Yearly Archives: 2022

Astrology, Fourth Phase, Health, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Tarot

An Invisible Protective Shield

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Yule and the New Year Moon

Where’s the Webb?  765000 miles from home and 134000 to L2. 85% of the journey. Mission day 19.5. Crawling along at .1906 mps. Only 687 miles per hour.

Friday gratefuls: The backsplash. Only needs grout. Chicken and pork from Cooks Venture. The LG washer. It just works. Like the Speedqueen dryer. A functional dishwasher and sink. Yes. 51 degrees. No. Asian food, especially Japanese and Korean. Cooking. Learning the basics. Soon. My pagan book. Growing. The Hermitage and Herme.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Naps

Tarot: Ten of Stones, Home

 

The Supremes. Bah, humbug. Court Packing. Yes. Eliminate the filibuster. Yes. Try to imagine that either one would do any good. Go on. Try.

The political weather outside is frightful. Our nation’s governance suffers from ship worms boring through the hull. The ship of state will sink at this rate. Aaacchh.

So I’ll ponder the ein sof, the ways of the tarot deck, the turning of the stars in the heavens. Reorganize my kitchen and rearrange my living room. Write another book or two. Keep the feet moving forward.

 

I feel alternately excited and upbeat about life here at the Hermitage and despondent about life down the hill. Anywhere down the hill. Glad my primary care doc is up here now. Fewer reasons to leave where life has some traction.

Jon and Gabe and Ruth plan to come up on Saturday. Probably Beau Jo’s pizza for supper. The kitchen will be finished next week, early next week I hope. I promised the food service would get better here when the kitchen’s done. I mean it.

 

Have to study tomorrow. Natal charts. How to read them. Sun sign, moon, and ascending. That’s where we (very amateur) astrologers start. After those we go to houses, aspects, planets. Then we scratch our heads and wonder if any of it makes any sense?

Got a couple of hours in on the Sefer Yetzirah yesterday. Felt good. Student mind opens to the worlds, the words, the ideas. Tries to grasp them, put them together. Connect things. Learn vocabulary and concepts. My favorite work of all. After writing fiction.

 

Got my Orgovyx (prostate cancer med) ordered yesterday. My copay has gone down to zero. Last year it was $10 a month. United Health Care wanted $834 a month. Choice: die or pay an extra $10,000 grand a year out of pocket. Gee. What would you choose?

Yes. National health care.

 

If you’re roaming around the Rockies, stop in and see me. It’s likely I’ll not be where you are anytime soon. Omicron and the crazy politics of 2022 are an invisible protective shield holding me up here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jefferson County, Judaism, Mountains, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Tarot, Travel

A Question

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Yule and the New Year Moon

I’ve walked this board walk many times. Pukaskwa National Park, Ontario

Thursday gratefuls: MVP. Responsibility. Incognito. Neuroscience. Free will. Blue urban, red exurban. The changing politics of the U.S.A. Shakespeare. A man for all ages. Stratford, Ontario. Ellis family trips there. Ipperswich Provincial Park. Pukaskwa National Park. Staunton State Park. Arapaho National Forest. Shadow Mountain.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The almost finished kitchen

Tarot: 1. Challenge. 2. How to Overcome. 3. Goal   1. Three of arrows, jealousy. 2. Two of vessels, attraction. 3. The World Tree, #21.

 

Do I need to continue to focus on home, family, friends (as part of healing and grieving), or do I need to push out toward the world? As I read this spread, it suggests my heart remains jealous of the old world I had with Kate. Gone, but not forgotten. Disappeared, but not without continuing significance. Perhaps a more accurate reading would be that I’ve not yet accepted its absolute physical absence and the emotional load that now past life continues to exact. It is the challenge I’m facing today.

