The STORM was GRAND.   It was Wild and Unrelenting and Crazy.  And finally,  it spent Itself and became Rain.  Steady.  It rained all night long.  It was still raining this morning when i woke.  Finally,  it was enough according to its Self and stopped around 9 am.    The Sky returned to a sky blue Sky and Wind was strong but easy.

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as always,  the effect of Sky Water is immediately evident.  What were transplanted seedlings the day before are now Tomato Plants.  Strong and Sure.

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the Wild Sunflowers and showing their purple edges and thick veins

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Overnight the berries of the Three Leaf Sumac began to blush their color.   So many berries this year…the birds have abundance.

All this i could have anticipated during the Storm last night.  I could have sat in the dark and KNOWN,  because i DO KNOW these things.  I could have just sat,  following breath and BEING a small human inside a tin house with a STORM outside.

I am good at meditating when i am Sitting.  That is no longer such a challenge.  And it has changed my life a lot.   But now,  i am noticing the Not Sitting times and finding self wanting very much to bring the Sitting Self into the rest of my day.    And this can come by understanding and practicing how Sharon Salzberg teaches…the thing that i am looking at now….Add Ons.   There is the actual experience and then there is what is added to it because of habitual response.  The Add Ons.   For me the Add Ons are sapping Energy that i am no longer willing to give.   The replay of mistakes and regrets,  the things we can't Undo and/or the Projections into a future that may or may not ever come.   It's the Experience of This Moment i am looking for,  clean and unattached.

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like how these strands of cloth just wove themselves because of Wind

So, the Add Ons.  This storm was a perfect example.  I really LOVE these kinds of Storms,  Electrical Storms,  but i watched my thoughts run….all the things i  just don't "take care of"….

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wheelbarrows left this way

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and the Perfect Example of an emblem of Add Ons…the back door that WAS a screen door that Alz. B's  X husband,  father of Bill built and Bill likes so much that it is my door and how daughter Jenny and GrandDaughter Alyssia and i transformed it into a door of wood and glass but how it really doesn't Work…like doesn't Fit…you can see the cracks of light

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and here is how it stays closed with wind,  the knob mechanism is beside the point,  the door and the wood door casing swells and receeds with rain and Dry and this morning i needed to put in yet another link to keep it closed incase Wind tried to pull it open which would be ok except for the fact that then the Goats would come into the house  and …..The GOATS….what am i DOING???!!!! with all these GOATS??????and really WHAT is Jenny Thinking????  What's going on with her???? What did or What did i  NOT do that is causing what's going on with her and i just very much MISS her and don't understand, and will she EVER be willing to talk about what it IS or not and what will i DO about the Goats????  Is it OK that they are just here and loved out of Circumstance not their own and What is it,  a circumstance of a Goat?   And back to that door and how i keep it closed against Wind,  that "voice"  that says:  no normal person lives this way

who says that?

I'm not sure

but then really,  no one i know or have ever known has/had a door like this….?????  and what about Chinche…it's hard for her when it's raining, she is frail,  and then what to do when she dies?…Tay would be not great as a single dog,  i'd have to get another dog for her,  a dog friend…….Oh Jeez, another dog and how to find another dog that would be ok with the Goats….

ADD ONS.

there's more.

they are totally unnecessary.  Have NO REAL MEANING,  just wildness of mind.

Tired of it.

Had to go to the Old Cowboys today because hospice nurse Annette didn't show yesterday and came today and i didn't want to need to be going but i had to.  So…i worked with it.  I for sure WAS going, because i needed to.   So ok.  Try to minimize the Add Ons.  Try to just go and do it and not Project into the future.  It was ok.  it was NOT GOOD,  but it was very much ok.  

This is what i am working on.  It's Good Honest Work.

 

      …………………………………………..Addendum……………………………………………………………………..

i pushed Publish on the Above and walked away from this screen,  but the question came,  well, ok,  What's the Problem?, grace?

Answer:  I want to be like Jude.  I want to be like Judy Martin.  I want to be someone who is a Cloth Person.    I want to have my days revolve around Cloth Making.  I want them to BE Cloth Making.

they aren't.  Part of them are,  but just Part.   And as i type this,  there is a uhhhhh,  a  sadness?  a longing?  an ache?   So…this is something to work with too.  OK.  i breathe Out a great breath.  OK.

take a long look at this.

