US History, World History

Time Travel

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Imbolc and the Birthday Moon

Monday gratefuls: Marilyn and Irv. Shadow. Not quite potty trained. Protein. 24″ of Snow on Saturday. CT Scan today. Ancient Brothers. Dog toys. Dog bed. Settling in with Shadow. Ratzon. Will. Desire. Zerizut. Enthusiasm. Simcha. Joy. Feeling rested. Safeway pickup. Living in the Mountains. Yesterday’s world brought to you by Don and the MAGAs.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shadow

Week kavannah: Netzach with a dash of zerizut and simcha

One brief shining: As the policy of he who shall remain shameless becomes clearer, a strong whiff of steam engines and ocean liners, La Belle Epoque when might still meant right for the Tsars, for the Prussians, for colonial militaries dividing up Africa, as an isolated America sat it out save for brief adventures to Cuba, later to the Philippines while satisfying its Manifest Destiny by pushing slowly westward and killing nations indigenous to this continent. Ah, the days of yesteryear.

Never thought I’d have a chance to relive the days of robber barons. We’ve moved into the world of Theodor Drieser’s  The Financier, the Titan, the Stoic, His trilogy about Frank Cowperwood. Of Sinclair Lewis’ Main Street, Babbit. Back when the U.S. made its bones on the backs of Native Americans and Chinese coolies, rather than foreign adventures like the Europeans.

Sure, the moves of a strongman are redolent of many eras, but none so much in the U.S. as when men like Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, James J. Hill, J.D. Rockefeller had their way with our young country. Did you watch the coronation? In the most prominent rows, behind the King’s family were Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, and Sundar Pichai.

What’s next? Bring back vaudeville, silent movies, Ziegfeld’s Follies.

All I’m saying here is that Trump is less of an anomaly than he seems. Pushed up  against the recent past, yes, but as a historical type? No. What is different is that he’s combining robber baron domestic policies and the expansionist, naked self interest foreign policies of that same era, too.

We’ve allowed him to shuck off the progressive policies that began to take hold after Teddy Roosevelt’s trust busting and drag us back to a time not long after we had to fight a war to end slavery. This is the reactionary way, a turning back to old ways of oppression and wealth concentrating.

Where or how can this end? I’m not sure. By the time 2028 rolls around, we’ll be firmly lodged in 1928. You know what happened in ’29.

 

Just a moment: CT scan today. Aortic artery aneurysm. Someday soon an MRI for my hip and lower spine. Perhaps a PET scan later in the year to check on my metastases. I’m taking a tour of imaging devices. Isn’t medicine fun? Oh, and I had full dental x-rays last week. See inside of me. Now.

Yes, life at the most personal continues even while our nation twists and turns on its allegiance to a sad man, a bad man, behind blue eyes.

 

 

 

GeekWorld, Politics, US History

Reactionaries and Electronic Communication

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Imbolc and the Birthday Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Shadow. Potty trained. To the outdoors! Sit and down, making progress. Shadow Mountain under 18 inches of white Snow. Vince. Salaam. Dog watcher. Democracy under Threat. Paul, in Camden. Mark and the desert. Mary and Oz. My son and Seoah, in the former Joseon Dynasty. Lodgepoles with unloaded Branches. Aspen’s gray-green against the Snow. My right hip and back.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: No poop in the house this morning

Week Kavannah: Netzach

One brief shining: Snow once more high on the Trees, soft, undulating, imitating the Rub al’Kahli, the empty quarter on the Saudi peninsula, where Bedouins rode camels, eating dates off Palms at an Oasis, while here the tall monarchs of the Forest, the Moose, use their long legs to find food even in a white desert

 

Got up this morning, picked up my hearing aid from the night stand. I’d left it there, forgetting to take it out to its charger. After letting Shadow outside, I looked for it. Where did I leave it. It needs to charge for the Ancient Brothers conversation at 8.

Imagine my surprise after searching upstairs and down, high and low, to find it where I automatically put it, behind my ear. Routine. Who says aging isn’t funny?

 

Firing the Joint Chiefs, military advisors to the President. Now the three-star Generals who run the Judge Advocates in the Navy, Army, and Air Force. Because they tie the hands of soldiers trying to win wars, Hegsteth says. Calling them jagoffs. Oh. And 8% cuts to the military over each of the next five years. Do the math. Using military bases and gitmo for detaining immigrants. This administration wants to bend the military, make it serve partisan politics. And to act in this country.

