Faith and Spirituality, Health, Third Phase, Writing

Possibilities Opening Up

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Summer                                                             Healing Moon

Bookcases 300Spent part of yesterday morning moving books, unloading the old IKEA shelves so that Jon can install my new birch shelves. The loft finally feels poised to move from stacks of books, boxes of art, rows of bankers boxes to a finished space. It won’t happen this week, probably, but very soon.

Having my library in boxes or in stacks on the floor has made me feel claustrophobic. I can’t stretch out, find the books I need, the knowledge I need. It’s difficult to express, but I’ve developed a working environment that fits my peculiar needs; and, it’s been unavailable as a whole since we decided to move late April of 2014. That’s a long time.

There’s a building excitement for me as I can see it together again. Sure, family is critical. Friendships are essential. Travel, the arts, going out is fun, even necessary. But also core is work. Not work in the get ahead, I want to be successful and rich sense, but work as an expression and fulfillment of your unique Self. In work that ability to draw, to do math, to invent new machines, to sing, to dance, to heal, to create quilts, to write, to learn flows out into the world as a new creation, a gift the universe needs, a giving back to the source of our life.

I need to work, now as much as ever, and I’ve felt blocked for months with the move, selling the Andover house, settling in and the emergence of medical problems that have to be dealt with. In this last instance the tomorrow wall has blocked me, too.

I’ll say again that the tomorrow wall, which stops my imagination at around July 8th, has forced me to stay in the here and now of doctor visits, decisions, settling in matters. A good thing. But, it will need to come down. It has become a Berlin wall between me and my work. With the changes underway in the loft I can feel it begin to crumble.

Politics, US History

History is a River.

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Summer                                                           Healing Moon

Wow. Housing discrimination. Still illegal. Same-sex marriage. OK. A weak but necessary version of national health care. Here to stay. The killing of 9 souls at Emanuel A.M.E. in Charleston. Historic wildfires in Alaska. The apparent demise of a too long standing symbol of the noble cause, the confederate flag. This is a big country with so much diversity.

Enough news to fill a month, even a year. All the in the last two weeks. And today: Woman takes down Confederate flag in front of South Carolina statehouse.

In my lifetime I have seen a moon landing, a photograph of our home planet from space. I’ve seen the computer grow as a versatile tool for so many things I could never have imagined. An international space station orbits the planet. Cell phones (hand held computers) are common. I have participated in protests of the Vietnam War and in many political movements from the local to the international.

Never would I have imagined that same-sex marriage would be the law of the land. Never would I have imagined that there would be even the most basic of national health care policies. I could have imagined the continuing bang, bang, bang, bang of racist shooters, bringing lynching up to date with the time of the gun. Never could I have imagined southern political leaders, conservative ones, too, arguing for the elimination of the stars and bars as a public image of certain southerner’s pride. Never. Never though could I have imagined the picture posted here, of a young black woman’s pre-dawn decision to just take the damned thing down in South Carolina.

History is a river, a flooded river that washes over us all, at every moment, carrying us and those we love to the great ocean of memory. This was a week of historical flash flooding. Glad to be part of it.

 

Great Work, Music, Woolly Mammoths

Dazzle

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Summer                                                           Healing Moon

Looking forward to seeing Tom and Roxann Crane tonight at Dazzlejazz. They’re in town for a few days, then Tom has some work here. We’ll see the Ken Walker sextet at this Colorado jazz institution. Good food, too.

Here’s a thought for all you eco-minded folks, Arcadia Power. The High Country News, a journal of liberal/progressive thought about the West published in Paonia, Colorado recommended them and I’ve taken some time to research their business model. They take the bill from your utility company, then buy renewable energy certificates to completely offset your usage. It raises your bill about 1.5 cents a kilowatt, but it means your energy use comes from sustainable energy products. Or, supports an equivalent amount of sustainable energy, either way you want to look at it.

