Dogs, Family, Friends, Great Wheel, Greenhouse, Judaism, Shabbat

Work in Harmony with Nature

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

Sabbath gratefuls: Mezuzah on Artemis. Rabbi Jamie. Marilyn and Irv. Gabe. Luke and Leo. Tara. Her Rhubarb trifle. Artemis. Staying in the Tomato temperature zone. Waldo. Jamie’s Triumph. My first invitation to a group since Kate died. Ritual. Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha’olam, asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu likboa’ mezuzah. The blessing for hanging a mezuzah.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Gabe

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei. Slip streaming the life force.

Week Kavannah: Patience. Savlanut.

Tarot: What will I do with the sabbath? The Ace of Bows.

One brief shining: They came: first, Luke and Leo, then Marilyn and Irv, Tara, later with his white helmet, riding his newly repaired motorcycle, Rabbi Jamie and the table Gabe and I prepared for them offered Strawberry lemonade, sweet Tea, hummus, cut Vegetables, Kalamata Olive bread, crackers, and Tara’s wonderful Rhubarb trifle.

 

From left: Irv, Marilyn, Gabe, Tara, me, Rabbi Jamie

Artemis: A sanctuary. A home temple to the seasons, to the Vegetative world, to human collaboration with the Soil. To the One within which we move and love and have our becoming. To the chi in Seeds and Water and Sunlight.

We dedicated her yesterday, my friends and my Rabbi. Rabbi Jamie pounded in the bottom nail. We said the blessing. I pounded in the top nail. Jamie read a Psalm he had translated about the house of David.

Back in the house we sat in just enough chairs, ate and drank from the table. Talked about matters Jewish. About Gabe’s amazing writing. About Luke as a teacher and artist. About the Tarot. And, of course, with gritted teeth of the One Who Shall Not Be Named.

It was, I think, the first time I’d had a gathering of friends here on Shadow Mountain since Kate died. Family, yes. Individual friends, yes. But not a group, small though it was. Felt good.

My sacred community-Gabe included-together to consecrate this work of Nathan’s and mine. Amen.

 

Dog journal: Shadow loves company. People and Dogs. Leo came with Luke and Shadow tried, really hard, to get old man Leo to play. He did, a bit until he fell and hurt his paw. Not bad, no limping but enough for Luke to sequester Leo. Leo is twelve years old. Old for a Dog his size.

Gabe cleverly went around the house and closed the downstairs door so Shadow had another night inside. Ate her 7pm meal and went to bed. I slept much better with her inside.

 

Tarot: I asked the deck what I should do with this sabbath. I drew The Ace of Bows.

Here’s a bit from the Wildwood book: “We witness the moment when the bow with its arrow rekindles the fire. The fire of life is promised to us by Beltane forest lovers who are currently burning in our lives. The bow created by humans shows that in order to create Spark, we work in harmony with nature, making the most of her gifts, without overwhelming or destroying her.” TarotX.net

Artemis. Final planning for her fall garden. Yes. Tarot. Doing the reading for Luke’s class. Yes, today, this sabbath day.

 

 

Dogs, Great Work, Greenhouse, Judaism, Politics

Lessons

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

Friday gratefuls: Gabe. His awakening. Ruth. Her new apartment. Shadow, who came in last night on her own. The greenhouse, a fall garden ready to plant. A mezuzah for Artemis. Rebecca. Mussar. Azzut. Self-Confidence. Luke. Leo. Marilyn and Irv. Tara. Rabbi Jamie. Alan and Joanne. Dandelion.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Wildwood Tarot

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei. Swimming in the direction of novelty.

Week Kavannah: Hearing on the side of merit

Tarot: The Six of Stones, Exploitation.

One brief shining: Shadow jumped up on the bed, came over and licked my face, I put my hand under her belly, giving her a quick scratch, all I want.

 

Tarot: I asked the Wildwood Deck what insight it might have about the mezuzah hanging today. Drew the six of stones which you can see above. I thought, what? Artemis is exploitative?

