Far Right, Politics, US History, World History

Shriveled

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Yule and the Moon of New Beginnings

Tuesday gratefuls: Shadow, crosser of thresholds. Ginny and Janice, Annie and Luna. Colder. Red Flag Day. The rise of neocolonialism. Gunboat diplomacy. The ravaging of our nation. Never waste a crisis. A dusting of Snow. Notebooklm. The Great Work. Thomas Berry. The Nature rights movement. Crooked media. The Bulwark.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Furious Minds by Laura K. Field

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Year Kavannah: Creativity.   Yetziratiut.   “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” ― Pablo Picasso

Week Kavannah:  Patience.  Savlanut.  “Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tarot: Back at it soon

One brief shining: More snuggle and cuddles, this less reactive Shadow wants more hugs, more together time; she also takes the threshold as a much less absolute barrier, sometimes prancing in, most often coming with a bit of cajoling, less often I have to go out and she follows me in, Natalie having done the difficult work at her home and the Dog run limiting Shadow’s options. All good.

“We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” he said. “These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.” Stephen Miller to reporter Jake Tapper of CNN, NYT, 1/6/2025

Oh, Stevie. Go back home and embrace those guys who bullied you. Don’t imitate them. Not very evolved. This naked claim about history, from everybody’s favorite xenophobe, lays bare, like a copper wire exposed under a far too thin insulation  of civilization, the motive force for Trump’s reign. Power begets might. Might begets right.

Want Greenland? We’ll just take it Miller said in the same article, who’s gonna stop us. Here is the rationale for changing the name of the Defense Department to the War Department. For changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. For scooping up human beings striving for a better life and depositing them in countries, any country, that will take them. For ignoring Federal Judges, how many divisions does the Pope have. For ignoring norms, allies, decency.

Let Trump be Trump. Let Miller be Miller. Let RFK by RFK. Let Vought be Vought. No guiding mission or vision necessary. The only question, can we make it happen? If we can, that makes it the right choice.

It is not lost on me, or on you, I imagine, that this brazen claim by a Jew who ignores the reality of the holocaust, gets front page placement on this, the fifth anniversary of January 6th’s insurrection. Remember that word? And, treason? And, the convictions, in our courts, following legal investigations and trials with juries and judges? The pardons proof Miller’s claim. The big guy understands.

I’m sorry Miller and his kin missed out  on love, justice, and compassion as guiding forces in their lives. How shriveled and withered they must be inside.

Dogs, Far Right, Health, Politics, White Supremacy, Writing

Matters Ascendant

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Yule and the Moon of New Beginnings

Monday gratefuls: Shadow at home. Cooler weather ahead. Wildfire. Mitigation. The birthday boys. Rigel. Vega. Betelgeuse. Antares. Polaris. Andromeda. Milky Way. Crab. Red. Horsehead. Great Sol. Luna. Mercury. Venus. Earth. Mars. Jupiter. Saturn. Uranus. Neptune. Pluto. (I know. Still.) Oort Field. Pioneer.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Notebooklm

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Year Kavannah: Creativity.   Yetziratiut.   “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” ― Pablo Picasso

Week Kavannah:  Patience.  Savlanut.  “Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tarot: Back at it soon

One brief shining: She still hesitates, sometimes, on occasion I have to go outside and shoo her in, yet I can always get her inside, a marked improvement; on the leash yesterday we walked up stairs, out the door, and into the front yard, where Shadow strolled easily beside me until I decided to get the mail and tightened the leash because of the road. She panicked.

 

Dog journal: With prozac Shadow reacts less to sudden movements, sounds. She doesn’t seem to play as much, but that might be reacclimation, moving from four Dogs and a more frenetic day, Natalie calls it chaos, to the quieter reality of our home. She does seem more subdued, less the bouncy girl. A balance I know. I’ll ask Dr. Josy what she thinks about a smaller dose.

Shadow had begun taking over Natalie’s pack, herding them. I worry the isolation with this old guy might weigh on her, especially with the limited outdoors of the Dog run. Natalie pulled back on her recommendation that I get another Dog when her pack didn’t influence Shadow’s behavior. Pondering.

