• Category Archives Fourth Phase

  • Shadow Mountain. Home.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc and the Cold Moon

    Monday gratefuls: The hostages. The empty chairs. Rabbi Jamie. Alan. Cheri. This moment. This keyboard. These fingers. The lev that motivates them. My neshama. Yours. Shards of ohr. Tikkun olam. Home. Eclipse 2024. Aurora, Great Sol lighting the morning. A blue white Sky above Black Mountain. Ruth. Gabe. Mark, leaving Hafir in March. Mary, may the forest and the pythons and the monitor lizards and the monkeys be with you.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Change, our only constant

    One brief shining: The way Black Mountain emerges from the night, slowly with only a dark bulk visible, as Great Sol throws more ohr toward it the Lodgepoles become distinct, Snow on Rock outcroppings bounces the ohr back toward Great Sol white and brilliant, a shade of red orange rests for a moment over it all, then the blue white Sky lights up and Black Mountain stands dominant against my western horizon.

     

    Increasing. My stay on Shadow Mountain tendency. Only the very occasional night out. MVP. Dinner with Ruth and Gabe. Not even services, maybe once a month. Yesterday a solidarity walk with Denver relatives of the hostages in Gaza. Big Snow Saturday and I found myself not wanting to brave the Mountain roads. So I didn’t. Felt a bit of guilt. Ah, Jewish guilt! Hey, I’m really in now.

    Not sure how I feel about this. There are a number of drivers. At night my reaction time is slower. And even with cataract surgery I still get halos and spikes around car headlights. I go to bed early, though I’ve recently discovered not so early for my chronotype, the Lion. Inertia plays a role, perhaps too big a role. Though. This began long ago when Kate and I first started missing St. Paul Chamber Orchestra nights. A long drive and a late night when going from Andover. At some point the negatives begin to push out the positives. This may be that point for me.

    During the day. Still getting out. Breakfasts. Lunch. Thursday mussar. Getting groceries, medical appointments. That sort of thing. Yet I have not gone into Denver to the Art museums and galleries which I can visit during the day. Traffic. Parking. An hour in and an hour back. I’m grateful for Alan and Cheri’s concerts because they’re on Sunday mornings. That way I can still experience live music.

    Not slowing down physically, still exercising regularly, now up to three sets of resistance work plus cardio. My back though continues to push at me. Noticing now if I turn too quickly to my right with my foot planted my hip tends to drop.

    Guess I’m trying to parse out the real limits of my daily and weekly life. Seasons make a difference of course. When winter is over and Great Sol agrees to light more of the evening, it’s easier for me. I love winter. Snow. Cold. But not ice. And not Mountain roads after a storm.

    Whenever I have these thoughts, I think about RJ Devick, my financial advisor, who once told Kate and me that his clients who hit their eighties tend to do much less traveling and their expenses go down. Could be what’s going on with me.


    Feelings Fourth Phase Mountains Shadow Mountain Travel Weather +Climate

  • A day with texture

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc and the Cold Moon

    Shabbat gratefuls: New candle holders. Memorizing the prayer. Alan. Joe Mama’s. Rocket Bar. Wild Mountain Ranch. A dozen eggs and two beef tenderloins. New blinds. John Ellis. Evergreen Shutter and Blind. Shabbat. Parsha Yitro. Snow. Maybe in feet! Good sleeping. Israel. Hamas. U.S. Iran. Hezbollah. Saudi Arabia. Korea: South and North. Japan. Taiwan. Ukraine. Russia. U.S.A.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Wild Mountain Ranch, regenerative farming in Conifer

    One brief shining: Wouldn’t have found Joe Mama’s, again, if I hadn’t seen Alan sitting at a table near the window, and wouldn’t have thought it was a breakfast place anyhow since it had a pool table, not to mention the bar where three Wheatridge stalwarts sat each with a drink in front of them, one a yellow mug of beer, the others I couldn’t tell, at 9 am.

