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what we choose to take along the journey, what we leave along the wayside

March 30, 2012

ok. Keeping Clarissa Pinkola Estes' Letter to a Young Activist During Troubled Times close at hand, reading and re~reading, sitting on the raft, looking and thinking, i thought about what is needed now. for me and for the sense of myself(ves) in this world.
after so long, i will repair the little stool: replacing the broken and weaving a new seat. it's perfect for the raft.

i bought a new pry bar. i have needed one for years since the other one was loaned and never returned. they had 2 at the hardware. this one was more expensive, but it is black and looks very serious as a tool. you can see Deb Lacativa's cloth…..

a better pic. the minute i opened the envelope and took them out, it was like watching a slideshow of cloths they could become. I LOVE HER CLOTH. and no, it is not natural dye process, but it is, to me so totally ORGANIC….it is what things FEEL like.

and inbetween every thing, i stitched. it's working. it is how i need it to be. i am now even farther along…halfway through the lightning. the weight of the stitching is as if there were another layer of cloth. perfect. no added image but rather weight and substance. just like it is outside here.

lilacs are beginning to bloom

and while sitting, looking, the mystery of what happened to the Side Oat Grama seed i scattered was solved. look on the cross bar of the gate: eaten. i normally don't have quail in this acre. the dogs keep them away. but for Side Oat Grama, they took the risk.

so…, yes. risks. taken, consequences honored. but at a point, the immediate Moment takes precedence. you might notice that i have left the hypenated name along the wayside. i am back to the way i was when i first came here.

ok. for sure, one self woven in.

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39 responses to “what we choose to take along the journey, what we leave along the wayside”

handstories

March 30, 2012

i can feel the weight of that golden piece hanging from that curved branch of blue. the transformation the stitching is making is…remarkable. would love to sail on your raft, watching & breathing in the lilacs. welcome back to yourself. i made that same journey a long ways back.

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grace Forrest

March 30, 2012

maybe you will. i wouldn’t doubt it. but in the meantime, we can sail together in our hearts imagination.
i have changed my name so many times. right now, this is just changed in my world of cloth. where it’s really important. the thought of doing the whole thing is daunting. i have name baggage.
this name, Forrest, i took when i divorced the kids dad. hmmmm, 30 some years ago. the lawyer said i could do it for “free”…i didn’t want to go back to my
maiden
name….she said…just pick one. it’s the name of one of my oldest friends. Jane Forrest. she’s “coincidentally” coming to visit in June. we became friends when i was 16.

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grace Forrest

March 30, 2012

the golden piece is the lightning. it comes with the
Monsoon season here. it is Fierce. so much Electrical
Energy that sets things into motion. things that just
wait
for it

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judy keathley

March 30, 2012

i love stories about names.
i love this story about your name.

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grace Forrest

March 30, 2012

i love names.
the last one i was very tempted to “take” was
As Is.
but that was when i had so little baggage. now i have a credit
card, a bank account, typepad, paypal etc etc.
As Is. i still like the ring to it. hmmmmmm

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handstories

March 30, 2012

the golden lightning is just striking in color and texture-i imagine that things do wait for it, & that it also draws things to it.
& oh, the name thing. i changed when we got married, regretted soon after, added mine back in the mix, hyphenated, tried all manner of things, until K said,..just pick one. & i went back to the birth name. jane must feel honored.

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Jeannie

March 30, 2012

I love your raft. I used to row, for real, down rivers in a dory. The feel of the river and the openess of the canyons are much like your yard – open and free. Our Quail are watching and waiting. I think they know the red basket that holds the seeds and wait until I am done to have the Quail equivalent of a picnic. Names, I am so tired of explaining mine. I think I will change it to Suzie or Patience, no sir name. LOL! Your cloth is so very beautiful. It looks like “home” to me. I love the brightness at the door and the tree. Wishing you a beautiful weekend Sweet Grace

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Valerianna

March 30, 2012

Names are something to me…. I love their stories, too, or our stories of our names. I love your raft, I had the odd vision of you in a pirate hat, sitting with the kid from Where the Wild Things Are, searching the seas for the wild ones. Instant messaging from the imagination, what a hoot!
I was named Valerie Anne. When I lived in Greece, a man there called me Valerianna cause he thought I had a calming effect on him like valerian root (valerianna officinalus). Stuck with me and one year I started using it. My mother uses it and my sister cause it is the underlayer of my original name, it works for them. But I do have a strange thing of being one name as a professional artist and another as a healer or whatever I am at RavenWood.
May your find your way on that raft….

