windthread

and

i know i am always Exclaiming about things…using those words…Brilliant, Stellar, Extraordinary, Beauty FULL,  Unbelievable and on and on.   It's how i talk.   Because it's how i FEEL,  experience things….in bursts of Happiness,  Delight.

But today….how can i tell it?   How can i impart the profound FEELING i had upon the appearance of………………THESE.

i was turning out the soil from the grow bags and landscape pots into the new fake raised bed.   My whole self was kind of just mindlessly humming along and suddenly!!!!…..the first one WAS THERE and moving FAST….surprised and wanting to FIX it's sudden startling exposure……i reached down and cupped it in my hand and it flipped out and for a few minutes i couldn't find it but then did and picked it up again to set it gently into the soil….it had calmed,  i assumed  had become intent on it's well being and focusing .   ?    I sat on my heels a while,  just calming myself.  Breathing.  Realizing what had just taken place.   I got another landscape pot and turned it out,  and there,  ANOTHER.   Search for the first and ….this pic.    then take them back….Thank them,  Say Metta,  for them,  for me,  for this Place,  for All of Everything.    I had just read that poem about worms,  made the Cloth honoring them ,   and here,  today…..WORMS.   

the old man i used to take my tools to for sharpening in N Mex….he told me,  when i lamented about no worms in the desert….he said no.,  no grace,   they are there.  They are Everywhere on this planet.   You need to call them.  You need to make it right for them.   They will come.

so….playing it by ear here,  in this granite garden of B,   i have just done all i could imagine doing.   I can't dig into the soil with a shovel.   The rock and stone don't allow that.   So i have brought buckets and buckets of  manure and feed scrap,  layered it on.  Making small planting holes for things OR planting in pots.   And as i emptied those landscape pots i saw that the roots of some of the plants had filled them and gone through the drain holes to dive into the stone earth below…where the roots must make their way in the crevices between to find LIFE that they need 

How it Goes.   Trying.   

These two worms….so vibrant and ALIVE and ,  well,  so vibrant and ALIVE….they are like a Kiss on the forehead….a YES

a Yes,  grace,  keep going.   It's Happening.   Keep Going.

and then…now….late in the evening as i write this.   That thing about the Intelligence in the Universe…wanting to communicate with us,  "in however we can most find it"…Elizabeth Gilbert…..    How could this be more perfect?

double click the pic.   They are Glorious

my catalog had not come but Just In The Nick of Time…Lace Lady had sent me hers and it arrived and also an Email from Baker Creek:

For 24 hours   Noon CST January 25 to Noon January 26    Baker Creek will donate 100% of all seed orders to World Help to provide humanitarian aid in Afghanistan.    Even if it's just seeds for your flower box on the window sill

 

 

 

 

and then…she has almost recovered her usual self from the winter moulting…lookin snazzy and who knows,  she might come back from her annual  self lay off and  even lay an egg?  she will be 5 this year having made it through yet another  weeks of Atmospheric River sleeping every night on her twig.   

 

swing and chair share intimate conversation  as  little stool and bells listen

i also went to Alyssia's to get the new laptop.   The one here finally simply could not go further.   It had been failing for a while.  Alyssia had gotten a replacement that had  waited.   

We sat on the driveway of the Yellow House as she did the necessary things to transfer to the new one.   Emrie was patient.    Then….the package from Margery.   I'd brought a handful of carrots from B Garden for Emrie.  the largest maybe close to the size of a walnut,  smallest pea size.  but  all,  fragrant and alive.    And here She was,  Old Oak    and Emrie put one of the carrots into her mouth so she could taste it.    it had been a long journey in the box.

 

 

On the hanging cloth wall,   She and i are face to face.   Today we made up songs and touched the Earth in love and honor of the Beloved Ticht Nacht Han  

There is GREAT WIND tonight.

January 7th.   Sharing Tricksters Hoard   Trickstershoard.com.   Margery Knott.    She offered.   i said,  Yes….yes,  please.

