Monthly Archives: December 2023

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism

All We Can Absorb, Hear

Leave a comment

Samain and the Winter Solstice Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Phonak. Aimee. Mile High Hearing. Good workout. Luke and Leo. Leo’s food. Zornberg. Joseph and his brothers. The seven fat years and the seven lean years. Not-being. Catastrophe and hope. Parsha. Hanukah, night 5. Jeffco Snow plows. Trash pickup people. Mail carriers. Schoolbus drivers. Essential Mountain services. Dangerous jobs. Mountain Nights. Clear, clean, cold. A new moon. Pipe Creek. A Desert Eagle in Saudi Arabia. That Monitor Lizard in K.L.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Hearing

One brief shining: In the dark of tomorrow night the Geminids will appear, motes of dust flying through thick atmosphere, heating up, becoming meteorites, flashing across the sky in the universe primeval language of formation and destruction a reminder message to us all that our lives, our planet, our Great Sol will all burn out on some other starry night.

 

Hearing test next month. I suspect my hearing has declined. Missing things in conversations, can’t understand Gabe when he’s in the passenger seat and I’m driving. The Phonak gives me a relatively normal hearing experience, as good as I can get I imagine with only one good ear and that one on the wane. Even so. When I take out my hearing aid now, the world around me quiets way down. Good for reading, sleeping. Not so good if I forget to put in my hearing aid.

Jeff Glantz, of blessed memory, and I talked only once before his sudden death. He told me Long Island was a hundred miles long. That’s long. Not the point here though. Jeff’s hearing aid dangled out of his ear. Ever since that conversation I’ve been aware that the only thing we old folks need to look demented is our hearing aid dangling out of our ear.

Do we accept the changes of age or rail against them like Dylan wanted his father to do? Rage, rage, rage against the dying of the light. Or, perhaps the dying out of sound? There is a third option, the one I choose. Know the changes, do what you can to ameliorate them, accept what you can’t. Applies to hearing, sight, cancer, sarcopenia in my case.

 

The chaotic chatter of our time has grown, to continue from the above, deafening. Perhaps that’s what going on with my hearing. My brain no longer wants to absorb thoughts about a second Trump term (I can’t call it a presidency because, well…). About A23a floating its way toward South Georgia Island bearing 1 trillion tons of ice formerly resident in Antarctica. About the Israeli Defense Force bombing, shelling, shooting persons and buildings in the Gaza strip. About the Chinese wanting to wreak havoc with our infrastructure through cyber warfare. About Ukraine’s failed offensive. About the dysfunction of the House of Representatives and the Senate. About the many trials of the Orange one. About sexual abuse in women’s soccer and gymnastics.

Here’s what I want. A visit to the Rothko show in Paris. Rothko and me. Except, crowds and Covid. A midrashic hermeneutic for the Torah study group I’m starting. Breakfast at Primo’s tomorrow and at Aspen Perk’s on Friday. Marilyn and Irv, then Tara. Zoom time with Tom and Diane. My son and Seoah. More Snow for Shadow Mountain. Calm days for Ruth and Gabe. A gentle Winter with Snow and cold, flocked Lodgepoles and that very young Doe eating Grass in my front yesterday. Yet more books. Some good movies and TV. Quiet sabbaths unless filled with family and friends. Then noisy and upbeat.

Happy Hanukah!

Great Work, Mountains, Plants, Shadow Mountain

International Mountain Day

Leave a comment

Samain and the last day of the Choice Moon

Monday gratefuls: Ruth. Gabe. Leo. Luke. Friday’s Snow pock marked now by Snow falling from gently curved Lodgepole Branches. Shadow Mountain. International Mountain Day. Black Mountain. Bergen Mountain. Conifer Mountain. Mount Blue Sky. Pike’s Peak. Mount Rosalie. Long’s Peak. The Continental Divide. The Caucasus. The Atlas range. The Wasatch. Sierra Nevada. Cascades. Rockies. Mt. Snowdon. Kilimanjaro. Sea Mounts. Haleakala. Mauna Loa. Kilauea. The Mountain behind my son’s apartment building in Songtan.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Mountains

