windthread

not BRIGHT,  but a soft,  almost Solstice sun…feeling more distant,  yet sure and there.

 

the cradle of Mother Night

 

and how dawn feels so far and takes so long to get to and then  too…Sun does not "full" until late then falls away over the edge soon and Mother Night reigns again….i realize that this is A Day of this 12th month in this hemisphere,  so not equally divided with heat and light….

and how this is such an experiment,  NOT one of the ones that creates its Self,  but me,  experimenting and how there seems to be some scrap collage but also this one,  a lot of stitching with threads…,  the threads really "talking" the story here?????    but how i am just loving using the Inktense to mark the cloth with such a blend of color…just loving watching the pencils mark the cloth and then the wet brush making those marks bleed into each other,  how they can become indistinct,  really,  OR not..how they can remain bold?   Nothing bold yet,  but it could be without the wet brush….

totally satisfying.

and i think about it.  How it's a different marking than plant dye…is that ok?  that it's these pencils?  No sense of an answer yet,  just the Pleasure.

 

 

early early i am thinking about those pigs,  about 

the leafy nest of the mind

and i drew the eyes,  of course,  they always come first and then nostrils because we need to

breathe

and then a mouth because we give out and take in that way  and then mindlessly,  the leafy nest appeared and suddenly there were the two poles and 

the clothes line and i think i was thinking about Jude's comment yesterday's post and how it's all in our mind,  where we Are,  and how whereever i am or end up, the first thing has always been the

clothes line????????????????????????    Why?   sometimes there are clothes on it,  but a lot of times there are other things on it.  The clothesline to me some kind of marking of space?   Like animals mark with scent?   Clothesline.  or is it a place to put my things of self,  to show the Universe that i am here,  in this particular place now??????

When we used to go camping,  me and the kids,  way up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan,  we would cruise the campgrounds,  usually National Forest campgrounds because they were the most obscure and we would pick our spot.  There was a busyness to unloading,  to setting up.  Selecting rocks and logs for around the campfire,  hanging bags of our provisions from the trees,  but always,  always for me,  was the stringing of the clothesline.  Find two trees a perfect distance.  Tie the rope.  Ok then.  Now.

i often refer to this place i live now as a campground.  my diorama.  And i guess,  writing this,  that is what we were doing in those vacation campgrounds….creating a diorama….woman and children go live Outside for 3 weeks…..

but here….this morning…just this two second drawing,  

a being with a leafy nest for a mind and rising from it,  a clothesline,  where stuff is pinned like Flags,  like calling Out….here i am?????   

 

Sharon Tomlinson of The Cloth Side of Me  sharonscloth.blogspot.com  today has offered a Gift.  Her online workshop…Tree Castle Apron….a mixed media face painting and fabric collage project using Inktense Pencils

she's offered it as a gift.  Free on her blog posts. 

I have always admired her work,  but thought to self,  i'm not drawing anymore.  But somehow here i find self drawing some and of course for me that means faces…just how it is….but still,  even if you don't draw Faces,  if you just are looking to experiment with drawing and color….go there and maybe we can do it All Together.  It's a Grand and Loving Gift.

 

 

 

Begun.   the colors are:  Indian Ink,  my beloved Payne's Grey,  Iron Blue,  Sepia Ink.  I am going slow.  Very very slow.   How to depict 

a day

 

Cynthia sometimes sends me photographs of how Morning looks from her Point of View.  Almost always, there are no words.  She lives on a hill at the edge of her family's CSA and Orchard in Vermont.  She looks across to a distant horizon.  It is the Same but also, always Different.

Yesterday tho,  this came.

 

when i clicked it and this opened to me so early in the still dark of the morning,  my Whole Body responded…..I was  flooded with aliveness,  with  a natural flow of energy….i don't have more words for it,  but it FED my Wondering about Lives,  about what they  are For.  How maybe they are For living days at a time,  single days at a time,  in wholehearted endeavor and great spirit.

