Category Archives: White Supremacy

Far Right, Fourth Phase, Holidays, New Apostolic Reformation, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., US History, White Supremacy

Values and Norms

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Yule and the Moon of Deep Friendship

Friday gratefuls: Shiva Minyan for Dick. Visiting times today. Ellen. Jamie. Russ. Asher. Isaac. Tol. Jonah. Mikaela. CBE. Shadow of the morning. Kate, always Kate. Gabe, looking at college. Minnesota melts ICE. Courage. Bravery. Resistance. Living from your nefesh. Refreshing the soul. Tom. Roxann.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Cold

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: Daat.    The Bridge Between Mind and Heart

“If Chokhmah (Wisdom/Inspiration) is a seed and Binah (Understanding/Analysis)  is the soil that develops that seed into a plant, Da’at is the nervous system that carries the vital life force from the brain to the rest of the body. It is the point of transition from “thinking” to “being.””

Tarot: Three of Bows, fulfillment

Meaning: Nourishment from a spiritual source gives inner security and joy. Goals and desires are reached, making life rich with emotional scrutiny and a sense of completion.

One brief shining: Cold Air descends to Shadow Mountain, a Snow Storm comes behind it, offering another reprieve from dangerous Wild Fire conditions; life here at Shadow Mountain home greets the cold and awaits the Snow with joy, displaying, as Mary Oliver put it, stars on our shoulders.

 

Funerals/Memorial Services: Had an insight about these rituals of remembrance. Yes. Helping family and friends grieve. Yes. Public acknowledgment of a loss and the beginning of a readjustment in the community. Who will we be without Dick. Important work, for sure. And well known.

Another, perhaps more subtle effect. The reinforcement of community norms, what we consider virtues. So, when Marilyn said Dick personified the mussar traits of humility, compassion, gratitude, and generosity, we learned to measure ourselves.

When Jamie said his father hated funerals, it gave us permission to hate them, too. When Russ talked about reading The Prophet with his father, reading and spending time with our parents while they’re alive got underlined.

This is not insignificant. I went to bed last night wondering how I showed up for others. Was I humble? Aware I did not show up for my dad. These tensions between our perceptions of ourselves and the virtues our community values become a growing edge for each of us. No. Not to wallow in regret or to compare ourselves against the life of another, rather to weigh ourselves against our own aspirations, our own behaviors.

Weddings. Swearing in of public officials. Baptisms and bris. Observing holidays. Protests. All have norm setting, norm reinforcing moments. It’s how we learn to be Jewish, American, Christian, Coloradans. Minnesotans. MAGA or progressive.

 

Just a moment: Nearing the end of Furious Minds, the Making of the MAGA New Right. Dense and scholarly, Field’s points to three main intellectual sources for Trumpism and MAGA. First, Claremont College and Institute, where paleoconservatives and downright scary thinkers gather and push each other further and further to the right. Second, postliberalism, especially the work of Notre Dame scholar, Patrick Deneen, in books like Why Liberalism Failed. Third, National Conservatism, in particular the work of Yoram Hazony as in his National Conservatism, Rediscovered.

We can add Field’s work to the Violent Take It By Force in which Matthew Stafford offers a summary of how the New Apostolic Reformation aided the success of MAGA at the polls and influences the Trump Whitehouse.

Over the next few weeks I’m going to, at times, pull the focus off the latest outrage to discuss how we got here. What are the sources, the political and mass movement impulses that have put us in such a dismal damned place.

Dogs, Friends, Judaism, White Supremacy, World History

Time to Leave?

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Yule and the Moon of New Beginnings

Thursday gratefuls: Tramadol. Snowblower away. Eleanor playing with Shadow. Shadow, “What threshold?” Tara and Sinterklaas. Puerto Rico dreaming. Vincent and the politics of youth. Veronica. Francesca. CBE’ers in NYC. Mamdani. Democratic Socialism. Greenland. Cuba. Colombia. Mexico. Can Canada be far behind?

