Category Archives: Fourth Phase

Fourth Phase, Friends

Elder

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Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

Sunday gratefuls: A Saturday morning with Ruth. Bacon. Strawberries. Bananas. Shadow, who loves Ruth. Our poor, benighted nation.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Granddaughters

 

Kavannah: Groundedness. Yesod.    Yesod is about establishing oneself in reality, refusing to rely on comfortable illusions.

Tarot: King of Arrows, Kingfisher.   The Kingfisher dives with precision. Cut away what is unnecessary to find the truth. Edit. Revise. Edit. Revise

One brief shining: Young people in old men’s lives. Granddaughter Ruth. Mikveh buddy Veronica. Friend Luke. Links to a future I will not see. Connections to a contemporary world I do not know. As I link them to a past before their births.

 

Granddaughter Ruth in tears. “I didn’t do anything to deserve this!” She looked into her future: heated, politically unstable, education expenses stretching through medical school

“What would you do if they told you you had to come back in the office or else?” Veronica, “I’d quit.”

Luke. His art. His music. His conversion. An assistant professor of Chemistry. “Chemistry is about transformation.”

These three I know well. Ruth, my granddaughter. Veronica, with whom I converted. Later, we became b’nai mitzvahs together. Luke: art, love of the Beatles, his quick scientific mind.

All Jews. Two converts and Ruth, born to a Jewish mother.

Ruth turning 20 this April. Leaving childhood. I’ve known her longest. Since infancy. At 3 I took her to the National Western Stock Show. On the bus to get there, she turned to me, her eyes flooding with tears, “I want my mommie.” A reassuring call.

I took her to museums: Colorado History. Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Wings over the Rockies. To the planetarium in Boulder. To eat sushi.

Yesterday she came up here. To make me French toast and bacon with strawberries and bananas. To talk. To tell me the story of how she met David. How she took his hand. A sweet story. An old story. Yet always new.

No longer 3.

Veronica and I were going to have our conversion in Jerusalem. Submerge in an ancient mikveh.  However. October 7, 2023. Israel goes to war.

We had our immersions in a modern mikveh off Alameda in Denver. On Shavuoth of 2024 we read our torah portions, Veronica fluently, me not. Gave our d’var torahs. Led a small bit of the service. Bar mitzvah. Bat mitzvah.

Luke, for a time executive director of the synagogue. Not a great job for him. We became friends. A couple of difficult years after Beth Evergreen. He comes to Shadow Mountain to do laundry while Leo plays with Shadow.

Chemistry has transformed him. Confident, eager. Loved by his students. So happy to see this.

No Sun City. No adults only living situations. No going to the home. Staying in my home. Having a vital social life. Including these three.

This is how I remain alone, but not lonely.

How I can be a steady, stable point for these three. Young adults finding their spot. Living into themselves.

May it continue to be so.

 

Fourth Phase, Health, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Travel, Weather +Climate

My travel snowpack sits way below normal.

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Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

Shabbat gratefuls: Snow! Vince. Shadow, dancer in the snow. Ruth. French toast and bacon. Lab results unread.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Snow

 

art@willworthington

Kavannah: Groundedness. Yesod.    Yesod is about establishing oneself in reality, refusing to rely on comfortable illusions

 

Tarot: Page of Vessels, Otter     I need more play, more  lightheartedness.

 

One brief shining: Snow fell. Mountain joy. Our drought parched Arapaho National Forest. The lodgepoles and aspen at Shadow Mountain home. Need moisture. Even more, a lot more. I hunkered down, besotted by the falling, falling snow.

 

Snow brings water to thirsty grasses, trees. Skiers to A-Basin, Vail, Steamboat. Silence. Muffles sound. Alters the landscape, smoothing out rock outcroppings, covering vegetation.

Snow matters.

This winter, until yesterday: forty-nine inches. 2016: two-hundred and twenty inches. Snowpack way below normal. Never thought about snowpack in Minnesota. Here it’s vital. Not only for Colorado, but for the Colorado River basin. Las Vegas. Phoenix. LA. All depend on Colorado’s snowpack. Releasing water over time. Snow melt.

Surrounded by a National Forest filled with second stand, close together lodgepoles and aspen. Drought=high fire risk. Lodgepoles close together burn by crown fire. Fire jumps from the top of one tree to the next. Hot and fast. One reason we all pay ridiculous premiums for home insurance.

