Category Archives: Judaism

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Judaism, Myth and Story, Politics

An Unserious Man

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The Off to College Moon

Friday gratefuls: Mussar. Rabbi Jamie. Laurie and her Chicago stories. And her chili cheese hotdogs. The Pearl. Ruby. Ruth on campus. Kepler, my sweet boy. Kate, always Kate. The blue Sky above, Shadow Mountain Home beneath. Kamala. Her tagging of 45 as an unserious man. Joanne and Alan at the Parkside. Labcorps. Marilyn and Irv.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Kamala and Coach Walz

Kavanah: Serenity  Menucha

One brief shining: A lesson in patience has come my way, the comparatively (to Quest) slow pace of getting my still not available PSA and testosterone numbers sent me down on Wednesday, forced to adjust my attitude, to open my heart to waiting, which has taught me to consider my desire for knowing, for knowing now, for knowing what comes next, for knowing estimates of my life span, that desire changes neither my PSA, what comes next, or my life span. Oh.

 

The story of the Pearl resonates with all who hear it. Though. Realized after recounting this at mussar yesterday Oysters are not kosher. No fins or scales. I’m not observing kosher, perhaps obviously, yet I did have to stop and consider this. If I were to observe kosher, and I have no plan to right now, it would be along the lines of ethical eating. Which is the function of kosher observance in traditional Jewish life. I do eat far less red meat than in the past, partly health and partly to eat lower on the food chain. Use less resources.

Still working on finding a jeweler or silversmith. Harder than I thought it would be. Evergreen Goldsmiths could have done what I wanted, but they closed. Going to the Silver Arrow gallery to see if they have recommendations.

 

No results from Labcorp. Not sure what’s going on. Practicing the midot of serenity. Does it make me serene to get agitated about not having these numbers? No. Will asking my docs to look into it help with my serenity? Yes. So I did that just now. Inner calm. Yes.

 

Just a moment: Listened to the opening twenty minutes or so of Kamala’s speech. Trump as an unserious man. Oh, yes. An epithet so true and so weakening. I hope it gains viral currency. I found her speech fine, but not exceptional. Not a barn burner as we might say in our suddenly spotlighted Midwest. So I stopped listening. Don’t need a barn burner. Need steady, stable, democratic small d. A return to normalcy. Never thought I’d write or believe those words.

She seems to have captured the zeitgeist perfectly. Hyperbolic promises and overheated rhetoric play into the bombast and chest-thumping of the MAGA style. We do not need more of that. We need to take this narrow window Kamala recognizes and keep the orange one in his billionaire fantasy world, his tasteless Trump Tower and gauche Mar-a-Lago. There to await the consequences of his criminal activity as his various trials come to fruition and his debts to his victims come due.

 

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Kabbalah, Mussar

Learning. Still. Always.

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The Off to College Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Irv and Marilyn. Tara. Labcorps. Medicine. Medicines. Healing. Suffering. Pain. Puppies. Toddlers. Rainbows. Ponies. The periodic table of the elements. Starliner. Oh, my. Polaris. Betelgeuse. Vega. Rigel. Arcturus. Andromeda. The Milky Way. That far away, older than old Galaxy. The vastness of space. The particularity of you. Ruth’s first full day on campus.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Pearl

Kavanah: COMPASSION  Rachamim

One brief shining: A pearl means a parasite or some other irritant has caused an Oyster to encapsulate it in layers of nacre, hiding it safely away from the living animal within its shell; Kate loved pearls and had earrings, necklaces, so it is not a stretch at all to believe that she would surprise me with one on her eightieth birthday, perhaps telling me that death is just such an irritant to the living, that grief creates a pearl of compassion and wisdom to compensate for its insult to life.

 

Ruth’s first day. At college. Rather, at university. The University of Colorado, Boulder. Go, Buffaloes. Coach Prime. Funny at these big universities that basketball and football often define their public perception while their true work starts on days like these. Young minds, fresh from public education for the most part, begin to use the tools they acquired there to begin thinking on their own. Learning from, delighting in the deep deposit of human knowledge and culture, of skills and techniques created by others who preceded them. For higher education is not about building with the tools of others but wielding them on your own. If it’s not that, then it’s vocational education. Which is important, wonderful, and necessary. But. It. Is. Not. The. Same. Thing.

