windthread

Slow Coth is Slow.  Roots take time.  Roots.  Slow.  

the Lizard Turquoise quiet in the small piece of wood from Oregon.   Resting.  Quiet.

Granddaughter hooked me up so i could watch the entire movie….The Mission.  Robert DeNiro and Jeremy Irons.   I don't know why,  but i needed it again.  It's been some years since i watched,  but i love it no less,  no less a single second,  i love this movie.  Maybe the Only one i love,  time and time again.  Why now?  I don't know.  

Those i have come to love on the East Coast of this continent,  they hunker down.  Surrender.  Maybe it's something about Surrender.  What do we surrender to?   Still,  I don't know.

Tay got in the truck this evening.  Many times.  I was unloading the bales of Grass Hay and would pat the shotgun side and finally…she jumped in.  She tasted everything with her tongue,  everything and then left,  but came back.  Again and again.  In Her Time,  she does things.  In Her Time.

change in plan.  More grass hay BeFore the Ethiopia trip

Stuff from the Tins.   Like the I Spy game.   There are so many things i think i don't remember but every single thing in these tins down to the tiniest beads,  i remember.  Remember their Circumstance.

There is an interview on Huffington Post that Paul Raushenbush did with Krista Tippett about her new project called  Civil Conversations Project.org

"a series of podcasts, live events, and online resources for beginning new conversations in public life at every level.   How do we speak the questions we don't know how to ask each other?  Can we find ways to bridge gulfs between us about politics,  morality,  and life itself?   Can we do that even while we continue to disagree passionately?   How technology plays into all this, and how can we shape it?    ……offering ideas and tools for healing our fractured civic spaces."

Many more rootlets.

 

to Remind.  This blog is to document days.  Whatever comes.  As is.

Yet, i am hesitant.  Because  others read.   It's not like a personal journal,  but a shared journal.  And i believe that is toward the good of the whole in These Days.  Yet there is hesitation,  because i don't want anything MADE of anything.   Everything is in question.  Everything means Everything and Nothing.

But still…..

I brought in the rock two days ago.

Back in my Other Life,  when i was part owner of a brand new book store in Michigan,  1988/89,  there was SO MUCH.   It was a "new age" book store, sort of.  I thought of it as New because finally we all seemed to be looking at Old,  at Ancient wisdom.  in a new Age.   It was exhilarating to say the least.  SO MUCH to learn from Old Ways.  The Energy was HIGH and MOVING.    All of us who had been through the 60's were FULL of wanting to learn,  wanting to Know.  In its  way,  it was very very Beautiful.  And also in its way,  it was not.  We had books on so many topics:  Feminism,  Homeopathy,  Ancient Cultures,  Native,  or First People ,  Art,  Earth Ecology,  a room devoted to Children with a rocking chair and a Larger Than Life Bear.  Religion,  Science,  Esoteric things.   And we had 

stones.  crystals.  All manner of Things From the Earth.  The person who brought us those things was a wonderful man who traveled the Planet,  gathering.  Sometimes i was the one who was there when he came and i would sit with him and choose.  During that time i brought home to mySelf many incredible things.  And i had access to ALL the books that taught about them.   There was SO MUCH.  And over time,  that became the problem for me.  So Much and moving SO fast and Wanting to Know and Wanting to Know,  Too Much,  Too Fast and it began feeling really crazy.  And that was part of the reason i left that life.  And when i did,  i closed the door on it all. 

Instead,  i watched mountains and walked and lived and carried stones and rocks from one place to another but did not ask anything of them.  Did not want to imagine anything about them.  Just LIVED with them.

Today,  there was the need to find the bead tins.   Maybe they are gone???  I have given so much away.  A LOT of stuff.  And it's just Gone.  And i don't really remember the details of it's Going.  Were they Gone?  I looked in the House.  No.  I looked out in the Albatros.  No.  ok.  That Airstream?

Yup.  Some.  

the two i wanted.  Yes.  There they were.  And also the Sun Oven….which my granddaughter had asked about and i didn't know.  Ok.  

 

these two.  the ones i wanted.

and then also,  these.

