Family, Great Work, Literature, Paganism, Plants, Politics, Science

Blindness

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Samain and the Yule Moon

Sunday gratefuls: For all the ways we learn and express ourselves. The Ancient Brothers on Gardener’s 8 intelligences. My son, Seoah, and Murdoch. Coming in January. Going to Korea in May. Maybe with Ruth. Snow. Mary. Mark. My family spread along an Asian crescent from Korea to K.L. to Brisbane. Far from Rocky Mountain high.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Learning

Kavannah: Enthusiasm (Zerizut) and Joy (Simcha)

One brief shining: Lit the candle yesterday, wrote 500 words on a why/how to celebrate Yule essay, starting with my personal journey this year, intending to produce 8 essays, one for each of the Great Wheel’s holidays, using stuff I’ve written and collected over the years.

 

Spent yesterday in conversation over zoom with my son and Seoah in Songtan, Korea and Mary in Brisbane. Separate calls. Wrote to brother Mark in K.L. A bit weird. Sitting here on top of Shadow Mountain, in the Colorado Rockies, speaking directly to Korea and Australia. No latency. Clear pictures. Sound good. Pandemic tech and habits, a changed reality. Amazing to this small town Hoosier boy.

Shadow Mountain Home as imagined by chatbotgpt

Want to give a big shout out to Zöe Schlanger. An amazing intellect. Intrepid and careful reporting. The Light-Eaters. So many good quotes. Here’s an example. “I think of plants as primary and humans as secondary. Plants can do without us. We can’t do without plants.” Thank you, photosynthesis.

Reminded me of the Iroquois medicine man I’ve often talked about. He delivered a prayer for the Soil and the Rocks, the Trees and the Mountains and the Oceans, those who swim in the Water and fly in the Sky but never mentioned humans. Why? Because, he said, humans are the most fragile and vulnerable of all creation. Without all the Plants and Animals and Water and Soil, humans can’t exist.

In so many ways, so many obvious ways, we receive this message every day. Did you eat breakfast? Where did it come from? What was it? It was either a Plant or an Animal fed by a Plant. Did Night and Great Sol emerge this morning where you are? Imagine if Mother Earth decided to stop turning. How about the Water to fill up your Water bottle, the Water you used for that shower, or to wash your clothes and your dishes?

We humans consider ourselves agents nonpareil, yet we could not accomplish basic tasks without an assist from Mother Earth. Thankfully, she is on our side. Even when we are not on hers. Nor could we continue above ground and taking nourishment without her and her gifts. Why are we blind to this?

 

Just a moment: 45/47 continues to play tiddly winks with appointments to powerful positions. Now Patel, a man committed to gutting the FBI, nominated to head it. This is a revolution of the ill informed, driven by intentional ignorance and malevolence. Will the Senate do its job? Its advice and most critically consent role has never been more important.

Have any good will left over from Thanksgiving? Time to access it now.

Asia, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Great Wheel, Holidays, Judaism, Paganism

A Way Back

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Samain and the Yule Moon

Bush_turkey Jim Bendon from Karratha, Australia

Shabbat gratefuls: Body weight workouts. Brush Turkeys in Queensland. Lizards in K.L. Asia. Korea. Songtan. Beijing. Kate, my son, and I traveled there. 1999. Japan. Ichi-go, ichi-e. Ruth and Gabe. Mary and Mark. Oz and Malaysia. Black Friday. Advent. AI prompts. Yule. The 12 days of Christmas. Feeling flat.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Light-Eaters, Zöe Schlanger

Kavannah: Perseverance and chesed. Love.

One brief shining: Ever have that pit of your stomach feeling that something marvelous lay just out of reach, if only you could get yourself organized, find the time, open yourself fully to the possibility; I do each time I look at the green candle made by Vance Kitire, never lit since I bought it with the lovely throw rug years ago; and why you might ask, because whenever I begin and sustain a writing project I always light a candle before I begin writing for the day.

