When I am on task I get a lot done. When I waste time, it clears my mind of all the things I need to accomplish. Wasting time on the internet, reading a good trash crime/detective book, taking a long mid-day nap, staring out the window at birds, all these things keep me from the task at hand. But is it bad, or a needed outlet?
A few resources below. The etymology of productive, waste, and sloth.
I offer them because Ode’s theme rests in a labyrinth of Protestant work ethic hedge rows. There was a time, now long past, when productivity mattered to me. When I made pound cakes in the bakery. When I moved eight-hundred pound bales of cotton underwear cutouts for rag-cutting. When I had to have something to show for my work in the West Bank Ministry. When I wrote 1,000 words a day.
Andover found me active, working at many different tasks. Amending soil. Planting Vegetables. Caring for our Fruit Trees. Inspecting the Bee hives. Feeding and Watering the Dogs. Cooking. Yet I never felt a need to be productive. I worked at this, then that. Doing what was needed.
Even my writing took on this patina. I did it as an act of self-giving, an expression of my love for the imagination. Since moving to Colorado, I extended this approach to fire mitigation, caring for Kate, being with friends and family.
Now in what I count as my fourth phase, with a terminal illness, retirement in the past, I find myself leaning into relationships, to reading and watching TV, learning with my friends at CBE. Caring for Shadow.
Not to say that the productivity demon doesn’t raise its hoary head now and then. It does. Yet I see it for what it is. Old pathways, deep ruts from past eras. No longer what I need now. Or, desire.
produce(v.)
early 15c., producen, “develop, proceed, extend, lengthen out,” from Latin producere “lead or bring forth, draw out,” figuratively “to promote, empower; stretch out, extend,” from pro “before, forth” (from PIE root *per- (1) “forward,” hence “in front of, before, forth”) + ducere “to bring, lead” (from PIE root *deuk- “to lead”).The sense of “bring into being or existence” is from late 15c. That of “put (a play) on stage” is from 1580s. Of animals or plants, “generate, bear, bring forth, give birth to,” 1520s. The meaning “cause, effect, or bring about by mental or physical labor” is from 1630s. In political economy, “create value; bring goods, manufactures, etc. into a state in which they will command a price,” by 1827. Related: Produced; producing.
waste(v.)
c. 1200, wasten, “devastate, ravage, ruin,” from Anglo-French and Old North French waster “to waste, squander, spoil, ruin” (Old French gaster; Modern French gâter), altered (by influence of Frankish *wostjan) from Latin vastare “lay waste,” from vastus “empty, desolate.” This is reconstructed in Watkins to be from a suffixed form of PIE root *eue- “to leave, abandon, give out.” Related: wasted; wasting.The Germanic word also existed in Old English as westan “to lay waste, ravage.” Spanish gastar, Italian guastare also are from Germanic.The intransitive meaning “lose strength or health; pine; weaken or be gradually consumed” is attested from c. 1300; the sense of “squander, spend or consume uselessly, expend without adequate return” is recorded from mid-14c.; the colloquial meaning “to kill” is from 1964.
To waste time “act to no purpose” is from mid-14c. Waste not, want not is attested from 1778.
