Samain Thanksgiving Moon
Orion Over Black Mountain
Samain Thanksgiving Moon
Earlier in the fall when I got up to feed the dogs Orion stood over our fence between the house and the garage, in the southern sky. Still in the southern sky he has moved on since then until he now resides over Black Mountain, several degrees further west. As he moves, he serves, as many constellations do, as a celestial clock of the Great Wheel. The further west he goes, the deeper into winter we are. Weather doesn’t always synch up with his movement any more, but that’s our fault, not his.
Orion and the mountains are permanent (well, on a human life scale anyhow) reminders of the brevity and true context of any human life. Some might not find that reassuring, but I do. Rabbi Tarfon’s succinct injunction: “It is not incumbent upon you to complete the work, but neither are you at liberty to desist from it.” fits. During the lifetime of any of us we may not see an important work to completion, say, in our generation, the curtailing of carbon emissions; but, if we see as ourselves as participants in a relay race, we don’t have to run the final lap. We just have to run as hard as we can while on our lap, then hand off the baton.
Deer Creek Canyon and Orion will continue as the race is run. They represent, and are, the material context in which we live out our life, the larger frame within which our individual efforts come to rest.
To put this reassurance to work is to remember that on a geologic or cosmic time frame Donald Trump will come and go like the flicker of a flame. This does not mean that what he does while here is unimportant or insignificant. It is neither; but, it is fleeting. We have time to counter him if we act, if we don’t cripple ourselves by despair. As the famous English conservative Edmund Burke said: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Joining
Samain Thanksgiving Moon
Here’s an odd outcome of the election. I’m planning on joining Congregation Beth Evergreen. Strange, huh? Turns out you don’t have to be Jewish. Weird, to me, but true.
Why join? Well, there’s the mussar group. It’s a disciplined approach to character and spiritual development. I’ve always gravitated toward groups that encourage introspection and using that introspection to grow as a person. Mussar is intellectually satisfying, but even more emotionally so. It speaks to the everyday of lived ethics, how to be true to yourself and others. The group itself is supportive, non-judgemental, and full of bright, inquisitive folks. I’ve made the beginnings of friendships there.
Then, there’s Rabbi Jamie Arnold. He’s an unusual guy: an athlete, a good musician, a composer and arranger, too, an intellectual, and an embodiment of compassion leavened with toughness. This combination of skills and character make him a compelling leader.
Kate, too, of course. She’s on her spiritual path and reveling in it. It’s a place we can both go, a place that’s more than movies or jazz or theatre, a place we can both ease our way into.
But mostly there’s the potential for action against the impending Trump regime. Politics is not a solo sport; it requires allies. Congregation Beth Evergreen seems to have a core of folks who’ve done actual work in political situations. It clearly has a number of folks who want to do work on the Trump watch. That includes me. My politics and my spiritual journey have always been tightly wound together so working with folks at Congregation Beth Evergreen seems like a continuation.
Finally, there is, of course, Judaism. It’s so different up close. It’s long history of scholars, activists, philosophers and theologians is a rich resource as is the cultural achievement of having lasted this long as a people. I don’t feel drawn to becoming a Jew, but I can learn from the long history of Judaism, even participate in it.
And, I find I want to.
You Can Stop Waiting
Samain Thanksgiving Moon
Some people say wait. Give him a chance to lead. I say, he’s had a multitude of chances already. He’s responded with mocking the disabled, promoting sexual assault, referring to immigrants as rapists and murderers, challenging a sitting Federal judge who happens to be both Latino and an American citizen. His followers chant lock her up, stop the cunt, White Power and fly the Confederate battle flag. The KKK held a celebration in honor of his election, North Carolina, and David Duke says he has ratified their beliefs.
This was all prior to the win, of course. So, would the awesome responsibility of being President of all the people change him? It did not take long to find out. Myron Ebell, appointed to head the EPA is, the NYT times writes, “…someone to follow through on his campaign vow to dismantle one of the Obama administration’s signature climate change policies, President-elect Donald J. Trump probably could not have found a better candidate for the job than Mr. Ebell.”
This week he appointed Mike Flynn as his National Security Adviser. Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Admiral James Stavridis told CNBC on Friday, “I think he will play to the darker angels of this administration in terms of adopting very, very aggressive stance, very hard power, very anti-Islam,” he said in an interview with CNBC’s “Power Lunch.”
Not stopping there, he appointed former senator Jeff Sessions as attorney general. The ACLU says, “Senator Sessions once called the ACLU “un-American and communist” for “trying to force civil rights down the throats of people.””