A Pagan Yule. Chatbotgpt

 

That candle contains the promise of an immersion in another world, a world of fantasy, one created by me in which I find life emerging in its own peculiar way, no less real than IRL. An embrace of another personality. Both within me and within the work itself. Yet the candle remains in its as created state. Untouched by flame. The flame that signals to me work has begun.

This does not, most of the time, feel like a burden. Most of the time it reminds me that I have another version of myself that I love. One committed to the daily work of writing a novel. I await his emergence again, his claim on my time, on my mind and heart, on my imagination. No, not waiting on inspiration, but on an inner consolidation of intention, idea, and joy.

How do I lift myself up? Find that small lever that elevates my mood? Not from the abyss, not from melancholy, but from, perhaps oh archaic sin, acedia*. I’m not a sin oriented guy anymore. Hamartia, missing the mark of my values, yes. Sin, no. But I do recognize the flat affect of acedia and when it dominates, as it does right now, I search for teshuvah. A way to return to the land of my soul. A way I’ve wandered off and for the moment have forgotten.

Mussar offers a way to adjust our inner life by acting as if. Acting as if we persevere, as if we have compassion, as if we experience joy. I’ve used mussar to get back to working out by working out. At first a bit at a time, then back to a full diet as my neshama “remembers” who I am, one who cares for his body.

Perhaps a writing schedule, as I have for Ancientrails. I long ago ritualized the writing of Ancientrails. It is the first thing I do after waking up, saying the shema, and taking my pills. I write until finished. Only then do I eat breakfast. BTW: Ancientrails will finish its twentieth year next February.

I could do Ancientrails, breakfast, write 500 to a 1,000 words on a project, then exercise. After that read. Commit to exercise during the day rather than a half-hour after breakfast. That could work. Think I’ll try it.

 

*The word acedia comes from the Greek word akēdeia, which means “an inert state without pain or care”.
Acedia is considered one of the seven deadly sins, or capital vices. It’s often described as a “noonday demon”. Some say that acedia can arise from the social and spatial restrictions of a solitary monastic life.

 

 
Denver, Family, Fourth Phase, Shadow Mountain

Thanksgiving Down the Hill

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Samain and the 2% crescent of the Moon of Growing Darkness

Friday gratefuls: Water Grill. The Spiny Lobsters. Fresh Oysters. Thanksgiving with Ruth and Gabe. Jen. Gus. LoDo. Denver. Down the Hill. Shadow Mountain Home. Ruby. With her Snow shoes on. Cold night. Living alone. Kate, always Kate. Talking to her. Ruth potentially on the Dean’s List. Her next semester classes. A history minor.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Gabe’s hug

Kavannah: Perseverance and chesed

One brief shining: Only a brief while before it swam in a large aquarium with many other Spiny Lobsters, then it boiled in a pot, got cleaved in half, plated with liquid butter and coleslaw, given to a server, and delivered to my bibbed presence where I took the small fork and deftly lifted most of its meat out of one half, dipped a chunk in butter, and the great circle of life went on.

Straight outta the waters of Southern California.

 

The Water Grill. A fancy, and by that I mean expensive, Sea food restaurant. It has a Seahorse sculpture over its door, but no signage visible from the street. My second Thanksgiving in a row eating a Thanksgiving meal down the Hill in Denver.

With two downtown Thanksgiving’s literally under my belt (ha) I’m curious about the number of people who no longer cook a meal for friends and/or family. The reason? Both times all street parking has been full and the restaurants I saw had packed tables.

The Bib

The Water Grill has many tables and booths, a big place with glass buoys made into chandeliers, old boat propellers and coral behind the booths. Full. And stayed full over the two hours Ruth, Gabe, Jen, and I ate there.

