• Category Archives Mussar
  • Judaism » Mussar
  • Incremental Change

    Yule and the Quarter Century Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: Tom. Paul. Cold again. Working on my week kavannah. Not going well. Borzoi. Irish Wolfhounds. Whippets. Akitas. German Wirehairs. Coyote Hound/IW mix. Dogs of all sorts and sizes. Dogs I’ve known and loved. Dogs I haven’t known but would love if given the chance. High Mountain Winds. Shirley Waste. School Bus Drivers. Snow Plow Drivers. Rural Mail carriers. Doing jobs that make our lives easier.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: History

    Kavannah 2025: Creativity

    Kavannah this week: Appreciation of Differences   Haarecha shel machloket

    One brief shining: How to see the humanity in the inhumane, how to see kindness in the cruel, how to see truth in the liar, how to know the faith in the hypocrite, how to find justice in the unjust, how to do all these things without losing a sense of outrage and personal conviction about inhumanity, cruelty, lies, hypocrisy, injustice will be the challenge not only of this week’s kavannah, but a work of the next four long years. At least for me.

     

    I freely and without reservation admit that yesterday’s post did not advance my appreciation of the differences I find between my own values and cousin Donald and his crew. Satire is not kind. Can be cruel. At best, even if it is these two, it neither lies nor is unjust.

    When drill, baby, drill becomes a battle cry, I can acknowledge my own complicity in our fossil fuel supported economy. When a flat, uninformed dictat like: From this day forward there are only two genders, male and female, in America comes out of the mouth of a President on inauguration day, I can hear the pleading for a simpler, easier to understand relational world. When racial justice will occur in a color-blind, meritocratic society, I can feel the fear of the other advancing, gaining traction. When the leader of the law and order party pardons those who assaulted officers of the law, well, you got me here. How do we square that circle?

    What I’m trying to say is this. Even in the darkest of his and his minions purposes, there lies a sentiment or conviction I can find within myself. In this way I can stay in touch with the humanity of Stephen Miller. Bannon. The Q-Anon shaman. Does this change my direct opposition to their actions, their intended actions? Not at all.

    We serve different gods. My god lives and acts only through human and natural life, through the processes and systems of the natural word. My god opposes inhumanity, cruelty, injustice, lies, and hypocrisy. But not the humanity of those caught up in these acts.

    Not knowing this is the abyss of which Nietzsche spoke, the one that stares back. And the monster that when fighting you do not want to become.

    Mussar suggests small, incremental changes get us where we need to go. This is my small change today. Acknowledging the need for this sort of reflection about our public life. Amen.

     


  • Rachamim

    Yule and the almost full Quarter Century Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Vince and his friends. Their muscles. Moving day for my home gym. A couple of chairs. My new computer. The complete Pritzker Zohar. My classroom for the next few years. Year Tarot: The Archer, #7. Life Tarot: The Wheel, #10, and a shadow card, The Wanderer, #1. Wildwood Tarot. Going deeper, yet staying on the surface. Ruby and her Mountain ways. Talmud Torah

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Leaning in to mobility limitations

    Kavannah for 2025: Creativity

    Year card: The Archer, #7  “The Archer is located on the spring equinox, March 21. The time this card represents is sunrise. The Archer belongs to the Air element, bringing creative energy and inspiration. This Wildwood Tarot card makes meaning: the dawn of new life is beginning and a bumper season is coming.”  TarotX.net

    Kavannah for this week: Wholeness and peacefulness  shleimut

    One brief shining: Seeing my son over the thousands of miles, listening to him describe his life and work, hearing his melody loud and clear, a strong man, dedicated, caring, loving, thoughtful, a tune marked by doggedness and intelligence, commitment, warrior energy.

     

    Here is the illustration in the style of an ukiyo-e print, visually interpreting the nurturing and generative qualities of compassion.

    This new practice for the month, listening for the melody of the other, has proved challenging to recall. Its purpose is to train my rachamim muscle, my compassion, over against my din muscle, my justice muscle. Justice somehow got wired into my soul from a young age. Always ready to judge and enter the fight on behalf of others. Compassion came later, or at least in much smaller emergences than my desire to stop the war, further women’s rights, block capitalist greed, build affordable housing.