     

    Don’t usually go to bars. At all. Certainly not at 9 in the morning. But Joe Mama’s had moved from its ten foot wide spot on west Colfax to a new place in Wheatridge. Alan and I liked it, the food was good. We decided to try the new spot.

    They’ve become, I think, the kitchen staff for the Rocket Bar. A no frills spot which looks like the owner took over a small building that maybe housed a barbershop and a small bodega like grocery store. Four separate rooms. Pool table room. The room where Alan and I sat, larger and with tables, the bar room, a narrow area that might have been a wide hallway, and a fourth room with tables. The latter two rooms seemed to constitute the main working spaces for the Rocket Bar.

    Alan and I will not be going back. For one thing the politics of the place had a certain MAGA like feel. For another this alcoholic doesn’t like to eat breakfast while old guys belly up for their first shots of the day. Their choice, not disputing that. But my choice is not to be with them when they do that.

    Always good though to spend time with Alan. We discussed his and Cheri’s first in-home concert. Cheri floated after the morning. She loves music, loves playing, and arranging for others to hear music. And this time, at home. We also dissected the current state of Israel, Hamas, Gaza, the West Bank. Way complicated. But perhaps with a solid solution if Biden stays in office.

     

    Came home to be here when John Ellis, no apparent relation, came with my new blinds. They’re double honeycombed and have a slight green tint. The ones in my office will allow me to work in the morning without Great Sol in my face. The new blinds on the living room/kitchen floor improve on the faded ones that were there before. The blinds downstairs will reduce glare in the afternoons and early evening. It took John less than hour to install all of them. I paid him the balance due.

     

    After John finished, I hopped in Ruby to go find Wild Mountain Ranch, a local regenerative farm I discovered a week or so ago. Not an easy find. Had to turn left on a downhill slope of 285 onto a narrow dirt road. I needed to find Red Hawk Trail. Found it but it didn’t look like it went very far. Just behind Tucker’s horse training and riding facility. Drove past it, then noticed that it took a sharp right that I hadn’t seen. Turned around and went back. Down a steep slope on a muddy narrow road to the right hand turn.

    Drove a long ways on a one lane dirt road muddy from thawed Snow. All the while going up, a gentle rise. No signs for Wild Mountain Ranch. I had an address but I hadn’t paid attention since I imagined there would be a sign. The road ended in the driveway of the last house on Redhawk Trail. A man roughly my age came outside to see what I was up to. We chatted and he said,”Oh, yeah. You’re buying beef?” I nodded. “Turn around and go back down. It’s on the right and you’ll see some cattle, some big ones. A radical right hand turn.” Thanks, dude.

    Sure enough maybe a half mile further back from his small orange home I saw some Highland Cattle lounging in mud. I took a radical right turn, maybe 240 degrees, and found the parking lot. Rang the bell. Nothing happened. Rang it again. Still nothing. I went back to the car, found my phone and called. No answer. As I wondered what to do next, Brittany came out. “Have you been out here long?” No, not that long. She got my name went back in the house, got my dozen eggs and two tenderloins.

    Marketing and customer service are not Wild Mountain Ranch’s strong suit. At least not yet. I wanted to talk about their farm but Brittany seemed distracted. I’ll wait.

    Gonna go downstairs now and have a couple of their eggs before I workout.

     


    Cooking Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Jefferson County Judaism Mountains Shadow Mountain

  • The Fortress of Solitude

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc and the Cold Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Ackerman Furniture. My couch now back home with its William Morris designed fabric. The two guys who moved it out, then back in. A finished downstairs. Mostly. Rabbi Jamie. Leo. Luke. Moses and the burning bush. Fire. A mystery. Water.  Air. Earth. Elementals. Fountain Barbecue. Ribs. Mac and cheese. Baked beans with jalapenos. Bolognese Sauce. The Cold Moon.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Revelation

    One brief shining: Went into the synagogue, kippah in place, and there was Leo, wagging his tail and greeting me, I said hi to the other humans of course but Leo had my attention being my occasional buddy.

