• Category Archives Great Work

  • Belonging, holy

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    The Mountain Summer Moon

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

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ovid

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

     

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

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

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

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

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

     

     


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  • Water

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    The Mountain Summer Moon

    Shabbat gratefuls: That sinking into a pleasant day feeling. The heat. Great Sol. Carbon emissions at record highs. Life changing politics on tap. Project 2025. The Sea reaching out, claiming more Land. This heated Land. The poor, especially those in cities like Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson, L.A. Water. Transpiration. Evaporation. Precipitation. The cycle.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: My well

    One brief shining: 28 years with a well and a septic system, Andover to Shadow Mountain, no fluoride, the occasional bit of radon, acidity, and chemicals, flowing in from the Aquifer below, in Andover from the Great Anoka Sand Plain, here on Shadow Mountain the well drilled into fractured bed rock, much of the same Water flowing back out through sinks, the washing machine and dishwasher, toilets and into the leech field well toward the back fence line, returning that Water to the Aquifer.

     

    a more accurate depiction of the global human-integrated water cycle diagram          10 August 2020 Source Own work Author LangeLeslie and Anna Wright cc license     click to expand

    . “The water cycle describes the processes that drive the movement of water throughout the hydrosphere. However, much more water is “in storage” (or in “pools”) for long periods of time than is actually moving through the cycle.” wiki

    Water. Water. Everywhere. Including outer space. Astronomers find largest, most distant reservoir of Water in the Universe.* Yet as we can see from the above diagram its distribution on Earth is such that only minimal amounts of fresh Water exist and those that are available are not distributed equally across the continents. See this interesting website: A Look at Global Freshwater Distribution.

    The notion of increased heat across the globe caused me to go hunting for information about fresh Water resources since transpiration and evaporation will both increase as the thermostat gets twisted higher and higher. This will have the effect of changing existing patters of freshwater distributions. But how? I don’t know if anyone is planning for this.

    This will happen whether the red hot MAG(m)A flows through our political veins or not. As will Sea level rise. And all the other climate change sequelae. Which means that a Ron DeSantis attitude might prevail among U.S. policy makers. What attitude? Florida Gov. DeSantis signs bill that deletes climate change from state law. Just don’t say climate change. And it will go away. Right?

    The world may soon enter a period of leadership when national interests, dare I say it, trump global interests. Such a good time for it, too. Since dramatic and difficult to achieve carbon emission reductions are necessary to avoid the worst scenarios. Unlikely to happen. Which will result in a world catastrophe. I admit we were headed that way anyway, but these political changes will seal off any hope for effective addressing of climate change.

    This puts the onus on those of us in the liberal to leftist camp to figure out how to work on these issues without governmental support. It can be done. Look at the nature rights movement. The many NGO’s out there from Ancient Forest champions to eco-justice. Even the restoration of Axolotls and Chiampas farming.

    Perhaps that will be the way of the future for compassionate and justice oriented work. Happening now.

     

    *”Two teams of astronomers have discovered the largest and farthest reservoir of water ever detected in the universe. The water, equivalent to 140 trillion times all the water in the world’s ocean, surrounds a huge, feeding black hole, called a quasar, more than 12 billion light-years away.”


    Commentary on the news Great Work Science Weather +Climate World History

  • Cosmic Context for Election 2024

    Posted on by Charles 1 Comment

    Summer and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: Irv. Tara. Veronica. Her Bat Mitzvah party. Blazing light from Great Sol. Black Mountain’s gentle curve against a Colorado blue Sky. My Lodgepole Companion, among the Lighteaters. Monkeys in Bangkok and K.L. Primates. Gorillas. Bonobos. Chimpanzees. Orangutans. Lemurs. Gibbons. Humans. Monkeys. Baboons. So many relatives.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Our order among living things

    One brief shining: Sunlight filtered down to Earth after its 93 million mile journey, some eaten by Coastal Redwood crowns, some by Kentucky Blue Grass on unnecessary lawns, some by the Saguaros in Arizona, some by fields of unnecessary Corn in Iowa, some by Moosehorn and British Soldier Lichen, photons into carbohydrates, raw energy into matter, a transubstantiation so real and true that it supports life of all kinds on the surface of Mother Earth.

