Category Archives: Garden

Aging, Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Garden, Greenhouse, Health, Politics, US History, World History

Embarrassed to Admit

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Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: CBE. Men’s group. Carol. Paul. The Greenhouse. Door and windows framed in. Seed order from Seed Saver’s Exchange has arrived. Ordered garden tools. Shabbat. Shadow, the tender. Israel. Iran. Lebanon. Palestinians. Saudi Arabia. Mark in Al Kharj. Jordan. Syria. Egypt. Iraq. Kuwait. The Emirates. War. Peace. Morning darkness. Waning gibbous Greenhouse Moon.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Cool Mountain Breeze

Week Kavannah: Bitachon. Confidence.  “A feeling of self-assurance arising from one’s appreciation of one’s abilities or qualities.”

One brief shining: In a world scarred by war and diminished by autocrats daily life goes on, trips to the grocery store, conversations with friends, feeding the dog, until of course it does not. Or, cannot.

 

My Seeds arrived. Heirloom varieties all. A nod to the Seed Saver’s among us, purchased from the Seed Saver’s Exchange near Decorah, Iowa. The Greenhouse will finish up next week. With the addition of soil to the three raised beds I will get started planting.

With Shadow by my side I’ll return to the Andover/Kate years of Dogs and Gardens. At least in part. No Bees this time. No Orchard. No Kate. Still. Co-creation. Tending the soil. Weeding, nurturing seedlings. Harvesting. Eating. The true transubstantiation.

Once again direct engagement with the Great Wheel’s blessings of Rain and Sun, Night and Day, growing season and fallow time.

When Nathan finishes, I’m going to have Rabbi Jamie and maybe some friends over to hang a mezuzah on its door, bless it. Artemis.

 

Living with pain: Embarrassed to admit it. Halle suggested setting my alarm for an hour. Then, get up and spend five minutes moving around. Embarrassed for three reasons: 1. Halle can’t be more than twenty-five. 2. I’ve read, know about this life hack. 3. It reveals how much I sit these days.

Even so. When the student is ready, the teacher arrives. Halle, in spite of her youth, is my teacher. I’ve been doing this hack for the last two days and it really helps. Keeps the hips and legs lubricated plus I get something done.

Just now I went outside and played the stop, drop, turn and move on game with Shadow. Called her a few times. Five minutes well spent.

Next five minutes I’ll make breakfast. Will take longer than five minutes but that’s fine. Perhaps after breakfast, I’ll read for an hour, then at the five minute break head up to the loft to continue my painting that I started a week ago.

All easy enough. Yet habit and mood have kept me in my chair for too long for too long.

 

Just a moment: We’ve passed out of the world hegemon era to one of regional conflicts. Russia trying to assert itself in the old Soviet Bloc. Israel attacking all of its Shia enemies. China advancing its navy into the South China Sea, claiming once and always Taiwan. The renaming of the Gulf of Mexico.

A world of regional powers rather than a global one (or, two) is unstable. Many flashpoints. Iran. Ukraine. Island chains near Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan.

 

Commentary on the news, Dogs, Garden, Greenhouse, Health, Wild Neighbors

A World of Difference

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Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Shadow, barking. At night. Outside. The Mule Deer Doe. Nathan. The Greenhouse. Framed up. Seed order. Great Sol. Another blue Sky Colorado morning. Altitude. Maxwell Creek full. Kate’s Creek full. Lodgepole Pollen making driveways and car windshields yellow.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Harry Dresden

Week Kavannah: Gratitude. Hakarot Hatov. (recognizing the good)    “Who is rich? Those who rejoice in their own portion.” Perkei Avot: 4:1

One brief shining: A Mule Deer Doe, human habituated, entered the yard yesterday which excited the herding Dog, Shadow; she approached barking, the Doe did not flinch, had me worried since Mule Deer and Elk can kill a Dog with a swift kick, Shadow persisted, but kept a reasonable distance.