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Arjean’s bread

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: Opened the Dog run door to let Eleanor and Shadow out into the larger backyard, Shadow’s first time out there since her return, each chasing the other, around and around, Shadow leading, Eleanor behind, then some wrestling, going their separate ways for a bit, coming back together,  jumping on the Dog run fence, wanting back in and after being let in, needing to go back out. Kids, eh?

 

Tara and Arjean may move to Puerto Rico. Arjean, a dual Dutch/naturalized U.S. citizen, has had it with being associated, even by residence, with Trump, et al. The nature of his work requires him to stay within the U.S. and Puerto Rico feels as far away culturally from the mainland U.S. as he can get. Tara loves beaches, so…

Makes me wonder how many others have fled or are considering it. I know the conversation has happened among many Jews across the U.S. To be clear Arjean is not Jewish. Friends at CBE have looked at property in Costa Rica. Many others wonder when the tilt toward sanctioned bigotry becomes dangerous enough to force a move.

Jews have had to have these conversations often throughout the centuries. In Russia. In Spain. In Germany. Austria. Hungary. Poland. Even France. A CBE friend’s great-grandfather, a rabbi in Warsaw, had three sons. In the 1930’s he sent one son to South Africa, one to Brazil, one to the U.S. Over time he dispersed his congregants to the places where his sons had gone. Prescient.

This long history of forced removal, whether by governments or fear for personal safety, remains a key, a defining part of the Jewish experience. My older friends here have decided, as have I, that we’re too old to flee, start over. We’ll remain and do our part in resisting.

What about Ruth and Gabe though? Their generation. Their Jewish life has been upended by something else, the Israel/Hamas war. Many of them have taken the side of the Palestinians against at least the IDF and the Israeli government. Some have gone further, declaring themselves anti-Zionists, some even questioning Israel’s right to exist.

Here though is the always paradox. When the anti-Semites come, they don’t care if you’re Orthodox, Reform, or secular. They don’t care you’re anti-Zionist or pro-Palestinian. All they care about is Jewishness. Very like ICE and people who look somehow Mexican. This is the old, old story.

 

Dogs, Far Right, Health, Politics, White Supremacy, Writing

Matters Ascendant

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Yule and the Moon of New Beginnings

Monday gratefuls: Shadow at home. Cooler weather ahead. Wildfire. Mitigation. The birthday boys. Rigel. Vega. Betelgeuse. Antares. Polaris. Andromeda. Milky Way. Crab. Red. Horsehead. Great Sol. Luna. Mercury. Venus. Earth. Mars. Jupiter. Saturn. Uranus. Neptune. Pluto. (I know. Still.) Oort Field. Pioneer.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Notebooklm

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: She still hesitates, sometimes, on occasion I have to go outside and shoo her in, yet I can always get her inside, a marked improvement; on the leash yesterday we walked up stairs, out the door, and into the front yard, where Shadow strolled easily beside me until I decided to get the mail and tightened the leash because of the road. She panicked.

 

Dog journal: With prozac Shadow reacts less to sudden movements, sounds. She doesn’t seem to play as much, but that might be reacclimation, moving from four Dogs and a more frenetic day, Natalie calls it chaos, to the quieter reality of our home. She does seem more subdued, less the bouncy girl. A balance I know. I’ll ask Dr. Josy what she thinks about a smaller dose.

Shadow had begun taking over Natalie’s pack, herding them. I worry the isolation with this old guy might weigh on her, especially with the limited outdoors of the Dog run. Natalie pulled back on her recommendation that I get another Dog when her pack didn’t influence Shadow’s behavior. Pondering.

 

Notebooklm: I had three things, well, really four that began to push themselves forward after I got done with radiation and into a somewhat free time. Fewer, much fewer appointments and procedures.

The first and most urgent was exercise. Diane helped me crack that one by suggesting I focus only on resistance work. At least for a while. I’ve combined her recommendation with an easier on myself self-talk, not carrying guilt if I miss a session. I’ll add cardio back in when it feels right.

