Monthly Archives: July 2022

Travel

Aloha

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Summer and the Aloha Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Rain. Rain. Stay and Play, please come another day. Packed. Leaving at 7:30 am for parking in Aurora. 11:30 flight. Early check-in failed. Maybe. Excited. Ready. Flurry of stuff to do. All boxes ticked. I think. Kep already in bed. On clean linens and quilts. Dishes washed. Trash in the bin. Ready for Susan. Seoah gets in this afternoon.

 

2021

Writing this Saturday night so I can pack my computer.

Getting ready to travel without Kate is both easier and harder. Easier because I don’t have to schlep her stuff. Harder because there is no one to check my work. Also harder because she’s not here.

Whenever I travel to Hawai’i I have one theme that dominates. I’ve done isolation, tropical Plants, oceans, trails, and this trip, what does it mean to be an Island? Not sure how I’ll investigate that just yet. But it will come to me once I’m there.

Got a mani-pedi and a bottle of tramadol. Did laundry and other domestic type things. The usual before trip things. A little anxious. Don’t remember much about the trip last June. It was longer and I took more stuff, but it was all a blur.

Next time I post I’ll be on Island time. Aloha.

Fourth Phase, Mussar, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Tarot

What is control

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Summer and the Aloha Moon

art@willworthington

Thursday gratefuls: Simcha. Joy! Ichi-go, ichi-e. Marilyn. MVP. Judy and her journey. Rich. Jamie. Susan. Alan. Susan. Ken and Sarah, his daughter. A new Water heater! Expensive! Learnings from Burning Bear Creek Trail. Evergreen. Shadow Mountain. Shadow Mountain-Black Mountain-Brook Forest Drive. The Holy Valley. See what you’re looking at.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: A trip

Tarot: Seven of Stones, Healing

“Give our minds a break. Calmness. Meditation. Stillness. Healing. Reevaluation. Patience. Perseverance. State of stability. Attentive care. Take time to relax and unwind. ” tarotx.net

 

Been thinking about control. That is, our control over our own suffering, our own joy. What does that mean? Control? Is it equivalent to will? That is, if I can will myself to do something, does that mean I have exerted control? And, if so, to what end?

The question came up in the Mussar practice group last night. A quote from the Dali Lama said if we create our own suffering isn’t it logical that we can create our own joy.

Rich Levine questioned whether we create our own suffering. He used the example of slaves. Isn’t their suffering brought on by external circumstances? He then later offered that the enslaved also created an alternate culture of songs, music, religion, dance as a way of combating the external oppression of their masters. I thought about Viktor Frankl and Man’s Search for Meaning, written while Frankl was in a concentration camp.

Here’s the way I think about cancer. I do what I can (exert my will. Control.) through diet and exercise. I follow the plan my doctors lay out. After those things, the result is out of my control. I can’t will the cancer away. In this instance I find the notion of not having control liberating. I do what I can and the rest will happen as it does. What I’ve done is come to peace with the process.

So there is a moment when having control matters, when exerting my will is possible, and a moment when I cannot. My suspicion is that most things in life, including joy, contain such a mixture, a more nuanced approach to the matter of will, control.

Take death as an example. I have a little plaque that reads exercise, eat right, die anyway. A good reminder of the ultimate futility of a sense of control over our life.

I’m suspicious of the idea of control. The ego muscling the psyche through brute force. I believe it’s more subtle than that. More like finding an alignment between desire and intention. How can I line up what I desire with what I need.

Controlling either our suffering or our joy exercises the same modality, the ego wrestling one mood out of the way for another, presumably better one.

Hamlet had the same dilemma:

“To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?”

I’m answering Hamlet today with, neither one. Neither passive acceptance of “fate” nor activation of will ensures success when we face the sea of troubles life often presents. What does then? I believe it’s that mix of doing what you can (will) and following the advice of experts that you trust (if any), then leaving the results to come as they will.

It will not be fate because you have actively engaged; but, neither will it be in your hands because the actual results happen as a mix of your engagement and factors external to you. In spite of my diet and exercise, in spite of my taking my meds and following the surveillance recommended, my cancer may still spread. Or, because of those two factors, it may continue in remission. Either way, I’ve acted as I can. Which is enough. And, it’s enough, I believe, because there’s no other way it can be.

This is, I think, wu wei. Yes, act. Just don’t expect the results you think you need. That’s where acceptance comes in. Accept the results, then recalibrate if necessary.