     

    Busy morning. Up a bit late, on with Diane, then a workout. After I waited on the Ackerman folks to return my couch. When it got here, I felt relief. It did go ok with the painting. If it hadn’t, well, I would have sucked it up and waited until it did. Not gonna repeat that journey. Too expensive.

    Left for mussar in Evergreen when they left. An hour and a half discussing fire, what it is, how it can be a metaphor, how it can be a metaphor for God. Or, as I prefer, a metaphor for the godliness in each of us. That is, how we each burn with the flame of sacred desire, of passion for truth and justice, of purity and cleansing. Of knowledge and insight. Of life itself.

    My solitude beckoned right after though. I needed to get home, back to Shadow Mountain. It was 55 in Evergreen, 46 here when I got home. Snow has melted back off the roads, off my driveway, cleared from my solar panels. In true Colorado fashion we may get 8 inches of new Snow tomorrow night and Saturday.

    Human interaction, deep and meaningful, grabs me, holds me while I’m in it. Afterward though. Whew. My every pore turns toward not only solitude, but solitude at home. That balance is a delicate one, one I can overshoot more on the interaction side than the solitude side. Oh, yes. Friends, classes. Oh, even more yes. This place. This Mountain. My home.

     

    Swifties. MAGA crazies. The NFL. The Kelce brothers. Travis and Taylor. Her Era tour. His Superbowl. Gosh.

    Not to mention. How about them Houthi’s? Screwing up shipping, playing the short, short game for their fans in Iran. What if the U.S. decided to land on you with both boots? Uh-oh.

    Course it wouldn’t be an election season in 2024 without the many trials of the Yellow-Haired Hercules. Can he clean out the Aegean stables of fraud uncovered in New York? Can he tame the Nemean Lion of a Supreme Court that could bounce him from the presidency? Will he destroy the many headed Hydra of prosecutors after him for meddling in elections? When will he pay his struck by Aphrodite in the dressing room price, $83 million dollars worth?

    The election, the most important election in our history, with two candidates nobody wants. Oh, it’s so good to be an American.


    Cinema and Television Feelings Fourth Phase Mussar Politics

  • Wisdom is where you find it

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Cold Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: Tara. Rabbi Jamie. Great Sol, seen again. Taoism. Acupuncture. Needles. Meridians. Jill. Spinal stenosis. Theodicy. All is one. The one is all. Yet I am. Tom. Diane. Ginny and Bo Yi. Fan Kuan. Taiwan. The National Palace Museum. Korea. My son, Seoah, Murdoch. Joanne. The Mountains. Crisis of confidence. The Hazel Miller Band. Alan. Gary. Torah study. Shadow Mountain.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Jazz Sax

    One brief shining: Wondering if there’s one place that provides music to acupuncturists and massage therapists that only has one recording which includes whale songs and related noninstrumental music, what I heard while resting face down, torso and feet bare as Jill needled my lower back and feet, the also not to be missed wallpaper image of the Milky Way rising in the desert.

     

    My maiden visit to the world of Chinese medicine. In a small strip mall not far from home just off 285. Near the Snowpack Tap Room. Jill shares an office with a chiropractor who looked like an ex-boxer. In the area that adjoins the restrooms some wag put up a skeleton with a doctor’s white coat. Not sure about the message of that. Bones? From Star Trek?

    Yes, it was an odd visit. And yet. My back feels better this morning. How bout that. Jill got a good sense of what I wanted. Trying to nail down methods to keep me traveling. Acupuncture as one modality. So she had me lie down next to the Milky Way, whale song filling the air, and proceeded to place the needles.

    I went to Medical Acupuncture on a whim, sort of. That is, Sue Bradshaw agreed with me that cortisone injections and back surgery were bad juju. Which leaves, she said, physical therapy, lidocaine patches, acetaminophen and the very occasional NSAID, and acupuncture. The only one of those that was new to me was acupuncture so I decided to try it out.

