windthread

the leaf got reinforced.  stitched with both very tiny walking stitch  and invisible baste  (Jude Hill) to a soft muslin backing.  it will remain independent.  

 

but THEN>>>>>stuff happened.   there are thread beads  (again, Jude Hill)  across the top…..and i think two more partial rows of the black underneath.  maybe.  

and a butterfly, made of WIND.  yes.  it's kind of kitsch~y  but…butterflies just are.  no way around it.  and this one, a spirit,  made of WIND….it's good.

The Leaf.  the leaf,  i love resting on the cradle of the cloth scrap.   it will not be stitched on.  but free.  i don't know why.  but it is what it is.   i thought as i stitched how often a chrysalis is within a leaf.  maybe this?  i don't know.  i feel ok about not knowing too.  

and then, as i was stitching the final thread beads across the top,  i just dropped a piece of black thread.  and it stopped me.  i looked.   long.   so….this is the thread of Divination.  Divination as in yarrow sticks for I Ching,  bones for the Yourba people,  Runes.   The thread of divination.  of Course!  what  WOULD it be for a Loom of Cloth,  an Instrument of Cloth,  a Theater of Cloth????

a thread.

just a single elegant thread.  Yes.  and Yup.  This is it.  So, the leaf and the thread are free,  but accompany the cloth.  accompany the cloth.  i like that.

 

 

 

so…WHY?  Why is this Leaf so important?   The Moon is in it's place.  done.  but this Leaf…this leaf.  What is it about the Leaf?   as Kathleen commented the other day, she smiled at it's movement.  well…today,  it went everywhere.  all places just fine and good,  but it kept moving.

and i say ,  WHAT?!….What, Leaf????   What are you Saying?????????

the strips are…hmmm,  firm.  like they would be,  if this were a real loom.  firmly in place.  firm.

they are invisibly basted,  but after my finger made them firm,  like would happen on a loom.  the feeling of doing that was great pleasure.  moving them in.  inTo one another.  it felt really really good.  the only strip loose now is the diamond/dot,  life of all things, strip.  i am not sure about that one.  will wait.

 

work away day.  and when i got there, on the kitchen counter next to the cobalt glass fruit bowl was a large paper shopping bag.   the above in it.  these are livestock water tank floats.  Copper.  now there are 5 here.  the first is in the diamond child buddha garden which is now the Woad garden,  child buddha having moved to the baby goat grave by the Raft.   the second hangs over Ramone's grave,  from the Desert Willow just outside the Inside gate.   now.  where do These go?  and How?

 

the oldest.  look at this corrosion.   the dents in it are from someone breaking ice in the water tank in Winter with a tool.

they are like Planets to me.

 

 

i don't know.  i don't know much of anything at all.  and today,  i made my Self stay OutSide.  like a kid.  when the Adult of the house says:  Go Out Side.  Find something to DO.   so…i did.  i stayed OutSide, all day.  when WIND came and was wreaking havoc,  i hunched over against the West Fence, by the Cucumbers.  Squated down.  watched stuff be buffeted to and fro.  and then…Wind would forget.  and there would be a time of softness and warmth and i would poke around.  just looking at stuff.  noticing.

 

the young Locust.  beginning to leaf.  the Praying Mantis Egg Case…

 

Mexican Elderberry.  Very leafy.

 

young Woad

 

baby Woad

 

how the dorky Morning Doves feed with the Goats.  can you see them?  like at twelve oclock?

there?…they like the seeds i guess,  dropped from when i distribute the hay between the 5 bowls.  the Goats no longer notice them.  Just accept them as part of their world.   and i found the bamboo back scratcher.  it was under the porch,  the front porch,  from when Julian was here.  he used it for many things.  and now,  i can use it for the Goat Taming Tool…like at Mustang Camp.  it is first.  before the human hand.   you say "can I Touch You?"  and extend the backscratcher ….scratching.

D!   and give a peanut.

 

Can i touch you?grace?D!and give a ……what?….what would be my "reward"??????

a Question for the Book of Wonder.   Who do Thoughts belong to?   

something was said that gave me pause,  about blogging.  about comment sections being group conversations about  her thoughts…the her,   being the blogger.   and i was surprised by how that surprised me.   applying it to this blog,  what was it that was Surprising?    i thought about it  a long time, am still thinking about it.    and i realized that i don't really claim any of the thoughts here as My thoughts.  Somehow, i think  of them as just this kind of Generic Stream of Consciousness…thinking about things that Anyone and Everyone thinks in the course of days of a life.  Nothing really amazing or in my case, interesting,  one day to the next.  just , well, thoughts.  I did have that one thought a while back that i was so happy about that i called my First original thought.  so…i had one.  but, One.   so Why put thoughts here?  

so i am thinking about this.  still.  and all i've come up with so far, is that it's a discipline of sorts for me.   that,  AND  i like having Company.  i do.  i like having company, come and go.  in and out.    again.  living alone and having few real conversations in my day to day life,  You who comment here are my world in a way.   is that pathetic?  Maybe.

