windthread

part of the evac prep that's been ongoing,   was to clear off the kitchen counter…things collect.  Spice jars,  little empty things,  small bowls.   So i cleared them…put them where they actually are "supposed to"  be.   and here was this.   my salt shaker.   It had gotten useless during winter…all the moisture in here,  the salt all stuck to itsSelf,  the holes clogged.   Alyssia brought me one of those little picnic type shakers…the salt pepper  cardboard things and i'd just kept using that.   i'd dumped the wet salt and washed the shaker  months ago and it has just sat.    When i got groceries the other day i got salt.   filled the shaker.   There was FEELING…..there was a joyfull long gazing….how Beauty Full this salt shaker is,  it's dented top even making it more so…How,  when? did that dent happen?  i don't have any idea.   I have had this salt shaker since i had my first apartment in Detroit when i was 19?   20?   i brought it into my marriage,  into the house of that time,  i took it when i went to Oregon,  to New Mexico,  i brought it here.   The weight of it…holding it….the weight of it's glass form and on the bottom the cut of a flower pattern  the just plain and sheer Joy of this salt shaker and how it caught and held the Morning light………

 

this photograph   Noah Berger  associated press   in NYT

my body.  my self.   can barely hold this photograph.  Firefighters….they are singular extraordinary human beings.   who become crazy with it.  it consumes them.   when there is threat here,  they gather forces at the Lakeside Grocery just down the way,  there's a large parking lot full of their trucks.    Cal Fire,  Forest Service  it becomes a bub.   which is selfish of me…is so near by

Yosemite.   the Mariposa Grove.   Sierra Nevada California.   Washburn  Fire.    a Tree there,  Sequoia,  thought to be 2,000 to 3,000 years old.     Just stop.    Think of this.  a tree.   2,000 or 3,000     years    old.   Stop.   Think this.   

stop.   think this.

i read late last night and began early this morning.   Done.  Parable of the Talents.    

how Alyssia had wanted me to read the two for so many years and i said i couldn't.  But suddenly,  i could and Did.   ok.    For me,  the time is right.   i'm glad i didn't before.  i'm glad i just did.   as i neared the end today,  i thought of Butler,  writing of a dystopian future and i thought how  what i see today as in keeping with what she wrote.   it's going to take some time for all of it to settle.  to arise in still image…like that thing i have about the Click Click of the Slide Show.   That's how it will come for me.  Click Click  Click  and i will understand what was given by these two books.   Books.   first and foremost i think of Books.   i think of her writing these Books.   day unto day she wrote…knowing where she wanted to go,   looking for ways to take us there.   This is in and of itself so so incredibly Beauty Full.   the writing of books.

and i thought about the "dystopic" images,  the violence,  the rawness,  the ugliness and cruelty  and i saw how these have been present for so long in our HISTORY…documented and to which we have come to a numb acceptance….Slavery that the country was built upon.   Indian schools.  the now of the marginalized street people,  homeless.   a huge "issue" in California,  on the streets in this town i go to the postoffice in,  shop in.   the us and them of it.    the war going on in the "news"  ,  Russia and Ukraine,   and before all that,  the middle east.   it's HERE.  it's NOW.     the

climate

earth.  how all along i wished she would go there more because it is Present for me now,  here.

so now,  tonight,  i am in that liminal space.   Finshed.    but still there,  this life of mine being a simultaneous reality but not the Primary.  the primary being within the Parables.   I'll wake in the morning free of it.   Fully here again with much to think about.  Thank You,  Octavia E. Butler….can you hear me??????…..Thank You.  so much.

and i could.   i could,  if i really wanted to….take that pot,  the from the beginning of New Mex clay pot   Maybe i will.

 

is White,  not blue.   this vehicle,  now called Friend.

 

 

a bin,  up from campsite B

 

space.  under the back seat which will be the bed.  Good thing there's not much of me.  

the roofbag has been delivered to Alyssia's.   will have it in the next day or so.    With that middle seat gone,  it seems so much more possible.  Spacious,  even.   There is good space behind that back seat.    ok.    Evacuation looks entirely different.   and

 

.

i Could live in it.    

almost half way through Parable of the Talents.    not sure what to think.   so i won't.   just keep reading.   there's a reason for it.

5 tomatoes beginning to ripen.    tomorrow we go into the triple digits again for some days.   

new Nat'l Geo:    We Are Here    Native Nations are reclaiming their lands and Ways of life

 

 

 

it's All Maybe.   Maybe we will need to evacuate.  Maybe not.     Maybe if there IS fire,  the Hill will burn.  Maybe not.   In "recorded history"  here,  there has been no fire,  or,  no catastrophic  fire.  Maybe there never will be.   But,  one way or another,  we will all still live.   The Goats will be loaded,  Talkie and Puppie,  Tay will be with me,  and we will drive to safety.  Will remain alive.   Alive.   How do we do that?,  remain Alive.  Today,  in this Maybe Time?   What eats Energy?  What flattens time?,  makes days dull and heavy.   Time needs to dance and spin and leave us well Used at the end of any day.  

the last of the On Being Thursday podcasts was with Adrienne Maree Brown.   Because of that,  this book sits here on this table.  I won't read it yet…need to read Parable of the Talents first,  but i opened it at random and….intuition was correct.  it's This.

" Emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions.  It is another way of speaking about the connective tissue of all that exists…the way,  the Tao,  the force,  change,  God/dess,  life.  Birds flocking, cells splitting, fungi whispering under ground.

Emergence emphasizes critical connections over critical mass,  building authentic relationships,  listening with all the senses of the body and the mind.

With our human gift of reasoning,  we have tried to control or overcome the emergent processes that are our own nature,  the processes of the planet we live on,  and the universe we call home.   The result is crisis at each scale we are aware of, from our deepest inner moral sensibilities to the collective scale of climate and planetary health and beyond, to our species in relation to space and time.

The crisis is everywhere,  massive massive massive.

And we are small. 

But emergence notices the way small actions and connections create complex systems,  patterns that become ecosystems and societies.  Emergence is our inheritance as part of this universe;   it is how we change.  Emergent strategy is how we  intentionally change in ways that grow our capacity to embody the just and liberated worlds we long for."

Adrienne Maree Brown   Emergent Strategy   Introduction 3

this was my Trust Time today…holding these thoughts.    and the day rolled out Bright.   There was an extraordinarily  stunning blue tailed juvenile skink,  Fast!     and a very bark like small lizard that didn't move when i placed the nozzle of the hose just near,  but remained still and i touched my finger to  it's nose and still…it didn't  move but looked at me   I got lost giving water and was there almost 3 hours and brought up one of the bins  for the minivan,  Friend,  for  Maybe evacuation,  hosed and scrubbed it,   folded and rolled and  tied the very large tarp that has been just lying there for a few weeks now,   scrubbed a feed bowl for Jack Flash,  spent long long moments with Nogal,   scratching in all the good places and even running my hands down his legs and lifting his hooves….all so new for him….Trust….and somehow having to do with his Catch Pen????????

it's way dark now.  i am very well Used.

 

all the Hard.    i wake  this morning  and say…to self,   it only takes a little,  just a little and it WILL brighten all the hard of 100 temps,  Fires nearby,  unrelenting News,   Alyssia's OLD  rat terrier dog Zoey with Fireworks Syndrome,   escaping the fence and RUNNING in Terror,  gone.  15 hours etc.  etc.   

it only takes a little.   to brighten.   just enough to carry the Just Going.   but it needs to be Genuine.    

and here….the forest of this Hill in the pupil of a Goat's eye…Ginger…coming,  wanting Touch,  standing so still for Touch and i take pic and pic and pic 

and a mail from Peggy McG from the wilderness….where if not for Emrie,  i would Be

and Deb G   BeeCreative   a link that of course…again,  references Octavia  E.  Butler  of course and THANK YOU,  Universe….and Deb G

and i just feel a little crazy tonight.  But stuff has brightened.   Zoey found her way home.   i have that mail from Peggy  McG,  the outdoor campstove/oven  was delivered and not porch pirated,      Alyssia and i went to her storage unit and took OUT the middle seats from Friend….OPENING SPACE   i can put a tub that can hold the button tin,  the bead tin

and so Brightness.   Just enough to keep the Just Going.   Enough and Good .  Ok.  

 

cover art….Parable of the Talents

 

what i was going to take last Evening.  incl the comforter from the Animal shelter garage sale in Socorro,  underneath.   the Tina Quilt,  my pillow.   Just this much.  i had no will.    

this from the other day.   Just now dark….4th July.    since around 5,  everyone came again.  Replay of the Fire Alert of last Thursday but in another direction…again 6 miles away,  but they come,  in case.   Worked on Goat Boat wiring that the "boys",  the two young wethers,   had chewed AGAIN….those New wires…..gotta come up with another plan…..and on a new closure for Jack Flash's  Catch Pen…that's a long story and not worthy of the energy it would take to tell…

so there were things to do as we all waited,  watching the apps for word that it was contained at 50 acres and the one Evac Order  (not Us)  lifted.    Quiet now.   We'll see.    While Jenny was doing something,  her man and i talked.  He had said,  yesterday when they were here for Jeff's birthday,  that he wants to get a kite.    YES!!!!!!!!!!!    and as we sat there at the table outside the door this eve i asked him if he believed in God.   kinda daring of me…he is a very quiet man.    i don't know why they are together,  it's been 10 years,   except he loved her in highschool back in Michigan.  it was unrequited.  He went off to become a Marine, in the Gulf War ?,  Iraq?  i don't know,  i didn't keep  track of wars then,….but he was on the ground somewhere.  and then married  and raised  a family of girls who with their children live in Arizona.   He said he didn't know.   Not      god,     really,   but that he loves thoughts of this Universe ….within…a multitude of Universes and  he doesn't believe we are the single intelligence,  and we agreed on a lot,  mostly that we can't possibly know much of anything.   And then we were quiet a while and he said that maybe he would get a telescope too.   a kite and a telescope.

