• Category Archives Friends

  • Love

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa and the Waning Crescent of the Herme Moon

    Sunday and Monday gratefuls: The Trail to Cold Mountain. Off book. Kristie. Off meds? Sunday’s Ancientrails, forgotten. Unusual. The Ancient Brothers on love. A morning with Rich and Ron. Also about love. Burn away everything but love. Study today. Jewish identity. Cool and Foggy morning. Good sleeping. Ready for packing. Cable organizer. Reinforcing off book for the Trail to Cold Mountain. So many wonderful people in my life. Korea and Israel. Same continent. 5027 miles apart. [Osan to Jerusalem]

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Good friends

    One brief shining: A bowl filled with strawberries, blueberries, black berries, and slices of mango sat by a wooden cutting board with lox heaped upon it next to a lazy susan with cream cheese, capers, cut onions, almonds warm cut bagels on my plate as Ron and Rich and I sat together talking mussar, parenting sons, writing, such a good morning.

     

    I have now a surfeit of riches. Wealthier than I could have dreamed possible. And, yes, in terms of money, too. More important than money though friends and family who love me. Whom I also love. Who will open themselves to me and I to them. A wonderful morning yesterday as an example.

    The Ancient Brothers gathered on zoom to talk about love. Ode talked about Robert Bly’s connected universe, all atoms linked to each other in a grand chain of becoming. As are the atoms in each of us. Bill added Buckminster-Fuller’s Cosmic Plurality:

    “Cosmic Plurality”

    Environment to each must be

    All there is, that isn’t me

    Universe in turn must be

    All that isn’t me AND ME

     

    Since I only see inside of me

    What brain imagines outside me

    It seems to be you may be me

    If that is so, there’s only we

    Me & we, too

    Which love makes three

    Universe

    Perme — embracing

    It-them-you-and we

     

    Paul offered Rilke:

    Widening Circles

    Written by Rainer Maria Rilke

    Translated and read by Joanna Macy

    I live my life in widening circles
    that reach out across the world.
    I may not complete this last one
    but I give myself to it.

    I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
    I’ve been circling for thousands of years
    and I still don’t know: am I a falcon,
    a storm, or a great song?

     

    Tom reminded us of the love we learn from the dogs in our lives, the angels of our youth and of our old age. Of kindness. Of the sweetness of vulnerability.

     

    I spoke again of the gift given to me between Mile High Hearing and Dave’s Chuckwagon Diner: The purpose of life is to burn away everything but love. If we perfected a just society, we could live only in love with each other. So to burn away everything but love, seek justice. If we could see the ohr [the shard of sacredness, divine light] in each other, in all Trees and Rocks and Roads and Flowers that love Great Sol and Mule Deer and Elk and Mountain Lions and Bears and all Mountain Streams and all Rivers and Oceans and in the Air we breathe, we would cry out in revelation like Mohammed, like the writers of the Torah and like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, there, the sacred, it’s right there! And we could/would love it all.

     


    Dogs Family Feelings Friends Judaism Plants Poetry Reimaging revelation Torah Wild Neighbors Writing

  • Old skills

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa and the Herme Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Janet. Her name is Janet. Mussar. Leading a discussion. Metaphor and the sacred. Thinking. Feeling. Lev. Luke and Ann. Ian. Carol. Gracie and Leo. Sarah and Elizabeth. Judaism. Reconstructionist. Finding religion again with no reservations. Hallelujah. Conversion in Jerusalem. Prostate Cancer. Irv. Marilyn now home. Tara in Europe. The Trail to Cold Mountain. Final edits. Now it’s a script for me to learn.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Leading

    One brief shining: In a far away state at a time now long ago I used to sit down often at a table or stand in front of a room knowing my job was to take a conversation with those present through difficult terrain, perhaps deciding how to take on unemployment or a recalcitrant landlord or an obdurate city hall or one of the many corporations that wanted to reach into people’s lives and take away their agency, then make a turn from conversation to action. Oh how I loved it.

     

    Yesterday for an hour and a half. I led the mussar group through the most difficult terrain of all, those things that matter to our interior, to our souls. I’d forgotten how satisfying it is to do that. I avoid leadership roles these days. Saying no rather than yes. Saying been there. But as a substitute for the Rabbi. A one time thing. I said yes.

