windthread

the Eve

one of two baskets like this.  Tazmeena is Felting scraps with her sleep,  her dreaming.  They are dirty from her.  Felted cat hair blended in.   I will need to wash them one by one to use them.  Well, her dreams are worth it.   And because it's the Eve of how we perceive the Year,  the Eve of a New Year,  i cleaned.   Cleaning for the New tomorrow.  Artificial lines, yes,  but it's ok and good.  It gives a place to see as ending and beginning.  And it feels ok.  

when i finish writing here,  i will go to the Morning Chair.  Settle with my pen and 2 calenders and shift anything that might need to be noted from this last year onto the new.    This is how i RE VIEW what has come before.  How i note what i should remember.  I like it.  It's a deep deep Satisfaction.

and as if by Magic,  the Paulus Berrensohn book arrived at the Post Office today.  Fortunately, the car started.  It was VERY COLD last night.  So i whizzed over and here.  Those dark spots on the cover are from Tay's tongue.  She tasted the book.  They dried and now are gone.

so i will look tonight and tomorrow.  The book is for my daughter who has always thought she might throw pots.  But who never has.  Maybe this will nudge her toward that dream.  I'll send it to her on Friday.

and as it Is.   Here we are.  It has been SOME YEAR.  So HUGE and so MUCH in SO MANY ways and always,  always,  as Jude says....commited,  so deeply and lovingly commited to 

Just Going.

So,  in the Spirit of that,  of Just Going,  i end this 2014 year and Thank Everyone from the deepest deepest place inside of me for going along next to me,  for letting me go next to you.  Letting us Touch and Wonder.

Such Giant and Great and Excellent Love to All of Us,  yes?,  yes.  yup. yes.

 

 

 

 

 

just a little more about Shame and then we can move on

thinking.  Feeding the Fire and thinking.  This morning, and now, at the end of this day.  Shame.

The Dog Cloth.  Wendy's kids.  What i have in common with them.  How i think of Shame,  what it Means to me, even though i am "old" now and they are so Young.  How i was young.

The words came:  "of course.   You are a shameless heathen."   as a child.

How shame is such a Tool of our culture.  Christianity.

Being brought up in the Baptist born again culture.  How the sermon on Sunday morning would be to "educate and instruct" but on Sunday evening,  different.  How the second to the last song from the hymnal would be T he Old Rugged Cross.   "On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross,  the emblem of suffering and shame...."  This singing was so we could become sufficiently miserable for the final call to the altar,  singing Just As I am,  the preacher beseeching us to come forward and give ourselves to Jesus.  How i was,  so early in my life,  very silently repusled by all of this.  How False it all seemed.  How ugly, really.

I was a shameless heathen.  And since my mother had told me that the age of SEVEN is the age of accountability,  and without having been told this yet...about accountability,  i was startled to hear her tell me that the only unforgivable sin was to doubt the existence of God...and it was startling, because i already HAD.  Doubted.  so i found out too late and it was unforgivable...so.....

this morning i am thinking about how i felt then,  hearing this,  knowing my own EXPERIENCE....which was to Doubt.   and i am thinking about it all,  having a mother who i cannot remember one single image of Loving from....none of this i'm writing here is New,  it's old stuff,  but i cannot remember a single experience of my mother loving me,  being happy about me,  wanting anything for me other than to be saved from burning in hell

What chance does a kid have?  To find their way of Just Going?,  in this milieu? (sp)  What chance?

But SOMEHOW,  in some odd way,  these things rolled off me.  Similar to Tay.  is it that because of experience,  there is something that is really PRE Shame?  That positions one to be almost immune to shame?...to notice it,  but not be crushed by it?  A kind of Pre Shame?....where even at such a very young age,  you feel so isolated by where you find yourself living that it  somehow doesn't really HURT?

