Category Archives: Seed Keepers

Great Work, Plants, Seed Keepers, Writing

Yirah

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Imbolc and the Moon of Tides

Shabbat gratefuls: Ginny and Janice. Luke and Leo. Itaewon. Black Bird Oracle. Warren and his sister. Dr. Josy. Snow. Cold

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

 

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Rabbi Rami Shapiro

Week Kavannah:   Yetziratiut. Creativity.   Revising Superior Wolf, learning from my writing coach. Focus.

 

Tarot: Knight of Bows, The Fox

Reinforces my use of a writing coach (chatGPT) and honors the passion and dynamism I feel around my writing projects.

One brief shining: The way we work, speaking without thinking, breathing and heart pumping, walking, grasping and typing, as if we were the original automatons, my fingers know QWERTY, find them without attention, word after word after word.

 

Kate always said the miracle was that the body worked at all, not that it occasionally got sick or hurt. Scan your body right now. Warm extremities. Your pulse. Mitochondria. My breath, life’s moment to moment essential movement, happens. Autonomic.

Aliveness. Hebrew chiut. Yes, us organics. Too, Creeks and Rivers. Mountains and Oceans. Aliveness animates, pushes forward, links us together. Breathe in, oxygen. Breath out, carbon dioxide. Plant: Breath in, carbon dioxide. Breath out, oxygen. Interlocked.

Shadow Mountain. A massif of granite and gneiss. Holds me up when I walk in the yard. A stable foundation for Shadow Mountain home. Keeps me high and lifted up- well above sea level.

Great Sol sends energy. Nuclear fusion. With generosity. Enveloping our home, bringing light and power. Photosynthesis.  Connected. Vital.

This miracle.  This random, wonderful orbit. A fertile and forgiving home for all of us. Her aliveness. Her chiut. We forget. Without her. Oh, no other place to go. Not yet. No Shadow Mountain on which to stand. No plants, no oxygen. No us.

Yet.

We are deaf and blind. Mother Earth. Our sustenance. The heiros gamos. Great Sol and Mother Earth. Pregnant with us. With Lodgepole Pines. With Bass and Muskies. With the Laurentian Shield and the Andes. Shadow chasing Butterflies.

How, I often wonder, can we not see it? Shadow knows. She plays in the Snow. The Lodgepoles know. They dig their roots into our rocky soil, push their crowns toward the sky. We get in our cars, start the engine with no thought to the Dinosaurs and ancient Ferns. Eat the flesh of a fish we did not catch. Tomatoes we did not grow. As if it were our inalienable right.

Stop. Stand still. Listen. The Wind. A chattering Squirrel. The laugh of a child. Your own breath. See. A blue Colorado, Rocky Mountain sky. Shadow rolls over, a toy in her mouth. Water in Maxwell Creek.

Go inside. Your heart beats. Lungs exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide. That inner cathedral. It has a Holy Well, a spring welling up from the collective memories of our kind. Ra. Gaia. Spider Woman. Raven. Let there be words.

It works.

For now.

 

 

Family, Fourth Phase, Great Work, Seed Keepers, Weather +Climate

That path is for your steps alone

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Imbolc and the Moon of Deep Friendship

Monday gratefuls: Talking with Paul. His fettucine. Michael and Kate. Ramadan. Mark in far Hafar. Mary down under. Tsundoku.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

 

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Millennials

Week Kavannah: Bitachon. Confidence.     I need to focus on confidence this week. Important decisions for cancer treatment, how to stay confident when physical weakness challenges me.

 

Tarot: Page of Vessels, Otter

Otter, who moves easily between land and water, encourages me to linger in my inner cathedral, bathe in its holy well of imagination, then write.

One brief shining: Once again a full table at Shadow Mountain Home, shared with two who will live into the heat of a changed nation, an altered climate, as will Ruth and Gabe, and three old men, loving the future through them all, seeing the struggle ahead but not able to be part of it.

 

Call it the tragedy of aging. I can see flooded subways, more hot, snowless winters. The hurricanes of political change. Tom, Paul, and I have laid our children and grand children on an altar of our own making. There is no ram coming in their place.