    In spite of my feelings about the context, a bit too latter day hippie for me, I think the needles will become my friend. Chinese medicine is an ancient art and science with wisdom we Westerners most often ignore. As with most of Asian culture for that matter. As my friend Bill wisely said, if you turn your back on a form of treatment it will do you no good. Well, then again. I turned my back on this treatment. Ha.

    So. P.T. exercises daily. Lidocaine patches, perhaps for touring days when traveling? The occasional pain med. Regular resistance work. And acupuncture. Keeping this old body rolling, rolling, rolling.

    I feel pretty good about this. A problem surfaces in Korea. Gets diagnosed and calmed down. Thank you, Mr. Lee. Western doc refers me to p.t. Mary the adopted Korean physical therapist helps me further along the road. Now Jill the acupuncturist introduces Chinese medicine as a prophylactic. And I have pushed myself back to three sets of resistance work. It takes a village and a couple of different cultures to get me to a good place. Worth it.


    Aging Asia Feelings Fourth Phase Health Korea Science

  • Music to My Ears

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Cold Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Names. Old names and new ones. Yisrael. Adonai. Names and concealment. Lobster pots. Humor. Hazel Miller. Her band. That parking ticket. Alan and Cheri. Their condo concerts. The 38th floor. Their balcony. Where are all the green roofs? The Front Range in the distance. Snow covered Blue Sky Mountain. The couple I met whose names I don’t recall. Surrender. Music.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Driving down the hill and back up again. With Joanne.

    One brief shining: Joanne gave me a precooked Rock Cornish Game Hen and revealed something that shook me; there are no such things as Rock Cornish Game Hens, instead we buy immature chickens of a cross between two breeds, the Cornish and the White Plymouth Rock, so you can think of them as the veal or the lamb of poultry.

     

    You probably knew that. I didn’t. Not sure why it shocked me but it did. In spite of an interesting day that news will stick me.

     

    Over to Joanne’s place and picked her up at 10 for a trip down the hill to Alan and Cheri’s condo smack in downtown Denver. Joanne’s driveway is well known at Congregation Beth Evergreen due to its one way, curvy final approach to her house. You drive up and back down a fair way to a turn around. Alan got hung up in the snow there three weeks ago and had to call a tow truck. Marilyn Saltzman has implored Joanne to make it a turn around. Joanne told me yesterday, “I’m going to fix this.” Many people will be happy, including, I imagine Joanne.

    We drove down I-70 and took 6th into the belly of the Denver urban jungle. Turned left on Santa Fe and drove through the arts district where I sometimes go on the first Friday of the month. Food trucks. All the galleries are open. Up to Speer Avenue, left toward the Convention center with its iconic blue Bear poised against it, then right on 14th to the Spire.

    Joanne is a delight to be with. So quick. And funny. We both laughed at the same time when, just as I finished grousing about I-25, my GPS said, “Take I-25 north on your right.” Her husband of many years, Allen, died a year and some months ago. May I reach 92 and be as with it as she is.

    The in-home concert, first in a monthly series, featured Hazel Miller. She’s in the Colorado Jazz Hall of Fame and a friend of Alan and Cheri’s. Cheri booked the Evergreen Jazz Festival for many years. Thirty people attended. Met some interesting folks.

    Back on Shadow Mountain after coffee at Joanne’s. Not till 2:30 pm. Out of the house at 9:15. One tired puppy when I got home. Also had my required maximum of human interaction for the week. But the week’s just gotten started.

     

    Ancient Brothers this morning. Workout. Acupuncture appointment this afternoon.

    When Kate and I went on cruises, my appreciation for the days at sea surprised me. Restful, focused on the Ocean. Realized this morning that I now have the same appreciation for days alone on my calendar. Restful, focused on being in the Mountains. Surrender.

