Category Archives: Judaism

Fourth Phase, Garden, Judaism, Minnesota, Paganism, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

I flew with hawks

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Imbolc and the Moon of Deep Friendship

Thursday gratefuls: Tom and Paul. Tara. Dr. Bupathi. Shadow and her doughnut. Clergy. My time in the ministry. A life lived in pursuit of love and justice.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

 

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Religion

Week Kavannah: Hakarat Hatov. Gratitude.

I chose this because Tom and Paul are coming. Ruth, too. And, my 79th birthday. And, for life, my precious.

 

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Tarot: Five of Bows, Empowerment

“By facing and defeating our greatest fears, we empower ourselves and grow more resilient and effective against adversity…The empowered individual ultimately has the capability to influence and affect the outcome of events and change perceptions.” Parting the Mist

One brief shining: In 1976 I wore a monk’s robe, a child’s wooden necklace with a cross around my neck. I knelt and a crowd of clergy and elders lay on hands until the hands of those closest to me rested on my head. From layperson to ordained clergy.

 

Those hands felt heavy. I could feel a charge pass from them to me. The laying on of hands. Ancient. Primal.

Political radical. Warrior and priest. I stood with the people of Stevens Square and with the descendants of John Calvin.

An out of body experience: Reverend Buckman-Ellis. “If clergy are usually more priest or more prophet…” I was more prophet.

Yet I prayed. Led worship. Served communion. Baptized my son and his close friend Alex. Studied the scripture.

Until I couldn’t. That day when my spiritual director said, “Charlie, I think you’re a Druid!” I wasn’t. I crossed over from Christian to pagan. Mother Earth my altar and sanctuary.

Kate. Radical Kate. She let me retire from the ministry with dignity. Falling into her life, she was my dear and glorious physician. A synchronicity.

With dogs and vegetables, flowers and honey, our life went against the grain. She my weeding ninja. Me, her gardener. No need for a robe, a title. A spade and a trowel, yes.

Yet I also wandered the natural places of Anoka County. Honing a pagan’s blurring of the lines between creature and plant and landscape. I flew with hawks. Bloomed along the Rum River. Religious.

Until late in my journey, I decided to blend my pagan life with those who escaped from Egypt, who wandered in the desert. Immersed three times in warm mikveh waters. Came out a Jew.

At last. With my Hebrew name, Israel, I became what I always was. A god wrestler. Uneasy with answers. Kate’s path. Then mine. Now one.

 

Judaism

Teshuvah and Tikkun Olam

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Imbolc and the Moon of Deep Friendship

Sunday gratefuls: Ruth. Mary. Tom. Paul. The Ancient Brothers on Judaism. Snowless Winter. Joe skiing. Eating Mexican on an Army base. Korea. Cold and Snow. Minneapolis. Resistance. Staying in the fight. Teshuva. Tikkun Olam. Tzedek Elohim. Mitzrayim. Religion. Horticulture. Street politics. Dogs. Art. Kate, always Kate. AI.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Gardening

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Year Kavannah: Creativity.   Yetziratiut.   “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” ― Pablo Picasso

Week Kavannah: Hakarat Hatov. Gratitude.

  • Literally “recognizing the good,” it is the practice of acknowledging the positive, often overlooked aspects of life.
  • Core Principles: It encourages focusing on what you have rather than what you lack, recognizing the humanity in others, and appreciating the natural world.

Tarot: Page of Vessels, the Otter

  • Playful Energy: The otter represents a need to be curious, lighthearted, and to find joy even in simple things.
  • Creativity and Imagination: This card often signals a time to tap into your creative potential and allow your imagination to flow.
  • Adaptability: Like an otter navigating water, this archetype encourages flowing with life’s changes rather than resisting them.

One brief shining: As I follow the flow of my life toward birthday 79, I can slip into the water like an Otter, perhaps Maxwell Creek, perhaps Kate’s Creek, perhaps the headwaters of the Mississippi, and feel the current take me, a surge of joy, an ongoing struggle to stay alive, a pool of calm with Shadow and Shadow Mountain home, an embrace of friends and family all carrying me toward the world Ocean where I will become yet another wave.

Torah being read at a Bar Mitzvah

Judaism: My Ancient Brothers have asked me to talk about Judaism. I feel honored. But. How to capsulize this ancient faith, make it come alive for them?

Rabbi Rami Shapiro’s book, Judaism Without Tribalism, will be my guide. In the flensing of institutional accretions Shapiro leaves us with a skeletal view of religion, what it truly supports without the encumbrance of orthodoxy, dogma, belief and how each religion so considered can provide us with enough poetry to live by.

