windthread

this is reference to Jude's Boro 2 workshop.    i don't know if i'm totally up to this this evening, but…

looking at her posts, looking at all the incredible posts of Others in the workshop, i have been thinking deeply about what cloth i put on my body and why…AND… why Not…..  it 's not at all over and i am surprised with what has arisen so far.  Body Cloth…clothing.  Impressions come from so long ago, remembering when is was a child, in grade school,  with only a few things that felt like "me", and the more worn they got, the better.  then early adolescence when you just wanted to "fit".  through high school when NOTHING was right and then the flying free of early adulthood when clothing was a STATEMENT on into a long period of time when clothing i wore was really, i hate to admit it, was to elicit a response.  but/and again, making a Statement.  my clothes talked.  they talked about who i was at that time.  Come Near, or, Stay Away  was the message. 

All my clothes, except for the early adolescent, i have loved.  all the ways i have "dressed", which could mean, all the costumes i have worn, i have loved.

(ok, grace, cut to the chase)

and here i am.  66 years old.  all this behind me.  ok.  so….Who Am I Now?  really.  How does what i wear, wrap my body in, speak to this.  and most IMPORTANTLY, to whom….does it speak?

for reasons,  in the last some years, i have i think i realize now, made an effort to be non existent.  well, i guess really, it was a style, but not one that would attract any attention. 

this workshop has brought into the present so much and i find myself really ambivilent.  do i create something that Pleases me deeply, but also might cause uhhhhh, Notice?  Thinking.

and then…things that Please me Deeply can also be things that are so functional with the way i live…which is called LifeStyle.

so, here.  the first.  the Goat Shirt.  it's not finished.  things will go on the Inside of it…remain hidden to the eyes of others, but that i will know are there.  WHAT AM I DOING WITH THIS???  don't know.  we'll see.  but here.  the first:

from the Thrift Shop.  shirt.  56% rayon, 29%cotton, 19% linen.  made in Sri Lanka.  when i brought it home and for a really long time, it was white with a kind of greenish strip and the dark line stripe and i referred to it as like an awning.  but i loved how it FELT when i tried it on, but could not deal with it's awning~ness…stripped~ness.  so it sat.  waiting to probably be cut up for small fragments somewhere, but also for SO long, NOT cut up.  Just sitting.  the other day, an onion skin pot out there and….there it went and what a surprise!…a really beautiful color that has completely taken me in and the pics here don't really capture it, but it's …..Amber????, an Apricot????  i don't know but the color was driving me crazy, thinking about it and how the onion skins muted the green stripe to some kind of beautiful greygreen shadow that was suddenly SUBTLE and the dark line was now ok.  just very ok.   so…it's now the Goat Shirt.

it didn't take they dye evenly.  it's most evident here, but it's all over the shirt.

took off all the faux wood buttons.  Kantha with a pale but vibrant blue thread down the uhhh, plackets???the button and buttonhole things…disappearing the buttonholes.  i made a very large blue thread buttonhole.  forgot a pic of that.

a most loved button that has gone from thing to thing over maybe 40 years?

the breast pocket.  i like that term.  now it has a goat's eye.

and here.  if i need to run out in the night, in a hurry,  and wander around, making sure things are ok and it's cool, like it gets in the desert….the perfect shirt.  one button takes care of covering all that is necessary to cover

and What If,  i want to wear it as a jacket shirt over one of the jumpers?  like to the store, or the post office?  i Could.

and as i am stitching, thinking about ALL this, my attention is drawn to the right, the West, where Sun is heading again for the Rim and where just to see what would happen, i have hung the Diaries Cloth………..and oh Jeez.  look!

the light is coming through and it's that SAME amber color and i go out and look, and yes, it's true.  it's the color of the goats eyes.  amber. 

amber.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i wanted to say some things.  then, i thought i wouldn't.  but now i am. 

Looking for words.   Telling.

there's something about Telling.  Telling how it is for  "you" which, would be me,  in this case.    So, i had thought, during all the set up for the goats coming,  i had thought about the probable fact that this ecosystem would change.  but i had thought that there would be some kind of disturbance.  that stuff out there would be startled by 12 and now 17 sentient beings that take significant PLACE by being here.   and i knew that it would change me.  change how i experience a day, any day, every day.

and…interestingly enough,  things are, i guess, Evolving.  Changing, Taking In, Just Going ….in such  surprisingly wonder Full ways.  Today,  i set my mind to dealing MYSELF with the swamp cooler.  it's the SouthWest air conditioning.  it's a box attached to your home that has water connected to it through a small tube system from an outdoor faucet.  the water enters and through plastic spigots, sprays down on 3 or 4 walls of the box that hold pads, made of shredded aspen.  then, there is a whirring motor that turns and tries to dry the pads, thereby creating cool air that flows into your home.  i have lived years, off and on without.  just sweated through parts of days.  but daughter Jenny has a different biology than i and becomes, uhhh, flattened with excessive heat.  So, for the days she comes here, i needed to get it working.  i sweated and struggled and got it all apart and went to the hardware store with the non functioning parts and came home with the hopefully functioning parts and sweated some more trying to put it all back together. 