                                                                                  Yisrael

     

     

     

     

     


    Cooking Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Judaism Music

  • Expectations

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Cold Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Alan and Cheri. Joanne. Denver. Downtown living. Down the hill living. Shadow Mountain home. Domo. Buckhorn. Sushi Den. Jerusalem. Ali Baba. The Bistro. The Fort. Bread Lounge. Angry Chicken. Katsu Ramen. Fountain Barbecue. Restaurants. Meals out with family and friends. Chamber music. Charlie Parker. Thelonius Monk. Herbie Mann. Dave Clark Five. Dazzle.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shabbat

    One brief shining: Bought a weighted blanket last summer and in these now cold winter nights it’s part of the layered system that keeps me warm; some mornings of late I’ve taken to enjoying not sleeping in but lying in, wrapped in those layers and happy with my head in the cold, just right, wondering why it all felt so good and I realized the other day it was the embrace of that weighted blanket.

     

    One of the reasons I’ve taken to these occasional surrender moments, to being awake but staying in bed, is the time it gives me to think. To ponder without distraction. I can follow a thought down an ancientrail and back again. This morning the notion of expectations had me going.

    Over the last couple of weeks in mussar we’ve been discussing an example given by Rabbi Toba Spitzer in her book, God is Here. Which I highly recommend, btw. Her example comes from a silent retreat, an annual event for her. She sits down to lunch, imagining the taste of the food, enjoying the view, settling in for a pleasant lunch. A man sits down near her and begins to eat an Apple. Each bite explodes in her ear. She’s completely thrown off the wonderful lunch she’d imagined. She ends up with a ruined lunch. The obvious culprit here is her expectation of how her lunch would go. As long as she held onto the quiet, contemplative meal, she experienced torment from the Apple eater.

    Taking the learning here. Expectations can sabotage our experience. Bad expectations. Bad. Down expectations.

    Then I began to wonder. What are expectations? The shorthand we use so we can navigate our day. Cars will stop at stop signs. Eating two eggs, bacon, and home fries will not only taste good, but satisfy my hunger. Leo will make me happy when he comes to stay. The stove will turn on. Expectations help us by routinizing parts of our lives. So we’re not always thinking through what’s going to happen next.

    Then it hit me. Expectations are the mental habit behind curiosity. Not obvious, right? Why? Because when something happens that defies or upsets our expectations, we have two choices. Choice one. Do our best to return our experience to its anticipated path. Which makes sense if the stove won’t turn on or we decide to wait out the guy who just ran the stop sign.

    But even in those mundane instances we have to stop and consider the second choice. Why? Why won’t the stove turn on? Why did that guy run the stop sign? In these cases the answers will probably not rock our world.

    However. Imagine that you assumed the earth was the center of the universe and you expected the data from your telescope would confirm that. Or on a less exalted plain. Traffic had caused me to stop beside three large Willow Trees. I looked at them, all gnarly and twisted, thick, old. Then I thought. Wait a minute. These are Willows. There’s no creek here. What’s going on? I’ve never seen Willows up here except by a stream. I don’t know the answer. But I’d like to.

    Here’s the aha. Curiosity arises when something breaches our expectations. Why did she say that? What’s going on with my dog? Why is she limping? Why has the climate begun to change? What would happen if I put this and this together rather than that and that? Does the Apple eater have to ruin my lunch?

    What this suggests to me. Greet breaches of your expectations with wonder. With awe. Because the world and your experience has given you a chance to learn something new.


    Feelings Fourth Phase Mussar Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Reimaging revelation Science

  • Civil War?

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Cold Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: Learning the Hebrew alphabet and vowels. Decoding my bar mitzvah portion. Tara teaching me. Joann. Alan. The dark of a Mountain early morning. Aspen Perks. Sue Bradshaw. Evergreen. Conifer. Our alphabet. Comes with vowels. Saudi. Mark and the Desert Sunrise. And, Camels. Mary and the 10 foot long reticulated python on the sidewalk. Wild neighbors here and there.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Sue Bradshaw

    One brief shining: Whenever I do certain self-care things, like a physical, I take myself out for a nice meal afterwards, and this time I discovered I go to Evergreen for meals with friends but when dining alone, at least for breakfast after a fasting blood draw, I wanted Aspen Perks where people know my name.

