Category Archives: Family

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Tarot, Weather +Climate

Snow and, well, more Snow

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Beltane and the Beltane Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Snow. Fire repressing Snow! Well over a foot so far. Still Snowing. Generator kicked on. Then off. Then on. Bear was right. It was a glitch last time. Lodgepoles unloading their branches. A Snowplosion! Kep wading through the Snow. Eating it. All this on May 21st. Now the generator is off again. Electricity back full house. And off. Generator back on. Mountain living.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Snow

Tarot: Knight of Stones, Horse

 

Did not go upstairs. Writing in the house. That fall three weeks ago has made me cautious. Even though I have my magic button to summon help. Prefer not to have to. Besides, this is a freaky deaky Storm. Not many like this since I’ve lived up here. Still Snowing.

Kep jumps in the Snow, plows his way back to the far fence. Pokes around. Pees. Comes back to the door. A bit confused. Not going upstairs, Dad? Those Akita prefecture Mountain genes kick in during these big Snows.

Now we’re both on my level, I’m writing.

 

And, oops. I have to go upstairs for a minute. My meds are up there. This gets complicated. The levothyroxine has made me move my morning meds upstairs because of the one-hour delay after I take it. Gonna get Snow in my boots.

Lights flickering. Generator has gone on and off at least four times in the past thirty minutes. I have the boiler heat going since the mini-splits are not on the generator panel. This gets complicated, too.

I’ll be back in a moment. Got to carefully slog up stairs. Chemo is in those meds. Geez.

 

Upstairs. Realized the mini-split in the loft is on the garage panel. That means the generator does feed it. Warm loft. Warm loft good. Chemo taken. That feels better. Not afraid of dying. But. Not eager for it either. Liking this Herme life.

I’ll stay up here and finish this post. Then downstairs for Word and Deed. A Rabbi Jamie riff on the parsha of the week, Ben-Har. Leviticus 25:1-26:2. Interesting parsha since it introduces shemitah, a sabbath for the land every 7 years and a sabbath for ownership of the land and slaves every 49 years, the Jubilee year. And links them to the weekly sabbath. It so happens that September 7, 2021 to September 25th, 2022 is a shemitah year.

An observant Jewish farmer will let his crops go for the year. He may eat from whatever grows on its own, but he cannot sell it or trade it. Also, anyone can come and share his crop during the shemitah year. Here’s a group that advances this idea, Hazon.

 

Yesterday I read. More Connie Zweig, The Inner Work of Aging, The Hidden Order of Intimacy by Avivah Zomberg, and Overstory by Richard Powers. This last one some of you have read. I’m finding it a quick and great read. About trees and the stories they witness.

I also worked out. Treadmill. Boy, were my legs complaining. Those two days on the trails were good, but they used my legs muscles in different ways. A lot more juking and jiving to retain balance, up and down inclines. Really good workout, but hoo. Glad I have a bye on the weekend. Legs need the rest.

 

Reading more and more as Herme begins to find his sea legs in this new voyage. From here to eternity. Hah. Look for the occasional Herme update about life and aging and truth from his perspective.

Also did my first sumi-e piece in over a year. Felt good. May do more today. Getting up here wasn’t hard. Just messy. We’ll see about going down. Right now.

 

 

 

 

Aging, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Great Wheel, Health, Jefferson County, Judaism, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Park County, Plants, Shadow Mountain, Tarot, Travel

Introducing Herme

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Beltane and the Beltane Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Burning Bear Creek. Park County #60. A clean Kep. Geneva Creek. The hike. Good exercise. Outside. In the Mountains. The scent of Lodgepole Pines. Sweet. The sound of Snow Melt throwing itself down Geneva Creek. The Marmoset. The Raccoon. Those molting young Mule Deer Does near the Lariat Lodge. Hamish. Working on Alfieri and Eddie in View from the Bridge. 9:30 to bed. Up at 7:10. Shift already happening.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Marmosets and Raccoons

Tarot: #8, The Stag

“The Stag is a metaphorical image for the treasure of knowledge in the universe, where the energy of creativity awakens every human soul.” tarotx.net

 

Kep emerged from Award Winning Pet Grooming shiny and sweet smelling. Grinning. He jumped up on me. Thanks for not forgetting me, Dad! He’s the sweetest Akita I’ve ever met. The longtime owner there. He’s the sweetest Akita I’ve ever met, too, but my experience is limited to Kep, Murdoch, and for a moment, Kya.

