Category Archives: Fourth Phase

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Hermitage, Literature, Myth and Story, Shadow Mountain, Sport

Mythic

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Spring and Kep’s Moon

Monday gratefuls: Kep. His life and mine together. Diane’s sweet e-mail. Tom’s call. Ruth and Gabe and Mia. The days after. Learning to be alone. Max Verstappen. The Australian Grandprix. My son and his wife. Reading Undertow. Dark Sky by CJ Box. Furball Cleaning. Marina Harris. Ana. Cook’s Venture. Regenerative agriculture. Wild Alaska. Safeway. Stinker’s.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Being alone, yet accompanied

 

The Ancient Brothers on myths that shaped our lives. Aboriginal song lines. Dream time. Animal archetypes and totems.* Jesus. The American myth. The Velveteen Rabbit. The Celtic Faery Faith. Ragnarok. We each had a myth that had shaped our lives. Of course more than one, but these worked on and in our lives. In deep ways.

As a young boy, Ode said, his Jesus walked on water. Rose from the dead. Fed the five thousand. A mythic life reaching deep into a boy’s heart and imagination. Tom talked about Animals as bearers of archetypal power. Which  reminds me of the Breston quote below. Bill retold the story of the Velveteen Rabbit. Love makes us real. Aussie Paul, raised in Texas but on stories of Aboriginal life, made the song lines and Dream Time real. Before this creation and after it passes away there will be the Dream Time. I talked about how the Celtic Faery Faith reshaped my spirituality and led me away from Christianity. Going down and in, rather than up and out. A rich morning, one filled with wonder and awe. Our church.

 

Afterward I watched a thirty minute recap of the Australian Grandprix. Listened to the post race analysis. A crazy race with 3 restarts. Verstappen won again in the Red Bull car. Sergio Perez, his teammate, worked his way up to 5th from 20th. Lewis Hamilton, 7 time world champion, finished second, and Fernando Alonso, 2 time world champion, finished third for the third race in a row. There was speculation that Red Bull could run the table this year, win all the Grandprixs. Whether it happens or not, that speculation tells you about the dominance of the Red Bull cars so far this 2023 season.

 

Cut up boxes for the trash. Finished sorting all of our dog stuff. Donation and throw away. Rearranged furniture in the common room. Did a Safeway pickup. Talked with my son and his wife. Weekend things.

 

Radiation approved. Finally. Start tomorrow. Not daily. Continues through the third week of April. That lymph node by my left hip and the T3 vertebrae metastases.

 

Tomorrow Ruth turns 17! A dancing queen. So happy to see her stable and present. She has been such an important part of my life for all of those years. Even more so of course since we moved to Colorado in 2014. Gabe, too. 15 on Earth Day, the 22nd of this month.

We celebrate life even in the midst of death. Like Max’s birth so soon after Kate died. A bit of her soul to him. Ruth and Gabe have seen a lot of death over the last two years. Their Grandma, their Dad. Rigel. Sollie. Kepler. We have sustained each other. As family. And this month we celebrate their young lives. In this moment. The only one we ever have.

 

 

 

* “We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate for having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein do we err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”  ― Henry Beston, The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Shadow Mountain

Fears and Regrets

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Spring and Kep’s Moon

Sunday gratefuls: My son and his wife. Murdoch. A loving conversation about Kep yesterday. Diane’s kind e-mail. Kep. Gone into the mystery. A day of cleaning up after Ruth, Gabe, Mia. Kep. Punctuated by rest and the occasional TV show. Picking up groceries at Safeway. Grief. Mourning. Again. Still. Housecleaners coming this week. Alan today at the Bread Lounge. Dogs. Caring about animals.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Kep and his consolation

 

I have some regrets. About fearing Kate’s corpse. About not being there when she died. About not being able to stay with Kep, or any of our dogs. These are regrets that do not haunt me, or at least not much. But they are real. And they reveal a fear around death that, as I’ve said before, I don’t understand. The fear is about the moment of death, not death itself. Or, maybe better, the moment of surety about death. As it happens.

