Monthly Archives: May 2023

Art and Culture, Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Mountains, Mussar, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Memory

Leave a comment

Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Leo. Luke. Leslie. Her daughter, Megan. Jamie Bernstein. Ellen Arnold. Leo’s bone. Rain. Good Rain, drought go away Rain. The flooded out Italian Grand Prix. My son, his wife, and Murdoch. Residents of Korea. A new Day, a turned Earth revealing a brilliant Sun in a clear blue Colorado Sky. A cool night. Good for sleeping. That $60 bill from Centura.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Black Mountain

One brief shining: August 3rd bone scan long billed to me at $5,000 or so now reduced to $60 which I paid yesterday May 20th after the uneven teeth of the bureaucrats of AARP Insecure, Optum Care, and Centura meshed, moving the whole process to a different gear one that recognized the contractual obligations that left me free of responsibility a mere ten months after the initial attempt to wring thousands out of my bank account.

 

Leo lies on my rug up here in my home office. Chewing on a meaty marrow rich bone his dad left with me. A happy dog. Luke’s in New York at a cousin’s wedding upstate. Leo came Thursday night and will be here through Tuesday. It’s a delight to have a furry presence in the house. And, like a grandchild, one that will go home after a few days.

Speaking of grandchildren. Gabe’s coming up today with his buddy Seo. When I take him home we’ll stop at Twist and Shout a vinyl record store on Colfax. My grandchild insisting on going back to a technology I left behind long ago. One of the inevitable ironies of aging I guess.

 

While Robin and Michele hung my art, I got breakfast at Aspen Perks. After I drove over to Bailey. A Happy Camper run. It was a Rainy, Foggy morning the Mountains capped with Clouds and Mist, sometimes obscured altogether. On these rare mornings I often feel like I’m in the Smokies, not the Rockies. Expect to see signs for boiled peanuts, old race cars put out to literal pasture, a stars and bars flying from a local flagpole. Nope. Conifer Ranch. Rural electric co-op headquarters. I’m on 285 South which runs not to Asheville, North Carolina, but Santa Fe, New Mexico. Passing through the Platte River Valley.

Weather can transport me far away. Another for instance. A humid, not too cool early morning reminds me of Hawai’i where I often got up at 5:00 am to get my exercise in before the heat of the day. When the rains pounded down the other day and thunder roared directly overhead, I was back in Andover glad the weather was watering my vegetables, the orchard, the flowers. The Great Wheel turns and returns. The seasons flowing out from each other round and round, the cycle of life.

 

Leslie’s sudden plunge into hospice has stayed on my mind. I posted this on April 28th.

“It was my first time back to Thursday mussar since January, maybe earlier. I’d attended on zoom some, but with Kep’s decline and the snow and other things, I hadn’t felt up to the drive. Two of the women, Leslie and Rebecca, both kissed me on the head! Not sure what that was about though it was clearly a sign of affection.”

Less than a month ago. Cancer. As I said.

 

 

 

 

Art and Culture, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Memories, Mussar, Shadow Mountain

A Bastard

Leave a comment

Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Friday gratefuls: Rain. Leo. Luke. Robin and Michele. Hanging art. Shadow Mountain. Black Mountain which I cannot see. Fog. Rain drops on Lodgepine Needles.  Walking outside with Leo in the rain. Thatching in Japan and in England. Crafts as history, as DNA of a culture. Korea. Israel. Ecuador. Travel. Mark, the Teacher. Mary, the Teacher of Teachers. The Middle East. The Far East. South America. Cultures and their diverse answers to the human questions of meaning, eating, reproducing, governing. Leslie. Cancer. Charlie H. Charlie B-E. Karen. Judy, may her memory be for a blessing. Kep and all the dogs taken by cancer.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Duchenne Smile

One brief shining: Cancer a bastard an intimate assassin who lies in wait hidden somewhere in spots too difficult to see like a sniper on a rooftop or an umbrella spiked with polonium or that ring with a small latch which carries poison to put in the cup of an unsuspecting dinner guest, an impolite guest within my body, within the body of many others, including Leslie who went in thinking hepatitis and came out in hospice care for metastasized liver cancer. As I said. A bastard.

