a while back, in response to things i'd written here, Acey of Nichobella and Sparkling Lotus-land offered to send an Essence that she had prepared, thinking i might find it beneficial in the time to come. this particular Essence was offered in response to " contemplating a brand new thing – in leaving the land you love dearly and did not psychically or emotionally plan to leave"…her words in quote. i responded that Yes, i would very much like to work with this essence, that i had used Bach Flower Essences in the past and am very responsive to them.
some time passed. and as it is, the timing of the arrival of the Essence was perfect. i have begun using it and will talk about it as it goes but in this moment, want to mention its traveling companions. when i opened the box, i found several things, all within a nest of pine boughs. i won't talk about all of them now, but just two things …. a small stone which i immediately "saw" and held. since i was a child, stones have held great meaning to me and as i held this stone, i fully realized that i had stopped acknowledging this meaning, acknowledging this relationship. the glare of this reality startled me. the last gift of this box that i looked at was a book. this surprised me. this in some ways was not in keeping with the other gifts. it is Adventures with the Buddha a personal buddhism reader edited by Jeffery Paine i know that i have mentioned my efforts on the buddhist path, but still….and i thought maybe it was a book that Acey particularly liked and thought she would just send along? but then, i opened it to the table of contents and there, chapter 1 Tibet as It Once Was Alexandra David-Neel
it was then, with going back to hold and Behold all of the contents, to hold the beautiful cobalt bottle of the Essence, that i was flooded with the sense of some Big Picture that i had not imagined. Yes, it was about this Leaving that i will do and Yes, it is about my Place within the triangle of 3 women, me, my daughter, her daughter. but it also, in this moment, is about my sense of the cloth that i will begin in Magic Diaries….that cape or cocoon or flag or cloak and that this cloth is, i think about claiming, or reclaiming parts of myself, my sense of where i fit on this earth.
Maybe i am making too much of all this. maybe. and as it goes, we'll see. but i don't think so.
the most recent piece of cloth dyed for the Magic Diaries cloth
in the past, when things in my life became, uhhh, overwhelming, or when i found that i could not know how to proceed…i would make collages. this particular one was made inside this plastic oval frame that i found at the thrift shop not long after moving here…so, 1995. the print originally in it was one of a mission church, illuminated inside…a beautiful glow. night. i think actually, the collage is afixed to that picture. it has been present since the day i made it where i see it many times a day…usually in the kitchen. one of the central images is the smoking woman…who is Alexandra David-Neel. you can see, next to the sheep and above the salamanders a photograph of me at that time. and right next to it you can see a hole where the rest of the photograph was until i tore it out. that would be the pic of the man i was married to here. and as in that cloth i have of Jude's, "the hand i dealt myself". this photograph of David-Neel is the only one i ever came across so far in my life of cruising magazines, mostly National Geographic, where this one was. it was a treasure and i hesitated putting it in the collage….was not sure at all why i did. but i did.
and here, the second gift of the Datura last evening
windthread 
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