Colorado, Commentary on the news, Science, US History

Ad astra per aspera

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Wednesday gratefuls: Artemis launch. The Moon. Passover. Exodus. Jews. Israel. Palestinians. Iran. U.S.  War. Peace.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Maddie

 

Kavannah: Wonder. Malchut.  Shadow

Tarot: Ten of Stones, Home. Teshuvah. Return to the home of my soul.

One brief shining: Space: The Final Frontier. Captain Pike of the USS Enterprise. Over the last year I started watching Star Trek series and movies. Trying to gain a more complete experience.

I remember that hot July Indiana day. 1969.  Our small black and white television crackled.  Judy and I lay on the bed almost naked. The gravelly voice of Walter Cronkite said, “Oh, boy.” One small step.

Today, perhaps at 6:24 PM EDT, Artemis II will slowly rise, then accelerate, carrying four astronauts on 10 days of wonder. I followed all the lunar landings, up to and including the last one in 1972. I was 26.

Ever since Sputnik. NASA. Doing the thing, not because it is easy, but because it is hard. The Space Race. I was so proud. To be an American. NASA had fulfilled every science intoxicated kid’s dream. Humans break free of Earth. To dance among the stars.

James Webb. Hubble. ISS. Starlink. We did not abandon space when Apollo shut down.

It gives me great joy to see us once again escorting astronauts across the high bridge to their crew cabin. More than three hundred feet above the ground. A tiny human habitat sitting on top of so much power. The courage to sit while controlled explosives push you deeper and deeper into the zero-gravity chair.

The Orion crew cabin came to life at Lockheed Martin’s Littleton, Colorado offices. At Beth Evergreen we have rocket scientists. Helen, a vibration engineer. Her ex. My friend Veronica who worked on the GOES satellites. Space is big business in Colorado.

Florida’s Space Coast. The orange first stage of Artemis already at the launch pad. Except for the fact that I dislike crowds, I’d love to be there. Feel and hear the rumble. Watch Artemis push beyond our sight, into the cold vastness.

On my way to a morning at RMCC I was a passenger. Ruth drove. Just beyond a familiar exit on 470, I looked up and saw Blue Origin. A several story glass façade.

A human launch. NASA in the news. Great billows of fire and smoke. Call up a primary fascination of my childhood. Buck Rogers. Commander Cody: Sky Marshall of the Universe. Primed. Then. Real humans. John Glenn. Neil Armstrong.

When a young boy’s fantasies begin to inhabit real life. Could it get any better? Mercury. Then Apollo. Even my son Joe spent several years dreaming of becoming an astronaut. Part of why he joined the Air Force.

Space flight returned me to a truer definition of home. Do you remember the blue marble photograph? Taken from the 1972 Apollo 17 crew capsule. Earth is my home. Our home. No matter how successful we become in space exploration. That blue marble? Home.

Not the U.S. Not Indiana. Not North America. The whole boundaryless earth. Our home.

Artemis rises.
Leaves the blue marble.
Flies far from home.

 

Cancer, Health

The Costs. Of Staying Alive

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Tuesday gratefuls: Neck brace. Frailty. Horror. The Big C. Laura Linney. Oliver Platt. Spice Ranch Fusion. Iran. Israel. U.S.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Eggs

 

Kavannah: Wonder. Malchut. cuTo salad. Mark in Hafar. Meds.

Tarot: Five of Bows, empowerment.  “…the battles you face are not necessarily for destruction, but to test and validate your inner power, leading to genuine empowerment.” May it be so.

One brief shining: I lay there on the exam table while Samantha fussed with the EKG machine. Needed more paper, the red horizontal grids. She tried various positions, but had to call in Lee. I asked why I had to take this again.

“The other one expired,” she said with a sardonic chuckle. The extended runup to the actinium trial. Long enough that the EKG I took a month ago was no longer current. “Just another example of our broken healthcare system.”

