Yearly Archives: 2023

Colorado, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Mountains, Mussar, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Travel

A Thursday with Friends

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Summer and the Summer Moon Above

Friday gratefuls: Tom. Ellen and Dick. Hail. Again. Cool nights. Good sleeping. God is Here. Metaphor. Kathy. Luke. Vince. Gutters. Psilocybin. Flower. Weed. Red Rocks. The Bread Lounge. A Cuban. Evergreen. Gracie and Ann. CBE. High water on the fish ladder. Maxwell Creek running full.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Friendship

One brief shining: Life in its fullness comes running at you, with you like a Mountain Stream after a heavy Rain, crashing over barriers, not allowing any obstacles, where necessary spreading out, then calmly, gently flowing into the placid waters of a great River, headed to the World Ocean.

 

Yesterday. A full day. Talking to Diane, always a pleasure. Catching up on family news. A favorite cousin for all of us moved into hospice. We’re all in the aging range. This group that used to play with each other at Thanksgiving, during family reunions at Riley Park, on the farm outside Morristown. Family in its longue dureé as Ginny, daughter of Diane’s sister, Kristen, gives birth to a new generation of the Keaton clan as have children of other cousins. We will wink out one by one, but the family will continue.

 

Over to the Bread Lounge to read a bit before Tom got here from DIA. Instead ran into Tal and Alan talking to each other. Alan in his  usual I’m here to assist you mode trying to figure out how he can help Tal’s new company, All in Ensemble.

Alan’s decided to let his beard grow back. I’m glad. It was odd seeing him clean shaven. He shaved for his art, as he says. A role in Zorro!, the musical.

Together we talked about Tal’s character study class, about mutual friends and family. The Bread Lounge serves as the student union restaurant for Evergreen. Go there and you see folks you know.

After Alan left, Tal and I discussed my character Herme. He liked my idea of a one-act play to introduce the Rivers and Mountains Poets of China to Mountain audiences. He offered to help me in any way he can. He’s bringing an outline from a playwrighting class to our next Tuesday class. Who knows? Perhaps the Hooded Man will play up and down the spine of the Rocky Mountains. Could happen.

 

Tom got to the Bread Lounge after navigating an overly busy DIA filled with summer travelers. We ordered sandwiches, which came late so we had to pack them up and head over to mussar. Where we discussed the role of metaphor in our daily lives and the implications of metaphor for understanding what we might mean when we use the metaphor God. A good heart/mind conversation.

Following mussar Tom and I were hosted by Ellen and Dick Arnold, Rabbi Jamie’s parents. A wide ranging conversation which had as its focus the upcoming trip to Israel. Dick will be my roommate for the group part of the trip.

 

When we got back to Shadow Mountain, Vince was here mowing and weed whacking. In the rain. Vince is a good guy. Lucky to have him as my friend and property manager.

Tom and I were tired. We talked, then went to bed. Getting ready now for our trip this afternoon on the Royal Gorge Rail Road.

 

 

Asia, Commentary on the news, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate, World History

Hail, Hail, the Hail’s all here

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Summer and the Summer Moon Above

Thursday gratefuls: Tom. Arriving today. Dick Arnold. My roommate in Jerusalem. Jamie. Herme. His story. Diane. The Ancient Brothers on Earth. A blue Sky. Slight Wind. Hail and Thunder last night. More Water. Planning, making trips real. Vince, coming to mow today. Shadow Mountain. Writing dialogue for Herme. And Ovidius Publius. Joan and Ruth. Gabe and his new guitar, amp. Sarah and BJ. Unloading books. In BJ’s own personal Idaho.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: South Korea, K-dramas

One brief shining: Life with that old excitement you know things to do in the future and a good day today Korea in August and Israel in October the Herme project beginning to take shape with Herme and the Old Grey Magician and Cold Mountain sharing a room together at the showcase upcoming, taking a bow before taking a plane.

