windthread

in a comment the other day, yvette used these perfect words.  i have been since,  holding them up
to the light, as a veil,  over so many things.

But, here, Robyn asked about the milking the other day and this is as good a time as any to say things about that.  Julian arrives tomorrow or Sunday and i don't really know how that will effect things….again, that veil of unpredictable with unknown outcome.  i want to say the things about the milking telling just the facts as much as i can.  let go the narrative, the qualifiers, the adjectives and adverbs and just say the facts.    so, here goes.

i missed the "window" for most of it.  there is a space of time between 2 weeks of the goats nursing their young ones and continuing good milk production.  i was learning to milk during this time.  i was unable to deal with separating the babies from their mothers during the night.  this last week…

woops

i was sliding back into narrative.  No.

so…i could say that i failed.  and it feels some like that.  missed the opportunity, for sure.

but i have, in 3 months completely transformed this acre.  with pens and spaces and fences and worlds.  14 baby goats have been born.  healthy.  beautiful.

i have learned to milk by hand, with the MaggieDan.  i will be ready when we try again. 

What i realized in a very difficult moment last week is that what i most want to do now is learn the ways of these creatures.  i want to create relationships with the 4 doelings we will keep for now.   Understand more about how they experience this world. 

This is enough.

and so…it will be Spring when the window will appear again.  i think i will be more ready then.  but who knows?  things are "unpredictable, with unknown outcome".

These are the goats that have patiently stood on the milkstand.

Onday, mother of Mercy

Ona, mother of Darth Vader and Inky

Lucky Star, mother of Just Going and Los Dados

CaroLine, mother of Jude's Magic

Ginger, mother of Cinderella and Sunny Ray

 

 

 

 

 

 

sitting here, talking on phone to the young woman who is my son's partner, all the while, staring at the cloth.  talking. 

how things are layers upon layers upon layers

Sunday, Talula and her two mothers,  who are no longer partners together but continue parenting together and one mother's new love interest came with Talula and her friend Jora and two other girls, sisters, 10 and 6 who i was meeting for the first time.  Because of 4 women talking the girls had to wait for the official goat visiting to begin and they occupied themselves outside.

This morning, Tuesday, i finally noticed that the basket that i'd put the Small Things in for Julian's upcoming visit had been moved.   and as i came closer,  i was amazed by what i saw.   The girls had ….yes, Created a World.   there are still a few things i cannot as yet see.  it's beautiful, what they just quietly did.  

 

and then a morning glory joined them

i also wanted to say and almost forgot….Deb Lacativa told me to watch the movie The Fall.   i have no TV,  never really watch any movies for many many years,  but i kept thinking about her saying that so i rented it from the movie place.   i watched it last evening.   and now, it has become a seed of sorts,  seeping in to things here.  How any story is not just one story but many.  How on the day above, there were 4 women, 4 girls and each could tell a differentsame story.  so much more to think about this. 

and i always forget to say….Click the pics to see them bigger

 

 

Julian.  the great grandson.  from California.  for about 3 weeks, give or take.

i am getting ready.  this little table, the red chair, the cushion are from Alz B's house.  it's slowly being cleared out.   the red chair is from her childhood.  the little mimbres painted table, and the pillow, from her livingroom.   am looking.  remembering how all the kids liked to play restaurant.  I can be the waitress.  i will teach him to leave generous tips.

 

 

my mother is dead now.  has been for a while.  but for years, whenever i could call her,  she pretty much said two things before hanging up.  Why don't you move here?  and  Did you go to church?

maybe it's the oppressive craziness of the political season in this country, maybe it's because it's raining again.  or because it's her birth month, or because people do continue to speak to us from the grave?  or because Velma's Wendy is not eating.

but today, just in the last hour or so,  i DID go to church.  First i went to Judy Martin's blog.  went and walked into the photographs there, came away and returned again a few times.  and then on my way to gather the milking equipment for yet another maybe or maybe not partially successful attempt at milking,  i found myself in Church again……

the onion skin dyed curtain at the alter of the Morning Sun.

and Michelle, take note.

 

 

 

 

here's the cheese

and i want to express my most deep gratitude for all the comments yesterday and today about Everything.  and to say that i really DO think we All are a book already, that i think that is maybe what blogging is about.  that here we all are,  Centered by Spirit Cloth, by Jude and how it is to me, the MotherShip.  all satellites spinning out from that one center and signaling to one another, telling how it is in our days.  How Beauty Full is that!

THANK YOU.  hUGE.

 

 

 

i can't seem to go back wards some times because things keep moving forward and it's like a current in a fast moving river, or here, the flow downward in a wide arroyo of rushing water.

last night was the Storm of All Storms.  maybe, really, the BEST storm i have experienced here in my 18, 21 or however many years?  But it was Fine and i was filled with FEAR.  but it was that kind of FEAR that very clearly makes you understand that there is NOTHING you can do in the face of it.  There was circular Lightning and Thunder .  All directions simultaneously and so ABOVE.  it came in fast succession, the vertical strikes.  The World Was LIT, completely ILLUMINATED by it.  and somewhere after maybe a half hour as this continued, WATER FELL UPON US as if a huge crack had been opened in that thing we call sky and a literal OCEAN came down upon us.

