windthread

Solstice eve, 2014

so i put this here early because i need to be Out now, until dark.

 

i stitched a narrow sleeve and threaded through the string.   Will go on the stick masts of the Raft at last light tonight so it can await tomorrows Sun Rising.

 

this far.  and enough.  Can finish the flag tomorrow.  

This morning when i was turning on the water,  there was a large Whiptail.   and as they are beginning to do,  this time of year,  as we move into the patterns of the summer,  they no longer Run.   But simply move away some,  then stop.  Stop to turn and consider.  Eye to Eye.   This one.  and  i saw that she was not stripped as they are.   This one had DOTS.  many.   I was so startled,  i don't remember exactly,  but tomorrow i will be up and totally READY,  take the camera in my pocket,  see if i can record this as Witness.    She was extremely

Beauty Full.

 

 

Just this

i heard this morning of the death of a much loved buck goat. A herd sire. It was unexpected and it was sudden.  From a miscalculation on his part.   and  it has held me all day.  It has held me in the great sorrow of his untimely death but it also has held me as Teaching.   It helps me know that living with a herd requires a strong and open Heart.  The willingness to well,  live As the herd lives.  One of Them.

His name is Hansel.  And in his honor and in the honor of those who love him,  i tied a cloth to the flag stick of the Raft.   

 

 

 

 

rocks again, in my Heart

i would just repeat yesterdays's pics...but yesterday is gone.  It's to day and was again a work away day.  This whole week, really,  and i long to just hang out with Rocks.  So  i came back home,  to where the Rocks wait

 

and built the cairn

 

at a certain point when what's next is important,  so ...stopped for the day

 

coming through the Way Back saw this.  Lying in the sand.  Where WAS it before????????????????

it looks like a Being...at first i saw it as one thing,  but then i changed to many.   i was too tired to photograph it so it's Beingness appeared...

 

i'll try again.

 

when i was at the point of needing the next single rocks for the Cairn,  i thought to go out and take down the two cloths that Marti and I had done when she was here.  But, bringing them in,  i saw why it is really of no good use to me to dye cloth.  I can't use them.  They are WHOLE of themselves and i can't cut them up,  use them.  So...i end up with cloth that is beautiful in and of itself but just and well...just that.  It is there.  Its Self.  so.

 

 

 

 

 

a Party.  A Comotion.   The back of the truck full of Cottenwood branches that Wind had showered down and i brought home for them.  Picked off the seed pods because i didn't know if they were OK for them to eat,  but flung the rest over the fence.   They stood...looking...at a distance,  until i came out there are said "Come, Come"  in a bright voice as the daughter taught me...Come Come!

and they came and DEVOURED everything.

Staying with Rocks for a while

Work at the Old Cowboy's early day and then back to what appears to be Practice Storms for Monsoon which is usually in July.  Today,  lots of Electrical activity,  electricity out off and on,  computer turned Off.   And then,  no Internet for a while.  Goats rushing in and out of the small shelter in the Way Back.   Rain Drop.....scream and run!  Watch.  OK...back out,  then Rain Drop...scream and run!   They are Drama Queens.

the Rain made it  perfect to take pics of the Rocks

 

 

 

 

under the Apricot Tree...Julian's world.

 

 

 

 

i had mentioned this a little while ago to Jude...Spirit Cloth...the sandstone with the imprint of the Moon.  I suppose i could ask around and find out what it IS,  but  really,  i don't want to.  I just want to look at it and WONDER...how stone can take Moon into it

 

some Rocks are working rocks...this one holds down the lid to the Walnut Vat

 

 

this is the Turtle

 

 

 

 

there are many that have become buried by the Life Going On here....this one,  only half

 

these i had brought for the Goats hooves this last year.  I wish i could get more

 

this White one, on the Raft.   Marti and her husband Rich brought it to me from Texas where they lived.  Brought it to me as a gift,  the first time we met.  Face to face,  after all the years on the Internet.  It is limestone and appears daily different than when first here.  Wind works it,  changes it.  Now it is like a Bone.

 

this from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  Lake Superior.  To me,  it is a Horse.

 

and to give credit where credit is due...a sandstone pathway laid by the Maniac in one of his more Fine moments.  Which he Did have.   These hauled from the vast and endless mesas  to the east.

