• Category Archives Sport
  • Rights of Nature

    Imbolc and the Ancient Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Ancient Brothers. Mario in Nice. Paul in Maine. Bill and Tom in Minnesota, land of the forgotten winter. Me on Shadow Mountain. Video of tumbleweeds invading towns in Utah and Nevada. Living their best life. Mark and sunrise in Hafar. AI. My son. Seoah. Murdoch. Seoah’s sisters and Kai, the writer. Korea. Mary in K.L. Diane in S.F.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Rights of Nature revolution

    One brief shining: This time Zoom picked up a feed from Globeville, a largely Latino neighborhood just off I-70 that houses the expanding campus of the National Western Stockshow, which today featured folks around a plank wood table with those of us in Vail, in the San Juans, on Shadow Mountain, in Leadville gathered to talk book, this Rights of Nature book which may be pointing the way forward for the Great Work.

     

    Quite a while ago Mario read in the New York Times an article about the Rocky Mountain Land Library. This would be great for you, Charlie, he wrote. I’d read the article, too, and agreed. I got in touch, but it was too early for volunteers. Then Kate got sick and though I followed its growth some, I couldn’t get involved.

    Yesterday I had my first real interaction with them on the Rights of Nature book club. An hour and half. There were 17 people in all, 10 at the Land Library’s Globeville office and five of us on Zoom. An eclectic group that included college professors, a Southwest Colorado Federal Conservation official, a microbiologist with a graduate degree in theology in Vail, a Leadville participant engaged in a statewide Responsible Tourism plan, animal rights activists, attorneys, and two folks from the Land Library.

    The conversation inspired me, stoked the fires. Even in this weighted sample of folks already interested, the rights of nature idea often felt like a bridge too far. The Conservation woman wanted achievable goals that built community support. Personhood for a river? Way too far.

    The woman from Vail with the theology degree asked me to comment on Thomas Berry’s book, the Great Work. So I did. “I consider it a core work. In it he says it is the Great Work of our generation to create a sustainable presence for human beings on this earth. He moved me to turn aside from economic justice work to focus on climate change.”

    Surprised me but I then had the group’s attention. At the close one of the leaders of the Land Library asked me if I thought the Great Work would be good for another book club. Yes. It’s short and easy to read. Unlike, btw, The Rights of Nature which is a good book, too, but neither short nor easy.

    All of this dovetails with the work I’m doing in fits and starts on Charlie’s List. It occurred to me that I may have an opening now to reconsider work with the Land Library. Believe I’m gonna take it. Bound to be a mitzvah.

     

    Just a moment: Caitlin Clark passed Pistol Pete Maravich’s tier 1 NCAA scoring record yesterday. Wish I could have been there. Women’s b-ball is having a long minute. Bout time.

     


  • Sparkling Snow, a near full moon

    Fall and the Samain Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Snow. Cold. 6 degrees this morning. Good sleeping. Reading more about Jewish life cycle events. Fire in the fireplace. Hygge. Which helped with melancholy. Those pork cutlets and the instant mashed potatoes, surprisingly good. Cooking for one. Cooking. Decluttering the kitchen. Snow on the Lodgepoles. Black Mountain white. Winter before Samain. Skiing. Israel. Hamas. Anti-semitism. Fighting anti-semitism.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth

    One brief shining: Opened the small drawer of my coffee table and pulled out a box of matches, opened it, and went to the fireplace, striking the match and lighting the newspaper crumpled up at the bottom of the stacked firewood, flames licked up, smoke poured out, oh, open the flue, there better, the fatwood caught and soon the smaller chunks of pine, then a roaring fire captivating, warm.

     

    Last night as bed time came what to my wandering eyes should appear but sparkling Snow covering a back Yard lit by a near full moon casting deep shadows of Lodgepoles across the Snowscape. A few stars danced in the Sky, most hidden by the moon’s late fall exuberance. The weather station read 7 degrees. Could have been the night before Christmas. Santa’s sleigh pulled by Mule Deer and Elk.

