windthread

scorched the last of the eggplants.   

 

again…Paticca samuppada….  dependent co arising….she sees a moon moth,  the moon and the moth rise

Alfalfa and wood have been delivered.  I've hauled in and stacked the grass hay.   There's room for one more bag of garbage before i have to go to the dump.  Went to the P.O. today.  3 days free from Cat Duty at Allan's before he goes off again to Alaska on Monday.

so.   no need to go  and no need for opening the Gate.  Son just called.  so  I will not answer the phone.

 

it's starting to really happen.  a little at a time…get it wet.  let it dry.  a little more.  

Was thinking about when the little kids were here this summer and we went to the Mineral Museum at the College in town…New Mexico Mining and Technology….to the new building for the Museum that is State of the Art….and the kids looked and wondered….What happened to give these stones and mineral specimens their color????   How could that happen?  And i thought today,  maybe this thing i am having about the Earth eating life,  absorbing,  and then recreating….maybe this is it…that some of it remains deep inside…colors of flowers, plants,  an animal or a person's eye,  some remains and gives the incredible array  deep inside…maybe it's true….

 

 

Sun coming through a piece of commercial lavender cotton,  which i would probably never use as it was,  but now….

and the kids,  and by kids,  i am speaking of the ones in their late 20's  and 30's,  mine and my brother's,  the kids like posting old people on FaceBook.  Mostly old people dancing.  But today,  my niece in Minnesota posted this one and i thought…yes.  This could be me in a while,  perfecting my Squash Soup.

 

 

is just too much.   

i need some days of NO away.   When i can wake and walk to the cloth and stand or sit and Stay.  All day.  

upon request i agreed to another Work Away day.   So this eve,  i'm sitting with friends,  watching dusk descend.

a rootling of mint.   if it takes,  will bring in for Winter.  am hoping the black plastic pot will be good to hold heat in the night when it gets Cold in the house.

 

 

 

 

that odd little eyelet blouse that i wore…my summer uniform.  Short and really just below my butt.

so i had these linen drawstring pants that i'd take out side and hang over the fence or something in case of a reason i'd need to be more modest, fast.  You never know. Like the FedX guy. or the two old dudes who like me.   They are very baggy and so were not hot for short periods of time,  even when it was in the 100's.   I forget what happened to their original kind of sage green color,  maybe grease?  or bleach,  most probably bleach splash and then to compensate i soaked them in bleach but as it goes sometimes linen  ends  up a kind of pink color.   but about a week ago i got them and wadded them up and into the walnut vat for 2 days,  wrung out and wadded again into the dry aluminum pot to sit in Sun a while.  And by wadded,  i mean just that.  Scrunched.  Not tied or anything,  just that.  This morning before work i washed them out in the bathtub bucket and hung to dry.  They're  stiff,  there's still dye in the fibers so need to be washed in a machine which i'll do.  But the marks won't change.  They are Forever.

The marks.  If it were maybe 10 years ago and i still imagined becoming a Writer,  i would spend time with words,  to find the exact ones that could tell you.  Alas….that urge is gone.  So…lazy words….

there's something just so WILD about walnut dye that occurs of Its Own Accord,  so really overwhelmingly MAGIC to me…..how wadding cloth up,  leaving it sit in SUN,  this amazing Miracle occurs.  

 

 

 

for me,  these marks are stories of how it is.  That Thing that has me by the Heart of how it is just beneath all we know this Planet Earth to be,  how it's so much more and so ummmm,   well,  a lazy way to say it, so ALIVE….moving, changing, Being, creating, forming, living, birthing, dying, birthing again

i swoon  looking.

i don't really know how to say this,  i've thought about it for a couple days,  but i find it really hard to accept good and loving words about anything i do.  We all might imagine where that comes from in a person.  But, no matter,  it's not something i'm very at ease with.   I always need the qualifiers,  either out loud or in my head.  Am working on keeping them in my head and looking at them.

