And i think i will use some capital letters for this post.   See how that feels.   If it makes things clearer.

Terri left this morning and i went to work.   Came home and took a deep nap.   Waking,  there it all was,  or much of it.   Just right there.    Terri was a Great visitor,  she is a Good Good Woman and has a gift for remembering.   So much of my life is a blur.   But when someone else remembers,  i can see it all and remember too.  Terri did this for me.  It was/is a Fine Gift.

I need to go back.   The same day i posted about Wendy Golden~Levetts book of Thank You,  was the day Terri arrived and i had to leave it there.   I need to go back to it.  Now, even more.

 

IMG_8916f

The photograph at the bottom right.  The sand tray.

 

IMG_8917

 

Wendy is a Jungian Therapist.   C. G. Jung.  You could google that if you wanted to.  In that Other Life that Terri remembered for me,  I had spent some time studying  the work of Jung.  It was the  life at the underpinnings of all else.  Then came Art.  Then came all manner of Metaphysics.   A lot i'd forgotten.  Terri remembered.   But that's about later.  Right now, 

Active Imagination:

is a cognative methology that uses the imagination as an organ of understanding.  Disciplines of Active Imagination are found within various philosophical, religious, and spiritual traditions.  It is perhaps best known in the West today through C.G. Jung's emphasis on the therapeutic value of this activity.                                                                                                                                                                                  Wikipedia

 

Sandplay:

Sandplay is hands on psychological work.  It is a powerful therapeutic technique that facilitates the psyche's natural capacity for healing.  In a "free and protected" space provided by the analyst, a client creates a concrete manifestation of his or her imaginal world using sand, water, and miniature objects.  In this way Sandplay helps honor and illuminate the client's internal symbolic world and provides a place for its expression within a safe container,   a tray filled with sand.              from  Googling Sandplay….C.G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles

 

In the midst of all this,  the May 12 issue of The Nation came into my mailbox.    Front Cover:

CLIMATE REVOLUTION

The cover article,  Mark Hertsgaard,  entitled  Everyone's Climate

So, here we have a lot of Stuff.   A lot of grist for the mill.  And i want to go slow with it because there is too much synchronicity.

Yesterday was Alz B's Birthday Party at the Old Folks Home.  Terri and i went.  Not so many people came as last year.  But we had good artisan pizza,  carrot cake and butter pecan icecream.  It's part of all of the above too.  Sang a couple hearty renditions of Happy Birthday.  Other things stand out.  But i want to just leave them hanging in mid air for time being.

and just to say….I love you ALL,  very very much,  for being on the other end of these posts.  And now,  i  better know why.

Love….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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23 responses to “i need to go back, first, before going On.”

  1. Karen Avatar
    Karen

    Hi Grace~ first time I commented on your blog, just started reading it recently and just love what you are writing, living and stitching. What I read radiates such warmth from a generous and talented woman; beauty from simplicity and goodness. I adore your goats, AND admire your work…both artistic and altruistic. Thanks for reaching out to us all with strands of love in your daily life….looking forward to more.

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  2. grace Avatar

    Karen…thank you SO much for these words…..you say it…the
    strands of love…they go back so far and
    pulse
    today
    they are vital and as Real as we let them be….
    THANK YOU again, for being here. Please feel at Home.

    Like

  3. Joan@CopperCreekers Avatar

    so much of your post today reaches in and touches the part of me that is wounded. your living your life gives me so much encouragement and shows me how to heal. your open, honest expression always gives me a good feeling when i visit.
    i’m very private and have a hard time opening up. i’m not a dishonest person… i just seem to censor what i share. much of it comes from the ‘be a good girl and don’t bother anyone’ or ‘be seen but not heard’ attitudes when growing up.
    i feel i have found your and jude’s blogs as places to inch open.

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  4. grace Avatar

    Joan…censoring…yes. that censoring. that’s one of
    the Things that Terri brought for me…the thing of NOT
    censoring. We had the LUCK of being in a place…which
    was Ann Arbor, Michigan, the University town of Any Thing
    Goes. We had the LUCK of that. and we learned that
    censoring was unnecessary. and there was that Whole Time
    of Free Association, of Stream of Consciousness
    and it just freed so much.
    and i am thinking now. ok. everything was Freed. so.
    what does one DO with that now, then????
    BIG LOVE to you…..

    Like

  5. Michelle in NYC Avatar

    “Can you heal the good back into me. That is what I ask of cloths. And they always answer-Yes.” Yes, that;s what I ask of everything. And, if I’m right with myself, and chance favors me as it so often does, the answer is ~YES~ Jung, metaphysics, the power of memory, the strength of imagination fueling a free flow of ‘what-ifs’…thats the reality we construct to support us. How glad I am.

