• Category Archives Plants

  • Love

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa and the Waning Crescent of the Herme Moon

    Sunday and Monday gratefuls: The Trail to Cold Mountain. Off book. Kristie. Off meds? Sunday’s Ancientrails, forgotten. Unusual. The Ancient Brothers on love. A morning with Rich and Ron. Also about love. Burn away everything but love. Study today. Jewish identity. Cool and Foggy morning. Good sleeping. Ready for packing. Cable organizer. Reinforcing off book for the Trail to Cold Mountain. So many wonderful people in my life. Korea and Israel. Same continent. 5027 miles apart. [Osan to Jerusalem]

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Good friends

    One brief shining: A bowl filled with strawberries, blueberries, black berries, and slices of mango sat by a wooden cutting board with lox heaped upon it next to a lazy susan with cream cheese, capers, cut onions, almonds warm cut bagels on my plate as Ron and Rich and I sat together talking mussar, parenting sons, writing, such a good morning.

     

    I have now a surfeit of riches. Wealthier than I could have dreamed possible. And, yes, in terms of money, too. More important than money though friends and family who love me. Whom I also love. Who will open themselves to me and I to them. A wonderful morning yesterday as an example.

    The Ancient Brothers gathered on zoom to talk about love. Ode talked about Robert Bly’s connected universe, all atoms linked to each other in a grand chain of becoming. As are the atoms in each of us. Bill added Buckminster-Fuller’s Cosmic Plurality:

    “Cosmic Plurality”

    Environment to each must be

    All there is, that isn’t me

    Universe in turn must be

    All that isn’t me AND ME

     

    Since I only see inside of me

    What brain imagines outside me

    It seems to be you may be me

    If that is so, there’s only we

    Me & we, too

    Which love makes three

    Universe

    Perme — embracing

    It-them-you-and we

     

    Paul offered Rilke:

    Widening Circles

    Written by Rainer Maria Rilke

    Translated and read by Joanna Macy

    I live my life in widening circles
    that reach out across the world.
    I may not complete this last one
    but I give myself to it.

    I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
    I’ve been circling for thousands of years
    and I still don’t know: am I a falcon,
    a storm, or a great song?

     

    Tom reminded us of the love we learn from the dogs in our lives, the angels of our youth and of our old age. Of kindness. Of the sweetness of vulnerability.

     

    I spoke again of the gift given to me between Mile High Hearing and Dave’s Chuckwagon Diner: The purpose of life is to burn away everything but love. If we perfected a just society, we could live only in love with each other. So to burn away everything but love, seek justice. If we could see the ohr [the shard of sacredness, divine light] in each other, in all Trees and Rocks and Roads and Flowers that love Great Sol and Mule Deer and Elk and Mountain Lions and Bears and all Mountain Streams and all Rivers and Oceans and in the Air we breathe, we would cry out in revelation like Mohammed, like the writers of the Torah and like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, there, the sacred, it’s right there! And we could/would love it all.

     


    Dogs Family Feelings Friends Judaism Plants Poetry Reimaging revelation Torah Wild Neighbors Writing

  • Mountains

    Posted on by Charles 1 Comment

    Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Rock fish. Panko. Mixed vegetables. Potatoes. Cooking. The Ancient Brothers. Psychedelics. Colorado. Leaning into the new psychedelic era. My green back yard. Vince. Pine pollen on the driveway. The start of allergy season for me. Cold Mountain. My character for acting class. October 8th. Men and aging. Men and grief. A high blue Sky. The curve of Black Mountain. The solidity of Shadow Mountain underneath me. Maxwell Creek and Shadow Mountain Brook carrying water off of Shadow Mountain.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The treadmill

    One brief shining: A deep sadness on reading in the Colorado Sun of the huge numbers of Elk, Mule Deer, and other wild neighbors who died over the winter due to starvation caused by the very snows which we all celebrated with the Colorado mantra we need the water and yes we do but at this cost I don’t know.

