Aging, Health, Science, Third Phase

Cyberknifed

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Beltane and the Moon of Sorrow

Wednesday gratefuls: Spaghetti. Marco Polo. China. Cool morning. Kate’s physical. Telehealth. Dr. Gidday. The loft in the morning. The heat. Wildfire. Trees. Lodgepole Pines. Aspen. Colorado Blue Spruce. Dogwood. Lilacs. Iris. Shrub Roses. The New York Times. The Washington Post. The spread out Keaton Clan. The Human Narrative. Holy Land. Holy Water. Holy Air. Holy you.

One year ago today: Cyberknifed. 1st of 35 treatments.

Since then. Luproned. Hot flashes. Suppressed testosterone. Fatigue. Weakness. In the pursuit of a cure. 9 months later now, after the end of radiation. I think much more about the Lupron than I do about cancer though cancer is always present. The Lupron reaches out and touches me while the cancer is either gone or asymptomatic. It feels gone to me.

Think today, for a moment, if you will, of all those impacted by cancer. Those living with it, trying to cure it. Those caring for them. Their families, their friends.

Cancer is global just like Covid. Deadlier, too. 9.7 million deaths in 2017.

Beyond the Boundaries, Faith and Spirituality, Great Wheel, Health, Jefferson County, Mountains, Myth and Story, Our Land and Home, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., The Move

A Year Ago

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Beltane and the Moon of Sorrow

Tuesday gratefuls: Lululemon, it delights Seoah so. Arlet, the clerk at Lululemon who wants to be Seoah’s friend. The Highlands neighborhood of Denver. Its shops and restaurants. Hwy. 285. I-70. All those other drivers. Evergreen. Safeway. Curb pickup. The Mountains. Snow on the Continental Divide. The winds.

Had an idea for yard cleanup. I’m going to text my neighbor Derek, see how much of our wood he wants. Then, I’m going to post on Nextdoor Shadow Mountain for anyone else who heats with wood. Free fuel. You move it, it’s yours. That’ll get rid of the trees. The slash will go to the curb for chipping. I should be able to handle the rest along with Jon. Some of the remaining stuff belongs to him.

One year ago today two Elk bucks jumped in our yard and began eating Dandelions. Shansin, or his Rocky Mountain avatar, sent those angels to our house. You belong here, Charlie. Neighbor.

Resonated then, and now, with the Consolation of Deer Creek Canyon from 2015. The Mountains rising on either side of Deer Canyon Road spoke, but I was still deaf to the full meaning. The unimaginable age of these young mountains, millions and millions of years since the Laramide orogeny pushed them up, let me put my diagnosis, just received, in a different context.

I drove back from Dr. Eigner’s office, stomach hollow and sour, thoughts flitting from imminent death to it’s a mistake to I can handle this. I can handle this. I can handle this.

Deer Creek Canyon helped me see it was just death. Nothing more. How many deaths since the Laramide mountain building? Uncountable. Insects. Deer. Elephants. Mammoths. Humans. Dogs. Whales. Barracuda. Coral. So much death. Yet, these Mountains were young. My death had nothing unusual about it. I would become part of that uncountable number. That soothed me. Not sure why. Maybe because I didn’t feel singled out, picked on, targeted.

With the recurrence a lot of those old fears and those old reassurances came marching back onto the field. No, said the Angels. This is new. We have come, neighbor, to tell you it is both new and old. The Mountains will embrace you each day as you drive to and from the radiation. Our brothers and sisters will hold you in their wild hearts, as you hold them in yours. We know death and pain and whatever your journey, your ancientrail becomes, we will not abandon you.

Three Mule Deer bucks stood in my backyard on Samain, 2014, when I came for closing on the house. We spent a long time together. They were the wilderness welcome I didn’t even know we needed, yet there they were.

This year three Elk bucks came. This year, probably not until November, I’ll find out whether I have a cure. Again. Reassurance again, from the wild hearts beating all over our home in these Rocky Mountains. More than enough for me.

Beyond the Boundaries, Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Great Work, Kabbalah, Myth and Story, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Dance, Twirl, Leap

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Beltane and the Moon of Sorrow

Monday gratefuls: Old friends. Ancient friends. The Sky. Roads and their romance. Saudi Arabia. Singapore. San Francisco. The Rocky Mountains. The Clan. Newspapers. Headlines. Journalists. Freedom of the Press. Freedom of Assembly. Freedom. Both from and for. July 4. Seoah’s birthday. Lululemon. Seoah’s favorite store. The fans here in the loft.