 

Hail lies thick on the driveway and covers the Dandelions like Snow. The Thunder roared, the Clouds were big. The Lightning flashed and killed a Pig. Recalled that ditty many times in Minnesota, rarely here. Last night though…

The night of the Summer Solstice and the temperature went down to 46. The Hail pounded so hard on the windows that it woke me up and kept me up until it passed. Even with my hearing issues. Small Hail, larger than Grappel, around pea sized. The Aspens lost some Leaves, but not too many. Glad for that. The Irises are still Leaves only above the Soil so they’re fine. The Lodgepoles seem unflustered.

An exciting night.

 

The submersible. Gosh. Every cell of my claustrophobic body clenches up when I read the news about the Titan. It has seventeen bolts which tighten from the outside. No way out. No need at the crushing depths it visits anyhow. Though a lot of my claustrophobia focuses on could I get out if something bad happened. Why I couldn’t even go down the elevator in the mineshaft at the Lake Vermillion-Soudan mine. I wanted to go see the neutrino experiment at the very bottom. I looked at the elevator. I looked at its route, twenty-four hundred feet through solid rock at a slant. I bought tickets. I looked at the elevator. Its route. Nope, I turned around and walked away.

Even with a spare $250,000 you wouldn’t find me in that submersible. Would I want to be there? Yes. Could I? No. I’ve never done the gradual exposure therapy that can cure phobias.

 

Politics and its bedfellows. India and the U.S. Sure the world’s soon to be largest country has English as a common language with the U.S. Along with hundreds of other languages. Sure my son’s from Bengal. Sure the British stamp on India remains indelible if still deplorable. And yes India prefers to count itself as non-aligned, neither pro-Russian nor pro-China nor pro-West.

Yet India also has extensive commercial ties with Russia. There is, too, the India of Narendra Modi summarized in this NYT article today. Which disturbs me. A lot.

This is the classic example of the enemy of our enemy, China, might well be our friend. Maybe? But. Do we want to be buddies with an autocratic chauvinist who has sidelined Muslims and other non-Hindus, encouraged caste discrimination, and started a push to devolve the status of women? From a geo-political perspective it’s a tough call. A humane perspective though suggests now is not the time.

Acting, Asia, Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Judaism, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Herme and Religion’s Institutional Decline in the U.S.

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Summer and the Summer Moon Above

Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Waste. Joan. Abby. Debbie. Alan. Marilyn. Tal. Rebecca. Cold Mountain. China. Chinese art and poetry. Asia. The arts of Asia. Song dynasty painting and ceramics. The Japanese tea ceremony. Ichi-go, ichi-e. Wabi-Sabi. Korean celadon. Ukiyo-e wood cuts. The temples of Angkor and Bangkok. Haiku. Zen. Chan Buddhism. Applause last night when I finished reading Cold Mountain poems. Keys on the Green. Beet salad and a Reuben. Coffee. With Rebecca Martin. Heated days. My fan, air purifier, oxygen concentrator, and mini-split on cool. All electric sleeping aids.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Spoken Word

One brief shining: Last night I learned again how pleasant it is to have people clap for something I’ve done when all I did was read poetry by Cold Mountain out loud stopping between 10 poems for dramatic effect and interpreting his condensation of Mountain recluse scholar life.

 

Herme, the character for my character study class, has begun to emerge. His first work has been identifying 8 to 10 poems of Cold Mountain to use as the core of his piece. I have at least two other components to add to the project. A way of introducing the Hooded Man of the Wildwood Tarot Deck as Herme himself. Then weaving into his major arcana characteristics the Celtic ways of the Old Grey Magician. I want Herme to blend the Hooded Man and the Old Grey Magician into one person. Following that I need to figure out a way for Herme to introduce himself and the poetry of Cold Mountain without becoming didactic. The obstacle I feel right now is the gulf between the world of the Celts and Tarot  and the somewhat hard edged, very Chinese world of Cold Mountain. The bridge is the reclusive nature focus. I know that much.