     

    After reading that article the deep sadness came over me as I realized it might explain why the bull Elks have not been back for my Dandelions. Imagining them lying dead of starvation somewhere on Black Mountain. I hope I’m wrong, yet this is the first time since 2019 they’ve not shown up when the Dandelions were in bloom. It filled my heart to see their big bodies at rest after a meal. To watch them put their heads down and clip off the Dandelions and their greens. To stare as they jumped so easily from one side of the fence to the other. Perhaps some of their children will find my back. I’m leaving my gates open now, too. No more dogs to contain. Let the wild critters in.

    Watching those three grow from younger and smaller Bulls to their majestic full size made seeing them each year even more special. Like everyone one up here, well, most everyone, I want our wild neighbors to thrive, live their best lives. Seeing those Bulls over a period of years gave me a personal glimpse into their lives. Like cousins you see once a year at Thanksgiving I saw them grow, got to know which one was twitchy, which one would spend the night here, which ones would leave and come back the next day.

     

    Below are three poems attributed to Hanshan, or Cold Mountain. From this site

    Translated by A. S. Kline © Copyright 2006 All Rights Reserved.

    This work may be freely reproduced, stored and transmitted, electronically or otherwise, for any non-commercial purpose.

     

    Where’s the trail to Cold Mountain?

    Cold Mountain? There’s no clear way.

    Ice, in summer, is still frozen.

    Bright sun shines through thick fog.

    You won’t get there following me.

    Your heart and mine are not the same.

    If your heart was like mine,

    You’d have made it, and be there!

     

     

    A thousand clouds, ten thousand streams,

    Here I live, an idle man,

    Roaming green peaks by day,

    Back to sleep by cliffs at night.

    One by one, springs and autumns go,

    Free of heat and dust, my mind.

    Sweet to know there’s nothing I need,

    Silent as the autumn river’s flood.

     

     

    I traveled to Cold Mountain:

    Stayed here for thirty years.

    Yesterday looked for family and friends.

    More than half had gone to Yellow Springs.

    Slow-burning, life dies like a flame,

    Never resting, passes like a river.

    Today I face my lone shadow.

    Suddenly, the tears flow down.


    Mountains Plants Poetry Shadow Mountain Wild Neighbors

  • Day to day

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: Great Sol. Light on the Needles of the Lodgepoles out my window. Black Mountain clear against blue Sky. The Elk Calves and their Moms on Lower Shadow Mountain Drive. That big Mama Bear and her two Cubs on Warhawk. It’s kiddy rearing time for our wild neighbors. Airline Websites. Travel details. Early Spring weather. Waiting for the sudden jump to Summer. Dandelions. Those three Elk Bulls. Waiting on their arrival. Soon. Travel agents. Crows and Ravens. Canada Jays. That fat Chipmunk. The Rabbits who live under the Shed. Mountain Lions.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Bear Cubs

    One brief shining: In the Spring here in the Mountains Flowers emerge later Trees leaf out later but the Elk birth their Calves, the Mule Deer their Fawns, the Moose their Calves, the Mountain Lion their Kittens, the Black Bears their Cubs, the Fox their Kits while the Mountain Streams rush down, carrying the Water of Snow Melt and later Rains, while the temperatures fluctuate between warm and cold, while the days become longer and the nights shorter the Mountains and the Forests become a nursery for our wild neighbors.

     

    In the morning I turn off my electric blanket, close the bedroom window, pick up my life alert button from its charging station, unhook my cellphone from its cable, turn off the oxygen concentrator, and go out into the next room for my hearing aid. I take my first pill of the day, synthroid for my funky thyroid, washing it down with some tap water. I set my phone’s alarm for one hour after the time I took they synthroid. That alerts me to take my morning meds which include my chemotherapy. Grabbing my phone I head upstairs to write Ancientrails in the home office. I often finish around the time my alarm rings, some days, like today writing takes longer.

    Today I had to strip the sheets from the bed so Ana can put clean sheets on, arrange the blankets. Also I had to refill my seven day plastic pill containers. Took up some of the time I would have been writing.

