Looks as though winter has given way to summer, transiting from low 40’s night time to high 50’s. Spring sprang, retreated, and never returned. The vagaries of climate-change inflected mountain weather.
Mary continues her clean sweep (literally) of all my cabinets. Madam librarian brings order out of kitchen chaos. I have not yet seen her work. Soon.
Meanwhile my muster dog goes out and in, in and out. She’s a sweet presence in my life, affectionate and mostly calm.
Have now completed the length of my driveway and back. Ready for my appointment. I’ll walk in. Walk to the phlebotomist and to Christina’s office. Oh, yeah!
The angle of my recovery has increased a bit, gains coming faster. A virtuous circle of eat more, do more, eat more. May it continue.
In my day (ha) Gillette sponsored fight night. Now its POTUS. With ceremonial weigh-ins at the Lincoln Memorial. Jesus and Abe wept.
Today is a red vegetable day. I get my heirloom tomato plants from the Heirloom Tomato Farm. Rather, Melissa will get them for me. Still not up to an outing.
Gotta plug in the heater, warm up the greenhouse. 39 degrees, this morning’s temp, is way too cold for tomatoes. Ginny and Janice will get them planted today. Still pretty chilly through the next week though not this cool.
My Minnesota preference for cold weather now gives way to my gardener’s sensibility. Bring on the Beltane heat. Well, at least Beltane warmth. My mini-splits stand ready to cool the house if need be.
Tara came yesterday with Eleanor. Even though Eleanor’s twice plus her size Shadow initiates most of the rough and tumble, jumping up toward Eleanor’s front, paws out, all let’s play, let’s play, let’s play! They wear each other out.
Tara has worked hard between benai mitzvah classes on Zoom on the complicated logistics of their move to Costa Rica. Dog crates. Getting the house ready to rent. Selling, donating, throwing away decades of accumulated stuff. A lot.
The new microwave is here, ready to go on top of the small fridge. I’ll be able to retrieve my meals and warm them up without having to go upstairs. My recovery depends on two pillars: more and regular meals, a return to some level of exercise. Calories and protein, movement.
My recovery is in stasis right now. Not regressing, but not much forward movement either. There is this. As my body has healed, my mood and attitude have followed. I’m wanting to live, not just exist. Adjusting to my new reality requires challenging myself physically. Not there yet.
Hey, anybody heard about the Straits of Hormuz? How about that slush fund for insurrectionists? What? You’re focused on that “triumphal” arch? Me, I’m wondering if Wemby’s Spurs can takeout the Thunder.
Ruth in Vegas. A friend of hers got tickets to K-Pop sensation BTS. Took Ruth along. Nice. Got a text from Ruth last night, Good night from Vegas!
Shadow’s winter coat blew out a month ago. But in this peculiar May it’s 31 degrees this morning. She doesn’t stay outside long until the day heats up.
Friend Scott says he and his wife, Yin, protest every Friday afternoon in Minneapolis. He joins a group of drummers. Yin, he says, “smiles down” each passing car. Yin’s in her eighties.
Meanwhile, here on Shadow Mountain, the aftermath of my five sick weeks continues. Now my O2 sats run consistently in the low eighties without oxygen. Means I’ll need to dig out Kate’s Inogen, a portable O2 concentrator, for trips outside the house.
Picture me with my neck brace and the Inogen slung over my shoulder, nasal canula in. Such a fine sight to see. I mean, geez.
My big challenge lies in my weakened muscles. Still no joy on the p.t. or o.t. I need to get working. Diane, my cousin, says I gotta move. She’s right. Too easy to sit it out. And, too damaging.
Deep funk, which I experienced starting in week 2 of my illness, has passed. A good thing. In it I found each new symptom a prelude to my death. I didn’t care. Just let it go, let it have its way.
Mostly came from a profound weariness with being a patient, a man of disease and pills. All ends. We know that. Why not now?
Because friends. Family. Shadow. Reading. Writing. The Mountains. CBE. Because life is already short enough.
Sunday gratefuls: BJ and Pammy, Ahi tuna salad. Torah study. Ginny. Luke. Steve. Jamie. Frittatas. Actinium. My sweet Shadow.
Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Artemis
Kavannah: Zerizut. Zest and Zeal. Enthusiasm. Risking a gray, homebound life. Need a push. Good for another week. Still at risk.
Tarot: paused
One brief shining: Here’s how it goes. I get up, let Shadow out. I start to write. She comes back in and gets two dried minnows. Plays with her tire, her nyla bone, her lobster. I write until 6 am rolls around. Prozac in a pill pouch. A cup plus of dogfood. I sit, write. She eats, drinks. Outside again, then back in. Minnows.
