Imbolc and the Ancient Moon, now waning
Monday gratefuls: Life. Familiar sounds as Shadow Mountain folks go off to work. The Sky like a polished katana. My buzzy body. Taking in our insults, regathering. My lev healed. For now. Rest days. Bereshit. Television. Soothing. Taking care. Of myself. Annie. BJ. Sarah. Phone call from Ruth. Gabe and his learner’s permit test. Taxes. Tis the season.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Steroids
One brief shining: Our body carries the after effects of our lousy night, a bit shaky, thrown off, yet also eager to move on, get fed, go back to the usual diet and exercise routine, yet not yet, for the lingering sense, a drained out, hollowed feeling, goes back and forth, up our back and gut, into the shoulders, and thence directly to the mind where memory traces its account in blood.
Blessed cessation. Oh, yes. When something not happening takes on an outsized significance. A quasi-normal day after a horrible night. Quasi because not confident in the not happening. Will this start up again? God, I hope not. Likelihood seeming less and less as the day wore on. Confidence increasing. This flare has ended. Still some laundry to do, but yes. Moving past this to healthy life again. Oh, thank you to the miraculous body who is me, who is our physical presence in the world. Who in spite of our troubles finds our center again, rushes to healing. Our journey together, my lev and my body, is the most ancientrail of all.
As I learned, again, after Kate’s death, Great Sol appears anyway, throwing the bright light of fusion driven energy on the peak of Black Mountain. The Lodgepoles still reach toward Great Sol, eager for their daily nutrition. Maxwell Creek flows on down the Mountain, Kate’s Creek feeding into it not far from from Hwy 73. Neighbors get up and brush their teeth, eat breakfast, go to work. Our journey is brief, our significance most likely little. We sink quickly from sight and memory.
Why then do we live? Why do we greet a return from illness or problems as a resurrection? A return to normalcy. Why? Because life is all we know. These cells of our humanness, so few compared to the others-just checked this out and turns out it’s not true. The best estimate, cited in this article: 1.3 microbiome cells to 1 human cell. Even with this estimate the reality is that our human cells are less than half of our body’s constituent cells. And, BTW: there are also viruses, fungi and archaea in addition to the microbiome’s bacteria. What even is “our” life? We have had no say in creating this astounding organism, this host-self, that wants most of all to continue to live. That is the existential imperative. We gasp for Air. We find Water. We eat each day. We do these things not out of choice, but habit, instinct. The lungs must have oxygen. Our cells must have Water and nutrition. So we organize ourselves around those needs. We live.
Of course we can fancy this up with philosophy and religion. We can come to an awareness of living that raises our continued existence to the level of choice. Yes. But even then the biological imperatives must be met while considering this. What we do with this strange and momentary glance at reality depends on our learning, our choices, our dreams, of course. But deprive the body of air or water or food and no dream, even one of justice, will come first.
