Category Archives: Wild Neighbors

Dogs, Far Right, Greenhouse, Politics, US History, Wild Neighbors

Creative Tension

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Lughnasa and the Cheshbon Nefesh Moon

Monday gratefuls: Shadow’s sweetness. Morning darkness. Shadow, destroyer of towels. Ode and his mushroom trip. His brother. Cancer. Rain. Cool mornings. Many, many green tomatoes. That Mule Deer in the yard. Learning how to use Artemis. Rabbi Jamie’s gala. My best teacher. Luke. Alan and Cheri, healing.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Artemis’ Hail protection

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Rodef Shalom. The desire to generate well-being for ourselves and others.

Tarot: Page of Bows, Stoat

“The stoat’s seasonal coat change and use as royal ermine emphasize a sacred connection to the earth and the cycle of nature. The card serves as a reminder to honor the ground beneath your feet and reconnect with your vital, ancient self.” Gemini

One brief shining: Buddy Ode wrote me from the road, a trip with and for mushrooms, all the way to Telluride with Dennis, then over to K.C. to see his brother, driving by himself much of the way, a lone Ancient Brother, a rolling meditation.

 

Dog journal:

Bandit. Saw a post on Nextdoor Shadow Mountain about a Blue Heeler named Bandit. He slipped away from his humans in Hiwan, part of Evergreen. They described him as skittish and shy, unlikely to come to a stranger. Sightings of him led them to near the Buchanan Recreation Center. Though skittish and shy even with his humans, he “finally broke down and came to us.” This week.

Boy, this is Shadow. Must be breed specific behavior. Makes me feel better about the bond Shadow and I have. And, about getting her back inside at all on Saturday.

Addenda: Stopped writing. To workout. Kate’s old sewing room that overlooks the backyard. A Mule Deer Doe, a yearling was in the yard. Shadow was not barking at her, though I wish she would. To protect my growing Vegetables that don’t yet have critter barriers.

Shadow gave an obvious play bow to the Deer. Then again. And again. Finally, the Deer got it and they chased each other in zooming circles throughout the backyard, through the Lodgepoles, around Artemis, past the lone Aspen, onto the leechfield and on and on.

I don’t know how long, three/four minutes. The Mule Deer had longer strides, might have been faster on a straightaway, but she tilted and had to correct while trying to follow Shadow’s fleet bursts of speed and turns. Play ended with the Doe’s tongue hanging out, panting. Shadow came inside, proud of herself.

 

Shadow Mountain Home: One inch Hail yesterday. Unusual for this elevation. Had  roofers knocking on doors, looking for that big insurance payout.

I’ve saved a couple of guy’s information who live here on Shadow Mountain. May have one of them come to check my roof. Of course this came just after my home insurance policy added a $5,000 deductible for any Hail damage claim. Sigh.

The good news is that I had Nathan build out the roof on Artemis so it covered the outside raised beds. One round of Hail like this could wipe out a whole season’s growth. Kale, Spinach, Beets, Squash, Nasturtiums all healthy.

Odd thing. Saw a note about planting carrots right now, letting them get sweet as the weather cools. I thought, oooh, I have carrot seeds. I can plant them in the east facing bed. I even added special soil to that bed on Saturday morning. However.

Where did I put those seeds? I bundled up the packets I hadn’t planted and put them away for next year. OK. That’s good. But where did I put the damned things? I can’t find them. They’re here in the place I considered logical a month ago. Again, sigh.

 

Just a moment: I do plan to return to the five principles of National Conservatism, but until I do I have begun to wonder about the nature of conservatives. Why they focus so much on stability and order.

The thinking in Hazony’s book is about confining the individual and the group by adherence to historical empiricism, not only as I wrote about it on Friday related to governance, but in every other sphere of life: family, (tribe, which I don’t find a convincing argument for in U.S. culture), and nation.

