windthread

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mary Oliver…..Franz Marc's Blue Horses

 

I step into the painting of the four blue horses.

I am not even surprised that i can do this.

 

One of the horses walks toward me.

His blue nose noses me lightly.  I put my arm

over his blue mane,  not holding on, just

     commingling.

He allows me my pleasure.

Franz Marc, died a young man, shrapnel in his brain.

I would rather die than try to explain to the blue horses

     what war is.

They woud either faint in horror, or simply

      find it impossible to believe.

I do not know how to thank you, Franz Marc.

Maybe our world will grow kinder eventually,

Maybe the desire to make something beautiful

       is the piece of God that is inside each of us.

Now all four horses have come close,

       are bending their faces toward me

              as if they have secrets to tell.

I don't expect them to speak,  and they don't.

If being so beautiful isn't enough,  what

      could they possibly say?

 ~.~

Yesterday there was gun fire up at the Truck stop  4.something miles from here.  some thief stealing a state police vehicle,  them chasing him,  shooting at the tires to just where i went to find the stick for the Cloth.  Me and Terri,  the UPS driver,  sitting there at the side of the road,  feeling uhhhh,  feeling something,  because we don't expect gun fire here,  in this world.  

And i sat with them,  Goats,  last eve.  I sat again with them today.  Feeling how our skulls meet,  pressed gently together…them doing the pressing,  me receiving,  and how we exchange breath.  I want to make a cloth of this.  How it is,  this pressing and breathing,  our eyes,  open,  but somewhere else.

 

i added onion skins to the yerba mansa and put the cloth back in.  I want more orange or red,  i want the color of Goat's Eyes

 

the stick is Cottonwood.  and here,  in the middle is an Eye.   Cottonwood is our large Tree here…in the Bosque,  along the Rio Grande River.  Bosque spanish for forest.  Along the river,  Cottonwood, Tamarisk and River Willow.

 

 

 

muslin and the yerba mansa.  Wished that it was more red or orange but this is good.

 

the stick is good.   And tho the Cloth itself is not Ready,  i couldn't wait to see how it might go.  So this much.  When it's Right,  there will be many more strings but for now i can see that it will work as i envision it to.  So…Ok.  

And another grand day.  4 more wheelbarrows full to the tomato bed.  and really,  only one more needed.  Then on to the others.

Tay,  after a year and a half almost has suddenly become OK with throwing the tennis ball.  In the past,  she would carry it around but would not "give".  Jan the dog trainer said to ignore her if she would not give,  not play that game of trying to take it from her.  So i have done that.  But yesterday and today,  the game plan has changed.  She brings the ball,  i put my hand on it in her mouth and say Give.  Say it a few times,  looking into her eyes….and she Gives.  I throw.  She RUNS with great Joy and finds it.  This of course, is with the same right arm and right shoulder.  One more thing for those bones and ligaments to do,  but it's just OK this evening.  Instead of throwing it over handed,  i do a kind of sideways thing and it's ok.  and Ok is enough.  So it goes.

for a while now,  people might want to just come by once in a while.   There might very well be more posts like todays….not much to see.  A lot going on,  but of a very certain plain nature.  and for sure,  not much to see.  But i remind self,  it's a Journal and really,  tho it's plain,  it is extremely satisfying for me.

So i pitch forked and shoveled already partially composting manure and scrap feed from the floor of the Albatros where the Doe Goats overnight.  It's particularly great right now because of the feed i dumped  inside there during that week or so of snow.   Their hooves blending it in with the manure and urine.

Paying good attention to the shoulder,  i only shoveled and hauled 4 wheelbarrows full.  

 

This is the raised bed strip just on the outside of the House Yard fence.   From the gate there to just past the Wild Lilac.   Atop if you can see them are the tomato cages lying on their sides.  This is just a little under half of this bed.  already there were two wheelbarrows full from a while ago.  

