Dogs, Family, Far Right, Fourth Phase, Greenhouse, Politics, Seed Keepers, US History

Paying For It. Right Now.

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Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Kate, always Kate. Gabe, thinking of her, thinking of me without her. He and Ruth driving up here yesterday. Oyama. Sushi, our common ground for food. Our conversations. About two college girls on their own in an apartment. About senior sunrise, which Gabe is doing right now.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Grandkids.

Year Kavannah: Wu wei

Week Kavannah: Histapkot. Contentment.

Tarot: The Forest Lovers, #6

One brief shining: Hammer in hand, I drove four nails into Artemis, two on each outside raised bed, pulled out a length of twine, long, cut it from the spool and tied loose knots around Squash Plant Vines under a branch for strength, attaching the twine to the first nail, looping it, and the second nail, a tight note, redirecting the Squash toward the ground so its large fruits will not occupy the raised bed, robbing the Kale, Spinach, and Beets of Great Sol’s light.

 

Yesterday I wondered what I might do to celebrate Kate’s birthday. Last year I took myself out to dinner at Evoke 1923, ordered oysters for an appetizer, and discovered a pearl. Hard to top that.

Yet, it happened. Gabe thought of me, texted Ruth in Longmont. She contacted me and we soon had a lunch plan for a sushi place in Golden. That morning, yesterday morning, Shadow got me up at 3:30 am, and my back acted up early.

Ruth was ok with driving the extra half hour up here. (I paid for her gas.) They got here to the Mountain home around 11:30. We ate lunch at Oyama, a local sushi spot.

In honor of Kate I ordered a tempura bento box. When the rest of us, Jon, Ruth, and I, would go to a sushi place, she made do by ordering tempura. She was more a prime rib or tenderloin sorta gal.

Discovered, again, why I don’t order it for myself. Too dense. Too heavy. Still, Kate’s memory.

We came back to Shadow Mountain, talked some more. Toured Artemis and her amazing Tomatoes, her Spinach, Kale, Beets, and Squash. Everything that’s growing has done well over the last couple of weeks.

Gabe carried two bags of gardening Soil out to her for me. Something only a few years ago I could have done under one arm. Sigh.

 

Me and my Shadow: Yesterday I laid down for a nap (up at 3:30, remember?) and didn’t call Shadow for naptime. I wanted to get to sleep and sometimes she wakes me up.

I turned on the oxygen concentrator, cranked the fan up another turn, and went to sleep. When I woke up, Shadow had curled her body next to my pillow. Fast asleep. Oh. Well.

 

Just a moment: I read this Atlantic article yesterday, How Ivy League Admissions Broke America. I found the author’s argument not only persuasive, but possibly a way forward. He shows how an intentional change by Harvard to admissions based on intelligence rather than family lineage created an unhealthy distortion in our whole education system. The valorizing of intellect über alles.

We pushed away the bakers and candlestick makers, the steelworkers and the factory workers, farriers and dress makers. Placed them on a lower social rung. We’re paying for that right now.

Family, Memories, Travel

She would have been 81 today

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Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Monday gratefuls: Kate, always Kate. Her 81st birthday. Memories of her. Her retirement cruise. Finding Shadow Mountain home. Her feeling of always being on vacation up here. Her love for Jon, for Ruth and Gabe. For my son and Seoah. For our dogs. For me. Her work with children. In Minnesota and in Guatemala. Her pacifism. Her love of chamber music. Of seeing the world.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Kate

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Histapkot. Contentment.

Tarot: The Pole Star, #17

One brief shining: That evening after the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra had finished its program, the last of the season, the last chance I had to invite the woman who had sat next to me all those months out for coffee, would I overcome my discomfort around dating? Yes.

Pensive Kate. Also a big part of her personality

At the Capitol Grille, across from the Ordway Theater, a short walk through Rice Park, we had coffee. She thought I was a lawyer. I thought she was a teacher. Nope. Wrong on both. Clergy. M.D.

A week or so later we had our first date. A walk around what was then Lake Calhoun, now Bde Maka Ska, or White Bank Lake in Dakota. I had on a brand new Lands End checked shirt which I would much later tear for sitting shiva. She wore a new dress. We ate at a small French restaurant not too far from the lake. I don’t recall its name.

