Monthly Archives: November 2023

Health, Judaism

Cancer Dancer

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Samain and the Choice Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Dr. Eigner. Retiring. Testosterone. Rising. Thanksgiving. Urban Farmer. Ruth and Gabe. Tomorrow. Tom. Diane. Alan and Joan. Today. Rabbi Jamie. Tonight. Mezuzahs. Learning the shema in Hebrew. Snow. Driving Mountain roads in Snow. 76. Mountain life. Wild Neighbors. Adapted to the Snow and cold. Humans, in our artifice. Vince and his girls. Fixing the strip in the lower level.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Good medical care

One brief shining: Not often, no, but yesterday hunger rumbled my stomach as I drove to my appointment with Dr. Eigner, the last one, and I pulled into Wendy’s, got a Dave’s single and a chocolate frosty, finished the hamburger in the car before I went inside, the frosty when I came back to the car. Not my preference, but. Fast. Food.

 

Dr. Eigner walked in looking fit. You’ve seen your numbers? Yes. They’re good! He’s always cheerful at any apparent good news.

PSA .04. Undetectable. Testosterone. 31. You see your testosterone is increasing? Yes. The good news is you’ll have more energy, gain some muscle, maybe some weight. (I don’t want to gain any weight.)

And, the bad news is that the cancer has food. How long will it take for my PSA to go back up? When do you treat me again?

Great question! The question. And I won’t answer it.

Oh.

Because there are three variables. How high is your testosterone? How much did the PSA increase and how long did it take to get there. So. If we said we’d treat you at 2 and your PSA stayed at 1.9 for three years, then went up to 2? We wouldn’t treat you because it took a long while to there. If, on the other hand, you come in next time and your PSA has increased to .4? We’ll probably treat you.

With what?

Orgovyx and Erleada. The same ones you were on.

Well, I guess this is good-bye.

Yes. I wish we hadn’t met, better for you. But since we did, I’ve appreciated the time I’ve known you. You’re a good man, Charlie.

You, too, Dr. Eigner.

I now understand this dance. With advanced prostate cancer the idea is off the drugs until the cancer recovers, then back on them or something new that’s come on line. Thus, cancer as a chronic disease. A new world for cancer patients. Living with the disease rather than dying from it. As long as possible. Kathy. Diane. Judy for five years. Mike. Dave. People I know.

 

Breakfast with Alan and Joan this morning. Rabbi Jamie comes tonight to hang the mezuzahs. I’m going to get a cheese pizza. He eats eco-kashrut.* Doubt I’ll get there though I get it and it would be better for me.

Looking forward to having these markers of my added identity put up. I like the way they honor the concept of thresholds and liminal places, reminding me to make going out and coming in a sacred moment.

Gradually adding practices to reinforce and deepen my choice.

 

 

 

 

*Eco-Kashrut, also called the Eco-Kosher movement, is a movement to extend the Kashrut system, or Jewish dietary laws, to address modern environmental, social, and ethical issues, and promote sustainability.[1]

This movement began in the 1970s among American Reconstructionist Jews, and eco-kashrut or eco-kosher approaches enjoyed a resurgence in the 1990s with the work of Reconstructionist rabbi, author, and activist Arthur Waskow. A third wave of the eco-kashrut or eco-kosher movement began in the mid-2000s, spurred on in part by a series of kosher production facility scandals.[2]

…More recently the movement has been championed by other Kosher-keeping Jews who strive to eat only food that has been ethically and sustainably produced, and ideally, locally sourced.[6] Eco-Kashrut also finds expression in the sharing of sustainable shabbat meals.  wiki

 

GeekWorld, Judaism, Wild Neighbors

The Animal Shall not be Measured by Man (sic)

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Samain and the Choice Moon

Monday gratefuls: Snow. Cool night. Gray-white Sky as Snowflakes glide past the Lodgepoles. The three Mule Deer Bucks in the yard yesterday. One with a magnificent rack. Thanksgiving week. Urban Farmer. Ruth and her new (to her) Subaru. Gabe. Mia who calls me grandpa. Mezuzah hanging tomorrow. The Iliad. Hector and Paris and Menelaus. Helen. Agamemnon. Ajax. Odysseus. Achilles. Troy. Reading. Sangfroid. Veronica. The mikveh. Canceling Starlink.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Snow

One brief shining: On Snowy days I’ll load a fire in the fireplace, get a cup of coffee, and pick up the current book, right now the Iliad, and take off into the world of Troy, of men who lived for war, of women so beautiful they were worth fighting and dying for, of the wine-dark sea and the rage of Achilles.