    The magic of the Mountains. Their seasons change in dramatic fashion. Splashes of gold against green in the mid-fall. Sudden bursts of Snow. Wild Neighbors engaged in ancient fertility rites. Black Bears eating their way toward a long nap. Skies so blue. So blue. Warm days and cold nights. What a privilege it is to live here.

     

    The Samain moon, which will become the Summer’s End moon tomorrow, marks the transition from the growing season to fallow time. We don’t often have temperatures this cold this early. Last night was cold even by Minnesota standards. Warming a bit today and tomorrow. The cold and the Snow brought an end to Fall with an exclamation mark. Well, that’s over now. Let’s think Thanksgiving, ski season, Hanukah, Winter Solstice, Christmas, Holiseason. Oh, ok.

     

    Kirk Cousins. Achilles tear. Maybe. Every time an Achilles injury makes sports news I flash back to the Seven-Eleven on Yaowarat Street in Bangkok. China Town. A snack and a drink sounded good so I crossed the street from my hotel to pick up some bottled water, maybe something salty. Around 8 pm. Yaowarat, a former main street of Bangkok, is wide and busy. Like, Bangkok busy. I crossed it without incident and decided to go the ATM in the next block before returning to my hotel.

    Though I only had to cross a side street, the traffic was still fierce. My eye was on the ATM. My right foot went down off the high curb and landed in a sewer depression. Hurrying I didn’t have time to readjust so my body went forward while my right foot remained in the sewer. Oh. My. Big, big pain. My source of empathy for Kirk Cousins and any athlete who plants and torques too much.

    As some of you know, that Achilles injury in 2004 marked the beginning of Ancientrails. I had to stay off my right foot for two months. Needed something to do. Thanks, cybermage Bill.

     

     


  • A Sweet and Wonderful Thing

    Lughnasa and the Harvest Moon

    Monday gratefuls: The real deal. Authenticity. The Ancient Brothers. Getting better. The Colorado/Colorado State game. The Rocky Mountain Showdown. A barn burner. The Marvel Universe. My son’s nerdiness. D.P. Songtan. The great recycling show on Sunday. Chicken noodle soup. Jewish penicillin. This time made by a Korean.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The body rallies

    One brief shining: Sitting on the couch, really a futon bed/couch, in my son’s living room, both of us sneezing and coughing, he found the Colorado/Colorado State game on Youtube and we settled in together, two former Minnesota guys with Colorado tenure rooting for the Buffaloes.

     

    You probably missed it. Mountain Time in the evening. A game that usually has resonance only in Colorado and even then for only the small number of folks who followed the non-legendary Buffaloes and Rams over the last couple of decades. Usually.

    This  year though. Coach Prime on the sidelines. Two of his sons on the field. Two wins already in the bag. The first against the Texas Christian University Horned Frogs who lost the 2022 national championship game to the Georgia Bulldogs and ended the year ranked #2 in the nation. That got the sport’s worlds attention.

    The Rocky Mountain Showdown however. Whoo, boy. Without a 98 yard touchdown drive in the literal final two minutes AND a two-point conversion for a tie the Buffaloes would have lost a game in which they looked out of sync and ineffective.

    College football does overtime differently now than when I last tuned in several years ago. More like the soccer shootout. A coin toss. Winner of the toss gets to choose whether they want the ball first and choice of ends of the field. Both teams get the ball on the opposing teams 25 yard line. They maintain possession until they score, run out of downs, or there’s a takeover. Got that? In the second overtime both teams have to try for two points rather than kicking. Yeah, I know. Here’s a page that explains it all, sort of.

    I say all this because the game went to two overtimes, both teams scoring in the first. In the second the Buffaloes scored, but managed a takeover against the Rams offense and the game was over. Whew. What a ride!

    Later on my son and I watched Winter Soldier, a Captain America entry in the Marvel Universe. My son’s an athlete. A physics/astrophysics major in college. Now a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Air Force. We’re substantially different. Not an athlete. Philosophy/anthropology. Protester against the Vietnam War.

    But. We’ve traveled a lot together. Since his plane landed on December 15th, 1981, he’s grown up and I’ve grown old. We not only love each other, we like each other, like spending time when it’s possible.

