• Transitioned

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Mountain Summer Moon

    Shabbat gratefuls: Lengthening nights. Warm days. Spanish food for the Fourth. Judy Sherman. Kate. All those who suffer, yet are strong. Resilience. Workout yesterday. Joanne. Responsibility. Seeing, being responsive. Kavod. Honor. Teshuvah. Botany. Cambium. Phloem and xylem. Heartwood. Photosynthesis. Carbon Dioxide in. Oxygen out. Creating food for us all.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Energy into matter

    One brief shining: Got a thick cardboard box, heavy, filled first with crenelated paper, opened the larger box inside and removed the slices of acorn fed Iberian Jamon ham, of chorizo, of other ham slices, churros and xocalate, then the smaller box which contained Olives, grilled Peppers, nuts greeting my Fourth of July feast.

     

    Every once in a bit. I’ll see some food offering. In a grocery store, especially one like Tony’s. Or, online, maybe Wild Alaska or at the Spanish food site, La Tienda. The Store. My imagination gets caught by the marketer’s guile and visions of a scrumptious meal dance before my inner eye. Not real often. But on occasion.

    Less often, my eye’s dance, my inner tongue tastes the delicacies on offer and I reach for my money. The anticipation never matches the reality. Oh, if it only could. Sure the Jamon ham is tasty, but not in a lift off, send me to the moon way. The Olives are good as are the Peppers. Good, not amazing. I know. You’d think at 77 I would have learned. And mostly I have. But on occasion…

     

    Still no word from Rocky Mountain Cancer Care. Not sure why getting in to see these radiation oncologists is taking so long. Kristie put me on the Orgovyx to tamp down the cancer while I wait to get in, but it’s been almost three weeks and I don’t even have an appointment. I’ve jiggled Kristie and Rocky Mountain. Nada. I’m a bit frustrated. Ready to have these metastases radiated.

    I’m assertive about my care. In general and especially so with cancer, yet moving medical bureaucracies is no easier than moving corporate or governmental bureaucracies. Sometimes you have to wait.

     

    Back to the tarot deck. Pulling cards each day. Tarot tickles my inner compass, puts a probe down below my consciousness. Yesterday from the Wildwood Deck I turned over a five of vessels for the second time in three days. Ecstasy. Happiness. Realization of a dream. And from the Woodland Guardian deck, the Bee and the Pomegranate. Productivity. Hard work.

    Herme’s Pilgrimage has legs. Learning botany basics in a Coursera class from Tel Aviv University. Finished the Tree communication class from the New York Botanical Garden. Am reading my way through a book on Tree myths and one on old growth forests. Did a Google arts and culture search on Trees and got thousands of hits. This pilgrimage has a wandering path with Trees as a lodestar. For now. Plants, too.

    I have transitioned from the days of learning for my conversion and bar mitzvah to a new field of knowledge.

     

     

     

     


    📂This entry was posted in Cooking Health Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Reimaging revelation Tarot Writing

  • Frailty

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Mountain Summer Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Irv and Paul and me. Tom. David. Roxann. Veronica’s Bat Mitzvah party. MVP. Responsibility. Achariyut. La Tienda. Tastes of Spain. Leo back with his dad. Diane. The 4th of July. Our country, right and wrong. Joe Biden. Aging. He of the flappy suits and the too long ties. Democracy. Its frailties. Its strengths. Our flag. Which belongs to no camp of our politics.


                                                                     Sparks of Joy and Awe

    One brief shining: Picked chicken wings at the GQcue Barbecue in Lakewood, Green Beans and Barbecue Beans, went to a booth with my standing number-12-and sat waiting on Alan to get his brisket and Turkey, outside cars went by on Alaska Avenue in this suburban neighborhood of three story newer apartment buildings with exposed brick and lots of metal, the heat of another 4th of July rising from the asphalt, making the Trees welcome purveyors of shade, celebrating a holiday with a friend. Yes.

     

    Mountain nights. Cool down into the mid-fifties, often the high forties. Important reason that Kate felt she was always on vacation here. Mountain Summers.

    The Mountains suited both of us. Scenic. Neighbors spread out and views around every corner. Cool nights in the Summer and lots of Snow in the Winter. Spectacular gold and green Autumns. Wild neighbors swinging by every once in a while. Quiet. Dog friendly. No sidewalks. Little traffic.

