windthread

2018 Calendar

 

this,  in the mail today from Nanette.

stitchandsow-homeandgarden.blogspot.com

i am already READY.  I have never been ready like this before.   

sometime back,  there was a devastating flood of Nanette's river,  there in Australia.  She managed,  against all odds to save her chooks…they were floating,  she did not let them drown.

time has passed and  she just goes.  See the June 15th, 2017 post.  Because of my preoccupation with my Self,  i'd not been there for a while,  but i went back today

with this gesture of Love from so far across the planet.  And i think…This is how we resist.  This is how we say no to so much that wants to push us down.  We love each other,  we say Yes and remember small things,  and ACT on them.

Nanette….you are my LESSON for today.  I mark this in my heart.  Thank you,  and Love

 

i wanted that moment when i pushed back the tarp,  just some,  pushed it back in order to expose enough alfalfa for the morning feed…a flake,  as it's referred to,  a flake of alfalfa, and pushing it back,  in the time of Gideon's death,  but also the time of the just going of the rest of Us…because it's what we need to do

i wanted that moment.   When i pushed back the tarp and there

was that young snake,  so purely what is was/is

just looking….still and perfect and elegantly a young snake,  STILL and looking at me 

and i wanted to KEEP that moment,  like freeze frame.  I wanted it to be held.  Still.  Long enough.  in that moment,  so it would mark me in a way that i would never,  NEVER for a second forget the feeling.  

But how it goes,  i extended my hand and young snake Dis~Appeared.  back under the tarp.  and i went ahead and pulled off the flake and split it and fed Goats.  Like Jude says,  Poof.

and the Stuff of life went on and there was This morning,  Monday,  going out,  before needing to go to Work Away,  and seeing that the tarp had been blown off by Wind

 

 

i flattened it some,  thinking to dry the moisture off and when i got back HOME i would fold it because there is supposed to be just SUN for the next days,  which will take us to Friday when a New Half Ton bale will come,   and i went forward to pull today's flake

 

i couldn't hold that moment…i was UN able to hold it,  but HERE….something left,  that i can hold….double click and too,  beneath…

 

can you see?  The WHOLE of the head,  eyes,  is shed

and taking it  off,  i had to be so Care FULL,  how the skin was intertwined with the stems of the alfalfa,  but i could FEEL it,  how so so great that must have felt,  the needing to shed and the stiffness of the alfalfa stems to catch and pull and enable the  seperation

i brought it  in to the Altar.  When we Go,  i'll wrap it in the Gideon Cloth.  

Today

his presence remains.

 

 

 

When, for as long as you remember you are the kind of person who has wondered about the God Thing,  or,  wondered about God,  or wondered about god,   a word we might as well  accept as the one that is commonly used,  or the translation…. when this is just how you are,  your propensity…..and when over so many years of this in so many changing forms,  you still sometimes feel yourself so much wanting to 

pray.

so there's that.

and then something happens and you are flooded with knowing that Everything is "god".

morning  night  Wind  Sun  Moon Star  mud  dust  worm  wing  wood  stone  grass  tree  color  touch   flower  taste  heat  cold  lizard  toad  dog  cat  water  earth  laughter  tears germination  rot  blood  bone  orange Goat  red   black  gray  soft  sharp  kill  heal  open  closed  here  there  yes no  dead  living

 

it goes forever,  the words that languages have for the BeautyUnBeauty that animates .  The  Spirit.

the All.

so what can be "prayer"?    What can "communicate" with this ever forming understanding?  That never ending human desire for exchange,  this never ending desire to become One With?    And just as Everything is God,  every Way is also  god.  I find mine,  you find yours,  we find.  we are.  The All.  All of it….one seamless dance

Gideon dies.   in the days before this day,  cloth that has been in basket to basket to table and off and back to basket to table so many times,  cloth,  that is nothing remarkable alone,  thread wisps,  things maybe to throw away,  they constellate….they magnetize themselves to themselves on that table catching my attention.  just in and of them selves.  i watch.

and here,  i lay my Gratitude to Jude Hill for opening the thing in me that could find cloth as kin.  Thread as kin.  Stitch as….well….prayer.  She might not say it this way at all,  but it's what it is  for me.  

