Category Archives: Fourth Phase

Asia, Cooking, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Hebrew, Judaism, Politics

It’s a New Day, It’s a New Life, and I’m Feeling Good

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Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: The Shema. Hebrew. Decoding. Learning a language. Ooph. Sinking into the New Year. Great Sol blazes across another Colorado blue Sky. Black-eyed Peas. Black Beans. Black-eyed Pea soup. Cooking. In my remodeled kitchen. Tom’s poems and his depth. Mario’s optimism and self-confidence. Paul’s will and intellect. Bill’s steadiness and insight. The Ancient Brothers. Five years or so of honesty, authenticity, compassion, and love. Diane in Taiwan. Great photos. Tara and her skill as a teacher. My friends.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Soup in Winter

One brief shining: Yes oh yes each morning a resurrection, each day a new life, new chances for love and justice and compassion, for leadership in your own heart, for doing what you can, surrendering when you must, for standing out as the unique and irreplaceable one that you are as part of the one that envelops all in its sacred embrace.

 

Leaning into the Jewish idea that each morning is a resurrection from the one-sixtieth of death that is a night’s sleep. Each day is a new life we could even say a new year since it’s the only time you have this new year, this day. What is your kavanah, your intention, for this new life you’ve been given? Yes, given. You woke up, didn’t you? Grief teaches us about the wonder and awe of this simple pleasure, waking up. And about the opportunity it is. This is not just any day, it’s a new day!

Perhaps we should set aside New Year’s resolutions. As if we didn’t know that already, right? Instead let’s make new day intentions. Maybe find a bit more joy than yesterday. Imagine if you could find just a bit more joy each day. What could you feel like at the end of a month?

Perhaps a bit more calmness. Not a lot. You don’t have to wind down, be chill in every moment. No. Take a breath now and then today. Try that 4-7-8 breathing or some other calming technique. At least once. See if it helps.

In my case. Give focused attention to Hebrew while at Tara’s. Prep that black-eyed Pea soup for the MVP group tomorrow night. Consider driving into Denver to Listenup and buy a new cd player. Smile at that Lodgepole soaking up the heat and energy from Great Sol. Be easy as I do all these things. Not pressing as I might. Not pushing. Flowing with them. Letting the Water of my day find its own path to the gentleness of evening.

 

And, in other news. In an 8-7 decision Israel’s Supreme Court had its Marbury v. Madison moment and came down on the side of judicial authority. We’ve not heard the last of this one. Also, a Korean presidential candidate got stabbed in Busan. Japan had another quake, a 7.6 with many aftershocks. Tsunami warnings in Japan and Korea. And 45’s star continues to rise among the ranks of the Grand Old Party. May it go nova and turn into a political black hole for all of them.

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Great Work, Humanities, Painting, Writing

Intention

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Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

January 1 gratefuls: 2024. A new year fresh and out of the box. Great Sol. Luna the magnificent. Orion. The Great Bear. Polaris, the true North Star. Each and every Lodgepole, Aspen, Ponderosa. 2023. With all its troubles. Climate change. Gabriella. Axolotls. Regenerative farming. Soil. Microbes. Roots. Rhizomes. Bulbs. Corms. Potatoes. Heirloom Tomatoes like Cherokee Purple. Steak Diane. Cooking.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: 2024

One brief shining: Without a sound at least here on Shadow Mountain a new year slipped across Black Mountain without notice to my wild neighbors or even to me as I went to bed at 9 o’clock having eaten my steak Diane, mashed Potatoes, and a Corn/Bacon/Red Peppers side washed down with my favorite beverage, water, and slept through the transition from midnight 2023 to an election year.

 

No resolutions this year. A few intentions. Kavanah.

Listening to music more. Something I let slide as computers and Alexa pretended to fill that void in my life. They don’t. Buying a good cd player, amplifier, speakers. I so love chamber music and Renaissance music. Both of them move through my body with gentle and nuanced vibrations, drawing me into and up from my inner world to another world filled with sound, changing sound.

