• Category Archives Great Work
  • It was a lynching

    Winter and the Valentine Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: Hot Water. My shower. Marilyn and Irv. Ageism. Aspen Perk. Aspen Park Dental. Darlene, the hygienist. Seeing the Magpies against the Snow as I sat in the dental chair. Clean teeth. Good gum health. No work needed. Yes. Grocery pickup. Home. Brined center cut porkchops. Cooked in the Air fryer. Mixed vegetables. Tangerine. Mary’s photos of her last days in Kobe. Eau Claire. Air travel. Sarah and Annie. The Jeep.

    Sparks of joy and awe: Friends and family

     

    A note I sent to my county commissioner, Lesley Dahlkemper, about a proposed Mountain bike park on Shadow Mountain Drive:

    Hi, Lesley!

    Met you at Marilyn Saltzman’s 70th birthday party. Before you became a commissioner. Congratulations!

    I live on Black Mtn Drive. Up the hill about 2 miles from the proposed mtn bike park. Aside from the obvious degradation of a mountain side and a beautiful, clear running stream and aside from the obvious traffic nightmare on already difficult to navigate blind curves and narrow no shoulders Shadow Mountain Drive, I’d like to tell you about a 7 AM drive I took that passed by the bike park area.

    There in that meadow were thirty cow Elks and one magnificent bull, a fourteen pointer. A mist was rising from Shadow Brook. Now that may not be a logical argument against the bike park, but it’s damn sure a good one to me.

     

    Tyre Nichols. Still think the role of police in our culture doesn’t need drastic and dramatic change? Tainted by the power given to them by a frightened white majority the police live out the violent fantasies of those at home watching TV. Their color does not matter. What matters is their intent, their willingness to step well beyond the bounds of decency. Remember Derek Chauvin’s knee? One of the officers who stood by was Hmong. The others who stood and watched? Rodney King?

    Tom Crane found an interesting interview with Rev. Dante Stewart. His words on lynching are worth sharing:

    “That was more than police brutality. That was a lynching. They wanted to kill him because, in some sense, lynching is about the spectacle. It’s about what someone with power does to another human being to ride and rid them of every ounce of their dignity and put it in the public to show this is what we think about this person.

    “When those in the past put Black people up on noose, it was a message to them: This is our estimation of your life, and much more, this is our hatred of your life. And when Tyre Nichols was beaten and the just immense disregard to him, it showed us in public once again the estimation of Black life, white racism and white supremacy.”  WBUR

    This sort of action by the police reimagines the whip of the plantation slave master. Sanctioned violence to keep the enslaved in place. We still fear the emboldened and empowered other. What might they do to us? What to do? Do it to them first.

     

    On a better note, also from Tom. On Kernza Grain. “I just came across this perennial grain developed by the Land Institute. I also ordered some from a site which sells it as a cereal much like oatmeal. I’ll let you know how it is.”

    The Land Institute is a solution finder. Glad Tom found this product, the first commercial fruits of the Institute’s work. I’ll let you know what he thinks.

    Inbox

  • Dutiful

    Winter and the Wolf Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Breakfast with Jen, Ruth, Gabe, Barb. Driving back up the hill. F1. The MIA. The Walker. The docent program. My many years there with good friends and art. Acting class. Creativity class. Origins of North America. Finding the volume of a Mountain. Korean. Pruning moving forward. Interior painting, early February. Probate. Still moving. slow. ly. The Good Life. Scott and Helen Nearing. Eudaimonia. Kristen Gonzalez. Psoriasis. Mark and the USPS. Mary in Kobe. Ancient Brothers.

    Sparks of joy and awe: Eudaimonia

     

    Human flourishing. Eudaimonia. Satisfaction. More important than happiness. Duty is just another word for cultural norms received and accepted. Obligations. On the other hand. Imposed. Why do we do what we do?

    Assessing the life that is neither heroic nor mediocre. Since that’s where most of us end up. No need to measure ourselves against the ends of the bell curve. No need to measure ourselves. But can we be at peace with a life without comparisons?

    As for me, I choose eudaimonia. Flourishing. Satisfaction. And, yes. Duty plays a role. Family. Sacrifice. Friends too. Being there. Wherever love is, there is duty. To be honest. Sincere. Kind. Helpful. To support the best for the other. Right down to the end. And by implication to support the best for yourself. Also, duty. The unexamined life is not worth living. Yes. A duty to yourself to know thyself. And to thy own known Self be true.