 

Notebooklm: I had three things, well, really four that began to push themselves forward after I got done with radiation and into a somewhat free time. Fewer, much fewer appointments and procedures.

The first and most urgent was exercise. Diane helped me crack that one by suggesting I focus only on resistance work. At least for a while. I’ve combined her recommendation with an easier on myself self-talk, not carrying guilt if I miss a session. I’ll add cardio back in when it feels right.

The second thing pushing forward, Shadow, had a built in delay since she was at Natalie’s until Saturday. I still had to get the Dog run built and stay checked in on her progress. Now she’s home.

The third matter pushing its way into awareness concerned the question of politics, culture, and my role in this, my fourth phase. After joining the Democratic Socialists of America, it became clear.  I need to continue my learning about the new (far) right, adding in attention to topical news, but considered from a progressive socialist perspective.

I’ve combined Notebooklm and AI to produce a daily, weekly, and monthly research pattern that feeds what will initially be two columns of political commentary a week on my Substack site. I’m still in the setting up and learning phase, but I anticipate getting started writing later this month.

The fourth? Long has it waved. Superior Wolf. Unzipping it, separating out its tech bro immortality storyline from the story of Lycaon, the first werewolf. I want to focus on Lycaon’s story from his time as the King of Arcadia in a time of myth and legend to the present. Again, Notebooklm and AI have helped me get a running start.

I’ve already devoted time to each of these, regular time, so I can follow Picasso’s thought: “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.”

There is, to be fair to the process, a fifth that does not have traction for me right now: the nature’s rights, or earth jurisprudence movement.

Dogs, Politics, US History

Shadow at Home

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Yule and the Moon of New Beginnings

Sunday gratefuls: Shadow at home. The Dog run. Shadow crossing the threshold. Shadow on a leash. Shadow. Cooler weather ahead. Ruth skiing A-basin. Joy at seeing Shadow play. Dr. Josy. A certain liveliness in Shadow Mountain Home. Natalie and her holistic pet training.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shadow crossing the threshold

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Year Kavannah: Creativity.   Yetziratiut.   “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” ― Pablo Picasso

Week Kavannah:  Patience.  Savlanut.  “Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tarot: Back at it soon

One brief shining:  Natalie led Shadow toward the front door on a yellow leash, handed it to me, and Shadow froze, sat down, unwilling to follow me inside, c’mon baby girl, she got up and trotted inside like that was her intent all along; once downstairs in her home, Shadow gently rose up, put two paws on my leg, I leaned down and she nuzzled her head against my cheek, kissed me, nuzzled again. She was, finally, home.

Dog journal: February 4th. Up Berthold Pass, through Winter Park and into Granby Ginny, Janice, Annie, Luna, and I headed to the Granby Shelter to meet Nugget, an Australian Cattle Dog puppy rescued from a house fire in faraway Trinidad, Colorado. On the way up I decided to go with the stream of events. Perhaps I’d come home with a puppy. Maybe not. Depends.

I sat in a metal folding chair when Heather, Ginny’s niece, brought Shadow out from the shelter kennel and left us alone. We did not, as these stories often go, bond immediately. She was shy. Reluctant to be touched. Yet. My heart said, this is my dog.

Later, when she wouldn’t come out from under my bed. When she refused to come in from outside. When she resisted the leash by running away as if it contained poison. When it was 12 degrees outside and she would not come in even for her evening meal something in me broke. My heart. I couldn’t keep her safe so the loving thing to do was to give her away.

After 10 months of affection. Of her play with the rubber tires and the Kong lobster and the treat puzzles. Of downward Dog, her smiles, her gentle hugs. Of having her curl up next to my pillow, sleeping through the night. Of her chasing Butterflies and running circles with the yearling Mule Deer. Love is a terrible bond when things go bad.

Yet. The Mountain folk would not let me go through with it. Dr. Josy enlisted Natalie. I agreed for Shadow to be with Natalie for four weeks of training. In the interim I would have a Dog run added to the house. Nathan did it. It’s functional but not beautiful.