My take is that much, if not most, of conservative thought comes from fear-based reflections on the human experience. A fear that too much leeway to change laws will destabilize the nation or the state. A fear that accepting gender challenges will destabilize relationships. A fear that allowing women their whole life will destabilize the family. A fear that an intentionally heterogeneous citizenry will destabilize the culture.

While these fears may not be unreferented, their effect is to trap the other in the closet, in the kitchen, in a white’s only culture. That’s why we need both liberals and conservatives, conservatives to remind us of what we have and liberals to remind us of what we can yet have. A healthy, creative tension.

 

 

Colorado, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Paganism, Wild Neighbors

At Least They’re Up Front About It.

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Lughnasa and the 3% crescent of the Korea Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Book publishers. Books. Authors. Eyes. Reading. Learning. Studying. Thinking. Sharing. Libraries. Institutions of Higher Learning. Humanities. Poetry. Painting. Sculpture. Music. Theater. Literature. Languages. Herman Hesse. Romain Rolland. Theodore Dreiser. Sinclair Lewis. Nathaniel Hawthorne. Henry David Thoreau. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Goethe. Mann. The Glass Bead Game.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Opening a book

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Histapkot. Contentment.

Tarot: Knight of Bows, The Fox

“This card carries the themes of movement, change, and taking a new path. It suggests the need to be cunning, alert, and resourceful, like a fox.” Gemini

One brief shining: Jefferson County has a culvert repair project happening now, with a back hoe and dump truck, cutting slices of earth from the shoulders all along Shadow Mountain and Black Mountain Drive, flushing out the old crimpled culverts like mine. Where do many foxes like to live? The culverts.

 

Life for Wild Neighbors in the W.U.I. has its definite downsides. Don’t eat from garbage cans. Or bird feeders. Stay away from the Chicken coops. Please don’t forage my Lettuce, Spinach, Beets, Kale. A new threat now. Jefferson County public works flushing out your den. Not to mention crossing the road. Any road.

Of course, if we think about it, everywhere has been a wildland/human interface at some point. Even indigenous communities displaced some animals. So. A constant and ever changing interplay between human residence and Wild Animals.

Some Animals have turned this interplay on its head. See White Tailed Deer, Coyotes, Canada Geese. Raccoons. Bats. Even Monkeys in Asia. My sister sent pictures from K.L. of signs about Monkeys. There were Otters in Singapore.

Sighting a Bear waddling through the Forest, a Moose standing near a house, its head above the gutters, Elk Cows and their calves crossing Highway 74, that Fox I saw last week heading into the Trees, Mule Deer dining on my Grass. All a great joy of living in the W.U.I.

Why do we all slow down, or stop, if we see a harem of Elk guarded by a majestic Bull? We’re not tourists. We’ve seen it before. Not often, maybe. But more than once.

I suspect we have an innate appreciation for the Wild, for those Animals who live by their wits and ancient knowledge stored in their DNA. We may see them as brave, on their own in a predator/prey world that seems on the surface quite different from our own.

Yet. Watch the gutting of Medicaid and S.N.A.P. to fund tax breaks for American oligarchs. Drive through almost any Native reservation. Visit urban neighborhoods filled with unemployed teens and young adults. Or prisons filled with many from them.

Where’s the predator/prey dynamic in American culture? At least, and this may be a key to our fascination with Wild Neighbors, they’re upfront about it. Prey have developed strategies to protect themselves. Predators develop strategies to foil those protections. Nobody pretends that isn’t what’s happening.

Who’s the more honest?

 

N.B. on the images. These images show the bias built into large language models. I wanted an image with Animals and humans wary of each other, but also curious.

Great Wheel, Greenhouse, Health, Judaism, Kabbalah, Paganism, Plants, Tarot, Wild Neighbors

Intuitive Connection to the One

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

Friday gratefuls: Joanne. Alan. Gabe. Ruth. Marilyn and Irv. New trowel and cultivator. Planting the fall garden. Cold frame. Nathan. Mandela Day. Monsoons. Ginny. Janice. The Wildwood Deck. Shadow coming in. Halle, leaving on Aug. 8th. The Jang’s. Arriving Aug. 2nd. P.T. Ultrasound.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Life, well lived.

