windthread

266

had not planned to work outside today but the forecast says the next few days of drizzle in the form of rain and snow even.  and when i say snow, i should make it clear that this is not snow like others of you have...it's a dusting and almost always melts off within hours.  or, even as it touches the earth.  but still...best to do what needs doing out there

 

and in the midst of it,  i raked up this,  that i'd put together from things at an auto salvage place years ago, while waiting waiting waiting,  except the bell.  which was added when i finally came home from waiting.  it was like seeing an old friend.  nice.  so i nailed it to that new square in the new Goat Gate place.  a beginning.

 

and i split and brought in enough wood for a few days, in case.  this one almost too beautiful to burn.

 

here we are,  at Only 5:17 p.m.  so here we go.   the months of Looks Within....as that guy said at the gas station on the Rosebud Reservation.  it's the only thing that i love to think of for this time of year.  i thank him again for saying it.  the time of Looks Within.  ok.

 

 

265 and i said, Every Day for a year. One Hundred more days.

 

 

so.  One Hundred more.  of Every Day.  i had thought of going back to the beginning today and seeing whats happened so far, but then i thought...no....just wait.  so, ok.  but one hundred more days.  it's a significant point.   100 days will take us through the DarkTime,  through the Winter months and bring us to the brink of Spring.   what will i think of all of this then?  Don't know.

but, the 100 more days will complete what we refer to as a   YEAR.  we are used to thinking in terms of ..... a year.    a year.  

a year.

a year.

that word, that concept seems very strange to me in this moment.

 

 

264 and now, at day's end, some words

Jude said:  "how you might sit and stare and find only a sense of something.  knowing that might be enough."

 

how it really is.

 

how it looks if i "add shadow" with Picasa.

the next altar cloth.  have to work away today, so more words later,  i hope.

i have let this cloth fly in the Wind for weeks.   but today, i went directly to it this Morning.   it truly is a failure in a certain way.  there is hardly anything at all there.   but for some reason it pulls me.  What If stuff feels like there is not much really There?  but What If you still,  no matter,  believe or feel that there IS stuff?   Even if you don't know what.  Even if you know you are only guessing.

so...i want to make something with this Cloth of Nothing Much.  See what happens if i say that is my intention.  and to forwarn:   it is about Spirit.  it is about what i refer to as the GodThing.  it is about all that i don't know, don't expect to know either.  but about what somehow seems to remain in my sense of things.  

263

in the midst of Today i realized that the Unforseen is not even considered that anymore at all.  The Unforseen has simply become what is.   that in itself is quite Something.  

Paul was supposed to come wednesday to look at the cattle panel in the Albatros.  

this, supposedly,  is the LAST of the list of stuff that Alz B's son Bill  keeps in his head.  that list called Stuff grace Needs.   i can only assume that the list rises up because of his feelings of wanting things to be ok for me because he needs me to be ok for his mother, Alz B.   i have addressed this very bluntly with him many times.  i used to feel that it tilted the balance too much.   but then at some point, after saying that to him i don't know how many times,  i just gave up.  maybe we could call it Surrendering.   so...as i said,  Paul had this one more thing.  and today it is DONE.  Bill hires him and pays for all the materials.  all i do is help.  

 

 

what used to be 10 or 12 feet of cattle panel,  on both sides of that center post is now 8 ft of panel fencing,  each side  and then two gates big enough to let the wheelbarrow through.   this might not look like much.  but when you are bringing Goats in and out, back and forth, it's HUGE.  Gates.  it's so Huge that i can't even think of expending the energy to tell why.  but it's DONE.  and do you see the piece of plywood in the center?  that closes off the space where the baby goats would try try try to squeeze through, sometimes with success.  well...no more.  but  as i looked at it this evening, taking this pic,  i saw it as something else too.

 

i saw it as something related to this.   i was not expecting this.  but here it is.  remembering yesterday,  sitting and looking long at the sticks that go from Earth to Sky,   i looked at this new arrangement in the Albatros for Goat Gates and realized that i need to make some marks there too.  i need to Mark it .  like i Mark the Cloths i make.  i need to put Beauty there.  i need to put "Spirit" there.  That is what has been missing and making things feel out of sync.   i am not a practical person, really.  i DO do practical things.  but i need to do them in the way i am at ease with,  the way i did them when i was Seven years old and then on and off  when i have honored and Remembered. i don't have to have a reason.  i don't have to be able to give it words.  but i DO need to do it.

 

night of a Full Moon before Solstice.   a window, a plant,  Green Tara,  tin butterflies and tin star, bells  and peacock feathers.  a wall.

