windthread

this morning i reached in to the basket that holds newspapers in the far left under the sink counter.  I can't see down there,  just stick my hand in and feel for them under the saved egg cartons.   Way down.  and brought out the last of what i have.  Very few.  That i dropped on the floor by the Morning Chair and began twisting the usual four pieces needed to start the fire.  There was a single page and as i was about to begin to crumple and twist,  something said stop and i looked and there was

that Face

that form

I COULDN'T BELIEVE IT.

last year my friend who brings the OLD New York Times had brought a batch from  2013 which included one full piece of a 5 piece series on Homeless Children in NYC.  It was part two in the series of 5.  I was mesmerized and over the course of the next weeks,  she looked and looked but could not find the other 4.   Over time i gave up and sent this one i had to my granddaughter.  Off and on i thought of Dasani, 11 years old, and her Family.  Out of the blue, now and then.  

This morning,  here was a single page, both sides, but not complete,  of the last in the series of 5.  At the bottom, " Invisible Child   Last in the series about one of 22,000 homeless children in NYC.  The New York Times began following her in September 2012 when she was 11 years old and living at the Auburn Family Residence in Brooklyn.  This series is based on interviews, official records and video taken by the Times and Dasani's family."   The journalist is Andrea Elliott.

nytimes.com/Invisiblechild

i googled.   

There as if by magic was the entire series.  It took me almost 3 hours to read.  

My granddaughter and I  have several "topics" that are  OnGoing conversations.  One of which is the Wondering about how it is that we find ourselves uhh,  drawn to,  magnetized by,  attracted to certain things and people.  Lately it has leaned toward people.  About how there are many different schools of thought,  from karmic relationships in buddhist terms,  Caroline Myss'  thoughts of Sacred Contracts,  and old astrologer friend of mine who believed that we bring with us into a birth, those persons who can assist us in our "goals".   that we come as a "constellation of souls" partnering to manifest mutual Purpose.  and on.  Granddaughter, Alyssia and i,  don't go at this with the intention of coming to a conclusion,  but rather just as a Wondering.  a Wandering of Wondering where we add to our fund on our mutual rolodex as we go.  We make no conclusions.  This is important.  No conclusions.  which lets it continue,  Just Go.

so i saw this.  Out of the corner of my eye,  the corner of my brain

Dasani.  This 11 and then 12 year old girl.  To Whom i have an unknown, unexplained  affinity, recognition,  attraction to.   

If i could,  i would fly to NYC.  I would find the journalist.  I would find Her.  I would just want to stand in front of her,  to look at her with my eyes,  to tell her that although i cannot make any sense of it that she,  her story,  her words,  her Beingness,  has Great Great MEANING to me.  And that's it.  Nothing more.    More might happen.  Who knows.  But maybe not and if not,  that would be enough.  I love her.  Not as a child,  but as a human being.  as a Soul.  a Soul manifest in her world of birth.  I would present myself as a Soul manifest in my world of birth.  that somehow,  Recognizes her.   and that that recognition Helps me.  again,  in an undefinable way.  

and i continued with the CatHairScraps.

there's another pic.  of the last of the Pile of them dumped out on the kitchen counter but i can't get it to download.   The airwaves must be heavy with Valentines Day wishes.  so this is enough.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have nothing.  This has been an Old Cowboy Week and today the grand finale when we went to have a squamous cell carcinoma removed and then to pick up his medication then to the bank because his account had been compromised.    6 hours today of Constant Monologue.  We split a green chili cheese burger and fries and i Escaped.  There is nothing left of me.

but i can offer this TIP.  If you have a catch and release no kill mouse trap,  i have found the Ultimate bait….a sesame stick with butter on one end and peanut butter on the other.  This morning i had   ……….FOUR……  mice.   FOUR!  I couldn't believe my eyes.

Good night now.  

 

 

 

the reference to having become too Literal…   I went back in the pics in Picasa looking for two things and gave up yesterday but tried again today and found them.

this was the Daughter Quilt….back in the Weaving Jude (Hill…Spirit Cloth) taught in 2011.  I hung it to the beam that holds up the ceiling from the house to the ROOM.  I actually wove it and invisible basted it standing on the ladder.   

what i was actually looking for was

this.  Which was in the center of it all.    How spontaneously it happened…as a total surprise,  rising from the Patch Work Beasts.  Jude again.

and then this one.    Again,  spontaneous and Wild.  still from 2011.

so looking for these,  i watched 5 years flashing by  in photographs.

