Back in 1988 a friend offered me a chance to go to Bogota, Colombia. My first trip out of North America. Reading travel guides I soon learned that Colombia had a long period called La Violencia. It began during a political transition in 1946. Some say it ended in 1958, but others observe that it continues, with less intensity, to the current day. So much so that the Fodor’s said no to travel. Even in 1988. The State Department also warned against travel.
I’ve been thinking about La Violencia lately, wondering if the term might apply here in the U.S.A. The violence during Colombia’s most intense period, 1946-1958, killed 200,000 plus. Since the 1990’s Americans have killed each other at the rate of about 11,500 a year. Slightly less than twice that number die each year from suicide by gun. (CDC data) Rounding down to a very conservative 30,000 gun related deaths a year, that would mean 450,000 thousand Americans have died by the gun since the new millennium. This is a rate that is 25 times that of any developed country in the entire world.
So. I’m thinking, yes. La Violencia, USA version. Brought to you by the NRA and a perverted interpretation of the second amendment.
Out on the ladder this morning using the pressure washer on the solar panels. After checking our panel production by time, I noted that yesterday some of the panels operated at 110% of their capacity. Guess the removal of the pine pollen has had an effect even though the panels still look occluded.
The sun up here at 8,800 feet is fierce and requires sun protection winter and summer. The heat when standing in it can quickly become too much. Of course the solar panels are on the south side of the house, so when working on them the sun is an issue. I finished before the peak of the UV index which begins at 10 am and ends around 4 pm.
We’re gradually changing the house and grounds to suit our preferences. We have plans for some plantings in the far back, well outside the defensible zones 1 and 2. Probably lilacs and shrub roses on the edge of our leach field. On the leach field itself we’ll plant bulbs and some flowers suited for an arid climate and the kind of sun we get. That’s this fall.
The now thinned lodgepoles have also changed the look. To my eye they look healthier, more space for individual trees and more sun, too. I like the less crowded, congested feel. Kevin of Timberline Painting will make our garage, shed and interior look better. Bear Creek Designs are coming by today for an estimate on redoing our bathrooms. I had guessed two years for settling in and I think that’s going to be pretty accurate.
The half summer solstice moon hangs high in the morning sky today. Friend Tom Crane sent a link to the NASA Juno mission webpage. The first NASA video gives you an overview of the mission. The second shows the earth and the moon dancing with each other as Juno sped by in October of 2013 on its way to its July 4th insertion in Jupiter’s realm.
Johns-Manville factory ruins: Alexandria, Indiana I worked here for two summers.
A nearby neighbor, Ian, with a wonderful Scot’s accent, dropped by yesterday to inquire about our fence, wondering who built it. After I gave him Mike Van Hee’s number, we talked. Ian doesn’t want Scottish independence, nor did he want Great Britain to leave the E.U. But, he said, Scottish independence seems inevitable now. The Scots voted very pro-remain.
The undertow of populism has created a riptide in the ocean of contemporary Western politics. It drug under the E.U.’s record of no member losses since 1950 and may drag down even more. Our favorite right wing populist, the Hairdo, happened to be in Scotland working on his golf course there. Turns out he’s delighted with Brexit. The Brits took back their country, he said. Just like he wants Americans to take back their country. From whom? Well, not really sure, but those who’ve made us not great. You know who you are.
Coming from a part of Indiana racked by the economic woes of the 1970’s, principally those emanating from failing Detroit car manufacturers, I know this disturbance in the force of American politics has a long tail. Those who used to be able to care for their family with a blue-collar job, and care for it well, have lost those jobs. Long ago. The creative destruction of the market economy doesn’t look so creative from the streets of Alexandria, Indiana.
the edge of town, Alexandria
I both understand and agree with the anger and frustration felt by working class Americans. I prefer the Occupy movement’s response, the Bernie Sanders’ response over the raw anger demagoguery of the Donald, but the underlying political stimulus is the same in all three cases. No nation can withstand millions of its working age citizens relegated to McJobs or no jobs at all. History teaches us that there will be a reckoning when folks get locked out of the means to care for themselves and their loved ones.
That reckoning seems on the verge of breaking through the hard crust of traditional politics. It’s important and necessary, like a fever breaking, but the disjunction such a reckoning can foster is hard to predict. Just ask the residents of France during the French revolution or the Russians at the turn of the last century. The unintended and the unexpected will predominate. Like Brexit. Watch out.
Young Tyler, who helped me move slash, plays shortstop for the Conifer High School baseball team. He had to sell Rockies’ tickets as a fund-raiser, so I bought two tickets and took Jon to see the Rockies play the Arizona Diamondbacks.