We got serious in a couple of months. Both happily divorced. Both still enjoying life and work. Kate soon had my son clomping up and down my Irvine Park condo stairs in ski boots and off on Saturdays for ski lessons. He was eight years old.

I got to know her 21 year old son, Jon, an art major drop out at the time. Our relationship developed more slowly.

When Kate and I decided to get married, we chose the Landmark Center in St. Paul close to both the Ordway where we met and the Capitol Grille.

Our March honeymoon was epic. We followed spring north from our first stop, Rome. We loved Italian food, coffee, and croissants. Our hotel, the Internazionale, was at the top of the Spanish Steps.

We visited Pompeii and Florence from Rome, then took our first class Eurail Pass to Venice. Venice to Vienna. A long ride with no food.

When we got into Vienna, it was 10 pm. The concierge had our bags taken up to our room while we went across the Ringstrasse to a restaurant he recommended. Red checkered table cloths and wiener schnitzel. Some cabbage and spaetzle.  Ah.

On then to Paris and the Angleterre Hotel on the left bank. Paris to London. London to Edinburgh. Edinburgh to Inverness. Inverness to London on the sleeper.

At Pizzaro’s place in Lima

Kate and I bookended that trip with our cruise around Latin America for her retirement.

In between we raised my son, vegetables, fruit, bees, dogs and a life of joy and abundance. We had 32 years together, each of them an adventure, each of them in a mutually supportive relationship that I still miss.

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism, Men, Shadow Mountain

Waking up

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Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Professor Luke. Leo, the old. Tuscany Tavern. Rabbi Jamie. Irv. Joe. CBE men’s group. Rain. Hard Rain. Mountains Green. Those forty plus Elk Cows eating Grass in Elk Meadow. Three young Elk Calves crossing with their Mothers. Waiting on them to cross the highway. Mountain Life. Shadow inside when I got home.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Elk of Evergreen

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Histapkot. Contentment.

Tarot: Knight of Vessels, the Eel

One brief shining: Rain pelted down as I drove up Shadow Mountain last night, the Air heavy and cool, while the waning light from Great Sol’s shabbat appearance outlined Conifer Mountain and Black Mountain in the mist. Shadow was inside and dry.

 

Yesterday was busy. By my standards. These days. Even though my breakfast with Alan canceled. He has a cold.

At 11:30 into Evergreen. Tuscany Tavern. Professor Colaciello, He starts teaching chemistry tomorrow at Metro Community College. This was a congratulatory lunch. At his choice of spots.

He explained his plans. “I’m going to open with, Chemistry is the science of transformations!” He has five demonstrations to follow that sentence. One using oil and water. Another using a combustible powder that he holds in his palm. A lighter. Why didn’t it flame up? Then he sprinkles it over the lighter and whoosh. Oxygen.

Dry Ice in Water. With a ph strip. The water becomes acidic as the dry Ice dissolves. Showing his dental hygienist students why carbonated liquids can destroy tooth enamel.

Later in the week, in a mildly ironic moment, he will teach his first class in the Chemistry of Cannabis. It’s an industry here and the industry requires educated workers. Part of the track for budding professionals.

Leo sat on the patio with us as we talked, ate our lunch.

 

Home for a nap with my Shadow girl.

Out to King’s Valley and Bear Park Road to pick up Irv for the CBE men’s group. Turn around and drive back to Evergreen to the Synagogue.

Only four of us. Joe Greenberg. Jamie. Irv. And myself. The topic. How to be with someone suffering from depression.

The smaller group allowed us to go deeper than we might have otherwise. Each of us had either been depressed or had a close family member who was, or had been. Not surprising.

Accompanying. Being with the person. Not trying to cheer them up or fix them, but acknowledging their pain. Letting them know you care for them. Realizing that depression has its own logic, never visible to those on the outside.

I shared my experience of waking up a couple of months ago to my dysthemia over the early months of this year. Chronic pain. Struggles with Shadow. Uncertainty about what was going on with my cancer.

When Kate was alive, she had this job, given to her by my analyst, John Desteian. She would say to me, “I sense you’re slipping into melancholy.” That would help me wake up, earlier. Kate’s gone now. Had to wake myself up. Harder.

