• Category Archives Fourth Phase

  • Repost from Sept. 4, 2022: Jon has died.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    The Harvest Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: Ruth. Gabe. Jon. Kate, always Kate. Death. Life. The passage of Time. The Great Wheel, turning. Lugnasa. Fall. Samain. Then the fallow time. The fourth phase. After childhood and education, after family and career, after early retirement and young old age. A time of life’s harvest gathered in for the final years. Knowing that, yes, spring will come for the young ones, summer, too. And we will rely on their memory to keep us here in the physical world.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Grief

    Kavanah: COMPASSION   רַחֲמִים Rachamim    Compassion, empathy; related to רֶחֶם womb; cognitive function = personal feeling

    One brief shining: A shock in the late evening, the call from Ruth I can still hear today-“Dad is dead.”-disbelief, sadness for the kids, a rush in my heart to get to them, the long forty-five minute drive through traffic and street lights, past stores and filling stations, others going about their life while one we knew would never again find his way in this material world.

    The Repost:

    Lughnasa and the Harvest Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Jon. Ruth. Gabe. Meme. Death. Again. Arapahoe county medical investigator. Police. Family gathering. Again. Sarah. BJ. Joe. Seoah. Kep. Aurora. Jon’s house. Plan. Change plan. That gurney.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: the cycle of life and death

     

    A phone call. About 6:45 pm. One ring on the cell phone. Off. Then the landline. Hard to understand. Someone in distress. Crying. Dad’s dead. It was Ruth. She had gone down in the basement of their house to ask him a question and found him. He was cold.

    Yes, of course I’ll be there. Threw on my jeans. Grabbed my keys and my phone. Headed down the hill for the 45 minute plus drive in to Aurora.

    Joe called. He had plans underway. Be here tomorrow or Wednesday with Seoah. I called Sarah. No luck. All the way down thinking. Jon. Ruth. Gabe. Meme, their cat. What happens now?

    Jon. A tortured soul. Buffeted too much by life, never found that life preserver that could have kept him afloat. He would have been 54 this year. Not suicide. Except in a post-divorce slow motion lack of self-care way.

    By the time I got there the EMTs had come and gone. Pronounced him dead. An Aurora police car sat near the house. Jen was there.

    Ruthie ran up to my car as I drove by. I stopped. She leaned in and sobbed.

    Once I parked both Gabe and Ruth ran to me and we formed a tight circle, hugging each other, a defense against this mystery, so ordinary, yet so harsh, so final. Crying. Crying.

    Both of them surprised me by asking me how I got through the death of my mother. They knew I was young and that it was sudden. I was numb for a long time. In shock, I said.

    Gabe went with me to get some water. Are you really leaving in February? I really wish you’d stay longer. Oh. Arrow found my heart. Focus on the now.

    Back at the house on Florence Avenue a vigil of sorts set up. Waiting on the medical investigator for Araphahoe County and the coroner’s van. I had to take my Mountain appropriate sweatshirt off in deference to the 83 degrees of an Aurora late evening.

    Jon’s house is in a working class neighborhood. Small brick homes placed close to each other. A mixed community of Latino and poorer whites. The light from the police cruiser painted the house across from Jon’s in a thin layer of bluish white. Hushed conversations.

    Jen and I. Thought we might get along but her animosity and cruel treatment of both Jon and Kate was too close to the surface. We had different sectors and the kids came to each of us at different points.

    The coroner’s van came. Ruth gave Jon’s quilt wrapped body a final hug and the gurney took him on his last exit from his house.

    I left shortly after, driving back up the hill. Ruth and Gabe headed to their mom’s. Sarah and BJ are on their way. Joe and Seoah.

    Many things unclear. How will I communicate with Ruth and Gabe now that they will be with their mom full time? What kind of service? Where? Ruth said Jon wanted to be cremated.

    The coroner will have his body at least until Tuesday late afternoon. They have to determine cause of death, rule out suicide, other possibilities. Sarah, as his closest blood relative, has legal authority since Ruth is under 18.

    Jon had no will. What happens to the house, the cars? All of the stuff in the house. The house itself.