I’m so excited for and with Ruth. Opening the mind to new ideas, new information, new ways of thinking and understanding. What a rush. A rush that has never dimmed nor diminished for me in the 59 years since I walked on to the campus at Wabash College. We are many things, we human beings, but most of all we are creatures who learn and who use what we learn to make our lives richer, deeper, more just, healthier, more robust.

 

A note on pursuing da’at, knowledge. Which I have done and will continue to do all my life. I trapped myself yesterday, obsessively pressing the button for Labcorps results. Nothing so far. Quest always got my results up the next day after my blood draw. Had to switch to Labcorps because Evergreen Medical did. A different pace, a different system. Won’t change the results, but I’ve been frustrated, wanting to KNOW. When I know will not change the results. In that sense it really doesn’t matter.

Pushed myself down, down yesterday waiting, clicking, checking my e-mail. Forgot in the pursuit of knowledge the a priori middot of serenity. Shattered it for the day. A lesson. One I find very difficult to learn. The folly of desiring knowledge. Too much.

Health, Kabbalah, Politics

The flow of the Tao

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The Off to College Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Ruth in her dorm room at Willville. With a passion for learning. Gabe home alone. Storm Clouds and high Winds. Breakfast with Tara. Cheryl, the phlebotomist, and my blood draw. The Pearl. Diane and Tom. Brother Mark and the Bangkok urban park. Mary in K.L. My son and Seoah. Songtan. My Lodgepole Companion waving to the keepers of moisture. Perhaps encouraging them. Rain on me.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Blood and its mysteries

Kavanah for the life of August 21, 2024: Knowledge, da’at

One brief shining: Da’at lies directly beneath the keter, or crown, of the tree of life, linked in the downward movement of chi, of life force, of the Tao to hokmah, wisdom, and binah, analysis and planning, feeding in turn hesed, loving-kindness and gevurah, boundaries and strength; knowledge taking shape through consciousness and unconsciousness giving birth to wisdom, to shaping and birthing by the binah.

 

The tree of life in Kabbalah maps a flow of sacred energy from keter to malkhut, the realm of the shekinah, the feminine sacred, and then, as through a divine pump moving back up through the ten sefirot to keter where the cycle of creation and transformation begins again. Yesterday my blood filled a vial, already containing facts that I need for accurate knowledge of my cancer. The spark of that knowledge exists ahead of its translation into a something that can be considered, only becoming knowable as it moves through the laboratory, carried in drops of my essence, and transformed there into knowledge that I can access, use.

I am especially glad that that using that knowledge, my current PSA and testosterone levels, passes first into hesed, or loving kindness, reminding me that all knowledge comes as kindness, and also, through gevurah with its own boundaries.

A heady way of saying that I’m waiting on my lab results to see if my PSA has returned to undetectable, which would be a big YES, or has continued to rise, sealing my diagnosis of castration-resistant cancer. What framing this waiting kabbalistically does for me is remind me that all of life, all of creation flows up and down the tree, always, including the divine spark, the neshamah or pure soul that is me. Life to death, death to life. Constant change and creation, constant novelty. No destruction without creation. A Shiva view of the nature of life.

 

Just a moment: If you want a recent and readable analysis of the probable effects of an orange win, read this Thomas Edsall article, Trump is not done with us. Here is its last paragraph:

“I am going to give the last word to Timothy Snyder*:

Trump is in the classic dictatorial position: He needs to die in bed holding all executive power to stay out of prison. This means that he will do whatever he can to gain power, and once in power will do all that he can to never let it go. This is a basic incentive structure which underlies everything else. It is entirely inconsistent with democracy.”