Add that to Trump’s coziness with Putin and J.D.’s embrace of the German Far Right. Whaaa. There may be an overall playbook at work here, but it looks like  something simpler, whatever they used to do, we’ll do the opposite.

This must feel revolutionary to the MAGA base. It’s not. It’s reactionary in both a literal and figurative way. It’s not making America great again, it’s making America a different country, yet not a better one, just one defined by greed, naked self-interest, and diminution of the other.

 

Just a moment: Conversation. Communication. Interaction. Topic of an Ancient Brothers’ morning. Is the screen captivity of Millenials, Gen Z, Gen alpha a plague on human interaction? Or, is it a new form of being human on a crowded planet. Let’s bracket the insidious software of Tik Tok, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Not because their manipulation of the human mind isn’t real, effective, and pervasive, but because I want to find the communication possibilities wherever they are.

Conversation in 3-D most would consider the gold standard. Neuroatypicals may be an exception. Conversation on the phone or on a service like zoom might come next. Then, e-mail. Texts. These are mediums where your message has no software filtering, magnification, or distortion.

After these more transparent communications come what I would define as social media. Especially the four mentioned earlier. Even these can be used for communication, especially for wide dispersal of a message. The difference is in the software that encourages liking, uppolling, changes of who sees and receives your messages and whose messages you receive and see.

There is in them a capitalist hand that wants profit, not better communication. What matters is the stickiness of the platform. Eyeballs. Length of time on the site. It seems obvious to me that serious and deep interpersonal communication in such an environment has more challenges, invisible levers, and problematics.

How does all this effect culture? The ability to form deep and meaningful friendships, find love? I just don’t know. Much more to learn here.

Dreams, Fourth Phase, Health

On Transition Road

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Imbolc and the Birthday Moon

Shabbat grateful: Torah study. Rabbi Jamie. Bev. Luke. Exodus. Manna. Palestinians. Gaza. West Bank. Israel. Amalek. The sins of the fathers. Whose fathers? Trump and Putin. Shadow. Sit. Shadow. Down. Shadow Mountain. The Shadow. Psyche’s Shadow. Great Sol. Conversation. Zoom. Connection. Democracy. Autocracy. Oligarchy. Gerontocracy. Kakocracy. Kleptocracy. Choose.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: A Puppy’s Eyes

Week Kavannah: Netzach

One brief shining: Wind pushes into the room behind my chair, the outside door open awaiting a small Shadow to come in from the cold, to trust that the inside has as much safety for her as the outside, her hesitation mirrors her mind, caught between risk and certainty, fear and trust, the past and the future. Savlanut.

 

Dream group yesterday. On my dream. Sort of a dry hole at first. Then, climbing up from the car with an empty fuel tank, up from the rich brown of a dirt road leading away, trusting that the cliff I climbed would lead…somewhere. Somewhere with more fuel for the road. Gabe was there. Gabe the grandson and Gabriel the angel. Quietly accompanying me in my new home, hunting for fuel after finding a gas can.

I came away with the sense of an after life. After the fuel runs out for me on this lower level, driving even then toward the unknown. My sense of curiosity carrying me up over the rocks of doubt waiting for a message from Gabriel about where to find my next fuel source. Trusting that it’s there in this new place.

 

Had to break off from dream group for a call from my palliative care nurse practitioner. A new woman on Zoom. Ele. I liked her. We talked about my, to me, puzzling and disconcerting level of fatigue. Each task I choose to do is a one-off. As much as I can handle. Unloading and loading the dishwasher. Rest. Go pickup groceries, put them away. Rest. Stand while prepping a meal. Rest while eating the meal. You get the idea.

I asked her about this and for the first time someone explained this fatigue to my satisfaction. Even though my PSA is stable, she said, the cancer is not gone. My body has to do all of its usual work plus absorb/resist the work load the cancer places on it, too. Add in a still uncontrolled hyperthyroid condition, low testosterone, and harsh anti-androgen drugs. Tired. Always.

 

No wonder I’m cycling through thoughts of dying, of places after death. No wonder at all. Even so. I’m alive and alert though perhaps not vivacious. My sacred community of friends and family, Shadow, Wild Neighbors and Mountains, Lodgepoles and Aspens keep me in this day, this February 22nd life, pull me back from a doom scrolling view of my future.