I toyed on the way home last night from acting class-driving up the hill between Shadow Mountain and Black Mountain-with doing the whole project as a one act play. My aim would be introduce the not well known in the U.S. Chinese tradition of Rivers and Mountains poetry to Mountain audiences. The reception of Cold Mountain’s work the two times I’ve read them has been wonderful. Part of it is Cold Mountain’s rendering of life in the Mountains away from the dust of urban life delivered to an audience of Mountain dwellers. Might be fun. A playwright? Why not?

Acting calls on different aspects of my person than my usual reading and writing. Emotions. Body. Alertness to an audience. Ability to read the words of others in a manner that conveys meaning using all of those tools. I find the challenge energizing. Not looking forward to the memory work however. I have to get better at that. Somehow.

 

How bout those Southern Baptists? Doubling down on, well, stupidity. Closing doors left slightly ajar that allowed women, oh the shame of it, to mount pulpits and lead congregations. This article in today’s NYT, The Largest and Fastest Religious Shift in America is Well Underway, is the most recent of four articles focused on the secularization of American life. A phenomenon already well played out in Europe. In the article they argue that those institutions with high barriers to entrance also have high barriers for leaving and have suffered less attrition than those like my previous religious home, the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. which were more liberal in their theologies. Yet they too have begun to decline, a long slow ride to virtual irrelevance as far as the broader culture is concerned.

Many years ago in the 1980’s I got my Doctor of Minister degree. My thesis way back then was on the decline of the Presbyterian church and other liberal Christian denominations. I don’t even remember my arguments. I’ll have to get the thesis out and read it again. I used to be pretty knowledgeable about all this.

Oddly I still believe in religious institutions but not ones with high barriers to entry and leaving. I believe in them as small communities where friendships can develop, where life’s big questions can be explored, where life’s transitions can receive ritual expression, and where the knowledge of the past can inform and leaven the present. Reconstructionist Judaism does it for me, at least in its CBE expression. But any religion could open itself in the same way. And I hope they do because religious life is an ur part of human life, one developed long before academics and politics and cell phones, and one with a vital human contribution to make.

 

 

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Shadow Mountain, Travel

Hotel Shadow Mountain

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Beltane and the Herme Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Mary. Ruth. Gabe. A bright Sun shiny Day. 72 today. Three dry days in a row. Sarah and BJ coming in later today. The World. Cultures other than our own. Day off yesterday from Ancientrails. BJ and Sarah. On their way to Driggs, Idaho. In the U-Haul. With loads of books. Great workout. Great chocolate. Father’s day present from BJ and Sarah. 83 yesterday! After a month and a half of Rain and cooler Weather. Overcast this morning. Cooler again. Robin and Spacewranglers. Rebecca. Herme work today. Chores.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Family

One brief shining: Oh, took Mary to the light rail in Lakewood in the morning on Sunday and the long way back through crowded Morrison and then the Bear Creek Canyon road which looks like a perfect setting for old fashioned Westerns, trying to find a place to eat breakfast but Sunday city tourists all over so passed through a crowded Kittredge and Evergeen back up the hill to Shadow Mountain Home and cracked open the frig because by that time hunger occupied my attention cooked ate napped and then began to wonder where BJ and Sarah were.

 

Charlie’s no-tel motel has shutdown for two days. Opening again on Thursday for a longer stay. Tom.

Here’s what happened. Mary misread her plane ticket as arriving at 11:59 am. Nope. pm. So she booked a hotel. Which told her when she arrived that they were overbooked. This very late at night. Obvy. They found another room for her, paid for a taxi and breakfast the next morning.

Ruth and Gabe had already planned to come up. Lucky. Because Mary’s hotel was not far from Galena Avenue where Ruth and Gabe live. On the second day of having her driver’s license Ruth picked up Mary and drove her up here. We all went out for breakfast at Primo’s and talked a lot. Ruth had to leave to make it back to work at Starbucks. She’s a barista now. Lots of positives with both Ruth and Gabe.

