windthread

one week from today my brother,  7 years younger than i,  will arrive with his youngest son.   

From Minnesota.  Wish i still had the atlas for that…..where the train will wander,  before bringing them to  Albuquerque.  They will be here some days then go off to Arizona to visit his longstanding friend and then return a few days before heading back by train to Minnesota.  Travel.  Seems it's in the Wind.  I think about my brother and in my head he is maybe 20 or at most 30.   When he was trouble.  Riding his motorcycle from Minnesota to Michigan.  He's an old man now.  Funny,  that.    Not trouble anymore.  Brother.  My brother.   hmmmmm.  His youngest son who doesn't believe he has a sister.

 

waiting for Word from this Cloth

and i've started the uhhh,  what?…..i've started the routine,  i guess that's good enough a word.  I very quietly put some Pellets in the stainless  steel milk bucket.  Just a very small amount.  Not like in the past,  when,  before that Great SNOW STORM of 2015,  when they were accustomed to a bucket of pellets for a snack around 3 oclock…because they HAD been bred or milking Goats…when they were accustomed to that but the almost 2 ft of snow made it impossible,  so we broke the habit….

but it's interesting that they haven't forgotton.  The sight of me coming out the door of the Room with that bucket is still imprinted in their minds.  More than anything,  Goats love food.  Foodies.  Goats are Foodies.   So to get ready to convince them that getting in to the trailer is a good thing,  i do this.  Small amounts.  like small.  but enough to give them that EDGE of wanting.  I am trying too,  to bring Onday to the position of Lead Goat.  Since Snow Bunny is gone,  no one has taken this position and it's an important position for a goatherd to rely on.  But no one has.  I don't know why.  I guess,  because there isn't a NEED?  Don't know.  Tonight when i called them for the evening feed,  it was Karma that came first.  All it takes is one of them to come first and the rest follow.  Tonight Karma….who is somewhere in the middle realm of the Order….????

and i'm also working with the buck goats and pellets.  Sunny Ray is very changed since his stay at Jan's to breed her does.  He is stand offish and wary…runs.  No longer the baby stinky boy he was when he left here.  He was there past one year.  And pretty much left without human contact.  Before he left he was looking for it.  Easy to brush and love.  But he came back a proven buck.  Different.  He and his friend Jack Flash, play at running away.  It's not fear,  but a kind of playfulness but still will be less easy to load them for the Trip.  So them too.  i take the stainless steel bucket that makes the rattle sound with the pellets and offer them to them by hand.  Sunny Ray came and accepted that.  Jack Flash came and sniffed.  He doesn't know pellets.  He is a wether from Jan.  But he watched Sunny Ray gobble them up.  In a few days, he will come for them too.

then over to TenZen and Nogal.  Tenzen was easy…he remembers.  Nogal not so easy,  but he will be.  Just takes some days.    And i don't want it to become something they Expect.  But rather something that falls like the Grace from Heaven…out of nowhere,  unexpected.  

so we move Forward.  Closer,  day by day.  and Still today,  the Red Chestnut holds.  The scale has shifted and i think more and more about how it will be when we all are There.  We are burning Karma and it smells like incense…

 

 

still.  Hours now.  into a new day.  

This happened twice before in my life.  When just the identification of the Remedy was enough.  How amazing is that.   But it's what i have come over the years to love about this small pamphlet,  its  simple presentation,  its simple Sure presentation….no need for fancy.  What it is is what it is.

when in town yesterday,  i went to Walmart.  ALWAYS right up front were the Rand McNally Road Atlas'.  Prominantly displayed.  I guess for all the Seniors who shop there while on the road in their motor homes.   Anyway,  my very ratty ancient one bit the dust some years back.  I'd pulled out the pages from  my trip to Minnesota ten years ago.  And then when most all the kids were in California,  that page too.  and Colorado,  where my son is.  And then when i made Julian's collaged match box for Christmas,  i cut up California so his box would have the map of where he lives.  

i looked Everywhere…nope.  So asked the person who stands central in the store where they might be and she said….we don't have those anymore.  No one uses maps.  You use your GPS.

o.  

