Category Archives: Fourth Phase

Art and Culture, Denver, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Music, Weather +Climate

Weather and Joy

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The Mountain Summer Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Ruth. Alan. Cheri. The Inspire Concerts. RTD. Federal Center Station. St. Anthony Hospital. New knee, me. New shoulder, Kate. Ruby. 96, high in Denver today. The Ancient Brothers. Kamala. The orange comb over. These disunited States. Rain. Hale. Luke. Leo. Ginny. Janice. Great Sol. Cancer drugs. Jewish music. Today with Ruth.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth

One brief shining: Short splats increased to faster, staccato impacts the skylights enlarging the sound, then the Hail, small at first, then larger pounded pounded pounded with the insistence of the natural world not recognizing barriers, pounding against them with the kind of fury increased by falling from a great height as Leo and I looked outside seeing balls of Ice bounce around on the black driveway.

 

A lesson in Mountain Microclimates. While Leo and I enjoyed a hard Rain with Hail, Luke only needed a transparent umbrella at the wedding being held on the west side of Black Mountain in Staunton State Park. Not very far as the Moose walks. Up and down Black Mountain. From their home in the State Park to our yards here on Shadow Mountain, the next Mountain over.

As the bride walked down the aisle, Luke said, the heavens parted and shone a bright light directly on her. Heaven sent. We take in the awe, perhaps dismiss it as random, as unmotivated and therefore meaningless except in a Hollywood sort of way, but yirah is yirah. Wherever and whenever. Yirah is a human emotion, a middot, too, one known in the lev, in the mind-heart. Experienced not in its source but in its recipient.

I enjoyed the thirty minutes or so of heavy Rain, conditioned by decades of Midwestern life to know the nurturance of a good Rain. Good for the crops. Leo wasn’t so sure about the Thunder. He didn’t tuck his tail between his legs, but he did pace. Some Dogs can have an outsized response to Thunder.

Tira, a Wolfhound bitch who lived with us in Andover, once impaled herself on a fence gate and clawed apart and bit, too, a license plate on the Tundra parked just across from the gate. I ran out when I found her and lifted her 160 pound body off the gate in one move. Adrenaline. Fortunately the wound was not deep. Her teeth and front paws though. Bloody.

 

Just a moment: Will elaborate tomorrow, but I spent a joyful day with Ruth today. We walked to Alan and Cheri’s from Union Station. Painful, but doable. So irritating to have this impediment. Walking has been my favorite way to see a city. Now I have to walk some, rest some. Walk some, rest some. Made it to Spire Condominiums across from the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.

Up 38 floors to 3810, Alan and Cheri’s place, for another home based concert. Rabbi Joe Black, senior Rabbi at the huge Temple Emmanuel, sang. As did Eitan Kantor, a local Jewish musician. And a pianist and song writer whose name I don’t have. More on this tomorrow.

Art and Culture, Asia, Dreams, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health

Travelers Among Mountains and Streams

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The Mountain Summer Moon

Travelers Among Mountains and Streams  Fan Kuan. C. 1000 ACE

Friday gratefuls: Lab Corps. New test results. Uh, oh. Kristie, later today. Mussar. The wonder of neuroscience and even more the functioning of our minds. Hello, in there, hello. The haze in our days. Not ours. Alan. Vincent, cooking at the Parkside. A dream. Art. Caravaggio. Giotto. Michelangelo. Botticelli. DaVinci. Rembrandt. Hokusai. Fan Kuan. Warhol.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fan Kuan

One brief shining: Each time I see Fan Kuan’s painting, my relationship to Mother Earth pops back into the foreground; in the bottom right, difficult to see in most reproductions, a group of travelers cross toward the left on their journey as the enormous face of the Mountain with its signature Waterfall and  hairy prominences rises above them; mist floats up where the Waterfall disappears toward the Mountain’s base, and hidden among the Trees, homes and monasteries, humans in a natural world so vast we understand at once who and where we are within it. Taoism.

