Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Paganism

Israel ben Avraham v’Sarah

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Samhain and the Yule Moon

Monday gratefuls: Veronica. Our first conversion anniversary/birthday. The mikveh. Evoke 1923. Bonding. Her birthday on Feb. 13, mine on the 14th. Kismet. The magic of the mikveh. A world filled with friends and family, Dogs and art, peace, silence, stillness, an openness to learn and to perform good and worthy deeds. In a word: Love.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Veronica

Kavannah:  WISDOM   Chochma חָכְמָה Wisdom, learning, scholarship.  Second Sefirah = intuitive/revelatory ideas; creative flow state; right brain (opposite Understanding/Binah)

One brief shining: At the table of Kate’s pearl, Tom and mine’s hearing challenged delicious meal, of other solo meals, I sat with Veronica discussing life and sex and Judaism until after the fish and we had both ordered dessert, Rebecca, our waitress brought my creme brulee with the small candle in the shape of a number 1. Our birthday as Israel and… I forgot to ask for her Hebrew name.

 

prompt: A mikveh as a Celtic holy well using Celtic design

I was ready for the mikveh though I didn’t know it. My time researching holy wells in Wales. Visiting St. Winnifred’s. Learning about the holy well as a portal, a liminal space between the worlds. This one and the Other World.

My pagan and Jewish selves stand adjacent in my lev, or maybe more, interpenetrating each other. I love Sukkot, the sukkah, a harvest holiday. I love Simchat Torah when we dance with the Torah, all the while knowing that Torah is anything from which we can learn, i.e. all things, for me especially the world of Wild Neighbors and hidden Mountain Streams. I love Shavuot, when all Jews stood at the base of Mt. Sinai and received the Torah. It also celebrates the barley harvest. I love Passover, the spring planting holiday and the holiday of liberation. I also love Yule and the Winter Solstice, Mabon and Samain, Beltane. The phases of the Moon, especially new and full.

When I immersed in the warm waters of the Denver mikveh, I went into a holy well, submerging my old self; then a renaissance, a rebirth after I visited the Other World of the long Jewish tradition and the Other World of the Celts in the same moment.

Did I say I was naked? As was appropriate. A holy well. A womb. Sacred Water. As all Waters are. We enter the world brand new from the womb and the mikveh, the holy well.

Sputtering a little. Hitting the wall with my head as I floated up. Surrounded by warmth and an Ovidian moment of transformation, of metamorphosis, from pagan to pagan Israel son of Abraham and Sarah.

I’ve had life changing moments before. I mentioned arrival day yesterday. My ordination. The move to Colorado. Marrying Kate. I love the multi-layered self each of those moments has created. And I look forward to having my life changed again. By what, you might ask? I don’t know. Not yet.

 

Just a moment: Oh, gee. A possible constitutional convention? What could possibly go wrong?

 

                                       Israel ben Avraham v’Sarah

Family, Memories, Minnesota, Politics, US History

Arrival Day

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Yule and the Samain Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Mini-splits. Boiler. Hot Water. Well. Septic. Pipes. Electricity. Generator. Walls. Windows. Roofs. Floors. Driveway. Skylights. Solar panels. Great Sol. Orion. Andromeda. Polaris. Ursa Major. Vega. Rigel. The Moon and its phases. Shadow Mountain.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Our Town by Thornton Wilder

Kavannah: Persistence and love

One brief shining: Oh so long ago those days of old army jackets (cue the irony), work boots, jeans, work shirts, long hair and beards, joints and acid, Hell no we won’t go, Hey, Hey, ho, ho, LBJ he’s got to go, sweaty nights with the woman I met at that day’s rally, the Doors in the background playing Riders in the Storm.

 

the prompt: in psychedelic colors portray with kindness a group of gray haired activists protesting in the 1960’s

I suppose, sometime, is that enough equivocation, I might-a little more-write my own memoir of the 60’s, the war against the war. Another planet, another universe. Laid against Peter Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel. Those long red ties. Government as clown car. Cram all the horn honkers, the confetti cannonaderes, the yellow and blue and red frizzy haired ones in that you can. Then one more.