 

This is the rest of the way.  I figure maybe 7 more wheelbarrows full.  This week.  And then just the constant adding of scrap feed for mulch.  I'm On it.   This feels incredibly GOOD.  And according to permaculture principles,  will Not dig it in,  but allow what is already in good order in the present earth to "bring down" the new in it's way.

 

the Sleeping Honeysuckle.  Not an award winning pic….but….how it is.

 

and i haven't stopped thinking about chickens, chooks.   This is the House Yard side of the Guinea Hen Palace that was mostly incorporated into the Doe's Middle Pen.   The Whole Thing would be Great for Chooks,  but alas,  2/3rds of it belongs to the Goats.  But i looked long today at that part on the right that is not inside their space.

 

I COULD close this square off from the rest on the inside and Could make an entry door here on the outside.  It would be the place for the nest boxes and for overnighting.  I still want them to run loose.  That's Cinderella looking at me.

 

they have used this middle part in the past to Kid in…being able to feel like they could have some personal  space in there from the rest of the does…and then in the summer,  two or three will lie on that shelf that's there.  Goats like shelves.  Someday i should build them shelves in the Albatros.  Would be Happiness for them.   There are still all the reasons Why NOT for chooks.  But i seem to still keep entertaining the thought.  I really love eggs being the strongest.  Am thinking a Lot about what i eat and why i eat it.   While i am drinking the TEA,  i seem to be thinking even more about how i feed this body.  

So that was today.   and we are well over the half way mark of January.  stuff is Good.  really Good.

 

Addendum.  I didn't think this "applied" to anything.  and i still don't know what it Applies to,  but i will put it here for whatever reason today.  From the book…Ensouling Language.

 

James Hillman's book The Soul's Code

There is more in a human life than our theories of it allow.  Sooner or later something seems to call us unto a particular path.  You may remember this "something" as a signal moment in childhood when an urge out of nowhere, a fascination,  a peculiar turn of events struck like an annunciation.  This is what I must do,  this is what I've got to have.  This is who I am.

This book is about that call.

If not this vivid or sure,  the call may have been more like gentle pushings in the stream in which you drifted unknowingly to a particular  spot on the bank.  Looking back, you may have a sense that fate had a hand in it.

This book is about that sense of fate.

These kinds of annunciations and recollections determine biography as strongly as memories of abusive horror,  but these more enigmatic moments tend to be shelved.  Our theories favor traumas setting us the task of working them through.  Despite early injury and all the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,  we bear from  the start the image of a definite individual character with some enduring traits.

This book is about that power of character.

Because the "traumatic" view of early years so controls psychological theory of personality and its development,  the focus of our logical theory of personality and its development,  the focus of our rememberings and the language of our personal storytelling have already been infiltrated by the toxins of their theories.  Our lives already may be determined less by our childhood than by the way we have learned to imagine our childhoods.  We are, this book shall maintain,  less damaged by the traumas of childhood than by the traumatic way we remember childhood as a time of unnecessary and externally caused calamities  that wrongly shaped us.

So this book  wants to repair some of that damage by showing what else was there,  is there, in your nature.  It wants to resurrect the unaccountable twists that turned your boat around in the eddies and shallows of meaninglessness, bringing you back to feelings of destiny.  For that is what is lost in so many lives, and what must be recovered:  a sense of personal calling,  that there is a reason i am alive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

began by some reading,  the Ensouling Language,  then made Egg Foo Yung for the first time ever.  Out, to feed,  change water,  wander/look/envision.  Back in to stitch till the day really warmed.  Stitched the top edge, turning it under

 

only to the Point where the cloth is ripped….that last,  with that Wing, flange, is….needs to be raw edged

 

as are the other edges and i spent some time pulling thread so those edges can be soft.  Still needs more of this softness.

And i continued to clean dog shit,  still from Chinche too,  from the last couple months.   And digging and hauling some compost and straight manure to the strip of tomato bed.  Pulled up the tomato cages,  layed them to rest for now.  Used a crow bar to disassemble a broken pallet and stacked the wood by the fence.  Brought in fire wood.