One brief shining: Each morning I open my eyes on Shadow Mountain, 8,800 feet above sea level, watch Great Sol gradually lighten the bulk of Black Mountain, and whenever I go for groceries or to see a friend or to the synagogue, I drive Mountain roads curving through Mountain Valleys alongside Mountain Streams in a manner similar to the other 15% of the World’s population who live on and in Earth’s Mountain Ranges.

 

Happy International Mountain Day!* This year’s theme? Restoring Mountain Ecosystems. “This theme was selected to fully include mountains in the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021–2030, co-led by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN and the UN Environment Programme.””

Living on and in the Mountains this one feels personal. Kate said everyday she lived up here she felt like she was on vacation. I’m so glad she felt that way. The grandkids love coming up here. Gabe wants to live in the Mountains. And, he probably will. Folks at CBE often refer to each other as Mountain Jews. 15% of the World’s population live in and on Mountains. Some were born there, but many come by choice like Kate and me.

I’ve seen a comparison between those who love the Ocean and those who love the Mountains. Beaches-extroverts. Mountains-introverts. Like any broad brush often wrong but in my experience Mountain folks keep to themselves. We spend a lot of time hiking, hunting, fishing. On our decks. Driving to somewhere else in the Mountains. We don’t like to go down the hill more than we have to.

Our ecosystems matter. A lot. The Snowpack in Colorado gets national and international exposure because its water reserves predict the amount of water available in the coming year for those who draw on the Colorado River. Seven states. Millions of people. On a smaller scale even Maxwell Creek and Cub Creek and Bear Creek flow into the Waters of the mighty Mississippi traveling through the South Platte to the Platte from there to the Missouri and from the Missouri into the Mississippi. It’s all downstream from me.

I find myself drawn to restoring axolotls, creating perennial crops, heirloom seeds, regenerative farming, restoring Mountain Ecosystems. That’s where my money goes. And to caring for wild animals that need sanctuary. Not to say that other needs aren’t critical. Sure they are. But my heart expands when I imagine a World with organic and regenerative farms and farmers, with Axolotl’s swimming free among the chinampas and the chinamperos make that sustainable, with heirloom Vegetables on everyone’s table, with grain crops that can be planted once and then tended rather than plowed, with Mountain Ecosystems the world over restored to their original purpose. That’s my Other World. May it come soon.

 

 

 

 

*”The United Nations General Assembly designated 11 December “International Mountain Day”. As of 2003, it has been observed every year to create awareness about the importance of mountains to life, to highlight the opportunities and constraints in mountain development and to build alliances that will bring positive change to mountain peoples and environments around the world.” International Mountain Day, U.N.

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Judaism

The Third Day of Hanukah

Leave a comment

Samain and the Choice Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Ruth and Gabe. Jon, their father. Leo. Luke. The Snow and cold. Warmer though this morning. The beauty of the Arapaho National Forest after a Snow storm. All those cars in the ditch yesterday morning. Thai 202. Really good food. Last night with Ruth and Gabe. Blizzaks on Ruby, her sure footedness in the Snow. Hanukah. The dog menorah. Hanukah presents. Puzzles for Gabe. Resist earrings for Ruth. Money. Hanukah of 2016, of blessed memory for Ruth and Gabe. The coffee table piled high with gifts.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Family and Friends

One brief shining: Ruth took four purple candles out of the box, Gabe wanted them his favorite color, starting from the right she placed them one, two, three, then lit the shamash and set candles for the third night burning, setting the shamash in its position of prominence in the center, ready if the others wink out to relight them, and finally we got to the presents, but the lights which cannot be blown out then had to burn until done, meaning we couldn’t leave for dinner for another half an hour.