The second thing pushing forward, Shadow, had a built in delay since she was at Natalie’s until Saturday. I still had to get the Dog run built and stay checked in on her progress. Now she’s home.

The third matter pushing its way into awareness concerned the question of politics, culture, and my role in this, my fourth phase. After joining the Democratic Socialists of America, it became clear.  I need to continue my learning about the new (far) right, adding in attention to topical news, but considered from a progressive socialist perspective.

I’ve combined Notebooklm and AI to produce a daily, weekly, and monthly research pattern that feeds what will initially be two columns of political commentary a week on my Substack site. I’m still in the setting up and learning phase, but I anticipate getting started writing later this month.

The fourth? Long has it waved. Superior Wolf. Unzipping it, separating out its tech bro immortality storyline from the story of Lycaon, the first werewolf. I want to focus on Lycaon’s story from his time as the King of Arcadia in a time of myth and legend to the present. Again, Notebooklm and AI have helped me get a running start.

I’ve already devoted time to each of these, regular time, so I can follow Picasso’s thought: “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.”

There is, to be fair to the process, a fifth that does not have traction for me right now: the nature’s rights, or earth jurisprudence movement.

Cancer, Far Right, Health, Politics, White Supremacy, Writing

Reading Right

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Samain and the Shadow Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Paul and Christopher. Findlay and Sarah. Kate and Clare. High Winds. Shadow away. Arrival Day yesterday. Joe. Working out again. Cancer. Dr. Bupathi. Kristie. Dr. Carter. Jenna and Alise. Andouille. Kielbasa. Shrimp. Pork. Sheetpan recipes. New York Times. Ground News. Washington Post. LA Times. Vox. ProPublica. Ezra Klein. No despair.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Protein

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:   Netzach   “Endurance and Tenacity: Netzach represents the inner strength and fortitude required to pursue a goal or a passion over a long period, especially when faced with obstacles.”

Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: Oh, these cancer days and cancer nights, long have they stayed, often indolent no worries, ordinary sleep, ordinary waking, once in a while, at least every three months, a bit fraught, will the numbers be good or bad, sometimes, like as of late, ordinary sleep, but some edgy days with moving numbers, m.r.i.s, pet scans, radiation.

 

Health: Got my new PSA numbers over the weekend. A big jump. Uh-oh. Couldn’t ask the question until Monday a.m. Sent a note and Hannah said she’d make sure Dr. Bupathi had seen those results. Thanks, Hannah.

Not long after, again from Hannah, “The team thinks this could be the result of inflammation after radiation. Recheck in six weeks.” That’s also the time frame for my next pet scan. So, ok. Part of the process.

What matters here is whether I have transitioned from hormone treatment sensitive cancer to hormone resistant which requires the next step in protocols, new drugs, stronger ones. If my psa goes down, that is below 0.3, I continue on androgen deprivation therapy-hormone treatment-as I have since 2019.

This has my attention. Not worried yet not placid. Things not definitive. Six weeks of this. I appreciated Hannah understanding my concern, following it down. There are no small roles in this personal life and death drama.

 

Just a moment: A continuing commitment. I will read and comment on the news, especially news originating from non-traditional sources like the conservative Bulwark, the liberal Vox and Propublica, Groundnews, the Atlantic, and the Guardian. For my own original reporting I will continue to take you inside texts like Yasem Hazony’s Conservativism Redefined and the Violent Take It By Force, Matthew Taylor on the New Apostolic Reformation.

This week I’ve purchased two that will occupy much of my time for a while. Abundance by Ezra Klein, a progressive political agenda for our time, and Furious Minds by Princeton scholar of the New Right, Laura K. Field, which analyzes the Making of the MAGA New Right.

This is a project I began a while ago when reading Patrick Deneen’s, Why Liberalism Failed, followed by a book on the John Birch Society, another on Christian Nationalism, and yet  another on thinkers who have impacted the New Right.  Renaud Camus, for example, the French political philosopher who developed Replacement Theory. That was 2023. Well before the return of red tie guy.

