windthread

Much WIND.  I want to be OUT anyway,  so i am.   Knowing it will be cold in the house tonight,  i move the hoses and bring in wood.  I throw the ball.  I listen to Nogal whine in his Goat way.  I realize he whines when there is great Wind.  I accept that.    Here,  here,  Here,  ….  Now.

Wind.  Goat cry.

Marylou wants to mend.

 

 

i go deep into that Big Basket in the bedroom,  pull these out.  Just as i left it,  maybe 2 or 3 years ago,  thread still in the needle.

 

 

i download 2 more segments of the Courage to Love.   Mend while listening.

 

Sort another basket and create an empty one for small scraps i haven't seen in a while.  The piles on the back of the futon grow.

 

so i am listening to the down load of Ram Dass as dusk becomes dark,  here in Polvadera, NM,  20016.  I am listening to the first of 9 .   Listening to Ram Dass,  who in the past and then a great GAP  i didn't think about much.  But tonight,  i listen to a time and space that was singular to the 60's and 70's and i listen to his breathy speech from his stroke,  telling how it was,  that long ago and i am feeling so Tender.   And i give this to my granddaughter too.  Maybe someday when she becomes 70 she will laugh with the sense of familiarity and understanding.  I think she will.

It's ok if you don't " go there".  I am putting this here,  in this online journal so I remember how it was,  March 11th,  2016.  So you can bear with me,  or not.  Either way is OK.  It's just Here.

 

 

THIS is where i'd like to go.   How can i do that?

 

"We are thoughts thinking.  There are  Realms of equally valid realities to this that we are familiar with.  The mind is working at 1 trillion thought forms per second, sequentially.  Awareness has no time and space domain.  Who you are is so Vast, so tiny and so All of It,  it's absurd.  Who you think you are is a very limited situation within a limited range of possible sensations, information, and realities."    Ram Dass

I'm thinking of this in terms of "where we go" when we make things.  When we create.  Making things takes us into those other realms where we forget our thoughts,  our senses even and just become lost in somewhere else.  We all know this,  experience this…those gaps

back in the days i was learning to draw,  i would forget to swallow and suddenly be aware of a thread of drool,  of saliva extending.  Lost in an other realm.  Now,  sometimes putting the scraps of cloth,  i forget to breath,  become lightheaded….even sometimes Looking at stuff, same….

 

the first basket.  Divided on the back of the futon into piles…Just Neutral,  could be anything,  green earth,  plant people.  Earth and horizon.  Sky and Night.  These piles might change,  but for now,  this.   and this is only half of the basket, really.  There were pieces taken out that are in a pile of   " miscellaneous".  Need to look again at that pile tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

how SUN is Coming in the morning now

 

Lilac buds

 

an inadvertent adjustment.  I NEEEEEEED to learn the camera

 

from the dream last night.  Not about clothmaking,  but about how this life is and is not.   But easily translated to the above this morning.  I don't know if i can do it or not

Last month Michelle told me about a 4 week class in Meditation from Ram Dass' Love Serve and Remember Foundation.  It was free or any donation.  A yearly offering from them for anyone, no matter their Point in their practice.  I decided to do it because i know he is no longer young,  like me,  he has so much History,  like me and he had that stroke about 20 years ago and he is Still Going,  like me (no stroke, but still going).  Every friday x 4 there would be teachings and a guided meditation.  There was nothing new,  but then with any meditation practice,  it's not New, it's ancient.   It only becomes "new" when it seeps in,  seeps deeper, 

I dreamed last night.  My usual kind of dreaming,  all BiZZy stuff of people and place but at the POINT,  suddenly….i was pulled into another Third Space between the dream world and somewhere else and it was the place that i identified as the place in the meditation when Ram Das was repeating a word,  4 times,  the word being either Here or Now and touching the chest in that space of the Heart .  I don't know which word it was…Here or Now…but it referenced 

THIS SINGLE MOMENT

as in his old kind of hip book…Be Here Now which kind of turned me OFF then,  but 

Now

it is working on me, in me.  BE in this present Moment.  This One Single Breath of a Moment.  Be Here Now.

 

and i woke in a different space.  Went to work and then to town for my once a week trip,  talked to many people about many things but i was caught still in that sense of how a dream wove in to Present awareness and through him,  his constant and ever loving repetition

Be Here Now.

and Lo

and Behold

an email from the Love Serve and Remember Foundation that is his,   that they are offering  9  hour long sessions about Joy while still acknowledging the truth of suffering,  how do you find balance with so much suffering in the world?  How do we work on ourselves to help the world.   With Ram Dass,  Roshi Joan Halifax,  and Krishna Das.  It begins on this Friday!

The place you go in these meditations is referred to as Loving Awareness.   I moved these scraps around and went and SAT maybe 20 minutes at a time or so,  moved them around, SAT.   Was a different place,  today….the sense of wanting to SIT was very strong.

So i will do this next segment that begins on Friday.  It is Being Given.  I will Receive. 

and i stood in between it all and looked at all the cloth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I got lost,  uploading the pics.  But there are 12 baskets of sizeable scraps and 4 of very small ones.  

