• Category Archives Third Phase

  • Double/Triple Irony

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Thanksgiving Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: A good visit with a potential new doc. Our since we moved here doc, Lisa Gidday, retires January 1. 2020 was too much for her. Also a good visit for Kep with his dermatologist/allergist. Yes, even dogs. He has hot spots (allergies, I think) in addition to the infection he got from grooming. Orion headed for the evening sky, in the early morning now partly behind Black Mountain. Ruby. Snowshoes today. Oil change. Rear door diagnosis.

    Happy to report that Kate’s had several good days in a row now. A crummy two day stretch, a Sjogren flare?, or it would be two weeks plus. When mama’s happy, everybody’s happy. Makes me smile.

    Found this wonderful tribute to a brave dog and his friend on Next Door Shadow Mountain. A local story and a beautiful one. Hope you have a friend like Winston.

    He’s flopping like a fish pulled untimely from his Whitehouse pond. Throwin’ shade. Dissing the election process which his own head of cybersecurity said was as good as it’s ever been. Which every election official in every state has certified as sound. The votes of which elected more Republicans than anticipated yet somehow screwed up the Presidential vote. On the same damn ballot? Call Rudy!

    So. Tired. Of. His. Bullshit. Go away, bad President. Go away.

    Rigel slept last night with her head on my pillow, her back snugged up against Kate. Believe she’s beaten the endocarditis. Worth it.

    When I took Kep in for his vet appointment yesterday, it was 75 in Englewood. 75! November 18th. Thanksgiving next week. And, 75. The world feels off kilter for us old folks who really do remember snowy Thanksgivings, white Christmases. I did see in the Washington Post this morning that our carbon emissions will be at their lowest for three decades. Covid dropped them, of course. And, the orange excrescence. If people weren’t dying, I’d say it’s worth it. Over a quarter of a million now. That’s Winston-Salem or Norfolk disappeared from the map.

    Lock yourself down.  This Atlantic article tells the truth about what we should be doing right now. But, we won’t. I get it, too. The Christmas retail season for a consumer based economy. Gonna trash that and still survive politically? I wouldn’t wanna be a governor right now. But. The other shoe will drop when kids come home from college for Thanksgiving and/or the Christmas holiday period. And. Of course. Families will still put aside common sense to embrace relatives, loved ones. I read the other day that this surge, 170,000 new cases a day, has been driven by small gatherings in homes and bars. We’re ramping up the number of infected just in time for the most volatile and problematic time in the whole year so far. Think about that. In all of 2020 we’ve got the worst time ahead of us.

    Here’s the double/triple irony. The vaccines look good. Doctors are much better at treating Covid. But, so many will die and get sick simply because Trump will still be in office over this time of increasing vulnerability for so, so many. Cursed year. Cursed year.

    Ta for now. Gotta get the snowshoes in Ruby so Stevinson can mount them.


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  • Thanks for the Body Contact

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Moon of Thanksgiving

    Tuesday gratefuls: Kate’s good days. Cottage pie. Rigel in the bed. Her licking my hand this morning. Kep peeking over the edge of the bed, “Get up, Get up!” Charlie Haislet, may his treatments succeed. CBE. The blues shabbat this Friday. Chess. Stefan Zweig. His Dark Materials. Phillip Pullman. Vaccines. Covid. Sleep. Electric blanket. Cool nights.

     

    The other night Kep got up, turned around three times, and laid down with his back snug up against mine. I know this is probably weird to non-dog people and that some dog people say my dog will never be in my bed. Fair enough. For me, however, it was an affirmation of the hug. Of love between species. And, it got me thinking. About hugs and sex and general body contact.

    When I was in Seminary in the early 1970’s, all of us had to go through the University of Minnesota’s sex education seminar. No, it was not pictures of penises and vaginas with pointers and the guy who couldn’t teach anything else in charge. No, this was a week long event, the chairs were bean bags, and there was the “desensitization” morning where they showed multiple pornographic films at the same time. The idea was to produce clergy who were not afraid of either their sexuality or the sexuality of their parishioners. Not sure whether it achieved that lofty goal, but it did make conversations about sex and sexuality easier.

