windthread

 

 

 

 

 

Green Tara

 

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and me in a selfies…i'm there in the upper left?????   He's been "dead" for quite a while but today he gave me that word…pretense.

 

start with the Altar

 

Spiffy.  and having taken on the profession of housekeeping in my later life,  i know this,  like…KNOW this.   The vibration level is HIGH here.  High.  A very fine clear hum.   Half way through.  ok.

 

 

 

 

 

 

i got a phone call from Chloe.  We worked together many years at University of Michigan Adult Psych Hospital.  From in our twenties.  She left  before i did,  bought a small farm in Missouri.  Set out.  A single woman,  no children.  Still.  

she called because she is beside herself with the turn of events.  Freaked.  Like me.  We talked some about it and when i said…what are we going to do….she said, 

"well,  what i'm going to do right now is come pick you up and we'll go to the Grand Canyon. "

i said,  surprised,  well…May is a good month to visit here.  and she said no…i mean now.  I'm coming now.  

and i began hearing myself say all the things i say about how now is not a great time to visit,  it's getting cold OutSide,  the in your face Dog,  the fact that when the wood burns out it's really very cold in here at night already,  that it's not much of a Destination place,  and that i can't go to the Grand Canyon….i have Goats…and more.   but she just was quiet on the other end of the phone.  So i said, i need to get out to feed them now.  I'll call you tomorrow.  

it's been i guess 35 years since i've seen her.  I took the kids once when they were little to visit there.  We spent all our time walking to the creek near her house,  the kids IN it,  building water worlds for minnows and crayfish.  She had a box turtle that lived under her deck.  that came and went everyday, that we layed in the grass and watched for its  coming and going.  

she's a basket maker,  or was.  not so much anymore.

so,  i called her back last eve.  Thinking that she would have thought better of it.   said…so, what are you going to do?  She is going to be here on Saturday.  Driving from Missouri.  She will leave to go back home on Monday and skip the Grand Canyon part, she said.  She will bring trout.  She's a fisherwoman.

!

so….there's lots to do to be ready for company other than my kids who know how i live.

 

the Door Work Table is still up…it's next to the futon couch where she will sleep.  I need to do something about that for starters

 

and the table in the ROOM where normal people eat,  where we will sit to eat the trout,  

 

wood box….needs to be brimming.  

over these years,  there are maybe once in a while letters.  you know the kind.   I think 3 phones.

i look SO forward to her being here.  Sitting face to face,  how we have such a long history that began when we were young and so sure of every thing.  She's 73.  I'm going to be 71.  How funny we will be to one another in our present forms and at this Startling Moment in this world,  trying to figure  it all out.

So…don't know how much i'll be able to be here for these days…maybe just pics?,  or maybe words

 

 

 

 

 

there is an Urge,  both individually and collectively to  "normalize"…that's the word being used…

normalize

and to me this means try to place a Filter on How Things Now Are that softens it,  that is full of the wish that it will all somehow come out ok,  enough,  so that nothing really is drastically changed from what we are used to.   And if this turns out to be true then it will be a time of Great Celebration for me.  But if i am honest,  i don't expect that.

So i am just looking at ways that might work to stay in place as it all unfolds.  To keep some kind of personal equilibrium and in time,  come up with a Plan for how to live.   Nothing really will change probably,  i think,  in my own space here where i live.  We are rural and we are Small.  Things will go on as usual, probably.  I doubt that anyone is going to come for all the undocumented here, of which there are many.  I'm thinking, probably,  we are Under the Radar.  I am thinking that the students, Graduate students at the college in town,  New Mexico Mining and Tech that are from "those" countries will continue here as they have.  Probably.  That no one will be inclined to be unkind to them.  Probably.

