Category Archives: Plants

Great Work, Mountains, Plants, Shadow Mountain

International Mountain Day

Leave a comment

Samain and the last day of the Choice Moon

Monday gratefuls: Ruth. Gabe. Leo. Luke. Friday’s Snow pock marked now by Snow falling from gently curved Lodgepole Branches. Shadow Mountain. International Mountain Day. Black Mountain. Bergen Mountain. Conifer Mountain. Mount Blue Sky. Pike’s Peak. Mount Rosalie. Long’s Peak. The Continental Divide. The Caucasus. The Atlas range. The Wasatch. Sierra Nevada. Cascades. Rockies. Mt. Snowdon. Kilimanjaro. Sea Mounts. Haleakala. Mauna Loa. Kilauea. The Mountain behind my son’s apartment building in Songtan.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Mountains

One brief shining: Each morning I open my eyes on Shadow Mountain, 8,800 feet above sea level, watch Great Sol gradually lighten the bulk of Black Mountain, and whenever I go for groceries or to see a friend or to the synagogue, I drive Mountain roads curving through Mountain Valleys alongside Mountain Streams in a manner similar to the other 15% of the World’s population who live on and in Earth’s Mountain Ranges.

 

Happy International Mountain Day!* This year’s theme? Restoring Mountain Ecosystems. “This theme was selected to fully include mountains in the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021–2030, co-led by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN and the UN Environment Programme.””

Living on and in the Mountains this one feels personal. Kate said everyday she lived up here she felt like she was on vacation. I’m so glad she felt that way. The grandkids love coming up here. Gabe wants to live in the Mountains. And, he probably will. Folks at CBE often refer to each other as Mountain Jews. 15% of the World’s population live in and on Mountains. Some were born there, but many come by choice like Kate and me.

I’ve seen a comparison between those who love the Ocean and those who love the Mountains. Beaches-extroverts. Mountains-introverts. Like any broad brush often wrong but in my experience Mountain folks keep to themselves. We spend a lot of time hiking, hunting, fishing. On our decks. Driving to somewhere else in the Mountains. We don’t like to go down the hill more than we have to.

Our ecosystems matter. A lot. The Snowpack in Colorado gets national and international exposure because its water reserves predict the amount of water available in the coming year for those who draw on the Colorado River. Seven states. Millions of people. On a smaller scale even Maxwell Creek and Cub Creek and Bear Creek flow into the Waters of the mighty Mississippi traveling through the South Platte to the Platte from there to the Missouri and from the Missouri into the Mississippi. It’s all downstream from me.

I find myself drawn to restoring axolotls, creating perennial crops, heirloom seeds, regenerative farming, restoring Mountain Ecosystems. That’s where my money goes. And to caring for wild animals that need sanctuary. Not to say that other needs aren’t critical. Sure they are. But my heart expands when I imagine a World with organic and regenerative farms and farmers, with Axolotl’s swimming free among the chinampas and the chinamperos make that sustainable, with heirloom Vegetables on everyone’s table, with grain crops that can be planted once and then tended rather than plowed, with Mountain Ecosystems the world over restored to their original purpose. That’s my Other World. May it come soon.

 

 

 

 

*”The United Nations General Assembly designated 11 December “International Mountain Day”. As of 2003, it has been observed every year to create awareness about the importance of mountains to life, to highlight the opportunities and constraints in mountain development and to build alliances that will bring positive change to mountain peoples and environments around the world.” International Mountain Day, U.N.

 

Feelings, Mountains, Plants, Wild Neighbors

The Forest after dark

Leave a comment

Samain and the Choice Moon

Saturday gratefuls: The Blues Shabbat. Ron and Jamie, the Blues Brothers. Veronica. The oneg. Thanksgiving. The Forest at night. Orion. The Pleiades. Scorpio. The night Sky on Shadow Mountain. The half crescent Choice Moon. Driving at night. Tara helping me get ready for my aliyah on December 1st. The torah blessings. Alan and Adrian. Helen. Evergreen at night. Israel ben Abraham and Sarah. Word to Deed today on prayer. Studying the Parsha. Making a sabbath.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Orion rising

One brief shining: At the service last night Elizabeth announced Veronica and I would sponsor the oneg (after service food and drinks) on December 1st, people turned and smiled, greeted us afterward with genuine joy, reeling us both in closer.

 

Last night I drove home from the Blues Shabbat, which was wonderful. Back up Brook Forest Drive which becomes Black Mountain Drive. A fat crescent moon hung in the southern Sky, stars twinkled, coming into sight and disappearing among the trees of the Arapaho National Forest.