Shadow and I have our routines. When I nap, she naps. At night I say the shema, turn on my oxygen concentrator, and Shadow scoots in, waits until I’m in bed, then jumps up and positions herself. A day.
Her arrival day is February 4th. When Ginny and Janice and I drove up to Granby, just beyond Winter Park. The Granby shelter had this small fluff ball. Who came home with me. The past year and a quarter have had their ups and downs. Which make our routines precious. We have both struggled to stay together.
BJ and Pammy got here around 3 pm. First time I’ve seen Pammy since her transition. She has a full female figure now. “I’m living my best life,” she said.
They’re looking at houses. May move here if they find something they like. Idaho has passed restrictive laws for transgender persons. Even so they’d prefer to stay in Driggs. A conflicted time for them.
I continue to improve. Keep forgetting the head drop. I imagine I can get up and do things like I used to. Nope. I tire quickly. Upstairs to the fridge requires a sit down.
Not my preferred way of living but as a friend of mine’s sister said: This is my new normal.
Tuesday gratefuls: Dr. Josy. Audrey. Shadow’s ear. Marilyn and Irv. Kate, always Kate. Joy. Ahava. Good friends. New friends.
Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Prairie Grasses
Kavannah: Areyvut. Mutual responsibility. All humans are accountable one to another.
Tarot: eight of bows, hearthfire. Tend to the fires I have already lit.
One brief shining: Shadow of the morning. Vitality. Tail wagging. Ready. A day, take any day, dawn to the first three stars in the sky. My day starts long before the sun appears and ends near dusk. Shadow time.
Early mornings belong to Shadow and me. Quiet, sheltered. No cars hissing by on Black Mountain Drive. No barking dogs. Writing into the void of a blank screen. Telling myself a story.
Shadow has breakfast, goes outside. Comes inside sometimes with no invitation. On her own volition. For Shadow though. It’s not usual. Reluctance. A while ago. Occasional refusal. After boarding school? No refusals.
Later. Breakfast with Marilyn and Irv. Primo’s, our usual spot, suddenly closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Aspen Perks.
Aspen Perks used to be packed in the mornings. Not now. Empty booths, chairs. I hope it’s a seasonal thing. None of the three local breakfast spots have gourmet pretensions.
Back home around eleven-thirty. The neck brace helped. Some. Very far from ideal.
Shadow would occupy the afternoon. She had been scooting her head, ear to the floor. Oh. I know this. Ear infection. I texted Dr. Josy. Whom I missed seeing after her frequent visits during care for Shadow’s cut right leg.
She came with her daughter Audrey. Before she examined Shadow, she asked about my health. The clinical trial. She understands the medical side. Healing.
After weighing Shadow, 36 pounds, Audrey held her down while Dr. Josy got out the otoscope. Right ear. A bit of wax. Nothing remarkable. Left ear. A ruptured tympanic membrane and some foreign body lodged deep in the ear canal. Not an ear infection.
Dr. Josy took Shadow home with her. Sedation required to clear the object from her ear.
After Dr. Josy left, the house went still. No Shadow. No paw requesting my attention. Rubber tires rest where she left them. I felt alone.
This morning, as I write, the house still feels empty. I miss Shadow coming over, sitting in front of my chair, staring at me. Her expressive face serious. Understand me, human.
Communication. We humans use words, too. They’re our paw to the leg. Marilyn and I dissected the latest on the Iran war. Our paw to the leg for each other. Debated the comparative venality of Trump and Netanyahu. Over breakfast. Confirming, again, our friendship with our presence. With our shared political views.
The life of March 22nd. Shadow. Writing and revising. Our morning. Time with friends. Time with Dr. Josy and Audrey.
Wednesday gratefuls: Taylor. Dr. Bupathi. Clinical trial. Dan Herman. Monarchs in Mexico. Honey and bud. Treatment burden.
Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Write on
Week Kavannah: Yetziratiut. Creativity. Keeping my lev focused on life, not treatment
Tarot: Three of Arrows, jealousy
Danger now. Confusing treatments with living. Treatments support living. Not the other way round.
One brief shining: Treatment burden can give us long term cancer patients blinkered seeing. Our world consumed by this decision, that lab test, the next protocol. The next. I’ve fallen into this trap. What Kate meant when she told me on her death bed, trust your doctors. I hear you now.
Wrenching myself back, into the life the treatments make possible. Writing. Shadow. Friends. Family. The life of the mind and body. Do not make living about surviving treatments.
Remember treatments give the gift of more life. Dig into revising Superior Wolf. Play with Shadow. Read another novel.
