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December 31, 2021 · Leave a comment ·

*New Year’s Decor from 2012 when we lived in Japan*

What to make of these transitions that are culturally significant in so many different cultures?

The Jewish Head of the Year (Rosh Hashanah) is not Jan 1st, but will begin on Sept 25, 2022, but that’s not even the first day of the first month of the Jewish year; that’s the month of Nisan, which is in the spring and the month in which we celebrate Passover. The Christian liturgical calendar begins with the first Sunday of Advent, usually at the end of November or the first Sunday in December. And the Chinese New Year will begin February 1, 2022 (and will be the year of the Tiger according to my search engine).

A common-ish thread holding all of these “new” years together seems to be this idea that we can start something fresh, that there is a whole new slate waiting for us on that calendar that isn’t full yet, and yet very full of all kinds of obligations. We make resolutions, set goals, or talk ourselves into believing that next year will somehow be better than the ‘dumpster fire’ that we view the previous year as having been.

And while I’m happy in so many ways to bid adieu to 2021, the truth of the matter is that a lot of good took place for me in 2021: I got a full time job again with benefits; I am still married to my best friend of 30 years; I have own a house (too many years of mortgages payments left, but still); there is plenty of food in my house; and I was able to spend my 50th birthday with dear friends I have known for almost half of my life. So, while I don’t really want to call 2021 a “shite year,” I am hopeful that 2022 will be a little shinier and will do what I can to help make it so.

As such, I will be dusting this old thing off to help cultivate the discipline of writing again. And I’m seriously considering participating in Dry January and Veganuary as a way of helping the year start a little bit “cleaner” with regard to my health, but also as a way of helping me practice staying grounded in the present moment. And staying grounded in the present moment is good for my mental health.

Anyway, I’m off to finish dinner, light the Shabbat candles, and watch Phish play their NYE show.

May you have a safe transition to the new side of of the Mobius Strip.

Unrelenting

April 18, 2021 · Leave a comment ·

They say, “It’s too soon! We shouldn’t be politicizing this while family and loved ones are still mourning those who were killed. Offer your thoughts and prayers!”

We have been saying that since at least 1999 (Columbine) or maybe it was 2012 (Sandy Hook).

But in the past month there have been 45 mass shootings. Process that for just a second because if you process it much longer that number is going to change. We have experienced more mass shootings in the past month that there have been days in the month. And I can’t even say if, given the shootings in Omaha, Kenosha, and now Austin, that number is an accurate figure.

But all we get from these events are “Thoughts and Prayers.” I have ‘friends’ (and family) who say that we need to pray for changed hearts; “If we just get more people to follow God in their hearts we wont need gun laws.”

All I can say right now is that even the anthropomorphized Thoughts and Prayers is asking for a reprieve. It’s screaming from the engine room, “I’m giving her all she’s got, Captain! I canna give her no more!”

So let’s just not, okay?

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, on Twitter, wrote:

Let us beat them into art.
Let us beat all the guns into plowshares.
Let us forge them into parts for the new city transit system.
Let them be used to build, to feed, to nurture, to nourish.
Not this. Not this. Not what we have now. Not this.”
(@TheRaDR 12:42 PM · Apr 18, 2021)

I’m not that eloquent. Maybe it’s because I’m angry. Shouldn’t all of us be angry right now? And not because “the Libs want to take your guns” (and don’t get me wrong, THIS Lib wants to take your guns; I’m done; I’m over it.) We should be angry because our refusal to do anything to alter the status quo means that we are willing to accept the cost of life after life after life after life after life after life after life….(how much longer should I go on?)

That’s what we are saying with our refusal to change. Human life has zero meaning. None. Nada. Zilch. Not compared to the intrinsic value of some folks’ Second Amendment Rights.

There are no good guys with guns. There are only angry people with guns taking it out on other people with those guns, or fearful people posturing with their guns who are really just on the brink of becoming an angry person with a gun taking it out on innocent people.

There is no other problem in our country that we believe can be solved with Thoughts and Prayers.