    “Thank you for the body contact.” We learned to say this whenever we bumped into someone or accidentally brushed up against another person. I know. But, it was the 1970’s. The purpose of this phrase was laudable, imo. Normalize body contact, don’t fear the touch of another. Of course, boundaries. Of course. But don’t treat contact with another as if it meant they had cooties. Or, Covid. Yes, in today’s Covid infected world this advice would be anathema, but Covid won’t last. Hugs and touching will.

    Anyhow, I went immediately, as you might imagine, to the concept of dasein. Heidegger’s idea of being there, of being in the world, reminds us that our place in this world extends beyond the limits of our body, beyond our skin, into the worlds of the other. In some ways this is obvious since our sensorium collects information from all around us, even from very far away. In a variation on this idea I’ve seen recent articles suggest mind is not limited to our body either, and for some of the same reasons.

    Existence before essence*. Wherever you may stand on this philosophical chestnut, hugs and sex and hand shaking and accidental bumps into another affirm the existence of an-other. If you think hard about being in your own body, you can come to the conclusion, as the Sophists did, that you and your body is the only thing that matters. In fact, you can stretch it to include the idea that you might be the only thing in existence. That’s solipsism. You’ll just have to trust me that you can get there logically, unless you already knew that. I reject it, as I imagine you might, too.

    Though we might not go that far, it is easy, especially now during the wear a mask, don’t touch, wash your hands moment we’re all having, to not contact another warm body. Spouses and dogs, children being the important exceptions. Feeling Kep’s 102 degree body heat radiating from his body to mine made his presence very real. As did the weight of him. More than that. It was love that prompted him to lie down next to me, close enough that we touched. Kep’s dasein and mine became entangled for that time.

    In my world existence does precede essence. Your presence and how you show up is much more important to me than your “human nature.” As my presence and how I show up is more important to myself than whatever human nature I might be said to have. We need reminding though of the flesh and blood reality of the other. That they are like us in some fundamental manner even if it’s not something we can understand or access. Hugs. Sex. Handshakes. Crowded rooms. Or, the simple act of a dog, a friend, a life partner.

    Thanks, Kep, for the body contact.

     

     

    *The proposition that existence precedes essence is a central claim of existentialism, which reverses the traditional philosophical view that the essence of a thing is more fundamental and immutable than its existence.Wikipedia

     

     

     

     

     


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  • Joy, Joy, Joy Deep in My Heart

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Moon of Radical Change

    Monday gratefuls: 20 degrees. Some snow on the ground. A marathoner kicking past the house around 6:30 a.m. Training. A Trumpless Whitehouse. The Denver Post delivered. Those ribs from Easy Entrees. Kate’s scallops. The Johnson girls. As they get older. Their sis zoom bar. The Ancient Ones, with Alan added. That strong feeling I get now when I get in the kitchen. I’m a cook. The epitome of androgyny Kate said last night. A compliment in my eyes.

    Meme: You know why your candidate lost? You didn’t put enough flags on your truck. Ha.

    One thing I keep wanting to do and haven’t gotten around to: figure out how to display an American flag regularly. I don’t want the Gadsden flag crew and their Confederate battle flag allies to continue having exclusive rights. Displaying a flag does not make you a patriot, but its display almost exclusively by the right wing sends that message. The way to reclaim it for all America is for those of on the left, and liberals, too, to fly it. No, I’m not attaching twin gigundos to the back of Ruby. Not even an American flag decal. But, on the property here. Yes. I’ll figure it out. Maybe you will, too.

    I will be ready for the post-election critiques. I will. But not just yet. I want to roll in the hay we made last week. Dive into it from the upper deck of the hay mow. Disappear in it, swimming through the hay like a happy, happy fish. That hay mow smell, that’s America, the old America, the one I grew up in.