Sloth refers to many related ideas, dating from antiquity and including mental, spiritual, pathological, and physical states.[29] It may be defined as absence of interest or habitual disinclination to exertion.[30]
In his Summa Theologica, Saint Thomas Aquinas defined sloth as “sorrow about spiritual good”.[28]
The scope of sloth is wide.[29] Spiritually, acedia first referred to an affliction attending religious persons, especially monks, wherein they became indifferent to their duties and obligations to God. Mentally, acedia has a number of distinctive components; the most important of these is affectlessness, a lack of any feeling about self or other, a mind-state that gives rise to boredom, rancor, apathy, and a passive inert or sluggish mentation. Physically, acedia is fundamentally associated with a cessation of motion and an indifference to work; it finds expression in laziness, idleness, and indolence.[29]
Sloth includes ceasing to utilize the seven gifts of grace given by the Holy Spirit (Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Knowledge, Piety, Fortitude, and Fear of the Lord); such disregard may lead to the slowing of spiritual progress towards eternal life, the neglect of manifold duties of charity towards the neighbor, and animosity towards those who love God.[18]
Unlike the other seven deadly sins, which are sins of committing immorality, sloth is a sin of omitting responsibilities. It may arise from any of the other capital vices; for example, a son may omit his duty to his father through anger. The state and habit of sloth is a mortal sin, while the habit of the soul tending towards the last mortal state of sloth is not mortal in and of itself except under certain circumstances.[18]
Emotionally, and cognitively, the evil of acedia finds expression in a lack of any feeling for the world, for the people in it, or for the self. Acedia takes form as an alienation of the sentient self first from the world and then from itself. The most profound versions of this condition are found in a withdrawal from all forms of participation in or care for others or oneself, but a lesser yet more noisome element was also noted by theologians. Gregory the Great asserted that, “from tristitia, there arise malice, rancour, cowardice, [and] despair”. Chaucer also dealt with this attribute of acedia, counting the characteristics of the sin to include despair, somnolence, idleness, tardiness, negligence, laziness, and wrawnesse, the last variously translated as “anger” or better as “peevishness”. For Chaucer, human’s sin consists of languishing and holding back, refusing to undertake works of goodness because, they tell themselves, the circumstances surrounding the establishment of good are too grievous and too difficult to suffer. Acedia in Chaucer’s view is thus the enemy of every source and motive for work.[31]
Sloth subverts the livelihood of the body, taking no care for its day-to-day provisions, and slows down the mind, halting its attention to matters of great importance. Sloth hinders the man in his righteous undertakings and thus becomes a terrible source of human’s undoing.[31]
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.
Wednesday gratefuls: Lao Xi. Dao De Jing. Wu wei. Alchemy. The Sage. Pu, pure simplicity. Ziran. Authenticity. Just so-ness. Lao Tse’s journey to the West. On an Ox. Stopped at the Hangu Pass to write his wisdom. The Tao. The Way. Or, the Ancientrail of Chi. Other wisdom ways. That Iroquois medicine man. The Sun dance. Christianity. Especially Eastern Orthodoxy. Mystics of all cultures.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Lifting the veil and seeing the ordinary as sacred reality
Week Kavannah: Joy. Simcha.
One brief shining: We sat there, the two converts who shared a mikveh day, who received new names on the same day, who did Bat Mitzvah and Bar Mitzvah at the same Shavuot service, both a bit cold as a Mountain Evening’s chill settled on Murphy’s, an eatery beside Bear Creek in Evergreen, and caught up about her impending divorce, her brother’s death, her father’s injury, my back and cancer and Shadow my new puppy, upon leaving I said Jews together, she said it back, and we hugged, then just before I got to my car she turned, came to me, and we hugged again. Veronica. Harmonica. Hanukkah.
Dog journal: Shadow’s back to training with me now. Except for the leash. She runs when she sees it. Gotta get her leash trained. I want to take her with me places. To the vet. To a groomer. As the weather warms, she’s blowing her coat. To mussar to meet my friends, see the synagogue. Over to the Happy Camper. On grocery pickups. Wandering around. Maybe a hike if the injections work.
Shadow loves her toys. I bought her a miniature tire and she hasn’t played with anything else for a couple of days. Her playfulness makes me smile.
What injections you might ask. On April 22nd at 11:00 am, I’ll have needles inserted into four foramens on my lumbar spine. Steroids. Could take two weeks to start working. Typically lasts less than three months if it works at all. Partial relief at best since it will not treat the arthropathy, arthritic damage. A more modest first step. Plus, only ten minutes or so, requiring no anesthesia.
After this there are two other possible procedures: radio frequency ablation of the nerves, and peripheral nerve stimulation. Both are more involved, yet offer the potential for longer term relief. One set of needles at a time.
Just a moment: Veronica worked on the GOES satellites, vehicles in her parlance, and now manages Lockheed’s planning and development for the next generation weather satellites. As Trump defunds NOAA, he wants to privatize weather data, leave it to a corporate entity yet unborn. If he succeeds, Veronica may not have work. Who do you know directly affected by the blob that ate our government?
