windthread

truth is more interesting than fiction i'm thinking.  After slathering myself,  neck shoulder wrist hand with Arnica,  i went to sleep.   I dreamed long and deep.

Last night,  we (?) me, some women and children,  were in a very very large room space.  Maybe like a basket ball court in a gymnasium.  There were sleeping mats all over and blankets.  In keeping with one of the recurrent dream themes….Where do people sleep?  So they are all over.  And we are making all kinds of "outfits"…as in to wear,  of cloth and paper and whatever and this is the major activity until suddenly it isn't and there is a clearing of the sleeping things,  like stacked and pushed to the periphery and there are bicycles now.  Everyone getting their own bicycle repair kit and tools like allen wrenches.  A lot of discussion over this.  This is as much as i came "up" with.  There was a lot more but it was lost to consciousness but when i rose to consciousness  in order to pee at around 1 oclock…earlier than usual…i realized that i'd been sleeping with my legs in a certain tight Tension…wondered,  but as i am doing recently,  layed back down and envisioned the Dalai Lama's face,  the stern one on the Morning Wall and began with the bedside  mala and Om Mani Peme Hung, repeat, repeat, repeat and i drift back to sleep till morning.

WHEN i woke and sat up and was immediately aware that my hips and lower back were very much painful????????????  HUH?  But also,  the neck, shoulder and wrist/hand were fine….?????????? And to ReView,  the neck shoulder thing goes back to when i got smashed under the 8ft fence panel during the storm….i guess two years ago now?

so…Surprised,  i smeared Arnica on the lower back and went to hunt out the Arnica Montana that Michelle had sent me a long time ago from the basket in the bathroom.  Checked the expiration date which is June,  2019…OK…..5 pellets 3X a day.  Never done oral Arnica before.  

But tomorrow is a Rodeo Day.  Move Gideon to the new place and go to Jan the dog trainers to pick up SunnyRay.   eeeeeee.  I called Travis to see if he would be willing…not sure i would be able to help load him in the truck…wouldn't want to drop him….Travis: yes.  So ok.  

New Year's Eve is almost here and i have these things that i need to do.  So after getting the rest of the special meal in town…avacados and blue cheese,  i came home to bring in wood.  Enough till Sunday.  Twigs from TREE i broke up for kindling while the RABBIT watched.  So close,  just feet away,  un afraid.  So rabbit and i broke kindling,  me looking at him from the corner of my eye,  not really willing to acknowledge that he was where he is supposed to be.  But he was sure and ok with it all.

 

this is as far as i got today.  Not knowing what's going on and this new thing of my "lower hemisphere" which is the just going part of me….

so i didn't push it.

there's time, really.   And i had been thinking about what i want that last thing to say.  May you live 

………with ease.  How Sharon  Salzberg does Metta.  More commonly,  some version of May you live at Peace.   Daughter called and i asked her…she is non affiliated,  atheist.   i very much value her thinking.  We talked about the difference between the two,  with Ease and At Peace or With peace and it was good.  As i was thinking,  at ease has the quality of at ease with whatever circumstance you find yourself in.  Peace is a more loaded word and she pointed out that Peace would also indicate that more than the single individual was involved…whereas  at Ease,  is how someone singular could work to move inside a larger world of varying experience.  We talked about developing Skillful Means.  About developing skills that allow us to move within our circumstances with an openness and a FRIENDLINESS to all around us.  a Willingness.

So here We are.  Here i am.  I think of YOU.

 

needing to just go.  Needing to have this at least in its skeletal form by the eve of the turning of the year.  Yesterday and today were work away days,  so the stitching was in mid afternoon after all the Requireds.  I rubbed in the Arnica last night and again this morning before i left.   Arnica HEALS.  When i picked up the needle and thread again this afternoon,  it was good.  It was ok.  But what was very different was that i knew it might not be,  so i was alert and sensitive to the movement,  the response of my hand,  arm,  up into my shoulder.   

i NOTICED.

when i noticed the tightness,  i stopped.  Breathed.  Thought about what i was doing,  why i wanted to do it.  Waited.  Waited for Release.  Breathed more and began again.  Just like with Metta meditation.  When you find yourself drifted off into the tightness,  stop,  notice,  breath and begin again.

I am watching for "tools",  for skillfull means,  as i and so many wait to move into the NEXT.  They are coming.  and i hope that we all clicked the link from Acey

wisewomanhealingways.com    Robin Rose Bennett,  her 12-2 post  Cry me a River

a map will appear.  in pieces, i'm thinking.  But we'll know those pieces when we see them.  We will be sure.  and we will just go.  Each in our own ways,  but in solidarity with the We.

