windthread

a Cloth returned this weekend.   was sold  in 2013.    I remember the day it rose up from….I was standing on the bridge over the Rio Grande.   The woman is singing.   for the River.  

She felt that the Cloth wanted to return to me.

With it,  was the Salt Cedar stick for hanging it.   I think it might have been the stick that wanted to return.   I have very much missed those sticks…missed the Salt Cedar everywhere along the ditch banks through N Mex,  along the irrigated fields.  Always the efforts to eradicate this Invasive.   Which i understood,  but at the same time could not help loving the Beauty of it…it's feathery self with rust red wood,  graceful curves.   i have looked for sticks here…there's sticks EVERYWHERE,  but they are angular and knobby…not for Cloth hanging.

i sent a Message to Bill…my friend there,  asking if the family who lived in Polvadera was still there.  They had a lot of kids and sold wood,  salt cedar,  and eggs.  they had Goats.  Were Evangelical and loved to try to help me understand.   Their kids are probably all grown but i thought…there might be grandkids  who might gather and sell me sticks.   They would approve of that.

 

 

 

 

Campsite A.  the Wall Garden.    that i abandoned.    

the grasses have begun in full  to  set seed.   it's thick and well….more than it   "should" be.    There's also Vetch and Clover and many others that i don't know their names.    Nothing is happening there,  of us,   so it's Their world.   Focus is on Alyssia's Yellow House in town  where it's reaching its crescendo of repair.   

i walked down,  calling the Goats who were far off on the hill above the Canal Creek and they came and i opened the Gate and left it open and called and tho they were uneasy,  they came.   and could not believe their Luck.    i sat with them for about an hour as they moved through and over it all .    If it was the "Before Times",  it would have been a herd of deer.    They explored and ate things with great enthusiasm until  suddenly there was a sound….kind of a thud….i don't know what….the down the road neighbors boys were doing something….but they  responded by instantly forming  into a tight ball  and taking off   out the gate, up the hill.   i waited a while.   They didn't return.   Goats.   When i got back,   they were here,    waiting.   Chewing Cud.  Basking in the SunShine.    We will repeat.   Until it gets right.   Right meaning,   no fire fuel.  it's almost May.

 

 

Early morning i felt the urge to be InTouch with Wendy.  [Golden Levitt].   just a hello and Love,  and sent her an email.   Just that.  Within an hour,  received word back.  She is working again in the Studio,  and is collaborating with a boy who moved with his immediate family from Ukraine to Canada some 5 years ago,  who is "learning about war and the family has not heard from fifteen of their close relatives".   This morning,  at the Studio,  he wrote this.  She asked if she could share it.  He said yes.

Here in my awkward way

Protection                                                                                                                                                                                                                         a poem by Slav P.                                                                                                                                                                                                          age 11

I closed my eyes while I was so so so so so so                                                                                                                                                              scared.

I pretended I was in a hammock in the woods.  It was                                                                                                                                               very green.   It was very quiet.

I pretended that Grace's goats came to me,  snuggled                                                                                                                                               me,  lay under me.

I feel warm.  I feel protection.  I open my pretend eyes.  I                                                                                                                                         see the goat eyes.

I pretend I am sitting on the edge of their rectangle eyes.

 

I will see everything like a goat.                                                                                                                                                                                      you make your eyes rectangle                                                                                                                                                                                       and you can see things in a different way                                                                                                                                                                  to keep you safe                                                                                                                                                                                                               from all the bad noise of the world.

I hope one day to have a goat with me.                                                                                                                                                                         I will bring it to Wendy's place.                                                                                                                                                                                    I will make a soft pile for the resting of the goat                                                                                                                                                      on the magic feather cloth                                                                                                                                                                                            where it can look at all the stitching like I have                                                                                                                                                       for years.  it has magic.  because i now can make                                                                                                                                                    my eyes go rectangle.

only graces goats can know.                                                                                                                                                                                        all i have to do is touch the magic feather cloth.                                                                                                                                                       and maybe with goat eyes,  the world could be safe                                                                                                                                               again.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  I love this idea.                                                                                                                                                                                                                 do you?     

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

i sat.  my whole self swirling with sensation  i looked out the window,  the world was swirling,  i was swirling in it.                             Elizabeth Gilbert….that Intelligence….."it tries to find us in however we are most….that we can most find it".                                      I was found.   

After my breath returned,  I asked her if she could ask him if i might share his Poem here and he said:  "I read her blog.  so do my friends.  I would like it if she puts it up on her blog.  This feels good.

