windthread

I made a mistake.  the pics in this post are in opposite order.  This was supposed to be the last.  So….if you have the  Will and stamina,  go to the bottom,  the last post,  that will then progress backward,  back up to this one.

and at the end,  i circle back.  this is the back room that is supposed to be the bedroom but i makes me feel crazy.  It's 8ft wide..the width of this trailer or so.  Almost only the size of this queen mattress plus maybe 18 inches.  BUT windows on 3 sides.  IF i were to decide,  I would need to get rid of the bed and frame.  I would need this SPACE.  For a chair.  For my Dalai Lama end table.  For some modest shelves.

What else would i want?  

Would want to take out the "window treatments".  They creep me out.

a picnic table,  just outside.  For dye pots.

a storage shed.  So i could bring my Stuff over here.  My books.  Jars.  Stuff.  Instead of paying $72 / month to keep it where i can't get to it easily.   I would want a wooden storage shed,  aesthetically,  but they are expensive.  A metal one is $329.  8×10.  

I haven't talked to either Alyssia or Jenny about this.   Am just thinking.   What Ifing.

 

 

door of bathroom into the Back Room

 

shower.  

 

 

then the bathroom

 

 

and then,  turning,  back.  The middle room where the entrance door is.   Kind of a Living Room.  that flat thing is the fold out "couch" that becomes a bed,  that IS my bed and pretty much stays folded out because it's also where Emrie and i do the nap ritual.  Pic is taken by me standing at the farthest back of the kitchen area.  That much space.   At the above end,  you see the Wall,  the Looking Wall.   A piece of canvas over a pvc pipe suspended by heavy string.  Folded up and over in this pic…how it is unless i am alone for a day,  when i let it down.  It's up so it's easier to get to the bathroom.  Also,  i guess,  some less claustrophobic for others.  Doesn't bother me that way.

 

 

my side.   the Space i CLAIM as MINE.  My  meditation cushion.  My corner of stuff.  

 

Emrie's booster seat.

 

the Table.  Where everything happens.   at the window,  the Battery.  There are 3 of them.  Alyssia takes them to and from her home where she charges them.  Here,  they juice up the Phone and the Laptop.  Also provide light.  There is no electricity here.  I have one sided conversations with her about the  "burden" of this.
Outside,  over by the Old Buck Yards are solar panels.  They could be easily afixed to this travel trailer.  Provide probably more than enough electricity except during the winter grey days.  But,  easily,  there could be Wind to generate that.  It only takes a decision.

 

 

a good enough kitchen.  I cook.  Wash dishes.  

 

looking from the bathroom door,  through the Middle,  into the Kitchen,  the Table space

 

Going along with Jude's online class,  Patchwork in Perspective,  …..her post,  Haven.   To do with Space.   the space in which we work.   Often times referred to as studio.  Back in New Mexico,  my daughter and i cut through a wall and added a ROOM.  It was referred to as the Room.    it was my Working Room.   My Room.  or,   The Room.   Its own Room.  It was Wonder FULL.  Had half wall windows on three sides.  Light.

reading the comments to Jude's post,  Doris appeared…Doris from so long ago,  who loved the Snake Tree.  She said

"In my room in our apartment there is the big dining table.  We only use it when family or friends come for dinner.   The rest of the room is full of my stash and a desk.  I mostly work on the big table….When we invite friends or family for dinner I always have to spend a lot of time to clean up.    Some weeks ago I sat there looked at my creative chaos and I realized that studio was too big a word for me.   Only artists have studios.  Somebody like me works on the dining room table and don't take up too much space.   So why not change my view:   I can try to call it a studio.  So now (for a test)  it is my studio in first place not a dining room.    So I invite my guests in my studio for dinner.  That means I have to clean it up a bit but my creative process can be visible too.  Nothing to hide."

