General

Makes my heart sing

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Imbolc and the sliver of the Birthday Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Wiggly, happy Shadow. Amy. Sit, Shadow. Down, Shadow. Touch, Shadow. Shadow work. Ivan Illich. Bringing liberation theology to North America. Cornel West. Mary Radford Reuther. The Iroquois medicine man. Planting the peace tree. Detroit. Spring Ephemerals. Crocus. Grape Hyacinth. Snowdrops. Waiting for Aspen Catkins and Lodgepole Anthers. Black Bears. Big March Snows still on the way.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Adopting Shadow

Week Kavannah: Netzach with a dash of zerizut and simcha

One brief shining: A Mountain Spring follows heavy Snow like the 4 feet Kate and I came home to in 2016 after my son and Seoah’s wedding and our trip to Singapore; the melting Snow feeds the Colorado River on the western side of the Continental Divide and the Platte River on our eastern side which then carries Shadow Mountain water from Cub, Blue, North Turkey, and Maxwell Creeks, all flowing into Bear Creek, to the Gulf, not of America, but of Mexico.

 

Dog journal: Amy came again yesterday. We worked again on sit, down, and now touch with an outstretched palm. Touch leads to the command, come. We both agreed that Shadow’s making real progress. Less skittish. More exploring. Learning commands.

Shadow now moves through her space with no fear, checking things out. She came out of the laundry room a moment ago, then went over to smell the bag of her food. Telling me in dog language that eating anytime now would be welcome. Almost 7 am so it’s the right time. Gonna pause writing for a moment and fill her food bowl.

Crunching sounds. A sip of water. Shadow’s breakfast. Soon it will be outside again.

Learning how to teach her, how to let her make her way through trauma and puppyhood makes my heart sing.

 

Getting ready, with reluctance, to work on my taxes. It’s not hard once I get into it, filling the organizer for Phil, my accountant. Mailing it. Same with the final push for Ruth’s 529. This week. Stuff that is hard for me. Why? Don’t know. Something about patience for details. For which I have little. Maybe numbers?

Went through a period where I didn’t claim my charitable contributions because I don’t believe charity should get a tax right off. It should be done, I reasoned, for its own sake, not for the sake of saving taxes. A purist at heart. Gave that up. Though I still believe it would be a more honest world if the rich didn’t get tax benefits for what they perceive as charity.

 

Just a moment: Fitness and I have had a struggle over the last six months. I quit. Then went back. Quit again. Moved all my stuff downstairs to make working out easier. Did a few turns on the treadmill, some resistance. Stopped again. Did 68 minutes of cardio while trying to find Tupelo Honey. A testimony to neither my discipline nor my common sense.

Right now I’m waiting again. Don’t have to, but I am. Pain doc ordering up home-based physical therapy. Want to work that as part of my  routine. What routine, he says? I know I need this. But self-care fatigue has me in its grip.

Denver, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Politics

My Aching Back

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Imbolc and the Birthday Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Waste. Shadow. More out and about. Alan. Tupelo Honey. Ritalin. My aching back. Limiting. Good sleeping. 23 degrees. Some wind. Great Sol. Sunlight on the Lodgepoles. Taking out the trash. Vince. Marina. Ana. Sunny days.  The Mountains.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shadow’s wiggly energy

Week Kavannah: Netzach with a dash of zerizut and simcha

One brief shining: Each night before I go to bed, my baby, I say the shema: Hear oh Israel, yod hey vav hey is (God), yod hey vav hey is One, touch my menorah and say I am content with what I have and I’m content with who I am, and immerse myself in this ancient faith made new by Reconstruction, by my own journey, by Kate’s, by its insights into the nature of this strange efflorescence of the universe knowing itself, humanity

 

Aversive conditioning. Wanted to try Tupelo Honey, a Southern restaurant in downtown Denver, a downtown I do not know well, having had few occasions to drive into it or park; I suggested it to Alan for my birthday lunch, he agreed; he could walk from his condo.

About noon yesterday my back ached. I didn’t know where I was. Mostly I wondered why the hell l had suggested a downtown location. Turns out I parked not too faraway from the restaurant, but my lack of familiarity with downtown Denver, and my silly attempt to use Google’s walking directions led me far away from my goal. Lunch with Alan.