    And, it turned out, Jews. Mountain Jews. Kate’s life complete as she lived a Jewish life at Congregation Beth Evergreen. What a blessing for her. For me.

     

    The after debate debate. Will he leave on his own? Or, will he be forced out? I read an interesting article by a geriatrician in the NYT yesterday. She talked about frailty*, about how it can slip up on us as we age, rendering us more vulnerable to illness, trauma, exhaustion. She never says Biden is frail, but she implied it by writing the article.

    At 77 I’m only three and a half years from my 81st birthday. Gives me a certain perspective. It’s important to note that frailty does not equal diminished mental capacity. It’s about resilience, about stamina. I can only imagine the strain working the long hours of a Presidency might do to me. I wonder, from time to time, if I’m still up to managing this house. A far, far cry from a nation. Especially a nation in as fraught a time as ours.

    Of course, the one who would wreck our country is 78. He also has the rambles and the teeters. What might we do with him if he dies or becomes disabled in office? Let Bannon or Miller seize the reins like Woodrow Wilson’s wife did after his stroke?

    We’re at a very unusual moment in our national history, trying to sort out on the fly what age has to do with capacity to lead. We may have to find out. I hope not.

     

     

    *”“Frailty” is not just a colloquial term; it’s a measurable clinical syndrome, first characterized by the geriatrician and public health expert Dr. Linda Fried, that describes a generalized decrease in physiological resilience to stress, injury and illness…

    Dr. Patricia Cantley has written about a useful analogy that she offers to frail patients and their loved ones to explain what’s going on: A beautiful, skillfully assembled paper boat sailing on a pond may look great and sail without difficulty as long as the water is calm and the sun is shining. But should a gust of wind or a wave come up unexpectedly, the paper boat is vulnerable to damage, may tip over easily and is unlikely to be righted and sail as well as before.”

     

     

     


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Politics Shadow Mountain

  • Uncle Sam

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the 2% crescent of the Bar Mitzvah Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Irv, Paul, Tom. Rich. Joan. Jamie. Tara. Talking politics under the starlight with Rich. Rescheduling with Joan. Tara today. Driving in the dark. Going to bed really late. This July 4th, 2024 life. Dreams that may come. Joe Biden. The New York Times. Newspapers. Printer’s ink. Justifying the galleys. Linotype machines. Letter presses.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Journalism

    One brief shining: A dull steady drone, quiet yet woeful, persistent, challenges my hearing since I cannot locate the source which increases and decreases according to the position of my head, clamoring for all the attention I would rather devote to writing, in the background yet pushing itself into the foreground. Acchh.

     

    Wednesday. A busy day. Up sticks. Shema. Back exercises. Write Ancientrails. Over to Evergreen Medical for my Prolia shot. Back to Conifer, Aspen Perks for breakfast, pickup flannel shirts at the dry cleaners, ready for storage, back home to Leo. Get Leo’s stuff together for his Dad’s afternoon arrival. Read. Watch a little TV. Shower. Order from Beau Jo’s to pick up on the way to CBE. MVP. Then, a half-hour with Rich on the Supreme Court, Joe Biden and our hapless nation. In the parking lot, a warm Mountain summer night with a clear field of stars. Home around 10:30 pm. 2 hours past my usual bedtime. Oi. A little THC.

    Then up at 7:30. For the life that happens on July 4th, 2024.

    Happy birthday, Uncle Sam! Speech. Speech.

    Thank you. Thank you. No. Really. Thank you. (puts hands out, palms down. In response the crowd quiets.)

    I know. I know. This has not been democracy’s finest year. Anywhere. Except maybe Britain. A bit of a nod to India, too. Otherwise the forces of autocracy and prejudice, of chauvinistic religion have proved ascendant. Yes. I read the newspapers, too. Online of course.

    (crowd laughs)

    So. What to say. A time of peril for our government and its authority granted by the citizens of our nation. Raising the President above the law? That’s not an American idea. Remember King George? The divine right of Kings? No citizen, no matter what their title or station is above the law. I’ve said that over and over since the founding. A hard lesson, one that may seem too hard to some. But to me? Essential. Sine qua non.