    I miss it. Reading the pulse of a group, guiding in a gentle way or a forceful way depending on the need of the moment, offering my own thoughts lightly or not at all or for the purpose of digging further into the topic. Yesterday’s topic was the purpose of metaphor and the application of that purpose to language we use about God. Also, strangely and powerfully, the question: What is God for? A lot to be said on this. We spent a fun hour and half doing just that.

    Perhaps I could find these moments a bit more often. I don’t want to chair a committee. Nope. But I sure did enjoy the time yesterday. Though. I did fuzz up Janet’s name. Conflated her with Marilyn who sat beside her. Because the group has three Marilyns and Janet’s name, for some reason, skipped my mind. Don’t you love that phrase, skipped my mind? Janet danced away from available attention, played hopscotch in another corner just out of reach.

    She came up to me afterwards and said, “My name is Janet, Charlie.” Oh. Oops. Ian, a visitor from California gave me a fist bump.  He’s my age. Luke came up and gave me a big hug. There was a buzz in the room, the conversation spilling over past the end of the meeting.

    On my way out to the car Ginny came up to me and asked if I was converting. Yes, I said. Could I talk to you about it sometime? Ginny’s an Arkansas farm girl turned opera singer then stage actor then nurse. I told her I’d love to. Maybe the Blackbird? Which is in Kittredge where she lives with her partner.


    Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Judaism Memories Minnesota Mussar

  • Life and imaginary life

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Herme Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Joan. Alan. Bread Lounge pastries. The Cuban. Calendars. Mayan. Gregorian. Julian. Lunar. Jewish. Celtic. The Great Wheel. Seasons. Living into revelation. Living with revelation. Seeing the sacred. Seeing yourself as you are. The examined life. The authentic life. The life that burns away everything but love.  Psilocybin. Guides. The layers of our selves. Inner life. Acting. The Trail to Cold Mountain. Brother Mark and sister Mary. My son, Seoah, Murdoch. Korea.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: honest conversation

    One brief shining: After I exercise, I go out on the loft’s deck, sit in the wicker chair carried here from Andover when we had that glass table top, Great Sol still behind the garage because it’s close to noon, and look at my house, the Lodgepoles in the yard, up to Black Mountain, the ski runs there carved by privilege “earned” in the petroleum addiction trade, and pinch myself yes you do live here.

     

    Feeling even better about long periods of time alone. Yet also with times, often intense times in conversation. Going into the world of shared life with Rebecca, Tom, Diane, Alan, Luke, Rabbi Jamie, the Ancient Brothers, Joan, Tal. With the mussar group. With MVP. With Rich and Ron. This rhythm of welcome isolation and precious time with others feels like the right mix for me these days. I do wonder as I write this what I do for fun. Not much as I review my life over the last few years. The occasional hike. Movie. A nice meal out. Keeping up with F1. Art used to have  a big role for me. Not so much now. Perhaps that’s something I can change. Maybe learning Magic: the Gathering will open up an avenue for me. What do you do for fun?

     

    The Trail to Cold Mountain. Learning it a page at a time. A focus for the next three days. I talked to Ann yesterday. She’d doing the calligraphy for Cold Mountain’s poems. I also asked her to make me a white banner with Cold Mountain’s name in Chinese. Two characters. If she can, I’ll hang it in the background as part of the scene setting. The rest of the scene is this:

    Deep in a land of Mountains and Forests. In front of a cliff, a cave. A grove of pine trees opens out from the cave. A campfire burns in the grove, lighting the cave with flickers of light and shadow. Cut logs serve as chairs around the fire. Evening has fallen and a cool breeze carries the scent of pines and a not too distant river. Far off is the place Herme chooses to live. Green peaks in the background.

    Since I completed my first draft, it’s taken up less mental space. Though. If all goes well and other folks think it’s worth expanding, too, it may take up a good deal of my time after I get done traveling. Adding more scenes, extending the run time from 20 minutes or so to over an hour.

