windthread

the high branches of the Morning Tree at Sun Set

How Life.   How Life,  just living it,  can make us Beauty Full.

my brother,  7 years younger,  Bemidji Minnesota.   There are stories.   Hundreds.   Our lives wandered through the 70's   80's.  He DID go back to the land,  way back then.    It was from his farm that i stole the CROW that keeps watch over my Altar.   There's  been a lot of Everything in our lives.  It's tempting to recount some here,  but i decided not to.   All that Drama.  and now,  from him this morning,  a Message:

"Hey.   i have begun to sew my rakusu in preparation for Jukai ceremony.    I guess traditionally the material one used was unpretentious and previously discarded perhaps  from old burial cloth or old barn rags or whatever.   The ones our Sangha wear are rather dark, dull, navy blue.   I am looking around for cloth around here to incorporate and was wondering whether you may have any scrap around.  We have plenty of material that has been used which is a blend 80% cotton.  Not too heavy.  Something that folds nice.   Just looking around for old material that wants to be a rakusu.   No rush.  This process will likely take a few months or more.  We will be having sewing circles at the various members homes that have sewn their own before.  Good project for end of winter for someone who doesn't work with fabric much."

i have some possibiities…including some old boro from Jude's Crazy Richard.   Above is a piece from Deb Lacativa.   I hope he chooses it.   After all these years and all our craziness,  it's fitting.   and it's Beauty honors the human being he has become and is becoming.  

this morning,  Michelle of Ms.Uncertainty Principles posted again:   UTube   The Great Bell Chant      Read by Thich Nath Hahn chanted by Phap Niem.    I sent it to him.   Go there.   Sit awhile.  it repeats.

went to Post Office.   I'd let my subscription lapse a while back.  a long while,  actually….i was in the Evacuation mode…not wanting things i'd need to leave behind.    With the collage work,  i missed them,  the array of images and just pieces of things that become images so i searched through old issues and found an old subscription card and sent.  Today this was in the mail.  Is this Beauty FULL?????   grocery size tote,   and BLACK…my favorite color.  I'd always been told that my grandfather had all the issues from "the beginning"…and i googled first issue…September 22,  1888.   !   ?     How then it was a kind of insatiable curiosity about the World….when China was as far away and foreign as Mars.   and then there was Mongolia and the Congo.  Tibet.   They would be interesting to read today.   I suppose you can somehow….everything is possible, right?   I am assuming that those issues would be very similar to the FACTS about things that were/are in those  1930 edition of the Books of Knowledge that now take up a huge chunk of space at Alyssia's house.   So FULL and BRIMMING with Knowledge that is in many instances,   quite Wrong.    I think about all this.   Images come to mind from the Books of Knowledge…the pages, for instance of all the many kinds of sea shells.  The Book of Poetry.   I need to go look at them.   I think how we do that now.  Make these statements about how things Are as if  we know all there is to know and of course,  we don't,  but we don't say that.  We only know what we know so far.  Just so Far.  Today.   

Meditation Swing Time.   Emrie gets in an out on her own now.  But it's the same old request…Swing Me!

i am happy to be alive.

the longest in over ten years that i have not worked on a Cloth.   Today,  it was as if i'd gone way back to that beginning.  But there were Differences that were immediate.    There was no concern at all about whether each scrap might accept another…i knew they would.  There was great pleasure in seeing whether one edge would be over another or the other way around.  These have to do with Acey's 30 day Collage.    There was no concern if there was a gap here and there.  That too.   Maybe,  i guess,  it was the absence of Concern.   And the initial   "instruction"  was…Do Not Think.    It was Joy.

Earth pieces stitched  down first.   In the process,   her face kept coming off because of the  cuff of my sweatshirt,  so i stitched the face second.   I wondered if it would work.   It does.  Well enough.  I want to quit drawing faces for now,  at least here,  just rely of form.   Again,   Collage related.     All except the    Skirt    is  stitched in place.   I still feel that something is lost when cloth is stitched in place,  changing from just being free,  lying there,  all together.   how they  "fell".   

and kept my word.   Hauled more buckets of composted manure to the Wall Garden and once down there,  of course,  you do other things,  because you are there and they catch your attention.   