    As I’ve aged, compassion (rachamim) has pushed its way forward. Perhaps because I have needed more compassion. Perhaps because aging can induce, and has for me, vulnerability. Life contains fewer and fewer chances, contains more and more tragedy and chaos. Reduced energy, at least for me, plays a role here, too. I don’t have the get up and struggle sort of vitality, physically, that I used to have. Also friendships and acquaintances have risen to top priority in my life. Following only family. To retain and sustain relationships compassion must show up first.

    Did that shoulder slump? Is her head slightly tilted down? Is there a tightness in his voice? That foot tapping. Clock watching. Smiling without sarcasm. She leaned her head suddenly on to my shoulder. What do I know of the composer? What’s likely influencing this melody? Is it one I’ve heard before? Is it new? Is it shrill? Or is it like morning Bird song? My eye can be, must be my ear.

    Both rachamim and the Hebrew word for womb share the same root. What can we imagine from this? Does compassion have a generative quality, creating a womb-like space for another’s soul to grow? Does compassion nurture over time, making it a necessary element of every interaction with another? Frequent exposure to your compassion may be the fertile Soil another’s soul needs to flourish.

    Sometime I’ll write about din. Which sets aside compassion in the interests of equity, fairness, fighting oppression. Not today.


  • Listen to the Melody of Others

    Yule and the Quarter Century Moon

    Shabbat gratefuls: Talmud Torah. CBE. New Dell tower. Warmer. But not too warm. Salmon. Asparagus. Baked Potato. Better. Ann, palliative care nurse. Leaving. New nurse in February. Sore shoulder and left forearm. Arthritis in my right hip? Diane and her shoulder. Mark in Al Kharj. Lodgepoles and Aspens in Winter. Mule Deer and Elk. Fox and Mountain Lions. Bears hibernating. Humans with higher heating bills.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Personal Computers

    Kavannah for 2025: Creativity

    Kavannah for the 7 lifetimes in this January 11th life-January 18th week: Wholeness and Peacefulness – shleimut

    One brief shining: A knock on the door, a young East Indian man in a Federal Express shirt holding up a small screen for my signature, where do you want it, and he carried my new computer upstairs to my home office, solving the first problem I would have had with it.

     

    Here’s the updated illustration showing the stressed physicians in a medieval illuminated manuscript style, now highlighting their anxiety and overwhelming work conditions.

    In the way of the medical world these days. Ann, my palliative care nurse whom I’ve seen four times, resigned her position. Moving on. As did Kristen, my former PCP. And Lisa and Susan, other former PCP’s, and Eigner, my urologist, and Bret, the young ophthalmologist who went back home to North Carolina during Covid. And Charlie Petersen before all of them, moving to Colorado, and Tom Davis after him.

    I had one doctor my whole childhood. Dr. Gaunt. Whose son Mike was in my class. When I left Alexandria, he was still at work in his office, in a converted house; I remember it smelled of alcohol, he had a nurse in white with the little cap, glass jars of cotton bowls and syringes so big.

    Not today’s medicine. Hospitals are understaffed. Physicians find working for corporate entities like Kaiser and Optum and Allina stressful. No longer able to practice medicine, rather having to practice assembly line healing, pushing patients through in shorter and shorter visits. Revenue capture now the main goal, not health.

    I get the churn in this environment. Again, though I am anti-murder-as we all should be-I understand Luigi Mangione’s frustration. He is not alone.

     

    Here is the image in the style of Albrecht Dürer, illustrating the concept of active, caring listening through harmonious interaction and natural surroundings.

    Today we’ll study the last parsha in Genesis: Vayechi, He lived. The story of Jacob’s death and Joseph’s, too. A story full of pathos as Jacob blesses his sons, claims Joseph’s sons as his own, then, “…is gathered to his ancestors.” The last line of the book of Genesis: “Joseph died at the age of 110 years, and he was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt.”