As the drought here deepens, I’ve been thinking about other droughts in my life. I’m in an exercise desert. My travel snowpack sits way below normal. Otter reminded me. I’m in a play and lightheartedness drought.

Exercise. Since I turned forty, I exercised. Daily often. No less than 5 days in a week. Resistance and cardio. Worked with my hands and legs in the garden. I was in good, no, excellent shape.

Of late. Not so much. I find excuses not to exercise. A tough day yesterday. Workout room too cold. Like today.

Mood regulation. Guard against heart attacks. Retain muscle mass. Balance work. Fall prevention. All benefits of regular exercise. Fights cancer, too.

But. Finish Ancientrails. I’m comfortable sitting down. I’m going to die of something anyhow. Why make the effort.

I hate this. Not exercising harms me physically. Perhaps even more mentally. Why am I not taking care of myself? A dissonance between how I perceive myself and how I act. How to bridge the gap.

Travel, like exercise, fills the heart. Shifts in perspective. Lightheartedness. So many good memories. Singapore. Angkor Wat. Joseon dynasty palace. Okgwa, Seoah’s home village. Street food in Bangkok. Blood pudding in Inverness. Italian coffee. Chilean fjords.

Last time I left home for more than a day: September, 2023. Back went bad. Sent me into chronic pain world. Better now. Stamina sucks. See exercise. Standing for any length of time. Nope. Makes travel feel onerous. Beyond me.

Drought takes. Water from the bunch grass and lodgepoles. Traveling to see Joe and Seoah. To see the National Museum in Taipei. Damages roots.

Like our snow drought I have no surefire way to fix my travel drought, my play and lightheartedness drought.

Drought dehydrates. Devastates. Stunts growth.

And yet. Snow slides off lodgepole branches. Shadow dances, her blackness covered in white.

 

Fourth Phase, Health, Judaism, Politics, Shadow Mountain

Peace?

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Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

Thursday gratefuls: Tara. Fantastic Four. Shadow, the early riser. The U.S. military. The Middle East. War. Peace. Negotiations.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Snow

 

Kavannah: Shleimut.   Being present to myself.

Tarot: Ace of Vessels     My emotions need recharging from the deep waters of my soul. I am the stag.

 

One brief shining: Today they begin, the bone scan, the echo, the pet scan. Two cts. Is my body strong enough to withstand the trial? How we will know if the treatment I’m getting works. This bone scan against that one.

 

Not looking forward to the next week and a half. My life has pauses, then bang, bang, bang. More blood tests. More diagnostics. Since last May, the pace of surveillance has ramped up. A lot.

More scheduling. More rides needed. More information over my transom than I can keep up with. A lot.

Meanwhile, the world.  Crazy. Real estate developers as diplomats? A President against foreign intervention starts his second war this year. Israel a hegemon.

A headline says Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler may devolve into niche makers of the last gas fueled cars as China rises in building ones fueled by electricity. Many self-driven.

Climate change supercharges hurricanes. Ate our mountain winter. Sea levels go further into Miami. New York City. Thwaites Glacier rests precariously on warming Antarctic waters.

What about measles? Polio. Even covid and the flu. A polio survivor. I remember the line at age 8. Thurston Elementary. About to get a shot. The vaccine. How indignant it made me. Not fair.

Vaccines don’t work? Says the cabinet secretary, Robert Kennedy. Thanks to the polio vaccine, twenty four years later. 1979. Polio eradicated in the U.S. Measles outbreaks increasing.

The context of my old age.

Where can we find peace? Not in the clanging of the MRI or the cool gel of an Echocardiogram. Nor in bloodwork or office visits. Certainly not in the newspapers I read every morning.

A touch on the arm. Shadow’s tongue licking my hand. Tara sitting with her legs draped over the chair arm. Shadow and Eleanor playing, bumping, running.

The Mule Deer does that visit my front yard often. Dining on grass. Delicate. Graceful as they move across my field of view.

Ruth offers to drive up. Make me French toast. Even bacon. Gabe asks me to offer him fun facts about himself. He can’t think of any.

No matter. The craziness. The tests. No matter.

Even in the midst of external chaos. Teshuvah. Return to the homeland of your soul. I am a writer, a lover of nature, human partner to Shadow, curious, resilient. A friend and a brother and a cousin. A Jew named Israel.

I also love. My Ancient Brothers. My synagogue friends. Mozart. Shadow Mountain home. My life.

