• Category Archives Fourth Phase

  • Choose

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Cold Moon

    Friday gratefuls: TGIF. Ha. No hump day, no Friday as the last day of work. Just life. Sleeping in. Perfect sleeping weather. A good and difficult day yesterday. Luke. Leo. Anne. Gracie. My Roger. Mindy. Rabbi Jamie. The classical texts of Judaism. Including the rabbinic codes. Those two Does in the road. Driving Mountain roads. Alan and Joan. Dandelion. My son and Seoah. Sick. Murdoch’s ok.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Korea

    One brief shining: There is an exquisite pain knowing your child has run a fever over a hundred for three days in a row yet lives 9000 miles from your front door, a squeezing of the lev that makes the body want to find cold wash clothes, advil, blankets, maybe even stuffed toys though you know he is long now a man, it is the pain of belonging and longing, one for which there is no pill, just that moment when you send your body, by astral projection, to his sickbed.

     

    Now Seoah, too. We miss and love you they write, explaining symptoms. My son’s fever has broken and he took Murdoch out for some fresh air. I asked Seoah to give him a hug for me. He wrote that he got it. Now I’ll have to send the same request to him for her. Family, close close family. Joy. Concern. Love.

     

    Meanwhile I’m over reading signals. Coloring my soul a pastel purple. Do those crossed arms mean he’s annoyed with me? Why does he want to wait until he sees how his next two month’s money does? I didn’t want to leave the house yesterday. Felt like ducking mussar and the Rabbi Jamie time.

    Two reasons. Monday was so cold that I chose not to go upstairs and workout before a one p.m. doctor’s appointment. That meant I had to workout on Wednesday and Thursday and Saturday to get my 150 minutes in. I felt bad about that choice. So I already had a one down feeling about myself. Not terrible, knew I could have chosen differently and I didn’t.

    Then on Thursday morning I pushed myself to get my workout in. Can’t miss because of Monday. I wanted to do thirty minutes. As I wrote yesterday though, my back nixed that plan. That meant I was not only behind on my minutes for the week, but that I had a possible barrier to my next workout in my back pain. It also meant that my back was not going to go gentle into that good night but would rage, rage, rage against the moving of the feet. Which in turn meant that my vain hope for a less restrictive travel barrier was that, a vain hope.

    The two together made me want to stay home and favor my psychic and physical upset. I chose not to. However, when I first got to the synagogue I carried that bruised, purple sense of self with me. I sought out and found further evidence that I was somehow doing it wrong. I spoke over someone. My comment landed flat. I felt distanced from the group like the Jews distanced themselves from the pillar of smoke. That was the day’s topic.

    Then I realized I was no longer concerned about my back. It was quiet. And, I had chosen to exercise. And, to come to mussar. The tint in my sense of self faded from purple to a dull yellow not far from the vibrant yellow of joy. Choices. Eh?


    Family Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Health Judaism Mussar

  • Asia

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Cold Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Diane home from Taiwan. Fan Kuan. Travelers Among Mountains and Streams. Japan and Taiwan. The Dutch and Taiwan. How little we Americans know about Asia. Bo Yi and Ginny. Taipei. Songtan. My son. Seoah. Murdoch. Seoah’s family. Gwanju, Osan, and Okgwa. A personal stake in the fortunes of South Korea. Great Sol and Cloudy and blue Colorado Sky.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Diane

    One brief shining: Hoo boy that 24th minute on the treadmill this morning my legs were moving, not very fast, a brisk walk and my back began to say hey up there, I’m here and I don’t feel good, really wanted to hit 30 minutes but those narrowed spinal processes said, no I don’t think so, not today anyhow, so I turned off the treadmill, did some apres workout stretches and went back downstairs.

     

    Yeah. Facing front. I can manage the stenosis, but it will kick up much sooner than I want. A definite factor in traveling from this point forward. Not much to be done about it either. My p.t. exercises are the best treatment. I don’t want to go to the next two levels: cortisone shots into the vertebrae or spinal fusion surgery. Saw that with Kate and it did not look good. Plus. My experience with cortisone shots in my knee? No help. Spinal fusion? Nope. Sets up other problems and I’ve seen them. Leaves me with p.t. and avoiding the long walks while traveling that do what I just did on the treadmill. I can do that. Takes a different sort of planning.