Each Friday night, at least most Friday nights, of the concert series for the year, I went first to the auditorium at St. Catherine’s when Dennis Russel-Davies was the conductor and after to Rice Park in St. Paul, to the Ordway, found my subscription seat, sat down, and let myself open to the music of the evening. For over 20 years. I met Kate there.  Like many of us as we got older, the drive in from Andover made each Friday night turn in to the occasional night, then the very occasional night until we failed to buy a series. After that those wonderful nights faded away.

 

Turning my political energies toward the not so distant future. With papers like the Washington Post declaring 2023 as the year climate change arrived, adaptive strategies that can feed the World, restore Animals and Plants to their original habitats or help them move, and heal the devastation of our petroleum addicted economy must come on line. In my way I will discover and promote organizations and individuals working to those ends. I’ve already mentioned some like perennial crops, regenerative farming, and ecosystem restoration. But I’ve only just begun.

This is a shift for me away from front line justice work or the work of laws and politicians, and even away from work on climate change itself. Though I’ve done little of any of that of late. I’m leaning into Thomas Berry’s Great Work for our generation, creating a sustainable human presence on Mother Earth, not by working against carbon emissions or anything immediate, rather by focusing on the sustainability of future human life.

 

Painting and sumi-e. Grief. The idea of a move to Hawai’i. Desuetude. Faded on this one. Clearing and cleaning my loft this month will get me ready to return. Not because I’m good, but because I love color and shape and creating.

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Fungi, Garden, Great Wheel, Great Work, Health, Hydroponics, Mountains, Our Land and Home, permaculture, Plants, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Science, Sierra Club, Weather +Climate

A Bold Return to Giving a Damn

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Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

Friday gratefuls: Tara. Her new puppy. Cold. Snow. Sleep. Gabriella. A Bold Return to Giving a Damn: One Farm. Amazon. New Phone. Wallet. 2024 on the way. Poetry. Road Less Taken. Lines Written at Tintern Abbey. Kubla Kahn. Notes on a Supreme Fiction. Circles. Leaves of Grass. Ozymandias. The Raven. Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. The Wasteland. Song of Myself. The Second Coming. And so much else.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Poetry

One brief shining: The end of another year approaches, our penchant for deciding calendar dates as the always orbiting Earth’s journey around Great Sol continues, brings us to Pope Gregory XIII who chose in October of 1582 in his well known Papal bull: Inter gravissimas to change the rules for leap years to prevent the Julian calendar’s drift away from the solar holidays, oh you didn’t know, well neither did I but Wikipedia did.

 

 

Gabriella. My adopted Axolotl. She’s swimming in the chinampas canals along with other wild Axolotls who will repopulate the ancient waterways of Xochimilco. I get excited about this project because it’s both the reintroduction of a wild species into its former habitat (see the five Timber Wolves released a week ago in western Colorado) and a project that supports indigenous farming methods healthy for the chinampas themselves. This kind of work will enable our grandchildren to have their best chance to adapt to a warming World.

A Bold Return to Giving a Damn: One Farm, Six Generations, and the Future of Food relates the story of Will Harris and his disillusionment with Big Ag 30 years ago. The successful transition of his family’s farm to regenerative farming makes compelling reading if you care about the source of your food. This farm is in southwestern Georgia, but it’s an example, not singular.

The USA Regenerative Agriculture Allliance, Inc trains farmers in regenerative practices. Yes, it’s about good food, food raised without pesticides, fertilizers and other “inputs” that defy the natural cycle and deplete the soil. But, it’s also about how to live in a warming World. Someday regenerative agriculture will use the perennial grains and other crops under development at the Land Institute.

Want to volunteer in the work of Ecosystem restoration? Look at the Ecosystems Restoration Communities website. They do restoration projects all over the world. The expertise and practical knowledge developed as these organization go about their own individual missions will become the Seedstock for a World that can no longer afford any depletion of natural capital.

