windthread

it started this way because i wanted to get a pic of Clean Windows.  and then i saw that the stick in the vase with Mo's Hope dangling was matched up perfectly with the big cottonwood tree across the ditch where the 2 crows live

and then i invisible basted.   but soon, i needed to go visit Allan's cat and feed her.  his Aunt died in Colorado.  and from there,  what i'd thought would be a short visit to the old folks home to Alz. B. because her son is off skiing again and i am the resonable facsimile,  Well…it was a long visit.  i somehow didn't think and got there right before lunch and and her old Alzheimer's wing budd ies Peggy and Lucy were parked at her table.  so…it felt right away like a party of some sort.  and it was a Good day for Betty…she actually looked me in the face several times.  and every time i went around behind her to the other side of her she would say "OH! HELLO!!!!!" as if i'd just arrived.and lunch was BIG.  meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy,  mixed vegetables and apple slices.  and she was thirsty so, 2 glasses of juice and 2 of water.  feeding her was fun.  and since Peggy and Lucy were there too, there was that conversational diversion.  Peggy is mute but her eyes are sharp.  Lucy is Lucy.  She is quite lovely with wing like white hair in a bun and wears pearls.  she liked the National Geographic i brought Betty and commented often that it is a quality publication.  and then for some reason, there was

singing

it was Betty that started it, but it just had a life of it's own from there.  She and i and one gentleman at the table behind us were the only singers, but there was general rapt attention.  Betty sang songs i don't know at all and her words were not orderly but her trilling voice was lovely.  We sang the Battle Hym of the Republic too because of the man behind us.  and i brought in the Mares eat Oats and Goats do to and Little Lambs eat Ivy from Jude's blog a while back and Betty made those sounds that you hear in Mexican music, the tongue trilling, and ululating too…just here and there. which made it quite great.  and then i got home and dug the trench for dumping the Goats water from their tub into the this year 3 year old Cottonwood.    So…all in all, not much of a cloth day but i did do this

just to start it.

and i'd made the agreement to wash one window a day and as i was doing this, i looked at this gourd that i grew and drew on maybe 15 years ago and well…

and last, i fooled around with the Unforseen hanging on the sewing lamp…seeing what it looked like that way

 

 

 

 

 

this is  how the morning began:

i had no idea., just kept looking through the scraps.  avoiding thinking.  trying things, taking them away, putting them back, taking them away.  the moment a thought would form around what i was seeing, i'd change something.

these are just a few.  there were MANY.  and Everytime i found myself trying,  TRYing, i quit.  i pinned it on the wall and walked away.  And this is what i ended up with at the end of the day:

THIS is the first UNFORSEEN.  i never would have guessed.  i kept thinking as i went along that i needed to depict something somber, or even forboding.  dark.  but the total surprise is that although there are things that are uhhhhh, a little uncomfortable,  are not in keeping with my "choices",  they are all just  THINGS.

THINGS.  and seeing this i can't quite know what to think.  But i think that i may have already answered the Research Question.  it seems that i have the sense that Stuff is Stuff and really, that it's all somehow just ok.   This cloth is very similar to my dreams.  There are odd things going on in them all the time but nothing that is ever threatening, or dark, or somehow unexplainable in some way.  So, how great is this.  Stuff is Stuff.  hmmmmmm.

so tomorrow, yet another crazy outside day of W I N D and even some R A I N,  i'll begin stitching it together.  now there is only enough invisible baste to keep the pieces from falling off.  There will be a LOT of integrated applique.  i know that from the WonderBird on the Robe.  how much i loved it there.  so here too.  and then…there is that little foetal being thing.  How does it fit in?  this i don't know yet.  and there is a sense of some kind of indication of paths, of choices, detours, something.  But that will come as i go.

So…what began as one thing became something else entirely.  Who'dve guessed.

here i am, this morning, in front of the fire.   The Wonderbird happens to rest just on my thigh, just above my knee.  where i can admire it.  and i do.  What is it, i am wondering that i LOVE so so so much about this little three pieces of stitched cloth?  like really, LOVE.?

and i'd grated a potatoe yesterday to make hash browns.  pressed the moisture out with this dishtowel and then left it on the counter.  this morning i used it on my lap as a napkin when eating infront of the fire….and there..on my knee

the beautiful stains from the potatoe juice

and after going to the hardware i took off the plastic from the long south window of the Room.  it will get cold again, a few days, for sure, but i am DONE with plastic on windows.  and i WASHED them.  vacuumed the shelf.  rearranged the baskets.