Then I read about the card: “If we continue  to exploit the land without replenishing what we take, the things we take for granted will disappear and our world will be broken and ruined, like hives. This card may represent poverty of the soul – some form of psychosis…”  TarotX.net

I had an aha with this card about Artemis. Artemis is a living witness to our need to care for the Soil, for the Plants that flourish in it.

She has no solutions, will grow little food, but her presence on this Land says yes. Yes we belong to the Soil. Yes that belonging is collaborative. Yes the Soil is in danger and the Plants that thrive in it. Which means that we humans, creation’s most fragile and dependent creature, are also in danger.

It’s a matter of love. Which do we love more, Mother Earth or our things? Artemis is a sanctuary for all those who love the Soil, Plants, caring for the Planet. She is a sacred place.

 

Dog journal: Shadow came in last night on her own. Gabe and I were talking. She strolled in. Ran back out. Came in again. And stayed. Made me so happy. Hope we can figure out how to repeat this.

 

Floods: The Texas hill country, site of the awful catastrophe unfolding over the last week, was LBJ’s home. Ironic, when you think about it.

Kerr County politicians and administrators have denied requests for various sorts of alarm systems from early warning messaging to sirens. Red tie guy has gutted NOAA and the National Weather Service. In both cases these represent government refusing to do its most basic job: seeing to the welfare of its citizens.

Red tie guy also had FEMA on the way out until-TACO alert-until this morning. When it wasn’t.

How is all this ironic? Red tie guy and the Kerr county officials have just taken a severe lesson in the proper role of government. It was LBJ who, for all his Vietnam War faults, passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights act, Model Cities and other legislation aimed at building a Great Society, not destroying it.

No wonder TACO.

Dogs, Family, Fourth Phase, Memories, Minnesota, Politics

It still exists

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II (Full)

Thursday gratefuls: Shadow, the outdoor girl. Artemis ready to receive plantings for a fall garden. Halle. Capybaras. Marmots. Nutria. Mice. Cool morning Breezes. Mezuzah. The ritual for hanging them. Monism. Squirrels. Tarot. The Forest Lovers. Wild Neighbors screeing. Rain incoming. What did the idiot do today?

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Wind and Rain

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah:  Hearing on the side of merit

Tarot pick: Forest Lovers, #6 of the major arcana

One brief shining: This morning I shuffled the Wildwood deck, cut it three times, and asked the deck what I needed to do about Shadow, my mystery girl, and it gave me this card, the Forest Lovers, the male and female energy present on Beltane, the start of the growing season.

 

Dog journal: A hot night. Mid sixties. Shadow outside yet again. Once again challenging my vision of our relationship. How it should go. At night in particular.

Last night we were having a hug on the small patio stones outside my back door. We shifted our stance a bit and I stepped on her left rear back paw. She yelped and ran off. No way she was coming in last night. No words, no apologies. I hurt her. She left. Fast.

Better this morning. I think she knew it was an accident, but her love of freedom and being her own Dog wouldn’t allow an immediate reconciliation. Damn it! Neither of us needed that.

The Forest Lovers. Drawing this card made me see that as I’ve wondered and as Tom suggested yesterday the wu wei here, the flow of the chi, may entail letting her stay outside at night.

I need to get an assessment of how much danger Natalie believes Shadow is in at night. From Mountain Lions. I believe the threat is low, but the consequence of being wrong is catastrophic.

We are yin and yang. I need her feminine energy in my life and she needs my masculine energy. Together we can bring out parts of ourselves that would lay dormant otherwise. The most confounding experience I’ve ever had with a Dog.

 

Life insights: A family of teachers. Mom. Mary. Mark. Several cousins. I’ve often wondered why I didn’t become a teacher, too. When graduate school slipped out of the picture, I never pursued teaching again.

Except. As an organizer, it was my job to teach people how to live into their power. When unemployment had reached crisis levels in 1988 Minnesota, I along with others recruited church leaders, union activists, and unemployed people across the work spectrum.

Once in a room together, with an 18 month old Joseph on my hip, I drew from them their anguish, their anger and frustration. This was the fuel for them to come together against a common foe: an unfair labor market.

Once we identified those emotions, we moved to  using our various strengths. The moral power of the church. The organizing power of the unions. And the willingness to put it all on the line of the unemployed.