I like Samantha. She taught ESL in Bangkok. Too humid. “I wanted someplace drier. We’ve lived in Colorado for ten years.”

I drive down Shadow Mountain, down 285. Down the hill. Takes about forty-five minutes adding in a long stretch west on 470. The neck brace reduces exhaustion while driving. Its chief benefit.

I’m not completely fed up with the broken health care system. Not yet. I could get there. The physical demands of driving. Drug side effects. Imaging. Appointments.

It wears me down. I get home, peel off my neck brace, grab a cold water, and plunk down in my chair. Done for the day.

Here’s the irony. Stage 4 is no longer a death sentence. New drugs. New treatments like actinium. I so appreciate all the research. However. The longer I’m kept alive–my goal and my oncological teams–the more dramatic and invasive the treatments.

Costs go up, too. Erleada and Orgovyx. Drugs I’ve taken since 2019. Eight-hundred to nine-hundred dollars each. Monthly. Modest by the standards of other cancer drugs. Privilege. I have the money. I wonder about others.

Early on in this journey I could have had an axion scan. Insurance denied it. 35 sessions of radiation aimed at defined cancer activity. A possible cure. I got radiation to the place where my prostate used to be. 50% of returning cancer shows up there. Wasn’t where mine was.

Litigating the past derails the journey. Could I have been cured? Maybe. I wasn’t. Irrelevant today.

Today, eleven years later, I’m awaiting word on my randomization for the trial. Thursday. Samantha said they all hope I get into the actinium plus the souped up Erleada arm. That touched me. These RMCC folks. Kind. Helpful. Smart

My response to this trial will indicate my future path. If positive, I’ve got years ahead of me. If not…

Get an EKG.
Sign papers.
Keep going.

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends

Who do you love?

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Monday gratefuls: Luke, assistant professor of Chemistry. Jamie. Spring. Walking. Moving. Samantha. RMCC.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Leo

 

Kavannah: Wonder. Malchut. The eyes of Shadow. The rough bark of the lodgepole.

Tarot: Five of Vessels, Ecstasy. “…seek and surrender to the cosmic life force.” Accepting, embracing the power of life, even in hard circumstances.

One brief shining: Eating out with Luke. Our long relationship adds another memory over tandoori chicken and mango lassi.

 

Once every month or so Luke comes up to do his laundry. The machines in his apartment complex are cranky, expensive. I love that he comes. A chance to catch up. Eat a meal together.

When Leo comes in the house, Shadow sniffs under the door, tail wagging at propeller speed. Then she twirls around for a couple of turns. When Leo comes through the door, she races over to him, smiling, play bowing.

They go outside for a turn in the big yard, Shadow bouncy and running, Leo walking stiffly. At 13, he’s slower. His joints ache as he tries a couple of runs with the youngster.

Luke had let his hair grow for two years. It came over his shoulder. Before he came up here, he had it all braided, then cut off. He grew it out for a charity that makes wigs for children with hair loss. He showed me a picture of the braids in his hand.

Teaching becomes him. Nobody tells him how to teach. He’s teaching a field he knows well.

He stands straighter, speaks more confidently. He’s created chai-chi–tai-chi taught from within a kabbalist framework.

He also told me yesterday he loves when I tell him I love him. “Not many men do that,” he said. When did we become so closed?

Luke turns 35 this year. Veronica, my mikveh buddy, is late twenties. Ruth turns 20 this year, Gabe 18. At 79 I cherish these relationships.

I turned 34 (Luke’s current age) in 1981. The year Joseph was born and our adoption of him finalized. When I turned 20, I was, like Ruth, still in college. 1967.

The great chain of becoming.  Charlie to Joseph, to Luke, to Ruth. No blood. Still, we love.

When Kate died, I lost my best friend, my lover, my wife. What to do with that love? The love that flourished with Wolfhounds and Whippets, with working in the garden together, cruising around Latin America. Where does that love go? It doesn’t die with her.