How might I overcome this challenge? The heart’s blood dripping from the burning heart transforms into a passionate heart in the two of vessels. The suit of arrow’s elemental, Air, fans the Fire, burns out jealousy, and ignites an attraction between the stag/male energy and the female/mare energy. The result is an outpouring of emotion, an acceptance of the here and now, shown by the Water pouring into the vessels below. The airy abstraction of the intellect gives itself over to the Water course way.

When the alchemical marriage is complete, the elements of Air, Fire, and Water will combine, leaving only the Earth to complete the four building blocks of reality.

Earth comes into the spread through the twenty-first and last major arcana, The World Tree. It is the goal of my journey. You might say, oh, in that case the answer to the question is that you need to push out toward the world.

But. Maybe not. The World Tree certainly has the external world, all of it, subsumed under its imagery. Two other aspects of the image though suggest another possible meaning.

The labyrinth that serves as a walkway to the small door in the World Tree demands a solitary journey. Once to the door with the labyrinth behind me, I’ll choose to open the door. The door is the connection between the vast external universe and the also vast internal universe. The journey would continue in my inner world.

So I need to continue toward the alchemical marriage and even after the nuptials are over, my ancientrail to the outer world will appear as I retreat into and rely on my inner world.

What does this look like? Not sure. Finishing the remake of the kitchen, the living room, the ohana suite, and the loft. Continuing to work with my new schedule. Which I’m finding congenial right now. No after. Until or if there is one.

I feel relieved of the pressure to find a political action to take, or a religious obligation to embrace. I even feel relieved of the faint, but extant, desire for a relationship with a woman.

If you come to the Hermitage you’ll find me on the labyrinth or already gone behind the small door. Blessed be.

 

 

 

 

Astrology, Judaism, Kabbalah, Politics, Tarot, US History

Shards of Ohr

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Yule and the Moon of the New Year

Wednesday gratefuls: Cousin Diane of Clan Keaton. Hanwoo beef. Seoah. Bulgogi. Backsplash ready to go up. Slight snafu in my bank account. Oops. My error. All better now. Bowe. Marina Harris. Being right, being wrong. Tom’s theme. American Day of Atonement. Missed it. Kate and her handiworks. Luke and Elisa, Torah and the Stars. David Sanders, Sefer Yetzirah. Voice and letters as creative powers. Kabbalists. Judaism.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Student’s mind

Tarot Eight of Stones, Skill

 

The filibuster. You know. Gumming up the works all by yourself. Of the Senate of the still most powerful nation on Earth. Sure, there’s a risk. Always. If and/when the GOP controls the Senate, the Democrats would not have the filibuster. But. Voting rights? The Build Back Better bill? Standing up for decisions as opposed to obstruction. Right now that looks pretty good to me. Ditch the filibuster.

 

This morning I had my first Winter semester classes. Torah and the Stars: Astrology and Kabbalah, Pt. II and Sefer Yetzirah, chapter 2. One starting at ten and ending at eleven fifteen, the next starting at noon and going until one fifteen. Both dense. Astrology is dense because folks have been fussing with it since early China, India, and Mesopotamia. Houses, planets, sun signs, north and south nodes, aspects. Natal charts laid out against the chart of the day. Telling stories with Uranus the renegade and that emotional Moon conspiring to challenge a stolid Taurean. Still learning, still unsure how I feel about it.

The Sefer Yetzirah class felt like beef tenderloin compared to the ground sirloin of Torah and the Stars. David Sanders told us to read about quantum mechanics to get ready. I’ve done it. I know more about quantum mechanics now than I did a month ago, but get it? Nope. I do wonder a bit about these, oh my god look at how close the early Kabbalists were to quantum mechanics. Let’s grant that they were close. So what? Quantum mechanics is a better version of thinking about the mysterious forces that rule the physical world.

Bracket the comparison to esoteric physics and the Sefer Yetzirah, a very early Kabbalistic text, stands on its own. We dipped a toe in the idea that voice and sound, especially when combined with letters, can create reality. The underlying question is the creation of something from nothing. If God spoke the universe into existence, what came before God’s speech? In this case God equates to the ein sof, the infinite, the unending. God as undifferentiated, alone, eternal.