Peace lies not on the newspaper pages. Not in lab results or treatment protocols.

Peace lies in being who you are.

No matter what.

Family, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Korea, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Travel, US History

Is it time to go?

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Tuesday and the Moon of Tides

Monday gratefuls: Tara and Eleanor. Arjean. Costa Rica. Iran. U.S. Israel. Gaza. Lebanon. War and peace. Mark in Hafar.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Tara

Kavannah: Shleimut. My lev, calm. Clinical trial decision made. Living into the next.

Tarot: Knight of Vessels, Eel. My spirit, strong. My decisions, made. Old, not dead.

One brief shining: While I sit in peace on Shadow Mountain, Shadow gnaws a toy, asks for breakfast. Mary roasts in summer heat. Joe and Seoah shiver in a cold Korea. Everyone seems further away.

 

A conversation U.S. Jews. Is it time to leave? Is this a Weimar moment after Adolf took power? Friends Marilyn and Irv looked at land in Costa Rica. Decided not to go. Irv said he loved the mountains. Too old to leave.

Tara and Arjean. Have hired a property manager. Are cleaning out 27 years of stuff.  Move to Costa Rica sometime in June. Stay in AirBnBs as they scout for a place to settle. A year or so experiment.

Two times when I almost left the continental U.S. 1969. Got the call for my draft physical. To Indianapolis with all of my money and all my possessions. (not much) Would have moved to Canada like my old friend Mike Hines.

Turns out psoriasis worsens when wearing wool and in hot, humid climates. Army uniforms. Wool. Vietnam.

As I left the place where I’d had my physical, a serious man told me: “You cannot enlist in the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, or the Marines.” I asked him, “Are you sure?” When he said yes, I said, “Thank god.”

Second time. After Kate died. Joe and Seoah. Planned then to retire after Korea and move back to Hawai’i. Cleared out the house and garage. Researched places on Oahu where Kepler and I could live. Checked out synagogues. Studied my budget.

Jon died. I couldn’t leave Ruth and Gabe.

My sister and my brother, Mary and Mark. Long time expats.  Mary now in Melbourne and Mark teaching ESL to young Arab men. Joe and Seoah: Hawai’i, Singapore, and Korea. Nine years

State Department urges Americans to leave the Middle East. Mark stays. Hafar has no military targets. He lives among the Saudi citizens. Not in an Aramco US compound. An old Saudi hand at this point.

I’m the stay at home of a far flung family.

When is it time to leave?

 

For me. Not yet.

Ancient Brothers, Family, Fourth Phase, Friends, Politics, US History, World History

Holding Opposites

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Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

Monday gratefuls: Ancient Brothers. Shadow, my downward dog. Iran. Israel. U.S. Gaza. Hezbollah. A cool, dark morning.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  The Deep Blue Sea

 

Week Kavannah:   Shleimut.   The alignment of the inner self with outer actions, bringing a sense of completeness to life.

 

Tarot: Three of Bows, fulfillment       Teshuva, alignment between neshama and the Self, a power that flows through me.

One brief shining: Fulfillment. Satisfaction. Not happiness. Joy in writing with more precision. Nouns. Fragments. Revising, a process with which I still struggle. My Shadow life. My Ancient Brothers life. My Jewish life. Engaged with Iran and with Mark, close by in Hafar.

 

Painful. To see Iran and my Ancient Brothers. The same day. Mary, down under. Joe and Seoah far away. Mark far away from me but near war. Grocery shopping and day care. A man pets his dog. While death races along the streets of Tehran. The One, yes, but. Pain and love, together again. Always.

A danger. Exhaustion from the steady, too steady beats of killing, of government acting in Iran and not acting at home. Epstein files. Rising health insurance costs while medical care disappears. Hospitals close. Cost of living rises. The cost of war.

So easy to turn away from accelerating drought in the Rockies. From those who need the Mountain Resource Center. ECHO’s food bank. Easier to launch Cruise missiles, Tomahawks. Drop bombs.

Ruth coming up to make me breakfast. Her specialty, French toast. This Saturday morning. Gabe sharing the poems he wrote in Oregon. Ruth in college, Gabe getting ready. Their lives full with preparation. Classes. Applications. Learning. Testing. Readying themselves for a future with dramatic climate change, increasing acts against Jews and Blacks and Latinos. What they have been thrown into.