     

    Here is the best piece of theology I’ve read in quite a while: Earth’s Mysterious, Deep Dwelling Microbes That Sculpt Our Planet. Ferris Jabr, NYT, June 24, 2024. If you choose to read it, you will learn that the Gaia hypothesis has infiltrated much of contemporary science that deals with matters biological, ecological, and, yes, even geological. Life shapes our Earth. Our Earth shapes Life. Here’s the closing paragraph:

    “For more than two centuries, Western science has re­garded the origin of life as something that happened on or in Earth, as if the planet were simply the setting for a singular phenomenon, the manger that housed a miracle. But the two cannot be separated in this way. Life does not merely reside on the planet; it is an extension of the planet. Life emerged from, is made of and returns to Earth. Earth is not simply a terrestrial planet with a bit of life on its surface; it’s a planet that came to life. Earth is a rock that broiled, gushed and bloomed: the flowering callus of a half-sealed Vesuvius suspended in a bubble of breath. Earth is a stone that eats starlight and radiates song, whirling through the inscrutable emptiness of space — pulsing, breathing, evolving — and just as vulnerable to death as we are.”

    https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2024/05/30/nasas-james-webb-space-telescope-finds-most-distant-known-galaxy/

    Just a moment: Here’s another look at God: Piping up at the Gates of Dawn. Dennis Overbye, NYT, June 22, 2024. In this article scientists enthuse that something like JADES-GS-z14-0, a luminous Galaxy formed a mere 300 million years or so after the Big Bang, could have done all it did in “such a short time.” That makes geological time seem like a Mayfly. JADES-GS-z14-0 is the most distant Galaxy ever found.

    The James Webb at work.


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  • Penultimate

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: Friends. All of them. Near and far. Family. Ruth and Gabe. My son and Seoah and Murdoch. Mark. Mary. Diane. Tara’s help with some additional Hebrew I got for tomorrow. Tara. Irv. Tom. Paul. Marilyn. Heidi. Alan. Jamie. Veronica. Mindy. Kat. Lauren. Elizabeth. Kate and Mike. Kate’s Creek. Kate, always Kate. Great Sol. Exuberant this morning.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Completing a long journey

    One brief shining: The Shema in the morning, I cover my eyes: Listen, God-Wrestler. YHWH is our God. YHWH is one, touch the mezuzah, still sleepy I pick up my phone, take my morning pills, put in my hearing aid, check for dishes and empty cans of mineral Water, try to remember when I took my synthroid, then upstairs to see Herme still lit from the night and turn him off. A new life has begun.

     

    Bar Mitzvah day tomorrow. Today is penultimate, one of Kate’s favorite words. I’ve practiced. A lot. I’m as ready as I can be. Within one year I have converted, completed the studies necessary for conversion, learned my torah portion in Hebrew so I can read it with no vowels and no punctuation from the torah scroll, practiced leading portions of the morning service, gotten my tallit from Joanne and learned how to use it. Tomorrow the Hebrew meets the scroll as we say. Ha.

    It’s not been easy. At times I felt I might founder under the expectations, the constant study. Like learning a new language. The religious language of an ancient people. Yet each step has deepened my conviction about becoming a Jew. Even with the whole Israel/Gaza mess and the aborted trip to Israel.

    Each time I go in the synagogue, if I remember, I wear my kippah. I say we when discussing matters Jewish. My lev, my heart-mind, has shifted allegiances to this oddly rigorous, yet undogmatic spiritual path. My inner pagan remains intact, nurtured now by Rosh Chodesh, the Jewish lunar calendar, Sukkot, Passover, Shavuot, Tu Bishevat as well as the Great Wheel and the unitary metaphysic I claim every morning and evening when I say the Shema. Reconstructionist Rabbi’s like Jamie, Art Green, Toba Spitzer, Rami Shapiro, and Michael Strassfield continue the radical project of Mordecai Kaplan. In doing so they have, for me anyhow, opened my lev to the intimacy of teshuvah and the world-embracing power of tikkun.

