Lughnasa and the Cheshbon Nefesh Moon
Friday gratefuls: Kathy, who died. Tara and Eleanor. Cool morning. Shadow of the morning. Sit, down, touch, place. Wag tail. Jump up. Outside. The dark as friendly, fecund, mysterious, soothing. Jon. Who died three years ago yesterday. Ruth and Gabe. Kate, always Kate. Mussar on love and repulsion. Natalie. Her Dog needing stitches. Tom’s ISS photograph share of sprites during a Thunderstorm.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Acceptance
Year Kavannah: Wu Wei
The concept is deeply connected to the natural world. A person practicing acts like water, which flows around obstacles rather than confronting them directly. It is the idea of working with the natural current of life, not against it. Gemini
Week Kavannah: Ometz Lev. Strength of the heart. The inner strength to move forward.
Tarot: Eight of Wands, reversed. (Druid Craft Deck)
The card’s core message is to slow down and reassess your path. It often appears when you are feeling frustrated with a lack of forward movement, or when a flurry of chaotic activity is causing more harm than good.
One brief shining: Shadow stands beside her Mule Deer yearling friend, far enough away to not get kicked, close enough to offer companionship and receive it in return; this yearling has come several times over the last couple of weeks though I’ve not seen again the joyful race she and Shadow ran that first day she was here.
Dog journal: Shadow gets her Lepto booster today from Dr. Josy. Who thinks Shadow is “perfect.” Me, too. Most of the time. Eleanor went to the vet last week to see about excessive licking. Findlay had to go to the emergency vet in Bangor because he yelped and yelped. Possibly a pinched nerve.
We care for our Dog companions as we would our children. Which unveils the relationship possible between this world of human artifice and the world of Wild Neighbors. No, not feeding nor domesticating them, but recognizing their inherent worth and dignity as fellow creatures of the One.
Why I give money to the Colorado Wildlife Sanctuary. Where maliciously kept Wild Animals go to live out their lives in a setting and with food as close as possible to their original home.
Family time: Yesterday was the third Gregorian anniversary of Jon’s death. His yahrzeit was on the 1st since the Jewish calendar follows the moon, not the solar calendar of Pope Gregory XIII.
As time can do, the memory of Jon has softened. Letting the awful struggles of the divorce and his reaction to Kate’s death fall away, his difficult life now sad rather than frustrating.
I remember especially his approach to art over most of the time I knew him in Colorado. When riding his bike or driving his car, Jon looked for pieces of metal run over, sifted to the sided of the road like flotsam on a Maine beach. Things discarded or fallen off, then transformed by the weight of passing trucks and cars, Rain and often rust. A piece of a fender from a wreck. Beer cans. A piece of sheet metal.
He would stop and pick them up, take them home, clean them up, ink them in various colors, then run them through a manual print making press. I have several of these pieces and find them beautiful.