windthread

 

 

 

 

 

 

A week or so ago    i said,  Out Loud,    ……   "I am tired of cloth".

I said it.  Felt myself saying it,  let myself be surprised to be saying it.

I'm thinking about that in the light of this:

"To inhabit silence in our aloneness is to stop telling the story altogether.    To begin with,   aloneness  always leads to   rawness   and vulnerability,   to a fearful simplicity,   to not recognizing and to not knowing,   to the wish to find company other than that not knowing,   unknown self,   looking back at us in the silent mirror."     David Whyte

Maybe what I was wanting to say was really,  that the story i have of myself no longer works.  

But that's hard to understand.   So i said,  I am tired of cloth.

Maybe I am tired of pushing the old story around and into a New time that has no story yet?

I need to keep in mind that this Spring is like no other,  ever before.     I'm in  the same body,  this land is the same Place.  But otherwise,  everything is different.

I have chosen it to be this way.     I have waited for it to be this way.   But, I don't know it

because it hasn't happened yet.

 

 

"To be alone for any length of time is to shed an outer skin.  The body is inhabited in a different way when we are alone than when we are with others.  Alone, we live in our bodies as a question rather than a statement.

The permeability of being alone asks us to re-imagine ourselves,  to become impatient with ourselves, to tire of the same old story and then slowly hour by hour, to start to tell the story in a different way as other parallel ears,  ones we were previously unaware of,  begin to listen to us more carefully in the silence.  For a solitary life to flourish,  even if it is only for a few precious hours,  aloneness asks us to make a friend of silence, and just as importantly, to inhabit that silence in our own particular way,  to find our own way into our own particular and even virtuoso way of being alone.

To inhabit silence in our aloneness is to stop telling the story altogether.  To begin with, aloneness always leads to rawness and vulnerability, to a fearful simplicity,  to not recognizing and to not knowing, to the wish to find any company other than that not knowing, unknown self,  looking back at us in the silent mirror.

One of the elemental dynamics of self-compassion is to understand our deep reluctance to be left to ourselves. "

David Whyte

Consolations      The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.

 

The timing of things is getting quite amazing.    The other day Nancy sent that quote of his in her comment and today his book came.   I didn't open it until just now,  to read the above,  and am quietly startled by how it directly and completely addresses how i experienced this day.   Which was,  once again,  a very soft and gentle Good day.  

Morning is beginning so much earlier.   Dusk coming so much later.  The  "day"  is stretching out,  becoming so much more of its self.   I am finding myself  IN it.   Moving inside it with a feeling that i am moving inside something that is no longer what i would call Mine.  Not MY day.   just the day.  I'm simply here.   There is some confusion to this and Whyte's words helped me identify that confusion that has been becoming more evident for a while.   FINALLY.  Finally,  my life is becoming how i have always imagined it might be.  There have been times when i knew it a little but they were short lived and i knew they would be….brief reprieves.  But,  here i am.  This might be IT.  

and it's not a Spellbinder.

The Sitting meditations are becoming.   Often a half hour leads into an hour.  I can imagine more.

Today i could report these things:

 

that i left the dishes sit all day so i could use only one squirt of dish soap,  having forgotten to get some the other day in town.

 

how the afternoon SUN LIGHT danced on that coil of wire at the left hand post…which you can kind of see here,  but it was truly magical as i saw it….

and that's about it.  It was Soft.   Smooth.   Easy.   The Goats all moving about in their way without any commotion.  Easy.  The Goats were easy.   Tay was Easy.  Tazmeena,  Easy.    Easy and Gentle.  I was content to just look at the Cloth,  not feeling the need to do anything….

and this is really not what Blogs are about.  

So what do i do?

I can't just go along here reporting Sun on a roll of fencing every day.  Sometimes there will be Cloth work to look at.   Sometimes,  Things Out Side to tell about.   But probably not every day.  You would think….DUH?  

so…hmmmm.   I  "look at the unknown self in the silent mirror".

 

 

 

 

 

fingers

 

 

What if it could be this Spirit Thing,  this White, All Color Thing????  How great would this be but alas,  if i stitched it down,  all would change,  so no….but to see it for a while today…..

 

most likely This,  a butterfly made of SUN.  How Everything now,  is made of SUN.  Everything.

 

 

 

all the pots.  All the raised beds.  All.  All is Ready.  I am Ready.   

There can still be some…weather…it's common.  But Everything is filled with material.  Material to Grow.  This is the First Time and i am Energized.  

how it started this Morning…first Thing…How SUN light came IN to this place and settled on the arrangement on the little table,  the things on the table seeming to have arranged themselves as i saw them in this moment,  by Them Selves….had moved around for their own Reasons during the night

 

and how right now,  as i make these words on this screen,  the pic has DISAPPEARED for the second time.  ???????????????   I'll try again…..

 

ok…it's here again.  Maybe it will Stay,  maybe not.  Will find out.