 

Dog journal: This proved a longer story. Both Nathan and I tried to convince the Doe to leave. Harassing Wild Neighbors comes with living up here. Feeding Deer, Elk, Bears creates situations where animals may need to be euthanized. Somebody has fed this Doe. She would not be harassed out of the yard.

Shadow took her role in all this with such seriousness that she would not come in last night, preferring to remain outside in case the Doe tried something funny over night. Apparently she did because Shadow barked, loud and long, at three separate times during the night.

Oh, god. That was my Dog disturbing the peace of a Mountain night. She would not come in, nor be silenced. She was at work.

Not my best sleep as a result. Hope the Doe goes on to literally greener pastures. And, I also hope the Bull Elk who have come for the Dandelions don’t return this year.

 

The Greenhouse: The framing is done. Nathan says it goes faster from this point. Since he learned that I’m a Japanophile, especially when it comes to design, he’s going to toss in a few Japanese flourishes to the door and other spots.

Nathan is a good man. Strong work ethic. Loves Dogs and the Mountains. A serial entrepreneur he’s owned a trucking company, a handyman business, and now Colorado Coop and Garden. His partner runs a pet-sitting business.

They live in Conifer to the south and west of Shadow Mountain.

My seed order is in the mail. Better get myself a new houri knife. Soil under my fingernails again. Looking forward to it.

 

Cancer: No, not mine. Generation C. Millennials. Read a heart-rending story of a 25 year old man in Utah with stage 4 colon cancer. He held on until his daughter was born. Article did not say whether he died. 25!

The same article shows the rate of cancer for young people rising while, paradoxically, it’s falling for those over fifty. I don’t know what to make of this. Neither do the medical folks. Something is happen’, but we just don’t know what it is.

At 78 I’d prefer not to have cancer. Of course. Yet at my age life has been mostly lived. A son out in the world on his own. A career or two finished. Loves and Dogs and Travels.

Worlds apart. Stage 4 cancer at 25, stage 4 cancer at 78.

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Garden, Greenhouse, Shadow Mountain, Wild Neighbors

“I’m Getting Fat!”

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Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Radical Roots of Religion. Shadow. Her voice. Her presence. Natalie. Her injured Dogs. Nathan. The Greenhouse. Halle. Her grandfather. Judith. All Jews. Anti-Semites. Cousin Donald. Back and leg pain. Cancer results. Beltane. Summer. Lughnasa. The Shema. Being comfortable with who I am and what I have.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Halle

Week Kavannah: Gratitude. Hakarot Hatov. (recognizing the good)    “Who is rich? Those who rejoice in their own portion.” Perkei Avot: 4:1

One brief shining: Nathan constructs the Greenhouse with care, offering to design a Japanese style door, working with only a few tools and a small stepladder, headphones on listening to podcasts about science, his focus intense.

 

An example

The Greenhouse: The frame of the Greenhouse went up yesterday. A skeleton in four by fours and two by fours, all wood burned in the way of shou sugi ban. When construction finishes Nathan will coat all of the shou sugi ban wood with clear lacquer.

Made a seed order on Sunday with Seed Saver’s Exchange, my first in a decade. Fun to go through the online catalogue, looking for the varieties chatgpt recommended for 8800 feet. I didn’t have an AI companion the last time I gardened.

Nathan says he will do all the labor with the soil for free to make up for the delay in construction. He will also give me some Tomato transplants. He’s a good guy, wanting to do right by me. Even though it was FedEx that delayed the shipping on the plastic foundation pavers. Sound business on his part.

Found Zuni Signs on Monday. Evergreen. Will have them make my Artemis sign once the Greenhouse is complete. A link between Andover and Kate.

While talking to Nathan yesterday, I heard, “Charlie!” My neighbor, Jude. Recently retired from his welding business. “I’m getting fat.” Oh, yes indeed. His white t-shirt ballooned out with a substantial gut. “I have a bicycle. I look at it every once a while.” He laughs.