 

Leslie went to the doctor, then to the hospital for a hepatitis workup. Nope. Liver cancer, metastasized. Instead of going home with medication she went home to hospice. As I said.

Had an 8:30 am call with my radiation oncologist. No immediate after effects. Check with us in a year. A continuing story. As with Charlie H. and Karen. So, so many others. Not an isolated experience. At all.

 

More art hanging happening today. More to come. Reflected on the reasons for art in a home. Not only beauty. Maybe not even primarily beauty. Memory. That poster of the French island Charon. Given to Kate and me as a present by the owner of the laundromat where we did our wash in Paris. The somewhat treacly but also beautiful in its way painting of the sea turtle. Kate’s aesthetic and her totem animal. That dancing prophet in the blue robe with the big beard. A symbol of what the Presbytery thought of me. A gift when I retired. The Hermit neon. How I felt in the months after Kate died. Those stone sculptures. Bought in Siem Reap. Made by Cambodians learning the ancient art on display in the temples of Angkor Wat. The wooden plaque with a Moose, a Bear, and a Beaver. A gift for Kate’s 75th.

Jerry’s paintings the two large scale semi-impressionist works of landscape in on near Bellews Creek, N.C. are beautiful and make a huge splash on the walls. Even there. Painted by Kate’s sister’s husband. For her town home. Moved after that to our first home together on Edgcumbe Road in St. Paul onto our 20 year home in Andover and finally making the trek to Shadow Mountain.

And all those works of Jon. Beautiful in their abstract way. Even more now. A testament to the rebellious and innovative print maker he was.

Of course memories. Photographs. Yes. Those too. Art. So important in my life. Maybe in yours, too.

Health, Politics

Denial is not only a river in Egypt

Leave a comment

Beltane and the Mesa View Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Rain. A gray Sky. Wet Lodgepole Needles. A driveway slick with Rain. Kate, always Kate. Her memory, a blessing. Jon, a memory. Gabe and Seo coming up this weekend. Leo, coming today for a long visit. My son and his wife. Murdoch. Safely in Korea. This Henry Miller chair. Pixels. Computer chips. Keyboards. Screens. Speakers and cameras. Zoom. Diane. Israel trip is on.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Travel gettin’ real

One brief shining: Read an article about insurance companies increasing denials for claims including a job title denial nurse and I looked over at my denied claims for my radiation thinking how long can this uncertainty go on looking at the trajectory of my life, damning the American I don’t even know what to call it but health care system is not it.

 

Generally I sleep well. Last night though. Those damned insurance companies. Well, to be specific, Travelers and AARP Secure Advantage. Discovered I’d missed a significant increase in my home insurance. Went from $4,500 to $5,500. Came last October in the midst of the turmoil over Jon’s death. Guess I didn’t read it. Learned about it when my mortgage payments went up. Wildfire related.

AARP so called Secure Advantage sent me a nice note denying payment for my radiation. I called Urology Associates billing and Nick, bless his heart, said I was not responsible for any denied payments. Good. But. This article in yesterday’s Washington Post: Denials of Insurance Claims Are Rising-And Getting Weirder caught my attention because I read it the same day I got the note from Insecure advantage. This one is on top of the already existing hassle with Centura Health over my bone scan last August. $5,200.

What I crave is predictability. Cancer and how to treat it creates enough chaos. I don’t need to add to that wondering if my treatments will get paid for. The system is not understandable. My doctors advise me as to the best course of treatment. I follow their advice. Another layer of surveillance by me? To see if insurance company rules have been followed? But which ones? For whom? It’s. Just. Too. Fucking. Complicated.

Even though I’m not liable for the denied claims it injects a wondering about future treatments. If Insecure Advantage keeps refusing to pay, will my providers stop caring for me? Dr. Simpson, my radiation oncologist, recommended I switch back to original Medicare when the enrollment season opens up in October. He said it would be easier.

I need to compare Insecure Advantage with original Medicare. I have a good insurance agent whom I’m going to talk to. We’ll see what comes of that.

This is, I suppose, whining. But I’m not alone. No sirree. Read that WP article. Our health should not be captive to bean counters trying to maximize profits at the expense of our well-being. Should not be. However. It is.