    I’m very aware of how dependent on electricity I am. Blanket. Charging for my phone, my life alert button, my hearing aid. The oxygen concentrator. And, medications. I’m alive thanks to the batches of pills I throw down each morning and evening. Life with cancer and hypertension. Life up high. 8,800 feet.

    Bear comes next week to do the annual maintenance on my Kohler generator. It kicks in when heavy snows or lightning strikes take out my feed from C.O.R.E. Without it I would have no well-water, no cooking on my induction stove, no lights, no computer access. Electricity is the chi for my day-to-day life.

    My life is quite a distance from the hibernating Bear in a rocky cleft or the Mountain Lion in their den. I am softer, less resilient than they are. Even though I can find food perhaps more easily, I require an automobile for the task while they rely only on their paws and their instinct. Which of us is more likely to survive global warming?

     


    GeekWorld Mountains Plants Shadow Mountain Weather +Climate

  • Distance and depth

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

    Saturday gratefuls: My son and his wife, moving into a house. Korea, far away across the waters of the Pacific. Alan and Tom. Diane. Leslie, composting. Marilyn and her grandson in Italy. Josh who grew the Cubensis. Memorial Day Weekend. The Indy 500. The Monaco Grand Prix. Shrimp and grits from Lucille’s. The Nuggets. Psilocybin. Mark and Dennis in Paonia. The Lodgepoles out my window, moved by a slight Wind, waving their Cones at me. Lightning and Thunder last night.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Flashes of Lightning

    One brief shining: Yesterday afternoon around four pm the psilocybin peaked and the Aspens with their upturned Branches praised the Sun by producing small yellow green Leaflets while the Lodgepoles bowed their Branches in perpetual prayer, both worshipers of the Great Sol, giver of energy and heat, and I did the same by standing on my driveway feeling the light that had traveled millions and millions of miles warm me.

     

    Korea is a long way away. 6,196 miles according to Travelmath. That is, as we would say in Indiana, a f’r piece. During my psilocybin experience yesterday afternoon I got hit with a deep wave of love for my son and his wife, then a sense of how far away they now are. Really far. I looked up driving distance on Travelmath and it said, complicated. You might even have to swim. True that.

    The military produces these long distance relationships over and over again. This is my son’s second deployment to Korea. He’s also been in the Middle East several times. Not to mention all those years in Georgia. And that one year in Singapore. Then, Hawai’i.

    Glad for Kakao and Zoom, e-mail. Even Facebook. Connecting us.

     

    While I got the mail yesterday, I walked over to the Iris bed which I had expanded at Kate’s request. Her purple Irises have begun to emerge. Some of her ashes fed them on August 18th of 2021, which would have been her 77th birthday. Tears came unbidden as I remembered the purple garden I planted for her 65th. Psilocybin seems to lure emotions to the surface with the least of stimulations. I enjoyed that part of the experience a lot. Sadness does not block joy and Kate’s memory is a blessing, however it comes up.

     

    Lucille’s Creole Cafe has three spots in Denver. Kate and I used to go down once in a while for beignets, cajun breakfasts. Alan and I went to the one on E. Evans. I had a huge cup of their cafe au lait and breakfast with poached eggs, red beans, and cheese grits. Ordered shrimp and grits to go. The Cafe itself is light and airy, filled with New Orleans jazz posters and memorabilia. Our waitress had on a t-shirt that read, Friends with Benedicts.

    It was fun to drive down the hill on a bright blue Colorado Morning. Felt like I was going on a mini-vacation. Lucille’s added to that.

     

    Taking Gabe to the Rockies game tomorrow. The all new spiffy New York Mets are playing.

     

     


    Asia Denver Family Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Plants Travel

  • Entheos

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Mesa View Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Curiosity. The Ancient Brothers. Mark and Dennis. Coming May 23rd. Yet more Rain. Even more swollen Streams. Ancientrails as a life project. Tom and his time with Charlie H. Bill and his time with Bella. Mark and his time at the gym. Anytime Fitness. My treadmill. Marilyn. Ginnie. Josh. Jane. Kat. A banker. Vulcan Centaur.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rocket Scientists

    One brief shining: A beautiful woman with a long braid dangling over her t-shirt down to her space themed spandex had, on the back of the blue t-shirt an outline of the Vulcan Centaur rocket, on the front ULA and I asked, I’m too ignorant to know but is that a real rocket ship?

