windthread

Work away day. Off balance because they were at Home. In out Out in and off balance.  and Back,  HOME here,  with words of a COLD FRONT coming,  i set to work.  Cleaning water Bowls…scrubbing with brush and Vinegar.  Moving  Sunny Ray and Gideon's Water Thing down,  some feet,  to where SUN comes in mornings now.   

This morning it was a three kettle morning.  Heating three tea kettles on the stove…taking Out and pouring it on the frozen ice of their water.  Banging it.  with the stick i like,  but then with the shovel.  Breaking the ice so they had water which is a necessity after they  Eat Food.

and i went to work.

Came home to split and bring in Wood.  They say that an Arctic Blast is coming,  and ok,  maybe,  so i split and bring in Wood.  

Tomorrow when i go into town for the Old Cowboy,  i will take the pick up.  Get bedding straw for the Buck Goats…it's all and what i can give them,  offer them.   It's not what i WANT for them which would be Comfort…Warmth…Safety.  But i can't give those things.  They are on their own.  

in her comment on yesterday's post,  Patricia said…."how steadfast you are."   And  when i read those words,  i was full of feeling.  Full of ….what?   Full of i guess Thankfull ness  to be thought of as

Steadfast.

how beauty full is this,  i feel.  Steadfast.  Steadfast.  I don't know what all to think of it yet.

But then, the day rolled along and into its Self and i finished everything with the Dog cloth and rolled it into it's mailing tube.  Taped.  Addressed.  Ready.

and all the while,  i thought about the word    Shame.   I thought about it because there is a very vibrant and vibrating Thread that is wanting attention,  wanting movement and wanting me to See it  and Come with it.   It's very alive.   It has to do with why all of a sudden i had wanted to send this Dog Cloth.  

I have no clue, really,  what's going on.  None.  But i do know that this has come up over and over with this Dog Tay.  Most dogs you can shame.  You can tell them they are a bad dog and they  cast their eyes aside,  their tails droop.  They stand…waiting for some indication that they are forgiven.  Tay does not do this.  and it has been of interest.   Only a few times i have tried to "shame" her by telling her she is a BAD dog.  It doesn't work.  She stands there.  Totally focused on my face,  totally Alert and stares at me.   I "hear" her saying …"What?"   She knows what i'm talking about.  And sometimes she chooses to accomodate me by not doing,  so much,  what i tried to shame her for.  But really,  sometimes she decided to continue.  Many things,  and the really important things, she understands easily and finds reasonable.  Accomodates these things.   Somethings not.  And i watch myself loving her for this.   As she stares into my eyes asking "What?"  i stare back,  until i get over my annoyance and  just,  well,   love her.   Her body softens.  She puts her head on my lap or against my hip.  Done.  and we just go.  So what does this all MEAN?  She doesn't have any sense of being a Bad Dog.  and also, really,  she is not at all impressed by me saying Good Dog.  That rolls of her like rain.  Good Dog/Bad Dog   Doesn't mean a thing.  She's Tay.  She likes Love.  She likes herSelf.  She likes Just Going.   She likes Just Going the most.  

 

another passing of this Thread.  This is from Michelle…her holiday card…and so.  I go back.  I go back to Clarissa Pinkola Estes,  Women Who Run With the Wolves,  to Baba Yaga.  I will go back to Baba Yaga's House.  Ok.  so and Ok.

 

This is also from Jan.

"from Anam Cara by John O'Donohue.  pg. 94

There are endless stories about ghosts and spirits.  One finds an enthralling weave of stories about the independence and structure of the spirit world.  The human body has come out of this underworld.  Consequently, in your body,  clay is finding a form and shape that it never found before.  Just as it is an immense privilege for your clay to have come up into the light,  it is also a great responsibility.

in your clay body,  things are coming to expression and to light that were never known before, presences that never came to light or shape in any other individual.   You represent an unknown world that begs you to bring it to voice.  Often the joy you feel does not belong to your individual biography but to the clay out of which you are formed.  At other times you will find sorrow moving through you, like a dark mist over a landscape.  The sorrow is dark enough to paralyze you.  It is a mistake to interfere with this movement of feeling.  It is more appropriate to recognize that this emotion belongs more to your clay than to your mind.  It is wise to let this weather of feeling pass;  it is on its way elsewhere.  We so easily forget that our clay has a memory that preceded our minds, a life of its own before it took its present form.  Regardless of how modern we seem,  we still remain ancient sisters and brothers of the one clay.  In each of us a different part of the mystery becomes luminous."

the Question:  How Real is this Internet.  This Web?  Faux Real? or Real?  Like,  really Real.  

the Answer:  it is Really Real.  period.