This one is the One i was wanting.  Here it was.  To me,  it's a Lizard.  a turquoise lizard.

 

 

 

I went back to google Chrysocolla.

it is the stone of forgiveness, Peace, and the strenthening of emotional bonds.  helps in recovering our natural spontenaeity.   a teaching stone.  it helps older women.  One strange property known since antiquity is its property of encouraging people to stay at home.  It is the stone of monks,  hermits and prisoners.

 

 

 

Alz. B's son Bill and his wife Nelia will leave for Ethiopia on Monday,  my regular day there…at the request of the Ethiopian Government, to do some kind of geologic scientific thing.  So they wanted me to come today instead since Monday would be hectic.   And then,  the Old Cowboy's NEW SPIFFY Transport Chair arrived at his house and i was going into town anyway to get him his Blue Bunny brand Chocolate Chip icecream that he had totally run out of

So….the day had a life of it's own.  

and there in the grocery store cheap wine area was this,  that caught my eye.  The back lable says:  At the turn of the century His Royal Majesty Rex Goliath was a treasured circus attraction.  Weighing in at 47 lbs  Rex was billed as the World's Largest Rooster.  Our wines are a tribute to Rex's larger than life personality with big fruit forward flavors sure to please.   And so it was that the lable did the trick.   Not tonight,  but tomorrow night we'll see the effect of a circus rooster wine.

At Bill and Nelia's was a note that someone had given them some thing that i might have use for.  On the chair in the little bedroom

this "sleeping bag"…all cotton,  6ft long.

two of these,  she said "saddle covers"…????

an opening in front and back…saddle horn and then something in the Back of a saddle "there" that  must rise up????  The stripes would make me Crazy,  but in both the sleeping bag thing and in these,  there was the feel of being stuffed with fabric or something like it and i imagined all manner of interesting and beauty FULL cloth hidden inside….

but no.

sticking my fingers in the small rip here what was found to be inside was a variety of polyester fabrics.  And in the sleeping bag thing,  through a small worn hole was some kind of similar fibers.  Both are Very Heavy.  And though i thought they might be ok for dog beds,  i reconsidered and Not.  It would take Forever for them to dry from being washed.  So..no.  Not even for this.

 

then this,  a kind of India Import cotton cloth

??????????   Does anyone have an idea?

 

 

 

 

I wanted to come home to the rock.   Do you see the dark crystal at the base of the Chrysocola?  What is that dark crystal  formation?  

This needs to be a post of itself alone.  Maybe tomorrow.

 

 

 

in total contrast with yesterday.   And i can report that TenZen continued to be more frisky than usual.

 

there are enough now.  Just many small rootlets to go

 

 

 

i brought the rock in.  Rinsed it in the kitchen sink.   It is 17 inches by 10 inches.  Very heavy.  All day, has been the central presence in the living room.    It is hard to imagine the Circumstance that created this deep in the earth.   Actually,  impossible, for me.    There is so much that is Unknowable.

It did not snow here.  But the Mountain Rim to the west is white.  Snow in the mountains is Good.  The run off benefits All.

ADDENDUM:

Later,  sitting in the morning chair reading  The Anthropology of Turquoise,  i keep looking up.  Across the maybe 15 ft.  or so to the form on the table there in the living room.  It 's dark now.  There is no light in the living room but the dim glow of the computer screen.   So i look at just a Form.   I find myself going back and forth.  One part of me wants to know the "facts" of this piece of the Earth…the names that we have given the individual parts of the Form.   What Kind? of crystal?  What IS the turquoise substance?  How do we imagine this was Formed?  It is obviously only a fragment from some very larger geode.  How large might the Whole of it have been?  When was it formed???,  How????   Things like this.

But then another part of me just looks.  Just sees the form there.  Sees something Inside here that has probably only always been

OutSide.

What might this be     Like?    To have been brought Inside a Place,  washed in a sink,  set on a wooden table.   

And i realize that anyone i would want to ask these questions of are probably dead.  Long gone.  Maybe a few remain living…but so rare and i don't know how to find them.   And maybe that's ok.  That i had acquired the rock,  it was given to me.  I have had it ever since.  Have had almost a daily awareness of it ever since.  Maybe this is enough.  Maybe i brought it in for just this.  To WONDER about.  

