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this morning.  The curtain it is on is an off white.  The Winter Sky fabric itself is white.  This fire honey is the Sun Itself.   So yes.  Light returns.

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I give.  This is it.  There are flaws.  But any "correction"  causes something else.  so…done.  I cannot find the wherewithall to continue.  The second window is on the bathroom sink.   After work away tomorrow and Tuesday i will finish that one and i WILL NEVER IMAGINE THAT I CAN DO THIS EVER AGAIN.  EVER.  

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cleared the dried Kochia  from inside the Way Back Oasis fencing.   Some of it was over 6ft tall.  the Goats were glad to crunch away on the leaf and seed heads.   

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i had tried to clear it Mid Summer when Goats were pushing the fencing down and getting inside.  Getting Inside means also eating the Russian Olive,  Three Leaf Sumac and the forever vulnerable Native Olive that are what the Oasis is.   I would very much like to keep these Three Out There.  

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The Wasps.  When Mercy and Cinderella had managed to get themselves IN to the fence and i was trying to herd them Out without letting Everyone Else in,  i got stung on the mouth.   So i need to think ahead of how to work this this year.  There are other places for them,  these Wasps.   There are ways we can all be here, following the Do No Harm tradition.   I am thinking.  But these cells today were so beauty full to me…the delicate papery cells,  their color,  elegant….how Strong that "stem" is that holds the nest to the twig.   It's beauty full.   All of it.  And i remember that the Wasps feed on caterpillars and i remember how the caterpillars consumed half of this Three Leaf Sumac's leaves.  I need the Wasps.  The Three Leaf Sumac needs the Wasps.  

How can we do it?

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and because the Wasps stung me,  i never went in there again to pull down the Bindweed from the branches.  Today again.  it is Beauty full…the tangle,  but stifles  the Sumac.

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squatting there i looked at the Earth under these Tree Bushes…how it's changing.  Because of the fence,  the leaves seem to stay where they fall instead of blowing away.  They are layering,  decomposing there and the quality of the sand Earth is changing.  Still sand,  but with other components.  Does the Sumac and the Russian Olive and the dear Native Olive send their roots beyond the fencing,  Out…into where the Goats are and take nutrients from that soil that is changing?  I don't know.   It takes a lot of time to be able to even speculate yes or no.  All i can do is notice.

AND  i almost forgot.   On Being   Krista Tippet…..the interview with  Brene Brown.    The Courage to be Vulnerable.   

 

 

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28 responses to “Imbolc ~ Return of the Light”

  1. Liz Avatar

    Oh lord … I have to say this. I am reading your post and the Super Bowl half time “show” is on and all I can say is I wish we didn’t have a television in our home.
    So thank you for being here and giving me something substantive to read and consider … sigh

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  2. Liz Avatar

    P.S. The window is a thing of beauty

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  3. Deb G Avatar

    I’ve been working on the black berry vines. Gathered a few scratches. The interview with Brene Brown is a good one.
    http://www.onbeing.org/program/brene-brown-on-vulnerability/4928

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  4. grace Avatar

    to not have a TV is the greatest blessing to me. The morning i woke from when the husband/man/person died here, i unplugged the TV, hauled it OUT. into the wheel barrow. to the gate. into the truck bed. off to the Thrift Shop….i should have taken it instead to the dump? or not. I don’t know. But it is a great thing, not having a TV. I realize that i DO spend time here at this computer screen, which maybe could be said to be a TV, kinda, but it is not anywhere as near Violent in my Face as TV. When i am at the Old Cowboy’s, he has two TVs on simultaneously and the Violation of my mind is extreme.
    It’s children that concern me. Vaccination. it’s a vaccination of the Spirit.

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  5. grace Avatar

    vines….yes. time now for those vines. wounding for the Good of the Whole, those scratches…love those kind of scratches like fencing wire with Goats
    Yes. that interview. oh. Yes.
    THANK YOU …. THANK YOU…..for putting the link here…BIG
    thank you

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  6. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    Sun today, spent some time besides doing a little stitching outside, turning over one of the compost piles with the shovel, snow almost melted; it felt good. Indoors my forced pear branches have blossomed so I have brought Spring into our home.
    We do have a small TV because Rich loves his football and I love my British dramas on PBS and sometimes, I want to watch news on a screen that is not our computer. Super Bowl is on and years ago I decided that I could make a big stink about it all or I could share it. I was never one of those wives who went shopping when football was on so I learned a little about the game, had a few favorite teams and now I’m always for the team that Rich is against to keep things lively…noise is never an issue as he watches with captions since one thing I abhor are commercials

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  7. Tina Avatar
    Tina

    I have seen and heard Brene Brown speak on Oprahs Super Soul Sunday program…..since I often find myself feeling vulnerable I found her thoughts very interesting….even more interesting is that you would speak in the same post about the wasps….talk about the courage to be vulnerable. To be one in nature is not always easy…..but I’m thinking….you will find a way.

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  8. grace Avatar

    Tina, i have to. I have to find a way. Wasps. Me. in a certain way, i love how the Wasps find this place GOOD for them. And they DO. They find it exactly what they need. Really, exactly what they need. Peace. a Place to re-create. with water. In this desertland, there needs to be water. They find this here. But too, there is the fact that many of us live here. Dogs, Goats, a Me. How can we do it? They, the Wasps, also make these beautiful nests under the eves of the house. Last year there were maybe 6 nests. If they are ABOVE me….me being how i come and go
    above me
    then ok and good. If they are in the Middle of it…well, this is where i don’t know.