Central Indiana, where I spent my 60’s, though not my sixties, was not the pulsing epicenter of the movement though the 1968 Democratic convention happened not far away. Even so we did our part. Dressed up like all the other individualists marching together across the country. Listened to the same bands. Held fast to the same dreams. Not the Children’s Crusade, but similar. Older. Young adults.

Easy to cast a cynical eye back to those days. Say the obvious things about white privilege, a poor person’s war (aren’t they all?), the way we were. Yet my life turned away from the American establishment (remember the establishment?) for good. Turned toward justice as a life work. So much else. So much else. But not today.

 

No. Today I want to acknowledge another powerful event that shaped my post 1980’s life: the arrival, 43 years ago this night, of my son and his wicker basket partner, Willie. I’ve repeated the story often of the iced up fuel line in our orange VW Bug, sidelining us on the way home. And Angel, the Latino, rescuing me and towing me home, and as he came inside so I could thank him properly, an Angel became the first outsider to see my son in his new home.

Suddenly. A parent. That day earlier Raeone and I were a childless couple in our early thirties. At midnight on December 15th, that same day, we were parents. No nine months of preparation. Of course there was anticipation, but no pregnancy.

My son weighed 4 lbs and 4 ounces. He was so tiny. We both wondered if he would survive the first day with parents as clueless as we felt. Well. I talked with him yesterday. He’s made it 43 years past that night at Minneapolis/St. Paul International. I guess I can breathe now.

 

 

Family, Health, Judaism, Korea, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Torah, World History

Israel

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Samain and the Yule Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Veronica. Rabbi Jamie. Studying this week’s parsha which includes Jacob wrestling with the angel. The world of the Torah. Talmud. Ann, my palliative care nurse. Vince and the mini-splits. His kindness. The dark and quiet of a Mountain night. My son. Such a kind and thoughtful man. The Light-Eaters.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Walking each other home

Kavannah: Understanding (bimah) Love (ahavah)

One brief shining: Once in a while I send a text, goodnight to the Flatirons, and I get back a reply, goodnight to Shadow Mountain, a way of extending a tendril of love to Ruth in her dorm on the campus of UC-Boulder, hers coming back to me.

 

Vince came over yesterday and cleaned the filters on my mini-splits. Didn’t charge me because it took him a while to get here. He remains a very interesting guy. He competed in a for-pay ju-jitsu tournament in Boulder and has become a teacher now after only a couple of years.

He told me of a lawyer he knew who said he didn’t like his job much. Is going through the motions. Not everybody wants to be the best at what they do, he said, I guess we need guys like that, too. Vince places a heavy load on himself, too much at times.

 

Ann, my palliative care nurse came by, too. We discussed my dilating aortic artery. How to have a solid conversation with the cardiac surgeon. She’s a pragmatic person, as most good nurses are. When I told her I forgot to take a tramadol along with me to Boulder, and the pain I experienced, she suggested a small pill container I keep in the car. Oh, duh.

She has given me a conversational level of medical care, similar to what I had with Kate. I find that very reassuring. Sort of knits together the oncologists, my PCP Sue, the surgeons, all those various medical specialties working to keep my body functioning and with the minimum of pain.

 

This morning I’m going over to Evergreen, to the synagogue, for a bagel table. We’ll be studying the parsha Vayishlach (“He Sent”), Genesis 32:4–36:43. Parsha’s are named by the first significant word or phrase in the Hebrew. Vayishlach contains a biblical story that has shaped my self-understanding and given me a new, Hebrew name.

Jacob wrestling with the angel. I asked chatbot to give me an image of this story in the style of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement. The result is here.

My life, even from a young age, has involved a struggle with understanding (Bimah) the world and its character, how I and we fit within it. Also, what is ours to do as we make our way on the ancientrail from birth to death. In this long night at the Jabbok Ford, Jacob did not give up, nor was he bested. As dawn rose, the angel dislodged his hip and gave him a new name, Israel. He who struggles with God.

 

Just a moment: South Korean president impeached! Don’t mess with the Korean people and their democracy.