It felt very American to park, climb out of the underground lot to follow Dads and sons with baseball mitts, intense fans with jerseys of their favorite players, young couples holding hands and pass on-street vendors with cheap coolers filled with bottled water.
The brick facade of Coors Field has a retro feel. Oddly, this twenty-one year old baseball field is the third oldest in the National League.
Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack. A contemporary fillip added to the experience is the presence of metal scanners, uniformed security personnel and small plastic holders for phone and keys. Jihad and the great American past time.
The promenade behind the lower level seats is spacious, dotted with kiosks and vendors: extreme hotdogs, Denver cheesesteak, Nathan’s kosher hot dogs, Diamond Drygoods, the Smokehouse, Gyros. A man walks past with a mutton-chop beard and a pale purple Rockies’ jersey open over a white t-shirt, its tails almost below his khaki shorts. The smell of funnel cake, roast Elk brats, popcorn blend with the view toward the green, green grass of home…and second and third.
Jon came by train, the new rail line to DIA runs near his house and goes in the other direction to the Union Depot near Coors Field. A foot-long hot dog and a Denver cheesesteak later the game was underway.
Baseball is a bit slow for my taste, but the total experience, the people watching and the traditional bits like grounds preparation, the first pitch, people streaming in and out, up and down, the sun setting is worth it once in awhile.
Kate’s meeting with Rabbi Jamie of Congregation Beth Evergreen today. A joining up meeting. This is an ancientrail she began to walk a long time ago, converting at Temple Israel under Rabbi Max Shapiro. She felt at home within the Jewish tradition. The power of feeling at home, that this place is my place, these people are my people, may be the most significant feeling we ever have. Why? Because it locates us, puts us in context, gives us a base.
Last night we attended a learning session for the chevra kadisha, a burial society that guards a person’s body from the minute they die to the point of burial. They also wash the corpse, may wrap it in a traditional shroud. They do all this anonymously.
We watched the movie, Taking Chance, about the process and journey of caring for the body of pfc. James Phelps from his death in Iraq to his burial in Wyoming. Though focused on military ritual, it apparently conveyed much of the Jewish attitude toward honoring the dead and caring for the corpse in a respectful and dignified way.
Jewish tradition and the Jewish faith cannot be separated. This is a thousands year old culture that has survived many dislocations, much persecution and yet retained its link to the very distant past. Rabbi Jamie said the origin of the guarding of the body was quite literal, coming from a time when wild animals might approach a corpse as scavengers. Obviously a long time ago. But the respect and care that began in this practical way has been transmuted in the alchemy of time into a spiritual practice.
This is not my way; but it is a way, one with depth. I look forward to learning more about this ancient faith and walking with Kate along her path.
Timberline Painting will clean, then seal, the garage and shed wood siding in a couple of weeks. Both decks, too. Plus some interior painting that will finish up the kitchen. Projects remaining have begun to dwindle. A bathroom remodel and getting our sound system better organized will put us almost to the end. For now.
Kevin, owner of Timberline, has also begun taking our fire mitigation logs. He may clean up the back. Glad Kate asked him if he wanted it. When he was over yesterday, we talked about the mountain summer. “We had frost four weeks ago and we’ll have it again in nine weeks. Our summers are short up here, but wonderful,” he said.
He’s right. When we had eighties last week, Denver was in the low hundreds. And Phoenix. Well, if one city could be the major metropolis of hell, it would be Phoenix. 120 degrees! Also, the humidity here is low, so we cool down quickly at night and the heat is not so oppressive as equivalent temperatures in the humid east.
Kate and I are going to work on the garage today. I moved everything into the center last week, leaving the walls bare. Kate’s idea. It makes rejiggering the locations of various things much simpler. We’ll put my old ikea shelving up along the eastern wall, then I’ll move all my journals onto it. I moved them down from the loft last fall because I just didn’t have enough space for them. We’ll also finally get all of our tools out and organized, tables set up and the floors cleared off. Jon’s going to use one bay for boxes. Having four garage bays is a real luxury occasioned by the size of the loft which the former owner built to house his construction estimate business.
Light to dark. A continuum and a dialectic. Our inner lives fall, always, somewhere along this line. Our life might be bright, cheery, goals and actions easy to see, our days bouncy and their weight upon us like a feather. Or, our lives might be dark, intense, solemn, our next moves difficult to imagine, our days heavy, weighing upon us like a great rock.