I arrived after a tortuous route, twenty minutes late, my back screaming. No celebrex, remember? Turns out that part of downtown is known for its complexity. So, now I know, eh? Pain does not encourage a thoughtful or rational approach to problem solving. The body wants it to stop. That distracts the mental work necessary to, say, follow a confusing map in a no through streets part of the city.

Food was good. Not great. I expected the kind of fried Chicken my Aunt Mame used to make at the Copper Kettle in Morristown, my mom’s hometown. Nope. A thin skin with some sweetness in it. The rosemary and thyme crispy potatoes were good.

Walking back to the garage Alan went with me. I had already tumbled to the fact that it was much closer than my original route. My back had already gotten agitated and didn’t calm down until I was back home. If I go into Denver again, I may park, as Alan suggested, at a strip mall outside of downtown and Uber in.

Not gonna be anytime soon.

 

Just a moment: Talked to buddy Paul Strickland yesterday. He and his wife, Sarah, attended a conference in Camden, a Maine seaside town. Conference title: Democracy Under Threat. His thoughts after the conference have not yet congealed, but he did report some interesting facts.

One especially chilling number. Counting Russia, China, and India as authoritarian governments plus smaller countries like Belarus, Hungary and many others, some 71% of the people on earth live under authoritarian regimes. 71%. That means democracy serves less that 29% since some of those are monarchies, but not necessarily authoritarian. A sad day for our planet.

Dogs, Kabbalah, Mussar, Plants, Science

Growing My Soul

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Imbolc and the Birthday Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Tupelo Honey. Birthday lunch. Alan. Downtown Denver. Challenging myself. Adopting Shadow. Good CT scan. CT. With contrast. The wide world of medical imaging. Waiting rooms. Hospital parking lots. Good sleep. Great Sol. Lodgepole shadows.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: I.V.’s

Week kavannah:  Netzach with zerizut and simcha

One brief shining: Shadow curls her small head up toward my chair arm, her dark eyes with black pupils looking into mine, asking for food which I have placed behind the chair-where she usually eats, perhaps she’s forgotten and I’ll have to show her. I’ll give it a bit, better she finds it for herself.

 

Never thought I’d be talking about growing my soul. Yet. As I’ve come to understand the term, I do. What is my soul? Multi-layered. The first and core level is the nefesh. What is the nefesh? The nefesh is that which identifies me as human.

I say it’s DNA. Why? Because DNA links me to all living things and identifies me as part of Mother Earth’s evolutionary experiment while giving me a unique location in that experiment and a uniqueness, too, within my species. Being part of the grand evolutionary experiment also connects me to the organic and inorganic building blocks which allow that experiment to flourish, including the boundless fusion energy of Great Sol which passes its vitality from the solar furnace to leafy, green plants.

The neshama soul grows in the space between the DNA created unique me and the outer world in which it moves and lives. Heidegger called this the dasein. There can be no neshama without the nefesh, but likewise there can be no nefesh without being-in-the-world, dasien, as a shaper of that world and as a being shaped by that world.

As my nefesh encounters the world as it is, that encounter flows dialectically, into my dasein and out to the dasien of the other. In that tension comes the vitality, the livingness of being alive. Note that in this view there is no clean, clear distinction between me and thee. Or, me and my Shadow. Or, my favorite Lodgepole. Lodgepoleness flows into me and Charlieness flows into the Lodgepole. We are both changed during the encounter. Think of the Japanese idea of forest-bathing.

We can come to notice that our actions have influence on others and theirs on ours. How do we live into those encounters, how can we be there with the other fully? That’s where disciplines like mussar come in. There are ways of becoming that enhance our encounters and ways that diminish them.

Say my dasein includes Shadow. How I approach her affects her dasein so that we either grow closer to mutuality or further away from it. If I move suddenly, I notice, she retreats, moving away from the boundary of my dasein. That tells me, in my Shadow inflected dasein, to move more slowly in her presence. We can call that realization an expression of chesed, of loving kindness, which allows our dasein’s to come closer, to increase our intimacy.

Just where my head went this morning. From my dasein to yours. Good day.