 

Like the Hebrew slaves who found themselves in a desert wilderness far from their Egyptian homes, without the minimal comforts they enjoyed there, it’s easy to want to go back to a latter day. A day when I could do home chores with ease. Yet I have been released from the bondage of performance and achievement. And, I don’t want to go back.

I want to learn the lessons of this time, this time before dying, no matter how long or how short that might be. Why? Because that’s all we can ever do. Learn today’s lesson. Celebrate these moments.

 

Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism, Mussar

Dream Time

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Imbolc and the Birthday Moon

Friday gratefuls: Big Snow. Shadow, the good Dog. Murdoch. My son. Seoah. Vince and Snow plowing. Feeling well rested. Pain doc. Chocolate. Hawai’ian dark chocolate with Macadamia Nuts. Chocolate coffee beans. Mary in Oz. Diane, healing. The rise of autocracies. King Donald. A third term. Prostate cancer.

BTW: If you are new to Ancientrails or have forgotten, we Jews are grateful for everything that happens since it is all part of the One. Doesn’t mean we like all of it or don’t want/need to change it. But even King Donald is part of our wonderful, amazing, grace filled World.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: My sacred community of family and friends

Week Kavannah:  Persistence and grit.  Netzach.

One brief shining: I looked up and noticed Shadow returning to her food bowl, first licking up crumbs, then trying to eat the yellow and purple Crocuses off the Portmerion pattern, digging her puppy teeth into the porcelain with a grinding sound, going after those flowers, puzzled by their intransigence. I will get her a raised set of stainless bowls, but not right now, so she’ll have to deal.

 

Here is your illuminated manuscript-style illustration, capturing the essence of the Stable Rock of Shadow Mountain, Maxwell Creek, and the sacred wildlife in a medieval bestiary aesthetic with golden detailing.

Dream last night: I had moved to a new city and decided to follow a long dirt road that wound far away from town, visible for a long way until it turned right around a low hill. Didn’t get very far because I hadn’t checked the gas gauge. E. I pulled to the side, got out and walked over to a rocky cliff.

Began to climb. I got the top after some effort and found a place that looked like it would have a gas can. When I went in, grandson Gabe was with me. Together we looked through a lot of different shelves, finally locating a gas can which I bought.

We walked back outside to fill it up and where I thought there would be gas pumps, there were none. Oh, well. We began walking, asking people if they knew where we could get gas. That’s all I remember.

 

Saw the pain doc on Wednesday. Rode up in the elevator with a guy saying he was heading in for the pain and torture spot. Turned out we were both going to Mountain View Pain Medicine. He to p.t., me to an initial consult.

When I explained my lower back pain, how it drastically limited my mobility and gave me excruciating pain after my drives to Boulder and back, the P.A. went into a dialogue that confused me at first.

I’m a rule follower, she said. If we’re going to work with you, you’ll have to do conservative therapy and come in here once a month. Then, I tumbled to it. Can my primary care doc manage my tramadol? Oh, yes. All the hesitation dropped away. This was a continuing, and welcome, echo of the oxycodone addiction crisis. No pain doc will risk their practice by giving away narcotics.

She suggested an MRI which I agreed to. Sometime in the next two weeks. Get to the root cause of my pain. Yes. What I’ve wanted for a while now. Admit to a little anxiety about incidental findings with this so careful an imaging tool since the source of my pain and the areas of my metastases coexist. Might find more cancer. Hope not.

 

Just a moment: Got into a funk yesterday. Ached. Pain less well controlled after no more Celebrex. Maybe a little tired. Fatigued by whatever: uncontrolled hyperthyroidism, very low testosterone, the effects of my cancer drugs. Wondering if the shortness of breath, weakness meant (against current evidence) my cancer was advancing. Thought about not going to mussar, too tired. Too much effort.

Nope. My kavannah, netzach, said, get up and go anyhow. What a good choice. I’d only missed two sessions, but I got some glad you’re backs. Geez. Also, my funk disappeared in the solvent of friendship, study, seeing and being seen.

Had a time afterward with Rabbi Jamie looking for a text to use for MVP in two weeks. We laughed a lot together. A good friend.