 

 

 

Judaism, Politics

Too much philosophy, I know. Sometimes I can’t help myself.

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Yule and the Samain Moon

Friday gratefuls: Mussar. Gaavah, Pride. Laurie’s Chi-Town foodtruck. Vince. Freshened Snow. Great Sol at work as the solar snowshovel. Another blue Colorado Sky. PG&E and their peculiar ways. Hoosier Cold. Ginny and Janice. Rabbi Jamie. The flu. My back and its limitations. Ann, the palliative care nurse coming today.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Palliative Care

Kavannah:  AWE   Yira רְאָה Awe, reverence  (פְּלִיאָה Plia: Wonder, amazement)

One brief shining: Thresholds, liminal places, like Dawn and Dusk, windows, your eyes and ears receiving messages from what appears to be the real world, the lev yearning for love, holy wells, any doorway, matriculation, graduation, birth and death each one of them with a mezuzah, a signpost affirming the One in which all apparent particulars grow and move and have their becoming. Hear, O Israel!

 

chatbot. tree of life in the style of Giotto

An aha about the nature of the One the other day. All is within the One, the One is within all, pulsing and changing, creating and fading (but, importantly, not away). The tree of life represents this buzzing, blooming ontology as a continuous circuit of ohr, of the sacred as it moves up and down, much like blood circulating in the body. Although up and down is 2-D and the process is both 3-D and 4-D. That is, the ohr flows in and out, over and under, around as the whole moves in some sort of time, the 4-D aspect.

Here’s the insight. I had long thought of the One as a sphere, closed and all things within it transforming and decaying, reassembling. Nothing but the sphere. Then, I thought. No. That’s not the only way to conceive this. The One could be, probably has to be, ever expanding. In other words the creative nature of the one cannot be bounded. The prime criteria, that all particulars are in the One and the One is in all particulars, has no necessary boundary.

You might ask, as I am right now, into what does the One expand if as said before it is in all things and all things are in it? Another prime criteria is that all evolves, goes through metamorphosis, becomes new. In each and every instance or nexus according to Whitehead. The tree of life can still symbolize the flow of ohr, of chi, of sacred energy, of consciousness into an ever expanding Oneness. In other words creation itself is the key to the One’s unlimitedness. The One can create as much as it needs to inhere in all and have all inhere in it. The One’s plasticity makes this a necessary feature of the real.

OK. Done with that for now.

 

Just a moment: Oh, to be young and right-wing in America. Dawn has broken. The vista shifts far into the distance unclouded. Yes, we rule! Trad wives. White history and privilege once again high and lifted up. The world far away even further away where it should remain. The only remaining frontiers are the borders of blue states. And we control the Federal Government. Consider that, libtards.

Family, Fourth Phase, Great Wheel, Health, Holidays, Memories, Politics, Writing

Stories Worth Telling

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Yule and the Samain Moon

Thursday gratefuls: A Mountain Morning in Winter. Rich and Doncye. Brother Mark. Mary. A new Kindle. Hanukah presents. Jacquie Lawson Edwardian Advent Calendar. December cold and Snow. Magpies. Canadian Jays. Abert’s Squirrels. Red Squirrels.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Snow Flakes falling on Shadow Mountain

Kavannah: Ahavah (love) and Bimah (understanding) Understanding, differentiation, deep insight; from בּוּן to split, pierce/penetrate; also בֵּין between

One brief shining: I roll out the mat, kneel down in a posture not unlike a Muslim at prayer and do the push-ups I can do, then skull crushers with weights brought down near my ears, those silly calf raises, 15 goblet squats, bicep curls, wall angels, incline pushups, my upper body/lower body day.

 

Fun with chatbotgpt. NB: I asked for skullcrushers which are done with dumbbells and got this guy. Part of the fun.

BTW: If you’re new to Ancientrails, I want to explain. When I capitalize a noun like Rock or Mountain or Lodgepole or Mule Deer, I’m following a commitment I made after reading Braiding Sweetgrass. In Potawatomi everything considered alive gets capitalized out of respect. I’m not totally consistent, but I try to be.