     

    I have folks I love and folks they love in South Korea. So these two articles upset me this morning: As if We Didn’t Have Enough to Frighten Us … and the one its author, Nicholas Kristof references in his January 17th article, Is Kim Jong Un Preparing for War?   Not to mention that my son works at and lives near a spot most likely already programmed in to a North Korean nuclear missile. Made his dad wince to read this.

     

    Talked with Diane this morning about her trip to Taiwan to see her niece and my first cousin once removed, Ginny, get married to Bo Yi, a Taiwanese national. Actually this was the Chinese version. They got married two years ago in Ohio where they live. Culturally appropriate in two cultures now. Along with a nine month old son. I have pictures and when I get them downloaded I’ll post a few.

    Diane, the lucky duck, has achieved my one item in my bucket list. She’s been to the National Museum of China. I’m gonna get there on my next trip to Korea. If the North stays quiet, that is. She did me a favor and got a museum gift for me of Fan Kuan’s famous work, Travelers Among Mountains and Streams.

     

    Conversion session with Rabbi Jamie today. Focused on Judaism’s classic texts. Torah. Nevi’im. (prophets) Ketuvim (writings). Mishnah (writing down of the Oral Law). Talmud (mostly rabbinic commentary on the Mishnah. Midrash. (rabbinic commentary on the Torah)

     


    Asia Family Feelings Fourth Phase Health Judaism Travel

  • Friends

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Cold Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Waste. Those plastic trash bins. Alan. First Watch, a breakfast chain. Pretty good. Wheatridge. Still learning the contours of Denver and its suburbs. Clear roads after a good Snow over the weekend. Colorado. The Rockies. The solar Snow shovel. My torah portion. Hebrew software. Boker tov to all of you out there. Good morning. With a happy lev. And, a smile.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Learning Hebrew

    One brief shining: Made coffee, fussed in the kitchen, threw some trash out through my window trash portal, not wanting to go outside and drag the garbage bin and the recycling bin through the snow covering the driveway, or be outside in the cold, yet as a homeowner my gloves slid over my fingers, scarf around my neck, watch cap over the ears, and I became a mule.

     

    Second session with Tara. Read through my whole torah portion. All three verses. Did pretty well. In this case the Hebrew has vowels which aid pronunciation and breaking words into syllables. So I have to learn to recognize and pronounce the letters of the Hebrew alphabet as well as its vowel markers. Tara calls this decoding. I’m not translating, instead I’m learning how to say out loud Hebrew words. And not just any Hebrew words, but the particular words in the three sentences I have to read aloud on the day of my bar mitzvah.

    There are two other parts to the process that increase the level of difficulty. First, the torah scroll itself has no vowel markers. Never has, never will. That means I have to know my verses well enough that I can recall the vowel markers and syllable breaks on my own. I’m not to that stage of my learning at all. Second, the torah portion has a melody, or trope. There are many melodies. And markers called cantillations to guide the reader/singer/chanter. I’m not to that point in my learning. Not at all. As Alan pointed out yesterday, twelve and thirteen year old boys whose voices have begun to change do this. So…

    June 12th may be almost five months from now but there are parts of this, like the cantillations, that will require more of me.

     

    Alan’s new electric BMW has navigated the Panama Canal and is on its way to the Port of L.A. and a BMW vehicle distribution center, V.D.C. In the importing company’s V.D.C. cars get tricked out to meet US pollution standards, have any shipping damage repaired, and otherwise get ready for their over land delivery. Should arrive sometime in February.

    It was good to see Alan yesterday. It had been awhile. Holidays and missed dates and all. We’re going to have breakfast again on Friday, this time we hope with Joan whom I haven’t seen since last year. On the Ancient Brothers Monday I recounted how glad I was to see each of them. Same reason.

    I don’t need a lot of human interaction, but I do need more than I had over the last couple of weeks.

     

     


    Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Hebrew Judaism

  • Feeling Dry

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Cold Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Cold, dark nights. Quiet ones, too. Hoppin’ John. Even better a day or so later. Cholesterol. Va-era. The second parsha in Exodus. Plagues and boils. Hardened heart. Lev. Irv. Marilyn. Susan. The Mitzvah Committee. Rich. Doncye. The Law. The Supreme Court. The number of cases involving 45, the orange menace. Equal before the law. The American Dream and Ideal.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Judges

    One brief shining: Odd this Sunday morning, no Ancient Brothers, we moved church to Monday morning to accommodate Paul who saw a play in Portland last night and is on his way home to Robbitson; the morning feels empty, empty enough to note it here in this slot for longer, more gymnastic sentences.

