Monthly Archives: May 2020

Coronavirus, Dogs, Family, Health, Mountains, Plants, Shadow Mountain, Talmud, Third Phase

To Rigel

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Beltane and the Corona Lunacy II

Tuesday gratefuls: Rigel, our amazing 11 year old. “She could pass for five,” said the vet at her physical yesterday. Cool mountain nights. Blue Colorado sky. Being home, having a home. Rocks piled up high, high, high. Streams racing to the leave the Mountain top, to carry its message to the sea.

Busy Tuesday morning. 7 am meeting of the Clan. Clan Keaton. We celebrate and continue my mom’s family. Right after I took Rigel back to the vet for another tooth removal. Cracked. She comes home in about an hour. High intensity workout. Read Talmud. Nap. The morning.

Kate goes in tomorrow morning to see the reconstructive surgeon who worked on her fingertips. The scars have mostly healed, but they hurt at the tips and her sensitivity there has not returned. She can sew, but with less dexterity.

A Mountain spring is here. The forest service moved our wildfire danger from low to moderate. There have already been two smaller fires in Conifer. Covid will impact fire response crews. Those fighting difficult fires are often bunked close together, share equipment, and dining space. Not to mention exhaustion, dehydration. Whatever the impact it will not be positive.

Another clue about spring. The fine yellow mist shaken from new Lodgepole pine cones has begun to spread on Mountain Winds. There’s a faint layer on my computer keyboard. Animacy is in the air.

Mark and Mary have finished their terms, but there’s a two week grade challenge window which keeps them at work. Grade challenge window? Geez. Education has changed, eh? Diane’s choral music class from San Francisco’s Community Education program has moved online. She seems resigned to eventually getting Covid. She tested negative in a community testing program last week. The clan wends its international way through this international pandemic.

Beyond the Boundaries, Coronavirus, Friends, Great Wheel, Great Work, Mountains, Myth and Story, Original Relation, Our Land and Home, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, The Move, The West, Third Phase, Woolly Mammoths

Shansin. Again.

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Beltane and the Corona Lunacy II

Monday gratefuls: Shansin. Four Mule Deer Does in the yard this morning. Romertopf. The Chicken that gave its life for our meal. Potatoes. Onions. Carrots. Garlic. Sesame oil. Old friends: Tom, Bill, Mark, Paul. Poetry. Wine for Kate. Those who wear masks. Those who don’t. These Mountains. Their Trees. Their Water. Our Wild Neighbors.

At a time of frustration and anxiety Shansin, our home which honors the Korean Mountain Spirit, and Shansin Himself, have gifted me a token of peace. At 5:30 this morning I went out for the newspaper, as I have hundreds of times since we moved here in 2014. A Mule Deer Doe looked up at me from the yard. Good morning, I said. She looked at me, her huge ears standing out from her beautiful face, alert.

Somewhat further away three of her Sisters ate, too. Good morning. Good morning. They each looked at me and continued eating. As I walked along the driveway to the mailbox, they continued eating, occasionally looking up as I moved by them. I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad you’re enjoying the grass.

Paper in hand, the latest coronavirus news buzzing off its front page, I walked back to the house, to Shansin with Shansin. They all grazed, content. I was part of their morning, They were part of mine. Neighbors on Shadow Mountain.

Yes, we belong here. Together. Whatever might be elsewhere, we belong here. Our lives continue in mutuality with those others who live among us. Fox. Cougar. Bear. Elk. Moose. Pine Marten. Canada Jay. Magpie. Raven. Crow. Spider. Mouse. Vole. We are all under the protection of Shansin.

At crucial moments in our Mountain time Shansin has sent his angels, his messengers. That first day here on Samain of 2014 when the three Mule Deer Bucks and I met in the back. The first day of radiation therapy when two Elk Bucks jumped our fence and stayed a day and a night eating dandelions. This morning, when my patience and emotional reserve had frayed, left me feeling beleaguered.

It may be the apocalypse(s). It may be. But here on Shadow Mountain I am part of something that will survive. That will flourish in spite of and in part because of them.

This is what the end times look like up here. A newspaper in its tube. Four Mule Deer grazing on our land. A cool Mountain morning underway.

Colorado, Coronavirus, Family, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Shaken, Not Stirred

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Beltane and the Corona Lunacy II

Saturday gratefuls: The Fog. Dr. Gustave. Christine, optical technician. Good pressures. Cataracts and Cataract surgery. Getting gas. Freddie’s delicious Steak burgers. Air conditioning in ruby. Hungarian goulash by Seoah. Friends at CBE. Home. Shadow Mountain. The Mountains. Down the Hill.

Not sure how to talk about this. It’s unpleasant, but I need to put out there the profound dis-ease I felt yesterday. A twice canceled appointment with my ophthalmologist, Dr. Gustave, found me the only car in the Corneal Consultants parking lot. Check-in was by cell phone as was word that they were ready to see me. After locking ruby I walked into the building to find myself the only patient there. Most of the spaces inside, including the waiting area, were dark. It felt like exploring an abandoned structure.