 

Dogs, Friends, Politics, World History

He shoots!

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Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: Shadow. Dr. Josy. Audrey. Ginny and Janice. Bread Lounge. Fave’s restaurant. Good friends. Laughing. The leash and the collar. Putting a leash on Shadow, the free spirit. Tomatoes. Kale. Spinach. Beets. Soil in the mail. Mark. Al Kharj. Mary. Melbourne. My son and Seoah. Back in Osan.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Annie and Shadow

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Histapkot. Contentment.

“Who seeks more than he needs, hinders himself from enjoying what he has. Seek what you have and give up what you need not. For in giving up what you don’t need, you’ll learn what you really need.” Rabbi Solomon ibn Gabirol

Tarot: Seven of Stones, healing.

One brief shining: A chittering sound, a Squirrel maybe, or some Insect rubbing its wings together, a Grasshopper could be, comes in through the open window along with a cool morning Breeze, occupying a bit of my mind as I write, bringing the outside inside while I try to wrench the inside outside.

 

Dog journal: Dr. Josy came carrying a long flat object in a cloth covering. A portable scale. Her daughter Audrey carried a large rectangular carryall full of syringes, medicines, treats, other necessaries for a traveling veterinarian.

Shadow weighs 35 pounds. Dr. Josy had to hold Shadow and then weigh herself with Shadow and without. Shadow would not stand on the scale. Of course.

She gave Shadow a vaccine for leptospirosis. Lepto comes for contact with animal urine and is zoonotic, meaning it can transmit to humans often resulting in kidney failure. She also drew blood for a heartworm test, checked Shadow’s heart and lungs, her various joints, her teeth, and whether her i.d. chip was functional. It is.

While Audrey held Shadow on her lap, Dr. Josy clipped her nails. Shadow remained quiet and comfortable the whole time, snuggling into Audrey’s lap.

Dr. Josy thinks, and I somewhat reluctantly agree, that I should get a second dog, a companion for Shadow. Someone to play with. Since Kate and I always bought litter mates when we could, I understand. But do I want to be a two dog household again? Thinking about it.

Dr. Josy thought Shadow was perfect. Healthy, sweet, comfortable to work with. Well, I do, too.

 

Friends: Ginny and Janice came over later in the day bringing Annie and Luna to play with Shadow. Along with takeout from the Bread Lounge. While we ate, Shadow and Annie ran each other around the yard. Sometimes they would all run inside, up the stairs, to see what we were doing.

Ginny and Janice call Luna, their little girl who can’t weigh more than five pounds, the fun police. When Shadow and Annie got too boisterous, Luna would bark at them to stop.

 

Just a moment: He dribbles, he shoots! Putin scores! I can imagine the flattery, the bribery, the sophistry that Vlad brought to the table. All catered to our insecure tyrant. This one was over before it began. Pity the poor, benighted Ukrainians. No need for Zelensky. The big boys are taking care of it.

Fourth Phase, Health, Tarot

Bracing

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Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Friday gratefuls: Ginny and Janice. Annie and Luna. Shadow and friends. Warmish morning. Beets growing taller. Spinach spreading its still small leaves. Kale as well. Tomatoes fruiting. Growing. Waiting on Soil for the East facing bed. Marny Eulberg. Post-polio syndrome. Post-polio survivors. Like me. Her butterfly garden.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: My neck muscles that have worked so hard all these years

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah:  Hakarat Hatov. Recognizing the good

Tarot: The Journey, #13 of the major arcana

One brief shining: Bend your neck to the left, now press against my hand, bend to the right, press against my hand, put your chin on your chest, oh yes, you can only go 10 degrees to the left but almost 40 to the right. Thank you, Marny.

 

Health: Yesterday was post-polio day. I drove down to Wheatridge, a charming place to my surprise, with brick homes, old businesses in older buildings, tree-lined streets. Marny’s home was on a cul-de-sac with five other large houses. Hers stood out because her front yard has a Butterfly Garden instead of Grass. I liked her already.

She met me at the door, her right leg braced, a slight hitch in her step. Gray-haired, a bit plump, with a red t-shirt featuring an Elephant. A grandma, crone figure.

