Category Archives: Fourth Phase

Asia, Dogs, Family, Fourth Phase, Health, Korea, Weather +Climate

500 MPH

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Summer and the Korea Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Waste. Shadow, the seeker in the dark. Russian Kale. Chioggia Beets. Bloomsdale Spinach. Sprouting. Rainbow Chard. Rocket Arugula. Lettuce Lolla Rossa. Peeking out. Tomatoes blooming. Squash, too. 8.8 Earthquake. Tsunami. A dangerous Mother. The Jang itinerary. Artemis. Baseball. Football. Soccer. Basketball.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Sprouts

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Yirah. Awe.

Tarot: The Knight of Arrows. Hawk.  What do the cards have to tell me today?

One brief shining: Ended my p.t. with Halle after 19 sessions, back to my own routine with cardio, upper and lower body days, feeling the burn, the muscle memory taking over, an habituated expectation that on this exercise my body needs to do this. Serious grind.

 

chatgpt couldn’t get the number of people right. But you see the idea

The Jangs: My son sent out an itinerary for their 7 days here. A possible list of things to do. Ride the Georgetown Railroad. Museum of Natural History and Science. Dinosaur Ridge. Water activities on Evergreen Lake. Guanella Pass. Those sorts of things.

Have to take into account age, too. Two elderly, two kids, two middle-aged adults. Not to mention diet. The first, highest priority item? A visit to H-Mart for food suitable for a Korean palate.

It’s one thing transitioning from an American diet (if you can grace hamburgers, meatloaf, potatoes, peas, and corn with that lofty word) to the subtle and varied Korean diet. Quite another to go from Korean to American.

Seoah’s a pro at this though, so it will be no problem. My son, too.

 

Dog journal: Shadow and I have both lowered our stress levels. Her coming inside for her evening meal makes night time easy. Her coming up on the bed at naptime and sometime (earlier now) in the night signals her growing security. This makes me happy.

 

Mother Earth: Kamchatka Peninsula. 8.8 temblor 90 miles off its Coast. One of the strongest ever recorded. Underwater fault lines slip. Water rushes up to 500 mph. It’s the sudden stop on this Coast or that one. Water rises at speed, sweeping Rock, Sand, Buildings, Animals, people as it does.

She’s a dangerous lady, our Mother.

 

Health: Going to Colorado Pain today for a consultation. Hopefully leading to the implanting of a SPRINT device.

My pain level has receded with p.t., some modest help from steroid injections, and the car seat cushion. Receded, but not gone. My mobility remains limited. Bending over painful enough to make me avoid it.

Also. On Monday I had on odd experience. Deanna, the ultrasound technician was deaf. She spoke in a stilted way, watching my lips.

She had it down. I admired her ability to succeed in a hearing dominate world.

As she said, “Two ohdurs. Hernia. Scrrotum.” She pointed to the words on her paper. I nodded. Trying to find the source of my pain two Sunday’s ago.

In Lakewood. 101 degrees. I drove back up the hill as soon as we finished.

 

*A quicksilver messenger of fate, the Hawk can help and support you to see through layers of doubt and uncertainty to the problem at the heart of the matter. Be swift and use your common sense to progress.

Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Greenhouse, Judaism, Memories, Paganism, Plants

Not Even Past

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Summer and the Korea Moon

Friday gratefuls: Ruth and Gabe. Nathan. Tarot. Morning Darkness. Cool morning. Shadow the mover of toys and socks. The sleeper. Alan and Joanne. Dandelion. RTD. Japanese lanterns. Red tie guy. His allies and facilitators. The rest of us. The most. Our long, slow slide into a third-rate country.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Japanese Lanterns for Artemis

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Ahavah. Love.

Tarot: The eight of Vessels-rebirth. How can I enhance my joy in the Tarot.

One brief shining: Ruth drives her pale green Subaru up the hill to Conifer, to Shadow Mountain Black Mountain Drive and she brings Gabe, Jon, Kate, Merton, Rebecca, BJ, Sarah, Annie with her, the living and the dead who occupy our memories and still shape our lives. Family.

 

Family: Its many branches planted here and in the here after. Jon and Kate. Tanya. Leisa. Rebecca and Merton. Of recent and sometimes blessed memory.