Colorado, General, Mountains, Park County, Plants, Tarot, The West, US History

Burning Bear Creek Trail

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Summer and the Aloha Moon

art@willworthington

Wednesday gratefuls: Alan. Susan Taylor. Burning Bear Creek trail. The blue Columbine. The Dictionary of Art. Burning Bear Creek. Kep. Groomed. North Fork of the South Platte. The Denver, South Platte, and Fairplay Railroad. Highway 285 which covered its rails. Mountains. Bailey. Award Winning Pet Grooming.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Burning Bear Creek

Tarot: Knight of Vessels, Eel

“The Eel is a shapeshifter. He is purposeful and agile,  gliding over the water (emotions) with such ease and quickness that he can adapt his physical form to accommodate even sudden changes.

Knight of Vessels Wildwood urges you to apply the same adaptability as you begin to pursue your own goals. He invites you to find opportunities to express yourself.” tarotx.net (edited)

 

Found it. The trailhead to Burning Bear Creek Trail. Surprised myself by walking uphill for some ways without huffing and puffing. Fist pump. Two months ago I drove past the trail head and found other beautiful vistas including the huge beaver dam and pound. Also the hillsides with beaver cut tree stumps.

The trail begins right at the road and the parking area only has enough space for two or three vehicles. I expected a turnoff and a larger parking area so I missed it. This time I followed the mileage suggestion and found it at about three miles from Hwy. 285 on Park County #60.

There is a two mile stretch of 60 before the trailhead that is private property, grandfathered in I imagine because it is in the Pike National Forest. Maybe four or five homes along the way. This is isolated country, back country. What a wonderful place it would be to grow up. Pronghorn Antelope, Black Bear, Beavers, Mule Deer, Fox. Burning Bear Creek. Moose. Mountain Lions. Mountain vistas. Pine and Aspen Forest. Mountain meadows. Wild Flowers. A neighborhood of wild Animals and Mountains and Creeks and Plants.

The trail starts uphill right at the road and continues across a meadow for a couple of hundred yards. Well maintained, it has rock dams every so often. Water shunts down the hillside then, not eroding the trail. A lot of work went into this, one of hundreds of trails in the Rockies.

When I got a hundred yards along the trail, this is what I saw.

A couple of things began to bug me. Had I locked the car? (Had I turned the burner off?) And. Why had I chosen to hike without my camelpak? A short hike, that’s what I told myself. Wasn’t the water I missed but the bear bells. I plan to purchase bear spray, too, now that I’m hiking in the true back country.

I’d set my timer to 15 minutes. I decided I’d go back right away and continued on. A 30 minute hike was what I’d planned.

Further on I found a patch of blue Columbine, Colorado’s State Flower, as well as a contrasting red Indian Paint Brush.

The Blue Columbine is endangered because hikers dig them up for their Rock gardens. Silly folk. They could come back in the fall and collect the seeds. I may do just that.

The trail took a downward slope as my timer went off. I could hear Burning Bear Creek running below so I decided to go on.

Up the slope of the Valley’s other side I could see that the trail leveled out. Went up to investigate.

I found this marker pointing up this section of the trail.

Oh. My. I’ll be coming back with bells on. And Bear Spray, Water, and Snacks. And, a longer time line.

On the way back

Finally, I stopped at the Shawnee National Historic Site. About half way back to Bailey.

 

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Hawai'i, Hermitage, Jefferson County, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Tarot

A visit to the oncologist

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Summer and the Aloha Moon

art@willworthington

Tuesday gratefuls: Kristie. Erleada. Orgovyx. Michelle, a real shot in the arm. Prolia. Prostate Cancer. Mortality. Colorado. Award Winning Pet Grooming. Kep. Today. Hiking. Jon. Ruth. Gabe. Furball House Cleaning. Hawai’i. Alan. Technology. Zoom. This desktop. My laptop. Going with me. Flying over the Pacific. Korean. Duolingo.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Burning Bear Trail

Tarot: Queen of Vessels, Salmon

Questions-Where are you leaving yourself open or unguarded? What is enchanting you? What do you need to devote yourself to?  Wildwood Tarot Book, p. 112

 

A visit to the oncologist. Geez, even now, 8 years in, sorta scares me. Or, especially now, 8 years in. Still. Good news. Undetectable PSA again. Twice in a row. Six months. Also, shot of Prolia, an osteoporosis fighting drug. I suppose a place I leave myself unguarded (see above) is to the side effects of these drugs. However, cue irony, they guard me against death by cancer. Complicated.

