windthread

i thought about this all day.  I wanted to be SURE it was true before i said it.  So i thought.  It's true.

Of ALL i have done in my life,  this is what i feel most accomplished about.    When i came here,  there was sand.  Over all the years i have year by year brought  amendments.   in the beginning and then i guess for the first 10 years pretty much,  it was small stuff.   But it added up.  Worms did show up…flourished.  Food compost mattered.  All the buckets of horse manure i would haul home.  Added up.  And then,  over the last 3 years…the Goats have given.  Given manure and scrap feed and today as i planted….it was exhilarating,  nothing less.  That's not an exaggeration.  Exhilarating.  The experience of pushing aside the mulch of scrap feed,  exposing moist 

soil

black

i lifted it to my nose and breathed it in and felt a Joy that was beyond Joy.  Soil.  that word again,  Fecund.

i watched the zillions of sow bugs scatter,  thought how diligent they are in their work and thanked them.  I wished i had a microscope or whatever it is now that they use to note the micro organisms in any one inch of soil….i know there are Many here.

and This.  Above All Else.  and i have done it My SELF.   This……i have done.  

me.  grace Forrest     grace Maestas   grace Forrest~Maestas   me,  grace,    …..    i did this.

and i am proud.

i was brought up to understand that being Proud was not good.  even,  sinfull.   But     I am Proud.   I'll take my chances with Pride.

 

 

planted.  Bell Pepper   Yellow Hots   Eggplant

the last of which,  at this moment,  almost 8 pm,  i drove the latest mouse in the Tin Cat down the road,  up the road and to near the alfalfa field and the ditch which is flowing with water and dropped h/ir off.   That's commitment.  i pat self on back.  ok.

This morning, tho

Danielle at Bear Mountain had said…leave me some cards in case someone is interested.  Well….ok,  so i folded some blank index cards into 3s.   Front and back here,  and on the front,  that 

form

wind

from so long back,  the 80's.

When i made the fiber figures,  the "dolls",  the Wish Angels and Guardian angels,  that mark was always there.  Then,  i called them Essential Beings…and this was the mark of them.  I found self automatically putting it in the corner of this "card".   

 

i looked at it and drew it again,  bigger.  Looked more.   WIND.  thought about how there is a constant and not so much verbalized,  but just very much There sense of the Elementals in my experience of things….WIND being so Present,  so…in my hair.

 

and more bigger.  Wind.   all along,  even as a child,  i have thought myself as Married to the Wind.

 

and these scraps from yesterday…with this signature of Wind…maybe the next cloth?

 

and  some anxiety here.  The weed whacker.  It's new since last year.  Before that i had a heavier duty one.  It got lost in the neighborhood and this one,  a little lighter weight came from Bill,  Alz B's son via his long dead father, Lee.    Whenever Bill thinks i need,  like really NEED something,  he will get it and say that it's from Lee.  So from Lee.  Who i never met,  coming upon that family just after his death.  But Lee,  who i am told i would have so totally gotten along with

and this one,  there was some anxiety for a while now.  Because of the smashed right shoulder,   COULD I START IT?   i almost didn't want to know.  But those Kochia….growing growing growing and who can grow to over my head tall,  them….

so….i found the booklet that reminded me how to start it and read and thought ok and went out and DID start it with really no sweat….being better at things this year than ever before,  for instance how the instructions say to pull the cord till there is resistance and THEN give it a strong pull…which i think i ignored last year when i had trouble starting it,  but this time no…all was Easy and good

 

 

and Tazmeena lays back in the afternoon

 

Fate,  in his stroller in California

that oh so Beauty Full little bean from the other day?   This morning.  A stump.  There is part of a single leaf remaining,  meaning it's is possible that it will be able to just go….but probably not.

 

 

there was one more but i guess i deleted it.  So…these remain and i'm trying to call forth all the Findhorn Point of View about sharing.  I'm pretty certain it's the sow bugs that do a magnificant job of breaking down mulch.  There are Zillions Out There.  Literally,  and if i knew a word that is MORE than Zillions i would say that with confidence.  Anywhere there is moisture,  they thrive.  So….Will they share?  Tomorrow i'll put in some new seeds.  Try again.   I REALLY want beans.

 

the shelling peas,  with no mulch yet, are doing fine. 

 

these scraps are talking to each other

 

the extreme opposite of yesterday…..Warm,  SUN shining,  Shining,  skyblue sky with lazy floating clouds,  just elegant.    And a work away day.  

But

this is the goodness of this daily practice here,  so tempting to just drift in the rest of the afternoon,  but i thought i want just something small,  just a little of Going….    I'm happiest when i'm going 

this belongs to Alz B whose birthday is in a few days.  She never liked it for some reason that she couldn't put her finger on.  It's the size of a generic salt shaker,  a little smaller,  and i love it because it makes me remember all the secret drifting toad and frog eggs of my time in Michigan,  in those so deeply fecund woods by the creek,  the Spring ponds.   I'm using it for water to wet the Inktense brush.