 

General

Aurora

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Summer                                                                       Healing Moon

Dawn comes slowly here, starting far off in the plains of eastern Colorado, rising to Denver, then over the foothills and finally vaulting the mountains to come to us here on Shadow Mountain. Since we’re still in the days immediately following the Summer Solstice, it comes early and stays late, light coming around 5:30 and dwindling around 9 p.m.

Today Jon is coming to get started on the built-in bookshelves. I’ve moved plastic bins and table bottoms to consolidate their footprint. Then, I’ll begin moving books off the temporary Ikea shelving, collect them by topic area and collect them on the floor until the new shelving is ready for them.

Kate’s started mowing the grass for fire mitigation. We don’t have a yard but there are clumps of native grasses that need to be kept short. Sometime this summer I’ll begin on the forest thinning to create those ten foot canopy spaces. I’m looking forward to that.

Conifer Plumbing pulled out of our generator install so I have to find a new plumber. Weird. All part of getting into a new place however. We had plumbers and repair people in Andover, but it took time to find them and come to trust them. The same process applies here.

Shadow Mountain, The West, Weather +Climate

Wildfire

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Summer                                                                      Healing Moon

ECFD LOGOExternal fire sprinklers are back on. Jacob Ware, deputy fire chief for the Elk Creek Fire District, came out in his red fire department pick up to talk fire mitigation. He was an interesting guy and a neighbor. He lives near Upper Maxwell Falls trailhead.

Jacob, a former hotshot who fought fires in Idaho and the Pacific Northwest, says external fire sprinklers work. He described an Idaho fire where his crew took portable sprinklers out, built a fireline a half mile long, attached them to a water source, a portable generator and left them running. The fire stopped at the fireline. He’s also seen them work on individual houses. A cheap, do it yourself kit is what he recommends. He’s sending me particulars.

The thirty foot defensive zone around the house is most critical. Not only do you have to get rid of ladder fuels like high grass and shrubs, you also have to break up fuel continuity so an ember can’t spark a fire and be led to the house through mulch or dry, tall grass. After that, create a ten foot span at the crown between and among trees. That means cutting down weaker, stressed trees. This I can do. Aspens are good, they’re fire resistant, but the conifers are mostly pitch and burn like candles. We have mostly lodgepole pine in our yard.

Black Mountain Drive in front of our house will act as a fire break in case of a fire coming from the south and west. It also provides excellent access for fire departments. Combined with our long driveway, top rated roofing and, surprisingly to me, our siding, he said we were already in pretty good shape. Good to hear.

Feelings, Health, Weather +Climate

Fear Leaves

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Summer                                                         Healing Moon

Denver had some serious weather yesterday: a tornado not far from Jon and Jen’s home, beating rain that took out Jon’s cucumbers, urban flooding that set off alarms in the building where Bernie Sander’s spoke last week. We have rain in the forecast for the next week or so.

The fear subsided over night. Not sure why, but it’s replaced this morning with the calm about the process that I’ve felt most of the time. The trigger yesterday was, obviously, my pre-op physical. It pushed the surgery and its low, but real, uncertainty right in my face. Calmness can be a trap, too. If I’m not calm, am I doing this wrong? Am I not centered? Not grounded? Not spiritual enough?

We all cycle through various perspectives on important issues. That’s a normal and healthy way of seeing different sides. Some of those perspectives can be frightening, e.g. the instance in which the surgery goes well, but some cancer has escaped into my body, metastasized. It was that possibility that creeped into my awareness yesterday and it took hold, stayed present for much of the day. Oddly, even though I found Dr. Gidday very reassuring and I believed her confident appraisal of my prognosis, at the same time, the fear tickled my heart and fingers.

There are, too, family matters to deal with and I had to work out how to deal with them. These things don’t come naturally to me so I have to consider them, plan. Decided on a frank and open conversation which, I admit, could have come to me first, but didn’t.

So this is what I’m doing with my one wild and crazy life. Right now.

