windthread

i had gotten this far, this morning,  and was Happy.  I  looked and looked and chose the cloth for the Back,  the Other Side and washed it in the sink,  hung it to dry in the beauty full SUN and WIND.  then the phone rang.   No good use to putting the details, but a letter from the IRS and the old cowboy was beside himself.   So

yet another day

Not a Whole day,  but the complete middle of the day which because of how i am,  knocks me off balance in my Own World.   

So,  this evening,  i am thinking of a New Normal.  I know that many of Us have reason for this same need.  New Normals.  Different Normals.   the desire for a Normal.  the desire for some kind of rhythm  in how the days go.  and as Salzberg puts it…to live with ease.

so i am going to need to Shift.   How much yet and how,  i don't know.  But for sure i am.  And for sure,   i need Cloth.  

so I will need to set new boundaries.  and i will need to find a new Self Discipline.  I love floating through days.   Can i keep Some Days to float through?    Maybe…    Maybe not.   But it's what i am looking closely at right now.  How can i DO this and KEEP my SELF inside it.  Ok.

there are MANY things like this that need to get Done.  This pic is from the Back Door…out into the Way Back ,  looking at the Oasis there where the young Russian Olive is extending her branches and are tantalizing for the Goats.   Yesterday before i left,  they were standing on the fencing,  seeing if they could possibly reach in far enough to nibble the leaves.  So what to do?, if you don't have time to trim the branches?…  Put a laundry basket with a good sized rock in it to block that particular part of the fencing.  It will work for a while,  but not long.  Need to go in there and trim branches.  TIME.   Everything is about TIME.  Life is nothing but, Time.  I work to understand this in a Best way,  how Life is Time.  How Life is days.  Days strung together.   What this means.

the Feather Grass is NEW each season.   it repeats itsSelf each season,  but measures Time only season unto season.   I am looking at that.  Season unto Season.

so yet one more day of the Old Cowboy.  This one,  with the Hospice medical social worker Tana.  Who came and sat down at the table with No Agenda.  None.  She was simply there to 

receive.

and for three hours she did.   What is the Beauty here?.   That she Listened.  She listened care FULL y  and asked about what she thought she  was hearing.   He told her his Whole Story in small vignettes.

I was so proud of him.  How he has learned to do that.  To skip the "John Wayne" stuff and as i would ask him,  "just tell me the picture in your head".   When they got to the part about his daughter,  the story slowed.  Came one sentence at a time.  and i went over to get her photograph from the cabinet.  Tana sat looking while the story was told.  and somewhere during it,  she turned the frame over and opened it,  moving the photograph,  looking.  Silently.  She asked for a little tape.  If we had a little tape.  Yes,  i got it and OCB asked what she was doing and she said the photograph had slid a little and she was centering it.  Soon after,  he went to the bathroom and she asked me if i had ever seen what was behind the photograph and i hadn't.  It was a handwritten letter to OCB's mother,  her grandmother,  telling her she was so excited to soon be seeing her.  She never made it.  Just days before her highschool graduation and before the anticipated trip to Colorado,  she was killed in a car accident in California.  OCB had not seen her in over 10 years since her mother took her and left.

Things like this.  If you take the Time,  they just come out.  Tana appeared to have all the Time in the World.   and OCB was able to go In to where those memories are and bring them forward.  Tell her.

It was extraordinarily Beauty FULL.  the time spent.  Watching silently as he brought forward everything that was important about himSelf.  Watching her listen.  Him always circling back around to how he has lived enough.  Wants to die a "natural death".  Her over and over telling him that this can happen.  That things can be just ok.

I am still very uhhh,  softened by all this.  it will absorb into me over the days.  it will become now MY memory.  As today will become Her memory.   We carry shared memory.

this morning before i left,  i looked for this.  It's in the beautyfull black notebook of Stuff.  It's a drawing of something i ReMembered seeing i don't remember where.   So it's not an original image,  but a remembered image.   I drew it in the beautyfull black notebook because i loved it.  for maybe 20-30 years.  I drew it there maybe 10 or so years ago?   An Old MemoryImage.

