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  • Experiencing the World

    Mabon and the Sukkot Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: Kamala. Tim. Blue. Red. Orange obstacle. The obstacle is the way. Great Sol. MVP. Angst. Love and pain. Humility. Elephants. Free will. Or, not. Stan Draghul memorial service. A man focused on experiences not things. Wondering about my own memorial service. Yahrzeits. The Yarhzeit wall at CBE. Judaism. A way of being and staying human.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Deep friendships

    Kavannah: Joy

    One brief shining: Stan’s son Adam said there was a lockbox in his hospice room, though “knowing my Dad the code was pasted on the bottom;”  he opened the lockbox after Stan died and found all of his passports; opening them at the memorial service he held up the changing pictures and leafed through the visa pages: China. Nepal. Israel. South Africa. Cambodia, “all over the world,” a man hungry for experience.

     

     

    I only knew Stan a bit from mussar days pre-pandemic. He never returned after Covid got legs. Each of his children, his friend/partner, his long time nurse (Stan was a family practice doc), and a friend from his men’s group all spoke of him with consistency and admiration.

    As often happens to me, I left the service wishing I’d known him better, much better, than I did. A person could write an interesting book attending memorial services for a year and offering life lessons from the lives summed up in them. With Stan I would say choose compassion, kindness, keen intellect, curiosity, wanderlust, love of family and profession. Traits. Ways of being in the world. Available to all, but certainly manifest in Stan’s life.

    Afterward. A meal. Eating with Marilyn, Joanne, Tara, Jamie, Ginny, Sally, and Janice. You know. Croissants split and filled with Chicken salad. Baguettes sliced with raw roast beef. Vegetables with humus. Fruits. Strawberries. Blueberries. Wonderful grapes.

    The morning.

     

    The evening. Instead of holding MVP in the Sukkah-it was too cold-and the Evergreen Chorale was practicing its Christmas concert in the sanctuary, we moved to Jamie’s parent’s house. Not far away. A profound evening of deep sharing, lots of laughter. Probably not enough tears. Heartfelt and honest. A source of Joy. Every one around the table: Jamie, Marilyn, Ron, Rich, Joanne a good friend.

    Rich, as he does from time to time, threw a real oddball into the conversation. He has some role, not sure what, in a Colorado Supreme Court case being heard Thursday:  Petitioner-Appellant: Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc.,
    v. Respondents-Appellees: Cheyenne Mountain Zoological Society and Bob Chastain. The issue before the court:
    Does the petition make a prima facie case that Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou, and Jambo are entitled to release?
    Did the district court have subject-matter jurisdiction?

    Missy, Kimba, Lucky, Loulou, and Jambo are African Elephants being held at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs.

    Too, the Court meets in one of its community settings: Wolf Law School at UC-Boulder. Right where I dropped Ruth off Sunday evening after sandwiches at Snarf’s. I’m gonna go. Provided I get up in time and can find parking. Oral arguments are at 9:15. Boulder’s about an hour away. Rich said to get there early. I’m thinking 8:15. Which means leaving here at least by 7:15. Then, the critical piece finding a parking place on campus on a school day. Ruth will help me. We might go together.

    This falls under my new act spontaneously commitment made when I returned to the land of my soul. Does mean, to my regret, that I will miss Simchat Torah which is Wednesday evening. Got to hit the hay early before an early Thursday morning.

     

     


  • Blood and Seawater

    Mabon (Fall) and the Harvest Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Mark Odegard and his art, a retrospective. The Ancient Brothers. Consistent and persistent. My son. Seoah. Murdoch. Geneva Creek. Clear Creek. The North Fork of the South Platte. Maxwell Creek. North Turkey Creek. Blue Creek. Upper Bear Creek. Lake Evergreen. Bear Creek. These last six all part of my Watershed. Shadow Mountain’s split Granite Aquifers. Where I get my Water for Shadow Mountain Home.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Act of Creation

    Kavannah: Teshuvah

    One brief shining: On Friday I picked my way down a slight decline studded with Rocks, ahead of me Water spilled over them at speed and filled my ears with its soothing sound, as if it touched, and maybe it does, an ancient hominid memory of Water at last, at last, similar I imagine to the visual soothing offered by large bodies of Water like Lake Superior, the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific; we are not Animals of the Water but we are not Animals at all without Water, the bond singing in our blood* and our internal supply of Water gauged and signaled when low by thirst.