Living in the Mountains continues today. Exercise at Maxwell Creek. I’ll see what it’s like at 9 am or so. Probably nobody. Which is what I want. Gonna start checking for lonely trails somewhere nearby. Even when working out I’m an introvert. A big reason I have my own home gym.

 

Shedding, like an Akita blowing his coat, my old Self. Letting him go, rushing toward the River feeding the Collective Unconscious. He’ll always be there if I need him. He served me well over the last seven years, but it’s time to let the fourth phase me, the post-Kate me have his day.

He’s a dig-in to this world deeper guy. A Living in the Mountains guy. Really see this wonder in which I live. He’s a Traveling Alone with a Crowd guy. Herme is his name.

Instead of looking to go far he’s looking to go in and down, as has been my journey since I left the church over thirty years ago. Slipped away some in the Colorado years. Renewing that journey while rethinking transcendence. I get the need to move beyond ego, but I’m not sure transcendence is the right metaphor. Rolling this around right now.

Rather than looking to go far Herme wants to investigate the close-by, the near. In his heart. In his inner world. In the Mountains near his home. In Evergreen and CBE. In family and friends. On Shadow Mountain. In his sumi-e brush.

Herme wants to move on the Elder’s path. Finding his power. Communicating his truth gathered. No longer pounding the world with his fist. No longer seeking distant lands unless inhabited by family. Not seeking success in anything. Living in the World as he lives in the Mountains as his World.

Herme appreciates the lessons of suffering. But no longer wants to live with them as a primary identity. Cancer will be what cancer is with the treatments available. Jon and the kids will resolve their issues from the divorce or not; Herme will remain in their lives. Kate will be of blessed memory.

Farewell old man. You served me well, but it’s time for a new phase.

 

 

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The No Strangers, No Contact Which Requires Extra Effort Level

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Beltane and the Beltane Moon

art@willwordsworth

Monday gratefuls: CBE. Comedy. Tater tots. Alan as an auctioneer. The improv troupe. Luke’s mom. Luke. Mindy. The auction. The Ancient Brothers on travel. Black Mountain. The Solar panels. Warm weather. Cool nights. Last of the back pain beginning to recede. Hamish. Acting Class. Felix. Oscar. Dinner on Friday with Alan.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Folks beginning to ask me for favors

Tarot: Two of Bows, Decision

“A person standing on top of a hill, in the middle of the night, against the starry sky. His head is surrounded by a halo of fire, the flame of determination. In each hand, he holds a long, incomplete arched bow, which is higher than the top of his head. From the bow, the flames erupted, symbolizing his vitality and authority.

Awakening the unconscious senses associated with the desire to make decisions. The gate is opened in front of every individual, who is prepared to take the initiative.” tarotx.net

 

An interesting back and forth right now. Continue on, stay the course with the life of today. Which I love. And/0r. Add more elements to it so that my every day veers into new territory. The two of Bows suggest I’m trying to push myself toward something different, something new. Acting? Short trips?

As Ode said yesterday morning, routines are (or can be) deadly. Draining vitality. Obfuscating potential. They can also though be productive. 17 plus years of Ancientrails. An exercise habit. Feeding dogs. Sunday mornings with the Ancient Brothers.

Excited to feel the stirrings. No idea right now where they incline. Will emerge. And I want to be ready.

 

Got the art cart cleared off. Ready to get out my sumi-e brushes and start one-stroke painting. A meditation. Got the coffee table cleared downstairs. My pruning continues. Slow, but steady. Having the Sewing Room dining area created opened space for me to do other fussy stuff. Gonna clear off the table in there today, too. Just washed jars for the pantry and my collection of Rat Zappers.

 

Also head down the hill at 8:15 to Stevenson Toyota. Tire swap. Blizzaks for all-seasons. Checking tread depth. Might be time for new Blizzaks. This fall. While waiting on this work to get done, I’m going to work on developing Felix and the lawyer from A View From the Bridge. I have the Odd Couple script, but not the Arthur Miller piece yet.

