Monthly Archives: February 2016

Faith and Spirituality, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

saying your gratefuls

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Imbolc                                                                                 Valentine Moon

“Every evening, Ralph and I say our Gratefuls: it’s like praying, but less formal. His are simple: Mae Mae, Opa, Grumpy, Papa, The Condo (Kim, he loves your condo, you know that), and Eliza, his best daycare friend even though she stepped on his toe with her little high heels.

Today I did the same thing, because I have been feeling down, and the list was so long it took up many, many pages and I felt that heaviness lift a little bit.”  from a facebook post

In my reimagining faith project I plan a chapter or two on ritual. Without some rituals, some ways of embedding the newly imagined faith in daily life, it will wither, become solely an intellectual enterprise and fail.

This idea of saying your gratefuls, I love it. It will get included.

Third Phase

Excellent

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Imbolc                                                                             Valentine

Take full account of the excellencies which you possess, and in gratitude remember how you would hanker after them, if you had them not.

Marcus Aurelius

Dogs

Vega Is Home

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Imbolc                                                                         Valentine Moon

Vega bayingcroppedVega is home. At Sano, the vet’s, all the vet techs had taken turns holding her head because she wanted attention and love. A sweet thing for them to do. Sano has a palpable caring for their patients and for their humans. Comforting.

Her left front leg is gone, replaced with a long z like incision and an empty space where it once attached. We were both hesitant about seeing without her leg, shock of the new. However, I began to think about it as seeing her without her cancer, without the leg that had caused her so much pain and endangered her life. That made it easier.

Once she came out, she was just Vega. There was no problem. Palmini, the vet, said we’d be surprised at how well she was getting around already. And we were. When I took her out to the car for the ride home, she threw her right leg up and pulled herself in, like she’d always done it with three legs.

Once home we took her around the back so she could enter on the bottom level, no stairs. 100008 28 10_late summer 2010_0181That was fine. However, after about 20 minutes or so of being home she wanted to go upstairs and get some water. Even though there was a water bucket out for her. She hesitated at the bottom stair, put her right foot forward, backed away, forward again, back again. Then, summoning up something, she marched right up the stairs. She came back down them, too. With me holding onto her collar, more worried than she was.

We bought an inflatable bed for her, put a quilt on it, a warm blanket and some pillows. When she got inside, she walked right past the bed and hoisted herself up on the couch. Her couch. Oh, well. Shoulda seen that coming.

There will be adjustments. She has to go out on a leash for a while and she’s not used to the leash. Our dogs have the run of our fenced backyard and have had all their lives. They walk themselves, in other words. This means she’s not used to having one of us by her side when she’s urinating or defecating. Not an easy change for her.

The important and key point here is that she is home, alive and walking on her three legs. Vega’s back.

Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

At 8,800 feet

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Imbolc                                                                                                Valentine Moon

These chinook winds are formidable. Here’s the weather advisory for today:

High Wind Warning remains in effect until noon MST Friday... 

* timing... southwest winds will increase in the Front Range
  foothills through the afternoon... peaking in the late afternoon
  and evening hours.

* Winds... west to southwest 30 to 45 mph with gusts to 80 mph
  mainly above 7500 feet. West to northwest winds 35 to 50 mph
  with possible gusts to around 90 mph tonight and Friday
  morning.

* Impacts... people planning travel should be prepared for very
  strong cross winds causing hazardous driving conditions. Hikers
  should be alert for falling trees. Power outages will also be
  possible.


And, just to add something extra to winter: a red flag warning.


Red flag warning remains in effect until 6 PM MST this evening
for wind and low relative humidity for areas south and southeast
of Denver... fire weather zones 216... 241... 245... 246... and 247... 

* affected area... fire weather zones 216... 241... 245... 246 and 
  247.

* Timing... gusty winds will continue through with humidities
  dropping. Winds will remain very strong this evening but
  humidities will increase.


A red flag warning means that critical fire weather conditions
are either occurring now or will occur shortly. A combination of
strong winds... low relative humidities... and dry fuels can
contribute to extreme fire behavior.  If a fire is started or
ongoing the potential for it to rapidly spread is high.
Writing

Anarchy and Its Result

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Imbolc                                                                                    Valentine Moon

There’s a military build-up by NATO along the Russian front. The Chinese have just placed missile batteries in the Paracel Islands of the South China Sea and North Korea talks about hydrogen bombs. This is in addition, of course, to the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Since anarchy is the mode of international governance, excepting the small ways in which the United Nations works, it’s not surprising that there are constantly flash points where one nation’s interests rub up against another’s. It’s also not surprising that wars break out, flare, then settle back down, much like inflammations in our body.

This particular constellation of geopolitical sabre rattling has me a bit unsettled. For those of us born in the immediate aftermath of WWII, Korea came next. A police action. Right. Then, the cold war with all its duck and cover drills, spy versus spy, satellites and constant international tension. Vietnam. Bosnia. Afghanistan. Iraq. Afghanistan again. Libya. These were hot wars.