Another bit of good news. No axumin scan. Apparently it only works when PSA is above 1.0. So surveillance this time is CT and Bone Scan. Probably cheaper.

Kristie asked how I’m doing. For the most part, I said, fine. The Erleada side effects have calmed down. I get flushed once in a while. An occasional heating up, but no hot flashes for a month or so. The synthroid for my lackadaisical thyroid seems to have helped my energy level. On most days I don’t think about prostate cancer.

Discussed the proctitis. She’s going to talk with the new radiation doc to see if he recommends anything.

Kristie is a kind and compassionate woman. And, she likes me. Which means I get extra empathy from her. I met her right after Kate died.

The Prolia shot hurt. A bit. Michelle showed me how much liquid she pushed into my arm. A lot. It stays there for six months, gradually releasing into the blood stream until the next shot.

After my visit with Kristie I stopped at No-No’s for a Catfish P0′ Boy and some beignets. I like to treat myself after self-care. Still have not been to Pappa Deaux’s.

 

Jon, Ruth, and Gabe came up just as I was leaving for my appointment. Jon finished mowing the yard, doing some weed whacking too. They cleaned up the back, took back the lawn furniture that belonged to him, as well as many of the brick paving stones. He left the paving stones and the lawn furniture when he moved in with us after the divorce.

Ruth got a job at a Rocket Fizz candy shop. Her first. She’s on a new dose of meds and back to her normal beautiful happy self. Right now: black hair, pink pointed nails, and a brand new small nose piercing. It felt so good to see her feeling better.

Gabe moved a bunch of branches to the front, away from the house. Some work left to do, but not much on cleaning up the back. Still not sure what I want to do there. If anything.

 

Good workout day yesterday. Today Kep gets groomed at Award Winning Pet Grooming and I plan to hike the Burning Bear Trail that I couldn’t find two months ago. Think I can locate the trailhead this time. Tuesdays and Thursdays are my hiking days.

Getting excited about Hawai’i. Miss those three to pieces. Oh, and beaches, sub-tropical flora and fauna. Great food.

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Shadow Mountain, Travel

Just. Too. Much. Fun.

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Summer and the Aloha Moon

ichi-go, ichi-e (for anavah)

art@willworthington

Saturday gratefuls: Airlines. Sort of. Blue Sky. Black Mountain. Well Water. Rains feeding the Aquifer. Heat. Kep. Jon, coming up to do some work. Rockfish. Cornbread. Caesar Salad. Using the kitchen. Reading in my chair. Watching less television. Exercise consistent: 3-4 hours a week. Diet: much, much better. Money. Enough. Wrassling it so it will be so.

Sparks of joy and awe: Cooking in the remodeled kitchen

Tarot: Queen of Stones, Bear

“Learn to manage things wisely, preserve values, and do things better, give rituals. Beware of wasting resources.” tarotx.net

 

Learn to manage things wisely. Well, working on ma budget. Just so. Does anybody like to budget? I suppose so. I’m not one, but I have to. I have finite resources that have to last for my finite life. If only I had a death date, it would be much easier.

Discovered a bad habit or two. My inner consumer says, “I need.” or, “I gotta.” Training myself to say, no, I want or no I can choose based on what makes sense.

I’ve found the internet so damned easy for buying things. Not only, not even primarily Amazon, but just stuff. Subscriptions. I’m a sucker for information created by intelligent people, written well. Also services like NYT cooking. Cooking Ventures. Sitka Salmon Shares.

I have discovered buying groceries online, however, saves me money. Less impulse buying. Almost none. Picking it up saves me time and exposure. That’s been a real positive.

And, since I live in the Mountains and I won’t shop at Walmart (there’s one in Evergreen), most things are much simpler to order and have shipped. Saves time and money. No more quests involving multiple trips to stores trying to find what I want or need. Not to mention that I don’t like shopping.

So there’s locational pressure to use the internet, but I need now to learn how to use it wisely, every time.

And, I need to stick to a budget. I’m not that faraway, really. I let some things sneak up on me and got myself in a jam right now, but I’m getting it back under control. Hope I won’t have to give up too much I’ve got planned.

I admire my sibs, Mark and Mary. They’ve lived a life free of the issues related to home ownership and used that freedom to travel the world. Good choice. They also both seem to manage their money well enough to not get themselves into scrapes like this. Good on them.