*”Timothy Snyder, a historian at Yale and an expert on the regimes of Stalin and Hitler…”

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Judaism, Torah

You are holy

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The Off to College Moon

Friday gratefuls: Doncye. My son. Murdoch. Seoah. Alan. Dandelion. Evergreen. Black Mountain Drive. Brook Forest Drive. Aspen Park. Notary. Blue expansive late Summer Sky. The West. The Mountain West. Harris/Walz. Tweedledum/Tweedledee. Psilocybin. Mary Jane. Celebrex. Cancer. Friends like Alan. Rabbi Jamie. Studying Torah. Joanne. Life.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: I’m at the front of a large group of people who will support you no matter what. Alan

Mikveh of my conversion

Kavanah: HOLINESS*   Kedusha       Holiness, dedication, specialness

One brief shining: Steve came in white hair tousled, spandex on his 70 pound-less frame, sat down at the Starbucks table where I waited for him with an iced white chocolate latte; he had just had a deep tissue massage and came to me ready to discuss prostate cancer. What he said drug me down.

 

Oh. See. Steve’s outside the golden zone where androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) works. At that point even though testosterone is at or near zero, the PSA continues to rise, meaning active cancer cells. Probably where I am, too. Find out next week. Blood draw.

In the midst of extolling his oncologist and her care for him he said, “She told me that once you get out of the golden zone you have about a year and a half.” I hope she meant, “Now that you, Steve, are out of the golden zone you have about a year and half.” Intend to find out for sure. Implications put me in a funk yesterday, this morning. Understandable, it seems to me.

This round of prostate cancer news has unsettled me, made me vulnerable. That last, vulnerability, has proved useful since I’m aware now that I need help with household chores and pain management. Over the next few months I hope palliative care will steer me in directions to take care of those needs.  A bit tender, sensitive. Cautious with how I view my future.

 

Just a moment: Studied Torah with Rabbi Jamie for an hour yesterday. Our monthly session. Interesting. I asked, “So Kaplan eschewed supernaturalism. What does God mean, then? How did God enter the picture.” Jamie started to ask why does it matter. We both agreed in some ways it doesn’t matter at all.

On the other hand, an interesting question. So we got at it anyhow. The parsha for the week: Parshat Va’etchanan, Deuteronomy 3:23 – 7:11 focused on Moses instructing the people before they go into the promised land. Moses speaks directly to God, then tells the descendants of the Hebrew slaves what God commands. No God out there in Reconstructionist thought, so…

I figured out that God came from the people. Moses, this wise guy, speaks and they follow him. How did he get so wise and knowing? Had to have the imprimatur of a God. What else could it be? In other words in order to follow Moses the people had to give him an authoritative source for his pronouncements: God. I really like this idea because it literally grounds God. Takes God out of the heavens, out of the supernatural, and places the God concept in the relationships in and among people. And, if you follow the thought, within your own inner world.

God is not out there. God becomes those impulses we follow for the collective good, for our own lifting ourselves up.

*(רוּחָנִי Ruchani, roo-chan-EE: spiritual,  cognitive function = intuitive/abstract)

Art and Culture, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Mussar, Politics

Izun

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The Off to College Moon

Monday gratefuls: A Manny for Us. Alan. Local theater. Local playwrights. Better energy, mood. This August 12th, 2024 life with Great Sol beaming. And my lev quivering with a charge of joy and strength. Sue Bradshaw. Hitting 150. Finally using my Ninja blender. Fruits and Veggies. The Ancient Brothers, chewing the fat. Lobster pottin’. Still above ground and taking nourishment.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: from melancholy to joy

One brief shining: Driving on 38th Street in Wheat Ridge, a Denver burb, oh, there’s the Fridge’s Experimental research farm, there a huge care center for Christian Scientists, there a bar/restaurant in a faux Swiss building, the Chalet of course, a huge Lutheran hospital complex wrapped around a cathedral style church, odd design choice for the ecclesiastical heirs to the 95 theses, a left turn into a strip mall with a pizza place, a martial arts spot picturing a bald white guy holding a metal sword and looking strange to me, and a plain door for the Wheat Ridge Theater Company where I spent an afternoon surprised by the depth of a local playwright.

