Winter and the young Imbolc Moon
Friday gratefuls: Kate. Always, Kate. The Fall of the Trump, inspired and realized by American Visigoths and barbarians. Illness and frailty. Aging. Covid. 5 days. Impeachment. Again. Still. Always. The winds. A busy day yesterday.
I posted this on Kate’s Caring Bridge site yesterday afternoon:
Well. Kate will be in the hospital until Saturday. Last night she had atrial fibrillation that dropped her blood pressure and gave her tachycardia. The docs need to decide whether to treat her for it or not. Blood-thinners, for stroke prevention.
The pneumothorax was small and may have healed under 100% oxygen. Her feeding tube reinstalled, she starts getting the higher calorie liquid now.
She is weary. When I asked her how she was feeling, she said, “I wish it wasn’t happening to me.” Yeah, me, too.
Covid makes visiting her not possible. The dogs and I live our usual lives. Get up early. Doggy breakfast. Write Ancientrails. My breakfast. Read newspaper. Around 4 pm doggy dinner. Get fresh water for them morning and evening. In between workout, comb Kep, vacuum, things like that. Wait for a call from the hospital. Eat well, get good sleep.
Lost a little sleep last night. Maybe an hour. Ideas rummaging through memories, trying to find something distressing. Read a good quote: keep the front door and backdoor of your mind open. Let ideas come in and go out. Did that. Took a while but I went back to sleep.
Stress? Oh, yes. Using all my learnings. Deep breathing. Front and back doors open. Consolation of Deer Creek Canyon. Looking out, clearly, over the absurd and the abyss. Checking in with friends and family. Workouts. Being with the dogs. Seeing Black Mountain, Arapaho National Forest, our wild neighbors. Really seeing them.
Working. Stress not overwhelming me.
I’ve allowed myself to go to the worst places, the most difficult imaginings, then go on. Kate is not dead, not dying; but, she is in great difficulty. We can navigate our way beyond this current rocky stretch, get back to cribbage and Sherlock, meals together. Her crosswords. My writing.
I want that. She wants that. We’ll see.
Part of it is not easy. How do you integrate the fact of losing capacity? When you can no longer do the things you loved? Like sewing. Going out to eat. To concerts. To sewing groups. To synagogue. Like walking easily across the floor or upstairs. Yet her mind remains sharp. Crosswords still come easily. Word finds. Solitaire. Dissing Trump.
Life continues, no matter. Until it doesn’t, of course. That is, even when an evil bastard like Trump is in office, we still have to eat. When a rampant virus rages, we still have to sleep. When a family member is ill, we still love each other, support each other. Life is a miracle and wasting it, well, please don’t.
No matter how proximate or distant disturbances in the force, science goes on, literary folks write books and articles, the past remains a source of inspiration, and the future a source of hope. No matter whether life has meaning or whether it is absurd (as I believe) the secondary effects of this strange evolutionary push into awareness persist. And, yet they persisted.
Mt. Evans and its curved bowl continues to deflect weather toward us here on Shadow Mountain. The light of dawn hits Maine first, as it has for millennia. The polar vortex slumps toward Minnesota.
But the whole ordeal had wiped her out. Understandably.
Not to mention the newest superspreader event, the storming of the US Capitol by thousands of unmasked domestic terrorists. Seditionists. Acts of treason. These are the blasphemy equivalents for a democracy.
In Merry England the Twelfth Night was another time for the emergence of the fool, for the inversion of roles, for letting go of the amazement of Christmastide in preparation for the now imminent return to ordinary time. We saw this same impulse on Distaff Day and in the male equivalent, Plough Monday.
If we take the other thread, the pagan/supernatural thread, during Christmastide, Yule, this marks farewell for the Solstice, too. We now know the Sun has committed for another year, the crops and the livestock will feel the heat, the warmth, the energy, the vitality. Whatever fears we had as the nights grew longer and the days colder, have given way to confidence that Spring and Beltane will come once again.
At our elevation the Lodgepole guard the Aspen whose golden leaves in the fall proceed their winter sleep. At lower elevations the Ponderosa, the Spruce stand guard. At the treeline ancient Bristlecone Pines patrol. In other parts of Colorado the Douglas Fir, the Engleman Spruce, the Pinon Pine, the Rocky Mountain Juniper, and the White Fir watch. The Great Spirit reminds us each Winter of the Evergreens special gift.