Living. Not for the clinical trial. Yet. Show up for the clinical trial. One pillar of a life well lived and one still worth living.
Do not descend into the swamp of the best care so I can see the most birthdays. No. No. Rise up from the swamp to live this day with as much passion, creativity, and joy as I can.
Back from Rocky Mountain Cancer Care. Thick clinical trial document signed. Questionnaires filled out for baselines. An EKG administered by Sarah, a young hijab wearing Muslim woman.
Asked her. Are you fasting? Yes, Yes, I am. When I mentioned the break the fast meal, her eyes lit up. My mom’s a great cook. We’ll have plenty of food. Sarah said fasting energized her. It’s cleansing. Ramadan in Colorado.
Met Kristine, Dr. Bupathi’s other P.A. I liked her. She answered my question about any opportunity cost to waiting six weeks to start a new treatment. Doesn’t matter to the outcome of my cancer’s progress.
Four weeks of imaging, blood tests. Also, a four week washout period for Erleada which I stop taking today. Orgovyx, Kristine said, is forever. It keeps my testosterone repressed.
After I signed the consent form and had my helpful conversation with Kristine, I felt I regained my agency. No longer floating in an uncertain time, between one treatment and the next, but headed toward a new, potentially better drug.
On another, less sanguine note. It was 70 in Littleton. 70! Shadow Mountain? 49. No Snow. Late February.
Also, high winds yesterday. Chinooks, Snow eaters. Would be fire spreaders.
Working with my writing coach, next moves on Superior Wolf. Editing, revising each Ancientrails post.
When I got back from RMCC, Shadow greeted me with hugs and kisses. Makes me want to see her first when I get home.
Found a new way to use my foam collar. A tighter cinching of it around my neck. Seems to contain the fatigue from my head drop.
Monday gratefuls: Robin. Shadow the bandageless. Audrey, winning at regionals. Sports. Joe, the three letter guy. ICE. Minnesota.
Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Actinium
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: Seven of Arrows, Insecurity
Between treatment protocols. Exhausted. Not working out. A time of deep uncertainty.
One brief shining: A trigger finger locked. Life hinging on unproven chemicals, tests, blood draws. A sore right shoulder. Love of friends and family. Shadow. Unavoidable mortality.
Underlayments. Love. Joseph and Seoah. Ruth and Gabe. Mary and Mark and Diane. Korea to Melbourne to Saudi Arabia. Kate across the threshold. Knowing and seeing each other anyhow.
The love of old friends and new. Ancient Brothers. CBE.
Feeling connected in a Dog’s kisses. Coffee in the morning. The Shema.
So that. When cancer makes an aggressive move, I want to push back, get into a clinical trial. So that. When exercise falls away, my tennis shoes go back on.
And yet. Sometimes. I sit back in my chair. Think. Oh, come on. Enough. May I ride it all out from the comfort of this recliner? Surrender. Wait. For a miracle. For a finish.
Not the brave face. Nor a frightened one. Weary.
I do not want to scare those who love me. No. Yet I do not want to be dishonest either. This is not easy.
Not most of the day. When soreness or shortness of breath hits. Then. Pain suggests: a sick man who a moment ago was in his forties, eager. Whap.
Underlayments. I lean into love, buoyed up by Joe’s voice, by Tara singing happy birthday. By the regard in which I hold myself.
Underlayments. Remember. Shadow’s waggly tail. Gabe’s new poem. Superior Wolf’s second draft.
Consolation. More to do. Rejuvenation.
Not dead yet.
Knowing. Deep. This day, this singular unrepeatable day. All I’ve got. Ever. And this day, right now, hands on the keyboard. Shadow sleeping nearby. Morning darkness not dispelled. I am fully alive. Laying down breadcrumbs.
Underlayments. How to reconcile. Weariness and excitement. Pain and joy. Not easy. Not impossible. Most often through writing. Talking it out. Diane and her book club. Tom and a new book. Listening.
Realizing words. These words spilled in a certain order. Saying, hello out there, hello.
My one strong link to my journalist father. A need to express myself. Clearly. Often. Yes, a need. Not a want. That peculiar inside-out move of the artist: exposing the inner journey so others know they are not alone.
Thursday gratefuls: Tara. Alan. Marilyn. Rebecca. Jamie. Rich. Shadow worrying her cone. Russia. Ukraine. Israel. Gaza. Venezuela. Honduras. Mexico and buddy Ode. Canada. Greenland. The Gulf of…..wait for it. Mexico! Minnesota and Minnesotans. Minneapolis. The Waters of Minnesota: Glacial Lakes, the Mississippi rising in Lake Itasca, Lake Superior, the Minnesota River, Rum River.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shadow Mountain home
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.
art@willworthington
Tarot: Seven of Stones, Healing
“After physical or emotional sickness or injury, a time of inner rest and rejuvenation is required. Patient and peaceful healing comes from a spiritual source. Wholeness and recovery will follow a serious physical or emotional wounding.”