 

No more Starlink. In my reason for cancellation I quoted Musk’s comment on X.* Back to DSL and Centurylink.

 

Those three Mule Deer Bucks in the back yard yesterday reminded me of the three who greeted me on Samain 2014. I had come to Colorado for the closing. They were in the back, like these three, grazing calmly. I walked out of the lower level, not sure what to expect. I was brand new to the Mountains. We stayed a respectful distance from each other while staring intently into each others eyes. After a few minutes, we broke off. They returned to grazing and I went back inside. Altered.

As I reflected on it later, and as I’ve said, I came to believe they were three Mountain spirits come to greet me, say it was all right for me to live here. That began my ongoing experience of my Wild Neighbors, of their world in which I’m just passing through. They come and go on their own schedules, according to their own needs and desires. Sometimes I am fortunate enough to see them, usually not.

I’ll finish today with a quote that if I ever had a tombstone big enough I’d want to include on mine.

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

 

*”An X post Wednesday afternoon said: “Jewish communties (sic) have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.” The post also referenced “hordes of minorities” flooding Western countries, a popular antisemitic conspiracy theory.

In response, Musk said: “You have said the actual truth.”” CNN.com

Judaism

A Jewish Home

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Samain and the Choice Moon

Sunday gratefuls: The Ancient Brothers. Sangfroid or not. All those happy for my choice of Judaism. Rabbi Jamie. CBE. The power of community and friendship. Beit din. A drop of blood. Mikveh. A deep sense of belonging. Darkness. Orion. Pleiades. Hercules. The Great Square. The Great Bear. Polaris. Sirius. Rigel. Vega. Kep. Gertie. Kate, my beloved. A cold night.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Studying the parsha for the week

One brief shining: Part way to celebrating the sabbath yesterday after attending services Friday night; I stayed home, read Genesis: 25:19 to 28:9 about Isaac, Esau, Jacob, Rebekah-the birthright gained by manipulation and a patriarchal blessing by deceit-then a fascinating commentary on it by Avivah Zornberg, made it till three in the afternoon with eating, reading, working out, reflecting, then I turned on the TV. Too much seriousness.

 

Don’t have the right mix yet for the sabbath. A day of rest, of focusing on family, spirituality, learning, pleasure. I find the traditional restrictions too narrow, my own too broad. I’ve wanted to observe the sabbath since seminary. Yes, the Jewish sabbath. Even then. Just never found the traction for it in my weeks and months. With the prod of becoming Jewish I now have a considerable impetus.

Rabbi Jamie asked me during our session on the Jewish life cycle how I planned to create a Jewish household. I’m no longer married, raising no children, not working. Not the usual context for starting a Jewish home, he said. He’s right, of course. I do have ideas though.

On Tuesday evening Jamie’s coming over to hang two mezuzahs, my front door and the door I use most going to the garage. That’s a start. My Jewish identity will be visible to me and to others who come to my house. I have ordered a set of candle holders since I also plan to light the sabbath candles which mark the beginning of the sabbath on Friday night. If I can figure out how to get a loaf of challah or an equivalent, I will have it, too.

I’m already saying the Shema when I go to bed and when I wake up. Though. The wording is still not quite what I want. Since I’m not a theist. Working on this.

The grandkids and I celebrate Hanukah together. There is that electric Menorah that Kate and I have put in our front window since our marriage. I’ve continued that. I doubt I’ll ever do a Seder though. Other ideas will occur to me.

I plan to observe the sabbath, the full day, but before I do I have to reconstruct it so it makes sense to me and fits into my life. I have some resources on the way and of course there’s always Rabbi Jamie. Part of the sabbath is attending Friday night services which I have long avoided. Not anymore. As often as possible, I’ll start the sabbath at the synagogue.

Though not part of creating a Jewish home, I do have other observances. Except. Not sure I’ll go to the High Holy Days. They seem, I don’t know, too stiff. Too long. The month of Ellul, which precedes them though, a month of self-reflection, yes. Sukkot, Simcah Torah, Passover, Tu B’shvat, Purim, Shavout. For sure. Yam Hashoah, important for historical memory. There are others.

