Asia, Dogs, Family, Far Right, Korea, Politics

A D.E.I. family

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Summer and the Korea Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Morning Darkness. Artemis glowing. Shadow, protecting the yard at 1 a.m. From the inside. Her head on my pillow. Jim Butcher. Harry Dresden. Moving toward Lughnasa. First harvest festival. Mabon. Samain. The Great Wheel. Sukkot. Pesach. Shavuot. The Tree of life.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Cosmic Void

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Yirah. Awe.

Tarot:  The Woodward. (yes, again) How can I get stuff done around the house today?

One brief shining: Shadow’s head on my pillow, her coming inside at night, walking out to Artemis, checking on the Tomato Plants, looking for the Shoots to come up in the raised beds, writing Ancientrails, regular exercise, filling my soul.

 

Just a moment: Psst! Yes, you. Have you heard about the Epstein files? No? Well, let me tell you.

If the Donald has a hint of sexual predation on under age girls, much of his base will throw him to the Democrats. I mean, cruel Evangelicals have their limits. At least I think they do.

Conspiracy theorists eat their own young, so red tie guy will not get a pass. Irony, thy name is MAGA.

Interesting to see where this goes. Attempts to distract: Release MLK files. Blame Jerome Powell for costs incurred building a building five years ago and claim it as a cost today. Put out executive orders on, oh, what was it again? I can’t keep track. Maybe recasting statues of Confederate Generals? Telling the Commanders they have to go back to their old, racist name.

Will no one rid red tie guy of this troublesome pedophile? What? They did? Oh. Well. At least there’s the Epstein files.

Finding a depravity in this President with chronic moral insufficiency that goes below all the others. That’s quite a challenge. But this might be the one.

 

The Jangs: As the Jang clan nears takeoff, Seoah said there is a lot of excitement. Buzzing.

Diane, cousin Diane in San Francisco, offered to write the Giants and tell them that a whole Korean family has come to see Jung-hoo Lee play. Might give them a chance to meet Lee. A kind gesture on her part.

When they get here on August 2nd at 7 pm, their bodies will be on 10 a.m. Korea time. I imagine at least a day or two of serious jet lag. Then let the sight-seeing begin.

That also gives Seoah and my son time to go to H-Mart, stock up on Korean diet friendly foods. Korean cuisine is, imho, a world treasure whereas the U.S. diet? Not so much.

I hope Ruth gets her internship in Korea next summer. Getting involved in the Korean medical education system early could help her if she chooses Korea for medical school.

What an odd weaving together of Jews, Norwegians, Koreans, a Bengali, and a garden variety white family. I love it. Can you say D.E.I.?

 

Dog journal: Me and my Shadow. She just came in for breakfast. Her big meal. I still feed it to her by hand.

 

 

 

Dogs, Family, Far Right, Judaism, Politics, Shabbat, White Supremacy

Interesting Times

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Summer and the Korea Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Shabbat. The coming of the Jang’s. Aug. 2. My son and Seoah. Gabe and Joanne. Artemis. An early sprouter. 1 Red Russian Kale. More and more Tomato Blooms. Hard Rock. Ledges. Boulders. Scree. Talus. Mountains. Oceans. Beaches. Tides. Riprap. Water. Lakes. Great Lakes. Lake Superior. Lake Huron. Michigan. Erie. Ontario.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rocks and Water

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Yirah. Awe.

“Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. ….get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.”
― Abraham Joshua Heschel

Tarot: The Woodward. How can I increase my joy of the sabbath?

One brief shining: We sat, the four of us at a round table, not our usual one which had occupiers, Gabe meeting Joanne with his desire to become a writer, excited and yet quietly confident, Alan guiding the conversation’s focus on Gabe and Joanne while punning, always.

 

Family: Part of the role of family. Recognizing the dream of the moment for another. Helping them get as far as they can. Visiting my son. From base to base. Ruth changing majors from art to pre-med. Yes. Gabe meeting Joanne at the Dandelion yesterday. Encouraging Mark as he advances in Saudi.