Slav…..Thank You for being you.    With all my Heart,  Thank you.      Wendy,    Everything……

                                                                                                                                

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                        

so yesterday.   i am winding down at B Garden.   something says look to the right and i look up and over the house foundation up the hill to the back fence and the Goats are up there as they often are but  ….   Something Is Wrong With This Picture….. and i think,  some of them look awfully "close"….and they were.   Oona, Artica, Minion, Wendy who is really Grace and one other were INSIDE the fence,  mouths into all the luscious rattlesnake grass there and beginning to look toward all the low hanging branches of LEAVES to the side…..I jumped up and yelled   OUT!   Get OUT of here!  and they scattered in all directions and i took off to go up there,  find where they came in and fix it so i could get them out.  I will spare the details.  But what it ended up was somewhere around 15 or 20 minutes of me running after them,  trying to get them to go out the front gate while running back and forth to that fence line to figure out how i could let them out that way without letting all the others in  and they would run when i chased them but immediately out of my range begin EATING and as they ran by all the Garden Plantings,  taking a quick bite of anything green,  like the chard etc.   Tay,  for some reason just stood there.  Watching.  a stick in her mouth.  Usually when i yell at them like this she chases them.  NOT.   just stood there.

long story short,  i did get them UNDER the fencing,  which is how they got in,  Oona being an opportunist  and deft at that and pounded in the big "staples" i got for the tomato cages every 3 inches or so and it is secure.   the little ditch that the PVC water pipe runs through i stuffed with the mesh fencing that has "wires" sticking out that will prick their noses i am hoping.  

and if someone would have asked me if i thought i could run up and down and in circles around that whole area for 15 or 20 minutes…me,  who  needs to sit and take a break between things,  could I?   i would have for sure said no.   The terrain is totally uneven,  rock filled ,  holes unseen     But i did it.    Somewhere in the middle i thought….this is not good, grace.   this is too much.  Just quit.   I don't know at what point i would have.  just quit.   Let it go.   ???   But we didn't get there this time.  And i think today…this is how life is.   Particularly,  how it's going to be from now on.   There's no way to know.    

But this time…i DID it.   Ok then.  Yay for us.  We go.

 

 

 

 

Margery Knott

Sharing Trickster's Hoard     trickstershoard.com

 

In response to the post here the other day,  Margery emailed me this poem she had written some years ago.   She will blog about it at Trickster's Hoard soon.   But gave permission to put it here now,   because of the Urgency she sensed.  Little could she know how completely stellar this was/is.  How Completely  a communication from the Intelligence of the Universe as i experience lately.

I don't know how to insert poems in their proper and Good form,  stanzas and all …. no matter what i try,  they just run on in ordinary sentences so i asked Jude,  as i have other times done,  for Help.   She came here.  Placed the poem and in the Beauty Full font.

I have this Poem of Prayer.   I have The Book of Joy from Lacelady.   I have Help when i need it.   All Given.  I have all i need to learn,  understand,   and go forward into the Next    through Communion of Communication X 3 in the moment,  X  infinity,  just waiting

this is a BIG BLOG POST for Emrie…..what i leave behind if it still exists into the future.   I want her to know…..

What you are meant to learn in any lifetime WILL  Present.   You can keep saying    LATER   and it will wait.  But STILL be there,  Waiting.   Even as you live your 77th year.

…

How the Intelligence of the Universe might appear sometimes,  but holographic,  or,  really,  something beyond holographic that we know nothing about.  

there's no point,  no use to me going on about my current angst over having no god,  no one to pray to.   i have been pretty much well over it for many years  and i guess maybe? it's the sensitivity to this current War…it's mindless cruelty…?   that has me thinking words like fervently implore…..    I accept that it's up to us,  humankind to handle our affairs.  or not.  as it is up to each single one of us in our own small worlds.    And that Intelligence  in  the universe that i still somehow am  Feeling is Real,  there,  would not be someThing one would pray to.    It is so much more than that,  such a formless Energy,  thoughts would be "received" even before they were fully  formed…so….prayer is for us.     and i think about that thought,  prayer is for us.  for ourselves.   and i wish i could pray.   I drew this morning…watched the graphite fall from the sharpened tip of my pencils onto the blank paper…felt all those marks appear….the "picture" really didn't matter,  it was the appearance of the marks,  how those marks Felt in their appearing and i thought that it was kind of like praying,  kind of like a prayer  and later when i went to the Garden to plant the first of the tomatoes,   i saw then too that for me,  going to the Garden is a kind of prayer.   Whether i have energy or not,  enthusiasm or not,  i go.   To see what is growing or what struggles,  to see the tip of green of an emerging seedling or see again the blank and empty face of earth  and somehow eitherway,  i just am "better" for being there.    And the dressing change for Sunny Ray this eve…Jeff came.   He held Sunny Ray's head by his horns,  i held his hoof down and in place,  Alyssia did the dressing.   Things moved along much more efficiently and quickly.    When she cut the old bandage off,  she exclaimed….for the first time,   it appears that it is beginning to heal!!!!     There is REAL hope,  not just hopeful hope!