     

    Yes. She answered. And I was working on it until I quit my job a year and a half ago. What was your area of expertise? Vibration and acoustics. Oh. I see. Not sure why I keep running into engineers. But I do.

    CBE is amazing. All these smart people. This was at the Dismantling Racism class yesterday afternoon. Looked up the Vulcan Centaur and it’s been under development since 2014. Supposed to fly for the first time in July. Had a setback a month ago though with a second stage explosion during preparation for a launch.

    The class has gotten better. Taking a mussar approach to the work. I like it for the inner work though I chose an opponent for my practice this week. Four areas of possible practice each week: with HaShem (God), with Self, with a fellow, especially a victim of anti-black racism, or with an opponent.

    My practice involved an e-mail to a person with whom I’ve had long standing differences. Sent it last night and got a reply this morning. A sweet one. Maybe there’s something to this approach. The middah this week is kavod, or honor. Honoring self and other. The theological idea is the all made in God’s image trope. Said another way, we’re all human, all riding this blue spaceship our only home together with all the other critters and plants. Honor it all.

     

    During the Ancient Brothers session on curiosity I identified curiosity as my defining characteristic. And naming what I call the valedictory lifestyle. As a valedictorian myself I’ve occasionally become curious (see!) about what happens to others who graduate first in their class academically. Turns out usually nothing spectacular. Sure a lot go into academics. Some have successful careers in business or the sciences.

    But usually no stars. No one off achievements. No amazing inventions. Why? Because we’re generalists. We easily get sidetracked by something new and shiny. If purity of heart is to will one thing, we’re not at all pure.

    I call them enthusiasms. My enthusiasms can last a long time. Religion has turned out to be the longest lasting, but inside that broad category I’ve been all over the place. From existentialist atheist to Christian to Unitarian-Universalist to Pagan and wanderer with the tribe. There’s a piece of each of these, often substantial pieces that remain intact within me. All somehow glued together with Taoism.

    There’ve been many others. Art, my twelve years at the MIA. Politics, lasting almost as long as religion, but again all over the place in terms of action. Islam which I studied after 9/11. Horticulture. Cooking. Heating with wood. Beekeeping. Dogs. World travel. F1. Science. Tarot and Astrology. Cinema. Acting. Writing. Getting degrees. Tea. Korean and now Spanish. Oh, and one that actually has been lifelong, reading. Not sure when I learned but I’ve never ever stopped. Buying books, too. To feed the habit. I’ve dabbled in painting and sum-e.

    Enthusiasms in my life are more than dabbling but less than enough to gain full mastery. But I must admit it’s been, is being, a hell of lot of fun.

     

     

     

     


    Acting Art and Culture Asia Bees Commentary on Religion Cooking Dogs Family Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Fungi Garden GeekWorld Great Wheel Great Work Hawai'i Health Hermitage Humanities Judaism Kabbalah Korea Latin Letters Literature Mountains Mussar Painting Photography Plants Poetry Politics Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Science Shadow Mountain Sierra Club Sport Tarot Tea The West Travel Weather +Climate Woolly Mammoths Writing

  • So it has been and so it shall be

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Mesa View Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Rain. Rain. Rain. Floods. Full Creeks and Streams. The greening of the Mountains. Can allergies be far behind? Rebecca. Joann. Tal. Dismantling Racism from the Inside Out. Marilyn and Jamie. My son and his wife. Murdoch. Getting on a jet plane. For the Far East. Today. The World in all its distinctiveness and all its connectedness. All my relations.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ancientrails

    One brief shining: Snow packs, Rains pound, from the top of Shadow Mountain, of Black Mountain, of Conifer Mountain, of Berrigan Mountain the Sun shines and melts the Snow, the Rain accelerates the melt and the Streams, Maxwell Creek, Cub Creek, Shadow Brook, North Turkey Creek, Kate’s Creek, flood spilling over into wetlands, high marsh grasses welcoming their abundance as they roll on into Bear Creek, widening its banks, carrying Soil and Pebbles and Rocks on their way to the North Fork of the South Platte and on to the great World Ocean.