Rabbi Luria, a 16th century Kabbalist, proposed that the ein sof contracted, the wonderfully named tzimtzum. pronounced zimzoom. God did that to allow other entities to form, but when God’s eternal light, ohr, flowed into the empty space created by the contraction, the empty space was too weak a vessel to contain it. The empty space shattered and shards of ohr spread out creating the universe as we know it now, or at least the prolegomena to this universe. In fact, the new James Webb telescope has as its mission getting closer and closer to the tzimtzum. Although scientists call it the Big Bang.

The implication of the shattered vessel is that all things contain a shard of ohr, of divine light. The great work of the creation involves reuniting those shards of ohr with their holy source. The Kabbalist’s Tree of Life shows both a downward emanation from the crown, or keter, that part of creation closest to the remaining ein sof, to malkut, this world, and an emanation in the other direction which bears those shards of light back to their source.

Two classes wore me out. One after the other. But, it also makes me happy. My mind has begun to stretch once again, flow within thought worlds: Tarot, Astrology, and Kabbalah. And, the integration of all three. We’ll see where all this goes.

Asia, Commentary on the news, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., US History, World History

The Mandate of Money or The Mandate of Heaven?

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Yule and the Waxing Gibbous New Year Moon

Webb being lifted by crane. creative commons, nasa

Where’s the Webb? 80% of the way to L2. 723000 miles from home, 176000 miles to L2 insertion. Down to .2132 mps. Mission day 17.

Tuesday gratefuls: The cleaners. A sparkly, yet still disorganized upstairs. Bowe coming tomorrow for backsplash work. The setting sun. Gabe and his presents for his Dad: Crappy Taxidermy, a book, and Things That Can Kill You, a 2022 calendar.Working my new schedule. Worked on my pagan book, a forever task related to reimagining faith. Who knows, maybe I’ll finish it. Waiting on delivery of the Werewolf book by Marina Warner. Gonna do more research and pick up Lycaon for another novel. Also, planning to re-read Jennie’s Dead, get back into it. Writing Ancientrails as Kep and Rigel run the fenceline, loudly, with Zeus, Boo, and Thor. When Jude comes home.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Change and its beauty

Tarot: Ten of Vessels, Happiness (same as yesterday!)

 

Fan Kuan

Want to come at the whole democracy debate from a different angle. A Chinese perspective, tianming. The Mandate of Heaven. In the Zhou dynasty (1046-256 B.C.E.) the Emperor and his government (always him in those days) had the Mandate of Heaven if the people did well. “The ‘Mandate of Heaven’ established the idea that a ruler must be just to keep the approval of the gods. It was believed that natural disasters, famines, and astrological signs were signals that the emperor and the dynasty were losing the Mandate of Heaven.” PBS learning media

Good crops, freedom from plague, no warring factions, healthy villages. But. As with Celtic Kings, if the crops went bad, or plagues killed many people, or warlords disturbed the peace, then the ruler could be called to account. The Emperor, the Chinese would say, had lost the mandate of heaven. In that case others could vie for the throne. As long as the Emperor had the mandate of heaven, anyone rebelling against him would not gain traction in early imperial China.

It’s not a bad way to judge a government. If the citizens do well, then the government is just. If not, then it’s unjust and needs to fall. It’s an unspoken assumption among us democrats (small d) that a government by the people and for the people will serve the people’s interests. Yet we’re gaining striking experience in a “democratic” government which makes the opposite assumption. If the government serves the needs of its wealthiest and most influential, its corporate class, then it has met the mandate of money. If we’re makin’ money, things are ok. If not, change the government or at least its policies.

Our form of government, far from the only one, is in danger right now of losing the mandate of heaven by basing its survival on the mandate of money. The weird part is that many folks most damaged by the mandate of money are the ones rebelling against the old democratic regime. Yes, it was a center right thing all along, but at least some progress got made and people weren’t dying by the thousands. So here we have the strange circumstance of rebels insisting on more corporate influence, more oligarchic rule, yet rebels whose own jobs are often in jeopardy.

