windthread

or

How Stuff has a life of It's Own.  

i was thinking about Saskia's post  on Tales from the Bird Hut ,  thoughts on souls.  which went all over the place.  one of which was to the Book of Knowledge,  20 volumes of it,  1930's edition that i  have,  from my childhood home.   It's really an incredible creation,  the Book of Knowledge.  in each Volume there are the same sections, but each volume is different content.   Say for instance we look at  13 and 14.  randomly picked.   the index:  the book of Earth,  the book of plant life,  the book of animal life,  the book of our own life,  the book of familiar things,  the book of literature,  Famous books,  the story of fine arts,  the book of Wonder,  the book of all countries  the book of the united states, the book of canada,  the book of men and women, the book of golden deeds,  the book of stories,  the book of poetry,  Things to Make and Do,  French.

i would always begin, when i was small,  five and even four years old, with the book of Wonder.  and in this particular volume,  the Questions are:  Why does popcorn pop?  Is there gold in the sea?  What do we mean when we say "French leave"?  How do fireworks get their color?  Can one plant produce thousands of seeds in a single  season?  Why do some people lose their hair?  How does the sun make a rainbow?  Where are the clouds when the sky is quite clear?

What prompted me to think of the Book of Knowledge is that Sunny Ray,  the young Buck Goat,  somehow had a strip of radiator copper stuck in his beard this morning.  i took that old radiator out of the Buck Pen a long time ago, but this piece i guess stayed and he bumped into it.  When i untangled it from his beard i was taken by it's beauty,  brought it in the house and then…

 

 

 

it got a little crowded

 

so i took out the leaf.

i won't leave the metal there.  But i had remembered one of the Wonders in one of the volumes:  Does Metal feel?  and looking at this strip of car radiator copper that was from the radiator of my old Beloved Datsun, Chico,  who DID feel,  i am sure,  i thought…yes.  Metal feels.   and then back to Saskia's thoughts about souls…well that took me to thinking about Findhorn,  about Metal Divas.  metal is first from deep in the Earth.  metals are Far more ancient than human beings.  

Who's to say?  and really,  so what.    Whatever we Say….what IS is and Will Be….no matter what we decide to think.  so…whatever works for us.  saying Yes,  saying No.  whatever works.  just an individual decision.

 

and then i was thinking about Roz and her post about a Seed.  and i look at this.   How so absolutely perfect a replica of what it IS…these tiny first leaves of Cilantro.   

and i am left wishing that we could somehow put together a New Book of Knowledge with all just Books of Wonder.   With all the vast array of Wonders and infinate variety of answers,  but 

really, no answers.  just Wonders.  because really….Who Knows?,  for sure…………

and…i did NOT dawdle all day…you can see the kantha has begun….the chant, as Jude called it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nice, huh.

Went to feed Alz B lunch and stopped by the Old Cowboy's to return some of the tools from the other day.  How many duplicate tools does one getting old woman really need?  So i picked out the ones i wanted,  for whatever reason,  sometimes aesthetics,  and returned the rest to meet their Fate but then brought home these chains.  WHY, i wonder, do i so much love iron and steel?  i don't know.  WHAT might i DO with these chains.  I don't know.   But,  here we are.

 

it began orderly enough.  but somehow began to unravel,  loosen.   the threads of all the wovens.

and things came,  placing themselves.    a stray thread from something else entirely, a small moon.  a leaf.

so…to continue with thoughts from yesterday.    it's semantics, maybe.  the word legitimate., even real.   but more than that.  as usual, i was just being lazy in describing an ongoing conversation i have with my self.    i am still really new to this clothmaking.  still really Learning.  

so,  i brought down a cloth i made over a year ago that i haven't really looked directly at in a long time.  

 

i really like everything about this cloth.  everything.  it says everything i wanted to say.   i don't know if you see her immediately,  but there is a face outlined in the bottom right…her eyes are closed,  mouth open,  making sound.  the lizards and crows are in her hair that splays out.

 

i printed the first pic out and used a pencil here to define the face a little more….maybe it's easier to see?   following are pics of individual parts i like

 

 

 

on the left, the blue….to depict one of the late afternoon storms

 

tracks.  maybe hers, maybe Something else

 

 

 

All these stitches.  All things i learned from my time with Jude.  ALL of it.  i brought really Nothing into my time with Spirit Cloth but images in my mind.  images,  or FeltSenses of things.  they had tried to find form in the fiber figures and did,  a little,  but not the Whole of it and it's the Whole of it that i need to tell.