Now that respite is over and Shadow sleeps beside my chair while I write. She has come in, albeit reluctantly, each time I have called her from outside. She let me put the leash on her and we will go for short walks.

Shadow is home.

 

Just a moment: We will run Venezuela? Neocolonialism. How far back do the hands on this clock go? Will we restore the days of cavaliers in the deep South? Impress foreign sailors to serve in our navy? Perhaps we could conquer all of Latin America. Steal Greenland. Recover not just the canal, but Panama, too?

The mind, sorry for the cliche but it seems so apt, boggles.

 

 

Politics, US History

The Red Tie guy. Yet again.

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Yule and the Moon of New Beginnings

Shabbat gratefuls: The Dog run. Nathan. The igloo Dog house in place. Shadow’s coming home today. Her Dog food still in the Chewy box. The heated pad for her Dog house arrives tomorrow. Natalie. Tenderloin filet. Broccolini. Seasoned Potatoes. Tony’s Honey Lime fruit dipping sauce.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shadow

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Year Kavannah: Creativity.   Yetziratiut.   “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” ― Pablo Picasso

Week Kavannah:  Patience.  Savlanut.  “Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tarot: Doing a Celtic Cross spread for the New Year

One brief shining: The patient Aspen waits through the cold and the lowlight of Winter as the Black Bears sleep in their den, the moon waits through its orbit for its face to be toward Great Sol, then it becomes full, the full Moon of New Beginnings rises tonight; Shadow and I will have to relearn our life together, granting each other space for new behaviors. Savlanut.

 

Just a moment: US CAPTURES MADURO, TRUMP SAYS. Headline, NYT, 1/3/2026  When I first saw this bold face headline, my mind took me on a memory trip. Instantly. William Randolph Hearst. Remember the Maine! And this,   “Destruction of the War Ship Maine Was the Work of an Enemy!” (New York Journal, Feb 17, 1898) A sort of dèjâ vu occasioned by history as personal memory. The era of gunboat diplomacy justified by the Monroe Doctrine which warns all comers that the U.S. considers the Western Hemisphere its sphere of influence.

Naked imperialism. Stephen Miller (yes, him again) said:  “American sweat, ingenuity and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela,” Miller, who serves as White House deputy chief of staff, wrote in a social media post.

“Its tyrannical expropriation was the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property. These pillaged assets were then used to fund terrorism and flood our streets with killers, mercenaries and drugs.” quoted in Al Jazeera, Dec. 17, 2025.

“Trump says Venezuela stole U.S. oil, land and assets. Here’s the history.” W.P. Dec. 20, 2025. An AI summary of this article:

“Venezuela’s nationalization of its oil industry under Presidents Pérez and Chávez led to U.S. sanctions and a blockade by President Trump, who claimed Venezuela stole U.S. assets. Economist Francisco Rodríguez refuted Trump’s claims, noting U.S. companies never owned oil or land there.”

This event, the bombing of Caraccas, the kidnapping of Maduro and his wife, an attempt to reclaim “stolen” assets had no Congressional approval. It’s pure histrionic adventurism driven by a bully who listens to the most extreme voices who have his ear.

And, there’s this: Trump said we are “locked and loaded,” ready to intervene in Iran if the government begins killing protesters. I wish China, or Canada, or Mexico had made the same declaration when ICE began its extrajudicial rampage against protesters in L.A. and Chicago.

Killing protesters in Iran. NO! Killing and maiming protesters and legal citizens during deportation raids. Well, you gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet.

Sigh.

Commentary on the news, Tarot

Who Do You Love?