     

    Reading about Jewish classical texts in prep for meeting with Rabbi Jamie this Thursday. Rabbi Telushkin’s Jewish Literacy. Learned an interest factoid about animal sacrifices and Christianity. The institution of animal sacrifices in the Temple replaced, the rabbis say, human sacrifice that was common in other nearby cultures. The crucifixion of Jesus they saw as a backward return to human sacrifice. Never thought of the crucifixion like that before. Seems like a reasonable conclusion to me.

     

    For some reason I’m feeling a little dry these last few days. Might be the days without leaving home. Not sure. Unusual, even rare for me. Don’t want to write about politics. Election 2024 seems too widely commented on, too fraught, too opaque. The weather too uniform. My inner life too calm.

    Here’s something though. I started looking at warm places for a vacation. Right in the middle of writing this. Focused on Mexico. Not sure why. Just did. Feeling like a week or two somewhere else, somewhere warm might rejuvenate me. Maybe knock me out of the doldrums. I’m not depressed. Not melancholy. Just blah. Seems weather related in that isolation, indoors only time takes its toll.

    Mexico. Good times with Kate in Mexico back in the mid-90’s. We stayed in Mexico City for a week while she attended a conference. Saw Xochimilco where I’ve now adopted an Axolotl. Saw the zocalo, the great empty space in the heart of the city. Templo Mayor. Went to Plaza Garibaldi billed as the world capital of mariachi music. Left Mexico City for Oaxaca where I had fried grasshoppers. Onto Merida and the Mayan sites of the Yucatan. Stayed at Casa de Balma, the house of the Leopard. Have never returned.

    Guess I’ve got the travel itch. Mexico City seems like a good place to go. Relatively inexpensive. Not too far away. Lots of different sorts of experiences from Xochimilco to the Plaza del Torres. The Zocalo. The Templo Mayor. Mexican food. Plaza Garibaldi. Art museums and districts. The Zona Rosa.

    We’ll see where, if anywhere, all this fantasizing takes me.

     

     

     

     

     

     


    Feelings Fourth Phase Travel

  • A Life Full and Rich

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Cold Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Irv. Tom. Marilyn. Susan. Driving. Hearing. Tested today. Lodgepole Home. Black Mountain. Genocide trial at the U.N. For Israel. America and allies strike the Houthis. WWIII? U.S. Nato. Ukraine. Israel. V. Iran. China. Russia. A post hegemon world. Lev. Metaphor. Rock. Water. Fire. Sound. Clouds. Mountains. Flowers. Death seeds. Those two Mule Deer Does.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Cooking

    One brief shining: Drew my knife through the salt pork dicing it into quarter inch cubes; it was almost all fat realized I knew nothing about salt pork, regretted that since I had committed myself to making Hoppin’ John with this as a major ingredient rendering the fat and making the salt pork crisp did not make it more edible, next time I’m using bacon.

     

    As if the world had insufficient chaos. Now the U.S. has bombed Yemen. Houthis say they will retaliate. What a mess. Ukraine at the northern pole, Israel/Hamas at the southern. This has all the potential of blowing up into a two front war for the U.S. Why wouldn’t China take advantage of a U.S. mired in the Middle East and Ukraine to invade Taiwan? What would the world do then?

    Oh by the way. One of, if not the, most fateful elections in the U.S. begins its primaries next week. Other nations too have important elections this year. 45 went off on the judge and the prosecutor at his fraud trial. Claims and cases piling up at the Supreme Court around him. The specter of his “base” rising up if he loses. The worse specter of his base rising up if he wins. OMG.

    How bout that Covid wave underway right now? The cold slumping down from the Arctic? Saw it will test the Texas power grid. Again. Geez, c’mon guys!

    All this distraction. We need a world united in the struggle to limit climate change. To adapt to the way it will ravage human civilization. Nope. We want to kill each other over religion and power. We know how to do that. We’re good at it.

    Then we can throw in the worst surge of anti-semitism in the U.S. since the ADL started tracking attacks in the 1970’s. Which parallels the rise of racist incidents occasioned by legitimization of white supremacy by the very man who apparently has a lock on the Republican party nomination for President.

    Oh the ways in which our country, our world has taken giant steps backward. Just in the past few years. It makes me sad. Angry? Yes, but I no longer know what to do with my anger.