Feelings, Friends, Health

Fear Was My Co-Pilot

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Summer                                                      Healing Moon

Had my pre-op physical this morning, two weeks before my surgery date of July 8th. On the way over I drove through Turkey Creek and Devil’s Creek canyons, a beautiful backway to the southern Denver suburb of Littleton.

I was afraid on the way over. I’ve been distracted and anxious, unsettled so far on this journey, but have not felt afraid. The fear crept in as I drove, not paralyzing, but evident. The beauty of the canyons with their pines and aspens, the exposed rock and the mountain sides climbing up for the road soothed me. That’s why I chose that route.

Those rocks, I thought, have been here long, long before me and will be here long, long after me. At an intellectual level I find that comforting. Today though the surgery was getting more and more real. The fact of cancer, too. The fear was not about the surgery or the recovery. It was about the results of the surgery.Will I be cured or will there be lingering doubts, cells that escaped into the lymph nodes or into the body?

98% of the time I believe Eigner will get all the malignant cells and the pathology report will relieve me. 2% of the time, I’m not sure. Today was/is all 2%.

Dr. Gidday, my internist who did my pre-op, was great. She referred her 82 year old father to Eigner when he was diagnosed. She trusts Eigner and so do I. Dr. Gidday’s nurse Katie, who had another patient and couldn’t check me in, stuck her head in the room and asked me how I was doing. There’s a lot of caring in that office and I feel it.

Fear seems natural to me, so I’m just reporting it. It’s not dominating me. At least not right now.

 

Dogs, Faith and Spirituality, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Weather +Climate

Gold Dust

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Summer                                                             Healing Moon

pollen2300Gold dust has rained down on us since early June. It’s not residue from the Pike’s Peak Gold Rush, but pollen from the many pines. So fine that it passes through screens, it coats furniture, floors, computer screens, door sills and window sills. Yesterday evening we had a sudden, violent downpour of rain. The rain collected the gold dust, then spread it on our driveway in Fibonacci inspired whorls. Daughter-in-law Jen has nostalgia for the time of the pine pollen from growing up in North Carolina.

upstairs downstairs
upstairs, downstairs

About the same time we moved into what the weather folks identify as a more typical pattern, warming and drier. Our house, which has no air conditioning, stays cool in the mornings, evenings and nights, but afternoon can be a challenge. That fact has moved purchasing ceiling fans up on our priority list. Even before, Kate says, the new cooktop, oven refrigerator, and dishwasher. So, pretty important.

Finding the self difficult to nourish right now. Instead of the usual avenues I wrote about yesterday I read, watched a movie, did small chores. Still in distraction mode rather than introspection. It will pass.

Vega, Gertie and Kep all come up to the loft to keep me company. They come upstairs; they go downstairs. Busy.

 

Faith and Spirituality, Feelings, Health, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain

Nourishing the Self

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Summer                                                      Healing Moon

Finding myself driven into my Self, wanting to nourish my soul/Self, my inner life, needing to do that. Mood a bit down, usually precedes inner work, and I plan to follow that thread today.

I may use the intensive journal, read some poetry, look into some books on the inner life. Meditate. Maybe hike a bit.

The tomorrow wall has gone back up, closing off my dreams for the future. This is not bad. It focuses me on the here, the now, but I will not allow this wall to stand after July 8th. No matter what the final pathology report says I plan to regain my usual rhythm. Write. Translate. Explore Colorado. Learn new things. Go out with Kate, the grandkids.

An example of what’s going through my mind right now. In traffic on I-70 yesterday, headed east, away from the mountains, I looked at all the cars and trucks and buses filling lanes, six lanes altogether, going east and west. Unbidden came the thought that all these drivers, all the passengers will get taken off the board.

This traffic, filled with strangers on unknown journeys to unknown destinations, purposeful and not, was a moment in history. And history’s tide would wash over it, sweeping in its wake all the souls present.

This was not a dark thought, rather a descriptive realization, offered to me, I think, by my unconscious. Why? To place my current predicament in context. Am I going to die? Yes. And so are all these others. As have all the others who lived, say, 120 years ago.