windthread

ok.   This has been put away for quite a while but now…maybe?   The piece on bottom right from the hand of Dana,  Raven and Sparrow.typepad, today with a human figure

the ground is walnut dye from the pot OutSide a couple years ago,  and old worn very thin soft muslin and the markings so soft and subtle,  which present the challenge…how might it be possible to work anything into and with a cloth like this?   Maybe it can't happen?   But interestingly enough,  Deb's dirty threads give me a glimmer of possibility.  I want to try.

 

the Other Side…can you see the threads?  maybe a single click?   but it's begun,  the invisible baste, in earnest,  and  as it goes,  i am AGAIN on my knees grateful to Jude Hill for this MAGIC….i think when she uses it,  she takes a very small but visible stitch…but i took it as literal…invisible and on the Face of the cloth,  there is nothing to be seen of it….i put the needle back in exactly where it came up,  but most,  almost always,  a thread gets caught and holds.  Invisibly.  but holds and the JOY of melding the three separate cloths into ONE never fails to bring such pleasure…the FEEL of it,  the "hand".  And in this cloth, so much so because of the softness,  both Front and Other, the softness of the muslin.  

so am here  early this day because there are so many things needing done OutSide here and it remains in the 90's….since May….or even April?  i've forgotten,  but for a loooong time.  Both earlier and longer than "usual".   But the things still wait for my doing.  No getting around it.  

 

 

if Gaia,  let's just use this "name",  if Gaia,  the Planet,  and that includes Everything,  includes  human beings,  human beings no more no less than any other microbe,  bacteria,  the whole of the enveloping atmosphere  of the Whole is somehow

ONE SYNERGISTIC SELF REGULATING COMPLEX SYSTEM.

 

if this.   going to the life experience of the "smallest",   the least complex,  going there and noticing how there is such intense and grand modification, evolution, accomodation of need that is required,  Morphing,  just adapting…. and maybe we can imagine even

Healing.

Maybe.  The human body can be ravaged by disease,  by destruction,  and  it also can and sometimes does… HEAL.   Bacteria can be almost descimated but somehow morph and adapt….and continue

is this not possible for Gaia?   

and really,  all these wonderings come from an old woman,  somewhere in a desert,  having lived through less dangerous times,  having young generations that are loved,  having a 4th generation infant female….and old woman,  so much wanting to tether something to Hope.  

Healing.  How can Healing even touch the edge of it all?  But how can i not hope for that.  I know that healing can happen.  

 

returning to this.   the piece in the bottom right from Dana.  a scrap.  The whole of it,  open space for wandering.

 

this one.  in the Shop.  5" X 10".   

 

 

 

back in the early 70's….James Lovelock…the Gaia Hypothesis

i can't find it.  and maybe it's gone.  but there was a publication that had a synopsis of this…i had it…where did it go?  Maybe it's in one of the book tubs, for moving,  or maybe it went,  in one of the purges????   But it has remained strong within my sense of things since then

so we will just rely on Wikipedia for now…

"the Gaia Principle proposes that organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a synergistic self regulating, complex system that helps to maintain and perpetuate the conditions for life on the planet.

in 1971, microbiologist Lynn Margolis joined Lovelock in the effort of fleshing out the initial hypothesis into scientifically proven concepts,  contributing her knowledge about how microbes affect the atmosphere and the different layers in the surface of the planet.  She objected to the widespread personification of Gaia and stressed that Gaia is "not an organism",  but an "emergent property of interaction among organisms."  She defined Gaia as "the series of interacting ecosystems that compose a single huge ecosystem at the earth's surface"

Gaia

Earth.

 

so this is where i want to STAND right now….this one,  even more…the Primordial and Eternal Feminine.  It's so exhausting,  all that is unfolding,  so much and i look at the exodus of Rohinga from Myanmar,  just for example….in contrast to the uhhh,  well…whatever,  here….flood,  mud.  walking,  needing water,  needing food,  needing Ground….on a Planet.

 

the thread beads…Jude Hill…most easily seen this way

 

but the color…most true, here

 

 

i wrote a whole post and somehow,  it disappeared.  So i accept that.  Maybe tomorrow i'll try again.