Not gone. Not at all. Haunting or supporting. Often both in the same moment. A remembered moment of hearts spread out on a restaurant table. A father watching movies with his son. A hostile mother demeaning her children. A hand held gently. A smile and a hug just when needed. Those quiet, small moments when love flashed between the two. Or among the three.

Mothers and fathers. Daughters and sons. Brothers and sisters. Grandfathers and grandmothers. Cousins. Kin.

Mark works in the desert of the Arabian Peninsula. Mary starting a new expat life as a permanent resident of Australia. Melbourne. Guru in K.L. My son in Osan along with Seoah and Murdoch.

Mom and dad. Long dead now. Yet not absent. No. Following Faulkner: “The past is not ever dead; it’s not even past.”

The stories. Of Charlie Keaton. Of Mabel. Of Aunt Mary and Aunt Mame. Aunt Nell. Uncle Riley. Aunt Virginia. All ghosts now, all hidden from earthly view yet still alive, still shaping us in ways we sometimes know and in ways we often do not.

How will we dance in the minds of our family after our deaths? Will it be a slow, graceful gavotte. A passion fueled tango. An elegant waltz. Perhaps a rock and roll moment, abandon and energy. Something we cannot predict, nor ever know.

 

Artemis: Nathan brought by two Japanese lanterns yesterday. Adding to the koi already on the door and his wooden accessories. Artemis has a distinct Asian inflection, appropriate for this guy whose family long ago fled west across the Pacific to Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Australia.

Artemis is, in that way, a family shrine as well as a temple to my mixed pagan and Jewish spirituality. Her Tomatoes have many spiky yellow blooms, her Squash Plants have begun to throw vines over the raised beds, while the seeds of her fall salad garden right now take in moisture and heat, have located Great Sol’s path above them and will soon emerge above ground.

Still to plant: Herbs, flowers. And, later, in October, garlic.

Dogs, Dreams, Fourth Phase, Greenhouse, Memories, Minnesota

Shadow and Artemis Add Them Back

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

Wednesday gratefuls: Halle. P.T. ending. Forced to decide my own workouts. Overnight Rain. The darkness of early Morning. Shadow sleeping beside me. Her life outside. The Wren. Again. Planting the Fall garden. Artemis. Great Sol still hidden. His consort, Mother Earth, wrapped in nurturing Night. World Whale and Dolphin Day.

Sparks of Joy and Earth: Soil with Seeds

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Ahavah. Love.

Tarot: Page of Arrows. The Wren. What can I do to reinforce my exercise routine?

One brief shining: Poured seeds into my hands, delicate Lettuce, spiky Beets, tiny Arugula, round Chard, pushed them down onto the Compost/Top Soil with Horse manure, wrote small signs and placed them at the end of rows, got out my copper Watering can and poured a thin stream over each of the furrows, Mother Earth impregnated. Now we wait.

 

Dreams: I don’t remember the full dream as I often don’t. We’d gone north on a highway that  appears in my dreams on occasion, this time all the way, to a land of Boreal Woods and Lakes far past the small towns where I often end up, past my dream world Chicago and its complicated highways and ports.

A retreat with several friends including Kate. While there we made places to sleep out of Buffalo hides. The rest of the time we wandered in the Forest, went to the Lakes, split off into dyads often.

Then someone came, maybe three days into our stay, and said, “Rabbi Jamie’s dead.” This confounded us all, sent us into shock. Nobody had any details.

In all the confusion the dream came to an end.

 

Artemis: The Fall Garden. Awaits the awakening of leafy Chard, Spinach, Arugula, Lettuce, and well-Rooted Beets. (Just remembered I need to plant Nasturtiums and Marigolds.)

Before the nights grow too cool, Nathan will have added cold frames and overlapped the thin Cedar planks. Artemis should be able to grow Vegetables outside into mid to late September, while continuing to grow Herbs and Lettuce, Chard and Arugula inside over the Winter.

Walking outside to Artemis I realized I missed having physical tasks outside. How limited I’d allowed my outside world to become until I started with Shadow and now Artemis. Again directly in touch with this Land, with growing things: Puppies and Vegetables. How I’ve missed it.

