Category Archives: Judaism

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Politics, US History

Civil War?

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Winter and the Cold Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Learning the Hebrew alphabet and vowels. Decoding my bar mitzvah portion. Tara teaching me. Joann. Alan. The dark of a Mountain early morning. Aspen Perks. Sue Bradshaw. Evergreen. Conifer. Our alphabet. Comes with vowels. Saudi. Mark and the Desert Sunrise. And, Camels. Mary and the 10 foot long reticulated python on the sidewalk. Wild neighbors here and there.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Sue Bradshaw

One brief shining: Whenever I do certain self-care things, like a physical, I take myself out for a nice meal afterwards, and this time I discovered I go to Evergreen for meals with friends but when dining alone, at least for breakfast after a fasting blood draw, I wanted Aspen Perks where people know my name.

 

Thought about Cheers when I had this realization. Where everybody knows your name. Which took me to the decline of third spaces, places neither work nor home where social interactions can occur. Bowling alleys. Churches and synagogues. Bars. Parks. Beaches. Theaters and museums to a lesser extent. Certain restaurants. It was UU minister and scholar Robert Putnam who wrote the essay, Bowling Alone, in which he discussed the decline of the third space in American life. Covid put the pedal to the metal. Churches and synagogues have been losing members for a long time. My doctoral dissertation in 1990, for example, was on the decline of the Presbyterian church U.S.A.

Our cultural obsession with work. Quality time with the kids or the wife or a partner. Down time, leisure time is not common. Smart phones and the laptop accelerate this trend, too. Go into a busy coffee shop anywhere in the U.S. Most folks are either working on their laptop or consulting their phones. I’ve often seen all four people at a table for four immersed in either their laptop or phone.

A good third space. The Bread Lounge in Evergreen. The buzz of conversation, folks seeing people they know, then bumping into other people they know. Alan and I might eat breakfast there. The owner will come over to chat. Ron Solomon might walk in. Tal. Somehow the way the tables are laid out and the culture that has grown up there makes it feel like a common space. The place to be at certain hours.

CBE. On any given day or Friday night if I’m there I’ll see many people I know, some casually, some between casual acquaintance and a friend, close friends.

 

Been thinking about this, too. An interesting article on the science of polarization in our benighted country. Science is revealing why America politics are so intensely polarized. This Washington Post article says something sort of obvious, yet crucial. We need to belong. The rugged individual so beloved of American fantasy life is a lie. We need family. We need institutions, friends. We need third spaces. Being a MAGA person is such an identity. So is being one who opposes the MAGA identity.

I thought about this and my conversion to Judaism. Yes, I needed a group, a third space. Somewhere outside my daily life where I was known and appreciated for who I am. CBE is such a place for me. And my identity as a Jew, too. I have a people.

Is the religious life led there key? Yes, in a way. It offers multiple markers, symbols for belonging. Reading Torah. Attending shabbat services. Observing shabbat. Wearing a kippah. Going to a synagogue. A rabbi. Having Jewish friends. Prayer shawls. The ark. On the other hand, Judaism also has cultural significance outside the strictly religious. Just ask any anti-semite. Were these factors front of mind for me when I converted? No. What was front of mind was my sacred community of friends.

Being part of any group requires, as the WP article says, knowing who’s not in the group. Boundaries. That’s the sadness and trouble we have now. We have citizens of the U.S. who believe other citizens are not legitimate parts of the nation. A recipe for disaster. For civil war.

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

Choose

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Winter and the Cold Moon

Friday gratefuls: TGIF. Ha. No hump day, no Friday as the last day of work. Just life. Sleeping in. Perfect sleeping weather. A good and difficult day yesterday. Luke. Leo. Anne. Gracie. My Roger. Mindy. Rabbi Jamie. The classical texts of Judaism. Including the rabbinic codes. Those two Does in the road. Driving Mountain roads. Alan and Joan. Dandelion. My son and Seoah. Sick. Murdoch’s ok.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Korea

One brief shining: There is an exquisite pain knowing your child has run a fever over a hundred for three days in a row yet lives 9000 miles from your front door, a squeezing of the lev that makes the body want to find cold wash clothes, advil, blankets, maybe even stuffed toys though you know he is long now a man, it is the pain of belonging and longing, one for which there is no pill, just that moment when you send your body, by astral projection, to his sickbed.

