Category Archives: Paganism

Dogs, Fourth Phase, Greenhouse, Health, Judaism, Paganism, Plants, Seed Keepers, Tarot, Torah

Artemis Blends My Pilgrimage

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

Wednesday: Mezuzahs. Rabbi Jamie. For the greenhouse. For Artemis. Shadow coming in last night. Steroid injection. Ruth bringing my credit card. Cards We Were Dealt. New tarot class, taught by my friend, Luke. Halle, limiting my exercises yesterday. Trumpeter of his own doom. Tomatoes. Squash.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Mezuzah hanging

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei. Find the chi, the creative advance into novelty. Work with it.

Week Kavannah: Hearing on the side of merit

One brief shining: Sarah, the orthopedic p.a., had a sonagram wand in her hand as she asked me, “What fills your cup?” before she checked out my arthritic, labrum torn right hip, sprayed it with a cold numbing liquid and injected yet more steroids into my body. Ah.

 

Yesterday was an eventful day in the neighborhood. It began the night before…

Dog journal: Natalie offered to come over around five with her dog to help me get Shadow in. Monday evening. I tried turkey hot dogs. Shadow ate them eagerly outside, but when I put them on the floor inside, she turned away. I decided I’d need Natalie so I went upstairs.

When I turned around, there was Shadow. In the house. I closed the door downstairs, texted Natalie.

Before all this I had heard her barking her intruder bark. I went to check, thinking another Mule Deer might have been in the yard. Nope. Beautiful yellow Swallowtails dining on bright blue Penstemon, a front range Wildflower. As one left, another fluttered down while Shadow chased the one leaving. Barking.

 

Hip, leg, back pain: Drove over to Panorama Orthopedics in the morning. Ruth met me there to return my credit card. She and Gabe had gone to pick up pizzas for us and she forgot it in her purse. I told her I’d gotten under my patched duvet (her work) without a blizzard of Goose feathers. She smiled. We hugged and went our separate ways.

The injection took all of ten minutes. Same caveats as the spinal injections. Sometimes works. Sometimes doesn’t. Wait 7-10 days. No immersion in water for thirty-six hours. Why? Dunno.

 

Tarot: Restarting my Tarot practice by taking a class originally offered by Rabbi Jamie and Luke, now taught by Luke alone. I took the first one, got heavily into Tarot and Astrology for a beat. Figured a class would help me get back to regular readings.

A big class. Maybe eight at the Kabbalah Experience classroom, seven (like me) on zoom.

 

Artemis: Scheduled Rabbi Jamie to hang a mezuzah on Artemis this Friday at 2:30. Invited a few friends.

A mezuzah contains a tiny scroll with the full Shema written on it. If it’s on vellum and done by a sofer, a scribe, it’s considered kosher.

I want one on Artemis because it will blend my major sacred paths: paganism, Taoism, Judaism. The pagan path follows the seasons, the changes in Plants, Animals, and Climate that repeat in the cycle known as the Great Wheel.

Taoism encourages working with those changes, leaning into their subtle power, knowing the changes as the here and now expression of the sacred (or we might call it chi).

Judaism and its mystical path, Kabbalah, sees the movement of the sacred as a constant flow of divine energy that begins in the ayn sof, the great emptiness, proceeds outward toward the malkhut, this world of appearances, then travels back up again. Here in malkhut, the Shekinah, or the feminine expression of the sacred has her clearest presence. A process I see in miniature each time a Seed sprouts, a Plant grows, and I am fed by this true miracle.

Artemis blends my pilgrimage into one small building, especially when I’m accompanied by my Shadow.

 

 

 

Dogs, Great Wheel, Greenhouse, Holidays, Paganism, Politics

Feel the Fire in your Bones

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon

Friday gratefuls: Luke and Leo. Laundry. Shadow and Leo. Buddies. Warm Night. AI. Chatgpt. Images. Mussar. Diane. Her book club and cherry chutney. The Greenhouse, Nathan’s careful work. Scott. His pollinator Garden. My son. Moving. Seoah. Murdoch. Ruth and Gabe coming up today.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Luke’s many talents

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

One brief shining: Piece by piece the greenhouse comes together, two Koi on the door, deep raised beds on the sides, a raised bed inside it, shelving for pots and space to work along both inside walls, the clear insulating sheets going in place to let in Great Sol and retain the warmth.