 

this is not what i'd thought …but i just finished a conversation with Alyssia that i value beyond value and can't put here because it is too raw and convoluted and complex….but rising out of the LAW of white men…..to speak of women's bodies….but so much more and it surprisingly circled to my father saying to me….Who do you think you are?  and me,  putting a cloth in a shop

Who do you think you are?

and i remember standing there…..and saying….finally….

me.

So…this is Big.  Way Bigger than i can go tonight or maybe ever here.  But it applies.  

Feeling paralyzed by placing monetary value on what i do,  what comes out of me.   the Shame of feeling that it has value and can help me  "make a living"……

there.  that said.  

I asked Deb Lacativa to help me with this paralysis ….. about this particular cloth….because i am returning to a Shop Page

and her answer was

she felt it was unfinished.     I asked her because i TRUST her and that trust was well grounded because her response is the KEY for me.    The Key.

it is.  unfinished.   in Its  way.

and in thinking it through,  has given me a sense of mySelf and my Intent with Making that i hadn't had,  or hadn't understood….

All the Cloths i make are pictures of    Moments in Time   …   this one so clearly…a threshold,  a doorway….into a place so vast it cannot even be imagined,  we only Trust that it  IS THERE because we sense it with a relentless sureness….sensing…of sureness

they are pictures …in a surrounding which includes me and any viewer,  my mind/experience,  their mind/experience ,   the phenomenal Day…events,  happenings in our worlds  and all of this is

unfinished.

I don't bind the edges.  i Can't.  To bind would be to say it's over…(finished)     These all are what i describe to self as "work Cloths"…they are prompts to somewhere else…around us,  or,  in us'

moments.  stills.

that remain open in all four directions,  above below behind ahead.   as moments   are.  Moving,  Changing.  Alive.

 

so much could be written here this night.   Too much.   My head…Heart….are overflowing.   and the rush of it all continues.   So,  i finally said to self this evening…ok….What ….can i DO  to relieve the pressure?   i already knew…just small ordinary things…sort through the red tool box…take out  what is not loved,  the duplicates…make room for what IS that has no place to be.  Clean the kitchen where just earlier i had knocked over the bottle of sweet and sour sauce onto the  sink rack of clean dishes.   Make order of the bench seat across this table from where i sit,  the things that i'd readied for loading into the vehicle,  the most basic of what i NEED.  Order them enough so they can stay there for the next months.   Every year it changes.  So few things i NEED.   So much i Want and then…all that i Love.  

and it occured to me that i could get a car top carrier.   there's a rack for it.   Put those Love things there…ahead of time…like soon.   and leave them till Rain comes in winter.  For instance…the two tins of beads and buttons that are down in the storage tubs at B.   That for 3 years now i've said i'd Leave.  But somehow,  this morning i thought that i don't want to.  Leave them.  The pink wool blanket and extra old GOOD scratchy cotton sheets.  Some clothes that i never wear but that have such meaning…i'll never wear them…they don't fit this life…like the Morning Thing i made in Jude's Contemporary Boro….i love it.  and for reason.  there's only One of It in the Entire Universe.   

and anyway,  on and on.    I'll hook into the Buy Sell Trade Face Book page for Car roof carriers….begin watching.  

Alyssia and Emrie came at the end of the afternoon.   I met them down at the Big Gate,  me and Tay.   We did the Creek.  Emrie just Going…IN….,  me,  easing in   Alyssia watching over us.   The Current is swift and strong…it's Full now and Emrie wore her waterwings and was carried over and over,  bobbing along like an oak gall,  a leaf or twig  to where the barbed wire fence is that divides the land…back back up to the culvert to float again.  Over and over and then we walked the other side  up and up to where the small trees and bushes now prevent us from going through…have overgrown….that side there is a swath of a kind of water plant..like sea weed,  like what you buy to put in your aquarium for your guppy babies to hide in…it looks ominous…thick and wavery but Emrie reached in and brought some up and it's 

lovely.   feathery.  magical that it lives and grows under water.   She has no fear or hesitation.   The creek is full now.  If it goes down some over the months,  she wants to go from one side to the other, under the road,  through the culvert tubes.  She has no fear or hesitation.   What is that like,  i wonder?  Water is her other world.  

the pic is of Tree Woman.   from maybe 40 some years ago.   who i collaged in this way during Acey's Collage Challenge.  It's been on the wall to my left since.  I want/need/love.   took it down and it's in the drawing book.   on the bench.  Ready