     

    In media deluge. We’ve had Snow and we’ve had Rain. And the Rains will come again. Tonight. Tomorrow night. And the night after that. And the night after that. Keeping that Smoky the Bear sign pegged right where we want it: Low fire danger. Mostly good news. The not so good part is that Rain promotes greening. Grasses. Flowers. Shrubs. Plants considered out of place, i.e. Weeds. As long as they remain green. Fine. But once the Rains dry up and they turn brown.

    Driving down to Evergreen the other day I had trouble keeping my eyes on the road as I looked over to Maxwell Creek which drains the northwestern Slopes of Shadow Mountain. Muddy and full, it rippled and raged where it didn’t pool in grassy areas alongside it. The strange mix of culverts some concrete, some ribbed metal, some made of rock both hid and revealed the power of the water.

    Noticing a particular culvert, a one piece concrete structure with a rhomboid opening maybe 5 feet high, I saw Maxwell race through it in a torrent, spilling out of the opening in a manmade waterfall. The creek itself was only a foot deep at the most. The rest of the height serving to support a bridge for the property above it.

    At various points formerly dry Grasslands now served as basins for an expanded Creek. Functioning ecosystems taking some of the  Water’s power and distributing it over a wider area, taking also some of the particulates and building the Marsh. The unleashed force diminished for a bit.

    Orogeny. Geology speak for Mountain building. These Mountain Streams are its opposite. The deconstructive forces of Pachamama, sending nourishment to Deltas far away from our spot here on Shadow Mountain.

    Alan Watt wrote Tao: The Watercourse Way. Driving up here in these late Spring days the Tao is not invisible. It is palpable. The water goes where it can, goes where it must, and if blocked will work to unblock itself without losing hope or purpose.

    Taoism remains the most salient way of understanding our place in the World, this one life we get as this consciousness. For me. Our lives are Water Courses racing down the days and weeks and months and years toward the Collective Unconscious, the Ocean of All Souls. Along the way we go where we can, we go where we must and, if blocked we work to unblock ourselves.

    Each of us a Stream running down the Mountain that is this Reality in this spot of the Universe, taking bits and pieces of it along with us to enrich Deltas far away and out of sight. So it has been and so it shall be.


    Colorado Great Wheel Jefferson County Mountains Plants Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Shadow Mountain Weather +Climate World History

  • Microdosing

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Mesa View Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Miami Grand Prix. Sacred objects. The Most Ancient and Proud Brothers. Psilocybin. CBE. Dismantling Racism. Depth. This time. Anger/Patience. K’ass and Savlanut. Simcha. Joy. Ed Brill. Comedian. Laughing. Ginnie. Ron. Alan. Cheri. Tara. Suzy and Pete. Josh. Those Mountain Streams, full. The Ponderosa Pines lower down. Their beautiful Bark and Branches. Tall.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Community

    One brief, shining: Took another microdose of psilocybin yesterday and it moved into me with subtlety and power, creating a slight aura of light and deepening my vision, especially into the Trees, the silent gentle guardians of our Mountain World, and as I considered them my feet became Roots, spreading like Rhyzomes into the Soil beneath my feet, my spine and upper torso lengthened as I reached toward the Sky, feeling minute movements in the Air around me, feeling a Squirrel run up my Trunk, and a Robin land on one of my Branches, until I stopped growing for a moment, standing there knowing why I had chosen this spot for my eternal home.

     

    Psilocybin is so gentle. Each time I’ve used it. It feels like an inner deep massage, muscles relaxing while sensory input sharpens. And it attunes me to plant life. Set and setting, I suppose. Timothy O’Leary’s contribution to the field of psychedelic research.* Plants have been and still are so important to me. These friends. Wild neighbors, too.