When I went into see Rabbi Jamie about feeling meh, he mentioned two things. One, getting back to making art. He means sumi-e which I did for a long ago Kabbalah class. I also paint. Both sort of. However I turned up the heat in the loft and intend to start again. It brings joy.

Second he mentioned a website Storyworth. For those of you age peers who read this, it’s worth a look if you have kids or grandkids. Storyworth sends out a weekly prompt, you write in their software in response to them. My first two prompts were: How did you get your first job? and What was your father like when you were a child?

At some point, I’m not sure when, you’ve written your story. It’s then printed and bound and shipped to you. Price determined by how many books you want. I’m getting four. Ruth, Gabe. Joe. Myself. A neat service. I’m having fun with it and it counts as getting back to writing.

I’ve also begun writing my project of essays, ideas on observing each of the 8 Celtic holidays. Pretty far along on Yule.

 

Just a moment: Still, like many of you, I imagine, marveling at the choices for cabinet leadership our new President, same as the old President has offered up so far. Sure, Gaetz got gone as fast as he deserved, but Hegseth remains in play. Kennedy, too. And Gabbard. Patel. Many of these vie to replace the old chestnut about the fox guarding the henhouse. Now: Patel guiding the FBI. That old drunk at DOD. Vax denier heads health and human services. Combine these choices with long red tie guy’s volatile, chaotic, grudge based style of, what? Can we call it governing? Sorta drains the meaning out of that word. The point is: matches. Gasoline. All over D.C. for four years. Four years.

 

Family, Fourth Phase, Health, Politics, World History

The Dead Live On In Memory

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Samain and the Yule Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Snow. Ruth. Gabe’s poetry. Boulder. CU. The Village Diner. Its Village Virgins punchcards. Ben and Jerry’s on Pearl Street. Only short walking distances. Resistance work. Feeling stronger. Jon and his children. Rich and Doncye.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Poetry, messages from the lev

Kavannah: Perseverance

One brief shining: As we passed Rebecca’s Herbs and Ointments, headed toward our ice cream tradition as Ruth calls it, the wind began to howl, and the cold blasted through my layers and caused both of us to hold our unsnapped and unzippered coats close, hurrying along while my back, as the pace increased, declared itself, stop stop it said. We hurried on.

 

 

Having done what I can for my back, physical therapy, lidocaine patches, and now Celebrex and the occasional tramadol, I put its complaints in the category of life as it is. Yes, it limits my mobility. No, it will not kill me. Unless of course the Celebrex does. This is me, now. At 77.

Another wonderful two hours plus with Ruth, eating at the Village Diner, one of those places students and professors flock to for the literal greasy spoons and great coffee. It wears its worn and chipped table tops, its random displays of CU-Boulder memorabilia, its fry cook behind the long counter with those stools you know, with the pride of a beloved spot rubbed real by hungry students and teachers of physics and philosophy.

During the week and after the noon rush, Ruth and I had a two person booth beside a west facing window, my hearing not the issue she assured me it would be had we come only a bit earlier. I wore my dancing Bears hat in honor of Jon’s birthday.

He was a true Deadhead, loading up whatever vehicle he owned at the time and heading out to follow the band. On one trip Kate and I loaned him Bucky, of Buck and Iris. Buck rode in the front seat of the pickup truck with Jon, happy to see more of the world than our back yard.

Ruth received calls from Jon’s closest friends: Max, Thomas, and Patty. Gabe wrote poetry. Jon was not forgotten. And will not be.

 

Just a moment: Luigi Mangione? Straight outta Mario Brothers. And, apparently, the wealthy upper crust of Maryland. Didn’t see that one coming. I stand by what I wrote the other day. No to murder. Yes to a wholesale revamping of our broken, broken healthcare system. Come on RFK. Your time to shine.

Being caught in a McDonald’s. How absolutely dead center American can you get?

 

Can you imagine Syria. A ruthless dynasty toppled. A palace ransacked. Secret prisons opened. A rebel army that knows fighting now in charge. Governing is a distinctly different skill. Who can predict?

