• Category Archives Fourth Phase

  • Keep Them Close

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

    Shabbat gratefuls: Ginny and Janice. Annie and Luna. Pad thai. Luke and Leo. Shadow. Opener of doors, gnawer of beds, furry alarm clock. Sciatica. Back pain. No country for old Presidents. Chewy. Natural Balance. Early morning Mountain chill. Shadow finding her voice. Ruth in her I love NYC t-shirt at my son and Seoah’s apartment. Zoom. This family, together, yet far, far apart. Gabe. Ukraine. Gaza. Israel. Russia. The Middle East. Asia.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Annie and Shadow playing.

    Week Kavannah:  Zerizut. Enthusiasm. III for p.t., resistance

    One brief shining: My usual rides gone to Puerto Rico, Las Vegas, going down the list of folks willing to drive me from Shadow Mountain to the heart of Denver while I’m loopy on Ativan so I can survive another MRI, this one of my hips; if I can’t find someone, it will have to wait and let the PET scan speak alone.

     

    Here’s one of the barriers to medical care for me. From time to time I have to have a procedure that requires some sedation. Like Thursday’s MRI when I will be on Ativan for my claustrophobia. Rich is in Puerto Rico. Alan in Las Vegas. Making these appointments difficult to keep. Yes, I have more folks on my list and I’m asking them one by one, but if I can’t find anybody I’ll have to cancel. Do it another time. Not optimal for my visit with Dr. Buphati (medical oncologist) on June 2nd. Which I just noticed is before my PET scan. Oops. Gets complicated.

    It would be nice to have a personal assistant who could stay on top of these things. Wouldn’t it?

     

    Talked to my son and Seoah yesterday with a cameo appearance by Ruth! And, Murdoch. They were in Seoul yesterday, seeing the Buddhist Monastery and the big convention hall which has so many restaurants. Alert readers will remember that I saw the Seoul Biennale there when I went in 2023.

    Jang family money has been let loose into the world financial system, headed toward my checking account. I’ll pay preliminary costs like airline tickets, air bnb reservations, baseball tickets using this money. Three way split on expenses: my son and Seoah, Seoah’s family, and me. Once in a lifetime for the Jangs. Worth it. Family first.

    My son took Ruth to the DMZ, that live border between two countries still technically at war under the terms of an armistice. She’s having an amazing time.

     

    Just a moment: On resistance. Seed-keeping. My primary actions right now. Keep my friends close. Especially those friends in vulnerable communities. Strengthen our bonds. See to each other’s safety in outright anti-Semitic, homophobic, racist, misogynistic times. How? Play dates among Shadow, Annie, and Luna. With their moms, Ginny and Janice. Having Luke and Leo up for a laundry, conversation afternoon. Stay in weekly touch with Marilyn and Irv, Alan, Joanne. Ruth and Gabe. Ron, Jamie, Susan. Keep all these seeds for a new, pluralistic tomorrow.

     


    Asia Family Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Health Korea Seed Keepers Travel

  • Nothing Hard Is Easy

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

    Friday gratefuls: Morning prayers. The Siddur. Bird song. Shadow running, running, running. Halle. Physical therapy. Kylie, my pain doc. Nerve ablations and Sprint. Sciatica. Ruby still with her Snowshoes on. Diane. The Jangs in August. Ruth in Korea.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Kate, always Kate

    Week Kavannah: Enthusiasm. Zerizut. for P.T. and resistance.

    One brief shining: Brief time with Halle yesterday, my back pain flare made her not want to push me; following her later in the day a visit to Kylie, my pain doc, in which we added her hip MRI to Buphati’s which means I’ll get both hips done on the 29th.

     

    It’s odd, seeing my cancer and its stage 4 realities written about on the front pages of the NYT and the Washington Post. From many perspectives. Each situation, each person’s cancer has its own individual path. I am neither Biden nor Scott Adams. Yet we share this: in Stage 4 our cancer is incurable.

    Unless we die of something else first, prostate cancer will, as Kristie, my urological oncologist, said, run its course. Which means it will kill us. We can opt for dignity in dying in Colorado and if mine proceeds to its end point, I’ll consider that if the pain becomes too much.