Today Old Oak is on this Hill.   The box arrived at Alyssia's  Tuesday night.   I went today.   the three of us opened  the box in the driveway of the Yellow House.    

and then back here.   

This,    This,   is 

Real.   is a Being.   is a Presence.    Tay and   I,  sometimes Puppy  are   no longer alone in this tin house.    

i want to show Her everything.  Want to tell Her everything.    i  had found the Cobalt Glass door knob,  just 2 days ago.  Had given in to having left it behind.   But looking for the hotplate for the Yellow House,   there it was…wrapped in a dish towel.  I want to tell Her about the Cobalt Door Knob that i have,  even if i have no door.

 

 

Feeding the Worms

Ever since i found out that earth worms have taste buds all over the delicate pink strings of their bodies,   I pause dropping apple peels into the compost bin,  imagine the dark, writhing ecstacy,   the sweetness of apples permeating their pores.   I offer beets and parsley,  avacado,  and melon, the feathery tops of carrots.

I'd always thought theirs a menial life,  eyeless and hidden,  almost vulger –though now,  it seems,  they bear a pleasure so sublime,  so decadent,   i want to contribute however i can,  forgetting,  a moment,  my place on the menu.

Danusha Lameris

i said to self that i would be conscious of the thoughts that came and went as i worked there today.  Make a point to know.   But when it was time to come back,  walking up,  and i remembered this….i realized that it IS true,   the reason i don't remember thoughts there is because i don't have any.    The Garden is a world of the senses.   Today was spent deep into the effort of pulling up the Clump Grasses…only some but large and fiercely connected.    i need to find some kind of tool that will work,  their roots grip the rocks,  who knows how far down.  The shovel doesn't penetrate.   and then,  that other Grass that travels…i meant to take a pic but forgot that too.   They are long  earth vines with small clones of themselves every inch or so…each  node having it's own potential root system.  They climb  and cover everything.    All i did was separate these,  find the rooted place and do what i could to dislodge them.   Breaks inbetween i gathered the bamboo supports,   looked long under the pieces of decomposing  cardboard,  emptied some more  soil from  last summer's grow bags.   Sun was warm.   There was a bee now and then.   The Daisey Shrubs continue blooming  after a short rest at the end of summer.    Crows flew and called overhead.  I called back.  That's all.   Total reprieve.   

be sure to double click

 

i woke this morning to a stuffy left nostril.   Lay there….breathing…realizing i was doing some kind  scan.   Was i hot?  Did i have a fever?   i coughed to see what my lungs were doing.    Lay there.   realizing fully how this low grade FEAR has become insidious 

i gazed out the window,  seeing the world outside from a prone position.  Sideways.  How SUN was 

rising

how Trees were

being Trees

being Trees while i was entertaining this quiet but insistent level of anxiety….heartbeat,  tight tingling chest,  eyes involved in some kind of hypervigilence      BRAIN   whirring and spinning out all manner of  thought fragments,  never finishing one before throwing forward another

and all of a sudden i got so TIRED of it.   So DONE with it all.  So DONE with that part of me 

i have spent almost all my adult life looking at Things.  Studying Things.   Receiving Teachings from all sources.   I know what works for me in How To Live.   I know many good and true things that i Believe completely are Real and undeniably true and good and real.  

i thought back to the words recently of Richard Davidson …to  paraphrase…."our brains are constantly being shaped by experience.  wittingly or other     by forces around us.   We can take more responsibility for our own brains.   

Margery Knott   Sharing Trickster's Hoard   Post of 1/14/22   about how inner fire is rekindled when it

flickers

this morning i flickered.   But i got up.  because Goats would be expecting me.  I got up because the Trees were

there

there.   How they have always been…there….in my childhood,  they were There,  all my life.  Trees.   Even when i lived in the desert,  had come to a Place of No Trees,   i planted them…  The Apricot.  the Russian Olive.  the Vitex and Desert Willow and

they grew.  and surrounded me.

