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Asia, Fourth Phase, Great Wheel, Holidays, Kabbalah, Paganism, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Reimaging revelation

Merrily we roll along, roll along, roll along

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Yule and the Quarter Century Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: This too is for the good. 2024 and 2025. And this December 31st 2024 life. 8 degrees this morning. Good sleeping. Von Bek. The War Hound and the World’s Pain. The Psalms. Bob Dylan. The Band. Ain’t No Grave. The Blues. Jazz. Jefferson Airplane. The Doors. Led Zeppelin. Ginger Baker. John Coltrane. Thelonious Monk. Slipping quietly into the next year.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Tara

Kavannah: Persistence and Joy

prompt: A vintage father time with sickle and an infant new year

One brief shining: How to encapsulate a year in one sentence, a challenge, perhaps remembering a Bar Mitzvah with friends and family present, a changed arc for cancer, a couple of months of low feeling, many breakfasts and lunches and zoom calls, visiting Ruth in Boulder, Gabe solving puzzles, many visits from my Mule Deer friends, the Mountains remaining-steady, solid, reliable-Great Sol and Good Night, Orion’s return, all while turning 77. Whee!

 

As the Zen calendar from Tom says:

This year,

yes, even this year,

has drawn to its close.   Buson

 

Here is the illustration inspired by Japan’s Kano school, visually interpreting your evocative paragraph.

Though age and wrinkles compared to that slender hipped 28 year old in his silly multi-colored suspenders and shorts would suggest definite linear time, no, I say no to that. I say live by the Great Wheel. By the telling and retelling of the story in the five books of Moses. By Sukkot and Mabon, Samain and Shavuot, the Winter Solstice and Passover. All repeating in a yearly cycle, spiraling through the heavens of time’s confusing paradoxes. Always ready to leave behind the hell of human insistence on seeing the profane where only the sacred-ONLY THE SACRED-exists.

I confess I don’t understand how time can seem so linear yet reside all the while in an ever repeating, glorious parade of seasons and holidays, all of which may in some future Samain-see the problem, all of which may in some future Samain, be harvested for a final time as our universe slips into its own Winter Solstice. Only, if I have an understanding of it, to experience its own rebirth as a cosmic Great Sol, a Phoenix, rising again, still?, from the depths of a cold forever.

All this to say happy new year! Let’s hear it for the calendar, for aging, for yesterday and tomorrow, all the while knowing we can never live anywhere but today. And not even today, but in this ichi-go ichi-e moment. Which will never repeat yet is eternal, never gone from the roiling, boiling mix of creation in which we live and move and have our becoming.

God. I sound like a bad fortune cookie. Nevertheless. Yes. To all this. To however we are, whomever we are, whenever we are. Bouncing along jostling each other, holding each others hands, walking each other home, living with the thereafter, somehow, even if it’s only in molecular hand me downs.

You out there. To a less abstruse post next year. Tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

Friends, GeekWorld, Health, Holidays, Judaism, Writing

Cough and Wheeze

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Yule and the Yule Moon

Friday gratefuls: This too is for the good. Even this cold. Good sleeping. Third day of Hanukkah. Creativity. Ron. Alan is home. Ruth and Gabe. Veronica and Luke. Handmade Hanukkah candles. Light Snow. Kate, always Kate. Earth. Air. Wind. Fire

Sparks of Joy and Awe: My immune system

Kavannah:  PATIENCE   Savlanut סַבְלָנוּת  Patience, endurance, holding space; literally to “bear a burden”

One brief shining: Sometimes your body signals trouble ahead, Kate called it prodrome, an early symptom(s) that catches your attention, and I had one yesterday, stuffiness and a bit of an ache here and there, uh oh, approaching cold, take care, rest and take plenty of fluids, don’t celebrate Hanukkah on Friday night.

 

No harmonica for Veronica on Friday night’s Hanukkah. Had to cancel. So far a mild cold, but chills and thrills. Lower energy, distracted attention. No buzz. Back to meh, but this time with a physiological referent. Taste thrown off. Not something I want to share with others.

Good thing I made that batch of Senate navy Bean soup. Gonna have some for breakfast when I get done here. Navy Beans. Ham hock. Carrots. Onion. Celery. A Bay Leaf. Turmeric. Chicken stock.