Of course, my mussar classes, seeing my friends, staying in touch with the lives of those I’ve come to love at CBE.

Feelings, Mountains, Plants, Wild Neighbors

The Forest after dark

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Samain and the Choice Moon

Saturday gratefuls: The Blues Shabbat. Ron and Jamie, the Blues Brothers. Veronica. The oneg. Thanksgiving. The Forest at night. Orion. The Pleiades. Scorpio. The night Sky on Shadow Mountain. The half crescent Choice Moon. Driving at night. Tara helping me get ready for my aliyah on December 1st. The torah blessings. Alan and Adrian. Helen. Evergreen at night. Israel ben Abraham and Sarah. Word to Deed today on prayer. Studying the Parsha. Making a sabbath.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Orion rising

One brief shining: At the service last night Elizabeth announced Veronica and I would sponsor the oneg (after service food and drinks) on December 1st, people turned and smiled, greeted us afterward with genuine joy, reeling us both in closer.

 

Last night I drove home from the Blues Shabbat, which was wonderful. Back up Brook Forest Drive which becomes Black Mountain Drive. A fat crescent moon hung in the southern Sky, stars twinkled, coming into sight and disappearing among the trees of the Arapaho National Forest.

Two different realms. The daytime Forest and the nighttime Forest. We diurnal animals can navigate the Forest with relative ease during the day. Rocks and Trees, Valleys and Creeks. A trail going up or down. If there’s Snow or Ice, we can plan how we want to approach it. Or, turn back. The colors of the Grass, the Trees, the Granite and Gneiss show up. Green Grass or dead Grass, dusty brown, reddish bark, the gray of Boulders and other Outcroppings of Rock. We can cross the Creek on the fallen Tree, or those hopefully not too slippery Rocks.

At night? Not so much. Our eyes, like all diurnal animals, gather light, but not as efficiently as nocturnal animal eyes. Our body temperature tends to be lower since we have the heat of the day. We sleep at night while the nocturnal animals sleep, or rest, most during the day. Nocturnal animals’ senses of smell and hearing also tend to be more acute that us day lovers.

The Forest at night for a diurnal animal. Not our world. Even when our eyes adjust to the dark we don’t see well. Much more likely to trip, run into something, miss the patch of Ice or deep Snow. Nocturnal Predators have the upper hand over diurnal animals once darkness falls.

As a result, when I drive through the night time Forest, an atavistic fear or at least caution arises as I imagine myself having to make my way through that dark landscape. Vulnerable. Uncertain. Certain species memories arise from the collective unconscious saying beware, there may be monsters. Not difficult to see how folks of say, the Middle Ages, created folk tales and legends around the Black Forest, Sherwood Forest, or even the Big Woods that used to stretch from the East coast to the Midwest.

That’s in part why the Bull Elk I saw in the Rain and at night had such a powerful effect on me. He roamed the night time Forest, had a presence there I could not imagine.

 

Denver, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism

A bit more on choosing Judaism

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Samain and the Choice Moon

Friday gratefuls: Alan. Tara. Joann. Rabbi Jamie. Mezuzah hanging. Spiritual autobiography. Beit din. A drop of blood. Three immersions in the mikveh. Luke 4:18-19. The Devil. The crossroads. Robert Johnson. John Lee Hooker. BB King. Muddy Waters. Howlin’ Wolf. Etta James. Billie Holiday. Strange Fruit. Racial justice. The South. The West. The Midwest. The East. The United States of America. Democracy. Its enemies in our midst. Its champions. The old pale males.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Immersion in the mikveh

One brief shining: Check your doorframes, are they wood or metal, I’ll need a hammer, nails or screws, we’ll talk about thresholds and liminal spaces, going out and coming in, there’s a prayer, we’ll get the mezuzah’s hung.

 

 

                              On Tuesday morning the 28th of November. At Temple Emanuel in Denver. Its mikveh.

 

 

A bit more on the ritual of becoming a Jew. The beit din, court of judgment, takes about 40 minutes. The three people involved Rabbi Jamie, Joan Greenberg, and a second rabbi read a spiritual autobiography I’m in the process of writing. At the court they ask questions of me based on it and on my awareness of matters Jewish. They confer, make a decision about admitting me to the tribe. After that a drop of blood from my private parts. Then, the mikveh.