    A hospice nurse wrote an op ed about her Dad’s prostate cancer. She spoke gently. About physicians often wanting to go on, on beyond a life with no quality to a life continued because more treatments, more scans are available. About how hospice offers another alternative. About a peaceful death versus one strung out by procedures and medicine. I’m inclined to her way, yet how to know when that moment comes?

    My life has purpose, meaning. I’m a family man with siblings, a son and daughter-in-law, grandkids, a dog, friends, a community. I’m a spiritual seeker with writing I want to do about Judaism, about a tactile spirituality. I enjoy a good book, a good movie, good food. I have a home I love and feel comfortable in. I’m embedded in the Rocky Mountains with wild neighbors. Not at all ready to sign off.

    However. This next two weeks I have a long MRI on my hips and a PET scan. Then a visit with my oncologist to see if further therapies make sense in light of the findings. I had a visit with my pain doc to try to gain a handle on my back.

    I’m in the scans and imaging, let’s try this phase of both prostate cancer and back pain. It gets old, tiring in and of itself. Arranging rides. Appointments. New meds and procedures. New doctors.

    Having all these news articles has made me think a lot about my own situation, as you can tell. More than I would on my own.

    Another wrinkle rises up with the back pain. As it aggravates me, it reduces my resilience. Which means I have to sort out moods created by pain from moods created by cancer. So I can be clear about what’s affecting my judgment.

    Nothing hard is easy.


    Feelings Fourth Phase Health Shadow Mountain

  • Suffering. Shadow. Shame.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

    Thursday gratefuls: Natalie. Diane. Ruth. Seoah. My son. Korea. Morning darkness. Radical Roots of Religion. Art Green. The One. Ritual. Prayer. The Morning Service. Shadow, shredder of Kleenex. Outside work with her. My back yard. The Bearberry. The Clump Grass. That leaning Lodgepole. The Lilacs in Kate’s garden. Nathan coming today to look at the foundation he wants to make for the greenhouse. For Halle and all the traveling physical therapists.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Greenhouse

    Week Kavannah: Zerizut. Enthusiasm. For working out, for physical therapy.

    One brief shining: Worked for two hours yesterday with Natalie and Shadow and Cooper, her 6 month old English Cream Lab, wandering the yard, dropping treats behind me, letting Shadow come in front of me, then turning and walking away, waiting for her to follow, Cooper bounding in his slow sure way next to Natalie, more, as she said, a people dog than a dog dog.

     

    Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, in the NYT: “My life expectancy is maybe this summer,” he said. “I don’t have good days,” he said. “Every day is a nightmare. And evening is even worse.” NYT

    This in an article revealing he had, at 67, an aggressive form of prostate cancer. Oh, boy. His words scared me, especially as I hobble around in the early morning before my back and hip begin to loosen up.

    Then, I go back to my own journey, now in its eleventh year. Not aggressive. Slow growing. Still hormone resistant. Could be worse, a lot worse.

    My heart sinks for Adams and for Biden. Fellow travelers on this ancientrail nobody wants to follow. Cancer, as I told Kathy, a stage 4 breast cancer survivor, is a humbug.

    In our small mussar group we have multiple myeloma, breast cancer, a blood cancer, prostate cancer. Leslie, a former member died of liver cancer and Judy, my friend from MVP, of ovarian cancer.

    No wise words here. Just an observation that suffering and angst pervade the human story, are not rare. Common. Which could serve as a reminder to be kind.

     

    Dog journal: The two hour session with Natalie wore us both out. Shadow went to bed around 5, two hours early. I had to remind her to go outside before bedtime. We walked a lot. My own fatigue caused me to message Natalie and say no more two hour sessions.

    And yet. I can feel a change. As we let up on the obedience and began to work on building trust. Responding to subtle clues I had missed. Waiting for Shadow’s consent before touching her. Watching if her weight is on her hind legs or her front legs. Is she leaning in or preparing to exit?

     

    Just a moment: Seems like our golden shower boy wants to relive his gory days on The Apprentice by saying the political equivalent of, “You’re fired!” to heads of state. First, Zelensky in a shameful moment in U.S. history. Yes, pretty bad. Then exploiting the situation to get rare minerals.

