Category Archives: Fourth Phase

Beyond the Boundaries, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Memories, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., US History

A Psychedelic Old Age Anyone?

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Imbolc and the Waiting To Cross Moon

Monday gratefuls: Movies. Women Talking. TV. New Amsterdam. On Joy, Season 4, episode 1. The Last of Us. Finale. Furball Cleaning. CJ Box. James Pogue. Anarchy. Political Violence. Decivilization. Michael Pollan. How to Change Your Mind. The Plant Magic Cafe in Denver. Keens. Ruth and Gabe this afternoon. Taxes. It’s time. Silicon Valley Bank. Vibrant Matter.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: ChatbotGPT

 

This week. One eye exam. Two radiation treatments. Three visits with friends. And a Peruvian glazed chicken breakfast for supper. Almost Christmas. Gotta figure out my playlist for the Cyberknife. Coltrane. The Band. Cool jazz. The Blues. The Goldburg Variations. Not sure.

Yes, there’s a bit of absurdity to my life. It veers from the sublime to the profane and back again. Wait a minute. That’s everybody’s life isn’t it? One moment we’re watching our grandson make his uneasy way across the floor to us and the next we’re paying bills. Getting on a jet plane for that much needed vacation. Stuffing the grocery list in our pocket and heading out to Safeway or Lunds.

We can’t afford to stay in one state too long. Neither the mundane or the profound. Not built for it. A continuous state of ecstasy would drive us mad. Too much of the quotidian dulls us, pulls under. We all need to work on our ecstatic to the ordinary balance.

That’s why I plan to head into the Plant Magic Cafe someday soon. See if there’s someone who can help me find a willing source for some psilocybin. It’s been a minute for me. It’s now legal in Colorado to receive a gift of psilocybin. And to have it in your possession. But you can’t buy it.

Not that that’s the only source of ecstasy for me. Dream world. Hiking in the Mountains. Reading a great poem. Discovering new ideas. Deep conversations with friends. Writing. Even so. It is one and I want to go again.

There was this time, you see. Long ago and far away. But not so long ago, really. When students opposed a stupid war. Men walked on the Moon. And there were drugs to help you find your own way among the stars. The music, too. That wonderful music. We did slip the surly bonds of normal life. A time when the ecstatic to the ordinary balance tipped toward the ecstatic.

We lived it. Some of us. Then many of us, most of us, allowed the lapping Waters of work and family to serve as a constant draught from Lethe. We never fully forgot though. A bit of Tinkerbell’s dust remained caught in our hair.

No. I don’t want to go back to a psychedelic age of protest and up the establishment. That was college. This is old age. What I want is a psychedelic old age. And protest? Of course. Always. Up the establishment? Never quit on that one. Or the protest either for that matter.

Thing is I can’t stay up late lying on the floor with my head between the speakers and the Doors cranking out Riders on the Storm.

What’s that look like? A psychedelic old age. About to find out.

Asia, Cooking, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Hermitage, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Sweetness

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Imbolc and the Waiting To Cross Moon

Sunday gratefuls: For each of the Ancient Brothers and their uniqueness. Zoom. Kep drinking Water. That ancient Water. Recycled through time, now in an aluminum bowl near me. And, in Kep. Becoming Kep. Dr. Doverspike skiing the Powder. Organizing and cleaning out my freezer. Done. Cooking my own food. Chicken. Pork. Fish. Sustainable all. Frozen Vegetables and Fruit. Eggs. Seeing Gabe on Monday night. Ruth thrifting in Boulder.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Seeing what we’re looking at

 

Sweetness. My son and his wife. Dressed for golf. He’s shooting for a 20 handicap. He’s got the bug big time. So does she. They play every weekend. Often 36 holes or more. Murdoch has become less independent. More of a lap dog. Odd. Might be sensing the upcoming move.

Sweetness. Seeing those old men on my zoom screen opening their hearts. Letters from great-grandchildren. Imagination. Looking up at the stars and out to the tides. And into each other. Special and irreplaceable. Church.