    The farm. Many of us had one in our family because many families created by WWII vets had farmers in their family. The farm in our family was just outside Morristown, Indiana. Family lore has it that Grandpa won it on a bet at the horse track. Its believable, he was that sorta guy, but I do not know the truth of it. Riley, the only boy out of my Mom’s four sibs, ended up living on the farm. I don’t know the story behind how that happened. Many summers I would spend a week or so there along with some time in town with my Grandma, Mabel.

    Lots of good memories. The smell of cedar. The old artesian well that kept the milk cans cool for collection. The moss on it and the damp darkness of its shed. The corn crib with its shucked ears of feed corn. And, the hay mow. Of course, this was all a really long time ago. 60 plus years for some of the memories, but they feel current, alive. Just down the gravel road back toward town, after a bend in the road, is Hancock cemetery. Many of my Keaton relatives, including Uncle Riley and Aunt Virginia, Grandma and Grandpa, Aunt Barbara and several others are buried there. Richard, my first cousin, now lives on the farm, and, like Uncle Riley, is the main caretaker for the cemetery. Small town, rural roots. Me.

    Those were good times, but of course they had their darkness. As does this election. This is not the time for either. Now is the time for connecting today with yesterday and through that lens seeing tomorrow. Enjoy the victory. I sure am.


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  • Sad

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Moon of Radical Change (just not the kind I was hoping for)

    Wednesday gratefuls: Kate, Kep, Rigel, our house on Shadow Mountain. My ancient friends, my CBE friends, Jude, Eduardo, and Holly. Undetectable cancer. Kate with little nausea over the past few days. The coming of Holiseason, reminding us that lights glow even when darkness predominates. The election. My sadness. My grief over the country I once knew. Grief is the price of love. Doubling down on my own values, my inner peace, humility.

    Sad. That’s the main feeling. Sad. Humble. I’m turning in, again, any pretension I may have had to political analysis. God, was I wrong. Mostly, sad. Deeply sad. I’m 73, which means I carry some responsibility for this country. I’ve done things my whole adult life attempting to shape it toward compassion, kindness, justice, love for the other. Will not stop believing those are the necessary ingredients for a family, a city, a state, a nation, a world. But this election, no matter how the presidency turns out, has made me wonder how many of us in the U.S. still hold those values.

    Fear and greed. A narrow understanding of what it means to be American, to be human. Damaged psyches that require values as fences. Those people should not marry. She should not have control over her own body. Those poor, teeming masses, yearning to be free had better damned well find somewhere other than here. People with those skin colors are dangerous. Police, protect us from them. At any cost to them you find necessary.

    The light at the end of the tunnel, the one I saw, turned out to be an oncoming train. How has it come to this?

    Laid awake for a bit last night. Not long. In spite of myself I had checked my phone. It was clear what was happening. I wondered how attached is my soul to our national soul? Does this rejection of what I hold close destroy me? No, I decided. I’m still the same person, still a citizen of this nation, but clearly now one of the other. Though. When I look at the raw votes, Biden is ahead by by 2,700,00. I guess there are a lot of us, maybe even a majority. But that maybe is what sears me.

    I put this up on facebook, and I mean it.

    My friends. All of you. I want to remain your friend after this is over. I hope that’s what we all want.
    Whether you are Christian or not, this seems true to me: Gospel of Matthew 12:25, “Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto him, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand” (King James version).
    Lincoln quoted this in his “A house divided cannot stand…” speech. We are, I think, at a moment when division could become permanent; but, I believe, with Jesus and Lincoln, that we all have to see the stark dangers if that should happen.
    Let’s work to see each other, really see each other.
    My fear of division remains. It will be up to both sides of the electorate to see each other. Really see.
    Maybe I’ve exaggerated here, but this is my feeling on a quick reading of the results. I hope I feel better as the count goes on. I hope you do, too.

