for some short time this morning, the color of things was exactly right. Or, from the phone camera and Google pics. It was just right. i have no idea how it will come through here. But needed to try. ONE MORE TIME. and now, i will let it go.
here again. I hope it's what it seems to be when i push publish. Then go to look at what got published. Always a surprise and i guess i can learn to love that, Right? Right.
a short break in an otherwise bleak wet day, i ran down the Hill to harvest the pea pods and good thing. They'd gotten big. Some with the beginning forms of peas. These go in the Breakfast stir fry.
and out of the corner of my eye, i saw movement out on the road, just beyond the gate and went to look. Didn't see what was there but did see this multiple soft green form. This years Oak Galls. Just new. The skin is velvety to touch. Will watch them closely and as soon as i see the Exit, when the wasps leave, i'll harvest them for dye. Before they dry so much.
and the pic yesterday….Mary Lou emailed me to look again. She clicked the pic that is horrible and the clicked pic, so different and so close to how it is….who knows how these things happen….but i was so relieved. Thank You and LOVE, ML Tomorrow, small chance of Rain before Tuesday, so if there is Sun, will photograph again because i saw something i'd not noticed. I looked this morning, thinking about unstitching the central cotton from the glorious ground, but something said WAIT…look! And i see that there is a diagonal line, perfectly in alignment, both cloths. I cannot undo that. And so it is that they remain as is.
and i forgot. I wanted to say this…Journal thing….it occurred to me in the middle of the night, waking to listen to the pounding of raindrops….it occurred to me that i really don't know how rain WOrkS? These kinds of rain here, inches each day and night, so so much water….FALLING FROM THE SKY….how is it that it happens in individual drops? Many of them, but individual??? How is it that way and not just in gushing buckets? I never thought about it before. Will set 9 yo Julian to finding the answer to this question.
Addendum.
so i message him, the 9 yo, with this mission, imagining it to take a few days, if at all. Within 10 minutes
Physics-focus: How Raindrops Form https://physics.aps.org/story/r7/st14 
i can't get the colors right. An overcast day, but in an odd way, oveercast, and it's just not happening, no matter what i try. It's kind of this, but so much more BRIGHTER.
but it's an aching. I want this. but i also know i can't use so much of Deb's cloth.
I looked and looked and looked thinking i should take off the central cotton piece and place it on just So Much of the piece of Deb's cloth but ……..eeeeeee, no. it would change everything. And i don't want it changed.
Deb's cloth, for me, represents the Experience i FEEL of this Earth and Sky. The beauty of it. And when i put the cotton IN it, represents for me the Place i have, WE have inside that Amazement. The cotton of Us.
it's so BeautyFull, all this. And RAIN continues and will continue for some days and i cook curry. This small home smells of curry. I can hear Talkie out there in the doe Goat Shelter, chuurring her chicken talk, Bless Her. Bless Us. Bless this Hill.
it says on the back….Initiation Spring 2018
held it today and added stitches, invisible stitches because i'd not done that before, had not done the stitching to make it One. Today, it was time to do that. And it was time to place the Welcoming Crow. I did that. Now i hold it and wait a little. In case there is more. But on the back, it now reads Initiation Spring 2018 2019. Things take time.
last night it was that sky river. Buckets and buckets of rain dumped, spilled over, ALL NIGHt LONG, non stop. Today, some times of just very light rain, but rain nonetheless. Goats try and then run back. Dear them….
This is not supposed to be happening. But it is happening. Nothing to do but watch.
and stitch. Everything is in place now. Waiting for the conversation. I love this Cloth because i had literally nothing to do with it. other than to stitch things in place. And well, her face….can you see it? barely there, but there?
i loved a lot today, Deb Lacativa's scraps that here are Earth and Sky, how so much they express these things , these so so huge things like Earth and Sky . Tomorrow, her thread.
a string of days, till at least mid week next….Rain. Not so much the downpour of Winter Season, but every day for the next 5 will have rain.
i walked down the Hill to the car for the town trip and at this moment, the scent of the Scotch Broom over there was just intoxicating. The rain made it even more intense. It's over the road that borders the creek ditch. Not on this Hill and i think about that. It's invasive and there are efforts to erradicate it. Here, there's this small forest of it. Same as last year, size wise i think. It's on the dirt Fish and Game Road so i assume they will deal with it if they feel the need. I think about how plant people are invasive. I think about how anglos, europeans, are invasive here. and we do not have a beauty Full scent.
an extraordinary thing. Mo sent an email this morning that there was a message for me in the comments on HER blog…from Palma…..saying….Grace, i have lost your phone # and leaving hers. on HER blog. in Australia. a message for me.
HOW AMAZing if this?????? What's the likelihood? How can it be? How did Palma come to do that???????
i will find out when i call her, but i just am savoring it right now, that it occurred, that this grapevine is so intimate. Palma is a beloved friend from LOOOONG ago in Ann Arbor Michigan who i have not had contact with for some years. and through Mo, through Mo. ???????
this plant…along the top edge of the dye bed. a single one. i see it no where else. this is not a good photograph. It deserves better. the deep butter yellow, along a curved bloom stem.
Cloth talks about the planet Earth, being the MindBody, the Consciousness. We, the earthly beings, being ITS blooms.
Think about being a bloom. a bloom of the Planet.
just sky.
i have been trying to Think. To apply some pattern of logic to my making, to have Thoughts about that that i can talk about at least to my Self*, but i think i'm going to just go. Which is what i do. Having walked up the Hill from eating Vietnamese take out and strawberries from the Wall Garden at the picnic table down there, i sat a minute and then walked over to the basket. Right on top is this cloth. I don't remember it, don't "know" it, and i had to think about how it might have gotten there and i remembered that i'd taken some pieces out of the drawer that i'd been collecting there as possible dyeing cloths…so it was among them. It's markings are vague and many. Smudges. Not what would be called Pretty. But very what might be called evocative? that's a little much, but ok enough a word to convey something. Things are happening in it. Quiet things. But a lot. and i think this is It. Its late in the day. Dusk will come soon. So, tomorrow. I'll look again and then root around in the scraps and fragments to see what else shows up. And that's how it goes.
* when cloth making, i talk to my self with pictures, in my head. images that appear and fade and then form images made of cloth and color and movement.
this Cloth, which isn't yet a cloth, began only by the two scraps that of their own accord shaped the body and the outstretched arms. Made that initial Gesture. The scraps themselves are probably familiar to many, was a commonly sold textile from i think the 60's or 70's? This i think was once a dress. I can't remember. From the thrift shop or a rummage sale. It's the Other side of the fabric, the backside. Am not much for the right side, but this, very much. It's also had a walnut dip. That cloth it was on originally, the piece of damask of Storks Bill dye….i really wanted it to be that, but there were two dark bean shaped marks on one side of it, midway up and there was no way i could find to work with them that wasn't so contrived as to shift the whole energy of what the Figure was asking for. I'd wanted to give her place today, find what would work, but ended up finishing yesterday instead. Finishing the tools. Finishing straightening out all that Stuff Out There. Scrubbing down that table that's there because i hear that tomorrow, Vietnamese take out is coming for You Know Who Day.
i showered Out Side for the first time this year!!!! in the back of this trailer there's a little alcove that has a shower nozzle. and i can stand there in the gravel and Shower. It's Wonder FULL…79 degrees. Excellent and just FINE. Yay for heat!