This morning,  at sunrise,  Gideon is dead.  The Great Heart, Gideon.  The Grand and Elegant Being,  Gideon.  Dead.   and i come in and stare at that cloth and see it there like the writing on the wall it was and is.   i think……WHAT IS IT ALL??????

and i see that Mo has left a comment and i click and read and she says…"the snake of beads".  I go out again to feed the rest because today, yesterday and tomorrow are One for them, as is alive and dead  and i lift back the tarp that covers that half ton bale and there….staring me in the face is a young snake….on the top,  still half covered by the tarp….it doesn't move, stares.  As if to make sure i understand.    i reach my hand to it…Ready…like with SnowBunny and push the tarp more and it dis~appears.  i feed the herd and return to stitch  stray threads down.  

Travis and Everett came because Gideon is a big Goat.  Because that grave we had dug in the winter had caved in from the rain.  We swaddled him in the Green Tara Wall Cloth and buried him along the fence between the buck yards.  Herd Sire.    Gideon is gone and Gideon is not gone.  Gideon is both. 

i can't bring the image forward,  because i still don't know how,  but if you click on the Archives and go back to  June 22,  2012…he is there.  He enjoyed looking at birds.

 

 

 

 

 

for a while now,  quite a while,  i have had less ability with words,  with language.  Partly because it seems to minimize.  once words appear,  they become definition,  not necessarily at all expressing the experience….the words elicit myriad associations.  And with this Cloth, this might be particularly true because it is not about words or particular Things,  but rather about felt/sense  and some kind of, actually,  Unity,  that i really don't understand.  Being maybe about the Beauty and then the UnBeauty in the way we understand Beauty,  a 

Raw kind of beauty

i've begun to stitch it down.  I realized that the beads appeared here as Example,  the Cloth would want thread beads.  ok.    I'd wondered about that.  This string of beads has been so many places and in this moment at least,  wants to be free to continue.

 

 

i stitched these loose random threads…couched them down.  In a certain way,  they are about what this Cloth is saying.

it was an extraordinarily perfect day.  Warm but not hot.  Wind but not hard.  Clouds and SUN….the grand and elegant Sun.  and i read how Elon Musk has offered his mind to the govenor of Puerto Rico to create a Solar world there.  I think how we Can't Know anything about these times.   They are fecund in their own way.

 

 

 

National Weather Service:  Severe Thunderstorms….through the night so, ok.  

 

pic for October…my Nasa Astronomy calendar.  Tarantula nebula

 

about a quart and a half.  My so loved Tostitos Lid.  will need a mortar and pestle.  I had one once…don't know what became of them,  but, now, again.  Grind into powder.

 

will stitch it down.  Maybe just     some    just enough to hold things in place.  so i can take all apart and re~use another day?  But for Time Being,  will begin.  Even the beads.  It talks.  

Have never stitched down these beads before.

I woke this morning thinking it is going to be Impossible to pull this all off by the end of October.  

i don't know why i thought that.  but i did.

and so the day grew out of that.  and it was Wednesday,  the "free" day after the Work Away Days and it also rained off and on….again.  

 

on the table…gravitating together.  the light is so much more Beauty Full than appears here,  a soft aqua blue/green and a bronzeish…try as i might,  i couldn't get it

and then,  just touching stuff,  i took out this shirt that i'd rolled to be just padding in one of the boxes…had for whatever reason,  some time long ago,  cut out a back section of it and also a front section to use for something..????  don't know but today i saw it as a really great shirt

 

it was Long,  so enough of it to fill in the right side…left, here on the screen,  i pinned it

 

the back…piece pinned in place.  I'll baste these and then french seam them with Deb's Dirty Thread.  i don't know why.

will need to remove the collar.  It's linen and rayon blend.

 

tomatoes.   it's Loud.  will run all night.  

 

had gotten it a while ago because of the Pears.  Didn't dry them long enough?  maybe?  but i've eaten a lot trying to decide.  There are two bags of pears still Out Side on the bench by the gate to do.  Got it for the kids to use.  How they can participate in the putting by of food.  They can run it by themselves and be "in charge" of dehydrating.  Julian 8 and Destiny 9.

the tomatoes i want to grind into powder.

late day Jenny called and then Alyssia.  It's Possible.  We are still "ON" for the end of October.  ok.

yesterday,  while trying to clean at Bill's,  he and i talked.  And maybe that's where it came from,  the no possible way.   He's got his thoughts.  and is a scientist.  Lots of questions he had for me that i didn't have any answer to  except I don't know.  But he also said that he wants to drive.  

eee.

he has a long longtime friend that i have met over the years who lives in SanFrancisco,  who he skiis with 4 times a year and he said he wants to Drive.  Once we are there he will go along to S. F.  and they will go from there to their usual ski trip up into those mountains.  This sets stuff a bit Off.  But in the conversation with Jenny and Alyssia,  is just ok.  Travis can now be one of the Straight Through Drivers,  which was needed.  Bill and i can take the 2 days. 