    Politics Shadow Mountain Third Phase US History

  • Watch Him Go Away!

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Moon of Radical Change

    Sunday gratefuls: Pork loin chops from Tony’s. Butternut Squash. Rigel’s most excellent appetite. Kate’s infirmities quieting. The coming election. Throwing the bum out. Jon’s gate for the loft stairs. To protect Rigel from herself. Addiction. Never resolved, always lurking. The Trumpeter. The American Way. The American Dream.

    A better week for Kate. Much, much less nausea. Stoma site looking good. Her smile. Buoys me.

    Yet. When we talked yesterday about how we were, she said, “I feel sequestered.” Covid. And, her stamina. We realized, as I alluded to earlier, that weeks with several appointments wear her out. A lot. So, we’ll try to do no more than one a week for her. Her stamina makes even going for a ride an energy draining experience. With CBE’s in person activities limited and our own high risk category for Covid, that outlet won’t work. Jon had to come home from school due to an “exposed” first grader, an incident two weeks ago, but only discovered on Thursday. This is the already making the news holiday conundrum. Can we even see those we love?

    Since I added back in resistance work last week, after cataract surgery made me stop for a month, my writing on Jennie’s Dead got lost. Trying to figure out how to make my days work is always a challenge for me. Not new. But, problematic again. Most of the issue is how to use morning hours.

    Saw Dr. Eigner on Friday, my urologist/oncologist. I get a new PSA every three months, but now see him in six months. If I come up undetectable for several, I don’t know how many, I’ll return to every six month PSA’s. He said it could even go up as long as it doesn’t go beyond .2, .3, .4. Somewhere in there. Then they would still follow me. If it drifts up, as it did in February 2019, treatment will start again. I left his office feeling good. Cancer as a chronic disease.

    The election. I’m going to buy a steak and fixings for Tuesday or Wednesday. Celebrate, celebrate, dance to the election returns. Yeah, I’m exposing myself to the downside of even bridled optimism. I feel ok though. 10% is a chance, a legitimate chance, yes, Nate. But, it’s not much of a chance. We must delete our President. Put him in the trash. Excoriate and damn him. Arrest him and imprison him. An actively evil person. Yes, I’m stoking the culture wars with these comments, but what the hell? It’s true.


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  • We are the people of Holiseason!

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samain and the Full, Blue Moon of Radical Change

    Saturday gratefuls: Dr. Eigner. Undetectable PSA. The Great Wheel. Taoism. All us pagans. Samain. The fallow season. Holiseason. Darkness. A return, however brief, to time sanity. The big snow that tamped down the Cameron and East Troublesome fires. The American Way. The American Dream.

    Samain. Again. The Celtic New Year. The Great Wheel turned now for a full orbit around the sun since last Samain. Though I embraced the Jewish New Year in September, 5781, as a way out of 2020, it never seemed to stick. That is, 2020 kept crashing back over the dike of even as ancient a tradition as that one. Gonna try again.

    The Celtic New Year puts the beginning of a new year at the beginning of the fallow time. Samain in ancient Gaelic means Summer’s End. In the most ancient Celtic calendar that we have, the Celts recognized two seasons. Beltane, now on May 1st, marked the season of fertility, growth, harvest. Samain, now on October 31st, is the final harvest holiday. The growing season finished villages prepared for the difficult time of year to come, a cold time when people lived off their stores. Interesting to me that the Celts chose such a time for their New Year.

    The veil thins during this time, the veil between this world and the Other World. The Other World is the land of Faery, the land of the Gods, the land of the dead. The thinned veil meant ancestors could cross back into this world, as could the Faery folk. Since the Faery folks sometimes kidnapped children and ancestors could be ornery, it was a scary transition from growing season to the fallow time.

