Category Archives: Plants

Great Wheel, Great Work, Jefferson County, Judaism, Mountains, Mussar, Plants, Shadow Mountain

Taller than its neighbors at Elk Meadow Park, Tree #3

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Beltane and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

Occurred to me today that I can honor any tree I want. Doesn’t have to be in my yard though I imagine the bulk of them will be.

Today I had a blood draw in Evergreen so I drove up Stagecoach Road to one of the many trailheads for Elk Meadows Park. Got out of the car and walked over to the main path. On the left side of the main path was a stand of Lodgepole Pines. Though the elevation was only 7,700 feet they seemed to be doing fine.

Probably influenced by reading Wild Trees I chose the tallest of those in the grove for my honoring.

A sense of the Park
The tallest in this shot

This Tree grows in a small Grove on a slightly sloped area. A Colorado Forestry website says Lodgepoles prefer a slight slope and this Tree has found one. Like my Lodgepole Companion most of their Branches push out from the Trunk toward the Southeast. Also like my Companion this tall Lodgepole has almost no branches toward the Northwest.

Its lower Branches contained fewer male sex organs than my Companion, but shared this characteristic with its neighbors. Further up they began to proliferate. About two thirds of the way up a row of Branches had female Strobilus that were taller and fuzzier than the others. Don’t know what that means, but some of Tree #3’s neighbors had the same pattern.

The softer, yellowish pine cones are the male organs. The more erect one in the middle is female which will transform over time into serotinous cones. Serotinous cones have heavy pitch sealing the precious seeds inside. Only the heat of a Forest Fire will cause the pitch to melt and allow the seeds to disperse onto the scorched earth.

When you live in the Mountains, it is so easy to drive past the Trees, seeing them only as a barrier to accessing the slope of the Mountainside. Or, to see them and think they’re all alike. If you’ve seen one Lodgepole, you’ve seen them all. They do share many characteristics. Altitude and soil preferences. Monoecious reproduction. A thin bark. A susceptibility to Fire, especially Fires that advance from Crown to Crown. The hardest for smoke jumpers and hotshots to control.

Yet they are all different. All unique individuals expressing their full potential in that one spot where they grow, adapting their Branching strategies to the microclimate of other Trees, position on a Mountain, shelter or not from Storms, the nutrient value of the Soil.

The bark of Tree #3

 

Jefferson County, Judaism, Mountains, Mussar, Plants, Shadow Mountain

My Lodgepole Companion, Tree #2

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Beltane and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

My Lodgepole Companion

This Tree, a Lodgepole, a Pinus contarta latifolia, stands first in the view out of my window where I write. I can see other Trees and Black Mountain, but over time I’ve developed a fellow feeling for this Tree. Watching Snow sag its Branches. Then how they slough off the Snow. How its Leaves (needles) change color with available moisture. Right now, at the end of a wet Spring, intense green. How it waves gently in a breeze, sways from its base in strong wind gusts. How it remains in its spot, committed and content. I feel it as a literal companion, there when I need it. Always steady and strong.

My Lodgepole Companion is the center Tree in front closest to the house

On close examination I noticed it has few Branches spread toward the northwest. Other Trees in its small Grove block the sun from that direction. Its Branches have multiplied on the southeast. Right now they seem to be agreeing with my writing, nodding vigorously as a breeze contacts them. This Tree also has Branches near the ground. Due to fire mitigation needs I trim those off unless, as here with my Companion, the surface is rocky, not flammable.

These Trees grow close together. Lodgepole Forests have evolved to burn in crown Fires, then reestablish themselves anew when the high heat melts the pitch holding their serotinous cones tight. This evolution might make you wonder, why live in a Lodgepole Forest? As I do. Well. Gee. Shuffles shoe in the dust. Don’t really have a good answer to that outside of beauty and the Mountains.

I’ve got get to down to the main Denver Public Library which has a special internal library holding of books on Colorado History. The Colorado History Museum, too. I want to chase down the logging history of the Front Range, especially along what is now the Front Range corridor. An arborist I know told me, and I’d already suspected, that the whole area on either side of what is now Hwy 285 was clear cut to build the city of Denver. 285, also according to him, follows the route of the logging railroad built out as far Kenosha Pass, almost to South Park.