 

a day

what is a day

a day

a day,  one of many strung together like beads…days,  days made up of days,  single and the Only one

I have enough days to get this stitched by the Eve of this New Year.  One breath at a time…May you…

Hazel and Liz stitch words all the time,  i thought of that today because i find it painful to stitch words, my thumb and wrist.  Before sleep tonight,  i'll apply the Arnica cream.  Words hurt my hand.  What does that mean?  But hurt or not,  i'll do it.

 

i'm Proud of my California Family.   Often,  the telling of things there comes as if they are talking about two different scenarios.  But with the final rendition today,  it was the SAME.  

8 adults.  3 in very early 40's.  3 in 20's.  2 around 19.   4 children from 1yr to 10yrs.  12 of them.  All very distinct sentient beings.   There are reasons why it might not have gone as it did.  But they all rose to their Best Selves and found that these Best Selves were GOOD and woven by blood and happenstance,  they celebrated.  Together.  Finding out that by going toward the GOOD among them,  nothing was lost and much was gained.  i sit here tonight with a deep pleasure and gratitude.

i spent most of this day working out how to afix the tarp onto the buck hut we built for Gideon when Sunny Ray comes back home.   If WIND returns i'll find out if it's good enough.  50/50 i'm thinking.  Split and hauled in fire wood.  Stitched the M for Metta with a light grayblue thread…Wind color.

 

worked on the Goat Eye.

I watched Kundun.  The incredibly FINE movie about the life of this 14th Dalai Lama,  Tenzin Gyatso.  The True story of his life.  UTUBE.  If anyone is inclined,  it's just so Fine.  I will watch it all this week,  some at a time,  just let it play through the days.  I never get tired of it.  It could be projected here in the sky overhead,  the musical score by Phillip Glass…it could be the soundtrack to this life.  I think about making prayer flags,  or maybe better yet,  getting some from the buddhist nuns?  I think of them being a canopy over this space,  fluttering above Us all.  

it was a gentle day, Cynthia…..

 

 

 

the    …. JOY …. of clothmaking

 

and Lizard.  ok.  coming.  New Mexico Whiptail.  Blue tail,  blue throat and this particular stance… it's closer.  not quite,  but closer.  They are Just Going,  doing some lizardy thing and you come upon them and they freeze,  head upturned to meet your gaze,  you lock eyes,  one arm lifts and is poised, up off the earth….there is a long long moment until one or the other of you breaks the spell.  My Kin.  My clan.  I claim myself OF them.

but still,  i am me.

 

always this,  the figure on some horizon,  RIM,  standing,  looking Off,  away,  hair blown by Wind

 

then this.  I wear these hooded zip up sweatshirts all Winter.  Sometimes one over the other.  They are my Uniform.  Everyday.  I have a home one and a town one.  I wash them weekly.  But

they are my clothes.  What i wear.

 

i thought today i will stitch this on them.  Kind of like a bumper sticker.  I will wear them,  as i do,  in line at the grocery store,  at the hardware,  at the gas station.  Someone might ask me.  "Huh?"  and i will tell them.  a buddhist meditation,  kind of like a prayer….for all of us.  You first.  May you….

so not much for selfies…i wondered about how it was placed…because of the hood,  but it's good.  So between now and the New Year,  i will stitch this.  May you…………

 

 

I hauled some of the branches of Tree to the back of the Way Back.  Goats following along,  being interested in why i might be doing that.   This morning there was a dusting of Snow on Tree's body.  And small birds in her horizontal branches.  The haze burned off early in the day.  I read and re~read comments here going back a few posts.  Thought.  I tried to make honey cookies like my mother made but don't have the exact recipe…didn't keep it and the one i used wasn't it at all.  Same ingredients but not proportions and i also did what i most always do with cookie making….over baked two sheets of them because i forgot,  having gotten lost in thought.  I don't know if i'll try again. 