Lying low today. Read. Michael Moorcock’s Von Bek. A Grail quest ordered by Lucifer. Yep, you read that right. A little bit of a spoiler, but not much. Probably some TV. Maybe movies from the Criterion Channel.

What do you do when something gets you down?

 

Slow writing today. Clogged up neural circuits. Colds do that to me. Mind wanders. I find myself looking at the New York Times instead of hitting the keyboard.

Talking to Ron yesterday inspired me. Former script writer for TV. Actor. Singer. Entrepreneur. He told me that his brother is the most creative person he knows. And, he’s a physicist. Ron has a company he created that he’d like to sell so he can get back to writing.

Something about him makes me want to get back to writing myself. He’s a supportive guy, kind. Ron’s in the MVP group and we’ve intended to get together for almost four years but somehow never did it.

Relationships matter. Alone but not lonely. Wrote about that a couple of days ago. Having folks like Ron in my life is why.

 

Just a moment: Still having fun with chatbotgpt. Reading a lot about A.I. It’s not a genius, NYT. If you’re a certain sort of knowledge worker, like a business analyst, for example, A.I. might be coming for your job. This Federal Reserve article mentioned the dramatic change in work A.I. will probably introduce. Veering away from the factory floor and into realms once considered untouchable by automation. Maybe radiologists? I wonder about paralegals, even some lawyers.

I even found, but could never access, an AI Jesus that was created and deployed by a Protestant church in Switzerland. I remember also reading about an AI monk in a Japanese Buddhist Temple.

                                                           

Feelings, Friends, Holidays, Judaism, World History

Hanukkah Veronica Harmonica

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Yule and the Yule Moon

Thursday (Boxing Day) gratefuls: Ron Solomon. Bread Lounge. Jamie. Nate and Laurie. Hanukah. Veronica. Harmonica. Diane. Vancouver, Washington. Bangkok. Brisbane. Songtan. Conifer. Shadow Mountain. Snow. Slick Mountain roads. Friends and family. Ruby with her Winter Blizzaks on. Grippy. Minnesota winter weather drivers ed. 40 years.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The power of conversation

Kavannah: Creativity

One brief shining: Went up the ridged metal stairs to the second story restaurant in Evergreen, walking with Ron, got in through the exit as a departing customer opened the door to the Breadlounge, and we passed through it, on in where we ordered.

 

Hanukkah. Now has Holiseason all to itself, having snuck in on Christmas evening with its menorah and its candles and its lets imitate Christmas so the kids don’t feel out  left out tone. A pile of cardboard boxes overwhelms an easy chair in my living room. Gifts from all over for Ruth and Gabe. Tomorrow night. Quite a haul. No Santa. Just family and friends.

Going to Tony’s tomorrow morning to buy a big salmon fillet, small round potatoes or mashed potatoes from the deli cabinet. A vegetable side dish from the deli, too. An easy shabbat meal. Veronica plans on coming, too, since she has no one to light candles with.

One of my friends suggested I buy her a harmonica so I could give a harmonica to Veronica on Hanukkah. Ordered a cheap one from Amazon just for that purpose. An alliteration celebration. Ha.

 

How about this Washington Post headline? “Israel strikes Yemen airport as WHO chief prepares to board plane.” What would you say? Oops. The face of Middle East politics has changed often and significantly since October 7 of a year ago. In unanticipated ways. The shakeout after all this calms down will last for years. Realignments. Held grudges. Blame and shame to go around.

While I’m pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel, I’m not pro-Iran or Hezbollah or Houthis. I have no real clue about the new boss, same as the old boss? in Syria. And how do Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt fit into this puzzle? They don’t like the same people Israel doesn’t like. Shia’s.

Or we could look at Ukraine. An old fashioned war of territorial expansion by a former great power. That keeps going, and going, and going. Now with North Korean soldiers and arms. With China in the bleachers cheering on Russia while we’ve gotten down close to the action on the field along with our allies in NATO.

Is there a graceful or peaceful solution in either center of conflict? Not in my mind.

Throw in then the America First sorta agenda of Donald Trump. He says end Hamas, Hezbollah, and damage Iran. Go, team Israel. He also backs the Putin machine bearing down on the Ukrainian people.