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Yule and the Moon of New Beginnings

Friday gratefuls: David Brooks on love and autonomy. Who do you love? Bo Diddley. Quick Silver Messenger Service. The 60’s. Don’t you need somebody to love? Jefferson Airplane and Gracie Slick. I want to hold your hand. The Beatles. Love is a many splintered thing.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Celtic Cross Spread

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:  Gevurah   strength, discipline

Creating Space: “Gevurah is the strength to create space and to hold space… it’s what helps us nurture our passions.” — Renee Fishman

Tarot: Doing a Celtic Cross spread for the New Year

One brief shining: Laid out the cards selected by intuition from my Wildwood Tarot deck, placing the first card horizontal, for the present, and the second card over, vertical for the challenge, then in the way of this spread, cards from three to ten, four surrounding the first two, and four more running up the far right side beside those six, and turned them over one by one to get an answer to my question, how do I live my best life in 2026?

Partial picture of my Celtic Cross spread

This year of new beginnings (as are all years) opened itself it to me in many ways. Moments of reflection, what happened last year? Moments of projection, how will I be in this new year? What will I be? Who will I be?

The virtue of a tarot spread draws on its evocative strength, not predictive messages. The Celtic Cross spread identifies many threads that need attention, matters that will support or impede answering my question, How do I live my best life in 2026?

Without belaboring a full reading I’ll offer some highlights.  My present showed the two of Stones, a card that suggests a need for grounding and balance while taking on an adversary. I took this to reflect my role in the struggle for a renewed and cleansed nation.

The challenge to living my best life, strikingly, displayed the ten of Vessels, or happiness. This card had two powerful messages for me: a challenge this year will be giving and receiving support and love. That is, not going so far down a political struggle path that I lose sight of family, friends, spirituality, Shadow. Second, as a ten it represents the end of a cycle, a coming home, a feeling of security. I take this to mean I’ve been on a path, trying to find a way to be in the world that gives back while also leaning into love and support. And, I’ve tentatively struck that balance. Next comes living out of that love and support toward a rich future.

The rest of the cards encourage reliance on creativity, on my subconscious, on intuition, all leading toward the 10th, or result card, #1 of the Major Arcana, the Shaman.  Here’s Gemini on the meaning of that card:

  • Connection to Nature: He is a master of his surroundings, understanding weather patterns, healing plants, and the habits of wild creatures.
  • Mediator and Guide: As a gatekeeper to unseen worlds, he reads signs and explains the rules of the spiritual structure to others, often acting as a teacher for those who listen.
  • Balance: While the Seer (The High Priestess) represents inner knowledge, The Shaman represents coming into one’s outer surroundings and the practical application of that knowledge. 

Not sure what this suggests as the result of living my best life in 2026, but I’d be happy to represent any of those three.

Addenda: If you have time, read the David Brooks article I posted a link to in the gratefuls. I agree with his premise that we have swung too far toward the autonomy end of the autonomy-community pendulum. I disagree with him that broad political buckets like conservative or liberal either explain it or offer a remedy to it.

I do, however, strongly agree with him that we must love, deeply, passionately. I love my friends, my family, Shadow, Artemis, a nation devoted to succor for any in the world who need it. I love justice and compassion. I love Judaism and being a Jew. I love Mother Earth and Great Sol. I love plants and wild neighbors. I love you, dear reader.

Colorado, Dogs, Far Right, Minnesota, Politics

Shhh

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Yule and the Moon of New Beginnings

New Year’s Day gratefuls: Nathan. The Dog run. Beef tenderloin. Broccolini. Seasoned Potatoes. Joe. Murdoch. Seoah. Solid wood cutting boards. Cooking. Shrimp and cocktail sauce. 2026. Morning darkness. 250 years, USA. The Hummingbird. Dandelion. Bread Lounge. Wildflower. The Black Bird. Primo’s. Aspen Perks. Conifer Cafe. Lucille’s. The Cow. Breakfast, the friendship meal.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: My Shadow pillow

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:  Gevurah   strength, discipline

Creating Space: “Gevurah is the strength to create space and to hold space… it’s what helps us nurture our passions.” — Renee Fishman

Tarot: Doing a Celtic Cross spread for the New Year

One brief shining: Laid out in ten foot runs the six foot tall chain link fence with a gate will enclose Shadow in a smaller space, one with an igloo Dog house and outdoor heater, making her world more manageable for me, more confining for her, yet necessary if we’re to continue living together. Nathan comes today.

