Imbolc and the Birthday Moon
Shabbat gratefuls: Shadow. My son. Seoah. Ginny and Janice. Gabe. Happy Camper. Shabbat. Talmud Torah. Kabbalah. Cold weather. Snarfs. Ruth. CU-Boulder. Integrative Physiology. Jetplane to Incheon. The Jang family visit. My son’s promotion. Treats. Dogs.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Families of choice
Week Kavannah: Perseverance and Grit Netzach
One brief shining: At 3 am while I slept Shadow Mountain emptied out with my son and Seoah headed to the airport, Gabe back home with his student I.D., Shadow sleeping outside the bedroom for the first time.
Too short a visit. In on Wednesday after a full day of travel, Casa Bonita, then Boulder with Ruth yesterday, home around 7 pm, then gone in the wee hours. My son and Seoah whom I saw last in September of 2023.
And yet. Yes to any amount of time. Hugs. Quiet conversations. Laughing. Creating new memories together. This all American family in which I have no blood connection. I was Jon’s step-father, so no blood with Ruth and Gabe. Joseph came into my life 43 years ago by plane from Calcutta. Seoah in 2016. Yet we love each other as any family does. Blood ties and love have no necessary connection. Just as ties with no blood and love have no necessary connection. Only the love we develop and nurture over years and decades.
My life has been rich in loving. And expands even now. My friend Luke. My friends Ginny and Janice. Shadow. Leo. Annie and Luna. Always Mark, Mary, Diane. The Ancient Brothers. The MVP group. Alan.
Not sure how I got so lucky. Found Kate. Together we loved so many dogs. Gardens. Bees and Trees. Places on this wide earth. From Gwangju, Korea to Inverness, Scotland. Each other.
A Valentine’s Day life in so many ways. And so grateful for each love. Every love. All of them.
Shadow would not come out of the bedroom yesterday. Too many people around? A regression? Both? Don’t know. Anyhow she slept outside the bedroom last night for the first time. I want/need to be able to interact with her and if we’re playing hide and seek all day that’s very hard.
Right now she’s comfortably beside my chair as I write this. We’ve greeted each other, nuzzled. She’s gotten treats and awaits her 8 am feeding. The consensus from my son, Seoah, Gabe, and Ruth is that she will be happy dog once she settles in. How long that will take? Uncertain. I’m willing to go the distance.
Just a moment: So. The American Vice-President, JD Vance, sits down with Germany’s Nazi’s OK! far right party, the AfD. Even pushes for them to be included in Germany’s parliament. The German chancellor said this: “A commitment to ‘never again’ is not reconcilable with support for the AfD,” NYT, 2/15/1025
That’s a spectacle that beggars history. The head of a German government chastising an American Vice-President for support of Nazi sympathizers. WTF?
No wonder American Jews feel threatened and American white supremacists feel emboldened. Putting a substantial nick in the land of the free and the home of the brave.