    Lots of details ahead. For which I have little energy. Feeling like Colorado has been about too much disease and death. Conflicted about Gabe’s comment. Wanting so much to start a new chapter far from here. Hearing him. And, Ruth.


    Family Feelings Fourth Phase Memories

  • Earth Waves

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    The Harvest Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: Ruth. Gabe. Boulder. Ruby. Celebrex. Tramadol. THC. Gettin’ old. The gradual arrival of Fall. Great Sol. The Flatirons. The High Plains as they wash up against the Laramide Oregeny’s Rocky Mountains. Mountains as Earth Waves. Second looks at my prostate cancer facts. Kristie. Steve. Dr. Leonard. Mr. In Between. Whippets. My son.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Staying the course with Ruth and Gabe

    Kavanah: STABILITY יְסוֹד Yesod    Stable, rooted, grounded; literally “foundation”  Ninth Sefirah = Connection & communication; covenant relationship; regenerative organ  [נְתִיקָה Netika: Disconnected, detached, rootless, neurotic]

    One brief shining: We gathered, the three of us, the last of Jon’s close family, sitting outside at the Hapa Sushi Grill and Sake Bar, Jon’s complicated impact on each of us lifted to the surface as we ordered the Multiple Orgasm Roll, the Hapa Special Roll, and a sashimi sampler with Daikon fries while Labor Day freed Boulderites and UC students wandered up and down the Pearl Street Mall.

     

    At ten am Gabe and I took off for Boulder, an hour drive from Shadow Mountain. Once on 470 we headed east always driving along the Hogbacks that mark the earlier Oregeny (Mountain Building) phase that preceded the Laramide. Thrust up on angles toward the west, these ancient Rock formations mark the end of the High Plains, or their beginning. Heading east from the Hogbacks the High Plains move toward their lower, yet contiguous sisters that make up the Plains States, running as far east as western Minnesota.

    Though technically the west begins around the 105th parallel in Nebraska, where Rainfall dips below 20 inches a year, the feeling of being in the West, the Mountain West, only begins when you see the Rockies in the distance and their older brethren, the Hogbacks. Coming from the east, of course, as I mostly have.

    I have a marked sense of awe, in Hebrew yirah, wherever I drive in the Mountains. This path from Shadow Mountain to Boulder thrills me, as it follows the evidence of plate tectonics active 75 through 35 million years ago, evidence inescapable to the eye and to the internal combustion engine. The hand of Gaia splashing the ocean of land and creating waves in her outermost layer, easy to see even now so long after she finished. Earth waves.

     

    Just a moment: Even with the Celebrex on board, the drive from home to Boulder, then to Denver to drop Gabe off on Galena Street and finally back west through Denver and up 285, left me in pain. And long before I finally got home.

    When I got back, I hurt so bad I tossed in a tramadol and an edible. Big mistake. My stomach said no, I do not like this, not at all. Please go to bed. So I did. At 4:30 pm. Got back up a couple of hours later.

    Worth it though. Gabe and Ruth need time together and time with me. Especially yesterday, two days from the second anniversary of Jon’s death. I gave both of them yahrzeit candles, candles that burn the full 24 hours of a yahrzeit. Had to take Ruth’s back because: no candles at all ever in the dorms. Oh. Yeah.

     


    Boulder Denver Family Feelings Fourth Phase Health Mountains Shadow Mountain

  • Dried Up

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    The Harvest Moon

    Labor Day gratefuls: Gabe up here. 47 degrees this morning. Seeing my son with Gabe yesterday evening. Zoom. The Ancient Brothers on poetry. Weakness. Sarcopenia. Coffee. Mac and Cheese with flayed, grilled Shrimp and Japanese mayo. Ode in Glacier Park.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Scrolling through pictures with Gabe

    Kavanah: Love Ahava

    One brief shining: Ruby pulled over to the side of Brook Forest Drive, Gabe got out, I did too, locked her, and we began a familiar hike up Kate’s Valley to its outlet at the Pond where I distributed Kate’s ashes; it took us a minute, we were so used to it being there, the Creek, Kate’s Creek, had dried up.