Love as many as you can.
As often as you can.
Anywhere you can.

Feeding the dogs. Eating Indian food.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Garden, Great Wheel, Greenhouse, Politics, Seed Keepers

Dysphoria

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Sunday gratefuls: Mental energy. Physical energy. Emotional balance. Support. Driving. Agency. Diet. Mini-splits. Dr. Josy.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  The night sky

 

Kavannah: Wonder. Malchut. Seeing the aspen and the lodgepoles. Seeing Artemis.

Tarot: Four of Vessels, boredom. “…you may be overlooking new opportunities due to inward focus, fatigue, or dissatisfaction. It suggests a need to break routines and re-engage…” I have let fatigue and pain reshape, and narrow, my daily life.

One brief shining: Spring rising on the Great Wheel. Last Samhain–Summer’s End–I was still harvesting. A strong hint. Something’s wrong. Missed it in my joy over fresh tomatoes.

 

 

Samhain to Spring. My harvest extended well into November. I had planted late, in July, because Artemis took a while to finish. Seeing how the irrigation worked, tuning the heater and the exhaust fan for optimal tomato conditions, perhaps a chance to harvest some lettuce. That’s all I imagined.

The warm fall, which would extend into a warm, almost snowless winter, allowed the beets, spinach, kale, and tomatoes to continue growing, producing. I harvested these, plus a cucumber or two, until the nights grew too cold.

The garlic went in in early November, while I was still harvesting cherry tomatoes.

All of November, then December and January, now February and March I waited. To see snow fall among the lodgepoles. To have a quiet, white day. A fire in the fireplace.

Spring came nine days ago. Shadow Mountain went straight to summer. Wildfire risk: Extreme. Denver hit the nineties. I slept almost naked.

I have seventy-nine winters. None of them were like this one. Watching the snow fall. Sleeping in a cold bedroom. Bundling up to go out. Yes. Wearing a short sleeve shirt in March. No.

Time and the climate. Out of joint. We earn our spring through winter’s cold and ice. No contrast.

Lodgepole needles are brittle. Aspens, confused, push out buds. Elk herds have already started coming down to lower meadows. The Black Bears have been up and raiding garbage cans for a couple of weeks.

I asked Jackie, a fly fisherperson, whether she’d been out yet. “No,” she said, “The streams are too low.” Maxwell creek, in another year, would be deep and fast as the winter’s snow cover begins to melt. No snow to melt.

Trump says, “We’ll keep bombing our little hearts out.” I see my neighbors struggling to pay for gas and groceries.

I don’t recognize my own country.  Men I cannot trust; men who shame their friends and welcome autocrats. How have we let them in?

To be old and to have the fundaments of my world stripped away disorients me. Where am I?

I plant anyway.

Protest anyway.

I am here on Shadow Mountain.

 

 

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Paganism, Writing

Doing is Overrated

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Shabbat gratefuls: Rain in the forecast. Cancer. Clinical trials. Samantha. Dr. Josy. Ruth and Gabe. Ruth, 20 in a week.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Shabbat

 

Kavannah: Wonder. Malchut. Knowing myself, my world, my now. Shekinah.

Tarot: #17 The Pole Star. Embrace myself, follow my soul’s purpose.

One brief shining: Having that struggle. Again. Still. What am I, who am I? What is my soul’s purpose? Is it about what I can do? Or, is it about who I can become? Am I stuck in these questions, using them to distract myself from living?

 

College. The moratorium years. I spent them in a fluid, fluxing milieu of protests, carrying my green book bag, The hours in the library, in my favorite carrel. All-night shifts in the guard’s hut at Magnalite.

I came out of college with two majors: philosophy and anthropology. Two disciplines I still love.

Married Judy. A mistake. Unsure of myself. Wandering from silly job to silly job. My mind the same, always escaping from the work I was doing.

While working as a rag-cutter at Fox River Paper, I would spend hours unclogging the cutter, moving bales. Needing stimulation beyond the physical labor.