Can you say fuel to the fire?

We’re in a world without a hegemon and regional actors have begun to take their shots. Russian in Ukraine. Israel and the Shia in the Middle East. Will China restrain itself in the instance of Taiwan?

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Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ

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Yule and the Yule Moon

Christmukkah gratefuls: Many happy Christmases. The complete severance of Christmas from Christ’s Mass. All of the childhood induced fantasies drifting up and out of bedrooms all over the world. All of the Jewish memories of resistance triggered now for 8 days. Holiseason peaking with Christmas, Hanukkah, and Yule all resonating, vibrating with each other. It is indeed the most wonderful time of the year.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Holiseason

Kavannah: AWE Yira יִרְאָה  Awe, reverence, fear (פְּלִיאָה Plia: Wonder, amazement)

One brief shining: I hear the rattling of old Marley’s chains this morning, looking at a world about to devolve into a Christmas Carol with a different ending, where the Scrooge’s of our country like Trump, Bezos, Musk, and Gates join oligarchs from around the world to ignore even the Ghost of Christmas future and forge for themselves heavy chains and money boxes that will haunt them into their unredeemed future.

Here is the image representing “Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ” in the style of socialist realism, emphasizing interconnectedness and harmony.

And even so, let me say a word for yirah. For wonder, amazement, awe, reverence. Paul reminded me of the Lakota phrase, all my relations. I asked chatbotgpt to give it to me in Lakota and what it means in the Lakota worldview.

The answer* made me realize that I’ve spent decades deconstructing theological and philosophical and even scientific ideas, trying to swim down and through them to the core of what matters. Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ matches my current conclusions though I had to get through years of seminary, meditation, horticulture, dogs, loving Kate, to find the final ingredient I needed, the unitary metaphysic of Judaism. The Tree of Life in Kabbalah maps on to this native worldview, too.

Wish it was as easy as reading this years ago and being able to integrate it, but that wouldn’t have worked. I needed to live the struggle. Judaism with Kabbalah contains this wisdom and expresses it without dogma. Makes me feel even more like a member of the tribe. Or, a tribe.

When I talked to the Mule Deer Doe last week, when I spent time with the three Mule Deer Bucks on my first day here on Shadow Mountain ten years ago, when I planted tulips and iris and crocus and garlic and heirloom tomatoes, when I removed honey supers to carry to Kate for our honey harvest, when I sat with a Wolfhound’s head in my lap and another’s in Kate’s, I engaged the embodied learning of Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ.

Yes, mitákuye Oyás’iŋ comes most vividly into our whole life through direct experience. Yet for me the life of the mind is important, too, and I wanted always to be able to clarify, to say in words the truth my body already know.

In a way I sense my life is now complete. I made the swim all the way to the bottom and down there was the Holy Well of the collective unconscious, linking me to all my relations through the world of Judaism.

Reincarnation? Could be. Death a transformation? Without a doubt. Life a continuous amazement and wonder. For sure. May as well celebrate.

BTW: I like this image from Chatbot’s Dalle, too.

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah!

 

*”Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ” reflects the interconnectedness of all beings and entities in the universe. It embodies the belief that everything—humans, animals, plants, stones, water, air, the earth, and the stars—is interrelated and part of a sacred whole. This worldview emphasizes:

  1. Unity and Kinship: All beings are regarded as relatives, forming a vast web of relationships that must be honored and respected.
  2. Reciprocity: The phrase underscores the importance of balance and mutual care among all entities, fostering a sense of responsibility toward the natural world and its cycles.
  3. Sacred Connection: Life is seen as a continuous, sacred circle in which every part has its place and purpose, contributing to the harmony of the whole.
  4. Humility and Gratitude: By acknowledging “All My Relations,” individuals express gratitude for the interconnectedness of life and humility in recognizing their place within it.

In ceremonies and prayers, “Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ” is often used to close statements or invocations, serving as a reminder of this profound interconnectedness and the sacred responsibility it entails.