US History, World History

Time Travel

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Imbolc and the Birthday Moon

Monday gratefuls: Marilyn and Irv. Shadow. Not quite potty trained. Protein. 24″ of Snow on Saturday. CT Scan today. Ancient Brothers. Dog toys. Dog bed. Settling in with Shadow. Ratzon. Will. Desire. Zerizut. Enthusiasm. Simcha. Joy. Feeling rested. Safeway pickup. Living in the Mountains. Yesterday’s world brought to you by Don and the MAGAs.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shadow

Week kavannah: Netzach with a dash of zerizut and simcha

One brief shining: As the policy of he who shall remain shameless becomes clearer, a strong whiff of steam engines and ocean liners, La Belle Epoque when might still meant right for the Tsars, for the Prussians, for colonial militaries dividing up Africa, as an isolated America sat it out save for brief adventures to Cuba, later to the Philippines while satisfying its Manifest Destiny by pushing slowly westward and killing nations indigenous to this continent. Ah, the days of yesteryear.

Never thought I’d have a chance to relive the days of robber barons. We’ve moved into the world of Theodor Drieser’s  The Financier, the Titan, the Stoic, His trilogy about Frank Cowperwood. Of Sinclair Lewis’ Main Street, Babbit. Back when the U.S. made its bones on the backs of Native Americans and Chinese coolies, rather than foreign adventures like the Europeans.

Sure, the moves of a strongman are redolent of many eras, but none so much in the U.S. as when men like Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, James J. Hill, J.D. Rockefeller had their way with our young country. Did you watch the coronation? In the most prominent rows, behind the King’s family were Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, and Sundar Pichai.

What’s next? Bring back vaudeville, silent movies, Ziegfeld’s Follies.

All I’m saying here is that Trump is less of an anomaly than he seems. Pushed up  against the recent past, yes, but as a historical type? No. What is different is that he’s combining robber baron domestic policies and the expansionist, naked self interest foreign policies of that same era, too.

We’ve allowed him to shuck off the progressive policies that began to take hold after Teddy Roosevelt’s trust busting and drag us back to a time not long after we had to fight a war to end slavery. This is the reactionary way, a turning back to old ways of oppression and wealth concentrating.

Where or how can this end? I’m not sure. By the time 2028 rolls around, we’ll be firmly lodged in 1928. You know what happened in ’29.

 

Just a moment: CT scan today. Aortic artery aneurysm. Someday soon an MRI for my hip and lower spine. Perhaps a PET scan later in the year to check on my metastases. I’m taking a tour of imaging devices. Isn’t medicine fun? Oh, and I had full dental x-rays last week. See inside of me. Now.

Yes, life at the most personal continues even while our nation twists and turns on its allegiance to a sad man, a bad man, behind blue eyes.

 

 

 

GeekWorld, Politics, US History

Reactionaries and Electronic Communication

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Imbolc and the Birthday Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Shadow. Potty trained. To the outdoors! Sit and down, making progress. Shadow Mountain under 18 inches of white Snow. Vince. Salaam. Dog watcher. Democracy under Threat. Paul, in Camden. Mark and the desert. Mary and Oz. My son and Seoah, in the former Joseon Dynasty. Lodgepoles with unloaded Branches. Aspen’s gray-green against the Snow. My right hip and back.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: No poop in the house this morning

Week Kavannah: Netzach

One brief shining: Snow once more high on the Trees, soft, undulating, imitating the Rub al’Kahli, the empty quarter on the Saudi peninsula, where Bedouins rode camels, eating dates off Palms at an Oasis, while here the tall monarchs of the Forest, the Moose, use their long legs to find food even in a white desert

 

Got up this morning, picked up my hearing aid from the night stand. I’d left it there, forgetting to take it out to its charger. After letting Shadow outside, I looked for it. Where did I leave it. It needs to charge for the Ancient Brothers conversation at 8.

Imagine my surprise after searching upstairs and down, high and low, to find it where I automatically put it, behind my ear. Routine. Who says aging isn’t funny?

 

Firing the Joint Chiefs, military advisors to the President. Now the three-star Generals who run the Judge Advocates in the Navy, Army, and Air Force. Because they tie the hands of soldiers trying to win wars, Hegsteth says. Calling them jagoffs. Oh. And 8% cuts to the military over each of the next five years. Do the math. Using military bases and gitmo for detaining immigrants. This administration wants to bend the military, make it serve partisan politics. And to act in this country.