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Patience. Savlanut

Tarot:  The Page of Arrows, Wren.

 

One brief shining: In the mail, a new trowel and cultivator, Tomato cages, ready for the planting of a fall garden that will make use of the cold frames Nathan has devised for Artemis’ outside raised bed and for the Tomato plants in the greenhouse that have bloomed and gotten so big.

 

Artemis: Blooms! It’s one thing to grow Tomato Plants, another to grow Tomatoes. A balance struck between Plant and Fruit. So far it looks like a good balance. The Plants need support, growing tall. Got some modular Tomato cages in the mail yesterday.

Working on the fall garden today and tomorrow. Nathan has designed cold frames for the two raised beds which should be enough to get this mid-summer planting past the first frosts in September.

All an experiment this year. Next year in the Spring I’ll start my own plants in the greenhouse well before the last frosts in late May. I would say this year and next will be about learning how best to utilize Artemis. She and the seasons will teach me.

 

Dog journal: A late evening feeding. Shadow has begun to come in for the night. I think, I hope, this will last. She associates coming in around 6 with her evening meals. I close the door and she’s inside until morning. Morning comes around 4-5 a.m.

Slowly, slowly.

 

Organ recital: Oh, hell. I get so tired of this. No ultrasound scheduled yet. Halle at P.T. gave me pointers on how to avoid aggravating a possible hernia.

Next week Wednesday I go to Colorado Pain for a consultation and possible scheduling of the SPRINT device. The steroid injection seems to have had no effect on my hip.

Nothing new with the cancer. Which is good news.

 

Tarot: The Page of Arrows-Wren*. Today’s question: How can I celebrate Mother Earth here on Shadow Mountain? The Druid’s considered the Wren a sacred bird, know for its wisdom and cunning.

In Kabbalah all of the court cards: Ace, King, Queen, Knight, and Page relate to Chochma, the divine attribute of wisdom on the Tree of Life.

The suit of Arrows in the Wildwood deck corresponds to the Spirit realm, to the element of Fire, and to the level of soul that transcends thought and represents a direct intuitive connection to the One.

I read all of this to mean that Artemis, the Lodgepoles, the Aspens, the Swallowtails, the Pentstemons, Grasses, Bear Paw, Ants, Squirrels, Chipmunks, Rabbits, Canadian and Blue Jays, Magpies, Robins, Mule Deer and Elk, Moose, Mountain Lions, Foxes, and Bears speak to my intuition, to my direct connection to the One through careful observation and care for them all.

I’ll close today with this Celtic lore:

Bards told of a contest to see which Bird could fly the highest. Many Birds competed, but the Eagle felt confident. He did not notice the Wren that rode up on his back, then flew above Eagle’s highest reach to win.

Cunning, yes. Fair? Not really. Still the Wren, one of the tiniest Birds in all of Great Britain defeated much more capable competitors.

 

*Shifting Energy:

The Page of Arrows, or Wren, marks a transition from the active, sometimes impulsive energy of the Arrows (akin to Wands in traditional tarot) to a more grounded, observant, and introspective phase.

    • Wisdom and Cunning:
      The Wren is a symbol of wisdom, cunning, and a deep understanding of the natural world. It suggests that you can achieve your goals through a combination of intelligence, observation, and strategic thinking. 
      Youthful Curiosity:
      The card encourages you to embrace your inner child’s curiosity and approach new situations with an open mind and a willingness to learn. 