If you read that article, you’ll find embedded in it observations about algorithms and AI being used to deny claims with no human in the stream of accountability. Welcome, my dear readers. To the future.

 

Acting, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends

Radical Otherness

Leave a comment

Beltane and the Mesa View Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Tal of the light and the morning dew. Acting. Finding a character. The Explorer archetype. The Fool. The Hermit.  The Window. Art hung. More donations taken. Robin and Michele. A blue Sky Sunlit Lodgepole and Aspen Mountain Morning. Maxwell Creek. Cub Creek. Kate’s Creek. Bear Creek. Shadow Brook. All full and roaring, muddy. Black Mountain, a gentle curve against the western Sky. Shadow Mountain beneath me. The night Sky. The Atlantic Ocean. The Bay of Fundy. Robbitson, Maine.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The repetition exercise from Meisner

One brief shining: Acting requires living truthfully in an imaginary situation according to Stanford Meisner Tal says which made me wonder with the sensory mediation of reality with which we all experience each other and the world if living in what we each insist on calling reality does not require the same.

 

Read a fascinating article in the New York Times by a couples therapist. Two things stood out for me. The first, which was her main point, is the apparent degree to which the language and conceptual frames of the me-too movement and the Black Lives Matter movement has come to inform how couples see each other. Men and women both have a greater sensitivity to the impact of sexuality on even day to day interactions, at work as well at home. Mixed race couples and couples of color have begun to voice the reality of the daily toll racism takes on their lives and how it can impact their relationships. This is, in my mind, one of the greater positives to come out of both of these movements. When we can begin to alter not only the conversation between each other in intimate relationships, but within our selves, we have the potential for lasting change.

However. That was not the most significant part of the article for me. Orna Gurlick, the author of the article, says the biggest challenge in couples therapy is accepting the radical otherness of your partner. Oh. Yeah. What a thing to say in the context of therapy. And therapy in an intimate relationship, the ones where we know each other better than any other. Or so we like to think.

We are tiny universes, distinctive and self-motivating. Tal last night took us through the 5 questions of acting. Who are you? When and where are you?  What do you want, what gives you meaning? How do you get what you want? What will you do if you get it or don’t get it? The intent of the five questions is to help actors understand that their character must be understood in as fully complicated a way as our own Selves.

Radical otherness sits as close as the chair at the breakfast table or lies next to you in bed. That notion humbles me and excites me. There are aliens among us and we are one, too. At our best we live truthfully in the imaginary situation we create with all the other aliens in our lives. Something to ponder.

Acting, Art and Culture, Health, Hermitage, Shadow Mountain

Swole. Art.

Leave a comment

Beltane and the Mesa View Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Robin and Michele. More pruning and hanging of art. Leo. Luke. Sleep. Getting up on time. Chatbotgpt4. Mountain Streams. Water running free. Beaver Ponds. Park County #63. Burning Bear Trail. Marmosets in Staunton State Park. That young Moose Bull roaming around here. The Black Bears out of hibernation. Elk Calves and Mule Deer Fawns. The Great Wheel turns in the mountains.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: William Wordsworth

One brief shining: The treadmill, invented as a source of punishment in England I believe, has served me well these many years as a place to think, a place to watch movies, a place to keep my heart working at or near its healthiest, when I climb on my body knows its time to work, work hard and sweat, these bodies of ours they need, need, need to move.

 

Mondays. Wednesdays. Fridays. I’ve gotten back to my old routines. 130 minutes yesterday. Treadmill. Anytime on the machines. Prioritizing workouts now. Not seeing them as intrusions but as key components of my week, of my self care. Feeling stronger and healthier. Resting bpm down to 62. I’d love to get it below 60.

Anytime Fitness has the machines I feel better using for now. It also has a large carpeted area for free weights. Each time I go I sit on one of the machines the leg press, the leg curl, the leg extension, the shoulder press, the bicep curl, the chest fly and while I do, I watch the swole guys grunting, putting on weights in the 200 pound range. Then dropping them. Clank.

