windthread

it seems impossible that only a day has passed.  that it was yesterday that they were born.   last night went on forever.  i slept a very different kind of sleep.  not sleeping, not awake….an inbetween.  hour after hour with waking many times.  listening.  i listened all night.  i listened for Lucky Star, for the little ones, i listened for Caroline, in case she began to kid.  and i listened to the dogs.  i slept on the couch because one of them, Ramon,  was dying on the floor in the bedroom.  on the dogs quilt, under a towel.  the one with cancer.  the other three went back and forth all day and all night, checking.  sitting.  lying in the doorway.  in the dark i could hear their toenails clicking along the floor.  back and forth. and i listened to that too.  Please, no need to express sadness for his death.  he was who he was and he had a long story and it was time for him.  but still.  it took forever for him to let go.  and today, his absence is huge.  and it was a work away day and  that was hard…feeling like i really needed to be Here.  but i went.  and it was all ok.

But so many Thoughts.  so many Feelings.  So Much.

and this is as far as i got with more pics…not far

 

and then,  this

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

being hypervigilent, i woke to what i thought maybe had been THAT Goat sound.  but not.  so lay back down on the futon and just watched morning come at a different angle

and looked at so many lines and angles

 

and began another altar cloth.

the wasp sting bothered me more today than the eve it happened.  that whole side of my lower lip and chin is itchy and when i rub it, swells.

 

i spent the DAY with 2 leggeds today.  Not Goats, Not Dogs, nor any other 4 legged, except for the toad that joined us for a short time when we were sitting under the Apricot Tree.  Marti's husband brought his bread.  Marti, gifts of her alchemy.

Don't Ever let anyone tell you that a sister you find on-line is any less Blood than any from your own mother's womb.  

 

 

 

for some blessed moments, the above.

but then, the day went on.  into Town, laundromat, grocery, stopping to do a quick clean up of a house so when She got back home to day, She would be happy, or at least ok.  it was just a tune up.

then home and spend time with Goat things.  a little bit of longingly stitching on the above cloth, but needing to leave it.  because of what i'd set into motion yesterday when on the way home from the dump,  i stopped at a house along the way.  the woman who lives there is a cashier at one of the grocery stores…i know her from that and i know she has a son.  a grown man.  and so, i've been looking at these BIG Cottonwood stumps piled in their yard for some months….and i see that it's just the screen door so i stop and the son is there and he turns out to be the Ditch Rider, Jones who has recently been replaced by another young man.  i don't recognize Jones because he is not in his ditch rider truck or his hat but he recognizes me.  LONG STORY SHORT…arrangements made for him to bring me a Giant Stump.

oh…..comotion outside…be back in a minute…..

so.  a giant stump.  for the Goats in the Back.

the gallon water jug gives perspective.

and his tractor got stuck.

so we put some boards in and hosed it with water.   at some point earlier, when i was breaking off and stacking these bamboo stalks, a wasp…which i am assuming has a nest there, same as last year, STRUCK and stung my bottom lip.  so…and since i have benedryl for in case of the Fire Ant bite, i take.  and going back  out, i see…WHAT? no less than the fire ants going along too, near this bamboo.  so i wander about, out there to see where the mother nest is.  find it.  dump the DEATH granules on it.  and…then, going out Front, since i am in the See~ing mode, i notice a brand new

Fire Ant nest RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WALKWAY!

How one seeing leads to better Vision.    so.  where are we now.  ok.  the stump is delivered, the fire ants SEEN and dealt with.  and, really, i am pretty much done in.  remember, it's around 100 degrees.   and really, i'd like to just quit for the day.  but…………..there are the young vegetable plants.  in the past, i'd say to Self…well, i'll do it in the Morning.  but tonight, with that word,

Stamina

i just go.  i go and water everything.  i come in, here, and write the words.  Stamina.  maybe it's not quite the right word.  so…i am thinking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Michelle gave this poem in her comment on yesterday's post and they are the most perfect and best yet in my life.  and a testament to writing, how they are not complex or long, but to me, words put together in an exactly perfect way that says very plainly what i have never been able to say…

so…Thank You so much Michelle.  and i changed the gender of the pronoun from he to she

           Love by Czeslaw Milosz

Love means to learn to look at yourself                                                                                                                           The way one looks at distant things                                                                                                                                   For you are only one thing among many.                                                                                                                         And whoever sees that way heals her heart,                                                                                                                    Without knowing it,  from various ills……                                                                                                                      A bird and a tree say to her:  Friend.