 

Ruth came up around noon yesterday, just before Vince got to my driveway. Not sure how much Snow we got, maybe 8-10 inches. Vince had an Arctic Cat with green fenders, pushing snow back, back, back to the edges of the driveway and beyond. So good to have a reliable Snow plow guy.

Today would have been Jon’s 55th birthday. The impact of his death still reverberates through the hearts of Ruth and Gabe in ways I cannot discern. Thus in mine as well. My son is near the end of the probate journey then he’ll serve as custodian of Jon’s estate. And, of course, Jen has both of them at home full time now.

Death is an end for only the one who has died. They check out forever from Hotel Life, which, unlike the Hotel California, you have to leave. The living though. Death goes out in ripples like a boulder thrown in a pond. Not a gentle moment of leave taking but a violent fall into the emotional center of the soul. At least for some.

 

Antisemitism. The old hatred. Burnished and polished by those who need scapegoats for their own fears since ancient times. Pogroms. The Holocaust. Ghettos. That synagogue in Pittsburgh. Weirdly, the Greek Orthodox Church here in Denver which sits very close to the Jewish Community Center. A while back some antisemites mistook it for the JCC and vandalized it instead. Guess they missed the crosses all over its buildings.

Whenever conflict flares in the Middle East, conflict that involves Israel, antisemitism increases in the U.S.  It is difficult to be clear about how one feels about the current war. Just ask the former President of Penn State. I’m pro-Israel, anti-Hamas, pro-Palestinian, and anti the violent, disproportionate response of the Israeli government in Gaza. How do you make those distinctions in a succinct manner? Especially during a protest. Of course pro-Palestinian. The poor benighted Palestinians have not had a good experience for a long, long time. Even preceding 1948.

 

 

 

 

Commentary on Religion, Judaism, Torah, Weather +Climate

Prismatic Truth

Leave a comment

Samain and the Choice Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Gabe. Legos. Night 2, Hanukah. Lighting the candles. The electric menorah. Snow. lotsa Snow. Spaghetti. That free car wash. Blizzaks. Big O. Starbucks. Evergreen. Ruby in the Snow. Kate of blessed memory. Jon, who would have been 55 tomorrow. Mussar. Books, all books big and small. Stacked and unstacked. Read and unread. Reading. What a joy.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ritual

One brief shining: That Arcosanti bell Kate got so long ago on a visit to her Dad in Phoenix, the one we decided to use as a memorial bell for all of our dogs which now rings in the high Winds of the Mountains for her, too, and Jon, has a large white cap of Snow in the quiet weather of this morning.

 

This holimonth I’ve been getting gifts from strangers. The Thanksgiving meal at Urban Farmer. Yesterday the car wash. An attendant flagged me through saying I didn’t have to pay right then. The owner said, I’m ok with free. However. Just looked up on my credit card and I did get charged. Well, it was nice when I thought it was free.

Had my new Blizzaks replace the 4 mm tread tires on the back. Good thing. Right now there’s more than 5 inches, maybe more like 8, of fresh new Snow. Have to head over to Safeway for a pickup order which is delayed. I imagine fewer staff with the Snow.

 

Spent a lot of time reading yesterday. Finished Zornberg on the week’s parsha, the story of Joseph and his brothers, part 1, in which they toss him in a pit, imply to Jacob that he’s been killed, and he gets sold into slavery, bought by Potiphar. That one. Zornberg’s commentaries lean toward the mythic and the psychoanalytical. She sees themes of dismemberment and the power of blood in these stories. I do, too, after reading her.

Torah study is very different from the higher criticism I learned in seminary. In higher criticism the aim is to find the truth of a passage using language, history, the history of tradition and ritual, textual comparisons, how a text was originally received, to get at what was originally meant, then using that original meaning to comment on today.