    May have gone a little overboard with all this. I bought a woodsman’s shirt, pants. A gourd like Chinese scholars used to hold wine. I’m spending a tidy sum having Ann do the calligraphy for the poems and perhaps the banner. Not to mention the cost of the class. Going to check with the Magic Castle, a costume place, and other prop shops to see if I can rent a woolen hooded green cloak and woodsman’s boots. Wish I’d thought of costume rental before I bought the outfit, but…

     

     

     


    Acting Family Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Shadow Mountain Writing

  • The Hermit Kingdom

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Summer Moon Above

    Saturday gratefuls: Leo coming up for the night. Fruit salad. Sleep. Good sleep. Korean history. Changing my view of northern east Asia. First full draft of Herme complete. For the acting class. Going to work with it today. Finding my sweet spot with exercise, reading, eating out with friends. A full life. Brother Mark and his rental car. The trap of desiderata. Opening myself further. Living on Shadow Mountain. In my mostly finished home. All the Creeks, Streams, Rivulets, Ponds, Marshes of the Mountains

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Change

    One brief shining: A therapist lives in my finger tips ready to take on any inner problem dice it up, spread it out on the page for consideration and evaluation then continue on through a resolution that often ripples through my lev in a way I can feel in my chest, the issue put in a new context, revealed as an old pattern, or tucked away behind my ear as a learning to keep close.

     

    Went part way down the hill to Morrison. The Cow. Alan and I met there for breakfast. It was a Friday, but the damned place was so busy. We had to wait twenty minutes. The closest sort of Mountain town to Denver Morrison sits right next to the famous Red Rocks Amphitheater. Downtown has plenty of places to hoover up tourist cash. The Cow among them. Apparently the only breakfast place though. Which makes sense since Red Rocks Concerts are evening affairs.

    Alan’s first question when I told him about my planned conversion? When’s your bar mitzvah? Hadn’t thought about that. Maybe around my birthday next year?

     

    Spent most of yesterday reading in a one volume history of Korea, Korea’s Place in the Sun by Bruce Cumings. I’m about halfway through and finding it fascinating. He focuses on contemporary Korea, but had to give an overview of earlier Korean history to put this time period in context. I’ve learned so many new things. How little I know about Asian history for one. I mean I knew I didn’t know much but the vast field of my ignorance has never been more obvious. It matters, too. Not my ignorance specifically but the general ignorance of Americans about Asia and its long, long history.

    Up until the end of the nineteenth century Korea was the little brother to China. Korea’s king went to the Emperor of China for investiture and the two nations had cordial relationships, including significant trade. But. China took no role in Korea’s internal affairs nor its external affairs except to serve as a deterrent to outside invaders. Korea kept itself to itself, repelling foreigners with force. That’s how it came to have the title the Hermit Kingdom.

    Did you know we had a military government in Korea from 1945 to 1948, immediately following the collapse of its Japanese occupation? Or, that the communists who were influential in the North were Russians, not Chinese? I didn’t. Only a hint of the insights and new facts I’ve gained.


    Asia Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Judaism

  • Look Round

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Summer Moon Above

    Thursday gratefuls: Rabbi Jamie. Judaism. Rebecca. Alan. Leo coming up on Saturday. Luke. The balance of my inner life. The things that throw it off. Weather. Lab results. Anxiety. Self-doubt. The soul. And its compass. No, better. Its gyroscope. Still strong. Moderate fire risk. My home. A sanctuary. As are the Mountains, CBE, the Ancient Brothers. Books. The U.S.A. Korea’s Place in the Sun by Bruce Cumings. Reading. Thinking. Loving. Health. Sleep.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The soul’s gyroscope

    One brief shining: The question is not will you get pushed around and down by the winds of change that blow through your inner life, of course you will, rather the question is have you created a strong gyroscope that knows how to keep you steady even when your inner balance shifts off course.

     

    Gyroscope. “A gyroscope is a device used for measuring or maintaining orientation and angular velocity.” [ Ancient Greek γῦρος gŷros, “round” and σκοπέω skopéō, “to look”] wiki

    My inner gyroscope became a strong stabilizer thanks to my now long ago meditation on my own corpse, occasioned by work with the Tibetan Buddhist mandala of Yamantaka that hangs in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts Tibetan gallery. Not the only aspect to my inner stability, no, but what I consider the most important.

    Often characterized as the Tibetan Buddhist God of Death, Yamantaka really wants to aid you in coming to terms with your own death. This is very important in Tibetan Buddhism since the ability to be tranquil at the time of your death affects your possibilities for reincarnation. That is, what your next reincarnation will be.

    I’m no Tibetan Buddhist but I recognized a good practice when I saw one and began a long period of meditating (visualizing and staying with the visualization) of my own corpse. It took a long while but I became comfortable with the image of my dead body. I’m sure the actual Tibetan practice is more involved and more subtle than what I did, but the effect for me was to gradually relieve me of any fear of death. It did not relieve me of wanting to live. To the contrary. Life became more vibrant, more precious.