Gettin’ things done. Home office getting closer. Needs a great rug. Some more art. Working my way through the needs attention inbox. Finished it. Nothing left. Feels good. Money piling up in my accounts. Changed draw from the rollover, but no money going out for drugs. Orgovyx free now until the end of the year. Erleada still no word. I’ll lower the draw when I find out about it. Not till then though. Potentially $2,200 a month.

The freezer. Threw out old meat. Made three compartments: Fruits and Potatoes. Vegetables. Meats. Much better. Food of my own making. Yes.

 

Reading my way into the changes in our world. The times they are achangin’ agin’. Becoming Native to This Place. Vibrant Matter. Christian Nationalism. Seeing Like a State. Perilous Bounty. Lots of magazine and newspaper articles. Other reading I’ve done over the years. Localism. Anti-corporatism. A reverence for nature. Threads I held and hold dear. Now running through a crowd of folks who hate government, love the Founders and the Extremes, guns, staying in your tribal lane. Who are willing to regulate women’s bodies. Who want to exit the current culture and live in the West.

There is a post-Enlightenment movement that has handholds for all these folks, for me. Post modernism. Regenerative agriculture. Rebuilding rural communities. Rebuilding inner city neighborhoods. Enforcing monopoly laws. Reinstating the estate tax. A wariness of Big Pharma, Big Grain, Big Ag, Big Business.

Getting clearer. Details and conflicts. Roots. Possible impacts on current politics.

 

A bit of good news. La Nina is gone! An El Nino will startup sometime this  year. Water will follow for the dry West. And this Forest in which I live. May it be enough to create a moderate Fire season as opposed to a high or extreme one. Something to ease the mind. Help the Snowpack and the Colorado River Basin.

How bout that time change, eh? So. Much. Fun. Kep’s making moves for food. Early, he thinks. Really, a bit late. I slept in. Right past the change. Now Kep and I are living it together. Oh boy.

 

 

Dogs, Dreams, Fourth Phase, Friends, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Birthing a New Worldview?

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Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Dr. Doverspike. Kep. Acupuncture. Salmon. The lick mat. Powder on the way. Back country skiing. Snow today. Black Mountain white. Dawn. Tom in Mendocino. His 75th today. Happy birthday, Tom. Cafe Beaujolais. Doug the Painter. Marilyn and Irv. The 60’s are not dead. Psilocybin. Mescaline. LSD. Ayahuasca. Peyote. Good friends, in depth conversations. Ruth calling me yesterday.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth’s call

 

Brunch with Marilyn and Irv at Aspen Perks. We discussed the Alan Lightman PBS series: Searching: A quest for meaning in the age of science. We all found Lightman’s emphasis on the journeys of specific Atoms from Supernovas to Solar system formation to Planets to life to us and back out again after death reassuring. Yes. And we also thought his reductionist materialism left out an important perspective. A world beyond, within, in addition to this one we can know with our sensorium. Dreams. Hallucinogens. Mystical experience. Emergent phenomena as evidence, including consciousness. The John Cleese moderated University of Virginia panel on reincarnation.

We also discussed family, grandkids, and dream work that happens at CBE. Gonna join the dream work group.

 

Dr. Doverspike came to see Kep at 2. He agrees that Kep’s recovery is slower and less obvious than he had hoped. Could be some spinal issues, too. He believes we’ve handled the pain and may (he hopes, me too) be looking at a need to strengthen muscles. That will be easier once Kep can move freely in the yard, but that won’t happen for another month or so. Snow.

Kep seems happier, more alert. Pain under control. He also stands taller when he’s not exhausted.  I’m willing to go a full month to see if we can generate better results. I did move Kep’s food downstairs.

Doverspike is off to the interior Mountains today hunting for powder.

 

Started a fascinating book yesterday by Jane Bennett, Professor of Political Theory and chair of the Department of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. Vibrant Matter. She’s arguing for what she calls the active participation of nonhuman forces in events. Thing-power. “I will try to give voice to a vitality intrinsic to materiality, in the process absolving matter from its long history of attachment to automatism or mechanism.” p. 3

I’m reading it as part of my project of understanding the New Right and as part of my Becoming a Pagan project. There’s an odd and uneasy convergence between the two. It may be only the sound of rebellion against received wisdom, but there may be more, too. I’m beginning to wonder if the forces threatening to drive our nation apart might have deeper, more profound roots than has been noticed so far.

