Monthly Archives: July 2020

Anoka County, Colorado, Denver, Family, Friends, Holidays, Jefferson County, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Myth and Story, Our Land and Home, Park County, Politics, Shadow Mountain, The West, Third Phase, Travel, US History

#244

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Summer and the Moon of Justice

Saturday gratefuls: This country. These purple mountain majesties. The lakes of Minnesota. Lake Superior. Evergreen. Conifer. Shadow Mountain. The great plains, rippling wheat. Corn fields of Iowa. Lady Liberty. New York City. San Francisco. Puget Sound. The Colorado River. The Mississippi. The South. New England. The first lighters up there in Maine. Jambalaya. Gumbo. Devil’s Tower. El Capitan. Crater Lake. The Mackinac Bridge. Protests. Alexandria. Muncie. The Big Medicine Wheel. The sacred Black Hills. Cahokia. Carlsbad Caverns. Marfa. West Texas. From sea to shining sea. Haleakala. Waipio Valley. Waimea Canyon. Da Fish House. Denali. Kodiak. Salmon. Grizzly. Wolves. Lynx. Wolverines. An amazing country still.

244 years old. Lot of candles for that red white and blue cake. Hard times. Like the Civil War. The First World War. The Spanish Flu. The Depression. WWII. Yes, it’s been hard before. Will be again. We navigated the churning, stormy waters of all those. We can get through this one, too.

A canard? Maybe. Yet, I believe it’s so. Rising out of this fire may come a nation truer to its ideals. No more Trumps. Ever. No more easy white privilege. No more easy oppression of people of color, women, lbgt. A more just economic and medical system. If we do, the pain will have been worth it.

I love this country. From Route 66 to the hot dog shaped hot dog stand in Bailey. From Coney Island to Puget Sound. From the Minnesota angle to the bayous. It’s my home, my place, the spot on this earth to which I am native. It can be tarnished by the political class, but not erased.

Here are my friends, some of my family, the graves of my ancestors. Here are the roads I traveled as a young man, the streets and fields I played in as a child, houses in which I’ve lived, the cities I’ve loved and fought for. This is the land of memory.

Let’s celebrate #245 with a 46th President. And with 45 in jail or disgraced. Make it so.

Art and Culture, Letters, Literature, Music, Painting, Photography, World History

All ye need to know

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Summer and the Moon of Justice

Friday gratefuls: Getting a start on cleaning up the garage. Buying dope. The continental divide yesterday, hazy with wildfire smoke. Kate. Our sad birthday tomorrow. Grocery pick-up order in. The vasty deeps. The airless heights. The Rub Al Kahli. Longing. Water. Beauty. What does it mean? Simplicity. Joy.

Is this a beautiful idea? Does this idea bring me joy? My mussar practices right now. And, interesting ones. What makes an idea beautiful? According to one perspective, all things are beautiful, if we bring beauty to them, look for it until we find it. Not all ideas are beautiful. Of this, I am sure. But, some are.

A recent example for me comes from Braiding Sweetgrass and its chapter title: A Grammar of Animacy. The idea here is the Potawatomi language’s division between animacy and artifice. All things not built or made by humans are animate to the Potawatomi. This is a beautiful idea. It’s surprising. Rocks and mountains. Grass and water. Fire and wind. All part of the spirited world, the ensouled world. It’s novel. It takes me to Shinto, to Western mythology, to the Faery Faith of the Celts. It challenges my received understanding.

Beauty is a contested idea. Just ask Picasso, DuChamp, Kandinsky, DeKoonig, Rothko. Are only representational paintings beautiful? If so, what makes them so? Space, color, line. At least. No color, no pleasing line, no well-defined space, no beauty.

But. What if the primary subject of a painting was color? Think the Rothko chapel. Or, the color blooms of Morris Louis. What if it were line? Like Cy Wombly. Or, imagine a sculpture of wire, dangling from a ceiling, defining and redefining the space in which it hangs? Calder. Or, what if the primary subject of a painting deconstructed a face, a table, a tableau? Picasso. Braque.

Each of these artist’s works would have been shunned as unintelligible for most of the history of Western art. That accusation still gets thrown at them, even in this, the third millennium. Why, my kid could do THAT!

The next few weeks of mussar will focus on beauty as a middot, a character trait. Perhaps this will be the kick in the ass I’ve needed to get back into the world of art. I hope so.

General
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Summer and the Moon of Justice

Not sure, but I think the security guard at the Happy Camper (marijuana dispensary) said, as I left, “Have a nice flight!” If he didn’t, I wish he had.

