windthread

Worked Away then needed to clear the space for tomorrow's delivery of the half ton of Alfalfa.  Things are connected,  not individual;  the wheelbarrow thing that i would put the shovelings in was full of half that 3 string bale of straw left from Gideon's Place.   So first,  had to clear the gate of Nogal and Tenzen's yard which means using the pitch fork and removing all the poop and scrap feed that gets compacted at the bottom of the gate and the near fence line.  Did that.  Then needed to unload the bedding straw  through the gate,  just to the inside because it's not baled well.  is loose.  Usually bales of things are somewhat compacted and come apart in what are called flakes….squares about 3 inches thick.  If it's done well,  it's very neat and easy to handle.  These bales are not and fall apart.  So i shifted it inside the yard as best i could and then with the big shovel thing,  carried it that way to stuff it into their shelter which was actually good and dry.  The straw will just provide insulation and happiness.  They like it.  That done,  i could shovel out the area where the Giant Bale goes tomorrow.  Load it into the hauler thing along with many shovel fulls of dried poops that i will need to spread on the garden beds tomorrow so once again,  the hauler thing is free for what ever it might be needed for next.

 

the side of the Albatross  i cleared out.  (some)

 

the other side where the Grass Hay goes.  2 bales left,  so i have till maybe the weekend for this side.  But there are a lot of things out of place…the feed bags with the plastic twine in them,  that tarp, the circular saw.  I need to get ON it. 

The next three days will be low 60's,  high 50's on Thursday.  Sunny.  This is not January.  There is a feeling that the boot is going to fall….and when it does,  i need to have things Ready.

Ready means so many things.

i wish there was a Loft.  for storage of stuff.  like that circular saw and canning jars.  There's even an Elephant tea pot and 4 cups.   So much wasted space overhead.  Oh well.

 

 

 

 felt adrift today.  no particular reason.  so spent time OutSide to fortify self.  Mostly with Gideon.

 

 

 

the Spirits attended,  even giving him a rainbow

 

it always comes to this.  After doing the pitchfork work to clear the scrap feed from the Gate,  i sat and sang to him my fake Navajo songs that all the Goats like very much and he likes a LOT.  I said Metta for him,  a long time and as he is,  he wanted to be close.  He is such a romantic.

Gideon.

If he makes it to Spring,  it will be easy to let him loose to browse the new Kochia.  All the others will be beside themselves but that's ok.  These are his final days.  He is Grand and Elegant and Fine.

 

his shelter that Travis and i built.  I like how SUN shines through the tarp that covers the Out Side

 

that WIND that brought down Old Russian Olive did other things.  Trashed this old rockingchair

 

halfway Un Hung the Basket of Stuff

 

but the Mirror,  out by the Raft,  remains.  

isn't that Amazing?  

or what.

 

 

so

the lizard has three.  the figure on the Rim,  one.  ok

this morning.  National Weather Service had said rain.

so i made Mango Chutney.  Didn't have all the ingredients,  so just added stuff and the fumes from it, mostly from the chili flakes toasted in oil,  almost killed me.  But didn't.  And it's really, Hot,  as in spicy.  A little will go a long way.

that space,  to the left of the Figure on the Rim…..?    you could double click

 

 

Wendy sent these pics because i couldn't get to mine and they are better,  even just taken off the computer screen because they have child hands.  These are not from the yesterday's child but from before.  Once a child and Wendy took the Lizard Cloth for a walk in the forest.  The lizard was fed berries.  That might have left a stain, but oh well and then,  on the way back,  the cloth was buried at the feet of a White Pine for a while.  This is how Cloths need to Live.  They want a life.  