Those roots might have fertile soil in a rethinking of the influence of the Enlightenment and the role of science in our daily and political lives. In other words we may be trying to birth a post-enlightenment worldview. One that honors science and rationality, but dethrones it from an imperial position to a collaborative one. A lot going on here. Only have a partial toe in the water.

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Shadow Mountain

And I Am Glad

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Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

Friday gratefuls: How to Change Your Mind. Philpott. Pollan. High Winds. Lodgepoles swaying. Doverspike. Marilyn and Irv. Aspen Perks. Tara, pronounced terra. Mussar. Luke at mussar. Rabbi Jamie. Alan. His castle in the sky. Making the new office mine. Doug the Painter. New Amsterdam, a show with a lot of heart. Ditto The Last of Us.

 

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Dazzle Jazz Sunday Brunch with Ruth

 

Realized I’ve focused on relationships of late. Making lunch and dinner and breakfast dates. Spending time with friends. Family. Talking with folks on zoom. Texting. This is not a change in focus, but a change in both quantity and quality. As I age, my precious, the one ring that binds them all, is love.

Much less focus on what might be considered work. Much more attention to the lives of others. Not volunteering. Did enough of that. No, this is about the thicker web of close in family and friends. About being there for them as they are for me.

Seeing and being seen. Touching and being touched. Something to do with living alone. To paraphrase Alvin Toffler who said High Tech, High Touch. High Alone, High Touch.

In other words to live alone happily, as I do, means I have a greater need for intimacy with friends and family. And so it has come to be. As the authors of The Good Life, the book about the longest longitudinal study of human development, the Harvard Study of Adult Development say with a nod to the favorite wisdom of real estate: Relationships. Relationships. Relationships.

Introversion does not mean isolation or hermetic solitude. It means gaining energy from your own company. I find deep conversations with friends a source of solace, a source of gladness, a place to give and receive thoughts about life situations. I do not find them energizing. Though in their wake I do feel stronger, held up, buoyed by their now invisible presence.

Alone, but not lonely.

 

Perhaps you could call this the emet, the truth in context of introversion, of widowhood. Those of us already inclined to recharging ourselves alone. Those of us in an unwanted, yet fully accepted life without our partners. We can adapt well to the role of widower, from the Latin root *uidh-, to separate, divide. (Etymology) But we cannot adapt well (and should not) to a life without others.

If that final separation, so final, drives one into a dark place, occulted from the world of the living while still with breath, then. Well, then. There are two widows. One dead and one among the quick. Be it not be so for you if you encounter the abyss made by the departure of one you loved.

And yet. That abyss, perhaps the one into which you stare until it stares back at you, that abyss has meaning in its vasty deeps. Meaning you cannot find if you turn away, run in fear to the corner of your living room or the bar or to the arms of another.

In my own viewing of the deep I have come to accept both Kate’s permanent absence and her undying presence. Yes. She is well beyond my reach. Yes. She helped me cook the other night. Be patient with it, Charlie. She delights in the view of Black Mountain with me, her arm around my waist, her head on my shoulder. She rides up Shadow Mountain Drive with me, looking to see another Mountain Lion, Bear, Elk. And I am glad.

 

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health

33

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Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Kep. Walking a bit taller. MVP. 10:30 bedtime last night. Mark and his work truck. His commentary on the Amazon warehouse. Honor. Beauty. Compassion. Tiferet. Ron. Susan. Jamie. Marilyn. Tara. A bright Mountain Morning. A Blue Colorado Sky. Vitalists and Mechanists. Thought. Word. Deed. The thought is the parent of the act. An old Dad saying.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Kale and Potato and chorizo soup

 

Over to Lone Tree. 45 minutes to an hour from here. Co. 470. Envision Sally Jobe. Saw Patty and her catscan machine. Took off my vest, my help me I’ve fallen and I can’t get up pendant, lay down on the metal slide that moves me under the catscan apparatus. A triangular pillow under my knees. Hands in the I’m dead position over the upper chest. 5 minutes of moving up and down through the large doughnut shaped device. All done.

Were you working at Anova 4 years ago? Yes. I remember you. I think you wore your hair down back then? Probably. She looked older. Of course. A face more lined.