In Torah study the search is not for the truth, but for the prismatic truth each parsha contains. That sort of truth depends on the interpreter, on what they see or don’t see in the text. Different points of view are not only expected but cherished. Commentators on the Torah argue with each other and their arguments often take on a status equivalent to the parsha itself. The mishnah records Torah commentators since the fall of the second temple.

In the Joseph and his brothers story for example Zornberg uses some of the mishnah as actual Torah text to make her arguments. And this is not unusual. The result is a playful approach that looks for things hidden, things inferred, things that have meanings because they intersect with the ordinary lives of Jews then and now.

The patriarchs are far from perfect. Isaac gives Jacob his birthright blessing and underwrites it even after he learns he’s been deceived. Jacob fears his encounter with his now grown brother Esau whom he cheated out of both birthright and inheritance. Jacob’s sons dislike their brother Joseph so much that they try to get rid of him. These are not, in other words, exemplars of truth and wisdom, but people faced with difficult decisions and sometimes, even often, choosing poorly.

This approach makes Torah study a much more human endeavor, not requiring the power of revealed truth, rather requiring careful and attentive reading done with both living company and the thoughts of long dead Rabbis.

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Mussar, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Reimaging revelation

Call Me When You Get It

Leave a comment

Samain and the Choice Moon

Friday gratefuls: Good sleep. Laying around. Hanukah. Lighting my first candles as a Jew. Toba Spitzer. Mordecai Kaplan. Metaphor. God is Here. Mussar. Holimonth. Advent. Posada. The darkness. My inner Shadow Mountain. Tara’s cute new puppy. Kippur. Leo. Kepler of blessed memory. Rigel of blessed memory. Kate of blessed memory. A pinch of dysthymia. Oversleeping. Winds knocking over my trash can. Weather on the way. Cold and Snow. Rich. Diane. Tom. My son and Seoah and Murdoch.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Leo

One brief shining: The cloud as metaphor sitting in Evergreen, Colorado, talking to Rabbi Toba Spitzer in Newton, Massachusetts, while others dotted the screen from Lakewood, Georgetown, Conifer who was the live audience, us around the table in Beth Evergreen or the individuals in the cloud, or were we all simply in the Cloud alive to ourselves but bits and bytes elsewhere? The multiparity?

 

Not sure what’s going on with me right now, but I’ve slept in a lot this week. Over two hours this morning. Post-conversion dysthymia? That old melancholy coming up the chimney from its shack on my inner Shadow Mountain? Have felt slightly off for a few days. Negative thoughts showing up, not staying, not affecting my mood for long. Thanks to the how do I feel exercise Tal taught us. Yet they keep returning and oversleeping usually means a disturbance in the inner world.

 

When I drove back from p.t. yesterday though. Mary discharged me. Good work on the back and I now have the exercise tools to manage it, know when to ask for help if it flares again. Prior to seeing Mary we had the Zoom which included Rabbi Toba Spitzer answering questions about her book, God is Here. Loved her. A great mind working at the frontiers of religious thought.

Coming back up Brook Forest Drive I felt good. Reminded myself that people, people are good. I need people on line and in person regularly. Patted myself on the back for attending mussar, seeing Mary. Having meaningful connections in both places. Told Mary when she said something about her boyfriend that he was lucky, somebody out there needed her in their life, glad to know she’d found someone.

 

Janet and I had an interesting post-mussar conversation. She said the only way to find God is through meditation. She’s a Jewbu. A Jewish Buddhist. And a very bright lady.

Well, god is a universal idea so how can you be sure if the one you find in meditation is the One? Don’t we need each other for that sort of connection? She agreed we need the sangha, the synagogue.

 

I don’t think the only way to connect with the sacred is to go in. As most of you know. Though it’s a sound way. I find the sacred right out there on the surface of things. The Lodgepole. Janet. Black Mountain. Mary. Leo. Electricity. Computers. Darkness. Daytime.

Rich and I had a disagreement about this on Wednesday night. He wanted to preserve the particularity of Judaism, that its holy places in Israel, for example, were special. I asked him what Judaism points to.