Inside a large open room with a tiled floor, a kitchen area and a living area together. Her dog, a friendly cockapoo with an absurdly long tail licked my hand.

At her invitation I sat at her kitchen table. Two old folks, survivors of the pre-1950 polio epidemic. She handed me some literature about post-polio organizations including one in Colorado.

She read my answers to her new patient three page form, asking me questions as she did. No, no surgeries. Yes, breathing support. Iron lung.

She had me take off my t-shirt and manipulated my neck. All this to create a prescription for the orthotist. A brace-maker. She showed me examples. Similar to one’s used for people who’ve broken their neck. I like this one. Minimalist.

Not sure how often I’ll use whatever one I get. Driving. Yes. In the backyard with Shadow. Yes. Because I tend to walk with my head down I run into Lodgepole Branches. If I get enough pain recession, while hiking. Maybe even at meetings later in the day when my muscles wear down.

I need to have it though because my neck has gotten worse over the past year. Maybe I’ll get comfortable enough with it to wear it more often.

 

Tarot: The Journey. #13 on the Wanderer’s spiritual path through the Wildwood. A little over midway. The Journey card acknowledges death as a part of life’s journey, the end of a life. I can take it at its most literal since the end of my journey has come closer and closer. True of all of us in our late seventies. A step along the way.

I can also take the card as a sign of inner change. Accepting my disabilities. Back pain. Neck atrophy. Accepting my prostate cancer and its own destination. This is, come to think of it, my year kavannah, my intention to live fully into wu wei. Going with life as it presents itself. Going with flow. This is where the winding stream of my life has brought me and I’m fine with letting this kayak bob and weave on its remaining bends and pools and rapids.

 

Friends, Great Work, Judaism

Is it too late?

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Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Rebecca. Terry. Joanne. Coal Mine Dragon Chinese Restaurant. Lake Evergreen. A golden Sunset. Elk Cow headed to the library. Marny Eulberg. Post-Polio Syndrome. Mussar. Luke. His new job. Alan and the Wildflower. Veronica on the Pacific Crest Trail. Tom. Roxann. Sylvan. The Pacific Northwest. Alaska.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: A Western Sunset

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Hakarat Hatov. Recognizing the good.

Tarot: The Stag. #8 of the major arcana. Guardian of the Forest: The Stag is a powerful symbol of the forest, embodying strength, dignity, and a connection to nature’s wisdom

One brief shining: Terry, who has lived in Evergreen since it had all dirt roads, Joanne, who owns 27 acres of land overlooking the Continental Divide, Rebecca, who on September 16th goes again to a Tibetan Buddhist nunnery near Dharamsala for four months, and I ordered Drunken Noodles, Shrimp dishes with Chinese Vegetables while discussing whether we’re in a pre-holocaust time in the U.S.

 

Judaism: The conversations grow more prevalent. Should we leave? Joanne knows several who have gone, fearing the next ICE sweep will be for Jews. After they’ve sated themselves on Mexicans, Central Americans, and any other poor bastards they can round up.

Joanne wondered whether the goyim, any of them, feel this sense of disease about their personal safety. “Or, is it just us. The after the holocaust generation of Jews?”

My sense is that no, the goyim do not feel the same sense of personal peril as Jews. Though some groups, like LGBT folks and some naturalized citizens do. That’s not to say they don’t fear the future (and immediate) impacts of Dictator Donald. Those on the liberal side of the equation. Yet their talk about leaving the country hangs more on distaste, on no longer wanting to be identified with a cryptofascist version of the nation they once loved. Not on worries about Alligator Alcatraz being used on them.

All three of us Joanne, Rebecca and me (Terry is not a Jew.) agreed we were too old to leave. Joanne hopes her sell by date comes up before things go that far. I’m banking on Colorado and the Mountains. Rebecca, if the worst appears on the horizon, could flee to the nunnery, but she faces visa issues there. So we may eat our last meal together at the Coal Mine Dragon Restaurant.

 

Tarot: The Stag. Emphasizing connection to natural wisdom. To the truth that no matter what trivial politics come and go, Mother Earth will be the final arbiter of our case. She will not hesitate to scrub us off Her Lands if we continue to insult Her and Her Atmosphere.