The Chinese imperial government had one thing that we don’t have. Homogeneity. The Han majority are almost 94 percent of the large Chinese population. Yes, there is a lot of diversity in China, but the numbers of the non-Han population are miniscule compared to say the Latino or African-American percentages of the U.S. population.

This helps explain the strange politics of our moment. There is no need for Han supremacy politics since it’s already baked in to the perception of Chinese citizens. Minorities might wish things were different, the Uighurs for sure do, but their chance of making waves based on ethnic politics is zero or at least vanishingly small.

In the U.S. however the oligarchs have a situation where the white population sees its share of the population shrinking, the sort of jobs its middle and working class depended on disappearing, while increasingly restive ethnic politics like Black Lives Matter strengthen the influence of the non-white population. The road to power still runs through the valley of white privilege though for how long is anybody’s guess. Uncertainty feeds the politics of ressentiment. Ressentiment is “a psychological state arising from suppressed feelings of envy and hatred that cannot be acted upon…” Oxford online dictionary.

Thus a certain percentage of the white population in the U.S. feels that its Mandate of Heaven has been violated. Loss of manufacturing jobs, automated work places, a further elevation of education as a job requirement. They feel justified in their rebellion, their January 6th moments, because the old, comfortable world in which white was right has begun to come undone.

African-Americans and perhaps to a lesser extent Latinos look to different Mandates. African-Americans had the mandibles of slavery instead of a Mandate of Heaven. Latinos had sufferance for agricultural work, but met resistance to permanent immigration. Both hope for a new Mandate of Heaven whose arc of acceptance would include them. In the eyes of these communities the American Mandate of Heaven, its Manifest Destiny, has brought them suffering and oppression, not good crops and disease free villages.

I think its fair to say that our government, its Mandate of Heaven, tenuous though it was even for working class white folks, has not served the needs of our minority populations and the poorer segments of the white population. This is a pragmatic way of judging the viability of government. Throw out the pursuit of liberty and equality before the law, throw out independence and freedom, the Bill of Rights and instead ask if this government has delivered for its citizens. The answer any honest auditor would give is no.

It may be time to give up the shibboleth of democracy and ask the hard question: Is this an effective form of government for our time, for all of our people? If the answer is no, as I think it must be, then what form of government will serve all of us? This might be the real question rather than trying to prop up a republic with arcane rules that serve the rich and not the poor.

Art and Culture, Asia, Cooking, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Our Land and Home, Science, Shadow Mountain, Tarot, Writing

Blessings and Curses

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Yule and the Moon of the New Year

Where’s the Webb?: Fully deployed the Webb has come 684000 miles from home and has 214000 to go to reach L2. This is 76% of the journey in distance. However this is Mission day 15 and it won’t reach L2 for another 14 Earth days. Slowing still at .2358 mps. Sun shield temp: 131F. Primary mirror: -289.

Sunday gratefuls: Modern Bungalow. Cheap sunglasses at Target. Down the hill and back. Ruby, still less than 32000 miles on her. Iris kitchen. The Turtle clock. A new living room waiting. Early February, after the kitchen reentry. Feeling energized and excited. The Webb fully deployed, now cruising to its spot on L2. Quantum mechanics. Natal  charts. Kabbalah. A new way.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: New furniture

Tarot  me, current path, potential: eight of stones, skill; three of bows, fulfillment; six of vessels, reunion

 

On the drive down to the Modern Bungalow in Denver I took the time to consider my schedule. My bête noire of the moment. Wipe the slate clean. What’s my schedule like at its barest? My day has four anchor points: 6 am, get up and feed the dogs. 6:30 or so, up to the loft and write Ancientrails. 3 pm, feed and water the dogs. 8:45 pm, go to bed. I have to get up and go to bed. I have to feed and water the dogs. I do not, however, have to write Ancientrails in the morning.