Dog journal: Ruth’s Hannukah present to me. A Shadow pillow. Very sweet.

Been a month full of Shadow related matters. Finding Nathan to build the Dog run. Natalie picking up Shadow for boarding school. Dr. Josy checking her over and prescribing prozac. Shadow learning how to cross thresholds and have a leash put on. Staying connected with Shadow as she learned new behaviors. When she returns this Saturday, she will have been with me exactly eleven months.

Not an easy first year. For either of us.

 

Just a moment: Proud to live in Colorado and to have lived in Minnesota. Targets of he who shall be named bad man, very bad man. Down, bad man.

That guy stopped funding for an Arkansas River diversion project conceived during JFK’s presidency and about to deliver fresh water to 50,000 Coloradans who have to buy bottled water for drinking and cooking. Funny thing. Everybody’s favorite gun-totin, companion groping female member of the House of Representatives, Lauren Boebert, has pilloried red tie guy over the decision.

Why? For starters, those Coloradans are in her district. Yep, Colorado’s ruby red 4th district. Those same Coloradans? Trump voters most likely. But, the paw of the large animal inhabiting the White House reached down and vetoed Boebert’s legislation.

Trump has targeted Minnesota and Colorado as blue state enemies. “I wish them the worst,” said far right Christianity’s lode star. He’s mean, cruel, vindictive, and petty. Oh, right. And, President. Almost makes me wish for the second coming. Get a righteous judge down here.

He’s gone after Minnesota’s Somali community and the country from which they came. Now he’s suspending support to Minnesota child care. I wish he was a bull in a china shop. We’d be experiencing far less damage.

Wait till he finds out that Phillip Weiser, our attorney general who has sued Trump’s administration over 30 times in the past year, is a favorite to replace current Colorado Governor Jared Polis. Not just those lawsuits, no sirree. Weiser is a Jew. So is Polis. Shhh.

Writing

We Made It Up

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Yule-New Year’s Eve and the Moon of New Beginnings

New Year’s Eve gratefuls: Another year of life. Living in the third millennium. The Jang visit. Tom’s visits. Seeing the Ancient Brother’s each week. Paul, Tom, Diane. Shadow. CBE. Shadow Mountain Home. Artemis. Lodgepoles and Aspen. A Mountain Fall. Nerve ablation. Care for prostate cancer. Ruth finishing her freshman year and beginning her sophomore year. Gabe becoming a senior in high school. Commander Joe. Mary down under. Mark the old Saudi hand. Each Snowflake, Rain Drop, photon of Sunlight that came to Shadow Mountain. Each Blade of Grass, each Leaf of Ground Cover. The Mule Deer and Elk. The Black Bears and Mountain Lions. The Squirrels: Fox, Aberts, and Pine. Chipmunks. Voles. Magpies. Ravens. Crows. Robins. Blue Jays. Canada Jays. Woodpeckers like Flickers and Hairy and Downy. Each Rock of each Mountain. Each Mountain like Shadow, Black, Conifer, Berman, Berrigan. Each Mountain Stream like Maxwell Creek, Blue Creek, North Turkey Creek, Bear Creek. Conifer, Evergreen, Pine, Bailey. And our poor benighted government ravaged by fear, greed, and lust.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Each day of 2025

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:  Gevurah   strength, discipline

Creating Space: “Gevurah is the strength to create space and to hold space… it’s what helps us nurture our passions.” — Renee Fishman

Tarot: Doing a Celtic Cross spread for the New Year

One brief shining: The pregnant Mule Doe or Elk Cow will not celebrate a new year since time flows for them in seasons of plenty and seasons when food hides from them; the Mountain Streams know only flow or freeze, the Aspens gave up their leaves as they do, while the Lodgepoles did not; the Mountains stay steady, tall, varied while losing, slowly, their essence to Water, Wind, and Fire.

Time divided into seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years, centuries, millennia, eras, epochs. A mental construct made by us bipedals who make a category mistake, the fallacy of misplaced concreteness, and imagine those divisions to be real. They are not.