    We share a love of comic books, Marvel comics especially. Football. Travel. Politics. Family.

    It is a sweet and wonderful thing to have a strong relationship with a man whom I knew first as a four and a half pound baby, all thin arms and legs.


  • Nuggets Win!

    Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: Michelle. Bond and Devick. Investments. Cold Mountain. Chinese Rivers and Mountains poetry. Acting. Acting class. Character study. The Hermit. Tarot. Herme. Neon. Water. Air. Earth. Fire. The comfort of my home. Black Mountain Drive. Brook Forest Drive. Evergreen. The detour. The Elk herds that cause Elk jams. Black Bears. Rummaged trash bins. Travelers. Tourists. A bit of each, I guess. Plant Stems. Tree Trunks. Sturdy. Allergens. Air purifiers. Cast iron skillets.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The four elements

    One brief shining: How often the Sun emerges after the darkness of night casually including us in its energy giveaway, how often the Moon rises after the brilliance of the Sun and bathes us in its soft reflected light, changing from tiny sliver to a full lantern then waning and disappearing only to return again and again, how often the stars dance a slow gavotte as our Earth turns and rushes around the Sun, how often we fail to notice them.

     

    Ah. A good day. Cardio. Two sets of resistance, feeling my muscles respond. Chorizo and home fried potatoes, an egg for breakfast. A Rockfish sandwich for lunch on Bread Lounge multi-Grain Sourdough. Frozen Mango chunks for desert. An apple and chunky peanut butter for supper. Organizing Cold Mountain poems, information on the MIA’s Jade Mountain, the Hermit card of the Tarot Major Arcana. Building my character.

     

    How bout those Nuggets! A gentleman’s sweep over the Heat in 5. First NBA title for Denver. Such a difference from the Twin Cities with the Timberwolves, the Cubs simulacrum Vikings. The Denver Broncos. The Avalanche. Superbowl and Stanley cup winners. Though. The Twins brought home two World Series titles while my son was young. And the Rockies may not reach that goal by the time he’s old. Sports. Not really my thing, but still… Fun. And, yes. F1. Basketball. So.

     

    Say you’re a defendant in a Federal case. Say you’ve stiffed lawyers your whole life. Not to mention contractors and probably the lunch room lady at school. Say you had a first court appearance tomorrow. Say available lawyers looked at your payment record and the case against you and said no I don’t think so. What then? Yes, what then, Donald?

     

    America, the land of the free and the home of the brave. Feels like satire doesn’t it? And that makes me sad. I love our country, our experiment with liberalism, with the expansion of individual freedom while maintaining a sense of nationhood. I love our willingness to take in the huddled masses yearning to be free. When we do it. I love our insistence that all are equal before the law. I love our regional differences, accents, cuisines. I love our Mountains and Plains and Rivers and Streams. I love our rich Soil and all of our Wild Neighbors. I love my family and its deep roots here. I love the cities and small towns.

    Yet. We have these deep and lasting scars, don’t we. Slavery. The genocide of the First Nations. Our abandonment of working class families. Our treatment of women and those of differing sexual orientations. Of Jews and Catholics.

    We have a history filled with good deeds and bad. We are not the Great Satan nor are we the savior of the world. We’ve done well and we’ve done poorly. We’re human. We’re all trying in our own way to live in a country we can be proud of. Realizing that is an important first step in moving beyond our current impasse. More to come.

     


  • Worth the Journey

    Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

    Monday gratefuls: The Rains. The cool nights. The Spanish Grand Prix. Those Nuggleheads. Max Verstappen, a phenom. Royal Gorge Railroad. Another rail journey with Tom. Israel trip becoming complicated. A bit. The Great Sol breaking up the gray Sky with Light. Brother Mark photographing his time in Hafar. Looks like a Nebraska small town with sand and Muslim architecture. Oh, and Arabic. Travel. Korea. A busy June. Life’s picking up its pace for me. And, why not?