Earthly Page Energy:

The Wren is often depicted as a small bird that stays close to the ground, symbolizing the earthy Page energy of the Wildwood Tarot. This suggests that you should ground your ambitions and focus on practical application of your skills. 
Gemini
Dogs, Greenhouse, Plants, Seed Keepers, Weather +Climate, Wild Neighbors

She Also Kills

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

Shabbat gratefuls: Nathan. The heater. The fan. The drip irrigation. Tomato plants thriving. Squash and seeds. The Fourth of July. Shadow, chewer of leashes. Render of sheets. My sweet girl. Kate, always. Death. Life. The time between a sleep and a sleep. Rock and Roll. Give me the beat, boys. Tara and Eleanor. Choosing Granite. Kitchens.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Photosynthesis

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei. Feel the One moving in and through my life. Flow with it.

Week Kavannah: Hear on the side of merit

One brief shining: Nathan hung the heater from a greenhouse rafter, cut a hole in the Cedar siding for the fan, ran an extension cord from my outdoor plug and threaded it into the greenhouse interior, set the fan to come on at 90 degrees to exhaust air and the heater at 60 degrees to warm it on cool nights. 65 degrees inside the greenhouse on this 48 degree morning.

 

The Greenhouse: Yes, Nathan came on the afternoon of the Fourth to work. He’s a man of his word and I appreciate it.

The exhaust fan will draw air through the windows and into the greenhouse when the temperature inside it goes above 90 degrees. It hit 104 this week. The heater will come on now in the night if the greenhouse dips below 60 degrees as it did a week ago, going down into the low forties.

This is all to make the Tomato plants glad. As my good friend Rich said, “A six hundred dollar salad.” Even so.

Having another living organism here makes me so happy. The greenhouse fills my heart in the same way Shadow does. I guess that’s my little family now: Shadow, the Plants in Artemis, and me.

Again. Live until I die.

 

Dog journal: The leash saga. I bought a yellow neoprene leash. 10 feet long. Attached it to Shadow’s collar. Not easy. She went into an immediate sulk.

The first night I unclipped it, remembering her chewing up her leash from the Granby shelter. The next day near evening I got it on her again. Left it on that night and, wow, she did not chew it off. We went outside. She peed. Wrapped me in the leash. We came inside over the devil’s threshold.

Left it on her that night, too, as Natalie suggested. Oh. Well. One neoprene leash severed from its clip. I had also purchased a pull tab leash. About 9 inches long they clip to the collar and make putting on a leash easier. Pick up the tab, clip the leash onto its ring.

Never got a chance to use it because I got the original leash I bought for her clipped on using turkey hot dog treats. High value treats.

Left the pull tab on her last night. She chewed it off. I’m not sure, but I think we got past the leash jitters yesterday, so it might not be necessary. Useless now anyhow.

Just a moment: Mother Nature feeds us, keeps us warm, provides material for our homes and the things we put in them.

She also kills people. By Flood and Fire, Tornado and Hurricane, Volcanic Eruption and Earthquake. By extreme Heat and Cold. By Tsunami and Drought. By poisonous Snakes and disease bearing Insects. By Grizzly Bears and Mountain Lions.

 

 

 

Dogs, Friends, Greenhouse, Politics, Wild Neighbors, World History

A Sad Man

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Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Shadow, the sweet girl. Kate, always Kate. Morning darkness. Great Sol and Aurora. Toad Flax. Buttercups. Daisies. Iris. Lilacs. Mountain Wildflowers. A blue Colorado Sky. My Ancient Brothers. Cookunity. Aspen Perks. Marilyn and Irv. Paul today. Afib. Prostate Cancer. Kabbalah. Tarot. Astrology. Herme. Mary. Jang Deep.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Love for a Dog

Week Kavannah: Bitachon. Confidence.  “A feeling of self-assurance arising from one’s appreciation of one’s abilities or qualities.”

One brief shining: On the hour I get up and move around for at least five minutes, often accomplishing some task like cutting boxes for the trash or emptying the dishwasher or walking with Shadow in the back, admiring the greenhouse, and to my chagrin finding this the best medicine so far for my aching back and hips. That Halle.

 

Dog journal: Alarm bark. Constant. Shadow feet forward, warning as her nemesis, the young Mule Deer Doe stood on the other side of the fence, looking quizzically at her. Suddenly, from the garage stairs, a large fluffy black Cat flew from the bottom step in two leaps to the fence and out.

