Yearly Archives: 2024

Mussar, Plants, Shadow Mountain

Honoring the Aspen, Tree #1

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

This is the first entry in my honoring the Tree mussar practice. I will post these as I do them.

My kavanah, my intention, is to enhance my capacity for honoring all things, all Earthlings. Including humans. In this honoring means paying attention, close and uninterrupted attention. Seeing the other for what they exhibit, to imbibe their uniqueness and their interconnectedness. This uniqueness has many names: Buddah nature, soul, highest potential, essence, wholeness, image of God. In seeing the sacred reality of this Aspen I am in turn seeing my own sacredness in the process of seeing the Aspen.

 

When we first moved here on the Winter Solstice of 2014, this Aspen had no leaves. Tiny shoots of its clones were hidden beneath the Snow cover. But they were there.

Nine and a half years later I went out today, out front since this Tree is in the front. As I walked up to it, I noticed its Trunk’s variation between a smooth gray Bark and a wrinkled black Bark. As if the Tree could not make up its mind. I’m curious now as to the purpose of the two different types of Bark. A Spider and an Ant crawled over both smooth and rough, unconcerned.

My hand found the change in textures though they seemed more graduated with touch. The smooth Bark had some grippiness to it and also contained small raised bumps of the rougher black Bark. When I walked around the Tree, I noticed at its base a large scar, black Bark that looked like a Fire scar. Doesn’t make sense to me, but it’s a distinctive feature of this Tree and a reminder that its journey has not always been easy.

Looking straight up the Trunk toward the Leader reaching for the Sky the Bark got smoother and smoother as it went up and the Trunk got smaller. Could it be that a certain girt stretches the smooth Bark far enough that it separates and allows the rougher Bark to form? If so, why?

The most striking feature of this tree for me, on this sunny Colorado Mountain morning, danced on the ends of short stems, quaking this way and that. Throwing shadows on the Leaves behind them, then fluttering out of the way. Leaves in groups of five opened and closed each others access to Great Sol’s brilliance.

The interplay of light and shadow these Leaves put on would make a great Calder sculpture. The shifting moving Leaves were beautiful. As beautiful as any work of art in a museum.

While being beautiful, they also perform Mother Earth’s true miracle, light-eating. Turning photons into sugars. The sine qua non for all complex life on this planet.

Asia, Judaism, Politics, Sport

Rebels

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Beltane and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

Friday gratefuls: Shabbat. Bar mitzvah decisions. Regaining confidence. Purpose. Shekinah. Trees. Great Wheel. Great work. Rabbi Jamie. Zornberg. Mordecai Kaplan. Mah Tovu. Mussar. Luke and his passion. Leo. A long immersion in matters Jewish. Alan and First Watch. Diane and the Sea Lions of Fisherman’s Wharf. Mark and Bangkok. Familiar turf for him.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Mordecai Kaplan

One brief shining: We sat there around his circular table, his library wall filled with texts in Hebrew as well as English, Rabbi Jamie and me, he showed me the Haggadah by Mordecai Kaplan, this one got him excommunicated, oh, my attention piqued, I’ve got to have one I said because I love stories of rebellion and its consequences.

 

Finished reading all 2,000 plus pages of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. A significant classic of Chinese literature. And a good read. Took a while. One takeaway from it. Rebels are the bad guys. The guys who support the Emperor are the good guys. This was an important learning for me since we Americans valorize the rebel, the American revolutionary. Our country was born in rebellion whereas China’s civilization honors it long, continuous history.

The mandate of heaven takes the place of the rebel. So long as an Emperor could claim the mandate of heaven*, he could rule. But, if he lost the mandate of heaven**, it became the people’s responsibility to overthrow him and usher in a new dynasty. Even in this case though the rebel served the new dynasty to be born from the old one. No experimentation in political form.

I admire Mordecai Kaplan and his willingness to follow his own thinking, to de-supernaturalize Judaism and to demote tradition from decider of all questions to a factor with a vote but not a veto. I love the expectation of debate, of doubt, of honoring the other’s perspective. Kaplan and my kind would not fare well in Chinese culture. Either under the old dynastic pattern or under the very similar Chinese Communist Party. Rule from the top down is the Chinese way.

