Category Archives: Fourth Phase

Commentary on Religion, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Garden, Great Wheel, Holidays, Judaism, Mountains, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain

A Simpler Heart

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Spring and Kate’s Yahrzeit Moon

2019

Sunday gratefuls: Pesach. Chag Sameach. Easter. Ramadan. All together now. A time of high Winds. High Fire danger. Liberation. Resurrection. Revelation. Spring. Nowruz. Ostara. Beltane. The birth of Lambs. The Greening of Grasses and Trees. Blooming of Flowers. Bees hard at work. Snow and Cold in the Rockies. The fallow season becoming a distant memory. Fresh Milk. Seeds in the Ground. (not in Minnesota or up here.) Life triumphs. For now.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Family

 

The second day of Passover yesterday. Tell me that old, old story of Pharaoh and his slaves. Saw it on Zoom. Broadcast live from Congregation Beth Evergreen. Was gonna go. Got Covid feet at the last minute. Fear makes prisoners of us all. Also. Didn’t know what to wear. I don’t have fancy clothes. Well, I do. I don’t like to wear them. Jeans and plaid shirts. An LL Bean vest. That’s the outer decor. With a pair of Keens.

When I watched Rabbi Jamie go through the haggadah with the gathered (smallish) crowd in the sanctuary at Beth Evergreen, I both wished I was there and was glad I wasn’t. This is a long service. A couple hours until the meal.

I stayed with it both out of a sense of obligation these are my people after all and out of a desire to re-member an ancient tale of liberation. An ancientale of authoritarian rule and those who broke away from it. The ancient and lonely trail of trying to lose the slave mind, to take life in your own hands and live it responsively and responsibly.

It’s not easy being free. It takes work. Every day. Get food. Maintain health. Love family. And the Pharaoh’s of our day want their slaves to have just enough money to buy the things Pharaoh wants them to. Just enough to have some food, be healthiesh, maybe maintain a family. Buy gas, processed foods, over the counter remedies, pay rent.

Then there’s the lower caste. The people of the street. Who are either can’t or won’t play the Pharaoh’s game. Who suffer from mental illness, addiction, loneliness.

Those with privilege can navigate past the Scylla of money and the Charybdis of social expectations. Yet even most of the privileged founder anyhow. Crushed between the jaws of earning and wanting to fit in.

Judaism knows this in its traditions and works to keep the freedom. It’s hard though even for ones who know the true difficulty of the journey from Egypt through the Reed Sea and those days years in the desert and hardest of all-gaining the Promised Land.

 

Christianity went off on a tangent about mortality and its pain. Solved through a resurrected God who would take us all with him someday. Beautiful metaphor, resurrection. Death is not the end. Ain’t no grave can hold my body down. A little creepy in its bodies zipping up from cemeteries, or taken whole out of life in the rapture.

There’s a liberation message there, too. But you have to work to find it, embrace it, follow it. Would have been better without the sin. Making it seem that resurrection needed earning. By not doing this or that. Rather than by following a path. A via negativa toward heaven. Born good? Nope. Born bad. Work to put away the stain of the Eden rebellion. Wash, wash, wash the stain away. Shout it out!

 

We can take this wonderful wakin’ up morning and realize that death does not define us. We can take this pesach and gain our freedom. The resources of these two great faiths are available to us, but they come with so much damned baggage. So much institutional hoohah.

Even so. I’ll stand with those who find death only a part of the journey. I’ll stand with those who know Pharaoh lives in our own heart and the journey lies in turning him from dictator to collaborator.

Sure. I believe those things. They’re important.

 

I have a simpler heart I’ve learned. One not so enmeshed. I recognize the wonder, the miracle of elemental creation. I see the Sun and its life-giving power. I feel Mother Earth under my feet, responsive to my hands, bearing all I need for this life, the one right here, right now. Ichi-go, Ichi-e. I see the moon in the darkness. I feel its gentle lunar power ripping whole oceans from here to there.

I do not need to go further than these. I do. But I do not need to. I could live happily with giving only them reverence. With realizing awe only in their presence. With letting them think about my afterlife. About Kate’s.