AND of all things, dusted the leaves of this hanging plant.  i do NOT do well with indoor plants.  this one doesn't care.  it just lives.   and then…

so..all this.  in this kind of Permanent Campsite home i live in.  and i cut this out from the New York Times this morning…

it is an article about the latest generation of Lost Boys (and Girls) in Sudan.  i have some kind of unknown connection with Sudan.  with these children.  there is a picture of a girl there in a frame on my shelf now for over 10 years.  and i look at this child.  part of me looked so closely at the cloth in the photograph.  how cloth plays such a part in a life.  how cloth here emulates some sense of home, of personal space.  just a thin layer.  on sticks.  and this is an example of what i am trying to say when i say that i feel that the life i live has such a disconnect from some of the things that work at my Heart.  so..now, this boy is pinned to the wall, with the Dalai Lama.  and i try to make some little sense, some little order of the Feelings that arise.  and i look around me and see such incredible LUXURY.  and i think of my grandson who is 20 something and can't somehow make something out of himself.  and i FEEL this stuff.

 

 

 

 

spent the early part of the day, well, most of it, finishing the Kantha stitching on the Robe.

i will still invisible baste down all the seams flat.  but just because i want to.  it really isn't necessary.  everything now is secure and strong.  it is an incredibly FINE robe.   A blanket found years ago at the Thrift Shop, used in many ways a blanket has and most recently, this winter as the back door hanging blanket to keep Wind at bay.  Until that moment when it was THE moment and it got taken down and cut.  Again, this is from Jude's method in her Contemporary Boro 2 class, creating a paper doll of our own specific measurements and cutting 3 rectangles.  the body, 2 sleeves.  it couldn't possibly be more simple and it couldn't possibly work more perfectly.  i am amazed.  the hem and the edges of the sleeves are as is of the blanket.  the fronts and side splits and neckline were where i did the kantha to secure and reinforce the cut edges.  Perfect.  Done.  The most warm, soft, comfortable, elegant Robe that i could not even ever FIND to Buy Anywhere.  and then, this:

you might note it says Page 4 of 6.  all of them are like this.  but this is the page i am trying to force myself to look at.   i can look at maybe one sentence at a time.   so i look at the picture.  i Can look at the picture. 

Snowbunny, who is beginning to resemble a very large Rodent,  was hoping it meant she could come out and jump on.  She knows milkstand and knows milkstand means food.  but, alas, more to be done.  this is a stand that i got from someone in town who never quite finished it.  and the part they didn't finish is where the goat's head goes through and is held in place while you milk.  as long as there is a feed bucket attached, this is considered a good deal by most goats.  it's also what you need for hoof trimming.  and any immunizing etc. 

SO.  even tho this is not made according to the plans that i have printed, it's close enough for me to figure out how i can be made to work.  you see all my tools, which includes a glass of wine.  i made 2 false starts.  it DOES matter whether you have a 4" hook and eye latch.  and it DOES matter that i don't have a drill thingy the size of the bolt.  OR a bolt the size of the drill thingy that i DO have.  So, a trip to town tomorrow which i work so hard to avoid.

 

i couldn't sleep in the middle of the night last night.  got up and just  looked around for a while.  went outside and into the big place where the goats sleep and they were confused at my appearence.  they made quiet sounds,  Mercy got up and came to the fence.  i came back in.   went back to sleep and when i woke this morning it was to the "thought" of

There is too much thinking.  you are thinking about thinking.  it's unnecessary.

hmmm. 

so, before i left for work again,  i spent time with the Unforseen

just moving things around.  looking. 

and i realized that my way of Being in general has changed a lot, in the last years of Cloth Making.  I don't think i Can or Want to, go back…to Thinking.  and even tho there was some humor to it, even then, i don't think i can do things in a "structured" way, a "scientific" way.  the first of the Unforseen cloths will ask for a lot of just looking that might take all of me,  maybe for days.  so, one day may turn into many, in a good way.  
and i was out this morning to the big buck pen's water tub to find this early being floating.  and i thought it was dead, but when i fished it out, it was not.  and as i look at this pic, i like it how all the lines on my very dry fingers are marked by having scraped out the residue in last year's Indigo vat (in which there were 3 very dried up pieces of cloth). 

