Category Archives: Family

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism, Memories

Witness

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The Off to College Moon

Thursday gratefuls: MVP. Ruth. Diane. Tom. The up over and the down under. Bangkok. Songtan. Melbourne. Orca Island. San Francisco. Robbitson. Shorewood. Minneapolis/St. Paul metro. Evergreen. Conifer. Genesee. Denver. Lakewood. Luke and Leo. Shadow Mountain. Black Mountain. Conifer Mountain. Rain, Rain. Come again. And again.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Harris/Walz

One brief shining: Sitting cross legged beneath the big painting by Jerry, the Blue Ridge Mountains landscape, Ruth explained how she and her roommates needed to solve a mistake, housing at UC Boulder had put two young women and one young man in the same room, but the conversation swiftly turned to classes: American history to 1865, Political Science 101 in the election year of all election years, studio arts, ways of knowing and finally whether to get a parking spot-no-and a possible library job-yes.

 

Kavanah: PEACE  Shalom (shuh-LOME) שָׁלוֹם   Peace, quietness, wholeness

 (קוֹר רוּחַ Kor Ruach, core ROO-ach: Calm, composure, literally a “cool spirit”) [בֶּהָלָה Behala, beh-ha-LAH: Fear, alarm, panic]

 

Smoky Sky, cool Air, decent Rain yesterday. A feeling of Fall, premature, yes, but welcome, very welcome anyhow. Four seasons. The Great Wheel turning once again. Nights lengthening. My favorite half of the year not far away.

This August 8th life incorporates these changes, makes the late night from MVP feel integrated with this resurrection moment, this reincarnation of my neshamah. The milky gray of the Sky has combined with my Vaad of last night, reflected in the heavens. The MVP group was the last round of folks I brought into my most recent cancer news since Ruth and I discussed it yesterday.

The August 7th life filled my cup while accentuating my sorrow. Yes, sorrow. That dark sadness from the last few days (lives) remains. Its tendrils gathering, pooling. A sense of foreboding. And. Ruth came up. We worked on transferring the MinnesotaSaves college fund money to my name. Ruth filling out the forms with her neat handwriting, discussing with the MinnesotaSaves folks what we needed to do. When we finished with that, I took a nap while she filled out a job application for work/study at the UC Boulder main library.

When I got up, I made lox, cream cheese, and bagels with onions and capers. I know. A little on the nose, but, hey! We both enjoyed them

Her excitement about her classes triggered those oh so sweet  memories of the first days of a new semester, a new quarter when a new field of study lay before me. Or, a deepening of a favorite area. And dealing with a roommate issue, so first days of college.

Having her here felt warm, loving. Though I did end up tired.

And that before I drove to Evergreen for MVP. Which went until 9:45 pm. Discussing responsibility and gratitude. Family. My vaad. Rich, Susan, Joanne, and Ron as witnesses. Not fixers. Not even empathizers, but listeners and seers. Though I have to face this alone internally, I am not alone. I’m in the company of those walking me home. As I walk them.

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health

The Gothic Parade

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The Off to College Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Soaking rain yesterday. A Red Squirrel in the Lodgepoles. A Mule Deer Doe eating lunch and taking a siesta in my backyard. Elizabeth’s Dog. Dying. Exploring Reconstructionism. Flagging off the Book Club for Elizabeth. Tim Walz, eh? May he live long and prosper the Democratic ticket this fall. 45% containment on the Quarry Fire. Hot flashes return.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Concern for a dying Dog and her human companion

One brief shining: Elizabeth looked upset when she opened the Zoom call for the CBE bookclub, her eyes red and concern lightly etched in her face, Ellen said she was sorry about Elizabeth’s Puppy, yes, Elizabeth said to me, my vet told me today my Dog has only two weeks to live, my heart sank, I’m so sorry, another two folks came on the call, one who said, maybe we shouldn’t do this tonight, another saying we’ve all been through this and it’s so hard, yes, and with that we set aside the book club in favor of loving-kindness.

Kavanah: CLARITY  Tohar (TOE-har)  טֹהַר

 

Made me think of Gertie licking my face for thirty minutes days before she died. Vega looking up at me when she got the bloat. Finding Tor in the tall Grass. So many. Each one a wrenched and torn lev. Kate signing I love you. Mom saying, Son. Death is hard.