    Contracts ended or began during the Samain market week as they did for each of the Celtic holidays: Beltane, Lughnasa, Samain, and Imbolc. Always a festive time of year Samain like the others, saw trading and feasting, late night dancing around bonfires, visiting family. The Celts also celebrated the two equinoxes and the two solstices: Ostara, Midsommar, Mabon, and Yule with market weeks.

    Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophist, and radical thinker of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth, says Michaelmas, the Saint Day for the Archangel Michael, September 29th, is the “springtime of the soul.” Along with the Jewish New Year which always falls near the same time, we’re encouraged to go deep into our selves. I marry this idea to the increasing darkness, the gradual lengthening of the night that began at Midsommar and reaches its maximum at Yule, on the Winter Solstice. Samain invites us to not only go inside, but to also open ourselves to that Other World, the Unseen One, that lies just out of sight. Might be a multiverse, might be a dimension not understood by science or reason.

    The Great Wheel teaches us about the link between our inner journey and the seasonal changes. The seasonal changes themselves can teach us about the world beyond our lived reality. We can avert our attention from the screens and pages and indoor rooms of our lives and take our attention out of doors. We can wonder what lies beyond that mountain, beneath that lake.

    It teaches us Covid too shall end. And, makes us aware as well, that it will both end and return again. Though I hope we don’t have to have another Trump. Please. Don’t make authoritarianism and rampant stupidity laced into cupidity a renewing moment. Please.

    Holiseason begins now. The term is not mine-I found it in the Oxford English Dictionary-but I apply it to the time between today, Samain, and January 6th, the Epiphany, the day after the Twelve Days of Christmas.  Holiseason includes so many, many holidays: Samain, Thanksgiving, Divali, Hanukah, Advent, Posada, Winter Solstice, Yule, New Years Day, Boxing Day, Kwanza. Add ones that you know.

    We bathe ourselves in light and darkness, spend time with family, often giving them gifts. Holiseason is a time to sing songs, make the tables groan with food, decorate the house, the city, the nation, hug friends and family, acknowledge all the ancient spiritual trails we follow,  cue ourselves in to the soul’s journey, move deep into the caverns of our own inner life.

    If you open yourself to its richness, holiseason will alert you to the fullest potential in yourself and those you love. It will remind you that the whole globe seeks for wisdom, for love, for light. Traditions come alive in song, in movies, in books. Poetry. We need not despair, even with Trump, even with Covid, even with hurricanes and wildfires. We are the people of the Holiseason. Joyous. Alert. Loving. Singing. Diving deep into our own souls to turn them inside out and know others through them. Blessed be.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     


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  • Fattening, Not Flattening

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall and the Moon of Radical Change

    Wednesday gratefuls: New wheelchair. #19! Better comfort for Kate. Covid days and Covid nights. With the flu on its way. Hunker down, USA. A gift from Ancient One, Tom Crane. Safeway. Picking up groceries in my jammies. Cool weather ahead. And, snow! Drive down that fire danger. Yeah.

    On the drive down the mountain to Safeway the Sun angle, the brown and gold Grasses, naked Aspen among the Lodgepole sent me back to trips to Aunt Marjorie’s house for Thanksgiving. Over the hills and through the woods.

    Picked up some squash today. Yum. Also, thought I indicated I wanted 5 tomatoes. Got five pounds instead. Chili tonight. Safety wise pickup is the gold standard. As it is in terms of limiting impulse purchases. However.

    The third surge of the first wave has come up hard against the rocky shore of pandemic fatigue. We have fattened the curve, instead of flattening. And, we are at it again. This time though with a broader reach in regions. That dovetails with three accelerants: the seasonal flu, cold weather and more indoor gatherings, winter holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah.

    By the time 2021 arrives two months plus a little from now we might be ready to skip ahead to 2022.

    The fall after college, 1969, Judy and I moved to Appleton, Wisconsin. My bakery job had me up at 4 am as my first Wisconsin winter closed in. The owner, almost joyous for a Norwegian (I now know.), used to sing, “I’ve got my love to keep me warm.” Yeah. But, he was the boss, you know. I can still hear him. Seems like the perfect song now.