Here’s a map of Lodgepole stands in Colorado. I’ll later post one for North America.

I want to put the Arapaho National Forest, Conifer, Evergreen, our chunk of Jefferson County in perspective. Who lived here first? The Utes, I imagine, but I don’t know that. Why did they leave? When did the first white folks settle here? When was the clear cutting? How long did it last? What did it ruin? Enhance? When was 285 built? Our small communities, when did they come to be? Why?

My Lodgepole Companion represents a contemporary Forest grown up, I think, to replace the one clear cut at the turn of the last century.

Their (I’m using binary pronouns for the Lodgepoles since they have both sex organs on the same tree. Monoecious.) growth has a reason here in the montane/sub alpine altitude range, 8,000-10,000 feet. Not sure what it is.

Mussar, Plants, Shadow Mountain

Honoring the Aspen, Tree #1

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

This is the first entry in my honoring the Tree mussar practice. I will post these as I do them.

My kavanah, my intention, is to enhance my capacity for honoring all things, all Earthlings. Including humans. In this honoring means paying attention, close and uninterrupted attention. Seeing the other for what they exhibit, to imbibe their uniqueness and their interconnectedness. This uniqueness has many names: Buddah nature, soul, highest potential, essence, wholeness, image of God. In seeing the sacred reality of this Aspen I am in turn seeing my own sacredness in the process of seeing the Aspen.

 

When we first moved here on the Winter Solstice of 2014, this Aspen had no leaves. Tiny shoots of its clones were hidden beneath the Snow cover. But they were there.

Nine and a half years later I went out today, out front since this Tree is in the front. As I walked up to it, I noticed its Trunk’s variation between a smooth gray Bark and a wrinkled black Bark. As if the Tree could not make up its mind. I’m curious now as to the purpose of the two different types of Bark. A Spider and an Ant crawled over both smooth and rough, unconcerned.

My hand found the change in textures though they seemed more graduated with touch. The smooth Bark had some grippiness to it and also contained small raised bumps of the rougher black Bark. When I walked around the Tree, I noticed at its base a large scar, black Bark that looked like a Fire scar. Doesn’t make sense to me, but it’s a distinctive feature of this Tree and a reminder that its journey has not always been easy.

Looking straight up the Trunk toward the Leader reaching for the Sky the Bark got smoother and smoother as it went up and the Trunk got smaller. Could it be that a certain girt stretches the smooth Bark far enough that it separates and allows the rougher Bark to form? If so, why?

The most striking feature of this tree for me, on this sunny Colorado Mountain morning, danced on the ends of short stems, quaking this way and that. Throwing shadows on the Leaves behind them, then fluttering out of the way. Leaves in groups of five opened and closed each others access to Great Sol’s brilliance.

The interplay of light and shadow these Leaves put on would make a great Calder sculpture. The shifting moving Leaves were beautiful. As beautiful as any work of art in a museum.

While being beautiful, they also perform Mother Earth’s true miracle, light-eating. Turning photons into sugars. The sine qua non for all complex life on this planet.

Mountains, Mussar, Plants, Shadow Mountain

Kavod. Honor.

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Beltane and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Eleanor, Tara’s new dog. What a cutie! Tara. The last practice with Tara. Using a Yod. MVP last night. Joanne’s new tooth. Rich’s weight loss. Honor. Seeing the Buddha nature in another. Seeing the sacred image in another. And in yourself. Honor the other and your self with complete attention. Early finish for my 150 minutes this week.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Going down the Forest path

One brief shining: Reach out a hand, feel the roughness, the curvature, perhaps put a finger into one of the fissures, sap or resin may stick to it, may have the scent of a Pine Tree, a Pinus contarta perhaps, or one of the Ponderosa Pines a bit lower down the Mountain, their Bark their persona their face to the world, a point of contact between the inner and the outer Tree.

 

My mussar practice for this month: honor as many of the trees growing around my house as I can. That is, see each of them as an individual, stand with them, look up, feel their trunks, note the marks of their individuality, their uniqueness. Honor the journey of that Tree from seed to maturity. Honor the work they do above and below ground. Remain in their presence. Listening. Smelling. Touching. Seeing. Hearing.