They seem pretty serious. As if the weights were some woke Antifa protesters they got their hands around at last. Probably stereotyping. There are too the more slender folks, women mostly but some men. I wonder what they train for. Up here it might be rock climbing, hiking, skiing, trail running, mountain biking.

Humans come in many sizes with varying motivations for all that they do.

 

Today Robin and Michele come. More closets cleaned out. A pile of unused sweaters on a chair. Old pillows and sheets from our queen sized bed no longer needed. Same for duvets. Some tech to go. Like that internet radio. Never could make it work right. Found four more pairs of jeans I didn’t know I had. Some winter wear that I’m saving. Keeping all the boots. The Sorels. The LL Bean duckies. The new, lighter Snow boots. Cleared out old tennis shoes. More quilting books. A monitor.

If we have time, we’ll work on the storage beneath the benches that Jon built. I don’t even know what’s in there.

Top priority though is hanging art. Retrieving some from the loft, other spots. I have most of it already placed. But there’s more I want to get down. Looking forward to this. Next up after this is reupholstering the couch. I also want to get a company out here to deep clean all my tile floors and rugs. And, maybe, somebody to clean the windows, too. Finishing touches to two years of work.

 

First character study acting class tonight. Tal at CBE. A busy day. Gotta make sure I eat.

Acting, Art and Culture, Asia, Bees, Commentary on Religion, Cooking, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Fungi, Garden, GeekWorld, Great Wheel, Great Work, Hawai'i, Health, Hermitage, Humanities, Judaism, Kabbalah, Korea, Latin, Letters, Literature, Mountains, Mussar, Painting, Photography, Plants, Poetry, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Science, Shadow Mountain, Sierra Club, Sport, Tarot, Tea, The West, Travel, Weather +Climate, Woolly Mammoths, Writing

Entheos

Leave a comment

Beltane and the Mesa View Moon

Monday gratefuls: Curiosity. The Ancient Brothers. Mark and Dennis. Coming May 23rd. Yet more Rain. Even more swollen Streams. Ancientrails as a life project. Tom and his time with Charlie H. Bill and his time with Bella. Mark and his time at the gym. Anytime Fitness. My treadmill. Marilyn. Ginnie. Josh. Jane. Kat. A banker. Vulcan Centaur.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rocket Scientists

One brief shining: A beautiful woman with a long braid dangling over her t-shirt down to her space themed spandex had, on the back of the blue t-shirt an outline of the Vulcan Centaur rocket, on the front ULA and I asked, I’m too ignorant to know but is that a real rocket ship?

 

Yes. She answered. And I was working on it until I quit my job a year and a half ago. What was your area of expertise? Vibration and acoustics. Oh. I see. Not sure why I keep running into engineers. But I do.

CBE is amazing. All these smart people. This was at the Dismantling Racism class yesterday afternoon. Looked up the Vulcan Centaur and it’s been under development since 2014. Supposed to fly for the first time in July. Had a setback a month ago though with a second stage explosion during preparation for a launch.

The class has gotten better. Taking a mussar approach to the work. I like it for the inner work though I chose an opponent for my practice this week. Four areas of possible practice each week: with HaShem (God), with Self, with a fellow, especially a victim of anti-black racism, or with an opponent.

My practice involved an e-mail to a person with whom I’ve had long standing differences. Sent it last night and got a reply this morning. A sweet one. Maybe there’s something to this approach. The middah this week is kavod, or honor. Honoring self and other. The theological idea is the all made in God’s image trope. Said another way, we’re all human, all riding this blue spaceship our only home together with all the other critters and plants. Honor it all.

 

During the Ancient Brothers session on curiosity I identified curiosity as my defining characteristic. And naming what I call the valedictory lifestyle. As a valedictorian myself I’ve occasionally become curious (see!) about what happens to others who graduate first in their class academically. Turns out usually nothing spectacular. Sure a lot go into academics. Some have successful careers in business or the sciences.

But usually no stars. No one off achievements. No amazing inventions. Why? Because we’re generalists. We easily get sidetracked by something new and shiny. If purity of heart is to will one thing, we’re not at all pure.