Three immersions. The first one, with all body parts in the water. Floating, feet off the bottom, fingers spread. Water needs to touch all exposed flesh. After the first immersion, I’m a Jew. The second immersion is one I have to do as a Jew because it is a commandment that I didn’t have to follow until the first immersion. A prayer is said. Then, the third immersion. I repeat the Shema. Dry off. Get dressed.

A naming ceremony. I have chosen Israel for my Hebrew name. It means struggles with God which names my inner life. It is also the name Jacob gets after wrestling the angel at the Jabbok Ford, the parsha I chose. I will be given my Hebrew name which will be Israel ben Abraham and Sarah. All Jews by choice have Abraham and Sarah as their direct Jewish ancestors.

Walk out with a new name and an old community now different for me. I will be a part of it forever and a day.

A big morning.

Appropriate to the Shema which starts with Listen, Israel, I have a 1 pm appointment with my audiologist that day, too.

I’m excited and happy. Can’t say why but I feel I’m stepping into a civilization, a culture into which I fit and which fits me. Never intended to do anything like this again. Ever. Yet here I am.

Veronica Grunig will go through the ritual the same morning. We’re sponsoring an oneg, an after service celebration on December 1st. We will also get called up during the service to hold the Torah for the first time and lead the congregation in prayer. This is an aliyah, an honor available only to Jews.

 

 

 

 

Humanities, Judaism, Literature, Politics

Dissonance and the Classics

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Samain and the Choice Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Echocardiograms. Dilation and dysfunction. PSA not there. Testosterone still low. Medicine. A nuisance until it’s not. Early trauma. Myth of Normal. Tom. Diane. Mark and Mary. Computers. This old desktop. The laptop. The phone. Starlink. Brother laserjet. This digital life. Zoom. The internet. Chatbotgpt. AI. Altitude and Tea. Weak Tea. Mary for p.t. today. Mussar. Pamela. BJ. Sarah. Anne. Jewish life cycle with Rabbi Jamie today.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Pamela

One brief shining: Put filtered water in my red Tea kettle, pushed the button for P-power on the induction stove, waited until the whistle, poured boiling water over a tea bag given to me by Diane and Dan in Korea, took it upstairs in my World’s Best Grandpa cup, and drank a weak and almost unidentifiable beverage because altitude boiling sucks.

 

Went to Jackie’s for a cut and a beard trim. It was dark! 5:30 pm. First time I’ve ever had a haircut after dark in 76 years. That Jackie. A sweetheart. She always gives me a hug and says she loves me. Ronda, too. Extended community that makes life rich, buoyant. The Mountains. A special place. Kate introduced me to Jackie.

 

Online discussion of Israel-Hamas war last night at CBE. By turns tedious, sad, boring, infuriating. No new light. The grind of a nation acting out, a nation we feel identified with and in some inchoate way responsible for. The awful news of casualties in the thousands. Pictures of Palestinians picking through yet another building reduced to rubble by Israeli airstrikes. Still smoldering anger at the murderous invasion which killed Israeli’s in their beds. Now watching Israel do the same. Over and over. The history. The Nakba, the catastrophe. First with the Jews fleeing pogroms in Russia at the turn of 19th century. Then in 1948 with the foundation of Israel. Palestinians feeling or actually displaced by Jews moving onto land they occupied. Jews feeling safe for once. A place a Jew can go and feel secure. At last. At long last. The might of Israel ensuring that safety and security. Then its discordant use for slaying thousands in the name of defeating Hamas. All bad news.

At the same time contemplating my choosing Judaism, my ritual on the 28th. Becoming an intimate part of this whole reality. What I want. I already feel the anguished split between love of Israel and justice for the Palestinians. Both, yes. Both. Without compromise. With liberty and justice for all. Now.

 

Enjoying a re-immersion in the classics. Started Fagles’ Iliad yesterday. Achilles. Agamemnon. Ajax. Patroclus. Odysseus. Troy. Priam. Hector. Helen. Menelaus. Hollow-ships and the wine-dark Sea. Ordered a hardback copy of Moby Dick. After the Iliad. May reread the Divine Comedy after that. I love these stories, their ability to challenge expectations, hold up and put down characters, run fast and hard, then calm down.

