• 20220622_130527

    just past B Garden,  just on the side of this little meadow where Old Cowboy's Mother's rocking chair,  lawn chair is that holds his box of stuff…his slippers,  teeth,  glasses.    Alyssia had to move branches to drive up.   Maybe 70ft.  at least.

    i heard it.   was just waking,  First Light,   i thought it was closer and i looked but couldn't see.  Thought maybe i dreamed it.  But i heard the sound of it ripping off.   

     


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    right at Earth.   a just Letting Go.   For maybe a hundred years,  Vertical and then…just Letting Go.   

     


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    the Feeling of it

     

    Tomorrow is Thursday again.   Trust Time.    and where i've come in these 6 days….about Trust…..is simple in a way,  but in a way so not.   What i think i can Trust:   Everything seems to hang in a balance of 50/50.  the degrees over can change the game.  In these days now.    and i can Trust that there are enough on "my" 50 side to

    hold

    so far.

    and that part of my Trusting is that i am constant in my effort to be     Kind.   to be   Genuine.   to share kindness and a Real as i move in this world.  At every opportunity.  so that the other 50% can feel it and be touched by it.   To feel the good of kindness and Real,  how it can soften Fear.   Small ways like when i set out tomorrow morning as early as i possibly can…to make my way to the Dollar Store and then Lakeside Grocery.   To say…no…you go first….to smile behind the mask….to exchange any words that create a real exchange of human ness.,  goodwill.   to Grow my 50%.   This is a clumsy effort to give words to a lot of thought but it's all i've got.  it's Hot.   And i thought about how we made such effort to eradicate  indigenous people from this continent but it didn't prevail.   They held on.  And today,  teach their languages to the young.  Teach pride.  Deb Haaland is Secretary of the Interior.  Love that term…the Interior…a native woman,  Secretary of the Interior,  i smile…. but then,  there is the Decision from the Supreme Court…these words seeming fake….Supreme Court…story like….but they will decide.   because it's what we agree to…a  "Supreme"   Court…  And then…we have a Committee to investigate Lying.   at greatlength.  Emrie is learning about lying.  she is 4.   but we have a Committee.  a country of adults…has a committee.   ok.   what can i do.   what can i do to sustain the balance?   to allow it to hold,   that we don't fall into that world of Octavia Butler's  premonition .     today would be her birthday.  75 years old.   Dee told me that.

     

     

     

  • 20220519_172816

    this Planet,   this Earth

    all the Children

  • 20220620_195256

    i am trying to give words to something i can't even identify in thought.   So…i just keep LOOKING at Everything,  Looking,  and this evening on the way back up from giving water at B Garden,  i see this.   I pass it twice a day.  Everyday.  This is the first time i have seen it.

    Julian is gone to his father's in New Jersey for a month or so.  There's some space in Alyssia's head so we decided to be a short lived book club and the first choice was One Hundred Years of Solitude which i love,  have loved and which she read some years ago because of my love of it and she began reading again,   before me,  and although it is stunningly brilliant,  there are things happening in it that are uncomfortable for her.  I hadn't yet begun so she was telling me as she read.    and at one point she said….AGAIN,  I wish you would read Parable of the Sower.   Octavia E. Butler.  She'd  given me the book maybe 10 years ago and i tried but  couldn't.   But ok.  and for 2 days now,  i have read.    Last night till 1 something a.m.  I finished late this afternoon,  just before the evening Goat feed.  

    when i read fiction like this,  it becomes my life.  my life becomes like fiction.   I take time from my life,  which is the book,  to do things like eat and feed animals.  it's dreamlike.   i live IN the book.   That's why i quit.  reading fiction.  a long time ago.

    but i read it straight through,  Parable of the Sower,  and now….i'm done..   I am  severed from it.    and i can think about what i read and i can think about how it is interesting that this is the time when i was ABLE to read it…though trying a few times before,   and not.   But now.  I said to her…maybe now,  because i am ripe.      We haven't talked about it yet.  

    and i went in search for thoughts about Parable of the Sower and came to this:

    "Is it possible that imagination sometimes takes on other powers and mediates other dimensions of the real to us?"                       Jeffrey Kripal

     

     

  • 20220518_213802

    who am i?    with ketchup and sriracha  on her mouth….

  • 20220618_144250

    the rest of yesterday.    it stormed all night.   and this morning,  i went back to yesterday morning.   and first to this.   i'd mentioned it before,  that there was this one place…a space…and that i knew that whatever was supposed to go there would appear.   thinking only,  it would be a fragment of cloth.   I imagined it being brightly colored.   ?