Two different realms. The daytime Forest and the nighttime Forest. We diurnal animals can navigate the Forest with relative ease during the day. Rocks and Trees, Valleys and Creeks. A trail going up or down. If there’s Snow or Ice, we can plan how we want to approach it. Or, turn back. The colors of the Grass, the Trees, the Granite and Gneiss show up. Green Grass or dead Grass, dusty brown, reddish bark, the gray of Boulders and other Outcroppings of Rock. We can cross the Creek on the fallen Tree, or those hopefully not too slippery Rocks.

At night? Not so much. Our eyes, like all diurnal animals, gather light, but not as efficiently as nocturnal animal eyes. Our body temperature tends to be lower since we have the heat of the day. We sleep at night while the nocturnal animals sleep, or rest, most during the day. Nocturnal animals’ senses of smell and hearing also tend to be more acute that us day lovers.

The Forest at night for a diurnal animal. Not our world. Even when our eyes adjust to the dark we don’t see well. Much more likely to trip, run into something, miss the patch of Ice or deep Snow. Nocturnal Predators have the upper hand over diurnal animals once darkness falls.

As a result, when I drive through the night time Forest, an atavistic fear or at least caution arises as I imagine myself having to make my way through that dark landscape. Vulnerable. Uncertain. Certain species memories arise from the collective unconscious saying beware, there may be monsters. Not difficult to see how folks of say, the Middle Ages, created folk tales and legends around the Black Forest, Sherwood Forest, or even the Big Woods that used to stretch from the East coast to the Midwest.

That’s in part why the Bull Elk I saw in the Rain and at night had such a powerful effect on me. He roamed the night time Forest, had a presence there I could not imagine.

 

Asia, Judaism, Korea, Mountains, Plants, Weather +Climate

Water

Leave a comment

Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Osan Air Base. A hike in the Mountains with my son, Seoah, and Murdoch. Meeting several ajuma (old women) who found Murdoch fascinating. A new TV. The dense population of Songtan and most of Korea. Buses. Taxis. Maglev trains. Subways. Cars. Motorcycles. Some bicycles. Many roads built for foot traffic or Horse/Ox powered carts. Jon’s yahrzeit. Kate, always Kate.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Seoul today

One brief shining: Murdoch lying down on a brick walkway, passersby eyeing him, smiling, some pulling further away, one ajuma with a visor and a bamboo fan stopping, saying how noble he was, aristocratic, better than a human being since he would never betray.

 

Happening again. Jimmy Buffet dead at 76. Bill Richardson at 75. Not people I followed in any way other than seeing their names often but familiar nonetheless. A singer and a diplomat/fixer. Dead at my age. Reminders that each generation fades away, one former celebrity at a time, one notorious person at a time (yes, even Trump will die), one friend and family member at a time.

This thing we call life has its turn with us, with our Dogs and Whales and Paramecium, even the Bristle Cone Pines and the Joshua Trees, Mosquitoes and Mayflies. Even Mountains and Streams. Then leaves.

But, not Water. No. Water moves from liquid to ice to steam, rises and condenses and falls. Returns to the World Ocean and leaves again on Jet Stream driven Winds to Rain on the just and the unjust. There is a measure of immortality in Water.

Korea and Japan, Peninsula and Islands, are Land forms defined by Water. Risen above the depths of the World Ocean yet surrounded by it, influenced by its moods and its weather. So different from the Landlocked Rocky Mountains in which I live or the interior Midwest in which I lived for most of life.

There the Great Lakes, for example, were Water forms defined by the Land that surrounds them. Those Lakes first filled with Water from the receding Glaciers of the last Ice Age. Rivers like the Minnesota and the Mississippi. Smaller Lakes dotting the northern part of the State and even within the city limits of the Twin Cities.

One of Water’s other mysteries keeping the Lakes liquid. Water floats in its Ice form. If it didn’t, Ice would sink to the bottom of the Lakes and form cold basins with occasional melted Ice at the very top. No wonder Taoism finds in Water a metaphor for how chi, the energy of life, flows through the whole World.

In the mussar class I take at CBE we’re exploring metaphors for what has been identified with the word God. Learning how the metaphors we choose define what we imagine that word to mean, or better, what it could mean.

What if the call of the natural world, as Art Green, author of Radical Judaism defines the sacred (my interpretation of his work), could be heard and felt in the flow of a Mountain Stream or the evaporation of Water from the World Ocean or in the pelting of Rain on a roof, onto a newly sown Field? Or in the glass of Water I just finished, replenishing my body’s supply?

What if then we could say that we share in Water’s immortality? In its ability to wear away the hard, move around obstacles, change into different forms, give life to the thirsty? I can follow that understanding of the sacred.