He asked me if I was building something. I said no he is, pointing to Nathan. “Are you paying for it, Charlie.” Yes. “Well, then you’re building it.”

 

Rigel and a bull Elk in our back a day before my first radiation treatment.

Wild Neighbors: Had several Elk come by  yesterday in the utility easement. Though they didn’t come in the yard, a large Mule Deer Doe did later in the day. My Dandelion crop attracts ungulates. They come for the Dandelions and stay for the Grass.

In 2019, on June 6th, I started my thirty-five sessions of ineffective radiation. On that day, before I left for Lone Tree, three Elk Bucks jumped the fence and dined for a day and a half on Dandelions and Grass. They came back every year until last year. The Does I saw earlier were the first Elk I’d seen up here for a couple of years. I see them often in Evergreen.

(BTW: Just now Shadow tried to herd the Mule Deer Doe. The Doe looked at her, did not move. I called Shadow and she came. Mule Deer and especially Elk can kill a Dog.)

In the Garden Andover

Kate: I stopped by Kate’s Valley to see if her Creek had Water. Very pleased to see it running full. Early last fall it had gone dry. Made me sad.

 

Garden, Greenhouse, Health

Good Friday

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Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Shabbat. Cancer news. SPRINT news. Shadow, more and more. Greenhouse news. Nathan. Natalie. My son. Mary and her balloons. Seoah. Mark in between terms in Al Kharj. The Hajj. Eid. The Akedah. Torah. Talmud Torah. Rain and chilly nights. Ruby with her summer sandals.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: PET Scan

Week Kavannah: Gratitude. Hakarot Hatov. (recognizing the good) “Who is rich? Those who rejoice in their own portion.” Perkei Avot: 4:1

One brief shining: Once in a while, not often, but once in a while, the One pulses through me, my chi dancing a tango with my neshama, the flow of sacred power running from the ayn sof through me to malkhut, lighting up the sefirot on the Tree of Life like bumpers on a pinball machine, a buzz of embracing and being embraced, of being one with, yet also one as myself with the One, and so it is today. Can the congregation say amen?

 

Back pain and cancer: My Friday began in the normal way. A creaky, painful emergence from the one sixtieth of death the rabbi’s call sleep, my wandering neshama returned to its fleshly vessel, Shadow licking my head, chewing on my blanket. Oh, Shadow.

Unsteady on my cane (made in the Ukraine and beautiful) I lurch a bit, get my feet moving. Morning medications. Let Shadow outside, fill her water bowl. Retrieve coffee and mineral water from upstairs.

Flop into the chair. Grab my laptop and begin writing Ancientrails. Finish. Still two hours before my 8:30 call with Taylor, Dr. Buphati’s P.A. Hard to wait. A feeling a bit like Christmas in terms of anticipatory edge though knowing it could be Krampus delivering coal and sticks rather than Santa Claus.

Set out on this tiring journey during my visit with Rich to Buphati almost three weeks ago. After, MRI and PET scan. New PSA. Waiting. A time of uncertainty. Will the MRI show metastatic lesions in my right hip? Will the PET scan show more metastases? Will my worst fears be confirmed, that my pain is not back and hip pain, but cancer turned aggressive, out of control?

8:40. 8:45. No Taylor. A telehealth visit with only a screen assuring me, oddly, that I am in Taylor Taroyasan. I wasn’t.

At 8:46, a nurse. We’re having technical difficulties here. Ah. The scourge of our technological era. The dreaded difficulties.

Then, Taylor. Without her mask since this is zoom, or zoom like.

No lesions on the hip. MRI. PET scan showed no new metastases and the ones from a year ago took up less of the tracer, in a couple of instances a lot less. That means less activity in the cancer cells. After the span of a year! That’s really good news. Hormone therapy may always fail, I’m assured that it does, but not yet.