I agree with his appreciation and love for the particularities of Judaism, its holy places, rituals, people. Otherwise I would not have converted. Yet. I also want to preserve the idea that we do not need the rock on which Abraham would have sacrificed Isaac, or the Western Wall, or Mt. Sinai, or even the Torah to find our way to the sacred, to recognize our inescapable linkage to and with it.

Here’s a poem that Tom offered this morning that says what I’m saying. By David Budbill

 

The Three Goals
The first goal is to see the thing in itself
in and for itself, to see it simply and clearly
for what it is.
No symbolism, please.

The second goal is to see each individual thing
as unified, as one, with all the other
ten thousand things.
In this regard, a little wine helps a lot.

The third goal is to grasp the first and the second goals,
to see the universal in the particular,
simultaneously.
Regarding this one, call me when you get it.

 

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Judaism, Politics, Travel

Making my way in

Leave a comment

Samain and the Choice Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Hanukah. Candles. Dreidels. Gifts. Menorah. The Maccabees. Masada. The lamp that remained lit. Lights. Devali. Christmas. Hanukah. Kwanza. The Yule Log. All that brave standing against the dark. Standing with the dark. Only two weeks to the Winter Solstice, the best day of the year. For me. Yes, the light becomes greater after. But on Solstice night darkness reaches its apotheosis for the year. Fertile, restful, creativity fostering darkness. And to the Shadow. I sit on Shadow Mountain, yet I have a Shadow Mountain within, too. In the darkness.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: My inner Shadow Mountain

One brief shining: Marilyn and I went up the walkway to the synagogue last night as children came out clutching bags filled with gifts from the Bizarre Bazaar, a free shopping area for Hebrew School kids needing Hanukah gifts for parents and siblings, items donated from the congregation over the last month, and Ellen, looking weary, glad that it was over, ready for home, gave me a hug.

 

Been tossing an idea around since I’ve started doing the sabbath. Why not a week where I can go anywhere I want? Down to Taos and Santa Fe. Over to Bryce Canyon or Moab. Down to the four corners area. Over to any of several wild spots in Colorado. Mountain towns. No dog to fuss about. I can just turn the key and go. But I don’t. Inertia. Maybe a week out of the month where I can make short trips would get me out of my house and on the road. Might work.

 

Making my way in. Probably me mostly, but not only me. I’m a bit further into CBE. Wearing my kippah, yes. Mezuzahs, yes. Menorahs, yes. Last Friday’s service and the odd dissonance with the Christmas concert in the same space on Sunday, yes. But also Rich commenting on my dvar torah. Israel as a koan, a lived paradox. Joan giving me more jokes. Softer. Jamie a bit more open, friendly. It is not only me. I’m being folded in, granted access in a more open way.

There’s also that feeling of inner calm. As if I no longer have anything to prove. Which I don’t. In part. Coming home to this remarkable group of individuals, this sacred communion of friends and acquaintances. In part. Saying yes to 76. Yes to being a widower. Yes to enough. And meaning enough as good enough. Plenty. Playing that back over the arc of my life. Good enough. Well done, good and faithful servant.

There is, too, Kate and her gifts to me. This house. The 401K rollover. Her blessed memory. Ruth and Gabe. Her love. They fold into this calmness as well.

 

Costa Rica. The new Canada? I know folks looking at land down there. In case, you know. Trump. Not me. Even if the worst happens somebody needs to be the loyal opposition. Especially if we have no loyalty at the top. Besides. Moving? Meh!

What a time. A rising Ocean. A shrinking democracy. Wars in the Ukraine and Israel. Damn, dude. No wonder marijuana and hallucinogens have begun to get legalized in more and more states.