Kavanah for this August 12th life: BALANCE   Izun (ee-ZOON)   Balance, poise, moderation

(Derech Ha’Emtzait, DARE-ech ha-em-tsah-EET: the middle path/way/course)   [Kitzoniut, keets-own-ee-OOT: Extremism, going to either end of a spectrum]

NB: Mussar does not say that the poles of a character trait are bad. There are times when they are the appropriate expression of the middot. Imbalance on ones political or religious views can be harmful, destructive, yet there also times when the extremes serve a larger, necessary purpose. Or, say, times when being either very active or passive might be the better way.

 

 

The word for balance in Hebrew is איזון, izun. Interestingly, the word for ear in Hebrew is אֹזֶן, ozen. Using my inner ear to try to catch the middle way between last week’s struggle and this week’s grace. What sound comes between? Is it middle-C? Good way to imagine it actually. I have a hard time these days hearing the high notes, children’s and women’s voices. Bass notes. Oh, they still come through pretty well.

I would say I usually live life in the upper ranges of joy and happiness. I don’t understand musical composition well enough to use it accurately here, but I do plunge down to the bass notes once in a while. A mild manic/depressive oscillation I’ve always thought. I like this analogy though because bass notes, lower keys, are, at least I think they are, musically necessary for harmony, for a musically balanced composition. Life is like that. Taking the high notes and the low notes and arranging them along the staff lines of your movement through the day so that something beautiful takes shape.

What kind of music are you making with this one Mayfly life you’ve been granted by awakening on August 12th, 2024?

 

Just a moment: Gosh. Gee whiz. Where are the I can’t believe I’m reading this headlines? Where is he who should no longer appear in bold type? In hiding? Afraid of getting his behind whooped by a woman?

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Kabbalah, Politics, US History, World History

Shinin’ on me

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The Off to College Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Better mood. Great Sol shinin’ on me. And my Lodgepole Companion. More blue than milky sky. Quarry Fire 100% contained. Makes me feel better about a Fire nearer to me. Theater and lunch today with Alan. Sue Bradshaw. Moods. James Lee Burke. Magic realism. King Arthur. Lancelot. Guinevere. Percival. The Green Knight.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ginny and Janice

One brief shining: The Tree of life has its sefirots, way stations for the stuff of creation that travels up and down the Tree from its masculine Crown to its Root, from chi borne in the ein sof, nothingness before, to malkut, the residence of the Shekinah, the sacred as female, pulsing and throbbing up and down, back up, back down, always new, always changing.

Kavanah: Joy  Simcha

 

A bit surprised but as Great Sol has snuck out from the dark clouds of last week, I feel better. Feel like the rain and drear might have doubled or tripled my dis-ease last week. I often slip into melancholy around October, the month of mom’s death 60 years ago this year. And last week felt much like early Fall. So… Doesn’t change the reality of anything going on with me of course. But it could change the valence, by a lot. Mild concern becomes serious worry. This bit of pain feels more telling. Combining concerns increases concern like a dung beetle rolling in, well, dung. Not diminishing the moment but perhaps draining some of its intensity.

 

Allows me to stand back and grin about Harris and Walz. Retail politics? Not my thing for the most part. Had a fling with it in the late 1980’s, working on some Hennepin County races, then Paul Wellstone’s first Senate run. I chaired the Farmer-Labor Association, “Put the FL back in the DFL.” Didn’t like it though the results were satisfying. Went back to organizing and working with the Sierra Club.

I can give money though so I paused a second here while writing this and sent $250 to the Act Blue pact. If you ever felt like donating to a political effort now’s definitely the time. We have to show enthusiasm, diverse support, and a willingness to push a bit past where it hurts. This is to put the Orange ifrit back in his Mar-a-Lago swampland.

 

Meanwhile this oh so fraught election year Ukraine fights on, sneaking into the Motherland. My sense is that Ukraine needs something big and doesn’t appear to have it on the horizon. And, further south the world and Israel awaits Iran’s response to the killing of two of Hamas’ leaders, one on Iranian soil. The Lebanese based Iranian terror client, Hezbollah, threatens war with Israel and Israel thumps its weakened chest right back. Could get real ugly, real fast.

