Yearly Archives: 2023

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Humanities, Literature

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Samain and the Summer’s End Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Albert Greenberg’s yahrzeit. Joan. Kat. Lauren. Anne. Quest Diagnostics. Feelings. Veronica. Becoming a Jew by choice. Israel. Hamas. Gaza. Palestinians. Darkness. Standard Time. The days of our lives. Wembanyama. Basketball. The Potluck. Berry Pie. Good Chicken. Good conversation. Helen. Ellen. Mark. Bill. Robbie. Sally. Creme brulee truffles. Ruby’s cracked windshield. The Shadow Mountain life.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Becoming a Jew

One brief shining: Spent the day yesterday waiting on diagnostic results that remain, yet this morning, in progress leaving me with no new information, making my lev, my heart-mind, spin through scenarios of impending doom and how to cope with bad news without having any real data then remembering and calling myself back to the present, to this moment, in which I feel fine and am living my life.

 

Made me wonder about having my own Quest Diagnostics account. Trust your doctors. Kate. I’ve tried to be true to her advice while not abrogating my responsibility. A delicate balance. Having my test results come to me before Kristin sees them, interprets them helps me though. I like data. To know what’s going on. But. As Kate knew, I can use the internet to my full disadvantage. Reading this. Pondering that. Working myself into a tizzy as we used to say.

Yesterday and now still today. An in-between space. Waiting. Not knowing. Most of the time I carried on. Read. Watched some TV. Ran errands. Cooked. Got ready for the potluck and last night’s service. Yet I obsessively ran the Quest site, too. About once an hour or so I’d walk upstairs and crank it up. Again. And again. Nothing. Nope. Nada. Still nothing.

Not feeling anxious. Not much anyway. A bit buzzy and distracted at times. I slept well which tells me I’m handling my self-induced situation o.k. Reminding myself that the results will be what they are. Talk about high-stakes testing. Geez.

 

Enough of that. Let’s talk about Israel and Gaza. Nah. Enough of that, too.

I regularly do three games on the NYT site. Flashback, a history quiz. Spelling Bee. And, Connections. I’ve never like crosswords, having to guess how a person has tricked me is not my idea of fun. Kate loved them. Connections is the hardest of the three. Sometimes. There’s an element of trickery involved. The puzzle creator Wyna Liu produces a grid of sixteen words with four words grouped according to some theme. Figuring out how she’s chosen to group the words is the challenge. Most of the time I can suss out the connections but on occasion she uses themes that make no sense to me. Too esoteric or too niche. Fun anyhow.

The lift that comes from solving the puzzles is nice. An atta boy handed out by the puzzle folks. I’m a words guy. Spelling Bee is a challenge, but one I can usually master. Not always, but often enough to keep me coming back for that top rank glow.

 

Not going to get started on it today, but one of my ongoing concerns is the plight of the humanities. Vocational education? Sure. But education on how to live, how to think, what the folks who have gone before us thought and how they lived? That’s still the ideal of a college education to me. But it’s gotten to a dollar and cents equation. Does this degree make me money? That’s an ok question and one many will want to ask. That question though turns education into vocational education and pretends that the humanities therefore don’t matter. No monetary prize in a philosophy or an anthropology degree. For instance.

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism

Yikes

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Samain and the Summer’s End Moon

Friday gratefuls: Alan Greenberg’s yahrzeit. Joan. A salmon colored Cumulus Cloud over Black Mountain. Dr. Gonzalez. Her nurse. The phlebotomist. My heart and aorta. Considering the body as it decompensates. Shadow Mountain as a stable and supportive presence. Ruby. All Dogs, especially Kippur and Murdoch and Leo. My Wild Neighbors. Melancholy. Dawn. Evening. Liminal times, magical times. Doorways, thresholds. Mezuzahs.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The One

One brief shining: Opened up the test results from Quest Diagnostics and read my latest battery of tests with red fields and green, discovering that my doc has ordered a test for multiple myeloma, not completed yet, sending my anxiety titer (a Kate phrase) up, not high but noticeable, wondering if there will be more than my heart involved in this latest visit.

