windthread

is what it feels like to me…what i have been doing for a while…kind of like a broken record,  but it's how i Work Stuff.  And this is foremost a Journal.   so i say OK to Self.  Do what you need to do.  Say what you need to say until there is some Peace to it all.  

So my calendar is changed.  There are SUNdays and then Mondays and then OldCowboydays and Wednesdays  etc.  Tuesdays are no longer just Tuesday and specifically, every Other tuesdays but just OldCowboyDays.  and i have Worked it enough so it's Ok and what it is.  There will be more change,  but for now,  seems like some kind of equilibrium.  

Knowing that it can be anything,  i give it over in its Entirety,  OldCowBoyDay.  It began this morning with something i don't understand.  There was a CROW.  I heard it before i went to the door,  a CROW low in the Oasis yard and Hot on it a band of maybe 7 or 8 Mockingbirds…chasing it, rushing it.  CROW landing here and there and a long time on one of the inside fence posts.  Never Before.

and it was over as suddenly as it began.  

I saw then Tanagers…many in the Three Leaf Sumac….brilliant colours,  hanging like ornaments as they do.

and i thought about how when i first came here,  when i brought those first Garden Toads,  there was a single Meadowlark.  There was no tree yet.  No bush.  The single Meadowlark sang from the electrical line.

and then the day dissolved into  Work Away.   Once finally Back Home and pulling the hose to clean out  the  water bowl in Nogal and Tenzen's yard,  passing the Three Leaf Sumac,  i saw that there was not ONE.  Not ONE SINGLE berry when there had been SO MANY,  hundreds,  yesterday.

EATEN.

GONE.

a circle of Season's work for that bush.  Eaten.

and i did spend some small time with kantha

and just Looking.   With no particular Intent.

stuff that was on the Surface of the piles of stuff on the table…shapes….images…..

and this,  all taken Apart

i caught the little so recently TRANSPLANTED  Chocolate Flower's bloom in the last moment.  By tomorrow,  it will not be here.    

but just to the right,  two new blooms are coming.  and i look.  FEEL how Loving this is.  To be Transplanted.    Dug  up.  Carried.  Planted.  and to Just Go.   to Just Go.  This very small plant.  A plant to Just Going.   Maybe This is the most important part of this day

because it is a US holiday,  i didn't have a work day.  So i instead  stole a 2nd SUNday.  I replanted cucumbers that had disappeared in two places,  same for two tomato plants and put in the last of the peppers.

To accomplish this,  i said NO twice and didn't answer the phone once.  It felt good.

I went about looking for likely places to plant SunFlowers.  One of which was at the back of the Raft and as i cleared out a little of the Kochia weed there,  Lo and Behold….

a VERY LARGE Garden Toad jumped up onto the Raft.  That's a quart canning jar.  He/She is bigger in circumference than that jar.  a BIG Toad.

Tay did not know what to think and i yelled,  NO!  Toad! Family! and at first she thought she wasn't supposed to look but then realized looking was ok and even nudging which she did and the Toad didn't blink an eye,  but she understood…Family….and when he/she hopped off,  she went her way.  This toad might be SandRock,  the first toad here that i "imported" from where i worked in the Valley then to comfort myself in this then barren place.  I planted and built a "world" for SandRock, in hopes it would keep him/her from hopping off to the North neighbor Sally's place that had grass and trees.  I brought a few others and it worked.  Depending on how and what is growing,  i see them.  They are discreet,  Toads.  Keep to themselves.  But it felt so GOOD to know this one,  this Old One is here.  And there was a hole that i forgot to photograph…am sure it's a snake.  To the right of the Raft.  Yes.  Yesss!…for the mice in the Albatros.  So GOOD.

Looking for something that isn't there anymore,  i came across these two in the drawer and washed them.  From Way Back in the early days of the Jude Workshops.  Woven cloth.  and looked and understood how weave and patchwork provide a more uhhhh,  a more….hmm.  A more WHAT?

