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just a test about comment box

for some reason the comments don't seem to be working for the post of the  Daughter Cloth.  So am

just testing

 

White. i ~did~ work with white the Daughter Cloth

so in the What If Diaries of Jude Hill's Spirit Cloth, we are considering White.  and at some point i said in a comment, i don't do white.  not White.  bone, eggshell, tea softened white, ...but not White.  and then i remembered the Daughter Cloth.  All her life she wanted me to make her a quilt.  thinking that i "sew" so Why didn't i make her a quilt.  not distinguishing between sewing and being a quilter.  so in the same way i said the other day "I don't do White", i always said, "I don't quilt".  That said...she was leaving New Mexico for California.  With her Goats.  for the most part, these same Goats that i live with now.  It's a long story and it's Her story so i can't really tell it.  but she went and it didn't work and we brought the Goats back.  but before she left, i made her a quilt.  i made it Cloth to Cloth way.  Jude showed us.  It was made of all Thrift Shop recycle.  some very very used What Jude identified as good household cloth.  torn into strips.  woven.  the center, was a common pretty thing that Deanna knows the name of.  so here are some of the pics of that process that took from February to May, 2011.

this is Jenny, my daughter and her still a puppy Anatolian Shepard, livestock guardian dog, Kadir. he isn't even 6 months old in this pic.  the neighbor in California shot him.  said he felt threatened.

to weave the strips and attach them to the ground cloth i needed a ladder.

for all the woven part,  the stitch i used was invisible baste.  less than a 1/4" apart.  it held up in the laundromat washer just fine.

and interestingly enough, this morning when looking for these Daughter Cloth pics...lo and behold, this.  the one and the same little woven cloth that Jude made in class. 

the little goat in the center from Jude's Patchwork Beasts workshop

finished.  ready to Just Go.

 

 

 

 

morning of 22. and i am just going to say this now

and come back throughout the day and look at it and then at the end of the day, see what i think.

this is the uhhh,  "stationary" altar.   it is on the shelf beneath the Green Tara.  where my gaze is focused during meditation.   the objects here change.  there is this:

a gift from Jude during Cloth to Cloth.   since then, it has been the little altar cloth.   different things sit on it.   things to help me remember from moment to moment what is important to me:

so

i am going to make altar cloths.   and i am going to offer them for Sale.

yes, Sale.

they will cost $50. 

when one is finished, i will put a photo of it here and repeat this.  that it is for Sale.  for $50.   this is a LEAP for me.  but too many things in the last days are supporting it.  I need to Care for this herd of Goats in an Impeccable (Don Juan, Carlos Casteneda again) manner.  today i need to respond to a request for yet another job as a gardner for someone.   nice.  but i need to be Here.  i really need to be Here.

so here we go.   i will come and look at this and read again the words through the day and see if it feels right.  at the end of the day i will either leave it and write more details tomorrow when the number of the day equals 5 or i will delete it.

ok.

 

21

so my mind is preoccupied against it's will about White.  it's the first What If in Jude's  Diaries.  White.  all day i noticed white.  and i commented over there yesterday, something about how i had a sense of Air being a kind of white, i said a transparent white, but really i meant translucent.   and by air i mean what surrounds and touches all edges of everything on this planet.  the stuff we breathe into our lungs.  Air.  and thinking about this this morning, i was looking around at things in this room...the living room...looking for actual white. and also thinking about the exercise of printing a cloth i am working on in black and white using Picassa. 

so...i turned to my left and took a pic of the small altar

downloaded it and the left border was too close to the basket.   i went over and refilled the coffee cup, came back, maybe less than a minute? and  standing in front of it now, took another and i honestly don't know what happened.  all i can think of is that the rising Sun was entering that window at just a certain angle to reflect off what must be specks on the lense????  when i look at the lense, i can't see any...but...

and here it is changed to black and white

 

20

i think the "fever" has broken.

the onions.  now under the soil.  watered.  sheltered by compost.  and i thought about how not only will i have beloved onions, but their skins.  to dye with.  there is nothing more.

and i sanded soft this wibbely jig saw cutting.  soft.  nothing to irritate a neck.  and added the frame to hold the Goat Pleasures of pellets or alfalfa and if necessary, sweet feed.  this makes me feel very very good.

and on the picnic table, Caroline.  one of the two bred does.  she is becoming heavy.