This name come Up into my awareness,  Out of the Blue.  Paulus Berensohn.  Never heard it before.

I am sitting here in Polvadera New Mexico USA  Earth  and this name appears to me.  I google.  Oh Lordy.

Jan sends me a dvd.  To Spring from the Hand.  the life and philosophy of Paulus Berensohn.  Who is 80 this year.   YOU can google him.  

I watch it.  I watch it.  I watch it.

I call Scott,  who is the Potter that brings his things from Carrizozo to our Farmer's Market here in Socorro and ask…………..do you have a little bit of Clay you can bring me?, so i can make a Pinch Pot?

This morning i took a shower when this house was still so Cold and i got dressed Early and i fed the Goats Early and i broke their water Early and i left…Tay and Chinche at the gate and i went into town to the Winter Saturday Morning Market and was THE ONLY PERSON THERE,   it was COLD,

and Scott brought me two bags of clay.  Messilla Valley clay.

In the dvd Mary Oliver speaks her words,  how she wants her friend Paulus to make her a begging bowl.  I don't want to make a begging bowl.  but I want to make a pinch pot.  I do.

 

Mike and Thelma came, bringing tamales and Australian Yellow Tail wine.  Tay began their visit as usual,  running in and out of the dog door,  running up to them then away,  whirling.  But very quickly as they sat on the futon couch,  she came over next to me in the rocking chair and stood.  I asked her to sit and she did.  And for the rest of their visit (very short),  she sat quietly just looking at them.   So,  HUGE success with her social skills.   After they left, she collapsed for a long nap.

and Tazmeena spent the day with us.  Not her usual seclusive self,  but going about, here and there and calmly,  so Tay just watched,  no need to Nose her.

other than a few stray stitches,  it's done.   Will fly off in the mail on Monday.  This makes me very happy.

It was a very Good day.

 

it began this morning with a conversation with Wendy.  Golden Levitt.   which Might have been about the Dog Cloth,  but wasn't.  It wasn't even about the children.   The conversation had a life of Its Own and just went…like the flow of a River…that momentum,  that swiftness.   It was about Goats.  It was about how i feel myself in relation to the Goats and then it went somewhere else that is how i see my self with my self and how my self is so truly related as Kin to that child self that is now related to the Goats and Dancing out,  Dancing Out such a long and beauty Full story.   If i would try,  i really couldn't in this moment say what the words were to the exchange.  It just Went.  Words.  Questions from her that were from a very loving and deep curiosity for the Way of How it Is, to my answers that were of that single moment and really unformed.  Just questions of Wonder that opened Space for answer to become Born.  

and then from that,  so fast,  too fast,  i had to go feed Allan's cats and then go to Sydney's house just down the road.  Sydney of Sydney and Jamie and now Sydney and Sheila.  Sydney and Jamie, you might remember being the two mothers of Talulah who broke up and now Sydney is partners with Sheila.  But we were all there.  They weren't planning on anything but in the last minute decided to COOK.  Could i come?  and i thought.  Part of me said no…don't want to.  But then part said Hey Why not?  So i went and we had a Best and very Great time EATING things…sausages stuffed with  things, squash and green beans,  lentil soup,  bread,  good bread  FISH,  very great and excellent FISH and walnut pie.  And Talulah is now Nine Years Old and a whole different Person and there were 5 dogs from a pup of 4 months to the old Grandpa Dog.

and the exact moment i got home there was a call from the across the road neighbor Margie to come to the Gate for Food and her son brought a plate of food from their day including this beauty FULL cup full of jello and bananas

and just moments after,  as i was working to clean and refill the Bucks water bowls Kelly was at the gate bringing a tin of something that i haven't even looked at yet but that she said to put in the refrigerater and i did

and it's 6:26 pm  and dark.   And it was all a complete Surprise.  a total and complete Surprise and the most Excellent and Very Fine Day.

 

 

Though i have let go of Christmas for some years now,  there is still the sense of Eve.  I always seem to feel the Eve of days more strongly.  Maybe the cultural imprint of Christmas that i have been born into.  So there is a softness as Sun moves surely to the Rim.  