she said it like, DUH.  and i responded privately in my mind, like, duh.  What if your vehicles are 30 years old and  don't have that?  And what if you happen to really LOVE maps?  Duh back.  She was nice,  as they are encouraged to be and led me back to the book and magazine section,  but no….no road atlas'.  But there was a few paper maps.  Arizona,  Texas….a few of these and one single kind of tattered Western States.

so.  Here.  and it adds to the sense of things.   Don't know why the camera chooses to give color this way,  but it doesn't matter, really.  So,  the MAP.  I will put things here in the next while,  dangle them,  pin them on.  To ……  what?    To make it Sacred.  This traveling.  To act as Blessing in the days i imagine it.  To….?

Maps.  I still love maps and will order a Rand McNally Road Atlas from where else than Amazon for looking at with the kids in California.  Look at and mark with the sky blue Sharpie highlighter….where they are,  where all of us Were,  the roads we traveled in our days.

 

small.  feels good.

 

I don't know what it's like in your head.  How things play out there for you.  But here, in mine,  i can tell you… it's easiest to describe in  that transition time from sleep to common awareness.  There is sleep and all that goes on in that dream world then the odd arising to semi conscious and then that split second of waking.  That split second and then the next one or two are just CLEAR and then,  if there is turmoil happening inside me for whatever reason,  the TURMOIL takes form and fills my mind with it's Turmoil.  and so i go,  carrying that turmoil as an under current to the days.  just as background, really, like white noise.  Not interfering,  just there.  

this is how it's been for a while.  and i have been working with it all and i know that my own particular Turmoil has to do with the Well Being of the Goats in their transport from New Mexico to the new world of California.  I really need to find out exactly how many hours that will take.  It would help….the FACT of that.  as in, can it be a straight through drive?   Or, will there need to be a stop.  Straight through is easiest to think about.   a stop would be complicated.   Anyway….this is what is the Source of the Angst.  Not my leaving here.  Not what it all might unfold to being There.  Those things are not anxiety provoking.  They are Changes and i don't get tangled in them.  It's those HOURS of TRANSPORT.  That's it. 

Seems easy enough,  doesn't it.  But it's FILLED with adrenaline.  

So WHAT'S THE AMAZEMENT?????????????

last week i noticed that Ember is in a new place in town.  Ember's Herb Shop.  and i thought about how she has Bach Flower Remedies.  And i thought about maybe it's a good time for that.  But as i am,  i just let that thought float.  Like sometimes i think i might benefit from taking an aspirin.  But then just don't.  and stuff resolves of it's own accord.   Yesterday, tho, i got the little yellow pamphlet off the shelf and as i do,  read through all the Positive Potentials.  This is how i choose a remedy.  Not the description of the turmoil,  but Positive Potentials.  What do i WANT to achieve?????

Back to Red Chestnut

 

 

i read this yesterday and then again this morning.  I went off to WORK Away and then into town and driving by Ember's Herb Shop,  i didn't stop.   I came back and stopped at the end of the road neighborhood mail box and in my box was a card from Michelle and in that was a few SEEDS of the Sweet Pea Bush….SWEET PEA! AND JUST THE THOUGHT,  SWEET PEA,  was so Wonderful and i came home here to take that 20 min nap that i do and i did and i woke and SUN was coming in to this home…like honey flowing…and i lie there in complete EASE.   it 

lasted.

i noticed it's lasting.  The intrusive anxiety was GONE.   GONE.  and i thought how

AMAZING

it's just Gone.  and i though how if it is just GONE,  then it can STAY GONE,  or,  if i need it, it can come back.   But it is not a THING.  it's a creation of my mind,  a habitual response….NOT a THING that is REAL.  And though i might have said,  intellectually,  all that,  the reality was different.  

But here, now,  it's 6:18 pm and it's still GONE.   Will it stay that way?  Who knows.  but it's amazing and it is so so Interesting.

Maybe Acey will weigh in here?????

 

 

 

Deb G   http://beecreative.typepad.com… is looking at fear,  and some days ago,  on 2/5 she included this in a post:

"Flare up like a flame and make big shadows I can move in.  Let everything happen to you,  beauty and terror.  Just keep going,  no feeling is final…Nearby is the country they call life.  You will know it by its seriousness.  Give me your hand."

