Category Archives: Judaism

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Tarot

Uncomplicated

May 15, 2022 Charles Leave a comment

Beltane and the Beltane Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Fosamax. Levothyroxine. Erleada. Orgovyx. Prostate cancer. Kristie. Kristen. Medical knowledge. Doctors. Kate, always Kate. Diaphanous gowns. Good job on the ABD, Kenton. Love in sign language. Life review. Pruning. Proceeding.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Sumi-e

Tarot: Six of Bows, abundance

“…the Six of Bows asks us to consider where we have struggled and worked hard in our lives and what abundance we have gained as a result. Now…is the time to give thanks for these blessings of abundance – what do you have to be thankful for? How will you share your blessings?” tarotx.net

Over the last year and a month I’ve struggled with grief. Struggled not because it was bad, but because it was necessary. Kate meant and means the world to me. One of her friends recently told me Kate felt the same way about me. That was a sweet and precious moment.

Over the last week since her yahrzeit at CBE I’ve been having a desire to finish spreading her ashes. This time by myself, early in the morning. Maxwell Creek. I’ll leave some to be mixed with mine when the time comes. But the rest, on its way to the World Ocean. Feels like the right time. And something I need to finish alone.

Grief never ends. Not sure if that’s true. Grief for Mom has subsided to remembrance. Of course, her death was 58 years ago. I may not have time to come to the same resolution with Kate’s death. Although.

My grief about Mom was hard. I remembered her telling me I’d made her cry at Christmas. At 17 I’m sure I did. Her death came like a lightning bolt into our lives. It did not draw us together, but at least for me it sundered family ties.

Complicated grief. Painful and filled with regret. It took alcoholism and years of analysis to right the boat. By that time I was two marriages into my 30’s. I finally bobbed to the surface in my late 30’s. Right around, come to think of it, when I lost the hearing in my left ear.

Grief for Kate has none of those elements. No regrets save for one which I’ve mentioned and which I’ve worked through with the help of Sarah, Diane, and Rebecca.

The main intensifier not a complication. I finally met and married a woman while I was sober. One of a kind, as a note from Bond and Devick said. Yes, she was. We were for each other always and until the end. In fact past the end since I know her love for me gives me the freedom to live this next phase of my life in my own way. She also left me the resources to do it.

Knowing that makes the grief more bittersweet. More poignant. More filled with gratitude for her life, our life together, and my life now.

As the six of bows suggests, this struggle has been hard, but it has left me with abundance. A heart filled with love. And chesed. A life filled with love and family. Good friends. A good home and a good dog. In the Rocky Mountains. Sharing the abundance comes easily to me. As it always did to Kate.

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Judaism, Shadow Mountain, Travel

What makes you happy?

May 7, 2022 Charles Leave a comment

Beltane and the Beltane Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Coyote HVAC. Back muscles healing. One dead Mouse. A full week’s exercise. Sano. Kep, a healthy doggy at 12. Kya. Hope she and Kep get along. Kate’s yahrzeit during the service at CBE. Jon, Ruth, Gabe. A lovely evening, an outdoor service. Kristie. Kristen. Road trip today. Mini-splits minimal maintenance. A to do list for Vince.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Kep

Tarot: Ten of Vessels. Happiness.

Jon, Ruth, and Gabe drove up to CBE for the Friday evening service. And were early! First time I remember that happening. Kate’s yahrzeit came up during the service because of the Jewish leap year which moved Nissan 30 to May 1st on the Gregorian calendar. When kaddish, the mourner’s prayer is read those in active mourning or honoring a yahrzeit stand while the congregation says the prayer.

Afterward Rabbi Jamie asked us if we wanted to say anything about Kate. Jon said he felt her with us. Ruth was crying. I said, Yes, I do. But wait. I gathered myself for a minute. Kate was 30 when she converted, had no opportunity to live a Jewish life until we moved to Colorado and found Beth Evergreen. She loved this place. Not sure all of it was intelligible. A powerful moment for the four of us.