Judge scolds the Justice Department for ignoring her rulings? Scolds. Oh, we are well and truly screwed.
Anticipatory obedience. Check. Congress at heel. Check. Judiciary sidelined. Check. Government as we have known it gutted. Check. Our economy in a tailspin. Check.
Friday grateful: So. It has come to this. The Supreme Court, remember how big it used to loom over our culture, has to say no, you cannot leave an immigrant you deported by mistake in an El Salvadoran prison because you claim you have no authority to undo it, to the President’s lawyers arguing against bringing him home. The Supreme Court. Involved in fixing a bureaucratic travesty any decent person would have scrambled to fix on their own.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Puppy energy. Even at 5:30 am.
Week Kavannah: Wu Wei
One brief shining: No more night time excursions for Shadow, for whatever reason darkness transforms her from Shadow into Nightshade the ornery, unwilling to come in, happy to wander in the dark well beyond my bedtime.
Dr. Shadow is in the house
Dog journal: She’s nose deep in a new toy for aggressive chewers. Sharp teeth and not afraid to use them. By turns amusing and frustrating.
She’s house-trained. Loving. Self entertaining. Willing to train. Sometimes. Her eyes contain the lives of Dogs around the campfires in the Veldt. Domesticated, but not quite.
Part Dingo. Part Kelpie. Part Dalmatian. All Australian muster Dog. Alert and ready to herd.
No, Shadow. It’s not yet time for breakfast. She’s looking right at me, putting in her order.
Got back to mussar yesterday. First time in a month or so. Maybe a bit more. Though I’ve been on zoom. Still working on anavah: humility.
Odd moment. I wore my new round Raybans, my trademark plaid flannel, and my Grateful Dead dancing bears hat. One of the women said, after class finished, that I was the sexiest man in the room. Only three of us: Rabbi Jamie, Luke, and me, so there’s that…
Still. It surprised me. Made me think of days long past. BP. Before prostatectomy. 2015. Yet the affirmation made me feel good. Even at 78.
We all need the occasional validation of others. No matter the reason. When validation comes unexpectedly and in a manner that delights us, all the better.
Here’s the big takeaway. You can be the source of that kind of validation for another. Elevating others is a kindness always available to us. Worth doing.
Dawn has come to Shadow Mountain. An hour plus after Shadow gnawed me awake. Another Mountain Morning. Grateful for that.
Going to Evergreen this morning. The Dandelion. Breakfast with Alan.
Just a moment: Yesterday was anniversary #9 for my son and Seoah. Today’s my brother’s 66th birthday. Tomorrow’s Passover and the fourth anniversary of Kate’s death and my father’s birthday: #112 had he lived.
A lot of big moments for a three day period.
I’ll be heading over to Tara Saltzman’s for her seder tomorrow afternoon at 4 pm. My contribution is red wine.
We’ll sit around the table and celebrate the origin story for our people. Remember that time back in Egypt, so long ago. That night when we spread the blood of lambs on our doorposts and lintels. When the angel of death passed by our first born sons. Remember?
Remember the Reed Sea. How it made way for us?
This festival of liberation. Of the freeing of slaves. This is now my story, too. And a wonderful story it is. To have at its root the struggle against an oppressor, one who would diminish slaves through harsh labor. Of a people who listened to the sacred inner voice calling out for freedom and, most important of all, acted on it. Gained their release. An ancient story, yes, but one that needs reliving in every decade, every century, every millennia.
Thursday gratefuls: Shadow, the Night Dog. Cool night. Being a doggie Dad. Tarrific Trump, the unpredictable. China. My son, near to China. Seoah and Murdoch. Leo. Annie and Luna. The Jangs come to America. Ruth. Gabe. My &#$! back.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Religion
Week Kavannah: Wu Wei
One brief shining: She ran from the door into the night, once again inside shy after dark, staying mysterious, a Shadow on my late evening, coming in suddenly, behind my back, there under the bed in the morning though I thought she was outside.
Dog journal: My Shadow. A conundrum. Loving, playful. Dr. Shadow. Timid, threshold shy traumatized Shadow. Exuberant. Fearful. Difficult to train. Happy to train. A deeper wound than I thought. As Kate would say, tincture of time.