I call them enthusiasms. My enthusiasms can last a long time. Religion has turned out to be the longest lasting, but inside that broad category I’ve been all over the place. From existentialist atheist to Christian to Unitarian-Universalist to Pagan and wanderer with the tribe. There’s a piece of each of these, often substantial pieces that remain intact within me. All somehow glued together with Taoism.

There’ve been many others. Art, my twelve years at the MIA. Politics, lasting almost as long as religion, but again all over the place in terms of action. Islam which I studied after 9/11. Horticulture. Cooking. Heating with wood. Beekeeping. Dogs. World travel. F1. Science. Tarot and Astrology. Cinema. Acting. Writing. Getting degrees. Tea. Korean and now Spanish. Oh, and one that actually has been lifelong, reading. Not sure when I learned but I’ve never ever stopped. Buying books, too. To feed the habit. I’ve dabbled in painting and sum-e.

Enthusiasms in my life are more than dabbling but less than enough to gain full mastery. But I must admit it’s been, is being, a hell of lot of fun.

 

 

 

 

Colorado, Great Wheel, Jefferson County, Mountains, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate, World History

So it has been and so it shall be

Leave a comment

Beltane and the Mesa View Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Rain. Rain. Rain. Floods. Full Creeks and Streams. The greening of the Mountains. Can allergies be far behind? Rebecca. Joann. Tal. Dismantling Racism from the Inside Out. Marilyn and Jamie. My son and his wife. Murdoch. Getting on a jet plane. For the Far East. Today. The World in all its distinctiveness and all its connectedness. All my relations.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ancientrails

One brief shining: Snow packs, Rains pound, from the top of Shadow Mountain, of Black Mountain, of Conifer Mountain, of Berrigan Mountain the Sun shines and melts the Snow, the Rain accelerates the melt and the Streams, Maxwell Creek, Cub Creek, Shadow Brook, North Turkey Creek, Kate’s Creek, flood spilling over into wetlands, high marsh grasses welcoming their abundance as they roll on into Bear Creek, widening its banks, carrying Soil and Pebbles and Rocks on their way to the North Fork of the South Platte and on to the great World Ocean.

 

In media deluge. We’ve had Snow and we’ve had Rain. And the Rains will come again. Tonight. Tomorrow night. And the night after that. And the night after that. Keeping that Smoky the Bear sign pegged right where we want it: Low fire danger. Mostly good news. The not so good part is that Rain promotes greening. Grasses. Flowers. Shrubs. Plants considered out of place, i.e. Weeds. As long as they remain green. Fine. But once the Rains dry up and they turn brown.

Driving down to Evergreen the other day I had trouble keeping my eyes on the road as I looked over to Maxwell Creek which drains the northwestern Slopes of Shadow Mountain. Muddy and full, it rippled and raged where it didn’t pool in grassy areas alongside it. The strange mix of culverts some concrete, some ribbed metal, some made of rock both hid and revealed the power of the water.

Noticing a particular culvert, a one piece concrete structure with a rhomboid opening maybe 5 feet high, I saw Maxwell race through it in a torrent, spilling out of the opening in a manmade waterfall. The creek itself was only a foot deep at the most. The rest of the height serving to support a bridge for the property above it.

At various points formerly dry Grasslands now served as basins for an expanded Creek. Functioning ecosystems taking some of the  Water’s power and distributing it over a wider area, taking also some of the particulates and building the Marsh. The unleashed force diminished for a bit.

Orogeny. Geology speak for Mountain building. These Mountain Streams are its opposite. The deconstructive forces of Pachamama, sending nourishment to Deltas far away from our spot here on Shadow Mountain.

Alan Watt wrote Tao: The Watercourse Way. Driving up here in these late Spring days the Tao is not invisible. It is palpable. The water goes where it can, goes where it must, and if blocked will work to unblock itself without losing hope or purpose.

Taoism remains the most salient way of understanding our place in the World, this one life we get as this consciousness. For me. Our lives are Water Courses racing down the days and weeks and months and years toward the Collective Unconscious, the Ocean of All Souls. Along the way we go where we can, we go where we must and, if blocked we work to unblock ourselves.

Each of us a Stream running down the Mountain that is this Reality in this spot of the Universe, taking bits and pieces of it along with us to enrich Deltas far away and out of sight. So it has been and so it shall be.