Replacement theory shows up in the recent Trumpian National Security Strategy as that document’s warning to Europe about “civilizational erasure.” It also shows up among America white nationalists associated with MAGA.

I’m beginning to trust my sense of what drives the new far right, now I want to understand how its rise will effect our future.

Cancer, Dogs, Far Right, Fourth Phase, Health, Politics, US History, White Supremacy, World History

Link Arms Against This Sea of Troubles

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Samain and the Shadow Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Rising PSA. Shadow, seen. Natalie and Dr. Josy. Winter is coming. (next week) Hanukah. Ruth and Gabe. Joe. Seoah. Murdoch. What I want. Death. Other life punctuation points. Hawai’i. Nathan and the Dog run. Venezuela. Latin America. Central America. North America. The Gulf of Mexico.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Joe

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:   Netzach   “Endurance and Tenacity: Netzach represents the inner strength and fortitude required to pursue a goal or a passion over a long period, especially when faced with obstacles.”

Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: Shadow cast her presence toward me, casually, too absorbed in other nearby dogs and her trazadone pall to greet her Dad when others of her kind, so many of them, were nearby, crossing behind Natalie’s FJ Cruiser with its DOGS4LIFE license plate, in the Flying J parking lot human companions holding leashes, some pulling toward Shadow to say hi, I’m here, too.

 

Dog journal: First I’d seen Shadow since a week ago Friday. She greeted me, but with little enthusiasm. A little bit of my heart broke. My hope for an enthusiastic smile, a jump, kisses set aside. I noticed, in a bit, that she moved a little slowly, that spark in her personality tamped down.

I’d forgotten the trazadone/gabapentin she was on while the prozac reaches therapeutic levels. Didn’t like it, but I understood the rationale. Reduce her reactivity and help her learn new behaviors. Like letting a leash on. Like easily crossing thresholds. Temporary. Similar to chemical constraints for humans in an agitated state. Shadow exists in an agitated state most of the time.

Natalie said Shadow acted the same at her place as she does at mine, vis a vis thresholds. Made me feel good. Not me. Some psychic gremlin gripping Ms. Shadow when faced with crossing from the outside to the inside.

Natalie, an empathetic and kind person, said she’d come pick up Shadow if I had appointments, keep her for the day and return her. How blessed am I. So many loving folks in my orbit.

We parted after about twenty minutes, Shadow with Natalie.

Good-bye.

 

Health: Yes. My labs showed my PSA jumped, in spite of the radiation, from 0.3 to 2.7. At first I saw the 2.7 and thought, yes! Only later wondering, opening the lab report again. Oh. Not 0.27.

Probably means new drugs. New side effects. Still many options between me and ordinary chemotherapy. Erleada is technically chemotherapy, says so on the pill container, but its side effects have been slight.

There again, blessed. A cancer with many treatments, slow progression. And, for me so far, no symptoms. Happy Holiseason to me!

 

Just a moment: Make Western civilization white again. A sad dream, a dream of the desperate, of the frightened and deluded.

Even the Asian civilizations with which I have some familiarity exhibit strong evidence of liberal ideals. Look at the young women of Korea on a virtual Lysistratan sex strike, wanting their autonomy. Or, young women and men in China. Many of the women rejecting traditional Chinese female roles, many men disillusioned by them and the job market, pushing back against their heritage of centralized control. Taiwan, too.

And here’s the paradox, the irony. Those of us strong with the force of liberal/enlightenment/renaissance ideas of no kings, individualism, small d democracy, individual freedoms and rights as human beings are the ones that recognize most the need to link arms against this tide of civilizational troubles and by opposing end them.

Yes, the liberal journey is not toward a fractious libertarianism, but toward a democratic socialism where the commonweal balances as best as possible with liberty and freedom for all. Not an easy project as our imperfect America has shown since its birth, but an inevitable one pushed forward by the creative tension between individuals and the collective. That’s what I see, what I have lived for.