 

The consolation of Fan Kuan’s painting. We come into this world as a birthed animal, fitted out to see, to hear, to touch, to taste, to smell. To take into ourselves data from the world. And, fitted out to conjure our own data in the confines of our singular minds. Here Fan Kuan has shared with us a novel way he put together his experience of Song Dynasty China, its Mountainscapes, its mystery, its beauty. One of the wonders of art is its ability to allow us a glimpse inside the mind and heart, the lev, of another person.

After my diagnosis with cancer in 2015 I drove along the Deer Creek Canyon road and began to understand what Fan Kuan expresses. We travel along a short short road, we humans and our Mayfly lives. We wander along that road within eyesight of the apparently unchanging Mountains, the mist of a future clouded by our unknowing. Yet on that journey we have the chance, if we take it, to know ourselves not as apart from the Mountains and Streams, but as part of them. For me that makes the journey home, our mutual journey, both exhilarating and inevitable.

I had a dream last night. A busload of people with cancer were on their way to a university. I am on the bus. We discuss our cancers, our journeys. We stop near the campus at a large house and everybody gets out. As we enter the house, the home of some well known professor, and sit down, a man comes in, maybe the professor. He puts his hand on the shoulder of the man next to me. “Dead,” he says. He moves to me, puts his hand on my shoulder, “Dead,” he says. In my heart I already knew it. He just confirmed it. This dream is the same as Fan Kuan’s painting.

Triggered I’m sure by my recent visit to Dr. Leonard, the radiation oncologist, and lab results which show my PSA continuing to rise in spite of the Orgovyx. I see Kristie this afternoon. Together we’ll decide what happens next.

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Garden, Politics, Travel, US History

International Dialogue

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The Mountain Summer Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Stien. Koontz. Ootz. The Netherlands. Arjean. Tara. Susan. Irv. Marilyn. Cade. Vincent. Eleanor. Kilimanjaro. Zugspitz. Jungfrau. Olympus. Conifer. Evergreen. Labcorp. Great Sol. Data. Mussar. Neshama. Nefesh. Rabbi Jamie. Luke. Leo. Paulaner N.A. Kate, always Kate. Ruth and the Inspire Concert Sunday. RTD. Uber.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Tara

One brief shining: Could I have a short spade, please; Tara handed me a gardening trowel and I knelt down in her curved bed of Carrots and Beets, plunging the trowel in beside the missing Beet plant and felt the Earth give way, yes, there was a tunnel there, something, maybe a Vole, had burrowed in and eaten it from below.

 

Interesting lunch at Tara’s. Met Arjean’s family: Stein, Ootz, and Koontz. And, his mother whose name I didn’t get. They’re visiting from the Netherlands. BTW: Don’t rely on those spellings. They’re phonetic, which means based on my hearing. Always a risky basis for sounds.

Asked Koontz, Arjean’s brother, about how American politics looked from Europe. Next question, he quipped. He went on to say what I’ve heard in many other places including Korea and Singapore. In essence, it really matters to us, but we can’t do anything about it. As an example, he mentioned NATO. Well, yeah.

Koontz also said there was some talk in Europe about deserving a vote in American elections since they impact Europe in such critical ways. Made me think of the Chinese taxi driver I talked to in Singapore in 2004, the day before election day. He shook his head and said, “When America sneezes, we get pneumonia.”

Stein, Arjean’s nephew, is in his third year of university pursuing a business degree. He’s also starting a clothing business as a middleman between Chinese garment manufacturers and a European customer base. When I asked him about the stresses of doing both at the same time, he looked over at his dad, Koontz. A bit sheepishly. Oops, I said. I withdraw the question.

After the meal Tara and I went downstairs to look at her garden. She’s had vegetable eating animals taking out Beets, Lettuce, Raspberries, and Tomato plants. She wanted to get my opinion about what was going on. That was when I asked for the trowel. I found the tunnel right away. Some critter has dug their way to a meal, perhaps several meals. She also has rabbits, I think. Her fence keeps the Deer out. They’re the animal that can really devastate a Mountain garden. They’ll eat everything down to the ground. Well, Elk, too.

Had no solution for her save putting in raised beds for next year’s garden. Would help her back, too.