 

Another interesting paradox right now. I’m so at home with Marilyn and Irv, Alan, Ron, Jamie, Rich, Susan, Judy, Tara even Ellen, Mindy, Anne, Sally, Fran, Anshel, Leslie, and Robbie. They’re my CBE. As long as I’m one on one, or in small groups, I feel welcome and loved. There are a few others like Michele and David, Tal, Joan and Rick, Jamie and Steve, Dan and Kristi, the Lehmans that are a smaller, further circle out for me, but I still see them as close acquaintances.

Yet when I go to a service or to an event like the Funraiser Fundraiser which featured a Jewish comic from New York, I can’t get away fast enough when it’s over. Most of the other folks I don’t know. When Kate was alive, this paradox almost didn’t exist because she belonged there in a way I didn’t and I stood in her acceptance.

To be fair I always skip out of theaters, movies, concerts first of all the folks if I can. I like to get out and away. I’ve told myself it was because I didn’t want to hassle with other cars in a crowded parking lot. Now I’m wondering if it’s because my social battery has been drained dry during the event.

As I’m writing this, I’m thinking, hey. There’s your answer. This event yesterday had a long form improv group directed by Tal perform. Afterward, Alan auctioned off Jewish food: latkes, mondle bread, knishes, smoked brisket, rugelach, macaroons, and, of course, chopped liver. The six pound brisket went for $200. My friend Mindy’s knishes brought well over $100 for 16 and her mondle bread went for over $100, too. A fund raiser.

Then came the comic. Jessica Kirson. Never heard of her, but she was good. “I love doing shows for my people.” Her set went longer than advertised which was good.

But. I got there 2:50 and scooted out the door at 5:35. Exhausted. I’d been around more people than I had since Covid began. No mask. Double boosted. There was ventilation and it wasn’t a massive crowd though a good turnout for CBE. That’s it. Not that I don’t fit, just that I’d run my battery all the way down to the no strangers, no contact which requires extra effort level. Nearing nobody at all no how. The bottom.

Thank you for listening. And out.

 

 

 

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Tarot

Uncomplicated

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Beltane and the Beltane Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Fosamax. Levothyroxine. Erleada. Orgovyx. Prostate cancer. Kristie. Kristen. Medical knowledge. Doctors. Kate, always Kate. Diaphanous gowns. Good job on the ABD, Kenton. Love in sign language. Life review. Pruning. Proceeding.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Sumi-e

Tarot: Six of Bows, abundance

“…the Six of Bows asks us to consider where we have struggled and worked hard in our lives and what abundance we have gained as a result. Now…is the time to give thanks for these blessings of abundance – what do you have to be thankful for? How will you share your blessings?” tarotx.net

 

Over the last year and a month I’ve struggled with grief. Struggled not because it was bad, but because it was necessary. Kate meant and means the world to me. One of her friends recently told me Kate felt the same way about me. That was a sweet and precious moment.

Over the last week since her yahrzeit at CBE I’ve been having a desire to finish spreading her ashes. This time by myself, early in the morning. Maxwell Creek. I’ll leave some to be mixed with mine when the time comes. But the rest, on its way to the World Ocean. Feels like the right time. And something I need to finish alone.

Grief never ends. Not sure if that’s true. Grief for Mom has subsided to remembrance. Of course, her death was 58 years ago. I may not have time to come to the same resolution with Kate’s death. Although.

My grief about Mom was hard. I remembered her telling me I’d made her cry at Christmas. At 17 I’m sure I did. Her death came like a lightning bolt into our lives. It did not draw us together, but at least for me it sundered family ties.

Complicated grief. Painful and filled with regret. It took alcoholism and years of analysis to right the boat. By that time I was two marriages into my 30’s. I finally bobbed to the surface in my late 30’s. Right around, come to think of it, when I lost the hearing in my left ear.

Grief for Kate has none of those elements. No regrets save for one which I’ve mentioned and which I’ve worked through with the help of Sarah, Diane, and Rebecca.

The main intensifier not a complication. I finally met and married a woman while I was sober. One of a kind, as a note from Bond and Devick said. Yes, she was. We were for each other always and until the end. In fact past the end since I know her love for me gives me the freedom to live this next phase of my life in my own way. She also left me the resources to do it.

Knowing that makes the grief more bittersweet. More poignant. More filled with gratitude for her life, our life together, and my life now.