 

Oh, boy. Well. I freaked myself out back in July when I got low gamma globulin results. Hadn’t processed them or heard from my doctor, went straight to multiple myeloma. Kristin said I was fine. She sees these results all the time. I calmed down. Now I discover she’s running a test battery for just that. Yikes! The results are not in yet, though my other results are.

The possibility of multiple myeloma, a form of cancer, hit me hard because Dick Mestrich, a colleague of Kate’s at Allina, died of it after a long decline. She made him a friendship quilt which he wore often, may have been buried in it. My son and I played golf with him quite a bit when my son was in high school. I also learned recently that one of the Thursday mussar group also has it.

The thought of a second kind of cancer to add to my already existing one? Again, yikes!

All this is unknown right now and I’m pretty good at not getting excited before I know something for sure. Even then, I’m able to hold steady for the most part though melancholy can creep up on me. Understandable, too. Still. An uncomfortable moment for me. For sure.

 

Just ordered two mezuzahs, one for the front door and one for the door leading to the garage. Will have Rabbi Jamie come out and hang them. There is a ritual for it. Inside each mezuzah is a scroll with the shema hand lettered by a scribe on the treated skin of a kosher animal. Not cheap. From the Jewish Museum store in New York City.

 

At mussar yesterday afternoon another cancer survivor remarked about the love she experienced from her friends. They go to her appointments with her, help her in many ways. Nancy then mentioned Leslie who died of liver cancer two months ago saying, “Leslie had the same experience. What a wonderful way to die.” I said, “And, what a wonderful way to live. I’m experiencing that kind of love at CBE right now.” And from my longtime friends in the Ancient Brothers and my family. Knowing you are loved buoys the soul, helps it serve as the rock of your life. As long as you have it.

 

 

 

Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, GeekWorld, Judaism, Politics, Science

A Philosophical Day

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Samain and the Summer’s End Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Kippur, Rich’s new Dog. Leo. Kepler, my sweet boy. Kate, my sweetheart. Rich, a good friend. Joan. Ron. Marilyn. Tara. Jamie. Alan. Ruth. The solar Snow shovel. Dry needling. Mary. Spinal stenosis. Ruby. Dry roads. Mostly. Safeway. Ice cream. Shadow Mountain. Shadow Mountain Home. Starlink. Sushi. Crackers. Salmon. Sleep.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: My CBE family

One brief shining: Went to Rich’s office yesterday to sign Powers of Attorney and met Kippur, the five-month old black and tan puppy Rich got as a foster and who bounced back as a rehome, Kippur came up as I sat on the couch, pawed me, licked my hand, looked me in the eyes, jumped up on the couch, put his head in my lap, then settled with his body snug against my left leg.

 

First off. Buddy Tom and I got to talking yesterday. About weirdness. Quantum mechanics and agreeable electrons and photons. The lack of solidity in all things.   And how about that spooky action at a distance. The narrow sensory spectrum of human senses. Multiverses. Multiple dimensions. We didn’t wander over into time. But we did mention death. And the sacred. And how limited our grasp of things really is. How much we don’t know. How much is hidden from us. Could the sacred be the occasional glimpse into  quantum reality? Or, another dimension? Or, a multiverse? Sensory data beyond our capacity?

And these are matters that have solid scientific data and theories behind them. Not some guy reading gold tablets on one side of a curtain. Or Mohammed listening to the angel. Yet they are all also as strange as salvation, heaven, a God. As strange as the Quran or the Tanakh or the New Testament. That was the morning.

In the afternoon I went over to Rich Levine’s office to sign durable powers of attorney naming Joseph overall and Rich for Colorado. That’s when I met Kippur, the wonderful puppy. All puppies are wonderful, I should also say. Anyhow Rich and I got to talking about whether humans are hard wired for symbol making. A woman philosopher he learned about Tuesday night thinks so. She convinced Rich. Not sure at this remove what the implications of that were but Rich thought it was important.