 

Just a moment: A lighter heart. Some hope. Kamala wouldn’t have been my first choice, but she’s sooooo much better than Biden. Since I’ve long thought this election would hinge on turn out, I feel good since she will be able to energize the Democratic base.

Diane and I talked politics this morning. She feels lighter, too. That feeling alone may be enough to swing the election our way.

 

 

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Great Wheel, Great Work, Mountains, Plants, Shadow Mountain, Wild Neighbors

Belonging, holy

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The Mountain Summer Moon

Wednesday Gratefuls: A bright golden haze on the Meadow. A blue, smoky Sky above. Kamala Harris. 45, a man of chaos and hate. Election 2024. A political clown car. Labs. Middle Earth. Hobbits. Ruby. Cool nights. Good sleeping. A big workout yesterday. 160 minutes done for the week already. Lunch at Tara’s. Stories. Books. TV. Movies. Theater. Ovid. The new translation.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ovid

One brief shining: Still glad, all these years later, I bought a Landice treadmill, lifetime guarantee, brought it here from Minnesota with my dumb bells, balance boards, and yoga mats to create a small home gym outfitted now with stall mats, a wall mirror, a TRX mounted to the ceiling, and the TV which accompanies my workouts with stories as I do cardio, stretch, lift weights.

 

Whimsy. Eudaimonia. Life of July 24, 2024. A response to the Ancient Brother’s question of the week: “All things considered are you happy? Why? Why not? What makes you happy? What makes you unhappy?” From Maine’s own man from away, Paul Strickland.

I’m sometimes happy. Sometimes not. In my world happiness is more a mood, a transient state induced by, say, a chili-cheese hot dog, seeing a toddler, finding myself lost in a book. Maybe the afterglow of a lunch or breakfast, a good workout. I don’t seek happiness, it happens to me in this moment or that. Always glad when it does. A bath of endorphins is good for the soul.

What I do seek is eudaimonia. Flourishing. Seeking satisfaction rather than achievement. As I consider it, not an ideology, but a way of integrating my sense of Self, my I am becoming, with life as it flows in and around me. Except in the academic world, and then without much true ambition, I’ve sought results that stem from my values. Those results, and/or the effort to realize them, matter to me. Success and failure are temporary states, neither definitive, neither more than a collective opinion.

I want to emphasize integration. Though I find Maslow’s later hierarchy profound since it added a stage beyond self-actualization, I’ve been anti-transcendence for a long, long time. It implies leaving my Self, my I am, my neshamah behind for a purer, bigger place or experience. Nope. This body. This history. This mind. Damaged and flawed it has suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and the dizzying heights of accolades, sublime moments of intimacy, and the joy of being alive.

Integration says nope I’m where I belong, among that and whom to which I belong and among whom I am a vital, unique presence. Valuable for my uniqueness, not for my capacity to leave my uniqueness behind for some spiritual space. My journey beyond self-actualization then lies in friendships, intimacy. In understanding how my Lodgepole companion and I share home ground. How the Mule Deer and the Elk, the Black Bears and the Mountain Lions are my neighbors. As in, Love thy neighbor as thyself. How as a human animal I am not only part of Mother Earth’s family, I have evolved from long ago kin whom I share with the Lodgepole and the Elk. I do belong here. Right here. Not out there or up there or behind that veil. Right. Here.

 

 

Denver, Family, Fourth Phase, Politics, Sport

Buy me some peanuts…

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The Mountain Summer Moon

Monday gratefuls: Friends. Family. Coors Field. RTD. The W Line. Walking. Lidocaine patch and two nsaids. Cool weather. The Rockies. The Giants. Homeruns and broken bats. Hot dogs and pretzels. Shaded seats. The umpire pulling his arm in fast. A strike! Gabe. Who likes baseball. My son, who does, too. A long sleep afterwards. Life of July 21st, 2024. Play.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Grandsons

One brief shining: Seats 12 and 13 in section 135, shaded throughout the whole game, hard wooden seats, narrow aisles, cupholders and a baseball diamond lit by Great Sol spread out below with the umpire squatting using his whisk broom on home plate, the catcher in his armor down on one leg waiting, while designated hitter Charlie Blackmon, he of the luxuriant black beard, swings his bat, then, Batter up!