So…ok.  all the above.  and then

 

this one.  so plain.  so plain.  but as i looked back and forth between the two i realized that what i was trying to tell with the woman and the Crow HAD to be as it is.   it is about one single blindingly unexpected moment when something Happens.   One moment, she is solid as always,  waving up at Crow,  calling to him as best she can in his language,  and then….what she always imagined                      HAPPENED    and she is airborne, far above the Earth,  riding his slipstream…..

it is like a scene from One Hundred Years of Solitude,  the Gabriel Garcia Marquez book,  the only work of fiction i could read a million times….it's like a scene from that book…..you know it can't really happen, but it Did….

it couldn't be any other way,  this cloth story.   So i need to understand that and learn to just let them live as they need to.  Get my self out of the way.  Leave them alone.  Let them be.

 

 

 

when things come up 3 times in succession,  you have to Act.  and so.   Not being able to figure out how to do it  technically,  i entered a Note today in the shop.  and just as i was leaving that "page", i noticed that there was some kind of box for "commentary" or something like that.  and guess what?

it's how i can indicate that the cloth has     sold     .  Ta Da.   but i will still leave the handwritten apology.

*home economy…the phrase that Wendy of graceandmending.blogspot.com gave me during one of the go rounds about selling one's work and not feeling bad about it.

Finished.  will stitch the sleeve in the back so it can hang on a twig., but Finished.  and i look at what i did,  thinking What do i like?  and Why?    this  is about stitches.  i still am learning about stitching.  

i put stitches in the Earth.  just so many.  only so many.  and i suppose if i were a REAL clothmaker i would put more.  but the reality for me is that i don't really like too many.  i LOVE Jude's invisible baste.   Invisible baste lets me make the collage.  lets me put the scraps where they go among other scraps and uhhhh,  blend them.   Invisible baste is really very much enough for this,  for telling the story i want to tell.  but i always feel like i need more stitches to make it ummm,  legitimate.

but i'm thinking about that with this one.    What do i want to put to tell the Story and what would i feel compelled to put to be a legitimate clothmaker?  if i were to buy one of my cloths,  receive it in the mail,  would i be disappointed because of it's lack of quilting stitch?  so….thinking about this.

but it is Finished.  Will go into the little shop.   it turns out that CROW is a Spirit Bird.  originally, i'd thought him to be like Her.   He's not.  he is made of Earth and the cloth puts him there…a Bird made of Earth,  but he is a Spirit.   She,  she is like me.    and they Rise together above an Earth that can make anything at all happen.

 

 

 

 

i like them all.  they all have variations on a theme…same Story

 

the first of the Native Plum planted.  seems to be feeling just OK with it all.

this is for Martine,  who watches over me.   Martine  at   ateliercolore.blogspot.nl

 

for two days this alfalfa leaf was stuck in my shoe.  i liked looking at it there.  this evening,  while giving water to the Buck Goats,  it fell out.  i miss it.   

a LOT of scratching of Buck Goats…behind their ears,  their necks.  you can scratch around their horn places…it causes them to want to rub their horns.  so you avoid the horn places…go around.  go along their jaw.  they like that.  i want to spend more time with them.  i don't.  i want to.

 

so it's done.  this part.  what is it?,  the what?  the strings that are vertical?   i did this very slowly.  i made it up as i went along.   not doing the same thing all the time, but  making it up as i went.   like i am preparing the Scene for something to happen.   How i know little about weaving and really,  that's ok with me.  i don't need to be a weaver to have the sense of weave.  What will happen next?  I wonder.   it's very quiet in the moment.  asking nothing,  Being kind of nothing,  just these strings.  

 

 

so it's the Old Cowboy today.  and as it's been for the last couple months,  there is one conversation.

What is he going to Do?   we already know what he is going to do.  when he can no longer navigate life in his home he will go live at his niece's home in a very small downstairs room.   he worked that out with her himself,  his doing.  totally.  he will sign his home over to she and her husband.   he will pay his way with his monthly income from interest on money he has.    but we need,  i guess,  to repeat and repeat and repeat.  same conversation.  word for word.   the reality is, he is no different really than he's been for the last couple years.  still capable of a lot.  but something has changed.  maybe putting his dog down.  i don't know.  but now,  suddenly,  it's the only thing he can think about.  

as people do,  he is thinking about all his Stuff.   mostly, it's the trillion movies he has pirated from his Dish thing.  trillions.  he suddenly is worried that the government is going to get wind and….well,  we don't know what might happen.  second tho,  is just all his belongings.  his 3 bedroom home with garage will reduce to an 8X12 foot room.  so…just him a bed and his GIANT flat screen TV.

and today, again,  until i thought i'd faint,  it's What Will I DO With……    fill in the blank.  He wants me to take his mother's dresser.  How do you say to someone  "I don't want your mother's dresser" ????   so…this being nothing new,  today instead of just being silent,  i said,  "Well,  i like your tools".