What’s natural capital? An accounting method. That’s right. Accounting. The Natural Capital Project at Stanford University develops accounting methods that define the value of Ecosystems, Oceans, the Water cycle, Forests. Why is this important? Regenerative agriculture is a good example. Corporate farming, by far the dominant model in the U.S. and in most of the World, treats Soil, Crops, and Animals as so many widgets to be manipulated for increased profits. Their accounting methods do not have to take into account the value of the Soil, the Rain, the need for dna diversity in both food Crops and Animals. They don’t have to reckon with the future costs of ruined Soil, the dangers of monocultures in such critical crops as Corn, Wheat, Rice. Maybe they’re not as profitable as they think.

OK. I’ll stop. For now. But I will return to these adaptive approaches that will help Ruth and Gabe survive in a much changed world.

 

Faith and Spirituality, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Judaism

Consider the Aspen

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Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon among the Lodgepoles in the back

Thursday gratefuls: Winter Solstice Moon. Great Sol making Black Mountain visible. The Lodgepole out my window, its gentle, steady, stable presence. Shadow Mountain beneath me, a strong support for my house and my life. The Winds that blow from the west. The Snow that reveals Wild Neighbor treks across my driveway. The Rocky Mountains. The Sangre De Cristo. The San Juans. Creed, Colorado site of the long ago largest Volcanic eruption ever.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: This sacred Place

One brief shining: Consider the Aspens, naked now to endure the cold of Winter and wait for the warmth of Spring, tall gray/white bark branches reaching skyward in fractal forming patterns, Escheresque if viewed with a fixed gaze, a sturdy trunk rising up from the rocky Soil of Shadow Mountain to create a strong pillar for its days and nights held in one place, its Roots below unseen holding the whole of it anchored while also reaching, reaching for nutrients, for other Aspens since they are communal, growing in tribes of individuals all bearing the same DNA, consider the Aspen.

 

Kavanah. Intention. When I went on my mushroom pilgrimage, I set the intention of examining what it meant to live life fully. Now. I got the answer from deep in my Soul, from my Chayah*, my supra-rational self—the seat of will, desire, commitment and faith. Surrender. To live fully you must include Surrender.

What does that mean, my friend Bill asked? I wrote this a few posts back:

“To live fully I need to open up, accept what’s coming. Greet the new year with arms spread wide for what it brings rather than what I can make happen. Well, not rather than. I mean, I’ll still take up arms, of course I will, but I learned yesterday that I have another option. To embrace, to wait, to listen, to let the world and its wonders come to me.” from December 20 post, Surrender Charlie

From that nugget the notion of faith began to vibrate in my mind, in my soul, my Chayah in a different way. What if that was the element I had missed all my life? Faith that included surrender. Not just faith as an outgrowth of intellectual work, of considering arguments, logic, but also of allowing my Self, my Soul to sink into a place of confidence, of knowing without knowledge, of commitment to a path because the path itself was the way. An almost Taoist thought, I just realized.

Great Sol projects life giving energy 93 million miles through the vacuum of space where a bit of it lands on the Lodgepole I see out my window. That ohr, that light, both makes the Needles of this Pine Tree visible to my eye, but also starts the magic, the miracle and yes, both words fit of photosynthesis. All across Mother Earth this miracle happens. Blades of Grass, Leaves of Flowers and Vegetables, of Deciduous Trees, of Seaweed, of Moss and Wheat gather in this long traveled energy and convert Great Sol’s ohr into chemical energy, sugars, that provide the whole animal kingdom including humans with food.

I see, have been seeing this miracle since that Spider wove its web over our kitchen window at 311 E. Monroe. The Garden Spider with her black and yellow abdomen ran up and down her web gathering her life energy from insects that gathered theirs from plant life. It has taken me decades to see this miracle all the time. Now though I look out my window and bang, there’s a revelation. The sacred interconnectedness of all things. Not found in a book or a sanctuary or a puja or on a meditation pillow but right in front of my sacred eyes! How marvelous is that.