 

and when i emailed back saying how much this photograph meant to me,  she gave some words:

"whenever they are moved to a new site,  they explore….find the best place,  the best fallen branches or those easily tugged and they form huge round nests in which to settle, or rest or the night…"

She walks and sometimes comes upon them in their deep and leafy nests.

There is this vague almost invisible thread to my days,  about how at some point i am "supposed" to leave here and move to where everyone else is.   I don't actively think about it much anymore because i don't know when that some point may be,  but the thread remains.  And somehow seeing these two pigs makes it  ok.   You explore.  You find the best materials and you make your Place for that Season.  You don't find need to go beyond the Season.  You are Good.  in your leafy nest.

 

am having a little resistance at needing to have a "title"…. 

 

from this morning,  early,  in the still dark

 

fragments of cloth that were  set flying last Solstice.  Eighteen days away now,  till we can turn toward the light again.  

Chinche was having a good day.  It was about 55 ,  no wind,  skyblue sky above.  Spent a lot of time OutSide in her company  as she did the three legged trot to and from me as i sat and watched her.  She liked being watched.  Liked coming to be petted then going off to pee some more.  She pees a lot.  Small dribbles at a time.   Each squat takes seemingly forever.  

While i sat there in the Sun's warmth i tried to understand more about this season…how it is with the land here,  the plant people.   As i tried to sense it all i could get to is a great stillness.  Stillness.  I guess that could have been the Title of this post…stillness.   a kind of Great Pause.  Tried to get a feeling for how it must be for the trees and bushes,  this Pause.  Will keep working on that.  I'd like to go beyond.

 

Tay noticed him.  How surprising.  Most grasshoppers even a month ago were worse for wear and tear.  This…perfect but still too.  Very still.   Very little time left.   DOUBLE CLICK

 

color skewed but so you can see the basting of the oval circle of a day

so on Monday i became officially on this planet 70 years.  I type this and stop a bit to look at the print on the white space….70 years.   Intellectually,  i know this to be true because i was born in 1945.  So…it's a fact.  A fact.  But experientially,  i don't exactly know how to take in that Fact.  And i don't mean in the way we glibly refer to aging….as not really,  this is Real.  These many years.  Yet,  somehow it's not all that different from 17 or 27 or 37 or or or and all the sevens…but this particular seven,  the 70  has meaning to me in that seven is my most loved and best number.  It also has meaning to me because i see it as a

Threshhold

We are down to serious shit here.  so and OK.

this morning with the Inktense pencils.

a day

as it flows out.

I will keep the Mondays of work away because i have this iron work ethic,  and the every other Tuesday.  But really….i have

SPACE 

now.  I have days that belong to me.  What will i chose to DO with them?  

The big question.

For sure,  there is night,  Mother Night,  in this drawing i think of this as a cradle.  And night rolls softly and surely into Morning.   These are Given.  The rest….well,  that is for me to uhhhhh,  that is for me to Receive and do with what i will.  No small thing.

 

while looking for the cloth upon which to place this sense of a Day,  i looked here and again saw  this incredible and BEAUTY full flaw in the weave….it took my breath away

 

 

 

so i went on retreat to UTube and Sharon Salzberg.  In any of her videos,  inevitably,  she will talk about it…beginning again.  She will say those two words like no one else can,  a voice that is both throaty and so gentle,  so loving,  so full of breath  ……..begin again.   Ok.

the same day as the meltdown this arrived from Saskia  of Tales from the Birdhut   saskiavanherwaarden.com

I had asked her to send me please a print off of the photograph she placed on her blog when i had sent out the request for candles for little Fate,  for his mother and father,  for it All.   after that night and when i went to her blog in the morning there was this scene.  Old Bird King and some of the members of the hostel   community of disparate beings who live in her studio.  sitting At Candle for Fate.

 

and i asked…What would the Bird King say?

 

 

the B side of Crow Dream

 

and her again.    ok.

 

 

have always like those words…a

while

what is a 

while?   while  while while

i'm taking a break for a while.  as in gone.  as in done.