As my son and other U.S. military personnel in the Far East stare down China, which has economic woes of its own making.

 

Just a moment: Olympics. Refreshing and beautiful. International. Diverse. See the American Olympic team. And what it’s accomplished.

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Mussar

Again, gevurah

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The Off to College Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Parsha Devarim. A milky blue and white Sky with gray Clouds stacked in rows in the northeast. Overnight Rain. 48 degrees. A cool Mountain Morning. Veronica. GOES-19. Most recent project on which she worked. Her description of the Falcon Heavy rockets landing. Her joy in seeing the launch. Gevurah. Cancer. Friendship.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Love

One brief shining: Not sure what to do with myself as my confidence in my body erodes, breathing hard while coring an apple, walking a short distance, from the garage to the house say, and needing a rest, wondering what’s making me so weak, what’s making it so hard to breath, not inspirational, why I need to find gevurah yet again today.

Kavanah: Gevurah   Strength, ability, willpower

 

Have to figure out a practice for gevurah. In mussar a practice is a way of strengthening a middot, a character trait. For example, if your middot is chesed, loving-kindness, you would look for opportunities throughout the day to make another’s burden lighter or at least a way to share it with them. Or, carry some groceries into a house. Run an errand. Send a kind note. Express your love or admiration for someone.

This does two things. First, it helps you recognize those moments in life when an opportunity to express loving-kindness arises. Second, it helps you actually express loving-kindness when those moments arise. Mussar believes in building from the outside in. That is, the more you see chances to exercise a middot and act on them, the more habitual they will become. Changing your character not through psyche wrangling like in therapy, but more in the way an athlete builds skill in there sport. Practice. Practice. Practice.

So. What might be a good practice for me to learn how to experience my gevurah in this August 10th, 2024 life? First, I might search for moments when I express strength but might otherwise gloss over or ignore it. Like writing. A strength I have here on Ancientrails is persistence, honesty, typing skills. Or, a more simple example. I make a good bagels and lox sandwich. Have several different ways to cook eggs. Another, I said the blessing and lit the candles for Shabbat last night. A ritual reminder of my Jewishness, of the light that comes in and through me through the divine nature of my brain and body, to take a day for rest and replenishment of my spirit. When I find these moments, celebrate them, large or small.

Second, search for opportunities to express my gevurah. Take on tasks in bite size chunks. And complete them. Think, consider, weigh, analyze. Write. Write some poetry. Write about what I’m learning on Herme’s journey. Through the Tarot cards I pull each morning.

Just a moment: Considering the number of men with prostate cancer. That I know: Steve, Dave, Mike. Me. Charlie H. Dick R. Wondering about organizing them. But to do what? Support each other? Sure. But. Maybe to consider how being a man has affected our approach to cancer? That sounds more interesting.

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Kabbalah, Mussar

Gevurah

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The Off to College Moon

Friday gratefuls: Jamie. Mussar. His translation and commentary. A smoky, wet Sky. The Olympics. Cardboard beds. Laurie and her Chi-town food truck. Chili cheese dogs. Evergreen. Evergreen Chamber Orchestra at Cactus Jack’s. Clean Ruby. Veronica. Dandelion. Ginny and Janice breakfast tomorrow. Ron’s mussar session on Gratitude. Yirah.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth off to college

One brief shining: The lev shaped table for mussar had only Jamie and Ellen around it when I came in, kippah in place, I remembered, with my too big phone and mussar notebook which I put on the table along with my ART hat from a long ago show at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Jamie smiled, so did Ellen.