    Yes. But that’s not where it started for me. First with Kate. The convert. A slumbering Judaism that got reignited when we moved to Shadow Mountain and found Congregation Beth Evergreen. Rabbi Jamie made it easy for us to be there, even pagan me. Friends that we made made it home.

    It was those friends who engendered the aha that decided me. Those who enter the sanctuary, the mah tovu implies, make the sanctuary sacred. Our friends. Now, after Kate’s death, my friends. My sacred community. Here in the Rocky Mountains. Among the Mountain Jews. Which now include me.

     


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  • Taller than its neighbors at Elk Meadow Park, Tree #3

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

    Occurred to me today that I can honor any tree I want. Doesn’t have to be in my yard though I imagine the bulk of them will be.

    Today I had a blood draw in Evergreen so I drove up Stagecoach Road to one of the many trailheads for Elk Meadows Park. Got out of the car and walked over to the main path. On the left side of the main path was a stand of Lodgepole Pines. Though the elevation was only 7,700 feet they seemed to be doing fine.

    Probably influenced by reading Wild Trees I chose the tallest of those in the grove for my honoring.

    A sense of the Park
    The tallest in this shot

    This Tree grows in a small Grove on a slightly sloped area. A Colorado Forestry website says Lodgepoles prefer a slight slope and this Tree has found one. Like my Lodgepole Companion most of their Branches push out from the Trunk toward the Southeast. Also like my Companion this tall Lodgepole has almost no branches toward the Northwest.

    Its lower Branches contained fewer male sex organs than my Companion, but shared this characteristic with its neighbors. Further up they began to proliferate. About two thirds of the way up a row of Branches had female Strobilus that were taller and fuzzier than the others. Don’t know what that means, but some of Tree #3’s neighbors had the same pattern.

    The softer, yellowish pine cones are the male organs. The more erect one in the middle is female which will transform over time into serotinous cones. Serotinous cones have heavy pitch sealing the precious seeds inside. Only the heat of a Forest Fire will cause the pitch to melt and allow the seeds to disperse onto the scorched earth.

    When you live in the Mountains, it is so easy to drive past the Trees, seeing them only as a barrier to accessing the slope of the Mountainside. Or, to see them and think they’re all alike. If you’ve seen one Lodgepole, you’ve seen them all. They do share many characteristics. Altitude and soil preferences. Monoecious reproduction. A thin bark. A susceptibility to Fire, especially Fires that advance from Crown to Crown. The hardest for smoke jumpers and hotshots to control.

    Yet they are all different. All unique individuals expressing their full potential in that one spot where they grow, adapting their Branching strategies to the microclimate of other Trees, position on a Mountain, shelter or not from Storms, the nutrient value of the Soil.

    The bark of Tree #3

     


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  • P.E.T. Scan

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: P.E.T. Scans. Radioactive tracers. Bar mitzvah. Torah portion. Service prayers and blessings. Thyroid blood draw. Euclid, a wide sky deep space telescope. James Webb. Hubble. Our local cluster. The Milky Way. Its outer arms. Our home there. Three Body Problem. Wild Trees. Trees as my way in. Colorado Trees. Shadow Mountain Trees.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Universe. (and, thanks for all the fish!)

    One brief shining: Sometimes my mind wobbles when it considers the Universe, this vast interconnected web of all things to which we are intimately yet often over unimaginable distances connected, then I have to turn to the Lodgepole out my window, those Mule Deer munching on Dandelions, the astonishing human body, this Mountain on which I live and my mind says, oh, I see, and steadies itself.