We do not choose another’s path. But we can spread roses along it.

 

Dog journal: Shadow has become a regular inside at night dog! I’m pretty sure we’re over that puzzling moment in our history. Thank god.

Her job during the day lies in patrolling the backyard for what are, to Shadow’s mind, errant creatures. Barking at them. This is my place. Not yours. Go somewhere else.

This job entails a lot of lying on the ground and resting, yet remaining alert. Unless Great Sol warms her belly and she falls asleep.

 

Judaism: I love Heschel’s idea of living life in radical amazement. My everyday, every moment hope for myself. That I can see the sacred lying there asleep in Great Sol’s warmth. That even the pain in my buttocks says, yes, you’re alive! That the Water I drink comes from Mother Earth’s recycled, refreshed, purified supply. That my fingers still remember the keys. That my body breathes. My heart beats.

Yirah, indeed. Joy of the sabbath. Yes.

 

Just a moment: Saw an article about RTTL, Return to the Land, an Arkansas version of South Africa’s Orania, a white-separatist town. RTTL has 160 acres in Arkansas and want to start a new version of their back to the land, whites only community in Missouri.

Idaho already has several back to the land far-right commune-like spots. Granola conservatives. Funny. We had a different idea for the same back to the land idea in the sixties.

RTTL: “You want a white nation? Build a white town,” Eric Orwoll says, in one video posted on social media. “It can be done. We’re doing it.”

“RTTL is at the vanguard of an ethnonationalist movement that has been organising online – a network that aims to define countries by ethnicity but which links across borders.” Sky news, op cit

We’re living in interesting times.

Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Greenhouse, Judaism, Memories, Paganism, Plants

Not Even Past

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Summer and the Korea Moon

Friday gratefuls: Ruth and Gabe. Nathan. Tarot. Morning Darkness. Cool morning. Shadow the mover of toys and socks. The sleeper. Alan and Joanne. Dandelion. RTD. Japanese lanterns. Red tie guy. His allies and facilitators. The rest of us. The most. Our long, slow slide into a third-rate country.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Japanese Lanterns for Artemis

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Ahavah. Love.

Tarot: The eight of Vessels-rebirth. How can I enhance my joy in the Tarot.

One brief shining: Ruth drives her pale green Subaru up the hill to Conifer, to Shadow Mountain Black Mountain Drive and she brings Gabe, Jon, Kate, Merton, Rebecca, BJ, Sarah, Annie with her, the living and the dead who occupy our memories and still shape our lives. Family.

 

Family: Its many branches planted here and in the here after. Jon and Kate. Tanya. Leisa. Rebecca and Merton. Of recent and sometimes blessed memory.

Not gone. Not at all. Haunting or supporting. Often both in the same moment. A remembered moment of hearts spread out on a restaurant table. A father watching movies with his son. A hostile mother demeaning her children. A hand held gently. A smile and a hug just when needed. Those quiet, small moments when love flashed between the two. Or among the three.

Mothers and fathers. Daughters and sons. Brothers and sisters. Grandfathers and grandmothers. Cousins. Kin.

Mark works in the desert of the Arabian Peninsula. Mary starting a new expat life as a permanent resident of Australia. Melbourne. Guru in K.L. My son in Osan along with Seoah and Murdoch.

Mom and dad. Long dead now. Yet not absent. No. Following Faulkner: “The past is not ever dead; it’s not even past.”

The stories. Of Charlie Keaton. Of Mabel. Of Aunt Mary and Aunt Mame. Aunt Nell. Uncle Riley. Aunt Virginia. All ghosts now, all hidden from earthly view yet still alive, still shaping us in ways we sometimes know and in ways we often do not.

How will we dance in the minds of our family after our deaths? Will it be a slow, graceful gavotte. A passion fueled tango. An elegant waltz. Perhaps a rock and roll moment, abandon and energy. Something we cannot predict, nor ever know.

