{"id":62603,"date":"2025-10-03T06:22:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T12:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=62603"},"modified":"2025-10-03T06:35:47","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T12:35:47","slug":"health-and-protest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=62603","title":{"rendered":"Health and Protest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mabon and the Harvest Moon<\/p>\n<p>Friday gratefuls: Tom. Alan. Prostate Cancer. Shadow. Debbie. Dr. Vu. Needles. Lidocaine. Nathan, back at work, finishing up. So many Tomatoes, more than I imagined, less than I hoped. Artemis. Letting people help. The Night. Cool Mountain days. Bright blue Colorado Skies. Rocky Mountain High.<\/p>\n<p>Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shadow&#8217;s Attention<\/p>\n<p>Life Kavannah: Wu Wei<\/p>\n<p>Week Kavannah:\u00a0 Malchut. Wonder<\/p>\n<ul data-hveid=\"CBoQAQ\" data-ved=\"2ahUKEwiYzaul-oeQAxU4DTQIHfOiNrAQm_YKegQIGhAB\">\n<li><span data-huuid=\"9241904441820653145\">&#8220;What we lack is not a will to believe but a will to wonder&#8221;.<span class=\"pjBG2e\" data-cid=\"00337ff9-3b16-4e4a-bfd5-530ce3e402dd\"><span class=\"UV3uM\"> Heschel<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Tarot: paused<\/p>\n<p>One brief shining: Onto the gurney again, face down, four numbing jabs, four lidocaine jabs, meanwhile talking about great bands, concerts; Jake, the physician&#8217;s assistant saying he&#8217;d seen the Dead, second to last Jerry Garcia performance, asked me my favorite concert, &#8220;The Cream in the Chicago Stockyards. 1968.&#8221; Ah. Days of yesteryear.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/ChatGPTImageOct3202506_30_00AM-ezgif.com-webp-to-jpg-converter.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-62605\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/ChatGPTImageOct3202506_30_00AM-ezgif.com-webp-to-jpg-converter-420x630.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"254\" height=\"381\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/ChatGPTImageOct3202506_30_00AM-ezgif.com-webp-to-jpg-converter-420x630.jpg 420w, https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/ChatGPTImageOct3202506_30_00AM-ezgif.com-webp-to-jpg-converter-744x1116.jpg 744w, https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/ChatGPTImageOct3202506_30_00AM-ezgif.com-webp-to-jpg-converter-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/ChatGPTImageOct3202506_30_00AM-ezgif.com-webp-to-jpg-converter.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 254px) 100vw, 254px\" \/><\/a>Health: Lidocaine wears off in 8 hours or so. Usually. Mine has blessedly chosen to stay around a bit. This morning I&#8217;m as close to pain free as I&#8217;ve been in a couple of years. Feels amazing. If the nerve ablations pull off a similar feeling for a longer period of time. Hallelujah\u00a0 will not be enough.<\/p>\n<p>Learning to ask people for help. As Tara said to me, &#8220;Asking someone to help is a great gift. To them.&#8221; Seems so. Great conversations with Susan and Debbie on the way to Lonetree and back. Since I&#8217;ll need more help as time goes on, a valuable lesson.<\/p>\n<p>My friend Ric Posner, who had a heart attack a month and a half ago, sent me a text that he&#8217;s going to DJ again this Saturday afternoon. His show, the Comfort Table, goes out over Clear Creek Radio. Glad to see he&#8217;s able to do it.<\/p>\n<p>Other friends have sleep studies and treatment decisions to make. It&#8217;s that time of life. For some of us. Bill Schmidt on the other hand rocks on at 88. Odegard seems healthy at 80. Frank, well, still Frank at 93. Diane&#8217;s back to jogging up Bernal Hill, talking to the coyotes. 77.<\/p>\n<p>I know it may be difficult, sometimes boring, or perhaps scary, to hear another&#8217;s medical story; but, as Tom pointed out yesterday, this stuff matters to us now the same as family and work mattered in the second phase of our lives. No, you don&#8217;t want a steady drum beat, I get it. Still&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Protest: Sent this email to the President of my alma mater, Ball State University.<\/p>\n<p>Subject: Susan Sweirc<\/p>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\">As a 1969 graduate from Ball State, it appalled me to read her story in the New York Times.<\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\">Have you decided on anticipatory obedience, a hallmark of autocratic regimes?\u00a0You must have because her firing, both you and I know, violates her first amendment rights.<\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\">Universities, in spite of the temptation\u00a0and fear, must not bend the knee.<\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\">Shame on you.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div>Today I&#8217;m messaging David Letterman, a fellow 1969 graduate from Ball State, to see if he would head up an alumni protest. I mean: Colbert, Kimmel.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>We cannot. Let. This. Shit. Stand.<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mabon and the Harvest Moon Friday gratefuls: Tom. Alan. Prostate Cancer. Shadow. Debbie. Dr. Vu. Needles. Lidocaine. Nathan, back at work, finishing up. So many Tomatoes, more than I imagined, less than I hoped. Artemis. Letting people help. The Night. Cool Mountain days. Bright blue Colorado Skies. Rocky Mountain High. Sparks of Joy and Awe: &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=62603\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Health and Protest<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[127,100],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62603"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62608,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62603\/revisions\/62608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}