We went to Sushi Win, ordered take out. They’re not open for dining yet. Jon and Ruth waited for the order. Gabe and I went back to Shadow Mountain. I said seeing dogs with their heads out the window of a car made me happy. Toddlers, too.

What makes you happy, Gabe? Lots of things. Give me two. You. You make me happy, Grandpop. Family. Family makes me happy.

We ate in the common room. The new chandelier finally hung and centered with bulbs. Herme on. The couch and chairs arranged. Gabe went upstairs to work on a puzzle. Ruth flung herself on the couch. Jon and I stayed at the table talking.

He’s a happier guy now that he sees an end to teaching. I hope it works out for him because he’s a different person with that hope on the horizon.

Ruth’s big news? Prom. Today. She’s anxious. Doesn’t want to stab Cord when she pins on his boutonniere. Unsaid. How will I look? Will I have fun? Will Cord think I’m beautiful? What about drugs and sex? Exciting. Fun. Dangerous. Thrilling. Prom!

Reading The Inner Work of Aging: From Role to Soul by Connie Zweig. I like it. It’s focus is something I’ve mentioned here before. We lack a road map for the extended time after work that modern medicine and health practices have given us. Who are we without work? Without a role? Connie is a shadow-work specialist so she naturally goes there, but there’s much more to the book. Not far in it.

Tarot question I asked today: How will it go with Kya? I like the happiness card. I hope Kep finds Kya a happy match. Whether or not he does, I will be happy. Road trip. Trying to find Kep a companion. A first attempt. So, yes. Happiness for this day. And many others, too.

Commentary on Religion, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Garden, Great Wheel, Holidays, Judaism, Mountains, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain

A Simpler Heart

April 17, 2022 Charles Leave a comment

Spring and Kate’s Yahrzeit Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Pesach. Chag Sameach. Easter. Ramadan. All together now. A time of high Winds. High Fire danger. Liberation. Resurrection. Revelation. Spring. Nowruz. Ostara. Beltane. The birth of Lambs. The Greening of Grasses and Trees. Blooming of Flowers. Bees hard at work. Snow and Cold in the Rockies. The fallow season becoming a distant memory. Fresh Milk. Seeds in the Ground. (not in Minnesota or up here.) Life triumphs. For now.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Family

The second day of Passover yesterday. Tell me that old, old story of Pharaoh and his slaves. Saw it on Zoom. Broadcast live from Congregation Beth Evergreen. Was gonna go. Got Covid feet at the last minute. Fear makes prisoners of us all. Also. Didn’t know what to wear. I don’t have fancy clothes. Well, I do. I don’t like to wear them. Jeans and plaid shirts. An LL Bean vest. That’s the outer decor. With a pair of Keens.

When I watched Rabbi Jamie go through the haggadah with the gathered (smallish) crowd in the sanctuary at Beth Evergreen, I both wished I was there and was glad I wasn’t. This is a long service. A couple hours until the meal.

I stayed with it both out of a sense of obligation these are my people after all and out of a desire to re-member an ancient tale of liberation. An ancientale of authoritarian rule and those who broke away from it. The ancient and lonely trail of trying to lose the slave mind, to take life in your own hands and live it responsively and responsibly.

It’s not easy being free. It takes work. Every day. Get food. Maintain health. Love family. And the Pharaoh’s of our day want their slaves to have just enough money to buy the things Pharaoh wants them to. Just enough to have some food, be healthiesh, maybe maintain a family. Buy gas, processed foods, over the counter remedies, pay rent.

Then there’s the lower caste. The people of the street. Who are either can’t or won’t play the Pharaoh’s game. Who suffer from mental illness, addiction, loneliness.

Those with privilege can navigate past the Scylla of money and the Charybdis of social expectations. Yet even most of the privileged founder anyhow. Crushed between the jaws of earning and wanting to fit in.

Judaism knows this in its traditions and works to keep the freedom. It’s hard though even for ones who know the true difficulty of the journey from Egypt through the Reed Sea and those days years in the desert and hardest of all-gaining the Promised Land.