 

 

it's been waiting.  i have looked at it out of the corner of my eye almost constantly as i have been finishing the Garden's Dream.   and here…today i can stand directly in front of it.  see what has accumulated.   i am very very much looking forward to this cloth.   But first, i work today.  down the freeway, in San Antonio.  where they have a windmill that breathes up water.  i wish this blog had sound.

so…just to put this pic here because work away days often get lost.  and in keeping with my agreement with self,  i don't want to let that happen.

How we Are,  somehow,  who we Are.   and the question to wonder, is…is this just some kind of preference?  or,  is it really, some kind of uhhhh,  imprinting.  lets call it that.  imprinting.  we could call it many things,  like past life memory,  some kind of karmic quality,  or an "agreement",  a curriculum we bring to this Earth school. 

OR  some kind of accidental thing?, that accidentally gets repeated enough times to seem to just be.

This Garden's Dream is finished.

and i can take this opportunity to think something too about the thoughts that Minka raised over on the Spirit Diaries Forum.  about when a cloth is "finished" .  and does the possibility of selling a cloth enter in to "finishing" it and "how" it is finished.  and Jude commented that maybe she would just never "finish" anything, making it all a mute point.  so..i have been thinking about this all along.   And what i Think i ended up thinking is:   The stuff i make …. is stuff that is in effort to give visual/tactile image to something that i experience,  and that experience is not always my own.  in the instance here,  it was a feeling of what is going on under the earth here in this last period of time before it all begins to Happen above.  Yes.  i could stitch more.   it Could go on and on forever.  but the story that "showed up" for me is told here.  As it is right now. 

And i thought about how it's kind of like writing a poem.  you begin with just a bunch of thoughts and as it goes, many change, or get left out.  some might be added or clarified,  but then at some point, you feel like you have said what wanted to get said.  it might have become very short.  and you might have hoped for a longer poem.  so you could add to certain parts, add a few more metaphors, add more description, more mood.  you could.  but really,  there is that Point when the words say what wanted to be said.  and more just are nothing but ….well, more.

so that's where this cloth got to.  it's finished.  more would just be more.  the question being, then, Why? 

so…ok.  and in keeping with WonderBird,  how IS it then, that all the stuff i make is so similar?  carries the same "signature", whether it's drawings,  fiber figures,  cloth.  they are so,,,,related.  and a larger question is, Why, can i not change that.  Even if i TRY.  and so….Does this mean that something in me that is innate is FIXED?  and when was it FIXED?  and then, too,  what does it say about my "view" of the world? that i live in.  and if someone said  "grace, you can go now to become the next mother theresa"…..would i?  would i be ok with giving up this self?  if not, why not?  So, it seems that there are a lot of questions arising.  and i'm thinking that it's a very good thing to have given a committment to one year.  everyday for one year.  and at the end of that time, if i can come to no good conclusions,  i will just STOP.  and be done with it.  This is an indulgence.

this is mr. P. cock and mrs. P. hen.  they live with 4 chickens, Brownie and Brownie and Blackie and Blackie over at Allen's house.  he's gone for 4 days and i am responsible for their wellbeing and the cat's.  Yesterday when i was there and didn't think to take the camera, Mr.  was in Full Display.  he circled and circled, shook and rattled.  he was perfect.  no single feather out of place.  he was in Mrs.' face constantly.  today, all is more relaxed.  i guess it was a good evening.  But the WonderBird question here is….WHY?  Why the just impossible to comprehend variety in living creatures?  Function is one thing.  filling a particular ecological niche is one thing.  but the extravagance of some of it is just nothing short of CRAZY.  his tail is probably 10 ft wide.  He comes from a long line of domestic peacocks.  evolution could have given then a break.  but no.  there he is in a relative small pen with one female of his kind and 4 regular chickens.  Fanning.  Fanning.  Why?

and one more thing.  Allen is kind of a regular guy.  in his 40's.  a batchelor.  kinda plain.  but just outside his back gate, suddenly, there is

no easy task.  What…….is he thinking?

 

 

 

 

it's been coming on for quite a while.  but Saskia's comment on yesterday's post somehow set it in motion, gave it enough form to begin.