I work. My candle is lit. These words. Those words. A Hansel and Gretel trail leading to, leading to what? A record of an Alexandria boy grown into a man. A man who acted. In theater. On the streets. In the soil. On the page.

A man whose life unfolded in the shadow of war. Whose maturation, delayed, came when conservatives began to gain ground. In 1981 Joseph’s plane landed. The wicker basket. Reagan inaugurated.

Fatherhood. Joyous. Daunting. Inspiring. Joe turns 45 this year. Seoah 48. I turned 79. Ruth will be 20. Gabe 18. That thin, yet strong line of love expressed as Ruth masters chemistry, Joe watches North Korea. I learn to write.

Too late?

We braid our lives into each others. French toast. Sunday morning themes. Breakfasts at Aspen Perks. Eleanor and Shadow playing hard. Parallel. Our braids. Their braids. The wider world. Iran. Israel. Minnesota fighting ICE.

Ruth goes to class. Bombs drop. Joe goes to work. ICE leaves Minnesota. I write. Cartels ship fentanyl. No life independent of another. The web of life woven by photosynthesis, by kisses and hugs, by acts of war.

Life. Lived in paradox and irony. Always. Holding opposites.

 

Cancer, Fourth Phase, Health, Science

In time, leaves brown

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Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

Thursday gratefuls: Alan and his new knee. The Hummingbird. Diane. Alfred North Whitehead. Process metaphysics. Shadow the Coneless.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Kristine

Week Kavannah:   Yetziratiut. Creativity.   Learning novel revision as part of the craft

 

Tarot: Ten of Vessels, Happiness

In the midst of medical turmoil: friends and family, reengaged creative work, Shadow bring fulfillment home.

One brief shining: Radiation ended December 11th, a PET scan on January 28th showed failure of androgen deprivation therapy. No wonder I slipped into I’m not gonna make it mode. Uncertainty. The bane of those of us with chronic, progressive illnesses.

 

Cancer, as my journey typifies, never gives up. Removed my prostate. Came back. Radiation. Recurred. Since then, 2019, it’s here to stay, a hostile partner I must feed.

Within that overall arc there are periods of relative calm. I had six years with androgen deprivation therapy, six years of stable PSAs. Glad I did. Within those years Kate’s illnesses took hold, changing our lives and ending in her death. Jon’s divorce rattled the whole family again and again. His death shattered Ruth and Gabe.

How could I have been present and effective for my loved ones without six years of a cancer detente? Here’s a generous offering of gratitude to the scientists who discovered and perfected androgen deprivation.

If I’m to live fully into the happiness I feel, I’ll need another tranche of medical discoveries. Especially therapies like Pluvicto and Actinium which deliver toxic radioactive energy preferentially to cancer cells. Not the systemic poison of chemotherapy.

How else can I continue ancientrails into its third decade. Revise and market Superior Wolf. See Ruth graduate from college, maybe even medical school.

Folks with manageable terminal illnesses now encounter shuttered laboratories. A defunded NIH.

The practices of physicians like Dr. Bupathi and Dr. Carter deliver to me the fruit of decades of basic science, clinical trials, pharmaceutical advances.

Like turning off irrigation to a field of vegetables, the results will not be immediate. In time, leaves brown, Tomatoes and Beets rot. I’ll probably live long enough to enjoy treatments created in the recent past. Like Actinium.

The next generation of prostate cancer patients may not. Joseph? Mark?

I’m a lucky guy. Options, sound options, exist even as I enter my 5th year of stage 4 cancer. A gift to me. Letting me fill my days  with happiness.

Family, Fourth Phase, Writing

Kate’s last journey

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Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

Monday gratefuls: Kate, always Kate. Her life and death. Shadow, deconed. Paul and the storm. Ellory, too.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

 

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Language

Week Kavannah:   Yetziratiut. Creativity.   Revising Superior Wolf, learning from my writing coach. Focus.

 

Tarot: Page of Arrows, the Wren

Wisdom gained through study-my writing coach-and application-revising

One brief shining: Oh. Went to a Caring Bridge site for Warren’s sister, Kate. Once there, no posts. So. I went to my Kate’s site, started in October of 2018 and ending  a month after her death in 2021. Tears.

Didn’t mean to go there. Kate’s Caring Bridge site. October 2nd, 2018. An internal bleed of unknown origin. She would not come home until October 23rd.