The Branches as they wave up and down in a morning breeze. Their rampant Strobilus ready to send pollen out to the female flowers. The green Leaves (I know, needles. But this is what botanists call them.) growing in brush like clusters up and down each Branch. Their stillness. Their occupation of one spot for the duration of their life. The Bark, protecting. How the Branches may stretch out only in one direction. The Trunk sways in the Wind. Their height. Even the Lodgepoles are taller than my house, my garage.

Working on my new purpose. Reading. Observing. Thinking. Not sure where it all will lead. The fun in it.

Noticed last night driving home late from my MVP group at the synagogue. Trees. The same Trees that were there on my drive down. The Arapaho National Forest. Mostly Lodgepoles. Realized how difficult the density of the Lodgepoles would make a night time hike. How instead of welcoming they became menacing. Barriers to easy travel. Trees change character for Forest dwellers depending on the time of day.

 

Just a moment: I’ve made a couple of decisions. First, I will sell this house when I’m 80 and move to an apartment somewhere close to Joe and Seoah. Why? They finish up in Korea the year I turn 79. I want to be close to them as I head further into the thicket of aging.

Second. No more doom and gloom about the orange one. Or MAGA. Or the convinced. No. I’m 77. Life’s gotten a lot shorter. I’m going to continue living my life no matter what happens politically. I may engage or I may not. What I will not do is succumb to despair, constant anger, bitterness.

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Plants, Writing

Scanned

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Beltane and the 1% crescent Shadow Mountain Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: IV’ed. Radioactivated. Scanned. Freddie’s. Being kind to myself. Wild Trees. Coastal Redwoods. The tallest Trees on Earth. Steve Sillet and Michael Taylor. Timber cruisers for the Trees. Marie Antoine. Climbing Trees like an arborist. Treeboats. Forest-Canopy science. Redwood Crowns. Whole Biomes. My Lodgepole Companion. Pinus contarta latifolia.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shekinah

One brief shining: A butterfly I.V. attached to a vein in my forearm, saline introduced, then a closed lead canister opened, and a syringe pulled out with 5 milliliters of liquid radioactive agent in its barrel, connected to the IV, a push, and $13,000 worth of a cancer discovery tool went into my bloodstream, after that I sat back and read Wild Trees while it distributed throughout my body.

me and the machine

 

See my tilt? Spinal stenosis. My t-shirt got a laugh from the P.E.T. scan nurse and tech. I told the tech doom and gloom would not get me through all this. But humor sure helps.

Proud of myself. I fought the phobia and the phobia didn’t win. This machine is optimal for me in that its doughnut hole is relatively short in length and the top of the hole leaves room above my head. Most important for me: I could see out the whole time. (ha) I ran through several iterations of inner dialogue about fear. The only thing you have to fear… Thanks for that, Winston. Face your fear. I am. I didn’t take drugs. Yeah? Then open your eyes. I did. The doughnut hole was above me, but I could see the room beyond. And I felt calm. A major advance for me.

Still couldn’t do a bone scan without drugs. The distance between face and machine is much narrower and the slot for the body is much longer. And the procedure is very slow. Hopefully no more bone scans.

I don’t like to do drugs because they require that I have a driver. It’s a long time for a friend to wait and someone has to clear their schedule. Though. Alan did say I was very amusing after my first P.E.T. scan. Valium, if I recall correctly.

Results in two or three days. Have to get signed up for Rocky Mountain Cancer Care’s online patient portal. Then I can see the radiologists report for myself. Don’t talk to Kristie until next week.

Oh, the places I’ve been.