    There is no mention in the Joseph story of slavery. This is odd since the next book in the Torah is Exodus. In other words the story goes from saving Jacob and his sons, patriarchs of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, by a big move to Egypt and then to the story of their enslavement and later liberation that defines the Jewish people down to this day.

    You may recall my practice from the last month, to say, “This too is for the good.” especially in situations I might consider negative or even bad. One way to look at the book of Genesis, from the Garden of Eden and eating from the tree of good and evil, down to Joseph placed in a coffin is as a sequence of this too is for the good moments.

    BTW: my practice for this month is to first listen to the melody of others.


  • Toxic. What else can you say?

    Yule and the Quarter Century Moon

    New Year’s Day gratefuls: Tara. Ron. Ruth and Gabe. Veronica. 5 degrees this morning. Good sleeping. Snow. A new year. Kinda. The Realm. Von Bek. The Grail. Snowplows. Another Mountain Day, another Mountain life. Ruby in her winter shoes. MVP tonight. Family. Love. A new Zen calendar. Enlightenment. Not hard. Not easy. See what you’re looking at.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The feel of a fresh slate

    Kavannah for 2025: Yetziratiut  Creativity

    For January 1 life: Wonder, Malchut

    One brief shining: Sitting with Tara over sausage patties, home fries, eggs over easy, and sourdough toast, coffee steaming, the noise almost too much, I felt yet again love, again chesed, again the presence of one who sees me as I am and accepts me, as I see her and accept her.

     

    I promised something less abstruse today. Here it is.

    Carried the three largest split Oak logs in with the intention of burning them last night, starting a new tradition, burning Yule logs on New Year’s Eve since I missed the Winter Solstice. As in love with the night as I am, I no longer experience as much of it. I go to bed early, too early I felt for burning the Oak. Or, maybe I’m just too set in my ways. Whatever. I didn’t do it. Again. That’s twice.

    On a related note: I was gonna go upstairs and hit 30 minutes on the treadmill. Thought about it right after I got back from breakfast with Tara. Almost. Knew it was my yetzer hara, my selfish inclination saying nah. You worked out yesterday. You can work out tomorrow. Take a rest already.

    I read instead.

    We make these sort of decisions at bechira points, choice points, and whichever way we decide we reinforce the likelihood of making that same choice again. I had two bechira points yesterday and chose the easy way. The good news here is that the yetzer hatov, the generous inclination, the possibility directed yetzer, will always have a chance to change that decision at the next bechira point, reinforcing the way that nurtures becoming.

    Mussar expresses a medieval psychology, yes. But. Clyde Steckler, professor of pastoral care at United Theological Seminary, said you can explain the workings of the mind using any system of thought you want and still come up with useful, meaningful ways to understand it. Mussar exemplifies this idea.

    I no longer live in a world of bad and good, right and wrong, but in a world of possibilities and potentials reinforced or thwarted. Maybe it’s that field that Rumi talks about. The one out beyond right and wrong. Where we can meet. My practice this month helps reveal this reality: this too is for the good.

     

    Just a moment: Driving a pickup truck into a crowd of revelers on Bourbon Street. These newer pickups look like weapons to me. Their massive grills. Cabs high above the rest  of us tooling along in our SUV’s and sedans. And aggressive driving? Speeding. Impatience. Road rage. Seems baked into the I’m bigger and stronger than you are toxic masculinity cast in steel and named Ram. About to get stroked by the red tie guy. Who will attempt to make normative an unthinking, insensitive, domineering version of maleness.

     


  • Night Driving. Mountains

    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.

     


  • Finding love

    Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

    Thursday gratefuls: Amazon. Weights with neoprene. 48 ramen packages. Three light bulbs. One jar of protein powder. Being prepared. Weariness. Drugs. Of all kinds and all sorts. Visit to my medical oncologist tomorrow. Ley Septic. Furball Cleaning. Vince. US Mail. Mark in K.L.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Love

    Kavannah: Perseverance

    One brief shining: The downside of shopping with Amazon came along yesterday as the little photograph emailed to me with the cheery question-How was your delivery?- showed my package to be at a different door than mine, one with full glass and a bright orange streamer draped over its flower pot containing a now long dead leaf and stalk.