The problem with my right hip, the MRI revealed, is a tear inside the labrum of my right hip. The labrum is a sort of organic o-ring around the hip socket that gives the ball of the hip a good seal as it turns and twists. Not uncommon. Maybe a quarter of people have some degree of wear and tear on their labrum. Mine’s acting up.

An orthopedic referral. No surgery in my near term future though. Because in the next 4-6 weeks, I’ll have a SPRINT device implanted. While it’s in, for sixty days, no MRIs or surgery. Could give relief up to two years or longer. For my back and hip pain. Wowzer. I’m holding low expectations, but am ready for a good result.

I learned this from Kylie whom I saw after my telehealth visit with Taylor.

For the trifecta:

Greenhouse: Later in the day on Friday I got this e-mail from Nathan:  “Good news! The pavers finally came in this evening. I will plan on starting back in first thing Monday morning and will put in long days and get your greenhouse done ASAP! Thank you for your patience. You will not be disappointed with the finished product.”

All in all. A good Friday.

Dogs, Garden, Great Wheel, Greenhouse, Health, Politics

Godzilla v Mothra

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Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

Friday gratefuls: Irv, Tom. New Human Consciousness. Halle. Hip and leg pain. Exquisite. Kylie today. Taylor today. Natalie today. Alan today. Shabbat this evening. Shadow, chewer of duvets. Sweet morning girl. Tara. Susan. Diane. Morning darkness.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Information

Week Kavannah: Shleimut. Wholeness and Peacefulness.

One brief shining: Rain and slow delivery of plastic foundation tiles has delayed the construction of the greenhouse, but I’m ok with that since it will be a slow project, maybe flowers more than vegetables this year, not sure what the later planting schedules can yield.

 

Greenhouse: Nathan asked me a week ago if I would prefer plastic foundation tiles, better for water runoff in Spring. Sure, I said. He didn’t know then that the delivery of these tiles would not happen until this evening. He’s very apologetic, going to cut me a break on labor at the end of the project. Things like filling my raised beds with soil. Kind of him

The delayed construction has drained some of my enthusiasm for the project, though I imagine once the construction gets going that will return. Besides, it’s a long haul project. Once it’s up the fun begins.

Next week Nathan will have a helper and he’s done a lot of precutting so the greenhouse will go up fast.

 

Dog journal: During my nap yesterday Shadow jumped up on the bed, lay with her head on my legs, and slept. Such a sweet moment. With her willingness to hug me and get hugged back, her greater ease with the threshold (far from resolved), and her willingness to be on a leash, we’ve moved into new territory.

Of course. While on the bed, she did rip my duvet, allowing goose feathers to escape. Buying cloth tape to fix it. No sense being elaborate since she’ll probably do it again. Gonna buy new bedroom stuff from carpet to bed to nightstand after she finds her maturity.

Shadow has also mastered the stairs to the main level. She’s up there right now while I write on the lower level. Wonder what she’s doing?

 

Health: A significant Friday morning. Taylor, Dr. Buphati’s P.A., (oh, Shadow just came back down) will tell me the results of my MRI and my PET scan. As usual, my anxiety titer hits its peak about now. Do I have many more metastases? Is there cancer in my hip joint? And if so, what happens next?

That’s at 8:30. Then, at 9:40 I see Kylie to get slipstreamed into the medical process again, this time for the SPRINT neurostimulator device implantation. My life would be better if my pain were less.

 

Just a moment: Aw. The Donald and the African-American coming to blows. Elon’s intelligence and his libertarian revulsion toward government bonded with Trump’s Revenge and Chaos tour. Result? Madness.

Now Trump’s willingness to do whatever he wants whenever he wants with no underlying rationale other than personal animus and a narcissistic belief that any thought passing through his mind is big and beautiful has clashed with Musk’s libertarian, tear it all down and don’t let it get back up sensibility. This is a perverted form of ideological logic versus irrationality. Will not end well. For any party affected. Including the U.S.