Don’t know about the others but my excuse is I no longer have the stamina, the standing in one place capacity to cook a full meal. When the bill came, I paid it, thinking about what I had really purchased. Sure, a meal. But that was secondary. What I really paid for was the two hours spent eating by Ruth’s side, talking to her about college, talking to Gabe. Jen.

Remember that Thanksgiving we ate at the Water Grill? When I was a freshman at UC-Boulder? We had Oysters and Spiny Lobsters! Oh, right. I remember.

I’ll remember the sudden and unexpected Bear hug I got from Gabe, from behind, as I got up to put my coat on. Heartfelt. And, from Ruth after that. A brief hug with Jen.

Brought to mind the Ira Progoff seminar in Tucson, April of 2014, when I realized we needed to move to Colorado to support the kids. The fruits of that decision as well as my decision to stay here, not move to Hawai’i. Which I could easily do now if I wanted.

Love is a verb and it becomes real, Velveteen Rabbit real, in moments like these.

Drove home into the Mountains as Mother Earth turned her other face toward Great Sol, the early Night fully fallen when I pressed the garage door opener and drove Ruby into her stall.

 

 

 

Holidays

Holidays

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Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

Thanksgiving: Aunt Marjorie. Uncle Ike. Many Thanksgivings at their house. All my relations. A Lakota phrase referring to Mother Earth, Great Sol, and all the other parts of creation on which humans depend. The Rocky Mountains. The Weather. Water in the Aquifer. Wild Neighbors. Arapaho National Forest. All Forests. The Atmosphere. Shadow Mountain Home.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth and Gabe

Kavannah: Perseverance and chesed

One brief shining: Remembering Thanksgiving’s past and those who will be missed at the table today: Kate and Jon, my Son and Seoah, dogs circling the table hoping for a dropped piece of, well, anything, a happy babble of conversation rising and falling, the clink of serving spoons lifting mashed potatoes, stuffing, another slice of a tenderloin roast, the room smelling rich with the perfume of meat, Potatoes, Cranberries, Coffee and Wine.

 

And here we go. With Thanksgiving the pace of Holiseason picks up. December hoards the richest trove: Advent, Posada, Hanukah, Christmas, the Winter Solstice, Yule, Kwanza, and the transition to a new year.

Kate and I used to cook Thanksgiving dinners, then I did. For three years we bought Thanksgiving sides from Tony’s Market in Littleton and I made a tenderloin roast. Now I prefer to go to a restaurant. Last year at the Urban Farmer a stranger bought my meal for me. And not a cheap meal at that.

Today Ruth, Gabe, Jen, and I will eat at the Water Grill. They have a traditional Thanksgiving menu and their usual menu. Think I’m going to have Spiny Lobster with at least a half dozen Oysters, a salad. Perhaps crispy polenta. Maybe a Bluefin Toro Tartare. As well as the bill, of course. Grandpop’s treat.

We’re headed there because Ruth is a pescatarian. Think I will be, too, this Thanksgiving only.

Buddy Tom will share Thanksgiving with Roxann and Jessica at the Trillium in Mendocino, a favorite R&R spot for them. Roxann celebrates her 75th tomorrow at another of their favorites, Café Beaujolais.

Wherever and whoever you are: a Jesuit nun who was my first spiritual director told that me that gratitude was enough. Just enough. A thought for Thanksgiving.

 

Just a moment: Record Snow fall in Seoul, Songtan. Seoah ran in the Turkey Trot, fashionably attired in the best running wear. My son bought two Turkeys and will roast them for his squadron, also inviting their Korean counterparts to this American holiday meal. I wish they were here or I was there.

I’m thankful for our divided nation. From Sea to shining Sea. Alaska and Hawai’i, too. For all those who serve it in uniform and all those who would, in spite of our troubles, yearn to live here. Immigration is NOT a bug. It’s a feature. Ask farmers in Texas and the Central Valley.

Been watching a few episodes of Hawai’i 5-0. Kicks up the Hawai’i motivation I had a couple of years ago. Maybe Seoah and my son will retire there and I’ll finally end up there. Though I love the Rockies, I love Hawai’i, too.