Of course, I’ve done that for almost 17 years, since March of 2005 while recovering from my Achilles tendon repair. That’s a pretty long streak. Still, I could do it another way. I can write it later in the day. Which I’m doing right now, at 5:30 pm. I’ll still post it in the morning, but my experiment with my time will be this: 6:30 or so, up to the loft and write 1,000 to 1,500 words. Fiction. Jennie’s Dead or my new work which will feature Lycaon again.

Exercise will still be important, but a shade less important than all the writing. That is, I will finish my word count for fiction before exercising. And, I will tailor my exercise to the time I have. Gonna consult with somebody to work out the minimum necessary to maintain my health. Two to three HIIT sessions. At least one, preferably two longer, slower cardio days. At least two days of resistance. That will be the goal, but it will be subordinate to writing.

Appointments in the early afternoon if possible. Weekends and Wednesdays exercise free zones. Wednesday still D3 day.

For many years I wrote 1,000 to 1,500 words a day, day in and day out. That’s how I have 9 novels finished at least through the first draft. I lost that rhythm and I’ve felt the loss every day since. Want it back.

 

At the Modern Bungalow I picked out a rocker, a coffee table, a chandelier, and a standing lamp. Found an Arts and Crafts clock with a Turtle in ceramic tile and bought that, too. Kate’s totem animal was the Turtle, slow and steady. The clock will give the new living room a definite Kate accent. I scheduled delivery for early February, a birthday present to myself and well after I’ve reestablished myself in the new kitchen.

I plan to ask Jon if he will stencil yellow Irises above my new cabinets in the kitchen. I want it to be the Iris kitchen. Another Kate acknowledgment. Irises were her favorite flower. The kitchen will need a splash of color since the brown of the cabinets will give it a darker feel. Why I splurged on the counter top, to have a large light surface against the dark cabinets.

 

The Webb. With all of the turmoil and division roiling the political landscape it sure felt good to see a BIG project like the Webb get through launch and deployment. So many of my friends also seem enthralled with this new tool for deep space observation. A lot of its work will be in spectra of light that human eyes cannot see.

I noticed from a NYT space notice on my google calendar that this week is the earth’s closest approach to the sun in its orbit. I don’t know if that had anything to with the timing of the Webb launch, but it seemed apropos anyhow.

We not only live the curse of the Chinese, May you live in interesting times, but we also live with the blessing of a visionary, pioneering space program.

 

Gotta admit I’m excited to be alive right now.

 

Cooking, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Tarot

Core Issue 2022

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Yule and the New Year Moon

Webb deployment when finished today

Where is the Webb? 664000 miles from home. 234000 miles to L2. 74% of journey complete. .2484 mps. Mission day, 14. Final deployment of the remaining mirror segments can be seen at 7 am MT here. Sunshield temp is 131F. Primary mirror temp is -278F.

If you look at this photo just right, I think you see Kate Olson looking back at you.

Saturday gratefuls: The weekend. Yes, I still observe this two day holiday. Working on my core 2022 issue. Snow rake. Brian. Bowe. Judy. The finish line. Maybe Jan. 17. The Webb’s deployment and the Iris Kitchen happening at the same time. Max and Kate. Life continuing. Innocence. The Snow. Tarot. Getting stuff done.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: This photograph and sentence from Grandpa Strickland.

 

Tarot: spread for today: Two of Bows, fulfillment. Ten of Vessels, happiness. #19 The Sun of Life  (aspiration, obstacle, how to overcome)

 

Watched the last of the Webb deployment on NasaTV. I still can’t translate time from one zone to the other. This is a longstanding and frustrating glitch in my getalong. Almost missed it. Brother Tom prodded me.

Wow. Lots of other steps in bringing the telescope into full utility, but failure at anyone of the deployment steps would’ve precluded its functioning at all. Sighs of relief as this expensive mission completes its major hardware hurdles. I’m happy.