Then to Anova Cancer Care where the Cyberknife is. Carmela also looked older. Grayer. Still cheerful though. Like a class reunion.

Saw Dr. Simpson to go over yet again the risks and sign my acknowledgement of them. The risks include paralysis. Bowel obstruction. And other cheerful possibilities. When you’re using a serious tool, there are serious risks.

Dr. Simpson did say that there was a slight chance they could cure me. That would happen if we kill these two active sites and the androgen deprivation therapy had tamped down the other sites permanently. Not likely, but hey!

 

Forgot to finish this earlier. Another workout. Then a nap. Slipped my mind.

Thirty third anniversary tomorrow. But no Kate. At least not in a way that I can order Irises for our table. Eat prime rib. Talk about the kids. About our life together. And not long after April 21st her yahrzeit as determined by the Jewish calendar. 30 Nisan. Which was on April 12th in 2021. That’s a lot for a month or so of days.

Two years, almost. She still guides me, helps me think things through, but I’d much prefer her physical presence.

Our house. Our family. Our life at CBE continues. We are both present when I walk into a room. I realized the other day that I’m still married to her. Even death does not do us apart. Maybe if someone else came into my life. Maybe. But the death of a soulmate does not remove the imprint they left on your heart and soul and life. Not at all.

Yes, memory weakens. Grief recedes. Mourning ceases. Of course. New memories, memories without her, more recent memories. But that turtle clock. The quilts on the beds. The pillows. Her Pi Beta Phi paddle. This religion she loved. Her old friends. Her grandchildren. Our grandchildren. Our car.

All those days and nights. 30 years of them. Still embedded in the neurons and synapses of this brain. Not gone. Available and precious.

Her memory. A blessing.

-33-

Cooking, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, GeekWorld, Health, Hermitage, Judaism, Mussar

Chatbot helps me cook

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Imbolc the Waiting to Cross Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Tara. Pronounced Terra. Feelings. Sadness. Joy. Confidence. Trust. Vincent coming home. Her invitation to the second night Seder.  Aspen Perks. Poor food but a good place to eat. Quiet. That perky waitress. Kep. An early nudger today. My son. A joy. Becoming Native to This Place. Seeing Like a State. The Reason Liberalism Failed. Christian Nationalism. The changing state of our State.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: A deep friendship

 

Tara. Whose name I pronounce as I read it. Tar-ah. But who pronounces it as she was given it, Terra. Gotta learn to say this. Hard. I pronounce as I read something. Not always right. Difficult to change.

We spent an hour plus talking. About her son Vincent who may return from a long stay in New York City next month. About my cancer. About Yamantaka. About matters of the heart. Tara has a profound honesty I appreciate.

She invited me to her second night seder. Her daughter, Julia, has college friends who want to come. So there will be a crowd. Glad to go. In this case I’m going to suck up my caution about covid. I’m tired of it anyhow. Still, it lingers and the in-person attendance at the Purim spiel on Monday suggests I’m not the only one.

Friends. Near and far. So happy to have them in my life.

 

CT scan today. To establish targets for my radiation. Five sessions. Two next week and three the week after. I hope it’s the same crew. I liked them. Kind. Caring. Not exactly looking forward to this, but it’s important. The drive is an hour both ways. That’s a hassle. And, there are non-trivial risks. What I choose to do with this one wild and precious life of mine. Keep it as long as I can.

 

Still playing around with the Chatbot. I made a potato and kale soup last night with chorizo. It blew up the roof of my mouth with its spiciness. Gonna take it tonight to MVP. What to do?

That sounds like a delicious soup!😋 According to web sources12345, some ingredients that are commonly used in kale and potato soup with chorizo are:

  • Chicken broth
  • Onion
  • Garlic
  • Smoked paprika
  • Salt and pepper

You could try adding more of these ingredients to your soup to reduce the spiciness. Alternatively, you could add some sour cream or cheese on top of your soup for a creamy contrast. Or you could add some lemon juice or vinegar for a tangy touch.

I hope this helps you enjoy your soup more. Let me know how it turns out.