On the way home I remembered, as I sometimes have to do, that I am alive and loved today, in this February 21st life, no matter what the future holds. Be gone, funky thoughts!

 

 

Cinema and Television, Commentary on the news, Dogs, Family, Friends, Politics

Can find only sarcasm and satire

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Imbolc and the Birthday Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Mussar. Tara. Eleanor. Shadow. Pain doc. MRI. Cool nights. The internet. Ukraine. Self-determination. Bullies, especially Russia. Now, the U.S. Banana Republic politics, USA might. Ensure. Mark in Al Kharj. His acquaintance. Murdoch. Annie. Leo. Rufus. Gracie.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: MRI

Week Kavannah:  Persistence and Grit. Netzach

One brief shining: After 17 dogs, I’m learning the basics of sit, down, potty training, with a rescue dog, Shadow, a 6 to 8 month old puppy who’s smart, wily, and more than a little traumatized by a house fire, a shelter in southern Colorado, then one in Granby, being taken from her siblings and brought to my house.

 

Shadow and I make slow progress. This week she has regressed some, hard to get inside after going out. Not drinking her water, but going outside to eat Snow. Pooping inside. Still a wiggly, happy girl when I get up. She sits beside me, nuzzles. Plays with her toys. One step ahead, one back.

 

So. Yesterday. Birthday lunch with Tara at a renewed and better Golden Stix. Adding it to my list of places to go. Always so good to see Tara. She’s a heart friend, honest and open. Her own woman and clear about that. Headed to NYC this morning to see her son Vincent who’s on his second bite of the big Apple, this time on what sounds like surer footing. In college, a job, a good place to stay.

Mark reports a friend has gone into a diabetic coma in Thailand. Made Mark reflect on the positives in his life now. He loves teaching, his students. Wants to see countries he’s not yet visited. Purpose is a mighty force in the psyche. As is, in the opposite way, lack of purpose.

 

Watching a later Startrek series, Picard. Written in large part by Michael Chabon, of Kavalier and Clay, the Yiddish Policeman’s Union, and many more books. Excellent TV. If you have Paramount Plus, watch Season 2, Episode 2. Chilling.

 

Just a moment: OK. Zelensky is a dictator who started a war against Ukraine’s poor neighbor, Russia. Bad Zelensky. Bad Ukraine. Yes, it’s devolved even further with the American President, let me say that again, the American President, who will remain shameless, speaks Russian propaganda to the press. Putin says he’d like to see Don again and hopes it will happen soon.

Lewis Carroll could not have written a parody of Wonderland that would have been more mind-boggling than the real world-this is the real world isn’t it-which we now inhabit.

Clean up the Ukraine mess, turn Gaza into a Riveria with Trump properties for the well-heeled. Palestinians welcome to return from their new homes in Egypt and Jordan if they have enough shekels. Now we’re making progress.

I’m glad others have serious analysis because at least for now, I can’t find anything other than satire or sarcasm.

My son. Serving his country, now 16 years in. And this is the country he spends all his working life trying to protect?

 

 

Dogs, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Politics

A Shadow

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Imbolc and the Birthday Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Amy. Clean, fluoridated teeth. Dentists. Shadow. Buster’s for treats and food. Trying out new ways of getting my nutrition. Diane’s microwaving Vegetables. Ensure. Canned chicken. Fish. Training Shadow. Working out again.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: That scraggly Blue Spruce with all the new growth

Week Kavannah: Persistence and grit.  Netzach.

One brief shining: Reaching my hand in the kibble I draw out a quarter cup of food, then another, and another, and another while Shadow waits, it sprinkles into the bowl, making a noise she will learn to associate with feeding, her alert mind always working.

 

Two weeks into Shadow’s life with me. And mine with hers. Following the three day, three weeks, three months recommendations for bringing a rescue dog into the house. Three days: orient, go slow. Three weeks: bonding, socializing, some simple training. Three months: Training, bonding, socializing more.

Amy taught us both sit and down yesterday. How to lift the treat up while saying, Shadow, sit. She looks up, which tends her toward a sitting position. Good, Shadow. Down. Treat. All her knees on the floor. Palm down, Shadow down. Shadow, down. Good Shadow. Treat.

That’s the good. The not quite there yet. I’ve been letting her out every three to four hours, sometimes sooner. She runs around in the yard, clearly having a great time. No pooping inside so I thought she was doing it outside. Good Shadow.