But Dee said something in a comment the other day that touched me so squarely in both heart and mind..

it was in the post about Snowbunny's death…

"the power of love,  the power of observation,  the allegiance to life as it happens (and not to how we wish it to happen"   and i was so blessed by these words,  the choice of each and the combination of them in the string of the sentiment she  was gifting me…and i thought i can claim this…i can claim   "the allegiance to life as it happens (and not to how we wish it to happen)….OH, YES!!!!!!!!!!  i can claim that.   Allegiance…what a BeautyFull word….Allegiance to life as it happens

so i thank Dee.  Writers find words and you found those, Dee and i Thank You so much for words i can wear on my shoulders like a cape.  Thank you.  I wear my allegiance like a cape……………..

and if you want to have some…feelings….read on.  If not,  just skip to the pic.

Jan the dog trainer/Goat person called the other day to ask how things were going with the herd without Snowbunny.    I said i though ok and offered some reasons.  But then,  there was last night.

as i had said,  Evan,  the wood guy had come and pitched wood over the corridor fence.  The pile reaches the top of the fence.  He  also missed with three chunks that fell short  into  the pathway.  The fence pile hasn't been that way since last year this time.  and not the three chunks.  so stuff was

different

So…just before i went to sleep last night,  i went out with the flash light to be sure i'd turned the water off after filling their tub.   and lo and behold,  there in the dark dark was a herd of doe Goats,  lying at the entrance of the Corridor,  their eyes glowing in the light of the flash….

always after their evening feed,  at dusk,  they move through and to the yard by their night room in the Albatross.   Then at dark, they go inside to sleep.   

Not.  This was for Snowbunny.  I have said before she was courageous.  she was curious.  she investigated everything and KNEW everything. I used to say she was nosey.  but really,  She took on the mantle of SAFE.   She would have watched closely as Evan threw the wood and would have gone into the corridor to smell and inspect the 3 pieces lying there,  look up and study how the rest was piled against their fence and she would have assured herself that stuff was ok.  Then,  when the light was waning,  she would have headed out,  through that different space,  picked her way over the 3 pieces of wood and made her way to the middle yard and waited there for dark Dark and time to go in to sleep.  Bun's gone.  It's evident that no one else knows what to do.  No one felt strong enough to check things out and then make that decision of Ok…let's go.  So they waited.  Waiting on into the DARK DARK.  and it occurred to me today that they don't know, maybe what happened to Snowbunny.  They did not see her die.   Maybe they imagine her to be somewhere and then maybe coming back.  Maybe they are waiting for her?

So last night,  i crawled through the corridor entrance…it's short….and with the flash light called them in the Goat words….ebie ebie,  come come….the ebie ebie from that movie Jan de Flouret,  about the goat girl and come come from Jenny,  i don't know why,  but Jenny did it and it works…. and they sprang up and RAN past me through the middle pen and into their bedroom, so relieved.

So i know now that for whatever while,  they might need some help.  And really,  it is such a good feeling to know that i can be that help,  for some things,  maybe not all but what i can,  i will.

 

it has to go this way…so so so slow and subtle,  it can build up,  maybe,  maybe not,  but maybe but it needs to go slow.  You probably can't see it…but there is:  dusky purple, cadmium orange and red oxide.  Slow.  Slow.  How earth Eats color.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

completely absorbed in stitching,  out of the corner of my consciousness i see a GLOW to the left…the wood stove….jump up….

 

 

angle of light changes and it becomes the Red Kuri squash i got at the Farmer's Market earlier and the great bowl at a yard sale on the way home.  This life is good.

 

 

Neighbor had needed cooking oil for sopapillas tomorrow.  All i have was olive oil.  Not.  But then, Yes, the last of the pie crust crisco!  This took a while.  Then,  Evan,  my beloved Wood Guy called, had a load of perfect alligator juniper,  so ok.