    Now, in a beyond shameful clash with the President of South Africa, declaring white Afrikaners, the architects of apartheid, subject to genocide. This is not even a dog whistle to the white supremacists in his base. It’s a y’all come on, we got this now.

     


    Dogs Feelings Fourth Phase Health Politics

  • Ruth Goes to Korea

    Posted on by Charles 1 Comment

    Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

    Ruth’s first meal in Korea

    Monday gratefuls: Ruth. In Korea! Seoah’s note. Ruth’s journey. Rich. Doncye. Mary. Her journey. Minneapolis to Singapore to K.L. to Incheon. My son’s journey from 9/11 to command. Shadow and her journey. All ancientrails. Each and every one.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Love

    Week Kavannah: Enthusiasm. Zerizut.

    One brief shining: Messages came in: In Calgary, the people are so nice here and things are cheaper; Currently walking to board the plane, the big plane; I’m flying over the long archipelagoesque part of Alaska; I don’t know what the cause is, but it got dark in like two minutes. Then came the picture from Seoah.

     

    Ruth getting Kate’s little black bag for her 19th birthday

    Our all dean’s list all the time Ruth has vaulted through the heavens on a great circle route taking her far to the north before returning to Earth at Incheon, South Korea. Now a world traveler, far from Northdale High and CU-Boulder.

    Ruth, in some ways, feels more like a daughter to me than a granddaughter. Since my son was my only child. It fills me up to watch her post-high school self take wing. Literally yesterday. She texted messages all the way along on her flight. (see one brief shining)

    We shared many breakfasts and lunches at CU-Boulder over her freshman year. Our relationship has deepened over this time and it touches a part of me that blossomed only with her. That’s the part that feels more like a daughter. A female to nurture on a growing up path. Different than a son.

    Seeing her eating a bowl of what I imagine is bibimbap, in Korea. Oh, my. To see the world anew, to see Asia for the first time at 19. To confidently travel abroad. To go with the sense that life has only begun to unfold, that these new experiences have begun a journey, not ended one. I can feel that again through and with her.

     

    Took Mary to the Federal Center RTD stop in Lakewood. She boarded the train headed to the same airport where, at 7 am, Ruth had caught her first of the three flights that took her to Korea.

    I need a map with LED avatars to keep up with my family. I’m the still point, high up on Shadow Mountain. In a week most of those avatars would be clustered in Osan for my son.

     

    Just a moment: Joe and me. Here’s an NYT explainer that details what it’s like now for those of us, including Biden, with stage 4 prostate cancer.

    What applies to him in this article applies to me as well. We’re both in the hormone sensitive condition which means androgen deprivation therapy-knocking out testosterone production-still stops the cancer from spreading further.

    The new drugs the article mentions are there when androgen deprivation therapy no longer works. Those drugs are the 5-7 year life span extenders. And neither one of us are on them yet.

    My cancer is not particularly aggressive, just durable, meaning it beat the best treatments available for curing it. I’ll know more about my status in early June after a new MRI and a new P.E.T. scan.

     

     

     

     


    Asia Family Feelings Fourth Phase Health Travel

  • Mary’s Visit

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

    Sunday gratefuls: Sibling talk. Memories of home. Seeing my son, Seoah, Murdoch after his prize-winning day. Rich’s response. Ruth. At the airport, waiting on her flight to Incheon. Korea. Side-dishes. Songtan. That fried Fish place. The Chicken in a pot place. The French Bakery. Melbourne. Sidney. Brisbane. K.L. Al Kharj. My far flung family.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Sisters and brothers

    Week Kavannah: Enthusiasm. Zerizut.

    One brief shining: An Asian restaurant, the menu read, welcoming us to Golden Stix, me a Mountain dweller, and Mary, a near constant citizen of Southeast Asia since 1985, now an Auzzie in training while, I, unlike either of my siblings remain rooted in the auld soil even now during the reign of his fauxness, the one with the bottle blonde hair, and the long red tie.

     

    Mary and I have had a good visit, following the adventures of Mark in Saudi again, my son and his ceremony, Guru in Indiana with Gill who’s dating our first cousin, twice removed, Chantel. Ruth at the airport waiting on her first international flight. Shadow, who prefers women, took to Mary and Mary to Shadow. Sweet to see.