We spent time, Amy and me, with Shadow on the leash outside. Shadow led; then, I led a bit. Amy noticed, I did not, that Shadow panted part of the time. A sign of stress she said. Means we need to go slow with training, with the leash.
I trust Amy. She’s Dog-centric, concerned about Shadow’s mental health as well as training. The two have an intimate relation in Shadow’s case.
In the daylight and with me Shadow is a puppy. Throwing her toys in the air, chewing on bones, running outside with her tail held high.
At night she becomes fearful of the threshold to the inside. When I try to train her, she becomes cautious, tentative, suspicious. Amy’s better with her, but she gets some of the same behaviors, too.
A difficult journey for both of us. Worth it. Why? Because it’s a matter of love, of learning each other, of coming to know each other in our mutual woundedness.
Started my class on Religion’s Radical Roots yesterday. Rabbi Jamie through Kabbalah Experience. He’s such a good teacher. The best I’ve ever had. A very smart guy, empathetic, too.
We gave religion as a whole a letter grade, then offered what religion meant-the word and the social institution. I gave a B to a B- admitting I might be guilty of grade inflation.
Here’s my three minute definition of religion’s purpose:
I see religion as an antidote to hyper-rationalism, as a poetry of the inner world, as an attempt to order the chaos of public life, (which is when it usually gets in trouble), as a source for ideas about justice that can challenge existing political paradigms.
Fun to be in class with Rabbi Jamie. Thursday mussar, Bagel Table, and now this class. My happy place. Makes me wonder, again, why I haven’t taught.
My current conclusion. My understanding has a built in trap door. The minute something begins to feel solid for me the acid of questions opens holes in it. If I taught, I would say: Here is this idea. But, don’t trust it. It has this flaw and that one. We’d never get anywhere.
I’ve become ok with this over my lifetime, even see it as a feature, not a bug. Yet it has definite complications.
Tuesday gratefuls: Shadow, eater of bones. Fatigue. Ritalin. Breakfast out. CookUnity, above adequate. Passover this Saturday. Liberation. Easter, April 20. Resurrection. Jihad. Greater and lesser. Mark’s students, boys becoming men. Dire Wolves live. Colossal Bioscience. De-extinction. Science wonders. The Night Sky. Orion, my old friend. Andover. A time of abundance.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Dire Wolves alive
Week Kavannah: Wu Wei
One brief shining: Shadow comes over, puts her paws on the arm of my chair, stares up at me with her soulful dark eyes, and says, in crystal clear Dog, I want my breakfast!
April. Brother Mark and Dad’s birthdays. Ruth and Gabe’s. Kate’s yahrzeit on April l2th, celebrated on April 28th of the Hebrew calendar this year. My son and Seoah’s wedding anniversary. #9 this year. Passover and Easter.
An emotion filled month recognized by T.S. Eliot’s Wasteland. April is the cruelest month. Has some of that flavor for me.
How do we ever make sense of death and the awful emptiness it brings to the living? Especially when it comes as Mother Earth makes a seasonal turn toward new life. Plants shooting up from Winter’s sleep. Mule Deer Fawns and Elk Calves and Mountain Lion Kits. Bear Cubs. Baby Mark, baby Curtis, baby Ruth, baby Gabe. And Kate’s death. All together. Death and life. The Great Wheel turning, grinding as it goes.
I like the cohesion of Passover and Easter. Their twin messages confront April with powerful reassurance. Slavery of any kind diminishes, weakens the human experiment. Liberation from the slaveries we are heir to lifts us all.
Death ends a life but it does not end life. Resurrection can heal a whole fallow season, the human heart as it emerges from mourning, the soul killing atrophy of numbness to existence.
These two ministers to the inner and outer realms complement each other. Live in tension perhaps as key representatives of different religions, but can be embraced by both and by those with none.
Religion holds these non-rational ideas, lays them alongside the daily human existence. Reminds us that bondage is not our fate; that death and rebirth are fellow travelers. Always.