 

Now Seoah, too. We miss and love you they write, explaining symptoms. My son’s fever has broken and he took Murdoch out for some fresh air. I asked Seoah to give him a hug for me. He wrote that he got it. Now I’ll have to send the same request to him for her. Family, close close family. Joy. Concern. Love.

 

Meanwhile I’m over reading signals. Coloring my soul a pastel purple. Do those crossed arms mean he’s annoyed with me? Why does he want to wait until he sees how his next two month’s money does? I didn’t want to leave the house yesterday. Felt like ducking mussar and the Rabbi Jamie time.

Two reasons. Monday was so cold that I chose not to go upstairs and workout before a one p.m. doctor’s appointment. That meant I had to workout on Wednesday and Thursday and Saturday to get my 150 minutes in. I felt bad about that choice. So I already had a one down feeling about myself. Not terrible, knew I could have chosen differently and I didn’t.

Then on Thursday morning I pushed myself to get my workout in. Can’t miss because of Monday. I wanted to do thirty minutes. As I wrote yesterday though, my back nixed that plan. That meant I was not only behind on my minutes for the week, but that I had a possible barrier to my next workout in my back pain. It also meant that my back was not going to go gentle into that good night but would rage, rage, rage against the moving of the feet. Which in turn meant that my vain hope for a less restrictive travel barrier was that, a vain hope.

The two together made me want to stay home and favor my psychic and physical upset. I chose not to. However, when I first got to the synagogue I carried that bruised, purple sense of self with me. I sought out and found further evidence that I was somehow doing it wrong. I spoke over someone. My comment landed flat. I felt distanced from the group like the Jews distanced themselves from the pillar of smoke. That was the day’s topic.

Then I realized I was no longer concerned about my back. It was quiet. And, I had chosen to exercise. And, to come to mussar. The tint in my sense of self faded from purple to a dull yellow not far from the vibrant yellow of joy. Choices. Eh?

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

Asia

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Winter and the Cold Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Diane home from Taiwan. Fan Kuan. Travelers Among Mountains and Streams. Japan and Taiwan. The Dutch and Taiwan. How little we Americans know about Asia. Bo Yi and Ginny. Taipei. Songtan. My son. Seoah. Murdoch. Seoah’s family. Gwanju, Osan, and Okgwa. A personal stake in the fortunes of South Korea. Great Sol and Cloudy and blue Colorado Sky.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Diane

One brief shining: Hoo boy that 24th minute on the treadmill this morning my legs were moving, not very fast, a brisk walk and my back began to say hey up there, I’m here and I don’t feel good, really wanted to hit 30 minutes but those narrowed spinal processes said, no I don’t think so, not today anyhow, so I turned off the treadmill, did some apres workout stretches and went back downstairs.

 

Yeah. Facing front. I can manage the stenosis, but it will kick up much sooner than I want. A definite factor in traveling from this point forward. Not much to be done about it either. My p.t. exercises are the best treatment. I don’t want to go to the next two levels: cortisone shots into the vertebrae or spinal fusion surgery. Saw that with Kate and it did not look good. Plus. My experience with cortisone shots in my knee? No help. Spinal fusion? Nope. Sets up other problems and I’ve seen them. Leaves me with p.t. and avoiding the long walks while traveling that do what I just did on the treadmill. I can do that. Takes a different sort of planning.

 

I have folks I love and folks they love in South Korea. So these two articles upset me this morning: As if We Didn’t Have Enough to Frighten Us … and the one its author, Nicholas Kristof references in his January 17th article, Is Kim Jong Un Preparing for War?   Not to mention that my son works at and lives near a spot most likely already programmed in to a North Korean nuclear missile. Made his dad wince to read this.

 

Talked with Diane this morning about her trip to Taiwan to see her niece and my first cousin once removed, Ginny, get married to Bo Yi, a Taiwanese national. Actually this was the Chinese version. They got married two years ago in Ohio where they live. Culturally appropriate in two cultures now. Along with a nine month old son. I have pictures and when I get them downloaded I’ll post a few.

Diane, the lucky duck, has achieved my one item in my bucket list. She’s been to the National Museum of China. I’m gonna get there on my next trip to Korea. If the North stays quiet, that is. She did me a favor and got a museum gift for me of Fan Kuan’s famous work, Travelers Among Mountains and Streams.