None of our details are the same at all,  but what i loved SO MUCH was the SHIFT she made.  The absolute SHIFT.

and it reminded me of what i know about Points of View.  It reminded me way back to Gelek Rimpoche,  the Lama of Jewel Heart Temple in Ann Arbor,  Michigan who described for us something like in this drawing today.  A central something and then all around,  imagine a rim,  looking down in to the central Something,   Imagine different points of View  around the periphery.  All looking in at the same central scene,  but through different lenses.  All correct.  All different.  All Same, but different, too.

This led me to think about where  i find Self now.  and in keeping with Jude's class progression,  Haven.  Space.  

Before i left N Mex,  there was a lot of conversation.  A lot of intention.   Sincere and Honest.   It's been over a year now,  and we are on Pause.  There are several reasons,  but we are on Pause.   I am here.   In this travel trailer.  I show it to you,  above.  Exactly what it is.    I read this morning a blog post of an author and blogger that i admire  She'd not blogged for some months after her father died and she made a big move from Wyoming to Santa Fe.  She talked of her new place.  How things had gone slow because of renovations to the new place she found,  and more to come.   This fell into place with all the above thinking.

Renovations.   to one's Space.  Creating a space from scratch,  in this case here.  OR .  I thought about being 73 or 72 years,  a give or take,  and how the time ahead is finite.   What's important?     What i know from being here in this extremely SMALL space for over a year is that it has nothing to do really with Making Cloth.  Cloth got made.  Cloth that i love and tells the Story that i have to tell.  That IT has to tell me.  

I'm not much of one for Waiting.  Waiting is the hardest thing.  I like   "getting On with It".   Just Going.

so…the Point of View shifted.  What IF  this is just it?   Is it enough?  Will it work?  Why or Why Not?   These things i am considering.  

I love very much that the advent of Jude's class is bringing all this to the forefront.  It's Perfect.

So,  these pics,  going backward and UP rather than scrolling down.   I posted them backward.   This is my space here.  Right Now.   Maybe it's just ok enough.   Thinking.

now,  go backwards,  UP.

 

 

 

i squenched along,  on my butt,  pulling Green.  Making the space in that ridge,  behind the Garden Wall.  Again,  taking into consideration any snakes that might have been quietly there.  Making my presence known first,  then,  drumming through.  It was a LOT.  i raked it afterword,  into rolled "bales",  to dry till we might figure out how to use them.  This is not Native Grass,  but Other.  Still,  i held their roots in my hands,  shaking off the soil,  feeling,  seeing their roots.    Roots are Roots.

 

 

Storks bill.  GREEN.  the small square is green.  Green to white linen.  It IS green,  but no matter how i tried,  it didn't photograph as green.   It's a Shy green.    A quiet green.  But it IS green.   Here it's placed on a piece of procion dye blue.  That changed to aqua.    Storks bill can over dye.  How amazing is that?,  can over dye!  Right now it's in it's pot in the bathtub.  Waiting for whatever else might be asked

So again,  clearing the rim of the Wall garden and lost in that,  realizing at some point that there was something else going on and the something else going on was that Onday had squeezed through and her daughter Mercy behind her.  There they were,  INSIDe the fence,  OOna and the rest outside trying to work it,    and i ran to secure the fence gate against that   while watching Onday and Mercy who stuck to the clover for a while,  but as Goats are,  not for too long and they went up to the grasses above the Wall Garden and i tried to head them back to no avail,    and they continued over to the trees that have branches hanging low and ate those leaves,  but were still on the move,    Browsers,    Goats,  always on the move,  and moving toward the lilacs and the fig.  The rest had moved beyond this area so i ran to turn on the hose…outside the gate….turn on the hose and leave the gate open enough and spray them,  and they ran.  To and then OUT the gate.  So.  OK again.  How it's going.  OK,  from one moment to the next.  Good enough.  Yup.   One moment to the next.   Good enough.