Spent most of yesterday working on my presentation for the kabbalah class. Wednesday morning. Hard time. I knew what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t find a way in to it. Several false starts. One with double spading forks. One with the dark world I entered after Mom’s death. One with Becoming Native to This Place. Couldn’t get purchase. Kept slipping off with interesting but beside the point narratives. Decided to go right at it. No metaphors. No build up. No explanation. Claims. How I see the world. This is the first draft. It won’t change a lot. Some though. I’ll post the second draft

                          The Grammar of Holiness

All right. This Land is holy Land. That Land is holy Land. All Land is holy Land. The world Ocean is a holy Ocean in a vessel made of continents of holy Land. The Atmosphere is holy. All of it, not just the oxygen we need to breathe, all of it.

We spin and dash around the holy Sun, pushing our way further and further away from the holy Milky Way, traveling though holy Space.

We came from this holy World, are made of this holy World, and return to It the very elements It loaned us.

We are of this wide, large, Universe. And our World will return to It the elements loaned to it at the beginning.

This then is Israel.

When I put my hands in the Soil, the living Land that sustains us, I touch the holy. The sacred gets under my fingernails. When I drink water from the aquifer on Shadow Mountain, I bring holiness into my body, my sacred body.

That Tomato is a holy Tomato. That Cow is a sacred Cow. The Moose a sacred Moose. The sacred Elk Bucks who jumped our fence, ate holy Dandelions and holy Aspen leaves, and lounged among the holy Lodgepole Pines. Angels. Messengers of the holy Mountains.

Holiness means a necessary, unique part of the whole. Sacred means the same.

The One spans this holy Reality, is this sacred Reality, contains that Land and this Land, that Ocean, this Atmosphere, this World, that Galaxy. Whenever we move through the Atmosphere, on the Land, or on the Ocean, we are on pilgrimage to a holy place.

The same for the Blue Whale, the Krill, the Pine Marten, the Mosquito, the Mountain Lion, and the Mule Deer. The same for the Brook Trout, the Staghorn Beetle, or the pollen of the Ponderosa Pine. All on pilgrimage to a holy place.

My faith is this simple. It has neither God nor Bible, neither Savior nor Torah though it can be found through them.

What is faith? Confidence. Acknowledgment. Attention. Focus. Seeing what you are looking at. Touching what is in front of you. Hearing the sacred music of the Land, the Sky, the Waters. Smelling the odor of sanctity in a flower bed or a landfill. Tasting the food that sustains you. And knowing you belong.

Make your puja. Offer yourself. Offer your life. Light incense. Daven. Bow your head. Throw your hands above your head. Shout hallelujah. Prostrate yourself on the holy Land. Say yes. Say no. Dance, twirl, leap.

May as well. This holy World’s for you and you are for this holy World.

Aging, Anoka County, Colorado, Cooking, Coronavirus, GeekWorld, Jefferson County

Imminent

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Beltane and the Moon of Sorrow

Saturday gratefuls: Our Kenmore 19 Frostless Freezer. Its good years of service. A good temporary solution to its imminent demise. Crowhill Appliance. Dave, the tech. Seoah’s help. Kate’s smile when Rigel lay down on her quilt. The gift of pleasant days. Pine pollen. Fish. Curtis Spitler Ellis. Gertrude Eliza Ellis. Judy. Raeone. Saturdays.

Symptoms of a pandemic. Remember all those folks buying toilet paper? Even though Covid doesn’t have g-i effects? Or, the whole PPE scandal with no masks for medical personnel? Out of stock items on Amazon like hand sanitizer, toilet paper? Discovered another one yesterday.

On Wednesday Seoah told me about an alarm going off in the garage. I spent my usual minutes of frustration trying to find it. Not the cars. What else could it be? Oh. The freezer. Temperature alert. Red light flashing. Uh-oh. Remember those meat bundles I bought from Tony’s? Yep. In danger.

I looked at it. Opened the door. No frost buildup. The meat might have just started to defrost. I pushed the quick freeze button, shut the door, and the alarm went off. OK. On Thursday it was beeping again.

We bought this freezer near the time we moved to Andover. That was 1994. It’s been a good mechanical servant for all those days. I even hit it with the car once and it kept on ticking. Had an incident last year when it frosted up. I removed everything, left it open for a day, and the frost melted. I loaded it back up and it continued to work. Until Wednesday.