 

Just a moment: A bit about the Caitlin Clark story. Yes, she’s a whitebread Midwesterner playing in a state, Indiana, that has not been celebrated for its moves towards racial justice. Yes, she’s touted as the next big thing that will push the WNBA higher up in the world of professional sports. And, most important, yes, the media has portrayed her first games as a pro with the breathless and hyperbolic ideas that often accompany writing about a new sports superstar.

She’s getting knocked around, shoved, posted hard. Many of those playing her like hockey enforcers are black. So villainous? Right? How dare they play hard against the white savior of their sport? Isn’t that self-defeating for women’s basketball as a whole?

No. The opposite is true. Were Caitlin given kid glove treatment she would never have the chance to mature into a true star. This hazing, some no doubt with malice, shows she’ll get no special favors on the court. That her game has to take over at a high level or she’ll remain a journeywoman player.

Should intentional fouls be called? Of course. There’s no excuse for casual violence in any sport. Well, ok, MMA. Otherwise, let everybody play their game.

 

 

*…the Mandate of Heaven was that although a ruler was given great power, he also had a moral obligation to use it for the good of his people. If a ruler did not do this, then his state would suffer terrible disasters and he would lose the right to govern.  World History Encyclopedia

**The sign that the mandate had been lost would be made evident by all kinds of calamities including natural ones: earthquakes, storms, solar eclipses, floods, drought, famine and plague. Other signs could be a more personal evidence from the emperor’s own behavior: cruelty, corruption, military defeat and incompetence. These were all interpreted as signs of the displeasure of heaven. To rise in rebellion when these signs occurred was justified. ChinaSage

Mountains, Mussar, Plants, Shadow Mountain

Kavod. Honor.

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Beltane and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Eleanor, Tara’s new dog. What a cutie! Tara. The last practice with Tara. Using a Yod. MVP last night. Joanne’s new tooth. Rich’s weight loss. Honor. Seeing the Buddha nature in another. Seeing the sacred image in another. And in yourself. Honor the other and your self with complete attention. Early finish for my 150 minutes this week.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Going down the Forest path

One brief shining: Reach out a hand, feel the roughness, the curvature, perhaps put a finger into one of the fissures, sap or resin may stick to it, may have the scent of a Pine Tree, a Pinus contarta perhaps, or one of the Ponderosa Pines a bit lower down the Mountain, their Bark their persona their face to the world, a point of contact between the inner and the outer Tree.

 

My mussar practice for this month: honor as many of the trees growing around my house as I can. That is, see each of them as an individual, stand with them, look up, feel their trunks, note the marks of their individuality, their uniqueness. Honor the journey of that Tree from seed to maturity. Honor the work they do above and below ground. Remain in their presence. Listening. Smelling. Touching. Seeing. Hearing.

The Branches as they wave up and down in a morning breeze. Their rampant Strobilus ready to send pollen out to the female flowers. The green Leaves (I know, needles. But this is what botanists call them.) growing in brush like clusters up and down each Branch. Their stillness. Their occupation of one spot for the duration of their life. The Bark, protecting. How the Branches may stretch out only in one direction. The Trunk sways in the Wind. Their height. Even the Lodgepoles are taller than my house, my garage.

Working on my new purpose. Reading. Observing. Thinking. Not sure where it all will lead. The fun in it.

Noticed last night driving home late from my MVP group at the synagogue. Trees. The same Trees that were there on my drive down. The Arapaho National Forest. Mostly Lodgepoles. Realized how difficult the density of the Lodgepoles would make a night time hike. How instead of welcoming they became menacing. Barriers to easy travel. Trees change character for Forest dwellers depending on the time of day.

 

Just a moment: I’ve made a couple of decisions. First, I will sell this house when I’m 80 and move to an apartment somewhere close to Joe and Seoah. Why? They finish up in Korea the year I turn 79. I want to be close to them as I head further into the thicket of aging.

Second. No more doom and gloom about the orange one. Or MAGA. Or the convinced. No. I’m 77. Life’s gotten a lot shorter. I’m going to continue living my life no matter what happens politically. I may engage or I may not. What I will not do is succumb to despair, constant anger, bitterness.

