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going back for a while

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daughter still here and my ability to focus on the Diaries cloth is just not here.  so went back and got out this weave from Jude's Cloth to Cloth…one i did with the Weave Assistant……and am just stitching.  just feeling how it is now, some months later with the new favorite needle.  when i worked on this then, i was using my other beloved  teeny tiny oh so thin beading needles.  DO love them still, but am really into learning the different feel of the new ones.

and what will i ever DO with this cloth?  it is intense just of itself.   i drew some figures today…that female figure from the Raven Cloth that went to Wendy's children…simple form, hair stringing out with wind.  maybe that.  and maybe more of those black/white things that i don't know what they are?…like, moving in a circle.  ????  and i am thinking a lot about how i pretty much communicate with ….uhhhh….with the elementals, the planet, the things that are outside this house.  not so much at all with people.  except here.  maybe that's why i think so much in terms of   ~energy~.  words don't have much place out there.  and this makes me think of going over to the canyon on the weekend.  taking the "normal" dog, Chinche.  the snakes should be sleeping.  or, at least very drowsey.  slow.  yes.  i think i will do that.

 

 

 

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25 responses to “going back for a while”

  1. deb Avatar
    deb

    remember the white cloth you sent with the threaded needle still in it? It’s my favorite needle now. such a simple little tool.

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  2. grace Forrest Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest Maestas

    i Very Much Remember. What a good feeling this is
    to hear this…
    it is simple, but it is such a very strong and deep joy.
    off and on, over the last 20 years, i made it a point to live
    with very little. actually, how i live now, by those standards,
    is in the lap of luxury. lived with no electricity, no running
    water. no heat except WOOL.
    the last period of time in this way was a few years ago…actually,
    just before Spirit Cloth when i was into Sharon Astyk’s blog…
    as in, What IF it all just caves in? and one of the constants of continuing is the needle. i knew i needed my needles.
    and now i am LEARNING my needles. like, REALly.

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  3. KaiteM. Avatar
    KaiteM.

    grace when i was in my little schoolhouse i lived like that, with the absolute minimum. i had a fuel stove, the water was outside in a leaky tank, the stove heated my water and i did all the plumbing! all of it, even to and from the stove. i have no idea how i did it. my toilet then was 100 yards or more down the back and it was a long drop and when i went there i was accompanied by the chooks, dogs, cat and goat. In those days i spun wool and flax and cotton and silk, then dyed it and knitted, knitted, knitted. Needles were very important, knitting needles, the only tool other than the spinning wheel.
    Go over to the canyon, take your dog and get a bit of space for your head. love, k.

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  4. grace Avatar
    grace

    kaite…i always feel so good when you appear with a
    story of back in the day of the schoolhouse. do you
    miss it? i wonder?
    i am
    fond
    of running water. hot water, actually. specifically,
    showers. but…hmmm, thinking about it, just running
    water.
    the outhouses i really appreciated. things SHOULD be
    private and AWAY from where one sits and eats.
    but sometimes i wonder about how i’m living now. by
    average standards it is very basic but by standards of
    the majority of the world, it is luxury. it is
    excessive.
    yes. TO the CANYON!!!!!!
    there are murmerings there of all who lived in this land
    maybe i can hear them

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  5. KaiteM. Avatar
    KaiteM.

    grace i think of it often but i don’t actually miss it as such. i drove up there about 6 years ago as it’s only about an hour away but it’s all changed so much, the little village, the old church, it’s all changed and not for the better either. i loved it then and i love my memories of it but we grow and move on. i had snow there, we were over 1000m above sea level, it was very windy but the soil was good, much better than here and i wandered the paddocks freely with my dogs, found old things. I’ll see if i can find some old photos and maybe post them up.

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  6. grace Avatar
    grace

    i’d really like to see them

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  7. Jacky Avatar
    Jacky

    Such a strong piece your woven cloth …. I am glad you able to pick it up again and stitch. No decisions, just stitch.
    Jacky xox

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  8. Jacqui Avatar
    Jacqui

    Grace,
    Visiting you is a quiet meditation. I feel your heart in mine. Words are unecesary.