Cinema and Television, Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Family, Friends, Mountains, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History

Good News

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Summer and the Moon of Justice

Thursday gratefuls: Chuck roast fork tender in the Instapot. Yum. The stillness. Only the occasional car on Black Mountain Drive. Just us and the critters. Wild and domesticated. PSA next week. Kate’s ostomy nurse referral. Kep and the bone from the chuck roast. Rigel and the bone from the chuck roast. Kate’s voracious reading. Robertson Davies.

Doomscrolling. Covidiot. (thanks, Tom) Mask maker, mask maker, make me a mask. At home with the virus raging outside. Like a wild snowstorm blowing across Shadow Mountain. So quiet here.

Generation hide. They told us it would be bunkers, radiation hazards. They prepared us with duck and cover drills. (though, to be honest, I don’t remember any.) Pamphlets. Civil defense sirens. Those yellow and black icons of danger. Nope.

The biohazard sign, triplet open crescents over a circle. Duck and cover = masks. Bunkers = self-quarantine, but, at least above ground. No sirens, just daily updated charts of the infection curve. Never flattened here. Here, in the United States of America. Maybe we should duck and cover. In shame.

Mutually assured destruction now means all those freedumb loving libertytards who refuse to wear masks. Who refuse to believe the virus is real. Or, if it is real, they believe it’s germ warfare. God, our fellow citizens as intentional disease vectors. What….?

Our generation sits behind closed doors. Those books on the nightstand now read. Newspapers, for those ancient of days who still receive them. TV tuned to Netflix. As the bleeding edge of the Baby Boom, we’ve been in a high risk category for over 10 years. Now it counts.

Those who like good news can find a lot of it on television. Though I long ago stopped watching infotainment, the protests get covered. What a joy they are in this otherwise bleak time. Young people speaking their minds. Yes, something’s happening here. And this time, it’s very clear.

General

Wandering

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Summer and the Moon of Justice

(see below for Wednesday gratefuls)

Been wandering around in the corridors of my mind, feeling a little lost. Not writing. Not taking a class. Not going to CBE. Not seeing the grandkids or Jon. Not gardening, which for some reason has risen in my heart as important. No bees. Two great dogs, but only two. No trips. No trips planned or likely. I know, defining myself by what’s not in my life. Not good. (lol)

Thinking like this does not bring me joy. Remember my simplicity practice: does this idea bring me joy? Well, these ideas don’t. And, yet, they are true.

What to do? Over the last couple of years especially this question has appeared here a lot. Even more. In my mind and heart. BTW: I increasingly think and feel, like the Hebrew word lev suggests, that these two are the same.

I set aside the question while I reorganized the loft, allowing that process to to cleanse me. Really, I allowed it to put off the reckoning. Now, after weeks of off and on work, I’m almost done. A few articles to file. A very few books to find shelves for. One black walnut shelf, beautiful still, handmade by Jon, to clear. Oh, and that back corner by the door. Well, ok. Not almost done. Let’s say, nearly. Expecting some sort of internal lift off when I walk in here and everything’s in its place. But, to what?

The last four and a half months, the time Seoah was here, saw a lot of lingering stress resolved. Murdoch and Kep separated. Gertie died. Kate’s life has become happier. I had a long break from cooking. Family bonds grew tighter. Over the same time I undertook this Augean stables task of cleaning up the loft. Nearly done.

What am I now? Not who am I. I’m comfortable with the guy rattling around in the walkways of his heart. But, what I am for, today?

Coordinator of outdoor projects. Cook. Cleaner. Nurse. Husband. Radical theologian. Father. Father-in-law. Grandpop. Writer? Painter? Sumi-e’r? Activist?

Not all who wander are lost. Just recalled this. True. I don’t feel lost, just lacking direction.

Coronavirus, Family, Travel

Citizens of the World

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Summer and the Moon of Justice

Wednesday gratefuls: Denver Post delivery. Our short, flat driveway. The iris that bloomed. My fingers, which know where the keys are. Rigel, early this morning, looking at me still in bed. Day 7 in quarantine for Seoah. Feelings. Sadness about the failure of the United States. Failures. Words from Mario. Good words. The clan. Mary’s retirement day, yesterday. Wow.

Both sister Mary and brother Mark have lived out of the U.S. longer than they lived in it. Both reached this ex-pat milestone this year. Mary has lived in Singapore longer than she lived in our hometown of Alexandria. Mark lived longer in Bangkok than in Alexandria. Oh, the places you’ll go. A Shadow Mountain congratulations to both of them, true citizens of the world.

We’re a traveling family, though I’ve been a stay at home compared to my sibs. Two siblings who live so far away and have for so many years makes family a long distance relationship. Especially with mom and dad both dead. Glad they’re not here now in this virus ridden country, with a shabby would-be autocrat whose ties drag the ground. At least Singapore and Saudi Arabia have leaders.