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  9. Micael Avatar
    Micael

    I love Super Bowl Sunday. People stay home watching TV, and I have the world to myself. In Santa Barbara the return of the light also means the return of the grey whales, so I went to watch them today in honor of Imbolc and because I’d have the bluffs to myself. I saw just one: a single blow, the dark of her back, then the sea closing in over her. Also observed: flotilla of grebes (they make the sweetest cooing sound to one another) and a pod of maybe 50 or more porpoise. It was a loose pod, where one or two porpoise would swim by, then minutes later another few, then another, stretched out over a mile or more. All this from the bluffs. On the way home – a white cow. I couldn’t see if she had red ears, but I hoped she did. The white cow of Brigid. A good day.

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  10. Louisa Avatar

    oh, I love that brene brown talk. she is wonderful. and there is something wonderful about crouching down on the ground and just looking at things. better than a tv anyday 😉

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  11. jude Avatar

    it is like a silent paper bell hanging there.

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  12. .cynthia Avatar
    .cynthia

    i have no white cow here…and no vines..and no branches…even the trees are only deep blurs..the snow swirls around us ..the wind keeps gusting..and i am thankful for the light of day..which makes my view awe full and breathtaking..the dark was more breath holding as the sounds seemed magnified and close to worrisome..
    but the light has come and the outside fairly glows..the temperature is up to 3 and the wind gusts let you peek through and see signs of life..the lilac is quivering..the river bush whipping around and the plum..looks so much closer as the steps down from the porch have been totally leveled away by the snowfall..hoping that the snow is as light as it looks..
    so i will fill the day with cinnamon and spices ..and things that cook slowly..and dream od warm dirt..and be so very grateful for this day that marks a return
    vulnerable..but light filled..may your day be more gentle than this one seems to be so far

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  13. julie Avatar

    Just read the transcript of the interview with Brene Brown and am so very moved. The notion that vulnerability is the first thing we seek in others but the last thing we want to share of ourselves…that people who live Wholeheartedly do not necessarily do it with grace, but as sloppily as those of us who aren’t quite there…that the thing I love about all of you in this part of the blogosphere is the intention toward wholeheartedness.
    Thanks for this, Grace.

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  14. grace Avatar

    we all have our Ways that work for us

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  15. grace Avatar

    From your bluffs….
    What a BeautyFull Picture, moving picture, you give Us
    i can see it, hear it, feel it touch my face
    White cow
    Thank you

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  16. grace Avatar

    crouching, squatting, it’s a trance Place, close to Earth…

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  17. grace Avatar

    you’re right, it is…i hadn’t seen that

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  18. grace Avatar

    yes…the Relief of daybreak….such an ancient moment….
    how many have felt that Relief….humanity
    3 that’s not enough
    vulnerable. so many thoughts about vulnerable

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  19. grace Avatar

    yes, and We can say that, can’t We. this We of which you are
    a part…the YouMeUs…
    i believe that is Our Mission, to live Wholeheartedly however
    that is for Each of Us.
    try to Listen. Their voices together, Brene and Krista’s….
    how it would be if We had voices here…i love hearing them
    together

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  20. beth Avatar

    Thank you for the looking. And how the leaves stay. Seeming randomness, but not. Interdependence. Symbiotic relationships. Am partway through On Being but will have to come back to that. Pondering vulnerability as bravery…

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  21. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    I printed out the transcript so that I could hold the words in my hand:
    Toward the end, Brene says,”…most of us are brave and afraid in the same exact moment all day long.” I sat with those words for a while this afternoon and realized that this is how I understand just going. We do what needs doing, sometimes certain of our direction, oftentimes less so but the willingness to fail, the courage to try, is what matters. This is an understanding that has come to me from many years of wanting to control the outcome, to be successful by whatever definition you choose to measure.
    When I began dyeing cloth, I said, well I will get this color and I will get this result…and No, that is not what came. What came over time, was an epiphany that holds even now, five years into my creative endeavor with cloth. Dyeing cloth, the way I do, is not exact, is not a science, there are for the most part, no exact or duplicate outcomes. What there is, however and what remains for me is the full and total understanding, you could say, the revelation that it is the process not the end result that matters. It was the trying of anything and everything, over and over again not the “perfect” results that crept into my soul; the hope and belief in the process itself.
    Hope as Brene defined it in terms of the doing of a thing: She noted, “I do like that, again, the idea of hope as a function of struggle” and so I looked at this revelation in terms of many aspects of my life…I’m still, at the age of 67, sometimes uncertain about new endeavors, still not as “courageous” as I think I should be but admitting that in and of itself, admitting the vulnerability of this image that I hold of myself, putting it here with you whole-hearted women, serves to strengthen me.
    I’m still thinking about this conversation between Brene and Krista and I’m certain that I will be doing so for days to come.

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  22. grace Avatar

    i have LOVED, like really LOVED being witness to you and cloth
    over these years. How you went Into it, just trusting in
    SOMETHING
    you didn’t know
    and how you have Just Gone from that beginning, to form an incredibly strong bond with your Work with cloth, with dye. It has been a joyful witnessing.
    And how you come here, as you did back in the day of story writing with that same pure intent to Find Out.
    Hope as a function of struggle.
    courageous. courageous is often a very quiet but persistent thing. Not at all fancy, courageous, but yes. just going. just going is very courageous, yes.

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  23. grace Avatar

    symbiotic
    i love that concept…symbiotic…those leaves, dirt, the wasps, Goats, me, the season, the soon change,
    symbiotic

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  24. grace Avatar

    according to Stephen Harrod Buhner of Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm
    the roots are where the mind of the plant resides

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  25. dee Avatar

    lovely lovely cloth
    lovely lovely intention to honor both the wasps and your own stung-ness

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