    Geneva Creek beside Guanella Pass Road

     

    In this month of Elul, of chasbon nefesh, accounting of the soul, I ask you, reader, to pardon me if I have caused you injury either by word or deed, by commission or omission. This is a sincere request. If we need to talk to resolve something, please let me know. I wish to go into the days of awe with my soul cleansed as much as it can be. This is part of that process.

    I know. My soul. Seems anachronistic, a Greek idea clumsily borrowed by all three of the Abrahamic religions. The notion that there is a something, a part of us that endures after death. A real thing like a Rock or a Lodgepole. For over thirty years I’ve avoided the question by positing extinction as the result of death. No where for a soul to go. No need for a soul. Q.E.D.

    Jews have, as usual, many and conflicting thoughts about the soul. For some there are 5 souls. For others none. Right now I’m reading a Rabbi Jamie translation of a 16th century text that works with two: the neshamah and the nefesh. The neshamah is the pure soul, the image of divinity, the uniqueness of that in which it resides. Unstainable. Original sin is a non-starter within all Jewish understandings of the soul and of human nature.

    The nefesh surrounds the neshamah with personality, with choice, with the joys and sorrows of fleshly life. Driven by the yetzer harah, the selfish inclination, and the yetzer hatov, the loving inclination, our lifetime represents opportunities to synch up our character with the unstainable neshamah. We fail. We succeed. We start over again and again.

    Is this consciousness in which our unique nature, our buddha nature, our I am, rests? I don’t know. Might be. I do like the notion of a sublime me, a sacred me, a shard of the ohr, the light of the divine released into and creating by its release all the known and unknown parts of the universe.

    Blood and Seawater. Consciousness. Deep memories from our time in Africa. Consider the vast amount of unknowing. Might there be room for a shard of holiness somehow in me and of me, but not extinguishable even by death? I’m much more open to that idea now than I have been for over thirty years.

     

     

    *”Like the Earth, we are 70% saltwater. In 1897 French physician Rene Quinton discovered a 98% match between our blood plasma and sea water, or what we called ‘ocean plasma’.” Oceanography


  • Biker Chick

    Mabon (Fall) and the Harvest Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: Joanne. Jamie. Susan. Rich. Tara. Marilyn. The Bistro. Its new owners. MVP. That Prius, stolen from Denver, that drove through the fence. Israel. Palestinians. Gaza. Lebanon. Hamas. Hezbollah. Iran. Yemen. The Houthis. The Ukraine. Russia. This violence soaked planet, warming around us. As a planet we are, to the universe, less even than the Mayfly life of a human compared to the Rocky Mountains.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Love

    Kavannah: Simplicity

    One brief shining: She got off the Triumph, its exhaust still hot, helmet in hand, as the Rabbi turned the key silencing the engine, this biker chick, this nonagenarian who had come from her home on Rainbow Hill via Squaw Valley Road, Winter Gulch, and Stagecoach Road before arriving triumphantly at the Bistro for a celebration of her 93rd birthday. Joanne last night.

     

    Yep. Not sure whose idea it was but Joanne Greenberg arrived by motorcycle wearing her usual long pants, self-made, a top likewise, a plaid fleece-lined snap up jacket, and a motorcycle helmet. She and Jamie took a scenic drive before getting to the Bistro where Rich Levine generously hosted the 7 of us, Ron as often away on a business trip.

    This was an unusual meeting of the MVP group, occasioned both by Joanne’s upcoming 93rd birthday today and Rich’s need to move away from our usual Wednesday evenings. Colorado School of Mines gave him again an honors class to teach on Wednesday nights for this semester. The middah for the evening, led by Tara, was simplicity.

    We got special attention from the chef and his partner/wife because Rich is their lawyer. Of course. Small town. The last time I ate there, on August 18th, I found the pearl. Becoming magical for me.

    The time around the table, again, underlines relationships. With other humans, core to life. With other beings. Core as well. With other living parts of the natural world, the Mountains and Streams, Lodgepoles and Aspens, Rock and Soil. The Sky. Where and in and on which we live. How could they not be core, too.