 

 

 

 

262

the early part of the day i went to Alz B's.   fed her her snack of peanut butter and jelly sandwich, strawberry Ensure and juice.   this seemed to put her to sleep in short order so i went to find Johnny, one of the other residents to see if he wanted to go out to have a smoke.  of course,  and when i met up with him at the Nurses Station, he had two other old dudes that wanted to go.  So we hung out there for a little while and i re listened to the stories.  there were two little clumps of flowers growing fearlessly near the wall in the sun.  we looked at them.  

back Here,  i spent time off and on  out There.  just sitting.  looking.  wondering what it is i mean when i do these things.

 

me.  going back and forth.

 

 

 

 

and i thought about how i did things almost exactly like this when i was seven years old.  Down by the creek.   i was alone then too.  i don't know,  i cannot tell you,  if anyone ever saw them.   This was in the woods then.  my Diorama.  maybe my Dad went down there and saw them?  i don't think so.  he would have made fun of me.  so..no.  i don't think he did.  But if someone had asked me then what i was doing,  i would not have had an answer.  i could not have told them.    and i thought about it being the same today.  if someone asked me what i am doing,  i would not have an answer.  i just do it.  and look at it. 

 

i worked on the Cloth

 

after many possibilites,  it's just the "vibrations"...the Energy forms....that are it.   There are more, but it was too dark for a pic and i didn't want to use the flash.

 

 

 

261

the light this morning,  like for a Bride

 

it was warm today,  a little windy.  just a little.  i began readying for Solstice.  like everything else, it feels a little different this year.  i don't know why.   looking through the branches that are around, i chose one that split to two.  thinking of them as Goat horns.  i dug a hole and sunk a cement block then put the bottom of the branch in just to where it split into two.  like planting Goat horns.  tamped the dirt back in to the block hole and around it.  two more smaller sticks at the side.  4.  and put the diamond arroyo thing from Arizona there.  wired it a little to hold it...i'm not sure.

moved the flag holder off the raft.  maybe it needs to go back to where the Child Buddha is?  or not, added 3 sticks.  4 again.  and moved the sitting thing off the raft to in front of it.  ?????  so i'll watch it for some days.  but the weeds were cleared and eaten by Goats.  the earth there around and under the raft has become rich with leaf compost.  nice.  it's good.  so...watching.

260

a tooth had fallen out.  actually a while ago.  but today i went to get it glued back in.    and then many more small stitches.  and an overcast day, clouds scudding here to there all day.  Sun a hazy mostly hidden orb.  and i had to go let dogs out and feed this early eve...it's only 5:30 now and 

dark

so...took camera 

 

here.  just before i left

 

and on the way there was that  FLARE   that sometimes  happens,  just as Sun touches the Rim.  Everything turns copperbronze.  this is a very very old cottonwood.

 

Nelia and Bill's South Pasture,  Nelia's horses.  Bill,  Alz B.'s son.

 

llamas are kind of like goats...move fast.  this is Cookie.  the Dad.

 

little CoCoNina,  the baby

 

Coquette, the mom.   Cookie and Coquette had lived here some years.  and suddenly a couple months ago, there was CoConina.  No one had ever seen any indication of Hanky Panky.  but...

 

on the way out

 

further.  in the foreground, Salt Cedar.

 

on the way home, the metallic GLOW was gone and it started to rain

259 a PERFECT example of Purposelessness, the goodness Therein.

turned out i needed to go to Alz's Bs Place for music day.  ordinarily it's a time her son goes.  but alas, not,,,,and since it is the one single thing she "resonates" with,  i went.    got home and fed self.  went out and raked, organized all the stuff that fell down when i pulled out the step ladder the other day.  those kinds of things.  and as i had agreed with Self,  Thursday is for sure, Give Love To Buck Goats Day.  so...did that.  went in there and fiddled around with their hut,  emptied water bowls, rearranged their sticks and inbetween all this,  touched all of them how they like it, individually,  their ears,  their cheeks,  spine with stick scratch and for Nogal, the baby, well, just Everything.  he still wants to sit on my lap.  but we can't do that anymore.   so we looked deeply into each other's eyes and i tried to rub him all over at once to feel as close to lap sitting as i could imagine.  and all this individual attention has to be given when the others are doing something that interests them.  if not,  we get into the pushing and shoving, the snorting and spitting.  

so all that was pretty successful.  and i cleaned the other water tubs and filled and raked some more and reorganized the pallets in the Albatros because i'll need to get another half ton bale of alfalfa in the next few days.  need to be totally ready for that.  so, ok.  by now,  it's beginning to feel like an end of a day,  light dimming,  Sun softer, thinner light...and i have maybe another hour, give or take.  i come to the spool table where the dye stuff is and as you see above,  it's a mess.  have gotten to this moment a few, really, many, times before and just walked away.  today i stood and looked.  a Mess.  what to do.  and why haven't i done better?  and i could fee the sense of Contraction.  that feeling came before all the rest.  THOUGHTS.  why don't i ever "keep up"?  why am i always behind, why this why that and all about not meeting  the requirements of Purpose.  even when it might be a Purpose i have chosen and love.   but then suddenly i noticed.....