 

@willworthingtonart

Which latter point brings me to the hard card in today’s spread. My question was: how can I resolve a dialectical conflict between creative time and self-care time, especially exercise? Happiness is the obstacle? Huh?

Then I thought about the article I read a few weeks ago about happiness and satisfaction, or, as I will characterize it here, happiness and flourishing. (Eudaimonia) Happiness is a fleeting thing, a thing of the moment. Lunch with a friend. A smile from a child. That dog sticking his head out the window. Yes, it is both important and to be treasured. But. It’s not a constant state. Can’t be by its nature.

Most people, this article said, choose satisfaction/flourishing over happiness. We will often forego times that would make us happy to engage in work that allows us to express ourselves fully in the world.

Oh. Yes, even happiness can be an obstacle to work that takes incremental effort. This does not mean we make ourselves unhappy, but that we choose a longer path which can reduce our titer of happiness in the moment.

@willworthingtonart

How can we overcome our need to be happy now? By having work that matters, that is the Sun to our life. Seeing happiness as a condiment for life rather than its purpose.

To flourish I need to finish novels, learn Kabbalah and tarot and astrology, study more about democracy and our current troubles, learn better cooking techniques. I can feel I’m peaking now intellectually and creatively so I’m gonna lean that way.

Not sure yet how to solve the schedule conflicts between exercise and creative work. That’s my central issue for 2022 and beyond.

 

No issues with my teeth. Full x-rays. Good news. I take good care of my teeth and that’s paying off. Also, the business person at Aspen Park Dental said I could drop my existing dental insurance in favor of the AARP Plan-1’s coverage. That’ll save me $65 books a month. Really $130 since I only this week convince Ameritas to cancel Kate’s insurance. $1560 a year. Enough to pay my Plan-1 premium and take a bite out of my ridiculous car insurance premium. Good deal.

 

Jodi got covid and couldn’t come to look at the work with Bowe and Brian. Bowe, who is, as he said, a cabinet guy, had a long conversation with Brian. Those hinges, that door, those lazy susans. Oh. Brian says. I see. That’s an easy fix.

His delivery date was the week before Christmas and we still don’t have all the cabinets yet. Plus he made what Bowe called rookie mistakes. It’ll all get sorted out over the next week. Bowe starts the backsplash on Monday. Brian delivers the rest of his work, cabinets and shelving, on the 17th. I like the cabinets. Thank god.

 

General

A Center Point

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Yule and the New Year Moon

aft instrument radiator

Where’s the Webb? From home? 641000 miles. To L2 257000 miles. 71% of journey complete. Slower yet at .2639 mps. Mission day 13. Yesterday the aft instrument radiator got deployed. Today the primary mirror begins to unfold from its launch position. This begins the last deployment,  the mirror segments. Complete by mission day 15. Then it’s cruise on, slow, slow, slow. Puff, puff, puff and L2 insertion.

Friday gratefuls: Mussar. Rabbi Jamie. Jodi, Bowe, and Brian. Coming today. Finish early next week, I imagine. Choice. Daily. Too much choice. Habit. Routine. Bed sheets. The family crate. Safeway. Grocery pickup. Covid. Kate, always and still, Kate.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Max in his parka, a snow angel.

Tarot-January spread: Money-The Wanderer, 0 in the major arcana

 

The whole team gathers here at 9:15. Me. Bowe and Brian. Jodi. We’ll discuss last steps to complete the work. I have a punch list but so far it’s pretty small. Bowe anticipates my concerns and fixes them. Wish I could hire him for everything carpentry I need to get done. Maybe I can?

If I had gone with the Karman cabinets, I would have had a three month wait for delivery. End of January. Even with delays I’m ahead of the curve. Bowe had bookings into March so it could have been much later. Even with Brian’s pokiness this is faster.

I heard one complaint he had: can’t hire good help these days. I’m sure the pool of folks looking for work in Fairplay is not big to begin with and the Great Resignation has upended the entry level job market.