A chatty response from Auntie Sydney. I can’t use any dairy because that violates kosher. No dairy and meat in the same dish. Really, the same meal. Gonna add more chicken broth. Then some vinegar if that doesn’t do the trick.

Can’t believe I’m using Microsoft search. It’s been so bad for so long. But, there you go. I did notice that I got ten queries this time. Wonder if they’re gradually upping the limits of the conversations.

I do like that it gives you the sources it uses. Not the same as evaluating them, but then that’s the reader’s task. As it always is.

 

Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain

Being Alive, Being Alive

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Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Kep, my 5:30 guy. Dr. Doverspike. My son. Jen. Ruth. Gabe. Stars. Searching. for meaning. Meaning. Purpose. Eudaimonia. Life. The cycle of life. The interdependent web of all Souls. The deep Ocean of connected life and collective memory. Our desire to know, to learn, to love. Compassion. Humility. Boundaries. Books. Movies. Paintings and sculpture.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Brain

 

Zoom. Facebook. The telephone. Television. Inadequate, each in their own way, when compared to face-to-face, body-to-body encounters. Yes. But I would miss them if they were gone. Zoom allows me to keep up with folks I care about but cannot see face-to-face very often, if at all. It allows me to have powerful moments of connection every Sunday morning with my Ancient Brothers. Facebook. At a less connected level I see old high school friends. What their life contains. Our lives turning over at the same rate. All 76 now. College friends long dispersed throughout the country. Even CBE friends when they travel.

Would I give up my breakfast with Rich this Friday? My lunch on the same day with Alan? Thursday mussar. MVP once a month? Of course not. And those encounters are richer. Needed. Loved. Rebecca is back from India and I look forward to seeing her soon. Tal and Luke have their own late twenty-something arcs to their lives. And I’m part of all these.

We love to find the downsides. Especially to technology. The ways it robs us of something. I see the upsides. Perhaps it is the solitary life I lead at home. Which I want, need, love. Yet solitary with no desire for isolation. In the average week I prefer to have the predominance of my hours experienced alone. But not all of them.

A break while I fed Kep led me to this observation. Wonder if we’re confusing correlation with causality in the instance of Zoom and social media. Stipulated: they’re not as good as fleshly encounters. But. What if the deficits we ascribe to them are the result of too little human interaction, not the medium? If that were the case, the prescription would not be to have less zoom or Facebook, rather more fleshly meetups. And use Zoom and social media when you can’t. This feels true to me.

 

All righty then. Having said that let us to turn to other matters. Like the capture of the GOP by Trump’s base. Which may not save him in this campaign for the nomination. But. Which will make all GOP candidates do obeisance to the hard right constituents in their state or congressional district. What will this mean for the 2024 campaign/election cycle? Unclear for now, but it could divide the GOP into a moderate (sort of) camp, think Mitt Romney and the Proud Boy, insurrection crowd. Gonna be messy.

 

Watching a PBS series, Searching: Our Quest for Meaning in the Age of Science. Alan Lightman has a sort of Saganesque persona and speaks in the oracular voice that we’ve come to expect from scientists in serious documentaries. I don’t find him convincing.

His quest for meaning is earnest. A bit too earnest for my taste. He’s apparently never wondered if he’s asking the right question. For example. A couple of Joseph Campbell quotes on meaning.

Joseph Campbell: “There’s no meaning. What’s the meaning of the universe? What’ s the meaning of a flea? It’s just there. That’s it. And your own meaning is that you’re there.”

Joseph Campbell: “I don’t think [the meaning of life] is what we’re seeking. I think [it’s] an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”

Lightman does make an interesting observation at the end of the third session, the last one. He muses that all the atoms in his body came from the stars. He refers to them oddly as his atoms. When he dies, he goes on, his atoms will disperse into soil, the sky, another person. That’s the future he thinks, that we are all connected in that way. Weak tea as an idea, imho, even though, or perhaps because, it’s so obviously true.

Two more to watch. Watched number 3 first. Maybe they’re better.

