windthread

a gentle day

 

 

 

this is where i want to take her,  Tay.   San Lorenzo canyon.   Just moments away from here.  You would never imagine it's there.   If you look at the lay of the land from either the freeway or even from the frontage road parallel along the freeway,  you would never imagine what magnificance is there.  And these pics show really nothing.   They were taken when i couldn't get close to anything because of the condition of the roads.

 

 

 

 

Bob Marley on the visor singing Stand UP.  Sonny.  the 1983 Toyota Pickup.   the vehicle that will take us to San Lorenzo Canyon.   Something with the electrical system now that saps energy from the battery.  So everything is connected.  Before i can GO,  can GO to the canyon with Tay,  first the thing with the battery.  There is NO ONE 
THERE     No One.   You are on your Own there.  So before going,  need to figure out the battery thing.  Then.   And also,  the fact that Tay is afraid of the truck.  She won't get IN.  So while i figure out what the deal is with the electrical,  i try different ways to LURE her into the truck.  We worked on that today.  Closer.  Closer.    

It will happen.

 

Eggplants.  They can be so tattered yet still GO.  Still produce.  over and over,  eggplants.  i love them.

 

this is New.  Grasshoppers eating young tomatoes????????????????????

 

 

this tangle in Nogal's horns this morning.  He looked like a Maypole Princess...his horns all decorated and lovely but ....not a great thing.  Chicken wire and baling string,   from rubbing his deformed horns on something that i wasn't aware of.  But he WAS,  in that moment so elegant and if i wasn't so ......uh....upset by it,  i might have come in for the camera.  I could have.  What was done was done and no harm, really.  But i was startled.  Got to change the "startle".  No need for it.

 

 

 

ok

 

the Time of Year,  the point on the Circle where morning glories appear where they Will.  Small, singular blooms...here.  there.  just going.

 

 

 

 

this is a bone from under a railroad tressel(le) with some kind of tar dripped on it.  They are common.  From cattle that have free ranged over the railroad tracks and met an untimely (?) end.  There are two here.  Once on the bucks fence and one i put, this one,  on the migratory corrider of the Doe Goats.  Tay has taken this one down twice.  This morning, she sat carefully on the porch with it for the second time.  She could have chewed it.  She didn't.  She simply took it off the 5ft T post and brought it to the porch.   ok.

Judith of N. Cal emailed me today.  She said:  go to Terri Windlings blog.  On 9-9 read the blessing of John ODonahue.   Go back to 9-8 and listen to the music video a while then,  go to 9-5 and read the entire post.

I did as she said.  yes.  i did.  and ok.   and just after that,  i clicked the inbox and there was a thing from typepad notification from Cindy/Handstories that said:  "something shifted with this one".  and i accepted that as a SIGN,  then only to find out that she was referring to her own blog, her own work,....NOT to my Breather.  But still.  a sign.  and ok.

I keep looking at the dog.  and thinking about walking her on a leash around,  but really,  what i want to do is take her to the Canyon.  I need to find out the status of the rattle snakes now.  But that's where i want to go with her.  off leash.  

i am thinking about domestic and non.  that line.  between.  i am thinking,  have been thinking,  about how i have, give or take,  10 year spans in my .......head.   How everything wants SHIFT about every 10 years or so...since i was 17 years old.   I have been thinking about this for a while but have not wanted to deal with it.  Or, deal with it Aloud.  But it's Pushing me.  So ok.  ok.

 

 

just as i was thinking about compromising the BREATHER....making her BREATHING more  acceptable,  more ...comfortable,  i saw how somehow the breath had created an arc over them.  I hadn't noticed it before.  There it is.  ok.  and ok.  go.  ok.

 

 

 

 

still questions and some new ones

but i forgot this yesterday.  On the way home from Alz. B's,  i  scored these at a yard sale.  Good ones.   They make me feel good.