 

rebar.  I LOVE rebar.  and a solid copper pipe

a vice.

something he put together for a particular purpose…two old shovel handles together with nuts and bolts.

tools.    Tools.  Stuff made for specific purpose.  WHO invented them????  Who understood a purpose and then made something that would work?

I really really LOVE tools.

I don't want his mother's dresser.  I don't want her silverware.   in a certain way,  i don't even want all these tools.  Some are for things i will NEVER do.  Some i already HAVE.  but tools….to just let tools fly off into space,  to nowhere in particular…..eeeeeee.    

So.

Now they are HERE.   finding a place for them.   Just like he did when he came here from his familys Ranch in Colorado 19 years ago.  My inheritance.  ok. then.  ok.  keep it going.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many people comment that i need to be working out some kind of Drip System.    these opinions come with a variety of reasons,  one is that it is more efficient use of water.  Some years ago i went to a Water Use Symposium and listed to many people speak and at the end went to the one i liked the best and asked him.   He asked how i use the hose.  i told him.  he said the only thing then i'd save is time.   Saving Time.   With a drip system,  it's kind of as if things happen by themselves.    you don't need to be there.  or really even know much of what's going on.  you just harvest.

Giving water DOES take time.   i went out this early evening to plant another of the Native Plum.  but fell into that Altered State of Giving Water.  almost two hours later, i'm here, telling you about it.  That IS a long time….2 hours.   and i only watered about half the tree/bushes.    but all the composts,  all the vegetable beds that are continuing to ready themselves to receive seed.  

And i also listened.  to whatever came into my ear.   sometimes it was bird sound….the meadowlark are very much back and talking Spring,  the doves of course, repeating their same syllables with diligence,  Crow flew over low and called out to me.   Song sparrows.   The neighbors down the road had company and were talking loud and rough,  but there was that musical spanish inflection and they were all talking so fast in spanish that it makes it better because i have no idea what they're saying except for the frequent Mother Fucker.  the Goats.  i listened to the Goats…their evening exchanges,  some soft,  some not.   i listened to my world.  i was IN my world,  totally.  completely.  Giving water,  i am an integral part of Everything.   and Giving Water,  i Receive.

 

string from the walnut pot on the wood stove.  and i told Self to slow down.   wait.  What really IS this?  

 

 

 

it there were a moment when i might or should skip a day,  this probably is it.   but being a creature of habit….

 

 

yesterday,  just Yesterday,  the house was all neat because of Company.  today…well these are two pics.  there's more.  a lot more very similar, but you get the drift

all for this very peaceful  String and Cloth loom….which you would find really humorous if you could have seen me trying to figure it out and  finally realizing that all that effort was totally unnecessary…

will begin again.   

but i did rake and burn all the dry weeds outside the fence so there is now access to the parts car and the starter can be taken and put in the one i drive,   or did  until  a month or so ago.   Small things.  maybe just as well left un noted, but oh well.  it WAS a day

 

 

THIS.     oh,  This.     i have said, off and on,  that i live by Signs.   this is true. ,  when there Are signs.   There will be times when there are not.   and so,  i just go.  wait.    but then…sometimes, something like this.   I've had this book for a while.  but when i was writing about wanting a Teacher,  and then it went on,  to finding the photograph of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and clearing the altar,  setting him there,  remembering my Intention,  remembering getting Waylayed by my own design,  and in the midst of all this,  needing to find this book.  Needing to find this particular painting.  

So today i googled more,  Jane Bregoli,  and found facesofNB.com,  an Artists listing,  and at the end of her modest blurb,  "for more information" and a phone number.

i called it.  She answered.

She answered.  Her.  Jane Bregoli.  and i had the most so GREAT conversation with her.  She is retiring from teaching Art in the public schools.  She is participating in a summer program at the Dartmouth Public Library about the book.  they will make

GOAT PUPPETS

with her retirement,  she hopes to make more children's books.

and,   ,   ,   ,  she will contact the person who makes prints for her.  She will find out about a print of the above painting.    

the original is privately owned and is…..Four feet by 8 feet in size.  Can you imagine?  Can you imagine the Beingness of this ?   

so…i am so so happy.  so happy that i am not shy about finding what i need to find.  happy because she is just a Very Fine Woman that was a joy to talk to.  happy because i might really have a print of this and what it might mean to me over my long haul here with Goats….to have as Teacher a Goat Lady Supreme,  her best goat Anna.  

 

and Marti and her family came and the kids were great and the Goats were great but i loved this pic best of the children's dad being King of the Stump  with  little daughter looking up…..

 

and then,  after all that,  it was all quiet again 

 

 

 

 

 

and i just looked at cloth.  thinking i was looking for how to just go with the Cloth and String Loom cloth,  but as it went on,  i saw that there is a second cloth there too.   one with that worn  tomato plant tie.  and this was such a great thing to find out.