    And on that divine right business. Who knows about divinity and what it wants or who it wants to lead? That’s why we established a government of the people, by the people, for the people so help us the non-intrusive god of the Deists who wrote our constitution. Now many of our citizens, in defiance of that bedrock principle, want to put so-called Christian values as superior, as national values. They even want me to preside over a Christian nation.

    No. I will not. I’m agnostic myself. Not to mention the Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Sikh’s, Jains, Taoists, atheists, humanists and who knows how many others. We are a quilt, a tapestry, not a pristine white altar cloth.

    Enough of that. I’m headed to Coney Island for a hot dog and some fireworks. Enjoy the 4th.

     


    📂This entry was posted in Holidays Politics US History

  • Rise Up from the Grave

    Posted on by Charles 1 Comment

    Summer and the waning of the Bar Mitzvah Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Waste. Cool morning. Another quiet day on Shadow Mountain. Prolia for my bones. Leo. Being a Dog. The story of Gilgamesh and the great Cedar Forest.The New York Botanical Garden. Botany. Horticulture. Bees. Honey. Gardens. Andover. My ninja weeder, Kate. Vince. Evergreen Medical Center. Sue Bradshaw. Cancer.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Assertiveness

    One brief shining: Hit the treadmill for 20 minutes, a set of resistance work, another 15 minutes on the treadmill, another set of resistance, 10 minutes on the treadmill, a long and tough session with Leo occasionally hovering over my face, licking it, telling me, what a good boy you are human.

    How bout that Supreme Court, eh? A sudden shift in the substantive matters of our democracy. A strange and unwarranted granting of legal shields for the President. A gutting of the regulatory power of Federal agencies. Validating a cruel Oregon law against the homeless. Saying yes to the NRA in a First Amendment case. And so on.

    Marry that series of rulings with the most important Presidential debate ever. See the confusing fallout from Biden’s performance. Giving aid and comfort to the MAGA camp and their long-tied, short-witted Jim Jones. Try to imagine what’s going to happen now. Hard to do. For me at least. 2024 will be remembered, there is no doubt at all. And it’s only half over. With an election still to come.

    There’s a gospel hymn, Ain’t No Grave*. Some of the lyrics: Ain’t no grave can keep my body down, when that trumpet sounds I will rise up from the ground. I’m beginning to have the same feeling about the death of my America. There ain’t no far-right that can keep my body politic down. When that Anthem plays, we’ll rise up from the ground.

    You see my heart, my lev knows that the politics of fear and cruelty, of laissez faire attitudes toward the predations of capitalism, of the unholy consolidation of power by far-right ideologues does not reflect either the purpose of our nation or the opinions of most of its citizens. We will be known now by whether we roll over, lay back in the grave or rise up.

    I will not look for land in Costa Rica. I will not stop voting or agitating. I will not retire from the arena. I will not let the course of this change go unchallenged. My voice will be small since my life has Herme’s Pilgrimage as its main focus now, but my voice will never go silent. I will rise up from the grave of the America I once knew and fought for all my life.

    A while back I mentioned the Storm Before the Calm by George Friedman, put in my hand by buddy Tom Crane. His talk of cyclical rather than linear pulses in our national economy and political life sees a vast change starting over the next 4 to 5 years. What’s happening right now has some characteristics of his work. He sees all this as an upheaval leading to a renewed and refreshed American democracy. May it be so.

     

    *

     


    📂This entry was posted in Feelings Fourth Phase Politics US History

  • The Squeeze and the Elevation

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: Yesterday’s immersion in Herme’s Pilgrimage. Drawing the Queen of Bows and the Cayman with the Poppies. Finishing my Tree Communication course. VOC’s. Volatile Organic Compounds. Released through Stoma. An important mode of Tree messaging. The hundreds of millions year old relationship between Tree Roots and Fungi. A cool Mountain morning.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Lodgepoles and Aspens of the Arapaho National Forest

    One brief shining: Clicked on the link and Annie Novak of the New York Botanical Garden showed up on Zoom, reminding me of MJ Hedstrom, an old flame of the Grand Marais Hedstrom’s, thin and bright, well spoken, passionate both though Annie had knowledge about Trees and Tree Communication whereas MJ knew Minnesota politics. I learned a lot from both of them.