 

this second one here has a little more sense of the dimensional quality i want to keep here.  So the color is not exactly true.  I wanted to look at the Terraine…how to keep that quality somehow with the stitching.  But also,  looking back i find self looking at how i have come to be uhhhh,  committed to the EarthScape over time and less to personal internal image.  I'd like to combine these.  But i think to do that i need to go back to Beginner's Mind.  First just looking but then seeing if i can WORK in that place again.  I don't know if it's possible.  I'd like to find out.

And this applies all around,  this thinking about Beginner's Mind…it applies to this blog,  it applies to how i perceive my life in general.  Spring is coming and it's time to begin again.  I'd like to begin many things Again.  So i'm Looking.

 

 

too literal.   i have been stuck in too literal.  Anything can be Anything at All,  can be Everything.

so,  continuing to look at this,  i suddenly remembered

this.   An embroidery hoop.  18" in diameter,  3/4" deep.  It was behind that big dresser.  I'd gotten it from the Thrift Shop on a Ten Cent Tuesday way back when Jude was doing the Weave workshop.  I thought i'd use it as a frame for weaving,  a kind of loom….but never did and just stuck it back there.  I liked it because it's so plain.  

it's really great for just fooling around with scraps…they are easy to pin…just to play with the shapes and colors

 

there was no real intent here, because it was such a gray day and i couldn't really see how the colors were,  but i just put stuff and really,  i think i like it a LOT and i will need to wait to look again tomorrow when Sun will return,  but i LIKE this.  I like it a LOT and i like whatever it seems to be Wanting to be?

and i made Paneer,  Panir,  with Jan's oh so very very good Goat milk,  so rich and full of cream

 

 

 

 

 

the wheelbarrow Rusts.   I like all the very subtle changes in shape.   The color, yes,  but the  Changes, more

 

Nothing has to stay how it's been.  Can be completely different.  And maybe only for a day.  Or,   The Time Being, and then can change again,  change Back or to something else entirely.  Even very small things.  

i like to keep the very SMALL scraps in shallow flat baskets.  Easier to see.   But as i am still pinning and drying all those Cat Hair scraps with no end in sight,  i realize i don't want to do that again.  And no matter how i try,  those flat shallow baskets will forever appeal to Tazmeena.   I'd rather do other things with hours of any day.  

 

and still,  in keeping with Dana's THINKING on organization,  i had freed this basket from the shelf in the bathroom.  It had been full of outdated things….Bach Flower Remedys from years ago,  old travel soap containers,  hair clips that i haven't used in YEARS,  Neosporin tubes with exp. date of 2010.  Ok,  i have an empty basket.  What to do with the basket?  Does it have a New use here?

ok…it's Deep and not any kind of place that would appeal to Tazmeena,  but also is deep and not good for looking at very small scraps.  Deep enough to keep them clean,  but too deep to really See them.    Thinking about this, 

thinking about this,  my attention was pulled to the very Large flat basket that normally is just standing on edge against  the vent of the swamp cooler doing Nothing except disguising the vent of the swamp cooler.  Kind of a purpose,  i guess

but it's Big and i thought that i could take out handfulls of the very small scraps and put them there to look through and maybe make something of or not, but maybe and i could then put them back in the Deeper basket and prop this one back up to disguise the swamp cooler.

It really can go any way at all.  It really can go any way at all,   for a minute,  for a day,  for a year, for for for

Things can be Anything

back from work,  i found self feeling like i was still floating in some way,  the way i felt when All was Said and Done yesterday.  There was a long time just sitting on the porch steps with Tay coming back and forth to me,  checking on me,  because i very rarely SIT outside…she didn't know what to think.

and i said to Liz i would put cloth in the rusted wheelbarrow weighted with a stone

but i couldn't quite think that through so i just put these two Cat Hair Scraps,  which there are still hundreds of to be pinned and dried,  these two scraps and poured vinegar on them which was easy enough because there's always a gallon of vinegar in the Albatross for cleaning the Water Bowls.