     

    What’s interesting for me right now is how much a sense of duty has played in my life. Oh, no! The original oppositional defiant guy admitting to a sense of duty. I who even rebel against my superego. You can’t make me!!! Yes, duty.

    A minor yet significant example. As a convinced feminist of the Betty Friedan/Simone de Beauvoir second wave. At the age of 26. In seminary. Went to the Rice Street Clinic late on a Winter afternoon. A scalpel I felt on the first cut slashed my vas deferens on both sides. Shutting down sperm from my testicles. Being responsible for my own contraception.

    Another. One I’ve mentioned before. Fits here. No. I don’t want a Johns-Manville full scholarship to college. Managing people in a large corporation is not me. Will never be me. High school.

    Once convinced of Vietnam’s sturdiness as a nation, one that had held back China for over 3,000 years. No. I will not fight, nor support that war.

    After reading a convincing study about the future job prospects for Ph.D.’s. No to graduate school.

    Family. Staying in the fire with Jon. Ruth. Gabe. Kate in later life. Mark. Yet also. Cut your hair or leave! Leaving.

    These may not at first reading seem like duty. But they are. A duty to myself, to my own understanding of how to be present in the world.

    When I realized Ruth and Gabe needed us in Colorado. Broaching the idea of a move. Kate on board. Following through.

    Those two and a half acres in Andover. Leaving them better than when we bought them. How? Working it out with Kate over the years. Together. Staying the course with the full cycle of responsibilities throughout the year. Each year.

    And, dogs. Living into their lives. With them from puppyhood to death. Oh. Sweet duty. Painful duty. Life realized in full.


  • How to Become a Pagan

    Winter and the Wolf Moon*

    Friday gratefuls: Colorado reintroduces Wolves 2024. Wolves. Mountain Lions. Bears: Black and Grizzly. Minx. Pine Martens. Wolverines. Lynx. Bobcats. Owls. Eagles. Osprey. Peregrine Falcons. Kestrels. Our fellow predators of the Rocky Mountains. Hanukah. The Nights of December. Christmas Eve. Christmas. New Years. Yule. This dark and celebratory time of year. Saturnalia. Diane. Jenny. Mark and his two jobs. Gabe and his legos. Ruth in Colorado Springs. Tomorrow with her.

    Sparks of joy and awe: The Wolves of Minnesota

     

    Cold here the last two days. Double digits below zero. -13 the coldest I recorded. Now up to 9 on Friday morning. Bit of snow. 3 inches max.

     

    Got started on my home office. Moving art down to a sale pile in the former sewing room. Then I’ll move the green rug to the guest room. Get the printer in place. The battery backup. Connect the cords and I’ll be ready to use the space. Some more moving from the loft, but not yet. Also finishing pruning on the wire shelving in the now dining room. After that the guest room. The walk in closet and the shelving. Continuing to prune.

     

    Ruth called yesterday morning. Sad about her Dad. Her person. We both lost our persons didn’t we, grandpop? Yep. The acknowledgment of the new yahrzeit plaques is tonight. 6 pm at CBE. It’s also Rosh Chodesh, the honoring of the new moon. And, the 6th night of Hanukah. Probably going in person.

     

    Working title How To Become A Pagan. The new book. Reorganized it using the Great Wheel. Going to sort through posts on those holidays for content. Got Wes Jackson’s book Becoming Native to This Place in the mail yesterday. Can’t find my other copy. Key books for me in this project: Looking for the Hidden Folk, The Celtic Faery Faith, The Great Work, Speaking for the Trees, Overstory, Wendell Berry’s poetry, Mary Oliver, The Outermost House, Sand County Almanac, Leaves of Grass, Tao Te Ching. It’s about reenchantment, reconnecting, gauze removing, learning to walk barefoot, seeing what you’re looking at. Having fun with it.

     

     

    *The very first full moon of the year is known in many cultures as the Full Wolf Moon, which is appropriate given the deep, ancient ties between wolves and January’s full moon. For instance, the Gaelic word for January, Faoilleach, comes from the term for wolves, faol-chù, even though wolves haven’t existed in Scotland for centuries. The Saxon word for January is Wulf-monath, or Wolf Month. Meanwhile, the festival of the Japanese wolf god, Ooguchi Magami, is held in January. The Seneca tribe links the wolf so strongly to the moon, they believe that a wolf gave birth to the moon by singing it into the sky. Just why are wolves so strongly associated with January’s full moon?