Rich teaches constitutional law at the Colorado School of Mines in, he said, “A country that no longer honors the constitution. We’re living in a post-constitutional time.” We also discussed Israel and Hamas. The sadness and dismay at being Jews given the way Israel is acting in Gaza. And yet…

Also had a p.t. session with Mary in which she said, alarmed, “What’s that around your neck!” I thought I had a creature somewhere on me. Turns out she’d seen the flashing of my Medalert pendant. I usually turn it so the light flashes toward my chest, but apparently I hadn’t that time.

Finished the day with MVP discussing the character trait, or middot, of silence. My practice for this month is to ask myself when am I? More on that at a later time.

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Shadow Mountain

Good

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Samain and the Summer’s End Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Marilyn and Tara. MVP. Mary. Rich. My son and the durable power of attorney. Darkness. Winter Solstice. The fallow time. Melancholy. How do I feel. I’m amazing at. Luke and Tal. Leo. Kepler and Kate, my sweethearts. Black Mountain hiding in the night. The Shema. Conversion. Kat and Lauren’s bat mitzvah tomorrow. Daughters of the commandments. MVP tonight. On silence.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Power of Attorney

One brief shining: Yesterday I read about death from the Jewish perspective, finished off a Jack Reacher novel, made myself breakfast, lunch, and dinner, watched some TV, got my new bright red tea kettle which looks great on my black stove and my new rice cooker,  finished the day feeling good.

 

The reason I mention what I did yesterday. The feeling good part caught me by surprise. I’d planned to go out for breakfast and run a couple of errands, but writing Ancientrails and reading the news about Israel took a while so I made my breakfast instead. That took up some time, too, and I read The Measure of Our Age, an excellent book by a Minnesotan on the state of aging in America. Decided to finish the chapter in that after breakfast.

Went downstairs to take a shower and while waiting for the room to warm up I picked up the Jack Reacher novel I’d been reading. I was toward the end and the pace of it picked up. An hour or so later I finally took my shower. Made lunch.

Watched TV while I ate my lunch, then went upstairs to my serious reading chair and picked up Michael Strassfield’s, A Book of Life: Embracing Judaism as a Spiritual Practice. My next session with Rabbi Jamie is on the Jewish life cycle and conversion. Strassfield’s book has a long section on those topics. I’d read most of it, but needed to finish the last chapter on death. Over the next two weeks I’ll read shorter sections in three other books on the same topic.

The Jewish approach to death and mourning has had a significant impact on my life. In particular sitting shiva, Kate’s memorial service, yahrzeit remembrance, and enduring friendships. In sitting shiva the mourners stay at home and the congregation comes to them. Taking the community of the synagogue to the home of the mourner. This simple idea was very powerful for me as I had people come to the house and sit with me, talk, bring something to eat. Alan said at shiva that his role was going to be to get me out of the house. Two and a half years later we still meet most weeks for breakfast. And, he’s not the only one. Marilyn and Irv. Tara. Ron. Rich. All of whom I’ll see tonight at MVP also came, brought food, talked.

After I finished that section in Strassfield’s book, I made supper. Watched some TV, then went to bed. An ordinary day. But, a good one.

I let go of the need to accomplish things yesterday. Just leaned into reading, cooking. And it felt. Good.

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Holidays, Shadow Mountain

A Shadow Mountain New Year!

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Samain and the Summer’s End Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Aspen Perks. Primos. 285 Cafe. Dazzle. Nocturne. Jazz. Chamber music. Rock and roll. Folk music. Blue grass. Blues. Darkness. About to light up in the morning with Standard Time. Paul in the kiva. Brother Mark in Saudi. Mary in K.L. My son and Seoah in Songtan. Diane in San Francisco. Me on Shadow Mountain. Israel. The World Series. Kirk Cousin’s Achille’s tear. Max Verstappen. F1. Trees still flocked with Saturday’s Snow.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Brother Mark in Hafir

One brief shining: Some evenings for dinner I take out a Cosmic or a Honeycrisp Apple, cut it in half with my sharp Japanese chef’s knife, slice each half into four pieces, cut out the seeds, throw the slices in a bowl, and add chunky peanut butter tastes like a caramel apple to me, a fall favorite from year’s gone by.

