Yearly Archives: 2021

Art and Culture, Myth and Story, Painting, Politics, US History

Don’t believe everything you think

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Imbolc and the remaining, waning Wolf Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Good Stock. Soups. 2.0 calorie nutrients for Kate. Kate. Always, Kate. Kep, so happy for breakfast. Literally jumping up and down. Cooler weather. Sleep. Until 7 this morning. Biden says no 45 intelligence briefings. Biden pushes relief package. As is. Vaccines. Covid. Awake. Rather than woke.

Relishing the relief. No need to cringe when reading headlines. No need to jump out of my chair and hit the streets to comment publicly on a Presidential statement. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Biden’s win has taken a dark bowl off my back, set it down in the basement, the deep basement, (OK, Mar-a-Lago) where it belongs. It’s not alone down there. The dark bowl of slavery is there. Of white supremacy. Of fascism and fascists. Many others.

But, don’t become complacent. That basement is our cultural shadow. These bowls are not gone. They can be drunk from again. Still. Only owning them, why they’re part of us, part of our communal life, can break the bowls and let their foul liquids seep into the bowels of hell from whence they came. We’re not ready for that yet.

Though. He who will not be named’s Presidency did do us  service in that regard. Surfacing our shadow, bringing into the light. Giving it visibility. Charlottesville. January 6, a shadow epiphany. George Floyd. Drink bleach. Shine a light up your rectum. Deregulate oil and gas. Don’t read. Don’t learn. Don’t embrace or love your neighbor, instead take their kids and put them in a cage. Yes, we saw all of this. Good. It’s not gone away. It’s only resting in the deep basement of our national psyche. Below the National Archives, I imagine.

The work that comes next. That will be the hardest. Essential work and in these matters we are all essential workers.

Not now. Beat back Covid. Restore the economy. Shift to renewable energy. Reform policing. Extend a hand to those who would live in the land of the free and the brave. Breathe. Relax.

The time will come to admit that the Klan served all white people. The time will come to admit we were all addicted to oil and gas. The time will come to admit that people who are different scare all of us. The time will come to say, yes, we outsourced our fears to the police, to ICE, to militia groups, to the NRA. The time will come.

The time is now though to make critical thinking and science education a key part of every American’s education. Media literacy, a way of understanding that not all we read or see is true. These skills, their lack, has sickened us almost to the point of death. Fix them now. Now.

Commentary on the news, Family, Friends, Health, Humanities, Judaism, Kabbalah, Literature, Poetry, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., US History, Woolly Mammoths

No More Checking on the Idiot

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Imbolc and the waning Wolf Moon

Friday gratefuls: Kate. Scott. Bill’s tough assignment for Sunday morning. Seeing into ourselves. And talking about it. Biden. Better than expected. He’s got momentum. And, public opinion. 45 fading out. His impeachment. Colder weather here. Sleep. The Psalms.

from 2016

No more checking on the idiot. Thank god. Still, for the duration of the impeachment his peculiar style of unthinking, thought garbling, strangled rationales is on display. Gee, his lawyers, the first group, didn’t think he could make a good argument that the election was a fraud. Hmm. The next set convinced him that a constitutional argument made sense. Doesn’t matter anyhow since Republicans (what does that word even mean) won’t calve a 17 vote iceberg to sink his Titanic. More’s the pity.

It’s important, I believe, to try him for inciting insurrection. No matter the political reality of judgement. If it were up to me, I’d have the Attorney General arrest him for sedition. Try him. Sentence him for as long as his unnatural life lasts. He likes orange so it shouldn’t be much of a hardship.

Rabbi Hillel

After some prodding by Rabbi Jamie, I’m going to pick up the study of Psalms this morning at 9:30 a.m. I’m three classes behind, but he assured me I could catch up, no problem. We’re going to work on the 23rd Psalm today.

One insight I’ve had in re-reading it, reading his translation, reading a couple of others. Walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Or, through death’s dark vale as another has it. I always imagined this as a personal confrontation with death, my death, your death. Not sure why I thought that, but I did.