Time for a new freezer, it seemed. I started looking first at Consumer Reports. OK. GE makes good freezers. I hunted for them online. Looked at Best Buy. Ah. They have it. $900. Reasonable. Wait. That button changed from yellow to gray. Oh, out of stock. Well, understandable. It’s a good one.

I checked Lowes. It was out of stock there, too. Appliance Factory. Out of stock. Specialty Appliances. Home Depot. All out of stock. Ok. I looked for one of the others Consumer Report recommended. Out of stock, too. Decided to check for any old freezer. Out of stock. Kate suggested I look for a chest freezer. Out of stock.

There is nowhere in Colorado that you can buy either an upright or chest freezer. I suspect that’s true everywhere. According to a salesman I talked to, only two manufactures of freezers remain, Amana and Frigidaire. They make all the other brands. Not sure what that means for all the Consumer Reports subtle gradations. Anyhow, they’ve told all their customers there will be no stock again until early to mid-fall.

That put me in a funk yesterday. I like to solve problems and when I have a problem that seems unsolvable. Not good. Hundreds of dollars of top quality meat in a dying freezer. Damn.

Went to bed for a nap. See if some sleep might refresh the circuits. While waiting to go to sleep, I remembered the freezer in our refrigerator. It’s a pull-out bottom freezer and has a fair amount of space. I imagined the packages of meat I’d bought from Tony’s. Huh. They should fit.

My funk lifted. Today Seoah and I will switch the lower value foods stored in the refrigerator with the meats in the dying Kenmore. When I asked Dave, the tech from Crowhill, how long he thought the freezer would last, he said, “A day. A month. Several months.” And shrugged.

They don’t do compressor repairs anymore. That’s because at $900 to $1,000 they’re more costly than a new unit. If, of course, you can find one. I thought briefly about going ahead, but then realized I’d have a brand new compressor in a freezer over twenty years old. Other stuff in it is old, too.

We’ll continue using the Kenmore until the compressor ceases to function. If we lose some popsicles, frozen veggies, or tater tots (yes, sue me. I like’m.), that’ll be ok. It was the thought of losing all that meat and not being able to do anything about it…

And, when Amana and Frigidaire crank back up, we’ll get ourselves a new freezer. Sometime this fall.

Aging, Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Family, Great Work, Health, Minnesota, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Third Phase, US History, World History

Wow

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Beltane and the Moon of Sorrow

Wednesday gratefuls: Kate’s interstitial lung disease is stable. Now for almost a year! Her stamina let her, yesterday: go in for her pacemaker check, her blood work for her physical, and into Joann Fabrics to shop for mask making materials. She also got up early and got on the Clan call. Can’t imagine her doing this six months ago. The snow came. The snow went. Still cool though.

Yesterday was busy. Got up for the Clan call, ate breakfast, then talked with Michele, the home health care nurse, about Kate’s feeding tube. Nap. Then 4 hours plus going to Kate’s heart doc, the lab for her bloodwork, and finally to Joann Fabrics. No time to write.

Still tired this morning. My stamina’s not what it was either.

Understanding what’s going on right now? Priceless. And, impossible. The strong ropes of disruption woven by the coronavirus, the economic crisis, and, now, the rising and welcome wave of unrest will weave themselves together into a hawser capable of hauling us all into a new future.

There will be discontinuities with the past. Masks and social distancing will persist for months, as will staying at home for the older ones among us. How we can care for the hourly wage workers displaced, for the small businesses that go bankrupt or are severely damaged, for the economy as a whole could take years to sort out. The Black Lives Matter movement may unlock the biggest changes of all. And, of course, climate change continues its role as a disrupter of the past.

I’m excited about all of this. America, the world’s indispensable nation, has failed to live into its dreams of a racially diverse nation. That may be changing right now. We’ve never valued the low wage worker, dismissed them from our health care system and a path forward. These same workers saved our lives at risk to their own. Not by choice in most cases, but that’s the point. They work where they do because these are the jobs of our day. Important jobs. Each and every day. Small businesses, not Walmart or Target or Kroger’s or Wendy’s or McDonalds, make a place unique, local. They’re in deep trouble now which could mean a greater homogenization of our retail businesses unless economic reforms gain more traction.