    The Lodgepoles and Aspens that line my every drive whether to Evergreen or to Aspen Park. Corridors defined by and watched by Trees. The Lodgepoles and Aspens add to their number Ponderosa Pines, Colorado Blue Spruce, White Pine, Willows, Red Osier Dogwood as the Mountain Valleys descend from the top of Shadow Mountain.

    The Trees observe, feel our passing. Shade us. Breathe out Oxygen, take in our  CO2. Yet we treat them as things. To cut. To remove. To use in building our homes and places of work. It occurred to me that every tree is Shel Silverstein’s Giving Tree. Giving of itself to us until we take all from it. Yet growing again, and again, and again.

    I stand with them. Plant Trees. Love them and they will love you back.

     

    Agnostic.** Pagan. In relation to ideas of God in any religion, I am agnostic. In relation to where I find divinity and sacredness, I am pagan. As I demonstrated above. My sense of God is the inner divinity to whom I bow when I say namaste. In that sense I am a polytheist with 7,942,645,085 other Gods in my pantheon. I could easily increase that number by each Tree on Earth. Each Elephant. Each Dog. Each Mackerel and Krill. Each drop of Water, each tongue of Fire, each inch of Soil, and all of the Sky. Yet I am no pantheist.

    Why? While I believe in an ultimate unity of all things, I do not believe in an homogenization of all things by using any concept as inherent in everything. In fact I believe that God, in the sense I’m using it, creates, emphasizes, celebrates uniqueness. The great mystery is the powerful, the wonderful combinatory affect of all this uniqueness into one pulsing living whole.

    Nothing is outside it. Nothing is rejected. Everything is held in its sacredness, in its true divinity without sacrificing its own distinctiveness. Matter is energy. Energy is matter. When one shifts to the other, the divinity, the sacredness it carries is not lost but transferred. How could it not be? Therefore the distinctiveness which it has created remains as it shifts in form and kind.

    I suppose I could argue, maybe I am arguing that this proves a life beyond death. Maybe. Who knows? Kate. Kep. Dad. Mom. Regina. They know.

     

     

     

    *Set and setting respectively refer to the internal and external factors that influence your psychedelic experience. “Set” is a reflection of your inner climate—your mood, personality, beliefs, perceptions, and so on. “Setting” refers to all that’s going on outside, such as the people around you and their behaviors, the music playing, the smells and weather in the air, even the cultural forces that aren’t as readily visible. Bailey Elyse, Double Blind, Oct. 2, 2020

     

    **agnostic (n.)

    1870, “one who professes that the existence of a First Cause and the essential nature of things are not and cannot be known” [Klein]; coined by T.H. Huxley, supposedly in September 1869, from Greek agnostos “unknown, unknowable,” from a- “not” (see a- (3)) + gnōstos “(to be) known” (from PIE root *gno- “to know”). The coinage is sometimes said to be a reference to Paul’s mention of the altar to “the Unknown God” in Acts, but according to Huxley it was a reference to the early Church movement known as Gnosticism (see Gnostic). The adjective also is from 1870.

    I … invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of ‘agnostic,’ … antithetic to the ‘Gnostic’ of Church history who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant. [T.H. Huxley, “Science and Christian Tradition,” 1889]

    The agnostic does not simply say, “I do not know.” He goes another step, and he says, with great emphasis, that you do not know. [Robert G. Ingersoll, “Reply to Dr. Lyman Abbott,” 1890]  etymonline

     


    Fungi Plants Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Shadow Mountain

  • Pacha Mama

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the full Mesa View Moon

    Friday gratefuls: The Mesa View. The threshold. Liminal spaces. Dawn. The Omer. Day 29. Dismantling racism. Diane and Ecuador. Marilyn and Irv. At Primo. Sally. Thursday mussar. The tribe. BJ and Schecky under the huppa. Smashing a glass. At Sarah and Jerry’s in North Carolina. The cake with the wonderful floral display. A full day.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The huppa woven of large branches by Jerry

    One brief, shining moment: There are too few words in English, too many instances of this beauty, the Lodgepoles bathed in the Sunlight of early Dawn capture me every morning, standing gentle and upright, Branches swooping toward the Earth, the Light filtered through the stand catching this Tree, this Branch, and changing its touch as the Earth turns, presenting Shadow Mountain at new angles to the motionless Sun.