Acting, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism, Korea, Sport, Travel

The Resistance

Leave a comment

Beltane and the Mesa View Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Aspen Perks. A sunny Morning. Yet more Rain last night. Flood warnings. The merry, merry month of May. Mary’s end of semester Bark Day complete with food delivering robots. Mark’s good experience in Saudi Arabia. Alan. Parkside. 4 hours plus of workouts this week. Resistance back on. Pruning and art and bills today.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Breakfast this morning at Aspen Perks

One brief shining: Old enthusiasms never realized (so far) include hiking the Appalachian Trail, visiting the Rub Al-Kahli, exploring the Olduvai Gorge, seeing places remote and mysterious like the Amazon, the Veldt, the Outback, Shark’s Bay where the Stromatolites still live, Bhutan, places where humanity has to realize its place in the vast blooming, buzzing reality of wild nature.

 

Speaking up for the resistance. Resistance workouts. Now two weeks into my Anytime Fitness solution to resisting resistance. Feel better. Much better. With only two weeks!

Though I originally went with the idea of working my way back to my own equipment, I find the gym is another connection point with people. Brief and not deep, but real nonetheless. Dave, the manage. Doug Doverspike, the vet who took care of Kep. The recovering alcoholic. Over time I’ll see regulars, too. May keep going there at least until the winter. Then I might pick up on my own again. Anytime is ten minutes from home.

 

Breakfast with Alan at the Parkside. He’s currently acting in Zorro! The director recruited him for his role as the deposed Alcalde of 1809 Los Angeles. I admire his chutzpah, taking up the theater at 68. Voice lessons. Acting lessons. Directing lessons. He’s focused on acting though he does other things, too. Rotary and general tech and finance guy for CBE. Alan and I have a strong bond now. An essential part of my Mountain life. As with Marilyn and Irv. Tara. Rebecca. CBE. Jamie and Ron and Susan.

Speaking of acting. I’m returning to Tal’s acting classes which start this next week. This time it’s character study. Joann Greenberg will be in the class. Alan might join. I still have little interest in acting in a production, but I love the classes. They challenge me, make me work a different part of my heart-brain. Plus I meet new people.

 

This is my son and his wife’s last weekend on Oahu. Monday they crate up Murdoch and head to Inouye International for a flight to Incheon. Four years. I’m happy he’s got a command position and that she will be closer to family. We’ll use zoom and I’ll visit them. Murdoch will be close to genetic home ground, too.

 

How bout those Nuggets, eh? Jokic is the real deal. One of the all time greats. I’ve gotta get down the hill to see him play before his career is over. They could win the NBA this year. We’ll see. Western Finals are next.

 

Also, how bout that default? Playing chicken with the U.S. economy. Add this to Trump’s outstandingly awful, yet consistent, performance on CNN and the GOP should be on its last legs. Should be. Who knows what happens next year.

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Fungi

Calligraphic Therapy

Leave a comment

Beltane and the Mesa View Moon

Friday gratefuls: Alan. Good sleeping. A cool night. A not so great day. Psilocybin mistake. Diane. Ecuador. Rom-coms. My son and his wife, their last days in Hawai’i. For now. Snow! Crazy Rich Asians, second viewing. Anytime Fitness. Lowering my bpm. The Thousand Nights and One Nights. A reread.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Learning from mistakes

One brief shining: Drove home in the rain Wednesday night, memories of the humid Midwest splashed up, an uncommon Colorado experience which the next morning turned to big, fat flakes of oh no Snow, tired of the Snow and the cold, unusual for me, watered down my mood.

 

Calligraphic therapy. My favorite mode these days. And, a good one. There it was, in that sentence. I allowed the Snow, which I cherish, to give me a hit, a slap of too much as if Pachamama had decided to make me feel bad by adding one more day of Snow when I wanted warm weather. I doubled down on the disgruntlement when I took a microdose of psilocybin. Set and setting.

Not my intention, but certainly the result. As the day went on I went more inward, didn’t engage my usual coping skills. I could have, for example, done a couple of rounds of how do I feel? Instead I went on a sleepy sad path for about half of the day. Including a two hour nap. Not a joyful morning or early afternoon.