 

 

Deb Lacativa's Green that doesn't show it's vibrance here but the Light is the Light and……

GREEN.   Out there the kochia is growing STRONG.   i need to use the weed whacker and whack it before it all goes to seed.  But in this moment it is verdant and excellent and just so magnificantly GREEN,  as is Everything.  May.  May is the Green month.

 

and i love these drawings that occur in seconds.  If i would

try

they would be so different

Trying   to draw is so different.

 

 

 

i let self do something today,  actually,  i encouraged self to do it.  I pretty much did

nothing.

there were a couple good emails but otherwise,  nothing.  I had SO much looked forward to being Out Side today…so much i wanted to do   but it was gloomy.  overcast.  socked in.  fine rain, drizzle.  Cold.  no Sun.  no Sun.  no Sun.   The kind of day you might take advantage of,  like cleaning that you don't normally do,  or,  looking for something that's been lost until you find it.  But i didn't.  I wouldn't even let self read.   Did not want to distract from the Nothing.  Would just FEEL it.  So i lit a fire and wandered around looking at random stuff on shelves, inside boxes,  in envelopes.  Looked out all the windows.

 

 

 

 

let self wonder for maybe two seconds why i haven't finished this,  but then turned away

 

 

 

this is the top of 3 drawers in the kitchen.  Most people would have it be the silverware drawer.  and well,  at the bottom of this drawer IS a silverware thingy,  to keep everything in its place…i just needed the can opener for the Refried Beans.  it was right on top.

this is where i keep the silverware.  on the counter.

So…this was it.   I did note,  for sure,  how Onday is the Weather Sentinal for the Doe Goats.  All day she stood in their little cut out doorway of the Albatros.   She watched.  When there would be even a small break in the drizzle,  she would leap out and all would follow….through the corridor into the Way Back,  they would mill until the drops fell on them again and back they'd go.  Again,  she stood watch.  Over and over.     Onday.   I love Onday.

so

it didn't feel bad.   and it didn't feel good.   It felt like nothing.  and i'm thinking that that's how a lot of people feel about their days.   So they turn on the TV.  

 

 

 

 

i used to say that to the grandkids when mid morning came,  breakfast finished,  restlessness rising…

GO!  Make yourself a world.

squatting and crawling around Out There today,  i remembered that.  so while i dug for the trees,  i washed the rocks and rearranged some,  moving earth with my hands….make yourself a world, grace, ok.

 

watered the old Child Buddha garden,  now the Cairn garden.  Looked.  here is where some of  Nancy Krampf's Canyon seeds will go…which?…….or maybe the woad?……

 

parsley, Just Going

 

chocolate flowers…two plants…have said Yes and settled in

 

 

one Vitex

 

i like this because my shadow looks like one of Jude's characters in patchwork

 

second Vitex.  I talked a lot with Tay about how she really needs to just look.  Which she has been,  looking a LOT…standing over…looking….the freshly dug soil interesting her,  a lot,  and i talk to her,  and we hope it comes out ok….

if it does and they take,  in a couple years it really will become a Wonderland.  BEES LOVE VITEX.

 

and in all the secret places….around rocks,  the in betweens,  these seeds of Black Hollyhock from Jill in Montague, California….i crawl on hands and knees with a kitchen fork…an eating fork,  scratching up the earth,  scattering seed.  Jill's seeds.

Go make a world i told the kids.  I told my kids that too.  

"they" say that we never veer from the self we were as a young child.  That what we loved then,  we always love,  whether or not we acknowledge that love in a life time….   I made worlds as a kid.  They were worlds that made sense to me.  Here i am,  making a world,  one that makes sense to me.

 

this is going to be difficult to find words for,  so i'll start out easy.

 

 

 

so this is the drive to Magdalena and i am running Sonny,  the 1983 Toyota truck Hard,  we are maybe 10 ,  15  mph over the speed limit and i am snapping pics through the dirty windshield when something says…Hey, grace,  and i look in the rear view mirror to see the distant black and white shape of a NM state police car.  so that was the end of the pics.  he followed me the whole way.  

Danielle and i spent over 2 hours looking at how to hang the Cloths.  Interrupted a little with other people,  the phone,  but pretty much 2 hours.  A lot of conversation.  Quiet.  Nice.  really Good and Nice time spent.    I didn't take any pics,  because that wasn't what it was about.  Was about hanging the Cloths amidst the rest.  That was enough.  

it ended up different than originally envisioned the last time…3 are together on the vertical but 2 are on the other wall with the other art that i had said was…heavy.  Woven rugs,  paintings in Frames.

so here we come to what is hard to articulate.   

The Cloths ARE very different than anything else there.  They ARE 

light

in comparison….small and light

but seeing those two between things like wool woven rugs and cradle boards was startling to me.  yes.  they were small.  no "weight".  But…..What PRESENCE they had.  Presence.  what does that word  mean?  Presence.  

and this is what i want to make very clear.  