While i go through this work of meditation on loving awareness,  i want to go through these baskets.  I want to touch each piece.  If it all seems too dusty,  i want to wash them.  Hang them to dry.   There is a sense that the cloths i might want to work on will have to do with Loving Awareness and i don't know what that might mean?  Look like? at this point?  But i want to touch Each of these fragments.  Each of them.  Renew my relationship with them.

So, here we go.

 

 

 

 

 

new addition to the No Freeze Outlet…allows for water to SEEP out.  

 

and so,  SEEP in.

A Beauty FULL,  Loving and very Gentle day.

So.  What are they FOR?  These things i make?

 

for pinning to a curtain in a window.

 

 

Maybe of all the ones i've made,  this is the one that is most uhhhh,  most 

itself.

If someone asked me to show them what i have been learning these years with Spirit Cloth, with Jude Hill,  what all of it has meant and means to me,  maybe this one would be the one i would show them.  

because this one is unto its own self.  Is it's own story with no language except for the eyes.  Otherwise,  it is sound and form and touching and here to there and down and rising and decay and becoming and well…so much that has no words.    I love it for that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and i am still on the Road….that going back and forth between worlds of the last days.  I am thinking of what concerns All of Us  maybe tonight,  a Saturday night….. the grandson,  now back "home" in California,  for the first time legally,  ….Mothering his 5 month old son who is just in the last day pushing himself into a sitting position only to fall down and try again.  The people in the 17th District Court of Los Lunas New Mexico….the criminals in that court with their tight mouths as they await their Stuff,  maybe drugs.  The legal people who are oh so Going to make their marks in this world with their interesting and amazing outfits…swirly skirts,  heavy gold earrings,  fitted suits,  all manner of hair arrangements

the people Going at the Train Station,  arranging their tickets some for just in that moment like we were,  some for days ahead,  the ones out on the sidewalk,  exchanging good comfort one to another,  hopefull for however the night might go….me here,  my concern being if Nogal and Tenzen have enough water…i don't really want to hook up the hose in this moment,  maybe tomorrow morning?  but well,  i look and look three times and it's ify so i DO hook up the water and fill their water….

What we care about.  

What we care about……

"To be courageous is to seat our feelings deeply in the body and in the world"

 and to repeat,  from yesterday,

"The only choice we have as we mature is how we inhabit our vulnerability, how we become larger and more courageous and more compassionate through our intimacy with disappearance,  our choice is to inhabit vulnerability as generous citizens of loss,  robustly and fully, or conversely, as misers and complainers, reluctant and fearful, always at the gates of existence, but never bravely and completely attempting to enter, never wanting to risk ourselves,  never walking fully through the door."

David Whyte   Consolations

so…3 days with the grandson and immersion into Humanity's vast arena.  First the District Court.  Bustling with all manner of us,  waiting our turn before the Judge,  herself,  in truth, no more or no less than any other of the players.  The whole drama, a grand display of inter dependence.   Since i had last been in that area,  a new very Large and Shining building,  with a glass wall elevator,  a large FULL courtroom with elegant decor.  A great deal of money must be generated to deserve such a fine venue.  I sat,  waiting with him for his turn for 2 hours through all the lives that took their turn before him.  Watched those players and was  mesmerized more by the amazing variety of the legal community,  representing the State  and representing the criminals.  It was stunning.

and first, really,  was the Airport.  But everyone knows Airports.  And then yesterday,  downtown Albuquerque to the Amtrack Station.  The fierce flow of traffic,  the people purchasing passage to Everywhere,  the people intermingling hoping for a cigarette or some cash,  themselves…so interesting to me,  using the wheeled luggage carriers for their life belongings that at first glance made them so similar to the would be travelers.

I come from a small world of sand and sky and Goats and a Dog a Cat.  Birds.  A tree with Bees where there is Maybe an occasional vehicle on the road.   I felt this more than i ever have, more than i could have ever imagined i would.  

and i woke in the middle of the night last night to an awareness of how it is all in its own way the same.  How WE are all in our own way,  the same,  Vulnerable…being courageous in whatever ways we can.  

I worked on the Cloth off and on when he was here.  Stitching.  Stitching.   Looking at the hand,  rings of Energy,  the butterfly whose body kept making me a little uneasy,  how it arced, curved,  in some kind of uhhhhh,  well,   some kind of act of participation with the Moment of it all.  I wanted to change that but it would not be changed.   I woke this morning to go immediately to look and suddenly it was all clear.  Suddenly a Story had unfolded that was up till then a Hand and a Butterfly.  Suddenly it was woven with the words about Courage, about Vulnerability that i'd put for a couple days….and the red thread was put into place as symbol of the taking of Vows.   

 

 

 

 

 

"The only choice we have as we mature is how we inhabit our vulnerability;  how we become larger and more courageous and more compassionate through our intimacy with disappearance,  our choice is to inhabit vulnerability as generous citizens of loss,  robustly and fully,  or conversely, as misers and complainers,  reluctant and fearful,  always at the gates of existence, but never bravely and completely attempting to enter,  never wanting to risk ourselves,   never walking fully through the door."

David Whyte    Consolations

to Risk ourselves