 

Neshama/Nefesh: The Neshama connects us to, is our connection with, the One. Realized yesterday something about my Nefesh, which connects me to and is my connection with the world outside my body.

I’ve always considered myself primarily an intellectual, working with ideas and words. Reading. Learning. Studying.

When I wrote about my life review yesterday, it became clear that no, that’s not my primary way of being in the world. I have been, as far back at least as high school, a doer, an actor. Whether as a literal actor in “Our Town” or as class president in high school. As part of the movement in the sixties. As an organizer in the Twin Cities. As a Gardener and Bee Keeper in Andover.

Colorado is another chapter, different. It’s been more about care-taking, about dealing with illness and death. About facing the final chapter.

Yet I also need those doing roles, too. Shadow and Artemis have added them back into my life.

Dogs, Fourth Phase, Health, Politics

Wolf Energy

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

Wednesday gratefuls: Shadow’s head on my pillow. Waking up to her by my side. Nathan and the cold frames. Randy at Evergreen Medical. Kristie, my oncology P.A. Ultrasounds. Hernia? Testicle? Oh, boy. Another medical journey. The Wolf. Luke and the Tarot. Kabbalah Experience. Tanya. Her obituary. The Lamb. Jesus Christ.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shadow

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Patience. Savlanut.

Tarot: The Wolf, King of Stones. What do I need to know about my health?

One brief shining: A Tarot deck may seem like an instrument of the devil, or superstition; it may seem, if not those, too distant, too abstract, too hard to make use of; however, if you lean towards it, embrace its ability to interrogate both your inner life and your physical journey through this material realm, then wisdom will rise from it as if on its own.

 

Tarot: The Wolf. King of Stones. I asked a question about my health. A significant topic for me, as you know. Made emergent (as Kate used to say) by a possible hernia or something up with one of my testicles, or both. Oh, joy.

When I began to read a bit about the Wolf, the first thing I noticed was its position on the Great Wheel, departing Samhain. Samhain, or Summer’s End, sets off the fallow season. Though it has come down to contemporary culture as Halloween, it has a much deeper meaning.

It marks the end of the growing season, the time when the fate of a subsistence farming community had already been set for the coming cold of Winter. No wonder the veil between the spirit world and this material realm became thin. Life and death were at stake.

And, yes, I’m departing Samhain, headed toward my own Winter Solstice. Not yet. Not now. But that’s the location of my body’s pilgrimage, on the wane. I’m ok with that.

What can I do to be healthier during this part of my journey? P.T. probably. Perhaps see a post-polio doctor. Eat more. Good food. Sure, all of that. Yet the Wolf suggests not fooling myself into thinking there’s a route back to where things used to be.

The Wolf also honors my deep connection to the Soil, to Artemis and her nurture.* Highlights my grandfather energy toward Ruth and Gabe, toward Shadow, toward myself.

 

Dog journal: Shadow has been inside every night since Friday last. Three of those nights she came in on her own. Two saw her inside already when 6 pm came round.

Perhaps her feral nature is Wolf energy, the very energy I need now to be my optimal self. Be more like Shadow.

 

Just a moment: The hits just keep on coming. Another tie vote. Another tie breaker by that shape shifting weasel, Vance. Now cutting, cutting, only to transfer wealth on the oligarchs conveyor belt from the rest of us to their crypto accounts.

Shame on all of them and their houses.

 

*The Wolf:

  • Protection and Nurturing:

    The wolf, as a protective figure, indicates a strong bond with the land and a nurturing nature, especially towards those they consider family or part of their domain. 

  • Practicality and Skill:
    The King of Stones is practical, grounded, and skilled in managing the physical world, often possessing a strong connection to nature. 
Fourth Phase, Great Wheel, Great Work, Tarot

Improving Balance

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

Monday gratefuls: Shadow coming in on her own. P.T. Exercise. Overnight Rain.  Artemis at 68 degrees. Tomato Plants thriving. Cleaning up after the party. The stool. Oiling it. Gabe’s awakening. World Chimpanzee Day. Primates. Lucy. Australopithecus. Gorillas. Neanderthals. Homo sapiens. Still evolving. The Bird of Dawn. Lift up the weary. The Morning Service. The Shema.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Israel ben Avram v’ Sara

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Patience. Savlanut.

Tarot: #14 Balance

One brief shining: Mornings bring us up from the one sixtieth of death (as the sages call sleep), our soul returns to our body, Shadow wakens, comes over and licks my face, I let her out; later I say the Shema, read parts of the Morning Service and ask a question of the Wildwood deck, drink coffee, begin to type.

(N.B. Images below created by chatgpt from my prompts.)

 

A Bird sings, or rather, rasps, greeting another day as Great Sol slowly warms the Air cooled by the night. Shadow has come in after her early morning turn outside, awaiting her main meal at seven.

I’ve done my in bed exercises, but my workout yesterday ouches my left leg still. A tramadol and two acetaminophens washed down with espresso roast coffee. My Lenovo Thinkpad warms my legs through my Vermont Flannel red and black checked jammies.

That Balance card* sifts its way through my question to the deck: What can I do to enhance my experience of the Tarot? First blush. Read the morning service. Balance the Tarot with the ancient tradition. The Siddur. A prayer book written largely by Kabbalists. So, I do.

Second blush. Balance indoor, reading time with outdoor time with Shadow, with Artemis, with Shadow Mountain. As I have been doing. Be even more intentional.

The Wildwood book offers a sad word about balance. The way our capitalist dominated economies have pushed away from indigenous knowing about living in harmony with Mother Earth. How instead a loving, intimate, co-sustaining relationship has become transactional. And, at that, an unbalanced transaction where Mother Earth may be plundered for what we need without regard to future consequences.

My immersion in pagan ways-in the cyclical beauty of the Great Wheel-born from my  immersion in the Great Work, makes me sad.

Yet. A Colorado Youth Climate Conference. Gen Z awakening to their brutal task, undoing late stage capitalism and restoring a balance necessary for human survival. Ruth and Gabe, their peers.

May they go where we failed. May they forgive us our sins as their ancestors. May they be strong where we were weak.

My ongoing task now is to support them, love them, hold out my hand as a grandfather. Let them know we are not all cruel, selfish, indifferent. And that they are wonderful, amazing.

 

*”You must balance and be patient. This is the right time to take a break and consider all the personalities that exist in you. To keep walking, you must now stay calm and still. Finding inner balance will help you understand yourself, be confident in your own strengths. Your personalities may include the dark corners you don’t want to face, but you need to accept and control them. Balance is absolutely essential to freeing the individual self from fear and self-doubt.”  TarotX.net

 

Dogs, Family, Fourth Phase, Memories, Minnesota, Politics

It still exists

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II (Full)

Thursday gratefuls: Shadow, the outdoor girl. Artemis ready to receive plantings for a fall garden. Halle. Capybaras. Marmots. Nutria. Mice. Cool morning Breezes. Mezuzah. The ritual for hanging them. Monism. Squirrels. Tarot. The Forest Lovers. Wild Neighbors screeing. Rain incoming. What did the idiot do today?

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Wind and Rain

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah:  Hearing on the side of merit

Tarot pick: Forest Lovers, #6 of the major arcana

One brief shining: This morning I shuffled the Wildwood deck, cut it three times, and asked the deck what I needed to do about Shadow, my mystery girl, and it gave me this card, the Forest Lovers, the male and female energy present on Beltane, the start of the growing season.

 

Dog journal: A hot night. Mid sixties. Shadow outside yet again. Once again challenging my vision of our relationship. How it should go. At night in particular.

Last night we were having a hug on the small patio stones outside my back door. We shifted our stance a bit and I stepped on her left rear back paw. She yelped and ran off. No way she was coming in last night. No words, no apologies. I hurt her. She left. Fast.

Better this morning. I think she knew it was an accident, but her love of freedom and being her own Dog wouldn’t allow an immediate reconciliation. Damn it! Neither of us needed that.

The Forest Lovers. Drawing this card made me see that as I’ve wondered and as Tom suggested yesterday the wu wei here, the flow of the chi, may entail letting her stay outside at night.

I need to get an assessment of how much danger Natalie believes Shadow is in at night. From Mountain Lions. I believe the threat is low, but the consequence of being wrong is catastrophic.

We are yin and yang. I need her feminine energy in my life and she needs my masculine energy. Together we can bring out parts of ourselves that would lay dormant otherwise. The most confounding experience I’ve ever had with a Dog.

