windthread

a while back, in response to things i'd written here,  Acey  of   Nichobella  and Sparkling Lotus-land  offered to send an Essence that she had prepared, thinking i might find it beneficial in the time to come.   this particular Essence was offered in response to " contemplating a brand new thing – in leaving the land you love dearly and did not psychically or emotionally plan to leave"…her words in quote.   i responded that Yes, i would very much like to work with this essence, that i had used Bach Flower Essences in the past and am very responsive to them.

some time passed.  and as it is,  the timing of the arrival of the Essence was perfect.   i have begun using it and will talk about it as it goes but in this moment, want to mention its traveling companions.    when i opened the box,  i found several things, all within a nest of pine boughs.  i won't talk about all of them now, but just two things ….  a small stone which i immediately "saw" and held.  since i was a child, stones have held great meaning to me and as i held this stone, i fully realized that i had          stopped      acknowledging this meaning, acknowledging this relationship.  the glare of this reality startled me.   the last gift of this box that i looked at was a book.  this surprised me.   this in some ways was not in keeping with the other gifts.  it is  Adventures with the Buddha    a personal buddhism reader    edited by Jeffery Paine         i know that i have mentioned my efforts on the buddhist path, but still….and i thought maybe it was a book that Acey particularly liked and thought she would just send along?  but then, i opened it to the table of contents and there,  chapter 1    Tibet as It Once Was      Alexandra David-Neel

it was then, with going back to hold and Behold all of the contents, to hold the beautiful cobalt bottle of the Essence,  that i was flooded with the sense of some Big Picture that i had not imagined.  Yes, it was about this Leaving that i will do and Yes, it is about my Place within the triangle of  3 women, me, my daughter, her daughter.    but it also, in this moment,  is about my sense of the cloth that i will begin in Magic Diaries….that cape or cocoon or flag or cloak  and that this cloth is, i think about claiming, or reclaiming parts of myself, my sense of where i fit on this earth.

Maybe i am making too much of all this.  maybe.  and as it goes, we'll see.  but i don't think so.

the most recent piece of cloth dyed for the Magic Diaries cloth 

in the past, when things in my life became,  uhhh,  overwhelming,  or when i found that i could not know how to proceed…i would make collages.   this particular one was made inside this plastic oval frame that i found at the thrift shop not long after moving here…so, 1995.  the print originally in it was one of a mission church, illuminated inside…a beautiful glow.  night.                      i think actually, the collage is afixed to that picture.    it has been present since the day i made it  where i see it many times a day…usually in the kitchen.   one of the central images is the smoking woman…who is  Alexandra David-Neel.   you can see, next to the sheep and above the salamanders a photograph of me at that time.  and right next to it you can see a hole where the rest of the photograph was until i tore it out.  that  would be the pic of the man i was married to here.  and as in that cloth i have of Jude's, "the hand i dealt myself".   this photograph of David-Neel is the only one i ever came across so far in my life of cruising magazines, mostly National Geographic, where this one was.  it was a treasure and i hesitated putting it in the collage….was not sure at all why i did.  but i did.

and here, the second gift of the Datura last evening

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

potatoe patch, early morning

 
a cloth from Cloth to Cloth  just made for pleasure, and although there is Story, it is not to me, a story cloth.  my question to self is….. why is this so. 

 

 
 

 

just another place to pin things….look at them.

about mornings here                     the story of my clothesline

 

this is a self portrait i did with graphite in maybe 2001, the summer of.  August.

it is a self  portrait, but it also is, when i look at it, a whole story that spans about 5 years.  it is the culmination of the years before it was drawn.  but it also is very specifically, the story of a very specific day that i remember vividly.  not only with my mind, but all senses.

i could recreate this drawing in cloth.  i won't, but i could.  this to me would be story cloth.

so…this is one way to think of it.  am going to look for more. 

 

 

 

this morning

 
Sacred Datura    datura innoxia    

wind ~ evening

the blooms only last a night and mid morning anyway, but usually with more gentle grace.  next to her, amazingly enough, the little rose bush that was gifted from the hardware store 2 years ago…. has decided to do this:
once before,  there was a bloom, but it was deformed.

and then, here. 

a repeat of the first dye of the cotton cloths for Magic Diaries.  although they vary some, they are all                   reliably             the same beautiful color.   i could barely make myself do it, but i tore a test strip in two….washed half in quite warm water and       Tide!    dried on the little cloth line and all was well!!!!…the color is fast !
third batch.   one more should do it.

there is a cricket in the dog food bowl and Wind, again, knocked loose the fence.  the oh so late cucumber seedlings are breaking through, their little curved green necks visible.  the 3 volunteer tomato plants are beginning to surpass those i started indoors in February and the Indigo is  GROWING.

 

 
 
 
 
                              

this will be 16 years here.    i have watched.  closely.  days and nights,  seasons.  changes.  it began from nothing and went to something then to many things and finally to more than enough.    i've learned more than i'd ever imagined learning,  more than i knew there was to learn.  and it could be that i might say, just this much.  but, what i am facing is that there is so much more and i most likely will leave before ……before….before who knows?

Clarissa Pinkola Estes said something like        Stand and face what you know.

to me…this has always meant, since i read it in Women Who Run With the Wolves

has always meant….don't turn away, just stand.  look.  see.  watch.  and then

keep standing, looking, seeing, watching.

so hard is about love.  hard is about loving a Place.  loving it in all it's changes, letting it teach me.  so much.  this is partly what i wanted to talk about when i have approached the word of sustainability with Wendy , Grace and Mending and Deb G.    my understanding of that word has changed over time, just as everything "out there" has changed and is changing.  what was it?, that i thought i was sustaining?  the most recent answer to that would be………my own imagination.  but as i am here, in this changing spring to summer season, that is different than any of the 15 that have come before,  it is teaching me. 

and this is what is hard.  i wanted to just turn away.  i wanted to just make it ….what?          well…i am finding i don't have those words yet.  so…i won't rush this.  will wait.  it will come of it's own accord.

Deb G stitched a moonflower.  which reminded me to go out and look…which made me see  something that i might have forgotten and           missed.   it is very quiet and private, really. 

 

like this is too…another one, remember?