As the six of bows suggests, this struggle has been hard, but it has left me with abundance. A heart filled with love. And chesed. A life filled with love and family. Good friends. A good home and a good dog. In the Rocky Mountains. Sharing the abundance comes easily to me. As it always did to Kate.

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Judaism, Shadow Mountain, Travel

What makes you happy?

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Beltane and the Beltane Moon

art@willwordsworth

Saturday gratefuls: Coyote HVAC. Back muscles healing. One dead Mouse. A full week’s exercise. Sano. Kep, a healthy doggy at 12. Kya. Hope she and Kep get along. Kate’s yahrzeit during the service at CBE. Jon, Ruth, Gabe.  A lovely evening, an outdoor service. Kristie. Kristen. Road trip today. Mini-splits minimal maintenance. A to do list for Vince.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Kep

Tarot: Ten of Vessels. Happiness.

 

Jon, Ruth, and Gabe drove up to CBE for the Friday evening service. And were early! First time I remember that happening. Kate’s yahrzeit came up during the service because of the Jewish leap year which moved Nissan 30 to May 1st on the Gregorian calendar. When kaddish, the mourner’s prayer is read those in active mourning or honoring a yahrzeit stand while the congregation says the prayer.

Afterward Rabbi Jamie asked us if we wanted to say anything about Kate. Jon said he felt her with us. Ruth was crying. I said, Yes, I do. But wait. I gathered myself for a minute. Kate was 30 when she converted, had no opportunity to live a Jewish life until we moved to Colorado and found Beth Evergreen. She loved this place. Not sure all of it was intelligible. A powerful moment for the four of us.

We went to Sushi Win, ordered take out. They’re not open for dining yet. Jon and Ruth waited for the order. Gabe and I went back to Shadow Mountain. I said seeing dogs with their heads out the window of a car made me happy. Toddlers, too.

What makes you happy, Gabe? Lots of things. Give me two. You. You make me happy, Grandpop. Family. Family makes me happy.

We ate in the common room. The new chandelier finally hung and centered with bulbs. Herme on. The couch and chairs arranged. Gabe went upstairs to work on a puzzle. Ruth flung herself on the couch. Jon and I stayed at the table talking.

He’s a happier guy now that he sees an end to teaching. I hope it works out for him because he’s a different person with that hope on the horizon.

Ruth’s big news? Prom. Today. She’s anxious. Doesn’t want to stab Cord when she pins on his boutonniere. Unsaid. How will I look? Will I have fun? Will Cord think I’m beautiful? What about drugs and sex? Exciting. Fun. Dangerous. Thrilling. Prom!

 

Reading The Inner Work of Aging: From Role to Soul by Connie Zweig. I like it. It’s focus is something I’ve mentioned here before. We lack a road map for the extended time after work that modern medicine and health practices have given us. Who are we without work? Without a role? Connie is a shadow-work specialist so she naturally goes there, but there’s much more to the book. Not far in it.

 

Tarot question I asked today: How will it go with Kya? I like the happiness card. I hope Kep finds Kya a happy match. Whether or not he does, I will be happy. Road trip. Trying to find Kep a companion. A first attempt. So, yes. Happiness for this day. And many others, too.

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Garden, Great Wheel, Health, Holidays, Memories, Minnesota, Myth and Story, Our Land and Home, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain

Beltane: You are alive!

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Beltane and the Beltane Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Beltane. The growing season. Fire festival. Life renewed. Again. Still. My voice. Jon. Better. More insight, moving forward. Three dead mice. 2nd night, none in the kitchen. Edward Abbey. Mario. Taos. Road trip. Iran. Possible tour in the fall. Taipei, winter. Energy back. Got a lot done yesterday. Closing in on a finished downstairs. Feels so good. Jon’s idea about centering the chandelier. Smart guy.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Jon, taking hold

 

October, 2014 Andover

 

Beltane. Yes. The season I need. A Fire festival. Those crazy Scots and Swedes. All naked today, bonfires. Probably a lot of making love in the tall grass. Sympathetic magic. Maybe a few year and a day handfast marriages. The maiden goddess lying with the Greenman, with Cernunnos. Persephone with Pan. Ceres waving her hand, seeds unfurling, heading toward the sun.

A celebration of the Garden, the Prairie, the Pasture, the Woodland. Life giving. Soaking in the Sun. The Rain and the Snow melt. Mountain Streams full. Trout loving the cold Water. It’s Beltane. Ring out the fallow season for real. Ring in the season of plenty.