 

 

julie asked a good question.  What does Ready mean?  and i answered this morning with what i had then.  Later today,  i got an email from Wendy Golden Levitt about a child that had come to her Sacred Place.  He is 5 and needed to talk with a lizard.  I've tried to get into the Picasa files to bring forward the Lizard that i sent there.  I can't.  it's always such a mystery to me,  how sometimes i can go there,  most times not.  but it was in 2010 when i made that Cloth…during Jude's (Jude Hill Spirit Cloth) patchwork beasts online workshop.   This child needed to talk with a Lizard and there it was,  a Lizard…hanging in the entryway.  He took it down and climbed INTO the sand tray,  the cloth with him.  What came of this is really more than anyone might Ever HOPE for.  and i can't put it here,  it's sacred to that space,  the child, the cloth,  the sand tray that was in the moment the desert that the child had come from.  But what it gave me,  GIVES me,  is total and complete verification of the part of my Self that will need to stand and be accounted for in the days to come.  To TRUST that self and live from that self,  no other,  without rationalizing or again,  without apology.  Truth is Truth.  My truth may not be yours or anyone elses,  but it IS mine.  and I stand with it.

 

i looked for and found this.  It's on poster board…was cut this odd way because someone smeared paint on its surrounding.  I drew it when i was trying to know what to do about leaving Michigan all those years ago.  Then,  when i couldn't come to any decision about something,  i would draw.  Just draw what came.  This came.  a lizard, the messenger…said….Go.  I went.

there was more i was going to say here but i can't think of what it was in this moment,  so this is it for now.  it's enough.

 

 

 

yesterday,  Typepad wasn't letting me "IN".  I kept trying and finally gave up,  and i noticed,  without the usual sense of annoyance.  Was just how it was and really, ok,  and dusk became night and things were good. 

I associate this with the work i am needing to do with the Practice.  Needing to do this more focused and consistent practice so i can stay Ready.  

 

 

this torn out pic from some magazine years ago…the 14th Dalai Lama,  Tenzin Gyatso,  whose child name was Llamo.  On the Morning Chair Wall.    Born 10 years before me.  My name given at Refuge being Karma Dondrup Llamo.  i like saying that name,  Llamo.  a name we share.  It's his eyes.

 

so…when waking in the night and either replaying the useless dreams OR….entertaining the equally useless What Might Come To Be,   i envision these eyes and say again and again and over and over the common Mantra of Compassion…Om Mani Padme Hum…or as it is in Tibetan,  Peme Hung.  Soon,  i sleep and wake Ready.  ok.

 

i'd forgotten to drop off the Mouse that was in the Tin Cat Live Trap.  Woke in the night,  thinking how after the peanutbutter cracker there would be thirst.    Got up.  gave water with dropper.

 

 

looked a lot at her,  the dreaming one

is she dreaming,  or does Something dream her?  Can i ask to be Dreamed?

 

the irreplace able Hoodie.   

 

the Energetic Substance from which EveryThing arises

 

there were a couple stray threads that i left and stitched in to the substance.  I like this.  will remember.

I think of moving to California.  How there i will find a Teacher.  Sangha.  In the meantime,  i'm on my own.

 

 

 

 

 

the Pile of Important Things of 2016,  some new some old that rose up to be noted.

 

sorted  (using the term loosly) and culled.

 

back to the Wall

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and for Jude

 

 

 

 

 

and noticing,  i see that Rock has changed a little more.  Has been with me from long ago on the shore of Lake Superior,  Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  Rock.

the house is fragrant with the scent of Buck Goat from my sweatshirt and Curry from my meal.  In this moment,  All is Well.  and we are Ready.

sat with the Astronomy Calendar on the futon couch.  Just looking at the really BEAUTY FULL photographs.  the empty squares beneath them.  Just sat.  no urge for anything.   and finally put it on the wall where calendars have been for all the years i've been in this house.  That pantry wall that is the other side of the kitchen.  

but there was an immediate Feeling.  The calendar looked so Vulnerable somehow and i couldn't go further than that word…vulnerable.  It felt vulnerable there with it's clear push pin holding it in place.  I cleaned the kitchen from last nights stuff and kept going back to look.  Yup.  Same.  No change and no more "information" coming about it.  I suddenly thought,  it needed 

protection

and went directly to the stick that Tay found me last summer that's been by the steel drum on the West bookcase.  The one with all the secret coded messages like the ones i knew from my Woods in my childhood.  all those glyphs that i could never decipher but that said it was ok,  that "my real  people" were watching over me and it was all ok.  