Nope. She’d been holding it. Left presents for me near the door. A lot. Fortunately well-formed. More work to do. Before you go ick. Ask yourself how long it took to potty train you!

She goes outside with no prompting. For two days or so she came right back in when I opened the door. Now we’re back to one foot in, two feet in, back up and move away. Forward. Backward. Learning, retreating into fear.

We’ve made good progress together. Look forward to yet more.

 

Birthday celebration with Tara today. Golden Stix. Our friendly neighborhood Chinese restaurant. Where I’ve only been once, long ago. Unimpressed. Others say it’s improved a lot. Birthday celebration with Alan on Saturday. Not sure where. Maybe Sushi Win. I like this strung out birthday. Feels good.

Tom Crane sent me a new Mary Oliver, Blue Pastures, and a helluva an interesting Northshore card with a waterfall and trees jigsawed as a frame. A sweet guy.

78. Making steady, incremental progress toward 80. Now I notice every time someone reaches out to help me. Geez, what do I look like? 78. Makes me feel cherished and cared for, also want to push it away and say, hey, I can do this on my own. A balance, a gradual change from those truly independent years. Not an easy or welcome transition.

 

Just a moment: Oh, yeah. Russia is our buddy. Ally Comrade Putin. Come on, Don. Read your history. Look at Ukraine, Crimea. The USSR. Reagan said tear down that wall. GOP Reagan. Strange and foreign policy that.

Politics

an amazing tapestry

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Imbolc and the Birthday Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Rich. Amy. Dental hygienists. Shadow. Jumping up to greet me in the morning. Hard-boiled eggs. Canned Chicken. And, Tuna. Sardines. Lox. Salmon. Marrow bones. Dog toys. Puppy vitality. Energy. Pain doctor. Trump and the intentional diminishing of the United States. Seed-Keepers, all of us.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The American Dream

Week Kavannah: Persistence and grit.  Netzach.

One brief shining: Shadow wriggles, tail wagging when I get up, going over to her, I sit on the ottoman and she jumps up, front legs on my legs, licking licking licking, transferring her delight to me as I pet her, hug her, transferring my delight to her. Good dog.

 

How can I say it so his base might hear? I love difference. Variety. The new and the old. We don’t have to choose between loving our white neighbors, our family, and persons of that least significant of all human traits, another skin color. Why push away the next researcher who might cure a disease you have? Doesn’t make sense. Let a hundred flowers bloom. One beautiful flower does not detract from another.

Or the multiple, almost limitless solutions to the hard problems of human existence found around the globe. So many languages and in each one we have to know where the bathroom is. So many ways of cooking and preparing and choosing what’s good to eat. So many ways of making music, painting, dancing, singing. So many ways of defining who’s related to whom. All potentially useful to us since our way is so obviously not the only way.

I remember one very early morning, around 3 am, when my sister and I walked the streets of Singapore’s Chinatown. We had come to the oldest Hindu temple in the country, where worshippers stood in long lines, each with a small branch with leaves in their hand, as they waited to walk on hot coals inside the temple.

They would approach the coals, some confidently, striding across, others more hesitant, all greeted by a crew of friendly faces after striding through the milk bath to cool their feet.

A group of women, a large contingent, but much smaller than the number of men who preceded them. I spoke to them. Yes, they had only recently been given permission to participate. And, yes, it annoyed them.

Women who wanted only to participate in worshipping their gods as the men had done for centuries.

A colorful, vibrant mode of honoring their faith now possible for them as ideas spawned elsewhere helped them see their own worth. How is that not a good thing?

That Scottish breakfast I had in the Inverness Station Hotel. On our honeymoon. Complete with black pudding. After eating it first (my rule), I asked what it was. Congealed blood. Oh. Well. There you go.

The Cajun woman who fed me spicy Shrimp in her bayou facing restaurant. To my surprise.

Clarence Davis. My friend who let me join him as an organizational consultant tracing the roots of racism at the Minneapolis YWCA.

Please help me help others to see the world as it could be. An amazing tapestry of persons, skin colors, ideas, forms of government, food, and song.