 

 

 

 

Posted in

39 responses to “Add Ons”

  1. Liz Avatar

    This makes sense to me … I won’t presume to advise except to keep throwing your thoughts onto this sounding board until you find a way that opens to your heart’s truth

    Like

  2. Nancy Krampf Avatar
    Nancy Krampf

    dear one,
    you are woman
    who has tremendous compassion
    who is working through loss
    who waits for the death of the cb aided with all your buddhist heart
    who shares all those natural occurrences of her life with us your garden,
    the goats, the dogs, the birds and lilacs, the storms
    you are a woman who’s cloth stories are full of life, deep wisdom, and all the above.
    and i am so grateful to know you and learn from you.
    you have so much in that deep well of yours. 🙂
    namaste

    Like

  3. ² Avatar
    ²

    i read ….. listen ….. feel the tears in my eyes …. the love in my heart …. and breath ….. love the light the sun gives us …. the reflecting of the moon ….. the wind who brings and clear up … enz, ect,
    we are blessed if we let it happen
    ….” ..life with us your/my garden ” i think about this words
    namaste

    Like

  4. Mo Crow Avatar

    “In the Universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between, there are doors” – William Blake
    http://artpropelled.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/doors-in-between.html
    &
    keeping in mind that “Hermes is the god of the hinge … the mottled figure in the half light… who amazes and unmazes…” Lewis Hyde “Trickster makes this World: Mischief, Myth & Art”

    Like

  5. saskia Avatar

    such a big question, and then your answer….anyway that’s your answer now, and you don’t need me to tell you what that means
    (just to let you know that you could make it happen, of course, if that is what you really want)

    Like

  6. Michelle in NYC Avatar

    All the add on’s can be dismissed in order to be in the what is now.
    BUT, perhaps some of them can be addressed in order to find solutions. Just perhaps. Maybe start with a plan for the door for example. A plan to have a professional (or someone like a pro) come by and estimate what a real good closing door might cost in time and money. Then, maybe, just maybe little things like developing the habit of turning the wheelbarrow over at the end of it’s use even though rust is beautiful. As for the OC, well that is harder to plan because his situation kind of erupts on to you when he is lonely, or when some one expected doesn’t show up, so there is the fact that at some point more full time care might be required but not from you. Something to think about. What will sustain you, sometimes well, sometimes wavering, but always and inevitably useful, is you ‘practice’, the just keeping on keeping going of that. And, when Cinche’s time to leave arrives, there will be a place and Tay will be okay till the new friend appears, or is found. Daughter? Enigma of the most personal order. I’m guessing she is likely perfectly content to leave the goat herd right where it is, and that not responding to you is her defense against any other option. Just a wild guess, and really I do not mean to intrude. As for cloth…you are that cloth woman. Maybe the rest seems now to crowd it out, but now never stays the same for long. So back to steady meditation without a goal every morning and every evening for ten or twenty minutes just to exercise the muscle. May you be happy, may you be well, may you be without suffering and easy in your dear heart. http://www.sharonsalzberg.com/meditation-metta-hour-podcast/

    Like

  7. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    Add ons, monkey mind, I know it well, especially lately. Lots of good thoughts here from others. I want to just say that whether or not you have 20 hrs in the day to give to cloth or just a few, you are a Cloth Woman. Quantity of time does not make it so, quality of heart and vision and love of cloth does…BUT I do get what you mean, the longing to have time be yours. You have given yourself to others, to commitments, and until they end or resolutions occur, this is how it will be. May you also hold onto this thought that in the small blocks of time that are yours, look at what you have, what you accomplish and most of all, look at what has come from your hands, needles and thread, Cloth that so deeply and vividly speaks to all of us.

    Like

  8. Tina Avatar
    Tina

    Grace I believe that Seeing and Feeling what is bringing us sadness is the first step in finding happiness. I took this quote from a novel some years back. I have gone to it often in time of uncertainty.
    Sometimes I think the human heart is just a simple shelf. There’s only so much you can pile onto it before something falls off an edge and you are left to pick up the pieces.
    Sending you love and BLESSINGS……

    Like

  9. jude Avatar

    cloth is like self. So then it can be the other way. I tried to keep that with me for the years of raising my son as a single mom. Content to hold it together with some mental stitches.
    Your daughter is not being fair. I might round up those goats and leave them right there on her doorstep. And anything other baggage you need to unload. Let her feel that. I hope she knows how to thread a needle.
    And then on another day, maybe not.
    Many of my own days like this are stories untold. And those same questions. What am I doing? Who lives like this???
    I am lucky to have a companion who speaks directly . Gives me straight answers. And no empty pats on the head.