Christianity went off on a tangent about mortality and its pain. Solved through a resurrected God who would take us all with him someday. Beautiful metaphor, resurrection. Death is not the end. Ain’t no grave can hold my body down. A little creepy in its bodies zipping up from cemeteries, or taken whole out of life in the rapture.

There’s a liberation message there, too. But you have to work to find it, embrace it, follow it. Would have been better without the sin. Making it seem that resurrection needed earning. By not doing this or that. Rather than by following a path. A via negativa toward heaven. Born good? Nope. Born bad. Work to put away the stain of the Eden rebellion. Wash, wash, wash the stain away. Shout it out!

We can take this wonderful wakin’ up morning and realize that death does not define us. We can take this pesach and gain our freedom. The resources of these two great faiths are available to us, but they come with so much damned baggage. So much institutional hoohah.

Even so. I’ll stand with those who find death only a part of the journey. I’ll stand with those who know Pharaoh lives in our own heart and the journey lies in turning him from dictator to collaborator.

Sure. I believe those things. They’re important.

I have a simpler heart I’ve learned. One not so enmeshed. I recognize the wonder, the miracle of elemental creation. I see the Sun and its life-giving power. I feel Mother Earth under my feet, responsive to my hands, bearing all I need for this life, the one right here, right now. Ichi-go, Ichi-e. I see the moon in the darkness. I feel its gentle lunar power ripping whole oceans from here to there.

I do not need to go further than these. I do. But I do not need to. I could live happily with giving only them reverence. With realizing awe only in their presence. With letting them think about my afterlife. About Kate’s.

Death and life. Oppression and liberation. Yes. Important, big questions. Journeys of a lifetime. But, too. Following the water course way. Living life as it comes, letting it flow beneath and around and with our feet, our body, our heart, our mind. I’ll flow with the Taoist while I stand with those others and their ways. Seems strange I know, but that’s the spot I’ve come to for right now.

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Kabbalah, Mussar, Shadow Mountain

What is truth?

April 14, 2022 Charles Leave a comment

Spring and Kate’s Yahrzeit Moon

Kate, back from her hospitalization and rehab, covered in the friendship quilt from Baily Patchworkers. October, 2018

Thursday gratefuls: Rich. Jamie. Marilyn. Susan. Truth. Emet. Luke and his new haircut. Alan. Pesach. Liberation. Slavery. Myth. Story. Legend. Ovid. Latin. Writing. Ukraine. Climate change. Democracy. Liberalism. High fire danger.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Emet.

Oh, boy. Tired this morning. I was up until 11 p.m. last night. Could have been New Year’s. When I got back from the mussar group at CBE, a guy was in my driveway. Kep was barking at him. Go, Kep. I stopped and rolled down my window.

I can’t get any cell service. I’m lost.

My suspicion meter went up, but he seemed non-threatening.

Could I use your phone?

I handed him my phone through the car window. Still suspicious.

My girlfriend. That’s her in the Jeep. He pointed to car lights nearby, the vehicle idling. She’s been drinking.

OK.

I live at 285 and Sheridan. I need to call a friend to come get me. (285 and Sheridan is in Lakewood, all the way down the hill.)

He made two calls, both went to voicemail.

The Jeep moved closer to my driveway. Well, maybe I’ll go talk to her. She’ll give me a ride home.

Maybe she would let you drive?

I doubt it.

He left, talked through the Jeep’s window, got in and they drove away.

Left me feeling conflicted. I was already past my bedtime. He was a stronger, younger male with a strange story that I couldn’t parse. Why was he walking alone, in the mountains, trying to find cell phone service? Even if his girlfriend had been drinking, what prompted him to leave her house and walk away into a Mountain Night when he lived so far away? He seemed sober and as I said, non-threatening.

Woke up this morning wondering if he made it home ok. If I should have driven him home. Why didn’t I? Was I too tired? Too unsure of my ability to handle him if he was not as he appeared? Conflicted.

Odd.