Yoko Ooona, who rarely allows a frontal photo.  behind her, Lucky Star who is the second bred doe.   and in the foreground, Ginger's butt.

 

19

i need

need

need to stay outside this evening till dark.  i need to watch dark come.  i need to be with the Goats.  NEED.

but today, aside from going to clean Allan's already clean house, i stared at this.

and i took the face off and fooled with it.  pencil, colored pencil, ink, turpentine.  i kept wanting to change it from "pretty".  but it won't change.  i think i need to spend some time just drawing.  finding a way to draw a female face that is what i would consider not pretty.  just a face.  it's rare that i have been able to do that.  WHY?????????  i don't know.  i make 2 eyes, a nose designated by 2 nostrils, really, and then a mouth.  i want something generic.

and then...after giving up for the Time Being, i stitched it on.  just for practice.  to keep it from pouching out, leave part open, Jude said, like maybe where the hair will go.  so, ok.  i did that.  More staring.  and then Suddenly

oh!  and eee.  look.  in spanish  phonetics, meera!  Who is this?

and i can't DO this.  to me, megamendung is Jude Hill.  i TOTALLY associate it with Jude.  i have a little.  that she gave me.  i put some on the Going Through cloth that i sent to Wendy Golden Levitt for her children.  and that was ok., because Jude lives in that space too.  but otherwise...i just can't.  but i CAN look at this here.  for a little while.  look at what feels

shocking

to me.  try to understand that.

so, now...to the Goats.

Day 18

it didn't work.   or did it?  saying things, then, uhhh, retreating out of reach.  i think it didn't work.  there are other ways to take needed space from comotion that you have caused for your  self.  here, i stared to the left of the computer screen, reading what i'd said at 1:30, 2:30 and 3 am. you really can't see it here, but the irridescence of the peacock feathers was beautiful in the dark.

i remind self.  Take Time.  Take Time, no matter what, for the quiet Sitting.  more even, than just at the break of day.  Take Time,  any time, when it seems too much.  ok.  maybe sometimes, many times during any day.  Stop.  Sit.  Empty mind.  ok.

get help.  Sydney and her partner/lover Sheila came and we got this far with the milk stand.  We laughed a lot.  Talulah too, Sydney's daughter.  she watched women work stuff out.    Women who are blunt and funny and plain spoken.  Talulah is nine years old.  so, not just for me, but her too.

and it was dark when we finished for today.  Goats thinking it was very interesting.

i Thank Everyone for their patience., love, grace

 

 

 

Day 17 Just thoughts and if i knew how to disable comments i would for this one.

so...no need to Reply.

When i first started this blog thing, it was to record my work with Learning Cloth Making with Jude.

What happened with that?

well...i guess that the cloth making is Part of my Experience and the rest is everything that is not cloth making...like what i do in my days.  To ME, it's one in the same.  Writing it here is not one in the same. 

Wha.  how can i say this.

i never think ahead of what i am going to say here.  it's just what comes out of me, raw.  as is.  i don't have time, or want to TAKE time, i guess to think it through ahead, to write it down and "preview" it.  i just don't want to do that.  so...it is what it is.  and really, this blog is first and foremost a journal of my days.  a journal.  and the thing that makes it clumsy is that it is public.  i could make it private.  for my eyes only. 

Question:  Why would i do that?  would that be Better?????

for pretty much all my life i wrote journals, Morning Pages, etc. etc.  and i got really tired of it.  and stopped.  and for some years did NO journaling of any kind.  that was good too.  it's a common question.  why does someone put their thoughts "out there"...not because they think they have anything particularly wonderful to say, but because they for whatever reason find it interesting or useful to see their inner workings in print????

this morning i made myself a little Sign that i pinned to the curtain over the computer screen.  it was to cause me to....PAUSE....to maybe even Filter OUT some of what i might write here.  and all day i looked at it.  Should I?  Why? 

and in this moment, i am thinking like Popeye.  i am what i am.   My children's father, my first husband used to get so tired of me.  he would leave rooms with the words "Lighten UP!  so...i know certain things about myself.  but back to Popeye. 