Rilke….Book of Hours

These words have remained present in me since i read them there on the 5th.  I've thought.  I've thought about how i don't think i have ever held the sense of terror.  Fear, yes.  but terror…?, no and what is the difference between fear and terror and then fear and the kind of What Ifing that i am prone to.  ?  Fear is a solid thing?  What Ifing is uhhh,  translucent?  What Ifing some kind of filter that is an overlay?  

Working with this while loving the quote so much…I am heading into the country they call life.

 

and tho the As Is from yesterday is SO enough,  i need to try to work small now.  Small.  i think.  Maybe.  

 

 

So…there is a LOT going on.   All around.  In my own life and in the life of this America,  the life of this planet Earth.  So much and so filled with FEELINGS,  all.   I continue being startled at the increasingly painful mess that is unfolding across the country.  I read the stories and i FEEL the stories so so personally.  Feelings.  

i live these days of such intense Change and feel the FEELings.  

i go about Out Side and feel the feelings of the earth awakening,  the season changing among the Goats,  i notice suddenly how all of them have matured in the time we have been together.

and i am acutely aware that i am someone who has a lot of Feelings.  There is no judging these feelings,  as good feelings,  bad feelings,  they just are what they are.  Some are about Beauty,  some are of great love,  some are a kind of angst.  and I thought about how the truth is that i have been this way since i can remember.  The first distinct image associated with this was when i was lying in my crib watching the dust motes in sunlight.   So…how old might i have been?  I don't know.  But i can FEEL that moment still.  it is very clear and acute,  pure and uninformed,  as in naive.  

 back to that term of Eugene Gendlin's….Felt Sense.  Feeling.  FeltSense. 

so,  looking at this in a more uhhhh,  what?,  more……..well,  more full way,   i am at the same time looking at this scrap of cloth…a piece of Mexican Elderberry dye,

 

this mark….elicits a strong FeltSense

 

i put it here and stood looking,  understanding i was seeing something important to me and trying to understand what that was.  About how…just this.  Just This.  is so totally ENOUGH to me.  How it doesn't need anything.  How it is complete and excellent just As Is.  and i looked closely at all the different marks and then,  all of them together and i realized that cloth like this,  with it's spontaneous response tells me a story of Feelings.  Of how it might be that Air feels as it moves through leaves and grasses,  of how microbes feel as they build their universes in the soil,  how insects feel as they live their seasonal lives birth to death,  how decay feels,  how an emerging bud,  a leaf tip,  …….on and on and on  

i understood a lot of things i'd never known how  to understand.  The cloth told me things i'd not known to look for or not known how to receive.   Today,  the cloth opened  that.

draw

 

double click

i feel at peace with how it is that i Experience living.   it's always been this way.  it is my covenant in being born.  

i accept the changing moment of Going toward and Into a place where this will bloom and play out in ways i never might have wished for but ways that will give more than i ever might have imagined.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We bought this 2 horse trailer not long before Jenny's big escape….that day of the family intervention.  Things then were so intense,  there was no time for anything but going.  And then,  when we brought the Goats back from California to here,  there also was no time for anything but the great grief of it.   So the Trailer has never had a good Blessing.  It is actually a Copper color tho looks not so much that here.  

Needs a name.  and i think needs Marks of some sort….the other day when nosing around on the South Wall shelves of the ROOM,  i discovered that i had kept some of my oil paints.  So with those oil paints.  There is a good tube of Mars Violet and one of Paynes Grey….my true loves.  With these i will paint some marks of Just Going.

 

Travis.  He worked,  WORKED to get the tires off and Her up on blocks.  Packed the wheel bearings.  This week i'll buy the 4 tires and one for a spare.   When we drove back from California that night through RAIN and then into the part of N Mex where they were filming the Johnny Depp movie…when he was Tonto?   We had no spare and it  rubbed at my fear place….that What if…..but she's not like me.  None of them are.  I somehow raised "It'll be Fine"  people.   I've learned to keep my What Ifs to myself.