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Cool nights

    One brief shining: Tried to figure out a way to make Chicken tenders edible so I got out the tenderizer and smacked them a couple of times each, put a poultry brine in a gallon Ziploc and stuffed them in, let them sit in the fridge for a couple of days, put chorizo to cooking in my cast iron skillet, added the drained Chicken tenders and some cut up cooked potatoes, a short time for the Chicken tenders to heat through, then plated them with the potatoes and some collard greens.

     

    Turned out well. The chorizo spiced up the bland Chicken tenders and the smacking and the brining plumped them up. Not overcooked, seasoned. A good meal.

    Ate it while watching the second half of the Spanish Grand Prix. Max Verstappen drives to the front of the field from the pole, builds up enough of a lead to ensure that a pit stop won’t cost him his position and starts lapping the field. He makes it look so, so easy. Yet he’s so far in front of the best drivers in the world, the perfect union of man and Red Bull machine. Red Bull has won all of the Grand Prix’s so far this season, Sergio Perez has won two and Verstappen the rest. Dominance. It won’t last though. In a sport as demanding as Formula 1 it never does.

     

    Looks like I may be in Israel on my own for five days before the group tour starts. I plan to fly in on October 27th, check in early to the group hotel. If a group trip to Petra happens before the trip, I’ll be on that, too. If not, more time to experience this ancient city. I love being on my own, wandering where I want, finding this and that, meeting locals, eating street food or in out of the way restaurants. This will be my first time in the Middle East, a place I studied extensively while in seminary and has been constantly present in my life since Joseph deployed to Bahrain, Mark started teaching in Saudi Arabia, and Kate and I joined CBE.

    With me on this journey will be memories of New Testament stories like the Mount of Olives, the sites of Jesus’ crucifixion, burial and resurrection (The Church of the Holy Sepulcher), the garden of Gethsemane-that stained glass window in Alexandria First Methodist where my family sat all those years-as well as the Dome of the Rock where Muhammed landed after his night journey and then ascended to heaven. Jewish inflections too. The first temple site is coterminous with the Dome of the Rock. The wailing wall. The holocaust inspired push to create a contemporary homeland for the Jews. So much else of which I am ignorant.

    Not to mention the crusades. A key focus of medieval piety. And early anti-Muslim bigotry. Lots of historical streams running this through this one spot on the globe.

    Worth the journey.

     


  • Cancer News

    Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Cool nights. Good sleep. Those Nuggets! Jokic and Murray. The Spanish Grand Prix. OK, shoot me, I can be a guy, too. Mussar. New metaphors for God or God as metaphor. Yourself as metaphor. Cancer. Griff and neuro-muscular massage. Diane in Ohio. Mark O. in Aspen with Dennis. Brother Mark exercising his eye with his camera. Mary coming here in mid-June. Jon Bailey, mobile car detailer. June 10. Getting details done on Israel trip, Korea. Brining tenderized Chicken tenders. Disinfecting my cutting boards in the sunlight. Seoah’s influence. Three days with little on the calendar. House chores. The Grand Prix. Like that.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shadow Mountain Home with its art mostly hung.

    One brief shining: You know sports basketball motor sports baseball football watching somebody else do something they are really, really good at can become an all consuming self-absorbing activity so passive so self-denying what would anybody watch me do that I am really, really good at you know pay good money sit in the nosebleed seats to see me handle my fingers on a keyboard I don’t know or sit down and listen to someone, listen hard for the big prize maybe sit in my chair reading with great concentration no I don’t think so.

     

    For all you cancer watchers out there. New PSA is in. Still undetectable. Testosterone well below 10. I feel great, more energy. Lost five pounds. Kristie, oncology p.a., says the drug holiday looks like a go sometime in August, starting probably before I take off for Korea. The drug holiday is necessary because the androgen deprivation therapy drugs I’m on, Erleada and Orgovyx, wane in effectiveness if you’re on them too long. During the drug holiday my testosterone will bounce back which should give me more energy. Although. It also gives my dormant cancer cells food.

    The question then becomes how well the drugs have pushed those cells into quiescence. Apparently in rare cases the PSA never starts to rise again. A sort of cure. That was the concept in radiating the two possible sites of active cancer in my lymph node and on my T3 vertebrae. Kill those active sites and if the other, less energetic cells stay quiet my PSA may stay down. Possibly for ever. Not counting on that though I would be pleased of course. The other benefit of killing those active sites is that even if my PSA does start to rise it should not be as soon as it would have been if those sites still existed.