It is one, this vast blooming buzzing chaos I can see is not chaotic, rather it is a pulsing and living part of a vast, so vast, sacred whole in which we humans move and live and have our being. And we Jews say YHWH-I was/I am/I will be-is also one. I say it every night before I go to bed and every morning when I wake up. The Shema. I say it when I leave my house and when I return. It’s written in the mezuzahs on my door frames. I say we are part of, not apart from this sacred whole that has no beginning and will have no end.

And I became a Jew because I found others sacred to me who wanted to celebrate this, this wonder. And, yes, I’ll even say, I have faith in Jewish civilization as a path which unveils the sacred, which includes me, and will include me, will support me, will remember me.

And which includes you, dear reader, and all that surrounds you. And all of us.

 

*”Our sages have said: “She is called by five names: Nefesh (breath), Ruach (wind/spirit), Neshamah (breath), Chayah (life) and Yechidah (singularity).”2 The Chassidic masters explain that the soul’s five “names” actually describe five levels or dimensions of the soul. Nefesh is the soul as the engine of physical life. Ruach is the emotional self and “personality.” Neshamah is the intellectual self. Chayah is the supra-rational self—the seat of will, desire, commitment and faith. Yechidah connotes the essence of the soul—its unity with its source, the singular essence of G‑d.” Chabad.org

 

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Hebrew, Judaism, Kabbalah, Mussar, Talmud, Torah

Faith

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Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Marilyn and Irv. Tara. The dark. Gradualism. Getting things done, slowly. Surrender. Emunah. Faith. The Jewish Way. Mussar. Torah. Shabbat. Holidays. Zen. Taoism. Easy Entrees. Kavanah for 2025. Choosing a way forward. Including surrender. On signs and portents. Trash day delay. Mark, mail carrier. Ana and Lita, housecleaners. Vince, handyman and Snow plower. Helping me live independently.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Surrender

One brief shining: Opening my arms and leaning back, letting 2025 come at me with all its got while I smile and wait knowing this next year is the one I’ve been waiting for, the one when magical and miraculous things will happen, when love will be the only thing left, when I will once again live as I’m meant to with human and wild, life and death, intellect and ignorance.

 

I could explain it with cognitive bias. Or whatever it’s called when you have something front of mind and you keep seeing references to it in newspapers, books, hear it come into conversation, happen upon a magazine article that features it. But I won’t.  Let me give an example. Long ago I bought an Anne Rice book featuring angels. This maven of the vampire world decided to write a book about goodness instead of evil, I guess. I liked Lestat and the Mayfair witches so I’d give it a go. It was on my Kindle and I never got around to it.

This week I picked it up. It has, in the beginning, a heavily Roman Catholic emphasis and if you know Anne Rice that won’t surprise you. What surprised me was the main story line about Jews in thirteenth century England. It would have been a curiosity to me when I bought the book, now it has existential meaning. This is not a great book by any means, though an offhand comment by Fluria, a bright and capable Jewish woman, struck me. She spoke about Jews in Oxford being harassed, their homes burned, “It spreads like a plague,” she said, worrying about her community in Norwich. Oh, just like Israel v. Hamas affects Jewish life in the U.S.

My inner life has taken a new direction and my mind reinforces it whenever it can. Yes. But why did I pick up the book now? Why did my decision to convert coincide with the Israel Hamas tragedy? I chose emunah, faith, as my mussar evening long before I chose to convert. Now it challenges me, as I wanted it to, in a way much different to what I intended. How did it happen that I would have a bar mitzvah?

I’m choosing to surrender to the notion that cognitive bias works in mysterious ways its wonders to perform. That my new, dare I call it faith, in a Jewish life comforts and supports me, gives me confidence that my life will grow in purpose and love. That’s what my conversion meant. For me, Judaism evokes faith in a grounded experience, one rooted in the soil of Mother Earth and in the souls of my sacred community, nourished by compost from a rich and varied tradition.