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Plants, Writing

Scanned

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Beltane and the 1% crescent Shadow Mountain Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: IV’ed. Radioactivated. Scanned. Freddie’s. Being kind to myself. Wild Trees. Coastal Redwoods. The tallest Trees on Earth. Steve Sillet and Michael Taylor. Timber cruisers for the Trees. Marie Antoine. Climbing Trees like an arborist. Treeboats. Forest-Canopy science. Redwood Crowns. Whole Biomes. My Lodgepole Companion. Pinus contarta latifolia.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shekinah

One brief shining: A butterfly I.V. attached to a vein in my forearm, saline introduced, then a closed lead canister opened, and a syringe pulled out with 5 milliliters of liquid radioactive agent in its barrel, connected to the IV, a push, and $13,000 worth of a cancer discovery tool went into my bloodstream, after that I sat back and read Wild Trees while it distributed throughout my body.

me and the machine

 

See my tilt? Spinal stenosis. My t-shirt got a laugh from the P.E.T. scan nurse and tech. I told the tech doom and gloom would not get me through all this. But humor sure helps.

Proud of myself. I fought the phobia and the phobia didn’t win. This machine is optimal for me in that its doughnut hole is relatively short in length and the top of the hole leaves room above my head. Most important for me: I could see out the whole time. (ha) I ran through several iterations of inner dialogue about fear. The only thing you have to fear… Thanks for that, Winston. Face your fear. I am. I didn’t take drugs. Yeah? Then open your eyes. I did. The doughnut hole was above me, but I could see the room beyond. And I felt calm. A major advance for me.

Still couldn’t do a bone scan without drugs. The distance between face and machine is much narrower and the slot for the body is much longer. And the procedure is very slow. Hopefully no more bone scans.

I don’t like to do drugs because they require that I have a driver. It’s a long time for a friend to wait and someone has to clear their schedule. Though. Alan did say I was very amusing after my first P.E.T. scan. Valium, if I recall correctly.

Results in two or three days. Have to get signed up for Rocky Mountain Cancer Care’s online patient portal. Then I can see the radiologists report for myself. Don’t talk to Kristie until next week.

Oh, the places I’ve been.

 

Just a moment: Been reading Wild Trees. A wild Tree is, in the slang of arborists and tall-Tree climbers, a tree that has not been climbed. Up until the 1990’s that included all the Coastal Redwoods. Climbing these tall Trees requires a high degree of technical climbing knowledge plus athletic climbers. Until Steven Sillet climbed Nameless, no one had ever been in the Redwood Canopy. His rash and dangerous efforts not only made him the first, but started him on a career as a Forest-Canopy Botanist. He and his wife Marie Antoine, also a climber, teach at Humboldt College in Arcata, California to this day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Great Work, Hawai'i, Health, Mountains, Travel

P.E.T. Scan

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: P.E.T. Scans. Radioactive tracers. Bar mitzvah. Torah portion. Service prayers and blessings. Thyroid blood draw. Euclid, a wide sky deep space telescope. James Webb. Hubble. Our local cluster. The Milky Way. Its outer arms. Our home there. Three Body Problem. Wild Trees. Trees as my way in. Colorado Trees. Shadow Mountain Trees.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Universe. (and, thanks for all the fish!)

One brief shining: Sometimes my mind wobbles when it considers the Universe, this vast interconnected web of all things to which we are intimately yet often over unimaginable distances connected, then I have to turn to the Lodgepole out my window, those Mule Deer munching on Dandelions, the astonishing human body, this Mountain on which I live and my mind says, oh, I see, and steadies itself.

 

June 2019

P.E.T.* scan today. An injection sends a chemical that binds to prostate cancer cells and carries a radioactive signal readable by the positron emission tomography machine. Where it lights up. Metastases. If it finds some, a new treatment plan will follow. Possibly back on the familiar Orgovyx and Erleada. Possibly radiation. Depends. Might find nothing right now though we know some cancer has begun to grow again due to my rising PSA. If nothing lights up, I’ll stay off the drugs for now. Probably another scan if and/or when my PSA goes up further.

Scanxiety. Who knew? It’s a real thing. Any cancer patient is familiar with it to some extent. That tingle that comes with another lab draw, waiting for the results. Or, imaging. Hunting for tumors. Mets. Like I’m having today. I have scanxiety. It’s mild. But not feeling something would seem weird to me.

Who wants to have metastases confirmed? Sure, it helps identify treatment modalities that will extend my life, but… Who wants to need treatment to extend their life? My rational self knows ignoring my cancer would bring certain death. Not soon, but certain. As a result, I’ll get in my car and drive to Sky Ridge Hospital once again. Wait 45 minutes for the tracer to circulate throughout my body. Lie down and let the highly sophisticated machinery take a look.