    Eating. Well. We had Salmon, Mahi-Mahi, Shrimp, Ahi, Scallops, Filet in a salad, dumpling soup, pate, bread, lettuce, tomatoes, creme brulee, vanilla ice cream, chocolate melt cake. Coffee. Wine. All offered to us not only by the Bistro but also by Great Sol whose light shone on the Plants eaten by the food eaten by the Fish, the Scallops, the Shrimp. And on the Plants themselves that we ate: Tomatoes, Potatoes, Lettuce, Radish, Herbs of various kinds. Grapes that were drunk. Water that came from a nearby aquifer, replenished by the summer’s Rain. Is food not necessary? Essential. Oh, yes.

    All this and we hadn’t talked yet. We batted around contentment. Simplicity. What is the feeling you get with simplicity. What is freedom from desire, attachment for? To live your imago dei, your buddha nature, your neshama soul. Your I am. We touched on love and gratitude for each other. Saw and were seen. Touched and were touched. Heard and were heard. Tasted the chef’s delicate work and smelled the cool Mountain air as it drifted in through the open window.

    We were, each of us, as fully present, in that ichi-go, ichi-e moment as we ever could be.

     

     

     


  • As I went to bed. The Holy, The Sacred. Clear sight

    Lugnasa and the 99% Full Harvest Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: Ninja blender. Figuring out the veggie paradox. Celecoxib. Allows me to stand long enough for short cooking. Pain lessened. Over my dislocation created by possibly shorter life span. Feeling grounded in my life again. In part thanks to the pain treatment. A beautiful photograph. Taken by me. Header. Serious thinking. Tarot. Jessica Roux.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Sky at dusk on Shadow Mountain

    Kavannah: Yirah

    One brief shining: Each night after the lights go dark, the window’s cranked full open, the fan turned on, and I’ve taken my last look at the Stars through the Lodgepoles, I fall into a revery of thought, never knowing where my mind will carry me but always happy for the ride, this idea bouncing off that one, triggering another turn of ideas or images, pure and unguided inner joy. Today’s post is about last night’s journey.

     

    Thinking about the day as my head lay on the pillow, body stretched out and at peace. As I try to do each night, I consider the middah I chose. Did it come to mind? Did I experience its manifestation? What were the specific moments when that happened? How did I feel? Then, and immediately afterward. What did I learn?

    Yirah. Awe. Wonder. Amazement. [(fear)] Yirah, the Hebrew for this sudden feeling of openness, of seeing clearly, often got translated, by Jews and Christians alike, as fear. As in the phrase “Fear of the Lord.” Bad translation. Bad. Down boy. And I say boy advisedly, because Fear of the Lord has a decided patriarchal connotation. Bow down to the King, the one who rules you, makes you obey, has the power of life and death over you.

    Rudolf Otto defined the Holy as containing an element beyond the ethical sphere, which he named the numinous.* Stripped of what Otto defines as its element of moral perfection, which he has to assume because he’s writing within a Christian context, the holy, the numinous, is in my opinion what we mean by the word sacred.

    Yirah opens a neural pathway for experiencing of the numinous. Which, again Otto, can be both terrifying and fascinating. In Yirah, in awe, wonder, and amazement we find the gateway to revelation. And what is revelation? An experiencing, however brief or long, of the numinous, the holy. The sacred.

    I reclaim a possible connection to Kant here in his use of the word noumenon. Below the author of the Wikipedia article says the numinous is unrelated to Kant’s idea of the noumenon which refers to: “…an unknowable reality underlying sensations of the thing.” Kant also called this the ding an sich, the thing in itself, whatever an object of perception is without the observer.

    What I believe Yirah opens us to is just that: the ding an sich, the thing itself. Reality as it is, not as we confuse it with our preconceived ideas, our biases, our values. I think you could also call it the field out beyond good and bad where Rumi invites us to meet.

    What is that reality, for which I now claim the word sacred? A place where the mystic bonds of each to each and all to all become, however briefly for us, accessible. So in cultivating the middah of yirah we strengthen the inner muscle that allows us to see beyond the surface to the ligaments and tendons that link us to the Tree, the Friend, the Lodgepole Pine, the Mountain, the Ocean, to our Lover, to our Inner World and in it to the Collective Unconscious. Those connections which tie us inextricably together, a roiling, boiling mass of creativity, of newness that we try, hard, to ignore because experiencing it directly is to experience, perhaps, the terror of dissolution, yet also a deep fascination. Oh, so this is what the World is really, really like?

    An important observation here is that this is not a logical nor a conceptual process. It is a sensory process, in other words, a process stimulated by seeing something, hearing something, touching something, tasting something. It is in no way faith. You might call the experience of yirah a mystical moment, whether long or short.