 

 

 

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, GeekWorld, Health, Judaism, Mussar

Post Conversion Let Down

Leave a comment

Samain and the Choice Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Leo. Doggy presence. Luke in Florida. Tom in Atlanta. Paul’s birthday. 77. Whoa. He old. Great Sol brightening a Shadow Mountain morning. Last warm day for a while. Snow coming. Over spending on Snow tires. For safety. Giving myself the best odds. Living high. Colorado. The Rockies. The Himalayas. The Appalachians. The Smokies. The Atlas. The Alps. The Dolomites.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Mountains

One brief shining: Leo lies on my rug, legs sprawled out, head down, sleeping or resting, while I sit here typing, hitting key after key with the automatic movements learned first in typing at Alexandria-Monroe High School, perhaps the class I’ve used the most in terms of daily activity, odd to contemplate though paws on the keyboard, a million dogs would not produce the Britannica.

 

I slept in this morning. On purpose. Because I liked the feel. An oddity for me, yes, but fun in a I don’t have to so I won’t sorta way. Bright eyed and bushy tailed. Ever hear that one? Don’t think I’ve felt that way since I hit 70. Awake and alert, ready to go about the day, yes, but bushy tailed? Can’t recall the day. Maybe a feeling reserved for the get up and go ages of the twenties and thirties?

 

MVP tonight. Rabbi Jamie on trust/compassion with the metaphor of rock. This small group at CBE supercharges my month. We’ve been meeting for years now, lost two members to death: Judy and Kate, and have gotten as close as a group can get. Figuring what I can make since we always bring food.

 

So. An odd, kind of silly deal with my Snow tires. Jesus told me two of my Blizzaks were at 4 mm tread. I knew it, too. I took them back last year when a tech said they could go a little further. Nope. So Jesus offered me a deal. Salvation for two Blizzaks. I don’t know how they get away with that name even in Latino circles. Too many jokes, I’d think. Anyhow. He would give me a deal on two new ones. But. I’d have to leave the car until 1:30 pm. This was at 9:30 am. Nope. Put’em on.

Drove home, ordered two new Blizzaks from Tire Rack.com. About $20 more than what Jesus had offered. Shoot. Going to big O in Evergreen on Friday to have them put on. I know. But I brought this on myself. Having good tread and good winter tires for Mountain roads? Perhaps not necessary, but prudent. And damned if I don’t have a real strong prudent streak. Always surprises me, too.

 

Post conversion let down. Had such a buzz going the last month or so. Getting ready, making schedules, preparing myself for transformation. A peak on Tuesday in the mikvah. Slowly. Like air going out of a balloon. Life deflates. Not depressing, but a daily normal state over against a time of heightened anticipation, excitement. Maybe like the time after opening presents on Christmas morning. Gathering energy for the long haul now, a Jewish life until death.

Although. I do have an inner calmness now. As if some vibratory mechanism in my inner world got turned off. That is the opposite of an excited state and I’m still getting used to it. Feels like I have enough time now, as if the future has gone quiet, not clamoring for a piece of me right now.

Changes.

GeekWorld, Shadow Mountain, Travel, World History

Too many Gabriels, or Jesus Opened My Door

Leave a comment

Samain and the Choice Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Stevinson Toyota. Leo. Blizzaks. Jesus/Gabriel. Ruby and her Snow shoes. A lowering of expectations. For me. Bright Sol. Watching dawn break over the Mountains on the way down the hill this morning. Lack of traffic. Agency. Taking care of business. Renailing a board on my house. Taking care of Leo. Changing tires. Making breakfast. You know. DD. Domestic duties.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Winter tires on Mountain roads

One brief shining: Jesus opened my door and asked what were we doing today changing the oil and tires, check the front brakes, and I’m a waiter all right I’ll come find you when we’re done that’ll be fine and he did. Back home.

 

Jesus’ first name is really Gabriel but there was a time when they had several Gabriels so he took up his middle name. It was on his name tag. But each time he texted me it came up Gabriel. I asked about it. No longer too many Gabriels, think I’ll go back to that now. This is Latino country out here. Too many Gabriels, but only one Jesus.