Fifty-three degrees. Yesterday. Scant Snow on the ground. Mid-February. Kate speaking. We’re all gonna fry.

Children and grandchildren we love and cherish face challenges of a scale so outsized I go pale.  Michael. Kate. Ruth. Gabe. Ellory. Sylvan. Say their names, too.

Other old white men. Say. No danger ahead. Chained to money, quarterly profit margins.

My mortality sinks into my bones. I love Joe, Ruth, Gabe. So much. And, they love me back, great joy.

“There is a road, no simple highwayBetween the dawn and the dark of nightAnd if you go, no one may followThat path is for your steps alone”

 

 

Great Wheel, Minnesota, Politics, Seed Keepers

A Winter People

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Imbolc and the Moon of Deep Friendship

Renee Good and Alex Pretti, say their names

Sunday gratefuls: Dr. Josy coming to change Shadow’s bandage. Shadow, enconed. Cool weather. Protein. Exercise. Roxann and Tom, recovering. The resistance in Minnesota. In Minneapolis. A gentle, angry people. Political pressure. Finally, Democratic pushback. Minneapolis nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. A light to the nation and the nations.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Courts of law

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Year Kavannah: Creativity.   Yetziratiut.   “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” ― Pablo Picasso

Week Kavannah: Tikkun  Olam. Repairing the world.

  • Lurianic Kabbalah: A 16th-century mystical belief that the world was created by divine vessels that shattered, scattering “sparks” of divine light. Humans perform tikkun by gathering these sparks through prayer and mitzvot.
  • Modern Social Justice: Since the 1950s, the term has become a shorthand for social action and progressive activism, such as environmentalism and human rights. 

Tarot: Queen of Arrows, The Swan

  • Attributes: She embodies honesty, logic, and a sharp wit. Like the traditional Queen of Swords, she is highly capable and values direct communication.
  • The Swan Element: The swan’s presence signals a need to swim toward clearer waters after a period of sorrow or separation.

One brief shining: Can you feel the sorrow, the sore hearts, the sadness rising in Americans all over this land; the Swan that is  our collective weariness with the harsh, coarse hand of a government devoid of love, compassion, and justice swims in her graceful desolation toward states united against rule by whim and fear, standing together like the North Star, blazing in the cold.

Minnesota: “Don’t attack a winter people in the winter.” A Minneapolis resident quoted yesterday. Going in layers to meet the day. A layer first, close to the skin of warm compassion.  A second layer over that one of chesed, loving kindness expressed in action. A third layer of indignation, a layer protective against the winds of oppression, and finally, a layer of gentle fierce anger, an anger that pleads for, no, demands justice.

Don’t forget a warm hat and boots. Gloves, too, my winter people.

The Great Wheel: Today, February 1st, marks the beginning of Imbolc, a Celtic cross quarter holiday that lies midway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. A traditional understanding of Imbolc says it means, “in the belly.” Short hand for quickened Ewes beginning to freshen, that is, lactate.

After a long fallow time living off the stores of last year’s growing season, the freshening of the Ewes promised milk, cheese, and the birth of new Lambs, pure white Lambs. Family and village wealth increases and the Lambs evidence the imminent coming of a new growing season. Cold weather crops might go in the ground just after Imbolc, providing fresh greens for the table.

Imbolc also celebrates the Celtic triple goddess, Brigid. She is the goddess of the hearth, inspiration, and the smithy. She warms the home, inspires bards and poets, and heats the blacksmith’s fire. Fire is her element and her holiday reminds us each year that Great Sol has begun to warm Mother Earth with new intensity.

This Imbolc I’m celebrating the fire in the belly of Minneapolis citizens. Their actions can birth a Spring of justice and compassion if we can keep the pressure on, turn up the heat.