I am working with Acey's Essence…Evolving Sanctuary.   I'd begun using it before she posted about it on SparklingLotusInk on the 9th.   Just because.   When i read her words i understood what had drawn me.    "leading by example in unorthodox ways and/or for deeply personal reasons.   Reading this,  i understood the sense of things here,   on this Hill  this year.   The first year i was here,  i was orienting,   often lost.    The  second,  last year,   just wanting  to Uhhhhh,   be  the Old Nana,  a bystander.    This circle around it's different.  There is a Shift.   The first is that Emrie is older and has become a viable Player of her Self.   But most i think,   it's about realizing and Wanting to  be responsible for  my Place here.   To fully give what i have.   as One of Four.  So…not really about leading,  but taking my Place.   Just as all of us are learning to do.

Emrie's father is a Houston TX cop.   She loves police cars,   helicopters and fire trucks.   She is a California child.   She got the screw driver from over on that "end table" and worked to Fix the car for the   "police officer".   

i looked at this pic off and on.   Love just this much.   What if  the Skirt could also be another thing?   After the shaking out,  and then the Going,   she could just squat down/into it…..it becoming a Place to rest before More.

It began with the strip of green. Then the rest.  The Earth she walks.     the Skirt.   Shake it.  Put it on.

walk to the pile of scraps on the bed…."They said….DO NOT THINK. "  reached hand to the pile,  picked up the first thing i touched.  3 times.   the Skirt.   back to pile….she needs a shirt,  and same.  First thing i touched.   Do not think.   And on.  She needs a face.    She needs hair.

What to say.   Cloth assembled its Self.  

i wanted to begin stitching but had made the Agreement that i would continue with the Gardens every day.  And so…two more buckets,  heavy ones,   down to A.  Watered  everything  down.   First water since Winter.   Zero rain in the forcast.   Planted the stump of the Collard Tree that had been hidden behind the Stevia that i cropped yesterday….planted the curved stalk horizontally.   Too long so i cut a stump and planted that.   On to B Garden and gave water.  There is self seeded Arugula here and there.  Ate as i watered.   the Pomegranate planted a few months ago is getting small buds on it's stalks.   The tips of the Fig are green.  I didn't linger there,  was time to feed self  before the evening feed.   A very Great Day.  A REALLY very great day.

this is next to Talkie's Chicken Palace yard that she doesn't use now that she is FREE  range.   is between the Feed Shed and Sunny Ray and Jack Flash's  yard.   I call Sunny Ray and Jack Flash's place a yard now instead of a forest because Sunny Ray has for all practical purposes done In all small trees there.   So…no longer a forest.  He doesn't mind.

Anyway…there were two 16 ft cattle panels  and one other of these PVC and deer fencing Things that Jenny had made leaning against Talkie's Palace fence.   Next to the road up.   The Doe Goats camp out there and have been fed there.   Have given MUCH manure  there that has rolled down and lodged  against the cattle panels.  And scrap from the alfalfa.  Stems they don't eat.  All winterRain months it's gotten soggy and transformed into RICH substance.   I've been digging it out from behind all that but we moved the panels this weekend and it's open.  This is what i haul down in buckets to the Wall  Garden at campsite A.   Now i can get it easily.   It's Beauty FULL,   beyond BeautyFull…so full of nutrients and Life already….down at the raised bed of the Wall,  it will become FOOD in the form of vegetables .   I worked at this.  All day. And felt like there was nothing More anyone could possibly want in this LifeTime.   If there is, i don't know it.  Just Love.  just love.

Jenny's landlord asked her about her Intention.   He's thinking about selling her place.   She told him.   And told him the roadblocks that have risen up here.   He is a general contractor.   As all in this area of California,  has more work than possible.  He listened and said that  he would,  in the next couple months,  be able to dig the septic according to specification.  Tho we do not intend to use it,   it allows all other permitting to go forward.   So….this is a BIG DEAL.    Fingers can be crossed.   We'll see.