Add that to Trump’s coziness with Putin and J.D.’s embrace of the German Far Right. Whaaa. There may be an overall playbook at work here, but it looks like  something simpler, whatever they used to do, we’ll do the opposite.

This must feel revolutionary to the MAGA base. It’s not. It’s reactionary in both a literal and figurative way. It’s not making America great again, it’s making America a different country, yet not a better one, just one defined by greed, naked self-interest, and diminution of the other.

 

Just a moment: Conversation. Communication. Interaction. Topic of an Ancient Brothers’ morning. Is the screen captivity of Millenials, Gen Z, Gen alpha a plague on human interaction? Or, is it a new form of being human on a crowded planet. Let’s bracket the insidious software of Tik Tok, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Not because their manipulation of the human mind isn’t real, effective, and pervasive, but because I want to find the communication possibilities wherever they are.

Conversation in 3-D most would consider the gold standard. Neuroatypicals may be an exception. Conversation on the phone or on a service like zoom might come next. Then, e-mail. Texts. These are mediums where your message has no software filtering, magnification, or distortion.

After these more transparent communications come what I would define as social media. Especially the four mentioned earlier. Even these can be used for communication, especially for wide dispersal of a message. The difference is in the software that encourages liking, uppolling, changes of who sees and receives your messages and whose messages you receive and see.

There is in them a capitalist hand that wants profit, not better communication. What matters is the stickiness of the platform. Eyeballs. Length of time on the site. It seems obvious to me that serious and deep interpersonal communication in such an environment has more challenges, invisible levers, and problematics.

How does all this effect culture? The ability to form deep and meaningful friendships, find love? I just don’t know. Much more to learn here.

Dreams, Fourth Phase, Health

On Transition Road

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Imbolc and the Birthday Moon

Shabbat grateful: Torah study. Rabbi Jamie. Bev. Luke. Exodus. Manna. Palestinians. Gaza. West Bank. Israel. Amalek. The sins of the fathers. Whose fathers? Trump and Putin. Shadow. Sit. Shadow. Down. Shadow Mountain. The Shadow. Psyche’s Shadow. Great Sol. Conversation. Zoom. Connection. Democracy. Autocracy. Oligarchy. Gerontocracy. Kakocracy. Kleptocracy. Choose.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: A Puppy’s Eyes

Week Kavannah: Netzach

One brief shining: Wind pushes into the room behind my chair, the outside door open awaiting a small Shadow to come in from the cold, to trust that the inside has as much safety for her as the outside, her hesitation mirrors her mind, caught between risk and certainty, fear and trust, the past and the future. Savlanut.

 

Dream group yesterday. On my dream. Sort of a dry hole at first. Then, climbing up from the car with an empty fuel tank, up from the rich brown of a dirt road leading away, trusting that the cliff I climbed would lead…somewhere. Somewhere with more fuel for the road. Gabe was there. Gabe the grandson and Gabriel the angel. Quietly accompanying me in my new home, hunting for fuel after finding a gas can.

I came away with the sense of an after life. After the fuel runs out for me on this lower level, driving even then toward the unknown. My sense of curiosity carrying me up over the rocks of doubt waiting for a message from Gabriel about where to find my next fuel source. Trusting that it’s there in this new place.

 

Had to break off from dream group for a call from my palliative care nurse practitioner. A new woman on Zoom. Ele. I liked her. We talked about my, to me, puzzling and disconcerting level of fatigue. Each task I choose to do is a one-off. As much as I can handle. Unloading and loading the dishwasher. Rest. Go pickup groceries, put them away. Rest. Stand while prepping a meal. Rest while eating the meal. You get the idea.

I asked her about this and for the first time someone explained this fatigue to my satisfaction. Even though my PSA is stable, she said, the cancer is not gone. My body has to do all of its usual work plus absorb/resist the work load the cancer places on it, too. Add in a still uncontrolled hyperthyroid condition, low testosterone, and harsh anti-androgen drugs. Tired. Always.

 

No wonder I’m cycling through thoughts of dying, of places after death. No wonder at all. Even so. I’m alive and alert though perhaps not vivacious. My sacred community of friends and family, Shadow, Wild Neighbors and Mountains, Lodgepoles and Aspens keep me in this day, this February 22nd life, pull me back from a doom scrolling view of my future.