 

It’s time to gather round the bonfire, discard all those too confining clothes, and dance around the heat as you came into the world. I’ve never done this but I wish I had. Maybe I will. If I can find a pagan old folks Samain bonfire. Maybe at one of those fancy senior living places? Jews honor the pleasures of the body: dancing, hugs, exercise, good food, good sex so perhaps a Jewish assisted living facility? Not sure why this appeals to me, but it does. At least in the abstract. Yes, it’s the Celtic New Year.

So many New Years. Judaism has four: Rosh Hashanah-the civil new year and the New Year of the seasons. Tub’shevat-a new year for trees. A New Year that celebrated the birth of the nation, the reign years of kings, and the start of the Festival year. Finally a New Year for Cattle tithes. Gregorian New Year’s on January 1st. Chinese (Asian) New Years at the Spring festival. And many, many others.

An opportunity to celebrate a New Year according to the human calendar. Whenever it felt right to one culture, it can be adapted by us. I’m fond of Tub’shevat. The Trees had a new year because it was forbidden to eat Fruit from a Tree if it was under three years old. Sound horticulture to me. Like the new year for thoroughbreds which defines which horse can race in which year class. I’m also fond of the Asian New Year. I haven’t celebrated it in a while but during my docent days Kate and I went every year with Ming Jen Chen, who organized the meals at various Chinese restaurants.

That deal with the ball dropping at Times Square? Not so much. Though January 1st does feel like my New Year, the one my culture honors and therefore the day a year does change. I like it, too, just not the crowds and drunkenness. Kate and I always celebrated at home with a special meal, a fire, conversation. Sometimes we stayed up until midnight. Mostly not.

This Samain is special for me because it was on Samain of 2014 that I came to Conifer to close on the Shadow Mountain Home. 9 years owning this home. A tenth beginning today. A decade at 8,800 feet. So much has happened. So much.

Great Wheel, Health, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Sport

Sparkling Snow, a near full moon

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Fall and the Samain Moon

Monday gratefuls: Snow. Cold. 6 degrees this morning. Good sleeping. Reading more about Jewish life cycle events. Fire in the fireplace. Hygge. Which helped with melancholy. Those pork cutlets and the instant mashed potatoes, surprisingly good. Cooking for one. Cooking. Decluttering the kitchen. Snow on the Lodgepoles. Black Mountain white. Winter before Samain. Skiing. Israel. Hamas. Anti-semitism. Fighting anti-semitism.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth

One brief shining: Opened the small drawer of my coffee table and pulled out a box of matches, opened it, and went to the fireplace, striking the match and lighting the newspaper crumpled up at the bottom of the stacked firewood, flames licked up, smoke poured out, oh, open the flue, there better, the fatwood caught and soon the smaller chunks of pine, then a roaring fire captivating, warm.

 

Last night as bed time came what to my wandering eyes should appear but sparkling Snow covering a back Yard lit by a near full moon casting deep shadows of Lodgepoles across the Snowscape. A few stars danced in the Sky, most hidden by the moon’s late fall exuberance. The weather station read 7 degrees. Could have been the night before Christmas. Santa’s sleigh pulled by Mule Deer and Elk.

The magic of the Mountains. Their seasons change in dramatic fashion. Splashes of gold against green in the mid-fall. Sudden bursts of Snow. Wild Neighbors engaged in ancient fertility rites. Black Bears eating their way toward a long nap. Skies so blue. So blue. Warm days and cold nights. What a privilege it is to live here.

 

The Samain moon, which will become the Summer’s End moon tomorrow, marks the transition from the growing season to fallow time. We don’t often have temperatures this cold this early. Last night was cold even by Minnesota standards. Warming a bit today and tomorrow. The cold and the Snow brought an end to Fall with an exclamation mark. Well, that’s over now. Let’s think Thanksgiving, ski season, Hanukah, Winter Solstice, Christmas, Holiseason. Oh, ok.