 

Artemis: Nathan brought by two Japanese lanterns yesterday. Adding to the koi already on the door and his wooden accessories. Artemis has a distinct Asian inflection, appropriate for this guy whose family long ago fled west across the Pacific to Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Australia.

Artemis is, in that way, a family shrine as well as a temple to my mixed pagan and Jewish spirituality. Her Tomatoes have many spiky yellow blooms, her Squash Plants have begun to throw vines over the raised beds, while the seeds of her fall salad garden right now take in moisture and heat, have located Great Sol’s path above them and will soon emerge above ground.

Still to plant: Herbs, flowers. And, later, in October, garlic.

Dogs, Family, Greenhouse, Korea, Tarot

Ichi go, ichi e

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Summer and the Korea Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Ruth and Gabe coming up. Breakfast at Aspen Perk. Shadow coming inside. Tramadol. Hip, leg, and buttocks pain. Morning darkness. 48 degrees. 64 in Artemis. Topping the Tomatoes. Chatgpt, my fellow gardener. Tarot. Bluebells. Pentstemon. Mullein. Daisies. Seeds resting in the womb of Mother Earth. Readying themselves for growth. Amelia Earhart Day.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Artemis

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Ahavah. Love.

Tarot: Ace of Bows.  How can I celebrate the coming of the Jangs?

One brief shining: Stuck my index finger in the Soil, testing for Soil Moisture, guided the Squash plants out and over the edge of the outside raised beds, clipped the leaders of the Tomato Plants so they would stop growing up. Gardening.

 

Artemis: Learning her ways. For example. My careful tending to the Tomato Plant temperatures, the Salmon I put under each Plant, the organic fertilizer I worked into the Soil, and the regular drip irrigation has made them grow well and fast.

However, as you can see in this photograph, they’re reaching the ceiling of the greenhouse. Hmm. Checked what to do on Chatgpt which suggested three options: 1. Trim the leader of each Plant which will stop upward growth and send energy to fruiting. 2. Tilt the plants by lifting them a bit and making them grow to the side. 3. Trim outside Branches so the Plant would become bushier.

I chose to trim the leads which I did yesterday. Next year I will choose dwarf determinate seeds and start them early. Determinate Tomato Plants grow up, indeterminate tend to grow more like Vines. Both have their place, but Artemis has space only for dwarf Determinates. Learning.

Next week this time the Seeds should be sprouting and thinning will be the next task along with putting down Hay or Compost around the young Plants. In this Arid climate maintaining moisture around the young’uns as they grow and develop Root systems is critical. I may need to shade them a bit, too, until Nathan has my new cold frames installed. Great Sol can burn Plants at 8,800 feet. Learning.

 

The Jang’s in Gwangju. Sept. 2023

Jang’s visit: A week from Saturday Seoah’s family lands in Denver. A punishing trip, as Ruth learned this May. I imagine the first day, maybe two will be recovering, acclimating both to elevation and the time zone change.

After that, Seoah and her sister will choose what various activities will be good for her parents, who are a bit older than me, and her sister’s family, which includes teen-agers.

Joe has rented a large van which will get a lot of use. Ruth will help with transportation, too. I will, too, on shorter jaunts. Ichi go, ichi e. Once in a lifetime.

 

Dog journal: Shadow and I continue to learn each others ways. Accommodating each others idiosyncrasies, including early bedtimes and early rising. Soon we’ll have to return to the dreaded leash, but I believe it will be easier this time.

 

Dogs, Dreams, Fourth Phase, Greenhouse, Memories, Minnesota

Shadow and Artemis Add Them Back

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

Wednesday gratefuls: Halle. P.T. ending. Forced to decide my own workouts. Overnight Rain. The darkness of early Morning. Shadow sleeping beside me. Her life outside. The Wren. Again. Planting the Fall garden. Artemis. Great Sol still hidden. His consort, Mother Earth, wrapped in nurturing Night. World Whale and Dolphin Day.

Sparks of Joy and Earth: Soil with Seeds

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Ahavah. Love.

Tarot: Page of Arrows. The Wren. What can I do to reinforce my exercise routine?