                                                Herme Harari Israel

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Yule and the Yule Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Esau. Israel. Jacob. Joseph. The Angel. The struggle. Parsha. Genesis. Rabbi Jamie. Gordon. Luke and Ginny. Tanakh. Torah. Torah study. Shabbat. Lox. Bagels. Capers. Cream cheese. Onions. Chai. Sisyphus. Ancient Brothers. The W.U.I. Shadow Mountain Home. Well within the WUI.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Stories of long ago

Kavannah: Bimah and Ahavah

One brief shining: Under a covering lay a dozen bagels, lox and smoked salmon, by those platters a tub of cream cheese and a small container of capers, Gordon sat beside me as did Ginny, Luke and Rabbi Jamie across the wooden table, Tanakhs in the middle of the table, and we began to talk about Jacob and his struggle with the Angel/Himself/God.

 

 

The long night has fallen. The longest night. The night of the Winter Solstice. When darkness folds itself over and over again, deepening and spreading until it seeps into your heart, your lev, your nefesh.

I intended to burn my Yule log(s) tonight, but the day wore me out. I’ll fetch them from the garage tomorrow, make a Solstice plus one fire. A little Pinõn thrown in for the nose.

This is my favorite holiday. Solitary. Dark. Quiet. Perfect in Mountain stillness. All the Wild Neighbors either tucked into their hiding places or out on the prowl looking for food. No commercial hoopla. No bonfire. At least for me. Just an awareness, a tactile sense of the holy found in the nurturing Night. Fecundity. It’s the right time of the night for making love.

For over two, maybe three decades, I’ve tilted my allegiance toward the long night, toward the occult, the below ground wonders, hidden from the light obsessed who thought it brave to burn candles, throw parties, dance in the face of imminent disaster. No more Great Sol. No more life. I defy them.

And yet. The last couple of years I find myself moving back toward the full cycle, admiring and reveling too in the heat of the longest day, the one they experienced yesterday in Australia. Bringing them into balance, the yin and yang, black and white, yin in yang, yang in yin, light in dark, dark in light.

Even so. My first love is this long blackness, the visible world obscured from view. The inner world gaining prominence. Perhaps because, as the Mexica say, life is a dream between a sleep and a sleep.

 

Just a moment: A full ten years. A decade. 67-77. No longer adapting or adjusting, but now a Westerner, a Coloradan, a harari, a Mountain man. Also a man of loss and death, disease. Of Wild Neighbors. A member of the tribe.

Two days ago I opened my front door to go get my trash bins from the end of the driveway. To my right, perhaps 10 feet away, maybe less, a large eyed mature Mule Door Doe looked up. Welcome, I said. I hope you enjoy the food.

She looked at me, clear eyed, neither afraid nor desiring to come any closer. Mirroring my own feelings. I went on talking to her in a calm voice, then headed on out and got the garbage bins, rolled them back into their positions under the kitchen window. She and her four friends ate near my Lodgepole Companion.

Commentary on the news, Family, Fourth Phase, Kabbalah, Writing

Guard your own soul

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Samain and the Yule Moon

Here is the vertical depiction of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, inspired by the style of Leonardo da Vinci with intricate, classical details. Let me know your thoughts or if you’d like any refinements!

Wednesday gratefuls: Edwardian Advent Calendar. Shirley Waste. Sprinkling of Snow. Holly and Berries. Ivy. Yule logs. Oak. Pinôn. The Fireplace. On a cold Winter’s evening. Great Sol spreading a pink glow over my Lodgepole Companion. Christmas Music. Dreidels. Menorahs. The Shamash. Hanukah candles. Season of lights. Ohr. Ein sof.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: the Nefesh.

Kavannah: BEAUTY  Tiferet  תִפאֶרֶת  Beauty, harmony, balance  Sixth Sefirah: Reconciliation, synthesis, integration; the Heart (between Chesed & Gevurah)

One brief shining: Gazing through a kabbalistic lens I can see sacred energy, chi, life force, consciousness, ohr whatever fits your understanding, flowing up and down, in and out, over and under as Water transvaporizes, as Great Sol’s Light feeds my Lodgepole Companion, as Raven’s feed on the carcass of a dead Mule Deer, as I breathe Oxygen from the Plant world and eat food created by Light-Eaters.