Death and life. Oppression and liberation. Yes. Important, big questions. Journeys of a lifetime. But, too. Following the water course way. Living life as it comes, letting it flow beneath and around and with our feet, our body, our heart, our mind. I’ll flow with the Taoist while I stand with those others and their ways. Seems strange I know, but that’s the spot I’ve come to for right now.

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Kabbalah, Mussar, Shadow Mountain

What is truth?

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Spring and Kate’s Yahrzeit Moon

Kate, back from her hospitalization and rehab, covered in the friendship quilt from Baily Patchworkers. October, 2018

Thursday gratefuls: Rich. Jamie. Marilyn. Susan. Truth. Emet. Luke and his new haircut. Alan. Pesach. Liberation. Slavery. Myth. Story. Legend. Ovid. Latin. Writing. Ukraine. Climate change. Democracy. Liberalism. High fire danger.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Emet.

 

Oh, boy. Tired this morning. I was up until 11 p.m. last night. Could have been New Year’s. When I got back from the mussar group at CBE, a guy was in my driveway. Kep was barking at him. Go, Kep. I stopped and rolled down my window.

I can’t get any cell service. I’m lost.

My suspicion meter went up, but he seemed non-threatening.

Could I use your phone?

I handed him my phone through the car window. Still suspicious.

My girlfriend. That’s her in the Jeep. He pointed to car lights nearby, the vehicle idling. She’s been drinking.

OK.

I live at 285 and Sheridan. I need to call a friend to come get me. (285 and Sheridan is in Lakewood, all the way down the hill.)

He made two calls, both went to voicemail.

The Jeep moved closer to my driveway. Well, maybe I’ll go talk to her. She’ll give me a ride home.

Maybe she would let you drive?

I doubt it.

He left, talked through the Jeep’s window, got in and they drove away.

Left me feeling conflicted. I was already past my bedtime. He was a stronger, younger male with a strange story that I couldn’t parse. Why was he walking alone, in the mountains, trying to find cell phone service? Even if his girlfriend had been drinking, what prompted him to leave her house and walk away into a Mountain Night when he lived so far away? He seemed sober and as I said, non-threatening.

Woke up this morning wondering if he made it home ok. If I should have driven him home. Why didn’t I? Was I too tired? Too unsure of my ability to handle him if he was not as he appeared? Conflicted.

Odd.

 

Last night we talked about emet, the Hebrew word for truth. What a topic. See the above story. What was the truth of it? I didn’t know, couldn’t tell, and it made me nervous. So, lacking a way to discern the truth, I backed away. Afraid of a lie that might do me harm. The truth matters.

But, as Pontius Pilate said, “What is truth?” That’s the rub. And, in this post-modern age, who’s truth are we talking about? Mine? Yours? This guy in my driveway? His girlfriends? Was this a case of domestic abuse? He didn’t seem harmed. What was going on?

A lot ink has been spilled on the topic of truth. A lot. We came to no conclusions.

We always have practices. Things we do over the month that will help sensitize us to the particular middot, character trait, and how it can fit into our day-to-day life. Marilyn came up with “I’m going to tell people how I feel about them more often.”

I asked her if I could copy her. She said sure.

Then, after we’d finished cleaning up, Rich and Jamie were back in the kitchen and I was ready to leave. I went back to tell them I was leaving. “I came tonight in person because  I knew you two would be here.” Jamie came over and gave me a big hug.

As I left, I surprised myself, and I imagine them, too, by saying, “I love you guys. See you later.” I’ve gotten a little more comfortable with this, saying I love you to important people in my life with my Ancient Brothers and I’m glad it’s spilling over. Because. It’s the truth.

Astrology, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Kabbalah

Continuance and Remembrance

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Spring and Kate’s Yahrzeit Moon

Her 75th.

Wednesday gratefuls: Kate. Her yahrzeit. Ode. Yahrzeit candles. Ebony and Vine. Pulled pork. 15 degrees. Geez. High fire danger. Kep. Who kept me warm last night. A year with no new firsts. No first birthday with no Kate. No first Hanukkah without Kate. No first anniversary without Kate. Changing of the heart.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ode

 

When I came upstairs this morning the yarhzeit candles, which I lit around 7 am yesterday, were still burning. I love this Jewish custom and added to it. The candle for that third entity between us, our marriage. As those first yahrzeit candles burned down, the last first, I could feel a weight lifting. My life feels a bit freer. Maybe a lot. Will take some time to tell.

