windthread

 

 

WINDOWS today.  Closer to the end.   No wonder no one wants to do this…it's compulsive,  finicky work.  But one is ready for the final blue color.  The other is ready by tomorrow for the Primer.    Slow windows like slow cloth.  one small detail after another while slurping pomegranate seeds and Juice,  the Juice.

Lots of Goat talk.   Jan, the dog trainer,  wants to "use" one of the bucks for her does.  She is very particular,  as she Should be,  because she supplies milk to people,  but very particular  and i will find out in the next days which buck she wants to "use"   (Oh THRILL for them)  And even tho this is a Closed Herd,  has always been a Closed Herd,  i will get the Vet here to do the blood draw for the testing of 5 things.   That's some over $100 but worth it to me.  I want them to be of Use.  Use in the Larger  Sense of the word.  

Then,  Kelly that took Magic and Barbara.   A message machine message from her.  I think she is probably ready to breed too.

Oh and eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.   I almost would rather be quietly in the Underworld with Hades.

If i told you what i dreamed last night you would never never come back here.  You would delete immediately.

But so, we Go.  

 

 

and as i typed that,  i thought about what i MEAN by blank…asked self,  what do you Mean?????

and really, blank means no Cloth Making.  so i'm thinking about that.   These  kinds of days are anything But blank.  They are full to the brim.  With doing Necessities.  So, thinking.  Do i want to change things so Cloth Making can become a primary Necessity?   A hard question.

Tazmeena in an altered state absorbing First Sun on a recently protected scrap basket.  For days she was upset because the scraps were now under a single piece of cloth.  It changed everything for her and she didn't like it.  This morning she gave in.

Grief.  the holes are too big to ignore.  Handling the snow wood wore them through.   They have become so soft and perfect.  They are very large,  men's gloves but have been the Best.  Can i figure out a way to Mend them?

Sun through the orange shirt that Vicky of Cat in the Batt.blogspot loves…how it's just So orange but also for whatever reason continues to appeal to me???????

That's it.  Work away at Allan's who promised he'd be gone but wasn't and ended up showing me his latest hoola hoop routine for the well being of his back and long discussion about how to feel about mice in the home and and and then, back home,  a LOT of Goat Phone Talk  followed by WOOD.  WOOD really ruled.  Fire is snapping.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

nothing to show. Work away. Grocery store. Home to still frozen hoses to the water tubs.  I could have showed you goat poop in Nogal and Tenzin's water tub.  WHY DO THEY DO THAT???????????????

they are Goats.  it just flies out.  

brushing off wood,  bringing In.  Just enough till tomorrow afternoon when i can do better.

Driving the freeway to the work away job in San Antonio and gazing off over the Scape of the Land how it is covered with snow still,  how that snow will slowly seep into the Earth and sustain things for SO LONG to come…this much.  Really,  is such GOODNESS.

 

Frida.  she  may be with Us   here for awhile

I had to let go of what i was doing Inside my Self and do what needs to be done.  I set the window up on a sheet that covered the bathroom mirror, that covers the bathroom sink and put the strips of tape.  Then i painted.  Painted the Premium Primer that is said to block heavy stains for fewer topcoats.  

hmmmm.

but i did it.

and brought in wood that had been saturated by SNOW,  setting it on end in  hopes it would dry easier.   Enough for just tomorrow morning.  Tomorrow is a work away day and before i go,  i will need to see to the Goats.  When i arrive back home,  i can see how much of the Snow has melted on the wood.  No way to know.  No way to know what it means,  snow melting,  …?   Does it mean the wood is too wet to burn?   I don't know.  I'll find out.

 

 

 

 

 

when i got up the temperature  thingy that Nurse Cindy gave me said 8 degrees OutSide and 44 In.

in 2 and a half hours and burning all the wood left InSide the house,  we have progressed to 15 degrees Out with SUN coming strong and 61 InSide.  I have paced back and forth.  The torn pics are doing their work.   

When my kids were young,  Frida was my heroine.  So this would probably be very telling about the Mother i was for them.   I know i also wounded them.  Not at all in the same way as my own mother,  but i am sure i did, if you were to ask them,  if they were able to articulate experience as Wound.  But i also very fiercely and exhuberantly loved them.  They could also say this.   But i was a little Wild.  Maybe a lot…, not really sure,  but some degree of Wild.   I remember my daughter staring at me with accusing eyes and my saying to her  "Wolves bite their pups".  