 

and in thinking about Jude's weaving diaries....looking at this MESS of a web.  Who wove this??????????????   i don't know.  Just to the left of the porch.  Complex.  Bizzy.  Receiving whatever is blown into it ,   without judgement.   an On Going,  Just Going web.

 

her DoorWay

 

hollyhock blossoms,  dwindled,  curled into themselves,  so Beauty Full this way

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thinking about PLACE......

was a work away day,  but when i got home, after the nap,  i placed the first two rocks of the Cairn.  It was very satisfying...choosing a scrap,  folding in the edges,  invisible basting  (Jude Hill~Spirit Cloth).   It went slow.   No hurry.  and as i folded in and stitched,  i thought about all those rocks Out Side.   I was going to take some pics of them this eve,  as i Gave Water,  but not now.  Maybe tomorrow.  Tonight i just looked.

 

I looked for the pics that best show what it was but couldn't find them.  That means they are tucked into some book somewhere on the bookshelves.  It might be years till i run into them again,  but i did find this one which is ok enough.   This is when i first came here.  That structure is the Asylum that i built out of railway packing crates and salvaged windows.  It was my "studio".  Had a wood stove.  Shelves.  a Workbench.    A lot of Light.  It was built on a flatbed trailer that the old Ford  Econoline Van,  Fern,  pulled here.   That's Fern in the pic too.  What is not pictured is the Airstream trailer that was my Home then.  She wasn't here yet.   But the Point of this pic is that there was

nothing

here  when i came.   Just some dried out stumps of Kochia weed.  It was August, 1995,  i think.  Place.  The Middle of NoWhere.   There weren't even any Rocks.  Every single Rock that is here today,  I brought here.  Sometimes one by one.   Sometimes 10 by 10.  But i brought them.  Some are ones i brought in that old van Fern from the shores of Lake Superior in Michigan.  Those rocks still remember their original Place.  They are different now.  Wind has worked them into different forms.    It is said that rocks will tell you stories.  

a decision

but first

 

this came from the Sea.  the Ocean.   Patricia,  of followingthread.wordpress is off on holiday as many of you say and it always gives it a lilt that i like...on holiday...anyway,  she is and to the Ocean.  I asked her if she could please call out my name to that Ocean and look.  More.  She made the letters of me and looking,  i know how it will FEEL when the tide erases and pulls my name, pulls me into itself.  I can smell it.  

so a day of sewing naked again but i had looked this morning over at Nanette's house...stitchandsow-homeandgarden.blogspot  and caught up with SO much there especially her making the best of it and creating a Bower for her chicken women after the neighbor's Jacaranda tree crashed.   I loved reading back, the whole thing about her Mending her garden space,  Mending the chickens world back to a sense of safety...

Which caused me to go out early and measure stuff,  really study the possibility,  and i AM going to create yet another Corridor for the Goats.  

 

it would start there...that corner of fence just behind the firewood pile which is just behind the wheelbarrow.  And...having learned to THINK,  i realized that i don't need to take a whole chunk of the fence out,  but just a relatively modest amount of the slats down low.    Reinforce that small opening with scrap wood i already have.   and since it will be open almost all the time,  can make a quick gate for unforseen events,  worry about a good gate later.   So it would begin here.  I'll need to repile the firewood over to the left some.  The passage will be 4ft wide.   Looking closely and trying to be realistic,  i DO see that the wood guy can still bring wood to that corner...he'll just have to pitch it a little farther over.  He's great.  He can.  

 

 

next it passes the Mother Salt Cedar which i suppose They will Eat.  Which is also really ok because her main trunk is just outside the fence and she will Continue.

 

Here is the only kind of difficult part...the Corridor will run Over two raised beds.   the left in which the Tomatillos were supposed to reseed in but didn't and the right where the cucumbers usually are but something ate or disturbed them...i think it was Toad,  making his daytime hideout at their watered roots...but   ok...giving up these two raised beds for the Time Being.  Not the end of the world.