     

    orgovyx

    A week plus back on Orgovyx. A bit of hot flashes. Not bad. Otherwise ok. Since Orgovyx took me on as a charity case, I don’t have to pay seven hundred and fifty-three dollars a month for it. Though that seemed paltry compared to Paul’s friend who has leukemia and has treatments that cost seventeen thousand. She’s getting money from the Assistance Fund as I did a year or so ago for both Orgovyx and Erleada until the Prostate Cancer wing of that fund drained all of its assets.

    Sounds like a good thing, doesn’t it? And, of course, when you get that treatment paid for, the one that keeps you alive, your gratitude seems like the least you can offer. Sort of. Until you learn, as I did last year, that the folks who fund the Assistance program are the very pharmaceutical companies charging the exorbitant fees. That means that the Fund is a way to keep the political waters cool by paying off the cohort that would otherwise go screaming to their Congressperson. It is, then, a tradeoff, you help me with my treatment and I have no need to raise the burdensome expense. Because you’ve covered it. Imagine how much money these companies spend on this. A lot. But cheaper I imagine than losing a battle with Congress.

    I admit I’m a little scared to publish this since I may need the Assistance fund again. But this is the sort of bind that a capitalist economy forces on all players. Those of us who are sick need the meds. In these cases just to survive. The pharmaceutical companies have a fiduciary responsibility to their board and shareholders to maximize profits. Congress hears from these companies often. How expensive new drug development is. How it will fall off a cliff if they can’t charge these very high prices. How many people they employee. How much they pay in taxes. And now they have a Supreme Court that is business friendly. Can you feel the squeeze?

     

    Just a moment: And, as the DJ used to say, The hits just keep on coming.* His lawyers, his judges, his arrogance and cowardice have combined to wrench apart the levers of balance in our system, slowly ratcheting the Presidency into rarefied, autocratic air. Soon our Presidents may have a throne in the Oval Office, an eagle-headed scepter, a crown of diamonds, rubies, and sapphire stones forming bunting around the base and a raised Gadsen flag with platinum surround at the peak. All Hail, the one who rules now by divine right. Not constitutional designation of powers!

     

    *”…more than one lower-court opinion addressing novel legal issues raised by Mr. Trump’s norm-breaking behavior observed that presidents are not kings. But suddenly, they do enjoy a kind of monarchical prerogative.” NYT, 7/2/2024


    📂This entry was posted in Feelings Fourth Phase Health Politics

  • Tree Time

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Flonase. Tree sex. Grass sex. Make me sneezy. Leo the gentle. Luke. With family in Florida. Mark dealing with loss in Hua Hin, Thailand. Seoah turning 46 this July 4th. Murdoch. My son, who cares for those who work for him. The unconscious. The collective unconscious. Archetypes. Dreams. Depth Psychology. Rollo May. Marie von Franz. James Hillman. Robert Johnson.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Sleep

    One brief shining: A mystery this slipping into the unprotected, vulnerable hours, extinguishing the busy scanning of the everyday for a nighttime swim in the inky waters of just our Self, a time for only you, only me, rummaging through the storehouse hunting matters that need healing or celebration or acceptance, speaking the language of symbol and emotion, of the deep you, attending to your Self in the inner cathedral.

    On my Lodgepole Companion the yellow male Flowers, catkins, have disappeared. The female ovulate Cones, red and swollen, fertilized, now dot the Branch ends, beginning the transition from female Flower to Pine Cone. These serotinous cones require fire to open them, a hot fire like one produced when the Crowns burn. Crown Fires burn fast, destroying acres of Trees at once. Stopping them tests the mettle of current Fire suppression techniques. Often the Crown Fires burn until they burn themselves out. As once they did always.

    Fire does not destroy the Lodgepole; rather, it opens their seeds to newly fertile soil. One Forest dies that another may be born. Not a lot different from the way death burns through a generation of humans, one generation dying, the other growing up in its stead.

    Annie Novak, the instructor in my Tree Communication class, cautioned us to notice our anthropocentric tendencies when talking about Trees, Plants. An example. We consider seconds, hours, months, years, decades, as important measures of time. How does a Tree experience time? Or, does a Tree experience time?