 

Asia, Cooking, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Mountains, Plants, Travel, Weather +Climate

Mountains in the Cities

Leave a comment

Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Saturday gratefuls: A whole Chicken and Rice for each of us. Onions. Peppers. Pickled Peppers. Kimchi. Radish in squares. Side dishes. Dates. Mushrooms. Dinner last night in downtown Songtan. Screen golf. My son’s drives. Seoah calling  herself Bunker Woman after several sand traps. Walking in the Woods on the small Mountain behind Seoah and my son’s apartment building.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: My son and Seoah’s relationship. Playful.

One brief shining: Black ceramic bowls with a whole Chicken, Rice underneath, Mushrooms and Dates in the soup, white bowls of pickled Radish, Cabbage, Peppers, Sliced Onions, and Green Peppers, cold Water in a jug, metal chopsticks and the long Korean spoon, a meal with my son and Seoah in neon intensive downtown Songtan on a Friday night.

 

Songtan, as most Korean cities and towns, has Mountains within its borders. Reminds me of the  Twin Cities with Lakes inside the city limits. Many not more than high Hills at this point in their geological journey, yet Forested and with changing altitudes.

Behind Posco the  Sharp’s building 111 where my son and Seoah live on the 12th floor a small Mountain rises. Walking trails covered with soft Vegetal mats, workout equipment at various sites, this Mountain goes up from building 111 and peaks, then descends to a small commercial area maybe 10 blocks away.

Murdoch goes on daily walks with his people there. Yesterday morning around 9 am the trails had many older Koreans out walking, using the workout equipment. Some swung side to side, some  hung on metal rings, others stretched their bodies while others turned a large wheel one way then the other or used a simple elliptical.

I walked for thirty minutes up one side of the Mountain down the other and back again. Worked up a sweat in the humid warming air. A prized amenity to have so close to their apartment.

Later in the day I went with my son and Seoah to screen golf. For $35 dollars they rented a room for three hours. Along the back wall was a large screen which had the ability to not only project various golf courses and their holes but to show the trajectory of a drive, the path of an iron shot, bunkers, roughs, water hazards. It could also show an instant video of your last swing, keep score, tell you the amount of backspin and side spin on your ball, where the ball struck your club face.

They played 18 holes. My son shot a 94. Seoah, who prefers outdoors golf, did less well. I had fun watching them, seeing them applaud each others good shots, help each other with kind advice, be with each other. My son chipped in on one shot and we all got up and high fived  him.

After returning to the apartment to feed and walk Murdoch, we set out again, this time on foot to downtown Songtan which is only ten minutes or so from the apartment.

Seoah had a found a place that met her two key criteria: first, clean. Second, delicious. We walked through narrow, most often sidewalkless streets, cars going around us, delivery motorcycles weaving in and out, the traditional Asian exuberance of neon signage. Past coffee shops, clothing stores, many different kinds of restaurants, a small traditional grocery where they made rice cakes, sesame cakes, and other delicacies on site. Clubs. Bars advertising soju (a Korean vodka and a favorite beverage) and beer. Fried chicken places.

Lively and interesting.

Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Jefferson County, Korea, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Plants, Travel, Weather +Climate, World History

Softball, Korea News

Leave a comment

Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Friday gratefuls: Labor Day weekend. My son has Friday and Monday off. The Minnesota State Fair. A not so faded remnant of the Lughnasa festivals of the old Gaeltacht. A Minnesota Fall. Brilliant colors, blue Waters, trips up North. A Rocky Mountain Fall. Aspens gold against Lodgepole Green on Black Mountain. Clear cool Skies. A Korean Fall. Will find out.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Seasons

One brief shining: My son came home last night in a bright t-shirt with Aladdin 02 on the back and a Cobra on the front his left arm bruised at the bicep after he threw a pitch and a hard hit soft ball came right back to him full of joy at playing and having an injury.

 

My son plays on his squadron’s soft ball team. The Cobra signifies their squadron. His first time up a few weeks ago he hit a homer. Now he’s hooked for the season. He’s an athlete, has been since middle school. Cross country in the fall. Ski racing in the winter and track in the spring. High school. He also raced on the UofM’s ski team.

He and Seoah both have the athletic gene, now expressed most often in workouts and golf every weekend. Makes dad glad. Ha. Good for health and for their marriage.

 

Used the apartment’s gym again yesterday. Feel better already. More limber and a regular dose of endorphins. The same three buff middle-aged Korean women were in the weight room. Seemed like chatting had as much to do with their reason for being there as the weight machines.

Noticed, again, that I tilt to the left. Scoliosis. Polio. Beginning to have some soreness in my right hip and lower back. Not often, not always. Usually after a lot of time on my feet.

Still not sure how it will affect my stamina when I get into serious sight-seeing. May be limited to mornings. Maybe less than that. Or, maybe rest at intervals will be enough. I’m sure to find out this weekend since we’re going to Seoul for the first time.