 

Kirk Cousins. Achilles tear. Maybe. Every time an Achilles injury makes sports news I flash back to the Seven-Eleven on Yaowarat Street in Bangkok. China Town. A snack and a drink sounded good so I crossed the street from my hotel to pick up some bottled water, maybe something salty. Around 8 pm. Yaowarat, a former main street of Bangkok, is wide and busy. Like, Bangkok busy. I crossed it without incident and decided to go the ATM in the next block before returning to my hotel.

Though I only had to cross a side street, the traffic was still fierce. My eye was on the ATM. My right foot went down off the high curb and landed in a sewer depression. Hurrying I didn’t have time to readjust so my body went forward while my right foot remained in the sewer. Oh. My. Big, big pain. My source of empathy for Kirk Cousins and any athlete who plants and torques too much.

As some of you know, that Achilles injury in 2004 marked the beginning of Ancientrails. I had to stay off my right foot for two months. Needed something to do. Thanks, cybermage Bill.

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Hermitage, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

A chimera, a shadow

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Fall and the Samain Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Irv’s Renaissance singers. Joan among them. Marilyn. Snow. 11 degrees. My son and Seoah. Seoah at Crossfit. The only housewife. Murdoch the silly. Kat and Lauren, their Bat Mitzvahs. Rabbi Jamie. The Ancient Brothers. Darkness. Israel. Hamas. Hezbollah. Palestinians. Ruth. Gabe. Kep and Kate. Rigel. Melancholy. How do I feel? Heavy. Weighted down. Snowed in. Icy roads.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Minnesota winter driving skills

One brief shining: Not so shiny this one, more like one brief pall as the coffee cools beside me, trying to do the heaviest lifting of all to bring my soul out of the darkness, move it toward joy and hygge and a warm fire and a good book, without dishonoring my own inner life.

 

War. Spinal stenosis. One more thing to take care of. Mom’s death. Memory triggered by changing seasons. Not SAD. Cancer. Anti-semitism. Israel. Palestinians. Terrorism. So successful this time. All these clatter around, poking sharp edges into a soft soul, making me retreat inward, downward. And the train that follows them. A boxcar of sadness. A tank car filled with liquid doubt. A coal car with chunks of despair. Wish I could pull the pin out at least between the engine and the cars let them go, sail off back where they came from. Not yet.

I feel trapped. Can’t take Ruth to Dazzle Jazz tonight. Icy and snowy Mountain roads. Haven’t told her yet though I did say it was a concern yesterday. Like an old man too scared to drive in a little weather. Disappointing his granddaughter who means so much. Yet I avoid driving on ice. Just. Don’t. Do it. So I see the ads for Senior Living and I think is that me now? Am I finished with the effort it takes to stay here on Shadow Mountain?

Put myself in that sybaritic one I saw with luxury cars for appointments, travel clubs, fine dining every meal,  a concierge for appointments and tickets and such. Oh, god no. Too much. Surrounded by people my age. No. Hell, no. Maybe an apartment or condo in the city? No. I’m back to that moving to Hawai’i thing. No. I love my home, living in the Rockies. Being close to CBE, to Evergreen. My wild neighbors.

Oscillating between hell, no and what if I need it anyway? Don’t be too proud, too stubborn. Guess this is my main challenge right now, that nexus between physical health and independence that can be so fraught. Each insult like icy roads can raise the specter of a truncated life, not independent life.

When those insults come while others crowd in from other vectors, well…

Once again though. The magic of writing it down, saying it out loud. Seen for the chimera it is. Still real as a shadow though. Sober reflection, yes. Elder agony? No.

Drove to Safeway yesterday to pickup some groceries. On the way back I turned left to go up the bridge over 285 and Ruby hit an icy patch, kept going straight ahead, hit the curb with both tires, up onto the grass, missed the light pole, backed up, embarrassed. Might have something to do with how I feel.

 

 

 

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Politics, Shadow Mountain, The West, Travel, Weather +Climate

“Pulvis et umbra sumus.”