     

    June 2019

    P.E.T.* scan today. An injection sends a chemical that binds to prostate cancer cells and carries a radioactive signal readable by the positron emission tomography machine. Where it lights up. Metastases. If it finds some, a new treatment plan will follow. Possibly back on the familiar Orgovyx and Erleada. Possibly radiation. Depends. Might find nothing right now though we know some cancer has begun to grow again due to my rising PSA. If nothing lights up, I’ll stay off the drugs for now. Probably another scan if and/or when my PSA goes up further.

    Scanxiety. Who knew? It’s a real thing. Any cancer patient is familiar with it to some extent. That tingle that comes with another lab draw, waiting for the results. Or, imaging. Hunting for tumors. Mets. Like I’m having today. I have scanxiety. It’s mild. But not feeling something would seem weird to me.

    Who wants to have metastases confirmed? Sure, it helps identify treatment modalities that will extend my life, but… Who wants to need treatment to extend their life? My rational self knows ignoring my cancer would bring certain death. Not soon, but certain. As a result, I’ll get in my car and drive to Sky Ridge Hospital once again. Wait 45 minutes for the tracer to circulate throughout my body. Lie down and let the highly sophisticated machinery take a look.

    A week from Thursday I’ll talk to Kristie, see what the results mean. Whatever the scan shows, it will not result in a cure. That’s settled. But prostate cancer is manageable. And this is the way that happens.

     

    June 4th Kilauea eruption and the Milky Way

    Just a moment: Kilauea erupts! Again. It’s one of the most active Volcanoes on Earth. Kate and I stayed at Volcano House for two weeks, a National Parks Hotel in Volcanoes National Park. We became acquainted with this vast Shield Volcano, with Halemaʻumaʻu, the caldera home of Pele, the Hawai’ian goddess of fire, with the offerings native Hawai’ians left on its rim. Flowers. Alcohol. Shells.

    May I say that this photograph soothes my scanxiety. This vastness and our living Earth. Together. As they and we are.

     

     

    *How does it work? PSMA, short for Prostate Specific Membrane Antigen, is a protein found on the surface of prostate cancer cells. The “imaging agent” consists of a chemical that binds to PSMA, honing in on prostate cancer cells wherever they are in the body. Attached to this binding chemical is a radioactive “reporter.” Patients are given a one-time injection of this combination molecule into the bloodstream, “tagging” prostate cancer cells. The patients are then given a scan with an imaging camera that “lights up” areas where the molecule has accumulated—i.e., sites of prostate cancer (see photo above).

    PSMA PET imaging may help guide your treatment plan.


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  • I’m Into Something Good. Oh, yeah…

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Cool night. Elk. Mule Deer. Fox. Great Sol. The Great Wheel. The Great Work. The Jewish Year. Wild Trees. Ancient Forests. Sequoias. Coastal Redwoods. Bristlecone Pines. Kabbalah. Shekinah. The Sabbath Bride. Emergence. Lodgepoles. Aspens. Jewitches. Love. Justice. Compassion. A direction, a purpose. A way to live.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Emergence

    One brief shining: Before the closing of the door and before I even open it, I stand hand over my eyes repeating the shema, declaring that I, god-wrestler, find the one to be all and the all to be one, which we might call god or not, but we can call it for sure the interdependent web of all things, all becoming things, everywhere there is a where, stretching from me in front of my bedroom door to the other reaches of this universe, passing by the Crab Nebula and the Horse Head Nebula on its way to a boundary where there can be no boundary.

     

    I’m into something good.* Said this this morning during the Ancient Brothers. An exciting burst of serendipity, synchronicity, plain old enthusiasm. Heading toward eudaimonia. Wow. Sounds manic as I write it. Has some of that flavor. The shovel that uncovered this new path? A dream. And the Dreamers’ response to it.

    And… Here we go. I’m going back to Wabash College. At least that place I was when I was there. Serendipity note: the Herman’s Hermits song below was released in 1964, the summer before my last year of high school, and before my mother’s death in October. Another serendipity note: Herman’s Hermits.