    To learn more: Moongiant.com


  • No Wonder

    Spring and Seoah’s Citizenship Moon

    Saturday gratefuls: Alan. Boredom. Sadness. Missing Kate. Clean Kep, so playful in the morning. The up and the down of grief. Warm weather. More Snow coming. Ruby. Her need for the bad fuel. Habituation, the helpful and the unhelpful. Getting to the inflection point. The delicacy of an early Morning blue Sky over Black Mountain.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Boredom

     

    Feeling my way into boredom, sadness, and grief. Sounds like a devil’s potion moving toward despair, but I don’t think so. Instead it feels like my psyche trying to break free.

    Yes, I sat and cried yesterday afternoon. In that time after my nap and before evening when I feel. Pointless. Bored. Don’t want to read. Don’t want to watch TV. (a good feeling at that hour.) Don’t want to study. Don’t want to write.

    Pointless. I have no purpose, no way forward. Just traveling. Walking. Slow. Along the ancientrail of longing for. Something. I know not what.

    That delicate blue Sky has a few puffs of Cumulus now, lit up by a turning Earth revealing the Sun’s presence to start a new day. Whirling through the vacuum of space around and around and around. Following the Light Giver like a trapped Angel. As all the Angels and their Light Giver twirl outward from their home. A journey of ancient celestial mechanics. Glory. Glory. Glory. Hallelujah.

    This journey older by far than the Laramide Orogeny, one that places the whole of Earthly Creation in its proper perspective. Deer Creek Canyon and its consolation nods to its Progenitor.

    Purpose and purposelessness burn away. Sadness and grief burn away. Life itself burns away. We travel because we are in the journey and of its Way. The path is our meaning and our destruction. Like sadness and grief.

    See the Self here. On a high velocity spaceship created not by rocket science. No. But by the forces that made possible the rocket scientist herself. Made possible that Fish clambering across the liminal zone between Water and Land. Made possible that one-celled Creature. Swimming. And even then the journey had long been underway.

    Ah. No wonder the Taoist says follow the Water.

     


  • Mind Blown

    Imbolc and the 3/4 Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Past lives. Near death experiences. Mystical experience. Reincarnation. Ode. Cooking. The meister chef, Tom. Cabbage and beef soup. Catfish. Chicken potpies. Rigel. Drinking. Ruth, so much better. Jon, too. Gabe, puzzling. My mind twisting round. The lamp, Ruth assembled. Swapping out coffee tables, the new one down here. The old one upstairs.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Reincarnation

     

    Mind. Blown. Where to? Don’t know. That ship haha has sailed. Into the area of the map famously identified by: Here there be monsters. Or, angels. Or, Grandma. Or, the Otherworld.

    My buddy, Ode, who has long insisted that reincarnation is a fact, long proven, as might a friend of both Terence and Dennis McKenna, has finally pushed me aboard the good ship Beyond. As most of the scientists in the video below claim, I don’t know where the ship has set sail for, nor how to interpret the evidence in a definitive way. But I’m aboard, maybe as a reluctant stowaway, but I want in on this journey.

    No accidents. Not sure this idea and the idea of post mortem consciousness belong together; however, it is the case that for the last four years plus I’ve studied kabbalah, an ancient Jewish mystical philosophy that includes reincarnation as a reasonable and accepted part of its world (otherworld) view.

    Astrology, too, as well. A brand of this even more ancient discipline called Evolutionary Astrology which presupposes reincarnation and strong hints about yours revealed by the nodes of the moon in your natal chart.

    You might say, well, Kate’s dead so these ideas have more traction? Or, this is the day before your 75th birthday. What better time to throw on a sash that reads, Reincarnated! An escape hatch at last.

    Those could influence me, I suppose, but all my life I’ve thought on my own, accepting ideas and rejecting ideas because they listen well in my inner chambers of judgment. Or, because they seem like nonsense. The video below listens well there.

    An old and strong aspect of my thought could be called flat earth humanism, or as Ed in the video rightly calls it, physicalism. Materialism in its fancy philosophical dress clothes. Existentialist me, a Camus influenced college part of me, faced the darkness unafraid. Willing to make my own meaning. Living because I wanted to live, not because I had to and not because anyone told me how.

    That Alexandria First Methodist guy, a young one, had some notion of the afterlife. My mother’s death at 47 took it to the grave along with her. Not fair. Not fair at all. Therefore neither just nor loving, both attributes of the one, the true, the mighty.