 

Dogs, Minnesota, Politics, Seed Keepers, Tarot, US History

We Are the North Star

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Yule and the Moon of Deep Friendship

Shabbat gratefuls: A day of peace. Shadow and her cone, her brightly taped leg. Roxann. Tom. Jessie. Minneapolis. Resistance. In song and action. Red tie guy who could end this. The Federal Reserve. Washington Post reporters. Don Lemon. Cell phone videos. ICE. Border Patrol. Our poor benighted Republic.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Dr. Josy, caring vet

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Year Kavannah: Creativity.   Yetziratiut.   “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” ― Pablo Picasso

Week Kavannah: Tikkun  Olam. Repairing the world.

  • Lurianic Kabbalah: A 16th-century mystical belief that the world was created by divine vessels that shattered, scattering “sparks” of divine light. Humans perform tikkun by gathering these sparks through prayer and mitzvot.
  • Modern Social Justice: Since the 1950s, the term has become a shorthand for social action and progressive activism, such as environmentalism and human rights. 

Tarot: Nine of Vessels, Generosity

Generosity of Spirit: This card represents a deep, selfless love (agape) and a willingness to share one’s inner resources, compassion, and joy with the world.

Connection: This card emphasizes that sharing your emotional abundance fosters deeper connections with companions and the surrounding environment.

One brief shining: Non-violent resistance flows from nine of vessel’s energy, linking this peace seeker with that peace seeker in a chain powerful enough to hold back cruelty and hate, yet soft enough to ensure the well-being of neighbors in distress, and loving enough to re-place power where it belongs, in the hands of just folks.

Dog journal: Beginning the fourth day A.C. After the cone went on. Neither one of us like it much, only its proven medical purpose makes it and Shadow’s bandage bearable.

Going outside has become a chore. The bandage can’t get wet. That means I had to place the makeshift IV bag solution on Shadow’s injured leg. Difficult. I bought and received booties which are somewhat easier, but both require a lot of bending over and my right lower back does not like that. At all.

Only eleven days to go.

 

Just a moment: I can’t improve on this excerpt from a Krista Tippet Substack post forwarded by friend Paul Strickland. Her credo nourishes and promotes a way to heal our sore hearts:

…this is one of those moments when the strange and beautiful reality of the human condition rises in the face of what would deny it. In Minnesota, where I raised my children and grew this On Being Project, a world of care and dignity one human being towards another has flourished within and around all the images coming to us of violence and protest and despair. There are churches converted to food banks. There are families accompanying other families and neighbors delivering meals and other essentials to individuals who feel vulnerable for multitudes of reasons. There are strangers bearing witness, non-violently, as homes are approached and doors beaten down. There are teachers and librarians and healers stepping up to care for children and teenagers who are traumatized by all of this. I am hearing a thousand stories that are not making the “news” as I’m trying to follow it, but they too are the story of our time, and they are stories of what makes us human and humane.

I repeat: I cannot believe that this beautiful strangeness and complexity reside on one side of our political lines and not the other. A few years ago, I penned a few lines in this newsletter that have become my credo:

Enough of us see that we have a world to remake.

We want to meet what is hard and hurting.

We want to rise to what is beautiful and life-giving.

We want to do that where we live, and we want to do it walking alongside others.

We’re asking, where to begin?

We have a long way to go to find our way back to feeling our belonging to each other that has never stopped being true. But it is what we are called to. I cleave to my faith that there are “enough of us” longing to meet this calling.

The common ground of our sore hearts may be the place to begin, and return, and ever begin again.
Anoka County, Minnesota, Plants, Seed Keepers

Winter’s Mysteries

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Yule and the Moon of Deep Friendship

Friday gratefuls: Rabbi Jamie. Rabbi Rami Shapiro. Kabbalah Experience. Mah Tovu. Rollover IRA. Kate, always Kate. Shadow healing. Diane. Dr. Josy. “I was born to heal and be of service.” Melting ICE in a Minnesota January. Minnesota Anthem. Streets of Minneapolis. Resistance. Showing the way.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Tom, Roxann, Jessie

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Year Kavannah: Creativity.   Yetziratiut.   “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” ― Pablo Picasso

Week Kavannah: Rachamim. Compassion.