 

Art and Culture, Cinema and Television, Commentary on the news, Dogs, Far Right, New Apostolic Reformation, Politics, White Supremacy

Our Ruby Slippers

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Samain and the Shadow Moon (radiation complete)

Shabbat gratefuls: The peace of Shabbat. Seeing Shadow at noon today. Dr. Bupathi. Ending radiation. Fatigue. MVP. Those who care. Knowing what I want. Lame duck red tie guy. MAGA cracking. Intellectuals. The thought is the father of the act, often quoted by Curt Ellis. The act leads to a changed lev (heart-mind), mussar. Rabbi Rami Shapiro.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Seeing Shadow at Flying J

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:   Netzach   “Endurance and Tenacity: Netzach represents the inner strength and fortitude required to pursue a goal or a passion over a long period, especially when faced with obstacles.”

Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: Like a first date, what will she think of me, what will we do, yet not, another punctuation in my ten month relationship with Shadow-my wu wei mistress in boarding school-I’ll see her today for the first time in a week in the main parking lot of Flying J Ranch, down Shadow Mountain Drive. I’m a little nervous, should I take bones? Treats? Toys?

 

Dog journal: Natalie will take Shadow to Flying J; I’ll drive down five minutes to see them. I wonder what she’ll do? Will she greet me like one of those camouflaged returnees from deployment? Tentative at first, then all waggy and kissy. Or, will she leap into my arms? Or, will she shy away, give in to her embedded flee first instinct? No idea.

Will be very interested to get Natalie’s take on Shadow after her first week at school. Along with the prozac and the dog run, this is a full on press to keep Shadow and me together, each with its own purpose. Prozac to tamp down her reactivity from whatever trauma she experienced in Trinidad. The dog run plus heated dog house to assure she can stay outside even if the training and prozac aren’t enough. With the dog house she can survive cold nights and I can sleep.

A long journey, far from over, I hope. Netzach

 

Just a moment:  The paragraph below from Thomas Friedman’s Dec. 11 column* sets out an interesting hypothesis. Trumpism does not care about foreign or domestic policy in the usual sense. Rather he and his intense cult feel as if a civilizational rug has been or is rapidly being pulled out from beneath them, leaving them in a world they no longer recognize, that may have no room for them. No room of their own to invoke Virginia Woolf. No home. I’m empathetic with the psychic disjunction this must create. Like how I’ve felt during Trump the Ascendant.

I have a new understanding of Trump’s project and that of his followers.  Even more the project of his followers than himself. Consider these: J.D. Vance, The Heritage Foundation, The New Apostolic Reformation, the Christian Nationalists lead ironically by orthodox Jew, Yasem Hazony, and the displaced white working class. The project summed up? Make Western Civilization white again.

In his National Security Strategy Trump declares our old allies in Europe and NATO as seeding their own destruction through allowing uncontrolled immigration. They face, as this document puts it, civilizational erasure. Read, control by non-whites from Turkey and Africa. That’s their fate, he says, unless they stop suppressing the speech and political action of their far-right citizens. Dog whistle for right-wing white nationalists.

When understood this way, the global movement toward authoritarianism, toward right wing populism, toward homogenous national identities, wants to stiff arm the advance of Renaissance and Enlightenment and liberal (small l) ideas, and return the globe to pre-European colonial times.

They will not succeed. Perhaps in the short term, perhaps in certain places, but even the most revanchist of MAGA, of Orban’s Hungary, of Putin’s Russia, already think of themselves as individuals, individuals who have choice and agency in how they live their lives. That’s what powers their actions inside these wanna be totalitarian states. The very essence of liberal political thought.

We will find our way out of this Oz created by weak and insecure wizards. All we need to do is clack together our ruby slippers. Our red shoes.