So…maybe…maybe we can do it.  Only time will tell.

and…just as an aside…a HUGE aside….

Jenny's father is there,  at her world in Chico.  My X.  Who tends to be a negative pull.  
Who was dreaded,  his coming.  Last year didn't go well.  And who has been very well…i can't think of the right word i want, i'm tired,   but very uhhh,  Discouraging about the Hill….as WHY did she do this and What is it,  Really,  …he has never been "on her side"…and i could go on and on but it's to no good use,  but he has come to "visit"  and when they went to look at the Hill,

he said

Wow.  It IS BeautyFull.  it is.  really beautiful.

i hear her voice,  as she relates this.  and i think,  yes.  Wow.  I love her.

 

 

 

 

 

small falling sideways wild sunflower

the Monday work away switched to today.  Was long.  A lot of conversation.  Needing to find words to portray things in a way that someone else can understand.

A saying goodbye conversation with Shelly who is the office manager at my Propane supplier.   I love Shelly.  She has BIG HAIR and wears really grand dangle earrings.  Sometimes when i call on phone for a propane delivery,  i sing to her on their answering machine.  It was a long and deep conversation.  You wouldn't think.  I only see her every six months when i order propane.  But we're good.  She asked that i continue calling her from California,  "just because".  She said they will leave the account in my name so Travis doesn't need to pay a deposit and Travis can just pay as he goes, for what he orders.  That was an un asked for kindness.  By the time all that was over,  not much left of the day here.

I dreamed last night that i was trying to show my mother something…trying to get her to understand something,  she was standing behind me as i sat at the computer and was bringing up Utube.  She was behind my right shoulder.  She appears frequently in my dreams lately…is identified as "my mother"….really nothing else much like my mother was,  but i just take it as it is in the dream that it's my mother.  She says little or nothing.  i'm not sure.  maybe nothing.  Anyway,  i am telling her…..

remember the other day?  and i was talking about Tom Petty?  …. this as i'm typing in Tom Petty on UTube….i get a song and say see?,  without turning,  or really looking at her at all,

See?  just listen a little,  you don't need to listen long….

and that's the end of that,  but i typed in Tom Petty in the Postman and watched it today.  I want to get that dvd or whatever it's called now for the guy that runs the post office i frequent as a going away present.   He's never seen the movie.  I like him a Lot.  Like i like Shelly.

Tomorrow the Rain is coming again.  A few days.

 

 

 

continuing,  i found what i'd forgotten.  A bag of Yerba Mansa.  under the book shelf of the Room.

 

washed the copper pot and set it to boil this morning

 

some in two cloth bundles to sit Out Side for this month.

Yerba Mansa,  Anemoposis californica   New Mexico, Arizona and California.

it's family Saururaceae has only one other member,  Lizards Tail.  saururus cemuus.

 

onward.  out to the Albatros and that side of Tools.

 

 

 

the Wonder Bar.  I thought it was gone,  but no…just lost under dust

 

 

my Favorite.  I don't know what it's for.  but just aesthetically,  its BEAUTY…..

some of these tools are my acquisitions,  some belonged to my grandfather,  some were the Old Cowboys.   These in these pics are maybe a third of what there is.  I will leave a lot here for Travis and Everett.   We may never need them on the Hill.  But just incase….

Sydney and Talulah walked over.  To visit the UnderHouseKittens.  They brought Bay,  Sydney's dog who has never yet been willing to come IN to this Place….she has chosen to stay in the truck.  But they walked and she had no choice and she was NOT happy and Tay was ecstatic for the company and ran and ran and circled and was so BIG compared to Bay and Bay snarled and snapped,  to keep herself OK,  and Tay found that to be just fine and we left them to it and went into the Way Back but Goldie was SHY and not his usual Forward self and  Wheat,  care FULL,  but did come out to eat.  Animal Beings.  

and Sydney's long friend Soki died last week.  Soki,  a buddhist nun.  Sydney,  NOT buddhist but a long long friend of Soki and was there,  sleeping in her room,  as Soki made her way into Death.  Sydney wanted to talk about this and we did…Sydney is young yet,  but looking at Age and i told her how along with all the Other,  the Ones on the Hill are making campsite B for me,  in full awareness that i am coming and i will die there.   It's a Given.

 

and today…It arrived.  Like some kind of Entity,  moving next to me as i did the morning things,  sitting next to me when i sat for tea.  Yup.   The Urge.  the Urge to just let it go.  