A week from Thursday I’ll talk to Kristie, see what the results mean. Whatever the scan shows, it will not result in a cure. That’s settled. But prostate cancer is manageable. And this is the way that happens.

 

June 4th Kilauea eruption and the Milky Way

Just a moment: Kilauea erupts! Again. It’s one of the most active Volcanoes on Earth. Kate and I stayed at Volcano House for two weeks, a National Parks Hotel in Volcanoes National Park. We became acquainted with this vast Shield Volcano, with Halemaʻumaʻu, the caldera home of Pele, the Hawai’ian goddess of fire, with the offerings native Hawai’ians left on its rim. Flowers. Alcohol. Shells.

May I say that this photograph soothes my scanxiety. This vastness and our living Earth. Together. As they and we are.

 

 

*How does it work? PSMA, short for Prostate Specific Membrane Antigen, is a protein found on the surface of prostate cancer cells. The “imaging agent” consists of a chemical that binds to PSMA, honing in on prostate cancer cells wherever they are in the body. Attached to this binding chemical is a radioactive “reporter.” Patients are given a one-time injection of this combination molecule into the bloodstream, “tagging” prostate cancer cells. The patients are then given a scan with an imaging camera that “lights up” areas where the molecule has accumulated—i.e., sites of prostate cancer (see photo above).

PSMA PET imaging may help guide your treatment plan.

Plants, Shadow Mountain, Wild Neighbors, Writing

Pinus Contarta

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Monday gratefuls: Good night’s sleep. Bringing together past and present. Knuckling down for the next chapter of my story. Excitement. Starting with and staying focused on Trees. Coastal Redwoods. Sequoias. Bristlecone Pines. Lodgepoles and Aspens. Slipping out from under the pale of grief and self-doubt. Teshuvah for tikkun.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Trees

One brief shining: Each morning my Lodgepole Companion stands tall, Branches thrust out to the east awaiting food from Great Sol, the light bringer, gentle morning winds move its Branches, in heavier winds the whole Tree sways, taking and releasing energy, its male Flowers now standing up at the ends of its Branches, readying themselves to disperse yellow Pollen with the wind, a yellow dust that will coat our driveways and make my nose itch all while impregnating the Lodgepole’s female flowers.

 

Early June. Tree sex season. When, if this season is like the others, I will have to close up my house to keep out Lodgepole pollen. It coats every surface in its broadcast of Tree passion. It only has to hit the female flowers-which grow on the same tree as the male flowers-but evolution has taught Pinus contartathat its survival depends on a blanket of pollen among its near neighbors. No female flower should go unfulfilled.

It’s easy for those of us suffer from pollen allergies to blame Pinus contarta for our sneezes. Its pollen comes the same time as many pollens from Grasses. But its grains are too large to bother humans.

This is also the time the Elk Bulls come to my yard for Dandelion dining. I’ve had Mule Deer Does, yearlings, over the past couple of weeks. Yesterday evening a yearling came up to my lower level door and looked in at me. Then turned her head and went back to the Grass and Dandelions.

Early June is also the time, now five years ago in 2019, that I began my 35 sessions of radiation. Started on June 6th, the first day the three Elk Bulls came. One or two of them have come each year since. Identifiable by the Bull with only one rack. They grew from young Bulls to full sized Bulls ready to have their own harems of Cows.

Lodgepole pollen, Elk Bulls, and radiation. Memories of summers past and present.

 

Writing, as always, massages my mind, makes it relax, then throw off sparks. Today the sparks led me to an idea, a perhaps I will notion. A focus on Colorado Trees. Visiting Forests. Learning the ways of Mountains and Trees, their mutual dance. Fits well with another spark I had yesterday. Tree mythology. Tree fairy tales. Trees in Kabbalah and in other mystical traditions.

The gardener in me. The lover of mythology and fairy tales. Of Ovid. Of religious insights. The Mountain dweller. The Hermit.