 

the fire this morning was particularly Beauty Full,  a whole world in there,  glowing.

stitched most of the day….adding those thread marks that speak to me of what we commonly refer to as  "air" ,  but what really is a vibrating substance that contains so much.  that surrounds us constantly and informs our bodies of  much that is unConscious unless we choose to Open to it.  

more Light

many many small stitches.  Very close to Finished.   it is So how she is.  Dog.  at the Finest.  She  is Dog.

 

all day at Work Away,  i thought about the words:  Giving  mySelf  Permission.   It never went any further.  As  in maybe,  Permission for/to _________.    Fill  in the blank.   I just stayed with those three words.   And they somehow have to do with that thing about   Seamless.   And seamless not meaning that there are no seams,  but rather that the seams are connecters,  but not dividers.  Good enough for now.  So when i finally made it home i saw that the temperature is going to DROP tonight and there will be some rain and then, most likely Snow during the night.  So although i wanted to give myself permission to do nothing much at all,  i instead backed up the truck and unloaded that Grass Hay to keep it dry.  Necessary.   This permission does not give room for not doing things that are Necessary.   That done,  and Goats fed,  i thought about what i should do with the remaining hours of Light…, 3,  and Did give myself permission to just look at this Cloth for a while as the late day SUN illuminated it

and i thought about whether or not i could give myself permission to make Cloths that had images that are not discernable as specific Things,  but just Forms.  

i looked at the wood box.  Half full and if there really IS snow,  eeeee so Splitting and Bringing in.  As i was carrying the last of it in i looked UP and

to the North

 

 

 

North East

 

 

East

 

 

 

the West.  So totally "normal"

 

and only MOMENTS later,  the North.   you can see.  my hand was shaking.   I have NEVER seen anything like this in my 25 some years here or my 69 years Here.  

Such Incredible Beauty.

 

 

it is as if my Entire Being breathes out a long long Sigh.  Now toward Light.   Soon enough dark will come four hours later.  Soon enough.

they go in and out that little doorway,  just to enjoy again their new straw bedding.

They were so mellow today.  Maybe they are like me.  Having some Goat thoughts about this day?  I spent a long time with them.  just sitting on the picnic table,  holding close, rubbing, scratching whoever came and there was no pushing or competition,  just a moving and changing of position.  I sang those songs of some other kind of language,  the songs they like to hear.  

i would like to be like this all the time … from November when that sense of contraction seems to begin…but i'm not.  And maybe i will just let that "demand"  go.  Maybe just accept that i just am not.  And simply wait for Solstice,  having Faith that it will come.  Maybe.

i sat and looked a long time too at the Raft.  At the clumps of dried grasses.  All the dried Kochia is now pulled and gone.  Some would say to cut the grasses back but i know that they are winter shelter for Beings and i also like them in this seasonal form.

all around,  in this Oasis,  Tay has changed things.  Pressed down the grasses like a deer would.  It's a small space but she has made trails through it.  It will be very different this coming spring.  After wintering with her presense.  I don't know what it will be like.

I would like there to be SunFlowers here.  A lot.  I don't know if that will happen.

maybe some Rocks will shelter seedlings?  Will hold water?

i don't know.   Maybe.

Half way up,  the colorful scraps.   They are from Nanette's  (stitchandsow-homeandgarden.blogspot.com).

,  from Nanette's pilgrimage to Mt. Kailash in Tibet last summer.  She saw them in a stream.  They had floated down from the Mountain and she asked permission to gather a few.  They are scraps from Prayer Flags.  She sent these Here.  I think how they began in Tibet,  arrived home with her in  Australia and now are here on this Raft.  I made Nettle tea this midmorning from Nettle leaves that Cynthia wild harvested in Vermont.  I sprinkled the spent leaves around the raft as a Blessing.  

And i realize how my "years" have come to go from Solstice to Solstice.  I am a SUN being,  of the Lizard Clan living in the body of a human woman.  So it goes.  I will think this year to accept parts of myself that are Inconvenient.  Just letting mySelf and everything go,  as is.

 

 

 

Seamless is the word.   I went for grass hay.  It should have taken maybe 20 minutes.  But on.  Into more than an hour.  Scratching at the bales,  which ones were part alfalfa?   Which had Johnsons grass? What about the bales that are almost all SUNFLOWER but maybe a little Milkweed?  Took a long time.  But when i returned,  i went to the Raft.

well,  after looking at the 
planets

hanging in the Apricot Tree

 

 

 

i talked.  Voice to Voice to Sparrow.  On the phone.  The telephone.  Telephone.

Then i went out and 

Burned

just small burning.  But i think enough.