Then,  almost forgot,  had to go late in the day to pick up a truck load of Grass Hay.  Drove home in the dark.  So…this too.

 

and made an agreement with Self.   Still,  from when that fence panel fell on me,  months ago, really,  there is something "wrong"   with the right shoulder.  I have no idea what it is exactly but it hurts from lifting.  Lifting including lifting feed over the fences,  lifting shovels full of things,  lifting bales of feed,  lifting the larger heavier pieces of fire wood.  So…basically,  doing everything here that needs doing.

Cynthia had sent,  along with the wreath,  other things.  One being a bag of loose tea from Taking Root,  who are at the Farmer's Market there in Vermont.   She sent 3 and i used part of the Breathe Deep  before sending the rest to Alyssia along with another that i thought she might find good for her.  I kept  Structural Support:  Gotu Kola, Solomon Seal, Tulsi, Peppermint, Ginger, Horsetail and Nettle Leaf.  For Good Reason.  I began using it yesterday and from the moment of the first swallow could TELL it is what i need:   " Modulate inflammation, increase circulation, nourish connective tissues and support the body to heal skeletal ailments, old and new."  

So the plan is to use the Arnica Cream morning and night,  drink one quart of the Structural Support a day (will need to order more)  till  "spring"…whenever i feel like Spring has arrived.  Could be in February,  or not until April.  But till then.  

so if you have an Herbalist,  a Wise Woman, in your area then Good.  If not,  like me,  Taking Root.  You can google them.  

The day was how a day IS.  SUN took it's time to move.  But somehow,  i found myself moving InSide the Day,  and there was a very Fine sense of Enough Time.  a very Fine Sense of Goodness to it All.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yerba Mansa.

 

brought in the copper pot and scrubbed it from a winter over with walnut.  When i picked it up Out Side the handle broke off.  Bummer.

 

dried Yerba Mansa leaves.  

Last summer,  late,  not long before her father died,  Fermin Chavez,  Fermin phonetically most like Fairmean,  took us at my request to all the places he knew that Yerba Mansa grows.  And he knew everyplace. His family here for generations.   The road his house is on,  the place where Thelma grew up is named after him.  There is a street sign..Fermin Chavez.   We harvested some plants and i brought a few home here and planted.  Tay,  that year was new and un~planted them,  trailing them wildly around in her mouth,  their roots flying.  But i think one Took.  We'll see.  Mike and Thelma planted many and with their Drip System, yesterday there was a space of about 6ftx8ft with runners all over.  So we harvested some…not the runners,  but the leaves and stems.   

i think about 3 years ago i dyed cloth with dry Yerba Mansa and it was the most elegant amber color.  I don't know what this pot will give…it's a different time of year,  the plant material is Spent.  But it's on the wood stove for Maybe.

My loose ends have found their way.  Like the tendrils say,  maybe of a grape vine,  or maybe the honeysuckle out there they gave me last year…those tendrils,  extending out… groping,  blind….but just going, simply Assuming they will 

touch

something 

and can begin to take hold of it for the Just Going…..

my tendrils today Touched.    As Hildegaard de Bingen said,  "all is well and all Shall be well, and  All manner of things Shall Be Well.    I feel that this evening.

What Was Hope Farm Native Plant Nursery.  Mike and Thelma's place.  That they quit doing a couple years ago.  Who for years,  each week,  i would go to and buy some plant.  Many of which subsequently died but some of which didn't.  The trees and bushes here,  the Feather grasses are theirs,  the ones that remain somehow felt "native" enough,  here in this wind swept Place.  The ones that died,  died from  lack of consistent water,  which was me.  Inconsistent.  Because of Circumstances.  But i will never regret the joy of trying.

Thelma grew up here.  Mike grew up in Florida.  They met in the Navy and married.  Lived in San Diego and Florida and finally came here.  Bought this piece of Earth all stone and just went.

 

it looked all like This in the beginning.  Nothing but this.

 

 

but then….