 

 

a little stitching early.  Before going Out.  The tree,  which has only been a tree in my mind's eye,  began to become a Tree.  One of the Live Oaks here

 

 

 

I worked.  Pulling the tall very thick grasses along that top of the Wall Garden,  where we think we are going to grow corn (?}

a space almost 2 ft wide,  all along the top.  I'd begun it last week and planted squash seeds.  Something,  Puppy ?,  dug them up.  I'll plant again.  The grasses i pulled are very dense and thick,  almost like sorgum or something.  And interspersed were some Storksbill/Cranesbill…whichever,  that i gently layed aside in a pile.  The thick grasses will become mulch.  That expanse along the top of the Wall is now half ready.    I would sit and skoot along,  pulling  then thumping the soil off the roots.  And   it occured to me that if i did this intentionally for any snake,  a rhythm would be good.    so it turned out to be like drumming.  This kind of work is mesmerizing and i got lost in it,  going way further than i'd planned.   But suddenly there was a feeling and i turned.

EEEeeee!!!!!  there,  INSIDE the fence….Oona and Onday!  I'd left the gate fencing loose enough for Tay to go in and out and being wise opportunists that they are,  In they came.  Squeezing through.  All the rest were outside looking at them as they consumed clover, clover clover.  At first i startled and ran to the gate,  calling them….on deaf ears…so i just sat down and watched then got up and pulled clover to throw over the fence to the "good" Goats.  After some short time,  they'd had enough and came to the gate,  i pulled open some and they   went out.    Now i know.   it would take All of them a few or several  times like this in this fenced in area to do what needs to be done with the clover.   Goats are totally wise and self regulating.  Eating just so much of anything.    It sets irreversible precedent  which would not work.  And so.  The weed whacker.  Needs a tune up after being left out this winter.

 

one last look  at the Asian Pear blossoms.  I need to know the terminology,  but it's easy to see the two kinds of stamens…allowing the self pollination?  I think so.    Beauty FULL.

A Great day.

 

just out from the canopy frame,  you can see a little that is left from last year.  Clear gravel and crushed stone.  The rest is covered mostly with clover.  That thing about the front and the back that the Rinpoche taught at Jewel Heart Temple in Ann Arbor so many years ago:  The bigger the front,  the bigger the back.  

It GROwS.  Because we were Here,  last year,  last summer.  Because we GARDENED last year,  last summer.  Everything is new and different in response to our having been here.  In response to what we did.  in response to Us.  

 

the clover is LUSH and so elegant a nutrient to the Earth here.  But also, it is High.  It is hip,  almost waist high for Emrie.  And this is also where the rattlesnakes hang out in this and the next month or two until the Heat sets in.  So, amidst the luxurious clover,  snakes might very well move through their own days,  living their lives.  

What to think?

When it was gravel and crushed stone last year,  we could SEE the ground under our feet.  We could gaze over the space and see.  Now we can't.  Julian has learned,  at 9 yrs,  to take the snakes into consideration.  He's learned that these next couple months belong to them.  Emrie doesn't know.  and there's no way to tell her.  She is a very physically active child.  She MOVES.

So…how do we work this?  

 

somewhere in here is the faucet for the water.   You can see, if you click it to enlarge,  all the many Storks Bill or Cranesbill.  Somewhere in there is where we turn on the water to give to the Asian Pear,  the Plumcot.  To the maybe still viable grapevines along the fence that have been taken over by the Vetch.  The Plant People here are INtenSe and GO!  What to think?  How to live?

 

 

 

she is a year and a half old.  In this Rain Time we spend some hours sitting at the table.  She has things she can take from the window Altar.  The two boxes of incense.  3 spools of thread,  a pen with masking tape around it to mark it as hers,  Michelle's little lizards,  the plastic magnifying glass,  the bronze and brass Goat people.  From the window ledge to the left,  3 stones.  These,  every time she's here.  like ritual.  We do different things with them.  There are a lot of things on that window Altar that she can't just take.  She points and asks.  Sometimes ok,  sometimes not.