Sports stop: Do not count your championships until they’re hatched. Or something like that. Ask Duke. Ask Houston. Both lost games they thought were theirs. Duke losing its long predicted Cooper Flag coronation as king of the teen basketball prom. Houston losing its championship in the final seconds of the final game of March Madness.
The new look of college basketball? Uncertain, but likely. Build a team of one and dones. Go for it. A coaches nightmare, I would think. Every year trying to get the one or two best players coming out of high school. Transferring others to compliment them. Play the season. Get into the playoffs. Hopefully. Rinse and repeat.
Monday gratefuls: Glaucoma. Dr. Repine. Eye exam. Brother Mark in Al Kharj. His Yemeni students. A big rain gonna fall, in Indiana. National Beaver Day. Shadow. The desqueaked toys. The Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Goya’s Dr. Arrieta. The Doryphoros. The Jade Mountain. Song Dynasty ceramics. Art.
Sparks of Joy and Art: Painting and sculpture
Week Kavannah: Wu Wei
One brief shining: Bought a cane, made by the Asterom family woodworkers of Ukraine; it came wrapped carefully in two parts with a nicely designed ring to cover the join between grip and the cane body where I twirled the long screw around and around until the grip fit snugly.
As you undoubtedly already know, it’s International Beaver Day. I had chatgpt make this special poster. Shadow, who continues to manifest her inner Beaver, celebrated by throwing her toys in the air, running around the back, and chewing extra hard on her new bone. Oh, what a day!
She continues to ignore me as her trainer. Sigh. As I said, I want her leash trained, the rest can come later after she matures a bit.
She’s bugging me right now for breakfast. Excuse me while I step away.
Cousin Diane sent pictures of flooding in Shelby County Indiana where my mom’s family lived and lives. Dramatic.
She also sent some video of Madison, Indiana where a driver recorded themselves driving under a gushing waterfall cascading over the highway. The driver kept saying to their passenger, “This is dangerous.”, while continuing to drive on through. Ah, Indiana.
Meanwhile on the Mountain top we’re in a warming trend. Though you never know about Snow there’s none in the forecast for the next few days. About time to see some Wildflowers, green Grass. Happy ungulates. Bears pushing the sleep out of their eyes.
I’ve already stopped throwing my garbage in the rolling bin outside, instead I now wait for every other Wednesday morning and throw it in then. Reduces by a lot possible Bear raiding. That’s a sign of a Mountain Spring.
Glaucoma check today. Visual field test. Eye drops. Dr. Repine and her crystal peering into my retinal nerve. A good news story for Western medicine. My glaucoma has been held at bay for over thirty years.
Just a moment: It’s a beautiful plan he says as stock markets all across the globe tumble down. Tariffs confuse me. But I know what economic chauvinism looks like and this is it.
On the new series Mobland on Paramount Plus. Pierce Brosnan, the head of a British crime family says, “What we want we take.” He goes on, “And if you disrespect us, I’ve got a man for that.” You can think of Tom Hardy, his enforcer, as the U.S. military.
Sunday gratefuls: Shadow the toy destroyer. Talmud Torah. Duke loses. Snow, enough to plow. 6″. Lodgepole Branches loaded with their white, late Snow burden. The joy of Puppies. CBE men’s group. Gaza. Ukraine. Israel.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fresh Snow
Week Kavannah: Wu Wei
One brief shining: When early morning light breaks through the spaces left by numerous Lodgepole Branches, when the air temperature hovers at 15, when Vince has plowed the driveway, I know the Mountain Winter has once again pushed its way into the Mountain Spring, well into it.
A few of Shadow’s patients
Dog journal: I love my Shadow girl. She throws her toys high in the air. Prances with them, tail high. Then carefully and with toothy precision she performs another squeakectomy. Ripping and holding she reaches inside to find the air bladder, removes it.
I’m always in the observing room for these operations. I remove the plastic air bladder and throw it away before she can swallow it. She has one almost out right now. Soon.
Staying home more often. Since Shadow. It began with general fatigue from lack of sleep and keeping up with her needs during the day. Then, it was easier to zoom in to mussar, Torah study, use telehealth. Getting my evening meals delivered through CookUnity. The back pain played its role, too.