 

 

 

 

 

 

all the plants are sleeping now.   and being there,  i remembered about the Sleeping now.  Sleeping now became OK today.   I'll take us back in spring when they awaken.  It is Stunning.

 

their first greenhouse,  just scrap wood and recycle.  Here two wildly productive Fig trees

 

the leaves all fallen below

 

 

a few, clinging to the Mother

 

one of the first Sage plants

 

two lemon trees.  Thelma and i came in here to get out of the WIND.   It was silent and still and warm and punguent.

 

Mike's fire pit

 

 

their Point of View

 

this is Thelma.  I love her like a sister.   Over the last years,  and more when the Goats came,  when they visited her mother and father on Sunday,  they would all come Here.  We would sit and watch the Goats and talk and laugh.  Her father died last year.  Her mother has moved to Albuquerque to a nieces home and can go to the Casino which she likes.  Is near her doctor.  As i said,  Thelma and Mike are readying their house and their Place to sell.  To move to …correction…southern Washington state,  not Oregon,  but southern Washington State where their daughter and her two sons live.  Today we talked about that.  They are unsure.   But they are doing what needs to be done, in case.  Will they?  Won't they?????????   But it was a day FULL of so much.  So,  just this for now.   I think how it is that Life gives us what we need in every single moment.  And i NEEDED this today.  And i was Given.  So So Given.

 

 

 

 

Back when i was ready to Quit my old life,  but before i had really dared to think about it,  i bumped into the teenage daughter of the Head Nurse on the Psych Unit where i worked.   We stood on the street corner talking a little and then she said…"So…when are you leaving?"   HUH?  i responded and she smiled and said   "Dream it,  and it's all over town".   That was Sarah.  she was like that.  but still…..

So this morning i got an email from friend Fancher who lives up the mountain in Magdalena.  If she got me two loaves of bread from the Bread Guy who bakes in the community kitchen,  could she come to drop them off?  I think i've seen her once in two years.  So i thought why Not,  and she did and i fed her some soup i'd made and we talked.  

 

she brought me this she had saved from NYT because she thought i'd like it….from the May 2012 Thursday paper….she gets them in the mail….it is a Dream to me to get NYT in the mail,  even just the Sunday Paper,  and also 4 East West Journals from the early 1980's.  Written word.  And she returned  the book i'd loaned her a year and a half ago,  that i hadn't even opened yet….i'd gotten it when i got Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm.  Stephen Harrod Buhner….some might remember that i said it would be the ONLY BOOK I WOULD EVER NEED/WANT TO READ FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE,  well….but anyway,  the other book is back and i will begin.  Dana might like this.  Some of what she talked about was going through STUFF and letting go and since so many in this internet world are also in this mode,   i offered what i could about that.  But after she left,  i looked around at my Own Stuff…Cloth and Books,  house wise, 

 

 

the Turtle basket

 

and two of the most amazing things i have…

 

this tiny Mother of Pearl pen knife that i used to wear as a necklace,  dangling on a piece of black string in the modest cleavage that i had

 

you can see the blades better, here.  

 

this.  the stone in the middle is Amythest.  Bought at a bead shop/head shop in the 70's.  art deco lizard ….fortelling the future…  and i think….who were we,  who Are we and Who Will we Become?

 

my carnelian.  

 

in the returned book,  this.   A card from Marti.   Last year's birthday card,  to be exact and i stare at it and think if i could have chosen,  i would have chosen this.  To me,  it could not be more Beauty FULL.

and then,  shortly after the friend left,  a phone call from Mike of Mike and Thelma of the Native Plant Nursery that for years i bought things from but that they gave up 2 years ago but we are friends now and Mike wants to know if i would come tomorrow and see the Fire Pit they have created.  They are on a brink to sell their place and move to Southern Oregon where their daughter lives.  I don't want them to go.  Even tho it's been since spring since i was there at their house.  Will i come and see it?  

Dream it,  and it's all over town.