So am beginning this day looking at Colors and Shapes and Frida Kahlo.  Coming to terms.  and wanting to finish those windows because i feel a Cloth coming on.

 

 

 

 

 

by the time i got Out this morning,  the snow,  which had been Pure and Untouched looked like this.  This is a   witnessing of what Tay's mornings are like.

the Raft

and i know that people in other parts of the world have SNOW,  still…this is south central Rio Grande Valley, New Mexico.   wha.

i woke at about 2 something a.m. and the fire was out.  Though i knew i shouldn't,  i looked Out Side and saw the world illuminated by a moving veil of falling snow.   So i twisted newspapers and started the fire again and looked Out more.  Just standing there looking.  I could see that it was falling in a direct slant from the North East.  This meant directly to the un covered part of Gideon and Sunny Ray's rudimentary shelter.   I alternated between tending the fire and Looking Out.  

I thought about the dream i'd been having where i am trying to get my mother's attention about my concern to do laundry,  about needing to go to the laundromat,  but she is ignoring me,  as if she can't even hear me, see me.  And i am going on and on when suddenly i realize there is a washer and dryer There,  right there in the house and i could do my laundry there,  and i am happily telling her this as she continues to totally ignore me,  not be aware that i am telling her this good discovery and then suddenly there are these two men,  one totally shadowy and in the background but the other a kind of Mickey Rourke kind of guy although i can't see his face clearly,  but there is that sleazy kind of crazy and maybe dangerous quality to his friendliness and he tells me he is taking my mother for a few days "vacation" to Cypress (?)  and he takes hold of her arm and she is moving off with him as if she is anesthesized and i'm trying to say this is not ok but my voice only has sound Inside myself, not Outside.  So they go out of the house and this is my old house from my other life in Ann Arbor, Michigan…same house…and they are getting into the car in the driveway when suddenly Mickey Rourke's friend brings my neighbor Margie's 11 year old grandson to the door who has a very large piece of luggage on wheels and says he is staying with me while they're gone and i am protesting and put my hand out against the boy when he bites me…has a very round small mouth with sharp pointed teeth and he bites my index finger.   And then the scene changes,  must be some time later, and Adrian, the neighbor kid and i are coming down the street toward the house, exact same house i used to live in,  and it's snowing and windy and i am carrying a Very Large metal pizza pan and the wind is catching it making it hard to control it and my self and i see that there are some things in the street,  the very very snowy street,  lit by the street lamp on the corner, and realize they are stuffed animals,  medium size,  and i wonder about this but go inside then look out to see motorists slowing, being confused by them,  stopping, getting out and checking them out then just going on.  This happens a few times.  This is when i woke up to find the fire out and the snow falling.   And i wish i could say that i found the snow globe scene OutSide beautiful but i did not.  There just was this sense of anxiety for the Goats,  particularly SunnyRay and Gideon that was maybe a 5 on a scale of 1-10….which is my kind of mean for anxiety when i experience it.  So i took this 3 component cloth off the wall and got an already threaded needle and invisible stitched it all together.  I will say that i am still a little lost and preoccupied in the New Years thoughts of child wound,  of shame,  of my different sense of all of it as the person i am in this Here and Now.  I am working with this.  It's work.   Back to doing the ReView ,  but of Everything now.

And because i agreed with self that i cannot begin a cloth until i finish those Windows,  and because there was no way i could paint the primer today with Tay spending a lot of the day inside,  i just looked at things.  I think this is ok and maybe even good.  