Last night we talked about emet, the Hebrew word for truth. What a topic. See the above story. What was the truth of it? I didn’t know, couldn’t tell, and it made me nervous. So, lacking a way to discern the truth, I backed away. Afraid of a lie that might do me harm. The truth matters.

But, as Pontius Pilate said, “What is truth?” That’s the rub. And, in this post-modern age, who’s truth are we talking about? Mine? Yours? This guy in my driveway? His girlfriends? Was this a case of domestic abuse? He didn’t seem harmed. What was going on?

A lot ink has been spilled on the topic of truth. A lot. We came to no conclusions.

We always have practices. Things we do over the month that will help sensitize us to the particular middot, character trait, and how it can fit into our day-to-day life. Marilyn came up with “I’m going to tell people how I feel about them more often.”

I asked her if I could copy her. She said sure.

Then, after we’d finished cleaning up, Rich and Jamie were back in the kitchen and I was ready to leave. I went back to tell them I was leaving. “I came tonight in person because I knew you two would be here.” Jamie came over and gave me a big hug.

As I left, I surprised myself, and I imagine them, too, by saying, “I love you guys. See you later.” I’ve gotten a little more comfortable with this, saying I love you to important people in my life with my Ancient Brothers and I’m glad it’s spilling over. Because. It’s the truth.

Astrology, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Kabbalah

Continuance and Remembrance

April 13, 2022 Charles Leave a comment

Spring and Kate’s Yahrzeit Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Kate. Her yahrzeit. Ode. Yahrzeit candles. Ebony and Vine. Pulled pork. 15 degrees. Geez. High fire danger. Kep. Who kept me warm last night. A year with no new firsts. No first birthday with no Kate. No first Hanukkah without Kate. No first anniversary without Kate. Changing of the heart.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ode

When I came upstairs this morning the yarhzeit candles, which I lit around 7 am yesterday, were still burning. I love this Jewish custom and added to it. The candle for that third entity between us, our marriage. As those first yahrzeit candles burned down, the last first, I could feel a weight lifting. My life feels a bit freer. Maybe a lot. Will take some time to tell.

Yesterday was a busy day. Looking into the astrological meaning of Neptune. Investigating the significance of mem heh, “what”, in the Haggadah and in the Tree of Life at Chochmah, the sefirot of wisdom. Ode’s arrival.

We chatted for a while and then both took a nap. We old guys. An early dinner at Ebony and Vine where Mark ran into a waiter from Jamestown, North Dakota. “My name’s Odegard.” “Oh! I know Odegards! Good to hear a name from home.”

Came back and talked some more. It is like they say. True friends, no matter how long apart, pick up the conversation from where it left off. He gave me a sweet of gift of decal edged thank-you cards with Ode’s trademark leaves spray glued to the front: a Gingko, a Cottonwood, a Maple, an Oak, and a Fern.

Felt like a good way to experience Kate’s yahrzeit. Two classes from the Kabbalah Experience, which I would never have found without her long ago conversion to Judaism. Then a good friend dropping by on his way to Tucson, staying the night.

Remembrance and continuance. The very nature of grieving. Its core. The ritual of the candles. Ode’s memory of Kate making a big salad for the Wooly’s gathered at our house. A salad made from vegetables grown in our Andover garden. “Then she sat down and ate with us.” That was unusual because spouses did not eat with us on our meeting nights. But she was Kate and she lived her life as she wanted. I loved her for it.

I feel different on this side of her first yahrzeit. Lighter. There was that strange joy I mentioned yesterday. It continues. A sense of completion rather than loss. We made promises that we kept. We stood with each other in tough times and in good ones. We weathered flaws that bothered our marriage and grew stronger from them.

Today her memory is truly for a blessing.