Still here.  ok.

So the day went on.  I needed to go to the Post Office in Socorro and i thought to go to the Thrift Shop, why not?,  and there was a lot of gossip there,  just soft stuff,  people talking,  and too everyone wanting to know how its going with the Goats.  So a while there.  And i didn't find one single thing i wanted.  This is a first.  Nothing.  There were some orange bowls.  Nice shape.  Nice orange color but i stood there a while,  but really didn't want them.  

Off to the Grocery where there were many social exchanges as it is now,  since the Big Chain Grocery Store has closed and Everyone now needs to shop at this one small but earnest grocery… or Walmart…and people choose the small grocery and i need to write about this because it's really significant…Socio Economics…  so that too and then home and there was such a soft and very  distinct FEEL to things…Tay was more than usual totally making eye contact,  the Goats were moving back and forth through the Corridor,  talking among themselves,  stopping,  talking, moving, stopping, talking and it was

WARM

i found the Crocs and took off my socks and Sorels,  put on the crocs but then took them off and stayed barefoot.

 

stitched but with that ambivalence….kept looking at how the thumb was not only Green,  but also not the right shape,  which bothered me some but also didn't bother me at all.

After i fed everyOne,  i made more of my mother's spagetti.  This is twice in a row.  I had left over mushrooms,  so not to waste them,  got more of all the rest in town today.  The strange Grama Lassie's Spagetti,  famous in my family which is:  hamburger.   bacon.  onions.  mushrooms.  all sauteed to almost crisp.  Mixed in to spagetti noodles and one can of Campbells Tomatoe Soup.  Today i added Cilantro to the onions and mushrooms.    Wierd but somehow totally Right sometimes.

so there was a Sense to the day…most closely to kind of a Deja Vu,  really,  but not the Specifics of it…just the FEELING of it….strange and very appealing and welcomed.   

first,  i noticed this morning for the first time that the thumb is Green.  That is just too too.  a green thumb.  It was not intentional,  but there it is and i think i will need to change that.  And the COLOURS

so COLOURFULL

i have feelings about this.  So i spent considerable time going through the baskets,  trying to see if other scraps would rise up…and some did,  but still,  i Like the Colours,  but i also find them very ColourFULL….what IS it that's going on here?  I don't know.  Should i just continue,  following that first impulse?  Somehow i think i should.  I probably will.  But today,  a LOT of ambivalence.

 

Here,  no ambivalence at all.  It's Done.  All the new compost and manure with a top cover of scrap feed.  Watered.  The No!, Tay,  sticks in place.  Even though they are just lightly in place,  she honors that and will stay out of there.  So we are SET for the next probably month until there will be seedlings  and seeds .  For me,  this is sheer Beauty.  Happiness.  Goodness.  Well Being.   I smile.

AND I FORGOT TO SAY:

how great and funny and interesting that part of the days happiness was from the post from Celi,  thekitchensgarden,  who posted from the airport in California while a layover,  waiting for her plane to Auckland NZ  and then on to her family in Melbourne Australia.  How i am so connected to this trip of hers from her farm in Illinois,  her cows, pigs, pea fowl, chooks, dogs,  her daily routine,  that she is in LA  waiting for a flight to OverThere where many of you live,  where her adult children live,  where she originally Came From….how this somehow feels so 

personal

 

 

 

i want to know what Both might be like…with just scraps   and then   with the Inktense on probably muslin.   There will need to be two.   Why does it have to be one or the other?  It  could be both.

went to the Monday work away and then came home.  It is a magnificant day,  70 and a soft breeze, like that Young Wind Cloth speaks of…soft,  mischevious sometimes.  Making things flutter.   

 

started to fool around with the Intense pencils but decided on a nap,  which instead of being the usual 20 minutes,  was an hour and a half.  Probably just from relief from the anxiety over the WHATEVER.

Woke and decided to just sit outside on one of the raised bed logs with Tay.  Throwing her ball now and then,  just being so incredibly GrateFULL  for the day and her and just All of It.  So will Begin Again tomorrow and that's just so Fine.

 

i forgot to take a pic today but i finished bringing composted soil to the whole front of this bed,  dug it in with the trowel,  not deep,  just a little.  Mixed it with my hands.  Many things have been planted and grown in the small bed.  Nothing to show for it except from last year,  the flax, garlic, chocolate flower and parsley.  One year there was a ton of Calendula.  Another time some Woad.   Different things.  It's in full sun and by full sun i mean FULL SUN….direct, unrelenting SUN.  Water in the morning and a couple hours later in say, July,  it's dry.  So the need to give water twice a day.   I'd like to plant herbs in the little "rock rooms",  the rocks will hold moisture i'm thinking.  Maybe.  It's not a good flower bed.  So what will happen here is yet to be dreamed up.  And DO i want things to be perennials?  or not….  But it's Ready.   

and i'd bought a big bag of potting soil the other day,  filled those little tomato seed start pots for the window inside.  