My reading chairs have different roles. Upstairs by the fireplace I read what I consider serious books. The classics, yes, but works on Judaism, philosophy, non-fiction. Downstairs by the wonderful map of the Island of Hawai’i that Kate got me I read non-literary fiction like Jack Reacher, Joe Pickett, and my current jag, a series about a land of fairies and high fae.

 

 

Art and Culture, Health

Missing Art

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Samain and the Choice Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Choosing Judaism. Nov. 28th. Temple Emmanuel. Mikveh. Beit din. Blood letting. Rabbi Jamie. Mezuzah hanging Nov. 21. CBE. Luke. Feeling better. Leo. And his friend the Corgi puppy. Gracie, Anne’s dog. Marilyn and Irv’s Australian Shepherds. Kippur, Rich’s new dog. Kep. My sweet boy. And Kate. Always her. Rembrandt’s Lucretia. Goya’s Dr. Arrieta. Beckmann’s Blind Man’s Buff. Kandinsky. Bacon. Close. Augustine. Aquinas. Chardin. Tillich. Whitehead. Evans-Wentz.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Blind Man’s Buff

One brief shining: Missing this morning access to the Art Institute, those hallways filled with art become good friends, relationships that repaid frequent visits with new insights: Goya gripping the sheet as Dr. Arrieta treated him, Lucretia bloodied by her own hand after being raped, the tall red figure with flowing yellow hair in the Kandinsky, new acquisitions, new shows being installed.

 

On the personal health front. Yet again. My first labs after stopping all treatment for prostate cancer. Undetectable PSA! Still rock bottom low testosterone. Good news. And the echocardiogram. Nothing serious as near as I can tell from the report. Dr. Gonzalez will let me know.

Back to normal. Do back exercises. Workout. Try to eat right. Maintain low stress levels. See friends. Write. Read. Sleep. Repeat. All calm here.

Goya, Self Portrait with Dr. Arrieta, 1820         Minneapolis Art Institute

As you might have noticed, I’ve felt nostalgic this last few days for my time as a docent at the MIA, the Minneapolis Art Institute. Art occupied an important spot in my life before my twelve years at the museum and only became more important during that time. I grew to understand and appreciate a much broader range of artistic expression across many different cultures and time periods. What a lucky dude I was to have that experience.

I’ve been a sort of Twin City’s snob here in Colorado. The Denver Post is not a good paper. I really don’t think it is, but when Marilyn told me she wrote for it, I backtracked, owning prejudice. Not that the Star-Tribune is a Des Moines Register or New York Times, but still… Also, the art scene here. Especially the Denver Art Museum. Not an encyclopedic museum. Stuff hung poorly. Bah. Humbug. No Guthrie or Children’s Theater. No St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Also, further in to any of these things from Conifer than from Andover.

Result? I’ve let my art world experiences wither. An important part of my life gone. Want to remedy that. Not the Denver Post. But the DAM. Live theater. Jazz. Which is quite good here. Means scheduling time to go and actually going. A bit harder solo, but not much. I don’t mind night driving. I don’t like it, but I’m not impaired. I have the money, the time. And, the art world I can visit during the day. Maybe schedule an art day a month? Something like that.

Ever since I quit the MIA because the docent role had changed and not to my liking, I’ve had this feeling. Now almost eleven years, perhaps a bit more. Time to wrassle this bear to the ground.

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health

I call bullshit

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Samain and the Choice Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: My son. Jon’s estate. Probate. Still not over. Good sleep. Luke. Tarot. Astrology. Jamie. CBE. Becoming a Jew by choice. Israel. Hamas. Gaza. War. Peace. Gravity. Epigenetics. Genetics. A Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Angels in America. Oedipus. The Bacchae. Jason and the Argonauts. Odysseus. Telemachus. Penelope. Eumaeus. Jesus. Paul. Luke. Mark. Matthew. John. Moses. Abraham. Isaac. The angel at the Jabbok Ford. Struggle. Revelation. A calm heart, a clear mind. Palestine. The Nakba.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: My son as Jon’s probate representative

One brief shining: Jon died over a year ago, his ashes remain in a plastic box on a shelf here in my study, his retirement account and mutual fund account still frozen by his death, messages flickering back and forth among my son, Jen, a financial advisor, and me the last details of a life cut short by angst and meth.