Astrology, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Kabbalah, News of the Strange, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Tarot

Certainty

April 2, 2022 Charles Leave a comment

Spring and Kate’s Yahrzeit Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Hoo, boy. Workout on Friday. Good, but hard. Two sets. Wondering whether I need to go to 3. Got my cardio up. Well up. 300 minutes in the last week. 5 hours. Love the energy boost a working or partly working thyroid gives. Jackie. Haircut. She’s a sweetheart. She said of Kate, “I miss her flipping you off.” Me, too.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: April

Decided two things. 1. Write Ancientrails and workout. See where the day goes after. 2. Make one new recipe and one new salad each week. On 2. Still trying to navigate cooking for one, yet liking to cook. Difficult. Finishing the first phase of kitchen reassemble today and tomorrow. Gonna. Get. It. Done.

Even though my energy level has improved a lot, my stamina is still not great. Plus I find myself easily overwhelmed with trying to imagine a good way of replacing items in the cabinets. Plan to push past that and finish. Things can always get moved later if I don’t like their location.

I would also like to get the remaining common room papers at least moved out of the room, set up the Roomba. Let the common room enter its useful period. May hang some art if I have energy left. Still have to call Dave for the couch reupholstery. And Peter needs to come and hang two lamps. Chandelier coming later.

Plan to get some firewood today, too. Not a lot, enough for two or three fires. See how my lungs handle it. Should be ok, but…

To Speak for the Trees is a feminist work of top order. Also a work about claiming and owning your own gifts. And, not coincidentally, a powerful expression of the Celtic cultural deposit. Very similar to the First Nations in kind and quality. In fact, the Celtic experience in the British Isles has many similarities to the Native experience in the U.S.

Although their near genocide happened much further back in time. The Romans drove them into Wales and up into Scotland, down into Cornwall. The Vikings attacked what is now Ireland. Where the red hair comes from. Then the Roman Catholic Church, allied with the Anglo-Saxons, drove the ancient Celtic faith often literally underground, building their churches over holy wells and other sacred spots. The bastards.

The old Celtic culture lasted longest in Wales, parts of Scotland, and in the Gaeltalk part of Ireland. Brittany and Galicia, in France and Spain respectively, as well.

Beresford-Kroger writes of her education in the old ways in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s as the final waning of Druidic lore and the old Celtic culture. She is in my pantheon of heroines. Be like Diana.

Setting out on another semester of classes at the Kabbalah Experience: Sefer Yetzirah III and Diving Deep into the Stars or Astrology and Kabbalah III. Having fun with these. Guess you could call it a quasi-hobby. Quasi because it’s too serious for fun and too much fun to be serious. I really like these classes, the strange world they open up. And, as David says, even if you’re agnostic about astrology you’re still learning something about yourself, aren’t you? I am.

Because I’ve dipped a foot (way more than a toe by this point) into Kabbalah, astrology, and tarot, when I saw the sign for new moon intuitive readings, I thought, what the hell? $20 for 15 minutes. Just down from Jackie’s hair salon.

Put my money down. Get quiet, then when you’re ready, say your name three times. Charles Buckman-Ellis. Charles Buckman-Ellis. Charles Buckman-Ellis. You’re at a big turning point. Well, yes. You’re a strong psychic, you could do this work. Oh? I need to lean into certainty. That’s probably true. Ha ha.

After I told her Kate died a year ago, she said Kate reassures me, wants me to know that’s she fine, better than fine. Dancing. She taps me on the left shoulder sometimes. She wants me to live my own life. I have a strong core and that new life has begun to blossom. Mary, the psychic, mentioned a rose, but I saw a lotus opening.

Not sure what to make of it. Some of what she said made me think she had read something of me. The part about certainty in particular. And, the time of a big turning point. Though I suppose we’re all always at some turning point or another. Still. I liked hearing Kate reassured me even if I doubted it. Because I’d like it to be true. An odd time, definitely worth $20.