    Even if my PSA stays down for a good while, I’ll still have to have regular blood draws for PSA levels. Because my cancer will never be gone now, but it might stay quiet for a long time. May it be so.

     

    Thought about going down to Brooks Tavern last night to watch the Nuggets game. Covid wariness and my general evening inertia found me following the game through regular updates on my phone. This could be the start of something big for the home team.


  • Life in its brilliance and in its everdayness

    Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: My passport. The post office. Kristie today. Acting class tonight. The Heat and the Nuggets. The Monaco Grand Prix. Max Verstappen. Fernando Alonso. Esteban Oco. My son and his wife. Fever in the Heart Land. Thanks, Ode. A quiet, restorative Memorial Day. A good workout. Korea on the schedule. Israel getting closer to dialed in. Ecuador still in the planning phase. All the poems coming in from the Ancient Brothers. Ritual ideas.  Acting class tonight. Diane in Indiana.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Great Sol, lighting up a Shadow Mountain Morning

    One brief shining: Or, the Great Soul, Sol, source of light, source of power, source and sustainer of life itself why shouldn’t the Human soul, the Animal soul, the Plant soul, the Mountain soul be like their progenitor brilliant, a source of sustenance and warmth, a source of chi, a source of energy, yet every so often eclipsed by the turning of our inner lives, still there yes, waiting only for what Jews call teshuvah, a return to the ohr, the light of the sacred within us and to our sacred path, this orbit around our true God.

     

    Got to get going, pick up my passport from its safe spot at the Ken Caryl branch of Wells Fargo. Safety deposit box. In case of fire, down the hill. Going to eat breakfast out, come home and try to take down the last outstanding bill, then talk to Kristie, my oncology P.A.

    I’ve succeeded in reducing $14,000 worth of medical bills to $240. A victory although one I shouldn’t have had to win. One refractory $429 bill. Turned over for collection. Nope. Have disputed it, am disputing it, will dispute it until they back down. Could tell you the story, but trust me it’s only about one hand not knowing what the other one is doing.

    A day of life chores. You know the kind. They come up like whack a mole. As you finish off one round of them, another few arise. By 76 you’ve seen them come and go, talking of Michelangelo. Even the most persistent and troublesome of them get dealt with, fade into the blob of things past no longer necessary to consider. I wear my trousers rolled while whacking each mole.

     

    I’m loving the Sunshine, the blue Sky, the warmth of approaching Summer. Thought  yesterday though. Would I love the summer without the backdrop of winter? Could I tell the good without the bad? Would I know beauty without the ugly? I know we wouldn’t need a word for justice without injustice. Rasputin belonged to a Russian sect that believed the more you sinned the more God was able to bestow grace upon you. That’s the sort of rationalization that makes for a strange life.

     

    Nuggets versus the Heat. I’m excited. Might try to find a tv package that will let me watch the NBA finals. I love basketball. And F1. Watched the whole Monaco Grand Prix yesterday. Wow. That Max Verstappen. Is. A. Monster.

     


  • October 8th. Baseball.

    Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Gabe. The Rockies. The Mets. Rockies win! 11-10. Driving down the hill again on a beautiful Colorado day. Back aching as I drove back after a lot of time in a non-comfy stadium seat. Ancient Brothers this morning, poetry on aging, on celebrating and reflecting aging. I plan to post these poems over time here. Rains have paused. The Streams have begun to catch up, not quite so swollen. A catch in my throat as I crested the last Mountain on I-70 before the Continental Divide becomes visible. Home.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The games men and women play

    One brief shining: Why Gabe asked did we have to leave the Rockies game at 3 well I said I haven’t spoke to my son and his wife since they left Hawai’i and they have can talk at 5:30 pm Colorado time which means I have to take you home, drive back home up the hill before then. Oh. He said.