Now, it’s clear to me that the issue is grief. Death’s dark veil thrown over life. Mom’s death. Regina Schmidt’s. 450,000 Covid deaths. We are in death’s penumbra as we have not been in my lifetime, save perhaps for the Vietnam War.

I shall fear no Trump, no matter what he doth.

Looking forward to this class. It’s been a long slog with Kate and with Covid, mostly life shaved down to workouts, sleep, cooking, shopping for food, TV. Not much intellectual challenge. It’s like meat and drink for me, learning.

When I look inside, as Bill has suggested we do for this Sunday, and define myself, I first see a student. A curious man. Not sure why I never moved from student to scholar, but I never did. I’m a fine student though and learning feeds my soul.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aging, Coronavirus, Family, Health, Judaism, Kabbalah, Literature, Myth and Story, Politics, Torah, US History

100 Days

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Imbolc and the waning Wolf Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Wolves and their moon. Deb Brown and her workouts. The Monk Manual. A better afternoon and evening for Kate. Buddy Mark’s swallow test. A Fib and its treatments. Vaccines. Covid. The writers for the Alienist, Titans, Gomorrah, 30 Coins. Writers, books, printers, ink, distributors. Podcasts. Oh, came back up here to mention: 45 gone.

100 days. Another tradition. A lot of juice for an incoming president and their administration. How they use it often determines the effectiveness of their presidency. Biden has made moves worthy of a change agent President. His long time in the senate, 36 years, could make him an LBJ lite. I say lite because he doesn’t have the Democratic majorities that Johnson did, nor does he have Johnson’s personality.

The leavening aspects for Biden’s presidency are the long reign of error and mendacity, rampant stupidity and cupidity that preceded him. The Covid crisis in both its medical and economic forms. The final triumph of climate science. Now policy must follow. The George Floyd stoked rise of Black Lives Matter and the surge of Black and Latino voters. They provide a platform for strong, effective reform of policing.

The $%!!@#$%^ Republicans cannot bring themselves to do more than slap Marjory Greene on the wrist. Bad girl. This means the slime, the Thing still covers GOP minds, corrodes any hope it has of returning to normal political party status. We need Trump’s Patriot Party. Carve off these deluded folks and clump them together.

Rabbi Jamie wanted me to be part of a class on the Psalms, “Psalms Resung in a Kabbalistic Key.” Called me twice. I’ve missed three classes, but I decided to give it a try. Tomorrow morning will be my first time. Zoom, of course. Something hard, mind-bending, scholarly. Yes. Much needed.

Yesterday, as I cleaned off my art table which I had allowed to become loaded with filing, I turned on Pandora. Bette Midler, the Rose. Lacrimae. On the Wings of an Angel. More tears. Guess I’m carrying a load of sadness not very far from conscious awareness. Surprised me. Then, it didn’t. Felt good.

Kate seems to be having a good start to her day, down to make her breakfast, get her some coffee. Tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beyond the Boundaries, Commentary on Religion, Great Wheel, Holidays, Myth and Story, Our Land and Home, Poetry, Shadow Mountain, Writing

Imbolc 2021

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Imbolc and the Wolf Moon

Monday gratefuls: Easy Entrees bacon wrapped pork tenderloins. Green Beans. Kate’s no nausea days. House cleaning today. LLBean and my new shearling hurricane shirt. The Ancient Ones tell stories around the council fire. Tom’s story. 45 gone. 46 doing stuff I like. Feel better. Imbolc.

The Ewes, the pregnant Ewes. Milk for their Lambs. Means Milk for all. For Cheese. For children. Imbolc. In the belly. In Ireland this is and was the birthing time for Sheep. The Lambs came; the Ewes freshened; the family fed on food not stored over the long fallow time.

It was clear the promise of the day after the Winter Solstice was not false. There would be another spring, another freshening of the earth. All would be well, all manner of things would be well.