She metes out a certain justice, one that considers the good of all more important than that of any one species. No forgiveness. No mercy. Rising Tides. Powerful Storms. Blazing Heat. We all sit at Her judgment seat.

The Stag says, heed Her before it is too late. And so do I.

Dogs, Health

Staying in it

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Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Wednesday Gratefuls: Kai. Randy. Ginny and Janice. Shadow, hunter of Chipmunks. More green Fruiting Bodies on the Tomato Plants. A dark, warm Morning. Marny Eulberg, post-polio specialist. Hernia. Natalie. Her observations of Shadow. Tom, Roxann, Sylvan. Washington. Korea. Malaysia. Australia. Saud Arabia. USA.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Nerve ablation

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah:  Hakarot Hatov. Recognizing the Good

Tarot: Ace of Bows, the spark of life

One brief shining: Collar over the wrist, the attached leash held in a circle bigger than Shadow’s head, left hand with treats, drawing Shadow through the circle, letting her remain there, then pulling the circle back over her head before she can back out, comfort with collar and leash. Slowly. Slowly.

 

Dog journal: Natalie told me anyone else would have returned Shadow to the shelter. Shadow is a free spirit, traumatized therefore always ready to flee, and smart, recognizing dangers to her freedom quickly.

It has been difficult, these last seven months. There were times when I thought neither I nor she could take much more. Yet we’re both stubborn and share a desire for a strong relationship. Believe we’ve got there. Satisfying.

When I look over and see her coiled up next to me in the bed. When she comes running, full tilt, smiling after I call her. When she throws a sock in the air, rolls the ball filled with treats with her nose, performs squeakectomies on stuffed toys. I smile and see the mature dog still hidden by age and past wounds.

Natalie believes an Animal Control Officer used a rabies pole with their wire or cable loops to rescue Shadow from the fire. A frightened puppy already, the rabies pole would only make her fear human contact even more. This seems more than likely to me. Probable.

As I said a while back, Shadow’s history and mine will be written together.

Health: Been having trouble holding my head up for a while now. No. Not shame. Polio. An atrophied muscle in my neck. People would ask me if I felt OK and I’d always say yes, not realizing my head tilted to the right and down. As you can see in the picture.

Now it’s difficult to hold my head up without support. I first learned of this problem in gym class in Junior High. We were learning situps. I had my hands apart over my head, went up toward my knees, then back down and my head dribbled on the floor like a basketball. Hurt.

I was young and that motion is not required often IRL. My other neck muscles compensated. No more hands above head situps and I was good.

Flash forward fifty plus years. Sarcopenia has set in and those compensating muscles have grown tired. Result: looking down as I walk rather than looking ahead. Get hit by low hanging Lodgepole Branches when I’m working with Shadow.

Decided to see an expert in post-polio syndrome, Marny Eulberg. Mostly retired she works out of her house now, does evaluations and prescriptions for assistive devices.

I called her yesterday. She was working in her garden. When she got to her calendar, she said, hmmm. How about this Thursday at 10? Fast. Also, she charges. Nothing. A lifework for her.

When I told her I had bulbar polio, she said, “Oh, that puts you in the 1 or 2 percent right away.” She also said that neck involvement was rare. Like bulbar polio.

Looking forward to meeting her, talking with someone who gets this odd and long lasting dilemma.

Ancient Brothers, Family, Fourth Phase, Friends, Humanities, Poetry, Politics, Seed Keepers, US History, World History

Ways Forward

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Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Waning gibbous Moon. Morning Darkness. Shadow. Father of Shadows. Great Sol. Artemis and her children. Heirloom Vegetables. Raised beds. Co-creation. Gardening. Kate, always Kate. Bee keeping. The Atmosphere. The Troposphere. Space. The International Space Station. The Hubble. The Web. Exoplanets. Distant Suns. Galaxies. Black Holes.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shadows

Year Kavannah: Wu wei

Week Kavannah:  Hakarat Hatov. Recognizing the Good

Tarot: The Seer, #2

One brief shining: The boiler turns itself on, feeding hot Water into the hot Water tank while open windows let cool Air flow in and over my chair, my feet the chair chosen by Kate supporting me while I write.