 

this really Great In/Out box  on the wooden big box next to the Morning chair.   the bottom shelf…papers,  old mail,  a print out for Peter Reinhart's Napoletana Pizza Dough Recipe that's noted:  From Deb G  8~2013…which i kept,  and this…!   Georgia O'keefe!!!!…had no idea where she was….found….this crow…but 2/3 i put in the trash thing for burning.  That was the bottom shelf.  It's empty now.  Top…well….in the morning.  If there is a place to put stuff,  stuff gets put there.  In the morning i'll go through all that and move it or ……..     I will need to do this every day now.  More than just this….every day now.   and the really great In/Out box can go back to the Thrift Shop where i scored it.

on curtain in afternoon Sun

 

and i noticed,  when dumping water tub for Nogal and TenZen that 2 slats of the fence were loose…pushed out and very loose.  They  scratch their "horns"…in the case of Nogal,  some very horn like scurs,  and for TenZen,  just the bones of his head where horns Were,  but no matter,  they rub them,  scratch and itch them against any useful surface and i guess there.  Not good.  two slats gone is enough room for a Goat to get through and i guess too where the neighbor's dog,  Pit Bull,  whose name is Mama comes to check them out.  They walk in the evening with her,  Mama,  and Tay goes crazy at the big gate and i hear them calling her…Mama Mama,  No,  and now i know what Mama is up to.   So in the morning,  that fix.  Have the battery for the drill charging on the sink counter in the bathroom.

 

 

i woke this morning in the midst of a Feeling.  

WIND began during the night.  I knew it would,  Nat'l Weather Service had  told me.  Gusts to 45mph. and it was…Wind,  gusting,  like that point in  giving birth…Transition…when it rolls,  relentless.

so that all night and still upon waking and i just had some kind of Feeling and it stayed all day and i keep wanting to Identify it but it remains illusive…does not want to be named…just felt.

and because i was,  well,  Feeling it,  i thought if i drew something,  i might Know something,  so i got a piece of printer paper on the clip board and the 6b pencil and,  how it goes,  just touch the tip of the pencil to the paper and let the pencil move…so lightly on the paper,  so so lightly and there it was,  what came,  that house form in a small forest of trees,  the door is open…not accurately represented, but who cares,  the slope roof,  a porch of some kind where there is me and Tazmeena and Tay sitting on it and a path and then i wanted to put some rocks and then i wanted to stack some rocks to be a Cairn to the left  of the door and i did that,,, the pencil barely touching the paper but i STOPPED…something…….and walked away and came back and it was not a pile of stacked rocks,  the Cairn,  but………………….eeeeeeeeeee,  it was the Magician!  What to think?  I don't know.

and on the left of the drawing a kind of Lean To…to the left of the house thing,  sort of attached,  but open just very open but a roof and open sides….this i want to make myself.  After i get there.    A small covered outside space for dye pots,  is what i imagine in this moment.  sticks as "rafters"…to hang things from??????  But OPEN….   Maybe where the Magician actually…"lives?"  Where the bells hang?  

so i had this drawing and i've come and gone  from it all day but still can't identify the FEELING.  ok.  I'll wait.

you can double click it.

 

and i stitched stuff down.  Jude's invisible baste  [Jude Hill  Spirit Cloth] and i just am IN LOVE with this…that the scraps are only so very vaguely representational,  but represent so much and because this Cloth is for me,  it's ok….nothing else is needed and the feeling of stitching them…their wrinkles…their abstract sense is just so incredibly FINE…i want to understand more about this

 

and there on the floor

a strand of ripped cloth shred…i love it,  how that happens,  that a strand of ripped cloth shred will throw itself on the floor so i will NOTICE it…pick it up…NOTICE it and it's the greatest Grass thing which i stitched down too

and i called the Dept. of Ag in California…Sacramento…to find out what is needed to transport Goats from New Mex….we go through borders,  like immigrants.  N Mex to Arizona to California.  There are border stops at each point.  What kinds of papers do i need for clear sailing.   What kind of Vet certification.    Daughter Jenny already did this once but year to year things change.  Don't want any hitches that would create a mess.  So…began that.  Somehow it's attached to the drawing in the beginning,  where me,  Tazmeena and Tay are sitting on some kind of porch.  Looking Out at a different world.  Maybe this last line is a clue to the Feeling?

