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  • Wondering

    Summer and the Lughnasa Moon

    Saturday gratefuls: Brooks Tavern’s chicken fried steak. The organized state of the loft. Putting the new laundry hamper together with Kate. This Covid life. The abundant rain yesterday afternoon and last night. Woollies, old and new. The long reach of Jewish history. Celtic myth. Nordic myth. Greek myth. Christian myth. Fairy tales.

    Difficult, isn’t it, to avoid Covid? Yes, sure, in public. Where, I hope, you and yours have a mask at least. Perhaps even at home where our continuing presence makes us aware of what we’re not able to do. And, I read, that home is still the most likely place for you to get infected. Like all those auto accidents that happen close to home, I guess.

    However what I’m focused on here is your mind. It’s difficult to avoid Covid there, too. Normal aches and pains of aging. Oh, wait? Is that? No, it can’t be. Can it? Got there yesterday afternoon. Nose a bit stuffy then sneezing. Aches. Was that fever? Or, a hot flash? What am I dealing with? Covid or Lupron or being 73? Wait and see. As Seoah often said. Wait and see.

    This morning. Aches still there, but sneezing, stuffiness gone. Fever turned out to be a lingering hot flash. When will they ever end? As many menopausal women have wondered. Doesn’t feel like I got it this time.

    Even the thought of Covid, without the virus itself, can make us sick. Doubtful. Wary. Denialistic. Has to be happening a lot these days.

    Anxiety. Depression. Enhanced fear of the other, of an invisible foe. I wonder how much under the surface mental illness has become apparent? How much existing mental illness has gotten worse? We’re still not too good about admitting to our own psychic troubles or at recognizing them in others.

    The longer this goes on, and the numbers of our runaway pandemic suggest it will be quite a while, even with a vaccine, the more mental illness will become problematic, not only for thousands, but for millions. What will they do?

    Is anybody working on this? Is it on anybody’s radar? Wondering.


  • The Mountains skipped like rams

    Summer and the (new moon), the Lughnasa Moon (moon of the first harvest)

    Monday gratefuls: Clean floors and toilets. Chex Mix. Cinnamon rolls. Shrimp. Claussen’s picked up the pallets. Neowise. Samwise. Tolkien. Robert Penn Warren. The harem of Elk in the lower meadow. The confused Mule Deer Buck on Shadow Mountain Drive. All of our wild neighbors. And, our human ones, too.

    When Kate and I went to see Amber last week, the meadow at the bottom of Shadow Mountain Drive had a harem of 20 Elk Cows, several Calves, and one proud Buck, strutting, head high. It’s a large meadow that lies between Conifer Mountain and Shadow Mountain, at the base of both. It has a Marsh that attracts Moose sometimes and an expanse filled with Grass that gets baled for hay later on in the year, this Meadow also attracts Mule Deer and Elk.

    Seeing wild Animals living their lives is thrilling. Makes life in the Mountains awe-full. Delight, joy jumps right into your chest. The Mule Deer Buck that couldn’t figure out what to do with the metal barrier on a curve closer to home evoked concern. I flashed my lights for oncoming cars to warn them. The courteous dirt bike rider behind me was cautious. The Buck was unpredictable. In the five and a half years we’ve lived here I’ve seen only one dead Deer along the road, so these situations work themselves out.

    As I reached in to pull out the Denver Post, I looked up at Black Mountain. A few small cumulus Clouds crowned its peak. The ski runs are dry, jagged brown scars down its face.

    Unbidden, as happens often, we live in the Mountains wrote itself on my inner screen. A muted sense of wonder followed and I stood there, the latest doom-scrolling in my hand, captivated by the Mountain summer.

    When Israel went out from Egypt…The mountains skipped like rams,
        the hills like lambs. Psalm 114, NRSV

    The Mountains are calling and I must go. John Muir

    These are not ancient Rocks caught in the stupor of inanimacy. These are not piles of Stone pushed up from the Earth’s Crust and left alone. These are Mountains. Tall, steady, confident. Like Vishnu they are stability, order, toughness made real. Shadow Mountain allows us to live on its peak and on its sides, but it could take away that permission. One massive burn through its forest of Aspens and Lodgepole Pines and our houses would be gone. Shadow Mountain would remain. The forests would grow back.