    Or, this. The weather outside is frightful, the fire is so delightful, and since we’ve GOT NO PLACE TO GO, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! (caps mine, ya know.)

    Did I forget to mention the election? An election is coming. Like winter. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote.

    Local satellite gathers dust from meteor. The Lockheed-Martin works off Deer Creek Canyon Road celebrated as their designed and built OSIRIS-REX blew on asteroid Bennu and collected (they hope) dust in an extended ring.

    There is a robust space industry in Colorado and it will get much bigger if Trump’s Space Force decides to permanently locate its headquarters here. It has a temporary headquarters in Virginia but there are already several sites here: Buckley AFB, Peterson AFB, Schriever AFB with 10 of its fifteen units in the state already.

    Back to writing. Kate read the first half of Jennie’s Dead and her response to it jarred me back to the keyboard. I can’t exercise until next Monday so the time is easy to find. I feel good, like I know I should. Writing buoys me up.


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  • Nothing is lost.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall and the RBG Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: Cheaters. Again. Stephen King. The Institute. Dr. Gustave. Makeshift eye protector. PSA’s forever. The Wind. Golden Aspen. Blue Sky. Black Mountain. The loft. My library. This computer. Amber. Kate. Her Jevity.

    The spirit of Fall has come into me, rests with me. The Trees of my inner Mountain have changed color, taken gusts of wind, and lost most of their leaves. The bare, fallow time Soul needs this transparency for its work.

    Perhaps each fall I grieve the loss of those leaves, wish for a while longer with their food making, their feeding. Mom’s death in October, the 25th Mary writes, came amongst this seasonal loss. Added to it. The feelings around her death seem to reemerge eachFall, making my mood sad, reflective, inward. Melancholic.

    Seasonal synchronicities reach deep, help us experience the Great Wheel as a reality in our life. As Mom’s death created this strong Fall resonance for me, I can walk my ancientrail of grief and death as Trees lose their leaves, Grasses brown, Meadows turn gold.

    The experience though has more sides. The seasons are never just this or that. It is the Elk rut. The Mule Deer rut. The Black Bear’s final eating, hyperphagia, before hibernation. Roots store the sugars and proteins from a Summer’s sun and rain. The Mycological world begins absorbing and repurposing the fallen Leaves, the dead Animals, increasing the depth of duff and topsoil.

    Life literally in the midst of death. Melancholy might be the Mycology of the soul. It grabs onto our fallen persons. The withered dream. The gathering dark. Changes them. Makes from them compost for the growth we need. Nothing is lost. Nothing.


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  • Shadowed Mountain

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall and the waning RBG Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: Our money. The house on Shadow Mountain. The loft. Ivory in a new home. Jon’s Subaru, now planted in our garage. Mary, Mark, Diane, Kate: the clan. Sleep. Movies. Hamburger.

    Kate reminded me, after a rant, that October is my season of melancholy. Mom’s death came this month, in 1964. Couldn’t remember the exact date, I think it was October 5th.

    Anyhow that’s the date I gave CBE for recalling Mom’s Yahrzeit. Yahrzeit’s occur according to the Hebrew Calendar. October 5th, 1964 fell on the 29th day of Tishrei. This year the 29th of Tishrei is on October 17th, so her Yahrzeit will be celebrated in service on that day.

    I bought a 24-hour Yahrzeit candle that we will burn on Saturday. Maybe I’ll make hamloaf, mashed potatoes, and canned peas. Get out the albums from her war years. Remember this woman who carried me for nine months, gave birth to me, loved me through polio, elementary school, and almost all the way through high school.

    Not sure why I decided this was the year to acknowledge her Yarhzeit, but it feels appropriate. And, good.