Felt especially sheepish about this since I’d had the wonderful experience Wednesday focusing on joy. I mean, gee…

A lesson. Set and setting. Are as important as the Michael Pollan book, How To Change Your Mind, suggests. I will not take psilocybin unless the set and setting offer the promise of a fruitful and joyful journey. Not blaming the mushrooms. My choice, made with insufficient awareness.

Also Thursday is not an exercise day. MWF. No mood lifter there. No people since I slept through Thursday mussar. Altogether a rum day.

 

Friday morning, this morning. Resurrected. A new life for this soul. Ready to take a drive to Evergreen for breakfast with Alan. Pick up some more bread. Maybe shop at the Evergreen Market. Come back and hit the treadmill, then over to Anytime Fitness. I’m up to 10 reps on all the machines, lower and upper body. Next week, two sets.

I now see each day as a new life. A rebirth after a passage through the small death of sleep. Not an original idea. But one of recent lodging in my psyche.

We only ever have this day, this hour, this minute, this second. This is the first time I’ve been alive on Friday May 12th 2023 at 7:43 am. What will I do with this one wild and precious day?

Not wallow in yesterday. Not reach for Saturday. Instead I’ll enjoy this session of writing Ancientrails. Get dressed for breakfast with Alan. Let the day flow. Perhaps some spontaneity. Who knows?

How do I feel? Overslept. How do I feel? Bemused. How do I feel? Sad. How do I feel? Like laughing. How do I feel? Ready. For this day. This life. This moment.

 

 

 

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Mussar

Joy. Joy. Joy.

Leave a comment

Beltane and the Mesa View Moon

Thursday gratefuls: MVP. Simcha. Joy. The laughter and learning around the table last night. Going to one more CBE event this month. Snow! 33 degrees. Heavy rain last night. A solid workout yesterday. Cardio and resistance. Feeling good, in my body. Connection. Relationships. Nature. Self. Dogs. Animals. Citrus salad. Mark’s desert Pigeon. The real true desert outside his hotel window.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Joy. Joy. Joy.

One brief shining: Sometimes, once in a while, if the fates are kind, an evening turns from ordinary learning into a festival, a celebration of what it means to be human, to see into each other’s lives and learn in real time what throbs in the heart of another.

 

Last night was such a night at CBE. It was my turn to lead the MVP group, a monthly mussar evening. Simcha was the middah, the character trait we focused on both in MVP and the congregation as a whole. Simcha means joy.

I asked everybody to find two or three photographs that evoked joy for them. We wrote five minutes about them, then dove into what everyone wanted. Adult show and tell.

Pictures of siblings. Pictures of children at play. Pictures outside in the Mountains. Pictures of Dogs. Of family meals, of ourselves as children. Of parents being happy. Of survival.

We laughed. Smiled. Nodded. I asked how the photographs evoked joy. The connections. With our past. With relationships that held and hold deep meaning. A moment of being one with the Mountains. The profound love of Dogs. At a breast cancer walk. The Self in a moment of ecstasy. A life transforming moment. Play.

We pulled out of them connections, relationships, nature, and play as core components of what evoked joy for us in these pictures.

Then we moved on, as we do each month, to defining a practice. A practice is a measurable way we can increase the middah of the month in our life. One of us will set the sweet picture of young grandchildren on the ledge beside her computer and see it everyday. Another made a joy folder out of pictures from his favorites, set it to music and had the photo app sift through 25 or so in a creative way. He plans to see it first thing in the morning. Another will find joy in the moment instead of looking for a future time when joy will come. Yet another chose to remind herself of her natural, joyful reaction to events in her life and not let other emotions dominate that. I acknowledged finding joy with others and will attend one more event at CBE over the next month. (No, I am not turning in my introvert merit badge. I’ve earned it. I am saying yes to the joy I feel in the presence of others as well.)

I added something, something joyful, to folks lives last night. Felt really good. There’s life in this old man yet. What I mean by that is that I felt some of the juice from days of yesteryear. Leading by consensus, taking a group from one place to another and having everyone part of the movement. And feeling good about it.