Ruby needed a synthetic oil change and her Blizzaks. I sat in the waiting area in my usual spot well away from the everon television which people no longer watch. Cell phones and laptops.

 

I first read an NYT article about Evergrande, the giant housing developer in China sinking below the default line. Lots of its execs are in jail now including the founder. Quite a mess since they took a third of an apartment’s price upfront, then failed to build millions of them. A lotta angry people. Including Xi Jinping. My son says China is much less worrying as an enemy when its economy is in crisis. Hope he’s right. Still, imagine all those poor aspiring home owners…

 

This story has a Kate component. The next article I read I highly recommend: What It Takes to Save the Axolotl. The axolotl exhibits neoteny, that is, maintaining its juvenile form all its life. Not sure how that can be right. I mean if it maintains its juvenile form all its life that makes it its adult form, doesn’t it? Anyhow, a minor point.

The axolotl thrived in the chinampas canals of an early Nahuatl people, the Xochimilcas. They had an agrarian Venice with plots of land bordered on all sides by water in canals. The chinampas had/have a fertility enriched by the soil dredged to build the canals. The chinamperos who farmed the chinampas grew vegetables, ate fish and axolotls from the canals.

The axolotl has largely disappeared from Xochimilco, the area once outside of Mexico City where the chinampas way of life had been preserved. At least two different groups at different Mexican universities are working to restore the axolotl to its home environment. The one that interests me the most champions the original wetland farming methods of the chinamperos which used no pesticides or fertilizers. Pollution holds most of the blame for the axolotls no longer able to survive in the canals.

Another part of the blame? Festive party boats, trajinera, that operate on the weekend. Kate and I visited Xochimilco in the mid-1990’s when she attended a meeting of the Physicians for Social Responsibility in Mexico City.

It was so hot. I turned around while we waited for our trajinera to dock only to see Kate sitting on a large block of ice and fanning herself!

It was a pleasant afternoon. Flat bottom boats came up close to us with mariachi bands, barbecued meat, and souvenirs. Music filled the air and the colorful trajineras floated up and down the canals of the ancient Xochimilca people. Not so good though for the axolotl. Which we didn’t even know were there.

I’m going to adopt an axolotl through this website.

 

Jesus/Gabriel called me. Ruby had finished her rounds of the tire changers and oil changers. Only thing left. Pay and go home.

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Holidays, Judaism, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Ho, Ho, Ho

Leave a comment

Samain and the Choice Moon

Monday gratefuls: The Ancient Brothers on faith. Leo. Luke on his way to Florida. Scott and Rene. Snow. Christmas music. Klezmer music. Nepalese food. Gabe, Ruth, Mia coming up on the weekend. Hanukah. My Dog menorah. Holiday gifts. For Mark and Ana and the Shirley Waste folks. The lights on Black Mountain/Brook Forest Drive. Especially that one tall Spruce. Fusion energy. Coming, I hope. The long arc of a life.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Leo asleep beside me

One brief shining: Took a peppermint flavored chocolate ball as I entered the sanctuary, kippah in place, popped it in my mouth while finding a seat on the left side so my good ear would be toward the piano, a crowd of unfamiliar people in the seats to hear a local pianist, a transplanted Australian, play seasonal music, that is Christmas music mostly, a somewhat dissonant experience.

 

Relearned a lesson yesterday evening. I still have neurons caching memories of Silver Bells, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, and Silent Night. Hearing these songs in the same sanctuary where I held the Torah scroll on Friday night was. Strange.

Memories of Christmas past came floating up like visitors to Scrooge, sort of unwelcome yet also precious. And important. Teaching me that I am whole, not part. Not just this new Jew, welcomed home by CBE, but an old, well not really Christian, but American immersed in the Christmas tree, holiday lights, Santa Claus and candy cane world of December in the U.S. And, Singapore. Yet I also believe in the miracle of the mikvah, that I have always been a Jew, and so my slight outsider status to the candy cane world even long ago.

