windthread

had decided NOT to plant any vegetable plants.  At some point,  soon,  it will all change gears and become GOING.  There will be much to do.  Gathering.    Hosing down.  Cleaning off.  Stacking,  piling.  that's OutSide.  Inside,  well…. but it will happen suddenly.  Gardens need things.  They need above all else,  time.  Focus.  Care.  I thought about just starting things.  and then telling Everett so he can carry on.  But that's ify for the plants and i think ify isn't ok for plants.  They need you for the duration.  So i have been giving water to the bushes and trees.  This means,  toads and lizards.  Spiders and beetles.  Birds.  maybe the snake?, most likely.   But suddenly this morning,  i was stricken by the thought of the

worms

all fall and winter i have layered Goat manure and scrap feed on the vegetable beds.  Like always.  But also partly more  because i need to put the manure SomeWhere and Gideon's place has taken the space of the Big Compost.  It's piled and incredibly GOOD.  

the planting of the vegetables would have begun late April.  But it didn't.  Those beds have been still.  Down,  i don't know how far,  the worms live,  rising with water.  

so today from dawn till almost Rim Time,  i hand watered.  Held the hose long moments on every bit of them,  dug in with my hands to see if the water penetrated the heavy mulch.  Staying staying staying till it did and when i dug in with my hands,  i felt and saw such incredibly BEAUTY FULL 

soil

black.  black.  no longer any trace of sand that it was.  Earth.  i lifted it to smell and held it for Tay to smell…it is intoxicating,  that fragrance of composted Earth…partly the work of Worms.

so a Beauty FULL FULL FULL day,  giving water to worms.  

 

and while waiting for the water to seep in some places,  i began gathering things that i might take.

 

 

i can't even try to talk about it.  I guess it was/is as if there were TWO day's going on at once and they kept bumping in to each other so that neither of them could be Today?  

and then…a kind of Of Course,  my long long Michigan friend Luna,  sent me these

 

she and her family had gone to a Music Festival up the hill from this house here so she took a couple pics to send…this is My House.  This is MY HOUSE.  This is my house.  Where Jenny was born into.  My Spring Street house in Ann Arbor Michigan.  There,  to the right is the neighbor's house,  the Lum's.   I don't know if any of the now very adult children live there?  But it's the house that Jenny would escape to.  Wearing only her yellow boots from the Netherlands.  Nothing else.  And Mrs. Lum would call me and tell me in Chinese that she was there and i would walk over and retrieve this naked child with her little plastic bag of noodles and almond cookies.   they used to call her Fioke.  that's a guess of how it might be spelled in Chinese.  I would ask them now and then,  the then young 4 children of Mrs. Lum,  i would asked them  what that meant and they would look off and kind of away and not answer me but then  George, the youngest son said

brat.

so my naked brat in yellow boots from the Netherlands.  Fioke.  They loved her.

if you try really hard,  you might see the front of a red car toward the back left of the pic and it's facing where there looks to be an addition to the shape of the front of the house and that's my Kitchen and it looks to be an addition because it was,  it's over 100 years old, this house, an Old Woman House and there was a kitchen added on before we lived there.  There was a dry sink.

That's my kitchen.  When i type those words, i get all teary.  

but i see these pics here that Luna took just a couple days ago and i see how Old Woman House is all very nicely Yellow and how they took off the railing on the left,  probably for convenience of some sort and how they have purple tulips growing out front and some kind of sedum on the Lum's hill.

 

behind the house is a long long rectangle lot that is flat near the house but then goes down into a terraced garden space and then beyond to the wild place where the Lilac Forest was and where the kids had their "tree fort" world.  First, what comes to mind was how Snake Louise lived there….the Garden Snake,  the Snake Louise from a Wind at the Door,  Madeleine L'engle,  and all the Toads,  all the Toads  that my son Jonathan would feed mulberries to.

I used to LIKE,  actually, LIKE telling the story of how i left this house,  the Life lived in this house.  I would tell it hard and fast.  It was FULL of Ego,  mine,  and i was full of it.  I told it as such an adventure.  Which…it was.  but i look back now….

Now…it's hard.  Hard to look back.  Hard to see it,  to see my self then,  to feel that self then still alive in the me that is now,  almost 30 years later.   oh,  eeeee…….

 

 

maybe it's because there is Beauty in it all.  in every moment.  in every iteration.  

 

on the Other Side of the Magic Diaries because it takes that whole wall,  the Magic Diaries,  but also i love how it looks there with the thread marks from the Front,  how well they ARE together,  sharing space

 

the altar is getting crowded

it's still exactly like this out there.  I have passed by many times and made no effort to "right" it.   I look again this evening and suddenly had the thought of What IF?  What if the timetable that we have been going by isn't going to happen?  What if? and then that suddenly extended to….What if we are all supposed to go Together?