 

Being Work Away,  not a lot of stitching time and i took off those pieces after connecting them  as they were...setting aside while i do the Kantha.   Question today is how close in TO the "face non face" do i let the kantha extend?   I can't know an answer to that till i just go.  

and maybe i really am glad that the "pieces" of  Hard Things are off?    For sure,  i am glad.  But too, that's the story here.  Times of Things that are uncomfortable....how do we DO those times?

so...don't know.  Maybe after the kantha.  Maybe just going with the kantha stitching will give clarity.

blood and dirt

just came in.   Out there it's getting crunchy....things drying and crunching underfoot while still giving water and my ear lobe itched again so i scratched off the scab and bled down my neck.   I pulled the Mean grass while i watched the water flow.  Muddy.   Looking,  it's coming to the Grand Finale.  and i thought about how some are making plans  of  ways to continue through the cold months.  I have entertained that off and on,  have  Eliot Coleman's  Four Season Harvest,  but really...i am way ok with it being done with for now.  It is Enough.  We worked so hard,  me and the Plant People.  Some "success",  some "failure",  but now...there is coming On the day dreaming of 

Next Year.     What we can do different,  what we can do "better"  and i just pushed my hair back from a sweaty brow and some dried leaves and a grasshopper flipped off.

 

so that brings me here.  Off and On.  With a LOT of just looking.  Thinking about Patricia's comment yesterday.  I changed the BLUE from whence She comes,  where She "lives",  this Breather.   It's ok now.  Good enough.  There was a short lived urge to totally change that cloth,  but it's some how Important that it be as it is.  Which is the "other" side of a piece from the Thrift Shop.  The "front" a rather ordinary pattern.   It was a blouse.

and i put back the purple/green that Mo mentioned.   Yes.  ok.  she's right.

and going to Patricia's comment,     well.....

Off and on i have played with the thought of creating a new mythology.  Creating a singular and personal mythology.    And not just me,  but that we All could do that if it made sense to us.  So looking at this cloth,    That's what i think i am trying to go toward.   My origin,  my "Home"  for this would be the Jungian system of Archetypes.  You can type that into Google and read a pretty much good bunch of words about this.    And my sense of cosmology seeds in the sense of the Feminine.    But i am not looking for the archetype of the Mother at this point in my life.  Some Thing different entirely.  I am looking for something about Just Going.  and so,  i think,  The Breather.  

When i imagine self,  any self,  standing on any horizon with any animal being,  and saying the words.....Breathe me.   Breathe Us.    I imagine some Entity "hearing",  sensing NEED and appearing in response.  It's not a request to FIX anything.  To make anything different.  Simply a Call Out to Breathe me/Breathe with me.  Support me,  from millenium of living things,  to

Breathe my breath.  With me.    In.   Out.   In.  Out.

So i could call Her The Breather.   Or i could call her  Just Going.

 

 

 

 

 

 

?

 

what am i looking for here?   I don't know.   The first is the actual cloth.  Second is print out and it seems i am running out of color printer ink...color is Way off,  but serves the purpose.  I kept wanting to draw  in the human and the animal but kept thinking i can't because you don't draw so much on a cloth.   But then suddenly i thought that i can do anything i want to.    Why not?   Where do i see a rule that states IF and How Much you can or cannot draw on a cloth?  Nowhere.   So i might.   The Blue where the Breather comes from now looks like a hat.  Need to try to change that back to how i first saw it in the very beginning.   When the blue cloth was just dropped on.   How it appears in the very beginning is always somehow the best,  when it happens with no thought at all.  So need to see if i can go back to what that was.   

and i thought about how i think of the being as The Breather....something a child might say.  A childlike image.  And i am thinking about the scraps i put there and how i put them.  How it was important that they are unrecognizable in terms of known forms.  Why is this important?   And also forms and combinations that are not particularly pleasing to me,  i guess as in Familiar.

and then there is the wrinkle in the fabric on the left of the image,  the right of the Breather's "face" that really Does define  "face"  too much.  I want to get rid of it.   Want only eye orbs and nostrils...maybe the sense of mouth where the breath comes out...but that will happen (?)  when i cut the mouth through.  maybe.

lots of questions.

 

 

a day

 

had to go bring home more bales of Grass Hay from Alz. B's sons today and on the road that leads to their home is Lots of chamisa and chocolate flowers.  So i snagged some of both.  The chamisa didn't do much at all but the Chocolate Flowers....ooooooo, look.....and this is from maybe 6 flowers only and happened immediately with the boiling water.  I put the jar out in the SUN and we'll see what goes from here.  But i'll get more.  They are a common roadside "weed".

 

Chinche found and took posession of one of Tay's marrow bones.

 

so she brought her favorite stick.  But it seems it's a case of Finders Keepers.  Nope.

 

She settled for chewing some plain sticks Next To.  Parallel chewing.

 

 

this second pic is a print out of the actual cloth.   See the little figures?   I am not sure at all of what i am wanting to do here,  so i just Look and Wait.