 

 

 

 

 

Cooking, Fourth Phase, Shadow Mountain

Eating

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Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Emunah. Faith. Panentheism. MVP. Rich. Susan. Jamie. Marilyn. Ron. Joan. Tara. Yet more Snow. A new year on the way, Gregorianly speaking. So many new years. 2025. A quarter century into the new millennia. Y2K. Those of us born in the middle of the last century of the last millennia. Mark and an orange/red Moon. Kep, my sweet boy. Kate, of blessed memory. Jon. Ruth. Gabe. Pammy. BJ. Sarah. Anne. Pork tenderloin medallions. Easy Entrees.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Good sleeping

One brief shining: Chose to make my own Christmas meal with Pork medallions, mashed Potatoes, and mixed Vegetables; got out the small cast iron skillet, drizzled some virgin olive oil in it, poured water into a sauce pan for the mashed Potatoes, and tossed the steam-in-bag Vegetables into the microwave, pressed the on button for the skillet, ticked down to 7 on the induction settings, waited for the oil to shimmer and placed the Pork medallions in the skillet, put the wire oil catcher on it, hit 3 minutes on the timer, after 30 seconds I set the microwave to work, at 3 minutes I turned the medallions over, made the mashed Potatoes while they went another two minutes, ding, the Vegetables came out, plated it all and Merry Christmas, Charlie!

 

I enjoy cooking but the trick for me now is a meal that doesn’t take too long to make. With frozen vegetables and dehydrated potatoes I can focus on the entree, meat or fish. Neither takes too long when cooked in a skillet. The elaborate meals I used to make for Kate, for the grandkids and Jon are more work and clean-up than I want to expend. When cooking for just me. Clean up is a factor, too. Elaborate meals require many different bowls, pans, utensils. Using a cast iron skillet cleanup is easy. Ditto with the frozen Vegetables steam-in-bag and the dehydrated Potatoes. I know they sound awful, but really they’re pretty good. Some meals I’ll make Rice in my Rice cooker. Also pretty straight forward.

Even with this quicker fix for a meal I still don’t cook often. Maybe 3 or four times a week at night. I make breakfast each morning. Eggs. Fruit. Yogurt. Bean burrito. Sometimes tinned fish. Toast with Bread Lounge sourdough. Sometimes Mueslix or steel-cut Oats. Varies. Lunch is often Sardines, crackers, fruit. Or, tinned Tuna. Tinned fish have no additives, are easy, and taste good.

Another quick but good cooking method involves prepared meals from the Evergreen Market or Easy Entrees. They sometimes are a little more work, but they provide variety in my diet. Pork schnitzel. Cannelini beans in an herb sauce. Pork fried Rice. Green Beans with Bacon and vinaigrette, Steak au poivre or Steak Diane, a roasted vegetables skillet dish. That sort of thing. These are once in a while meals.

Don’t eat out much. Breakfasts with friends. A very occasional meal like the one I had with Alan last week at Bastien’s Steak House or the Urban Farmer for Thanksgiving. Sometimes lunch out, but rarely. So I make most of my own food with an emphasis on simple and quick, and tasty. Took a while to get into a rhythm after Kate died, but I think I’ve found one that works for me. Mostly healthy.

Asia, Cinema and Television, Commentary on Religion, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Holidays, Judaism, Weather +Climate

Shadow Mountain Christmas Morning

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Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

Christmas gratefuls: Hanukah. Bright, sparkly Snow. Flocked Lodgepoles. Black Mountain white. My son. Seoah and her family. Murdoch. Christmas in Korea. Shadow Mountain. My support and foundation. Tom and Roxann on Kauai. Washington County, Maine. Robbitson. Max. Paul and Sarah in Burlington, Vermont. Covid. Lingers still. Christmas. Incarnation. Imago dei. B’tzelem Elohim. Saturnalia. Christmas Trees and Yule Logs. Eggnog and Mistletoe. Holly and Ivy. Krampus. Great Sol lighting up Black Mountain

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The almost full Winter Solstice Moon last night

One brief shining: T’was the night before Christmas and I got up at 2 am before I could get up and go to the bathroom the scene outside my bedroom window caught my eye and in spite of the 3 degree temperature streaming in through the slight opening I left I could not look away as the Lodgepole shadows, the Arcosanti bell’s shadow, the shadow of the shed created negative space around the sections of sparkly snow between and among them. A scene in which, if Santa had landed, I would not have been at all surprised.