When Shadow saw the Cat, little cartoon balloons appeared over her head. Cat! Cat! Cat! Her barking intensified. OMG! Cat! Cat! Cat! Both the Cat and the Doe decided it was time to be elsewhere. Good Dog. Good Dog. We’re all safe now.

Shadow has not yet learned to protect the house from FedEx, UPS, and Mark, the mailman, but I’m sure she will. Territory is territory. After all.

Nathan came to the house yesterday with sad news. His Jack Russel terrier, Takota, whom he had given to his Dad when his mother died, had come to the end of his journey. He came to tell me in person that he had to drive down the hill and have Takota euthanized.

Nathan has a good strong heart. His sadness was deep and I knew it in my soul. He’s very apologetic about the delays already, yet knew this took priority. Yes, it did.

He told, too, the story of one his other dogs, a German Shepherd he rescued from a miserable home at the age of 7. In 1990’s Conifer he and his buddies would grab a duffle bag and go camping in the Mountains. The Shepherd always came along.

Then, she got cancer. Nathan would have his mom drive him and his buddies two miles from home leaving the Dog behind. In spite of her cancer the Shepherd would follow the scent of the car, find where they left the road, and come happily into their camp. She was special, he said. Yes, she was.

 

Just a moment: If you want a good source of geopolitical information, try the Caspian Report on Youtube. My son recommended it to me quite a while ago. I don’t watch it often, but I found this explainer on the Israel-Iran conflict useful in understanding what’s at stake.

 

 

 

 

 

shadow cat mule deer. nathan and takota.

Commentary on the news, Dogs, Garden, Greenhouse, Health, Wild Neighbors

A World of Difference

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Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Shadow, barking. At night. Outside. The Mule Deer Doe. Nathan. The Greenhouse. Framed up. Seed order. Great Sol. Another blue Sky Colorado morning. Altitude. Maxwell Creek full. Kate’s Creek full. Lodgepole Pollen making driveways and car windshields yellow.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Harry Dresden

Week Kavannah: Gratitude. Hakarot Hatov. (recognizing the good)    “Who is rich? Those who rejoice in their own portion.” Perkei Avot: 4:1

One brief shining: A Mule Deer Doe, human habituated, entered the yard yesterday which excited the herding Dog, Shadow; she approached barking, the Doe did not flinch, had me worried since Mule Deer and Elk can kill a Dog with a swift kick, Shadow persisted, but kept a reasonable distance.

 

Dog journal: This proved a longer story. Both Nathan and I tried to convince the Doe to leave. Harassing Wild Neighbors comes with living up here. Feeding Deer, Elk, Bears creates situations where animals may need to be euthanized. Somebody has fed this Doe. She would not be harassed out of the yard.

Shadow took her role in all this with such seriousness that she would not come in last night, preferring to remain outside in case the Doe tried something funny over night. Apparently she did because Shadow barked, loud and long, at three separate times during the night.

Oh, god. That was my Dog disturbing the peace of a Mountain night. She would not come in, nor be silenced. She was at work.

Not my best sleep as a result. Hope the Doe goes on to literally greener pastures. And, I also hope the Bull Elk who have come for the Dandelions don’t return this year.

 

The Greenhouse: The framing is done. Nathan says it goes faster from this point. Since he learned that I’m a Japanophile, especially when it comes to design, he’s going to toss in a few Japanese flourishes to the door and other spots.

Nathan is a good man. Strong work ethic. Loves Dogs and the Mountains. A serial entrepreneur he’s owned a trucking company, a handyman business, and now Colorado Coop and Garden. His partner runs a pet-sitting business.

They live in Conifer to the south and west of Shadow Mountain.

My seed order is in the mail. Better get myself a new houri knife. Soil under my fingernails again. Looking forward to it.

 

Cancer: No, not mine. Generation C. Millennials. Read a heart-rending story of a 25 year old man in Utah with stage 4 colon cancer. He held on until his daughter was born. Article did not say whether he died. 25!