 

because things can move Fast.

 

and really,  it's better that things move fast.  Slow would not make anything Easier.

Julie asked.    What will happen to This Place,  here in Polvadera?

Have said this in comments, i guess,  but to put it here.

Travis will live here.  If that had not occured,  i don't know if i could go.  If i could Leave.

I met Travis at the Old Folks Home,  over there on Hwy 60,  the road up the mountain to Magdalena.  It's a sprawling place.  Never had been inside before.  Until Alz. Betty had to go there one day on a Saturday.  

Alz B being Bill's mother who i'd reluctantly taken up housekeeping for at his REQUEST.  Every other week for some years and then just slowly increasing to include not just keeping house,  but keeping Company as her mind began to Wander Away.  Then More.  and then,  That Saturday.  After that, he paid me to go there,  to the Old Folks Home to just be with her a few times a week,  keep track of things there,  go to the staff/family meetings that determined her Care.   For altogether 3 years give or take,  i would primarily go at lunch time,  except for Music Thursday.   There were tables of 3 in the community dining room and Travis,  a CNA,  certified nursing assistant,  was almost always at our table with Alma and Jenny.  He fed them.  I fed Alz B.  We talked,  i found out over time a lot about who he is,  from the conversations,  but also from being witness to the exchanges he had with two scrappy women who had Lost their Minds.     His kindness and capability.  His humor.  His direct honesty.  The night Alz. B died, i got the call to come.  I got there first,  before her son and sat with her and then her body.  Travis came and sat too. Then we all sat for hours.  

i didn't see him then,  for some months until things started picking up momentum with the Old Cowboy i was caring for….things i didn't want to do,  like bath time. Toe nail trimming.   I called him and it went from there to his being the primary caregiver in a 24/7 kind of way,  knowing other CNA's that would share shifts.  Then the months of Hospice in Old Cowboy's home.  To the end.     During that time,  i knew him better and better.  He also Knew me.  Well.   That was going on 2 years ago and since then i have hired him and his friend Everett to help me with things here that i couldn't do or couldn't do alone.  They would come,  do the work and then we'd sit out under the Old Apricot Tree and just talk.  We watched Toads.  He saw the juvenile skink.  Both he and Everett love it here.  Their place is in town.  a tiny courtyard yard.  Travis works on vehicles.  It's his Love.

I think he's 32 years old.  Everett is younger and over time tells me of how social interactions are very difficult for him,  how hard he works at changing that but it's slow going.  He is happy as a clam here.  Travis is like his older brother.  Teaches him how to work on his car.  Interprets the world for him.

So,  when it seemed that "sooner or later",  i'd need to make my mind up about Going,  i just put the thought out there….would Travis want to live here?  Would he promise to Give Water?  Would he care for the Toads,  Lizards,  the Bull Snake?  

YES!  and for the first time,  i could entertain the thought of Leaving.  He will run a drip system and dig a sandpoint well which will have a solar pump. He is extremely smart and able.  Will change all the things about this Home that are falling apart.   I don't know if Everett will actually live here,  but he will GROW things here…he loves the raised beds and imagines all manner of things growing in all the places that the Goats have enriched the soil.  

so, Julie,  what will happen here will Evolve.   The Albatros will return to being an automotive Thing.  But i have complete FAITH that things will continue and things will GROW.  

so…he can have it.  The neighborhood has continued to get a little more and more Ify but it  won't bother them.   This is important.  Not a lot of people could be comfortable here.  They will be,  well,  happy as clams.

and just to clarify a little further.   When the person i was married to died,  the whole area where the Front Oasis and the 3 Goat yards are had various vehicles of Potential,  a boat.  The guy who buys such things came at my request.  He walked around and walked around.  I said…so……and i always remember his wise words.  

"Anyone who would want these,  wouldn't have enough money.  Anyone who had enough money, wouldn't want them."

that applies to this Place.  So, I'll Give it. 