A more  readily receiving Ground for a cloth.  When there is just cloth,  it becomes more complex to create a "finished" feeling Cloth.  The weave or the patchwork are Things in themselves that just cloth is not…

 

something else in the drawer

 

for instance.

Another piece i found that i had totally forgotten.  What Was I Thinking here????  I have no idea.

 

 

 

 

kantha continues.

 

AND

Nogal…he climbs up the fence,  as high as he can get…he is into Kissing….nuzzling,  they make Eye Contact and Face Contact,  he wants to touch mouths….he is soft and very gentle in his nuzzling and sincere and very much Wants to do this and so what do you do?,  but say OK Then and put your face

most of this SUNday was Out but some was given to getting the Kantha going…i longed to feel it begin to Happen

not a lot,  but enough to begin to feel it

Feather Grass beginning to seed

Chatalpa,  cross between Catalpa and Desert Willow   (WHY????,  i have no idea)  blossoming.  I was surprised because that late freeze set it back so much,  but here she is…..

Desert Willow…soon….

Still three bales of wild sunflower to spread on paths around the composts

I had pulled the Beloved Datura during the time i was still Running the Goats through the House Yard,  Middle to Way Back,  not wanting to take the chance.   Now with the Migratory Corridor, i will let these three young ones come on.  The seeds had waited.  OK.    And this reminds me to check the buck yards for any that might be coming there.  Tomorrow.

All while working Out there,  i notice how stones and rocks  claim their places

and here they come…the Insect People…how they wait and then the timing is right and they Go.

On the curtain as i look now

Candles for Liz and her world in San Marcos Texas.    Flooding.  She is on high ground but her world receives Water. 

………………………………………………….ADDENDUM……………………………………………………………….

don't forget to double click…the seeds,  the blossoms….it takes  you into Their World

 

 

 

Thinking continuously about Vayla.    Vayla,  the girl in Wendy's EssayTelling.  How she knows.

"I could not figure out why I liked textiles sewn with spaces in them.  Why I like the way this woman sewed her cloth, leaving me a way to see the sun through the cloth,  I think of why someone would stitch cloth that has spaces. "

the center of this,  i think,  will be Cut Out.   Making a Space.  I have no idea what might come into that cut out space but i feel good,  really good,  thinking about a cut out space.  I began the kantha that will rim the circle.  I already know how that's going to feel,  the substance that cloth acquires with kantha stitches.   Am anticipating that,  how it feels.  And then after that's done,  the center will be cut out and become very Light.  What will go there?

And at On Being,  there is a conversation with a composer of Movie Music…musical scores,  i forgot to write down his name but you can go look.  He talks about Spaces in music.   Spaces.  Maybe we need spaces so things can fully be what they Are.  Not all of Us,  but some of Us.  and What if we are of the Some of Us Clan?  that need space.  Lots of it.  Vayla needs space for her work.  I need space for mine.  Different Work,  but our WORK.    So we NEED it.  Not to just Indulge in,  but NEED it.

At some point today the thought came….i am going to Take as much time as i possibly CAN to do what i NEED to do.  Whether or not it makes sense to any other person,  I am going to TAKE as much time as i possibly can.    I think this is the work of the Protection  Cloth.    It kind of feels like

stealing time

and ok, then.  i will steal it.  I can try to explain myself till i'm blue in the face about what matters to me as a human being and people might kind of nod and listen but they have no idea.  So i'm left with a possibility of stealing time.  As much as i can.   Would this make me a Thief?  

 

 

 

 

 

Places of Spaces on the Magic Diaries Cloth

which is now folded,  quiet,  on the back of the futon.  I will do it slow.  One space at a time.  There is no hurry.