 

Vet due at 8 am to draw blood.   EEEEeeeeeee…..   So i am awake off and on from 3am,  not wanting to sleep too long and not be ready.  Which meant having everything in place Out There and Plan A for the dogs IN,  which meant having their meat bones ready,  them fed and enough time Out Side for personals.  Enough time for me,  my tea,  and to try to compose self as best i could.   And i watched self.  My anxiety would not be noticable to anyone else.  I have a sense of humor about it even in the midst of it,  and though it might be what i would call Intense,  it really isn't.  It's just anxiety about the Unknown.  Through it,  i just go,  as i always just go.  You can't tell.  

So they are pretty much on time.  Him and a young woman in her early 20's.  We smile and go directly to the Buck's pen.  They stand there and i tell them my Plan.  I will go in and give them pellets in the two bowls which is not standard morning proceedure and it will make them very happy,  and will take the lassoo in with me.   At some point,  when TenZen is cheerily crunching pellets,  i will gracefully slip the lassoo noose over his head and he will pull it firm and they can come in….hook the bungie on the gate so Nogal doesn't escape and ……….

Well,  Goats.  You can't fool a Goat.  The crunching on pellets goes as planned but the second i lift the lassoo,  TenZen takes off.  Nogal gets excited.  They Mill around.  I put the lassoo down and TenZen comes back to his bowl and crunches.  Repeat a couple times.  The Vet opens the gate and comes in.   Assistant comes in.  I hook the gate behind them.  Vet very quietly moves toward TenZen who is eyeing him very closely as Nogal  is whipping around with his tongue stuck out and his upper lip curled…very bucky….the Assistant Girl stands very still and silent.   Vet pickes up the lassoo and makes a try,  TenZen deftly escapes and both Goats run behind the Airstream….their Querencia.  I go to one end of that corner,  Vet to the other and zippppp,  they come flying around and "through" me only to return to that spot that they have chosen.  This repeated twice.  Then Leona,  the assistant takes my place.  Knees flexed,  arms out and downward.  palms of hands facing them.  Vet is out of site on the left side and there is huffing from the Goats,  Leona lowers herself a little more and then suddenly there is the Vet coming around carrying TenZen,  one arm under his belly one holding the scruff of his neck.   Both Leona and i come close as Vet puts him down and Leona straddles him.  I am on the left with one arm under his head and one arm over his shoulders.  Vet tells Leona to hold his head up and he swabs his neck and feels for pulse,  feels for pulse,  and draws enough blood to fill four vials.  From the juglar vein.   TenZen is still.  His eyes far away,  his heart beating.  He does not move.  Still.  and then…that's it.  Done.   Release and he runs to Nogal and they spin around then go to the far fence and stand looking.  Vet and young woman exit the yard, me saying i'll get the gate and i do and i go in and let Tay and Chinche Out and 

i sit.  Heart racing.   Done.  it's Done.  What i couldn't imagine done is done.  OK and Over.  OK.

For the rest of the day Nogal and TenZen are particularly  Full of It.  There is a lot of head butting,  a lot of sparing atop their shelter house,  sometimes one winning and knocking the other off,  sometimes the other way around.  I went Out a couple hours later with a breast pocket full of peanuts in the shell and went in with them again and both came,  as they always do,  to be fed,  fingers to lips.   

All was Well.

All day i RePlayed it.  Including the days leading UP to today,  when i first made myself dial the number and make the appointment.  I RePlayed  and looked.   Without any energetic input at all from me,  it would have gone exactly as it did.  All my STUFF,  for naught.  Totally for Naught.

i looked over at the Altar at that basket and thought….i MAKE myself a Basket Case.   Why?

 

 

this is the softest piece of felt from Nanette….stitchandsow-homeandgarden.blogspot.com

i put it in the basket.  Looked.

this Rock,  from the great shore of Lake Superior in the Upper Penninsula of Michigan.  Carried with me so long ago.   Always with me since.