 

Conversion session with Rabbi Jamie today. Focused on Judaism’s classic texts. Torah. Nevi’im. (prophets) Ketuvim (writings). Mishnah (writing down of the Oral Law). Talmud (mostly rabbinic commentary on the Mishnah. Midrash. (rabbinic commentary on the Torah)

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Hebrew, Judaism

Friends

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Winter and the Cold Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Waste. Those plastic trash bins. Alan. First Watch, a breakfast chain. Pretty good. Wheatridge. Still learning the contours of Denver and its suburbs. Clear roads after a good Snow over the weekend. Colorado. The Rockies. The solar Snow shovel. My torah portion. Hebrew software. Boker tov to all of you out there. Good morning. With a happy lev. And, a smile.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Learning Hebrew

One brief shining: Made coffee, fussed in the kitchen, threw some trash out through my window trash portal, not wanting to go outside and drag the garbage bin and the recycling bin through the snow covering the driveway, or be outside in the cold, yet as a homeowner my gloves slid over my fingers, scarf around my neck, watch cap over the ears, and I became a mule.

 

Second session with Tara. Read through my whole torah portion. All three verses. Did pretty well. In this case the Hebrew has vowels which aid pronunciation and breaking words into syllables. So I have to learn to recognize and pronounce the letters of the Hebrew alphabet as well as its vowel markers. Tara calls this decoding. I’m not translating, instead I’m learning how to say out loud Hebrew words. And not just any Hebrew words, but the particular words in the three sentences I have to read aloud on the day of my bar mitzvah.

There are two other parts to the process that increase the level of difficulty. First, the torah scroll itself has no vowel markers. Never has, never will. That means I have to know my verses well enough that I can recall the vowel markers and syllable breaks on my own. I’m not to that stage of my learning at all. Second, the torah portion has a melody, or trope. There are many melodies. And markers called cantillations to guide the reader/singer/chanter. I’m not to that point in my learning. Not at all. As Alan pointed out yesterday, twelve and thirteen year old boys whose voices have begun to change do this. So…

June 12th may be almost five months from now but there are parts of this, like the cantillations, that will require more of me.

 

Alan’s new electric BMW has navigated the Panama Canal and is on its way to the Port of L.A. and a BMW vehicle distribution center, V.D.C. In the importing company’s V.D.C. cars get tricked out to meet US pollution standards, have any shipping damage repaired, and otherwise get ready for their over land delivery. Should arrive sometime in February.

It was good to see Alan yesterday. It had been awhile. Holidays and missed dates and all. We’re going to have breakfast again on Friday, this time we hope with Joan whom I haven’t seen since last year. On the Ancient Brothers Monday I recounted how glad I was to see each of them. Same reason.

I don’t need a lot of human interaction, but I do need more than I had over the last couple of weeks.

 

 

Colorado, Cooking, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Holidays, Judaism, Politics

The American Day of Atonement

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Winter and the Cold Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Marilyn and Irv. Rabbi Jamie and the American Day of Atonement. Black-eyed Peas. Hoppin’ John. A cold snap. The Winter Carnival. St. Paul. Irvine Park. The Aurora. Great Sol. Journeys around Great Sol. Birthdays. 77 for me next month. Minnesota. Up North. Lake Superior. Duluth. Ely. The Boundary Waters. Andover and its time in Kate and mine’s life. Kate, my sweet Kate.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Long journeys (77 x 584 million = 44 968 000 000 miles around the sun by age 77)

One brief shining: About ten days late I have the ingredients for Hoppin’ John Black-Eyed Peas, Salt Pork, Hot Peppers, Garlic, Onion, Black Pepper, Chicken Stock, Ham, Kosher Salt and when I get back from seeing Irv I’m going to make it in the Dutch Oven now clean of hard Water scales and shiny like the day I bought it so Happy New Year!

Looking forward to cooking up the Hoppin’ John. I also got Corn bread mix. Famous Dave’s. Gonna cook up some frozen Collard Greens, make Corn bread. Have myself a Southern Happy New Year’s meal tonight.

 

Going over to see Irv in rehab. He’s been there since he left St. Joe’s after his surgery. An odd fact. His rehab place requires a left turn on Lone Tree’s Lincoln Avenue. When I went to have my prostate removed and for all my radiation sessions, I turned right on Lincoln. Old folks pathway I guess.