Israel continuing its version of the forever war bombing Assad’s military assets. Not letting them fall into the hands of terrorists they said. Maybe. Or maybe they’re governed even more by hubris. Thinking they can bomb their way to a new Middle East. It will not be so.

 

Asia, Boulder, Family, Mountains, Politics, Shadow Mountain, World History

The Times They Are A Changin’

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Samain and the Yule Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Paul. Joanne. Vietnamese food. A long lunch. Snow. Ruth. Thai food and ice cream. Finals week. Remember finals? Alan on the Tasman Sea. Shadow Mountain Home. Warm. Mini-splits. Solar panels. Electricity. Quantum computing. The future accelerating back toward us.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fresh Snow

Kavannah: Love (ahavah)

One brief shining: Driving in the Mountains after a Snowfall has an adventure around every curve, forty years of Minnesota Winters making me alert to tiny movements in the tires, relaxing if they slip, recovering easily, Blizzaks gripping, gripping, living in the moment because the situation requires it.

 

As an old man driving in the Mountains in the Winter, I’m grateful for the wonderful teacher I had. Minnesota Winters. Where the Snow is not so much compared to my Colorado home, but it stays and gets slick. I am familiar with the movements of a car on Winter roads. Not to say I haven’t had my moments. I have. But always on Ice. And even then, not panicking, staying away from the brake and the accelerator pedal. Gently, gently.

The Mountains after a new Snow have slopes of flocked Lodgepoles, their Aspen colleagues looking cold and skeletal without their leaves. A beautiful transformation that we get to see often in the changeable weather of Colorado. Snow. Sun. Snow. Snow. Sun and blue Skies. A different sort of Winter from Minnesota. Less brutal. More episodic in its dramatic weather. Much, much more Snow.

If it were not for the threat of Wildfire, Shadow Mountain would be an ideal home. In the midst of beauty in all seasons, cool Nights, dark Skies, silence, Wild Neighbors, and Rock, so much Rock, cold Streams. The gift of Wildness at every juncture. Reminders of the ongoingness of Mother Earth everywhere. Which in turn remind me of the temporariness of my own Life. No American immortals up here.

Today is Jon’s birthday, he would have been 56. I’m going over to Boulder to have lunch with Ruth. She’s come a long, long way since he died two and a half years ago. Now a college freshman, living on her own for the first time. Loving her classes, learning. Facing down fears and the anti-Semitic tonality of so many college campuses right now.

She still misses “her person” and has rough moments, sometimes sobbing and despondent. But I can see her resilience take hold now, acknowledging the feelings, managing her response. Bouncing back. Grief is a journey and one that never completely ends.

 

Just a moment: How bout those Syrian rebels? Striking when no one expected it. Shifting, yet again, the volatile stew of Middle Eastern nations. How will their ascendance change the politics of the Middle East? At least one thing sticks out to me, the rebels are Sunni and therefore not disposed to support Iran, Hezbollah, or Hamas. Probably not keen on Israel either, of course.

Not to mention. Turkey is part of the Middle East, too. Look north from Turkey’s northern shores and nothing but the Black Sea separates you from the Ukraine.

In the immortal words of Bob Dylan: the time they are a changin’.

 

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health

Meal Time

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Samain and the Yule Moon

Monday gratefuls: Rich and Doncye. That 529. Captive money. Jon’s 56th birthday tomorrow. Lunch with Ruth in Boulder. Lunch with Joanne today. Dinner at Evoke 1923 with Veronica on Sunday. Our year anniversary for our conversion. By the lunar calendar. Birthday brunch with Luke yesterday at Sassafras.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Regular workouts. Feeling stronger.

Kavannah: Persistence and Joy

One brief shining: Sassafras has a Cajun inspired menu and tables distributed throughout the rooms of two old Victorian homes connected to each other; when Luke came we ordered beignets with the usual heavy load of powdered sugar, then fried green tomatoes Benedict for him, grits and Shrimp for me, a nod to his southern roots and his 33rd birthday. We took a short walk afterward in this hipster neighborhood of Victorian and brick homes.