In the old days, the farthest away of the Celtic times, only Beltane and Samain. The growing season and Summer’s End. One or the other. Fertility or waiting, decomposition, getting ready. Resting. For this. The time of green. Of yellow and brown.

Oh, I’m so ready. I’ve had a long, long fallow time. Maybe since 2018 or so. Life with Kate had hit its late fall, early winter. The Covid. Her decline and death. Grief. Kate, always Kate. Now less Kate and more me. Alive still.

Beltaned. My Seed beginning to unfurl, blast its way through the Soil. Drinking in the Rain. Basking in the Sun, gaining power. My own Photosynthesis. Hands out, palms up, neck back, face lifted to the warmth of a new life season. Probably my last one. The fourth phase. Joyful. Rich. Headed toward joy.

Leave no bit of juice in the tank. Spill it all on the road, running the engine as long and as far as possible. Like Ode on his long road trip. Like Neal Cassidy and Ken Kesey. Like Walt Whitman and his powerful Yap.

That’s the message of the Great Wheel. Until you fall into the soil, become one with the next generation of life, you are alive. An agent. A whole universe swirling with galaxies of love, nebula of knowledge, Big Bangs of creativity.

Contra Dylan Thomas I do want to go gently into that good night. Not as one passive and resigned, but as one filled with experience. One who took the moments and lived in them, loved in them. Shouted. Danced. Acted. One who knows the night is nothing to rage against, rather something to embrace. These element’s fallow time after their long journey as me.

So. Take off those clothes. Throw away the inhibitions and the ambitions. Open. Spread out. Jump and twirl. It’s the Beltane festival. For you and for me.

 

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Erev Beltane

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Spring and the Beltane Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Kate, always Kate. Pete and the chandelier. Better than I thought. More exercise. Call from Ode. Breakfast with Alan on Monday. No Mouse in the kitchen Rat zapper! Cool night. Wild dream. New Acorns. Still reading Amanda Palmer. Qin Empire: Alliance. TV. Outer Range. TV. High Country News. P-22, the Mountain Lion of Griffith Park in LA.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The predator eating the Mice

 

I throw the dead Mice over the fence. In a very short time they’re gone. Gonna watch this AM. See who this critter is. Glad to feed somebody. Makes this less onerous. A circle of life thing.

 

Presentation tomorrow for Groveland. Zoom. Quite the thing. Something I couldn’t have done otherwise. Devolution. Trying to follow David Sanders advice. Write as I talk. Still working on reimagining faith after all these years. Getting very close to what I saw originally. The key move may be asking why privilege faith in the unseen when the seen has as much power in our daily lives? Our whole lives. I will post Devolution after I’ve presented it. Happy for critiques, thoughts.

 

Ode called from the road yesterday. On his way to Taos. Blown away by the West. His sketchbooks, my blog. A daily discipline. Influenced by life in the moment. A confidant. To whom we tell our story. While other people listen in. Or see. Native to each of us. Over many years. A friend. He saw this similarity.

A legacy of a sort. Maybe a legacy in reality. I’ve ensured Ancientrails’ longevity past my death in my trust. Not really a bid for immortality or legacy, but a way for grandkids and kids to remember Dad or grandpop. What was he like? Oh, yeah. Kate’s quilts, mug rugs, shirts, dresses, wall hangings. A bit of us hanging over in the visible world: stitches, color and ink, words.

 

Healthspan. Asked Kristie about it. She said I could live 10 plus years with the treatments available for prostate cancer. Kristen, my PCP, said 90 was reachable with my current health conditions. Both positive and sobering. I mean, geez, even fifteen years. That would get me back to only 60. Not that long ago.

Still. Able to live, love, write, travel. Tomorrow is not promised. Only this moment is sure. Gonna keep at it until I can’t. Unafraid. Except about getting Covid. Damn that disease got under my skin. Stephanie, the PA I see at Conifer Medical said, “Covid’s weird.” She had a tone of respect in her voice. Wu wei.