Sure, I can face my own. That’s easy because it belongs to me and I won’t be around to experience the aftermath. I remember Kate saying, I know my death will make people sad. Yes, sweetheart. So sad.

I’m having a difficult time right now. Not depression, but maybe melancholy. Shortness of breath seems worse. My back. Well. Not being able to walk easily. Thinking about wheelchairs and riding the carts in airports. Of course, the cancer that I seem to now be fighting with much less effective treatments. Probably growing. An occasional whisper in my inner world, “I’m dying.” My reserve tank remains full. I’m not desperate. Still. The life of August 6th, 2024 has the God of decay in its timeworn husk.

I imagine all of us face this at some point. That life, that God which collects all of the difficulties and struggles we have, real and imagined, and sets them out on our psychic Main Street in a Gothic parade. Black streamers, black confetti, those glass-sided Victorian hearses and a marching band playing dirges. Presents them to us in a slow moving black and white movie reel. We stand there with a black ribbon waving and tears falling. The reaper gives slow waves from the back of a dark PierceArrow.

The temptation of course is to turn the dial toward a colorful, cheerful homecoming parade, or that ticker tape day for the Apollo 11 crew. I urge you to resist. The dismal parade has its purpose. We grow not by denial but by acceptance, not by repression but by acknowledgement. We know our humanity best when we let our feelings, our fears and anxieties out. When we can celebrate them all as real and true.

Each of the issues that are mine: shortness of breath, diminished mobility and pain, cancer are real. Pushing them away will not energize the efforts I need to make.  Amelioration does not come through ignorance. So I have to keep them all present, close. Those prickly feelings that make me turn away, want to flee, or shut down? Though the path they push me toward is not the one I’ll choose, their presence forces me to see. To feel. To act.

O.K. Maybe we could insert a couple of clown cars and a Cirque du Soliel act or two in the dismal parade. For color.

 

Just a moment: Tim Walz. How bout that?

 

Art and Culture, Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Hermitage, Holidays, Judaism, Mountains, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Reimaging revelation, Shadow Mountain

My ancientrail

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The Off to College Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Ruth. Willville. August 20th. On her own. With a net. Returning to the Solar System. Gaia. Great Sol. Space. Vastness. Galaxies. Huge. Galaxy Clusters. Huger. The Universe its ownself. Our home. Our tiny, tiny presence in our galaxy, our local cluster, the whole of everything. And thanks for all the fish.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shabbat

One brief shining: Reading the parsha, the end of Numbers, then the book on Reconstructionism for class and for the CBE bookclub, lighting the candles, and saying the berakhot, the blessing over them, settling in to my Shabbat, sleeping, then rising, resurrected, granted another life, the life of August 3rd, 2024, lived with friends Marilyn and Irv, with more books and some TV until the day fled, the life was over, and I went down into the 1/60th of death again.

Kavanah: PERSEVERANCE  Netzach (NETS-ach)  נֵצַ

 

I cobble things together. Not exactly syncretism. I have no larger design in mind. Discovering useful ways of understanding, framing, defining. I’m finding the life of August 4th, 2024 a contemplative one. Coming as it does after Shabbat and graced by the presence of my Ancient Brothers. Better for me than living in the moment. Living a full life, one day at a time. AA resonance. Jewish inflection. Expansion of the be here now idea to a waking day. Carpe diem fits. Though it might be a bit aggressive. How about cradle the day, or enjoy the day, or embrace the day?

This all fits well with the lesson of Yamantaka. Meditating on my corpse. Seeing death for what it will be. For me. Not a time to fear but to include in the ongoingness of life. Whether darkness or reincarnation or sudden awakening in a different form. As significant as birth. As love. As justice. As compassion.

Eudamonia comes from the Greeks. Aristotle. A cleaner, more as I experience the flow life way of approaching life’s purpose. Especially considering the longue dureé, how very important and mostly insignificant I am and will be. How I was before I was. If I was. The Mexica idea. Life is a dream between a sleep and a sleep.