Jude,  Jude Hill  Spirit Cloth,  gave me the Great and Incredible Gift of learning that cloth,,, simple scraps of household cloth and recycled clothing can become whatever we might imagine it to become.  Before her,  i would have never,  in my wildest dreams, imagined that.  So FIRST…homage to Jude.

Then second,  homage to textiles…to stuff woven of threads,  dyed,  designed,  printed…TEXTILES the thing that we All have in common across this planet…textiles.  Textiles.  textiles.  To them….

 

 

thread

 

and to Kay Gould Caskey who was my first mentor,  unlocking the mystery of drawing.  

I pay homage.

It was Fine and Great and energizing.

 

 

 

 

salt cedar sticks for hanging the Cloths tomorrow.  I don't remember the exact space,  so will cut them there.

 

went to Mike and Thelma's to pick up the seedlings she got me from a small nursery in Albuquerque.  Eggplant,  Bell pepper and Yellow Hots.  They're strong and fine.

 

the Window Tomatoes NEEEEEEED to go out.  Wind or no Wind,  this weekend.

 

one of the shelling peas.  ALL of them have come UP.  ALL of them.   ALL of them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  As soon as they get a little larger i'll bank them in with mulch,  see if i can keep them  cool enough,  wet enough to bear fruit.

 

and a precocious Green Bean,  wearing it's seed shell hat!

so much going on Out There but Wind is strong and makes pics hard.  But it's Going on,  really, Going on.

ADDENDUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

AND MORE YAY AND HOORAY FOR sUNNY rAY!!!!!   Another of Jan the dog trainer's does kidded,  here cleaning off a buckling and a doeling.   Oh jeez.  Be~Loved Sunny Ray…..now it's only the Sanaan X to go…sp re Sanaan   but oh well, 

 MORE ADDENDUM

 

and i see it in the window and go to the door to look

 

and there it IS.   That Sky.  so incredibly BLUE,  a Blue Blue Sky,  so Blue  and i give it to the Bell from yesterday,  one of the things i will give to the bell

 

the shelling peas are UP!   no pics today.  tomorrow.

Danielle wants a pic of me to put on the blurb that will go on the wall near the Cloths.  I worked on the words for that and they have been reduced to bare bones.  Just bones of words and i went out to see about that mirror in the chair by the Giant Sage and eeeee,  it had fallen in the wind,  the mirror Out of the frame,  lying in the Kochia  but unbroken

 

so i brought it all in and tied the mirror into the frame with copper wire

 

 

here it IS.  the bell.   This is IT.   This bell can be "moved" in such a way,  an easy way,  to make a single single sound.   It's just Been here,  with me for so long, like so many years,  just been here

today it has work

i need to do some work about all of it,  the waking in the night,  the wish to just sleep,  the flow of thoughts that come with the waking and i need to say that they are not "worries"…just Thoughts, just free floating thoughts that are welcome in the light of day,  but in the night…i don't need them.  I need sleep.   it's a habit,  waking to Entertain thoughts in the night.    So, this bell.  it has a beautiful true ring.

 

and this from Jan the dog trainer…a pic of Sunny Ray

how it is.  We exchange.  How we are different.  and we exchange,  none the less and this is a soft pic of him,  surprising from her,  he looks like a baby

 

 

the Thing i mentioned last night in the response to Jan's comment…the thing of Beauty,  the Thing

to hang on to…

I thought about that today,  what is it i mean by that,  and it's a hope for a way to make all the Risky Buziness easier to bear….i want an image,  a single image that will hold all that i know and work for in my heart,  so when i wake in the night,  i can call for that image and Hold it and let the rest just go.

Days are always just so ok and even fine,  it's that waking in the night.  The dreaming is so intense,  as it always has been but now changing to even more specific Problem Solving and i still would give anything for a night of 

just sleep

 

this is the bedroom wall that i Wake to…kind of close to the angle that i see when lying down, waking,

Those pics from a calendar some years ago,  the tapestry of Green Tara,  some years ago

maybe the image i want is in Plain Sight?  Maybe all i need to do is turn on the light and look….turn off the light and let it all go.

???

a temple door in Lhasa.  Not so much the door,  but the rags tied to it

 

this human Form,  that i Trust.

 

 a valley     someone walking   with a companion   a valley of Windhorse…Look at them all and how i am so the same as all who placed their "petitions" of stick and cloth for Wind to carry out into Infinity

 

and back Here,  in my small world of Earth,  i finished.  Everything is Done.   I looked closely at all 5 Cloths and did what needed doing and they are finished.  I stitched on the holding tabs for hanging on all of them.   Tomorrow i will go Out and clip twigs from the Salt Cedar that will be threaded through those tabs.  Ok.   Tomorrow i will only need to Write.  Words.  just write words.   just

write words.   

Which ones?