     

    This bummed us out. Both of us. The Creek filled the Valley with the gentle sound of Water rushing over Rocks. It carried Kate’s ashes quickly away from the Pond, heading toward the Gulf of Mexico and the World Ocean. Plants thrived along its banks and it made Rocks slippery where we needed to cross. The Valley felt empty, deprived of its soul.

    Partly because I’m not as strong as I used to be, mostly because we both felt it wasn’t worth the effort without the Creek, we turned back well before the Pond. A treasured friend had gone missing, a friend who gave music, the laughter of Water spilling over Rocks, a sense of vitality with its rapid flow.

    The Creek’s Bed laid bare, the Rocks in it seemed ordinary, no longer mysterious beneath its surface. Further up we did find trickles of water, as if the Creek wanted to return, wanted to offer itself as it once had, but that Water died out, too.

    I’ve gone up and down Kate’s Valley, along Kate’s Creek for five or six years. Never once was it dry. Until yesterday. Denver Parks has done Fire mitigation along its sides. Did something they did plug up its source? We didn’t get far enough back to hazard a guess.

    Hard to describe how distressing this was. Left both of us sad. We’ve had Rain this summer, we’re not in drought conditions. A puzzle.

    After, back at Shadow Mountain, I heated up the Mac and Cheese, divided the remains of the Shrimp entree from my visit to Luke’s. Gabe and I ate together.

     

    Just a moment: How bout those former East Germans voting in a far right bloc? Talk about irony. They’ve gone from fascism to communism to democracy back to fascism.

    Though I’m not sure what’s going to happen in the election here, a chance exists, a good chance, I believe, that we’ll turn away from far right populism and its odors of fascism, a movement giving off the stench of bigotry, hatred, and outright stupidity. The festering wounds of our Trump infected years.

    I know. Even if we elect Kamala and Tim, there will still be stores selling red hats eager to promote a lost America that never was. There will still be people to purchase them. The flags won’t come off the pickup trucks. There’ll be one more shot at overturning the election. I hope the last.

    But maybe, maybe we’ll turn the corner and drive like hell away from Mar-a-Lago.


    Family Feelings Fourth Phase Mountains Politics

  • Coiled Around It In a Flash

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    The Off to College Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Seoah. My son. Dawn. A milky gray blue Sky. 47 degrees. Leo and Luke. Lakewood. Autism. Cash on hand. The Beatles. Mary and Mark, their ex-pat lives. Mary between K.L. and Melbourne; Mark between humid, libertine Bangkok and arid, rule bound Saudi Arabia. Ode in Glacier, seeing, then drawing. Travel. Taipei. Seoul. Songtan. Taos. Santa Fe.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Celebrex

    Kavanah:  KINDNESS חֶסֶד Chesed   Kindness, sharing, helpfulness  Fourth Sefirah = expansion & unboundedness; love & mercy; right hand pulling closer (opposite Gevurah/Strength) (טוּב-לֵב Tuv Lev: Good-heartedness, benevolence, charitableness)

    One brief shining: At Luke’s in Lakewood yesterday I watched Sacha, his Ball Python, move around her aquarium home, forked tongue piercing the air as her sinuous moves carried over a Tree branch, dipped her nose into the water, then slipped around and behind a large rock, always the tongue out, sniffing the air; she’s hungry, Luke said, looking for the live rats I give her.

     

    Sacha, named after Sacha Mama, a Peruvian forest guardian deity, gets fed in a plastic bucket. Luke quickly throws in a live rat, about every two weeks. She’s coiled around it in a flash, he said. Sometimes the rat’s eyes bulge until it quit thrashing. Sacha releases the rat and feels it with her head until she determines where the head is and proceeds to consume it head first, moving it through her body as she goes into S-shaped constrictions to crush all of its bones. Takes her about two days to digest her meal. Gentle Luke. Primal Sacha. Nature red in tooth and scale.

     

    Gabe’s coming up today. We’ll go searching for wild Raspberries along Kate’s Creek. Hope we find some since he loves eating wild fruit. Tomorrow we head over to UC-Boulder and pick up Ruth. We plan a sushi meal on the Pearl Street Mall in honor of Jon, who died two years ago on September 4th. It’s important that I celebrate with them since we’re Jon’s surviving family.