    Like

  10. Jan Avatar
    Jan

    it’s all cloth. the trips we take back and forth. the conversations. the time spent with another being. looking at sky and hills and substance of our lives. it’s all cloth. we create with all of it.
    and, to echo jude’s kind words. . .we all need to know how to thread the needle and get on with it.

    Like

  11. julie Avatar

    I only hope for Jenny’s sake, that she finds her way back to you before you die. (How’s that for straight talk??!!?) I find my most tortured friends are those whose struggles with their moms got etched in stone permanently when the moms died…I am lucky that mine has stayed around long enough for the air in my Its All About Me Balloon to have fizzled away and for me to start Just Going with her.
    And I really got a different feeling when you started listing all the monkey mind stuff…it made me smile, its like the listing of it somehow takes away its legs. I know these are important struggles but when you do that, it makes me just like jumping fleas in a circus that would just fly away with a swat of the hand.

    Like

  12. judykeathley@cox.net Avatar
    judykeathley@cox.net

    what a powerful thing –to be so damn honest.
    it’s one of the many things i love about you.

    Like

  13. .cynthia Avatar
    .cynthia

    ..well… we have some very similar doors here….making warm weather welcome..and some very similar add ons..i hate the nights when they seem to tower almost high enough to be seen..if i just turned on the light…
    ..when i was little my sister and i used to think that to just be left alone would be a most excellent way to be reprimanded …imaging all sorts of freedom there… and i suppose imagining it as alone..but together…and then when we grew up we learned it was so much more horrible and hurtful than we ever realized.. but to be shut out not even knowing exactly why is so harsh..unfair..and inexplicable to self…
    i hope it changes..i hope you know that it ok to let go of things you love if you need to do that..and i wish you hours more of cloth..but remember how amazing you are with the hours that you have now..i have so missed being here..fingers crossed for the new phone lines…that connect me to the world..gentle day grace

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  14. Bev Avatar

    a lot of great advice from amazing women. you will figure out how to do what you need and want, that’s what you do.
    love to you

    Like

  15. Martine Bos Avatar

    Love to you clothwoman………….

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  16. grace Forrest Avatar

    yes…this is it exactly…when the Way is Ready, i will
    recognize it

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  17. grace Forrest Avatar

    and do you, as do we All…we have deep wells

    Like

  18. grace Forrest Avatar

    your/my garden the garden of Us
    sometimes all neat, other times messy but always Garden

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  19. grace Forrest Avatar

    yes, keep reminding me…the Hinge

    Like

  20. grace Forrest Avatar

    i really kindof am not into Making anything Happen, but more,
    being available for what Wants to

    Like

  21. grace Forrest Avatar

    yes…that’s the point. Each thing is valid and can be addressed.
    It’s when they are all wadded up together, a single thought having then a compulsive train of Add Ons…this is what i want to let go of.
    The door, yes. Am finally totally TIRED of that sentimental door and before the coming winter, i WILL find a way to have a “regular” door in a regular door casing. Yes. the wheelbarrow. there are 2. I always turn the one i use for feed.
    I am wondering if i just shouldn’t blog on Old Cowboy days. They are totally draining these days. What’s left of me is not really
    blogworthy…so, am thinking about this…
    and daughter…we we just don’t know and so there is no way to try to understand
    the meditation is going WELL.

    Like

  22. grace Forrest Avatar

    yes. Like Popeye, I am what i am

    Like

  23. grace Forrest Avatar

    Tina…it’s ALL important. The sadnesses, the joys. The hardships the Ease, Yes…you are right. I am not one to shy away from
    any of it.
    this is a beautiful analogy, the shelf

    Like

  24. grace Forrest Avatar

    maybe i should look for a good husband.
    and NO. She is NOT being Fair. She is being something more difficult to me than not fair. Things aren’t often confusing to me, but she is very confusing to me.
    I love the thought of hauling the Goats to California and unloading them in the street in front of her apartment…along with other
    baggage….but oh….this would very much confuse the Goats….
    but really, if i had not watched her from the very beginning with them, watched how she loved them, in a very different way than she had Ever loved anything, including her children, watched that time when Snowbunny was ripped apart by the German Shepards and she slept for days on the floor in the doorway of the laundry room with SnowBunny, patiently irrigating her wounds after the Vet said to just put her down. Then watching as that whole world she created FOR HERSELF fell to pieces with the marriage, how her dad, brother, daughter and i did an Intervention and loaded her and the Goats and the elegant Dog Kadir in the trucks and horse trailer and took her to California to begin again and then how, through no fault of her own that too fell apart and Kadir being shot by an ignorant neighbor, i watched her collapse from it all. Never in my life had i tried so hard and
    failed.
    through no fault of my own.
    So i don’t know what is in her mind/heart. I only hope that someday i will. In the meantime, i am me, the Goats are themSelves. They are beautiful and such Teachers. So
    i’ll just go.