 

chatbot at my prompt. in the style of Botticelli

Beginning to find a calling in breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Eating out with friends. Keeps me fed, enhances and sustains relationships. Conversation over food, another hominid in the veldt experience. As old as humanity itself. Odd way to live, I guess, solitary and happy, yet also punctuated with laughter and deep talk. Visiting breakfast and lunch spots, fancier places for dinner. Adds 3-D moments to my zoom talks with other friends and family.

When I think about it, not too different from the way I worked while I did organizing out of my Minneapolis West Bank (Mississippi, not Jordan) office. I would meet people for breakfast and lunch, eat, discuss plans, get things started or nurture ongoing work relationships. One big difference: no agenda these days other than showing up, seeing and being seen.

 

chatbot image

Yin/Yang. Masculine and feminine. Man and woman. Gender fluidity. Animus and anima. Queer and straight. Non-binary. Trans. Thinking about all of these lately. Wondering how they intersect, influence each other. Not going to tread too far into these Waters, but I do find the animus/anima, yin/yang, masculine/feminine polarities provocative.

On the MMPI, which I took many times while in seminary, I always spiked the M/F scale. Here’s the summary of a high scores potential meaning for a man:

  • May indicate interests and behaviors that are traditionally considered feminine (e.g., interest in the arts, sensitivity, or gentleness).
  • Possibly challenges or discomfort with traditional male roles.

In times past this scale often identified such high scorers as either actually or potentially homosexual. Wrong. It did and does signal the influence of animus and anima, yin and yang energies in a person. In my case it correctly identifies what Kate called my androgynous personality. A straight male heavily inflected with anima. Probably the deep influence of Mom in my life. Not an unusual finding for men in the ministry, in helping professions.

I also scored high on the 4 scale for psychopathic deviation. This represented my unwillingness to conform to social norms and my ongoing political struggle with a racist, sexist, homophobic, classist culture. This was an unusual finding for men in the ministry, but it sure fit my personality. And, still does.

 

 

Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Torah

Livin’ in a small town

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Samain and the Yule Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Cold nights. Tramadol and Celebrex. Jackie. Her friends. Studying Torah with Rabbi Jamie. Sisyphus. Zeus. Hades. Holy Wells. The Elk Bull in the Rain. Seeing the sacred where you are. Beth-el. Cairns. Wrestling with the angel. Israel. Jacob.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Celebrating Luke’s birthday

Kavannah: Joy (simcha) and Enthusiasm (zerizutz)

One brief shining: Walked into Aspen Roots yesterday, Jackie had another customer’s hair folded into aluminum foil squares-hair coloring-and a man with a bald head, dressed casually in jeans and new shoes, a blue shirt not tucked in, everything neat, sat in Ronda’s chair facing his wife as Jackie worked her hair stylist magic.

 

Jackie called me on Wednesday and said she needed to reschedule. A funeral. The two in her shop yesterday had also attended the funeral. Of all of us, Jean said, I didn’t think he’d be the first to go. Jackie and Dave nodded. What followed was the usual funeral chatter. Who was the blonde with him? Oh. Him? He has issues, said Dave, I love him but he has issues. Did you know his brother Jim? No. I knew of Jim, but never met him.

One task of grieving and funerals is reordering the social structure of a group. Acknowledging the loss of a member of the group, remembering their story. Seeing people, perhaps even family members who live at a distance, either geographically or relationally. Recalling how things were. And in the process redefining how things will be now without the deceased.

When it was my turn in the chair, Jackie schedules me sandwiched between the  application of coloring and its slow baking in time, I had a chance to chat with Dave. He had retired two weeks ago from a fire department in Highland Hills. I asked him how it was going. Oh, he said, not well. When I offered that he couldn’t expect to get retirement in two weeks, his wife, now sitting in a chair festooned with aluminum foil, said, I did! We all laughed.

When Jackie began her work on my beard and hair, I asked about the guy who died. He just had to clean the gutters, she sighed. Fell off the ladder and landed on his head. I felt so sad. What a way to go. She leaned into me and said, Don’t climb on ladders. I assured her I wouldn’t. They scare me now. I even gave away my chain saw.