Friend Mark Odegard said in a recent e-mail, “Not sure I like the Russian build up along the borders, nor the US build up, this could get to be a hot war, Putin and Trump what a pair.”

We baby-boomers have lived our entire lives in either the shadow of war or its grim reality. This long run of extreme military engagements started with the war to end all wars, WWI and has rolled on, more or less continuously, ever since. We do not know a world truly at peace, have not known such a world.

I write this because it’s easy to get up, go to work, go out to eat, have family holidays, go to a ballgame, read a book and not even recall that the world is such a violent place. That at this very moment bombs are dropping, people are getting shot. It’s important to remember, to stay informed. How else can we advocate sensible policy? How else can we see the dramatic danger in Ted Cruz’s carpet bombing or Trump’s easy assertion that he’ll “take care of ISIS.” This election matters so much, for so many reasons, but one reason is to retain a measured US military response.

Dogs

A Close Friend

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Imbolc                                                                            Valentine Moon

at the door400Vega’s surgery went well, though it took an hour and a half longer than expected. “She’s a muscular dog,” the vet tech said. Later in the evening a phone call from Dr. Palmini, the vet, “Yes, it went longer because of her muscular shoulder. But that bodes well for her recovery.”

(Vega, orange collar, Gertie and Kepler)

Hard to imagine a close friend of seven years in surgery, losing a limb. Yesterday had its anxious moments. The heart loves who and what it will, from dogs to landscapes, to friends and family and art. Loving Vega has always been easy.

We bought a twin sized inflatable mattress for her recovery. It’s going in the lower level, so she won’t have to navigate stairs while she learns to walk on three legs. I’m sure she’ll be chuffing and organizing our lives again soon.

Writing

The Trail is the Goal

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Imbolc                                                                                           Valentine Moon

Could be the vision statement for Ancientrails:

Once you realize that the road is the goal, and that you are always on the road, not to reach a goal but to enjoy its beauty and its wisdom, life ceases to be a task and becomes natural and simple. In itself an ecstasy.

~ Nisargadatta Maharaj ~

Dogs

Vega.

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Imbolc                                                                             Valentine Moon

Vega500A bit jittery here on Shadow Mountain. Vega goes to the vet in about half an hour for her surgery, the amputation of her left front leg. It’s a drastic choice and it will change her life, but, we hope, also extend it. And, yes, it’s not cheap either.

When Kate and I married, now over 25 years ago, we brought my bed from my condo and have used it as a guest bed. At some point Vega found her way into the blue room we used for guests in Andover. She found the bed just right. It was hers from that point forward. If we forgot to close the door.

Last night I took my laundry downstairs and forgot to close the door to our Black Mountain Drive guest room. Sure enough, on her last night before surgery, there was Vega, sprawled out on the bed, very pleased with herself. I’m glad I forgot.

She’s been a special dog from the beginning. When we went to pick her and Rigel up from the breeders, Vega had a ten foot stick in her mouth. Her six littermates had their mouths on it, too, running around Junior’s backyard.

Vega is a lady of leisure, but she also has an iron discipline that demands certain things, like feeding schedules and going to bed, happen when they’re supposed to happen. That is, when Vega thinks they’re supposed to happen. She’s gentle about it, first chuffing, blowing air around her big cheeks, then barking softly. At some point she’ll sit, assume her most regal pose and stare. Then, bark again. Perhaps a bit more loud.

A sweetheart. A calm and gentle soul.

 

Family, Jefferson County, Mountains

Ruth

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Imbolc                                                                               Valentine Moon

Meyer-Ranch-across-US-285-0Ruth and I went for a long walk yesterday at Meyer Ranch Open Space Park. Gertie, our wire haired German pointer, came with us. Along the way we talked about a possible erratic (“I know what an erratic is,” Ruth said.) because it’s top had jagged, thin sheets exposed. I wondered why it hadn’t eroded.

We saw huge Lodgepole pines that had recently been cut to protect power lines in an easement running up Doublehead Mountain. When I started to count the rings on one stump easily 3 feet wide, Ruth asked, “Are you going to count all of them?” Yes, I was. The tree was between 75 and 80 years old. We’d been alive for much of the same time.

lodgepole loop meyer ranchThe trail went took went through forest. Ruth picked up branches along the way to make rings. I told her I admired how she found things to make wherever she went. “It’s good to have projects.” “Yes,” she said, “I have two, three, maybe five projects at home.” Ruth paints, sews, does fashion design, builds robots and reads in a way that gives me a shock of recognition.

Meanwhile, Gertie pulled me along, straining to get to the smells along the side of the trail. We rarely walk our dogs since they have a fenced in yard to roam, so they’re leashed train only enough to get into the vet and out. When we got back to the Rav4, we were all tired.