Jude,  over at Small Journeys,  Spirit Cloth blog,  is telling about 

holes.

the progression went from her talking about holes to me remembering a Cloth,  a very intense Magnificant Cloth that belong to someone i loved,  Dora,  who had the numbers of the concentration camp tatooed on her forearm,  who went to become a Tai Chi master,  collector of Cloth things.  I wrote about her before here somewhere long ago.  Dora.  She had a Cloth.   It had a rectangular hole in it.  What i remember is that it was a women's ceremonial robe of the Shango Ceremony…the Babalawo tribe,  Nigeria.  There is more to this Memory but this is enough right now.  It was,  coupled with Jude's work,  enough this morning to make me look for this drawing.

so.

i want to make a cloth of the drawing.  I want to use these pieces of fabric.  One,  some linen that Maria sent me.  It is VERY soft and of Undeterminate Color.  Then a piece of walnut dyed Old silk noile,  so so soft.  Then something that i dyed here,  again an old linen i think in Elderberry.  This is all i know right now.  But for Years i wanted to make a mask like this.  Now i will.  And as i looked today,  i see that the Eyes are Goat eyes.  the rectangular pupil.   How memories MOVE through time from person to person….until they are again,  Told anew.

 

LATER

 it's still light…..

go OUT

They are in the middle Place.  I am in the Way Back.  I call.  I call them in nonsense language, that is supposed to sound like Navajo

the language of this Land

they Think.  and decide.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and Her.  I love them.  Beyond any kind of Love i know

it might be pretty   "nothing much"  here for a little while.   Today was spent with the Old Cowboy and the Hospice people.  It was his initial Intake Evaluation.  He was evaluated.  and I was evaluated.  Us.  WE were evaluated.   They came and were There and talked and listened and KNEW things about Us from what we said and did not say.   I told him when they were finally gone that they were not just looking at Him,  but they were looking at me.  Both of us.  They were looking.  To see who we are.  To see Where we are.  

and where we are,  me and him is a Grey Area in their words.  Somewhere Hospice is "going".  So we are in kind of a new space.   Not quite imminent,  but close.  Waiting for a crisis.  But the crisis is still in the hinterland.  We know it will come.  but we don't know any more about it  than that.  So,  we are just kind of in a Limbo.  OK.  

I go again tomorrow to meet again,  she was there a little while today,  to meet again with the medical social worker.  I'm not clear Why she is  coming again tomorrow,  but i'll be there.  Will find out.   I like her.   I am hoping she will be my ally in the Whatever Comes.  I am hoping she will act as a sounding board.  Tell me when i might be being too cavalier,  tell me when i need to change paths.  Old Cowboy and me are very used to eachother.  Used to how we do things.  Maybe we need to change some stuff?  She is the one who will be my ally.  And i talked with the Granddaughter who was driving on her way to her class in Sacramento about all this…it's what she is learning in her class work,  Social Work,  …so i want to be very Clear to this woman about how i think and OPEN to her to mirror back to me 

i came home after being gone a long time and Tay was …..Tay was…..glad.  She had dug some holes because i was gone a long time.  It's her way of expressing herself.  Digging holes.   The Goats,  they were OK,  i was very close to on time.  But it's all

FELT

 

 

 

and i go to this strip of cloth on the wall,  to the "saddened" pieces of walnut dye,  to the small bits of copper wire to the Stuff and seek comfort.

 

 

 

I press my face.   I press my face into cloth.  I press my face into the face of Dog.  I press my face into Goat face.

I press my face.

 I say the words of Metta.  the meditation of loving kindness.

May i be safe.  May i be happy.  May i be healthy.  May i live with ease.

May you be safe.  May you be happy.  May you be healthy.  May you live with ease.

 

Breathing in.