No direction. No purpose. Frustrated with myself. This went on into seminary, into my stint in the ministry. Oh, I found things to do. Managing the independent living program. Organizing. Consulting. None of them seemed my soul’s purpose. Organizing came the closest.

Yet even organizing fed the wrong wolf. The angry guy was not who I wanted to be. I had fed the same wolf in the polarized protests of the late sixties. I found myself in a constant scanning for injustice, for leverage, for communities willing to fight. Not a peaceful existence.

I had become a clergyperson because I did not want to cut rags anymore. Not because I’d had a sudden reconversion to the faith of my youth. It was a job with a paycheck.

Flailing. Celtic myth and legend. In writing my doctor of ministry thesis I found myself writing a novel, not the thesis. Something in me had stirred, moved me far away from the ministry. Made sense since my Dad was a writer. But. I didn’t like my Dad. Dissonance.

The novel and a turn toward an earth-centered faith led me out of the ministry. Looking back now, twenty-one years of Ancientrails, nine novels later, I’d say a primary purpose of mine is writing. Ancientrails has a body of daily work that not many can duplicate. That’s writing. Every day.

I have another purpose, less defined perhaps. Deep, honest conversation with others. Tara and I, her kids, mine. Gardening. Judaism. Dr. Josy, the joy of animals, her mission to deliver affordable care in-home.

There’s also the gardener, nature mystic. Fed by the green world. Planting. Communing with individual trees, plants. Loving the mule deer, the elk, black bears, mountain lions. A mountain man.

So here I am at 79. A man who writes about paying attention: to self, to others, to mountain life.

I guess those questions, about purpose, about who I can become occur when I feel I’m not doing. Not doing enough. A pox on those thoughts.

Doing is overrated.
Becoming.

Enough.

Cancer, Fourth Phase, Health, Memories

The Trial

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Friday gratefuls: Cool night. Starting my morning. Tamales. Cheeseburger. Mark in Hafar. Mary in Melbourne. Joe and Seoah in Osan.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  Morning Darkness

 

Kavannah: Areyvut. Mutual responsibility.  All humans are accountable one to another.

Tarot: King of Vessels, Heron. Quiet presence. Emotional balance. Waiting for the trial to begin.

 

One brief shining: I want my cancer on its heels. Samantha, trial coordinator, called. I need to go back in, redo an EKG, sign more papers. Tired of all the preparatory work. I want to start the trial.

 

Trial. I’ve had jury duty several times. All in Minnesota. A lot of sitting around, reading. Waiting. I served on one jury, an unmemorable case. We found the defendant guilty.

Juries fulfill the promise, made two-hundred and fifty years ago, that I will not judged by aristocracy, but by a jury of my peers.

This clinical trial brings together a jury of my peers.

The full trial lasts nine months. The sentence will be handed down by my body and the actinium’s aim.

No guarantees. My participation is voluntary.

You could call this a capital trial. Some of us will get a reprieve. Hope I’m one of those.

Science. I had polio, measles, and mumps. Polio was long ago, when I was about a year and half old. Yet it continues to impact me at 79. My head drops. My left diaphragm is paralyzed.

I remember mom coming in to check on me. A dark room. I was sensitive to light. Mom would bring me soup or a sandwich, lay a cool rag over my forehead. Measles.

Here’s the thing. When I was eight years old, I had to stand in line in Thurston Elementary. To get a shot. The polio vaccine. I felt this as a keen injustice since I’d already had polio. Result? By 1979, twenty-five years later, polio no longer menaced the U.S.

If only I’d had the MMR vaccine, first available in 1971, I could have avoided the measles and the mumps.

I know, from direct experience, the need for vaccines.

I have benefitted from medical science. I may have been born too early for the polio and MMR vaccines, but I’m pleased my son Joseph could get them.

Not to mention the many different protocols that have extended my life after my cancer diagnosis. I feel good about participating in the clinical trial. It’s medical science which will  help not only me, but thousands of men in the future.

