windthread

i dawdled this morning.  had the thought to go back in Picassa to cruize through pics of this time last year.  it was stunning.  this is NOT the same world.  in the other changes of my life it was gradual so there was a blur.  not this.  the arrival of the Goats was Sudden and Everything, Everything changed.  and not some, but completely.  Completely changed.  so…that's really something to look at for a while.  to understand a little, if i can.  and then i had to leave.  it's Old Cowboy  Tuesday.  Every other Tuesday is Old Cowboy Tuesday.  i cleaned, did his laundry, listened, responded more nicely than usual.  worked a LITTLE at his old dog Rosie's mats…a little.  heart wasn't in it.  she knew it and took advantage of that.  then took his list to the grocerie storeS.  Rainbow White bread and Blue Bunny Chocolate Chip ice cream in the gallon tub at one and Cinnamon Swirl bread and Banquet Turkey Pot Pies at Walmart.  some other stuff too, but these were the Can't Live Without things.  he worries so much about money.  88 cents for dinner, the pot pie is like amazing.  he says it's a balanced meal.  they have maybe 3 peas,  maybe that many carrot cubes.  some kind of very wierd turkey cubes.  couple of potatoe cubes.  gravy. crust.  ????????  but he's old.  i would never agree to buy a child this kind of "food", but him, he's 85.  oh well.

and by the time i got back home, guess who was here again?  WIND.  rattleing, slamming, Whirling, whipping. 

but before i left this morning when i was dawdleing and not wanting to leave, i found this in the beloved Picassa pics….from Jude's Cloth to C loth.

at the time, we were weaving.  Cloth to Cloth.  and here, i was just fooling around.  at the time, i didn't think it was anything at all.  as a matter of fact, it got taken apart because i wanted to use Glennis's moon for something else.  i just took it apart.  but seeing it out of context this morning i was struck by how much i really liked it.  liked the combination of cloth stick string.   and this has some significant meaning to me that i don't know about at this moment.  but, i printed the pic out and will look at it.

 

a work away from home day.  done.  a come home and give water to earth and plants and see that the indigo seeds, some of the tomato seeds are UP.  dear little thems.

be visited by Talula and her other mother Jaime and Talula's friend from school.

dug under the Daughter of the original Lilac and gave compost.

watched the disorderly order of the Doe Goats.  the young ones from last summer are working to establish their place in the herd.  Mercy finds this uncomfortable and most times just stands away.  this is very interesting and i wonder if it will continue.

once again, Michelles indigo cloth on the russian olive that is beginning to leaf.  daughter of the huge dead one.

this little failure to thrive native New Mex Olive is doing GREAT.  ?????   it's probably maybe close to 10 years old????  a true mystery, but cause for celebration.

and that's about it for today.  I feel quiet and uhhh,  well quiet.  the last days were a lot.  and today i can see so well that it was just my reaction to them.  ok.  Notice, grace.

and just to say…i love.  like LOVE.  when i call out a certain goat's name from a far distance and they stop and look toward me.  i did this with Tenzen a few times and he STOPS and looks and his ears go straight out…  i would like to do his hooves next and give him a shampoo with conditioner and then shave him and put sun screen on this suddenly exposed skin.  i would give maybe Everything.  maybe…Maybe Everything for him to live where he could free range and his hooves would be worn away by stones and rocks.

 

 

 

 

ok.  so MUCH.  like very close to TOO much.  but not.

and part of that is, oh, hey….the altar.  where now rests the clipping from Gideon's hoof.  What do i imagine about that?  Do i expect something to…happen?  What?, grace….. 

No.  i don't expect anything to happen.  i don't "pray" that something will happen.  i just put it there.  like i put Barbara's scur that the vet clipped off.  like i put the baby dove feather, like i put the apricot seed with insect work.   what does it say, then.  all this stuff.  it just says, to me, that these are in a certain way Me too.  that i choose to mingle mySelf into these things and want to be an active participant.

i thought a lot about the word Worship.  and, like how some pull away at the word Altar, i pull away from the word Worship.  and i thought about that a LOT this morning.  Why?

and i think that for me, Worship is some kind of passive thing.  where you give yourself ….to…something.  where you give yourself to.  as in giving yourself to Jesus.

Why?

and then i thought about how i am with Buddhism.  how i LOVE prostrations.  how i LOVE giving love in the form of those beautiful flowing cloths to the Lama…the teacher.  how i love the butter candles, the flowers, the memorization of each detail of the image of a diety.  What's the difference?  good question.

i don't know.  but one thing makes me feel really creepy and the other fills me with a sense of wellbeing and Joy.

????????????????????????????????

and just thoughts:  but somehow, altars give me the sense of being in partnership with Spirit.  and yes.  Spirit is a good enough word.  of trying to understand it all and being in Partnership with it.  Taking responsibility.

so…all this thinking, all these words are wearing me to a frazzle.  i need to quit and just stitch.  and yes, i am going to stitch what are referred to as Altar Cloths.    and i am going to take Michelle's words and hold them as i work.