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  9. Michelle in NYC Avatar
    Michelle in NYC

    Take a camera if you can Grace. Share what you see there.

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  10. Penny B Avatar
    Penny B

    Wow, I’d love to come along and visit your canyon.

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  11. jude Avatar
    jude

    there is a wandering thread in this piece… softening the structure of logic. a seemingly independent thread, but it fits there so well. i sent you that little black and white thing with the needle still in it. remember? i would love to name a cloth that, “the needle still in it”.

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  12. Henrietta (aka ani or zani) Avatar
    Henrietta (aka ani or zani)

    grace, there is something very peaceful about this cloth…maybe the light and the glimmer behind your hand or just that you are holding it but perhaps that reflects on this time of year…peaceful transitioning. maybe you could couch “that needle still in it.”

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  13. Snail Cloth Avatar
    Snail Cloth

    Hi Grace,
    I too have lived a life off the grid. We lived in a house that we used solar panels for lights, wood cook stove for heat and for the water heater that ciphened through the stove. We had a gas refrigerator and a generator. We even had a baby at home by kerosene lamp in the middle of winter, with salmon splashing in the creek outside the house and the moon full in the sky. It was very romantic, even magical, but it was not an easy life. It was not a life that you would want to retire with. It was not even a cheap life, as you were always needing something and you had to drive to get it. But we lived richer there. We didn’t have a tv…but we didn’t miss it either. We were amazed by all the time that was available. (smile)

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  14. Jeannie Avatar
    Jeannie

    Oh Grace, I hope you visit the canyon! There is no better place to be still and let the mind rest. Your cloth is beautiful. I love the wisp of cloth across the top and the tree trunk thread or is it smoke? I miss you and your words. xo

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  15. handstories Avatar
    handstories

    we had very bright winter sun today & i thought of you in your canyon, wondering what you were seeing. that cloth looks to be woven of clouds.

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  16. ali Avatar
    ali

    Dear Grace, your woven cloth on cloth is lovely, and I imagine it will be a meditative stitching. My circumstances are much different from yours now, with me in a city apartment in Beijing (pop. about 34 million), far away from my cherished 1795 country home in rural New Hampshire, but I, too, seem to communicate little with others in words right now. It’s an altered state of sorts, and maybe one of the reasons I find your images and thoughts so nurturing. The canyon sounds like a wonderful place to venture/adventure forth.

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  17. grace Avatar
    grace

    yes, but then…am loooooking at it and thinking….
    today i placed some other pieces on it……

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  18. grace Avatar
    grace

    Jacqui…in your beloved Earth Circle…how good that
    is…”i feel your heart in mine”….
    love to New Zealand

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  19. grace Avatar
    grace

    i want to do more of this…the wandering string..
    has a grounding to it for me.
    and yes…i remember. i didn’t “appreciate” it in
    the same way as now, yet….things come of their own
    time.
    it’s for you…your name…”the needle still in it”…
    i’ll watch for that cloth coming

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  20. grace Avatar
    grace

    i think the peacefulness is just the weaving.
    that process Jude taught us was incredibly CALMING
    for me

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  21. grace Avatar
    grace

    Snail…i visited and LOVED your blog yesterday (wednes)
    just full of goodness…
    i love hearing of other’s experiences with this kind
    of simplicity. and no, it’s not easy. but now it IS
    what we might call a cheap life, this place here, which
    isn’t what i’d wanted but where i am. and it is easy
    in that way…
    living without television is a wonderful freedom…but
    then, oh hmmm, here is this little devil computer…..

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  22. grace Avatar
    grace

    Jeannie that wisp of cloth at the top is a silk gauze
    from Glennis. isn’t it just so wonderful????
    to me, it’s always WIND/SKY…a combination of both…
    i don’t have much of it left…..
    i’m not sure what that thread is…still to find out…

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  23. grace Avatar
    grace

    it’s some of the last of some commercial cloth, but the
    “back side” of it…i love the colors

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  24. grace Avatar
    grace

    this is totally AMAZING to me. i cannot really ever
    fathom it. you, ali MonkeyHands, in Beijing and me here
    in this small place….finding comradery
    it’s just mind boggling, really…….

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  25. ali Avatar
    ali

    birds of a feather…

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