    I’ve now encountered three what I would count as good deaths: Kate’s, Judy’s, and Leslie’s. That is, they all accepted the truth of their final illness, saw it for what it was, and lived at peace in the final days before their deaths. That does not mean they did not want to live. Of course, they did. Leslie said when told of her liver cancer, “Well, that sucks.” And, it did. Judy Sherman said often, “This beast will kill me. But not today!” Kate was so calm (when she was not experiencing air hunger) that she could reach out to the respiratory therapist who had just stuck a long needle in her wrist and drawn blood from an artery there and say, “Kenton, good job with the ABD.” (arterial blood gas draw). She saw the outcome of this phase of her long illness and chose to die. As did both Leslie and Judy.

    In the Greek sense of gyroscope they took a look round and saw things as they were, did not let denial cloud their judgments, knew this was not abnormal, rather so so normal. Their inner gyroscopes were strong, keeping them steady even at the end.

    How is your inner gyroscope?


    Family Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Health

  • The hits just keep on coming.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Summer Moon Above

    Tuesday gratefuls: Amy. Mile High Hearing. My hearing aid is back. Labs. Gamma globulin. Luke. Leo. Dr. Gonzalez. Tara. A great workout. Friends. Charlie H. Sadness. Arjan. EE. Working on electric planes. Bright Sun. Energy from the Great God Sol. Fatigue. Cancer. Worry. Trust your doctors. Kate. Whose memory is a blessing. Ruth and Mia. Gabe. Writing heals.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Writing

    One brief shining: This green coffee mug the one with the Nicollet Island Inn stamp comes from our 25th anniversary dinner there celebrating that night after our wedding we spent in a room at the Inn before checking onto Panam flight for Rome and the Hotel Internazionale at the top of the Spanish Steps. A sweet and precious memory.

     

    Writing heals. At least for me. Yesterday got my lab results back and they don’t look great. Low gamma globulin. Could be an early sign of leukemia or multiple myeloma. Could be other things, too. None of them welcome. They came in just before I took off for dinner at Tara’s last night so I hadn’t had time to let them sit, absorb the shock. Was gonna do that when I got back, but Tara asked about my health and it sorta spilled out. With my worst fears and least considered thoughts. I’ve known Tara a long time and I trust her a lot on the emotional level. Otherwise I might not have talked about my worry. But I did. Felt bad about throwing that in at the end of a dinner party.

    As I have learned over the last couple of years plus since Kate’s death, I’m most able to deal with upsetting information on my own, in my house. The phrase that echoes is: the hits just keep on coming. From WLS Chicago radio of the 60’s. I have a way of recentering, gaining perspective when at home by myself. I’m not saying I repress or deny. No. I am saying that I can step up to the day, or night as it might be, and say this right now is where I am and what I have to deal with. Yes, later there may be something else, but I will face it when or if it comes.

    This day is sufficient unto itself. I can live in no other place, ever. Today I have to retrieve my errant hearing aid, have breakfast with Luke and get my chart reading from him, then work on Herme in class tonight. That’s what Tuesday is. I’m living this day.

    And this. Death is not an optional experience. Whether it comes now, in the next few months, or the next few years. No medical report, no illness, no treatment, no doctor can change that. I’m ready if it’s today or ten years from now. However, as I’ve said, I’d prefer to wait. Even so. No amount of worry or fussing can do anything except make that day more difficult, more fraught. I refuse to die unhappy with the length or quality of my life. So I won’t.


    Friends Health

  • A bit more on conversion

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Summer Moon Above

    Monday gratefuls: Out of thin Air. The Ancient Brothers on the elemental. A good nap. Nights growing longer. Living in the temperate zone. Allergens. Itchy eyes, runny nose.  Peripheral vision. Vision. Taste. Hearing. Touch. Smell. Building our own personal reality. Rabbi Jamie. Dick. Tara and Arjan. The many folds and valleys, neurons and synapses of our brains. The wonder of the whole nervous system. Cancer. Prostate Cancer.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The mind-heart. The lev

    One brief shining: This morning the Lodgepoles exude health needles green bearing new green cones alongside older light brown ones shooting into the blue Sky with puffy white Cumulus drifting through and Black Mountain’s gentle presence not far away my home world.