?

When they took the Goats to California the first time,  it was August.  The worst month.   And just outside of Needles,  the transmission on the Ford Ranger pickup went out.  They had to stop.  They had to wait to get a new transmission put in.  They had to make temporary fencing with cattle panel and zip ties in a small space inbetween two highways,  almost like a median.  But they did it.

i called Alyssia to verify that  it  was indeed August and yes.

so, here i am.  a Plan B.  IF they can't come in the near future for the Goats,  what if we ALL came.  All being Jenny,  her man,  Alyssia if it's soon enough,  me, Travis,  Tay and Tazmeena.  All at once.  

to just let it Be.  to let go of all (as is possible) desire to Change what is.  To simply turn my face to Presence (of E. Tolle).   During the night,  still, is Metta.  During day Light,  Presence.  

an uneven day….overcast,  cloud bursts,  Thunder,  breaking suddenly to brilliant Light,  more Thunder,  but Brilliant Sun.  Back and forth.  Unusual cloud formations.  The uneasiness of allowing Presense.  Answering the phone and realizing that i don't want to talk about any of it,  explain anything,  anymore, to anyone.    So sitting on the futon couch,  looking off and feeling the Presense of that,  i wander into a place of wondering what it would feel like if "someone" came who i didn't need to say anything to.  What would that be Like? And i stayed with that question,  just staying with the question and breathing and staying with that question and i saw Self going to the gate,  unhooking it and in came the Magician.   I'll try to describe.  I KNOW her to be the Magician…even though she is there(here) but not…a kind of mirage is the best way maybe to explain it,  fluid,  made of light and particles that give form but not form in the way i sense mySelf to be form. She is not fixed.  She sits next to me,  in one of the Janet Chairs under the Old Apricot tree.  I don't look into her face because, really,  there is no face,  there are flickering features that change,  flow together and then not.  We simply sit.  we do not "communicate" with sound, ie words.  Just being.  and i think,  Presence.  We are.  Tree is.  Birds are.  Tay is.  Janet Chair.  Wind.  Sun.  No Sun.   But too,  there is the energetic form  that she is…she wears layers of cloth  that i don't even want to describe because i don't want to say it aloud  (in print) because it would reduce it to something less than the amazement of it….so…textiles.  She wears layers of textiles,  touch and color,  weight and no weight.  There is that "hat".  Her hair is coiled into and of the hat and it's "ornaments"…and the tiny things that hover over it.  I don't look directly at them. There are sounds to her as she moves,  as she adjusts her energetic form on the chair,  they are almost NOT sounds,  but sounds…sometimes a very light tinkling like the sound of those old fashioned glass wind chimes we used to be able to buy at the dime store,  sometimes a very light and bright clicking like an insect would make,  a whir.  moments of hums…of different frequencies.  All these very hard to hear.  I have to be very still and attentive.  She is what she is,  but knows full well what i am.  Knows full well that this is a new and difficult time for me.  She simply sits with me.

The Magician.  She is a figment of Cloth,  but can come Out of it

 

WIND re~arranged the Cloth Line

 

the WIND…at just the right angle to really rattle the walls.  Things fell off.  And really, it's perfect for thinking about how things seem in my mind lately….just unremittant straight line..is that a good word?  unremittant?  i'll look it up….oh,  nah,  it's ok enough,  or unrelenting but unremittant came first so i'll go with that.  

and here's something from Heather…truestiches.blogspot.com

https://medium.com/@robinchancer/how-to-stay-sane-if-trump-is-driving-you-insane- advice-from-a-therapist-49e982195e22

https://medium.com/@robinchancer/how-to-stay-sane-if-trump-is-driving-you-insane-advice-from-a-therapist-49e982195e22

it's good and helps me stand back with that sense of No Wonder.

So work away and then home to this WIND  and feeling too uh,  fragmented to actually DO something to the Cloth,  but looking, moving around,

 

 

how just a small scrap can represent blue sky…again,  as always,  Deb Lacativa.  This scrap is postage stamp size.  but it's also SKY.  I like how i have let myself get to this.  And i am grateful that it's the spontaneously marked cloth…the Plant marked cloth that gives the permission to see in such a different way.  Maybe this will help me with all the other ways i want to see.

i didn't hear from either of them yesterday or today.  i wonder what THAT means?    And i wonder if all this WAITING that's going on here,  adds to the sense of  dis~ease that prevails in the world….like if i should just say…ok….i'll sign off now and be back when i have something interesting to report?,  i wonder that every day right about this time…evening…but then

i show up here with something.  

i guess because there is always Something…that being the Truth of it all,  there's always something in each day as they come and go.