 

Colorado law on beneficiaries after a divorce. Complicated. Paper this and paper that required. Divorce decrees. Powers of Attorney. Copies of a pension plan document and a mutual fund document. Then decisions up the ladder in a financial affairs company. All will work out. In time. So. Many. Steps. My son, a saint for his brother whom he loved unconditionally.

Many twists and turns among the living. Those I know. Many. Late life gender transition. Brain bleeds. Illness. Joining a tribe. Monitor Lizards and Monkeys outside a Malaysian home. That white Camel Mark has befriended. APEC in San Francisco. Bringing the U.S./China tension close to home.

 

Call from my doc last night. All will be well, all manner of things will be well. Sort of. We’ll check my blood panel again in two months, ratchet down my Synthroid dose to 100 micrograms from 112. Echocardiogram today to check out that aorta and the walls of my heart. Had my blood drawn yesterday to check PSA and testosterone levels. Exercising. Sleeping well. You know. Old people stuff.

 

I push back against thinking young. I’m not young. I’m 76. I’m old. I want to think old in a healthy, vibrant way. I want to be who I am without needing to reclaim past eras of my life. Sure I have my medical issues. Most of us do at this age. Yet I get up each morning, write, eat breakfast. Go about my day as a man, an adult responsible for himself, his house, his relationships. I have assets that the younger me did not have and could not have. Stored knowledge. Experience of joy and grief with enough of both to know how to navigate them. With authenticity. Long friendships. Having lived long stretches in different places. Deepened inner knowledge.

No. I do not want to be young. Do not need to be young. I am me. At 76. This may seem like a trivial distinction but our culture, even some of the medical advice I see wants me to turn my gaze back toward my forties or my fifties, to imagine myself living as that man did. In that way we live longer, better. No. I live best by knowing who I am right now. And living my best life now. Other cultures, most cultures, have know this to be true, obvious. Revered the elderly. Ours tries to rip our wonderful reality out from under us in the name of long life or psychic well-being. I call bullshit.

 

Cinema and Television, Denver, Literature, Shadow Mountain

Movies and Moving

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Samain and the Conversion Moon

Monday gratefuls: Good sleep. Vikings win. My son and Seoah and Murdoch. Peace. War. Israel. Hamas. Public opinion of Israel. Anti-semitism. ADL. Taking sides. CBE. Luke. Tarot. Astrology. Purpose. Porpoise. Pronouns. Pamela. BJ. Sarah. Annie. Jerry. Whistler. Church. Group of Seven. The Yamantaka Mandala. Taoist influenced Chinese painting, especially the Song dynasty. Warhol. Brancusi. Seurat. Goya. El Greco. Art of all kinds. The world beyond and within us.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Odyssey, Homer

One brief shining: Yesterday in my chair Odysseus strung his bow, shot loud Antinous first, then more suitors for his Penelope’s hand while godlike Telemachus gathered armor and weapons for his father and the two steadfast herdsmen: shields, bronze helmets, sharp bronze swords and bronze tipped spears with which they slayed those suitors left alive.

 

Gotta gush again about Emily Wilson’s translation of the Odyssey. OMG. Like seeing the movie in my mind. So much there I may reread it after I read Fagle’s Iliad. What a story. That Homer. What a guy.

 

Purpose. As Tom reminded me. Burn away everything but love. That’s enough. Perhaps the mission of the fourth phase.

 

Talking movies. We talked yesterday about movies we like so much that we revisit them. Here’s my list: Wizard of Oz. Seventh Seal. The original Dracula, Wolfman, and Mummy. Casablanca. Black Orpheus. Seven Samurai. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I’m not big or rereading or reseeing so this was difficult for me. Though. I am right now engaged in rereading. And I want to find Fiddler on the Roof to rewatch it. Others mentioned: Dr. Zhivago. Sound of Music. Pulp Fiction. Rashomon. Monterey Pop. Woodstock. Newport Jazz Festival.  Star Wars, the first three. The Matrix. Many more. Got a phone call in the middle and missed a few.

Movies touch our hearts. Can change our lives.