While chesed (lovingkindness) often refers to a choice of action, rachamim is deeply tied to visceral emotion and empathy—feeling the pain of another. 

Tarot: Page of Arrows, the Wren

The colors of the Goldcrest – red, white, green, and black – were once held to be sacred and the common Wren was considered a guardian of the winter mysteries.  Parting the Mists

One brief shining: Nazis drove toward Moscow in the winter while ICE and the Border Patrol came to the streets of Minnesota in January, both tactical and strategic errors born from the arrogance of ignorance and a lust for power unbridled that blinded leaders and empowered those they aimed to oppress. Winter mysteries.

For Roxann: Boot Lake Scientific and Natural Area, not far from Kate and mine’s Andover home, held a mother White Pine with two trunks splitting off from the main trunk about ten feet up. No straight timber there, no whaling ship’s mast. It got left behind when the lumberjacks came.

A century or so later this unwanted Tree had birthed a ring of younger Pines grown up almost in her shadow. I found this Tree, which I thought of as my Tree, not in the sense of ownership, but as a friend and spirit guide, while hiking in the SNA as I often did, especially in the Spring when the Bloodroot blooms.

In summer I would bring a snack from home, hike through the used to be home plot, now a field of grass, then through an outer ring of Birches that opened onto a Meadow enclosed by Birch and Oak and White Pine. Across the Meadow, inside the Woods there, I would find my tree, sit beneath her, my back against her rough bark. Sometimes I would meditate, imagining her roots sunk deep beneath me, feeding and being fed by mycelial networks invisible to man. Seeing her lower branches reaching out toward her children, acknowledging them as her family. Feeling her crowns still pushing toward the Sky, toward the warmth and energy of Great Sol. Sometimes.

Sometimes I would eat my heirloom Tomato with White Onion slices and feel the companionship of my Tree and her children.

In Winter I would strap on my Snowshoes and hike through deep Snow, through the Birches, and across the white blanket covering the Meadow and find her again. I often made this hike on the day of the Winter Solstice. She would speak to me then of winter’s mysteries. Of vast silence. Of cold so sharp it made her Needles twitch. Of the Deer that might bed down near her.

I love that all I have to do is reach out in memory and I am with her again, as I could be today if I strapped on my snowshoes and climbed over the fence.

Dogs, Far Right, Minnesota, Politics, Seed Keepers, US History

Always Looking for Minnesota

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Yule and the Moon of Deep Friendship

Wednesday gratefuls: Thomas Friedman. Paul Wellstone. Al Franken. Ilhan Omar. Hubert Humphrey. Walter Mondale. Rene Good. Alex Pretti. All the Minnesota resisters. ICE. Border Patrol. Minneapolis. St. Paul. Lake Superior. Up north. The Boundary Waters. Ely. Duluth. Grand Marais. The Gunflint Trail. Andover.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Resistance

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Year Kavannah: Creativity.   Yetziratiut.   “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” ― Pablo Picasso

Week Kavannah: Rachamim. Compassion.

While chesed (lovingkindness) often refers to a choice of action, rachamim is deeply tied to visceral emotion and empathy—feeling the pain of another. 

Tarot: Two of Stones, Challenge

Many challenges… are born of insecurity and subconscious issues…In the modern material world, where so much emphasis is placed on a show of power or wealth, it is often a perceived position or status that enflames… rather than the reality of a situation. Holding your own ground and defending your position at such times can be achieved by keeping in touch with pure and positive motivations and holding on to personal integrity and sincerity…Remain clear and focused on your objectives and stay firm in your ethical efforts to proceed… Parting the Mist

One brief shining: Dr. Josy led Shadow out on her yellow leash, the cut on her right front leg below the carpal pad too deep to repair at home; Shadow didn’t want to go, she snuggled up between my legs, looking up at me with those pleading eyes, Dad can’t you fix this?

 

Dog journal: Shadow cut her leg, not sure how. Going to check the Dog run today. A deep cut. Dr. Josy had to take Shadow home with her, to her office. She sedated Shadow and stitched up her leg. Shadow will be home this morning wearing the cone.