    So when I took in whole cloth the bulk of Black Mountain and realized a moment of wonder, what happened was a brief, bodily experience of all the links and bonds that tie me to Black Mountain and Black Mountain to me. When I watched Great Sol’s light fade into night and the colors entranced me, I saw into the mystic bonds that tie me to Great Sol, to the dusk, to the coming night, to the vast distances between Shadow Mountain and our Star. When I experienced, for a moment, myself as part of the Arapaho National Forest, a human among Trees, I felt one with each Lodgepole, Rock, Stream, Mule Deer, and Elk.

    And one more bit. Yirah, then, is a sensory event which peels back the gauze of day-to-day illusion in which we see and treat everything as separate from our body, ourselves. The midot, all the character traits we study in mussar, I think, are ways we can open ourselves to the world, ways we can become a moment for the other to experience yirah and us as bonded to them. A give and take, a push and pull, a way perhaps of becoming holy, sacred.

    Yirah is the gateway for revelation. revelation the gateway to the sacred. The sacred is seeing the links that bind us to the all and the all to us.

    *”…while the concept of “the holy” is often used to convey moral perfection, which it does entail, it contains another distinct element, beyond the ethical sphere, for which he coined the term numinous based on the Latin word numen (“divine power”).[2]: 5–7  (The term is etymologically unrelated to Immanuel Kant’s noumenon, a Greek term which Kant used to refer to an unknowable reality underlying sensations of the thing).” He explains the numinous as an experience or feeling which is not based on reason or sensory stimulation and represents the “wholly other”

    “The Holy, according to Otto, is a mystery (Latin: mysterium) that is at once terrifying (tremendum) and fascinating (fascinans).   Wiki


  • Exuberance!

    Lugnasa and the Harvest Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: THC. Celecoxib. Erleada. Orgovyx. Vince. Alan’s opening night for Man of La Mancha. My son and Seoah in Okgwa. Her father. Her mother. And family. Chuseok. Teshuvah. South Korea. The U.S. Air Force. The wide Pacific. 15 time zones. Korean. Paul Wellstone. Tim Walz. Kamala Harris. We’re not going back. The politics of joy.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: My Korean family

    Kavannah: Exuberance

    One brief shining: When I choose an intention for the day, sometimes I crosscut the feelings I’m having, as this morning I’m feeling a little pressed down, not much but enough that it interferes with my joy, my willingness to embrace the day, squeeze some juice from it, find the yirah/awe in the ordinary that usually comes easily, sometimes I see the day ahead and want a kavannah that leans into it, focuses me, as I did with teshuvah yesterday.

     

    I’m finding this daily kavannah a powerful practice. I write the middah on my small slip of paper, put it into my pocket. The act of choosing it, writing it down, putting it in my pocket and carrying it with me throughout the day triggers an awareness that lasts till bedtime. I want to find things in this day, things that make me want to lift my arms up and shout with joy. With awe. With love.

    Exuberance carries over feelings from my zoom call with my son. As I wrote yesterday, they’re in Okgwa for Chuseok, a Korean harvest/fall holiday similar to our Thanksgiving. My son came on in one of the all white rooms at Seoah’s parents house, all concrete, and built for them a year or so ago by her brother. We chatted a bit, he caught me up on work. Showed me Murdoch lazing on the floor. And moved the laptop into the main living area.

    There was Seoah’s sister who will take over the farm from her parents starting in some fashion this fall. In the kitchen, her usual location when inside, Seoah’s mom ate from several small dishes in the Korean style. Her Dad, a joyful man and a very hard worker, wanted to say hi. He wanted to see the outside. Removing the camera, I aimed it out my window for a view of Lodgepoles and Black Mountain beyond.

    He got excited. I want to come to Colorado! Seoah translating. I got excited, too. Sounds like they may show up here on Shadow Mountain sometime next year. He loves Mountains. Climbs Mountains. Went to China to climb from the China side Baekdu Mountain*, an active strato-volcano on the China/North Korean border. He’ll love Colorado.

     

    Just a Moment: Buoyed me up to see Paul Wellstone’s name** back in the national political conversation. The quote and the article referenced below show how Tim Walz might bring the Wellstone spirit to a Harris/Walz government. May it be so.