What a precious and delightful time. Lambs gamboling. Suckling. Milk squirted directly into children’s mouths. All delighted by the miracle of birth and renewal.

Hard to put ourselves in the place of people who subsisted on stored Grains, Vegetables, smoked Meats over the long fallow time begun on Samain, Summer’s End, and lasting until today.

Brigid, the Triple Goddess. Her day. This from a wikipedia article:

She is the goddess of all things perceived to be of relatively high dimensions such as high-rising flames, highlands, hill-forts and upland areas; and of activities and states conceived as psychologically lofty and elevated, such as wisdom, excellence, perfection, high intelligence, poetic eloquence, craftsmanship (especially blacksmithing), healing ability, druidic knowledge and skill in warfare.

Poetry, the smithy, and the hearth were her domains, thus the Triple Goddess. The often week long festivals the Celts celebrated on their four cross quarter days: Imbolc, Beltane (May 1), Lughnasa (August 1), and Samain (October 31st) gave villagers a break from their subsistence lives. A chance to play, to sing, dance, trade, honor their gods and goddesses.

Imbolc was also a time for discerning weather, peeking into the immediate future. Hoping for Spring, but knowing it could still be distant. It was this tradition that has translated in the U.S. into Groundhog Day. Here’s a Scottish proverb that suggests the link. Bride is Brigit.

Imbolc is a good day to consider those freshened thoughts and projects you have. What came up for you during the dark, fecund days of Winter? Are there dreams or hopes or works you imagined then that need a push right now? You can ask Brigit for help. It’s her big day and she’s listening.

If you have an artesian well nearby or know of one, you could also follow the ancient Celtic practice of dressing the wells. On these holidays the Irish, the Welsh, The Scots, the Cornish, the Manx, and Bretons would, in ancient times, take flowers to the well, make corn dollies representing Brigit and leave them there, tie rags with wishes and prayers to shrubs and trees nearby.

These Holy Wells are pathways to the Otherworld, the world of Faery, and a place where the Holy Ones pay attention to the needs of the common person.

Brigit, the Triple Goddess, is a Fire Goddess, and at Kincaid in Ireland a double monastery, men and women, kept her eternal flame alive throughout the year. Might be a good day to have a Fire in the Fireplace, her hearth, and consider the creativity her Holy spirit represents.

Welcome all to the blessed season of Imbolc. May your projects blaze up and warm you and yours.

Aging, Cinema and Television, Commentary on Religion, Commentary on the news, Family, Friends, Humanities, Literature, Politics, US History, World History

And they went and died about it

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Winter (last day) and the Imbolc (Wolf) Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Kate’s better couple of days. Rigel, who gets up between 6:30 and 7:00. I get up at 5:30 now, better rested. Resurfacing after 3 plus weeks of difficult days and nights. The Lupercalia. Lycaon. Arcadia. Pan.

How many people have ever lived? Somewhere between 100 and 113 billion. See this wikipedia page for data. Got to thinking about this a few nights ago.

How many people do you know? Probably higher than Dunbar’s number of the 150 with whom we can maintain stable relationships. This article posits a number between 290 and 600. The same article ends by saying most people know only between 10 and 25 people they can trust.

Let’s imagine the number you trust is 25. The high end. Out of all the people that have ever lived you trust only .000000000025 of them and you know fewer than .0000000006 of them.

Why am I belaboring this idea? Good question. What got me going was the idea of how few people, in relation to the historical population of the earth, I know. This thin, wafer thin, slice is the group upon which I base my understanding of our species. Sure, I’ve studied anthropology and psychology, both ways to understand our species considered in aggregations like cultures or personality types, but these are at best reductionist views of exceedingly complex phenomena.

Reading helps. Novels in particular. Even there though we’re viewing characters through the understanding of a novelist whose known slice of humanity is as wafer thin as our own.

In any case we compare our learnings from those methods against the people we know. Who aren’t that many, really. Especially historically. Here’s another issue. We don’t know 600 diverse people probably. Some may. But most of us know people whom we’ve met at school, in our hometowns, in our neighborhoods. Largely people like us.

