention that draws Pollinators, and would, in time, die back as Seeds formed. Even though most of these Flowers never propagated by seed.

    How could a gardener not be in love with darkness? Seed-Keepers will work in the darkness of the coming red tie guy years. Tucked in warm against the bitter autocratic Winter, small communities ready to send up stalks when the political temperature is right. Then to send out Leaves and power a movement into Flowering. It will be us and it will be so.

    Yes, we had Morels in our Woods

  • Navigation

    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.


  • Memories

    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.


  • A Pagan Covenant

    Mabon and the Sukkot Moon

    Friday Gratefuls: The Sukkah. Harvest festivals. Celebrating the intimate link among humans, Great Sol, Mother Earth, and Seeds. Fall. The sweet, sad, soulful song of Aspens and their gold. Hygge. Coming soon to Shadow Mountain. Rabbi Jamie and his high holiday sermons. Ruth, who wants to eat together again. Sunday. Boulder. Kate, my love. Talking to her. Laurie and her Chi-town food truck. Tulsa King. On the Run. Phantom Toll Booth. The Iliad. Homer.

    Sparks of joy and awe: The Harvest

    Kavannah: Patience

    One brief shining: The CBE sukkah has wood lattice on its three sides, mesh grass matting for a roof, and three children’s decorated tapestries, with a lulav always on the table, the four species: branches of myrtle, palm, willow bound together and the etrog, a large citrus fruit separate from them, the branches waved north, south, east, west, up and down, while saying a bracha, a blessing, the etrog picked up at the end a blessing and a ritual which has a theme of Jewish unity, sure, but more to the point represents the moment in time, the harvest, which Sukkot celebrates.

    Seed Savers Exchange is one of the oldest and largest heirloom seed conservation organizations in the world.

    Email: diane@seedsavers.org

    Corn pickers and combines. Gathering in their mechanical dinosaur ways Corn, Wheat, other Grains. A rhythm with which I grew up. Farms all round my hometown of Alexandria, Indiana, around my mom’s hometown of Morristown and on the land between the two to the south, to Muncie on the east, to Elwood on the west, and Marion on the north. I learned early to always slow down on a gravel road if a hill blocked the view in your direction of travel. There might be a lumbering mechanized giant moving very slowly just over the crest of the hill.

    Later the grain trucks would back up to silos when the market was right and carry the harvest to elevators and their huge silos which held many farmer’s crops for loading on grain cars for dispersal to the General Mills, Kellogs, Cargills of the world. So ordinary. Common. Mundane. Usual. Wasn’t until l moved to the Rockies that I found myself apart from the rituals of agriculture.

    Oh, once in a while I’ll see a tractor harvesting hay off a Mountain Meadow, but that’s rare enough to be remarkable. There are Cattle in eastern and western Colorado, a few up here in the Mountains, but that’s ranching. It works to different rhythms and has slaughter as its grain truck to the elevator equivalent.

    As long as Kate and I lived in Andover, we observed the fall agricultural rituals albeit on a much smaller scale. Tomatoes. Potatoes. Onions. Beets. Carrots. Beans. Raspberries, Ground Cherries, Honey Crisp and Macintosh Apples, Pears, Cherries, Honey. Whatever we planted. Flowers, cut Flowers, too.

    Kate would can, dry, and we both would bottle honey. Then go out to the firepit and throw a few logs on, sit with the dogs milling around, and enjoy quiet time together. The harvest season. A feast. A moment when the covenant among Soil, Seeds, and human toil revealed its promise.


  • Tall lances of saffron flame

    Mabon and the Sukkot Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Aurora in Boulder. Ruth’s photo. Ruth. Mussar. The Neshamah. Our participation in all that is. The light of creation itself. Nefesh. How we interact with the world and are acted upon by it. It can conceal or reveal the neshamah. Teshuvah. Returning to the land of my soul. The writer. The classicist. Friend, brother, and cousin. A leader no longer. Simply present to the world around me.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: the language of Judaism

    Kavannah: Patience – wait for it

    One brief shining: The scattering of golden Leaves gives an artistic flair to my black asphalt driveway as the Mountain torches have lit up in my yard, tall lances of saffron flame, a momentary wealth that will spend itself in less than a month, like all wealth evanescent, yet while available a wonder though not a wonder that can be grasped, only beheld for its glorious punctuation to another season of the true and lasting abundance, growth in substance, in heartwood, Branches, Crown, Clones.