 

i have folders of these scraps of image torn from magazines and catalogs.  I like them because looking at them like a slide show sometimes frees an image of my own…just the colors and shapes…

 

scraps on the wall

this was in the torn page folder

so, i'm Somewhere.  And everyone made it through the night and through the late morning of dumping snow from the feed bowls,  breaking the ice.  We made it.  We were startled and unsure, but SUN DID RISE,  strong and warm and some of it has melted away.  Tomorrow i will need to shovel away what's there from around Gideon's small shelter.  And try to find someone who i can hire to drag in the FreeCycle solid wood doors to add to the existing structure.  "They" say that February this year will be FULL of Weather.  I don't want to repeat last night.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the Grass Persons.  One of Three of the fiber figures i kept.  The Grass Persons were the only ones that were repeated.   All the other figures were one of a kind.  the Archtypal Energies would repeat, but they were all individual.  The Grass Persons were a clan.  So similar, they were Same.  Because of their huge importance to me.  Their huge Constancy and…i think now, in light of Patricia's word,  their Steadfastness.   Without clump grass the earth would constantly rearrange and not be able to develop ecosystems that HOLD life.  Grass.  Not grass as planted in lawns,  but Wild grasses.  Native Grasses.   

I love her seed face.  I love how one hand gives and one hand receives.  That balance of Giving and Receiving being at the crux of it all.  There is no measuring.  There is no asking.  There is no angst. As in the words of Annie Dillard,  "receiving the given with a fierce and pointed will".

 

 

same view as yesterday,  but More.

 

 

 

 

Out at the Raft

the One who was different things to different people,  made of Herself a cradle for the snow

 

 

and the Mirror on the Ghost Chair reflected back to Sun

Tay carried her Circle Stick everywhere with her today.

Moisture.  which is …. Life.   Came.  and we looked and saw it and we labored amidst it,  me and the Goats.  Mid day it began to just go.  Just Go into the earth.  But now,  as i write this,  more is drifting silently down.  Water.  Water in the form of Snow.  Everything here depends on Water in the form of Snow.  Forms. Depending.  Laboring amidst.  

 

 

 

First day of the Winter Month.    By early afternoon it was gone.  More to come tomorrow.  

i spent the day being still.  Having thoughts and staying with them a while.  And i  read.  I tried to get a feel for Where I Am right now.   What was clear is that since Tay came my regular meditation practice has gotten lost.   I  am Experiencing that in all ways.   Time to go back and i thought, with all the recent flow  i want to begin again with some  time of Tonglen.   And because he is so concise,  I  looked in Sogyal Rinpoche's  Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.    "Put very simply, the Tonglen practice of giving and receiving is to take on the suffering and pain of others and give them your happiness, well-being and peace of mind.    And in the preliminary step,   Self Tonglen,   you divide yourself into two aspects.  The aspect of you that is whole.  The second the aspect of self that is fragmented,  disturbed in any way.   The first breathes in the fragmented and exhales compassion and well being.  So for now,  this is enough.   And since mornings belong to Tay,  i will need to reorient to early evening.  This in itself will take a lot of practice.

And then i look again in Buhner's Plant Intelligence at the  exercise of the Inner Council.  " The point of the council exercise is to begin to work as one unified whole,  as a group of integrated consciousness modules who interact companionably together."  This done by Visualization to identify the many Parts of your self…which includes the child.  Even the infant.  Not all might be "human".  they might be trees or birds or plants."   at first to establish dialoge with them and then relationship.   And so,  as i was also re reading Women Who Run With the Wolves,  Clarissa Pinkola~Estes…..about the Scar Clan,  this worked and also works with that thing i said the other day about maybe looking to establish a personal mythology.     None of this is "new".  But what DOES feel new is the place i find myself now…of the old woman.    Beginning the Time of the old woman.  There is a great sense of Freedom to this.   And maybe most of all,  there is for the first time no pre identified "goal".   It's all for nothing but

Just Going.  to Wherever it is we go.   

This feels Expansive and Full of the Unknown.

and while daydreaming all this,  i drew this,  a Grass  Person….and she was not Long enough so i had to cut and add a section of her…tape it in.   I don't know if i like her eyes.  I want her to be more like that Fiber Figure….amorphous.   She's in a drawer somewhere.  I'll get her out tomorrow.