*”Humans have an enduring, structural need for home, not only as a physical shelter, but as a psychological anchor and moral compass, too. That is why Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz” (my favorite movie) got it exactly right: “There’s no place like home.” And when people lose that sense of home — whether by war, rapid economic change, cultural change, demographic change, climate change or technological change — they tend to lose their center of gravity. They may feel as though they are being hurtled around in a tornado, grabbing desperately for anything stable enough to hold onto — and that can include any leader who seems strong enough to reattach them to that place called home, however fraudulent that leader is or unrealistic the prospect.” Trump isn’t interested in fighting a new cold war; he wants a new civilizational war. NYT, Dec. 11, 2025. Thomas Friedman 

Family, Far Right, Politics, White Supremacy

Gabe

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Mabon and the Harvest Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Gabe. His “Twenty-Five Years of Ink”. The Crawling Crab. RTD. Back Pain. Hip Pain. Tramadol. Acetaminophen. Nerve ablation. Rides. Tara. Jamie. Kate, always Kate. Frost tonight. Rain. Israel. Palestinians. Ross Douthat. Ezra Klein. Hard Fork. The New York Times. The Washington Post.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Grandkids

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah:  Simcha.  Joy.     Aspen Gold against Lodgepole Green.

Tarot: Paused

One brief shining: Lunch came in plastic bags, one to Gabe filled with Snow Crab in a hot sauce, one to me with peeled Shrimp and, for some reason, Mussels, boiled Corn on the Cob, two servings of Garlic toast, which we upended onto the white waxed paper our waiter had put down. Yum. The Crawling Crab.

 

Gabe: Gabe took the RTD to the Lakewood-Wadsworth stop where I waited inside the parking structure, using my handicap  placard for the very first time. When he came down the stairs, I flashed my lights. In his hand he carried stapled pages which contain his expanded version of a short story he wrote earlier this year.

We had lunch plans at the Crawling Crab. See above. He has, he said, sent off four college applications, and would finish a fifth yesterday. These were all instate including CSU Boulder. Out of state come next. University of Iowa and its well known creative writing program is his first choice. Hamline University in St. Paul his second.

A high school senior Gabe has English, Civics (borrring), Ceramics, Stagecraft, and something else I’m not remembering. He has found many classes boring over his high school years, although he loves Religious Studies, which is his second idea for a major after creative writing.

“Then I might have a crisis like Ruthie, and change my major anyway.” You just never know.

Always good to see the grandkids.

Big wreck had traffic on 285 moving forward soo slowly, both lanes filled as far as I could see ahead. Not much fun when the hip has taken over for the left leg as a primary purveyor of pain. I wanted to get home.

 

Just a Moment: Saw a Swastika on Nextdoor Shadow Mountain. A big one. Placed on a hill visible to traffic on I-70. Read the comments, all of them. With the exception of a couple of “free speech” advocates-who don’t understand that hate speech is not protected-I felt gratified to see condemnation.

An extra charge of emotion seeing this. More than an abstract repulsion, something more personal. Over breakfast on Friday with Alan and Joanne the holocaust came up, as it often will when talking to children of survivors. This generation of Jews, my generation, often have parents or grandparents who fled Europe or were in the camps at the end of the war.

On occasion we have the conversation, often stimulated by events like the big swastika. Is it time to go? Where would we go? Costa Rica. Canada. Latin America. Because those who lived through late 1930’s Germany feel the same bad moon rising.

Most of my friends say they’re too old to move. Me, too.

 

 

 

Far Right, Health, Politics, White Supremacy

Rise of the Zombie Mean Guys

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Lughnasa and the Cheshbon Nefesh Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Tom. Here. (I think.) Ruth and her chemistry test. Gabe and Gabe knowledge. Maddie. Palliative care. Shadow and her toys. Aggressive chewers. Artemis and her children, headed for a coming frost. The attempt to ignore the first amendment. A world changing so, so fast. Labrum tears and steroid injections. Back pain relief coming in October. Golden Leaves among the green. A Mountain Fall.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shadow’s head on my pillow

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Derech Eretz. The way of the land.    “A natural, moral order that exists independent of formal Torah law. This is reflected in the saying, “Derech Eretz preceded the Torah,” and speaks to the innate decency that human beings should possess.”