When I was in vet’s office, in the special room where euthanasia is performed, I reach to pet Kep. Dr. Doverspike came in the room with two syringes. I froze. And said out loud, I don’t know what to do! Anguished. I needed to stay with him and yet I couldn’t. Left me torn between responsibility and a deeper love. A love that could not bear to see him die. Oh. So. Hard.

Ruth made it ok. She said she was filling in for Grandma. And she was. Kep had the comfort of a familiar and loved human. Just as Kate did with Sarah. Proxies for my presence. My love never in question, but at that moment putting me in excruciating pain.

Facing our fears is best. I’ve read that. And mostly I believe it. If fear rules our lives, we cease to live our lives. Rather we pinball away from this job interview and this possible relationship and those oh so critical moments in the lives of ones we love. Yet I also believe that there is an ok-ness to allowing a loved other, like Ruth, like Sarah to face your fear for you. The love held between us helps us through. They know I care. They express my love for me.

As near as I can tell, these moments are the only ones where I’ve chosen, or allowed, proxies for my deepest feelings. I face my fears otherwise. Most of the time.

A fear I had after Kep’s death. Coming home to an empty house for the first time in over thirty years. No Kate. No dogs. Just me. I needed to to go in and so I did. Turned out ok.

In fact it was memories surfacing as I drove up Shadow Mountain that were harder. Kep waiting at the back door for me. Tail wagging. Or, later lying down at the back door waiting. His paw prints in the snow. Once I opened the door and walked in, I was home. My place of refuge.

Of course his presence was everywhere. His collar. Leashes. His hair from a blown coat. His food. His food bowls. His medicine. His beds. I cleaned those up yesterday, readying some for donation, some I threw away. Not to be rid of him or his memory, but to start anew. I did the same thing with Kate’s stuff. Yet she’s still here. Everywhere. As are Vega, Gertie, Rigel, and Kep. This is their home, too. And will be as long as I am the carrier of their memories.

As I write, my current form of therapy, I realize that my absence at the death beds of those I love changes nothing about how much I love and love them. I do not dismiss, do not shun memories. I open myself to them. Remembering Kate in the garden. Or in the bed with her feeding tube. Kep running the fences. Lying with his head on my feet. Gertie sleeping next to me. Rigel and Kep, too.

Neither however do I wallow in them. If I need to cry, I cry. If I laugh, I laugh. They are components of who I am now. The bearer of these lives still living.

 

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase

Kep

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Spring and Kep’s Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Kep with his girlfriend, Rigel. And Kate. Gertie. Vega. Jon. The Colorado move. Ruth, Gabe, Mia.

 

An after the fact note. Ruth and Mia took Kate’s role. Gabe and I sat in the car. I cried. They let me go. No shame. No judgment. I needed that. And it helped.

Ruth came up the first night Kate died. She was here with Gertie and in Aurora with her Dad. Now with Kep. My angel.

I first met Kepler in Warner-Robbins, Georgia at Joe’s house. He was a year old and had gotten into a scrap with a previous owner’s dog over the water bowl. There was a dog bed beside the couch in Joe’s living room and Kep stayed on it. Happy to be into himself, but close to Joe.

This was a time period of many deployments for Joe and he asked if Kate and I could keep him during a longer one. We said sure. We’ll add him to the pack. Not sure how many dogs we had then but certainly Vega, Rigel, and Gertie. Kep fit in. Which, given later developments, surprises me.

He fit in so well and since Joe had more deployments coming we asked Joe if we could keep him. Akita’s do not like to be left behind. Reluctantly, and probably a bit grudgingly he said, if you think that’s best for Kep. I still carry a little guilt about that. Leaving Joe without a dog. But he agreed.

Kep and Rigel bonded. He would clean her ears. They would sleep together. Play outside, hunt. When it came time for the move to Colorado, Tom and I loaded Kep, Vega, and Rigel into the Rav4 for the long trip to Shadow Mountain. Tom drove the whole way.

When we got here, they ran out into the new backyard, turned around, ran back in the garage, and jumped in the car. Ready to go home. That they were home didn’t dawn on them for a while.

It was not always easy. After the move, Kep took to correcting Gertie and Vega. With teeth. We finally calmed that down, then Murdoch came. O.M.G. Murdoch left for Loveland and Brenton White’s home.