 

Summer Solstice: For those of you new to Ancientrails, this is the day I celebrate not only the victory of light on the longest day, but also the ascendancy of the night which starts tonight, continuing night by night until the Winter Solstice. We need the warmth of Great Sol for our plant allies to grow and we need the darkness and Lesser Light illumination of the night for our soul’s growth. The yang and the yin of seasonal change.

In Nordic and Scottish lands the Summer Solstice, much like Beltane, finds bonfires blazing, naked bodies dancing to the drums and pipes. Never got the chance to participate, perhaps next incarnation.

Stop a moment today. Feel the heat of Great Sol. Let the Sun enlighten you, fuel the dreams and work of your heart. An active time, a time to push forth into the world with the best, the strongest parts of your Self.

Choose, if you can, to feel fire in your bones, energy surging from feet to head like the sacred flow of energy from the crown of the Tree of Life to Malkhut, this tangible world, and back up again toward the ayn sof. Your body and soul, unique and irreplaceable, yet also one with the other, all others. The true and important secret not hidden from us except when we slip into routine, into habitual ways of knowing.

As I wrote yesterday: Celebrate, celebrate. Dance to the music.

 

Dog journal: Luke and Leo came over yesterday. Shadow greeted Leo. A nip here, a play bow there. Leo, a large and older Dog took his time to respond. He played a bit with her before lying down on the cool tile for a gentleman’s rest.

Meanwhile Shadow put her paws on the other chair down here, and licked Luke’s face. She takes others visiting with enthusiasm. Ginny and Janice come over on Sunday afternoon with Annie and Luna. More fun for Shadow.

Right now Shadow has the severed tail of a stuffed Skunk toy in her mouth flailing it from side to side while she rolls on her back. A puppy.

 

Just a moment: Well, red tie guy has proved more thoughtful than I imagined. Diane offered a reason. The isolationist wing of the MAGA movement having its say. Could be.

Dogs, Paganism, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Another riff on tactile spirituality

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Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

Nathan has come with his shovel and tape measure. Digging out the foundation area for the greenhouse and its companion raised beds on either side. It’s been a late Spring for Mountain gardeners, so I may end up planting along with others. He says 5-7 days, weather permitting.

Love. Sex. Gardening. Cooking. Dancing. Hugs. To separate these from the realm of spirituality without a backward glance? Just silly. When Shadow jumps up to be hugged and petted, the universe and I display our intimate bond. The love between us made bodily.

Having a fresh salad of Lettuce, Radishes, Beets, and Onions harvested only moments ago. Transubstantiation. Spirit of Great Sol literally made flesh. Light into food. Need another definition of miracle? Spirituality expresses the felt connection between and among us. With each other. With the One.

The wild ecstasy of dancing in the Rain. Water. Water. Made clean and potable by Sister Cloud and Brother Wind. Dripping off hair and hats, clothes clinging to bodies. Maybe a bonfire nearby for drying off. How else to celebrate the gods at Beltane?

Cutting Tomatoes, peeling Garlic, chopping Onions and Cucumbers, Red Peppers, Yellow Peppers, Green Peppers. Vinegar. Olive Oil. Salt. Stir. Into a tureen. Ladling the gazpacho into bowls. Handing out day old baguettes for dipping. A cold beer or iced tea nearby. Conversation. Smiles. Laughter. Bonds over food.

Is there a heart, a lev (remember: heart-mind), that fails to recognize the prayer in feeding a friend. In embracing a Dog. In caring for the Land.

The Dog. Shadow. The Greenhouse. Artemis. The Home. Shadow Mountain. The Mountains: The Rockies. Our cathedral ceiling a blue sunny Colorado Sky.

Let me give you a clear example. Since mid-April Shadow has been skittish, running when I get up, her ears pinned back in an attitude of uncertainty. Can I trust him? All because I rushed trying to get her on a leash.