 

The Rockies are in competition for the least capable team in the major leagues. They played the Giants, one rank above them in the National League West. Only the also hapless Marlins are further out of a division race. 28 games to the Rockies 22. Still. It was baseball, major league baseball. And it was sun hat day! I gave mine to Gabe to give to Ruth.

View from section 135

The new rules have sped the game up. I found I liked it better. No more drift into the setting sun as pitchers chawed, spit, pondered, and us fans waited. Might go a bit more often. With a lidocaine patch and a couple of nsaids my back was not impossible though it was a 23 minute walk from the train to Coors Field. Glad to have a seat at the end of the walk.

First time taking the light rail in for a game. Did it because Coors Field is not too far from the end of the W line near Union Station. No driving in downtown. Cheaper than parking and much less hassle. Will do it again next Sunday when Ruth and I go to the Jewish music concert at Cheri and Alan’s. $5.50 round trip. Uber then to their home on the 38th floor of the Spire Condominiums.

Gabe and the straw hats. He’s a kind kid. Enjoyed spending the time with him.

Warming up

Had a hot dog, sang take me out to the ball game, stood for the Anthem and, again, for God Bless America played by a trumpeter from the Air Force Academy band. Reflected on the years when I wouldn’t stand for the Anthem. I do now, but for a very different reason than before Vietnam. It’s important for those who, as I saw on a hat of a Never Trumper, want to make red hats wearable again.

 

Just a moment: And, he’s outta there! Another curve ball for election 2024. Though not an unexpected one. What is unexpected. How all this will effect the campaign. Who will be the candidate? Probably Kamala, but not necessarily. And can any one put the orange jinn back in the lamp? If they can, I personally volunteer to carry the lamp to the Marianna’s Trench and drop it over the side of the boat.

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Politics, Shadow Mountain

We’re All Just Walking Each Other Home.

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The Mountain Summer Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Life. Living. Death. Dying. Leo. Luke. Tara, a good friend. Sleep. Exercise. Red Beans and Rice. Chicken wings. Apples and mandarin Oranges. This July 20th wakin’ up mornin’. A new life, a new day. Great Sol. Blue Sky. Uncle Joe Biden at a crossroads. Recovering from Covid, but not from his debate performance. Our United States.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: 2024.

One brief shining: Two Tanakhs open on Rabbi Jamie’s round office table we roamed back and forth through the book of Numbers, from the spies and their devastating report on the promised land to Moses striking the rock at Meribah and Balaam’s donkey explaining there was an angel in the road that would have done Balaam harm.

 

Restored inner calm. Had breakfast with Alan and Joanne, then lunch with Tara. Just being in relationship with them, talking about usual matters like oh my god the election 45 Joe turnout and a positive story from Alan. Alan read that Joe has been waiting until the Republican Convention is over to step down. Maximum impact. Joanne talked about the conflicts and troubles of early CBE history after Rich’s sunny recollections last Wednesday night. Joanne and I traded stories about Japan and Korea. Ate. Saw each other.

Alan has the role of innkeeper in Ovation West’s upcoming Man of La Mancha. He even has a solo. He’s also getting into directing, taking up a work of the Executive Director of the Evergreen Players who is a playwright as well. Joanne’s new book on extreme mental states, written with two Buddhist therapists and edited by Marilyn Saltzman, is done. The Bread Lounge.

Lunch with Tara at Brook’s Tavern. An emotional one. We talked about my cancer news. Tara is so empathetic. And honest. She got me to commit to a visit to Taipei on my next journey to Korea. No excuses. She also invited me over to their house on Wednesday afternoon to meet Arjean’s brothers visiting from the Netherlands. Marilyn and Irv, Susan and her daughter will be there.

Talking to Tom at 8 this morning. Diane at 3 this afternoon. I am not alone, now, or in the future. This journey has companions, as I am a companion on the journey of others. Ram Dass: We’re all just walking each other home.