 

Just a moment: Been reading Wild Trees. A wild Tree is, in the slang of arborists and tall-Tree climbers, a tree that has not been climbed. Up until the 1990’s that included all the Coastal Redwoods. Climbing these tall Trees requires a high degree of technical climbing knowledge plus athletic climbers. Until Steven Sillet climbed Nameless, no one had ever been in the Redwood Canopy. His rash and dangerous efforts not only made him the first, but started him on a career as a Forest-Canopy Botanist. He and his wife Marie Antoine, also a climber, teach at Humboldt College in Arcata, California to this day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plants, Shadow Mountain, Wild Neighbors, Writing

Pinus Contarta

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Monday gratefuls: Good night’s sleep. Bringing together past and present. Knuckling down for the next chapter of my story. Excitement. Starting with and staying focused on Trees. Coastal Redwoods. Sequoias. Bristlecone Pines. Lodgepoles and Aspens. Slipping out from under the pale of grief and self-doubt. Teshuvah for tikkun.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Trees

One brief shining: Each morning my Lodgepole Companion stands tall, Branches thrust out to the east awaiting food from Great Sol, the light bringer, gentle morning winds move its Branches, in heavier winds the whole Tree sways, taking and releasing energy, its male Flowers now standing up at the ends of its Branches, readying themselves to disperse yellow Pollen with the wind, a yellow dust that will coat our driveways and make my nose itch all while impregnating the Lodgepole’s female flowers.

 

Early June. Tree sex season. When, if this season is like the others, I will have to close up my house to keep out Lodgepole pollen. It coats every surface in its broadcast of Tree passion. It only has to hit the female flowers-which grow on the same tree as the male flowers-but evolution has taught Pinus contartathat its survival depends on a blanket of pollen among its near neighbors. No female flower should go unfulfilled.

It’s easy for those of us suffer from pollen allergies to blame Pinus contarta for our sneezes. Its pollen comes the same time as many pollens from Grasses. But its grains are too large to bother humans.

This is also the time the Elk Bulls come to my yard for Dandelion dining. I’ve had Mule Deer Does, yearlings, over the past couple of weeks. Yesterday evening a yearling came up to my lower level door and looked in at me. Then turned her head and went back to the Grass and Dandelions.

Early June is also the time, now five years ago in 2019, that I began my 35 sessions of radiation. Started on June 6th, the first day the three Elk Bulls came. One or two of them have come each year since. Identifiable by the Bull with only one rack. They grew from young Bulls to full sized Bulls ready to have their own harems of Cows.

Lodgepole pollen, Elk Bulls, and radiation. Memories of summers past and present.

 

Writing, as always, massages my mind, makes it relax, then throw off sparks. Today the sparks led me to an idea, a perhaps I will notion. A focus on Colorado Trees. Visiting Forests. Learning the ways of Mountains and Trees, their mutual dance. Fits well with another spark I had yesterday. Tree mythology. Tree fairy tales. Trees in Kabbalah and in other mystical traditions.

The gardener in me. The lover of mythology and fairy tales. Of Ovid. Of religious insights. The Mountain dweller. The Hermit.

 

Just a moment: Who woulda thought? A Jewish female President. In Mexico. Oh so Catholic Mexico. Oh so machismo saturated Mexico. Yet another country teaching us what can be if we turn away from the yellow fascist pollen spread byPolitico contarta

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Great Wheel, Great Work, Holidays, Humanities, Judaism, Letters, Literature, Myth and Story, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Reimaging revelation, Tarot

I’m Into Something Good. Oh, yeah…

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Cool night. Elk. Mule Deer. Fox. Great Sol. The Great Wheel. The Great Work. The Jewish Year. Wild Trees. Ancient Forests. Sequoias. Coastal Redwoods. Bristlecone Pines. Kabbalah. Shekinah. The Sabbath Bride. Emergence. Lodgepoles. Aspens. Jewitches. Love. Justice. Compassion. A direction, a purpose. A way to live.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Emergence

One brief shining: Before the closing of the door and before I even open it, I stand hand over my eyes repeating the shema, declaring that I, god-wrestler, find the one to be all and the all to be one, which we might call god or not, but we can call it for sure the interdependent web of all things, all becoming things, everywhere there is a where, stretching from me in front of my bedroom door to the other reaches of this universe, passing by the Crab Nebula and the Horse Head Nebula on its way to a boundary where there can be no boundary.

 

I’m into something good.* Said this this morning during the Ancient Brothers. An exciting burst of serendipity, synchronicity, plain old enthusiasm. Heading toward eudaimonia. Wow. Sounds manic as I write it. Has some of that flavor. The shovel that uncovered this new path? A dream. And the Dreamers’ response to it.

