windthread

First,  just to say because i don't think i've said it before….

i leave the computer on pretty much all day.  I come and go from it.  Looking to see if anyone showed up commenting,  for one,  and i go read the uhhh,  stuff of the Google news off and on because this IS the world i am needing to Live in

so even though i don't reply back right away,  i am carrying your words and thoughts with me as i go… like it's that you all are going along with me  

i have conversations in my head with you

i am Informed by your responses.

so sometimes i like waiting and letting things ferment a few days.  I just did that,  going back and reading it all again and it's good this way for me.  

and then….if we could go to Michelle's Blog  Ms. Uncertainty Principles….just click on her name in the comment she leaves and it'll take you there….her 9~14 Post about the Bus….Where's Center…. how extraordinary the images she gives with her simple and straightforward telling of something in her day that has SUcH  MEANING to me as a teaching story of how things can go

 

so i put the bells.  am not so good at stitching bells,  but ok, then,  it's enough ok and good.  Bells.  and i have begun stitching the Desert Willow tree that is just outside the gate that began as a single stick,  maybe 2ft tall.  a single stick.   How i watched it grow,  using the Gate as a measuring thing,  like we do with kids and a doorway with marks.  I distinctly remember looking one spring and seeing that the tips of the branches were at the cross bar of the Gate…when was that????   I don't know,  but i remember seeing that and now it's so well beyond and more interested in going sideways,  thickening, …..so i stitch the tree.  It's going to take a while.  Like the tree did.

 

This door knob.  Brought by the same person that gave me that post outside to make me feel at home.  Louie,  who worked for drugs.  But was also him self,  Louie,  who connected to something in me that i "put out" just because of how i am.  and though doing so was a little ify,  the person i was married to being very possessive,  still…Louie brought stuff for me.    He brought me this door knob from who knows where.  It's brass with a very deep deep cobalt glass knob.    He put it on my old refrigerator door…..????  and when i got the new refrigerator and hauled out the old non functional one,  i took it off and put it out somewhere in the Albatross and hadn't seen it for forever till i hunted it down.  I'll take it with me when i go.  To remind me that things are So Many Things,  not just one or some,  but

Many.  And it's good to try to see it All.

 

 

 

the Pull of this Cloth work is very Strong but so too is the NEED of OutSide.  Kochia is seeding.  Needs to be taken down.  So, Out Side it was, today.  First to clear the "driveway" of the Kochia that had grown strong from when the kids were here with their Sprinkler Happiness.  That needed to be done by hand before this months delivery of the half ton bale of alfalfa.  They back their truck in and there was no driveway to see,  just this forest of Kochia.  So i cleared the way.   Then some here, some there and amidst it,  

 

double click….just as i knew it would be.  Never ONE rabbit for long.  The "friend" has arrived.  so i watched them,  sitting amidst the Goats,  and when the moment presented,  chased them or one of them to the far back and OUT the fence.  In the excitement of the moment i'm not sure both went out???  We'll see.  But for sure, one.  and i plugged up the hole.  

When WAS it?  the Magic Diaries of Spirit Cloth, Jude Hill…????   Michelle will know.

 

This is not at all what i'd thought,  when i pulled it down from the shelf.  I think i thought it would be a kind of Finishing.  This is not finishing.  This is Going INTO.  And there is such a softness,  deliberateness,  mindfulness.

Today was many things.

Some weeds

Caring for two Households of animals beside my own.  And so…5 horses, 4 llamas,  17 Goats, 1 chicken, 5 Peafowl,  5 dogs and 4 cats.

Make Goat cheese.

Stare Off into space

Listen to the Joanna Macy link that Michelle sent on 9~12  (for the 4th time)   while stitching.

And the stitching of Sun Flower Plant Being….going out side to look,  coming back in to stitch  and how the stitching has changed from the original Magic Diaries days…how there is no tension now,  no concern.  How the needle is it's own counsel,  pulling the thread,  going in again,  pulling the thread.  I am only the hand.

 

 

 

Still in the thoughts of yesterday,  stitching a stalk of wild Sun Flowers,  i tried to remember what i  "believed" in back in that time when i wandered away.  Was it different?  if so,  how?  

i'm not sure yet.  will let it take its time,  will let some dreaming take place to tell me,  but what i came up with is that it's all pretty much the same.  Except  Then, there was an incredible Optimism tho,  that has softened and frayed at the edges.  and i wondered why and what it seems to be is that back then,  everything was MY story.  I was the central character.  And over time i have found myself not in the center at all and maybe have come to a place where i am what i talked about to the kids when they were here….No more No less than Everything.  Maybe that's the difference,  that i have found self to be part of the Story of All of IT.   And if this turns out to be true,  there is a great softness to this,  and really a great freedom tho not without a great responsibility too.  And maybe this is what makes this time feel Right.

you wouldn't.  you wouldn't think that something this simple could take so long,  would take all afternoon.  It did.   It's not quite right, still.   Post and lintel.   That piece of desert driftwood always reaching, always touching the Sky.   I found it in an arroyo i used to walk in Arizona.  There was a lot before that and a lot after that,  and i remembered it today as i made such slow stitches….getting up often to stand and look at the Thing Itself through the screen door.  A few times going out to touch it.

Nothing ever really starts in any one place,  there's always so much that came before,  but i didn't let myself go there.  I began remembering when i left Michigan.  I needed to find the Bottom Line,  the Basic Equation  and i needed to be able to articulate that to my kids and hopefully give them a different life that grew from that hoped for bottom line.   