I’m living proof that medical science matters. At the most personal level.

I’ll go in.
Repeat my EKG.
Sign the papers.

 

Cancer, Friends, Health, Shadow Mountain

Push Cancer Back

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Thursday gratefuls: Dr. Josy. Tara and Eleanor. Marshdale Burgers. Ana. No winter winter. Shadow and the puzzle.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Women

 

Kavannah: Areyvut. Mutual responsibility.  All humans are accountable one to another.

Tarot: #11, The Woodward. Cancer requires an unflinching acceptance of hard truths. Not easy.

 

One brief shining: Disturbing news. PSA went way up. Surprised everybody. Especially me. Bupathi says we’re so close to the trial, maybe April 8th for first treatment, that it makes sense to go forward. I hope actinium is a wonder drug.

The trial has three arms. It matters, a lot, which arm I get assigned to.

Randomization. An ugly word. Happens probably tomorrow. That’s when I’ll know. Or soon after.

A high PSA with multiple new metastases. Not a place I want to be. But. It’s where I am. I’m in need of something to slow down this latest run.

An ornery beast, this cancer of mine. Hiding, biding its time. When a treatment fails, it leaps out with a roar. As oncologist Kristie said, “This disease will run its course.”

I want my PSA lower, much lower. I want my cancer pushed back. If I can get a year, a year plus before having to change protocols, I’ll feel good. May not happen. I fear a minimal response.

My weariness peaked last week.  How do I get through this? I’m not alone.

 

Yesterday. An accidental confluence. Ana came first: dusting, vacuuming, cleaning sinks and toilets. Tara came second, bearing cheeseburgers from Marshdale Burgers. Tater tots, too. Dr. Josy came, too. She had dog poop removal equipment.

Ana has been cleaning my house since before Kate died.

Tara I’ve known for over ten years. She brings her black Doodle, Eleanor, over to the house for a Shadow play date. While the dogs play, we talk.

Yesterday, in addition to bringing lunch, Tara brought in my canned water and put it in the fridge. Then, she unloaded my dishwasher. She also brought soup.

Dr. Josy scooped up all of Shadow’s poop deposited after the dog run went into effect. She also walked the perimeter of my fence, finding two trouble spots. Which Tara volunteered Arjean to fix.

Key elements of my resilience.

Love
An empty dishwasher.
A clean dog run.

Garden, Great Work, Greenhouse, Plants, Shadow Mountain

Hands in the Soil

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Wednesday gratefuls: Dr. Josy. Heirloom Tomato Farms. Pine. Artemis. Starting the day. Trash pickup. House cleaning. Rain.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Heirloom Tomatoes

 

Kavannah: Areyvut. Mutual responsibility.  All humans are accountable one to another.

Tarot: Nine of Stones. Tradition.    I find value in the Shema, teshuvah, tikkun, talmud Torah.

One brief shining: Set chatgpt to work on this query: I want to buy heirloom tomato plants. Can you find places? The first entry: Heirloom Tomato Farms specializes in them. Where is it? Pine, Colorado, about 20 minutes from here.

 

In Andover Kate and I grew exclusively heirloom vegetables: garlic, tomatoes, carrots. No pesticides. Careful attention to soil chemistry. Daily care.

We came to love heirloom tomatoes in particular: Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Black Krim. These plump, heavy tomatoes– some weigh more than a pound–had a meaty interior that shamed store bought tomatoes.  What tomatoes were like before industrial farming.

It gave me pleasure to imagine a nineteenth-century gardener weeding around these same varieties. Probably in a kitchen garden on a farm. Kate and I were their hands and feet in not only a different century, but a new millennium.

I’m drawn to Heirloom Tomato Farms. In fact, I sorta want to jump in Ruby and drive over there today. Just to see their operation. Online sales begin April 12th. It’d be nice to have already developed a relationship with them before then.