    Afterward, I’ll take Gabe home to Galena Street in northeast Denver and hopefully drive home against returning Labor Day traffic. The Celebrex makes all of this possible with much less stress on my body. Which I very much appreciate.

     

    Just a moment: Another surprising word about chronic pain. First, my shortness of breath has diminished. Not sure why though it might be that the fatigue caused by pain led my respiratory muscles to tire, too. Second, it’s not perfect, but I don’t need it to be. I still feel little jolts and tweaks in my hip. What’s different is that my back and core aren’t struggling to contain the pain, tightening and holding in awkward positions.

    I’m still amazed at how much pain relief has done to help my quality of life. Only beginning to appreciate what it might mean if I can continue to use the Celebrex. We’ll check kidney and liver functions in a month and if they’re ok, every three months after. I may have to buy Cheryl, my phlebotomist, a cake. She says she’s gonna retire in January, but I hope not. She’s smooth as buttah.

     


    Asia Family Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Health

  • Got it now

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    The Off to College Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Diane. Ruth in Willville. Taking college classes. Eating dorm food. Gabe, coming up this weekend. My son and Seoah, a year ago yesterday in Songtan. Travel. Celebrex will help. Affirming life. Not waiting on death. Greeting Great Sol. The new fan in my bedroom. Keeping me cool. Electric blankets. Eyes. The occipital lobe. Frontal cortex. Amygdala. Hippocampus. Gray matter. White matter. Limbic system. Sloshing around in our skulls.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Mark’s new job!

    Kavanah:  PEACE  שָׁלוֹם Shalom   Peace, quietness, wholeness (קוֹר רוּחַ Kor Ruach: Calm, composure, literally a “cool spirit”) [בֶּהָלָה Behala, beh-ha-LAH: Fear, alarm, panic]

    One brief shining: The blue Sky silhouettes the gentle curve of Black Mountain, its stony bulk covered by green Lodgepoles and clonal colonies of Aspen, at ten thousand feet it rises another twelve hundred feet above my home here on the top of Shadow Mountain, yet does not lord it over us, rather graces us with a neighborly, oh, there’s another Mountain feeling.

     

    Sometimes I read more into what people say than they intend. I’m not the only one, I’m pretty sure. Let me give you an example. In conversation with my long time and dear friend Tom he made a casual comment about my application to get a Whippet puppy. “That’s a life affirming choice.”

    He meant, I now believe: “That’s a life affirming choice.” I heard: I’m relieved you’ve finally made a life affirming choice after several weeks focused on death or disability. Which, of course, reflects my immersion, partial, yes, but tangible nonetheless, in matters cancerous over the last few weeks.

    Since, in fact, that day after my bar mitzvah, when he and Paul listened in on my telehealth visit with Kristie. I try, and most of the time believe I succeed, in living a balanced life when it comes to cancer. That is, I acknowledge its existence, keep up with my blood draws, doctor visits, take my meds. Do what’s needed, what I can do. After that let it lie as a complex fact of my existence, not really at the level of consciousness most of the time.

    Over the time since my PSA went up during my drug holiday, sooner than Kristie expected, I’ve been up and down, a shortened life span, wrestling the lesser demons in my body, mostly in an unhappy stew of uncertainty about where things stood. I felt Tom had ridden through my cover and seen the other side. Now, he may have. But in this instance he was not talking about that, but instead he was giving me a thumbs up for doggy possibilities. Sorry, Tom. Got it now.

     

    Just a Moment: The asshole snuck above the fold with his usual gauchity, douchebagness. Doing politics in Arlington Cemetery. Flouting military rules designed to prevent it. I suppose this falls under the there’s no such thing as bad publicity rule. I’m so, so tired of him, of his disregard for decency, for the rule of law, for his support of white supremacists, his misogyny, his overall creepiness. So tired.