Rami, though a Reform Rabbi, leans into a Reconstructionist perspective when he discusses his own Judaism. A Judaism that rejects the notion of Jews as a chosen tribe. This is Judaism without tribalism. Like Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of the Reconstructionist movement, he rejects an assumed superiority-tribalism, while finding Judaism as culture, as a civilization valuable and well worth preserving.

He says Judaism has two key ideas to share, ideas that can help Judaism fulfill its mission to be a blessing to the whole world. Teshuva and Tikkun Olam. That is, Teshuva, the individual, interior journey of returning to the homeland of your soul, your Buddha nature, your authentic self, and Tikkun Olam, the exterior journey, which focuses on repair of a broken and divided world.

The Jew has several tools from within the tradition that supports both. Among them are Shabbat which releases us from the restrictive narrowness (mitzrayim) of daily life and immerses us in our sacred nature. Zedakah, the just use of money and capital. Gemilut chasadim, the practice of loving-kindness. And,  kavanot, setting our intentions toward righteousness.

There is more, much much more, but this gets at the nub of why Judaism has become my spiritual home.

Judaism, Politics, US History, World History

Greenland

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Yule and the Moon of Deep Friendship

Wednesday gratefuls: Tom recovering. Dick Arnold. Ellen. Jamie. MVP group. Death. Kate, always Kate. Jon. Regina. Pronoia. Shadow and her treat ball, her bones. Mussar. The Dog run. Our Snowless Winter. Christopher and transcranial magnetic stimulation. Hafar from afar. Mary down under with animals that attack. Murdoch. Annie and Luna. Eleanor.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Greenland

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Year Kavannah: Creativity.   Yetziratiut.   “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” ― Pablo Picasso

Week Kavannah: Daat.    The Bridge Between Mind and Heart

“If Chokhmah (Wisdom/Inspiration) is a seed and Binah (Understanding/Analysis)  is the soil that develops that seed into a plant, Da’at is the nervous system that carries the vital life force from the brain to the rest of the body. It is the point of transition from “thinking” to “being.””

Tarot: Ten of Arrows, Instruction

  • Focus on the “Why”: Connect your current hard work or training to a larger guiding principle or long-term goal, much like following a “Pole Star”.

One brief shining: Thresholds, liminal spaces, liminal moments like dusk and dawn, a babies first breath, that moment when liking turns to loving, when a thought passes into understanding and action, like death on a cold Evergreen night when it came for Dick Arnold.

 

Rabbi Jamie’s dad died Monday night. He went to sleep around eight p.m. and when Ellen, his wife, went to check on him he was cold. Dick’s death has hit the congregation hard.

Dick, as Tara noted, lived in the back ground. A master carpenter, a licensed consulting psychologist, and an accomplished golfer, Dick specialized in showing up. When shelving needed putting up. When Tara needed help working with drywall. When LGBTQ+ youth needed a psychologist.

Had we gone to Israel on our ill-fated 2023 trip Dick and I would have been roommates. His funeral takes place Thursday at 11:00. Shiva minyan Thursday night.

Just a moment: Our President, denied the “Noble” prize, admitted in a letter to the Norwegian Prime Minister that he could now think about things other than peace, like seizing Greenland.

I can’t improve on this Robert Reich piece sent to me by his Substack:

“Friends,

It could be a Monty Python skit from forty years ago: A demented U.S. president demands the Nobel Peace Prize (which he initially spells “Noble”), after converting the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War and abducting the president of a Latin American country by force.

When he doesn’t get the Prize, he says he’s no longer in favor of peace and decides to invade Greenland. When Greenland refuses him and Denmark and the rest of Europe make a fuss, he goes into a rage, raises tariffs on Europe (which are really import taxes that cost Americans dearly) and threatens war on NATO. The president of Russia is delighted.”

A five-year old playground bully who will brook no dismissal of even his most outlandish wishes and wants, red tie guy had better retake that cognitive test followed by one gauging e.q.