Tonight i will take it into the bed and if i wake,  will place it on my belly.  Feel the weight.  Feel TIME from within that rock.  Time that she has been with me,  Time Before when she was only herSelf.  Feel the weight of the rock.  Feel it.  Skin to Skin.

later i went Out to sit and look at this rock.  Many crystals.  I don't know what all it is.

it isn't Turquoise,  but is the color of Turquoise

 

 

 

 

 

Mercy

 

Arctica,  sister of Buckwheat.  Doe with Natural Horns

 

They were aware of me sitting there,  looking at the rocks,  so they Came Through the migrational corridor….Front to Back,  stopping to look at me on the way.  Them.  Those Goats.

I added a third root.  How many is Right?

as the day went on,  it became more and more overcast but then suddenly,  there was SUN.  Brilliant and Loving and Promising.   

Right now,  as i write this,  Rain is falling hard and strong.  During the night it will become 

SNOW

so…again we Go.  but it's all really,  just Compost.  Compost.  That which Gives.  I try to learn.

 

 

 

 

 

to Repeat:

"The word doesn't translate.  It is used in Spanish to designate that mysterious little area in the bullring that catches the fancy of the fighting bull when he charges in.  He imagines it his sanctuary:  when parked there, he supposes he cannot be hurt….So it is,  borrowing the term,  that one can  speak of one's "querencia" to mean that little, unspecified area in life's arena where one feels safe, serene."       William F. Buckley              Racing Through Paradise

These words had huge significance to me when i first came to New Mexico.   When,  leaving for almost a year,  then coming Back.  When i moved here,  to this small acre,  Great meaning.  When driving back Home from the visit to my mother in Minnesota.   And last,  when driving home from the airport long term parking lot after flying to San Diego for my granddaughter giving birth to her son.   The woman in the parking booth, collecting fees,  asked me where i'd been.  I told her and she said   "Oh,  and you had to come back",  and i burst into tears and cried all the way home down I-25.

In a conversation with Cynthia, she gave these words…."entering the arena of the old".

Entering the arena of the old.

these words have sifted through all the rest.  Entering the arena of the old.  I am that child down at the creek,  the invincible 17 year old,  the first time mother of 26 years,  the restless woman of 39 years,    the one who set out i don't know what year and then….the one who just went.  For a long time.  A long time of Just Going.  but now…..

Threshhold.  A place between Here and There.  From where i am to where i will go:  Entering the arena of the old.   Here i am.  and funny…i have always love the Idea of it,  since i was a child.  But arriving with no turning back,  well…..it's going to take some Work.   

the Goats.  The Goats were/are a kind of Basket to put things in because they are so Obviously a Change and so so FULL of all manner of things.  But i really think the Goats are not It at all.  It is that realization of the Threshhold.  So.  OK.   The Goats are PART of IT,  but really,  its the sense of  Finite.   Such finite time,  so much to love              and How Best to Love It.

Today,  the Dog Cloth arrived at Wendy's.   It was Worked in the Sand Tray.  "it was buried and unburied and there was howling and barking".    

any time i look in her direction,  she is looking Back at me

the Roots go

the blue….water….is it something that needs to be here?  I don't know.  Maybe

 

 

 

 

but i didn't.  Either time.  I made a different choice.   There are all manner of Views about how it goes with Life.   That it's Random,  and nothing means any more than anything else.  That it's the Luck of the Draw and as Jude said about a Cloth she made that i bought,  "maybe it's a hand you dealt yourself",  and then there's Sacred Contract,  Carolynn Myss and then the buddhist teaching of Karma.  No matter,  off and on we find ourselves at a crossroad.

Who would EVER have guessed that i would have ended up here,  in my 69th year in Polvadera,  New Mexico with 17 Goats.  Four years ago,  i would have never guessed.  But then,  really,  through no direct CHOICE,   it Was.   All i actually DID was Just Go.  Doing what was clearly Next.  

So.