It was 76 degrees today.   So i neatened   (i love that word even tho it's not a word)  the dye table that is one of those big electrical spools.  Lots of various stuff there since last summer's use.  Decluttered.  And then brought out the half of the copper water tank float that i kept.  It has that nub on the bottom

but it's ok, because the center of the Spool is this 

as if they were made for EachOther

I looked again  (so many agains)  at this what ever it is that rose to the surface in one of Alz. B's son's fields when it was tilled a few years ago.  The rust continues and there is still that very clear turquoise line that no one so far has any idea what it might be.  Another winter and Still BeautyFull

and this that i found in Magdalena.  Maybe i'll wash the dirt off and see what it does with cloth?

the Lilac bush.  Too soon but  "feelin it" nonetheless

 

 

We started by the hoof trimming.  Got 4 done.  They hadn't been on the milking stand for anything other than their own amusement for a while and it was in a NEW place and there was a STRANGER involved.  Like the kids in elementary school…stranger danger.  Instinct in Goats.  Except Snowbunny who likes Everything.  She was first.   The one i wanted to do most was Onday.  But she made it clear that there was No Way.  She would come around from behind, the sides,  even jump on while someone else was being trimmed.  But no.  Not her.  So…4 was good.  It wasn't easy.  They haven't done that in a long while and also they don't know her so there was some pulling and trying to escape.  Not a lot,  but they didn't have Fun.    Jan said she'd come now and then till we got them all done.  I don't know if that might include bucks,  she Really isn't into bucks.  

And then,  TenZen.  So we tried all the ways that might involve some willingness on his part,  some small cooperation,  no.   Goats are very agile.  But then she saw some small pieces of cattle panel leaning against the horse trailer.

took this pic as a visual but it probably won't make sense,  but we each took one,  maybe 4ftx3 1/2ft and when he went in to the corner of the fences by the gate,  we trapped him by holding the panels to close off escape.  I had the lasso and popped it on and TaDa.  Open the gate,  pull and push him out and into the crate that was waiting there.  Let him figure out how to settle his body in a very small space and then Lift into the truck bed.   Maybe 12 miles to Jan's  where we opened the crate and let him jump down…lasso still in place and then pulled and pushed him up and around and through the first fence with him being unenthusiastic but not really stressed  and THEN,  he caught the scent of her does.  He went along,  following those ribbons of scent in the air and when he saw them,  it was a piece of cake.  In he went to the large corral and she opened the gate from the small one where the does were and it went from there.  None of them are in heat right now.  Him being there will "bring it on".  She has a Nigerian,  Joey,  and a Saanen Nigerian cross,  Nuget (sp  like the candy) and then two one year old does of Joey's who may or may not be ready to breed…as in them accepting a buck.   Being how he is,  he chased up to them a little but then backed off.  He is a gentleman.  Some tongue sticking out,  some verbalization but very tentative.  So we watched for a while, leaning against the gate talking all manner of Goat stuff which i love more than life itself,  and it was a warm and Sun Filled day and everything was very much OK.  Everything was more than OK.  It was GOOD.  She gave me a gallon of Goat milk and a dozen eggs and off i went.

HOME.  where i just 

SAT.  Staring.  Just all emptied out.

and i read some more of this woman's words about What She Loves…these Sheep and was in the chapter where she has traveled to New Mexico to learn of the fate of SAE 067,  a single ewe left.  I let her take me out of my day here and into her day there.  Then.  I needed her to do this.

After a while,  i went out to sit on the Back Porch and who was it?, but Onday who was immediately there and insistent on contact,  rubbing,  staring into my face,  smelling my breath,  breathing my breath with me,  sharing her breath

here she comes

 

 

 

 

and her daughter Mercy pushed in a little

 

her sister Oona

 

 

and young Karma,  who doesn't like to be touched,  stood on the milkstand 3 separate times and stared at me…maybe a challenge…to keep trying?

and Mercy, again,  wanting

the crate

 

 

and Nogal.   Alone.  His friend gone.

EveryThing about the Goats is Hard.

EveryThing about the Goats is BeautyFull.

So, What???? do we Do? when

BeautyFull and Hard show up Simultaneously?

would be a good day to take a day off from posting.  I almost did because the camera batteries ran out when i was downloading pics.  I was tempted,  because i really have nothing.  But somehow i couldn't so took batteries out of the flashlight and here it is,  the unremarkable.