Mary and I spent the day talking. Catching up on her travels. Japan. Guru and Kuala Lumpur. Eau Claire. Her wonderful furnished apartment in an old factory.

Her trip to Indiana. All the cousin news. Age beginning to ravage the still close gaggle of Keaton cousins. Ikie Jones died a while back. The first cousin. Annette died this year, his youngest sister. Melinda, their remaining sibling now in a nursing home and refusing to eat. Lisa, the youngest Steffey of five, died also a few years back. A stroke. Her four siblings Kathy, Tanya, Carla, and Kenya all alive. Though Kathy couldn’t make the meetup in Muncie, Indiana due to arthritis. She’s the oldest of the five. Diane, the oldest of the Keaton sibs, was there on her used to be annual trip to Morristown for her school’s reunion and renewal of family/friend ties. Richard’s on the farm and Kristin is in Michigan. Both doing ok. Mary, Mark, and I round out the Keaton cousins. We’ve stayed in touch since childhood, sharing news and stories.

I don’t get back as often as Mary who has made heroic efforts to stay in touch with family, traveling thousands of  miles and crossing oceans each year to do so. Props to her. Due to the travel mix up her visit here was only Saturday.

 

BJ and Sarah had planned to make Denver around 1 pm on Sunday. Missed it by a couple of hours, then spent time loading Merton’s photographs into the U-Haul they’re taking turns driving from NYC to Driggs. In it is 90% of BJ and Schecky’s worldly belongings, mostly books. Huh. I know that routine.

We had a couple of snafu’s before we finally connected around 7 pm in the King Sooper’s parking lot. They left their truck there, Sarah bought some food, and we drove back to Shadow Mountain.

Sarah put together a salad, steamed asparagus, and set that out with some sushi rolls. A fine meal. We caught up on Johnson news. BJ and Sarah both saw me through the two weeks of Kate’s final hospitalization and death. She was their big sister.

The three of us went to the Conifer Cafe in the middle of the next morning for breakfast before they saddled up the U-Haul for the penultimate leg of their journey to Idaho. This is a big, big move for BJ and Schecky. They have lived in the same rent controlled rooms in the Beacon Hotel on Broadway since they were both students at Julliard. Well over 50 years. They’re letting go of the apartment and moving lock stock violin and cello to rural Idaho.

 

I drove back home to Shadow Mountain and took a nap.

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase

Fathers

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Beltane and the Summer Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Mary. BJ and Sarah. Ruth and Gabe. Ivory and Ruby. Dependable transportation. Up the hill, down the hill. Rapid Transit Denver. Brown Machne Yehuda hotel, Jerusalem. Sadot hotel, Tel Aviv. My son’s and daughter-in-law’s big apartment. Murdoch. Korea. Israel. Water. Ode and the mushroom spores. Luke and Leo.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Wide World

One brief shining: To have a brother and a sister in far away places like Hafr, Saudi Arabia and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia extends my life into other cultures at an intimate, everyday level as does a son and daughter-in-law in Korea and  trips for myself to Korea and to Israel, we are many we are one.

 

Fathers. Yes. We all have one so… Even if it is a Hallmark moment it’s a legitimate celebration. Unless you think the oh so ordinary, so mundane fact of biology is ho hum. But it’s not. Not really. Yes, we all have fathers. But none of us have the same fathers. Not even siblings. Each relationship between father and child has its own unique stamp created by gender, timing in the child’s life and the father’s life, timing in the zeitgeist, location on Earth, cultural and linguistic and genetic peculiarities.

My father Curtis and I for example. Dad’s own father, Elmo, led a chaotic here and gone again sort of life finally disappearing into the wilds of 1920’s California, leaving Dad and his siblings in the care of Jennie Spitler, his mom, and Dr. Jonas Spitler, his grandfather. Not great training for the role.