I have books, food, my home gym, television. Shadow’s companionship. I see many people during the week on zoom. Hardly isolated or lonely.
Even so I want to challenge staying home too much. Continue to live IRL. I need interaction with flesh and blood people. I’m already limited by rarely driving at night.
Gotta get back to Thursday mussar. Go in to the Bagel Table. Continue with breakfasts and lunches out. I admire Diane who has an active life singing in a choir, regular yoga, monthly bookclub, and close friends of many years.
Though. It may also be that I’m slowing down. Living a quieter life. If it turns out to be that, well, I’m ok with that, too.
Just a moment: Every time I see Trump with the Huey Newton raised fist I throw up in my mouth. This guy is a caricature, a satirical Chucky Doll of a politician come to life. He has stolen the fist of solidarity (appropriated) from the 1960’s and uses it to signal the triumph of some other part of his dastardly plot.
While Musk may have morphed into a real life Bond villain, Trump has become Snidely Whiplash. A cartoon villain without a Dudley Do Right to rein him in.
Love the British poster, done with high production values, that at first glance looks like a Tesla ad. It reads: An autopilot for your car. And, below that. An Autocrat for your country.
Kakocracy. Kleptocracy. Oligarchy. Autocracy. All in one. See the amazing government that eats itself! You’ll be astounded. And, broke. Or deported.
Shabbat gratefuls: Talmud Torah. CBE Men’s Group. Ritalin. Shadow. Less gnawing. The Shema. MVP. Paul. Tom. Irv. Diane. Easter. Passover. Kate, always Kate. Isaiah. Leviticus. The Mishkan. The Golden Calf. Our orange demiraja. My son’s liver. Less fatty. His long month of exercises.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: The tongue that says Good Morning, Dad!
Week Kavannah: Wu Wei (yes, still)
One brief shining: It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, several inches of new white Snow, significant chill in the air (15 degrees), Shadow zooming, leaving trails of white behind her, small paw prints near the door.
When Kate and I returned from my son’s and Seoah’s wedding, April 16th, 2016, four feet of Snow had fallen the previous day. Four feet! That’s my mental marker that big Snows are possible here until mid-May.
We got 6 inches overnight which makes 107″ for the season. A bit less than usual so far. I think our average is around 120″.
With Mountain roads this all means the best Snow tires for Ruby. Blizzaks so far, but I may shift to a Hankook studded tire for next winter. Want to give myself the best odds possible the older I get.
Conversation with Ellie, palliative care nurse, led me to a decision on treatment options for my back. Going to try the steroid injections first. See what relief I get from them. If it’s not enough, or doesn’t last long, I’ll try the radio-frequency nerve ablation.
I needed some time to get past my fear of needles in my spine. I still have it, but the tradeoff of fear and reward balances toward trying rather than not trying. Still working on setting up physical therapy, which I look forward to.
You might be interested in my practice for ratzon this month. Ratzon means will, wish, desire, pleasure in Hebrew. At MVP we locked onto the instinctual nature of desire and the conscious choice implied in will.
Desire impels us toward some action, some theme in our life. Like ambition, love, greed, generosity, wisdom, pancakes versus eggs and bacon, get up or stay in bed. This partner or that one.
Which desire we choose to follow when we summon our will and act determines the path of our life. This rhythm never leaves us. Day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute we choose to act on this desire or that one, accumulating in those acts habits and trends in our lives.
My practice for this month involves looking through my acts each day to see what desires I’ve chosen to reinforce, which ones I’ve said no to.
For example. Yesterday I got up with Shadow as her gnawing became more and more insistent. I chose her needs over my desire to remain in bed. Our new habit of my sitting on the ottoman while she snuggles into me followed.
I wrote Ancientrails, a longstanding habit of over twenty years then got myself breakfast. Lox and cream cheese on crackers. A choice. While eating, I watched a TV show, let Shadow outside after she finished eating her breakfast.
I decided, for the fifth day in a row, that I would wait on the physical therapist to start exercising again. Spent the rest of the morning in Talmud Torah on Parsha Vayikra, reading the first five chapters of Leviticus and Zornberg’s commentary.