And… Here we go. I’m going back to Wabash College. At least that place I was when I was there. Serendipity note: the Herman’s Hermits song below was released in 1964, the summer before my last year of high school, and before my mother’s death in October. Another serendipity note: Herman’s Hermits.

When I went to Wabash, I had competing emotions, both so very strong. The first. Grief. Unresolved, not understood, in no way dealt with. Mom was dead. I left home to go to this school, at the time highly competitive, and bare my small town intellect to so many others so much smarter than me. Grief and uncertainty. Toxic at best.

The second. Finally! A liberal arts education. A chance to get into the cultural deposit of the West. (It would be many, many years before Asia showed up in my life.) Philosophy. History. English Literature. Languages. A chance to grow beyond my autodidact years, guided by professors and stimulated by fellow students. Hard to convey the excitement, even relief, I felt at starting college.

Then German happened. I wanted to read Hegel, Nietzsche, Kant in the original. So I signed up. And floundered. Bad. Got c’s and d’s on quizzes and tests. Where this headed was clear. Abject failure. I did not do the brave and movie worthy thing. Face up to it and overcome. No. I dropped German like a hot potato masher hand grenade.

At the end of the year summer jobs were hard to find and Wabash was expensive. I decided to go further. Leave Wabash altogether. I’m not big on regret, but this is one of them for me.

The dream. Said. Go back. Be who you intended to be. The one that got lost along the way. So who was I going to be, the 18 year old version of this 77 year old. I wasn’t sure of anything but my desire to dive headlong into the deep waters of the liberal arts. Where would I come out? No idea. Didn’t want to know. I only wanted the journey. No destination.

I’ve made a journey, but got off the path of liberal arts, shunted aside by politics and religion. By alcohol and women. By travel and jobs. All ok, all good. Yet not where I wanted to be.

Now. The tarot card, the Hermit, hangs rendered in neon over my breakfast table. Herman’s Hermits remind me of the year before college, feelings accelerating, ground speed increasing. I’m also reminded of my first response to Kate’s death. I’m going to be a hermit. Hence, the neon. Last year I wrote a one-act play introducing Herme, the Hermit, and Cold Mountain’s poetry. And the dream says, go. Teshuvah. Return to the highest and best you.

A semi-hermit, a sometime recluse, a happy loner. But one with the permission to study, to write. To go back into the liberal arts and see if, as Israel: God-Wrestler, I can add to the world my own learnings.  About the Great Wheel, the Jewish liturgical year, trees and plants, about process metaphysics, about religion, about poetry and literature, about transformation and metamorphosis. These are the lenses through which I have learned to see the world.

Next. Organizing my days, weeks, months, years around this Fool’s Journey. After that. On to the diving board, spring up and down. Out into thin air.

*

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Judaism, Mountains, Plants, Wild Neighbors

Life. Challenges to it.

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Beltane and the Moon of Shadow Mountain

General Sherman

Tuesday gratefuls: Sarah’s back home. Her visit. Ruth tonight at Domo. Kristie today for update on my recent labs. Meeting David to talk prostate cancer. Great Sol beaming. All those Wild Neighbor babies and young ones. Good workout yesterday. Good practice for my bar mitzvah: torah portion and service leading portions. Ordering a few things: new laptop, new laptop stand, a summer weight comforter. Giving on Colorado Jewish Giving Day.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Enough to share

One brief shining: Can you imagine General Sherman under attack, the largest single Tree in the world, 274.9 feet high, 102.6 feet circumference at ground level, height of first branch above the base, 130.0 feet, by Beetles, Bark-Beetles, possibly aided by the climate tragedy; more, can you imagine being a researcher for the Giant Sequoia Lands Coalition climbing General Sherman this week, this great Wild Neighbor,  because “We really feel like it’s our duty as stewards to take a closer look.” I can.

Quote from Christy Brigham in a San Francisco Chronicle article by Kurtis Alexander, May 20, 2024. Courtesy of Diane.