Dad went to Oklahoma State University and graduated with a degree in journalism, his profession for his lifetime. After brief jobs in Duncan and Watonga, Oklahoma, the family-Dad, Mom, and me-moved to Alexandria, Indiana where he remained for the rest of his life.

He stayed true to his family. Always providing. Always working. Not following Elmo’s scoundrel pattern. Props to him. He also followed the strict upbringing he had under his grandfather, a country doctor and farmer within the German heritage. In that sense the Spitler side of our family with Hessian mercenary soldiers as its starting point in revolutionary America influenced us much more than the Welsh and Irish Ellises.

That strict Germanic sensibility fell afoul of the 1960’s for both of us. He was for me a distant father emotionally unavailable and only mildly engaged in my life until the death of our mother at my age 17. Then we stumbled through an uneasy closeness occasioned by mom’s disappearance from our lives. It was not well done on either one of our parts.

We parted abruptly in 1968 when he demanded I cut my hair and I said no. And he said cut your hair or leave. And I left. Both of us stubborn and unyielding.

I wish now that we had healed that rupture in our lives but we never really did. I saw him from time to time, but we never established an adult father and son relationship.

He wrote well, worked hard, and hung in there for all of us. Given his particular circumstances a difficult but real advance generationally. Props to him again.

Family, Minnesota

Alexandria in the 50s

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon (waning crescent)

Saturday gratefuls: Ruth. Her driver’s license! Gabe. Mary on her way. Mark in Hafr. Mom. Dad. Alexandria. Growing up in a small town. The 1950s. Sputnik. John Glenn. Elon Musk. Heavylifter. Tesla. The genius. And the car. Alan. Tom. The Parkside. The Royal Gorge Railroad. Canon City. BJ and Sarah. Their truck. Moving West. BJ and Schecky. Violins and cellos. Classical music. Jazz.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Family

One brief shining: Mom brought to memory by Mark’s questions about her dead now 59 years so long ago yet I remember her red lipstick, her smile, her embrace and the kindness she brought into any room a woman of her time with a 1940’s hairdo, a stay-at-home mom whose cooking was memorable, who took each of us as special and unique, who volunteered at church, whom everyone in town knew as Trudy or Tudy.

 

A different time. When life felt slower. Alexandria in the 1950s and the early 1960s. Jobs were good. 3 shifts at Delco Remy and Guide Lamp gave the southern diaspora who populated Alexandria jobs that paid well. The Alexandria Times-Tribune where Dad worked  came out 5 days a week with an extra big Thursday edition to carry the grocery ads for the upcoming weekend.

We lived first in an apartment building on Lincoln, then a small house on Monroe, and finally the bigger house on Canal. 419 N. Canal. From my age 12. 1959. Mary had come seven years before and we needed more space.

On Harrison Street, our main street, there were two grocery stores, Coxes and Krogers, two dime stores, Danner’s and Murphy’s, Broyle’s furniture, Guilkey’s shoe repair and newsstand, Fermen’s women’s store, Bailey’s drugstore, and a P.N. Hirsch Department store. Further down was the Town Theater one of two movie theaters, the Bakery, Mahony’s shoe store and Baumgartner’s Men’s Shop. A bar, too, whose name escapes me now. Always a source of mystery since kids weren’t allowed in there. A barber shop. A tailors on a side street. As was a bowling alley with pin spotters.

Lots of churches. Alexandria First Methodist. The Baptist Church. The Roman Catholic Church. The Church of the Nazerene. Missouri Synod Lutheran Church. The Church of God-Anderson, Indiana. You were known in town by which church you attended. We were members of Alexandria First Methodist and had our spot on the right side of the sanctuary under the huge stained glass window of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. Kneeling, hands on a large rock. My best friend, Ed Schmidt, went to the Catholic church. Also a source of mystery.

Life focused on church, school, and work. And on certain holidays, patriotism. The big Decoration Day parade for example. The tanks would come out from the local National Guard Armory and pit the asphalt softened by summer heat with tread marks. The color guard insisted on wearing the shirts that fit them back then. Not so much at this point. Firetrucks. Police cars. Young women doing the wave from the backs of convertibles.