Which is not to say I want their life. I’ve been, and am, a rooted guy wedded to place. I like to travel, sure, but I like my home even more. Relative to travel owning a home is a distinct trade-off. As are kids and dogs. Gardens. More my thing.

Well, time for breakfast then a day devoted to budgeting. Just. Too. Much. Fun.

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Garden, Great Wheel, Hawai'i, Mountains, Plants, Shadow Mountain

Ikigai identified at last.

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Summer and the Aloha Moon

 

June 17, 2015. Shadow Mountain

Checked my postings about this Japanese idea. Nothing ever resolved since I learned about it several years ago. What gets you up in the morning? What gives your life coherence? “…ikigai is a concept that has been rooted in the cultural fabric of Japan for centuries and simply means, “reason to live.” ikigai.com

After three empty days last week, days where I saw no one and learned the lesson of needing human contact again, I got to thinking about ikigai. What gets me up in the morning? What is my reason to live?

Thought back on the life review I did with the Ancient Brothers a few weeks ago.  A little too heady: justice, love, writing, learning. Things like that. Not at the core.

When I drove to Evergreen this morning, I focused on this question. Began to feel some urgency about it. Afternoons drag here without purpose. Makes me feel negligent, indulgent. Neither one a good German value. So there has to be something, right? A thread, a coming back to this sort of thing, more obvious when seen from the 8,800 feet view?

June, 2019

I think I found it. Here’s the phrase: Living well within and for nature. I could add a coda, seeking justice for all, but I think this phrase covers it. Living well equals the Greek idea of eudaimonia. So, another way of saying this: flourishing within and for nature. Goes back at least to that Garden Spider spinning its web on the kitchen window at 311 E. Monroe St., Alexandria, Indiana. My gentle mother and I engaged in wonder as the Spider spun its web, caught and cocooned its prey. Ate.

Ever since, or at least since then, maybe age 8 or 9, I’ve been a close observer of the natural world. (And, yes, I know there’s a sense in which it’s all natural, even human artifice, but I choose the narrower, folk understanding.) When I finished college, I wanted to move to a place with Lakes and Pine Trees. With four Seasons, a real Winter, not the icy, slushy mess of an Indiana January. Jack London inspired me.

So it was not, as I’ve always imagined when I considered a life purpose, college and the world of the mind that was my ikigai. No, that was an interesting and fun sidebar, but my life and my moves since then have involved getting closer and closer to the natural world on an everyday basis.

Ushuaia, Argentina 2011

Kate and I shared this ikigai, I believe. The gardens, the orchard, the bees, the dogs. Moving to the Rocky Mountains where Kate up to the end said happily, “I feel like I’m always on vacation.”

Now I’ve found my holy Valley and returned to hiking as an every week, usually twice a week, event. Today the holy Valley had the sweet smell of Pine Resin, the splash of color from many Wild Flowers, the sound of peace from Kate’s Creek.

The Green Man, Andover

Of course I have other interests. But the guiding core of my life has been seeking a place where wildness was part of the every day. Shadow Mountain is such a place. And I feel happy here. Don’t need more.

Have you found your ikigai?

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Great Wheel, Hawai'i, Hermitage, Jefferson County, Minnesota, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Plants, Quotes, Shadow Mountain, US History

My America

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Summer and the Aloha Moon

Yesterday. In the front of my house.

Tuesday gratefuls: The USA. America. The Rockies. The Great Lakes. The Great Dismal Swamp. The Appalachians. The Okefenokee Swamp. The Big Woods. Northern Minnesota. The Cascades. The Smokies. Blue Ridge Parkway. Natchez Trace. Mississippi Delta. The Bayous. The East Coast and the West Coast. The Mississippi and the Missouri. Hawai’i. Kilauea. Mauna Kea. Kauai. The Big Island. Bison. Elk. Mule Deer. Black Bear. Grizzly. Trout. Haddock. Lobster. Bass. Walleye. Muskie. The Tetons. The Great Plains. The High Plains. Denali. Tongass. Kodiak. Salmon. Seals. Otters. Sea Lions. Walrus. Lichens. Mushrooms. Douglas Fir. Lodgepole Pine. Ponderosa. Oaks. Maples. Ironwood. Woodchucks. Turtles. Grasses. Elms. Chestnuts. Hickories. All the wild things. All.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The soil of the Midwest.

Tarot: Going to do a full spread

 

I offer three long quotes from three different Americans. Tom Crane sent out the first a week or so ago. The other two have a central piece in my own thought and I’ve now added the Whitman piece. I present them to you after this 4th of despair and chagrin.