     

    Talked to Diane yesterday. We might head out to Ecuador after the first of the year. For a couple of months. Early days but Sally, who’s already down there, has gotten excited and sent me a bunch of material. Marilyn visited Cotacachi, too, and has some great connections she plans to share.

    When I told Marilyn, a traveler of note herself, of my plans to visit Joe and Seoah in Korea, then Israel in November, and Ecuador early next year, she said, “Seeing how many continents you can touch?” Hadn’t thought of it that way. But, yeah.

    When Kate and I went on our circumnavigation of Latin America cruise after she retired, we visited two cities in Ecuador, Manta and Guayaquil. I remember distinctly the Iguanas in the town square of Manta, the friendly Ecuadorian who took Kate to some pharmacy so she could buy medicine, and the wonderful market where I bought my Alpaca coat and small, but detailed paintings that I later gave out as gifts to the Woollys.

    In Guayaquil we drove past the white city, a huge cemetery with many white tombs on our way to a Cacao plantation. Kate and I met the friendliest pit bull ever there. Also tasted a drink made from the Cacao pulp that was extraordinary.

    Ecuador, which means equator in Spanish, was the first country in the world to give legal rights to its environment in their constitution. Here is the clause:

    Article 71.

    Nature, or Pacha Mama, where life is reproduced and occurs, has the right to integral respect for its existence and for the maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles, structure, functions and evolutionary processes.

    Gotta love a country that gives rights to Nature. What would you think about a country that privileges gun ownership in its constitution? Or does according to some interpretations of our second amendment.

     

    BJ and Schecky married themselves underneath a huppa made of large Branches woven together by Jerry. I attended via zoom. Bellews Creek, North Carolina. They will be moving this fall to Driggs, Idaho. Leaving their almost fifty year rent controlled home in the Beacon Hotel on Broadway in New York City. It was close to Julliard, which they both attended.


    Family Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Plants Travel World History

  • Naturally

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Mesa View Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: Beltane. The growing season. Rebecca. Tom. Bill. Paul. Ode. Diane. Kep, my sweet boy. And Kate, who remains even though gone. A soaking Rain yesterday. Thunder. Walking the perimeter. Psilocybin. The house from within my stand of Lodgepoles. Bunch Grass. Bear’s Claw. Wild Rose. Living in the Mountains. Marilyn. Dismantling Racism. Oh.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Lodgepoles in the Rain, their piney scent

    One brief, shining moment: Rain coming down like a fine mist, I walked the fenceline, as I used to do in Andover every spring, looking for breaches, places the fencing has pulled away from the posts, and while I walked the smell of Pine, the Mountain Soil, a Rabbit still with a great dark Eye, a Robin on a Lodgepole Branch, a Squirrel scrambling up a Tree Trunk.

     

    Lot of advice on stress. Go to Nature. First, you can’t not be in Nature. A subtle way of wedging us further and further away from our reality as part of, rather than apart from, the Natural World. In this sense meditation is going to Nature. Part of why it works for so many?

    The Japanese have a term you’ve probably read, shinrin-yoku. Forest bathing or taking in the atmosphere of the Forest. That’s not the same as saying get out in Nature. It’s about going to a specific part of Nature. Not sure why I’ve never seen Ocean Bathing as a similar idea, but it must work the same for a lot of folks. Or, for that matter, Mountain Bathing. Lake Bathing. Garden Bathing. Sex Bathing.

    Anyhow I went shinrin-yoku on my property here yesterday. (Whenever I write in the possessive about property or Trees, I wince. Only temporarily mine and then only in the sense of stewardship. Not to mention how much of our Land used to be the territory of other Nations.)