His work is not quite as good as I’d anticipated, but it’s good. Good enough. I like it. I imagined custom cabinetry like in a fancy built home. Not that level. But maybe the next level down. Better than mass produced for sure.

Brian reminds me a bit of Gollum. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Oh, you’ll like these, sir. Attention to detail. Oh, yes. An obsequiousness that hides deep resentment. Not to me, we don’t know each other well enough to have that sort of bad blood, but to customers. To the folks who put demands on his time. To the world which has not seen his genius. Makes me sad.

 

Read an article on Languishing that ancient brother Paul recommended. Here’s the article’s definition: “Languishing is a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It feels as if you’re muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield.” The author describes languishing as the middle ground between depression and flourishing.

I recognize the symptoms in myself. Covid has gone on too long. Add grief. Hard to get the motor runnin’, get out on the highway. I’ve gotten stuff done, mostly d3 stuff, domestic duty day things. The remodel, Herme pushed back against this tendency to slow down, way down around 4 pm.

Finding a center point for my life, finding a way to make my schedule creativity friendly, that’s the big on the table right now issue for me as a person. I feel like this is a good time to go for it.

My grief has had the tincture of time. Part of me now, reminding me always of the beauty and power of my love for Kate, hers for me. I carry it as a gift today, not a burden.

Covid. Well, not gone. For sure. But. I am in a better place, not where I need to be, but better. In spite of omicron. As long as I stay at home, or meet with friends, it barely affects me. I’m tired of masks, yes. I’m tired of thinking about vaccines, about being high risk, yes. I can, however, see an endpoint, a time when covid becomes a flu equivalent. Maybe a booster at a certain time. Masks in some situations. Not an everyday, what’s the death count kinda thing anymore. This year. The truth is out there.

Cooking, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Jefferson County, Judaism, Memories, Minnesota, Our Land and Home, Science, Shadow Mountain, Tarot

That Small Town Feeling

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Yule and the New Year Moon

Where is the Webb? 2/3rds of the way to L2! 597000 miles from Home. 302,000 to orbital insertion. Still slowing at .2964 mps.  Secondary mirror deployment begins. Mission day 11. Full mirror deployment scheduled for mission day 15!

@willworthingtonart

Wednesday gratefuls: Small towns. Stephanie. My urology referral. Evergreen. The breakfast burrito. Kep and Rigel. Bowe. The cabinets. Getting there. Grief. Mourning. Kate, always Kate. Yellow Irises in the new kitchen. Cold coming today. Snow. Snow rake here. Gonna use it today. Ruby, riding down the mountain and back up. A sweet ride.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Small town feeling.

Tarot-January spread, Health: Page of Arrows, the Wren.

“Wren urges us to be the sort of person who keeps the curiosity of youth, to be attentive to our surroundings, and  ready to learn when the opportunity appears.

The Druids considered that the wren, the smallest bird, was the wisest. So, wrens remind us to listen.”  wildwood book

 

Simple things that make me happy. Moved my doc to Conifer Medical Practice’s Evergreen location. So, so happy. I drive a familiar road, down Black Mountain Drive and then Brook Forest Drive to 73. Into Evergreen to Stagecoach Boulevard. Stephanie, the PA I saw today, was chatty, friendly, unguarded, knowledgeable.

Didn’t have go down the hill, into suburban Littleton to a bigger physician’s group. When I got done, I found a breakfast burrito and coffee at the same place I buy the occasional chili cheese dog on my way home from mussar.

I’ll still have to down the hill for my ophthalmologist and urologist, gastroenterologist. But those are occasional appointments.

When I see Jackie in Aspen Park, my hairstylist, I get the same feeling. She knows me. I know her. We both live up here.

Sukkot, 2016, Beth Evergreen

Going to Congregation Beth Evergreen expands the number of folks I know who live up here, too:  Alan. Marilyn and Irv. Michele and David. Rebecca. Rabbi Jamie. Luke. Ellen. Elizabeth. Rich. Tara.