 

That's what i'd like to do.   It's a different Winter.  I am home much more than i ever have been that i can remember.  Maybe all my life, really,  and i guess that's true.  Maybe that's why it's feeling so different.  I can look forward to Spring when this will mean many things of Doing Out Side.  But in this month of January and then some into February, ….well…there is this unusual to me, Space.  So i have been a lot Lost in Thought.   That's nice,  but not exactly how i want to be,  Lost in Thought.  It goes Nowhere.   But when it occured to me that i could Invent a Winter self….there was a spark of Interest.   and  two things came to mind.

Natural History

Surreal

?????   How do these relate?  How could I    relate?

 

this from the Other day.   The image of the Cloth from the printer,  torn out,  pasted on a piece of paper then the stick and strings drawn.  I have since mailed it away.  But it was the way i imagined this Cloth could be,  keeping only to itself.  

 

and although it's way too soon,  i couldn't help wanting to know if it would work.   So this.   Of course,  the threads can't be wibbly like they are in the drawing….the weight of the Cloth brings them straight,  but it   Can happen.   This is just an experiment…what thread to use will need to be discovered and this is Not the right stick.  The Right Stick will be an issue.  But it can happen.  So,  ok.  Good.

 

 

and i thought maybe my Grandfather's copper wire could work and remain wibbley,  so i found it and no.  It is as fine as thread.   But finding it,  i smiled,  because of how some keep the family china or linens.  I have kept as total and complete Treasure,  my grandfather's copper wire.  I used it a lot when i made the fiber figures….wrapping their wrists with it,  dangling things.  I only have this much.  This much to last a lifeTime.  I love this wire more than can possibly be understood.  

 

 

 

 

don't see them as  "stars",  but rather points of light.   We always move toward light.

 

i stitched the stick,  the mast of the Sail.  I think i don't want it there.  Will take it away.  I look.  And am i (we) the Sail?,  the vessel?,  the substance moved Through?…is this substance Wind?  is it the literal Water?,  Sea?    or is it just an image of the Going,  none of the afore mentioned,  just an image of the Going,  being what goes and what carries the going?  the being,  the life of the being?    I think it is the just going.  No delineation of where the "i" is,  the i is no different from the whole….is made of the same stuff.   

 

was at the Monday work away job today and taking a break,  sat outside there on their little stucco wall,  looking toward their garden.   Sun shown down on Us all,  Place, Garden, me,  and although it was really,

well, still cold,  there was something about Something that let me Remember spring….how it will be,  really, Soon.  

and a seed catalog.   oh and EEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeee,  all the possibility.  Then…from an old issue of Local Flavor,  a Food rag for  Santa Fe, Albuquerque and Taos,  which was in the recycle bag…i fished it out,  a beautiful article about a new chef at some Santa Fe place,  Taberna,  who is combining traditional Spanish cuisine with his native from Veracruz, Mexico and i just swoooooon with the words…thinking of Dana talking about words,  i am always in love with Food Words.  Stuff like:  " a trio of Mexican moles, more seafood tapas paired with tropical fruits, veggies and herbs like plantains, chayote squash and hoja santa a peppery mint like spice used in the kitchen and for healing.  Peruvian inspired cebiche de atun with papaya ginger hot sauce and sweet potato chips, a zip of pickled red onions,   robaldo en salsa de mole amarillo,  a yellow mole with perfectly pan seared sea bass, sauteed oyster mushrooms and crispy green beans.   and it goes on and on.  I feel a little crazy for a while.  My son is a Chef.  Right now,  he is more a Father to his 2 year old daughter than a Chef.  But when i have had the opportunity to cook with him,  to be his sous chef,  it was beyond imagining.  Joy.  It was Joy.  Food.  Growing it.  Cooking.  Eating.  Spring.  Time.  Soon.  Be Patient.  OK.

 

 

so small stitches in the undulations,  seeing if these will KEEP the sense of aliveness that the Cloth HAS when it's not stitched down into an Image,  when it's just a piece of cloth,  lying there,  looking Up at me.