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my mother is dead now.  has been for a while.  but for years, whenever i could call her,  she pretty much said two things before hanging up.  Why don't you move here?  and  Did you go to church?

maybe it's the oppressive craziness of the political season in this country, maybe it's because it's raining again.  or because it's her birth month, or because people do continue to speak to us from the grave?  or because Velma's Wendy is not eating.

but today, just in the last hour or so,  i DID go to church.  First i went to Judy Martin's blog.  went and walked into the photographs there, came away and returned again a few times.  and then on my way to gather the milking equipment for yet another maybe or maybe not partially successful attempt at milking,  i found myself in Church again……

002f
the onion skin dyed curtain at the alter of the Morning Sun.

and Michelle, take note.

 

 

 

 

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42 responses to “church”

  1. handstories Avatar
    handstories

    we are kindred souls of the same denomination.
    recently thinking about what i used to believe & wondered if i’ve lost something, but came to the conclusion that i do still believe most of “that”, but i also believe in much more than those who just believe “that” usually make room for.

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  2. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    amen

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  3. deb Avatar
    deb

    I am off to dive into my church

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  4. handstories Avatar
    handstories

    peace to you. (this is where we shake hands & hug) x

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  5. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    a baptismal

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  6. majic hands Avatar
    majic hands

    Wow, how powerful, I include myself in this group and also it’s my thoughts about church too. I find it mostly in the woods,you can almost hear the sacredness.
    Hugs,
    Cheryl

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  7. nance Avatar
    nance

    i don’t go to church. i don’t believe in organized religion for myself. i do believe in this moment and its divinity. and i believe we are all kindred souls. namaste all!

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  8. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    oh, Hey, Cheryl…yes, yes and yes…the forest hums
    its hyms……
    xoxo back to you

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  9. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    HEY!, you’re back from the OCEAN!
    divinity. i always forget that word, but i like it so much. Kin. yes.

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  10. Linda Avatar
    Linda

    well, let me join too.
    my mother always asked when i was coming home.. not church. one thing i didn’t have to feel guilty about.
    in this age when there are so many people who are pushing religion instead of politics, i get especially upset. i too believe in something and it does seem bigger than what can be put into a teacup.

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  11. jude Avatar
    jude

    church, defined as a place of worship? or are you redefining it?

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  12. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    Mama went to church every day, Catholic Church. I go to church every day as well. Difference – no edifice, no persons of dubious authority spouting words of little faith: I just step outside to find all that is holy, all that is blessed, all that is offered in the spirit of reverence and sanctuary from the air, the land, the daily gifts of this planet we call home.

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  13. Valerianna Avatar
    Valerianna

    Love your churches.
    … my Mom said something about me not believing in GOD when I was visiting her… I was stunned. She knows I am out doing ritual, leading ritual, praying at the altar, singing prayers in the forest ALL THE TIME, whereas others in my family – and she – go to church every so often. (others in the family, never) Told her we just have different names and forms for the same thing… and felt like saying, yeah, and I’m in daily contact…. but, whatever.

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  14. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    neither, really. i don’t care.
    i just went to look at Judy’s blog out of nowhere and
    saw that pathway that she makes trailing off
    and then walked away and my glance was captured by the
    GLOW of the Sun coming in that cloth on the window
    and i though about how my mother always asked me that.
    Quite honestly, i don’t care. about definitions.
    it was just something i wrote here today. cause it came
    out of me.

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  15. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    hi marti

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  16. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    but whatever

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  17. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    i like believing in stuff. i makes a difference to me.
    i like believing in goats, in trying to milk them and
    not being able to but knowing that they Have milk and if i can figure it out, i can then believe in cheese.
    this is what’s hard about blogging and i know i do it to other people…but a sentence or two doesn’t really do it a lot of the time.

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  18. Valerianna Avatar
    Valerianna

    Sometimes, but not too often, I’d like blogger to have a “Like” button… ( I can’t believe I am writing this… I resisted facebook FOREVER – or at least until a month or so ago. and now I am writing about “Like” buttons….)
    GOD help me… but whatever.

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  19. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    how Funny!, i had that thought too! i don’t and Never
    will do facebook, but i really DID have that thought.
    that it would be ok if someone just didn’t have the wherewithall to say much at all at the moment, but wanted to give a thumbs up
    but i like to push myself a little, i guess.
    i just went out to see what the goats were doing in the
    dark, in this wet dark. Ginger was on the picnic table.
    Just standing there. Alone. Just looking. the rest were in the Albatros. lying down or standing. they make almost no sound when i come there in the dark. During the day, they yell when i come.
    i will need to go out there again in the morning and TRY.
    today, Ona leaned hard against me for the full time of trying to milk her. she would not let down. and finally a small dribble. Why? i don’t know.
    so tomorrow, again.
    she weighs pretty much as much as me. weight against weight.
    why?
    i don’t know.
    and so..if i were to give a thumbs up on facebook…
    would you know this?

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  20. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    and….does it matter? to Whom does it matter?

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  21. jude Avatar
    jude

    Ok
    Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

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  22. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    Grace this glows! We rarely went to temple growing up but at the end of her days my mom asked to see a Rabbi. It was so surprising what became important to her to take care of. I have an old friend who always said ‘nature’ is my church. I have another dear friend who has had many a recent conversations with me recently about spirituality. It’s good to have someone to talk to. I DO do FaceBook and won’t apologize for it as that is where my kids/grandson can be found 🙂 I have often thought a blog like button would come in handy. So many times everyone has something great to say, but it seems weird to answer back to so many people!!! It would be handy to just hit like…like…like!