 

so i stitched down the top of the loom.  it is now secure.  and i added a very significant thing that is hard to see here

 

that top strip.  it's resolved a LOT for me about that strip of COLOUR….that was completely Right, but also completely COLORFULL.  so now.  now it is good.  yes.  

 

 

 

 

 

put 3 of the tomato plants out

 

snap bean seeds in the Earth

 

and chard.  Gave Water.  and it's the same feelings as about the Goats….oh….they are 

out

there 

in the dark and windy hours…

of course they are, i say to self.   of course.  it's their Nature to be.   but still…the feelings

 

but look.  there are Many.  and how FIERCE, iris.   

 

 

small things now.  looking.  adding.  taking away.  Waiting.

 

 

 

 

i think this is Enough.  i don't want to cross the bottom,  close it in.  this feels right.

 

and now, i don't know about these scraps.  tomorrow.

OK.

i hope this comes across in the way i am experiencing it.   it would be a bummer, if not.  but it's the chance you take when you write it and press Publish.  

You know that i spend chunks of my week with Old People.   I visit Betty, who is Alz B., up at the Old Folks Home twice a week.  She will be 90 years old next month.  I have known her for i guess, i don't know, maybe 15 years?  I was employed by her son when he convinced her to move here.  Employed to clean her house,  but really, also to be her friend.    Do i need to add more detail?  I don't think so.  This should be enough.   Looking back, we can see that her dementia was getting a toe hold then.  It's been a slow progression.  Today she is unable to string words together into a sentence.  Unable,  really to even string phonetic sounds into words for the most part.  She has no control over her bodily functions.  She cannot stand.  She does not feed herself,  cannot locate her mouth.  She languishes.  

Her son and i have come to use the words:  Haughty Betty and Gone Betty when we report to one another about our visits with her.   i can't find that word in the dictionary…haughty…so it's misspelled i guess.  hope you get the drift.   Haughty:  better than.  snobbish.    Gone Betty is she who slumps totally sideways in her chair,  in some internal state of part sleep part consciousness.  and then, if you've read along,  there is Music Thursday Betty.  The Best Betty.  I don't need to make it better or worse than it is.  It's how it is for her.   So, i was there visiting Haughty Angry Betty early this morning.  and then i went to the Old Cowboy's.

The Old Cowboy is Robert.  Robert will be 85 on his birthday in June.    His story is too big to tell.  But he has experienced some recent moments that have somehow made him feel even more vulnerable than he needs to.  His lifelong friend is visiting for a few days to try to help sort things out.  I spent some hours with them today.   

how can i tell this…………………………….

The Friend and i are trying to portray reality as we see it.  Robert tho is STUCK in his own sense of things.  Much,  fear based.  Much  rising up from somehow being Surprised by his having reached this point in his life.   Throughout the conversations and lunch,  he would circle around to this one thought…"I've dug myself a deep deep hole".    By this,  he means that what has always worked out to be just an OK life,  suddenly is a life of an old physically weakening human being.  He sees this as a deep deep hole.  Ok.  is this enough to give the picture????  i think.

so i came home from that and fed the Goats.   Wind here is FIERCE today.  the dust blowing in sheets makes you feel a little crazy.  But over around and through the dust the SUN is Glorious,  the SKY is SKY BLUE…stunning.  the WIND days should abate soon.  

I took a short nap.

and as it goes,  i woke from the nap KNOWING something.  i woke from the nap KNOWING that these days,  that i am experiencing NOW are the Best, most Grand days i will have.  i am 68 years old.  so,  unlike other periods of time in my life,  i no longer can think of the Present as some period of time that can radically change into some other life entirely.  I have done that.  I have totally and completely CHANGED things.   But…i am not going to do that now.  Mostly because i have changed things to GET TO THE POINT I AM NOW.  THE PLACE I AM NOW.  so

here i am.

and here, the telling gets tricky.  i hope it's understood.   As Jude said yesterday,  a personal truth shared.

i woke from the nap with an oh so CLEAR and ELEGANT sense of my momentary life.  I am WHERE i want to be.  my days are GOOD and within my own ability to Navigate.  i have ENOUGH.  Enough of Everything needed.  i can buy the food i want.  i can GROW food.  i have two running vehicles (20 yrs old),  a car and a truck.  i have $700 monthy income from Social Security that pays my basic expenses.  i own the land i LIVE ON.  my Home is dry.  my Home holds my stuff.    my physical world here,  Goat fencing, septic, electric, water lines…WORK.  All the mundane.  Functioning.  glitches come and go but Functioning.