Kep and Rigel and Vega ran the fence line with neighbor Jude’s black and white dogs, Zeus and Boo. Up and down, up and down. Yapping all the while. A ritual around the time Jude came home from his welding jobs. After Vega and Rigel died, Kep kept up the tradition and they were an oreo blur.

Kep became my loft dog, going upstairs when I did, coming down at the same time. When his legs became too wonky for that, I no longer went upstairs to work on my computer, but wrote, paid bills down in the house. Still went up for workouts, but that was it.

He and I were together most of the day and all of the night. Even after he could no longer sleep on the bed, I took a dogbed in the bedroom and he slept on that. When he woke up, and I hadn’t, he would come along the side of the bed and poke his nose under the blankets. Time to get up, Dad.

As his legs got even worse, he could not come upstairs in the house. We spent our time together on the lower level. Finally, and after a lot of good work by Dr. Doverspike on his pain, his back legs could not sustain him standing for any length of time. Yesterday he couldn’t get up at all.

When a dog loses mobility, their life is over. Kep hadn’t passed the tail wag test for a couple of weeks, too. That is, he stopped wagging his tailing when I came in the room. It was time. I hate euthanasia as many of you know, but there are times when it’s the right thing to do. Yesterday was one of those times.

I feared being in an empty house. No dog(s). I feel ok. Surprised me. A sense of relief is part of it. Kep’s no longer struggling each day. Somewhat similar feeling after Kate’s death. She was no longer struggling to get through the day.

Gabe said yesterday. Let’s not have any more deaths for a long time. I agree.

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Hermitage, Politics, Shadow Mountain, US History

A Strong Week

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Spring and the Garden Path Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Ruth, creating three oil paintings: Dear Dad. Mia, an artist, too. Tiny. Gabe. Loud and full of bad jokes. Here yesterday through tomorrow. Doug. Finished Garden Pathing the main level. For the most part. A small bathroom and that weird wall in the new dining room remain. Kep, better this morning. A bit. Doverspike. Driving into Denver. Into Spring. Leafy Deciduous Trees. Daffodils. Feelings. Still Winter on Shadow Mountain.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Teenagers

 

We’re treating Kep empirically. With antibiotics. Hoping that whatever took him downwards is an infection and not cancer. The first couple of days of amoxicillin will tell us what we need to know. He’s comfortable, lying down. Not coughing. No labored breathing. I had to dry pill the meds this morning and found my grip strength inadequate. Messy and difficult. Gotta get back on that resistance work. This is unacceptable and unnecessary.

Ruth and Mia brought Kep up the stairs last night so he could be with us while we ate Beau Jo’s pizza. That was sweet. We had the living room still in dishabille from Doug’s work. Couch across from the Fire place. My chair at a right angle to it. Ruth sat on the ottoman, Gabe and Mia on the couch. Kep took his night time meds in pizza crust. Didn’t work so well this morning.

Ruth and Gabe are comfortable up here. It’s a second home in the Mountains for them. I’m glad they feel that way. Makes me feel like a good grandpa. Both of them bring friends up. Another clue about how they feel about Shadow Mountain.

It’s nice to have people noises in the house. Footsteps. Refrigerator door opening. Food disappearing.

 

Doug got almost finished with the main level. That wall and the small bathroom. He’s going to finish the downstairs next week. Gotta message Vince for an art hanging and small fix-up day. Some mild furniture rearranging. Later one more day with Robin and Michele. I know the remaining closets and storage areas. Probably one morning’s worth. Be good to have all of those things accomplished.

 

Another good workout today. 240 minutes for the week. Enough. May go with the kids on their hike today. May not. Depends on how I’m feeling.

A strong week. Luke on Sunday. With Doug. Doverspike. The kids. Exercise. Breakfast with Alan tomorrow. Maybe take the kids, too. Dreams. First dream session with Irene at 11:00. Life up here on Shadow Mountain. Real life.

 

Still reading Undertow. Maybe a quarter done. Sharlet’s a good writer. And he’s empathetic even when he’s with folks like he discusses in the “manosphere.” This is the online world of incels, sluthaters, fans of the guy who shot up a college in California because it hadn’t given him the “beautiful girlfriend he deserved.” He reports on them as they are, not as they should be, not as he feels about them, but as they are.