 

Got my beard trimmed yesterday at Jackie’s. It never got bushy, just scraggly. Decided to give up on it. I think she was relieved.

 

Attended by zoom the American Day of Atonement at CBE. Luke worked on it along with Rabbi Jamie. The concept comes from Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. Doing it on the 10th of January puts it close to Martin Luther King Day while duplicating the ten days after the Jewish New Year of Rosh Hashanah. Wanted to be there in person but I find going out at night something I don’t want to do. Especially in Winter. I feel bad about not showing up yet I also honor my reluctance.

So. Zoom. Which has its difficulties. Last night speakers who zoomed in were loud and clear. Bishop Robert Martin talked about working together to give each other the internal strength to face racism and anti-semitism. Rabbi Jamie invoked Abraham Lincoln. Attorney General Phil Weiser gave what I considered the best speech of the evening calling on us to embrace the American Dream of a diverse nation of citizens equal before the law. We can and we will, he said, overcome our divisions. May it happen soon.

If the American Day of Atonement could catch on in other cities, focused on at least bringing together African-American and Jewish activists, it could have a major impact. This is the third one. The weather timing is against it. Not many folks showed up at CBE. Not sure how to overcome that. I appreciate all the energy Luke and Rabbi Jamie have put into it so far.

 

 

Colorado, Commentary on the news, Judaism, Torah

Oh, Colorado

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Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Ancient Brothers. Rat Zappers. Predictions. Black Mountain. Gray white Sky. Cold. Good sleeping. Reading. Zornberg. Pendergast. Tanakh. Will Harris. Adaptation to climate change. Fiction. The Sun Brothers on Netflix. Antisemitism. 45 loses. Goes to jail. Brothers. Beef. Fish. Vegetables. Fruit. Chicken. Salads. Soups.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Sharp knives

One brief shining: With reluctance the Rat Zappers all four came out of their comfortable resting place after slathering a bit of peanut butter into each one they deployed to the kitchen counter top and the two runways of note in the lower level not long before red lights started blinking signaling an electrocuted mouse and I had to shake them out dropping dead mice in the snow.

 

Yes. A Mouse assassin. The night of the long knives for Shadow Mountain mice. What tipped me over? Salmonella and hanta virus. At my age? Not a good thing. Chewing through electrical wires. Also not good. So. A small electrocution chamber for each and every one. Also, a commitment to put the Zappers out at the first new sign. Type to act like a responsible home owner and less like a sensitive guy. Reality. Bah, humbug.

 

Shabbat yesterday. Saw Ginny and Janice for breakfast at Primo’s. Read Zornberg on the first parsha in Exodus and the introduction to her commentary, The Particulars of Rapture. Began the shabbat with lighting the candles yesterday at 4:30. Saying the bracha, the blessing. Still not in the rhythm of shabbat. The old restrictions seem/are outdated, yet a certain mix of expectations and behaviors set shabbat apart from the other days of the week. Haven’t gotten mine fully figured out yet. It will come.

 

Not taking classes right now, self-guided reading and the reading for conversion. Don’t want even the gentle prods of classes, regular times. I’m not a recluse though I have my Herme/hermit qualities. Seeing friends or family on zoom and in person is important to me. Not a cloistered dude high in the Mountains. Yet if I can have whole days alone, maybe most of my days alone, I smile.

 

Getting ready to go pick up groceries. Worked out this morning after the Ancient Brothers zoom.

 

Paying attention, brief attention to two weird news stories. That Alaska Airlines Boeing that popped open a door shaped hole in its fuselage. I mean, wow. Minimal safety standards include no holes in the airplane while it’s in flight. A lot of clenching going on in the fearful flyer group. Also, Boebert. Punching her husband while out to eat? He called the police. She says nothing happened. Oh, Colorado passing strange you are at times.