     

    Thought about Cheers when I had this realization. Where everybody knows your name. Which took me to the decline of third spaces, places neither work nor home where social interactions can occur. Bowling alleys. Churches and synagogues. Bars. Parks. Beaches. Theaters and museums to a lesser extent. Certain restaurants. It was UU minister and scholar Robert Putnam who wrote the essay, Bowling Alone, in which he discussed the decline of the third space in American life. Covid put the pedal to the metal. Churches and synagogues have been losing members for a long time. My doctoral dissertation in 1990, for example, was on the decline of the Presbyterian church U.S.A.

    Our cultural obsession with work. Quality time with the kids or the wife or a partner. Down time, leisure time is not common. Smart phones and the laptop accelerate this trend, too. Go into a busy coffee shop anywhere in the U.S. Most folks are either working on their laptop or consulting their phones. I’ve often seen all four people at a table for four immersed in either their laptop or phone.

    A good third space. The Bread Lounge in Evergreen. The buzz of conversation, folks seeing people they know, then bumping into other people they know. Alan and I might eat breakfast there. The owner will come over to chat. Ron Solomon might walk in. Tal. Somehow the way the tables are laid out and the culture that has grown up there makes it feel like a common space. The place to be at certain hours.

    CBE. On any given day or Friday night if I’m there I’ll see many people I know, some casually, some between casual acquaintance and a friend, close friends.

     

    Been thinking about this, too. An interesting article on the science of polarization in our benighted country. Science is revealing why America politics are so intensely polarized. This Washington Post article says something sort of obvious, yet crucial. We need to belong. The rugged individual so beloved of American fantasy life is a lie. We need family. We need institutions, friends. We need third spaces. Being a MAGA person is such an identity. So is being one who opposes the MAGA identity.

    I thought about this and my conversion to Judaism. Yes, I needed a group, a third space. Somewhere outside my daily life where I was known and appreciated for who I am. CBE is such a place for me. And my identity as a Jew, too. I have a people.

    Is the religious life led there key? Yes, in a way. It offers multiple markers, symbols for belonging. Reading Torah. Attending shabbat services. Observing shabbat. Wearing a kippah. Going to a synagogue. A rabbi. Having Jewish friends. Prayer shawls. The ark. On the other hand, Judaism also has cultural significance outside the strictly religious. Just ask any anti-semite. Were these factors front of mind for me when I converted? No. What was front of mind was my sacred community of friends.

    Being part of any group requires, as the WP article says, knowing who’s not in the group. Boundaries. That’s the sadness and trouble we have now. We have citizens of the U.S. who believe other citizens are not legitimate parts of the nation. A recipe for disaster. For civil war.


    Family Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Judaism Politics US History

  • Health

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Cold Moon

    Monday grateful: Traveler’s Insurance. Car and House. I’m grateful I still have it. Deaf old guy t-shirts. The Ancient Brothers on healers and healing. Sue Bradshaw. Annual Physical this morning. Great Sol lightening the morning Sky. The shema. Hashem in letters of fire. Getting laundry done. Groceries in the house. Self care. Agency. Independence. Cognitive awareness. Physical mobility. Healthy.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth, Gabe, Mia

    One brief, shining: These days I often peel back the metal lid of a can of Wild Caught Sardines, put them on a plate, open up my current package of #34 crackers, this week they’re Rosemary, reach in the fruit compartment of the refrigerator to select a cold Pear or maybe a Tangerine, prepare the fruit by slicing or peeling, add it to the plate, pour myself a cup of coffee, place it all on the table and start to read my breakfast book, right now Democracy Awakening by Heather Richardson, while enjoying a protein rich morning meal.

     

    Annual physical today. My PCP, Kristen Gonzalez, retires next month for medical reasons. Apparently very bad headaches. As a result, I’m seeing a nurse practitioner, Sue Bradshaw, who has worked with Kristen for over twenty years.