AI, Dogs, Fourth Phase, Garden, GeekWorld, Greenhouse, Health, Humanities, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain

Live Until You Die

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Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: My son. Shadow. Natalie. Mary. Guru. Seoah. Ruth. US Air Force. US Navy. US Army. US Marines. Warriors. Korea. Ruth in Seoul. Jamie and the radical roots of religion. My back. Lawn furniture. Nathan. The Greenhouse build. Living, not dying. Nothing hard is easy.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Plants

Week Kavannah: Zerizut for p.t. and resistance

One brief shining: Learning from Natalie as she explains reading a dog’s mind and feelings, head to the left or right, processing, as is walking away, not stubborn, figuring things out, wait, panting as a sign of worry, consent to hug or pet when Shadow comes up to me and stays or leaps up on my legs while I’m sitting down, two species, 15,000 years of partnership, much better understood by the one with the smaller brain.

 

A lot going on here on Shadow Mountain. A series of dog training moments, an hour or so, with Natalie. Nathan getting my greenhouse foundation ready, treating the Wood at his place for Shou Sugi Ban, delivering things he’ll need for his work. Two Kabbalah Experience classes nearing their end. Two hip MRI tomorrow. Keeping track of my son’s promotion and his visitors. Ruth in Korea. Receiving the money for the Jang family visit in August. Spring. Rains and Thunder.

Live until I die remains my mantra. Moving into tomorrow not as one less day, but as a time to anticipate, to savor, to enjoy. Natalie made an offhand comment, for example, about my needing outdoor furniture to enjoy my backyard. Oh? Well, duh. Looking through online catalogues. Probably go look in person somewhere.

This is, you see, my life. Not the anteroom for my death. No matter what’s going on. Not even if I ever need to move into hospice. Learning. Loving. Growing spiritually. Right. Up. To. The. End.

 

Dog journal: Natalie has skills. She’s deeply read and connected with other trainers in online chatgroups. She’s dedicated to positive training. No shock collars. No harshness. Rather. Learning the heart and mind of dogs. Applying that in problem situations to recognize, then shape behaviors.

An example. Using feeding time to increase trust with Shadow. Feeding her from my hand makes her associate me with her food. “It’s all about the grub,” Natalie says. The walk, drop a treat behind, change direction game gives Shadow the choice to follow me. At some point she’ll just follow me. Working next on getting her to come inside voluntarily and like it. Walking on a leash.

I recognize and admire Ana’s house cleaning, Natalie’s training, and Nathan’s careful work.

A lot of dystopians imagine a world where A.I. puts humans out of work, yet makes enough cash available for a no work life. This will be awful, directionless, purposeless.

No. I don’t believe it. I believe the essence of the human experience lies in relating to each other, to animals near and far, in growing our own food at some level. In painting. Sculpture. Dog training. Construction. Cooking. Conversation. The joys of retirement.

 

Dogs, Fourth Phase, Garden, Great Wheel, Greenhouse, Health, Paganism, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Reimaging revelation, Writing

Shou Sugi Ban Treated Wood for Artemis Greenhouse

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Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II (3% crescent)

Sunday gratefuls: Shadow jumping onto my legs this morning for a hug. So sweet. Fun with old socks. Our new, changing relationship. Back pain. Zerizut for p.t. and resistance work. Tara. Alan. Rich. Luke. Mussar. Shabbat. Morning prayers. Enveloped by Rain and Fog. Mom and Dad, both veterans. My son, a future veteran. All those who defend us with their lives.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rain

Week Kavannah: Zerizut. Enthusiasm. for p.t. and resistance.

One brief shining: As Great Sol began to disappear behind Black Mountain yesterday, a rainy Fog rolled in and gave my backyard a ghostly appearance, Lodgepoles coming in and out of sight, Shadow rushing inside all wet from running through a Cloud.