Cinema and Television, Colorado, Coronavirus, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism, Shadow Mountain, The Move, Weather +Climate

Kavanah

March 29, 2022 Charles Leave a comment

Spring and the waning sliver of Seoah’s Citizenship Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Snow. Cooler. Cytopoint. Syringes. Home injections. Orgovyx. Erleada. Levothyroxine. Life. Living it. Well. Eudaimonia. Taoism. Travel. Short trips. Long trips. Boredom. Organization. Dullness. Joy. Chicken pot pies. Art. Music. David Sanders. Kate, always Kate. Rigel. Gertie. Vega. The Colorado dogs. With Kep. Who yet lives.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Max. The baby. Growing. Sitting up on his own. Go, Max. Go, Kate.

The days of our lives are sand in an hourglass. Do they still make soap operas? Is there still day time TV? I cut the cord so long ago that I have no idea. TV news is an oxymoron. Infotainment is not a thing. It’s a distortion of what the news was meant to be. The strait jacket of a show at one time. Escaped. Death by a thousand channels, most of them unwatchable? Escaped.

If sports were your thing, cutting the cord would have been difficult. I get that. But I was a Vikings fan. The football equivalent of a Cubs fan before they broke away from their apparent destiny. Didn’t miss it. Especially now in Colorado.

Movies. Yes. Series dramas. Yes. Comedy. Yes. Content from all over the world. Yes. With Netflix, Amazon Video, and HBO Max I’m happy. Maybe a bit too happy. The amount of good, even great content, has grown so fast.

The Koreans have given us dramas in a new tone, more human, less formulaic. Then there are the history based series like the Vikings, the Last Kingdom, Qin Empire: The Alliance, Resurrection: Ertugrul. Science fiction.

First run movies. Caches of old movies. HBO Max provides access to the Turner Classic Movies archive as well as Studio Ghibli. And the occasional Criterion flick.

All you have to day is pony up some cash, sit your butt in the chair, find that remote, and you’re off to the Warring States Period, the rise of the Ottoman Empire, Space Force, anime. Spirited Away. I’m only a little ashamed to admit that I love it.

The shame comes in when I admit how much I’ve been loving it. More than I need. Less than I want. Not sure how to balance this as part of my day. I’ve made advances. I’ve taken back reading time from the TV.

Now that my energy has improved, I see the trap the weariness had snapped around me. Oh, I’m too tired. But, I can watch TV. Covid played a role here, too. And Kate’s long illness. However those are dropping away, have dropped away.

Intentional. Kavanah. What’s your intention? A Jewish idea that informs prayer. You’re not supposed to pray without intention. No formulary, rote prayer. Know what you mean to do with your prayer.

Kavanah. Our hours need kavanah. My hours, the late afternoon hours, need kavanah. I’ve allowed myself to get into a rut. Intention can lift me out of it.

Working on it. Boredom helps. Energy helps. The coming of Spring helps. I can do this.

What will help most are two things: 1. finishing the kitchen, common room, my level refurbish, remodel, redecorate. 2. finishing my work with David Sanders, turning the ship of my life toward a new destination without losing the gifts I have in it right now.

A slow process. Grief. For me at least. But, a needed process. Letting go of Kate yet keeping her close. Difficult inner work.

Will be doing more of all this today. And tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow hopefully not to the last syllable of recorded time.

Colorado, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism, Kabbalah, Mountains, Shadow Mountain

What Then?

March 28, 2022 Charles Leave a comment

Spring and Seoah’s Citizenship Moon

Monday gratefuls: The Ancient Brothers. Thanks to folks we maybe never got around to. David Scruton, first anthropology professor. Bill and Gloria Gaither, high school teachers who’ve gone on to, well, glory. And lotsa cash. Bob Lucas, my boss at the Presbytery back in the day. Sent two off, the third later this morning. Gratitude is never out of time. Energy still good. Blood work tomorrow. Oncologist a week from today.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Gratitude

Energy remains up. And, surprisingly, the shortness of breath I would get from moving around without much exertion is gone, too. Guess that thyroid is pretty important. Getting things done.

As I get them done, I wonder what will happen when I’m finished. What then? I’ll have a remodeled kitchen, a more comfortable and usable common room with art where I want it. My space downstairs will be finished. The loft organized.