 

Judaism, Torah

The Name

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Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

Friday gratefuls: Luke’s hug. Ginny. Jamie. That dream last night. Ooph. Leo. Eleanor. Kingsley. 3 sweet dogs. Gracie, too, of course. Emunah. The Shema doubled Adonai and Yod Hei Vav Hei. Mezuzahs. Snow last night. 13 this morning. More Snow on the way. Clouds: transience unveiling permanence. Water Vapor. The Sacred. Rock, steady safe reliable foundational. Godly. Snow, too.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Emunah

One brief shining: Hands over my eyes I say the Shema pronouncing Adonai but seeing the tetragrammaton, Yod Hei Vav Hei, my intention a moment of seeing things as we want them and things as they are, saying with the saying of it that I now travel along that dusty desert road that leads out of Jerusalem and into Europe, to the United States, to anywhere we Jews have gone since the days of the Second Temple and before.

 

Art Green, Jamie’s mentor and still close to him, either created this practice or told Jamie about it. Pronouncing Adonai and at the same time in your mind’s eye seeing the tetragrammaton or YHWH. Jewish tradition is to never pronounce YHWH but replace it when reading the Torah with Adonai, master or Lord. This practice began in the third century and even applies to English translations of the word. The notion is that the name is too sacred to say aloud.

Not sure about that myself though names in the ancient world had magical power. If you knew someone or something’s true name, you could control it through spells. Blasphemy wouldn’t be a big enough idea to cover trying to control God. So, better to err on the safe side.

What Art Green’s practice offers is a chance to see the resonance between this covering of the true name and the convention used to honor its sacred nature. Or, seeing things as we want them and as they are. Not only applicable to seeing the sacred even when clothed in a Lodgepole Pine or a house or a person or a Dog, but also to remembering that we most often do not see truly, but see as we wish to see. And also note that neither word is anything more than a metaphor for the great swirling sacred mass that is us and our Earth and our universe and our past, present, and future. Some may call that God. Others YHWH.

Some Jews these days say Hashem instead, the Name, instead of even using Adonai. I like that, actually. Hashem takes away the hubris that repels so many of us when we see the word God and turn away from that oh too baggaged word trailing with it patriarchy, militarism, hierarchy, oppression, outright manipulation. Then maybe we can entertain the idea of our unique and precious part in the whole, a living creative becoming that wants each of its parts, all connected, to know and support one another.

Well. This site will not turn into a Jewish practices site, I promise. Yet from time to time things that have struck me will appear. Today was one of those.

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Hebrew, Judaism

Todah, Tara

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Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Trash day. New year, old trash. Still, the dark. The eight point Bull Elk I saw delicately eating grass. The ups and downs, curves and short straights of Mountain driving. Snow and cold on the way. Eleanor. Tara’s new all black Puppy. Her friend, maybe the sweetest dog I’ve met this year. Tara. A truly great teacher. She has me believing I can learn Hebrew. I already have the first sentence of my bar mitzvah portion down. Two sessions. Ariane, another engineer in my life.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Eleanor

One brief shining: Two tail wagging, grinning Dogs ran up to me as I sat down at Tara’s house, the Puppy put two paws on my knee and proceeded to kiss, kiss, kiss, and then the other one all white to Eleanor’s all black, walked up, smiled and kissed, kissed, kissed the other side of my face little pink tongues at work seeking salt or being ecstatic to meet me, either one just fine.

 

I’ve not had many great teachers in my life. A few good ones, maybe two excellent ones, and two great ones. The two great ones are at Congregation Beth Evergreen: Rabbi Jamie and Tara Saltzman. Rabbi Jamie I’ve talked about before. He has an ability to contain diverse and divergent thoughts, make them visible. Then to celebrate them in his students.

I’ve learned a new way of learning from him, appreciating the value in ideas I may see as wrong, faulty, or even repellent. What a gift. Appreciative inquiry I think it’s called. This sort of learning was not absent in my life. I’ve learned from conservative political thinkers and multiple philosophers with whom I disagreed, but Rabbi Jamie makes this way of learning his default.

Tara I’ve known as a friend for eight years. And a good one. Many heart-to-hearts, or levs-to-levs. I’ve not experienced her however in her primary career role as an educator. Until now. She may change a long standing reticence toward language for me.

My experience of learning (not learning) German in my freshman year at Wabash  gave me linguistic phobia. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I gave up. Just quit. I saw the C or D coming with no way of raising it. So I got out before that happened. After that, when learning a language came up, I would say something along these lines: Oh, language and me? No, thanks. Or, Math, music, and language go together. I’ve only got math of the three. Defensive. Barrier creating. Self fulfilling.