 

On Ancientrails: You may notice some extra posts here and there. I’ll signal them with something in the future, probably an image. You will find my regular as usual posts with the format of long standing.

These new posts are me trying to write out, work out my sense of where I am in my thought process about certain matters like spirituality, theology, politics. I’ve had this urge to write down things I’ve thought about for a long time. They’re incomplete sentences, non-systematic because I’ve admitted to myself that I’m not a system builder or even an always logical thinker. There is this strain of mysticism, a poetry of the inner world that means more to me than a syllogism. Though I love syllogisms, too.

You will know these entries by their lack of gratefuls, sparks, kavannah, one brief shining. Please feel free to ignore them. They’re me scratching my name in the wet Sand. I want a record of those ideas before the King Tide rolls in.

 

Dog journal: Shadow bounded into my arms this morning before I got out of bed, her paws on my outstretched legs. As if overnight, she’d forgotten to be shy, to be scared. I hugged her and she wriggled happy, licking my face. Yes, I said to her, this is what I want. What I need. An oh so special moment.

 

Back pain/cancer: Tara will take me to my open-sided MRI. I’ll have taken an Ativan for my claustrophobia so I’ll be talkative with little executive function for a filter. Glad I trust her.

Here’s an oddity with this MRI. Both my oncologist and my pain doc want images of my hips. Both have sent orders. I hope that doesn’t screw things up.

Oncologist checking for metastatic growth in my hips. Pain doc getting information for a possible insertion of a SPRINT device later. Two diagnoses for the price of one! BOGO.

 

Just a moment: We will move into the Artemis Greenhouse Moon tomorrow. Nathan comes tomorrow to begin building. He thinks it will take about a week. I’m excited. I want/need to grow things again.

It will be done in shou sogi ban treated wood. This is an ancient Japanese wood treatment that involves charring the surface of a board, then sealing it. Nathan has taught himself how to do this.

Since I’m starting a little late in the gardening year, I’ll have to be careful with what I plant, but I’ll get crops this year. Plus there will be flowers.

 

 

 

 

Garden, Great Wheel, Mountains, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Talmud, Torah, Wild Neighbors

Artemis: A Riff on Tactile Spirituality

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Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

A Tactile Spirituality

“I live at 8,800 feet in zip code 80433. I’m having a greenhouse built in my backyard. What vegetables will grow well in it. Look for heirloom varieties. Include recommended planting dates. Mostly I want salad ingredients and greens. Tomatoes.”

This is the prompt I gave chatgpt for a quick assist in knowing what to plant. I got back 21 pages of detailed recommendations, including specific heirloom varieties of Tomatoes, Lettuce, Radishes, Carrots, Beets, Onions, and Herbs.

Spirituality has the curse of the three-story universe, René Descartes, and destructive deconstruction. That is, Abrahamic prayer and devotional practice has historically “aimed” its prayers up toward the heavens and away from the corruptions of the flesh. Descartes’s dramatic division of the mind from the body reinforced a religious path focused on the immaterial mind, released from the body. And, in turn, Mother Earth. While deconstruction did unveil the power dynamics involved in how our agriculture works, how choice of books for a syllabus reflected white privilege, and the patriarchal symbolism of the three-story universe, it also made demythologizing a knee jerk way of removing mystery and grace.

As a result a tactile spirituality seems, at first look, an oxymoron. The mind. The heavens. Transcendence. Those are the domain of spirit. Not the soil. Not the forests. Not the feet or the hands. Not the world of this reality, this busy, noisy, fussy, often bloody and violent reality. How can we gain the peace, the calm, the centeredness where spiders crawl, illness ravages, and death dominates?

That’s where Artemis Greenhouses comes in. About as down and dirty a human activity, or I should say, human aided activity as I can imagine. Soil (no, not dirt) under the fingernails. Nurturing small plants. Beets. Spinach. Lettuce. Radishes. Plucking off predating insects. Blocking out Deer and Elk. Harvesting the red and white Radish. The red Beet. Rainbow colored Chard. Green Kale and Spinach. Eating them.