"an altar cloth is a stage, or place, where something sacred happens or has happened, and an altar cloth acknowledges that "Something".         Michelle of NYC        Thank You Michelle.

and when i went out today to do the other part of my life, we might call it the real part, …..i kept the sense of acknowledging that Something.  i held that in my thoughts.  Who Knows?…really.  Can you say you do?  I cannot.  I do not know.  so….in that not knowing, Anything at All is POSSIBLE.

before First Light.  sitting in the Morning Chair i notice this scrap on the floor.

and in the dark i set it on Saskia's Air Tree that sits on the Morning Sewing table.    This, could be an  altar as well as anything else

the neighbor irrigated his fields.  the SEA Gulls came…swirling, spinning, speaking, overhead.

Patricia!!!!!!!!!!! what am i seeing??????????????

We….Sydney and her daughter Talula came…We brought Gideon out to the Milk Stand.  lured him with old alfalfa and even more goat pellets to get on it.  ordinarily, he would have just hopped on.  but with his leg, he was hesitant.  but he did.  i spoke to him with his "love name"…Dido…phonetically, deedo…with long o.  i USED the trimmer tool and was amazed that it went easily through the hoof.  how i had dreaded this.  and how amazing.  there was nothing at all to dread.  i had put the milkstand out in the middle, where All the Goats could witness.  and they did.  they were quietly mesmerized.  even Buckwheat.  just watching.  intent.  quiet.  and we brushed Gideon.  scratched all his old man scabby areas.    nothing to dread.  nothing to be afraid i can't do.  so…on the altar, his hoof trimming.  to remind me of this day.  of what all it means to me. 

So, Patricia, formerly known as Follows, i need you to tell me what you see.  i could not pick up any of his other legs.  he cannot bear weight on this left front leg.  i don't know what to do about that.  and really, it seems to be his knee.  he cannot bend his knee.

and here, in sympathy with Saskia's Post is my Message Post that Louie put for me so i would know i wasn't lost.  Go to Tales of the Birdhut.  Saskia's blog for that story.

 

 

 

 

 

Wind continues.  i watch the old parts of the wooden fencing for movement.  go out when i see it and reposition whatever it is that is propping it, holding it.  wonder why i go through this again.  why i don't just go out there this April when Wind has for the most part gone back to the Mountains and dig post holes, put in new posts. 

But back to the Altar Cloths.   i think i will try.  and that requires just going, just Beginning.  So…

7 1/2" x 11 1/2"  plant dye muslin on plant dye old cotton of some sort on undyed raw silk..noile.  the weight of it feels good.  i barely invisible basted it and let it soak in water overnight.  put it on the clothesline this morning.  gave it to Wind for a while.  now it's on the table and i am looking.

and i'm thinking about whether or not i need to say anything at all about altars, or my own sense of altar.  i guess maybe a little.   for me, there is no connection to "worship".  more, it is about Intention.  about Focus i think.   about identifying what is important and creating focused intent.  so that's me.  for anyone/everyone else, it can be anything at all.  and this morning i was thinking about when i first created what would be called an altar.  it was when i was doing the Lamaze classes.  Pregnant with my daughter.  they suggested a focal point to practice our breathing with that we could bring with us for the birth.  i created a small collection of things.  on a small piece of cloth.  it was a 27 hour labor and it worked. 

altars can be anywhere and everywhere, too.  i have that one in the post of the other day.  it stays there.  but there are others in the house and outside that move and change.  and here in New Mexico, altars on the dashboard of vehicles are common.  sometimes when i feel like things are moving very fast, i might make a temporary one, maybe just a cloth with a reminder note, and set it on the kitchen counter.  where i have to work around it, be careful, which helps me slow down.  so, how would i define altar?  maybe as a designated space, created with thought full care, with meaning full things that help Acknowledge and Focus Intention on some urge toward uhhhh well, hmmmm.   toward_____________________.  fill in the blank.

so right now i have NO IDEA what these cloths might look like.  they will all be very different one from another.  and different sizes too probably.  so i don't know.  but i am going to make a little altar cloth altar now when i finish this and see how it goes.

 

 

 

 

for some reason the comments don't seem to be working for the post of the  Daughter Cloth.  So am

just testing

 

so in the What If Diaries of Jude Hill's Spirit Cloth, we are considering White.  and at some point i said in a comment, i don't do white.  not White.  bone, eggshell, tea softened white, …but not White.  and then i remembered the Daughter Cloth.  All her life she wanted me to make her a quilt.  thinking that i "sew" so Why didn't i make her a quilt.  not distinguishing between sewing and being a quilter.  so in the same way i said the other day "I don't do White", i always said, "I don't quilt".  That said…she was leaving New Mexico for California.  With her Goats.  for the most part, these same Goats that i live with now.  It's a long story and it's Her story so i can't really tell it.  but she went and it didn't work and we brought the Goats back.  but before she left, i made her a quilt.  i made it Cloth to Cloth way.  Jude showed us.  It was made of all Thrift Shop recycle.  some very very used What Jude identified as good household cloth.  torn into strips.  woven.  the center, was a common pretty thing that Deanna knows the name of.  so here are some of the pics of that process that took from February to May, 2011.