 

Christmas morning on Shadow Mountain. 8-10 inches of fluffy, twinkling Snow. 3 degrees. Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, and Rosemary Clooney might swing by on a sleigh pulled by draft horses. Great Sol throws low angle sun beams at the Trees, lighting us up but not heating us up too much. Though. This is Colorado. We’ll see high thirties and low forties later on this week. Odd how a snowy, cold Christmas has been sold as quintessential for the celebration of a Levantine savior. That manger would not have been a safe place for a baby today in the Rockies.

I’m listening right now to the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. This King’s College tradition is a staple of the Anglican Church and a Christmas Eve program. A musical entrée into the long fate of a Jewish boy born millennia ago. Irony, too. The Anglican Church hollowed out decades ago though as a state church its clergy still fill its remaining parishes drawing a government salary. Read this week that about 10% of them have formed a union. Godspeed.

 

I might go out later today for Chinese food. A Jewish tradition that Kate and I followed for many years even before moving to Colorado. Usually includes a movie, too. My hearing has declined enough that movies are not as much fun as they used to be. I miss a lot of the dialogue, making the whole a muddle. Much better to be at home with closed captions turned on. Thanks to Christmas there are several first rated movies available: Saltburn, Maestro, and Rebel Moon by Zack Snyder to name three. I’ll get takeout, come back to Shadow Mountain. I have the best seat in the house.

 

Talked to my boy last night. His morning, Christmas day while I was still in Christmas Eve. Always weird. Learned that the painful tests he had for compartment syndrome last week were diagnostic, not a treatment. The treatment is a fasciotomy, a 30% success rate. And, the surgeon who would perform the procedure is passionately against it. It’s also very painful. Probably not gonna happen.

Saw Seoah’s sister, Seoah in pigtails. Murdoch. The oldest boy came on the Zoom and looked at me for a long time. Not sure what that was about, though I did meet him briefly in September. A bit of snow on the ground in Songtan. A sorta white Christmas. Seoah’s family wanted to go on base for good tacos at Taco Bell and good pizza at Pizza Hut. Not common foods in the Korean diet. And just as well if you ask me.

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Fungi, Great Work, Mountains, Original Relation, Plants, Wild Neighbors

See Beyond a Dystopian Future

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Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

Sunday gratefuls: New Snow. Cold. Christmas Eve. Ancient Brothers on Christmas. Animism. Joseph, his brothers. Jacob/Israel. Steel gray/blue Sky. Flocked Lodgepoles. Bears in hibernation. Elk and Mule Deer resting. Fox and Mountain Lions hunting. All wild neighbors adapting to the Snow and cold. Paul and Max. Kate, of blessed memory. Kep. Rigel. Gertie. Vega. Who left Shadow Mountain. Jon, too.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fire

One brief shining: Diane gone to Taiwan, Mary and Guru traveled south to Melbourne, my son and Seoah dress for the cold in Songtan, Mark remains in Hafar, while I look out my window for Black Mountain, it’s not there.

 

Asked the folks at the National Autonomous University of Mexico to send me a photograph of my adopted Axolotl, Gabriella. They obliged. She’s a beauty. In an Axolotl sort of way. When I get my phone cord up here to transfer pictures, I’ll post it here.

This project has my attention, the reintroduction of Axolotls to the chinampas canals in Xochimilco. Next I’m going to support one of the chinamperos who farm the chinampas in the traditional way. As I wrote before, this kind of work prepares the World for what comes after climate change. I feel a need to support folks willing to see the future beyond dystopian writings and fever dreams. And my lev, my heart/mind, seems to always land on folks caring for the land, for wild creatures, exchanging the old ways, the bad ways for Earth friendly farming, for chinampas canals clean enough to host again the Axolotl.