The Jobs Now Coalition came into existence. Together we convinced the Minnesota Legislature to pass M.E.E.D. The Minnesota Emergency Employment act which funded half of a new hires pay for their first six months.

It still exists:  Jobs Now Coalition.

 

Dogs, Fourth Phase, Greenhouse, Health, Judaism, Paganism, Plants, Seed Keepers, Tarot, Torah

Artemis Blends My Pilgrimage

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

Wednesday: Mezuzahs. Rabbi Jamie. For the greenhouse. For Artemis. Shadow coming in last night. Steroid injection. Ruth bringing my credit card. Cards We Were Dealt. New tarot class, taught by my friend, Luke. Halle, limiting my exercises yesterday. Trumpeter of his own doom. Tomatoes. Squash.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Mezuzah hanging

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei. Find the chi, the creative advance into novelty. Work with it.

Week Kavannah: Hearing on the side of merit

One brief shining: Sarah, the orthopedic p.a., had a sonagram wand in her hand as she asked me, “What fills your cup?” before she checked out my arthritic, labrum torn right hip, sprayed it with a cold numbing liquid and injected yet more steroids into my body. Ah.

 

Yesterday was an eventful day in the neighborhood. It began the night before…

Dog journal: Natalie offered to come over around five with her dog to help me get Shadow in. Monday evening. I tried turkey hot dogs. Shadow ate them eagerly outside, but when I put them on the floor inside, she turned away. I decided I’d need Natalie so I went upstairs.

When I turned around, there was Shadow. In the house. I closed the door downstairs, texted Natalie.

Before all this I had heard her barking her intruder bark. I went to check, thinking another Mule Deer might have been in the yard. Nope. Beautiful yellow Swallowtails dining on bright blue Penstemon, a front range Wildflower. As one left, another fluttered down while Shadow chased the one leaving. Barking.

 

Hip, leg, back pain: Drove over to Panorama Orthopedics in the morning. Ruth met me there to return my credit card. She and Gabe had gone to pick up pizzas for us and she forgot it in her purse. I told her I’d gotten under my patched duvet (her work) without a blizzard of Goose feathers. She smiled. We hugged and went our separate ways.

The injection took all of ten minutes. Same caveats as the spinal injections. Sometimes works. Sometimes doesn’t. Wait 7-10 days. No immersion in water for thirty-six hours. Why? Dunno.

 

Tarot: Restarting my Tarot practice by taking a class originally offered by Rabbi Jamie and Luke, now taught by Luke alone. I took the first one, got heavily into Tarot and Astrology for a beat. Figured a class would help me get back to regular readings.

A big class. Maybe eight at the Kabbalah Experience classroom, seven (like me) on zoom.

 

Artemis: Scheduled Rabbi Jamie to hang a mezuzah on Artemis this Friday at 2:30. Invited a few friends.

A mezuzah contains a tiny scroll with the full Shema written on it. If it’s on vellum and done by a sofer, a scribe, it’s considered kosher.

I want one on Artemis because it will blend my major sacred paths: paganism, Taoism, Judaism. The pagan path follows the seasons, the changes in Plants, Animals, and Climate that repeat in the cycle known as the Great Wheel.

Taoism encourages working with those changes, leaning into their subtle power, knowing the changes as the here and now expression of the sacred (or we might call it chi).

Judaism and its mystical path, Kabbalah, sees the movement of the sacred as a constant flow of divine energy that begins in the ayn sof, the great emptiness, proceeds outward toward the malkhut, this world of appearances, then travels back up again. Here in malkhut, the Shekinah, or the feminine expression of the sacred has her clearest presence. A process I see in miniature each time a Seed sprouts, a Plant grows, and I am fed by this true miracle.

Artemis blends my pilgrimage into one small building, especially when I’m accompanied by my Shadow.