 

 

is Making,  like Dreaming, done singularly?  Or is there a Communal energy that calls things forth?   That way of thinking that i have,  that Cloth,  some Cloth,  not all,  makes itself.    Meaning …..what?….well….meaning that  this Cloth, for instance was/is a part of an energy far larger than what my own imagination might have imagined.  Actually,  was unimagined entirely.  I had no forethought at any step of the way except as i've said,  to sew those two neutral squares onto the plain piece with the drawing of the face.  The drawing which was done months ago and somehow remained atop all else on the Table.  Just there.  A presence.  But given no meaning by me.    

But then,  Cynthia sent this…it's in her comment,  but i need it here and i am sorry that i don't know how to change the spacing properly  for a poem,  so this will probably end up splayed out…but….

Hollow Bones

We locked up our wisdom into our bones                                                                                                                                And swallowed the keys                                                                                                                                                             They sank in our rivers of blood                                                                                                                                                 And we forgot the maps.

Because we had to forget the mysteries                                                                                                                                    To keep them safe                                                                                                                                                                         We wove our hair into brooms                                                                                                                                                      And swept over our paths                                                                                                                                                         And then burned the earth with our rage                                                                                                                                  We didn't teach our children                                                                                                                                                    It was the only way to protect them,                                                                                                                                           we thought

But in them we planted seeds,  seeds and keys                                                                                                                        And told them stories and riddles and songs                                                                                                                     With no roots,  just tangled threads                                                                                                                                         That would take years to unwind

Just enough time

For the rains to fall again                                                                                                                                                                 and put out the fires                                                                                                                                                                    For the dams to break                                                                                                                                                                         For the rivers to flood                                                                                                                                                              For the paths                                                                                                                                                                                          to be walked again                                                                                                                                                                        For the soil to breathe

And as the old bones crumble                                                                                                                                                        Deep beneath the rubble                                                                                                                                                            We find we've always had the keys

Our stories and our maps                                                                                                                                                              Our paths are revealed to some                                                                                                                                                    And the seeds grow again                                                                                                                                                           The threads are unspun                                                                                                                                                                    And woven again

Amara Bronwyn

 

I look at the tangle of thread that came to be the dream in this Cloth.    Unimagined ahead,  but Put as response.

And almost simultaneously,  Julie of Threadingthedog.blogspot posted….and gave an image to help make her point which i  swept with a hair broom into my heart…   " why would a Syrian mother clutch a toddler in one hand and an aged father in the other and begin a walk through the Balkans in winter?"  I asked her where she saw this image,  could she tell me so i could go find it and she said

"in my head"

 

 

                                                                                                           

                                                                                                                                            

                                                                                                                    

 

to those who i no longer have connections with,  ie from my old life,  that somehow find it a good thing to have opinions about what i write or do not write here:   i welcome responses of any kind HERE.  or,  second best,  email.   but preferably here.   i write what i write because i have come to believe over the years that what is considered to be Unspeakable,  ie Shameful   because it somehow tarnishes a "normal"  facade,  becomes toxic to a society….emphasizing a sense of  "people like me/people like them.  Suffering is Common to all of us.  …or maybe not,  maybe some people have no contact with suffering….  But most of us do.  If not in our own families,  then  a  friend,  a neighbor,  someone loved in their community.   Honesty,  Honest Love,  is the antidote.   and Telling is a part of that.

So,  if you are out there reading and having feelings,  please share them here.   This place is a Loving Open Community of souls.   Put it here.   

 

 

along with a flyswatter,  a penny, 2 buttons a couple books and a large envelope,  this small tangle of threads has been on the wood chest that serves as the table for the morning chair.  I have looked at it for days,  i don't know how many.  several.  have noticed how under the lamplight before dawn,  the threads have a sheen,  a glow.   This morning i watched it glow and picked it up and placed it here.  Could not really see it in the dark but when morning light came,  yes.  This is it.  This is the Dream.

 

it's stitched down.   

Crows feet need to wait until the right moment when i can truly feel them.  

 

a feather from heaven for Yvette