The same article shows the rate of cancer for young people rising while, paradoxically, it’s falling for those over fifty. I don’t know what to make of this. Neither do the medical folks. Something is happen’, but we just don’t know what it is.

At 78 I’d prefer not to have cancer. Of course. Yet at my age life has been mostly lived. A son out in the world on his own. A career or two finished. Loves and Dogs and Travels.

Worlds apart. Stage 4 cancer at 25, stage 4 cancer at 78.

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Garden, Greenhouse, Shadow Mountain, Wild Neighbors

“I’m Getting Fat!”

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Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Radical Roots of Religion. Shadow. Her voice. Her presence. Natalie. Her injured Dogs. Nathan. The Greenhouse. Halle. Her grandfather. Judith. All Jews. Anti-Semites. Cousin Donald. Back and leg pain. Cancer results. Beltane. Summer. Lughnasa. The Shema. Being comfortable with who I am and what I have.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Halle

Week Kavannah: Gratitude. Hakarot Hatov. (recognizing the good)    “Who is rich? Those who rejoice in their own portion.” Perkei Avot: 4:1

One brief shining: Nathan constructs the Greenhouse with care, offering to design a Japanese style door, working with only a few tools and a small stepladder, headphones on listening to podcasts about science, his focus intense.

 

An example

The Greenhouse: The frame of the Greenhouse went up yesterday. A skeleton in four by fours and two by fours, all wood burned in the way of shou sugi ban. When construction finishes Nathan will coat all of the shou sugi ban wood with clear lacquer.

Made a seed order on Sunday with Seed Saver’s Exchange, my first in a decade. Fun to go through the online catalogue, looking for the varieties chatgpt recommended for 8800 feet. I didn’t have an AI companion the last time I gardened.

Nathan says he will do all the labor with the soil for free to make up for the delay in construction. He will also give me some Tomato transplants. He’s a good guy, wanting to do right by me. Even though it was FedEx that delayed the shipping on the plastic foundation pavers. Sound business on his part.

Found Zuni Signs on Monday. Evergreen. Will have them make my Artemis sign once the Greenhouse is complete. A link between Andover and Kate.

While talking to Nathan yesterday, I heard, “Charlie!” My neighbor, Jude. Recently retired from his welding business. “I’m getting fat.” Oh, yes indeed. His white t-shirt ballooned out with a substantial gut. “I have a bicycle. I look at it every once a while.” He laughs.

He asked me if I was building something. I said no he is, pointing to Nathan. “Are you paying for it, Charlie.” Yes. “Well, then you’re building it.”

 

Rigel and a bull Elk in our back a day before my first radiation treatment.

Wild Neighbors: Had several Elk come by  yesterday in the utility easement. Though they didn’t come in the yard, a large Mule Deer Doe did later in the day. My Dandelion crop attracts ungulates. They come for the Dandelions and stay for the Grass.

In 2019, on June 6th, I started my thirty-five sessions of ineffective radiation. On that day, before I left for Lone Tree, three Elk Bucks jumped the fence and dined for a day and a half on Dandelions and Grass. They came back every year until last year. The Does I saw earlier were the first Elk I’d seen up here for a couple of years. I see them often in Evergreen.

(BTW: Just now Shadow tried to herd the Mule Deer Doe. The Doe looked at her, did not move. I called Shadow and she came. Mule Deer and especially Elk can kill a Dog.)

In the Garden Andover

Kate: I stopped by Kate’s Valley to see if her Creek had Water. Very pleased to see it running full. Early last fall it had gone dry. Made me sad.