 

 

 

Garden, Greenhouse, Memories, Minnesota

The Great Work

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

Tuesday gratefuls: Paul. Findlay. Sarah. Max. Claire. Kate. Michael. SPRINT referral. P.T. Halle. Shadow, outside again last night. World Allergy Day today. Morning darkness. Ukraine. Iran. Israel. Palestinians. Artemis. Planting. The fan. The heater. A full Moon in two days.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Clouds

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei. the watercourse way

Week Kavannah: Hearing on the side of merit

One brief shining: That first bitter taste as coffee hits the tongue, the body remembering, starting to unveil itself from the gauze of sleep, knowing from experience though not yet this day, the effect of caffeine on the eyes and ears, the mind as it changes attention from the realm of dreams to the realm of ever becoming apparent reality.

 

Artemis: Awaiting a couple of garden tools before I plant my midsummer seeds. Probably fussing too much but I want to do it my way.

Planting seeds during the hottest month of the year is new to me. I’ve discovered a guide to planting a fall garden which might involve cold frames over my outside raised beds. Perhaps new seeds.

I did order two bulbs of Music Garlic. I have to reserve space for them when I plant because they go in the ground in late September/early October. Love Garlic’s against the grain ways.

Artemis must live, mostly, according to the rhythms of seasonal change. And I love that. I say mostly though because the greenhouse part of Artemis allows me to push the outer limits of first and last frost.

Starting seeds early in Spring inside the Greenhouse will allow for transplanting as soon as a particular plant can tolerate Spring temperatures outside. Keeping the greenhouse warm and within a fairly tight temperature regime will give my Tomatoes the full growing season that they need to produce fruit. That means extending the growing season beyond the likely date of the first frost.

When living in short growing season climates, certain vegetables are unobtainable without a greenhouse. Now I have one and will able, in a very limited manner, to grow things year round.

This is as far as I want to go with juking soil and seeds. The only unnatural aspect lies in controlling, to the extent possible, temperature. Hence, the heater and the exhaust fan. I could work with humidity, too, but I choose not to. At least right now.

 

Great Work: Thomas Berry’s little book, The Great Work, identifies our era’s Great Work as developing a sustainable presence for human beings on Mother Earth.

On a trip to Denver from Minneapolis several years ago, I went north to Cody, Wyoming to visit the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. I finished the Great Work at night in the Holiday Lodge. Berry convinced me that rather than focusing on economic justice work as I had done most of my life that I needed to shift my energy, right then, to the Great Work.

A climate change conference put on by PSR, Physicians for Social Responsibility, at the University of Iowa, gave me even more reason. That conference inspired Kate and me in our Andover years, growing vegetables, fruit, nuts, and flowers. Taking care of bees.

Now the clown car that is MAGA and Trumpeting not only ignores climate change, but actively denies it. Right in the time period when drastic and difficult action must happen. Very. Bad. Timing.

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Mussar

Hearing on the Side of Merit

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

Monday gratefuls: Relationship building. Shadow. Learning curve for us both. Still steep. Shadow the hugger. Morning darkness. Staying longer. Artemis. Kate, always. Natalie. Ruth and Gabe. The duvet. Ruth’s skills. Gabe’s skills. Each Tomato Plant. Each Squash. Syntropy. Entropy. Science and the Ancient Brothers. Indiana Fever. Those Twins.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth’s sewing. Gabe’s bedmaking.

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei. Find the flow. Go with it.

Week Kavannah: Hearing on the side of merit

One brief shining: Ruth took on a difficult task, sewing patches by hand on my duvet where Shadow the render of cloth had worked to release many sneeze producing Goose Feathers; so good to see a woman sewing in the house again.

 

Ruth after sewing a heart on Gabe’s baboon.

Grandkids: Ruth and Gabe came up yesterday. I’d told them I needed help with some things. Patching the duvet was one. Shadow had torn it open in several spots a while ago and each time I used it more Goose Feathers would float up, up, up and away. Some tickling my nose. Achoo.

Ruth has the dexterity of her father and her grandmother. She sewed for two or three hours, also sneezing. When she finished, every hole had been patched. Some with sewing. Some with cloth tape. What a relief.

Gabe lifted my heavy (to me) foam mattress and put on new sheets and pillow cases. “These look like you, Grandpop,” he said of the blue Flower printed design. He also carried down a bag of dogfood for me. Also a relief.

We had pizza together. And talked.

We talk about books, about relationships, about grief, about school, about the future. We laugh and get teary. To have this sort of relationship with two I’ve known since infancy continues to be one of the jewels of my life.