This work, a necessary part of the Great Work of our time-creating a sustainable presence for human beings on Planet Earth-does not push back against carbon emissions or try to change the minds of politicians. Though that’s so important and critical for Ruth, Gabe, Imogen, Max and all the grandchildren. It imagines a world once again attuned to the rhythms and needs of the soil, of Plant life, of Animal life, including but not privileging, human life.

At this age I want to say Yes instead of No. I’m weary of the struggle against greed and exploitation, oppression and entrenched bigotry like racism and anti-semitism. Though again that struggle is so important for Ruth, Gabe, Imogen, Max and all the grandchildren. I’m searching, scanning for projects and ideas that will last, that will ensure food and healthy ecosystems, that have faith in the future, that build that future starting now.

I can’t support them all and I can’t support the ones I do very well, but I want to have a link, a real connection to them. Money is one way. Making their work known is another. Finding those committed to this work and celebrating them is another.

We can learn again to farm with the Land, not in spite of it. We can clean our Waters, protect Mountain Biomes, seed Ecosystems with Animals and Plants eliminated by human activity in the past. Five Oregon Wolves have dispersed this week here in Colorado, for example. This work happens on all continents, among all peoples. I love them for it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Great Wheel, Holidays, Judaism

A Bar Mitzvah Boy!

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Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

Friday gratefuls: The brit of Mt. Sinai. Of Abraham. Of Noah. Torah. Midrash. Emunah. Clouds. Mussar. This Jewish journey. Wandering with the diaspora. Rabbi Jamie. Bar Mitzvah. June 12! Shavuot. The Winter Solstice. The Fire last night. Orion and the three quarter Winter Solstice Moon. Jupiter. Darkness. Immanence. Our journey as Earthlings. All my wild fellow Earthlings. And the Earth herself, the Shekinah to Great Sol’s power.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Gabriella, my adopted axolotl

One brief shining: Put on my kippah and walked up the sidewalk to the synagogue where Rabbi Jamie let me in (everybody has to be let in thanks to anti-semitism), he looked at my kippah, pointed at his, “We have the same hat!”

 

Yes indeed. A bar mitzvah boy! On June 12th, the holiday of Shavuot, I will read from the Torah with Veronica, Kat, and maybe Lauren. Finally coming of age. Shavuot celebrates the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai, the making of the Sinai covenant with all Jews of all time. We stood at Mt. Sinai, we stand at Mt. Sinai, we will stand at Mt. Sinai. We will all honor that mystical moment and be honored in return as children/adults of the covenant.

Moving sorta fast into the whole megillah. This is an adult Brit Mitzvah.* Often for those who did not have a bar/bat mitzvah when they were young, it’s also a way for converts to have the full experience of a Jewish life cycle. I’m excited to deepen my Jewish learning and to expand my circle of friends at Beth Evergreen.

If you read this and want to come, I’ll post details here later about the day of. For insight into this rite of passage you might want to watch the Adam Sandler film, You’re So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah! on Netflix. It’s funny.

 

We now have exhausted all the big holidays but two: Christmas and New Years. Holimonth has worked its magic on all of us whether we wanted it to or not. We’ve seen the lights. Lit the candles. Heard the songs. Tasted a cookie or two. Smiled at children excited. We’ve had a quiet moment or two wondering again whether all this bother is worth it, does it really mean anything?

I come down on the side of yes, oh yes indeed. It’s worth it and it has deep meaning. Maybe not the ones visible on the surface of the Santa Claus gauze thrown over this family holiday called Christmas. Maybe not the story of the brave Maccabees recapturing the Second Temple. Maybe not the story of light returning triumphant on the darkest night of the year.

Here are meanings I find in Holimonth. We ache for sweetness and love in our lives, for the light of others. We want to share ourselves with family and friends, have them share with us. Sometimes that’s hard to do without prompts. Like Jingle Bells. Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel. A Christmas tree. Services at the synagogue or church or living room or bar. Reasons to get together, clasp hands, hug. Be merry. Kwanza. New Year’s eve parties. We come together to see the sacred beings in our lives and to be seen as the sacred, unique being we are. These are learnings we can use later in the year during what the Catholics charmingly call Ordinary Time.