 

Just the teasers thrown out by red tie guy-Cousin Donald as Joanne Greenberg calls him-may rattle you. Force you out of the day in which we live, the only day in which you will ever live, this day. Today this December 18th, 2024 life. When you allow his provocations, his mindless choices, his venal understanding of the world to pull you into a miserable 2025, dreading its January 20th reading of the Presidential oath, the terrorist has won. Don’t let him occupy your mind and heart. Live rent free.

I hesitate, but not too much, to use this metaphor. That’s the Great Satan at work. Trying to make us angry and fearful, focused on the appetites of a man we might otherwise feel sorry for. A stunted soul with a blinkered and greed and attention-demanding nefesh.

Guard your own soul today. Seek out the beautiful. The loving. The wonderful. The sacred. Husband your power, your strength for whatever may lay ahead. Put off becoming anxious about matters not yet in play.

 

The Storyworth folks. I wrote about this a few days ago. Rabbi Jamie mentioned it to me. I’ve written answers to five questions so far, getting myself into writing mode by writing. The best way. I light my candle and respond to the question, writing as long as I can, at least 500 words, sometimes more. Which makes a thousand words plus a day with Ancientrails. That’s enough to satisfy the writerly need in me.

 

Just a moment: School shooters. Troubled teens. I know a few myself. Not troubled in that way, that is, a violence prone way, but I can see how it would not have been a long step for them. What if their parents had owned guns? Been the sort of folks who feared the world, saw it as a dangerous, dark place. If that weren’t true, what if their friends had been such people? Something has broken adolescence in America. And I don’t know what it is.

 

Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism, Mountains, Mussar, Politics

Night Driving. Mountains

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Samain and the Yule Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Salam. Marilyn and Irv. Ruth. Great Sol. Eleanor (Tara and Arjean’s new Dog. A real sweety.) Love and Hate. Tara’s house. Tara. Vincent. MVP. Rabbi Jamie. Air tight wood stove. Mussar. Friends. Mark. Mary. My son. Seoah. Murdoch.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Eleanor, a bundle of black fluffy puppiness

Kavannah:  MINDFULNESS   Metinut  מְתִינוּת  Mindfulness, presence, intentionality (literally to “move slowly”)

One brief shining: On dark Mountain roads curves everywhere, tumbling down always possible, night time creates challenges even for the most seasoned, no street lights on  Kilimanjaro or Jungfrau, driveways black with asphalt, yet I found my way to Tara’s house with only one misstep, caught by Marilyn, a journey I can make without thinking in the light of day. A metaphor here somewhere.

prompt: An image in the style of Carvaggio that shows how dangerous it can be to drive in the Mountains at night

There are two different seasons of driving in the Mountains, Day and Night. In the day landmarks and familiarity make the usual routes easy. Roads to places not yet visited can be a challenge though even in the light. Only one way in and one way out, no connecting, linking roads. Signs often obscured.

But at night. Whoa. Wild Neighbors cross the road. Curves bend and twist, often out of sight of headlight illumination. No street lights. At all. None. Driveways disappear. House numbers may be difficult to impossible to read. In the first couple of years we lived here, I would often drive past our own driveway after returning from a night out.

Then, throw in ice and snow. Nope. Not doing night driving under those circumstances except for desperate times, desperate measures. During the day snow is no problem for me; though ice, well, just say no to driving on ice.

You might think. Well. C’mon, dude. Why live there? I find the Mountains and the Wild Neighbors, the quiet and the beauty more than compensation. If I’m honest, the difficulties of night driving in the Mountains adds a note of wildness to the stew of Mountain life. A pleasing note, too.

 

I got home about a quarter of eleven last night. OMY! That’s Oh my, yhwh. Then I decompressed from the drive and our session on love and hate. To bed around 11:30. Last time I was up that late? Maybe New Years?

My good friends. Close as family. Rich. Jamie. Tara. Joanne. Ron. Susan. Marilyn. Now Laurie and Kaathe.

Seeing them once a month makes even Mountain driving at night worthwhile. The conversation, the food, hugs and smiles. Seeing and being seen. Hearing and being heard. Kate was part of this group. So was Judy Sherman. Both now dead. We’ve been through death, divorce, mental illness, and family dysfunction together. The bond is tight.