 

and it connects to the Middle Pen where you see the chair.   Another temporary gate there that will remain open,  again,  unless something Unforseen.  And 4ft from the Wooden Fence leaves plenty of space to keep Them away from the Young Cottonwood.  

i called the lumberyard and as it is,  the cattle panel for the fenceing is on sale through the end of the month.   i will need four 18ft panels.   i will need  3 additional metal Tposts,  got the rest through that Freecycle pick up a couple months ago.  Ta Da.   And all around are rolls of wire fencing that i will double with the cattle panel,  just to be Sure.   

so it's all Planned.   Later this evening i'll begin pounding in the initial Tposts...probably will be slow going...will need the ground to be soaked with water.  But,  i'll begin.   What is all this FOR?  It will allow Them to do what they need to do when Monsoon comes.  There is that great Albatros shed that is in the Middle World right now...they have no independent access...i have to take them.  With this corridor,  they can move as needed.  Monsoon rains are STRONG and intermittant.  Unpredictable.   and if it's a Good season,  the whole Way Back can be full of water,  full of Spade Foot Toads.  That's July.  So...it's multiple things, i guess.  Some for Them,  some for me.  MORE and totally as much as i can give of Freedom,  to Them.  Which translates directly to Freedom for me.   And that runs deep.

 

don't know yet.  we'll see.  This might be good.   There will be a Cairn,  a Flag in that Cairn.  In the middle of nowhere,  under the Eye of the Beholder.  Maybe that's it.  Maybe more.

 

 

 

 

 

the morning after

spent a chunk of time last eve looking for pics in the totally unorganized Picasa so i could use them as prompts to myself to tell myself the story of the last days in a way that maybe made sense of some sort,  to understand maybe what this feeling of Drift is and as i did that the feeling of Drift drifted away but then Typepad was down again and so i just went outside to see what the stars were doing and then to sleep.

and i want to put here, right now,  a Mary Oliver that Cynthia gave over at Patricia's house,  followingthread.wordpress.com so here it is and not how it should appear because i don't know how to make the spacing correctly so it will just flow:

Mindful   Mary Oliver

Everyday i see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light.  It was what i was born for...to look, to listen, to lose myself inside this soft world...to instruct myself over and over in joy, and acclamation.  Nor am i talking about the exceptional, the fearful, the dreadful, the very extravegant....but the ordinary, the common, the very drab.  The daily presentations, oh, good scholar, I say to myself, how can you help but grow wise with such teachings as these....the untrimmable light of the world, the ocean's shine, the prayers that are made out of grasses?

October 18, 2009  San Diego, California.  Waiting   Wanting to just go

 

 

walking can help Labor progress.  We went to the zoo.  SanDiego zoo is a big zoo.  we walked all over it

 

that bubblegum mother and HER daughter

 

we went to the hospital but they sent us back home.

 

we went to the park, walked some more,  mostly lost in our own thoughts

 

 

 

 

 

fast forward to a few days ago when he asks:  "Why do you love to live in the Desert,  Old Nana?"  (my daughter is New Nana)   i say because it's beautiful to me.   he asks:  "Why do you want to live in the middle of nowhere,  Old Nana?"   i don't know what to answer him.  so i say, well, where else would i live and he says   "by my house".   I don't know what to say.

so the days will now go along and the edges of the mind pictures will soften, even the pictures will fade a little.   But he is almost 5 now and i most likely will be asked those questions again.   And i think how i am always tied/tethered by love.   it's how it feels to me.  

 

 

 

made a couple faces

 

went through and through the baskets and finally found the right scrap.  washed and dried it.   i think this next cloth will be about the 

eye of the beholder.

 

OR,  maybe

the middle of nowhere

 

 

 

This is it, for today.  

just Drifting

seem to have become uhhh,  a little disconnected.   I drift....don't seem to be able to focus.

When i went back yesterday to look for the beginning of the god Thing cloth for Alyssia,  i also saw

 

i don't know where that curtain went.  But what caught my eye really is the single bloom in water

 

and here it is again,  a single bloom in water...which was our table decoration for the VISIT.  now, is pretty spent.  but still Beauty full.   But really,  the point is that it is almost to the day that i took that pic way back in 2011.  Thinking how we repeat things,  unaware,  unless we for whatever reason,  look.  But we repeat.    I guess early June is the single bloom in water month.  Hmmmm.  and i will look for that curtain.  I might have cut it up?   I hope not,  because it is gentle and loving,  the Energy of it...there in the somewhat harsh window.