 

 

so i think i said that i'd brought Goldie to the Way Back Goat Gate …to Tay,  who watches there as i feed,  that i brought Goldie to her and she snorted, nicely, on him

and i brought him again,  last eve and they touched faces,  or rather mouths/nose,  mutually,  both wanting to and how this second time she was very still and just "tasted him" with the tip of her tongue, so carefully

and i came home today from town and usually she is right at the gate but she wasn't and i came in to see her just over there,  lying under the wild rose bush,  her attention caught tight to the slat in the wood fencing where she watches the Feral Family.  Their world is just on the other side.  

I've known she watches them there all along,  but today there was a difference…she was magnetized and i stood and watched as Goldie stick either his paw or his very face through a place where the wood is a little broken out.  

 

 

the place where he puts his face or paw through so Tay can taste him.

so what does this SAY?  Goldie really wants to be someone's cat.  He accompanies me now for everything….close,  right at my foot.  While i fill the Goats Water Tub he rubs on my ankles,  the hose,  the rock,  purring.  He doesn't resist when i pick him up and carry him the long way to the gate to touch faces with Tay and he just purrs through it all.  He is fearless and Willing.

Wheat,  who i think is his sister,  female,  remains distant,  like her mother.  Feral.

so am thinking…unless something happens,  which it can,  i will get Goldie neutered and somehow find him a home.  

What would be great is if i could bring him IN…as into the house.  This would be great for Tay in helping her know things about small fast moving Others…which will be chicks on the Hill.  Will help her understand how to "know" them.  She innately is this way…just wanting to know…and this is HUGE…in that big new picture she will find herSelf a part of.  But i don't think i should…bring him in.  They are wild and who knows what they "carry".  That in itself,  but then,  just in respect for Tazmeena.  She has her PLACE here.  She earned her PLACE.  she is old.  She should not need to deal with something energetic and new.  Just that she has to share the underneath of the house is enough.

so all this.  I think.  hmmmm.

so it's just fine.  All these are pieces of clothing,  from Thrift shop….cotton, linen,  commercial cloth.  Except the light colored piece just under the images which is muslin with very little mark from plant dye.  oh,  and then,  the "sky scrap"…deb Lacativa's pants waistband.    and then,  i used the ink pen just slightly for the eye…?….so maybe i would take that too.  Pencil and ink.

but cloth making can Go on.  

 

 

it's just now over.  Repeat of yesterday but not quite so much intense.    And this time,  i'd covered the Alfalfa.  

i watch the feeds about Texas.  it's ok,  because it's what is Real in Real Time.  and what always has me on my knees is the animals.  There was one pic of a man in chest  deep water,  walking his blow up mattress,  his Raft,  walking it along and on it was a cat carrier and a dog crate.  i guess a back pack.  His world.  Them and him.

today,  just another Storm.  A BIG storm,  but nothing like that,  6 days now,  but it  brings me into that zone of Empathy.  How it feels to be wet and muddy,  no reprieve.  defenseless.  at the Mercy of.

 

i put these scraps here.  They are nothing special.  scraps of clothing from Thrift Shop,  the pieces from Deb…thrift shop.  Nothing beauty Full or Grand,  just scraps and i thought about that,  how way back in the beginning of Spirit Cloth,  Jude Hill,  i was so ecstatic that just  "nothing cloth" could Become anything.  So i was driven today to find a way for these scraps of nothing much really.  

and watching the people in Texas,  i remembered the Bug Out Bag.  This was before i found Spirit Cloth and i was adrift and i found Sharon Astyk,   Depletion and Abundance.  Sustainability.  The first  "blog"   i ever

knew.   Now she is i guess The Chatelaine's Keys,  but i went there to look and she's not blogging with regularity.

Her book:  Depletion and Abundance….Life on the New Home Front.  One Woman's  Solutions to Finding Abundance for your Family while Coming to Terms with Peak Oil, Climate Change and Hard Times.

so bug out bag.  Talk of that then,  2008,  talk of that now.  What would you take?????

I couldn't take my baskets of cloth,  or my pyrex collection.  I would need to rely on Tay being able to hold her own.  Tazmeena,  not so much….she's old.  What about the Goats?  They don't swim.

but,  paring it down,  down to me,  what i might take?