    Life in close circles where everyone matters. Loved, loving. Friends like Deb in Eau Claire. Robin. Sheila. Friends new and old. Rich. Tom. Alan. Bill. Irv. Paul. Luke and Leo.

    She flies back to Minneapolis today. We saw my son and Seoah on zoom last night. She’ll see both of them on the 26th, the day before my son’s ceremony. Ruth will see them both tomorrow. Bon voyage to Ruth whose plane leaves in an hour. My clan may be small, but it is well-traveled.

     

    Mary and I drove up Guanella Pass yesterday, an instance of National Forest wildness reachable by car. We saw Geneva Creek rushing down its narrow valley between Mt. Bierstadt and Square Top Mountain.

    (Header photograph by Tom Crane at the top of Guanella Pass.)

    Gabe at the same spot, September 2024

    At a pulloff we got out and watched, listened to Geneva Creek as its late Spring filled Water crashed over Boulders, around fallen Trees, seeking the South Fork of the North Platte on its literal analogy to Nietzsche’s myth of eternal return. Waters fall toward the World Ocean, get absorbed, rise and fall, rise and fall, rise and fall. Without the cleansing of this cycle we would all die.

    Near the top of the pass, where the ongoing road to Georgetown remains closed, were the Abyss and Burning Bear trailheads. Love the names out here in the U.S. West.

    We also saw four yearling Bighorn Sheep, one with the first curls of what will be an adult male’s 30 pounds or so of horn. Not far from where Guanella Pass starts off Hwy. 285 is the Shaggy Sheep Cafe, an excellent breakfast spot.

     

     

    Just a moment: Mary’s friend refers to the Secretary of Defense as Hogsbreath. I’m stealing that one for future writing.

    Hogsbreath has waged a too successful campaign against books in base libraries, exercising his emphasis on lethality by ridding military libraries of books focused, in his definition, on diversity, inclusiveness, and equity. All shibboleths of a woke right.


    Family Fourth Phase Mountains Park County

  • A Family and Friends Friday

    Posted on by Charles 2 Comments

    Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

    Shabbat gratefuls: Mary. A regular visitor. Spice Fusion. Tandoori Chicken and Shrimp. Lyft. Airplanes. Trains. Transportation. Shadow, the shy. The gnawer of beds. Licker of heads. Birds crying in the dawn. That Raven I saw hopping up and down. Maxwell Creek running full.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Mary, a permanent resident of Australia

    Week Kavannah: Enthusiasm. Zerizut.

    One brief shining: Mary opened the bag of take-out from Spice Fusion, the new Indian restaurant nearby, started pulling out boxes and plastic containers, and a large piece of garlic naan wrapped in enough tin foil to decorate a Christmas tree, a feast of good food with my sister. Rare.

     

    Had breakfast with Alan and Joanne. Dandelion. Always a stimulating conversation with those two. Joanne and I have an organ recital, laughing and wincing as us old folks do. Knowing the pain in the other and knowing also that the pain, while unwelcome, does not overcome life, nor the living of it. A part of the landscape for many of us over seventy and for most over eighty.

    We have stories. Told over eggs and breakfast tacos, coffee, and a blueberry scone. Of waitressing near Shiprock, Arizona. Of cutting Munsingwear underwear cutouts into smaller pieces to make ragbond paper. Or firing up the popcorn aroma machine at KMart.

    You know, friends sharing more of their story, becoming in that way part of each other’s story. Knowing each other by the breadcrumbs we drop to help others find their way in the thick forest of our memories.

    Then over to Rich’s office to deliver gifts from Ingebretsen’s, the Scandinavian gift shop in Minneapolis. A little lefse, some chocolate, some Lingonberry jam, Hackberry jam, and strings of small colorful birds. Thank you to them for finally seeing the money into my 529 account for Ruth.

    Where btw, I saw Kippur, the dog Rich and his law partner share. The last time I saw Kippur, he was a puppy who jumped up on the couch and snuggled with me like I was his long last Dad. He’s all grown up, but still that same sweet boy. What a delight to see him.