    I thought of Rigel as I walked out the door. The Rabbit who likes to sit under the fire pit darted out from there, stopping about twenty feet from its home under the shed. Still. He can’t see me

    A soaking rain fell as I walked. Started at the point where the garage meets the fence. Past that point, where the fence turns north, there is a shallow trench maybe 30 feet long with a pile of soil at the far end. Evidence. Doggy running. Rigel, Kep, Gertie, Vega. Jude’s dogs on the other side. Zeus, Boo. Then, later Thor.

    Further on green Shoots had begun to emerge through the Bunch Grass. Old Logs were wet, waiting for Mushroom Spores. I surveyed all the Fire mitigation I had done after we moved. Stumps cut low. Clumps of trees left out here, at the far fenceline, well over a hundred feet from the house. Looking toward the house, the thirty foot zone with no Pines and between that line and where I stood, smaller stands, one or two or three Trees at least ten feet apart.

    The house and its cedar siding, the shed, the garage, also wet from the rain were in their literal element. And looked beautiful to me.  How lucky am I, I thought.

    There were the Lilacs planted per Kate’s dying request at the same time I had the Iris bed expanded. Part of the same wish from her. Lilacs and Irises. Kate.

    Coming inside I felt renewed from a half hour of shinrin yoku, never leaving the borders of Shadow Mountain Home.

     

     


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  • I can feel it emerging

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc and the Waiting To Cross Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Kep, struggling again. Gabe up for a Rockies afternoon game. Ruth for a night at Dazzle Jazz. Alan as Uncle Moishe in Ron Solomon’s Purim spiel. Monday night. Rich and his class. Luke and his new job. Mike and Kate coming up here sometime this month for barbecue: Campfire Grill in Evergreen. Rabbi Jamie’s ski trip. Race #1 of the new F1 season: Bahrain.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth

     

    Reading Wes Jackson’s Becoming Native to This Place again. A radical thinker. At one point he writes about the Cartesian/Baconian advancement of science and the rational method of inquiry. Descartes says in his Discourse on Method that the more he sought to know, the more he realized he had  yet to know. Jackson makes this wry and insightful comment: “This statement would have been all right if he had stopped there. Unfortunately. Rather than regarding informed ignorance as the human condition, and the appropriate result of a good education, Descartes believed our ignorance to be correctable.”

    Jackson identifies this hubris of the scientific method as a root source of many of our current maladies. We believe we can extract the parts from the whole, understand them without regard to it, then act on that information. Turns out though if you do not understand, say, the nature of ancient energy and privilege it over contemporary energy sources like wind, solar, photosynthesis, you can do great harm to the whole. Change the climate, for example.

    He believes science and humility need to work together. In the instance of agriculture he tells the story of a man in Nebraska who developed seeds and sold them. But only to  farmers in his region. His seeds had characteristics that made them strong in that regional ecology. A local seed source rather than the abstracted seeds sold by Monsanto, Bayer. They did not need Roundup ready alterations because they already knew the soil and the other plants that grew there.

    What Jackson wants to create is a new rural life, a new localism predicated not on Cargill or Monsanto or John Deere, but upon perennial crops and a system of trade that could hook up a small Kansas town with a small North Dakota town, one that grew crops better suited for that local ecology. A new localism in which both flora and fauna were appropriate to their location, yet benefited all through trade without gigantic corporations in the way.

    This vision. A hard one. Only thing harder, probably? Continuing on the soil and region destroying path we are on.

    I’m beginning to see linkages between the Jackson’s and Wendell Berry’s and the fracturing nation in which we live. How their vision for a local agriculture, the base after all of civilization itself might contribute to a new politics. How the breakdown of the country might have a positive outcome. Especially when connected to the old neighborhood politics I know so well from my working days. And when bonded with the actions necessary to tip the climate change scales away from apocalyptic scenarios.

    There could be a path here. Needs more noodling, but I can feel it emerging.


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