One brief shining: Poured seeds into my hands, delicate Lettuce, spiky Beets, tiny Arugula, round Chard, pushed them down onto the Compost/Top Soil with Horse manure, wrote small signs and placed them at the end of rows, got out my copper Watering can and poured a thin stream over each of the furrows, Mother Earth impregnated. Now we wait.

 

Dreams: I don’t remember the full dream as I often don’t. We’d gone north on a highway that  appears in my dreams on occasion, this time all the way, to a land of Boreal Woods and Lakes far past the small towns where I often end up, past my dream world Chicago and its complicated highways and ports.

A retreat with several friends including Kate. While there we made places to sleep out of Buffalo hides. The rest of the time we wandered in the Forest, went to the Lakes, split off into dyads often.

Then someone came, maybe three days into our stay, and said, “Rabbi Jamie’s dead.” This confounded us all, sent us into shock. Nobody had any details.

In all the confusion the dream came to an end.

 

Artemis: The Fall Garden. Awaits the awakening of leafy Chard, Spinach, Arugula, Lettuce, and well-Rooted Beets. (Just remembered I need to plant Nasturtiums and Marigolds.)

Before the nights grow too cool, Nathan will have added cold frames and overlapped the thin Cedar planks. Artemis should be able to grow Vegetables outside into mid to late September, while continuing to grow Herbs and Lettuce, Chard and Arugula inside over the Winter.

Walking outside to Artemis I realized I missed having physical tasks outside. How limited I’d allowed my outside world to become until I started with Shadow and now Artemis. Again directly in touch with this Land, with growing things: Puppies and Vegetables. How I’ve missed it.

 

Neshama/Nefesh: The Neshama connects us to, is our connection with, the One. Realized yesterday something about my Nefesh, which connects me to and is my connection with the world outside my body.

I’ve always considered myself primarily an intellectual, working with ideas and words. Reading. Learning. Studying.

When I wrote about my life review yesterday, it became clear that no, that’s not my primary way of being in the world. I have been, as far back at least as high school, a doer, an actor. Whether as a literal actor in “Our Town” or as class president in high school. As part of the movement in the sixties. As an organizer in the Twin Cities. As a Gardener and Bee Keeper in Andover.

Colorado is another chapter, different. It’s been more about care-taking, about dealing with illness and death. About facing the final chapter.

Yet I also need those doing roles, too. Shadow and Artemis have added them back into my life.

Great Wheel, Greenhouse, Plants

Bonus Post: A Fall Garden

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

Planted my late summer garden this a.m. Nathan has cold frames under construction so I can extend the growing season for the outdoor raised beds well into September.

Adding this bonus post because it felt so good to have my hands in the Soil. Judging depths and distances for optimal Seed maturation and thinning. Watering. Writing small signs for each Vegetable.

Shadow wandered around below the raised beds wondering what had so much of Dad’s attention.

The fall garden has Swiss Chard Rainbow, Spinach Bloomsdale, and Beets Chioggia in one bed and Arugula, Lettuce Lolla Rossa, and Chard Silverbeet in the other.

A bit of organic fertilizer went in over the weekend and has gotten watered in. After I planted the seeds, I’ve gone back over them with a watering can. This gives them moisture and helps prevent air pockets which can cause rot while a young plant grows.

This small bit of gardening, done at chest level, wore me out. Had to do it in shifts. Wow. Illustrated the wisdom of the raised high raised beds.

The only thing I have left to do today involves twine for tomato plant support. When I get rested again, I’ll finish that.

Memories, Minnesota, Politics

That Time I Worked As a Minister

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

Tuesday gratefuls: Home. Artemis. Shadow. Shadow Mountain. Black Mountain Drive. Conifer. Evergreen. The Jangs. The mini-splits. Lodgepoles. Aspens. Blue Bells. Pentstemons. Tomatoes. Beets. Lettuce. Ruby. Ruth and Gabe. Joanne and Alan. Halle. Jake. Generator maintenance. Kate’s chair. My serious reading chair. Minnesota Council of Non-Profits. MICAH. Jobs Now. Stevens Square Community Association. Loring Park Community Association.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Work, well done

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Ahavah. Love.