I had the creek.  The woods.  This is where i Lived.  This was my world.  I would escape from that place where those people were,  my mother, my father,  the church people were.   I would go down the back hill to the creek.  When i Had to be UP there with them,  i would go to those National Geographics in the attic and i would look to the point of mindlessness at the pictures of peoples that were "heathen".  They were so Beauty FULL to me.  Their dioramas.  They made so much sense and i knew myself to be Of Them,  somehow mistakendly finding myself where i was...

But down at the creek.  This was my Home.  And i was loved there,  by that creek,  the forest there.

so.

i think about how we are a culture of Shaming.  For the most prominent example,  how the Mayor of New York is being Shamed by police officers turning their backs to him.  Shame is alive and Well in our culture,  in our country.  It is an excellent tool of Control.  We are all so vulnerable to shame.

 So...i will keep thinking about this.  But in this Next Year,  this New Year,  maybe i will think about creating some new personal mythology that can be Anything At All.  Just Anything At All.  and i will also create one  pinch pot.

 

 

 

 

Stuff

Work away day. Off balance because they were at Home. In out Out in and off balance.  and Back,  HOME here,  with words of a COLD FRONT coming,  i set to work.  Cleaning water Bowls...scrubbing with brush and Vinegar.  Moving  Sunny Ray and Gideon's Water Thing down,  some feet,  to where SUN comes in mornings now.   

This morning it was a three kettle morning.  Heating three tea kettles on the stove...taking Out and pouring it on the frozen ice of their water.  Banging it.  with the stick i like,  but then with the shovel.  Breaking the ice so they had water which is a necessity after they  Eat Food.

and i went to work.

Came home to split and bring in Wood.  They say that an Arctic Blast is coming,  and ok,  maybe,  so i split and bring in Wood.  

Tomorrow when i go into town for the Old Cowboy,  i will take the pick up.  Get bedding straw for the Buck Goats...it's all and what i can give them,  offer them.   It's not what i WANT for them which would be Comfort...Warmth...Safety.  But i can't give those things.  They are on their own.  

.....................Steadfast........................

in her comment on yesterday's post,  Patricia said...."how steadfast you are."   And  when i read those words,  i was full of feeling.  Full of ....what?   Full of i guess Thankfull ness  to be thought of as

Steadfast.

how beauty full is this,  i feel.  Steadfast.  Steadfast.  I don't know what all to think of it yet.

But then, the day rolled along and into its Self and i finished everything with the Dog cloth and rolled it into it's mailing tube.  Taped.  Addressed.  Ready.

and all the while,  i thought about the word    Shame.   I thought about it because there is a very vibrant and vibrating Thread that is wanting attention,  wanting movement and wanting me to See it  and Come with it.   It's very alive.   It has to do with why all of a sudden i had wanted to send this Dog Cloth.  

I have no clue, really,  what's going on.  None.  But i do know that this has come up over and over with this Dog Tay.  Most dogs you can shame.  You can tell them they are a bad dog and they  cast their eyes aside,  their tails droop.  They stand...waiting for some indication that they are forgiven.  Tay does not do this.  and it has been of interest.   Only a few times i have tried to "shame" her by telling her she is a BAD dog.  It doesn't work.  She stands there.  Totally focused on my face,  totally Alert and stares at me.   I "hear" her saying ..."What?"   She knows what i'm talking about.  And sometimes she chooses to accomodate me by not doing,  so much,  what i tried to shame her for.  But really,  sometimes she decided to continue.  Many things,  and the really important things, she understands easily and finds reasonable.  Accomodates these things.   Somethings not.  And i watch myself loving her for this.   As she stares into my eyes asking "What?"  i stare back,  until i get over my annoyance and  just,  well,   love her.   Her body softens.  She puts her head on my lap or against my hip.  Done.  and we just go.  So what does this all MEAN?  She doesn't have any sense of being a Bad Dog.  and also, really,  she is not at all impressed by me saying Good Dog.  That rolls of her like rain.  Good Dog/Bad Dog   Doesn't mean a thing.  She's Tay.  She likes Love.  She likes herSelf.  She likes Just Going.   She likes Just Going the most.  