So if Probably holds,  i am going to go here for the Next While

 

it came today.  Published this year,  but of course,  before What Happened,  Happened.   I had mentioned him the other day…that book ,  the Culture of Make Believe that describes exactly what is happening now.   He is not easy reading.  He is Hard Reading.  And there are the others he wrote…Endgame I and II,  Language Older Than Words,  Deep Green Resistance,  and As The World Burns.   "holds degrees in creative writing and mineral engineering physics"  "considered by many to be the philosopher poet of the environmental movement"  so i am going INTO this book for now.  My love for Humanity is great,  but my love for the Planet is First.  No Planet,  No Humanity.   Murder Planet,  live consequence.

so i LOVE you all but stuff is not "normalizing" here.  Stuff is torn and bleeding and so so stunned.  and tho stuff will just go,  because there is Sun Rise and Sun Set and Goats and Dog and Cat and lizards hunkering down for the Cold Time and Birds and Toads and all manner of Insects and Micro Organisms,  Plant People,  Wind, Sky,  earth and earth and Earth….,  there's no room in my mind and heart for normalizing,  but time to take a stand.  Whatever that might come to be.

 

 

 

 

it was a work away day and seemed to take forever till i got Home.  And i am very very tired tonight.  It's all caught up with me.  Maybe the Moon.

 

in Magdalena yesterday i traded this rug for a promise.  Got it for Tay…her Morning in Front of the Fire Rug.   Was quickly claimed by someone else.

This is something i would STILL very much like to learn to do.  

Addendum:

I just got permission for this so i Joy FULL y add this 

 

First Thing this morning,  this came on the computer screen….Our Own Tina and this New New Being in her family….i feel like we are his Aunties.  

Addendum 2

and i am thinking this is a good time to say that little Fate my great grandson in California,  having mastered walking,  is seen on FaceBook running through fallen leaves.  He is Fine….as is his father, my grandson.  

So all that we love and all that we do is for the benefit of these little boys.    I always say Girls Rule, …but need to add,  Boys benefit.  Blessings to this newborn above.

 

when i put the Magic Diaries  Cloth away in the Wall box that was a toy box,  i got out the wool robe that i made in Jude's 21st Century Rags.  

 

all wrinkled.  Made from a blanket.  Put it on this morning and it comforted me.

 

to see again the little FishBird…the first spontaneous  Integrated Applique … Jude Hill again…and how i so much love it.

 

drove to Magdalena to pick up the 3 Cloths that didn't sell.  

 

 

 

the 5 tiny lizards running to her hair

 

 

i forgot something important here so i'll poke  "publish"   and come back in a minute.

Back.  It's the todays Brainpickings,  maria popova …Leonard Cohen on Democracy and it's Redemptions.   At the very end…a link to David Remnick's New Yorker profile.  It's LOOOOONG, but so so so much worth the time and love

my brother called today.  He's seven years younger than me,  so i guess that makes him 63?  Give or take.  And i think he called for some words of good cheer,  or at least some buddhist platitude.  The conversation began with:   this is your brother William. (as if i might not recognize his voice after a lifetime)  How are you doing?   i paused and said,  ok.  doing ok.  How are things there (in Minnesota) ?  Looking to make sure stuff was ok there in it's ordinary way…with him,  his kids, grandkids etc.  He said he was ok too.  Stuff was ok there.   and of course the conversation then went to What's Going On.  It's really why he called…to hear what i would say.  For most of his middle adult years he has been a rabid Green Party person.  I expected some of that in some form,  but there wasn't.  He was pretty "soft",  he was looking for optimism.  Trying to find it in himself.  So i told him about my grief and we sorted through it some to see what kind of grief it is and very soon the conversation switched to how he had finally been able to get into the medical marijuana program there and how he's watching it,  it's effect…does it really cut the Edge enough?   He said that the "pain" is there,  as it always is when he wakes in the morning,  but the weed seems to create some space between him and the pain…that yes,  they are both there,  the pain and the Other experience and they seem to co-exist somehow in a way that allows him some good space in his days.  Hmmmm.    So we talked and he reminded me that our image of this country, America,  is really over inflated.  It's one country in a planet full.  And what we do or don't do is only what one country does or doesn't do.   And for a while after the conversation i thought about that and it was kind of cheery. 