Yesterday was a busy day. Looking into the astrological meaning of Neptune. Investigating the significance of mem heh, “what”, in the Haggadah and in the Tree of Life at Chochmah, the sefirot of wisdom. Ode’s arrival.

We chatted for a while and then both took a nap. We old guys. An early dinner at Ebony and Vine where Mark ran into a waiter from Jamestown, North Dakota. “My name’s Odegard.” “Oh! I know Odegards! Good to hear a name from home.”

Came back and talked some more. It is like they say. True friends, no matter how long apart, pick up the conversation from where it left off. He gave me a sweet of gift of decal edged thank-you cards with Ode’s trademark leaves spray glued to the front: a Gingko, a Cottonwood, a Maple, an Oak, and a Fern.

Felt like a good way to experience Kate’s yahrzeit. Two classes from the Kabbalah Experience, which I would never have found without her long ago conversion to Judaism. Then a good friend dropping by on his way to Tucson, staying the night.

Remembrance and continuance. The very nature of grieving. Its core. The ritual of the candles. Ode’s memory of Kate making a big salad for the Wooly’s gathered at our house. A salad made from vegetables grown in our Andover garden. “Then she sat down and ate with us.” That was unusual because spouses did not eat with us on our meeting nights. But she was Kate and she lived her life as she wanted. I loved her for it.

I feel different on this side of her first yahrzeit. Lighter. There was that strange joy I mentioned yesterday. It continues. A sense of completion rather than loss. We made promises that we kept. We stood with each other in tough times and in good ones. We weathered flaws that bothered our marriage and grew stronger from them.

Today her memory is truly for a blessing.

 

 

 

 

Aging, Anoka County, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain

Self Compassion

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Spring and Kate’s Yahrzeit Moon

A bit blurry, but it shows Kate’s grace in any situation. Seoah’s mom has on traditional Korean wedding wear. April 10, 2016

Sunday gratefuls: Kate, always Kate. Sarah. Her gift. Jon fixed my window! Ruth on a date. In her new realm now. Boygirl land. Gabe. Being Gabe. Scattered Snow. A dusting of white on the Lodgepoles. Kep. My loft Dog. This crazy, awful, wonderful grief. Kate’s yahrzeit coming up. Acting.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Wind

 

Alan as the beggar in Fiddler

Alan has finished three plays now with Evergreen Players. A couple of Irish plays and Dementiaville. He’s an actor. His role in Dementiaville called for emotional depth. It was there. His wife went down the memory gradient into dementia. Just like his now dead brother Dan did not all that long ago. This play was personal for many of the cast members.

I admire his willingness to take on a difficult transition from corporate manager to community theater actor and singer. It keeps him meeting new people and exercises, as Hercule Poirot says, ze little gray cells.

Rabbi Jamie’s son Tal is one of the principals in Evergreen Players.

We had breakfast at the Bread Lounge where I picked up my Pullman loaf of Sourdough bread. It’s gone up in price. Way up. Inflation hits the bread line. I chose yogurt parfait in my ongoing journey to shift slowly toward a Mediterranean diet. I assured Alan that I had a filet mignon the night before so I wasn’t leaving carnivore land in toto. He seemed reassured.

After breakfast the stop at Nellybelle’s General Store did result in a couple of purchases, but no center piece for my mantle. The large wheel like object is a cool work and the price was right, but the color’s too dull for the rest of what’s on the mantle. It’s going to go up here in the loft.

 

Gabe’s bris

Jon and Gabe came up yesterday afternoon. Jon fixed my bedroom window which didn’t quite close. It’s a casement. No problem during the winter months when I like cold in the room, a gift of Kate’s. But. In the late spring and early summer the allergens come out. Why I bought the mini-splits. So I could close all the windows and still sleep in a cool room. I have two air purifiers purchased and ready to go as well. That window had to close all the way.

