Samain and the Summer’s End Moon
Shabbat gratefuls: New electric blanket and duvet. November. Late fall. Aspen leaves still visible on the ground, their golden color now faded. Elk Cows and three Bulls along Cub Creek at the turn into Evergreen. Alan and the Dandelion. Joanne back home. Shadow eating her breakfast. Torah study. Cutting out the Tomato Plants. Planting Lettuce, Arugula, Chard. Cooking. Sheet pan meals. Alan.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: That one-antlered Elk Bull, all grown up
Life Kavannah: Wu Wei
Week Kavannah: Chesed. Loving Kindness. “Kindness is the language the deaf can hear and the blind see.” Mark Twain
Tarot: Being a metaPhysician
One brief shining: Have you ever seen the slimy evidence of a Banana Slug as it chews its way through Lettuce, Tomatoes, Bean Stalks, or the delicate imprint of two cloven hooves, perhaps a yearling Mule Deer, maybe the segmented three toed evidence of Wild Turkeys in the Snow, perhaps the imprint of a small rubber rainboot heading not away from the big puddle but into it, if so, you have witnessed the presence of another by the trail they leave behind.
Wild Neighbors: On June 6th of 2019 I began my first day of 35 sessions of radiation. Before I left for Lonetree that morning, I looked out back and there were three young Elk Bulls in the back yard, hundreds of pounds each, dining one by one on the yellow dandelions I encourage to grow there. One of the Bulls had only one antler.
These same three, the one antlered one among them returned for three more early June sessions over the years, sometimes staying the night to resume their meal; then they stopped coming. I figured they’d been shot or died an early death of one sort or another.
When I turned off Brook Forest Drive yesterday on my way into Evergreen, several, maybe as many as twenty dark brown Elk Cows lined the banks of Cub Creek, resting in the yards of two small houses, eating grass, drinking from the Creek. A not uncommon sight there.
Watching over them were three Elk Bulls, one with only one antler. Of course I can’t be sure they were the same Bulls who ate yellow flowers in my back yard, but in the almost eleven years I’ve lived here, I’ve only seen one one-antlered Bull.
Most often, too, I see only one Bull with a harem of this size. There were three. All grown up. They stood proud and watchful while most of the Cows reclined as if in a pillowed room of a Caliph’s inner sanctum. In my imagination anyhow these are the same three, deciding to live their best Elk lives together, breaking the usual rules and sharing their duties without antler clacking acrimony.
Made me smile.
Just a moment: With Tuesday’s heartening election results still resonant, I cringe even more at the Supreme Court allowing (temporarily, they say) red tie guy to intentionally starve millions of our impoverished fellow citizens. If only cruelty and meanness were bread and meat, no one would go hungry in Trump’s America made great again.