Beginning to suspect that all this work, though welcome and delightful, has been a distraction. Or, perhaps better, a way to process grief through physical changes. As Kate’s yahrzeit approaches and the weather tries to be springlike, as the common room, the kitchen, and my level move closer to the finish line, I feel like I’m going to hit a moment of so much freedom that I will be overwhelmed.

After the big do in April, I’m going to head off into Colorado for some road trips. I need to get offa this mountain, down where the air is thicker, and go from here to there. I have a list, one Jackie, my hair stylist, and I came up with last fall.

It includes Marble, Gunnison, Dinosaur National Monument, Royal Gorge, Sand Dunes National Park, Grand Junction, and visiting hot springs. Not all on one trip of course. Four Corners is another. Then there’s hopping over to Utah.

In mid summer I’m heading to Hawaii. I plan to be there over Seoah’s birthday which is on July 4th. Do something patriotic with the new citizen and her spouse. Might try to visit my sis in Japan later in the year, then hop over to Taipei for the National Museum.

This week David Sanders and I will discuss his thoughts on what I might be up to next. Could be more of the same, I suppose. Could be more intentional. Writing. CBE work. Paint. Entertain. Could be something I’m not planning on right now.

Class reunion in September, maybe. Visit Minnesota on the way there or the way back.

Actually I have no idea what I’m doing right now. Putting one foot in front of the other, doing this and that with Kep and the family, with CBE. Waiting, too. Sadness and grief occupy some time as well.

Life. Going on. As it does.

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Mussar, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

O2. Feeling a little down

March 18, 2022 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc and the Seoah Citizenship Moon

Friday gratefuls: Snow. About 18 inches or so. Steel gray Sky over a whitened Black Mountain. Kep slogging through the Snow. Loving it. O2 saturation low yesterday. ?. The life of the mind. The life of the body. Life. Kate, always Kate. David Sanders. Jon. Lungs. Air. Altitude. Vince.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Vince, a genuinely good guy

First loft snow day ever yesterday. I just didn’t climb the stairs. Too much snow. Spring. Not sure why but my 02 saturation went down into the 70’s and low 80’s for much of the day yesterday. If that continues, I’ll have to go see Kristine and/or a pulmonologist. I can handle it because I have three stand alone oxygen concentrators and one portable one from Kate’s o2 needs, but geez. Like to know why.

Took my first levothyroxine this morning. Fussy drug. You have to take it thirty minutes to an hour before food and other drugs. It needs an empty stomach for adequate absorption. Not a problem for me since I can take it when I get up, feed Kep, come here to write Ancientrails, then go back down for breakfast and my morning meds. Well, a little problem. No coffee for an hour either. But, I’m a big boy. In a couple of months my energy level should improve.

Jon has a show opening at DAVA today. Not sure who the other artists are. Evenings out, with all the snow, are no longer my thing, so I’ll see it later. He’s printing a lot these days. Glad to see.

Had to put on my O2 early in the day yesterday. Not usual. Had it on during my session with David. Too loud. Took it off. Oxygen concentrators and bad hearing don’t go well together. Always a bit of a shock for folks to see with me the O2.

Mussar yesterday on lashon hara, the evil tongue. In all cases but this one-so far-I have found the character traits of mussar congenial to my own understanding of what a good person would do. This one seems convoluted and over the top to me. Held to rigorously it would prevent telling a friend how your kids are doing. Even if they ask. The idea is to prevent gossip. Thought through it also would halt most of the news and, even a lot of this blog.

In my own view, kavanah, or intention is the more critical idea. Yes, when gossiping is about tearing someone else down. No, when it’s lifting them up. Yes, when the reporting is necessary to call attention to corruption, malfeasance, bad acting. Judaism places a great deal of emphasis on clean speech and I honor that. Lashon hara stretches the idea to far for me.

I may need further understanding since some of what I just read seems to agree with me. It may be that Rabbi Jamie’s take is to one extreme.

Felt strange. Not good. Not coming up here yesterday. I put on my Sorel’s and clumped up here today. The lights were still on on the railing. This is a gift from Kate. She wove the lights around the banister and set the timing. Quite a while ago.