 

dumped the rest of the bag,  i think it was 40 lbs,  into this little arrangement.

 

 

but by morning,  there was a really creepy ODOR from the seed pots….i cannot describe.  So i took the tray out and today emptied the little pots and cleaned out the "arrangement" and dumped it all out into the middle of the road to get flattened in.   Simultaneously and maybe coincidentally,  i have had odd periods of dizzyness.  And of course i immediately think there is some kind of toxic Mold or something in the soil and probably by tomorrow,  i will be found dead by Jan the Dog Trainer whose job it is for the New Mex Medical Examiner to "pronounce" and document unattended deaths in Socorro County,  so i emailed her and said if it was me,  the likely cause was the potting soil…the empty bag is in the truck.    So i did that.

 

 

then,  this corner that in the past,  the whole corner,  was planted with some vegetable.  Most often tomatoes,  but last year i tried green beans….the poles.

 

but on the right hand side is a Tay path.  Where she runs to peer through the fence when she hears something.  No way to keep her from that.

 

so i filled the center of the stick circle and placed what rocks i had around the perimeter of the sticks, a couple pieces of wood.  Will bring more rocks from the Way Back to finish.  Will retry the green beans Inside the stick circle,  train the vines UP.

So, this is what i did.  And how it's all so different this time.  No sense of HURRY.  Just this smooth steady Doing.   First time ever that there has been

Enough Time

and i thought how i would more than anything, wish this for my kids.  To not need to wait until they were 70 years old.  To find a way.  It's so so Gentle.  

 

this is Next.

 

 

 

for a beauty FULL post today on a Creative Life.   And so it went.   A Gentle Day.

i fed what used to be the Child Buddha Garden but now is the Cairn Garden.  I fed it composted Earth

 

i added scoops to all the little Rock rooms….the Parsley wintered over.

 

as did some garlic and  Flax

 

chocolate flowers too

 

the singing pig

 

 

 

Gentle stones  Gentle Earth  Gentle Day

 

i almost said this was about being Almost There.  But then i realized that we are ALWAYS almost there and so,  it's really just Going

i don't know how many times,  maybe trillions,  Old Cowboy would relate what his father had taught him.   Use Common Sense.  Everyone has some.  Then, good judgement.  and if you aren't sure,  get a second opinion.

This rang in my ears today.  For a while,  i've been trying to figure a way to haul home the 200 cinder blocks that line the very nice chain link fence at the Old Cowboy's house.  He had them put there because of his dog Rosie who would exit under the fence and take a good run now and then.   And they kind of well, look kind of tacky.  Especially if you might not have a dog.  So…i had imagined i would get them here and somehow use them to build some kind of structure for the doe Goats to fool around on, and maybe the buck Goats too.  Not really for their pleasure,  but for their hooves…the rough surface would file their hooves.   It probably would have worked.  But as it goes,  i ran into my neighbor Victor on the pasture road the other day and asked him about loading them up and hauling and he said ok,  he could.   And it was set into motion.    Today was the day and while he was loading 200 cider blocks onto a flat bed trailer in town,  i was rearranging the Way back so there would be somewhere to stack them.

 

would need to come in through the Way Back Gate which is about 10 oclock in the fence here.

 

this was just a pile of stuff.  I rearranged it.

 

 

this corner of stuff that needs to Go.

 

on the right,  3 irrigation cement things i lugged home a couple years ago for the same purpose.  Goats ignore them.  They are too heavy to move.

 

Good Rocks on gravel left from mixing cement for the fence posts.

 

some of the rocks i moved to make room to stack the cinder block.

It took him forever to finally get here,  as i should have remembered.  Victor is an old friend,  an old druggie friend of that maniac person i was married to who has been dead for 10 years.  They take a lot of time.   But when he pulled up,  i went out and looked at that flat bed loaded with cinder block and had second thoughts.  He came in and through the house and we sat in the Way Back and looked.  I told him what i was imagining and we talked about what it would take.  How much rebar and quickcrete.  How much man/old woman hours.  We sat quiet a long time.  I heard Old Cowboy's Dad's words echoing….so i said…..if you were me,  what do you think?  Dear Victor…he just was silent.  I know that Victor hauls all kinds of things.  Rock among them.  I asked him if he could use all those cinder blocks???  Sure, he said.  Can always use cinder block.   So…ok then.   I had agreed to give him $100 to bring the cinder block here and unload, stack.  So i gave him that and we have an agreement that he will bring me 

ROCKS

Victor knows where all manner of Rocks are for miles and miles around.  Victor will bring me Rocks.

Goats can rumble around on rocks.   Will work as well as cinder block and also be

Beauty Full.

How stuff can go,  i am thinking.  If you let it.   

If you let it and well,  try,  as in,  set it in motion.