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  25. grace Forrest Avatar

    yes. to thread the needle and get on with it.
    Yes.
    This.

    Like

  26. grace Forrest Avatar

    and Julie…that ‘s EXACTLY IT….jumping fleas….
    when they are in that crazy progression…not even whole thoughts,
    just these blurry Images that represent things…YES!!!! EXACTLY!
    and it’s just so
    dumb.
    it’s habitual.
    i am REALLY tired of it.
    I hope so too. I honestly can’t imagine it going on and on…
    but really, i don’t know, either. What i DO know is that i love her. I love the Goats. Neither of those things are dependent on what she does or doesn’t do.

    Like

  27. grace Forrest Avatar

    it’s the Only thing to be.
    if i were to try to just write what is Easy, i wouldn’t bother
    blogging.

    Like

  28. grace Forrest Avatar

    i am SO GLAD that your Inet is back up….SOOOOOOO….you who have
    survived such a Winter
    yes. not knowing why. and really, i have no clue. But this
    also Teaches. What is the Response? nothing, really, but just
    the same old Love.
    She has never been one for a lot of talking. I remember when, the couple years before i LEFT, i would call Family Meetings around the dining room table and i would talk and she and her brother would
    press their faces flat into the table, their arms around their heads, i would talk and talk and then wait for a response and
    nothing but finally her brother would say something to Melt me
    but she wouldn’t Give. Who knows what has Meaning to her

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  29. grace Forrest Avatar

    i count on that. That when the time really comes, i will
    know. I will have figured it out.
    thank you for love, it feels good

    Like

  30. grace Forrest Avatar

    Martine…you made it “through”….
    I receive….
    thank you, xoxoxo

    Like

  31. grace Avatar

    and i love
    Blunt

    Like

  32. Bev Avatar

    i think typepad doesn’t like me, my posts keep disappearing…

    Like

  33. grace Avatar

    your are there….just above Martine?????
    did you try another one that isn’t here????

    Like

  34. carol gabbert Avatar
    carol gabbert

    I love todays post. I continually struggle with the circumstances of my journey. I want someone else’s journey and commitment to creativity. Today after reading your post, I will remind myself that no journey is perfect, each path to creativity has its own unique set of stumbling blocks and although mine are not goats (which I adore) they are stumbling blocks that require my precious time and attention; and I will keep moving forward. xo

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  35. Bev Avatar

    well i guess i’m stubborn and kept checking and found the more comments here words to click on, ha!
    I’m so new to blogging, so i just keep trying. yes i found both my comments, thanks for answering.

    Like

  36. grace Avatar

    Bev…don’t give up. There are very REAL people on the other side
    of these marks on a screen…like reallly REAL people who
    are most very likely SIMILAR to you….familiar to you
    HERE…it’s the best we can do now, yes? and it’s really Very Very
    Great, so HAVE FAITH and keep going
    and THANK YOU and love

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  37. grace Avatar

    carol…then this is Worth Everything. YES. We All have our own
    Stuff. It’s all very Beauty Full and Grand in it’s own Mess. The thing is to just Go. Keep going, keep looking, keep OPEN and
    take gentleness where we can find it, how we can find it. Let it feed the Just Going.
    Love to you

    Like

  38. Bev Avatar

    No, no I could never give up, I think I’m doing pretty well learning. My whole life changed, in recent years, had to stop a lot cause of physical limits, giving up stuff, estranging from family etc.
    But mostly LOVE how it’s turned out because it left more time for what I’ve always wanted to do. Like everyone is saying we all have struggles, the same and different. These conversations and people are very REAL, yes. I so appreciate these Sacred Circles of sharing it all moves me so. Thank You.

    Like

  39. grace Avatar

    this is interesting…what might seem to be LOSS,,,,,the stopping of things, really is Change. Change to Different which has Surprising Goodness. Thank You for telling this

    Like

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