 

another passing of this Thread.  This is from Michelle...her holiday card...and so.  I go back.  I go back to Clarissa Pinkola Estes,  Women Who Run With the Wolves,  to Baba Yaga.  I will go back to Baba Yaga's House.  Ok.  so and Ok.

 

This is also from Jan.

"from Anam Cara by John O'Donohue.  pg. 94

There are endless stories about ghosts and spirits.  One finds an enthralling weave of stories about the independence and structure of the spirit world.  The human body has come out of this underworld.  Consequently, in your body,  clay is finding a form and shape that it never found before.  Just as it is an immense privilege for your clay to have come up into the light,  it is also a great responsibility.

in your clay body,  things are coming to expression and to light that were never known before, presences that never came to light or shape in any other individual.   You represent an unknown world that begs you to bring it to voice.  Often the joy you feel does not belong to your individual biography but to the clay out of which you are formed.  At other times you will find sorrow moving through you, like a dark mist over a landscape.  The sorrow is dark enough to paralyze you.  It is a mistake to interfere with this movement of feeling.  It is more appropriate to recognize that this emotion belongs more to your clay than to your mind.  It is wise to let this weather of feeling pass;  it is on its way elsewhere.  We so easily forget that our clay has a memory that preceded our minds, a life of its own before it took its present form.  Regardless of how modern we seem,  we still remain ancient sisters and brothers of the one clay.  In each of us a different part of the mystery becomes luminous."

So. Here it is.

the Question:  How Real is this Internet.  This Web?  Faux Real? or Real?  Like,  really Real.  

the Answer:  it is Really Real.  period.

This name come Up into my awareness,  Out of the Blue.  Paulus Berensohn.  Never heard it before.

I am sitting here in Polvadera New Mexico USA  Earth  and this name appears to me.  I google.  Oh Lordy.

Jan sends me a dvd.  To Spring from the Hand.  the life and philosophy of Paulus Berensohn.  Who is 80 this year.   YOU can google him.  

I watch it.  I watch it.  I watch it.

I call Scott,  who is the Potter that brings his things from Carrizozo to our Farmer's Market here in Socorro and ask..............do you have a little bit of Clay you can bring me?, so i can make a Pinch Pot?

This morning i took a shower when this house was still so Cold and i got dressed Early and i fed the Goats Early and i broke their water Early and i left...Tay and Chinche at the gate and i went into town to the Winter Saturday Morning Market and was THE ONLY PERSON THERE,   it was COLD,

and Scott brought me two bags of clay.  Messilla Valley clay.

In the dvd Mary Oliver speaks her words,  how she wants her friend Paulus to make her a begging bowl.  I don't want to make a begging bowl.  but I want to make a pinch pot.  I do.

 

more Air, threadbeads and telephone wishes. Tay has Success!

Mike and Thelma came, bringing tamales and Australian Yellow Tail wine.  Tay began their visit as usual,  running in and out of the dog door,  running up to them then away,  whirling.  But very quickly as they sat on the futon couch,  she came over next to me in the rocking chair and stood.  I asked her to sit and she did.  And for the rest of their visit (very short),  she sat quietly just looking at them.   So,  HUGE success with her social skills.   After they left, she collapsed for a long nap.

and Tazmeena spent the day with us.  Not her usual seclusive self,  but going about, here and there and calmly,  so Tay just watched,  no need to Nose her.

other than a few stray stitches,  it's done.   Will fly off in the mail on Monday.  This makes me very happy.

It was a very Good day.