 

Just a moment: Who woulda thought? A Jewish female President. In Mexico. Oh so Catholic Mexico. Oh so machismo saturated Mexico. Yet another country teaching us what can be if we turn away from the yellow fascist pollen spread byPolitico contarta

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Great Wheel, Great Work, Holidays, Humanities, Judaism, Letters, Literature, Myth and Story, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Reimaging revelation, Tarot

I’m Into Something Good. Oh, yeah…

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Cool night. Elk. Mule Deer. Fox. Great Sol. The Great Wheel. The Great Work. The Jewish Year. Wild Trees. Ancient Forests. Sequoias. Coastal Redwoods. Bristlecone Pines. Kabbalah. Shekinah. The Sabbath Bride. Emergence. Lodgepoles. Aspens. Jewitches. Love. Justice. Compassion. A direction, a purpose. A way to live.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Emergence

One brief shining: Before the closing of the door and before I even open it, I stand hand over my eyes repeating the shema, declaring that I, god-wrestler, find the one to be all and the all to be one, which we might call god or not, but we can call it for sure the interdependent web of all things, all becoming things, everywhere there is a where, stretching from me in front of my bedroom door to the other reaches of this universe, passing by the Crab Nebula and the Horse Head Nebula on its way to a boundary where there can be no boundary.

 

I’m into something good.* Said this this morning during the Ancient Brothers. An exciting burst of serendipity, synchronicity, plain old enthusiasm. Heading toward eudaimonia. Wow. Sounds manic as I write it. Has some of that flavor. The shovel that uncovered this new path? A dream. And the Dreamers’ response to it.

And… Here we go. I’m going back to Wabash College. At least that place I was when I was there. Serendipity note: the Herman’s Hermits song below was released in 1964, the summer before my last year of high school, and before my mother’s death in October. Another serendipity note: Herman’s Hermits.

When I went to Wabash, I had competing emotions, both so very strong. The first. Grief. Unresolved, not understood, in no way dealt with. Mom was dead. I left home to go to this school, at the time highly competitive, and bare my small town intellect to so many others so much smarter than me. Grief and uncertainty. Toxic at best.

The second. Finally! A liberal arts education. A chance to get into the cultural deposit of the West. (It would be many, many years before Asia showed up in my life.) Philosophy. History. English Literature. Languages. A chance to grow beyond my autodidact years, guided by professors and stimulated by fellow students. Hard to convey the excitement, even relief, I felt at starting college.

Then German happened. I wanted to read Hegel, Nietzsche, Kant in the original. So I signed up. And floundered. Bad. Got c’s and d’s on quizzes and tests. Where this headed was clear. Abject failure. I did not do the brave and movie worthy thing. Face up to it and overcome. No. I dropped German like a hot potato masher hand grenade.

At the end of the year summer jobs were hard to find and Wabash was expensive. I decided to go further. Leave Wabash altogether. I’m not big on regret, but this is one of them for me.

The dream. Said. Go back. Be who you intended to be. The one that got lost along the way. So who was I going to be, the 18 year old version of this 77 year old. I wasn’t sure of anything but my desire to dive headlong into the deep waters of the liberal arts. Where would I come out? No idea. Didn’t want to know. I only wanted the journey. No destination.

I’ve made a journey, but got off the path of liberal arts, shunted aside by politics and religion. By alcohol and women. By travel and jobs. All ok, all good. Yet not where I wanted to be.

Now. The tarot card, the Hermit, hangs rendered in neon over my breakfast table. Herman’s Hermits remind me of the year before college, feelings accelerating, ground speed increasing. I’m also reminded of my first response to Kate’s death. I’m going to be a hermit. Hence, the neon. Last year I wrote a one-act play introducing Herme, the Hermit, and Cold Mountain’s poetry. And the dream says, go. Teshuvah. Return to the highest and best you.

A semi-hermit, a sometime recluse, a happy loner. But one with the permission to study, to write. To go back into the liberal arts and see if, as Israel: God-Wrestler, I can add to the world my own learnings.  About the Great Wheel, the Jewish liturgical year, trees and plants, about process metaphysics, about religion, about poetry and literature, about transformation and metamorphosis. These are the lenses through which I have learned to see the world.

Next. Organizing my days, weeks, months, years around this Fool’s Journey. After that. On to the diving board, spring up and down. Out into thin air.