I'm making this cloth to set on the table infront of us…she sits on my lap,  or next to me on a pile of books.  It's a Wondering Cloth.  We can put things that are not hers,  but mine on it and Wonder about them.  I make up stories.  She listens.  Soon,  she will be able to make up stories too and i will listen.

Curiosity.  To set her loose in a world of Curiosity,  a world where so many things can be true and real.  To feed her imagination.

a couple weeks ago i took the chance and dared to transplant this Storks Bill.  It had found it's place in the Wall Garden bed at some point last summer or fall or even early winter?   I found it down where last garden's bell peppers had been.  About a foot wide already.  flourishing.   They become large,  as in wide and tall plants.  The wall garden is for food.  for the domestic.    Storks Bill is wild.  I was afraid it would not tolerate being transplanted.   At that time,  it was,  as far as i could see,  the only of it's kind.   But i did it.   It didn't miss a beat.  Continued blooming,  continued producing the seed pods in it's new place in the Dye Plant Garden at B.  

 

 

i wrote last year about how Alyssia and i were startled by MANY of these standing upright,  turning, turning,  their spiraling corkscrew turning  in to the soil…how at first we thought they were some kind of strange insects as we watched them spin,  we saw that they were seeds,  we saw more being released from the pods.  Really,  nothing less than a Magic Show.  They are as slender as a sewing needle,  the curve at the top,  a very fine sewing needle.

as the days have gone on,  i find more and more plants.  MANY MANY have found their place.  I am so careFULL walking.  They're everywhere.   And remember,  i read that they give Green color as a dye plant?  

 

She says it's her last go round.  Jude Hill.  Spirit Cloth. 

i tried to remember when i found her.  It was from a link in an article in Cloth Paper Scissors Magazine,  which i read online late one night….the words Spirit     Cloth  .   I remember typing it in.  The blog opening before my eyes.  I remember how it FELT to see what i was seeing.  The total disbelief that it could be true.  But it was.

Yesterday,  i couldn't remember when that was.  I'm like that.  Life is a big picture. All my old papers and notes are over in the storage unit.  I still have no access to the old Picasa.  What to do?

Ask Marti.

Marti has never failed.  She remembers Every Thing.  and Lo and Behold,  she emailed me the link to the first post of 6/9/2010 in the…..Archives! on the Windthread Sidebar.

Where i wrote:  "it seems so long ago.  This is what i was compelled to do after finding Spirit Cloth/Jude Hill last November.  This next week the workshop begins.  I will never be the same again".

i will never be the same again.  I knew it.  Felt it.  and it has proven true.  

and i looked at this Cloth,  the first, really,  and i hardly remembered.  Looking at it today,  i think it's probably the BEST Cloth i have ever made.  I said that to Marti and how i didn't know what had become of it.  And she said…you gave it to Alyssia.  It's on the blog.

When Alyssia and Emrie arrived this morning after dropping Julian at school,  i showed her the pic and said…..do you remember this Cloth?  She smiled and said,  "Yes.  It's on my wall."

A lot has happened since April,  2010.  A Lot.  And maybe it really IS Jude's last online Teaching.  What i know is that i want to take a Deep Breath.  Slow Down.  Begin Again.

 

when i posted that pic a few days ago with the stones,  acorn and bone,   i sat with  that composition for a long time.  Have recreated it several times since.   The stones, bone and acorn have taken their place on the Work Altar on the shelf behind where i sit here at the table.   They are in Community there….the Crow overSeeing it all.  But there was something very good about sitting with them more individually on a piece of cloth…this has stayed with me.  So, today i began making this Looking Cloth.  A Sitting With Cloth.  a kind of Altar Cloth,  Meditation Cloth.

 

today,  these.  How they sit so brightly,  so bright of Spirit,  emanating the vibrations of What They Are.