    When I went to Wabash, I had competing emotions, both so very strong. The first. Grief. Unresolved, not understood, in no way dealt with. Mom was dead. I left home to go to this school, at the time highly competitive, and bare my small town intellect to so many others so much smarter than me. Grief and uncertainty. Toxic at best.

    The second. Finally! A liberal arts education. A chance to get into the cultural deposit of the West. (It would be many, many years before Asia showed up in my life.) Philosophy. History. English Literature. Languages. A chance to grow beyond my autodidact years, guided by professors and stimulated by fellow students. Hard to convey the excitement, even relief, I felt at starting college.

    Then German happened. I wanted to read Hegel, Nietzsche, Kant in the original. So I signed up. And floundered. Bad. Got c’s and d’s on quizzes and tests. Where this headed was clear. Abject failure. I did not do the brave and movie worthy thing. Face up to it and overcome. No. I dropped German like a hot potato masher hand grenade.

    At the end of the year summer jobs were hard to find and Wabash was expensive. I decided to go further. Leave Wabash altogether. I’m not big on regret, but this is one of them for me.

    The dream. Said. Go back. Be who you intended to be. The one that got lost along the way. So who was I going to be, the 18 year old version of this 77 year old. I wasn’t sure of anything but my desire to dive headlong into the deep waters of the liberal arts. Where would I come out? No idea. Didn’t want to know. I only wanted the journey. No destination.

    I’ve made a journey, but got off the path of liberal arts, shunted aside by politics and religion. By alcohol and women. By travel and jobs. All ok, all good. Yet not where I wanted to be.

    Now. The tarot card, the Hermit, hangs rendered in neon over my breakfast table. Herman’s Hermits remind me of the year before college, feelings accelerating, ground speed increasing. I’m also reminded of my first response to Kate’s death. I’m going to be a hermit. Hence, the neon. Last year I wrote a one-act play introducing Herme, the Hermit, and Cold Mountain’s poetry. And the dream says, go. Teshuvah. Return to the highest and best you.

    A semi-hermit, a sometime recluse, a happy loner. But one with the permission to study, to write. To go back into the liberal arts and see if, as Israel: God-Wrestler, I can add to the world my own learnings.  About the Great Wheel, the Jewish liturgical year, trees and plants, about process metaphysics, about religion, about poetry and literature, about transformation and metamorphosis. These are the lenses through which I have learned to see the world.

    Next. Organizing my days, weeks, months, years around this Fool’s Journey. After that. On to the diving board, spring up and down. Out into thin air.

    *


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  • A Summer Evening. Dreams

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

    Shabbat gratefuls: A summer night. My Lodgepole Companion swaying gently, soaking up Great Sol’s singular gift. A Light Eater. (just got this book) Dreams. Dreams suppressed but not forgotten. The dream group with Irene: Irv, Sandy, Jane, Clara, Susan. Zoom. Chinese food. Evergreen. Its evolution. Changing demographics. Felonious guilty, guilty, guilty.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Hush Money Jurors

    One brief shining: Like you, I imagine, I looked at the headlines, typefaces bold and big, pressing up from the mast head, yes, yes, yes, at last a verdict, a consequence for this man, one venal, shallow, desperate man, who has been my President but never my President, and yet, and yet, a man nonetheless, one with the same generous gift granted us from the long arc of evolution, this body and mind, this ensouled flesh.

     

    OK. As much fun as it is to chart the long voyage of Felonious Sinsbad, I’m gonna stop. For now.

     

    Most of all I want to acknowledge a summer night. Last night. I drove over to Evergreen for a meal at the Coal Mine Dragon restaurant with Joanne, Rebecca, and Terry. A good time was had by all. Around 8 pm we finished and I drove home in the uneven light of a Mountain evening. The temperature hovered in the mid-60’s, gradually declining as I went up in altitude from Evergreen on Brook Forest, then Black Mountain Drive.

    Green Grass, Aspens lit up with chartreuse leaves not yet mature, Willow’s golden with new branches, Red Osier Dogwood bright against them both. The various Creeks and Streams flowed peacefully, calmer now following the powerful runs from last week’s rain. The Lodgepoles of course as backdrop for them all, climbing each Mountain I drove past. The trees of the Arapaho National Forest all well-watered and ready for a season of growth.