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  23. Jill Avatar
    Jill

    how lovely!

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  24. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    Thank you, Jill
    isn’t it something, onion skins

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  25. elizabeth fortes Avatar
    elizabeth fortes

    A Golden Light!
    Light, in its infinite variations …. always Sacred.
    Mysterious.Ineffable.Intangible, except to the Heart.
    Therefore, a conclusion:
    Light is Church!
    e.

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  26. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    yes. yes it is.
    Light is Church.
    i think to myself…Mom….light is church.
    dear her.

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  27. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    goats are church
    cloth is church
    this difficult late late cicada cricket evening is church
    cucumbers are church
    and again, goats are church.

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  28. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    maybe i DO care.
    yes. i AM redefining it. but only for my self.
    as said below, to elizabeth….
    Everything is church.
    so..yes. i AM redefining it.
    ONLY FOR MY SELF.
    like you, with your artist’s statement.
    me, with my person statement.

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  29. Deb G Avatar
    Deb G

    One of my most cherished memories is of an alcove of a church in Italy. There was all this most incredible blue light…

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  30. yvette Avatar
    yvette

    god is you..you are god
    all is good
    from dot to dot it was god
    (i think too criptic but…)

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  31. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    “all is good from dot to dot”…
    i like this.
    dot to dot. yup.

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  32. helen Avatar
    helen

    The church of the blog cloth stitchers, united in creative kinship and spiritual growth through daily living.

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  33. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    very plain, isn’t it.
    everybody at
    home
    yet, not.

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  34. Valerianna Avatar
    Valerianna

    Ha… I comment a lot on FB, but the LIKE button is handy. I appreciate knowing stories of you rambling about in the dark, finding goats perched on picnic tables as if on rafts, sailing the high seas… though it took me a day or so to come back and hear the story!
    ( or, I guess, READ the story) Anyway, hope the milking is going well and that rambling about in the dark is an adventure that is enjoyable – as well as finding goats on picnic tables sailing the high seas… maybe the picnic table needs a mast?

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  35. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    Ha, back and it’s late and i have just talked to Kay my
    “old” teacher who has a student now who plays cello to
    Elephants in Tailand every year
    and
    i think you are right, V, the picnic table needs a mast
    and a sail
    it has been Some few days here, with a little doe goat being found HANGING from her leg from nylon rope that
    made a covering over a shade shelter…the little ones using it as a hammock but somehow she getting her leg tied.
    and it was one of the hardest things i’ve ever done…having to hold her, can’t put her down, but also can’t undo her from it and i didn’t know what to do and her, her just being; small goats don’t fight, they stare off and accept what is happening to them. but today she is ok and even good. her leg is sore but she can almost run.
    the milking is NOT going WELL but what i understood from her hanging there is that it’s not about milk, or cheese. that might come. what it is about now is goats/me. who we Are, together. if we can make cheese together in this shortrun, good. if it takes longer, then good.
    i just took the flashlight out to look. yes. all 14 of
    the babies, big babies, little babies. all 14 are ok and good there in the darkness after yet another STORM with
    rainbows.

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  36. yvette Avatar
    yvette

    must you not sleep?
    (storm is not near you I believe?)

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  37. grace Forrest~Maestas Avatar
    grace Forrest~Maestas

    storm…no…not the Hurrican storm…that is on the coast of the side of this country that is nearest you….
    these are our inland desert storms.
    i like to get up and run around outside at night, like
    some kind of odd little animal, really….and then i come back in and go to sleep again. last night too, i dreamed that Willy Nelson was ready for us to be together, but
    i didn’t want to anymore.
    dag dag

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  38. Valerianna Avatar
    Valerianna

    Wow, now THAT is another story… your life is providing you with all sorts of stories these days.
    Today, small warbler flew into the window. Didn’t find it. Then Pasha brought it inside, dropped it on the rug. She was still alive. I took her outside and gave her Reiki, holding her as she trembled. She was doing ok, it seemed, nothing broken. Put her in covered birdfeeder where I thought she would just rest. She scrambled around and fell out, on her back, in the vinca. So, put her in the abandoned junco nest where I found her an hour later dead. I couldn’t believe my response. I sobbed. Tucked her back in there for a while. Then took her out to the forest for someone to eat. Sad.

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  39. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    it’s a constant fine tuning, isn’t it. watching,
    responding, going on.

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  40. dee Avatar
    dee

    as you go to Judy Martin’s blog for church, I come here. It would be easy to say, my life would be enriched if only I had goats too… and then I remember, it’s about ATTENTION… the way one pays attention builds a church.
    Home after a little trip away and I am smitten with the bunnies in the back yard, and awed by the way even Northeastern sun totally bleached out the indigo cloth I’d left on the line. All these things.

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  41. dee Avatar
    dee

    P.S. I hear my mother telling me to ‘get a job’!! She’s been gone 16 years and her August birthday was duly noted. She would be proud of me, I know, and of my boys.

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  42. Robyn Ayaz Avatar
    Robyn Ayaz

    Yes about going to the church of the universe. HHow does the milk thing work with goats? Is it that they must have recently given birth or do all the females have milk all the time? It sounds like my attempts tobreastfeed my children – people assume that those with abundant breasts can breastfeed more easily! In fact as I can tell you, the reverse is true. I tried so hard but it caused me so much stress, therefore baby stress too. In the end I gave up and we were both nappier. Maybe the goats feel your uncertainty but also your love – I reckon it will just happen one day. Much love.

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