    We are so Mayfly like to these sturdy beings. Our kind may not last as long Shadow Mountain. Surely won’t if we don’t change our behaviors. Yet it gives us a home, like it gives a home to our wild neighbors. A Mountain forgives those who tread its flanks. Except, perhaps, for those who shave off its peaks, ruin it with strip mines. Or, hard Metal mines that pollute Streams, kill Wildlife.

    Time though. Time is the Mountain’s friend. It waits as its colleagues Rain, Snow, Ice, Lightning, running Water scour what human’s leave. Tumble it down through Creeks and Streams. Dilute it, spread it out. A million years on Shadow Mountain will look much the same, perhaps a bit shorter, perhaps a bit narrower, but still substantial. 9358 Black Mountain Drive will have long ago become a forgotten pimple.

    We can learn from the Mountains. Even our Mayfly lives can gain from patience, from being slow to react, from purification in the waters of the heavens. We need these lessons now, in these Covid 19 times.


  • A Hard Place to Be

    Summer and the Moon of Justice

    Sunday gratefuls: My partner, Kate. Our sweet girl, Rigel. And, our good boy, Kepler. Kate’s stoma site looking better. The front yard, looking clean and foresty with the stumps gone. The backyard looking good, will look better before Labor Day. Window cleaners, gutter cleaners in August. Yeah. Rethinking our Covid life. Republican, Trumpian angst.

    Every limbo boy and girl
    All around the limbo world
    Gonna do the limborock
    All around the limbo clock
    Jack be limbo, Jack be quick Chubby Checker, 1962

    Remember the limbo? Wonder how we’d all do now? Those of us in the Boomer brigade. Would not be pretty, I imagine. Kate and I used this word today to name a source of sadness. Covid has put our lives in a limbo between then, PC, and, whenever, post-C dominance of life. Her illness puts our lives in limbo between our old life together and whatever happens next. In some ways the third phase is a limbo phase between the younger, active days of education, family, career, and that old scythe wielder in the black hoodie, death.

    Limbo was an abode near hell, a permanent eternal home for the just who died before the birth of Jesus and those who died unbaptized. Limbo is the ablative form of limbus, or border. Reminded me of liminal. Comes from a Latin word that means threshold. On the threshold of hell lies a well-bordered realm for those who couldn’t fit into a medieval Roman Catholic understanding of theodicy.

    Yes, that’ll do. We are, through no fault of our own, needing to stay at home, in limbo, our homes being the border between us and the hell of Covid. And the threshold, the liminal space, is a place now filled with danger and possibility.

    The ancient Celts believed the liminal times of dawn and twilight were magical, the optimal time to work spells, to conduct rituals. Many religious traditions have waking up and going to bed prayers, rituals. Jews, for example pray in the morning to open the literal eye and the metaphorical one. Episcopalians pray at night: “Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith.”

    Limbo is a tough place to be. Liminal spaces like dawn and twilight, or liminal places like an ocean beach or a lake’s shoreline, offer entrance to another world, one unlike the one we are currently in. At night, sleep. In day, wakefulness. On the beach land underneath us and oxygen in the air, in the water, water beneath us and oxygen trapped, for us, in its molecules.

    What’s beyond the threshold of limbo? A Biden presidency? A world made safer with vaccines, good testing, and contact tracing? A healthier Kate, able to get around more the world? We just don’t know. We are not, however, unbaptized souls trapped in a metaphysical realm, but flesh and blood trapped in a disastrous political situation compounded with a pall created by plague.

    We are souls in waiting. A hard, hard place to be.


  • Needed

    Summer and the Moon of Justice

    Wednesday gratefuls: Mary’s recovery. Nasal polyp removal. Anitha, her bestie caring for her at home. Meeting with our financial advisor, RJ. Zoom. The health of our corpus. The three Earth countries sending visitors to Red Mars. Tianwen, Perseverance, Hope. China, USA, UAE. The night sky. Our stumpless front yard. Needing a break.

    Want to set this burden down. For a bit. Need a vacation. A staycation. Something. Always on. Dogs. Kate. Cooking. House maintenance. Cleaning. Mail. Groceries. (Kate pays the bills.) Cars. Insurance. You know, all that domestic stuff. Work outs. Organizing stuff. Laundry. (Kate folds. Thank god.) My own health. Doctor visits. Imaging, hospitals, emergency rooms.