 

I feel suddenly protective of these Trees, this Tree. The Redwoods, too. And the Bristlecone Pines. Taller than three blue whales. I mean…

Gonna add the Giant Sequoia Lands Coalition to my donation list. Just donated. What a good feeling. Loving sharing Kate and mine’s money with organizations living out our values. Southern Poverty Law Center. Wild Animal Sanctuary. Kabbalah Experience. CBE. ADL. The Land Institute. The Ancient Forests Society. Makes me happy.

No, we cannot make much of a difference, but we can add our names and our money to those spots of human activity where social justice, the Great Work, Judaism, the Land, and our Wild Neighbors get attention and progress forward.

Not sure why the heart connection with these Trees. Mostly Muir Woods, I guess. Standing next to, among. Shaded by. Overshadowed by. A wild amazement that such beings exist, life so strong and vital. Godliness found. Commitment to a location. Perseverance. Majesty. Silence. Love of place, of the Soil. Soul creation.

 

Today at 11 I talk with Kristie for the first time in a while. My PSA went up a bit, as I wrote before, and my testosterone down. PSA under 1.0 which is the point beyond which imaging can pick up metastases. So no P.E.T. scan. Still off the drugs with my drug holiday. Feeling a bit unsure, unsteady about cancer right now. Will be good to talk to Kristie and get her take, her advice about where we go from here. Back on the drugs, I’m sure. But when?

Almost all of the time I’m ok with the cancer, letting it go on its way, taking the steps my doctors recommend. Living today. When I get a bit anxious about it, I’m not sure what’s going on. Like now. Hardly crippling, yet also there.

 

Have supper with my favorite (and only) granddaughter tonight at Domo. There I’ll give her the present from Kate and me. Enough cash to travel somewhere interesting before starting college. Also, some chocolate. I am so proud to be her grandpop. Glad for her that she was able to complete high school and graduate with her class. CU-Boulder this fall. Studio Arts. Her Dad and Grandma are proud.

 

 

 

 

 

Commentary on the news, Great Wheel, Mountains, Plants, Politics, Wild Neighbors

Sex and babies!

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Beltane and the Shadow Moon

Monday gratefuls: Sarah. Healthy salad. BJ and Pamela. Ruth and Gabe. Pollen. Tree sex. Shadow Mountain. Working out. Staying strong. PSA. Testosterone. James Webb Telescope. Writing. Painting. Learning torah. Rabbi Rami  Shapiro. Rabbi Michael Strassfield. Rabbi Toba Spitzer. Breaking new ground.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Life, mystery and miracle, ordinary

One brief shining: The season of rampant sex in the Plant kingdom has begun, trees leading the way up here Elm, Juniper, Maple of which we have few, but when it comes time for the yellow dust to settle all round the house, to line the puddles when it Rains, to coat the furniture and make housekeeping hard, then it will have well and truly begun for us above 8,000 feet, and my windows will have to close so I can sleep.

 

This is also the time of birth. Wild Neighbor nurseries filled with Mule Deer Fawn, Elk Calves, Mountain Lion and Fox Kits, Black Bear Cubs. A lot of youngsters learning the way of things in the Mountains. Plenty of water for them right now with Streams still full and fast. Fresh young grass and new plant shoots. Prey, too, for the Predators as the cycle of life offers no free passes in the Arapaho National Forest.

Easy. Too easy to drive down the hill toward Evergreen, passing Maxwell Creek Trailhead, Cub Creek, Black Mountain, Shadow Mountain, Kate’s Creek and Valley and forget the busy and wonderful community of Wild Creatures living, thriving just out of sight. Their lives as palpable and momentous to them as ours are to us, as wonderful and fraught.

I found new grass! Good water! Let’s go back to the den. I want to play. Be careful. See, you hide here and wait. Where are my babies?

In short or long lives the gathering of molecules and atoms into sentient beings brings to our Planet joy and diversity and playfulness. As we all move through this world with eyes, bodies, feathers, fur, wings, legs, we participate in a bacchanal of sensory stimulation. Gaia showing herself to herself. Gaia celebrating the multiple inventions, mutations, and transformations she can engender. What a show.

 

Just a moment: Then of course there’s a helicopter crash in the foggy Elburz Mountains of northern Iran. There is, too, the International Criminal Court seeking warrants against Netanyahu and the Hamas leader Sinwar. Makes sense to me.