 

Hakarat Hatov: Recognizing the good. Luke’s joy at getting an associate Professorship in Chemistry. His care for Leo. Rabbi Jamie’s creative teaching. Tom’s quiet confidence. Ode’s sketchbooks. Bill’s everyday kindnesses. Paul’s serious joy.

As Paul said on Sunday, if we seek Hakarat Hatov, goodness abounds in everyday life, no matter the bitter and ugly transformation of our government. Too easy to focus on the doom, let ourselves fall into despair. Don’t ignore it, no, but also recognize the ordinary good all around.

 

Just a moment: A way forward. Storm Before the Calm by George Friedman. Amy, my audiologist, echoing a similar idea. She knows folks she said, progressives, who want to return to the Obama era. No, she says, MAGA has revealed too many cracks (her word. I might go with chasms, abysses.) in the U.S. There’s no going back Amy went on. What we have to do is survive these years, then build something new, something that takes into account the MAGA reveals.

I agree with her and with Friedman. The excesses of the Gilded Age, which Trump apparently has in mind, led to the progressive era of Teddy Roosevelt, the trust buster.

Or, we could also call this late stage capitalism wherein the oligarchs gather so much money unto themselves that the rest of us have too little to power the consumer economy.

Greed cometh before a fall. As Gordon Gecko showed us.

 

Learning: Higher education and in particular the Humanities have suffered hit after hit as the conservative mortar crews have begun to walk in their ordnance, finding the bunkers and trenches of Renaissance and Enlightenment thought with their “anti-semitic” coded explosives.

I no longer fear the elimination of Humanities courses. Why? Because Thucydides and Beowulf and O’Neil and Whitehead and Mozart and Caravaggio do not live in the academy. They live in those who seek to understand their own humanity, the ways forward when faced with a culture shattered by avarice and base fears.

We and mine will still read the Iliad to understand how one man’s rage can cost the lives of thousands, even millions with today’s WMDs. We will also return to multiple perspectives as modeled by Impressionist, Expressionist, Abstract, and Realist painters and sculptors. We will embrace a world characterized by the metaphysics of becoming, of a One always in process, over the split apart world of Cartesian metaphysics.

The Humanities will not, cannot disappear because they are us at our best, self critical. learning from the vast deposit of human lives already lived.

 

Asia, Dogs, Family, Fourth Phase, Greenhouse, Health, Korea, Shadow Mountain, Tarot

The Future?

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Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Monday gratefuls: My son and Seoah back home. Murdoch was happy. The Jangs back to Gwangju and Okgwa. Chilly morning. Rain last night. Feels like Fall. Hearing check. Natalie at noon. Edith Wharton. The Gilded Age. When robber barons ruled the U.S. Teddy Roosevelt, who broke up their trusts. The turning of the wheel

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Jet travel

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Hakarat Hatov. Recognizing the good.

Tarot: Seven of Vessels, Mourning.

One brief shining: Leaves gone from simple to complex, seed husks discarded, young stalks pushing upward, reaching for Great Sol, Kale, Spinach, Beets, Nasturtiums, Squash all outside the greenhouse where Tomatoes grow, pollinating themselves, yellow blossoms turning to green bulbous growth on their way to redness.

 

Dog journal: Shadow and I have settled into a nice rhythm. Up at 4:30 to 5:00. A bit of training and cuddling. She goes outside, comes back in around 6. I feed her at 6:45, a bit more training after which she heads outside where she’ll amuse herself until naptime.

Out again after the nap. I go outside at least twice each day to play with her, walk the yard dropping treats. Sometime around 6 pm she either comes in on her own, about 50% of the time, or I pour her food into her bowl which always gets her inside. I close the door and she’s inside for the night.

The next barrier. The leash. Natalie comes today. Our focus.

 

Health: Hearing check today. Don’t expect any changes. May discuss the new AI assisted aids. Tom seems to have had good luck with those though I don’t know whether he bought a new pair.

Visit with Sue Bradshaw last week. She met Joseph. I asked her for a referral to a post-polio doc. Specifically for my neck. Which I find wobbles and tilts. Annoying.