Christine and I greeted each other through our masks, mine a ks94 mailed to us from Korea by Seoah’s Sister and Brother-in-law. We walked past empty exam rooms, the retina camera and visual field equipment room.

We’ll be in here. Any issues with your vision? Yes. My hearing is affecting my vision. When I watch television, I use closed captions, but they’re getting blurry. Also, why are my eyes turning blue?

Dr. Gustave a bit later. We’ll be taking those cataracts out as soon as elective surgeries are authorized again. It wasn’t my glasses? No. Morgan Freeman has the same condition with his eye color. Is it pathological? No. A part of aging for you.

The whole experience there was unsettling. Christine told me they would wipe down the exam room with clorox after I left. That made me feel strange. It was wise, yes, but still.

There were further errands to run. I needed to get some cash, so I went to a Wells Fargo branch that I know has a drive-through. This drive through is closed. Huh? O.K. I put the Korean mask back on, slipped a glove on my right hand, and went into the lobby prepared to face actual people. But from a safe distance. Closed. This branch has been closed for a month said guy coming downstairs from his office above the bank. Well. Damn.

At Freddy’s Steak Burger I waited in a very long line, maybe 15 cars, to get a double bacon cheeseburger, fries, and a chocolate shake. A treat I’d looked forward to when I knew I would be visiting this bank. They’re close by each other. A Chick Fil’a up the street had employees outside, helping drive-up customers. Freddy’s did not.

Unease had begun to set in when I walked through the darkened halls of Corneal Consultants. It got amplified by the absence of other patients, by the clorox comment, by the face shield worn by Dr. Gustave. The closed bank. The very long line at Freddy’s. The also closed car wash where I got gas. The dysfunctional car wash I tried next further down Hwy 470. I wanted to get home.

Getting into the mountains usually calms me, but this time unwelcome anxiety had seeped in, jangled my nerves. I felt better on 285, headed toward Conifer, but not ok. I mailed some bills in Aspen Park.

At home I recounted this trip to Kate. I felt unsafe, I told her. People weren’t wearing masks. The step back from stay at home orders meant there were a lot more people out, cars on the road. All the signals of the contagion. Dark exam rooms. A closed bank. Where, btw, our safety deposit box is. The car washes. The long line at Freddy’s.

It left me, I said, a bit shaken. Dis-eased. I’m so glad to be home. It’s safe here. I don’t want to go out again.

When I heard myself say that, and when I realized I meant it, I felt old and frail. Which of course jacked everything else up a little higher.

It’s the next morning now. I’ve had some sleep. I’m aware how much my home means to me. How important it is to have this shelter right now. Yet, I still feel the dark penumbra of the virus corona. It has changed my world and I don’t like the feeling of threat that has come with it.

Coronavirus, Great Wheel

Beltane 2020

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Beltane and the Corona Lunacy II

Friday gratefuls: Dr. Gustave and his care for my glaucoma. Another Colorado sunny day, blue sky. The ski runs on Black Mountain still have snow, like our backyard. Bernard Cornwall, historical fiction writer. People who write. Buddy Mark Odegard’s Starry Night. A slow workout yesterday.

Ennui. A word for a pandemic. Punctuated though by what Woolly Jim Johnson referred to as the perennial. It’s Lambing time on the Casper’s ranch outside Aberdeen, South Dakota. This is an ancient ritual honored first on the Great Wheel by Imbolc on February 1st. Imbolc means in the belly and refers to the pregnancy of the Ewes.

Imbolc, which marks a season by the fertility of a farm’s Ewes, is one of four Celtic cross-quarter holidays. Cross-quarter holidays come between the equinoxes and the solstices. Thus, Imbolc is halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox.

Beltane, the next cross-quarter holiday, is today, between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice. In the deep past the Celts only had two seasons, the fallow time beginning at Samain on October 31st, and Beltane, the growing season, which started on May 1st.

Beltane marked the beginning of a market week when villagers would come together to sell goods made over the fallow time, livestock, and any foodstuffs in surplus. Couples interested in each other as potential partners could do a handfasting, marriage for a year and a day. Workers made contracts for the growing season with farmers.

Bonfires blazed at night. Cattle were driven through them to ward off disease and women wishing to quicken would leap over smaller fires. Men and women made love in the fields, hoping to transfer their fertility to the soil.

Beltane’s coming means the Great Wheel has turned toward growth, fertility, abundance. In spite of a human pandemic Daffodils*, Crocus, Grape Hyacinths, Bloodroot, spring ephemerals that bloom before the trees leaf out have come. The Lodgepole Pines have their new cones. The Aspens have buds. Robins and Hummingbirds have returned to the mountains. The Black Bears forage while yearling Mule Deer hunt for good food amongst all the greening.

Look for what is growing within you. Within your relationships. Outside your front door. The coronavirus will wane. You need growth. This is a wonderful time to seek what’s pushing through the Soil of your Mind.

*I’m adopting Robin Wall Kimmerer’s suggestion to capitalize names of those things animated by the Great Spirit, Ohr, the One. This signals my respect for the living world. I’m also adopting her understanding of animacy which includes all things except those made by human hands. So, for instance, Rock. Black Mountain. Grass. Soil.