Asia, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Jefferson County, Mountains, Park County, Shadow Mountain

A Mobile Crew

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Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Kep, the 5:30 am nudger. We two old codgers get up. This one still in REM sleep. Yoga mats. For the Kep. My son’s good work on the probate. Jen. Ruth. Gabe. Death. Jon, a memory. Kate, always Kate. Darkness. My old friend. A Mountain Morning. The oriental rug. Now a large traction mat for Kep. Pangaea Carpets. Evergreen Design Center. Clean house. Cheeba Chews.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Continental Divide visible on the way to Bailey

 

Thinking about my buddy Paul living near the Atlantic Ocean and the Bay of Fundy. Surrounded by good fishing. Northern Forests. The St. Croix River. Close to Canada. A distant world. My own Mid-Continent life. The Midwest, then the West. On a Mountain Top. Far from the fresh Waters of Minnesota now, far from the salt Waters of the Atlantic or the Pacific always. Hawai’i would give me a linkup with the World Ocean. One reason it appeals to me.

Having Mary, Mark, my son and his wife in Asia for so many years. My attention pivoted, turned West. Far West. Thailand. Korea. Singapore. It remains there, peeled away from my long European fixation. Except for Britain. Continental Europe used to hold many of my travel dreams, scholarly fantasies. Not now.

Going to Korea later this year. When I can stay longer, I’ll add in Taipei.

Brother Mark starts today at Amazon’s OKC2, one of its largest warehouses in the Oklahoma City area. His first full time work since moving back to the U.S. from Saudi Arabia. May his day be full and not feel long. Mary has moved back to Eau Claire. My son and his wife will leave Hawai’i for Korea. A mobile crew.

 

A trip to Bailey yesterday. Happy Camper. Topping up the indica supply. A beautiful drive with the Continental Divide in the far distance. Not as Snow topped as I expected. Mt. Blue Sky had a Snow storm as did Mt. Rosalie. 285 was clear.

Chose to get money from the ATM in Happy Camper. Tried twice with my credit card. Oops. Worked with my debit card. A once every couple of months trip for me. I wanted to include lunch at the Smiling Pig, a new Tex-Mex joint in the old Rustic Station, but it’s not open on MTW. Will have to just drive over there for lunch one of these ThFSaSun. The pandemic was rough on restaurants everywhere. I imagine that’s what took out the Rustic Station. It had great buttermilk pancakes.

After that drive I went to Evergreen, looking for an area rug for my upstairs office. Still not done tricking it out. Pangaea Carpets had a lot of beautiful carpets and area rugs. Got to measure my space.

Also. Still looking for a Western something to put on my mantel once Doug gets my interior painted. Stuff there was too generically upscale Western. May hunt for a large Buffalo photograph. Back to the house for a little Korean, some pan fried ground pork with milk gravy.

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Politics, US History, World History

Jon. Apocalypses.

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Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

Monday gratefuls: Kep, struggling outside. Jen, anxious about money. Ivory going to a new home. Jon’s house mostly cleaned out. My son managing matters from the middle of the Pacific. Cooling down. 62 yesterday in Aurora. Snow midweek. Doubt about the pain management protocols. Trust your doctors and zip up. OK, Kate. Matters of business. The New Right. The Dissident Right. Conservatives. Integralism. Ways of thinking about our commons. Socialism. Globalism.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Bill and his granddaughter in Atlanta

 

Down to the old house. Jon’s place. Floors still messy, but furniture, piles of clothes, tables. All gone. Almost everything cleaned out. Jen made some decisions about what to keep, what not. Wants to involve the kids. Makes sense. Found Merton’s photographs, slides. E-mailed a pic to BJ.

Jen took home the Bernini, Kate’s fancy sewing machine she bought with her inheritance money from Merton. Also, Kate’s featherweight. A portable Singer sewing machine. A shop Vac and an air compressor. These matters are on their way to a conclusion though still slow. Now six months out from Jon’s death. Have I mentioned MAKE A WILL!

The big dumpster outside Jon’s house had cardboard boxes, furniture, appliances in it up to the brim. A life’s material contents on their way to a landfill. Inside remains photographs, art, Grateful Dead tapes, LP’s, a bicycle. Tools. A printing press. Two dishwashers. ? Some other unconnected appliances Jon intended to put in his kitchen, still bare. A metal sink from our garage. A few boxes of indeterminate things.