and Why i am telling this here,  is that, really, it's all about ….guess what?…..Mending.  it 's all about everything i've learned about Cloth.  what doesn't work, you cut out, or go over.  all it ever takes is just looking…thinking….doing….just going.  THIS IS AMAZING TO ME.

so, i DID get the cooler going.  what was over 100 degrees in here is now pleasantly….warm.  AND I DID IT MYSELF.  silently, looking, thinking, just going.  one moment to the next.  done.

and then, the goats were calling.  i am trying to cut their feed a little at a time.  they don't need so much, maybe.  but it's a big MAYBE.  and they called me.  and as i went out and pulled Kochia weed to fling over to them,  a little every day to accomodate their transition from alfalfa,  i watered things.  which is a trip in itself and as i watered things,  i saw:

that the bindweed is blooming Everywhere……because i don't have time to pull it.

and there is ORANGE mallow again!

and the grapes are coming!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  oh eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

and as i hauled wheelbarrows full of manure from one raised bed to a different one, because i haven't had time to plant in the Usual Way,  i heard a cicada.  Chicharra, in spanish.  one full month ahead, at least and i followed her sound and there she was on the young locust tree.  i didn't take her picture because also interested in her was one of the Mocking Birds that nest in the Elderberry.

but then, looking down………..oh LO and BEHOLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

like a kiss on the forehead from a God Thing….oh and oh and just oh……………this so very SMALL so very NEW so very perfect Praying Mantis.  and again, like the Walking Stick, if there is one,  there are many. 

I take this as a blessing.  I take this as affirmation of good effort, though, faltering sometimes, though not really knowing anything at all.  I take these things as confirmation of the Law of Just Going.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

there are 7 of these.

Jude's lizard

i'd made a deal with my self that i couldn't post anything here until i finished that left panel of Kantha.

and that stitching needed to occur between the daughter arriving and then a lot of Goat Stuff.  but… here.  it's finished.

this is what the bottom of the left panel looked like yesterday morning.  you can see how much slack there is from the extended kantha.  like the ruffle on Mo'a's apron.

here's how it ended up.  it's uhhhh, got that xcess, but i don't really mind it.  i probably won't do anything to disguise that. 

 

and the thread.  it is quite secure.  so will remain as is.

i am really really happy with where i am with where the Cloth is.  now, i can slowly, as it goes, work on the center.  stitching down and maybe adding somethings or maybe not. 

but i want to spend some time for a while working on a few things for the Boro 2 class.  and i have some dye pots going out there, making some interesting colors.  so that too. 

 

 

don't have a title.

the morning could not have been more perfect.  warm.  Breeze.  beautiful light flowing as  a blessing.

and THEN…………….  as i water the tomato plants, i graze on the Lambs Quarters, just pick and eat as i go.  this year there is a bumper crop.  last year it was Purselane.  both more nutritious than any domesticated green we plant.  anyway, chewing, feeling sympathetic with the goats maybe,  my pupils elongated??????,    but i was just chewing, holding the hose, looking at nothing in particular, really, and suddenly my focus zeroed in……..and oh, look.  in spanish, Meera……..with a soft rolling r……….

an Exquisite, Perfect, oh so Excellent maybe 1/4 inch, young Walking Stick on a single blade of grass.  i was …..  stilled.   i was so grateful that whatever i could attribute that moment to, Occured, was In Place.  it would have been  so totally understandable to have    …………     missed.   so ephemeral, so camoflaged, so    SMALL   .  but there it was.  and if there is one,  there are more.

and then Wind rose up, so all that had  been  planned for outside work didn't happen but……….

almost half way finished with the kantha on the left panel.  having arrived at the point of  decision.

way back,  an other impulse,  the 6 strands of embroidery thread flowing through and out and down from the opening in the flower.  it perfectly expresses something…the ~almost~  tangle of it…and nothing else i can think of that would be more, uhhh, orderly,  could. 
So…do i leave it??????  or…………..?   in the moment, it is left.  and it causes me to think about what this cloth IS, as i work away.  what will it's purpose/place be?, in my life, in this living space?  and i'm thinking that whatever that might be,  it very well could be washed by hand in a large tub in the bathtub.  the floss would , i think, remain in place through this.  it is invisibly basted and this could be worked even more…some anyway.  what i don't want to do is "tie it down"

 

 

 

the eclipse.    what the camera saw … the little green floating light again.  some vague companions.  i squinted fast and could see the ring for a milisecond only………but………..

this morning, everything seemed crystal clear.  an ordinary wild sunflower could not be more perfect…….

the first hollyhock bloom…and wouldn't you know, on the plant that gets frequently run over by the truck backing up to the Albatross……..

around the raft, the Mallow blooms in profusion

the Chatalpa…a hybrid between Desert Willow and Catalpa.  the Tree of her died during the COLD WINTER but her "suckers" are blooming with abandon.

and over the Snake Gate, on the way back in….the Desert Willow has begun.

the Diaries Cloth…on the table…left panel………..and coming in, looking, i realized that i'd begun the stitching last eve here…where there are Deb Lacativa's 5 eclipses……..i never thought about it…till i looked this morning………

then gaze caught here, to the woven piece from Cloth to Cloth…and though i try to avoid these things,  i see a face.  a female face.  looking back.