 

Like the Hebrew slaves who found themselves in a desert wilderness far from their Egyptian homes, without the minimal comforts they enjoyed there, it’s easy to want to go back to a latter day. A day when I could do home chores with ease. Yet I have been released from the bondage of performance and achievement. And, I don’t want to go back.

I want to learn the lessons of this time, this time before dying, no matter how long or how short that might be. Why? Because that’s all we can ever do. Learn today’s lesson. Celebrate these moments.

 

Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism, Mussar

Dream Time

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Imbolc and the Birthday Moon

Friday gratefuls: Big Snow. Shadow, the good Dog. Murdoch. My son. Seoah. Vince and Snow plowing. Feeling well rested. Pain doc. Chocolate. Hawai’ian dark chocolate with Macadamia Nuts. Chocolate coffee beans. Mary in Oz. Diane, healing. The rise of autocracies. King Donald. A third term. Prostate cancer.

BTW: If you are new to Ancientrails or have forgotten, we Jews are grateful for everything that happens since it is all part of the One. Doesn’t mean we like all of it or don’t want/need to change it. But even King Donald is part of our wonderful, amazing, grace filled World.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: My sacred community of family and friends

Week Kavannah:  Persistence and grit.  Netzach.

One brief shining: I looked up and noticed Shadow returning to her food bowl, first licking up crumbs, then trying to eat the yellow and purple Crocuses off the Portmerion pattern, digging her puppy teeth into the porcelain with a grinding sound, going after those flowers, puzzled by their intransigence. I will get her a raised set of stainless bowls, but not right now, so she’ll have to deal.

 

Here is your illuminated manuscript-style illustration, capturing the essence of the Stable Rock of Shadow Mountain, Maxwell Creek, and the sacred wildlife in a medieval bestiary aesthetic with golden detailing.

Dream last night: I had moved to a new city and decided to follow a long dirt road that wound far away from town, visible for a long way until it turned right around a low hill. Didn’t get very far because I hadn’t checked the gas gauge. E. I pulled to the side, got out and walked over to a rocky cliff.

Began to climb. I got the top after some effort and found a place that looked like it would have a gas can. When I went in, grandson Gabe was with me. Together we looked through a lot of different shelves, finally locating a gas can which I bought.

We walked back outside to fill it up and where I thought there would be gas pumps, there were none. Oh, well. We began walking, asking people if they knew where we could get gas. That’s all I remember.

 

Saw the pain doc on Wednesday. Rode up in the elevator with a guy saying he was heading in for the pain and torture spot. Turned out we were both going to Mountain View Pain Medicine. He to p.t., me to an initial consult.

When I explained my lower back pain, how it drastically limited my mobility and gave me excruciating pain after my drives to Boulder and back, the P.A. went into a dialogue that confused me at first.

I’m a rule follower, she said. If we’re going to work with you, you’ll have to do conservative therapy and come in here once a month. Then, I tumbled to it. Can my primary care doc manage my tramadol? Oh, yes. All the hesitation dropped away. This was a continuing, and welcome, echo of the oxycodone addiction crisis. No pain doc will risk their practice by giving away narcotics.

She suggested an MRI which I agreed to. Sometime in the next two weeks. Get to the root cause of my pain. Yes. What I’ve wanted for a while now. Admit to a little anxiety about incidental findings with this so careful an imaging tool since the source of my pain and the areas of my metastases coexist. Might find more cancer. Hope not.

 

Just a moment: Got into a funk yesterday. Ached. Pain less well controlled after no more Celebrex. Maybe a little tired. Fatigued by whatever: uncontrolled hyperthyroidism, very low testosterone, the effects of my cancer drugs. Wondering if the shortness of breath, weakness meant (against current evidence) my cancer was advancing. Thought about not going to mussar, too tired. Too much effort.

Nope. My kavannah, netzach, said, get up and go anyhow. What a good choice. I’d only missed two sessions, but I got some glad you’re backs. Geez. Also, my funk disappeared in the solvent of friendship, study, seeing and being seen.

Had a time afterward with Rabbi Jamie looking for a text to use for MVP in two weeks. We laughed a lot together. A good friend.