Feeling a little down today. Don’t like the O2 saturation from yesterday. Seems ok today. Don’t like feeling tired, weak. A bit sad about being alone. Missing Kate. And Rigel. This is mood, not melancholy. It will pass.

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Kabbalah, Mountains, Mussar, Shadow Mountain, Tarot

It’s a New Day

March 11, 2022 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc and the Seoah Citizenship Moon

Friday gratefuls: Jon’s ok. Ruth, growing up. That weird sandwich. Not so ok with my stomach. The anniversary. The people who helped me through it. Chicken soup. Soul. Mine. Trying to find it. Searching for soul. Lev and the mouth. Tom’s 74th. Astrology. Tarot. Kabbalah. Jon’s art. My writing. Water from the Chalice Well. Carolyn Levy. Seoah and her interview this morning.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Grief and its depth

Tarot:

Kep’s raggedy look. I brush him and brush him and brush him. Taking off as much fur as any dog probably has on them at any one time, yet he has still more. And yet more comes. The second coat of a cold adapted dog breed. A damned nuisance.

On the other hand. He doesn’t slobber. Which both Vega and Rigel did. Their Coyote Hound inheritance. Both the constant shedding and the slobber were new to Kate and me. Irish Wolfhounds and Whippets don’t have either. We had to adjust. Still adjusting.

5 degrees again this morning. This last couple of weeks have reminded me of Minnesota, creating the sort of icy conditions better suited to flatland. Colorado drivers don’t understand it. After 40 years in Minnesota, my instincts are intact. Won’t say an icy curve can’t catch me off guard, but I’ve got a better chance than most of the folks I routinely drive with.

Made it through yesterday. Remembering. Loving the remembering and being saddened by it and gladdened by it. I did what I said I would. Moved Kate’s ashes and her signature red glasses to a niche behind my computer, behind me right now. Rigel, too. Both weighed about the same. Rigel’s big paw print in plaster of paris and a sweet card from the folks at Sano, acknowledging Rigel as a very sweet dog who will be missed. By us all. My two ladies, now elsewhere, gone from here. Not from the soft squishy thing in my skull however.

I can feel yet more plate tectonics in my soul. Subduction pushing up long buried hopes and dreams while carrying surface worries and false paths below. Something about writing going down. Something about people and this house rising. The grief orogeny changing the once flat plain of my old life. New peaks and valleys coming into existence, old ones disappearing.

Cousin Diane said something that stuck with me. Sounds like prioritizing exercise is important. Yes. Broke a logjam in my thinking that kept pressing writing and exercise into a face off for my time. Health comes first. I should know this already after watching Kate’s steady, sad decline. But, I didn’t have it. I’m going to get my 30 minutes plus in five days a week. We’ll see how the rest of the schedule takes shape with that as the priority.

Realizing right now that I have lived through a major life crisis with the folks at CBE. They knew Kate well. And, me. They knew we came as a pair. If she was there, I was there, and vice versa. Except for board meetings and when I did physical work. They were with us through her long illness and are now with me in my grief. Holding me in love and kindness.

Told David again, I don’t want to convert. Might be a little bit repetitive on that one. But, I said, I’m so drawn to the people, the tribe. Not the torah or the kabbalah or the talmud or even the regular services, but the community. I told him about dating three Jewish women at the same time after my divorce from Raeone. Not sure why, just happened. Well, probably not.

He said something very interesting. Sometimes those kind of things happen after events in a past life. Oh. That felt oddly right. Something to explore as this new life, this new day, makes me feel good.

This video surprised me by being a prompt, a hope, a dance I want. Not there yet, but on the way. A new ancientrail.

“Dragonfly out in the sun you know what i mean dont you know
Butterflies all havin’ fun you know what I mean
Sleepin’ peace when day is done that’s what I mean
And this old world is a new world and a bold world for me” Nina Simone

Kate loved dragonflies and butterflies, so here you go: