Category Archives: Fourth Phase

Dreams, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Great Wheel, Great Work, Jefferson County, Mountains, Politics

A Summer Evening. Dreams

Leave a comment

Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: A summer night. My Lodgepole Companion swaying gently, soaking up Great Sol’s singular gift. A Light Eater. (just got this book) Dreams. Dreams suppressed but not forgotten. The dream group with Irene: Irv, Sandy, Jane, Clara, Susan. Zoom. Chinese food. Evergreen. Its evolution. Changing demographics. Felonious guilty, guilty, guilty.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Hush Money Jurors

One brief shining: Like you, I imagine, I looked at the headlines, typefaces bold and big, pressing up from the mast head, yes, yes, yes, at last a verdict, a consequence for this man, one venal, shallow, desperate man, who has been my President but never my President, and yet, and yet, a man nonetheless, one with the same generous gift granted us from the long arc of evolution, this body and mind, this ensouled flesh.

 

OK. As much fun as it is to chart the long voyage of Felonious Sinsbad, I’m gonna stop. For now.

 

Most of all I want to acknowledge a summer night. Last night. I drove over to Evergreen for a meal at the Coal Mine Dragon restaurant with Joanne, Rebecca, and Terry. A good time was had by all. Around 8 pm we finished and I drove home in the uneven light of a Mountain evening. The temperature hovered in the mid-60’s, gradually declining as I went up in altitude from Evergreen on Brook Forest, then Black Mountain Drive.

Green Grass, Aspens lit up with chartreuse leaves not yet mature, Willow’s golden with new branches, Red Osier Dogwood bright against them both. The various Creeks and Streams flowed peacefully, calmer now following the powerful runs from last week’s rain. The Lodgepoles of course as backdrop for them all, climbing each Mountain I drove past. The trees of the Arapaho National Forest all well-watered and ready for a season of growth.

Dusk finds Mule Deer and Elk out for a late meal though I saw neither on the way home.They were enjoying the evening, too, somewhere else in the Mountains.

Driver’s side window down I drove my usual speed, slower now than in the past, what I consider a speed safe for my Wild Neighbors. The muted light, Great Sol already obscured by the Mountains, but not gone, the comfortable temperature, the Mountains climbing above me, the Creeks and Streams flowing beside the road.

 

Earlier. Another session with those Irene calls The Dreamers. A collection of folks spread out: Santa Fe, England, Half Moon Bay, Evergreen, Conifer. This time only Sandy and I had dreams. Irene put them in a bowl and drew my name so I started. This one was old, May of 2021, but one that has never left my consciousness. I had never discussed it before yesterday.*

Not gonna say a lot about it here except to note that the conversation about it has, I think, pushed me much further along the trail. Feeling the latter day purpose of my life growing clearer. I have been trying to give myself permission to lean into study, serious study. And more writing. Perhaps in an Ancientrails style, perhaps fiction. Both? Yes, lifting the veil. Seeing a rich and powerful next chapter emerging.

Will require more thought, organization. Some decisions about focus. Yet I can feel all of that beginning to surface. At last.

 

*”The Dream. This was at Wabash, my first college: Several women, including a dean, asked me to return, finish my studies. The men in the dream were rigid, angry. In general and at me. Following the lead of the dean, I said yes. I remember calculating in the dream, “Yes, even now after 56 years.” I can still study, write, learn.

At a gateway out of the administrative offices a German Shepherd lunged at me from beneath a cloak and proceeded to lick my face. After passing through the gateway, I was put in a fiery chair with some other men. It burned them but was cool to me.

I had a strong sense of longing, a keen desire to go back, be a scholar/student again. A writer.

This dream feels important, more so than many of the others I’ve had recently. Not gonna conclude much about it right now. Any ideas, impressions: welcome.”

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Jefferson County, Mountains, Park County, Shadow Mountain, Travel

Desiderata Days. Mountain Nights.

Leave a comment

Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Desiderata days. Cool, good sleeping nights. Colorado. Guanella Pass. That jerky store. The Cutthroat Cafe. Happy Camper. The Waterfall. Geneva Creek. The Continental Divide. The Shaggy Sheep. Jefferson Lake. Ruby and her new shoes. Taking a day. Letting it just be. Mountains. Forests. Streams and Creeks. Bridges and trails: The Abyss and Burning Bear Creek Trails. Square Top Mountain. Mt. Blue Sky. Mt. Rosalie. Square Top Mt.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Rocky Mountains, my home

One brief shining: Great Sol, my inner ohr, has begun to peek over Mt. Grief and Mt. Inertia, encouraged by the trip to San Francisco where we/I/us let go of the Lilliputian ropes with which we’d bound ourself to one place, Shadow Mountain, and to one journey, becoming a Jew, and to the dark arts with which death enthralls our psyche, let go of them and got out, on the train, let go of them and went on a trip.

 

Yesterday. Ah. Well.

At last. After too many years. Too much thinking and sitting. Yes. I did it. I went on a short but profound adventure, never leaving the familiar confines of Jefferson and Park Counties. Here’s how it went. With pictures.

Before. A while ago. I named Tuesdays as desiderata days. Go anywhere days. Let the day unfold. Rather than directing it: Write now. Eat now. Study Torah and bar mitzvah portions now. Sleep now. Watch TV now. Workout now. Do work-a-day things to manage my life. Pay bills. Write e-mails. Contact my docs. No. Not on a Tuesday. On Tuesdays I would set aside all that, get in Ruby and head out.

Problem was. I never did it. Oh, I went on a few hikes last year. But not on Tuesdays. Just never let myself experience the freedom I put in my calendar. I even have the Tuesdays named on my Google Calendar: Desiderata Days.

Until. Talked with Tom. The Florida Panhandle has a different understanding of Mountain than we do here. They even put up this mural and named a road and businesses after Blue Mountain:

64 feet. The highest point on the Gulf of Mexico. Photo Credit: Tom Crane, retired.

After I finished talking to Tom the day could have devolved into a usual Tuesday. But it didn’t. I put on my jeans, my LL Bean vest, got my car fob and tiny wallet, a hat, got in Ruby, and left the house. First to King Sooper for the ATM. Cash for the Happy Camper. On to 285 headed south and west toward Pine, then Bailey.

Bought some edibles. Still can’t believe this is legal. Always feel a bit furtive.

Down Crow Hill and it’s 7% grade into Bailey and the Cutthroat Cafe. Passed the Smiling Pig Saloon and Smokehouse where I hope to take Tom, Irv, and Paul in a couple of weeks. Breakfast outside. Oatmeal and Italian sausage. Coffee, sourdough toast. Over for a look at the Sasquatch Outpost. They’re all in on Sasquatch tourist items. From t-shirts to action figures, signs and blankets. Plus footprints.

Faced a decision. Go home or go to Guanella Pass? A desiderata day. Guanella Pass. On Highway 285 through the Platte River Valley, past Shawnee, the Orvis ranch and fly fishing destination, Villa Marie, the Shaggy Sheep, and onto tiny Grant. Turn right.

The Continental Divide
Upper Geneva Creek
Turned Around here

I only drove part way up the 11,700 foot Pass which leads to the old mining town of Georgetown, also accessible from I-70. I had gone on a whim with no water bottles or camelpak. No sunscreen. Plus, it rained much of the time. No raingear. No such thing as bad weather only inadequate gear.

On the way back down I stopped at the jerky place I’ve driven past many times. The owner, a luxuriantly white bearded old man with an oxygen canula, said, “It’s a tiny shop. Just look.” He pointed to the signs above the racks: Salmon jerky, Beef jerky, Alligator jerky, Buffalo, Elk, local beef. I paid with cash and when I did he pointed to a sign, no tax with cash. Cheating the taxman, I imagine. Especially since above this sign was a $1,000 bill with a head shot of our criminal ex-president. The Mountains.

Back home I rested. Thinking. Yep, about a half a day’s energy. That’s my limit these days. Most important. I smiled. Desiderata days. After the bar mitzvah, a desiderata week. Off to Taos.

Feelings, Fourth Phase

Is It Happening Now?

Leave a comment

Beltane and the Moon of Shadow Mountain

Tuesday gratefuls: Happy Camper. Mary Jane. M.J. Hedstrom. Raeone. Judy. Carolyn. Tina. Women of my past. Relationships. Being radical. Even now. Bernie and Elizabeth. BLM. Pro-Israel. Pro-Palestinian. Anti-Hamas. Anti-Iran. Ready for national health care, affordable housing, enough food for all, education as often and as long as needed.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Seeing the establishment for what it is

One brief shining: Often these mornings I put a split English Muffin in the air fryer, get out the lox, cream cheese, and capers, butter them, slather on cheese, put two slices of lox on one side, capers on the cheese, stick my thumb in a mandarin orange and peel it, pour another cup of coffee, grab a mineral water, and sit down to learn what mischief the world has been up to while I slept.

 

Maybe Great Sol. Bright sunshiny days. Blue skies. Mountain air. The scent of Pines. Maybe the onrush of the bar mitzvah. Prep going well. It’s finish line time in two weeks. Then on to another focus. Maybe a waking up from the long sleep of grief, coming into this life, this 77 year old life as a widower, an introvert, an often hermit, a Jew. But coming into it as a whole and vital person, still engaged and alive, ready for today. Talking to Tom. Going to the Happy Camper. The Cutthroat Cafe. Maybe up the Guanella Pass. Resting.

I have false dawns. When I think I’ll turn and turn, wake up, and be ready for a brand new life. Well, not brand new, but one aimed in a new direction, new focus, new patterns, new dreams. But every once in a while, often years apart, an inner Great Sol will illuminate my inner world. A new path, usually a fool’s path, a beginner’s mind path will wind its way through the reaches of my soul. Divorcing Raeone. Judy. Getting sober. Deciding to go to, then finish seminary. Focusing on political work even in my ministry. Becoming a pagan. Meeting and marrying Kate. Writing. The Andover move. The trip to Southeast Asia. That horticultural associates degree. Moving to the Mountains. Kate’s decline and death. Becoming a Jew.

Now I can feel the heat of a new dawn, feel the coolness of a long night beginning to lift. But I’ve felt like this before. I have a doubt, a mild cynicism. Oh, you’re too old. Nothing new under this inner sun. You’re too weak, too damaged by various physical maladies. All those other dawns. What have they produced anyhow? Well. A lot actually. A whole life, one marked by this and that, up and down. A normal life, a good life. A satisfying life. Oh. Huh.

I need these break points, bechira points where the world behind becomes just that, a past, all well and good while it happened, but fading away, its hold over my talents and resources loosening so a new focus can emerge.

Perhaps this is a violation of the current scripture: be here now. Or perhaps it’s a perfect example. I don’t know. But I yearn to fall forward, or even leap forward. Is it happening now?

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Holidays, Memories, US History

Memorial Day

Leave a comment

Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Monday gratefuls: Cool night. Memorial Day. Decoration Day. Parades. School’s over and summer starts. The World. Its many Wild Neighbors. Mountains. Lakes. Ponds. Tides. Tidal Pools. Forests. Trees. Plains. Rivers. Streams. Creeks. Meadows. Valleys. Cultures. Long evolution. Its oneness. Its holiness. Its sacred nature. Our Hullian needs. Our need for fulfillment and satisfaction.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Warriors

One brief shining: Those parades when heat softened the asphalt on Harrison Street so it could accept treads laid down by the tank from the National Guard Armory, when the guys carrying the colors insisted on wearing their old uniforms, pale stretched skin showing where the buttons held, only just, when last year’s homecoming queen sat prim and straight on the folded convertible top of an impeccably restored 1957 Chevy, when we would stand along the parade route enthralled.

 

Memorial day. Mom and Dad. Veterans of WWII. Uncle Riley, too. That generation that gave so much. War. A human horror engaged too often for too little reason. Though WWII was not one of those. To have had that great world spasm followed by the never finished Korean War and the unnecessary Vietnam War, then Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya has sullied the warrior class, making them too often pawns of geopolitical maneuvering by oligarchs, dictators, and short sighted politicians.

Yet. They persist. Often frustrated and hemmed in by those who misunderstand their role. As I once did. Warriors and priests. Old, old roles in human cultures around the globe. Both often abused. Both in my immediate family.

Easy to forget the purpose of the Lt. Col. who is my son. The USAF. Defense. Not offense. Oaths taken to defend the U.S. against all enemies domestic and foreign. Obedience to civilian authority delivered through the Commander in Chief, the President.

The military does not define who the enemies are. That’s a civilian responsibility. Often lacking in both reason and ethical justification, yes. But it is the civilian authority who aims and then empowers our military. Only then can they engage.

Warriors place themselves in harms way to defend their tribe, their people, their nation. This is an ancient and honorable role. Indigenous people in the U.S., in spite of their history, sign up in disproportionate numbers because the warrior class holds such high esteem in their cultures.

Yes, war is terrible and often, perhaps most often, wrong. That is, engaged not for defense but for seizing land, control of another people, for vengeance. For reasons of profit and misguided fears. For this last think the domino effect.

The warriors themselves continue on. Learning, training, readying themselves for what might be, for what even they hope may never be. Yet when called they will respond and respond with all that they have.

I’m not thrilled to have a warrior son. Though I recognize the selflessness of his choice. And the values which led him to choose service to country. I wish he could have become a social worker, a lawyer, a physician. He was pre-med before turning to the Air Force after 9/11.

Yet over the years I’ve come to appreciate the sacrifice in life-style, income, and personal freedom. I’ve met many of his colleagues and to a person they are warriors, too. Global politics are anarchic and still ruled by might makes right in the minds of many. We need a military, citizens willing to defend us.

They are who we honor today. Especially those who died as a result of their service.

All year after the parade we would drive over those tank treads, hardened into a feature of our main street. The slight rumble would remind us.

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Memories, Politics, US History

Old Self Surfaces

Leave a comment

Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Ancient Brothers. Socrates Cafe. Irv. A cool night for sleeping. Candles. Rituals. Sabbath. Writing. Hanukah. Yahrzeit. Kate, always Kate. Politics. Justice. A just society. Could happen. My Lodgepole Companion waving their Branches, soaking up Great Sol. Presidents. Politicians. Self-driving cars. Teslas. Electric cars. The old kind. Change.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Electric cars

One brief shining: Whoo, boy, every once in a while I put my foot in and forget to take it right back out, like yesterday at the Socrates Cafe when I, much to my surprise, felt a need to defend the reality of injustice and collective effort to remedy it, not my best foot to put in for the first time I showed up in person.

 

Underneath it all I’m still a pretty unreconstructed ’60’s radical. The establishment has the power, oligarchs and millionaire politicians make policy that fits their needs and fail to address the systemic nature of racism, sexism, classism, ageism, and the Great Work itself. The only way to alter systemic problems lies in the realm of politics, something even the MAGA folks seem to intuit. But not the folks at the Socrates Cafe.

This self, this radical self, mostly lies quiet these polarized days. Painfully gained higher emotional intelligence signals me when a situation will not be made better by my political analysis. And they are many. Something I often failed to notice in my working days. Yesterday though.

All my mussar work, all my realization of appropriate venues for political discourse got shunted aside when the majority of folks in the group took up the position that there is no such thing as right or wrong, justice is always personal and contextual, by which they seemed to mean relative to a specific, interpersonal situation.

I’m not used to having to defend the fact of injustice. Skin color for some was irrelevant. (Everybody was white.) It’s not possible to know the positive or negative effect of remedying injustice. (I have some empathy for this perspective, yet it’s an action killer.) Slavery didn’t matter. There was just nothing you could do unless you did it personally.

Acting justly in interpersonal situations? Of course. A minimum as far I’m concerned. Yet. Imagining that even the golden rule will change systemic, historical imbalances in our culture is naive at best and a form of denial at worst.

These folks all knew each other and have been doing this Socratic cafe twice a month since 2003. Afraid I violated their group norms. Didn’t mean to. But justice is a flash point issue for me.

All began because my question was chosen. The method is this: whoever has a question writes it in on an index card and turns it in. Jannel reads the questions through once. Then, the one who wrote the question explains how they came to it. After those explanations, yesterday there were six submitted questions, a show of hands votes each question up or down. 15 people in attendance. My question was: Is a just society possible? The consensus, btw, was a resounding no.

Commentary on Religion, Feelings, Fourth Phase, GeekWorld, Health, Judaism

Works for Me

Leave a comment

Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Socrates Cafe today. Tara lesson today. Torah and the morning service. Rami Shapiro. Judaism without Tribalism. Ruth and Gabe. Mark in Hua Hin on the Gulf of Thailand. Three Body Problem trilogy. Breakfast at Aspen Perks. Picking up shirts at USA cleaner. Groceries today. Pickup again. Got hot dogs for Memorial Day. A very rare treat.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Lodgepoles of Arapaho National Forest

One brief shining: Have taken no shirts to a dry cleaner/laundry since Kate died, not sure why, but last week I took in my new shirts and my flannel shirts, the new ones to have a wash and an ironing, the flannel shirts for a seasonal dry cleaning, ready now to store in the closet until the next Winter, and it felt like a splurge. So expensive. BTW: I did wash my shirts in the washing machine. Just so you know.

 

A good workout week. Hit my 150 minutes again. Moving up on weights. Always feel better when I get all my workouts in. Think of Diane headed up Bernal Hill on her jogging route. Ode in the gym gettin’ buff. Watch the red meat, eat fruits and vegetables, more fish and chicken. Workout. Live longer, healthier. Maybe. No phone call yet about my P.E.T. scan. Part of it, too. Mind the cancer.

 

Got a new set of all-seasons for Ruby. Big O. They know the double entendre, I’m sure, but using it on a tire retailer? Seems odd. To me anyhow. Oil change, too. Synthetic. 10,000 miles between. Feels luxurious after a life time of 5,000 mile oil changes. Course those of you with the electrics. Don’t they beat all when it comes to maintenance. I like leaving as many dollars up here in the Mountains as I can. Help the local economy.

 

Led mussar on Thursday. Always fun to lead a group temporarily. Considering another dive into the educating realm. Right now I’m in a havruta with Gary Riskin. Traditionally talmud torah, torah study, was done in pairs. Read a text. Summarize it, analyze it. Sharpening each others thought process. A lively back and forth. Probably where the quip, two Jews, three opinions, came from. We meet every two weeks over zoom. We worked on Cain and Abel last session. The only class I’m in right now.

But. Having just finished Rabbi Toba Spitzer’s excellent God is Here, and halfway through Rabbi Rami Shapiro’s Judaism without Tribalism, with Rabbi Michael Strassfield’s latest, Judaism Disrupted: A Spiritual Manifesto for the 21st Century, ready after I finish Shapiro, I may consider creating a class using these three books. Plus maybe one of Mordecai Kaplan’s, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism. The work in Toba Spitzer’s book and Rami’s show the power of Reconstructionist thought. I find them working the same vein as Emerson.

That is, how can we use the spiritual deposit of the ages while maintaining an open, even skeptical attitude toward religion as an institution? I found Unitarian-Universalism too broad and too thin a tool for this quest. Paganism worked better for me. Until I found a group committed to the same rigorous approach to religion as Emerson and myself and committed to community at the same time. Reconstructionism.

I find Spitzer, Shapiro, and Strassfield working at the outer edges of what Shapiro calls Judaism without tribalism. Calling into question the very way we understand the sacred, Spitzer’s work on metaphors, and Shapiro’s focus on Judaism’s two key moves: teshuvah and tikkun.