     

    Shoot. I was gonna talk about visiting with Irv and having a dorm room conversation about the afterlife. Or, how I made Hoppin’ John. Or, how happy I was with Tom’s cardiology visit results.

    Well. I will say this. Got my new CD player. The one Odie recommended. Works great. Especially given that I’m deaf in one ear and can’t hear out of the other one. Listening to Mozart. Ah. Put in another CD. Pablo Casals. Playing Bach’s six suites for cello. Many of them for solo cello. Remembered my love affair with cello music. Went into it as I once did at the Ordway. Letting the music run up and down my body, triggering emotions, sensations. This is art I can experience at home.

    That excited me. Music. Friends. Study. Reading. Cooking. Family. That all suddenly felt enough. Like my life didn’t need more. Was complete. I still feel that way. A life with a smaller ambit. Yet one full and rich. Yes. Also, why I don’t know what to do with my anger.

     

     

     

     

     

     


    Family Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Politics US History World History

  • The American Day of Atonement

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Cold Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Marilyn and Irv. Rabbi Jamie and the American Day of Atonement. Black-eyed Peas. Hoppin’ John. A cold snap. The Winter Carnival. St. Paul. Irvine Park. The Aurora. Great Sol. Journeys around Great Sol. Birthdays. 77 for me next month. Minnesota. Up North. Lake Superior. Duluth. Ely. The Boundary Waters. Andover and its time in Kate and mine’s life. Kate, my sweet Kate.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Long journeys (77 x 584 million = 44 968 000 000 miles around the sun by age 77)

    One brief shining: About ten days late I have the ingredients for Hoppin’ John Black-Eyed Peas, Salt Pork, Hot Peppers, Garlic, Onion, Black Pepper, Chicken Stock, Ham, Kosher Salt and when I get back from seeing Irv I’m going to make it in the Dutch Oven now clean of hard Water scales and shiny like the day I bought it so Happy New Year!

    Looking forward to cooking up the Hoppin’ John. I also got Corn bread mix. Famous Dave’s. Gonna cook up some frozen Collard Greens, make Corn bread. Have myself a Southern Happy New Year’s meal tonight.

     

    Going over to see Irv in rehab. He’s been there since he left St. Joe’s after his surgery. An odd fact. His rehab place requires a left turn on Lone Tree’s Lincoln Avenue. When I went to have my prostate removed and for all my radiation sessions, I turned right on Lincoln. Old folks pathway I guess.

     

    Got my beard trimmed yesterday at Jackie’s. It never got bushy, just scraggly. Decided to give up on it. I think she was relieved.

     

    Attended by zoom the American Day of Atonement at CBE. Luke worked on it along with Rabbi Jamie. The concept comes from Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. Doing it on the 10th of January puts it close to Martin Luther King Day while duplicating the ten days after the Jewish New Year of Rosh Hashanah. Wanted to be there in person but I find going out at night something I don’t want to do. Especially in Winter. I feel bad about not showing up yet I also honor my reluctance.

    So. Zoom. Which has its difficulties. Last night speakers who zoomed in were loud and clear. Bishop Robert Martin talked about working together to give each other the internal strength to face racism and anti-semitism. Rabbi Jamie invoked Abraham Lincoln. Attorney General Phil Weiser gave what I considered the best speech of the evening calling on us to embrace the American Dream of a diverse nation of citizens equal before the law. We can and we will, he said, overcome our divisions. May it happen soon.

    If the American Day of Atonement could catch on in other cities, focused on at least bringing together African-American and Jewish activists, it could have a major impact. This is the third one. The weather timing is against it. Not many folks showed up at CBE. Not sure how to overcome that. I appreciate all the energy Luke and Rabbi Jamie have put into it so far.

     

     


    Colorado Cooking Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Holidays Judaism Politics

  • Neither Trump nor Biden

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Marilyn and Irv. Lila and Liks. Ryder. 12 degrees this morning. A good Snow overnight. Spelling Bee. Black Mountain not visible. Still Snowing. The Ancient Brothers. Aleph. Lamech. Bet. Tav. Mem. Nun. My torah portion. Unboxing my cd player. The Brothers Sun. El Ninõ. Furball Cleaning. Ana and Lita. Music. Black-eyed peas. Soup. Crackers. Sardines and Salmon, Tuna.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The waning crescent Winter Solstice Moon

    One brief shining: If Kate and I were still in Andover, we would be sitting at our long kitchen table, pages opened in many Seed catalogues, discussing planting for the upcoming year should we try Leeks again, what was that Iris you saw, pages riffle, oh, that’s a beauty, look at this Garlic, these heirloom Tomatoes, Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, and wondering if the Bees survived the winter so Artemis Honey could fill up more jars and bottles.