Peaks. Valleys. Then, lower peaks and deeper valleys. Home from the rehab facility, Brookdale, twenty-one days after she went to the E.R.

At one point her nutrition came through a central line and I had to perform a sterile ritual to hook her up to the feed bag. A precise, detail oriented business. Not my strength. But, I learned.

Not easy for either of us. At one point, after her criticism of something I’d done, I looked at her, and said, “You have to respect me!” Stuck with me. Why? Of course she had to do no such thing. Underneath. Please. See me.

Hard.

We made a sort of a peace after that. I listened harder. She did, too. The change from partners to caregiver and caretaker. Ooof.

One evening I’d finished serving our evening meal, gone into the kitchen to clean up. She said something. I couldn’t hear it. Clanking dishes and my one not so good ear. What did you say? I feel like I’m being erased. Oh. My heart fell. Of course. A fabulous cook. A pediatrician. Gone.

A dance from one stage of vulnerability to the next often  found us unready. She could no longer get in the car unaided. No longer able to walk even with her walker. Her hands on my back as she climbed the stairs.

Emergency room visits and hospital hallways. More magazines in waiting rooms. Even after our talk about how much we would miss each, her final days still came as a surprise.

They began with a visit to the Emergency Room. Diagnosis: infection. She sat up in the E.R. bed, her yellow and red hospital gown showing her too thin legs, “Oh. That’s what they always say. Infection.” Still Kate.

The next day in the hospital she crashed. I got ushered out of the room as a code blue team filled the room. She survived. But. A pulmonologist whom I did not know counseled me, in the kindest way, “I would call her people.” I did.

They came. Kate moved to the 10th floor, intermediate between normal hospital care and the ICU. Her last room.

Kate’s breathing became more labored. She required more attention from respiratory therapists. Occasional hallucinations. Fear of being nuts.

After 11 days, Kate’s resolve finally broke. I want to die. How do you feel about that? I hate it, but it’s the right decision for you. She died that night.

I had to come back to the hospital to see her corpse. It scared me in a deep way that I only understood this week. Seeing Kate dead thrust me back fifty-seven years.

An elevator ride with my stroke crippled and bent mother to her final surgery. Her strangled voice. Her last word to me: Son.

Cancer, Dogs, Fourth Phase, Health, Writing

A Strong Link

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Imbolc and the Moon of Deep Friendship

Monday gratefuls: Robin. Shadow the bandageless. Audrey, winning at regionals. Sports. Joe, the three letter guy. ICE. Minnesota.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

 

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Actinium

Week Kavannah:   Bitachon. Confidence.     I need to focus on confidence this week. Important decisions for cancer treatment, how to stay confident when physical weakness challenges me.

 

Tarot: Seven of Arrows, Insecurity

Between treatment protocols. Exhausted. Not working out. A time of deep uncertainty.

One brief shining: A trigger finger locked. Life hinging on unproven chemicals, tests, blood draws. A sore right shoulder. Love of friends and family. Shadow. Unavoidable mortality.

 

Underlayments. Love. Joseph and Seoah. Ruth and Gabe. Mary and Mark and Diane. Korea to Melbourne to Saudi Arabia. Kate across the threshold. Knowing and seeing each other anyhow.

The love of old friends and new. Ancient Brothers. CBE.

Feeling connected in a Dog’s kisses. Coffee in the morning. The Shema.

So that. When cancer makes an aggressive move, I want to push back, get into a clinical trial. So that. When exercise falls away, my tennis shoes go back on.

And yet. Sometimes. I sit back in my chair. Think. Oh, come on. Enough. May I ride it all out from the comfort of this recliner? Surrender. Wait. For a miracle. For a finish.

Not the brave face. Nor a frightened one. Weary.

I do not want to scare those who love me. No. Yet I do not want to be dishonest either. This is not easy.

Not most of the day. When soreness or shortness of breath hits. Then. Pain suggests: a sick man who a moment ago was in his forties, eager. Whap.

Underlayments. I lean into love, buoyed up by Joe’s voice, by Tara singing happy birthday. By the regard in which I hold myself.

Underlayments. Remember. Shadow’s waggly tail. Gabe’s new poem. Superior Wolf’s second draft.

Consolation. More to do. Rejuvenation.

Not dead yet.

Knowing. Deep. This day, this singular unrepeatable day. All I’ve got. Ever. And this day, right now, hands on the keyboard. Shadow sleeping nearby. Morning darkness not dispelled. I am fully alive. Laying down breadcrumbs.