I am going to devote this year to Science.  Big Science, like Laurie Anderson knows.  DEVOTE this year…these up and coming 362 give or take days (its already March 3rd) till the First of March, 2014 to RESEARCH.  i will record here.  This morning, as i thought about Saskia's comment, about what it WAS i was saying on yesterday's post, i was stitching more kantha on the robe.  and all the while glancing at the little form i'd stitched to it almost in the very beginning…considering covering the entire checkerboard part because i don't really like checkerboard….but then, Jennifer who only writes in email had called my attention to the issue of Grid.  and commenting to her that grids bother me,  i'd been wondering Why i say that?  Do they really? 

so…stitching and glancing at the odd little form,  i suddenly re-threaded and stitched the form.  the light wasn't good and i've broken my best reading glasses and am using a pair that feels like neither lense matches the other.  but that may have worked in my behalf this morning because i just stitched mindlessly.  and as i went,  i saw that what was taking shape is the Wonder Bird.

stitched while wearing robe..on my knee.

where it is on the robe

 

and somehow this WonderBird will be the emblem for this year of scientific research.  s(he) began as a plain rectangle of yard dye cloth upon which a scrap of Deb Lacativa was added.  that was a few days ago.  Then yesterday, in passing, i added the little blue diamond scrap.  because it was on the floor and i thought, Why Not?.   And then this morning, i wanted to add some stitches that flew out and as i did,  i saw WonderBird for the first time.  Not just a shape, but some kind of odd little flat faced bird.  and i thought, stitching, then…this is the Wonder Robe. 

So…the above is the first example of the kinds of things i will research here.  EVERYTHING will come into Question.  I want to know why i somehow have always believed that there is REASON and GOOD PURPOSE available to a human life if that human chooses to pursue them.  the question is:  IS THIS TRUE?

i go pretty regularly through periods of what might be called Existential Despair.  This related to why i am not able to find some way to really give something of value,  a worthwile contribution to life on this planet that actually makes a Difference.  but though it's Existential, it's never really despair, but maybe more Ennui.  once in Oregon, a psychic who i was consulting began the session with the question "So what's with the ennui?"  that's the first time i'd heard that word used.

So..back to the Research.  The question is whether or not there is really any Meaning.  And if so,  How can i Tell?  I will not ask WHAT the Meaning is, because that is unknowable.  Just if i truly believe there is.  and again…importantly, How can i Tell?  How can one woman Tell?

I like this.

So i will be looking around at what's already at hand.  Asking the question:  what IS it that keeps me endlessly firm in a belief that there's "something more to it all".  and that, if it does prove to be true, then that there is Reason to align self with the "higher vibration" for lack of a better term in the moment.  That there is Purpose in it.  For the Good of some Larger Whole.

I am going to need to refine my protocol but am going to use as a tool  Eugene T. Gendlin's  concept of Felt Sense as described in his book  Focusing that i first read when it came out in 1978.  Felt Sense is when things do not have words or even form, but when there is Rightness felt in the gut.  a kind of emotional exhale, release, a moment of no question, centerdness.  that's not a quote, but if you want his words for it, you can get the book.

So..here we go.  Everyday for a year of days.  and already, WonderBird has become more.

 

 

 

 

 

it's time to dream.   but i just woke up.  what happened?

you can't even see it.  but you can feel it with your finger., the kantha……..

barely perceptible,   a nub  on the horseradish stump that was stuck in the dirt .

the garlic is up

EVERYTHING is beautiful.

screen door.  first time 2013

and the day ends this way

this is an entire day.  these are what make up a  Life.  days.  we wake, we do, we sleep.  to wake again.   over and over.  i am trying to understand more about this.  there's something i can't quite see.

 

 

 

 

so…i fed and watered the Goats.  hung around a while with them and then went about the early evening business of Love.  it's like some kind of slo motion waltz.  i have gotten somewhere better and different with it all this year and i have to acknowledge that it's the Goats that have somehow brought this change.  not a  lot of way to explain that, but i believe it is true.  So, i wander about with the shovel, the rake, the leaf rake, the pruners,  the glass of wine,  as i said, slo mo.  my mind focuses really on none of it, but somehow, all of it.  thoughts partially form but then dissolve half way through.  the Mockingbirds are back and have new things to say.  i try to say them back.  Sun is slow to move along to the rim.  there is warmth.  a honey color to things.  there is just love.  just love.

things are set on the raft for the moment.  the little stool has finally fallen totally apart.  a new one is in place.  i don't know.

where some things were and this year, sunflower seeds go here.

and maybe this pot, for cleome.  maybe.

working compost, almost ready to transfer on right.  new one on left.

grape vines i brought home to weave for trellis

my beloved truck, Sunny.

these photographs pretty much look like not much.  but as i place them here, re size them, comment, my eyes are slitty, how you look upon a Lover, i breathe through my mouth,  This, i love.