Earlier in what appeared to be a quiet calm evening, Barbara, or Whimsey, whichever name, neither feeling like HER name, gave birth.  What i believe to be the final kidding.  and 2 bucks.  The first was a breech but she labored him out, bless her, her mouth making a very odd and long almost tube like shape that she gasped into.  she made sounds that i can't even attempt to describe.  but he came.  and as i ran to close off the inside of the Albatros for her private space for the first 24 hours, the second was born.  Deb Lacativa will be glad.  two very excellent black and white.    the little girls came this morning.  Snowshoe and Storm.  and so.  it is done now.  and i cannot begin to even yet know how much a relief that is.  All Born.  All well.  

Two and a half months ago, 12 goats arrived here.  Today there are 26.  TEN bucklings and 4 doelings.    Ten bucks.  here is my duhkha.  ten bucks.  if Jenny and i lived as most have lived herding goats through the centurys,  those little bucks would have been JOY.  they would be

meat

but here we are.  10 bucks to find homes for.  As children's 4H projects or companion animals.  at the least, weed eaters in a place that will treat them well.  ALL of them COULD be potential herd sires.  they are beautiful beings.  but there is not time or space to entertain that now.  Last Thursday, the day that inspired the post of Duhkha, we worked all day with a quiet and oh so GOOD momentum, daughter and i and at the end of it, i was so grateful for her.  She does not claim any particular belief or source of sustainance but her abiding sense of non attachment is a miracle to me.  We worked.  We cut through aluminum walls with a sawsall, hammered and screwed and made do with what we had and banded four little bucks testicles…she banding, me holding and turning my face, my self away and we tried on Sonny Ray but his were too big and had to give it up and he ran and was afraid of me for the first time and the ordinarily peacefull BUCKS were inspired to chase him and make it all worse.  and as i watched them, i remembered that passage in the John Blofeld book that i had read just after the book was published in the 70's and understood for the first time the buddhist concept of suffering.

and right now, the early evening SUN shines from near the Rim of the West and more storms are forcast for this night.  they will scream again, those little ones, not knowing how to escape to safety.  i cannot help them.

what does this have to do with Cloth?    EVERYTHING.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i will go back to yesterday's thought as soon as i can.  sometime tomorrow.  i want to respond to thoughts offered.  i was planning to do that tonight, then things came up and it's too late.  but i do want to put this here

it dried from sepia to the walnut i had expected.  i am , what?,  Uhhh, i am well, just so
"taken" by these marks.   this is actually the opposite side of the cloth as in the pic when it was wet.  this side is more defined.   and it is as i'd felt before.  How can it be Improved upon?  Changed by adding anything?  it is just so amazing as it is.  and i think that's why i've not gone along much into this process of bundling.  So i am looking.  i am thinking that maybe at the most, there might be some kind of border on the left side…but even that seems intrusive on the innate design.  i don't know.   What would YOU do if it was at your house???????????

 

 

 

 

 

from Tantric Mysticism of Tibet…John Blofeld

the concept of "Suffering"

"As we have seen, the Buddhist term 'duhkha', of which 'suffering' is the usual translation, actually has a much wider connotation.  Perhaps 'unsatisfactoriness' is closer, but it lacks the force to cover all the meanings of duhkha, which include giving rise to disappointment, disillusion, discontent, longing, desire, aversion, loss, sorrow, anxiety, shame, pain, decay, illness, death and many more.  Whereas impermanence and lack of own being are passive qualities,  'suffering'  (i.e. giving rise to suffering)  relates to the action of one entity upon another.  To be without or to have too little of something we desire is suffering, to be forced to put up with what we dislike is suffering;  the diminution or loss of our loved ones, powers and possessions is suffering;  and the disenchantment which so often follows the fulfillment of desire is suffering.  Of course, physical, mental and emotional satisfactions frequently give us joy, but joy can seldom balance duhkha; disillusion is commoner than ecstasy;  most joys pall with frequent repetition and may give place to boredom or disgust;  moreover it is our nature to be discontented with our gains and to set our targets ever higher.  Want feeds on the satisfaction of want.  Snatching at what we took to be nuggest of gold, we find ourselves grasping a handfull of autumn leaves that turn to dust in our hands.  During most of our waking hours we are plagued with a vague or explicit need for something or other, big or small, to complete the happiness of the moment.  This desire can now and then be quenched, but not for long.  Perhaps it could be said that duhkha is the 'sense of lacking', i.e. lacking whatever it is that is needed for our full enjoyment now or in the future."