 

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Travel

Gathered, then dispersed

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Imbolc and the Birthday Moon

Monday gratefuls: The big questions. The Ancient Brothers. Barb Bandel’s funeral. Murdoch getting groomed. Seoah and my son back to their Korean lives. Ruth and Gabe. TV. Picard. FBI. Morality plays, the 3rd millennium additions. Shadow. Her calm nights. Her waggy tail. Heading into the Snowy weeks.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Jet travel. Time zones.

Week kavannah:  Persistence and grit. Netzach.

One brief shining: Walking through the bedroom door on my way to bed, my hand brushes the mezuzzah, and after I’ve said the shema, I say, I’m comfortable with what I have and I’m comfortable with who I am .

 

Gathered, then dispersed. Family. Ruth staying in Boulder in her dorm. Gabe back to his room at Jen’s. My son and Seoah traveling across the big Waters, back to Asia, Korea, Songtan.

Shadow and I stay here on Shadow Mountain. Getting to know each other better. Learning to love each other. A still point, high and lifted up, for far flung family. For us.

A weekend of longing for more time with my son, Seoah, Ruth, Gabe. An awareness of absence, of what was near now gone. A sadness, a sense of loss. Normal for me. A way of saying how much they all mean to me.

Then, too, a sense of joy for the new memories. Casa Bonita. Birthday lunch at Snarf’s with Ruth and Gabe, my son and Seoah. Boulder. My son’s big hugs. I love you, Dad. Seoah’s hands in mine, saying that when the two years in Korea are up, they want me to come live with them. Whether I do or not, being wanted filling my soul with warmth. Gabe coming up on the commuter bus. Ruth greeting us outside her dorm across from the planetarium. Where we used to go on Friday nights when she was younger.

There is, for us old folks, a rhythm of gain and loss when loved ones visit or when we visit them. A knowing of that ultimate departure embedded in the Thanksgivings, Hanukkahs, short and long trips to see each other.

In this we are unlike the families of the past. We stayed in our villages, lived our lives in extended families, perhaps never knowing long absence.

Today we pursue individual dreams. Off to Boulder for college. Over to Malaysia for a stint teaching ESl, then never really going back. A time as a bicycle messenger, then 20 years or so in Bangkok, more years in Saudi Arabia. Breckenridge for 3 three years, after that Maxwell AFB, Georgia, Hawai’i, Singapore, Korea. 40 years in Minnesota traded for a new life in the Rocky Mountains.

Strong moves for us, weakening moves for family, for that sense of home only the rooted can know.

Sure, I’m a globalist, a man of the world, not just my own nation. And I love the adventure of  a new life in a new place. Always have. A wanderer at heart like my sibs.

Yet sometimes. The cost can feel too high. When love becomes primary, not achievement or travel or the shiny new thing offers that. I miss my dead and my far away family.

I also love my life here on Shadow Mountain. Now with Shadow, the growing puppy. Yes. And yes to my CBE friends. Yes. All yes.

Ancient Brothers, Dreams, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Great Work, Torah, Weather +Climate

A Day in the Life

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Imbolc and the Birthday Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Torah study. Luke and Leo. Joanne. Ron and the Purim spiel. Shadow. Her wiggly, happy self. My son and Seoah safely back in Korea. Barb’s service today. Family. Of choice. All ways, always. Big problems to solve. Ancient brothers. Raising a puppy. Sarcopenia. Workouts.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shadow

Week kavannah: Persistence and grit. Netzach.

One brief shining: Grappel pelted down, small pellets of snow, fog shrouded the route between Evergreen and Conifer, driving on and out of it on my way to the Happy Camper, more joint relief edibles for night time.

 

After sleeping through the leaving of my son, Seoah, and Gabe, I got up to a happy Shadow. We played a bit. Wrote Ancientrails, fed her, then got ready for Torah study.

Eleven people. A minyan. A lively and learned discussion. The tests of the Israelites on their way in the wilderness. Our family history. Also a family of choice for me. Lots of new voices.

Afterward, I drove to Bailey and picked up edibles for sleeping. Stopped at Buster’s and got a 12 pound bag of Natural Balance puppy food. Found even that bag heavy. I mean. Geez. Gotta get that resistance work back. Gassed up Ruby in a windy storm of grappel, then back home.

More cold weather. 10 when I got up. Not Minnesota cold but still… After 10 years of Coloradification, cold to me.