Tarot: Ten of Stones. Home. How can I celebrate my garden and my life?

One brief shining: Pick up a book, an old technology I know, open it and let your eyes fall on the first page, the first sentence, the rest of the pages still thick in your hand; in the good ones adventure lies in that thicket of words, or information, maybe enlightenment, maybe inspiration or self-criticism, a world made in the covenant between author and reader, so old, so old.

 

Life: I lay in bed this morning doing a little life review. In conversation with Paul yesterday I remembered the Philanthropy Project which morphed as organizing often does into something else, becoming the Minnesota Council of Non-Profits. That led me to MICAH. Last week I wrote about the Jobs Now Coalition.

These three organizations still have significant roles to play in Minnesota’s political life. I had a lead role in organizing each of them. In some real sense they are a part of my legacy.

Then, I thought. Let’s review some other wins. We kicked General Mills out of the Stevens Square Neighborhood and Control Data out of Eliot Park, denying corporate feel-good missionary work that would have taken control of their communities away from their residents.

On the West Bank we built five hundred affordable housing units, a 200 unit apartment building, and a parking ramp. We also funded the start up of a worker owned drug store, bike shop, and hardware store.

With Bea Swanson we found funding for her ministry in Little Earth of United Tribes, a grandmother helping mothers. Started Sin Fronteras, without borders, to get money to the undocumented who needed to apply for green cards.

With Leadership Minneapolis we created a definition of leadership as love, justice, and compassion which got us all fired by the Downtown Council. Odd, in a way, since I led the Minneapolis Planning Commission’s plan 2000 which involved all key downtown players in creating a guide for planning decisions in downtown and its nearby neighborhoods.

The nature of organizing, of course, means no one person can take credit for this or that achievement. Even so, I know that in each of these instances I played a central and significant role.

There was also the unseating of a long time Hennepin County commissioner and replacing him with a progressive. Working the DFL convention to get Paul Wellstone nominated in his first run for the Senate.

All of this work I was able to do because of the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area which funded the West Bank Ministry. A ministry shaped around these verses from the gospel of Luke:

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
19 to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

Dogs, Friends, Politics, US History

Drug Backwards Through History

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

Monday gratefuls: The Seer. Luke. Ginny and Janice. Annie and Luna. Shadow at play with Annie, zooming. Another night inside. The darkness of early Morning. Tandoori Chicken. Garlic naan. ChutPo salad. Spice Fusion Ranch. Ancientrails back up. Cyber world. The leaning Tree. Friends and family.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Friends. Ginny and Janice.

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Ahavah. Love.

Tarot: The Seer, #2 in the major arcana. How can I improve my diet?

One brief shining: Took my three pronged cultivator and worked organic fertilizer into the raised beds of Artemis, being slow to plant the fall garden, but already engaged in staking Tomato Plants which get floppy as they get tall, their strong, acidic scent carrying me back to Andover.

 

Friends: Ginny and Janice came over yesterday, picking up food at Spice Fusion Ranch on the way. Ginny had Luna the small in a t-shirt covering her surgery site. Annie the vigorous strained against her leash wanting to get inside, then outside with Shadow.

After an initial testing of each other’s mettle, they began a happy afternoon of racing around the yard, Shadow running just to the left of Annie and behind, guiding her as Border Collies and Australian Cattle Dogs will do.

They wore each other out while we ate lunch made at the too-good for Conifer Spice Ranch Fusion. Mostly we told Dog stories. Of Dogs who did agility courses fast but not accurately or accurately but not fast. Ginny said, “She ran through the tire, then turned and ran through it again.”

I told the favorite tale of Celt whom we took lure coursing. When Kate slipped him, our one hundred and ninety pound Wolfhound ignored chasing the lure and instead chose to head straight for the mini-doughnut stand.

Dog people.