 

The world. Odd things. Why my gratefuls include items like prostate cancer, death, grieving, illness, war, climate change. We see only dimly, though that darkly glass. Putin invades Ukraine. Awful. Ukraine stands up to Putin. Amazing. The fractured EU and Nato begins to heal, the West remembers itself. Wonderful. Ukraine pushes Russia out of Kyiv and begins to carry the fight to them. Wow. Biden’s handling of our response elevates him in world leadership.

As does his handling of Covid. Which we may now find ourselves sort of out of. As a pandemic anyhow. Not gone. Probably never gone. Like the flu. Will we need Covid shots, boosters now? Like flu shots. Annually? Maybe. Fine.

Covid has changed the nature of work. Created an economic recovery which has raised wages for the working class. Has cost us so many lives. So much time together. Made us realize how precious community is, even for solitaries like me.

We often see well only in what Kate used to call the retrospectoscope. Why we need history. So much. I love history. And art. And religion. And writing. And people. And Shadow Mountain. And Arapaho National Forest. And Maxwell Creek. And whatever eats my dead Mice. Even the Mice. And life itself. Death, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Our Land and Home, Politics, Shadow Mountain

Four Dead Mice

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Spring and Kate’s Yahrzeit Moon

Seoah and Kate, Brook’s Tavern, 2019

Wednesday gratefuls: Trash pickup. Four dead mice. See how they lay. The new chandelier. Astrology. Sefer Yetzirah III. Luke. Leo. Kep. Findlay. Supermax. Snow mostly melted. 55 yesterday. Sunny. Cold waning, not gone. VRCC. Kep’s allergy shots. Recovery. Exhaustion. Illness.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Road Trips

 

Four dead mice. All in the trash. Zappers zap. Four d-batteries. Interestingly it says you can still use the batteries when the indicator shows they don’t have the oomph necessary to kill a mouse. Will kill 60 rats with fresh batteries, so I imagine many more mice. Still makes my heart sore, but a little less so this morning. Desensitization. Don’t like that. Taking a life should never be casual.

Still. All that evidence of mousey invasions. Chewing dog treats. Eating in to my new loaf of sourdough bread. Which I, for some reason, did not put the bread box. Gnawing the flap on the dog treat box. And all those turds. They must walk and poop at the same time.

 

Cold. Hanging on. Fatigue. Stuffy nose. Feeling blah. Head stuffed with cotton. Hard to think around it. Yecch.

 

Chandelier came. Custom made. Expensive. Not sure I like it. No. That’s not right. I love it. Not sure I like it for the place I wanted it for. Sigh. Gonna get it hung anyway. See how it looks. Might play with its location if I don’t like it over the common room table.

I need a week or two of feeling healthy, energized. Then I can dive into the last of the inside work. Discovering how much my workouts do for me. A lot. Especially the cardio.

Sewing Room area has more work. The chandelier needs to get hung. Kitchen. Still infrequently used items to put in high spots. Shelving to finish installing. Like that. The bookcase downstairs. The rotating shelf. A few items that need to find new homes. Either here or elsewhere. At least one more visit to Goodwill.

But already functional. Usable. Comfortable, as somebody said. A good word, happy to hear it.

The quotidian. Necessary for the soul to feel calm. What I want and need. Like most of us, I imagine.

 

Feel like I had made good progress, then got derailed by this cold. Have to start over again. That I can make progress is, I suppose, the point. Read the Mayo Clinic website and they counsel waiting until your body is ready to get back to exercise. Then, gradually. Feels like the story of my exercise over the last year or so. Get started, get feeling good. Injure something. Start over. Repeat.

 

Finished Matt Rose’s book on philosophers of the far right. It’s last chapter is interesting. In it Rose offers an apologia for Christianity against the critiques leveled by these extremist thinkers. Not sure why the chapter is there. Maybe the book was too short. Anyhow I noticed that some of their critiques and mine share a common theme. But not one that I would ascribe only to Christianity, but all major religions except one, Taoism.