I am going to just put this DisClaimer here:   I AM A HUMAN BEING IN PROCESS.  I THINK STUFF THAT CHANGES ALL THE TIME.  NOTHING I SAY HERE HAS ANY PARTICULAR TRUTH EXCEPT FOR ME IN MY OWN EXPERIENCE.  IN FACT, IT MAY BE TOTALLY WRONG.  but i won't filter it.  what comes out will come out.  particularly in this Year that i have committed to.  if i werent posting every day, some stuff would just dry up on the vine and blow away inbetween posts.  but every day, we see every day. 

so...if for whatever reason anyone out there continues to read here,  i just hope you will disagree or blow me off or whatever seems right to you.  best of all...say so.  one of the true things of value in my sense of it is that we get to SEE so many "others" and we get to gain a sense of how we are like them or different from them , but always, there seems to me to be some Common Ground.  if nothing else than another woman trying to make sense of what she perceives to be a life.

so...Ta Da.  done.  for the moment.

and this is happening on the Wall:

 

 

 

Day 16. i spent the day having Feelings.

reminding self that feelings are often Thoughts.  which are mental constructs.  and i'll add a word.  Indulgences...according to Don Juan .

so...i indulged myself with thoughts and feelings.  i went to the Farmer's Market in town and talked to too many people.  always a mistake to go into town on Saturdays.  you run into Everyone.  and have to explain yourself over and over.

Then, i went to the Old Folks Home to see what was happening with Alz. Betty.  She was in the shower, and i just missed it, but it was a good shower.  a happy shower.  some are not.  sometimes she kicks and bites.  but she was all moist and good smelling from all the lotion and had a new haircut.  and she was thirsty so i was able to get her two glasses of water and she blew bubbles through the straw for the second.  it make her laugh.  and a new guy was there.  he arrived during the night and was in one of the really interesting chair/pens made from pvc pipes.  they are like, hmm, they are like a playpen but you can scoot around in them.  they keep you from falling down.  he was out in the middle area near the nursing station where there is this big table, where Betty is often parked.  he was ....he was dressed still, as he had come, i'm sure.  had his hat on.  a hospital band on his wrist...must have come into the hospital in town and then shifted over to the Place.  he was anxious.  mostly spoke spanish but then as it is here, interspersed with english...and i got his drift.  he was worried about "those Sons of Bitches".  the nurses aid kept reassuring him that she had thrown them out.  Thrown out those sons of bitches and it was ok.  he wasn't at all sure. he had the look that the buck goats get.  when they don't know exactly what they should do.  when they only know a few things to do in any situation and are unsure.  don't know who is ok and who is not. Don't know how to figure out ok.

and then, there was another guy who was patiently waiting for someone to take him out for a smoke.  so i asked and they said i could.  so we went.  one of his legs is gone.  and he has no sense of bowl or bladder.  that's why he was there.  he wasn't shy.  and he feels ok about it.  knows he needs care and cannot care for himself.  no fear in his eyes.  it was nice.  the cigarette time.  we shook hands.

and i finally got home.

accidentally flooded.

Apricot tree about half in bloom and SOOOOOO many bees and a hawkmoth and a black swallowtail

and i don't know how many wheelbarrow's full of compost to this strip outside the yard.  anyway, hauled them and raked and watered and tomorrow i'll dig it in.  will put onions here this time.  Usually tomatoes but because of the Goats, this time ...Not.

and speaking of Goats

Gideon.  that left front leg.  he can barely put weight on it.  what to think?  if he can't stand, he can't live.  When i fed them peanuts, i gave him as many as i could, as many as he could "compete" at the fence for.  I am just too full of feelings for Gideon.

his son.  Sunny Ray.  and a good image for how goats feel about peanuts.

and beloved gentle TenZen waiting his turn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

day 15

what?can be seen here.  probably not a lot.  but there was a Day Full of stitching.  small stitches.  lots.  small "things" at the end of the stitches that i think about as some kind of Pollen.  maybe it's the bees out there, swarming the Apricot blossoms?  maybe.  Pollen.  Pollen.  i am thinking about Pollen.

and things have come together today to underline the point of the Unforseen.  i am seeing that Everything is Unforseen, unless it is

past

otherwise, it's as yet Unforseen.  and i am beginning to see that as a kind of Beauty.