     


    Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Health Mountains Politics

  • Heirs

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    The Off to College Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: Tom. Diane. Brother Mark’s Bangkok walks. Water Monitors. Cattle Egrets. Wild Neighbors in urban areas. Rebecca leaving for India and the Buddhist nunnery. Joanne. Her new book with two Buddhist therapists. Pain. Cranking it down without addiction. Whippets. Sight Hounds. And those who love and breed them. Dogs. Oh, OK. Dogs again.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Sight Hounds

    Kavannah:  Friendship  אַחֲוָה Achava (חֲבֵרוּת Chaverut: Partnership, camaraderie) (אַחְדוּת Achdut: Unity, solidarity, togetherness)

    One brief shining: A few decades ago, maybe 4, a group of middle-aged men who knew each other somewhat well ate dinner together in an Indian restaurant in Minneapolis, joined by two other men who did not know each other, but had slight acquaintance with one or two of the others; might have been a poker night or a get together to watch the Vikings lose another big game, instead it was the beginning of 40 year plus bonds of friendship among the Woolly Mammoths, who surprisingly still live up to their motto: We’re not extinct yet.

    Wegman’s

    Keep forgetting to post this. If you wanted to mail drugs worth $800 for a thirty day supply, how would you package them? Wegman’s is a compounding specialty pharmacy. Inside this colorful wrap sat my first doses of this round of Erleada. Clever, eh? And it gives the healthy message Ms. Thurston gave me in the first grade: Charles Paul, eat your vegetables. A twofer. Fun with cancer!

     

    Had a session with my folks at Bond and Devick, financial advisors, RJ now for over thirty five years. They keep Kate’s IRA rollover steady. When the market goes up, you go up a little; when the market goes down, you go down a little. We’ve been with them since Penny Bond formed her firm, then hired RJ later on as her first employee. RJ just stepped down as owner/President, but keeps client contact and portfolio work. The IRA churns out what a 19th century British novel would refer to as a stipend and a nice one at that. With my Presbyterian pension and Social Security, I have more than adequate monthly cash. And. I will leave a tidy sum to my heirs: Ruth and Gabe, Seoah and my son. My heirs? That’s a weird phrase to write out loud.

    The corpus has indeed gone up a little, down a little, always growing a bit but staying in the same basic range. Kate, always Kate, left me better off than she found me in so many ways, not the least financially. A shame that she didn’t get to enjoy the money she earned for longer. Thankfully, we had long ago passed the mark of mine and hers. We were together in all ways, no barriers between us. When she died, so did a part of me. A part now, in the way of the Soil, fertile ground for my new life after her death.

    I suppose, come to consider it, that is the point of having heirs.

     

     

     


    Family Feelings Fourth Phase Health Woolly Mammoths

  • Pain and Suffering

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    The Off to College Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: RJ. Michele. Bond and Devick. Penny. Kate, always Kate. Ruth in college. Great workout yesterday. Terry. Rebecca. Joanne. Ginny and Janice. Whippets. Emma and Bridgit. Hilo and Kona. Buck and Iris. Dogs. Great Sol. Celebrex. Pain tamped down. Kamala’s bounce. May it grow. New electric blanket. Mary’s birthday across the International Date Line. Happy Birthday, Mary.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Sisters

    Kavanah: UNDERSTANDING בִּינָה Bina:  Understanding, differentiation, deep insight; from בּוּן to split, pierce/penetrate; also בֵּין between.  Third Sefirah = Left brain (opposite Chochmah/Wisdom)  (תְבוּנָה Tevunah: Comprehension, analytical thought, reason & intellect)

    One brief shining: Take one a day with food it says on the pill bottle, a small white capsule, generic Celebrex, and so, compliant and dutiful, I take mine with breakfast as I read about Kamala and Tim, about Israel and Hamas, about Ukraine’s invasion of Russia, all outer battles dealing with the pain of conflicting values and unyielding desires for power, while in my blood stream this Cox-2 inhibitor acts to reduce the inner pain of spinal stenosis, pinched nerves, in my lower back.

     

    Long ago, a young medical student who had become my friend told me he believed doctors should treat pain, but never suffering. Steve Miles went on to become a well know medical ethicist, and his words have stayed with me down the decades. Treating suffering meant treating it medicinally, with narcotics or other addictive substances. As the oxy epidemic hit, ironically, it would be the treatments for pain that caused the suffering.