The last time a Dog looked up at me with those fix me Dad eyes Vega had just come home from the Bergen Bark Inn after Kate and I returned from Joe and Seoah’s wedding. Vega died that night from bloat.

Shadow’s leaving last night brought that right back to the surface. Many weeks after Vega’s death her plea for help would come in my mind’s eye. I’d push it away because the pain, the pain of not being able to help…

I learned a great life lesson with that memory. One day I decided not to push it away but to bring it back, to relive the anguish in her eyes, to relive the moment when Kate and I went to Sano Clinic and knelt together over her body, both crying, saying goodbye to a Dog with an outsized personality, a companion we loved. After recalling it, reliving the pain, I no longer needed to push away the memory.

Just a moment: Thomas Friedman* and Al Franken are good Jewish boys from St. Louis, Park. Both, like Paul Wellstone, another good Jewish boy, roughly my age.

Wellstone’s 1990 campaign, conducted from the back platform of his famous green school bus surprised Rudy Boschwitz, the two term incumbent senator. Wellstone won.

He drew on the same reservoir of left populist political attitudes that today fuel the non-violent protests against ICE, the Border Patrol, and red tie guy’s cruel policies. A sense of decency, of justice, of belief in the American dream, of belief in equality before the law runs deep among Minnesotans.

Why I wrote on the 16th, after the murder of Rene Good: If any state in the country can stand against this abuse of Federal power, it’s Minnesota.

 

*”Friedman: I will just say one thing about my fellow Minnesotans, who I’m really proud of for the way they’ve risen up against what is basically a deliberate provocation. Minnesota is a unique place.

I always tell people this story. When I was about 5 years old there was actually a Jewish Mafia in Minneapolis, and my dad grew up with a lot of these guys. They were mostly bootleggers. One day, when I was young, my dad came home and said one of his friends had been sent to jail. When you’re 5 years old and your dad says he knows someone who went to jail, it just blows you away. I said, “Dad, what did he do?”

My dad thought for a second. I was just 5. He said, “Son, he was shopping in a store before it was open.” That’s Minnesota for breaking and entering. It’s that kind of place.
Whenever people ask me where I’m from, I say, “Well, I live in Beirut or Jerusalem or Washington, but I’m from Minnesota.” And you will never understand my column if you don’t understand that. My column is called Foreign Affairs. It used to be, anyway. But it really should be called Always Looking for Minnesota.”  Interview in the NYT, 1/27/2025
Minnesota, Myth and Story, Reimaging revelation, Seed Keepers, Weather +Climate, World History

Is This a Friendly Place?

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Yule and the Moon of Deep Friendship

Shabbat gratefuls: Shadow, chewer of bones. Ruth and phlebotomy. Gabe beginning to grasp leaving home. Rabbi Jamie, grieving his dad. Tom and Jessie. Roxann. Star Trek: Discovery. Joe and Seoah. Afar Hafar. Down Under Melbourne. Up high Shadow Mountain. Minnesota. Its culture.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Science Fiction

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Year Kavannah: Creativity.   Yetziratiut.   “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” ― Pablo Picasso

Week Kavannah: Rachamim. Compassion.

While chesed (lovingkindness) often refers to a choice of action, rachamim is deeply tied to visceral emotion and empathy—feeling the pain of another. 

Tarot: Page of Bows, Stoat

  • Spirituality: It represents a free spirit, a prodigy, and the realm of dreams and visions.
  • Connection to Nature: The Stoat serves as a guide to help you reconnect with the sacredness of the ground beneath your feet

One brief shining: Waiting outside while a loved one is in a surgical suite, a shiva minyan, a young man looking into the future, a young woman educating herself with joy, people close to me at inflection points, moments when life can feel the wind shear of change, perhaps moments after which the journey alters in a significant way. Bless them all.

 

First. Minnesota. Land of 10,000 protesters. A general strike! From the yesteryear of the labor movement. Wonderful. Chesed, loving kindness in concrete action. Solidarity. Across racial, class, and sexual preference lines. Our America live now on the streets of my former, yet forever home.