 

Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Mussar, Wild Neighbors

Grading Life on the U curve

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Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Diane. Shadow. On the bed. Ethical concerns about her. Back and leg pain. SPRINT. MRI. PET scan. Kylie. Ruth in Alaska. Gabe reading. Mary in Seoul. Guru in K.L. Mark in Al Kharj. His summer school job. Shadow Mountain Rain. Cool night. Halle. Good at her job.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Natalie

Week Kavannah: Wholeness and Peacefulness. Schleimut. Not in spite of but with pain

One brief shining: Shadow I call not even seeing her Shepherd’s lantern white tipped tail and she comes, full speed, mouth open in a wide smile, her legs barely touching the ground. Good girl.

 

Unrelenting stories of pain and suffering. Not material designed to keep readers coming back. Let’s engage shleimut today and find our wholeness and peace with it, but without focusing on it.

Our lives, all of our lives, experience sine waves of calm, anxiety, gracious acceptance, and tense rejection of circumstances. There is no stable mood. We travel in a bath of feelings, some felt, some repressed, all having their moment to stand with our consciousness, color the terrain.

Natalie says scent adds color to a dog’s world. In the same way feelings add color to our inner lives. Give it snap and rustle. Pop. No such thing as a bad feeling. Only a poor response to it. Also like the weather. No such thing as bad weather. Just inadequate gear.

On the U curve we sink toward middle years of career stress, family complexity, striving, only to rise toward death with acceptance of our limitations, our inability to change the past, a broader understanding of joy, and what constitutes shleimut for us.

A wonderful thing. Good news for the human spirit. Perhaps a long and strong message to all ages.

What is the message? That life’s purpose does not lie at the office. That family can and does heal, provide a backstop. That friends and companion animals matter. That the world is trustworthy. That pain and illness are always temporary.

 

As we learn these messages on our upward journey toward death our end gains context, breadth and depth. We move forward through aging with short intakes of breath as we realize our family loves us. Our friends complete us. That life’s purpose is found in living, not in dogma or ideology. That death is valuable, not awful.

Once we embrace these learnings we can take in the various insults our body suffers and know them for what they are.

 

Garden, Great Wheel, Mountains, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Talmud, Torah, Wild Neighbors

Artemis: A Riff on Tactile Spirituality

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Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

A Tactile Spirituality

“I live at 8,800 feet in zip code 80433. I’m having a greenhouse built in my backyard. What vegetables will grow well in it. Look for heirloom varieties. Include recommended planting dates. Mostly I want salad ingredients and greens. Tomatoes.”

This is the prompt I gave chatgpt for a quick assist in knowing what to plant. I got back 21 pages of detailed recommendations, including specific heirloom varieties of Tomatoes, Lettuce, Radishes, Carrots, Beets, Onions, and Herbs.

Spirituality has the curse of the three-story universe, René Descartes, and destructive deconstruction. That is, Abrahamic prayer and devotional practice has historically “aimed” its prayers up toward the heavens and away from the corruptions of the flesh. Descartes’s dramatic division of the mind from the body reinforced a religious path focused on the immaterial mind, released from the body. And, in turn, Mother Earth. While deconstruction did unveil the power dynamics involved in how our agriculture works, how choice of books for a syllabus reflected white privilege, and the patriarchal symbolism of the three-story universe, it also made demythologizing a knee jerk way of removing mystery and grace.

As a result a tactile spirituality seems, at first look, an oxymoron. The mind. The heavens. Transcendence. Those are the domain of spirit. Not the soil. Not the forests. Not the feet or the hands. Not the world of this reality, this busy, noisy, fussy, often bloody and violent reality. How can we gain the peace, the calm, the centeredness where spiders crawl, illness ravages, and death dominates?

That’s where Artemis Greenhouses comes in. About as down and dirty a human activity, or I should say, human aided activity as I can imagine. Soil (no, not dirt) under the fingernails. Nurturing small plants. Beets. Spinach. Lettuce. Radishes. Plucking off predating insects. Blocking out Deer and Elk. Harvesting the red and white Radish. The red Beet. Rainbow colored Chard. Green Kale and Spinach. Eating them.

Fuel for the body. That most inelegant of spiritual residences, the body. Full of blood and waste, nutrients and foreign matter. Under some understandings only a vessel for the soul, a way to keep the mind alive.