my physical self is aging.  yes.  but i am also Functioning.  really,  the best i have Ever.  i have learned HOW to work my body.   

i have come to a place within my self that i feel GROUNDED, well,  in a spiritual sense.  Excited to go forward in that,  hone that,  learn.

and i have CLOTH MAKING.  this pile on the table above that opens out into an endless possibility for me.

so what am i trying to say here????   That  i understood that These Days NOW are the Best.  how long it will remain so, Who Knows????  But right now,  i really want to Acknowledge that.  and  consciously and acutely remain AWARE as i was in this moment of waking this afternoon.

again.  i really don't love blogs where there is this blanket gratitude.  the Pollyanna thing.  this is not what i am saying.  i hope.  but to SEE that it's Good.   even knowing that it won't always be like it is today.  holding both of those thoughts Together and well,  loving it.  yes.  loving it.  

 

ADDENDUM

i just went out with the Goats.  they are so funny.  so crazy.  so Themselves.  and i wanted so much to let them come in.  Come in to this House.  They would have.  They would have come in,  their fine hooves clicking/clacking on the floor,  they would run around,  they would jump up on the futon couch,  the end table.  they would be a Flurry of Goatness and then i would yell,  OUT and

they would run out,  back into their regular world.

i wonder if i will actually DO this one day?,  i would not be surprised if i did.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

coming back from feeding this morning i saw this….and thought Spirit Birds had come…..but no,  the young cottonwood has come of age.

 

ran back to the Albatros for the ladder to see closely.  YES!  this tree is male.   ran to the other one by the Buck pen…no.  That tree is female.   This year they are three years old.  So it has proven true again.  The first year,  the tree or bush will decide to live or die.  The second it will establish good root system.  and in the Third,  it will begin to Become all that it is.  

 

from the walnut vat OutSide.  maybe a "good" red redye.

 

one side, Kantha is finished

but it's true.  Monday again.  

so when i got home from work…more Kantha.  and took off all the scraps to make it easier….now, in this evening, looking at it naked,  pretty much…..

i love this point.  when you can still take away and put back.  when you still don't know.  when it's all still in Question….

 

some of the tomato plants have outgrown the Window.   they need to go   OUT.  take the Risk.  La Chance~a, in phonetics…    Things can still HAPPEN.  April 9th last year there was HAIL.  but…when you outgrow your window, you just outgrow your window.  so…ok.  tomorrow.  Out.

 

lilac

 

the second incident.  it was exactly a week ago that Sunny Ray and Gideon had an altercation.  Gideon ended up knocked over and was struggling to right himself and Sunny Ray standing over him,  confused.  it was about pellets.  so i put in another tub.   my theory had been that if they eat from the same tub they will be kinder.  maybe not.    and when that happened i came away from it thinking ….I CAN'T DO THIS.   but then, it all settled and was peacefull again.  and that moment of I CAN"T faded quickly.  late this afternoon,  pellet time again,  there was screaming.  terrible screaming.  i ran.   little Nogal  was on the ground,  Sunny Ray again standing over him…his single dangerous scur pressed…and he had somehow gotten hooked on little Nogal's front leg and couldn't extricate his scur horn and Nogal was just lying there,  totally Caught.  Neither of them had a clue.  but by the time i got the gate unhooked and ran in,  Nogal was free and lying down behind the Airstream with that look that goats get….when they just Don't Know What to Do and i pulled him to me and held him, trying to feel his leg.  But finally left him.  because it was all too much and i went inside the house and thought…What Can I DO?….and the answer was ….Nothing.  so i took the mantra beads off the wall and went through them…Om Mani Peme Hung…may all beings be free from suffering and i continued on the Kantha and after a while when things were breathing again i went back out and there was Nogal,  all ok.  Sunny Ray,  all his same just 2 1/2 year old self,  not having a clue.  and so this was the Second time that my immediate response was I CAN'T DO THIS

and i looked at this

 

can you see the brown dry morning glory vine…? …. so this is ME,  who can't even manage to pull off morning glory vines.  who finds it almost so impossible to "thin" small seedlings in the garden…because HOW DO YOU CHOOSE?, which ones to "go",  which ones to live and here i am with all these GOATS and their complex lives….and in those moments i think I CANNOT DO THIS but then, i do and maybe that's exactly what i am supposed to be doing,  living with ambiguity,  living with so much i can't control and

Just Going

does anyone know…Is this Woad?  i had planted some in the small garden bed with Patricia's marigolds and Deb Lacativa's zinnias…and the marigolds swept over everything…fierce….but here is this one plant.  i wonder.  Woad?