 

Just a moment: So. How bout the folks wandering around the Republican Convention with bandages over their ear? Eh? Like the orange one, their hero. Their avatar of Yahweh Sabbaoth, Lord of Hosts. Only the orange one’s hosts are the Proud Boys, the 3 percenters, and the KKK. 45 is, for sure, satan, the Hebrew word for adversary. He’s a thug with a gold plated toilet.

 

Downy Woodpeckers have attacked my house. Again. A problem with a cedar sided house. When I have it stained, I also have the painters patch up the holes the little buggers leave in their search for a meal. I’m mentioning this because someone’s going at the house right now in the back. It’s loud.

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health

The Next Day

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The Mountain Summer Moon

Friday gratefuls: This July 19th, 2024 life. Life. Neshama. Nefesh. Being a Jew. Studying with Rabbi Jamie. Balaam’s ass. The power of speech. Kristie. Dr. Leonard. The Ancientrail ahead. The Mule Deer Doe that comes to my back yard. Furball Cleaning. Stevinson Toyota. Ruby. Her faithfulness. Cancer. Mortality. Orgovyx and Erleada. Living while dying. All of us.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Honesty

One brief shining: Poached eggs with creamy yellow hollandaise sauce sitting in a bed of red Beans, a small dam of cheesy grits keeping the Beans separate from the white grits, a cup of black coffee, a large biscuit, and a glass of clear water, the buzz of other diners and the clink of silverware, as the three year old girl looked back at her parents, heard them call, turned and in a fast walk went away from them, exploring the restaurant as her mother got up smiling.

 

Serious gear turning still clanking and whirring. How do I feel? Anxious. How do I feel? Uncertain. How do I feel? Calm. How do I feel? Grounded. How do I feel? Happy. How do I feel? Gifted. How do I feel? Aware. How do I feel? Here.

Slept fine. Went to bed thinking about a defined outer limit for my life, woke up still thinking about it. The world has a different flavor now. Not bitter though. Sweeter. A wrap my arms around it and smile for the privilege sweetness. Yes, I am jangly and wobbly, sure. But. I am. And I will be.

Are there uncertainties that loom? Oh, my.

For example. Dr. Leonard (radiation oncologist) suggested not doing any radiation. Because he believed medical intervention should have a positive purpose. Oh? It becomes, he said, a lot like whack-a-mole. The very phrase I’d been using for my radiation. What he wants to do is put me back on Erleada, follow me as usual with the PSA and testosterone assays. If my PSA goes up, as it might, we’ll reconsider. Same with the testosterone. Otherwise he wants to repeat the P.E.T. scan in four to six months to see how the cancer progresses. Or, doesn’t.

He wants, I think Kate would say, for the cancer to declare itself. Then we could radiate the spots where it seems strongest. Along with other, lesser spots. This could be an off again, on again process as I move forward.

I have another blood draw next week and I speak with Kristie again. Where this is going should be clearer then. I’m eager to get yet better clarity because there are matters I’d like to decide or at least start the process for deciding. Like travel. Like what to ask of my son and Seoah. Like, oh, I don’t know.

Don’t need to get my affairs in order. They’re pretty much there. Will. Advanced medical directives. Estate plan.

Might consult my financial advisors. See what if anything this news means for money management.

As for the rest? Continue living in my usual way. Write. Read. Visit with friends. Take in the Mountains and greet my wild neighbors.

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Great Wheel, Humanities, Judaism, Latin, Letters, Literature, Myth and Story, Science, Torah, Translating Metamorphoses, World History

Liberal Arts, their necessity

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The Mountain Summer Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Gabe and Ruth. Beau Jo’s. Pizza. Cool nights. 22 degree difference: Lakewood to Shadow Mountain, 92-70. Abert’s Squirrel and Red Squirrels running. Chipmunks. Rabbits. Marmots. Fishers. Pikas. Prairie Dogs. Mice. Ravens. Crows. Magpies. Corvids.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Family

One brief shining: Outside along the fence, there, peripheral vision alerted me, found it, a hopping form, bushy tail, then another, Red Squirrels, smaller all black pointy ears, running between the Lodgepoles, an Abert’s Squirrel, a very squirrely morning.