     

    I ordered a couple of Seed catalogues this year. Maybe Harris and Seed Savers. They came. I looked at them briefly, but without the promise of planting, tending to the plants, harvest. I put them away. No regret. It was time to let the Gardens and the Orchard pass to other younger hands. And they did.

    The memories and photographs of those times though. Rich and lush like the early May Flower beds, the late August Garden beds, a Tree weighted down with Honeycrisp Apples. Like a hive humming with Bees, flying in and out, making honey and propolis and wax. Like an Irish Wolfhound at play. Tor gently reaching through the Garden fence in September to pluck golden Raspberries straight from the Cane.

    Cool fall evenings around the firepit with Kate, hot chocolate, some Oak or Ironwood crackling with orange and blue. A good life.

     

    Yesterday the Ancient Brothers made four predictions each. Perhaps unsurprising in one instance. We all predicted Trump would lose. Two of us predicted unrest and chaos. I hadn’t thought of that but, yes, I imagine so. 45 has dominated and shaped an ugly era of American politics and civic life. You know that. Yet my final prediction was that, even if the worst happens, ordinary life will go on. People will get up in the morning. Go to work. Raise children. Buy assault rifles. Probably at Walmart.

    Will those predictions about the election come true? Hell if I know. Our poor political system has had the stuffin’ kicked out of it. The primaries hold little suspense. The choices already seem self-evident. Old and older. Though of course that can change. I hope it changes. I would prefer neither Trump nor Biden on the ticket in the fall.

    I say that because I want Trump gone and I can see several different scenarios where he gets knocked aside by a health issue or legal peril. I say that because Biden, who has performed way above expectations, guiding the ship through turbulence of all sorts, does not have what we need. Youth. Energy. Vision. A statesperson who can lift us all up, remind us of the ideals that have made this flawed nation a great nation. TBD.


    Dogs Family Feelings Fourth Phase Garden Memories Minnesota Politics US History

  • It’s Insurrection Day!

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

    Shabbat gratefuls: Shabbat. A Mountain night. Cold. 12 degrees. Good sleeping. My bed. My medical guardian. My aleph necklace. Black Bean soup. Great workout. 180 minutes this week. Prolia delivered. Energy level better. Probably rising testosterone. Prostate cancer. Lower oximeter readings. Low blood pressure. Life at altitude. CBE. Parsha Shemot. The first in Exodus. People of the story.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Torah

    One brief shining: Mice are a problem for me though perhaps not in the way you think, they’re a moral hazard because others want me to kill them as does sensible medical advice and I don’t want to do that because hey mice gotta live too and yet I have four Rat zappers which do the job quite well, electrocuting the cute little buggers.

     

    Yeah. I still eat meat, though less and less, yet I do not like killing anything myself. No, that’s not strong enough. I hate killing anything. And I know that that aversion makes me an oughta be vegetarian, maybe even a vegan, but I’ve never been able to go there. Yes, I contradict myself. I know it.

    I finally looked up whether Mice are actually bad and yes in fact they can carry salmonella, hanta virus, and chew through electrical wires. I know one chewed through the plastic water hose that connects to my dishwasher. I guess that means-he cringes at the thought-deploying the Rat zappers yet again.

    The Rat zappers have to be emptied of course. No ducking responsibility. I throw the little corpses over the fence. Ravens come and take them away. At least the Rat zapper does not introduce poison into the ecosystem. And the Ravens like the food. A cycle of nature, yes, but one I’m artificially aiding. At the expense of Mouses lives.

    So. In the end self care trumps Mouse lives. A first world issue for sure.

     

    And other sad news. 2024 is an election year. Maybe, THE election year. Maureen Dowd in a column today invoked Oscar Wilde about fox-hunting: “the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible” to describe the two likely candidates for President. Too close to true. I’m either an optimist or simply deluded but I cannot, will not believe that Trump will win. I know he can, that’s pretty damned obvious; but I believe that the true beating hearts of America will not allow it. Evidence? Not so much.