Vital and personal 1950s small town life had an innocence about it that sheltered us kids from the currents affecting the world outside. We went to school, played with our friends, came home and ate supper, watched TV, went to bed. Rinse and repeat. It was good.

 

 

 

Family, Fourth Phase, Friends, Jefferson County, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Travel, Weather +Climate, Wild Neighbors

Verdant

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Friday gratefuls: Mary on her way. Ruth getting her driver’s license. Coming up here tomorrow. Possibly bringing Mary. And Gabe. Cool, Rainy Nights continue. Mussar. God is Here. Monotheism. Boo. Animism and polytheism. Yay. Marilyn and Irv. Good friends. Ribeye steak. Potatoes. Mushrooms. Mixed Vegetables. Peaches. Verdant. The Mountains in June. Unusual and beautiful.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Green

One brief shining: When I look out my window to the back, I see wet Lodgepoles, red bark standing out against green Bunch Grass pocked with yellow Dandelions, Kate’s Lilacs growing taller, the gray white Aspen with its chartreuse Leaves, Rocky Soil damp with the Rains, but no Elk Bulls, no Mule Deer, an occasional Rabbit and Chipmunk.

 

In the eight and a half years I’ve been up here on Shadow Mountain the Mountains have never been so green. The Mountain Meadows have Grass in abundance, a buffet for our Wild Neighbors after a difficult, painful Winter. I’ve noticed for the first time that the chartreuse Leaves of the Aspen light up the Lodgepoles in Spring (or, Summer, not sure which is which) as they do in their gold clothing in the Fall. We’ve had cool, Rainy weather since late April. Not what other folks have experienced, I know. Glad for us though.

All the Mountain Streams would have diminished by this time in a normal June, yet they remain full. Not raging like they did at the end of May but still sending heavy amounts of Water over their Rocks and Falls. Flooding down the hill at several locations though not as bad as 2012.

 

I could, I know, spend the rest of my life following Mountain roads, visiting New Mexico, Utah and northern Arizona. There is so much to see so close to me. Places people come from all over the world to see. The many national parks in Utah, the four corners area, Rocky Mountain National Park, Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon, Santa Fe, Taos, Dinosaur National Monument. Too many to point out. And perhaps I will spend a year focused on doing just that. But not this year. This year and at least part of the next I’m going overseas, seeing new parts of the World. Yay!

 

The travelers coming to Shadow Mountain Home have changed schedules. Mary will be here tomorrow in the morning. BJ and Sarah won’t arrive until Sunday at the earliest. Mary leaves Sunday morning. Ruth will pick up Mary from her hotel near the airport after her midnight arrival. Ruth has her driver’s license! She’ll be coming up in her car. Ivory, our old Rav4. Which has no air conditioning. A good year for her to get used to it. A new era has begun. Ruth can drive on her own.

 

Going over to Kittredge for breakfast with Alan. The Blackbird Cafe. In a place where an old favorite restaurant used to be. First time. Summer or its early Springlike equivalent makes driving so much easier up here. I need these times with my friends.

 

Travel

Travel

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Rabbi Jamie. Marilyn. MVP. Cool nights. Allergens. Yellow outlines on the puddles in my driveway. Alan. Rich. Ron. Susan. More rain. Green Valleys and Mountainsides, full Mountain Streams. Wild Neighbors. Home insurance. Jon Bailey who detailed the inside of Ruby. Vince, gutters and grass. Hayim Herring. Israel. Einav. The Sadot Hotel. Tel Aviv. Jerusalem. Israeli breakfasts. Korea. Osan. Seoul. Incheon. Busan. Gwangju. The Bliss. Travel. Roaming the World. Mother Earth.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rabbi Jamie

One brief shining: My travel genes have begun to chitter and chatter, getting excited, making preparations, excited about new and unfamiliar places, languages, food, remembering my first time in Siem Reap, Washington, D.C., Williamsburg, Bogota, Manta, Valparaiso, Hwarden, Inverness, Rome, Vienna, Singapore, Bangkok, Beijing and vibrating pulsing bringing color to my days.