 

Just a moment: Again I say the words. Concentration camps. They came for the immigrants with ICE men in civilian clothes, ready to fill prison facilities already owned by private companies. Hundreds more will be built as a result of the legislation passed last week.

Who will they come for next? LGBT? Jews? Single parents? College professors? This kind of fervor feeds only on hatred, bigotry, and cruelty. And fear. A fear consuming a minority of white people that somehow their lives, their futures, will suffer if they cannot cleanse the land of all others.

This old story crawls its poisonous path through history. Rwanda. South Africa. Sudan. Russia. Germany. China. Myanmar. India. Too many to count.

Who stands in its way? We pluralists. Globalists. Democratic socialists. We who love the rich quilt sewn by different languages, different national origins, by love expressed in its many faceted ways. Who willingly accept the creative tensions of a nation not dominated by one class, skin color, sexual preference, religion, or political inclination.

No time for hesitation, for weak words or weak action. These actions of an administration dragging us backwards through history to a simpler time when oligarchs stood astride the land and our country shrank from the world must not stand.

 

Dogs, Greenhouse, Holidays, Judaism

Let’s Do It

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

Sunday gratefuls: 404 errors. Cybermage. Ancientrails. Writing. P.T. Computers. Zoom. Ionos. Help. Insect noises as Great Sol appears. Shadow playing inside while she waits on breakfast. Tomato Plants flopping over. Supporting them. Working organic fertilizer into the Soil. Artemis. Ginny and Janice. Annie and Luna. International Moon Day.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: WordPress

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Ahavah. Love.

Tarot: The Wanderer.  What do I need to do to align my soul?

One brief shining: Yes, even at 78 there’s still soul work to do, surprised me though to see the Wanderer come up when I pulled a card this morning because it suggests a new journey, a new path for that work, perhaps with Artemis and Shadow as my guiding stars or perhaps the one suggested at the Bagel Table yesterday, restoring Sukkot, Passover, Shavuot, Tu B’shvat to their original, earth-based significance.

 

Caspar Friedrich, Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog

Tarot: The Wanderer.* Exciting. A new journey begins. I always enjoy pushing out into new territory, putting my foot down on the rainbow. The Wanderer, major arcana #0, represents the turning of the Great Wheel back to its starting point as well as the start of the journey represented by the major arcana.

Applied to my soul alignment I imagine it relates to one of two possibilities:

First: The ongoing, yet still very new world I have here on Shadow Mountain with Shadow and Artemis. We three have many new opportunities for learning as we interact with each other. Shadow needs her leash. Artemis needs to teach me how to use her beds to create produce and beauty.

Second: A throwaway line from yesterday’s Bagel Table which looked at Numbers 28 and 29. In chapter 29 all of the major Jewish holidays come to life. Surprisingly though what is now Rosh Hoshana and Yom Kippur, the days of Awe, merit only a couple of sentences and bear none of the weight it occupies in today’s Judaism. Instead, Sukkot, a harvest festival, has specific instructions for all 7 days.

When I asked Rabbi Jamie how Sukkot got shunted aside, he told a story about a Babylonian ceremony at about the same time of year that honored the renewal of the king.

He suggested returning Sukkot to its original prominence and featuring its earth focused origins. I said, “Let’s do it!”

 

 

 

* From Gemini:

  • Self-Discovery and Exploration:

    The card suggests a journey of self-discovery, urging you to explore your potential and embrace new experiences. 

  • End and a Beginning:

    The Wanderer can represent the completion of one cycle and the start of another, urging you to reflect on past experiences and embrace the future. 

  • Connection to Nature:

    The Wildwood Tarot emphasizes a deep connection to nature, and The Wanderer often symbolizes a return to the wild and a reconnection with your primal instincts. 

  • Not Always Easy:

    While representing new beginnings, the Wanderer’s journey may not always be smooth. It can involve facing fears and overcoming obstacles as you step into the unknown. 

In essence, The Wanderer in the Wildwood Tarot is a powerful reminder to embrace change, trust your intuition, and embark on a journey of self-discovery with courage and enthusiasm.