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Fall and the Samain Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Standard Time. My favorite. DST. Boo. Black Mountain, hidden again in the mist. Fog. Frosted Lodgepole Needles. Big Snow on the way. 10-12 inches. Ruth and Dazzle Jazz. Sunday night, I hope. Cell phones. The time before cell phones. Desktop. Laptop. Computers of all sorts. Batteries. EVs. Climate change. Sea level rise. Greenland and Antarctica. Israel. Gaza. Palestinians. Public opinion. Fingers and toes. Skin and nose. Heart and lungs. The Body. Amazing and wonderful. Kepler and Kate, my sweethearts.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rigel

One brief shining: The Lodgepoles have a flocked look as I drink my coffee, write, look up and gaze out the window toward Black Mountain, that ten-thousand footer obscured not so far away but invisible as the dew point matches the temperatures here on Shadow Mountain.

 

We are but dust and shadow. “Pulvis et umbra sumus.” The Latin poet, Horace. Quoted in a poem sent out by buddy Tom Crane this morning. Brought to mind for me the Plaza del Toros in Mexico City where they sell tickets by sombra e sol. Shade or sun. I bought sombra. Worth it as the afternoon wore on and the dead bulls left the ring for donation to orphanages around the city.

Spent some time a couple of weeks ago researching the ontological nature of shadows. Surprised that the consensus seemed to be that shadows have no ontological nature since they cannot interact with the world. So why then did I buy a ticket for sombra and not sol? Because sombra would be cooler! To me: Q.E.D.

 

Here’s a sensation I forget each year only to have it delight me with its return. That feeling of expectation as the weather changes and big Snow is in the forecast. What will it be like, this Snow? How will it change the landscape? Of my yard? Of Shadow Mountain? of Black Mountain? How cold will it get? I can feel the Fire in my fireplace already. Perhaps some hot cocoa in my hand. Reading a book in one of my three favorite chairs. I suppose this is hygge, or the anticipation of hygge.

What is hygge? Here’s an explanation:

“Hygge is about cosiness and surrounding yourself with the things that make life good, like friendship, laughter and security, as well as more concrete things like warmth, light, seasonal food and drink.” scandinaviastandard

How very Jewish of those Scandinavians. Joy as a religious obligation. Hygge as a facet of shabbat. Ah. The Snow has begun to fall. Crank up the hygge dial here on Shadow Mountain. My workout, then a fire and a book and a snack.

 

Meanwhile the world flies Palestinians flags and students wear green bandanas in fealty to their notion of Hamas as a liberation front. While here at Shadow Mountain Home we fly the Stars and Strips and the blue and white flag of Israel. Which does NOT mean I do not care about Palestinian civilians. I do. The rules of war, remember? Proportionate response. Protect civilians. No justification with the why of war can erase these obligations.

 

 

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

I see you’re slipping into melancholy

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Fall and the Samain Moon

Friday gratefuls: Alan. Joan. Israel. Hamas. The Palestinians. Iran. Saudi Arabia. Mark in Hafir. Mary in K.L. My son and Seoah in Songtan. Diane in San Francisco. Cold morning. Good sleeping. Mary and p.t. Mussar. An off day emotionally. Kep, my sweet boy. Kate, always Kate. Lauren and Kat, adult Bat Mitzvahs next Thursday. Shadow Mountain Home. Herme. October melancholy. Forgot. Darkness. Snow on its way.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Feeling down

One brief shining: John Destian my long time Jungian analyst gave me a task for Kate; she was to say when she noticed it, “I can see you slipping into melancholy.”; and, so she did for years keeping me aware when my self-awareness faltered, dead now I’ve lost her physical voice but I heard her voice today when I realized it was October the month my mother died.

 

The gentle sadness of turning leaves, cold rains. Combined with Mom’s sudden death in October of 1964. Still often trigger for me-59 years later-an inner sadness, a melancholy often felt first by Kate, not me. Yesterday. You seemed so far away. Yesterday. The two women I’ve loved most both dead now. Mom for 59 years, Kate for two and a half. Hard sometimes to be without that special form of support, of caring, of seeing me for who I am whole. And yesterday was such a time. I see that now.