 

The Jangs: My son sent me a message on WhatsApp. Back on base. Murdoch’s tail wagging, wagging, wagging.

Appa and Umma have returned to Okgwa and their truck farm. They left it on its own for the week. Though a rice growers co-op member came by to check on the rice crop.

Mikyung, Seoah’s sister, whose name I misspelled earlier, her husband, and two kids have gone back to Gwangju.

Gathering and dispersing. The way of families in this mobile age. Why this Jang, Ellis, Olson clan has so many different locations: Melbourne, K.L., Osan, Gwangju, Okgwa, Shadow Mountain, Longmont (Ruth), Denver (Gabe). And, Diane in San Francisco.

I used to think this was a problem, and it presents some in the matter of emergencies, but more and more I see at as a feature, not a bug. We are more flexible in our political affiliations and we can support pluralistic, socialist like governments in our home countries while supporting each other in theirs.

Also, I no longer feel quite so attached to the USA. I have a bit of Australian, Korean, Saudi Arabian, and Malaysian patriotism, too. That is, I feel bound to the political actions and their results of those countries as well.

Perhaps this is the future?

Asia, Family, Great Wheel, Greenhouse, Judaism, Korea, Memories, Paganism, Plants, Sport, Tarot

Variables

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Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Morning darkness. Cool. Shadow and her toys. The flight to Incheon. 9:30 am, MT today. Korea. The Jangs. My son. The Giants. Baseball. A six year old and the World Series. 1987. Kirby Puckett. Randy Johnson. Bert Blyleven. Kent Hrbek. Fathers and sons. Memories, the scaffolding of identity.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Metrodome

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Hakarat Hatov. Recognizing the good.

Tarot: The Three of Arrows, Jealousy

One brief shining: Stubble darkened his golden brown face as he listened, focused, a commander, a lieutenant colonel, yes, but here with me, my son hearing my doctor, Sue Bradshaw, discuss my health.

 

The Jangs: The Giants lost. 4-2. Beaten by the Nationals. Jung Hoo Lee got one hit. Root, root, root for the home team. If they don’t win, it’s a shame. Not in this case. Seeing Lee play center field, bat. That was the ball game for the Korean cheering section.

Their plane leaves this continent today at 10:30 am Pacific time, arriving in Incheon on Monday, the 11th, at 3 pm. The international dateline.

My son returns to work on Tuesday after a “vacation” spent as chauffeur and main problem solver for this Rocky Mountain Korean holiday. He’s confident, decisive, steady, kind.

His work phone kept him busy, too. The oddest problem? A geomagnetic storm, space weather, that could harm the instruments used in his job. Talk about force majeure.

 

The Tarot: Not often do the cards perplex me, but this one, the Three of Arrows, jealousy? Wha…? I left envy and jealousy behind, at least I think I did, years ago. Each night I touch the mezuzah on my bedroom door and say, “I’m comfortable with who I am. I’m comfortable with what I have.” I mean it, too. And feel it in my lev. So, jealousy?

Perhaps it comes to remind me of those days when I read many authors and wanted to write like them? Marion Zimmer Bradley. Herman Hesse. Ovid. Many others. I found my own voice.

Or. Perhaps it comes to remind me of the spiritual journey I’ve taken since those days of ambition. Toward acceptance of the Great Wheel as a model of life. Toward the Jewish insistence on constant questioning. Toward Yamantaka’s wisdom on death. Toward knowledge, intimate knowledge, of the One.

Or, perhaps it’s a random card with no particular resonance at all.

 

Artemis: Kale, Spinach, Beets, Tomatoes thrive. Arugula, Lettuce, Chard not so much. The east facing bed challenges me to learn how to plant it, water it. What unique gift does it have that I can’t quite see right now?

While I wait on the other vegetables to mature, I plan to try different things, see what might turn it from fallow to abundance. First, I plan to replant the Arugula, Lettuce, and Chard. Perhaps today. Then I plan to supplement the drip irrigation with my pretty green watering can. It has a flat copper spout with holes and produces a gentle Rain.

My goal is not so much a harvest at this point, but experimenting with variables to see what makes this bed a comfortable home for Seeds.