 

 

Coronavirus, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Shadow Mountain, Travel, Weather +Climate

Cold leaving. Slowly. My thoughts on teen mental illness

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Spring and Kate’s Yahrzeit Moon

One of my favorites of her

Monday gratefuls: Snow. Three inches or so. Cooler after heat. Cold on the wane. Stuffy still. A do nothing Sunday. Talk with the Ancient Bros about sex. Nap. Watch TV. Eat See’s candy. Shadow Mountain cold cure. Love the Snow’s fire suppression. I also liked the heat last week. Not the 75 down the hill, but the mid to high 60’s up here. Acting class starting next week. Evergreen Players. Barry on HBO.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Recovering from a cold

 

From the new dining room, The Sewing Room. Today

 

Oh. I’ve become so cautious. Covid. Suppressed immune system. Introversion. Downright timid. Not in love with this side of myself right now. I think. Travel! Then, I think t.r.a.v.e.l. with a pause and a wonder at each period. Money. Time away from my own bed. Meds. Kep with somebody else. What if I get sick? Oh. I don’t like this.

Might be feeling it more while still in the grips of this damned cold. Not back yet. A longer recovery period than I recall. Certainly longer than I want.

It’s been so long since I’ve been sick. I remember the last time. February 2019. Here’s my summary of it from back then: “…had an influenza strength virus for ten days, then I really got sick.” This cold. Mild. That one. Whatever it was. I got down 138 pounds. Kate was in the hospital part of the time. A miserable, miserable month. Immune system, even if not being all it can be, still has oomph.

Loved seeing Ode’s bright blue SUV heading off toward Santa Fe on 285. I could feel his excitement at being on the road again. My friend. Stirred those same yearnings for me. Right now. Not sure I want to go out to lunch with Luke today.

A rebound, yes? There’s a rebound after recovering from a cold if I recall? Hope so. I could use a rebound.

 

Aside from illness and timidity. Snow. Rat Zappers arrived. Haven’t assembled them yet. They had that odd phrase on their boxes: humanely kill. That’s an oxymoron, right? Sure, it means without cruelty. That’s good. No vice grips on the testicles. Or gouged out eyes. However. Still dead.

Gonna use them. That part about stripped electrical wiring. Diane’s a sensible woman. Besides burning down my house could burn down the neighborhood. The town. So there’s that. Seoah and Diane were shoulder-to-shoulder on the mice.

 

Ruth and Cord at Sushi Den

Been reading about the epidemic of teenage mental illness. There’s an NYT series. Here’s a link to part of it. Have been reading it with interest. Ruth’s recent voluntary stint in the psych hospital underlining it for me. Close to home.

Of course there are various causes proposed, but no one seems to know for sure. Social media. Less sleep. Less exercise. Less time with friends. The article features teens from Minnesota, one of whom did commit suicide.

I have a thought here. I haven’t checked it out with Ruth, but I intend to.

We had a birthday party for Gabe last Thursday. He got presents. We sang him a silly Happy Birthday. He was happy. We had a birthday party for Ruth three weeks ago. She and Cord were a teenage couple. Learning the ropes of boygirl land. It was a sweet evening, we all had a good time.

This all seems normal. But these kids are not hitting their teen years in normal time. Covid might be the least abnormal part of it. It disrupted their schooling, keeping them at home and on screen for months at a time. It interfered with their social life. A lot. And don’t forget they waited longer than anyone for the vaccinations. This would raise, as Kate might say, their anxiety titer. Quite a bit. So it might be the least of the abnormalities, but it’s far from trivial.

Trump and the rise of populist politics around the world creates a serious frisson for teens entering the years of identity formation, sexual exploration. Especially with gender fluidity yet another turn of the screw during an already perplexing time. Might the far right win more elections and trample all over teens? It’s happening already. Don’t say gay. Many legislatures passing anti-trans legislation.

School shootings. School shooting drills. Everywhere, not just Colorado. Gun violence common. Even at malls where teens used to congregate. How would you like to have to go to a place every day where you fear being shot?

Looming over all these though is the Big One. Climate change. For those of us in our seventies climate change will not push the needle over into the red zone. Yes. The Miami condos. Yes, more wildfires. Highest temps. Day and night. The beginning of climate refugees. We’ll not live to see the red zone.

But these teenagers will. Think they don’t know that? Think they don’t know that all the time we’re giving the usual counsel about college, and majors, and careers, and driving, and dating? We’re giving them the counsel of our past. Which will not be their future. They’re going to live into a world of difference, unpleasant difference. Not all the unpleasantness identified either.

I remember R.D. Laing who said adjusting to an insane world is the true insanity. I hope their dis-ease says they are not ready to go down without a fight.