 

in this moment,  i would take my spool of silk thread….a light camel….color…neutral that works with the invisible baste of Everything.  a needle or two.  a pencil.  graphite.  2B  and i would take Deb's dirty thread.   From there,  i could Go.  

 

 

i check national weather service.  They are reliable.  Today said 20% thunder showers.  ok.  but i got easy and went off to work Away without covering the alfalfa after the morning feed.  I like to leave it open to air out as much as possible.  Came home and lay on the futon for the afternoon nap,  everything just ok and nothing in the wind.  But then out of the blue,  like literally OUT OF THE BLUE  blue sky…..

STORM.

from the East….maybe kin to Harvey…..but a STORM.  probably the second biggest storm in the 20 some years i've lived here and being from the East,  causing trouble.  The open ends of all the Goat shelters face east because weather rarely comes from that direction.  Everyone pretty much got wet.

The Albatros,  where the grass hay is stored…a lot got wet.  The alfalfa bale,  uncovered,  got wet.  A lot of loss in feed.    Bummer.  But even though there was HAIL,  there we all were,  when SUN broke through and there was a double Rainbow and Gideon was mumbling as he does.

Compared to Texas,  nothing.  Compared to here,  a LOT.  

went to dog trainer Jan's today to help construct two Goat shelters in her new and improved configuration.  These were simple arches made by curving cattle panel against t-posts and covering with "tarps"…tied down.  The interesting thing was she had found someone who does billboards,  like along the freeway and these are made with tarp like material.  They are very large and heavy  weave.  These were used.  It's a great shelter.  Can be modified in many ways as need changes and the best  thing, can be taken apart and used differently or elsewhere.  

I visited her new batch of chicks,  some of which were "complimentary" bantum…beautyfully colored. Just babies.

AND just before i left,  i milked two of her does that she's drying up… almost  1/2 gallon of milk.  I've improved.  and the does were kind.  I'll make cheese tomorrow.

through all this,  morning till early afternoon,  a Crow was just overhead in one of her huge Cottonwoods,  close enough to see the glint of her eye.   She talked either to us or just to her self,  i think commenting on our doings.

 

so not a lot of stitching.  just a few more leaves.  but enough to stay In Touch

and UNEXPECTED SURPRISE news from the Hill.  When they were there today,  the 3 young boys who will live someday across and down the road,  (maybe,  their mother doesn't like country)   who only come with their father on weekends to the land they have there,   came to ask Jenny if it is ok that they continue to play in the Rooster Swamp.  Conversation ensued and they said they like to catch crayfish there….it is no longer a swamp in August,  but continues to be a pool.   and they went on to say that there aren't any big crayfish anymore but just little ones …….because……  THERE ARE BEAVERS!  They said the Beavers come through,  all along the canal,  and eat all the big crayfish then move on,  down the canal toward where it enters the Feather river.   But,  in another circle of season,  will return and repeat.

BEAVERS!!!!!!     BEAVERS!   who'dve Guessed??????  or Imagined?   How just so really Great!

 

 

 

 

the branches from yesterday.   I don't ever like to use dark threads for things.  Never black,  unless it's for the 7 black/white/black white thread beads….but never black.  It's heavy.  And i don't really feel ok with a very dark brown….even when what i am looking for is a dark brown.   So, stitching some things for me is a dilemma.    Here,  i just used a brown that took on light for the branches.  Much like the marks that were on the cloth.  This was ok.  and good, even.

 

BUT!!!!    Look!, Here!

this is from a single strand of Deb Lacativa's   "dirty thread".  Single strand meaning,  separating one strand of thread from the 6thread embroidery floss strand….i want to be clear about this.  Embroidery floss is composed of 6 separate thread strands.  I Always use only one of the 6 at a time.  If i want a strong, dense line,  i simply go over and over,  back and forth until it's "right".    But ALWAYS,  just a single strand.  one.

i looked at those branches and they were "flat".  Why not try some dirty thread?  and Lo and Behold, the branches came alive!  I LOVE this,  like beyond Love.  Dirty coming from the fact that the varigation  is quick….fast….and for small stitching,  what is needed to create dark and light….

so this is ONE single strand of 6 of Deb's embroidery floss.  Added to the branches.  Only one.  and

To me,  this is just so beyond Great.  Such happiness in it…..