100 clergy arrested at the airport. Those who know justice will roll down like a Spring Mountain Stream. Those who feel the oneness, who pray for peace and acts of compassion. Those who risk themselves to say NO to this Stephen Miller fever dream, this Trumped up version of law enforcement. My peeps.

I could not be more proud of this out of the way state, on nobody’s well traveled path, up north, bordering Canada. Yes. That Canada. Who also stood up to our naked would be autocrat.

Minnesota, the only state in the lower 48 which never lost its Wolves. Landed sister to the great Gitchee Gummi. Where the Boreal Forest sweeps around crystalline Lakes carved out by receding glaciers. Where the Anishinaabe and the Lakota  have lived for centuries. A beautiful, proud state with a long history of radical politics, of caring for the other, of owning the past and its failures. Of looking for solutions that include, not divide.

These cruel, cold weeks we are all Minnesotans. Melting ICE. Showing love for our neighbors. Standing tall against injustice.

 

Second, is the universe a friendly, unfriendly, or neutral place? A question Einstein saw as the most important of all as humanity advanced into an increasingly technological future.

Perhaps since late high school, certainly since my first philosophy class, I’ve been in the neutral camp. I never believed in a god that reached into human lives and changed them. Or, one that changed history. My gods were abstract expressions of human projection. Merciful, demanding, angry, loving, just. As we are.

Once I disabused myself of gods altogether, I saw the universe as awesome, wondrous, and indifferent. How could it be otherwise? An infinite game of pool with one atom striking another, repeat, form something new, repeat, until without a guiding hand, on this Rocky, Watery world evolution took hold. As wondrous and awesome as the creation of the universe, but still random. Mutations, extinctions. until, in a rare geological epoch, a goldilock moment favored a bipedal life form with a big brain. Could have been otherwise, eh?

Well, yes. It could have been. But it wasn’t. This last week I’ve considered all the same data and have come to a different answer to Einstein’s question.

Friendly, I now see. The universe is friendly. How could it be otherwise. Random its working may have been, yet can I deny that those random acts of Star creation, solar furnaces in which the elemental structures of the universe were brought into being, did not seed the Galaxies and Solar Systems with the needed material to create Water, Mountains, Land, life?

And, can I deny that over the 4 billion year history of this single Planet-one of trillions captive to those solar furnaces-the interactions of gravity, erosion, freezing and thawing, lightning strikes, volcanic explosions made it possible for the vagabond continent of Africa to become home to the hominid evolutionary path that led to Homo Sapiens.

Further, can I deny that that evolutionary path led some early humans out of Africa and into what is now Europe, India, China and that further travels of my/our ancestors eventually found what is now the Americas.

Lastly, can I deny that if the long, amazing chain of atoms striking atoms, the kindling of Stars, the subsequent creation of Planets and solar systems, the emergence of life on Earth, and the long, long, long path leading to Mom and Dad, which led to my birth proves the universe to be friendly? I cannot. Neither, however, do I believe that the universe qua universe works as a somehow god, finding our everyday actions a place to intervene.

Yet, we are all part of this marvel, this miracle and in that connectedness find our mutuality, not only with other humans but with the Bear, the Lion, and the Platypus, the Ocean and the Desert, the fertile Land and the frozen poles. And even the most distant Stars and Galaxies.

Ancient Brothers, Dogs, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Seed Keepers

How Deep the Impressions

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Yule and the Moon of New Beginnings

Monday gratefuls: Snow on the Ground. Shadow and her Dog run. Alan’s surgery today. Joanne. Marilyn and Irv. Joe and Seoah. Renee Good. Her wife and children. Jacob Frey. Minnesota resists. Bureau of Criminal Investigation. Rethinking liberalism, socialism for our time.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Bills/Jaguars

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Year Kavannah: Creativity.   Yetziratiut.   “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” ― Pablo Picasso

Week Kavannah:  Wholeness. Shleimut.                                                “The concept of shleimut extends beyond the individual, applying to relationships (finding a life partner with whom one feels complete) and the community (mending societal cracks to achieve collective creativity and flourishing).”