One brief shining: Long ago, maybe 40 years or more, a then close friend, Steve Miles, had taken leave from medical school to care for his terminally ill grandfather; as we talked about his time with his grandfather, he asked, “What is health in a dying person?”
Health: Maybe in a movie? Or, a book. “There’s no such thing as dying. You’re either alive or dead.” Relates to Steve’s question and my current situation. You could say I’m dying, probably closer than most of those I’m close to, yet my experience is of being alive. Right now in this moment. Laying down yet more words on this 22 year old ancientrail. Watching Shadow try to rid herself of that damned plastic cone. Hearing the boiler kick on with its whoosh of flame. The black morning Sky.
That may be the answer to Steve’s question. After all, life is a terminal disease. If we’re above ground and taking nourishment, that’s an important indicator of health.
Joy. Love. Compassion. I still have these to offer. My mind is sharp. Shadow and I have figured it out. I say joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea, joy for you and me.
Dog journal: Yesterday was arrival day for Shadow. A small puppy who hid under my bed for three days. 2025. Oh, what a year it has been.
Ginny, Janice, Annie, Luna and I drove up I-70 to Berthoud Pass, went through Winter Park and in to Granby. Down an icy backroad, set off on plot of land by itself, was the Granby shelter. I met Shadow and decided, right then, to adopt her.
Months passed and she grew from a small puppy to a 37 pound Blue Heeler, often fearful, loving and sweet. Difficult. Thanks to some earlier trauma thresholds caused her to shy away, refuse to come in. As I’ve written here.
As my wu wei mistress, Shadow has taught me to roll with the flow of her life; even when I thought I couldn’t keep her safe from Mountain Lions or the cold, she came back to me.
This morning she crawled up on my pillow, kissed me, then laid her beconed head on my neck, just resting there for quite a while. Me and my Shadow.
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.
Thursday gratefuls: Dr. Josy. Petscans. Glaucoma. Shadow enconed and bandaged. Tom. Roxann. Jessie. Bruce Springsteen, The Streets of Minneapolis. Resistance. ICE. Border Patrol. Alinsky, the action is in the reaction. Prostate cancer. Winter, winter where art thou? Amazon. Safeway. New Korean restaurant in Evergreen. Rebecca and Joanne. Tara.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: the action is in the reaction
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: #1, The Shaman
“The shamans unique quality is the ability to enter and commune with all levels of sentient life on the earth. It is he who shudders with the wisdom and joy contained in the haunting music of the whale song or whose skin prickles with arousal at the howling of the timberwolves. His soul reverberates with the unheard sonorous call of the mountains and smiles with pure joy at laughter of the waterfall.” Parting the Mist
One brief shining: Under the bed eyes glowing cone attached lay Shadow in her most secure most safe spot wondering wondering about the silly thing around her head about the bandage on her right front leg about her Dad looking at her and speaking softly.
Dog journal: Shadow came home, happy to see me, snuggled up in my legs, licked licked licked my face. If she wasn’t so furry, I might have done the same to her.
Dr. Josy said Shadow followed her around in the house. Wondered if she did the same to me. Was she anxious? No, I don’t read her that way. She wants to be in my vicinity, and when I sit down, she wanders off to do her own thing. Natalie, the trainer, calls Blue Heelers velcro dogs. Once they bond to you, you’re the center of their life.
This is gonna be hard. She needs to go out, yet have the bandage protected. Dr. Josy made a plastic leg cover out of an IV bag and tubing. Works, but I have to get it on her, my back not always a cooperator. Just two weeks. We’ll get by. Ordered some outdoor socks that will be easier to get on and off.
Just a moment: Saul Alinsky said the action is in the reaction. This basic principle of non-violent protest has played out once again on the Streets of Minneapolis. The violent, cruel, inhumane reaction of ICE and Border Patrol agents to the action of Minneapolis citizens has produced political pressure and a lot of it. Will it be enough to change the course of this thugee approach to immigration enforcement? I’m not sure.
My guess? Yes, for a bit anyhow. Yet. The entrenched callousness and ruthlessness of MAGA and their sorta leader, red tie guy, suggest they ain’t gonna wanna change for very long and no more than they have to.
Unless. More cities, more US citizens take to the streets. And if Democrats grow a spine. Push back. Possible. Just possible.
I’m attaching Springsteen’s song again just because.