So….i feel a little crazy.  But i also know how to live.   i have gathered the tools for that.    I need to make some kind of shift…it won't be hard when it happens.  it will seem  uhhhhh,  natural.  But nows the time.  i am really DONE with all this crap of fear and worry.   its useless.

i glanced over to my left at these two scraps of cloth.   just sitting there.  and they SAID.   Loud and Clear.   Go.  find some sky.  Find some sunlight playing out upon some spot of Earth.   Plant seeds.   Care for them.   LIVE.

the 7 stones belong to Emrie.  from a while ago.  She brought them in…to this Everything Table and said…don't lose them.  They were a shift for her.   Light colored stones when she has always so far been prone to  the black dark driveway stone.  I asked her about that and she was silent and then said..just don't lose them.   

ADDENDUM:   to be clear

along with all the Understandings and the Teachings….what i know to be of use.   MASK.  diligently.   DISTANCE.    

THESE WORK   to reduce the spread.   To lighten the load  for families and those in Health Care.   These are Easy.   even within our own family bubbles.  Be WILLING to do this much.  it's not a lot.   it doesn't change your quality of life.  

i stopped at the Mexican food place on the way home today.   the one by Lakeside Gas and Grocery.  Was standing there and here came my most beloved cashier….Chris!  with one of her dogs….i hadn't seen her since last summer and found out her home had burned in the Bear Fire of Berry Creek.   We were HAPPY to see each other and early in the exchange,  she,  maskless,   offered that she was vaccinated.   and we caught up with things  and that she is now back at Lakeside early in the days and i was so Glad and we were some ways apart when she suddenly moved to give me a sideways hug….

and i realized that i need to be ready for that.   Even tho i love her and even tho she is "vaccinated"….i need to be prepared.  Stand  far.   put my hand up  if need be.   No one is going to do that for me.   That's my responsibility.  

so,  yes.   I am  DONE with it.  But that also means i will continue to carry my own weight.   I will stay safe. and my staying safe will  help   "you"  to keep safe.

 

 to Document.    Covid has come.    Jeff picked up Fate as he does every thursday after school.   Upon arriving home,  he was coughing.    How Alyssia put it:   We cut and run.    This is a long story short  and there's no way i can explain it so it makes any sense without paragraphs and paragraphs and i'm not into it.    Enough to say that Alyssia still has access to the little Yellow House next door where she originally rented.  It's been empty since they moved into the White House.  A lot of stuff is still there.   She drove to Jenny's and picked up a Covid Test,  returned and did it.  Spent the rest of pretty much  all early night hauling things out through  Julian's bedroom window  (its big).   Over to the Yellow House which is just on the other side of the  Car Port and the little forest of  Crepe Myrtle and Geraniums.    Julian had the option.  Yellow House  OR  HIS ROOM  and the bathroom in Alyssia's room next door.  He chose his room.   The rest of the house is  Jeff,  Brinley and  Fate.     When the large extended family in the White House got evicted,   they moved there.  It's much bigger.   The Yellow House has issues,  like ify electric and frogs in the bathroom.   Is a rent with option to buy.   Involved with a VA Loan for Alyssia.  

test was Positive.

And so.

They just came…it's dark….to pick up the double burner hotplate that i had brought from New Mex that has been in one of the storage tubs down at B.   While finding that today i also found a lot of other things.   The cobalt doorknob.  Other stuff,  like the basket of Goat scurs.   I might say here…..this herd is registered with the Nigerian Dwarf  Dairy Goat Association….officially called    Crazy Wisdom Dairy.

So…Fate went back to his mother's today.   She has taken the week off.    Days will go by,   to test Jeff and Brinley.   Alyssia and Emrie will remain in the Yellow House with the frogs.  Julian will continue coming and going through his bedroom window.   

Jenny's man came back from a weekend to Phoenix for his grandson and namesake's first  birthday.  He brought covid.    When she came yesterday to bring Grass Hay,   she said she feels like Typhoid Mary.   We paused,  staring off into the trees….small stinging  tears…but then we went Forward.   There's nothing else to do.