Being a Jew. Bathing in the waters of the mikveh. And in the community I find at CBE. And in the long, rich tradition of Jewish thought and ritual. Saying the shema in the morning and in the evening. Studying mussar. Friends.

Hanging with the Ancient Brothers. With Diane. Friends and family over the years. Mary and Mark. My son and Seoah. Dogs.

The Great Wheel and the pagan eye that finds the sacred, the divine right here on the surface of things where Tomatoes grow and Iris bloom and Rain falls and Wildfire burns.

Following the Jewish liturgical year and the Great Wheel. Cyclical time. Not linear. More important to me. Though aging matters, too. I’m fond of the years I’ve lived. And the many, many lives known one day by one day.

Of course, Taoism. Another way of understanding the unitary, yet always evolving one in which we move and live and have our becoming.

With these ideas, these notions, this framing I find each day, each new life, a miracle. A time to savor. To not waste. To know as ichi-e ichi-go, once in a lifetime. And all beautiful. Wabi-sabi.

My tao. My ancientrail. Herme’s journey.

Art and Culture, Denver, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Music, Weather +Climate

Weather and Joy

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The Mountain Summer Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Ruth. Alan. Cheri. The Inspire Concerts. RTD. Federal Center Station. St. Anthony Hospital. New knee, me. New shoulder, Kate. Ruby. 96, high in Denver today. The Ancient Brothers. Kamala. The orange comb over. These disunited States. Rain. Hale. Luke. Leo. Ginny. Janice. Great Sol. Cancer drugs. Jewish music. Today with Ruth.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth

One brief shining: Short splats increased to faster, staccato impacts the skylights enlarging the sound, then the Hail, small at first, then larger pounded pounded pounded with the insistence of the natural world not recognizing barriers, pounding against them with the kind of fury increased by falling from a great height as Leo and I looked outside seeing balls of Ice bounce around on the black driveway.

 

A lesson in Mountain Microclimates. While Leo and I enjoyed a hard Rain with Hail, Luke only needed a transparent umbrella at the wedding being held on the west side of Black Mountain in Staunton State Park. Not very far as the Moose walks. Up and down Black Mountain. From their home in the State Park to our yards here on Shadow Mountain, the next Mountain over.

As the bride walked down the aisle, Luke said, the heavens parted and shone a bright light directly on her. Heaven sent. We take in the awe, perhaps dismiss it as random, as unmotivated and therefore meaningless except in a Hollywood sort of way, but yirah is yirah. Wherever and whenever. Yirah is a human emotion, a middot, too, one known in the lev, in the mind-heart. Experienced not in its source but in its recipient.

I enjoyed the thirty minutes or so of heavy Rain, conditioned by decades of Midwestern life to know the nurturance of a good Rain. Good for the crops. Leo wasn’t so sure about the Thunder. He didn’t tuck his tail between his legs, but he did pace. Some Dogs can have an outsized response to Thunder.

Tira, a Wolfhound bitch who lived with us in Andover, once impaled herself on a fence gate and clawed apart and bit, too, a license plate on the Tundra parked just across from the gate. I ran out when I found her and lifted her 160 pound body off the gate in one move. Adrenaline. Fortunately the wound was not deep. Her teeth and front paws though. Bloody.

 

Just a moment: Will elaborate tomorrow, but I spent a joyful day with Ruth today. We walked to Alan and Cheri’s from Union Station. Painful, but doable. So irritating to have this impediment. Walking has been my favorite way to see a city. Now I have to walk some, rest some. Walk some, rest some. Made it to Spire Condominiums across from the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.

Up 38 floors to 3810, Alan and Cheri’s place, for another home based concert. Rabbi Joe Black, senior Rabbi at the huge Temple Emmanuel, sang. As did Eitan Kantor, a local Jewish musician. And a pianist and song writer whose name I don’t have. More on this tomorrow.