I woke this morning after having a night of Dreaming that is becoming more and more surreal.  I looked out the door window of the ROOM and there was nothing but SNOW…piled up and thick and blotting out everything,  covering it with heavy white

and then looking out the front door,  i saw Kenneth pull up next door at the falling apart trailer there that he grew up in and his mother owns still,  and it's exactly as it is in waking life, no snow,   but it's Kenneth,  who is a very great flamboyant young gay man and he is wearing a hat with a rose on it and next to him is a little boy,  maybe 5 yrs,  who i understand is his son and i think o,  eee,  now what,  and that i need to go over there and reassure them that the Goats are going soon…that's the fence we share,  where the buck yards are and then i am in some kind of building that has separate spaces all attached by kind of breeze ways,  hallways and i am standing in one looking out to a platform with fencing,  like the Goat fencing and i think i am seeing two horses,  stallions and they are engaged in combat but then realize one is a wolf and it has killed the stallion but there is no blood.  As i stand,  taking in that scene,  i feel a being next to me who is a "Goat",  but not quite,  is really kind of a dog too…but really not that either,  just the ears are like pit bull ears,  so mostly a Goat but it's very Tall,  long long legged and she begins TALKING to me…we have a conversation about this scene of wolf and horse

i wake this morning and make tea,  come to the computer and turn it on,  Windows makes that Hello sound,  i look at my inbox then click on news and once again,  there is no good news and i realize i am still expecting some kind of good news,  just even ONE piece of good news but there isn't…this is Google New feed….and i think how all my life there was two kinds of news,  the good and the bad, but always something you could take hold of,  go toward….and now it isn't that way.  How this is different.  Really different.  and how i still am intent on making my way as best i can through it.  As best i can.   No pollyanna stuff,  but with Heart and with determination to not let THEM take me down 

i refuse to let Them take me down.

and i look over and think…Thank God for Cloth!  oh…if only there would be a God,  Thank God for Cloth.  For Cloth.  Cloth.   repeat, repeat, repeat.   

 

Night mind had said…go look over there,  that stack at the end of the book shelf by the wood stove and yup….here it was.  I'd looked a few days ago and decided i must have either sent it to Julian Via Alyssia or given it to the Library,  but here it still is.  Good.

 

Morning mind then says…Go read.  Start again.  ok.  Ellen Meloy,  and i can barely read the beginning of this…but i do and get to this place where she is trying to understand what is happening to her,  IN her and she talks of this as anger,  but i read it different,  i read it as not about anger,  but fear and she says this   "In Inuit custom,  an angry person [a person with fear]  expends his or her emotion by walking straight across the landscape.  When all anger [fear] is spent,  the stopping point is marked with an object,  indicating the length or degree of the person's rage [fear].  What if my anger [fear] walk circumvented the globe, and i ended up tapping myself on the shoulder?"

 

 

 

attention says:  look down,   there in that lower left… and i do and wouldn't you know?,  it's the Magician!!!  so,  ok…now has a blue/green head….ok…and even more ok,  carrying some kind of napsack.  Stuff.

 

listening,  i find this piece of linen from Beth.  She said it was from a horrible pink thing that she bathed in Walnut.  It's just right.  Just the right Ground.

Tales from the bird hut,  Saskiavanherwaarden.com   and i saw this pic at the end of her post.  !!!  When i  imagine my Space,  on that Hill,  i have always not imagined anything about it.  But i looked at this…and i think it's about the exact size of the space that will be my home,

and it is so familiar.  I guess i might imagine something much more sparten.  But…i was stricken by this image…

 

 

 

 

Limbo.

 

They are all Out There,  on the Hill today.   Working on the things they can work on.  Feeling.  Feeling things about what they Can't do.  Day unto day it's  trying to GO but not being able to.  So much is interdependent.  3 mornings this week Alyssia was at the Permit Place where the Permit Man is only there between the hours of 8 am and 10.  3 times he was NOT there between the hours of 8 am and 10.  Many things hinge on him issueing the permits…doing the Environmental Site Visit.  And then,  there is the digging of trenches,  which they are so,  SO, ready to do,  but these must be approved.   I could go on here,  but it's a tangle of interwoven interdependence.  The Solar guy said Monday and then, Wednesday and then Friday for sure but then now,  the owner of the company has gone on vacation and he gives the go ahead for the estimate.