    Dendrochronologists may use Tree growth rings to accurately place an individual’s life span in our human history. The Tree growth rings themselves? Dead. The heartwood of a Tree functions as a Tree’s columnar support essential to support the Crown as it grows up and up. A key Tree strategy for access to Great Sol’s Light.

    Trees do move, up from their Seed toward the Sky, out toward the space around them, and down into the soil beneath them. But they do not move from their chosen location. They also grow in girth, expanding as the cambium produces xylem cells which push the width of the Trunk out as they die and form the heartwood.

    (NB for the Ancient Brothers. I misspoke about xylem cells. They die and become the strong support for the trunk. In the center of the heartwood xylem cells transport water from the roots to the leaves through capillary action.) The phloem cells, between the bark and the cambium (growing part of the tree), take sugars down from the Leaves and Branches to other parts of the Tree. It is the phloem and cambium that measure only a few human hairs in width.

    Since the heartwood and bark are dead (bark not always, see Aspens for example, but mostly), and the living part of the tree-phloem and cambium-have only a few hairs width presence in the huge structure of the Tree, what of the Tree might experience time? Do we consider the whole organism, which consists of mostly dead tissue, or do we consider the living cambium and phloem only? Perhaps the whole Tree and its growth rings simply are time itself measured in a Treecentric way?

    Lots to think about and I’m only one or two strides into Herme’s Pilgrimage. Where will Herme go?

     


    📂This entry was posted in Fourth Phase Great Wheel Hermitage Holidays Judaism Mountains Plants Shadow Mountain Wild Neighbors

  • I’ve seen Fire and I’ve seen Rain

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: Shabbat. Leo. Luke in Jacksonville. Ginny and Janice. The Blackbird. Kittredge. In case of flash flood climb to safety. Black Mountain Drive to Brook Forest Drive. Down the hill to Evergreen. Passing a green Arapaho National Forest. Full Streams thanks to recent Rain. Seeing individual Trees like the Ponderosa growing alone on the side of a Cliff.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rain

    One brief shining: Leo sleeps on the rug next to the computer, dreaming of Luke and bones and tennis balls with squeakers in them while I hit first this key then that, glancing up to spend a bit of time with my Lodgepole Companion, looking past them to Black Mountain and beyond to the milky gray of a Cloud resting above it, wondering if that means yet more Rain.

     

    We have had Rain. Seems like more than average though I can’t find data to support that. Hoping for a healthy Monsoon season which usually starts in July. Afternoon Rains. Whatever combination of precipitation types that keep our wildfire risk low.

    The Cloudy weather we’ve had on occasion over the last couple of weeks reminded me of an early problem I had with Colorado. Too many Sunny days. I missed good ole Midwestern gloomy, overcast weather. Weather that meant I needed to stay inside. Read. Write. Cook. Sunny days meant I needed to be outside, enjoying the limited moments of great weather. Which meant. I constantly felt like I needed to go outside, not dither around inside. So much so that I longed for a stormy week loaded with Thunderheads and pelting rain.

    Over that now. Except. When it’s Cloudy and Rainy. Then I revert to Midwest nostalgia, remembering Rainy days curled up in a chair reading. The world of the moment subsumed by the world of the text.

     

    Just a moment: Yeah. He should step away. Too much confirmation of stereotypes and GOP talking points about his capacity. Yes, I believe he can still do the job. But I don’t see him or Democratic chances in November recovering from the debate debacle. We need to win this election. It matters and we all know it. If Biden can’t win, we need someone who can.

     

    Friend Tom Crane found this. It had a profound affect on me as I watched it.

    “About 12 seconds into this video, something unusual happens. The Earth begins to rise. Never seen by humans before, the rise of the Earth over the limb of the Moon occurred about 55.5 years ago and surprised and amazed the crew of Apollo 8. The crew immediately scrambled to take still images of the stunning vista caused by Apollo 8‘s orbit around the Moon. The featured video is a modern reconstruction of the event as it would have looked were it recorded with a modern movie camera…”  Astronomy Picture of the Day


    📂This entry was posted in Memories Minnesota Politics Science US History Weather +Climate