     

    Mary came. By plane, then train, then Lyft. Traveling light. So good to see her.

    We shared the second floor of 419 N. Canal for several years. Alexandria, Indiana. A small town where everybody knew your name. Much diminished from its heyday in the late 50’s and 60’s, it remains of course the reservoir of our childhoods. I’ve not been there since well before Covid.

    She and Guru will fly to Korea for my son’s ceremonial promotion to commander. Ruth will already be there, having made her first international flight tomorrow morning. Missing will be me. Hobbled still by this damn back.

    I so want to be there. To say, That’s my boy! To hug his uniformed, medaled, and beribboned person. I know he knows I would be there if I could.

    He and Seoah sent me a picture of Murdoch with his second place Dog show trophy. All three of them looked excited.


    Aging Dogs Family Fourth Phase Friends

  • Another Place I Could Be Happy

    Posted on by Charles 1 Comment

    Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

    Friday gratefuls: New, piercing pain. Left hip and leg. Shadow. Natalie. Alan and Joanne. Dandelion. Donyce. Rich. Ruth’s 529. Now available. Lifealert. New fob. Diane. Jogging again. Living with aging bodies and alert minds. Halle. New physical therapist. Mary, coming today. My son. Seoah. Murdoch.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth and her first international trip

    Week Kavannah: Enthusiasm. Zerizut.

    One brief shining: A busy, physical week of doctors, long drives, filling out forms for the cancer support trial, Amy, two zoom classes, that would have been a decade ago a light week, the difference pain can make.

     

    All I can say is, damn it! Now the left hip, so painful. Wasn’t sure I could get down five stairs holding onto the rail and a cup of coffee. That’s beginning to get in the way of daily life.

    Sorry. Don’t mean to leave a trail of agony on these pages, yet honest reporting requires acknowledgment of what’s going on. After seeing Buphati, I’m left wondering if both hips might have metastatic cancer. Sure hope not.

    We’ll know soon. Next P.E.T. scan June 3rd. Not yet scheduled for my open-sided MRI. But in the next week or two.

    This cancer/pain path I’m on demands a lot. Got accepted into a Sloan-Kettering trial to determine the better of two therapeutic protocols for cancer patients over the age of 70. Filled out pages and pages of a survey about anxiety and depression, other mental health matters. I’ll have eight phone therapy sessions with somebody. Then, booster sessions after that for four months.

    There are nuances to managing my mental health and my spiritual health (which I see as more important than either physical or mental health). I look forward to discussing them with someone paid to listen to me.

    Why is spiritual health most important? Because it contains the broader context in which both mental and physical health reside. Being one with the Tao, allowing the wu wei of physical illness and pain to run their course without stiff-arming them. Experiencing the occasional fear and dread as part of my inner work, work strengthened by mussar, by being part of two sacred communities. Taking the solace of Shadow Mountain, its Lodgepoles and Mule Deer and Aspen and late season Snow as it offers itself to me. Seeing the whole sacred world as my home.

    With those as context neither pain nor death can have permanent control of my psyche. Because pain and death are momentary, passing, but my location in the sacred unity of all things will remain.

     

    Just a moment: I find myself watching TV shows set on Islands. Death in Paradise. Hawai’i 50. Deadly Tropics. Moana and Moana 2, movies. I know, low brow in the extreme. Yet I love the combination of lightly considered mystery and the sights and sounds of Islands.

    Something about Island life calls to me. Not over against Mountain life which I also love, but as another place I could be happy. Why Hawai’i itself reached out to me not so long ago.


    Feelings Fourth Phase Hawai'i Health Judaism Mountains Paganism

  • A Good Friend

    Posted on by Charles 1 Comment

    Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

    Tuesday gratefuls: Detente with Shadow. Ruth with all A’s to finish her freshman year. Sweet Sue, my PCP. Abby, med tech and phlebotomist. Dr. Buphati’s quick intelligence. Rich, a good friend. A second MRI, hips this time. And, for good measure, a PET scan. As many images as a celeb out for a party evening.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rich

    Week Kavannah: Enthusiasm. Zerizut.