     

    Mussar. From Monday night. Rabbi Jamie’s translation of Orchot Tzaddikim. From the chapter on love and hate:  “…by way of this gate of love, peace stands, a peace with everything And by way of this gate is silence and stillness, an openness to learn and perform good and worthy deeds.”

    Each month we choose a practice for the middah we’ve studied. My practice this month is to notice when peace, silence, and stillness, an openness to learn and perform good and worthy deeds emerge in my daily life. Clues about love.

    When I got home that Monday night, I walked into my home. Noticed silence. Stillness. Felt at peace. Oh. No wonder I like coming home, being home. It fills me with love. That was a surprise.

    The next day I recalled the NYT’s article about the cosmologist who chose to study the cosmic void. The uncluttered apparent emptiness, silent and still. Oh. Studying the love that holds the Galaxies and Solar systems, the Nebulae, and Stars going nova.

    Sat down to read Nexus that same day. Harari’s clear prose and interesting conclusions leading me on, eager to learn what he might say next. Love in the turning pages.

    My brother and I talked over zoom. An opportunity to perform a mitzvah. Yet more love.

    I speak with my zoomfriends. We see each other. Hear each other. Moments of mutual respect and love.

    In just four days my practice has revealed love everywhere I go. In the still pause between breaths. In the silence of my back yard at night. The stillness of Orion, risen and visible in the cosmic void.

    Even though I ache from it, I experienced love in the now regular resistant work I’ve taken up. Me performing a good and worthy deed for myself.

    There is, too, the silent wisdom of my Lodgepole Companion. The massive, yet subtle presence of Black Mountain. The kind sadness in the still black eyes of the three Mule Deer Does and the young Buck who watched me walk out to the mailbox yesterday. Enjoy the food I said to them, breaking the silence.

    I walk through the valley of love and I shall know peace, silence, stillness, an openness to learning, and the desire to perform good and worth deeds.


  • Tears and Laughter

    Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

    Tuesday gratefuls: Susan. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Her house. Beautiful. Jamie. Rich. Elephant Company. Tara. Marilyn. Ron. MVP. Going to bed late. Dreams of travel. lodging. As some pundit observed, long tie guy has flooded the zone with too many bad picks all at once. Orion, my buddy. The Mountain Night Sky.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Habeas Corpus for Elephants

    Kavannah: Perseverance

    One brief shining: We sat in Eames chairs around a large Camelot table, a spotlight outside revealing a beautiful outcropping of Rock, 15 foot glass windows, the east facing wall, showing the glittering lights of Denver, down the hill and far away, while we talked about anavah and sinah: love and hate, trying to find purchase in our lives for growing both as soul traits, character traits.

     

    Every once in a while, like last night at Susan Marcus’s architect designed home, I feel blessed, blissed to sit with people smarter than me as we try to figure out how to lead our lives in a soul-full manner. How we can we express the essence of ourselves as sacred beings, using the medieval practice of mussar as a guide.

    In those conversations we move from our lives into learning, from learning back into our lives. We struggle with the usual things: parents, children, marriage, existential angst while trying to place them within the context of developing our ability to practice humility, enthusiasm, love, hate (or repulsion), our ability to let the light of our own divinity shine unobstructed. Not easy work, but done with love and compassion. Confidentiality. Honesty.

    A lot of laughter, occasional tears. Befuddlement is common. And, admitted. Gotta say I love being a Jew and part of Congregation Beth Evergreen.

    Also, food. Last night butternut squash soup, chicken wings, cowboy caviar, a fancy salad, hummus, carrots, and for those who drink, a red wine labeled, 7 Deadly Sins.