     

     

     

    *”According to Korean mythology, it was the birthplace of Dangun, the founder of Gojoseon (2333–108 BC), whose parents were said to be Hwanung, the Son of Heaven, and Ungnyeo, a bear who had been transformed into a woman.” Wiki

    “The legendary beginning of Korea’s first semi-mythical kingdom, Gojoseon (2333 B.C.E.–108 B.C.E.), takes place here. Buyeo (2nd c. B.C.E. – 494), Goguryeo (37 B.C.E. – 668), and Balhae (698 – 926) kingdoms also considered the mountain sacred.” New World Encyclopedia

     

    **“I don’t represent the big oil companies, I don’t represent the big pharmaceutical companies, I don’t represent the Enrons of this world,” Mr. Wellstone said. “But you know what, they already have great representation in Washington. It’s the rest of the people that need it.” NYT article. 9/15/2024


  • A serene and joyful cluster

    Lugnasa and the Harvest Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: Orange one v. Harris. Harris by a knockout. Great Sol. Tara. Ariaan. Vincent. Julia. Sophia. Mystical awareness. The sacred within and as the ordinary. Politics. Life at home. Muir Woods. Joshua Trees. Bristlecone Pines. Coastal Redwoods. Sequoia. Lodgepoles and Aspen. First gold beginning to appear. 9/11.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Accepting life as it comes

    Kavannah: CONTENTMENT הִסתַפְּקוּת Histapkut     Contentment, simplicity, moderation; from ספק to divide/apportion (נַחַת Nachat: Satisfaction, gratification, comfort) (קִמּוּץ Kimutz: Minimalism, frugality, thrift; related קוֹמֶץ closed hand/fistful)  [קִנְאָה Kinah: Passion, envy, competition]  brackets are antonyms

    One brief shining: Great Sol comes in at wider angle now, Mother Earth’s tilt having brought us round to Fall, headed toward Winter and the fallow times, my Lodgepole Companion has begun to settle in for the cool weather and heavy loads of Snow that lie ahead; the Aspens have sensed the changes, too, and auxin proliferates which triggers the revelation of gold that lies below the chlorophyll green; soon the Mountains will become a brilliant minimalist work of art, gold and green against the steel blue of a Colorado Sky.

     

    I’m looking at a cluster of middot that are key to my life right now: contentment, serenity, equanimity, balance, beauty, joy, patience, peace, stability, wisdom. There are turbulent factors in my life, all medical at this point, that rise up, break the surface releasing noxious gases of agitation, sadness, worry, sending my moods into dark places. I don’t want to overstate this. I’m still essentially stable, balanced in the way I react to these miasmic intrusions. But it takes greater effort these days.

    The two major sources of swamp gas are uncertainty about my current cancer reality, back pain and the methods to treat it. Having untreated metastases, as I do now, meaning I have active cancer growth until or if the orgovyx/erleada combination drops it to zero again, makes me feel untethered, floating free of effective medical care. The celexcoib has tamped down my back pain, though I’m now noticing break through pain right after I get up and in the late afternoon, early evening. Which might mean I need to increase my dose which increases the possibility of negative side effects.

    So I need more joy, patience, peace, and serenity. I plan to focus on these middot over the next few weeks with the overall intention of keeping me here and now, in this 9/11/2024 life. Also holding uncertainty as the truth and constant that it is. Merely the overall state of all things, not a purveyor of doom.

     

    Just a moment: I tried to watch debate. I saw orange guy bloviate. I watched Kamala rehash lines from her CNN interview. I thought about the observation that wanting to be president should disqualify you from the job. Realized both of them were distasteful to me in that sense. Nope, I don’t to watch preening and attacking. The world has enough of that. And it doesn’t enhance my serenity.

    Wish I’d hung on a bit longer. Apparently Kamala got the orange one to twist himself into the negative, thoughtless, witless person that he is. Go, Kamala.

    Will it be enough to turn the tide? Not on its own. But it will energize the Democratic troops for a marathon push to election day. Probably good enough.


  • Learning. Still. Always.

    The Off to College Moon

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

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Pearl

    Kavanah: COMPASSION  Rachamim

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

     

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

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

     

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

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


  • Izun

    The Off to College Moon

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

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: from melancholy to joy

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

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

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

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

     

     

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

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

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

     

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

     


  • Again, gevurah

    The Off to College Moon

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

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Love

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

    Kavanah: Gevurah   Strength, ability, willpower

     

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

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

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

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

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


  • Gevurah

    The Off to College Moon

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

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth off to college

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

     

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

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

     

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

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

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

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

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

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

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