    Kristen may have been the best doctor I’ve ever had. She and Charlie, whose last name I can’t recall, were about the same, but she’s older and wiser. Which I imagine he is at this point, too. She’s kind, empathetic, put me first always in our encounters. And she’s medically humble. Says when she doesn’t know. I trust her, trusted her, completely.

    Her retirement makes me sad on two levels. First, that such a competent physician and decent person has something so wrong that she must leave her work. Which she clearly loves. Second, I’ll miss having her in my corner, the backstop for my health.

    As I scan myself at almost 77, I don’t have anything that jumps out, says Tell Your Doctor About Me. Yes, prostate cancer. But it’s being managed. New labs next month. Yes, altitude and funky diaphragm induced shortness of breath. Yes, slacker thyroid gland. All part of the world for me, nothing that causes me worry. Well, maybe one thing. This damned back. It’s been flaring. Yet I do my exercises, take some acetaminophen and it behaves. Sort of.

    It bothers me not so much because of the pain itself, which most of the time I don’t notice, but because of the limits it puts on exercise and travel. Exercise I need to maintain my overall health. And travel. Well. I want to travel.

    I think.

    I say I think because I’m not getting out and doing it. I have nothing planned and don’t know what I could do if I did. Which is partly why I have nothing planned. A combination of physical discomfort and inertia. Some days I imagine this is my life. Here on Shadow Mountain. Out some during the day, reading, meals with friends and family. Staying in at night. Sometimes I push against that idea; sometimes it feels like what I want.

     

     


    Feelings Fourth Phase Health Travel

  • Sweet. And frustrating.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Cold Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Gabe. Ruth. Mia. Domo. Luke. My son and Seoah. The Roger. Learning to navigate Denver on my own, sans GPS. Kristen Gonzalez. Sue Bradshaw. Annual physical. Evergreen Medical. Israel. Hamas. The rules of war. Palestinians. The Ancient Brothers. Tal. Spicy Tuna Sushi bowl. Shabbat. Surrender. Irv and Marilyn. Hebrew. My bar mitzvah portion. The shema.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: A new, resurrected life this day

    One brief shining: Domo has reopened and since it has a special place in Ruth’s heart for the many birthday meals she’s had there she and Gabe and Mia, my granddaughter from another mother, drove over there and met me; we sat down at the stone table on the logs topped with leather held on by rope underneath lamps made from fish skins for our rural Japanese meal.

     

    A sweet and frustrating evening. Drove down the hill for my rendezvous with Ruth, Gabe, and Mia. Coming into the city at 5:15 on a Saturday night. Not so much fun. However. I made up for that by navigating by feel to within a block of Domo, avoiding I-25. The west side of Denver now makes sense to my inner compass. Somewhat anyhow. It’s taken a while to get there since I don’t drive in Denver all that much.

    Parked in a narrow spot between two other diners, squeezed out of the door, and went inside. A text from Gabe told me they were finding parking. Inside in the waiting area were three families of Asians, probably Japanese. I put my name on a waiting list, first in cursive then in block letters so the hostess could read it.

    Domo shut down during the pandemic and only reopened not long ago. The menu has fewer items, by a lot. The owner said he wants to rebuild it slowly. He’s an interesting guy who uses profits from the restaurant to feed people around the world. He’s also an akido sensei and part of Domo’s building houses his dojo. He said he didn’t want to reopen until his staff would be safe from Covid.

    Mia and Ruth are good friends, both artists. Mia and I bonded for good on Kep’s last day. She was so helpful and kind. As was Ruth. Since then Mia’s been in my family. Gabe likes to hang with them and they’re good with him. Last night they tried to teach him how to use chopsticks. He ended up eating with a fork.

    Conversation around the table was, as usual for me these days, the frustrating part. Too much ambient noise. Amy, my audiologist suggested I use my Roger more. She’s right. I used it at mussar last week and it helped a lot. It would have helped last night. Without it, in the midst of plates and bowls clinking, happy conversations blending together, doors opening and closing, waiters taking orders and delivering food, I understood very little. Which made me feel as if I wasn’t in the room at all. Distanced. Apart from. Aggravating. Especially when I have at least a partial solution. At home.