    Dusk finds Mule Deer and Elk out for a late meal though I saw neither on the way home.They were enjoying the evening, too, somewhere else in the Mountains.

    Driver’s side window down I drove my usual speed, slower now than in the past, what I consider a speed safe for my Wild Neighbors. The muted light, Great Sol already obscured by the Mountains, but not gone, the comfortable temperature, the Mountains climbing above me, the Creeks and Streams flowing beside the road.

     

    Earlier. Another session with those Irene calls The Dreamers. A collection of folks spread out: Santa Fe, England, Half Moon Bay, Evergreen, Conifer. This time only Sandy and I had dreams. Irene put them in a bowl and drew my name so I started. This one was old, May of 2021, but one that has never left my consciousness. I had never discussed it before yesterday.*

    Not gonna say a lot about it here except to note that the conversation about it has, I think, pushed me much further along the trail. Feeling the latter day purpose of my life growing clearer. I have been trying to give myself permission to lean into study, serious study. And more writing. Perhaps in an Ancientrails style, perhaps fiction. Both? Yes, lifting the veil. Seeing a rich and powerful next chapter emerging.

    Will require more thought, organization. Some decisions about focus. Yet I can feel all of that beginning to surface. At last.

     

    *”The Dream. This was at Wabash, my first college: Several women, including a dean, asked me to return, finish my studies. The men in the dream were rigid, angry. In general and at me. Following the lead of the dean, I said yes. I remember calculating in the dream, “Yes, even now after 56 years.” I can still study, write, learn.

    At a gateway out of the administrative offices a German Shepherd lunged at me from beneath a cloak and proceeded to lick my face. After passing through the gateway, I was put in a fiery chair with some other men. It burned them but was cool to me.

    I had a strong sense of longing, a keen desire to go back, be a scholar/student again. A writer.

    This dream feels important, more so than many of the others I’ve had recently. Not gonna conclude much about it right now. Any ideas, impressions: welcome.”

     


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  • Tradition

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring and the Purim Moon

    Shabbat gratefuls: My son and Seoah and Murdoch. Kathy. Cancer. Morning darkness. Taxes done. Ruth and Gabe. Barb. Alan. Joanne. Tallit. 77. Blood pressure low. Ruth’s graduation on May 18. Surrender. Dreams. Irene. Mountain melting. Slow. Snow. Graupeling.* Yesterday. Spring. The scent of Soil, the odor of sanctity. Mountain Streams ready for their big show.

    *A precipitation that forms when supercooled droplets of water condense on a snowflake.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Taxes

    One brief shining: Heated up the simple Pinto Beans, got out some crackers and a mineral Water, peeled a Tangerine, carried them downstairs, and sat down weary from a day of writing, working out, dreams, and rituals. Ah.

     

    The days of our lives. Three days with Ruth and Gabe. They come, deposit their various shoes at the door. Gabe purple Converse tennies. Ruth oxblood boots. Go to their respective rooms, designated by long habit. Gabe in the mural painted “children’s” room. Ruth in the guest room.

    Ruth drove them up in her Subaru, the official car of Colorado. They stopped at King Sooper’s to buy groceries. I thought they’d buy food for meals. Forgot they’re teenagers. Mostly snacks. In addition vegetarian corndogs, a box of mac and cheese.

    Gabe is an early riser; Ruth a night owl like her dad. We talk. Laugh. Go out to eat.

    At the 202, a Thai spot in Aspen Park, I ordered a spiciness level of 1. They both went with 4. Jon would have, too. Ruth remembered and wanted the Sticky Rice Custard. Oh, so good.

    The two of them have been coming up here since Kate and I moved here in late 2014. Ruth was eight and Gabe six. Jon brought them up here frequently, often to avail himself of our washer and dryer, but we got to see the kids.