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grace Forrest

March 30, 2012

a healer. like Valerian. you.
the raft helps me keep CPE’s words in the forefront.
i need that.

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grace Forrest

March 30, 2012

jeannie is pretty uncomplicated.

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Valerianna

March 30, 2012

I met her once…. when I was in graduate school. She’s something.

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Deb G

March 31, 2012

A name can be a raft I think. My mother’s first name is a family name, it shapes who she is a lot because she often finds a need to explain it (mostly to get people to pronounce it right). The essay, I’ve read it several times, copied parts of into a notebook. I’m thinking today, looking at where you live, of bones. And of where I live as a kind of skin, with all it’s greenness and growth… I guess I’m thinking a lot this morning. 🙂

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deb

March 31, 2012

That lilac is such an unexpected delight from what I think of as a desert world. We had them where I grew up in NY and the smell always made me drift off. I think I will try to get one to like it here.
There’s nothing like a good simple tool – think of the marvelous tools on display in museums, what important treasures they were to their owners and how they have survived the ages.

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saskia

March 31, 2012

working upwards: what a great entrance, and you have lilacs already….(used to climb in my favourite lilac tree as a child)and then your wonder-ful cloth with so many stories and now I know a bit more about it, Lightning, happens here in summer, some evenings circling the houses through ‘the polder’ scary and beautiful at once; and then those delicious dyed cloths, today I helped a friend sort out her stash and got some leftover bits, that are now washing in the machine (and have turned various shades of pink….see what I can do about that) and a good tool, priceless! finally the raft, have not commented on it before, don’t know why…I think the whole idea of having a raft in the middle of all that dry open space is fantastic!!
what’s in a name? a lot it would seem

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helen lee

March 31, 2012

Hey grace Fforest ~
I was looking at our lilacs yesterday…they are still tight in their buds at the moment. The weather has returned to cold here.
I have my mum’s family name as my middle name, but I still miss my birth name. It never occurred to me to keep it, and I know it would not have bothered my man at all had I done so.
Your stitching and your raft….I find it frustrating that the words will not come in right order to describe their effect. The best I can do is that I feel the meaning of both your cloth and your raft to the core, and that sounds so cliche, but it is not meant to. I love what you do…it is real…no pretence.
Still standing ~

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Nancy

March 31, 2012

Ahhh…yes, the whole name thing, something that has interested me for years. I kept my ex’s name and don’t Really feel it belongs to me. I am not a part of that clan anymore!
I love to picture you on your raft, standing – with one hand on the flag pole, summer “outfit” blowing in the breeze…and now one foot perched on that Magnificent Super Duper Amazing stool! Please do show us again if you weave more on to it. I have a beautiful copper pipe on the floor by my feet that would make a great replacement rung for it!

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Mo Crow

March 31, 2012

ah Grace, your raft reminds me of a favourite song from 1974 “The Tomahawk Kid”
“as we set sail across the seven seas
there was Captain Jack, Billy Bones and me…
and the Tomahawk Kid.”
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLFapGhCr2M
yo ho ho!

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Jeannie

March 31, 2012

Ah, but I have one name for legal stuff, one name I answer to and one I do not. One that my Mother calls me and the one that I chose for myself.

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;uie

March 31, 2012

Names: Given the name Juanita for my Spanish grandfather Juan and an unusual, very Catholic Spanish middle name, Asuncion. Asuncion refers to the assumption/ascension of Mary into heaven. I had a very Catholic mother and it took a long time for my mother to become pregnant, she was married for 5 years before she became pregnant with me at the age of 34. On the celebration of the assumption of Mary which is celebrated by Catholics on Aug. 15th, my mother prayed to Mary that the child she was carrying would be a girl. One month later to the day, I was born.
Nickname: My maiden name was Martinez and when I was 16, I was an outdoor education counselor and in charge of a cabin of (6) 12 yr old girls who didn’t like my first name of Juanita so they gave me the name of Marti, shortening my last name. I am now 64 and have been Marti ever since except in the legal sense. Out of respect for my Spanish grandfather, I never legally changed my name. The irony here is that I never met him, he died long before I was born and I haven’t been a Catholic since I was 15.

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grace Forrest~Maestas

March 31, 2012

the response:
i love names
below was to you…forgot to click reply to

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grace Forrest~Maestas

March 31, 2012

i get it now.
rowing……i used to canoe in michigan. spring
flood rivers…so i know what you mean. it’s
exhillarating. the raft here is very quiet.