Fuel for the body. That most inelegant of spiritual residences, the body. Full of blood and waste, nutrients and foreign matter. Under some understandings only a vessel for the soul, a way to keep the mind alive.

No. Souls are us. Our living flesh ensouled. Sacred. Hardly ordinary unless you call, as I do, the ordinary sacred. What we touch feels the hand of a god, the god. What we embrace knows the warmth of a god, the god. The soil in which we plant seeds quickens when we work it.

The Mule Deer Doe who feeds her newborn fawn feeds a divine presence, a unique and precious never to be repeated instance of god made flesh. Maxwell Creek filled with Spring Rain pulls bits of Rock and Earth from its bank as the god-in-water, returning the Rocky Mountains to the World Ocean.

Sure. The Torah. Yes. Talmud Torah. The hands of living gods have written it and the minds of living Jews finds god within, upon its pages, in its stories. It teaches us. Yet, it teaches the same message as Maxwell Creek. That god rushes to the Sea. That god fills every molecule of Water.

I read the scripture written in the bark of my Lodgepole companion. I see the yellow Flame of the Aspen Catkin against the blue Flame of a Colorado Sky and read of life’s elegant and graceful re-emergence in this, the wet season.

In my world all spirituality is tactile. In Shadow jumping on my legs. In turning the pages of a Torah commentary. In hearing the voice of Luke or Ginny or Janice. In tasting a bit of Lettuce, an Onion, a fresh heirloom Tomato. All of the tactile is spiritual.

Art and Culture, Bees, Cinema and Television, Fungi, Garden, Mountains, Plants, Wild Neighbors

All. All of it. Sacred.

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Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

Ramses II. By Djehouty – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

Tuesday gratefuls: Needles into my spine. 11 am. Paul in Salt Lake City. Mary in Eau Claire. The wide world. The newly opened Grand Egyptian Museum. The National Museum in Taipei. The Frick’s renovation. The Isabella Stewart Gardener museum. The Phillip Johnson. The MIA. The Walker. Being a dramaturg.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: All the art in all the world

Week Kavannah:  Sensibility. Daat.

One brief shining: So many museums, the quiet time early in the morning before the crowds come, walking into the Bruegel room at the Kunsthistorisches, or the Botticelli room at the Uffizi, even walking with the crowd into the Sistine Chapel, the Sistine Chapel!, my favorite moment to spend time with the Dr. Arrieta by Goya at the MIA, there are raptures and revelations there for those who can see what they are looking at.

 

Imagine a street in any major city. Bangkok. Kuala Lumpur. NYC. A busy street filled with pedestrians on their way. Somewhere. Vehicles in the street. Bicycles. Taxis. Private cars. Delivery trucks. Businesses fronted on the sidewalk. With offices above them.

All those vast inner worlds. As vast your own. Never to be known. Not by you. Not by anyone else. Unless. Perhaps. A lover or therapist. Or, if one of them is an artist. Doesn’t matter what kind. Painter. Writer. Musician. Dancer. Playwright. Sculptor. Artisan. Any.

Artists need to, have to reveal themselves, their inner worlds. Can’t help it. It’s not quite the same as conversation between lovers, but it can be pretty damned close.

That Goya above? That’s the painter himself being treated. For what was apparently a not very serious ailment. Did he know that at the time of his treatment? Doesn’t look like it, does it? Vulnerable. Needy. Confident doctor.

Or, that statue of Ramses II. The sculptors, I imagine there were many, knew they had to give this work all the power and majesty they could find within themselves. Only then could it meet the demands of their God-King.

Doryphoros

I cherish those times when I can be with an artist and their work. Why? Because then like speaks to like. Inner worlds connect. Oh, yes. Anguish. Despair. Shame. Grief. Joy. Celebration. Deep contemplation. Reacting to surface beauty. Or, the lithe musculature of a Panther, the mystery of time caught forever in the Doryphoros as he steps forward.