    One brief shining: On the way back from a Mountain hike, he mentioned Bees, explained his hives-on-a-wire (Bear protection), invited me over right away to see his setup; Rich and I have developed a friendship, one rooted not only in Bees, but in the work of mussar, his work as my lawyer, his kindness after Kate died, his presence at my oncology appointment, a mensch.

     

    Another one of those days. A medical day. With Sue in the morning and Dr. Buphati in the afternoon. Sue has to see me every 3 months because she’s managing my tramadol prescription. A regulated substance. She’s a delight. A caring person and a good doc. She has an FNP-BC which is a souped up nurse practitioner certification.

    Nothing new this visit. But still reassuring to see her.

    After my time with her, I drove over to Rich’s office and we went to lunch at the Nepalese/Himalayan place in Bergen Park, the downtown Edina of Evergreen.

    We ran into his 86 year old mom who had come shopping there. She had her helper, Linda, and her dog, Sparky, with her. Obviously bright and with it, she’s become frail, and Rich coaxed her to come up two steps. He’s a kind man.

    Rich drove us into Englewood for my visit with Dr. Buphati and came in with me. My blood work showed stability in my cancer. Always good news. Concerning though was my right hip which threatens to buckle under me at times.

    “We’ll need an MRI of that hip to see if it’s arthritis or cancer. I’m also scheduling another PET scan.”

    Even with an open-sided MRI I now know I’ll need medication. Claustrophobia. “I’ll prescribe an ativan.”

    Rich volunteered to drive me to the MRI. After a procedure with sedation, state law requires a driver. I’m learning to accept help; Rich and Alan and Tara have made it easy.

    I’m feeling settled with the cancer. It continues, as it will. My medical team and I push back at it and it slows down. Matters will progress at whatever pace they do.

    The back pain much less so. It continues and offers now a stabbing pain in my left hip followed by a thrill of pain that descends from the hip, along my left thigh, past my knee and down to my foot. While sitting down. Sitting down used to have no pain.

    Physical therapy, round two, starts today for my back. As Rich suggested yesterday, I need to develop enthusiasm for working out. Again. A substantial practice for this month. And, a necessary one.

    I know. An organ recital with too many notes. Still…

     


    Fourth Phase Friends Health Judaism

  • Freedom. Often painful. Always difficult.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

    Sunday gratefuls: Joe. Bill. Rob. Seth. Matt. Jim. Allan. Jamie. CBE men’s group. The Cow Elks and Bull dining while we talked. Berrigan Mountain and Elk Meadow behind us. Sanctuary outdoor porch. The wonderful Ponderosa with its twisted limbs. A breeze. My son. Donyce. Rich. Shadow, greeter of the dark Morning.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Men, talking

    Week Kavannah:  Enthusiasm. Zerizut.

    One brief shining: As Mother Earth kept turning toward the east, Berrigan Mountain slid across the horizon and Great Sol seemed to move lower in the Sky, the Air around us grew chilly while we talked on of 8 year old sons, narcissistic ex-husbands, mothers who shamed us, the isolation of Covid, getting caught driving while drinking, hoping that somehow our story would intersect with another’s lev, allow us to be seen and heard.

     

    A young Bull Elk with only two points had a harem of ten Cows, unlike Marlon Brando in Waterfront, he was already a contender. His virility displayed itself as I turned past the Life Care Center of Evergreen and drove up the asphalt road leading to the synagogue. Men’s group.

    We’ve begun to open ourselves, still easy to move into the head, Jewish men after all,  acculturated to hide vulnerability, paper over feelings with work and vain glory. American men.

    Some lonely. Some afraid. Some eager. All glad for the presence of other men, a rarity for most. Like Shadow trust will not come without time, without bravery, without tears and laughter. Well begun.

     

    Torah study in the morning. Ten tests of the freed Hebrew slaves as they move through the desert wastes of the Sinai. Taking the slaves out of Egypt. Yes. Taking Egypt out of the freed Hebrews. Hard. Liberation begins in the lev. Backsliding, fear, regression. Part of the package.

    Why bring us all the way out here? So far from the familiar life. This cannot be what freedom is. Or, if this is freedom, I prefer the certainty of servitude. Let me go back. I’m scared. What if I’m not strong enough, good enough. Enough.