…………………………………Addendums……………………………………………………….

to Clarify more….when i say that it's more and more Ify,  the neighborhood,  i do not mean to imply "dangerous".  I never feel any danger here.  I never lock my door,  and actually,  the door that goes out from the ROOM into the way back,  has no lock anyway.  When i leave,  am away for the day,  the door is unlocked…in warm weather,  only the screen door.   By ify i mean that places are not taken care of.  Even if poor,  there are ways to take care.  That's not happening so much.  And the place next door that i'd though of buying as a "buffer" is increasingly imploding.  It's an eyesore,  really.  

 

Polvadera Panini Press

 

Have begun the Grasses.  Hard to see,  but if you double click…………….

 

 

 

I don't know what it looks like on your screen,  but i get responses to the posts here in my Email box.  Does this happen for everyone?  I don't know.  But this morning….there was a comment that just filled me with Joy and Amazement

Back in December i posted  words that granddaughter Alyssia sent me…that were on some mail or facebook thread from Elephant Journal…a writer….Cairo McFarlane.  Her words touched deeply into something that she and i "knew" about how it is between us.

Today,  Cairo McFarlane……!!!!!…..commented on that 12/2/2016  Post … a day away from all the rest

she said she had inadvertantly found this post and wanted to say that she is Not associated with Elephant Journal and that she CAN be found on Facebook  Cairo McFarlane,  Twitter @CairoMcF and Instagram@songbirdsingsoftly.  

And the Beauty of it All to me is how truly we are Connected in far reaching ways that we can't imagine, really,  that we float "out there"  landing like butterflies out of the blue.

So i will repost her words.  And again…i don't know how to adjust the form of this page in a format of a poem,  so will put them here,  as i Hear Her speak them,  as if to me,  as if to Alyssia and maybe even as if to You:

"However,

If you are broken    i cannot fix you.  I can hold your pieces within my bones and atriums   Until you learn to piece yourself whole again.

One by one,  I will hand them to you.  And I will love you wholely    And I will love you without judgement.    

And i will love you sans peur

And i will love you.

Remembering is imperative.  Remembering you are loved….In all your brokenness,  you are loved.  May you never even once forget.

Broken or Not    you are loved. "

Cairo McFarlane

Facebook  Cairo McFarlane    Twitter @CairoMcF  and Instagram@songbirdsingsoftly

 

 

the love affair with the tea continues.

and the exchanges are ongoing and gaining momentum and i cannot help but be preoccupied.  So…you will be hearing this.  As it goes.  This is what it is so far,  and Subject to Change.

Because of the Way from here to California,  the Goats will need to go sometime in April because of the HEAT.    I will go mid July give or take.  Emry (subject to change) will be born end of July, first of August.  

Daughter Jenny and her man will build my Place  first as a learning experience.  It will be basically the same blueprint  as their Place but smaller.  When i can fully imagine it,  i'll draw a picture.  It will be SMALL.  One room and somewhere a tiny space for a shower and toilet,  a tiny sink and 2 burner stove.   Tiny refrigerator.  Like in a travel trailer, Julie.  

it will have a slanted roof and so a loft space which i imagine to be where the baskets of cloth will live.  The sewing stuff.  The art loft.   There would be no room for the baskets in the ROOM,  which will be in the full sense of the word,  the LivingRoom.

So what do i do with all the rest of my STUFF?  Thinking.  

the rest of my stuff means,  i guess,  my books.  and my cooking stuff,  like my beloved pyrex casserole collection,  the cast iron pans,  the stainless steel pots for cheese making.   There can be a small or LARGE,  really,  but i want SMALL storage shed for the stuff.  Separate.  Shelves.  I think of those plastic storage containers that are flat.  like what you might store blankets in, ordinarily.  They can stack.   So,  them.  books can go in them.  The paper stuff that i can't part with.  The Beauty Full things that i also can't part with that can come and go in the LivingRoom on an alternate basis??????  Like, Visit?  Then go back?????

Alyssia's Place,  she says,  has LOTS of cupboard space so….the cooking stuff can go with her stuff there.  Any Big Cooking Event can happen at her house and that will be a Good Thing.  She likes that.

so…

this for the moment.  It's going to change rapidly.