The Basic Equation:    a Good Life  =   _____________

So from Michigan to Oregon, to my long long friend Jane's where i imagined i would build a yurt on her back 40.  Lure the kids.   Right about then her husband decided to get a divorce.  So….

I bought the Airstream and hauled it to the top of a mountain not far away,  made my living making those dolls.  Farmer/Artists Market.   and a couple there told me about their land in Arizona.  They intended to NEVER go back to it,  I could live there however i wanted to.  I went.  Closer to New Mexico.   I lived there i don't really know how long.  I would call Jenny from the laundromat in Snowflake, Arizona.  It was painful.   I sat a lot on the roof of one of the homes on that land,  there were 3,  and every morning watch the coyotes run rabbit.   During the day,  there was NO sound except the creak of a windmill somewhere in the distance.  I walked.  I grieved and sat and longed for the kids but i'd made some kind of Stand and i couldn't turn my back on it.   After time,  Jenny asked,  in one of those Laundromat conversations,  if i could come back.  She'd had a second child and needed me to help so she could go to college classes.   I went back.  Lasted about a year and left again.  Nothing was different.   This time came directly to New Mexico.   Not long after,  she came with the kids.  Years later she left with the kids,  back to Michigan.    Then she came back.  Then she left again.  

So much.

All along,  that piece of wood has pointed.  Different places,  same Sky.    and really,  as i write this,  maybe that's what it   "says"….  Different places,  same Sky.

and now we all,  me,  Jenny, her kids,  have accumulated a lot of living,  a lot of understanding about bottom lines each in our own ways.  Maybe now we are Ready.  Maybe things take a lot of time to unfold.

 

 

 

coming home from work.  More than a DownPour,  a Deluge.  Incredible rain,  Thunder.  Lighting.  Continuing.    Just fed Goats for the night and some of this Place is ankle deep with water.    According to National Weather Service,  rain will continue through the week.

 

When the kids were here,  Tay found this stick.  They brought it to me because of the marks.  It's hard to photograph.

 

 

 

the same marks as that post just outside the West Big Window.  The post that Louie brought me and set there.  Because i'd told the story about the marks and how it was when i was a child in Michigan and Louie wanted me to feel at home.  He worked for the person i was married to,  got paid with cocaine.  Louie was a kind person.  

Where this particular stick came from i don't know.   I have been looking at it for a few days now.  Those marks.  When i was a kid,  down by the creek,  i would find similarly marked wood and i believed them to be messages left for me from the People I Really Belonged To.  I didn't know exactly what they said,  but i took them as meaning that i was OK and i should just Keep Going,  that they were nearby and watching over me.

 

 

Storm Drawing.  I don't know anything about it.  Just that those are sticks at "her" shoulders…the little wiggles at the bottom left, worms.

 

I'd gotten this book a while back.

Now and then,  i go through books here and winnow them out…take them to the Library in town.  I put them in grocery bags and then into the back of the car.  They stay there a while.  because the winnowing is impulsive.  

The other day,  i searched for this one.  YES!….still here and brought it in.  I had gotten it because Joanna Macy is one of the ones i truly ADMIRE in this world…like as in her and the Dalai Lama,  

but when i got this book,  i couldn't go forward with it.   Why.  Because she talks about community.   And because i have this insulated singular life.  But now…with the thoughts of Going,  i WANT this.  I WANT her beautyfull and fine thinking.  So i am beginning it again.  It's Grand.  SHE is Grand. and

perfect for the times.

BEAUTYFUL L   STORM….Giant, Grand, Excellent, Wild, Fierce STORM….rain and rain and rain and maybe, just maybe,  the Spade Foot Toads can rise.

 

Deb  Lacativa's  firmament and Jude Hill's teaching of weave

 

and i was going too   "hard"  toward it,  the storm loosened things and i realized that it's not a place for the Protector in that lower left….Everything here is Protector…and the Gate is the opening into.

 

 

 

lower left.  The Gate.  Where we come In

 

 

the Gate again,  the upper right.  There will be an opening…cut through….to the Other Side

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

day gone

Mind is filled with thoughts and images about that home for the Protector.  and with that,  i think,  where is a toad?   There is no toad.  There Must be a toad,  one at least.  Stitching a toad will be a challenge.  In the meantime

 

 

 

some people,  i think a lot,  experience September as a blissful month of reverie.  Here not so much.  Here,  September seems to be the month of bringing down the Kochia.  This year,  with all the odd weather,  even more so.  The average plant is 2ft high and many are over 6 ft.  Some outside the fence have stalks as thick as my forearm.    these 3 pics….i'd cut everything with the weed whacker before the kids came.   So it's pretty much August's growth.  Interesting.  

 

but here and there are these communities of Mallow…Malvacaeae for Mo…  I love the Mallow,  who really need Nothing once they decide to grow.  How all day long their color will change with the angle of the SUN,  how they GLOW in their simple wildness

 

the other day this gift came from Dana of Raven and Sparrow.  Exquisite pieces of linen and one silk from her work table.  I can feel her and her work space that she has shown us so many times…the Energy of her photographs of that is very much immediate in them.  And instantly,  i felt the urge to DRAW on some.  They ASK for that.    This is Exciting.

and i forgot about these two below,  they'd gotten put away when i was readying for the kids coming.  These are the kinds of Drawing that i want to do more….they are small  3×7 and 4×6 inches.  Plain.

 

the Going

 

young Wind

They are both in the Shop today.