windthread

when you are.   looking for somthing and not knowing what you are looking for.    

last night….that word     Moxie       Where did it come from?   Why?   as in,   What ….for.?   

it's been forever since i've thought it.   But it made me smile,   it gave Energy,  just the thought of it.  So i did the Wikipedia thing…  typed in  Wiki Moxie   and:

"Etimology    First recorded use 1930  From an American soft drink made since 1885 to which advertisement ascribed many beneficial properties.   The word appears in very many places in Maine especially of falls or ponds and is perhaps ultimately from Abenaki  "dark water".

1.  Nerve  spunk  strength of character     2.    Verve      3.   wit   smarts   skills

usage notes     The meanings   can be grouped into "cures".   for the problem of feeling too weak in spirit body mind      in other words of being overwhelmed/helpless,   exhausted/listless   or confused/perplexed.

References   50 Things to Do in Maine Before You Die    by Nancy Griffin

This page was last edited on 17  January 2023   at 4:22"

……………………………..Maine………………..where CatherinE  shows me things that i somehow am so kin to………………….

?????

so not knowing where to go,  i thought….draw.  ok and as usual,  it starts with eyes and though it wasn't what i was thinking,  and was again,  a face,  but this face is about Moxie?   maybe it's about LOOKING for Moxie.   But what kind of Moxie am i looking For?   What do i need it for?    To cure What?    This was late in the day…close to DARK and i couldn't see…used the LED headlamp propped….

 

 

in the  mail from my friend Bill in  New Mexico.   The huge old Cottowood in front of his house.  There was WIND.

this would be from last year…she will need to begin  again  come spring….search,  gather,  carry,  weave.  Their llamas and horses.   So many memories of all the years there….am so so Glad i finally went.   Left Michigan,  Oregon, Arizona,  Michigan again….  and lived there.   i was telling Alyssia the other day how when i used the old Toyota truck Sonny,   we could load 9 two string bales of the grass hay i bought from them…..these Goats are made of his hay,  their hooves and bones.    We think about how maybe we can get him up and running again.   Since i bought that minivan vehicle,   he has rested under , near oaks and hanging pine.    Would need things.   oil change,  filters and fluids.   Battery is dead.     Maybe.   a  1983 Toyota 1/2 ton long bed.    We can no longer use the old Cowboy's  pick up…can't meet emissions requirements,  not possible to correct that.   this is California.    i kept a current N Mex license for Sonny,  he is insurred.   He doesn't meet emmissions standards by a long shot either,  but is legal.  sorta.   ???  i keep waiting for someone to say No…the plate tags and insurance both from Socorro.   But they keep mailing them.    so far.     Maybe i am to be like this bird.   Just Do it.   ….where'd my Moxie go?

they don't  "like"  each other.   They share space as equals.    They were taught.   Nothing else is acceptable.   They don't mind.

 

there are layers of things going on with this whole question of What's Happening,  What should be happening.   

something important is Power.   Why people choose to exercise power over other people rises from their own psychological dynamics.   But it seems that whether or not they exercise excessive and unlawful power depends on only it they "can".

Here on this Hill there is a Law.   Do no harm.   I am the enforcer.   my tool for the most part is my voice.    in these recent days with Jack Flash,  it was to limit his participation with others because he didn't understand my voice.   But the law was the law.

When the " Whole" agree that you cannot beat someone to death for Any Reason,   there seems to need to be clear and unequivocal penalties.   no matter the perpetrator or the victim.    it doesn't matter that you might WANT to beat them.

you can't.   period.  

i am still thinking.

i know this is not the place for this.  

this is a Journal,  right?   this blog?   that began as a cloth journal years ago and then slowly just became a life journal.   because cloth turned out to be Life.   

Metta.    many of us know Metta.   and how it begins….May you be safe.

i don't know where i am.  where this is going.  if anywhere beyond watching the letters appear infront of me on this screen

i don't know why i am saying these things.    I know that tomorrow is the funeral for a young man.  another  one.   that his death is refeerred to in the news as  "the incident".   We call it the incident.  his death.   he is dead.   i know his mother is RowVaugn Wells.   i listen to her,  watch her face,  every chance i get because i feel it's the least i can do,  to listen to her.  See her grief,  her brokenness.     Tomorrow,  his funeral,  that was referred to on some news as   what has become a "national ritual".  And everywhere people are saying things  but i heard one thing that is Enough.  No more is worth saying.     Paul Butler,  law professor at Georgetown University said  "and president Biden called this case a test of whether we are the country we say we are.  At this moment, we're the country where an american citizen  guilty of no more than a traffic violation,  was tortured and killed on public streets by agents of the government".

i think.   Julian,  my greatgrandson,  Emrie's brother,  Alyssia's son.    An Introvert.   Awkward physically.   13 and a half.  a man size boy.  genetics of black,  white,  PuertoRican but who would be identified on any incident report as black.   were he to be pulled from any vehicle,    would

flail.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

which would be interpreted.

          

so,  there's that.   and then,   working through the last several days,   that thing of Safe.   When all was happening and when it was unclear how it could stop.    i  suddenly  thought of domestic abuse.  of community violence.   What if you can't feel safe,  let alone BE safe?  What if as yet there are no broken bones,  no blood wounds,  just abuse and fear and the sense of imminent Something and the inability to think of a way to make it stop.   What if that's your life?   

my guess is that all or almost all who read here are safe.  What do those of us then DO?   for the not Safe?   For those 3 days,  i felt what it was to not know what to do.     only 3 days.  but they have taken a toll.   What if that was….life?   what if i was a child?