 

Getting hotel spots locked down in Israel. Have folks identifying places to eat, don’t miss places in Jerusalem. Excited to see my son and his wife. Murdoch. Travel Korea. See Seoul. See the DMZ. Villages and towns. Maybe Jeju Island. I love to go as much as my brother and sister. Glad to get out and about like they have their whole lives.

Not sure what travel is for. Really. For me it’s always been at least about being a stranger, a neophyte, one out of place. Breaking myself out of the routine, the habituated. Realizing that there are so many ways to solve the puzzle of living a human life, to decide what ingredients go together for edible food, to design and build homes and buildings, to speak to each other. To govern and create law and order.

Also about leaving my home which I know so well and living in temporary spots, eating in different places, discovering odd bits of culture. I think here about a place Mary and I happened on in Singapore which sold transparent glass objects, many of them animals. All for gaining the best feng shui in your home or business. Backlit and, well, just strange. Or, when Kate and I visited, also in Singapore the two building, multi-story columbarium Nirvana. We got a tour. That small village off a busy Bangkok thoroughfare where the residents made the traditional monk’s begging bowl, each home specializing in one step of the elaborate process. Or that tartan mill in Inverness where our guide was the person who put the spools of yarn on a large wall of pegs. He had to remember the order in which to place the colors so the looms would produce the correct clan tartan. Or the several holer marble toilet off the main street of the ancient city of Ephesus.

I worry a bit about the climate change effects of air travel. Yet I’m also aware that I’m in this window of time at 76 where I’m healthy and able to get out of town and go faraway. This window won’t last. As we all know. I’ve also spent the last five years unable to travel due to sick dogs and Kate’s long illness. And it’s such a big world. Eh?

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Memories

Subdued

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Acting class. Abby, her passion. Alan, his commitment to stretching himself with Lear. Joan for her brilliance and breadth of knowledge. Rebecca trying comedy rather than drama. Tal, a wonderful teacher. Cold Mountain. The Chinese scholar and Mountain recluse. Follower of the Tao and the Buddha. Poetry. Kristie. Drug holiday. Money in the bank for my airline tickets. A rich and satisfying life. Eudaimoniac. That planet in the night Sky as I drove home. More Rain. 39 this morning.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Acting

One brief shining: Standing up there in front a sheaf of Cold Mountain’s poems in my hand I began to read, to inhabit this long ago Chinese hermit who wandered his Mountain, slept in a Cave, and wrote poetry that still shocks the heart, watching as his words landed, jarring the acting class as they had me the first time I read them.

 

An odd moment that affected me the whole evening. I chose to go to Sushi Win for a meal before acting class. Kate and I went there often when she was still able to get out and about. When she wasn’t, I would go pickup spring rolls for her. The best anywhere in her opinion. And mine, too.

When I got in and ordered, the music was from my high school days. The classics the young Vietnamese guy behind the counter said when I thanked him for playing them for my meal. He hadn’t of course played them for me.

I sat down and looked out the window at the Mountainscape. Remembered I sat here one evening in 2015 and called Kate to tell her I’d been diagnosed with prostate cancer. I don’t remember where she was, but she wasn’t at home. I also remembered the photograph now hung on the wall leading to the guest room. Kate smiling with her arm around my shoulder. Seated across from us Joe and Seoah, her arm around his shoulder. At Sushi Win, too.

Reading during this meal-two spring rolls and the Sushi Win special roll, hot tea-Regime Change by Patrick Deneen, the author of Why Liberalism Failed. Still much I don’t find compelling or with which I actively disagree, but his arguments do limn a major fracture in our nation. And suggest some core uncomfortable truths about our current reality. The biggest one with which I agree so far is our abandonment of the working class.