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Great Wheel, Great Work, Mountains, Plants, Shadow Mountain, Wild Neighbors

Belonging, holy

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The Mountain Summer Moon

Wednesday Gratefuls: A bright golden haze on the Meadow. A blue, smoky Sky above. Kamala Harris. 45, a man of chaos and hate. Election 2024. A political clown car. Labs. Middle Earth. Hobbits. Ruby. Cool nights. Good sleeping. A big workout yesterday. 160 minutes done for the week already. Lunch at Tara’s. Stories. Books. TV. Movies. Theater. Ovid. The new translation.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ovid

One brief shining: Still glad, all these years later, I bought a Landice treadmill, lifetime guarantee, brought it here from Minnesota with my dumb bells, balance boards, and yoga mats to create a small home gym outfitted now with stall mats, a wall mirror, a TRX mounted to the ceiling, and the TV which accompanies my workouts with stories as I do cardio, stretch, lift weights.

 

Whimsy. Eudaimonia. Life of July 24, 2024. A response to the Ancient Brother’s question of the week: “All things considered are you happy? Why? Why not? What makes you happy? What makes you unhappy?” From Maine’s own man from away, Paul Strickland.

I’m sometimes happy. Sometimes not. In my world happiness is more a mood, a transient state induced by, say, a chili-cheese hot dog, seeing a toddler, finding myself lost in a book. Maybe the afterglow of a lunch or breakfast, a good workout. I don’t seek happiness, it happens to me in this moment or that. Always glad when it does. A bath of endorphins is good for the soul.

What I do seek is eudaimonia. Flourishing. Seeking satisfaction rather than achievement. As I consider it, not an ideology, but a way of integrating my sense of Self, my I am becoming, with life as it flows in and around me. Except in the academic world, and then without much true ambition, I’ve sought results that stem from my values. Those results, and/or the effort to realize them, matter to me. Success and failure are temporary states, neither definitive, neither more than a collective opinion.

I want to emphasize integration. Though I find Maslow’s later hierarchy profound since it added a stage beyond self-actualization, I’ve been anti-transcendence for a long, long time. It implies leaving my Self, my I am, my neshamah behind for a purer, bigger place or experience. Nope. This body. This history. This mind. Damaged and flawed it has suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and the dizzying heights of accolades, sublime moments of intimacy, and the joy of being alive.

Integration says nope I’m where I belong, among that and whom to which I belong and among whom I am a vital, unique presence. Valuable for my uniqueness, not for my capacity to leave my uniqueness behind for some spiritual space. My journey beyond self-actualization then lies in friendships, intimacy. In understanding how my Lodgepole companion and I share home ground. How the Mule Deer and the Elk, the Black Bears and the Mountain Lions are my neighbors. As in, Love thy neighbor as thyself. How as a human animal I am not only part of Mother Earth’s family, I have evolved from long ago kin whom I share with the Lodgepole and the Elk. I do belong here. Right here. Not out there or up there or behind that veil. Right. Here.

 

 

Denver, Family, Fourth Phase, Politics, Sport

Buy me some peanuts…

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The Mountain Summer Moon

Monday gratefuls: Friends. Family. Coors Field. RTD. The W Line. Walking. Lidocaine patch and two nsaids. Cool weather. The Rockies. The Giants. Homeruns and broken bats. Hot dogs and pretzels. Shaded seats. The umpire pulling his arm in fast. A strike! Gabe. Who likes baseball. My son, who does, too. A long sleep afterwards. Life of July 21st, 2024. Play.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Grandsons

One brief shining: Seats 12 and 13 in section 135, shaded throughout the whole game, hard wooden seats, narrow aisles, cupholders and a baseball diamond lit by Great Sol spread out below with the umpire squatting using his whisk broom on home plate, the catcher in his armor down on one leg waiting, while designated hitter Charlie Blackmon, he of the luxuriant black beard, swings his bat, then, Batter up!

 

The Rockies are in competition for the least capable team in the major leagues. They played the Giants, one rank above them in the National League West. Only the also hapless Marlins are further out of a division race. 28 games to the Rockies 22. Still. It was baseball, major league baseball. And it was sun hat day! I gave mine to Gabe to give to Ruth.

View from section 135

The new rules have sped the game up. I found I liked it better. No more drift into the setting sun as pitchers chawed, spit, pondered, and us fans waited. Might go a bit more often. With a lidocaine patch and a couple of nsaids my back was not impossible though it was a 23 minute walk from the train to Coors Field. Glad to have a seat at the end of the walk.