     

    The Ancient Brothers responded to my request for poetry. Lots of poetry discovered and read. About aging. About living until you die. About the common fate we share with the families of all living beings. Reading or reciting as Paul does so wonderfully gave these poems the shape and resonance of both the poet’s voice and the Ancient Brother who read them. A special and powerful morning.

    In part adding possible content for the October 8th Crossing the Threshold ritual I plan here at my house with Rabbi Jamie. Trying to figure out how to honor and name this time of life for men, men who have gone past career and the raising of family with health and vitality yet who have no cultural road map, no role to help guide their Winter season.

    In part digging into each Ancient Brother’s experience and claiming of this time, a time I referred to as the best time of my life. To nods. Yet it is a mystery, a cultural lacunae. Undefined and for many confusing, dispiriting.

    With your help perhaps we can figure out a ritual to help us move from the time of succeeding and achieving, of building and developing, of nurturing children to the time of… What? Fading out? Easing into oblivion. Or something more, something richer and deeper. If you have ideas for such a ritual, please forward them to me. If you have more poetry, other content that might either be read during such a ritual or inform it, please send them along.

    Also. If you want to come on October 8th, this is an invitation. The more we have the better the moment will be.

     

    Picked up Gabe a Rockies cap stuck amidst his luxuriant locks bought for him by Uncle Joe last year at a game. We drove to Coors Field, found parking, got into our shaded seats and proceeded to eat hot dogs, peanuts, and ice cream. One game a  year is more than enough given that diet.

    Speaking of rituals. Going to a baseball game, at a stadium. A most American though hardly only American outing. Ticket takers. Seats cascading down toward the green diamond. Blue Sky above. Vendors with hot dogs pretzels beer cotton candy Rockies shirts baseball bats ice cream in small plastic Rockies’ hats. All manner of folks in and around, up and down. Young mothers with babes in bjorns. Grandpas with grandsons. Those certain late 20’s, early 30’s women who have the body and aren’t afraid to share it. The loud and beery regular fans. America, the mixture of all for all. In that sense so wonderful.


  • Entheos

    Beltane and the Mesa View Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Curiosity. The Ancient Brothers. Mark and Dennis. Coming May 23rd. Yet more Rain. Even more swollen Streams. Ancientrails as a life project. Tom and his time with Charlie H. Bill and his time with Bella. Mark and his time at the gym. Anytime Fitness. My treadmill. Marilyn. Ginnie. Josh. Jane. Kat. A banker. Vulcan Centaur.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rocket Scientists

    One brief shining: A beautiful woman with a long braid dangling over her t-shirt down to her space themed spandex had, on the back of the blue t-shirt an outline of the Vulcan Centaur rocket, on the front ULA and I asked, I’m too ignorant to know but is that a real rocket ship?

     

    Yes. She answered. And I was working on it until I quit my job a year and a half ago. What was your area of expertise? Vibration and acoustics. Oh. I see. Not sure why I keep running into engineers. But I do.

    CBE is amazing. All these smart people. This was at the Dismantling Racism class yesterday afternoon. Looked up the Vulcan Centaur and it’s been under development since 2014. Supposed to fly for the first time in July. Had a setback a month ago though with a second stage explosion during preparation for a launch.

    The class has gotten better. Taking a mussar approach to the work. I like it for the inner work though I chose an opponent for my practice this week. Four areas of possible practice each week: with HaShem (God), with Self, with a fellow, especially a victim of anti-black racism, or with an opponent.

    My practice involved an e-mail to a person with whom I’ve had long standing differences. Sent it last night and got a reply this morning. A sweet one. Maybe there’s something to this approach. The middah this week is kavod, or honor. Honoring self and other. The theological idea is the all made in God’s image trope. Said another way, we’re all human, all riding this blue spaceship our only home together with all the other critters and plants. Honor it all.

     

    During the Ancient Brothers session on curiosity I identified curiosity as my defining characteristic. And naming what I call the valedictory lifestyle. As a valedictorian myself I’ve occasionally become curious (see!) about what happens to others who graduate first in their class academically. Turns out usually nothing spectacular. Sure a lot go into academics. Some have successful careers in business or the sciences.