I remember so well,  from when i left Michigan.  All determined for a while and then, suddenly,  NOT.  and Just Leaving.  Just driving away.

InHale.  ok.  

so i made a cup of coffee and just began.  Folding those Bankerboxes and filling them.  Like with Like.   with room at the sides and tops for sheets and towels.  Shock absorbers.    Lable contents with pencil so someday it can be erased and used again.   I kept going.  

 

 

i think i won't take the table.  but then i think i will take 2 chairs…the Old Cowboy's mother's black one and that strange high metal one.  WHY??? would i take them?   I thought about eating around a cloth on the floor.  Maybe we might have a cushion to sit on?  OR…maybe i would cut the legs off the table,  make it very short,   the cushions around that?  But no,  no table.  There will be no room.  The cloth on the floor.  Folded up and set aside.  the cushions stacked.  All this,  not even full thoughts,  just flashing and passing images as i went through things,  dusted them and put them in boxes.  There is a Goat stuff box.  an Art stuff box.   a big Goat cheese making stainless steel pots box…2 of these.  A clothing box….where those skirts are now.  

 

This clunky dresser.  Bill's father, Lee made it.  It was a left behind from when Alz B died.  Big drawers.  and i will take it.  I am thinking that the Uhaul people have those straps that go around things like refrigerators.  I can leave the drawers full.  Strap them closed,  once its loaded in the truck.  We can take the drawers out and move them one by one when it's body has been loaded into the truck.  Strap them closed.  Inside the drawers….Cloth stuff.  What's left of the "dolls"….3 of them.  It probably won't make sense in the new hut.  But it can stay out in the storage shed.  either way.  OR,  the back of it….used as a design wall?  Anyway,  it's going.   

on top,  the old singer i bought from Montana Joe.  Never used.  but could.  I want the kids to see this,  see it making stitches as they turn it by hand.  Then…we can let it go somehow,  or whatever.  and the Large and so elegant POT made by a localish potter,  Scott Gowrey,  who came with his wife,  a weaver,  every week to our farmer's market,  hauling pounds of beauty full pottery,  and everyone here in the area so cheap,  buying so little and i remembered thinking what Deb Lacativa says…"buy art,  it's good for you"…and when i was making some money taking care of Alz. B at the nursing home,  I bought it from him…it was very expensive,  maybe his most expensive piece,  but also worth it and so elegant and i bought it not because i had a "place" for such a thing,  but because i loved him for his love of his Art.  I won't have a place for it there.  Maybe Jenny might want it in her small home?  Maybe Alyssia?   if not,  at some point i'll send it back to him,  telling him of its journey and he can resell it to someone with an appropriate dwelling?  

 

the bedroom.  the two utility shelves.  Can they be stacked on their sides and into their spaces,  the Cloth Baskets?  There are twelve cloth baskets.  I don't want to cover them,  pack them.  I want them to move OPEN.  I really want them to move OPEN.  Can i lie these shelves down?  and in the spaces put the baskets?  I think so.  That folding divider thing on the right…belonged to the Old Cowboy…it somehow did something to modify his TV reception.  Alyssia wants it.  eee.  ok.  The bed,  which you can just see the end of,  folds up…it's a cot.    Not much here to deal with.  the bottom two shelves on the right are my every day clothes.  Two shelves.  That gives me a smile.

so.

OK.

there's kitchen stuff.  Plates.  Bowls.  stuff i continue to use now to feed self as days go forward.  There's stuff like a blender.  the expensive electric hot plate for canning OutSide.  the thing i can't remember the name of in this moment…OH…the Dremel.  which is under the bathroom sink.  This kind of stuff.  But not much.  In the next few,  like FEW days,  these need to be packed and ready to go.  It's October 1.  I want the last couple weeks here being NO PACKING.  Being just Being.  Here.  Just Being Here.  Getting the Goat's stuff ready.  The Goat's ready.

it's getting REAL.

small things,  but things nonetheless.

 

from Fiona Dempster's  paperponderings.blogspot,  9/28,  a quote.

"so build yourself as beautiful as you want your world to be.  Wrap yourself in light then give yourself away with your heart, your brush, your march, your art, your poetry, your play.  And for every day you paint the war,  take a week and paint the beauty,  the color,  the shape,  of the landscape you're marching towards.  Everyone knows what you're against.  Show them what you're for."    Andrea Gibson,  Evolution

"Everyone knows what you're against.  Show them what you're for."

 

a second one…double click

 

click it

"Everyone knows what you're against.  Show them what you're for."