First time taking the light rail in for a game. Did it because Coors Field is not too far from the end of the W line near Union Station. No driving in downtown. Cheaper than parking and much less hassle. Will do it again next Sunday when Ruth and I go to the Jewish music concert at Cheri and Alan’s. $5.50 round trip. Uber then to their home on the 38th floor of the Spire Condominiums.

Gabe and the straw hats. He’s a kind kid. Enjoyed spending the time with him.

Warming up

Had a hot dog, sang take me out to the ball game, stood for the Anthem and, again, for God Bless America played by a trumpeter from the Air Force Academy band. Reflected on the years when I wouldn’t stand for the Anthem. I do now, but for a very different reason than before Vietnam. It’s important for those who, as I saw on a hat of a Never Trumper, want to make red hats wearable again.

 

Just a moment: And, he’s outta there! Another curve ball for election 2024. Though not an unexpected one. What is unexpected. How all this will effect the campaign. Who will be the candidate? Probably Kamala, but not necessarily. And can any one put the orange jinn back in the lamp? If they can, I personally volunteer to carry the lamp to the Marianna’s Trench and drop it over the side of the boat.

 

 

Family, Feelings, Memories

Fool’s journeys

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The Mountain Summer Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Ruth and Gabe. 202 Thai. Maximalist decor. Going off to college with all its attendant worries and excitements. All first year students everywhere. Apical dominance. Phytochromes. New translation of Ovid’s Metamorphosis.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth

One brief shining: She sat on the William Morris reupholstery fabric she had helped me pick out, alert and sensitive as we talked of her upcoming time in Boulder at the University of Colorado, my heart lifted up and up as she spoke of duvets, meal plans, registration, the three person dorm room in Willville, anxiety and excitement mixing in that stew of I want to be on my own but I’d prefer it be at home.

 

Ruth and Gabe have come up to the Mountains for three days. Cooler here. 102 in Denver on Friday. Ouch! 9 plus years they’ve come up to this house on Shadow Mountain. They both love it here. Lots of memories. Thanksgivings. Hanukahs. Birthdays. Overnights. Dogs. Grandma. Their Dad. Now time with me and the Mountain, the Mountains.

This time has a different feel for several reasons. The most obvious being Ruth’s impending matriculation at UofC Boulder. She will no longer be down the Hill in Denver on Galena after August 20th. She moves to a dorm room in Williams Village East. Here’s a promo look. Oh, the anticipation.

Williams houses first year students and returning engineering majors. Gee. How bout that Tom. Bill. Helen. Veronica. Ruth with all the budding builders of bridges, designers of safer propane tanks, forensic investigators of all sorts. Not to mention rocket scientists and managers of nuclear energy plants.

Ruth and I share a trauma. Both of us had to leave home, make that big transition without one of our parents. Their deaths still fresh in memory. Unresolved issues with the parent at home. The dead parent the one who supported us, loved our uniqueness.

I still remember the nightmares, the wobbly self-esteem, the feeling of working the trapeze without a net. I was not alone, Dad, Mary, and Mark came to see me. Reassure me. But my lived experience was of abandonment.

Too, though, I also remember the first philosophy class, J. Harry Cotton smoking his paper wrapped plug of tobacco in a curved pipe. My mind undergoing the peculiar dismantling that only a good philosophy professor can enable. I fell in love with philosophy, a discipline that has, more than any other, defined my approach to life and thought.

And Contemporary Civilization, or C.C. as it was widely known. A required course for all freshman. Yes, freshman remains correct. All male Wabash. In C.C. the broad sweep of history, well, to be fair, Western history, came alive. Though I would never be a history major, from that point on I took critical thinking and historical context as essential to good decision making, to life.

What I’m saying here is that life is always polyvalent. Yes, I was in deep psychic pain around Mom’s death, about arguments with Dad, about my now muddled future. Yes, I found the life of the mind, a love affair that continues to this day. It was the beginning of a Fool’s journey.