No such thing to me. It’s all sacred time, but I get what they mean. We can’t be on this high all year. Too exhausting.

So party like the climate is changing, like we’ll see each other next year in Jerusalem, like we’re all the only ones of our kind ever.

*KAVANNAH [intention]

The adult bar/bat mitzvah phenomenon is a recent and inspiring trend in American Jewish life.  Since every Jewish adult is regarded by halacha (traditional Jewish law) as a bar/bat mitzvah when they come of age (12 for girls, 13 for boys), the adult bar/bat mitzvah rite of passage is completely volitional.  Those who feel compelled to prepare for a Bat/Bat or Brit Mitzvah as an adult do it by choice, and for a great variety of reasons.  Given the diversity of kavannot (intentions), the program at CBE strives for enough structure to be both formal and flexible — formal enough to facilitate the invaluable dynamics of a group working together, towards shared goals while rooted in tradition, and flexible to accommodate different dispositions, intentions and expectations. Congregation Beth Evergreen

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Great Wheel, Holidays, Shadow Mountain

The Winter Solstice

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Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

Thursday gratefuls: The Solstice. My favorite holiday. Bastien’s Steak House. Alan. 50 in Denver 32 on Shadow Mountain last night. I-25 clogged with cars. The city lights. Glad to be home where it’s dark. Lights on the City Center, the Capitol Mall. Colfax Avenue. Families. My family. Friends. My friends. Shadow Mountain Home. Herme. Ruby. That puppy in my dream. Snow for Christmas. Life. Surrender.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The longest night of the year

One brief shining: A new quiet has settled over me this Holimonth as Hanukah ended and the lights of Christmas, Christmas music, the whole runup to the gift extravaganza leave me with no nostalgia or wistfulness, rather a sense that Hanukah itself was enough for that sort of celebration though the Winter Solstice, tonight, remains my favorite Holimonth holiday.

 

Long ago before the age of reason and Francis Bacon, before the Greek astronomers and the Hindu astrologists, the Chinese sages we humans understood little about the world beyond our planet. Few were probably aware of living on a planet at all. As the longest day of the hot season faded into the past, our distant ancestors noticed that the nights grew longer and the days shorter. Was the sun going into a waning mode? Would it return for the longer days necessary for warmth and growth? On this night, this Winter Solstice night, that question would have loomed over those huddled together before a fire in a smoky dwelling. So it’s understandable that the big news for most on the Winter Solstice is the beginning of the sun’s reemergence, Great Sol slowly but surely reclaiming dominance over the forces of darkness and cold.

I have a different perspective. I celebrate at the Summer Solstice as the night begins to grow, as darkness expands its hold. It’s not that I’m a light Grinch, not at all. I love the growing season, air warm enough for short sleeves and picnics. Sure. I need to eat and my body loves a temperature suited to its native state. And yet.

Darkness. Where the roots and rhizomes and microbes live. Where the imagination comes alive, filling the night with faeries and ghosts and goblins. Where rest happens. Where preparation for the growing season goes on under the surface of the soil. Where preparation for personal growth goes on in the recesses of our psyches. Where the heat of the day calms, allowing a cool time for sleep. Where all is calm and nothing is bright. Fecund. Quiet.

Darkness does have its, well, dark side. Of course. The Forest gives itself over to the nocturnal Predators. The city, too. Criminal time.  Deaths occur at the Hour of the Wolf, around 4 am. Sleep might be fitful or hard to find. Wrecking the day. Fears can come out to play havoc with our inner peace.

Even so. I’ll take some time, perhaps a lot of time, to go inward. To acknowledge the fecundity in darkness. Not to ignore the difficulties of the night, but to reclaim it from those who see it only as something to avoid with light or sleep or intoxicants.

The longest night. I’ll light a candle or two. Probably have a fire. Read poetry. Contemplate life and its complexities, its simplicities. Remember Winter Solstices past. What will you do?