 

i wanted to "get somewhere" with Lizard and tried.  but it just wasn't happening.  Everytime i would walk away i could see the form so vividly in my mind,  but when is was there with the needle and thread,  i couldn't translate it.  I'll keep trying but at some point maybe take all the threads out.

the position i "see" her in is difficult for me to make happen with the thread…she is looking UP

her head turned,  her body turned in two ways…i'll keep trying…i want it that way

over on Cathy's blog…naturedye.wordpress.com,  she talked about using Cutch the other day.  Sent me info.  I read about it and there was this at wildcolours.co.uk:  Cutch.  Acacia catechu. " Cutch dye creates the colour Khak  (khaki) an Indian ( India)  word for dust, earth and ashes.  Cutch was used to  dye the khaki colour of military uniforms because this colour is difficult to see at a distance and provides natural camouflage."  Cathy gets cutch from The Woolery.  you can google that.  They are in Kentucky.

I looked a lot at the as yet blank Astronomy Calendar.  I like it a LOT.  one week from tonight i will do the Ritual of Changing Over.  I am even more than usual anticipating that.

the neighborhood is inordinately quiet tonight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

someone's Christmas card had glitter.  and now,  in the most unexpected moments,  there will be glitter.  Like right now on the right thigh of my levi's.  Glitter.  I haven't thought about Glitter in a long time.  There was a time in the past when it was interesting to sprinkle a trail of it here and there,  now and then,  i would have been in my 20's.  And then when my kids were little,  i used to buy them tubes of glitter to do whatever with.

I woke this morning thinking i wanted to take my friends Mike and Thelma of the now defunct Native Plant Nursery something for "the holidays".  They always bring me something.  we'd become friends over the years.  They bring me a bottle of wine or something Thelma had baked.  Just stop by and honk and drop it off.  Or, i would meet them over at Thelma's parents home down the way along the ditch and sit to visit with all of them,  her Mom and Dad such gracious people,  her dad is dead but just before he died i gave him the one eye'd little stone carved bear,  telling him the bear would help him find me after he was On the Other Side.  He said OK.   So i decided i wanted to take them a Christmas pizza.  So called and it was perfect timing and i did take it and enjoy it with them and we sat outside in SUN that finally glowed through the cloud cover and talked about the New Year coming and tried to understand things about that and agreed we couldn't possibly understand anything.  But agreed we would try.

Then i stopped by the Grocery store to pick up a pork roast for the across the road Margie so she could use it to make posole.  and tin foil.  never enough tin foil.  and the store was jammed packed.  A LOT of talking,  standing in the isles talking and how you need to be patient waiting for the exchanges to finish.   Just SO many people shopping and i thought about how i wasn't shopping for some big cooking extravaganza,  i could appreciate how everyone WAS…and i thought how though i am exempt from Christmas now,  i COULD look.  I could look at them,  the non-exempt,  could look at their bright eyes and flushed cheeks and wonder about what it all is.   Holidays are a big deal in New Mexico.  COOKING is BIG.  Family is BIG.  

And i thought about how Jude is always talking about New Eyes and i thought to try to look at it all with new eyes,  different eyes…to cast aside the familiar filters and just look.  and i found myself truly loving humanity.  in this grocery store.   this small local independent grocery store in South Central Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico, USA and how there WAS,   there WAS organic potatoes,  a 5lb bag and i said loud to the produce guy….YOU DID IT!!!!!  ….i'd been on his butt for a while because somehow they weren't having them…and i yelled YOU DID IT and he said…."for you".  Dear him,  i annoy him constantly.  I think he can't imagine WHY anyone might need organic potatoes.  as in What's my Problem.

I came home and dropped off the pork to Margie and came in to look long at the wet TREE,  how the Goats like wet wood and were working at stripping the bark and i took a nap and woke a couple times but not wanting to and drifted back to sleep and so was late waking, really,  but there was glitter on the floor by the morning chair where i sat and drank a cup of coffee before going OUT to see what was UP with the Goats.  

 

 

this is an image i tore out when i was looking at them for the matchbox collages.  It's a photograph of a bridge somewhere.  This second,  in sepia.  

I want to go slow now.  Look without those familiar filters.  This is what will   "save me".  Plus,  a little glitter.

 

today somehow seemed a Perfect compliment to yesterday

 

rain beginning during the night and continuing.  As either Rain,  or drizzle,  or mist,  MOISTURE.  Everything is soggy.  Air is soggy.  Earth is soggy.  Soggy Desert.  Grey.  Overcast.  Socked in.  

but somehow it felt just ok.  i don't know why….it's not at all my usual response.  and instead of my usual response For the Goats,  i just went with the feeling that we will be ok.  Hard today,  but changing to back to the Okness, soon enough.

This seems to be applying to everything.  The sense of easing into What Is.  