Teshuvah, or return, means in his thought returning to who we really are after jettisoning other’s expectations, and being dead honest about who we are. Tikkun means repairing the world: the physical world, the political world, the emotional world. These are, according to him, the mission of Jews. To embrace our true selves and repair a damaged reality. Works for me.

 

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Judaism, Mountains, Shadow Mountain

Gettin’ Real

Leave a comment

Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Waste. Great Sol yet again. All the Water falling down the Mountain toward Bear Creek. Reconstructionist Judaism. Irv and the Ancient Brothers. Taxes. Tom and his test. Ruth and her gift. Domo. I-70, experiencing Crash Week. David. Kristie. Learning Hebrew. Learning the Morning Service. Pushing on through to the other side. New tires Thursday.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Driving in the Mountains

One brief shining: Velveteen Rabbiting so many things: that Stickley couch with naps, the Stickley chair with books of all sorts, the living room with its Garden Path paint and Jerry’s painting, Joseph’s self-portrait, Ruby with every nick and scrape, Judaism with each Hebrew word and phrase I learn, Great Sol and my driveway, my lev each time I write a post or go see a friend, becoming, changing participating in the One.

 

“God is that aspect of reality which elicits from us the best that is in us and enables us to bear the worst that can befall us.” Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, Reconstructionist Prayerbook

 

Shadow Mountain. Rubbing it each time I drive up and down the hill, each time I get up in the Morning, say the Shema, touch the mezzuzah, cook a meal, read a book, see it whole from the Safeway parking lot. It is the literal foundation of my world. Its rocky, knobby forehead posed toward the West, its long flank running from my house all the way downhill to Hwy. 73, and then, too, toward the north and the Valley of Cub and Blue Creeks. Its broken Rock Aquifer holds Rain and Snow for the Lodgepoles, the Aspens, and my shower, dishwasher, toilets and sinks, and boiler. Shadow Mountain also lifts me up to 8,800 feet above sea level. Making Oxygen less available. How big it really is I do not know for it shades into Black and Conifer Mountains. Mountains, at least in the Front Range, do not live isolated lives, rather they brush against each others’ Valleys, Meadows and often join together below the surface, stand together in runs of Peaks and Valleys. Yes. It is Shadow Mountain Home.

Kate’s Creek and Valley: Also shabby from an abundance of love. Where I first dispersed some of Kate’s ashes, where I later distributed them all. A spot I’ve used for hiking for several years in all seasons. I know where the Strawberries and Raspberries and Wild Roses grow. Kate’s Creek Waters its banks. A White Pine grows straight and tall. Perhaps a ship’s mast in another century.

Congregation Beth Evergreen. Rubbing shoulders. Literally. Mussar. Evening Services. Outdoor performances. B’nei Mitzvahs. Classes of all sorts. So many years with Kate. She rubbed it, too. And is part of what has become real, alive for me there. Breakfasts and lunches.

The loft. Where I workout. Where I paint, store my books, most of them, read and used to write. Everyday for so many years until Kep’s illness. A place made real.

What, I wonder, are you Velveteen Rabbiting right now?

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Judaism, Mountains, Plants, Wild Neighbors

Life. Challenges to it.

Leave a comment

Beltane and the Moon of Shadow Mountain

General Sherman

Tuesday gratefuls: Sarah’s back home. Her visit. Ruth tonight at Domo. Kristie today for update on my recent labs. Meeting David to talk prostate cancer. Great Sol beaming. All those Wild Neighbor babies and young ones. Good workout yesterday. Good practice for my bar mitzvah: torah portion and service leading portions. Ordering a few things: new laptop, new laptop stand, a summer weight comforter. Giving on Colorado Jewish Giving Day.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Enough to share

One brief shining: Can you imagine General Sherman under attack, the largest single Tree in the world, 274.9 feet high, 102.6 feet circumference at ground level, height of first branch above the base, 130.0 feet, by Beetles, Bark-Beetles, possibly aided by the climate tragedy; more, can you imagine being a researcher for the Giant Sequoia Lands Coalition climbing General Sherman this week, this great Wild Neighbor,  because “We really feel like it’s our duty as stewards to take a closer look.” I can.