All this living with a herd of Goats is a real challenge for me.  I am really not cut out for it.  I have too many Feelings.   Sometimes the FEELINGS fill up the entire day.  Sometimes the entire night too.   Today i finally dialed the Vet to come to draw TenZen's blood to test for CAE,  CL,  Tuberculosis,  Brucellosis and Q fever as the Dog Trainer Jan has requested before she uses him to breed her does.   Capturing TenZen and HOLDING him still enough for a blood draw will be traumatic for him,  I THINK.   Goats here are not ever required to do things that scare them.  He will be scared.  Only for a little while and then it will be only a memory but still…..I seem to have a Thing about scaring animals.  People who raise livestock don't.  Jan the dog trainer doesn't.  the Vet doesn't.  Anyone else i know who raised dairy goats doesn't.  So here i am.  Me and my Feelings.  

And then,  Jan the dog trainer UPs the Ante. (sp?)  She would also like to buy one of the Registered Does.  These would be the Daughter's does.  My mind SPINS!   Who????WHICH doe?????  EEEEE and i slow self down and think.   There is all of it i have said before here and a million more times in my head about the Purpose of these Goats,  the Dairy Goats being to give milk to feed people who need Goats milk.  From the beginning,  when daughter first began,  this was the Mission.  Milk.  That is what the heritage of these Goats here brings.  Milk.  Milk for People.  Here,  no one is in milk  because again my FEELINGS.  So.   They just are having a life.  It's a good life.  But what about Purpose?  And then,  right now i am able to work enough to care for them.  What happens if i cannot?  What happens if i can't keep cleaning those 4 houses  until i die?  What about that?  Pretty much,  our Life Spans,  me and these Goats are the same now.  Give or Take.  But if i die first,  the ones left will be old and it will be ok.  i guess.  Close enough to ok.

So…do I let Jan the dog trainer take one of the daughter's does?  My guess is that she would want Caroline or Lucky Star.  So….which?  Caroline is a very excellent Goat.  She kids twins.  She is not particularly attached to her kids.  Weans them herself.  She was easy to milk last year and gave plenty of sweet sweet milk.   She doesn't love being milked but is ok with it.  The more she is bred and milked,  the more she will be ok with it.  But she is one of the first that daughter bred that she was excited about.    Then,  good old Lucky Star who is a Dreamer Goat.  She is different and is the one that came from Outside this herd and worked so so hard for her place within it.  Lucky Star…I would never breed her again even tho she might be the Best for Milk,  because she kids 4.  The mother of Just Going that i wrote about the other day.  To me,  4 kids are agony of What to DO with them.  But then,  Jan would not have those feelings.  She would 
"cull" any bucklings at birth.  

as for the rest,  even though there is a lot of trepidation about how i will be able to Care for them,  i am in this moment unable to let them go.  Ginger is daughter's favorite.  Little Grace is a terrible Goat to try to milk.   Snowbunny, Oona and Onday,  well,   they just live here.  Period.  And then the young ones,  they are not registered,  so for the moment are  not a part of this Equation.  

so this is where i am tonight.  

 

 

 

 

 

that would be me,  today.   It was 58 degrees….beauty Full,  a slight breeze,  just enough to like how it felt in the hair.   

wood box filled for the two upcoming work away days

 

lentil, carrot and turnip uhhh,  stew, i guess.  Can be altered over the next days to become soup of many kinds.  Just add one additional ingredient.

Sydney and her daughter Talulah came to return my pot that the holiday posole was in.  They brought their new puppy,  Bay,  who is a mini Australian Shepard.  Only a few months old.  The size maybe of Tay's head and neck, if that.    Small.  And i can report that Tay, once again, was a Very Very GOOD dog.  She was thrilled and did her Entire World Circling many many times before being able to zero in and poke the puppy and then fly back out,  then in and once the puppy felt like she was not threatened,  they ……played…..   It was very beautiful,  the playing,  the happiness.  The trust and openness.  I should have taken pictures.  Although Tay was so much bigger and faster and crazyer,  she never once hurt the pup althought there was a LOT of physical contact…nosing,  lifting, nibbleing.  Tay was completely gentle and aware.  Very Very GOOD dog Tay.   

and part of the well roundedness was  to finally spend time collecting  Good dog Tay's shits.  This is the first time i've had to do this.  I hardly ever noticed the little dogs leavings and even Chinche's.  But because Tay has trampled the dried grasses down flat,  well and so, Big Dogs have Big Shits.  Gathered into empty feed bags and off to the dump one of these days.  So that was a good accomplishment.  