Pollen season in the Mountains has made me miserable every year I’ve been up here. Don’t need it. So, I took action. I hope this works. Also, the Pine Pollen, Lodgepole sex, is a yellow nuisance as well. It sifts inside, coats everything. I understand. Wind and Pine Cones and Pollen make Lodgepole Pines. And I love them. I just don’t want their fun times on my kitchen counter. Geez.

 

Haven’t gotten as much done as I planned. We’ll see later today. People intervened. And, I’m glad. There’s time to finish. Goal is by next weekend. I want to have a larger dining room available for holidays and times like the week of the 18th. I’ll make it.

I would say the major shift for me, opening itself right now, is just that. There’s time. Wu wei suggests there is always time if we allow the flow of chi to guide us. Things will get done. No need to push. Or resist.

 

Her next to last day

The imminence of Kate’s yahrzeit has affected me. Feelings more variable. Intensity increasing. My one shard of guilt, not being there when Kate died, blossoming in full force as the anniversary of that night approaches. Sarah wrote me a very sweet and powerful email which has allowed me to gain perspective.

Here’s a bit of it:

“You WERE there, Charlie. Kate could feel you I know. Don’t forget too that just 20 minutes more or less before she left she heard me say Charlie is going to be ok – Seoah’s coming on Tuesday, BJ came back from Idaho so we sisters are all here together until Wednesday for him, Jon and the grandkids are there for him too. Your love and dedication to her is enough. As she wrote.

She was so concerned about your exhaustion and really wanted to ease the pain and fatigue she knew you were in for once she had passed. And it was not only a privilege for me to be entrusted with her last nights, Charlie, but it was also a profoundly deep and healing honor. I loved her so, too. Thank you to both of you. I hope this helps you let go of any feelings of guilt.”

A lot of tears after I read this. Good, cleansing rib heaving sobs. I feel like I can put that guilt aside. I couldn’t be at the hospital twenty-four hours. I had dogs to care for and I had to sleep. Being there during the day for hours over her last week or so then going home to feed Rigel and Kep, and sometimes going back to the hospital in the evening. It overwhelmed me physically and emotionally.

Family. So important.

 

 

Astrology, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Kabbalah, News of the Strange, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Tarot

Certainty

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Spring and Kate’s Yahrzeit Moon

after the election, 2016

Saturday gratefuls: Hoo, boy. Workout on Friday. Good, but hard. Two sets. Wondering whether I need to go to 3. Got my cardio up. Well up. 300 minutes in the last week. 5 hours. Love the energy boost a working or partly working thyroid gives. Jackie. Haircut. She’s a sweetheart. She said of Kate, “I miss her flipping you off.” Me, too.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: April

 

 

Decided two things. 1. Write Ancientrails and workout. See where the day goes after. 2. Make one new recipe and one new salad each week. On 2. Still trying to navigate cooking for one, yet liking to cook. Difficult. Finishing the first phase of kitchen reassemble today and tomorrow. Gonna. Get. It. Done.

Even though my energy level has improved a lot, my stamina is still not great. Plus I find myself easily overwhelmed with trying to imagine a good way of replacing items in the cabinets. Plan to push past that and finish. Things can always get moved later if I don’t like their location.

I would also like to get the remaining common room papers at least moved out of the room, set up the Roomba. Let the common room enter its useful period. May hang some art if I have energy left. Still have to call Dave for the couch reupholstery. And Peter needs to come and hang two lamps. Chandelier coming later.

Plan to get some firewood today, too. Not a lot, enough for two or three fires. See how my lungs handle it. Should be ok, but…

 

To Speak for the Trees is a feminist work of top order. Also a work about claiming and owning your own gifts. And, not coincidentally, a powerful expression of the Celtic cultural deposit. Very similar to the First Nations in kind and quality. In fact, the Celtic experience in the British Isles has many similarities to the Native experience in the U.S.

Although their near genocide happened much further back in time. The Romans drove them into Wales and up into Scotland, down into Cornwall. The Vikings attacked what is now Ireland. Where the red hair comes from. Then the Roman Catholic Church, allied with the Anglo-Saxons, drove the ancient Celtic faith often literally underground, building their churches over holy wells and other sacred spots. The bastards.

The old Celtic culture lasted longest in Wales, parts of Scotland, and in the Gaeltalk part of Ireland. Brittany and Galicia, in France and Spain respectively, as well.