On the way home I remembered, as I sometimes have to do, that I am alive and loved today, in this February 21st life, no matter what the future holds. Be gone, funky thoughts!

 

 

Cinema and Television, Commentary on the news, Dogs, Family, Friends, Politics

Can find only sarcasm and satire

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Imbolc and the Birthday Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Mussar. Tara. Eleanor. Shadow. Pain doc. MRI. Cool nights. The internet. Ukraine. Self-determination. Bullies, especially Russia. Now, the U.S. Banana Republic politics, USA might. Ensure. Mark in Al Kharj. His acquaintance. Murdoch. Annie. Leo. Rufus. Gracie.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: MRI

Week Kavannah:  Persistence and Grit. Netzach

One brief shining: After 17 dogs, I’m learning the basics of sit, down, potty training, with a rescue dog, Shadow, a 6 to 8 month old puppy who’s smart, wily, and more than a little traumatized by a house fire, a shelter in southern Colorado, then one in Granby, being taken from her siblings and brought to my house.

 

Shadow and I make slow progress. This week she has regressed some, hard to get inside after going out. Not drinking her water, but going outside to eat Snow. Pooping inside. Still a wiggly, happy girl when I get up. She sits beside me, nuzzles. Plays with her toys. One step ahead, one back.

 

So. Yesterday. Birthday lunch with Tara at a renewed and better Golden Stix. Adding it to my list of places to go. Always so good to see Tara. She’s a heart friend, honest and open. Her own woman and clear about that. Headed to NYC this morning to see her son Vincent who’s on his second bite of the big Apple, this time on what sounds like surer footing. In college, a job, a good place to stay.

Mark reports a friend has gone into a diabetic coma in Thailand. Made Mark reflect on the positives in his life now. He loves teaching, his students. Wants to see countries he’s not yet visited. Purpose is a mighty force in the psyche. As is, in the opposite way, lack of purpose.

 

Watching a later Startrek series, Picard. Written in large part by Michael Chabon, of Kavalier and Clay, the Yiddish Policeman’s Union, and many more books. Excellent TV. If you have Paramount Plus, watch Season 2, Episode 2. Chilling.

 

Just a moment: OK. Zelensky is a dictator who started a war against Ukraine’s poor neighbor, Russia. Bad Zelensky. Bad Ukraine. Yes, it’s devolved even further with the American President, let me say that again, the American President, who will remain shameless, speaks Russian propaganda to the press. Putin says he’d like to see Don again and hopes it will happen soon.

Lewis Carroll could not have written a parody of Wonderland that would have been more mind-boggling than the real world-this is the real world isn’t it-which we now inhabit.

Clean up the Ukraine mess, turn Gaza into a Riveria with Trump properties for the well-heeled. Palestinians welcome to return from their new homes in Egypt and Jordan if they have enough shekels. Now we’re making progress.

I’m glad others have serious analysis because at least for now, I can’t find anything other than satire or sarcasm.

My son. Serving his country, now 16 years in. And this is the country he spends all his working life trying to protect?

 

 

Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Politics

A Shadow

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Imbolc and the Birthday Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Amy. Clean, fluoridated teeth. Dentists. Shadow. Buster’s for treats and food. Trying out new ways of getting my nutrition. Diane’s microwaving Vegetables. Ensure. Canned chicken. Fish. Training Shadow. Working out again.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: That scraggly Blue Spruce with all the new growth

Week Kavannah: Persistence and grit.  Netzach.

One brief shining: Reaching my hand in the kibble I draw out a quarter cup of food, then another, and another, and another while Shadow waits, it sprinkles into the bowl, making a noise she will learn to associate with feeding, her alert mind always working.

 

Two weeks into Shadow’s life with me. And mine with hers. Following the three day, three weeks, three months recommendations for bringing a rescue dog into the house. Three days: orient, go slow. Three weeks: bonding, socializing, some simple training. Three months: Training, bonding, socializing more.

Amy taught us both sit and down yesterday. How to lift the treat up while saying, Shadow, sit. She looks up, which tends her toward a sitting position. Good, Shadow. Down. Treat. All her knees on the floor. Palm down, Shadow down. Shadow, down. Good Shadow. Treat.