 

Just a moment: Luigi Mangione. Pharmacy Benefit Managers and the opioid crisis. NYT, 12/17/2024. Again. No to murder. Also again: WTF health system actors?! Money over health, conscience, decency. No wonder we shake our heads and hope our disease or condition will get treated fairly.

 

Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Paganism

Israel ben Avraham v’Sarah

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Samhain and the Yule Moon

Monday gratefuls: Veronica. Our first conversion anniversary/birthday. The mikveh. Evoke 1923. Bonding. Her birthday on Feb. 13, mine on the 14th. Kismet. The magic of the mikveh. A world filled with friends and family, Dogs and art, peace, silence, stillness, an openness to learn and to perform good and worthy deeds. In a word: Love.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Veronica

Kavannah:  WISDOM   Chochma חָכְמָה Wisdom, learning, scholarship.  Second Sefirah = intuitive/revelatory ideas; creative flow state; right brain (opposite Understanding/Binah)

One brief shining: At the table of Kate’s pearl, Tom and mine’s hearing challenged delicious meal, of other solo meals, I sat with Veronica discussing life and sex and Judaism until after the fish and we had both ordered dessert, Rebecca, our waitress brought my creme brulee with the small candle in the shape of a number 1. Our birthday as Israel and… I forgot to ask for her Hebrew name.

 

prompt: A mikveh as a Celtic holy well using Celtic design

I was ready for the mikveh though I didn’t know it. My time researching holy wells in Wales. Visiting St. Winnifred’s. Learning about the holy well as a portal, a liminal space between the worlds. This one and the Other World.

My pagan and Jewish selves stand adjacent in my lev, or maybe more, interpenetrating each other. I love Sukkot, the sukkah, a harvest holiday. I love Simchat Torah when we dance with the Torah, all the while knowing that Torah is anything from which we can learn, i.e. all things, for me especially the world of Wild Neighbors and hidden Mountain Streams. I love Shavuot, when all Jews stood at the base of Mt. Sinai and received the Torah. It also celebrates the barley harvest. I love Passover, the spring planting holiday and the holiday of liberation. I also love Yule and the Winter Solstice, Mabon and Samain, Beltane. The phases of the Moon, especially new and full.

When I immersed in the warm waters of the Denver mikveh, I went into a holy well, submerging my old self; then a renaissance, a rebirth after I visited the Other World of the long Jewish tradition and the Other World of the Celts in the same moment.

Did I say I was naked? As was appropriate. A holy well. A womb. Sacred Water. As all Waters are. We enter the world brand new from the womb and the mikveh, the holy well.

Sputtering a little. Hitting the wall with my head as I floated up. Surrounded by warmth and an Ovidian moment of transformation, of metamorphosis, from pagan to pagan Israel son of Abraham and Sarah.

I’ve had life changing moments before. I mentioned arrival day yesterday. My ordination. The move to Colorado. Marrying Kate. I love the multi-layered self each of those moments has created. And I look forward to having my life changed again. By what, you might ask? I don’t know. Not yet.

 

Just a moment: Oh, gee. A possible constitutional convention? What could possibly go wrong?

 

                                       Israel ben Avraham v’Sarah

Family, Health, Judaism, Korea, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Torah, World History

Israel

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Samain and the Yule Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Veronica. Rabbi Jamie. Studying this week’s parsha which includes Jacob wrestling with the angel. The world of the Torah. Talmud. Ann, my palliative care nurse. Vince and the mini-splits. His kindness. The dark and quiet of a Mountain night. My son. Such a kind and thoughtful man. The Light-Eaters.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Walking each other home

Kavannah: Understanding (bimah) Love (ahavah)

One brief shining: Once in a while I send a text, goodnight to the Flatirons, and I get back a reply, goodnight to Shadow Mountain, a way of extending a tendril of love to Ruth in her dorm on the campus of UC-Boulder, hers coming back to me.

 

Vince came over yesterday and cleaned the filters on my mini-splits. Didn’t charge me because it took him a while to get here. He remains a very interesting guy. He competed in a for-pay ju-jitsu tournament in Boulder and has become a teacher now after only a couple of years.

He told me of a lawyer he knew who said he didn’t like his job much. Is going through the motions. Not everybody wants to be the best at what they do, he said, I guess we need guys like that, too. Vince places a heavy load on himself, too much at times.