    A bit whiny, maybe, but I do need a break. Of some kind. Not gonna happen either. No place to go, for one. Thanks, Covid. So even if putting the dogs at Bergen Bark Inn and Kate in respite care weren’t expensive and a hassle in itself (something more to organize), the virus makes travel unfun.

    Having Seoah here was wonderful, of course. And, she did relieve the cooking and house cleaning. But not the overburden of responsibility.

    Trying to figure out what I can do here on Shadow Mountain. Just crossed off workouts for a week and a half. I always go back, so that’s no danger. Problem with them is I moved them to mornings so I wouldn’t miss them so often. I used to work out around 4 pm. Too hot now. Plus cooking the evening meal. Other things. The move to mornings has worked well. I’m very regular with the exception of morning appointments out of the house.

    But. Not getting any writing done, painting. Reading has shrunk to news and serious material like Art Green’s Human Narrative. Some pleasure reading in the evenings.

    I want to finally finish, I’m oh so close, the loft. Then get back to writing and painting. I’ll take early morning hikes. Read some more fiction. Watch movies. I’ll buy takeout for the next week and a half, too. That should help. Ah, hell. I could take two weeks off from exercise. I might. Jump start a renewed Covid, stay-at-home life.

    Yes. This sounds good. A respite. Needed.


  • A New Covenant

    Summer and the Moon of Justice

    Wednesday gratefuls: Mountain Waste. The Claussens, coming for my pallets. The much improved back. Mowed. Most of the detritus picked up and moved. Photographs from Scott of the Woollies at George Floyd’s death site. Sjogren’s, not Covid. Pork ribeye. Napa Cabbage. The heat. The coolness of the morning. Garbage bags.

    And then the world came crashing back into my consciousness. Been following the coronavirus spikes, unable to shed the schadenfreude that accompanies the horror. All those people sick and dying because of Trump, Fox News, sychophancy. The Master Race putting its own head on the guillotine. Fixated on this, like looking at a fire in the fireplace or a gently moving fan.

    Opened up the email from Woolly Scott. Pictures of my long time friends at the site of George Floyds’ death. Long arcs of dead and withering flowers freshened up by new bouquets. A line of soft toys, teddy bears and rabbits, looking both sad and sweet. Mark Odegard in an orange shirt, a mask, looking at the George Floyd mural. These are friends who lived through the sixties, who understand this holy site in the context of MLK, Malcolm X, the Civil Rights Act, The Voter Registration Act. All that.

    Statues falling. Folks going after not only the Confederate memorials, but Founding Fathers like Washington and Jefferson. Or, later, Woodrow Wilson. The screeches of foul play coming from the dotard in chief. His allies revving up their motorcycles, donning their leathers, taking their automatic weapons off their racks and out of gun safes. Heading out to protect the constitution and their way of life. Their white privilege. A complicated time.

    Here I am on the mountain top. Moved, but unmoved. A latter day Noah on his ark, Ararat below me. Can this earth flooded with hate and hope create a new world? Maybe I need a dove.

    What might be the sign of a new covenant? A bonding among all humans agreeing to live sustainably on our only home, in peace with each other. I can still see the double helix as the trunk of a tree of life, its crown, its keter, in the heavens, its roots dug deep below the soil. This covenant I can feel.

    Let’s all cut our fingers, slash our palms, swear a blood oath that we will live as if all of it, you and me, the Lodgepole, the Whale, the Mountain, the Ocean are holy. Worthy. Precious. Loved. That should do it.


  • Good News

    Summer and the Moon of Justice

    Thursday gratefuls: Chuck roast fork tender in the Instapot. Yum. The stillness. Only the occasional car on Black Mountain Drive. Just us and the critters. Wild and domesticated. PSA next week. Kate’s ostomy nurse referral. Kep and the bone from the chuck roast. Rigel and the bone from the chuck roast. Kate’s voracious reading. Robertson Davies.

    Doomscrolling. Covidiot. (thanks, Tom) Mask maker, mask maker, make me a mask. At home with the virus raging outside. Like a wild snowstorm blowing across Shadow Mountain. So quiet here.

    Generation hide. They told us it would be bunkers, radiation hazards. They prepared us with duck and cover drills. (though, to be honest, I don’t remember any.) Pamphlets. Civil defense sirens. Those yellow and black icons of danger. Nope.