 

an Extraordinarily Excellent Day that came....as a total Surprise

it began this morning with a conversation with Wendy.  Golden Levitt.   which Might have been about the Dog Cloth,  but wasn't.  It wasn't even about the children.   The conversation had a life of Its Own and just went...like the flow of a River...that momentum,  that swiftness.   It was about Goats.  It was about how i feel myself in relation to the Goats and then it went somewhere else that is how i see my self with my self and how my self is so truly related as Kin to that child self that is now related to the Goats and Dancing out,  Dancing Out such a long and beauty Full story.   If i would try,  i really couldn't in this moment say what the words were to the exchange.  It just Went.  Words.  Questions from her that were from a very loving and deep curiosity for the Way of How it Is, to my answers that were of that single moment and really unformed.  Just questions of Wonder that opened Space for answer to become Born.  

and then from that,  so fast,  too fast,  i had to go feed Allan's cats and then go to Sydney's house just down the road.  Sydney of Sydney and Jamie and now Sydney and Sheila.  Sydney and Jamie, you might remember being the two mothers of Talulah who broke up and now Sydney is partners with Sheila.  But we were all there.  They weren't planning on anything but in the last minute decided to COOK.  Could i come?  and i thought.  Part of me said no...don't want to.  But then part said Hey Why not?  So i went and we had a Best and very Great time EATING things...sausages stuffed with  things, squash and green beans,  lentil soup,  bread,  good bread  FISH,  very great and excellent FISH and walnut pie.  And Talulah is now Nine Years Old and a whole different Person and there were 5 dogs from a pup of 4 months to the old Grandpa Dog.

and the exact moment i got home there was a call from the across the road neighbor Margie to come to the Gate for Food and her son brought a plate of food from their day including this beauty FULL cup full of jello and bananas

and just moments after,  as i was working to clean and refill the Bucks water bowls Kelly was at the gate bringing a tin of something that i haven't even looked at yet but that she said to put in the refrigerater and i did

and it's 6:26 pm  and dark.   And it was all a complete Surprise.  a total and complete Surprise and the most Excellent and Very Fine Day.

 

 

Eve~ness

Though i have let go of Christmas for some years now,  there is still the sense of Eve.  I always seem to feel the Eve of days more strongly.  Maybe the cultural imprint of Christmas that i have been born into.  So there is a softness as Sun moves surely to the Rim.  

 

the fire this morning was particularly Beauty Full,  a whole world in there,  glowing.

stitched most of the day....adding those thread marks that speak to me of what we commonly refer to as  "air" ,  but what really is a vibrating substance that contains so much.  that surrounds us constantly and informs our bodies of  much that is unConscious unless we choose to Open to it.  

gentle day

more Light

many many small stitches.  Very close to Finished.   it is So how she is.  Dog.  at the Finest.  She  is Dog.

 

speechless

all day at Work Away,  i thought about the words:  Giving  mySelf  Permission.   It never went any further.  As  in maybe,  Permission for/to _________.    Fill  in the blank.   I just stayed with those three words.   And they somehow have to do with that thing about   Seamless.   And seamless not meaning that there are no seams,  but rather that the seams are connecters,  but not dividers.  Good enough for now.  So when i finally made it home i saw that the temperature is going to DROP tonight and there will be some rain and then, most likely Snow during the night.  So although i wanted to give myself permission to do nothing much at all,  i instead backed up the truck and unloaded that Grass Hay to keep it dry.  Necessary.   This permission does not give room for not doing things that are Necessary.   That done,  and Goats fed,  i thought about what i should do with the remaining hours of Light..., 3,  and Did give myself permission to just look at this Cloth for a while as the late day SUN illuminated it

and i thought about whether or not i could give myself permission to make Cloths that had images that are not discernable as specific Things,  but just Forms.  

i looked at the wood box.  Half full and if there really IS snow,  eeeee so Splitting and Bringing in.  As i was carrying the last of it in i looked UP and

to the North

 

 

 

North East

 

 

East

 

 

 

the West.  So totally "normal"

 

and only MOMENTS later,  the North.   you can see.  my hand was shaking.   I have NEVER seen anything like this in my 25 some years here or my 69 years Here.  

Such Incredible Beauty.