 

 

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General

You’re Alive

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Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

Wednesday gratefuls: Ley Septic. Living Waters. Snow and cold. Great sleeping. Sue Bradshaw. Synthroid. Celebrex. Erleada. Orgovyx. The bubble gum and baling wire keeping me alive. Laurie’s Chi-Town Food Truck. Laurie’s dog. Joy and Kaitlan. Rich and Rick. Mary in Oz. (Aus). The Pacific. The Southern Ocean. The Atlantic. The Sea of Japan. The Yellow Sea. The South China Sea.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Mark’s new job

Kavannah: Perseverance and chesed

One brief shining: Snow came in through the screen of my opened bedroom window, sprinkling my head with a Mountain Winter baptism, Waters evaporated into the Sky, perhaps from the Pacific Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico, falling on my head, including me in the great cycle of Water, a most holy act of Mother Earth and her sacred Atmosphere, necessary for sustaining life, and preparing me for the life I lead today, this November 27th, 2024 life.

 

Thanksgiving is tomorrow. Disputed cultural territory, yet a beloved holiday, too. Now followed by Native American Heritage Day. Better known right now as Black Friday. Whenever potential customers go idle thanks to holidays, ads and special promotions announce its coming and try to wrest a few bitcoins from the collective purse. The curse of the holiday times.

Oh, part of that, too. Sporting events get scheduled. Plenty of seat time. On this point, see the aforementioned ads and special promotions times 2. Thanksgiving football. The Detroit Lions and the Chicago Bears. For example. In some instances the sporting event is the holiday: Superbowl, World Series.

I choose to let the curse be a mild one, granting the capitalists their pound of financial flesh. I can enjoy a meal with Ruth, Gabe, and Jen without participating too much. As our time at the Water Grill tomorrow will allow.

Family. Friends. Loved ones. Together, seeing, being seen. Hugs. Smiles. Reawakening old relationships, reinforcing new ones, sustaining active ones. Humans connecting around important themes: Gratitude, Light, Darkness, Sacred Nature and her progeny. Love.

As we all pass through this Holiseason, well underway, I hope you can take every opportunity that presents itself to pinch yourself, you’re alive! You have friends and family! And if not, my wish for this Holiseason is that you find one or the other or both.

 

Just a moment: Saw Sue Bradshaw, my PCP, a nurse practitioner and a sweet woman. Each time she sees me she takes my hand and smiles. I smile back, squeeze her hand. Healing before any talk or probing and prodding.

We discussed my multiple medications and conditions. I told her she was taking good care of me. Well, I’m trying, she said. Then added, look at you, you walked in here. I replied, Yeah, as we might say back home, above ground and taking nourishment.

 

How bout that cease fire in Lebanon? You go, Joe. Underappreciated, yet still putting in the hours and the big effort. A sad end to a good Presidency, perhaps now lifted a bit by a diplomatic holiday miracle. A late November surprise.

 

Humanities, Politics, Shadow Mountain, US History

An Ontological Oncologist

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Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

Tuesday gratefuls: Marilyn and Irv. Paul. Mark in K.L. Gettin’ stuff done. Snow. Cold. Back to working out. Aches to prove it. My Lodgepole Companion. That young Buck with the spike Antlers. Visiting again. Mary getting ready for Summer. My son, Seoah, and Murdoch. Thanksgiving in Songtan. His generosity. The Water Grill. 2:15. Ruth, Gabe, Jen, and me.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Thanksgiving

Kavannah: Perseverance and chesed

One brief shining: Opening a book and beginning to read starts a journey into the unknown, what if this paragraph changes my life, oh no, he didn’t, picked up one yesterday recommended by NYT conservative columnist, Ross Douthat, a dialogue between Olympian Gods favoring an idealistic, almost Bishop Berkeleyan, metaphysic in which all is mind or forms as mind pushes itself into forms. Or something like that.