My point, you might reasonably ask? How little we know about our own species. How little we can know, even if we study the humanities, anthropology, psychology. How small our cohort of known persons is, how really small our cohort of trusted persons is. Given this reality is it any wonder that the 331,000,000 US citizens break into so many small and self-interested groups?

And yet. We have this from Our Town.* Notions, ideas, beliefs. These are the trail markers on the ancientrail of human life. We use them to guide our actions because we can’t use our exhaustive knowledge of life as a human. We don’t have it. Can’t have it.

And we go and die about those notions, ideas, beliefs, or, as General Patton memorably said, “We make some other poor sonofabitch die for his country.”

Humility. That’s what all this means. Provisional, what we believe. What we know. What guides us. Based on so small a sample of other’s lives that it might as well be considered nothing. But of course it’s not. It’s our life, our way of being as part of this hundred billion mass of humanity that has lived and died upon this spaceship Earth.

The things a guy thinks about. Geez.

 

*Our Town, Act 3, spoken by the play’s narrator, the Stage Manager, as he gives the audience a tour of the town cemetery, pointing out meaningful landmarks:

“Over there are some Civil War veterans,” the Stage Manager says. “Iron flags on their graves . . . New Hampshire boys . . . had a notion that the Union ought to be kept together, though they’d never seen more than fifty miles of it themselves. All they knew was the name, friends — the United States of America. The United States of America. And they went and died about it.”

Aging, Family, Health, Politics, Science, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Bearing Down

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Winter and the Imbolc (Wolf) Moon

Friday gratefuls: Caring Bridge. Kate’s community of friends. Story. The Ancient One’s theme this Sunday. Workouts. Deb, a new workout next Thursday. The Wind, 20/25 mph this morning. Our hardly wind tight house. Covid. Vaccines. Aging. The old homestead in Andover. The Lodgepoles, swaying, bending, waving.

 

It’s been, overall, a rotten week. Kate’s been in bed, or wanting to go back to bed the whole week. This morning is better. We’ll see. A hard week emotionally for both of us, including one fight which had both of us admitting fault, sorry, no, it’s just really hard right now. Yeah, I know. Me, too. Then on beyond that one.

This follows three weeks that have been no good, very bad weeks. Tubes in and out, in and out of the hospital, a new diagnosis of atrial fibrillation, hypoxia, failing oxygen concentrator, general icky feeling for Kate. Disheartening.

As for me. Better rested. Lower expectations about what I can get done in a day. Taking care with fitness, food, sleep. Going with it.

Scheduled a new workout with Deb. We’ll do it on Zoom because I don’t like to be away from the house very long. We have two red “need you” buttons and receivers placed in the loft, the kitchen, and near the stairs in the living room. Kate keeps one around her neck and the second one is in the bathroom downstairs.

Oil and coal industry readies its fight back against Biden’s climate policies. Jesus H. Can’t they see this is over? Why can’t they be part of the solution? Could you really be a board member of a major oil, gas, or coal company and say, “Hey, it may the downward slope for us. That means we have to squeeze all the profit out. No matter what. Fuck the world.”

The cynicism here is apocalyptic. I mean, literally apocalyptic. If we don’t throttle them, and ourselves, back, our grandchildren and certainly our great grandchildren will bake in the oven of our discontent. I’m Mad as Max and I can’t take it anymore.

In cheerier news friend Tom Crane sent a note about the Mars rover Perseverance “bearing down” on Mars. That’s so exciting. It lands February 18th with a package designed to search for signs of life, new and old. One of things they will be looking for are Stromatolite formations. This ancient life form can still be seen on the west coast of Australia. A trip I’d like to make someday.

I put bearing down in quotes because at the time of the article Perseverance was 4.5 million miles from Mars. I guess that’s the in dark cold of space equivalent.