Commentary on Religion, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Garden, Great Wheel, Holidays, Judaism, Mountains, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain

A Simpler Heart

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Spring and Kate’s Yahrzeit Moon

2019

Sunday gratefuls: Pesach. Chag Sameach. Easter. Ramadan. All together now. A time of high Winds. High Fire danger. Liberation. Resurrection. Revelation. Spring. Nowruz. Ostara. Beltane. The birth of Lambs. The Greening of Grasses and Trees. Blooming of Flowers. Bees hard at work. Snow and Cold in the Rockies. The fallow season becoming a distant memory. Fresh Milk. Seeds in the Ground. (not in Minnesota or up here.) Life triumphs. For now.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Family

 

The second day of Passover yesterday. Tell me that old, old story of Pharaoh and his slaves. Saw it on Zoom. Broadcast live from Congregation Beth Evergreen. Was gonna go. Got Covid feet at the last minute. Fear makes prisoners of us all. Also. Didn’t know what to wear. I don’t have fancy clothes. Well, I do. I don’t like to wear them. Jeans and plaid shirts. An LL Bean vest. That’s the outer decor. With a pair of Keens.

When I watched Rabbi Jamie go through the haggadah with the gathered (smallish) crowd in the sanctuary at Beth Evergreen, I both wished I was there and was glad I wasn’t. This is a long service. A couple hours until the meal.

I stayed with it both out of a sense of obligation these are my people after all and out of a desire to re-member an ancient tale of liberation. An ancientale of authoritarian rule and those who broke away from it. The ancient and lonely trail of trying to lose the slave mind, to take life in your own hands and live it responsively and responsibly.

It’s not easy being free. It takes work. Every day. Get food. Maintain health. Love family. And the Pharaoh’s of our day want their slaves to have just enough money to buy the things Pharaoh wants them to. Just enough to have some food, be healthiesh, maybe maintain a family. Buy gas, processed foods, over the counter remedies, pay rent.

Then there’s the lower caste. The people of the street. Who are either can’t or won’t play the Pharaoh’s game. Who suffer from mental illness, addiction, loneliness.

Those with privilege can navigate past the Scylla of money and the Charybdis of social expectations. Yet even most of the privileged founder anyhow. Crushed between the jaws of earning and wanting to fit in.

Judaism knows this in its traditions and works to keep the freedom. It’s hard though even for ones who know the true difficulty of the journey from Egypt through the Reed Sea and those days years in the desert and hardest of all-gaining the Promised Land.

 

Christianity went off on a tangent about mortality and its pain. Solved through a resurrected God who would take us all with him someday. Beautiful metaphor, resurrection. Death is not the end. Ain’t no grave can hold my body down. A little creepy in its bodies zipping up from cemeteries, or taken whole out of life in the rapture.

There’s a liberation message there, too. But you have to work to find it, embrace it, follow it. Would have been better without the sin. Making it seem that resurrection needed earning. By not doing this or that. Rather than by following a path. A via negativa toward heaven. Born good? Nope. Born bad. Work to put away the stain of the Eden rebellion. Wash, wash, wash the stain away. Shout it out!

 

We can take this wonderful wakin’ up morning and realize that death does not define us. We can take this pesach and gain our freedom. The resources of these two great faiths are available to us, but they come with so much damned baggage. So much institutional hoohah.

Even so. I’ll stand with those who find death only a part of the journey. I’ll stand with those who know Pharaoh lives in our own heart and the journey lies in turning him from dictator to collaborator.

Sure. I believe those things. They’re important.

 

I have a simpler heart I’ve learned. One not so enmeshed. I recognize the wonder, the miracle of elemental creation. I see the Sun and its life-giving power. I feel Mother Earth under my feet, responsive to my hands, bearing all I need for this life, the one right here, right now. Ichi-go, Ichi-e. I see the moon in the darkness. I feel its gentle lunar power ripping whole oceans from here to there.

I do not need to go further than these. I do. But I do not need to. I could live happily with giving only them reverence. With realizing awe only in their presence. With letting them think about my afterlife. About Kate’s.

Death and life. Oppression and liberation. Yes. Important, big questions. Journeys of a lifetime. But, too. Following the water course way. Living life as it comes, letting it flow beneath and around and with our feet, our body, our heart, our mind. I’ll flow with the Taoist while I stand with those others and their ways. Seems strange I know, but that’s the spot I’ve come to for right now.