 

Big news here. War games held for both North and South Korea. Every year a war game called Freedom Shield unites South Korean and U.S. militaries in a display of force designed as a response to a hypothetical North Korean invasion. Such exercises enhance the ability of two command structures to blend when faced with actual conflict.

North Korea launched an unsuccessful spy satellite last Wednesday in response. Then two more short range ballistic missiles this week. Today North Korea announced military exercises simulating the occupation of all of South Korea. Tit for tat.

This annual saber rattling makes both sides a bit nervous, jumpy. My son has had some extra work as a result.

On the streets of Songtan this causes no reaction whatsoever as near I can tell. The taxis pick up passengers. Folks go into the coffee shops. Buy meals in restaurants. It’s not that people don’t care. All Koreans want unification. Just not through military means. It’s more that the specter of war hangs so heavy here that it has become a backdrop to daily life. Not ignored, but not engaged daily.

Sort of like having cancer it just occurred to me. You can’t pretend it’s not there. And, yes, it could kill you. But, if it occupies your heart/mind all the time  you give up life. Which doesn’t make sense. So  you make an uneasy peace and go on about your day.

Acting, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Myth and Story, Plants, Reimaging revelation, Shadow Mountain, Tarot, Wild Neighbors, Writing

Go now, the play has ended

Leave a comment

Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Sunday gratefuls: The Trail to Cold Mountain. Performed to applause. Released. Packing started. Radical light this time. The company of actors. Acting. Alan and Joan at dinner last night. Cold Mountain. His poetry. The improv class’s Armando. Ginnie. Rebecca. Marilyn and Irv. Ruth. Jen. Gabe. Joan’s piece on the dybbuk. Alan’s on aging. Tal, a master teacher at 26. A chilly Mountain Night. Luke and Leo. Vince. The Parking Spot. TSA open at 4 am for precheck security. Korea. Israel. Taipei.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Live a Great Story (decal on a Jeep back window)

One brief shining: This time there was a crowd when I walked out, confident in my piece, carrying the drinking Gourd and my parchment poems, dropped into Herme and Han Shan’s story, Great Sol gone unseen as Berrigan Mountain rotated west with the rest of us, a light breeze blowing.

 

Go now, the play has ended. My first play has found an audience. What a rush. I finished saying, “Take the Trail to Cold Mountain.” And we all had. My performance was over. The work of the summer over. Ups and downs culminating in a work I was proud of and a performance I was proud of. Felt wonderful. Stretched in a healthy way past my comfort zone.

Only will know later if my goal for the piece spreading the word about the Rivers and Mountains poetry tradition of China found its way into anyone’s heart. If I had written an artist’s statement for The Trail to Cold Mountain it would have been something like this:

I want to introduce to a Mountain audience the Rivers and Mountains poetry tradition of China through the Tarot archetype of the Hermit. I believe most Mountain folks have a strong component of this archetype that led them here. We like the curvy roads, the cool Mountain mornings, living with Wild Neighbors on Forested Land. No, more. We need to live away from the World, to clear the heat and dust from our minds and be where the Wind sings through the Pines. So, too, in China. In the Andes. In all the great Mountains and Forests of the World. We are one people.

Poetry and archetype, myth and legend. Religion. This has long been my realm. From one novel to the next, from one job to the next, even the motor behind the justice work. Now it speaks to where and how and with whom I live. In the Mountains, with other Hermits yet also linked in loving ways to a community, caring for them and being cared for by them. Still linked in deep heart connection with Minnesota made friends, with family far away and nearby, living my own life with them all, yet apart from them, too.

Deepening the love. Burning away the dross.

 

Coming home, late. Drove up Brook Forest and Black Mountain Drives. Realized a powerful raison d’être for experiencing the sacred. As I drive along the familiar ranks of Lodgepoles and Aspens, I look now for another glimpse, a brief appearance of the natural world calling to me. (Art Green, Radical Judaism, p. 120) I know that the opportunity, the chance to again see through a portal like the Rainy Night Watcher exists. Thus, I’m more aware of the sacred all along the drive.

This is, I imagine, the reason others over the course of history have written down their experiences, collected the stories of others, and collected them in what we call sacred writings. Not to freeze those moment and make them rules against which to measure our lives, but as clues, as prompts to the possible moments when the natural world will reach out to us, to help us be ready to see what we’re looking at.

 

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

Love

Leave a 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.

 

Mountains, Plants, Poetry, Shadow Mountain, Wild Neighbors

Mountains

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.

GeekWorld, Mountains, Plants, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Day to day

Leave a 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?

 

Asia, Denver, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Plants, Travel

Distance and depth

Leave a 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.