He did the same thing with Rick Wilkerson, Jr. The third generation clergy in a mega church dynasty. Miami. A guy who thinks the gospel is about getting yours and being pretty. Sharlet builds a portrait of an America most of us (readers of this blog, for example) have no idea exists. Or, if we do, we know little about the real people inside it and how they live their lives. Remember the subtitle: a slow motion civil war. I can see what he means already.

The manosphere and the Wilkersonsphere are Archimedian levers that pry open cracks in the body politic. As are the Christian Nationalists heading for northern Idaho and those wealthy coastals exercising their right to exit, heading West.

I can see them all from up here on Shadow Mountain.

 

Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase

Kep

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Spring and the Garden Path Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Septic. Kep, better in the afternoon. Still not eating. Except some canned salmon. Joe and the offers on the house. Pick one and get the money in the bank. Jon, a memory. Kate, always Kate. The Parkside. Evergreen Medical Practice. Labs. Walgreens. Prilosec. Work on the walkway around Lake Evergreen. Alan. The Wildflower. Doverspike. Coming tonight. Ruth, Gabe, and Mia. Here for three days. Today.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Grandkids that want to spend time with me

 

Kep’s coughing subsided after he got up and moved around. He didn’t eat his kibble, however, just some canned salmon. Doverspike will come today after he finishes work at Mountain Park Vet.

Kep just got up today. Coughing, like yesterday. We’ll see what Doverspike thinks this evening. Glad Ruth and Gabe will be up here. They love the Kep, too.

Dogs. So intimate a part of our lives. Friends. Companions. Unconditional love. So many memories with them over the years. Kep and Rigel. Boyfriend and girlfriend. They wandered the back yard together, hunting for critters. Kep cleaned her ears. Slept next to her. He loved her and was sad when she died.

Is there a heart that cannot see the power of these wonderful animals? I suppose. But only because like Pharaoh their hearts have been hardened. Against kindness and love. These last days. So hard, yet also special. The final care that we can offer to them. Returning the love they share so easily with us.

It reminds me in ways too close to tell of Kate’s last days. When the love shone bright, but the body became too weak to carry the soul. Near the end a dog turns to the ones who loved them. Imagining, I think, that we can take care of this as we have all the other ills and ailments. But death has no cure. It comes to those of us who live. All of us.

Kep drank some water, but passed up even the salmon this time. Oh.

Not sure I can go further with this today. This heart. These tears. Enough for now.

Denver, Dogs, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Shadow Mountain, Writing

Talking Story

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Spring and the Garden Path Moon

Monday gratefuls: Kep. Not sure how he’s doing. The Ancient Brothers. Luke. My son. Cold nights. Good for sleeping. Snow showers. The Swerve. An education about the Renaissance. Trump. In a rut. And, possibly a jail cell. The far right. Undertow by Jeff Sharlet. Hamnet, recommended by Kate. Painting continues today? Mia and Ruth, best friends coming up on Wednesday. Gabe, too. Teenagers in the house. For three days.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: LBMs

 

The Ancient Brothers told a story. Mark suggested it. He started, spoke for a bit, then passed the story to me. I passed to Tom, Tom to Paul, and Paul to Bill. The story telling brought out another facet of each of us, one not previously visible. The improv persona. Each of us had a different style and it was obvious. One more cerebral. Another more interior monologue. Another on advancing the plot. Bet we’d be better at it if we did it more. Fun.

Mark’s in a veteran’s writer’s group that focuses on story telling. Where he got the idea. Reminded me of the even more difficult drinking game played in Wales where one person starts a poem and the next person adds a stanza, then the next.

Tom had an interesting thought. What if, instead of artificial intelligence, we sought artificial consciousness? What would we be after then? What would it look like? Sound like? The idea has taken up residence. Not sure where to go with it, but the notion intrigues me.

 

Luke came over at 2. I’d taken a nap and got up at 2. Woops. He didn’t leave though. I found him.

I started a fire. We talked for a couple of hours. He’s started a new job with Judaism Your Way. Learning a new software program for handling contacts for this innovative model. No fees. No dues. No building. Three rabbis and a large staff. They’re holding a Passover Seder at the Denver Botanical Gardens. Last year they had 8,650 folks present or online. An interesting place to work.