Yes, I did pick up Latin again and got a good ways into it because I wanted to read Ovid in the original. But I had a positive experience with Latin in high school. French, too. That’s why I eagerly tried German, wanting to read Kant, Heidegger, Husserl in the original. Not sure why I was so bad at it, maybe it was the method, for sure it was how I responded to the method. Which I don’t recall now.

Oddly, at the same time I took logic. I had the same experience with it at first. Just. Couldn’t. Get it. But I hung in there, studied hard, and by the midterm I found it fun. What was the difference? I don’t know. Logic itself is a language.

Anyhow at this long distance, I took German in 1965, almost 60 years ago, I regret it still. A personal failure that probably shut down many possible experiences as I traveled and grew in my learning.

kaf

But Tara has me convinced I can learn Hebrew. I’ve already learned the first full sentence of three in my text portion. How bout that? She combines unwavering support with a keen sense of what will be helpful for my learning. She’s a visual learner so she draws images that help her. Like a coffee cup handle that reminds her of the Hebrew letter, kaf. She says I’ll have my Torah portion done in three weeks. And, I believe her.

I want to continue until I can translate the Torah. A hefty goal but one I believe I can handle with Tara’s teaching. Wouldn’t it be ironic if I erased my fear (yes that’s what it really is) of language engendered by German by learning Hebrew. Something sorta cool about that.

Asia, Cooking, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Hebrew, Judaism, Politics

It’s a New Day, It’s a New Life, and I’m Feeling Good

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Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: The Shema. Hebrew. Decoding. Learning a language. Ooph. Sinking into the New Year. Great Sol blazes across another Colorado blue Sky. Black-eyed Peas. Black Beans. Black-eyed Pea soup. Cooking. In my remodeled kitchen. Tom’s poems and his depth. Mario’s optimism and self-confidence. Paul’s will and intellect. Bill’s steadiness and insight. The Ancient Brothers. Five years or so of honesty, authenticity, compassion, and love. Diane in Taiwan. Great photos. Tara and her skill as a teacher. My friends.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Soup in Winter

One brief shining: Yes oh yes each morning a resurrection, each day a new life, new chances for love and justice and compassion, for leadership in your own heart, for doing what you can, surrendering when you must, for standing out as the unique and irreplaceable one that you are as part of the one that envelops all in its sacred embrace.

 

Leaning into the Jewish idea that each morning is a resurrection from the one-sixtieth of death that is a night’s sleep. Each day is a new life we could even say a new year since it’s the only time you have this new year, this day. What is your kavanah, your intention, for this new life you’ve been given? Yes, given. You woke up, didn’t you? Grief teaches us about the wonder and awe of this simple pleasure, waking up. And about the opportunity it is. This is not just any day, it’s a new day!

Perhaps we should set aside New Year’s resolutions. As if we didn’t know that already, right? Instead let’s make new day intentions. Maybe find a bit more joy than yesterday. Imagine if you could find just a bit more joy each day. What could you feel like at the end of a month?

Perhaps a bit more calmness. Not a lot. You don’t have to wind down, be chill in every moment. No. Take a breath now and then today. Try that 4-7-8 breathing or some other calming technique. At least once. See if it helps.

In my case. Give focused attention to Hebrew while at Tara’s. Prep that black-eyed Pea soup for the MVP group tomorrow night. Consider driving into Denver to Listenup and buy a new cd player. Smile at that Lodgepole soaking up the heat and energy from Great Sol. Be easy as I do all these things. Not pressing as I might. Not pushing. Flowing with them. Letting the Water of my day find its own path to the gentleness of evening.

 

And, in other news. In an 8-7 decision Israel’s Supreme Court had its Marbury v. Madison moment and came down on the side of judicial authority. We’ve not heard the last of this one. Also, a Korean presidential candidate got stabbed in Busan. Japan had another quake, a 7.6 with many aftershocks. Tsunami warnings in Japan and Korea. And 45’s star continues to rise among the ranks of the Grand Old Party. May it go nova and turn into a political black hole for all of them.