Politics, US History, World History

Wool and Dross

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Winter and the Imbolc (wolf) Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Rigel. Prancing in from a time outside. Kep, jumping up, making his wooo-hoo sounds. Kate and her love. Restorative sleep. Have I mentioned here that Trump is gone? 5+ inches of fluffy snow. Ted, plowing us. Life. Covid.

 

 

Gathering some wool, some dross, and a few grains of wisdom about our near term future. It’s not the most important stuff; but, it could be if it weakens or distracts from work on climate change, racial and economic justice, health care reform. Not there yet. So much to consider.

Here are some of the questions that occur to me:

Who are the Trump cultists? How many of them are there? Where do they live?

Who are the Bernie supporters? How many of them are there? Where do they live?

What do independents think? How many of them are there? Where do they live?

How will the factions within the Democratic congressional delegations be managed? Are there any Republicans who can be shaved off? Who? For what issues?

Will Trump’s trial convince business Republicans that he’s toxic? Will it create a fissure in the GOP? Will it strengthen and harden Democrats? Or will it create some unanticipated trouble?

What is the strategy for neutralizing the libertarian right wing? The pickup truck, flag carrying right? The militia and white supremacist right?

Can the economy stay so hot? Will it boil over, go into a big correction? Will Congress and the Fed guide us to a smooth landing? How?

How do we support small business owners and the huge number of unemployed persons who used to work for them? Can we do both while strengthening unions?

What might challenge movement on climate change, racial justice, economic justice, health care reform? These domestic issues as well as foreign affairs. We need to move forward on all these fronts at once, divide up the tasks, co-ordinate.

 

Aging, Dogs, Family, Health, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Dry Well

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Winter and the Imbolc Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Cold. Snow. Still falling. Coffee. -45 here in the good ol’ USA. But, +46, too. Rigel, recovering. Kep. Murdoch in Hawai’i. VRCC. Climate change. Action against emissions. Dr. Gustave, back to North Carolina. My third doctor to leave this month: Dr. Gidday, my primary care provider, Dr. Gilroy, radiation oncologist, and Gustave, ophthalmologist. Geez, guys.

Rigel gave us a scare yesterday. She lost full control of her right front leg, started shaking her head in a rhythmic tic, walked into corners. This went on for about 20 minutes while we debated whether I would take her in to VRCC.

Pretty tough on me. The thought of another dire visit to a clinic with a loved one in trouble. Too much. Decided to wait and see. She calmed down, got up in bed with us and took a nap. After that, no head shaking, full control over her right leg. As if nothing had happened.

Sent a note to her cardiologist. This could be a stroke or stroke like incident occasioned by the vegetation in her atrial valves. Or, not. A mystery. Even to Kate.

I feel better now, like I could take her in if necessary.

Kate continues a low-key, modest recovery after her recent stay at Casa Swedish. Her feeding liquid includes the higher calorie version. She’s using two cans of the new and one box of Jevity. A gradual moving up. Makes her feel strange, she says.

She’s not gotten the changed beta-blocker for her atrial fibrillation. It’s on its way. That may help change her day-to-day symptoms, calm them down. May it be so.

Rigel’s episode yesterday revealed the extent of my exhaustion. I’m running on empty. Which, believe it or not, is an actual improvement over where I was last week. Had a good workout yesterday, a long nap. Good night’s sleep. All helping, but the deficit is high.

Thanks to Easy Entrees, gift cards, Tony’s market. Microwaves and dishwashers.

Politics, US History, World History

Folks Who’ve Tasted Blood

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Winter and the Imbolc Moon

Monday gratefuls: 46 in, 45 out. A wabi-sabi world. There’s a crack in the world and that’s where the light gets in. My ancient friends. Sleep. Better rested. Kate’s shower. The stoma site improving. Cold. A bit of snow. Reasonable health. (mine) That Kep. And his girlfriend, Rigel. Murdoch.

 

 

Three articles I’ve read:

How experts define the deadly mob attack at the U.S. Capitol.