Yesterday i sat with Ferns,   thinking these things,  but wanting just to see Ferns.  Talk about ferns.    but i have no

happy face

 to put on in the moment.   And maybe i should just be quiet for how long it takes to find some balance.   or maybe just put what gets put  here and let it be what it is .

the Spiral above is the last for "my" blanket.    there are enough.   it's the Spiral of       gentle day.     those words from Cynthia.   Amidst it all.   for all the people,  for all beings of all kinds,  for the planet its Self,     gentle day.  or,   maybe just some gentle moments.

 

 

   

                                            

 

before we let the Goats free,  there were ferns here and there.    Then,  none.    This is in Nogal's forest which remains closed off.  Maybe it can become a Fern Forest.   

there is need.  all the way around.   as i type these words in,  it's very cold.   for here,  anyway.   very cold for here.    I am cold.  Goats  OutThere….cold too.    

Rained most of the day.   This was finally late afternoon and light coming in the windows to illuminate the change on the Walnut Sheet…i'd taken off all the Spirals that had been there and instead placed the ones that i identify as "mine".   That,  as i'd gone along,  had something about them that made me want them to be "mine" and so set aside.     Since i put this pic here,  i've added one more row of 4.   I think this is it.

i had turned to them because i needed to release this "emergency" body.     i turned to cloth for that and it responded as i'd hoped.   

in the morning and in the next some days the cold will also release.   there will be the Just Going.

his legs are twice this tall…i am taking the pic on a hill,  pointing down.   somewhere around 8 years old.  100 lbs.   Gotten from my Goat friend Jan in New Mexico at 6 months old,    as exchange for use of TenZen,  our buck to her best doe.  Impeccable breeding.   Lived as  ( neutered)  Wethered companion to all our bucks at different times,   Gideon,  TenZen,  Sunny Ray, Nogal and  Buckwheat.   Most recently with Sunny Ray until SR became weak and Jack became a bully.  His untamed skittishness is my fault.   He was a wether and that was his purpose.    I spent little  time with him.   He  lived peacfully once separated from SR  until January 25,  2023 when some Thing happened.    All of us have searched the internet for other instances of a wether suddenly coming into  Full On Rut behavior at such an advanced age.  We find none.  Will continue to search.   Buck Goats and wethers,  when outliving their use ,  become food.   Many people are delighted to find Goats for this purpose.   Often, in this country,  for traditional  celebratory meals of other cultures.    otherwise,  they are simply  "put down".     Shot.   

i wasn't directly involved in the work of the fencing.   hung out watching the kids.   There wasn't a lot of conversation about any decision making.   They just worked worked worked at securing the fence.   It didn't seem like there was a whole lot to say.   There is full confidence that he can't possibly get out.   While all this was happening he ran back and forth,  back and forth along the front fence line…anxious with all the people in his space, the noise.     I watched him.   He has no clue.   Something just happened inside him.   

He cannot do what he so desperately is determined to do.   

The keeping of the doe Goats in the doe forest last night,   the mending of a weak place in his fencing,   worked.   None of them were happy.   But this morning,  all was quiet.  Everyone came and immediately set to work mending his  fencing,  inch by inch.  Many lengths of heavy duty steel farm fencing,  cattle panel patches,   T posts and steel clamps.   

the paragraphs here are out of order.  I don't know how that happened.   but you can get the drift.  i do not have the energy to fix it.

So it seems that we will try again.    All day today doe Goats went about their ordinary business of Life.  partly because of all the people here,  so tomorrow and days forward will be the test.    But we'll see.   He is him.   a sentient being.   at the mercy of some quirk of  biology.  

have almost lost this post 3 times,  so will quit.   am tired.   i counted the Spirals this evening.   there is 40 of theirs.   13 of mine.  

so just this.   day began at first light and was more of same,  just worse.   i sat here tonight thinking of how i could write about it and really,   there's no way it can make any sense.  and so no way that is of any use.   If we were a Goat Group,  the yes.  Otherwise,   unless very famiiar with Goats and what is anywhere near normal with them,  it all just comes across as Drama.   If i was not experiencing it,  i would find it impossible to believe according to all i know from 15 years of living with Goats.  So will just let it go for now.  Everybody will be here tomorrow and we will go forward with what we decide.   I might want to take a Break.   i've learned some things that i couldn't have learned any other way and maybe they might be worth putting here.  Maybe not.   

bright and early all is well.  everyone in their places.  I am feeling accomplished.     but…..we see him here,  thinking.   Where there's a will,  there's a way, right?    you can see the end of the catch pen that has the additional 4th board.   S hortly after this was taken the day began its ReRun.   He jumped it.   How he can manage that…from a still position i cannot imagine.  But we spent  the afternood checking every inch of the fencing and there was no other way out.    The evening feed was harder.  He is determined now that this is HIS herd.   Although Alyssia was here,  i needed to pull it off on my own.   took time.  Negotiating the  doe Goats in to the feeding area while keeping him out and closing off that entry,  keeping Tay from  worry which didn't help because he came at her for no reason of hers and slammed her into the wall of the Rain House.   He reared up at me and i had to yell and flap the chartreuse leaf rake at him.   Emrie sat in the car and watched.    Doe Goats closed off,  it took him close to forever to agree to come down for chips and hay…me calling,  him staring staring staring.   until  he  did.   And we were done for today.

we closed off entry to the catch pen.   No Goat has ever been able to jump that fencing.  it's almost 5 ft.   it's where he's lived for four and a half years.   I'm not sure what we'll do.   He is a danger to Tay Emrie and really,  me.   

Erica Heilman  RumbleStripVermont    just Beauty     Full.   Way.   and   Beyond.