 

he pulls up outside the back fence and throws it over the Migrational Corridor.   To me…like a pile of jewels…heat.  I am Ready.

So the Cloth pics above needed to be taken with the Flash.   It is now One Cloth,  invisible baste finished.   in the second pic,  the rim of kantha begun.  

Again….this life is good.  I do Metta….May you be safe,  be happy, healthy, may you live with ease…i do Metta for all upon this planet.  It doesn't take much,  we COULD easily attain this for All of Us if we were willing to try.  I wish i could share this day.

 

 

 

 

finally.  I procrastinate.  I really dislike using it,  the noise,  the well,  just the kind of violence.  I use it at the perimeters.  This is at the Front Middle Oasis.  The inside of the oasis,  under the trees, bushes, still needs to be done by hand,  weed by weed.  There are too many being living there.  But the perimeters….so ok.   Before beginning any small area i need to look closely for things that belong to Tay.  

 

collect them up so she doesn't try to dash in to save them.  Though some are rather plain looking sticks,  they are sticks that she …. knows.  and for her own reasons,  they are important to her.

 

 

and when i was looking,  there was this

 

double click these pics…the Beauty of this assemblage is beyond compare.  I think how we all Make art of different kinds,  but things like this…..the random delicacy,  the magic of how it must have occured?, a spider web?,  what?   I wanted to look closer but it didn't seem right yet.  I'll wait till after some frost,  some winter wind,  but not yet

 

 

just moments later,  the light changes everything.   The "light",  which means the angle of Sun

 

so i Will make this Cloth.  Ok.   Looking,  thinking,  deciding on the cloth for the Otherside then ripping and placing the harem cloth inside.  Ready.  With these cloths that are marked in the dye pot there is always a difficulty to covering the other side but when it's a question of how the cloth will Feel…  the "hand",  there's no other way.  Even though there might not be additions of scraps or addition of representational stitching,  just the invisible stitch (Jude Hill) will give the feel with the 3 layers.

How Brown absorbs and re constitutes all of everything…here,  Brown as Earth absorbing all of Life as we know it.  And it goes back on that strong thread that has lingered as an undercurrent, to Stephen Harrod Buhner's book….Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm…..into the dreaming of the earth.

Just as we speak of our Selves as mind, body spirit,  so too is Earth, this planet,  mind, body, spirit.

and with this Cloth,  Brown is the Body of this earth.

Usually,  i am sad and in past times, in a funk about the turning of seasons,  hard to let summer go,  dreading the Cold,  the estrangement it brings to my life Out there.  Closing the door of this house.  The separation. 

But this time,  except for the need to close the door at night,  it's not happening.  I don't know why…nothing i expected or intuited.   But i don't feel those things,  but rather am closely watching the changes and seeing how this time of Season,  Earth eats summer,  consumes it slowly and gently to Hold it for a time,  absorb and transform in a slow slow readiness for Change again.   I want to watch this and be Still and wonder about how it goes,  imagine this transformation.    This is for me,  the story this Cloth will tell me.  

 

looking for something else entirely,  i came upon this pouch from some months ago

 

 

on the right,  the white with black marks…a scrap from Jude.  The size of a postage stamp.  Which i will maybe NEVER stitch down anywhere,  because it needs to Move,  Be Everywhere,  and i see it as how maybe some kind of language can go on this Earth Body Cloth…nothing that i can Know,  but somethings that i will Recognize in some way,  like braille

 

 

last eve i made a BIG post…lots of pics,  in response to Liz's … Ackert…I'm Going To Texas….post about feeling apologetic and in the end,  somehow it just never "came through".  I clicked View Blog and nothing was there.  So i went to sleep.

 

and this, from yesterday.  The blue/green is one of the pieces that Dana sent,  Raven and Sparrow.  It has been just keeping me company on the work table because i like it a lot but yesterday,   i set it here.  And how amazing.  You can see at the top there is a small tear.

 

so…,  an opening at the end of the road through what we know into what we have no idea exists.