 

unloaded the Goat crate from the horse trailer and hosed it down.  Tomorrow,  if all goes according to Plan,  Tenzen will be squashed in it and travel by pick up to dog trainer Jan's for  his Luna de Meile,  or however i'ts  spelled,  i should have looked it up…honey moon….for however long.  Depends on when her does come in heat.   I also got the milking stand positioned by the back porch as she offered to help with some hoof trimming.  We'll see how that goes.

 

hosed out these two wheelbarrows,  this one, rusted in such beautiful color from failing to turn it when it's empty.  But, the beauty…..

 

pulled forward two small rolls of scrap fencing for when Kelly and her man Cliff come next week for a Way Back Oasis fence make-over.  That's the end of the scrap fencing.  Will need to begin watching Free Cycle.

 

 

Sat on the Raft.  Thought about todays On Being.  A rare interview with Mary Oliver who does not do interviews.  Thought how she is such an ordinary woman,  Mary Oliver.   The interview was one of the least "dramatic".   It made me love her poetry even more.  How an ordinary woman can write what she does…how she is so much OF that Solitary Woman of the poetry who is just Looking….telling us what she sees.  am not finished thinking about this.

and Where? did THIS come from?  Its a kind of a little fox thing that belonged originally to my old coyote dog Chongo.  so,  has been through many dogs.  Today,  lying quietly, rather still intact on the Stick Pile.  Where has it been?

and the Event of the day,  is while i was vaccuming the livingroom,  somehow the door to the Way Back went open.  I came around the corner and the blanket that covers it in the night was flapping, door WIDE open.   There,  at the far fence was Tay,  checking out the sticks and stuff back there and Chinche was sitting by the Oasis with a surprised look on her face and the Goats were just doing their Goatly things.  Very quiet and fine, all of it until i yelled HEY!, in my surprise and the Goats took off through the corridor and chinche came guiltily in and Tay came to the porch but then went over to the entrance of the corridor but DID come when called.  I should have waited.  I should have watched and seen what might have  happened.

ADDENDUM

the best thing was,  that the Goats paid NO attention to either dog being in Their space.  NONE.  This is important.  That they felt NO threat from them.  I am sure,  that if left to it,  Tay would chase them some.  Move them.  It's in her blood.  But the point of this short foray today is that they are not in the slightest afraid of her.  And she was not in the slightest primarily interested in seeing her Effect on them.  They were just them.  And this is a very very great thing.

because of an Odd Circumstance that appeared last evening,  i spent this morning going through two of the large dresser drawers that are in the ROOM.  they are big drawers.  They WERE full of stuff, all kinds and when looking for what the Odd Circumstance called for,  and in keeping still with Dana's blog post,  i was Rapt!   What Stuff i had in them!  All kinds.  and yes, in keeping with Dana's post,  i Sorted.   All of it was wonderful,  but not all of it did i need to Keep.  Actually,  very little.  The wonderful non keepers will go to the Thrift Shop where someone like me will be ecstatic.  Maybe even me.  I have bought my own stuff back.  But this morning,  it was such a freeing feeling and i found some things that i had though were disappeared for all i knew. 

This, above.  A oh so totally Great drawing of  Michelle's.   I have an odd system for keeping things.  Many go into old calenders and old magazines from the 70's and between pages of large books.  I had no idea where this was and was SO happy to find it this morning and basted it to the curtain here in front of me,  on the piece of Maria Cloth and it's just so incredibly Fine

and i worked some at the positioning of the right arm.  I did this by standing  like "she" is and feeling my own arm if i were to be gesturing as  "she" is.  This is similar to what i used to do when i wanted to know how to carve a certain "look" on the face mask of one of the "dolls",  i would feel my own face with my finger tips,  feel the bones.  It's closer today.  And i basted down with just a little tack,  the little joys,  so when i am moving the cloth around, i don't lose them…they are so small…they are not in any particular place and may move and more may be added or not,  but this,  just so i could get the feeling of things.  The harem cloth placed in the middle.  The outside rims invisibly basted.  Ok.  and the Feel of this cloth is already Good.  Really Good.  

that reverse comma shape at the hem of her might or might not be a lizard.  We'll see.  it's a piece of some edging from that kind of lace that i cannot ever remember the name of,  the thick lace.  Deanna 7 Trees knows.   

and i want to say here that the cloth that is the World for all this to take place in,  the Ground cloth is of Deb Lacativa….her sensitivity,  her magic.

directly Over head,  at 5:28 p.m.  when i was feeding the Goats the last for the day,  this SKY…