 

Kavanah: STRENGTH   Gevura (g-voo-RAH) Strength, ability, willpower      Fifth Sefirah = restriction & boundaries; severity & justice; left hand pushing away (opposite Chesed/Kindness)  (חוּמרָה Chumra, CHOOM-rah: Strictness, stringency, rigour; from חמר to matter/have weight)  (חַיִל Chayil, CHAI-ul: Capability, valour, heroism)

[חוּלשָׁה Chulsha, chool-SHAH: Weakness, frailty, disability]

 

Picking intentions for the day that run counter to any negative feelings I’m having. In this case all the words in straight brackets: weakness, frailty, disability. Not been a great week. Too many of my lives have had an off feeling, physically. Shortness of breath. Though. I do live at 8,800 feet, have a paralyzed left diaphragm, allergies, and there’s been smoke in the air. The back issues seem more pronounced. And of course, the decadal favorite: cancer. Mostly I’m up, living my life and loving it. This week. The Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday lives and this August 9th life from what I can tell not so much.

I feel passive. The low T fatigue, I suppose. Have to accomplish tasks in bits and pieces. Only one at a time. Laundry. Make a meal. Straighten up. By the afternoon my go meter has pegged. Drained out. Sure. I can and do read. Write. Could paint but I haven’t. Default mode is either read fiction or watch TV.

I don’t know if this is whining. I don’t think it is. It’s not meant to be. Descriptive of a lassitude born not so much of ennui but of physical depletion occasioned by various ills my body has become heir to. May be some melancholy as a psychic sauce to ladle over it all. Don’t think I’m depressed. Not sure.

All in all. Neither satisfied nor happy. Nor dissatisfied or unhappy. A sort of blah tending toward brown or gray.

I see Sue Bradshaw on Monday, a six month checkup, and I plan to raise the shortness of breath and back with her. Another blood draw on the 19th. That will give some definition to my current cancer status. Not sure there’s a lot medicine can do for me on the first two. Hopeful about the cancer.

So you can see. The middot, the character trait of strength, Gevurah. What I need to find as often as I can in this August 9th life. In as many spots as I can. Experiencing some here. Writing is a strength. Putting the real out of my head and onto the screen. Naming and owning where and who I am.

Lunch with Veronica. A strength. Shabbat and Havdalah. New strengths.

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism, Memories

Witness

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The Off to College Moon

Thursday gratefuls: MVP. Ruth. Diane. Tom. The up over and the down under. Bangkok. Songtan. Melbourne. Orca Island. San Francisco. Robbitson. Shorewood. Minneapolis/St. Paul metro. Evergreen. Conifer. Genesee. Denver. Lakewood. Luke and Leo. Shadow Mountain. Black Mountain. Conifer Mountain. Rain, Rain. Come again. And again.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Harris/Walz

One brief shining: Sitting cross legged beneath the big painting by Jerry, the Blue Ridge Mountains landscape, Ruth explained how she and her roommates needed to solve a mistake, housing at UC Boulder had put two young women and one young man in the same room, but the conversation swiftly turned to classes: American history to 1865, Political Science 101 in the election year of all election years, studio arts, ways of knowing and finally whether to get a parking spot-no-and a possible library job-yes.

 

Kavanah: PEACE  Shalom (shuh-LOME) שָׁלוֹם   Peace, quietness, wholeness

 (קוֹר רוּחַ Kor Ruach, core ROO-ach: Calm, composure, literally a “cool spirit”) [בֶּהָלָה Behala, beh-ha-LAH: Fear, alarm, panic]

 

Smoky Sky, cool Air, decent Rain yesterday. A feeling of Fall, premature, yes, but welcome, very welcome anyhow. Four seasons. The Great Wheel turning once again. Nights lengthening. My favorite half of the year not far away.

This August 8th life incorporates these changes, makes the late night from MVP feel integrated with this resurrection moment, this reincarnation of my neshamah. The milky gray of the Sky has combined with my Vaad of last night, reflected in the heavens. The MVP group was the last round of folks I brought into my most recent cancer news since Ruth and I discussed it yesterday.

The August 7th life filled my cup while accentuating my sorrow. Yes, sorrow. That dark sadness from the last few days (lives) remains. Its tendrils gathering, pooling. A sense of foreboding. And. Ruth came up. We worked on transferring the MinnesotaSaves college fund money to my name. Ruth filling out the forms with her neat handwriting, discussing with the MinnesotaSaves folks what we needed to do. When we finished with that, I took a nap while she filled out a job application for work/study at the UC Boulder main library.