 

Far Right, Judaism, Letters, Literature, Politics, Reimaging revelation, Torah

Permanent Things

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Yule and the Moon of New Beginnings

Tuesday gratefuls: Shadowy kisses across my pillow. Vince as snowplower. Tom’s enucleation. That wooden bowl. Ruth’s wrist. American Beauty, Gabe and mine’s favorite Dead album. Mary in the upside down. Star Trek: Discovery. Yale Program for the Study of Anti-Semitism. T2V: Terrorism and Targeted Violence. C-REX, center for research on extremism.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Facts

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Year Kavannah: Creativity.   Yetziratiut.   “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” ― Pablo Picasso

Week Kavannah:  Wholeness. Shleimut.                                                “The concept of shleimut extends beyond the individual, applying to relationships (finding a life partner with whom one feels complete) and the community (mending societal cracks to achieve collective creativity and flourishing).”

Tarot: Two of Arrows, Injustice

“False conclusions and unjust decisions, based on disinformation and motivated by fear, greed, and prejudice, can cause innumerable problems. Either mistakenly or deliberately distributed to pervert the course of natural justice and the revelation of the facts by those who fear the truth and wish to manipulate the situation for personal control or gain, this propaganda will not survive honest, wise, and impartial scrutiny.”   Parting the Mists

One brief shining: Ana came cleaning, portable vacuum on her back, two twisted kleenex in each box, toilet paper folded to a point, careful dusting, a big smile, so many years now and we barely know each other since I’m gone when she comes, but, not yesterda;, not Kate’s way who got to know housecleaners as friends, me I prefer not to be home.

 

Funny how things come to you. Sometimes slowly. So slowly. Other times, sudden burst of insight. The stimulus can be Proust’s madeleine, or Leo Strauss’s desire to hunt down the esoteric message in classical texts of political philosophy.

In my ongoing pursuit to understand the true nature of forces opposing my own world view, a significant number of roads lead to Leo Strauss. You may not have heard of this twentieth century political philosopher. He influenced many far right intellectuals (no, that’s not an oxymoron) with his insistence that the roots of political philosophy be found in classic texts of Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, and others.

He and his students sought permanent things, or things in human nature that persist from age to age and effect us in the political sphere. “By “the Permanent Things” [T. S. Eliot] meant those elements in the human condition that give us our nature, without which we are as the beasts that perish.” The Imaginative Conservative.

When I read that Strauss insisted his students seek an esoteric or hidden layer of meaning in classical texts, my mind went immediately to the kabbalists. They look for occult meanings in the Torah.

Sure enough, the Straussian method could be applied to Torah study and undoubtedly has been. I offer this not strictly for how it ties conservative thought to the methods of the kabbalists, but mostly for its illumination of the inner world’s mysterious ability to sharpen our awareness in unexpected, intuitive ways.

 

 

Dogs, Friends, Judaism, White Supremacy, World History

Time to Leave?

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Yule and the Moon of New Beginnings

Thursday gratefuls: Tramadol. Snowblower away. Eleanor playing with Shadow. Shadow, “What threshold?” Tara and Sinterklaas. Puerto Rico dreaming. Vincent and the politics of youth. Veronica. Francesca. CBE’ers in NYC. Mamdani. Democratic Socialism. Greenland. Cuba. Colombia. Mexico. Can Canada be far behind?

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Arjean’s bread

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Year Kavannah: Creativity.   Yetziratiut.   “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” ― Pablo Picasso

Week Kavannah:  Patience.  Savlanut.  “Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tarot: Back at it soon

One brief shining: Opened the Dog run door to let Eleanor and Shadow out into the larger backyard, Shadow’s first time out there since her return, each chasing the other, around and around, Shadow leading, Eleanor behind, then some wrestling, going their separate ways for a bit, coming back together,  jumping on the Dog run fence, wanting back in and after being let in, needing to go back out. Kids, eh?

 

Tara and Arjean may move to Puerto Rico. Arjean, a dual Dutch/naturalized U.S. citizen, has had it with being associated, even by residence, with Trump, et al. The nature of his work requires him to stay within the U.S. and Puerto Rico feels as far away culturally from the mainland U.S. as he can get. Tara loves beaches, so…

Makes me wonder how many others have fled or are considering it. I know the conversation has happened among many Jews across the U.S. To be clear Arjean is not Jewish. Friends at CBE have looked at property in Costa Rica. Many others wonder when the tilt toward sanctioned bigotry becomes dangerous enough to force a move.

Jews have had to have these conversations often throughout the centuries. In Russia. In Spain. In Germany. Austria. Hungary. Poland. Even France. A CBE friend’s great-grandfather, a rabbi in Warsaw, had three sons. In the 1930’s he sent one son to South Africa, one to Brazil, one to the U.S. Over time he dispersed his congregants to the places where his sons had gone. Prescient.