     

     


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    but    no.   this cocoon is the Exact size.   is

    IT.

    and after i spent some time with this,  suddenly one of my occasional manic  moments rose up and took off on its own.  I thought of the 5 minutes with Trust.  I thought of US,   all over The Place in our own 5 Minutes and i suddenly saw it as a Story.  A true story.   I saw all of us as characters ,   like our own chapters…each who we are…each experiencing this time and this need for Trust in our own way,  our own lives.  and it just took off from there and i imagined writing a Story,  of a world leaning into dystopia,  these women  coming from a time when dystopia WAS an imagined story that we thought not possible and finding ourselves    every Thursday,  merging intention and heart for 5 minutes in just our own sense of Trust…in common only the Word.  Trust.  which is enough.  And it was glorious,  all the things i imagined for this story and as i was walking over to B Garden Alyssia called and i blurted it all to her,  one running sentence,  hardly breathing,  and she laughed and said Write It and i told her i could not possibly,  i do not have what it would take,  but that i would write its skeleton,  its bones and SHE someday could write it.  And today so much is forgotten.  actually,  a lot was forgotten almost as it was imagined.  But it was  BeautyFull and energizing.    The cocoon holds it.

       

     


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    Jan,  up near Redding  sent me this book this week.   Writing that Story,  i would need HOURS AND DAYS  AND MONTHS of research.  But

    this is where i would begin.   I want to LEARN what is in it.  Not just read about it and go on….i want to LEARN it.

  • 20220617_104000

    i have become.   lax.   

    in many ways.   It's been some days since this small oval shape appeared in front of me in the Resting Chair near the Feed Shed.  Where i sit.  after giving feed and often times water to Jack Flash and Nogal.  Where i sit upon walking up and around from B Garden.  to catch my breath.   it was just There.   right in front of me on the road.   Perfect.  a cocoon…or,  a perfect half of a cocoon.   an impossibly PERFECT half….as if snipped with very sharp scissors.   unnaturally so.   and it has a story that won't happen right in this moment…but i wanted to photograph it this morning and looked around for how to do this and it was the rock that Peggy McG brought me this last spring….that was over on that only piece of furniture,  Old Cowboy's drawers…

    i brought it to this Morning table and set them together and it was perfect…somehow the substance of the cocoon being kin to the substance of the rock

    but they were just set on this formica table and i saw the disrespect of this….how i've become lax and went to look for a piece of cloth that i might lay down to photograph things,  looking in the drawer of that only piece of furniture that holds some rolled Cloths…maybe…..i hadn't looked in a long time….

     

     

     


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    the back of this is a Blue and might work….so i unrolled it and saw this.

    forgotten

    when did i make this?   and at what point did i roll it and  place it in the drawer?   

    how it Illustrates the Goings On of these days…how it Illustrates how that Intelligence of the Universe…that i believe gave me the halved cocoon in an effort to communicate in a way i would recognize….how it is a perfect illustration of that but/and how i am on and on  so often  unavailable to SEE,  to HEAR…..,     so

    it's now on the Cloth Wall.   More things thread themselves together,  more things  hummmmmmmmm,  a sound of How It Is.

    connecting now,  for me,   to  the 5 minutes of Trust.

    CatherinE    gemtactics.net/wordpress

    there is  THUNDER outside as i type this.      Rain drops on the roof.   June.   not 

    how it is here in N Cal

    but how it IS…in this moment….Thunder rolls.   says…" I'm talking to you,  grace…."   and not just me,   but whoever else is willing to hear….we are Out There/Here.  

  • 20220616_124752

    how did it go?     

    for me.

     

     What was profound from the first moment,   the sense of We.   I am used to being alone at that time of the beginning of the day.   There was a surprisingly Strong sense of We…of Not Alone.   i was surprised.   it was Strong.    Sitting for me means opening to an Emptiness and i moved into that….a Full Emptiness     but where i was not alone.     Sometimes i would lapse into the Mani Meditation…Om Mani Peme Hung (tibetan pronounciation)  but i pulled from that,  wanting to be instead in some consideration of Trust,  some knowing of Fear,   but  it did not last and there was just an energetic emptiness…strange words….but what seem to best convey how it felt…   and i would just follow the Breath.   At some point i thought…Oh! 5 minutes and looked and it was 9.   And there it was.   

    I went on with the day,   just Feeling it,  trying not to give thought form.    But at the end of the day,  i realized  that

    There was no room for Fear in those moments.  Fear could find no place.   The space was Full.  

    so this was it.   the other thing i do know is that i very much look forward to next Thursday.   