Underlayments. How to reconcile. Weariness and excitement. Pain and joy. Not easy. Not impossible. Most often through writing. Talking it out. Diane and her book club. Tom and a new book. Listening.

Realizing words. These words spilled in a certain order. Saying, hello out there, hello.

My one strong link to my journalist father. A need to express myself. Clearly. Often. Yes, a need. Not a want. That peculiar inside-out move of the artist: exposing the inner journey so others know they are not alone.

Ancient Brothers, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Shadow Mountain

Not Yet

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Imbolc and the Moon of Deep Friendship

Monday gratefuls: Chocolate. Birthday presents. Canceling the Washington Post. Again. Five days of friends and family. Cold weather and Snow ahead

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

 

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Tsundoku

Week Kavannah:   Bitachon. Confidence.     I need to focus on confidence this week. Important decisions for cancer treatment, how to stay confident when physical weakness challenges me.

 

Tarot: Page of Arrows, the Wren

ChatGPT writing coach has begun to tune my late stage craft. Like the Wren it relies on subtlety, less rather than more.

One brief shining: Shadow and I, alone again; Tom and Paul flew off in a jet plane, Ruth busy at work and school, a time now to focus on writing, Ancientrails and Superior Wolf, to gather myself for the start of my clinical trial, a few fancy chocolates left.

 

Bathing in the after glow of a long visit by old friends. Feeling their concern, Tom loading cardboard in my recycling bin. Their love, Paul recalling his daughter Kate’s first months. NICU. Angel nurses. A three way group hug before they left.

39 years. Half my life. Friendships built on dogsled trips in the Boundary Waters, clambering up wooden ladders, so many meals together. Deaths and divorce.

New memories. Three elder men squeezed into the booth that Ruth found for us to protect our hearing. Her sweetness. Drawing Paul out on his life. Remembering Tom was the electron microscope guy.

New memories. A Sunday dinner around my breakfast table. Dad’s fettucine, beloved by his daughter, Kate. Tom’s question, what do you expect in the next ten years? Birthday chocolates for dessert.

The Bistro. Where I found Kate’s pearl. Where we ate with Jon the day he moved out after his divorce. Where Kate and I would dine. Now where old friends from away and I dine. Log framing and a blazing fire, piano music.

Bread and roses. Feeling their hands on my shoulder

Robert Duvall. Jesse Jackson. dead

Bob Weir. Loved listening to Weir’s riffs. Ripple. Sugar Magnolia.

Another mark of aging. Lights going out one by one.

Kate and Jon’s deaths.

Why Tom and Paul’s visit meant so much.

While I’m alive.

Not yet a light gone out.

Family, Fourth Phase, Great Work, Seed Keepers, Weather +Climate

That path is for your steps alone

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Imbolc and the Moon of Deep Friendship

Monday gratefuls: Talking with Paul. His fettucine. Michael and Kate. Ramadan. Mark in far Hafar. Mary down under. Tsundoku.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

 

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Millennials

Week Kavannah: Bitachon. Confidence.     I need to focus on confidence this week. Important decisions for cancer treatment, how to stay confident when physical weakness challenges me.

 

Tarot: Page of Vessels, Otter

Otter, who moves easily between land and water, encourages me to linger in my inner cathedral, bathe in its holy well of imagination, then write.

One brief shining: Once again a full table at Shadow Mountain Home, shared with two who will live into the heat of a changed nation, an altered climate, as will Ruth and Gabe, and three old men, loving the future through them all, seeing the struggle ahead but not able to be part of it.

 

Call it the tragedy of aging. I can see flooded subways, more hot, snowless winters. The hurricanes of political change. Tom, Paul, and I have laid our children and grand children on an altar of our own making. There is no ram coming in their place.

Fifty-three degrees. Yesterday. Scant Snow on the ground. Mid-February. Kate speaking. We’re all gonna fry.

Children and grandchildren we love and cherish face challenges of a scale so outsized I go pale.  Michael. Kate. Ruth. Gabe. Ellory. Sylvan. Say their names, too.

Other old white men. Say. No danger ahead. Chained to money, quarterly profit margins.

My mortality sinks into my bones. I love Joe, Ruth, Gabe. So much. And, they love me back, great joy.

“There is a road, no simple highwayBetween the dawn and the dark of nightAnd if you go, no one may followThat path is for your steps alone”