Yes, it’s scary. No, the change will be neither consistent nor smooth. But it’s happening. We are responsible for guiding it in productive and valuable ways. Making sure we rid ourselves of the great divider is most important, but even a Democratic sweep in November won’t ensure success. A change of governance is essential, but insufficient. You and I need to watch, pay attention, act. For the rest of our lives.

Wow. What a time.

Politics, US History

What’s Next?

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Beltane and the Moon of Sorrow

Monday gratefuls: Ancient friends, well-spoken. Ali Baba Grill, their gyros. Seoah loves it. So do I. Maria’s Empanadas. Kate’s choice. All ordered takeout. Those two Elk. Kate’s sisters on Zoom. Ruth, with mask on, protesting with Black Lives Matter. The protests, violent and non-violent. Bunkerman. The military standing up to Bunkerman. Cool mountain mornings. Dandelions. Grass.

Where might all of this protesting go? Reparations? Always a controversial topic. For those with white privilege. David Brooks has an interesting column on reparations.

Defund the police? What does that even mean. Here’s a Washington Post article that gives some ideas. This idea is new to me and I’ve got to read more about it.

I have a good deal of experience with neighborhood organizations, neighborhood level economic development, housing policies, social programs conceived and delivered at the neighborhood level. The diagnosis in Brooks’ article makes sense to me. The solution less so.

Got started with this, went down to eat breakfast, worked out. Forgot it. I’ll get back it tomorrow or so.

Dogs, Family, Friends, Health, Jefferson County, Mountains, Myth and Story, Original Relation, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, The West, Third Phase

Sanshin Speaks

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Beltane and the Moon of Sorrow

Sunday gratefuls: Two Elk bucks, eating dandelions in our backyard. Kep, stepping on my eye in his surprise at seeing them. Seoah, bleary eyed, “I got video!” Sanshin reminding me of the reassurance he sent last June, just before I started radiation therapy. Reassuring me now. Wild neighbors. Who go where they want, when they want. For whom humans are at best a nuisance. For my heart, which follows my wild neighbors

Kep likes to get up, then lay down on me in the morning. It’s part of our getting up ritual. When he does, though, he can see out our bedroom window. This morning he let out a bark and lunged forward, putting his right foot on my right eye. Ouch. Good thing eyelids move fast.

As I let Rigel and him outside, I saw what had caused Kep to react. Two Elk bucks stood on our drainage field, eating dandelions. Talk about the web of life. They are huge, as big as the Cow Moose I saw last week, perhaps a bit bigger.

Neither Rigel nor Kep barked at them. The two Dogs and the two Elk eyed each other. Kep and Rigel went off to pee and wander around the yard. The Elk continued eating dandelions. Elk Bucks, healthy ones anyway, can fend off Wolves and Mountain Lions, so Kep and Rigel were no threat to them. Kep and Rigel seemed to get that, too.

At first I thought these couldn’t be the two who came last June 17th to reassure me before my radiation therapy started. One of those had only one antler. Then. Oh. Yeah, the horns grow back each year. Could well be the same two, back to their secret stash of the yellow flower. Right now they’re resting among the lodgepoles in the northeast corner of our property. Last year they stayed the night.

Yes, the radiation has been on my mind. It was a year ago this month that my imaging work was complete, the new diagnosis finished. I knew the radiation would start, but I wasn’t sure quite when.

These two Elk, come again for our dandelions, have also come again to soothe the part of me that remains anxious, uncertain. No definitive news on the effectiveness of the radiation until November. Dave died last week and a needleworker friend of Kate’s died last week, too, also of glioblastoma. Cancer always wants to kill you.

Commentary on the news, Feelings, Friends, Mountains, Politics, Shadow Mountain, The West, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

A Change in the Weather

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Beltane and the Moon of Sorrow

Saturday gratefuls: Gray rain Clouds over Black Mountain. The blue Sky behind and above them. The two young Bucks dining on our grass yesterday. This weakened body, ready to be free from Lupron…and cancer. Protests. And, the protesters. The police. Those whose lives have been damaged in the last six months whether by Covid, or job loss, or police brutality. Each Black life heartened. A new day dawning. I fervently hope.

Ghosts. During my workout yesterday I did a triceps exercise, close-grip on workout bench. I could hear Dave telling me, “If you want to make it harder, just take your chest closer to the bench.” It was as if he were in the room, encouraging me. The reality of the experience shocked me.