 

and i invisible basted (Jude Hill~Spirit Cloth)  some of the things on the god Thing cloth,  but i also was wanting to begin a new one,  maybe another Love Letter ....... but Nothing.   Empty.  so i

 

 

well...woops...what happened here?... i'll fix it in a minute.  but, really,  in it's own way,  it's kind of right.  I just went through all the baskets,  picking up cloth,  looking, feeling,  putting back...and ended up with these colors (that i will fix in a minute) .  That's all.  just the colors.  Nothing else at all.  Not a glimmer.

 

She looks at things, like, really Looks at things.

i notice her now and then, in the Movement of the day, going around Looking at things. Some of which she has looked at since she was born. In different places. Different homes. She remembers their "lives".   This occurs silently.  When there is something "new" to her,  she'll ask about it and when i tell her,  she smiles and kind of nods.  

I've told this story somewhere here before,  but it bears telling again.  Her mother,  my daughter,  got pregnant with her when she was 15 years old.   I am going to skip a lot of the parts of the story this time and just say that i was really really angry.  I couldn't believe she had done that.  She knew better and she knew how to avoid it.  She chose to ignore things.  Yes.  in the way a 15 year old child does,  but nonetheless.    and there is a huge middle part to the story but i will jump to the day my daughter was in her choir class at her alternative high school.   Choir was combined with Math there.  They sang Math.  Which daughter loved.  She loved math and she loved Choir.  She must have been maybe 3 months pregnant.  The phone rang.  It was her.  Calling from school.  The principals office.  There had been difficult communication between us.  She was calling,  to tell me that on her lunch hour,  she had gone to the local gas station/food store and among other things gotten a Fleer Bubblegum.  They had fortunes written under the comic on the wrapper.  She called to tell me that her fortune said,  "You can have anything you want if you really want it".   She went on to say that she had in the recent days become afraid.  Afraid of being pregnant.  What it meant.  But that just now,  she had been in Choir class and was singing and looking at her bubblegum wrapper,  thinking how i wanted her to get an abortion.   Singing Math and looking at a bubblegum fortune and suddenly,  there was a ..........flicker.   At first she didn't register.  Kept on singing.  Then,  another flicker.  And she knew.  The baby was moving.  Kicking.  Reaching out, maybe.  But Moving.   And she called from the principals office to tell me that she wanted this baby.  She wanted it.

So...this is Alyssia.  She who i have known from the beginning,  saw born.   Lived with off and on.  Watched go through a difficult adolescence,  watched joining the Military in her senior year of highschool against everyone's good judgement.  Watched create her own life,  become a mother herself at 21,  giving birth to Julian who i also watched be born in San Diego.  

She drives across the United States of America to see Family.  Here first,  where she Looks.  Touches.  Quietly kind of nodding to the things.  I watch and listen to her tell her son to fluff up  the grasses that had gotten a little squashed..."Fix Old Nana's Grasses"  she says.   I listen to her in amazement as she tells me about one of the classes she has in college now....Enviornmental Science....how she knew about the No Till Farming,  about the release of carbon dioxide or the storage of carbon.   All the things i thought i couldn't talk about with her,  she Knows.   And we talked some,  enough,  because she Really Knows.   And i think back a little while about how we talked a little here about Spirit and Soul.   Am thinking about all this now,  how i recognize her as Soul,  how she recognizes me.   How her son is recognized and recognizes.  Souls.    And she asked about this Cloth

 

what i was going to do with it.   I said  "nothing"....nothing, really.  And she said could i finish it.  That she would like it.   So...ok.   It was begun in JUNE of 2011.   Went this far.    Waited.   So, now, I'll finish it.  For her.  Because she asked.   in my mind it was about the sense of the god Thing,  whatever that is.   

Souls.

 

 

 

 

 

Family, Like ferrets

Gone now.   Driving straight through to Michigan.  More waiting there who love them.  Maybe that's the best.  They are loved by many.  Many.  

But here,  how it is to love like something so familiar, so same as your own self.  Almost no seperation....just same.  Just love.   No skin.  No differences.   No thought.  Just love.