Reading. Listening. Seeing. Tasting. The artistry of a well-made meal. What a wonder, the world of the arts.

And even so. My Lodgepole companion. My friends at CBE. Black Mountain after a heavy Snow. Maxwell Creek filled with Snow Melt. A bull Elk in the rain. Yes. These, too. Reveal the inner world of the whole wide world. In those moments before a painting or listening to an orchestra or sitting on a Rocky overhang in the Arapaho National Forest. When a newborn Fawn looks up from its first meals of tender new Grass. We get that jolt, that moment of knowing. Oh. Yes. It’s all sacred. I remember. I’ve known this all along. The press of life sometimes makes me forget. But I know it. Again. Now.

 

 

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Garden, Great Wheel, Health, Judaism, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Paganism, Plants, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, The West, US History, Weather +Climate, Writing

Living. Not dying.

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Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Shadow. Her kindness. Amy. Her understanding. Cookunity. Colorado Coop and Garden. The Greenhouse. Gardening again. Korea. Malaysia. Australasia. Wisconsin. Saudi Arabia. The Bay. First Light. 10,000 Lakes. The Rocky Mountain Front Range. Where my people live.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Greenhouse

Week Kavannah: Joy. Simcha.

One brief shining: Nathan and I wandered in my back yard, his app that shows Great Sol’s illumination searching for a good spot to plant my greenhouse, until we neared a spot close to the shed, that was it with decent morning Sun and an hours worth of afternoon Sun more than anywhere else.

 

 

That picture is not quite what I’m getting. Mine will have an outdoor raised bed on either side and shutters that move themselves as the greenhouse heats up and cools down. It will also have an electric heater for Winter and a drip irrigation system inside and out.

This guy Nathan, a Conifer native, started his business Colorado Coop and Garden to give folks like me an opportunity to grow things up here. Working a garden at ground level is long past for me. But Nathan can build the raised beds at a height where my back is not an issue.

Guess I’m regressing here in some ways. A Dog. A small Garden. Andover in miniature. The greenhouse will have a sign: Artemis Gardens. Artemis Honey was Kate and mine’s name for our bee operation.

 

I’m loving my classes at Kabbalah Experience. Reaching deep into the purpose of religion and Judaism in particular. Reimagining the story of Adam and Eve. My life, my Jewish life and my Shadow Mountain life, have begun to resonate. Learning and living an adventure in fourth phase purpose.

No matter what the near term future holds for my health I will not succumb to despair or bleakness. As I’ve often said, I want to live until I die. This life, I’m coming to realize, is me doing just that.

If I were a bit more spry, I’d add a chicken coop and a couple of bee hives, but both require more flexibility than I can muster.

I’m at my best when I’m active outside with Mother Earth and inside with a Dog, books, and new learning. All that leavened with the sort of intimate relationships I’ve developed both here and in Minnesota and with my far flung family.

That’s living in the face of autocracy and cruelty. I will not attenuate my life. Neither for the dark winds blowing through our country and world, nor for that dark friend of us all, death.

 

Just a moment: Did you read Thomas Friedman’s article: I’ve Never Been More Afraid for My Countries Future? His words, served up with a healthy dish of Scandinavian influenced St. Louis Park Judaism, ring more than true to me. They have the voice of prophecy.

We are in trouble. No doubt. Trouble from which extrication will require decades, I imagine. If not longer. Yet. I plan to grow heirloom vegetables year round on Shadow Mountain. To have mah Dog Shadow with me in the Greenhouse.

I also plan to write and think about the sacred, the one, the wholeness of which we are part and in which we live, die, love. I will not cheapen my life with bitterness, rather I will eat salads, read, play with Shadow and dine with friends, talk to my friends and family near and far.