This long history of forced removal, whether by governments or fear for personal safety, remains a key, a defining part of the Jewish experience. My older friends here have decided, as have I, that we’re too old to flee, start over. We’ll remain and do our part in resisting.

What about Ruth and Gabe though? Their generation. Their Jewish life has been upended by something else, the Israel/Hamas war. Many of them have taken the side of the Palestinians against at least the IDF and the Israeli government. Some have gone further, declaring themselves anti-Zionists, some even questioning Israel’s right to exist.

Here though is the always paradox. When the anti-Semites come, they don’t care if you’re Orthodox, Reform, or secular. They don’t care you’re anti-Zionist or pro-Palestinian. All they care about is Jewishness. Very like ICE and people who look somehow Mexican. This is the old, old story.

 

Commentary on Religion, Judaism

A Bonus Post from Rabbi Rami Shapiro

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I’m going to replace my New Year’s resolutions with the Five Remembrances from the Upajjhatthana Sutta (“Subjects for Contemplation”).

The Upajjhatthana Sutta is also known as the Abhiṇhapaccavekkhitabbaṭhānasutta. I mention this only in case you need to impress people at a New Year’s Eve party. Delivered orally some 2500 years ago and written down in Pali around 29 BCE, the Upajjhatthana Sutta is famous for its teaching of the Five Remembrances:

  1. It is my nature to grow old. There’s no escaping growing old.
  2. It is my nature to fall ill. There’s no escaping illness.
  3. It is my nature to die. There’s no escaping death.
  4. Everything and everyone I cherish shares this same impermanence. There’s no escaping my being separated from them.
  5. Thoughts and feelings are beyond my willful control. My actions alone belong to me. There’s no escaping the consequences of my actions.

These Five Remembrances aren’t resolutions; they are facts. You don’t have to accept them any more than you have to accept gravity. They are simply what is so.

Memorizing and reflecting on the Five Remembrances is said to deepen your appreciation of life and your compassion for the living. In my experience, it also eliminates the haunting question “Why Me?” When I remember that everyone suffers, there is no need to ask why I’m suffering. Not distracting myself with the story “Why Me?” allows me to address the problem at hand more creatively.

If the Buddha were a Jew, I imagine he would have ended each of the Five Remembrances with the Hebrew word titmoded: deal with it. There’s no escaping growing old—deal with it. There’s no avoiding illness—deal with it. There’s no escaping death—deal with it. There’s no escaping impermanence—deal with it. There’s no escaping the consequences of my actions—deal with it.

Family, Holidays, Judaism

Grandkids

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Yule and the Moon of New Beginnings

Sunday gratefuls: Ruth. Gabe. Hannukah. Presents all round. Positive affirmations. Yule. Winter Solstice. Alan. Joanne. Hummingbird. Mechanical puzzles. Challah. French toast. Donuts. Shadow away. Gabe admitted to Hamline. Joe. His smile. Applications for school. Shadow Mountain Home. Nathan and the Dog run.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Puzzles

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:  Yirah.    Radical amazement, awe.

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”
― Albert Einstein

Becoming a metaPhysician

One brief shining: Blue and white Hannukah gift bags assembled on the table when Ruth and Gabe came inside after their drive up the hill from Denver; Gabe got the menorah and a box of Hannukah candles from the Judaica closet, brought them down to the breakfast table where Ruth busied herself lighting each candles base to seat them in the menorah.

 

The best thank you. As soon we’d finishing opening our presents, Gabe had a puzzle in his hands, already determined. Later on, Ruth, too. These aren’t garden variety puzzles. They come from Kubiya games, ranked in level of difficulty, 1-5. After Gabe finished last year’s puzzles pretty fast, this time I got all 5 level.

He asked me if his struggle was making me happy. I said yes. He laughed.

A season pass to A-Basin, Ruth’s big Hannukah present, had a few smaller ones added to it. A wall-size chromatic color chart, a jigsaw puzzle, vintage, of the human skeleton, and a Silence, Please coffee mug from the Bodleian Library. Gabe got a mug, too.

We’ve been doing Hannukah together since Kate and I moved here eleven years ago yesterday. Some of those early years Jen, Jon, Ruth, Gabe, Kate. Apres divorce no Jen. After Kate died no Kate. After Jon died no Jon. Now the three of us carry on, adding memories and time together.

Gabe got admitted to, and wants to attend, Hamline College in St. Paul. Hamline sits on Snelling Avenue which, further south, runs past St. Paul Central High School, Joe’s alma mater.