No. Souls are us. Our living flesh ensouled. Sacred. Hardly ordinary unless you call, as I do, the ordinary sacred. What we touch feels the hand of a god, the god. What we embrace knows the warmth of a god, the god. The soil in which we plant seeds quickens when we work it.

The Mule Deer Doe who feeds her newborn fawn feeds a divine presence, a unique and precious never to be repeated instance of god made flesh. Maxwell Creek filled with Spring Rain pulls bits of Rock and Earth from its bank as the god-in-water, returning the Rocky Mountains to the World Ocean.

Sure. The Torah. Yes. Talmud Torah. The hands of living gods have written it and the minds of living Jews finds god within, upon its pages, in its stories. It teaches us. Yet, it teaches the same message as Maxwell Creek. That god rushes to the Sea. That god fills every molecule of Water.

I read the scripture written in the bark of my Lodgepole companion. I see the yellow Flame of the Aspen Catkin against the blue Flame of a Colorado Sky and read of life’s elegant and graceful re-emergence in this, the wet season.

In my world all spirituality is tactile. In Shadow jumping on my legs. In turning the pages of a Torah commentary. In hearing the voice of Luke or Ginny or Janice. In tasting a bit of Lettuce, an Onion, a fresh heirloom Tomato. All of the tactile is spiritual.

Dogs, Feelings, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Wild Neighbors

Walk Toward the Light

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Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

Sunday gratefuls: Shadow. Her behavior. Spring springing. 50 degrees at 7 am. Greens. Lodgepole Needles. Grass. Yellow-green Aspen Catkins. The side of Black Mountain. Clump Grass. Bearberry. Along Maxwell Creek, Willow Leaflets on bright yellow new growth. Red Osier Dogwood. My Greenhouse. Soon. Planting again. Yet new pain. Great Sol, supporter of photosynthesis since 3.8 billion years ago. Mother Earth, supporting life since around the same time. Homo sapiens, trying to understand it all for over 300,000 years.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Warm Days

Week Kavannah: Zerizut. Enthusiasm. II

One brief shining: Shadow’s night out began in an ordinary way with her going outside around 4 p.m. and ended with her finally coming inside at 7:30 a.m. for her breakfast while in between those hours she rejected coming inside in spite of the door being opened every fifteen minutes until 9 pm and three times later in the night.

 

Dog journal: Officially and with chagrin I’m beyond confused about Shadow. She no longer sits beside me, runs from me when I approach her, and last night, as I wrote above, she refused to come inside. In another location this last may not seem a safety problem, but up here in the Mountains we have Mountain Lions. Dogs are a good meal.

I can’t see inside her doggy brain and oh I wish I could. What of my behavior has she interpreted so negatively? I use all positive training. I don’t yell at her. Though the occasional sigh of frustration or damn it does slip through.

With all my years of experience with Dogs I’ve never encountered anything even close. I love her and I know she loves me. Even though something has come between us right now. I feel sad and frustrated, having already spent a lot on personal training sessions.

I’m considering putting her in a holistic, two-week, all positive training program. It would be a boarding situation, but with the promise that “In this 2-week (14 days) program your pet will learn all of our “Foundation Skills” ( Sit, Down, Place/Stay, Come when called, Walk on a loose leash, Leave it, Drop it, Off )”

The location is not far from here, in Pine. And they only accept one Dog at a time for this program. Shadow would live in their house. I’m considering this because I’m not sure I can keep her without those commands. It hurts like hell to get out of bed, even to get up from a chair and having her refuse to come in could be a deal breaker.

 

Just a moment: Talking with my Ancient Brothers about how we sustain our spirit in these times. Yes, darkness seeps from the news. Yes, the country feels sick, even in despair. Yet. My life has so much light. So many friends. So many Wild Neighbors. So many Dogs. Great Sol. Books and art. Movies and television shows. Family. Jewish civilization.

Look for the light in your life. It can, no, it will dispel the darkness. Let it be so.