But the Great Wheel shows us a yet deeper truth. Light to dark and dark back to light is the way of life on this earth. In the temperate latitudes this truth is at its most nuanced and its most fruitful. Quite literally. In temperate latitudes, as the Solstices mark out, we go from the Summer victory of light to the Winter victory of darkness.
Though darkness seems to be the dialectical opposite of light-winter the antithesis of summer-in fact darkness gives plant life a time to rest, rejuvenate, prepare for the rigors of another growing season. The light, when it begins to bear down upon the fields and forests, encourages and feeds them, preparing them for the harvest. In the places where the seasons are more extreme, like the tropics where daylight remains equal to night all year round and at the poles where night and day extend for months exuberant plant life can overtake whole regions. Or, at the poles ice can become so thick and vast that it covers hundreds, thousands, of square miles.
The Summer Solstice and the Winter Solstice then are not opposed to each other. The transitions from light to dark and dark to light for which they are the zenith are necessary engines for the well-being of all of us who call this planet home.
Thus we might consider the transitions from light to dark in our psyche, in our soul, as variations necessary for a full and rich life. Of course we need the sunshine of children, of love, of hope, of success. The times in our lives when those can dominate are like the summer, the growing season. Yet, grief and failure are part of our soul’s turning, part of our reaction to and integration of life’s darkness. Also, those practices which can take us deep into our inner life are like the fallow times of fall and winter providing rest and rejuvenation to us.
Today we celebrate the solar equivalent of our live’s growing season. Mark out those matters in your life that flourish, that bring joy and love, that encourage your fulfillment. But, know as well that even events like divorce, like the death of a loved one, like the failure of a dream can enrich the soil of your life, must enrich the soil of your life or else we pretend that the Great Wheel does not turn, but rather stops and becomes one season, to the eventual death of all we know.
The Summer Solstice begins the gradual victory of dark over light, the one we celebrate at the Winter Solstice. Light and dark are not opposite, but parts of a whole, parts of your soul and its ancientrail toward death.
The Evergreen Rodeo closed the streets of this mountain town this morning, but Kate and I managed to slip in just after it was over. We went to Beth Evergreen, a Reconstructionist Jewish congregation located just off Highway 74 on the way out of town toward I-70.
Kate’s serious about joining and I’m serious about supporting her. It’s about time I began meeting some new friends here. I’ll not go to membership with her, I’m past joining. At least I think I am. But I’ll attend, help out.
There was an interesting piece of today’s two hours that showcased what Beth Evergreen has to offer. Mussar. Here’s a short piece:
“By this time I had already come to see myself as a soul. That’s one of the first things any student of Mussar needs to understand and acknowledge, deeply and clearly. Each of us is a soul. Mostly we have been told that we “have” a soul, but that’s not the same thing. To have a soul would indicate that we are primarily an ego or a personality that in some way “possesses” a soul.
The first step on the path of Mussar is to unlearn that linguistic misconception and to realize that our essence is the soul and that all aspects of ego and personality flow from that essence. At its core, the soul is pure, but habits, tendencies and imbalances often obscure some of that inner light.”
It looks interesting and requires no theological perspective. There will be more on all of this as we move forward.
Just posted this on a Pinecam.com thread featuring, other than mine, rants about a new bond issue from Jefferson County (Jeffco) schools:
At 69 I’m excited about the future of our county, our state and our country. However. To remain strong globally and internally we need each of our citizens to work with as much of their potential as possible. The key that unlocks this potential is education.
The school district in Jeffco has been in turmoil over the last few years, especially when the school board was at war with its principal employees, the teachers. The way forward includes good facilities, decently paid teachers and extra-curricular activities that don’t require students to sell things to support them. My wife and I are happy to contribute another $150 a year to ensure that the next generation includes well-educated adults, ready to take on the demands of a world power.
We each have a responsibility to our own children or grandchildren and more broadly to all the children in our community. Why? Because each business, each law firm, each medical practice, each university, each level of government, each city and town depends on having citizens capable of leading them into the future.
There are things my taxes get used for that I don’t like. But, elementary and high school education? Let’s fund it like our country’s future depends on it. Because it does.
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The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.
– John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir, (1938), page 313.
Back in 1988 a friend offered me a chance to go to Bogota, Colombia. My first trip out of North America. Reading travel guides I soon learned that Colombia had a long period called La Violencia. It began during a political transition in 1946. Some say it ended in 1958, but others observe that it continues, with less intensity, to the current day. So much so that the Fodor’s said no to travel. Even in 1988. The State Department also warned against travel.