They reflect, are, the America in which I still believe, of which I am a citizen, and for which I shall fight.

 

 

Preface to Leaves of Grass

by Walt Whitman

“This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”

 

From the Introduction to Nature, by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

“OUR age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and Nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs? Embosomed for a season in Nature, whose floods of life stream around and through us, and invite us by the powers they supply, to action proportioned to Nature, why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe? The sun shines to-day also. There is more wool and flax in the fields. There are new lands, new men, new thoughts. Let us demand our own works and laws and worship.

Undoubtedly we have no questions to ask which are unanswerable. We must trust the perfection of the creation so far, as to believe that whatever curiosity the order of things has awakened in our minds, the order of things can satisfy.”

 

Henry Beston, The Outermost House: A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod.

“We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate for having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein do we err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Great Wheel, Jefferson County, Mountains, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Tarot, US History

Its Beary business

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Summer and the Aloha Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Living at 8800 feet. Cooler than down the hill. Sealed driveway. Hawai’i. Jet planes. Masks. Santa Fe art crawl. Gabe. A sweetheart. Ruth. Sad. Jon. Jon. Kep. More inside work done. A week with less going on. Kate’s memorial Iris bed in bloom. Best week of exercise in a long time. Sleep.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Iris

Tarot: Two of Stones, Challenge

art@willworthington

“The Two of Stones asks us to consider: Who and what are the challenges and challenges in our own lives? Do we handle them from a grounded and well-balanced place?” tarotx.net

 

Down the hill yesterday to Santa Fe Drive, the first and largest of Denver’s Arts Districts. On the first Friday of every month they have an Art Crawl. I asked Jon, Ruth, and Gabe if they wanted to go, eat at the food trucks that line up at several spots on and off Santa Fe. We met in front of the Dart Gallery where Jon had a print exhibited for a show back in March.

We got food from various trucks and sat on a concrete structure that had absorbed a lot of heat during the day. It was uncomfortably hot and humid. 82 when I left for home. When I got to Shadow Mountain and it was 57 degrees, I put it down in my record book (here) as the largest temperature spread between down the hill and back up since I moved here. 25 degrees!

Wandering here and there we went into galleries and workshops and centers for the arts. One gallery had a tall, finely crafted lamp encased in a metal and wood surround for a mere $12,000. This guy’s work was meticulous. Still…

Gabe said he was really sorry they missed my performance. Everybody’s phone was shut off because Jon chose to wait until his check came to pay his phone bill. I messaged them several time and had grown concerned. Sarah and BJ connected with them somehow and alerted me. Glad that’s all it was.

Ice cream cones in hand we wandered back to our vehicles and I left the urban heat island for the Mountains.

 

This morning I took off for Evergreen to have breakfast with Rebecca. Almost to 73 on Brook Forest Drive I saw what at first appeared a large dog off leash. Nope. A medium sized Black Bear, the second I’ve seen since we got here. It loped along unconcerned about traffic. I watched until it disappeared in the tall Grass, going about its Beary business.

The thrill of seeing these wild animals never wanes. No matter how long you’ve lived up here seeing the animals who live on their own by ancient, ancient rules of which we have no part stops us in our tire tracks. They are the past and the future. Their lives would only improve if human civilization shrank or disappeared.

The Bear had a shiny coat, moved with the ease of a healthy animal in its place, following its own designs. What a privilege to be here.

 

On a less sanguine note. The Extremes, for sure. But enough about them. How bout that Xi Jinping in Hong Kong:

“Political power must be in the hands of patriots,” he said, after swearing in a new leader for the city, a former policeman who led the crackdown on huge anti-government protests in 2019. “There is no country or region in the world that would allow unpatriotic or even treasonous or traitorous forces and people to take power.” NYT, 7/2/2022

Except maybe in that beacon of liberty, the dis-United States of America.

I’m beginning to feel energized. Maybe it’s the Synthroid, yes, that’s possible, but I love a good bare-knuckle fight where good manners and courtesy go by the wayside. Not energized enough to do what I would have, organize resistance, but energized enough to keep writing, keep poking the corporate/capitalist/right wing Christian demagogues, keep rallying the folks who still have some empathy with the poem on the Statue of Liberty.

Blue state values advance. Red state values retreat. This will become more and more evident as the years go by. Whether we accept and reinforce this sorting or try to reclaim a United States may be the biggest political question of the next decade.