    Cancer. Tomorrow my first psa after the lupron should have vanished from my body. My last lupron shot was in April. If the psa comes back undetectable, it will suggest that the radiation did kill the recurrence. If not, well…

    This instance of my prostate cancer was a recurrence though I’ve come to question that word. Some small remnant of cancer cells survived the removal of my prostate and are now a second clinical manifestation of the same cancer.

    Recurrence or new clinical manifestation of the old cancer my cancer did not go away, did not stop trying to spread out, grow bigger. And, it succeeded. We tried a second time to cure it: 35 doses of radiation plus nine months of androgen deprivation therapy, the lupron. 60/40 chance of a cure according to both Eigner and Gilroy.

    Even if this psa is clear, 5 years have to go by without a higher reading to make a statement. Then, you have 5 years of clear tests. Not, oh, you’re cured!

    The burden of cancer is its ambiguity, the layer of uncertainty it adds to daily life. Stubborn, resilient, recalcitrant to treatment cancer stays with you.

    So, melancholy. Yes. a time of the year, a time of life, a time of a disease’s journey.


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  • Mountain Recluses

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall and the RBG Moon. Orion, Mars, Venus, and the Great Dog

    Monday gratefuls: Ancient friends. Their journeys. Learning and education. Life. All those drops for my eyes. Peanut butter and Rigel. Carne asada, twice baked potato, and salad. Safeway pickup. That snow yesterday. Mom’s yahrzeit on the 17th.

    A bright, sunshiny day in the high 50’s. I worked at my computer. Turned around. A gray day. Snow blizzarding down, swirling. 39 degrees. Colorado. An hour later. No snow. Blue sky. Sunny. Black Mountain absorbed it all.

    My ancient friends keep talking about the Ground Hog day nature of their lives. Not so for me. Each day has its own challenges. Our meal times vary. Sure, there are equivalent actions at familiar times: feeding the dogs, a.m., coming up to the loft, writing this blog. Breakfast, change Kate’s bandages. Noon or so nap. Evening dog feeding, some television. In between these though I could be reading, painting, writing.

    Our life had a cloistered feel even before the pandemic. That’s intensified, for sure. We don’t have the occasional meal out. No movies. No CBE. Zooming with family, friends, synagogue classes. Yes, not the same as in person, as we all know now.

    Both of us though are introverts. Kate even more so than I. Happiness is a book, a project, a downtime hour painting or sewing, watching a movie. Of course we love our kids, our grandkids, our friends, the folks at CBE. We would like to see them more often. But, not too much more often.

    Mountain recluses. That’s us. Just got a novel, A Life of Li Bai. Either at retirement or upon banishment Chinese literati took up mountain living, usually as recluses. Li Bai, a Tang dynasty poet exiled in the time of the An Lushan rebellion is a mountain poet.

    Here’s one of his memorized by generations of Chinese schoolchildren:

    Thoughts in the Silent Night (静夜思)

    床前明月光，   Beside my bed a pool of light—
    疑是地上霜，   Is it hoarfrost on the ground?
    舉頭望明月，   I lift my eyes and see the moon,
    低頭思故鄉。   I lower my face and think of home.

    And another famous poem (in China) by Han-Shan, or Cold Mountain, Poem 302:

    出生三十年， I’ve been in the world for thirty years,
    當遊千萬里。 And I must have traveled a million miles.
    行江青草合， Walked by rivers where the green grass grows thick,
    入塞紅塵起。 And entered the frontier where the red dust rises.
    鍊藥空求仙， Purified potions in vain search for immortality,
    讀書兼詠史。 Read books and perused the histories.
    今日歸寒山， Today I return to Cold Mountain,
    枕流兼洗耳。 Pillow myself on the creek and wash out my ears.

    The pandemic has changed our lives, but not that much. Li Bai or Han Shan could have lived here.

    The Consolations of the Mountains. Our wild Neighbors. The dark night Sky filled with Stars and Planets and Galaxies. The Lodgepole Pine and the Aspen. The dancing, sparkling Streams. The sturdy Rock. The thinner Air. Shadow Mountain home.


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