 

 

plan A, plan B, plan n q r w l

wasn't going to go to Music Thursday today because i wanted the second day here, but oh well, i did because the favorite and best Graduate Student was in town visiting and someone Alz. B loved very much and  it would be a little bit of a Party.   I'm glad i did for a few reasons,  one to see the Graduate Student who now lives in Colorado  and owns a hydroponic weed business,  but then too because the local  program for developmentally differently abled persons came again and brought a wonderful young or old woman, couldn't tell, but she wanted to dance and dance she did and she chose me for a partner for one number and i was stunned by Love,  like some Love Fairy had  banged me on the head with a wand.   And then the third thing is that one of the band members tried out a new tune,  My Walkin Stick,  which was originally Irving Berlin but then today done ala Leon Redbone style  and if you go to UTube and type in My Walkin Stick Leon Redbone, you will hear something like i did today and it was just beyond GREAT,  really,  beyond GREAT.  Who would ever guess...at the Old Folks Home in Socorro, New Mex.  

 

and i am back to these two Sisters and loving them even more today and i am going to sand the handle of the Great leaf rake and oil it with probably linseed oil because that's what i have.   I really know that i want to do that for Her.   I'll take more pics in the coming days.

 

 

at the end of the day i finally had some SPACE to do this a little.  It's going to be a challenge.

 

 

tools.....................with many corrections to post

woke early today,  well...it's that i Got UP when i woke.   I've been trying to fall back asleep for a while and Not get up... since Tay...let the day begin at 5:oo instead of 4.  but today i got up and went to Picasa to look again at the window.   I thought,  it's really amazing in a way that i actually LIVE here.   It's so piecemeal,  so really, fragile in a way.  How it all stays together is quite a Miracle.    And i thought about how i have always thought about this place,  the Home,  since the beginning,  is that if it doesn't fall apart or fall off,  good then.   If it  Does fall apart/or off,  then i'll just have to    ....   Mend it.   Mending.   Such a constant undercurrent to everything.

I felt things had lightened from the ennui of yesterday and because of nothing in particular,  just some sort of unexplainable shift,  unexplainable as the ennui was in it's occurance.

this is the computer shelf,  just a small shift in glance from this screen here that i look at when i am writing this.   Sat and stared at the things there a while.

 

one being Saskia's painting of The Air Tree.

 

 

 

and just a small shift to the right of this,  Patricia's  First Iris.   and i see in the moment, it's fuzzy.  I'll try to replace this pic when i finish here.   and i want to add a pic i thought i didn't need.  But i think now i do.     So i began the day with thoughts of looking at these and how they are so  much a part of Everyday,  but sometimes,  they become much more.  Because of Need.

replaced,  but being with the Flash,  still, not what it IS

 

The day then went on.   I worked away at the Goatheads in the Way back with the regular shovel and it was frustrating.   When suddenly i remembered the old flat shovel without a handle,  that i had given   to Marti's husband who burned out the stump of handle and brought it back to me.   i tried out various handles,  and found one thin enough, 

 

found a couple drill bits,  some possibilities  none of which would work.

 

rummaged through the Swan Jar that has one of Everything,  but nope.

 

i jammed in the handle and because i am only skooting it along the surface to slice off the Goatheads from hard earth,  it worked.   I had bought a new one of this kind of shovel and it is no where near as wonder FULL as this old one with a sharp edge.   Next to it is the SO excellent leaf rake Supreme.   I don't know how old it is.  I found it in the dump in Oregon  20 some years ago.  Tools.  What works.  What works to accomplish the need at hand  with skill and ease.    

And i thought about tools.   There all kinds of things that are tools.

these...tools for the Heart.  Tools for Spirit.   The pic of my daughter that Maureen the Lurker took 30 some years ago....the pic from National Geographic of a young girl, escaped from Darfur.  Under her,  the Eyes of a child that uses one of my Cloths in Wendy Golden Levit's studio and next to  that a pic of me and Jenny and Jonathan on vacation at Lake Superior,  on a rock,  when Jonathan was suddenly disappeared under the water and then hauled up and we were SAFE and so Relieved that we were Safe and knowing it,  all three of us,  but wanting to NOT know how fragile Safe is.  It' s in a pic frame that daughter's friend's mother Cindy sold me at a garage sale.  This Cindy died of a sudden massive heart attack in her 40's.  Leaving her daughters orphans.

