windthread

when memories begin re circulating,  so do photographs.   I like this one…i told my son it would be the pic on the jacket flap of my first NYT bestseller.  My wolf hybrid,   Sky.   Winter Sky at Twilight.   El Cerro Mission,  N Mex

i tried to load this pic last evening and on into the night,  giving up around midnight.   Was under a log we moved to set on Arctica's grave….just enough of a hollow under it.    Glistening.  Wet but not wet….to the fingertip touch….so strange…..and i thought about how many MANY things there most likely are Out There that i might never see.   Life Forms.  I felt bad about exposing it,  disturbing it's Place  and found an arch of bark to cover it,  scooped over leaf litter.         And it's true….the other day when i wondered where i'd read about the mushrooms being the Fruit of their "plants"….Deb G.  and Margery both pointed me toward  Merlin Sheldrake's   Entangled Life     which was over there on the shelf.   I've begun reading again.    And i i thought to check to see if Margery had maybe posted again….Trickster's Hoard   ….no,  but flicking to scroll down fast,  almost like a roulette wheel it spun downward past posts and came to a stop with this,       taken out of context  

"The bird paced between me and the ocean,   paused, offered a slight turn of his head.   I waited.   The ocean murmured.  The gull remained silent.    Last chance i said,  daring the bird.

Soon it became clear I'd get no magic.  Gulls have their own business to attend to,  their own company to keep.  I wanted answers     from the gods,  the earth,  nature,  our animal kin    some backing,  some revelation from outside to quell the doubt within.

I instead received a different message.   The world might indeed speak,  but it doesn't speak to me alone.   The gull is full of its own gullness.   If that's not enough for me,  I'm asking the wrong questions."    Gavin Van Horn   Post of Aug. 24,  2023  

 

and out of any context again?,  or,  is it another kind of aching for  things to MAKE SENSE?   a contextThread?    Maybe the last for now of the Martin Luther King utubes….there are so many more,   this one….maybe the Best? so far,  but i think that about each of them,  but….this one….entitled Rare Speech by Dr. King on August 11th,  1967   Delivered before the National  Association of Radio Announcers   in Atlanta, Georgia           It is so timely,   and  listened as i have found self wishing so much for a Voice of intelligent reason amidst all the adolescent  ignorance that makes up the "news"  feeds,    the social media……      What would he think of it all?  What would a dialogue be like between him and pretty much anyone Out there in the political world of either party persuasion  today.           All this rising up because there was so little  "in the news"  about the national celebration of his Day….my uneasy feeling…..          Have we,   the population of this country decided that things are good enough…that we don't need to Keep on Keeping on….and so….we will in short order   LOSE it ALL?    There are,  yes,  exceptions.   But  do we cling to the exceptions too much?   Or….not.?    turning  our cheek to the MainStream?     What would he say?  What would he say?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Youtube      MLK at UCLA  4/27 /1965

"I am convinced that men hate each other because they fear each other.  They fear each other because they don't know each other,  and they don't know each other because they don't communicate with each other, and they don't communicate with each other   because they are separated from each other."

Martin Luther King Jr.

Turkey Tail

the soft gray,  almost blue and gentle browns at the top….the True turkey tail.   So much is written about it's benefit to the Immune system and   "also throughout Asia,  Turkey Tail symbolizes health and longevity,  spiritual attunement, and infinity.   It has a long history in Traditional Chinese Medicine where it is known as Tun Zhi.  This powerful mushroom is also said to strengthen the lungs, spleen, and stomach and bring a calm sense of energy to the mind."

but what?,   the golden orange of the False Turkey Tail below???????

Maybe just     Beauty      .   the deep pleasure of coming upon it?   More research is needed.   I think there's more.  

This is my friend Jane…..friends from maybe 19 years old?    Best Friends.    Her daughter messaged me this pic today after a 2 hour phone conversation.   How can i tell this story.   and Why would i.     it will be fragmented.   

It all began because the daughter sent Jenny a photograph of the Cass Avenue Unitarian Church,  Detroit Michigan that a cousin took, asking if Jenny would pass it along to me. Which she did.   It's a very old building.  Beautiful.  3 floors a curved balcony.  Made from stone.    Jane's daughter said      I'll bet  your mom has many stories from there.     I do.

The daughter was there from birth.  Friend Jane and  daughter's father were hired   (amazingly)    as caretakers of the church   living in a small apartment on the third floor.   Their big Collie,   Loki.    Jane and  i were around 20.  her dad,  21,  friend of the person who ended up being the father of my two children.   Exact years are blurry…we can figure it all out if  need to.   But it was the end of the 60's.   Viet Nam.    and in Detroit,   the White Panther Party,   Associated Rainbow Coalition,   John and Leni Sinclair.  Detroit ALIVE with Peace and Justice.   
Here's where it starts to get hard to tell.   