    The biohazard sign, triplet open crescents over a circle. Duck and cover = masks. Bunkers = self-quarantine, but, at least above ground. No sirens, just daily updated charts of the infection curve. Never flattened here. Here, in the United States of America. Maybe we should duck and cover. In shame.

    Mutually assured destruction now means all those freedumb loving libertytards who refuse to wear masks. Who refuse to believe the virus is real. Or, if it is real, they believe it’s germ warfare. God, our fellow citizens as intentional disease vectors. What….?

    Our generation sits behind closed doors. Those books on the nightstand now read. Newspapers, for those ancient of days who still receive them. TV tuned to Netflix. As the bleeding edge of the Baby Boom, we’ve been in a high risk category for over 10 years. Now it counts.

    Those who like good news can find a lot of it on television. Though I long ago stopped watching infotainment, the protests get covered. What a joy they are in this otherwise bleak time. Young people speaking their minds. Yes, something’s happening here. And this time, it’s very clear.


  • Citizens of the World

    Summer and the Moon of Justice

    Wednesday gratefuls: Denver Post delivery. Our short, flat driveway. The iris that bloomed. My fingers, which know where the keys are. Rigel, early this morning, looking at me still in bed. Day 7 in quarantine for Seoah. Feelings. Sadness about the failure of the United States. Failures. Words from Mario. Good words. The clan. Mary’s retirement day, yesterday. Wow.

    Both sister Mary and brother Mark have lived out of the U.S. longer than they lived in it. Both reached this ex-pat milestone this year. Mary has lived in Singapore longer than she lived in our hometown of Alexandria. Mark lived longer in Bangkok than in Alexandria. Oh, the places you’ll go. A Shadow Mountain congratulations to both of them, true citizens of the world.

    We’re a traveling family, though I’ve been a stay at home compared to my sibs. Two siblings who live so far away and have for so many years makes family a long distance relationship. Especially with mom and dad both dead. Glad they’re not here now in this virus ridden country, with a shabby would-be autocrat whose ties drag the ground. At least Singapore and Saudi Arabia have leaders.


  • Que serait

    Summer and the Moon of Justice

    Tuesday gratefuls: Seoah in Singapore (and quarantine) 6 days. Rick, the stump grinder, reasonable prices. David and Ray not so much. But the lawn will get cut. Moving the pallets. Giving the log cutter tool to Derek. Kate’s idea. At more ease with cash. Work happening. The clan.

    Venality, denial, racism, support for white supremacists, demeaning the disabled, grabbing pussies. And, now, the worst treason of all: ignoring Russian bounties on U.S. troops. Outrage seems far too mild a response. This man is, and has been from the start, not only unfit for office, but a radical dismantler of its authority. No wonder the world has shaken its head, laughed, then cringed. Beginning to move on from us. A world without us. America cannot take getting much greater. Too much winning.

    United StatesOn June 2914-day changeTrend
    New cases40,041+80%

    This box from this morning’s NYT follows Covid 19. In the last two weeks Covid cases have jumped 80%! So much winning. This man has actively caused the deaths of thousands of U.S. citizens. Ignored a James Bond villain, Vladimir Putin, who authorized election tampering and pay for slay in Afghanistan against American soldiers. Not to mention tweeting positive utterances about white supremacists. No, not only the “good people on both sides” remark, but new ones. Including the pink shirted man and the barefooted woman holding guns on protesters outside their St. Louis mansion.

    Who would rid us of this troublesome President?

    On a more upbeat note I scheduled my third Lupron influenced PSA for July 7th. I see my oncologist, Dr. Eigner, on the 17th and Dr. Gilroy, who managed my radiation, on August 3rd. A year ago I was in the midst of the 5 day a week drives out to Lone Tree. Lying down on the altar of sacrifice, listening to the Band.

    Nope, I don’t think about cancer much. Life goes on until it doesn’t. Freezers go bad. (ours continue to chug along for now) Yards need mowing. Seoah’s in Singapore. Wildfires are possible. The future’s not ours to see.

    Meanwhile, carbon emissions.


  • One Day at a Time

    Summer and the Moon of Justice

    Wednesday gratefuls: Simplicity. Does this idea bring me joy? Kondoing my thinking. Maybe. MVP. Rich. Susan. Marilyn. Tara. Judy. Zoom. Covid’s forced introspection. What matters in our daily life? What doesn’t? Seoah between Narita and Singapore. Picture of her with mask and faceshield on the plane. Kate finding Kep’s hotspots. Sano. Going down, coming back up.