Natalie came, replacing Amy. She suggested two things: Feed her her meals by hand. Do this walk, stop, drop a treat behind game. I’ve done both of those things. Twice a day I feed her from my outstretched hand. At least twice a day, five minutes at a time, I walk in the backyard with her trailing. When I stop, she comes around me. I drop a treat behind and turn in a different direction. She chooses to follow me.

In only a few days she’s begun jumping up for a cuddle, staying close. Hey. That’s the bond of Earth and Sea, Moon and Sun, Mother and Child, Dog companion and Dog. Felt. Held. Touched. Tactile. Spiritual.

Keep this truth close to your heart. The universe, the One, knows the leaf of the Aspen, the bark of the Lodgepole, the fur of a Dog, the laugh of a child, the safety of love, the profound connection in holding hands, in making love all as One.

Chi winds us together, threading one neshama into the neshama of another, apparently different, yet all One. Celebrate. Dance to the music.

Dogs, Fourth Phase, Garden, Great Wheel, Greenhouse, Health, Paganism, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Reimaging revelation, Writing

Shou Sugi Ban Treated Wood for Artemis Greenhouse

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Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II (3% crescent)

Sunday gratefuls: Shadow jumping onto my legs this morning for a hug. So sweet. Fun with old socks. Our new, changing relationship. Back pain. Zerizut for p.t. and resistance work. Tara. Alan. Rich. Luke. Mussar. Shabbat. Morning prayers. Enveloped by Rain and Fog. Mom and Dad, both veterans. My son, a future veteran. All those who defend us with their lives.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rain

Week Kavannah: Zerizut. Enthusiasm. for p.t. and resistance.

One brief shining: As Great Sol began to disappear behind Black Mountain yesterday, a rainy Fog rolled in and gave my backyard a ghostly appearance, Lodgepoles coming in and out of sight, Shadow rushing inside all wet from running through a Cloud.

 

On Ancientrails: You may notice some extra posts here and there. I’ll signal them with something in the future, probably an image. You will find my regular as usual posts with the format of long standing.

These new posts are me trying to write out, work out my sense of where I am in my thought process about certain matters like spirituality, theology, politics. I’ve had this urge to write down things I’ve thought about for a long time. They’re incomplete sentences, non-systematic because I’ve admitted to myself that I’m not a system builder or even an always logical thinker. There is this strain of mysticism, a poetry of the inner world that means more to me than a syllogism. Though I love syllogisms, too.

You will know these entries by their lack of gratefuls, sparks, kavannah, one brief shining. Please feel free to ignore them. They’re me scratching my name in the wet Sand. I want a record of those ideas before the King Tide rolls in.

 

Dog journal: Shadow bounded into my arms this morning before I got out of bed, her paws on my outstretched legs. As if overnight, she’d forgotten to be shy, to be scared. I hugged her and she wriggled happy, licking my face. Yes, I said to her, this is what I want. What I need. An oh so special moment.

 

Back pain/cancer: Tara will take me to my open-sided MRI. I’ll have taken an Ativan for my claustrophobia so I’ll be talkative with little executive function for a filter. Glad I trust her.

Here’s an oddity with this MRI. Both my oncologist and my pain doc want images of my hips. Both have sent orders. I hope that doesn’t screw things up.

Oncologist checking for metastatic growth in my hips. Pain doc getting information for a possible insertion of a SPRINT device later. Two diagnoses for the price of one! BOGO.

 

Just a moment: We will move into the Artemis Greenhouse Moon tomorrow. Nathan comes tomorrow to begin building. He thinks it will take about a week. I’m excited. I want/need to grow things again.

It will be done in shou sogi ban treated wood. This is an ancient Japanese wood treatment that involves charring the surface of a board, then sealing it. Nathan has taught himself how to do this.

Since I’m starting a little late in the gardening year, I’ll have to be careful with what I plant, but I’ll get crops this year. Plus there will be flowers.

 

 

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Hawai'i, Health, Judaism, Mountains, Paganism

Another Place I Could Be Happy

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Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

Friday gratefuls: New, piercing pain. Left hip and leg. Shadow. Natalie. Alan and Joanne. Dandelion. Donyce. Rich. Ruth’s 529. Now available. Lifealert. New fob. Diane. Jogging again. Living with aging bodies and alert minds. Halle. New physical therapist. Mary, coming today. My son. Seoah. Murdoch.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth and her first international trip

Week Kavannah: Enthusiasm. Zerizut.