    But usually no stars. No one off achievements. No amazing inventions. Why? Because we’re generalists. We easily get sidetracked by something new and shiny. If purity of heart is to will one thing, we’re not at all pure.

    I call them enthusiasms. My enthusiasms can last a long time. Religion has turned out to be the longest lasting, but inside that broad category I’ve been all over the place. From existentialist atheist to Christian to Unitarian-Universalist to Pagan and wanderer with the tribe. There’s a piece of each of these, often substantial pieces that remain intact within me. All somehow glued together with Taoism.

    There’ve been many others. Art, my twelve years at the MIA. Politics, lasting almost as long as religion, but again all over the place in terms of action. Islam which I studied after 9/11. Horticulture. Cooking. Heating with wood. Beekeeping. Dogs. World travel. F1. Science. Tarot and Astrology. Cinema. Acting. Writing. Getting degrees. Tea. Korean and now Spanish. Oh, and one that actually has been lifelong, reading. Not sure when I learned but I’ve never ever stopped. Buying books, too. To feed the habit. I’ve dabbled in painting and sum-e.

    Enthusiasms in my life are more than dabbling but less than enough to gain full mastery. But I must admit it’s been, is being, a hell of lot of fun.

     

     

     

     


  • The Resistance

    Beltane and the Mesa View Moon

    Saturday gratefuls: Aspen Perks. A sunny Morning. Yet more Rain last night. Flood warnings. The merry, merry month of May. Mary’s end of semester Bark Day complete with food delivering robots. Mark’s good experience in Saudi Arabia. Alan. Parkside. 4 hours plus of workouts this week. Resistance back on. Pruning and art and bills today.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Breakfast this morning at Aspen Perks

    One brief shining: Old enthusiasms never realized (so far) include hiking the Appalachian Trail, visiting the Rub Al-Kahli, exploring the Olduvai Gorge, seeing places remote and mysterious like the Amazon, the Veldt, the Outback, Shark’s Bay where the Stromatolites still live, Bhutan, places where humanity has to realize its place in the vast blooming, buzzing reality of wild nature.

     

    Speaking up for the resistance. Resistance workouts. Now two weeks into my Anytime Fitness solution to resisting resistance. Feel better. Much better. With only two weeks!

    Though I originally went with the idea of working my way back to my own equipment, I find the gym is another connection point with people. Brief and not deep, but real nonetheless. Dave, the manage. Doug Doverspike, the vet who took care of Kep. The recovering alcoholic. Over time I’ll see regulars, too. May keep going there at least until the winter. Then I might pick up on my own again. Anytime is ten minutes from home.

     

    Breakfast with Alan at the Parkside. He’s currently acting in Zorro! The director recruited him for his role as the deposed Alcalde of 1809 Los Angeles. I admire his chutzpah, taking up the theater at 68. Voice lessons. Acting lessons. Directing lessons. He’s focused on acting though he does other things, too. Rotary and general tech and finance guy for CBE. Alan and I have a strong bond now. An essential part of my Mountain life. As with Marilyn and Irv. Tara. Rebecca. CBE. Jamie and Ron and Susan.

    Speaking of acting. I’m returning to Tal’s acting classes which start this next week. This time it’s character study. Joann Greenberg will be in the class. Alan might join. I still have little interest in acting in a production, but I love the classes. They challenge me, make me work a different part of my heart-brain. Plus I meet new people.

     

    This is my son and his wife’s last weekend on Oahu. Monday they crate up Murdoch and head to Inouye International for a flight to Incheon. Four years. I’m happy he’s got a command position and that she will be closer to family. We’ll use zoom and I’ll visit them. Murdoch will be close to genetic home ground, too.

     

    How bout those Nuggets, eh? Jokic is the real deal. One of the all time greats. I’ve gotta get down the hill to see him play before his career is over. They could win the NBA this year. We’ll see. Western Finals are next.

     

    Also, how bout that default? Playing chicken with the U.S. economy. Add this to Trump’s outstandingly awful, yet consistent, performance on CNN and the GOP should be on its last legs. Should be. Who knows what happens next year.