No December. No New Year. Except for our need to name what we experience as the passage of time. Oh, by now, we do not question it. I mean the ball will drop in Time’s Square after all. The calendars of 2025 will go in the dust bin, while new planners, calendars, charts pretend the days have names and the months, too.

Yet you and I know the truth, don’t we? We exist for a moment, a mayfly moment. Life begins, then ends. Stars are born and then die. Planets whirl around them until they don’t. All this fussing and mussing around what happens in a life, wasted effort.

We blink on, we blink off. If we’re lucky, we experience other constructs like love and justice and joy and grief and despair, experiencing them all among others sharing this wondrous, inexplicable momentum gifted to us.

What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

General

Under the Moon of New Beginnings

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Yule and the Moon of New Beginnings

Tuesday gratefuls: Snow. Ruth at A-Basin. Gabe working puzzles. Shadow away. Goya. El Greco. Velasquez. Picasso. Pissarro. Monet. Rodin. Renoir. Cezanne. Toulose-Lautrec. Poussin. Van Gogh. Rembrandt. Holbein. Durer. Bosch.  Wyeth. Hopper. Bierstadt. Pollock. Rothko. O’Keefe. Turner. Waterhouse. Giotto. Michelangelo. Da Vinci. Botticelli.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Artists

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:  Gevurah   strength, discipline

Creating Space: “Gevurah is the strength to create space and to hold space… it’s what helps us nurture our passions.” — Renee Fishman

Tarot: Doing a Celtic Cross spread for the New Year

One brief shining: This room resounds with silence, deafens me with its insistent beat of absence, Shadow away, yes, but also Shadow not here, no rubber tires thrown in the air, no food crunching, no water lapping, no downward Dog, no dark brown eyes gazing at mine, no hugs. Glad she returns on Saturday.

 

Dog journal: Nathan starts on the Dog run tomorrow. The igloo Dog house sits in its cardboard box from Chewy. The pheromones are in the mail. Doggy puzzles, tires, rubber donuts, her lobster and other favorite toys await her not so gentle chewing. Shadow’s coming home.

I enjoyed the time without her, after I finished grieving. I didn’t have to worry about her, get home faster to take care of her. No sleepless nights while she roamed outside in the cold.

Yes. I enjoyed all that. I also missed her smile, her greetings, her affection, her body curled up nose to tail beside my pillow at night. Her puppy joy at chewing, learning new tricks. Seeing the world through her eyes.

With her new learning, the Dog run, the igloo Dog house with its heater, the prozac and the pheromones, our time together will lose the edge of despair she occasioned in me from time to time. That I will not miss.

The Moon of New Beginnings: This new year, this secular new year, I plan to usher in a bit differently than the past 78.

First, I will do a Celtic Cross spread, asking the question: How can I live my best life in 2026?  I’ll report back on what I discover.

Second, I will choose a year kavannah, an intention for the year at least partly based on what I learn.

Third, I will set up this computer to make my review of news sources easy to access. This will entail creating tab groups in Chrome, finding a permanent spot for my political books, and better learning how to use Substack. It will also mean creating scheduled time for this work on a daily, weekly, monthly basis.

Fourth. I will create a new novel project in Scrivener and continue in depth research for the revised Superior Wolf novel. More group tabs, more reading. And, time for this in my schedule.

Fifth. Shadow and I will settle into yet another new phase of our life together, one, I hope, less fraught for both of us.

 

Ancient Brothers, Cooking, Memories, Men, Minnesota, Myth and Story

Santas

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Yule and the Moon of New Beginnings

Monday gratefuls: Cold Hafar. Mark invigilating. Cold night, good sleeping. Your favorite place. Mine is right here on Shadow Mountain. Ruth, skiing A-Basin. Gabe sorting through Jon’s art. Shadow’s last week in boarding school. Sue Bradshaw. Ana. Sheetpan meals. One of my own. Working out again. The Hummingbird.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei    Shadow, my Wu Wei mistress

Week Kavannah:  Gevurah   strength, discipline

Creating Space: “Gevurah is the strength to create space and to hold space… it’s what helps us nurture our passions.” — Renee Fishman

Becoming a metaPhysician

One brief shining: Cutup the Spring Onions, added brightly colored strips of Bell Peppers, some Garlic, Olive Oil, Salt, Pepper, stirred them together to coat everything, all spaced evenly in one of my Nordicware quarter sheetpans, baked at 425 for ten minutes, then put Andouille and Italian sausages on top of them and baked 30 minutes more and soon I had at least five meals ready.