    Suffering is the province of religion and psychoanalysis, self-knowledge and self-care. Not medicines. At the time psychotropic drugs were often more problem than cure. Some still are and the issue is still fraught. As I hope it always will be. We need caution when crossing the line between medicine and the inner world of the psyche.

    Granddaughter Ruth and stepson Jon are, together, paradigmatic. Ruth has struggled and fought for a sane life without maintenance psychotropics. She’s currently using none and is in her best mental health of the last decade. Jon self-medicated his psychic pain. And died as a result. The balance between the bodymind and its from the outside aids for health remains a form of art as much as science. Perhaps a matter for religion at its best, kindest, and broadest.

    Who are we? What brings us joy and love? How do we know the path that leads to a full and rich life? The ancientrail right for you? On my own path I stumbled long ago after my mother’s death sent my Self on an underworld journey maintained and sustained by alcohol. It took years of analysis to find my way back to the light. Not psychotropics, but deep self-understanding, self-forgiveness.

    This week I’m on a different path. Back to Steve and the treatment of pain. I thought since my back pain wasn’t constant it wasn’t chronic. Sue thought I’d feel better if she could treat the pain. I reluctantly agreed. Celebrex carries heavy potential side effects and I’d said no to this kind of intervention before.

    In the three days I’ve taken it I’ve learned some things about pain. I didn’t realize the degree to which I’d adjusted and adapted my daily to ease my pain. More and more sitting. Lying down. Not lifting. Doing household chores slowly, resting often. Sometimes deferring them. And here’s an odd piece. As I adapted to the pain, I did not think it was chronic because I could make it fade. That was the pain managing my life for me. Huh. This in spite of regular exercise, physical therapy.

    With the Celebrex on board I can bend down without wincing, turn corners without tweaking my back, go upstairs with ease, get out of chairs without groaning. It’s seductive. I feel more and more as I used to in my body. That is a wondrous thing. Yet the dangers it poses are real. Again, more blood draws to check liver and kidney functions. Taking prilosec to guard against intestinal bleeding. I may not be able to sustain its use. But, I might, too. It’s nonaddictive, why I chose it, on second thought, over tramadol.

    I’ve dealt with my suffering. Perhaps now its time to let physicians treat my pain.

     

     


    Feelings Fourth Phase Health

  • An Unserious Man

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    The Off to College Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Mussar. Rabbi Jamie. Laurie and her Chicago stories. And her chili cheese hotdogs. The Pearl. Ruby. Ruth on campus. Kepler, my sweet boy. Kate, always Kate. The blue Sky above, Shadow Mountain Home beneath. Kamala. Her tagging of 45 as an unserious man. Joanne and Alan at the Parkside. Labcorps. Marilyn and Irv.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Kamala and Coach Walz

    Kavanah: Serenity  Menucha

    One brief shining: A lesson in patience has come my way, the comparatively (to Quest) slow pace of getting my still not available PSA and testosterone numbers sent me down on Wednesday, forced to adjust my attitude, to open my heart to waiting, which has taught me to consider my desire for knowing, for knowing now, for knowing what comes next, for knowing estimates of my life span, that desire changes neither my PSA, what comes next, or my life span. Oh.

     

    The story of the Pearl resonates with all who hear it. Though. Realized after recounting this at mussar yesterday Oysters are not kosher. No fins or scales. I’m not observing kosher, perhaps obviously, yet I did have to stop and consider this. If I were to observe kosher, and I have no plan to right now, it would be along the lines of ethical eating. Which is the function of kosher observance in traditional Jewish life. I do eat far less red meat than in the past, partly health and partly to eat lower on the food chain. Use less resources.

    Still working on finding a jeweler or silversmith. Harder than I thought it would be. Evergreen Goldsmiths could have done what I wanted, but they closed. Going to the Silver Arrow gallery to see if they have recommendations.

     

    No results from Labcorp. Not sure what’s going on. Practicing the midot of serenity. Does it make me serene to get agitated about not having these numbers? No. Will asking my docs to look into it help with my serenity? Yes. So I did that just now. Inner calm. Yes.