     

    The Ancient Brothers talked through the four elements: air, earth, fire, and water. A week for each. Five different perspectives on each element. Paul, the careful researcher. Mark, the personal with a creative twist. Bill, often the religious or poetic. Tom, literary and scientific, poetic. Myself, the personal with a religious twist. Our differences are what make these Sunday mornings. Same topic through different lenses. All valid. All interesting. All enriching. A lesson here about the nature of the human community. We need you to show up as you. You’re the only one who can.

     

    Also a clue here about my reason for converting. In the Word to Deed class Jamie gave this past Saturday we discussed the Ma Tovu, a prayer said upon entering a synagogue or other house of worship:

    How lovely are your tents, O Jacob; your encampments, O Israel!
    As for me, through Your abundant grace,
    I enter your house to worship with awe in Your sacred place.
    O Lord, I love the House where you dwell, and the place where your glory tabernacles.
    I shall prostrate myself and bow; I shall kneel before the Lord my Maker.
    To You, Eternal One, goes my prayer: may this be a time of your favor.
    In Your abundant love, O God, answer me with the Truth of Your salvation.    Wikipedia

    While discussing the first three verses, I offered a slightly different reading than the others. Jacob represents the individual, Israel the collective. Or, said another way, the personal and the communal. As for me I take as the individual who, through the abundant grace of a collective or community (Your in this case referring back to the first line) enters with awe into a place made sacred by the community itself. This made me think of why I love CBE, the sacred nature of the connections I’ve made there. I now had a horizontal rather than a vertical view of sacred community. Not infused with holiness from above or without, but created from within the magic and mystery of human connection, human relationship.

    To go on. O Lord I read as a Self, a Soul. The rest is an inner prayer. I love this body and this community in which I dwell. The place where glory tabernacles. I am a humble member of this community which makes me who I am. To you, the Eternal soul/Self, I pray, hoping this is a time of your favor. In the abundant love I feel in this community I find the truth of your salvation. [salvation=healing, wholeness]

    As Bill said yesterday morning when I recounted some of this, he said, that’s what makes the Woolly’s special. And, it is. We find the sacred, the mysterious, and the grace filled not in some dogmatic prison but in the everydayness of our lives. With the people we come to love, with the people we come to trust with our most intimate selves. And with the places that give us the same feelings.

    So converting is not really about a religion per se, it’s making a claim about who my people are. I have at least three religions by this count: Judaism, The Woolly’s/Ancient Brothers, and my family.

     

     

     


    Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Judaism Woolly Mammoths

  • How bout that

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Summer Moon Above

    Saturday gratefuls: Pavilion L at Denver Health. Travel Clinic. Those two nurses. Typhoid vaccine. Immunocompromised. Joe Mama’s. Alan. Driving down the hill. A cool but clear day so far. Rain yesterday. Rabbi Jamie’s 18th anniversary. The potluck. Ice Cream from Liks. Seeing Sally, Ann, Ellen, Dick, Alan, Cheri, Helen, Rich, Kim, Rich’s mother, Irene, Elizabeth, Susan. A community. My community. An informal conversion. Me. Crossing the Threshold. A ritual. Herme, a one man show. Anemia. Weariness.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Alan and me

    One brief shining: Yesterday in a ten foot wide breakfast place Joe Mama’s Alan and I managed a feat worthy of an updated Buster Keaton sketch wherein I arrive early and take a seat at a two-topper right ear against the wall and back to the door order coffee looking at the menu until I decide to text Alan thinking he’s found the place as hard to locate as I did only to discover a text had come in from him saying the same huh so I turn around as Alan gets up from the table behind me where he’s been sitting for ten minutes having just read my text. Oh.

     

    Still laughing about that one. Once a month I drive down the hill and go to breakfast with Alan somewhere in the west Denver metro. This time it was Joe Mama’s. A clever name. I missed it twice. It’s situated between Celebrity Tattoos and The Glass Pipe Shop in a tiny strip mall on busy Colfax. My deaf left ear to noise, my right ear protected by a wall sound comes to me much more clearly, with or without hearing aids. So my back to the  door since the two-tops were only on the right side as you enter. Alan missed me when he came in and we sat like teenagers across the table from each other texting unaware of the other’s presence. Funny.

     

    Finished a session with Rabbi Jamie on Jewish prayer. Can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I am. I’m gonna convert. Or, join up. Or, whatever. It wasn’t so much about this session as it was a journey of the heart, a long one. A really long one.