Drove over to the synagogue. Greeted Tal. Sat down to wait for the others to come since I was the first student there. The CBE social hall. Folding chairs in a semi-circle with their backs to the window wall. Outside the amphitheater built during the pandemic. Alan came in and touched my shoulder. Abby and her mother. Joan. No Lid this evening. Car trouble. Rebecca swept in commenting about fire mitigation, raking pine needles. Marilyn and Debra came late.

At one point Alan leaned over and said to me you’re not very talkative tonight. Oh. I wasn’t. Subdued. Realized then that the memories at Sushi Win had turned me inward. Toward Kate. Toward long ago high school years. I hadn’t noticed. Still a bit subdued this morning.

Cooking, Denver, Politics, Sport, US History

Nuggets Win!

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Michelle. Bond and Devick. Investments. Cold Mountain. Chinese Rivers and Mountains poetry. Acting. Acting class. Character study. The Hermit. Tarot. Herme. Neon. Water. Air. Earth. Fire. The comfort of my home. Black Mountain Drive. Brook Forest Drive. Evergreen. The detour. The Elk herds that cause Elk jams. Black Bears. Rummaged trash bins. Travelers. Tourists. A bit of each, I guess. Plant Stems. Tree Trunks. Sturdy. Allergens. Air purifiers. Cast iron skillets.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The four elements

One brief shining: How often the Sun emerges after the darkness of night casually including us in its energy giveaway, how often the Moon rises after the brilliance of the Sun and bathes us in its soft reflected light, changing from tiny sliver to a full lantern then waning and disappearing only to return again and again, how often the stars dance a slow gavotte as our Earth turns and rushes around the Sun, how often we fail to notice them.

 

Ah. A good day. Cardio. Two sets of resistance, feeling my muscles respond. Chorizo and home fried potatoes, an egg for breakfast. A Rockfish sandwich for lunch on Bread Lounge multi-Grain Sourdough. Frozen Mango chunks for desert. An apple and chunky peanut butter for supper. Organizing Cold Mountain poems, information on the MIA’s Jade Mountain, the Hermit card of the Tarot Major Arcana. Building my character.

 

How bout those Nuggets! A gentleman’s sweep over the Heat in 5. First NBA title for Denver. Such a difference from the Twin Cities with the Timberwolves, the Cubs simulacrum Vikings. The Denver Broncos. The Avalanche. Superbowl and Stanley cup winners. Though. The Twins brought home two World Series titles while my son was young. And the Rockies may not reach that goal by the time he’s old. Sports. Not really my thing, but still… Fun. And, yes. F1. Basketball. So.

 

Say you’re a defendant in a Federal case. Say you’ve stiffed lawyers your whole life. Not to mention contractors and probably the lunch room lady at school. Say you had a first court appearance tomorrow. Say available lawyers looked at your payment record and the case against you and said no I don’t think so. What then? Yes, what then, Donald?

 

America, the land of the free and the home of the brave. Feels like satire doesn’t it? And that makes me sad. I love our country, our experiment with liberalism, with the expansion of individual freedom while maintaining a sense of nationhood. I love our willingness to take in the huddled masses yearning to be free. When we do it. I love our insistence that all are equal before the law. I love our regional differences, accents, cuisines. I love our Mountains and Plains and Rivers and Streams. I love our rich Soil and all of our Wild Neighbors. I love my family and its deep roots here. I love the cities and small towns.

Yet. We have these deep and lasting scars, don’t we. Slavery. The genocide of the First Nations. Our abandonment of working class families. Our treatment of women and those of differing sexual orientations. Of Jews and Catholics.

We have a history filled with good deeds and bad. We are not the Great Satan nor are we the savior of the world. We’ve done well and we’ve done poorly. We’re human. We’re all trying in our own way to live in a country we can be proud of. Realizing that is an important first step in moving beyond our current impasse. More to come.