My old buddy, Howard Vogel, taught Constitutional Law at Hamline’s law school for many years. Jon graduated from Augsburg College not too faraway in Minneapolis. I lived in St. Paul for several years and Kate and I bought our first house together on Edgcumbe Road. A lot of family history in St. Paul.

Both Ruth and Gabe have finished their semesters. Gabe wants out of high school. So bad. High school sucked, he said echoing more than one senior with only one semester, or as he put it, the final eighth to go.

Ruth completed her first year of pre-med, maintaining her 3.9 gpa and earning the opportunity to become a T.A. in her Chemistry class next semester. She holds down two jobs and carries a full class load.

The grandkids are doing ok.

Aging, Cancer, Dogs, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Humor, Judaism, Mussar, Politics

Humor as Moral Compass

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Samain and the Shadow Moon  (2 sessions to go)

Wednesday gratefuls: Rich. MVP. Shadow away at boarding school. Clement weather. Polska Kielbasa. Bananas. Tangerines. Celery. Baby Potatoes. Andouille sausage. Scallions. Cherry Tomatoes. Pork loin chops. Sheetpan dinners. Nathan and the Dog run. His next summer move to Kalispell, Montana.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rich

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:   Malchut   Wonder.   A feeling of surprise mixed with admiration caused by something beautiful or unexpected.

Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: Made a mistake, went to MVP, my only night out during the month; even though Marilyn drove, a combination of radiation fatigue, head drop, and this damned hernia acting up made me first lie down on a couch, then ask for a ride home. Geez.

 

I knew better. I’m exhausted from driving to radiation and getting radiated. But I love these folks: Jamie, Susan, Joanne, Ron, Marilyn, Laurie, Rich. Missed last month and missed seeing them all. When Marilyn asked to meet at the usual place, I said yes. Should have said no.

Rich drove me to my car, followed me home, shoveled my deck, and saw me into the house. What a kind and loving man.

Not the return to the group I wanted.

This just in. Marilyn texted me, offered to drive me to my radiation today. Rich must have gone back and reported to the MVP group. I feel blessed to have so many who love me, care about me.

 

Dog journal: Nathan came by from a project just up the road. We discussed the Dog run. He’s built many and has his tricks for working in the Snow on frozen ground. Relieved. Now if that doghouse I want will come back in stock…

 

Just a moment: Sleepy Donald. I can relate. I’ll be 79 in two months and I just had a night. Glad I’m not working hard to cancel the political work of the last century or so. Gotta be tiring, making up enemy lists, figuring which shithole countries to diminish and ban, which cities to occupy, deciding how you can gig the poor yet again. Not to mention acting as warmonger and peace maker in chief. The contradictions alone would level a lesser man.

Don’t know if you watch South Park. Don’t recommend it even though the real South Park lies only an hour’s drive from Shadow Mountain. A former Conifer resident is one of the pair who created it.

It’s gross. Over the top. And, yet. They’re satirizing Trump, Vance, Bondi, Stephen Miller in ways that do make me laugh. Especially Stephen Miller who is portrayed as a creepy, I may lead to your doom, sycophantic butler.

If you can stand it, the satire is spot on.

Humor has always had an uneasy, even dangerous relationship to power. I’m sure more than one court jester lost their head by taking a joke too far.

I admire the South Parks, the Colberts, the Jon Stewarts of our time. Laughing at tyrants exposes them for what they are: weak, petty, cruel leaders who seek power for power’s sake with no moral compass. Humor, oddly enough, is exactly that: a moral compass.

 

 

 

Friends, Health, Judaism, Politics

I Know Which Cup the Coin Is Under

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Samain and the Summer’s End Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Luke and Leo. Luke leading the Bagel Table. Shadow and her pleading eyes. I’m hungry, Dad. Rachel, my social worker from Birmingham, Alabama. Alan. The Humming Bird. Challah French Toast. Latkes. Beignets. Having a Creole restaurant in Evergreen. Josh and Sarah. Next week’s pain reduction: hip injection and nerve ablation. Ruth and Gabe, the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Chayei Sarah

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah:  Hakarat Hakov   Gratitude.    “Who is rich? Those who rejoice in their portion.” Perkei Avot 4:1

Tarot: Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: That place that was the Parkside, then for a minute a Mexican Cantina, has become the Hummingbird, a Creole restaurant owned by Josh and Sarah Hess, members of Beth Evergreen, New Orleans natives, where Alan and I had breakfast, his Eggs Benedict on layered biscuits with a side of latke, mine Challah French Toast with a side of bacon, Chicory Coffee French Press with milk, while we discussed his gracious offer to chaffeur (his word) me to my nerve ablations next Friday, for which I will take, forty minutes in advance, two valiums, one Lyrica and a partridge in a pear tree.