We cannot wait until the pain of the tragedy passes

because it is unrelenting

Crappy Pome 022221

February 22, 2021 · Leave a comment ·

Today

The weight of

Eleven months of isolation

Rests boulder-like on my spirit

How many refrains of

“You are not going to have a breakdown”

Before the words sink in

And the sensation lurking at the edges of my being

Hears and complies with my will?

Self reminds self

What you have today

is better than life on a 41-foot boat

Truth, however, is logic’s tool

Not a salve for emotion

Loneliness derives

no comfort

from logic

Rest in Pandemic Time

February 12, 2021 · Leave a comment ·

it’s good to intentionally embrace and ponder beauty
it’s healthy to allow yourself to feel peace
to know that you are enough
by simply
being.

Word O the Day: 01282021

January 28, 2021 · Leave a comment ·

Sits on a boat deck watching the world slowly go by

Fewer people walking in the park now that we got this here pandemic on (but it’s still too many, considering)

Sits at a multi-purpose flat object that once served as a simple dining table, but is now the work space and watches the mob swarm the Capitol

Sits/Stands/Paces around the house scanning social media posts and hears people berate survivors of mass shootings

“Hard to say what sad is anymore,” he thinks.

“Especially if the mere lack of vitriol is meant to be a synonym for happy.”

Via Word of the Day: Sad

Still a Pilgrim, Still Searching

January 25, 2021 · Leave a comment ·

I started using “wandering pilgrim” as a social media identifier quite a few years ago — like almost twenty years if I stop to think about it.

My family and I were on a journey from place to place, taking care of people; taking care of communities, and I was positive that journey would never end until we (my wife and I) were vintage bottles of wine ready to be uncorked.

A risk involved with taking care of people is that it can (and in my case did) do personal damage. To the point that the physical wandering ended and we have finally found our forever home, nestled up on California’s North Coast, with ancient redwoods to the East and the Northern Pacific Ocean in all its savage fury to the West.

What then to do with the ‘wandering’ part of “Wandering Pilgrim”? I have loads of time on my hands now and this question rolls around with all the existential dread it can muster. Can I actually settle down after almost 20 years of living in all those different places, and different cultures?

I think we’re all wanderers to some degree, though, even if we don’t wander geographically; even if we aren’t moving physically; but still, while my mind may wander, my body is rooted to a single geographic place for the first time in my life. Even as a child we moved a lot. I think it was like nine schools in twelve years or something like that. While I am conditioned to wander, the prospect of having a place to finally sink in roots is incredibly appealing. I am sure the wanderlust will continue, and when we emerge from this pandemic chrysalis, my wife and I will get back to wandering the world, but for pleasure this time. And with the knowledge that if we don’t feel like it, we don’t have to.

More than wandering, though; I’m a pilgrim through and through.

I just completed a cultural studies program that allowed me to research certain aspects of sacred pilgrimage and look at some of the ways that we enact those movements (normally to sacred sites) in cultural forms.

I also spent a little over a month on the Camino de Santiago in the summer of 2019 with my wife, walking (most of the way) from St. Jean Pied de Port, France to Santiago, Spain–an integral experience in that life transition we were going through, and huge source of lessons I’m pretty sure are still unfolding in my life today.

I think my ‘wandering’ connects to the search for meaning in the now, in this moment. I can very easily dig around in my past experiences, and some days those experiences insert themselves into my now completely uninvited; but if I let myself “be here now” (as the guru said) then I can search for contentment instead of wondering why things aren’t “they way they used to be” or “the way I want them to be.”

You may see this topic come up on this blog a lot as I explore what it means to be a “wandering pilgrim” while living in the same place. I guess this will turn into a forum for my intellectual calisthenics and exploration of curiosity, while still serving as my outlet for crappy pomes and random bits of life.

(Social media is kind of funny in that once you have “brand” for yourself, things can turn pretty anti-social when you change that brand. Either way, I’ll probably still just be screaming into the abyss or talking to myself more often than not, but should you be so inclined you can join me on the road.)

Shalom.