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grace Forrest~Maestas

March 31, 2012

i would very much like to meet her.

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grace Forrest~Maestas

March 31, 2012

this is what is so deeply tender to me, thinking of the
planet in all Her ways….
who could imagine them all????
i have thought of this all my life and it still is
totally magical to me……….

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grace Forrest~Maestas

March 31, 2012

i know!….but if they get enough water, they do very well.
tools…….yes, i love tools. especially ones like this.
i need to take apart the old fence panels and it is a
breeze with this. no struggle and the work feels good.
and i do have a good hammer, but the pry bar is so much
easier. i’m keeping it on the kitchen counter, kinda
on “display”.
your cloth now is living on the rocking chair. they are
so beautiful. thank you SO much for making them….

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grace Forrest~Maestas

March 31, 2012

the raft
is just what i imagined in terms of the Pinkola Estes
essay…a ship, even a boat, seemed impossible here.
and i like physical images when i am working on
internal change. hence, the raft.
and maybe because as a child, i was always trying to
create something to float in spring flooding down by the
creek.
the name thing continues to be interesting. not over yet.

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grace Forrest~Maestas

March 31, 2012

no cliche. it’s just how it is. cliche IS because it’s
often just HOW it IS.
and yes…
Still standing~

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grace Forrest~Maestas

March 31, 2012

OH!…i have some copper pipe too!…i didn’t think of
that………THANK YOU!

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grace Forrest~Maestas

March 31, 2012

i’ll go listen…………!

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grace Forrest~Maestas

March 31, 2012

love your name story. always have. LOVE the Asuncion.
i would KEEP that one…i think of the woman in
100 Years of Solitude, the Gabriel Garcia Marquez
who ascended on a bed sheet, hanging her laundry
and yes. some irony.

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Nancy

March 31, 2012

Yah! I can’t wait to see. I actually am in love with the little stool. Ha. One of those things. Show us if you do more work on it!

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judy keathley

March 31, 2012

nice ring.
funny how names can sometimes seem strange initially —
& then over not very much time they seem totally regular.
just roll off the tongue.
asis could be that way.
altho i have to say i’m a tad attached to grace.

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Robyn Ayaz

April 1, 2012

Sooo much here – the lilac, I adore lilac and it won’t grow here, sigh! Lucky you! The name – looks like you have the coffee on my friend so here’s my bit: married twice, lost the first name and took back my birth name (living in UK at the time and received a lecture from the Passport Office about it!!) and then took my second husband’s name. Now it doesn’t feel like it belongs and I am thinking of going back to my birth name but your idea is even better, a name you chose, I like that. My last husband’s sister used to keep tiny quail in a huge wicker cage on her balcony in Karachi, they made a lovely soft chatter. They didn’t eat them, just loved the little birds. Brave traveller, you have taken back your own woven together self and the Cloth, Grace it is beautiful – were you stitching out on the raft? In that wonderful light you have?

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helen lee

April 2, 2012

Oh YES….thank you Grace.
I just took a close look at your stool….didn’t think to go large last time…oooooh….ooooooh……ooooooh ~ it’s perfect. Indigo with old silvered wood and now copper. Please show more as you go along.

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Rene’

April 3, 2012

I am back, but still returning from my travels. . .checking in on Windthread again this morning to read the two most current posts.
So – many changes there – growth and transformation and small shoots hinting at things to come. Lilacs were the first thing I put in the ground here on our long untended piece of land. We are behind your seasons, so have yet to see if they made it through the first season.
But more importantly, a big “step” – a big “thing” – welcome, grace Forrest. . . grace Forrest – it is so good to see you.

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grace Forrest~Maestas

April 3, 2012

we’ll see. i might want to use the red Salt Cedar
sticks???? and then copper wire??????
i will take Her pic when she’s put together.

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grace Forrest~Maestas

April 3, 2012

ok

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grace Forrest~Maestas

April 3, 2012

not on the raft yet. it SNOWED today. just some,
the rain got confused and became snow for a whole.
i really LOVE your name. i’d keep it. just cause it’s
beautiful.
the cloth is changing today.

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grace Forrest~Maestas

April 3, 2012

i like that…back but still returning….
and yes. thank you. from the Forrest me. it feels good.
now, if i can figure out how to get the computer stuff
changed………i’ve tried off and on for days…..

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elizabeth fortes

April 7, 2012

Oh! now I get the raft!
Wishing you a great journey and quick return to your home grounds…
I love your acknowledgements of our many selves, our “community nature” in
the one body that carry “our name”…..
e.

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