Quote from Christy Brigham in a San Francisco Chronicle article by Kurtis Alexander, May 20, 2024. Courtesy of Diane.

 

I feel suddenly protective of these Trees, this Tree. The Redwoods, too. And the Bristlecone Pines. Taller than three blue whales. I mean…

Gonna add the Giant Sequoia Lands Coalition to my donation list. Just donated. What a good feeling. Loving sharing Kate and mine’s money with organizations living out our values. Southern Poverty Law Center. Wild Animal Sanctuary. Kabbalah Experience. CBE. ADL. The Land Institute. The Ancient Forests Society. Makes me happy.

No, we cannot make much of a difference, but we can add our names and our money to those spots of human activity where social justice, the Great Work, Judaism, the Land, and our Wild Neighbors get attention and progress forward.

Not sure why the heart connection with these Trees. Mostly Muir Woods, I guess. Standing next to, among. Shaded by. Overshadowed by. A wild amazement that such beings exist, life so strong and vital. Godliness found. Commitment to a location. Perseverance. Majesty. Silence. Love of place, of the Soil. Soul creation.

 

Today at 11 I talk with Kristie for the first time in a while. My PSA went up a bit, as I wrote before, and my testosterone down. PSA under 1.0 which is the point beyond which imaging can pick up metastases. So no P.E.T. scan. Still off the drugs with my drug holiday. Feeling a bit unsure, unsteady about cancer right now. Will be good to talk to Kristie and get her take, her advice about where we go from here. Back on the drugs, I’m sure. But when?

Almost all of the time I’m ok with the cancer, letting it go on its way, taking the steps my doctors recommend. Living today. When I get a bit anxious about it, I’m not sure what’s going on. Like now. Hardly crippling, yet also there.

 

Have supper with my favorite (and only) granddaughter tonight at Domo. There I’ll give her the present from Kate and me. Enough cash to travel somewhere interesting before starting college. Also, some chocolate. I am so proud to be her grandpop. Glad for her that she was able to complete high school and graduate with her class. CU-Boulder this fall. Studio Arts. Her Dad and Grandma are proud.

 

 

 

 

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Travel

Donner Party Picnic Area

Leave a comment

Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Ruth. The class of 2024. Denver University. High School. Still high school. Sarah. My son. Seoah in pink. Helping with the Rice planting in Okgwa. Graduation ceremonies. Rites of passage. Alan. His new Beemer. Electric. Venturing into adulthood. Airmen and women. My son as uncle or para-father.  The USAF. Radar. Islands.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Seeing and hearing my son

One brief shining: Stepped up to the cash register, ordered Bolognese Sour Dough Toast, a Lemonberry tart, a fancy pastry with a melted sugar halo, and a Cuban coffee, gathered in the number, 47, for the order and went back to the table in the Bread Lounge overlooking the Mountains west of Evergreen including the completely Snow covered Continental Divide.

 

Speaking of the Continental Divide. On my train ride to San Francisco the conductor, who came on speaker from time to time with historic or geographic points of interest, indicated the River flowing beside the train. The Colorado. I’d crossed it before on a long ago trip to Colorado from Phoenix, but never had a chance to really see it. Muddy with Spring runoff it flowed fast and full, a River of so many dreams. Las Vegas. Tucson. Phoenix. Even far away Los Angeles. Then. Wait it a minute. It’s going the wrong way. Jumped to the first time I crossed the Red River near Fargo. Same sensation.

What? Oh. The Continental Divide. This mud roiled river flowed west and south, toward the Baja, toward the great Pacific Ocean, not the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic. Even though I got this intellectually my brain kept feeling tricked each time I looked at the Colorado. My limbic system was not sure what to do with this fundamental change. One it did not understand.