 

it wasn't enough

and i can't get pics to upload  so i will wait till morning to finish this  will wait.  so many beings,  trying to upload stuff and the pathways are FULL

Next Morning

 

ripped a strip of the Toad Egg cloth,  beads from the altar,  two bells that fell in Wind, a long strand of That Thread  and still…..

 

the cloth that came from Dora so long ago who was the Tai Chi master,  had the numbers from the concentration camp on her arm,  who when they told her she would need triple bypass surgery, took up sky diving instead.    this cloth has hung on the hook by the front door for years.  Now it's here.

it seems kind of dramatic.  But it also seems Right.  So for now,  Protection….and i wonder 

of what?  from what?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the Ritual is to have crab legs.  Drenched in butter.  Then the Calendars.

Just as i was timing those long legs,

 

it came FAST and as you can see, Out of the Blue.  Thunder,  lightning 

 

a torrent of Rain and then,  hail.    I'd fed early and good thing,  they'd gotten a few mouthfulls before Running for Cover.  And it seemed that it got Dark,  almost instantly.

so now the long slow pleasure of the Calendars.  Going through each month,  noting things to remember from the year gone by at the top of the page of the months to come.  the Re View.  remembering.  awareness of time passing.  I love this a Lot.

 

 

going through.  Month to month.  transposing some things that are on going.  Mostly looking at so much mundane but some,  not at all.  a sense of continuity.  of small things that matter.  I'll need to add some things to December…like this storm.  Like it was the time i made the collage matchboxes for the kids.  a few more things.

 

here it is.  I'll go back,  maybe a word at a time and fill in the threads.  but it's done.  And i became aware while finishing that it was this,  most likely,  that caused all that stress in the spinal cord.  The tension.  I could feel it today and try as i would,  could not find a way to do it without that tension.  I sat on the futon couch this time.  Breathed.  changed position.  but still….the physical focus of it.  

the ARNICA proved miraculous.  Today there was only a very vague sense of something.  so i would gladly give a thousand percent Testimony for Boron Arnica Montana.  I'll continue it for one more day.

so here we are.  the eve of 2017.  ok.  

 

 

Home.  It's been almost a year i think.  i'll know tomorrow when i transpose 2016 Butterflies to the new 2017 Astronomy.  But he's back.  Back to the same yard he shared with his sire, Gideon.   This time tho 

 

it was young Jack Flash (a kid of the TenZen breeding,  a wether,  neutered male) waiting….Who was very surprised.  First surprised when we took Gideon out and away,  calling to him calling to him.  Then suddenly,  a whole NEW being who did the tongue blubbering that Gideon no longer was interested in.  Flash jumped and ran and circled round.  Sunny chased him,   they spun and head butted,  but just lightly.  Jack seemed interested in this noisy, rowdy one.  Didn't seem at all afraid.

We had moved Gideon to his new senior living space.  He walked,  like the gentleman he is,  amicably, following the pellet bucket.  In and looked around.

SunnyRay was not so much a gentleman,  tho he has remained a gentle Boy.  It took 3 of us…two to move him around the pen and me to lasso him,  grab him by the horn and hang on for dear life to the opening where the transport crate waited where we smushed him in the crate that Jan and Travis loaded in the truck.  Ta Da!  Was almost easy.  Close to ease.  Ease.

 

Gideon in his Senior Acomodations

 

Nogal,  who took the roof to make a statement

 

he made his statement.  how beautyFull and Grand he is.  

 

and 

SunnyRay again.  How he almost always is,  as always.  In your face.

so it was a Good day.  An Excellent day really,  and the Arnica healed me.  Tonight as i type this just now,  what had been frightening is for the most part gone.  Arnica.  an herb.  a homeopathic remedy.  Arnica.

May we live with Ease.