Coup attempts usually usher in long stretches of democratic decline, data shows

Put these together with the post I made about solipsism. Not a pretty picture. We have sealed off cohorts of angry white people who get their news from agit-prop sources ranging, get this, from Fox News on the left to Parler, Stormfront, Gab on the right. When that’s your continuum, there’s gonna be trouble.

Somehow we have to push forward with vaccines and ppa’s, personal protective actions like masks, social distancing, and remaining at home. We also must push forward on stopping climate change, the true long range threat to people of all colors, everywhere.  No waiting, either, on racial and economic justice.

Yet. We have to do these necessaries while contending with folks who’ve tasted blood. Who have a fat, golf-cart riding pseudo-billionaire willing to chum their waters. Whose economic reality is dire. Whose violent tendencies the NRA reinforced and armed for years. This is a big, big problem.

There is no unifying with folks who believe your values are products of the devil’s wiles. That’s the dangerous conflation of far right rage with evangelical Christian certainty.

I’m not sure what the right strategy is for contending with this toxin festering in our body politic. This is not a small, fringe pool of our fellow citizens. How many folks is it? Again, not sure. Not all the 74 million who voted for Trump, but a large number of those.

Trump’s notion of a Patriot Party might be one solution. Sequester them in an impotent third party so they have a chance to foam and rant, but not accomplish anything. Might backfire. They could be the National Socialists of our moment.

And, what sinister figure slouches among them, waiting to be borne upon the tide of their anger? Is there one who will think like Trump but act like McConnell? Is there one who’s not a fries, milkshakes, and burgers guy, but a sly and competent leader? A Josh Hawley type? A Joseph McCarthy?

How we deal with this clear and present danger to our nation will, no doubt, determine how far we can get on the other pressing issues. A messy and fraught time ahead.

Dogs, Family, Health, Politics, US History, World History

Will we?

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Winter and the Imbolc Moon, waxing

Saturday gratefuls: Guinness beef stew, Easy Entrees. Furball cleaning. A clean house. A fib. Rigel, licking my face this morning before I got up. Kep, bouncing on the comforter, eager for breakfast. Murdoch’s flight landed 7 hours ago. Murdoch in Hawai’i. Kate. Enduring. Me, too. -45. +46.

Let us speak of good things. A clean house. Hopefully a reliable house cleaner. The wonderful Guinness beef stew from Easy Entrees. My PSA undetectable. Better knowledge of Kate’s heart. Alan on Thursday. A week of workouts at 3X reps.

Most of all for me. Rejoining the Paris climate accord. Pushing out Trump’s dismal deregulations. A 60 day ban on drilling and leasing on public lands. The clown with the big shoes and funny long tie, the leaning into the wind stance, gone. Feels so good. Lifted from me a terrible everyday burden. Perhaps from you, too?

Not quite so battered by the day. Checking on the idiot no longer required.

“We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be: a country that is bruised, but whole; benevolent, but bold; fierce and free.” 

Amanda Gorman, The Hill We Climb

Fierce and free sounds like Mary Oliver to me. What will we do with this, our one wild and precious country?

Lean into the future. Huddled masses received with an outstretched hand and a smile. Racial justice on every agenda from health care to vaccinations to jobs to education. Economic justice. Unions reviving. Wages increasing. Essential workers paid like they are. The rich taxed. Corporations taxed. Police cultures struck down and rebuilt. Emissions controlled. A carbon tax. Yes. Lean into it. Put your hand to the back of the wagon and push forward.

Vaccinate everyone. Faster. Faster. No excuses. Everyone. Make this Covid reel. Make life real.

And, yes, I believe this is what Biden wants. Finally. Congruence.

Come with us. Not Sisyphus. We roll the rock up the hill with no intention of letting it come back down. We will let it gain momentum, roll with crashing thunder down the other side, careening into the future.

This experiment, this nation founded on ideals, not history, not language, not ethnicity, not religion, can dream its way forward again. Americans dreaming, smiling. An American dream. Not just for those like us, but for those unlike us. Not just for American citizens, but for all humans, everywhere.

This is the magic here. That we can do this. Will we?