Commentary on the news, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Science, Torah, Weather +Climate

Talmud Torah

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Summer and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

Friday gratefuls: Sleep. The fan. Rain. Vince. Jamie. The dead Lodgepole. Books. Storm Before the Calm. Orgovyx on the way. Juneteenth. Love. Justice. Compassion. Irv. The Ancient Brothers. A dull white Sky. Little Breeze. The Mountains with their green clothes on. Rock outcroppings. Mule Deer. Elk. Fawns and calves. The life of June 21, 2024. Sweets from Durango via Melbourne. Where it is the Winter Solstice.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Low Fire Danger-in late June

One brief shining: Opened a pocket-knife I bought when the shoe store in Evergreen went out of business, slit the tape on the box from Durango Chocolates, discovered a sealed foil bag, inside it paper shredded insulation, then two cool packs-colder than ice!-and below them a box wrapped in clear plastic announcing chocolates inside, the knife again, the box has yet more shredded paper inside covering a melt in your mouth chocolate bar, sea salt toffee, and Bear balm; a bar mitzvah present I received a day before the Winter Solstice in Melbourne where Mary sat with her computer and ordered it.

 

Started torah study with Rabbi Jamie yesterday. Once a month we’ll read the parsha of the week and Aviva Zornberg’s commentary. The current torah readings are in the book of Numbers. Her commentary, “Bewilderment” will be what we use for now. Jamie’s also going to share a weekly commentary he gets from Art Green, his mentor and former president of the Reconstructionist Seminary.

This is a rare privilege for me. He and I decided to continue our monthly sessions that had been focused on conversion lessons and turn them into torah study. When I was in seminary, the classes on the New Testament and the “Old Testament,” now the Tanakh for me, were my favorites. Something about studying source materials, getting to know them and their stories really well. About revelation and its history. About literature, ancient literature. About myths and legends. About adapting their meanings to the contemporary world. That fascination is still there.

If I remember, I’ll share some from our sessions.

Yesterday we discussed how to interpret God since neither of us are supernaturalists. How do we make sense of the character god’s role? Didn’t get far with that, but as I’ve thought about it since I found myself wanting to go back to Rabbi Toba Spitzer’s book, God is Here, about metaphors for god. Lowercase god is the way Rabbi Rami Shapiro differentiates the henotheistic deity of the Torah from the One who is all who is us who is becoming new right now and always.

 

Just a moment: Heat. Across the U.S. Across the world. High heat. Record breaking heat. Don’t hear much, except in Florida, about climate change deniers. Down there in that puzzling state DeSantis has perfected the nah nah nah nah response to Black history, queer life, and climate change. If you don’t talk about them, they’re not real. DeSantis hasn’t passed the object permanence stage of human development. That’s when babies learn that peek-a-boo’s a game, not the way things are. Poor Florida.

 

 

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Politics

Life of June 18 2024

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Beltane and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: My phlebotomist. Blood draws. The drive to Evergreen. Beauty everywhere. Wild neighbors, too. Like the Mule Deer Buck with velvet on his antlers. Eating some of the luxuriant green Grass. Healthy green Meadows, Leaves on Aspens and Willows, Needles (leaves) on Lodgepoles, Ponderosa, Spruce. Streams running at non-melt speed.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The look on the Mule Deer Buck’s face. Curiosity.

One brief shining: A rubber tourniquet tied above my right elbow the phlebotomist reaches for the cannula, inserts the needle with practiced care, venipuncture achieved, she takes a test tube with a rubber cap and inserts it into the cannula, my median cubital vein continues pumping blood back toward my heart unaware that my venous return has been rerouted for a different purpose, dark red blood fills the test tube; the cannula needle comes out, a swipe with alcohol, a tuft of gauze, some tape, and Bob’s your uncle, I’m done.

 

One solution to my sagging spirits. Focusing on the resurrection of awakening and the new life it portends. For now anyhow I’m living my life one day at a time. Within that day I live ichi-go ichi-e, each moment unrepeatable, unique. I will never again write this blog on June 18 2024 at 10:38 am. This is the only time I have, this day. This moment. No matter what my cancer decides to do or is able to do I still have right now, right here.

Even the blood draw this morning, so ordinary and repetitive, gave me an opportunity to tell the phlebotomist how much I appreciated her skill. The Evergreen Medical Center has switched from Quest Diagnostics to Lab Corp for their lab work. I told her I hoped she got the job. She smiled. That means a lot.