Intentionally very inclusive. Luke and and the Executive Director, who is not Jewish, are gay. Judaism Your Way was the first Jewish organization in Denver to have a presence at the Pride Parade.

Luke’s still having a tough time after having resigned from CBE. His job at Judaism Your Way is only part time so he has financial tensions. He’s a super bright, artistic, sensitive soul. Glad he sees me as a friend.

 

I imagine Doug will be back today to continue the Garden Pathing of my walls. Excited. Getting the inside, especially the main level, painted and the art hung will make Shadow Mountain home a more welcoming and inviting place. For guests and for me.

After lunch with Mike and Kate Saturday I went to Pangaea Carpets at the Evergreen Design Center. Picked out a Nepalese carpet, 5×7, for my upstairs home office. It needed warming up and its own feel. This one has Cypress Trees and is in greens that compliment the new main level look.

Not sure whether Doug will have time right now to do the downstairs level. I hope so.

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends

Eros. Agape. Philia. Storge.

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Spring and the Painted Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Mike and Kate. Campfire Grill. Ruby on the Mountain roads. Pastrami. Truffled Mac and Cheese. Luke coming up today. My son and his wife. BJ and Schecky. Gettin’ hitched. Kep the early riser. Sleeping in after that. Myth. Ovid. Artemis. Lycaon. Philemon and Baucus. Lucretius. The Nature of Things. Metamorphosis. The Arabian Nights. CJ Box. Richard Powers.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Ancient Brothers

 

On the nature of love. Eros. Of course. I remember. Though prostate cancer long ago canceled out experience. Agape. Reserved for a person better than me most of the time, but still a destination, part of the long journey.

Philia though, affection among friends, friendship. Sustains me now. Whether it be the Ancient Brothers with our decades of memories or members of CBE or Kat, the Aspen Perk’s waitress. Mike and Kate. Luke. High school and college classmates. Even Kristie, my oncology PA, and Dr. Gonzalez, my PCP. Affection rules these relationships.

Here I would also add my wild neighbors, the Lodgepoles and Aspens, Shadow Mountain, Black Mountain, Maxwell and Bear Creeks. All that is around me in its wildness.

Love is a many layered reality. I discovered just today that there is yet another Greek word for love, storge, which means love and affection especially of parents and children. I’ll put that into this post, too. Not only for my son and his wife, Jon, Ruth, and Gabe, but for cousins like Diane whom I’ve known almost my whole life, Mary and Mark, each dog I’ve had the privilege to share my life with, and each person who might experience me as a mentor.

Storge also sustains me and helps me see my role as a sustainer of others. Realizing our importance to others is sometimes difficult as self-abnegation is often taught to us as a substitute for true humility. I’ve struggled with this over the years as you might have, too. But of late I’ve come to see that I add something valuable to the relationships I’m in and if that’s the case it probably means I am someone valuable. In my own unique way. As you are yourself, unknown reader.

How important it is to reach out and keep these relationships alive and vital. I find myself saying now to various folks, as I did to Mike and Kate yesterday, it’s your turn to send up a smoke signal. Don’t know how that entered my mind, but I’ve liked it because it points to the mutuality of relationships. After meeting with others after they’ve given me the honor of an invitation, I say, I’ll send up the next smoke signal.

I’ve had trouble realizing that mutuality requires me as well as the other. I’ve often thought of myself as interchangeable with others and if I don’t nurture a relationship that the person will get what they need elsewhere. Which is, of course, partly true and necessary to know. Yet. I also have to recognize myself as one of a kind, a person who brings to a relationship what only I can bring. In other words I have to see my own part in a relationship as important, as important as what the other/others bring.

Better learned late than never.