But what's important to me now,  this evening,  is looking at how i said i was sorry.  Sorry for feeling this grief.  And really,  part of me was sorry for even saying it outloud to him,  the grief,  the sadness. And i apologized….
"I'm really sorry  for being a bummer…but you asked and i answered."  and i probably didn't make his day any better,

but well… and so i went OUT and pulled and cut and raked some of the dry Kochia  into a pile and set it on fire,  sat with Tay watching it burn and remembering that thing of Earthing that i read about a while back and i kept thinking about it and finally,  though the earth is still some moist from the rains and though it is now pretty cold really,  i took off my crocks so my feet were bare and pulled up my shirt so my stomach was bare and layed down as flat as i could get and asked for an exchange.  Tay got involved because she has never seen me flat on the earth and kept laying up against my head,  pushing her body into me so it wasn't a peaceful kind of woo woo experience,  but kinda raw but i smelled Earth close and my cheek or forehead was pressed firm into Earth….i want to say Her…but am working on not gender identifying,  i let my body flatten,  touching as much as possible and i breathed.

and i thought.  Of Course there is just going.  Of Course there is compassion and love.  These are just Givens.  But right now there is Grief too and i looked at whether i can walk with both this Grief and with the Joy that just IS…them BOTH holding my hands and yes.  I can.  Neither Joy or Grief excludes the other.  It's ok.  no need to be sorry,  no need to apologize.  No need for shame.  

 

 

i have forgotten how to draw hands.  It's been so long….

and so long too since i have said her name,  Kay Gould Caskey,  the one who set free in me the wild joy of drawing.  How we drew hands back then…how long?  30 some years ago,  and drawing this hand there was Joy today in that….the mark of the pencil…looking at my own hand…making the marks with the pencil….

 

 

 

 

 

first fire

 

and these scraps that came from Patricia Spangler who for whatever reason of her own,  chooses to be absent for a while now.  But they have been on a large cloth with others…just barely tacked down,  for a long time.  Today,  well yesterday and the previous  yesterday they called my attention.  And they set into motion Today,  the urge to take down the Magic Diaries Cloth from the Wall in the ROOm.    I'll do that in the morning.  I need that Wall right now.  Some for cloth but also some for just notes of things i am reading.  I need a BIG space for this.  I need to stay with the events of the last days and then on,  into the coming days and look to find some Big Picture.  I need to Stay With It.   

one person  one vote

I don't know what to say.   Things ran through my Heart and through my mind all day.   each, really, cancelling the others out

democracy.

half,  or very close to it,  half 

the citizens of this country voted for a racist.

ok then.

 

who knows what the break down would have been if the Planet were actually taken into consideration which it wasn't at all.

ok, then.  I guess this is who we are.  Americans.  ok.  This is where i live.

it's 8:30 am.   Tay and Tazmeena have eaten.  I fed them.  How they like to be fed.   I cooked myself fried potatoes with red chili and ketchup,  a hamburger patty and a pile of fried onions.  Mustard on that.  After this i'll go feed Goats,  check their water.  Wash my hair.  Dress.  And on my way to the new Tuesday work away,  i will stop at Midway Elementary School and vote.  You never know,  but usually there will be only a few other people there voting.  Never a line.  

 

saved the onion skins

 

sat down in the Morning Chair and thought how i'd just read how She had placed her ballot and coming out said how Happy,  just so Happy she was to be voting for herself as President of the United States.  I let that sink in.  

in all the contention,  the bitterness,  the fear,  the ugliness of these last months,  there has been really no time to think of this but sitting in the Morning Chair i realized that the sense of it has been there as an undercurrent….and ignored, really.  But this morning for just these few minutes before getting on with the day,  i think about it.  Tell Tay that a woman might be president.  Tay thinks too.  We think.  And i let myself think about her maybe late last night,  lying down in her bed…does she wear a nighty?  Did she lie down next to her husband?  Or maybe in a separate room,  next to his?  How she has been married to him for a long time.   Then,  a woman slept.  To rise this morning and put on her brassiere and Set Out into this day.   She's tough.  She's what she is.  And she is also a woman.  She has breasts, like mine.   She has a womb that carried a child.  Like i do.  She is not young at all.  Like me.

it's been said for a long time in various places that what can change things is if Women take their rightful places.   That women will make THE difference.  Vandana Shiva says that.  Has said it for many years.  just one example.  

she put on her little pointed pumps.   her lipstick.  and walked out her door.