this is Jenny, my daughter and her still a puppy Anatolian Shepard, livestock guardian dog, Kadir. he isn't even 6 months old in this pic.  the neighbor in California shot him.  said he felt threatened.

to weave the strips and attach them to the ground cloth i needed a ladder.

for all the woven part,  the stitch i used was invisible baste.  less than a 1/4" apart.  it held up in the laundromat washer just fine.

and interestingly enough, this morning when looking for these Daughter Cloth pics…lo and behold, this.  the one and the same little woven cloth that Jude made in class. 

the little goat in the center from Jude's Patchwork Beasts workshop

finished.  ready to Just Go.

 

 

 

 

and come back throughout the day and look at it and then at the end of the day, see what i think.

this is the uhhh,  "stationary" altar.   it is on the shelf beneath the Green Tara.  where my gaze is focused during meditation.   the objects here change.  there is this:

a gift from Jude during Cloth to Cloth.   since then, it has been the little altar cloth.   different things sit on it.   things to help me remember from moment to moment what is important to me:

so

i am going to make altar cloths.   and i am going to offer them for Sale.

yes, Sale.

they will cost $50. 

when one is finished, i will put a photo of it here and repeat this.  that it is for Sale.  for $50.   this is a LEAP for me.  but too many things in the last days are supporting it.  I need to Care for this herd of Goats in an Impeccable (Don Juan, Carlos Casteneda again) manner.  today i need to respond to a request for yet another job as a gardner for someone.   nice.  but i need to be Here.  i really need to be Here.

so here we go.   i will come and look at this and read again the words through the day and see if it feels right.  at the end of the day i will either leave it and write more details tomorrow when the number of the day equals 5 or i will delete it.

ok.

 

so my mind is preoccupied against it's will about White.  it's the first What If in Jude's  Diaries.  White.  all day i noticed white.  and i commented over there yesterday, something about how i had a sense of Air being a kind of white, i said a transparent white, but really i meant translucent.   and by air i mean what surrounds and touches all edges of everything on this planet.  the stuff we breathe into our lungs.  Air.  and thinking about this this morning, i was looking around at things in this room…the living room…looking for actual white. and also thinking about the exercise of printing a cloth i am working on in black and white using Picassa. 

so…i turned to my left and took a pic of the small altar

downloaded it and the left border was too close to the basket.   i went over and refilled the coffee cup, came back, maybe less than a minute? and  standing in front of it now, took another and i honestly don't know what happened.  all i can think of is that the rising Sun was entering that window at just a certain angle to reflect off what must be specks on the lense????  when i look at the lense, i can't see any…but…

and here it is changed to black and white

 

i think the "fever" has broken.

the onions.  now under the soil.  watered.  sheltered by compost.  and i thought about how not only will i have beloved onions, but their skins.  to dye with.  there is nothing more.

and i sanded soft this wibbely jig saw cutting.  soft.  nothing to irritate a neck.  and added the frame to hold the Goat Pleasures of pellets or alfalfa and if necessary, sweet feed.  this makes me feel very very good.

and on the picnic table, Caroline.  one of the two bred does.  she is becoming heavy.

Yoko Ooona, who rarely allows a frontal photo.  behind her, Lucky Star who is the second bred doe.   and in the foreground, Ginger's butt.

 

i need

need

need to stay outside this evening till dark.  i need to watch dark come.  i need to be with the Goats.  NEED.

but today, aside from going to clean Allan's already clean house, i stared at this.

and i took the face off and fooled with it.  pencil, colored pencil, ink, turpentine.  i kept wanting to change it from "pretty".  but it won't change.  i think i need to spend some time just drawing.  finding a way to draw a female face that is what i would consider not pretty.  just a face.  it's rare that i have been able to do that.  WHY?????????  i don't know.  i make 2 eyes, a nose designated by 2 nostrils, really, and then a mouth.  i want something generic.

and then…after giving up for the Time Being, i stitched it on.  just for practice.  to keep it from pouching out, leave part open, Jude said, like maybe where the hair will go.  so, ok.  i did that.  More staring.  and then Suddenly

oh!  and eee.  look.  in spanish  phonetics, meera!  Who is this?

and i can't DO this.  to me, megamendung is Jude Hill.  i TOTALLY associate it with Jude.  i have a little.  that she gave me.  i put some on the Going Through cloth that i sent to Wendy Golden Levitt for her children.  and that was ok., because Jude lives in that space too.  but otherwise…i just can't.  but i CAN look at this here.  for a little while.  look at what feels

shocking

to me.  try to understand that.

so, now…to the Goats.