 

Got my house cleaned yesterday. Ana wielding her dust cloth, vacuum, and other tools of her trade to give me that spiffy home feeling. Not cheap but Furball Cleaning, owned by my friend Marina Harris, shows up and on time, and does better than average work. Hard to calculate how much psychic difference a clean house makes, but it’s a lot.

 

That book I opened yesterday is All Things Are Full of Gods: The Mysteries of Mind and Life. Haven’t read a philosophy text in a while. This one is thick, thick, thick. As near as I can tell David Bentley Hart wants to make the case for something like Bishop Berkeley’s: Esse est percipi. To be is to be perceived. A solution, Hart believes, that could solve the four hundred old mistake in Western culture most often blamed on Descartes: The mind-body split.

I agree with Hart’s definition of the problem. And, how you define is how you solve so we’re halfway to agreement from the start. I might even agree with a version of his solution, but not one that ends up providing a comfortable berth for old fashioned Thomistic theology. Which is where I suspect he is headed.

My agreement with Hart lies in his insistence on a unitary metaphysic, it’s all one, and a rejection, because of this, with dualisms as final expressions of the nature of reality. My difference with him so far? I suspect him of having a static ontology. I may be wrong about that though. I’m a Whiteheadian, Jewish fan of the notion of all becoming new, every moment, in every instant.

BTW: This might be the place for Paul’s addition to my stable of oncologists: urological, radiation, and medical. Paul thought I should add an ontological oncologist. Perfect. Static ontologies are the cancers of a process metaphysic.

I know. I’m sorry. But it’s what I’m thinking about today.

 

Just a moment: So. 25% on Mexico and Canada. 10% on China. Tariffs. First day in office. Dictator day if I recall. Whatever. As the teenagers say. Or, said. Probably a while ago.

As a seed-keeper, I’ll continue reading Thoreau and Emerson, Dickinson and Melville. Madison and Monroe. Throw in a little Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase

The Deep End has little water

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Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

Monday gratefuls: Israel. Palestinians. Hezbollah. Hamas. Iran. U.S.A. China. Korea. Japan. Taiwan. Hawai’i. Snow. Cold night. Good sleeping. Cooking. Mark, good self care. Mary. Pleasure. Sticking it out. Nexus. A.I. Small tasks to get done. Agency.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Coffee

Kavannah: Perseverance and Love

One brief shining: Silence when I go to bed, a Mountain stillness fills my property, peace radiates from the cosmic void punctuated by oh so tiny from my perspective Stars, Galaxies, and Nebulae, and I approach sleep with the attitude of a learner, what will my unconscious teach me this night knowing that in the morning I will awake refreshed and ready to live yet one more life. Love.

 

A feeling that dominated the end of the Ancient Brothers on love. For me. Enough. I’ve had enough. My emotional resilience has drained until the pool is nearly empty. Not enough of love, never enough of love. But of problem solving, of illness and death and the ascendance of cruelty and meanness in our country. I need to consider how to refill the pool in case I need to take a deep dive. Right now? Probably break my neck.

This feeling surprised me. As most of you know, I’m a put my head down, keep the legs churning sorta guy. Switching metaphors here. Even a rushing linebacker would find me making a spin move and heading for open field. In this moment I’d get tackled just beyond the line of scrimmage. An odd word, scrimmage, eh?

I’m fine. Not down or feeling melancholy. Just aware that I need something to help me restore my soul. Refresh it. Not sure what I can do. Think I’ll ask Rabbi Jamie.

Here’s what chatbotgpt4.o has to offer.* Good advice. Not quite specific enough for me.

Perhaps the keys for me right now are 6 and 7. Maintain my new workout regimen, step it up as I planned to do this week anyhow. Positive outlook. I don’t have a negative outlook, but I don’t have a positive one either.