 

 

 

 

I am letting myself learn that cloth doesn't have to be FLAT.  it can be,  stitched and Be,  in it's  form as it falls of it's own accord.  This is ok.   How stuff seems to Want to Be is ok.,  follow it.

and then,  i think of the small boy at the end of Wendy's Telling.   Who arrived with a teacher's note and a Mother who was his ally,  who brought a boom box so he could do what he NEEDED to do,  so he could hear both Sam and Valarianna at the same time.  How he knew he needed this.  Both.  He needed both at the same time and because he needed it,  it happened.   So, him too.  Teachers.  This boy,  Vayla.   I am learning.

there is Peace at the Asylum this evening.  At this Rez,  the Sovereign State of Goats,  the Sovereign State of Tay, Tazmeena and Chinche,  the Sovereign State of grace.  Peace.   Only WIND.  but Peace Rules.

 

The leak was at the connection of the Meter.  a cause for great Celebration for me.  

done.

How Beauty Full.   

but then,  a while later i turned on a faucet and NO WATER.  ACK.  i went out with my trusty crescent wrench but NO ROOM to use it…the configuration inside the space had changed.  Call Rick back…NO WATER and he says if he doesn't show  up within 45 min call him.  So, i wait and then hear them out there and there is

Water

Water

I need to write about Water sometime.  But for now,  there is Water.  Everything is quiet.  Everything is PeaceFULL.  There is WIND,  but somehow it's just very much OK,  the WIND when balanced with other things.  

And all day,  i was filled with thoughts and feelings about Wendy and her Children.  Every morning, almost,  i wake to look through these pages

a book Wendy made in anticipation of Jude's Feather Cloth

the first page is from Wendy.  To Jude and to all the Listeners and Makers

 

there are images like these

 

and there are words,  all the rest of the book,  words of the Children,  like these:

"the back of the cloth tells me about the maker.  I hold on to the threads that end in knots first.  Then i turn the cloth to see what the maker decided to make.  It's like the back of their imagination.  It's like the back of my heart.  I just gotta turn it around and make my own life walkable"

"When i work on my fear of talking,  I always use to go for the cloths that would quiet me.  Now i go for the cloths that say:   C'mon let's get it out,  saying what you want is a good thing…I am good.  But not a things.  It's what i am working on in my sessions.  Fear stops me.  The cloths begin me."

"I have no eyesight.  So What?  I see every cloth here.  I think the makers know I am blind when they make their sewing.  They make cloth so anyone can see things, through their eyeballs or through their hands."

"Thank you maker  people of cloths.  You are my friends.  You are my tribe.  Everyone gets mad at me and  tells me I should get  out of my shell.  The cloth people and feather makers must love shells.  Because now i love being in my shell.  I come out when   i want to and stay in when i want to.  I imagine all the cloth people are shells all over the world, and we go back and forth together, in our shells, out of our shells."

It's about REAL.  It's about an Incredible Space that Wendy has created for the Children.  It's about the Children who KNOW EXACTLY how to USE that space who have the Courage and Brilliance to move within it and make it come Alive.  and so it is too,  about me,  about Us.  who all were children and hold that child self inside us still.

Soon,  Jude will give the Magic Feather Cloth over.   What will go from there????

if you are interested in this book of a Thousand Thank You's,  i think  if you email Wendy at  wendygolden@ rogers.com  she can tell you.  As i said.  i begin most of my days with the book.  Children.  All the children speaking in the book,  so soon to become adults,  so soon to find a Place in this world.  

 

 it's done for now.  Enough.

tazmeena rarely goes to the futon couch.  But here she is today.  Interesting.

Peace.

just in the last hour or so,  a GRAND STORM

direct lightning strikes,  Thunder Man LOUD,  everything runs for cover.  Sky Water.  and now a brilliance of Light at the Rim.

This morning i woke to thinking about the Bath Ladies.   I guess because it's possible that Travis, the Old Cowboy's Shower Guy might be leaving to go to Heavy Equipment School in California.  This brings Blanca to mind.   The Bath Lady for the Hospice Program we are deeply Into now.  If the Beloved  Travis goes,  Blanca will come.