That’s the good. The not quite there yet. I’ve been letting her out every three to four hours, sometimes sooner. She runs around in the yard, clearly having a great time. No pooping inside so I thought she was doing it outside. Good Shadow.

Nope. She’d been holding it. Left presents for me near the door. A lot. Fortunately well-formed. More work to do. Before you go ick. Ask yourself how long it took to potty train you!

She goes outside with no prompting. For two days or so she came right back in when I opened the door. Now we’re back to one foot in, two feet in, back up and move away. Forward. Backward. Learning, retreating into fear.

We’ve made good progress together. Look forward to yet more.

 

Birthday celebration with Tara today. Golden Stix. Our friendly neighborhood Chinese restaurant. Where I’ve only been once, long ago. Unimpressed. Others say it’s improved a lot. Birthday celebration with Alan on Saturday. Not sure where. Maybe Sushi Win. I like this strung out birthday. Feels good.

Tom Crane sent me a new Mary Oliver, Blue Pastures, and a helluva an interesting Northshore card with a waterfall and trees jigsawed as a frame. A sweet guy.

78. Making steady, incremental progress toward 80. Now I notice every time someone reaches out to help me. Geez, what do I look like? 78. Makes me feel cherished and cared for, also want to push it away and say, hey, I can do this on my own. A balance, a gradual change from those truly independent years. Not an easy or welcome transition.

 

Just a moment: Oh, yeah. Russia is our buddy. Ally Comrade Putin. Come on, Don. Read your history. Look at Ukraine, Crimea. The USSR. Reagan said tear down that wall. GOP Reagan. Strange and foreign policy that.

Politics

an amazing tapestry

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Imbolc and the Birthday Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Rich. Amy. Dental hygienists. Shadow. Jumping up to greet me in the morning. Hard-boiled eggs. Canned Chicken. And, Tuna. Sardines. Lox. Salmon. Marrow bones. Dog toys. Puppy vitality. Energy. Pain doctor. Trump and the intentional diminishing of the United States. Seed-Keepers, all of us.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The American Dream

Week Kavannah: Persistence and grit.  Netzach.

One brief shining: Shadow wriggles, tail wagging when I get up, going over to her, I sit on the ottoman and she jumps up, front legs on my legs, licking licking licking, transferring her delight to me as I pet her, hug her, transferring my delight to her. Good dog.

 

How can I say it so his base might hear? I love difference. Variety. The new and the old. We don’t have to choose between loving our white neighbors, our family, and persons of that least significant of all human traits, another skin color. Why push away the next researcher who might cure a disease you have? Doesn’t make sense. Let a hundred flowers bloom. One beautiful flower does not detract from another.

Or the multiple, almost limitless solutions to the hard problems of human existence found around the globe. So many languages and in each one we have to know where the bathroom is. So many ways of cooking and preparing and choosing what’s good to eat. So many ways of making music, painting, dancing, singing. So many ways of defining who’s related to whom. All potentially useful to us since our way is so obviously not the only way.

I remember one very early morning, around 3 am, when my sister and I walked the streets of Singapore’s Chinatown. We had come to the oldest Hindu temple in the country, where worshippers stood in long lines, each with a small branch with leaves in their hand, as they waited to walk on hot coals inside the temple.

They would approach the coals, some confidently, striding across, others more hesitant, all greeted by a crew of friendly faces after striding through the milk bath to cool their feet.

A group of women, a large contingent, but much smaller than the number of men who preceded them. I spoke to them. Yes, they had only recently been given permission to participate. And, yes, it annoyed them.

Women who wanted only to participate in worshipping their gods as the men had done for centuries.

A colorful, vibrant mode of honoring their faith now possible for them as ideas spawned elsewhere helped them see their own worth. How is that not a good thing?

That Scottish breakfast I had in the Inverness Station Hotel. On our honeymoon. Complete with black pudding. After eating it first (my rule), I asked what it was. Congealed blood. Oh. Well. There you go.

The Cajun woman who fed me spicy Shrimp in her bayou facing restaurant. To my surprise.

Clarence Davis. My friend who let me join him as an organizational consultant tracing the roots of racism at the Minneapolis YWCA.

Please help me help others to see the world as it could be. An amazing tapestry of persons, skin colors, ideas, forms of government, food, and song.