 

and this old postcard of some Old Woman in France that i have had in front of my face for i guess 40 some years.    These are Tools.   Tools for Spirit,  for Heart.   And the Old Woman, today is the one i needed.  

 

 

 

 

and all the while,  i carried with me,  in my mind an image i drew this morning for maybe the next cloth.   Right now it's about  The Breather.   Some Larger Entity that sees need and comes to assist.  That's all i know right now.   So i tea dyed some gauze for Her Breath.  It's ready.

 

this is the Mother Basil of that young one from yesterday.   Many  Many  seeds.

 

 

 

every day is a lot when there's not much

this is a day when i could skip posting.    A  long   Alz B. visit.  then the regular Tuesday work away.  And then  just hot.   It's 7 something p.m. and still 93 degrees.  

 

worked a little on the fisher girl's   Good Luck pants,  but not a lot.    Just spend a lot of time thinking about all kinds of stuff.  Looking over at Spirit Cloth,  thinking about cloth making.  i even just laid on the futon couch and couldn't think of anything i wanted to think about.  THAT was interesting.   All the things i could muster up to kind of worry about didn't hold much energy.  All the things i could envision as being wonderful didn't either.  So i just accepted that it was a blah hot day.  And that's exactly what it was.   It's been months of 100 and high 90's.   Way longer than  usual,  but i'm thinking i might as well get used to it.  

 

the other day a stray Wild Wind blew down this pane.   It didn't break.  So a few days ago i got the window glazing putty stuff.  Tonight i watched the clock for when the Migration took place to the Middle Place.  around 7:10 p.m.   So...ok.   That's when i can climb a ladder back there and scrape off the old stuff and  press on the new and put the window glass back on.   I need to do that when the Goats are not there.   There is too much Interest in things like me on a ladder and too much pushing around when there's interest in stuff and i can easily imagine that ladder going over.

so tomorrow.  around 7 oclock.  ok.  And that's it for today.   I wonder what Everyone Else did today?   Was it Great and Inspired???????

 

adapting/adapted/learning/fearing/watching/learning/....?knowing/ just going

startled to see,  at the edge of the Front Porch,  a very young basil plant.  I could not believe my eyes....it's the Worst place maybe, or close to the worst for a plant to decide to grow.   We go in and out and past this spot a million times a day,  all of us.  But...there it is.   A seed had traveled.

 

so i put this old frame from somethingelse around it and gave it a drink of water with a glass from the kitchen.  We'll see.   Ify.

 

 

went from there to doing some of what really needs to be done.  Things are about to go to seed.

Wheelbarrow took about 10 minutes to fill.

 

these two.  Pigweed ,  Palmer amaranth  and Goat heads,  Puncturevine Tribulius terrestris L.  Both noxious.   At certain points in their annual experience, dangerous for livestock.   Due to the great and good rains of August,  they are in great abundance.

 

goathead.  you can see to the left if you click,  the "fruit" of this plant which grows flat on the ground.  This one maybe almost two feet side to side and it's a medium one.   A few days ago i was surprised to see that it was prolific in the Way Back.  I thought i'd gotten it all pulled a couple years ago,  really, before the Goats came...when i paid the guy  $200 to do all those weeds...roots and all.  Seed from this plant can remain dormant for 4-5 years and so...i see this.  All the rain of August  energized those dormant seeds.   But as i walked through them today back there i saw that the Goats had eaten the blossoming tops.  This is BEFORE they had time to fruit into the sharp and dangerous Goatheads that can punture tires of wheelbarrows and bicycles and animals throats and guts.  I stood and stared at this.  There are some plants out there that the Goats have not touched.  I'll look closely at that tomorrow.  But...if what i think i see is what i am Seeing,  the Goats may have done them in.  Taking the blooming flowers and leaving the vining of the plant,  they may have erradicated those 4-5 years of sleeping seed???????   Too soon to tell.  

 

the Pigtail ....you need gloves to pull them when they are to the point of seeding.  But now yet they are soft.  There are some in that Far Back Pen across from the buck pen that are 6ft tall.  I need to get them pulled.  They're still green so not to the point of casting seed.  Carpe Diem however it's spelled.

 

there are so many small scenes like this.  Things dried out,  things still going..mid stream....they pull me to stop and just sit next to them a while.  Insects are bizzy all into and around.

 

as annoying as Tay is,  Chinche is good.  The annoyance has brought her off her quilt and Out.  It's a good thing.

 

the Early Evening Migration from the Way Back to the Middle and the Albatros for the night.