Denver, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Friends

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Spring and the Garden Path Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Luke. My son. Doug. Kep. 8 degrees and Snow. A good night. Slept well. A fresh look for the main level. On its way. Alan and his joy. His move to a castle in the sky. John Porter, co-owner of the Bread Lounge. Evergreen. My Mountain town. Fixing the walkway around Evergreen Lake. The Elk dining on exposed grass along Hwy. 74. ChatbotGPT4. AI. HUMINT.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Luke

 

Down the hill to Evergreen yesterday. The Bread Lounge. Alan. Came up in a rental Polestar from his new place high above the mean streets of Denver. His Tesla is the shop for expensive body work. The skin of the Tesla costs. He backed into a truck last year but this was the first time he could get it in a place he trusts. The Polestar he says doesn’t do everything his Tesla does. How could it?

He had some concerns about his move. Waiting for the elevators. The noise of a forced air system. And from the outside. The Mountains are quiet. Has had good elevator conversations and not long waits.The forced air came on with a whump but after building maintenance replaced the filter, a whu. So that’s good. He said he can tell the place is quiet because when he opens the patio door it’s noisy.

A good gym with everything you’d want. Hot tubs. A movie room. A dining room for guests on the top floor. A view to the southeast with Pikes Peak. And a nighttime view that’s spectacular. Cheri posted a picture of it on Facebook. Very urban. Going down and walking to restaurants, to get food, go to a jazz club. Plus everybody’s calmed down now the move is over. Alan was in fine spirits.

Met the owner of the Bread Lounge, John. Shook his hand. Oh. A very strong grip. Made me feel a bit fragile. He’d been on the Evergreen Fire Department Board. And, I imagine, a volunteer. Strong like bull. Alan knows lots and lots of people. He comes up every Friday for Rotary breakfasts at the Country Day school. We meet after that.

A bit of Snow made the drive down what I call technical. Had to use all my Minnesota driving knowledge. Plows had not been out and the light Snow had become icy. All those years of seeing Snow on roads in the Gopher State have trained me. I can see what I’m looking at.

 

Right now it’s single digit temps and high winds up here on Shadow Mountain. The Lodgepoles swaying. Snow blowing up in whorls. A cold blue Sky.

Going into Evergreen again today to have lunch with Kate Strickland and Michael Banker at Campfire Grill. Looking forward to that. I saw them last at the Dushanbe Tea House in Boulder.

Speaking of younger friends. Luke’s coming up tomorrow. Kat’s reading the book I gifted to her. I like that I have these links to the upcoming generation. And to Ruth and Gabe’s. Makes me feel like an elder.

 

Doug worked yesterday. Got started in the kitchen. Says he may come back today. Getting closer. Not sure yet if he’s going to do the downstairs right now or later.

 

 

Family, Fourth Phase, Friends, Shadow Mountain, Travel

Down the Garden Path

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Spring and the Painted Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Benjamin Moore’s Garden Path. Doug. A sweet guy. Kat, interested in philosophy, psychology, psychedelics. Nichie. Kep. Changing colors. Shadow Mountain. Firm beneath me. Black Mountain. The Sun. The Moon. The Lodgepoles and the Aspen. Those Mule Deer Does on the road yesterday. The Black Bears beginning to roll over and shake their paws. Ah, time to get up, it’s Spring. Ramadan. Allah. The Prophet Mohamed. Jesus, the Messiah. Abraham, the father of them all.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Spring Snow

 

Had a grocery order to pick up yesterday morning. Took myself out to breakfast at Aspen Perk’s. How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan went along. Pushed open the door, looked inside. One person at the bar. Nobody in the booths. Just right.

The cheerful waitress with a lot of tattoos on  her right arm came up. She has round glasses, blond hair, and a smile. Always. Can I look at your book? Sure. I’m interested in self help, psychology, philosophy. This is about psychedelics. Those, too. Some of the best insights I’ve had came from taking LSD.

When Tara and I had breakfast there a while we back, we’d speculated that this same waitress might be a Ph.D. student. Obviously bright and engaged, she makes an impression. Maybe late twenties.

I’d noticed a y’all the last time Marilyn and Irv and I ate there and asked her about it. Yes, originally from Texas. Ah.

We chatted for a bit after she brought my coffee. She’s struggled with depression and has some good results with psychedelics. I told her about the Plant Magic Cafe. She got excited. Just by the name!

Two eggs, crisp bacon, country potatoes, sour dough toast. Breakfast out. After dinner at Three Victorias last night. Livin’ high on the hog.