 

Life insights: A family of teachers. Mom. Mary. Mark. Several cousins. I’ve often wondered why I didn’t become a teacher, too. When graduate school slipped out of the picture, I never pursued teaching again.

Except. As an organizer, it was my job to teach people how to live into their power. When unemployment had reached crisis levels in 1988 Minnesota, I along with others recruited church leaders, union activists, and unemployed people across the work spectrum.

Once in a room together, with an 18 month old Joseph on my hip, I drew from them their anguish, their anger and frustration. This was the fuel for them to come together against a common foe: an unfair labor market.

Once we identified those emotions, we moved to  using our various strengths. The moral power of the church. The organizing power of the unions. And the willingness to put it all on the line of the unemployed.

The Jobs Now Coalition came into existence. Together we convinced the Minnesota Legislature to pass M.E.E.D. The Minnesota Emergency Employment act which funded half of a new hires pay for their first six months.

It still exists:  Jobs Now Coalition.

 

Dogs, Fourth Phase, Greenhouse, Health, Judaism, Paganism, Plants, Seed Keepers, Tarot, Torah

Artemis Blends My Pilgrimage

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

Wednesday: Mezuzahs. Rabbi Jamie. For the greenhouse. For Artemis. Shadow coming in last night. Steroid injection. Ruth bringing my credit card. Cards We Were Dealt. New tarot class, taught by my friend, Luke. Halle, limiting my exercises yesterday. Trumpeter of his own doom. Tomatoes. Squash.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Mezuzah hanging

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei. Find the chi, the creative advance into novelty. Work with it.

Week Kavannah: Hearing on the side of merit

One brief shining: Sarah, the orthopedic p.a., had a sonagram wand in her hand as she asked me, “What fills your cup?” before she checked out my arthritic, labrum torn right hip, sprayed it with a cold numbing liquid and injected yet more steroids into my body. Ah.

 

Yesterday was an eventful day in the neighborhood. It began the night before…

Dog journal: Natalie offered to come over around five with her dog to help me get Shadow in. Monday evening. I tried turkey hot dogs. Shadow ate them eagerly outside, but when I put them on the floor inside, she turned away. I decided I’d need Natalie so I went upstairs.

When I turned around, there was Shadow. In the house. I closed the door downstairs, texted Natalie.

Before all this I had heard her barking her intruder bark. I went to check, thinking another Mule Deer might have been in the yard. Nope. Beautiful yellow Swallowtails dining on bright blue Penstemon, a front range Wildflower. As one left, another fluttered down while Shadow chased the one leaving. Barking.

 

Hip, leg, back pain: Drove over to Panorama Orthopedics in the morning. Ruth met me there to return my credit card. She and Gabe had gone to pick up pizzas for us and she forgot it in her purse. I told her I’d gotten under my patched duvet (her work) without a blizzard of Goose feathers. She smiled. We hugged and went our separate ways.

The injection took all of ten minutes. Same caveats as the spinal injections. Sometimes works. Sometimes doesn’t. Wait 7-10 days. No immersion in water for thirty-six hours. Why? Dunno.

 

Tarot: Restarting my Tarot practice by taking a class originally offered by Rabbi Jamie and Luke, now taught by Luke alone. I took the first one, got heavily into Tarot and Astrology for a beat. Figured a class would help me get back to regular readings.

A big class. Maybe eight at the Kabbalah Experience classroom, seven (like me) on zoom.

 

Artemis: Scheduled Rabbi Jamie to hang a mezuzah on Artemis this Friday at 2:30. Invited a few friends.

A mezuzah contains a tiny scroll with the full Shema written on it. If it’s on vellum and done by a sofer, a scribe, it’s considered kosher.

I want one on Artemis because it will blend my major sacred paths: paganism, Taoism, Judaism. The pagan path follows the seasons, the changes in Plants, Animals, and Climate that repeat in the cycle known as the Great Wheel.

Taoism encourages working with those changes, leaning into their subtle power, knowing the changes as the here and now expression of the sacred (or we might call it chi).