And, of course, I’ve not mentioned either Reince Priebus or Steve Bannon. Priebus, former head of the RNC, is a party insider, a Republican’s Republican. Easy to understand this appointment.
Steve Bannon. Sigh.
“In an interview with Mother Jones in August, Bannon acknowledged that white nationalists and anti-Semites are drawn to the so-called “alt-Right” movement.
“Look, are there some people that are white nationalists that are attracted to some of the philosophies of the alt-right? Maybe,” he said. “Are there some people that are anti-Semitic that are attracted? Maybe. Right? Maybe some people are attracted to the alt-right that are homophobes, right? But that’s just like, there are certain elements of the progressive left and the hard left that attract certain elements.” (Mother Jones, August 2016)
— In a 2011 radio interview, Bannon had a hypothesis about why progressive women vilify prominent conservative women like Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin.
“That’s why there are some unintended consequences of the women’s liberation movement,” he said, according to BuzzFeed. “That, in fact, the women that would lead this country would be pro-family, they would have husbands, they would love their children. They wouldn’t be a bunch of dykes that came from the Seven Sisters schools up in New England. That drives the left insane and that’s why they hate these women.” (Political Vindication Radio, 2011)” Both of these quotes found here.
OK. So I waited. This all came while I was waiting. I have seen his leadership, his choices for important government positions. They are consistent with crony capitalism, crony Trumpism and the selection of mediocrities rather than the best minds possible for the jobs. Wait no more. The political apocalypse is already here.
Fellow traveler news
Samain Thanksgiving Moon
My journey on the fringe of Congregation Beth Evergreen continues to fascinate me. In our mussar class yesterday the conversation turned to postelection feelings. Jews are an interesting subgroup in these matters, mostly part of the educated elite, often part of the moneyed elite, yet vulnerable to shifts in public attitudes, very vulnerable, as all post-holocaust, post-pogrom Jews know. I know this intellectually, as I imagine you do, too.
It’s different up close and in person. One woman yesterday talked about her postelection reality. She couldn’t sleep. She had, very uncharacteristically, purchased a gun and headed off to a shooting range. She’s maybe 65-70. She’s getting her homes ready for sale and has looked into landed immigrancy in Canada and requirements for becoming an Israeli citizen.
She sees, she says, the signs of a pre-holocaust Germany. The holocaust devastated her family and left a deep imprint on her soul. Heads nodded around the table, no one dismissed her as hysterical. Her position was extreme for this group, but not at all off the spectrum of reactions.
Other reactions to the postelection time were offered in a round table discussion last Saturday morning. This was the service for that shabbat. The most common words, echoed yesterday in mussar, were afraid, sad, depressed, fearful, angry. I emphasize this because this is not a group lacking power, financial and political. And yet they still find this election disturbing at a primal level. The woman I mentioned senses her survival at stake.
My Beth Evergreen experience has put me in touch with the dread that must be filling African-Americans, Latinos, anyone here without documentation, LGBT folks, Native Americans, the disabled, the destitute, the homeless. This cannot be, must not be our nation. Whole subgroups should not live in fear of their lives or in fear of their lives being reduced from miserable to untenable.
The safety pin is not much, but it’s a start. Let’s at least do that while we get our heads and hearts around what must come next.
Another, Wouldn’t Find in This Minnesota Post: Living with Lions
Samain Thanksgiving Moon
Caution: Living with Lions
from Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office
Recently, neighbors in your area have reported mountain lion sightings or encounters. This can be a dangerous and frightening situation. With the increased cold weather many animals are preparing to survive through the winter. Help us and Colorado Parks and Wildlife by being diligent to protect yourselves, your children and your pets/ livestock.
To reduce the risk of problems with mountain lions on or near your property, we urge you to follow these precautions:
1. Place livestock in enclosed sheds or barns at night. Close doors to all outbuildings since inquisitive lions may go inside for a look.
2. Make lots of noise if you come and go during the times mountain lions are most active: dusk to dawn.
3. Install outside lighting. Light areas where you walk so you could see a lion if one were present.
4. Closely supervise children whenever they play outdoors. Make sure children are inside before dusk and not outside before dawn. Talk with children about lions and teach them what to do if they meet one.
5. Planting non-native shrubs and plants that deer often prefer to eat encourages wildlife to come onto your property. Predators follow prey. Don’t feed any wildlife!
6. Encourage your neighbors to follow these simple precautions. Prevention is far better than a possible lion confrontation.