My son and Seoah spent 2 years plus in Hawai’i and a year in Singapore. They prefer the moderate heat of Hawai’i. Korea has its share of cold, snowy weather in a maritime climate. Tougher.

 

This last week, with Shadow and visiting family and my birthday. Exhilarating. Filled with love. Also exhausting.

I have decided to skip my son’s promotion ceremony in May. I will focus my energy and resources on the Jang family visit in late June or early July.

Seoah’s mom and dad, her brother, and her sister, possibly her sister’s husband, and three kids coming to the Rockies, to Conifer.

A once in a lifetime trip for them. I’m excited for them to be here. Seoah’s dad, in particular, loves Mountains. 8-10 days

 

Just a moment: The Ancient brothers theme this morning-what big question would we like answered. I have two.

How do we restore the flawed, yet wonderful government and culture we had only a month ago? What are the things that I can do to make that happen? Who are my allies?

How do we continue the work necessary for a sustainable human presence on Mother Earth? With climate deniers in the ascendancy around the world, at this critical juncture for global warming.

A second part of the topic responds to this Mike Nichol’s quote: “The only safe thing to do is take a chance. Play safe and you’re dead.” When did we last take chance?

Adopting Shadow is this year’s main chance. Can I do it? Will I be good for her? Can we create a life together?

 

 

 

 

Asia, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Friends, Politics, US History, World History

Love

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Imbolc and the Birthday Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Shadow. My son. Seoah. Ginny and Janice. Gabe. Happy Camper. Shabbat. Talmud Torah. Kabbalah. Cold weather. Snarfs. Ruth. CU-Boulder. Integrative Physiology. Jetplane to Incheon. The Jang family visit. My son’s promotion. Treats. Dogs.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Families of choice

Week Kavannah: Perseverance and Grit    Netzach

One brief shining: At 3 am while I slept Shadow Mountain emptied out with my son and Seoah headed to the airport, Gabe back home with his student I.D., Shadow sleeping outside the bedroom for the first time.

 

Too short a visit. In on Wednesday after a full day of travel, Casa Bonita, then Boulder with Ruth yesterday, home around 7 pm, then gone in the wee hours. My son and Seoah whom I saw last in September of 2023.

Here is your family portrait in the style of Hindu temple art with a Valentine’s Day theme

And yet. Yes to any amount of time. Hugs. Quiet conversations. Laughing. Creating new memories together. This all American family in which I have no blood connection. I was Jon’s step-father, so no blood with Ruth and Gabe. Joseph came into my life 43 years ago by plane from Calcutta. Seoah in 2016. Yet we love each other as any family does. Blood ties and love have no necessary connection. Just as ties with no blood and love have no necessary connection. Only the love we develop and nurture over years and decades.

My life has been rich in loving. And expands even now. My friend Luke. My friends Ginny and Janice. Shadow. Leo. Annie and Luna. Always Mark, Mary, Diane. The Ancient Brothers. The MVP group. Alan.

Not sure how I got so lucky. Found Kate. Together we loved so many dogs. Gardens. Bees and Trees. Places on this wide earth. From Gwangju, Korea to Inverness, Scotland. Each other.

A Valentine’s Day life in so many ways. And so grateful for each love. Every love. All of them.

 

Shadow would not come out of the bedroom yesterday. Too many people around? A regression? Both? Don’t know. Anyhow she slept outside the bedroom last night for the first time. I want/need to be able to interact with her and if we’re playing hide and seek all day that’s very hard.

Right now she’s comfortably beside my chair as I write this. We’ve greeted each other, nuzzled. She’s gotten treats and awaits her 8 am feeding. The consensus from my son, Seoah, Gabe, and Ruth is that she will be happy dog once she settles in. How long that will take? Uncertain. I’m willing to go the distance.

 

Just a moment: So. The American Vice-President, JD Vance, sits down with Germany’s Nazi’s OK! far right party, the AfD. Even pushes for them to be included in Germany’s parliament. The German chancellor said this: “A commitment to ‘never again’ is not reconcilable with support for the AfD,” NYT, 2/15/1025

That’s a spectacle that beggars history. The head of a German government chastising an American Vice-President for support of Nazi sympathizers. WTF?

No wonder American Jews feel threatened and American white supremacists feel emboldened. Putting a substantial nick in the land of the free and the home of the brave.