Judaism and its mystical path, Kabbalah, sees the movement of the sacred as a constant flow of divine energy that begins in the ayn sof, the great emptiness, proceeds outward toward the malkhut, this world of appearances, then travels back up again. Here in malkhut, the Shekinah, or the feminine expression of the sacred has her clearest presence. A process I see in miniature each time a Seed sprouts, a Plant grows, and I am fed by this true miracle.

Artemis blends my pilgrimage into one small building, especially when I’m accompanied by my Shadow.

 

 

 

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Mussar

Hearing on the Side of Merit

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

Monday gratefuls: Relationship building. Shadow. Learning curve for us both. Still steep. Shadow the hugger. Morning darkness. Staying longer. Artemis. Kate, always. Natalie. Ruth and Gabe. The duvet. Ruth’s skills. Gabe’s skills. Each Tomato Plant. Each Squash. Syntropy. Entropy. Science and the Ancient Brothers. Indiana Fever. Those Twins.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth’s sewing. Gabe’s bedmaking.

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei. Find the flow. Go with it.

Week Kavannah: Hearing on the side of merit

One brief shining: Ruth took on a difficult task, sewing patches by hand on my duvet where Shadow the render of cloth had worked to release many sneeze producing Goose Feathers; so good to see a woman sewing in the house again.

 

Ruth after sewing a heart on Gabe’s baboon.

Grandkids: Ruth and Gabe came up yesterday. I’d told them I needed help with some things. Patching the duvet was one. Shadow had torn it open in several spots a while ago and each time I used it more Goose Feathers would float up, up, up and away. Some tickling my nose. Achoo.

Ruth has the dexterity of her father and her grandmother. She sewed for two or three hours, also sneezing. When she finished, every hole had been patched. Some with sewing. Some with cloth tape. What a relief.

Gabe lifted my heavy (to me) foam mattress and put on new sheets and pillow cases. “These look like you, Grandpop,” he said of the blue Flower printed design. He also carried down a bag of dogfood for me. Also a relief.

We had pizza together. And talked.

We talk about books, about relationships, about grief, about school, about the future. We laugh and get teary. To have this sort of relationship with two I’ve known since infancy continues to be one of the jewels of my life.

They left around four.

 

Dog journal: The saga continues. Once again Shadow refused to come in to stay in the evening. Even though I’ve moved her second feeding to seven p.m. She came in to eat, but bolted again when I tried to touch her collar.

When I went outside, she came up and hugged me, as she likes to do, jumping up softly and putting her left front paw around my waist. After we did this several times, I picked her up and brought her inside. I don’t know, right now, any other way to keep her safe at night.

 

Mussar: Hearing on the side of merit. Judaism teaches judging others on the side of merit. Assuming good intent, thoughtfulness when encountering difficult interactions.

Rich Levine offered a twist on that: Hearing on the side of merit. As a lawyer and as a college professor, listening is a significant, major part of his work life. Hearing on the side of merit entails stopping, perhaps, when encountering a divisive or contrary idea, going to first principles and finding an area of agreement before answering or responding.

Easier to write about than do. Mussar suggests small, incremental changes in outer behavior, intentional changes that then reshape the inner self. Hearing on the side of merit is a good practice for this week.

Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Garden, Greenhouse, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Learned Enough?

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

Thursday gratefuls: Shadow. The leash. The last big hurdle. Tomato plants wilting in the heat, then restored by water. Rich. Susan. Tara. Marilyn. Joanne. MVP last night. The quarter Moon. The Elk Cow and her Calf crossing the road. Wild Neighbors. The second law of thermodynamics. Science. The Humanities. Colleges and universities. Learning is life. Loving is life.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Hearing on the side of merit

Week Kavannah: Wu Wei. Flow.

One brief shining: Shadow lies behind my chair, the yellow leash still attached, now in the third day of desensitization; when I take her outside for a walk, part of the process, she jumps up, paws on my chest, then her left one slipping around my waist in a clingy hug.

 

Dog journal: My empathy has often been close to exhaustion, not with Shadow, but because of her struggles. And mine. This relationship has not been easy. Climb one Mountain only to realize the next peak is higher and right next to the one just summited.

Natalie says the leash is the last big hurdle. God, I hope so. I’d like to settle in to a doggy rhythm with Shadow by my side. I know it’s going to happen. Not when.