    A while later I picked up the Christian mantle again and threw it over my shoulders, but this time I was not interested in the next world, but this one. How might we live here? Right here amidst war, the Vietnam War, economic injustice, racial and gender discrimination? I found answers in old Jewish notions of just kingship and a New Testament that demanded extension of love and compassion to the poorest and most despised among us.

    Nowadays the Great Wheel, that pagan metaphor of life’s seasons, including the long fallow one in which we temperate folks find ourselves right now, guides my thinking. I can fold this post mortem idea into it.

    This is a willed rejection of Wittgenstein in the Tractatus when he says: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. I shared this chivalric reticence, its honesty, for a long, long time. Now I feel it reveals fear rather than expressing a stoic truth.

    Over the course of the next few years I plan to continue my study of kabbalah, astrology, and tarot. I ordered the three books of Edward Kelly. Gonna read them. I’m also reading two new anthropological books reassessing human development from physical, historical, and genetic perspectives. Taoism is in there, too.

    The Rockies and the complicated textbook about life and change that they are teach me everyday. Pursuing these investigations because they interest me. I may have a book in there, some way of showing others how the natural world can teach us what we need to know about life, and now perhaps, death.

    Gotta do something with this extra time the oncologists have given me. May as well be of some use.

    And, happy birthday to me!


  • Land, Sea, and Sky

    Yule and the Moon of the New Year

    Where’s the Webb? 99.79% to L2 at 8 am MST. 1900 miles to go. Mission Day 30. Speed now: 450 mph.

    Next

    “L2 Insertion Burn

    Mid Course Correction Burn (MCC2) – Begins L2 Insertion

    Nominal Event Time: Updated: Launch + 30 days

    Status: Schedule and Post MCC2 Coverage

    Activities to plan and execute MCC2 – the insertion burn for Webb’s L2 orbit. MCC2 corrects any residual trajectory errors and adjusts the final L2 orbit.

    The James Webb Space Telescope is launched on a direct path to an orbit around the second Sun-Earth Lagrange Point (L2), but it needs to make its own mid-course thrust correction maneuvers to get there. This is by design, because if Webb gets too much thrust from the Ariane rocket, it can’t turn around to thrust back toward Earth because that would directly expose its telescope optics and structure to the Sun, overheating them and aborting the science mission before it can even begin. Therefore, Webb gets an intentional slight under-burn from the Ariane and uses its own small thrusters and on-board propellant to make up the difference.

    There are three mid-course correction (MCC) maneuvers: MCC-1a, MCC-1b, and MCC-2. This final burn, MCC-2, which inserts Webb into its L2 halo orbit.” NASA.

     

    Monday gratefuls: Marina Harris and her cleaning crew. Alan’s recovery from Covid. His role in the Colorado Ballet. The Ancient Brothers Ode to Joy this morning. Ali Baba’s gyros. Cancer. Prostate and otherwise. Rigel and her meds. January. Winter in its fullness in Minnesota. Colorado has cold December and snowy February, March, April.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Love

    Tarot: will require its own post.

     

    This damned event keeps getting new legs, fresh legs. In history the U.S. response to Covid will confound future generations. Why didn’t they take it seriously? Even after so many dead. So many hospitalized. So many left with lingering troubles.

    Not to mention of course the number of the unmasked, unvaccinated who want to take over the government. I’ve become news shy. Like many of you, I know. Who wants to read about the brutal murder of Caesar or the Beer Hall Putsch? That is dangerous, of course. It is the uninformed and the passive who underwrite with their absence the fevered path of the few.

    There is a small herd of Mule Deer Does who’ve been coming up the utility easement to eat needles off slash Derek dumped there. When they’re here, the scene becomes instant backwoods. An over the river and through the woods tableau. They’re here right now. The Buck, an eight-pointer, was here this morning. Neither Kep nor Rigel paid attention. Just as well. A chance encounter between a Dog and a Buck can result in injury or death for the doggy.

    Kep noticed them. He walked through Snow, looked. Gave a short yip and came toward the house. The Deer munched Pine Needles, secure on the other side of our fence. Kep came in.

    Rigel has begun to hesitate to walk up the five stairs to the kitchen level. She’s fallen, slid several times and she has the new meds on board. They’re supposed to help, but it appears to me that they’re making her feel strange. Doesn’t help confidence.