As I left Jackie gave me a big hug and Dave jumped up from his chair, shook my hand, “Good to meet you, Charlie.” Enthusiasm and Joy at Aspen Roots. Life in a small community. I love it.

 

Just a moment: Earlier that morning I signed onto the Bagel Table, which had to be online because Rabbi Jamie didn’t feel well. There were 12 of us, 13 including Jamie. We had a spirited and deep conversation about struggle, about family-the parsha was about Jacob’s ladder and his long negotiations with his father-in-law Laban, the nature of God or divinity. I loved it. It was fun and profound. Luke and Ginny were on.

 

Asia, Family, Health, Mountains, Plants, Politics, Shadow Mountain, US History

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Samain and the Yule Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Rabbi Jamie. Ginny and Janice. Luke and Leo. Torah. Aviva Zornberg. Art Green. Rami Shapiro. My Lodgepole Companion and their Companions. My son. Shabbat. Bereshit. Brother Mark in Bangkok. Mary in Oz. All Dogs. That Buck.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Perception

Kavannah: Joy and Enthusiasm (zerizut)

One brief shining: What’s that, over there by the neighbors, my eyes caught movement in the Lodgepoles, Branches moving, but no Wind, wait, wait, wait, oh, yes, there he is, that eight point Mule Deer Buck, the one whose photograph I posted; he comes often, always majestic, proud.

 

Often I am reminded of our hominid ancestors, how their life on the veldt trained them to pick up on the slightest motion, the smallest movements of Grass, twitches in Leaves. A something out of sight, almost, at the very periphery of our vision. My ancestral brain lights up as it did yesterday when I saw a disturbance, not in the force, but in the Lodgepoles next to my neighbors.

First check. Are other Branches moving? Could be Wind. No. No Wind. What then? Nothing was visible. It was moderately high up from the ground. Maybe a neighbor? No. The movement seemed to press forward without stopping and a human would have been scratched, bothered, maybe hurt. Wait.

I stood there at my kitchen window. A spot where Kate and I still look out to our front on occasion. As we used to when she was alive. She would have wanted to see this. I waited and in his slow, purposeful way the Buck emerged, his rack having caused the Lodgepole Branches to sway. This is his Land, his Mountain. And he displayed that with each careful, but not hesitant step he took. Unlike the Does that come he did not scan his environment often, confident in his years and his weapons.

Thanks again, Kate, for finding this spot on Shadow Mountain. In the Rocky Mountains and the Arapaho National Forest. Kate, always Kate.

 

Just a moment: Following the Korean weirdness with less detachment than the usual American. Daughter-in-law Seoah has expressed her contempt for the current President, Yun Suk Yeol, comparing him to long red tie guy. She’s not alone among her compatriots as can be seen in the many photographs from Seoul featuring protesters in the streets.

Also my son works alongside Korean military personnel. They’re not ones likely to get called out to enforce martial law, but they are under the overall command of the South Korean President.

Yun survived his impeachment vote, but only just. His political power is gone. Will be interesting to see what happens next.

 

Also following the continuing uproar over Brian Thompson’s murder and the virulence toward the whole health care system it has unleashed. Heather Cox Richardson’s post of December 5th placed the shooting in a long historical context which included this paragraph:

“Today provided a snapshot of American society that echoed a similar moment on January 6, 1872, when Edward D. Stokes shot railroad baron James Fisk Jr. as he descended the staircase of New York’s Grand Central Hotel. The quarrel was over Fisk’s mistress, Josie, who had taken up with the handsome Stokes, but the murder instantly provoked a popular condemnation of the ties between big business and government.” Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, December 6th, 2024

Once again, I condemn the taking of a human life. Yet. I also hope that a cleansing movement might arise from this shooting, a total restructuring of our oh so broken health care system. So many lives end too soon, come to debilitation because our health care system lacks transparency, empathy, and rationality. And again, I remind us that violence does not only come from a gun. It can also come from a letter in the mail, we have denied this procedure, that medication.