One brief shining: A busy, physical week of doctors, long drives, filling out forms for the cancer support trial, Amy, two zoom classes, that would have been a decade ago a light week, the difference pain can make.

 

All I can say is, damn it! Now the left hip, so painful. Wasn’t sure I could get down five stairs holding onto the rail and a cup of coffee. That’s beginning to get in the way of daily life.

Sorry. Don’t mean to leave a trail of agony on these pages, yet honest reporting requires acknowledgment of what’s going on. After seeing Buphati, I’m left wondering if both hips might have metastatic cancer. Sure hope not.

We’ll know soon. Next P.E.T. scan June 3rd. Not yet scheduled for my open-sided MRI. But in the next week or two.

This cancer/pain path I’m on demands a lot. Got accepted into a Sloan-Kettering trial to determine the better of two therapeutic protocols for cancer patients over the age of 70. Filled out pages and pages of a survey about anxiety and depression, other mental health matters. I’ll have eight phone therapy sessions with somebody. Then, booster sessions after that for four months.

There are nuances to managing my mental health and my spiritual health (which I see as more important than either physical or mental health). I look forward to discussing them with someone paid to listen to me.

Why is spiritual health most important? Because it contains the broader context in which both mental and physical health reside. Being one with the Tao, allowing the wu wei of physical illness and pain to run their course without stiff-arming them. Experiencing the occasional fear and dread as part of my inner work, work strengthened by mussar, by being part of two sacred communities. Taking the solace of Shadow Mountain, its Lodgepoles and Mule Deer and Aspen and late season Snow as it offers itself to me. Seeing the whole sacred world as my home.

With those as context neither pain nor death can have permanent control of my psyche. Because pain and death are momentary, passing, but my location in the sacred unity of all things will remain.

 

Just a moment: I find myself watching TV shows set on Islands. Death in Paradise. Hawai’i 50. Deadly Tropics. Moana and Moana 2, movies. I know, low brow in the extreme. Yet I love the combination of lightly considered mystery and the sights and sounds of Islands.

Something about Island life calls to me. Not over against Mountain life which I also love, but as another place I could be happy. Why Hawai’i itself reached out to me not so long ago.

Great Wheel, Mountains, Paganism, Plants, Weather +Climate, Wild Neighbors

It’s the Merry, Merry Month of May

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Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

Thursday gratefuls: Mary coming to visit. Beltane. Snow. 32 degrees. Gnawer of Bones. Slow to trust. Shadow. Roxann who knows. Tom. Tramadol and two acetaminophens. Helps. Fantastic Four. Adam and Eve. Mordecai Kaplan. Abraham Joshua Heschel. Learning. Staying mentally sharp.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Amy

Week Kavannah: Persistence and grit. Netzach.

One brief shining: We float sometimes above our life, hovering over it like some household God, hoping to change directions or circumstances with a twist of the divine hand, a twirl of the sacred finger but we know all along that only our body bound to the earth can achieve miracles.

 

Beltane. When those crazy Scots and those blue-eyed Swedes take off their clothes and dance naked around a bonfire. Enacting the magic of sympathy for Mother Earth as she takes in seeds, embraces them in her fertile womb, and kisses them into growth. Why not? She provides for us. Sustains us. Gives us water to drink and gravity to keep us grounded.

I’ve not written many Great Wheel posts in the last few years. Like Taoism and now Judaism though, the pagan in me never sleeps. I stay alive to these seasonal changes, to their meaning for our daily lives. Even if we get Snow and freezing temperatures here on Shadow Mountain. I know the Lodgepole catkins, the Aspen leaflets, fawns, calves, kits, bunnies will emerge, small flags of life’s own Great Wheel waving the colors of renewal.

Beltane honors the marriage of the Lord and the Lady. A maiden no more the Earth takes a lover who warms and quickens her. On Beltane ancient Celts would make love in the fields. Leap over small fires. Drive their cattle between bonfires. All to advance fertility.