I first met Blanca when Alz B had her first knee replacement.    I met her again when Alz B had her second knee replacement.  Haven't seen her since.   But my mind knows her very well.

She appeared at Alz B's home out of the blue as part of a home health team.  Alz B was not yet at the Old Folks Home,  but following a downward spiral in that direction.

Blanca.  A Large dark woman with Vivid wine red lipstick and large complex dangle earrings.  The first time,  me thinking i needed to mediate between a belligerant  Alz B and a quiet new Blanca,…

wrong.

Firmly and swiftly Blanca herds the protesting and snotty  Alz B into the bathroom.  I hear water running then seemingly in the blink of an eye,  the whir of the blow dryer.  Alz B is escorted, all spiffy and lotioned to her chair and Blanca says into the air,  Thank You,  i will be back on Wednesday.

Bath Ladies.  Going About,  bathing strangers.   Kind.  Efficient. Capable.

I wake this morning,  thinking how meaning FULL this is.  How of GOODness and Greatness it is to Bathe people who no longer can bathe themselves.  

and i begin working of my Cloth of Protection…you might know where this is going if you have been around long enough.

Meaning.  Use.   Nothing Big,  just what it is.  Meaning.  Use .  An everpresent pulsing thread.  There is Blanca,  somewhere in Socorro County bathing someone.  Here am I.  Stitching myself a Cloth of Protection.  Cmon, grace…..

but then there is an email.  Go look.  HandEye.  Google HandEye Magazine click Textiles…the article,  New Possibilities by Wendy Golden Levitt.

and there

the Tay Cloth.  On a drum with small hands.   To see this in this beauty FULL essay by Wendy,  this Tay Cloth,  lying on the drum,  the hands,  also is to heal me.  Works to heal the thing in me that is forever wondering about MEANING and my place in and of a Meaningful Life.

Over the course of the many years of my life,  I have allowed myself to become good at many things.  But that underlying thread of that question of Worth, remains.  I am old now.  You'd think i'd have "gotten over it".    But i need to admit,  not.   So this essay,  this Story i read ,of course, makes me feel such honor and Goodness that Wendy included some of the cloths i have made as examples of Textiles she and the children use…..for the Work….to Heal…..

but today i look at the Tay Cloth on the drum.  In the past,  Wendy chose  Cloths and once requested a Cloth for a particular purpose.  But the Tay Cloth…i sent.  The Tay Cloth  representing something in me and something that the Being,  Tay dog,  represents in my life…this cloth…i didn't know about.  Would it be,, uhhh,  too much?  Too uhhh,  too  raw?  Unacceptable?  

i am so HONORED that Wendy's Children find things in these Cloths.  That there is Common Ground for Us,  kinship through Cloth itself.  It allows me to be OF them.   

it gives a space…for that question that always arises…that  parental question…

"who do you think you Are?"

They are dead.  my parents.  but i continue to ask the question for them.

More tomorrow.

ADDENDUM

i forgot

 

as far as it got today.  The Electrical Co op came and made their marks.  The phone people came and made theirs.   So…tomorrow,  the back hoe.   It is VERY up against the fence.  Very.

and the Cloth….that helps me answer the question of why me?,  why not,  All You?

the sky is finished.   All afternoon, the Earth.  But i think this is going to be It.  Thread.  Brown Thread through a single strip of cloth.  Tomorrow.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the water guy is going to fix the leak at the road meter.  This involves a backhoe and so, he needs what he refers to as a    Phone Spot;    this being through the phone company….to be sure he doesn't cut the phone line.  So he's off to arrange all that and get the back hoe.  Ok.  he says it's going to be easy…

"i won't have to take down your fence or nothing"   

silent scream on my part

so,  just in case i am disappeared for a few days or……. (computer is through the phone line)….