AND, if that all were not enough, as i begin stitching,  i am Overcome with a sudden urge that becomes a sudden Realization….i can stitch the kantha OUT from the Eclipse piece…OUT into the rest with it's own color which immediately is known to be a bloodbrown….          And then back to the stitching of the Space then,  now,  into the bloodbrown.

over these years,   how many times have i seen Jude do this????  hundreds for sure but  suddenly, it was as if i was seeing this possibility for the First Time….it was really, totally NEW.    WHY?  maybe because it arose from the cloth itself?  that one fragment wanted to merge with another but be seen in this way…the merging seen?  i don't know, but though it doesn't look like much at all here,  when it happened, it was  nothing less than a Revelation.

 

the right side (actually, the cloth's left) is finished.

except for the very bottom…am not sure here…will wait until the other side is finished….

and something here, with Jude's magic thread. 

and however it goes with the thread beads here.

the kantha changes everything.  first, it has it's own energy that causes the energetic movement with the cloth.  but also,  the layers have become One.  it's a really exhilarating feeling.

now for the left side…..i'll begin that tonight.
all the while, i am glancing over to the center….seeing/feeling it moving in a different way….

and an Update in Goat World:

this is the little door to the Outside, opened yesterday….

and everybody coming In to check it out…those are the First Babies…taking advantage of my leaving the little step stool there….one actually got up on it, went half way through the fence onto the stacked hay before i noticed.  they don't miss a Thing.

in a little while i'm going to haul over some stumps and build the babies a little something to jump on.  i wish i could make them a mountain.  climbing is their Joy.

i was getting ready to go to Magdalena for a goodbye lunch   (i had even ironed my jumper and trimmed the hanging threads (unhemmed))  when i heard THAT BLEAH.  ran out, and yup.  back in ripping off the jumper and grabbing what was handy (yesterdays clothes). 

Onday and two little bucks.  one looking similar to Magic…but more grey brown but definately similar. 

so…again, birthing in Fiona's Palace…the  hardest place, but i guess favored for some goatly reason, and i moved them in to the larger stall in the shed,  Magic and Caroline still in the small one and Caroline makes the decision that she will NO LONGER stay in there and begins figuring out a way out.  it is very very noisey (everyone is yelling).  what to do.

long story short,  Caroline and Magic are outside now.  in the big yard pen. 

Magic, being precocious as well as beautiful, seems to have no difficulty with this on day 2 of her life and begins Just Going.

but somewhere, in the middle of all that, i turned on the hose water (in my anxiety, i yanked the pipe that has the valves)  and the pipe broke loose.  water gushing.  i hunt for the crescent wrench (that was never put back after the initial fence making extravaganza),  finally finding it,  run and climb over the backyard fence (that has never had a gate) and turn off the water to the house at the road meter.   hunt down the little can of PVC glue and steele myself. 

this opening is just a bit wider than my shoulders.  it leads………….

to the closest place under the house to the pipe.  all that stuff to the left is my futil attempt once to insulate the pipe with plastic shopping bags.    so,  i fix the pipe.

and here i am.  feeling inclined to document all this.  so i can think about it.  while i make a decision.

my arm.    pretty much all of both arms look like this…from scratches on the chicken wire.

my pants.  i smile.  thinking about Boro 2. 

back to  …..  So.      So.   i think it's the end of the day.   Onday and her babies are in the Albatros  (shed).  little Magic is out there somewhere for the night.  it's summer and i know that i can do pretty much anything when it's warm, being a lizard at heart.  but what i need to think about is what if all this happened in the winter?,  in the cold and oh so Wind filled days?  am i Up To It????????

 

 

since the goats arrived, everything has been different.  all the same things, just in different order i guess.  and in all that,  working on the Diaries Cloth has taken on a strong pull.  even if it's just a line or two of Kantha,  i find myself going over to her several times a day.  since people have been showing up, the door hasn't been on the table,  the table now sometimes having …food.  or coffee.

so the cloth is just bunched there.  the right panel that i am finishing with kantha is the only part of her spread flat, and just the 6 or 8" that i'm working on.  so it's been very different.  and as i stitch, often standing, i find my gaze drifting to the shapes of the  rest of the cloth…not flat in the "story of the rooms", but in a topography of stitch, color, form:

so…i'll be finished with the kantha on this side very very soon. 

Then…for the first time in weeks, i'll pin her back up on the wall.  see what has happened.  see where to go next.  most likely begin the kantha on the lft panel.

but as i look at the stitching and shapes against one another, i am seeing so many Different,  singular, small cloths.  i am loving having reached this point.  there is a devotion to the work, now.

 

 

 

Born to Caroline…….1:47 p.m.     Maybe the most beautiful little goat i've ever seen.