Will watch a silly Christmas movie or two. No tree. Not for a long time. Perhaps I’ll listen to some Christmas music. Each year for the past several years I’ve purchased the Jacquie Lawson Advent calendar, an English themed dive into a Victorian or Edwardian or London Christmas spread out over the season of Advent. Frustratingly this year I’ve had difficulty opening the damned thing. But I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the retro Christmas feeling these calendars have to offer.

What I’m saying here is that I don’t miss celebrating that most confusing of theological ideas, incarnation of a great God in one person (all people, yes, sure. but one person?); however, the Christmas season even with its crass buy me, buy me, buy me emphasis still warms my heart. Sleigh bells jingle. Rudolf mounts the skies. That Grinch gets foiled.

Folks put up lights in brave attempts to recall Great Sol from an apparent disappearance. Down the hill from me are inflatable moose lit with inner light, snowmen, Santa Claus, trees across Evergreen Lake, three of them the same height with wonderful blue bulbs, a Christmas light lined fence, more than one.

On Friday night when I drove to CBE for the celebration of mine and Veronica’s conversion downtown Evergreen had barriers to cars. The Christmas parade. Drawing shoppers and kitschy Mountain lovers from Denver to give local folks some cash. I like it.

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Keep the Sabbath

Leave a comment

Samain and the Choice Moon

Sunday gratefuls: A full sabbath observance. Finishing another novel. Reading this week’s parsha. Starting Zornberg. Breakfast with Ginny and Janice. The service on Friday night. Joan and Rich. Did not do a havdalah service, but went through that time with my observance. Still much to learn about the sabbath. On a ritual and on a how do I make it work for me basis. Holimonth in full. Lights on many trees and houses along Black Mountain Drive/Brook Forest.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Christmas Lights

One brief shining: Looked up at the blackboard at Aspen Perks and saw breakfast quesadilla, ordered it, it delighted me when it came since it had crispy bacon bits in addition to the sausage and cheese, an oh my cardiologist would not approve breakfast though to be fair Dr. Rubenstein did say keep doing what you’re doing, so.

 

You might think observing the sabbath is only related to my joining the tribe, but that’s not true. Like the South American siesta which I also observed up until recently, at least the nap part, I always thought a day of rest, a day to enter sacred time, was a great way to push back against consumerist/careerist American culture. Just never quite got over the hump of a regular ritual, maybe I had too little information, maybe I was stuck in our gotta work, gotta get something done milieu.

That mikvah water though. Getting serious about Judaism. The push I needed. I plan to be like Tom’s former corporate lawyer, available 24/6. Well, maybe 12/6. Oh, it doesn’t matter. I’m not on anybody’s clock anymore. Always admired Sandy Koufax who refused to pitch in a World Series game that fell on Yom Kippur. Not so much about rule following as about serious intent to me.

Joan said on Friday that the sabbath is addictive. I know what she means. I looked forward to it this week. Starting Friday night when Veronica lit the sabbath candles. Continuing into Saturday until 5:28 pm. Had breakfast with Ginny and Janice, deciding that time with friends will be part of my sabbath. Still figuring out what will constitute the sabbath for me. Study. Reading fiction. Nice meals. Friends. Painting. Writing poetry. It will take its own shape over time.

 

Had an odd realization when I read this week’s Torah portion. Included Joseph’s coat of many colors, his enslavement through the action of his own brothers, jail time, dream interpretation.

When I chose the name Israel, I hadn’t thought about Jacob as Joseph’s father. I chose the name Joseph based on this story, a foreigner who went to a distant land and did well. When I picked my Hebrew name, I chose the name of Joseph’s father.

Might reflect the miracle of the mikvah that Rabbi Jamie told me about. Once going through the immersions, you have always been a Jew. This was always coming, this choice. I was a Jew at birth in Duncan, Oklahoma. As I grew and had various moments when Jewish life intersected my own. More on this at a later time.