To read more on living in mountain lion country, or what to do in the case of an attack, please visit the link below:
The Fight Ahead
Samain Thanksgiving Moon
A fraught topic. It has become a canard of post-election coverage that racism and other identity based prejudices drove Trump’s outsize performance in rural America. And, there is no doubt that racism, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia and nativism were part of Trump’s very cynical-and ultimately successful-campaign strategy.
But, nothing is monovalent. Each one of these diseases of the clash between modernism and yesterday played some role in motivating some Trump voters, maybe most of them. But, I’m not convinced they are primary, which is not the same as saying they are either insignificant or not very dangerous. They are both significant and dangerous.
How you define is how you solve. “If I were given one hour to save the planet, I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute resolving it,” Albert Einstein said. If you have a desire to resolve the current political abyss separating the peculiar combination of the Pharaoh’s and the white working class from the rest of us, you have to decide what the problem really is.
Let’s get started on those 59 minutes. The hollowing out of the American working class has been underway since the late 1960’s. We have gradually worn away the American dream, first eliminating good paying union jobs, then creating jobs to replace them at the so-called minimum wage, all the while creating a knowledge based economy that relies on college educated workers and high technology.
Violent conflict between and among members of the working class occur over the distribution of economic resources: jobs, home loans, good education, accessible and affordable health care, housing and food available at reasonable prices. This is where racism and xenophobia get reinforced as African-Americans, Latinos and recent immigrants compete with non-college educated whites for a vanishing supply of living wage jobs. There are few such jobs now available to persons with a high school education or less.
It is in the political interests of the elites, which include most if not all of you who read this blog, to keep the working classes struggling against each other. That keeps them focused on their individual circumstances and on barriers to their immediate prospects, usually seen as each other.
In this sort of analysis then a major driver for racism, misogyny, and xenophobia is economic dislocation. If this is the problem at the heart of this recent electoral tragedy, then how we get to a different electoral result relies first of all on economic policy. How can we ensure good paying jobs, decent futures for all Americans, not just those gifted by the genetic lottery with enough intelligence and cultural support to attend college? There are many answers to this question, I’ve mentioned some of them below.
If we can become the ones who offer real solutions to this devastating economic reality, then we will gain the political support of those whose lives have been changed by them. This is not cynicism, this is politics at its highest and best purpose, resolving public problems communally.
Even if we solve these problems will the four horsemen of racism, sexism, xenophobia and nativism still exist? Yes. Of course, they will. And we must be prepared to fight them whenever and wherever they manifest.
That city on the hill Reagan kept referencing could be America, not Donald Trump’s America; but, an America rededicated to the proposition that all of us are created equal, that all of us deserve certain basics like food, housing, medical care, education, and that we as a nation are a beacon to the world, not Trump Tower.
The next four years will require our mutual dedication, time, money and influence. The clock starts today.
Caution: Not Election Related
Samain Thanksgiving Moon
Pre-op physical yesterday. EKG within normal parameters. Dr. Gidday walked me through the pre-op questions including one which wondered if I had dementia. When I asked her how I would know, she laughed, slapped my hand, “Everybody says something like that.”
As long as I was in the area, I went over to Health Images and picked up a cd of Kate’s left shoulder x-rays for her visit with the rheumatologist next month. Let no month pass without significant medical moments.
We’re all in a bit of buzz here with a winter storm predicted for tomorrow. It’s not much of a storm but it’s precipitation and we need it. It’s also the first winter storm prediction in November so far. A lot of folks with snow deprivation. Folks on pinecam.com talk about doing their snow dance.
I’ve seen two movies in the past couple of weeks, Dr. Strange and Arrival. I saw Dr. Strange in 3-D. Fantasy and science fiction still have my attention after all these years. Dr. Strange was fun, great CGI, a cast that includes Tilda Swinton and Benedict Cumberbatch, and the Dr. Strange origin story.
Arrival was a stunner. I’m promoting WWHD. What would the heptapods do? Amy Adams gives a somber, slightly distracted by melancholy performance. She carries the film with her delicate humanity. The story telling is not linear, 
neither is the heptapod language. Time is more flexible than we think, malleable. No Randy Quaid flying his jet into the mothership, no Luke flying his fighter into the weak spot of the death star. In fact, no onscreen violence at all with the exception of an explosion, a brief one. Though you won’t understand unless you see it, Arrival is about the power of language.