The cleaners worked hard. A physical challenge. When Jen and the kids decide what they want to do, the cleaners will finish up and the house will go on the market as a distressed property. I pay the cleaners and may have to cure the mortgage since the bank has begun foreclosure noises.

When the house sells, and the realtor thinks it will go at or above asking and probably fast, I’ll get my money back. He said hopefully. Oh. Did I mention make a will?

 

Onto other less dramatic topics like the various apocalypses on the global stage. Climate change. Still trundling along toward Hothouse Earth. Emissions increasing. The Ukraine. Fighting to the death with a wounded Russian Bear. A dangerous animal with a lot of tooth and claw left. All those displaced Ukrainians. Europe discovering it needs muscle. Again. Same with the Chinese sphere Asian countries like Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines.

Those American right wingers invested in various gilded back to the land exits. The huddled masses of Mexico and Central America yearning to be Americans.

Racism here in the U.S. White supremacists headed to Idaho and Montana and Wyoming. Different strategies to deny American citizens their vote. Women stuck between a post-Roe abortion wall and unwanted pregnancy. Inflation and high employment running along together. Wildfires, atmospheric rivers, floods, sea level rise, empowered hurricanes. All this the view from the top of Shadow Mountain. Glad to be at 8,800 feet.

Acting, Astrology, Cinema and Television, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Hermitage, Judaism, Literature, Shadow Mountain, Writing

Young Men’s Dreams, an Old Man’s, too

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Imbolc and the Waiting to Cross Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Tal. Bread Lounge. F1. Red Bull. Scuderia Ferrari. Mercedes. Charles LeClerc. Max Verstappen. Carlos Sainz. A hobby. I think. Warming. Snow melting. Dr. Doverspike. Coming today. Kep, the early. His rear legs. Love for and from him. Tal’s dream. His own theater company. Like the Group of the early 1920’s. Young men’s dreams. Old men’s dreams.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Dreams

 

Had lunch with Tal. He got let go at Evergreen Players where I had taken two acting classes from him. Budget. He landed on his dream. He’s doing two acting classes right now, holding them at CBE. American Jewish Playwrights and Improv.

His plan. Build a theater company based on the Group, a late 1920’s creation of Lee Strasberg and others. An ensemble, The Group often performed plays written for them, using the same pool of actors, the Group, to cast each play. Tal wants to develop an ensemble which will choose plays and perform them, directed by himself. The plays will fit the ensemble rather than assembling a cast to fit the play. He had the first board meeting for his company last week.

Luke, too. Wanting to work with the things he loves: Tarot and Astrology and Art. A young man with a dream. He had an interview two days ago with Judaism Yourway for a tech position with them. If he gets it, it could fund his developing a practice with Tarot and Astrology. Give him more time to develop his art.

The late twenties, early thirties. A time for exploration. Testing the self. Trying this, then that. Who will I be? Who can I be? When will it happen for me? Dreaming with them both. An old man’s dream, may these young men realize theirs.

 

This old man has dreams, too. He wants to write a book, another book. That one about the pagan life. About finding and developing a love for Mother Earth and Father Sun. But. He’s stuck. Maybe depressed?

I have plenty of time. Plenty of material, both original and researched. I know how to stick with a project until I have completed manuscripts. Yet. I’m not writing. Not even picking up a keyboard.

Maybe the deep sadness over cancer has combined with suppressed feelings over Kate’s long illness and death, over Jon’s life, his divorce, his death, and Ruth’s mental health to cast a darker pall over me than I’ve known. Recognized.

When I worked with Alan and Cheri last weekend, I discovered I had stamina. Yet when I come home, I fall into routines. Some helpful. Like Ancientrails. Like caring for Kep. Though I’ve not been as good a dad as he’s needed of late. Zooming with friends and family. Zoomies. Exercise. Cooking for myself.

But my reading has tailed off into finishing CJ Box’s long Joe Pickett series. I watch too much tv. I don’t feel energetic at home. One or two events outside of the house and I’m done with my day. Yes, there’s the trifecta: low testosterone, altitude, and my funky diaphragm. And, yes, they affect me. But I’m beginning to think my low energy may have deeper and other roots.

Not sure where to go with this. Not sure I’m right. Paying attention in a different way now.