More painting on those – – – – – – – windows.  Whaaaaa.  it will Never be Over

and I began the Roots…just to see how it might go.   So much more to do

as it neared the Rim,  SUN was warm and loving.  Enough to hold me through whatever is next.

AND I FORGOT!!!!!

another very large Curve in the well roundedness was  what i Woke To this morning….a knowing about the Old Cowboy which must have come from the dreaming,  because it was just There and so clear and so Right.   He has a walker thing,  with wheels and a seat that i got him maybe 3 years ago or so.  He uses it to get around in his home.  To go to appointments away from home.  But the truth is that even that is becoming hard when going to appointments.  He is worn to a frazzle just by going such short distances.  In the near future he will need to go to his doctor for a renewal of his modest blood pressure medicine.  He also needs to go to the bank to sign me in with his bank box there.  And trudging with the walker is exhausting for him.  Frightening for him.  His fear of falling seems to increase day by day.  This morning,  i realized that it's TIME to get a "transport" wheel chair.  One of the ones that is very light weight and can get him in and out of Places.  

Every morning now begins with my calling him at about 10 oclock to see if he answers the phone.  If he doesn't,  i would drive in there to go into his house and see if he was dead or just crashed on the floor somewhere and not be able to get to the phone.  So when i called this morning,  i told him that i was going to order one of these lightweight wheelchairs.  Just Do it.  and though in the past he would say that it's not time,  he was, this morning,  Thrilled and Relieved and Excited,  thinking he could go do these things Without Fear!  So.  Ordered.  Good old Amazon will have it delivered.

 

 

most of the Day was just this.  The marks that to me tell how SUN is .  Not today, because SUN was loving and warm and everywhere.  But how Sun is when it becomes hidden in Winter.  In the days of Looks Within.  Stitch.  Stitch.  Stitch.  I use only a single strand of the 6 strand floss, so catching the oh so thin strand with the back stitch is not all that easy.  Maybe could feel tedious,  but no,  i am catching it as best i can.   So here,  the color is tweaked so the  vague sense of Sun can be seen

but the day began with reading The Anthropology of Turquoise.   What a MIND this woman had/has.   I am stunned.  Stunned by her mind which constantly talks to me about my own experience.  In the beginning,  i read and thought…TOO MANY WORDS…like when Mozart played his opus for the King and then at the end,  asked the King what he thought and the king paused so long and said that Yes.  It was Wonderful,  but really,  maybe …"Too many Notes"  and Mozart was crushed and confused.  and i began reading this book,  thinking…Too many Words ….but then soon, i realized that this was how her head was.  Filled .  Filled.  Filled…..with Things of this world.  Sensations, Images,  Connections and i found myself falling into a rhythm with her.  and saying YES!  YES!  i understand.

"The eye spreads light softly in the retina, across blood and long stemmed nerves that resemble frilled balloons or leggy trees of bladder kelp.  These nerves, called ganglion and bipolar cells, fled the cranium;  they are actually parts of the brain that now live in the eyes.  Towards the back of the retina, light reaches intrincately sensitive photoreceptors that sort out, for example, a red sensation from a blue one."

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

and from something else alltogether,  

Querencia:

The word doesn't translate.  It is used in Spanish to designate that mysterious little area in the bullring that catches the fancy of the fighting bull when  he charges in.  He imagines it his sanctuary:  when parked there, he supposes he cannot be hurt….So it is, borrowing the term, that one can speak of one's  "querencia" to mean that little,  unspecified area in life's arena where one feels safe, serene."   William F. Buckley    Racing Through Paradise

it came.

and also, Three Bees came.  In.  Through the space around the door of the Room to the Way Back.  It is really great to see bees anytime, really,  but that they were coming IN the house through that spacious crack,  well….i am wondering if they have established a hive UNDER the house?…which they tried to do once before but i thwarted them with moth balls in a sock?   So i am watching.