    With Rigel’s legs and arthritis and spinal owies becoming more evident. With Kep’s nose undergoing x-rays and possible biopsy on Tuesday it looks like my companions may have rough water ahead. Since they are my grief counselors, sleeping partners, and the biggest part of my interaction with the living world, their troubles are very much my troubles. I’m not getting ahead of anything. Just aware that they, like Kate, like me, are mortal creatures. Like Abraham Lincoln.

    Simcah Torah, Congregation Beth Evergreen. 2021

    Thinking about donating money. What it means. How I decide. Most of my donations go to Congregation Beth Evergreen. There I’m saying yes to community, yes to friends, yes to thousands of years of history, yes to a religious culture cultivated by this unusual gathering. I don’t feel like I’m supporting the church. I’m supporting the chemistry of a place that accepts me and loves me as I am.

    Otherwise I give a bit here, a bit there. Some to Dog shelters, some to performing arts organizations, some to politicians and some to political organizations.

    Deciding that next year and thereafter I’m going to focus my giving beyond CBE in a different way. My largest non-CBE donation was to the Land Institute where Wes Jackson and his crew push toward perennial Crops and no-till agriculture. I’m gonna lean toward these radical solution organizations, ones working with the Soil, with Plants, with agriculture. I value the courage it takes to stand against farming practices that seem so entrenched as to be unmovable. And I value the creative thinking that the Wendell Berry’s, the Mary Oliver’s, the Aldo Leopold’s, the Thomas Berry’s, the Wes Jackson’s represent.

    So this year. CBE and those working on long-term, universally applicable solutions to systemic problems in agriculture and protection of our World: Land, Sea, and Sky.


  • Radical, man

    Samain and the Holiseason Moon

    Black Mountain

    Monday gratefuls: Rigel. Her head on my pillow most of the night. Kep, so happy to get up. Orion of the morning. Skeletal Aspens. Lodgepoles waiting with spring loaded Branches. For Snow. Shadow Mountain. Solid Rock beneath my house, my feet. Black Mountain. Which tucks in the Sun.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Mitzvah

    Tarot: See notes from my hexagram spread next post

     

    Holiseason. A primer. I discovered holimonth 15 years ago. That was December with its abundance of holidays. Then I extended the idea to holiseason. (discovered later that this was a word anyhow. But, hey.) Holiseason by my reckoning runs from Samain on October 31st to the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6th. [A Kate aside here. She left Sunday School for good when one of her teachers, 4th or 5th grade, kept pronouncing the holiday epi-fanny.]

    Holiseason contains multiple holidays, many of the holidays of light like Divali, Christmas, Hannukah. Thanksgiving. Posada. Advent. Kwanza. Winter Solstice. Gregorian New Year. Dia de los muertos. All Saints. And, of course, Samain. It’s my favorite time of the year. Lots to celebrate.

    Reflecting on my radical career. One thing in particular. A long time ago, either 1975 or 1980, I attended a conference. Liberation Theology in the Americas. There were two and I can’t recall which one I attended. Cornel West. Harvey Cox. Lettie Russel. My roommate was a priest from Guatemala. Lots of impassioned speeches. Marxist analysis. Great meal conversations. Bus tours by a Detroit Socialist party that had made some political progress.

    At the time I thought the conference was important for the clergy and theologians. Only later did I realize that the most radical moment came from a member of the Iroquois Confederacy, a medicine man in a 700 year lineage of medicine men.

    At the end of the conference he performed a ritual typical of the Confederacy, planting a pine tree as a sign of peace. In the original rituals tomahawks and bows and arrows and knives would have been placed into the hole, covered in soil, the tree planted on top of them.

    Afterward, and this part of the story I’ve told many times, he gave a long prayer. I listened carefully. You can read it below.*

    When he finished, I went up to him and asked, “I noticed you didn’t mention the two-leggeds.” Oh, he said. Yes. The people are the most fragile of all. We need all the other spiritual forces healthy if we are to survive. So we pray for them. If they are well, so are we.

    That was the radical moment at this most radical of all theological gatherings. I see it now. I carried on with work for economic justice: affordable housing, supporting unions, worker owned cooperative businesses like food co-ops and grocery stores and drug stores. Restaurants. Direct financial aid to the unemployed seeking work. Until.