They left around four.

 

Dog journal: The saga continues. Once again Shadow refused to come in to stay in the evening. Even though I’ve moved her second feeding to seven p.m. She came in to eat, but bolted again when I tried to touch her collar.

When I went outside, she came up and hugged me, as she likes to do, jumping up softly and putting her left front paw around my waist. After we did this several times, I picked her up and brought her inside. I don’t know, right now, any other way to keep her safe at night.

 

Mussar: Hearing on the side of merit. Judaism teaches judging others on the side of merit. Assuming good intent, thoughtfulness when encountering difficult interactions.

Rich Levine offered a twist on that: Hearing on the side of merit. As a lawyer and as a college professor, listening is a significant, major part of his work life. Hearing on the side of merit entails stopping, perhaps, when encountering a divisive or contrary idea, going to first principles and finding an area of agreement before answering or responding.

Easier to write about than do. Mussar suggests small, incremental changes in outer behavior, intentional changes that then reshape the inner self. Hearing on the side of merit is a good practice for this week.

Dogs, Feelings, Greenhouse, Judaism, Plants, Science

Learn From It

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

Sunday gratefuls: The Second Law. Entropy. Shadow and her wiggly, huggy ways. Happy Squash and Tomato Plants. Greenhouse in the Tomato zone. CBE Men’s group. Suffering. Jamie. Joe. Jim. Bill. Irv. Bailey and Babe, Bill’s Pugs. Floods. Wildfires. The Way of the Natural World.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shadow crosses the Threshold

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Hear on the side of merit.

One brief shining: Went out to Artemis to retrieve my watering can-which I use to fill Shadow’s water bowl-and went inside, feeling as I did the warmth of the heater Nathan hung over the door.

 

Artemis: My temperature sensor showed no more than 90 degrees during the heat of the day and no less that 61 degrees late yesterday evening and this morning. A bit outside Tomato temperature preferences of 85 to 65 degrees so I’ll have to adjust them. (OK. I admit I just checked. I remembered them incorrectly.)

The good news. Between the exhaust fan during the day and the heater at night I’ll be able to maintain optimum temperatures.

Nathan gave me six Tomato Plants, all doing well. He also gave me two Squash Plants which I planted in the outside raised beds yesterday. They are much happier in Soil. They needed to be outside because, well, they are Squash and throwing out Vines is their thing.

Artemis lives.

 

Dog journal: We’re inching toward leash acceptance. Shadow is less reactive, but she still won’t let me easily touch her collar, clip on the leash. Slowly, slowly.

Yesterday afternoon she was outside. I was about to leave for the CBE men’s group and wanted her inside. Calling to her from inside. She came in! The first time she had crossed the threshold when I called her. Slowly, slowly.

She’s sitting right in front of me watching me type, seeing if she can will me into feeding her early. With those eyes? Almost. But no. Dog’s prefer regular feeding times. I’ve been fussing with her second feeding, moving it later in the day so she may think anytime is the right time. That will fade.

She gave up and went to chewing on one of my old socks. She likes to throw them in the air.

 

CBE Men’s group: I led an evening on the theme of suffering. Based on a chapter from David Brook’s book: How To Know A Person. My aim was to take the conversation out of the head and into the lev, the heart/mind.

I opened with this Brooks observation that he cited as the subtext of the book. Experience, Brooks says, is not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you. This is a big idea.

It fits with suffering. Rabbi Jamie offered this Buddhist thought. Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. I don’t agree. Yes, pain is inevitable. But. Grief is suffering. Anguish and despair during and after a divorce. Suffering. Rejecting suffering pushes away an opportunity to grow, to change.

The question I believe is what you do with your suffering. Do you let it overwhelm you, diminish you, or do you learn from it? Hear what it has to say. Allow yourself to change, become a new person in light of what you’ve learned?

Suffering teaches us; offers an opportunity for change. Neither fear it nor get stuck in it. Pay attention. Learn.