*

Dreams, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Great Wheel, Great Work, Jefferson County, Mountains, Politics

A Summer Evening. Dreams

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: A summer night. My Lodgepole Companion swaying gently, soaking up Great Sol’s singular gift. A Light Eater. (just got this book) Dreams. Dreams suppressed but not forgotten. The dream group with Irene: Irv, Sandy, Jane, Clara, Susan. Zoom. Chinese food. Evergreen. Its evolution. Changing demographics. Felonious guilty, guilty, guilty.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Hush Money Jurors

One brief shining: Like you, I imagine, I looked at the headlines, typefaces bold and big, pressing up from the mast head, yes, yes, yes, at last a verdict, a consequence for this man, one venal, shallow, desperate man, who has been my President but never my President, and yet, and yet, a man nonetheless, one with the same generous gift granted us from the long arc of evolution, this body and mind, this ensouled flesh.

 

OK. As much fun as it is to chart the long voyage of Felonious Sinsbad, I’m gonna stop. For now.

 

Most of all I want to acknowledge a summer night. Last night. I drove over to Evergreen for a meal at the Coal Mine Dragon restaurant with Joanne, Rebecca, and Terry. A good time was had by all. Around 8 pm we finished and I drove home in the uneven light of a Mountain evening. The temperature hovered in the mid-60’s, gradually declining as I went up in altitude from Evergreen on Brook Forest, then Black Mountain Drive.

Green Grass, Aspens lit up with chartreuse leaves not yet mature, Willow’s golden with new branches, Red Osier Dogwood bright against them both. The various Creeks and Streams flowed peacefully, calmer now following the powerful runs from last week’s rain. The Lodgepoles of course as backdrop for them all, climbing each Mountain I drove past. The trees of the Arapaho National Forest all well-watered and ready for a season of growth.

Dusk finds Mule Deer and Elk out for a late meal though I saw neither on the way home.They were enjoying the evening, too, somewhere else in the Mountains.

Driver’s side window down I drove my usual speed, slower now than in the past, what I consider a speed safe for my Wild Neighbors. The muted light, Great Sol already obscured by the Mountains, but not gone, the comfortable temperature, the Mountains climbing above me, the Creeks and Streams flowing beside the road.

 

Earlier. Another session with those Irene calls The Dreamers. A collection of folks spread out: Santa Fe, England, Half Moon Bay, Evergreen, Conifer. This time only Sandy and I had dreams. Irene put them in a bowl and drew my name so I started. This one was old, May of 2021, but one that has never left my consciousness. I had never discussed it before yesterday.*

Not gonna say a lot about it here except to note that the conversation about it has, I think, pushed me much further along the trail. Feeling the latter day purpose of my life growing clearer. I have been trying to give myself permission to lean into study, serious study. And more writing. Perhaps in an Ancientrails style, perhaps fiction. Both? Yes, lifting the veil. Seeing a rich and powerful next chapter emerging.

Will require more thought, organization. Some decisions about focus. Yet I can feel all of that beginning to surface. At last.

 

*”The Dream. This was at Wabash, my first college: Several women, including a dean, asked me to return, finish my studies. The men in the dream were rigid, angry. In general and at me. Following the lead of the dean, I said yes. I remember calculating in the dream, “Yes, even now after 56 years.” I can still study, write, learn.

At a gateway out of the administrative offices a German Shepherd lunged at me from beneath a cloak and proceeded to lick my face. After passing through the gateway, I was put in a fiery chair with some other men. It burned them but was cool to me.

I had a strong sense of longing, a keen desire to go back, be a scholar/student again. A writer.

This dream feels important, more so than many of the others I’ve had recently. Not gonna conclude much about it right now. Any ideas, impressions: welcome.”

 

Colorado, Politics

Felonious Trump

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Friday gratefuls: Mark in Bangkok. Mary in Melbourne. Diane in San Francisco. Me here on Shadow Mountain. My son and Seoah in Songtan. The gathered, sacred community of Congregation Beth Evergreen. The cloud of witnesses: Kate, Jon, Leslie, Rene, Kep, Rigel, Gertie, Vega and all the others. Mom and Dad. The torah of this world. Friends like the Ancient Brothers.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Awakening

One brief shining: So if you’re not woke, you’re asleep, right, a thing a lot of those on the right aspire to not by using pills, but by using denial, obfuscation, disinformation and then proposing sleep as a superior state of being, when the real results are fever dream nightmares of immigrants clambering over sacred white people dwellings, of Blacks cheating sacred white people out of jobs-by using education, of sacred white people losing their rung on the social ladder and falling, falling, falling.