Today is Kate’s needleworker group and it’s here at our house. Preparations have been underway. More to come this morning: ebelskivers, muffins, cheese, coffee, furniture moving, that sort of thing. My job? Keep the dogs from biting the guests. That means I’ll have them outside or up in the loft most of the day.
Part I: Holiseason
Samain Thanksgiving Moon
Two thoughts kept rambling through yesterday and today. The first, how much more comfortable I felt when I remembered holiseason was here. The second, how to avoid demonizing whole populations with words like racist, sexist, homophobe, misogynist, classist. (I’ll post about this tomorrow.)
Holiseason. I find myself soothed and enriched by certain traditions. The holidays are among them. When I eased my psyche into holiseason yesterday, I realized that the holidays will help me survive the insults of Trump’s election.
Here’s what I mean. Holiseason begins now with Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Simchat Torah. Each year Jews all over the world celebrate new year, then follow it with 10 days of soul searching, flaw finding and asking for forgiveness. Can you imagine how those activities will be greeted in the Trump Whitehouse? Neither can I.
With Samain we enter the Celtic new year, celebrating not the fecundity of the earth, but its time of rest and renewal. Next week comes Thanksgiving when families all over America come together to eat, watch football and argue. Probably a grand family tradition at chez Trump.
After Thanksgiving, or around it sometimes, the Wheel turns to the festivals of light like Diwali, Hannukah, Christmas. We decorate and illuminate. We sing songs, give and receive gifts, enter into traditions older, much older than our nation.
The Winter Solstice also comes in this time. It is a festival of the dark, not the light. It is the moment of darkness, actual physical darkness, at its deepest and longest of the year. As some of you who read this know, this is my favorite holiday. It will be a time this year to concentrate my mind, meditate, discern what path forward makes sense in light of the many assaults on human life and on our planet to come next year and for the next four years.
After that, Kwanza, then the Gregorian New Year comes full force. Ball dropping at Times Square. Silly hats. Noise makers. And finally the feast of the Epiphany on January 6th. After the Epiphany we return to Ordinary Time, though on January 20th Ordinary Time will get a sudden jolt with the orange faced hair piece getting sworn in as the President. Aaiiieeee!
Life does, in fact, go on
Samain Thanksgiving Moon
In spite of the political upheaval life, as it always does, continues, mostly in its old grooves. Here on Shadow Mountain for example the divorce process has entered its waning days. Final orders will be issued late this month though the outline for them, largely fair and equitable is already known. Jon’s anxiety level has receded. Good and heartening to see.
We had Asplundh tree service here on Friday and Monday clearing out the tree cover from the power line easement. I spoke with the workers, current day lumberjacks operating outside the timber industry.
“That’s hard work,” I said.
“Yes, but it’s honest. No shortcuts.” replied the bearded young man in charge of the crew. He’s right about that.
The utility bills from IREA, Intermountain Rural Electric Association, have been, since May, $10, a line fee that supports such work as the Asplundh team. The electricity we use has been produced by our solar panels.
I continue to write, now upwards of 63,000 words (I was a little too early when I said I’d reached 60,000 last week.).
Kate and I are becoming more and more a part of Congregation Beth Evergreen. It’s an interesting experience for me. I’m a participant, not a leader. I like it, being part of a community but not being responsible for it. I can help in modest ways and that feels appropriate to me for right now. That may change though with the political work that is brewing.
It’s dry, no snow. According to the weather services, this could reach a record snowless period for Denver. We’ve had a little snow on Shadow Mountain, but only two instances, rare. This, plus the winds and the low humidity, means the potential fire situation here remains at an elevated risk.
This morning at 10 I have my pre-op physical for my December 1st total knee replacement. The pain in the knee worsens, it seems, by the day. That’s good, I tell Kate, because it’ll feel so much better after the new knee. I’m grateful there’s something that can be done about it.
And, improbably, it will be Thanksgiving next week. There is no hint of over the river and through the woods weather to stimulate that Thanksgiving feeling. We may get a storm on Thursday. That would help.
We’re going to smoke a small turkey. Annie will be here from Waconia, Jon and the grandkids. Unlike the nation we’ll be celebrating Thanksgiving on Wednesday because the grandkids go to their mom’s for Thanksgiving this year. Under the new divorce terms holidays alternate and this year is Jen’s Thanksgiving. It will be good once again to have family (and dogs) underfoot during the holiday.
Just realized in all the election fun I’ve allowed holiseason to get started without any remarks. Look for that to change as we head into the most holiday rich season of the year.