    Like

  6. judykeathley@cox.net Avatar
    judykeathley@cox.net

    these words are so good dear grace.
    i don’t say much in this cyber world –even when i am touched by the so un-cyber-like thought & feeling.
    the first time i ever typed a single word was here–
    i don’t know how long ago it was–
    4 years maybe?
    & you welcomed me.
    i will never forget that.
    thank you —
    for this –& for that —
    & for all that is in between–
    love–

    Like

  7. eva a(r)t work Avatar

    I like the thoughts of that Little Girl (?)in Wendy’s book – abuot a Cloth section in the teachers’ room and the classrooms…maybe we wouldn’t be so cranky. Nowadays there is so much stress in the classroom and among teachers, all those permanent tests and exams. We will most certainly “produce” thousands of depressive People in the future…
    eva

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  8. patricia Avatar

    such a profound insights–the child who shared–and your as well–

    Like

  9. beth Avatar

    So looking forward to hearing more. Still waiting on the Nation delivery so I can read this. And thinking about the tribe of people who love cloth.

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  10. grace Avatar

    would be a great novel…Women of the Cloth Clan

    Like

  11. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    “Women of the Cloth Clan” caused me to smile and then go sit outside and do some thinking about clans and cloth. I came back in and reached for Pinkola Estes book, Women Who run With the Wolves.
    Clan: Some of us actively seek to belong, to find our clan. Others of us are at ease with being solitary but when you meet a certain woman, or group of women,a recognition sparks. (This meeting does not have to occur in the flesh, it can happen right here in this cyber neighborhood.) For me, the spark has not all that much to do with an initial surface connection just because we are interested in certain creative pursuits and everything to do with the sharing that comes over time as we begin to tell our stories. When that happens, I call it connecting with our marrows, that deep knowing that develops as we continue our conversations. It is a rare connection. It is found here in this place called windthread as well as in the comments and blogs of the women who come here, this clan of cloth women.
    Here is one of the reasons why: pg. 170 from Estes book:
    “…when an individual’s particular kind of soulfulness, which is both an instinctual and a spiritual identity, is surrounded by psychic acknowledgement and acceptance, that person feels life and power as never before. Ascertaining one’s own psychic family brings a person vitality and belongingness.”
    So I thought about this community that we belong to, this cloth clan and I thought about cloth and Estes has words about that as well:
    Pgs. 91-92. “In mythology, the woven cloth is the work of the Life/Death/Life Mothers.” Estes says they are known by various names in the East and West. Since I live in the West, this quote: “Spider Woman, who gave the gift of weaving to the Dine (Navajo). These life/death mothers teach women sensitivity to what must die and what shall live, to what shall be carded out, to what shall be woven in, etc.”
    Pg. 92: Estes says, “We learn how to sort, mend, and renew the instinctive psyche through a purificatio, the washing of the fibers of being.”
    A clan of cloth women came together to create cloths for Wendy’s children. These cloths that have gone to Wendy’s children have given them the ability to tap into themselves at the deepest level, to find themselves anew…and I believe that it has perhaps done the same for these very giving and special women as well.

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  12. Michelle in NYC Avatar

    and let us not forget our cloth brother (Joe), whose meditations on moments are illuminating.

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  13. Mo Crow Avatar

    I love this circle of cloth conjurors so much!!

    Like

  14. Deb G Avatar

    Many beautiful thoughts and ideas and feelings in both your post and everyone’s comments. I’m going to go sit in the sun and think about this a bit…

    Like

  15. Valerianna Avatar

    I was – AM – so moved by that book… I wrote on jude’s blog, maybe you saw that, that I BURST into tears when I read what the child had written about the “Lady who sings in the cave” … I want to write about this on my blog, but I am still integrating, processing this incredible book. The weaving it does, the connecting/communicating but still with the safety and anonymity. I loved that. Seeing the cloth in the hands of the children…. amazing.

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  16. grace Avatar

    yes. yes. “Can you heal the good back into me”….
    this is so incredibly beauty full. so honest. so
    plain a question.
    Every day…
    Heal the Good back into me.
    just so incredibly a beauty FULL question.
    and the cloths. they always answer Yes.

    Like

  17. grace Avatar

    for this/for that/Time/all inbetween/
    we welcome Each Other. we hold out our hands.
    love. Love to you……….

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  18. grace Avatar

    and not just schools. but parents. who send their children to the schools.
    we all need Something. for some of us it’s cloth. for others, well i hope they find it

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  19. grace Avatar

    the children and me…i am loving that we are the Same

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  20. grace Avatar

    i think that all that you say above…Wendy knows. and
    she, by being Who she IS, emminates (sp and i looked it up and couldn’t fine it and so..) that to the children.
    and the BEAUTY IS that they are allowed the safe space to
    find this on their own…as you say…to “tap into themselves at the deepest level”
    and they DO. they DO.
    and it is no different than when I do. Children. Women.
    we are Same.

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  21. grace Avatar

    it’s a beginning.

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  22. grace Avatar

    i LOVE the comments, the words of response. They Feed me.

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  23. grace Avatar

    I hope you do write about it. When something so GOOD and
    BEAUTY FULL appears to us, we NEED to
    Celebrate it
    NEED to dance and HONOR it.
    yes. i know your sound. i loved that so much…”the lady
    who sings in the cave”
    oh, eeeeeeEEEEEEEEE and yes.

    Like

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