Samain and the Yule Moon
Tuesday gratefuls: Paul. Joanne. Vietnamese food. A long lunch. Snow. Ruth. Thai food and ice cream. Finals week. Remember finals? Alan on the Tasman Sea. Shadow Mountain Home. Warm. Mini-splits. Solar panels. Electricity. Quantum computing. The future accelerating back toward us.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fresh Snow
Kavannah: Love (ahavah)
One brief shining: Driving in the Mountains after a Snowfall has an adventure around every curve, forty years of Minnesota Winters making me alert to tiny movements in the tires, relaxing if they slip, recovering easily, Blizzaks gripping, gripping, living in the moment because the situation requires it.
As an old man driving in the Mountains in the Winter, I’m grateful for the wonderful teacher I had. Minnesota Winters. Where the Snow is not so much compared to my Colorado home, but it stays and gets slick. I am familiar with the movements of a car on Winter roads. Not to say I haven’t had my moments. I have. But always on Ice. And even then, not panicking, staying away from the brake and the accelerator pedal. Gently, gently.
The Mountains after a new Snow have slopes of flocked Lodgepoles, their Aspen colleagues looking cold and skeletal without their leaves. A beautiful transformation that we get to see often in the changeable weather of Colorado. Snow. Sun. Snow. Snow. Sun and blue Skies. A different sort of Winter from Minnesota. Less brutal. More episodic in its dramatic weather. Much, much more Snow.
If it were not for the threat of Wildfire, Shadow Mountain would be an ideal home. In the midst of beauty in all seasons, cool Nights, dark Skies, silence, Wild Neighbors, and Rock, so much Rock, cold Streams. The gift of Wildness at every juncture. Reminders of the ongoingness of Mother Earth everywhere. Which in turn remind me of the temporariness of my own Life. No American immortals up here.
Today is Jon’s birthday, he would have been 56. I’m going over to Boulder to have lunch with Ruth. She’s come a long, long way since he died two and a half years ago. Now a college freshman, living on her own for the first time. Loving her classes, learning. Facing down fears and the anti-Semitic tonality of so many college campuses right now.
She still misses “her person” and has rough moments, sometimes sobbing and despondent. But I can see her resilience take hold now, acknowledging the feelings, managing her response. Bouncing back. Grief is a journey and one that never completely ends.
Just a moment: How bout those Syrian rebels? Striking when no one expected it. Shifting, yet again, the volatile stew of Middle Eastern nations. How will their ascendance change the politics of the Middle East? At least one thing sticks out to me, the rebels are Sunni and therefore not disposed to support Iran, Hezbollah, or Hamas. Probably not keen on Israel either, of course.
Not to mention. Turkey is part of the Middle East, too. Look north from Turkey’s northern shores and nothing but the Black Sea separates you from the Ukraine.
In the immortal words of Bob Dylan: the time they are a changin’.