Love realizes its biological imperative. Souls join as bodies dance together in the rites of Spring. Are we ever more than then? When our hearts fill with passion and our senses brighten to the other. The one who shares our oneness. As the One shares with us all. What an orgasm. Can you imagine how it feels to be Mother Earth in the Spring?

We cannot stay sad about death. Not when green shoots up from black Soil. As the Spring Ephemerals throw up their colorful flowers. As the Cherry and Plum offer their delicate blooms only to shed them in Snow like Storms so Fruit can grow. As the Honeybees leave their Winter Hives seeking Nectar and spreading Pollen, these matchmakers of the Sky. When Cutthroat and Rainbow Trout push out their Roe for the milky Semen’s discovery in cold Mountain Streams.

Death does not mark a finish, rather a continuation howsomever it might be. And Beltane marks Nature’s covenant that this is so.

We know not how it is. We mortal creatures. Beltane celebrates mortality with its promise of living abundantly. If only we care for ourselves and the land.

Get outside and visit the marks of this glorious, this wondrous, this most yes of seasons. You deserve the lift.

Asia, Judaism, Myth and Story, Paganism, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Reimaging revelation, Science, Torah, Wild Neighbors, Writing

A New Credo

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      Hercules wrestling Thanatos

Driving to Lone Tree this morning. Spine injections. Struck by the notion of Israel Harari. The Mountain man who struggles with God. Of Jacob/Israel as an archetype. The trickster transformed into wounded man of faith. Peniel-where I saw God face to face.

I’ve focused on Israel, on the struggle, but not considered or not fully considered the after moment, when Israel, newly named, limps away having seen God. Who names this ford on the Jabbok river after his realization.

So I decided to do that. I’ve struggled with God since I was young. Too small. Too violent. Too obscure and ineffable. Dead. I don’t experience God. What good can God be? And this stupid, stupid idea of a seventy year life as a test for residing in Heaven or Hell for eternity? No.

Then, the last 30 years or so, pass. Focused on the Soil, the Seed, the growing miracle of Plants, Dogs, grandchildren, love. No need for God. I feel the sacred when I amend the Earth. Pluck Onions and Carrots from their hidden places and spray them off with a hose nozzle. Food. The true transubstantiation.

What if I felt my way into the Goddess? Her Earth. Me as part, yet not part. Unique, but not unique. A Wave above her Ocean, ready at all times to return. What if I admitted to myself that my  feeling of separateness is the original sin. The hubris of independence. Of individuality.

What if. The yetzer hara, the selfish inclination, speaks to us of separateness. Of our needs. Of our unique demands. While the yetzer hatov speaks to our interdependence, our awareness of the needs of others, of the World around us.

Could I find the sense of support, of sustenance, of forgiveness, of grace, of embeddedness in the whole, the One? Could I pray? I drove on, watching the Trees, the Hogback, remnants of the orogeny that preceded the rise of the Rocky Mountains. Striated. Weathered. Shrunken. But still there, millions upon millions of years after its emergence.

Was I really, truly part of it? Was all the artifice of highways and cars part of it? The houses and stores. Doctor Vu, the kind and careful man who inserted needles into the narrow spaces of my bulging spine. And all his tech? The rotating bed. The living x-ray. Michal, his variously adorned assistant. Even the steroids shot toward my nerves? All of it?

What difference might it make if I leaned into this most pushed away notion. Or, is it the embrace I’ve already made of the chi, of wu wei, of the mystical revealing the ordinary as the sacred? Do those feelings find me already in her arms?

You know, it does. I’m a man of this short moment, a Wave cresting on the Ocean of the whole, going only from emergence to absorption, not needing to understand how. Yet as that man I’m also in and of the Ocean, of the Goddess, her instrument in this troubled part of her cosmos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Asia, Fourth Phase, Holidays, Judaism, Paganism, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., US History

Tao De Jew

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Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Shabbat. Torah. CBE. Sacred community. Where everybody knows your name. Shadow and the canoe cut marrow bone. Cold Night. A Mountain Dawn. Great Sol shines again. Being able to buy seeds and plants again. Easter. Matthew. Mark. Luke. John.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Gabe at 17

Week Kavannah: Sensibility. Daat.