Connected to their apartment on that third floor was what we called the Ballroom.  I don't know exactly what it was?   but large,  like a basket ball court maybe?    We spent a lot of time stoned.   Jane's friend had moved to the UK and traveled a lot to India and sent chunks of hashish sewn into beautifully embroidered elephants to the daughter…a baby…..      the church had an industrial sized kitchen downstairs and we….maybe 20 people?   would make these what we called   International Dinners….cooking down there…All this Indian Food,  Syrian,  Fried Rice etc   always very care Full to clean up and it was never an issue with the church people and we brought it all upstairs to the Ballroom.   We went downstairs to the basement where they kept all the costumes for the church plays and picked out what we wanted to wear for the International Dinners.   Down there also were long corridors i guess we can call them and i knew them to be from the days of the Underground Railroad…but at the time didn't have enough sense to understand the GIFT of that…just being too stoned to wander them…some people did…i didn't.   ok…i can feel myself losing steam here…so….gotta figure out what exactly i want to say ………Daughter is right.    SO MANY  STORIES.   For reasons,  she Needs them.   And yes.   I will tell her.   It's going to take some time.  

so….this pic above…..      At some point,   we were all living in Ann Arbor.   this daughter about 9,  Jenny about 3.   Jane decided that there was more "opportunity" in Alaska……….and took  the daughter and their dog Crowfoot and         left.  The daughter grew up in Fairbanks.    

There are many stories.   Daughter wants to hear them all.   Wants to piece her understanding of her life together…like how we stitch together a cloth…..a quilt….a blanket.    

she asked today…..you grew  up in the 50's…….HOW DID YOU DO ALL THE THINGS YOU DID??????????????????????

She loves this pic of her mother.   She loves me.    I love them.    I told her today….ok….we will GROW this.   ok.  

 

 

 

i just wasn't going to talk about this.   Just…..keep it to my Self   because of too much Sad      for a blog.   

but then,   it's kept bothering me.   Does not Honor her…. Arctica.    Alyssia's Goat.   Daughter of OOna.

we were blindsided.   This shouldn't have been true,  but it was.   Oona was buried Monday the 8th.     Arctica went into the Rain House and layed down and  died.    the night of the 9th.     I am not going to tell the story of that.   Just putting it here,  because we loved her.  Because she lived 13 years,  Beauty Full and fiercely independent Goat.   

and i almost forgot…..      Today something of great majesty occurred.    The bottom tier of the Iron Gate Dam,  of the Klamath River,   Siskiyou County   California   was drilled through….OPENED and the river flowed for the first time in a century.   One of 3 dams to be removed.   Their associated reservoirs approximately 1,300 acres will be revegitated and restored to provide critical riparian habitat.   The short Youtube  will make you cry with Love.

 

 

things ARE happening Out There.     Up in Sunny Ray's Forest.    The first is the largest,  almost if not 12 inches across.   !!!!!  and then,   6 other clusters,  like second pic.    I found my Mushroom ID pamphlet….will sit with it again tomorrow….and go back,  to see if there are gills or folds….which tell it all.    They were startling.   Just suddenly      THERE         amidst all the browns and greys…???   Why?????   Another Beauty Full question….Why,        I need to go find where i read about Mushrooms and if anyone remembers too,  tell me….maybe   Deb G    who reads much the same as i??????   That the    mushroom    is the     fruit of the    "plant"….that is underground,  the  mother plant,  this the fruit     and that they occur now,  in this wet overcast Season…??????  it is just nothing less than a total       Wonder.

 

these are the ones that are appearing EveryWhere …..along the road up,  near and next to everything,  new this year,  ????  And if they are so profuse here,  what all Else is Happening in the differing biomes of Doe Forest,  Meadow and then the Forest above Campsite C??????  Even over in B Garden?????   Some days all Rain,  some with windows of clear and overcast,  even some SUN bursts through….. those Windows when there is so much to get done before the Rain again and needing to get done………so……not time to just wander…..and LOOOK .   It will shift soon,  but not yet.   Their strength is amazing,  they push rocks and heavy sodden earth.   There is no pause,  no sleeping in this Cold Time…..different life becomes Active and blooms it's fruit 

so much to learn  so much to love

 

 

t

 

a couple things today…   Understood more how Radical Acceptance is a       Practice.    On going.  Differing,  one experience to another.    and

how intertwined,   the experience of Death and Love.   Tara Brach talks about Compassion being what is found as the ground of R Acceptance….I'll look when i can for some of her words about that.   But this morning,  woke to understanding the place of LOVE in the experience of a death.    This     softens     it all.    Softens the Sadness,   FELT    to be a Loving Response to the absence of  life,  which is     Love.     

inadequate words,   but what i have