Tarot: #4, The Lord, reversed. (Druid Craft)

Abuse of authority
This card can signal that someone is abusing their power, whether that’s you or another person. The positive, protective authority of the upright Lord has become a negative, domineering, or overly critical force. This person may be a tyrant rather than a strong leader.
 
 

One brief shining: The reversed Lord read the newspaper this morning, the suppression of free speech by censoring Jimmy Kimmel, the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s show, the promises to “take down” liberal organizations like the Ford Foundation and the George Soros Open Societies Foundation; he’s signaling the Rubicon of tyranny crossed with deliberate, feral intent. 

Health: Maddie, my palliative care nurse, drove up from Westminster yesterday. I like that at least every other visit with her is in person in my home. Like Dr. Josy, the in home vet. Ha.
 
She’s a sweet person. A Hoosier from da region, that cluster of hard blue collar cities and steel mills tucked up in the extreme northwest corner of the state. When I recounted sister Mary’s line: “Living in Indiana is like living in the Deep South without the benefit of a warmer climate,” she laughed and said, “Oh, that’s so true!”
 

Maddie believes I’ll get good relief from my nerve ablations and the Butrans patch. May it be so.

 

Just a moment: A chill. No, a near absolute zero blast went down my spine when I read about Jimmy Kimmel pulled off the air indefinitely. Talk about unamerican. Roger Cohen and Joseph McCarthy and Father Coughlin have risen from their graves. Ain’t no grave that can keep their vile opinions down.

 

Rise of the Zombie mean guys. Only this time, this second coming of nativist, white supremacist vitriol has the power of a “unitary” President, a self-castrated Congress, and a toadying  Supreme Court. How will we ever climb out of this well of despond?

 

A serious question. First, by not forgetting who we are and who we can still be. Seed-keepers who hold the promise of a welcoming, caring nation. Second, by taking those actions that we can to stand up, right now. To make as clear as possible that this is our country, too. That we will not capitulate, will not bow down in anticipatory obeisance.
Far Right, Politics, Sport, White Supremacy

After the last immigrant has left the country

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Lughnasa and the Cheshbon Nefesh Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Tom. Rascal. Paul. Findlay. Morning darkness. Cold morning. 36. Hail protection on Artemis. Shadow and her new puzzle. Her morning kisses. Maddie, coming today. Carol yesterday. The Sloan-Kettering trial. The killed comforter. Lashon hara. Words matter. Nerve ablation next month. P.E.T. scan. The never ending thrills.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Maddie

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Derech Eretz. The way of the land, the essential human decency that came before Torah.

Tarot: Five of cups, reversed. (Druid Craft)

  • Finding opportunity in setbacks: You are starting to see the value in what you have learned from a painful experience.
  • Open to help: You may now be more willing to accept help from others.

One brief shining: Learning the lesson of accepting help, hard for this head-down, push forward in spite of guy, leaning on the kindness of friends for rides to procedures, appointments does not come without cost and does not come without reward, a cost in changed self-image, the reward understanding it needed to change.

 

Sport: Ohani. A baseball player for the ages. Our Babe Ruth. This Japanese pitcher, yes, that’s right pitcher, just hit 50 home runs in consecutive seasons. He hit number 50 last night against the Philadelphia Phillies. Whadda guy.

Though I’ve never taken to baseball the way my nerdy, statistics oriented son did, I’ll admit in this year, this particular year, a sport in which violence does not feature, in which all team members contribute, one where fans sing songs during the seventh inning stretch, and a sport, like basketball, home grown and oh so American appeals to my need for something of this country that makes me smile.

Just a moment: The Wrath of the already Wrathful. I fear we’ve entered a new, even darker phase of this already far too long presidency. Retribution. Vengeance. Punishment. We may as well have a dominatrix as our leader, one who sees the rest of us as masochists who delight in pain, grin at affliction.