One brief shining: In their waning years Taoists left behind their jobs in the court bureaucracy for small dwellings in the Mountains where they practiced calligraphy, played the Qin, wrote poetry, studied the sages, and lived close to the natural world.

 

Tao De Jew. With a dash of Alinsky and street focused organizer. The Reverend Doctor Israel Harari. That would be me. With a domestic side of Gardener, Beekeeper, and Docent.

Try to work with the flow of chi, the energetic and transformative aspect of our oneness and our sense of uniqueness. Look for the path that emerges, that asks and invites. Follow it. This ancientrail, then that one. With the ease of Water running toward the Ocean.

Find the moment when chi has found you. Act with its already organized aim. If Shadow gnaws the bed at 5:20, get up and let her out. Saves cleaning up. Makes her happy. Gives the day an hour head start.

Reconstructionist Judaism, Paganism, Taoism.  Sacred Community, Mother Earth, and a follower of the Way. When the Mule Deer comes. When the bull Elk bugles. When Fawns and Calves play. As the Mountain Lion strikes. As the Bear paws a Bee hive. Yes. When tender shoots break through the soil. When friends gather over breakfast. When Torah study opens new human insights. When the Breeze through the Lodgepoles whispers follow me. Yes.

 

Have you been following the Adventures of Trump Tarrific? I know I have. Sort of. There was the all tariffs all the time moment. Then there was the oh wait not on tech stuff moment. Now there’s, what is it again? 10% on everybody and a whole lot on China. Yeah, I don’t get it either. Lucky I’m not alone. Business leaders. Economists. Inflation wary members of the Fed. For a start.

Then there’s Trump the Depo Man. Proving his masculinity by using the military, ICE, and millions of dollars to sweep people off college campuses, out of their janitorial and dishwashing jobs, making a mistake or two along the way, but hey that’s ok, omelets and eggs, eh, and not getting many folks deported except the most vulnerable.

That what it says in the Gospels: find the poor, the stranger, put them on a plane and send them to prison in El Salvador. Oh, Jesus. Oh.

 

Just a moment: Yes. It’s Easter. Easter eggs. Chocolate and marshmallow Bunnies. Ham. Cute dresses and boys in ties. All the holiday essentials. Wonder how that whole egg business has worked this year, the year of Bird flu?

Remember Ukrainian Easter Eggs. Wonder if anybody’s on that this year? Or will Putin target little old ladies with eggs and candle wax.

 

 

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Garden, Great Wheel, Health, Judaism, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Paganism, Plants, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, The West, US History, Weather +Climate, Writing

Living. Not dying.

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Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Shadow. Her kindness. Amy. Her understanding. Cookunity. Colorado Coop and Garden. The Greenhouse. Gardening again. Korea. Malaysia. Australasia. Wisconsin. Saudi Arabia. The Bay. First Light. 10,000 Lakes. The Rocky Mountain Front Range. Where my people live.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Greenhouse

Week Kavannah: Joy. Simcha.

One brief shining: Nathan and I wandered in my back yard, his app that shows Great Sol’s illumination searching for a good spot to plant my greenhouse, until we neared a spot close to the shed, that was it with decent morning Sun and an hours worth of afternoon Sun more than anywhere else.

 

 

That picture is not quite what I’m getting. Mine will have an outdoor raised bed on either side and shutters that move themselves as the greenhouse heats up and cools down. It will also have an electric heater for Winter and a drip irrigation system inside and out.

This guy Nathan, a Conifer native, started his business Colorado Coop and Garden to give folks like me an opportunity to grow things up here. Working a garden at ground level is long past for me. But Nathan can build the raised beds at a height where my back is not an issue.

Guess I’m regressing here in some ways. A Dog. A small Garden. Andover in miniature. The greenhouse will have a sign: Artemis Gardens. Artemis Honey was Kate and mine’s name for our bee operation.

 

I’m loving my classes at Kabbalah Experience. Reaching deep into the purpose of religion and Judaism in particular. Reimagining the story of Adam and Eve. My life, my Jewish life and my Shadow Mountain life, have begun to resonate. Learning and living an adventure in fourth phase purpose.