 

Gradually reshelving the books I sorted out as keepers when I was still in full moving to Hawai’i mode. A year ago. Bending over and picking up things gives me fits because of my funky diaphragm and 8800 feet. A slow process. Need to get them all back up so I can have the loft cleaned and reorganized. Want to start painting again.

Although. As I do, I wonder about the latest matter scratching at my inner world. Alan’s been extolling the virtues of downtown living. And, through Cheri and other insurance friends making the point, the valid point I believe, that our insurance situation is going to get worse and worse. For those of us in the W.U.I. that is. As I think about that and my probable need at some point to make a move related to further aging or disease, a downtown condo doesn’t sound so bad.

So. I poked around on real estate websites and it looks like I could pick up a 2 bedroom condo right downtown for between four hundred and five hundred thousand. That’s roughly what I stand to make if I sell.  The purchase would avoid capital gains thanks to reinvesting in a new property. I could pay for it with cash. HOA fees are not cheap but they’re far less than my mortgage.

Trade-offs. Yes. My wild neighbors. Living at altitude. CBE easy access. My Mountain friends close by. My memories with Kate in this house. A house big enough for guests. And I like all the room. Over against. No wildfires. All on one level. Easy access to emergency medical care. Museums and restaurants and the State Capitol close by. Bookstores. Lots of places to walk. Jazz. Theaters.

Hmmmm.

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Great Wheel, Health, Holidays

Some Exercise, Some News, Some Celebrating

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Samain and the Summer’s End Moon (1% crescent)

Sunday gratefuls: The Wizard of Oz. The Seventh Seal. Wild Strawberries. Casablanca. Dracula. The Wolfman. Horror of Dracula. Seven Samurai. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Time the way it comes. Not by fiat. Wendell Berry. Rilke. Cold Mountain. Hokusai. Giotto. Tolstoy. Nabokov. Whitman. Frost. Wordsworth. Coleridge. Cezanne. Monet. Van Gogh. Rodin. 1001 Arabian Nights. The Odyssey. The Iliad. the Divine Comedy. Shadow Mountain. Downtown condos.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Feeling stronger

One brief shining: The treadmill comes to life, its broad rubber belt whirring on its neverending round, my tennis shoes hit it, again and again, my leg gets a hitch, muscles warmup and the morning’s workout has begun.

 

I’m beginning to dig myself out of the deconditioned hole I dug for myself over a long period of avoiding resistance work. I no longer feel weak, unable to do things. I’m stronger and less achy. Even my dingy left elbow seems to have improved. Three workouts a week, starting with resistance after a brief warmup on the treadmill. Then cardio afterwards. About 50 minutes total. This week I plan to go to three sets of resistance and one additional day of cardio only. My mantra has become, it’s worth it. And boy is it ever for me.

My mood also improves because moving sends those endorphins to the brain. Yeah. That’s part of it. Another bigger part is the tangible improvement in my day to day. Another significant contributor to an elevated mood? Knowing I’m taking care of myself. Put those three together and working out becomes worth it.

 

A week filled with news from folks I know. Paul’s brother, Joe Strickland, got removed from his episcopate. A long time acquaintance decided late in life to transition from male to female. Kate’s sister Anne had a brain bleed requiring a couple of holes in her head to reduce the swelling. Jerry had foot surgery. A friend had the first signals of getting old. Should he keep his keys? My boy and Seoah spent three days in Okgwa over a long Veteran’s day weekend. Diane mentioned San Francisco’s preparations for the APEC summit there this next week.

Life pulses, throws changes at us daily. We have a chance to be new each morning because the world is no longer the same as it was when we went to sleep. And, neither are we. That river Heraclitus mentioned. Ya know?

 

We’re getting close to my favorite period. Holimonth. When the temperate climates show the world what it takes ritually to survive four seasons. Thanksgiving. Advent. The Winter Solstice. Christmas. Yule. Kwanza. Divali. Hanukah. Gregorian New Year’s Day. The Posada. The Epiphany. It’s the best time of the year. For me at least.

We take a deep bath in the mythic world of God’s born in humble places, light driving out darkness, darkness triumphing over light, family, long pilgrimages and sudden awareness. Great music. Food. Entertainment. Seeing family and friends in a festive setting. When Holimonth’s over we can move into the next year reminded well and often of the amazing, the wonderful, the loving.