 

and this today,  gifted by LaceLady.   I have begun.   Timing could not be more perfect.

had agreed with self last night to wake to some Meditation time this morning.     It was an Every Other Day.   i did that then sat quietly a while,  watched First Light  come.   after a while,  checked on Ukraine.    and thought the above.   Actually,  i thought,  I need a Life Coach   first.    Am going to continue with my  "treatment plan" .    it took two tries,  he is  Done With  It All and i talked to him.  Told him how his leg depends on this.   Two tries is not so bad.  it got done.   in less than a half a minute.  

it was an extremely soft and Beauty Full day after the rainy windy week preceding,  and i took the plant starts to the Garden.   Was slow and thoughtful.  there were butterflies.  a humming bird.    i remembered the quote from Anne Lamott that Marti had brought to us the other day.  

"Well,  how does us appreciating spring help the people of Ukraine?   If we believe in Chaos Theory,  and the butterfly effect,  that the flapping of the Monarch's wings near my home can lead to a weather change in Tokyo,   then maybe noticing beauty…flapping our wings with amazement….changes things in ways we cannot begin to imagine .   It means goodness is quantum.  Even to help the small world helps.  Even prayer,  which seems to do nothing,  Everything is connected."       and as i worked there,  doing small things,  i stayed with these words.   And thought too,  about how my indulgence in my Dread creates vibration.   I can do better.   i want to teach self to do better.  because i can.     and  I like that she said…Even prayer,  which seems to do nothing

 

 

 

i don't know why these pics are so BIG????   i did nothing different,  but oh well…..

Talkie has been intermittent in her  egg work since resuming.   She's changing her nest spots.   Most recent in with Sunny Ray between the two pellet barrels.    This was what was there this morning.  Maybe she's in the spirit.   She would be christian.  in her own pagan way.

and speaking of

a new book.    Liana Finck   Let There Be Light     in which  God is a Woman.     I had sworn to not buy any new books.  But…maybe this one.    i can say it's for Julian.    He used to draw stories,  line drawings,  similar to hers and has a wry sense of humor for his age.   I could say it's for him.

this was stitched on first.   Because it references my beginnings…. with 

"I feel very strongly that there's an intelligence in the universe that wants to communicate with us and I think that it tries to find us in however we are most…that we can most find it"….Elizabeth Gilbert

references my beginnings as a child.  Toads.  Frogs.   

this cloth is from a bolt end i found at the Socorro NM walmart.   cotton from china.   i instantly saw it as toad eggs.

they are not this color,  of course,  but their forms are this so very specific and striking and what they ARE is also so very specific and striking.   

the eggs of the Spadefoot toad,  Couch's spadefoot of my other Place there in Polvadera New Mex    Where  monsoon season would bring the intense and excellent urge  to breed,  replenish the tribe.   They live under ground throughout the rest of the year.   If it's a "good" rain,  they RISE up and out and gather in ephemeral pools and "emit a short explosive bleating sound like a sheep or goat,  the primary purpose to attract mates"     Scientific American Tetrapod Zoology.org   and i love they said  "primary" and did not go further…but primary,  yes,  to breed.   But i'm thinking also as an exclamation of JOY to be above ground,  to feel the rainfall,  to feel the reverberation of Thunder in their bones,  the flash of electrical storms in their eyes.  All around me there,  this bleating call of Joy,  many,  20 40 50 maybe more,  all night,  non stop.

they can go years without reproducing but once adequate conditions are met,  they DO and it can take as little as one day for an egg to hatch and two weeks to fully complete its metamorphosis.  

the first time i saw them in the roadside puddles….dis belief…they're large eggs and then almost by magic become tadpoles of an iridescent copper on  deep green/earth brown with spotted dark patterns of design…so so Beauty Full   only once i was able to hold one in the palm of my hand…FEEEEEEL it's softness,  it's brilliant Creation of a self,  with those elegant back legs

almost always,  the pools didn't last long enough…not even 2 weeks.   Many years,  the toads didn't even rise.  But i did see and hear it happen…  and it remains for me ,  in me,  forever.   and as an anecdote,  they can travel at speeds up to 10 mph.   ? why?

 

TO CLARIFY….the on my own thing.   I was referring only to certain things,  like getting the plant seedlings,  now,  as opposed to maybe in a while?  or maybe even,  not?    Many things are being required now by all of Us here of this Hill.   and i can no longer, ummmm,  not take primary responsibility if i CAN…if i CAN being the key….and most certainly,  learning how to use the phone direction Lady is something that i don't WANT to do,  but i CAN do and i DID do.  And so.   Like that.  

for a lot of time,  i was on my own.  Since i've been here,  i've gotten  "spoiled".   Just say it and it appears.  Right now that's hard…there's too much.  So….i need to take up the On My Own as much as i am able,  to do my share.