  • 20220615_111025 this  pic.  yesterday.    her first bird.    it was a few months ago when i asked her about writing her name,   and she flatly and with no fanfare said   "im not into it".    Time has passed and now….she wants to draw a bird.  She wants to learn her letters,  write her name with both upper and lower case  Es.    she knows that learning her letters is the path into learning to Read.  a few months changed it all.  time.   Trust time.  

    so CatherinE has responded.   Tomorrow,   7 am for me    10 am for her    We  will Sit.   i have mailed Maria but as she is over in another Time across the world,  haven't heard back.  For her it would be 4 pm.  

    i will take more Time to write about it clearly and slowly but tonight,  just this.   5 minutes.   Just 5 minutes.   Stop what you are doing.  and imagine.   imagine Trust.  whatever the word might mean to you.  and there may be hundreds of meanings.   

    there's nothing to this except to say to your own self that you are doing it.  To say to your own self,  i will stop and sit.  Or…even, what Ever?….i think…for Marti…maybe she will DANCE for 5 minutes?    What Ever.   How Ever  the sense of Trust rises in you.  I thought today….this Earth,  this Planet,  is  4.543 billion years old.  4.543 years of Evolution….arriving here.,  in this moment,  for me…sitting with a child drawing a bird for the first time.   I can trust this.   i heard in some off the radar news that women in Russia are taking to the streets asking Where Their Husbands Are…demanding to know.   Women in Russia. in the streets.    I can trust that.  in the last few days…many things i can Trust.   and i can press that Trust against my face.   

    So….here  we go.   Every Thursday.  7 am pacific time…will refine this…but 

    there is nothing to do but to sit in your own space.   nothing to say unless you want to and if you want to,  how great that would be.   Say     i am sitting .    here …whereEver you are….so We can get a sense of who WE are….like those little pulses of light on Jude's old blog…that planet,  pulsing    but if it's just a few of us that is also sheer Happiness for me….Sangha.  Community.  

    thank you Maria

    thank you CatherinE

    love and love and just Big Love

  • 20220609_104722

    Maria,  my Belgium sister has chosen to be absent from the internet for a while now,  and…on going.  But….she sent an email in connection to Fear.   She wrote/writes this:   "Look close by the self and ask,  can I/will I put TRUST in place of it?"

    i read this and there was a sudden rush of Truth…a sudden rush of the sense that this is Right.   Trust.

    and i hold the word Care Full y.  Trust.   and i do not want to give it any "pictures",  any description,  any form…

    just the word.  Trust.   To say the word softly out loud and hold it in the palm of my hand.  Trust.  and   then,  after some moments,   press it against my face.  Gently.   softly.  but with a firm sureness.   press it against my face.

  • 20220612_174025

    the back of the Curry House,  which up to 3 days ago,  was  Sunny Ray's Infirmary.  Which originally was built and designated as the kidding house.   It's where Black and Minnion were born.   Since then,  used as feed storage and etc.  till Sunny Ray's recuperation.  Has that long narrow fenced corridor initially meant to keep babies safe  while acclimating  to the herd.

    We cut the fencing at the wall.   Maybe 2 1/2 ft wide.   making an opening to the corridor.   Moved the feed bowls In.   Made a gate to close that opening.   Now,  instead of feeding into bowls Outside the Curry House,  i sneak out there when they are somewhere else and close that gate.  When it's evening feed time,  when they get alfalfa pellets and also some grass hay,  the plan is to pour the pellets in the bowls,  drop the hay into the 3 piles like they like it.  Having closed the door to the Curry House,  Open the Gate.   They come IN.

    the idea is…..as with those catch yards for Jack and Nogal,   to get them used to going in and out freely.  So if there is need…

    evacuation……

    the gates can be closed and they will just BE THERE to load into transport.  maybe Easier on them,  WAY easier on us.  We talk about it.  How we will need to practice ahead of time.   Breathing.  Moving Slow and Steady.  Causing as little as possible of our own anxiety vibes for them to react to with their extreme sensitivity.  Breath.  Move Steady.  OK

    as i have said.  The Doe Goats load pretty easily.  We put a bowl of pellets in the Goat Boat and almost all of them just pile in,  easy peasy,  leaving us to coax or catch who for whatever reason won't.   That is always Karma.  Sometimes Arctica.  the two Skittish for No Known Reasons.  the two No Touch.     This will give us    TIME.  

     

     

     


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    so at first,  there was….WHAT? !!!!!     but they came in.   This was Sunday.  yesterday.  This morning they were unhappy.  Stuff's not like it usually is,  they came and they left,  uneasy.   This evening,  no big deal.   Tomorrow and then the next tomorrow and it will be As Is.    This will also work to assist in things like vaccinations and hoof trimming.  They have become used to 6 acres.   We need it smaller sometimes.    All will be well.       i love all this….so so much.     ?????   

    and to add.   Journal.   this was Jenny,  Alyssia,  me and Emrie.  and Emrie.   She was given time.   we talked  a lot about what we were doing,  why we were doing it.  She was let space and time to use all the tools,  to see how things worked,  to be PART OF IT.  I suppose i might say too much about her.  But…there is reason.   She takes it all so seriously.  She takes her Place.  so Seriously.  at 4,  almost 5.   She senses that this is Hers.   Her responsibility.    it rises out OF her.   She has connected and claimed.  For whatever reason.   it's very fine to witness.