 

 

 

When i got back from work away,  the storms began.  Like Monsoon in May instead of July.  Black on the Rim and lightening, thunder,  then  after some short time,  Brilliant SUN.  Back and Forth.

as individual storm fronts approached,  the house was dark.  Still,   because i turned off the computer.  Quiet.  Quite WonderFull.   Full of Impending and not in my Head,  but Out There.  Was Good.

looked at and Touched cloth while cleaning up the Table.  Just lightly.  More Good.

 

 

 

to pass the time of Storms,  i looked through the two folders of print outs of well,  stuff.  All manner of print outs.  some just scraps,  one and two together.  Some go back to Jude's Magic Diaries.  Just looking.  And these are the ones that caught me.  I have absolutely NO idea.  The paper had gotten wet…and  the image distorted.  But i LOVE this.  VERY much.  How might i make it Happen?????  Maybe i can't.  But i want to try.  So that would be Next.  Clean the dye pots,  that table for them.  Plant Woad.  I need Woad.  I can get walnuts.   ok.

then this.  Last Thursdays local news….YES!,   Sevilleta i have written about before.  So close,  down the freeway just some.    Releasing a PAIR,  the female pregnant.  In the Gila Wilderness.  Yes.

and more storms are approaching the RIM.  so, for today,  just this.  But it feels really really Good.

 

i don't know what to say here.   the end of this day  comes with a Gift that i did not  imagine.  I had thought to continue talking about Magdalena,  because Magdalena keeps trying.  Because Magdalena has strong and fierce spirit.  It is a town of less than 1,000 persons,  many   quite eccentric.  If you look on Wikipedia and then around,  it will tell you things.   How it WAS, very much,  and then now, isn't,  but keeps trying.   And as i write this,  i suddenly realize that this is not true at all.  Magdalena always WAS.   and really,  just IS.   In the beginning,  it belonged to Itself.  It was Earth.  Then,  it belonged to the First People,  then the Navajo and some Apache,  then,  to those who came,  the Spanish who took land and then the Anglos who took land and mined it.  But Magdalena has always been there.  I love Magdalena because all manner of people had Intention and some of it took root and a lot of it withered.  This continues today.  

So…ok.  This is where i need to be in this moment.  What takes root and continues,  through thick and thin,   what Withers.  Maybe doesn't DIE even,  though sometimes yes.  But maybe just withers like Iris Tubers do.  Wither and Wait.

OK.

So i just stayed Home today.  I didn't go back.  I just wanted to be here.  I began by changing all the Goat water bowls.  Then finished bringing the compost to the big raised bed

i put mulch that is grass hay that for whatever reason,  the Goats knew not to eat.  Something in it that is not good.  Had set it aside for just this purpose.  It's done.  in this rectangular bed,  two Key Hole  planting places according to Permaculture principles.  One kind of normal the other an odd skewed one.  But key holes nonetheless.  This took  most of the day.

in between,  while resting,  i squated and pulled bindweed and kochia,  carried it over to the Goat yards and threw it in.  I also saw  how this kind of Mallow is spreading this year.  Note the pokadot leaves.

I Gave water.  Slow.  No hurry.  Bliss.  Slow/no hurry

and then i came in,  toward the end of that to see 

that 

Alyssia

who is known as my Grand Daughter  had left a comment.  and she referenced Putrid Grammy.

so i'll tell you that story.

When the kids,  her and her younger brother used to come to stay with me for weekends,  we would

Cook.

they could think up something they wanted to make and we would go get the ingredients and make it.  Alyssia was not so much into the cooking.   Just kinda.  She was the mincer.  She had a mincing tool.  So she minced.  But her mind was always all over the place.  But her brother Jeffrey…he was into it.   One weekend i asked and he said….Salmon coquettes…..my eyebrows went up…huh?

but Salmon coquettes he said.  he was maybe 5?  6?  ok.  so we looked in the cookbook and went to the store and we did the thing,  with Alyssia mincing.  We  sauteed them so Care Full y and when they were golden we put them on the plate and Jeffrey stared at them and said

not for me.

huh?   "Not for me".  