  • Herme’s Pilgrimage

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

    Shabbat gratefuls: Ginny and Janice. Irene. The Dreamers. Yud Heh Vav Heh. Chai. Aleph. The Shield (Star) of David. Tarot. Woodland Oracle Deck. Orange one. Older one. Our country. Right and wrong. Love it, don’t leave it. The 1960’s. The Peaceable Kingdom. Judy. The Goat. The Aurora in the Lake. Steppenwolf. Cooking and heating with wood.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Dreams

    One brief shining: The thickly polyurethaned round table had a jigsaw cutout of a house and a Mountain, outside Bear Creek ran full and strong; as I drove to the Blackbird for breakfast with Ginny and Janice, I’d noticed the sign, In Case of Flash Flood Climb to Safety; as a result, I looked again at Bear Creek, saw its strength contained for the time within its banks and was glad.

     

    This new, integrative journey, Herme’s Pilgrimage I think I’ll call it now, has me reaching back into closets stored with varied kinds of knowledge. The story of Zeus, Hermes, and Lycaon. Of Baucis and Philemon. The South Node on my astrological chart. The Wildwood Tarot. The Tree of Life. Kavanah. Teshuvah and Tikkun. Resurrection. Reincarnation. The Tea Ceremony and the way of Chado. The Great Wheel.

    As I wander on this pilgrimage, knowing how to read a Tarot spread will come up alongside quantum mechanics. Sun sign next to the sephirot on the Tree of Life. A roku Tea cup and a tallit. How these will resonate, reverberate. What fun, eh?

    Today the Tarot and Oracle cards have my attention as does the parsha Shelach, Numbers 13:1-15:41.

    Beaver and Birch, Woodland Oracle Deck

    The Woodland Oracle suggests drawing a card a day to become familiar with the deck. Seemed like a good plan. So I did. The Beaver and the Birch.

    Upright the Beaver and Birch suggests a focus on home, doing the decorating, maintenance that create a home. This felt propitious because Herme’s Pilgrimage focuses on activity I can do at home. Also, the Beaver works hard, creating not only a home and a dam with their hard work, but a Pond as well.

    The pond can represent the work of Herme’s Pilgrimage. A layer that reflects the Sky, the rational world of appearance, and a depth below where matters of myth and legend, religious practice, and poetry lie.

    The dam suggests the barrier, the boundary I need to construct so I can focus on letting the Pond fill up and surround my home. I will leave my home by swimming through the Pond and return the same way.

    The Woodland Wardens represented in the 52 cards of the deck combine Animals and Plants. Jessica Roux, the creator of the deck, says she was inspired by the Victorian language of Plants as well as the Creatures themselves.

    Whatever focuses my attention, sends it down unimagined paths, has value to me. Tarot and oracle decks have that capacity for me. Music, too.

    Wanting to go as far down the Rabbit hole, into the Pond, and through the Looking Glass as I can.

     

     


    📂This entry was posted in Feelings Fourth Phase Great Wheel Hermitage Plants Tarot Wild Neighbors Writing

  • A Paradox

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Irv. Marilyn and Salaam. Lila and Licks. Leo. Luke. Great Sol bathing us in Light. Kate, always Kate. Safeway Pickup. La Tienda for the Fourth of July. The good ole, finger lickin’, summer watermelon eatin’, mall infested, flag wavin’, pickup drivin’ USofA. My country. I love it and won’t leave it. Joe Biden. Bless his heart. Election 2024.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Leo

    One brief shining: Reading the debate take-aways, Trump ranting, Biden stumbling, the most important Presidential debate in years and all we have to show for it are two old men, one a felon and a certain psychopath, the other decent and coming off an effective Presidency, who couldn’t keep up with his own plan for the encounter. We are well and truly screwed.

     

    You can decide who is who in this charming, short video.

    No. I didn’t watch it. Glad. I’m sticking with my election kavanah (intention, sincere direction of the lev) to not let these matters upset me. Doesn’t mean I’m not aware and don’t react. If Trump wins, I will be sure to let my oncologist know she has to keep me alive for at least five more years. I refuse to die during a Trump presidency. So there.

    Enough for now.

     

    A gradually darkening sky in the West. We’re in a cycle of off and on Rain, some Storms. Bright Sol in the East.