    On Shadow Mountain. The Sun rising, Black Mountain lit. The Air still cool. All the promise of a new day. Each day is the only day in which you’ll ever live. We’re all one day old, every day. Each morning we can choose to continue old patterns, the remnants of other days, or we can choose new habits, new actions. Even new thoughts. Each day is New Year’s. Old Mother Time melted away last night and the infant wrapped in the sash titled TODAY has succeeded her.

    What will you do with this one wild and precious day?

    We’re taking Kep to the vet. He has several new hotspots that have shown up on his back. Not sure why, not sure what to do next. So, we’re calling in Dr. Palmini.

    Kate’s spirits took a dive yesterday when she discovered Kep’s hotspots. Seoah’s gone. She can’t hug Ruth and Gabe. Her stomach acted up. All got to be too much. She’s resilient though. Look at how she’s handled the multiple insults to her body.

    Seoah will touch down in Singapore today. Or, rather, tomorrow. The mysteries of the International Date Line. Her flight gets in just after midnight Singapore time.

    First Wednesday with no Kabbalah class since January. School’s out. Teachers let the monkeys out. Gonna take a rest over the summer, then pick up the Kabbalah thread again in the fall.

    Groveland U.U., the congregation I joined soon after I left the Presbyterian ministry, wrote me a note yesterday asking if I would do some presentations for them over Zoom. An unexpected pleasure, made possible by your friend the Coronavirus.

    MVP (Mussar Vaad Practice Group) met last night. The middot (character trait) we discussed was simplicity. As I’ve mentioned here before, mussar involved identifying a character trait and then creating a practice for yourself that you can use to strengthen it. There are many different lists of soul traits, some exhaustive, some short.

    Once you find the middot or middah (plural) on which you need to work, you’ve defined what the mussar teachers call a soul curriculum. Judaism is very clear on the journey. You’ll make mistakes, regress. What’s crucial is to not stop. That may sound zealous, but it’s not. It’s a recognition of our humanity.

    My practice, if I should choose to accept it, is to ask what thoughts bring me joy. Not sure yet whether I like this. I created it, so I can change it, but it seems interesting. Just not sure whether joy is a good criteria for thoughts. Even so, it intrigues me. I’ll give it a go for a while, see where it leads.


  • At Her Funeral

    Beltane and the Moon of Sorrow

    Thursday gratefuls: Gauze sponges. Wax o-rings for Kate’s leakage. Stoma powder. The chance to care for Kate. A forty degree morning on Shadow Mountain after 92 degrees in Denver on Monday. That silly Rigel, not acting her age. At all. Kep, the serious. Dog groomer today. The Kabbalah class. Folks liking my presentation. Workout yesterday.

    Pine pollen season. Yellow streaks on the asphalt. Pollen lying on wooden tables, adding some color. The winds rushing through the Lodgepoles, shaking loose enough for a yellow storm. Part of the turning of the Great Wheel. That I could do without personally. But, how would we get baby Lodgepoles otherwise? Sneeze and bear it.

    Wildfire danger remains high. Dry, Windy. Yesterday the Humidity in the loft was 2%, outside 6%. The arid West. A positive note. It was 80 degrees up here and a slowly rotating fan was all I needed to stay cool. Rigel, we’re not in Andover anymore.

    A woman in my kabbalah class wants my Grammar of Holiness read at her funeral, “…whenever that may be.” A strong positive reaction to it from the class. Rabbi Jamie’s going to reprint in the synagogue newsletter, the Shofar.

    Always thought my reimagining faith project would be a book, a radical theology with chapters and footnotes and acknowledgements. Nope, two pages. There it is. It feels said to me. We’ll see if I continue to feel that way.

    After reading several pieces about Covid and underlying medical conditions, Kate and I have decided to become coronavirus hermits. Our hermitage, Shansin, on top of Shadow Mountain. We’ll ride it out with as little flesh and blood contact as we can stand. Would sound bleak, but Zoom helps, and we’re introverts, happy with each other, ourselves, and our dogs.

    And, given recent news, I will add: white, privileged, financially secure, and aging with good medical care.

    Still no word from the Singapore government. Seoah may fly there next Tuesday. May not. Covid has impacted lives in so many different ways. This is just one of them, but it’s personal, right here.

    From Shadow Mountain, where the sun is rising and the morning is cool.