     

    Just a moment: Listened to the opening twenty minutes or so of Kamala’s speech. Trump as an unserious man. Oh, yes. An epithet so true and so weakening. I hope it gains viral currency. I found her speech fine, but not exceptional. Not a barn burner as we might say in our suddenly spotlighted Midwest. So I stopped listening. Don’t need a barn burner. Need steady, stable, democratic small d. A return to normalcy. Never thought I’d write or believe those words.

    She seems to have captured the zeitgeist perfectly. Hyperbolic promises and overheated rhetoric play into the bombast and chest-thumping of the MAGA style. We do not need more of that. We need to take this narrow window Kamala recognizes and keep the orange one in his billionaire fantasy world, his tasteless Trump Tower and gauche Mar-a-Lago. There to await the consequences of his criminal activity as his various trials come to fruition and his debts to his victims come due.

     

     


    Family Feelings Fourth Phase Health Judaism Myth and Story Politics

  • Learning. Still. Always.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    The Off to College Moon

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

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Pearl

    Kavanah: COMPASSION  Rachamim

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

     

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

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

     

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

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


    Family Feelings Fourth Phase Kabbalah Mussar

  • Luminescence

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    The Off to College Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: Ruth, off to college today! Good workout yesterday. The Democratic National Convention. Joe and his years. Joe and his tears. Kamala. Tim. AOC. Go, blue, go. Politics. A frisson of hope. A dollop of excitement. A Discovery of Witches on Netflix. Finishing the filet mignon from my dinner with Kate and her pearl. Tara. Dandelion.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth, her journey of independence which starts today.

    Kavanah: KNOWLEDGE   Da’at (DAH-aht)   knowledge, sensibility, awareness; from ידע to experientially/cognitively know

    First Sefirah = כֶּתֶר Keter, KEH-tare: Top of head, superconscious mind, literally “crown” (between Chochmah/Wisdom & Binah/Understanding)  This is kabbalah.

    One brief shining: Still wrapped in the pearl’s luminescence Monday took me into an intimate place with my grief and with remembrance, a few tears as I recalled our life together, more smiles as I remembered making salads from our vegetables, eating toast with honey from our bees, evenings spent hanging out with our dogs, often Irish Wolfhounds on our laps, Hanukah nights with Gabe and Ruth on Shadow Mountain, driving down the hill to Congregation Beth Evergreen together.

     

    As I go into the lab today, get my vein punctured again, small vials of blood filled by the beating of my heart, this lab test’s importance weighs a bit on my lev. Yes, I need and want the da’at, the knowledge, it will bring. Yet it could bring knowledge of a shortened life span. If so, that’s ok, I have no need to last longer than I can. Memories of Kate’s final days comfort me. Not that she wasn’t suffering. She was. But she was resolute, loving, and brave, too. A role model about how to face the end, not with a whimper, but a bang.

    Does not change this life, this August 20th life. Which I woke into around 6 am. Opening my eyes from the small death of sleep to an unpromised resurrection. As I have for over 77 years. May continue to do so for years more.

    See Tara for breakfast this morning at the Dandelion. Like a workout seeing friends restores me as I hope to do for them. Seeing. Being seen. Hearing. Being heard. Touching. Being touched. The essential food of the soul.

     

    Just a moment: So happy to see Kamala and Tim, even Joe, above the fold. And that other person not there at all. The squatter removed from land he had begun to imagine was his alone.

    I did not look forward to spending the last of my golden years under a Trumpist storm of bigotry, lavish capitalism, and the decline of U.S. status in the world. Of course, that’s still a real possibility, but now it’s a fight, not a giveaway. I’ll go with Kamala’s: When we fight, we win!

    Mixed feelings here about protesters at the convention. Deja vu all over again. Except. In 1968 the U.S. had intervened militarily in a civil war. Based on the domino theory which imagined countries becoming communist if touched by red fairy dust. Makes me wonder what those old war mongers thought was so appealing about communism, but that’s another story.

    Here the protesters have sided with the Palestinians against Israeli aggression. I agree with the facet of their argument that contends Israel has gone too far. Way too far. Where we part company is in the protesters willing blindness to the suffering of Jews over time, the reason for Israel’s existence, and the horrific nature of the Hamas attack on October 7th. This is a story with no heroes, no glory, no victory.


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