I do look forward to more Snow, Fire in the fireplace, to the many celebrations of Holiseason. I look forward to reading more, talking with friends as I regularly do. Going to mussar. Thanksgiving with Ruth and Gabe. Petting Leo. Continuing to see Ruth in Boulder. My son’s visit in January. A visit to Korea in May.

Self care never ends. Well, until it does. But how we do it, what we do has to be nimble, adaptive to changed circumstances.

Let’s see. Perhaps counting the ways could be helpful.

Practice self-compassion: The Ancient Brothers. Alan and Joanne. Marilyn and Irv. Ginny and Janice. Luke and Leo. Ruth and Gabe. Acknowledging the challenges I’ve had and how I’ve faced them head on, not blinking. Thrived.

Mindfulness and relaxation: I do box-breathing. I pay attention, close attention, to the sacred in the ordinary. If stressed, I pick out five things I’m seeing or hearing right then. Once in a while l use a mantra to deepen an experience or go deep in my psyche.

Maintain Social Connections: I’ve become so much better at this after Kate died. I talk to friends and family often.

Develop Problem-Solving Skills: Bandaged my gushing finger. Keep my home going. Write about problems, ask friends for help. Pretty good at this.

Goals and Actions: A little light on this one right now. Trip to Korea. Maintaining my circle of friends. That’s about it.

Seek Professional Help: May reach out to Rabbi Jamie. I feel essentially ok, just depleted.

 

Chatbotgpt4.o

*Replenishing emotional resilience involves adopting strategies that enhance your ability to cope with stress and adversity. Here are several approaches to consider:

  1. Practice Self-Compassion: Treat yourself with the same kindness and understanding you would offer a friend. This involves acknowledging your struggles without harsh self-criticism and recognizing that difficulties are a shared human experience.
    Wikipedia
  2. Engage in Mindfulness and Relaxation Techniques: Incorporate practices such as meditation, deep breathing exercises, or yoga into your routine. These activities can help manage stress and improve emotional regulation.
    Calm Blog
  3. Maintain Social Connections: Building and nurturing relationships provides emotional support and a sense of belonging, which are crucial for resilience. Engage with friends, family, or community groups to foster these connections.
    Wikipedia
  4. Develop Problem-Solving Skills: Enhance your ability to tackle challenges by brainstorming potential solutions and taking proactive steps. This approach can boost confidence in your capacity to handle adversity.
    Calm Blog
  5. Set Realistic Goals and Take Decisive Actions: Break down larger objectives into manageable steps and take action toward achieving them. This process can provide a sense of accomplishment and forward momentum.
    Verywell Mind
  6. Cultivate a Positive Outlook: Focus on positive aspects of your life and practice gratitude. This mindset can broaden your perspective and build psychological resources over time.
    Wikipedia
  7. Prioritize Physical Health: Regular exercise, adequate sleep, and a balanced diet contribute to overall well-being, which supports emotional resilience. Physical activity, in particular, has been shown to alleviate symptoms of depression and anxiety.
    Mindbodygreen
  8. Seek Professional Support When Needed: If you find it challenging to cope, consider consulting a mental health professional who can provide personalized strategies and support.

 

 

 

Cooking, Family, Fourth Phase, Holidays, Memories

It’s the Best Time of the Year

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Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

Sunday gratefuls: Mark working his options. Mary. Turning cold and Snowy for Thanksgiving week. Thanksgiving at the Water Grill. Nexus, chilling and hopeful about A.I. Constitutional A.I. Anthropic’s Claude. ChatbotGPT. A.I.’s policing each other. Living. Cancer. Stable. Long tie guys quick appointments. Loyalty far and above competence.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Love

Kavannah: Perseverance

One brief shining: The coffee slides down my throat, the heavy mug with the Elk and the logo Evergreen reminds me of my current location as the caffeine hits my bloodstream and sleep begins to fall away, replaced by alertness, keystrokes and thoughts once again merge, another morning of Ancientrails under construction.