Beresford-Kroger writes of her education in the old ways in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s as the final waning of Druidic lore and the old Celtic culture. She is in my pantheon of heroines. Be like Diana.

 

Setting out on another semester of classes at the Kabbalah Experience: Sefer Yetzirah III and Diving Deep into the Stars or Astrology and Kabbalah III. Having fun with these. Guess you could call it a quasi-hobby. Quasi because it’s too serious for fun and too much fun to be serious. I really like these classes, the strange world they open up. And, as David says, even if you’re agnostic about astrology you’re still learning something about yourself, aren’t you? I am.

Because I’ve dipped a foot (way more than a toe by this point) into Kabbalah, astrology, and tarot, when I saw the sign for new moon intuitive readings, I thought, what the hell? $20 for 15 minutes. Just down from Jackie’s hair salon.

Put my money down. Get quiet, then when you’re ready, say your name three times. Charles Buckman-Ellis. Charles Buckman-Ellis. Charles Buckman-Ellis. You’re at a big turning point. Well, yes. You’re a strong psychic, you could do this work. Oh? I need to lean into certainty. That’s probably true. Ha ha.

After I told her Kate died a year ago, she said Kate reassures me, wants me to know that’s she fine, better than fine. Dancing. She taps me on the left shoulder sometimes. She wants me to live my own life. I have a strong core and that new life has begun to blossom. Mary, the psychic, mentioned a rose, but I saw a lotus opening.

Not sure what to make of it. Some of what she said made me think she had read something of me. The part about certainty in particular. And, the time of a big turning point. Though I suppose we’re all always at some turning point or another. Still. I liked hearing  Kate reassured me even if I doubted it. Because I’d like it to be true. An odd time, definitely worth $20.

 

 

 

 

 

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Jefferson County, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Science, Shadow Mountain

Wait

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Spring and Kate’s Yahrzeit Moon

Friday gratefuls: Luke. CBE. The Thursday mussar group. Gracie and Leo, two dogs also learning mussar. Kep, the sweet boy. David Sanders. Being where I need to be. Taking a breath. Or, two. To Speak for the Trees. Ancient Celtic wisdom. Relevant today. Thanks, Tom. The Lodgepoles and the Aspens on this property. The Willows along Maxwell Creek. The Bristlecone Pine on Mt. Evans.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Authenticity

 

 

Not quite done with David Sanders. Close, though. The result may be, probably will be, I’m doing fine. Things will be good with my heart and my life. This meshes well with my levothyroxine boosted energy level, the coming of spring.

Punta Arenas, Argentina 2011

Even Kate’s yahrzeit though a sad memory does signal a year’s worth of time to integrate her loss. Time I’ve used as best I can. The grief has not passed, nor do I expect it to. Or, want it to. That sudden welling of tears has a direct heart link with her, with our marriage, with our love. I imagine the intensity of those moments will continue to diminish, but I don’t expect them to disappear.

As I explained earlier, due to the Jewish leap year her Jewish yahrzeit will not happen until May 1st. This April 12th though I’m lighting two 24 hour yahrzeit candles, one for her and one for our marriage. There is that third aspect of our life together, our usness, our mutual decision making, the frisson of our days and nights, the interactivity and mutuality, that also perishes.

No longer do we have a money meeting that parses our financial life. No longer do we consider how to celebrate our anniversary. Whether to go on another cruise. Hold hands in the car. Sleep together. Agonize over illness, celebrate joyfully for our grandchildren, children, dogs. Dead, too. And, grieved. I lost my partner. My best buddy.

Ushuaia, Southern most town in the Americas. 2011

My soulmate. Yes, corny as that phrase is. Yes. We helped each other grow. Consoled each other in tough times. Had the best interests of the other at heart. When I made a bad turn right in front of an oncoming car, I dithered about whether I should be driving. “Any one could have done that.” Oh.

Death has such finality. No do overs. No matter how much desired. I thought I already knew that, but no. I had to learn it again.

 

Sorta strayed from the main point there. Though not without good reason. Part of my question about what comes next lies entangled with the process of grieving. But not all. Not even most. It is my life, no matter the thread of sorrow now woven into it.