When I got up, I made lox, cream cheese, and bagels with onions and capers. I know. A little on the nose, but, hey! We both enjoyed them

Her excitement about her classes triggered those oh so sweet  memories of the first days of a new semester, a new quarter when a new field of study lay before me. Or, a deepening of a favorite area. And dealing with a roommate issue, so first days of college.

Having her here felt warm, loving. Though I did end up tired.

And that before I drove to Evergreen for MVP. Which went until 9:45 pm. Discussing responsibility and gratitude. Family. My vaad. Rich, Susan, Joanne, and Ron as witnesses. Not fixers. Not even empathizers, but listeners and seers. Though I have to face this alone internally, I am not alone. I’m in the company of those walking me home. As I walk them.

Art and Culture, Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Hermitage, Holidays, Judaism, Mountains, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Reimaging revelation, Shadow Mountain

My ancientrail

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The Off to College Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Ruth. Willville. August 20th. On her own. With a net. Returning to the Solar System. Gaia. Great Sol. Space. Vastness. Galaxies. Huge. Galaxy Clusters. Huger. The Universe its ownself. Our home. Our tiny, tiny presence in our galaxy, our local cluster, the whole of everything. And thanks for all the fish.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shabbat

One brief shining: Reading the parsha, the end of Numbers, then the book on Reconstructionism for class and for the CBE bookclub, lighting the candles, and saying the berakhot, the blessing over them, settling in to my Shabbat, sleeping, then rising, resurrected, granted another life, the life of August 3rd, 2024, lived with friends Marilyn and Irv, with more books and some TV until the day fled, the life was over, and I went down into the 1/60th of death again.

Kavanah: PERSEVERANCE  Netzach (NETS-ach)  נֵצַ

 

I cobble things together. Not exactly syncretism. I have no larger design in mind. Discovering useful ways of understanding, framing, defining. I’m finding the life of August 4th, 2024 a contemplative one. Coming as it does after Shabbat and graced by the presence of my Ancient Brothers. Better for me than living in the moment. Living a full life, one day at a time. AA resonance. Jewish inflection. Expansion of the be here now idea to a waking day. Carpe diem fits. Though it might be a bit aggressive. How about cradle the day, or enjoy the day, or embrace the day?

This all fits well with the lesson of Yamantaka. Meditating on my corpse. Seeing death for what it will be. For me. Not a time to fear but to include in the ongoingness of life. Whether darkness or reincarnation or sudden awakening in a different form. As significant as birth. As love. As justice. As compassion.

Eudamonia comes from the Greeks. Aristotle. A cleaner, more as I experience the flow life way of approaching life’s purpose. Especially considering the longue dureé, how very important and mostly insignificant I am and will be. How I was before I was. If I was. The Mexica idea. Life is a dream between a sleep and a sleep.

Being a Jew. Bathing in the waters of the mikveh. And in the community I find at CBE. And in the long, rich tradition of Jewish thought and ritual. Saying the shema in the morning and in the evening. Studying mussar. Friends.

Hanging with the Ancient Brothers. With Diane. Friends and family over the years. Mary and Mark. My son and Seoah. Dogs.

The Great Wheel and the pagan eye that finds the sacred, the divine right here on the surface of things where Tomatoes grow and Iris bloom and Rain falls and Wildfire burns.

Following the Jewish liturgical year and the Great Wheel. Cyclical time. Not linear. More important to me. Though aging matters, too. I’m fond of the years I’ve lived. And the many, many lives known one day by one day.

Of course, Taoism. Another way of understanding the unitary, yet always evolving one in which we move and live and have our becoming.

With these ideas, these notions, this framing I find each day, each new life, a miracle. A time to savor. To not waste. To know as ichi-e ichi-go, once in a lifetime. And all beautiful. Wabi-sabi.

My tao. My ancientrail. Herme’s journey.