     

    Just sent this note to Jamie:
    Can’t believe I’m saying this, but I want to go through the conversion process. Not so much to convert, I believe I’ve already done that in my heart, but to get more of the shared language of Judaism. That way I can appreciate the opportunities at CBE much more.

    Been on my mind for a while, but the recent work with metaphor and this morning’s work with the prayers has opened a way in for me at the human, non-metaphysical level I hadn’t felt before.
    Said I was done with joining things. Well, I was. Now, I’m not.

     

    Let me give you a brief synopsis of the journey: As an anthropology student, I had an assignment to visit a synagogue and write it up from an anthropological perspective. It felt very foreign to me. Somewhat foreboding. At the same time I was dating a Jewish girl and met her parents. He was a jeweler, but very well read in philosophy which was also my major at the time. That really impressed me.

    After my first philosophy class at Wabash demolished Christian proofs for the existence of God, I exited the Christian faith and became an existentialist vis a vis Camus.

    You know already, most of you, about my seminary and ministry experience focused, I now know, on the God as judge metaphor. God judged our society and found it wanting when it came to caring for the poor, the other, the downtrodden. So did I. So do I.

    I was a Christian. Yes, I was. But the glue that held me there was weak from a theological perspective. Justice has other roots than the New Testament demands for loving the neighbor. So when I felt the need to leave, it was not a difficult change. Especially since I’d found Kate and she me.

    At the time I found Kate I was also dating Caroline Levy and had a connection, never acted on, with Ellen Sue Stern. All three Jews. I had also made a vow to myself during college that I would not seek spiritual guidance outside the Western tradition. Why? Because culture is so powerful I believed we could only reach profound understanding with Western inflected religious tradition.

    I mostly followed that. No Buddhism. No Hinduism. Well, almost none. Taoism however did exert a pull on me. And remains an integral part of my essentially animist approach to finding the sacred.

    Then Kate and I moved to Shadow Mountain and because of her earlier conversion found Congregation Beth Evergreen. I became an embedded pagan over the last eight years first as Kate’s husband and then on my own right. I was happy with that until this morning. Now I want to move all the way inside the miskhan, the sacred temple that is the Jewish people.

    I’ve probably known I would do this since Patty told me Have a nice Easter and unbidden rose within me no, I’m a Passover guy. That was my clue that I’d converted in my heart already.

    So I’m gonna do it. Yes, I surprised myself here. Happy to do so. Consistency as my evergreen buddy Ralph Emerson says is the hobgoblin of small minds.

     


    Faith and Spirituality Feelings Fourth Phase Friends Judaism

  • A Shortie

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Summer Moon Above

    Wednesday gratefuls: Hail. Rain. Cool weather. Again. Acting class. Tal. You’ve got such a great presence. Joan. Police. Being flushed. Erleada. Herme. Cold Mountain. Poetry. Mountains and Rivers. The Tao. Chi. A great workout. Again. My home. My son and his wife. K-dramas. Tom. Diane. The Ancient Brothers. Zoom keeping us together. Alan, into the city for breakfast this week. Fog. Dewpoint. The mist on the road last night.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: The mind/heart. Lev

    One brief shining: Alfred North Whitehead a favorite metaphysician [what? you don’t have a favorite metaphysician? Hurry. They’re on sale this weekend!] developed a metaphysics based on becoming a process view of reality rather than a static one suggested by a metaphysics of being so he knew to begin with that the heart and the mind, the body were not separate but a dynamic whole sending sensory data in and pushing actions feelings thoughts out.

     

    Late night last night. Not in bed till 9:45. Acting class. I spent a good part of the day continuing work on Herme, my character study. 2 edits of my introduction established Herme and Gaius Ovidius as key figures who introduce the themes of Mountain life, chosen seclusion, and Chinese Rivers and Mountains Poetry. Right now it’s at about 15 minutes. Probably enough for the class and our showcase. Not long enough for presentation to larger audiences. Tal’s excited about Herme and would like to help me develop it into a one person show.

    Got up late, too. 7:55 for an 8 o’clock call with Tom. That’s shaving it close. Combine a late night and a workout day, 100 minutes. Result? A slow afternoon and evening.

     

    That’s all I got. Morning’s a better time all round for me.