No matter what the near term future holds for my health I will not succumb to despair or bleakness. As I’ve often said, I want to live until I die. This life, I’m coming to realize, is me doing just that.

If I were a bit more spry, I’d add a chicken coop and a couple of bee hives, but both require more flexibility than I can muster.

I’m at my best when I’m active outside with Mother Earth and inside with a Dog, books, and new learning. All that leavened with the sort of intimate relationships I’ve developed both here and in Minnesota and with my far flung family.

That’s living in the face of autocracy and cruelty. I will not attenuate my life. Neither for the dark winds blowing through our country and world, nor for that dark friend of us all, death.

 

Just a moment: Did you read Thomas Friedman’s article: I’ve Never Been More Afraid for My Countries Future? His words, served up with a healthy dish of Scandinavian influenced St. Louis Park Judaism, ring more than true to me. They have the voice of prophecy.

We are in trouble. No doubt. Trouble from which extrication will require decades, I imagine. If not longer. Yet. I plan to grow heirloom vegetables year round on Shadow Mountain. To have mah Dog Shadow with me in the Greenhouse.

I also plan to write and think about the sacred, the one, the wholeness of which we are part and in which we live, die, love. I will not cheapen my life with bitterness, rather I will eat salads, read, play with Shadow and dine with friends, talk to my friends and family near and far.

Asia, Fourth Phase, Great Wheel, Holidays, Kabbalah, Paganism, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Reimaging revelation

Merrily we roll along, roll along, roll along

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Yule and the Quarter Century Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: This too is for the good. 2024 and 2025. And this December 31st 2024 life. 8 degrees this morning. Good sleeping. Von Bek. The War Hound and the World’s Pain. The Psalms. Bob Dylan. The Band. Ain’t No Grave. The Blues. Jazz. Jefferson Airplane. The Doors. Led Zeppelin. Ginger Baker. John Coltrane. Thelonious Monk. Slipping quietly into the next year.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Tara

Kavannah: Persistence and Joy

prompt: A vintage father time with sickle and an infant new year

One brief shining: How to encapsulate a year in one sentence, a challenge, perhaps remembering a Bar Mitzvah with friends and family present, a changed arc for cancer, a couple of months of low feeling, many breakfasts and lunches and zoom calls, visiting Ruth in Boulder, Gabe solving puzzles, many visits from my Mule Deer friends, the Mountains remaining-steady, solid, reliable-Great Sol and Good Night, Orion’s return, all while turning 77. Whee!

 

As the Zen calendar from Tom says:

This year,

yes, even this year,

has drawn to its close.   Buson

 

Here is the illustration inspired by Japan’s Kano school, visually interpreting your evocative paragraph.

Though age and wrinkles compared to that slender hipped 28 year old in his silly multi-colored suspenders and shorts would suggest definite linear time, no, I say no to that. I say live by the Great Wheel. By the telling and retelling of the story in the five books of Moses. By Sukkot and Mabon, Samain and Shavuot, the Winter Solstice and Passover. All repeating in a yearly cycle, spiraling through the heavens of time’s confusing paradoxes. Always ready to leave behind the hell of human insistence on seeing the profane where only the sacred-ONLY THE SACRED-exists.

I confess I don’t understand how time can seem so linear yet reside all the while in an ever repeating, glorious parade of seasons and holidays, all of which may in some future Samain-see the problem, all of which may in some future Samain, be harvested for a final time as our universe slips into its own Winter Solstice. Only, if I have an understanding of it, to experience its own rebirth as a cosmic Great Sol, a Phoenix, rising again, still?, from the depths of a cold forever.

All this to say happy new year! Let’s hear it for the calendar, for aging, for yesterday and tomorrow, all the while knowing we can never live anywhere but today. And not even today, but in this ichi-go ichi-e moment. Which will never repeat yet is eternal, never gone from the roiling, boiling mix of creation in which we live and move and have our becoming.

God. I sound like a bad fortune cookie. Nevertheless. Yes. To all this. To however we are, whomever we are, whenever we are. Bouncing along jostling each other, holding each others hands, walking each other home, living with the thereafter, somehow, even if it’s only in molecular hand me downs.

You out there. To a less abstruse post next year. Tomorrow.