Michael Pollan took me through his conclusions gleaned from his study of psychedelics, his interviews with researchers, guides, and promoters, his own trips. He was of the opinion that legalization would take a while. And would need careful thought and guidance.

He hadn’t counted on Oregon and Colorado. A strange combination of libertarians, latter day hippies, and millenial/gen Z enthusiasts squeaked out a win in both states. Oregon first, Colorado last year.

I gifted the book to Kat. We’d exchanged names. She seemed surprised and delighted. Come back in and we’ll talk about it. Maybe I’ve made another friend in the younger age brackets. That would be nice. She’s going to visit the Plant Magic Cafe, too.

 

Brother Mark has Saudi on his mind. He got a job offer there for a position through August 31st. He’s been all over Saudi Arabia and this is a new spot. Something he relishes. Reminds me of Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, Ray Stevens and the Sheik of the burning sands. Back in the less woke day. As my sister Mary said, he’s keeping up the tradition of the traveling Ellises. Indeed.

 

Doug has Kate’s old sewing room almost finished. Garden Path by Benjamin Moore is a color that shows up in brother-in-law Jerry’s big painting of the Blue Ridge mountains near his house in Belews Creek, North Carolina. It’s a light green. I’ll post some pictures when thing are a bit further along.

 

 

 

Denver, Feelings, Fourth Phase, The West

Psychedelic Seniors

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Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

Sunday gratefuls: The Ancient Brothers. Jeddah Grand Prix today. Jen, Ruth, and Gabe. Final cleanout of Jon’s house. Probate nearing a wind down. Maybe another month. Kate, always Kate. Shiva Raja. Vishnu. Brahma. The One. Spinoza. Jane Bennett. CJ Box. That Mushroom quiche. Chai Latte. The Plant Magic Cafe. Keens. Taxes off. Going down the hill. And back up again.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Mushrooms

 

What a day yesterday. Over to the post office where there was no line. Mailed my taxes off to my accountant. Told the clerk, clumsily, that though I may be one of the few I had no complaints about my mail. Mark, my mailman is excellent. I always have good experiences when I come in. Wish I hadn’t said I may be one of the few, though I know I am.

On from there down 285. Getting cheaper gas in Lakewood at Stinkers. Gas is twenty to twenty-five cents a gallon cheaper in the city.

Up Colorado Avenue to 1550. Dardano’s. An all things outdoors shoe store. Buying another pair of Keen’s. The same I’ve worn for years. This is my fourth pair.

I’ve gotten to a point of simplifying my clothing choices. White socks. Keens most of the year. Winter boots of course. And hiking boots when on a trail. Blue jeans for pants. Just got two new pairs of Levi’s 511’s. In the winter flannel shirts and LL Bean vests. Summer, Hawai’ian shirts and a small number of lightweight plaid shirts.

I’ve given away much of my clothes. All my suits and suit coats. Many shirts and other pants. Fancy shoes. Winter coats except for a couple. Feels good.

 

Followed the nice lady’s voice from Dardano’s to 935 17th Ave. There are two large Amanita Muscari mushrooms out front. Taller than me and gaily painted. The Plant Magic Cafe. Ground zero for the proposition that made Psilocybin and other hallucinogens legal in Colorado.

In the entry a big sign in book offered regular information about the cafe and its events including a column to leave a phone number for ceremonies. I left mine. There were items for sale in the hallway that led back to the spot where you ordered food. Tibetan and Hindu sacred objects. Selenite wands. A lovely beaded Elk. Buddha statues. Incense of various sorts. Lots of incense. Singing bowls.

At the counter there was Mushroom quiche and a bacon and cheddar quiche along with pastries. Also a long list of teas and other drinks. I got a chai latte and a mushroom quiche.

In conversation with the guy behind the counter who wore a Psilocybin t-shirt, white on black, I found out that the Plant Magic Cafe will soon open a psilocybin resource room. All things hallucinogenic out front and visible. With no law enforcement needed or wanted.

Found it humorous that there were three women roughly my age at a center table with the rest filled with millennials and gen-z’ers. 60’s kids grown old and the new generation that will not understand the transgressive joy of taking LSD.

Will keep you all tuned in as I work on becoming a psychedelic senior.