    To move away from oppression to liberation requires sacred awareness, awareness of the power and resilience beneath the beaten down heart, the overworked, over stressed body. Realizing, yes, that fear of liberation, of gaining personal freedom and responsibility can cripple us, too. As much, early on maybe more, than the dull routines of our personal Egypt.

    Not different from the confinement of maleness in America.

     

    Just a moment: Men showing off their brute strength by deporting the weak, the outcast, the poor yearning to be free. Mocking the great Lady of New York Harbor, inverting the American promise, slashing the preamble of the Constitution into shredded parchment. If it’s aesthetic or academic or kind. No. If it’s crude, cheap, destructive, dogmatic, malicious. Yes.

    Can you hear the slaves wandering in the desert where capitalist shrouds constrain all the loving-kindness, all the justice, all the mercy, all the rational and life-saving thinking? If it’s not good for the bottom line, what good is it? The Egypt of an extractive, idolatrous economy. Killing all of us while making some very comfortable in the funeral procession.

    No. He will not be the Pope. But. He’s already Pharaoh.


    Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Judaism Men Politics Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Torah

  • A Busy Thursday

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

    Friday gratefuls: Alan. Snow. Ruby’s all season shoes. On Monday. Plus many fluids. Back pain. PSA blood draw. Cancer. And other fancy stuff. Shadow and the marrow bones. Tom’s portrait of Shadow. Lake Superior. The Boreal Forest. The Arrowhead. Grand Marais. Thunder Bay. Up North. Parashat Tazria-Metzora

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Being a student

    Week Kavannah: Persistence. Grit. Netzach.

    One brief shining: The Mountains rise up and slope down into Valleys, our roads here in the Rockies thin slices of asphalt or gravel following the rising up and the sloping down, the changes in direction commanded by rocky prominences and Snow melt filled Streams carrying the Mountains themselves downstream ever so slowly, slowly.

     

    Yesterday. Seems so far away. So far away. Diane reminded me to ask for help. To set up ways to get to appointments-not only when I’m being sedated. I know this transition has to occur. Yet I’ve gone so long now on my own. I need, yes need, to let others do for me what I would do for them.

    Irv and Paul and I discussed the nature of evil, whether it exists at all or is just a human construct.

    At the Kabbalah Experience we continued our exploration of the story of Adam and Eve. This time wondering about our ability to live outside the givenness of our lives, to see what we cannot know exists.

    Dave Sanders offered the Truman Show as an example. A simulacrum. Where is the edge of our learned world? Do we need a stage light to crash through the set for a big reveal?

    His point? The Garden of Eden as Seahaven, the village in Truman’s life. A small paradise filled with every needful thing. The stage light, the Snake and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bad. The expulsion as Truman’s daring escape on the sail boat.

    Later Rabbi Jamie and our Thursday afternoon mussar group discussing the middah of bushah, most often translated as shame. Not in Jamie’s translation of the Orchot Tzaddikim. He uses self-consciousness or conscientiousness.

    Bushah arises when we realize we have been less than who we see ourselves to be. Shame comes when we see ourselves not as less than we see ourselves to be, but when we see ourselves as less than intrinsically. Shame, in other words, is an extreme, even perverted instance of bushah. Guilt, embarrassment, chagrin may represent the mid-point of this continuum from shyness to shame, the healthy feelings that encourage us to investigate our behaviors, then act to change them.

    After all that I drove over to Evergreen Medical for a blood draw, another PSA. My every three month peek into the status of my cancer. Waiting for the hormone resistant shoe to drop. Wish I could allay that feeling, expunge it. Just wait and see.

    But I know that’s the next phase of this journey, that it marks a more treacherous road ahead. A part of me wishes we’d just get on with it. Go down the chemotherapy path or other treatments for hormone resistant Stage 4 prostate cancer.

    I don’t want that, not really. I want to stay where I am as long as I can. Androgen deprivation therapy, my current protocol, always fails. Not whether, but when. The waiting though carries its own cost. Will this blood draw be the one?

    Living with this uncertainty and the insidious effects of back pain can create moments of intense darkness.


    Fourth Phase Friends Health Judaism Kabbalah Mussar