Another odd point of interest. The Donner Party Picnic Area in the Tahoe National Forest. I mean, they had to know what they were doing when they named that, right?

At midnight on the 28th of April I woke up and wandered down stairs. The train, the California Zephyr, had stopped, and I wondered where we were. There in the distance was Salt Lake City. The Mormon Tabernacle. The angel Moroni. Twinkling in the intermontane night. A cool breeze came in from the open door of my sleeper car.

 

Just a moment: Alan, yesterday, said rather than being in a long Pause that I had moved into the inner Charlie. A student. A scholar. A friend. Living alone and loving it. Hmm. I think both are true. I have privileged my introverted, scholarly side, no doubt. And, as he pointed out, he and I have taken many acting classes together. So I was engaged. True. However, it’s also true that my life has had mostly external guide rails in spite of that. In the last year especially Jewish immersion, mikveh, sure, but Jewish home life, too, for example. Shabbat. The Shema. The mezzuzahs. And the classes with Jamie.

The Pause is a time of collecting experience, integrating it, letting it change me. Then, living the change. I feel like I’m moving toward that moment. Perhaps this year.

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Judaism, Memories, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Cookin’

Leave a comment

Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Friday gratefuls: Irv. Tom. The Ancient Brothers. Rabbi Jamie. The hidden me. Great Sol ablaze in morning glory. Kate, always Kate. Her Creek and her Valley. Kep, my sweet boy. The Redwoods. Bechira points. A long Pause. This Jewish life. Tara. Luke. Rebecca. Ginny and Janice. Back among my peeps. Alan and Joan this morning. Friendships. Music.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: a Pause

One brief shining: Driving down the hill toward Evergreen, Black Mountain Drive becomes Brook Forest Drive, a couple of miles after what used to be the Brook Forest Inn a shallow cutout, good for maybe two or three vehicles, provides parking for a short Valley with a small Mountain Stream carving its way through, White Pines and Ponderosas, Wild Rose and Wild Strawberry and Wild Raspberry grown along its banks and up the steep Valley sides, this is Kate’s Creek running through Kate’s Valley, where her last physical remains began their journey to the World Ocean.

 

Yesterday was session ten of ten conversion sessions with Rabbi Jamie. I will miss these. My Rabbi. There’s a phrase I would not have expected to come out of my mouth. Ever. Yet now I can’t imagine life without Rabbi Jamie in it. He’s a backstop. A validator. A friend. A guide.

He opened me up again yesterday. I shared my guilt. Jewish guilt? About being a hermit by preference these days. Not wanting to engage politically. Or in any way really that’s not personal. As he often does, he went to what appeared to be tangent.

“I researched creativity a couple of years ago. Prepping for a Kabbalah Experience class. I learned then that a creative block, or Pause, can be long. And you never know how long.”

I had used a string of phrases: Not over, Not finished, Not complete, Not done to describe how I felt about my life. While affirming my joy at being alone within a crowd of friends.

Slowly. Oh. I see. Kate’s illness intensifying in mid-2019. Her long, slow decline. Covid. Her death. Grief. Going this way into redecorating the house, that way into moving to Hawai’i, over there to empty the house of stuff, adjusting to my son and Seoah living so far away, taking the plunge into the mikveh and my year of living Jewishly. The trip to Korea and my back’s emergence as a limit. Feeling overtaken, if not overwhelmed, by all the learning, the focus required for conversion and my bar mitzvah. The trip to San Francisco.

Like a caterpillar in its chrysalis, an imaginal self reorganizes for renewal, reemergence. Its container the years of a   whole life-lived experience, vital nutrient for a transformed nefesh. This paused version of me lives day to day. Happy. Joyful. Yet unfocused. Unlike the Great Southern Brood I have no 13 year clock ticking; the timing is uncertain. This Pause. A moment. Now five years or so in length.

So freeing. So liberating. As Rabbi Shapiro said (I think.), “It’s all about freedom.”