 

Cooking: Beginning to understand how to build my own sheetpan meals. Their virtue lies in their short prep, ability to accommodate diverse ingredients, ease of cooking, and limited cleanup. Just the sheetpan and whatever prep left over.

Once finished, I eat one meal right away, then portion out the rest in containers, pop them in the fridge, and I have my own meal service. Today I’m making Salmon fillets with baby potatoes and perhaps broccoli florets.

The nerve ablation has removed my back pain on my left side, so I can stand longer while prepping and cooking.

Still weak though, stamina sucks. I wanted to add sauerkraut to the sausage meal, but I’m too weak to open the f*!#&ing jar. Same with the Sour Cherry preserves I wanted to put on my toast. Geez. My modest goal is to get back enough grip strength to manage these simple tasks. I’m working on it.

Glad to be back in the kitchen, cooking for myself. I prefer my own food and the nerve ablation plus my new resistance work regimen enables me to get back at it.

 

Santa: Ancient Brother Mark told a great Santa story yesterday morning. Worth sharing.

When he lived in Marine on St Croix, Mark contacted a Santa to come for a pre-Christmas gathering at his house. Christopher was young, 3 or 4, and Mark invited a few other families with young kids. It was a Christmas party and the children had not been told Santa was coming.

After the party was underway, a pickup truck pulled up in the driveway and a man with a real great white beard got out, came around to the backdoor, and walked in, saying nothing. The kids stared.

Still saying nothing he went over to the fireplace and shined a flashlight up the fireplace chimney, checked the damper by opening and closing it.

“I’m one of the Santa’s.” he told the by now confused and wondering kids. “We have to go out and check chimneys to be sure Santa can get down them.” He went on to explain that there were many, many Santa’s. “Making Christmas happen is a big, big job.”

Mark and his friends tried to pay him, but he refused the money. “Don’t blow it for me, man. It’s for the kids.”

Commentary on Religion, Judaism

A Bonus Post from Rabbi Rami Shapiro

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I’m going to replace my New Year’s resolutions with the Five Remembrances from the Upajjhatthana Sutta (“Subjects for Contemplation”).

The Upajjhatthana Sutta is also known as the Abhiṇhapaccavekkhitabbaṭhānasutta. I mention this only in case you need to impress people at a New Year’s Eve party. Delivered orally some 2500 years ago and written down in Pali around 29 BCE, the Upajjhatthana Sutta is famous for its teaching of the Five Remembrances:

  1. It is my nature to grow old. There’s no escaping growing old.
  2. It is my nature to fall ill. There’s no escaping illness.
  3. It is my nature to die. There’s no escaping death.
  4. Everything and everyone I cherish shares this same impermanence. There’s no escaping my being separated from them.
  5. Thoughts and feelings are beyond my willful control. My actions alone belong to me. There’s no escaping the consequences of my actions.

These Five Remembrances aren’t resolutions; they are facts. You don’t have to accept them any more than you have to accept gravity. They are simply what is so.

Memorizing and reflecting on the Five Remembrances is said to deepen your appreciation of life and your compassion for the living. In my experience, it also eliminates the haunting question “Why Me?” When I remember that everyone suffers, there is no need to ask why I’m suffering. Not distracting myself with the story “Why Me?” allows me to address the problem at hand more creatively.

If the Buddha were a Jew, I imagine he would have ended each of the Five Remembrances with the Hebrew word titmoded: deal with it. There’s no escaping growing old—deal with it. There’s no avoiding illness—deal with it. There’s no escaping death—deal with it. There’s no escaping impermanence—deal with it. There’s no escaping the consequences of my actions—deal with it.