    When we finished, I paid the bill and we got up to leave. Ruth held her arms out and we hugged. Gabe joined in, then Mia. All four of us in a huddle. Right in the hallway going out. A sweet, sweet moment. Reminded me of the night of Jon’s death when Ruth and Gab ran to me, hugged me in the same way. We belong together.

     


    Family Feelings Fourth Phase

  • The Most Precious Treasure

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Cold Moon

    Shabbat gratefuls: How do I feel? A mood changer. Thanks, Tal. Joan, such a bright lady. Alan in his tie dyed t-shirt for the Beatles shabbat. Luke’s dvar torah. His playing and singing in the service. A testament to his courage and growth. Breakfast at Dandelions, reopened under new ownership. Ackerman’s pick up of the couch. Reupholstering. Fixing Rigel’s deep hole. My son and Seoah.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Breakfast with friends

    One brief shining: Got the new menu for Dandelions, three of them, one for Alan and Joan and me, went back to the table and took my time with it since I was still alone, noticed corned beef hash as an entree, two eggs, found a side of berries, and I had made my decision so I slid my menu away from me, picked up the cream and added it to the coffee, waiting.

     

    A quote from the Zen calendar gifted me by Tom. From the Upanishads:

    “God made the senses turn outwards, man (sic) therefore looks outward, not into himself. But occasionally a daring soul, desiring immortality, has looked back and found himself.”

    Don’t know the context of this quote but by itself it tells a truth and a half-truth. The truth is this. Our physicality forces our attention out and away from ourselves. Oh, look! See that! Wow. Did you hear what she said? Hey, can you smell that? OMG. This is the best avocado toast ever. Yes, again. Right there.

    The half-truth is only occasionally is there a daring soul who turns to the inner cathedral, that alembic of memory and thought powered by the fiery heat of the emotions. And that when they do they seek immortality. Some may, of course, search for the secret to life beyond life. But most of us stumble through the doors of our inner cathedral when a shock like grief, major illness, addiction, rejection, or several days in a row of gloomy inner weather force us down the steps into our vast private universe. We all go there from time to time over the course of a life. And look back, in rather than out. Unknown how many find themselves.

    How can we learn from the experience? Socrates. The unexamined life is not worth living. I believed that the first time I encountered it and believe it now. That examen as the Jesuits call it is not for the timid; as any cartographer can tell you, here there be monsters. Yet it is those shadowy winged creatures of our soul who guard the real treasure.

    Which suggests to me that Gandalf might well be our guide. I think of him in his encounter with the Balrog in the mines of Moira. Gandalf could have turned and run or at least not advanced toward the menacing creature. Instead he walks onto the narrow bridge that will carry him straight into the Balrog’s path.

    Gandalf walked toward the bomb, toward the fight, toward the pillar of smoke and in so doing earned the opportunity to face a great obstacle rather than force it back down and away from consciousness. In the ensuing battle Gandalf the Grey dies but only after killing the Balrog. Later, he reemerges as Gandalf the White.

    Whether Gandalf or Virgil or Moses or Tiresias or even Ignatius of Loyola, we need a guide, a companion as we wander the labyrinths of our heart/mind. I found John Desteian who walked with me through the tunnels and traps of my 28 years. I’ve found Ira Progroff and his journal workshops. Now Moses and the Torah. I’ve found Gandalf and Virgil, too. But the key companion all along has been the then existing version of myself.

    I invite you to find the entrance to your mines of Moira. I invite you to take a deep breath and set your foot on the steps that lead down and in to your inner cathedral. Yes, there be monsters there, but they’re your monsters and they guard the most precious treasure of all: self-knowledge.

     

     

     


    Feelings Fourth Phase Myth and Story Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Reimaging revelation