    When Jon and Ruth went skiing at A-Basin, many times Jon would drop Gabe off with us and pick him up later that night after a full day of skiing. Ruth told me she finished her first Harry Potter on those trips.

    Skiing bonded Jon and Ruth. As did art.

     

    Just a moment: Timber framing. Traditional carpentry. The route of an American Jew to the restoration of one of Roman Catholicism’s most well-known cathedrals, Notre Dame. Found this article fascinating. Timber framing is a traditional form of carpentry that any one familiar with Japanese or Chinese woodworkers would recognize. It uses mortise and tenon joints, wooden pegs to hold joints together. It was also the most advanced form of construction available when Notre Dame was built. The restoration of this Paris landmark has focused on original materials and methods, meaning work for timber framers, stone masons, stained glass artisans, sculptors, and metal workers focused on techniques of the high middle ages.

    Hank Silver’s story fits in with Charlie’s List. These pre-modern building technologies could reduce the currently heavy carbon footprint of contemporary construction. Let’s build homes from stone and timber framed roofs. Stores and office buildings, too. Let’s employ, at a living wage, those folks for whom college holds no interest, but working with their hands does.


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  • Elegiac

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc and the waning Ancient Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Evergreen Medical Center. Snow. Hoar Frost and Snow on the Lodgepoles. Diane. Marilyn and Irv. Dreams. Frustrated early lives. Mom. Dad. Mary and Mark. My son and his Korean life, Korean wife, Japanese Dog. Mussar. Tire Rotation. Finding a friendly place for Ruby. Low tire pressure sensors. Luke. Leo. Janice and Ginny.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Big O

    One brief shining: That moment when, after getting up, I turn to my bedroom window to see how much Snow came down while I slept, even today at 77 a bit of a young boy’s Christmas eagerness rises. Happened again just this morning.

     

    Some Snow. Colder. Not the big, Tourney Snow. Not yet. White and fresh outside. These late Winter Snows have an elegiac feel, their wetness, their heaviness speak of a warming fallow time, one willing, reluctantly willing, to give way to Spring. Even though I love Winter and don’t like the heat of Summer I find myself urging Spring on. When the days warm between Snows, a fresh odor of sanctity arises from the Mountain Soil. Visions of Flowers, running Streams, Fawns and Calves, soft breezes dance in my head. Oh. Achoo. That too.

    Not sure why but this Winter has felt long to me. As if it’s beginning to overstay. Even so the moisture of these last rounds of Snow are so important for us. Filling our tiny Aquifers that feed Water into our wells. Protecting us from Fire. Reminding us that beauty in the Mountains comes in so many different forms.

     

    Read about rotating tires. A good thing. Winter tires, expensive tires. Want them to last as long as possible. Used to get them rotated at every 5,000 mile oil change but since I got Ruby the synthetic oil goes 10,000 miles. Thought rotating the tires was just Toyota trying to get me back as often as they used to. Wrong about that. Took me a while to tumble to this.

    Anyhow yesterday I had it done at Big O in Evergreen. No charge. Yay. Friendly people, close by. Stevinson Toyota is down the hill. Gonna have these folks handle my tires and oil changes.

    Oh, and another thing. These new fangled cars with all their computers and sensors. My low pressure light had been on for a couple of months. I knew it was faulty because it would go off for a day or two, then come back on. May have them all disabled. Somehow I survived over 50+ years of driving without them and I find them annoying.

     

    Just a moment: Going to Globeville on Monday to talk with the owners of the Rocky Mountain Land Library. They previously owned Denver’s most loved bookstore, Tattered Covers. Don’t know where this conversation will lead, but I hope I can find a niche at the Land Library for my earth-centered, human focused passion for creating a sustainable presence for humans on this planet.

    Yesterday at breakfast with Marilyn and Irv I said again, out loud, that I’m in a nothing to prove phase of life. That I want to read, learn. Revisit and befriend the young scholar I once was. Let him guide me and my time. Yet. I also have another me that wants to act in some way, have an oar in the Waters of change.

     

     

     

     


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