     

    Well, it’s Insurrection Day again. A day that, like Pearl Harbor and 9/11, lives on in infamy. Right? Well, no, not according to Republicans who swallow lie after lie after lie. There was an interesting article in the NYT the other day. 1,240 people have been arrested over January 6th. 350 cases are pending. 170 have been convicted at trial while on 2 have been found not guilty. 710 plead guilty and of those 210 plead to felonies. More than 450 0f those have gone to prison for various lengths of time ranging from a few days to 20 years. And, the article says, those 1,240 may be only half of the eventual arrests and indictments in an ongoing investigation. NYT, January 4, 2024.

    How anyone can conclude that with only 2 out of 1,240 found not guilty, and with that number likely to double in the coming months, that nothing bad happened when “patriots marched at the capital” I don’t know. All those courts, judges and lawyers at work affirming time after time the larger crime that happened one perpetrator by one perpetrator. 170 juries.

     

     

     

     

     

     


    Cooking Feelings Fourth Phase Health Politics

  • Todah, Tara

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: Trash day. New year, old trash. Still, the dark. The eight point Bull Elk I saw delicately eating grass. The ups and downs, curves and short straights of Mountain driving. Snow and cold on the way. Eleanor. Tara’s new all black Puppy. Her friend, maybe the sweetest dog I’ve met this year. Tara. A truly great teacher. She has me believing I can learn Hebrew. I already have the first sentence of my bar mitzvah portion down. Two sessions. Ariane, another engineer in my life.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Eleanor

    One brief shining: Two tail wagging, grinning Dogs ran up to me as I sat down at Tara’s house, the Puppy put two paws on my knee and proceeded to kiss, kiss, kiss, and then the other one all white to Eleanor’s all black, walked up, smiled and kissed, kissed, kissed the other side of my face little pink tongues at work seeking salt or being ecstatic to meet me, either one just fine.

     

    I’ve not had many great teachers in my life. A few good ones, maybe two excellent ones, and two great ones. The two great ones are at Congregation Beth Evergreen: Rabbi Jamie and Tara Saltzman. Rabbi Jamie I’ve talked about before. He has an ability to contain diverse and divergent thoughts, make them visible. Then to celebrate them in his students.

    I’ve learned a new way of learning from him, appreciating the value in ideas I may see as wrong, faulty, or even repellent. What a gift. Appreciative inquiry I think it’s called. This sort of learning was not absent in my life. I’ve learned from conservative political thinkers and multiple philosophers with whom I disagreed, but Rabbi Jamie makes this way of learning his default.

    Tara I’ve known as a friend for eight years. And a good one. Many heart-to-hearts, or levs-to-levs. I’ve not experienced her however in her primary career role as an educator. Until now. She may change a long standing reticence toward language for me.

    My experience of learning (not learning) German in my freshman year at Wabash  gave me linguistic phobia. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I gave up. Just quit. I saw the C or D coming with no way of raising it. So I got out before that happened. After that, when learning a language came up, I would say something along these lines: Oh, language and me? No, thanks. Or, Math, music, and language go together. I’ve only got math of the three. Defensive. Barrier creating. Self fulfilling.

    Yes, I did pick up Latin again and got a good ways into it because I wanted to read Ovid in the original. But I had a positive experience with Latin in high school. French, too. That’s why I eagerly tried German, wanting to read Kant, Heidegger, Husserl in the original. Not sure why I was so bad at it, maybe it was the method, for sure it was how I responded to the method. Which I don’t recall now.

    Oddly, at the same time I took logic. I had the same experience with it at first. Just. Couldn’t. Get it. But I hung in there, studied hard, and by the midterm I found it fun. What was the difference? I don’t know. Logic itself is a language.

    Anyhow at this long distance, I took German in 1965, almost 60 years ago, I regret it still. A personal failure that probably shut down many possible experiences as I traveled and grew in my learning.

    kaf

    But Tara has me convinced I can learn Hebrew. I’ve already learned the first full sentence of three in my text portion. How bout that? She combines unwavering support with a keen sense of what will be helpful for my learning. She’s a visual learner so she draws images that help her. Like a coffee cup handle that reminds her of the Hebrew letter, kaf. She says I’ll have my Torah portion done in three weeks. And, I believe her.

    I want to continue until I can translate the Torah. A hefty goal but one I believe I can handle with Tara’s teaching. Wouldn’t it be ironic if I erased my fear (yes that’s what it really is) of language engendered by German by learning Hebrew. Something sorta cool about that.


    Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Hebrew Judaism

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

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter and the Winter Solstice Moon

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

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Soup in Winter

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

     

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

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

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

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

     

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

     

     


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