Here in our benighted republic the election of 2024 grinds on in its caricature of a Presidential election year. The good President reviled and unloved; the bad President on trial in many courts, still the nasty racist son-of-a-bitch he’s always been, yet somehow leading in the polls. I can only shake my head, then stop and put that same head in my hands.

That ship, the Dali, that took out the Francis Scott Key bridge has headed back to port.

Meanwhile war continues in the Ukraine and in the Gaza Strip.

I could go on, but you know, too. May you live in interesting times.

BTW*

 

 

The Phrase Finder website says: “‘May you live in interesting times’ is widely reported as being of ancient Chinese origin but is neither Chinese nor ancient, being recent and western.”

According to the site, the phrase was originally said by the American politician, Frederic R. Coudert, in 1939. He referred to a letter Sir Austen Chamberlain wrote to him in which he stated:

. . . by return mail he wrote to me and concluded as follows: “Many years ago, I learned from one of our diplomats in China that one of the principal Chinese curses heaped upon an enemy is ‘May you live in an interesting age.’”

Despite this, it does not appear to actually come from China and is not clear to have existed before Sir Austen Chamberlain allegedly said it.

grammarpartyblog

 

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Judaism, Plants, Travel

Awe

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Beltane and the Moon of Shadow Mountain

Shabbat gratefuls: Kate’s yahrzeit. Lighting the yahrzeit candle. Frost on the Lodgepole’s at Black Mountain’s peak. May 15 in Minnesota. Planting ok then, in days past. Self-care. Nuggets win in Minneapolis. Coastal Redwoods. Sequoias. Bristlecone Pine. Douglas Fir. White Pine. Fraser Pine. Ponderosa Pine. Kate’s Creek. Maxwell running full. Bear Creek.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Kate

Songtan, 2016

One brief shining: The boardwalk felt soft, welcoming as morning Sunshine filtered onto it through the Forest, its planks took shade and sun alike, filling it with gentle magic while not revealing the wonders rising only feet from its sides, where the Coastal Redwoods, which can reach over 300 feet toward the sky, with trunks requiring many hands for a complete hug, soared up from the Valley soil with grace, power.

 

Awe. Wonder. Amazement. In my belated but so appreciated first contact with these giants of the Forest. Each one with the presence of a meditating Buddha. Still, rooted to their place, focused on their wooden dreams. Diane told me of the efforts firefighters went through to save the Sequoias, putting aluminum fire resistant blankets around their bases to protect them. I would help. The majesty of these Trees made me want to weep with joy. That we share the Earth with such entities.

This is a possible outcome of travel. Transport to a place unexpected, even unimagined. Oh, I had an inner picture, an expectation about how it would be to see these Trees. Nothing prepared me for the sight of them. The unique and powerful sense of self they project. Wild neighbors are so precious because they show us the limits of artifice, of bending the world to our will. Wild neighbors are natural Taoists, accepting the world as it comes, adapting to its changes.

Of course, I’m most familiar with Lodgepole Pines, Aspen, Mule Deer, Elk, Black Bears, Foxes, Mountain Lions yet the Coastal Redwood and its near relative the Sequoia are my wild neighbors, too. Just further away. How bare, spiritually, would be my world without them. Can you imagine? A world with no Wild Neighbors?

 

Just a moment: Been thinking about the purpose of universities. Came up with three to start with: 1. Collect, curate, and conserve the deposit of human culture. Imagine and execute ways to keep it available to generations yet unborn.  2. Foster a culture of critical thought. 3. Provide those moratorium years for each generation where life becomes exploration and adventure.

What other purposes underlie this grand social experiment?

 

It took me until yesterday to get my Mountain legs back. To once again be here, in my life. Some psychic pain over the last few days occasioned in the main by back stress + food poisoning. When my body’s not right, it’s easy to spiral, confusing a wounded body with a wounded soul. I became febrile, fragile. Old. In need of assisted living. Foolish for living this long alone, high in the Mountains. My judgment compromised by a younger self’s commitment to the Rockies.

Yet this morning, as I feel my way into shabbat, my new Jew soul smiles. You’re where you belong, Yisrael. And not too old. Not yet.