She,  Alyssia,  bought a trampoline on Craigslist.  They will set it up today before they leave.  Jenny hates trampolines.  an eyesore.  which they kind of really are,  but they agreed to a space behind some bushes,  so unless you really try,  you can't see it.  The kids are ecstatic. Julian,  too.  Who is not much into athletics…he's someone who if he thinks he won't be good at it, just refuses…I think will benefit from a trampoline.  Might help him make friends with his physical body.  

So,  till i hear otherwise,  i think they worked to set up the camper trailer that will be Jenny's home for the duration until the Tiny House is built.  a Challenge.  but they are READY.  Everyone is READY.   It goes from Spring in to Summer soon and the Goat Boat is Ready.  I am Ready.  We are so so READY.  We need a green light that says GO!   Like the Old Cowboy Said,  that John Wayne said…."We're burnin daylight"……

i read the Moth presents  and it is such a brilliant and shining example of storytelling…how i am IN each story as it is told,  the world disappears and i am IN the stories…can see it playing out in my mind like a movie…

same as i was IN this Cloth

 

4 1/2  x  6 1/2 inches  Dana's work and Deb Lacativa…Deb being the GROUND upon which it lies and also the Moth of Presence.  How Grateful i am to have these to work the story from.  It's in the Shop.   More than ever,  what will be "in the shop" means Livelihood as times goes.  I think about that term,  that phenomena,  Livelihood today.  Finally,  after i think 3 weeks the guy in town who does the on site VIN verifications showed up.  I waited all day yesterday and finally called him at about 4 oclock and he said no,  he wasn't coming.  But he would come this morning.  Ok i said,  but if you change your mind again,  let me know.  So…he came.  I knew he was an older man…but wasn't prepared for ancient.  He is Ancient.  His truck he drives is the size of the world.  I kept saying, watch your step.  It's a booby trapped world here and Tay spun in circles and flew and flew around but was care Full not to bang into him and he went into Nogal and TenZen's yard and up to the faux Airstream and looked at it's VIN and i wetted my finger with spit so the numbers stood out and he had his clip board with the inspection form on it, secure and we went back out and he transcribed information onto the Verification form which he had to do twice,  so there was a copy,  i suggested finding carbon paper,  and the whole Event took less than a half hour and cost $82.oo.  That's over $160 an hour?  What?  But i said thank you.  And it's just one more thing i have accomplished to "put my house in order".  

 

 

 

there are these moments when everything is So Clear.  So Bright,  even hard things.  It happened that way this morning,  just before Sun Rise as i began to read

 

it appeared exactly so timely,  in my awareness and now here,  in my hands….with what has been rising lately on different blogs,  that questioning….the Why?  The ? of value of things,  our words,  our makings,  and as i began reading there was an exhilarating  knowing that what DOES matter and matter Greatly is the telling of it.  The story of It.  either with word or our hand….well, really,  with both.  Stories.  how we share our humanity in Bright or Dark times.  It matters.   The stories allow the Bright into the Dark and let dark live in the Bright.

and i thought of an exchange i had with Michelle a while ago when i said….that we have spent lives,  she and i,  collecting Wisdoms and now it seems to be time to put them into play.

In 2004 i read the Power of Now and then in 2008,  A New Earth.  I digested these and have held things in me since then,  but have not gone back to him,  Eckhart Tolle.  In the last days simultaneously   with the Field Notes about Fear,  his work has appeared in my email box and i would just pass by but then decided to click  and since,  a few days,  have been watching UTubes,  looking on his website….how he is working with the thing of Presence.  Presence being a dimension of consciousness.  And….Field Notes…he gave me that beautyFull tool…what he refers to as a portal…the focusing on the aliveness of the hands,  the feet.

This is a perfect time for me to begin this work,  with Presence.    And in doing that today,

 

i took down a larger piece of cloth that has been pinned to the window curtain just here,  in front of me as i type on this screen,  a piece of linen from Dana, of Raven and Sparrow,  and i ripped it.   Went to find the right piece of linen again,  but this from Deb Lacativa.  The harem cloth inside.  Invisible baste   [Jude Hill/Spirit Cloth]  

 

how right here,  on this messy Right,  a scrap was waiting

 

and here we have it.  That ever present,  always has been present,  always will be present,  … Space of Presence.  How to stay with it.  How to stay IN it.    This one is called,  Presence and the beings of Joy.  Maybe tomorrow i'll make a sleeve on the back and put it in the shop.

 

right before this post,  i scratched something and could feel it oozing down,,,the cool on my ankle and looking now,  i see that it's quite beauty FULL….all solid and dry.  These kinds of things always  make me happy.  Since i don't go to doctors,  i have no real clue about how i'm doing except for just noticing things as they arise.  Like this….i am very good at Clotting.  I take this as a sign of health.