     


    Acting Feelings Fourth Phase Friends

  • Learning my lesson. Again. And, yet again.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Summer Moon Above

    Monday gratefuls: Tal. Lid. Luke. Leo. Dick. Ellen. Rabbi Jamie. Laura. Lisa. Sagittarius Ponderosa. Roaming Gnome Theater. Aurora. Bad memories. Not blessings. Angry Chicken. Korean hot pot. Sundays. Shabbat. Seoah. Murdoch. Storms coming. The wettest June on record here. Keeping that Fire risk low. Traveler’s insurance. Allianz long term care insurance. Kristen. Travel medicine. Travel. Welcome to the journey.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shakespeare

    One brief shining: Read some of the Tempest and Midsummer Night’s dream this morning reminded of the packed and punchy nature of Shakespeare his plays and his poems words all tight ricocheting off each other building meanings until like a Han Shan poem one line changes the meanings of all that came before a genius so luminous I feel like kneeling down before him to say, Master!

     

    Ooh boy. I keep learning and relearning the same lesson. Which I suppose means I’m not learning at all. Anyhow. Drove into Denver yesterday, then into Aurora near Jon’s old house. Left here about 11:45. My plan. Go to Stanley Market, eat at Rosenberg’s deli, then make the short trip from there to Roaming Gnome theater for the matinee performance of Sagittarius Ponderosa.

    About half way down the hill on 285 I saw all the cars streaming west, latecomers to the usual Friday boat and camper show headed to South Park and the interior of the Rocky Mountains. What’s this? Oh. July 4th traffic. Folks taking the week, leaving late to avoid the Friday afternoon traffic jams so common here. Wait. July 4th weekend.

    Oh. Stanley Marketplace. Will be packed. I might not get served in time. I had given myself an hour to eat after arriving. Began to run through alternatives. The Bagel Deli just past I-25. That could work. Pulled into their parking lot. Nope. Folks waiting outside. Confirmed my hunch about Stanley Marketplace. Well. New York Deli not far from that spot. Will be too busy, too. A holiday weekend.

    I had wanted to eat lunch at Rosenberg’s, then pick up some dinner at the Angry Chicken after the play. I love their Korean fried chicken, but it’s way too far to go unless I’m close by. Turned north as 285/Hampden became Havana. An Asian inflected part of the Denver metro. H-Mart nearby. Lots of pho shops. A Korean hot pot and barbecue restaurant. Hmm. May not be as invested in the holiday weekend. Could be easier to get in and get out.

    It was. I had never had hot pot before though it’s similar in nature to Khan’s Mongolian barbecue in the Twin Cities. Tables with induction coil wells over which a pot of broth sits. You pick up soup ingredients on your own, take them back to the table, and put them in the heating broth. Waitress delivers the meat in thinly sliced rolls on long platters. Spent more than I wanted to but I learned how to do it. Will be useful when I hit Osan. Could have been tasty but I was in a hurry and didn’t really realize the potential of the hot pot.

    Got to the theater a bit late. They had waited for me. But not long. Sag was already underway. In the small darkened space I fumbled my way toward a seat. Dick and Ellen Arnold were seating in the same four chair row.

    The play itself. Can’t tell whether my hearing made it difficult to follow or whether it was the script. Or, the direction. Anyhow it had funny moments, tender moments, and commentary on the difficulty of communicating our selves as we know them to others, especially family members. Perhaps my expectations were too high?

    Anyhow I left quickly after the play was over at 3:30. Not before greeting Luke, Leo, Tal, Dick and Ellen, Jamie and Laura. Realized I leave things early because the hubbub afterward makes it impossible for me to hear.

    Drove to the Angry Chicken on Havana. Blessedly on the way home. Put in my to go order. Ten wings and some corn salad. Waited twenty minutes. Plastic bag in hand I left.

    Then drove back across the south Denver Metro in 90 degree heat, AC blasting. This is the lesson. I left the Angry Chicken at about 4:30. With the hard part of the drive ahead of me. I’d already been gone from home for almost five hours. Exhausted. Still in the city. The drive wasn’t torture. Not exactly. But it was uncomfortable, unpleasant. I was worn out, wanted nothing more than to be home. In my chair. At 8,800 feet. Cooler. Quieter. Way less busy.

    I can’t drive that far anymore for that long and not get exhausted. Just can’t. I know it. But not well enough. Not sure what to do about it either. Stay home? Nope. Need human connection, some out of the house moments. Go with others? Maybe.


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