Being the kind of grandmother i was,  i said   TASTE IT.  Just One Single Taste.  and he did and as he was prone to do,  it fell back on his plate.    He just opened his mouth and it fell back on his plate and i said in my most mean grandmother way….JEFFREY!….that is ……i was at a loss for words…JEFFREY!…that is …is… Putrid!    And he looked at me and said…YOU are putrid!  You are a putrid grammy!   and so it was.  When the kids hooked me in to Facebook,  my password was Putrid Gramma.  We are an irreverent bunch.  

So

Pull it together.  Pull it all together.  What does it WEAVE?

i also put more rock rooms in the Diamond Bed.  Just after Alyssia's reply,  i went Out.  This is what the camera saw.  That's Ooona.  Looking.  Snowbunny's daughter.  The SUN was Beyond Bright.

So,  it's a May Moon.  A Love Moon.    and always will be now.  For All who come here,  who are my Family,  and now, too,  with Her who IS my family,  who is the Bloom to my root….i wish Us a Loving and Gentle May Full Moon…..

DEAR Magdalena.   Over and Over,  an individual rises up with ENERGY and decides something can happen.  Over and Over,  it doesn't quite.    But they never give up.

This is the only pic i took.  I felt uncomfortable at the thought of snapping pics of the very FEW things and their makers that were there.   I was the 5th.  So four others.  Quilts,  hot pads, place mats,  a beautiful basket tote like Patricia's bowls,  some just Fine knit and crochet,  a woman who made shawls of plant dyed wool,  Churro wool.  She has an indigo vat.   All very fine and welcoming women and an old friend/acquaintance Aleta who i'd not seen in years.  I was mistaken about where i imagined it would be to set up.  Thought it was in the old hotel but it wasn't.  It was under the long portico of the town's motel.  Which was ok till the WIND came up at which point they moved inside to a small kind of dreary room.   What IS it about fiber arts??????

this is the Indicator that something was happening there.   If they decide to try this again,  i'll know and make something myself.  This was not ok.

But aside from this,  there really wasn't anyone There.  Everyone that came by were locals and friends of the women who had their things there.  And very few of those.   and maybe at another time in my life that all would have been just ok.  But i really just wanted to come home.  So much to do here, NEEDing to be done…so when WIND came up,  i just loaded up and was on my way.

I cruised through town first…i really DO love Magdalena

 

a Goat's Eye bag?

 

from the back with light.   I'll somehow attach a "skirt" to it and it will be this year's Hose Dress.  More on that later sometime.

 

Starts from the Green Girl there who has an organic green house.  I'd gotten on her List a while back,  for peppers.  Which i seem to have a hard time starting.  Her,  not.  2 kinds of bell peppers, Yellow Hots and some other stuff… Calendula…would have made the trip to pick these up no matter.  It was good to meet her.  She has goats.

And before i left for home,  i drove around a little,  for Julie.

 

 

 

 

an old place, redone

 

 

 

 

at least half of Magdalena is Vacant.

this bull,  by the rodeo grounds

And then,  the drive home which is always worth Everything to me

 

 

 

 

i have no words for how this feels to me

i'm Ready.

Realized i didn't have a way to transport them…but well,  it's not that far and they can just ride in this basket.  I may or may not put a cloth over them.  Maybe they will want to ride naked,  exposed.

I cleaned up the Albatros to receive the new half ton bale of alfalfa.  i received it.  i filled all the Goat water tubs enough to last till i get home tomorrow.  Won't need to do it in the morning.  I hosed out and swept the truck bed so the screen can  ride well there.   I put stuff i'll need in a basket:  the little World notebook that never had a use before.  The cone of thread to tie them to the screen.  Needles.  2 in case i lose one.  Scissors.   a cloth to dust the screen with though i shouldn't need it,  will wrap it in a bedspread for the ride.  but just in case.    I'll need to stop on the way at the Dollar Store and buy Tissue in case i need to wrap one for someone and i put in some very thin strips of torn Toad Egg Cloth to tie that tissue wrapped Cloth.  I guess that's it and there's a very nice Humming Vibe going on here.  Real soft,  but real real.  Goodness.  it's Goodness.