     

    Just a moment: Harder than I thought it would be. Getting back into working out. Deciding this time to privilege weight training, resistance work over cardio. My heart rate has remained excellent, but my muscles have given way even more to that old devil, sarcopenia. Where once I opened jars and bags with practiced ease, I now often have to resort to tricks and accessories. Not acceptable. And remediable.

    Plan to make sure my resistance routine is solid, making gains. Then, I’ll add back in the cardio on my treadmill. Self-care, it’s not just a river in Egypt. Oh, wait…

     

    In spite of myself l find a habit gained during 45’s reign of error returning. Opening the New York Times to see what he’s done now. Who’s he appointed? Why? Of course the why question has no answer. Whim. Some strange political calculus. An indecipherable conclusion based on misinformation.

    When the revolutionaries take over the government, they usually turn out to be same as the old boss. Since this is a revolution based at root on greed and fear, it may stretch things farther than any of us hope, certainly more than we want, but the U.S.A. has and will recover. That is my Seed-Keeper faith and one I will help make happen.

     


  • Seeking Contentment and Joy. Losing them.

    Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

    Tuesday gratefuls: Sadness. Unhappiness. Dismay. Prostate cancer. Dr. Buphati. That P.A. Kristie. Contentment. Joy. Pain. 1883. Ilsa May. Her role as Elsa Dutton. Cold Nights. Snow. Wild Neighbors. The West. Comanche. Lakota. The Great Plains. Buffalo. A Wild and undiscovered country still. The West of my heart.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Home

    Kavannah for election week: Contentment and Joy

    One brief shining: In a small office at Rocky Mountain Cancer Care I experienced dismay, unhappiness, a strange intersection of politics and self care, and again, as I did on the drive home three weeks ago from RMCC, I felt alone, this time in the usual patient’s chair listening to the P.A. say they had no PSA for me.

     

    First jolt was seeing a P.A. instead of Dr. Buphati. I liked him, was counting on his knowledge to guide me through what came next. She offered to go get him. She said she did not care either way. This was the strange intersection of politics and self care. I wanted to see Buphati, but I didn’t want to deny her skills, her right to be there. Feminism strong in me. In medicine especially. Kate.

    Second jolt. We have no PSA for you. I deflated. This appointment was supposed to define the next steps in a journey that had made confusing turns over the summer and early fall. Why not? How can you not know?

    She said (I don’t remember her name, if it even got through the fog.) I just got assigned.

    Then I got unhappy and said so. I’m unhappy and disappointed. I don’t understand how after three weeks you don’t have it. My expectations about knowing what comes next had me in knots. I wanted, no needed, to know and I couldn’t. But why? In the end it didn’t matter.

    Go ahead, I waved my hand dismissively. Still trying to reorient. She handed me the results of the DNA results for my cancer cells. Nothing of significance. That means no clinical trials, no targeted therapies. Oh. I took the papers, glanced at them, wondering where my readers were. Nothing of significance. Oh.

    In the end she went to get Dr. Buphati. Who came in masked, as was she. Making it difficult for me to hear. He agreed I had every right to be upset. That somehow the lab didn’t have the results. I told him my upset had started back in June when my PSA went up after my drug holiday. Then went down after going back on Orgovyx. My visit to the radiation oncologist who said I had hormone resistant cancer. After which Kristie said, no. Not without rising PSA on two drugs. Erleada came next. This was the PSA measure that would tell the difference. But there were no test results.

    We talked for a bit more. His knowledge and clarity helped me calm, but the dismay and the sadness had already burrowed their way into my feelings of the moment. When the phlebotomist, a kind Latina, young, asked me how I was, I said feeling down. And I was. She knew that already. Helped me put on my jacket.

    I wanted contentment and joy. They were/are my intentions for this week, but I lost them at the words no PSA results. I wanted to be calm, clear, kind. But I wasn’t. I felt let down by Dr. Buphati, by RMCC. No mussar moves came to mind.

    So the valet got my car and I drove away toward the Mountains, wanting only to be home.

     

    Just a moment: That was yesterday. I got some Chicken wings, cole slaw, and Potatoes at Safeway, drove to Shadow Mountain, and binged 1883. Soothing myself. Letting myself feel sad, disappointed.