As my friend Paul observed, protesting may carry a new risk. A president and Justice Department and an FBI without a moral compass. No longer constrained by such delicacies as the Bill of Rights, such niceties as habeas corpus. No longer held in check by the courts. Buttressed at times by the National Guard and the U.S. military.

Concentration camps: “Based on internal agency documents, overall detention capacity is projected to increase significantly. One document from July 2025 reported plans to add 10,312 beds through no-bid contracts alone. This was part of an effort to increase overall capacity to at least 100,000 beds” Gemini on beds for immigrant detainees to be added by building new facilities, opening shuttered prisons, and adding capacity like the tents for up 5,000 at Ft. Bliss (get the irony here?)

Here’s my question. Once the last immigrant has been detained and the last flight for South Sudan or Venezuela or Ghana has left the ground who will fill up those freshly empty beds?

Given the state of play after Charlie Kirk’s assassination? Any who deviate. From the good, the true, and the proper. As defined by angry, bitter people who see mercy and justice as weakness. Lordy, lordy.

Family, Far Right, Jefferson County, Memories, Mussar, Politics, US History, White Supremacy

A Culture Dying of Lead Poisoning

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Lughnasa and the Cheshbon Nefesh Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Teshuva. Accounting of the soul. Shadow on my pillow. Sleeping. 9/11. My son’s decision on account of it. Seoah. Murdoch. Jangs. Singapore. Time with Mary there and in Hawai’i. The anguish of our Middle East actions. Of Israel’s. The Evergreen Shooting. Columbine. Guns. Gun control. Our poor benighted nation. Charlie Kirk.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Tara’s hot tub garden bed

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Ometz Lev. Strength of the heart. A middah I wish for all parents and school children in Evergreen this day.

Tarot: Ten of Cups, (Druid Craft)

  • Domestic Harmony: Suggests a stable, secure, and happy home environment. This card often points to a desire for or achievement of an idyllic country life.
  • Gratitude and Blessings: A call to recognize and appreciate the blessings you have. The cups are a reminder of the rewards that come from love and connection. 

One brief shining: This Shadow Mountain home with its three levels, the guest level and the home office, the main level with Arts and Crafts furniture and lights, the fireplace, the breakfast nook built by Jon, a remodeled kitchen, a pantry, an exercise room, the downstairs level with its oriental rugs, comfy chairs, television, bedroom, and laundry room, Shadow’s food and toys, the fenced in backyard filled with Lodgepoles, Grasses, Groundcovers, Wild Flowers, and now Artemis, a place of memories with Kate, with Vega, Rigel, Gertie, Kepler, with guests over the years, its solar panels, its four car garage and library above, a front with no lawn, more Lodgepoles and Aspens, Kate’s Iris bed and her Lilacs in back has been my refuge, my hermitage, my home of eleven years come this Winter Solstice. Yes to the Ten of Cups.

Oh, my: Gabe and Ruth both sent texts. Gabe: “So today Charlie (Kirk) got shot and killed. And evergreen highschool got shot up. Today is strange.”  Ruth: “One of the things I don’t get is how you can be so set on defending a fetus and its life yet guns are more of a right than life is for students.”

Rabbi Jamie opened our sanctuary to any in town who might need it. Ironically he presented a program last night on teshuva. “While often translated as repentance, its deeper meaning is about taking action to return to one’s true, divine self…” Gemini The Jewish month of Elul, in which we are right now, encourages a time of reflection-of cheshbon nefesh, an accounting of the soul-with the aim of teshuva before Rosh Hashanah.

How can we as a nation, as a culture, return to, as one sage put it, the landscape of our soul? Not just the shooter(s) in the 47 school shootings to date this year (Ruth’s numbers), no, but our  culture dying from lead poisoning.

Where is the landscape in which I grew up? Flawed in many, many ways to be sure, but at least one in which gun owners hunted, did not demand their “second amendment rights” and the only duck and cover was to shield ourselves (ha) from a nuclear explosion.