 

Dogs, Greenhouse, Plants, Seed Keepers, Weather +Climate, Wild Neighbors

She Also Kills

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

Shabbat gratefuls: Nathan. The heater. The fan. The drip irrigation. Tomato plants thriving. Squash and seeds. The Fourth of July. Shadow, chewer of leashes. Render of sheets. My sweet girl. Kate, always. Death. Life. The time between a sleep and a sleep. Rock and Roll. Give me the beat, boys. Tara and Eleanor. Choosing Granite. Kitchens.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Photosynthesis

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei. Feel the One moving in and through my life. Flow with it.

Week Kavannah: Hear on the side of merit

One brief shining: Nathan hung the heater from a greenhouse rafter, cut a hole in the Cedar siding for the fan, ran an extension cord from my outdoor plug and threaded it into the greenhouse interior, set the fan to come on at 90 degrees to exhaust air and the heater at 60 degrees to warm it on cool nights. 65 degrees inside the greenhouse on this 48 degree morning.

 

The Greenhouse: Yes, Nathan came on the afternoon of the Fourth to work. He’s a man of his word and I appreciate it.

The exhaust fan will draw air through the windows and into the greenhouse when the temperature inside it goes above 90 degrees. It hit 104 this week. The heater will come on now in the night if the greenhouse dips below 60 degrees as it did a week ago, going down into the low forties.

This is all to make the Tomato plants glad. As my good friend Rich said, “A six hundred dollar salad.” Even so.

Having another living organism here makes me so happy. The greenhouse fills my heart in the same way Shadow does. I guess that’s my little family now: Shadow, the Plants in Artemis, and me.

Again. Live until I die.

 

Dog journal: The leash saga. I bought a yellow neoprene leash. 10 feet long. Attached it to Shadow’s collar. Not easy. She went into an immediate sulk.

The first night I unclipped it, remembering her chewing up her leash from the Granby shelter. The next day near evening I got it on her again. Left it on that night and, wow, she did not chew it off. We went outside. She peed. Wrapped me in the leash. We came inside over the devil’s threshold.

Left it on her that night, too, as Natalie suggested. Oh. Well. One neoprene leash severed from its clip. I had also purchased a pull tab leash. About 9 inches long they clip to the collar and make putting on a leash easier. Pick up the tab, clip the leash onto its ring.

Never got a chance to use it because I got the original leash I bought for her clipped on using turkey hot dog treats. High value treats.

Left the pull tab on her last night. She chewed it off. I’m not sure, but I think we got past the leash jitters yesterday, so it might not be necessary. Useless now anyhow.

Just a moment: Mother Nature feeds us, keeps us warm, provides material for our homes and the things we put in them.

She also kills people. By Flood and Fire, Tornado and Hurricane, Volcanic Eruption and Earthquake. By extreme Heat and Cold. By Tsunami and Drought. By poisonous Snakes and disease bearing Insects. By Grizzly Bears and Mountain Lions.

 

 

 

Colorado, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains

249 Years

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

4th of July gratefuls: Cousin Donald. Hyper Masculinity. The Commander’s Cup. Seoah. Murdoch. Songtan. The United (?) States of America. Oklahoma. Indiana. Wisconsin. Minnesota. Colorado. Judy. Raeone. Kate, always. Shadow. Her chewed leash. Work yet to do. Planting. Seat cushion for Ruby. CBE Men’s group. Suffering. Luke. Rebecca. Leo. Tara. Eleanor.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Long time friends

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei. Find the flow of life’s force, follow it

Week Kavannah: Savlanut. Patience.

One brief shining: Walked up the slight rise past the wonderful Ponderosa and the jagged Granite Boulder, pre-schooler rendered chalk drawings on the sidewalk, and pressed the doorbell necessitated by the oldest hatred to join my friends discussing the mussar virtue of self-confidence.

The 4th of July. On the 249th birthday of this country I sit on Shadow Mountain, in purple Mountain majesty above the fruited plains. Somewhere below amber waves of Grain ripple in a morning Breeze.

Meanwhile, faraway in the land of broken toys a mean-spirited tyrant and his too loyal minions prepare concentration camps for immigrants who came here seeking a better life: ICE prepares detention blitz with historic $45 billion in funding.