 

Ann, my palliative care nurse came by, too. We discussed my dilating aortic artery. How to have a solid conversation with the cardiac surgeon. She’s a pragmatic person, as most good nurses are. When I told her I forgot to take a tramadol along with me to Boulder, and the pain I experienced, she suggested a small pill container I keep in the car. Oh, duh.

She has given me a conversational level of medical care, similar to what I had with Kate. I find that very reassuring. Sort of knits together the oncologists, my PCP Sue, the surgeons, all those various medical specialties working to keep my body functioning and with the minimum of pain.

 

This morning I’m going over to Evergreen, to the synagogue, for a bagel table. We’ll be studying the parsha Vayishlach (“He Sent”), Genesis 32:4–36:43. Parsha’s are named by the first significant word or phrase in the Hebrew. Vayishlach contains a biblical story that has shaped my self-understanding and given me a new, Hebrew name.

Jacob wrestling with the angel. I asked chatbot to give me an image of this story in the style of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement. The result is here.

My life, even from a young age, has involved a struggle with understanding (Bimah) the world and its character, how I and we fit within it. Also, what is ours to do as we make our way on the ancientrail from birth to death. In this long night at the Jabbok Ford, Jacob did not give up, nor was he bested. As dawn rose, the angel dislodged his hip and gave him a new name, Israel. He who struggles with God.

 

Just a moment: South Korean president impeached! Don’t mess with the Korean people and their democracy.

 

 

 

Judaism, Politics

Too much philosophy, I know. Sometimes I can’t help myself.

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Yule and the Samain Moon

Friday gratefuls: Mussar. Gaavah, Pride. Laurie’s Chi-Town foodtruck. Vince. Freshened Snow. Great Sol at work as the solar snowshovel. Another blue Colorado Sky. PG&E and their peculiar ways. Hoosier Cold. Ginny and Janice. Rabbi Jamie. The flu. My back and its limitations. Ann, the palliative care nurse coming today.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Palliative Care

Kavannah:  AWE   Yira רְאָה Awe, reverence  (פְּלִיאָה Plia: Wonder, amazement)

One brief shining: Thresholds, liminal places, like Dawn and Dusk, windows, your eyes and ears receiving messages from what appears to be the real world, the lev yearning for love, holy wells, any doorway, matriculation, graduation, birth and death each one of them with a mezuzah, a signpost affirming the One in which all apparent particulars grow and move and have their becoming. Hear, O Israel!

 

chatbot. tree of life in the style of Giotto

An aha about the nature of the One the other day. All is within the One, the One is within all, pulsing and changing, creating and fading (but, importantly, not away). The tree of life represents this buzzing, blooming ontology as a continuous circuit of ohr, of the sacred as it moves up and down, much like blood circulating in the body. Although up and down is 2-D and the process is both 3-D and 4-D. That is, the ohr flows in and out, over and under, around as the whole moves in some sort of time, the 4-D aspect.

Here’s the insight. I had long thought of the One as a sphere, closed and all things within it transforming and decaying, reassembling. Nothing but the sphere. Then, I thought. No. That’s not the only way to conceive this. The One could be, probably has to be, ever expanding. In other words the creative nature of the one cannot be bounded. The prime criteria, that all particulars are in the One and the One is in all particulars, has no necessary boundary.

You might ask, as I am right now, into what does the One expand if as said before it is in all things and all things are in it? Another prime criteria is that all evolves, goes through metamorphosis, becomes new. In each and every instance or nexus according to Whitehead. The tree of life can still symbolize the flow of ohr, of chi, of sacred energy, of consciousness into an ever expanding Oneness. In other words creation itself is the key to the One’s unlimitedness. The One can create as much as it needs to inhere in all and have all inhere in it. The One’s plasticity makes this a necessary feature of the real.

OK. Done with that for now.

 

Just a moment: Oh, to be young and right-wing in America. Dawn has broken. The vista shifts far into the distance unclouded. Yes, we rule! Trad wives. White history and privilege once again high and lifted up. The world far away even further away where it should remain. The only remaining frontiers are the borders of blue states. And we control the Federal Government. Consider that, libtards.