As I drive down Brook Forest Drive toward Evergreen I pass Kate’s Creek and Kate’s Valley. Of late I’ve begun to chat with her as I get near there. Sometimes newsy sort of talk. Finished my bar mitzvah! You would have loved the service. Other times. This last P.E.T. scan. Ouch. Has me a bit drug down. What would you say? Oh. Trust your doctors. Yes, I have. And, as you knew, it does help my obsessing. Yes. Yes. I do zip up, too. Each time passing the Valley or hiking up alongside Kate’s Creek is an ichi-go ichi-e moment.

I can feel it. The knowledge of ichi-go ichi-e infusing me. Giving me the grace I need to stay anchored to this June 18th life. If I lose touch and project out the whac-a-mole thoughts about radiating metastases, I can feel the finger on the keys, the elbow on the arm rest, see my Lodgepole Companion dining on the morning Light. Remember that this life, this June 18th life is the only life I have.

 

Just a moment: Where the Sycamores stand along the Wabash and the sound of the 500 roars through May and high school basketball comes as close to religion as anything secular, the Republican party broke ranks and put a MAGA stooge in as their Lieutenant Governor nominee over the wishes of the gubernatorial candidate.

Guess what this MAGA candidate said on the day after January 6th? “…Beckwith said that God had told him: “Micah, I sent those riots to Washington. What you saw yesterday was my hand at work.” He also claimed that the “progressive left has taken over the Republican Party in Indiana.”   read more in Michelle Goldberg’s piece in today’s NYT.

 

 

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Judaism

Matters of the Lev

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Beltane and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Tom and Paul home safely. Though not without travel angst. Shavuot. Veronica. Great Sol. That three hour nap yesterday. My boy. Seoah. Murdoch. Fatherhood. A joy. Trees. Mill Valley. Irene. Irv. The Mountains. Smiling Pig barbecue. Marilyn. Torah. Reverberations from last week. Basketball. Caitlin Clark. Angela Reese. Life.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: My boy

One brief shining: And on the seventh day of the Bar Mitzvah week I found the bed and slept for three straight hours in the middle of the day, worn out from the joys and gifts, yet satisfied in a deep part of my soul, life knitted together in a new, unexpected way, my lev and my soul vibrating together, one with the one.

 

My boy. Fatherhood. Read a couple of articles about how fatherhood changes the brain. How parenting affects our personality, even our nervous system. I believe it. Even before the child.

Looking back I wonder what it was that made me so certain at age 32 that I had to have a child? I remember, vaguely, the impelling and compelling force. That feeling, that drive was clear and certain. Much like that moment when I realized I no longer believed in the Christian metaphysics. And, the confidence I had that moving to Colorado was something Kate and I needed to do. Or, more recently, the decision to convert. Falling in love.

Guess I have those moments when my subconscious does all the heavy lifting, then presents a key life decision as an already concluded matter. What’s left is altering my life in some major way. Perhaps it’s a proof for the lev, the heart-mind. For sure it’s a proof that logic and careful planning often come along only after the big choices have already been decided.

Which presents a conundrum for a guy like me. In philosophy education you will sometimes hear the term logic chopper. That is when a person follows logic like some of us follow our GPS-even when it’s taking us down a road that has a barrier across it. I can, I know, be a logic chopper. And I also know that when I’ve taken that route in an argument I will not feel good afterwards. I’ve too often won the argument and lost my humanity. Less and less so these days, yet my days of logic chopping are, I know, not behind me.

I have, over the course of my life, privileged intellect, learning, knowledge. Which, as I write this, seems to be contrary to the way I’ve lived of late. Over the last few years, perhaps since Andover, relationships, with Kate, with dogs, with vegetables and fruits and flowers and trees, with friends and family began to take precedence. Or, maybe that’s not quite right. I’ve not set aside intellect, learning, knowledge, but I have gradually learned the secondary role they play in a life well lived.

When I talk to my son. Reflect on my marriage to Kate. On my long affair with matters religious, I know that my primary path has always been guided by my lev.