Tomatoes do well in Artemis. As she proved last year. Night time warmth. Daytime temperature control by exhaust fan. I’ll have to restrain myself, not purchase more plants than I need.

I do plan to order at least two heirloom cherry tomato plants since I have all these sheetpan meals in my repertoire. We never grew them in Andover.

Soil. Hands in the soil. Seeds planted in the soil. Heirloom tomato plants. Transplanted in the soil. Water. Sun. Time. Yield: nourishment, excellent taste, abundance.

I saw a youtube video on the release of 5,000 bison on a 150,000 acre reserve of Texas panhandle scrubland. I watched twenty minutes of it, fascinated by the multiple effects a bison herd could have on that much land.

I wanted it to be true. It wasn’t. Yellowstone has a four thousand plus bison herd, by far the largest in the U.S. I don’t know why people would make such a video, but I do know this: My heart wanted it to be real.

My passion. Visionary projects. I have a list of those projects I support,* but Artemis says I’m in it, too. To plant my own seeds. Reap a local harvest. Stay in the tradition of those nineteenth-century kitchen gardens.

The Andover years put Kate and me in that tradition. With a bad back and limited stamina Artemis gives me a chance to offer an echo of them, but a real echo nonetheless.

We had a no snow winter on Shadow Mountain. My neighbors have built chicken coops and greenhouses. I’m growing heirloom vegetables. Artemis.

I have a passion for radical solutions like perennial grains; but I also have a passion for the wisdom of gardeners past, for the solutions of yesterday.

Artemis.
Hands.
In the soil.

 

*The Land Institute and its search for perennial grains. The American Prairie, creating a large, contiguous prairie restoration where, someday, bison herds might roam. Regenerative agriculture. Restoring the chinampas in Xochimilco.

Dogs, Friends, Shadow Mountain

Paw to the Leg

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Tuesday gratefuls: Dr. Josy. Audrey. Shadow’s ear. Marilyn and Irv. Kate, always Kate. Joy. Ahava. Good friends. New friends.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Prairie Grasses

 

Kavannah: Areyvut. Mutual responsibility.  All humans are accountable one to another.

Tarot: eight of bows, hearthfire.  Tend to the fires I have already lit.

One brief shining: Shadow of the morning. Vitality. Tail wagging. Ready. A day, take any day, dawn to the first three stars in the sky. My day starts long before the sun appears and ends near dusk. Shadow time.

 

Early mornings belong to Shadow and me. Quiet, sheltered. No cars hissing by on Black Mountain Drive. No barking dogs. Writing into the void of a blank screen. Telling myself a story.

Shadow has breakfast, goes outside. Comes inside sometimes  with no invitation. On her own volition. For Shadow though. It’s not usual. Reluctance. A while ago. Occasional refusal. After boarding school? No refusals.

Later. Breakfast with Marilyn and Irv. Primo’s, our usual spot, suddenly closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Aspen Perks.

Aspen Perks used to be packed in the mornings. Not now. Empty booths, chairs. I hope it’s a seasonal thing. None of the three local breakfast spots have gourmet pretensions.

Back home around eleven-thirty. The neck brace helped. Some. Very far from ideal.

Shadow would occupy the afternoon. She had been scooting her head, ear to the floor. Oh. I know this. Ear infection. I texted Dr. Josy. Whom I missed seeing after her frequent visits during care for Shadow’s cut right leg.

She came with her daughter Audrey. Before she examined Shadow, she asked about my health. The clinical trial. She understands the medical side. Healing.

After weighing Shadow, 36 pounds, Audrey held her down while Dr. Josy got out the otoscope. Right ear. A bit of wax. Nothing remarkable. Left ear. A ruptured tympanic membrane and some foreign body lodged deep in the ear canal. Not an ear infection.

Dr. Josy took Shadow home with her. Sedation required to clear the object from her ear.

After Dr. Josy left, the house went still. No Shadow. No paw requesting my attention. Rubber tires rest where she left them. I felt alone.