At 11 I talked to Ellie, the head palliative care nurse at Denver Hospice. We discussed the Ritalin and its effects on my fatigue, my MRI results and the treatment options.
After that Shadow and I took a long nap. When I got up, my Cookunity order had been delivered. After horsing it into the house, I put the meals in the refrigerator, finished unloading the dishwasher, and added twenty-four cans of seltzer water to the fridge’s pullout door.
And so forth. I reinforced my desire to be a good dad to Shadow. Several times. I reinforced my 2005 decision to write Ancientrails every morning. I reinforced television as a companion while eating. I reinforced Talmud Torah on Fridays before Bagel Table. I reinforced good selfcare by talking to Ellie and by taking a nap.
I did not reinforce exercise, lighting the Shabbat candles.
So. Who was I yesterday. A good dog dad. A Jew. A writer, self-explorer. A man aware of his health, though not always acting on that awareness. A man who watches television in part as a companion. A reader of fiction.
Today more choices. More desires. More chances to shape my life. Trying to figure out how wu wei fits with this approach. Later on that one.
Friday gratefuls: Shadow. Diane and her healing. Mark in Bahrain for a visa run. Talking to my son this evening/his morning. Parsha Vayikra. Dog toys. Passover. Liberation. Wu wei. Snow. Mary in K.L. (I think.) Tara. Vince. Sophia. Arjan. Namibia. Ratzon and daily actions. Rich. Ron. Jamie.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Desire
Week Kavannah: Wu wei
One brief shining: Yesterday my zoom screen lit up four different times with cousin Diane and her adventures, the Fantastic Four talking about dogs and the value of friendships, a Kabbalah Experience class focused on a New Story for Human Consciousness, and Thursday mussar with yet more on anavah, humility. Zoomed out.
Spoke with Ruth yesterday. Today is her 19th birthday. Last of the Teen Age. We talked. About this, the third birthday since her Dad died. About my MRI results. About her plans for today.
She said at one point, “I believe in you.” Hit me stronger than I would have imagined. Realized Kate was my I believe in you person. With her death I’ve not had that sentiment expressed from someone as close in as Ruth. If I’ve had it expressed at all. Felt good. Really good. At 78 I don’t need that kind of validation, but it sure feels fine to get it.
Dog journal: Shadow continues to gnaw at me. Or, at least close to me. No alarm could be better. May have hit on a way to solve her morning chewing. Just bought some dog toys that release treats as they’re played with. I’ll fill them up, take them to bed with me and when the chewing starts, I’ll toss one down to her. Might work. Right?
Once she’s trained to the leash I’m going to pause the training for a bit. She seems reluctant to take training from me. Not sure why. Might be too much for her right now. Or my No, Shadow! I want to sleep! might have made her resistant right now. The leash though is key to vet visits, trips to mussar, and beyond.
Our life has a rhythm. Much more like the doggy relationships I’m used to. Of course, she’s still a puppy, 10 months old I think, yet we’re getting much better at mutual communication.
Just a moment: Break the government. Break the economy. Break the norms of decency. Break the power of the courts. Can Humpty-Trumpty’s America ever get put back together again?
Make America great again? Hell, I’d settle for low normal right now.
Those elementary school teacher photos of Humpty-Trumpty holding up the tariff explainer board? Sad. Economists agree that his view of tariffs and their uses are simplistic. Gosh, that does. Not. Surprise. Me.
So glad I have Bond and Devick watching my investments. This turmoil Trump has created in the markets can be read as an opportunity for folks who understand. Even if I make no gains overall I know Bond and Devick will protect my corpus. Important to have that confidence.
My finances are a three-legged stool: Presbyterian pension, Social Security, and income from Kate’s rollover IRA. The first two together produce about as much as my draw from the IRA.
The rollover is the part of my portfolio subject to market fluctuations. Both the pension and social security increase from time to time. A 5% rise in my pension starts this July. Got a S.S. bump in January. I look to the rollover for a steady amount each year. Can be hard in down years, but Bond and Devick have kept it steady for over thirty years.