    Kate and I attended a Physicians for Social Responsibility conference in Iowa City. On climate change. This was in the mid-1990’s. A national conference they had now well-known figures in the climate change movement presenting. Each day we would go back to our hotel and express wonder that this science was not public. And, it wasn’t then. At least not enough for anyone to notice.

    No habitable planet. No need for justice. I decided then that the remainder of my political work would be on climate change. And so it was. But, I could have made the same realization back in 1975 or 1980. Had I listened to the Iroquois medicine man.

     

     

     

     

    •   Reimagining Faith: Tree of Peace

    Spring                                                              Bee Hiving Moon

    The essence of the Peacemaker legend follows as told by Mohawk chief Jake Swamp at the planting of a Tree of Peace in Philadelphia in 1986. “In the beginning, when our Creator made humans, everything needed to survive was provided. Our Creator asked only one thing: Never forget to appreciate the gifts of Mother Earth. Our people were instructed how to be grateful and how to survive. But during a dark age in our history 1000 years ago, humans no longer listened to the original instructions. Our Creator became sad, because there was so much crime, dishonesty, injustice and war. So Creator sent a Peacemaker with a message to be righteous and just, and make a good future for our children seven generations to come. He called all warring people together and told them as long as there was killing there would be no peace of mind. There must be a concerted effort by humans for peace to prevail. Through logic, reasoning and spiritual means, he inspired the warriors to bury their weapons and planted atop a sacred Tree of Peace”

    It is said that the Tree of Peace given by the Peacemaker symbolizes the Great Law of Peace. The symbol is a great white pine, and it is said to shelter all nations who commit themselves to Peace. Beneath the tree are buried the weapons of war of the original five nations. Above the tree is an eagle that sees far. Also, four long roots stretch out in the four sacred directions, and they are called the white roots of peace. The Peacemaker invited any man or nation desiring to commit to the Great Law of Peace to trace the roots to their source, and take refuge beneath the Tree of Peace. The Peacemaker’s teachings stressed the power of reason to assure righteousness, justice and health. Faithkeeper Oren Lyons, an Onondaga, states that the Great Law of Peace includes freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right of women to participate in government.

    The seed-idea underlying all Iroquois philosophy is that peace is the will of the Creator, and it is the ultimate spiritual goal and natural order of things. The prayer below comes from the people of the Iroquois Confederacy. The prayer is based on the tradition of interconnectedness that the Iroquois or Haudenosaunee possess. This prayer is said to be the backbone of the Iroquois culture. The prayer expresses the belief that rather than take the world for granted, it must be respected, and that we must thank all living things in order to align our minds with creation and the Creator. Usually, a faithkeeper is selected to share the prayer of thanksgiving at the opening and closing of social, government, and ceremonial events. The prayer is comprised of three levels:

     

    Spiritual Forces on the Earth, Spiritual Forces in the Sky, Spiritual Forces beyond the Sky

    The Spiritual Forces on the Earth are:
    the People, our Mother Earth, the Waters, the Fish, the Grasses, the Plants,
    our Sustenance, the Animals, the Trees, and the Birds.
    Throughout the year we bring our minds together as one
    We give thanks to one another
    All year long she gives us all that we need

    We give thanks to our Mother Earth
    Everyday it quenches our thirst
    We give thanks to the waters In winter it replenishes the lakes.
    We give thanks to the waters

    During the year they purify the lakes
    We give thanks to the fish
    When the wind turns warm a green blanket appears
    We give thanks to the grasses
    In early summer the flowers turn sweet
    We give thanks to the medicinal plants
    In early summer they help us survive
    We give thanks to the food plants
    In midsummer we dance for the green corn
    We give thanks to our sustenance
    In midsummer we dance for the red beans
    We give thanks to our sustenance
    During the winter their pelts warm the soul
    We give thanks to the animal creatures
    Since early times they have been our companions
    We give thanks to the animal creatures
    In early spring we are glad they reappear
    We give thanks to the animal creatures
    At one point in time it became a symbol of peace
    We give thanks to the trees
    At the end of spring the sap will flow
    We give thanks to the trees
    In early morning they carry messages
    We give thanks to the birds
    In times of danger he warns the people
    We give thanks to the birds
    In the summer they sing sweet songs