Feeling more confident about emergence. That as I live into the redone house, a less restricted post-Covid life (will it ever be really over?), when I feel my way into new possibilities as they become apparent, that the new, an extension of the old, of course, how can it not be, will declare itself. Might be a quiet embrace. Could be a noisy clamoring. Look what I’m up to now! Don’t know. Will, as Seoah would say, wait and see. Wu wei.

 

A word about To Speak for The Trees. This book, which I discovered after reading an article forwarded by Tom Crane, feels like a hook, a wu wei moment. Oh, yes. Celtic thought. I’d forgotten. Laid it aside. Yet here is this woman, about my age, Diana Beresford-Kroger, recounting her immersion in the Celtic life in Lisheen, Ireland. And how that immersion fed her life as a scientist, as a keeper of rare trees. How it might still feed us all.

Stirrings. Threads. Links. Weaving themselves again, still, into my days. I await guidance. With no expectations. Giving it over to the days as they come and go. Waiting.

Cinema and Television, Colorado, Coronavirus, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism, Shadow Mountain, The Move, Weather +Climate

Kavanah

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Spring and the waning sliver of Seoah’s Citizenship Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Snow. Cooler. Cytopoint. Syringes. Home injections. Orgovyx. Erleada. Levothyroxine. Life. Living it. Well. Eudaimonia. Taoism. Travel. Short trips. Long trips. Boredom. Organization. Dullness. Joy. Chicken pot pies. Art. Music. David Sanders. Kate, always Kate. Rigel. Gertie. Vega. The Colorado dogs. With Kep. Who yet lives.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Max. The baby. Growing. Sitting up on his own. Go, Max. Go, Kate.

 

The days of our lives are sand in an hourglass. Do they still make soap operas? Is there still day time TV? I cut the cord so long ago that I have no idea. TV news is an oxymoron. Infotainment is not a thing. It’s a distortion of what the news was meant to be. The strait jacket of a show at one time. Escaped. Death by a thousand channels, most of them unwatchable? Escaped.

If sports were your thing, cutting the cord would have been difficult. I get that. But I was a Vikings fan. The football equivalent of a Cubs fan before they broke away from their apparent destiny. Didn’t miss it. Especially now in Colorado.

Movies. Yes. Series dramas. Yes. Comedy. Yes. Content from all over the world. Yes. With Netflix, Amazon Video, and HBO Max I’m happy. Maybe a bit too happy. The amount of good, even great content, has grown so fast.

Kingdom

The Koreans have given us dramas in a new tone, more human, less formulaic. Then there are the history based series like the Vikings, the Last Kingdom, Qin Empire: The Alliance, Resurrection: Ertugrul. Science fiction.

First run movies. Caches of old movies. HBO Max provides access to the Turner Classic Movies archive as well as Studio Ghibli. And the occasional Criterion flick.

All you have to day is pony up some cash, sit your butt in the chair, find that remote, and you’re off to the Warring States Period, the rise of the Ottoman Empire, Space Force, anime. Spirited Away. I’m only a little ashamed to admit that I love it.

The shame comes in when I admit how much I’ve been loving it. More than I need. Less than I want. Not sure how to balance this as part of my day. I’ve made advances. I’ve taken back reading time from the TV.

Now that my energy has improved, I see the trap the weariness had snapped around me. Oh, I’m too tired. But, I can watch TV. Covid played a role here, too. And Kate’s long illness. However those are dropping away, have dropped away.

Intentional. Kavanah. What’s your intention? A Jewish idea that informs prayer. You’re not supposed to pray without intention. No formulary, rote prayer. Know what you mean to do with your prayer.

Kavanah. Our hours need kavanah. My hours, the late afternoon hours, need kavanah. I’ve allowed myself to get into a rut. Intention can lift me out of it.

Working on it. Boredom helps. Energy helps. The coming of Spring helps. I can do this.

What will help most are two things: 1. finishing the kitchen, common room, my level refurbish, remodel, redecorate. 2. finishing my work with David Sanders, turning the ship of my life toward a new destination without losing the gifts I have in it right now.

A slow process. Grief. For me at least. But, a needed process. Letting go of Kate yet keeping her close. Difficult inner work.

Will be doing more of all this today. And tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow hopefully not to the last syllable of recorded time.