 

 

urge came a few days ago and today was the day.  The Magic Diaries cloth.  I'd taken it down from the West window of the Room,  some time ago…i think last fall?  And just hastily folded and put into the Toy Box that holds winter things inside and that the baskets sit on at the Looking Wall.   I had some feelings at the time,  like knowing it needed to be washed.  Knowing that there are many small things that needed to be done before washing.  The crows for instance, are barely basted in place.  More.  I don't know why i felt so short of time,  at That time,  but i did and it felt very uneasy,  just putting the Cloth away,  but i did.

Prior to that,  it had hung in that West Window as a curtain for probably close to two years.  MUCH  constant exposure to direct SUN light from the whole South facing windows.  A long time.

on the futon couch this morning.

then back over on the Wall.  

i sat here and scrolled through Picasa looking for when i was making it….Jude's Magic Diaries….i had no idea what  year that was, really,  so i just scrolled and scrolled and while scrolling was surprised by what i was seeing…some beauty Full things that i hardly remembered,  but they're there,  so i know i made them….

this for instance

and i got to look at this again,  almost 4 years ago,  Granddaughter Alyssia's son,  Julian in the dust of Polvadera.   And it was good to stare at this,  speaks to me about Beginning Again.  Beginning "clean",  nothing but Interest,  Focus,  on just the Senses.   And i finally found a pic of the Magic Diaries Cloth

 

the date is May 19, 2012

so i guess that's around the time of working on it?   

it has  faded.  a LOT.   What was the central backgound was a kind of slate blue that i made with Colorhue dye.  The two outside panels a pale version.  I vaguely remember using Colorhue Black and getting this perfect color by accident.  

today it is almost a kind of sand lavender,  the outside panels just a well,  uhhh,  variations of a kind of clay color.   But there are things here that thrill me.   For the most part, very small things.  So,  I want to stitch what needs it down well enough.  I want to wash it in the bathtub and hang it Out in the Wind.   and then bring it in and LOOK for a Long Time.  I want to add to it some things that i've learned since,  mix them in.  I want to do what might be called….finishing it.  Finishing it to at least this point in time.   Will i put it back up on the West Window again or fold it up and put it back in the Toy Box.  I don't know.  Enough for today.

and i need to say that the Lizard Cloth at the center top is Jude's work…she had sent it and i needed it there,  at the Center Top.   Where she remains in me,  the Center Top.

Finished the dark stitches of the Protector.   Which brought great relief.  Yesterday was a very difficult day and i floundered.   Today,  this Cloth held me.  

 

 

an Old Cowboy Day.  no point in saying anything more.  Gone.  Done.

Wardrobe.  I have two intact pairs of levis.  I alternate them.  And i have This pair that i love the most…fit the Best.  Time.  Time to FIX them because they are the ones i love that fit the best. a Third pair.

 

 

Looked before i went and looked more,  much more when i got back

the Chocolate Flower plant is creating a bloom.  This,  just weeks after i brought the plant here and set it in.  2 weeks?,  3?   I looked so long and out and out again to look,  squatting there,  looking,  how it is such an act of faith in a way,  for this plant to set her roots deep enough,  sure enough and all the while,  begin making a

bloom

Salt Cedar,  setting the second round of blooms and there are zillions of Bees…literally,  zillions of bee s  at a plant that is on the Noxious Plant list.  But the bees…..

tracking…a woman and her partner/friend/dog    the marks we made yesterday when i let the water from the hose connection leak for the Mint

i don't know the answer to that.   I do

something

like…uhhh,  Asking?   Asking Nothing in Particular, but rather The ALL of Whatever It IS?  i ask.

i say….could this happen?  and let it Fly.

Came home from work away

added

took away

looked.   a print out in black and white

put with Tay's reWorked Basket Piece….a collaboration

a small print out…placed in Patricia's  Walnut dye breathing basket   followingthread.wordpress.com

what is a "prayer" basket here