A tricky bit. Saying yes to the melancholy while not feeding it, not letting it have all the oxygen in my inner world. Yesterday I danced around it, pushed it away. Denying. Kept coming. I felt inward, shut down, wanting to be away from people. Mussar couldn’t end fast enough. My p.t. session went so long. Felt relieved when I got in Ruby and headed home.

This morning I can see yesterday more clearly. Hear Kate. Reminded too of joy as a spiritual obligation in Judaism. Asceticism is not a virtue in Judaism. Jews celebrate the body and its pleasures; its enjoyment. Enjoy. Bring joy into the body. What can I do today that will bring me joy? Yes. This does not fight or deny my melancholy. It recognizes that the melancholy is not all I can feel. I can also eat with friends, laugh, donate money to a good cause, enjoy a good book. No shame in melancholy or joy.

Perhaps, too, the unfamiliar experience of being targeted by simplistic analyses, of being on the railed against side of progressive arguments, of being a Jew when anti-semitism has gained strength among people with whom I share political values. New turf for me.

 

It’s a foggy morning here on Shadow Mountain, Black Mountain hidden in the mist. Waiting on Alan to message me about breakfast. I have a few errands. Get a printed copy of the mailing label for the Starlink cable I didn’t need. Get that package to FedEx. Visit Evergreen Market. Do some work in the kitchen. Maybe in the living room, too.

 

 

Judaism, Travel, World History

So. Awful.

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Fall and the Samain Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Salmon Sky. A late night. A virtual tour of Israel. All vegetarian potluck. BA and Expedia finally relent. Elite. That gut. Working to keep me safe. I think. Relaxed and comfortable cows in Israel. Israel. Hamas. Gaza. Palestinians. Blood lust. Peace. War. Yellow Willow Trees. My favorite Lodgepoles swaying gently in the Wind. A good workout yesterday. Starlink at 106 mbps this morning.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: CBE

One brief shining: Looked out my downstairs window just after I got up to see a true salmon color behind the Lodgepoles to the northwest and red Sky in the morning sailor take warning shuttled through my consciousness making me remember the heavy breathing from the meteorologists as a weekend Storm approaches with the promise of Snow, big Snow.

 

Had a catch in my breath when my phone notified me of changes to my flight for yesterday. What? Hopped on Expedia and chatted with an agent who tracked down that yes I had canceled the flight. He wrote these well received words: your refund will come in 7-10 days. That flight to London and then Tel Aviv had more lives than a whack a mole. Went through several different iterations of what might happen with it. Frustrating. Resolved now.

 

The war. Read an op ed piece in Haaretz that made my hair stand up: It Is Forbidden to Even Empathize With Innocent Gazans.  Author Gordon Levy strips bare the blood lust running Israel right now. This is fear and loathing of a sort that serves only the Hammas sympathizers. The opposite of what Israel needs right now. This god awful mess of a region needs a second coming just to sort through all the b.s.

It sure seems like the world has become at least pro-Palestinian if not anti-Israel. I’m pro-Palestinian, anti-Hamas, and pro-Israel. This is not an easy stance to take right now, but it matches the situation as I understand it. I agree with Biden that the end point of this war only makes sense if a two-state solution is not only on the table, but realized. I also agree with Israel that they have the right, even the responsibility as a nation to take Hamas off the board.

Not sure how you could come to the conclusion that Hamas were freedom fighters. They murdered civilians, took civilian hostages, and use their own people as human shields. No. Hamas is a terrorist organization with the aim of ridding the Middle East of Jews. Does Israel have moral failings that show up in the condition of Gaza, the settlers in the West Bank, the apparent wipe’m out sentiment now holding sway there? Yes. Does not mean that Israel should let Hamas or Hezbollah or Iran run free in their country. No. They have to be held accountable as must Hamas, but their right to defend themselves is clear.

 

We held a meal last night for those of us who would have gone to Israel but couldn’t. We each gave short presentations on sites we chose some time ago. Originally meant to supplement the guides on the tour bus.