 

Excited. I got a new translation of Ovid’s Metamorphosis. Plan to read it through as part of Herme’s Pilgrimage. Stephanie McCarter from the University of the South. Not as ground breaking as the new Iliad and Odyssey by Emily Wilson, but fresh eyes and a woman’s perspective. Looking forward to grounding myself again in Ovid’s world of epic poetry, shapes changed into bodies, metamorphosis.

You could call me a classicist. Not in the academic sense, I don’t have the languages, but religious and ancient classical texts do have a gravitational pull for me. In translation I’ve read and returned to the Bible, Homer, Chinese literary classics like Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Greek philosophy, the Talmud, Roman and Greek playwrights and poets like Ovid, Beowulf, the Norse sagas, Dante.

When I say I’ve returned to them, I mean I will read them more than once. Which I don’t tend to do with more modern works. Say after the Renaissance.

You could call me, too, conservative. I also keep returning to religious institutions and religious life. There’s a strong part of my inner journey that’s fed by books like the Torah, the New Testament, Tao Te Ching, Chado: the Way of Tea. Even the Great Wheel emerges from the long ago past.

The vast deposit of human literature allows us to hop into a Jules Verne’s contraption of the mind, find long ago cultures like the Zhou Dynasty, Renaissance Florence, the Shogunate in Japan, village life in the old Celtic world, and for a time live in them, seeing the sights, considering the patterns of thought, the imaginative creations of other ways for being human.

The wonder and magic of reading.

Our era has begun to focus education away from the liberal arts which introduce us to philosophy, history, literature ancient and modern, languages, music and theater, poetry. We have a science and business tropism, a tendency to bend our institutions toward technology, toward business, toward matters concerning the practical arts like engineering, medicine, corporate agriculture.

Of course those practical paths undergird our day to day lives. Necessary to us all. Yes. But, and here’s where the classical world, the conservative nature of the liberal arts and religion comes into play, to what end do we sustain human life? For what purpose do we earn profits? What is a humane approach to political economy?

Without poetry and chamber music, without the voyage of Odysseus, without the journey of Dante, without the often ancient debates over the purpose of community, of nationhood, of war, of humanity itself, without Lao Tze and Confucius, without Zen and animist faiths like Shintoism and Western paganism we have no compass points to guide our white coated brethren, our C-suite compatriots, our decisions between a Trump and a Biden.

Aimlessness leads to corruption, mendacity, and general rot. We are, right now, reaping the whirlwind of this shift in basic education.

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Tarot

Living. While dying. All of us

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The Mountain Summer Moon

Monday gratefuls: Durango’s Animas River chocolates. Mary down under. Mark in Phnom Penh. Seoah and my son in Songtan. Diane in the Mission. Me on Shadow Mountain. Here comes the Sun. Great Sol feeding us all. Vanquishing the night. Warming us. The Beatles. Led Zepplin. The Doors. Buffalo Springfield. Bob Dylan. The Who. Jefferson Airplane.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Wide World

One brief shining: Slipping into a favorite chair, a book nearby with its flap marking forward progress, turning on the reading light, finding a pair of glasses, I open the book to the spot behind Jupiter where the Bunker World has taken up residence, and travel the last few centuries with the strange world of the Three Body Problem.

 

Full transparency. Cancer worries. Not following Kate’s advice. Been reading research again. Metastases. Castration resistant prostate cancer. Lethal. Readying myself for those words: there is no more we can do. Opening my heart to the final days. How will I react? With grace and good humor is my intention. Then. Full stop! No. Today is the life of July 8th, 2024 and the only life I have. Live it.

O.K. But first. I’ll run a time limited check on that research. Just in the last year. Ah. Many more options available now. Extending life. Better outcomes. Yes.

Mind. I don’t have castration resistant prostate cancer yet. I’m just trying to wreck my day to day composure with imagining that it’s coming. Even so I did calm myself by learning that there are other treatments beyond androgen deprivation therapy.