Colorado, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism, Kabbalah, Mountains, Shadow Mountain

What Then?

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Spring and Seoah’s Citizenship Moon

Monday gratefuls: The Ancient Brothers. Thanks to folks we maybe never got around to. David Scruton, first anthropology professor. Bill and Gloria Gaither, high school teachers who’ve gone on to, well, glory. And lotsa cash. Bob Lucas, my boss at the Presbytery back in the day. Sent two off, the third later this morning. Gratitude is never out of time. Energy still good. Blood work tomorrow. Oncologist a week from today.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Gratitude

 

Energy remains up. And, surprisingly, the shortness of breath I would get from moving around without much exertion is gone, too. Guess that thyroid is pretty important. Getting things done.

As I get them done, I wonder what will happen when I’m finished. What then? I’ll have a remodeled kitchen, a more comfortable and usable common room with art where I want it. My space downstairs will be finished. The loft organized.

Beginning to suspect that all this work, though welcome and delightful, has been a distraction. Or, perhaps better, a way to process grief through physical changes. As Kate’s yahrzeit approaches and the weather tries to be springlike, as the common room, the kitchen, and my level move closer to the finish line, I feel like I’m going to hit a moment of so much freedom that I will be overwhelmed.

After the big do in April, I’m going to head off into Colorado for some road trips. I need to get offa this mountain, down where the air is thicker, and go from here to there. I have a list, one Jackie, my hair stylist, and I came up with last fall.

It includes Marble, Gunnison, Dinosaur National Monument, Royal Gorge, Sand Dunes National Park, Grand Junction, and visiting hot springs. Not all on one trip of course. Four Corners is another. Then there’s hopping over to Utah.

In mid summer I’m heading to Hawaii. I plan to be there over Seoah’s birthday which is on July 4th. Do something patriotic with the new citizen and her spouse. Might try to visit my sis in Japan later in the year, then hop over to Taipei for the National Museum.

This week David Sanders and I will discuss his thoughts on what I might be up to next. Could be more of the same, I suppose. Could be more intentional. Writing. CBE work. Paint. Entertain. Could be something I’m not planning on right now.

Class reunion in September, maybe. Visit Minnesota on the way there or the way back.

Actually I have no idea what I’m doing right now. Putting one foot in front of the other, doing this and that with Kep and the family, with CBE. Waiting, too. Sadness and grief occupy some time as well.

Life. Going on. As it does.

 

 

 

 

 

Denver, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Spontaneity

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Spring and Seoah’s Citizenship Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Dr. Beresford-Kroeger. A Celtic guide to the next future. Thanks, Tom. Ruth and Cord, a boy who thinks she’s pretty. She is, btw. Spontaneity. 76 degrees in Denver yesterday! 63 back home! The genuine weirdness of a Mountain Spring. Big Snow coming. Sushi. Ichi-go, ichi-e. Driving back into the Mountains after having been down the Hill. The Container Store. Energy.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth in strong like. Very Sweet.

 

So. Looked up Orgovyx and thyroid. Nothing there. Then, uh-oh. Erleada and thyroid. 10% of participants experienced, you guessed it, hypothyroidism. Most likely culprit since my tsh, thyroid stimulating hormone, went way up after I started taking Erleada. The things I do to keep cancer at bay.

Don’t know yet if this is a permanent condition or whether it will wane when (if?) I go Erleada. I see Eigner on April 4th and that will be an early question.

On the bright side of it, however, the levothyroxine seems to have taken hold earlier than Kristen said it would. Almost immediately. And my energy level has gotten soooo much better that

I did something spontaneous yesterday. Combination of Covid, Kate’s long illness, grief, and winter kept me home focused, planning focused, remodeling focused. When I went out, it was to pick up groceries, takeout, deliver food, occasionally go to mussar or down the hill for a medical appointment. And come straight home. Relieved and happy to return.

Yesterday though. I had breakfast with Alan at the Parkside cafe. We talked about his recent trip to NYC. His daughter Francesca has moved there. My burst of energy. His learning about a Catholic priest studying genocide that I’ll write more about when I get his website from Alan. Commercial property vacancies. Taxes. And other stuff like friends do.