 

Hitting the family Ellis in their various locations: Melbourne, K.L., Songtan. All from the top of Shadow Mountain. Thanksgiving week. Holiseason well underway. Diwali. Thanksgiving. Advent. Yule. Christmas. Hanukah. Kwanza.

It’s that time of the year. My favorite. I love the lights, the music, the cheerfulness, the gatherings. The opportunity to celebrate life connections, to go deep into the psyche hunting for ohr, the light of creation. We’ve already had Divali and Samain both of which shared the same Gregorian dates this year. All Saints. Now Thanksgiving.

I appreciate the layered ironies of all holidays. Light against the fading of Great Sol. The depth of learning available only in the darkness. The messy and ugly origins of Thanksgiving, yet its warmth and family focus now. Our need to see Native American stories. Christmas replacing the Roman blowout of Saturnalia with its too often ridiculous capitalist captivity. Hanukah and its noble martyrs who were far right Jews of their time and its gentler but still ridiculous capitalist captivity. Yule, its symbols taken over: The Christmas Tree. The Evergreen Holly and Ivy. The crackling Fire with the Yule Log. A wassail bowl. Singing and Feasting. Cultural appropriation of long ago.

So much to appreciate, to probe.

Then, less than a month from now, the least encumbered holiday of them all, the Winter Solstice. A celebration of life continuing in the darkest moments. The rich nurturing of nighttime, of a blanket of Snow, a bright Moon. The psyche free to roam in the oceans of the unconscious. A still turning point. Join me on that long night. Unless of course you live in the Southern Hemisphere where you’ll get naked and dance around the bonfires of the Summer Solstice. Looking at you, Australia. New Zealand. Africa. Most of Latin America.

 

Just a moment: Reminded by all of the Thanksgiving recipes of my first attempt to cook a Thanksgiving meal. In my senior year of college, 1968-69, I worked as an 11 to 7 security guard at a factory that made magnalite cookware. For the Thanksgiving holiday they gave all employees a frozen Turkey.

I dutifully took it home and put it in the freezer of the second story apartment I shared with John Belcher and Carter Fox. On Thanksgiving day I took it out and called my Aunt Marjorie to ask her what to do. She was a professional cook for the University.

Imagine her surprise when I led with, “I have this frozen Turkey. What do I do with it?”

As you could guess, my roommates and I went out for our Thanksgiving meal.

Fungi, Great Wheel, Jefferson County, Mountains, Plants, Shadow Mountain, The West, Wild Neighbors

Visitation

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Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

Shabbat gratefuls: Alan and Joanne. Book recommendations. Breakfast at the Parkside. Medical oncologist appointment. Mark getting stuff done. Mary. Her help. Family huddle. Distance. Zoom. Saudi. K.L. Oz. Korea. Rocky Mountains. San Francisco. Life in the age of instant, visual, very long distance communication.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: A simcard and a call

Kavannah: Perseverance

One brief shining: Walking on the black asphalt of my driveway to get the mail while three Mule Deer Does graze nearby, glancing up from time to time, the first year Buck with his spike of an antler looking around, eyeing me, then the does, not eating as often, his role; yesterday, opening my front door and seeing these two, the Doe right by the door and this mature Buck a bit further away, greeting them, taking their pictures.

 

 

 

Mountain spirits continue to visit me. The yin energy so evident in the soft demeanor of the Doe, the pensive and a bit melancholy look in her eye. The Buck’s confident yang gaze at her, his 8 points ready for either his or her defense. Reminding me that I, too, have a Doe and Buck. A confident, ready for the battles of the psyche and the world Buck with 77 points and a vulnerable, sad Doe that looks at the Buck within and knows his vulnerability, too.