So i spend the day putting everything back in place that had become a whirl during the falling of Tree, the getting Christmas in the mail to the kids,  the setting out to the Refuge.  during those kinds of days things fly about.  Today they were all put back.  There is order.  It's quiet and gentle.

Lizard began to become.  Available Light wasn't much available,  so hard to see.  But begun.  and i stitched without any preconceived image,  no lines,  just letting the stitch go where it would.

 

i talked the other night to my oldest friend from when we were 4 and 5 years old.  She called.  Lives in Texas.  We exchanged the usual family update and then wandered in to the present…and it went the way i had imagined it might and didn't look forward to.  She sends stuff from the internet that she likes,  mostly about dogs or animals.  emails.  no words of her own.  and i had responded a while ago that Thank You for these but i was having a really hard time lately with the direction things are going in this country.  Kind of as a warning of my state of being.  So…she knew.  And as the conversation delicately went,  we found ourselves in a space of quiet difference.  Neither in the mood to directly Challenge the other,  but it was clear that she was sad for me that i am buying in to the Climate stuff.  She wanted to reassure me that it's not Real.  That everything is Fine.  i felt self becoming very still.  Like an animal is still,  a rabbit maybe,  with a hawk overhead.  Still like that.  Alert.

i know there was no use in disagreeing.  and really,  it was a good experience to have because i know her so long.  and i know that she is a good human being.  and to listen to her say what she said,  i couldn't imagine her as some kind of adversary/enemy to me and my sense of things.  She is just her and we are as far apart in this as people can be.  And it became the perfect example of what we face in this country now.  

and this is exactly what is so frightening to me.  How are we going to Work It?????????

no one is BAD.  but there are consequences.  How are we going to Work It?

 

 

 

many Spirits here

 

 

this ,might be hard to envision…but it is at a RIM,  an Edge….the curving diagonal.   it plummets down,  hundreds of feet and as you stand here you can see hundreds of miles to the West

i learned what the term  "hike" means.  A hike.  A hike means you start out and you just GO.  at a steady clip.  Keep going at that steady clip until you reach the destination.  You rest a short time and then you Return at that same steady clip.  No dawdling.  MOVING.  you MOVE.  Hike.  We drove in two vehicles,  i guess 16 of us over and across the freeway to the East side of the Refuge.  They plan these public hikes in order to access the land….to walk it,  know what is happening there.  There are MILES of this Refuge and so so few to maintain it.  Funding.  

 

 

if i stood and stretched my arms out and turned a full circle,  i could spend months in that much space

studying what is.  Studying this Earth,  She,  so so Fine and Elegant,  formed from TIME

but it was a Hike and we set out and we WENT and kept GOING.

i arrived back home way later than i'd imagined and Travis had been here and waited and just had his key in his ignition.  Ahh.  Timing.  So he and i immediately set to work to make the cut in shelter for Gideon when we move him,  the one from pallets and then we moved over to where they are now where Jack Flash has almost worn through the roof of the shelter there and reinforced that,  added an East wall.  Travis left,  having work to finish elsewhere and i put bedding straw in the new shelter for Gideon.  Afixed the tarp  there,  weighted it down.  Hauled the excess bedding straw into the Albatros because tonight and tomorrow there is forcast SLEET, RAIN, SNOW SLEET.    I changed the Buck waters and  began hauling in Wood for the next two days.  I sat on the bottom step of the ROOM porch and broke up twigs for kindling,  filling the copper dye pot with these.  Hauled wood.   Cooked and fed self and i am so so so tired.   Have had a day like so many Before me have had.  Days of KEEPING.  KEEPING things.  of JUST GOING.  Just Going and Keeping.

How Grateful i am.  Solstice.  I made it.  Tomorrow, we TURN to the Light.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

waiting for my hair to dry.  I took a shower and washed it tonight so i don't need to do that in the morning.  The alarm is set.  I've  done a run through in my head,  so know all i need to do before i leave.  Put air in the tires and got gas.  Even though this is something i very much want to do,  i am being reminded of all those years of being organized around Making a Living.  How crazy that is,  as a 5 day a week thing.  and people do it with children.  Thinking a lot of this.

 

Socorro has a Walmart and 3 dollar stores.  That tells you something.  I looked at all 3 dollar stores,  Dollar General,  Family Dollar and the Dollar Tree and this year there are no Butterfly calendars.  At first i was sad.  But then,  i looked at this Astronomy calendar and thought that it's really perfect.  I think i will very much need an Astronomy calendar this year.  So it's here and ready for the New Year's Eve ritual.