    The 10th of Tishrei. Starts this evening when three Stars can be seen in the Sky. Yom Kippur. Noted for its observance by those who may not practice observance at any other point in the year. The Day of Atonement. Yes to atoning for hamartia, missing the mark. Especially when the prayers are communal, as they are on Yom Kippur. If it were up to me, I would have us atone for failing to halt carbon emissions, for failing to bring true and lasting justice to communities of color, for othering LBGTQ and disabled persons, for hardening our hearts against our fellow citizens, for dismissiveness of the aged, and, hypocritically, for our cruel treatment of animals.

    Having said that I’d rather go with something like Make Sukkot Great Again. A positive celebration of our literal dependence on Mother Earth and Great Sol. Dancing with the Torah at Simchat Torah to express the joy of being alive, of having torah, that from which we can learn if only we study, available in all things. Doing an all nighter on Shavuot to celebrate the grain harvest. Retelling the story of liberation with friends and strangers at Passover. Booing Haman at Purim. Taking in the forever pain of the holocaust on Yam Hashoah. Embracing the new moon each month at Rosh Chodesh.

    As you can tell, I’m not really a high holidays sort of Jew. Though. I do love Elul and its chashbon nefesh. And Apples and Honey and Pomegranates. The blasts of the Shofar. I believe wholeheartedly in communal accountability, too

    An interesting process for me, defining myself and my journey within the world of Judaism. Not always easy. But always fruitful.

     

    Just a moment: Oh the last days of this most unusual and in some ways terrifying election year. I’ll be relieved when it’s over. Even if it means girding on my loincloth for one last round of leftist political action. An odd thought has been circulating in my head. What if Trump wins? What if our fellow citizens say yes to bigotry, authoritarianism, vulgarity, and criminality? At least with Kamala in the race this odd thought goes, we’ll know it was what a majority of us wanted. It will not, in other words, have been a gimmee. The odd part is I find this somewhat comforting. At least we’ll know for sure where the true work lies.


  • Home

    Mabon (Fall) and the Sukkot Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Heidi. Salaam. Marilyn. Ruth. Alan. The Dandelion. Big O tires. Phillips 66 Gas. The waning of the gold. Leaves beginning to fall. Clear, bright, blue Sky. Great Sol grinning. Mother Earth happy with what they’ve made together. The Ocean. The World Ocean. The unknown of the deep. Its wildness. Beavers damming Streams, making Ponds. Thinning Forests. Wild Life. Our Wild Friends. Cyclical time.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Aspens, the Mountain torches of Mabon

    Kavannah: Teshuvah

    One brief shining: Driving past the spot where I saw the Bull Elk in the Rain, I noticed the golden torches blazing, flanking where he looked at me through the dark, Aspens, oh, I see, Bull Elk sacred in the night in May, Aspen leaves in their brilliant final phase in October, yes, I see, the Wheel turning, the sacred manifesting in its seasonal way, different yet also always there.

     

    These blue days with golden Leaves and water reflecting Lodgepole green. Lake Evergreen, a small jewel set amongst the inner Foothills, Mountains rising on all sides of it. Folks paddleboarding, kayaking, canoeing small moving dots of color rippling the reflections. You might think after almost ten years these sights would be ho-hum, I’ve seen it before, so what. No. Instead the turning of the Great Wheel puts all of them through kaleidoscopic changes.

    Soon the Aspen Leaves will be gone or scattered on the Lake like thin gold-leaf, no longer reflected but held up by surface tension, Leaf on Water, no longer Leaf mirrored. The deciduous trees become skeletal before Samain, fitting into the bleak tones of fallow fields, decay, and death.

    Too, the Elk and the Mule Deer have chosen, over the millennia, this time for reproduction. The Bears, hyperphagic, know Winter looms ahead, a season with little food. Great Sol’s rays spread out over larger and larger chunks of Land and Water, reducing their effect.

    The Grasses have gone russet and tan. The Asters have gone to seed. In a few Meadows tractors have bailed hay for the Horses and Llamas and other cud chewers with Mountain homes. The Cattle Company that feeds out their Black Angus on the Meadow the Bike Park folks wanted will come soon for their long last ride.

    The fireplace beckons. It sits throughout the summer, mocked by the heat. Pointless. Needs more wood available. Have not yet gone down the hill to Variety Firewood where they have hard Woods and perfumed Pinõn. Maybe tomorrow.

    Each season leaves its special imprint on familiar scenes, changing them not only from the season just past but from the previous occurrence of the same season. Trees grow taller, fall over, get cut down. Streams alter their flow. Seeds carried by the Winds and by Birds and by Wild Neighbors germinate in new fields and open ground.

    So the Mountain Dweller enjoys the changes, gets renewed by Nature’s own renewal, feels sadness as a season comes to an end. Home. Here in the Rockies.