 

 

Faith and Spirituality, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Judaism

Consider the Aspen

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Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon among the Lodgepoles in the back

Thursday gratefuls: Winter Solstice Moon. Great Sol making Black Mountain visible. The Lodgepole out my window, its gentle, steady, stable presence. Shadow Mountain beneath me, a strong support for my house and my life. The Winds that blow from the west. The Snow that reveals Wild Neighbor treks across my driveway. The Rocky Mountains. The Sangre De Cristo. The San Juans. Creed, Colorado site of the long ago largest Volcanic eruption ever.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: This sacred Place

One brief shining: Consider the Aspens, naked now to endure the cold of Winter and wait for the warmth of Spring, tall gray/white bark branches reaching skyward in fractal forming patterns, Escheresque if viewed with a fixed gaze, a sturdy trunk rising up from the rocky Soil of Shadow Mountain to create a strong pillar for its days and nights held in one place, its Roots below unseen holding the whole of it anchored while also reaching, reaching for nutrients, for other Aspens since they are communal, growing in tribes of individuals all bearing the same DNA, consider the Aspen.

 

Kavanah. Intention. When I went on my mushroom pilgrimage, I set the intention of examining what it meant to live life fully. Now. I got the answer from deep in my Soul, from my Chayah*, my supra-rational self—the seat of will, desire, commitment and faith. Surrender. To live fully you must include Surrender.

What does that mean, my friend Bill asked? I wrote this a few posts back:

“To live fully I need to open up, accept what’s coming. Greet the new year with arms spread wide for what it brings rather than what I can make happen. Well, not rather than. I mean, I’ll still take up arms, of course I will, but I learned yesterday that I have another option. To embrace, to wait, to listen, to let the world and its wonders come to me.” from December 20 post, Surrender Charlie

From that nugget the notion of faith began to vibrate in my mind, in my soul, my Chayah in a different way. What if that was the element I had missed all my life? Faith that included surrender. Not just faith as an outgrowth of intellectual work, of considering arguments, logic, but also of allowing my Self, my Soul to sink into a place of confidence, of knowing without knowledge, of commitment to a path because the path itself was the way. An almost Taoist thought, I just realized.

Great Sol projects life giving energy 93 million miles through the vacuum of space where a bit of it lands on the Lodgepole I see out my window. That ohr, that light, both makes the Needles of this Pine Tree visible to my eye, but also starts the magic, the miracle and yes, both words fit of photosynthesis. All across Mother Earth this miracle happens. Blades of Grass, Leaves of Flowers and Vegetables, of Deciduous Trees, of Seaweed, of Moss and Wheat gather in this long traveled energy and convert Great Sol’s ohr into chemical energy, sugars, that provide the whole animal kingdom including humans with food.

I see, have been seeing this miracle since that Spider wove its web over our kitchen window at 311 E. Monroe. The Garden Spider with her black and yellow abdomen ran up and down her web gathering her life energy from insects that gathered theirs from plant life. It has taken me decades to see this miracle all the time. Now though I look out my window and bang, there’s a revelation. The sacred interconnectedness of all things. Not found in a book or a sanctuary or a puja or on a meditation pillow but right in front of my sacred eyes! How marvelous is that.

It is one, this vast blooming buzzing chaos I can see is not chaotic, rather it is a pulsing and living part of a vast, so vast, sacred whole in which we humans move and live and have our being. And we Jews say YHWH-I was/I am/I will be-is also one. I say it every night before I go to bed and every morning when I wake up. The Shema. I say it when I leave my house and when I return. It’s written in the mezuzahs on my door frames. I say we are part of, not apart from this sacred whole that has no beginning and will have no end.

And I became a Jew because I found others sacred to me who wanted to celebrate this, this wonder. And, yes, I’ll even say, I have faith in Jewish civilization as a path which unveils the sacred, which includes me, and will include me, will support me, will remember me.

And which includes you, dear reader, and all that surrounds you. And all of us.

 

*”Our sages have said: “She is called by five names: Nefesh (breath), Ruach (wind/spirit), Neshamah (breath), Chayah (life) and Yechidah (singularity).”2 The Chassidic masters explain that the soul’s five “names” actually describe five levels or dimensions of the soul. Nefesh is the soul as the engine of physical life. Ruach is the emotional self and “personality.” Neshamah is the intellectual self. Chayah is the supra-rational self—the seat of will, desire, commitment and faith. Yechidah connotes the essence of the soul—its unity with its source, the singular essence of G‑d.” Chabad.org