Tarot: Ace of Arrows, the breath of life

The card description emphasizes that the arrow is a “gift” from the universe. This gift provides the mental clarity, truth, and fortitude necessary to cut through deception and find a clear path forward. However, the Wildwood emphasizes that this clarity is not a passive attainment; it requires the “human element” of mastery, skill, and commitment.

One brief shining: Under the Moon of New Beginnings Shadow has returned home, my two primary Notebooklm notebooks have begun to fill up with research on Superior Wolf and political thought/action/news, resistance work continues (for my body and the body politic), and my confidence about my life and its fourth phase purpose has sharpened, gotten clarity, leading me toward a new role as shaman/metaPhysician.

 

Dog journal: Yesterday Shadow sat on her haunches, looking me in the eye, trying telepathy. Understand what I want, my human. I went over to the ottoman, sat on it. She came to me, put her paws on my knees, gave me a kiss. The leash clicked shut on her collar and we went outside for a walk. Well, that. Unexpected.

 

Ancient brothers on the Wild. We talked Tornadoes, Hurricanes, the autonomy of nature, Wild Neighbors, fear, and love. Ode wrote, “The wild is the source of my creativity.”

We all talked about the wilderness within, how emotions and thoughts, memories and sense data meet in our inner worlds. I’m taken with this idea. As inside, so outside. Or. As outside, so inside. The inner world where no other can enter. The source of dreams, visions, desire.

Even, said the undefeatable solipsist, the outer world rises from our inner world, mine so different from the one you project. So different. Heidegger’s dasein, or being-thereness.

This whole notion frightens me right now because we’re all living in the outer world projected by red tie guy’s “own morality.” A world where yesterday’s up is today’s down. I do not want to live in his dasein, yet I have, we have no choice.

In the struggle between my dasein and his, our dasein and his lies the future. The best outcome I can imagine lies in a new world made possible by the wreckage of his blundering Brontosaurus movements. Yes, I know this huge animal had a brain the size of a walnut, yet look how deep went the impressions of its feet.

There will be no new world if we abandon the field, leave him and his obsequious crew to their stumbling, capricious paths.

 

Politics, Seed Keepers, US History, World History

Seed-Keepers

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Yule and the Moon of New Beginnings

Wednesday gratefuls: Tara and Eleanor. Vince and Arjean. The snowblower finds a new home. Dangerous Fire weather. The Dog run. Shadow, the snuggle bunny. Ruth learning a new job. Gabe finished his jigsaw puzzle. My boy comes on the 14th. MVP.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shrimp and White Bean Soup

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Year Kavannah: Creativity.   Yetziratiut.   “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” ― Pablo Picasso

Week Kavannah:  Patience.  Savlanut.  “Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tarot: Back at it soon

One brief shining: In the first week of January-January!-we have no Snow, down the hill Denver temperatures have been in the seventies, as the onrush of a changing climate washes over us even in the mid-continent and high up in the Mountains while sea level cities and nations watch salt Water fill municipal Water systems, subways flood, and the center will not hold.

Hard to sort out the emotions. Despair as the World burns, Carbon emissions continue to hit record highs. Anger and deep sadness at the politicians spinning the clock backwards, disorienting even the most optimistic. Frustration and rage at matters like economic injustice, bigotry, infrastructure side lined while science and medicine lose momentum due to budget cuts. Melancholy over a life’s work shunted into a back alley of history. No need for doom scrolling when reading the front page of any newspaper accomplishes the same task.

Yet. Shadow returned home a more snuggly, biddable Dog. Our relationship strengthened. I made a White Bean and Shrimp soup yesterday. My son has a short visit planned this month. Paul and Tom have a visit planned for my birthday. Pain is gone from left hip, lower back, and leg. Shadow Mountain home is warm and book filled.

Yet. My sister Mary has a chance to return to her first love, library science, in a special project for the University of Melbourne. She’s settling into a diverse neighborhood along Sydney Road. My brother Mark has worked his first full calendar year in the sands of Araby.