    Reminds me of the interesting paradox of the growing season. As the heat builds in the Summer, especially after the Summer Solstice which was last week, the days have already grown shorter. As corn and beans fill the Midwest and as Gardens throughout the country fill up with Radishes and Heirloom Tomatoes and Beans and Carrots and Onions, as Honeybees fly, land on Flowers, pollinating and gathering Nectar to turn into Honey, the nights grow, too. Lengthening, making Shabbat candle lighting times move earlier.

    The Great Wheel at work, turning gently and slowly toward Fall, the fallow season, Winter. A waltz. A slow dance. Giving up the salsa heat for a gavotte, as the tempo continues to become more tranquil, less rushed. Underneath the pulse of energy transformed to food, of Flowers turning into Apples and Cherries and Plums, runs a counter current. The colors of Fall. The sound of combines and corn pickers in the fields. Vast swaths of Nebraska and Kansas will turn golden. Can you feel Mother Earth’s own shabbat gathering force? If not right now, you will soon enough.

    Instead of longing for eternal Summer, everyday a Spring Break day, I long for the quieter, darker, cooler seasons of Fall and Winter. I do enjoy going out to get the mail in my t-shirt. Being able to get my trash bins to the end of the driveway without Ice or Snow. I like seasonal vegetables fresh from the garden and all the many shades of green. Sure. I love the manic energy of Plants as they move fueled by great gulps of Light, Water from Summer Rains. Yes. But even more I love the early darkness. The cool, even cold days and colder nights.

    My psyche.

     


    📂This entry was posted in Great Wheel Politics Weather +Climate

  • Happy people say pyt med det.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: A good, hard workout. Monoecious and dioecious plants. Lodgepoles and Aspens. The Arapaho National Forest. That Yearling Mule Deer eating alongside the road. Rain. Thunder. Lightning. Full Streams. Floods in Minnesota and Iowa. Drought eliminated. Less Fire risk here. Mark in Thailand. Mary in Melbourne. My son, Seoah and Murdoch in Songtan.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Totoro

    Totoro

    One brief shining: Thunder cracked over Shadow Mountain yesterday afternoon, rain poured down drenching the shallow Soil, the Granite that sits beneath it, allowing Plants to draw nutrients into their Root systems, send it up by capillary action to Stalks, Trunks, Branches, and Leaves, the coming down going up.

     

    Easy. And, a mistake. The aches, pains, creaks and groans of the aging body. The serious diagnosis. The certainty of death not far in the future. Easy to let these common realities of age bring us down, send us into the place where doubt and fear rule. Not too long a step from there to depression.

    Easy. And, a mistake. Moods. Again. That’s the first sign of trouble. A mood that drags us into the past and what could have been but is no longer. Or, that sends us, heart racing, toward that future day when that same heart or the lungs or the cancer will take over, finish. Or, that simply lets us sit focused on present pain and discomfort. Moods. Transient and manageable.

    Pyt med det. A Danish phrase that means it doesn’t matter. Or, don’t worry about it. Consider this Finnish saying, Some have happiness, everyone has summer. Another Finnish saying: Whatever you leave behind, you will find in front of you. According to this article people in Finland and Denmark, two of the nations ranked at the top for overall happiness, use these phrases as a mental shield against bad moods and spiraling unhappiness.

    Take care of things as they come up. Don’t let them cook. I had to give a friend some news I feared he might take badly. Could have, and at another age, might have delayed the call. Waited until the elusive right time. Sat down and made the call. He was ok with it. Oh. Well. When I say or do something I regret, I deal with it quickly and openly. Whatever you leave behind, you will find in front of you.

    That bum shoulder, the knee pain, a back that ouches, even a terminal diagnosis. Sure. Could bring you down. However, right now, which is the only moment you have, you can choose another frame. They don’t matter. Pyt med det. Easy for the Danes to say, eh? Well, we only die once and even chronic pain has its better times. Some have happiness, everyone has summer. A summer of lessened pain will come. No need to focus on it in this moment then, let the dance of the seasons bring summer to you.

    Death. Not a stranger to me. To you. To all of us. The Tibetan Buddhists work to get a calm, relaxed attitude toward death. They believe the process of reincarnation takes its first cue from how you greet your end. That matters. So. When death comes round too soon, trying to blow your house down, tell her to cease and desist. Because right now is not the time. And promise to show up when it is time.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Health