Then she wants to use herself and things                                                                                                                          So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.                                                                                                                      It doesn't matter whether she knows what she serves:                                                                                              Who serves best doesn't always understand.

i have never had an urge to memorize a poem.  i want to memorize this.

and then today 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

taken with the Flash

what someone might see when they drive up the road

a cradle moon

a while ago, i said something about how i read in some buddhist publication about how Thoughts are mental constructs.   how…and now i forget, but how feelings then arise?????  Feelings.  Thoughts.  i have many tonight.  i go around, these days of a certain kind of urgency to get stuff Ok for when the babies are born and they will NEED ……………..Time.   they will need uhhh focus.  Knowing this from experience.  how Cinderella and Sunny Ray are.  loving, trusting, wanting…compared to Just Going, the last born last summer and when i was just worn out and in the Oh Well mode.  she still is skittish.  she tries, but it's still a thing of not quite.  

and i continued today.  it was 103 degrees.  i hauled a bale of bedding straw in to the doe pen and across, over to the Guinnea hen palace where it was often the case that the birthing would begin. trying to avoid a birth in the sand that becomes mud with the amniotic fluid (sp) and it's just plain Hot.  so.  that done and They all inspected it.  peed on it.  some, shit as Snowbunny, the Matriarch.

and i have had Thoughts and Feelings all day.  Lots.  have been working with the idea of Stamina, as i go about here, knowing in a certain way it is some kind of wierd Garden of Eden, really.  anything could happen here if someone wanted it to.  and thinking back to a couple of years ago when i was ready to let it all go, when i was ready to Defer to the Daughter, to the "Next", and how

here i am now,  looking it all, including myself in the face………………..

 

 

 

 

everyThing is still very quiet.  and i find self looking at this again.  how much i love it.  how Unknown it is.  The Unforseen.   how it was a cloth of the Unforseen but now has been seen and is just un Known.  and how i like so much exactly that about it.  that it's not immediatly apparent, but just well, scrap symbols, thread symbols.

and then, this new one.  in contrast, so literal.   i am squinting.  looking so hard.  wanting to  have a thought, but it won't happen…it won't let me see it.  so i'm just looking and looking and looking, waiting for the Thought.

 

ACK.

a whole Post.  lost.    Do i try again? or just quit.  well, eee, can't quit, so ok here we go again.

SUN does Magic Tricks

Continuing with details.  this is about Stamina.  which i want to think more about.  it can mean so many different things in so many different lives, but it is a Thing.  Stamina.  the Kochia, which is almost as tall as i am needed to be cleared away to make it easier to dump the wheelbarrow into the compost.  i didn't want to.  i REALLY didn't want to.  but i did.  Stamina.

and Next.  This, about the thinking of Communicating, as mentioned in 101 yesterday.  Dee's thoughts, which are totally correct, i think, but then also, how it goes for me.  so here, from the very beginning.  i'm still wanting to do drawn faces

and here.  status of the Plumbing Event.  as Annie Dillard says "receiving the given with a fierce and pointed will".  more about stamina.  

and the Beloved Planet.  Stamina.

Maybe this is the Celebration.  Yes.  it Is.

ok., Then.  it's tonight that is the Celebration that came of its own accord.  ok.

in Jude's Diaries there are Windows.  and i read, listen, think.  Windows.  hmmmm.  and then, this evening.

i began this day at first light.  soon after i was Out There, at work.  shoveling out the Bedroom side of the Albatros.  a few Wheelbarrows over to the compost hills.  they are Hills now.  i need to think what to do with all this wonderful compost.  more than i need.  FreeCycle it.  yes. and ok, but just continuing on for the moment.  all day.  off and on.  Bill, Alz B's son comes out of the blue with Paul who DOES WORK and they take apart the plumbing under the house and make a plan, with no one actually consulting me, but i am beginning to just accept that as part of the Unforseen.  WHY?  does Bill do these things?????? because i remind him of his father?…we are so similar, his father and me, or , because i am the one who shares his Mother's, Alz B, end time?  Who knows.  a karmic thing, for sure, but who can really know?  and there is just so much to DO that i no longer can spend much time thinking about it.  

so inbetween dealing with them and what they are doing which includes two of Bill's dogs that have come along,  i Just Go with getting everything ready out there for that moment when i hear the

sharp bleat

that means Lucky Star's water is broken.

maybe Tuesday?

she is bagged up.  like really bagged up.  quite impressive.

and today, i began this day so early, shoveling, loading, hauling, moving, wiring, changing, ripping (cloths for the babies nostrils), washing (water bowls, food bowls for the maternity ward),  and it was 99 degrees.  Full Sun.  Where did Wind go????? when we need him??????  sleeping, i guess. and then, after a lot of Stuff, it was dark.  and i was watering the vegetable plants "by heart"  because i couldn't really See them.  it was dark.  but what i could see is the movement of TOADS, many, here and there so to celebrate for the First Toad Night.  i think they have been there for a while, but i was not out there so late.

and i want to say that i am finding the conversation of the last days so good here.  and that i want to say to Susan C and even Cindy and Even Saskia, that what i see glowing now in my womanhood is

Stamina.

Stamina in the form of Just Going and for this, i am beyond grateful to Jude, for wording the Thing of it…Just Going.

Stamina.  i had SO much, all my life that was really quite amazing.  but now, in these days, i have stamina.  i have an understanding of determination.  i have a becoming understanding of Just Going and i am feeling very much like a Celebration tonight.  i am WORN OUT.  but i have accomplished MORE than i ever did before in my life and it will seep in to the birthing of Goats and the growing of food and the blossoming of trees and the making of Cloths and i cannot think of one single thing that could possibly be Better.

so.

HooRay and just LOVE to Just Going.  in all its forms and all its Unforseen.  OH, HOORAY! and

eeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.