 

Mental health: No doubt, dear reader, you caught the melancholy tones in my posts over the last six months. As so often happens for me, I only notice them much later than others.

The pain. Also exhausts my empathy, especially my empathy for myself. Avoidance comes to dominate movement. Move less. Hurt less. Though because, as Halle said, we’re meant to move, this tactic has self-defeat built in. Move less, hurt longer eventually more.

With those two drains on my empathy, Shadow’s struggles and the pain, I’ve had little left over to do what needs to be done. That is, manage all this in a healthy way.

Not to say life has been awful. No. But it has been stretched taut, leaving little room for dreams. Though.

The Greenhouse: Was a dream that is now a reality. I forgot, though Shadow should have more than alerted me to this, realizing dreams has its own cost.

This works. That doesn’t. The heat in the greenhouse, the point after all, reached 104 yesterday. I put a remote thermo sensor in it with a readout station in the house.

When I went out to check all of my Tomato Plants had shriveled, looked dead. I hit the manual button for the irrigation. It ran for twelve minutes and the Leaves filled back up. This means I will need a fan to help modulate the heat.

On the other end the temperature went into the low forties two nights ago. Tomatoes prefer night time temperatures in the sixties. Need that heater which I agreed Nathan could install later.

Learning and growth come when we move outside our comfort zones. Yeah. So I’ve heard. Well, I’ve spent plenty of time over the last six months way outside of my comfort zone. I must be learned enough by now.

Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health

It’s a Pain

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

Wednesday gratefuls: Greenhouse. Tomato Plants. Plant labels. Garden twine. Morning darkness. Shadow and the leash. Her anxiety. Her comfort seeking. Death of a beloved. Seeds. Seed Keeper’s Exchange. Heirloom Seeds. The Bird of Morning. Who makes firm a person’s steps. Tanya. Carla. Kenya. Kathy. Leisa. The Steffey women. Harder physical therapy. The Fourth of July.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Patriotism

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei. Follow the chi.

Week Kavannah: Savlanut. Patience.

One brief shining: The yellow neoprene leash disappeared underneath the bed last night and has not yet reappeared this morning though I’ve been up since five and six lies only ten minutes away, meaning my Shadow’s anxiety has not abated overnight.

 

Dog journal: Oh, the not so subtle agony of Shadow and the leash. I got it on her again near the end of the day. When I clipped it on her collar, she froze, then burrowed in between my legs, looking up at me with a familiar doggy expression: “Help me, please.”

Desensitization. I imagine that’s what Natalie has in mind. A phobia treatment where graduated exposure lessens the fear associated with the phobic situation. Natalie loves animals, that’s clear in her demeanor and practice. Not sure whether Shadow’s reaction to the leash fits.

Might be I forced Shadow too much when putting on the leash. Didn’t seem so to me, but Shadow is a delicate, reactive, and smart Dog. She sees bad intentions where none are meant.

This Shadow journey has proved fraught for both of us. Worth it when she finally let herself give and receive affection. Yet the journey has more than one temporary off ramp. Just hit another one.

We will both need savlanut to find the path forward again.

 

The rest of it:

When I wrote this paragraph yesterday, I stopped too soon:

“Or, and I didn’t say this with her, an end to all of it. No, not suicide, not that. Rather successful pain relief in my hip and back. Wanting it. Needing it. Not sure I’ll get it.”

There are times, not often, but more often than I want or desire, when chronic pain crosses paths with a sad or bad mood for other reasons. Sometimes thoughts then go like this. Oh, to hell with eating well, a heart attack would be better than a slow death by cancer. Or. Why do I even go to p.t.? Why not sit, read, watch television, wait for it to be over. Or, I’ll be glad when this life finishes.

This is not active suicidal ideation. No. But it does have in it the seeds of those thoughts. Note this is not about cancer, rather it’s about the slow degradation of life’s quality by either constant pain or knowing that any movement will produce pain.

Pernicious. Unwanted. Undesirable. Yet they occur to me, these thoughts. They disappear when the pain eases. When I right myself with patience, acceptance, persistence and grit. Time with friends and family. Not always easy to do.

Experiencing Shadow and her travails. Yes. Can create this sort of toxic nexus. Why, I think, they’ve been more common since she came. Not because of her, but due to that axis of frustration and resignation.