The Elk Cow and her Calf that crossed the road in front of me Wednesday night do not know this. Their world continues, following a thread of ongoing life rooted millions of years in the past, honed to the ways of Mountain life, to seasonal change, to knowing the ways of predators.

Nor does Shadow know. As we work out our life together, a struggle and a joy for both of us, she too follows a path begun thousands of years ago when friendly Wolves joined human encampments for shelter, food, and joint protection.

How I wish I could be a non-human animal, wild or domesticated. I could live according to the ancient rules of nature. Eat. Reproduce. Play. Rest. Die. Not live according to the cruel rules of human society, the unnatural ways of my often thoughtful, loving, compassionate species.

The Elk do not shun their own, round them up and move them out. Sure, animals may contend over territory for survival, but we humans contend over territory for power and for purposes driven by fear and hatred.

This fourth of July I join many Americans who no longer find great pride in their country. National Pride in the U.S. Sees Dramatic Decline. Or maybe not quite.

The Mountains and the Plains. The fertile fields of the Midwest. The great Boreal Forests. The Atlantic Coast and the Pacific Coast. Redwoods. Sequoias. Bristle Cone Pine. Wolves and Grizzlies. Wolverines and Lynx. Squirrels and Marmots. Fishers and Pine Martens. Rabbits and Chipmunks. All the Wild Neighbors. I take great joy and, yes, pride in living among and with all of these. America the Beautiful.

I also stand with all the humans, all of them, who live here with love, justice, and compassion in their hearts. Who know that the word neighbor has no color, no gender, no religion, no national origin. Who know that the warm and beating heart of this historic experiment in self-governance cannot be stilled by the cold dead hands of those without mercy.

Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Garden, Greenhouse, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Learned Enough?

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

Thursday gratefuls: Shadow. The leash. The last big hurdle. Tomato plants wilting in the heat, then restored by water. Rich. Susan. Tara. Marilyn. Joanne. MVP last night. The quarter Moon. The Elk Cow and her Calf crossing the road. Wild Neighbors. The second law of thermodynamics. Science. The Humanities. Colleges and universities. Learning is life. Loving is life.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Hearing on the side of merit

Week Kavannah: Wu Wei. Flow.

One brief shining: Shadow lies behind my chair, the yellow leash still attached, now in the third day of desensitization; when I take her outside for a walk, part of the process, she jumps up, paws on my chest, then her left one slipping around my waist in a clingy hug.

 

Dog journal: My empathy has often been close to exhaustion, not with Shadow, but because of her struggles. And mine. This relationship has not been easy. Climb one Mountain only to realize the next peak is higher and right next to the one just summited.

Natalie says the leash is the last big hurdle. God, I hope so. I’d like to settle in to a doggy rhythm with Shadow by my side. I know it’s going to happen. Not when.

 

Mental health: No doubt, dear reader, you caught the melancholy tones in my posts over the last six months. As so often happens for me, I only notice them much later than others.

The pain. Also exhausts my empathy, especially my empathy for myself. Avoidance comes to dominate movement. Move less. Hurt less. Though because, as Halle said, we’re meant to move, this tactic has self-defeat built in. Move less, hurt longer eventually more.

With those two drains on my empathy, Shadow’s struggles and the pain, I’ve had little left over to do what needs to be done. That is, manage all this in a healthy way.

Not to say life has been awful. No. But it has been stretched taut, leaving little room for dreams. Though.

The Greenhouse: Was a dream that is now a reality. I forgot, though Shadow should have more than alerted me to this, realizing dreams has its own cost.

This works. That doesn’t. The heat in the greenhouse, the point after all, reached 104 yesterday. I put a remote thermo sensor in it with a readout station in the house.

When I went out to check all of my Tomato Plants had shriveled, looked dead. I hit the manual button for the irrigation. It ran for twelve minutes and the Leaves filled back up. This means I will need a fan to help modulate the heat.

On the other end the temperature went into the low forties two nights ago. Tomatoes prefer night time temperatures in the sixties. Need that heater which I agreed Nathan could install later.

Learning and growth come when we move outside our comfort zones. Yeah. So I’ve heard. Well, I’ve spent plenty of time over the last six months way outside of my comfort zone. I must be learned enough by now.