This morning, as I write, the house still feels empty. I miss Shadow coming over, sitting in front of my chair, staring at me. Her expressive face serious. Understand me, human.

Communication. We humans use words, too. They’re our paw to the leg. Marilyn and I dissected the latest on the Iran war. Our paw to the leg for each other. Debated the comparative venality of Trump and Netanyahu. Over breakfast. Confirming, again, our friendship with our presence. With our shared political views.

The life of March 22nd. Shadow. Writing and revising. Our morning. Time with friends. Time with Dr. Josy and Audrey.

Shadow away.
Missing her.
An empty house.

Writing

Never. Stop.

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Monday gratefuls: Starting the day. Peanut butter and kongs. Iowa State. Iowa. Basketball. Fantasy. Submissions. Superior Wolf.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Dogs

 

Kavannah: Areyvut. Mutual responsibility.  All humans are accountable one to another.

Tarot: 3 The Green Woman. I need to lean into my wild feminine. Holding seed, soil, leaf, and wild neighbors in my day-to-day self.

 

One brief shining: A cool morning breeze lowers the temperature. Shadow holds a Kong with frozen peanut butter in her front paws. Licking. Turning. I started this morning with: I arrive in my body before I arrive on the page. Gentle movement. Neck left, center, right. Shoulder rolls. Hip hinges.

 

Writing. Every morning. Every damned morning. Twenty-one years and counting. Let’s see: 7,665 mornings. I could not have set out to do that; rather, I created the space, developed the habit, and here I am, still writing.

You might think I would chafe under this routine. Push back, at least at some point. I might have, but I don’t recall it. Like eating breakfast.

500 words. My goal. Some mornings they spill right out, brain to keyboard. Other mornings? Getting there feels mechanical, saying this or that. No flow. A slog. Filler. I’m writing words to see the number count turn over from 499 to 500. I’m not proud of those days. When Kate died, I felt emptied out, nothing left to say.

I’ve written in Cambodia and Korea. I wrote as Kate and I made our slow cruise around Latin America. Many times from Hawai’i. Fingers on the keyboard in the Aegean Sea. Through the Panama Canal.

Loved the Picasso quote I found earlier this year: Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working. My habit ensures I’ll be working when inspiration finds me.

I never, well, rarely know what I’m going to write. I start with what my writing coach calls my liturgy: gratefuls, sparks, kavannah, tarot. One brief shining carries me into a starting point grounded in something concrete. Shadow and her kong. A cool breeze.

From there I keep going. The long, unintended journey of Ancientrails.

That sewer grate by the 7/11. Off Yaowarat. The main street of Bangkok’s China Town. Lotsa traffic. Hurrying. Right foot down, body moving across the street. A ruptured Achilles.

Back home. Surgery. No weight on my right leg for two months. Crutches. Mostly? Sitting in a chair, leg propped up. What to do. Read. Watch television. Something proactive.

Ah. A blog. Contacted cybermage Bill Schmidt. He set me up with Microsoft’s Front Page. February, 2005. Fits and starts. Happened on the name. Early on the Great Wheel. Celtic lore. Holidays.

In late 2006 I shifted to WordPress, again with Bill’s help. Somehow in that transition, I lost the first two+ years of Ancientrails. I miss seeing those beginner’s mind posts. Seeing a distracting task turn into a lifelong practice. Since then each entry is in a searchable  database accessible through the Breadcrumbs button.

My writing coach wants me to go back through those entries to find material for a book of short personal essays. Might do that.

I know I’m in the final years of my life. Needing a clinical trial to slow down my cancer.  As my fourth phase continues, the last phase, walking with death as a close companion (neck brace in place), I find myself deep in the rich deposit of past work. Tightening my style, revising, revising.

Working with years and years of Ancientrails, with those novels. Not dead. Still pushing forward. Learning how to write.  Always.

Like Shadow
Turning her peanut-butter filled toy.
Turning.