Wild Neighbors come to my yard unbidden to eat Grass still green under the white cover of Snow, or the Bearberry, a low growing Evergreen plant that spreads over many sections of my unlandscaped property. The Mule Deer always have a gentle presence, seeming to know that even the strange two-legged means them no harm; that they don’t have to scurry away. I vacillate between being excited to greet them, telling them to enjoy the Grass and other food and wanting to chase them away, make them afraid of humans. Usually my greeting instinct wins the encounter.

I don’t approach them, but I speak in a normal tone of voice, welcoming them and assuring them that sharing food with them is one of my life’s great joys.

Some people think and I sometimes say that I live alone, but it is not true. Mule Deer and Elk. Moose. Mountain Lions and Black Bears. Beaver. Marmots and Squirrels. Corvids: Magpies, Ravens, Crows. Fox. Raccoon. Skunk. Brook Trout and Brown Trout. All live here in these Rocky Mountains. We try, all of us, to live harmoniously because harmony best enables us to go about our time here as we want.

This is not to mention, of course, the Lodgepoles, the Aspen, the Willows and Dogwood, Bunch Grass, Bearberry, White Pine, Ponderosa lower down. All the photosynthesizers, the light-eaters. And the Mountain Creeks and Streams with their fish. Amphibians. Fungi. The whole blooming buzzing confusion of a Mountain eco-system.

All held in the loving and stolid embrace of Mountains and their Valleys. My home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Health, Politics, Shadow Mountain

This and That

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Samain and the Moon of Growing Darkness

Friday gratefuls: Shabbat. Alan and Joanne. Australia and New Zealand. Richard Powers. Rick. A large mussar gathering. Treyf. The New York Times. The Washington Post. Axios. Colorado Sun. Ground News. Nexus. Almost done. Resistance. Working. Medical oncologist today.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Family

One brief shining: Staring into the abyss, the abyss staring back. A love story.

 

Yet another oncology appointment. In Littleton this time, no longer within visual distance of Swedish Hospital, its tenth floor where Kate died. Another blood draw. Far less angst now. I know the direction we’re headed. More orgovyx and erleada. More blood draws. Maybe a replacement at some point for erleada.

Cancer, as Scrooge might say: Bah, humbug.

 

Tis the week before Thanksgiving and all through the house no one’s talking politics, not even a mouse. Not a problem for me since my Thanksgiving will involve Ruth, Gabe, and Jen. Gloating predicted to be a problem for red visitors to blue homes. Just you wait sentences spilling from the mouths of blue guests to red homes. Whatever happened to this once upon a time refuge for glutting instead of gloating, for football instead of nah nah ne nah nah.

Maybe Native Americans will smile.

 

Had my septic system pumped yesterday. It had been a while. My equivalent of your city sewer system. Since 1994 I’ve lived off the city water and sewer grid. A leech field. A well for water. Had to replace the pump a few years back. Not cheap. Neither was pumping out the septic tanks. That means, BTW, I haven’t had fluoride in my drinking water for thirty years.

In Colorado, when you sell your home with a septic system, you have to pay $800 or so to have it certified as functional. Gives the term deep dive a different inflection.

 

Just a moment: So. Was Gaetz a Trojan horse to let Hegseth and Gabbard in? Was this the plan all along? Cunning, baffling, and powerful. This red tie guy and his minions. Some see Gaetz’s withdrawal as an early win for the Senate. I’m not so sure.

 

How bout that Netanyahu? Now an indicted war criminal. He’ll have to seek asylum in the homeland of his buddy, 47. Maybe get sanctuary in the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem? He’s got indictments at home, too. Like you know who. What a pair.

 

I stand by my Seed-Keeper mode for the next four years. Some of us have to remind others that this is an experiment, these Untied States. No, not a misspelling. If we’re not vigilant, the constituent parts of the United States might well become untied. And, no, not even his long red tie will be able to put us back together again.

Perhaps this Thanksgiving instead of party politics we might try to find common ground on what freedom means. Liberty. On how different paths might lead to justice for all.

And to all a good night.