and that word…raw….kept humming around.  Was new as of yesterday,  where did it come from?

and i knew,  after while.  Back to my most LOVED friend,  Marge.  Marjorie Burke Price.  Back in my other life in Michigan.  Marge.  Marge who i used to spend hours with,  studying Jung,  studying Art,  we drew and drew and drew.  We studied and studied and studied.  She was Brilliant.   and i don't just say that because i loved her,  i say it because she was.  She had a brilliant mind.  Brilliant.    She also had seven children,  one of whom committed  suicide,  another was intensely schizophrenic.  I say this to point out that a life of ease isn't necessary for Brilliance.   We were friends when i was in my 30's,  she in her 60's.   She died not long after i left Michigan to Wander.  To seek my fortune.  She had just gotten her Masters in Fine Arts at the University of Michigan.  She died of a massive heart attack at the refrigerator door,  getting her first grandchild milk for her bottle.  Marge.

I don't know how it works about Death.   it would seem that if it is so that we are re Incarnated,  that the old self,  the dead self, then,  is gone?   But sometimes she is so HERE and so STRONG.  That was the "raw" of yesterday….that was Marge.  Talking to me, again.  We read all kinds of stuff,  not just the complete works of C.G. Jung,  our most constant,  but other things among which was Claude Levi-Strauss…The Raw and the Cooked.  We were reading that when i left.

Le cru et le cuit.  the Raw and the Cooked is a structural study of Amerindian mythology.  Levi-Strauss writes that "certain categorical opposites drawn from every day experience with the most basic sorts of things…e.g. 'raw' and 'cooked',  'fresh' and 'rotten',  'moist' and 'parched', and others, ..can serve a people as conceptual tools for the formation of abstract notions and for combining these into propositions"

and i hear her say Read Further.  She always said Read Further…

The english translation of the title Le Cru et le Cuit is not incorrect,  but it is perhaps incomplete.  "Cruit" in French does not necessarily mean "cooked", but is also used to denote "done" or "prepared" which is not necessarily obtained by cooking.  In this case, Strauss' use of cuit implies what culture and society does to the raw and make it  'done' or  'cooked'.

so.  Raw Cloth.  Cooked Cloth.

i ironed the shirt from the thrift shop and as i was going along, i wondered about why someone might have let such a really fine shirt go

and here,  between the front and the back…these two small marks.  I guess this.  ????  but for me they are Magic marks.  I'll be able to feel them.

So…DONE for today.  I will take All of You with me tomorrow,  Marge too and well….here we go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

but…the day that it Was.  SUN is now heading for the Rim and we can begin again tomorrow.  Like Salzberg says.  Just go back and Begin Again.  It's ok.  so ok.

this is how it can get when there's a lot of Cloth stuff going on.

i have had this book of paper for so long.  SO long.   It's from Nepal.  Made from the bark of the Daphne bush.   The colors are exquisite.  Tearing small pieces.  to stitch with a single thread.

the tomato seedlings,  very much Nearing time to set Out

Tazmeena is having Feelings

And this morning,  i thought,  This is What I Hope For:    (about the weekend)

Seeing Many different kinds of creative endeavor

Energetic exchange with people i never have met about anything they want to talk about

A connection with SomeOne interested in Slow Cloth/Raw Cloth

Conversations about Goats

 

 

mid morning, i realized that today is WEDNESDAY!….not Thursday…..oh,  YAY and HooRay!

since i always work away on Monday and Tuesday,  Wednesday has a certain feel.  And since i didn't work at the usual Tuesday because Allan had been gone for over a month and everything was fine, i was home instead.  But it still Felt like Wednesday because i got to stay HOME.    So i was given a FREE day!

i spent some time,  a chunk of time,  stitching very pale blue thread beads in the eyelet part of this.  Which gave me a lot of opportunity to think about it,  think about how i think.  Is very interesting to me because it never was a question about maybe putting it into the little shop on this blog.  I couldn't imagine anyone else but me thinking much of it.  It is not an "easy" cloth.   If we might remember,  it's about those grubs of the Green Fruit Beetles in the compost,  how i was learning and understanding how So Many Things can participate in an ecosystem,  even those that at first might feel challenging.  It is very tied to the Harrod Buhner book  Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm that i am STILL reading….

it's not a Pretty cloth.  