    We give thanks to the birds Spiritual Forces in the Sky are:
    the Four Winds, our Grandfather Thunder, our Elder Brother Sun, our Grandmother Moon, and the Stars
    Throughout the seasons they refresh the air
    We give thanks to the Four Winds
    In early summer they bring the falling drops
    We give thanks to our Grandfather Thunder
    Every morning he brings light and warmth
    We give thanks to our Elder Brother Sun
    Every night she watches over the arrival of children
    We give thanks to our Grandmother Moon
    In the night their sparkle guides us home
    We give thanks to the stars
    The Highest Spiritual Forces beyond the Sky are: our Protectors, Handsome Lake, and the Creator
    All the time they remind us how to live
    We give thanks to our protectors
    At one point in time he brought back the words of the Creator
    We give thanks to Handsome Lake
    Everyday we will share with one another all of these good things
    We give thanks to the Creator.
    – Prayer of Thanksgiving, Iroquois Confederacy


  • Colorado Can Lead

    Ostara and the Ovid Moon of Metamorphoses

    Wednesday gratefuls: Chipmunk wife. Snow. More. And, yet more. Vaccines. Diane and Mary. Formula 1. Netflix. Yin Yang Master. Biden at work. 45 in Florida, his natural habitat. The Woollies. Spring. The Great Wheel. Its turns. Celebrate.

    Sparks of joy: Snow. Life itself.

     

    The Snow coming down again. Like Minnesota rain, straight down in gentle punctuated lines. Sat watched it against the Lodgepoles yesterday afternoon. Their red Bark, their Branches beginning to droop, covered in Branch shaped dollops of white. The Japanese Ukiyo-e prints and some paintings often show Snow and Pine trees. This was the same. It was easy to imagine myself in the mountains of Akita Prefecture, Kep wandering around on genetic home territory.

    Then. Spring snows. Not the harsh snows of December and January. Wet, yes, but coming as a confection rather than an invasion, even in the depths we’ve had over the last three weeks. It’s as if we’re being inundated by confectioner’s sugar, a big wire shaker somewhere overhead.

    And, even better, as Kate just said: “I see Snow and I see no Fire.” May it be so. This helps. Better Spring moisture gives some protection during June, our month of greatest fire danger. Historically. In July the monsoons come and soak the afternoons. Though. Has not happened but once since we’ve been here.

    Kate has swollen salivary glands. Chipmunk face. Or, mumps. But she’s not been anywhere to catch the mumps. She had mumps as a child, anyhow. Good thing we already have an appointment for her at 1:00 pm today. My annual physical follows. Good times at New West Physicians. Painful enough to require an Oxy. Unusual for Kate.

    Boulder continues to be in the news. A Libertarian ethos reinforced by cowboy culture is in a scrum with the progressive politics of metropolitan Coloradans. Boulder is the epicenter of this Mountain state’s radical left, as Berkeley is to California. I don’t know if that has anything to do with the shooter’s motive, but even if not, it’s still a bloody metaphor for the tension.

    I do think there are ways through this impasse. At least here. I’ll mention the primary one I see today. Coloradans are outdoor oriented. Even if you never get out to hike the trails, ski the runs, or camp in a Mountain Meadow, the Mountains loom in the background or foreground. The Skies turn blue and the Sun shines in that bright, cheerful Colorado way. We all care about the wildlife, the rugged valleys, most of which we will never see.

    Rancher culture in particular loves the land, too. The way forward that I see presses this love of the outdoors, of the wild things that live here, into a compact for a Colorado future both wild and free. The drivers for this compact will include a need for better water policy, climate change, changes in the nature of agriculture, especially toward regenerative agriculture. Regenerative agriculture has a foot hold in the Flint Hills of Kansas. What they do there can work here.

    This idea and its friends excite me, make me want to get into the mix. Colorado can lead the nation I think just because of the conflict and tension. Use the power and energy it generates to forge a covenant between metro and rural.


  • Convict Him

    Imbolc and the waning crescent of the Wolf Moon

    Tuesday grateful: Dr. Leigh Thompson. Zoom. Mary and Diane. Winds auguring change in the weather. Blue Skies and Sun. Safeway pickup. Chili for the snow coming. Melons to cut up. Kate, always Kate. Impeached. Now convict. Go Senate. Vote to shame.

    Sparks of joy: The thought of Puppies. Maybe a Puppy here? The brilliant Sun. Walking upstairs each morning to my library and writing studio. Remembering Gertie this morning with Kate. The trial in the Senate.