It’s a delicate balance between living the life of this day, this brand new wakin’ up mornin’ life granted to me, and staying in touch with the cancer, staying alert to what my treatment demands. Denial and suppression are not workable strategies for me. Yet, neither are depression and despair.

So I go weeks without paying much attention to this fell beast living in my body, then a few days of reading research, prepping myself for what may never happen. Though cancer is an obvious candidate it may well be something else that carries me off to the surprise after life.

And on that cheery note, I’ll just ask: How was the play?

 

Just a moment: The flipside. Herme’s Pilgrimage. Herme took a Wildwood World Tree reading yesterday and found, again, that the cards show a positive, strong context for his journey.

The tarot itself is part of the pilgrimage. A way to move past stuckness, to gain energy, to foresee challenges and strengths. So as Herme works into his soul for the meaning behind, within, and adjacent to Trees, he feels buoyed up, supported.

Here’s a poem Bill Schmidt found. It resonates.

 

When I am Among the Trees by Mary Oliver

 

When I am among the trees,

especially the willows and the honey locust,

equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,

they give off such hints of gladness.

I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

 

I am so distant from the hope of myself,

in which I have goodness, and discernment,

and never hurry through the world

but walk slowly, and bow often.

 

Around me the trees stir in their leaves and call out, “Stay awhile.”

The light flows from their branches.

 

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say, “and you too have come

into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine.”

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Politics, US History

Rise Up from the Grave

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Summer and the waning of the Bar Mitzvah Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Waste. Cool morning. Another quiet day on Shadow Mountain. Prolia for my bones. Leo. Being a Dog. The story of Gilgamesh and the great Cedar Forest.The New York Botanical Garden. Botany. Horticulture. Bees. Honey. Gardens. Andover. My ninja weeder, Kate. Vince. Evergreen Medical Center. Sue Bradshaw. Cancer.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Assertiveness

One brief shining: Hit the treadmill for 20 minutes, a set of resistance work, another 15 minutes on the treadmill, another set of resistance, 10 minutes on the treadmill, a long and tough session with Leo occasionally hovering over my face, licking it, telling me, what a good boy you are human.

How bout that Supreme Court, eh? A sudden shift in the substantive matters of our democracy. A strange and unwarranted granting of legal shields for the President. A gutting of the regulatory power of Federal agencies. Validating a cruel Oregon law against the homeless. Saying yes to the NRA in a First Amendment case. And so on.

Marry that series of rulings with the most important Presidential debate ever. See the confusing fallout from Biden’s performance. Giving aid and comfort to the MAGA camp and their long-tied, short-witted Jim Jones. Try to imagine what’s going to happen now. Hard to do. For me at least. 2024 will be remembered, there is no doubt at all. And it’s only half over. With an election still to come.

There’s a gospel hymn, Ain’t No Grave*. Some of the lyrics: Ain’t no grave can keep my body down, when that trumpet sounds I will rise up from the ground. I’m beginning to have the same feeling about the death of my America. There ain’t no far-right that can keep my body politic down. When that Anthem plays, we’ll rise up from the ground.

You see my heart, my lev knows that the politics of fear and cruelty, of laissez faire attitudes toward the predations of capitalism, of the unholy consolidation of power by far-right ideologues does not reflect either the purpose of our nation or the opinions of most of its citizens. We will be known now by whether we roll over, lay back in the grave or rise up.

I will not look for land in Costa Rica. I will not stop voting or agitating. I will not retire from the arena. I will not let the course of this change go unchallenged. My voice will be small since my life has Herme’s Pilgrimage as its main focus now, but my voice will never go silent. I will rise up from the grave of the America I once knew and fought for all my life.

A while back I mentioned the Storm Before the Calm by George Friedman, put in my hand by buddy Tom Crane. His talk of cyclical rather than linear pulses in our national economy and political life sees a vast change starting over the next 4 to 5 years. What’s happening right now has some characteristics of his work. He sees all this as an upheaval leading to a renewed and refreshed American democracy. May it be so.

 

*