2 of the Table Bench baskets.  One of Emrie's favorite things now is   "Something's missing!".  She will build a tower with blocks and say for instance have her helicopter and fire truck there,  maybe her pink turtle,  the egyptian cat,  a stone.  Stands looking…and says….Something's missing…..i might say….a butterfly?  and hand her the butterfly?  no,  she says.  I offer a few thoughts,  but all are no and then she says….a star!….a star is missing.   and i say   We have no star and she pushes her hand down her leg and brings it up saying    I HAVE ONE!,  in my Pocket!  and puts the invisible star from the invisible pocket on top of the tower and   TA DA!       it's all just Magic.   

Today is a work day.   But early,  before Jenny would arrive i stood.  Looking.   and thought….Something's Missing…….what?  And suddenly realized.   Just like with the paper for the Collage,  you need to finger through all the possibilities so The Ones can rise.   There are four baskets here in this immediate space.  More in the back room,  but 4 here.  Ready to Run if need be.   and i poured 2 of them out.   

moved them around with my hands…interesting things among…a few letters,  the rolled maps of  Chico/Oroville and Northern California (i'd lost them)  the glass frame with my son's 1st grade school pic and Julian's ultrasound   My first place blue ribbon from Socorro County Fair…Bread and Butter Pickles.   ??? 

But,  yes.  It's how i knew to do that with the paper images.  Go through and into them all.  Touch them all.  I've always done this with cloth.   How did i forget?

because i need to sleep there tonight,  they have all been piled loose on the Other Table Bench.  In the morning i'll put them back and put the other two baskets , Free,   with them.   I'll know something, then.

this is the longest that it's been since i began a new Cloth.   I feel like a lover,  gone long,  not knowing how  to approach.  All the baskets,  waiting,  in their usual places.  I don't know what to do.

the new plan…pellets…tomorrow at evening feed it will be a week.   i have managed to keep the secret about where this feed comes from.   All they know is that i come out sometime around 4 oclock and tinkle tinkle  the pellets clink into the bowls.  The good thing is that everyone seems to get their fair share relatively easily.  Moving between bowls takes time and Gives time

the question now is….do we do pellets for both morning and evening feed?   Skip the dry baled alfalfa altogether?   They have begun working the steep hill that rises up from the canal.  Grasses there.  They continue through the rest of the Hill forest with twigs leaves and certain green grasses,  still and always the pine needles.   Today i saw some poison oak.  So…soon,  that too.  We look at the Meadow down to the far side of A.   What can we plant there for them?  Jenny wants to figure out how to make it sustainable for both the Hill and them.

i have a regular normal plastic California Drivers License.  Today.  in the mail.  at the Post Office.  I LOVE the post office.  i was going to go to the worm farm around the corner and get bags of really great soil.  At the last minute,  i didn't.  Just came home.  I will take one more circle of season to see what we can do with what we have,  which is Goat Shit and feed scrap.    Jenny got a 50lb bag of large horse alfalfa pellets the Goats can't eat.   It's down at A.   I've read about making alfalfa tea.  I'll do that.  This week i've been working through that Wall Garden and the soil is BECOMING something.  It's not a FAST thing,  but a just going thing.  I think i want one more circle through.  See where we get to.    

some people have certain things on their End Tables.   Like maybe photographs in interesting frames,  or pottery,  or objects they love,  a plant.   

here,   the flashlights in glasses so they become lamps.   a scoop of cat food for Puppy's morning bowl.  The rest is self explanatory.   How it is here.

a rock's garden

this is Marti's Cloth.    a Cloth that Marti made.   It began during Acey's  30 days of Collage.   It was paper with a fragment of cloth.  Yesterday, it changed.  I'm sorry for the quality of the image.   It's just taken with the phone camera off the laptop screen.  I don't know how to do better.    The image clarity its self,  but the color is not true.  The color is wonder full.   Her grandmothers were Curanderas.  with big skirts.   She referred to that today.  I will let her put her own words about this in the comments.  But i looked and heard those words about their Skirts….and i loved the image.   Yesterday was  a hard day for a lot of Us.  There is that sinking feeling that yes,  it can get worse.   And i heard Marti's words  and thought….to whatever degree We each might have that bent,   we need to find,  shake out and put on our Curandera Skirt.   Begin wearing them daily.  No matter how  things go….We are all here in this world  for the long haul.     This morning i see on the news feed that Ms. Pelosi,  who i have  a few differing thoughts about,   Ms. Pelosi ripped paper.   She shook her skirt.