    So obstructionist Senator Mitch McConnell thinks Marjorie Taylor Greene is a cancer on GOP country? Well, I say they’re both diseases that might well prove fatal to our democracy. If not, and I certainly hope not, it won’t be because they failed to take extremist stands when it served them well. Both of them. This is a splendid example of cancer calling the cancer cancer. A metastasized plague on both of their houses.

    It ain’t over by a long shot. Imagine all those always Trumpers ought there right now. They’re adding extra flags to their pickups, buying up guns and ammo, donning camo and getting ready to join their friends at your state house. Well-armed militias my ass. These are armed gangs, thugs, waiting for a leader, 45 or someone else, to loose them on their enemies: libtards, Black and Brown and Red and Yellow, all those rainbow folks, politicians.

    Oh, wait. 45 did that, didn’t he? That’s what this trial is about in the Senate. Incitement to insurrection. Right. I saw the movie. If they did that, stormed the U.S. Capitol in the name of Gadsen flag patriotism and Confederate Battle Flag dreams, sure seems like they’ll be willing to head into Denver, Sacramento, Indianapolis, Lansing (again).

    No, even organized they’re not strong enough or smart enough to fight the U.S. military, but they don’t have to be. All guerillas everywhere know how to carry the fight in asymmetrical warfare. Hell, a lot of those AK47 carrying lunatics probably learned from the Vietcong when they were in ‘Nam. Can you spell irony?

    These are our homegrown Al Qaeda’s, Hezbollah’s, ISIS’s. No, not Muslim. Oh, hell no. No rag head holy book for these geniuses. No, they follow the much more holy Q-anon script. Or the rantings of Rush Limbaugh or Alex Jones. If it looks like a cult, and quacks like a cult…

    This is a long term problem. It’s not one that can be solved by executive order or Federal legislation. Good criminal investigations could cripple the Far Right, though.

    Even then, we have to offer a better America to truly and finally counter them. We have to have a just America in which people of color no longer feel Derek Chauvin’s knee on their neck. We have to have a fair America where people of color, the rainbow folks, all left behind citizens have enough to eat, a place to sleep, health care, and the opportunity to not only train for a job but a job itself. In this America the silly buggers in red MAGA hats and American flag clothing will become irrelevant.

    Defense and offense. Both will be necessary for years to come. We need to get on with it. Starting now.


  • Oh. We live in interesting times.

    Samain and the Moon of the New Year (and the great conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter)

    Saturday gratefuls: 32 days. 32! Nearly finished with the cds. A snowy, snow globe day. Rigel and Kep, our bed warmers. Kate. A wise woman. Smart, too. Vaccines. Coming to an arm near you. Soon. That light in the tunnel went up a bit in brightness. The star over Bethlehem explained? The Winter Solstice. Soon. Staycation.

     

    Complex feelings. Friend Tom Crane talked a couple of days ago about the feelings that come up when considering climate change. Made me think about all of us right now. I’ve been labile this week, up and down. Unusual for me. If I get melancholy, I stay there a while. Up and bright? Ditto. But. Covid. Trump. Kate’s long illness. Climate change plus the long road ahead for our nation. Isolation from friends and loved ones.

    Bet I’m not the only one experiencing complex emotions. Up. Vaccines. Down. 377,000 deaths. 250,000 + new cases a day. Up. 32 days! Down. Still 32 days left. Up. Renewable energy. Back into the Paris Accords. Down. Baked in heat. Record carbon emissions this year. Up. Jon and Ruth and Gabe on Google Meet. Down. Having to see them on Google Meet. Up. Many good days in a row for Kate. Down. Sudden fatigue yesterday. Up. Good days mean no nausea, no fatigue beyond the usual. Down. Stamina poor.

    And these are the big drivers. Every day has mood changes. That unexpected money from the oil well! That crabby e-mail from a relative. Work or relationship stress. Kids. Dogs. Weather. Feelings of self-worth or self-worthlessness. Whatever triggers you. And we all have triggers.

    Point. A complex web of stressors has us all dangling in our silken cocoons and each shake of the web warns us that the spider might be coming for her next meal. This is not normal. Where do we go? Out to eat? To a movie? Have friends over? A sabbath service? Take a vacation? Not for most of us. What’s the right metaphor? See-saw. Spider web. Thin ice with cracks. Fingernails on chalkboards. Whatever it is, this is a fraught time. An interesting time.

    I’m giving myself permission to feel these movements, up and down, and to react to them. To not be hard on myself for not maintaining an up feeling in down times. Perhaps you need this permission, too.