    In 1883 I witnessed one of the best dramatic performances I’ve seen. Ilsa May, a young actress, plays Elsa Dutton who turns 18 as her family makes their way as part of a wagon train headed to Oregon. Her arc from bonneted, piano-playing Tennessee girl to cowgirl, then wife of a Comanche warrior and becoming a warrior herself was an alembic for my feelings. In seeing Elsa take the real agonies and the ecstasies of young maturation I rode with her. Seeing a way through the self-inflicted responses I had. Better this morning. Much better. Thanks, Elsa.


  • Contentment and Joy

    Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

    Monday gratefuls: Dr. Buphati. Snow. 4-5 inches. Powder. Or, as the skiers say: Pow. Vikings win. The Ancient Brothers. Walking Each Other Home. Mark in K.L. The Brickfields. The lives of all the Wild Neighbors. Everywhere. And, all the domesticated Animals. The Great Wheel. The Tarot. Kabbalah. Living in joy. Cosmic voids. Sculpture. Rodin. Brancusi.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: First substantial Snow of the season

    Kavannah for election week: Contentment and Joy

    One brief shining: At night I crank open the casement window over my bed, letting in the  smell of Lodgepoles and Grass as the Night Air streams over my head, when Snow begins to fall like it did last night Snowflakes come through the screen, shower me in a light experience of the weather outside, and often, like last night, make the window hard to close.

     

    Without knowing. Without certainty. I claim today my joy and my contentment. I seek today those moments that delight my heart, tickle my inner child. Like my Lodgepole Companion holding the powdery Snow as an early seasonal decoration. Thinking of lights, Christmas and Diwali and Hanukah and Kwanza and Yule. Remembering sliding down the hill at the end of Monroe Street and taking my sled over the jumps we kids created. Of the farm outside of Nevis, Minnesota on a Snowy day, air-tight stove crackling with good, dense Oak logs, the cook stove boiling water for coffee. Of standing by the Shadow Mountain kitchen window with Kate by my side, watching the Snow come down. How lucky we are to live here, she would say. Yep, I would reply.

    Also enough coffee in the pot this morning for a full cup. The mini-splits keeping the house warm. An early Dawn, at least according to the clock. Life, this precious and wonderful gift.

    Reading, that most amazing skill. Example: The Emptiness of the Universe Gives Our Lives Meaning. I loved this short piece. The cosmologist Paul Sutter chose for his life work the study of cosmic voids. The apparently empty spots between and among galaxies, local clusters, superclusters. How innovative and creative, to study negative space. It’s as if an art historian chose to study only the negative space in sculpture, in paintings. Or a musicologist specializing in rests and stops.

    I am content. I’ll have Fire in the Fireplace tonight. Toss some Pinōn on for a scent treat, thinking of the clay stoves in the corners of rooms in New Mexico. I’ll have a good book, probably An Unfinished Love Story by Doris Kearns-Goodwin recommended by Marilyn.

    I’ll take in what Dr. Buphati has to say at 2:30 today and I will see it as the next steps necessary to claim the life I have yet to live. Not as the first steps toward death. Which comes anyhow.

    Realized the other day that after my Bar Mitzvah, literally the day after when I had my unsettling telehealth visit with Kristie, I’ve been living with the notion of a shortened life span, an inner focus on decline. So much so that I gave up exercising. Wanted to privilege spontaneity.

    My year of living Jewishly had its capstone moment and I voluntarily took the steps down into my Cloud of unknowing. And reified it. Since that day, June 12th of this year, until last week, I’ve had a focus on less than, what would soon be missing. Me. I made a pivot from a deep plunge into Judaism to a dive into the shallow end of lack. Broke my heart for a while.

    Then I began to understand that the Cloud of unknowing was the true and only way to view life. Whether shorter or longer, I don’t know. As has always been the case. I came up from the mikveh a Jew. I came up from the shallow end of lack attentive again to today, to this life as I have it now. As I will until I don’t.

    Herme Harari Israel


  • 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.