I promised to be an amusing ride. Alan took me to my first PET scan in far away Aurora, where Jon lived. Since I’d never had a PET scan, I worried about claustrophobia. I took a single valium. According to Alan, I was an amusing passenger on the way home. Loose lips.

Turns out I don’t need anything for CT scans or PET scans, as I’ve learned over the years since then. MRI’s of the kind I had recently require anesthesia. The Lyrica and valium for the ablations though is anesthesia for this forty minute procedure and I have to take them forty minutes in advance. Which means the ride to the procedure should be amusing this trip. Looking forward to it.

My medical October will climax this month with a neck brace, a steroid injection in my hip, nerve ablations on my lumbar spine, and 10 sessions of radiation on my T4 vertebrae. I will be glad to put all of these in the finished category. For now. All of them, including the neck brace may require further attention in the future.

 

Just a moment: Red Tie Guy reminds me of those street hustlers with three card monte or the coin under the cup. Follow my hands. Democrats in Epstein’s files. Liberating Venezuela. Solving rising food prices by reducing tariffs he imposed, then claiming credit. Shooting cigarette boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific as though they were an arcade game.

Perhaps we could discuss those blue tinted election results, especially the surge of young women voting Democrat. Or, the Latino vote shifting blue as well. Even in precincts that had gone heavily red tie guy just last year.

Sorry, dude. But I know which cup the coin is under.

 

Closing note: I know. It’s bad. It really is. And, three more long years. Even so. Love. Action. Home. Friends. Family. Dogs. A good book. A good movie. A good meal. The Arapaho National Forest. Lake Superior. Grizzlies and Wolves. Wildlands and Wild Neighbors. The Night Sky. Great Sol each morning.

 

Family, Judaism, Mountains, Paganism, Plants, Reimaging revelation, Wild Neighbors

All Sacred, All One, For All Time

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Samain and the Summer’s End Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Alan. Ablations scheduled. Radiation approved, but not scheduled. Hip injection scheduled. Soft collar orthotics in. My medical October has bled far into November. Tom and his telehealth today. Shadow. Her vitality. Sheet pan meals. Cooking again. Canceling Cook Unity. Tara. Aurora Borealis in Colorado. The Edmund Fitzgerald. Lake Superior. Wolf 21.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: a day of rest

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah:  Chesed.  Loving Kindness.        “Kindness is the language the deaf can hear and the blind see.”  Mark Twain

Tarot: Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: The Aurora, shining shimmering curtains of green and red that dance, flow, shift, grow and fade, took them for granted in Andover where for most of the twenty years, I could go out on our front porch and watch them, that placed against the wonder of Coloradans seeing them, many for the first time after these latest, massive coronal ejections.

 

Mother Earth, Great Sol. Yin and yang. Visible when the protective magnetic field of our Mother receives bursts of highly charged particles released during a coronal mass ejection.

Awe. Wonder. Desire. That is, desire to remain here, by this Pond, clothed in the majesty of existence by all that’s holy and sacred.

Another moment, in looking back, when the sacred oneness revealed itself, said look here, can you not understand that the Largemouth Bass, the Goats on the farm, the Trees in the wood lot, Judy, yourself also dance, whirling like dervishes endowed with the holy, connected and interdependent for all time?

Each time I drive home from Evergreen, I drive by Kate’s Valley and her Stream, and further on, past the Upper Maxwell Falls trailhead, the spot where the Elk Bull appeared to me drenched in the Rainy Night, standing on the Forest’s edge. In both places I nod, see them in their apparently mundane clothing, the light of Day suggesting nothing special to see here. A small Mountain Valley, a stand of Aspens along Black Mountain Drive.

Yet. I know. These places revealed their sacred nature to me when I turned over the Bresnahan urn with its flame signatures glazed in earthy, russet colors and spilled into the clear Mountain Stream the final remains of my love, my wife, my soulmate. As that Bull Elk did on a Rainy May night.

They have taught me, in their every day appearance, that no the sacred is not only there in moments of heightened emotion or sudden clarity. Rather, her Stream runs sacred in the light of a November morning, no more and no less sacred than the White Pines and Lodgepoles that line its banks along with the holy Wild Strawberries, the sacred Raspberry. The Water. The Rocks. And the Sky above them. All sacred, all one, for all time.