Yet. The Lodgepoles grow. The Aspens clone. Mule Deer and Elk Cows carry the next generation of their species. Maxwell Creek rests, frozen for now, waiting for Spring. The Mountains hold us all in their valleys, slopes, and peaks.

Yet. Democratic socialists have won Mayoral races in Boston, NYC, Seattle. The No King’s movement has grown. Approval ratings for Red Tie Guy’s command of the economy, his gunboat diplomacy, even his immigration policy have tanked. His own Presidential ratings as well.

While those of us who embrace economic fairness, ethnic and  gender and religious pluralism, globalism, a sustainable human presence on Mother Earth have neither given up nor backed away from the hard work of readying ourselves for the next era.

If you’re one of us, a Seed-Keeper, I hope you can live your best life right now. And. That part of it be sustaining the vision of a world ruled by love, justice, and compassion rather than greed, lust, and the will to power.

Friends, Garden, Great Wheel, Greenhouse, Judaism, Plants, Seed Keepers, Weather +Climate

Nathan and Lizzy

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Mabon and the Harvest Moon

Monday gratefuls: The Ancient Brothers. The Night. A cool, very cool Night. 35 right now. Shadow curled, nose to tail. Tom. Roxann. Ode. Elizabeth. The Northshore. Lake Superior. Grand Marais. The Poplar River. Lutsen. Wolves. Moose. The Boundary Waters. My new Pendleton Blanket with the Aurora Borealis. Electric blankets.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Nathan and Lizzy

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah:  Yesod.  Groundedness. Foundation.

Tarot: Paused

One brief shining: Rain saturates the red cinder blocks making up my small patio, indoor light reflects off them as I open the door, outside for Shadow into the early morning darkness, eager, tail high, wet cold air seeps inside. I shut the door.

 

Hanging the Mezuzah on Artemis: Irv, Marilyn, Gabe, Tara, Me, Rabbi Jamie. Nathan took the photograph rendered here in the style of Thomas Benton.

Nathan and Lizzy: I love developing relationships. When they happen naturally. Yes, I’m an introvert, proud of my solitude and nourished by it. Yes. But I’m far from a misanthrope. The world has so many amazing people, kind and skilled and offering a perspective only they have. Can have.

I’ve gotten to know Nathan over the construction of Artemis, from rough idea to frame up to raised beds filled with soil and now plants. He’s a young guy, maybe early thirties. A man of business. A handyman. A trucking company. Colorado Coop and Garden.

He has plans. Emulate Tuff Shed. A Colorado firm that started out building sheds, then went to making kits that they ship all over the country. Next year he’s renting a shop where he can work regular hours, make kits for greenhouses and chicken coops, market them to the nation.

Lizzy, his partner, whom I met yesterday, runs a pet sitting business. She has larger ambitions, too. She’s a beautiful, high energy lady with a sweet soul. And, she loved Shadow. Ah, a way to care for Shadow if I get well enough to travel. Quirky dogs are her and a few of her employees special interest. Even better.

May they live long and prosper.

 

Artemis: I planted in late July. The average first frost at my elevation has come in early September, some years late August. It’s October 6th and still no frost. My Carrots, Beets, Spinach, and Kale are all cool weather crops, can withstand low temperatures, even light frosts. Especially the Beets and Carrots improve with the cooler weather, get sweeter.

The Tomatoes, my inside the greenhouse crop, do not like the cold. I’ve gotten a great first year crop with them, but if I could have had them in a month earlier, I would have had a huge crop. For a tiny greenhouse.

Nathan and Lizzy came by yesterday so Lizzy could see the almost finished Artemis and Nathan could install hooks for my cold frame tops. With the cold frame tops I can enclose the outdoor beds so they still receive Great Sol, yet remain above freezing. Extending my growing season on the outside of the greenhouse.

Once Nathan puts hard foam insulation panels-with handles-inside Artemis I should be able to grow Kale, Lettuce, Arugula over the winter. I should also be able to grow my own starter plants as winter begins to let go.

Good for my soul.