All day yesterday and still this morning a gray cloud like the one over Black Mountain hangs in my inner world. Not quite to melancholy, but close. This world is too much with me, late and soon.

I wonder, why am I not like this all the time right now? That’s an encouraging thought. Why? Because it means I’ve learned to accept the reality around me, the moments of grace as well as the moments of sadness and sorrow. I’m not pushing either of them away, nor am I letting any of them dominate me. They come and they go.

Shadow Mountain is far away from Lake and Hiawatha in Minneapolis. Far away from my friends joining with others there. Far away from the folks with whom I worked over many years. It feels strange to not be there. Just another of the wispy clouds floating in the sky of my inner world.

The outer winds blowing here this morning are coming from the east, not usual. It’s as if the power of change sweeping through the Twin Cities has caused a change in our Front Range weather. May it be so for us, and the rest of our country, the rest of our world.

Friends, Health, Memories

The Windows Were Wide Open

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Beltane and the Moon of Sorrow

My friend Dave beat cancer. But, it killed him yesterday. As I mentioned a while back, Dave had glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer. He went years past the average lifespan after diagnosis, sixteen to eighteen months, living into the sixth year.

And he lived until he died. He ran a fifteen mile race at altitude in the mountains of British Columbia last year. He continued to work with his wife Deb at their boutique fitness center, On the Move Fitness. My last training session with him was December 12th. Then, the coronavirus hit, shutting them down.

My first time working out at On the Move was in early 2017 after my knee replacement surgery. I needed a personal trainer to help me get back in shape. Deb and Dave worked as a team and sometimes I’d have Deb, sometimes Dave. They gave me a new workout every 6-8 weeks, walking me through it, then two days later, checking my form. Afterward I’d go home and use it until it came time for a new one.

At some point Dave and I discovered we were cancer survivors. My PSA’s were good. His scans had gone from once a month to every three months. We both felt good, talking about dodging the bullet. Then in March of last year my PSA went up. I told Dave during one of my visits to On the Move.

He commiserated. Then, the next time I saw him he said a routine scan had found something. Our recurrences happened at about the same time. We discussed how a recurrence was scarier than the diagnosis. It means the cancer’s not giving up.

Well. Neither were we. Radiation was the treatment of choice for both of us and we shared radiation stories. I just want to live, so I’ll keep it treating it as long as I can, he said. Me, too.

For Dave, though, there came a time when more treatment would have forced a choice between cognitive function and healing. He and Deb chose to forgo treatment at that point.

This morning I received a message that included this from Deb: “Dave passed away peacefully yesterday afternoon, here at home. The windows were wide open, the aspen leaves were dancing in the breeze and a big gust of wind came along. I believe he chose that moment to leave, since he always loved the wind and it made him feel alive.”

The Moon of Sorrow.

Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Family, Politics, US History

Lift the knee

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Beltane and the Moon of Sorrow

Wednesday gratefuls: Trash pickup. Silicone. Glass. Rubber. Books. Red books. Green books. Yellow books. Big books. Small books. Heavy books. Light books. Children’s books. Authors. Writers. Keyboards. Fingers on keyboards. Sounds. The wind in the trees. Neil Diamond radio on Pandora. The cello. Motorcycles. The hiss of tires on Black Mountain Drive. Rigel’s insistent voice. Kep’s warning bark. Kate’s voice in the night.

Social convulsions. Seizures in our cities, on our streets. This dystopian nation with all its flaws exposed. Exposed is a key word. The dystopian face of this nation has always been turned towards African-Americans and Latinos and Native people. They’ve seen it, slept with it, worried about their children being seen by it.

Some of us, sometime allies, have seen it, too. It has a scowl of disapproval, that face. The occasional smirk. A condescending laugh. That white face. Oh, didn’t I say? It’s your face. My face. Our face. Teresa of Avila said:

“Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”

I say, replace Christ with the Devil. Replace compassion with scorn. Replace good with evil. Replace blesses with curses. Then you’ll have the body that carries that face. Our original sin. Not original to us, of course. Racism crackles in all shades of melanin, but only through the conduit of power. No power. No racism.

It is, now, a time of sorrow. We may not emerge, may not find joy for some time. The disease will let up. The economy will recover. Yes. But racism? Without root and branch work, it will stay. It kills more people than Covid 19. It forces more people to dream about a stable life than any recession ever did.

When will we get our knee off the neck of fellow human beings?