 

 

 

one of two baskets like this.  Tazmeena is Felting scraps with her sleep,  her dreaming.  They are dirty from her.  Felted cat hair blended in.   I will need to wash them one by one to use them.  Well, her dreams are worth it.   And because it's the Eve of how we perceive the Year,  the Eve of a New Year,  i cleaned.   Cleaning for the New tomorrow.  Artificial lines, yes,  but it's ok and good.  It gives a place to see as ending and beginning.  And it feels ok.  

when i finish writing here,  i will go to the Morning Chair.  Settle with my pen and 2 calenders and shift anything that might need to be noted from this last year onto the new.    This is how i RE VIEW what has come before.  How i note what i should remember.  I like it.  It's a deep deep Satisfaction.

and as if by Magic,  the Paulus Berrensohn book arrived at the Post Office today.  Fortunately, the car started.  It was VERY COLD last night.  So i whizzed over and here.  Those dark spots on the cover are from Tay's tongue.  She tasted the book.  They dried and now are gone.

so i will look tonight and tomorrow.  The book is for my daughter who has always thought she might throw pots.  But who never has.  Maybe this will nudge her toward that dream.  I'll send it to her on Friday.

and as it Is.   Here we are.  It has been SOME YEAR.  So HUGE and so MUCH in SO MANY ways and always,  always,  as Jude says….commited,  so deeply and lovingly commited to 

Just Going.

So,  in the Spirit of that,  of Just Going,  i end this 2014 year and Thank Everyone from the deepest deepest place inside of me for going along next to me,  for letting me go next to you.  Letting us Touch and Wonder.

Such Giant and Great and Excellent Love to All of Us,  yes?,  yes.  yup. yes.

 

 

 

 

 

thinking.  Feeding the Fire and thinking.  This morning, and now, at the end of this day.  Shame.

The Dog Cloth.  Wendy's kids.  What i have in common with them.  How i think of Shame,  what it Means to me, even though i am "old" now and they are so Young.  How i was young.

The words came:  "of course.   You are a shameless heathen."   as a child.

How shame is such a Tool of our culture.  Christianity.

Being brought up in the Baptist born again culture.  How the sermon on Sunday morning would be to "educate and instruct" but on Sunday evening,  different.  How the second to the last song from the hymnal would be T he Old Rugged Cross.   "On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross,  the emblem of suffering and shame…."  This singing was so we could become sufficiently miserable for the final call to the altar,  singing Just As I am,  the preacher beseeching us to come forward and give ourselves to Jesus.  How i was,  so early in my life,  very silently repusled by all of this.  How False it all seemed.  How ugly, really.

I was a shameless heathen.  And since my mother had told me that the age of SEVEN is the age of accountability,  and without having been told this yet…about accountability,  i was startled to hear her tell me that the only unforgivable sin was to doubt the existence of God…and it was startling, because i already HAD.  Doubted.  so i found out too late and it was unforgivable…so…..

this morning i am thinking about how i felt then,  hearing this,  knowing my own EXPERIENCE….which was to Doubt.   and i am thinking about it all,  having a mother who i cannot remember one single image of Loving from….none of this i'm writing here is New,  it's old stuff,  but i cannot remember a single experience of my mother loving me,  being happy about me,  wanting anything for me other than to be saved from burning in hell

What chance does a kid have?  To find their way of Just Going?,  in this milieu? (sp)  What chance?

But SOMEHOW,  in some odd way,  these things rolled off me.  Similar to Tay.  is it that because of experience,  there is something that is really PRE Shame?  That positions one to be almost immune to shame?…to notice it,  but not be crushed by it?  A kind of Pre Shame?….where even at such a very young age,  you feel so isolated by where you find yourself living that it  somehow doesn't really HURT?

I had the creek.  The woods.  This is where i Lived.  This was my world.  I would escape from that place where those people were,  my mother, my father,  the church people were.   I would go down the back hill to the creek.  When i Had to be UP there with them,  i would go to those National Geographics in the attic and i would look to the point of mindlessness at the pictures of peoples that were "heathen".  They were so Beauty FULL to me.  Their dioramas.  They made so much sense and i knew myself to be Of Them,  somehow mistakendly finding myself where i was…

But down at the creek.  This was my Home.  And i was loved there,  by that creek,  the forest there.

so.

i think about how we are a culture of Shaming.  For the most prominent example,  how the Mayor of New York is being Shamed by police officers turning their backs to him.  Shame is alive and Well in our culture,  in our country.  It is an excellent tool of Control.  We are all so vulnerable to shame.

 So…i will keep thinking about this.  But in this Next Year,  this New Year,  maybe i will think about creating some new personal mythology that can be Anything At All.  Just Anything At All.  and i will also create one  pinch pot.