 

Yes. I can’t avoid it. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. 34 times. Guilty. Each count with up to four years of prison time. Felonious Trump. My new name for the king of sleaze, the baron of white supremacy, the duke of bad faith. I know it’s inappropriate to gloat. This is not gloating. This is clear-eyed appreciation for the rule of law, those 12 jurors tried and true, the legal system not only at work, but finishing a job before the election.

Our first felon President. Something that never occurred to me. I mean, Nixon, sure. But what an anomaly. Iran-Contra. OK. That was something, too. Even so. We got to see the final act of one of our nation’s dismal encounters with Felonious Trump. Ah.

I know. Appeals. That pesky election where an unfathomable number of our fellow citizens don’t care about the conviction of Felonious. Where, living as we are in the Upside-Down in this Stranger Things political era, the conviction enhances their loyalty, makes them even more sure of their orange bewigged demon saint who wears ties too long and suits too big. I know. Yet somewhere in this Yankee Doodle Dandy land there must be enough of us to just say no to Felonious. Has to be. Right?

 

Just a moment: Colorado is in the news yet again. Not, this time, for legalizing marijuana or hallucinogenics, but for not building highways: Colorado’s Bold New Approach to Highways — Not Building Them. NYT, May 31, 2024. That’s right. Colorado will not widen I-25, a sea of congestion at most hours of the day and early evening. Why? Induced demand. A phenomenon widely understood since the 1960’s according to this article. The build it and they will come movie about freeways always filling up to their maximum capacity, often much sooner than predicted. Turns out induced demand increases air pollution. How bout that?

So. If we want to reach climate goals in the area of transportation we need to get drivers off the highways, not induce them to drive on them more often and in greater numbers. That means public transportation and strategic placement of housing near jobs. We’re on it here in the Centennial State. But. Hey, if you want to ski here, hike here, raft here, come on out!

Friends, Wild Neighbors

Visits from Wild Neighbors

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Diane. Ginny and Janice. Luke. Domo. Corvids. Ravens. Crows. Magpies. Those Mule Deer young ones. Working out. Learning Torah, reading Hebrew. That strange veil over my mind for a couple of months. Rural Japanese food. The gardens of Domo. Wild Neighbors. Black Bears. Mountain Lions. Great Sol. Shining.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Mule Deer yearlings lounging in my back yard

One brief shining: Got up, still a bit sleepy, upstairs, looked out the window and saw trash in the driveway, Bears, when I went to the kitchen window, not Bears, two huge Crows flew up and out of my recycling bin, could not leave it open anymore, Crows do not forget, outside, picked up the spilled coffee filter, the plastic bag from my online pharmacy, a book’s packaging, tossed it all back in the bin, and closed the lid.

 

In my defense. I only put recyclables in this trash bin that I place conveniently in front of a low kitchen window. However. When my housekeeper comes, she often throws garbage bags in this bin. I’ve never told her otherwise so she’s not at fault. I take what I think are the garbage bags and put them in the garbage bin in the garage. I missed a garbage bag-they’re opaque.

Bears. Will find and displace garbage over a wide area. Never thought about Crows and Ravens.

Gonna have to tell Ana to leave the trash bags inside. I’ll put them in the right bins. Could have done this a while ago, just didn’t.

So. Wild Neighbors #1. Crows in my trash.

 

Wild Neighbors #2. Since I no longer have dogs, I leave my front fence gates open, hoping that some Wild Neighbors will find their way into my back yard. Yesterday when I went up to work out, there were four yearling Mule Deer Does with coats matted a bit, not yet mature and sleek. All eating Grass and Dandelions. This made me happy.

Even happier later on in the afternoon when I came downstairs and saw two of the Does lying down, chewing their cud, peaceful in every respect. Surprised at how happy I was. Having a space where these Wild Neighbors felt comfortable enough to dine, take a nap, enjoy a relaxing afternoon. I felt fulfilled, oddly. Though I did nothing but open my gates.

Read up a little bit on Mule Deer. They can run over 40 miles an hour. That’s pretty fast. When chased, they sometimes engage in totting. Jumping on all four legs at the same time. Not sure about the adaptive advantage, but it must be there.

 

Went into Domo again. This time dinner with Luke. Of Leo and Luke. He could not believe I’d come in just for him. But I had. Relationships require nurturing.

He had Chicken Katsu and I had a Cabbage, Rice, and Beef dish. Domo serves food typical of rural Japan. Some sushi, but a lot of Udon noodles and other dishes like the one I had.