When I waved to him as he headed toward his Tesla, I thought. What the hell. It’s a nice day. I’ll go to the Container Store. Something I’ve been to do ever since the almost completion of my kitchen remodeling. I sat in Ruby for a minute refreshing my memory of its Lone Tree location. The map on my phone pointed me into Denver for the closest location.

Nah. I want to go in and out. Back home. That was last three plus years thinking. Found my way down North Turkey Creed Road to 285 and headed east intending to get on 470 and drive to Lone Tree. Got to about Indian Hills and thought, What the hell? It’s a nice day.

I pulled off the road. Called Jon. No answer. Called Gabe since Ruth is usually asleep until noon. Could I meet them for a late lunch after I went to the Container Store. Yes.

OK. Then. Instead of 470 I continued on 285 to University Avenue, past Swedish Hospital where I took Kate so many times to University Avenue and headed north to Cherry Creek. Cherry Creek is Edina, Grosse Pointe, Shaker Heights only in the city of Denver.

After driving past the University of Denver with its fauz Gothic buildings and Iliff Seminary, both fine Methodist institutions, I hit the Cherry Hall Shopping Center. Gucci. Yeti. With free standing stores. And one very big Container Store.

It’s motto, improbably to this sometime metaphysician, is Where space comes from! It was 10:30 on a Sunday morning. The folks shopping looked college aged, maybe from the University of Denver? I wandered, getting a gestalt of the plastic and glass containers for cereals, coffee beans, rice, flour. Looking for lazy susans for under my sink and in my spick/cooking oils cabinets. Dividers for my silverware drawer. That sort of thing.

Picked out a few things, paid my bill, went to the car. Called the Aurora Olsons and we settled on Stanley Marketplace for sushi. There I saw Ruth as a shyly proud young woman who has experienced the attentions of a young man. So, so sweet. And, made the spontaneity feel more than worth it.

After we finished, she opened her arms for a hug. “You’re my sweetheart,” I said. “And Cord’s.” She replied. Sorry Kate’s not seeing this.

Back home I fed a hungry Kep. Got back right at his feeding time which pleased him. Me, too.

Sat down, pleased with my self for a simple joy. And thought, if this were to be my life, that would be ok.

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Great Wheel, Great Work, Mountains, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Science, World History

No Wonder

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Spring and Seoah’s Citizenship Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Alan. Boredom. Sadness. Missing Kate. Clean Kep, so playful in the morning. The up and the down of grief. Warm weather. More Snow coming. Ruby. Her need for the bad fuel. Habituation, the helpful and the unhelpful. Getting to the inflection point. The delicacy of an early Morning blue Sky over Black Mountain.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Boredom

 

Feeling my way into boredom, sadness, and grief. Sounds like a devil’s potion moving toward despair, but I don’t think so. Instead it feels like my psyche trying to break free.

Yes, I sat and cried yesterday afternoon. In that time after my nap and before evening when I feel. Pointless. Bored. Don’t want to read. Don’t want to watch TV. (a good feeling at that hour.) Don’t want to study. Don’t want to write.

Pointless. I have no purpose, no way forward. Just traveling. Walking. Slow. Along the ancientrail of longing for. Something. I know not what.

That delicate blue Sky has a few puffs of Cumulus now, lit up by a turning Earth revealing the Sun’s presence to start a new day. Whirling through the vacuum of space around and around and around. Following the Light Giver like a trapped Angel. As all the Angels and their Light Giver twirl outward from their home. A journey of ancient celestial mechanics. Glory. Glory. Glory. Hallelujah.

This journey older by far than the Laramide Orogeny, one that places the whole of Earthly Creation in its proper perspective. Deer Creek Canyon and its consolation nods to its Progenitor.

Purpose and purposelessness burn away. Sadness and grief burn away. Life itself burns away. We travel because we are in the journey and of its Way. The path is our meaning and our destruction. Like sadness and grief.

See the Self here. On a high velocity spaceship created not by rocket science. No. But by the forces that made possible the rocket scientist herself. Made possible that Fish clambering across the liminal zone between Water and Land. Made possible that one-celled Creature. Swimming. And even then the journey had long been underway.

Ah. No wonder the Taoist says follow the Water.