But there was no question that i want to include it in  the ones i take with me.  No question.  So, That says something, doesn't it.

 

And this is typical of the Other Sides.  The sides that i choose not to Hide.   Having given thought to how this may feel Unfinished.  What would THAt mean to me?   and i thought no…would feel, to me, Hidden.    How stories are what they  are in the Telling,  but how often so much back and forth, so much not knowing anything is involved in the finally getting to the Story….with all it's important details…..

So, ok.

Tomorrow that is Really Thursday,  i can make the Word Paper and i can make the Names of them and put their dollar numbers.  That will probably take all day,  or much of it.  That leaves Friday for sweeping out the truck,  going to the Laundromat to wash a pair of levis,  receive the month's half ton bale of alfalfa.  Breathe.  

This is exciting.

 

i planted the Cuban Oregano in the Diamond bed,  in a small rock room.   Next to the Chocolate Flowers and watered.  Then,  i planted the Japanese Honeysuckle outside the fence from the Maybe Native Plum stump.  all the while sending vibes to Tay to leave them alone.  Which she did.  (so far)

but went out a short time later and she was tearing through the Place with an asparagus start flailing from her mouth….you remember them in the sink?….and i yelled DROP IT! and she did and i picked it up and walked,  she ran,  walking, her running and telling her to STOP which she finally did and i pressed the asparagus against her lips and nose and yelled NO!  Turned and walked away and replanted its  dear self…who knows what it feels,  and she slunk under the porch.   I left it this way for maybe 15 minutes then felt bad for her.  Digging to her is just digging.  Which is a joy.  So i said No Dig and let it go.  We'll see.

All day i did small things and looked

it's not great,  but is what it is.  I understood how it is really,  low,  to many people.  I am short so it's ok for me,  but for not short people,  well…it's low.  But it's what i have for now.

tweaked so you can see better,  on the right panel,  a piece of paper that will have Words

i haven't written them yet.  Thought of them, really yet,  but will.

and all day i thought about Why? i am hoping people will want to 

buy

Cloth Pictures i make so i can keep feeding 17 Goats that I never intentionally imagined having till death do us part?

Why, if I am impelled to MAKE things, Why don't i make Useful things?  Why don't I learn to weave and weave dish towels,  belts, rugs?

Why don't I aspire even to making something like Judy Martin makes?  Great Works of Textile Art?…not that i Could,  but why don't i even have an urge to TRY?

You could have NO IDEA all the rush of thoughts swirling over themselves today.  What on Earth am i Doing????  

I need to ask these questions of self before I am there and someone, who is truly interested asks me.

I need to walk backward in my mind to when I first saw Spirit Cloth blog,  it was late one night and I was transfixed.  By seeing things that I Understood…Seeing a Way that was the "closest ever" to how I perceive the World,  experience the World

I remember the first time I watched Jude's Flicker slide show of COMA.  How the feeling of COMA has never lessened no matter how many times I've watched.

So today and in the next 3 days i will entertain these thoughts,  whether i want to or not,  they'll come.   And maybe I'll know something more  "for sure" than I do now.  It's easier NOT to think about it much.  But right now,  I seem to need to.

the refrigerator holds a reflection of the Old Apricot Tree from the kitchen window.  From the Morning Chair,  i see this.  How Beauty Full it is…watching it there through out the day.  If i could,  i would make a Cloth of this.  But it would make even less sense than the others do.