When I worked on the West Bank in Minneapolis. Same. I got to know residents, business owners, street people. We said hi. Sometimes stopped to talk. Seeing and being seen.

When I create Shadow Mountain Hermitage, it’s a hermitage embedded in a nest of familiar places and people. Alone, but not lonely. Grieving, not mourning. Life without ennui or angst. Small town, rural life.

Class of 1965 float, 2015

Some folks might feel suffocated in such a small circle of people. Not me. Feels just right. Family comes from time to time. Friends, too. It has the emotional quality for me as walking downtown in Alexandria, Indiana. Indiana as a state appalls me. Yes. But growing up in a small community where seeing and being seen was a gift freely and often unknowingly granted to everyone imprinted me.

I’m speaking for myself. You might be an urban guy or suburban gal. I’ve lived in both and know they both have terrific aspects. When it comes to where my heart feels best though. I’m living in it.

 

A real afterlife exists in the mailing lists and databases of companies and institutions. Kate continues to get mail. Now 9 months after her death. The most peculiar one was this one and it made me think Kate may have been paying attention to Moira:

 

 

The kitchen remodel grows closer and closer to the finish. Bowe put up cabinets, got water to my dishwasher. Brian still owes us two cabinets, a few doors, and shelving for installed cabinets. He did the take the China display cabinet I’ve been trying to get out of our downstairs since we moved in here. Fist pump!

When I stood in the kitchen after Bowe left, I did another fist pump. Even unfinished it made me feel energy, desire to cook there. I’m excited. The new, hybrid space has begun to emerge from plans, boxes, waits.

General

Snow. Beautiful, Fire dampening Snow!

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Yule and the 2% crescent of the Winter Solstice Moon

Webb sunshield starboard boom deploys, Mission day 6

Where is the Webb? Interesting. It’s just over 50% of the way to L2 this morning. 52%. 474000 miles from Earth, 424000 to Lagrange 2. On mission day 7 it’s coasting, slowing. Now at .4082 mps. 1470 mph. Still gradually unfolding as it goes.

Saturday (and 2022 so far) gratefuls: 2021 is in the books. 2022 arrived with six inches of snow. First time out of high Fire danger since July. Jon, Ruth, and Gabe up for New Years. Medical Guardian. New Moon coming. Glad for clean calendar, no memories in it. Leaning toward the future, honoring the past. Celebrating in the present.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The New Year

Tarot past-present-future spread: Ace of Stones, The Foundation of Life; Six of Bows, Abundance; Queen of Stones, Bear

 

Auspicious. Always love that word. Has a Chinese ring to it to me. 2022 already and in an important way. On New Year’s eve and continuing through this morning we’ve received over six inches of fluffy new Snow. As I noted in the gratefuls, this is the first day since early July when we are not in high fire danger.

Ironic and sad that it came a day after the Boulder County fire. Now we can switch anxiety to slick Mountain roads and Ice dams. Just kidding. Feels so good to have Fire off the table for a while. Hopefully until late May, June.

 

Up at 8 am though I only stayed up until 9:35 pm. I told Gabe that was midnight in Grandpa world. When I got up to what Gabe now calls my lair, it was 2 degrees outside, 2% humidity, and 2 degree windchill. The winds subsided yesterday. Glad.

 

Nikolas Coukouma

Finished Wild Seed by Octavia Butler a couple of days ago. Paul Strickland recommended. A good, strange book. Butler died in 2006. She wrote Afrofuturist science fiction. Wouldn’t know how to describe this book. A mythology of sorts. Doro and Anyanwu’s back story. It was the last published in her Patternist series, but the earliest in terms of the series chronology.

Butler was the first science fiction writer to win a MacArthur genius grant. I can see why. Her work, this is the first one I’ve read, is not like anything else I’ve read, science fiction or otherwise.

 

Gonna leave this for now and go see the kids and Jon downstairs. I’ll do a proper New Year’s post later today.