 

this strip of cloth.  it was just stuffed under something...a strip that i had used to tie a Dye Wad with and had untied out there and just dropped it.  

i SAW it.  i saw how subtle the soft marks on it were,  and being that time of year, saw how much it held the color of the Sandhill Cranes.   i saw it as totally beautiful.  i WONDERED about how i could have not noticed that before.

 

 

 

and i thought...grace!!!,  look again.  and i did.  here...the dried pomegranate pot

 

dried pomegranate rind

 

a tangle of copper radiator innards

 

the cloth that didn't turn out, hanging on the cloth line for days

 

 

"just" a piece of wood

and ....how can i say this.   i  was able to let go enough to just become totally immersed in all the stuff on this table.  not it's PURPOSE,  or it's INTENDED USE,  but what it just IS.  it has all just sat there for weeks.  doing nothing.  Purposeless.  and when i for whatever reason let myself actually just SEE it,  there was a very spontaneous flow of awareness, of Seeing,  of Pleasure in the Beauty of each thing and then each thing as a part of that whole scene, of the table,  the cloth line over head, the stolen chairs.  i still knew that the liquid in the cast iron dye pot had become depleted.  i knew that something was going on in the big enamal pot with walnuts.  but it DIDN'T MATTER.  it DIDN'T MATTER in those moments.  nothing mattered at All but what i was looking at directly and what mattered about that was that it WAS.  it simply WAS.  and there was a beautiful pervasive sense of EXPANSION to it all, including me.  including my mind.  including my body.  including the whole of the place where we all were.  Purpose Less ness.  Beautiful.  just Beauty Full.

 

so...now,  that small strip of cloth is Friend.  resting on the corner of the little wooden table with the Dalai Lama.   and when i began this post, it was still light.  now, it has become dark.  i didn't

get a whole lot done

but i don't care.  i understood this.  and it will hold me.  hold me very well.

 

 

258 holding so closely these beautiful days

these days.  they DO begin this way.   but by noon  at the latest are Warm,  Sun filled, Glorious days.   a few more.  till the end of this month.   and then,  the long haul.

 

and this.  Now i have Everything anyone could possibly want.   walnuts from Michelle's Escape World,  and even MORE,  the box she sent them in.  a perfect box.  small.  brown.  perfectly square.  a very special box that i love almost as much as the walnuts.

 

and looking at Mo's talismans,  i thought...why not ask?   so i did.   and i think it may happen.  i think that Roz may be able to make me two very very small earrings.   it's interesting and i am not going to spend any time wondering,  but some time Back,  i quit wearing  Things in Particular.  my whole thing was to wear NON things.   clothing, adornment of any kind.   but with the JudyMartin MorningHousedress,  something has shifted.  although i have many piercings in my ears, i have kept only very very small gold loops in the bottom ones.  they are just there.  like my ears are there.  day in, day out.  just there.  but i emailed Roz and asked her if it were a possibility that she might make two very very small rectangles.  one copper one silver.  and i sent her this very fast pic i made as i was thinking.  we'll see.  maybe yes.  i very much like the idea.

 

and i began some of the cranes.  i had seen them exactly like this on the cloth from the beginning.  there will be more.

 

257

just more very very small stitches.  and i'll leave the pic this size and see what happens with being able to enlarge.

and then,  this

 

i had thanked Martine for the recipe for Ellendesoep,  Misery Soup.  and told her that i dream of someday coming to the Netherlands, to Scotland, and then to Australia because of the interesting women who live there.  and she sent this pic,  saying that if i came to live in the Netherlands, i might end up looking like this.   

ISN'T THIS JUST THE MOST AMAZING AND WONDER FULL PHOTOGRAPH??????  i want to dream this.  i want to imagine, if i actually COULD become like this...not skinny, but Robust, and Setting Out....wearing my JudyMartinMorningHouseDress with  a very excellent wool jacket,  beloved Companions....................oh, EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.....

and look at the image in the water.   THANK YOU FOR THIS, Martine.  and keep your eye out, just off shore.  you never know.  you just never know.  that soup is very powerfull.